Champagne Posted July 7, 2013 Share Posted July 7, 2013 57mm AT guns knocking out Tiger I. All against frontal armor of the Tiger I. I used to think that the German AFVs were more resistant to the US 75mm, 76mm and 57mm anti-armor rounds. CMFI and CMBN have taught me differently. The US anti-armor projectiles were much more effective than I had previously thought. No wonder why none of the German attacks/counterattacks vs US forces went very far (except for Kasserine). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
womble Posted July 7, 2013 Share Posted July 7, 2013 57mm shouldn't be defeating the frontal armour of Tigers at pretty much any range without special ammo; either there was a lucky hit, you're playing with an early patch (where there was indeed an issue with the values for Tiger armour, IIRC), or you got an angle on a thinner plate (Top Front and Top Rear hits aren't that uncomon on hilly terrain). 76mm penetrating at 800m isn't that much of a surprise; it's the Panther's glacis that's almost invulnerable at that range. But there doesn't seem to be any lingering inaccuracy in the armour modelling, if the peace and quiet on the matter in these forums is anything to go by. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Champagne Posted July 7, 2013 Author Share Posted July 7, 2013 57mm shouldn't be defeating the frontal armour of Tigers at pretty much any range without special ammo; either there was a lucky hit, you're playing with an early patch (where there was indeed an issue with the values for Tiger armour, IIRC), or you got an angle on a thinner plate (Top Front and Top Rear hits aren't that uncomon on hilly terrain). 76mm penetrating at 800m isn't that much of a surprise; it's the Panther's glacis that's almost invulnerable at that range. But there doesn't seem to be any lingering inaccuracy in the armour modelling, if the peace and quiet on the matter in these forums is anything to go by. Yes, I agree that the peace and quiet is a good indication that the armor modeling must be pretty good. No, I did not know that an M10 could take out a Tiger I's frontal armor from 800 meters. I never read anything about that being the case in my 40 years of reading WW2 books. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redwolf Posted July 8, 2013 Share Posted July 8, 2013 Yes, I agree that the peace and quiet is a good indication that the armor modeling must be pretty good. No, I did not know that an M10 could take out a Tiger I's frontal armor from 800 meters. I never read anything about that being the case in my 40 years of reading WW2 books. Which ammo did you fire? The rare ammo could do it, but it usually isn't mentioned in the "Tiger FTW" literature. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted July 8, 2013 Share Posted July 8, 2013 Champagne, By "frontal armor" do you mean turret face, upper hull, lower hull or what? Also, were there any "weak spot penetrations" associated with the Tiger 1 kills? the closest I know of to a 57mm kill of a Tiger 1 was a 6-pdr hit on the gun collar which ricocheted into the turret ring, jamming it. That's the Bovington Tiger 1, which was, I believe, nailed by APDS. Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Champagne Posted July 8, 2013 Author Share Posted July 8, 2013 Yes, thanks for the response. I've been reading WW2 books and playing WW2 board wargames since 1974. I've never conducted the kind of detailed research and analysis that was done to perfect CMBN and all of its progeny. With regard to anti-armor vs. armor ballistics, I'm telling myself that I have to be prepared to learn new things and to "unlearn" some things that I thought were true. The research done by Battlefront in The Computer Era is superior to what I first learned over the years. I don't know the details of the exact M10 projectile type that defeated the front armor of the Tiger I. I did not note, nor do I remember whether the hit occurred on the turret front or front glacis of the Tiger I. As such, I hope that nobody interprets my post as some kind of complaint. If I wanted to complain, I would conduct my own research and tests before complaining. All I want to do is learn about ballistics and how the game models the ballistics. I know that Battlefront's intent is to be as accurate as possible. My thread here is inspired by the scenario "Forest of Wild Beasts". It's been frustrating as German vs. the AI, as I try to break through the US Army defenses. I brought some assumptions about AT vs. Armor ballistics that are being proved wrong in this scenario, so, I'm trying to learn more about this stuff. There are probably some great threads on these "AT vs Armor Ballistics" issues, so, I'll Search for them. If anybody has some good links to such threads, please post. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ASL Veteran Posted July 8, 2013 Share Posted July 8, 2013 It's probably ammunition related, because if you play "Hot Mustard" as the Germans, the same American 57mm AT Guns have a very difficult time punching through the front of the Tigers in that scenario. Hot Mustard is in July 1943 and Forest of Wild Beasts is in February 1944. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redwolf Posted July 8, 2013 Share Posted July 8, 2013 One good way to learn about this is buy the CMx1 games. They have more than reasonable tables of armor thickness and angles on one hand, and listing the penetration abilities of guns and(!) their different kinds of ammo on the other hand. While not perfect the data is really very good and stands up to later research and to sniffing for errors. It's get the job done of telling you what -say- tungsten rounds did. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vencini Posted July 8, 2013 Share Posted July 8, 2013 If anybody has some good links to such threads, please post. http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=98847 In CW some brit tanks have APDS ammo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armour-piercing_discarding_sabot Maybe those guns have this kind of ammunition? Hope the info helps. Regards! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fizou Posted July 8, 2013 Share Posted July 8, 2013 Champagne, Id advice you to get this outstanding mod by Marco Bergman http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=110580 Use the xc alternatve siluettes and you get a great UI aid, that both in color and numbers display different units armor thicknes and their different weapons and ammo penetration data at different ranges. Really outstanding by Marco. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Champagne Posted July 9, 2013 Author Share Posted July 9, 2013 Thanks! I really like his mods. Don't the game patches clash with the mods and cause problems? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted July 9, 2013 Share Posted July 9, 2013 Champagne, We know for a fact the AP projectile for the M10 in CMFI and GL is the M62A1 APC-T. This has been officially confirmed by Steve. Groggy thread's here. It includes links to official U.S. penetration data from 1944. http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=110055 Steve's responses are in Posts 33 and 35. http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=110055&page=4 Our own ordnance grog John D Salt wades in, citing chapter and verse here on the 3-Inch Gun M7 and many others as to penetration. http://mr-home.staff.shef.ac.uk/hobbies/ww2pen3.pdf Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanir Ausf B Posted July 9, 2013 Share Posted July 9, 2013 No, I did not know that an M10 could take out a Tiger I's frontal armor from 800 meters. I never read anything about that being the case in my 40 years of reading WW2 books. Combat Mission's ballistics model is pretty good in most respects, but it does not model reality perfectly. With regards to the Tiger specifically, there are two factors in play that make it somewhat more vulnerable in the game than it was in reality. Firstly, CM does not appear to model shatter gap, despite frequent claims that it does. At the very least it does not with the US 76mm. On paper the US 76mm can penetrate the Tiger I driver plate out to 1125 meters. But flawed US rounds tended to shatter and fail at ranges at which they should have penetrated on paper. Flawed US 76mm rounds were made by one of the 3 manufacturers of those rounds. Against the Tiger driver plate flawed 76mm rounds would penetrate out to 50 meters, shatter between 50 and 900 meters, then start penetrating again between 900 and 1125 meters. In the game 76mm penetrates all the way out to 1125. This is because the game always assumes highest quality ammunition. We see this also in the modeling of British 17 pdr APDS rounds that always fly straight and true in the game despite testing during WW2 that revealed a manufacturing flaw that severely affected accuracy. CM isn't exactly wrong in this regard so much as it is much more consistent than reality. This also affects the Panther since it allows penetration of the mantlet out past 500m when flawed rounds would have shattered past 200 meters. One other factor is that there seems to be an issue with how the Tiger's front turret armor is modeled. The game allows rounds to penetrate more often than they should (as far as I can tell). I'm hoping this gets fixed eventually. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted July 9, 2013 Share Posted July 9, 2013 Vanir Ausf B, As I recall, CMx1 DID model shatter gap, and there were long discussions about why what seemed like ridiculous things were occurring in certain engagements. In fact, they were the direct reflection of shatter gap's being properly modeled. If shatter gap isn't in, despite claims to the contrary, then that would be unfortunate, for reduced German armor quality IS in, magnifying the apparent problem. Likewise, I recall a "die roll" in CMx1 for APDS accuracy, and great were the lamentations for those whose shots went awry. But that, too, was a combat reality, driven by problems consistently ensuring sabot "petal" separation. Likewise, the PzGr 40 material I found indicates the Germans had some QC issues of their own. To they extent they can be represented in the game, I believe ALL of these things need to be modeled. This is as true for them as they are for other vexed matters repeatedly raised by myself and others elsewhere. Seems to me that if the objective is to have more sim than game, then the real world problems need to be reflected in the pertinent CMx2 games. I don't know the truth myself of what's under the hood about the above issues, but I have learned the hard way that BFC's pretty switched on when it comes to such fairly obscure matters as when the M79 AP Substitute Standard cartridge for the M10 TD and M6 ATG was replaced by the M62A1 Standard cartridge. BFC tries to get things right. Given a properly substantiated major problem and the means and resources to address it, BFC can and will fix that problem, but note the qualifiers I employed. Nathan Okun, the dean of gunnery and terminal ballistics modeling, put a +-5% spread into the calculation of results in his naval wargame "Battle Stations" specifically to represent the uncertainty of combat on any given day, making it probabilistic rather than deterministic. Norms and such have their place in war, and certain generalized predictions can be made as to overall unit effectiveness. At our level, all kinds of weird stuff happens, and AFVs and their crews live or die on those strange outcomes, such as the case of a real WW II Stuart drilled through both sides of the turret by an 88 at ~100 meter range, but the crew wasn't scratched and the tank remained fully functional. Not the standard expectation to be sure, but no one involved complained! Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simmox Posted July 9, 2013 Share Posted July 9, 2013 the model escapes me at the moment,but,the Tiger with the cheaper rarity(standard) has,according to the manual,inferior armour quality compared to the other. i dont use AT guns much with their current modeling,but,when i do,i have defeated tigers at similar ranges with the 57mm current game i've got 3 x 50cal teams firing at one around the 200-400m range,killed the commander twice(?)damaged its optics(guess) and main gun,as it hasnt fired a shot. eventually,over the course of a few turns,it is out of the fight and must be close to bailing:) its pretty to watch:) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanir Ausf B Posted July 9, 2013 Share Posted July 9, 2013 the model escapes me at the moment,but,the Tiger with the cheaper rarity(standard) has,according to the manual,inferior armour quality compared to the other. I've tested both 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Canadian Cat Posted July 9, 2013 Share Posted July 9, 2013 At our level, all kinds of weird stuff happens, and AFVs and their crews live or die on those strange outcomes, such as the case of a real WW II Stuart drilled through both sides of the turret by an 88 at ~100 meter range, but the crew wasn't scratched and the tank remained fully functional. Not the standard expectation to be sure, but no one involved complained! I bet the AT gun crew had a complaint 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A Canadian Cat Posted July 9, 2013 Share Posted July 9, 2013 current game i've got 3 x 50cal teams firing at one around the 200-400m range,killed the commander twice(?)damaged its optics(guess) and main gun,as it hasnt fired a shot. eventually,over the course of a few turns,it is out of the fight and must be close to bailing:) its pretty to watch:) Indeed it is. I hope your luck holds. Because if that crew recovers their composure heaven help those MG crews.... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 9, 2013 Share Posted July 9, 2013 Firstly, CM does not appear to model shatter gap, despite frequent claims that it does. CM definitely *does* model this. At the very least it does not with the US 76mm. It's definitely modeled for everything. One other factor is that there seems to be an issue with how the Tiger's front turret armor is modeled. The game allows rounds to penetrate more often than they should (as far as I can tell). I'm hoping this gets fixed eventually. Hmm. Your test looks fine in terms of how you gathered statistics / number of runs, but the hit location data we display is necessarily pretty ambiguous. There is, as you can imagine, quite a bit going on under the hood. You can't draw hard conclusions about armor modeling from the hit location text. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Champagne Posted July 9, 2013 Author Share Posted July 9, 2013 Vanir Ausf B, At our level, all kinds of weird stuff happens, and AFVs and their crews live or die on those strange outcomes, such as the case of a real WW II Stuart drilled through both sides of the turret by an 88 at ~100 meter range, but the crew wasn't scratched and the tank remained fully functional. Not the standard expectation to be sure, but no one involved complained! Regards, John Kettler Thanks, Mr. Kettler, and every other erudite respondent in this thread. I like your example here, because it reminded me of similar events in naval gunnery. If a relatively small ship, such as a WW1 light cruiser, is fired on by a battleship's main guns, it is quite feasible for the round to pass right through the cruiser superstructure without causing great damage. My comment adds nothing to the substantive discussion here, but, it is a "fun fact." These "Gunnery vs. Armor" conversations are some of the most technical discussions one can have, when it comes to discussions about WW1 and WW2. Of course, before the advent of the "tank", the discussions were limited to Naval Warfare applications. Once tanks became common on the battlefield during WW2, the complexity of these conversations increased exponentially, because there so many more kinds of guns going against such different kinds of armor. Gunnery v. Armor discussions in 1914 involved far fewer kinds of guns and armor. My point is that this is highly technical and complex stuff AND the hard data is most often very difficult to obtain. It is completely to be expected that there will be disagreements within the conversations. Thanks very much to Battlefront for never fearing to weigh in on the conversation, despite the possibility of disagreements. As a loyal customer, and speaking for myself, I am glad to give Battlefront my full faith and confidence. They have earned that from me, over the years. Thanks, all. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fizou Posted July 9, 2013 Share Posted July 9, 2013 Thanks! I really like his mods. Don't the game patches clash with the mods and cause problems? When you install patches, new modules etc you should make sure to remove your z folder. When installation is complete you can move it back in. Some mods will not work properly whit new versions of the game, vins animated text the obvious one. Most are not affected and keep working. This is one of them. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonC Posted July 9, 2013 Share Posted July 9, 2013 Plain AP or APC from the US 76mm gun has enough energy to penetrate the Tiger I hull front to about 1100 meters, but in practice experienced shell failure due to the round shattering some of the time, starting from ranges around 400-500 meters. This is "shatter gap" - it happens when the shell has enough energy to get through the armor but not enough physical integrity to survive the impact event itself, and "gives" before the armor does. It was a surprise to US planners, the US naval equation for penetration did not know about it or take it into account etc. It doesn't mean deterministic failure to penetrate starting at 450 yards. It does mean failures become possible in that range window and the most common outcome by the end of it. US 76mm firing APCR - tungsten core - does not have those problems, and should penetrate the Tiger hull front easily at all typical combat ranges. It didn't become available in quantity until the fall of 1944, because they didn't know they'd need it - no other reason, really. 57mm could penetrate a Tiger with APDS ammunition, but with plain AP not from the front. That was a British round and rare in US service, and had accuracy problems, but the penetration was quite good. With plain AP / APC, maybe at point blank range if lucky etc. It could penetrate from the side at shorter ranges. US 75mm got better at it when it got ballistic caps. Before those, it was pretty much hopeless against the front of a Tiger and nearly so against the sides. Once they have ballistic caps, at shorter ranges (under 500 yards or so) the sides of the Tiger are vulnerable. The front, still pretty much proof against 75mm. US 90mm should have no problem with a Tiger I, only Tiger IIs from the front would stop it. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanir Ausf B Posted July 9, 2013 Share Posted July 9, 2013 CM definitely *does* model this. It's definitely modeled for everything. I don't claim to be an expert on the subject, but based on my rudimentary understanding of shatter gap I don't think I am seeing evidence of it in the game. Based on consideration of additional data of shatter gap, recommended procedures for advanced estimation of APC/APCBC shatter gap region are: Normal penetration up to "penetration/resistance" ratio of 1.05. Shatter gap failure from 1.06 to 1.22 "penetration/resistance ratio. Shatter penetration when "penetration/resistance" ratio exceeds 1.22 ... On 10° lateral impact hits on the Tiger E driver plate (100mm at 10° assumed vertical), effective armor resistance is 103mm at 0°. Above suggestions for shatter gap failure suggest that 76mm APCBC hits would fail when penetration ranged from 109mm to 126mm , producing failures from 50m to 900m. -- World War 2 Ballistics: Armor and Gunnery pg 33 T/D ratio vs Tiger driver plate is either 1.32 or 1.34 depending on whether the game uses the official 100m thickness or 102mm actual typical thickness. A few test results here. The sample sizes are not large but they don't need to be for our purposes. Done on CMBN v 2.01 Tiger I mid vs M10 TD @ 300m and 10° lateral offset (roughly) P/AR ratio ~ 1.16 if 100mm plate (failure predicted) P/AR ratio ~ 1.13 if 102mm plate (failure predicted) Total hits: 33 No damage: 0 Spalling: 5 Partial Penetration: 21 Penetration: 7 Tiger I mid vs M10 TD @ 750m and 10° lateral offset (roughly) P/AR ratio: 1.05 if 100mm plate (normal penetration predicted) P/AR ratio: 1.03 if 102mm plate (normal penetration predicted) Total hits: 38 No damage: 4 Spalling: 14 Partial Penetration: 20 Penetration: 0 Interpretations are welcome. Hmm. Your test looks fine in terms of how you gathered statistics / number of runs, but the hit location data we display is necessarily pretty ambiguous. There is, as you can imagine, quite a bit going on under the hood. You can't draw hard conclusions about armor modeling from the hit location text. There is a much higher proportion of hits that do damage to the "Front Turret" than there is to the mantlet, so we know there is an actual difference in the armor thickness. It cannot be explained away as simply a labeling issue. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redwolf Posted July 9, 2013 Share Posted July 9, 2013 Interpretations are welcome. I think more distances measured would be useful. If we have data at enough distances then the shatter gap should surely show up as a visible local minimum in penetrations in a success/distance chart. You picked 300 and 750m, but I think that the scatter gap for APBC for the M10 against 100mm plate should be located at 900-1600m distance or somesuch (for 0 degrees). In any case, since CMx2 doesn't tell us the exact data they put in for guns and armor they could model scatter gap but have it in a different location. That is where a chart with more distances would come in handy. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanir Ausf B Posted July 9, 2013 Share Posted July 9, 2013 I think that the scatter gap for APBC for the M10 against 100mm plate should be located at 900-1600m distance or somesuch (for 0 degrees). Do you have a source for that? Because that is far different than what I just posted. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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