Amedeo

John, you're correct about the fact that Soviets during wartime never bothered to have a foolproof or comprehensive nomenclature system to identify their medium tanks. So for them the T-34 was just a T-34, IIRC even the designation T-34-85 was commonly used. Nonetheless the nomenclature I mentioned is used by both Russian and Western scholars in their publications on Soviet armour (just think of Zaloga, for example) and although it's not perfect it's a better system than the German one, not only because it's from the ones that produced the things, but also because the German identification system is just this, an identification system to catalong something about which you have partial and imperfect information. To better clarify my point: you all are familiar with the western system of identification of Soviet weapons used during the Cold War. After the collapse of the USSR, a lot of information about older Soviet weapons systems came out and it was found that there were weapons that were not classified by western analysts, or there were weapons that were evolutions of the same weapon system but received different NATO codes etc, etc. So every recent scholar work on the subject do use the original Soviet designation adding, where possible, the NATO and DOD designation for sake of clarity. Regards, Amedeo

Don't know if this issue was already raised but... judging from the few data we were able to obtain trough intervievs, screenshots, previews etc. it seems that the T-34 series of tank is going to be identified in CM2 with the 'inaccurate' German designation of T-34/76A, T-34/76B etc. First I would point out the the correct designations should be something like T-34-76 obrasets 1940g etc. Since this could be too clumsy the most elegant solution is to do away with the 76 suffix and simply use names like T-34 mod.1940 etc. that are both easy to read and historically accurate. If someone thinks that this is a trivial and secondary matter I wonder how he would react to know that German tanks are to be identified by Russian standards, who would ever buy a T-VI obr.E 'Tigr' ? Regards, Amedeo

Most of the rifle units in the Kiev military district at the start of hostilities with Germany were lavishly equipped with semiautomatic rifles. In fact Soviet plans in the '30s were to modernize all RKKA equipement, not only in the field of tanks and artillery. The problem was that the majority of the SVT, AVS etc. rifles were lost in the summer catastrophe and they were very expensive and time consuming weapons to produce. So after Barbarossa the production of those weapons was halted in favour of the less expensive Moisin or the new good SMGs. Amedeo

As was pointed out in another thread the 'firing on the move' in CMBO should be an abstraction for 'firing from short halts', that was the standard practice in WW2. However this raises another question: given the actual accelerations attainable by WW2 AFVs and the typical time of engagement, would the average speed obtained while firing from short halts be comparable with the speed that units have in the game while moving & shooting? Regards, Amedeo

Interesting thread. Two quick comments: 1. All the Shermans in CMBO are currently provided with a gyrostabilizer but actually the 105mm armed ones and the Fireflies had none. Don't know how much this actually boosts the Allied armour in the game. 2. I prefer to see a single historically used vehicle in CM2 than a score of prototypes or post WW2 models but I don't think that the IS-3 will ruin the game considering that if a rarity option is present the rarity factor of the IS-3 will be ZERO so no IS-3 would be available for 'historical' games but only for what-if scenarios of QB with the rarity factor option turned off (at least this is what I think BTS is going to do with CM2). Regards to all, Amedeo

Just to boost this amazing thread with another ISU related issue: what do you think should be the appropriate blast factors for the Soviet 122mm and 152mm rounds? Amedeo

Owing to the scarce normal loadout of AP ammo (IIRC 10 out of 28 rounds) for the IS-2 tank, I presume that the engagements against German heavies at 2000m or so were made with 'platoon fire' i.e. the tanks in a company fires alternatively passing range information to each other. I know that this was done by Tigers for extreme ranges out to 3000m (or at least the regulations called for this) just wondering whether it was the same for the Soviets. Amedeo

Again, it may be true that both Achtung Panzer! and the RMZ contain biased reports but nonetheless they are among the best sites on German and Soviet WW2 armour, containing material not found elsewhere. As I said, what is absolutely important in evaluating the performances of the D-25 gun armed AFVs against the Panther (and other German heavies) is that two main factors enter into play that is the type of 122mm round used and the level of flawness into the Panther glacis. What most wargames failed to address (including ASL and SPWaW, that are wonderful games anyway IMHO) is that the performance of a given AP round against sloped plate cannot be determined simply taking its performance against vertical plate and compare it to the straight LOS path through the sloped armour. And this is especially true for blunt tip rounds as the BR-471B! So the accounts about IS-2 tanks failing against Panthers at 700m, IS-2 tanks destroying Panthers at 1500m and tests at Kubinka with Panthers destroyed at 2500+m are not in contradiction with each other because they are relative to different conditions, pro-Soviet or anti-German bias has nothing to do with this. Lastly, one of the biggest merits of CMBO and its game engine lies in having addressed points as variable slope modifier and shatter gaps that are vital to accurately model tactical combat but were overlooked by virtually all the older wargames. Regards, Amedeo

The gun on the SU-76 was the long barrelled divisional gun 76mm ZiS-3 (IIRC) gun. Much better than the shorter 76mm ones in the T-34 and KV-1. Ditto for the SU-76M. Moreover the IS-3 is not simply IS-2 with a different turret. It had also a very different hull much better protected. The IS-2 itself had different styles of hull front protection during the war. Regards, Amedeo

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Triumvir: As far as I know, the only M1 disabled by enemy action (as opposed to mines) in the Persian Gulf was hit by a D-10 in the rear. Anyone have more information on that?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> IIRC it was actually hit by an HEAT round fired by a 73mm low pressure gun mounted on a BMP-1. Amedeo

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by rune: Well, I do NOT know where you got those figures, but let's see what the people who used the 122mm have to say about the 122mm. All quotes are from the Russian Military Zone. [...] <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> What you quoted from the RMZ is absolutely correct but does not contradict what I wrote since I was referring to the blunt nose 122mm APBC round, that is the BR-471B, different from the plain AP round (sharp tip w/o ballistic cap) referred in your quote. The performances of the BR-471B were analyzed bu the US Army that managed to put its hand on an abandoned IS-2 in Germany. While the performances of the BR-471B were not very different from the vanilla AP against vertical armour they found that its performances against sloped armour were impressive (owing to the blunt nose that caused the round to point downward and go through a path shorter than straight-on LOS). Rexford will surely be able to provide more accurate data (he has the US reports). It's also worth noting that this is in accordance with what you can find on the excellent RMZ in the documents dealing with the decision to adopt the 122mm or 100mm gun on the IS tanks and the one describing Kubinka tests with 122mm, 100mm, and 88mm (L71, German) against captured Panthers. Regards, Amedeo

The ROF of the SU/ISU-152 was surely dependent on ammo layout but consider that also the two loaders come into play. I'm not actually sure about this fact but on the SU-152 page of the Bronia website there's a list of the crewmembers and that is: commander, aimer (gunner), loader, ??? and driver-mechanic. My Russian is not so good so I couldn't tell what the guy listed after the loader does but my guess is that he's a 2nd loader (the AFV has no bow MG so there's little he can do in combat). Fow what concernes the relative performances of the 100mm, 122mm, and 152mm Soviet guns, well actually the 100mm had superior armour piercing performances _against vertical armour_ but the blunt nose 122mm APBC round fared better against sloped armour being able to rip trough the Panther frontal glacis at 2000m, while the 100mm could have performed better against the Tiger. Anyway to have guns able to frontally destroy Panthers and Tigers at medium/long ranges is a dream in CMBO terms. The problem is to hit them! Regards, Amedeo

And consider that the ROF of the ISU-122 SPGs should be higher than the corresponding IS-2 tanks because there were two loaders in the ISU (IIRC), don't know about the 'friendliness' of the ammo layout. So a tentative table could be: ISU-122S 5rpm IS-2 w/drop breech 4rpm ISU-122 4rpm IS-2 w/screw breech 3rpm SU/ISU-152 2rpm Comments? Amedeo

Speaking about the ROF for 122mm and 152mm armed Soviet AFVs, one should also consider that the D-25T gun mounted on ISU-122S SPGs and on late production IS-2 tanks was equipped with a drop breech that surely increased its ROF at least to 3rpm. Anyway, for the ML-20 152mm gun armed SU-152 also the following sources give 2rpm as normal ROF. http://history.vif2.ru/su152.html http://www.crosswinds.net/~armoured/su-152.htm Regards, Amedeo

Olle, thanks for the precisation. In fact now I remember to have read something like this on the use of gyros. About firing from short halts I came to your same conclusion: I simply pretend than when I issue a movement order the short halts are actually there! Regards, Amedeo

Yes it had. Consider however that it's not correct to speak of 'tungsten rounds' vs. PzGr.40 ones since 'tungsten' is a generic CM term (that BTW includes also the PzGr.40). One should actually use terms like HVAP, APDS, APCR (that in their German incarnation were named PzGr.40 and in their Soviet one had the usual BR-xxx designation with often the suffix 'P' (for 'podkalibernii' IIRC) at the end. Amedeo

OK let me rephrase my point in a (hopefully!) better way. I'm under the impression that actual field practice in WW2 was to fire always from short halts when you had to deliver aimed fire while advancing. Since in the game you can only 1. advance firing on the move 2. advance stopping to fire but remaining still until the 'duel' is resolved, I was wondering whether there was a mean to reproduce what I assume was a common practice. This was intended as a realism issue and not a request for more micromanagement (in fact I wanted a way to do this avoiding mircomanaging the unit involved!). For what concernes the number of times they would actually stop in a minute, well IIRC standard practice was to move after each shot, at least for the Soviets (but for the very slow ROF of the bigger calibres this should amount to stop onli once or twice in a minute anyway ) Regards, Amedeo

Yep, I know that I could have my tank shot from a single short halt but I hoped that there was a way to have the tank advance continuosly and make several short halts for each shot. As I said this was the most common system for advancing fire in WW2. The problem is that with a MOVE command your tank will fire on the move and with a HUNT command your tank will stop until the target is destroyed instead of changing position between shots. Hmmm... maybe this could be a command worth to add in CM2 Amedeo

Is there a way in CMBO to have your AFV fire from short halts while continuing to travel along a given path? For vehicles whithout stabilizers it should be the only realistical viable option to deliver fire while advancing. Suggestions? Amedeo

Docs describing US tanks in service in the Italian Army during the '50s shows that the M4A3(105) had power traverse. May be the earlier models didn't. BTW the various Firefly models should also have no gyrostabilizers IIRC. Amedeo

BTW the 105mm armed M4A3 had both manual and power turret traverse, so I presume that all the 'assault gun' Shermans had. Amedeo

Hmmm... I presume BTS won't address this inaccuracy, since it's now clear that no more patching of CMBO is programmed. Amedeo

I don't know whether this was already discussed ad nauseam, but... shouldn't all the Shermans with the 105mm be without the gyrostabilizer? Amedeo

The only rational explaination I see for not to fire first their few HC/APCR whathever rounds is because they are trying to find the range with other cheap ammunitions to avoid hitting the target at, say, the fourth attempt when they already spent all the good rounds bracketing. Did anyone notice if they all start to use the 'good' ammo after the hit percentage is more than a 'threshold' value? Regards, Amedeo

The last should be 'Stalinets': you exchanged a D for a plain A and a P for an L. regards, Amedeo