Mahlzeit! - How your armor survives a little longer

[GAGA Extrem]

I was wondering about "Mahlzeit" armor coverage simulation in the CM series, but did not really find something useful about it, so i did a small test row with CMBB...

...the result was interesting:

While your enemy is firing from about 15° at your tank, your survive chance will increase significant!

In the below case of almost equal penetration / armor ratio (T-34 vs Pz III M, 100 shots), the deadly hit chance drops from 19% to 12% (Thats a -35% total!), while the hit chance for your enemy doesent seem to increase (still not completly sure since it were only 100 shots...), the number of riochets increased from 21 to 39 (about 33%, most of them would have been partial penetrations in a face-to-face combat), partial penetrations were reduced by 40% (from 44 to 26), Crew hits (due to flaking, part. penetrations etc) dropped from 28 to 21 (as hit ratio, not really clear numbers right now).

This should work for front AND rear of vehicles (in the above mentioned 15° offset), though I expect the effect will be less significant if you fight with high penetration numbers, uncurved turrets and so on.

But it seems quite useful for even tank battles in 41/42 with the Pz. III/IV/StuG and T-34 series...

...however, i havent found out any tactic to keep my tanks in a constant 15° postion. Maybe delayed move/reverse/hunt or arc commands can help...

Maybe i will do some additional research to this (if it hasnt been done somewhere else yet)...

</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">ID #001a

subject armor penetration by degree (horizontal)

date 03/02/07

objects T-34 M.43 (late) (ap only)

Pz. III Ausf. M (no ammo)

distance 200m

angle 0°

hit chance 76%

real hit 78%

kill chance low

real kill 19%

hit: m h r sbu pp p pwp

miss hit riochet shell broke up partial penetration penetration penetration at weak point

total 22 5 21 0 44 8 0

zone: FT FUH FLH ST SUH SLH T G

front turret front upper hull front lower hull side turret side upper hull side lower hull track gun

total 21 46 6 0 0 0 3 2

effect: n nsd f c# i a k e b d

none no serious damage flaking crew hit(count) immobile abandoned knocked out exploding burning gun damaged

total 0 23 19 28 5 9 10 0 1 1

shot count: hit zone effect (crew) effect effect (status)

1 pp FUH c1

2 pp FUH c2 k

3 pp FUH nsd

4 pp FUH c2 k

5 pp FUH c1

6 r FT c1 f

7 h T i

8 r FT f

9 r FT f

10 m

11 m

12 m

13 pp FUH c1

14 r FT

15 pp FUH c2 b k

16 r FUH f

17 pp FT c2 k

18 h T i

19 pp FUH c2 a

20 pp FUH nsd

21 pp FUH nsd

22 pp FT c2 a

23 r FT f

24 r FUH f

25 m

26 pp FUH c1 a

27 pp FUH nsd

28 pp FUH nsd

29 h G nsd

30 pp FUH c1

31 r FT f

32 pp FUH c1 a

33 m

34 pp FUH nsd

35 pp FUH nsd

36 pp FT nsd

37 r FT f

38 pp FUH nsd

39 m

40 pp FUH

41 pp FUH c1

42 p FLH c1

43 r FT f

44 r FUH f

45 pp FUH nsd

46 pp FT c2 a

47 pp FUH c1

48 r FUH f

49 m

50 pp FUH nsd

51 pp FUH nsd

52 pp FT c2 k

53 r FUH f

54 r FUH

55 p FLH c2 k

56 pp FUH nsd

57 m

58 p FLH c3 i a

59 pp FT c1 a

60 r FT f

61 r FUH f

62 pp FUH nsd

63 m

64 r FUH f

65 pp FUH nsd

66 pp FUH c1

67 pp FT nsd

68 m

69 m

70 r FUH f

71 m

72 m

73 r FT f

74 pp FUH c3 a

75 pp FT nsd

76 m

77 m

78 m

79 pp FT nsd

80 pp FT c1

81 pp FUH nsd

82 p FUH c1

83 m

84 h T i

85 m

86 pp FUH i a

87 pp FUH c1 k

88 p FLH nsd

89 pp FUH nsd

90 m

91 m

92 r FUH f

93 h G d

94 p FT c1 k

95 m

96 p FLH c3 k

97 p FLH k

98 pp FUH nsd

99 r FUH f

100 m </pre>

[John Kettler]

GAGA Extrem,

Since I've never seen you post before, welcome aboard! I have no idea what you're talking about in your thread title, but judging from context in the message body, you appear to be talking about the survivability benefit gained when a tank or other AFV goes into battle aimed not straight at its foe, but a little off axis, creating a thickening effect in the armor by increasing the amount needed to be penetrated, while at the same time avoiding both a significant increase in presented area and not exposing vulnerable flanks. If so, then please know that the Germans were well aware of this concept and explicitly included it in the tactics manuals for Panzers. That they did this in actuality is confirmed by opponents who reported seeing them bring tanks into the fight crabbed sideways a bit.

Regards,

John Kettler

[GAGA Extrem]

Hello, John.

I am not new to the board (have been here since May 2004), but haven't looked into the board for about a year.

Well, what i was trying to make clear with my post is: the "Mahlzeit" armor positioning is simulated in CMBB / CMAK - and you can get some nice bonuses from it, if you rotate your tanks in ~15° direction to the enemy...

...The big code body contains the information from my testrow:

100 shots from a T-34 M.43 (late) vs a Pz. III Ausf.M with detailed shot record. The first is 0° head-to-head, the 2nd 15° offset.

The point:

I was aware about the real historic side of the "Mahlzeit" (dunno how it is called in general, sry...) effect, but wondered if there is an in-game effect simulated somewere.

Dunno if teh ingame effects are common knowledge around here, but...

...better one post too much about it, then never let anyone know...

Btw: Sry for the bad english (foreign language )

edit: going to add some things to the 1st post to prevent further misunderstandings

[panzermartin]

Doesnt CM automatically rotate tank's hull to threat?

[GAGA Extrem]

Indeed, it does...

...but it (mostly) goes head-to-head with the enemy tank and then you loose the 15° benefit.

However, I guess there are ways to prevent this. Maybe a movement order with 60sec delay can help to keep the hull direction for a whole turn.

An interesting thing would be if experienced crews go on "Mahlzeit" orientation - I think I have seen this a few times - but might also have been when the tank tried to rotate its side armor away from the enemy...

[GreenAsJade]

CM doesn't explicitly model "Mahlzeit" orientation explicitly (IE some code that says "if angle is 15 degrees then survive better). It simply models correct penetration percentage chance based on angle of incidence of the shot.

I have never seen CM tankers face their hull off-angle from the threat that they are dealing with. That's what the "rotate" command can do for you, but I haven't seen the AI do it without such a command.

GaJ

[RockinHarry]

German term "Mahlzeit" means "meal time" and is used to indicate the 1:30 (or 10:30) o´clock turret/hull position (relative to enemy unit) to gain that extra bit of armor protection due to the mentioned added horizontal angle, in particular for tanks that have near vertical (non sloped) armor, like german early war tanks ect.

German "Tiger-" and "Panther-Fibel" (some sort of german tankers handbooks, also freely available from the net somewhere) defines the various meal times to be "beakfast=10:30", "lunch=01:30", "coffee=04:30" and "supper=07:30". However, these would be the bearings of perfect 45° relative to an enemy gun.

From my observation the AIP does not usually provide the undesired 12 o´clock bearing, but it does mainly depend upon previous movement vector and/or initial setup position. If it has its guns on target, it usually stays near 1 or 11 o´clock for the hull once reached.

It´s a useful tactic to approach the enemy with the mentioned "lunch time/Mahlzeit" bearings (breakfast or lunch) and works quite well in the CM game. In my games I usually set waypoints accordingly if the terrain offers space to maneuvre. Setting covered arcs for the turrets (or guns in non turretet AFV) is another measure to benefit from "Mahlzeit/meal time", in particular when moving to effective range for your guns. IE if approaching (non moving) russian T-34 with german Pz-IIIH in full view, I would move full speed with a hull heading of about 1-2 (or 10-11) o´clock and set the turret to have a covered arc of about 800-1000m. This helps to avoid the tac AI shooting while on the move (fast) to the desired engagement position.

[Joachim]

I though the "meal times" which are more likely 9:00, 12:00 and 15:00 were favourable angles of an enemy tank when firing at that tank...

... or angles to avoid when you were driving a tank.

Gruß

Joachim

[RockinHarry]

Originally posted by Joachim:

I though the "meal times" which are more likely 9:00, 12:00 and 15:00 were favourable angles of an enemy tank when firing at that tank...

... or angles to avoid when you were driving a tank.

Gruß

Joachim

9:00 and 15:00 would offer the enemy a clean side armor shot. Obviously angles to avoid.