Russian weapons undermodelled re: Tigers?

[Bigduke6]

Deleted due to thread fatigue

[ May 02, 2005, 02:40 AM: Message edited by: Bigduke6 ]

[rune]

Gack...I really didn't want to come back to this thead.

jasonC, since I believe the simplest answer is usually correct, instead of thinking a giant conspiracy to get the 85mm gun, maybe just maybe they had lower quality ammunition? We have no idea if the ammo was stock, modified, or whatever. Thee point being made, is there is no proof one way or the other.

Ditto with the StuG. I didn't post the complete passage, so instead of saying the General wasn't there, and it was just reports, the reason the Stugs didn't kill unless a direct hit, was the tanks T-34s, were dug in for defense. It had nothing to do with penetration, but the fact it was hard to hit the target.

Of course it doesn't model the top plate being destroyed. It was an add-on after the game engine was designed. Nor does the game have aiming at specific targets on the tank, the drivers vision slit, the gun mantlet, etc. What are the odds of two 76.2mm sheels hitting the plate in the same point? How damage is the plate after a hit? Questions can go on and on. However, AGAIN, unless someone has a StuG witht he attached plate, is Lorrin right or are you? Bottom line is I don't know, you both make good cases. However, the point is it was never written about is wrong, there is direct writing on the stug and the attached plate. There wasn't a mix of StuGs, as you suggest.

As for the Tigers, the statement was made the Tiger should be penetrated at 500 meters. This account, along with the Russian training stating do NOT fire unless under 300 meters, indicates to me that 500 meters was just too iffy to take out a tiger. As I stated before and will state again, the Tiger should be defeated at a closer range. Lower hull obviously, as well as turret as the range decreases. panzer76s tests show the guns do EXACTLY that in the game. I don't remember if we knew about the heat treated rounds when the game game out, or if we knew the numbers that were produced.

The game is far from perfect. My problem is with 15% under-rated. There is NO proof of that. the fact that the numbers are still debated here and elsewhere 60 years after the fact, tells me we may never know the correct numbers. I would still want proof before accepting the numbers are wrong. Nothing here is proof, just conjecture.

Rune

[JasonC]

Maybe is was the worst ammo ever. Maybe so was all the other ammo they tested. But why is there more reason to believe their Russian 76mm results are representative, than their German 75mm results? Because the conclusion is wanted or otherwise expected, no other reason. Myself, I just discount that report entirely, and look at others instead. It is not like nobody else ever noticed what 76mm ammo does.

As for the overall modeling result,my tests show an exchange ratio of T-34/76s vs. Tigers from an initial target picture of exact placement at 0 degrees off the perpendicular flank of a buttoned Tiger at 500m of 25 to 1 aka a 4% chance or less for the T-34 to win rather than the Tiger, after perfect driving to the position the Russian tankers actually strove for. I don't think they strove for a 25 to 1 against shot. The average overall engagement one on one may have had chances that bad, but not the bit after they got first shot at close range from the side with zero side angle.

I don't recognize 6 elite T-34s all at 250m and zero side angle simultaneously as representing anything on our planet. I already agreed above that the Tiger issue seems to be largely BAE, not pens - which for some reason the other fellow tested with a different, LL, gun. I reported the instant kill chance observed as about 1/6; by using 6 shooters simultaneously for 1-3 shots he deliberately removed it from his test.

He also misunderstood the tables about brew ups - yes that was the immediate question the Brit survey was asking, but their sample included both brewed up tanks and KOed ones that did not brew up. Penetrations per brew up aren't going to be less than penetrations per kill in such a sample. I don't try to reason with such people, but you are a different story.

Pens per brew up ran slightly over 3 and pens per KO ran 2.25 for Panthers and 2.6 for Tigers in the Brit data. You aren't going to get an average of 2.6 pens per kill with a 1/6 kill chance per full pen, which is what I saw with 76mm T ammo. You will get that average with a 40% initial KO chance, roughly, but not with a 17% initial KO chance. If the instant KO chance were twice as high as I saw, then the chance after getting a single tank to close range on the flank would be a coin toss and getting a platoon there would be a likely clean kill, and I've have no problem.

As for StuG fronts, the present 30+50s bounce 1943 85mm ammo at 600m routinely, which even Lorin agrees is wrong. That one apparently compounds several individually debatable items in a way that is beyond believable. Could be ammo quality, shatter gap, layered plate, hardness effects, effectively double counted and working together in one direction to produce a strictly ahistorical result.

In discussion of 76mm vs. uniform 80mm StuG fronts he agreed it is too hard to KO them under 500m in CM, though we never agreed on anything about how much. I've cited the contemporary German accounts that say they could be penetrated under 500m (e.g their "StuHs don't do tanks" reasoning). I do appreciate the report, as it is the first I've seen of anyone alleging anything like invulnerability to 76mm fire, whatever the range.

As for the inability of a StuG with long 75 to hit a T-34 beyond point blank range because they were hull down or dug in, it isn't very plausible. They got turret hits at longer ranges when the turret was the only vulnerable part of the tank - it is not like the turret is unhittable. The Germans were regularly trying to close before they got long guns, but did not remotely need to after they had them, which was before they had the good armor.

I might believe it as a transitional period report, before they knew what to do, perhaps. In which case I'd expect the shots were from 350A, though. I still think the closing behavior sounds like 75L24 and two different tactics conflated. It would be much more plausible as a clear report of 30+50 long StuGs vs. T-34s at close range, if the T-34s were the ones trying to close the distance.

I know you guys worked on this, and my intention is not to trash the result. My main advice in this thread is telling Russian drivers to use means besides flank and close (like 57mm, SU-152s, AT mines, and Sturmoviks), and to bring a whole platoon when flank and close is all they have (because side aspect is fleeting and with BAE as it is, you need multiple hits to do anything). My main advice in other threads on the subject is to tell German drivers to take a Panzer IV once in a while, precisely to stop overstressing the StuG modeling question in game practice.

[Panzer76]

Originally posted by JasonC:

I don't try to reason with such people, but you are a different story.

*yawn*

[Andreas]

General Rauss is not a reliable source IMO. Scheibert states that he pretty much made up an account of a critical night attack by Soviet 25th Tank Corps (should that be brigade?) on elms of 6.PD on New Year's night 1942/3, very strongly distorting events at which he was not present, without even mentioning that minor fact. E.g. Rauss claims the Soviet tanks ran into an ambush while that did not happen, and claims that 90 Soviet tanks were lost, while in reality there were 32 lost.

Scheibert muses that the reason for the diverging accounts of the battle is 'ignorance of those with too much imagination retelling an event' (in a thinly veiled reference to Rauss). Rauss' account was published in the 'Allgemeine Schweizer Militaerzeitschrift', presumably a solid journal. Scheibert was present at the beginning of the battle, and the (in his view) most reliable account is by Dr. Baeke who commanded the battalion and the battle.

So while he maybe correct on repeated hits on 30+50 armour being detrimental (that is confirmed elsewhere), I would not set too much stock in statements like 'point-blank', numbers of own units and enemy units engaged and destroyed, etc.

YMMV.

[rune]

Andreas,

Thanks, I did not know that about Rauss. I will discount his account of the battle then, unless I find anything about it from another source. Like I have the time to dig it up.

Rune