Snake Eyes Posted January 30, 2003 Share Posted January 30, 2003 Originally posted by Zitadelle: Versus "slightly" killed.... I chose the wording with purpose. The ST does nothing slightly. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snake Eyes Posted January 30, 2003 Share Posted January 30, 2003 Here's some information I pulled off the web about a year ago that may be of interest to the ballistic grogs. The weapon fired two kinds of shells (which were more rockets than conventional projectiles). The high explosive shell was cataloged as 38cm 4581 while the hollow-charge shell was the 38cm 4592. Both projectiles had a maximum range of 5,700 meters. The 4592 round was specifically developed to destroy reinforced concrete fortifications but it is not known if this shell was actually deployed and thus the default is the 4581 shell being used in action. With that said, consider all the information on the ballistics and projectile dimensions to be for the 4581 round. The shell was a long affair, coming in two parts. The first part was the seamless, longitudinally welded cartridge and ballistic cap. This segment was 500mm long. The second part was the combustion chamber, which was 470mm long. The chamber was filled with about 40kg of diglycol powder, in a rod form. Both segments were linked by a unthreaded tension ring. The warhead was loaded with 135kg of TNT. The mechanical igniter was manually screwed into the front of the shell. All told, the complete round weighed in at 345kg. [ January 30, 2003, 02:18 PM: Message edited by: Snake Eyes ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PJungnitsch Posted January 30, 2003 Share Posted January 30, 2003 A US encounter with a Sturmtiger is written here: here. Plus a movie of the Sturmtiger leveling a building. I'll bet the Germans wished they'd had a couple in Stalingrad... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snake Eyes Posted January 30, 2003 Share Posted January 30, 2003 Originally posted by Paul Jungnitsch: I'll bet the Germans wished they'd had a couple in Stalingrad... The lessons learned at Stalingrad and the deficiencies identified there brought forth the Brummbär with its 15cm gun. However, 15cm was not powerful enough to defeat all fortifications. On 5 August 1943 it was suggested to Adolf Hitler that a new naval weapon be mated to a tank chassis which would provide the needed firepower to put the Germans on top. And it was this suggestion which gave birth to the Sturmtiger. So, as you see, its genesis is Stalingrad. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lumbergh Posted January 30, 2003 Share Posted January 30, 2003 Originally posted by Snake Eyes: </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Zitadelle: Versus "slightly" killed.... I chose the wording with purpose. The ST does nothing slightly. </font> 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CombinedArms Posted January 31, 2003 Share Posted January 31, 2003 Originally posted by Lumbergh: I think the proper Python reference would be "lightly" killed.... Crunchy frogs, anyone? Or how about "Spring Surprise"? :eek: 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lumbergh Posted January 31, 2003 Share Posted January 31, 2003 Come to think of it, I am surprised that the Sturmtiger never made it into a Python episode. There is something Pythonesque about it, no? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CombinedArms Posted January 31, 2003 Share Posted January 31, 2003 Originally posted by Lumbergh: Come to think of it, I am surprised that the Sturmtiger never made it into a Python episode. There is something Pythonesque about it, no? I would definitely be practicing how not to be seen if a Sturmtiger were anywhere around. But I'm not sure it would survive an attack by a vicious gang of keep left signs or a burly crowd of lumberjacks. It would be dead as a parrot before you know it.... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ministry Posted February 1, 2003 Share Posted February 1, 2003 Incredible weapon, never seen a bigger explosion. Its great if it doesnt bog down and you can get it out of harms way after it fires!!! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted February 1, 2003 Share Posted February 1, 2003 Well I bought an ST for a game just to see what it could do ( had never used one before) and operating in conjunction with 2 x KTs it was fighting off a horde of T34-85s ( we're talking about a Bn's worth of these T34s). Anyways it fired at one of the T34s which was rounding a gap in some trees. It hit the T34 and destroyed it ( doing no damage to any of the other Soviet tanks clustered around it, much to my disgust). Next turn the Soviets auto-surrendered. When I looked at the kill tallies end-game I saw the ST had destroyed 1 T34, 6 guns and 791 !!!! men. It seems the Soviets had had two reinforced rifle Bns hiding in woods on either side of the choke point and my ST had managed to wipe most of them out. 791 men with 1 shot has to be some sort of record. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CombinedArms Posted February 1, 2003 Share Posted February 1, 2003 Originally posted by Fionn: 791 men with 1 shot has to be some sort of record. Wow, that was all with one shot? Based on my little test, they must have been crammed VERY closely together, since I had 94 killed but also 230 survivors in a single patch of woods. My guess is that a 200% rarity cost isn't quite high enough for a Sturmtiger, in part because of their disproportionate power and in part because only one or two were every deployed on the ostfront. The JS-3 has a 900% rarity in May 1945 and that sounds more like it for the Sturmtiger, too. BTW, anyone want to try playing Rune's "Clash of the Titans II"--which features the ST? I've seen the setup from the Russian side, but then my opponent had to back out because of RL issues. So if someone wants to try playing with one legitimately, I'll take you on. Email is in the profile. ------------ Edit: I found an opponent w/in minutes! Any other takers might want to seek another opponent... [ February 01, 2003, 11:26 AM: Message edited by: CombinedArms ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonC Posted February 1, 2003 Share Posted February 1, 2003 Yes, the ST round has more explosives per bit of shell weight than naval rifles that deal with many times the muzzle velocity and were actually meant to pierce armor, or than smaller shells. But it has about the same ratio of explosives to weight as air-dropped bombs. It is in all essentials a single 750 lb bomb. There are 550 and 1100 lb bombs in CMBB, and its effect should be intermediate between them, and certainly not larger than the effect of a 1100 lb bomb. As for the reports, the seem somewhat conflicting. 70m giving decent protection sounds about right for a 750 lb bomb, with no more than pinning and an occasional "winged" shrapnel loss at 100m. Total annihilation within 50m even with woods cover is too much, however. Men completely in the open and upright might be that exposed, but the 100% kill radius with some cover should be more like half that distance. The couple men remaining sort of effect should be seen out to 35m or so (with cover, understand). I am going by reported effects of various air dropped bombs. I think the problem is that CM blast values translate into effects that are too high for the largest absolute numbers. Whatever scaling factor is being used seems to be too generous to the largest shells. It is at any rate noticable in CM that the largest calibers have significantly greater effect even with realistically fewer rounds fired. 150s are dramatically more effective than twice the number of 105 shells, for instance. Yes, the shells are 3 times the weight and have more like 4-5 times the explosive inside, but the impact should not scale up linearly with those increases, but less than linearly. Perhaps a simple square root function of fall off of blast effect overestimates large blasts at longer distances, because intervening cover and small folds of ground also tend to rise with distance, on top of the inverse square dissipation of the actual blast wave. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike the wino2 Posted February 2, 2003 Share Posted February 2, 2003 Go ahead and buy that big boy. I played around with the Sturm Tiger when game first came out. No matter how I tried I couldn't get the Sturm Tiger to last more than 6 rounds against 4 stuarts. The beast has slow ROF, no turret and the constant knocking on the hull sends the crews out of the beast. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted February 2, 2003 Share Posted February 2, 2003 CombinedArms, The tank was coming through a little gap between some woods on either side. There appears to have been 1 Bn each side of the T34 so when the shell hit there were roughly 2 Bns within about a 300 metre radius. Most of those men died. It was just really lucky I suppose. The other KT I brought only got 64 men with its shot and that was a direct hit on a bunch of infantry so I guess I must have lucked out. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike the wino2 Posted February 2, 2003 Share Posted February 2, 2003 Fionn how big a battle are you playing to get TWO Sturm Tigers? Are you playing w/ rarity on? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted February 2, 2003 Share Posted February 2, 2003 It was a Regiment of Soviet infantry supported by about 50 T34-85,20 or so light tanks and a scout car element plus multiple FOs vs a dug-in German company supported by 2 x KTs, 2 x STs and 1 x 155mm FO. Basically it was a Soviet breakthrough attack. Width of map was only about 800 metres to simulate the concentration during such an attack. Soviet forces comprised 3 echelons. Basically i was lucky in that my ST shell seemed to hit the 2nd echelon and thus pretty much managed to impact all three waves. I'd never used an ST before so I figured I'd see how it would fare vs a breakthrough attack since I thought the limited frontage of said attack would make the ST very valuable indeed. So, I figure I was facing about 14000 or so Soviet points ( mostly in their tanks) and had roughly 3000 points for the German defencers. I thought that a 4:1 or greater points ratio would be fairly fair. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Warmaker Posted February 2, 2003 Share Posted February 2, 2003 Hehe, that's alot of damn armor to face off against and not to mention the infantry. So, I take it steps are being taken to award the ST commander a Knights Cross or something? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew H. Posted February 2, 2003 Share Posted February 2, 2003 Originally posted by Zitadelle: Versus "slightly" killed.... No chance of resurrection, even if you use the relic you get for beating "Hill 312" on the hardest setting. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snake Eyes Posted February 3, 2003 Share Posted February 3, 2003 Originally posted by mike the wino: Go ahead and buy that big boy...I suggest that when considering the ST you keep in mind the purpose for which it was created. It was designed to reduce heavy fortifications. It is NOT an anti-tank platform. Consider it the center piece of a force selection. It should be supported by some infantry and light tanks, such as the PzIIIN. I think this would portray a more realistic encounter. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shrek Posted August 7, 2003 Share Posted August 7, 2003 Snake Eyes wrote: Charles has been much too generous to the ST. It appears that in CM the reload time is around three minutes. Actually it took about three times that.I dredged this old thread up 'cause I'm playing "Clash of Titans II" as Russians, and I just had two of these beasts unload their 380mm love packages at my units. Does a reload time of three minutes still sound about right? Just want to know when they’ll be making their next appearance so we can take the proper um, "precautions." With a ridiculously low muzzle velocity of 300m/sec, you can see it coming at you for several seconds in slow-motion – tank commanders seem to be mesmerized & don't even bother to button up as their doom approaches. An amazing sight to behold. btw, anyone successfully deal with the Sturmtigers in this scenario? I'd be interested to hear your warstories. [ August 07, 2003, 01:51 PM: Message edited by: shrek ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SgtMuhammed Posted August 7, 2003 Share Posted August 7, 2003 They are actually pretty easy to deal with. Their low rate of fire and need for LOS means that you can pick them out and pick them off before they can get another shot off. The Russians have lots of firepower in that scenario so try "hail fire" with 122mm's that should work. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CRSutton Posted August 7, 2003 Share Posted August 7, 2003 I am pretty sure the boys at BF.com overmodeled the ST just for grins. In reality the 9 minute loading time is sort of skewed as well as that represents optimum conditions. The shell was loaded frontally just like a mortar round and the ST carried a small crane for loading purposes. IIRC, that would mean that some or all of the crew would have to exit the vehicle to reload-something that would not do when in close contact with the enemy. Those dang machinegunny things tends to keep men in thier tanks. I would think than any real chance to reload would require the tank to pull back out of LOS-thus making the loading time factor more like 20 minutes or more in combat conditions My guess is that the three minute load time and total carnage produced by the ST is in the game more for the fun factor than anything else. When CMBB first came out. I sprang it on my friend in a QB. It was a town map and there were lots of buildings. Each shot would collapse three to four buildings and we giggled like little girls the whole game through. I would warn about trying to thread shots with it. Once I tried to shoot between two buildings at a target further away. The shot clipped the building that just happened to be full of my men. Needless to say, my friend had more to giggle about on that particular turn. I think I would decline to play against it in any serious game. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Denwad Posted August 8, 2003 Share Posted August 8, 2003 Did you even read the article? You might be confusing the Sturmtiger with the Little David, the Sturmtiger DID have a breech in which to load the ammunition. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SgtMuhammed Posted August 8, 2003 Share Posted August 8, 2003 One thing I have noticed about the ST, and this also applies to the Churchill with the spigot mortar from CMBO, is that against a point target, like a tank, they tend to be deadly accurate. When I order one to area fire I will get spreads of several tens of meters. If I tell it to shoot a tank I get a direct hit every time. Pretty interesting when you consider that it is a low velocity, high tragectory gun. One I had even managed a hit on a speeding T34 at over 800 meters. Even Panthers have trouble with that one. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Warmaker Posted August 8, 2003 Share Posted August 8, 2003 I wish I had whatever lot of Sturmtigers you've had. I haven't had that kind of sharpshooting accuracy with my Sturmkitty. Then again, an impact near a tank stands a fairly good chance of immobilizing them. If they were unbuttoned the TC gets KO'd. I'll only use the ST in pre-made scenarios or QB games that I'm just playing around with usually. The thing is just waaaay expensive but it's presence can be felt if used correctly. It'll stop any infantry attacks dead cold in whatever terrain. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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