Amizaur

There is no obligation to use the shoot&scoot command for people who don't want/need it. For me, some conditional commands (like this idea, which is much needed and usefull) would move the game "goodness" to another level and actually make me playing it again :).

Shoot-and-scoot should be fairly easy to code. Just another conditional order. Move to one waypoint and activate "shoot&scoot there (or stay here where you are and activate it) and then when contact is made and first shot launched, reverse (for vehicles) or run (for soldiers) to the next designated waypoint. Sounds simple. Would be great also for AT guns. And if we could also specify number of shots, for example two shots and then reverse.... Well such tactical move is a kind of fundamental for armored vehicles - it is used in real life and every sim game, and currently can't be done effectively in CM. Tanks in CM can only stay where they are and "duel" each other, or reverse only when facing stronger enemy (sometimes even before they make any shooting).... If I don't know when enemy appears, I can't even plan "shoot for 15 seconds and then reverse" logic.... Only conditional order can do that. And the time (or number of shots) should be counted from the first shot made. Can't remember why similar order didn't work well in CMBB, I suppose it's realisation was not optimal (there was something like "move here, stay for 10 seconds and move back" and that's it. Nothing conditional. IIRC of course. It was long ago. Sometimes it even happened that after moving to fire position, detecting the target and aiming took so long that the shot was made while already reversing.

I believe that word "beamrider" means that missile flies along the patch of the laser beam. And this is the way Kornet guidance works. The laser receiver is in the rear part of the missile, rear looking, so it's protected from any jamming or blinding the enemy may try. It also receives the laser light directly, so the laser can be much less powerfull (and harder to detect, it is possible it won't be detected at all). Disadvantages are that missile has to literally follow the beam of the laser, so it flies in straight line - usually straight to the target. It can't use ballistic, top-attack or any non-direct trajectory (the only thing that can be done is to point the laser beam only in proximity of the target at first, this way target would not detect the laser, then put the beam directly on the target later, but this has to be done gently). And as the missile flies along the LOS to target, measuring the trajectory of the missle at last few hundred meters (which APS systems like Trophy do) can pinpoint the exact location of the launcher, even if the laser beam itself was not detected. Another way of laser guidance (Semi-Active Laser Homing) is using a strong laser designator to paint a "spot" on the target, and a missile having a laser spot detector in the front guides on that spot. This is the way laser guided bombs and laser guided Hellfire missile works. Missle can then follow almost any trajectory (direct, semi-ballistic with top attack, non-direct to mask firing position) while closing the distance, only pointing directly at the target in the last moment to hit it. Disadvantages of semi-active method - laser has to be strong (because the missile receives not direct, but reflected laser light from long range), is easlily detected by warning devices, the laser detector in the front of the missile can be potentially jammed or blinded, also it doesn't work very well in presence of fog, smoke and other obscurants.

The Kornet-M missile is a laser-beam rider. This means that it flies along the LOS to target. I can't imagine how a top-attack mode could be realised with such guidance (without changing Kornet's warhead from front-looking HEAT to down-looking EFP or HEAT to realise Overflight Top Attack mode, like TOW 2B). P.S. I wonder what kind of damage could be expected from a warhead of thermobaric version of Kornet (comparable to 7-10kg of TNT) detonated 2m over the top of tank's turret, while overflying it. Nothing good for the vehicle, I guess. Effectiveness would not be great, but mission-kills could easily happen. And for sure any unbuttoned crewmans would be killed...

A Tunguska cuts loose main action is closer to the end of the video.

I think that a CM game about 1982-85-89 conflict would be very interesting. We know much more about 1980's era weaponary than about today's stuff - lot's of unclassfield or well-estimated data - so from technical point of view a game about that era would be much more realistic than something about current or 2020+ conflict. It's much easier to realistically simulate weapons if we know how exactly they worked and what were their parameters and limitations. Especially in last 10 years lots of beliefs about cold-war armor turned out to be myths. Would be interesting to simulate this conflict with use of current state of knowledge. Some tactics would have to change, outcomes could change too... And the way of fighting in 80-s would be something in between classic WW2 tactics and today's electronic battlefield where what can be seen, can be killed. I miss a good CM-like game about this era....

It's not CMRT screenshot, but worth seeing. It's video of test before Victory Day's parade in some Russian city. Not only we can see some running Russian pre-war and early-war tanks (that I would love to see in CMx4 some day) but they move so slow that the engine and track sounds are quite unusual I never seen tanks going so slow with so low engine rpm ! How loud those tracks are !

I've just bought the 4.0 engine for CMRT. And this is what installer said to me: Combat Mission: Red Thunder v2.00 "Game Engine 4" Upgrade README PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING IMPORTANT README FILE BEFORE CONTINUING WITH THIS INSTALL!!! (This Readme file is also available after the installation inside the game installation directory) VERSION REQUIREMENT This v2.00 "Game Engine 4" Upgrade of Combat Mission: Red Thunder requires you to have a working copy of Combat Mission: Black Sea installed AND PATCHED TO v1.01 or later. I hope it's an error in the installer info text... I have no CMBS.... P.S. It has patched ok and I'm able to run it ! So it seems that CMBS is not needed

Thanks, John :). Regards!

I got my Leeb type steel hardness tester. First trials went well, it seems that it's suitable for measuring hardness of armored steel. Parts of armor tend to be big, thick and heavy and that is exactly kind of target for Leeb meter (it can't measure small objects). The only problem is that reliable and accurate measurement requires a bit of clean, bare, smooth metal surface, even more clean and smooth than for ultrasonic thickness meter. It's very hard to find such bare and smooth metal surface on an old tank (it's either rusty, or painted, or both) and cleaning it with sandpaper usually is out of question (if it's some museum piece). I tried the meter on piece of rusty 8,8cm PzGr39 (not very reliable results from 300BHN at the base, 500 BHN on the side, near front of body, and 500-600 BHN at the tip of the cap). Second try was on the T-34/76 tank (hybrid of 1941/1942 models) that is on a monument 1,5km from my living place :). I use it to test equipment ;). https://www.flickr.com/gp/136792894@N05/u3Qh0o https://flic.kr/s/aHskuG6J1h Finding good surface for measurements was very hard. Eventually I managed to do measurements of front upper plate, rear upper plate, gun mantlet in it's upper part, side turret armor, casting for hull MG mount and the cast bar that connects front upper and lower plates. Not all measurements were reliable, but some were. Results are as follow (in BHN = HB scale): Front upper plate RHA 46mm ~ 400 BHN (390-420 range, two higher results - 460 once, 500 once, 520 once - are probably errors, the surface was not completly smooth and clean) Rear upper plate RHA 46 (?) mm - reliable 400 BHN result, probably done from the same type of plate like the front, sides, turret, mantlet and all other 45mm thick RHA parts. I didn't measure this plate so I'm not sure it's 45mm (and not 40), but it seems to be 45 (whole tank done from single RHA plate thickness). Side turret plate (bent RHA plate) 46mm - 400-420 BHN Gun mantlet piece (bent RHA piece) 46mm - 340 BHN (up to 360 BHN in some places, guess it's because of some forging action). nose casting (100mm thick) - most readings in 460-520 range. It's a part that connects the front upper and lower plates. I got also lower and higher results (280...400....550) and I'm not sure if harndess is variable trough piece, or results are spread because of rough surface. MG mount casting, upper part 40mm thick - 300-320 BHN All 45mm thick RHA parts seem to be made from the same type of armored plate (400-420 BHN) - with exeption of gun mantlet which is also 45mm thick but gave lower readings (340-360 BHN), maybe because it was formed by press bending and maybe retempered in the process, or something. Now I'm ready to go and measure high hardness castings of IS-2 mod 1944 :). It should be easier, there is lot of polished, bare metal spots on IS-2 exhibit than on T-34.

I have a question about the TOW missle used in this engagement. The missile in flight has a positive angle of attack of about 10-15deg. If the warheads were aligned in the axis of the missile this would effectively make penetration of highly sloped armor even harder as the jest would be going slightly upward. I wonder if the warheads in the TOW missle (or any anti-tank missile) are aligned as slightly "looking down" to correct for the missile "upward" atttiude so the direction of the HEAT jet would be same as flight vector ? Or maybe warheads are aligned with even more down angle, like -30deg ? The speed of the missile is low enough that the lateral movement of the jest should be minimal and not affect it's performance much. Then warhead would (in most cases) has less LOS armor thickness to penetrate than if it was aligned horizontally.

I've read lot's of Russian tanker's memoirs. Very often they mentioned using smoke grenades to either hide their tank from the enemy if they had to stop in the open field (for example a track broken while attacking trough an open field under AT fire - first thing to do was to throw a smoke grenade on the tank (to pretend it's on fire) or in front of it (in a way that the smoke would at least partially mask the tank from the enemy). Often Germans would buy that and stop shooting at it, as there was many other advancing tanks to fire at). Once I've read about firing a smoke grenade INSIDE the tank (in hopeless situation - single tank damaged and immobilised in the open under enemy fire) so the smoke was emited trough open hatches, then withstanding the smoke laying on the floor untill the grenade burned out. It worked. They then stayed in the damaged (presumed dead) tank untill next assault started and other Russian tanks arrived. So at least the Russian tankers used smoke grenades a lot, they were very important to them.

I didn't notice that, good observation !

You are very kind for me, guys, nice to hear that. Thanks. Cheapest portable leeb steel hardness meter - from about $300. examples: http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Portable-Digital-Leeb-Hardness-Tester-Leeb-Hardness-Meter-Leeb-Hardness-Gauge-HM-6561/32263489896.html http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Promotion-price-YHT100-Portable-Rebound-Leeb-Hardness-Tester-170-960-HLD/32606745968.html

To measure hardness with portable leeb meter I would need a tiny (few milimeters) places of bare metal, clean of rust and/or paint. On most tanks I examined there happened small places stripped of paint and rust to bare metal (thousands of people/children climbed on them and some fragments of armor were almost polished with their of boots) so this should not be a problem. The leeb hardness meter uses a small, spring driven weight with tiny tungsten tip. The tip hits the surface of the metal and the response of the metal (how the tip/weight bounces) is measured, which can be converted to hardness level. It's not _strictly_ indestructive meter - the hardened tip of the weight leaves a small (fraction of milimeter) pit/dent on the metal surface, but the mark is so small that it's probably not visible untill you know where too look for it. Good readings from ultrasonic thickness meter required a flat, smooth part of armor about 1cm in diameter, either without paint/rust or with only thin, good layer of paint. Finding such places on surface of crude casting is not easy, but usually possible. If whole surface was without paint and covered with rust, I would probably have to clean small fragments to bare smooth metal (so would need permission for that).

Jason, I understand what you wrote but I can't explain this. I can only speculate. - Maybe hard 115mm armor resisted undermatched 75mm shells much better than "normal hardness" armor, so 100-115mm of it was equivalent of some 115-130mm of "normal armor" against 75mm shells. - To penetrate from 750-1000m from 7L48 quite small vunerable area (part of curved armor that is almost vertical) would have to be hit. Maybe such hits didn't happen or were not attempted. - Maybe after the Germans estimated head-on range against IS-2 at some 100-300m, PzIV commanders didn't even try to engage frontally at longer ranges, so no penetrations happened. - Maybe there are no ~1000m front turret penetrations by 75L48 because nobody dared to engage Is-2 with PzIV _directly_ head-on (with IS turret at 0 deg side angle, IS gun aiming at the shooter) because it would be considered to risky/stupid/suicidal (shooter too easily spotted and fired back), so front engagements were attempted only with some side angle (when IS-2 gunner was looking elsewhere, not pointing at the shooter). In German (calculated) WaPruf tables of enemy tanks vunerability ranges they always included an additional 30deg side angle in calculations, which makes those ranges much shorter than expected head-on ones. Unfortunately we could veriyfy that only if we knew about some unsuccesfull 75L48 hits at front turret vertical parts at 700-1000m range. One more thing. If we find a range at which IS-2 front turret was vunerable to a Panther gun (both Russians and Germans give some ranges but they differ and we do not know for sure if they were found by actual test-shooting or just calculated) then we could easily find penetration ranges for 75L48 just comparing penetration tables of both, or better yet - shell velocity profiles. If front turret of Is-2 mod 1945 prototype (reportedly 130mm thick, 20mm above designed thickness) was reported to be vunerable to Panther gun at 1100m then it would be vunerable to PzIV gun at... 0m. If we rescale the results by factor of 1,13 (=130/115) and 1,3 (=130/100) to estimate penetrations against 115mm mantlet and 100mm turret face of normal Is-2s, then we get 1700m/2200m for Panther gun and 500m/1100m for PzIV gun for mantlet/turret penetrations. I must admit that those results are not too convincing.... :). In the same report lower front hull plate (100mm cast at 30deg) was estimated vunerable to Panther gun from 900m. (That's probably close to Initial Penetration range because Russians tested their tank for protection). Official KwK42 30deg penetration from this range is about 87mm. So this plate even though being hard and 33% thicker than shell calibre, seem to resist against 75mm shell somewhat worse than German test plate. And the same report suggest that front turret armor resists better than German test plate - penetrating only 130mm of vertical armor from 1100m (criterium of initial penetration probably, so 50% penetration or 5_in_a_row penetration values would be even smaller). Either the turret/mantlet armor was much more resistant than hull armor, or something is wrong here. I'm considering buying a portable leeb steel hardness meter, so I could check armor hardness level of various parts of armor of Russian tanks. That's much more expensive than the ultrasonic thickness meter I bought before, so I'm not sure if it's worth it. Do you think that such hardness measurements could add something valuable to the picture ?

The drawings that I linked in the post above are NOT drawings of actual production model of IS-2 mod 1944. Those are drawings of an "IS-2 mod 45" prototype. I just cleared this up (the description of the drawings I got was an auto-translation from Russian to English and at first it was not clear for me what model of IS-2 is on drawings). The description was: At first I didn't notice much difference in this drawings from ordinary IS-2 mod 1944 so was not sure what is on the first and second blueprints. But after superimposing them one on another and comparing with drawings of IS-2 mod 43 and 44 I noticed that those two pictures are parts of the same blueprint, and noticed the differences from production IS-2 models. Different is the front part of the mantlet (the housing of the gun tube), whole front part of the turret was redesigned, the TSh-17 gunsight was moved to the rear (probably the horizontal turret profile is more narrow and curved, much different from IS-2), the turret roof plate is redesigned, ventilation opening moved to the rear ect.). But the vertical profile of the front turret and mantlet (at least in the center part, close to the gun axis) is identical as in Is-2, mantlet thickness on this drawing is also same as for IS-2 (about 110mm). So, it's an interesting drawing of IS-2 mod 1945 prototype :). And it's hull is like IS-2 mod 1944 (there are internal mods but armor is the same). Second comment from the author:

Someone in another forum posted two interesting photos of IS-2 after being captured by Germans and loaded onto a train. There are much more holes in this tank, from different ranges. Maybe they did some kind of test-shooting the wreck, before they decided to transport it to Germany. and two good quality drawings of IS-2 mod 1944 armor: I did some measurements on the last blueprint. They may not be worth too much, the scale and proportions of the picture may not be preserved well, but anyway I was interested in results. It's clearly visible that both front lower and upper plate of model 1944 had the same thickness (90 or 100mm). The mantlet seems a bit more thick than front hull plates. The visible dimension of the barrel (4475mm from the end to gun pivoting point) is 751 pixels long on my picture. So one pixel = about 5,96mm (+/- 0,01mm). The mantlet thickness seems to be little less than 19 pixels, but more than 18 pixels. 18 pixels = 107mm, 19 pixels =113mm. I would estimate mantlet thickness for 18.5 pixels and this would be about 110mm. That would be designed thickness. The LOS thickness of upper front plate seem to be close to 30 pixels, that's 179mm. The plate is angled at 60deg, so we have to divide by two to get armor plate thickness, we get 89,5mm. So this is drawing of UTZM version of front hull made from 90mm RHA plates. If on the upper drawing we assume the shells mounted in the rear of the turret are 122mm in diameter (31 pixels), then the thicnkess of the mantlet (28 pixels) would be 110,19mm. Again 110mm. And the mantlet profile seems to be designed in such a way, that it's LOS thickness in any point of it's curvature is equal to 28 pixels (so 110mm). The angle increases, the LOS thickness remains the same. I would assume for now, that the design thickness of the mantlet was 110mm, and the measured 115mm was due to inaccuracy in casting process.

Even bad quality hard armor can resist well if struck by projectile which has calibre smaller than thickness of armor. On the other hand, it would fail badly when attacked by projectile larger than it's thickness. So IS-2 hard, cast armor of 90...120mm thickness could protect well from 75mm, not bad from 88mm shells, but would be much more vunerable to anything larger (like 128mm guns that are popular in some other games ). Panther gun have better penetration pefrormance from Tiger I gun, but Russians after testing found that ranges at which IS-2 is vunerable are lower ranges for Panther than for Tiger. 75mm vs almost 90mm of calibre. One thing that would be always bad, against any calibre are defects, cracks, voids in cast armor and non-uniform thickness. IS-2 castings could be full of such defects. An any tank would be really a bit different. One vehicle could be made from good, other made from bad castings. I was always for some kind of "randomising" armor quality for tanks in games (one would be little different than other, you could never be sure at what range you can penetrate it - like in real life), or even for every plate of every tank (rather easy with today's computers - randomise parameters of each tank armor by certain amount during initialisation of the game scenario).

I got some new info about "Kummersdorf" IS-2 and it's penetrations. Seems it was not a single, 1200m enagement: "This IS-2 Mod 43 was captured in May 1944 during fighting, it was arguably the first inspection of the new tank. Before, German intel noted rumors from prisoniers "Gefangenenausagen", that it would have 250mm armor. However, the Report (Gen.Insp.d.Pz.Tr., NB #12, June 1944) claims it was taken out of action by a "Nashorn" at the turret front, from 2600m. a) LFP: penetrated by Tiger I, from 1200 m b. UFP: dent and several cracks, no penetration. Tiger I fired from 1500m c) Front hull spike, left, was penetrated by Tiger I, 800 m. d) Report suggest a penetration of the DFP at under 500 m, LFP from 1000 meters, turret front and side from 3000m. " Turret from 3000m would be possible for Nashorn, not KwK36 .

Quite possible, I thought about this too. It could be just single engagement from 1200m, with Tiger commander adjusting the range up after seeing first two shots hitting low and not penetrating. Third shot hit higher, the sloped front plate, ineffective. Range adjusted again (or aimpoint shifted) up, fourth hit front turret, the end. At range of 1200m each adjustment of gunsight by +100m would move hit point up by about 1.1-1.2m. Shots came slightly from the left which is visible by the bounce mark on the glacis. Gunner aiming center of mass - or aiming the ground level below center of mass and adjusting range to hit higher (as in Tigefiblel). All hits are pretty lined into a vertical line. KwK36 is pretty accurate at 1200m. Look at those two at the bottom. Almost to the same place.

Interesting photo, never seen it before: Both photos definitely show the same tank - the captured "Kummersdorf" example. The right one with markings of armor thickness&angles is well known. The left seems to show the same tank just after it was knocked out. There are visible penetrating and non penetrating hits on the armor which are labelled with range and weapon. Another possibility is some kind of test range against German guns, but the first (after battle report) seems more likely. The lower front hull seems to have one or two non penetrating hits labeled "1200m Tiger" (or at least this is what I can read). Non penetrating probably because they were almost "glancing" hits, the shells deflected to the left and the front armor was supported by the side plate. On the upper front plate is a mark labeled probably "1200m Tiger" or "1000m Tiger". Maybe it's a trace done by glancing hit to the highly-sloped glacis plate (visible on the right photo froom above) which deflected and had to end on the upper front plate. Or maybe it's some small calibre weapon ? Well, it's definitly labeled "Tiger". Or maybe the label is to some other mark in shadowed place (like turret ring below mantlet) where a shell hit ? Finally, the front turret has a clear penetration labeled... anyone can read it ? I can even see if the range label has "1" + 3 digits + "m" like "1200m" or only 3 round digits like "800m". Would be interesting to know the range and weapon for sure. Anyone seen a better copy of this photo ?

I wonder if the driver hatch was closed. The driver would be probably killed if the TOW exploded almost over him... The version of video I've seen ends aty the escape of the gunner. Is there any longer version showing if the tank moved after that ?

In this area the armor in LOS is about 400mm of steel, not covered by ERA. So it almost certainly penetrated. The crewman that run away (gunner?) kept his hand to his face... Additionaly, both guys in the turret most likely lost their eardrums and would not hear for some time, because they had their turret hatches opened while at combat position (the TNT equivalent of TOW warhead is about 4kg and it detonated probably little less than 2 meters from open hatches.... ouch...). They were most likely told by Russian instructors to keep them closed, but....

Interesting clip of abandoned Saudi M1 captured and destroyed by Huti fighters. Interesting part is that they filmed the inside of crew fighting compartment before destroying it. Why is it so blackened ? Does it look normally (like if it was not cleaned regularry ), or rather something has exploded or burned inside ?