(Still) problems with Tungsten ?? story inside

[Monty]

In a PBEM battle i have, this occured in the last turn

2 x M18 Hellcat ( Regular both ) are facing a Tiger ? at 590 meter.

The Tiger ? is at a small hill.

Both Hellcats have LOS on the enemy vehicle ( Red line )

Hellcat nr. 1 has this LOS : Hit : 22 %, Kill : Good Hull down.

Hellcat nr. 2 has this LOS : Hit: 11 %, Kill: Good Hull down

Hellcat nr. 1 has 26 Armor Piercing shells and 3 Tungsten shells

Hellcat nr. 2 has 28 Armor Piercing shells

Ok, now read and weap:

Hellcat 2 fires an AP shell, miss.

Tiger ? fires and miss.

Hellcat 1 fires an AP shell and miss.

Hellcat 2 fires an AP shell and miss.

Hellcat 1 fires an AP shell and miss.

Tiger ? fires and miss.

Hellcat 2 fires an AP shell and miss.

Hellcat 1 fires an AP shell, front turret hit, shell broke up.

Tiger ? fires, front turret penetration of Hellcat 2, knocked out.

Hellcat 1 fires an AP shell ( grrrrrr ),front turret hit, shell broke up.

Tiger ? fires, miss.

Hellcat 1 fires an AP shell ( doh ! ), upper hull hit, shell broke up.

Tiger ? fires and miss.

Hellcat 1 fires an AP shell ( no !!! why !!! ) , miss.

Turn over.

Now is my question: I thought with version 1.12 , this problems were solved ?

I can image the Hellcat nr. 1 waits for the first hit to see if an AP is sufficient.

But waiting for 3 hits is a bit dangerous i think.................

I can use any info about this in general or about my specific case.

Monty aka Moose

[Monty]

btw, all tanks are NOT moving during the whole turn.

Monty aka Moose

[Gyrene]

The Tungsten and 105mm "C" charge no-can-shoot bugs are caused by faulty nVidia drivers.

Gyrene

[Monty]

Any serious replies ?

[FFE]

The problem lies with ammo consumption and its corresponding usage via a ratio against total ammo carried. Your Hellcats, for all intent and purposes, were firing at an armored vehicle. The game engine does not provide an internal-loop feedback so it has no conception of what the last shelled fired achieved. The Hellcat fired the more plentiful ammo at an armored target. I suppose 1.12 loosened the ratio requirements for the firing of special rounds; but when a Hellcat is at near full or full ammo capacity the probability of a special round being used is near null.

As a whole this limitation hurts the Allied side far more than the Axis side. Many US-Commonwealth vehicles have a limited number of special rounds when compared to their total ammount of HE. If their total HE is exceedingly high compared to the number of hollow rounds then HE will be fired even at armored vehicles. The game also permits AP rounds to be fired at soft targets. This is not historical. If anyone can point to a single source clearly exemplifying AP rounds being intentionally fired at a soft target, I would greatly like to read it. AP round expenditure at soft targets was generally done to quickly clear the tube. The mid-44 Commonwealth Fireflies suffer immensely from this limitation since they do not enjoy HE rounds at all.

A gamey way to defeat these limitations is to expend large amounts of ammo early in the game. I often use large Sherman formations to create stop gap smoke screens simply to prevent the Sherman from using these rounds later in the fight. 95mm Cromwells/Churchills with several hollow rounds are often found to be blowing up entire city blocks to lower their HE vs. C round ratio. I know this is a ‘tad’ gamey, but when the game engine itself is the limiting factor I do not feel so bad about wasting ammo. It is fun watching a Churchill VIII put a 95mm HE round through the side of a Panther. Luckily for the Allies the Axis did not import Finnish Tankers.

[Vanir Ausf B]

The reason your M18s did not fire tungsten is because regular AP can penetrate the Tiger sometimes. And that's the problem. The way the TacAI works, if there is even a small chance regular AP will work, even if it is fairly unlikely, it will not use tungsten.

This is also true of the use of HEAT rounds. Run a test with a 105mm armed Sherman against a Mk IV. The 105 HE can only penetrate frontally through the turret, but that's good enough for the TacAI, which will not use HEAT.

[Monty]

Thanks for the answers.

Maybe there could be an Tac AI solution this way:

If 2 hits on enemy AFV are not causing a knock-out, they switch automatically to special shells ( if any ) ?

I play CM now for 1 year, but its still the best Sim i have ever played

I only have CM, IL-2 and now SH2.

[JasonC]

Your problem is that "?" The tankers will select the right ammo *only* if they have a complete ID of the vehicle they are targeting. No, they do not determine it "empirically" by whether a previous hit failed to penetrate. They do not fire tungsten as a "fall back" if AP does not work. They fire tungsten if an *IDed* target properly calls for it, otherwise they do not. Don't jump the cat until you've IDed the cat. That is the moral of this story.

[ 11-17-2001: Message edited by: JasonC ]</p>

[Slapdragon]

Also, the 76mm on a Hellcat has several ways of defeating even a Tiger at the range you listed, made easier because of the 2 loaders on the Hellcat crew (giving it a maximum ROF of 20 rpm and a realistic ROF of 5-10 RPM) who can overload the larger Tiger with a pounding of shells. Of course, one thing that Cats do not do in the game that was common in real life is to waste T rounds. Cats would often travel with a T up the spout if they expected to face enemy armor. When a dangerous AC or medium showed up, they would fire the battlesight round rather than reloading with a more suitable AP round.