German tanks-not good enough?

[hansfritz]

I think german tanks have been made to easy to kill.Have modifiers been added to which side of the tank you hit.I've recently had a Jagd Panther and a Jagd Pnz 4 taken out by a loan Sherman(of all things).Not only is that incredulous enough,but it was from the front,without a single ricochet. I allso think the German tanks have been Programmed with a slower reaction speed. Is this biased by the American programmers,do they refuse to see the Sherman,like most allied tanks were ****.Over to you.

[Mace]

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

Is this biased by the American programmers,do they refuse to see the Sherman,like most allied tanks were ****.Over to you.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Over to me?

There's no bias here IMHO.

The Rate of Fire is a function of the calibre of the weapon (those uber 88cm shells are a real pain to load) plus the quality of the crew. Crap Crews means a slower reload time.

As for the kills, sh*t happens. I've played numerous tactical wargames where a Sherman takes out a Jagpanther, King Tiger, etc with a lucky shot. The germans weren't laggerts in tank design, but the allies weren't lacking in shell technology either.

Don't believe me? I would suggest reading some WW2 books on tactical tank combat then.

Mace

[GravesRegistration]

I believe that you are not experiencing slower reaction time but slower turret speed and slower pivoting with tracks than the sherman. although i think CM messed up a bit in that some German tanks (like the Tiger I)

had the ability to pivot (on its treads) very quickly. And in CM they seem to slowly pivot to engage new definite threats. Also CM seems to assume that all the Allied tankers used their Gyrostabilizers which is quite untrue. Possibly more than half the Gyrostabilizer equiped crews didnt use/trust them. More trust over time combined with more training reduced this practice as the war drew to a close. The crews of lend lease Shermans (Britain and Russia) used the gyrostabilizer even less for the same reasons.

Also remember that CM tank ranges are extremely close. Most tanks actions were at greater distances. And distance (long range duels for instance) most often favored the krauts do to them having better sighting/optics,higher velocity guns and veteran/trained crews.

GravesRegistration - out

[Chupacabra]

Oh no, not again.

[lcm1947]

hansfritz. I think that the Sherman probably just got lucky. I have played this game for a year now and have seen such luck but only once in awhile so it's not that big of a problem. As already pointed out the distance has a lot to do with it and since we normally play on a smaller scale then in real life you do see this more often. If you take those same tanks and allow them to fight at a greater distance I think you will see that that is so. Plus which Sherman were you using? Was it one that had the 76mm? This is a better caliber and would have a greater chance of knocking a Panther out in a lucky shot. And the remark about Sherman's being crap is not correct entirely. True they weren't the best in weapon or armor but they had many other good or superior quailities.

[Kanonier Reichmann]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by lcm1947:

And the remark about Sherman's being crap is not correct entirely. True they weren't the best in weapon or armor but they had many other good or superior quailities. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yep, their ability to burn once hit was far superior to most other tanks in the theatre, prior to wet stowage of shells.

Regards

Jim R.

[PiggDogg]

The normal ranges of most tank battles in CM (150 - 300 meters) is nearly (but not quite) point blank. Infrequently, have I seen tank battles at 500 meters or longer. Also, in general, CM maps just do not have many lines of sight much over 300 meters except on flat or gentle slope maps with few trees.

The above is a large factor why short barrel Shermans might (& I say might) get lucky every so often and wack a superiorly armored German tank.

No cheers yet because of 2 weeks ago, Richard

[Roksovkiy]

The allied tungsten ammo is over-rated.

In theory the 76mm hvap could have penetrated the front of a Tiger I but in practise the ammo shattered. Same with 17lb APDS ammo could not in practise penetrate a king tiger glacis.

Using WW2 penentration stats only causes a confilet between theory and practise. The game is based more on theory than ptractise.

[lcm1947]

Jim R. I wasn't referring to that ability. We and the other nations that used the Sherman didn't consider that a good ability. Well I guess the German's thought it neat. Oh by the way - smart ass.

[Slapdragon]

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

Oh no, not again.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

He he he. Plus 4x

GravesRegistration, your point on gyros has been brought up 100 times, but no one ever comes up with a good set of primary source or even a cluster of secondary source data to support your contention. The best I have seen on this subject so far is one person who quoted Greenwood (who wrote Squad Leader) in a liner note to that game that gyros were often detached. In fact the better oral histories all have gyros being maintained (example here is "The 761st Black Panthers" where Battalion shop people were fixing them without clearence), and crews trained to use them.

So the subject of their existence is a dead alley often explored but never with any evidence besides a few very tentative disclaimers (such as Ellis who says they were "sometimes disconnected"). Next we come to their effectiveness -- the same people who will quote Ellis and Chamberlien about occasional removal will ingore their comments in the next paragraph about the units being "very effective" and will assign a 0 effectiveness to them.

Now we know that this is not the case because postwar tank models kept them, and later models which could have had gyros designed out actually had them put in (for example, there was no 90mm gyro mount ready for the M26, but it was designed in time for the Pattons). The 1945 Centurion design was said to be the "best tank in the world" in part because it had gyrostabilization in both the vertical and horizontal planes, gyros developed from American designs.

So we know that gyros have a capability of aiding aiming. The question open is how much. BTS based their figures on several published tests for firing on the move, both with and without gyros. They assign gyros somewhere around a 5% advantage over vehicles with no gyro (based upon tests we did in another thread). This is of course condierably lower than say the advantage an Abrams gets out of its gyros, but is considerably more than zero.

So this would be the start of a gryo debate with regards to advantage. Now there is good evidence, already presented, that crew quality effects gyro advantage (and low quality crew were the ones who disconnected the gyros in the few cases we have to support that). So there is room to modify the gyro bonus by experience which seems not to have been done, and even to have conscript level troops loose bonus already, but other tweeks just have not had any evidence presented to support them.

As for the quality of German tanks hansfritz. First you have to realize that German tanks were killed on the Western front. They were killed by the thousands, and the biggest killer was allied tanks and tank destroyers, followed closely by allied planes. The British and American Shermans, many armed with 75mm guns, killed German tanks, from the smallest to the largest. We have already had a record presented about a Greyhound killing a Tiger (fired at it from the rear after catching it on a forest road) and two accounts of 75mm Shermans killing a Jagdtiger (one an oblique penetration, not a frontal, that burst a seam, the second a hit on the lower glacis, again point blank, when the Jagdtiger crested a hill). Now, these very few example are not a scientific sample, nor do they imply the ability of a 75mm Sherman to handle a German heavy. Instead, they show those oddball circumstances, combined with luck, underwhich a weaker vehicle may kill a stronger.

Now, most examples of this happeningi n CM are the results of:

1) Extreme short range and oblique shots. The Germans liked to work at over a kilometer where their tank guns retained accuracy but their armor kept them out of trouble. You can now see why. Of course, the nature of Western Europe meant this was often not possible.

2) Improper use of hulldown and positioning for defense.

The Germans did not park tanks on hill tops, they use gullies and areas that could cover their vulnerable flanks.

3) Improper support during advance. The Germans where bugaboos about combined arms, and they rarely moved a heavy without arranging for infantry, screening forces, and other support to move with them.

Now this is not to say your experience was not the result of an engine flaw. If it was, then it is best that you post the turn that lead to the loss in question so people could see it, identify the variables at work, research the variable to figure their proper historical values, and then present your evidence. Since Mac is correct, BTS does not favor one side or another, this will present a flaw in the engine, rather than a flaw in German tanks, and any change will effect a lot fo other things.

Finally, on the much maligned Sherman. The Sherman was an excellent tank for what it was designed to do, and when you say Sherman, you encompass everything from the M4/75 to the E8+ 76mm. The final versions of the Sherman line fought the T34/85 and won substantial victories in Korea. Was the Sherman the best tank in ETO? Well, it depends upon what was best. If best was easiest to produce, most common, most reliable, them maybe you could argue yes, it was. If best encompasses only armor and gun, then no, it was a dog. You can't really know any weapon system until you see it from all of its sides.

[ 09-23-2001: Message edited by: Slapdragon ]

[jgdpzr]

OK, for the benefit of the newer members here, suffice to say this discussion has been held many, many, many times. You are not the first to come to the conclusion that there is something amiss with the "uberness" of the German tanks in CM, particularly the big cats. However, that conclusion may not be as accurate as you think.

First off, as others have stated, most ranges in CM are of the very close variety. At these ranges, all of the German heavies were vulnerable, at least to certain degrees. Allied tungsten was effective at these ranges, both from the American 76mm and the 17 pounder. Now, does the game perfectly account for this effectiveness? Surely not, as Roksovkiy points out that data taken straight from APTs (armor penetration tables) fails to account for many real-world considerations. However, the game's penetration characteristics must be based on hard data. Anecdotal evidence is extemely hard to quantify. The data may be flawed to certain extents (believe me, the discussions on this are far too numerous to quickly summarize) but the designers' use of it has been carefully considered.

Another thing to keep in mind, is that at this stage of the war, German armor was plagued by metallurgic problems. That is why you see the armor ratings as percentages. Here again, there have been questions as to the accuracy of these ratings (for example, Rexford, an esteemed board member (esteemed by most not named Username), has made a strong case that the 85% rating for the Panther should not be universally applied), but this lowering of the true quality of the armor has a definite effect on its capabilities in the game.

Finally, Hansfritz, if you are asking if the facing of a tank has any bearing then the answer is a resounding yes. The game mechanics model precisely where a shell strikes a vehicle and the penetration capability is based on the protection (thickness, quality, and angle) provided by the armor at that exact point. Further, what you are confusing as the slower reaction times of the Germans relate to the slower turret traverse of the German tanks as well as the slower reload times of the larger, heavier, and more cumbersome German rounds.

In summation, rest assured that the engine powering this remarkable game is a finely tuned machine. Is it perfect? No, but neither is our understanding of how battlefield events really played out. We are tainted by our preconceived notions that the German tanks were damn-near invincible. In some situations, they pretty much were. And the game will demonstrate that. I can not tell you how many battles I have fought in which a well-positioned German heavy could wreak havoc on the battlefield, while bouncing shot after shot of fire from 76s, 17 pounders, and 90s. 'Course, I can also recount battles in which a Stuart has knocked out a Panther with a front turret penetration at a weak point. The more you play the game, the more you will see unlikely stuff happen. At the same time, however, you will gain an appreciation of how accurate the game engine really is.

[Andrew H.]

What kind of Sherman? What was the range? What was the time period?

[tools4fools]

I thought once that those "weak spot penetrations" happen too often and that some German heavies were underrated. Did a little test on the Tiger I which proofed the opposite I guess:

On my CM shooting range I had regular Shermans (75mm, no tungsten) lined up versus unarmed Tiger I's at 100m range.

Out of 412 hits (not shots! I only counted the hits - and yes, there were misses even at this distance )

there were:

- TWO penetrations resulting in KO's (less than 1%)

- 22 track hits (around 5%)

- 8 gun hits (around 2%)

All the other 380 hits had no effect on the Tiger I at this range!!!!!

Tell you it was a funny test seeing all those shells bouncing off or breaking up - but next time I might give the Tigers some ammo for selfe defense purposes...

[Michael Dorosh]

Excellent points Slapdragon - the only reference I have ever seen to gyrostabilizers being disconnected were indeed in The General magazine, when Jim Collier had written a dissenting view of GI: Anvil of Victory and the design team was trying to explain why the Americans seemed "subpar."

As for comparing the Sherman to the Abrams - I am led to understand that the Sherman's gyrostabilizer only maintained elevation (or in other words, the gun's position relative to the ground) and not traverse. Does the M1 not have a mechanism that also tracks targets (maintains traverse)?

[Mattias]

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

As for the quality of German tanks hansfritz. First you have to realize that German tanks were killed on the Western front. They were killed by the thousands, and the biggest killer was allied tanks and tank destroyers, followed closely by allied planes.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Out of curiosity Slapdragon, what are your sources on the number of tanks killed by tanks and TD's in relation to the number killed by air power?

Been wondering myself but so far the numbers I have seen has shown that the number of air power kills is significantly lower than that of tanks and TD's

M.

[Slapdragon]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

Excellent points Slapdragon - the only reference I have ever seen to gyrostabilizers being disconnected were indeed in The General magazine, when Jim Collier had written a dissenting view of GI: Anvil of Victory and the design team was trying to explain why the Americans seemed "subpar."

As for comparing the Sherman to the Abrams - I am led to understand that the Sherman's gyrostabilizer only maintained elevation (or in other words, the gun's position relative to the ground) and not traverse. Does the M1 not have a mechanism that also tracks targets (maintains traverse)?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

No, the M1 has both vertical and Horizontal stabilizers. I only use the comparison to demonstrate that this weapons system has tested out as the most accurate tank currently in front line service, beating out the Leopard 2 (barely) with an over 80% first round on target hit at 1500 meters moving at 25 mph (of course there are a dozen reasons why this is so besides gyros, gyros just do one part) so if we found that the game made the M4 as good or better than a modern Abrams, we would have to pause and say, hmmm. Of course this may seem absurd, but in fact it is just a way of place an outside limit on the extremes, since there is no way a WW2 tank can perform better than a modern tank in hitting on the move.

The article about gyros in the General is a great standard of point and counter point in simulation. Greenwood had a fairly weak argument for the disconnect theory, and seems to have done avoided the gyro issue merely by saying they all got disconnected. His evidence was stronger in reference to the desert in 1942 where gyros broke down and actually made the main gun freeze into vertical alignment, and very few people had clearence to crack their case and fix them. Thus a crew unfamiliar with these mounts and lacking an authorized repairman might just unhinge the whole assembly, especially if it had a tendency to fail often and at critical moments.

The gryo of 1944 had gone through many improvements inside the case, and the repair staff kn ew how to fix them, even if they knew against orders (there are a number of accounts of gyros getting maintained by unacceptable staff, for example the army did not like to give black repairmen training in this, so black repair shops would often be faced with repairing gyros they were not allowed to repair. They did it anyway and everyone looked the other way.)

Tac air effectiveness is really tricky. First off you have claims by autobiographies of Allied air leaders which, if taken seriously, would mean that every vehicle produced by the Germans from 1942 to 1945 was destroyed by the allied air forces in fall of 1944 three times over. This continues through books which essentially worship Spaatz such as Master of Airpower: General Carl A. Spaatz by Mets.

The reason why these figures are high is because they are based on air victories assigned by tactical air command HQ of the various air forces, and thus are based on victory claims. Anyone who knows air claims knows these are, at least until the era of the AWACs, greatly inflated. The reason is simple, the pilot sees a truck smoking, he assumes a kill, but an awful lot of truck had tarps catch fire and bullets shoot through them, but were perfectly ok. This is even more so with tanks.

A better way of looking at things is based on Army research studies, of which about 300 were done on the ETO and either exist in the Library of Congress, in NARA, or available to purchase through the GPO. The best of these books are Pattern for Joint Operations: World War II Close Air Support, North Africa, The Last Offensive., and Air-Ground Teamwork on the Western Front: The Role of the 19th Tactical Air Command During August 1944, An Interim Report. . All three conclude that the airplane in World War Two was not the primary tank killer, but was more important for the ability to rapidly respond to enemy incursions, and provide interdiction and close air support.

While the German Army had relatively few tanks, and their anti tank forces (in this case infantry carried) where their big tank killers, the allies had LOTS of tanks. After each fight in which the battlefield was retained, US Army intelligence and recovery staff would comb the battlefield and do something called "surveying" wrecks. A survey was a relatively accurate assessment of what killed the vehicle (friendly or enemy), often cross referenced with the battalion records of the killing or loosing unit. I call this "toe kicking", and while it seriously underestimates kills on the German side (since they can and did drag away tanks for repair) and overestimates it on the American side (since many tanks surveyed as destroyed were later put back into service, sometimes in an alternate role) it is the most accurate record existing for a dead tank.

Battalion records available from NARA will list the number of tanks their units killed and how many units lost, then will be appended with information from higher echelon passed back down on what they actually did , in a similar manner to how aircraft victories are first listed as claims, and then a claims board determines if the claim is valid. The big difference is that with the ground units, the claims are based on someone crawling all over the dead tank, which is hardly likely with aircraft (although during the battle of britian this was indeed the case with air victories, someone went out and found it.)

So, I rely on data gathered by ground force surveys, which included tanks and AFVs killed by air power. This of course shirks airpower a bit, since a tank killed from the air is more likely to be recovered and never be counted, but as long as this is realized, I do not think there is any more accurate way to determine effectiveness of the various arms, and I don't think accepting air claims is a more accurate way of looking at this problem.

[Slapdragon]

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

Out of curiosity Slapdragon, what are your sources on the number of tanks killed by tanks and TD's in relation to the number killed by air power?

Been wondering myself but so far the numbers I have seen has shown that the number of air power kills is significantly lower than that of tanks and TD's

M.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

In other words I think that a certain amount of fudging is recquired to understand the situations, since no matter whose data you look at, it is going to be wrong in one way or another. I think that airpower killed many tanks never counted by ground surveyors, but was nowhere near as effective as ground based units.

[ 09-23-2001: Message edited by: Slapdragon ]

[PJungnitsch]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>As for the quality of German tanks hansfritz. First you have to realize that German tanks were killed on the Western front. They were killed by the thousands, and the biggest killer was allied tanks and tank destroyers, followed closely by allied planes.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Agree with a lot of the post, but tend to disagree with this point. This may be of interest:

"It is interesting to see the causes for losses of Panther tanks. Three British studies of captured Panther tanks (or wrecks of Panther tanks), two of them during Normandy and one during the Ardennes battle gave the following results:

Armour Piercing Shot 63

Hollow Charge Projectiles 8

High Explosive Shells 11

Aircraft Rockets 11

Aircraft Cannon 3

Destroyed by crew 60

Abandoned 43

Unknown 24

Evidently two of the main causes for losing Panthers were abandonment and destruction by the crews. These two categories accounted for nearly half the Panthers lost and during the period in August they constituted 80 % of all the Panthers lost."

From Zetterling, here

[Slapdragon]

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

Agree with a lot of the post, but tend to disagree with this point. This may be of interest:

"It is interesting to see the causes for losses of Panther tanks. Three British studies of captured Panther tanks (or wrecks of Panther tanks), two of them during Normandy and one during the Ardennes battle gave the following results:

Armour Piercing Shot 63

Hollow Charge Projectiles 8

High Explosive Shells 11

Aircraft Rockets 11

Aircraft Cannon 3

Destroyed by crew 60

Abandoned 43

Unknown 24

Evidently two of the main causes for losing Panthers were abandonment and destruction by the crews. These two categories accounted for nearly half the Panthers lost and during the period in August they constituted 80 % of all the Panthers lost."

From Zetterling, here<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This is of course true, merely a miswording on my part. I should have said "of those tanks killed by the allies" rather than all german tanks lost, which I did not mean. German tanks suffered many more mechanical and fuel kills than kills by weapon, and many of the best German tanks were mechanically unreliable.

In fact, and oddity of German tank design was that they chose to produce tanks which required a great deal of work to maintain, and many difficult to manufacture spare parts, while the United States made tanks which were extremely reliable and had a very simple parts inventory, sometimes parts being manufactured in Division shops. Each side could have afforded to follow a different route: the Germans had moved so many mean into combat arms that their repair and support was no where near as well staffed or organized as the allies, they needed the more reliable tanks, while the allies had the men to do the repairs, but chose instead ot make tanks with a long service life and easy repair chain.

[Priest]

Machineman,

Take a green Panther crew and put it in against 4 Hellcats. As soon as the Hellcats starts hitting the Panther from many different directions the green crew may just abandon shortly thereafter without a penetration to the Panther. In the real war this was caused many times by breakdowns and fuel shortages during withdrawals made by the Germans which are not simulated in CMBO. Hence when you are talking about battlefield performance (and that is what CMBO is trying to simulate) how many Panthers lost to crew abandonment and destructionby crew has a very very limited role in the discussion as this happened outside direct combat. If those tanks would have made it to battle then how would they have preformed and whether or not they would have been killed is pure conjecture.

[JasonC]

August? The breakout month. When the repair shops were overrun. So every tank in them, no matter why it was there, that couldn't drive off under its own power - was blown up or abandoned. Including those there because they were KO'ed by AP, but under repair. And those M-killed by anything but towed off to repair shops, earlier. And those on the field and M-killed by anything, if the crew wanted to live.

"Blown up by crew" simply isn't mutually exclusive with the other items in the list. You can be reasonably sure Panthers weren't blown up because the crew was mad at the lump of metal. But the entry tells no one anything about what was wrong with it beforehand and how it got that way, which could have been mechanical, or could have been being holed by AP, or losing a track to arty, or anything you can think of. And this, for an obvious reason. All that was left after an ammo explosion was a burnt out hulk, and the survey crews had no idea what was wrong -before- the crew blew it up. Trying to draw conclusions from such a category is downright silly.

We certainly know that most German tanks were lost to ground AP or to breakdowns. Most tanks lost to -either- cause went not to a "total write off" category, but to some level of repair. Then they were cannablized for parts to get each other running, and only written off when the repair shops were overrun - like in August.

Because of the practices of cannabilizing damaged or broken tanks for parts and patching holed tanks, moreover, there isn't any clear line between "break down" and "KOed by AP" (or by anything else). KOed is not always a permanent state. Two tanks are KOed by AP. What is broken on one isn't broken on the other. Its parts repair the other, which drives off to some later destiny. 2 tanks KOed by AP, one abandoned by crew, 1 runs off to fight another day. Out of only 2.

Non-disjunctive sets make for lousy accounting. But drawing conclusions about other non-disjunctive sets ("KOed by", "lost to") from such accounting makes it even worse. The survey tells us something about the mix of -wrecks- found on the field - the categories are only a disjunctive set for -wrecks-. It does not tell us any such thing as "half of all German tanks broke down on the field, the other half were mostly KOed by AP". As though KOed tanks don't break down, broken down tanks aren't KOed, either aren't repaired, after repair neither suffers the same or the opposite fate again with lessened prospects for eventually being put back into service, etc.

We don't need to speculate about such matters to know the air kill claims are ridiculous. We know that from direct after action reports, where side A says "our planes KOed 50 tanks behind enemy lines, and our ground forces got 25 which were all confirmed (detailed eyewitness reports of the shells fired KOing them, etc) and on our side of the line at the end of the day" and side B says "we lost 25 tanks today". Meaning not even that the causes were wrong, but that the planes didn't get any, or killed only halftracks, etc.

[PJungnitsch]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>As for the quality of German tanks hansfritz. First you have to realize that German tanks were killed on the Western front. They were killed by the thousands, and the biggest killer was allied tanks and tank destroyers, followed closely by allied planes.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Maybe then more accurate to say that the biggest killer of German tanks on the Western front was the fuel and supply situation, a 'Materialschlacht' or however that word is meant to be.

While overwhelming artillery and airpower wasn't much good at killing German tanks specifically, it was good at blowing up fuel trucks, repair depots, ammunition supplies, infantry, transport, etc, making the job of the Shermans and the tank destroyers much less costly then it would have been if they would have had to tackle the Panthers and Tigers on a more level playing field.

[lard]

Hmmmmmmmmmm

after playing lots of games i can say that i have seen some strange things happening with penetrations and ricochets how ever as we seem to be usinf facts it may be of interest that there is NO documented evidence of a tiger II being penetrated from the front by ANY allied vehicle during the whole war so next time your 76mm sherman does knock out your king tiger maybe you have grounds for sulking but...

...if you rely on such a vehicle to win you the battle you have already lost

[Slapdragon]

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

Hmmmmmmmmmm

after playing lots of games i can say that i have seen some strange things happening with penetrations and ricochets how ever as we seem to be usinf facts it may be of interest that there is NO documented evidence of a tiger II being penetrated from the front by ANY allied vehicle during the whole war so next time your 76mm sherman does knock out your king tiger maybe you have grounds for sulking but...

...if you rely on such a vehicle to win you the battle you have already lost <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Actually, there is documented evidence for frontal penetration of Tiger 2s.

[Roksovkiy]

Actually, there is documented evidence for frontal penetration of Tiger 2s.

Actually there is no evidence. No Tiger II was penetrated on front glacis during battle in WW2.

And the reference on Valera's Russian military zone Dubious. Hundreds of hits from point blank range, until the armor as lost its resitance. It was also done using post war ammo.