Amedeo

Just a quick note. Was the right translation of the term actually used by Rune's grandfather eventually found? If I remember correctly there was also someone that suggested it could be referring to the hull MG port. Moreover, it's true that the T-34 was no Uebertank and that the soviets prudently considered 1000m or so to be the best standoff distance. But what still puzzles me is that fact that in the famous report by the 10. TD commander, frequently quoted on this forum, the rants about T-34 vulnerability stated that the weak spot were the lower hull sides (penetrated by 20mm) and the hull (penetrated by 37mm). This seems to contrast the theory of the turret front as the weakest point of the tank, or at least a weak pont that could be frequently exploited. Regards, Amedeo

Actually the 1941 AT brigades couldn't suck away AT guns from rifle divisions simply because those new units were not intended to be equipped with AT guns but with Divisional and Antiaircraft guns used in the antiarmour role. Regards, Amedeo

*last bump*

A KV-1 of mine was killed by a 152mm HE shell fired by a KV-2 targeting a German infantry squad that was being 'overrun' by the first KV. A.

*bump*

I was wondering whether someone from BFC can give some feedback about a few ammo issues that were discussed on this forum in the last months: 1) 45mm cannister It seems that this round existed and was quite common (at least not more uncommon than the 76mm and 57mm ones). So why it's not included? 2) 75mm hybrid APC/APBC It seems that the german short 75L24 gun didn't use APCBC rounds similar to the Pzgr.39 issued to the 'lang' 7,5cm guns but a Pz.Gr. K rot that is an APC round with a very high and streamlined cap. Why not include this particular round in the geme? 3) Italian Effetto Pronto rounds The Italian Army issued Effetto Pronto (Promt Effect, i.e. HEAT) rounds also for the 47mm and 65mm guns. They were not very good, nonetheless they probably deserve to be modelled if they were actually present. (There should be also a fourth point regarding Soviet 122mm and 152mm APBC rounds availability, but since it seems there still is no conclusive data on this issue I decided to not return on this topic, for now). Comments? Amedeo

Just a couple of side notes. The uniform are generally correct but: 1. The uniform shown for 'mechanized' type division is that of cavalry. Since the use of unmounted cavalry on the Eastern Front was very rare for Italian troops, maybe someone might volunteer to mod it to Bersaglieri uniforms. 2. Infantry uniforms shows the red swallow tailed collar patched that are actually used only by unregimented infantry. Actually each Regiment had his own particular collar patch (just an historical note, I know this is impossible to represent within the current game engine). 3. Last but not least. Bersaglieri and Alpini troops never went into action without their drooping plume (for the former) or the long eagle's feather fixed to their helmets. Regards, Amedeo

I usually do not play with Germans but it seems that I cannot miss the 'CMBB mediatic event of the year'. May I please have a copy of the rules? (amedeo.matteucci@tin.it). Thanks in advance Amedeo

I think this statement, although a side note in this thread, should deserve special attention. Maybe a range dependent turret hit probability is something PFC should seriously consider for the next CMBB patch (I'm assuming this feature is absent in the current model). Regards, Amedeo

A couple words about the 'rounded' feature in CMBB. If we assume a perfect hemicylindrical mantlet and a shot that arrives with a trajectory ortogonal to the flat 'back' of the half-cylinder, with the help of elementary trigonometry, one can find that half of the hits should strike the armour with an aspect of less than 30° while the other half should strike the mantlet at angles higher than 30°. But, at a first glance, I think that the game models this differently. Regards to all, Amedeo

During a recent game vs. the AI, while a KV-1 of mine was overrunning a German infantry squad in a foxhole, another KV-2 had the bad idea to fire a 152mm shell at that foxhole, immediatly disabling his smaller cousin! Not only, but at the end of the battle the fraticidal kill showed up on the kill list along with the casualties caused to the enemy. I can imagine the after action report of that KV-2 crew: "Well comrade Commissar... so what? one of ours and one of theirs!" Amedeo

Whoa! Probably someone already said it, so I'll say it louder: THIS IS A PATCH! Thank you very much! Amedeo P.S. Speaking of ammo tweaks: what about the hybrid APC/APBC that the 75L24 gun should use instead of APCBC? And do not forget the 45mm cannister rounds

I was wondering about the inner workings of the 'random' selections for Quick Battles' parametres. Usually one thinks that a 'random' selection should lend casual results, and if the selection is among n choices, each one should have a probability to be selected equal to 1/n. However, save for a few choices, I think that virtually every ramdom QB selection should be 'weighted' by a host of different factors, once a date and a theater of operation are selected. For example if Luftwaffe Armoured formations are allowed, along with, say, five other German formation types, it would be unrealistic to have them pop up 1/6 of the times, since they were only a very small part of the forces present in the theater. I presume that also choices like terrain and weather should be heavy influenced by the theatre of operations and the month (if the selection is Finland, December I think that sunny, bare hills are to be never seen). The same should be true for quality and fitness (I presume that getting fit Volkssturm units in 1945 or conscript Mechanized Guards in 1944 should be the exception and not the rule). I have no such a large experience in QB's to judge whether random selections are just that, random with equal probability, or there's some 'smartness' in the program. So my question is: are random selections 'weighted' somehow in CMBB? If this is not the case, it would be nice to have an Excel spreadsheet (or something similar) to act as a 'dice roller' to generate QB parametres with the 'right' random results (I know that this seems a contradiction ). Comments? Amedeo

I doubt anyone received T-64 MBTs, except the Soviet Army Bye Amedeo

Re: tank hunters. Personally, I don't think they're gamey as a recon asset, at least for the Soviet. IN fact those little, sneaky, SMG armed teams reminds me of the typical radzvedchiki. Moreover they're not so heavy on AT weaponry (sigh!), and the few MCs or ATGs they carry can be typically accounted for the attitude by elite troops to carry some extra "gadget". (If they were armed with captured magnetic mines or Panzerfaust/Panzerschreck type weapons, I'll agree on their 'gameyness', but this is not the case). Regards, Amedeo P.S. Suggestion for scenario designers: to model Red Army scouts in late war scenarios buy AT teams and sharpshooters from the Airborne Troops' menu. They'll come with the typical two-piece camouflage coverall, and no one will be able to distinguish them from ordinary riflemen since they have no A/B troops insigna or branch colour visible.

The difference lies in the fact that the US 75mm has APCBC ammo while the 76mm gun has APBC ammo. Since the StuG III has typically not-too-sloped face hardened armour plates, the 75mm APCBC has the advantage of the cap vs. FH plates, while the APBC shell cannot exploit its inherent better performance against sloped armour (on the contrary it's slightly worse than vanilla AP rounds vs. vertical plate). Regards, Amedeo P.S. If you have the same two guns pitted against sloped armour w/o FH, with an equivalent LOS of 80mm or so, you'll find out that the 76mm is slightly better than the US 75mm in this case. [edited to correct spelling ] [ November 04, 2002, 01:41 PM: Message edited by: Amedeo ]

By the way... the problem of 'military correctness' of the terms used is present also in a couple of Italian .WAWs. The voice says "Sissignore!" for "Yes Sir!" but the correct military term should be "Signorsì!". Likewise, the voice that warns that a grenade was thrown in says "Granata!", but in Italian "granata", strictly speaking means "shell", the Italian for "hand grenade" is "bomba a mano". Regards, Amedeo

Hi Rexford! Did you manage to obtain more data on the BR-471B DOI other than the ones posted a few weeks ago on the Tankers' Group forum? BTW I noticed that the 152mm guns never switch to APBC in the game. Any info about the BR-540B DOI? Bye, Amedeo

Here is another interesting webpage about 45mm ammunition. It includes also further info on the cannister rounds of this calibre. Amedeo

Rune, thanks for the links. I have no problem in assuming that eventually a 5,0cm Pzgr.39 was manufactured and made available both for the short and long 50mm guns. But the 50mm gun wasn't issued the APCBC round from the start. The point is: what did they have in 1941 in Eastern Europe? Regarding the ammo production stats you provided, I'm wondering whether the table compiler didn't punt under the Pzgr.39 label also APC rounds, like the one you can see in this picture (second from right). Rexford, how would you consider the performance of the hybrid 75mm round compared to a plain APBC (w/o blunt nose) and an APC? Regards, Amedeo

In some recent threads about narrow turrets, T-34 vulnerability etc. popped out some info about early (1941) German armour piercing ammo for their guns. In particular: 3,7cm guns The AP shell should be considered 'with large HE burster' (this came up after a comparative analysis by Rexford with other German ammo and Soviet rounds that indeed do qualify for this category) 5,0cm guns Bastables pointed out that before the start of Barbarossa the DAK was already using Pzgr.39 with its 50mm tank and AT guns. In a report dated July 1942 about the performance of the long barrelled 50mm guns on the Pz-III tanks, by 33. Panzerregiment, I found data relative only to tests with Pzgr.38. 7,5cm short (L24) guns The game currently gives those weapon an APCBC round, Actually the short 7,5cm guns should have not the Pzgr.39 that was firtly introduced with the long barrelled PaK 40 in 1942, but a K. Gr. rot Pz. that is an hybrid round in which the cap acts also as ballistic cap. I think that these issues deserve further discussion and data digging. Especially with an eye to the next patch. Comments? Amedeo

In fact I pointed to this very document in the other thread. The strange point is that, while the document is a proof that early T-34 has some protection problems even against small calibre guns, the point is that the author states that those problems are related to 37mm hits on the hull, 20mm hits on the vertical lower side hull plates and, occasionally, hits on the driver's hatch on the glacis. In CMBB the majority of 37mm kills vs. the T-34 is due to front turret penetrations, but in the document this kind of problem is not mentioned! Regards, Amedeo

Still wondering why my old thread on this very same topic (look here )had less success that this one. Too polite? Regards, Amedeo

For all those that are looking for Ueberpanzer, I think that, historically speaking, there are only two tanks that could be classified as such. That is: impervious to almost everything the adversaries could throw at them from any aspect, while being able to destroy all evemyy AFVs at range. These tanks are: the KV up to Winter '41 and the Tiger up to Summer '43. Other tanks, like the T-34 or the Panther never were able to do what their cousins did in their heydays. You'll notice this reading historical accounts and AARs. In this respect CMBB is just fine because you can create havoc at will (almost) with KVs and Tigers in the dates I mentioned. The early T-34 are very good tanks, although not 'Ueber' in any way. If you read Soviet and german reports you'll notice that the favourite tactict was to look for engagements in rather open terrain and try to keep the range around 1000m or so. If you do this you'll be able to slaughter Panzers while being almost untochable. This until the later StugS and Pz-III & IV variants shows up. But this is quite historical since, as I have already pointed out, the diffusion of AFVs armed with the long 50mm and 75mm guns ended the technical inferiority 'feeling' of the Panzerwaffe in the East. I still think that some weapons are slightly overmodelled, thus resulting in a performance vs. the T-34 a little above what could be expected. (Namely the 37mm and short 75mm rounds have a performance boost resulting from the fact that in the first case the large HE filler was not taken into account, and in the second case that the round was considered to be on par with the Pzgr.39 while it is an hybrid K.Gr.rot Pz.) Regards, Amedeo

For what concernes the supposed discrepancies of 76.2mm tank guns aganist late Pz-III versions, there are also other factors to take into account, other than APBC performance vs. vertical armour (that is, indeed, worse respect to regular AP). The other factors are the poorer performance of uncapped rounds vs. face hardened armour a, the T/D ratio that vs 80mm of armour rises over 1 fo the 7.62mm gun. The numbers listed on the info chart are 'average' and do not take into accunt factors like FH and T/D ratio, factors that are computed into the game engine. Regarding the introduction of APBC rounds, well, it's not as the manual says. Some guns, correctly, starte with APBC ammo from 1941, others, like the 100mm and 152mm guns, never use it, others again, like the 122mm one, has it by August 1944 (while it seems that actual DOI could have been Winter 44/45). Regards, Amedeo P.S. German reports says that with the advent of Panzers armed with the long 75mm AND 50mm, the T-34s no more ruled the battlefield. So, to me, it seems correct that the advantage switches to Germany until something like the T-34-85 comes to redress the balance in the field of medium tanks. What I'm still wondering about is the performance of _early_ war Pz-IIIs and Pz-IVs.