Tank Hunter
-
Posts
277 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by Tank Hunter
-
-
John,
You're right this is from the CAT competition.
Here is the data I have from the book
Team - Tank - Time between Detection and Hit - No Of Hits - Hit %
USA - M1 Abrams - 10.2 sec - 44-45 - 93%
The Netherlands - Leopard 2 - 11.9 sec - 46 - 96%
West Germany - Leopard 2 - 11,9 sec - 42-45 - 91%
West Germany - Leopard 1 - 16,2 sec - 45 - 93%
Belgium - Leopard 1 - 16,2 sec - 41 - 85%
UK - Chieftain - 13 sec - 38 - 79%
USA - M60A3 - 14,1 sec - 37 - 77%
Canada - Leopard C1 - 16,2 sec - 34 - 71%
As you can see UK did not excel in any way, their detection times was decent but hit probability was not so good compared to top tier.
What's interesting is comparison between Leo tanks, look at the times, it seems that those are what you could expect to get from Leo tank since it does not differ from country to country, hit % however is another story. Canadians had 71% in Leo 1 while the Germans had 93%
-
Now that I've read few more pages he does provide some data for NATO from a tank competition in June1985. Chieftain, Abrams and Leopard tanks were engaging targets (1.9 x 1.6 m) from both standing and moving positions. The distance to the targets was from 800 to 2000 m. The fastest crew was American, they successfully neutralized their targets with an average time of 6.2 seconds. Leopard 1 tanks required an average time of 16 seconds from detection to hitting the target. The Abrams tanks achieved 93% hit probability while Dutch crews with Leo 2 achieved 96% hit probability.
-
Don't know about the type of tank he refers to, he only mentions that the effective range for T-55 is 1500 meters which I interpret as an example. He also claims that local commanders tampered with training results many times because of the personal aim of getting promoted. A commander who´s unit did good in training was considered for promotion much faster than a commander of average unit, this led to grades being higher than they usually were. If you put all these things together along with better spotting capabilities of NATO tanks you realize that Soviet tanks would have faced a very short life on the battlefield. Judging by the response of our Russian friends above it seems that Steven was not that far off with his 60 seconds claim at least not for the period he describes.
Now this leads me to wonder if 4-5 seconds for NATO crew is really true? Maybe someone who has served in an Abrams or Leopard tank could pitch in here? I always kind of questioned fictional novels of WWIII where Soviet tank hordes were being picked off by few dug in NATO tanks. It always seemed to me as kind of wishful thinking rather than a scenario based on real world facts. They kind of reminded me of those old WWII movies where a steady stream of Germans would continuously run out through a door and get gunned down by Allied machine guns.
-
I'm reading a book called Red Thrust: Attack on the Central Front, Soviet Tactics and Capabilities in the 1990s by Steven Zaloga and I know it's dated for detailed comparison of today's Russian capabilities but one thing that struck me so far is the claim by the author that typical Soviet tank crew was expected (on training ground) to destroy an enemy tank within 60 Seconds!
I found that strange since 60 seconds even in late 80s was considered an eternity on the modern battlefield. The author claims that the commander got 10 seconds to detect and mark the target, the loader received info on type of ammo and the gunner aimed at the target using laser designator and other targeting devices. The crew got than additional 20 seconds to fire the first projectile. This would mean 30 seconds to fire first projectile. Effective range meant 50% hit probability and to increase this to 80% additional two shots were required. The crew received another 15 sec for every additional shot.
What is remarkable is that I've seen western numbers in range of 4-5 seconds from detection to firing first projectile. If these numbers are true and considering the Soviet doctrine being to attack first in per-emptive purpose any type of armored thrust would quickly turn into a Turkey shoot for NATO. There have been claims that Western forces and Israel have been able to neutralize so many Arab tanks due to bad training and inferior equipment compared to a standard Russian tank of similar model. Looking at the numbers above one has to wonder how much better the Soviet army would actually be in a head on engagement against NATO.
If we look at top tier tanks of the Russian army today they are still based on the same base models as those in the 90s. Most likely they have improved fire and control but if 60s was norm in early 90s then let's say they got it down to 15s today it's still way much slower than 4-5 seconds. And here I'm assuming that NATO has been standing still in that dpt for the last 25 years which is most likely not the case....
One additional thing that the author claims is that a T-72 main gun showed serious wear after 120 fired projectiles, Soviet doctrine believed that tanks would not survive anyway for more than 120 shots so additional work on the main gun was considered waste of time and money. This led to heavy restrictions on how many projectiles the crew could fire on the training ground, most crews were trained in special training platoons and did not use their own tanks in order to save the main gun from wear and tear. This led to poorly trained crews in general.
It seems that current spotting advantage that American forces have over the Russian counterparts is properly modeled, they may even be somewhat off in favor of the Russians if the above is true.
-
Here is a video showing what seems to be Rebels shooting at a passing vehicle of some sort. I guess at least part of the retreat was not so orderly performed. As mentioned in a previous thread retreating when in contact is not an easy task to perform properly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVARL4JKZtc&feature=player_detailpage#t=506
Another one I found that claims to be Rebels cleaning an industrial area. Look at the autoloader when it spits out the casing. Also bunching up behind a tank doesn't seem to be that good of an idea.
-
John,
If I remember the issue was related to the position of the crew in the vehicle, the spotting is caluclated from the "eyes" of the crew so if they are located in the hull then you need to have the hull exposed in order to "see". Most tanks and IFVs have crew in the turret hence the posibility to go hull down and still see.. A potential workaround would be to have "extra eyes" positioned where the sensor is but that would maybe increase the spottining ability to much, you would basically be attaching another crew member to the vehicle? Another would be to move a set of eyes higher up but that would maybe affect spotting in other cases when hull is exposed..
Sure would hope to see an official reply on this one. As you mentioned vehicles like Kryzantema are basically dead fish in the water if they can't go hull down...
-
pnzrldr,
Since the LRAS constitutes your ground level long range eyes, why wasn't it parked in such a way only the optics (and part of the operator) were exposed, rather than being in the thick of things almost from the beginning?
This has been discussed in other threads, if I recall correctly there was was a limitation in CMSF with similar vehicles due to how spotting works in CMx2. Apparently you have to expose the entire vehicle in order to use the sensors. Someone raised this in another thread asking if it was fixed but I did not see an official answer so the issue may still be around in CMBS.. I hope that is not the case since it would prohibit the proper use of LRAS. Pnzldr's deployment suggest however otherwise
... -
Very COMPETENTLY photoshoped! Well Done!
Thanks! It is Photoshoped, the idea came to me as I was browsing through the CMBS forum, that picture of him sitting in front of a PC with the monitor visible was a perfect match...
-
Here is the latest Beta Tester for CMBS. Verifying that Russian equipement is modeled correctly.
-
Damn that T-90 is a Mission Kill (more or less)...
-
Show us some Russian soliders please! We have been seeing US infantry since CMSF, we know how they look like
If you have been struggling with US uniforms I can only imagine what you have been going through with the Russian ones. It seems like whenever you see a picture of Russian soldiers it's a different uniform or some mix between two or three uniforms. Somethime whole units have balaclavas and sometimes they wear bandanas!
Maybe with Ratnik they will finally have same type of uniform but somehow I doubt it. It seem like a typical Russian soldier will make his own uniform once in field. Camo pants with tracksuit jacket and Adidas sneakers along with a green bandana and Ray Bans. Thank god we have Modders!
-
They will also deploy nvgs where appropriate, they will however have nvgs that are less capable than the US. This is from a comment I beleive Chris made in his Twitch thread. I don't know if Ukranians will have any nvgs avaliable.
-
Yeay!! Here we go.. Looking Forward to see how this develops! Thx for doing this Bil!
-
I'm just afraid that we "The West" are cornering Putin and that he may bite and try to fight his way out. On the other hand something needs to be done, if we are not ready to use force to tell him that behaving like he does in not ok then sanctions are the only tool left. It's just that based on what I hear the Russian media is brainwashing Russian people into beleving that the EU and USA are anti-Russian which may eventually "justify" a more agressive stance by Putin. Let's just hope it doesn't come to that...
-
I agree with BletchleyGeek, this type of equipment plays a role in the buildup, you don't want your enemy to know your intensions so deception is very important. Once the gloves are off and the tanks are rolling the importance of Nakidka is very small on the tactical level. If you have achieved surprise and have logistical and numerical advantage you will most certainly win the initial attack even if the enemy is considered more advanced technically. If you have read German accounts from WWII they often claim that Soviet soldiers were experts at camouflage, they were apparently able to construct advanced hidden positions in very short amount of time. I believe this deception culture is still present within the Russian Army as has been displayed recently in Crimea and also in the Eastern Ukraine.
As BletchleyGeek said the Serbs showed the importance of hide and seek during the NATO air campaign in 1999. Serbian army had no chance against NATO and they never tried to do anything outside their comfort zone. The Serbian army in Kosovo was able to withdraw mostly intact thanks to the deception tactics developed and utilized during the air campaign. As the battle assessment showed not many Serbian tanks or APCs were found destroyed, those that did were mostly old models like T-55 while only few of more "modern" M-84 (T-72) were found burned out.
The Serbs built dummies of tanks, bridges and aircrafts in order to provide NATO planes with "valid" targets. What was mostly impressing was the ability of the Serbian integrated air defense system to survive and remain in operation during the entire air conflict. This was achieved by utilizing school book examples of operating SAMs and Radars by moving constantly, something that is REALLY IMPORTANT on the modern battlefield. The Arabs never learned this lesson during their wars with Israel and US/NATO. All this was achieved with pretty obsolete Russian technology, after all the Serbs had been under strict sanctions for 9 years up to that point. Most of their IAD equipment originated from 70s. By not being able to knock out the IAD completely NATO planes had to stay high in order to minimize the risk, something that limited their ability to operate successfully. In the end it was the bombing of the bridges, factories and government buildings that made the Serbs to wave the white flag. These were not originally intended targets but NATO planners switched their approach once they figured that they couldn't shut down the Serbian air defense properly. Hiding your infrastructure is not easy. At the end the political goal was achieved and that’s what mattered for NATO….
-
The T-90 is armed with 9M119 AT-11 SNIPER (9M119M Refleks) laser-guided missile with a hollow-charge warhead that is supposed to be effective against both armored targets and low-flying helicopters, will they be able to engage helicopters in CMBS?
-
Hey
Stop bullying the T-90!
I'm sure it's a potent weapon in the right hands under the right conditions. With that said I'm also sure the Abrams is easily destroyed when used incorrectly under bad conditions. Now if we are talking one on one, platform vs platform, plain ground, standing and exchanging then I'm pretty sure we all would bet our money on the Abrams.. -
Hope to see them, they were really fun to play with in SF. USMC also..
-
Great news, looking forward to this.
-
Yeah, that's what I end up doing. Would be nice to have some element of the fog of war return to QB's, though. It's MUCH better in CMBN than what how it was in CMSF, where the fog of war applied to your force mix as well as your enemy's.
Someone also suggested setting up 10 QBs where you pick AI forces, once finished you pick one among them, with that many battles chances are you'll forget which forces you bought for the AI. Increases the element of surprise a bit.
-
As the title suggests, are there any Flames mods out there now that we have flamethrowers in the game. The stock one kind of dissapointed me, it looks flat, maybe it's not the graphics but the model behind. The smoke looks nice in game, they should have used same type of volumetric model to represent a flame coming out of a flamethrower..
-
Thx for the explanation Michael and Mikey..
-
Look harder. They've always been there.
My bad ofcourse they are in, I was thinking about the usage of the turret mounted MG as portrayed in the movie, with a crew member standing on the back of the tank and firing from a standing postion.
.jpg)
All 50 cals we have in CM are fired with the gunner standing in the turret. The mounting of the 50 cal in the movie and pictures seems different compared to what we have in CM. So my rephrased questions would be: When was the outside firing position used? What was more common?
-
Just came back home from the cinema and I'm quite dissapointed. I thought it was a decent movie up to the Tiger Scene and then it just spiraled down to pure crap. Remember when Norman spotted the incoming SS? They were shown carying a lot of Panzer fausts, then they get ambushed by the Sherman and suddenly nobody is close by with a Panzer faust? After a while they bring a crate with Panzer fausts but only two are used? And those shotes where they open the hatch and look inside, cmon.. I kind of wanted to walk away during the last fight.
I would like however to see better model of WP grenades in CM.
Also when did they start mounting 50 cal on Sherman turrets? Would be nice to have them in CM games.
...
Armata soon to be in service.
in Combat Mission Black Sea
Posted
It's not that hard to understand the reasoning of Russian doctorine. It's purely historical. Russia is like an assault victim that almost died. It will do whatever necessary to prevent that from happening again. If you look at the numbers below you'll understand (these are only millitary, the real numbers are twice that high). Nukes are fine but what if that option is not possible or avaliable, using nukes against a nuclear armed opponent is suicidal hence the nukes will in that case keep it convential. You need to have a backup plan. Everyone in the neighborhood knows that Russia is living in a safe area but tell that to the victim.. Their strategy is to fight a war as far away as possible from Russian border that's why having a buffer to potential enemy is crucial for Russia. Why let Russian people suffer when you can let Polish or Ukranian do that for you.