tanks spotting infantry

[kensal]

I've only been playing CMBN for a few months so this issue may have been debated in the past. Sorry if that's case. However I wanted to get an idea about how realistic people think tanks' ability to spot and quickly engage infantry is.

Playing Bois de Baugin yesterday, I noticed on a couple of occasions tanks spotting panzerschrek teams hidden behind walls or in brush in or around the central village (Compagne?) and orchard and shredding them before team was aware of the tanks' presence. This in a fairly smoky environment.

I would have thought that buttoned up tanks without supporting infantry would find it pretty difficult to see hidden infantry (but having never been in one it is an assumption)

Also why is that 9x out of 10, the first casualty in the shrek team is the shrek guy - murphy's law :mad:

[agusto]

The situational awareness and reaction time of a tank largely depend on the competence of its crew and the model.

A Panzer V, for example, has a commander cupola with 8 (?) periscopes that offer the commander a 360 field of view when buttoned up. Besides that, it has a crew of five. IRL it would be like that every crewmember would observe a distinct area on the battlefield and call out contacts in order to maximaize situational awareness. For example the hull gunner would observe the area from 12 to 2 o clock, the driver (who has 2 periscopes if i recall correctly) the area from 10 to 12, the gunner would observe an area issued by the commander and the commander would observe any area he would find important. In some Panzer IV models even the loader has his own viewports on the side of the turret, if i recall correctly. The disadvantage of beeing buttoned up would only be that the commander has a bit smaller field of view and cant use his binoculars. The competence of the crew determines how fast info is passed up to the TC, so in a Panzer V an experienced crew would have a good situational awareness.

Now lets compare this to the 2-man-crewed french R-35 tank. There are only 3 viewports to the front, left and right the tank commander has acsess to when driving buttoned up. Also he has not just to observe the battlefield and command the tank , but also act as radio operator (if any radios are present), loader and gunner. The driver has ojnly a single viewport to the front. Thus the amount of eyes that are available to the tank for observing the battlefield are much fewer than in the Panzer V, so the situaltional awareness of the R35 is much worse, independent of the crews traning and experience.

The fact the the shreck guy always gets killed first if the team is spotted by a tank is obviously a result of the tanks crew deliberately aiming for him. After all, he is the threat in the 2 man AT team, not the loader/ammo carrier.

[womble]

The fact the the shreck guy always gets killed first if the team is spotted by a tank is obviously a result of the tanks crew deliberately aiming for him. After all, he is the threat in the 2 man AT team, not the loader/ammo carrier.

That, and the fact he's the one kneeling up to take the shot, so more exposed than his colleague. Oh, and a little bit of observer bias

[Erwin]

"tanks spotting panzerschrek teams hidden behind walls or in brush in or around the central village (Compagne?) and orchard and shredding them before team was aware of the tanks' presence"

It's an issue that's been noted before. One would think that an inf unit would easily hear a tank (let alone have to get a visual). But, in general, tanks do seem to have an easier time seeing inf than appears realistic.

There were also many comments that a moving tank often seems to be able to spot and kill a stationary tank rather than the other way round. (Again, possibly an attampt to favor the attacker which in the majority of cases will be the Allies. But, no conclusions on that.)

[Sgt Schultz]

Terrain that offers concealment when observing is NOT the same as terrain that offers concealment when firing.

Example .... the proper choice of terrain allows this panzershrek team to stay prone throughout the entire process of firing and reloading..

Resulting in this ...

That may help.

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The bush ain't gonna help ya' none there son. Get down in the weeds if you want to live.

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[dieseltaylor]

You do not give any range for these instances which makes it hard to answer short of loading up the scenario and making some guesses. Also you do not say whether the tanks were moving or had been stationery - if not moving the superior optics would be helping and also the height advantage.

I am not saying BF have it right and in general tankers bemoaned the lack of visibility when buttoned. Thats why a lot of TC's died with their heads out of the turret.

[Vinnart]

C2 also speeds up spotting time greatly. If another unit sees the enemy, and conveys that to a buttoned tank before the tank sees it itself, the tank will start to rotate the turret to the direction of enemy before it is actually sees it. This is another reason why maintaining good C2 makes the force more effective.