Wrath of Dagon

I get the feeling the Western allies didn't do better because their top leadership just wasn't very good. As far as comparing the allied forces to German, it's kind of apples and oranges, they had different advantages and disadvantages, the fight was just too uneven to be able to compare.

Yes, that is cool, haven't thought of that.

Darn, I don't know where I'm going to get Windows 98 to play this game.

I think you misunderstand me. There's a difference between the center of the turret and a point a little above the center of the tank. So you wouldn't be aiming for the turret, you'd be aiming for some point below it, with the expectation that your chance of hitting the turret would be improved, while only reducing your overall chances by a small amount.

I think we're talking about aiming above the center of mass of the tank rather than aiming at the center of mass of the turret. Results would be quite different.

It could be tested against say a 10% offset from center, of course that test would have to be internal.

It seems logical that an experienced PzIV gunner would aim a little above center mass at close range (< 500 m) knowing he's likely to be facing a Sherman. If he doesn't, then we might have the result that being hull down is worse than hull up and at an angle, which seems ahistorical. I guess we can test that out once the game is available.

I saw a Sherman tank commander on Greatest Tank Battles talking about trying to hit vulnerable spots on the Panther to disable it instead of knocking it out. He specifically mentioned the TC, don't know how realistic that would've been.

No, the AI tweak was to have the tank more likely to retreat on a non-penetrating hit.

OK, it does seem like the last Sherman is pointing at tank 3, but is hit by tank 4, so there is some angle there. May be also some partial penetrations? Hopefully all these hits have been analyzed and found to be correct. But may be the armor quality is also a bit high? Not saying there's actually a problem, just some concern.

It does now seem to me the Shermans are surviving too well. Didn't we establish a head on Sherman only has a small chance of escape at that range?

Not in we-go, he forgets the facing command once you set cover arc (if issued on the same turn).

No, it doesn't, the hull remains in the same position while the turret rotates. Nor should it.

I just tried this in CMSF, and the problem is I can't give both a facing and a cover arc command at the same time outside of setup. May be it's because I still have 1.11, but I hope it gets fixed for CMBN.

Any comment on why his arty and air weren't available?

But that's why I said "slightly", not enough to expose flanks, but to make the front non-perpendicular to the LOS. Certainly nowhere near 45, may be 10-20. Edit: Just saw what StellarRat posted.

Speaking of the angles brings up an interesting point. It seems advantageous to set the cover arc centered on the target, but to set the facing of the tank pointing slightly off the target. Would the tank eventually align it's hull to the turret anyway in this situation? I guess I could try it in CMSF.

Not to mention educational.

I didn't, at least not by earth logic.

The kill ratio during Kursk was around 8 to 1, and that's with the Russians on the defensive, according to Glanz's book.

I don't think M10 is an answer to the Panther unless using tungsten.

Bad Russian tactics, inferior training, crappy tanks. The Germans knew all they had to do was to take out the HQ tank, and the rest would lose radio communication.

Yeah, and in Korea Americans preferred the Sherman E8 to the Pershing.

The JPzIV 75 mm in the Bois de Baugin AAR seemed to work about as expected. Some Shermans got lucky, but most got knocked out easily. Hope all the data above makes it into game text at some point.

No, that was a different incident, this one happened a bit earlier I believe, as Zukkov said it was during a day light break through by the Russians.