INF vs TANKS

[JonS]

On that basis given a chance to nail a tank would you or I , or perhaps more to the point a fanatical German, risk a modest danger and NOT fire?

The answer to that question is obviously somewhere between 'probably' and 'definitely'.

Edit for clarity due to convoluted nature of Diesel's sentence: The answer to that question is obviously somewhere between 'you or I would probably not fire from inside a building' and 'you or I would definitely not fire from inside a building.'

[Vanir Ausf B]

And the Shreck manual says stuff flies Thirty Metre out the back end.

10 foot of clearance can be difficult to find in european houses.

The 30m clearance behind the shooter is for personnel behind the shooter, not the shooter himself. Stuff flies out the back end of any recoilless-type weapon for more than 10 feet.

I can get 10 feet of clearance out of my 2 bedroom apartment without even using the balcony. But no matter how tiny European houses are, houses are just one type of building. Are rooms in public and commercial buildings similarly diminutive?

[JonS]

In the 1940s? All of them?

No, of course not. But rooms and offices then were a lot smaller than the floor-spanning open-plan office spaces which are currently all the rage.

[Vanir Ausf B]

You've made some telling points, but, on balance, I endorse the current implementation especially given the absence of appropriate penalties.

No gun elevation/depression limits, so tanks can shoot their guns at infantry anywhere, most importantly at troops close assaulting them. Infantry cannot use building corners as cover to shoot around as they often do in real combat. BFC has ruled-out any changes to gun elevation/depression limits and shooting around corners would require new TacAI and animations.

There is a serious disconnect with reality in the current implementation outside of the specific issue of shooting from buildings and it favors armor is every aspect. We can argue back and forth about the when, where and why soldiers used these weapons in reality, but IMO in the game infantry should be given the benefit of the doubt even if it is not strictly realistic in every circumstance. And it's the only change available that is currently possible in the game engine.

[Childress]

You're right; getting gun elevations right is more important than perfecting zooks/fausts/shreck capabilities, real or alleged. Particularly in urban environments like Stalingrad or the upcoming Arnhem battles. But do you believe the solution lies in modifying, in a possibly ahistorical manner, other attributes in the interest of 'fairness'?

Shirley, you can't be serious!

I think that the idea of allowing tubers to fire from structures if they haven't moved since Setup has merit: an, easy on the programming, simulated pre-prep.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Gun elevations are not going to be changed. We know that.

The current restrictions on firing from buildings are already a-historical. That is not debatable. Even BFC has acknowledged that. So in the question of which flavor of a-historicalness we want I do prefer the one that more closely maintains the overall real-world dynamic between armor and infantry. In my book that is a net gain in realism any way you slice it.

And don't call me Shirley

[John Kettler]

All,

Here's a better look at the 1945 Panzerfaust training film for the civvies.

A pretty good look at a Panzerfaust vs a stone building.

womble,

I regret you opted to reply to my post by starting out with a whack at me. Doesn't make you look good!

For starters, I do have eyes, and I'm well aware none of those pics showed Panzerschrecks set up to fire from intact buildings. You, though, seem to have confused Rubble with Damaged. Panzerschrecks have been able to fire from Rubble since the CMBO Beta. Nothing new there. And they can certainly fire over a wall already. Again, no big shock. This pic's straight out of the Panzerschreck manual.

http://homepage.tinet.ie/~nightingale/graphics/panzerschreck1.jpg

But my understanding is that as the game is currently coded, no Panzerschreck, bazooka or Panzerfaust may be fired from ANY building still standing, regardless of size, however porous and smashed up it may be. Thus, what you so blithely dismiss as already doable would appear not to be so.

I'm not sure what to make of this or whence it came, but it absolutely shows a Panzerschreck being fired from inside a house.

Your argument that modern recoilless weapons have less of a backblast than did the Panzerfaust, bazooka and Panzerschreck seems more than a bit off to me. Let's look at that claim.

Per pages 150 and 151 here (U.S. Explosive Ordnance, BuOrd OP 1666 (Vol 1) the bazooka rocket M6 and M6A1 has 61.5 grams of ballistite as propellant.

http://www.lexpev.nl/downloads/op1666germanexplosiveordnancevol.1.pdf

I'm having a terrible time finding the propellant weight and type for the Panzerschreck, but this looks like a find. This is the Russian manual (anyone read Russian?) on German handheld antitank weapons.

http://www.lexpev.nl/downloads/russianmanualongermanantitankweapons1945.pdf

Gander's Field Rocket Equipment of the Germany Army 1939-1945 has the info, I'm pretty sure, but I presently have no access to the book.

Or, for the German speakers, there's the manual!

http://www.scribd.com/doc/137070646/Der-Panzerschreck-8-8-Cm-Raketen-Panzerbuechse-54-R-pz-B-54

Finally!

Lone Sentry lists the rocket projectile for the Puppchen as having 1.6 ounces of propellant.

http://www.lonesentry.com/ordnance/8-8-cm-r-pz-b-gr-4312-antitank-rocket-grenade.html

By contrast, the U.S. M18 75mm recoilless rifle uses from 3.19-3.42 LBs of Propellant M10!

Are you seriously going to argue that 1.6 ounces have a bigger backblast than over 3 lbs?!

TM9-1300-204 Ammunition for Recoilless Rifles, page 41

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/ref/TM/PDFs/TM9-1300-204.pdf

Also, RR ammo's backblast is funneled out through a venturi/venturis, which should make it even worse than straight rocket exhaust in an open pipe.

Since I know you're going to bring up the Panzerfaust to save your untenable position, a Panzerfaust Klein has 1.9 ounces of black powder (Ooh! Ah!) and a Panzerfaust 100 a whole 6.7.

http://www.oocities.org/pizzatest/panzerfaust2.htm

As noted in the Wiki, the inspiration for ballistite, Poudre B, is three times as powerful as black powder.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistite

Bluntly put, I think it fair to say I have utterly destroyed the claims you made.

But don't take my word for it. The Army's been testing firing recoilless weapons from enclosures starting in 1948! The same link also says in MOUT firing one in the streets and alleys is more dangerous to the operator and those nearby than firing one from inside an enclosure.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/recoilless.htm

(Fair Use)

"Since the end of World War II, the US Army has conducted extensive testing on the effects of firing recoilless weapons from within enclosures. Beginning as early as 1948, tests have been conducted on every type of recoilless weapon available. In 1975, the US Army Human Engineering Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Maryland, conducted extensive firing of the LAW, Dragon, and TOW from masonry and frame buildings, and from sandbag bunkers.

Firing these weapons from enclosures presented no serious hazards, even when the overpressure was enough to produce structural damage to the building. Little hazard exists to the gunnery or crew from any type of flying debris. Loose items were not hurled around the room. No substantial degradation occurs to the operator's tracking performance as a result of obscuration or blast overpressure.

The most serious hazard that can be expected is hearing loss. This must be evaluated against the advantage gained in combat from firing from cover. To place this hazard in perspective, a gunner wearing earplugs and firing the loudest combination (the Dragon from within a masonry building) is exposed to less noise hazard than if he fired a LAW in the open without earplugs.

The safest place for other soldiers in the room with the shooter is against the wall from which the weapon is fired. Firers should take advantage of all available sources of ventilation by opening doors and windows. Ventilation does not reduce the noise hazard, but it helps clear the room of smoke and dust, and reduces the effective duration of the overpressure.

The only difference between firing these weapons from enclosures and firing them in the open is the duration of the pressure fluctuation. Frame buildings, especially small ones, can suffer structural damage to the rear walls, windows, and doors. Large rooms suffer slight damage, if any. Recoilless weapons fired from within enclosures create some obscuration inside the room, but almost none from the gunner's position looking out. Inside the room, obscuration can be intense, but the room remains inhabitable."

(Fair Use)

The expression "every type of recoilless weapon available" automatically covers the bazooka (2.36 inch), the M18 57mm RR, the M20 75mm RR and even this, the mighty M40 106mm RR.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TneRGAvKlfY

Clearly, the WW II weapons you think produce such huge backblast are as mouse flatus in a tornado compared to the M20 75mm RR.

Regards,

John Kettler

[dieseltaylor]

JK another post like that and I might be persuaded! : )

I have been dabbling but the videos I have seen from YouTube have the camera very adjacent to the weapon firing and there is no discernible wobble to the camera. And the blast does not seem excessive.

Of course this is but gnats piss to your info.

Now BF may have AI coding reasons for their stance. In any event if bazookas are not very effective when fired at angles at tanks then perhaps their lethality in street fighting is much restricted.

[dieseltaylor]

It's worth pointing out that if you stand in my front room, with a 10 foot clearance from the back of a Shreck tube sticking over your shoulder to the back wall, you're standing in the bay window with the front of the Tube sticking out of the window. Not a posture conducive to remaining unseen (and therefore alive long enough to discharge the thing). In the normandy house I stayed in during the summer, you'd have been leaning over the "balcony" (I think some realtors call them "Juliet balconies"; they're just a handspan deep) rail. And the Shreck manual says stuff flies Thirty Metre out the back end.

10 foot of clearance can be difficult to find in european houses.

womble - The UK has the smallest houses in Western Europe.

"The average home in the UK is 85 square metres compared to 115 square metres in Holland and 137 square metres in Denmark."

In a sense average size is not much help as we would expect the defender to choose the most suitable house/room for the purpose. One other point is the height of the rooms is not being considered and the 9-10'/ 3m ceiling is more common abroad than in the UK.

Strangely room heights are very difficult information to discover so I can only go by the buildings I have been in personally.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Battle damage tends to expand the size of rooms

[womble]

womble - The UK has the smallest houses in Western Europe.

"The average home in the UK is 85 square metres compared to 115 square metres in Holland and 137 square metres in Denmark."

The house I was in on holiday on the continent had smaller rooms. But it was three storeys high, so it had a larger total area than the usual british 2 storey house. Yes, our rooms are, on average, smaller too...

In a sense average size is not much help as we would expect the defender to choose the most suitable house/room for the purpose.

The one pointing at the ambush site? Half the problem is that CM buildings are drawn as empty shells.

One other point is the height of the rooms is not being considered and the 9-10'/ 3m ceiling is more common abroad than in the UK.

I don't think the height's that relevant to propulsion jet backsplash. To total volume (and hence overpressure effects), sure.

JohnK

Ruined building = rubble patch. No roof. All fell down.

The firing from inside a house definitely has a "prepared" position: see how the operator moves carefully in a line between the hole in the wall behind him and the window he's firing out of.

Weight of explosive isn't the only determinant of the inconvenience its blast can cause. Black powder residue is still burning. Modern explosives have already burnt and are "just" hot, to a greater degree. Reenactment cannon blasts can set fire to the grass ahead of their muzzles, though that's probably with more like half a kilo of powder; a couple of ounces . If the faust-which-farted in the "housewife's choice" film isn't some kind of training round, then any accounts of "vast clouds of choking fumes" from firing the thing have to be taken as exaggerations. For a comparison we can all get our heads around, a reenactment musket load these days is 100gr of powder, which is about 6 grams/ one quarter ounce. A shot of even 5-6 times that certainly doesn't seem like it will have the capacity to create a room-sized conflagration. 25 times, for the PzF100? Still not really, not compared to the general madness of combat anyway. You'd have to be more careful not to foul up, is all.

Having the blast controlled by a venturi may make it less of a problem for the firer, while making the launch more efficient.

Just for the sake of repeating myself: I don't have a "position" except that evidence calling for change should be relevant and not based on untenable assumptions.

Challenging the initial evidence seems to be uncovering better evidence in favour of allowing Tubes to be fired from indoors with only minimal risks.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Per pages 150 and 151 here (U.S. Explosive Ordnance, BuOrd OP 1666 (Vol 1) the bazooka rocket M6 and M6A1 has 61.5 grams of ballistite as propellant.

I haven't checked the source, but if that is accurate it makes for an interesting comparison with the B-10 recoilless rifle footage I posted earlier in the thread. ArgusEye states the B-10 propellent charge is "821 gram of nitrocellulose/nitroglycerin" which is basically Ballistite (it's more likely Cordite, but they are both double-base propellents) That makes for a nice apples to apples comparison with regards to propellent. So in terms of pure energy output the B-10 is producing about 13x the energy of a Bazooka.

[c3k]

I am sceptical of some of the propellant weights. Some weapons discussed have two charges; an initial accelerant, then a sustainer. (The sustainer may only fire for a fraction of a second, but it is more of a rocket/booster rather than an explosive which is what the initial accelerant is.)

Some projectiles get a "boom" to get them out of the tube, then "whoosh" to get them up to speed.

Let's try to keep apples to apples.

[womble]

I am sceptical of some of the propellant weights. Some weapons discussed have two charges; an initial accelerant, then a sustainer. (The sustainer may only fire for a fraction of a second, but it is more of a rocket/booster rather than an explosive which is what the initial accelerant is.)

Some projectiles get a "boom" to get them out of the tube, then "whoosh" to get them up to speed.

Let's try to keep apples to apples.

I'm pretty sure the WW2 Tubes are all "burn in the launch" types. It wasn't til post-war that sustainer motors were developed for MANPAT, and the RRs were all, like the Arty that they were, tube-confined ballistic weapons, rather than sustained rockets. I don't think they were around in armies with access to bleeding edge tech long enough to get the rocket assisted rounds that the heavyweight recoil carriage arty had developed for them in the last decades of the C20th.

It occurred to me this afternoon that the army study talks largely about overpressure and blast, things more associated with brisance-inducing HE (like ballistite) than low explosives like black powder. Is it possible that the hazzards for the two kinds of launch are of different character? Weapons propelled by HE pose tolerable blast threat, and their incendiary threat to the user is so far below negligible that it's not even worth testing. Whereas the mishap reports of black powder-driven weapons seem to indicate a more incendiary risk. This might suggest that it's possibly actually safer to fire a Shreck or a Zook from indoors than a Faust.

[Vanir Ausf B]

The sources I have also only list non-rocket assisted ammunition for the B-10 82mm and M67 90mm recoilless rifles.

http://weaponsystems.net/weapon.php?weapon=BB05+-+B-10

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/23-11/Ch2.htm#s5

[womble]

The sources I have also only list non-rocket assisted ammunition for the B-10 82mm and M67 90mm recoilless rifles.

http://weaponsystems.net/weapon.php?weapon=BB05+-+B-10

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/23-11/Ch2.htm#s5

I could only find references to RAP for the 155 and 105mm guns, in US use, which isn't a big surprise since I don't think the RRs were still in service with the US military by the time the rocket propellant got stable enough to be fired out of artillery.

[Vanir Ausf B]

I'm pretty sure the WW2 Tubes are all "burn in the launch" types.

It's also worth noting that the Panzerschreck did not burn all of it's propellent in the tube. The rocket motor kept burning for a short time after leaving the tube, hence the need for the large blast shield on the launcher. That suggests the back blast would actually be somewhat smaller than the propellent charge size would indicate (although we don't presently seem to know the size of the charge).

[John Kettler]

c3k,

You're thinking of the SPG-9, which first expels the projectile, after which the projectile self boosts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPG-9

The BMP-1's 2A28 Grom low-pressure gun works on the same principle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2A28_Grom

womble,

A truly impressive deflection, combined with utter failure to acknowledge my massively documented technical response and complete destruction of your ordnance claims. Also, I did NOT say the building was Rubbled. I said my understanding was that NO fire by Panzerfaust, Panzerschreck or bazooka was allowed from a building with a wall still standing. If it still has walls up, it's not Rubble, though it's certainly a ruin.

I spent hours putting together that post, assembling a crushing weight of evidence, to which you reply with some "pious" comment asserting you merely wanted the facts. Right!

Vanir Ausf B,

You are entirely correct about the Panzerschreck, which is why the RP 43, which had no shield, required the operator to wear protective gear, whereas the RP 54, which did have one, allowed the Landser to go about his business in normal field uniform. As for the B-10 vs bazooka propellant issue, I must first acknowledge ArgusEye for finding the B10 propellant figure. I tried several places but came up bust. Of course, by then I'd spent a very long time running down that other stuff, to include placing my head horizontal to try to read a blurry, fine print, uber groggy U.S. treatise on German explosives and propellants in an effort to find the figures for the Panzerschreck propellant, which the idiots who wrote German Explosive Ordnance left out. Naturally, the B-10 RR requires an enormous amount of propellant to fling its HEAT shell to the target. That shell (baseline BK 881, 82mm) weighs 3.87 kg.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-10_recoilless_rifle

By contrast, the bazooka rocket (M6A1, 2.36"/57mm) weighs 1.59 kg/3.5 lbs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bazooka

May I suggest you compare the bazooka rocket with the HEAT projectile for the M18 57mm rifle, since the bore is the same?

Regards,

John Kettler

[Sgt Joch]

This is pretty much a circular debate.

Of course, if someone could post a video of a schrek/faust/bazooka being fired from inside an enclosed building it would help.

You can't really compare WW2 weapons with modern weapons. Schreks/fausts had a one stage design using black powder as a propellant.

Modern AT weapons, even RPGs, use a two stage design with a first soft launch to push the weapon out of the tube and away from the operator before the main rocket fires.

Even then weapons like the LAW or M47 DRAGON had severe restrictions against indoor use:

When firing the LAW or Dragon from within a

room, backblast must be taken into account. In

urban combat, the backblast area for these

weapons is more dangerous because of rubble and

the channeling effect caused by buildings, narrow

streets, and alleys. Antitank weapons should not

be fired from unvented or closed rooms. By wetting

down the floor of the room or building, the

signature produced by the backblast may be significantly

reduced.

appendix R-9, FM 7-7

http://trainingnco.pbworks.com/f/FM+7-7++The+Mechanized+Infantry+Platoon+and+Squad+(+APC).pdf

Lets also not forget the consequences of blast injuries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blast_injury

also, even modern RPGs can be dangerous if you are not careful...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94xB_5iAaEc

you would have a much easier time if the argument was that schreks/fausts should be capable of being fired from heavily damaged/destryed buildings.

[womble]

This is pretty much a circular debate.

Of course, if someone could post a video of a schrek/faust/bazooka being fired from inside an enclosed building it would help.

Kettler has. It shows Shreck fire from a prepared (or at least opportunistic) room with a hole in the back wall.

Schreks....using black powder as a propellant.

Are you sure about that? The bazooka used, apparently, HE rather than black powder; since the Shreck was based off the zook, it would make sense that it did too. If someone could read Russian, that pdf JK posted might tell us what the propellant actually was.

Modern AT weapons, even RPGs, use a two stage design with a first soft launch to push the weapon out of the tube and away from the operator before the main rocket fires.

Not all. The RPG-29 is a one-stage hard launch, according to my Google-fu.

[sburke]

Kettler has. It shows Shreck fire from a prepared (or at least opportunistic) room with a hole in the back wall.

If you are referring to this one I would be hesitant to draw any conclusions at all as to what is depicted, state of the building etc.

For all we know the entire structure behind the shooter may be gone. They show one guy with a shreck run into a building and then two separate shots at buildings with a shreck and in the middle one guy with a shreck about to fire. Whether that is actually the shot depicted later is anyone's guess. The film jumps at the 20 second mark, a splice for something then immediately jumps to a shot INSIDE the room of the target. In fact from the first 8 seconds if it were live combat footage I'd have to assume the Russians filmed it as the angle of view is actually from the empty shed that the team is about to blow up.

Dramatic, and I'd have to say staged and hardly evidence that will sway BF.

JK himself admits to being unable to validate it's authenticity or what it actually depicts.

[Sgt Joch]

It would be nice to know the source also. It does not look like other WW2 footage I have seen, although I could be wrong.

It looks a bit like 50-60s TV footage, from a show maybe? :confused:

[poesel]

What I think is a bit suspicious is the complete lack of a warning to fire the Schreck/Faust/Bazooka indoors. If that would be deadly they would have put a big warning label on it or, in case of the Germans, they would have issued these things en masse to penal battalions.

OTOH a deaf soldier would be a good trade off for a tank.

So firing indoors is not the perfect place but IMHO neither impossible nor deadly.

From all I read here an additional setup time (like for MGs) for using a hand-held AT weapon (except PIATs) indoors seems to me a good and realistic solution.

[JonS]

From all I read here an additional setup time (like for MGs) for using a hand-held AT weapon (except PIATs) indoors seems to me a good and realistic solution.

Except that, AIUI, this would prevent the unit from firing any of its weapons until the room was prepared.

[Alan8325]

If infantry continue to be unable to fire AT weapons from buildings in CM then they should at least get some additional abstracted concealment in urban areas, IMHO.