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How often do guns get hit by direct fire?


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I don't think the game engine currently allows anything to hit the gun itself. Guns, AFAIK count as "soft-skinned" targets and so the AI targets the ground beneath it, not the gun itself. This is most noticable with the "unhittable gun" bug thread that was running here of late where a gun over the crest of a hill or ridge is rendered unhittable because the AI is trying to aim for the ground underneath the gun instead of the gun itself.

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I've read of Grants in the desert that aimed at and hit 88mm Flak gun shields.

Hitting the shield of a properly dug-in gun is not so easy, but it did happen.

Since HE rounds throw out many of the fragments to the side of the impact point, one good aiming tactic would seem to have guns aiming to the side of the target gun. This way bursts could sweep the crew in back of the shield.

But this is mostly speculation since I haven't read that much on the subject.

One Russian field gun crewman wrote that they had one man at a time attending to the gun (either loading or aiming/firing) while the others hid in their holes. This way only one trained crewmen was lost when the gun was hit, a lesson learned at Kursk after too many trained and competent men were lost while they camped around the gun.

Following passage deals with direct hits on guns, where German tanks had good skills in hitting Russian guns, and is found at: http://www.iremember.ru/artillerymen/monyushko/monyushko2.htm

"Of course, not only artillery participated in the fighting for the bridgehead, and representatives of other branches of military service, other military specializations, saw everything that went on differently, from different points of view. To me and, as I can judge from converstaions with comrades, to the soldiers of my regiment the scheme of the fighting was the following: After short but powerful artillery raids the Germans would attack with their armor. Heavy AFVs, Tigers and Ferdinands, ascended hills deep inside the German positions and stopped 1-1.5 kilometers from our own positions. The lighter and more maneuverable Pz.IV's continued to advance together with small numbers of infantry. It made little sense for us to fire at the AFVs deployed in the rear. Even in case of a direct hit the shell couldn't cause serious damage at such range. But German tankers waited until our anti-tank battery was forced to open fire at the tanks advancing in the front. A gun that opened fire, exposed itself, immediately fell victim to a well aimed shot from the stationary heavy AFVs. It must be noted that Tigers had very precise sights and very accurate 88mm guns. This explains the advice that I received about not opening fire until the last moment. When opening fire from a "pistol shot range" you could expect to hit with the first or, in an extreme case, the second shell, and then, even if the gun was destroyed, you could still get an "exchange of figures" disadvantageous to the Germans - a tank for a light gun. But if you exposed your position prematurely the gun most probably would've been lost in vain.

This also explained the additional changes introduced to a typical structure of an artillery ditch. Two holes were made to the left and right of a gun's wheels - one for the gunner, the other for the loader. Practically, ZIS-3 guns didn't require simultaneous presence of the entire crew near the gun. Moreover, it was usually enough for only one person to be present. The gunner, after firing, could hide himself in his hole while the loader would drive the next shell into the barrel. Now the gunner could take his place, aim, and fire, and the loader would be taking cover at that time. Even after a direct hit into the gun at least one of the two had a chance to survive. The other crew members were spread out through the holes, side "pockets" of the trench. Practical experience, which was being accumulated in this regiment starting as far back as the Batttle of the Kursk Salient, allowed to minimize casualties. Over the one and a half months of fighting in the bridgehead, the regiment replaced its equipment three times, getting new and repaired guns to replace damaged and destroyed ones, and kept its fighting efficiency while getting almost no replacements in men."

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Originally posted by Poor Old Spike:

Thanks guys,and another thing-- now I come to think of it,I've definitely heard small-arms and MG fire excitingly and realistically rattling against a gunshield when I'm viewing from close behind it,or am I hearing things?

Nope. What you're hearing is indeed small arms fire hitting the gun shield. Pretty cool, eh?
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If you really want to K.O. a gun quick forget about using your tanks, bring your sharpshooter forward! I've seen guns that would normally stand tall with tank shells wizzing about their ears panic and abandon the gun with one well-aimed sharpshooter shot!

I thought this thread was going to be about the "can't-hit-gun-behind-hill" bug. For fun last week I took a couple of those giant German 128mm anti-tank guns and sunk them into trenches for the coming tank onslaught. Nothin' could touch 'em! A real slaughter! IS-2s, T34-85s. Everyincoming shell either fell long or short.

[ March 25, 2003, 02:29 PM: Message edited by: MikeyD ]

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Yes Mikey,snipers are generally overlooked by players but can pack a heck of a punch! In one game againsy Maroule I lined up 7 T-34s in a dominating position on a ridge line and his invisible sniper took the head off every single one of'em in successive turns before I could organise a repositioning! To complicate matters,every time I ordered them to button,they'd ignore me and unbutton again and CRACK! another head would come clean off...

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  • 2 weeks later...
Originally posted by MikeyD:

About the "can't-hit-gun-behind-hill" bug? Gone and forgotten in the v1.03 Beta. So much for slaughtering armor with impunity!

Apparently not fixed for now. See the thread.

And yeah, the automatic unbuttoning is one of the worst additions in CMBB. It is totally uncontrollable and the decision to unbutton is not made in any knd of realistic manner. I had tanks unbutton in the middle of artillery barrages.

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