mididoctors

LOL....... yes i think the proportional term may be suspect...related may be more accurate but YES the shell will dip at end of flight........not that much at ranges argued.....resistance is not a liner proportional to speed hence intergral.....a rather complex interplay of of several varibles shot weight /energy/ diameter....... vertical velocity is constantly modified by g a constant but even this movement is effected by air resistance ..... the X component is not entirly seperate in that the original energy of the shot is not applied along that axis solely......... As was I previously stated the flight path would be a blunted arc. the steeping of flight needed to be effective against deck armour requires a higher trajectory than DF at ranges discribed.... this blunting will be more extreme at greater ranges....... instictive intuition makes me believe that such steeping will not be a factor at 600m scenario debated...... we need a function for air resistance to argue about this. and in the case of 152mm the shot weight may carry better against air resistance. hunch Boris London

I wish you could dig in in real time and create foxholes or least some form of shell scrape Boris london

I think that must be pretty close to the stats Alistair got.......... Your stats are out of some grog tome I guess....and now I except as verbatim along with flat trajectory conjecture at sub 1000m or so ranges .Jason is right in his explanation OK just to kick it back on topic vis a vis LV vs MV or HV guns..... Again question... flight time is critical against moving targets for flights of as little as .5 sec which could equate against a AFV moving at 12mph as 2m...I still expect High MV guns to significantly outperform LV guns against moving targets in the 500-1000m range. For 400m/s guns a 20kph moving target will need a correct lead of accurate to within 1/2 of TDD (roughly) 1.5 sec flight time equates in target relocation at 20kmh of 8m...accurate lead against centre of target what's a AFV 3X6 X3 box? ASL size modifiers?.....I take it target profiles are modeled I would expect non-liner performance against moving targets in relation to target size and MV..... off angle movement even at close ranges produces tremendous problems in lead for LV guns if flight time against a target at 20kph is less than .5 sec then most target will be hit on the button as 2.7m displacement is within target size tolerance (lead ignored).. JUST. this is very close for the KV 2 sub 250m....what is also added is turret tracking angles start to increase at close ranges further complicating things.... for the KV 1 this distance is of course arund 300m for HV 990m...close to 500m.... the long arm of Hv guns is much more noticable at the 500m against moving targets... a ASL style global moving target modifier is inaccurate....is this also true of CMBB? I would have thought a straight physics 2 body problem would produce almost perfect results assuming an inital shot velocity(includes direction) against target movement behaviour modeled seperatly but mapped in time.......modeling the gunners decision when and how to fire is the issue...subjective. the advantage of diminishing 2 mil error...1.2m down to .5m is not that noticable against moving targets against errors in lead. of course shoots along the axis of travel or close almost eliminate this disadvantage as flat trajectory fire conjecture still applies....IE do not charge down a KV 2 barrel..dooh! the results for fast AC or road travel at 40kph plus are quite staggering conclusion run at off angles towards your KV 2 foe he is unlikley to hit a thing until less than 250m and closer in turret swing will be a real issue......bam got him.....OH that is exactly what Jason got in his test :cool: well theres a thing it comes down to tactical deployment...... solutions within the game for what at first appear to inaccuracies in modelling AFV stats......well...things can be misleading at first. BTS have spent alot of time on DF/AT fire model and it is not an area I feel that has "that" much wrong with it. Boris london

so at 600m your sughts alone could be 1.2m out about half the width of a turret? green crews are going to multiply this figure somewhat? Boris london

try again but have the target moving at right angles to firer at approx 600m.... infact use several different angles of deflection my gut instinct is the 152mm is going to comeout much worse compared with the76mm Boris london [ January 28, 2003, 02:41 PM: Message edited by: mididoctors ]

What realy matters in a way is flight time...especialy against moving targets.... As you rightly pointed out leading a moving target is going to be somewhat hard with a target that may be close to 8 meters further away than at the time of firing with a 600m range..... perhaps a test against moving targets would produce a more obvious difference in performance between a KV 1 and KV 2 Boris London

hmmm thats the rub........ flight profile well resemble a blunt arc with the with a coresponding diffculty in range assement as shell will drop in second half of flight as contary too our simplistic view of balistics.......perversely the heavy shell weight of the 152mm may mean its carry thru the air ie flight speed is more consistant.... I am left feeling that BTS must have done their homework and got it right...we have little choice.. Boris london

A rough calculation in my head, the height of the arc of the shell from the KV2 would be a little over 11m compared with a little under 4m for the KV1. I am certainly no grog but I would have thought that 3 times the height of the arc (roughly speaking) would have made it significantly more difficult to hit a target a couple of metres high. </font>

Yes remember PanzerBush Boris London Nostalgia it's not what it used to be.

Do we need a what if forum? Boris london

I must apologise . I basicly do not know what I am doing ...! Boris London

In CMBB the T-70 seems very effective for a lt tank..is this out of kilter with reality or was soviet deployment tactics incorreect for this vechile......why did the Soviets regard it as a failer..or cease its production? Boris London</font>

In CMBB the T-70 seems very effective for a lt tank..is this out of kilter with reality or was soviet deployment tactics incorreect for this vechile......why did the Soviets regard it as a failer..or cease its production? Boris London

From that we can infer that Synthetic POL production could have been raised to match an increased Mechanized force structure.... the diversion of manpower was negligable compared with total manpower within the economy... for instance doubling/triperling POL production based on an increased tank force would have been possable..if early management decisions based on need where taken...... this had to occur inline with a tank production stratergy that emphasized simplisty in reducing production models...This combined problem solving was beyond that capable by the 3rd Reich (IMHO discuss etc.) however fuel shortage did occur due to Bombing thus perhaps an increased AFV total would have be immobilised back down to historical levels if the allies applied the same intensity per target as they did originaly.. Again a larger Tank Fleet seems somewhat more untenable than any conjecture on POL production. What seems more critical from your (excellent) post is that the fate of any "what if" is in the hands of US strategic bomber command and not Speer and Co! If synthetic oil production had been assigned greater priority seems no production stratergy was going to pay dividends. What are the our assumptions should make about the German economy in respect to the original question? IE in regards to a greater number of MK IVs force structure compared with a multi-tude of types. OK lets assume that US bombing is kept to historical levels and a expansion in POL production to support a large tank force is not meet by an increased US bombing campaign against synthetic plants. Ok lets also assume some early planning (biggest bugbear for me) that will enable Both an increased Mechanized army and the the rationalisation of tank production to a fewer models..sake of argument PZ IVs (could be PZ Vs) the model is not that important at this stage of the argument. What could we expect of the economy... would it behave like a sausage ballon that if squezzed in one place it expanded in an other or...expansion in some areas (POL AFV production) could be had without effecting other areas (U-Boats,locomotives , food whatever) Question1 under ideal conditions given that the allies behaved roughly in the same manner How nuch bigger could the German war economy been with better earler planning? Question2 What would have been the largest Tank force deployable without adverse effect to other ares of German war effort? Question3 Where there areas that could have been disbanded by the 3rd Reich that could have further increased this total or offset failings else where. One thinks of V wpns...aircraft production etc? Some development areas the 3rd Reich indulged in where not insignificant but where thay detrimental to our what if? Question4(+) What would be a max Tank force deployable with sacrifices in other areas identified in question 3 or even areas of greater sacrifice? Question5 with the answers above for the various alternatives (lets keep it simple) would more MK IVs made sense? or would the increased numbers not have made up the qualative gap? again this relies on an understanding of toatal what if numbers...if a total 50,000 Pz IVs was possable (unlikley) then the answear is obvious.....how about 20,000or 15,000 ? Question 6 if you could workout the magic number of MK IVs that would be advantageous compared with historical figures it would be a start This is perhaps the easiest of questions to answear as it is independant on economic factors IE it is a benchmark .not a possable conjecture.... once we assume a figure we can back track to see if there was any possability the German Economy could have produced this number.....a yes or no answers the original posted question Boris London BTW sorry for the stream of consciousness style post

good point perhaps VPs awarded relative to turn captured and maintained..if you grab something on last turn of game you gain less VPs than if you controled it on turn 16...again greater flexability in victory condition design required. Boris london

check out the head on JC SPOILERS Finished playing a CMBB game Heart of stalingrad from the SD.....this has T-70s I posted a few thoughts on how effective they were and in retrospect they fall into a definate role... and as JC has so fully described in detail how good they are... was the T-70s success the precursor to the PT range of post war lt tanks..a doctrine of lt tank deployment...the term "force mix "comes to mind Boris london

So in conclusion POL assets where somewhat more stable than we would assume from conquered/controlled fields thus Romanian fields themselves or any other captured wells in Russia did little to effect German POL totals..... From this inference, German fuel levels before US bombing (operation custer was it?) damaged synthetic production should be used asa benchmark that form any basis of total POL and hence servicable AFV/aircraft/U -Boat MAXIMUM deployable. Was there a surplus of POL or vehicles(land, sea and air) ? or where the two in sync....? Figures on total afvs in the field per year please....... even better total number of AFV HOURS IN FEILD :confused: seems German ability to field AFVs was on the rivet anyway. The number of factors that need to be addressed by Speer seem numerous for any increased AFV number to be any use :confused: Boris london

I basicly agree You have paraphrased the point I was making. If you assume 300 early war VIIs would not be countered then yes a retooled early German economy and a startegic decision to apply real resources to the battle of the Atlantic would have bourne fruit for the German U-boat arm....if a long term struggle was envisaged U-boat development should have been a priority as post mid 43 on the Type VII was ineffective..... the Type XXI advantage was its ability to keep pace with convoys submerged and in transit to operational ares in a submerged state......schnorkel devices reduced the range of the type Vii to a intolerable degree. even thou periscope detection was possable with CM radar operational speed and range was the strategic factor U-boat command ability to prosecute the war. IF early german development in the areas of U-boat stealth where carried out CM radar would have been a catchup weapon rather than the devasting advantage it turned out to be ..again firstest with the mostest argument......which can always cut both ways....the Germans where working on radar detection equipment but did not concentrate in the CM bands as they thought to be technicaly impossable at the time! obviously the relationships betwen the opponents behaviour and the other arenas of the war (German pens in France etc.) are of a critical importance...... The Real problem is one of culture within the Third Reich where intergration of management decisions where split between the various deptartments and not intergrated as in the allied view of problems..out of which a lot of post war management culture appeared...Rand corporation, NASA etc,,, For any of the what ifs to be applied require the nature of the Turd Reich to be somewhat more sensible.....For any regime to succeed,having its head of state security believing that the german people were descended from a race of psi supermen from the era of the giants ain't going to help. let me add a "what if" on tank production relating to POL assets is the way to go if you wish to decide whether or not to concentrate tank production on a "more cheaper" than "few better" argument.....It seems German fortunes relied on the interplay of occupied/controlled oil producing areas and adequate product stratergy.For all factors to fall into a sweet spot is such a long shot, I can not help feeling the whole "could Germany have won" thing is a big no no... someone is going to have to do the maths here......what did Guderians management consultant job in 43 kick up? let me also add..Wargamming is an excellent community for such historical debates and has 'real' academic value that goes beyond actual wargames and enjoyment into a more useful activity, that may benefit opinions and decision makers today Zen and the art of wargamming Boris

I second that victory conditions seem simplistic...especialy when compared with the level of effort but into other areas of the game. Boris london

Good god Sniper..those wacky parallelagram tanks......!!! going back a few yeas thou 1975-80 ish. Had a sister game called patrol played on naff geomorphic 10X10 hex boards i rememember panicing squadies randomly running around based on a little hex based compass thingy....cool little smoke counters and staircases....we could use stairwells in CM ....I Digress preservation levels.....how does morale effect play in CMBB not at all until you 0 or is there a cumlative effect like ASL ELR decay and Battle field integrity? Boris london

I thought the skinnies at the beginning represent the conflicts of ww2 (japs etc) who then join in to fight the red hoarde(bugs) as the UN(US?) latter but I will give the link a read... I read as a kid both starship troopers and forever war ... In retrospect i think they are silly stories Boris london

I thought Starship troopers was the Korean War? Boris london

This is the Only area i disagree with the accepted notion that technical advances where useless in the face of numerical superioty..... the german U-Boat arm did not suffer from a lack of U-boats 1943 on but essentialy they lacked a credable u-boat at all......in all the arenas of conflict in WW2 the atlantic was the most technical driven with superiroty going to those who coul field a credable force of technically superior vessels A decent commitment to U-Boat production earlier in the war would have been meaningful with type VIIs but once centrmetric radar was developed only a true submersable would surfice(read type XXI)..... IF the German stratergy had concentrated a Large part of the early war economy into U-Boats the war may have had a very different character indeed. I feel this is the area that produces the biggest WW2 what if. And yes the I did find your post intresting and informative

yes I tend to agree with the above statement however I like a "what if" so for the sake of an argument few questions and thoughts German War inustry was a slow starter..... better management may have increased there chances.....? dumping the tigers etc and concentrating on the mk IV..? probably viable from a tactical point of view up until mid 44,,,,, advance in allied tank design would necessitate something better..but like all what ifs it fails if you assume the other side does not change its behaviour..... the real question is HOW SIGNIFICANT WAS THE TIGER/PANTHER TO GERMAN DEFENSIVE PERFORMANCE 1943-45 OR you could ask....if you replaced all the panthers and tigers one to one with PZ IVs how much quicker would the Germans lost the war? Would SS panzer divs at Kharkov 43 (mainsteins back hand) really done any worse equiped with PZ IVs? i doubt there would be that much a different outcome? but later in the war the changes in peformance would accelerate the differences in what if history compared with reality. hard to quantify...... perhaps game communitys like this are a good place to start to find an answer.... My gut feeling is the most significant German AFV is the STUG III 75Long barrel (L48?) You need a meaningful ratio of a PZ IV worth compared with a tiger and a panther and that value mapped against oppostion AFVs.... could german industry make 50000 PZ IVs...even if expensive tank design was dropped..... Unlikley knowing the NAZI regime.. if they could have russian tank superioty would have disappeared...I doubt German could support logistical such a tank force...The germans had a large number of Warplanes in 1945 sitting on the ground. Work out in manpower and POL assets the maximum number of battle tanks the Germans could support in the feild and you may be closer to an answer... if the figure is much bigger than max/average german battle strength..concentrating on a "cheaper" design may have made sense..... if the figure is roughly the same then better tanks make sense...... you may need to plot this as a average of German available strength as max strength is meaningless if your force oscilates in strength wildly.....what was german TANK POWER as in the number of AFV HOURS in the field! broadly speaking they should have made 2000 type xxI U-boats and 2000 me262s to be in with a shout..and as easytarget suggests they would still have been nuked...... Boris London

Risky rather than gamey... Boris London