Some Illuminating Facts About The Tiger Tank

[Paul Lakowski]

If you only bump the armor from 110 to 120mm you are 'under estimating' the Tiger-1 front turret armor, cause its clearly much more than that even if you ignor the over hang....

BTW if you looked at my post you'd see the 'overhang' is the weakest spot due to the free edge effect.

http://www.tanknet.org/ubb/Forum3/HTML/000033.html

Heres the Tiger 1 front turret armor , the shaded area is ~ 140mm effective resistance Vs 100-122mm APC shot , while against 57-76mm APC shot the value is about 160mm.

The side s are actually 210-270mm LOS , while the top is 26mm @ 81 ° over 170mm LOS. The reason for the variation in the Mantle area is due to the free edge effect.

[Paul Lakowski]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by PzKpfw 1:

Seeing as for all intents and purposes the mantlet is the front turret armor. As it covers the entire front turret & the FT armor is barely exposed, are these rounds defeating the mantlet or is the round hitting the FT armor & missing the mantlet?.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

No there 'failed penetrations' ... thats whats refered to in the digram I posted on the Tank Net from Jentz's 'Germany's Tiger Tanks'.

[Bullethead]

DesertFox said:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Would be the data being produced by the Brits while examining Tiger [Chassis No. 250570] plus this scan of a sketch out of the original Tiger turret manual be sufficient to convince you that there was something behind the mantlet?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This cross-section drawing through the mantle shows exactly what I'm talking about with the "picture frame" on the turret's front and the mantle covering the big hole for the gun assembly. From top to bottom through the front "plate" itself, this drawing shows:

1. the top part of the "picture frame,"

2. a thin, horizontal, curved, rearward extension of the mantle that served as a bearing surface when the gun elevated,

3. a big armorless gap containing the gun cradle and gunner's sight mount,

4. the lower mantle extension similar to that noted above,

5. the bottom of the "picture frame".

Note that the big, armorless gap (looks cylindrical in this cross-section due to the elevation bearing surfaces) takes up between 3/5 and 2/3 of the vertical extent of the turret's face. IOW, the mantle is the only armor over most of the vertical extent of the front of the turret.

Also note that this cross-section was taken through the gunner's sight opening, which is only about 1/4 of the way inboard from the outer left edge of the turret's face. As you can see, however, the big, armorless gap extends further outboard, very close to the outer edge of the turret's face. It does the same on the turret's right edge. Thus, the mantle is also the only armor over most of the horizontal extent of the turret's face, as well as the vertical.

I don't see any "chevron" of armor there at all. Are folks referring to the triangular members in the center of this drawing? Those are not armor, those are parts of the gun cradle and sight mount. If a shell goes through the mantle and hits this thing, at the very least you have a GUN DAMAGED result. Sure, it might stop the shell from reaching ammo stored further aft, but if this goes, the gun cannot be aimed or elevated.

I also question the mantle's supposed "thick place around the gun". This is an oval area with its major axis horizontal. This looks very similar to the front-end view of the armored box around the gun tube of the PzIVs, and for the same reason--it covers the ends of the recoil and recuperator cylinders mounted beside the gun's barrel.

The cylinders of the Tiger's guns were located at the trunnions, part in front and part behind, so didn't need an external box of armor like on the PzIV. However, because part of them stuck out in front of the trunnions, there had to be a recess in the rear side of the mantle for them. You can see this in top views of the Tiger--the gap between the mantle and the "front plate" is much wider in the middle where the gun is.

This gap was bigger here so you could reach down in between the mantle and the front "plate". It enabled you to get to the front ends of the cylinders for maintenance, and to the back ends of the bolts holding the mantle to the gun tube. But this alone would have resulted in a thin area in the mantle around the gun. So the Germans compensated by adding more metal in this area on the front side of the mantle, resulting in the raised oval "thick area". But because the rear surface of the mantle was milled out to make a recess for the cylinder ends, the over-all thickness here was about the same as that elswhere on the mantle.

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-Bullethead

It was a common custom at that time, in the more romantic females, to see their soldier husbands and sweethearts as Greek heroes, instead of the whoremongering, drunken clowns most of them were. However, the Greek heroes were probably no better, so it was not so far off the mark--Flashman

[This message has been edited by Bullethead (edited 08-05-2000).]

[Bullethead]

Paul Lakowski said, RE: trunnions behind the mantle not being armor:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I'm afraid that's not quite right, no matter what you put in the way of a projectile will effect its penetration even if this is mild steel it still contributes <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

By the time the projectile reaches this "mild steel", it has already penetrated the armor. The "mild steel" is part of the guts of the tank that the armor is there to protect--in this case, the gun's trunnions. If these get hit, the gun is hosed, even if they stop the projectile. Plus you'd probably have fragments of armor, shell, and trunnion bouncing around inside the turret. So the result would be "gun damaged" at least and probably some crew casualties.

Fangorn said:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Couldn't the small space with 200 mm armor be modelate as a "strong spot", in the same way the "weak spot" shots are? Would that be hard to code? (I don't know anything about coding...)<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Look at the post above in this thread about the effects of various test shots against a Tiger. You'll notice one of them hit the bottom edge of the mantle, i.e., one of the "double thick" areas. Result: shell deflected down through the hull roof doing extensive damage. I've also seen a Tiger in a museum that had this exact same thing happen to it in combat. So the "strong spot" at the bottom of the mantle seems to have been more a liability than a help.

As for the "strong spot" on the top, that would result in some good bounces over the top of the turret I'd think. However, this Tiger in the museum also had such a hit. And in that case, it was also detrimental to the Tiger because armor and shell fragments took out the unbuttoned tank commander. You can see some nicks in the cupola near the top where other fragments impacted. OTOH, if the TC was buttoned, he wouldn't have this problem.

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-Bullethead

It was a common custom at that time, in the more romantic females, to see their soldier husbands and sweethearts as Greek heroes, instead of the whoremongering, drunken clowns most of them were. However, the Greek heroes were probably no better, so it was not so far off the mark--Flashman

[Guest machineman]

In 'Tiger Tanks' by Michael Green, p 76, it gives comparison drawings of Tiger 1 vs II vulnerability to various US Army tank guns as of US army intel Jan 1945. The Tiger I is rated as vulnerable inside 1600 yards on the turrent front with the 76mm gun, while the Tiger II is not vulnerable at any range, not even with the 90mm gun. Big difference. From what I understand the Tiger II had max 185mm turrent front armour and not much of a mantlet to speak of. 100mm or slightly more on the Tiger I sounds about right, doesn't it?

[PzKpfw 1]

My problem with the debated protection has to do with the way ther mantlet was designed. It was designed to give maximum protection to the front turret and gun.

The gun is protected inside by the FT armor lip, and the exposed 'mild steel' area was very small inside the fighting compartment which is evident in the photos published in Verlinden's "Armor in detail No.1" which is a photographic study of the Tiger1 at the Saumur tank museum.

Their are 2 photographs of the inside turret on pp.20 & 21 which show the gun area and the armored lip inside the mantlet that runs around the outside front of the 'mild steel' area. the gun housing,the breech, recoil cylinder, coax mounting, & gunners sight, where the gun meets the mantlet.

its basicly an armored square within an armored square,with only a very small area not additionaly protected by the outer lip that runs inside the mantlet.

I wish I had a scanner, the pictures help see what all this discussion has centered on and you realize how protected that area was from seeing them alot better.

Regards, John Waters

[This message has been edited by PzKpfw 1 (edited 08-06-2000).]

[Paul Lakowski]

Originally posted by Bullethead:

Paul Lakowski said, RE: trunnions behind the mantle not being armor:

This is a wast of time , please kindly explain how this Tiger -1 Mantle of 120mm of armor can resist the 122mm AP shot at 500m range @ 30° of angle?In order to do that it must be ~ 15cm resistance !

[The DesertFox]

Bullethead,

I think you really should measure it out yourself, if all the data presented here isn´t sufficient for you. Somehow this reminds me of a discussion when some folks were claiming the earth is a table some times back in history.

Really if you don´t believe the cited sources, go ahead and measure it out and you easily will come to the result that where the mantlet had 100mm there was the front turret armor with additional 100mm behind it. And in the areas of the opening the mantlet had 140mm up to 200mm in the area of the gun mount. Find out the truth yourself.

Oh and one addition. If you believe that the turret front and superstructure front both had an armour value of 100mm you certainly can explain why the 76 mm M1A1 M62 can defeat the superstructure front at 600 metres but the mantlet only at 100 metres, why the 17pounder APCBC can defeat the superstructure front at 1700 metres and the turret front not at all and why the 122 mm A 19 APBC/HE can defeat the superstructure front at 1300 metres but the mantlet only at 500 metres ? You see there is a difference ?

Helge

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Sbelling chequed wyth MICROSOFT SPELLCHECKER - vorgs grate!

- The DesertFox -

Email: desertfox1891@hotmail.com

WWW: http://www.geocities.com/desertfox1891

[This message has been edited by The DesertFox (edited 08-06-2000).]

[RMC]

This has been a very informative thread, but something just occurred to me while reading. CM armor system ain't what I thought it was.

Somehow I got the idea that CM had extremely detailed armor models that accounted for all the possible hit locations on the tank. What I'm seeing here is that the Tiger can only have one value for the turret front, when I had expected that it would differentiate between the various areas that could be hit from the frontal aspect.

CM does a better job than any other computer or board game, but it is not as far ahead as I had thought. CM models the hardness and slope of armor and takes into account the changes to these values from the angle of attack both vertically and horizontally. It's just that there aren't as many hit locations being represented as I had thought.

This thread got me to wondering how Mantlet and turret front hits seemed so frequent considering the relatively small area of the frontal aspect it represented. The answer seems to be that the turret side simply can't be hit from the front because the tank is represented in the engine as a rectangular turret on a rectangular hull where each face has an associated strength and vertical slope to which the game adds horizontal slope.

[Paul Lakowski]

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

CM models the hardness and slope of armor and takes into account the changes to these values from the angle of attack both vertically and horizontally. It's just that there aren't as many hit locations being represented as I had thought.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Out of curiosity, how did they model plate hardness and overmatching shells etc?

[:USERNAME:]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by The DesertFox:

Oh and one addition. If you believe that the turret front and superstructure front both had an armour value of 100mm you certainly can explain why the 76 mm M1A1 M62 can defeat the superstructure front at 600 metres but the mantlet only at 100 metres, why the 17pounder APCBC can defeat the superstructure front at 1700 metres and the turret front not at all and why the 122 mm A 19 APBC/HE can defeat the superstructure front at 1300 metres but the mantlet only at 500 metres ? You see there is a difference ?

Helge

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The above is pretty good proof if based on foiring tests. I really get totally Missouri ('Show me state') about this AP stuff and only really believe either official range shoots or field tests where people record everything they can.

I have seen Tigers I with extra tracks on the front hull but never on the front of the turret. Panzer IVs did this even to the extent of making cutouts so the turret MG and sights would work.

A hull down Tiger I would be a nightmare from the front.

Lewis

[:USERNAME:]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by The DesertFox:

Helge

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Something a little funny here.

The cast mantlet seems to be one piece that includes the curved parts that Bullethead misidentified as bearing surfaces (I highly doubt they are, the bearing surfaces that would suspend the weapon would be on either side and actually protrude out the sides of the turret).

Anyway the funny thing is, you would have to slide this assembly out from the side. You could not pull the gun and mantlet out of the front as one piece (which I thought they could)! Maybe Im wrong but I have seen so many bad designs that I am beggining to recognize them. Any designers here?

Lewis

[Paul Lakowski]

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

The above is pretty good proof if based on foiring tests. I really get totally Missouri ('Show me state') about this AP stuff and only really believe either official range shoots or field tests where people record everything they can.

I have seen Tigers I with extra tracks on the front hull but never on the front of the turret. Panzer IVs did this even to the extent of making cutouts so the turret MG and sights would work.

A hull down Tiger I would be a nightmare from the front.

Lewis

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Here unfortunately is part of the problem Official figures and test reports are next to useless with out {A} all the data & {B} having a sound grounding in how penetration % works....this is not as easy as it sounds .Each country has different criteria for defining what constitute a'complete or partial penetration' and each countries test plates are different again.

So we do need to improve our 'back ground knowledge' as well as better test reports.For example any penetration figure quoted is only a probability value, British and German tests use the 50% value while Soviet test use a 75% mark and American's use 20-25% mark. the difference between all these values is about ± 40% around the 50% value .... that means if a projectile has a penetration of 100mm what this means is that any given shot could achieve a actual penetration of 140-60mm.

Now the 10% top part of top part and bottom 10% of these 'S' curves constitute about half this range, so 'truncating' the values to cover only the middle 80% makes allot of sense cause it cuts this range in half. So the range would be 120-80mm or 100mm±20mm in 4 out of 5 cases .

But if the test is American what it means is the range of values should be 110-70mm, while if its a Russian test it means the range should be 130-90mm. And that assumes they all use the same test plate hardness . German test plate was against 280-300 plate while American test were on 240BHN plate and some sources suggest Russian figures are against upto 400BHN plate [but Robert Livingston reported to me that the actual resistance of these Russian plates was about the same as German test plate 250-300BHN] .

So when you see that all the rounds [ with 100mm penetration] of a particular projectile fail to penetrate the Tiger 1 mantle ; all that tells you is the armor must be more than 120mm and maybe even more than 140mm.

But when you see a value like 122mm APC @ 500 M range @ 30°, this can often tell you more cause it usually is a exact 50/50 split ; provided you adjust for the penetration criteria.

[The DesertFox]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>You could not pull the gun and mantlet out of the front as one piece (which I thought they could)!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Wasn´t necessary, because the 8,8 barrel was in two parts; an inner sleeve (Seelenrohr) and an outer jacket (Mantelrohr). They only had to change the "Seelenrohr" if it was necessary.

Drawings 5155-2 and 5155-7, Bundesarchiv. These specify how to make the two pieces of the barrel

The penetration figures I quoted are taken out of a WaPruef Report (german) dated 5 October 1944. All ranges are in metres at which the Tiger I can be penetrated at a side angle of 30 degrees.

BTW: Data is available for open review in "Germany's TIGER Tanks - Tiger I & II: Combat Tactics" by Thomas L Jentz, Schiffer Publications

Helge

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Sbelling chequed wyth MICROSOFT SPELLCHECKER - vorgs grate!

- The DesertFox -

Email: desertfox1891@hotmail.com

WWW: http://www.geocities.com/desertfox1891

[This message has been edited by The DesertFox (edited 08-07-2000).]

[Guest Big Time Software]

Helge,

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Would be the data being produced by the Brits while examining Tiger [Chassis No. 250570] plus this scan of a sketch out of the original Tiger turret manual be sufficient to convince you that there was something behind the mantlet ?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Actually no.

I'm half-kidding. It does show the overlap of the mantlet and "turret front" armor, which I ad Bullethead described, and makes it look a little larger than the other diagram I know of. But it directly shows that most of the mantlet is not backed up by "turret front" armor. It's backed up by the gun but not by any armor in that entire, large center section. The thick "turret front" armor shows up at the top and bottom, but is absent in the entire center area around the gun.

I think the mantlet thickness is more important than the "turret front" thickness in the case of the Tiger I. My question is simply what thickness should it be rated at? Since it appears to vary in thickness, there's no precise answer - but Combat Mission needs a "single" rating. So what is most appropriate? (I don't think the overlap between mantlet and turret front is significant, so I'm looking just for mantlet thickness).

Paul,

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Heres the Tiger 1 front turret armor , the shaded area is ~ 140mm effective resistance Vs 100-122mm APC shot , while against 57-76mm APC shot the value is about 160mm.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Please explain how you arrive at these figures. Are you inferring them from the test-firing data you alluded to?

RMC,

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>how Mantlet and turret front hits seemed so frequent considering the relatively small area of the frontal aspect it represented.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Take a look at the front of a Tiger or pretty much any tank. The visible surface area of the turret front isn't small at all. It's pretty large, actually.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>he turret side simply can't be hit from the front because the tank is represented in the engine as a rectangular turret on a rectangular hull where each face has an associated strength and vertical slope to which the game adds horizontal slope. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Correct. This is an abstraction that:

1) Doesn't actually harm the final results much (i.e. most shells bounce off a Tiger's front anyway )

2) Would require quite a large amount of painstaking vehicle-specific analysis and downright guesswork to model curving/blending armor surfaces on all the different vehicles in the game. It would be pretty cool if we could do this, and it's not impossible, certainly, but it's not really feasible given that we only have a certain amount of time and resources to crank out a game that has many other more critical features that need to be simulated properly.

Charles

[Lee]

This is one of the most interesting threads ever on this board (and

I've been reading threads here for over 1 1/2 years, many of which were

very good indeed ).

So it seems that the Tiger's front turret armor value at the very

least should be increased to 120mm, quite possibly more.

As I was reading the posts, I was also thinking about the possibility

of modeling "strong point" hits for the Tiger. I know CM already

models the rarely hit "weak points" on various tanks, it would

be great if these sorts of unusually well armored places on a

tank could also be factored in. For the Tiger that might mean

a 13% (or whatever the actual percentage of the front turret area

that has this extra thick armor is) chance of any hits to the front

turret having to go up against 220mm of some of Germany's best armor.

Not a pleasing prospect for allied tank crews. I'm note sure

how hard that would be to add to the armor modeling, but it would

be nice to have. But, if that is too tough to add, then just getting

the overall front turret armor value accurate would be good enough.

[This message has been edited by Lee (edited 08-07-2000).]

[PzKpfw 1]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Big Time Software:

I'm half-kidding. It does show the overlap of the mantlet and "turret front" armor, which I ad Bullethead described, and makes it look a little larger than the other diagram I know of. But it directly shows that most of the mantlet is not backed up by "turret front" armor. It's backed up by the gun but not by any armor in that entire, large center section. The thick "turret front" armor shows up at the top and bottom, but is absent in the entire center area around the gun.

Charles <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Charles, I I understand your points and the limitations model. Just want to comment on the post abit .

The area that is not backed up by the TF armor in the centre is the same size as the middle mantlet where the sight & co axe are mounted to the upper & lower lips you can see in Pauls scan link where I'm indicateing.

The rest of the turret is covered by the FT armor behind the mantlet. To get a hit within that centre area the round would have to impact on the front of the gun tube, directly behind the tube on the mounting bolts, or directly below the tube above the crew compartment, or in the middle left & right corners where the gunsight and/or coax mounts are located, and it would still have to defeat the mantlet.

Now disregarding the FT armor, and the evidence presented here that its actual protection was higher, the accepted source of MM protection of the mantlet itself was/is 120mm @ 0^.

Which leads to my next question,since the mantlet covers the entire front of the turret, why is their a FT armor rateing at all/ no area of the FT is exposed but the mantlet.

I take from point 2 of your post that the FT armor on the Tiger 1 may not be modeled.

If thats the case then discussing the area behind the mantlet that is covered by the FT armor is a moot point, concerning the penetration equasions.

If CM does not model penetration after the mantlet is defeated Ie, an check to see if the FT armor is encountered after the initial mantlet penetration. Then the mantlet thickness needs to be adjusted IMHO to refelct both it & the FT armor with 1 value representing both.

Regards, John Waters

[The DesertFox]

Charles,

Ok, seems like we are moving in the correct direction

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Charles:

I think the mantlet thickness is more important than the "turret front" thickness in the case of the Tiger I. My question is simply what thickness should it be rated at? Since it appears to vary in thickness, there's no precise answer - but Combat Mission needs a "single" rating. So what is most appropriate? (I don't think the overlap between mantlet and turret front is significant, so I'm looking just for mantlet thickness).<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

So first question which has to be solved is: Which area in % of the turret front is exclusively covered by the mantlet ? And how thick is the mantlet in this area ?

I´m using very rough figures here so please bear with me. If we look at this picture we can see that aprox. 33 % of the mantlet has an overlap to the turret front armour [look at the sketches] which itself is 100 mm. So I think we can assume 200-220 mm effective armor for these areas.

Now to the rest of the mantlet armour. As you can see in this pic:

The mantlet armour in the area where it isn´t overlapping with turett front armour is between 120 mm and 200 mm [200mm for the area around the barell which is aprox. 1/5 of the remaining 66 %]

This will give us aprox. 136 mm armour for the mantlet without overlap and 200 mm for the mantlet with overlap. So altogether I come to the conclusion that we have 157 mm effective armour which has to be considered as effective armour for the turett front of the Tiger I. With 200 mm where there is overlap [the outer areas of the mantlet] and 136 mm for the inner square without overlap.

As I mentioned these are VERY VERY rough figures. Someone really has to exactly find out the percentage of the overlap between mantlet [which is 120mm in the areas of overlap] and turret front [100mm].

But I think if we take into account published penetration figures that 157 mm effective armour is very close to reality. And we have to keep in mind that we don´t have uniformly distributed armour, but the effective armour is varying from 120mm to 200mm.

As you said if you need one single figure for the Tiger I front, I´d use 157-160mm for it, because then the mantlet thickness needs to be adjusted IMHO to reflect both the mantlet & the turett front armor with 1 value representing both.

Helge

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Sbelling chequed wyth MICROSOFT SPELLCHECKER - vorgs grate!

- The DesertFox -

Email: desertfox1891@hotmail.com

WWW: http://www.geocities.com/desertfox1891

[RMC]

Charles,

I understand the need for abstraction. It's just that somehow I had gotten this idea that there were these superdetailed 3d models within the game engine that would account for things like striking the side of the Tiger turret at an extreme angle when attacking from the direct front. I guess it was the mantra of the graphics not representing what the game uses for the engine. Since whenever the reference was made it was stated or implied that the engine was working with much greater detail than the models we were looking at. So I took it to mean that the engine was working with a model like this:

As regards the frontal aspect of tanks. On tanks like the panther and Pz IV the side of the turrets are not greatly exposed to extremely low anlgles of attack like on both models of the Tiger. Looking back on the first page of this thread there is the image showing how much the side and roor armor is exposed to attack. It seems to me that 50% of round that would hit from this direct frontal attack would hit something other than the mantlet.

[Paul Lakowski]

First off if I new my Tiger scan was going to end up here I'd have given our poor tiger tank a better tilt so it doesn't look like its sliding sideways into a gully

On the previous page I showed how I arrived at the 140mm 160mm resistance figure for the 'Tiger 1 front turret profile'.The main effect is the ' Free edge effect' & T/d but a reduction for cast is also needed.

The other way is to use those calculated penetration ranges , that appear in every Jentz book.In those books the 122mm AP shot has penetration value of 500m @ 30° angle Vs the Tiger -1 Mantle.

According to info supplied by John Waters [ from Russian tests] the 122mm APC shot can do .

<PRE>

on the BP-460 SC rounds.

Range 300ms - 500ms 1000ms 1500ms

0° 161mm - 157mm -147mm ?

30° ? 137mm - 129mm - 122mm

</PRE>

This implies the resistance is not more than 137mm Vs 122mm AP shot. But as I already mentioned the Russian test standard is about 10% higher than the common 50% 'ballistic limit' standard. thus the adjusted figures should be times 1.1 or ....

<PRE>

on the BP-460 SC rounds.

Range 300ms - 500ms 1000ms 1500ms

0° 177mm - 173mm -162mm ?

30° ? 151mm -142mm - 134mm

</PRE>

See if the value was 120mm penetration would be over 1500m ,so what this suggest that against a 122mm AP shot the Tiger -1 front mantle armor should be less than 151mm but more than 142mm .15cm sounds about right.

edited for clarity

[This message has been edited by Paul Lakowski (edited 08-07-2000).]

[The DesertFox]

Paul,

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>See if the value was 120mm penetration would be over 1500m ,so what this suggest that against a 122mm AP shot the Tiger -1 front mantle armor should be less than 151mm but more than 142mm .15cm sounds about right.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

150mm sounds good to me. Seems like I wasn´t too much off with my rough guesstimation.

Helge

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Sbelling chequed wyth MICROSOFT SPELLCHECKER - vorgs grate!

- The DesertFox -

Email: desertfox1891@hotmail.com

WWW: http://www.geocities.com/desertfox1891

[Vanir]

Wow, this thread has really taken off. It's great to see there are such knowlegable people here and a company (BTS) that really listens to its customers.

Most other games that I've played (Steel Panthers and a few others) have rated the front turret at 120mm, but it seems this may have been an over-simplification.

This brings up a related game point. If the front turret rating is increased by a significant amount (more than 120mm, say) should the purchase cost of the Tiger I be bumped up as well?

[Hunter]

Vanir,

If the turret front armor goes up, the purchase price automatically goes up as well (as it is based on a formula which includes this as a parameter).

This is Justifiable and reasonable of course.

Bruce

edited to fix my l's

[This message has been edited by Hunter (edited 08-07-2000).]

[Olle Petersson]

To penetrate or not to penetrate...

What does it mean?

As noted there were, and still is, great variations in what it means when it's stated that a round can penetrate X mm of armour...

Suppose a round penetrates, then what?

*If* there's any energy left in the round, it might cause some damage, otherwise it just drops dead on the floor.

In the American standard it seems like those few shots that penetrate the given armour have so little energy left that they're pretty harmless...

If there's no armour penetration, that doesn't mean the target is unharmed. There are several vulnerable spots on tanks;

vision blocks/slits, external weapon parts (gun barrels, aiming and ranging devices), antennae, suspension and in some cases external fuel tanks.

All of these are vulnerable to hits from light ATGs, small arms or shrapnel and will degrade the tanks ability to fight.

It is impossible to compute and correctly take into account every parameter that determines the outcome of a shot.

Therefore a large degree of randomness is necessary.

What's the chance, in CM, of a 37mm AP disable a Tiger, given a straight frontal hit at 400m range?

IMO it should be more than 1%.

Cheers

Olle

[:USERNAME:]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by The DesertFox:

Wasn´t necessary, because the 8,8 barrel was in two parts; an inner sleeve (Seelenrohr) and an outer jacket (Mantelrohr). They only had to change the "Seelenrohr" if it was necessary.

Helge

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I know about the barrel change but how would you change out the gun? If you had to replace the main weapon? Take off the whole turret? I dont know where but I have seen photos of the Tiger I with the mantlet/ gun combonation removed while the turret is on the tank.

Lewis