HE Effectiveness

[Wartgamer]

http://img206.echo.cx/img206/8059/373xf.png' alt='373xf.png'>

An antitank gun position showing a trench under the gun, mild sloping protection in front, trenches for ammo, etc.

[Wartgamer]

www.ImageShack.us" /></a>

This is a US 75mm HE round. Notice the fuse size and position.

[Carl Puppchen]

I can't speak on the technical aspects of killing guns but I frequently use the tactic of shooting guns by using the area fire command right next to (a few meters away) from a position where I can't see the gun directly and the gun can't directly see me. This is a pretty effective tactic from a game perspective. As far as the "snap" effect when you try to target a gun, it is annoying, but you just have to carefully plot your fire using maybe a view "5" above and spend some time to pick a target as close as possible to the gun itself and start shooting. This will usually make the gun cower almost immediately and you can bring other forces to bear to finish it off.

For me the gun direct fire issue is linked to the fact that I usually put the gun in a trench to protect it from arty fire (because a trench gives you awesome protection from arty fire, you are practically invulnerable except for the heaviest calibers) but then the trench itself, as we all know, is spotted almost immediately by the enemy and subject to MG and direct fire HE.

I can't say all in all if this results in guns being killed more often in CMAK than they would be in regular life. I will leave that to the stone grogs on this site

[Wartgamer]

I just did a test where a single panther is run into a line of 57mm at 500m. I let the AI handle the Panther and ATG targeting.

The Panther first fired at one ATG (not using area fire of course) and pins them. It switches over to the next ATG and KO's it and only pins the crew. There were no crew fatalities. The Panther got immobilized quickly and then abandoned.

So it appears that ATG can be destroyed (not abandoned) by direct fire HE.

[Other Means]

Does targetting the area behind the gun have an effect? I always do, whether with DF HE, mortars etc just because it makes sense to do so. Has anyone ever actually tested this?

[Wartgamer]

I just did another test with one panther running into three 37mm ATG. Flat terrain. ATG in brush.

The Panther is gang fired and responds by targeting one ATG and causing 2 crew casualties which causes an abandonment. It then directly targets the next ATG and causes a KO with one crew casualty. It is immobilized and the third ATG runs out of ammo. I have to use area fire for the Panther to target the US 'star' which is all the Panther sees. With 6 rounds it KOs this ATG also. I would approximate the length spread of these HE rounds as being 25 meters at most.

The present game does model ATG getting destroyed independant of the crew.

[Other Means]

Originally posted by Other Means:

Does targetting the area behind the gun have an effect? I always do, whether with DF HE, mortars etc just because it makes sense to do so. Has anyone ever actually tested this?

To clarify, does targetting behind the gun have more effect as the shrapnel isn't stopped by the gun shield?

[Wartgamer]

It could be tested I suppose.

All my tests had the crews without foxholes or trenches by the way.

I just did another test with crews in foxholes and had multiple Knocked Out guns with no crew casualties. Just pinned.

[ June 17, 2005, 04:36 PM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]

[Pak40]

Originally posted by Wartgamer:

So it appears that ATG can be destroyed (not abandoned) by direct fire HE.

Yes, yes, we all knew that. My point was that the gun itself cannot be hit by a round. The round can only hit the ground around the gun in order to knock it out.

Now, it may be that it was common practice to aim for the ground directly in front of the gun. But in real life, if you aimed too high you at least had a chance to hit the gun itself; In CM the round will pass through the gun as if it were a ghost.

[Wartgamer]

You ever heard of an abstraction? The end result is the same.

[Pak40]

No, the end result is not the same. It is an abstraction, i.e. estimate of what it would be like if it weren't abstracted.

However, I have always suspected that it was 'abstracted' because, after all, many things in CM are abstracted. But the main purpose why I post to threads like this is that I would like to see improvements to the game. Do you not agree that improvements could be made regarding this aspect of the game?

[Wartgamer]

I have already said that if CMx2 has recrewing of weapons, then I would like to see this implemented. The same for HMG also. But for CMx1, the abstraction works OK for me.

HE shells can also strike individual men. They have similar height as an ATG. Shells that would normally fly past a group of men could and would strike individuals. On SQ delay fuse, this results in a airburst. But I doubt that can or will be modeled. Even if troops are 1:1 modeled, they are not 1:1 targets (in CMx2). But SQ (no delay) fuseswere mostly used against troops in the open, troops in trees (air burst with direct fire) and possibly against walls, steep terrain (to get at troops below or around corners).

But you do not see the interaction between fuse setting and the targeting of enemy. You seem focused only on the need to strike gun shields. The issue of fuse setting plays into this and many other situations.

In the present game, AP shot seems to be able to hit exposed crews on AFVs. While probably not modeling 'hits' against the exposed tankers, it does abstract the reality is some fashion.

In any case, the present system will not be changed. CMx2 might take this into account. Given the limitations of the present system, and its variety of outcomes that do abstract realistic outcomes, its acceptable.

[ June 19, 2005, 09:06 AM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]

[Wartgamer]

An example of using HE ricochet against tanks. Evidently they skip under and detonate.

The ten German tanks were sitting on a ridge shooting at half-tracks. They had been at my left rear and I hadn't seen them. There was a Mark VI, Mark IV's, and some Mark III's. They stopped on the crest and did a right flank and started to get in column. They will put a Mark VI in the middle and the others on the flanks, always making one flank heavier than the other, however. We picked out one and hit him and he stopped. We burned the next one. Then the Mark VI, which I thought was a Mark IV, came close. They are hard to identify, but have a more or less square outline, with an offset box on the side. You cannot identify their guns. We bounced four off the front of him. Then another tank came up right along side of him, and it was easy to move a hair to the left and pick him off. We had no armor piercing ammunition so I know a high explosive shell will crack a Mark IV. You should shoot low and it will ricochet and kill them in the turret, or damage them so they will be of no use.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Wartgamer:

An example of using HE ricochet against tanks. Evidently they skip under and detonate. </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />You should shoot low and it will ricochet and kill them in the turret...

</font>

[flamingknives]

The Germans used to use Flak shells - timed airburst - to attack British tank crews like that.

The implication, to me, is that the shell burst right in front of the turret, knocking it off line or wrecking the sights. Possible alternative is that the fuse is rendered inoprative by the acute impact and the HE shell doesn't go off.

[Andrew H.]

Originally posted by flamingknives:

The Germans used to use Flak shells - timed airburst - to attack British tank crews like that.

The implication, to me, is that the shell burst right in front of the turret, knocking it off line or wrecking the sights. Possible alternative is that the fuse is rendered inoprative by the acute impact and the HE shell doesn't go off.

I've heard about using timed FlaK shells to deliver airbursts, but it seems like it would be really difficult to do, at least against point targets, given the muzzle velocity of the shells and the relatively crude (I think) timing devices on the shells. I think that you would need to be able to set the shells to within at least 1/10 of a second to be accurate enough, and within 1/20 of a second would be much better. Could the shells be timed this exactly?

[ June 20, 2005, 07:10 PM: Message edited by: Lord Peter ]

[Bonxa]

The point I think Jason is trying to get to is not that guns can't be KO'ed without crew casualties. We know that they can already. The thing is that with the current abstraction you have less shells exploding right at the gun. The target area is much smaller than it would have been if the gun itself was hittable and thus rounds that would have stuck the gun now fly well past it.

Quite simple really. Has nothing to do with fuses or type of shell though small calibers would benefit more from being able to hit the gun itself.

[Wartgamer]

While it is open to conjecture, I do not believe he is using a time fuse. Its a delay fuse setting (as the US tank gunnery manual calls for). It is also obvious he is talking about a round aimed short so as to skip into the vehicle. It may have been a side shot and a HE shell could penetratethe lower side armor (before the round explodes). It may also be a detonation under the vehicle itself. The US 75mm HE round is quite powerful (actually most 75mm HE rounds are but the US round more so it seems).

Time fuse was used by Flak including the US 90mm AA weapon. But it is mostly used as antipersonnell. It can be used to buttom up tanks but getting a round to detonate beside a AFV borders on blind luck.

I do not want to repeat myself but delay WAS the setting used against ATG. There is a range of trajectory that will accomplish a positive result. Starting with shells that land before the gun, right before the gun and on the gun. It superior to SQ point detonation.

And Jason is absolutely wrong about guns being as easy to hit as vehicles. Even a non-dug in gun is much smaller than most vehicles. You use HE against guns and AP against vehicles. So he is way off.

[Wartgamer]

LIEUTENANT McCRACKEN, 2nd Battalion, 1st Armored Regiment, Krerouf, 11 April 1943.

The Germans not only hate lead and shrapnel as much as we do, but they definitely don't like smoke. I think SERGEANT JACKSON will bear me out in this. It has an awful effect on their morale.

Another thing is ricochet firing. Catch a tank approaching and drop a high explosive shell 60 to 80 yards in front. Give it time to travel the necessary distance and it will burst on their heads. I don't like high bursts and I know they don't either.

Ricochet bursts in a half-moon pattern and has five or six times more explosive force than ordinary ground bursts. It drives them down in a slit trench; then wait for them to come out, and then give them another one.

[ June 21, 2005, 12:15 PM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]

[MikeyD]

Ground impacts tend to throw the schrapnel either into the ground or up into the air. Dispersion isn't at its best, That might help to account for the (sometimes) poor showing of HE in the game. Air burst (tree burst for tanks and mortars, VT for late U.S. artillery) is much more efficient at dispersing schrapnel. Tree bursts can be your friend when targetting an AT gun in deep cover.

On the downside, air burst isn't going to knock down many buildings or set them on fire.

[flamingknives]

Originally posted by Wartgamer:

While it is open to conjecture, I do not believe he is using a time fuse.

I don't belive anyone was saying that it was. AFAICT, that came in from my aside about flak being used to attack unbuttoned tanks. Regarding that, some of the fragmentation from an airburst will go forward like a shotgun blast - being as the whole thing is already moving forwards at a fair clip. Also, the time fuses on a flak are fairly accurate, albeit expensive. I'm faily sure that 88mm flak used mechanical fuses which could be set accurately enough to attack a tank formation.

[Wartgamer]

A time fuse that has 1/10 sec increments and a shell traveling at 2000 fps would mean 200 foot increments. there would be some dispersion about this also. Meaning that if you fired quite a few at the same setting, they would tend to go long and short over a range.

German heavy FlaK, when firing at bombers, would just pump shells in a 3 D box ahead of the formation. It was not worth targeting individual planes. This is because the fragments would fly out at an angle. You need to get the shell to go off very close and under the plane. They basically just went for area fire.

[flamingknives]

Originally posted by Wartgamer:

A time fuse that has 1/10 sec increments and a shell traveling at 2000 fps would mean 200 foot increments. there would be some dispersion about this also. Meaning that if you fired quite a few at the same setting, they would tend to go long and short over a range.

German heavy FlaK, when firing at bombers, would just pump shells in a 3 D box ahead of the formation. It was not worth targeting individual planes. This is because the fragments would fly out at an angle. You need to get the shell to go off very close and under the plane. They basically just went for area fire.

And this is different to targetting a tank formation how?

[Wartgamer]

Three dimensions as opposed to two dimensions.

[flamingknives]

Not really. You control windage and elevation with the gun in both cases and the distance with the fuse. Three dimensions. Granted the tanks will be limited to a single plane, but it will be a plane that you can choose with elevation, which with a high velocity flak gun is quite easy.