Vanir Ausf B

Very interesting! Nice map. Is it available for download somewhere?

All of them were done with 2.12 There were a further 636 done under 2.11 that I mentioned in the first post in this thread, so the total for both versions combined is 2946.

In the tests I did about 47% of the hits on the mantlet ricocheted. That means that out of 2310 hits there were about 1086 ricochets, of which only 1 hit the deck plate that is literally inches away. There is no rational explanation for this vanishingly small number.

Your endless requests for more testing scare me

As Jason pointed out it would be a fallacy to suggest that because we don't know everything we know nothing, with the follow-on fallacy that therefore all possibilities are equally likely. That we cannot nail down the real life probability to a single certain number does not mean we cannot make a reasonable estimation of ranges and rightly view with suspicion results that lie greatly outside of that range. BletchleyGeek, Jason and myself have all done this, and although our numbers are not the same due to differences in assumptions and methodologies even the most pessimistic are larger than the test results by orders of magnitude. There is no reason to suppose that jiggering the range, angle or gun would increase the number of positive results. It would be more likely to lower it. I am not aware of any commonly used AP round in the western allies' arsenal during the CMBN timeframe that has a length to diameter ratio more favorable than the 75mm I have been using. Increasing the targets' elevation relative to the shooter will cause the top edge of the glacis plate to obscure the lower mantlet. Decreasing the target's elevation exposes the deck plate to direct hits, which makes any concern about ricochets irrelevant. Slewing the target to the side just increases the deflection angle along the horizontal plane which would make ricochets onto the deck less likely. At 800 meters the angle of decent for the shell is about 1°, give or take a few tenths, so that is not a factor. Range does affect velocity which will affect residual energy after a ricochet, so the 100m test may be marginally more favorable for that reason only. But it is concerning that even the most favorable test scenario we can devise only produced one unicorn out of over 1200 attempts.

Unless someone can give a coherent reason why the "non-working" test shouldn't work I don't think it should be jettisoned just because it has so far produced less happy results. In terms of real world combat situations the 800 meter test represents a far more likely scenario than the 100 meter. As for running more tests with random combinations of gun and elevation changes just to see what happens, no thanks The goal is to see if the shot trap is working properly, not to give me carpel tunnel syndrome. There is no reason to suppose that minor shifts in elevation will dramatically change results, and large changes will obscure the shot trap area. As for guns, based on what we know about characteristics that affect ricochet likelihood (or think we know given that it is all theoretical), I'm not aware of an AP round in CMBN that would be a markedly better ricochet candidate than the 75mm I've been using. However, if you have access to a certain unreleased game, uncapped Soviet 122mm AP might be a good choice. Although, doing these tests with tanks as slow firing as the IS-2 would be agony. EDIT: On second thought, 122mm would probably go right through the mantlet unless the range was very long (2000+ meters).

Cromwell VII vs. Panther D at 100 meters. Panthers are partial hull down behind 1 meter berm. Total non-penetrating hits ON THE MANTET ONLY: 1214 Forward Top Hull Hit: spalling: 2 RICOCHET INTO: Forward Top Hull: partial penetration: 1 That last number is the only one that really counts. Because it now seems almost certain that those hits on the forward top hull that we have been counting as ricochets despite having the same hit text as direct hits actually are direct hits. So, we have been working off the idea that in the previous test I got 12 ricochet penetrations out of 1096 mantlet hits, or 1.1%. It now seems the actual number of ricochet hits was zero. If we add the 1096 hits to the 1214 in this test we get 1 ricochet penetration out of 2310 total mantlet hits. That is 0.04 percent.

BOOYAH Told ya so. But did anyone believe me? No one ever believes me... I have to wrap up the test, then I'll post final results. But this should change the discussion, I think.

I went to do your suggested test only to be reminded that there are no Panther models in CMBN with the mantlet chin

Of course the shells arc in flight. But it is a very shallow arc. The tanks are all at the same elevation. As for gun barrel height, I'm already in the midst of testing that will hopefully give some food for thought along those lines. I have replaced the Shermans with Cromwell VIIs, which are significantly shorter. I have also moved the ill-fated Panthers into within 100 meters of the Cromwells. I have a suspicion -- as of yet unconfirmed -- that barrel height is playing a factor but not with regards to the shot trap.

It's not a T-34, and this Panther has a mantlet chin, but close...

Not ignored. I've addressed it in multiple posts.

You might want to actually read the thread before posting. I did some tests. The results are posted. These tests were not intended to answer the question Steve and I were discussing. That is a tangentially related discussion.

One intrepid guy went to considerable effort to make a detailed explanation of C2 and how it affects access to indirect fire. I consider it required reading. http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=97507

Two off the top of my head: 1) Why there are different ammunition counts given for the same unit in two different UI panes. There is a reference to the right side pane being a "cumulative" count but it doesn't define what that includes (shared ammunition as well as nearby ammunition dropped on the ground). 2) That the units listed in the chain of command pane in the lower left are clickable.

I've said it before: the 2 things that are hard for new players to wrap their heads around are the UI and C2. It doesn't help that there are some functions of the UI that are not mentioned in the manual (last I looked) and C2 has some counter-intuitive technical quirks (some units out of C2 can call in artillery, ect.) that are not explained. I feel bad for players who never read the forums.

:eek: :cool:

Of course I am guessing. Just like Steve was guessing. It's also irrelevant since that is not the question I'm trying to answer. Well no, it's not what we have now. Were all 80+ hits at Isigny on the mantlets? Because I'm only counting hits on the mantlet. The percentage of total hits on the tank is some fraction of that. Apples to oranges.

Not exactly, but I have at least one instance of a "ricochet into opening" penetration on a Tiger I. It was on a test Tiger that was hit after the test crew lost their nerve and bailed.

You're thinking of the schmalturm, which did have thicker roof armor. It had thicker armor everywhere. But the turret roof remained 16mm thick on all production Panthers.

True. As I mentioned earlier, 47% of all the hits on the mantlet I recorded ricocheted in some direction (this was a bitch to count, BTW). The question I have is why did only 12 of them out of over 500 ricochet down onto the top hull? Here I was thinking I was done and you go have an idea that makes too much sense not to try Yep. Shrink it so they could add armor without adding weight. And eliminating downward ricochets into the driver compartment. Regiment stole my thunder. It's not the same tank, but here's a larger version of the same pic

Ever heard of the Madden Curse? Nobody wants to see their country on the cover of a BFC game.

I don't think there is any question about that. But we need to keep in mind that these are simulated physics. In addition to the possibility of programing bugs there is the need to assign physical properties to objects in the game. As the recent change to Jpz IV armor quality ratings shows, there is inevitably some educated guesswork involved with this. It's a fair point, but it should also be pointed out that the mantlet chin wasn't the only change made. All G's (not just some of them as with the chin) had their top hull armor increased from 16mm to 40mm thick. The CMBN manual says this was for the entire deck, but according to Germany's Panther Tank: The Quest for Combat Supremacy by Thomas L. Jentz (pg 86), the increase in top hull armor thickness was only done on the front deck. Hmm... I don't think shot trap penetrations were either extremely rare or routine, but somewhere in between (now I'm rhyming!).

That may well be the case now. But I am certain that as recently as last year (sometime prior to 1.11) I saw both on the same hit. In fact, I've never seen the "RICOCHET" hit text in any other context. If ricochet penetrations are using the same hit text as direct hit penetrations this is not optimal since there is no means of telling them apart. Not a HUGE PROBLEM, but maybe something to be tweaked? Rounds actually bounce all the time. About 47% of them in my test, but I never saw a RICOCHET hit text. Interestingly, I saw one instance of a round ricocheting high into the air, do a lazy loop over into the neighboring Panther's lane and land on it's back. The hit text said "HIT: TOP REAR HULL". It did no damage. 47% bounced somewhere other than onto the top hull. The other 53% just disappeared. I assume those rounds are breaking up but it's not clear what exactly happens to them. Right. It also does not take into account how the center of mass aiming affects shot distribution.

Do you suppose that Charles has access to some hard numbers the likes of which you keep asking for? That is very unlikely. More likely he is using some intuition of his own. Which is not only okay but absolutely necessary. To suggest that any opinion is invalid without perfect knowledge of all aspects of the issue is to hold us to an impossible standard. -- The Infantry's Armor: The U.S. Army's Separate Tank Battalions in World War II, By Harry Yeide Source: Panther vs Sherman: Battle of the Bulge 1944 By Steven Zaloga