Success with the Tiger?

[Amizaur]

That's maybe fine... The Panther had worse width/length ratio than the Tiger... on the other hand Panther was 10 tons lighter tank with same engine, it should give it a same or better turning capability, and ESPECIALLY better off-road.

What makes me more upset is tha the overweighted KT seem to also have better turning (and maybe off-road, I didn't test yet) than the Panther !! The KT seem as nimble maneuvering off-road like today's best MBTs... Especially turning in place is very quick for KT.

Wait, that was the impression from some games, now let me test it...

[Amizaur]

So, did some simple testing and I'm not too happy with results.

Seem for me that the maneuvering speed of a tank (how quickly it can turn) doesn't depend on:

- crew experience - regulars rotating hteir tanks just as fast as elite

- type of underlaying terrain - same turning speed and maneuvering performance measured

on grass, plow, road, highway, forest. Only the speed seem to be different.

- maneuvering in trees seem also not affect the speed of turning

- type of movement order (slow, move, quick, fast, whatever - the tank turns the same, only the max speed is different).

Now, the measured times for turning a tank 180deg

The times were measured roughly, they may be ~1s off, do not take them as absolute.

First number is turning a tank in place (by ordering a facing order to the rear) - a tank then slowly rotates in place, rotating one track forward and the other backwards.

(in reality, there were only a few tanks that were capable of this type of turning in WW2)

Second number, is a time of 180dg turn on the move - after ordering movement order directly to the rear - the tank then rotates much more quickly, not exactly turning in place, rather doing a very tight circle.

Times of 180 deg turn for CMBN:CW tanks

Tank......In place.........Moving

Stuart.......38s..............24s

M10..........44s..............28s

Sherman....44s..............29s

Cromwell....44s..............28s

Churchil.....45s..............30s

StugIII.......45s..............22s

PzIVG.........57s..............25s

PantherG.....57s..............25s

Tiger E........60s.............20s

King Tiger...168s.............13s

No, it's not a typo. The King Tiger turns in place about 2-3 times slower than any other tank. After most of them completed their 180deg turn, the KT didn't even complete half of it.

And the second strange number is also not a typo. While turning on the move, the KT is by far the fastest turning tank in the game ! It turns 180deg in 13s, and 90deg turn in half of that....

In any terrain. Be it road, pavement, grass, plow, even in trees (probably also in mud, sand and rocky - not 100% sure but can't remember seeing any difference, when driving and turning KT on various tiles) - it turns just as fast.

I hope it's an error, a typo in data editing or something like that and will be corrected.

Combine this KTs off-road maneuverability with very fast turret, most powerfull gun, very thick armor, speed and acceleration only a little worse than for PzIVG, combine this with too fast target aquision and aiming (common for all CMBN tanks) and we have a truly uber tank.

A machine of death, quickly rotating it's gun and thick frontal armor to any detected target (even a target 90deg off, it takes only few seconds to rotate gun and little longer to rotate whole tank - especially in RT, using Move command), then aiming for maybe a second and killing it.

Today's MBT is reacting, maneuvering and killing it's targets slower than this "prehistoric" beast...

Off-topic P.S.

Also, while running those test scenarios, when accidentally some Allied tanks got some LOS on German tanks or vice versa, I noticed than tanks after seeing a target in front of them, opened fire in about 3 seconds, not longer. This is time of reaction for CMBN tanks against targets detected in front of them. Tank spotted ! Rapid move of the fast turret, the shells is always in the chamber (and always the needed type), then less than a second of aiming (sometimes a bit longer) and a shot. Robotic !! Again, gunners in today's MBT can only dream for such performance...

I'm not saying the accuracy is too good. No, I believe it's ok. Just that it all happens WAY too fast on many different stages of engagement (detection, identification, decision, orders (internal communications), crew executing orders, the aiming process.

In game all this always happens as fast, as it's physically possible (if the tank was manned by cyborgs..) - and probably even faster. In real world it would only sometimes (with a very good crew and if in danger) be so fast, but usually slower, sometimes much slower in case of some communication problems or the crew having some difficulties manning the tank systems - not every man is fastest gunner on the planet... every time...). I hope that eventually BF will add some random delays for various stages of tank engagements, simulating actions of the commander and crewmembers and information flow between crewmembers). It should of course depend on crew experience, but still include random factors.

[Vanir Ausf B]

I don't know why the KT is so fast compared to the others. I do know that in reality the Panther could turn 180° in half the time it did in your test.

[Bradley Dick]

Not having any experience with WWII armor, I will say that Bradley's and 113's will pivot steer pretty fast.

[SnakeTheFox]

I generally get a disproportionate amount of tank to tank kills with my Tiger(s), but I have noticed an awfully large occurance of guns being knocked out. Probably half or more of the Tigers I've commanded have been removed from battle first by losing their guns, and then whatever else comes to finally put them out of their misery later.

[Redwolf]

This has been discussed to death since release.

The game assigns a certain chance to assume the gun knocked out on any hit to the mantlet. The chance seems to have been picked with a regular mantlet like the Pz IVs or the StuG's Saukopfblende in mind. Those are small are all such hits must be directly next to the gun.

The problem then comes in when the whole turret front is the mantlet. The game doesn't modify the probability to knock out the gun on mantlet hits, but now it is much more likely to hit the mantlet. In fact any front turret hit is a mantlet hit. But that isn't realistic, quite obviously a hit on the far side of the Tiger's turret front would have less of a chance to knock out the gun then one close to the gun.

If shaking the mantlet at any point had this kind of impact on the gun the Germans would never have moved to a construction where the whole turret front is the mantlet. In historical accounts I have never seen instructions that there is a possibility to knock out the gun this way. All I see is that hitting the front of the Tiger didn't impress it much.

ETA: What we do know is that historical accounts place a lot of value on the short trap that is hitting the lower part of the Panther's whole-turret mantlet. In fact this flaw was corrected in later models. But the problem here wasn't that the mantlet hit knocked out the gun. The problem was the deflected shot hitting the hull top. The change in construction was then making the impact on the mantlet harder (removing the lower rounding). I ask you: if any hit on the mantlet was as likely to knock out the gun as this game portraits it, would the Germans have made that change?

[Amizaur]

I don't know why the KT is so fast compared to the others. I do know that in reality the Panther could turn 180° in half the time it did in your test.

Yes it could. But only in favorable terrain, with a competent driver. If we are going to see in game tank turn rates decreased for heavier types of terrain (forest, sand, rocky, mud, ect) then I'm all for increasing the max turn speed possible on hard, FLAT surface. But as its it now, the turn speed reflects some average value in various circumstances so I do not think the tanks are maneuvering too slow currently.

In most youtube videos real tanks are maneuvering slower than that, especially when the terrain is not as good (a flat compressed soil here, without any roughness, rocks, tree trunks).

Not always there is an urgent need and possibility (flat hard surface) for "max performance turns". It would be done probably only when facing an enemy and terrain is favorable. Normal maneuvering, position changing, would be done slower, to not strain the running gear, to not provoke a breakdown or dropping of a track. Normal turning, if there is only a bit of place and time for that, would be done while moving, not with blocking one track completly -turning while moving is much less straining for the running gear and also usually faster.

[Amizaur]

I ask you: if any hit on the mantlet was as likely to knock out the gun as this game portraits it, would the Germans have made that change?

The real "gun damage" after mantlet hits were happening, but I'm not sure how often and what kind of hit would it take (on average) to damage the elevation mechanism.

The Bovington Tiger had elevation mechanism damaged after a boucing hit on the mantlet. I read an accout of Tiger in Russia having it's elevation mechanism damaged (one of the pivots, left or right, that the mantlet with the gun is mounted on, has broken) from a shock of 76mm shell hit on the mantlet. But I guess it was rather rare, as the Tiger was supposed to take a lot of punch from guns up to 76mm, if mantlet hits often caused damage, it would be redesigned probably.

We all seen lot's of pictures of battered Tiger and Panther mantlets, with multiple medium-calliber hit marks.

On the other hand, I can't remeber reading a lot of accounts of tanks being send back to this kind of repairs. Rather incidental ones. An optics damage or misalligment would be a lot more common.

On the third hand , tanks in general rarely took a hevy pounding - most of tanks seen on pictures don't have any visible hit marks, because the tankers fought in a proper way - that they usually hit the enemy, not being hit themselves. The tank armor is to protect the crew from small callibers and from accidental hits of heavier callibers, that they couldn't avoid, not to be used as a medieval "shield".

Only in Russia, where massive concentrations of AT-guns happened, tanks took a lot of hits, but those were mostly 45mm, some 76mm hits.

The mantlets in those tanks were big, massive hunks of metal and probably were usually able to absorb the shock. But every such hit probably strained the pivots and the shock/vibrations made a fair chance of main gun optics being misalligned or even damaged.

Now, taking a non-penetrating hit from higher calibers or higher energy weapons - like 17pd, 85mm, 122mm - is probably another story and the chance for damaging the mechanisms and optics are going up drastically. But that's not a big problem as chances for the tank surviving such hit, are going down even faster.

As for the game, I think gun damage (excluding optics damage) happens too often in this game for some tanks. Aftyer reading a lot of tankers memoirs, I don't remember reading of tank guns being disabled that easy and often in combat.

It should happen - sometimes. Just like an occasional vehicle breakdown.

I remember tanks in CMx1 breaking on their own sometimes, even in the middle of the road - it was not too frequent, so rare that it wasn't breaking the game. On the other hand it was NOT so rare, to ignore it while buying tanks .

After one or two games where our single, precious, uber tank (like Panter or Tiger) just broke down right after moving from setup zone , we were more cautions not to "put all the eggs to one basket" and rather spend our points on 2-3 inferior PzIVs than 1-2 uber Tigers/Panthers...

[Vanir Ausf B]

The problem then comes in when the whole turret front is the mantlet. The game doesn't modify the probability to knock out the gun on mantlet hits, but now it is much more likely to hit the mantlet. In fact any front turret hit is a mantlet hit.

Whether gun damage is too common may be a valid concern, but it is not true that all hits on the front turret strike the mantlet. This can be tested by having a Sherman 76 test fire at a hull-down Panther at 300m. Most hits on the turret front will penetrate, while hits on the mantles never penetrate.

[Vanir Ausf B]

BTW, I did some extensive testing of hit location and effects on Panther turrets shortly after the game come out (1.00), and if I am reading my old notes correctly it appears that hits on the turret front knocked out the main gun about 12% of the time.

[Redwolf]

Whether gun damage is too common may be a valid concern, but it is not true that all hits on the front turret strike the mantlet. This can be tested by having a Sherman 76 test fire at a hull-down Panther at 300m. Most hits on the turret front will penetrate, while hits on the mantles never penetrate.

And where do those hit then?

[Vanir Ausf B]

I don't know, exactly. The hit graphic is highly imprecise in WEGO, so I have to rely on the hit text. From my notes the distribution was about 60% on the mantlet or gun, 40% on the turret front. That has always struck me as odd since the mantlet covers far more than 60% of the front of the turret. I've thought about starting a thread on the subject, but have held off since there were some tweeks made to the hit text and Panther shot trap function in the 1.01 patch and I haven't re-tested since then.

[Amizaur]

Some additional results of tank turning tests:

The tanks are turning with the same speed (deg/s) on every surface (even Light Forest, Mud and Rocky), with or without trees.

The tank max speed seem to be same on every surface, with exeption of Mud and Light Forest. In Mud and Light Forest tank slows down. There is also much greater chance of bogging on those two.

This also mean that max speed of tank moving on grass or plowed field is same as when moving on hard road or a highway.

Didn't notice any change of max speed when a tank left a highway tiles and continued on ordinary "grass".

The examples of turret rotation times are:

...................180deg...........360deg

Panther.........14s..................28s

Tiger E..........30s..................60s

King Tiger......13s..................26s

This means that the Tiger I has identical hull in-place turning speed as turret rotation speed (360deg/60s). If turning while moving it can rotate it's hull faster than turret (360deg/38s for hull).

King Tiger has same speed of turret and "moving" hull rotating speed - 360deg/26s.

Wonder if there are tanks that have their hulls faster than turret so the turret can't keep the aim properly with the driver trying to face front hull to the enemy .

I had some other strange situation with a Firefly. The Firefly has a very fast turret, and much slower turning hull. One day my Firefly noticed a side-on buttoned Panther 100m away 80 deg to it's right side. The Firefly immediately started to rotate it's turret and in less than 3s it had the Panther in it's sights. The gunner went to "aiming" state.

But simultaneously the driver started to rotate the tank in place to face the front hull to the enemy. It was rather slow in-place turning and it took ages. While turning the hull, it constantly "dragged" the barrel of the gun to the right, breaking the aiming process. When the the barrel was dragged more than 10-15deg off, Firefly gunner interrupted the aiming, went to rotating to point at the Panther again and returned to aiming. Before it finished with aiming, the barrel was again pointing 15deg to the right and again he had to rotate the turret and aim. Over and over, every few seconds. They did this for about 12s - tank turning in place to face the Panther, and the gunner constantly switching between rotating and aiming. In that time, the Panther managed to spot the Firefly, rotate the turret, aim and kill it right away .

In general it's good that tanks are trying to face an enemy. Especially enemy tanks, I'm not sure they should rotate whole tank to face any single infantryman sen 100m away. But maybe the "computer driver" should get a "stop" command in the moment the turret is rotated to target and the gunner begins the aiming process. The aiming should have a priority over facing. After the gun was aimed and fired, the driver could resume the process of turning the tank to face the enemy - for the time or reloading. Then again stop it when the gunner is ready to shot.

It would be also good if the tanks while trying to face the enemy were programmed to turn with the more efficient and faster way ("turning while moving method") instead of much slower "pivot turning".

[Karabekian]

King Tiger......13s..................26s

The KT had a maximum ("emergency") traversing speed of 9 seconds, that is amazing for such a heavy turret!

The "combat speed" was 19 seconds, so these game values are obviously wrong. Also unmodelled in the game is the fact that turret speed depended on engine RPM, and while still, the rotation would be very slow (but enough in a ready position).

Also there was a difference in the engines, most had regulators at 2500 RPM later.

The KT was designed to be just as deadly as it is in the game, since the things that killed it in RL are not included.

Btw,

How are the ingame rotation speeds calculated and implemented?

[skogtroll]

The KT had a maximum ("emergency") traversing speed of 9 seconds, that is amazing for such a heavy turret!

The "combat speed" was 19 seconds, so these game values are obviously wrong. Also unmodelled in the game is the fact that turret speed depended on engine RPM, and while still, the rotation would be very slow (but enough in a ready position).

Also there was a difference in the engines, most had regulators at 2500 RPM later.

The KT was designed to be just as deadly as it is in the game, since the things that killed it in RL are not included.

Btw,

How are the ingame rotation speeds calculated and implemented?

Things like this was obviously impossible to introduce in the game .

[Amizaur]

The KT had a maximum ("emergency") traversing speed of 9 seconds, that is amazing for such a heavy turret!

The "combat speed" was 19 seconds, so these game values are obviously wrong.

I wouldn't say it's wrong. Currently the game has one single turret rotation speed that has to reflect a reasonable, realistic AVERAGE turret rotation speed in various conditions.

Additionaly, the turrets in game starts it's rotation INSTANTLY with the max speed, and stops also INSTANTLY on target - which decreases the time-to-target in comparison with real world turret dynamics (acceleration, rotation with max speed, slowing down close to target to not oversterr and then some fine corrections).

Also unmodelled in the game is the fact that turret speed depended on engine RPM, and while still, the rotation would be very slow (but enough in a ready position).

Not easy to model, lot's of coding - as I guess there is no such thing as "engine RPM" currently in game . I would be happy with just reasonable average rotation speed, combined with simplified turret dynamics (no instant start/stop) and some time delay for fine corrections/precise aiming. Especially getting the elevation right - with hand crank - could take a second or two after rotating turret 90deg off.

The KT was designed to be just as deadly as it is in the game, since the things that killed it in RL are not included.

Yes it was designed to be, but it was only a partial success as we all know.

And I would have to see some archival video or youtube video of restorated KT rotating it's HEAVY turret so fast, to believe in those rotation times.... I wonder if it was so fast in practice, as numbers say.

As a side note: the widely regarded Tiger E turret maximum rotation speed is 360deg/60s so one minute for full turn. This is not true. Tiger turret rotation speed was also dependant on engine RPM and with max RPM it could rotate the turret faster, 360deg in about 45s at 2500 or 36s at 3000rmp IIRC.

The 360deg/60s was the army requirement. The Porsche prototype used an electric turret drive, with the speed being exactly 360deg/60s as the army required. Same as in Panther D probably. The Henschel engineers wanted to use hydraulic RPM-dependant engine.

But if rotating speed of their hydraulic turret drive was engine dependant, then at what RPM the required 360deg/60s should be achieved ? At min RPM ? At max RPM ? Engineers decided that it would be 360deg/60s at medium rpm, IIRC at about 1500 or 2000rpm, can't remember exact value now. This way, at max RPM the rotation was even a bit faster.

All the authors and experts writing books about Tiger usually just quoted from each other this "one minute for full rotation" value, this - in fact - paper requirement - not wondering at all what this value really means, how it all worked, at what rpm was it, wouldn't 60s be a bit slow ?, and also why there are archival videos with Tigers rotating their turrets obviously faster than 6deg/s! Only in Spielberger books, where he describes the Tiger evolution, it's design and production process, how some of the mechanisms worked and what were the army requirements for them, one can find those informations.

[Erwin]

I always read that Tigers had "very slow" turrets compared to the Shermans. So, is the game portrayal accurate?

[skogtroll]

Not easy to model, lot's of coding - as I guess there is no such thing as "engine RPM" currently in game .

Yes this is like with the AA guns and flamethrowers. Too much work . Sorry that I'm grumbling. This isn't of course very important thing. If the vehicles have a different (average) turret speeds of course. I didn't test this. Good day everyone .

[Amizaur]

Yes this is like with the AA guns and flamethrowers. Too much work . Sorry that I'm grumbling. This isn't of course very important thing. If the vehicles have a different (average) turret speeds of course. I didn't test this. Good day everyone .

I would prefer to have AA guns and flamethrowers coded into the game rather, than "rpm dependant turret rotation speeds" ;P

[Amizaur]

I always read that Tigers had "very slow" turrets compared to the Shermans. So, is the game portrayal accurate?

Sherman turret rotation is probably (didn't meaasure this) about 3 times faster than Tiger turret rotation - so I would say the difference is big enough .

[skogtroll]

I would prefer to have AA guns and flamethrowers coded into the game rather, than "rpm dependant turret rotation speeds" ;P

I agree with these . But worry about this. I think BF will say: sorry guys we cannot do this its to difficult.

[Kanonier Reichmann]

.... SNIP ....

In general it's good that tanks are trying to face an enemy. Especially enemy tanks, I'm not sure they should rotate whole tank to face any single infantryman sen 100m away. But maybe the "computer driver" should get a "stop" command in the moment the turret is rotated to target and the gunner begins the aiming process. The aiming should have a priority over facing. After the gun was aimed and fired, the driver could resume the process of turning the tank to face the enemy - for the time or reloading. Then again stop it when the gunner is ready to shot.

It would be also good if the tanks while trying to face the enemy were programmed to turn with the more efficient and faster way ("turning while moving method") instead of much slower "pivot turning".

Funnily enough, another game modelled this desired behaviour really well. I belive it was called CM1.

Regards

KR

[sburke]

Funnily enough, another game modelled this desired behaviour really well. I belive it was called CM1.

Regards

KR

I don't believe there was ever a game called CM1. There was however a game engine by that name which is significantly different than the CM2 game engine that runs CMBN.

Yeah I know you knew that.

[Amizaur]

For sure it's different. But the CMx1 included some very well working and proven alghoritms, like some rules of unit behaviour, that could be used in CMx2 as a start point. If something didn't work good in CMx2 enviroment, it could be changed or improved then.

Instead the alghoritms for CMx2 seem to be constructed from a scratch and lot's of them seem less optimal than the old CMx1 ones.

What would be wrong if tanks after spotting an enemy behaved like in CMx1 ? So turned it's turret and hull twards the target, but the hull stopped for the time of aiming and shooting ?

Is the rotating of the hull while the gunner is aiming realistic ? It would be impossible to hit anything this way. And it DOES make a problem in game also, sometimes. Tanks can't shoot because the aiming process is interrupted by the rotating hull dragging the barrel away from the target.

[Baneman]

For sure it's different. But the CMx1 included some very well working and proven alghoritms, like some rules of unit behaviour, that could be used in CMx2 as a start point. If something didn't work good in CMx2 enviroment, it could be changed or improved then.

Instead the alghoritms for CMx2 seem to be constructed from a scratch and lot's of them seem less optimal than the old CMx1 ones.

What would be wrong if tanks after spotting an enemy behaved like in CMx1 ? So turned it's turret and hull twards the target, but the hull stopped for the time of aiming and shooting ?

Is the rotating of the hull while the gunner is aiming realistic ? It would be impossible to hit anything this way. And it DOES make a problem in game also, sometimes. Tanks can't shoot because the aiming process is interrupted by the rotating hull dragging the barrel away from the target.

Careful Amizaur - you're in danger of exceeding the permitted ratio of well-reasoned and rational posts. You should post at least one manic rant in order to keep the balance

For the record, I agree with what you said above, it makes sense and I don't understand why it appears that BF have recreated the behaviour algorithms. Possibly before, the tank was a single "organism" and had one algorithm and now there needs to be a behaviour for each crew member ? In that case, they don't seem to be "synching" up effectively wrt the rotate/aim/fire.