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Tank crew Moral and cohesion


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I was wondering if CM models the effect of non-penertrating hits on the crews moral & cohesion. I remember Sven Hassel's book 'Wheels of terror' often describing the shock, fear & confusion of the crew when a shot crashes against the armour. This would at least add a few very vital seconds to reload/fire time after the hit and at most panic a crew into baling out! Green & Conscript crews would of course be the most easily rattled the size/nearness to penertration of the hit taken into the equation.

I havent seen it happen in the demos but then all the crews are regular or veteren.

Just wondered if it was in the final game.

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Guest TURBO

SPOILER ***********

Had a sherman in the valley get hit by the german 150. No penetration or flaking but it shocked the crew for about a minute ans a half.

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**** yea m8, tank crew morale is definately in. US forces were alomost destoyed (On CE), so i drove a Stug right on top of the US owned hill (2 the Germans far left). The Stug had taken no casualties or damage, woz buttoned up, AND spotted AND ID'ed two depleted rifle squads. They HAND grenaded it (doing fuk all damage) and the crew promptly baled out, gutted! smile.gif

[This message has been edited by Londoner (edited 05-29-2000).]

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I ran the crew out of the Panther in VoT with 81mm mortar fire, a 105mm fire mission and four 75mm hits from two Shermans (all happening at the same time of course). The tank was fine but the crew bugged out.

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I remember Sven Hassel's book 'Wheels of terror' often describing the shock, fear & confusion of the crew when a shot crashes against the armour.

Note that Hassel's memoirs are just about as accurate as the memoirs baron Hieronymus von Münchausen, with the notable exception that the good old baron was (probably) a real person.

I lost my respect to Hassel when I noticed that he had copied parts of "Good Soldier Svejk" and "All Quiet on Western Front" in verbatim. After that I have found literal copies from "The Unknown Soldier" and, believe or not, "Kelly's Heroes".

His books may be entertaining but they surely don't have any basis on real events. Well, not on events that happened to him, anyway.

- Tommi

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Thanks for your observations guys, I'm glad that effect is in and I should'nt have doughted BTS'd leave any realistic stoned unturned. Its the wait for release you see, its turning me into a bloody obbessive! I only discovered CM existed 3 weeks ago and its won me compleatly! How the hell do you guys who've been waiting a year cope?

TSS - I read Sven Hassle's book when I was 12 and I thought it was a true eyewitness testimony from a vet not fiction - thanks for putting me right. Still his description of a non-penertrating hit must have some basis in fact - imagine the shock & noise of a round stricking the armour next to your head....oh no I'm going obbessive again!

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Still his description of a non-penertrating hit must have some basis in fact - imagine the shock & noise of a round stricking the armour next to your head....

Sure, it does. I just wanted to point out that all correlations with reality and Hassel's work are purely coincidental.

In fact, I can give two practical examples on what may happen with non-penetrating hits and near missess. (The long-time readers of this forum may remember that I've posted these once before, in October, IIRC).

During the battle of Kuuterselkä (14.6.1944) a HE-shell (probably a 152 howitzer round) landed few meters front of a Finnish StuG-IIIG. The crew thought that they were hit and they abandoned the tank in hurry. It took about half an hour before anybody realized that the tank was still intact and in perfect fighting condition but at that time Soviet counter-counterattack had advanced so much that it was impossible to retrieve (or destroy) the vehicle.

Another example happened during battle of Portinhoikka (25.6.1944). A Finnish KV-1E advanced as a point tank along a narrow and windy forest road. The Finnish column (one Klim, one T-34/76, 2 T-28s, and a T-50) met a detachment of 6-7 T-34/85s. One of the Soviet T-34s got out a shot first and it hit the front hull armor of the Klim. The shot didn't penetrate but the crew abandoned the tank and run to the cover of forest with their ears ringing. There's a picture of this Klim at http://www.pp.htv.fi/jveijala/tankit/tank8.html and the impact mark is still visible.

- Tommi

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