Panzer76

Hi. Does anyone have some information on the production numbers, and dates for the BR-350A/B and /P & the BR-354B round for the 76.2mm? [ April 26, 2005, 10:18 AM: Message edited by: Panzer76 ]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the main difference in how the russians calculated the penetration ability of their guns compared to, say the Germans, the % chance for a penetration? AFAIK the germans used a 50 % probability and the Russians a 80% probability. So there would be a difference, but perhaps not that a great difference. Like the difference you see between the 20% and 80% penetrations already listed, but less. Also, BTS has not "stuck" any table numbers into CM, the penetrations are calculated in game depending on physics. While this is well and good, there are so many more variable on the battlefield in real life than in the game. For instance, tankers was trained to aim for particular weak spots on the different tanks. Things like teh turret ring, hatches etc. This is represented in CM as weak hull penetrations. However, there is only 1% chance in the game for this to happen, while a trained crew, on the battlefield, could aim for these weak spots with much more accuracy. Also, there were special heat tempered BR350A and 350B ammo that were distributed in small quantities that were able to penetrate more armour than the regualr rounds. Etc etc. I suspect that thing like this is responsible for most of the "unhistorical" results you see vs the Tiger than any general mis-simulation of the 76.2 gun itself. It would be nice if CMBB could simulate these other battlefield factors better, but alas, with the current engine atleast, it seems not. As for the StugIII, I have already mentioned this 2 times before in this very thread. CM simulates the Stug 80mm front very poorly as part of it was 50mm. Instead it gets 80mm at 10 degrees, this makes it very difficult for any 76.2mm to penetrate the front, and ahistorical so. This is very unfortunate as this is one of the main match ups in CMBB, and I've complained about this myself. But, this is not the same issue as with the Tigers IMO. Well, the allies has also tested the guns and armour of the russian tanks, and in some cases they were different than the russian numbers. While this can have many explinations, westerens has for a long time been suspicious of russian data, and sometimes rightly so. As Rune mentioned, Battlefield has been consulted on these issues as well. As I tried to explain, battlefield results has more variables than exists in the CM engine. The "failure" of reprodusing "historical" results may lay elsewhere than in the penetration abilities of certain guns. However, if you feel otherwise, as it seems you do, you need to back this up with data. This has been tried before, repetedly by JasonC, but he never made much progress on the 76.2 mm gun. However, he made some good points about the 85mm performance, and rexford offered to help him make a case, but his lack of manners turned rexford away. Just genereally pointing to "battlefield results" is worthless when you do not know for certain what happend on that battlefield. [ April 26, 2005, 07:19 AM: Message edited by: Panzer76 ]

And since Tungsten rounds were mentioned, I did a test with MarderIIIr (using the 76.2 gun) with T rounds vs Vanilla Shermans. Hits required to KO a tank (note, all pens here were full penetrations): 1 Penetration: 10 kills 2 Penetrations: 12 kills 3 Penetrations: 2 kills With the lamented poor BAE of teh T round, 92% of the tanks were KOed by 1 or 2 penetrations. No tank survived more than 3 penetrations. This is infact higher mortality rate than by using "standard" AP, but there I counted partial penetrations as penetrations. [ April 26, 2005, 11:51 AM: Message edited by: Panzer76 ]

These are the numbers for the BR-350A/B/P that I already have posted.

I can't seem to find the 350A/B/P round here.

Panzer, you did your test with US 75mm firing APCBCHE, a full-bore round with large HE burster. The behind armour effect of it in real life would be much, much better than the APCR (BR-365 P or "Tungsten" in CMBB parlance is an APCR). </font>

Since JasonC has made it clear that this is about BHE And it indeed applies to all large calibre weapons in CMBB and CMAK, and somehow hints about having to need 20 penetrations in CM to get a KO : I did a larger test, 75mm vs Tiger side, not that has anything to do with this, since all 75mm + weapons has too low BHE. To make it simple, I included partial penetrations as penetrations, even though they do not have teh same BHE. IF I only counted full penetrations, the numbers below would be much lower (e.i, you would need less penetrations). Note that no Tiger survived 3 full penetrations. Number of Penetrations (full and part) required to kill a Tiger: 1 Penetration - 16 kills 2 Penetrations - 11 kills 3 Penetrations - 7 kills 4 Penetrations - 2 kills 5 Penetrations - 1 kill 43 % of all the kills only needed one full or partial penetration. 73% of all kills were made by 2 or less partial or full penetrations. From my POV, the BHE seems pretty solid...

Your logic is flawed. You argue that in order to KO a tank, you should not have to get as many penetrations, partials, or full, as is required now. To give this credence, you show us some data which shows how many hits and penetrations that were recorded for brewed up tanks in Normandy. All this tells you is on average how many pens are needed to brew up the tank (never mind that weapon calibre is not recorded, nor hit location) and the average tendency for them to brew up before the tank crew firing on the tank deem it KOed and stop firing on it. Do you think, that for the tanker on the field, seeing the enemy tank brew up, might indicate taht the tank is KOed and teh crew won't fire more shells at it? Which means, that the number you see here, and cite, is the miniumum number of penetrations a tank would recieve before being deemed KOed without brewing up.

LOL. You said that poor BAE was valid for all large calibre guns, 75mm and up, and no suddenly it's only the 76.2mm? And just to top it off, you call my test using US 75mm guns to test the BHE a strawman, and in the very next post put forward a report from Normandy as proof for lacking BHE (which it's not, see next post)! I somehow doubt they used the F-34 gun in Normandy old chap! Ah, the irony! Yes, small sample indeed, as I was too lazy too do anymore. As for the 350B round, after/late 43, I commented on that if you had paid attention, and said that it would perhaps get some part pens from 500m on the Tigers 80mm armour. As for the ammo, the 350A production stopped in 43, when, we do not know, perhaps Jan, perhaps Dec, any data on this would be welcomed. Also, even though they stopped producing it, did not mean that the stockpiles thay had of the ammo suddenly vanished. It would have been in use for quite some time afterwards. If anyone have data on the production numbers and dates of the different rounds, please say so. Also, Battlefield says tha ammo was poor in 41-43 which is a pretty vague date. Until 43? During 43? To the end of 43? [ April 25, 2005, 06:08 PM: Message edited by: Panzer76 ]

More data from Ian Allan Russian Tanks of WWII. The BR-350A round for the F-34 gun, lead the Germans to up armour their PzIV to 80mm (and the Stugs I would believe). As a counter point for this, the Russians introduced the BR-350P APDS round and the given penetration data corresponds to the one given in Zalogas book, mentioned above. Further it says to be able to KO the Tiger the T34 had to shoot from point blank range at the front, or get a side/rear shot (with the new round). The standard loadout for the T34 was as following (the 42 model): BR-350A - 19 HE - 53 Cannister (SH-350) - 5 Which would indicate that atleast for the T34 42 model, the BR-350P was rare. Also, as the Germans introduced the 80mm armour to defeat the BR-350A I would imagine it would have difficulties penetrating it (and thus, the Tigers side). Now, Im sure somewhere we have a table of the availability of the 350P armour, and the penetration ability of the 350A round. EDIT: And yes, found I did. BR-350A PENETRATION Range......Homogeneous.......Face-Hardened 50m...........80mm.............83mm 100m..........77mm.............82mm 500m..........68mm.............75mm 1000m.........59mm.............66mm 1500m.........53mm.............59mm Linky Battlefield states that standard loadout for the T43 m42 (100 round capacity) was as follows: AP (BR350A/B) - 21 Tungsten (BR350P) - 4 (Note, introduced in Oct 43) HE - 75 Linky Penetration figures from Battlefield: BR-350A 100m - IP=89mm CP=80mm 500m - IP=78mm CP=70mm BR-350B 100m - IP=94mm CP=86mm 500m - IP=84mm CP=75mm BR-350P 100m - CP=102mm 500m - CP=92mm Linky Note : "The Initial Penetration (IP) means the 20% probability of armor penetration. The Certified Penetration (CP) means the 80% probability of armor penetration" "Also, it is important to understand that realistic penetration values in 1941-1943 was reduced significantly due to low quality ammo." It would seem clear that the Br-350A should not be able to penetrate the Tigers side unless from being point blank range since teh production of BR-350A stopped in 43. The 350B would be able to get some part pens on side from 500m after 43, but before had to close to 100m or so even have chance for full pen, more likely part pen. From these figures I can not see much fault in CMBBs simulation of T34s vs Tigers up to '43. [ April 25, 2005, 02:10 PM: Message edited by: Panzer76 ]

In Steven Zaloga's Soviet Tanks and Combat Vehicles of WWII, p. 225 there is a diagram over Russian guns penetration ability. For the 76,2mm F-34 it is listed (at 0 degrees and vs steel armour) to be: 500m - 92mm 1000m - 60mm For the 85mm Zis-F-53 500m - 138mm 1000m - 100mm See next post for more data. [ April 25, 2005, 02:01 PM: Message edited by: Panzer76 ]

Just did a small test about the BAE. 1 Toon of 75mm Shermans shooting at Tiger flank from 500m. 2 out of 5 times the tiger was KOed bu the first round that hit (full pen) 2 times it needed 1 full pen and 1 part. 1 time it was KOed because of immobilzation and the crew bailed. Seems pretty lethal to me.

Thats great, care to point me to some of these numerous references?

Do you have ANY data about this apart from your opinion?

What are you talking about now? What calibre are you refering to? What references do you have to say that the BHE is too low? Is it your opinion that the BHE too low for russian guns only, or all guns in general? Why would you say "the ratio of pens to kills was even lower with the T ammo"? Isn't that pretty obvious, while you make it sound like something remarkable?

As I've pointed out before, part of the problem here is that the Stug had parts of the front covered by 50mm armour, CMBB does not model this. Yes, with the result that the T34s was pretty much slaughtered.

A general OOB (for a standard 1500 pts battle), may vary with date: Germans: collage 1 Platoon of Stugs (for AT work) 1 Coy of inf 1 Platoon of Stummels (for close HE support) 1 150 mm Gun + transport 1 105 mm FO For the Sovs there is much more variation. (which is also why I prefer playing as Sovs) Early Stug and Tiger years I always bring a 57mm ATG and tries to get captured Stug myself, makes for a nice surprise I also always try to get a 120mm FO. More bang, and 5 min delay is not too bad. Later years, I like the IS-2 (great if you know how to use it, see here for an example: http://forums.mzocentral.net/index.php?showtopic=4176&st=0?entry84874 ) , the SU-85, T34-85 and best of them all, the SU-100. Inf, I try to get half the portion SMG heavy and the rest Rifle heavy (recon). And as noted, bring dirt cheap 45mm ATGs and ATRs, because it's very likely the Axis player will bring HTs and/or ACs. Also, they can penetrate the weak sides of axis armour. I once KOed a Hetzer with an ATR [ April 25, 2005, 03:53 AM: Message edited by: Panzer76 ]

How so? What would you do differently? And would you not already have a grasp about the BHA after playing the game for copious amounts of time?

The topic of this thread was russian guns penetration ability against German armour, specifically the Tigers armour. Perhaps you now feel that it's about behind armour effect.

With all due respect, I would not give that advice, as a player with LOTS of experience AND tested it out.

CM : If you don't buy this game you support the terrorists.

I dunno why you insist on harping on this theme when you know that nothing will be done about it and you had these discussions before. I think you'll have to wait for someone to argue with you AGAIN over the issue of undermodeling the russian guns, because they might be bored of it. You won't change their view, and they won't change yours. And BFC won't patch this game either, so there ya go. But since you asked, here are a few, and I'm sure there are more. Linky Linky 2 Linky 3 Tiger Tiger 2 Etc etc etc As for their "tactical significance", I would think that it would be pretty plain obvious. You can't kill a Tiger from X m with a Y gun. Ok, so what does that mean? You don't have to be Einstein to figure that out.

Perhaps it's because this has been discussed since the game was released 3 years ago and there is nothing new here that we didn't already know? Or, atleast the members that's paid a bit attention. Also, from playing the game, people would not exactly be surprised by the results. Persitency is well and good, but I think this dead horse has been flogged truly enough.

This has more to do with the fact that portions of the Stug front had 50mm armour, while BFC models the Stugs as all 80mm front.

If there is no other cover readily available close by, it doesn't really matter that you MAY have time to drive the tank somewhere else as you will be a nice juicy target as you do so.