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Disappointing tank performance


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It may be realistic that once any tank takes a few hits it's really out of action due to non-penetrative damage, but I'm finding it no fun whatsoever.

It's very hard to have an enthralling tank battle when its number of hits taken rather than armour strength and gun penetration that determines the outcome. My experience at the moment is that irrespective of the armour of a tank, if you let it get hit, at all, by another tank more than once or twice, it will take a critical hit on some subsystem, and then it's effectively out of action. There are so many opportunities: tracks, weapon control, optics...

As I say, this may be realistic, but right now it's taking some "getting used to" (a euphamism for "geez, this is no fun, I hope I get past it").

GaJ

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It was like that in CMSF <- for the lols.

Don't get me wrong I miss the armour/penetration values of CMx1 (great reference library) but that stuff just isn't as important now. Relatively spotting and the number of things that can go wrong after a tank takes a hit put paid to that. Need to see first and then hit first now.

From the tanker histories I have read this seems to be much more realistic. Fighting on after taking damage/crew casualties etc didn't seem to be the normal behaviour of the allied tankers in Normandy (from those that lived to tell the tale anyway).

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This all depends on so many things. I have seen so many times Panthers getting totally raped in the face by 37mm and 75mm shells yet still taking no real damage to vital systems. And on the other hand, I have witnessed a Tiger getting its gun knocked out on the first hit (which could happen in CMx1 too, for that matter). So it's not really that binary.

Now what gets me is how my infantry squads start with lots of green men and by the end there's three yellow guys. What's up with that???

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this problem was already discussed in the "hitpointsystem on subsystems" thread. i`ve send a summary of all tests and sources posted in this thread to phil and he said that they are looking into it.

seriously something seems to be wrong with subsystem damage. it seems that it is triggered much to easily especially when non penetrative/ riocheting hits happen. for example non penetrative armor skirt and wheel hits caused optics damage, a weapon hit caused track damage and riocheting upper frontal or lower frontal hull hits shouldnt cause optics damage either. this is also confirmed in my opinion by the sources i have posted in the thread.

the most severe thing was that a german 20mm cannon (axis vs axis) crashed a tiger tanks optics, tracks and radio within 2 minutes of fire to the !Side! (no optics there apart from small commanders vision slots) armor but a 37mm stuart firing at the same distance to the side of the tiger (no penetration either) caused no subsytem damage at all or very little damage (first damage step at optics, which seems reasonable to me).

all this is really pointing to some problems with subsystem damage calculation.

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the most severe thing was that a german 20mm cannon (axis vs axis) crashed a tiger tanks optics, tracks and radio within 2 minutes of fire to the !Side! (no optics there apart from small commanders vision slots) armor but a 37mm stuart firing at the same distance to the side of the tiger (no penetration either) caused no subsytem damage at all or very little damage (first damage step at optics, which seems reasonable to me).

all this is really pointing to some problems with subsystem damage calculation.

This kind of damage modeling was also in CMSF, where the russian 40mm automatic grenade launcher was the biggest threat to western tanks. Due to the high volume of fire from these grenade launchers, a lot of immobilising track damage occured in these tanks, even when the hits actually registered on the upper front hulls.

There is most definitely some abstraction in the whole damage distribution system .. but to be honest, I would expect it to be abstracted.

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I do hope the data sent to Phil will cause a tweaking of the sub system damage as I am in same boat getting used to the new world. The advantage of the German tanks with better armour seems to be lost by losing guns / optics / tracks too easily.

In a current game I lost early on 50% of my armour due to sub system damage and that was at a range where the Shermans could not hurt the tank physically but a few hits and it was effectively out of the game.

I am glad Siffo998 and the others who have done the tests to try and shed light on what people have felt is not right. Anyway lets see what fixes are put into the CW Module.

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I do hope the data sent to Phil will cause a tweaking of the sub system damage as I am in same boat getting used to the new world. The advantage of the German tanks with better armour seems to be lost by losing guns / optics / tracks too easily.

Or the claustrophobic nature of the Normandy countryside, the unusually close engagement ranges, went a long way in nullifying German armor & main gun advantages. The Shermans had a fighting chance at 600m.

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Or the claustrophobic nature of the Normandy countryside, the unusually close engagement ranges, went a long way in nullifying German armor & main gun advantages. The Shermans had a fighting chance at 600m.

of course the engagement ranges in normandy were very close for tank combat but we are not talking about subsystem damage after penetrations or partial penetrations.

the problem is that for example optics damage is triggered by non penetrative/riocheting hits to parts were no optics really are and this even happens at ranges of 1000-2000 meters (tested it in the editor). for example i`ve seen multiple times a panther tank against three sherman 75mm at around 1500m. the result was that the panther was shot blind by non penetrative hits mainly against the upper frontal hull. after that the panther was just sitting there and could not spot the enemy tanks anymore but the shermans could not defeat him either because it was impossible to penetrate the armor at this range.

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Thanks siffo998 for responding to Childress. You got what I was trying to say unlike Childress...

;)

If the rounds does not penetrate how many hits like that before something break is the whole issue. CM has a system to model that and it could be that it needs tweaking, but I will leave that to those who can tweak.

:)

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I like the tank on tank gameplay much better in CMBN than it was in the CM1 games. In CM1 if a Panther or a Tiger encountered a Sherman even a 76 Sherman then the outcome was ,in my experience, 99 percent of the time in favor of the Panther or Tiger. Now the Sherman still loses but not as often. This makes the game more fun for me. Cant wait to see how the Jackson fares with that big 90.

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I haven't had any real complaints from what I have seen in combat and tests.

Anything more jarring than a pothole can affect optics. I took that as a given before I played the Demo really. Precision instrument designed to accurately target objects at 1,000+ meters. I agree skirt hits should not affect optics, but any hull hit can transmit shock. Repeated shocks will send it right out of true.

Go smack a friend's rifle scope and see what that gets you. :)

Radio is only marginally more robust. Not solid state. Crack a tube you don't have a spare for, and you are done for the day.

External fittings like the "Nevertidygunwaffle" etc. should take damage from anything impacting the area.

I agree that non-penetrating shock damage may be a tad "over-modelled"... but possibly only from a playability, rather than reality, standpoint.

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I haven't had any real complaints from what I have seen in combat and tests.

Anything more jarring than a pothole can affect optics. I took that as a given before I played the Demo really. Precision instrument designed to accurately target objects at 1,000+ meters. I agree skirt hits should not affect optics, but any hull hit can transmit shock. Repeated shocks will send it right out of true.

Go smack a friend's rifle scope and see what that gets you. :)

Radio is only marginally more robust. Not solid state. Crack a tube you don't have a spare for, and you are done for the day.

External fittings like the "Nevertidygunwaffle" etc. should take damage from anything impacting the area.

I agree that non-penetrating shock damage may be a tad "over-modelled"... but possibly only from a playability, rather than reality, standpoint.

i`ve heard that argument with damage due to shock probably 10 times but no one was really able to proove it with a valid source.

Have you found any source that says that nonpenetrative/riocheting hits against the hull (at 1000m distance) affect the operation of the optics (rubber mounted to prevent from shock) from a ww2 tank (german or allied doesnt matter) ?

I`ve never argued with radio damage because i know tube amps and know how fragile they are but i havent found a source either that said anything about a damaged radio after a non penetrative hit.

the only source i`ve found is a operational report to von lauchert (after the inital performance of the panther at kursk) released in the book germanys panther tank from thomas jentz.

it says that aiming sights (protective lenses) got damaged by hits against the gun mantlet (area were aiming sight hole is located). It says however nothing that a hit against the hull or other areas caused the same damage.

additionally in the same report is a passage that says that all panthers in the abteilung received frontal hits by 76mm russian (compareable with sherman 75mm) guns but without any ill effect on the tank !

i would be glad if someone has additional sources about damage after non penetrative hits because i havent found any apart from this one.

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just to calm it down a bit please keep in mind that the main thing that showed me that something seems to be amiss with subsystem damage was that a german 20mm cannon that shoots at a tigers side armor (200m distance, axis vs axis, obviously no penetration) kills the tigers optics, radio and tracks within 2 minutes. but a stuart with 37mm (same situaton) isnt able to do any subsystem damage after around 50 shots (no penetretion either).

try it yourself and set it up in the editor.

i`ve experienced this situation first when one of my shermans was ambushed in a pbem by a german 20mm and was shot to pieces within 3 bursts (all optics gone all radio and immobilized) without a single penetration. (side hits in a very lucks angle so that no penetration happened).

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If tanks are so fragile, their subsystems I mean, then why wasn't this modelled in CMx1?

CMx1 had "gun damaged". We were told this represents all sorts of things, such as optics taken out. And yet the chances of a CMx1 tank getting a bad roll of this nature was quite low.

Have BFC re-evaluated the likelihood of this? Was CMx1 just wrong? We're talking about basically the same thing here: a dice roll determining whether a non-penetrating hit damages the tank in a way that the gun can't fire. In CMx1: rare. In CMBN: frequent.

GaJ

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Go smack a friend's rifle scope and see what that gets you. :)

I spent well over a grand on "ruggedized" optics and mounts for a rifle. See, they tell you the cheap stuff won't stand up to being dropped, thrown, or banged around. Having spent 5 to 8 times more than normal for a "ruggedized" system has made me realize it's too expensive to be dropped, thrown, or banged around. I guess their plan worked! Having spent all that extra cash, indeed, it's stayed zeroed in nicely since I'm so afraid to damage it. ;)

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I spent well over a grand on "ruggedized" optics and mounts for a rifle. See, they tell you the cheap stuff won't stand up to being dropped, thrown, or banged around. Having spent 5 to 8 times more than normal for a "ruggedized" system has made me realize it's too expensive to be dropped, thrown, or banged around. I guess their plan worked! Having spent all that extra cash, indeed, it's stayed zeroed in nicely since I'm so afraid to damage it. ;)

See, its working exactly as advertised. It will stay zeroed till doomsday. They didn't say how it would stay perfect, did they now?

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Go smack a friend's rifle scope and see what that gets you. :)

:D havent seen this one ...

but its not a real comparison because its bloody obvious that the scope gets hurt when you throw it hard enough at the ground directly (or smack someone with it hard enough ;) )

the test would be more compareable if you rubber mount that scope inside a steel hull (centimetres of steel) and shoot with something at the hull... i would doubt that this would hurt or misalligne the scope at all.

by the way this whole...shock misallignes the gunsight theory... has another weak point because where would you draw the line between the tank stays save (calibre of hitting shell is small enough) and where is the point when the sight gets misalligned ?

for example does a rifle bullet that hit the tank produce enough shockforce to misalligne the optics inside ? i doubt it ! and i`ve never read or heard anything like it !

on the other hand why should exactly 75mm AP shells hitting the tank hull (and bouncing off) misalligne the optics ?

hope you get my point !

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