stugmeister

Cheers Sarge!

I play mostly Commonwealth forces, and I've noticed something similar. In the case where a section or team is hit by something random, like a shell or long-range fire, the spread of casualties is usually completely random. When the troops are advancing, the gunner seems slightly more likely to be hit, which is probably because the gunner is the one looking for a firing position; when the section is attacking or at close quarters, the submachinegunner is at most danger.
It kind of makes sense, and I have read that junior officers and NCOs historically took more casualties in battle - I usually split of an assault team from the section and hold it back to stop the section leader 'leading from the front'.

No further ideas on the russian "solution". I just can refer to Zaloga´s book which is quite an interesting and well founded read. I was surprised on the mesh armor effects on AT rifle bullets as well. Think I read in some Panzer Tracs book on Pz-IVj about that. The tight mesh screen was figured to either slow the bullet down enough to not let achieve full pentration, or make it tumble or something. Maybe it was just few mm required to not let the bullet penetrate for more serious damage. Still looks like a big effort, but maybe mass employment of AT rifles made germans think it was necessary. They´d surely saved lots of steel wasted on the standard schurzen when they´d come to it sooner.
Edit:
From Panzer Tracts No 4-5 (PzKw IV Ausf. H - Ausf.J, 1943 to 1945:
"...from a test report shows the results of 14.5mm antitank rifle rounds hitting the 5mm plate and the 5mm diameter mesh. The conclusion was that both the 5mm plate and the 6mm diameter mesh had similar properties in absorbing the energy of the projectile before it impacted the main armor."

just a short chapter on soviet armor, but fairly detailed on any the western allied measures on (hoped for) shaped charge protection, like sandbags, concrete or sand filled jerrycans and such. Final conclusion that soviet "experiences" very much contradict US and CW experiences here.
Germans (and others) were surely aware of the stand-off thing, but I lack details on any of that. The Osprey book also doesn´t tell on the why´s and what´s of german developments. Since the late war Panzerfaust 150 was more optimized in this regard I just can guess it had something to do with production and easy handling of the faust in the field. The 150 warhead was more than 50cm long (overall) with long conical head, while the same time having less diameter (100mm something), but better explosive filler. Penetration effects were the same as previous models (200mm). This was attributed to the better filler and the longer cone (for stand-off). The UK Piat round also shows that a certain stand-off was needed for best effect. Another guess of mine would be germans figured the standard 140mm diameter head (30, 60, 100 model) beeing effective enough, even without any head design optimizations. So they´d likely kept it just simple, easy to use and best suited for mass production.
The Osprey book (I think) also mentioned a minimum of 76cm for any anti Faust stand-off measures to have any decisive effect. The russian experience and measure might be something very specific to the Berlin (or late war city) fighting. The angled mesh armor ( @akd ´s link above) might have deflected the Faust´s warhead enough so that the metal jet stream hit the armor at very flat angles. Still I wonder western allies and germans didn´t came to a similar solution.... if it really worked. Zimmerit coating was introduced to counter possible allied magnetic HEAT charges, but didn´t bother with any technical measures to protect vs. PIAT or Zook rounds. Hm....
mentioned Osprey book btw: https://ospreypublishing.com/panzerfaust-vs-sherman

from Ospreys Panzerfaust vs. Sherman it says standoff (spaced) armor even increased the Faust´s effectiveness and penetration ability. So that mesh armor on russian AFV more than likely was a morale thing. Maybe russians have mistaken the german use of mesh armor for anti HEAT protection, while it still was vs. russian AT rifles. Who knows.

They will also go straight in to the top of tank from a raised urban position.

Awhile ago I stumbled across an account of this, or perhaps it was of similar American tests, I forget which. The upshot was (to the best of my recollection) the Faust's contact fuse would fail to detonate as the impact was absorbed by the mesh screen. I want to say it worked 50% of the time but my recollection is on really shaky ground here. There are other reports that claim the stand-off distance from the hull was enough to weaken the shape charge's ability to penetrate. Anyway, the 'bedsprings' on the T-34-85 in the game is more than just eye candy.
 
 

You don't see this happen too often, a 152mm bounced off from a StuG III
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BeqXcyroqg&feature=youtu.be

FIRE!

 
"We hit them hard!"  (just remind me the good old days in WOT )
 
 

Welcome to the 'Game Within The Game'.....Once you've added those AI plans, you will have done all the hard parts of creating a full-blown scenario.
PS - This ongoing thread might prove intereting:
 

Believe Ian Hogg listed PIAT range as something around 700 yards/640 meters, but that's not for shooting tanks. That's for hitting a barn with HE or lofting an illumination projectile. PIAT had a bunch of different projectiles by war's end, I believe. Would imagine the bazooka was somewhere in such range, too, but as I've shown, Patton found accuracy to be so poor he forbade shooting it against tanks at more than 40 yards/36.6 meters. I don't have the ballistic data for 44M KPV, the bazooka or the Panzerschreck, so can't readily compare them. Fortunately, further research yielded some answers. It so happens the German Army's weapon testers (WaPrufAmt) got hold of the 44M KPV and experimented with it, concluding it was inferior to the Panzerscreck, with substantially lower penetration. The figure listed was 100 mm, but no angle was listed. I believe the Germans used a 30 degree from vertical angle for their DF AT tests, but that memory may not be accurate. What's certain is the figure listed was 100 mm and the effective range was 150 meters. Have already shown the Panzerschreck, operated by someone good with it, could hit tank after tank at 200 meters. Since penetration for HEAT is directly affected by liner cone diameter, obviously what  fits in an 88 mm tube, holding tech used constant, is going to out perform a 60 mm projectile. THis is precisely why the RPG-7 has oversized HEAT projectiles to overcome the far poorer penetration possible via what would fit inside the launch tube. Also of note is that the Hungarian AT rocket, because of lower velocity than the Panzerschreck,  had a higher trajectory, which complicated range estimation some but also resulted in better angle of strike vs sloped armor. If I can find my CMBB Strategy Guide (note conditional) I'll see whether BFC has it in the weapon lists there.

https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=71&t=81303

Apparently, the CMBB Strategy Guide is still packed up after I had to clear out one of the rooms here, but a rare book (published briefly by the now defunct Champlin Air Museum) called Trophies of the Red Army in the Great Patriotic War, Volume I and authored by the Senior Curator of one of the Red Army's major museums, listed effective range as 200 meters and 1943-1944 as the period of introduction into service. The facility was the Red Army central study point for captured weapons everywhere the Red Army fought. Sadly, we'll probably never see the full set of books (was intended to be a series) published. Count myself extremely fortunate to have Volume I. 

http://www.aberdeenbookstore.com/books/general-world-war-2/the-trophies-of-the-red-army

Regards,

John Kettler

 

What I thought were Panzerschrecks in a Hungarian newsreel turn out to be homegrown and weird, for the weapons shown are bizarre meldings of elements from the bazooka and Panzerschreck. The name is head-breaking, never mind writing it properly for English speakers.
 

Regards,

John Kettler