Testing the 76

[Slapdragon]

Recently there has been a discussion of how far away the American 76 can penetrate the front turret of the Panther. Basically there are two sides to the question: PSK says

"I have had the oposite experience concerning Panthers as Sherman 76mm in my games regurly kill Panther frontaly at 500 - 750ms with front turret penetrations using APCBC."

While Wolfe says from his tests:

"Just tested. Nope. At 800m Hellcats reported the hull down (dug-in) Panthers as 'OK' kills. 3 of the 4 Hellkitties bounced 10~20 rounds each off the Panther's frontal armor (turret and upper hull only) without penetrating (a few gun hits) before the Panther crews abandoned their tanks. The 4th Panther hung in through all 31 AP rounds from the Hellcat. Only after it had completely burned through all its AP shot did the Hellcat use its Tungsten rounds to finally kill the Panther. Seems the 'OK' kill message means don't *ever* use your Tungsten rounds. The Hellcats had 4 Tung rounds each, BTW."

I decided to test who was right on this issue, so I set up a firing lab with 10 hull down Panthers (no ammo) facing 10 E8 Shermans at different ranges. The E8 Shermans had one Tungsten round and the rest AP. Each time I ran the test I got data on 10 firings, and I ran the test 4 times at each range group: 220 meter, 320 meters, 420 meters, and so on up to 1022 meters.

The data was put into SPSS and a report was created. The range and the report along with the data are available if you want it. Only ithe initial shot was looked at as the Panthers would pop smoke and/or turn their turrets and skew the data. Basically the findings were:

(1) The E8s never fired a tungsten once in 40 runs of the scenario, of 400 firings. Even one run where I increased the Tungsten to 10 rounds they still did not fire it even at ranges where that was required for a penetration. (I did not see if they fired tungsten on consectutive shots.)

At 221 meters 42 percent of rounds missed, 42 percent killed the Panther, 8 percent knocked its gun out, and 5 percent bounced off.

At 314 meters 20 percent killed the Panther, 45 percent missed, 13 percent bounced off, and 2 percent killed the armament.

At 409 meters 70 percent missed and 30 percent bounced off. No other effects were observed.

Findings: Somewhere between 320 and 400 meters the 76mm gun can no lonnger penetrate the turret fron of the Panther. Pzk may be seeing other weapons than the 76 taking out his Panthers at long range, or they may be Shermans who have fired all their AP off and have switched to tungsten, but they are not penetrating his Panthers with the 76 APCBC round.

Another interesting finding is that Armament Kills are rare except close range, even in this shoot out that made a turret hit more likely.

[KiwiJoe]

Yeah tungsten use needs to be looked at. Crews seem to fire the stuff off quick smart agianst the tiger 1, but not at all agaianst Panthers when the Panther, for the most part, has better frontal armour.

[Slapdragon]

Ok -- two more tests. When given 2 rounds of AP, 2 of smoke, 2 of HE, and 2 of tungsten to fire at a Panther at 400 meters, past the effective reach of APCBC, the M4A3E8 chooses tungsten each time. But when given 30 rds of AP and 2 of tungsten, it chooses AP each time. This is based on 4 sets of 10 firings.

The simple answer is the "conserve" knob is twisted up to high on the E8. When down to 2 rounds of each type of ammo the E8 chooses the tactically best round, but when at 30 rds AP / 2 rds Tungsten it will never choose tungsten even if it cannot make a kill with AP.

[Slapdragon]

Finally: my theory on why this is happening.

The E8 costs 170 for a regular unit, while the Panther is 188, making them rough contemporaries. All AI modelling is based on probabilities for some action to occur when faced with some event.

The AI probably (note I say probably because I have never looked at the source code math for events) bases its ammo selection and firing choice on three basic variables. 1) is what type, hard or soft target. 2) what is the probability of causing damage -- if you cannot get it, you don't fire, if you can really cream it you fire immediately, 3) what is the value of the unit which is more than likely the "cost" variable. Ammo selection for special ammo such as tungsten probably makes it say -- if this is not a big bad bastard don't fire this valuable stuff until we are almost out of ammo. --

Now -- the E8 and Panther are closely priced, so the AI driving the tank things "hey, we are roughly equal, maybe he is a bit more tough than I am, but not that much" (only it does this by consulting a table and running some math). The human players know that a well handled E8 is going to trade 2 of itself for each Panther, maybe more that two at long range duels, so they want the tungsten used before the E8 is dead.

The Tiger, which is priced higher, would get more tungsten awarded it since it essentially scares the E8 more (because it is a higher price).

[This message has been edited by Slapdragon (edited 09-17-2000).]

[KiwiJoe]

I still think they player should be able to choose when to use tungsten at the start of a round. So instead of asking to use the main gun or not it would ask to use AP or T. This is the best way to make everybody happy under the majority of circumstances.

[Vanir]

Slapdragon:

Interesting tests. A lot of people have complained about their tanks ignoring tungsten, but there hasn't been much prof before now. I think tomarrow if I get time I'll run something myself.

One correction though: Tigers are cheaper than Panthers.

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No, there will be no sequels. Charles and Steve have given up wargame design in disgust and have gone off to Jamaica to invest their new-found wealth in the drug trade. -Michael emrys

[Slapdragon]

A sad day when a grim fact gets in the way of a great theory! Yes, I was looking at the King Tiger section by accident.

BTW-- For anyone's use I have the data set and the firing range available for others use.

[gezeder]

the panther may be harder to penetrate than the tiger, but from memory, doesn't the tiger have thicker armour?

perhaps the AI bases it's decision to fire tungsten based on the thickness of the enemy's armour,

but if it forgets to take angle into account, that's really a flawed equation isn't it?

personally, if AI tungsten choice can't be perfect, i'd prefer it favor fireing them too often, after all...

if the AI stuffs up & fires the T rounds too early, it may be overkill & a waste of ammor (no biggie)

but if the AI stuffs up & won't fire the T rounds at a target that needs it? well, the crew probably won't have to wait long b4 they regret their decision.....

[M Hofbauer]

"(I did not see if they fired tungsten on consectutive shots.)"

aha.

that's exactly how the designers want them to act.

tungsten is never used as a first round. according to BTS, the gunner will first try to "aim" with a regular AP round before he uses the precious tungsten round. Therefore, tungsten rounds are not supposed to be used as the first round.

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"All i hear is the Iron Cross sucks etc. " (GAZ_NZ)

[PzKpfw 1]

All I know is I lost 3 Panther Ausf G late in 15 secs from 3 Sherman 76mm 1st round front turret hits at 670, 677, & 690ms.Had 2 Panther G Front turret hits 500ms, 7 FT 76mm FT hits 3 - 600ms, 4, 76mm FT hits etc.

As the US player I have killed numerous Panthers with FT penetrations upto 700ms with APCBC, my Shermans have never fired 1 APCR-T round despite haveing up to 9 available in 1 tank. but these arn't tests their QB & scenerio results.

So as I said my experiences are the oposite of yours. I wish I had the movie from last night's QB my Sherman 76's killed 4 Panthers with 3 TF penetrations & 1 TF penetration at weak point.

So guys why the difereing results from your tests compared to my experiences in QBs & scens.....

Regards, John Waters

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Notice: Spelling mistakes left in for people who need to correct others to make their life fulfilled.

[Slapdragon]

Basically, some thrid factor is at work because on a level ground shot at 500 meters the E8 with APCBC never penetrates the front turret of a Sherman (or I should say, "very rarely" since I only ran 40 tests and there could be a small percentage of fires that do penetrate (1%) that through luck would not show up).

So: here is the possibilities:

1) Your turret was turned. The Sherman APCBC kills out to 620 meters when hitting turret sides of the Panther. I tested this by adding a tempting target that forced the Panther AI to turn its turret side on to the Sherman.

2) The Sherman had a considerable height advantage on you. When I place the Shermans on a hill side firing down on the Panthers -- penetration occurs at longer range.

3) You were facing something other than Shermans, and fog of war identified them wrong.

4) The Shermans, against all expectation, were using tungsten (which as the German player you would not have known).

Basically, I can create no situation through testing were the Sherman E8 will penetrate a Panther front turret at 500 meters . You can test this yourself out in studio land, as I am always willing to send my firing range and data set for comparison. Also, you can use my firing range in a "scenario" which you can then e-mail results to someone else for verification. Finally, if a real world e-mail battle results in a Sherman AP penetration at long range, both players should preserve the turn so it can be closely looked at without fog of battle to see what was happening.

Now my next test was to see when the Sherman would use tungsten. Instead of checking only first shot results, I let the Shermans plug away at distant Panthers. They had 30 AP and 5 tungsten. I let the game go for ten shots (with smoke turned out to be 4 turns) to see when the tungsten got fired. It did not get fired. This is one of the overbalancing issues with the Shermans, since their value takes into account using tungsten which they sometimes have, but never fire, making them unable to kill Panthers in a shootout.

Finally, on a pool table with wet weather (to give the E8s and advantage in bogging) it was a slaughter at 500 meters, only two Panthers dieing (from side shots because they turned their turrets) for all the E8s. No tungsten was used. At 200 meters is was even, and still no tungsten was used.

[This message has been edited by Slapdragon (edited 09-17-2000).]

[Slapdragon]

Finally, just to test, I have done 10 tests on random maps of E8 penetration on Panthers front turrets at 500 meters. No penetration, never used tungsten in 6 turns of firing.

Next, I returned to the firing range and tested with a date of May 1945 set (maybe the date matters). Same deal, they still don't fire tungsten.

Using these results, it is likely you will never see a tungsten fired in the game from an E8 (cannot say for other tanks that I have not tested) as the E8 life in battle versus a Panther is far lower than the number of rounds needed to expend to get down to the critical number. In this case, the E8 would actually be more powerful if it went into battle with only 10 rounds as long as some of them were tungsten because it is likely to choose them against the Panther and thus survive to use its HE on infantry.

What these test all show is that the Sherman 76 is probably over valued vis a vis the Panther / Tiger in terms of points unless it was carrying an entire load of tungsten -- especially since it wont use tungsten until it has used almost everything else.

[Wolfe]

Slapdragon, you can go into the Parameters section of the editor and choose to allow tanks to dig in. And then dig in the Pathers so they don't move around. Makes for a much easier test.

Playing with this again, 8 Hellcats w/ 4 Tungsten each vs 8 dug-in Panthers with no ammo at 500m, I essentailly get the same results I got with the last one. I'm using CM 1.05

* 35 turret hits, all shells break up, no ricochets (hmmm interesting).

* 22 upper hull hits, all ricochets.

* 4 guns hits that (apparently) cause tank abandonment.

* 2 turret penetrations that eliminates the tanks.

* 2 turret penetrations that cause (apparently) no damage.

* 1 turret penetration at weak point that causes (apparently) no damage.

* 1 tank abandonment for unknown reasons (previous turret penetration seemed too far removed from abandonment, but it *may* have caused it; I dunno).

* last tank abandoned when Axis surrenders on turn 7.

No tungsten rounds were ever used by the Hellcats (each had 4 rounds). There were 2 runs of 7 consecutive hits by AP without a miss, penetration, or smoke interfering. There was 1 run of 5 consecutive hits, 2 runs of 4, and 2 runs of 3 consecutive AP hits without any changes.

The longest run of uninterrupted upper hull consecutive hits was 3; there was only one of these. The longest run of uninterrupted turret consecutive hits was 2; there were a number of these.

Panther 1 experienced a few misses from the Hellcat and put off lots of smoke. It was killed on turn 5 by an AP turret penetration, the first (and only) shell that the Hellcat fired and hit with.

Panther 2's gun was hit on the 1st turn, and abandoned shortly thereafter.

Panther 3 suffered a total of 10 turret hits and 9 upper hull ricochets before losing its gun on turn 3 and abandoning.

Panther 4 took 3 turret hits and 2 upper hull ricochets. It abandoned on the 1st turn because of a gun hit.

Panther 5 suffered through a lot of smoke the first few turns, 2 turret hits on turn 4, and a turret penetration on turn 5 that eliminated the tank.

Panther 6 suffered through smoke early on, but eventually received 6 turret hits and 6 upper hull ricochets. This tank did receive a turret penetration on turn 6 after 5 consecutive hits, but still kept going. It was abandoned when the AI surrendered.

Panther 7 took 4 turret hits and 2 upper hull ricochets. It also had a turret penetration at weak point. After receiving a gun hit, it abandoned on turn 2.

Panther 8 had 2 upper hull ricochets and 5 turret hits before taking a turret penetration. It then continued on for another full turn receiving 3 turret hits and 1 upper hull ricochet before popping smoke and hiding throughout the rest of the turn. I'm not sure why this one abandoned at the beginning of turn 4.

At 500m you can get through the Panther's turret armor with 76mm AP, but it seems a bit rare to me. In addition, I've never had AP penetrate in any of my tests at 800m even though the chances are given as 'OK'.

My previous test results:

http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/Forum1/HTML/010410.html

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>As the US player I have killed numerous Panthers with FT penetrations<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Are you sure we're playing the same game, John?

- Chris

[This message has been edited by Wolfe (edited 09-17-2000).]

[Slapdragon]

Wolfe

Are you using lanes in your tests? I use lanes and dug in panthers, the lanes are culverts at level 3, 4 levels below ground, otherwise the E8s will try to attack from the side and the Panthers will swivel their turrets. I cannot get any penetrations at 500 meters with an E8 on first round fired.

Slapdragon

(ps- we should send each other our ranges).

[Slapdragon]

My findings though agree with Wolfe, if you are getting multiple 500 - 700 meters kills from an American tank it is not a 76mm armed one. More likely FOW is misidentifying a Jackson or a Firefly.

[This message has been edited by Slapdragon (edited 09-17-2000).]

[Vanir]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by M Hofbauer:

tungsten is never used as a first round. according to BTS, the gunner will first try to "aim" with a regular AP round before he uses the precious tungsten round. Therefore, tungsten rounds are not supposed to be used as the first round.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This may be how it is supposed to work, but my tests, along with Slapdragons, show that the way it really works is totaly different, and partially broken.

I set up 3 Jumbo 76s spaced about 30m apart lined up 700m from 3 Panther As similarly spaced and let them go at it. I gave the Jumbos a typical loadout of 30 AP, 30 HE, 3 tungsten, 5 smoke. Results:

Range: 700m

1st Turn:

Panther As:

Shots: 21

Hits: 14

Penetrations: 1 (lower hull, knocked out)

Jumbo 76s:

Shots: 18

Tungsten rounds used: 0

Hits: 14

Penetrations: 0 (there was one immobilization, however).

2nd Round:

Panther As:

Shots: 7

Hits: 4

Penetrations: 2 (both lower hull, both knocked out. Also, one immobilization hit).

Jumbos:

Shots: 4

Hits: 4

Tungsten rounds used:0

Penetrations: 0

By the end of the 2nd round all 3 Jumbos were dead having not use any of their tungsten. One Panther was immobilized, but they were otherwise unscathed. The Jumbos had fired a total of 22 shots (one shooting 5 times, one 9, and the other 8), none of them tungsten, despite the obvious failure of their AP rounds to penetrate.

I then ran the same test again changing only one thing: I raised the number of tungsten rounds to 10 and lowered the number of AP to 20. The difference could not have been more dramatic:

Panther As:

Shots: 7

Hits: 2

Penetrations: 0

Jumbos:

Shots: 9

Tungsten rounds used: 9

Hits: 4

Penetrations: 4 (2 upper hull and 2 turret, 2 tanks knocked out. One of the Panthers was penetrated twice in rapic succesion, another was holed but not seriously damaged).

40 seconds into the test 2 Panthers were smoking hulks and the 3rd was popping smoke and retreating after being holed but not knocked out. The important piece of data is that all 9 shots the Jumbos took were tungsten. There were no bracketing shots.

My conclusion based upon this and Slapdragons' tests are that the decision of whether or not to use tungsten appears to be based upon the ratio of tungsten to AP in the tanks' loadout. Further, it appears to be an all or nothing proposition; the tank either uses it immediately (no bracketing shots) and libarally when needed or never uses it at all.

Unless someone can offer a reason why this should be I think this must be a bug.

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No, there will be no sequels. Charles and Steve have given up wargame design in disgust and have gone off to Jamaica to invest their new-found wealth in the drug trade. -Michael emrys

[This message has been edited by Vanir (edited 09-17-2000).]

[Wolfe]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>tungsten is never used as a first round. according to BTS, the gunner will first try to "aim" with a regular AP round before he uses the precious tungsten round. Therefore, tungsten rounds are not supposed to be used as the first round.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yep. That was my understanding as well.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>we should send each other our ranges<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Ok. Test setup for anyone interested:

http://users.erols.com/chare/cm/Hellcat-vs-Panther.zip

- Chris

[Schugger]

After reading your extensive playtesting there is another point that concerns me:

The low ratio of front turret penetrations at ranges under 500m.

All panthers are rated with 85% armour quality which results in a front turret armour of 93,5mm at eleven degree.

Normaly those 76mm guns ( 793m/s) should have no problem in penetrating the Panther's turret at ranges of 500 meters.

[Slapdragon]

I will post my range tonight. Note that you have to tweek it -- change AFVs, and the like to test different settings -- I am posting my default 500 meter shootoff range Panthers versus E8s.

It will be somewhere in the slapdragon domain: more on where when I post it.

Steve Jackson

[M Hofbauer]

Vanir, but that's exactly what I meant. Use of the tungsten is directly related to the rarity of tungsten rounds. That's what BTS had said. If there's ample tungsten rounds, they'll use them generously. If there are only a few, then they will try to bracket-use them (use AP first).

I am not saying I am against or for this modeling of t-round use; I was merely stating the fact on how I thought this had been covered in the past.

Btw, my point on this issue is still the same as it had always been: there is still too many tungsten rounds for allied non-TD armor. Tanks were not officially issued tungsten rounds, only the Tank Destroyers were. Any odd tungsten round a Sherman might have would have had to be aquired from their TD brothers, or by raiding into an allied supply depot. I am not saying that Shermans never used tungsten rounds, it DID occur, but IMO it was not on a level like it is shown in CM, with practically every 76mm sherman having a couple of 'em. It was the TD's job to hunt german armor, and they got the tungsten rounds.

but of course that's just my personal opinion.

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"All i hear is the Iron Cross sucks etc. " (GAZ_NZ)

[PzKpfw 1]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Slapdragon:

Basically, some thrid factor is at work because on a level ground shot at 500 meters the E8 with APCBC never penetrates the front turret of a Sherman (or I should say, "very rarely" since I only ran 40 tests and there could be a small percentage of fires that do penetrate (1%) that through luck would not show up).

So: here is the possibilities:

1) Your turret was turned. The Sherman APCBC kills out to 620 meters when hitting turret sides of the Panther. I tested this by adding a tempting target that forced the Panther AI to turn its turret side on to the Sherman.

2) The Sherman had a considerable height advantage on you. When I place the Shermans on a hill side firing down on the Panthers -- penetration occurs at longer range.

3) You were facing something other than Shermans, and fog of war identified them wrong.

4) The Shermans, against all expectation, were using tungsten (which as the German player you would not have known).

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

1), the hit location report for each panther reported front turret penetration, with 1 weak point kill. 2). The Panther's not on any significant level deviations. 3). the after battle report map showed 76mm Shermans I checked when it was over.

My only conclusion is that it was 76mm APCR-T from your test reports, which means at least 6 76mm's fired APCR-T in one turn. And concerning my US play experience my 76mm's never fired APCR-T, and killed with turret front penetrations.

So I'm at a loss on whats occuring as CM only models the front turret armor 100mm @ 12^ as the whole front turret value their is no mantlet armor modeled.

76mm APCBC could not be defeat the mantlet armor above 100ms, but the flat front turret corners 100mm @ 12^ could be defeated up to 700ms by 76mm APCBC.

So 76mm APCBC in CM should have no problem defeating the Panthers turret front, as its not haveing to deal with the mantlet, but just the TF armor from 500 - 700ms & in my experiences in QBs & Scens it has defeated the TF I don't have a clue why the test results are so diferent, from what I have seen, but then again I saw 4 gun hits on 4 shots today look at the odds on that from tests.

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Notice: Spelling mistakes left in for people who need to correct others to make their life fulfilled.

[Slapdragon]

Oh yes, the other solution: You are playing a different version of the game, or your game has been "hacked" somehow.

As it is every simulation done by three people cannot find supporting evidence for your claim. Your tanks were hit by something other than 76, the range was considerably shorter than 500 yards, or they hit something other than the turret face.

If you can send me a turn of a game that has a 76 killing a Panther at 500-700 rounds with a front turret strike then I will have to modify my position, as it is you are just mistaken for some reason: the 76 cannot reliably kill past around 350 meters unless it strikes some other part of the tank.

[Vanir]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by M Hofbauer:

Vanir, but that's exactly what I meant. Use of the tungsten is directly related to the rarity of tungsten rounds. That's what BTS had said. If there's ample tungsten rounds, they'll use them generously. If there are only a few, then they will try to bracket-use them (use AP first).

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'm sorry, but the tests simply do not support this interpretation. There is no evidence that tanks ever bracket-use tungsten. How many times does the tank have to fire before the target is considered "bracketed"? In my first test one tank fired 5 times, another 8 and another 9! At the end of the first turn I checked the hit percentages with the target command and the Jumbos had an 82% of hitting after one round of firing! And still no tungsten.

If anyone can do a test that shows units firing a couple of rounds to bracket and then swiching to tungsten I'd like to see it. As it stands they either use it a lot with no bracketing or they completely forget they have it.

Whether or not Allied tanks should have tungsten is a legitement arguement, but if BTS is going to let them have it they should be allowed to use them.

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No, there will be no sequels. Charles and Steve have given up wargame design in disgust and have gone off to Jamaica to invest their new-found wealth in the drug trade. -Michael emrys

[This message has been edited by Vanir (edited 09-17-2000).]

[Slapdragon]

My tests support Vanir 100 percent here. Until the E8 was down to 2 AP for 1 tungsten, they plain old did not use it. In game terms very few American tanks use their basic load of AP, they usually die before that, so it is the same as not having any Tungsten.

More realistic than bracketing would be simply saying that the battlesite round was AP, and tungsten is fired next. Many tankers will fire away an HE or AP battlesite round rather than take the time to reload. But the second round would be tungsten -- which in the game never happens.

Regular American tanks did have tungsten rounds - not stolen from the TD boys (although some where) but sent to them by Division supply against regulation. In the book "Seven Six One" the first sergeant pulled strings to get tungsten for an attack they new would face a Panzer unit. They used it all also. While a Sherman may not normally carry a tungsten as a battlesite, they certianly would when intel said "Tigers!". TDs carried far more tungsten and routinely used it as a battlesite. The practice of braketing was not widely used because if you fired one at a Panther (in real life and in the game) the Panther was going to hand you your ass, so Americans tried to duck in and out of cover, or if not -- they ran away. (McDonald, Gattner, Christie, and others recount "cowardly tank" stories where the tankers simply refused to move forward in fear of the Tiger and Panther).

[This message has been edited by Slapdragon (edited 09-17-2000).]

[Vanir]

Well, for John's sake I ran a test to see if 76 AP could penetrate the Panther's turret at less than 700m and it looks like he's not quite as delusional as we thought

Range: 500m

Jumbo 76s firing at Panther As

total hits (76):28

turret hits: 11

turret penetrations: 1

upper hull hits: 16

upper hull penetrations: 0

lower hull hits: 1

lower hull penetrations: 1

Of the 10 turret hits that failed to penetrate, all but one were "shell breaks up". It appears that while the 76 can occasionaly penetrate the turret front, the low quality of American shells limits its ability to do so. It's also notable that on one shell breakup internal flaking caused a crew causualty, which is the first time I've seen that happen in CM.

The Panther is also vulnerable in the lower hull, but rarely gets hit there for some reason.

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No, there will be no sequels. Charles and Steve have given up wargame design in disgust and have gone off to Jamaica to invest their new-found wealth in the drug trade. -Michael emrys