Sd Kfz 7/2 37 mm

[Olle Petersson]

Originally posted by Barleyman:

IMHO, soft vehicles should be extremely vulnerable to long-range MG fire, ...

I beg to differ, but it depends on how you define long range.

Any effect is caused by bullets that hit the driver or vital parts of the vehicle itself. This isn't a very large target area, and at long range the bullets are too thinned out.

Ask any bird hunter about the hit probability of shotguns at long range.

You'll find that at very close range there's always a possibility that the target is out of the bullet stream because the aim is wrong. At medium range the hit rate goes up as the area saturated with bullets increase.

At long range it's more possible that the target pass between the bullets that are too widely scattered.

For regular tripod mounted MGs of ~8mm calibre I'd say the most effective range is less than 1000m.

.50 cals may have a somewhat longer effective range, but only if fired in short bursts with re-aiming between each burst.

Cheers

Olle

[Tanaka]

Originally posted by Olle Petersson:

... Most AP would go straight through and not make any other damage than improved ventilation...

I don't agree with this, doing some unscientific quick thinking... In a frontal shot,when a score is made, the chance of hitting the big engine would be at least 60% and this considering that the shot was fired by a total jerk that aimed to the all of the front. In a lateral shot the chance of hitting something important (engine and big gun) would be at least 40%...

Just remember one thing, in what place did this vehicles store the ammo ?

Another thing, steel starts to melt at more or less 1200º C, don't be near to a 1200º plate of steel, the result could be at minimal a very serious burn, why do you think the zooks were used later against people ?

[This message has been edited by Tanaka (edited 02-14-2001).]

[Barleyman]

Originally posted by Olle Petersson:

I beg to differ, but it depends on how you define long range.

Any effect is caused by bullets that hit the driver or vital parts of the vehicle itself. This isn't a very large target area, and at long range the bullets are too thinned out.

Long range for a mounted MG would be in my opinion between 500m and 1km.

And the case study here was unarmored AAA carrier with a big gun crew, so much of the vehicle silhouette would be vulnerable.

I can see a highway from my office window which is about half a kilometer away - I reckon I could hit any _stationary_ car relatively easy if we'd attach a MG mount to the window. A moving car would most likely get away, but they're doing about 80km/h or much faster than you usually see anyone drive in CM.

Perhaps some live-fire excercises are called for to resolve this issue?

[Olle Petersson]

Originally posted by Tanaka:

In a frontal shot,when a score is made, the chance of hitting the big engine would be at least 60% ...

Where do you find such a huge engine? The engine block and top presents a target area roughly two ft high by one ft wide, since it's positioned along the vehicle axis. (Jeeps have slightly smaller engines and trucks slightly larger.)

The driver presents a much larger target, but still cover less than 1/3 of the cross section.

Just remember one thing, in what place did this vehicles store the ammo ?

Most soft vehicles don't have any ammo. (My original reply was to your suggestion about giving all soft vehicles an armour rating.)

Another thing, steel starts to melt at more or less 1200º C,

Only a problem in case of ammo fire.

why do you think the zooks were used later against people ?

'Cause they carried a mean HE round, comparable to a handgrenade but with better range and accuracy!

Cheers

Olle

[Tanaka]

Originally posted by Olle Petersson:

Where do you find such a huge engine? The engine block and top presents a target area roughly two ft high by one ft wide, since it's positioned along the vehicle axis. (Jeeps have slightly smaller engines and trucks slightly larger.)

When you hit an incoming/stopped/reversing vehicle on a 0º angle 60% of the area is critical hit zone ,(on a SdKfz it is a BIG engine), what do you want to hit, the windscreen ? And remember who is the poor bastard that aims to the windscreen with a c ammo ?

Most soft vehicles don't have any ammo.

The biggest problem in CM with the current patch, is the SdKfz with the quad 20mmm gun and it's very high hit chance, this weapon carries a very big ammo storage. I'm not even talking of gamey recon with this vehicles...

Only a problem in case of ammo fire.

Do you have a steel meal in your town ? If you have, go there using a T-Shirt

Cause they carried a mean HE round, comparable to a handgrenade but with better range and accuracy

Wrong.... They melt the human flesh

[Vanir]

Originally posted by Bullethead:

All in all, I find these things nearly impossible to kill. Smallarms usually has no effect, AP rounds and rockets never seem to touch them, and they ignore being blanketed by 81mm mortars. In fact, it seems to require a near miss by 105mm or larger to knock them out. All very strange considering they are unarmored and have a large crew well exposed passing explosives ammo to the gun.

I did some testing and the bottom line is that there is some truth to this, but it's really not as bad as you say.

Vs. bazookas they were definitely more survivable than a halftrack or medium tank would be. The zook's small blast rating is the reason, according to Tanaka.

81mm mortars did very bad things to the Sd Kfz 7/2. They rarely lasted more than 30 seconds under bombardment. I used some 251/1 halftracks for comparison and they were largely unaffected.

76mm tank guns were pretty effective as well. AT 500m the Sd Kfz 7/2 was usually killed in the first 2 shots and rarely survived a whole turn of firing.

37mm tank guns were much less effective, only killing about 1/2 of the targets at 500m in a single turn of firing. This is the small blast rating again.

BTW, all tanks fired HE and MGs exclusively, no AP.

I tested vs. infantry at 100m. At that range regular US '45 infantry tor them up pretty bad. I did not test at other ranges, nor did I test MGs, though the infantry results suggest MGs should work pretty well.

If you're striving for maximum accuracy I can understand not wanting to see them, but I can't really go along with calling their use in a game cheating. It's true that they are unrealistically resilient against Bazookas and small caliber AT guns, but there are too many other things on the typical CM battlefield that can kill them quite easily: 75mm or larger tank guns, small arms at reasonable ranges, MGs, and any type of arty. The Sd Kfz 7/2 is no uber weapon although I think it should cost more.

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You've never heard music until you've heard the bleating of a gut-shot cesspooler. -Mark IV

[This message has been edited by Vanir (edited 02-14-2001).]

[Olle Petersson]

Originally posted by Vanir:

1) Vs. bazookas they were definitely more survivable than a halftrack or medium tank would be. The zook's small blast rating is the reason, according to Tanaka.

2) 76mm tank guns were pretty effective as well. AT 500m the Sd Kfz 7/2 was usually killed in the first 2 shots and rarely survived a whole turn of firing.

1) This seems fair, since the melted armour adds damage once penetrated, and it also keeps the high pressure in.

The thin hull of soft vehicles doesn't add any appreciative effect, but except for the general HE-effect, the HEAT jet need a direct hit on something vital to do significant damage.

2) Why not test the towed 76mm instead? Any Sherman(76) would use two or three MGs to add damage. Or did you use a tank without MGs?

Tanaka, I'll get back to your last reply later.

Cheers

Olle

[Tanaka]

Originally posted by Vanir:

...It's true that they are unrealistically resilient against Bazookas and small caliber AT guns, but there are too many other things on the typical CM battlefield that can kill them quite easily: 75mm or larger tank guns, small arms at reasonable ranges, MGs, and any type of arty. The Sd Kfz 7/2 is no uber weapon although I think it should cost more.

If you find three or more of them, not close to each other, on a relatively open battlefield, you will at least start thinking that your resources employed to KO them will be very poor employed... To destroy the 3 or more SdKfz you will need at least 3 or more different artillery barrages or well armored tanks, any of these two solutions cost 2 or 3 times more then the problem...

One more thing, do you really think that a well played SdKfz will come closer to your troops, so the small arms fire will start to do some damage on them ? He will start to tear them apart from distance greater then 500m , even at 1000 m they have a much greater chance to hit then any of allied tank weapons, specially if they are using HE ammo...

[Vanir]

Originally posted by Olle Petersson:

2) Why not test the towed 76mm instead? Any Sherman(76) would use two or three MGs to add damage. Or did you use a tank without MGs?

I used regular tanks with MGs. I see your point, but I thought it was better to test against weapons the Sd Kfz was more likely to be engaged by.

Tanaka:

If you find three or more of them, not close to each other, on a relatively open battlefield, you will at least start thinking that your resources employed to KO them will be very poor employed... To destroy the 3 or more SdKfz you will need at least 3 or more different artillery barrages or well armored tanks, any of these two solutions cost 2 or 3 times more then the problem...

Quite true, but the Sd Kfz 7/2 is hardly unique in this. Using an arty barrage to kill any single low value (in terms of point cost) target is not cost effective. A Wespe only costs 10 pts more than the 7/2 and is at least as dangerous to infantry. However, a Wespe is much more difficult to knock out with 81mm, usually requiring more than 1 round of bombardment. Same could be said of 234/3 or 75mm armed halftracks.

One more thing, do you really think that a well played SdKfz will come closer to your troops, so the small arms fire will start to do some damage on them ? He will start to tear them apart from distance greater then 500m , even at 1000 m they have a much greater chance to hit then any of allied tank weapons, specially if they are using HE ammo...

1. I tested against small arms only because Bullethead stated the 7/2 was unaffected by them.

2. I could turn your logic around and argue than because the 7/2 will never get close enough to be engaged by infantry, it will never be engaged by Bazookas either, so its relative immunity from that weapon is irrelivant.

I just reran the 76mm test at 1000m and only 2 out of 9 7/2s survived one turn of firing.

So, the only Allied weapons that the 7/2 is unrealisticly survivable against to any significant degree is the 37mm AT gun and the Bazooka, but the zook doesn't count because you say they will not get close enough to use them anyway. So that leaves us with the 37mm. (Note that I did not test with the 57mm but its blast rating is slightly higher than 81mm mortar so it should work ok.)

Obviously there is quite a bit of room for improvement in this area and I hope BTS looks at this for CM2, but I stand by my statement that the 7/2 is a long way from an uber weapon in CM and its use in a game is not cheating.

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You've never heard music until you've heard the bleating of a gut-shot cesspooler. -Mark IV

[This message has been edited by Vanir (edited 02-15-2001).]

[Tanaka]

Vanir,

Maybe I wasn't that clear...

We have one game limitation, that is the way the game treats unarmored vehicles, but we have different problems created by this...

The problem with zooks is more a problem with the gamey recon. For example a Jeep MG should be easily KO by 10m AT team shot, but it isn't and in the top of all the AT team will be waisted by the .50 fire immediately. I know what I'm talking about, I've had some PBEM adversaries that walked every woods edge with a Jeep MG.

The other problem is the long range engagement of a SdKfz (size 120) 7/1 (with it's quad 20mmm gun) with any armored vehicles with a good AT gun( M18,M8, even the Sherman...). The very good aim of the quad 20mm will score many hits and even if it can't penetrate the armor you are in with a good chance of a gun hit/immobilization... On the other end you are using a more expensive vehicle that in reality could fire a 700m/s AP shot with reasonable chance of hitting (size 120), currently they are incapable of doing this. What they use is the HE ammo, if (and a big if) they have enough HE ammo, what could not be true, specially in the case of TD like M18 and if the battle is not in the beginning.

Any way, I don't call it cheating, I call it exploitation of a game limitation. I can leave with 1 or 2 of this vehicles, but when you see in a 1500pts battle 3 or 4 of them ...

Also is good to notice that BTS have some how put down this problem with the patch 1.11 and 1.12. The TacAi in this vehicles will most likely flee if they are under fire, in this way the offensive power of them is diminished. The cost of some of them went up 10%, the jeep MG can't take a passenger and finally, they had make them a bit more susceptible to HE blast (I'm not very sure of the last one, I'm to lazy to go and see on the txt).

[Vanir]

Ok, I basicly agree with all that. It seems that soft skinned vehicles are treated like a infanry unit on wheels which does cause some problems. Like I said I hope BTS looks at this for CM2.

Originally posted by Tanaka:

Also is good to notice that BTS have some how put down this problem with the patch 1.11 and 1.12. The TacAi in this vehicles will most likely flee if they are under fire, in this way the offensive power of them is diminished. The cost of some of them went up 10%, the jeep MG can't take a passenger and finally, they had make them a bit more susceptible to HE blast (I'm not very sure of the last one, I'm to lazy to go and see on the txt).

You're right. I did notice in my tests that as soon as you start shooting at them they run away so even if you don't kill them you can stop them from shooting for a turn or 2.

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You've never heard music until you've heard the bleating of a gut-shot cesspooler. -Mark IV

[This message has been edited by Vanir (edited 02-15-2001).]

[Cybeq]

Originally posted by Olle Petersson:

Ask any bird hunter about the hit probability of shotguns at long range.

You'll find that at very close range there's always a possibility that the target is out of the bullet stream because the aim is wrong. At medium range the hit rate goes up as the area saturated with bullets increase.

At long range it's more possible that the target pass between the bullets that are too widely scattered.

\

I hunt birds and I can tell with all authority that shotguns do not fire "bullets" at birds. They fire "shot", hence the name: shotgun.

[Olle Petersson]

Originally posted by Cybeq:

... and the shot consist of several small bullets (balls) made of steel or lead.

I used the word bullets to make the analogy with MGs more clear.

Cheers

Olle

[Jasper]

Supposed to be a picture of the beast. Seems like a lot less armor than a real half track. I'd call this a gun on a truck myself.

[Jasper]

I know little about German vechicles, but if this is the 'basic' Sd Kfz 7 - and all the other Sd Kfd 7 / ??? weapons system are mounted on this - then we could take a look at the armor values of this

beast and compare them to this beast

which is supposed to be a Sd Kfz 250. Counting boogie wheels, the Sd Kfz 250 appears much smaller.

[pktaske]

Originally posted by KiwiJoe:

Ive never had any problems destroying these lame units when playing allies. Any artilery or mortor fire cuts them up badly, and closer in small arms fire rips them.

Kiwi -Seems like your always talkin' big...if u think that as the allies u have any chance in a Mech battle vs.these flak trucks, you're sorely mistaken...what makes you think an experienced person would keep em still lng enough to get wacked with arty? That's why their so much better than static guns..and I though you only took 'the big stuff' when it comes to arty? If you want to waste your 155's on a 'lil ol 46 pt AA unit, be my guest...

[KiwiJoe]

I dont aways take the big stuff.. in fact I rarely take 155mm or bigger. Its just I almost never take the very small stuff 81mm etc.

Anyways it seems Ive been very lucky agaisnt these Death trucks till now. Ive only encountered them a few times and never really got into much of a fight with them.

Howeva a recent game has got me thinking different. Ive used 75mm HE, sniper fire, small arms and mortars to no effect. Ive had less problems taking out freakin Panthers than this thing.

So I did some tests. And indeed no tank will fire AP agianst them. Only small arms, mg and HE blast affects them. Even 105mm direct HE fire often doesnt hurt them. Surely if a 105mm shell hit 10m away from an unarmoured truck it would be ripped apart??? And Bullethead is right about the crew. YOU CANNOT HARM THEM WHISLT THEY ARE MOUNTED. I brewed 2 up in tests and the 8 men escaped unhurt each time. 8 men sitting in a truck would be sitting ducks for any incoming fire I would have thought.

They are a "bit" pot-luck. By that I mean they "can" be destroyed by rifle fire at 300m on occassion. But it seems most of the time they will shurg off incoming fire to the point of being laughable.

I'll do some more tests to confirm this. For now I'll request that they not be used in QBs.

[Theron]

Originally posted by KiwiJoe:

So I did some tests. And indeed no tank will fire AP agianst them. Only small arms, mg and HE blast affects them. Even 105mm direct HE fire often doesnt hurt them. Surely if a 105mm shell hit 10m away from an unarmoured truck it would be ripped apart??? And Bullethead is right about the crew. YOU CANNOT HARM THEM WHISLT THEY ARE MOUNTED. I brewed 2 up in tests and the 8 men escaped unhurt each time. 8 men sitting in a truck would be sitting ducks for any incoming fire I would have thought.

I have to say that I have not felt that the Sd Kfz 7/2 crew is invincible. I have had them slowly loose their crew and then abandoned the vehicle. Since there are 8 guys in the vehicle they stay in there for a long while, but in no way do I believe they lived a charmed life. This is similar to the 88mm guns which have larger crews than the 20 & 37mm guns. I find the larger guns a lot more survivable, because they have more crew members. I don't know how a man or two operates an 88mm gun effectively, but I hear that anti-tank gunners lift weights in their spare time.

Theron

[PakFront]

Kiwi -Seems like your always talkin' big

Notice the various posts on how he has no trouble winning/defeating units yet won't play on ladders because they are only about winning?,strange.

[KiwiJoe]

PakFront - thats right. I do win most of my games and I enjoy it. What I dont enjoy is the whole ladder "win at all costs" attitude. Im not saying the CM ladder is any worse than any other game ladder or that ALL the players in it have this attitude but the 7 ladder games I played (and won all) proved to me that its just not for me. People I toasted in 10 rounds drew the game out till 30 turns just for the few extra points u get from not surrendering. How boring sitting there hiding a few beaten up squads at the back of the map, with no chance even for a draw, for 20 turns. I like to cherry pick a bit, but ladder games take this to the extreme. People will cherry pick only the best units and use them time after time, not because they enjoy it, but becuse it gets more wins. YAWN.

Again, I'm sure there are ladder players out there who play a good fair game for the enjoyment and just like the extra thrill of having their wins recorded for all to see. But I prefer to record my wins for myself... and Im #1 by a long way on my ladder

Pakfront... if you wanta QB ME sometime email me and we can discuss the setup.

[Roberto]

I like your style KiwiJoe.

Cheerz and happy hunting

[Ksak]

Glad to here the flak trucks are invincible. I just lost one to a hard stare, a teapot, and a 2 in. mortar. Whatever their combat effectiveness the flak guns have the best sounds in the game (Scipio sound mods). I'd buy them just to hear the "pom-pom."

[Schugger]

Just want to add my experiences with those dreaded Sd KFZs.

In a game against Mostro I bought one as I feared air raids and desperately want something to protect my tanks. Well, the expected enemy aircraft have not appeared and I employed the vehicle in a ground support role.

At first it blew up a light building containing an enemy squad within 30 seconds or so and I was amazed and surprised by it's effectiveness.

In the final stages of this battle, when Mostro had virtually overrun my positions, the AA vehicle was the last one I had. For two or three turns Mostro tried to destroy it with a Jackson, one or two M18s and all his infantry units within LOS to it, while I was fast moving it towards my map edge. Well the Sd KFZ survived and brewed up one Hellcat, while shrugging off AP rounds and a massive amount of incoming small arms fire.

So, I think something is wrong with them and haven't used them ever since in any QBs.

[Forever Babra]

I just tried a 1000 point defend QB against the A/I. I purchased ten veteran Sdkfz 7/2, and spent the remainder of the points on assorted fixed light flak.

The A/I attacked with 5 Shermans of various types, including two 105s, a halftrack and an infantry platoon. Two Shermans were knocked out. One was abandoned after it was immobilized and the other took multiple side penetrations. The other three Shermans were hors de combat by virtue of being gun-damaged almost immediately under a blistering, paint-peeling hail of flak fire. The halftrack was wasted the moment it poked its head out, and the American infantry was shredded and could not close under 400m.

The Sdkfz 7/2s survived well, only two being lost to direct fire (no crew casualties), and a pair of them weathering a rather severe 105mm bombardment without damage. Truly nasty beasts.

For each round put out by a Sherman, the Sherman would receive about twenty 20mm and 37mm hits in return.

[Schugger]

I also couldn't resist and set up a battle with the editor:

Axis had six 37mm AA vehicles and the Allies had four cal.50 MGs in heavy buildings, four MG Jeeps and four Shermans. Range was about 400 meters and the battle lasts for three rounds, guess who had won it.