Mikester Posted January 30, 2001 Share Posted January 30, 2001 To Steve/Charles/Other(s) who can help me understand. This has probably been covered somewhere, perhaps not. Either way, I don't want to go searching for it (most of the time I do by the way) so a "simple" answer woudld be appreciated. What I'm trying to ascertain/understand is how to interpret some of the info provided to us in the unit details screen. Take the following hypothetical information from the unit detail screens of tanks A and B and the situation where tank A is firing at tank B at a range of 1000 m and hits tank B's front upper hull. Both tanks are directly facing each other so there is no "side" angle involoved (i.e. that would further increase tank B's equivalent armor thickness beyond that described below). I'm also "assuming" no arc to the flight of the projectile (something the game actually does take into account I believe), etc. (may or may not be a good assumption) Tank A: AP Gun penetration value at 1000m of 112mm (equivalent armor value where shot strikes armor completely perpendicular to the plane of the plate?) Tank B: Front upper hull shows armor value of 95mm at an angle/slope (I'm assuming measured from the vertical) of 40 degrees. Questions: How do I know if this shot will generally penetrate tank B's front armor or not? If I look at the 112mm gun penetration value vs. the 95mm of actual armor thickness it would "appear" that it does penetrate. But then this doesn't take into account the 40 deg. of angle to the armor which increases the equivalent armor thickness to just over 124mm. Which when compared to 112mm gun penetration value would seem to indicate a "non-penetration". All replies / discussion are welcome and appreciated. Thanks in advance. Regards, Mikester Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teamski Posted January 30, 2001 Share Posted January 30, 2001 Easy: Just draw 2 lines on a piece of paper 94mm apart. Then, draw a line 40 degrees angle across both lines. Measure length of the line between the two lines, and, wahla! You have the actual armor thickness. Do this a couple times with different thicknesses/ angles and you will have a good idea how to guestimate armor thickness. -Ski ------------------ "The Lieutenant brought his map out and the old woman pointed to the coastal town of Ravenoville........" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L.Tankersley Posted January 31, 2001 Share Posted January 31, 2001 Well, first of all the gun penetration values are presented for 0 degrees, 30 degrees and 60 degrees of slope (IIRC). So instead of using the value for 0 degrees, as a rough approximation I would pick a value in between those given for 30 and 60 degrees to do your comparison. (The penetration almost certainly doesn't vary linearly with slope, but we're just fooling around here). Then you can compare values and see if your gun's penetration is even in the ballpark to penetrate. Remember that some armor may be lower quality and so be effectively somewhat weaker than is presented in the data screen (of course, shell quality might be subpar as well -- I think this is modeled). I'm not sure how deflections/richochets are handled (before or after the "penetration calculation" is done; at high slope angles you can get a lot of richochets (see e.g. the Hetzer's front armor). If your penetration is well over the armor, expect a penetration (but not necessarily a kill). If it's less, don't expect much. If they are close (and damnably enough, they often are) then you pays your money and you takes your chances. There is sufficient randomness (both in terms of conditions that are difficult to exactly specify/determine like exact angle, elevation and so on, as well as actual random number generation) that you can't really have much more confidence than "maybe this shot will get through." ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikester Posted January 31, 2001 Author Share Posted January 31, 2001 Thanks Leland and Ski. I was here at work yesterday and had forgotten that the gun penetration values were given for a couple of different angles/slopes of armor. I'll have to go into the game tonight and take a closer look at all the details of the info on the unit info screens. Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Robertson Posted January 31, 2001 Share Posted January 31, 2001 Ok armour values. Basically the armour of a tank is angled to deflect shots. To calulate the thickness of the armour you simply take a scientific calculator, (I can't remmeber if windows has one in it) divide the thickness of the armour by / cos (angle) so 88mm at 45 degrees= 124.4mm This is a reasonable estimate. However in practice against most guns tilting the armour back increases the resistance more because the force is no being applied over a greater area. In most cases a good estimate will be. thickness/ (cos (angle))^1.41 ^ means to the power, you will find it marked with an x with a smaller y above it on your calculator. so as before 88mm at 45 degrees = 143mm Some examples. Panther hull front 0.85 quality 85/ (cos 55)^1.41 * 0.85 = 158.2mm original question 95/ (cos40) ^1.41 = 138.33mm Basically your gun has a minimal chance of penetration unless the vehicle starts to come at you down hill. [This message has been edited by Dan Robertson (edited 01-31-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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