Hapless

What Tiger? You were just rolling down the street when suddenly there was a huge bang and the turret filled with smoke, screams, shrapnel and blood. It would be nice to have more details on the actual engagement, but I seriously doubt the surviving crew were either still inside the Pershing or in any kind of mental state to do anything by the time the second shot hit the muzzle brake. It seems unlikely that they had any idea what was going on.
But we're getting a little sidetracked from the main point. It might be profitable for people to start sharing turns when they take gun damage so we can see how often it happens and what common factors there are. Because I know it barely ever happens to me, nor does it seem to happen very often when I specifically try to do it to my opponents.

What Tiger? You were just rolling down the street when suddenly there was a huge bang and the turret filled with smoke, screams, shrapnel and blood. It would be nice to have more details on the actual engagement, but I seriously doubt the surviving crew were either still inside the Pershing or in any kind of mental state to do anything by the time the second shot hit the muzzle brake. It seems unlikely that they had any idea what was going on.
But we're getting a little sidetracked from the main point. It might be profitable for people to start sharing turns when they take gun damage so we can see how often it happens and what common factors there are. Because I know it barely ever happens to me, nor does it seem to happen very often when I specifically try to do it to my opponents.

This ^^^ so much this !

What Tiger? You were just rolling down the street when suddenly there was a huge bang and the turret filled with smoke, screams, shrapnel and blood. It would be nice to have more details on the actual engagement, but I seriously doubt the surviving crew were either still inside the Pershing or in any kind of mental state to do anything by the time the second shot hit the muzzle brake. It seems unlikely that they had any idea what was going on.
But we're getting a little sidetracked from the main point. It might be profitable for people to start sharing turns when they take gun damage so we can see how often it happens and what common factors there are. Because I know it barely ever happens to me, nor does it seem to happen very often when I specifically try to do it to my opponents.

What Tiger? You were just rolling down the street when suddenly there was a huge bang and the turret filled with smoke, screams, shrapnel and blood. It would be nice to have more details on the actual engagement, but I seriously doubt the surviving crew were either still inside the Pershing or in any kind of mental state to do anything by the time the second shot hit the muzzle brake. It seems unlikely that they had any idea what was going on.
But we're getting a little sidetracked from the main point. It might be profitable for people to start sharing turns when they take gun damage so we can see how often it happens and what common factors there are. Because I know it barely ever happens to me, nor does it seem to happen very often when I specifically try to do it to my opponents.

What Tiger? You were just rolling down the street when suddenly there was a huge bang and the turret filled with smoke, screams, shrapnel and blood. It would be nice to have more details on the actual engagement, but I seriously doubt the surviving crew were either still inside the Pershing or in any kind of mental state to do anything by the time the second shot hit the muzzle brake. It seems unlikely that they had any idea what was going on.
But we're getting a little sidetracked from the main point. It might be profitable for people to start sharing turns when they take gun damage so we can see how often it happens and what common factors there are. Because I know it barely ever happens to me, nor does it seem to happen very often when I specifically try to do it to my opponents.

I hope 'ire and rubble' was a deliberate cheeky play on 'fire and rubble' and not a typo. Either way, you should keep it that way.  

It might just be a perspective problem.
Looking at it sideways- how many times do US players run up against Tigers in Combat Mission? A lot, right? Because Tigers are cool and popular. But its shockingly unrealistic. That Pershing-Tiger engagement there is 1/3 of all the times the US Army fought Tiger Is in Western Europe. The Americans basically never fought Tiger 1s in the entire period covered by CMBN and CMFB up to the end of the war. It's a historically negligible event. But in games, of course, it happens all the time.

Leaving aside the fact that we've already seen enough photos spread out around the threads to show that gun barrel damage is more common than US-Tiger engagements in the historical record, it stands to reason that any reliance on "it seems like a rare event in real life" is about as effective an argument as "my panzer's mighty armour should let me do whatever I want with it."

The bottom line is that the enemy has to be shooting at you to damage your gun barrel. If you've put your tanks in a position where they're getting shot at, either accept the risk or work out where everything went wrong.

I'm not seeing a gun barrel penetrated in this pic. I'm seeing a damaged muzzle brake that would likely not prevent the gun from firing. 
 
Really - you'd be happy to fire a 90mm high explosive projectile down a barrel that is that badly damaged, and potentially partially blocked. I was never a tanker, but if that had ever happened to my rifle I sure as hell would not have fired another round. Guns and their associated mountings and recoil systems are pieces of high precision engineering, with very small tolerances. If these are exceeded, due to damage or other external factors, they stop working as designed and that is inherently dangerous given the amounts of energy at play.
  P
 

Well considering every military in history has trained to aim for center of mass, this seems like the nitpick of all nitpicks. If anything, its an indication the game is behaving correctly. Absurd. Aim does not get magically thrown off target just by firing. This is why recoil mechanisms exist. And if we are going to nitpick and say "the ground is shifting" well as it turns out militaries are actually competent and train for this eventuality. Weapons crews, gun crews, tank crews, etc all take this into account and make micro adjustments while firing to ensure they are compensating for these small variables. Though I know some here will refuse to accept it, I think it is clear that the game accurately models a crews overall competence depending on its veterancy level, and that is more than enough to cover this "issue." Yes, and the sky is blue. Seriously, what is the point? This is known in the real world, yet there is not a single military out there that advocates for fighting tanks out in the open opposed to hull down positions. Again, it turns out that militaries are pretty competent when it comes to this stuff. Yeah, the driver can't see anything in a hull down position. That's why the job of spotting targets is the commander and gunners job, the two people with the best optics that can see over the hull down cover.  Not true. Spotting is 1:1. If less of a vehicle is visible it is harder to spot. There are tons of anecdotal examples of this on these forums alone, people complaining that their tank can't see through some bush or through some smoke or dust, etc. The more obscured from view a vehicle is, the harder it is to spot initially.  The obvious answer is stop getting your tanks shot at. Regardless of what the tank is or what is shooting at it, it is never a good thing to be directly engaged. Again, this is a nitpick. Soft systems on the outside of a tank are more vulnerable than the best armored parts of the tank. This isn't rocket science. And we all know that if BFC were to introduce some form of "center mass deviation" where there was some random chance applied to shots to be off their aimpoints to varying degrees, you would likely be the first to start complaining about how unrealistic that is because ballistics are a well known and quantifiable science.  Mantlets are a historical weakspot on tanks, both in WWII and the modern era. Anywhere you have a gap or disconnect between otherwise solid parts is going to create structural weakness.  This is objectively false. I already know the thread where this hysterical myth first gained infamy, and I don't feel the need to restate the obvious. If you think standing in the open is more conducive to your own survival, then more power to you.
Finally, its a game. It simulates combat pretty damn well. And its fun too. No game is perfect. No sim is perfect. Hell, some argue reality isn't perfect. If you can't get over that, and you really think the game is so terribly flawed in all these micro ways that add up to ruin the game, then just don't play it. Life is short. I'm sure there are better things out there than spending years constantly trying to prove the already known quantity that nothing is perfect. 

... if you play as the Germans! Don't think I've ever had an Allied tank with a destroyed main gun.

Obviously this has a lot to do with German anti-tank weapons slicing through Allied armour like a knife through hot butter but acknowledging your tanks are fragile makes you play them better.
On the other hand, the mythic allure of superior German armour might encourage people to play more aggressively and recieve a face full of subverted expectations when they inevitably get damaged.

Just a wild guess here, but here goes: in the game we can see all enemy tank hits with hit decals, in the war only knocked out tanks left behind could be studied. Not all knocked out tanks were photographed and not all photographs remain to be studied. Perhaps a lot of tanks with gun barrel damage were salvaged and repaired? Are there records of what tank repairs were made, would be interesting in this matter. But perhaps there is a limitation in the engine for the kind of grazing shot a hit straight to the front would be. The incoming shell hits the barrel at a very shallow angle so maybe it doesn't take much for it to skim off the surface and continue. Perhaps the engine detects contact and penetration is calculated making the barrel susceptible to full penetrations?

It might just be a perspective problem.
Looking at it sideways- how many times do US players run up against Tigers in Combat Mission? A lot, right? Because Tigers are cool and popular. But its shockingly unrealistic. That Pershing-Tiger engagement there is 1/3 of all the times the US Army fought Tiger Is in Western Europe. The Americans basically never fought Tiger 1s in the entire period covered by CMBN and CMFB up to the end of the war. It's a historically negligible event. But in games, of course, it happens all the time.

Leaving aside the fact that we've already seen enough photos spread out around the threads to show that gun barrel damage is more common than US-Tiger engagements in the historical record, it stands to reason that any reliance on "it seems like a rare event in real life" is about as effective an argument as "my panzer's mighty armour should let me do whatever I want with it."

The bottom line is that the enemy has to be shooting at you to damage your gun barrel. If you've put your tanks in a position where they're getting shot at, either accept the risk or work out where everything went wrong.

A )
B ) You might be clutching at straws if you're trying to suggest that the gun barrels of all tanks from all nations suffered fewer than 3 frontal hits in the entirety of WW2, whether there was anyone there with a camera to record it or not.

C ) The greater point is that assuming that it never ever happened ever in WW2 does not mean that it wouldn't happen in CM, even if CM was 100% realistic (which it isn't). Battlefront can only provide the tools for the players. If players decide to reverse towards the enemy, they run the risk of getting their engine knocked out. If players let the enemy shoot at the front of their tanks, they run the risk of getting their main gun knocked out.

It might just be a perspective problem.
Looking at it sideways- how many times do US players run up against Tigers in Combat Mission? A lot, right? Because Tigers are cool and popular. But its shockingly unrealistic. That Pershing-Tiger engagement there is 1/3 of all the times the US Army fought Tiger Is in Western Europe. The Americans basically never fought Tiger 1s in the entire period covered by CMBN and CMFB up to the end of the war. It's a historically negligible event. But in games, of course, it happens all the time.

Leaving aside the fact that we've already seen enough photos spread out around the threads to show that gun barrel damage is more common than US-Tiger engagements in the historical record, it stands to reason that any reliance on "it seems like a rare event in real life" is about as effective an argument as "my panzer's mighty armour should let me do whatever I want with it."

The bottom line is that the enemy has to be shooting at you to damage your gun barrel. If you've put your tanks in a position where they're getting shot at, either accept the risk or work out where everything went wrong.

This. The games lend their scenarios to melodrama, and one of the war's most dramatic events was invariably CLASH OF ARMOR type stuff. So the designers like to throw in tanks, lots of tanks, lots of the heaviest tanks, a lot. I don't blame them I mean the toys are cool and certainly one of the reasons why I signed up for the game but like on top of what Hapless here is saying I also think it's worth pointing out that the excessive reliance on the heaviest hardware in the games leads to many scenarios suffering from a sort of "Panzer Fatigue". I realized the effect this was having on my own method of play years ago in that it was making me excessively cautious and meticulous in ways that most certainly would've led to my relief from the front for "nerve shattered" or "lack of moral fiber" etc. Because I expected to run into a Tiger behind every freaking hedgerow, and the way campaigns were designed I actually would. 
Tanks lead to bloody battles period and they will invariably inflict many casualties and mission kills on each other when they encounter other tanks. This is why im getting a bit miffed when people suggest new ways to nerf tanks in the game when it seems to me like they're teetering on over-nerfed. The trouble is they're around too much and too many of the scenario are reliant on them either in support or as the set-piece. 

It might just be a perspective problem.
Looking at it sideways- how many times do US players run up against Tigers in Combat Mission? A lot, right? Because Tigers are cool and popular. But its shockingly unrealistic. That Pershing-Tiger engagement there is 1/3 of all the times the US Army fought Tiger Is in Western Europe. The Americans basically never fought Tiger 1s in the entire period covered by CMBN and CMFB up to the end of the war. It's a historically negligible event. But in games, of course, it happens all the time.

Leaving aside the fact that we've already seen enough photos spread out around the threads to show that gun barrel damage is more common than US-Tiger engagements in the historical record, it stands to reason that any reliance on "it seems like a rare event in real life" is about as effective an argument as "my panzer's mighty armour should let me do whatever I want with it."

The bottom line is that the enemy has to be shooting at you to damage your gun barrel. If you've put your tanks in a position where they're getting shot at, either accept the risk or work out where everything went wrong.

It might just be a perspective problem.
Looking at it sideways- how many times do US players run up against Tigers in Combat Mission? A lot, right? Because Tigers are cool and popular. But its shockingly unrealistic. That Pershing-Tiger engagement there is 1/3 of all the times the US Army fought Tiger Is in Western Europe. The Americans basically never fought Tiger 1s in the entire period covered by CMBN and CMFB up to the end of the war. It's a historically negligible event. But in games, of course, it happens all the time.

Leaving aside the fact that we've already seen enough photos spread out around the threads to show that gun barrel damage is more common than US-Tiger engagements in the historical record, it stands to reason that any reliance on "it seems like a rare event in real life" is about as effective an argument as "my panzer's mighty armour should let me do whatever I want with it."

The bottom line is that the enemy has to be shooting at you to damage your gun barrel. If you've put your tanks in a position where they're getting shot at, either accept the risk or work out where everything went wrong.

Sent to Bootie, finally.

 
 
Goumiers Mod Readme
Goumiers Mod for CM Rome2Victory.pdf

We Say Goodbye to Another YouTuber
Good night @Josey Wales, you did not see the third guy with the AT Rifle. Josey raced forward to try and save more members of @benpark's KG being gunned down many Soviet SMG soldiers. He was partially successful and engaged Soviet AT Rifles that responded but there were simply too many. One shot through the side took out the loader and the crew bailed from the vehicle to be quickly gunned down in the street.

The remants of KG Josey Wales is helping @DoubleD hold the north while going after the lone T34 guarding the approach to OBJ Jaegermeister. This will hopefully cause him to take stock of the situation and stop the steady stream of Soviet reinforcements he is flooding south to tackle OBJ Beer. These are running the gauntlet of DoubleD's panzers.
The south has been bloody. Since my last update two full squads of @mjkerner's fallschirmjaeger have been wiped out. The remaining Soviet tanks are poking forward and blasting any spot they get with HE, bullets and flame. There's still enough troops to hold the position but it's starting to get a little dicey in terms of numbers of front line riefleman.
Directly after the last little teaser the whole squad of fallschirmjaeger were wiped out except for two pixeltruppen who are holding bravely among the flames to look after their injured.

Soviet soldiers streaming south still run into the wall of steel holding OBJ Beer.

FInally in the centre it's become pretty quiet. KG @Bootie and KG benpark are holding form after seeing off their infantry opposition (for now). And for a rare site, the Volkssturm decided to not surrender after all once the SS Troops arrived on scene and took care of the opposition.

Here is the map of the situation and the next few planned movements. Not a lot. I hold two objectives, it's up to Elvis to make the serious move now. I think a human wave of some description is coming in the south very soon though.

(Yes I do realise that I've somehow killed all three prominent Combat Mission YouTubers... honestly not on purpose).

A )
B ) You might be clutching at straws if you're trying to suggest that the gun barrels of all tanks from all nations suffered fewer than 3 frontal hits in the entirety of WW2, whether there was anyone there with a camera to record it or not.

C ) The greater point is that assuming that it never ever happened ever in WW2 does not mean that it wouldn't happen in CM, even if CM was 100% realistic (which it isn't). Battlefront can only provide the tools for the players. If players decide to reverse towards the enemy, they run the risk of getting their engine knocked out. If players let the enemy shoot at the front of their tanks, they run the risk of getting their main gun knocked out.

Yeah this is going to end well...

One, Two, Three Tank...

North and Centre
We start in the centre of the map. So many Soviet tanks went boom over the last few turns. @DoubleD came to fore and did their job as a number of Soviet armour elements tried to reposition and break up my control of the main roads. A Sherman, T-34 and a SU-85 all went boom in the space of two minutes.



It wasn't a complete walk in the park as KG @benpark lost most of a platoon in about 30 seconds. One of the pioneer platoons was lining up to enter buildings along the main street and pick off some known infantry taking pot shots at the Volkssturm. They went in and...


It was a red cross blood bath.
@Josey Wales personally charged forward, covered by DoubleD's PzIV to seek revenge for poor benpark's men. A blazing MG34 and 20mm cannon and close range started picking off Soviet soldiers popping up in every window. As the turns rolled around the Soviet anti-tank rifles started appearing but Josey became a machine.

KG @Bootie and about one and half platoons from KG benpark hold the position closest to OBJ Jaegermeister. It's a nasty little block of flats that will become a SMG paradise if Elvis ventures across the main road. The pioneers have blasted some walls allowing easy access between the buildings out of line of sight of the enemy. With Elvis' armour now concentrated in the south, (more on that next), I'm pretty confident I can hold this and get shots off at anything being sent south to reinforce his main effort.

(You're meant to look towards the enemy guys...)
And for something a little humorous. Some Soviet tank crewmen and the Bootie's Volkssturm decided to both put down their rifles and surrender to each other. I think they cottoned on that it was May 1945...



South
@mjkerner's Fallschirmjager are putting up a stiff fight but whenever one of the five Soviet tanks looking their way gets a spot they fall under a hail of bullets and HE fire. Saying that they can only see one face of the objective building complex so most of the troops are still there to put up a fight when Elvis decides to get in close. His tanks cant move without being barraged by tanks and recoiless rifles and I'm sure Elvis knows this. The clokc is ticking so I'm expecting a big final push at some point. (Oh and the late @Hapless's surviving crewmen continue to do him proud).

 
Finally the map. OBJ Jaegermeister is out of the question now but I still have the strength to old OBJ Beer.

Panzerfaust teams for the Soviets? Very nice!

The Worst Vehicle Trades in Military History
We start this update saluting @DoubleD who saw and opportunity, took it, did all he could and paid the ultimate price for what appears to be absolutely no gain.
We start in the north where we left off with the PanzerIV and Panther from DoubleD's platoon advancing to swing around and strike at two T-34's gaurding Elvis' home objective - OBJ Jaegermeister. They have the cover of the building and a high wall to provide a hull down position. One of the T-34's move off to the east to try and intercept the spotted German panzers. DoubleD in the lead in his Panther takes off with a cover arc ready to ambush this moving T-34 while it's still trying to deploy.
It's a fatal mistake. Disaster. The T-34 had already started turning. DoubleD is quicker and does get the first shot off, a side penetration! It surprisingly doesn't take out the T-34.
Moments later a return shot causes a catastrophic explosion killing the whole crew.

Despite the whole swing around from the north east plan in tatters, it turns out to be enough to stop Elvis from trying the same trick. It also proves (expensively) that there isn't any Soviet infantry around this part of the map. KG @Josey Wales is moving up to take over flank security, confident his opened top light vehicles won't be exposed to Soviet SMG's.
That is really all that is occurring on the northern half of the map since the last update. The Soviet aircraft did reappear and shoot up a supply truck back in my deployment zone (sorry, the Ostwind didn't get to respond so no pics of it in action), but hasn't been seen since.
The PzIII get's into a shooting match with a T-34, (one from the centre earlier?), and the short 75mm shows it's age. Multiple strikes as the T-34 struggles to get a shot on target.
However all it takes is one shot in return.

An SU-85 and another T-34 soon appear down this alley of death followed by a lot of infantry that cross the road covered by the Soviet tanks. @mjkerner's boyz are in for a tough time. The small force holding the forward buildings pulls out before being engaged by the swarm of Soviets not rushing into their vicinity. Merging with the other platoon a wall of steel awaits anyone who who goes for the direct approach to the OBJ Beer.

Contact does come, however in a surprising location. It's in the buildings diagonal to beer and not a great location to launch an assault on. There's only open ground between that position and the ruins of the brewery (or what the intelligence brief suggested was once a brewery). Elements of @benpark 's pioneers providing a screen along the centre of the map along with other Fallshcirmjager inflict heavy casualties on the Soviets.
Orange = good. Green = bad.


@Hapless's PanzerIV crew, his body still sitting lifeless in his commanders seat, pops smoke and swings around to lay fire down onto this infantry threat.

Finally here is the situation report. Stars equal fire targets while the colour represents who is doing the firing. Unfortunately a whole squad of Fallschirmjager were wiped out by the Soviet tanks in death alley. They were facing the park adjacent OBJ Beer.

I'm not going to try to head towards OBJ Jaegermeister anymore. I'm really stuck with what to do with the bulk of KG Benpark. @Bootie's Volkssturm have being proving great scouts and are now moving up as close to the main intersection, (currently obscured by smoke), to hold that square of buildings and cover the road towards OBJ Beer. A militia charge across the road into the buildings on the right flank of Elvis' assaulting force in the south?
Any requests for pics let me know.