Elevation Effects on Penetration?

[The Schwabian]

hey i was wondering does anyone know if elevation has any effect on the penetration in a tank battle?

You would think it would maybe effect the angle, but does it?

and what kinds of things in relation to tanks does the CM engine happen to not factor in?

~Schwabian

[Other Means]

CM models the angle the shell strikes the plate, I think it does this in all dimensions. The other case is when you can get to such an angle, with hand-held AT usually, that you can achieve a top penetration.

I've had good success with .50 cals on the 2nd floor of buildings. In fact I had one with 4 PzIV kills, although this may have been an anomaly caused by CM's kill reporting showing the last thing to hurt the tank rather than the gun that made the actual kills.

Still, they certainly have an effect.

I don't think CM models the ballistic arc of the shell, assuming a straight line from shooter to shootee, so lower velocity shells plunging fire isn't taken into account, AFAIK.

[flamingknives]

Angle between target and shooter is definately taken into account, since in one particularly hilly map, one of my armoured cars KO'd a number of Italian SPGs via top penetration, with a 2pdr.

[dieseltaylor]

I have seen Stug III's take out Stalin's at range which I assume was plunging fire. In a recent test on the inadequacies of the Russian 76.2 mm against Stugs it was found that you actually could kill at 1250 metres which suggests something : ) as you could not kill them closer.

[Other Means]

Originally posted by dieseltaylor:

I have seen Stug III's take out Stalin's at range which I assume was plunging fire. In a recent test on the inadequacies of the Russian 76.2 mm against Stugs it was found that you actually could kill at 1250 metres which suggests something : ) as you could not kill them closer.

Really? I'd like to see some proper tests but that in itself is quite indicative.

[The Schwabian]

wow. that cm engine is incredible.

wait i think it may track the ballistics thing. it says in the manual it tracks gravity (it uses the round after it misses the target and falls to earth as an example).

[dieseltaylor]

Other Means. At the Band of Brothers site which unfortunatley does not archive so it is a problem to pull up threads for searching. I am alwaays available for sponsorship

I might yet dig it up but then again you could as quiclkly set it up yourself. I think it was done with ATG's in batches of ten.

[dieseltaylor]

Aha

" .......

Disallowing the StugIIIF with the 80mm frontal armor should be mandatory to keep things fair. I did some testing and ricochets are constant from 200 to 1200 meters. Stugs KO ATGs as soon as they are spotted, even after sustaining three full turns of constant ricochets.

In three separate playtests (1250, 600 and 300 meters) at least one 76.2mm ZiS3 ATG expended its entire AP loadout on ricochets, both lower and upper hull. Only one StugIIIF was knocked out, 1250m two partial penetrations in a row?! And aside from that probably three dozen ricochets at all distances. Weird."

[Other Means]

Originally posted by dieseltaylor:

Other Means. At the Band of Brothers site which unfortunatley does not archive so it is a problem to pull up threads for searching. I am alwaays available for sponsorship

I might yet dig it up but then again you could as quiclkly set it up yourself. I think it was done with ATG's in batches of ten.

Cheers for the offer, I've 5 games on at the moment but I might have a go later, or for CM:SF.

JasonC has done a test for this and disagrees with the results: test

[Other Means]

Sorry, the baby started crying, I had to dash.

Basically JasonC puts the observed kills down to hail fire, the accumulation of non-penetrating kills affecting the morale of the crew and systems of the tank, rather than any difference in the angle of the shell strike.

[Wicky]

Try this little CMAK test - 37mm AT gun shooting down onto Tiggers. Multiple top penetrations show that the engine takes elevation into account

37test.zip

[ November 28, 2006, 04:09 PM: Message edited by: Wicky ]

[The Schwabian]

thank you all!

does the engine also take into account the small differences? Like would be easier to penetrate the sherman front from a higher vantage point (since the angle the shell strikes the plate is closer to 90 degrees than from level ground)?

[Other Means]

Originally posted by The Schwabian:

thank you all!

does the engine also take into account the small differences? Like would be easier to penetrate the sherman front from a higher vantage point (since the angle the shell strikes the plate is closer to 90 degrees than from level ground)?

If you mean does the engine take into account the angle of the plate it strikes - yes it does.

Related to this, a great trick for the CW player is to put a Churchill XI reverse slope of a very steep hill. Doing that I've bounced 88mm hits from < 200m

[John Kettler]

Long ago in a galaxy far away there was a set of fairly intricate rules for WW II combat in miniature called TRACTICS, in which there was this great device called the Falling Shot Table and was specifically there to address the looping trajectories of rounds near and at their maximum ranges, allowing for hits on vulnerable roof and deck armor, neatly paralleling the same features long seen in the better naval gun combat games.

There, as range increases, the shots stop hitting belt armor directly and begin to fall on thinner deck armor, turret roofs, etc. Plunging fire, in naval parlance. I somehow doubt that this late in the trajectory looping effect, as opposed to mere elevation difference modeling,is reflected in the CM games, but I could be wrong.

Regards,

John Kettler