Sherman in CM:AK - peeve

[rune]

JasonC,

Where, ANYWHERE, did i say anything of the sort? I have no idea about the composition of the armour, the BHN, the materials the shells were made out of, the shape of the nose and the materials of the nose of the shell, etc. I am not afraid to admit that is all above me.

Soddball,

Yes, if the engine could be changed it would be have to be addressed. I would love to see curved armour handled better, as well as variations of tank armour. T34 tank armour varied greatly by factory, by the mold of the casting and its wear, if Natalia sneezed that day, etc. There are even American test reports on the T34 that showed bubles in the armour!!! I would love to see each plate treated differently then a flat plane. I love love to factor in the actual size of the front armour pieces, that a small turret that has 18% of the front surface be treated differently then on that covers 35%. Bottom line: there is a lot I would like to see change, but it won't happen unless there is a new engine. Oh look, there is a new engine being worked on...

Rune

[Soddball]

Originally posted by rune:

Soddball,

Yes, if the engine could be changed it would be have to be addressed. I would love to see curved armour handled better, as well as variations of tank armour. T34 tank armour varied greatly by factory, by the mold of the casting and its wear, if Natalia sneezed that day, etc. There are even American test reports on the T34 that showed bubles in the armour!!! I would love to see each plate treated differently then a flat plane. I love love to factor in the actual size of the front armour pieces, that a small turret that has 18% of the front surface be treated differently then on that covers 35%. Bottom line: there is a lot I would like to see change, but it won't happen unless there is a new engine. Oh look, there is a new engine being worked on...

Rune

For me it wasn't about reworking the engine. I just can't help but feel that the Sherman was penalised due to engine limitations in CM:BO, and when those limitations were lifted for CM:BB and CM:AK, the Sherman wasn't reviewed. I wish I had picked it up when CM:AK was released and then something could have been done about it.

And I'm looking forward to the new engine, but I just get depressed when my Shermans get creamed so easily.

[flamingknives]

By JasonC

Nobody can possibly believe this, honestly.

Not the way you put it there, certainly, but you've missed bits out.

Things like:

Distance between plates.

That the plates on the Sherman are cast, while the German plates are RHA and face-hardened.

There are multiple large holes in the Sherman turret.

Differences in penetration?

In rigid-body and hypervelocity impacts, the make-up of the projectile and its design are critical. Flaws can cause it to fail when 'common-sense' appraisals of its merits would have it succeeding by a wide margin. The US 76mm AP shell shatter gap would be a good example of this.

[JasonC]

rune - I simply wasn't talking to you. I was addressing comments attributed to rexford in support of 89mm effective Sherman turret fronts, and combining them with other things people have believed about layered armor based on the purest wind from that quarter.

flamingknives - sorry, not even close to covering a factor of two difference in the amount of metal involved, a factor of 3 in the range involved, 30% more mass for the round modeled as less effective, etc. If we want to talk gaps and weaker locations, the StuG mantel is in fact 50mm, but that does not reduce the modeled thickness at all, nor stop German physics layering-and-ammo-and-face (that is, *fudge factor*) resulting in bounced 85mm AP at 500m. Which Rexford himself has long since admitted is flat wrong.

The layered armor modeling stories in this context are bilge from start to finish.

In the case of the Sherman turret, the mantlet is not supposed to "effectively" be 89mm even with the 50mm plate in front of it, the plate in front is just ignored. The layering, "effective thickness" explanation is hand waving after the fact, in no way consistent with other treatments of layered plates, and as such it is an excuse for an oversight, not a modeling decision at all.

It is really much simpler to just admit misses and hope for improvements in later games. The original poster is right that the Sherman turret is sloped. Later posters are right that the Sherman mantlet is significantly reinforced this is not modeled for Shermans. (It is for Tiger Is, for example). It makes 75L48 unrealistically effective against Shermans at long range so it clearly matters in common game situations.

If players know the issues is real and exists they can take it into account. If they are instead fed "everything is perfect already" lines of malarky by apologists, they can't. If everyone just fights about it as though there is no truth in the matter, it frankly just makes it not worth reasonable people's time to contribute.

[flamingknives]

Jason, could you then explain why the points raised are unimportant? 89mm @ 0º may well be hand-wavy, but it's no less so than 'factors of 3 in range' - what is the velocity at impact, this is the important factor. '30% more mass' - is this of a comparable quality and shape to the German round? 'Factor of 2 difference in the amount of metal' - Just how much of the Shermans turret can be considered that thick? There are bleeding great slots, with associated edge effects, behind the mantlet, and the mantlet does not cover the entire front of the turret.

I'm not saying that I think itshould remain the same, just that your argument isn't particularly convincing.

In the case of the Stug, you've missed out that the outer layer would only resist one or few shots before being rendered ineffective, and CM doesn't model this progressive damage.

[Bigduke6]

Flaming Knives,

Which brings us right back to - StuGs perform in the game not like real life, probably.

Is it just me, but are the design holes mostly concentrated on the Allied side? (Again, CM is an outstanding game, I am talking about exceptions here.) I mean, I know about MKIVs being "punished" for not receiving bennies for a small turret, but besides that? Or is it just that Allied players whine more? Whaddyathink? :confused:

Rune,

Regarding Natalie and her sneezing, I just thought of something.

Does the present game model/take into account the factt lots of German munitions were made by slave labor from about mid-1943? Will the next one?

From what I can see the game depicts German munitions quality as pretty much outstanding for the whole war, end-to-end.

I am probably prejudiced, but I would think that a country having access to the biggest raw material base on the planet, and employing skilled and often university-educated female labor (including a neighbour of mine, strangely enough) in its wartime munition plants, and under threat of annihilation by the most vicious invasion since the Mongols would, for instance, produce a pretty good 76.2mm AP shell, once they figured out how to do it.

The game of course keeps Soviet 76.2mm rounds pretty sucky throughout the entire war period.

Yet the German-manufactured version of the same round, in the game, throughout the war (as depicted in the game), performs about 30 per cent better than the Soviet-manufactured version.

Considering a whole bunch of Germany's slave laborers came from the Soviet Union, it's almost as if some designer somewhere assumed Russians produced better goods - or at least 76.2mm AP shels - employed as slaves, than as patriotic laborers defending their country. Even when the Americans are bombing the bejeezus out of the factories using the slave laborers.

That's just me being ironic.

The question is, did the game incorporate deteriorating German munitions quality as the war went on? Or are German munitions of uniform quality throughout the entire war? I'm not asking about armor, I'm asking about AP munitions.

[roqf77]

http://www.freeweb.hu/gva/weapons/introduction.html#Ammunition_Quality_Used_During_Testing

according to this website, british ammunition quality was the best. The germans had a defeceit of about 5-10%, russian was substandard until mid 44. and the american standard is okay. so it might also be an ammunition consideration. so im no expert and this only vague information but yes rune it might be something to do with the ammo.

[flamingknives]

That website refers to ammunition quality during testing, not production ammunition used on the battlefield.

Just so there's no confusion.

[roqf77]

sorry,yes of course thats what i meant. Im not aware of any russian tests against the stug, but it is possible while test amunition would Penetrate butit wouldnt in the field because of this.

[WineCape]

Originally posted by rune:

Yes, if the engine could be changed it would be have to be addressed. .... Bottom line: there is a lot I would like to see change, but it won't happen unless there is a new engine.

Oh look, there is a new engine being worked on...

Bastisch! For that you will be red-carded for DOGSO.

[qduffy]

This might be a ridiculous noob question, but has anyone ever come across or referenced any kind of battlefield operational research archives? I seem to recall coming across a book called 'Montgomery's Scientists' that looked at operational and battlefiel research, but I never had a chance to read it.

There must have been careful analysis and survey of destroyed or damaged equipment to determine just how effective various weapons were against each other and against the various qualities and thicknesses of armour. It wouldn't surprise me if ratios of hit-to-penetration results can be found for all kinds of both Allied and Axis vehicles, and probably broken down to specific armour locations too. Who knows, some dusty bureau in a sub-basement somewhere might contain the answer that Sherman's had a weak spot on their gun mantlets...or not.

Another question? Do you think the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of Sherman armour has been calculated through playbalancing into their points cost?

While I find that results of CM games often do not jibe completely with what I understand from my historical reading and research, they've done a pretty good job. I sometimes think, however, that the mystique surrounding German equipment occasionally shifts the balance perceptibly in their favour.

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by qduffy:

This might be a ridiculous noob question, but has anyone ever come across or referenced any kind of battlefield operational research archives?

I've spent a fair number of days ransacking the contents of WO 291 at the PRO, yes. In fact most OR work was not concerned with armour penetration, which is more likely to show up under other headings, such as archives from Chertsey or Fort Halstead.

Originally posted by qduffy:

There must have been careful analysis and survey of destroyed or damaged equipment to determine just how effective various weapons were against each other and against the various qualities and thicknesses of armour. It wouldn't surprise me if ratios of hit-to-penetration results can be found for all kinds of both Allied and Axis vehicles, and probably broken down to specific armour locations too. Who knows, some dusty bureau in a sub-basement somewhere might contain the answer that Sherman's had a weak spot on their gun mantlets...or not.

This seems vanishingly unlikely to me, based on my first-hand experience of British OR archives and my first-hand experience of current military OR work.

There is, still, an embarrassing paucity of reliable information about absolutely basic things (and it was this realisation that really gave birth to OR). While the WW2 OR efforts produced a lot of interesting stuff, there hasn't been the same effort expended trying to get to grips with fundamentals since 1945.

We don't have a really good model of the way humans detect targets, for example. We know pretty well how Norwegian students perform in forced-choice experiments of static scenes, but that is not the same thing. We don't have a good model of the suppressive effects of small-arms fire, though we have a fair clue for HE based on 1944-45 work. We don't have a good model of the operational effects of fatigue, and experiments to find them would probably be unethical these days (and in any case, the people who fund defence research really, really hate being reminded of how little we know about the basics).

With all these critical things so poorly understood, there is probably not now, and never was, much demand for OR work into armour penetration, a phenomenon for which, while we don't understand it perfectly, we have models vastly better than those for spotting, suppression and fatigue. I would suggest the same approach would be a good one for CM. I don't really care whether the Sherman's turret from is considered to present 89 or 95mm or RHA equivalent; I'm much more concerned to improve those aspects of the game that CM handles less well than armour penetration.

Still, to return to the minutiae of armour penetration, which seems to hold an endless fascination for WW2 wargamers -- yes, there were surveys made of destroyed AFVs with attempts made to take some operational measure of the effectiveness of the weapons used against them. There are some encounters for which information is available in insane detail, as for example the Churchills lost at Steamroller Farm, where I think each individual hit is accoiunted for.

However, if you think about it for a bit, you will easily see why the sort of detailed breakdown you imagine could not possibly be arrived at outside the tightly-controlled confines of a range shoot (as were conducted agaisnt captive armour at Inchterf and Shoeburyness, for example).

Looking at a destroyed tank, how do you tell which of the hits killed it? How many of the holes were put in it after it was knocked out? If a projectile was defeated, how do you tell from the scoop it leaves what calibre it was? What range were they fired from? In the case of common calibres such as 75mm, where the enemy may have more than one weapon of that size, how can you tell which one was responsible if the projectile cannot be recovered? How much evidence do you think can successfully be collected from a tank after an ammunition fire, anyway? And how do you allow for the sample bias produced by the fact that the enemy probably has tanks that survived hits from friendly projectiles, which he won't let you survey?

The OR work I've seen on tank battles tends to be at a much more aggregate level, trying to estimate things like typical ranges for opening fire, the benefit of firing first, and the relative overall effectiveness of different tank types.

All the best,

John.

[qduffy]

Thanks John!

Those are all very valid questions but like you suggest, even some rudimentary forensics would give you an idea of how and when a tank was killed. I assumed that there must have been some cataloguing or census of battlefield damage because of the development of different vehicle 'marks' and the kind of improvements made to tanks like the Sherman in the last couple years of the war that seemed not quite ad-hoc enough to be based on mere guess-work or hearsay! The addition of new armour plating and blisters, wet storage etc. must have been based on some kind of battlefield research where weak spots were identified.

I like these kinds of 'technical' discussions mostly because the concept of defeating (or not) several hundred thousand foot-lbs of kinetic energy by the mere presence of a couple of inches of hardened steel is pretty compelling - the ferocity! Plus it feels like a we can have a quantitative argument with the possibility of a solution, as opposed to the subjective aspect of things like fatigue or how suppression should work in a video game. From a game standpoint, it's far easier to understand and lament that fact that your Sherman seems to be penetrated on a regular basis - it's a moment that can define a whole game. Fatigued infantry is neither here nor there in my conciousness, but losing a Sherman so easily is often a blow to the ego! This also becomes fundamentally a game-balance question, and on some game forums a discussion like this would have already led to petty name-calling and deeply divided camps.

Quinn

[Soddball]

This thread demands resurrection.

Actually, I'm reviving it because I was looking at one of the threads in the forum the other day which had a link to the wargamer.com article with photos from CM:BO's beta.

And in that, Shermans had an armour slope of 30 degrees.

Can anyone find the link to that for me? I've tried searching but my search powers are weak today.