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Slugfest - Cromwell 95 mm v StuH


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I recently played a quick battle - Brit armour v German armour - because I am slowly becoming familiar with British armour and wanted to try some out.

Anyway, after taking out the German Panther VG, PzKpfw IV with my Challenger, and losing my Archer and Churchill AVRE, I managed to get my infantry and my Cromwell 95 mm (I think it was the Cromwell, not Challenger, it was definately not a Churchill) close to the enemy positions.

On top of the hill at the back of the village was a 105 mm equipped StuH.

Not 60 metres apart, they slugged it out. After throwing HE at each other about 5 times each, the gun on my tank gave way.

I cant believe that a 105 mm gun and a 95 mm gun would not cause more damage. It took 5 shots for there to be any damage to the tanks. They were about 55 m apart. It was amazing to watch. I like British tanks a lot now.

Is this realistic? Did the British tanks (esp the Churchill VII) cause the Germans any fear, because in this game I think they come off pretty good even against the good German tanks with 88mm guns.

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This is why many CMBO players prefer British armor to American. Good points for the Brits:

1. It's generally cheaper and more cost effective relative to fighting power. There are several real bargains in the British arsenal and few if any in the American.

2. The 95mm gun is a good infantry and tank killer as long as you still have "c" rounds. In your battle with the StuH, you may have had no 'c' rounds (sometimes tanks start with none and there are never more than about 8). I find British tanks more ready than Americans to fire their 'c' rounds at armor, so I suspect this was the case. The 95mm Cromwell is generally a very good buy--fast and very well armed, if lightly armored.

3. The 17 pounder is quite lethal frontally to any German tank up to the KT (and will kill even that sometimes)--best Allied gun of the war. And the CM pricing scheme seems to treat it as equivalent to the US 76mm--when it's obviously vastly superior.

4. The Churchill VIII and Churchill Croc are very tough to kill and the VIII has the 95mm gun. If you're stalking Panthers with Churchil VIIIs, some tests I did a while back suggest that 600m is about the ideal range for a confrontation. At that range, the Panther's 75mm has trouble penetrating the Churchill, while the Churchill is close enough for its rather inaccurate howitzer to score a lethal hit on the Panther. Further away and the Churchill has trouble hitting the Panther, Closer, and the Panther starts getting some shots through that thick frontal armor.

5. Also, the Brits have the Archer TD--a cheap 17-pounder armed vehicle that is a pure Tiger killer if you can learn to drive it backwards (it's rear firing) and keep it hull down in ambush positions.

6. Also, the Brits can get the 17 pounder AT and the 6 pounder AT. The latter is just like the US 57mm except that it's more often supplied with tungsten and thus much more capable of frontal kills vs. German armor. And it only costs a point or two more,

My ideal Allied CMBO force mix would combine American infantry and arty with British armor and AT guns.

[ February 13, 2003, 08:20 AM: Message edited by: CombinedArms ]

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Whilst I am no authority on how to win CM games (my loss to win ratio is about 5:1) I must admit that that 95mm gun on the Cromwell and Churchill's is a beaut'. With a 'c' round it does the job very nicely on a lot of the opposition armour and the blast value of the HE shells make it lovely for harrassing the German infantry.

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Cromwells don't always work, however. For one, they are very thin-skinned. Last night, I lost a Cromwell 95 to a frontal penetration from a 50 mm ATG at 500+ m. Before the Cromwell exploded, it had serious problems placing its shells on target. I personally wouldn't want to count on a 95 mm gun hitting its target on the first few shots as an anti-armor weapon. They are excellent against infantry though.

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Nice posts.

Do you guys realise that it took about 5 HE rounds each before there was any damage to any tank, namely to my tanks 95mm gun? The tanks were less than 60 metres apart!!!

Also, why would a Churchill fear a Panther and not a Tiger. Tiger has a 88mm gun, Panther only a 75mm gun.

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