Ultimate tank destroyer....Hummel

[General Lee]

I was thinking...I was playing a game and was up against some t-34/85's and JSII's at long ranges. I had some king tigers and a few hummels. The range was about 1500m and my two AFV were side by side. The tiger's rounds bounces off the JSII while my hummel rounds obliterated it, one shot instant kill. The JSII was shooting at my tigers and left the three hummels alone. 150mm L30 are more powerfull than a 88mm l70? Screw the Nashorns.

[Warmaker]

A couple reasons for this.

At that range even the '88 is very hard pressed to kill a JS2 frontally. The Hummel you had killed it due to the huge hollow charged rounds they possessed. I strongly suggest you don't make Hummels your "Big Bear Killer Of Choice" for the following reasons:

- Large caliber guns such as the 150mm on the Hummel tend to have lover velocities and less accurate at long or intermediate ranges.

- Couple a usually small amount of hollow charge ("C" in the game) for these weapons with the above is detrimental to anti-tank work.

- The Hummel's armor is paper thin. Anything larger than a HMG will kill it frontally.

- Your Hummel can be better utilized pummeling infantry.

If you have to use it for anti-tank work try to keep the range minimal and be damn sure to get the first shot off and get the hell out.

Your Hummel BTW was damn lucky he hit that JS2 at 1.5 km.

[General Lee]

actually he was a crack unit and the penetration values for a 150mm l30 at long ranges are greater than those of the 88mm l70, if i read it right that is, i could be wrong

[Becket]

One slight correction -- "C" in ammo loadouts is anti-personel Canister round. "HC" is for hollow charge.

Carry on.

[General Lee]

oh yea one other thing, I dont know if i came off on this wrong but i dont want it to be my main take just the best option for a low armored TD

[General Lee]

and one more thing it was not a frontal shot ...more a side shot.

[Warmaker]

Originally posted by General Lee:

actually he was a crack unit and the penetration values for a 150mm l30 at long ranges are greater than those of the 88mm l70, if i read it right that is, i could be wrong

Firstly, my mistake with using "C" in reference to hollow charge rounds. A CMBO habit.

General, you are quite correct over the superior armor killing characteristics of the 150mm/L30 over the 88mm/L70 at long ranges. Again though, the 150mm has a lower velocity and is less accurate than any of the 75mm/88mm German guns. Also, the 150 takes alot longer to reload. If the tank is moving then you're asking for a miracle.

With the rarity on I rarely take Nashorns but they are quite useful if used properly. It's just that they're expensive for a lightly armored AFV that I'd rather invest in a Panzer IV/70, Hetzer, etc. If you ID JS2's at long range save your ammo for closer ranges or sight and ambush where you can get a flank shot at long ranges.

[Warmaker]

While we're on the subject of super "Big Bear Killing, Large Caliber, Low Velocity Cats" the Sturmtiger fits the bill nicely with even a high explosive round! Penetration shots not required with this beast!

With ALOT of micromanaging I was able once to ambush and KO 2 JS2's and 1 T-34/85 with 2 shots in ranges less than 150m!!! A QB vs the AI however, but a little bit of pucker factor with my sole surviving AFV.

[General Lee]

i thought of preferring the hummel over the nashorn because such vehicles are designed to engage tanks at long ranges. The 88mm L70 does have a higher kill value at closer ranges than the 150mm L30 but the hummel can last longer with its thin armor atlon ranges than short ranges. The nashorn and hummel have similar armor so isnt the hummel a better choice?

[Jussi Köhler]

Originally posted by General Lee:

The nashorn and hummel have similar armor so isnt the hummel a better choice?

Generally no; Lower muzzle-velocity ---> Less accurate

The shell falls a lot more over distance when its velocity is low. Quite difficult to hit anything then...

[Sergei]

The reason why a Hummel fares better at long ranges is because it uses a hollow charge, or HEAT, shell, like that of a Panzerfaust. Unlike conventional AP rounds that use kinetic energy to break a hole through the armour, HEAT has a shaped charge that creates a jet that basically melts its way through the armour. While the kinetic energy of an AP round diminishes by distance and thus makes it less effective, a hollow charge always has the same effect, no matter how slow velocity it has.

But as noted, the poor accuracy at long range means that you will most of the time waste your ammo if you use it at that range. Hummel was actually designed for blowing up fortified infantry positions, and HEAT shells are just a means of self-defense in the most dire of situations. Nashorn on the other hand was designed for long-range AT combat with its accurate high-velocity gun.

[Jarmo]

I think Hummel was designed as mobile artillery.

Intended to be kept out of battlefield entirely.

Brummbär was the fortification buster.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Jarmo:

I think Hummel was designed as mobile artillery.

Intended to be kept out of battlefield entirely.

Is the right answer. The Hummel was introduced in 1943, answering a need that had bugged the German Panzerwaffe for the last four years. Artillery support that could keep up with the advancing panzers. They would not be kept out of the battlefield entirely, but they would be off most CMBB maps. The maximum range of the Hummel's 15cm sFH18 was ~15km. That of its smaller brethren, the Wespe's 10,5cm lFH18 was ~10.5km (12km with the lFH42). It is clear that this constitutes a problem in mobile combat operations, where your artillery guns have to shift very often. At first it was tried to overcome this by adding one battery of 10cm K18, with a range of ~19km to the Panzer- and ID (mot) formations. This was inadequate due to the low HE load on the K18 rounds. So from mid-1943 onwards, Panzerartillerieregimenter received self-propelled guns, all to be kept (normally) in the I. Abteilung of the regiment, which meant that this was a mixed Abteilung. The batteries were of six guns, instead of the usual four for towed artillery. There would be three batteries, two with Wespe, and one with Hummel. For a fully loaded Panzerartillerieregiment, this meant an immense increase in hitting power, because these 18 FH (4 of them sFH) would replace an Abteilung with only 12 lFH. The old III. Abteilung with its 8 sFH and 4 K18 was apparently kept. With this move, and continuing increase in SPW equipment for some divisions, the German Panzerdivision of 1943 onwards looked (at least on paper, reality often rudely intruded by not making the needed guns/SPWs/tanks available) like a very mobile and heavily armoured formation, not just in the Panzerregiment, but also in the supporting force elements - finally, after four years of war.