Amizaur

Don't you plan to make another serie of tests with the sides switched ? Germans atacking with 2:1 advantage, US defending ? I know you tested the effectivenes of foxholes in improving defence value of troops. But you have collected also other interesting data. About force balance with/without foxholes. Now would be interesting to compare casualities and outcomes in symmetric German:US / 2:1 scenario. Would it be similar ? Or different ?

And I'm all for target and command lines (plus of course possibility to swich them on and off, and the option to show target lines only for vehicles). Also I miss very much a "select all units" key, something like "ctrl+a". I'm not especially happy to look for the HQ unit, scroll the map and click it twice - when I want to do such simple thing as JUST SIMPLY select all my units. Select them to do something or just to highlight their bases and see them better, where are they on the ground.

Maybe make a test where the Panther is effectively hull-down, with only turret visible (there is no such wall, a wall plus terrain depression is needed) - and then check what would be the percentage of mount/turret hits when shots are aimed on the center of the _turret_ mass ? One more thing - I believe the smarter and more exeprienced gunners, on shorter ranges, would tend to aim for turret, knowing they can't hurt the front hull plate, on the other hand the turret is less protected and always has a chance of causing gun/optics damage. Would be nice if crack and elite crews at close range aimed "inteligently" - at parts which they have most chances to penetrate or cause damage to. That would mean aiming for turret, gun, front lower plate, tracks. If they hit or not, is another question, but at least aiming for it. Shooting the front plate of a Panther is pointless most of the time, using most of the weapons... Some of the people had to know this. In 1.00 I have seen a Stug hit from the front, that was reported as "lower rear" penetration. Maybe the Stug was penetrated trough the mantlet and the shell went trough vehicle hitting the rear (which was reported) ?

I did some test firing of tanks vs tanks lately, and seen a veteran Tiger crew missing a Sherman turret 6 times times in a row from 200m . It couldn't hit it once during the entire turn. The Sherman was hull-down, in a little depression and beside a wall, so only upper 2/3 of the Sherman's turret was visible for the Tiger's gunner. Ok, only 2/3 of a turret, but come on, it was only 200m !!! Missing such a target 6 times ? And there would be probably more misses, in the next turn. The save is available.

Such unexpected behaviour of troops (as well as vehicles) - you plot them a movement but you have no idea what path will they choose - is another argument for redoing the path plotting - pathfinding part of game engine. Currently in WEGO mode, a player is plotting a path, which is stored and plotted on map (whenever it's possible path or not). Then after clicking "GO" and the unit starts to move (or when a unit comes to an obstacle, not sure) the "pathfinding" part of the code is used to check and modify the path, if the player's one is impossible for some reason. New path is plotted and the unit is going on... to be killed sometimes. And the player can only watch it.... Let the path to be analysed by the "pathfinding" algorithm just after it was laid, and show to the player the modified version. It would only take a second - in real time game the path is modified "on the fly" with no delay, so the alghoritm is efficient enough. Then a player could see the resulted path and notice that it was modified by the game because there is no passage somewhere. And choose another one, if the one plotted by computer causes any dangers. All of this in orders phase.

What is the chance for additional German vehicles and tanks in this module ? That were available in this timeframe and region, but not included so far ? Something like a Jagdpanther ? Not much hope for a Hetzer or Hashorn, I guess ?

Well I just made the same thing. Got similar results . 88mm from Tiger is much more effective in disabling a PzIV than 37mm AP. I did also your test, so 37mm AP against PzIV turret front (I placed them in a way that only the turret was visible. BTW it was not an easy task, what would be nice in the editor is a stone or brick wall that is tall just enough to hide a tank's hull. Currently the "wall" is much too low, and the "tall wall" is as high as the tank itself. Would be nice to have a wall that is in between. My results of 37mm AP against PzIV are different than yours. In my tests, let me check... on 36 penetrations of the PzIV front turret from 200m, results were: 28 times no one was hurt (77% of penetrations) 8 times there was one casuality (22%) 2 times the tank became destroyed (6%) With such percentages, it's quite probable to see several penetrations in a row without anyone being hurt. What is strange: after several front turret penetrations, multiple systems of PzIV were usually devastated (optics, radio, weapon controls, whatever), but the crew unhurt. They seem to have some kind of splinter-proof vests on them . They also doesn't seem too nervous about shells penetrating the turret. The turret is much smaller than the hull, there are three human bodies packed around the gun, it seem questionable that 37mm projectiles just fly trough not harming anyone in almost 80% of cases. They would be injured at least. If injured is not counted as "casuality" in tanks, then particular crewmembers that were in proximity of the shell path, should have high chance of being at least inoperable for some time (let's say 10-30 seconds) after penetration. That would simulate the shock of being wounded (wounds to the face, hands, eyes) and time to recover or take quick care about the wounds. On the other hand, in three cases were the PzIV front hull was hit with 37mm AP, those were partial penetrations with armor spalling, the effect on crew morale was much higher - two crews went panicked and evacuated at once the undamaged vehicles, one crew went rattled. In one of those three partial penetrations, a crewman died because of spalling. Seem "partials" with spall are more dangerous to the crew than full penetrations. And full penetrations should also cause lot's of armor splinters anyway. The effect on crew morale of penetrating (full or partial) the hull, SEEMS to be higher than effects of hitting or even penetrating the turret. I would say, that average density of crewmen/m^3 is higher in the turret than in the hull, so turret penetration should have worse consequences for a crew's health (at least the gunner, commander and loader) than hull penetration. On the other hand, hull penetration have much higher chances of causing ammo/fuel fire or explosion, or penetrate all the way to the engine and disable/set it on fire. Next I switched the Stuarts for Tigers. The results were much, much serious for PzIVs. Didn't do much testing because it was obvious than effect after 88mm penetration is much greater. On 16 penetrations of PzIV front turret from PzVI Tiger, on 200m, results were as follows: 4 penetrations resulted in explosion and instant death of all crewmembers (25%) 1 penetration caused 4 causalities (6%) 3 caused 2 casualities (19%) 7 caused 1 casuality (44%) 4 didn't harm anyone (25%) 4 penetrations caused tank being "destroyed" without killing anyone or damaging anything (25%) Every shot went completly trough, hitting dirt behind the PzIV. Even those which hit the hull (not counted), they just went trough, like there was no engine on the way. So chance for tank explosion (25%) was about the same as no one being hurt (25%) after massive high velocity 88mm shell penetrated both front and rear of the PzIV turret, most likely detonating the burster inside. Chances of someone being killed were almost 70%, chances to die for a turret crewmember were almost 50% (not counting the total explosions). I would say, it's reasonable that there is 25% chance of no one being killed, IF somehow the almost certain crew shock and injures were simulated, for example by disabling those crew members for some time (the status of this crewmember could show text "injured" or "disabled" or "shocked" or whatever you call it, it would be disabled for 10-30 seconds and then return to normal function. In contrast to a current "casuality" which is killed or seriously injured and doesn't return to function, but rather disappears from the crew list. Like it is now, I didn't see see much of "shock" after penetrations (the ones that didn't cause casualities, or even those which caused) - the (remaining) crewmembers just continued their work - aim, reload and return fire. I've seen rattled crews that stopped "aiming" and went to "spotting" for some time, then returning to "aiming and reloading" so normal operations. I also seen red "panicked" crews normally aiming, reloading and returning fire. Is the morale status valid for the commander, or the whole crew ? Does the "Panic" means the commander is in panic, or whole crew is ? I would also like to ask, what is the difference between "Destroyed" and "Knocked out" status? Sometimes a penetration causes tank to be "Destroyed" or "Knocked out" - even if it didn't kill anyone or make any visible damage of tank systems. I understand this as tank as a whole being non-operative, but what's the difference between the two ? Hmm - I wonder, how the crew of the firing AI tank knows, the tank has "destroyed" status so they don't waste more rounds on it ? The tank that doesn't burn, the crew is inside, but somehow the enemy knows it's "destroyed" and not fire on it anymore . IIRC in CMx1 crews were firing as long, as the enemy tank either was set on fire or the enemy crew was seen evacuating. Seems in CMBN they stop firing when they "destroy" or "knock-out" the enemy tank... How do they know ? . Overall, my conclusion - if based only on results on this, little test - would be, that the chances of tank being knocked out, or destroyed or damaged are little low or maybe even ok for me. Hard to tell, no hard data, just feeling what's "right" or what's "wrong" and if the game outcome is similar than those from tanker's memoirs. Chances of crewmembers being killed or seriously wounded are either ok, or maybe little low. But the effects of penetrations (especially APHE ones !!!) on crew morale are undermodelled. They should more easily panic and try to evacuate, or become shocked and non-responding. Currently even penetrations that killed some crewmembers, don't have much influence on the remaining crew. There is also no (visible) modeling of lighter wounds and temporary incapacitating of crewmembers - in cases they didn't die, but were lightly injured or stunned by shrapnels or burster detonation. And it's hard to imagine for me than an 40-50g HE burster going off inside a tank, could not stun oreveryone for a while, injure, not make thinking about getting out from this smoke filled steel coffin. Not necessarily the burster would kill everyone, but psychological effect should be serious IMHO. Steve said the Tiger 1E shell is different from Tiger 2/Jagdpanther shell, and short L48 75mm shell different from long L70 75mm shell. Not sure what he meant. The projectiles are very similar or even the same. The short and long 75mm guns fired the same shell, I mean same construction and burster size, maybe they were littlie different in hardness, not sure. The late 8,8cm L56 and 8,8cm L71 fired again very similar shell, late L56 shell had IIRC same burster size like L71 shell, again they were maybe different in steel hardness or some details. Early L56 (flak) shells had different, much larger bursters, but they were not used in this timeframe I believe.... What was VERY different between shorter and longer guns, was of course the kinetic energy - pre and especially post penetration . There is no question about this. But on every effective penetration, where the shell remained intact and fuse was not broken in the process, the HE burster should go off causing some nasty effects on the crew. Additional high kinetic energy could only make it worse. The 75mm shells had quite small HE burster, just 17g of something-like C4, in comparison to 64g in 88mm shells. But even such small burster, should I think cause distinct psychological effect on the crew, by means of going boom, flash, filling the inside with smoke, producing some shrapnel. I personally would NOT want to be anywhere close to 17g of hexogene going off in steel case, especially would not want to be in a closed, confined space. I would be glad, if a body of another crewmember was between me and the detonation point...... The effect of large, 88g burster could be disastrous in a small buttoned tank, nearly 100g of hexohene in closed space probably generates overpressures levels that are dangerous for life. I wonder if there are first-hand relations of how it feels to be in tank penetrated by 88mm shell with working fuse. Probably what would they tell, would be that thety just saw flash and lost consciousnes, next what they remember is they wake up in smoke filled tank and get out from there... On the other hand, 17 pounders didn't have any burster and were still effective in killing German tanks. Still able to kill the crew, or made it to abandon the tank, or even detonate the ammo/fuel sometimes... That's why I'm not very happy, seeing Shermans (or Panthers) having front turret penetrated by 88mm shell, with whole crew ok and able to do their work like nothing happened. Or even one crewmember being killed, but the rest of the crew not impressed and still operating the tank. You don't have to kill them everytime, but at least stun them a bit ! --- Some rough estimates done on different day for different forum: Panther's 75mm shell with 925m/s muzzle velocity: Chemical energy of the HE burster (~23g of TNT) - 0.11MJ kinetic energy of the shell at the muzzle - 2.9MJ (26 times higer) at range of 500m - 860m/s and 2.5MJ of kinetic energy (~ 150mm of penetration potential) after penetrating 80mm of armor - 530m/s left and 0,97MJ of KE (should be less as the piercing cap was left outside, so the mass is not less than 6.8kg now). throwing into the tank ~2,8kg of armor fragments (cylinder 80mm long and 75mm in diameter) if assume speed of fragments 2/3 of projectile speed, we get 350m/s and 0,17MJ of KE of those 2,8kg shrapnel fragments. HE burster goes off adding 0.11 MJ of heat, boom, flash, overpressure, some more fragments and smoke. --- KE of 88mm L56 shell fired at 780m/s - 3,1MJ KE of 88mm L71 shell fired at 1000m/s - 5,1MJ energy of 88mm shell HE burster (~86g of TNT) - 0,4MJ ---

I believe in real life, the loader guy being AT specialist (a role dangerous enough) would be completly happy to lay still and NOT fire on any tanks or infantry, rather trying to stay hidden and increase his team chances for succes and survical (he knows they must remain undetected to ambush a tank succesfully and just to stay alive). He would happily leave things like suppressing tank commanders or fighting infantry for the regular infantry, and fire his rifle against infantry only if attacked and with no other options.

Thanks again! The game is in early 1.01 version so it's absolutely no problem than not everything is working perfectly at this stage, as long as there is producer's will to analyse and improve things over time .

Thanks for the reply, Steve. If I have a save with such strange things happening, for sure I'll make it available. In the described PAK40 vs Sherman case, those were probably penetrations with marginal energy excess. Also it was against sloped front hull, and it is known that German APCBC-HE fuses could be damaged by side-acceleration or just broken away, while penetrating highly-sloped armor. Just like against T-34's or Sherman's front hull. I would say it was reasonable outcome, low energy penetrations with HE bursters possibly not going off, some crew injured but able to withdraw. On the other hand, many of the penetrations I have observed to not make any harm in CMBN, were high-energy penetrations, with huge amounts of kinetic energy left, also against non-sloped armor (so the burst charge fuses should work ok). For example trying to kill (just to observe game mechanics) a Tiger from a Panther. The Panther can very easily penetrate Tigers's side of even front armor, there is no slope so the (simulated or not) fuses should work ok, there are lot's of kinetic energy left and a lot's of armor splinters thrown into the tank, from the thick armor penetrated. And very often - no effect at all on crew and vehicle. Just like it was a penetration by 37mm AP that didn't hit anyone. It's true an AP shot could fly trough the tank interior and fly out, without doing any damage if it doesn't hit anything. But such high-energy high-speed penetration also almost certainly have to throw few kilograms of metal from the penetrated armour, it would fly along the path of the projectile itself, in some 30degree cone. Faster the projectile, more fragmented the armor that was thrown inside. Something like a shotgun blast. If the fragments hits someone, he will likely be injured or even killed. Also, a tank interior is a cramped place, filled with 5 human bodies, huge amounts of ammo, sometimes fuel tanks. What are really the chances, such AP shot will fly trough not hitting directly any human body or any ammo box, or vital mechanism ? There are such chances of course, maybe even 50%, but I wonder how they can be estimated. For sure the kinetic energy of the penetration is very important - the size of the shell, the velocity, the thickness of armor that was penetrated, the location and flight path trough the vehicle. But personally it's hard to imagine for me an energetic front gun mantlet penetration, that doesn't kill or injure either the gunner, loader or commander. Where the shell and all the splinters flew trough, and where they ended ? I was inside few tank turrets (T-34, IS-2), always then tried to imagine what would happen to me, if the front was penetrated... The conclusion was, I'm in the direct path of the penetrator and all the splinters... On the other hand - is the energy of the He burster and it's effect taken into account ? The energy of HE burster in Joules is usually lower, or even much lower, than the left-off kinetic energy of the projectile itself. But it's a detonation of 30 or 50g of hexogene in thick, metal case in a confined, closed space. Sometimes closer than a meter from people's bodies, heads, faces. Small explosion that breaks the shell and throws large splinters to the sides (and not, like in case of AP shot, only flying close to the path of the projectile itself). The explosion causes an overpressure tip, that rips the eardrums or even make one to loose his consciousness, it can blind, make burns to faces and hands. Are we sure that after such penetration, people usually are able to continue fight, like nothing happened, and not just leave the vehicle, if they survived ? They know for sure that one penetration will be most likely followed by next one, fes seconds later... From all the soldier's memoirs and written accounts I have read, it seem that the usual crew reaction to a penetration which caused an explosion, burns, many injures, smokre filling the inside, was to evacuate as fast as they could, to save their lives, to get out of this metal coffin. All above effects seem characteristic for penetration of APHE projectile with burster going-off, or AP causing internal explosion or fire (hitting ammo or something). Tankers feared fire, feared smoke, feared next rounds coming that would kill them. If the penetration was not very spectacular, didn't cause smoke, fire, much "boom", if the tank was still operational, and they felt still relatively safe (didn't expect it to happen again soon), then they could stay in tank and continue fighting, even if one of the crewmembers lost a whole arm from the projectile itself or armor splinter, and was bleeding badly. So from the historical accounts I know, seems that much was depending on crew morale, their motivation, if they felt save in their tank (Tiger crews felt quite safe, Sherman crews don't), and how much shock and noise and smoke, burns and bleeding ears, the penetration has caused. I do not think much percentage of the crews would stay inside after APHE penetration with burster going off inside, but it's my personal opinion . An AP penetration, pure kinetic, well it seems for me that the outcome depends on how much damage and injures and noise/shock it caused, depends on crew morale and their feelings about their safety (is next penetration probable soon or not) and so on. Some of my tests - a Sherman front turret or mantled was penetrated by Tiger's 88mm. No effect on the crew. In fact, 2 seconds later they returnet the gun fire against the Tiger. Not a simple instance, it happened many times during tests I did. Even if the crew in the turret was so lucky to be unharmed (it happens), shouldn't they be a bit "rattled" if a 75mm or 88mm shell with lot's of armor fragments fly just by their heads and hits the rear of the turret, rumbling inside ? Well, sometimes they are displayed as "rattled" after front turret penetration, but anyway they come on fighting, without any break, like nothing happened. Such outcome wasn't too frequent considering total number of penetrations in tests, but it was noticeable considering limited number of front turret penetrations. I understand you may still treat it as "anegdotical". Everytning I describe, are single isolated instances. I hope somene with more free time could collect hard statistical data on penetration effects in CMBN. On the other hand, taking into account how short the game is available, the number of such strange instances I have observed myself personally, makes me to worry about the model.

So 37mm AP seem to be just as effective post-penetration in disabling tanks and their crews like German 88mm or 75mm shells. But I believe it's not 37mm AP that is overmodelled (well, maybe a little, considering those are marginal penetrations), rather the effectivenes of 88mm and 75mm shells is undermodelled. Erwin, could you please use a Panther in the same test and settings, again this PzIV (chose Blue on Blue engagement) and check if it's more or less effective ? What number of penetrations from Panther's 75mm high-energy APCBC-HEs is needed on average, to disable this PzIV in comparison to Stuart's 37mm APs ?

The screens look very nice, but could you say - what was modified in comparison with stock CMBN ? What should I look at, to compare ? I'm not a good observer , sorry .

Well, it may be a glitch, or we may imagine it was an abstraction of the shell hitting some massive metal object on PSW's hull - like towing hook or something . I think it's not that important as long as it doesn't happen too often . I may well accept an 75mm Sherman penetrating the front of my Tiger, or my Tiger NOT penetrating front of a Stuart or M20 car - if it's a really rare occurence, like once in 20-50 games. Such things just happen in real life, they are possible - so I do not care if they are technically "bug" or they are programmed. Sure, it's good to report such incidents, as the programmers may want to take a look into the code, to check if there is a possible error. Or maybe they just smile and know that some rare occurence they had coded, was just triggered . Personally I like to know what my code does and how some "strange" things happened, sometimes I can't go sleep before I fully understand what and how happend, looking from the code-side . On the other hand, I do care for "not-right" things that happen often.... I'm not sure what are chaces of a Sherman taking 3 clean penetrations from a Tiger's gun and continue firing back, only 4th penetration knocking it out. Shouldn't the crew, even if still alive, be at least "shocked" like it often happened in CMx1 ? How often it could happen in real life for a Sherman to get 3 clean penetrations from 88mm or long 75mm gun and have a will to continue fighting ? Or weven being able to reverse back into safety, sometimes without casualities ? Like the tank was from paper and shells from potatos. Personally I believe such things happens much too often in my games... Unfortunately I have no statistical data on penetration effects in CMBN, maybe I'll generate them some day if I have some time. What are the chances for BF to shed some light on penetration mechanics ? What happens in the game when a projectile penetrates the armor ? What are possible consequences for the crew, for the vehicle, what parameters they depend on ? Is any "shock" effect for penetrated vehicle's crew programmed ? An effect that could prevent them from firing back for a moment, even if they were so lucky, than no one of the crew was killed or injured ? Are APHE (or APCBC-HE) projectiles simulated somehow and their effect on the crew, it the fuse was working correctly ? Anyone knows, if there any historical mentions about Shermans being penetrated 2-3 times from 88mm or 75mm guns, and still being able to fight on or withdraw, without being knocked out, or the crew mostly killed or injured ? In game it's also true (to less extend) for German tanks, quite often they can take 2 penetrations from US tanks without damage and even one casuality. But especially the German ammo seem (for me) to have too little "damage" or "behind the armor" effect, undermodelled in this regard. One of my buddies reported that in his game enemy M5A1 Stuart took 7 hits, 5 of which were penetrations, from a 75mm Stug, at distance of 50-100m, and just reversed into safety. How often should such thing happen ? Try to kill a Tiger or Panther using German ammo. Possible in Blue on Blue scenario. Usually several penetrations are needed to kill a cat, most of the (clean) penetrations even doesn't cause casualities !!! Does it sounds ok ? Especially, taking into account the excess of kinetic energy the German shells have, and also the said-to-be-quite-reliable German fuses for said-to-be-effective burst charges. I believe the external ballistics and modeling of accuracy of the guns are far better in CMBN than in CMx1. Also I belive, the penetration model in CMBN is better than in CMx1. I guess, it's refined and more detailed, especially the armor modeling. But - unfortunately without any hard data to prove it - I believe the CMx1 (CMBB, CMAK) post-penetration damage model, effects on the crew, chances of crew being killed - was more "right" - to not say, more realistic.

Spw 251/9 Stummel (Ausf. D) - after ordering an area fire agains enemy foxholes area, it first used all HEAT ammo against the dirt and only then switched to HE. Not sure if it's a bug, but it seems so on first glance. Mission - La Desert, playing as Germans, WEGO, Veteran.

I have a little different problem. My tanks seem to ignore my targeting orders, they are choosing targets on their own. I'm playing a battle in RT, my tank has multiple available targets (infantry and tanks) on quite close range (50-200m), I chose manually the most dangerous one and order "target" on it, but the tank seems to ignore my order and targets different ones, sometimes it targets a running infantry 200m to the side, exposing the side of the turret to enemy tanks in front of it. It happened few times. I realised that in target rich enviroment on close range, my tank rarely obeys my manual targeting orders, rather ignores them and choses targets on it's own.

Reduced first shot accuracy OVER 1000m might be a good thing. Of course if the accuracy of the second and rest of the shots is retained, I mean first shot is missing because of range estimation errors, but after setting the correct distance, virtually every shot hits the target. I wonder if crack and elite crews using high velocity guns (like the KwK42) can still retain high probability of first shot hits ? I mean, if they are better at estimating ranges than regular or veteran crews ? Could you check this in your tests ?

Do I see a zombie walking on above picture ?

I would like the same feature (or maybe different one, the one with ammo sharing) to work when one of my panzershrecks teams is out of ammo, and the survivor ammo bearer of other panzershreck team has still 3 HEAT grenades left. I moved both teams to the same square, waited few minutes for the lone panzershreck loader to give his remaining grenades to the empty panzershreck team, but nothing like that happened he wouldn't give .

I have seen once the penetration of Panther's upper front hull in the game - it was penetrated by Tiger's KwK36 from few hundreds meters (something like 300-400m). All other hits against Panther's upper front hull (I've run a few turns of 10 Panthers against 10 Tigers, so it had to be something like 30-50 hits on this plate) failed (even at closer ranges like 100m) so I thought it was something like "weak point penetration". The equal resistance of the Tiger's and Panher's front turret armor suggests, that it's something like 100 or 110mm (so the thickness of Panther's front plate and mantlet). And the Tiger had something like 130mm (on average) of high-quality cast armor covering the opening in front turret armor. So maybe it's something that needs to be corrected in the game ? Tiger's mantlet was much more massive and had greater average thickness than Panther's mantlet. The Panther's mantlet was round, but it was also tapered - so the thickness of the armor was max at the center (close to gun) and decreased when going up or down, so the idea of the constructor was probably to keep the resistance about the same over the whole frontal projection of the mantlet. On the other hand, the Tiger's mantlet - beside a few weaker spots (around the optics port and MG port) - was about 135mm or more (in some places 140, 150mm), 90-100mm was only the thickness at the edges of the mantlet, that were anyway backed up by 100mm front turret plate. So - destroy Tigers's gun, optics, damage it's gun elevation mechanism - with an 80-110mm penetator - sure, but to penetrate to crew compartment and kill it, usually the enemy would need something with more than 135mm of penetration.

The only problems are that the explosion is little too CMBN-like , I mean that explosions in CMBN not look too realistic and are usually exaggerated, too big. Here the fireball is also somewhat too big for a panzershreck round. Second thing is that the halftruck is an open vehicle, I doubt it's possible that a panzershreck penetration could kill everyone inside. That would be possible in case of a buttoned tank. Of course what I wrote is the theory . Have no idea if it really happened or not that a PF os PS penetration killed everyone inside a halftruck. But the picture is great but when I saw it, i thought it was the front of the tank that was attacked with a panzerfaust .

My problem is, I do not like this feature very much, I'm not used to it. I would prefer having also a "speed-up" key.... Why can't we have both ? I would also like a key that would highlight the bases of all units, or at least a key that would select all my units on the map (something like ctrl+A "select all") - this way I could highlight my units. Currently if I wanted to highlight all my units (for example very usefull while watching the movement in night battles) I would have to get a view of the whole map and "retangle select" all units with a mouse... which is far from comfortable..

Why do you think it's "too accurate" to hit 1000m targets with first round ? The natural spread of most tank guns is not that big on such distance. The main source of inaccuracy and errors on 1000m range are errors in range estimation, the precision of aiming, and possibly misalligned sights (or sights that are not well maintained and not properly adjusted). If a tank has a competent, calm gunner that aims precisely, takes his time, if they also have a well maintained and adjusted sight, and if they estimated the range correctly, then there is no reason they shouldn't hit the target with the first round with very high probability. No matter is it's a Panther of 75mm Sherman, the guns are quite accurate if the range is known. If their range estimation is wrong, then they are quite likely to miss (chances depends on the gun, 75L70 or 88L71 are still less likely to miss than 75L40), but they should hit the target with second round and each round after that.

Is the Sherman ability to kill Tigers and Panthers frontally from 400m looked at also ? What ammo were they using ? I was under impression that 75mm Sherman could only effectively penetrate Tiger's SIDE armor from under 100m. And a 76mm Sherman using normal ammo (not HVAP) would be in most cases effective against Tiger frontal armor on very short range like 100m because of projectile shatter. Is the shot shatter modelled in the game ? In my tests 75mm Shermans have a chanse to kill a Tiger frontally from up to 400m. 76mm Shermans are of course more effective. Have to observe yet, what type of ammo they use while obtaining those penetrations. Other issue that makes me worried, is the ability of a Sherman to survive 2 (or sometimes even three) full high-energy penetrations from Tiger's or Panther's gun (100-400m) and still return fire like nothing happened !! What about spalling, all those shrapnel and metal flying inside the turret filled with 3 human bodies, ammo and equipment ? What about APHE bursters almosty certailny going off inside the crew compartment ? They do take casualities (sometimes) but are not even "shocked" like it happened in CMx1 - loader or commander just has been killed by 88mm shell, and gunner returns fire like nothing happed. Even if the game calculates, that there are no casualities and little damage after such e penetration (front turret of mantlet penetration with little damage??) then still shouldn't the crew be a little shocked or thrilled for a moment ? And, I believe that in most cases there should be casualities, damage, blood and shock, and usually an idea to evacuate from the vehicle before next round arrives... Instances when a Sherman survives three penetrations in a row (one front hull, and two front turret) from a Tiger's 88mm APHEs, and without a second of dfelay returns fire after each one - only fourth penetration of front hull killed it, should be observed in the game once in 1000 cases, not daily !! Sometimes a partial penetration of a Tiger's or Panther's armor makes it "destroyed" at once, without any crew casualities. They just evacuate broken vehicle. It's ok.. but not sure how often this should happen. Sometimes German crews can even survive some full penetrations (usually low-energy or maybe HVAP penetrations) with or without casualities and continue fighting, ok for a motivated crew. On the other hand, Shermans are OFTEN able to survive multiple full high-energy penetrations of APHE and and even with casualities still return fire or withdraw to fight another day. Not sure this is ok. Something seems to be not-well-balanced with projectile damage to tak itself, the crew's health and morale. In one test I duelled Tigers with Panthers. Panthers usually won (as Tiger's gun is usually not able to penetrate Panther's front sloped hull - a veteran or crack gunner should know this and aim for turret). But it took usually SEVERAL penetrations (sometimes more than 5) from a Panther to knock-out a Tiger. Most penetrations didn't even cause any casualities !! Same for Tiger - when it managed to penetrate Panther's front turret or lower hull, it usually had no effect at all on the Panther. Seem like the German 75mm and 88mm AP projectiles are not too effective after penetration, have very weak "behind the armor" effect. It takes usually several German 88mm or 75mm penetrations to take out a Tiger or Panther. And those were full, high-energy penetrations as Panther have absolutely no problem penetrationg cleanly Tiger's 100mm from few hundred meters. Surely the German tanks survided MORE penetrations from 75L70 and 88L56 than Shermans. I mean that a Tiger or Panter seem to be more resistant to damage than a Sherman. And it's ok as they are physically bigger tanks with more room inside and better armoured (less projectile energy after penetration). Seems that it's not the Sherman "too strong" or too resistant. Rather it is the German ammo that is way too ineffective in causing damage and especially casualities. US 75mm and 76mm ammo seem more effective (fired from much less powerfull US guns) because usually it takes only 1-2 penetrations to take out a German tank. Of course sometimes it takes more, but sometimes only one partial-penetration is enough.

Is there any key (like SHIFT) that would increase the speed of the camera forward motion ? Often I need to move the viewpoint to another part of map - just using the key or the mouse works, but it's little slow on greater distances. And I would prefer I could just scroll faster (after pressing SHIFT or CTRL), and not use features like "click to move viewpoint to a point"...

In the "detailed armor hits" feature: would be nice, if hits from small arms were displayed in white text, and hits from AT weapons were displayed with red text - or something like that. Sometimes a tank takes multiple hits from many weapons firing at it, every one hit is shown (for example hits from MG) and it's somewhat difficult to notice the dangerous hits from heavier weapons.