Mr. Tittles

Perhaps the combat driven split-squad could help this green 'thing'. There could be a sub-class of Green called Replacement-Green. These are representative of fresh replacements, that have traning (they are not conscripts) but have no combat testing. My thought would be that they are very susceptible to the splitting when under fire (see my previous post). Not only do they split easily, but one of the half squads might 'flip' to a conscript. This models men's first reaction to battle. My reading seems to indicate that it takes at least a few battles to get anywhere near veteran status. Beyond the scope of CM campaigns. The real test was when men actually had to face firepower for the first time. If they lived past the first few days, they had a chance to become an old timer. The new guys, with undeveloped reaction times and limited combat smarts, often filled the body bags. Units that flip to a conscript can not recombine with the other half squad during the battle. They have the usual conscript penaltys. They may recombine only during a campaign and the unit remains Replacement-Green. Replacement-Green units that did not split or rout during the battle have a chance to turn to normal green during teh campaign. Normal troops (anything but conscripts and replacement-greens)that are given advance or assault orders have a greater tendency NOT to self-split but Replacement greens still would. Very dicey using these guys you see. Replacement-Greens that are pinned (whole or half squads) take a long time to un-pin. Conscripts would be very susceptible to combat splits. [ November 21, 2003, 12:43 PM: Message edited by: Mr. Tittles ]

On a side note, do captured troops count any more than casualties?

Should we really say 'Multi-gunned' vehicles? Are there any true multiple turrets proper?

They get shot up due to the quality of the Sharpshooter in the Italian scenario (he is Crack). Madmatt </font>

Is it gas? 'cause, if it is, then count me in as one who has it.

OOOH OOOH OOOH eeey eeey eeey AHHHH AHHH AHHH -sez me monkey

If the sherman was a 76mm, then it would not have WP. I found no evidence of it till after WWII. I also found little to only late war evidence of 60mm WP or bazooka WP.

Now THAT would be quite interesting. "You men get back here!" Steve </font>

And rapidly! </font>

If you have beer and pretzels in the FEBA; then, yes, consume them readily.

Standing is never advisable under any artillery or mortar fire. A better drill is to get get next to a tree trunk at its base and 'ball-up' so that you are as small a target as possible. Height, even under airbursts is never a good thing. I would like to see squads partially react by self-splitting so that a half squad could be broken/routed etc and the other half pinned but in good order.

Oh, I think I understand. When something 'pops-up', er, 'down-there', its usually just a hemorroid?

Seanachai's love life is best modeled with an uncooked form of pretzel. Limp dough.

CMAK will fix this and CMBB will probably get one more patch (see CMAK threads)

my monkey needs refreshing..

Some thoughts on trajectory descent angle. Lets take three cases, first is a shell landing perfectly on its nose. That is, its at 90 degrees. A mortar would be a close real world example. Second case is a shell landing at 45 degrees. An artillery howitzer is a good example. Third case is a high velocity flat trajectory weapon landing at 0 degrees. A panther HE round lets say. The mortar round is probably ideal. Its ideal because the sides of the cylindrically shaped body, are 'pointing' (orthogonal) to the target area. Its distribution of fragments is circular about the point of impact. Its frontal spray is directly into the ground but this is a good trade off for the optimization of side spray. The howitzer round landing at 45 degrees will spray the back side wall of the shell into the ground as well as its nose spray. The forward side wall will spray upward. The sides provide most of the lethality. The tank round, as the pantherfiebel drawing shows, is another 'optimal' orientation of the shell. Its basically 'laying' on the grond when detonated. Its sides and part of the top provide a very good side spray. It also provides a very good (and long) frontal spray.

That is my website. Did someone want Herr Knolle's email address? </font>

Notice the intial clover shape in the first zone of lethality (its marked with a 3 for some reason). If you count the squares from the center line, its actually longer than each of the wings is wider. The ricochet shot seems to say that it jumps up to 10meters high and 50 meters forward. [ November 19, 2003, 10:58 AM: Message edited by: Mr. Tittles ]

yes

If a Stug is 'track-down' and facing you, you would be in big trouble. The combination of low height and well protected 'top' areas being exposed could spell doom. The driver's visor, being nearly at track top level, would aid him in getting a good position. Since the gun is nearly at this same level, less top area is exposed. But I think that IF the stug is so invulnerable to 85mm guns, its because the game can not model the complicated shape of the stug. A bad abstraction or a mis used angle/thickness may be in the program. Later stugs, with the Saukopf and additinal track/cement should be tougher but not that tough.

Notice the varying angles of protection offered by the angled plates. The upper hull area (it has the small headlight in the center thats shaped like a German helmet), has a decent slope to it. Was this 80mm or 50+30mm? If so, it would be tiger-esque. But it is a small percentage of protected area. The lower frontal hull area (not in drawing), is more vertical. The outer upper superstructure also has decent sloped areas (these are the parts that were widened). I am refering to the plates that seem to overlap the fenders and go up to the outer roof. But are they 80mm or 50+30mm? Perhaps only 50mm? The area above the driver is steeply sloped and was usually reinforced with tracks/cement. The vulnerable gun shield is actually in a recessed area. It does form a shell trap to fire directly at it. [ November 18, 2003, 12:30 PM: Message edited by: Mr. Tittles ]

The pretzel experiment, hopefully, gave an idea of the dilemma of HE design. A more rigerous explanation is that the distribution can be described as a log function. Imagine a X-Y graph with the function log running up the Y axis (represents number of fragments of a size) and fragment size running up the x axis. The graph of the distribution is a strait line. There will always be large fragments as well as a range of smaller fragments. Its like a ladder against a wall. Where the ladder's legs touch the ground is the largest fragment (its number of fragments being 1 on the log y axis). If you push the ladder towards the wall (because you can not accept having such a large fragment(NOT EVEN ONE!)), then you will also be pushing up the number of smaller fragments (and NOT linearly). In other words, the area under the ladder always stays the same. Its the mass of the shell. Ideally, you would want the shell to break up into an equal amount of optimally sized/shaped fragments. But thats 'perfectionistic' thinking and does not describe the natural fragmentation of a cylindrically shaped HE shell. A better approach is to optimize the maximum MASS of the shell into an acceptable RANGE. Accepting the small and large as being natural elements of the sitution. The real heart of the matter is what is doing the shooting and what is being shot at. Theres basically three cases: 1. Indirect HE howitzer/gun fire 2. Mortar fire 3. HE direct fire Case number 1, with its inherent dispersion of detonation points, is better served by smaller sized/quicker fragments. The forward spray is usually wasted. If forward effects are required, then delay fuze offers an option. Case number 2, Mortar fire, with its inherent steep angle of descent, also requires smaller sized/quicker fragments. If the round comes earth ward too fast, and its fragments are too slow, then they will angle forward (actually downward) and spend themselves into the ground. Not ideal for most mortar work. It is, actually useful for trenches/lt. bunkers/dugout roofs. delay being used in that case. Most mortars have very low velocitys. They also have high HE content and non-cylindrical shape. For case number 3, we are mostly interested in tanks/SPs firing at narrower targets. Things like antitank guns, MG nests, crewed weapons, targets behind walls/buildings, individual vehicles, bunkers, etc. The increased velocity and precision is augmented by having an elongated fragment effect. Indeed, the increased velocity gives it an increased forward fragment area. I would contend that a designer could trade size/high-velocity for more forward acting components IF they still had a size/velocity that was acceptably lethal. Indeed, for penetrating/destroying cover; size matters. A note on Detonation Velocity: In reality, for frag size, Detonation Velocity is actually to the fourth power! Examine the Mott equation. So if one were to double the Detonation Velocity, all other things being equal, then the size of the fragments would be 1/16th. They would also be blown out at greater velocity but ALSO towards the sides. [ November 18, 2003, 01:12 PM: Message edited by: Mr. Tittles ]

Nice. Note the elongated forward spray area. This is an extension of the second zone of casualties. One of my main points about direct fire HE effectiveness is just this. The accuracy of the weapon is along the flight path of the projectile (unless on unusually flat terrain). The elongated path of lethality is ALSO along this path. In most higher angle indirect fire, this elongated path is shorter because of lower velocity and directed into the ground. OV and MV must be SQ or Delay I pressume. The other illustrations seems to show a ricochet shot and perhaps shooting into buildings with delay. [ November 18, 2003, 09:51 AM: Message edited by: Mr. Tittles ]

Heres a pic that shows the uber-playdoo that was put on uber-stugs. http://home.t-online.de/home/a.m.ackens/stugii~1.htm Lots of good pics. The stug upper frontal armored areas are too complicated to be represented in the game.

Did you know that a minor point, if slowed down, can be a moot point?