Quality of T34/B sights.

[kipanderson]

Hi,

I realise I am in a minority of one in believing some weight should be given to the “2 second rule”, and I am quite relaxed about it. However, someone above has said that I am either “misinterpreting” or “misrepresenting” it. Neither is the case. It would take me hours to find the exact quote from one of my Jane’s magazines, I know, I once had to find one to do with the Soviet K5 armour, however, I do have the exact reference to the quote from the guys at Shrivenham.

The following quote comes from Fighting Vehicles, ISBN 0-08-036704-6, 1991, a textbook written by the staff at the Royal Military College of Science, Shrivenham for use by visiting service personal attending course at the college.

“It is always difficult to be specific about the ranges that should be considered “short” or “long”, but as a rough guide, for tank engagements, 0-1000m is defined as short range, 1000-2000m as medium range and 2000-4000m as long range.”

How one “backward converts” the above opinion from modern 120mm, laser FCS to 75-88mm, WW2 sights is anyone’s guess. I gave my effort in a post above. However, when it comes to the meaning of the above quote there is no mistaking what was meant. It is not taken out of context; the guy who wrote it means what everyone reading this post will have understood by it. You may disagree with the opinion in quote but I am neither “misinterpreting” nor “misrepresenting” the views of the author.

All the best,

Kip.

[Tero]

>“It is always difficult to be specific about

>the ranges that should be considered “short”

>or “long”, but as a rough guide, for tank

>engagements, 0-1000m is defined as short

>range, 1000-2000m as medium range and

>2000-4000m as long range.”

>

>How one “backward converts” the above

>opinion from modern 120mm, laser FCS to

>75-88mm, WW2 sights is anyone’s guess.

Somehow I can not envisage a tank duel at 1000 meters between two WWII tanks as being fought as a close range knife fight.

One criteria could be the speed of sound. If you can get an aimed shots out and you get one more in the air before the opponent hears the first discharge then it would be close range. At a muzzle velocity of, say, 800mps (and the speed of sound is around 300 mps) that would make the treshold for close range around 400-500 meters with a reload cycle of 2 seconds.

Another criteria could be below the point where your armour simply can not stop the opponents ordnance ie. when the kinetic force alone can hurt you when there has been no slackening of the muzzle velocity over distance. If you pit a T-34 against a Tiger the treshold would be under 300 meters, or thereabouts.

[Jeff Duquette]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Grisha Said: Interesting post. So, in WWII tank gunners had only hi-magnification? That must've been rough when sweeping across the landscape for targets. You'd probably want really tight gunner-commander teams.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I guess it depends on your perspective. Most British ARMY and US ARMY gunners sights were power 1.44X or 1.9X, although some of the later war Allied scopes like the 17-pdr's and later versions of the 6-pdr were 3X scopes. Early war US ARMY gunner sights for the Stuart and Sherman were 1.44X. All single magnification optics.

As I recall the M1A1 GAS has two possible settings one is 5X and the other is 10X (I think)? Someone can look up the real numbers, but magnification settings are about in that realm. Anyway the duel setting is quite handy.

Most of the German tanks the British were facing in N. Africa were equipped with 2.5X sights.

Guess which WWII tanks had duel settings for their gunners sights.

[offtaskagain]

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

I guess it depends on your perspective. Most British ARMY and US ARMY gunners sights were power 1.44X or 1.9X, although some of the later war Allied scopes like the 17-pdr's and later versions of the 6-pdr were 3X scopes. Early war US ARMY gunner sights for the Stuart and Sherman were 1.44X. All single magnification optics.

As I recall the M1A1 GAS has two possible settings one is 5X and the other is 10X (I think)? Someone can look up the real numbers, but magnification settings are about in that realm. Anyway the duel setting is quite handy.

Most of the German tanks the British were facing in N. Africa were equipped with 2.5X sights.

Guess which WWII tanks had duel settings for their gunners sights.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

For those of you who have played Panzer Elite, those zoomable German sights can make all of the difference in an engagement at more than 500 meters. I believe the German sights go from 2.5x to 5x. The range ability is much better than Americans too. They show American sights as basically a vertical bar with horizontal dashes for ranges which you are supposed to put on the target if its that range. It's kind of hard to do at first. The Germans also have a little 3 mil triangle for sizing up the target to help gauge range before the shot. Anybody know if all this stuff from another game is realistic?

[ASL Veteran]

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

The following quote comes from Fighting Vehicles, ISBN 0-08-036704-6, 1991, a textbook written by the staff at the Royal Military College of Science, Shrivenham for use by visiting service personal attending course at the college.

“It is always difficult to be specific about the ranges that should be considered “short” or “long”, but as a rough guide, for tank engagements, 0-1000m is defined as short range, 1000-2000m as medium range and 2000-4000m as long range.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'm curious Kip, because when you compare modern to modern your two sources seem to be in conflict. The general guide gives a long range rating of 2000 - 4000m, but when you calculated the two second rule for a modern gun you got an extreme long range of 3200m (considerably shorter than 4000m). I believe that this discrepancy should be addressed before attempting to correlate the two second rule to the general guide using a calculation designed make it backward compatible with WW2 tank guns.

[Battlefront.com]

Hi all,

Just a couple of quick comments...

1. Yup, we are going to look into optics for CM2.

2. Nope, we are making absolutely no presumptions about what is what. Except that we do not believe, at least as a rule, that Soviet optics were inferior when coupled with the rest of the FCS compared to the German vehicles. It might be that this is indeed the case for X vehicle compared to Y, but we do not feel it is equal for all Soviet vehicles compared to all German ones in all conditions all the time. That is the common stereotype we wish to move past.

3. Yup, this is going to be a really difficult thing to do. Possibly impossible. As we ourselves have said, and has been said again here, it is something that is not easily quantifiable (technically, impossible to quantify). If we get through the preliminary research and don't feel there is a big enough, obvious enough, difference between the various systems as it applies to a CM type battle we will drop it and move on to something else.

4. Both Robert Livingston and Lorrin Bird were, belatedly, given a special credit in the Combat Mission manual. We normally don't give credits out for sources, so following that rule they weren't in the original manual printing. However, after consideration we decided that Robert's help via email went beyond the call of duty. So the credits are there now and have been for something like 6 months

Now... how are we going to tell the difference between what this or that optics system was in terms of "quality"? We are going to lay out a spreadsheet and determine what are the most important tangible factors that make a gun sight "good" or "bad". One factor would be magnification options, another would be field of view. Jeff already touched on why these are important.

We don't know exactly what we will look at (we aren't doing this for a couple of months ), but when all is said and done we hope to see some sort of data set that we can put into the model. The results might be lower/higher first shot accuracy, worse/better target acquisition times, positive/negative modifier for poor weather conditions, etc. etc.

We really can't say for sure how this stuff will shake out. All we know is that there is at least enough doubt about optics parity that we must try to do somefink to figure out what is what But like I said, we will not, under any circumstances, simply assign an arbitrary "Germans shoot better than Soviets" type bonus arrangement. That goes against everything we have tried to build into CM. If there isn't enough evidence to support a difference, or at least not to the degree that we can model, then there will be no special treatment of optics in CMBB as there was none in CMBO.

Thanks,

Steve

[ 06-20-2001: Message edited by: Big Time Software ]

[kipanderson]

ASL Vetran, hi,

Basically I agree with the point you are making in the sense that the two second rule from the Jane’s article and the Shrivenham stuff are not the exact same, and importantly, the authors clearly only regard them as a “very rough guide”. If you look at the quote from the Shrivenham book the guy is very open about the fact that it is only a rough guide.

However, even if you take the larger figure as given by the Shrivenham book and make only the most straightforward adjustment back to WW2, in regard of muzzle velocity, you still have to halve the Shrivenham ranges. Lets go straight to the heart of what some are saying. If you assume the firing tank is a Tiger 1, muzzle velocity 773mps or 800mps, depending on source, then one would still expect its maximum range to be 2000m, not 2,500m or 3,000m. Importantly, even a maximum range of 2000m assumes it had a modern laser FCS. Clearly a WW2 FCS was not as good at long range as a modern FCS using lasers. I admitted in one of posts that I have no idea what the adjustment should be for going from a modern FCS back to WW2. My guess, and it is only that, a guess, is that one should knock 20% off. May be it should be 10%, may be 25%, I do not claim to know. Anyway, it will further reduce the maximum range to something under 2000m.

The view of the Jane’s journalist and the staff at Shrivenham is clearly that once a shell has been in the air for two seconds it is struggling to hit what it was aimed at, by the standards required for tank engagements. If this is true for modern FCS then it must also be true for more primitive WW2 fire control systems.

The “reports from troops” in all those stunning Jentz books clearly are not a pack of lies. I am not saying they are. However, given that there is a clear conflict between the “impression” given by many of those reports and what I read in modern textbooks and Jane’s journals about the real world abilities of modern tank guns I tend to go with the Shrivenham view of these things. I do fully believe those long-range hits by Tiger 1s happened, but far more rarely and after firing more rounds than the “reports from troops” would imply.

It is human nature that we will not all reach the same conclusion from a given bit of evidence. As I explained before I have come across this previously when one of the other Shrivenham textbooks, on small arms, makes it clear that the difference in practical, real world, firepower between the US 1919A4 and the MG42 should not be as much as in CMBO. This is due to heat, even taking into account a spare barrel for the MG42. However, this does not put me off CMBO one bit. I never think about it. Its Steve’s game and he is the boss. Military history fans such as us will always disagree.

All the best,

Kip.

PS. On all matters Steve and Charles will come up with something reasonable to all the evidence. But I do not expect to agree with every tiny judgement they make.

[kipanderson]

Steve,

Thanks for the taking the time to explain how you are going to handle things.

If the result comes even close to the very clever way you are going to handle human wave/assault then all will be happy. What I read in the Gamespot article was hugely impressive on all counts.

As I say you lot deserve to become rich, and being the “absolute number one” even in a niche market, you probably will.

All the best,

Kip.

[Battlefront.com]

Hi Kip,

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> However, given that there is a clear conflict between the “impression” given by many of those reports and what I read in modern textbooks and Jane’s journals about the real world abilities of modern tank guns I tend to go with the Shrivenham view of these things.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, as a rough rule of thumb, I guess we do too. Sure, the max range of something like an 88 was 4000-5000 meters, but was that a practical max range (number of rounds used, number or situations where it can be replicated, etc.) or is it the type of "outlier" that generally gets covered out of perspective of how often it happened. We think of long range plinking as being the exception, not the rule. And anybody that cares to go back to the earlier discussions about this will see why

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I do fully believe those long-range hits by Tiger 1s happened, but far more rarely and after firing more rounds than the “reports from troops” would imply.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

One thing that is frustrating is that very rarely are the number of rounds fired actually noted. Often you see things "after a couple of rounds x got a hit" or more commonly "x hit y at 4000m" with NO mention of how many shots were fired.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>It is human nature that we will not all reach the same conclusion from a given bit of evidence.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Very true. It is also very true that depending on what one factors in, and how it is factored in, will also greatly influence the conclusion from the same "evidence". See your example below

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>As I explained before I have come across this previously when one of the other Shrivenham textbooks, on small arms, makes it clear that the difference in practical, real world, firepower between the US 1919A4 and the MG42 should not be as much as in CMBO.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, I think there are plenty of sources that state quite clearly that the US MGs were too low in terms of RoF, and the MG42 too high. If you look at current MGs you will see that most fall in the range of 600-700 rounds per minute, not the 500 of the US .30cal of WWII or the 1000-1200 of the MG42. So all else being equal, I think it can be said that the M1919A4 had room for improvement upwards and the MG42 was simply overkill (which causes a seperate set of problems, like ammo consumption).

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>This is due to heat, even taking into account a spare barrel for the MG42.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Ah... but does it take into consideration the differences between the tripod and optics? Remember that CM Firepower also is a function of accuracy. If you have ever seen a MG42 on a tripod and a US .30cal fire the difference is very clear. The US gun "jumps" and the MG42 does not. Seen it myself I for one find it hard to believe that there is NO noticable difference between the two.

BTW, if there was "no real difference" then why did the US intelligence reports LIE about the effectiveness of the gun? What I mean by that is on the one hand there is a report stating that the MG42 was not to be feared (har-har...) and on the other hand the US Army made a special training movie to help troops get over their fear of this SPECIFIC weapon. Since CM Firepower also simulates suppressive effects, I think there is yet another argument in favor of the MG42 being higher than the M1919A4

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>However, this does not put me off CMBO one bit. I never think about it. Its Steve’s game and he is the boss. Military history fans such as us will always disagree.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yup. Few things in this world are Black & White, Right & Wrong. Optics are definitely one of the more "Gray" things we have to deal with.

Steve

[ 06-20-2001: Message edited by: Big Time Software ]

[aka_tom_w]

WOW

GREAT

Thanks to Steve and BTS for keeping an open mind about optics in CM2.

Everything I've read so far inspires major confidence.

Keep up the good work!

AND

Well.... Yes I still prefer to play the Allies, and will likely prefer the Russians in CM2 but I REALLY do believe the Germans had better optics and I hope that good solid research will reveal a palatable way to model this advantage for some German weapons in the game that deserve to be recognized for their exceptional accuracy at long range (The 88mm of course comes to mind first).

I may not post to this thread much because I know nothing about Russian optics but I read every post and am Thrilled that Steve is reading and posting!

-tom w

[kipanderson]

Steve, hi,

Thanks again for the time you put aside to answer.

Just one quick point and I will leave you alone to get on with your work.

I do not think I ever said there was “no real difference” between the firepower of the M1919A4 and the MG42. At least I think I did not. I will just quickly “put my money where my mouth is” and give the figures I believe the MG42 should have.

At point blank the M1919A gets about 85 firepower, the MG42 about 155 firepower, I think. From my reading about 125 firepower at point blank for the MG42 would be about it, given the 85 for the M1919A4. But with the advantage to the MG42 opening up with range for the reasons you give.

I agree with 90% of what you say about the two guns and modern trends.

All the best

Kip.

[Stalin's Organ]

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

BTW, if there was "no real difference" then why did the US intelligence reports LIE about the effectiveness of the gun? What I mean by that is on the one hand there is a report stating that the MG42 was not to be feared (har-har...) and on the other hand the US Army made a special training movie to help troops get over their fear of this SPECIFIC weapon.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I don't see anything inconsistant in this. There's often a difference betweeen perception and reality. The troops may well perceive the MG42 as a fearsome weapon due to it's RoF, while the brass may have assessed it as not so fearsome and so produce the movie as education.

I'm not saying they're necessarily right - personally I fear anything that shoots metal at high velocity and yuo're not going to convince me otherwise, regardless of rof!

[gunnergoz]

In part, the film about the MG42 and other German weapons that the US Army produced was the result of the rumors and panic that set in after the first American Army troops got their baptism of fire in North Africa (remember Kasserine?)

Troops convalescing in the US after suffering wounds and reporters talking to troops still overseas spread rumors of German weapon lethality. Don't forget that until their first battles, US troops were very inculcated with the ideas (some faulty some true) that their weapons were THE BEST IN THE WORLD. This was part propaganda and part wishful thinking on the part of US leaders. Actually, no one knew how these US weapons and tactics would actually work until they were tried out in combat.

Thanks to the GI Rumor Mill, we have the legendary 88 (every German gun was one, you know), the MG 42 (cuts a man in half before he even knows it), the Nebelwerfer (Screamin' Meemie, calculated to drive you into instant shell-shock), the "invincible" Tiger (again, every German tank from then on was "an 88-armed Tiger"), the Focke-Wulf (knocks down P-40's without a breaking into a sweat) and so on.

I don't think that this was confined to US troops, it's probably only human to consider your adversary a bit larger than life if he's just given you a good drubbing.

The best part (for the Yanks) was their adaptability and determination. They never let battlefield bloody noses stop them from devising new methods and then coming up for a second round in the fight.

Looking at it from the point of US Army leadership, they had to produce training films that would realistically confront soldier's fears about the enemy UberWeapons, including tactics to defeat the weapons with the tools the GI's were trained with.

Like most of us, I wouldn't have wanted to face that MG42 myself, but knowing what it was and could do was essential if solders were to overcome their fears and get on with the business of war.

[Matthew_Ridgeway]

I am guessing that the 2-second rule may be related to first round hit probability. Ranges beyond 1000 meters for 1943 – 1945ish weapons typically involved bracketing ones target with successive long and short rounds until a gunner was able to hone the initial range estimation down toward actual range to target.

There is a certain amount of apples and oranges being mixed with regard to laser range finders and the ability of tanks to hit targets at such and such a range. Obviously a laser range finder does a very efficient job of getting an accurate range to target. No mystery here. However, all the accuracy in the world in range estimation will not help an inherently inaccurate weapon hit its target.

Inherent accuracy of a weapon is to a very large degree a function of systematic dispersion. If a number of rounds of ammunition of the same caliber, lot, and charge are fired from the same position with identical settings, the rounds will not all impact on a single point but will fall in a scattered pattern around the aiming point. Typically firing tables will establish lateral and vertical dispersion relative to range. This is true of US ARMY firing tables, German Army Tables, British tables and Red Army tables. They all work from the same basic sheet of notes. Dispersion is determined on a firing range. Fire numerous rounds at a target at various ranges and determine size of the shot pattern.

If systematic dispersion gets big enough relative to range, than you can assume a gunner will not have much chance of success via aimed fire. He may beat the odds with a lucky shot, but such a shot would have little to do with the gunners aiming skills, or optics (5X or 10X or 50X) or laser range finders.

The FLAK 88 firing Pz.gr. (MV = 810 m/s) @ 1500 meters range has the following 50% zone: 1.1m height and 0.6m width (firing table from TM E9-369A). That’s a relatively tight dispersal pattern if one considers a tank sized target like a head-on Sherman M4A1's dimensions are approx. 2.7m high and 2.65m wide. This implies that a fair amount of slop can occur in aim and range estimation and a gunner will still have a reasonable chance of hitting his mark.

Firing tables are not irrelevant to a discussion on accuracy. I guess I would have to ask how are accuracy functions for any weapon determined without them? An artillerist relies heavily on firing tables in order to determine:

Elevations of round relative to range (one has to shot over intervening terrain at times)

Fork

Time of flight

Fuze settings

Size of impact pattern relative to range (dispersion\probable error)

Adjustment in range for tail wind, head wind, cross wind

Etc.

He doesn’t simply cast this stuff aside because someone thinks “training” isn’t like “combat”.

[Battlefront.com]

Hi Kip,

OK, misread your statement about the difference between the MGs. But also like you say, there is room for opinion here

Gunnergoz wrote:

"Like most of us, I wouldn't have wanted to face that MG42 myself, but knowing what it was and could do was essential if solders were to overcome their fears and get on with the business of war."

Oh, I agree. But writing something like this:

"Although the German machine gun is first-rate as to fire power, its dispersion is poor. One of my friends had so much confidence in his abiilty to get away from it that on one occasion he made a successful dash for safety, and then turned around and and got the mchine gunner with rifle fire"

"Their light machine gun fire is harassing as hell, but I don't think much about its accuracy... [by crawling on your belly] It's true that a man can dodge fire in this manner"

This was quoted from a December 1943 issue of the US Army's "Intelligence Bulletin". Anybody else think the interviewers selected quotes from macho, over-acheivers/braggers with a little bit more than a sense of self confidence? Sorry, but I am not convinced that the MG42 was either inaccurate or easy to dodge/crawl towards like this report is claiming. Not just because I have seen this and Allied MGs fired in person, but because first hand accounts always speak very highly of German MG fire as being both accurate and highly effective. These quotes above make it sound like the Germans might as well have been chucking rocks instead of using MGs.

I look at something like this and smell "propaganda" instead of objective study. And the former rarely helps out the individual soldier. "Hey Sarge, I read that all I need to do is just run a little faster and that Kraut won't be able to hit me. [getting ready to sprint from cover]See ya in Berlin!! [dddddddddd] Oooph, argh...."

Mathew_Ridgeway:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>He doesn’t simply cast this stuff aside because someone thinks “training” isn’t like “combat”. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, we don't cast it aside either. However, we don't take it as literal gospel either. These are "standards" and they should be evaluated as such by comparing the results in the game to them and seeing if they are reasonably close. We have done this far more times than I care to recall

"Lab tests" do have importance, but they are also not based on real world combat results. They are too divorced from battlefield reality to be able to claim this. So you will never convince us (and we are CERTAINLY not alone here) that the two are absolutely, without question, the same. They *might* be, of course, but under what circumstances?

The problem here is that it is very difficult to seperate any one part of the gun platform and say "ahh.... this does this and that only, but not this or that other stuff". A firing system in a tank, for example, is made up of many componants. The optics are certainly an important part, but in our opinion far less important than the gun itself. You can have a sight that can see the nuts on a fly at 4000 meters in the dark, but if you have a gun that fires a light round with a muzzle velocity of 200 fps, what are the chances you are going to hit it on your first shot? It might be possible to have a sight which is "terrible" at long range, but since the gun is also "not good" at the same range, what negative impact does the sight have at this range? Probably not much.

The point here is that it is VERY difficult to determine what effects an optical system has on the accuracy, target aquisition process, follow up shot observation, etc. for a given platform. It is even worse when trying to compare different systems together without eliminating variables.

For example, if one could fire a US 76mm gun with its intended sighting system and a German system under the *same exact conditions and level of gunner experience* then we could start to get an idea about how the two differ. But trying to compare apples to oranges, like a gun in a US M4A4E8 and one in a Panther G is scientifically impossible to do. Looking at the results of a shot, even when conducted under the same exact conditions (which these tests are not assured to be doing), doesn't tell you the reasons WHY that shot wound up where it did. You might say "it is obviously the optics" and we might say "it is obviously the gun" and someone migth say "it depends on the day of the week and if the gunner had two or three cups of coffee"

Yup, this is a tough one

Steve

[ 06-21-2001: Message edited by: Big Time Software ]

[Tero]

Can the construction of the different gun mounts be measured quantifiably to ascertain how it affected the accuracy ? Are there any (seemingly) unrelated factors that come into play here ? For example the quality of the steel, the design desicions made that directed the construction, shock absorbion gear in the vehicles running gear and the gun mount etc.

Other factors: things like symphatetic vibration caused by the platform, the mount itself during the actual firing etc. Also such seemingly self evident things like alignment of the sight and the gun come to play. How much did the recoil upset the aiming (and possibly even the alignment), was there much need to adjust the aiming after firing so that the time between aimed shots would increase dramatically ?

All the elements would seem to indicate that the differces in the optics were not as critical as the the quality of the mount and how the sight acted in relation to the gun when the gun was being fired (eventhough the Finnish tankers were of the opinion that the Soviet optics were of much poorer quality than the German optics).

[Mr. Johnson--]

Excatly what I've been saying all along.

All of us wargamers should pool our money together and buy an island. Set up factories that build tanks, guns, and ammo. We could spend the rest of our lives playing wargames and testing out WW2 equipment.

It would be heaven.

[Ari Maenpaa]

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

The Finnish army operated both the T-34 and the Stug-III during WWII. The tankers rated the Stug ahead of the T-34 (both the 76 and the 85mm variant) because

- the German optics were better

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I have told this earlier, but lieutenant-colonel Pekka Kantakoski (the writer of 'Red tanks - Red Army armoured forces 1918-1945', in Finnish only) makes a very interesting point about the LOOKOUT equipment in the German Stu-40 (Stug III) assault guns. According to him the equipment was the best he has ever used, even better than that in the much later T-72M1 tank !!

Ari

[Tero]

>I have told this earlier, but

>lieutenant-colonel Pekka Kantakoski (the

>writer of 'Red tanks - Red Army armoured

>forces 1918-1945', in Finnish only) makes a

>very interesting point about the LOOKOUT

>equipment in the German Stu-40 (Stug III)

>assault guns. According to him the equipment

>was the best he has ever used, even better

>than that in the much later T-72M1 tank !!

You mean being able to having better visibility while buttoned up ? That is true.

IIRC our guys modified at least one T-34/76 -43 by installing some extra periscopes on turret roof to improve visibility to the sides. Or was it one of the KV's ? I think a trip to the Parola tank museum is in order.

[Ari Maenpaa]

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

You mean being able to having better visibility while buttoned up ? That is true.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yep. That's how I understood it.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> I think a trip to the Parola tank museum is in order. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yep again I'm going to visit there this summer. Probably in late July.

IIRC couple of years ago there was an intention to acquire IS-2 tank from Poland to Parola museum, but I'm not sure if that ever materialized. Do You happen to know anything about it? It would be nice to make a close check out on that "monster".

Ari

[ 06-21-2001: Message edited by: Ari Maenpaa ]

[rexford]

Ridgeway's point is well taken and summarizes the two second rule business, tanks don't have much chance to hit on the first shot at 2 seconds flight time, and that is why bracketting is taught. With bracketing hits at 2500m will take several shots but they may come given overall weapon stability. It takes good sights to hit at 2500m, especially in overcast conditions without bright light.

As was noted in a previous post, naval guns hit at far beyond 2 second flight time, try 30 seconds! But they use bracketing, and it would be interesting to read whether that 2 second rule considered bracketting.

It is also difficult to face all that has been said about German optics superiority and deny its existence. While American tanker comparison in Europe hits on same conclusion as scientific fact (German sights better in low light conditions), and suggests that they tested under similar conditions, there is so much other anecdotal and published report data.

Regarding the "how do we quantify gun sight advantages when it is basically unquantificable", BTS answered that. It is the same as hit % diff between 88L71 and 50L60, and between elite and average: think about how it would impact the results and how it fits into game system and input a modifier based on overall consideration.

If better German sights are more effective during an overcast, they would boost hit %, as would the tiny little triangles for range estimation. But maybe it would be better to decrease % for sights that are inferior.

Since CM does not use trajectory analysis and range estimation models for hit probability, results are not based on equations. So gun sight modifiers would fit in with everything else based on consideration of overall factors, wouldn't they?

Does the opposition to German optics quality input into game mechanisms sound a little like a fear that the panzers will fight more effectively?

[Slapdragon]

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

Ridgeway's point is well taken and summarizes the two second rule business, tanks don't have much chance to hit on the first shot at 2 seconds flight time, and that is why bracketting is taught. With bracketing hits at 2500m will take several shots but they may come given overall weapon stability. It takes good sights to hit at 2500m, especially in overcast conditions without bright light.

As was noted in a previous post, naval guns hit at far beyond 2 second flight time, try 30 seconds! But they use bracketing, and it would be interesting to read whether that 2 second rule considered bracketting.

It is also difficult to face all that has been said about German optics superiority and deny its existence. While American tanker comparison in Europe hits on same conclusion as scientific fact (German sights better in low light conditions), and suggests that they tested under similar conditions, there is so much other anecdotal and published report data.

Regarding the "how do we quantify gun sight advantages when it is basically unquantificable", BTS answered that. It is the same as hit % diff between 88L71 and 50L60, and between elite and average: think about how it would impact the results and how it fits into game system and input a modifier based on overall consideration.

If better German sights are more effective during an overcast, they would boost hit %, as would the tiny little triangles for range estimation. But maybe it would be better to decrease % for sights that are inferior.

Since CM does not use trajectory analysis and range estimation models for hit probability, results are not based on equations. So gun sight modifiers would fit in with everything else based on consideration of overall factors, wouldn't they?

Does the opposition to German optics quality input into game mechanisms sound a little like a fear that the panzers will fight more effectively?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

More likely, a fear of pulling figures from asses and trying to figure what percentage of reality does this change. Even today, the science of optics is a sore subject in visual sciences. Ready for some firece debate, go and drop into the Usenet Alt on shooting, and ask what is scientifically the best scope for long, medium, and short range shooting, for snap shooting or aimed ambush fire, for retargeting or second shot return, etc. The scope manufacturers and shooters generate dozens of optical statistics that turn out to be of little help in determining the utility of a scope.

For example, the finest ground glass in the world, if married to a tube that allows moisture in, will reduce accuracy during large temperature swings, or will allow frost to build up inside the mechanism. A tube that is not strong can deform on hot days, but a compsoite tube can be designed to avoid this, despite technically being less strong. This is not even scratching the surface of variables for scope mounts on hand weapons, which can include color of glass (affecting recognition), side versus center deformation (affecting acquisition), glass grain (affecting spotting of small objects), etc.

Now it is applied to firing. Say your game has a hundred step to hit range, with the closer you get to zero being less chance to hit, and the closer you get to 100 being more chance to hit. This is not as satisfactory as a ballistics model, but it is useful because much of a ballistic model would be pulled out of the air and no more reflective of reality than this one (although if this were a WWIII game then it would be easier to do since data for modern weapons is much more extensive). Also, you assume a center of mass shot and accuracy affects where the shot lands on the target.

You then have variables affect the shot. Crew quality is pulled from the air, but since it is a known variable that causes great affect on the battlefield, and since it is a range that affects both sides equally, it is not usually a point of argument. There is lots of data, both in shooting and in tank warfare, supporting and defining the affects of atmospherics. The same goes for tank movement, gyrostabilizers, and multiple shot bonuses.

But then you get to optics. We know that very very bad optics will change things just like atmospheric visibility, but what about an optic that has edge distorition problems but is otherwise fine, assuming that we could find that data. What about the optical characterics of tanks which no datum has ever been developed, does it get a default average? And if we accept edge distortion and assign it some sort of rating (good, bad, etc) how much affect in 100 steps did that have on the shoot? What BTS is saying is that urban rumors are out, lets use real data even if it has to be cobbled into a system by eye, and in this situation we are always left with, "German have better sights" reason given "Joe Fart, a cook in the 27th Field Kitchen, once looked through one and thought they were cool."

I do not think BTS is abandoning sighting all together, just requiring some method behind the madness. Perhaps they will find multiple sources that say the T-2000 tank had sights made from squirrel fur," and will thus be able to apply a reasoned penalty to that vehicle.

For those who feel German tanks are under modelled and want to play more ubertanks, choose veteran or even elite tanks instead of regulars in scenario design and QBs. Then your tanks shoot better than the other guys, and the point system is not broken, the higher quality of your fighting ability is reflected in the points value you pay.

This is very important because if BTS added every bonue peopel argue German tanks had (lets see, sights, national bonus, racial bonus, ammunition, well, we could argue commanders seat comfort, underwear quality and others) then a Tiger would cost 3000 points and everyone would be unhappy because no one ever got to see one in battle. It would, however, simulate a Tiger from comic books and more match urban legend, possibly giving many a more satisfying game, but why not use a mechanism already built into the game to get the same results.

[Tero]

>As was noted in a previous post, naval guns

>hit at far beyond 2 second flight time, try

>30 seconds!

Whatever it takes for the shell to travel some 20+ kilometers. With no radar fire control mind you.

>But they use bracketing, and it would be

>interesting to read whether that 2 second

>rule considered bracketting.

They also fired salvos from multiple guns making spotting the splashes that much easier as the groupings were easier to spot. IIRC the Japanese even used something to colour the splases so each ship could ID where its salvos hit if many ships engaged the same target.

>It is also difficult to face all that has

>been said about German optics superiority

>and deny its existence. While American

>tanker comparison in Europe hits on same

>conclusion as scientific fact (German sights

>better in low light conditions), and

>suggests that they tested under similar

>conditions, there is so much other anecdotal

>and published report data.

Why do you think the loss figures for Allied armour have been so elusive and contradictory ?

>Regarding the "how do we quantify gun sight

>advantages when it is basically

>unquantificable", BTS answered that. It is

>the same as hit % diff between 88L71 and

>50L60, and between elite and average: think

>about how it would impact the results and

>how it fits into game system and input a

>modifier based on overall consideration.

Furthermore: how should it affect the first shot hit propability ?

>If better German sights are more effective

>during an overcast, they would boost hit %,

>as would the tiny little triangles for range

>estimation. But maybe it would be better to

>decrease % for sights that are inferior.

I think it would be more appropriate to examine the differences in crew training and go from there. Was there any differences in the gunnery training of the different armies ? I am sure the training manuals reveal the methods each country deviced to utilize the optics they had at hand.

>Since CM does not use trajectory analysis

>and range estimation models for hit

>probability, results are not based on

>equations. So gun sight modifiers would fit

>in with everything else based on

>consideration of overall factors, wouldn't

>they?

Hmmmmmmm.... the modifier we are discussing here is moving very close to the "national bias" modifier BTS is so vehemently opposed to because it implies inherent superiority of soldiers a nation over those of another nation. There has to be a mechanical, quantifiable solution to this or all hell brakes loose if the flood gates are opened...

>Does the opposition to German optics quality

>input into game mechanisms sound a little

>like a fear that the panzers will fight more

>effectively?

Look at it this way: if the problem can be solved easily for CM2 how long would it take for people to start demanding the modification be implemented to CM ?

BTS dug its heels deep into the ground in the western front. They have to keep their guard up or they will get one in the chin if it turns out their reasoning has been motivated be a "national bias" in favour of the western Allies.

[aka_tom_w]

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

Does the opposition to German optics quality input into game mechanisms sound a little like a fear that the panzers will fight more effectively?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

HELL NO!

We would not want that

" sound a little like a fear that the panzers will fight more effectively?"

Next thing you know we'll be labeled Nazi sympathizers and German tank superiority worshipping sycophants.

(Just joking!)

I think Slapdragon's post captures the spirit of the debate quite well.

But what I would like to know is where can we find reliable accurate historical data on WWII gunnery optics, the last time this came up in GREAT optics debate for the inclusion of superior German gunnery optics to be modeled in CMBO, I thought we all (or at Least BTS and Steve) came to the conclusion that no such reliable source or research or data on optics in WWII tank gunnery could be found?

But lets keep looking anyway

-tom w

[Andreas]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Ari Maenpaa:

I have told this earlier, but lieutenant-colonel Pekka Kantakoski (the writer of 'Red tanks - Red Army armoured forces 1918-1945', in Finnish only) makes a very interesting point about the LOOKOUT equipment in the German Stu-40 (Stug III) assault guns. According to him the equipment was the best he has ever used, even better than that in the much later T-72M1 tank !!

Ari<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yep - but that is Sfz 14 or whatever the real name of the Scherenfernrohr was and not your bog-standard tank gunner optics, and IIRC there is no conclusive evidence (although Jeff Duquette dug out some pictuers) that this was in widespread use on tanks, as opposed to Stugs (which were part of the Artillery). Newcomers to the optics debate can go either to the orginal thread (somewhere around post 550) or through Der Kessel to the site where I have some pictures by my grandfather, where I have a picture taken through his Sfz14.

So this does not really have a bearing on the general debate about optics, although it may give food for thought re: optics on Stugs.

Sfz14 was a special issue to artillery observers. My grandfather's voice still goes reverend when he talks about it.