shift8

Oh good, your back!
 
 
We aren't talking about shatter gap specifically any more, do try to keep up will you?
 
And MY argument was never that the U.S. Army definition was used one for one. The lack of CM DOES make that clear. It does not prove that simply because they lumped CM in with one of the two other words, that the army's definition of a PP, and mine, are not compatible.  What that also DOES NOT prove is that your perspective on how CMBN defines it is true. It is a non-sequitur to argue that just because BFC didn't use CP, and therefore didn't use all the army terms, then we just throw it all out and use your definition of PP, where the word partial has not meaning whatsoever, since you said it was a round that penetrated at a lower energy state as I recall. Therefore you have not proven that Partial penetrations are not what I say they are. And for that matter, I never stated that the BFC did use the Army terms one for one, my intent was to demonstrate how people my might normally define rounds that do not PTP. 

I do have proof.
 
PTP = Projectile passes through plate.
CP = Complete Penetration
 
CM doesn't use these terms at all, and "spalling" isn't a category of hit in the 1944 report. "Partial penetration" is the only linguistic overlap between the two. It is obvious that BFC did not use the 1944 US Army classification as a template for CM, therefore your belief that what the game defines as a PP must be the same as what the 1944 report defines is just bizarre.
 
 
I have not given a definition of tactically acceptable. I haven't even used that term. If you mean my belief that there is nothing major wrong with the ballistics then the fact that you don't care what I think confirms my suspicion that I am wasting my time here.
 
.
And if the tank explodes does that mean the gun is ineffective? LOL  
 
I am done with you.
 
 
 
 
 

 

I dont know why you think Im throwing out CMBN pen mechanics. They are based in large part on Rexford and Livingstons WW2 Ballistics: Armor and Gunnery, a book that I consider to be the gospel word when it comes to this stuff. For that matter, I consider combat mission to be a near flawless ww2 sim. Charles did a fantastic job, as did everyone else who worked on this game. I know for a fact I stated at least once in this thread that the only thing I have a beef with is this issue, so I do not think that can be reasonably characterized as "questioning the entire model"  
As for having a dim view of his work, I have my own copy and have read almost all of it. I have referenced it repeatedly in this thread. 
 
I have an issue with one tanks armor vs one or two different guns that are ballistic ally very similar. I have no problem with these guns or this tank in any other context, nor did I ever say that I did. TBH, I dont really understand how you thought that I did, but its whatever. 
 
As for my credentials, I dont have any, but neither do any of the people I'm arguing with so far as I can tell. Hence my giving flying hetzer what they think. Not to say I just dismiss everything they say out of hand, but I dont give a crap how many posts someone has. Quite frankly, I think Im being judged quite a bit by the fact that I am outside certain peoples "list of known forum grognards"
 
PS: I DO work for the DOD. Just not in a manner relevant to this 

Having read this entire thread, I can conclusively say there is a lot more salt pouring toward shift8 than there is emanating from him.

You would be dead wrong, stop wasting our time with asinine comments.

Your taking my "Huh" far too personally dude. Thanks for doing the tests, but from my perspective they didnt tell me anything we didnt already know, so I didnt really understand why you were using data very similar to my own to make an entirely opposite conclusion. Thats what the Huh was for. I appreciate you taking the time to test for yourself, my "huh" derives from your use of the data, not the gathering of it. 
 
As for partial penetrations, I just cant see how you can see them that way. It doesnt make sense. I mean, aside from the definitions given by the US and others, its not logically sound IMO. The "energy" of the round being the function of PP is not reasonable, since that would already fall into the damage modeling of full pens. Even shells that made it all the way through would do so at differing velocities, affecting their results, and separating PP and P based on that would be highly misleading. It would be like calling a bullet that missed by 5 feet a miss, and a bullet that misses by 10 a partial-miss. 
 
I mean, the word itself is self-explanatory. a PARTIAL penetration PARTIALLY makes it way through the armor and is lodged there is some form. World war Two definitions of this term corroborate this, so why would BF just make up their own? It seems to me that you guys who think this way are more interested adjusting the semantics so that you don't have to acknowledge a potential problem (or at least something we don't understand) with the game. There simply isnt any other reason to presume PP's are complete penetrations IMO unless your trying to make things fit in a certain manner. It just doesn't make any sense. You start twisting the words that much and pretty soon it will be impossible to make any sort of definitive statement about anything.
 
And as for them destroying tanks: The do NOT most of the time, just judging my experience and Rinaldis 30% figure from earlier, 70% of them don't do enough to kill the tank. There is a perfectly good reason to have separate PP, P, and Spalling decals. They are not the same things. A hit that strike the armor and carries on it merry way can still cause the armor to spall. Spalling is an effect, not a type of strike. A Partial Pen is a type of strike, specially one where the round is lodge in the armor. You MIGHT get a very massive "spalling" effect from that, since a round that is poking it head through the armor, or has almost made it way through is likely to send a hell of alot of materiel into the tank. In fact, Im prerry sure you can get PP's spalling at the same time, if not in CMx2 CMx1. 

After considerable testing in CMBN, I have determined (as many here already are aware) that the Tiger deflects almost all 76mm hits from the front at ranges well within the penetration zone for the 76mm gun at low obliquity at ranges of 500 to 1000m. In my estimation, there seems to be no reason what-so-ever that the 76mm gun should not be able to reliably penetrate the Tigers frontal armor at reasonable angles under 1000m. At the very least under 800m. What exactly is battlefronts reason for this?
 
I personally suspect that this is intended to be the shatter gap, a effect that I personally think is nonsense. At the very least, it is being overdone. 
 
According to Rexfords book( battlefront having already made it clear that they used this author for advice) the shatter gap theory is predicated on a few oddball tidbits thrown together to prove an effect whose original source was unfounded in the first place. 
 
Rexford states that origin for historical belief in this problem comes from Bailey's accounts from Tiger engagements in Normandy. This entire source can be discarded out right since there were no Tiger tanks fighting the Americans in Normandy, making this a clear example of American tank crews presuming every vehicles was a Tiger. In other words, the origin for this is nonsense. 
 
He then goes on to state that Isigny tests  on the Panther mantlet, presuming that the reason 76mm rounds could only penetrate at 200m was due to shatter gap. This is as massive stretch, as we dont necessarily know what parts of the mantlet were struck, or at what angle. IE: if they hit the mantley square, they should go through, but striking the upper or lower parts would be alot harder to penetrate. Essentially, this is case of making specific assumptions about the conditions and results of a test to prove a phenomenon. Completely silly. 
 
He also shows the 3inch gun tests and makes alot of assumptions as to what they actually show. Said tests make no mention of shatter gap failure, but he assumes that when failures did occur inside the ratios he concocted up, that they occurred due to shatter gap. 
 
 
 
However the real issue here is that all of this witchcraft is in direct contention with the actual data. 
 
 
We already know from US gun tests that more than 50% of the time they were capable of penetrating the amount of armor listed in the charts. Those rounds were standard M62 projectiles with the same 59 Rockwell that he claims would have caused this this issue on American and other nations rounds. 
 
Shoeburyness tests even showed 76mm APCBC making it though 100mm armor at as much as 30 degrees at 500m. 
 
In other words, even if shatter gap was real, if did not prevent the rounds from performing according to the American penetration tables, which presume a 50% success rate like most other nations tables. Clearly there is room for success above this rate was well, as the shoeburyness tests show. This issue would also affect the 85mm gun on T-34, which should also be able to penetrate the Tiger in CMRT, but cannot......despite there being tests, complete with photographs, of this being the case. 
 
So what is the deal here? And how can we get this changed?

Don't have the book (£365.98!) to hand but does it specify if that result was found out from combat or subsequent allied testing on say captured Tiggers conducted in France after the battles in Normandy moved on. 
 
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Faint-Praise-American-Destroyers-During/dp/0208020063

This isnt the case. Even since CMx1 the AP simulation has been near perfect. Virtually everything is taken into account in CMx2 especially. 
 
This is why the CM series of games is basically the only thing out there will accurate WW2 tank combat. 

So what exactly does this mean in CM? I originally thought that it might just be round making it part of the way through the armor....but that would apply to just about any hit that doesn't penetrate.
 
So in a PP does some of the round make it through?

That doesn't even make sense, much less bear any relevance to the question. When the game was designed, specific parameters had to have defined what a "partial penetration" was. So there IS a clear definition, and Im posting here to find out if the devs or someone else has ever known or put out what that was. 
 
Knowing the difference between a Penetration and a partial penetration as it was defined by the dev's makes a huge difference with regard to understanding the game and its mechanics. Is a PP part of the projectile making it through but not all? Or perhaps the shell is lodged in the armor and sticking out? Or perhaps it just means a large bulge in the interior without a crack or hole in the plate? Or maybe its all or none of these things at the same time. It matters because it helps to know how effective a round is being when it PP's, and if the game is being accurate.
 
If noone knows the difference then oh well, but you needn't walk in here and disregard the question just because you dont have the info to answer it.  Your not going to sit here and have the gall to tell me what does or does not matter to me, or what should matter to me. That is my prerogative, not yours. Dont have the answer or dont personally care? Fine, but dont try to push it on me. 

It matters to me since it tells me how the penetration mechanics in the game work. 

Well then I vote after Bulge they make Combat Mission Operation Unthinkable!