3.7 cm Pak v. 3.7 cm Flak and Hando to hand combat stuff.

[coe]

Ok I'm puzzled and it is probably due ot historical ignorance on my part.

my 3.7 cm Flak guns made good slicin's out of

some SU-76 and soviet light tanks. Good hit

probability, high rate of fire (four shot bursts).

the thing i'm puzzled about is the 3.7 cm PAK.

It seems to have a lot lower rate of fire, I guess

I should probably take a look at the penetration

values but when no airplanes around....what are the bennies of 3.7 cm Flak v. 3.7 cm PAK?

Next question: has anyone tried this: putting

two opposing squads, each with low ammo and no grenades but separated by impassable terrain (i.e. like a non crossable stream) such that they are close enough to be in hand to hand combat range.

Now I know that low ammo really means they have a few spare rounds left but do you still get the same hand to hand (smack, punch, kicking) sounds

in such an instance?

[Shadow 1st Hussars]

FlaK stands for FliegerKannon (forgive spelling) it is an AA gun that fires 37mm rounds at high speed from a magazine.

PaK stands for PanzerKannon it's an Anti-tank gun. One shot in the breach at a time, there is no magazine, hence the lower rate of fire

[Ebusitanus]

Not to be pissy but IMHO its:

Flak: Flug abwehr Kanone

Pak: Panzer abwher Kanone

[Shadow 1st Hussars]

Close enough.

[coe]

ok ok I know 3.7 cm Flak has the higher rate of

fire to shoot down airplanes (can it swivel faster too?)

and the 3.7 PAK has an AT role.

I'm just askin, versus ground targets which is better (e.g. v. infantry, or tanks, soft skins, etc.)

[Bone_Vulture]

Originally posted by coe:

can it swivel faster too?

Yes.

Have you played CM:BO, the first part of the series? The 37mm flak could be called the "Hellcat killer".

[Pvt. Ryan]

I believe the flak only has HE rounds while the pak has HE and AP; however, 3.7cm HE rounds don't have much of a blast effect against infantry. Neither is capable of penetrating heavy armor, but the flak could give a tank crew a nasty headache with it's higher rate of fire.

[ October 04, 2003, 03:11 PM: Message edited by: Pvt. Ryan ]

[coe]

ok ok I know 3.7 cm Flak has the higher rate of

fire to shoot down airplanes (can it swivel faster too?)

and the 3.7 PAK has an AT role.

I'm just askin, versus ground targets which is better (e.g. v. infantry, or tanks, soft skins, etc.)

[coe]

I had a FLAK with AP....

[JasonC]

The Flak gun is a much better weapon. It also costs twice as much in CM. It is much more effective against infantry because its blast rating reflects its high ROF. Its ROF is high enough to get gun damage and immobilizations vs. tanks it can't penetrate. It is reasonably stealthy at longer ranges.

It was a relatively rare weapon, less common than the 20mm in Army light Flak units, and used largely by rear area Luftwaffe Flak formations until later in the war. (Heer got some in 43 and more in 44).

The 37mm PAK on the other hand is a poor weapon all around, and in army usage an earlier one. It is fine for punching holes in the Russian 1941 era light tank fleet. After that year it is marginal at best against practically everything the Russians have. The only good thing about it is it remains fairly hard to spot when firing at longer ranges.

Historically it remained the primary infantry ATG through most of 1942, being replaced that year by the 50mm PAK. The latter is somewhat effective against T-34s, but it really wasn't until 1943 that the bulk of the infantry got a truely effective ATG in the form of the 75mm PAK 40.

[flamingknives]

PaK 36 (37mm) is quite useful in messing up Soviet light armour, and the Stielgranate is pretty effective against the heavies.

Trouble is, the SG round is very short range.

I use them to scrag the light recon assets at long range, then hunker down and wait for the heavy stuff to come close enough for the SG.

They're cheap too, so you can have lots.

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by coe:

the thing i'm puzzled about is the 3.7 cm PAK.

It seems to have a lot lower rate of fire, I guess

I should probably take a look at the penetration

values but when no airplanes around....what are the bennies of 3.7 cm Flak v. 3.7 cm PAK?

Besides a slightly better penetration of the AP shot in the Flak the difference is in the hit probablity modeling of CM.

Instead of modeling a higher rate of fire (which would be computationally expensive), they have an abstracted shot which represents several rounds. The rate of these abstracted shots is about the rate that the normal gun has, but the abstracted multi-shot has a higher hit probablity. In CMBO you had the same hit probablity as three single shots (with no zeroing in), in CMBB it is two.

The FlaK is also better because it has lots of ammo. But it is much harder to transport.

The only AP-less autocannon in the game is the Russian 37mm AA.

Next question: has anyone tried this: putting

two opposing squads, each with low ammo and no grenades but separated by impassable terrain (i.e. like a non crossable stream) such that they are close enough to be in hand to hand combat range.

Now I know that low ammo really means they have a few spare rounds left but do you still get the same hand to hand (smack, punch, kicking) sounds

in such an instance?

If you get squads into the needed range you will have hand-to-hand combat. I don't think CM does any terrain check at that point.

However, I thought the range was 15 meters and a stream must be a multiple of 20 meters. Maybe CMBB has more hand-to-hand range, or it is the 15 meters that the squad is taking and then a seperate distance applied.