Success with the Tiger?

[skogtroll]

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

/fire.

hahahhahahaha Good one:p.

[Redwolf]

Well to be fair CMx1 had it's problems, too, in particular CMBB with it's vehicle turn rates.

The CMBB Tiger turns it's hull about half as fast (on a road) as a Tiger on a history channel show turns (in mud). This was somewhat improved in CMAK but still nowhere near good. A Kuebelwagen's turn rate also leaves to be desired when comparing it to any kid turning their Civic (not in Massachusetts, though).

[skogtroll]

I hope History Channel is better than Discovery:P.

[Amizaur]

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

WE NEED the flamethrowers NOW ! The game is useless without them !! ;(((

[skogtroll]

Hahahahahah . I'm especially missing sd kfz 251/16. I was doing horrible things in CMBB with this vehicles .

[Kanonier Reichmann]

Yes, the SdKfz 251/16 is the only vehicle in the Combat Mission series of games (including the current versions) that can fire in 2 completely different directions simultaneously. A very neat trick indeed.

Regards

KR

[JonS]

Yes, the SdKfz 251/16 is the only vehicle in the Combat Mission series of games (including the current versions) that can fire in 2 completely different directions simultaneously. A very neat trick indeed.

Are you sure about this? I thought practically all vehicles with more than one weapon could fire in multiple directions simultaneously?

[Vanir Ausf B]

Any tank with a hull machine gun can do that (i.e. nearly all of them except the Firefly). I think the US half tracks with the rear-facing machine gun can also.

It may be possible for Shermans with the 50 cal. accessible to the commander to fire at 3 targets at once, but I've never seen it happen.

[Ryujin]

If you put infantry in a halftrack with 2 MGs, you can engage a bunch of targets in 360 degrees. Not very useful most of the time, but you can charge through light infantry and overwhelm them (risky, but occasionally useful).

I've never seen the commander engage a different target from the gunner, even on the M1s with CROWS in shock force. I think the gunner/commander are linked in their target.

[Kanonier Reichmann]

Let me re-phrase...

Yes, the SdKfz 251/16 is the only vehicle in the Combat Mission series of games (including the current versions) that can fire its primary weapons in 2 completely different directions simultaneously. A very neat trick indeed.

Regards

KR

[JonS]

I'm pretty sure the MGs on the halftrack in Ryujin's screenshot are it's primary weapons.

BTW, isn't 'primary weapons' an oxymoron?

[Kanonier Reichmann]

Whatever. I believe most people would understand that when referring to primary weapons I meant something other than MG's. If you want to play the role of Mr Picky in all his uberness then that's your choice. If I wanted to go down that path I could point out that your suggestion that it was an oxymoron to mention weapons in my statement about firing in 2 different directions wouldn't apply to a weapon that fired a cannister round with lots of sub-munitions going in different directions now would it.

Regards

KR

[JonS]

I think you've nicely demonstrated an example of No True Scotsman.

[womble]

Whatever. I believe most people would understand that when referring to primary weapons I meant something other than MG's.

You'd be right, except when thinking about a vehicle armed only with MGs. Primary is relative. When you're on a forum for grogs about a game built for grogs, it pays to be precise in your terms.

[Kanonier Reichmann]

OK, for JonS's sake as the holder of the ARB award (work it out yourself) I give you...

Yes, the SdKfz 251/16 is the only vehicle armed with something other than machineguns in the Combat Mission series of games (including the current versions) that can fire its primary weapons in 2 completely different directions simultaneously. A very neat trick indeed.

Happy now?

Regards

KR

[womble]

OK, for JonS's sake as the holder of the ARB award (work it out yourself) I give you...

Yes, the SdKfz 251/16 is the only vehicle armed with something other than machineguns in the Combat Mission series of games (including the current versions) that can fire its primary weapons in 2 completely different directions simultaneously. A very neat trick indeed.

Happy now?

Regards

KR

I have one further question: how many other vehicles were there in the series that had multiple primary weapons? I can think of the Lee/Grant tanks (if you will allow that the sponson 75 and turret 37 were "equal but different") and there were some funky russian models that might have been represented with multiple larger-than-MG mounts. Could they target separately? I didn't play much CM:AK/BB so I don't know.

Note: the above is purely for completism's sake.

[skogtroll]

Russinan "monster" tanks weren't in the game if I remember but T-26 with two turrets was.

[dieseltaylor]

Can anyone tell me why there would be a requirement for 360 degree turns in 60 seconds - or whatever. Rationally tanks will never be doing continuous 360 degree turret turns and only in rare events 180 degree traverses. Just to set the record straight the Bovington Tiger has a proven 60 seconds for 360 degrees at 1500rpm. One might well believe that at 2500rpm it is quicker!

Surely surely surely the important figure is time to aim at target in the frontal arcs and that must include acceleration of turret, and slowing down, to fine adjustment and firing.

Whilst total rotation time can be a handy figure the real deal is what was the combination of spotting ,traverse, and firing in practice in the frontal arc.

[Amizaur]

The requirement of 360deg/60s for Tiger was really aboutn the rotation speed (no less than 6deg/s) than for time of 360deg rotation. It was just given this way.

I agree with the rest of your post completly.

I diidn't know that the 360deg/60s for Tiger has been demonstrated on 1500rpm . I knew it, technically, but it's good to know it has been proved .

Currently the "time-to-target" is unrealistically reduced in the game, because of the istant rotation starting and stopping, and - usually (my persolnal feeling) a bit too short fine corrections/aiming time.

The problem with turret dynamics, i.e. accelerating and slowing down it's rotation, could be fixed by simulating them Iin a simplified way) so it would actually move slower for small angles, and for larger rotations it would accelerate, rotate max speed and decelerate to give performance and feeling of real turrets. Or the "average speed for that rotation angle" could be calculated (again, with some simple formula assuming acceleration at stard and deceleration at end of turn) just before each rotation was commanded and the turret would just rotate with this average speed, starting instantly, rotating with less than max speed and stopping instantly. The feeling would still not be right, but the time-on-target, time required to point the turret, would be more realistic as not the max possible rotation speed would be used.

Personally I would prefer to see turrets behaving more like real ones, also visually .

[GhostRider3/3]

I've played 5 missions now with the Tiger (me as the Germans). Has anyone noticed how easy it is to lose the 88m gun? The last mission I played I had 3 Tigers. All three lost their main gun within 2 WEGO turns. 76mm Firefly rounds bounced off my tanks but all guns were disabled. The enemy tanks were over 1000 yards away. The mission before I had a single Tiger lose its main gun to a 75mm Sherman III round at distance. 1 shot one bounce, 'gun mantlet hit' but the main gun was effectively disabled within one turn. Bottom line I've had nothing but what I can only call bad luck with the big cat.

Well that does not seem to far off of sorts using the Firefly.. was the best thing the Allies had.. High Velocity 76mm gun.. way better even then the Soviet 85mm in my opinion. I beleive the 76mm High Velocity gun was equal almost to the Panther's 75mm gun.

Well depending on distance... I have noticed most of the campaigns the distance in the tank engagements are between 800-500m so the Germans lose alot of advantages.

I have noticed that the bloody Panther loses its 75mm gun like no tomorrow.. its the first things that usually goes. in about 3 or 4 hits. Its crazy I tell you.. LOL I have read about 8 different books on either Panzer aces or Armored battles of WWWII Eastern front to western and the Panthers could take a beating from the front.. however call it what you want to even the playing field the Panther lacks some serious gun mantlet armor or something.

I dont know just seems wierd to me.

[Amizaur]

To take 3-4 hits on mantlet it's IMO way too much . Tankers did their best to shoot at the enemy in a way, that the enemy had little chances to shot back - the armor can not be trusted completly and there is always (not that small) possibility of something important being damaged while hit. Do not know how robust the Panther mantlet mount (pivots) and the optics were, but after taking 3-4 76mm hits on it, personally I would be happy with the gun is still operational .

On the other hand, in CMBN the gun is quite often damaged just after first mantlet hit, and there is a large percentage of mantlet hits too. I have feeling that the guns in CMBN are being damaged much more often, than one could suppose after reading lot's of tanker's memories and battle descriptions...

[Amizaur]

Hmm... I played a (modified for fun) mission in which I had one KT and some infantry against 8-10 Shermans, light tanks, halftrucks and Us infantry. I started it, moved the KT to contact. When first Sherman was spotted the KT fired on the move and missed - because I didn't managed to stop it in time (I advanced with Slow command, as Hunt is not working for me). KT stopped and was reloading, when Sherman fired one shell which damaged KT's main gun and it was well, end of scenario fun.

I was so upset that decided to do some tests and see how often it happens.

All the tests were on CMBN+CW so 1.10 game version.

I positioned in 10 lanes 10 KTs against 30 Shermans 75 (3 Shermans for one KT in a single lane). KTs were given buttoon up and short cover arc commands, Shermans were emptying their ammo magazines on KTs.

After few turns and a barrage of about 30 x 43 = >1200 AP shells (number of Shermans x 43 AP shells) hitting 10 KT, there was only ONE main gun damage. Later I got second one after two more turns (about 220 shots) of second iteration of this test.

The hit that disabled the gun, was "Weapon hit"

( I would also mention here, that I sould suggest to make the colour of "details of armor hits" text - different for armor-piercing rounds than for ordinary MG and rifle bullets. Now, when a tank takes a non-penetrating hit from a gun, it's really hard to see it among hit descriptions of multiple hits from .50cal MG that was also firing at that tank. Hard to see the difference. I would love if heavier caliber hits were displayed in red or something, and MG hits white or gray or something like that. I hope it's not hard, it's just different colour... Also, when a weapon mount is hit, it could also tell which one, of what weapon)

During test, most of hits (maybe 2/3) were on KTs front hull, minority (maybe 1/3) was on front turret. Changing 75mm Shermans to 76mm Shermans (more powerfull guns) didn't increase ratio of gun damage or weapon hits. Just few KTs were knocked out during the test then.

So... it seems I was just extremally unlucky in my scenario. (Well, at first)

Now, I remembered that Tiger E tends to lose it's cannon very often in my experience, so I decided to test what is different between KT and Tiger E.

I changed KT to Tigers E in my test and run the test again.

With Tigers E as the target, after few rounds I got only one "Weapon hit" (and gun damage) among 10 bombarded Tigers E, but I noticed that on flat terrain from 200m virtually all shells from Shermans are hitting the hulls of the Tigers. There was really close to zero front turret hits. And I wanted to test gun damage. So I modified the map in a way that Tigers were almost hull-down, behind some raise od terrain with a stone wall on it. Only the upper part of the front hull and the turret were visible.

I run the test again, with Tigers almost hull-down. Now, many initial Sherman shots were misses (experience regular, range 300m, against hull-down Tiger E), but after a while all the Shermans were hitting Tiger turrets consistently for the rest of the turn.

After the first turn of this test I checked the results.

All 8 of the hull down Tigers (2 were misplaced by me and were not hull down) had their guns disabled (!).

Each Tiger was hit about 3 x 8 = 24 times, most of this were turret hits, but it was SUCH a contrast to KTs which were also hit on turrets HUNDREDS of times, with gun damage extremally rare.

I closely watched the replay, and noticed that every "damaged" Tiger got a weapon hit on the barrel, and some of them got 2 or 3 such hits during the first turn of the test!

Each Tiger was hit ~24 times, let's assume (I didn't count it) 18 shots landed on turret front, average number of "weapon hits" I would estimate for 1.5. So about one "weapon hit" for 10-12 front turret hits, it would seem... not that bad as I could suppose by in-game experience. [ Maybe I'll start collecting an actuall in-game statistics, for every tank hit in my games? ]

But this ratio is valid for this range/geometry setup only. More on this later.

The "weapon hits" were when the trajectory of Sherman shells was very close to the Tiger's gun tube, it seemed they hit the very mount of the barrel, but the animation of hit/explosion (a puff of smoke) was graphically positioned on the Tiger's muzzle brake.

It looked like it were all just hits on the muzzle brake, which was positioned in the center of the spread pattern of Sherman shells - when Tigers were hull-down, the Shermans were aiming close to the center of Tiger turrets.

At this point, I still thought they were a "barrel hits" or hits on the "mounting point" of the barrel, on the mantlet close to the barrel. I only wondered why almost all the hit animations were positioned on muzzle brakes then, and not on the barrel itself or on the mantlet?

But I was also wondering, why the two not-fully hull-down Tigers had their guns ok. They got lot's of front turret, and mantlet (weapon mount) hits too, but their guns were ok. Those two Tigers were positioned on a slope, so their barrels were pointing upwards, and the muzzle brakes were above the top of their turrets actually.

I becomed suspicious that those "weapon hits" were actually almost exclusively "muzzle brake hits".

I run the same test again, but now I ordered for Tigers a cover arcs about 20deg to the right, so they rotated their turret 20deg right. The gun barrel was now nicely exposed to hits (much larger cross-section of the barrel visible) but the end of the barrel with the muzzle brake was now moved right, out of the way of incoming Sherman shells.

After one turn, 7 Tigers had their guns OK, 3 had guns disabled. I took a closer look. Those 3 Tigers with disabled guns, actually IGNORED the cover arc order and DIDN'T rotate their turrets to the center of the arc, but still pointing forward.

But 7 Tigers obeyed the cover arc and rotated their turrets 20deg to the right, and despite taking really MULTIPLE mantlet (weapon mount) and front turret hits, with shattered optics and ratios, they all had their guns OK.

Here is link to the saved game file (with replay of the turn I have described above):

http://www.sendspace.com/file/6cg415

Conclusion - it SEEM for me that "weapon mount" hits, that we understand as mantlet hits (if they happen to hit close to the gun, and not hull MG), are not responsible for main gun damage in 1.10. Or it hapens rarely. I didn't see any gun damage after "weapon mount hit" in above tests. The gun damage happens with the "weapon hit" on the gun, and it SEEM that the "hitpoint" of the weapon hit is located at the muzzle brake OR just the end of the barrel. Because taking the muzzle brake "away" from the path of incoming shells practically eliminated (or almost eliminated) "weapon hits" and gun damage. All other hits on gun mantlet, and the "exposed" side of the barrel didn't cause "weapon hits" and no gun damage occured.

If above is true, that would also mean that.... only the tank that is engaged (aimed at) by a Tiger can damage it's gun. Other tanks, firing at the Tiger from other angles, are not supposed to cause gun damage. Their shells have little chance of hitting the muzzle brake.

Now, why the Tiger E happens to get it's gun damaged more often than other tanks... I'm not sure. Maybe "hitpoint" for "weapon hit" of Tiger E is a bit too large? Maybe the 3D model used for hit detection and penetration calcs (I guess it's not the very same, as the visual one, but similar) has the muzzle brake too large?

I guess not every glancing hit on the barrel or muzzle brake would damage the gun to the point it can't (or is dangerous to) shoot. So maybe the size of it should be decreased a bit.

In the above test if took about 10 front turret hits for one gn-damaging hit, but if this happened - on average - once for 10-15 front turret hits during actual gaming, I guess no one, including me, would feel it as too frequent.

I would test it again with single tank vs tank setup (and not 3 on 1), on various ranges, to see if there are any "spikes" of this performance, with the probability of gun hit being much higher in some conditions.

The idea of closely connecting gun/barrel damage with hits of the barrel end/muzzle brake... well it definitely works ok, when the gun is pointing in direction of the incoming shell. It would definitely not work well, if the gun is pointed elsewhere.

Maybe second hit detection point should be added at the base of the gun, a point with diameter little smaller than the diameter of the gun barrel at the base. The game would then interpret hits DIRECTLY to the base of the gun (a gun pointing elsewhere) as gun damaging hit. It would be ok. But... no... it would not work well for Saukopfblende type mantlets, which were probably supposed to absorb hits at gun base without gun being damaged or jammed. Maybe for now, just the size of Tigers "muzzle brake" hitpoint should be decreased. Because currently a hull-down Tiger is quite prone to gun damage if it points it's barrel at the shooting tank. And is not prone at all if the gun is pointing elsewhere.

I also wonder, why my KTs didn't get so many gun damages in the same test. Maybe the center of Sherman shell's hit pattern was somwhere between hull and turret, and at the range I tested (200m) rarely a shell was passing at height that it could hit the muzzle brake. And maybe just KT's muzzle brake (or it's invisible brother, used for hit detection) is smaller than for Tiger E. I will test KTs hull down, with hit pattern centered on the gun and see if the results are the same as for Tiger E then.

It also shows, how a single, "syntetic" test, with "limited number of variables" can give misleading results sometimes, because some effect that is the case of observed anomalies, can happen rarely or not at all at the setup of the "clean" test. Various setups and conditions should be tested too, to make sure that some strange effect is not omited. When we understand fully how some things work, and want to collect a statistically meaning data for this well understood mechanism, then a "syntetic" and "clean" test is great. But when trying to find some bug, some anomally, a single large "syntetic" test in single setup can omit some things and "prove" that there is no bug or no anomaly. Would be better to make multiple small tests with various setups, and only when noticing something strange, expand the test for this setup to collect statistically significant data, and then compare it with another big, statistically significant test, now a "syntethic", simple and clean setup, to see if the observed (and measured) effect/anomaly is universal, or only happening in those specific conditions of the first test.

Goodnight and... regards for all people that are still testing anything that late

[Vanir Ausf B]

Each Tiger was hit ~24 times, let's assume (I didn't count it) 18 shots landed on turret front, average number of "weapon hits" I would estimate for 1.5. So about one "weapon hit" for 10-12 front turret hits, it would seem...

My testing under 1.00 showed that about 12% -- 1/8.3 -- of hits on the Panther turret knocked out the gun.

After one turn, 7 Tigers had their guns OK, 3 had guns disabled. I took a closer look. Those 3 Tigers with disabled guns, actually IGNORED the cover arc order and DIDN'T rotate their turrets to the center of the arc, but still pointing forward.

Make sure the target tanks have fanatic crews. Also, try to use Allied tanks without the forward facing .50 to avoid all the extra hit text

Keep in mind that in WEGO mode the location of the hit explosion animation is not very accurate.

[Bradley Dick]

When we're talking about unrealistic damage, can we assume that the enemy is specifically targeting areas that can be damaged easily instead of just firing center mass?

For example, I read a tank gunner's memoir that talked about how they would target the front drive sprocket of German tanks with HE because that's the only way they could reliably do damage at the time. Once the tank was immobilized, the crews would usually bail and the gunner could move on to the next target.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Probably not. BFC have said that the TacAI does not aim for specific parts of tanks. And even if they did I don't know why they would do it against a Tiger I but not a Tiger II.

But I am not convinced there is any problem here. No offense to Amizaur, but I wouldn't jump to any conclusions based on hit explosion animations and estimates.