Vanir Ausf B

Steve said it will be out 4 months after CMBN 2.0 was released, which is the same thing as saying April.

That's a very good idea. Test 10 Sherman 76 vs Tiger I mid at 1000m. Tiger fully hull down behind 6m berm. 522 turret hits * 241 -- 46.2% -- Weapon mount 240 no damage 1 partial penetration * 185 -- 35.2% -- Front turret 28 no damage 98 armor spalling 57 partial penetration 3 full penetration * 48 -- 9.2% -- Weapon * 43 -- 8.2% -- Left and Right front armor (forward sloping side armor, 17 hits left side 26 right side) 43 no damage * 5 -- 0.9% -- Top turret 5 no damage There were also a small number of hits on the superstructure front hull and 1 hit on the "armor skirt". I switched from Cromwells to Sherman 76s because at 1000m the UK 75mm wouldn't be able to penetrate anything.* So, compared to the other full hull down test at 500m (Test 4, first post) we see that the proportion of hits on front turret armor is identical (35% each) and gun hits are very nearly the same (9% vs 7%). The move to 1000m did dramatically increase the number of hits on the forward sloping sections of side turret and top turret, although they were still a fraction (1/7) of the number of hits on the front turret. The increase in hits on the sides and top seem to have come almost entirely at the expense to hits on the mantlet. I did pay attention to front turret hits that did no damage. To answer AKD's earlier question, they produced both explosions and ricochets with the former more frequent than the latter. So we still have several questions. How can more than 1/3 of hits on the Tiger front turret area be striking the front turret armor? And why does moving between partial hull down and full hull down dramatically change hit distribution on both Tiger and Panther turrets? *EDITED to add: penetration of US 76mm APCBC vs. RHA @ 0° and 1000m is about 106mm.

Unfortunately the visual location of hits is very inaccurate in WEGO. The hit will sometimes look to be in a totally different location than what the hit text says.

I agree. It looks like it has a fine layer of coal dust on it. Snow in sunshine is blindingly white. Otherwise everything looks great. Except I did notice the British Shermans got stuck with low-poly mantlets again

Fair enough. Any theories as to why a fully hull down position nearly triples the proportion of front turret hits compared to partial hull down (and cuts gun hits by 2/3)? Missed your edit: Except that I did see 1, albeit just 1, hit labeled as "top turret" in test #6. Plus we know that the forward sloping sections of the turret sides have separate hit labels so it would be inconsistent if the turret roof did not.

You are correct and that is a good point. I think it very doubtful that the "front turret" hits represent hits that have penetrated the mantlet in areas not backed by armor, since there would be then no reason for them to be labeled front armor hits in that case. Hits that actually do penetrate the more central area of the mantlet I believe are label "weapon mount". They are very rare, but do happen. So my earlier points were in reference to the thinner areas of the mantlet around the edges (100mm thick along the top and bottom and 90mm thick along the sides) that are backed by armor. I should have stated that. The areas of the mantlet not backed by armor vary from 135mm to 150mm thick. I agree that it is an elegant design that maximizes protection while saving weight. The only thing they could have done better was make it sloped

1 full penetration, 1 partial and 10 spalling out of 67. The spalling suggests that these are hits close to penetrating. Penetration of UK 75mm solid shot at 500m against RHA @ 0° is 105mm for AP and 92.3 for APCBC . The minimum amount of armor a shot going through the mantlet would have to defeat is therefor 190mm, although that does not take into account that the turret armor is sloped at about 10° and the mantlet is cast rather than RHA. One other tidbit that I haven't touched upon is how hit distribution changes dramatically depending on full hull down or partial hull down status. Partial hull down (3 tests, 1689 hits) Mantlet: ____ 65.6% (1108) Weapon/Gun: 22.2% (375) Front Turret: 11.8% (199) Full hull down (1 test, 553 hits) Mantlet: ___ 54% (297) Weapon/gun: 7% (43) Front Turret: 35% (195) So going full hull down pushes hit distribution away from the mantlet and gun towards the front turret. Why? This is not a phenomenon unique to the Tiger. The same change was also seen in my testing of the Panther D: Panther D partial hull down (654 hits) Mantlet: ___ 72% (469) Weapon/gun: 9% (60) Front turret: 19% (123) Full hull down (577 hits) Mantlet: ___ 49% (281) Weapon/gun: 18.5% (107) Front turret: 33% (189) Note that the Panther partial hull down test was done at 100m rather than the 500m at which all the other tests were run. However, the fact that we see the same distribution change with the Tiger tests all at 500m suggests range is not the cause.

There were no side turret hits in my latest test, but I did get a small number of them in previous tests. We know that they are not being counted as front turret hits because they have unique hit text: "right front turret" and "left front turret". I confirmed that these are in fact the forward sloping sections of the side armor by test firing at a Tiger from the side (90°) and seeing the same areas hit. The question really is why are they hit so rarely? The same question should be asked of the forward sloping top turret armor. Combined, these have a surface area much larger than the thin strips of exposed front turret armor. I understand CM uses center of mass aiming, but I went back and added up the total number of Tiger turret hits in all my tests in this thread. Out of 2890 (!) total hits only 22 hit the exposed side turret sections. That is less than 0.8%. There was only 1 hit on the turret top armor (0.03%). If this can be explained away by center of mass aiming then common sense would suggest that the aiming towards center of mass modeling may be a little excessive.

There are essentially two areas of the front turret armor exposed: A strip along the top edge and the turret ring. The top edge is backed by the turret top armor where it joins the front, so anything striking there would be very unlikely to penetrate into the interior of the turret unless it was plunging downward at a steep angle. The turret ring could be penetrated if struck. There are several factors at work here. One is that, as you point out, it is located closer to the center of mass. Working against that is the fact that it is recessed behind the mantlet, and there is a flange on the top of the driver plate that partially screens the turret ring. (ignore the scribbles; I did not make them) The UK 75mm round would not be able to penetrate even the thinnest section of mantlet (90mm) and then be able to go through a second 100mm plate.

Probably T-34/85

That is true of APDS, but it is not modeled in the game, unfortunately. There was a lengthy thread on that subject a while back that C3K wanted us to keep alive but we have failed to do. http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?p=1347939&highlight=apds#post1347939 I have never read anything about erratic HVAP.

But you are generally correct that US 76mm starts to lose its ability to penetrate the front hull around 700-750m. Unless it's using HVAP ammo

Possibly. I think something is amiss, but it appears that there is not universal agreement with that. It is being looked into. Um, no. Tigers are highly resistant to US and UK 75mm except at very close ranges i.e. 300m or less or if you can get a lucky hit on the side lower hull. US 76mm will kill it reliably except on the front turret where it usually will bounce, at least at 500m and longer, even with the possible bug. OTOH UK 17 pdr and usually 6 pdr will make mincemeat of them.

I like the idea myself. I've considered a system where you select general categories of units and the AI selects the exact ones. For example, the player could ask for 2 companies of dismounted infantry, a platoon of armor and artillery support. The AI then selects the exact unit types and amount within those guidelines. But I think it might be hard to do. For one thing, the AI needs to have some idea about the relative combat power of units so that it doesn't give one player Jagdtigers, the other player Stuarts and call it even. That means you have to assign point values. So in order to have a CMSF-style QB system that works you have to first build a CMBN-style system as the basis. An alternative is to have a large pool of pre-made OOBs for each QB size that are picked from randomly. So for example, if you were playing a large QB with UK attacking Waffen SS the AI would randomly pick one of dozens of premade Waffen SS forces optimized for defensive play (fortifications, mines, ect.), then a UK force tailored for attack with a total combat power (measured in QB purchase points) of about 1.6 that of the Waffen SS force.

Agree 100%, unfortunately. I don't think they wanted to do it, but felt compelled by the reaction to CMSF. LOL! But sure to post that up when it's finished. You might want to include the fact that Steve accurately predicted the reception to the CMSF QB system years before they made it.

Long thread: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=97433 To summarize, BFC does not agree or disagree. They have a rather nihilistic view of QB unit pricing. To them there is no such thing as a correct value, which is fair enough, but they take it a step further by claiming any value is as good as any other value.

Most of them did not penetrate, but I did not pay attention to whether they were ricocheting or exploding. If it is important I can run it again to look. Ken: I'll shoot you an email later when I'm off work.

I have tested this an they will share info with nearby units equally well buttoned or unbuttoned. This might be something for BFC to look at.

In addition to the excellent points made above, a terrain grid mod is very helpful for seeing terrain contour from higher view levels.

No. Just US rockets, and only because of their going-out-of-business-sale price. German rockets are actually very expensive, maybe even a little overpriced, so if someone wants to buy them I see no reason to prohibit it.

At 500m US 76mm will penetrate the Tiger most of the time except on the mantlet, which can be penetrated only occasionally at that range. The front hull will resist penetration well at a oblique angle, ~30°, but the TacAI tends to square up to enemy units.

Well, CMBN 2.0 is come and gone. On the off-chance that this was fixed at some point without mention in the patch notes, a-la the QB 5% loading crash bug, I decided to make a new test on 2.01 and compare. This test is virtually identical to Test 7 in my 1.10 run, except that I inadvertently used Cromwell IV instead of VII. Same gun. Test 9 Cromwell IV firing at Tiger I mid, partial hull-down (behind 1 meter berm). Range 500m. 573 total hits on turret recorded * 376 hits -- 65.6% -- weapon mount (mantlet) 374 no damage 1 partial penetration 1 full penetration * 130 hits -- 22.7% -- weapon * 67 hits -- 11.7% -- front turret 55 no damage 10 armor spalling 1 partial penetration 1 full penetration These results are nearly identical to the earlier tests under the same circumstances, so nothing has changed. We are still getting ~12% of hits on the front turret from straight ahead striking the front turret armor instead of the mantel that is in front of the turret armor. If you want a save game PM me your email.

* Sandbags, wire, foxholes, hedgehogs, and trenches are correctly treated as "lower down" for spotting purposes. Anyone noticed these being harder to spot yet?

It may refer to this bug: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=107166&highlight=mortar&page=3 If it is then it probably only affects indirect fire on a TRP.