Variations in Tank Gun Accuracy

[rexford]

http://www.britwar.co.uk/salts/slat6.htm contains firing test results for various British guns and ammo. WO 291/762 at bottom of page has a test with Churchill 6 pounder against 2' x 5' hulldown turret model.

Interesting thing is that two tanks out of five are so poor in their shooting that they are left out of comparisons between APCBC and APDS. How much poorer, you ask:

500 yards

89% accuracy for better 3 shooters, 52% for worst 2

800 yards

84% for better 3, 57% for poor 2

1000 yards

81% for better 3, 34% for 2 bad shooters

1500 yards

62% for best 3, 24% for 2 worst

Percentages are for all shots taken at target, which includes follow-up to first try. Shows that better gunners zero in on target, even a turret, after a while and obtain high overall hit %.

At 500 yards the least accurate 2 can only muster 52% accuracy after several shots at target?

The above stats give a good idea of the difference between good gunnery and a possible combination of less than able hands, eyes, concentration or bad guns/ammo.

6 pounder gun in Churchill had elevation changed by gunner lifting or lowering a yoke on his shoulders? This might have contributed to some degree.

If CM had been modeled on these test results we would see many more hits and a wider variation between aces and sad sacks. Yeah, they are only test results without the pressure of someone firing back, but the great variation between good and bad is likely to carry over to the real thing.

In a recent CM game, a Tiger took alot (I mean a steady 2 or 3 turns worth) of HE shots at a running infantry squad inside 100m range, and didn't pin or kill them. Many shots just changed the direction they were running. ?????

[FriendlyFire]

In my experience CM tank gunners can "lead" an AP shell to hit a scout car going 50mph across their field of view (on the second or third try...), but can't lead an HE shell to hit a squad of men running at 8mph The game engine always seems to fire at where infantry targets are now, rather than at where they will be when the shell arrives. You either have to rely on having a big enough shell for the blast radius to catch them, or if you've got a coaxial MG that can sometimes pin them down for long enough for an HE shell to arrive right where they're cowering. If you're firing with a popgun (37mm or less, single shot) and no MG, you can spend all day trying to hit a running squad.

Of course, if they were changing direction with every shot, that infantry squad was almost certainly broken, and running around like a bunch of headless chickens. You might not have killed many, but if you had a nearby infantry squad it could have rolled right over them next turn.

[Simon Fox]

I would suggest rexford, regarding your last comment, that you have been reading far to many WO reports and not enough regimental diaries.

With regards to your former comments, your startling revelations regarding John Salts collections of data, are not.

------------------

"Stand to your glasses steady,

This world is a world of lies,

Here's a toast to the dead already,

And here's to the next man to die."

-hymn of the "Double Reds"

[rexford]

Simon Fox:

Please provide a bit more to support your response.

You don't think the test results are valuable with regard to illustration of various factors, including difference between good and bad. If people can't shoot well in a test, what happens with some pressure?

And if APDS doesn't do well in a test, why should it be better in combat. More and more evidence pointing how out inconsistent and inaccurate APDS was AT ALL RANGES.

I don't see where diaries make that much difference when we're examining firing tests.

[rexford]

Simon Fox:

Please advise where valuable regimental histories can be found to illustrate the points you made (former and latter comments). There aren't too many at local library.

[Britwar]

Originally posted by rexford:

http://www.britwar.co.uk/salts/slat6.htm contains firing test results for various British guns and ammo. ...

Glad to see that my little site is still of use to all you CM types.

------------------

Chris Wilson

British Wargames

Home of the Wargames and military Banner Excahnge

[Guest rune]

Chris,

Yes, the site is used, I pointed Charles and Steve to that LONG ago. thanks for doing a great job!

Rune

[rexford]

The last part of the John Salt address should read salt6, not slat6.

Sorry.

[rexford]

John Salt is the ONLY site where correct APDS slope multipliers can be found, something I have been pointing CM to for some time.

Look on bottom of penetration page.

Our booklet makes much use of data from Salt site. Salt site is only source for tungsten ammo penetration of face-hardened armor, and provides the best compilations of penetration data anywhere.

Plus lots of British WO reports on penetration and hit probability.

When our booklet comes out readers will see how valuable the site is, references to salt abound.

[Simon Fox]

That's right Chris lots of people from round here have been using the valuable information on your site for ages.

Of course we are also eternally grateful to rexford for directing us back to that bookmark so we can check on 'their' interpretation of Salt's Snippets. Certainly if we really wanted to base an argument on some of this data we would be remiss in not going to the original document to look at the circumstances of the trials. However it's all food for thought and grist for the mill for those with one to grind.

If people can't shoot well in a test, what happens with some pressure?

What happens is that sometimes they can't hit a squad running around in the open with their main gun, that's what happens.

[rexford]

My interpretation of Salt' snippets is made in the context of other information on APDS performance, so that the entire picture can be seen.

The benefit of my work is that the snippets can be better understood after other test data is reviewed and taken into consideration. My interpretation of snippets can be summarized as follows:

sometimes APDS is less accurate than APCBC, sometimes it is more accurate.

Can't argue with that assessment. Isigny report indicates that sometimes APDS penetrates Panther glacis, sometimes it doesn't.

So APDS is inconsistent, and all the test data supports that assessment. I would be glad to review a Simon Fox analysis that concludes something different.

[Simon Fox]

So this thread is now an APDS accuracy thread is it? I thought we had one of those. I thought this was a some tanks shoot better than others thread? Or maybe it's the APDS performance is inconsistent but hey guess what guys: so are people!

All this study shows is that people and tanks vary which is really stating the bleeding obvious. Since it doesn't seem to be properly controlled for which of these factors is contributing to the variation to what extent and furthermore uses fairly small sample size, it is impossible to draw other than qualitative conclusions. It certainly doesn't support your accuracy jihad which was something you were on about months ago. If you want to return to that one by all means revive that old thread. Trawling through Salts Snippets and starting new threads on every one that takes your fancy is kinda comical, especially since you seem somewhat confused as to the point you are making (unless you are just running two threads with the same point?).

------------------

"Stand to your glasses steady,

This world is a world of lies,

Here's a toast to the dead already,

And here's to the next man to die."

-hymn of the "Double Reds"

[rexford]

Simon Fox:

You made a comment regarding my interpreting John Salt for the masses and I responded by using another thread as an example. Sorry if small changes in course confuse you.

[Simon Fox]

Yes this is me

------------------

"Stand to your glasses steady,

This world is a world of lies,

Here's a toast to the dead already,

And here's to the next man to die."

-hymn of the "Double Reds"

[Conall]

Originally posted by Simon Fox:

I would suggest rexford, regarding your last comment, that you have been reading far to many WO reports and not enough regimental diaries.

Simon,

Perhaps you'd care to expound on what you think are in the Regimental war diaries that are more useful (in the context of gun dispersion/accuracy figures) than the tabulated findings in the WO docs (usually material taken from the AORS data/research). I'm not sure that I understand quite what you're getting at, so a little clarification would be much appreciated.

Regards,

Conall

[Conall]

Originally posted by rexford:

6 pounder gun in Churchill had elevation changed by gunner lifting or lowering a yoke on his shoulders? This might have contributed to some degree.

Not necessarily the case - this is the subject of some debate, as to whether the Mk III & Mk IV Churchill's had geared or free elevation. The short answer is that no-one knows & it's quite possible that there was an ad-hoc mixture. Confusion arises because nearly all schematics show a geared elevation & a handbook on the III & IV's unequivocally refers to geared elevation, however, Vauxhall Motors (the manufacturers) published a handbook in Jan 1944 which has a cross sectional drawing clearly showinga free elevation system (gunner's shoulder pad etc). It would therefore be useful to know what kind of Churchill IV's were being used in the firing trial.

For further reading see:

D. Fletcher, Mr Churchill's Tank. The British Infantry Tank Mk IV, Schiffer 1999, ISBN 0-7643-0679-0

Regards,

Conall

[This message has been edited by Conall (edited 03-14-2001).]

[Simon Fox]

Conall,

Clearly you are more confused than I am (if that's possible, hehe)

Perhaps you'd care to expound on what you think are in the Regimental war diaries that are more useful (in the context of gun dispersion/accuracy figures) than the tabulated findings in the WO docs (usually material taken from the AORS data/research).

Well they are not. Or at least only in the most round about way.

I'm not sure that I understand quite what you're getting at, so a little clarification would be much appreciated.

OK, let me lead you through it. My comment was in regarding rexford's "last comment" which was:

In a recent CM game, a Tiger took alot (I mean a steady 2 or 3 turns worth) of HE shots at a running infantry squad inside 100m range, and didn't pin or kill them. Many shots just changed the direction they were running. ?????

My point was that reading a whole pile of of WO reports of deadeyes on the range might give you an unbalanced idea of how that accuracy translates in combat. The performance of those "sad sacks" and "aces" on the range may translate into something a little different when under stress. It all becomes a little more complex and subjective. The issue has been discussed ad nauseum here before and these sort of firing trials/range results raised then. Some tweaks to long range accuracy have been made as a result. When you start trying to model human behaviour opinions differ and are often expressed vociferously