Rumanian 37mmAAG took out a Matilda II at 616m

[Zalgiris 1410]

I thought that this couldn't of happenned, but my conscript crewed 37mm AA gun, only fired just eight rounds at a Matilda II to force or encorrage the crew into abandoning the monster.

Nothing else waas firing at the tank, although a 75mm ATG was targeting it in a duel which the Matilda II was winning. The tank had not been hit by a three inch round at all and had already knocked out my other 75mm ATG earlier.

Anyway with my forelorned hope, it all took place at exactly 616 metres, because the 37mm AAGs' 1st HE round hit the tracks and immobilized it! The second HE round was an upper front hull hit with no penetration / little damage, followed by two AP rounds, switching back for 4 more HE rounds. All these shells landed in the same place with the same result.

After the eighth hit the crew jumped out and started to crawl away as quickly as they could move. It looked impressive too, 'cos the tank must've discharged smoke when immobilized because clouds of the stuff just started to belch forth from around the machine at this moment as well, right on cue as it were! :cool:

PS: In the end I won a Major Victory 82% to 18%

[Cuirassier]

I don't believe you.

[Sergei]

Why not? Immobilized tank crews are particularly prone to abandon the vehicle, and AA guns, with their high rates of fire, can reduce the crew morale to a state where they decide to find a more peaceful place.

[Cuirassier]

Meh. I choose to be ignorant.

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Zalgiris 1410:

Anyway with my forelorned hope, it all took place at exactly 616 metres,

616 is (according to some sources, if a footnote in the New English Bible is to be believed) the number of the mark of the Beast.

Clearly, you have just benefited from the little-known Beastly range bonus.

This is why range-finidng is so important -- to make sure the gunners only open fire at ranges that are lucky numbers.

All the best,

John.

[kurbi]

Zalgiris 1410,

If you test it in the scenario editor , you will find out that if you manage to continuously fire for a few turns , you get an immobilization almost every time and then the bailing out is just a matter of seconds because of the high ROF . And this works against heavy tanks like Kv's as well. .

[MikeyD]

This post intersts me because i can't recall the last time I played with Romanian 37mm guns or Soviet Matildas! If I just dredged-up a few of those little-played units this could become a whole new game for me

Since you were of course playing your side fog of war may have hidden some results of your fire on the enemy. Perhaps an unbutton crewman had got hit, or shell strikes had caused internal armor flaking with a casualty resulting. If the tankers were conscripts a squirrel running in front of the tank would'a caused 'em to bail!

[realest]

I haven't tried yet, but next time one of my soviet comrades bails and runs, i think i'll have a rear area "disciplinary" guard, area fire on them. Stalin will surely give me my commission? LOL

[MikeyD]

I remember while the CMBB alpha(?) was being worked on BFC posted a description of a paniced Russian unit in-game suffering further casualties from its own political officers (Bang! Aaargh!) then grudgingly returning to the battle. I guess BFC eventually changed thier mind about including that particular 'feature'. I can imagine when events start going your opponent's way and your line begins to break you might've been at risk of losing more men to the political officers than to the enemy! :eek:

[realest]

Mikey, that's fairly historical most likely. Especially with Stalins infamous "not one step back" order at stalingrad.

Some of those poor men were fed into combat with scarcely a rifle and a few rounds of ammunition between them.

They may have taken it out due to politics as well. This game was sold in Europe, to U.S. citizens it is pretty much a game, we didn't suffer the real tragedies that most of Europe did. To the russians this issue was a matter of national survival, shooting your own men for running although they may have lacked proper military arms may be cruel to us but something they felt they needed to do. I can see where the designers left it out. Some may not appreciate it feeling as though it puts them in a negative light today.

[Zalgiris 1410]

Originally posted by MikeyD:

Since you were of course playing your side fog of war may have hidden some results of your fire on the enemy. Perhaps an unbutton crewman had got hit, or shell strikes had caused internal armor flaking with a casualty resulting. If the tankers were conscripts a squirrel running in front of the tank would'a caused 'em to bail!

Nope, the 37mm AAG inflicted no crew casualties at all, not even after firing at the scamperring away bailed out figure! It simply inflicted no infantry casualties for the game. I listened intently to the playback and there were no cries or sceamed explitives from the Matilda II crew during the first (which hit the tracks anayway) and the subsequent hits. I also checked the game results to be sure and the tank had a Regular quality crew. Incidently the Matilda was commanded by a Ser Murkin, IIRC, which I found slightly funny too!

I really liked that 37mm AAG because it had also earlier knocked out a T-70 at 800 metres or so with a few AP hits in the 15mm side armour of what is an otherwise impervious light tank from the front for that caliber. Actually what really made taking out the Matilda at 616 metres such a bizzare event was that the 37 was moved 60 metres forwards in rough terrain itself between the two incidents. I was really hanging on the edge of my seat watching its progress and then its time delay re-setting up while the heavily protected Matilda was starting to make short work of my ATG defence! :eek:

The AA gunners deserved the Iron Cross and I pinned them on each (surviving) member myself, taking the time to talk to each of them personally, the gun chief had the 1st class hung around his brave little neck!

My limited expectation of the targetted fire from the AAG was simply to distract or retard the Matilda in its' deul with my last remaining (and pinned :mad: ) 75mm ATG! I did not expect it to defeat the armoured menace so effectively, all by itself. It fired and hit it 8 times in the space of about 20 seconds and I do realise that these 'firings' represent automatic multi-round whole clip firings of 4-5 actual rounds I imagine in both CM terms and in reality. So, yes as Kurbi points out such 37mm AAGs can disable and cause a bail out by the crew of even KVs at impervious ranges because their volumn of hits rattles the morale out of the crew and the crew out of the monster tank.

[ November 06, 2006, 02:33 PM: Message edited by: Zalgiris 1410 ]

[Guest Mike]

Seems reasonable to me.

I read somewhere once that British Matilday Crews at Arras bailed when external storage was set alight from 20mm AA fire, and we've all readon these forums about Shermans using smoke vs big cats and crews of all sorts of vehicles bailing because they thought they'd been damaged when they hadn't been at all.

Rare, but historically accurate IMO.

[Zalgiris 1410]

Hmmm, unfortunately that isn't really being modelled in CM AFAIK Stalin's Organist. The setting fire to external storage ought to be in the game IMHO though for such reasons of historical realism. I am especially thinking of the case with the extra feul drum barrel on top of the rear hulls of the tanks that the 5th Tank Army arrived on the scene of Prokhorovka with. The SS tank gunners themselves accountably took advantage of such suseptible weaknesses and inflicted a punishing toll upon their foes accordingly. However I think that the resalts were more of the kind of bailing out of crews from burning and soon to be brewing up tanks than of the type we are talking about in this thread.

OTOH, if extra storage was to be depicted in CM it would help with ammunition load outs especially if 'unofficial' ammo racks are to be depicted as well. Of cause as to wheither AFVs employ these extra ammo capacity features could be dependant upon there historical likelihood and upon crew quality and even as a purchase point differrential option if BF could manage it. It was something on my wish list for CMX2 IIRC!

[John Kettler]

MikeyD,

If Russian Matildas are of interest to you, then permit me to recommend HSU Dmitriy Loza's DEFENDING THE SOVIET MOTHERLAND. Not only did he command them before moving on to Shermans (haven't read his first book, so am not entirely sure of the chronology), but he also got to act as an impromptu barrier detachment, with fatal effect on some of those Russian infantrymen who broke under a Panzer attack.

BTW, your deluge of amazing mods has left me stunned.

Zalgiris 1410,

ISTR some discussion (Carrell?) in which StuG crews carried something like 100 rounds with them in Russia, really cutting down on supply problems

by doing so, but presumably with increased vulnerability if hit.

Regards,

John Kettler