Tank fights

[Achim]

I played CM2 a lot, now i try CM3.

First of all, it looks/sounds good but ....

I have some realy "funny" tank battles ....

I learned in CM2 that a hull down tank is a deadly tank and a tank in the open is a dead tank.

But in CM3 its seems to be a little diffrent

I played some scenarios with german forces, i find some nice hull down positions and shoot at the enemy (400 meters away).

First of all, my tanks didn´t hit the enemy (overshoot them or 200 meters to short).

Thats not the problem ....

The enemy tanks shoot back and ....

Hit my tanks with the FIRST shoot (lost 2 out of 4 tanks, frontal turret hits).

I though ... bad luck, lets try "fire and move back) ....

My tanks move in hull down ... fire ... miss ... reverse ....

the enemy shoot back and hits the reversing tanks and kill them with the first round ....

lost 2 out of 4 tanks this time ....

First of all ...

Why did my tankers cant hit the enemy in a perfect shoot position (ok, minor problem).

but WHY did the enemy hit my tanks with the first shoot ????

i am not an desert war expert (1942), but i think german troops were better trained and us/british forces were "green" forces and get teached a hard lesson in the dessert by the german forces....

Please enlight me ....

How to fight tank battles in the desert

I played the Medjez el Bab Scenario (1942, 24-12-10).

[McIvan]

I think you're just unlucky, that's all. It happens. Personally I have plenty of experience with my Allied forces missing or hitting only to see "no effect" or the round shatter...particularly with the 2pdr against big roomy MkIVs.

I don't think hull down is of much benefit in CM, whether CMBB or CMAK, depending on the strength of the turret armour vs the strength of the hull armour. By that I mean I don't think the chance of being hit is reduced by much, so armour is probably the only criteria you should use.

By 1942 Allied forces in Africa were mostly veteran in Libya/Egypt, but green/regular in Tunisia. Which has nothing much to do with the game....they are what the scenario or quick battle assigns to them, and how well trained they are is all up to the person assigning them orders...ie yourself!

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Achim:

i am not an desert war expert (1942), but i think german troops were better trained and us/british forces were "green" forces and get teached a hard lesson in the dessert by the german forces....

The superiority of the Germans was more in their tactics. I haven't read anything yet that suggests there was any great difference in marksmanship between the gunners of each side, though it's possible that there might have been more variance among the British than the Germans.

Michael

[Achim]

Thx McIvan, Michael Emrys for the answers.

My opinion, that US/British forces in the desert-war were "green troops" was wrong.

But did hull down tank position realy have no effect on hitting the target ?

in most "hull down fights" the shell hit the air or the dirt in front of the hull down tank.

i think i have to create a test scenario ....

one tank "hull down" position, a few meters away a second tank in "no hull down" position and a third tank shoots both ...

i am not a tank gunner but, isn´t it much harder to hit a hull down tank ??

[John Kettler]

Achim,

Yes, it is. The target is smaller to drastically smaller. Certain tanks, such as the long barreled Panzer IV, though, are better off not going hulldown because if hulldown and hit, the blow hits the thin turret face armor. If more exposed, though, the odds are that the better protected hull will be hit based on relative presented area.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Achim]

Originally posted by John Kettler:

...

The target is smaller to drastically smaller.

Certain tanks, such as the long barreled Panzer IV, though, are better off not going hulldown because if hulldown and hit, the blow hits the thin turret face armor. If more exposed, though, the odds are that the better protected hull will be hit based on relative presented area.

Regards,

John Kettler

Hello John,

it is true that some turret armor is weak.

I try to recapitulate your conclusion.

- hull down tanks cant get hit as easy as non hull down

- a turret hit with weak turret armor will kill the tank

- show the enemy the whole tank to avoid turret hits

Lets look at two different views:

If i am a tank gunner, i´ll always try to hit the weak turret, because i cant kill him with a hull shoot.

It doesnt mattes if the tank is hull down or not. I have to hit the turret to kill the tank.

Second view:

If i am the comander of the tank, thats beeing shoot at, i try to get hull down to avoid track hits. And my tank isnt an easy target.

But its true, for a tank with weak turret armor, the hull down position isnt very fundamental.

After reading my text, i think there is an "error in reasoning" but i cant find it

[Michael Emrys]

The problem seems to lie with the game. There was a thread a couple of years ago that discussed this problem extensively. Someone ran a series of tests, and the consensus was that this was an area where the designers just goofed. Or rather, what must have looked like a perfectly reasonable system of distributing hits turned out in certain circumstances not to be adequate. The outcome of which is that hulldown tanks seem to get hit somewhat more often than is realistic.

Michael

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

The problem seems to lie with the game. There was a thread a couple of years ago that discussed this problem extensively. Someone ran a series of tests, and the consensus was that this was an area where the designers just goofed. Or rather, what must have looked like a perfectly reasonable system of distributing hits turned out in certain circumstances not to be adequate. The outcome of which is that hulldown tanks seem to get hit somewhat more often than is realistic.

Here, have a table of calculated hit probabilities for a 75mm gun with an m.v. of 620 m/sec and a dispersion at the muzzle of 1 mil (probably reasonably representative of the US 75mm M3) firing at a target 2.5 x 2.5 metres (exposed) or 1.0 x 2.5m (hull-down) and a ranging error of 20% for the first shot, 2% for the second. Moving targets are considered to be moving across the line of sight at 15 kph.

________________200m__400m__600m__800m__1000m_1200m_1400m_1600m_1800m_2000m

1st static______100%__100%___68%___29%___13%____6%____4%____2%____1%____1%

1st moving______100%___91%___45%___14%____5%____2%____1%____-_____-_____-

1st hull-down___100%___87%___32%___12%____5%____2%____1%____-_____-_____-

2nd static______100%__100%___96%___88%___76%___53%___33%___20%___12%____8%

2nd moving______100%___91%___63%___42%___28%___16%____8%____4%____2%____1%

2nd hull-down___100%__100%___96%___81%___47%___25%___14%____8%____5%____3%

Things to notice are that being hull-down produces a greater proportional reduction in P(hit) at the longer ranges, and that hull-down is better than moving to prevent first-shot hits, but less good to prevent second-shot hits. Indeed, within 600m, hull-down produces negligible benefit against second shots (hence the importance of jockeying after you've fired a couple of shots).

I suspect that distortion may arise in CM because the action takes place at relatively short ranges -- shorter, I think, than were typical in NW Europe -- thus reducing the value of hull-down.

Possibly, too, the relatively low per-hit lethality (lower I think than is historically accurate) in CM:AK means that a higher proportion of shots will be "second" shots, and thus relatively insensitive to hull-down, than should be the case.

All the best,

John.

[tankibanki]

One explanation for the "hit probability bug" could be this:

It looks as if CM works in the following way:

First it calculates P(hit) depending on distance, hull down, orientation, ...

After that it calculates (in case of a hit) where the hit has occurred. However if you are in hull down position all hits will be turret hits.

To be accurate the procedure should be the following:

calculate the following probabilities seperately:

P(turret hit)

P(hull hit)

all just depending on distance, orientation, ...

[Lanzfeld]

Now that makes the most sense to me. If this IS true then it is a big bug and the guys at Battlefront shoould do as they SAID they would do and fix it!

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by tankibanki:

One explanation for the "hit probability bug" could be this:

It looks as if CM works in the following way:

First it calculates P(hit) depending on distance, hull down, orientation, ...

After that it calculates (in case of a hit) where the hit has occurred. However if you are in hull down position all hits will be turret hits.

To be accurate the procedure should be the following:

calculate the following probabilities seperately:

P(turret hit)

P(hull hit)

all just depending on distance, orientation, ...

What do you think is wrong with the procedure you believe is used in CM?

Calculating separate hit probabilities for turret and hull works fine if one assumes that the point of aim is at the join of hull and turret. If we assume that each is about the same size (not right, but close enough), then the probability of a turret hit will be at a maximum of 50% when the overall hit probability is 100%. This is far too low for a close-range shot aimed at the centre of mass of the turret, which would presumably be the case against a hull-down target.

All the best,

John.

[Dschugaschwili]

The problem is that CM tanks always aim at the center of the visible part of the enemy tank, which is the upper hull for hull up tanks and near the turret ring for hull down tanks. They will never adapt and aim at specific plates (weaknesses) even after repeated bounces against the upper hull.

This is the correct way of maximizing the chance to hit, but does not necessarily maximize the chance of a penetrating hit.

This means that if the turret is the only vulnerable part of your tank, it's better not to be hull down. In every other situation, being hull down increases your chance of survival.

I'll omit the math here because this has been discussed before. Do a search if you're interested.

Dschugaschwili

[tankibanki]

Originally posted by John D Salt:

Calculating separate hit probabilities for turret and hull works fine if one assumes that the point of aim is at the join of hull and turret. If we assume that each is about the same size (not right, but close enough), then the probability of a turret hit will be at a maximum of 50% when the overall hit probability is 100%. This is far too low for a close-range shot aimed at the centre of mass of the turret, which would presumably be the case against a hull-down target.

Good point, I didn't think about that. In this case some assumptions have to be made about the way a crew should do its targetting.

If the crew aims for the centre of the visible parts of a tank (That would be close to aiming for highest hit probability [and far from highest penetration probability]), the procedure which is used (presumably) is actually realistic as Dschugaschwili said.

If the crew knows about a tank's weakness it should aim for the visible part of the tank for which P(hit)*P(penetration) is highest. In this case going hull down would make sense, even if your turret armor is weakest.

If the crew does not know about the weaknesses of the enemy tank their aim should maximize the hit probability and they should aim for the centre of the tank if it is fully visible and a little lower than the centre of a tank which is partly concealed, depending on the quality of the hull down position (e.g. a tank berm would result in an aim point at the exact centre, while a gently sloped hill will result in an aim point considerably lower).

To explain my first post:

As far as I know crews were taught to generally aim for the point where the turret connects to the hull as this point is believed to be vulnerable (at least thats the way it is taught today).

I could go on like this forever and if you say this has been discussed at length I'll stop here. It's just that I don't like to be punished (by CM) for theoretically sensible behaviour, even though I have to admit, that in some ways this is realistic.