Panther Gun accuracy question

[ww2steel]

I was reading New Vanguard/ Osprey #67 (Panther). On page 42 it states that the Panther with the L/70 achieves a 97% FIRST ROUND hit probability at 1000m and a 29% at 2500m. A T-34/76 in CMBB only gives it a 34% at 1000! It doesn't get to 97% until 65m. Even with an elite crew it's only 55% @ 1000m. Even shooting at the side of a KV2 with an elite crew it's only 77%.

Was accuracy just downgraded for the sake of longer games (like the bullet/grenadeproof überinfantry)? Or is the book just plain wrong? Or were they getting this 1RHP from shooting at a '2 story heavy building'?

What gives?

Mike

[Aco4bn187inf]

Perhaps the test that gave the 97% result was conducted under 'laboratory' conditions. For example, the gunner may have been told, "Okay, here's an immobile tank-sized target and your range is exactly 1000 metres. Please sit here and fire one hundred rounds at it."

This would certainly prove the gun's ability to fire a very tight pattern of hits, but I assume that in combat you have some variables of range estimation, crew stress, etc, etc. that degrade the accuracy.

[Aco4bn187inf]

Ah, I see you wrote 97% with FIRST ROUND.

[ww2steel]

Yes, but true certainly about what you said- stress and lack of perfect ranging, etc. I just wonder sometimes when my Tiger (or whatever) misses some big enemy tank 3 times in a row from 150m when they're both stopped. It's just maddening! Grr.

Mike

[zmoney]

Originally posted by ww2steel:

I was reading New Vanguard/ Osprey #67 (Panther). On page 42 it states that the Panther with the L/70 achieves a 97% FIRST ROUND hit probability at 1000m and a 29% at 2500m.

Mike

I think stats like this are useless. I think it would all depend on who is shooting the gun and in what type of situation he is in.

That’s like saying you can kick a ball into a goal that is twenty meters away with your first shot 97% of the time. While that may be true if you were alone, I don’t think the scientist took into account the goal keeper or the eleven guys trying to stop you from kicking the ball into the goal.

Plus the gun doesn’t shot itself. What if there happened to be a bad gunner, would he still be able to hit on his first round?

[JonS]

Seems like a confusion between accuracy and precision to me. On a range, or in a lab, accuracy can be controlled for and thus precision can be measured in great detail. In the real world, all sorts of things affect accuracy, and will tend to swamp precision figures.

The 97% 1RHP that Osprey talk about is likely a measure of the Panther's gun's precision, not its accuracy.

[ww2steel]

So chalk this up to that "the IS2 from 1500m can punch through the glacis plate, through the center bulkhead, and out the rear armor"?

(Fine print= the tank had been sitting on a tank range for a year and had been hit 200 times by large caliber guns?)

Mike

[ww2steel]

Jon - makes sense, perhaps. I would think however that first round hit %age would be based more on accuracy than precision. A precise gun that is inaccurate would miss regularly, but would always hit the ground in the same spot. An accurate gun would have a larger group, but be on target. Once a precision gun brackets the target it will hit it like every time, but that's not a 1st round hit percent.

Regardless of wording, I understood for a second what you were saying about how this might effect these tests, but now it's beyond me. How would this relate to the difference between real world FIRST SHOT and test range FIRST SHOT?

Fill me in please,

Mike

[JonS]

IMO, 'first shot' is a red herring in this context.

As I said, in a lab - or more likely on a range - accuracy can be controlled for. The gun can be clamped to a rigid mount, and sight and gun carefully aligned, range estimation errors eliminated, and so on. In that case, '1RHP' is measuring the % chance the gun will hit what it is pointed at - ie, precision. In the case of a Panther gun, at 1000m it will hit what it is pointed at 97 times out of a hundred. (As an extreme example of why it isn't 100%; I understand precision of the 17-pr when firing APDS at longer ranges was woeful due to un-even petal seperation skewing the round in flight.)

The tricky bit is then ensuring the gun is actually pointed at what you want to hit. I.e., accuracy.

[ July 10, 2006, 08:38 PM: Message edited by: JonS ]

[ww2steel]

What is it trying to distract from? (Now that I looked up 'red herring')

I would think that first shot accuracy would be very important. ...as long as it could be close to real world figures... which it's probably not.

Mike

Okay- now that I'm reading your edit I totally see what you're saying. The book did specify Panther, but it may be a misinterpretation of the gun in a rigid mount, as the Germans often did.

[ July 10, 2006, 08:31 PM: Message edited by: ww2steel ]

[JonS]

First round hit is very important - in a tactical sense - but using the phrase in this sense is distracting you from getting at what the figure is trying to explain.

Basically, the 97% thingy is the chance of any round to hit the target when the gun is pointed properly at the target. '1RHP' kind of gets that, but it also implies it is applicable in a tactical sense, which it isn't.

[JonS]

Originally posted by ww2steel:

A precise gun that is inaccurate would miss regularly, but would always hit the ground in the same spot. An accurate gun would have a larger group, but be on target.

That is true, but I don't think you can measure the 'accuracy' of a gun in any meaningful way, because of the variables that go towards accuracy (wear of various components, shooter experience, range estimation errors, sights, gun-sight alignment, charge temperature, weather, etc).

Precision, OTOH, is something that can be meaningfully measured and compared.

[ww2steel]

Right, so the only meaningful accuracy test is one under completely controlled conditions... which is completely opposite tactical conditions. I added some to an above post too, but you beat me to it...

Okay- now that I'm reading your edit I totally see what you're saying. The book did specify Panther, but it may be a misinterpretation of the gun in a rigid mount, as the Germans often did.

Mike

[JonS]

Originally posted by ww2steel:

Right, so the only meaningful accuracy test is one under completely controlled conditions... which is completely opposite tactical conditions.

Yeah, exactly. And, in a technical sense, it is also the opposite of accuracy. Or, rather, it's measuring something other than accuracy (in the accuracy/precision sense of the word) or perhaps measuring only a subset of 'accuracy'.

For example, you could have a drill to test and adjust the gun-sight alignment, and in order to validate that drill you might document it, then have Private Snooks carry out the drill, and then fire 100 rounds at a target, while controlling the other variables as much as possible (know range, etc). Then you could see whether the drill is properly aligning the gun and barrel, which would affect the overall accuracy of the system. If the drill is carried out correctly. If, OTOH, Pte Snooks forgets to tighten the thumbscrew in step 47.a.iv. then accuracy is going to be rooted, though precision remains the same.

Similarly, improved sights which allow for better range estimation will improve accuracy, as long as Pte Snooks knows how to use them, and the sights are calibrated and aligned correctly. And so on.

Jon