Stuart v Panther

[Hilts]

Before I risk everything and try it does anyone know if it's probable or even possible for a Stuart to take out a Panther from the rear at a range of 360 metres?

[Sakai007]

At 360 meters? Not sure, but you might very will get lucky and disable him. In CMx1 I killed many a Panther at night or in low vis conditions using the Stuart. I would try it, what the heck, you will learn something one way or the other. Come to think about it, 360m is a bit of a shot, if you can sneak a bit closer while keeping LOS and not spotted, I would try. If not, might as well let her have it!!!

[Sergei]

You should be able to penetrate the rear of the hull or turret with a good margin at that range, provided that there isn't very high off-angle. Whether the penetration has any effect is a different question, but there's only one way to find out!

[Dave85]

I did a qucik battle yesterday vs AI. I had a single panther (Elite/Fanatic) come over a ridge at full speed to discover an entire company of sherman 75's, 20 tanks at less than 150 metres. When I realised what I'd done I tried to withdraw it straight away but it was tracked quickley. I thought oh well, that panthers lost maybe I can take a few M4's with me. But no. The panther sat there, taking fire at point blank range from 20 guns and knocked out EVERY single sherman. On its own. It must have taken 100 hits. No damage to the armour or any of the weapons and no crew injured.

The panther was not hull down either.

Not really relevant, just thought I'd mention it.

Is this realistic? I know elite/fanatic is a bit gamey but surely not?

[Amizaur]

Were there any hits to the Panther's turret ?

Or maybe wirtually all hits from Shermans went into Panther's front hull - as AI Sherman gunners aimed at the Panther's center of mass ?

[Warmachine113]

I think in RL a panther could survive this..The crew inside couldnt sustain the hits on the armor..The shockwaves would be terrible..Trying to reload and all..must be a really REALLY dedicated crew you have there lol...but still bailing out in front of 20 firing sherman is still not a better solution for them

[Javaslinger]

I did a qucik battle yesterday vs AI. I had a single panther (Elite/Fanatic) come over a ridge at full speed to discover an entire company of sherman 75's, 20 tanks at less than 150 metres. When I realised what I'd done I tried to withdraw it straight away but it was tracked quickley. I thought oh well, that panthers lost maybe I can take a few M4's with me. But no. The panther sat there, taking fire at point blank range from 20 guns and knocked out EVERY single sherman. On its own. It must have taken 100 hits. No damage to the armour or any of the weapons and no crew injured.

The panther was not hull down either.

Not really relevant, just thought I'd mention it.

Is this realistic? I know elite/fanatic is a bit gamey but surely not?

I can't imagine that's realistic... It's things like this that make me question the vaunted CM engine....

[sburke]

I can't imagine that's realistic... It's things like this that make me question the vaunted CM engine....

Now now, don't get snarky till you have all the details.

Note the Panther is elite fanatic and there has already been discussion about what to expect if you set units at that level. Next question- What were the Sherman crews?

[dieseltaylor]

Sounds truly unlikely. One might make an argument for people being confused as to where the shells were landing but at point blank range and with the Shermans presumably going to manic fire rate the Panther would be getting a minimum 100 hits a minute and it is inconcievable any crew would sit duking it out.

As for a Honey taking a Panther from the rear [and no Cougar jokes : )] I would have thought a reasonably good chance in RL. Most crews if taking hits from the rear are going to bail ... petrol engine, fumes, fire ..... yeah a bail quite likely. And immobilisation would really piss them off. Penetrating the armour not a problem providing they can shoot the rear engine compartment.

I cannot recall off the top of my head the rear turret armour of a Panther but it is a smaller target with more likelihood of glancing hits on a turret rotation or if the target starts moving.

[YankeeDog]

I did a qucik battle yesterday vs AI. I had a single panther (Elite/Fanatic) come over a ridge at full speed to discover an entire company of sherman 75's, 20 tanks at less than 150 metres. When I realised what I'd done I tried to withdraw it straight away but it was tracked quickley. I thought oh well, that panthers lost maybe I can take a few M4's with me. But no. The panther sat there, taking fire at point blank range from 20 guns and knocked out EVERY single sherman. On its own. It must have taken 100 hits. No damage to the armour or any of the weapons and no crew injured.

The panther was not hull down either.

Not really relevant, just thought I'd mention it.

Is this realistic? I know elite/fanatic is a bit gamey but surely not?

Definitely possible. Likely? Almost certainly not.

Just like in real life, outlier events can and do happen in CM; there is no "hit point" model or anything like this that dictates a tank which gets a certain number of hits will always be KO'd. So, for any given single play-through of a certain situation, you may see an outlier result -- if the Panther is lucky and all of the 75mm rounds hit on solid, thick areas of the armor, then it may well survive.

However, with that many hits, I should think that the chances are very high that at least one round will find a weakpoint, damage the main gun, etc. If you re-ran that situation multiple times, I'd expect things to regress to the mean, and on most runs the Panther would be KO'd or at least be hors de combat long before all the Shermans were dead.

But the only way to know for sure is to re-run the situation multiple times, and see what happens.

[dieseltaylor]

Outliers! But surely this example, if true, is beyond sanity or logic. Providing of course that it is not some freakish setting where the Shermans are lined up one behind the other or their is a logic glitch and they all fired smoke over the Panther. : )

[YankeeDog]

Outliers! But surely this example, if true, is beyond sanity or logic. Providing of course that it is not some freakish setting where the Shermans are lined up one behind the other or their is a logic glitch and they all fired smoke over the Panther. : )

Just do some reading of the various homages to German Panzers; it's a fairly popular genre. On the East Front in particular, the Germans made a big deal out of incidents where the Heavy Cats took quite a lot of punishment and still returned to friendly lines in running order and with their crews alive. Even accounting for a fair amount of embellishment by Goebbels' lackeys, with a bit of luck and the right engagement conditions it's fairly clear a Panther or a Tiger certainly could withstand a hell of a lot of punishment.

Again, not suggesting this was common or likely. But as an outlier, it doesn't surprise me.

Now, if the we had a saved game, ran the same situation a number of times, and discovered that the Panther was surviving >5% of the time, then I'd say we have something to talk about.

I'm also not that worried because I've had considerable success in the game KO'ing Panthers, or at least rendering them Hors de Combat, by multiple non-penetrating frontal hits. And when playing Germans, I have been on the receiving end of this, having my Panthers substantially degraded by multiple non-penetrating hits. So this situation doesn't seem to be typical based on my experience.

[dieseltaylor]

Just do some reading of the various homages to German Panzers; it's a fairly popular genre.

Good advice. I do have a serious number of items on tanks such as both volumes of "Tigers In Combat" by Wolfgang Schneider plus a few others. Panthers I am weaker on but do have beside me the four volumes of "Panther" by AJ Press of Gdansk. Fortunately in English aswell as Polish though it is more pictures and details rather than battles.

Thats why I felt free to express my opinion as to likely result of 20 Shermans firing at short range on a single Panther.

[YankeeDog]

Thats why I felt free to express my opinion as to likely result of 20 Shermans firing at short range on a single Panther.

Outliers! But surely this example, if true, is beyond sanity or logic.

So... which is it? Big difference between "(un)likely" and "beyond sanity or logic". If the former, I'll readily agree with you. The latter I'm not sold on. We've read the same books; perhaps we've drawn different conclusions as to the random caprices of war.

Basically, I don't think there is much to discuss here unless and until we have a save game, can see the details of the situation, and then can run the situation multiple times to determine the distribution of outcomes.

Some things I would want to look at before drawing any conclusions: How quickly did the "20 Shermans" pick up the Panther and start firing at it? What was the initial engagement aspect (for example, if a significant number of the Shermans were at flank aspect to the Panther on initial contact, this would make a BIG difference). Did at least some of the Shermans have marginal LOF or LOS? Was is actually 20 Shermans, or is this just a rough number that was actually somewhat lower (OP says it was a "Full Company" of Shermans, which would actually be 17, not 20...) Exactly how many hits did the Shermans achieve, and how quickly? How quickly did the Panther manage to knock out at least a fair number of the Shermans? Did any of the Shermans try to pop smoke or otherwise disengage rather than stand and fight? What experience and motivation level were the Shermans? Apparently, the Panther crew was Elite/Fanatic, which is definitely going to affect things and by definition make it an outlier event, since we're talking about a Wittman-caliber Panther crew here.

Etc. The devil is, as always, in the details...

[Vanir Ausf B]

I've done a fair amount of armor testing in CMBN (albeit version 1.00) and in my experience for a tank to take anything close to 100 hits and still have a functioning main gun would be rare to say the least, but probably not impossible. Were the optics destroyed? Optics are typically gone in a half dozen or so hits. If there was no damage of any kind to the tank including optics then that would almost have to be a bug.

[Vanir Ausf B]

I just thought of something else.

Although I've never tested for it specifically, it's been my casual observation that only hits on the mantlet can damage the main gun. The guy mentioned his Panther met the Shermans as it was cresting a ridge. If the Shermans were at a significantly lower elevation it's possible the Panther's mantlet was blocked by the hull so few if any shots would have hit it.

[slysniper]

I can't imagine that's realistic... It's things like this that make me question the vaunted CM engine....

Well, dont question it, because I have manage to take out or lose panthers to much less than that in the game from the front armor. Normally if you can get 4 or 5 tanks with guns that cannot kill a tank but can put rounds on target, the game will generally do so much damage to the tank, it either retreats , bails, just does not function because the crew is in shock or something. Normally within 10 -20 rounds, the tank has had it, also gives you time to move someone else to the flank to do the dirty deed if it hangs in there.

This case was the exception, for sure. Likely forgot to mention all the shermans had green troops also ??

[MikeyD]

The Panther *can* be knocked out from the front (in the game and in real life) by bouncing a round off the lower gun mantlet sending the shell through the hull roof into an inconveniently placed forward ammo box. I've only seen it happen once in the game though. I had set up a long series of tests to check for it - got the kill I was looking for *first time*, by sheer chance. Then never was able to make it happen again.

[Vanir Ausf B]

... Except for the G model with the mantlet chin.

I tested for that in 1.00. I recorded 2 ricochets off the mantlet into the top hull in over 700 impacts on the front turret area. I mentioned on the forums at the time that if that was realistic then there would hardly have been reason for the Germans to bother adding the mantlet chin. Apparently someone took notice because there is a blurb in the 1.01 patch notes about correcting an issue preventing such ricochets. I haven't retested to see what the difference is.

[Macisle]

In a way, this points to the beauty of the CMx2 system, rather than the opposite. Just like in real war, unlikely events can combine to create very surprising results. Like others have said, generally in CMBN, a panther crew would have bailed or the firing/optics would have been knocked out long before it could take out so many shermans. However, the fanaticism of the crew caused it to stay (not impossible in RL), the AI did not flank (which may be the real reason the results seem unrealistic. In RL, or with a human opponent, the panther would have been immediately flanked), and perhaps the angles of fire just happened to be perfect for the panthers defense.

Also like others have said, were the file to be saved and run again for testing, the results would likely be different.

A few days ago, I ran 4 shermans against 2 panthers and some lesser vehicles in a ME QB vs. AI. The shermans quickly took out the non-cats. However, 2 shermans ended up getting caught from the front in one-on-one's. In both cases, they bounced 2 or 3shots off the panthers (they were in good spots behind walls when the panthers came up--just unlucky on armor angle) before being taken out. The panthers shrugged those off. A third sherman met a similar fate, but caused one panther to pop smoke.

My last sherman managed to catch the two panthers coming out of the smoke in column from the side, took out one and retreated to safety. After that, my tank made two attempts to flank. The first time, I got the first shot, but not before the panther turned to receive with frontal armor. It then popped smoke and backed up, allowing me to escape for another try.

However, the second time, I guessed wrong on which side to flank (the panther was behind smoke) and my sherman marched right into the panther's target arc when it cleared the smoke. Boom!

Anyway, the point is that, like in RL, the game models many interacting factors. In my game, with veteran crews in the panthers, they shrugged off frontal shots with minimal damage (slight optics damage on remaining panther at end), but the crews got nervous. After losing his friend, the remaining panther got even more nervous and popped smoke instead of shooting me on my first flanking attempt. Had the panthers been fanatic, perhaps they would not have popped smoke at all.

I think you just got very lucky. Your crew was fanatic, the angle of incoming rounds was likely very favorable and the shermans were way dumb.

If stuff like this was truly impossible, the war in the east would have been over a lot quicker, given the difference in numbers.

Ain't it wonderful that CMx2 can model all this?! It's beautiful man, beautiful!

[tankmajor]

i have read stories of fanatical panther crews and it is possible

they did not fear shermans as much as t34s example pershing taking on

konigstiger the cat took 13 hits and still survived

[dieseltaylor]

So... which is it? Big difference between "(un)likely" and "beyond sanity or logic". If the former, I'll readily agree with you. The latter I'm not sold on. We've read the same books; perhaps we've drawn different conclusions as to the random caprices of war.

YankeeDog

Teach me to be ironic.

Whilst acknowledging the armour of the Panther, and the need for there to be an off layout for the Sherman force, it seems nobody has much on crew behaviour and noise.

Assuming that the Shermans firing over open sights are hitting and the rate of fire commences at 10 pm the Panther will be struck at around 3 times per second. I assume that shells striking will be making quite a sound and that many humans are incapacitated -particularly if they are aware of the fact that every shell has the possibility of geeting lucky on a frontal hit. And every shell has an expectation of penetrating the side armour.

We also do not know if this was version 1 or 2 of the game. In version I crews did not seem to abandon tanks or have reduced rates of fire when losing crew. This I found in a minute session where I killed the tank commander of a Sherman twice but the bodies of the commander, then the substitute commander, falling into the turret compartment did not faze the remaining crew at all in terms of fire rate and accuracy.

"Reports from WWII German tankers were that the effect of the low-velocity 75mm main gun on most Sherman tanks was a painful ringing, like they were inside a church bell when someone rang it." Presumably the closer you get the louder the ringing and I suspect this was a Tiger crew! : )

And just for fun:

A British tank officer in a Churchill regiment newly arrived in Normandy is reported to have had the following (often quoted) conversation with the Adjutant of his regiment:

Wilson: What do the Germans have the most of?"

Adjt: Panthers. The Panther can slice through a Churchill like butter from a mile away.

Wilson: And how does a Churchill get a Panther?

Adjt: It creeps up on it. When it reaches close quarters the gunner tries to bounce a shot off the underside of the Panther's gun mantlet. If he's lucky, it goes through a piece of thin armour above the driver's head."

Wilson: Has anybody ever done it?"

Adjt: Yes. Davis in C Squadron. He's back with headquarters now, trying to recover his nerve.

Wilson: How does a Churchill get a Tiger?

Adjt: It's supposed to get within two hundred yards and put a shot through the periscope.

Wilson: Has anyone ever done it?

Adjt: No.

Wilson p.54

[Sakai007]

diesel, that conversation you posted really made my evening!!! If I had been in Wilson's shoes, the next set of dialog would have been me asking my superiors for a transfer into a Sherman Firefly outfit. I must say, those men who climbed into tanks on either side had testicular fortitude in the order of titanium alloy. An enemy round may pierce the armor, but would ricochet right off of those. I salute these men!!!

[Macisle]

That is a good point, though...

Even allowing for a fanatical unwillingness to bail out, the front armor and firing systems holding up, and no armor spalling inside, could a crew manage to overcome the noise and rocking motion of so many shots coming in to actually return fire with such deadly effectiveness?

That's a tough one. -Seems doubtful, but then, we're already talking about a unique event that probably could not be duplicated in testing.

[JonS]

a transfer into a Sherman Firefly outfit.

There was no such thing. Fireflys were distributed at the rate of 1 per troop (1 per 4 tanks) in most Commonwealth armoured regiments in Normandy.

However, Wilson was in a Churchill regiment, and they never had Fireflys. Worse, Wilson was in the Crocodile regiment; 141 RAC. The Churchills had much better armour than the Shermans, and the very late models had armour thicker than a Tiger, but when faced with a long 75mm or 88mm ... it still often wasn't enough.

And they had comparatively wimpy guns.