HE ammo use on vehicles

[gunnersman]

I did a search and couldn't find anything. So here it is. I have noticed that tanks will fire AP rounds on armored troop carriers. Was this common? It seems like a waste to put AP into a lightly armored target which can take more than one round when one HE round will do the job.

[SirReal]

Well, if it looks like armor, treat it like armor.

Perhaps they'll fire HE when they ID the halftrack fully?

/SirReal

[Brightblade]

Originally posted by SirReal:

Well, if it looks like armor, treat it like armor.

Perhaps they'll fire HE when they ID the halftrack fully?

No, unfortunately they don´t. As long as there is one single AP round left, tanks and AT guns will use it against all kinds of vehicles, be that other tanks, HTs or even trucks, jeeps and Kübelwagen.

Would be very nice if in a future CM the TacAI was smart enough to choose a more useful ammo type for certain targets, especially when the other sort is in short supply...

[eichenbaum]

It's a problem, that's for sure. Once I had a halftrack that was hit 8 times with AP rounds from a 45mm PAK gun (at a close range of 50 meters !) Just one HE would be enough for taking it out.

Eichenbaum

[ August 02, 2003, 09:09 AM: Message edited by: eichenbaum ]

[flamingknives]

Huh? I was sure that I'd seen guns with sufficient HE penetration use said shell on soft-skins and light vehicles.

Must check.

[Mattias]

I'm with you on this flamingknives, it happens all the time in my games. And by that I do mean very frequently.

Ran a few tests and sure enough, lots of HE being spent on AC's, halftracks and soft skinned vehicles (with plenty AP available to the tanks doing the shooting)...

M.

[Sardaukar]

I agree with flamingknives and Mattias. HE is used against vehicles regularly if AI "thinks" HE penetration is enough. I don't know if different experience levels affect on this, though ? Anyone tested that ?

Cheers,

M.S.

[Joachim]

Originally posted by Sardaukar:

I agree with flamingknives and Mattias. HE is used against vehicles regularly if AI "thinks" HE penetration is enough. I don't know if different experience levels affect on this, though ? Anyone tested that ?

Cheers,

M.S.

From what I witnessed, the Ai will choose the right ammo for the expected type of target. Esp. when low on ammo, a PzIIIj will fire HE at a light tank (guestimated to be a T60).

Quite frustrating if the ammo does not adjust after some bounces (hey it's a T70, stupid!)

Very bad if it is a T34M42 instead of the expected T34M41 and several bouncing AP hits are greeted by one not bouncing shoot in return - and several tungsten round are left to explode in the bruning tank.

Gruß

Joachim

[Brightblade]

Did a little test with some AT guns against some trucks, ACs and HTs.

I reduced the AP load to only a hand full while the guns had enough HE.

Distances were max. 450m. Fog of war was partial, so as soon as a unit was spotted, it was correctly identified.

The guns used only HE on soft vehicles (trucks and jeeps) as it should be, but as long as they had AP they used it against the ACs and HTs, although the penetration of their HE ammo would have been enough and was enough, once the AP rounds were depleted.

[Joachim]

Originally posted by Brightblade:

Did a little test with some AT guns against some trucks, ACs and HTs.

I reduced the AP load to only a hand full while the guns had enough HE.

Distances were max. 450m. Fog of war was partial, so as soon as a unit was spotted, it was correctly identified.

The guns used only HE on soft vehicles (trucks and jeeps) as it should be, but as long as they had AP they used it against the ACs and HTs, although the penetration of their HE ammo would have been enough and was enough, once the AP rounds were depleted.

I remember at least one incident where a PzIIIj -low on amo - fired HE at a T60 while still having left a few AP rounds. During the turn I was p***ed to see the tank wasting ammo, as there were several T34 coming close and I wanted to fire only at the T34s as long as there was AP (messed with the cover arc). The T60 (ID said light tank, AAR said T60), brew up and I checked double that it was HE during the turn. In fact, there were 2 HE rounds fired at the T60. EFOW, v1.03.

After that, I had two more where I wondered "Ah, HE" - AP was scarce, but still available. One where I cursed (Last tungsten on a T60 while there was 1 AP and 2 HE left, T34s and inf in the area.). The latter one does not fit my theory... Maybe a "what the f*** - gotta make sure that light tank is destroyed before those 3 T34s get me". (Result: The T60 survived. The T34s survived. the PzIII survived. None had any ammo left )

Maybe ammo selection is based on other known threats? If yes - excellent job, BFC.

Gruß

Joachim

[bolton]

One time my tiger use HE knocked out 2 t-70 and a t-34.(this t-34 at 1100m)

[Guest PondScum]

In a current game I had T-34s duelling with late-model Pz-IIIs at about 1000m. As you can imagine, hits were rare and AP ammo was getting low. Suddenly my opponent sent some StuGs on a nearby flanking move, exposing their weak side armor.

My T-34s calmly turned their turrets, loaded HE, and blew the StuGs away, then went back to loading AP ammo for the Pz-IIIs.

Color me impressed.

[Brightblade]

In a QB against the AI I just had a Crack 75mm Pak firing HE rounds at a IS-2 at 630m. The AT gun is low on ammo, 3 AP and 8 HE left after this round.

But it´s a waste of ammo anyway! When there is no chance to succeed with that ammo, guns and tanks should better stop firing and move out of sight/get down and hide.

[Sardaukar]

Originally posted by Brightblade:

In a QB against the AI I just had a Crack 75mm Pak firing HE rounds at a IS-2 at 630m. The AT gun is low on ammo, 3 AP and 8 HE left after this round.

But it´s a waste of ammo anyway! When there is no chance to succeed with that ammo, guns and tanks should better stop firing and move out of sight/get down and hide.

Most likely gun crew was hoping gun damage or immobilization inflicted on JS. I think both may be more probable with HE (IMHO).

Cheers,

M.S.

[MikeyD]

Ah, it's not always a waste of ammo though. Sometimes you get lucky with a 'track hit' or 'gun hit' or sometimes the enemy commander peeks his head out of the coupola at exactly the wrong time and gets decapitated with a HE strike. Admittedly it doesn't happen often, but it happens just enough to encourage your little guys to keep trying.

[edited. HaH! Sardaukar typed the same response as me. He was just quicker hitting 'send'!]

[ August 06, 2003, 03:41 PM: Message edited by: MikeyD ]

[xerxes]

When your 1918 75mm gun (no AP early war) fires round after round of HE into a lumbering KV1 and finally gun damages it you'll be happy that your gun was "wasting" HE.

In my case the gun-damaged KV then rolled over and crushed my 1918 gun. Revenge was had as my 37mm doorknocker promptly blew the treads off the same KV (which then abandoned). A KV killed by a 1918 gun and a doorknocker, wonder of wonders.

Hitting enemy tanks with any shells is a good thing.

[Joachim]

Originally posted by Brightblade:

In a QB against the AI I just had a Crack 75mm Pak firing HE rounds at a IS-2 at 630m. The AT gun is low on ammo, 3 AP and 8 HE left after this round.

But it´s a waste of ammo anyway! When there is no chance to succeed with that ammo, guns and tanks should better stop firing and move out of sight/get down and hide.

Before each turn, you have the chance to hide the gun. Or set a covered arc without the IS. If you do not hide the gun, the TacAI thinks it is your plan to fire the gun (e.g as a diversion or keeping the IS buttoned). And I would not want the TacAI to interfere with my plans (too much)!

Gruß

Joachim

[Brightblade]

Originally posted by Scarhead:

Before each turn, you have the chance to hide the gun. Or set a covered arc without the IS. If you do not hide the gun, the TacAI thinks it is your plan to fire the gun (e.g as a diversion or keeping the IS buttoned). And I would not want the TacAI to interfere with my plans (too much)!

Yes, it was my plan that the Pak would fire. But I wanted it to use AP rounds on some other target than the IS-2. That target just moved out of sight, so the AT gun did something I didn´t expect. I could have accepted if it had used up the last AP rounds. But the HE rounds had (almost)the same effect like throwing dirtballs.

[gunnersman]

Alright then... I finally got around to doing a couple of tests. When I noticed the use of AP on armored personnel carriers over the use of HE was during a big tank battle with a mix of tanks ,namely Panthers, and regular armored troop carriers among others. It occured to me maybe it is the wise thing to always have AP in your breech when you dont know when your next target will be a tank instead of a armored troop carrier.

The tests go as follows:

Test 1:

I set up one KV-1 500 yards down range from six mostly harmless armored vehicles: three Panzer Mark IIIN's three armored troop carriers (I forget the official designation)and one Renault R-35 and one Sumoa just for the halibut. The entire length of the range was two tiles wide (surrounded by water) so there was little room for manuever. I let the KV-1 pick its own targets and ran the test hands off. Naturally the KV-1 destroyed all of the targets and did so with all AP rounds.

Test 2.

Same setup with the exception of just four armored troop carriers. No tanks of any kind. The KV-1's first shot was with AP the rest were made with HE and of course all the APC's obliterated.

So it seems my thoughts were correct. The guns always have an AP round loaded whenever the possiblity of tanks are around. Yet tanks will shoot HE when no tank is sighted. Sounds smart to me.

Now I am getting vaklempt so talk amongst yourselves.