Amizaur

That is fair

Yes, but there is no possibility to set a tank with no ammo, or with only HE ammo, lacking AP (or vice versa).

I hate plaing WEGO against computer, because of stupidity of my pixeltropens and lack of orders like armor cover arc . I love plaing WEGO against people - then we both have the same limitations . Does anybody knows, if "computer player" is able to "give orders" to his units (or change them) during calculation of WEGO turn ? Or maybe the AI has the same constraints like me, and once orders are plot, they are not changed during the turn ? Are the pixeltropen of my AI opponent also "left on it's own" during the WEGO turn ?

It's ridiculous for me, than breaking a wooden fence causes high chance of track damage for such heavy vehicle like Tiger or Panther tank (with their VERY heavy and thick tracks that could whitstand few penetrations by AP shells without breaking completly). I have olso a feeling that breaking or crossing a stone/brick wall, should mean just some chance of immobilisation (track broken) and not gradual degrataion of mobility. I also have an feeling/impression that ANY hit in "wheels" against my Tiger - either AP shell or bazooka - causes a mobility kill . In reality, it would be difficult to block the running gear by damaging/destroying/removing single roadwheels. First, AP hit or bazooka hit has rather small chance of removing whole wheel (AP would just make a hole if it didn't hit the axle), the bazooka explosion could maybe break one roadwheel away, that would drop out and not affect mobility. It happened that a destroyed roadwheel blocked the running gear, but I bet it was rare occurence comparing to number of all hits on the undercarriage. Track hit is another matter, but again - single penetration of AP shell doesn't automatically mean breaking the track. Usually it become weakened and the tank driver had to maneuver with care to not break it completly. So reduction in mobility (we have this effect modelled already in CMBN, it just should have been assigned properly to events like AP hit). Medium and ligther tanks which didn't have such massive tracks (including PzIV, T-34, Sherman?) would probably get the track broken with a single AP penetration or bazooka hit. I mean, chance for that would be much higher. But hits on roadwheels, especially in case of Tiger and Panther with overlapping suspension, should IMO have slight chance of causing mobility kill - it would have to be an axle hit and whole set of wheels removed, to block the movement. Or leading/trailing wheel anxle damaged - that is sensitive spot.

It woudl be also very helpfull being able to set specyfic number of AP / HE ammo. Or at least an option for "empty". No AP or no HE.

I thought about doing the same test, but it's too late . Maybe tomorrow. There is really a vision block in PzjIV. Who knows, maybe it's modelled . On the other hand, the 37mm shells were solid shots without any HE.Even a penetration would probably only kill a driver and any person direcly on path pf the projectile. But shocked crew could bail out .

In last RT game against AI a lone survivor from a crew of destroyed JagdpanzerIV (almost whole crew was killed just after leaving the tank with MG fire) was so shocked, that about 15s after that I found him about 100m away behind few buildings. Can believe he run there. I suspect he just teleported .

The vehicle status was destroyed, not abandoned...

They taught soldiers to treat the guns well, talk to them gently and care about them, so the guns become very emotionaly attached to it's crew, so much that if it was left alone... you know the result

Yes, whole crew with exeption of the commander (that was so shocked that he teleported some 100m away) was killed after they bailed out. I saw the scene when the crew was just outside the vehicle (and still alive), the vehicle status was "destroyed" just as now. I thought something other killed the Jpz - some unseen tank destroyer, or grenade attack. Didn't really suppose it was the Greyhound... Do you think the crew panicked and just bailed out a JpzIV because it got gun damaged ? They could just back up safely.

I have also an impression that tank commanders are a bit too "HE happy" when engaging single soldiers. Sometimes I could swear a tank unleashes a HE every time it possibly can , even against a single crewman in open field 30m away. Sure, if there was a group of soldiers, an MG, a stronghold, infantry in building - he should use HE. But against single soldiers, or even small groups in open terrain - it could and should use only it's MG very effectively. I believe that historically tanks used mainly MG fire against infantry, reserving HE for more difficult targets - like strongholds, prepared positions, MG, AT-Guns, buildings, or large groups of infantry. Everything else was preferably engaged with - very effective because of optics and great protection for gunner - MG fire. It's mentioned in Tiger Fibel IIRC to save the more expensive HE rounds and use the cheaper MG rounds for soft targets.

How is this possible ? I mean, how the Greyhound could knock-out a Jagdpanzer IV ? Unfortunately, I didn't see that. It was RT play against AI. I sent the Jpz to carefully look out from behind a corner, facing front to the enemy, with Slow command. I had to check something in different part of the map, and when I returned moments later, it was already dead. I wondered what killed him (thought about some unnoticed Bazooka from the side or grenades) but no, it was Greyhound responsible (that was killed by my other tank 5 minutes later).

And the gun follows the crewman after a while ?

An APHE is not a HE shell - it doesn't fragment completly. Only it's rear part - containing a cavity with small amount of HE would fragment to few large pieces, the whole solid front part (about 2/3 of whole shell mass) would usually continue on it's path. The PzGr 39s would detonate as soon as they pierced the first wall, then the rear part of the shell would be fragmented and front part would continue and could easily pierce trough the second wall and any subsequent walls, as long as it has enough energy.

How can he target a soldier he doesn't see ? If he knew there is a soldier two steps back from the window, he could hit him piercing the wood easily, but he can't know, he cant' see him. He should aim to the enemy he CAN see, so to the one at the window. If soldiers in CMBN can target enemies seeing them trough the walls, then we have explanations why the light buildings are giving so poor cover and protection. Fighting from inside of a light buidling would be like trying to fight from a greenhouse....

I know that penetration tables for German guns (and probably for some captured enemy guns) were done this way. But I doubt that the tables about "tank x penetrates tank y from such range" were done in such way. They were just calculated with some assumptions (like tanks are boxes done from homogeneous armor plate, no joints, no weak points, no variable plate quality, single plate thickness). Take a look at some tables for other "tank vs tank" combinations. For example according to those tables, with 30deg side angle, the Panther can penetrate Sherman glacis up to 100m, and also can penetrate T-34 glacis up to 300m. The Tiger can penetrate T-34's front hull only from 100m (at 30deg side angle) - T-34 seem quite well protected against it - and Tiger can't penetrate Sherman glacis at all, at those (30deg) conditions - according to those tables. Maybe those values were calculated assuming enemy tanks are made with good quality German armor plate. The above even might be about to be true... in theory . Performace against a real T-34 tank would be most probably better, and against a Sherman too.

Those tables were not determined by actual shooting tests, but simply calculated by people sitting far from the frontline, probably using intelligence data or even estimates of enemy weapons performance.

The penetration would be entirely possible if the game simulates the weak point at and around the optics port . It was possible to penetrate this point with Russian 45mm AT gun, with very carefull aiming, so it should be possible as well with 57 or 75mm guns.

I think a 75mm Sherman would have hard time penetrating a 25mm armor plate angled at 25deg from horizontal (so 65deg from vertical) at 1000m. Even if it could pierce it, the tricky thing is to get such angle agains Tiger top armor. To be able to see the Tiger from 1000m at 25deg down angle, the Sherman would have to be some ( sin(25deg) * 1000m) = 420m higher than the Tiger . Or the Tiger would have to move down trough some obstacle to set itself at -25deg angle against horizontally shooting enemy. This happened much more often.

The Tiger was not as sensitive as the Panther to rounds deflected into it's roof, because it has 25mm armor on top of the hull in comparison to the Panther's 16mm. It would have to be very lucky shot, to bounce in proper way with enough energy to penetrate Tiger's top armor. IIRC it still happened sometimes, maybe even in Bovington Tiger, but in most cases the tank was not knocked out, rather just a crewman was wounded.

Probably everything depends on morale, motivation, experience of the defending troops - it should also be dependant on those factors in game. And also on individual psychical properities of soldiers. One can have different feeings about the same barrage that the other. It also has to strongly depend on the charakteristics of the barrage - how close the shells are falling (50m or 20m), how often, how bad if looks and feels.... Two barrages described as (shells falling from two hours) can be very different. In this case, the memories you have described, the shells were probably landing quite a distance from the foxholes. There was fear for shrapnel mainly. If the shells were landing 20 meters from their positions they would probably lay on bottom of their foxholes, deafened, covered with flying dirt and chunks of wood, with sand in their tooths. If the soldiers described by CptMike really got several 60mm shells very close (meters) from their positions, they would feel the same. Even if hidden from shrapnel and directly from the blast (so in foxholes), then after several explosions 3-5 meters away they would be thrilled by shockwave and blast, covered with flying dirt, deafened, with their muscles trembling. CptMike said that some shells landed almost directly on their position (it was direct fire IIRC). One former member of polish special forces described his experience with US "Claymore" mines. He experimented a bit with them, when they first got some of them. The mine contains 0.7kg of C4 which is equivalent to roughtly about 1kg of TNT. The minimal safe distance from the "back" of detonating Claymore mine is given as 16m - and the soldier HAVE TO be laying in a shallow foxhole at this range. The guy wanted to better understand the limits so he checked them by himsef, he made some experiments detonating the mines from closer distances. In one experiment, he detonated 4 Claymores simultaneously (so the blast was like 4kg of TNT) while laying on a ground at distance of 6 meters from them, only with cover of his backpack protecting him from light splinters and the immediate blast. He was OK after that, unscratched and healthy, but he concluded he don't recommend lanunching more than two mines simultaneusly this way (from such range) because after the detonation of 4 he was unable to efectively use hand weapons for about a minute, because of deafening, some trembling and overall bewilderment and lack of coordination. The point is, close explosions - even if they do not hurt you - can physically disable your abilities of using weapons effectively, even if you are strongly motivated and not afraid. Really close explosions, that are on the edge of phisical damage by detonation overpressure.

The possible angles of a top armor hit are so extreme, that there is no practical possibility of Tiger's top armor being penetrated, unless there is a high and very steep hill which allows other tank to look with at least 25deg look-down angle. The shooting tank would have to fire from at least -20deg slope also, because from horizontal position it could not drop it's barrel to -25deg either . Then it would have chance penetrating Tiger's 25-40mm top armor. As such situations - with so great look-down angle - almost doesn't happen IRL and in CMBN, then unless it's a mountain scenario, or a very steppy hill, one tank looking at the other at >25deg angle, there is no need to worry about top armor penetrations. At least against a Tiger tank which had relatively strong top armor. Against a Panther maybe -20deg would be possible sometimes.

If we could only ask Those Who Know....

And it doesn't say how long the supression effect of a single round lasts (I guess it's measured rather in seconds, soldier-dependant). Or how long the tactical effect of a whole barrage could last (about one minute?).

Hm there is no LMG in the Vierville scenario. I've checked in the editor to see what was experience and motivation of the German troops that allowed them to resist so well. Experience Regular and motivation Normal. But it's a six man HMG team and 3 man HQ team. If CaptMike saw 2 man, then maybe the rest was already dead. On the other hand, wouldn't a regular and not fanatic MG team that had lost 2/3 of his men to arty and supressing fire - rather think about withdrawal deeper into the woods, closer to other friendly forces, than stand on place and continue defending a position that is under mortar fire ?