Dont quite understand Hull-down

[I am Evil Homer]

Like, what sort of land would allow you to peek only your turret at an enemy? If its a slope then obviously the turret would tilt up a bit,and thereby, prevent ot from really shooting anything.

I can only imagine an inward curve of land(almost like a small crater) could do it.

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by I am Evil Homer:

Like, what sort of land would allow you to peek only your turret at an enemy? If its a slope then obviously the turret would tilt up a bit,and thereby, prevent ot from really shooting anything.

A good tank commander with an eye for the country can spot hull-down positions in all sorts of country. If stand on the ground over which Operation Goodwood was launched and look up Bourgebus Ridge, you can see how much of the height of a car is obscured at different points as it bowls along the road, without any percpetible terrain feature being perceptible in between. Having said that, hull-down positions are usually easy to find around the brows of hills, and you are right to suspect that the degree to which an AFV can depress its main armament affects the extent to which it can take up a hull-down fire position.

All the best,

John.

[Louie the Toad]

A tangent(?) to this is that terrain in well made scenarios should not be parking lot flat even though it might look like it from high camera levels. Get down to level 1 and mouse across the battlefield. You should find all kinds of dips, gullies, gently rolling low ridges, sunken roads and the like. All offer hull down possibilities.

On the ground.. Toad

[ParaBellum]

Originally posted by I am Evil Homer:

I can only imagine an inward curve of land(almost like a small crater) could do it.

You don't need a 'crater'-like position to get an AFV into a hull-down position.

Take a look here for a small example:

[Dr. Rosenrosen]

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the question, but you understand that the gun barrel can be adjusted up and down without moving the turret? This means that the tank can be on the safe side of the slope, not perpendicular to gravity and that the gun barrle can be lowered relative to the turret angle and fire just over the top of the hill. If you achieve a target from a good hull down position, you can see the gun barrel lower to aim at it.

Dr. Rosenrosen

[ March 09, 2003, 05:45 PM: Message edited by: Dr. Rosenrosen ]

[SolarFire]

Isn't hull-down a way to reduce the possibilities of the whole tank to be destroyed by an enemy ?

In the previous posted picture, both tanks can completely destroy each other, so what's the point on hull-downing there ?

[Guest Mike]

It REDUCES the chance because the enemy can only se, and therefor only hit, the turret - the turret is smaller than the whole tank, therefore harder to hit.

A hull down vehicle can definitely be destroyed!

You may be thinking of TURRET-down, in which teh whole tank is hidden - often a tank commander will sit or stand on his turet top to lok over a ridge or other obstacle. The "tank" can therefore see (because its commander can see), but it cannot be seen.

In CMBB turret down just means out of sight tho - there's no special ability to see over obstacles.

[Kanonier Reichmann]

Originally posted by ParaBellum:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by I am Evil Homer:

I can only imagine an inward curve of land(almost like a small crater) could do it.

You don't need a 'crater'-like position to get an AFV into a hull-down position.

Take a look here for a small example:

</font>

[synchro]

actually, some tanks are not so effective in hulldown except for the fact that there's only a small percentage of the vehicle exposed to enemy fire, thus, less of a chance to be hit... not necessarily a good thing

take the PzIV late models: usually ww2 tanks have thick armour on the turret front, so when in hulldown, not only is there a reduced chance of it being hit it also has a better chance of not being KO'd. even the good old sherman had decent armour on its turret front. but the PzIVs never seemed to improve it's turret front armour much from the sad old days of infantry support in blitzkrieg['40-mid '42]. the hullfront is ok, lower and upper, but the damn turretfront is quite thin for a medium AFV of late WW2 [50mm? i think... at 10 degrees? yow!]. i think the lynx had better turret armour than that!

so, if controlling a PzIV against some light AT there doesn't seem to be much point in utilising hulldown as a single hit on that weak turret front will KO the PzIV [and as for the hull rear? don't let any allied .5 inch MGs get around the back of it or it's dead... thin as paper... gimme a sherman any day!]. but it has a decent gun.

the guys who wrote this game obviously have done their homework as the detail in these games are incredible but can the turret stats for the late PzIV really be that poor? the PzIV, with the stugIII and marder were prolly the most widely used AFVs from mid 44 onward.

[went a bit off topic there...sorry]

thanks

das

[Kanonier Reichmann]

Just to adopting the "Mr Picky" trademark temporarily. I believe you will find that there were a hell of alot of Panthers around as well (over 5,000 produced) and were generally speaking, more common than Marders.

Regards

Jim R.

[ParaBellum]

Originally posted by Kanonier Reichmann:

Hey Para.....what sky mod are you using?

Regards

Jim R.

I'm still working on it. The highly detailed textures at the moment even bring the fastest system down to its knees.

Guess I have to upgrade first in order to finnish that mod.

Could you please send me 250$ in small, unmarked bills to support the cause?

[Kanonier Reichmann]

Careful how you word that Para....Aussie dollars are worth a hell of alot less than their American (or Euro for that matter) equivalent. Can you really buy an upgraded system for $27.19 US?

Regards

Jim R.

[Redwolf]

You are actually poiting to an important aspect of Soviet versus Western tanks.

Western tanks generally can depress the gun enough to shoot from hulldown positions on slopes, but Soviet tanks often have to move up the slope completely, exposing the hull. This is even more true for modern tanks than in WW2.

[Sergei]

Just so that no noobies get confused, Combat Mission does not model limitations in gun up/down movement.

[Poor Old Spike]

Originally posted by Louie the Toad:

A tangent(?) to this is that terrain in well made scenarios should not be parking lot flat even though it might look like it from high camera levels. Get down to level 1 and mouse across the battlefield. You should find all kinds of dips, gullies, gently rolling low ridges, sunken roads and the like. All offer hull down possibilities.

On the ground.. Toad

Absolutely,get your eyeball down in the grass,but you MUST have the "gridded terrain" mods to really read contours and perspective properly by being able to see every tiny wrinkle in the ground that the eye wouldn't see otherwise.Playing without these mods is a serious handicap :cool:

[Dave H]

Originally posted by Poor Old Spike:

Absolutely,get your eyeball down in the grass,but you MUST have the "gridded terrain" mods to really read contours and perspective properly by being able to see every tiny wrinkle in the ground that the eye wouldn't see otherwise.Playing without these mods is a serious handicap :cool: [/QB]

Well, that may explain a small part of my difficulties in our PBEMs. :mad: No wonder your tanks ALWAYS seemed to be hull-down. Personally I never liked the gridded terrain when I tried putting on a PC green in some golf game, the name of which escapes me. What I would really like would be a mod that actually has the contours overlaying the terrain. That I could definitely use.

[MikeyD]

Synchro's comment on the relative effectiveness of hull-down reminded be of a big debate back when the demo first came out.

The initial production T34 Model 1940 suffered from a weak gun mantlet and the tanks in the demo were getting a maddenly high proportion of turret front penetrations from 37mm anti-tank guns. It was a general conclusion that it was better to be fully exposed than hull-down because though the number of vehicle hits would go up the percentage of lethal turret strikes would go down. One of the rare instances of gamey tactics to counter a game engine-based problem. That particular problem's been largely tweaked away for the T34 in succeeding patches.

[ March 26, 2003, 01:46 PM: Message edited by: MikeyD ]

[mike_the_wino]

Originally posted by ParaBellum

Guess I have to upgrade first in order to finnish that mod.

Does this have a "lutefisk" option?

[Erwin Rommel]

Another variation of the hull down position I use to good effect is to pull up close behind the stone walls and use them as the cover.

[The Vyrdolak]

Originally posted by mike_the_wino:

Originally posted by ParaBellum

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> Guess I have to upgrade first in order to finnish that mod.

Does this have a "lutefisk" option? </font>

[ParaBellum]

Originally posted by Zaraath:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by mike_the_wino:

Originally posted by ParaBellum

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> Guess I have to upgrade first in order to finnish that mod.

Does this have a "lutefisk" option? </font>

[BadgerDog]

The term "hull down" to a tanker, specifically the driver, means that your AFV when viewed from the front by the enemy will expose ONLY the turret silhouette to their gun's line of sight. It is a cardinal sin for a tank to stop in the open unless there's absolutely no other alternative. If one can't stop, then you should keep moving in order to deny the enemy's AT guns or other tanks a whole silhouette firing resolution . When moving, you kept zigzagging as well, in order to alter the sight picture of anyone trying to lay their master weapon on you. The Crew Commander (CC) normally hollered into the headsets, "driver, hull down, ridge to your left". The driver would "jockey" and move to that general position where he from his periscope, was not able to see over the crest.

The term "turret down" to a tanker, specifically the driver, means that your AFV when viewed from the front by the enemy will expose NO silhouette to their gun's line of sight. The CC would usually be standing on the turret floor with the upper part of his body exposed outside through the CC's cupola ring. He would be using his binoculars to scan the ground to the front for targets and his next hull or turret down fire position. Sometimes, depending upon the ground, he would stand on top of the turret viewing with his binoculars. The turret down position was used to lay "indirect fire" (no line of sight) onto enemy positions, such as HE while support an infantry advance.

It was quite boring being a driver, since if you were doing your job taking up fire positions correctly, you couldn't see anything but the reverse slope of a hill in front of you, or a hard obstacle you had chosen to take up a hull or turret down behind. As a Sherman driver, there was many a large fallen tree whose bark work I have studied extensively, while sitting for hours stationary in a hull down listening to the drone of the engines. It was not uncommon for many drivers, including this old badger road kill, to fall asleep sitting in an extended hull or turret down. The result would always be the CC sliding downward in the turret and moving his lower body forward to the driver's compartment from the rear. He would then give a swift boot to the back of the head and holler "wake up".

It is important to note that when it was time to move forward from these fire positions, the AFV didn't simply drive forward over the obstacle that was being used as a hull or turret down. A good AT or enemy tank gunner would sit patiently after he had seen you. He would lay and sight his primary weapon upon you, waiting for that movement forward. Why? Well, simply put, as the tank moves forward, its front end will rise up high in the air when clearing the obstacle such as the ridge line. The front mass of the vehicle would usually expose it's under belly and at that point they would fire. To avoid this as much as possible and to deny that solid sight picture, one would "jockey" backwards from a hull or turret down, to the right or left a fair distance. At that point the driver would build as much speed as possible, cresting the obstacle at a different spot then the original hull or turret down location, running like stink for the next hull or turret down position selected by the CC. Note the fact that before you moved, you ALWAYS picked out you next fire position.

It would be nice to have a "jockey" command available to simulate the "fire and movment" of AFV's.

Regards,

Badger

[SgtMuhammed]

You just pointed out why I hated driving during good missions. I don't know how many times I blew a gasket waiting for my TC to see and engage a target.

On the other hand, driving flat out through trees was great fun, till I jumped back into the TC hatch that is.

The need to use terrain properly is one of the best arguments for developing and preserving good crew teams. I got to the point where I could tell my driver a word or two and he would put us into exactly the position I wanted. If you have to take your attention off of the battlefield and onto your track you usually die.

I haven't really seen too much mention of this but a tank that is hull down is also much harder to spot. In the heat of battle when doing a quick scan for targets even looking a little different can mean a lot.