One tough tank!

[LeeW]

From what I read in another thread there could be a possible bug in this photo, maybe even two. Also can you spot the hit which caused the

crew to bail out, took me awhile to figure out what happened.

[Jim1954]

The one through the bow MG.

[Amizaur]

I see tho penetrations there, the bow MG and the commander's cuppola (which would show txt "hit:top turret" )

What was shooting at this Panther and from what range ?

[womble]

The Panther's glacis is one of the toughest things on a WW2 battlefield. It has weak points, though, and one of those is the bow MG. Graphic illustration why the bow MG is no longer a feature of MBTs though: weakens the frontal armour too much.

[LeeW]

Commander's cuppola is the hit that caused the crew to dismount. The commander wasn't among the survivors. That would make sense if he had his head stuck up there looking out the vision ports.

The bow mg took the penetration hit several turns ago, but doesn't show any damage, nor were there any casualties caused. As an interesting side note, while looking at this hit from the inside of the tank, could observe spent brass on the floor!

Also there are two hits on the gun barrel, ricochet I'm sure, but not sure if they would have damaged the gun or not.

The T34-85 was shooting at a little over 600 meters with a height advantage. A 76mm ATG made a few hits at around the same range with more of an elevation advantage.

[Jim1954]

Damn fine shooting, non the less. 85mm shotgun loaded with buckshot?

[LeeW]

So I guess my question would have to be, would it be possible for a 76 or 85mm shell to go through the bow mg port and not cause any damage?? As stated in another thread something like this could be a bug. I never thought about it until reading that.

[womble]

So I guess my question would have to be, would it be possible for a 76 or 85mm shell to go through the bow mg port and not cause any damage?? As stated in another thread something like this could be a bug. I never thought about it until reading that.

I'd say "No." A hole where that decal is would at least weld the MG in whatever position it was when the round hit. And even if the bow gunner was ducked down picking up his lucky charm that he just dropped, there's all sorts of hot metal getting chucked about, and that's before the bursting charge goes off.

[Amizaur]

I think it's possible in game - because the damage is probably somewhat "random" (I mean it's not based on the point of hit) so there is chance that such penetrating hit would end without any damage and without any casualties. The chance is quite high, but it depends what hit's it.

Currently I'm testing penetration results of 122mm AP against a Panther because I had feeling the results (low number of killed and wounded crewmebers) were not realistic for such heavy and deadly shell. No conclusive result so far, test is in progress, but:

So far I noted results of 76 side and frontal penetrations and you now what ? Damage (like gun, coax, weapon controls, optics, radio ect) happens ONLY for turret hits. I didn't note a single damaged piece of equipment in all hull penetrations (56), but almost every turret penetration caused damage (19 out of 20).

So there is really great chance that upper hull penetration trough hull MG will not cause any damage - in CMRT .

And some chance that the bow gunner woulds survive it - about 50-60% (it may be the driver who get's killed instead, or there would be no casualties at all).

As for real life - I don't think it's possible if the bow gunner was in his place. He would die most likely. And I don't think the bow MG would be in workin state, after that .

As for casualties, in 16 front hull penetrations I had 1 that didn't kill or wound anyone.

In 7 mantlet penetrations there were 2 that didn't kill anyone (there was one wounded once).

More results later.

P.S.

I should clarify something:

For "damaged" equipment I counted only "red damaged" ones. So in fact destroyed equipment.

I didn't have any instance of anything being "red damaged" with hull penetration. Only with turret hits.

"dark green" damage happened for hull penetrations too. But "dark green" happend also for HE hits and even close HE ground explosions (missed HE shots) too.

[Amizaur]

I used immobilised target tanks so far, so they had already red damaged engine and tracks.

Now I use fully operational ones, and I see that red Engine damage happens with hull hits. Sometimes tracks become damaged (dark green or yellow) with hull penetrations.

But not radio or weapon controls, never. Radio seem to be "turret mounted" when it comes to damage calculations.

Those tests are very time consuming lot's of data to note. Where hit, with what effect (penetration, partial, spalling, none), tank destroyed or not, what casualties and wounded, what damage, does it burn, effect on morale.... I wish there was some kind of debugoutput txt with contained at least some of this data about every hit, and could be saved.