T-34 and KT vulnerability issue solved (was: narrow turret front)

[Amedeo]

There has been in the past some perplexity regarding how some supposedly impregnable Ueber-tanks were actually destroyed at short combat ranges by frontal turret penetrations.

I'm especially referring to the Tiger II in CMBO and the T-34-76 in CMBB.

The armour penetration model seems to be accurate enough yet someone still thinks that those kills happen in the game more frequently than historical reports would lead us to belive.

One of the explication proposed about this issue was that the geometrical model used to compute the angle of impact and hit location on AFVs was not dependent on the particular tank involved (save for overall size).

A solution could be to give a special "narrow front turret" bonus to some tanks that have a very small front turret/mantlet area, thus allowing for a large portion of hits that would have otherwise striked on the actual turret front to hit at angle the sloped turret sides.

If you look from the front a model of the T-34 with hexagonal turret, or a Tiger II, you'll surely notice that this suggestion is not too far fetched.

If CMBB rightly introduced special treatment of single tank features to increase realism (e.g. Tiger mantlet and Panther's random flawed glacis) why do not address also this issue?

Opinions?

Amedeo

[Edited the thread name with a 'juicier' title ]

[ October 19, 2002, 03:50 PM: Message edited by: Amedeo ]

[audace]

Ciao Amedeo,

that's a very interesting point.

By the way, sometimes hits are scored on turret fronts, but I don't know if gun mantlets or added armor is taken into considerations.

Front turret armor has many "armors" within it, gun shield, gun recoil housing, odd angles etc.

Maybe the suggestion you mentioned could be used realistically in CMBB, but I think we'll have to wait for the next engine rewrite to actually see hits score in different parts of a tank, calculating each armor a tank had in each angle. (something like in WW2OL).

However, the "narrow turret front" idea is very good I guess.

[Silvio Manuel]

audace,

you said:

"By the way, sometimes hits are scored on turret fronts, but I don't know if gun mantlets or added armor is taken into considerations."

I'm pretty sure I saw a confirmatin of this in the manual- something about how the armor pen. model reflects differences such as those StuGs that have the curved Saukopfblende mantlet vs. those that don't. Even if the narrow turret faces aren't modeled, in CMBB we should see fewer "cheesy" frontal kills vs. monsters like the Tiger II, since we now have partial penetrations.

[Redwolf]

Same issue with the 80mm Pz IV in CMBO (and now in CMBB). The turret is smaller than usual (in comparision to the hull) and the game should increase the chance to hit the hull (or lower the hit change when hulldown).

[Tarquelne]

Originally posted by redwolf:

Same issue with the 80mm Pz IV in CMBO (and now in CMBB). The turret is smaller than usual (in comparision to the hull) and the game should increase the chance to hit the hull (or lower the hit change when hulldown).

Just for future reference: Whenever this topic, or mortars, comes up, add a mental "Me too." or "I agree." from Tarquelne after each of redwolf's posts, OK? Thanks, it'll save me some effort.

[Sigurd]

Is the problem not solved by the "curved" characteristic of the turret ? I think the T-34 turret is modelled so. Does it not mean the chance of impact at a perpendicular angle is highly reduced?

[Francesco]

Hey!

What about the "sihluette" value of every vehicle?

Does it consider the existance of a larger/smaller turret or not?

Did you see how easy is to knok out a JS2 by a front-turret penetration? As it was for PanzerIV in CMBO...

Ciao!

PS.Audace, arrivato nulla???

Francesco

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Francesco:

What about the "sihluette" value of every vehicle?

Does it consider the existance of a larger/smaller turret or not?

Yes it does. But still there is a "normal" change, which I think is around 30%, to hit the turret within that reduced silhuette, when it should be lower.

The curved turret is an entirely different thing and it will make many hit fail due to high angle. But that doesn't make the turret hit chance more correct.

[Francesco]

Understood, Redwolf.

Do you think that this little "conversion" might be introduced with the next patch or will it take an engine re-write?

[Wolfe]

Originally posted by Francesco:

Do you think that this little "conversion" might be introduced with the next patch or will it take an engine re-write?

Good stuff, but unfortunately I think it is something that would have to wait for the engine rewrite.

Some things I hope BTS also looks at is vehicle height and which ones have or don't have superstructures. Maybe there's a good reason, but it doesn't make sense to me that short vehicles like the JagdPzIV have superstructures, but very tall vehicles like the JagdPanther and Marders do not. I'd like to see lower and upper hull plates for squat assault guns (e.g. StuGs, PzIV/70(V)); and lower, upper, and superstructure for tall vehicles (Marder and JagdPanth). This could also coincide with hull-down values (track down, where the lower hull is completely hidden, hull down where only the turret or superstructure is showing (StuGs would be "turret down" in this instance), and turret down, where only the commander and flex MG are visible for spotting).

But I don't think we'll be seeing anything like that for a while.

- Chris

[Mark Gallear]

The T-34 does appear to be overly dreadful and I don't just mean at point blank range - I mean right over the other side of a large map! Two fell to first time hits at this range. I noticed that the Sherman's ability were exaggereated a bit in CMBO but this anti- Russian armour reaction is just silly. I just don't believe you can get a first time hit in WW2 at that range no matter how good your optics are supposed to be! :confused:

[Amedeo]

*bump*

[zukkov]

i like the narrow front turret idea too. there must have been something about those t34s that made germans fear them so much. i just played a scenario and the german had nothing better than pzrIICs. they waxed my ba-64s, bt-7s, and t34s. not without losses of their own of course, but it was very frustrating seeing all those turret penetrations on the t34s by IICs!

[offtaskagain]

Originally posted by Mark Gallear:

The T-34 does appear to be overly dreadful and I don't just mean at point blank range - I mean right over the other side of a large map! Two fell to first time hits at this range. I noticed that the Sherman's ability were exaggereated a bit in CMBO but this anti- Russian armour reaction is just silly. I just don't believe you can get a first time hit in WW2 at that range no matter how good your optics are supposed to be! :confused:

What anti-russian reaction? With the exception of the narrow turret modifier being discussed here (which I agree with), all the data here is historically exactly the way it was. There are no gameplay balance adjustments to make German guns better, they are better because they really were. What range were your T-34s lost at? German tanks typically opened fire at 1500m which they considered a good range for a first round hit. Theres plenty of examples out there of 5km plus kills as well, so I see nothing wrong with the gunnery model other than turret front issues.

[Rob Murray]

I think that we should all remember that BFC put out a very realistic game. Sure there are going to be flaws in it, but on the whole CMBB & CMBO are still the most realistic WW II games that I've ever played. There's such a thing as making the game too realistic - to the point where it's so complicated that it's no longer any fun to play. The player could get bogged ( like a Ferdinand ) in miniscule detail ( soft ground ) which would probably turn them right off.

Just thought I'd put in my two cents.

[Mark Gallear]

The issue is real ... the game was set in Aug 1942 I had T34 model (1943 early). The german tankis a Panzer IIIJ. I came at him with a platoon of 3 T-34 in from a sort of side aspect - certaibnly target is side at first and he reacted to me. The range is now 1237m it was longer when the kills where made - I think this is extreme for WW2 tank battle. Currently I am getting an 8% chance of a hit and am hull down so is the target. Not sure if this was the case last turn - but terrain is much the same. This occured on turn one - he is in far right corner and I am in far left corner! The german crew must be regular sae as me.

I think something is wrong somewhere and it is more than just the T-34 turret size. The Germans

seem to have laser rangefinders and battle computers.

I think the longest range kill ever recorded in a battle was during the Gulf War by a British Challenger who struck a T-55 in the rear with a HESH round at about 5000m. The Germans have none of this technology just better training and organization - their tanks were considred pretty iffy quality wise on armour, and firepower but beter designed for actual combat use. THE T-34 WAS A MASSIVE SHOCK TO THE GERMANS AND LED TO THE PANTHER AND TIGER DESIGNS BEEN RUSHED INTO COMBAT. Shottraps - 45mm is not that good for 1942 etc just does not cover it.

Andreas seems like a serious guy - I hope a rethink is done on this issue and it really is sorted.

[Mark Gallear]

Sorry Amedeo - I should have looked more carefully at your name!

[Krazy Canuck]

Originally posted by Mark Gallear:

I think something is wrong somewhere and it is more than just the T-34 turret size. The Germans

seem to have laser rangefinders and battle computers.

==================================================

Mark,

I play this CMBB sim/game almost exclusivly as the Germans and I've got to tell you that many, many I times have screamed *this is ffinn' BS* when ever a T-34 drops a halftrack, that's racing across the screen at fast move, from 1200m with his first shot. And yet my crack Panther cannot hit said T-34 from 1500m with 5 rounds!!

I guess CMBB is a game, one that does its best to model everything(and does an A-1 job IMHO), but at times the *other* guy just seems to be soooo much better.......to quote another poster,"even at tieing its shoes" or something like that.

I am glad to hear though that those damned Ruskies curse their luck(troops) almost as much as I curse my seemingly inept Krauts!!

Rgds,

KC

[Jeff Duquette]

There is seemingly a problem with Soviet armor in this game. While I agree with Amedeos comments above, I also think this is only a part of the problem. The T-34 (as has been indicated by Mark Gallear) as well as the KV-1\KV-2 were the terror of early Eastern Front battlefields. I certainly have not come away with that impression after playing early war scenarios of CMBB.

I have been playing through an example match-up between six Panzer MkIIIh’s vs. six T-34/76(Model 1941). The range was set at approximately 450-m to 500-m. Terrain was level and weather clear. Basically a frontal shoot-out between these to different vehicles. Crews for both sides were Regular. After playing through this scenario twenty times, the results were that the Soviets will win about 30% of the test engagements against the MkIIIh’s. The lions share of the wins will typically go to the Germans.

Historically at these ranges (450-m to 500-m) the Mk-IIIh’s short 50mmL42 was found to be quite ineffective against the armor of the T-34. The only real vulnerable portion of the T-34 to the 50mmL42 was along the side lower hull plate in the area above the road wheels and below mudguard. This is a fairly small target, particularly when trying to hit it at 450m to 500m. Other portions of the T34's side and rear armor were proof against the 50mmL42 except at ranges below approx. 100m to 200m.

Another scenario that I have only played through five times is to match six BT-7's against six Panzer MkII's. Same scenario conditions as above with the exceptio that initial range was set at 400 to 450 meters. The Soviet side lost this scenario all five times. It wasnt even close in any of the matches. The Soviet 45mm seemingly has a tough time knocking-out the MkII. (Note: If you decide to run your own test sceanrios, dont just run them once. Run them a minimum of 10 times so you can get a feel for what is really going on).

The heart of this lies in inflated German penetration figures, and a shakey theory regarding Soviet high hardness armor.

I have no problem with the present gunnery model in CMBB, and feel the accuracy of main guns is more in tune with historical accounts of what could and couldn’t be hit at various ranges of engagement. I also think CMBB has done a good job of mirroring higher German main-gun rates of fire.

I think what needs to be addressed is Soviet Armored piercing ammunitions marginal effectiveness against German vehicles. A hard look needs to be given to German penetration figures, and by this I mean source data, not unproven theory. In addition Soviet use of high hardness armor should not be a detriment to ballisitic protection when matching or undermating projectiles are attacking such armor. Particularly when considering high obliquity attacks against high hardness armor…ala the T34 vs. 37mm AP or 50mm AP.

[rexford]

Jeff stated that "The heart of this lies in inflated German penetration figures, and a shakey theory regarding Soviet high hardness armor". Please provide your case for the above in more than just general terms. Give us something to chew on!

German tests with 37mm and 50mm projectiles at 100m range against T34 like armor (same composition and same very high hardness around 460 Brinell) showed that the armor plate did not resist as well as medium hardness armor (about 300 Brinell).

The theories used in CMBB are based on actual firing tests against high hardness armor.

The problem with those stories regarding 50mm L42 inadequacy against T34 side armor, which are presented in Jentz' Panzertruppen, is that they may be based on one or two engagements and do not give the impact angles. Maybe the shots were taken at 45 degrees side angle to the T34 armor.

The 50mm L42 APC round penetrates about 66mm at 500m, the 50mm L42 AP about 55mm. 45mm medium hardness armor at 40 degree vertical slope (T34 side superstructure) resists 50mm APC like an 81mm vertical plate.

If the 45mm at 40 degree plate is high hardness, the resistance will drop to 68mm of good medium hardness vertical plate if the figures in our book are used, which would allow 50mm L42 AP penetrations at 200m. 50mm L42 APC would penetrate at around 450m.

Some research we did on German 1941 ammo suggested that 50mm and 88mm ammo used that year was inferior to the stuff fielded after spring 1942. This may or may not be in the present CMBB models.

If 1941 PzKpfw III with the L42 gun fire uncapped AP rounds, then the combat results will come close to the fragmentary anecdotes that Jentz and others present.

Our theory on T34 armor deficiencies against 50mm rounds is not as "tight" as the predicted results against 75mm and larger rounds, due to limited base data for the smaller rounds. By the way, our predictions for 75mm L43 APCBC against T34 armor match up very well with Jentz' anecdotal reports published by German forces during 1942.

I note that Jeff did not mention the good predictions for 75mm L43 APCBC, which have been mentioned many times on various forums and are discussed in our book (which Jeff has).

It is possible that the 50mm hits on T34 armor result in a 0.91 deficiency, a situation where 50mm L42 AP rounds would bounce against 45mm/40° at almost all ranges and 50mm APC from L42 would need very close ranges.

There is room for question, but there is also a shortage of real good data regarding the effective range of 50mm L42 projectiles against T34 side armor at known side angles (lateral angle from firer to armor facing).

[rexford]

We played many games where three entrenched 37mm PaK faced off with three T34 M40 at 300m to 400m.

In almost all games, the first minute resulted in several turret hits, and at least one turret penetration and one partial turret penetration. It appears that the T34 survived partial 37mm penetrations due to small projectile size.

The high probability of a turret front hit is probably due, in part, to the extremely high rate of fire of 37mm ATG.

German 37mm ATG crews were taught to aim at the turret ring, which would result in a higher rate of turret hits than shots aimed at the center of target mass.

[Grisha]

Unfortunately, I have to agree with Jeff especially after reading early period quotes about T-34-PzIII/IV encounters from Jentz' Panzertruppen as well as looking at the Panzerbeschusstafel firing instruction sheet for the 5cm tank gun KWK 40. In CMBB, while the T-34s are capable vehicles they are reasonably likely of being destroyed by the 50mm L/42 via turret front penetrations up to nearly 700m from my tests.

[Amedeo]

Some more food for thought (although I presume that many of you already know these reports).

1) Excerpts from the notes of the acting commander of the soviet 10th Tank Division (August 1941):

"[regarding the T-34] hull armour is penetrated at 300 to 400m by 37mm antitank round. Side armour is penetrated by 20mm antitank round [...] with a direct hit by a shell the driver's front hatch collapses [...] the vehicles treads are weak - any round takes them off"

2)Excerpts from the combat reports of the 4. Panzerdivision (October 1941):

"Our 5,0cm KwK tank guns can achieve penetration only at vulnerable locations under very specially favorable conditions at very close ranges, under 50m" (Probably the same report Grisha was referring to)

3)Excerpts from a report of the 33. Panzeregiment (July 1942):

"Penetration ability of the long 5,0cm KwK L/60 firing PzGr.38 against T-34

Hull side: penetrates at up to 500m

Superstucture and Turret Side: penetrates at up to 400m

Turret front: penetrates at up to 400m

Hull front: not effective, in some cases the driver's hatch was knocked off"

If we take the first excerpt we see that the Soviet officer says that 37mm AP rounds are able to penetrate what I presume is side upper hull armour (45mm#40°) at 300-400m (critical hits on the hull front are ruled out since the driver's hatch is addressed separately. Likewise he's not referring to lower side protection, that is said being penetrated even by 20mm rounds). Those statement are consistent with CMBB models but the fact that he doesn't make any reference to turret penetration is, IMHO, indicative that in fact front turret hits in the vulnerable location were indeed very rare.

What do you think?

Amedeo

[ October 20, 2002, 12:39 PM: Message edited by: Amedeo ]

[RockinHarry]

I hope this bug will become fixed as this is the only one that will make me downloading the 25MB 1.01 patch!

Not regarding history books, I´ve never seen such easy frontal turret penetration kills in any other game! I´m playing Panzer Elite, SPWAW and more. None of these had that vulnerable front turrets for T-34 tanks.

I tested T-34-40, and both T-34-41 models and all were easily penetrated at the front turret by 50L42 and 75L24 guns easily at ranges upto 700 meters! :mad:

The T-34 showed that turret armor + "rounded" modifier and I think the "rounded" thing contains the bug! The game mechanism seem to ignore "rounded" and just uses the basic front turret armor for penetration calculations.

_________

Harry

[Mark Gallear]

I really do not want to be rude, or pick a fight, do your efforts or the game down - but to be helpful - your mind set is we have got some figures we have put them in a (pretty complicated and sophisticated) ballistic model – it must be penetrating this at this range – the tank has this armour it must have died. Then the gamers are going I don’t believe this – it is going against all our perceptions from what we have read and know and you have to face it is there hobby they have read a lot of books and played a lot of unsophisticated models (wargames) and your model is not getting anywhere near them. Your response is to go our model must be right so everybody’s perception of what happened at the time must be wrong.

I am not going to tell you that you are (always) wrong - you could in fact be right. You have given some German wartime figures quoting the 37mm gun been able to penetrate at a close but fairly reasonable battle range. My perception from reading battle accounts is that the German AT gunners called it the “doorknocker” and believed it had no hope of penetrating the front of a T-34 or KV (They would not know what model came at them). There stories of such Russian tanks actually driving over such guns and crushing the crew who gallantly manned their weapons to the last – I do not know if you what to believe them or not they were believed by the soldiers at the time. The fear or maybe it just was that they were just obsolete and useless was such a special round was developed and issued to give them so hope. (Is this what you modelled?) Which is right the German test results or the crew’s perception of what their weapon could do.

There are lots of reasons to question any published figures made during the war. Even secret unpublished figures for the German army internal use will have an element of bias, partly to protect morale but mainly because they are biased and proud of their weapons. It would take a lot to shake this view and history shows that the T-34 and KV shook them. Both sides were wartime dictatorships and if Stalin or Hitler said something was so – then your life was on the line if you dared to point out that there is this thing called reality and it was not so. Hence Stalingrad and the Russian debacle at the start of the war when Stalin believed that he had done a deal with Hitler and he would not attack, etc, etc.

I think you have big time problems trying to do the representation in such an exact and realistic way or at least treating the result as such. Because of the data you need to have and the possible sources. I have tried to put together an oob on British tanks (For SPWAW on an unofficial basis – so I do not want to claim any game design expertness – OK. CM is my hobby.). I found out the hard way that official British sources from the time could not even get the heights and lengths of their own tanks right some of the time (Well a lot of the time to be honest!).

As for the armour there are the (official figures which you are extremely lucky to get at all) which are quoted in all the books but then you will come across a book with figures from a restorer or curator who has actually bothered to measure it and they can be some big surprises. (One armour historian has gone around all the tank museums and after examining their Italian tanks found that none of them were the model the museum believed they were or for that matter the model the British thought they were up against in the desert!) Also the armour on the hull is likely to be a number of thickness depending on what part of the hull you are talking about - if curved armour is involved it gets even more complicated. To get data on ballistics on every gun you have tried to model is going to be a laugh a minute impossible situation. The bottom line is you cannot treat this subject as a hard science. Frankly I would only trust figures for weapons that were used into the post-war period and even then you have to apply more than a pinch of salt.

Look at some of todays weapons systems – during the Gulf War the Patriot missile was flaunted as been able to protect Israel from Scud missiles attacks every time no question – the reality was no Patriot hit a single Scud and the only casualties from these attacks was from a Patriot! There is more than propaganda to this - modern weapon makers – to put it bluntly - lie about their weapons performance and effectiveness. Do you think the situation was any different in 1939?

If you have to go back pick out some weapons that you have good figures for – I would imagine the 85mm gun on the T-34. I would imagine that AT gun performance improved very dramatically from 1939 - 45. Then take this as a guideline and work back if any figures you are getting look at the main weapon systems and see if they are matching what you think they could be from this. If you are getting performances that are far better or far worse think about and be prepared to reject the figures. Your guess is as good as anybody elses – probably a lot better as you must be experts. But bear in mind that people have a perception of what these weapons should be doing – if your model is breaking these perceptions think about it – there could be good reasons for them. I repeat again it is not a science but an art.

The subject of been able to hit a target in WW2 is a whole different ball game and frankly optics can only play a very small part in this equation. Frankly the weapon technology of the day was such that even with the best WW2 guns I do not believe you could hits over 1,250oms without using all the tanks AP ammunition ranging the gun in!

Sorry about my English – I have spent more time on this post than I have time for or wanted to make.

I promise not to make another post for at least a week!