Tank Sight Penetrations

[PLM]

i'm wondering. Isnt it possible for the glass a driver sees through to be penetrated. I've read that good ATR crews could fire into these windows at close range. There are other weak point penetrations in combat mission. Why not for the viewpieces? And wouldnt a HE charge or AP round to the viewing slit areas penetrate or cause casualties?

[rexford]

The driver viewing glass was often backed up by an armor plate a short distance behind the opening and glass, and the driver didn't see straight through the port but looked indirectly.

The viewing port on the hull front would be a weak point for penetrations.

On early Tiger tanks the area around the gun sight openings in the mantlet was scooped out, and presented about 75mm thickness minus edge effects.

[PLM]

well i know there were some tanks that were just direct windows seeing out because i've read accounts of German JagdPanther crews fearing that kind of penetration

[YankeeDog]

The short answer is yes, some tanks could be penetrated through view slits.

While this kind of thing is not modeled specifically in CM, weak point hits in general are modeled. Some of the weak point hits you see in CM could be assumed to be vision slit hits.

There is another affect of vision slit hits that is not modeled in CM, though: ATR or even small arms fire into vision slits sometimes cracks the bulletproof glass protecting the slit even if it does not penetrate to the crew compartment. As such, you would expect that tanks exposed to prolonged ATR, small arms, and possibly even shrapnel might begin to lose some of their spotting ability as view through some of the vision slits became obscured. CM does not presently model this kind of light damage. Panzer crews did carry extra glass prisms for the vision slits, but of course the tank would probably have to withdraw from action at least temporarily to put in a new set of glass.

Cheers,

YD