20 mm AA guns, Tanks, and Spotting

[Andrew H.]

I have called my wife. She will be home soon.

Why did you call your wife? Because 3-1 odds are better?

[womble]

Why did you call your wife? Because 3-1 odds are better?

Of course! Is a glorious defeat not its own victory? Or perhaps he's aiming to get the pressure washer hooked up while she and they plan tactics.

[warrenpeace]

Played around in a gunnery range with 20 mm vs sherman's. The results are kind of interesting. If they go down the range in hunt mode the Shermans will pop smoke and retreat when they get fired on. Interestingly, if given a slow or quick command, they seem to ignore the fire and go straight ahead without hesitation until the enemy gun is sighted (you have to get very close to sight <100 meters). Once the gun is sighted they then pop smoke and retreat.

I don't think this behavior is quite right. Why stop and retreat when you finally have the enemy in your sights? Why is there no contact icon until you are right on top of the gun, even thought it has been pummeling your tank for 500+ meters?

[BLSTK]

Just spotted the following on eBay*.

"For sale: one rainbow-coloured house. Location: Charleston, NC"

[BLSTK]

In related news, Ken's garbage can has flipped its lid.

[c3k]

Aye, it wasn't the sting of the paint so much as wondering about the bayonets they'd affixed to the barrels. That gave me pause... Perhaps it was a mistake to've told them how much life insurance I have?

Retreating after spotting the AA gun: that's odd. I can rationalize it by thinking that the crew could've misidentified it as an antitank gun. I'd be curious to see if the tank's morale had taken incremental hits during its advance through the fire.

Ken

[General Lee Irked]

Well at least they never got a shot into your shot trap. Just below a guys Mantlet is a very tender spot.:eek:

[BadgerDog]

I find the dynamic between Sherman tanks and german 20 mm AA guns a bit strange. When my tank encounters one of these guns, I usually find out be hearing the 20 mm shells bounce off the front of the tank, which results in the crew popping smoke, and the tank retreating.

Getting hit in the turret while closed down by .30 cal Browning MG rounds was enough for me to leave a "puddle" on the floor of the turret...

I can't imagine what 20mm rounds would be like, except I'm sure if I were the CC, I'd be hollering over the intercom "driver reverse.. driver reverse.. driver reverse ...now!!!!" ....

For sure, 20 mm rounds would rip the hell out of anything attached to the turret and probably screw up the periscopes with any kind of a hit....

Regards,

Doug

[Vanir Ausf B]

To satisfy my personal curiosity I did some quick testing of 20mm flak guns against Sherman 76s. It appears that it is the optics, radio, smoke mortar and roof-mounted .50 that are vulnerable to damage. The main cannon is not. Also, if you up the crew motivation the tendency to retreat goes down. Fanatic crews don't retreat at all, even though their suppression meter quickly hits red.

[warrenpeace]

Vanir:

Thanks for the additional info. That is interesting about the effects of crew quality.

I still find it odd that once they actually spot the weapon regular quality crews retreat and fire smoke. Maybe it is just coincident with suppression levels getting too high.

[Sgt Joch]

I decided to simulate this. I tried to build my own tank, but I gave up on it before getting up out of my chair. Too hard, donchaknow.

Instead, I grabbed a garbage can lid. I had one of my teenage sons grab one of our paintball guns. The other one fought to be included in the test. Strange. Usually they hate it when I force them to do chores. Be that as it may, I then had the stronger of the two grab the paintball gun, since the weaker was huddled in the fetal position, beaten and defeated. (After all, that is the only way to choose, is it not?) The son with the paintball gun then hid in the back yard.

I had a choice of either side of the house around which to enter the back. Sure enough, as I came out on my chosen side, my impregnable garbage can lid was pelted with paintballs! I was safe, but, partly based on his shouts of martial vigor and also because of the yells of the weaker son shouting "pin the old man down, I'm getting my paintball gun", I quickly retreated.

Performing a systems check, I realized that, aside from bruised shins, I was quite fine. I therefore went back into the yard, letting them know in no uncertain terms that the first one to fire upon me would be grounded.

I was immediately fired upon from two directions at once.

I retreated.

I have called my wife. She will be home soon. In the meantime, a pair of vagabonds are wandering about my yard. Offboard support will crush them.

All in all, I think the game simulates real life quite well.

Ken

I nominate this for post of the year!

[Vanir Ausf B]

Maybe it is just coincident with suppression levels getting too high.

I'm pretty sure that is the what happened. I re-ran the test with normal motivation crews and they only retreat after they get to "rattled" status, even when they can see the flak gun.

The biggest problem for the tanks is that it appears to be almost impossible to spot those 20mm flak guns while the tank is buttoned. I tested at 500 meters and 2 of the 5 tanks spotted the flak gun in front of it before they buttoned due to incoming fire. Both tanks lost sight of the flak gun within seconds of buttoning.

The earlier advice to fire at an action spot next to the flak from just out of LOS will work. Another tactic is to plot a Fast move to a spot just in LOS and plot an area fire order to the flak location from the end of the more. To reduce time to fire make sure the tank is facing directly towards the flak, or give the tank a covered arc in that direction so at least the turret is facing that way.

[Oddball_E8]

I "destroyed" 4 shermans and 3 M36's with only 20mm AA guns in a battle once...

Never underestimate massed firepower...

I litterally rattled those tanks to pieces... the ones that didn't bail were panicked in the tanks.. optics, radio and sometimes guns or tracks destroyed, there was not much they could do...

[Vanir Ausf B]

Well, this is unexpected. It looks like there is an issue here after all.

After seeing how hard it was for the Shermans to spot the 20mm flak guns while they were firing I decided to test how much harder they would be to spot if they weren't shooting. As it turns out, they were not harder to spot. They are actually much easier to spot while doing nothing at all.

10 flak 38 guns vs 10 Sherman 76s at about 500 meters. For the non-firing test all units have a covered arc and are not hidden. The Shermans are buttoned. The firing test is identical except the flak 38s are area firing over the top of the Shermans so the Shermans are never hit and the impacts do not create any dust or smoke between the units. 3 runs per test.

Tests while NOT firing:

Average time for Shermans to spot flak 38:

Test 1: 1 minute 17 seconds

Test 2: 1 minute 20 seconds

Test 3: 1 minute 56 seconds

Test while flak 38 firing

I ran into a small problem with these tests: in many cases some of the flak units were still unspotted when they ran out of ammunition. This happened 6 times in test one, 4 times in test two and once in test three. I cut the test off after 8 minutes so for our purposes I will consider all units spotted at that time, even though that will artificially reduce the average spotting time. The difference between the firing and non-firing tests are large enough anyways.

Average time for Shermans to spot flak 38:

Test 1: 5 minutes 45 seconds

Test 2: 5 minutes 42 seconds

Test 3: 3 minutes 17 seconds

I also noticed that when flak guns are firing both they and the Shermans tend to lose sight of each other after spotting, while sight is maintained constantly when not firing. This appears to affect the Shermans much more than the flak guns.

What is almost certainly happening is that the smoke and/or dust cloud the flak creates while firing is partially obscuring LOS. This in-and-of itself is not unrealistic. Sherman 76s were notorious for their huge smoke clouds. But these smoke clouds should affect the shooter more than the target, which does not seem to be the case here.

But the biggest issue is that these smoke clouds seem to be considered part of the unit that creates them for spotting purposes, meaning that they are invisible until that unit is spotted. But even while invisible to the enemy they are still capable of blocking the enemy's LOS.

Firing test saved game:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/j85sgcyjvldf74k/gunnery2000%20flaktest%20spotfiring.bts

Doing nothing test saved game:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/r4yclko5f9tne32/gunnery2000%20flaktest%20spotnotfiring.bts

[slysniper]

What is almost certainly happening is that the smoke and/or dust cloud the flak creates while firing is partially obscuring LOS. This in-and-of itself is not unrealistic. Sherman 76s were notorious for their huge smoke clouds. But these smoke clouds should affect the shooter more than the target, which does not seem to be the case here.

But the biggest issue is that these smoke clouds seem to be considered part of the unit that creates them for spotting purposes, meaning that they are invisible until that unit is spotted. But even while invisible to the enemy they are still capable of blocking the enemy's LOS.

[Vanir Ausf B]

One - even when you see smoke, it does not allow area fire into it. So there is many times infantry can lay smoke and just move through open terrain and need not fear at all because the enemy cannot even fire into the smoke cloud to try to keep the enemy down.

True, if you try to plot the area fire after the smoke has obscured LOS. If the area fire begins before LOS is lost to the smoke then you can continue shooting through it.

another is units in smoke have a better chance spotting out of it than those outside of it spotting in - not too sure you can justify that attribute either.

I haven't noticed this but it would not surprise me. I did notice that the flak guns seemed to be less bothered by the smoke they made than the tanks trying to spot them, which would be backwards from reality.

[warrenpeace]

It seems to me that it should be easier, not harder, to spot a rapid firing flak gun when firing. Between the sound and the smoke, you would have a pretty clear idea of where it was.

Perhaps the easiest solution would be for the amount of smoke to be reduced.

It might be time for Steve to chime in here.

[Vanir Ausf B]

It should be easier, not harder, to spot anything that is firing. This is kind-of a big deal. Maybe not game-breakingly big, but pretty big IMO. I'm a little surprised no one else has said anything. Based on previous experience I was expecting a minimum of 2 beta testers plus Steve telling me my data is invalid because I haven't run forty two thousand other tests featuring every unit in the game at every possible combination of range and angle, and that besides, this isn't really all that unrealistic anyways because the flak guns are German, and the Germans were Nazis, and the Nazis were just crazy enough to maybe have invented smoke that is invisible but can still block LOS at the same time. Or somefink

[sburke]

It should be easier, not harder, to spot anything that is firing. This is kind-of a big deal. Maybe not game-breakingly big, but pretty big IMO. I'm a little surprised no one else has said anything. Based on previous experience I was expecting a minimum of 2 beta testers plus Steve telling me my data is invalid because I haven't run forty two thousand other tests featuring every unit in the game at every possible combination of range and angle, and that besides, this isn't really all that unrealistic anyways because the flak guns are German, and the Germans were Nazis, and the Nazis were just crazy enough to maybe have invented smoke that is invisible but can still block LOS at the same time. Or somefink

Your data is invalid because you haven't run forty two thousand other tests featuring every unit in the game at every possible combination of range and angle, and that besides, this isn't really all that unrealistic anyways because the flak guns are German, and the Germans were Nazis, and the Nazis were just crazy enough to maybe have invented smoke that is invisible but can still block LOS at the same time.

One thought, and this is based on no observation. - is it possible it can't see it because the pixeltankers are freaking out as their optics are getting shredded and their suppression factor is rising?

[c3k]

VaB stated that the flak was firing OVER the tanks... (Perhaps at a tall building behind them?). I think he accounted for that.

BTW, nice. I certainly wouldn't think a FIRING weapon should EVER be harder to spot than the same weapon not firing.

Ken

[sburke]

Ah I missed that on post #39. Okay then I revert to my first response.

[Vanir Ausf B]

I did some further testing and it appears that the vast majority of the "smoke" is actually dust kicked up from the ground. I changed the ground conditions to "wet" and the terrain type to mud and re-ran the shooting tests.

Average time to spot:

Test 1: 54 seconds

Test 2: 1 minute 5 seconds

Test 3: 1 minute 45 seconds.

So the total average across all 3 tests was 1 minute 14 seconds. That compares to the "sit and do nothing" test average of 1 minute 31 seconds. So the firing units are spotted sooner on average -- albeit not dramatically so at about 20% -- if they are not obscured by dust.

I had thought that dust could be spotted independent of units that create it, but I was probably thinking CMx1. I don't think units created dust when firing in CMx1 but dust from moving vehicles could be seen without the vehicles being spotted. It appears that in CMx2 dust is tied to the unit that creates it. The dust cannot be seen by enemy units unless they spot the unit that made the dust, even though the dust can still block LOS both ways, paradoxically preventing the unit that made it from getting spotted.

[womble]

The dust cannot be seen by enemy units unless they spot the unit that made the dust, even though the dust can still block LOS both ways, paradoxically preventing the unit that made it from getting spotted.

I think that's a change. I'm sure I remember seeing dust from unspotted vehicles... Ah no. It was dust from vehicles that had been spotted by other units. And didn't help with targeting by the units that hadn't spotted the mover yet, probably because it's visible even when there's solid ground between it and the unit you have selected, like terrain.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Very good, womble. I tested a jeep racing along dry ground separated from a line of enemy infantry by low bocage and was able to confirm that dust ignores relative spotting rules. The rooster tail of dust was completely invisible to the enemy until the jeep exited from behind the bocage and was spotted, at which point every enemy unit could see the dust even if they had not spotted the jeep. But only new dust kicked up from the time of spotting was visible. And there is no doubt that dust visibility is tied to the spotting of the unit that made it. So all of us Desert Fox wannabees that have been moving our tanks along dirt roads on Slow as to avoid detection might as well stop worrying and put the peddle to the metal.

On a related note, because of the high variation in spotting times and the fairly small difference seen so far between the spotting of firing units in non-dusty conditions and units not shooting, I re-ran both tests 3 more times to double the sample size.

Time to spot flak firing (wet ground)

Test 1: 1 minute 45 seconds

Test 2: 1 minute 15 seconds

Test 3: 1 minute 31 seconds

This averages out to 1 minute 30 seconds. Combined with the 3 earlier tests the total running average is 1 minute 23 seconds.

Time to spot flak doing nothing:

Test 1: 1 minute 52 seconds

Test 2: 2 minutes 1 second

Test 3: 54 seconds :confused:

This averages out to 1 minute 35 seconds, only a 5% difference from the shooting group above. The total running average for all 6 tests is now 1 minute 33 seconds, only 11% higher than the shooting group. I'm getting the uncomfortable suspicion that there may not actually be any difference at all between the time it takes to spot a shooting flak gun and one not shooting. I'll do some more tests tomorrow to see if that gap continues to narrow as the sample size increases. Not good, not good.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Ok, I switched test parameters to something that would show more dramatic differences in spotting ability and the good news is that I was able to find clear proof that when not obscured by invisible dust clouds the 20mm flak is more easily spotted when firing than when not.

So the only remaining issue is the invisible LOS-blocking dust clouds. I don't know how difficult it would be to do something about them, but it would be nice to see that fixed since it does make a significant tactical difference in these types of engagements.