Mr. Tittles

I clearly remember you hating me vaguely. So don't expect me to care one way or the other. But Mr. Peng ONLY loses focus after waking up. Git that through your alky addled nogin' pronto.

I bet Seanachai's rants would be so much more accurate if he were affixed to any tripod, monopod or perhaps just strapped tightly across the local bar stool. But screw all this. That silly-bitching-quitting Peng owes me a turn and I feel like heading off his natural quitting impulses by publicaly calling him a sissy-pants. I send him a setup and whats he do? Gets his melon thumped soundly on turn one.

Not all Chobham armor is the same. Its a formula that has been improved since the origional british attempts. The US applys a extra sheet of DU armor on the turet front area also. Thats what those rectangles are. These may give added KE protection.

All kidding aside, I bet that the BREN in this configuration would be very accurate.

How about not being able to post for a week? The postaholics would suddenly become very Monty-ish.

The Palastinians make a sort of directed-explosive bomb. A quick explosive 'throws' a slowly/powerful explosive at a tank. Its a road side command detonated bomb. The effect on the tank crew and vehicle will put it out of commision. Not through penetration but sheer impact/concussion. To use it in a urban environment usually knocks down buildings along the street and makes a road block and destruction that can be blamed on the Tankers. You dont need that big a bomb (size overall) and it can be built into the buildings themselves.

Thats sort of an odd example. Its more than likely taking place during street fighting and the 'cowering' (by the armor) could have been from the accompanying infantry forces being stripped away by mortar fire. The tanks/SPs then withdrew. They didnt 'cower'. They were kept at bay but that does not mean that they did not fight back from some distance or by using shoot n scoot techniques (theres mention of enemy fire being drawn). I think the main point of this thread is the backing away from the mere sight of an enemy vehicle that may not even be targeting the 'cowerer'. Again, I think that shoot n scoot WAS a realistic tactic used by experienced armor. The game should supress this self-preservation impulse unless an actual threat is targeting the vehicle.

Is the Shoot'n'coot command immune to this 'cower' retrograde movement? It should be resistant to it at least. The thought being, they are not going to hang around anyway. IRL I believe the driver has the tranny already in reverse and will pop the clutch as soon as he feels/hears the gun report.

Its a very strange scenario to have been included with the game. In that respect, I sort of agree that it is somewhat broken. I played this scenario once against the AI and once against a human, both times as German (the human had basically lost every game against me till then..basically I wanted something to let him win). Its just so unfocused as a scenario. Perhaps as an opening to a campaign but in the end, a bad scenario. I can play Wild Bill scenarios virtually dozens of times. They are so good.

The shermans will generally pop smoke and shoot smoke. Even when shooting smoke on the move (backwards move), it will get a general effect. A lone Tiger may find itself shrouded in smoke. This allows a flanking attempt and those flanking elements should use shoot n scoot tactics also. The game is very unit-centric. A squad of men, in my opinion, act like an individual soldier instead of a group of men. An AFV SHOULD act like a individual soldier that has a good idea what the other individual 'soldiers' (tanks with radios) are doing/experiencing. AFVs are largely an extension of the commander. The loader/radio-op and even the gunner are 'along for the ride'. The driver is the only person that may make snap-decisions like the commander and he is even limited to poorer optics than the commander.

Cower might be a wrong word. IRL tanks would probably use shoot n scoot when they were within each others 'kill-envelope'. Just as riflemen will not stay exposed when the volume of incoming fire gets 'hairy', tanks do not stand still and 'take-it'. I doubt even impregnable tanks looked kindly on being struck by non-penetrating hits. The player and AI should use shoot n scoot if they desire more shooting before scooting. The game should model backing away to take into account if the threat is targeting them. Lets say 3 JS tanks approach the side of a lone Tiger (that is, they only see one Tiger). The Tiger has its turret swung elsewhere. The JS tanks should not just back away. They might stand fast and shoot till the Tiger actually targets them

If 50% get through and 50% dont, the 50% that get through would have a minimal velocity (I would think). A direct strike by a 12 pound metal object on a person would not need much velocity though. The spall particles may still have sufficient velocity even if the main penetrator doesn't. Basically the kinetic energy could be transferred to the armor. Its a good point about base HE making any penetration a bad thing. In the confined space of a AFV, any detonation would be hazardous to both the vehicle and the crews will to stay inside. The HE may actually re-accelerate the penetrator also. The HE blast would act like an igniter to any gunpowder from ruptured ammo or to fuel spray from broken fuel lines or fuel tanks. I have read quite a few accounts of German APHE rounds getting into Shermans and not detonating inside. They may have had a failure or the HE detonated outside the armor itself. [ March 19, 2004, 07:44 PM: Message edited by: Mr. Tittles ]

KP gets best soundtrack award. It is a fun game but pro attacker I think.

I have never seen any Panzer IVs equipped with that spaced armor. There is much evidence that they used tracks as additional armor. The Panzer IV turret should have been redesigned to make its front narrower. The 50mm turret front sections were initially used as viewing ports and as an alternate MG position for the loader. This was later dropped. I dont believe a turret redesign would have increased weight.

Stug.Abt 394 : Formée en 03/44 à Deutsch Eylau - Ardennes - Alsace Lorraine 12/44 - 01/45 ? http://perso.wanadoo.fr/did.panzer/Unite_sturmgeschutz.html

There is a side by side of Panther HE and AP on this website, Left and Right. The Panther HE also appears to follow the olive green coloring scheme. The FES on the HE shell refers to the driving band material (I think). An interesting side note (oh no! Mr.Fox must suffer additional information in the same thread, boohoo) is that the Panther round initially had one driving band and then later two. web page [ February 15, 2004, 08:34 PM: Message edited by: Mr. Tittles ]

Looking down a Tiger I barrel

The Panther AP round is the only black 75mm-88mm projectile in the pics (note:its not HE). The other 75mm-88mm rounds are HE. Dead giveaway is the silver colored fuse (which could be seen easily in the dark). Later black AP rounds had white painted noses to assist in loading in dark environments. So we have R to L, Tiger II HE, 88L56 HE, Panther AP, 75mmL48/L43 HE, 75mmL24 HE. And then some others of smaller caliper appear to be a 50mmL60 HE, 50mm L42 APCR and a 37mm AP. (Oh! I hope that wasn't so confusing/unclear that it brings a SimonFox diatribe) The 75mmL24 and 75mmL48 and 88mmL71 HE rounds are really a greenish color. According to the Panzer IV universe website, this is olive green. HEAT rounds for the weapon also had olive coloring as well as smoke rounds. http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/willphelps/Specs-03.htm The 88mm HE rounds for FlaK guns appear yellow in photographic evidence. Band colors on german rounds denote tracer color I believe. [ February 16, 2004, 04:22 PM: Message edited by: Mr. Tittles ]

Earlier a tanker with actual experience with Sherman 76mm said as much.

This line up shows a Panther AP round third from the right. The shell to the right of it is a 88mm HE. The Shell on the far right is a 88mm L71 HE. The shells to the left of the Panther AP are 75mm HE L48 and L24.

Redwolf are you really sad? Thats too bad. Anyway.. I believe whip could be related to rifling twist rates. In ball screw devices (which are similar to the rifling issue), there is a maximum speed that you can run them out before they start whipping. A ball screw device is fixed at both ends and the rapid ball nut movement cause a 'jump-rope' effect to take place. This aggravates the motion and the device will vibrate badly and stall out. The longer the ballscrew, the more pronounced this effect is. In a gun system, it is fixed on one end and open on the other (the barrel end). The effect would be not a 'jump rope' but rather a jerk on the barrel end as the aggresive twist bites into the rapidly accelerating shell. On a short barreled weapon, like the 75mmL24, this effect would be small or negligible. As the barrel gets longer and the powder charge larger, it would be more pronounced. Another factor would be barrel thickness. A thicker tube would be more resistant to this phenomena. It would be interesting to see twist rates on these high velocity weapons. Perhaps variable twist rates were also used? [ February 15, 2004, 12:24 PM: Message edited by: Mr. Tittles ]

I think a good topic is who had the easiest time estimating/measuring range? Its pretty clear that initial range estimation gets to be a critical factor as a function of distance. Something that would make guessing range easier is if the enemy had vehicles that were all the same size. The russian T34 would be a very common vehicle and the germans could train their gunners very effectively by using this vehicle type. Conversely, the russians had a slew of MBTs, AG, SPAT, etc that they were shooting at. For them to judge distance on vehicle size is much more difficult. The German sights included a method of judging range for the gunner after he was assigned a target, heading, initial range by the commander. Another critical factor is followup shots. The critical thing being the observation of the tracer. In the case of the US, there is test data that claims that observation by the gunner is seriosly hampered by the smoke from the gun itself. This being on a windless day without dusty ground conditions.

I would agree that they are closely matched. I read an account of a Panther in British service during the war. It could loft HE rounds into windows at considerable distances. Ive also read that the French testing of the Panther showed remarkable accuracy even using HE to hit tanks at distance. But these are stationary targets. Hitting moving targets would be harder. A nice way to hit moving targets is to have a fast moving shell. The physics behind this being that a reduced time of flight means less lead and possible error. The flatter trajectory doesnt hurt either. I think when the 88L56 Tiger gun was first around, it so outclassed other MBT guns that it built a certain lore of 'supergun' status. Its velocity, heavy shell, optics, elite crewmen, etc, etc all built the weapons reputation. being behind thick armor diddnt hurt either.

http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=2844 German losses on the Eastern Front month by month. Incredible stats. Summer of 44 sure was a hot one.

I think it matters in a couple of other areas like hulldown, hitting infantry in ditchs, etc.