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Thorn in the Tiger's side?


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I feel a little strange after watching what seems a little odd. Normal infantry squads with no anti-armor capability are taking out Churchills and Tigers with grenades.

I've seen this happen twice. Once in a quick battle match where an Italian rifle squad, making a daring move to run up hill into a house (currently occupied by several cranky Brits).

The funny thing was, my Churchill was parked out side firing into another house with its coaxial when the Italians throw a grenade at it. Tank is 'Hit', engine cuts out, some time later the crew comes running out.

Odd. But I let it pass. I'm not a huge grognard so I don't know what the Italians have in their pockets.

But another odd occurance just a few seconds ago (Alt-Tab is useful) where a Ranger squad, with absolutly no rifle-grenades and no satchel charges throw a single grenade at a Tiger and knock it out. The thing, from what I'm guessing, was about 20m away.

It was mind boggling. I'm sure it was a normal Frag grenade. Or am I just imagining things?

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Sometimes them 'throwing' a grenade is an abstraction of them actually doing something with it, such as running up to the tank and putting it in an elaborate spot.

The churchhill incident doesn't seem wacky - the 'engine cut off' noise is a generic sound used for when you immobilize a tank. They probably felt vulnerable after that and bailed. I've seen it happen with tons of immobilized tanks that get over whelmed.

The Tiger incident isn't too weird, either. A KO is extremely rare, but I remember when .50 caliber guns from planes KO'ing them caused quite a ruckus on these forums during the demo era. From what I remember, all tanks have some sort of extremely vulnerable area that can be exploited. Is it rare and risky for an infantry to try it? Yeah, but it can happen.

I recently played an CMBB game where a crack tank hunter team was running full steam at a Stug with the run command, then threw his RPG out around 40 meters (while running) and landed the round so good the Stug exploded. Tank hunter was under fire from all angles, as well. Probability of that happening is nearly 0 percent, but it did happen!

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I've down the Tank hunter thing a few times myself in CMBB. Hehe, poor T34.

But I was just miffed at the fact that these normal infantry were doing this. The plane I could understand, I was just curious about Joe Ranger taking out the tiger with a frag grenade. But I understand what your saying. I've read the PDF manual to look for this so I was wondering if this was some curious little bug that I found. (I bought the Anthology, only because it was cheaper than getting one. So I have two copies of BO and BB tongue.gif Unfortunatly I don't have the real manual :( )

I guess the Rangers felt like re-enacting the SPR scene, minus the 20mm cutting em down.

Thanks for the quick reply.

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Crews tend to get out of immobilsed tanks rather quickly if here's enemy infantry or aircraft about - I've read accounts of Tiger crews who felt utterly vulnerable to air attack and abandoned their tanks even with the aircraft had nothing more than 20mm cannon - they just felt so vulnerable and halpless.

I have no problem that thy would feel similarly in close country if there's infantry about - they can't see what's happening outsie, they have limited means of defence in close, and they might well feel like sitting ducks.

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It makes sense, I was just wasn't sure if it was meant to be so. Especially since a big arse Tiger and a thick skinned Chruchill bailed out at the first sign of trouble.

I guess the Tiger crew wasn't feeling particularly too happy in the night either.

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Awhile ago there was a running complaint about Brit troopers not having proper AT explosives in NA – 'sticky bombs' and the like. I was among the rcowd complaining, til a scenario where a hidden infantryman took out my Stug with a single grenade! Oh, Brit infantry packs more of a wallop than I had thought!

I suppose you could 'imagine' a few of those Brit infantry anti-tank charges are mixed in with the grenades... unofficiallly of course.

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Tigers had a grenade launcher to be utilized against infantry in close proximity. (I think?) This would discourage most infantry armed only with grenades from attacking. Remember BoB where the Capt. took out a Tiger with a machine gun thru the view port!! They are worth nothing if so easy to take our? Tag

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Originally posted by Tagwyn:

Tigers had a grenade launcher to be utilized against infantry in close proximity. (I think?) This would discourage most infantry armed only with grenades from attacking.

I have no idea about CMAK, but in CMBO they definitely did. I distinctly recall my Nahverteidigungswaffe firing in the Wittman operation. Also, in CMBB, I know the Sturmtiger has one so I don't doubt the other Tiger varients carry it as well. They almost always use them in infantry assault situations, but they aren't really effective and have very limited ammo(from what I remember).
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That Tiger grenade launcher (Navsomethingsomethingsomething) only shows up late war and has saved my bacon more than once from nearby infantry. They wouldnt have gone to the expense of installing them if they didn't see the need.

The most hair-raising tanker anecdotes I've read have involved enemy infantry clambering aboard during close-in fighting. In Vietnam one M48 tank would have to blast another with a Beehive round to scour the enemy off it! Nobody wants a Thermite grenade down an open commander's hatch!

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Originally posted by Tagwyn:

Tigers had a grenade launcher to be utilized against infantry in close proximity. (I think?) This would discourage most infantry armed only with grenades from attacking. Remember BoB where the Capt. took out a Tiger with a machine gun thru the view port!! They are worth nothing if so easy to take our? Tag

Saving Private Ryan.

And that is a fault. SdKfz 181 PzKpfw VI Tiger tanks had six layers of armor glass to prevent anything like that happening.

Thanks for the replies. I havn't tried any late war missions yet (been enjoying the African missions alot).

Does anyone know a good place to find scenerios? I'm trying to find any missions based off of the battle of Ortona.

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Originally posted by securityguard:

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

Tigers had a grenade launcher to be utilized against infantry in close proximity. (I think?) This would discourage most infantry armed only with grenades from attacking.

I have no idea about CMAK, but in CMBO they definitely did. I distinctly recall my Nahverteidigungswaffe firing in the Wittman operation. Also, in CMBB, I know the Sturmtiger has one so I don't doubt the other Tiger varients carry it as well. They almost always use them in infantry assault situations, but they aren't really effective and have very limited ammo(from what I remember). </font>
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Not sure if it was anywhere near as effective IRL.
Neither are we :( We scoured source after source for info on these things in combat and found practically nothing. Heck, even finding technical specifications on the weapon itself was only modestly successful. We did find some of the critical bits of info, such as range, method of loading, etc. We fonud some specs on the rounds fired, but we had to guess at the amount of shrapnel the HE round through out. We used the standard 81mm round as a reference point.

At least that is what I remember about the whole research oddesy. You'd think this thing being a) German and B) on all the "cool" tanks that there would be endless info on it, ad naseum, like there is on the tanks themselves. But for whatever reason, we could find the firing order of the pistons of a Tiger's engine, but almost nothing on the Nahupurswopper :( Very frustrating.

Steve

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Originally posted by MikeyD:

That Tiger grenade launcher (Navsomethingsomethingsomething) only shows up late war and has saved my bacon more than once from nearby infantry. They wouldnt have gone to the expense of installing them if they didn't see the need.

The most hair-raising tanker anecdotes I've read have involved enemy infantry clambering aboard during close-in fighting. In Vietnam one M48 tank would have to blast another with a Beehive round to scour the enemy off it! Nobody wants a Thermite grenade down an open commander's hatch!

tanks have a GL ... i been wondering why ive seen grenades fly away from tanks lol
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Nahverteidigungswaffe. I had the dubious honour of the Americans in playing a Battle of the Bulge operation. I had whole platoons of Panthers running through my infantry foxholes firing these, Mg's and Tank cannon. Extremely effective and I would lose whole companies to them.

Too effective and unlimited ammo. To be honest I would have thought 50mm mortars would have been a better representation given tha dearth of information - if they had been wonderfully effective more would be known about them!

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Even if the projectile is only the size of a hand grenade or 50mm mortar (which my reading also suggests is correct), I believe one advantage that the Nahveruberthingy had was that is was designed it detonated at near-perfect airburst height near the tank.

That would make it considerably more deadly than a 50mm bomb or hand grenade detonating at ground level, even if the actual explosive and fragment generation was about the same.

In re: shooting through the view ports: yes, these did have protective glass, but I have also read accounts of German tankers stating that the glass sometimes had to be removed because it would get so badly cracked and chipped from bullet and shrapnel impacts that it became hard to look through. I guess they thought is was better to be a bit more vulnerable, but see what was going on around them, than to be better protected, but blind. They did carry extra glass pieces, but I'm not sure how easy it was to change them out in the middle of combat.

In any event, it would be very hard to come up with good evidence as to how often Panzers were running around without protective glass in the viewport, but it's not out of the realm of possibility for a one-time incident as in SPR.

Cheers,

YD

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In the case of SPR, it was just after the Normandy landings. If the Tiger was in the area, then it probobly wouldn't have seen any combat until that day. Even if before, nothing larger than infantry with a rocket. If the Tiger was being transferred to Normandy from another area, by that time they would probobly already have been repaired and replaced.

But, I will take your word for it. I know the average Grognard around this forum will probobly have a stash of information and obscure details I'll never know tongue.gif

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