Tiger tank 'KO'ed by Flamethrower??

[zeez]

Just got the game and was trying out a night mission (hot seat) and playing around with some German vs Polish units.

Mid way through the game, my only advancing tiger was immobilised along a road by Polish infantry. The next turn, a Polish falmethrower in nearby trees (about 30 m) fired flames at the Tiger and knocked it out on its second flame burst!!

Anyone got any ideaa if this is realistically possible??

Thanks!

zeez

[Monty]

Did the crew abandon the tank ?

Mostly, the crew panick due to the FT and they abandon , but i also have seen a directly "knock out"

If the flames reached the motor compartment, engine failure can make a knock out i think, but i have not read statistics about how many tanks FT's did KO...

We need some "grogs" for that

Edit: btw welcome to the CM forum Zeez !, its your first post i now see.

It can be very painful to loose an expensive tank ain't it

Tigers are easily lost by flametrowers or a side shot with a powerful AT-gun.

Thats why you need to keep the Tiger far behind your advancing infantery.

Keep the tank in overwatch for your inf. so he can protect them if necessary.

Keep it behind a house or so till you are sure there is no AT gun or other thread luring.

Goodluck

Monty

[ December 28, 2003, 08:40 AM: Message edited by: Monty ]

[zeez]

Hi Monty,

Thanks. If I remember correctly, the crew was bailing out when the flames hit. But the Tiger did burst into flames and ended up with a Knocked-Out status. I checked the FT for kills and it has one unidentified vehicle killed.

zeez

[Soddball]

Imagine this. You're sitting, blind, in 32 tons of potentially explosive shrapnel, loaded with high explosive and high-octane fuel. It's dark. You hear a 'FWOOSOSHSHHHHHHH' and all of a sudden hot napalm starts to drip in through the air vents.

Do you:

A) Run like buggery before the whole thing goes up.

Flick through your "Tiger Tank - What I learned from Watching Saving Private Ryan" leaflet and stay put.

[stikkypixie]

They didn't have FT's in the last scene of Saving Ryan, what are you yabbing about?

[Soddball]

Originally posted by stikkypixie:

They didn't have FT's in the last scene of Saving Ryan, what are you yabbing about?

Nothing. Go back to your biscuit.

[stikkypixie]

and another thing those weren't real tigers, they were cleverly disguised T34's

so flipping through that book of yours wouldn't have worked

and...

what has become of me life ??

[Soddball]

Originally posted by stikkypixie:

and another thing those weren't real tigers, they were cleverly disguised T34's

so flipping through that book of yours wouldn't have worked

and...

what has become of me life ??

Let me explain. My point was that relying on watching films to decide how powerful or effective a particular tank is (in this case the Tiger) is a mistake. Watching a film and then expecting an 'accurate' wargame to respond in the same way that the film does is a mistake.

Fighting at night in the woods with a heavy tank against flamethrower units is a mistake.

Expecting the Tiger to become anything except a substantial barbecue under these conditions is a mistake.

I hope I've made myself a bit clearer now.

[Ligur]

While the flamethrower wasn't designed for an antitank role, hauling a flamethrower to tank killing range not being practical at all, AFAIK it was quite effective for roasting armor and scaring the crew witless when given a chance.

Think that in the Eastern front they used molotov coctails to (try and) destroy armor with. Bottles full of something that would catch fire and burn, if luck was with you, on top of a tanks engine compartment. D'oh. But it could work.

Now imagine yourself inside a tank during an urban fight you don't want to be a part of, bullets pinging on your turret, the clouds of concrete dust and dirt kicked up by artillery clouding your already poor visibility. Its only evening but the smoke of war makes it nearly as dark as the night. Now think of sticky flaming fluid suddenly spraying on your already uncomfortable and cramped tank with a resounding SWOOOOOOOOSSSHHHH from a goddamn HOSE somewhere very near you, the air being sucked out, the only thing you see outside are dust and flames licking armored plate, heat rising, starting to scorch your skin and lungs, droplets of the stuff spraying in from any openings on your metal coffin, you see the rack of HEAT ammunition catching some of the stuff, your radist is stomping on his smoking coat and bangs his head on the scope, your engine is overheating and screaming bloody murder... Definetly works.

I'd run, if I had the time before something goes *BOOM*

[stikkypixie]

Let me explain. My point was that relying on watching films to decide how powerful or effective a particular tank is (in this case the Tiger) is a mistake. Watching a film and then expecting an 'accurate' wargame to respond in the same way that the film does is a mistake.

Fighting at night in the woods with a heavy tank against flamethrower units is a mistake.

Expecting the Tiger to become anything except a substantial barbecue under these conditions is a mistake.

I hope I've made myself a bit clearer now.

--------------------

Current Wives:

My wives are lubricating themselves in preparation for my CM:AK victories.

I understood you loud and clear the first time, my good man, was just bored so i decided to post for fun. Tis a strange concept i know, you should try it sometime

[Los]

Soddball,

I appreciated your witty rapier-accurate repost. This whole thread provided a much needed chuckle...

Los

[-E]

Originally posted by Soddball:

Expecting the Tiger to become anything except a substantial barbecue under these conditions is a mistake.

I hope I've made myself a bit clearer now.

What do you have against BBQ's?

[stikkypixie]

i don't know, but i know he has some weird obsession with biscuits

[Bone_Vulture]

Final note:

yes, flamethrowers were likely quite effective against vehicles, if the FT team managed to get in range of the target. Attempting to assault tanks from a distance is suicide with FTs, considering the cumbersome weight of the weapon, and it's volatility.

So flamethrowers are only useful in ambush situations, or if poor visual conditions allow your team to sneak close undetected.

[JasonC]

"were likely quite effective against vehicles, if the FT team managed to get in range"

I would be most interested in any actual evidence you have for this assertion, not based in the end on a game or speculation but on first hand historical accounts. Or that anyone else has. Having looked for it myself and not found much, I am currently skeptical that FTs ever killed AFVs in the real world.

[Bone_Vulture]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Having looked for it myself and not found much, I am currently skeptical that FTs ever killed AFVs in the real world.

The gauntlet has been thrown!

(Sneaks away quietly)

I'll wait for the grog accounts.

[Ligur]

I was waiting for the first grog to blow us out of cyberspace!

But JasonC only voiced a suspicion without facts?

Boys, we might be trekking where no grog has gone before.

I have read at least second hand accounts of flamers being used against armor, in Africa (of all places), but can't provide a link or reference. Not much was mentioned about the effectiveness against armor. So don't listen to me.

But 20 years of wargames has lead us to believe flamer = dangerous to armor, at least in my case.

What the flamer has going for it, is messing up the engine, and fuel possibly catching fire. A tank with a few extra barrels of fuel on top of it would be in a precarious situation indeed, because I don't think the barrels are thick enough to keep the fuel from brewing up. The diesel used by Russians though, I don't know.

I am of the opinion that a flamers lethality vs an AFV is more or less dependent on what particular vehicle you are shooting at and where. Light armor with thin plates could heat up so badly the ammunition behind the plates ignites. If you torch the engine from the right place I think the FT would be a dangerous weapon against any armor. But without hard facts this its more or less idle speculation. How well protected the engines & exhausts are in a Tiger? I mean versus burning fluid? How did they keep the engines cool?

I'd still take a 88mm AP shot from 30 meters instead of a big torch if I wanted to stop a tank though.

And even if FT were good at killing tanks, a situation where it could have been field tested was prolly a very, very rare occurence, what with the flamers role in WW2.

[YankeeDog]

I do not have references available, but I can recall reading a few accounts where German infantry used either (1) flamethrowers, or (2) just plain old cans of gasoline (basically a very large molotov) to destroy T-34s or KV-1s early on in Barbaraoa.

IIRC, it was mostly a coup-de-gras type thing - the T-34 or KV was already heavily damaged (including immobilized) by repeated non-penetrating hits from light ATGs, and some unlucky soldier was nominated to sneak forward and deliver the final blow.

It wouldn't surprise me, though, if *somwhere* there's an incident where a resourceful pioneer unit ambushed a fully operational enemy tank with a flamethrower. I would also guess that, assuming the FT was able to surprise the tank, the weapon would be fairly effective. Even Manpack flamethrowers put out a considerable amount of burning liquid pretty quickly, and judging from the few tanks I've sat in (mostly Shermans), WWII-era tanks were far from watertight; there were plenty of places that burning fuel on the hull could seep into either the fighting or the engine compartment.

In addition, something I learned from a firefighter friend: Most fires actually produce both lighter-than-air *and* heavier-than-air particulate aerosols and toxins. We don't normally see these heavier than air byproducts of the fire because they usually spread out and seep into the ground. However, I suspect that in the case of a large fire burning on top of a AFV deck, the fighting compartment underneath would pretty rapidly become full of noxious fumes. This would be in addition to the oxygen-robbing effects of a large fire, which might also make the tank uninhabitable.

I do agree with Jason for the most part, though. IRL, FTs being used against tanks was probably very rare. It might have happened a few times out of necessity or desperation, but I doubt it was very often, if ever, a planned and drilled tactic. While FTs might be effective in the right situation, I would think that their combination of very short range, bulk, and poor stealth qualities would generally make other improvised AT weapons, such as demo charges, more attractive to the desperate infantryman.

I suspect that ambushing armor with FTs is more common in CM than IRL simply because close-quarters ambush of armor with infantry units is a really fun type of scenario to play.

Cheers,

YD

[CombinedArms]

I don't have specfic references either, but here are a few inferences that seem to me reasonable.

1) FT kills on tanks may not have happened too often in RL because FT's are usually specialized attack weapons and in, say, an urban setting or an assault on pillboxes, the attacker is unlikely to encounter enemy armor.

2) But it seems to me reasonable that, in theory, an FT could kill a tank if it got close enough--the situation just rarely arose in RL circumstances.

3) OTOH, FT's suck as attack weapons in CM--can't get 'em close enough w/o getting killed (Russian FT's a slight exception because of their longer range.)

4) FT's come into their own on defense (when you happen to get them, usually in a scenario), esp. in urban settings as ambush weapons. The main tactic is: Wait for the enemy to get close, then set them on fire. This can work on tanks, too.

5) So, while in real life FT's (I'm guessing) rarely got to kill tanks, in CM they do get to do it and it's one of the few things they can do well. Basically we're dealing with one of the little areas where the game is unrealistic--FT's in CM are more valuable on defense than on the attack.

[JasonC]

I have read detailed tactical AARs of infantry destroying tanks with cans of gasoline, hand poured over the engine deck and ignited with nothing more than a zippo. I have read detailed tactical AARs of tanks taken out by molotovs. In both cases, usually finishing off an already immobilized vehicle.

One might suppose that firing an FT without igniting the liquid, soaking the target's engine deck, then firing another burst ignited, might have a similar effect from 20m away without needing to get on top of the thing. I have read of that sort of thing being done to a fixed bunker, with an FT.

That it should be physically possible seems clear enough. But I have never seen an account of an FT fired successfully against a live tank - and not for lack of looking I can assure you. Plenty of things that are physically possible do not happen in practice, under real tactical conditions.

If you google it you get misses about tanks equipped with flamethrowers themselves, wargames, and gamer speculation. Searching through histories full of small combat AARs does no better. As for the remark that it is "without facts", um, you can't prove a negative except by noting that looking in the obvious places fails to find any evidence. Which suggests but does not prove. Hence my skepticism and my "challenge".

[Lorak]

Quick search.

http://www.daveswarbirds.com/guadalcanal/LWphotos_6.htm

caption:

"A Marine displays the head and bones of a Japanese tank crewman on top of a knocked out Japanese tank.

According to the caption, the tank was hit by a flamethrower, though this weapon did not see much use at this early stage of the war.

"

[Lorak]

Oh, one more.

http://www.battlefield.ru/library/archives/weapons/weapons8.html

Nice translation of the "walls of fire" the russians used.

[JasonC]

Thanks Lorak, but it hardly impresses. The Russian case claims 4 tanks by static FTs, which means a positional engineer work rather more elaborate than a backpack. For the Guad case the tank obviously burned, but whether it was due to an FT or just the usual ammo fire after being penetrated is less than obvious - it is quite possible the caption is a guess based on seeing the wreck rather than an eyewitness AAR.

No, what is really wanted is an account with time place and unit, preferably with blow by blow. As in "One of the panzers was crippled, but the crew compartment proved impervious to bazooka rounds (perhaps this was a Tiger) (aside - actually, it was a Jagd-70 with skirts, as the German side units present establishes). So Cpl. Charles Roberts (Company D) and Sgt. Otis Bone (Company drained some gasoline from an abandoned vehicle, doused the tank, and lit the whole with thermite grenades." But with an FT.

[Franko]

Originally posted by Ligur:

Now imagine yourself inside a tank during an urban fight you don't want to be a part of, bullets pinging on your turret, the clouds of concrete dust and dirt kicked up by artillery clouding your already poor visibility. Its only evening but the smoke of war makes it nearly as dark as the night. Now think of sticky flaming fluid suddenly spraying on your already uncomfortable and cramped tank with a resounding SWOOOOOOOOSSSHHHH from a goddamn HOSE somewhere very near you, the air being sucked out, the only thing you see outside are dust and flames licking armored plate, heat rising, starting to scorch your skin and lungs, droplets of the stuff spraying in from any openings on your metal coffin, you see the rack of HEAT ammunition catching some of the stuff, your radist is stomping on his smoking coat and bangs his head on the scope, your engine is overheating and screaming bloody murder... Definetly works.

I'd run, if I had the time before something goes *BOOM*

Yeesh. That is disturbing imagery (and a fine piece of writing). ****, I'm convinced.

Frank

[MikeyD]

Zeez's original post did mention that it was a night fight and the flamethrower had been concealed in the woods, so that explains how a FT could get close enough to a Tiger to do its work.

As for the FT threat to tanks, Brit and American tanks were designed specifically to have a small degree of protection against flamables. The M4 Sherman's rear deck had one covered opening tucked under the turret bustle and the solid plate engine deck sloped so any fiery liquid dumped on it would roll off. The Churchill and Crusader also had engine decks without open grates. The Tiger's engine deck, on the other hand, was as open as a sieve and by war's end the U.S. close support air took to dropping napalm onto pesky Tigers and Panthers that stood in their way. Even if the flames didn't enter the fighting compartment a fire would suck the oxygen from the sealed fighting compartment.