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Fire your lackingly orthodox guns, you intellectually deficient halftracks!


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I'm currently playing a rather heated 2000pt ME against Prinz Eugen, and have witnessed a rather annoying phenomena: the light SPW 250/9 recon halftracks are extremely cheap at spending 20mm AC ammo.

During the first turns, one of the halftracks encounters a light Soviet armored car (armed with a mere MG, was it a BA-20?), and has a clean shot for nearly half a minute. Does the brave German crew pepper the filthy bolsheviks to oblivion with remorseless 20mm round salvos? No, they settle on serving absolutely ineffective MG fire. WHY?!

The Soviet Armored car was indentified fully, within a distance of 150 meters, and the halftrack had at least six "shots" of 20mm AP ammo.

[ January 21, 2003, 08:21 AM: Message edited by: Bone_Vulture ]

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did yuo h/track have a height advantage?

6 rounds of AP probably means teh AI wil try to conserve that ammo for worthwile targets - particularly ones that can kill the h/track itself, which the BA-20 can't.

So if you had a height advantage it (the AI) might well've decided it would save the good stuff and go for a top shot with the MG into the open turret of the foe.

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7,92x57 Ss can punch through 8mm of armour at 200m, the Crew decided to conserve main gun ammo when the MG was perfectly capable of doing the job.

SmK(H) (tungsten AP 7,92x57) bullet had a penetration power of almost 20mm of plain steel at a range of 500m (90° impact angle). Last troop issue of the round was Feb 1943. Don't think CMBB models this round for MG34/42.

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No, I wasn't using an "armor arc", but that's good to know in the future.

I don't think CM models any sort of special MG ammo, and I personally haven't witnessed a Soviet armored car ever taking damage from German machineguns. I wish there was some sort of "force fire" command, that'd make the unit ignore ammo conservation: perhaps at a price of higher basic ammo consumption and more dramatic moral impact when the unit runs out of ammo.

[EDIT]

I'm not sure of the height advantage - my HT might've been slightly higher. Also, I forgot to mention that my HT didn't follow it's orders and constantly reversed back to safety, as if facing a tank or something. The legendary "IS-2 behavior", I say.

[ January 21, 2003, 07:12 AM: Message edited by: Bone_Vulture ]

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I have seen the same problem in a more dangerous situation. In a tank battle one of my medium battletanks (can´t remember which one it was) refused to fire it`s maingun at an opposing stug III....the stug had in fact more intellect and fired two AP rounds on my tank...enough to destroy it. btw my tank had enough AP HE and c shots to fire...

Oi Skolman

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Originally posted by Terrapin:

If the MG on that halftrack is the same as the HMGs carried by infantry, then the HMG can definately take out that car. I've done this numerous times. It takes a few turns if you're unlucky, but it can do it.

I think it's the standard MG34/42.....

[EDIT]

How is it possible that the "heavy" MG34/42 has a better armor penetration than the standard model? Aren't they supposed to fire the same round?

[ January 21, 2003, 05:30 PM: Message edited by: Bone_Vulture ]

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Originally posted by Bone_Vulture:

No, I wasn't using an "armor arc", but that's good to know in the future.

I don't think CM models any sort of special MG ammo, and I personally haven't witnessed a Soviet armored car ever taking damage from German machineguns. I wish there was some sort of "force fire" command, that'd make the unit ignore ammo conservation: perhaps at a price of higher basic ammo consumption and more dramatic moral impact when the unit runs out of ammo.

[EDIT]

Again the standred 7,92x57 Ss can punch through 8mm of armour at 200m. MG will take out a BA20 that only has an armour basis of 6mm all round.
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I don't think CM models any sort of special MG ammo, and I personally haven't witnessed a Soviet armored car ever taking damage from German machineguns.
I have (BA-6 taken out by MG 34), but you need to be aware that you do NOT get the standard penetration messages for MG fire against light armor. So MG kills can be hard to spot without looking at the firing MG's list of kills.
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Is it just a case of "conflicting opinion" between me and the AI? Why does the computer has to use the halftrack's MG which might barely damage the enemy armored car, instead of firing a couple of 20mm round salvos that'd be almost guaranteed to do the job?

The halftrack starts with around 14 HE and 6 AP "shots": I ask what's the point, if these rounds are never used (in the same match I witnessed another SPW 250/9 fire at a pinned infantry unit some 20 meters away without using HE 20mm ammo, but only the MG).

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Originally posted by Bone_Vulture:

Is it just a case of "conflicting opinion" between me and the AI? Why does the computer has to use the halftrack's MG which might barely damage the enemy armored car, instead of firing a couple of 20mm round salvos that'd be almost guaranteed to do the job?

The halftrack starts with around 14 HE and 6 AP "shots": I ask what's the point, if these rounds are never used (in the same match I witnessed another SPW 250/9 fire at a pinned infantry unit some 20 meters away without using HE 20mm ammo, but only the MG).

Yes because the MG is not worthless versus the BA20, it can "kill" it.
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So if your HT had 20mm AP and MG to choose from. Both go through AC without much problem, so only reason why don't get kill is that those solid shots do not hit anything important. And with MG it would seem more likely to hit because you get more shots.

Perhaps if your HT would have had 20mm HE ammo it could have been more usefull to use it.

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Originally posted by jKMkIII:

So if your HT had 20mm AP and MG to choose from. Both go through AC without much problem, so only reason why don't get kill is that those solid shots do not hit anything important. And with MG it would seem more likely to hit because you get more shots.

Perhaps if your HT would have had 20mm HE ammo it could have been more usefull to use it.

*Sigh*

At ranges around 100-200 meters, the 20mm gun is so accurate that the second salvo is almost guaranteed to hit. I still underline that the MG kill chance is pitiful, the HT should use it's main weapon.

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