German Halftrack Vulnerablity to Small Arms Fire

[YankeeDog]

In response to some complaints by Odin regarding the vulnerability of halftracks to small-arms fire in the “New Features Wish List” thread in the CM:FI forum (here), I decided to do some investigation into just how vulnerable halftracks are to small arms fire in the current state of the CMx2 Engine.

These are casual, fairly undisciplined tests I did over my morning coffee, so take the precise numbers with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, I hope the results offer some insight and factual basis for further discussion.

SETUP:

I set up a German 251/1 halftrack with a 2-man crew, also loaded with a full squad (9 passengers) on a perfectly flat map. Then I put various American units with .30-’06 small arms only behind a tall bocage line and let them fire on the halftrack at will. American teams used were:

- 7 men w/ Garands (Armored Infantry rifle squad, minus the team equipped with the rifle grenade),

- 2 x 2-man BAR teams

- 5-man M1919A4 MMG team (1 M1919A4, 3 M1 Garands, 1 M1 Carbine)

All units Regular, no bonuses or penalties. I ran the tests first at 200m, then at 100m. At both ranges, I tested with the halftrack starting at a perfect front front aspect to the enemy, and then a perfect side aspect. For each unit/range/aspect combo, I ran five 1-minute turns, and observed effects. The results on a per-bullet fired bases seemed to be consistent across the American teams' weapon loadouts. That is, the M1919A4 team got more penetration/casualty/damage events, but only in proportion to its higher rate of fire. This suggests that all of these .30-06 caliber weapon have roughly the same armor penetration capabilities in the game and are therefore presumably firing the same type of ammo. As such, for simplicity, I have condensed my summaries of the results, and only commented on the difference observed in results between the different American weapons where I thought them notable.

RESULTS:

General notes for all conditions:

Across all results, the only vehicle damage that was observed in any run was one step of damage to the radio, which happens pretty often, but not always. Damage to the radio never got worse than one step.

While this was the only damage to the vehicle observed, the incoming small arms fire does suppress the halftrack crew and passengers. If the suppression level becomes high enough, the halftrack may attempt to break contact by moving away. This happened most often in the M1919A4 runs (the M1919A4 team puts out the most fire of any of the teams tested). In the frontal aspect tests, if the halftrack moved it always reversed away, keeping its frontal armor towards the enemy with the exception of one oddball run which happened during the 100m vs. BAR teams test. In this one case, the halftrack actually charged forward at about a 45 degree angle to the enemy contact. In the side aspect tests, the halftrack sometimes rotates to reverse away, and other times rotates to drive away in forward gear, showing a rear aspect to the enemy.

Apparently, it is also impossible to keep the halftrack gunner completely buttoned -- when and if the halftrack crew spots the American infantry firing on the halftrack, the gunner will pop up and return fire with the MG, even though the halftrack has been ordered to button up. The halftrack will also rotate to bring the gun to bear when this happens, if necessary. If the contact is lost, the gunner will pop back down under cover of the armor. As noted below, this sometimes exposes the gunner to fire, and causes him to become a casualty.

Notes on Specific Ranges/Aspects:

200m Frontal Aspect: No penetration or injury events observed. On most runs, the halftrack spotted the infantry at least intermittently, and made a pretty good accounting of itself, frequently suppressing and causing casualties to the infantry with MG fire.

100m Frontal Aspect: Exactly one "Penetration Through Opening" event, which caused no damage or casualties, and one gunner casualty where the gunner was apparently hit by what looked like a ricochet off of a weapon mount hit. The Halftrack usually spots enemy infantry at this range pretty quickly, causing the gunner to pop up and return fire. However, the infantry small arms fire is also more accurate and intense at this range, so the halftrack crew can quickly become suppressed to the point it will attempt to reverse away from contact. In a couple of cases at this range, the HT gunner was hit while the halftrack was on the move -- sometimes, the halftrack backs away at an angle, and when this happens, if the HT gunner is up manning the gun he may become exposed to fire coming around the side of the gun shield. But this only happened on a couple of occasions and in no case was a HT gunner lost to a penetration through the armor. As noted above, there was one "gonzo" event at this range, where the halftrack charged forward at a 45 degree angle, ending about 77m away from the American infantry, at a near-perfect flank aspect. After this move, the American infantry got a couple of spalling hits, but only the halftrack driver was injured (yellow status).

200m Side Aspect: A few armor spalling events were observed on most runs -- I would estimate definitely less than 1 per 50 hits. In addition, one partial penetration event was observed. No casualties or significant vehicle damage was caused by any of these hits, though. In most of these runs, the halftrack either tried to rotate to engage once its spotted the threat, or retreat (or do both, in sequence). Once again, in a few of these cases, the gunner was hit. The gunner seems to have a bad habit of popping up to man the gun as soon as an enemy is spotted, sometimes before the halftrack is actually rotated far enough around for him to engage the target. When this happens, he is very exposed to flanking fire for a few seconds until the halftrack is rotated far enough that the gun shield more or less completely covers the gunner. This vulnerability window is generally when the gunner casualties occurred.

100m Side Aspect: A higher frequency of spalling events observed, but still definitely less than 1 per 10 hits (my SWAG would be more like 1 per 20-40 hits). One partial penetration observed. One full penetration observed. The vast majority of these spalling hits/penetrations caused no injuries, but there were 3 casualties, and 3 injured (yellow) caused by penetrations/spalling through the armor at this range. A few of these casualties were actually caused by hits to the rear armor in cases where the halftrack turned and drove away, showing its rear aspect. There was also one full-bailout of the halftrack at this range/aspect -- on a run vs. 2 x BAR teams, the halftrack gunner became casualty to an armor spall hit almost immediately at the top of the run, and the driver and passengers decided to bail out shortly thereafter, even though the halftrack was still undamaged. Several more of the passenger squad then became casualties outside the halftrack on this run.

CONCLUSIONS:

Assuming shooter and target are at the same elevation, I do not see any evidence that the SPW 251/1 is vulnerable to .30-'06 small arms fire from the frontal aspect 100m and up. From a perfect side aspect, .30-06 fire presents a very minor risk to the halftrack at 200m. Flat side hits at 100m are more likely to at least cause armor spalling, but the risk of damage or casualties to crew/passengers is still very low.

However, halftrack crews and passengers do not like being under sustained small arms fire, and even if the risk of damage or casualty is very low, under sustained small arms fire, the halftrack may decide to "bug out". Further, while the gunner is well protected by the gun shield from small arms fire in a narrow frontal arc, the gunner's exposure and vulnerability rises quickly as the engagement angle changes to flank. Even relatively shallow flanking fire angles dramatically increase the chance of gunner casualties.

So basically, except for some minor quibbles regarding gunner behavior, I don't see a problem. If you are regularly losing German halftracks to small arms fire, you (a) have a different version of CMBN than I do, ( are extremely unlucky or © are doing something very wrong. More likely, you're actually losing the halftrack to something other than .30-06 fire, such as bazooka or rifle grenade fire, or possibly a to a distant ATG or .50 BMG that you haven't spotted yet. Also, watch out for situations where elevation or slope creates a plunging fire angle that allows small arms fire to enter the passenger compartment through the open top; this can definitely cause casualties to halftrack occupants.

Name aside, German halftracks are not assault vehicles and you should not use them as such. Nevertheless, I think these tests show that their armor offers adequate protection to use them conservatively in the fire support role against an enemy position without any weapons heavier than a .30 MG, so long as you can keep the enemy in a frontal arc, and avoid getting closer than about 200m. Even in approaches as close as 100m to enemy infantry, the armor is still fairly good proof against small arms fire, though I do not recommend getting this close; at this range, bazookas and rifle grenades are a significant threat.

American halftracks are a different matter; their armor is far thinner and easily penetrated by German 7.92mm at mid- to close range. Someone else can test the specifics, if they really feel the need.

[A Canadian Cat]

Name aside, German halftracks are not assault vehicles and you should not use them as such. Nevertheless, I think these tests show that their armor offers adequate protection to use them conservatively in the fire support role against an enemy position without any weapons heavier than a .30 MG, so long as you can keep the enemy in a frontal arc, and avoid getting closer than about 200m. Even in approaches as close as 100m to enemy infantry, the armor is still fairly good proof against small arms fire, though I do not recommend getting this close; at this range, bazookas and rifle grenades are a significant threat.

Excellent, work. Anecdotally I would agree but small arms fire does not always come from level ground and the passengers don't always keep their heads down. I have a game on the go right now where my opponent has tried to break through my lines with Tanks escorted by infantry in HTs. The story of one HT in particular is relevant to this test. It came out of a smoke screen right next to an AT gun so fast that the crew could not turn their gun fast enough and engaged with their rifles. The passengers fired back as they drove by. Result was one gun crew casualty and three German infantry casualties. Aside, Sten guns are great at close range. The HT proceeded down the street into the kill zone of two MMG teams (still .30 cal) both in second story windows. Again the passengers engaged the MG teams with their rifles and the HT's mg. Result is all passengers are now casualties. The driver is alive and the HT seems fine but no more passengers. The HTs that drove into the woods are fairing better since I do not have the volume of fire to bring to bear on them - yet.

[YankeeDog]

Yes; if you have shooters with any significant elevation advantage, you will gain an appreciation of why post-war APC designs added an armored roof. VT airburst artillery probably has something to do with it, too.

[gunnergoz]

The one key advantage US HT's have is that many if not most of them are equipped with a .50 Cal MG which has better range than the 30-06 and 7.92 and can make swiss cheese out of the German HT's. So if the US player can stand off sufficiently, he should in theory have a firepower advantage.

[dieseltaylor]

Has anyone considered/tested the vital extra millimetre! on the UK half-tracks which made them a tad better armoured than the US standard M3? These were the International Harvester version.

PS. Good testing YD. Only observation would be you did not mention number of tests made which would have made it more robust IMO. But I am being picky it is good of you to share details. Thanks.

[Amizaur]

I like this performance - number of casualites, supression, haftruck behaviours. I even like the "odd" outcomes when the halftruck moved forward, and the one when the infantry abandoned perfectly working vehicle only to die outside it from concentrated MG fire. Things like this happens sometimes because out of stress or panic or poor training.

[A Canadian Cat]

Yes; if you have shooters with any significant elevation advantage, you will gain an appreciation of why post-war APC designs added an armored roof.

Indeed, I am really hopping that we get to try out Kangaroos at some point in CMBN.

[Michael Emrys]

Indeed, I am really hopping that we get to try out Kangaroos at some point in CMBN.

Probably will come in Disk 4 Odds & Sods.

BTW, since the topic is Kangaroos, it is entirely appropriate that you are hopping.

Michael

[dieseltaylor]

: )

Nice catch ME

[LukeFF]

haftruck

Halftrack

[A Canadian Cat]

Probably will come in Disk 4 Odds & Sods.

BTW, since the topic is Kangaroos, it is entirely appropriate that you are hopping.

LOL - made my self laugh with that one:D

Yeah I really, really am hoping to see them in CMBN by the end. That would totally make my decade.