USMC M1A1HA crew survivability

[Chibot Mk IX]

USMC scenario Bad Moon Rising. I have never seen so many burning Abrams.  I lost 12 M1A1, only 2 not burning.  I lost 30 tank crew, that is 2.5 per tank.

It seems like a hit at Abrams weapon mount will cause a Catastrophic kill. I have 5 destroyed Abrams with ammo storage setoff immediately, no one survive, 

At the same time I counted 1 destroyed tank with only one bailout, 2 destroyed Abrams with two survivors, 1 with 3 survivors, 3 tanks with all crew survived. 
 

[Centurian52]

Those are some pretty severe losses! That makes a certain amount of sense if your Abrams were mostly lost to frontal penetrations (and I believe the weapon mount is a weak point in the frontal armor). A round penetrating the front of the turret, passing through the crew compartment, and then hitting the ammo compartment in the back will put a hole in the blast door between the ammo and crew compartments. If that happens the blowout panels will no longer be the path of least resistance for the ammo detonation and the crew will be toast. You'll get a similar result if the ammo takes a hit during the brief window when the loader has the blast door open to grab a round. 

[MikeyD]

I learned from playing King Tigers in the WWII titles that no matter how well protected you think you are its best to play your tanks as though they're fragile. Because you're bound to get a mobility kill or gun damage or optics kill or a lucky penetration at the most inconvenient moment.

[Ithikial_AU]

I had the same views in the early days of CM2 thinking maybe all tanks are glass cannons. My views have changed over the many years from "CM is just cruel" to "they may actually have this right" because:

- Modern (post 1945) titles it's usually a mute point as every AT weapon has a decent chance at killing any other armoured vehicle they are up against. Who shoots and hits first is probably the winner. Some minor exceptions there in very specific circumstances but even when my M1 Abrams comes under fire from a T-72 in CMSF, I take note.

- WW2 titles have a bit of variance given the broader amount of weaponry and armour value combinations in play.

- Reading some campaign specific history books from WW2, including one right now  , it's actually quite common to read oral histories and mechanical repair commentary about how many armoured vehicles are out of the front line at any given time in WW2. You can never trust comments like "Company A of the 13th Tank Battalion took village ABC" to mean a full company of tanks took part. I think some of the older histories like the official histories released soon after the way generally skip this kind of info.

My two cents plus sales tax.

[fireship4]

4 hours ago, Ithikial_AU said:

mute point

Moot point.

Thanks for your videos, watched quite a few of them over the years.

 

[Ithikial_AU]

2 hours ago, fireship4 said:

Moot point.

Thanks for your videos, watched quite a few of them over the years.

 

Hehehe. Ta.

[Bearstronaut]

9 hours ago, Ithikial_AU said:

 

- Reading some campaign specific history books from WW2, including one right now  , it's actually quite common to read oral histories and mechanical repair commentary about how many armoured vehicles are out of the front line at any given time in WW2. You can never trust comments like "Company A of the 13th Tank Battalion took village ABC" to mean a full company of tanks took part. I think some of the older histories like the official histories released soon after the way generally skip this kind of info.

 

Mr. X's Tiger Trail campaign is actually pretty on point about this. You are supposed to be commanding a company of Tigers in the 3rd SS Panzer Division but every single mission briefing has something like "only 5 of 13 Tigers are operational today. The rest are down for maintenance. Of the five, two are supporting some other unit's mission so you get the three remaining tanks."

[MikeyD]

It should also be noted M1A1 HA doesn't seem to have the same level of protection as M1A2. I can't quantify it, I've got no stats, but I remember in-game M1A1 getting more frequent penetrations.

[Silentkilarz]

yeah the SEPv2 seems much tougher and seems to also eat rounds to the .50cal mounted on the Main gun also.