Amizaur

Yeah, there are roumors that some our tanks that were left just for a minute unattended, disappeared and also some say that sound of Ukrainian tractors was heard in vicinity....

And this is the reason they should give us those spotting options we talk about, that YOU think are not needed ;P.

What is conceived as "sillines" or "unplayable" by one man, may be seen as a good solution or an interesting game for others...

So they could give us an option - "realistic spotting" vs "normal spotting" to choose.... :-/. I guess "realistic spotting" parameters would have to be developed and fine tuned first (hundreds of hours of testing) to be available even as an option....

Of course I can and probably will do, when I find some time to spare.

But this is example of how it should be. Moving ww2 tabnk should be blind almost like a bat. Only stationary tank can use any kind of magnifing optics and spot effectively on longer distances. Also a stationary observer can easily spot any kind of movement. So moving tank should be spotted almost immediately by stationary tank. And a moving tank should not spot stationary tank unless at close range. Or at least rarely spot it first. In my games I had situations where stationary tank with narrow cover arc (I know narrow cover arc doesn't help in spotting - and it should!) was in ambush position, and moving tank that just appeared spotted it first and killed. Probably because it's spotting cycle was in advance. I was in rage every time.... But let's return to infantry spotting. I think we can safely assume that (regular or better ) infantry is not dumb enough to sit exposed while ordered to hide in some bushes or trees. Especially when a tank appears and is looking in their direction. Even if a tank would spot them (sometimes), it would take a long time. Not few seconds. And a moving time should have no chances to spot them at all. Semmes, can you repeat the test with moving tanks ? And with stationary tanks facing to the side ?

I'm amazed by lack of comments after your experiment, too :). I would say it's definitely not right that WW2 tanks detect so easily (and quickly!) troops hiding in bushes and woods.

OK I though this was data from some kind of test shooting

My experience is that unit that was shot (hit) gets instant, "free" info about shooter localisation, without need to wait for it's "7s" cycle. Of course not always, but in some conditions (like close-medium range and clear LOS). Maybe just an instant detection check is performed. I may be wrong but this is what I remember from my tests (was testing another matter but it involved some units being hit and I observed their reaction) and games. Would have to test it to be sure.

Could you fix the link please ? It's "not clickable" for me.

"he was responding to some WW II data saying it took a 76 mm gun Sherman 13 rounds to hit a fully exposed tank at 1500 meters 50% of the time." 76mm gun had quite decent muzzle velocity, so it seems for me it was really poor gunner if it didn't hit the exposed tank at 1500m with 3rd or 4th shot at worst. Could you describe conditions of this shooting in more details ? Why did he need 13 shots and what "50% of the time" mean in this context ?

I would like to point that: 1). the tank was unaware about that sniper before the sniper opened fire, so the sniper was not spotted 2). when the sniper opened fire (one shot) the tank IMMEDIATELY knew the position of the sniper and returned fire. This is unrealistic IMO. Even if the sniper was not hidden well enough, finding the direction of enemy fire (a SINGLE rifle shot), scanning that area, finding the sniper (which under various conditions and backgrounds possible could be not trivial even using thermals) should take some time. Especially immediately knowing the direction of the single rifle shot is totaly unrealistic for me - in the other case, specialised "sniper detection" acoustic systems would be not needed !!! I believe that in some conditions (clear LOS is one I guess, range less than xxx is the second) the game engine automaticly reveals position of the shooter to the victim. I've seen this many times. An enemy tank is taken by surprise by a side shot from 500m and if not killed outright, it immediately starts to rotate turret and return fire. Not a second of hesitation, thinking, frantically scanning trough vision slots. It always know position of the shooter and knows it the very second it shot. Even if this mechanism is needed (as removing it would broke the game somehow) it should be modified to include a random 2-10s delay between taking fire and "detecting" the enemy and some (like 20%) chance to completly fail to detect the shooter. I tlk about detecting gunfire and automatic weapons sources now. Detecting single small calibre shots is yet another matter. There should be very small chance they would be detected at all, and even then it should take some time (for troughly scanning the surroundings at _suspected_and_approximate_ direction of fire) and not 0.01s.

IIRC one of the complains about the Panther D performance during first days of Kursk battle was that unusually high number of gunsights were damaged and workshops were quickly out of spare gunsight parts. This could be because of two factors: 1). Panther mantlet was unusually big in comparison to whole front turret profile, 2). it COULD take a 76mm blow on mantlet and keep going, only with optics damaged - instead of whole tank being destroyed like would be in case of PzIII or PzIV catching same 76mm hit:).

That "warhead like object" mentioned is just a reflection on camera lens... Which is obvious when the video is wached at normal FPS rate. Reading above text further thatn that is just waste of time.

Usually ammo explosion is caused by accelerating rapid burning of propellant charges in confined space and is indeed much slower. But sometimes the explosion is instant and powerfull - like here (I've seen some similar ones before). I guess such quick and powerfull explosion is caused by _detonation_ of 120mm HE or HEAT warhead which causes further _detonations_ of other warheads and/or propellant charges (which can detonate too in specific conditions). Detonation is very different process than rapid burning, happens almost instantly and causes astronomical overpressue values, even in unconfined spaces. Such force can easily shred a tank to pieces, even if it has all hatches open. Not every exposion is caused by detonation of high explosive. It could be also very rapid burning of several propellant charges at once triggered by HEAT jet, causing so rapid and great overpressure inside the tank, that hull sides were torn off before the turret flew away. Very rapid burning of several propellant charges at once could look very similar, hard to tell for sure what happened. One thing to note - If such powerfull explosion (caused by cumulative jet detonating one of HE or HEAT warheads) happened after hit into the turret bustle magazine, the armored wall between ammo and crew compartment would probably be not enough to save the crew... I know there is work on insensitive munitions going on - the propellant charges are harder to ignite and harder/impossible to detonate, high explosives and primers/caps are less sensitive to overheating in case of fire, but I doubt that HE used are insensitive enough, to not detonate if penetrated by cumulative jet.... anybody knows if such insensitive high explosives (not triggered by direct cumulative jet hit) are used in tank rounds ? edit: I checked internet and it seems that insensitive explosives can be _to some extend_ resistant to penetration by shaped charge jet. Especially by smaller ones. Greater the energy (mass, velocity) of the jet, smaller the chances that the explosive will not be triggered. I think there is little chance that typical tank round's warhead will not detonate when hit directly by jet from powerfull ATGM warhead. Second thing to consider - if the rounds used by Turkish military in their Leo2s use modern, insensitive high explosives / propellants at all.

Well hardened AP rounds often penetrated RHA armor undamaged and undeformed. They were designed to penetrate intact, so were made to be harder (in front part) than armor they were supposed to penetrate. Chances of shell breaking up or it's deformation were higher If the hit velocity was very high and armor thick, or the armor was hit at an angle. Probably not much German Pzgr 39s survived penetration of T-34 frontal slope in bursting condition. They either penetrated in damaged condition and did only kinetical damage - still enough to knock-out the crew, but in many cases only left big holes in T-34s armor with pieces of steel thrown inside (injuring or even killing the crew), but actually bounced away. From some T-34 crew memories (of 1944-45) - clean penetrations of T-34 front hull armor were rare. Armor was not especially hard to be holed, but in most cases those were partial penetrations. Once after the fight they found several holes in front armor, and an unexploded shell in the fighting compartment, but luckily no one was seriously injured. Seems for me that the T-34s 60-deg sloped armor saved lives of many, many tankers which would be killed with shell burst if they fought behind vertical or 30-45deg sloped armor of equivalent thickness... Thin sloped armor didn't stop all the shells, but damaged the penetrating ones and made less effective after penetration.

Actually, the hit was a bit above the two (binocular) gunsight holes. They should be close to the lower edge of that hole. But the mantlet is not of reinforced type, and the armor in gunsight area is thinner (there is an indentation from the inner side). From 95 to 110mm and weakened by the gunsight holes. http://tiger1.info/EN/Telescope-holes.html And the shot was probably from close range.... I guess this penetration was a reason for reinforcing this area in later versions. Reinforced mantlets seem to be tougher :). Still - unlucky hit into ( or only a few centimeters from) the hole with >=85mm AP would IMO get trough anyway....

Larger photo: and a comment: "According to TIFF, the original photo caption stated that only the Gunner "Willems" died and Commander "Philipsen", was heavily wounded. "11.03.1943 - The Tiger and a KW1 shot at the same second and both were immobile at the same time. Tiger gets a hit right into the optics on the gun mantlet and the shell exploded in the turret."

And a dozen or two of such penetrators dropped from a bomber at 30k feet ;). Or fired ballistically by MRLS rocket engines (like rocket propelled JDAMs). Such penetrator may be a solid rod of metal or just a concrete filled 500lb bomb :). That's quite energetic thing (better yet, it has lot's of momentum) and there is no APS system that can defend a tank from it No warhead to detonate, no fragile construction to damage/distort. Only thing possible to damage would be the seeker, but it can't be done at the last moment - the massive thing would hit the target anyway... a task for a SAM rather than an APS :).

"I feel that we can positively ID the vehicle as a T-34/76 M1942" - I came to the same conclusions :), not an Is but T-34/76 model with a cast turret.

I wanted to write that I'm sure it's an IS tank, but I'm not anymore :). There should be 3 people in the turret, not two. The turret seems "roomy" but that may be just an illusion. The shell loaded is a bit small for an 85mm, but I have to check that. I'll try to verify the hatches in the turret and other visible details, which tank are from. Anyway, the point is - after seeing this clip, now every time a T-34 is killed in CM, I will feel that this young boy from gunner's seat just died.... :/

Sorry for off-topic, but I couldn't resist when you said about "puttingf a human face"... Recenlty I watched a documentary about IS-2 tank. The document was not especially interesting, but one thing suddenly touched me. There was some veteran talking about the tank, and suddenly they showed a few seconds of monochrome footage showing those young boys inside their tank, moving and laughing. They were so young.... Suddenly I saw those people who fought and died in those tanks. It was very moving for me. I watched A LOT of WW2 videos, but never felt so... connected ? With those people. Maybe it is so because I personally was inside an old rusty IS-2 tank - in the same place, the same seat, where this young man sits. So I could easily visualise myself on his place, or next to him, 70 years ago... The original footage of young men inside an IS-1 (it's an Is-1 probably, because they seem to load an 85mm shells) begins about 16:18 nd lasts only few seconds. The inside of tank is painted white. In the video there is also a story of an IS-2M tank pulled from a swamp after 60 years. It's an IS-2M because added side stowage bins above tracks are visible. So it was probably lost in post-war times, after 1954. Original tank was is late type IS-2, with single-piece glacis and wide gun mantlet. The mantlet itself is massive, one-piece casting, thicker in central part. Never seen such mantlet before, it's something in between typical IS-2 mantlet and IS-3 mantlet in shape. Evolution, I guess. Wonder if it's war-time produced, or maybe it was replaced later for some reason. This mantlet seems to provide much better protection than typical IS-2 mantlets I've seen so far. Again, sorry for off-topic :).

I guess that a modification to Javelin software to make it using higher trajectory, with terminal dive angle close to vertical, would extend it's effectiveness against most APS systems. Of course that wouldn't work in case of low clouds base. What could be next step ? Adding a precursor missile fired forward at the last moment ? Smart APS radar could recognise and ignore that. But it could work for some time. Best solution against any APS would be a heavy, pure kinetic weapon, like LOSAT - there is simply no defense against this thing. But such missile has to be big and heavy... not man portable.

You may be 100% accurate at 1500m against full silhouette targets - if you do not make any stupid mistakes while aiming (which come easily if you are nerveous because it's for real and you may die). But in combat (especially low intensit combat like in Ukraine now) you probably rarely have comfort aiming to full silhouette of advancing targets, but rather to upper part of turret, or just a turret roof, or part of tank (the rest covered by something solid). And here "point and shoot" may be not enough, exact range to target is needed to hit it with first shot. (The above statement is based on playing tank sim games only not real life)

(Off topic warning! ) What version of SB are you talking about ? I become interested The version of SB I played was dated 2001 . It was absolutely great then - playing it was simultaneously exciting and frustrating. I discovered I wouldn't want to be a real tank commander during war time - it takes great skills to do it well, and life could be very short anyway (especially was for me) :). Unfortunately I didn't try later versions of SB.