CMBB - Soviets in the worst of 43

[Bigduke6]

So why is it that the Soviet histories I read pretty much all say an 85mm AP strike or two pretty much equaled dead panther/tiger out to about 800 meters, and sometimes even further? Must be that Red propaganda again, darn them.

On the pen numbers I gotta agree with JasonC on this one, the numbers are pretty deceiving as they're not factoring in lateral angle and so on. The book is pretty clear on that, no surprise there.

But underperforming Soviet AP ammunition in CM, wow, the more I think about it the more I come up with the logical Russian explaination: it's all a big plot!

[JasonC]

Side angle has nothing to do with it.

Time September 1943. 10 SU-85s at the end of pine lined firing lanes at various ranges. StuG IIIGs early-mid (most common that month, 30+50 front) at the other end of the lanes with all AP, T, and smoke rounds removed. HE they have. Two sets faced off at each of the following ranges - 400m, 600m, 800m, 1000m, 1200m. 2 minutes of firing, any StuGs that back into smoke in minute one sent forward through it in minute 2.

In the end, 1 StuG out of 10 was KOed by penetration. 1 StuG was track hit immobilized and the crew bailed. 2 StuGs were gun hit and gun damaged, the crews staying.

One SU was immobilized by a lower hull HE hit and the crew bailed. One SU was first gun damaged by an upper hull HE hit (not gun hit), then suffered -1 crew and shock from internal armor flaking from another HE hit, this one on the superstructure.

The crew of that one routed. The StuG that shot it was actually panicking at the time and sitting in smoke, without fully breaking LOS. Yes they shoot back even when panicking, even with only HE.

Here is the blow by blow on the StuGs. M means a miss, UH means upper hull hit, LH lower hull hit, G means gun hit, T means track hit. Result codes are R means ricochet, SBU means shell broke up, NSD means no significant damage, GD means gun damage, I means immobilize, FP means full penetration, PP means partial penetration, -KO means vehicle goes on the bailing out clock (of course it can still be shot). Later minutes are shown as a separate entry line.

400m - UH-SBU, UH-SBU, M (pops smoke)

400m - UH-R, M, UH-FP-KO

400m - UH-PP-NSD, M, M, UH-SBU

600m - M, UH-SBU, UH-SBU, UH-SBU, LH-R

600m - M, M, M, LH-SBU, UH-R

600m - UH-SBU (flaking, panics), M, M, M (opponent GDed)

600m - T-I-KO, M, UH-SBU, M, UH-SBU, M

800m - UH-SBU, LH-SBU, M, UH-SBU (opponent I-KO)

800m - M, M, M, UH-SBU, M, UH-SBU

800m - M, UH-SBU, M, M, UH-SBU

1000m - LH-R, M, M, UH-SBU, M

1000m - UH-R, UH-R, M, UH-R, M, UH-SBU

1000m - LH-R, LH-R, UH-R, M, UH-R

1000m - M, UH-R, M, UH-SBU, UH-SBU

1200m - M, M, M, LH-R, M, M

1200m - UH-R, UH-R, UH-R, UH-SBU, UH-SBU, LH-R

1200m - M, LH-R, LH-SBU, G-GD, LH-R

1200m - UH-R, UH-R, G-GD, UH-R, M

4 effective hits out of 51 from 88 shots - 2 gun hits, 1 track hit, 1 full penetration. There was also one partial penetration that did no significant damage. Both pens were achieved at 400m distance. If the StuGs had any AP, nobody would remotely live long enough to do even that much to them.

Anybody see a pattern? KO at 1250m my eye, not with 1943 ammo. Might as well be throwing spitballs...

[walpurgis nacht]

Something bizarre is at work here that I've never noticed before.

So I setup a test as Jason did. Same toys. Sure enough, su-85 can't penetrate stug(early-mid) anywhere near out to 1250m.

Now, I know for a fact in Jwxspoon's _Ponyri Express_, the 85mm were penetrating stugs out to 1249.5m . . . so I looked into this a bit further and noticed what undoubtedly is a bug.

Stug(middle), with the solid 80mm plate, is actually WEAKER vs 85mm, then the (early mid) model, and is vulnerable out to 1250m. Go figure.

Well those were the models I ran my tests on and I think that's what is screwing our numbers up here. According to the penetration chart, any model stug should be vulnerable out to 1250m, so the uber (early mid) model thing is surely a bug.

That said, I never said it was somehow easy to take down a stug at this range. . . .just that that is the theoretical max range. You're actually better off using the 85mm AA gun at this range than an su-85. Stug doesn't throw HE terribly accurate at 1250 meters.

[stikkypixie]

Originally posted by Walpurgis Nacht:

Something bizarre is at work here that I've never noticed before.

So I setup a test as Jason did. Same toys. Sure enough, su-85 can't penetrate stug(early-mid) anywhere near out to 1250m.

Now, I know for a fact in Jwxspoon's _Ponyri Express_, the 85mm were penetrating stugs out to 1249.5m . . . so I looked into this a bit further and noticed what undoubtedly is a bug.

Stug(middle), with the solid 80mm plate, is actually WEAKER vs 85mm, then the (early mid) model, and is vulnerable out to 1250m. Go figure.

Well those were the models I ran my tests on and I think that's what is screwing our numbers up here. According to the penetration chart, any model stug should be vulnerable out to 1250m, so the uber (early mid) model thing is surely a bug.

That said, I never said it was somehow easy to take down a stug at this range. . . .just that that is the theoretical max range. You're actually better off using the 85mm AA gun at this range than an su-85. Stug doesn't throw HE terribly accurate at 1250 meters.

Don't jump to conclusions to easily.

a) Have you checked the armor quality of the different variants of the Stugs

and more importantly, what year was that battle you are talking about. Because Su85 in 1944-1945 will take out any Stug at 1250m.

[walpurgis nacht]

Originally posted by stikkypixie:

Don't jump to conclusions to easily.

a) Have you checked the armor quality of the different variants of the Stugs

and more importantly, what year was that battle you are talking about. Because Su85 in 1944-1945 will take out any Stug at 1250m.

Don't jump to conclusions so easily, then post a vague, unstudied set of criticisms when you've taken all of 2 seconds to think about it.

-check the armor quality of the stugs I mentioned and answer your own question about armor quality.

-happen to know where Ponyri station is and when this battle took place? Do some research and answer your own question about the date. Or just skip it and notice the title of this thread.

[stikkypixie]

First of all I wasn't critising you. Sometimes the cause of a problem can be something silly, that can easily overlooked.

No, I do not know when the battle took place, and it's not because the thread talks about 1943, that every post will be about 1943.

Also scenario maker can put in units from later years in a scenario that depicts 1943.

Also I loaded a test scenario where my su85 took on the two variants of Stugs and I got both 0% of killing them at 1250m.

This doens't mean that their isn't a difference, but if there is one it's very little. And I seem to remember threads about the difference between the protection that 50mm+30mm and a solid 80mm.

[walpurgis nacht]

Originally posted by stikkypixie:

First of all I wasn't critising you. Sometimes the cause of a problem can be something silly, that can easily overlooked.

No, I do not know when the battle took place, and it's not because the thread talks about 1943, that every post will be about 1943.

Also scenario maker can put in units from later years in a scenario that depicts 1943.

Also I loaded a test scenario where my su85 took on the two variants of Stugs and I got both 0% of killing them at 1250m.

This doens't mean that their isn't a difference, but if there is one it's very little. And I seem to remember threads about the difference between the protection that 50mm+30mm and a solid 80mm.

Ponyri Express is a train station from the Kursk battle.

I'm not sure how to reproduce things precisely because the editor produces different results depending on factors that are beyond my understanding.

The targetted stug below is a (mid) variant, the fellow to his right is an (early mid) variant. As you can see the mid variant is killable. If I switch to the early mid it says "kill:none".

Doesn't make sense. Certainly a bug.

[stikkypixie]

Well if it's a bug, I hope BFC will take note of it.

If there is some other explanation someone will come along to explain it.

[Sergei]

Are the two StuG's facing to the same point or to the same direction? Because if the latter, then there is a slight difference in impact angles, which can have an effect.

[JasonC]

It is a "feature".

I've had the knock down drag out with them over it. Rexford convinced them to model layered plates as far superior to solid plates, on extremely thin evidence and against every other modeler's estimate of the effects of layering. Moreover, the effect is not small, it is huge. You can multiple the thinner plate by 1.3, instead of reducing it by a factor of 0.7 at standard equations on the subject predict. Meaning plate that ought to resist like 71mm resists like 89mm, a huge swing. (Leaving aside the 50mm snout region that isn't even modeled, etc).

The same effect makes Pz IICs essentially invulnerable to Russian 45mm from the front, gives 50+20 IIIJs and T-34s approximately equal reciprocal killing ranges (at a time the combat reports says the Russians deliberate stood off - that one also relies on undermodeled Russian 76mm) etc.

And this overmodeling of layering in this case works in reinforcing fashion with an equally large undermodeling applied to the Russian ammo. Which you can see if e.g. you try to punch through 100mm Tiger front hulls with SU-85s in 1943 (the task I was attempting, as a doctrinally correct way of dealing with the things, when noticed the Russian 85mm undermodeling in 1943.

Working in combination, the two produce the effect noticed in my test above, which reproduces previous results along the same lines. An effect so large and so unintuitive, that even Rexford agreed it was wrong. StuGs bouncing 76mm down to point blank he insisted on as correct - layered or not. But he admitted they should not be invulnerable to 85mm at medium range, and that the 30+50 ones are in CMBB.

But they know all about it and there is no intention of changing any of it. What it means for Russians is that the window when the SU-85 is out and the T-34/85 isn't - the one period when the SU-85 ought to be truly useful - it is effectively crippled by "German phyics". There is little to no point in taking them for their doctrinally correct role, of helping to deal with German heavies - or even just thick fronted mediums like StuGs - in 1943.

To kill such things, you have to avoid the "multiple everything Russian by 0.85" factor, and take lend lease items like the Valentine IX, captured StuGs with rarity off (but you'll never get the armor yourself - the captured ones are all thin 50mm front) or employ compensating overkill by taking things like Su-152s and Sturmoviks.

Or you can just play human beings willing to fight in Pz IVs instead of gamey optimum StuG=crack fiends...

[walpurgis nacht]

Originally posted by JasonC:

It is a "feature".

Meaning plate that ought to resist like 71mm resists like 89mm, a huge swing.

:eek: !!

Well now it all makes sense, in a really distorted absurd sort of way.

The layered plate stug is immune to 85mm out to around 612m. So, I'm not sure where you get this 89mm/71mm. Using the penetration table and doing some pretty basic math, the 50 + 30mm layered plate stug resists enemy shells as if it has roughly 108mm of frontal armor! That's just aburd in comparison to the solid 80mm plate stug.

I can't believe in a billion hours of BB gameplay I didn't notice this. I guess you don't end up fighting at long range all that terribly much in this game.

[JasonC]

The figures are from long threads debating Rexford on the subject. Standard equations for layered plate typically predict total effectiveness around .8 to .85 times uniform plate for two plates of equal thickness. That can also be thought of as the thicker plate at full effectiveness and the thinner one at .6 to .7 times. As you move toward either thicker, you get back to 1 times effectiveness overall, the contribution from the thinner plate falling. A decent first approximation of the whole curve is therefore something like thick plus 0.7 times thin.

Well, the model they actually use has sandwich armor more effective than uniform plate. I won't bore you with the details, but the scale of effect is about the same. I think the origin of it is misinterpreting problems in actual firing tests as higher effective resistence of layered plates (which effectively results in double counting when those are then also modeled) - but that is an esoteric bit of minutae.

The 1943 ammo doesn't penetrate 108mm at 600m. If it did, it would kill Tigers with front hull hits. Try it. And Panthers with front turret hits, some of the time (good "curve" rolls). I put this down to the "everything Russian must be low quality so multiply by .8 to .85" factor. But however one accounts for it, 1943 Russian 85mm does not kill things that even Rexford thinks should resist like 90mm, nor things that actually have 100mm, nor things that have 80mm and ought to resist like 70-75mm but that their models rate more like 90mm plus.

Nearly half of the hits in my test were shell broke up results. To me that screams shatter gap modeling. Which incidentally is what may have actually been happening (to other guns, not Russian 85mm) in the tests Rexford interpreted as proving 30+50 resists better than 80. (Armor quality is another, notorious one. German 80mm plates are typically rated 100% quality while Russian 45mm plates are rated 85% for no obvious reason, when the Russians actually had far denser steel etc).

These things all wind up being 15-20% fudge factors. One of them in any given case can be a judgment call. When two or three of them are made the same way, you get screwy unbelievable results like the test above. Players then glom on to the least correctly modeled case in the system, because the prices etc are based on realistic performance, so they get bang for buck taking the favored side of the least realistic modeling decisions made.

I do not say all of this to criticise BTS. They had to make decisions and they made them with what they knew at the time. I do think they could have employed better cross tests from tactical reports, but that is a methodological quibble. What we ought to do about it as players, though, is avoid competitively over stressing the weakest points of the design. By voluntarily avoiding cases known to be dubious.

In the case under examination, the solution is simple. German tank drivers should learn to fight in Pz IVs, to appreciate turrets, deep HE loads, full MGs with large loads etc. They still bounce things from their 80mm fronts, and they are still pretty afforable. But you don't get an invulnerability that probably should not be there, and you pay a reasonable price for a tank that benefits from significant overmodeling.

Similar remarks can be extended to Tigers. In 1941, the reverse case comes up and players should avoid overusing KVs.

As for T-34s in 1941, consider - they are killable through the turret front by towed guns costing less than 30 points and by many German mediums, but their front hull is invulnerable and they have a gun that can kill practically all German tanks. Germans have fits about how effective those are. The Pz IV has the same advantages in 1943, yet many German players sneer at it as hopelessly weak because it penetrable at all from the front.

Most Russians in 1941 should be in BTs or T-26s and most Germans in 1943 should be in Pz IVs. If players lived by those simple guidelines, these modeling issues would not be any serious problem. We don't need to bother BTS, we can solve the matter ourselves by just agreeing to abide by the above, voluntarily.

[Bigduke6]

JasonC,

Just for the record I was being sarcastic with that line about angle. Like you, I think the main reason Soviet AP guns underperform in CMBB is that they are modeled as weaker than they were in fact.

For the rest of you,

I won't weigh in on the technical side of this debate, I think others on this forum over the years have pretty much beaten issues like penetration, steel thickness, quality, angles etc. ad naseum to death.

What I will say is that I have read most of the standard Soviet armored commander memoirs, meaning these are first-hand accounts from people like Katukov, Babadzhian, Leliushenko, Bagramian, and so on. There are dozens, and most of them are right there for the reading on the militera.lib.ru site; of course you have to be able to read Russian.

Anyway, as regards Soviet AT cannon and German armor, the opinion of these guys is pretty much unanimous. Thumbnail, the Soviet combat commanders in their memoirs said:

1. 76.2 AP generally would take out a Stug from the front at 500m. or less. The impression I gather is it might have been possible at longer ranges too, but Stug was hard to see.

2. 76.2 AP was useless against TigerI and to a lesser extent against Panther front, but could break in both tank's flank armor easily. Not in rare cases, but easily. Both Panther and Tiger, although some accounts say the range had to be 200m or less for 76.2 to reliably hole the side of a TigerI.

3. 85mm AP gave very reliable penetration of all German tanks out to about 500 meters, with the exception of TigerII and Tiger chassis assault guns. At normal combat ranges, therefore, T-34/85 had zero penetration disadvantage vs. its typical opponents. Several of the commanders however do point out German tankers had an accuracy advantage at longer rangers.

4. Once the non-pointy 85mm round came into use, a square strike on pretty much any aspect of any German tank exception TigerII and Tiger chassis assault guns out to 1000 meters meant the German tank was holed, and usually killed. Contrast this to the situation on the West Front. There was no Soviet "panzer complex" by mid-1944. In RL, anyway.

5. 122mm AP was deadly to virtually any German tank at any combat range, period, although I would assume this excludes TigerII etc. etc. I have read several reports not for propaganda but for internal use, praising the 122mm as superior in penetrating power and destructiveness to the German 88mm. I'm not saying that was the factual case, but just reporting what the Soviet commanders seem to be saying.

Bottom line, CMBB models Soviet AP performance somewhat differently than what the Soviet commanders said it was. From my reading, anyway.

Another general impression I have is that on the RL East Front flank shots on armored vehicles were a good deal more common than in CMBB.

My personal guess this is a function of CMBB visibility usually being much greater, CMBB ground being much flatter and empty of cover, and room for maneuver being much more limited on a CMBB battlefied, than was the case in the actual war.

Scenario designers can do little about the game engine's relatively inaccurate depiction of major Soviet AP guns. However, they can do a lot towards reducing the importance of big cats in CMBB, if they just design the ground, visibility and force rations more like it was in RL. Lots of designers are great about this, but far from all IMO.

I would also say that the quick battle generator and point system is heavily weighted in favour of German armored vehicles, unless you watch it. The idea of 6-7 x T-34/85 somehow being the rough battlefield equivalent of 4 or so Panthers is ludicrious.

Well, let me rephrase that. It's ludricrous in CMBB, alhtough in RL it probably would have been a pretty fair fight.

A quick fix on the designed scenario front would be to load out Soviet tanks mostly with tungsten ammo, as that would make them roughly as dangerous to the heavier German tanks in CMBB, as they were in real life. Roughly. On the other hand it would make the Soviet tanks ridiculously overpowered against the common German tanks.

On the QB generator I see no solution, period. Have fun, but don't look to a CMBB QB to teach you much about the history of the East Front war.

Finally I think BFC is a great company and CMBB is a terrific product. I am sure CMX2 will be more faithful to Soviet AP technology, and if they make Soviet SMG squads less effective, that's fine with me.