Is artillery too powerful against tanks?

[Jeff Duquette]

Fernando:

The web site you posted is an excellent source of information. I have had it book marked for some time now. Much of NATHAN OKUN's web page focuses on armored piercing rounds penetrating face-hardened armor (there is also an excellent write up on the eace hardening process of armor plate). AP vs Armor Plate is a somewhat different mechanism than what we have been discussing regarding High Explosives effect on steel plate. I did find his right up on ship fired high explosives rather interesting and found the following quote.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>If the projectile has a nose fuze, a detonating booster, and a detonating filler, as did U.S. HC projectiles, British HE projectiles, and German Spgr.m.Kz. projectiles, hitting a solid homogeneous, ductile iron or steel plate will result in the projectile detonating almost instantly, with rather a reduced dependence on the striking velocity until that velocity gets rather high, because the projectile will move a rather small distance before the filler detonates and essentially removes most of the projectile's mass sideways in a very short time compared to the forward speed of the projectile.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Regarding face hardening of armour, I don't think turret tops and tank decks were typically outfitted with FH armour. The process of Face Hardening was both very time consuming, and a very expensive process. Undoubtedly placement of FH armor was restricted to portions of tanks most likely to struck by armoured piercing rounds. Typically that would include the glacis, hull sides, perhaps turret face and sides.

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Banshee

I would suggest trying the experiment I was discussing on page 5 or 6 of this thread. My personal observations was that Tanks will displace without being ordered when subjected to direct Mortar fire. I found this rather interesting and credited it to some sort of crew morale thing. After reading BTS's comments it sounds like this is a deliberate attempt on BTS's part to take care of your 1 minute of terror concerns. However, when subjecting tanks to indirect artillery fire (i.e. FO directed fire) I was not able to recreate a situation in which Tanks would displace out of impact areas of their own volition.

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Side Note for anyone interested:

If you want a concise set of articles on the mechanism of Armour penetration by solid shot vs. armour plate take a look at the following URL:

http://www.wargamer.org/GvA/index.html

Guns and Armour 1939 - 1945 by Scott Cunningham. An excellent reference web site for WWII Armour.

[Banshee]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jeff Duquette:

Banshee

I would suggest trying the experiment I was discussing on page 5 or 6 of this thread. My personal observations was that Tanks will displace without being ordered when subjected to direct Mortar fire. I found this rather interesting and credited it to some sort of crew morale thing. After reading BTS's comments it sounds like this is a deliberate attempt on BTS's part to take care of your 1 minute of terror concerns. However, when subjecting tanks to indirect artillery fire (i.e. FO directed fire) I was not able to recreate a situation in which Tanks would displace out of impact areas of their own volition.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This only occurs when they can "see" the mortar .. My point is it should happen when they see the arty explosions, which it doesnt. So if this is what BTS meant then it isnt the fix I was hoping for.

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Veni, vidi, panzerschrecki

[Banshee]

Actually a specific occurence happened just last night that shows the AI not responding quite well. I had LOS from one spot to 2 pumas and 1 243/3 (or is it 234/3, anyways).. luckily my Platoon leaders was in the spot with LOS and 3 60mm just happened to be in his command radius.. end of the turn 3 dead tracks (needless to say I was happy!!). IMHO this would never/rarely have happened IRL (i.e. the tracks just sit and take the pain)

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Veni, vidi, panzerschrecki

[Jeff Duquette]

One thought. CM does model spotting rounds being fired…or at least I think it does. Historically, savvy soldiers in the open recognized spotting rounds for what they were and would attempt to displace prior to FFE. I think if a player is wizened to the ways of the game you may be able to recognize spotting round for what they are and displace voluntarily.

I personally would prefer to suck it up, and control any displacement on my own during the next order sequence. I suspect that there may be some other players out there that don’t feel comfortable with the AI arbitrarily moving their tanks about even if they are being subjected to artillery fire. There is the potential for BTS inserting some displacing routine which would result in further aggravating players. Players begin complaining because their vehicles are moving out of impact areas right into the line of fire of some Panther 300 meters away that’s snooping about on a HUNT command.

I think BTS has come forth with a suggestion regarding laying out a testing routine for the game relative to the effects of artillery vs tanks. It seemingly is an issue of potential interest even to BTS, given that a reasonable play testing routine is put forth. It seems to me that any additional anecdotal discussions on the matter are rather fruitless. It would perhaps be interesting to hear your thoughts on establishing a play testing criteria with respect to the issue at hand. Or perhaps your thoughts on how a displacing routine would work.

[Horncastle]

Been reading the discusion about art vs tanks, found this from a book that might add to the discussion

Mjr R.B Moberley 2nd Middlesex on tkaing dugouts near Touffreville

"He found 4 wrecked Tigers tanks NE of Emieville and at Cuillerville, 4 more tigers, 1 Panter, seven PzKwIVs, 3PzKwIII and seven 20mm SPAA guns among the bomb craters"

The British also found the following memo in the dug outs

2nd Panzer Div memo to 326 GAF division which took over from them

"The incredible heavy artillery and mortar fire of the enemy is something new for both the seasoned veterans of the eastern front and for the new arrivals from RHU's. The enemy has complete mastery of the air. They bomb and strafe every movement. They recce our area constantly and direct their artillery fire from air OP's. The attacking enemy simply beats down the forward battle area with his artillery and aircraft"

[PzKpfw 1]

While searching for tank range test fire data I stumbled on some stuff that would realy have benifited this discussion.

It seems the Germans extensively tested Artillery round dispertion at Kummersdorf for Wa Pruf 1, for their artillery as well as all Soviet artillery Ie, to measure fragmentation dispersal they set up portable wooden backstops to measure fragmentation dispersal and detonated the shells in the center of the feild then counted & weighed the splinters and catologed it.

Problem is all this data was destroyed or captured by the Russians who used Kummersdorf themselves then dismantled the whole complex, some of the data may still exist in the Russian archives.

Regards, John Waters

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"We've got the finest tanks in the world. We just love to see the

German Royal Tiger come up on the feild".

Lt.Gen. George S. Patton, Jr. Febuary 1945.

[Supertanker]

Some more anecdotal evidence regarding the effect of artillery on tanks (in this case American). This is from Combat Lesson #6, under Armored Notes:

"Stay in Your Tank

Another suggestion strongly stressed by Lieutenant Zachman: 'During an artillery barrage, it is safer to get into the tank than under it. In some instances, crews inside our tanks have been uninjured even in

cases of direct hits by 120mm mortar shells.' This advice is corroborated by another experienced Tank Battalion Officer: 'Men are apt to abandon tanks when under heavy artillery fire. They should remember that the tank affords excellent protection against all artillery fire except a direct hit by a heavy shell.'”

[Guest rune]

I recently ran across an article that says the hatches on tanks were as low as 1/5th of the normal armor on the tanks in order to be able to open them. Is this true? I had never heard of this before...but it does make a little sense. Anyone have anything on this? What is the thickness of a panther's top hatch?

Rune

[Jeff Duquette]

Horncastle:

Good stuff. Thanks. One question regarding the account by Mjr R.B Moberley 2nd Middlesex on tkaing dugouts near Touffreville. His finds were resultant from carpet bombing during EPSOM or Goodwood were they?

PzKpfw 1:

so you wet out whistles with promise of an indepth study by the German army on indirect fire dispersion…than you conclude with “Oh sorry the test results were all burned up during the war”

Supertanker:

Thanks nice account. Intersting too. 120mm is a big thumper. One would think a direct hit on top of a tank would result in some sort of damage. Adds fuel to the controversy.

[ibucephalus]

I have a couple points:

Artillery isn't fired at armour with the aim of destroying it. Artillery fire is used to neutralize armour temporarily and possibly cause damage to external equipment like antennas, periscopes, and external fuel tanks. All this damage is caused from shell splinters, not direct hits. The idea of aiming at a tank with HE with the intent to hit it directly does not enter a gunner's mind.

Also, an HE round armed with a point-detonating fuse set to super-quick will not penetrate armour because the detonates the round as soon as it is contacted. The round would detonate on the surface. Even, if the fuse were set to delay, the round will likely ricochet and then detonate. You can only hit a tank with a howitzer through direct fire. A pretty scary proposition for the gunners.

The weight of fire necessary to give a realistic chance of a direct hit would be on the order of around 80 tubes(commonwealth div) firing for a long period of time. This is out of all proportion to the the target description and if this weight of fire were requested by a FOO Regimental command post would deny it, if not the FOO's own battery command post.

[Uedel]

did some testing with CM and recovered following:

On-Map Mortars firing on Pz V A/G(Late); IV & VI E:

All Mortars are about 200-250 meters from Target NO direct LOS (targetet over HQ Unit with a clear LOS) All tanks stationary all troops regular.

Hitratio from Mortars are arround 15-50 % Max. In the Middle arround 30%

Details:

81mm 20 Rounds 1 Hit(Top) PzIVG Destroyed (Flameed)

2 inch 19 Rounds 10 Hit (Top) PzVa

3 Inch 11 Rounds 3 Hit (Top) Pz IVE Gun Dmg

81 mm 18 Rounds 8 Hit (Top) PzVg

81 mm 23 Rounds 6 Hit (top) Pz VIE Destroyed

60mm 34 Rounds 14 Hit (Top) Pz Vg

2 inch 19 Rounds 7 Hit (Top) Pz Va Hit at weak point Destroyed

etc etc etc

So on-map mortars hit very well and from 81mm upward (also 3 inch) these hits are very capaple by destroying any German Tank.

Testpattern Offmap:

Range between FO and Target 200-300 meters good LOS no supression etc.

25 Pdr 119 Rounds no direct Hit´s on Pz VIE

after ~ 60 Rounds Immobilized

after ~ 90 Rounds Gun Dmg

after ~ 100 Rounds Abandoned

25 Pdr 120 Rounds no direct Hit´s on Pz VA

after ~ 20 Rounds Immobilized

after ~ 100 Rounds Abandoned

4,5 inch 40 Rounds no direct Hit´s on Pz VG

after ~40 Rounds GunDmg

4,5 inch 40 Rounds no direct Hit´s on Pz VA

after ~12 Rounds Immobilized

after ~40 Rounds Abandoned

105 mm 100 Rounds on no direct Hit´s on Pz VG

after ~30 Rounds Immobilized

after ~50 Rounds Abandoned

75 mm 80 Rounds 1 Top Hit on Pz VA

no Damage after 80 rounds

So let us asume --> On-Map Mortars seem to be waaaay to effective in Hit´s and resulting Damage.

Off-Map Artillery (Howitzer & Mortar) seem to be right in Hit% (Below 1%) and shows that it is not allways the Hit that destructs Tank because it is the HE effect of Damaging outer Parts of the Tank and make him not operational anymore (Immobilization etc) what results often in a Abandonment of the Tank. It also shows that Pz V A or G can be destructet by Heavy Artillery but not due direct hits because they are rare insteat due the damage done by near hits.

[Topi]

While browsing through the excellent link someone posted a while ago: http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usamhi/DL/chron.htm

I came across something that might be at least semi-relevant to this discussion.

The pamphlet "Combat Lessons No.6" (page 56 of the original document) contained the following paragraph while talking about how crews should stay inside their tanks in case of arty barrage:

<quote>

Stay in Your Tank

Another suggestion strongly stressed by Limtennnt Zachman:

During an artillery barrage, it is safer to get into the tank than under it. In some instances, crews inside our tanks have been

uninjured even in cases of direct hits by 120.mm mortar shells.

</quote>

To me this sound like a 120 mm mortar shell _usually_ is able to injure crew members, thus making at least a mission kill a possibility -- at least the said veteran thought so.

Topi

[argie]

Topi, see 4 post over your own

Ariel

[argie]

Topi, see 4 post over your own

Ariel

[Dschugaschwili]

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

While browsing through the excellent link someone posted a while ago: http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usamhi/DL/chron.htm

I came across something that might be at least semi-relevant to this discussion.

[...]

Stay in Your Tank

[...]

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I've always wondered why crews leave their vehicles during an arty barrage...

Just doesn't seem right to me too.

Dschugaschwili

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Erst hat man kein Glück, und dann kommt auch noch Pech dazu.

[Fernando]

What damn thing must I do for gaining access for that damn page?

http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usamhi/DL/chron.htm

AFAIK It's an official US army site with lots of very interesting info on it. I found it about a year ago but I couldn't gain acces to it a year ago nor today. It's frustrating.

It seems I can't gain acces to any page of that website. I ALWAYS get "The requested web page isn't available at this moment. Maybe the site is down or you must adjust your explorer configuration".

Could a kind soul e-mail me those very interesting pamphlets?

[Trooper]

Gorilla.. just a pointer...

It would appear that the comment about the US pineapple grenades being 'chunked' to fragment is a myth. The prime reason was to allow some form of grip to the large weapon when the user's hands were somewhat muddy or wet.

If you look at modern grenades, such as the M72A1 I trained in on (I believe it's the US issue as well), you'll see that there are no such cutouts, as the weapon is plenty small enough to be held and thrown with your hand wrapped all the way around. Even our female troopers (with small hands!) had no problems in this.

Admittedly also, however, that there is an internal 'fragmentation' layer of, if I recall, 276 little filaments which do nasty things to nearby people.

NTM

[gorilla]

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

Gorilla.. just a pointer...

It would appear that the comment about the US pineapple grenades being 'chunked' to fragment is a myth. The prime reason was to allow some form of grip to the large weapon when the user's hands were somewhat muddy or wet.

......

Admittedly also, however, that there is an internal 'fragmentation' layer of, if I recall, 276 little filaments which do nasty things to nearby people.

NTM<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This is interesting, but not unbelievable. Do you have references for this? (I was only using my memory bout the pineapple shape) I was unable to uncover any hard data about that particular grenade, but I did find this: http://www.pacificcoast.net/~dlynn/main/vgd.htm

There you will find info on the russian VGD rifle grenade... but the interesting quote is:

"The 4 4/8 inch (117mm) long steel body is shaped like a small artillery projectile with a series of external serration to increase fragmentation."

head to: http://www.axess.com/users/pete/explosive.html

to take a gander at the German "potato masher" (or potatoe if yer an American pres candidate).

quote:

"A greater fragmentation effect could be achieved by adding 'Splitterringe', or shrapnel rings in English."

and you can take a look at what those rings looked like here: http://www.mfiap.com/airsoft/gr_m24.htm

The pineapple thing is all speculation on my part tho, although I remember reading/hearing/seeing it somewhere. I was USMC and we used the round grenades too.

Jeff:

I got the game, and I like it a lot, but I got a new machine thats givin me problems... and I don't have internet access at home... so I'll send you an email once all the fiddlin is done... always a pleasure to read yer posts too

[This message has been edited by gorilla (edited 10-18-2000).]

[Trooper]

Unfortunately, shipping nicebig heavy resource books over from Ireland hasn't been a high priority for me, so I'm working from memory. However, if you look at the the number of 'fragmentary particles' (For lack of a better name) on a US WWII 'pineapple', you probably won't break 40 which frankly isn't very many. And they are very big chunks. If you're going to serrate something to cause shrapnel, why not make them smaller or more numerous? The rifle grenade shown looks to have a lot more serrations making it more useful for such a role.

NTM

[IntelWeenie]

Pineapple grenades are not that way to increase fragmentation. If they were, then why does the WP grenade the US used in WWII have the same type of serrations on its body? WP grenades were not noted for their blast and fragmentation effect, after all.

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Cats aren't clean, they're covered with cat spit.

[Banshee]

If you wanted fragmentation in a specific manner the serrations would be on the inside not outside, when outside the metal will fracture much differently, you could have 4 chunks stick together for instance. But this would not happen if the serrations were inward.

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Veni, vidi, panzerschrecki

[Jeff Duquette]

Hey Gorilla:

Sounds good...send me a letter when your are comfortable with game play and feel like starting a play by email game.

[Jeff Duquette]

Uedel:

Read through your test results. Great work. We probably should have run something similar at the very start of this thread.

[gorilla]

Trooper:

Thats true (about the amount of fragments), but I think the idea was that the fragments should be as big as a bullet. I don't think anyone thought that a small piece of metal (like real small) would do any harm to a soldier.

IntelWeenie:

Do you have any pictures for this? I would like to see them. Take a look at: http://www.pacificcoast.net/~dlynn/

Specifically, the american guide: The picts of the wwii WP grenades don't have the pineapple shape.

Banshee:

This is true as well. If you take a look at the submissions section from the above site, you'll see some really cool cutaways from some modern grenades. Those have small serrations on the inside of the grenade.

I am unfortunately going on memory as well, and still can't find any hard data. But If you look close at some of the pictures, you will see some that hold to my theory. In the american grenades section from the link above, scroll down till you get into the rifle grenades (at least that is what my assumption of them are...) Take a look at the M17 Fragmentation. It clearly has a pineapple shape, yet it wouldn't have ever been thrown... no need for a grip. I also emailed the person that hosts that site and he had this to say:

"Actually, you are both right, the pattern on the outside was believed to aid

in fragmentation and was the primary reason for it. It actually didn't work

very well, wheras a pattern on the inside of the body did. Sounds weird,

but true. The pattern also aided in gripping the grenade. But, since you

asked, I would say the primary reason was for fragmentation."

So, looks like we are all right! I love it when that happens... (altho I still think it was just for fragmentation, and the grip just happened to go along with the shape.)

[IntelWeenie]

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

http://www.pacificcoast.net/~dlynn/

Specifically, the american guide: The picts of the wwii WP grenades don't have the pineapple shape.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

My point was actually regarding the knobbies (for lack of a better word ) on both types of grenades. The M34 WP (those are the ones I was thinking of in my previous post) were not oval shaped, but that's so they could hold more filler, like "offensive" grenades. (Offensive grenades rely on concussive blast effect and not fragments which typically have a larger "danger" radius than the throwing distance of the grenade. The more explosive filler there is, the greater the blast.) I think the reason the M34 had the knobbies and not other smoke-type grenades is because M34s are somewhat heavier and thus harder to hold and throw. Believe me, you want to throw WP as far away as you can!

Still, I have heard that the knobbies did contribute to making the case of the frag grenades break into more regular sized chunks. This has the benefit of making sure the fragments are evenly spread out and cover the most space. This is why they are more deeply notched than the M34.

Later fragmentation grenades had smooth bodies with internal fragmentation schemes, like notched wire, ball bearings, etc. These are far superior in the quailty of the fragmentation, since the size and shape of the fragments is better controlled. If carefully done, the fragments can be engineered to quickly lose velocity, making them lethal within a small radius while at the same time making it safer for friendly troops (like the one who threw the bloody thing ) that are not much farther away. These are usually referred to as offensive/defensive grenades.

IIRC, the name "pineapple" was dervied from both the shape and the knobbies, since together they made it look like a pineapple.

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Cats aren't clean, they're covered with cat spit.