ArgusEye
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Posts posted by ArgusEye
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My impression is that the large rounds have a better chance to kill crew when they land close to the tank, but if they hit the tank itself, they are almost useless. Target the ground next to the tank, and you'll have the best chance of killing it with HE.
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That is more likely overkill. The Panzerfaust and Panzerschreck are outranged by the ATR, and the ATR has more ammunition.
Am I correct in thinking that troops cannot throw handgrenades into open topped 'grenade bins' such as halftracks and carriers?
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Every time I run an Italian scenario fighting with the Germans against the Commonwealth, I feel a deep desire to plink the oncoming sea of *carriers with the cheap, stealthy ATR. However, the Germans have phased them out, and there are none to be found. This strikes me as odd; they must have had thousands lying around, so why not employ them against the Tommies?
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Finding information about the StuG is rather more difficult than about, say, a Panther, Tiger, Sherman or T-34. That much is clear so far. I took me a while to get my hands on some more documentation, after JasonC's hints.
The only document that JasonC's quotes could come from - that I could find - was Richtlinien für den Einsatz der Sturmgeschütz-Einheit, of which I have only been able to find translated fragments. If anyone could point me to the original, I would be very happy. This is no training document, it is a guideline for the divisional staff.
What is interesting about this document, is that it came in two editions: one in May of 1940, and one in March (or April) of 1942. Even at the time of the latter, the StuG's only had 50mm or 30+20mm fronts, as the first F's were only just coming off the assembly line. Indeed, this document does not seem to be written for anything else than the short StuGs, and to apply its teachings with a broad brush to any StuG is going a bit too far.
The comment about not engaging targets beyond certain ranges is mentioned here also, but one can understand that given the short 75's meager performance.
What is more interesting is that in pursuing the above document, I came across actual test results by Wa Prüf 1 in August of 1944, where they shot up StuGs with captured weapons. Unfortunately, the result list does not mention the F34, but it makes a passing comment that its performance limits are 'well known'. :mad:
Make of it what you will, but the front of the StuG is listed as vulnerable
to the American M3 at ranges up to 100 meters when using M72 ammunition,
to the American M1A1 at ranges up to 1700m when using M93 ammunition,
to the Soviet S53 at ranges up to 1500m when using BR-365 ammunition, and
to the Soviet A19 at all ranges.
Now for a more problematic issue: JasonC listed the quote
"at a range of 500 meters, the armor of the assault gun provides *no protection* against Russian tank guns".
I am tending towards ascribing this statement to the judgement of mssrs. Fleischer and Eiermann. There is no statement to this effect in the documents I've come across thus far. It is obvious that for a 50 or 30+20 StuG it would have been suicidal to duel with a T34, but for later models this remains to be seen. As for the armour of any vehicle, there is a range where one does not have to worry about impacts, a region where one is safe against the occasional hit, but the armour can be chewed up beyond repair, and a region where the rounds will come through the armour. One could say that the quoted statement suggests that at 500 meters the StuG is well within the penetration range, and that is something that needs to be researched a little more thoroughly.
As for the statement that the long 75 (I assume the L48 {because I have data for it
}) does not penetrate beyond 1500 meters, I would concur if we are referring to frontal aspect shots. If a side is presented, the L48 holes the T34/85 up to 3000 meters, and the Sherman M4A4 at similar ranges. The question becomes whether a hit can be scored, and that can be tricky enough to forbid the use of ammunition for such long shots. This data is again from direct tests by Wa Prüf 1.Also interestingly (but as an aside from the topic of this thread) a Wa Prüf 1 document from November 1944 states that troops in the field are adding concrete onto their vehicles after the cancellation of Zimmerit, mostly because it was thought to defend against bazooka's. Wa Prüf 1 discouraged this because it weighed the vehicles down unnecessarily, and actually deteriorated its protection (although they don't specify how exactly). To put forward that the tracks and concrete are evidence of poor amouring ignores that there are even photos of IS-2 tanks with track links on the hull front. It's all just part of that sensible human sentiment of wanting as much metal as possible between you and the shell screeching towards you.
But in the end, it can be said that any hit is liable to be bad, and that it is more important not to get hit than to be better armoured. Its far superior optics are likely to have saved many more StuGs than its armour.
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JasonC - are you referring to 'The German Sturmgeschutze in World War II, 1939 - 1945, A Photo Chronicle' by Fleischer & Eiermann? What I was actually looking for was the training document you referred to earlier. The above quotes seem to come -if I am not mistaken- from a secondary source. Or are these statements referenced to a primary source?
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ArgusEye - on what is supposed to happen: "at a range of 500 meters, the armor of the assault gun provides *no protection* against Russian tank guns".
Contemporary. German. Training. Document.
Great! Where can I get this document? I've not been able to find anything primary regarding StuG doctrine.
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It's hard to keep track of everything argued on this thread, so I apologize if I inappropriately ignore an argument made earlier.
When you line up all the different StuGIII's, and shoot them from the front with a T34/76, the 50mm StuG gets killed at range, the 80mm StuGs get partially penetrated to death around 500 meters, and the 50+30 StuGs are all but invulnerable. That the 50+30 is inappropriately tough is obvious, but it's more interesting to look at the 80mm StuG. What is supposed to happen?
The only definitive answer can be given by tests performed at the time, with appropriate experimental methods. Things like that were performed, but I've been unable to find any documentation thus far.
Testing penetration was done by all sides, but unfortunately, they used different test protocols, making them hard to compare. Even more unfortunately, I haven't succeeded in finding a complete specification of Soviet tests. Comparing the test plate of the Soviet tests with the actual StuG frontal armour would then at least be possible.
The KwK40/L43 penetrates 115mm at 0 degrees. The projectile, massing 6.8kg leaves the barrel at 745m/s. The F34 shoots its standard AP projectile of 6.3kg at 655m/s. If we assume they lose the same percentage of their energy in the 500 meters of air they tunnel through (they won't, but let's pretend), the Soviet round impacts with 72% of the energy of the German round. If we assume the round quality of the Soviet round to be so much better as to achieve the same penetration mode profile (which is hard to believe, but again: let's pretend), we may grosso modo equate penetration depth to impact energy. This results in an estimated penetration of 83mm. That means full penetrations at 500 meters - but only just.
The aerodynamics of both rounds is too complex to attack theoretically, so I'm not going to fine-tune that aspect of the above assumptions. What we can compare easily is the penetrator geometries.
The BR-350A is a flat-faced penetrator. This is done in order to ameliorate shattering propensities, but it restricts the penetration mode profile to plugging most of the way through. This is an energy-inefficient way of penetrating, but it allows use against very hard armours.
The PzGr39 is an ogival penetrator. This geometry is more susceptible to shattering, but if that is avoided, it pierces before it starts plugging, which is a more effective method of penetrating armour. With the same energy, it will therefore penetrate deeper. How much deeper depends greatly on armour quality, and on penetrator overmatch. There will be little appreciable piercing or plugging with low-quality or thin armour.
This points to the PzGr being more efficient. We should therefore subtract some portion of our estimate to correct for penetrator quality. How much this is in this case is very hard to compute, but we can try to find a lower limit.
According to the Curtis/Taub penetration model, we can assume the PzGr to pierce for 49mm before plugging the rest of the way. It is tricky to estimate how far the BR350A will pierce, but let us be generous and say that the B350A will still pierce half of the way throught the plate. Applying the aforementioned penetration model, one finds that the PzGr would penetrate 1.2 times as far. This adjusts the estimate of the BR350A down to 70mm, well under the required thickness, causing partial penetrations at most.
Armour quality figures into this as well, but again a lack of data hampers analysis. Going only by listed hardness of the German test plate and the actual armour of the StuG, we see that the Germans used softer armour for the StuG than as test plate. This suggests that our projectiles would penetrate slightly deeper into the StuG than into the test plate. This would bump the BR350A's chances of penetration up again. If I go by the Brinell hardnesses listed on http://www.freeweb.hu/gva/weapons/german_hardness_gun.html , I arrive to a modeled penetration of 78mm in StuG armour.
This is the fruit of an awful lot of assumptions, and an awful lot of different parameters that have more or less dependence upon each other. Even the model -though the most advanced published thus far- is crude at best. So this cannot be taken as having any kind of precision. However, I have been kind to the Soviet projectile, and still it only barely penetrates. As such, the theory would suggest that StuG armour would get mauled badly by the T34 at 500 meters, but there is by no means certainty that the rounds will go through.
The bottom line to this is that from a theoretical standpoint, the F34 does not seem to have been shortchanged. Only the 50+30 is obviously overmodeled. The game does not model softening of the armour after multiple hits to a plate, which would make things easier for the T34.
By the way, has anyone else noticed that a knocked-out or abandoned tank seems to be penetrated more easily?
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Recreating historical battlefields turned out to be unfightable for me. The poor accuracy of guns at range means that you end up with dry guns before there are enough knockouts to count, if you manage to fight at the ranges reported. Beside that, in the Appenines, the altitude differences are much more than the 20 levels in the scenario builder allows. You end up having to pick and choose, and maybe you'll find a historic battlefield that falls within the parameters of what you can recreate.
Much easier then, to find a nice piece of usable terrain and pretend there was a fight there.
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Designing for effect often devolves into designing for a certain development of the battle. That's why I try to stay true to a random piece of terrain. It normally makes a more interesting battle, but one needs to know the limitations of the game. Striking the balance is something I have yet to master.
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I spend more time building maps for operations and the occasional battle, than actually playing the game. There is something nice about making a landscape that more or less 'works'.
Often I start with a look around on Google Earth, then picking a piece of landscape, then trying to replicate this landscape. Usually, this gives maps that are eerily 'wrong'. I can never quite put my finger on it, but a CM village made to resemble a real village ends up as lost buildings standing around in an odd group.
At other times I improvise, using inspiration from real locations, but based upon what works in the map editor (i.e. 90 degree angles, watching out with slopes). These tend to be more playable.
Now I find myself idly wondering: how much am I cheating? If I were to try to make the most accurate and true simulation, which would be better? I lean towards the improvised maps, but that's mainly because the true-to-life maps tend to have so many game artefacts that these dominate play more than the actual landscape. But in remodeling the battlefield, I am introducing my own prejudices. Tricky, tricky.
What rules of thumb do other people use?
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If we are concentrating on aero engines, the situation becomes slightly different.
First: the Germans (and to a lesser extent, the Japanese) were trying to economize on strategic materials, and were trying to use smaller planes with smaller engines.
Second: The Germans decided to switch over to jet tech, and cut back on piston engine development. They still did it, but the main effort became jets. So later on they were not competing so hard.
Third: Fuel, as I wrote in my first post of this thread.
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Diesels have a narrow torque peak at low engine speed. This means that they need many gears to get the load up to speed, but because the peak is at low engine speed, you can take large load masses without burning so much clutch.
The automotive example you quote is about the number of gears available to the motorist, and that is not exactly what I was talking about. The number of gears is more a function of the width of the usable torque curve (how 'supple' an engine is), than of power.
Let me illustrate my point: If you take two engines, that both output P watts of power, but differ in torque at that power, then because P = T * w (power equals torque multiplied by radial speed) the strong torque engine will be running slower. Let us say that engines A and B have the same power, but A has twice the torque. Then if we would mount B in a box with a gear that reduces output revolution speed by a factor 2, their characteristics would be effectively identical. That is the point I was making.
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I like the simple pictures in the PDF files in this ZIP:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/qe0sb6k0q258iu7/PoorOldSpike_PDF.zip
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If the real tanker of WWII would have been as combat minded as our CM counterparts, that would have been the case. However, the real man had a real life to worry about, with real wife and kids at home. He would try to avoid sudden Mexican showdowns at 1000 meters.
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I'll have to disagree with Dieseltaylor, torque is largely inconsequential. Through gearing, pretty much any kind of torque is achievable - to the point of failure in many cases - whereas (horse)power is limited. And even the power of the engine does not predict everything.
The design of the tanks must take many things into account, and mobility is a very important one. However, mobility is influenced by many parameters. Yes, one needs a powerful engine; the more power, the more speed can be achieved. But in the design of an engine, power is something that has to be traded for other characteristics.
One thing that strikes the eye when comparing engines between the different nationalities, is that the German engines seem to be designed to run forever. They require fine machining, but they have been trimmed perfectly. Loving thought has gone into perfecting even small aspects. It looks like they designed the thing for a tank that would live forever. Partly, this can be explained by the fact that the engine designers did the tank work 'on the side', and mostly worked in the industrial sector. Another might be that Heer specifications on fines and defaults for failing equipment were quite harsh. Until 1944, Germany was not on a war economy.
The Soviet tank engines (plus the rest of the powertrain) look underdesigned in the durability department, in order to squeeze out the extra power. They run rough and hot, with uncompromising vibrational design and primitive lubrication. They will deliver power, they can be maintained by a schoolboy with a spanner, but they will leave you stranded with a totaled engine before long. They are designed to eat themselves up.
It has been a while since I looked at this, so my memory might be fuzzy, but I seem to remember that I found British and American engines quite similar in approach: Take a well-designed normal industrial engine, blow up the proportions and bolt on superchargers. Feed it high-octane fuel, and watch it go. Not as rough as the Soviets, not as perfectionist as the Germans, but solving the problem with liberal application of labour, money and strategic materials.
If all sides would have had each others' engine designs (and they did, as soon as one specimen was captured - reverse engineering engines is not hard), they still would have shrugged and made their own. The Germans had no desire for tank engines that required Western Allies fuel quality, the Russians were not interested in anything that was more complex than strictly necessary, and the Western Allies were in the position that they didn't have to compromise.
As the war progresses, it becomes obvious that all sides learn the lesson that their machines have life expectancies measured in hours. They all start compromising longevity for more power. The more you expect the machine to survive, the less will you compromise its longevity.
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There used to be a series of PDF's from some "Poor Old Spike" who put things like this graphically next to each other. I think I lost mine, but maybe somewhere on the 'net?
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Anecdotal, to be sure: My grandfather was in Belgium in WWII, and he recounted that he once was astounded to see a forest road after an American unit (he had no idea how big it was, I always assumed it must have been a batallion or similar) strewn with personal gear. Especially in a bend in the road, there were hundreds of gasmasks, bayonets, tent gear, (ammunition?) boxes,and even a few rifles. Just discarded a few hundred meters from the mustering ground when going on a march. There were people making their living from scavenging, although my grandfather did not dare touch anything; if the Germans caught you with German army materiel, they would summarily execute you, and he didn't expect dissimilar treatment from any other army.
As a contrast, he said that the Germans never left anything behind, even the empty ammunition boxes were taken along. Again, it's anecdotal, but it seems interesting.
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Speaking as a physicist, climate science is on the very border of being called 'hard' science. It studies a natural phenomenon, but due to its nature testing of hypotheses is extremely hard to do in isolation. This makes the field rather susceptible to pleasantly acceptable-sounding assumptions being taken as fact. The trick in science is to simplify as much as possible, but no further - and that's where climate science often goes too far.
Since getting funding for your research is almost impossible if the subject is not politically popular, my colleagues and I pain ourselves to show that our new project is useful to combat global warming. The result is money for the project and being listed on the IPCC lists of agreeing scientists. I am, and I have not protested. Some more courageous colleagues have, and it did their career no good.
The very fact that there is such pressure to agree contaminates all research, and that is a shame. We cannot know now whether or not this problem exists, as it may well do.
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I've been connected to research in the climate field, and let me tell you this: There's no way this conversation will end in anything constructive.
By the way, as to the remarks about prehistoric civilisations being reconstructed on a sliver of bone: At least they're just making stuff up where there is no knowledge. In the field of medieval military history, there *is* real information, but it is *replaced* with convenient fantasy. That, to my mind, is worse.
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I'm trying to come up with ways in which a dyed in the wool historian can accidentally fudge his sources like this. I'm not having any success.dt - why do you assume intentional fraud when simple error is far and away the most likely explanation? -
It is always a bittersweet discovery when a source of information turns out to be unreliable. One is wiser after the discovery, but it is unpleasant that it happened in the first place.
And this is not unusual. In the field of history, too many researchers set out to prove a point, and are willing to distort context, perspective or even facts to do it. If you find something important to get right, often you have no choice but to go to the original source material - and even that is often biased.
If you think this one is bad, there are some real shockers when you get to medieval military history. There are plenty people who seem to think that it's more acceptable to distort facts the further you descend into the past.
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There is the Tigerfibel, the Pantherfibel, some documentation regarding the training of Soviet AT gunners, but is there any such documentation regarding the StuG III? I've always found it a charming machine, but I can find so little on it in comparison to the big cats.
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Quite apart from that, I would not recommend going hull down with a IV against the usual opposition. It concentrates hits on the turret, which is quite thin.
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I'll play, but
- I'm not very good
- I like long games (50 turns and up)
- I can't play in the weekends. Weekdays at least one turn per day.
I don't have any other requirements, I play all sides with equal gusto.
}) does not penetrate beyond 1500 meters, I would concur if we are referring to frontal aspect shots. If a side is presented, the L48 holes the T34/85 up to 3000 meters, and the Sherman M4A4 at similar ranges. The question becomes whether a hit can be scored, and that can be tricky enough to forbid the use of ammunition for such long shots. This data is again from direct tests by Wa Prüf 1.
Why no German ATRs in Italy?
in Combat Mission: Afrika Korps
Posted
Come to think of it, the spectacular proliferation of 20mm FlAK might have something to do with it.