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Tank Gun Damage


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38 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

If I were facing a reloading Tiger a close range, then yes... I'd take the shot.

What Tiger? You were just rolling down the street when suddenly there was a huge bang and the turret filled with smoke, screams, shrapnel and blood. It would be nice to have more details on the actual engagement, but I seriously doubt the surviving crew were either still inside the Pershing or in any kind of mental state to do anything by the time the second shot hit the muzzle brake. It seems unlikely that they had any idea what was going on.

But we're getting a little sidetracked from the main point. It might be profitable for people to start sharing turns when they take gun damage so we can see how often it happens and what common factors there are. Because I know it barely ever happens to me, nor does it seem to happen very often when I specifically try to do it to my opponents.

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28 minutes ago, Hapless said:

What Tiger? You were just rolling down the street when suddenly there was a huge bang and the turret filled with smoke, screams, shrapnel and blood. It would be nice to have more details on the actual engagement, but I seriously doubt the surviving crew were either still inside the Pershing or in any kind of mental state to do anything by the time the second shot hit the muzzle brake. It seems unlikely that they had any idea what was going on.

This ^^^ so much this !

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3 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

Sure. But this thread is about the barrel.

Not really. The thread seems to have devolved into how often does real-life battle damage to the barrel make the gun inoperable. The OP started with a complaint that the GAME has "gun damage" occurring too often.

There has been a conflation in this thread that the game label "gun damaged" is somehow the same as barrel damage.

 

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46 minutes ago, c3k said:

Not really. The thread seems to have devolved into how often does real-life battle damage to the barrel make the gun inoperable. The OP started with a complaint that the GAME has "gun damage" occurring too often.

There has been a conflation in this thread that the game label "gun damaged" is somehow the same as barrel damage.

 

The OP started by writing this in his first post:

 

On 6/4/2020 at 8:59 AM, bruno2016 said:

Does anyone agree on the very high frequency of gun barrel damage by shots especially from the front and at long distance

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1 hour ago, Hapless said:

What Tiger? You were just rolling down the street when suddenly there was a huge bang and the turret filled with smoke, screams, shrapnel and blood.

The Tiger that took out the Pershing with the broken muzzle break. But please stay on topic. We're going in circles here.

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4 hours ago, Hapless said:

Because I know it barely ever happens to me, nor does it seem to happen very often when I specifically try to do it to my opponents.

I've played many many hundreds of games of CM over the years, I don't see gun damage very often and it's possible there's been a direct, frontal hit to the gun as shown, but I don't recall it.

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1 hour ago, Hardradi said:

Are you saying a hit to the gun tube cannot knock out a main gun in the game?

EDIT: Just the muzzle break?

No. What @c3k said is the game doesn't give you any information other than gun damage. So it doesn't matter if it is the barrel, the muzzle break or ANY component of the main gun system that gets damaged, the game will only show the main gun is damaged. Somehow this thread has lost sight of the fact the main gun is more than just a barrel and is in fact a complete system of complicated parts all of which can be damaged and render the gun inoperable. 

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3 hours ago, Heirloom_Tomato said:

the game doesn't give you any information other than gun damage.

It does however indicate whether a hit was to the weapon (barrel/muzzle break I presume) or to the weapon mount, via hit-text; and depending on what you include in "main gun system", the condition of sub-components (such as optics) are indicated in the damage panel.

Edited by fireship4
Grammar.
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I just looked it up. The muzzle hit to 'Fireball' caused the chambered round to cook off and as a result the barrel swelled at the midpoint. So the gun was toast. Page 18, Hunnicutt's 'Pershing'.

I've got the 1996 Feist recreation of that book. The original plates for 1971 Presidio Press book had been destroyed in a fire so Feist had to painstakingly recreate the book from an existing copy.

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Also to consider: the main gun barrel is kind of a huge lever, right? Everyone who's played CM has seen tanks rocking back on their suspension when they get hit, even if it doesn't penetrate- that's the sheer kinetic energy being absorbed the mass of the tank.

Think about the amount of force that will make a 55 ton Tiger I physically move, then apply that force to the chunk of precision engineering at the breech end of the main gun. Sure, the gun barrel is expected to be subject to and absorb extreme forces, but only in one direction (forwards/backwards for recoil). The system isn't designed to deal with extreme lateral movements. So even if what we see ingame is a non-penetrating, white hit-text gun barrel hit that doesn't look like it should do that much, there's probably something terrible that's happened inside the turret.

That is kind of a quibble though. The question is whether it happens unrealistically frequently in Combat Mission. It probably does, but I'd argue that that's got a lot to do with players being more aggressive, less cautious and essentially untrained compared to historical tankers. Actual data on the frequency of gun damage from real games (ie. not setting things up in the editor) as opposed to anecdotes seems like a sensible way forward.

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46 minutes ago, Hapless said:

That is kind of a quibble though. The question is whether it happens unrealistically frequently in Combat Mission. It probably does, but I'd argue that that's got a lot to do with players being more aggressive, less cautious and essentially untrained compared to historical tankers. Actual data on the frequency of gun damage from real games (ie. not setting things up in the editor) as opposed to anecdotes seems like a sensible way forward.

Which is sort of a wider issue all around with the scenario designing to me. Not so much the forces involved, but the awfully harsh mechanisms for scoring the player's performance. You're compelled to instigate total bloodbaths in most CM scenarios and campaigns in a way that could lead to a medal in very few Armies, dismissal in most, mutiny in all. 

Edited by SimpleSimon
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2 hours ago, Hapless said:

Also to consider: the main gun barrel is kind of a huge lever, right? Everyone who's played CM has seen tanks rocking back on their suspension when they get hit, even if it doesn't penetrate- that's the sheer kinetic energy being absorbed the mass of the tank.

 

Edited by Thewood1
Misread the statement...
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On 6/26/2020 at 3:04 PM, Bulletpoint said:

The OP started by writing this in his first post:

Does it ever occur to you that the OP might not know what they're talking about?

Just because someone complains about something, doesn't automatically mean that complaint has merit.

Do I have to go through the whole song and dance about "show me some examples or video evidence" before we actually talk about said complaints every single time?

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On 6/4/2020 at 2:59 AM, bruno2016 said:

Does anyone agree on the very high frequency of gun barrel damage by shots especially from the front and at long distance (noticed it even happens even at 500 + m) in CM2 WW2?

No.

I've had many scenarios featuring the mass use of tanks, examined literally thousands of damaged tanks over my many years of play, and I notice no unreasonably high incidences of gun damage.

In fact, the one tank in the Company that does have to trundle around as a glorified mobile machinegun pillbox is the sad exception to the rule that once you get shot at, you usually die, or bail out of your immobilized tank.

Edited by General Jack Ripper
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34 minutes ago, George MC said:

Just saw this picture on a Facebook group 

SWObMNK.jpg

Another good photo of a tank barrel shot through from the side. Had not seen this one before. Thanks.

Still hoping someone will find a pic of a penetration from a shot coming from the front of the tank.

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On 6/28/2020 at 11:52 AM, General Jack Ripper said:

Does it ever occur to you that the OP might not know what they're talking about?


Reading Bruno's post and he does come off as frustrated but I think this thread links quite a lot with @RobZ 's good testing with tank gun accuracy. This discussion is inherently an extension of how guns target tanks and talking about it without linking in that thread is a waste of time IMO. Because damage is not just about what the round should do once it hits but whether it should hit at all. I did some simple tests recently in Red Thunder V3 and saw an uptick in gun damage in hull-down positions to the point that I feel comfortable recommending that heavy tanks (i.e. tanks that will likely not be penetrated by the average gun) should not enter hull down positions as it increases the risk that they will suffer gun damage.

Overall it seems like something is off with targeting routines and I suspect its that the shooter has perfect knowledge of the target once it has been spotted. There are no 50% spots and so on that you naturally get in reality.


------

I was shooting cans over the weekend with a friend and he was repeatedly missing a shot. I eventually got out my binoculars to see in detail what was happening and it became clear that he couldn't tell the orientation of the can. The top of the can was reflecting the sun and was a very easily spottable target. However, the can was oriented at 45 degrees while he assumed it was sitting straight up.

This basic misinterpretation doesn't seem to be happening in CM and instead you have unspotted and spotted targets.

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On 6/25/2020 at 7:53 PM, rocketman said:

Just a wild guess here, but here goes: in the game we can see all enemy tank hits with hit decals, in the war only knocked out tanks left behind could be studied. Not all knocked out tanks were photographed and not all photographs remain to be studied. Perhaps a lot of tanks with gun barrel damage were salvaged and repaired? Are there records of what tank repairs were made, would be interesting in this matter. But perhaps there is a limitation in the engine for the kind of grazing shot a hit straight to the front would be. The incoming shell hits the barrel at a very shallow angle so maybe it doesn't take much for it to skim off the surface and continue. Perhaps the engine detects contact and penetration is calculated making the barrel susceptible to full penetrations?

Here are some original statistics from Lukas Friedli's excellent volumes Repairing the Panzers (my bold):

Volume 1 pp190-191 a section on Losses of s.Pz.Abt 503 makes for interesting reading. A 10 October 1943 report for the period 5 July 1943 - 21 September 1943 showed 18 total losses of Tiger I, with 240 Tigers in and out of the Werkstatt (ie recovered or broken down vehicles). Damages/Repairs listed included: 142 technical failures (engine burn outs etc); 227 damages due to shelling (incl 35 turret damages, 19 caused by mines and 2 friendly fire by a StuG, the rest hull damages); 52 weapons damages (6 turret jammed due to PaK hits, 3 turret jammed due to HE hits, 10 KwK 36 inoperative due to PaK hits, 2 mantlets inoperative due to 7.62cm PaK hits, 1 commander's cupola newly adjusted, 12 commander's cupola exchanged, 4 optics inoperative due to shelling, 5 optics inoperative due to normal use, 7 ball mounts due to PaK hits, 2 by friendly fire from a StuG).

If anything this example shows that damage to the main gun by the enemy was more common than, for example, damage to the optics and mantlet, in this report almost 20% of damages to weapons are to the main gun itself. And what was that StuG up to!!

Another report, this time in Volume 2 pp60-61, from s.Pz.Abt 506 on 1 January 1944 covering repairs carried out from 20 September 1943 - 31 December 1943 shows Weapon damage: (where the turret needed to be lifted for 40 Tigers in total) 6 gun barrel replaced caused by enemy, 3 mantlet replaced caused by enemy, 2 turret replaced caused by enemy, 1 muzzle brake replaced caused by enemy, 6 elevating gear repairs caused by technical issues, 3 traverse gear repairs caused by technical issues, 12 cupola repairs caused by enemy, 3 visor repairs caused by enemy, 2 visor repairs caused by technical issues, 7 ammo racks replaced caused by technical issues, 6 ammo racks replaced caused by enemy, 12 hydraulic drive fluid renewals caused by technical issues, 5 hydraulic drive control repairs caused by technical issues, 9 MG mounts repairs caused by enemy, 4 hatch lid repairs caused by enemy, 4 firing mechanisms replaced caused by technical issues, 2 recoil brake repairs caused by technical issues, 27 turret traverse mechanism repairs and checks caused by technical issues.

An experience report by the commander of the same unit dated 30 September 1943 for action over seven days and nights from 20 - 26 September stated that: "6 Tigers were lost from direct hits" (unrecoverable) and "8 guns and 4 gun mantlets were damaged by hits, 3 of them heavily" whilst other damage included "the intercom system failed on17 Tigers due to vibration caused by shelling" (I assume from their own main gun!).

Again these examples show that main gun damage was quite common and enough to at least require a visit to the Werkstatt.

The PanzerWrecks series of books does feature a few images of damage to main weapons which appear to have occurred from frontal hits ie chunks taken out of muzzle brakes and glancing blows along barrels. Great source for all you damage nerds out there.

LS

 

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On ‎6‎/‎25‎/‎2020 at 2:53 PM, rocketman said:

 But...perhaps there is a limitation in the engine for the kind of grazing shot a hit straight to the front would be. The incoming shell hits the barrel at a very shallow angle so maybe it doesn't take much for it to skim off the surface and continue. Perhaps the engine detects contact and penetration is calculated making the barrel susceptible to full penetrations?

Yeah, I think what is happening is that the Game Calculates hits as a 2D Pixel Hit, and so a Hit to a Gun Barrel (no matter how wide or narrow the incoming Shell, or how Shallow the angle) will automagically catch the Barrel and hole it (KO'ing the Gun Barrel).

In Reality, most of those hits will deflect and run down the length of the Barrel (especially light shells) and hit somewhere in Turret/Upper Hull.

On ‎6‎/‎9‎/‎2020 at 9:30 AM, Aquila-SmartWargames said:

I also wonder about wether the amount of tank gun damage in CMWW2 is authentic or not. Furthermore putting tanks in hull down might be problematic. There was already some discussion and testing done on this topic lately:

And, I also agree in that Tank Target Accuracy is a little too accurate with close grouping of Round Hits.

If you combine the above with Rocketman's assessment, then for sure there is way too many hits KO'ing the Barrel in a short period of time.

Yes, and during a long running engagement, there might eventually be a fair amount of Gun Barrel/Gun Hits that could cause KO'ing of Guns (upwards of 25% of Armor affected by Battles end), but too much of this is happening in quick engagements.

Now, you guys have me thinking here...I can now just run around with a bunch of quick shooting light guns or Auto-Cannon wheeling Tanks/HT's and render my opponents Tanks useless...I mean, I can now bring a Knife to a Gun Fight, and Win.

 

Edited by JoMc67
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On 7/6/2020 at 8:25 PM, Lucky_Strike said:

If anything this example shows that damage to the main gun by the enemy was more common than, for example, damage to the optics and mantlet, in this report almost 20% of damages to weapons are to the main gun itself. And what was that StuG up to!!

Thanks for bringing stats up for us.


Over in the tank accuracy thread it appears that gun damage is pretty heavily tied to whether a vehicle is hull down or not. So depending on how you fight you might actually be seeing fewer or more gun damage results. I wonder if more casual players are intuiting that there is a difference but not understanding why. Because it appears that a Panther could reliably wipe the floor of a large number of Shermans if it were in the open while if it were hull down it would lose its gun.

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