jjhouston

Thanks for the reply.

Do the Bradleys still drive around with the missile launchers erected?

So the aiming circle is 10 mils in diameter. The gap between the circle and the horizontal stadia lines is 5 mils. The apparent sizes of the target forms in your screen shot compared to the reticle is about 7 mils for the Panther giving its side and about 3.5 mils for the Panther showing its frontal aspect. Coincidentally, the hull length of a Panther is just short of 7 meters, its width is a little less than 3.5 meters. Accordingly, the apparent range is about 1000 meters. At 500 meters, the apparent length of a Panther should be about 14 mils, perhaps about like this:

Even if a gunner knew the exact range to a target and was able to precisely determine the required super-elevation for the gun, and even if he was able to conclusively identify the target as a vehicle with which he was familiar of all its 'weak spots', and even if he had all the time he needed lay the gun perfectly, the round might not hit exactly where it was aimed. This is a fact. It is a fact that no two projectiles are identical. No two cartridges are identical. A gun barrel is never in an identical condition for two projectiles. Thus all projectiles have different flight paths. Ballistics is a science; a practical species of physics. Ballistics experts describe the spread of the shot groups for tank rounds by referring to 'dispersion'. Rocket scientists refer to 'circular probability of error' when describing the expected accuracy of ICBMs. Gun nuts/marksmen talk about 'minutes of angle'. Tank round dispersion can be tested for and measured. See U.S. Army Armor and Engineer Board Material Test Procedure 3-3-512 (1970) Additionally, as a practical matter, boresight may be lost or degraded through the course of engagements or just movement. When a tank gunner aimed, despite what he may have thought he was doing, he was placing a cone of probability over his target into which a fired round was more or less likely to strike. Given the diameter of the cone, which increases proportionally with range, he's likely to hit his target if the visible target falls completely within the cone. If the target form is smaller than the cone, there is a likelihood that even a perfectly aimed round will miss. Aiming for center mass increases the amount of target within the cone and increases the likelihood of a round striking target. If you want proof, do an experiment. Get a rifle and ammunition and go to a rifle range. Take a bunch of Panzer IV plastic models with you and use them for targets. Rather than aiming for center mass, aim for the weak spots. Try different firing combinations -- different rifles, different lots of ammo, different sight configurations, fire from a bench, fire unsupported. Even with your best weapon-ammo-sight configuration-position combination, you'll still be firing shot groups.

U.S. tankers were trained to aim center mass. See FM 17-12 Tank Gunnery (1943) page 38 "When firing armor-piercing or combination armor-piercing high explosive, lay on the center of the target." One reason for aiming for the center of visible mass is round dispersion. An example of dispersion from the pamphlet, ARMOR-PIERCING AMMUNITION FOR GUN, 90-mm, M3: "ACCURACY. Accuracy firings have been conducted with the T33 round loaded for a M.V. of 2800 f/s and fired from a standard 90-mm Gun over a range of 700 yards at a vertical target. An extreme horizontal dispersion of 16 inches and an extreme vertical dispersion of 19 inches was obtained." I can't find anything for the dispersion of the 75mm APC M61, AP M72 or the 76mm APC M62, AP M79, but it seems likely that those rounds would be less accurate than the round fired by the late war Pershing. Other factors, as pointed out earlier, will effect accuracy such as lost boresight, barrel wear, barrel droop due to heat expansion, et cetera.

C-12 TF 1/64 AR. POL container in bustle rack was penetrated by small arms fire during "Thunder Run" into Baghdad. Dripping POL ignited on engine deck resulting in engine fire. Nothing spontaneous about it.

From Defense Intelligence Agency Report: The Soviet Motorized Rifle Company, October 1976. Download here

Scan from Main Battle Tanks: Developments in Design since 1945, Rolf Himes, Richard Simpkin translator, Brassey's Defence Publishers, 1987. Prior to the T-72, the arrangement first appeared on early T-64 versions. Here's a picture of a SKIF 1:35 model of a T-64A

In the linked photo: The driving lamp (the lamp over the right sprocket) appears to have a black lens, that is an IR filter. The squad leader's spotlight (the squad leader sits behind the driver and has a hatch behind the driver's hatch) is covered with its protective cover. The gunner's spotlight (he sits in the turret) is rotated to the rear, it may or may not have an IR filter or protective cover installed. This photo may be a bit better:

Well then that must be right. The texture would never get a detail like that wrong.

Perhaps that's the way it's intended to look, and in fact may look 'in real life' when the light has an IR filter installed. For example:

The human voice is actually the TC yelling to the gunner to stow the TOW launcher.

Not trying to pick a fight or anything, but I'm curious about this statement. How would you define the genre? I consider CMSF/CMx2 to be sui generis, in a class by itself. The only other games that I would remotely consider being in the same genre would be the CMx1 games. And I think that that is a stretch because of the subject matter difference. Of course if you wanted to make that stretch, I suppose that you could include Eric Young's Squad Assault/GI Combat in the genre, but that wouldn't really be a charitable comparison.

I recall reading that during Operation Nickel Grass, the U.S. 'loaned' a number of ECM capable F-4's for use against Egyptian ADA. It seems that under the conditions, we'd want to test our really best stuff and that it'd be our pilots testing it. That conflict is often cited as an exemplar of ATGM vs Tank combat, but it also seems that it was a good dress rehearsal for Layered ADA vs Air-to-Ground anti-radar weapons.

And oh, BTW, something for Vark and hcrof: BAOR Threat Recognition Guide