Consequences of "Front Upper Hull Penetration"?

[OGSF]

Right. I don't know what has been changed, but I don't like it.

Killing MR Mediums with 50mm AP, even with multiple penetrations, is like pulling teeth.

The M3 Gun Carriage is the toughest HT I ever saw.

Sherman's take hull penetrations from panzershrecks and don't even notice. And now an M5 Stuart can withstand a panzershreck penetration without being knocked out!

Sherman's now take 105MM HC penetrations and don't even notice. They also take 3 consecutive 50mm AT gun side penetrations without flinching.

M8 Greyhounds take 8 hull penetrations from a 20mm flak gun before being knocked out.

If penetrations don't do any damage, then what is the point of AP ammo??? More to the point, what is the use of shooting at bloody tanks in the first place?

Unless the tanks are German of course, in which case Stugs die like hamsters and Tigers blow up on the first hit.

Bah!

I am all for realism, but I think I need to be convinced that these results are realistic. If they are, fine. But right now it seems to me that in the CMAK demo at least the exceptions are the rule.

My sharpshooter has caused more havoc with the American armour in LoD than multiple armour penetrations with AP rounds. We may as well include "ion-sheilds" and "phaser guns" for the credibility I am getting in the CMAK demo right now.

(And yes, I have already ordered the full game).

[ December 30, 2003, 11:20 PM: Message edited by: OGSF ]

[Michael Emrys]

Gee, Oogie, you sure are having a run of bad luck. Must be your karma. When I played the Amis in both the demos, my vehicles seem to drop like flies. First time through Frühlingswind, my HTs died immediately to the Kraut HTs. Or maybe it was the Kraut ACs that killed them. I was too heartbroken to check, but anyway I think one of them never even got a shot off. And this was even though I had carefully placed them where they would be hull down. I guess if you want to see the Americans die, you have to play the Americans.

Michael

[dalem]

OGSF-

Take heart: In a game I'm playing with Boo I've seen BOTH sides of that elephant. Over the course of 7 turns or so I hit and penetrated his little teeny Italian sardine can tank thingie with no less than 5 U.S. rifle grenades (I know tiny warheads), 5 bazooka rounds, and 4 or 5 37mm AT rounds from a Stuart before it finally gave up the ghost. I'm not making ANY of those numbers up. I figure the tank was still fine by that point but since it is a winter scenario the crew was afraid of catching cold from the drafts.

And not 200m away my stalwart Sherman is advancing cautiously up the road and FOOM! - one shot, shreck (under FIRE no less!), frontal penetration, 2 dead, abandoned.

So I can say both "I feel your pain" and "shut your festering gob-hole ya gibbering nancy-laddie!"

-dale

[Trommelfeuer]

In a game I'm playing with Boo I've seen BOTH sides of that elephant. Over the course of 7 turns or so I hit and penetrated his little teeny Italian sardine can tank thingie with no less than 5 U.S. rifle grenades (I know tiny warheads), 5 bazooka rounds, and 4 or 5 37mm AT rounds from a Stuart before it finally gave up the ghost. I'm not making ANY of those numbers up. I figure the tank was still fine by that point but since it is a winter scenario the crew was afraid of catching cold from the drafts.

Lol! But are you really sure that the "little Italian sardine tank" wasn't already knocked out after the first penetration, and that it's a matter of the "death clock" until the italian tank is finally shown as knocked out ?

( Or do you play without fog of war ? )

Greetings, Sven

[dalem]

Originally posted by Trommelfeuer:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> In a game I'm playing with Boo I've seen BOTH sides of that elephant. Over the course of 7 turns or so I hit and penetrated his little teeny Italian sardine can tank thingie with no less than 5 U.S. rifle grenades (I know tiny warheads), 5 bazooka rounds, and 4 or 5 37mm AT rounds from a Stuart before it finally gave up the ghost. I'm not making ANY of those numbers up. I figure the tank was still fine by that point but since it is a winter scenario the crew was afraid of catching cold from the drafts.

Lol! But are you really sure that the "little Italian sardine tank" wasn't already knocked out after the first penetration, and that it's a matter of the "death clock" until the italian tank is finally shown as knocked out ?

( Or do you play without fog of war ? )

Greetings, Sven </font>

[HeavyDelta]

The CMAK PDF manual states:

"Armor penetrations that penetrate less than 15% beyond the

armor resistance will be displayed as partial penetration and often

are less dangerous to the crew of the tank which was hit. (Note: the

reduced lethality is not a hard cutoff at 15%, that s just the cutoff to

show the partial message)."

So this means that the penetration message is showed even when the armor isn't fully penetrated (anywhere from 15%-100% penetration). I think CM uses the word penetration not in the terms of completely going through but rather just pricking or breaking the armors "skin".

[Runyan99]

No, in that case it states 'Partial Penetration'.

[HeavyDelta]

Reread it.

"Armor penetrations that penetrate LESS than 15% beyond the

armor resistance will be displayed as partial penetration."

Therefore, any penetration from 15%-100% will be displayed as a normal "Penetration".

[ December 31, 2003, 11:42 PM: Message edited by: TheEradicator ]

[Stalin's Organ]

Sometiems shots that penetrate the armour simply do not hit anything vital - especially small shot without much (or lacking entirely) HE filler - they do not displace much armour, nor do they disintigrate into a lot of fragments.

I note that the problem was with 50mm L42 guns - the Demo scenaroi has P-3's with 50mm L60 guns - they're a bit different in the range they can penetrate!

However once penetration is achieved it doesn't really matter much whether it was at 3 metres or 300 metres for the effects on the target vehicle unless it's a case of gross overpenetration as some ppl have been talking about - everything ends up inside.

[Caesar]

Therefore, any penetration from 15%-100% will be displayed as a normal "Penetration".

When you are talking about a 50mm gun at well under 100m range hitting a Lee side on, I think it would be pretty safe to assume that we are talking about 100% penetration.

However once penetration is achieved it doesn't really matter much whether it was at 3 metres or 300 metres for the effects on the target vehicle unless it's a case of gross overpenetration as some ppl have been talking about - everything ends up inside.

The amount of energy possessed by the shell (and the armour fragments) after penetration is very relevant. The energy has to go somewhere. As you say, everything ends up inside. The closer the range, the more energy remaining with the shell.

In the situation that BadgerDog and I have referred to, my M3's withstood multiple penetrations at point blank range side from 50mm L42 guns. As far as I know, the 50mm shell is APHE. What happened to the HE part of the shell? If it went off inside the tank, how could the tank survive? Something seems a bit off here.

[Stalin's Organ]

Probably because there just isn't that much HE in a 50mm APHE shell!

A tank is still a big machine - you can hit all sorts of non-vital things inside it without killing it - the idea that every penetration must kill is nonsense.

Also early HEAT rounds were apparently not particularly lethal for their size by modern standards - they were usually not designed optimally by later standards (according to a WW2 rules author friend of mine - I know - there's better references out there but....) and often did no more than bore a small hole in hte armour - again there's nothign that says they MUST hit something vital once they've done that.

[Ron]

I don't know, perhaps I am wrong, but like OGSF, I can't possbily see what 'I am seeing' as being in any way shape or form realistic. Case in point:

One Grant absorbing over 2 dozen 50mm(L/42 and L60) penetrations over the course of the battle, that's not even counting the partial penetrations, and still keep on truckin'(3 Plts of PzIIIs laid to waste). Two other Grants taking comparable damage with only one finally being Abandoned(!) - all veterans.

A Valentine gets ambushed by 4 50mmL/42 PzIIIs at less than 100m and takes 8 or more frontal penetrations, only to casually reverse away to fight again later.

A 20mm AC gets ambushed by a platoon and bazooka from all sides at 30m, receiving numerous penetrations from rifle grenades and shaped charge alike, only to - you guessed it - reverse quickly away without skipping a beat.

Somehow these incidents are the *norm* now and not the exception. Said vehicles are roaming around the battlefield with more holes in them than a block of swiss cheese, impervious to the continued pounding of the puny 50mm or 2pdr or 37mm gun. All those perforations ought to at least allow the crew an unobstructed view of the battlefield, without the sighting penalty of being buttoned up. Come on BFC fix or do somefink!

Ron

[Determinant]

Sigh. As they used to say on Badge Patrol (or whatever). 'The facts Madam. Just give me the facts.'

Enough already with the 'My Enemies are driving around like Bonny and Clyde on Angel Dust' sob stories from CMAK games.

Lots of people feel that something is wrong. Why? Is it because you are getting lots of 'Front Turret Penetration' reports but Godzilla is still moving and fighting? I always thought it wrong that we get these reports in EFOW. It should mostly be 'Hit?' with an occasional 'Hit!'.

Does it all contradict your historical studies of AFV penetration effects? What do we really know about this subject? I know that modern penetrations are often disastrous but what about WWII? Do we know anything about this subject at all or are we just plucking stuff out of the air?

So where's the facts? Where's the science? What energy is left in the round post-penetration? What size the bursting charge? What track did the round follow post-penetration? What's the theoretical effect 'under-armour'? What historical accounts or reports can we find of penetrations, both 'effective' and 'non-effective' in CM terms?

Mind you I did love the one shot - one kill approach to life in CMBO. Made those fascist bastards in the Waffen SS sweat when you were defending as the Amis. 50 cal opened up those HTs like sardine cans. Great fun. But was it, uhh, historical? Dunno. By the bye if someone has had a non-damaging front turret penetration from a 88mm then maybe I will ask for my money back!

I lean back and look forward to a proper education in ballistics. Don't disappoint me now.

[Michael Emrys]

Like I said, all my vehicles, large and small, seem to die very, very readily. The more heavily armored of them have a few more riccochets, which is to be expected with smaller guns, but once something penetrates, it's usually all over. The exception is light armor getting penetrated by ATRs and similar small fry.

Until somebody has a free weekend to run some really comprehensive tests, I am inclined to mark it all up to "s*** happens" with it undetermined which of us it is happening to.

Michael

[dizee]

dont forget that a tank not only has a crew quater. especialy from the side, u can hit the engine compartment, where a spend, lowcaliber, none he round, might not cause mucho damage.

[OGSF]

Originally posted by Determinant:

Lots of people feel that something is wrong. Why?

Does it all contradict your historical studies of AFV penetration effects? What do we really know about this subject? I know that modern penetrations are often disastrous but what about WWII? Do we know anything about this subject at all or are we just plucking stuff out of the air?

So where's the facts? Where's the science?

When I see a Sherman tank take an "side penetration" from a 88mm panzershreck round and continue manhoovering and shooting I am willing to question the historical accuracey of the result.

M3 Medium tanks taking multiple penetrations from 50mm AT rounds without affecting their ability to manhoover or shoot, apparently because no vital components were hit (including the crew), is suspicious to me. Not one or two hits, but many hits.

An armour car with only enough room for a two man crew taking 8 penetrations from 20mm flak before it is knocked out is, to me, questionable.

I didn't design the game and don't feel the need to explain why the results I am seeing are bogus. I am quite open to someone explaining with all due "science" why the results I find dubious are in fact realistic. I have no doubt that the armour penetration calculations vs type of round etc modelled by BFC are correct. I am questioning the likelihood of varioius vehicles being able to continue to manhoover and shoot after AP rounds of various size and quantity have penetrated the vehicle.

The "stuff happens" explaination doesn't cut it for me I'm afraid. These results are appearing as the norm in my games, not the exception.

Logic tells me that WWII combatants did not fire AP rounds at AFVs' for no reason. They expected to kill them, if they were able to penetrate the armour. If armour penetrations did not usually trash the inside of the vehicle or crew, either from HE, spalling, or ricochets, then why bother having armour in the first place. Just take the hits and continue manhoovering and shooting - just like I have seen in my CMAK games.

The vehicles were armoured to keep enemy AP rounds out of the inside. The reason that was desirable is the same reason I am questioning the post-penetration longevity of vehicles in CMAK.

[Determinant]

Originally posted by OGSF:

The vehicles were armoured to keep enemy AP rounds out of the inside. The reason that was desirable is the same reason I am questioning the post-penetration longevity of vehicles in CMAK.

Oh. By 88mm I meant kinetic. As in THE FEARED DUAL ROLE KILLER rather than the PzK HEAT round. That's chemistry with a bit of physics. Who knows what's going on there?

But you make a very good point. Armour. What's it for? It's to keep sharp, hot pieces of fast moving metal from perforating one's precious flesh. We can all sign up to that. Hell I'd buy the company if the bloated war-profiteers who have cornered the market in armaments manufacturing hadn't driven me out of the market with their $900 step-ladders.

So what are we left with? I don't know if you have seen any stuff on WWI tanks. The crews there were dressed (primitive body armour; chain-mail goggles etc) in the expectation that their armour would be penetrated. A bit uncomfortable one might think as they were driving around in mobile saunas.

So why did they bother? Why not save themselves the trouble and ride ponies? Because at the least in their saunas they were, nearly, bullet proof.

And thus the game begins - thicker armour - wider, faster rounds - chemical rounds - reactive armour. The dance goes on.

You think that it is unacceptable that a perforated AFV should be able to fight on. I ask why not? What makes you think that it is wrong? Show me the why-for and I will follow you.

There is an acronym in the British Army: FIDO which stands for 'F*ck It - Drive On!' I remember asking lots of tricksy questions to a young RTR tank commander many years ago. He looked at me sharply and replied that in a tight spot he would quote 'Fight the Tank'. By which he meant not that he would do whatever he could to destroy the enemy with his tank while it could still fight. He would fight.

So we come back to my earlier question. Your armour is penetrated. So what? You keep fighting while you are able. What you need to produce is something factual about penetrated AFVs rather than a gut feeling that something is wrong.

I should note that I am not unsympathetic to your case. I think that, in real life, there were probably far fewer hits than we see in CM. I actually look at some of the CMAK Desert encounters - both sides blazing away pointlessly at +1000 metres - and think that was how it must have been.

So. We know you don't like it. What proof do you have that a perforated AFV should die there and then?

[Ron]

Originally posted by Determinant:

So. We know you don't like it. What proof do you have that a perforated AFV should die there and then?

Yes exactly, we need to know precisely how many penetrations of Round X are required before an AFV of Type Y is unable to carry on and fight anymore. 1? 2? 5? Or some fuzzy number in-between so it 'feels right'? I wonder what BFC did? I wonder what 'data' BFC has that allowed them to arrive where we are today? Or no wait, maybe they were operating in that fuzzy grey area themselves and fiddled and fudged until it 'felt right' and produced acceptable/realistic results? Room for error, miscalculation? No that couldn't be...

Ron

[OGSF]

Originally posted by Determinant:

So. We know you don't like it. What proof do you have that a perforated AFV should die there and then?

Here are some interesting excerpts from around the Net. Different views, the last one is quite interesting I thought. Hard to find "proof", given the nature of the issue. Penetration can be measured and modeled, the effect not so....

http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/tankbusters.htm

"In WW2 the 30 mm guns were criticised for the limited behind-armour effect of their small penetrating cores (less of a problem for the GAU-8/A: an advantage of DU, apart from 10-15% better penetration, is that it has an incendiary effect after penetrating). This argues in favour of a 37-40 mm gun to provide greater effectiveness. A larger calibre would also provide more effective HE shells for use against softer targets."

http://www.activevr.com/afv/cgi_bin/web-bbs/webbbs_config.pl/noframes/read/43481

"Warhead explosions of penetrating rounds INSIDE of real tanks were rare...the energy is used to penetrate the armor. Anything capable of penetrating armor tends to do sufficient damage once inside...this can be in the form of hard and hot shrapnel (yes, any metal ejected from an explosive round is hot..mortar, arty, tank, grenade, whatever...explosions are extremely exothermic)...or from a phenomenon not so well recognized in the lay community, what we called "spalling" the fragmentation and propulsion of the inside wall of the armor barrier itself...making the armor that is designed to protect the crew itself a collection of dangerous projectiles. Also, depending on the mechanism of the penetration, there is the injection of solid, liquid, and vaporous metals inside the vehicle.

One aspect not apparent from dramatic footage of big explosions as seen on film and TV is that the vast majority of the penetrations of armor I examined were small...from the size of a nickel to the size of a silver dollar. Not much has to get inside. Sure, the penetrations of the Panther-based vehicle at the Imperial War Museum are big enough to put your fist through, but the ones I saw on '50s-'70s vintage armor were dramatically smaller. It doesn't take much to cause serious problems for the crew or the vehicle.

That is the 'Reader's Digest' version of the highly technical and complex science of terminal ballistics from the crewman's point of view. Anything that penetrates, or causes spalling even without penetration, is bad!"

http://www.activevr.com/afv/cgi_bin/web-bbs/webbbs_config.pl/noframes/read/43486

"-penetration doesn't necesarily kill, and sometimes it will kill selectively. There are many cases of tanks taking hits on one side of the armor with penetration only to have the round exit on the other side. Sometimes no one will get injured by this, other times it will hit a crewmember squarely and take only him out. I don't know about how many times this same thing happened only to have spalls come out and injure others or even make the whole tank blow up.

of course if the round were to hit ammo on it's way thru, then you probably have an instant blow and the entire crew dies."

http://yarchive.net/mil/ww2_tank_armor.html

"Good armor has a hard outer face to reflect as much energy aspossible and spread the remainder over as large an armor area as possible;

a high-strength tough interior to resist deformation and convert kinetic energy to heat; and a ductile inner face to resist spalling due to the propogated shock wave and local deformation. When an AP round hits it, the armor undergoes tremendous local heating. If the AP round overwhelms the armor and penetrates, a sizable amount of armor metal is typically

ejected into the tank interior ahead of the penetrating round. That metal is at least very hot and sometimes molten. It can have a much

higher velocity inside the tank than the remnant velocity of the penetrating round. This spray of liquid steel generally ignites whatever is flammable. Also, having lost much of its kinetic energy penetrating the first armor surface, the projectile is likely to bounce off the inner face of the far armor surface and richochet around the interior.

Bad armor is hard through. When an AP round hits it, a few large chunks of armor pop inward to make a hole a bit bigger than the diameter

of the projectile. These chunks may initially be moving fairly quickly, but having broken out at relatively low force levels, they are probably

barely warm. Thus their damage contribution is minimal. The projectile itself, having lost little velocity, continues onward. If it richochets off the gun or a wall, it may lose all of its energy bouncing around tens

or hundreds of times inside, but if it hits the second wall cleanly, it may break out another clean hole and exit.

For a given incoming round, the odds are very much higher that bad armor will result in a penetration. The reason that the results of a

good-armor penetration are so much more violent is that the armor died its own violent death trying to keep the projectile away from the

crew. You're much, much more likely to end up dead behind bad armor than behind good armor."

[Determinant]

Good stuff. A fine range of posts. What does it tell us?

This issue reminds me of the debate about the effect of pistol rounds on the human body. It was a big topic of debate in the 70s. The .45 ACP scored extra above the diddly squat wet boy 9mm and similar girls' rounds in the man's world of practical pistol. More killing power the pundits said. Get one of those big boys inside you and it was supposed to be game over.

Very likely I'm sure. But it ain't necessarily so as the song says.

I found the first post - the guy talking about the need for DU in the GAU-8 most interesting. But we can probably only advance this debate if we can do hard sums. I hate maths. Thinking back to the pistol shooting analogy we probably need to do some work on the energy and mass of the projectiles. Then work out what might be left once under armour.

My own personal crude perception is that I am happy seeing ATRs - 40mm going under armour with no effect; keep an open mind about it for the mid-range guns; but would be incredulous if it happened for any of the major league big bore HV guns. I'm a 'get a 17 lbr in you - you're dead' kind of guy but agnostic to sceptical about lesser fry. I do not understand chemical-shaped rounds at all. All that colourful 'hot molten jets of super-heated plasma injected into the crew compartment' stuff sounds to me like they're selling something.

I would be interested if somebody could shag the maths on this sort of thing.

[Boo Radley]

Originally posted by dalem:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Trommelfeuer:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> In a game I'm playing with Boo I've seen BOTH sides of that elephant. Over the course of 7 turns or so I hit and penetrated his little teeny Italian sardine can tank thingie with no less than 5 U.S. rifle grenades (I know tiny warheads), 5 bazooka rounds, and 4 or 5 37mm AT rounds from a Stuart before it finally gave up the ghost. I'm not making ANY of those numbers up. I figure the tank was still fine by that point but since it is a winter scenario the crew was afraid of catching cold from the drafts.

Lol! But are you really sure that the "little Italian sardine tank" wasn't already knocked out after the first penetration, and that it's a matter of the "death clock" until the italian tank is finally shown as knocked out ?

( Or do you play without fog of war ? )

Greetings, Sven </font>

[SFJaykey]

I have only played a couple of CMAK games so far but really don't see much change in small-caliber penetration lethality compared to CMBB. Three factors that may account for different impressions:

American armor was softer (not sure that's the right word) than Russian and less likely to spall after a penetration; this may be modeled and contribute to lower lethality in a Grant penetrated be a 50mm L60 than in the T-34s we are used to in CMBB.

With the Italian tanks the 2-pounder rounds would often go right through, so no "rattling around" effect that is often expected. I've seen several pictures of Italian tanks in the desert just riddled with holes.

Some CMBB players liked to play mostly with the late-war "supertanks" which almost always feature sizeable bursting charges in their AP. Much more lethal than the solid-shot AP of the smaller calibers. If these players are getting their first regular exposure to the small-caliber guns in CMAK it may be coming as a surprise. In the early years in CM I've seen many, many non-lethal penetrations by the 37mm and other small guns.

[First Mate Detrius]

I've discovered the same thing with penetration a LOT!

..but thats probably my luck

Me and a buddy play 1-2 operations each week. (LAN)

Big mothers

Its allways the same, meeting engagements.

BIG maps! 3000 x 1600

6-8 flags

4 Battles

10.000 on map

2.500 2.round

2.500 3.round

Max 2 spotters (w max 105mm)

Max 80% Availability.

Right now we have just started a new game in may 1945 (Italy offcourse).

I've loaded up on British Achilles in the first round. The later rounds Im getting reinforcements of AT and Archers.

The Achilles are GREAT. But what is it with those AP shells?! In ONE (!) round I saw 10 penetrations on his Panthers! (Range 500 or less). Not a SINGLE knockout! And Its not the death clock, Ive asked my friend.

Probably its just my usual luck, but that combined with 4 gun****s the same round and NO of his tanks even lost a gunn og a crewmember...AAARGH!

But I have eperienced my first knockout-knockout.

2 Achilles versus 2 PZIVJ. My first achilles gets knocked. the second shoots...and kills. Reload on both sides. Offcourse Im jumping in my chairs. The IVJ shoots..the achilles shoots..the achilles gets knocked...the PZIVJ gets knocked! Thats the first time Ive experienced that one! The shell was still in the air while achilles got knocked

Sorry 'bout the sidestepping off the topic here

My point..or rather complaint is that the achilles should knock the Panthers in most cases front on ranges less than 500 meters! Last battle his M10's and Wolverines had NO problems, and their guns have lower velocity and penetration!

Oh well, its just my luck as usuall I supose.

[...................................]

Another anecdote regarding those tiny L3 tankettes. I just hit one in the side with three PIAT bombs in a PBEM and it has reversed away undamaged :eek: The effect of three bombs going off in something smaller than a family VW would be...erm...noticable IMO.

If penetration lethality is made more realistic, then FWIW one caveat I would have is regarding Anti-Tank Rifles. These are already very powerful, I lose Cruiser tanks to them frequently. I cannot recall reading about them being so dangerous, so personally hope that very small AP rounds do not get a further boost in lethality.