Jump to content

siffo998

Members
  • Posts

    363
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by siffo998

  1. i have recently started to develop a tank vs tank scenario using CMBN. MKIVs against shermans. while doing that i have red some threads here and at the forum of theblitz. at theblitz there was a rather large complaint from a member that MKIVs are useless: (http://www.theblitz.org/message_boards/showthread.php?tid=65808). Over here at battlefront i`ve red a thread today that MKIVs are far superiour against shermans (http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=115617). this was the reason why i started a little test scenario to show that theres a difference between the different types of shermans. map: completely flat without obstacles. 1500m distance between the opposing tanks. All tanks are at regular experience with the modifiers at 0. first test: on the one side a company +1 (18 tanks) of PZIV H late on the other side a company (18 tanks) of sherman M4A1 75mm late. facing each other like i said above at 1500m distance. I`ve used the two player head to head mode so that i could control both sides. i`ve unbottoned every tank at the start of the battle. after that i hit the go button and let the battle unfold. I gave no further orders after unbuttoning the tanks. I`ve expected the german Panzers to get the upper hand very quickly especially at that range. here are the results after 5 battles with this setup: 1. battle: Americans lost 18 tanks; Germans lost 6 2. battle: Americans lost 18 tanks; Germans lost 6 3. battle: Americans lost 18 tanks; Germans lost 3 4. battle: Americans lost 18 tanks; Germans lost 8 5. battle: Americans lost 13 tanks; Germans lost 18 rather clear 4 to 1 result in favour of the german tanks. second test: on the one side a company +1 (18 tanks) of PZIV H late on the other side a company (18 tanks) of sherman M4A3 75mm early. facing each other like i said above at 1500m distance. Again i`ve used the two player head to head mode so that i could control both sides. i`ve unbottoned every tank at the start of the battle. here are the results after 5 battles with this setup: 1. battle: Americans lost 14 tanks; Germans lost 16 (the last tank still able to fire was a german one. the remaining shermans lost their main gun) 2. battle: Americans lost 3 tanks; Germans lost 18 3. battle: Americans lost 7 tanks; Germans lost 18 4. battle: Americans lost 8 tanks; Germans lost 18 5. battle: Americans lost 5 tanks; Germans lost 18 a clear result in favour of the M4A3s. The additional armour really pays off at these distances. a lot of MKIV fire simply bounced off the glacis while the shermans had little problem destroying the german tanks (especially through the turret). so all i wanted to show is that theres a difference between the versions of shermans (also the brit and canadian ones) and how they stand against MKIVs. Conclusion: The first two minutes of the test decided the outcome. The possibility to pop smoke is a rather big advantage from the sherman tanks in a real battle. Against M4s and M4A1 and biritsh shermans I to III a head to head engagement at longer ranges might turn out in a good way, still a lucky hit can destroy your pzIV. I reccomand always using superiour numbers against the enemy. Against M4A3s the story is a different one. Uparmored front plates make them a though foe at larger distances. Well i leave it open to discussion how you think about those results.
  2. forget it i think i`ve figured it out how to upload and include at least the hit picture. i`ve got another one showing the distance. you can still pm me and i can invite you to the dropbox folder.
  3. happened a second time just moments ago range 1030m t34-85 against panther A (mid) using AP shells. the panther took quite a beating but finally a penetration through glacis. i do not think that its because of manufacion flaws because this would lead to additional armor spalling and partial penetration hits but there are only riochets and a full glacis penetration (leading to a desturcion of the tank). theres still the question if CM is modelling armor weakening after additional hits but this would also lead to armor spalling/partial penetration hits first. i have the screenshots available. maybe you can send me your mail adress per pm and i will invite you to the dropbox folder with the pics. or is there another way to post pics without hosting them on a site ?
  4. well thx for the explanation vanir! still the t34 glacis against pzIV hits seems a bit weak to me. i havent seen a single armor spalling or partial penetration right now even at longer ranges. all hits seems to go cleanly through... but maybe its just me.
  5. i doubt it that a t34-76 (or any other compareable tank) can achieve a full penetration (maybe some spalling) against a plate in this angle. it would just slide off! especially when using a kinetic energy AP shell. maybe the t34 used a modern HEAT shell ?!
  6. happened as well in my test run with a panther A mid against a t34-85 at 1000m distance. after around 4 hits at the glacis the panther received a full glacis penetration (1000m distance). By the way i doubt that CM is modelling decreasing armor strengh with multiple hits. and additionally the manual mentions only the panther G (early) with manufaction flaws. theres nothing about manufactioning flaws at the panther A, or D.
  7. well i could say the same to you why are the results of a waffenprüfung less believable than combat reports (maybe flawed by bias and exaggeration) ? how come that there are such totally different results between waffenprüfung 1944 and reports out of jents ? Iam not saying that the t34 is invincible at that ranges. 1)The turret is always the weak spot even in the t34-85s (100mm turret armor) and penetrations from the front at these ranges can be explained with turret hits (theres a reason why the russians incresed the turret armor with the 85 version but left the glacis armor untouched). 2) there are a lot of weak spots in the glacis plate of the t34. iam not saying that a t34 should always withstand the 75mm shots when angled 30° and further away than 100m. But a 60° horizontally angled plate with additional vertical angling of 30°. how on earth can a AP shells bite into that kind of armor at 1000m. theres virtually no surface to bite, it just glides away.
  8. never had a strange experience like that and i also think that infantry fighting is modelled better than in cm. but theres a multitude of updates (like a jungle) to the game so maybe youve played a very early version. but back to penetration values: the germans state themself (in their tigerfibel tanker manual) that the tiger is frontally vulnerable to t34-76 fire at ranges under 500m. http://www.fprado.com/armorsite/TIGER-1%20FILES/tigerfibel.pdf
  9. well iam on your side when you say you cannot see this when you play the game right now but: 1) in the game manual itself the t34 gets a yellow dot armor rating against a orange dot rating from the pzIV (frontally). 2) the t-34 has 100m turret armor against 50mm turret armor from the pzIV. 3) according to jentz tiger book the tiger needs to be 100m or closer to penetrate the t34s glacis if the t34 is standing in a 30° angle to the tiger. (tiger is not pzIV but the 88mm is even better than the short 75mm from the pzIV). the source is a waffenprüfung from october 1944. http://www.fprado.com/armorsite/tiger1.htm 4) i`ve played a lot of achtung panzer operation star and the results t34 vs panzerIVG (1943) were highly different from what i can see right now in CMRT. t34s glacis often bounced shells from the 75mm at 800m and even closer. by the way those designers are building military training complexes and have a military backgrounds + t34s at hand, so i think they know what they are talking about. 5) from what i have seen i also think that something is amiss or broken or strangely modelled regarding armor right now. i cannot point the finger on it (wrong data, too highly flawed armor values, wrong sloping, uppowered penetration values...) but something is strange about armor penetration right now. like some other forum members in other threads already mentioned.
  10. the guns maybe equal but the t34-85 armor (frontal sloped) is better than the pz Ivs.
  11. well i might be wrong but according to the table shown in here (out of jentz tiger book): http://www.fprado.com/armorsite/tiger1.htm a tiger tank must be 100m or closer to penetrate the t34-85 front hull if the t34 stands in a 30° angle to the tiger. the data from this stems from a Wa Prüf 1 report dated 5th October 1944. on the other hand the t34-85 needs to be 300m or closer to penetrate the front of the tiger (at 30° angle).
  12. well i`ve just checked the scenario and there are only t34-85s on the russian side so theres no wonder that your panzer IVs get screwed. theres nearly no chance that a panzer IV can withstand a shot from the 85. but on the other hand the long 75 guns from your panzer IVs are also capable to one-shot-kill a t34-85 from the front (even at longer range). so its kind of a duel. try what i`ve suggested and maybe keep some tanks in reserve to flank the assault when its getting through the two lakes! that should do the trick but theres always a bit of luck necessary.
  13. Well your panzer IVs are superior (at least at long range) against t34-76 but inferior to t34-85 and everything better. Keep your distance and pop up in hull down position to spot and fire (for about 20-25 seconds) and immediately reverse back out of sight. Build a base of fire with all your tanks available. Do not pop up with single tanks to stop a full tank assault.
  14. well first i`ve just had the time to rerun your scenario and i`ve got 8 KIA and 8 WIA which is in my opinion still a lot of casualties for a entrenched force thats randomly shot at by four 10,5cm pieces. In % these are exactly 10% casualties (out of 160 Men total). second there are some differences between our tests: 1) you are using CMFI 1.01. Iam using CMBN 2.01. Dont know if theres something changed regarding artillery but there are definitely differences regarding environment and ground conditions. 2) my force consists of 164 men (a small difference ) 3) and thats the most important in my opinion: you are centering most of your men in the middle of the map directly in a village with the trenches beside the buildings. so most of the company in the middle does not get any casualties because the buildings around the trenches protect them from shrapnells... etc...
  15. ok to settle with wombles concerns i`ve rerun the test and split each squad into its elements and placed each element of the whole company in a seperate trench module. (totaling around 40 trench modules). i`ve even placed edge trench modules so that nobody can say a squad was placed at the edge of a trench and therefore the trench is rendered useless. then i`ve changed all experience levels to regular and morale leadership etc. to 0. now i`ve rerrun first the test setup as seen above. company spread out around 400m and shelled with 140x 10,5cm shells. here are the casualties for both test runs: first: 100 OK, 34 KIA, 30 MIA, 39,4% casualties second: 114 OK, 27 KIA, 23 MIA, 30,48% casualties now i`ve ran a third test as above but again with all men in hide: result: 158 OK, 6 KIA, 0 WIA, 3,8 % casualties --------------------------- now i`ve reran the test with the entrenched company spread out in a 700mX1000m area. you can only give a target area command for a 400m radius so to keep the test as short as possible i`ve used target area command for four batteries of 4x 10,5cm guns and gave them a Heavy fire/Medium Duration command (each battery firing 40 shells totaling around 160 shells in the target area.) Each battery shot at a different 400m radius location in the target area. you can simply assume that one battery of 4x 10,5cm walked the whole target area with 160 shells over a longer time span. here are the results without hide command: 136 OK, 12 KIA, 16 WIA, still 17,28% casualties. my 10 cents: do whatever you want with those numbers but for me the casualty rate for "non hiding" units is still much to high. in an artillery barrage the soldiers should be expected to realistically keep their head down. From my test i can assume that the problem is with the "TacAI". Sticking out your head and watching the wildlife while artillery is raining down is a bad idea. given the fact that the player cannot interfere when the arty is coming down while in a one minute replay turn, something should be done to increase the life preservation behaviour of the pixeltruppen.
  16. thx. at least one who gets the gripe. PC comparison aside. Arent the CM2 casualty numbers, without any comparison, apalling enough to be talked about ? A ! Entrenched ! Company receives around 40% Casualties in 10-15 minutes of a shelling from 4x 105mm ? Really ? If Artillery of that size and number would have been that effective the war would have been over in July maybe August 1944 latest... given the overwhelming numbers of artillery used by the allies against german positions. And then HIDE command makes all the difference ? Maybe the TacAI should keep their heads down all along during an Artillery Strike. After all we are talking about the big shells which can be heard while coming down (in comparison to mortar shells).
  17. true point maybe i should rename the headline for my thread to "strange TacAi behaviour during artillery shelling" or "trenches in CMBN are uneffective during artillery shelling without Hide command". But still the difference on a higher operational level is quite visible. 40% casualties even when placed inside a trench is ridiculous. like i said a company thats hit that hard is useless on a operational scale. and all that only because you havent hit the "hide" button (which is hard when the shells are hitting your position during a minute turn). i think i will retest the situation without cover or trenches...
  18. not true. most of the variables are compareable: 1) company size on both platforms. 2) experience level about the same. 3) same artillery pieces used (number of tubes and type) 4) company is entrenchend. in PC theirs a additional entrechment level called bunker so i guess entrenched is practicably the same as in CM2. by the way it seems like CM2 also uses abstracted overhead protection in trenches. for example multiple hits inside the trench with units in hide resulted in no casualties. we are talking about around 40% casualties in 10-15 minutes of artillery shelling (only 4 tubes of 10,5cm) against a entrenched postion in the CMBN tests. do you really think that is realistic? a company hit that hard is rendered useless on a operational level. i`ve never ever heard or red of any compareable situation where 4 tubes of artillery of that size caused that much havoc against a entrenched position. Just for comparison in the "End in Africa" (final assault on tobruk) scenario in PC the Brits massing around 120 tubes of 25 pounders artillery against a front area with three entrenched FJ companies. Even than a single two hour turn can hardly cause 40% casualties to one of these companies. how on earth could the germans have held for example the gustav line for about three month when a single artillery strike of four tubes rendered a whole company useless ?
  19. hello all, after playing a lot john tiller games (including the panzer campaign games) i`ve had quite a bit of comparison between CM2 and PC. In CM2 i always wondered how a single artillery strike could cause that much casualties especially if the troops were dug in. break their morale: sure but that much casualties seemed a bit high. Now after playing the PC games i discovered a big difference in casualty numbers from artillery shelling. for that reason i`ve set up a simple test using almost the same parameters. first test in tunisia43 from the PC series: 1x german artillery 10,5 cm LH18 (4 Guns) firing at an american infantry company (2 hexes away, indirect fire), Morale D which is lower than regular (192 men). Ground conditions in the target area are clear and the infantry is entrenched (40% bonus). i`ve rerun the situation four times and here are the casualty numbers for the american company after the shelling: first test run: 2 casualties second test run: 1 casualty third test run: 2 casualties fourth test run: 3 cacualties No disruption of the unit in any test run. Please keep in mind that one turn in this PC scenario was 2 hours of time so i guess we can say that the shelling continued for the whole time. now second test using CMBN: I`ve set up a scenario using a open quick battle map (around 1 km wide which is in translation the same size of one hexagon in PC). i`ve used one american infantry company (regular, -1 leadership, low morale to get the same results as in PC with morale D, 121 men) and placed it entrenched 400m around the objective area in the center of the map. now i`ve placed one german FO (with 10,5 artillery LH18, 4 guns, 150 shells, experience regular) on a hill at the edge of the map and shelled the american position using an target area command. I wanted to command both sides and therefore used hotseat option. i`ve just placed the americans inside the trenches and gave no further commands the whole time. after around 10-15 minutes the whole 150 shells of the artillery were gone. here are the casualty numbers after 10-15 minutes of shelling: first test: 28 KIA, 15 WIA, most of the company broken or rattled. second test: 24 KIA, 28 WIA, most of the company broken or rattled. now i`ve used the same setup and ran a third test giving all the americans inside their trenches a hide command. here are the casualty numbers: 0 KIA, 3 WIA, no one broken or rattled. my 10 cents: both games aim for historical accuracy but theirs quite the difference when you compare both systems. given the fact that PC tries to recreate a operational experience their casualty numbers seem to be more realistic. right now in cmbn you can buy a big park of artillery an bomb a dug-in defending force into nirvana without even using assaulting troopers. seems like the hide command makes a big difference but even then theirs still the question why the TacAI goes not automatically into hide when a big shelling starts (life preservation!). i`ve even seen troops during the first two tests jump out of their trenches and running around (after going broken or rattled) which happened in realty too but these troops in my tests were dug-in inside trenches... its the safest place to be. in my opinion a hide command should not make such a big difference. The TacAI should automatically force the troops to keep theirs heads down while shelling (at least regular infantry and higher). I know that the "Artillery is too effective discussion" is around quite a while but what do you think about these results?
  20. well i`ve just found the tigerfibel online here: http://www.fprado.com/armorsite/TIGER-1%20FILES/tigerfibel.pdf and it seems you are right: according to the Tigerfibel the T34 7,62 cm is more dangerous to the tiger than the sherman 75mm. ( like you said look at page 86). according the text on this page: the T34 7,62 cm penetrates the tiger up until 500m from the front up until 1500m from the side. also keep in mind that this tigerfibel seems to refer to the year 43 (there was no 85mm version in the year 43). seems like those info in the tigerfibel is a mistake because every other source i`ve seen says that the t34 76mm is less potent than the sherman 75mm. maybe they used standard APC ammo for the US 75mm and APDS ammo for the T34 (must be BR-350p shells or something. on this site http://www.fprado.com/armorsite/tiger1.htm is a statistic taken from JENTZ "Germanys Tiger tank". according to this, the T34 85mm is able to penetrate the Tigers Front Turret Hull (not the mantlet) up until 500m (shell fired at 30° angle) and up until 1600m the side turret (30°). so the penetration capability is even bigger at 0°. well if that is not confusing than i dont know.
  21. the tiger is pretty safe against a 6pdr at ranges over 500-700m (just did a quick test). at least when the 6pdr is not using APDS shells. the only reliable cannon to take out a tiger at ranges over 700m is the 17 pdr.
  22. I`ve just found an russian article at the lonesentry site about the vulnerability of tiger tank. http://www.lonesentry.com/articles/ttt_tigervulnerability/index.html i think it pretty clearly shows how dangerous this beasts were (given that a own article about how to destroy them was published) but on the other side it shows that the tiger definitely had weak points. for example the vision slits, tracks and the lower side armor. i think this is correctly modeled ingame. the armor modelling ingame seems also to be fine. my guess is that most players simply use the tiger tank in a very wrong way: 1. the big strengh of the tiger is its long range killing ability (1000m+). at short ranges you will face the same problems as with other german cats: the enemy tank TacAI will use HE shells against your tank. this will damage the tigers internal systems (optics etc) even without a penetration. a unexperienced crew will also give up the position and retreat after such hits. also a lucky weapon hit will always take your tank out of action (look at the article, the russians were trained to shoot at the tiger gun). 2. a very often seen mistake is to use the tiger in a very bold way (thinking: "this beast can be defeated by nothing"). Solution: treat the tiger with care like you would do with a pzIV. Protect your flanks! Never attack without secured flanks! Only exception ingame is when you are running out of time and try to turn the tide because ingame you will not be punished on a operational level when losing a whole tiger platoon. 3. the biggest mistake in my opinion is to use a attacking tiger (or tank in general) alone and without the rest of the platoon. this will lead to a big expensive burning steel hull. by the way there is no such thing as a guaranteed penetration of the US 76mm against a tiger at under 500m. it also depends on the angling of the tanks armor plate in the moment of impact. for example a 30° angled frontal tiger hull will even bounce off a firefly shell. i`ve even seen a stugIII "pig snout mantled" bounce of a sherman 76mm AP shell at 200m distance. the crucial range at when the tiger becomes vulnerable against the US 76mm is around 700m. if you want to keep your tiger pretty safe keep him at ranges of 700m+.
  23. just did a quick test 1 heavy MG section (1xMG34 and 1xMG42) against a platoon of US infantry (everything regular experience). The US infantry was advancing over open ground (from 1000m to the MG position) using a quick command. the MG section was deployed in two foxholes. The section managed to halt the US advance at around 500m. The whole US platoon was shaken from the big amount of wounded and dead. Small arms fire (especially MG fire) really seems to have a much larger impact in the surpression bar. even squads that were not directly shot at kept their head down. looks nice. thank you BFC !
×
×
  • Create New...