Challenger HE loadout too low?

[pintere]

In my battles with Chally 2 tanks I can't help but notice that though the tank has a reasonably high ammo capacity the vast majority of it (33 rounds or thereabouts) is armour piercing and only a mere 13 rounds are HESH. The result is that in almost every battle I use them for they run out of HESH ammunition well before the end.

This has led me to wonder why their load out is so heavily skewed towards anti tank rounds? Not only do tanks represent a minority of targets in the vast majority of battles but pretty much every other tank I've seen in the CM games has either a 50:50 ratio of ammunition or has a slightly higher proportion of HE, which makes much more sense. So what gives here?

[Combatintman]

The loadout for the Challenger II and every single British A vehicle in the game is as stated in British Army doctrinal publications of the time, so no it is not skewed.

[pintere]

10 hours ago, Combatintman said:

The loadout for the Challenger II and every single British A vehicle in the game is as stated in British Army doctrinal publications of the time, so no it is not skewed.

Ah of course.

Although, bearing in mind that this is not a cold-war era type setting requiring tanks to defeat wave after wave of Soviet tanks, surely one would expect that in practice a British force deployed in Syria would adopt a more logical ammunition ratio?

[Combatintman]

8 hours ago, pintere said:

Ah of course.

Although, bearing in mind that this is not a cold-war era type setting requiring tanks to defeat wave after wave of Soviet tanks, surely one would expect that in practice a British force deployed in Syria would adopt a more logical ammunition ratio?

The Cold War was well and truly over before Challenger II entered service. As to the logical ammunition ratio argument, that is speculation. Remember the game setting revolves around a conventional invasion of Syria where the majority of combat would be against a mix of armoured, mechanised and dismounted conventional forces with some UNCONs thrown in so the logical choice would be to optimise against those upper end threats which would mean the mix of APFSDS to HESH and WP is right. Additionally, the logistic system and all associated planning would be based on the standard loadouts.

[Ghost of Charlemagne]

It's not just the Chally 2, all British vehicles have peculiarly low HE loadouts. 
HESH rounds are supposedly multi-purpose, meaning they can defeat all but the most heavily armored vehicles, thus they ought to be the majority of the rounds carried in a Challenger 2.

Edited December 18, 2018 by AtheistDane

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Horses for courses.....If something needs blowing to bits, call the Royal Artillery, if on the other hand, it needs a neat round hole straight through it, use a Challenger. 

[Combatintman]

1 hour ago, AtheistDane said:

It's not just the Chally 2, all British vehicles have peculiarly low HE loadouts. 
HESH rounds are supposedly multi-purpose, meaning they can defeat all but the most heavily armored vehicles, thus they ought to be the majority of the rounds carried in a Challenger 2.

Are carried and ought to be carried are two different things though. It can't be helped that the accurate loadouts don't dovetail with gamers' tastes.

[pintere]

The problem is not so much that so few HE rounds are carried but that (from what I've seen at least) it's impossible to get a Chally/Warrior to use its AP rounds against soft targets. In MOUT operations, for instance, they'll quickly expend all their HE rounds and then only use their MGs against designated targets. It's very frustrating. 

[IICptMillerII]

35 minutes ago, pintere said:

The problem is not so much that so few HE rounds are carried but that (from what I've seen at least) it's impossible to get a Chally/Warrior to use its AP rounds against soft targets. In MOUT operations, for instance, they'll quickly expend all their HE rounds and then only use their MGs against designated targets. It's very frustrating. 

That's because using AP ammo against soft targets is a waste of AP ammo. It's largely less effective at destroying soft targets than HEAT ammo, and AP is almost useless against buildings compared to HEAT/HE. 

[MikeyD]

Modern ubertanks these days remind me of IS-2s in WWII. They're impressive but your ammo loadout is barely enough to get the job done. Which is an apt comparison to Challenger 2, considering both use 120mm ammo separated into projectile and propellant and both mount a rifled gun.

[JulianJ]

I've just got SF2 and am playing my first battle, with Scimitars and other recon vehicles. I was surprised how few HE rounds were carried, 39 as opposed to over 100 AP, which doesn't seem right, whatever the Brit army specified (not that a quick googling said what was normal loadout).  Surely the logistics tail would respond if the units called for more HE when resupplying?

[Sgt.Squarehead]

It's much easier to deliver HE to a howitzer battery behind the lines than it is to drive up to the front with a bunch of piddling little HE rounds that won't do much anyway. 

[MikeyD]

I recall a complaint from tankers during the battle for Fallujah that they had precisely the wrong weapons mix for such battles. A big-arse cannon that was a danger to nearby troops and a single coaxial mg. Plus the limited-utility commander's hmg that required him to unbutton to fire it. That reduced the mighty Abrams to little more than a very well armored mmg platform. If you're frustrated with your ubertanks in urban fighting that's not a reflection on the game but real world limitations.

Edited December 24, 2018 by MikeyD

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Hence Terminator and other such odd concepts.....Personally for such scenarios, I reckon this is the way forward:

It's compact enough to manoeuvre on city streets, utterly armed to the teeth and has no crew to lose to that RPG-29 team that you failed to spot.....Bit pricey though, at a guess. 

[Boche]

 I prefer this bad boy!

[Combatintman]

5 hours ago, JulianJ said:

I've just got SF2 and am playing my first battle, with Scimitars and other recon vehicles. I was surprised how few HE rounds were carried, 39 as opposed to over 100 AP, which doesn't seem right, whatever the Brit army specified (not that a quick googling said what was normal loadout).  Surely the logistics tail would respond if the units called for more HE when resupplying?

Yes but no ...

Logistics planning will work on standard loadout. So when a unit goes into action with three DOS (Days of Supply), its logistic element will be carrying another three (or whatever number DOS). The DOS are standard amounts eg, x litres of water, y litres of POL, z pallets of ammunition and so on. These are derived from standard loadouts and standard rates of consumption. That is not to say that the logistic chain can't cope with someone saying - can I have more HE but remember that the system will have been geared up for 1 x DOS for 1 x Challenger II = 33 x APFSDS, 13 x HESH and 3 x WP.

Rather than complain about something that isn't going to be changed on the forums, you have to accept the limitations and work within them, in the same way that you do for all problems.

Problem: tanks unsupported by infantry get whacked in close terrain.

• Solution = send infantry in with tanks in close terrain.
• Not a solution = bump gums about vulnerability of tanks in close terrain on forum.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

7 hours ago, boche said:

 I prefer this bad boy!

If that bad boy eats a RPG-29 it's just as dead as the Uran-9, but so are five brave Russians. 

Terminator's an interesting idea, but a bad one all the same (as it stands, the crew is just too high for such a dangerous job and two of them can't do much anyway).....Which is something of a shame TBH, as it looks so cool (I really didn't want to admit this for ages and even argued against it briefly, but after some thought the problems with it were undeniable).  

On a brighter note, T-15:

 

With new & even bigger gun! 

Edited December 25, 2018 by Sgt.Squarehead

[c3k]

18 hours ago, JulianJ said:

I've just got SF2 and am playing my first battle, with Scimitars and other recon vehicles. I was surprised how few HE rounds were carried, 39 as opposed to over 100 AP, which doesn't seem right, whatever the Brit army specified (not that a quick googling said what was normal loadout).  Surely the logistics tail would respond if the units called for more HE when resupplying?

Scimitar is a recon vehicle. AP is only good enough to fight BMP-class armor. HE would be for unarmored vehicles which the machinegun could not eliminate. Every other soft target gets the machinegun.

Its main weapon is its radio.

(This is why the US Abrams now has the new AMP round, loader's machinegun (M240B), and RWS for the commander's .50 cal. The two 7.62mm machineguns (coax and loader's) share 12,000 rounds. Twelve thousand. Those machineguns are expected to engage a lot of targets. Three mg's and one cannon: seems like a balanced approach.)

Edited December 25, 2018 by c3k