Special Weapons

[jBrereton]

Sorry if this has been asked a million times in the past, but please could you clear these two points up for me?

What is the range of rifle grenades?

What is the difference between a Panzerfaust30 and the 30K? (sorry if that sounds like a stupid question to you)

Thanks in advance.

[knalla]

The panzerfaust 30 had more explosive than the 30k, the K stands for Klein which means small.

Not sure about the range of rifle grenades, I think i never seen them using it at more than 100m

[JasonC]

I have used rifle grenades effectively at 60-70m. Their big problem is their accuracy, they just don't hit at longer ranges. Don't count on 1 of them hitting. 2 squads with 2-4 each might get a hit. They also typically need side hits against full AFVs, because the penetration is only about 40-50mm, against flat armor.

On the 30K and 30 difference, the 30K had about half the explosive. It also had an inferior warhead design and physical shape for the front of the round, which made it more susceptible to glancing off sloped plate in particular. While the 30k could theoretically penetrate 140mm of armor, in practice against sloped armor its penetrate left something to be desired.

The 30 doubled the warhead and flatted the nose (theoretical max penetration went to 200mm), making it routinely effective against highly sloped armor. (E.g. T-34 glacis).

[John Kettler]

I don't know whether it would work in CMAK, but back in the CMBO Beta Demo days, I got a Tiger I kill with a rifle grenade which squarely hit the side of the turret. I don't recall whether it was a weak point penetration (pistol port?) or what, but my opponent was most unhappy, seeing as how I nailed his Tiger just as it was about to smash past the remnants of my shattered force and win the game.

Regards,

John Kettler

[jBrereton]

Thank you very much, everyone. That's helped quite a bit.

[RockinHarry]

The german rifle grenades used in CM are an average of available types used during WW2. From some testing I found they penetrate about 40-50mm near vertical armor. In fact penetration abilities ranged from 30-40mm for the early type and about 70-80mm for the late type (grosse Gewehr Panzer Granate), but as said these are no explicitly modelled in the game. Same goes for the even more powerful types developed for the SS that weren´t produced in nzmbers. Also interesting is that BFC made these available early in 1941, although more realistically these shouldn´t be available before spring of 1942.

The original instruction manuals for the german "Schiessbecher" states a max range of 280m for the HE type grenade. The practical range surely was much lower, dependent upon whether you aim at an area target or a point target (window, MG ect.) Practical ranges for the HEAT grenade were below 100m for a "sufficient possibility of hitting" a stationary tank, below 75m for "sufficient possibility of hitting" a moving tank and below 50m for the possibility of aiming at and hitting a "vulnerable" part of a tank.

How much of all that works in the CM game, I can´t tell. The max ammo given in the game surely is way to low! The (german) soldier operating the "Schiessbecher" normally carried about 15 grenades (10 HE and 5 HEAT) or even more with him. The game gives just about 1-3.

Might be BFC abstracts rifle grenades similarly as it does for hand grenades, assuming "loads" instead of single grenades? However, that would make no sense for the grenade launcher, since it`s only a single weapon, launched by a single man (1 per infantry squad).

Clarification re the various Panzerfausts: The 30, 60 and 100 in the weapons name, suggests the maximum range at which the warhead has best chance to hit a tank (=effective range). Real max range is only slightly higher. That means theoretically you still can aim at and hit a tank at range of 40m for the 30 version or 80m for the 60 version ect.

The difference between the Panzerfaust 30 and 30k ("Faustpatrone" or "Gretchen") has already been stated correctly.

Interesting to notice is that the 30k version was produced until the end of the war! While the warhead was considered less effective against sloped armor like russian T-34 have, it still was to be found effective enough to be used against western allied tank models. Another reason to keep that in production was maybe it took less resources to be built and was very easy to be operated by untrained personnel.