Michael Dorosh Posted May 24, 2002 Share Posted May 24, 2002 Flipping through my old copies of The General, I noticed a familiar name discussing armour penetration (suprise surpise) in a very interesting article. (ASL ARMOR STUDIES in Vol. 24 No. 4). He brought up an interesting point about the Stalin tank turret (has this been discussed here yet? If so, ignore this....) had 160mm frontal armour, but the gunshield was only 100mm thick. ASL had no way of portraying this, but I notice that in CMBO, weak point penetrations on Panthers, etc., do occur so I am convinced this is a feature that will make it into CMBB. What interested me, however, was the following: Knowing that the Stalin tank turret front offered the best chance of a penetration to 75L through 128L (note - these are ASL designations) weapons, on the basis of battlefield experience and analysis of captured tanks, panzer and ATG crews were instructed to aim at the turret center. German battle reports indicate that the tactic of firing at IS tank turret fronts was widely pursued, with many reported kills of Stalin tanks by 75mm penetrations of the gunshield. So my question is - do CMBO (and CMBB) gunners instinctively "aim for" weak spots, or are they a random occurence? More importantly - will we be able to direct gunners to attempt deliberate immobilization? This was a standard tactic in SL/ASL but I am wondering if this was true to life - if real life anti-tank gunners would deliberately try and detrack enemy tanks, knowing they couldn't penetrate them. If so, it would be a neat order to be able to give to low calibre anti-tank weapons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redwolf Posted May 24, 2002 Share Posted May 24, 2002 Originally posted by Michael Dorosh: [...] He brought up an interesting point about the Stalin tank turret (has this been discussed here yet? If so, ignore this....) had 160mm frontal armour, but the gunshield was only 100mm thick. [...] So my question is - do CMBO (and CMBB) gunners instinctively "aim for" weak spots, or are they a random occurence? No. Charles said that in earliest CMBO days units deliberately fired for the weakest surface, but it turned out to be completely unrealistic, producing killer bees. Note that this was about weakest plate as noted in CMBO armor stats, that means lower hull, upper hull, turret etc. It does not mean that these old CMBO version targetted what is now assumed to be the abstracted weak spots. I think Steve said they wanted to reintroduce deliberate shootings at tracks if the armor cannot be defeated by the shooter. More importantly - will we be able to direct gunners to attempt deliberate immobilization? As I said, Steve said this will happen automatically when the armor is known to be too strong, but I don't know whether that as announced to be in CMBB. The whole issue of very unequal armor spec on turret front, and the size of the turret front relative to the hull front, may be worth revisiting. For example, the CMBO Panzer IV suffers from having a normal hit chance on his thin turret front. But in reality the Pz IV has a comparably small turret, at least the part not heavily angled. But CMBO just applied the whole-vehicle silhuette and a turret hit chance that is equal to the chance on other tanks. And a comparably bigger part of the turret front is covered by the gun mantlet. I think it would be workthile to introduce some more special modifiers like "+" in the Tiger and "C" on Panther and friends. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panzer Leader Posted May 25, 2002 Share Posted May 25, 2002 Hmm, Redwolf, that "deliberate immobilization" bit is news to me. Sounds good though, very intuitive. I wonder... any sources or links for this comment? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patgod Posted May 25, 2002 Share Posted May 25, 2002 wouldnt it seem fair for crack/elite units to fire for the weakest structure pointing at them? i mean yes it will produce "killer bees" but guess what...thats what an tank crew would be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M Hofbauer Posted May 25, 2002 Share Posted May 25, 2002 I'm not sure if I would call a 100mm of armor a "weak spot". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thraka Posted May 30, 2002 Share Posted May 30, 2002 I think you're thinking of weak armor. Weak spot would indicate a section of the armor weaker then the other.. so 120mm armor with a section that was 100mm would indicate that 100mm is a weak spot Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silvio Manuel Posted May 30, 2002 Share Posted May 30, 2002 IIRC in CMBO the weak spot penetration is a constant 1% chance (per hit?) of the effective armor protection being lowered by (not sure) 50%. Sumpin' like that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aka_tom_w Posted May 30, 2002 Share Posted May 30, 2002 Originally posted by redwolf: </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> As I said, Steve said this will happen automatically when the armor is known to be too strong, but I don't know whether that as announced to be in CMBB. More importantly - will we be able to direct gunners to attempt deliberate immobilization? A</font> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PzKpfw 1 Posted May 30, 2002 Share Posted May 30, 2002 An Soviet study in 1944 found that around 60% of their tank losses resulted from frontal turret penetrations. The IS-2 was the first tank that made an attempt to adress this with its thicker turret front armor. Regards, John Waters [ May 30, 2002, 01:03 AM: Message edited by: PzKpfw 1 ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M Hofbauer Posted May 30, 2002 Share Posted May 30, 2002 Originally posted by PzKpfw 1: An Soviet study in 1944 found that around 60% of their tank losses resulted from frontal turret penetrations. must have been all those captured Pz IV in soviet service. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Visom Posted May 30, 2002 Share Posted May 30, 2002 Originally posted by Patgod: wouldnt it seem fair for crack/elite units to fire for the weakest structure pointing at them? i mean yes it will produce "killer bees" but guess what...thats what an tank crew would be.I think it is described in Tank aces (Panzer Aces?) about a gunner in a PzIII or PzIV that aims at the gun on a Kv-I after failing to penetrate it from the side at point blank range (30 meters?). I don't have the book, so pls don't ask for more specific references. I might be wrong on this, but in several discussions I've heard that the germans aimed for the weak spots on the side of Shermans. (Not exactly weak spots, but the places for the fuel tank and ammo storage, which caused the Shermans to brew up in case of a penetration.) Again, I can't back it up with any references, but I think it makes sense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Dorosh Posted May 30, 2002 Author Share Posted May 30, 2002 Originally posted by Visom: </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Patgod: wouldnt it seem fair for crack/elite units to fire for the weakest structure pointing at them? i mean yes it will produce "killer bees" but guess what...thats what an tank crew would be.I think it is described in Tank aces (Panzer Aces?) about a gunner in a PzIII or PzIV that aims at the gun on a Kv-I after failing to penetrate it from the side at point blank range (30 meters?). I don't have the book, so pls don't ask for more specific references. I might be wrong on this, but in several discussions I've heard that the germans aimed for the weak spots on the side of Shermans. (Not exactly weak spots, but the places for the fuel tank and ammo storage, which caused the Shermans to brew up in case of a penetration.) Again, I can't back it up with any references, but I think it makes sense.</font> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
offtaskagain Posted May 30, 2002 Share Posted May 30, 2002 Originally posted by Visom: </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Patgod: wouldnt it seem fair for crack/elite units to fire for the weakest structure pointing at them? i mean yes it will produce "killer bees" but guess what...thats what an tank crew would be.I think it is described in Tank aces (Panzer Aces?) about a gunner in a PzIII or PzIV that aims at the gun on a Kv-I after failing to penetrate it from the side at point blank range (30 meters?). I don't have the book, so pls don't ask for more specific references. I might be wrong on this, but in several discussions I've heard that the germans aimed for the weak spots on the side of Shermans. (Not exactly weak spots, but the places for the fuel tank and ammo storage, which caused the Shermans to brew up in case of a penetration.) Again, I can't back it up with any references, but I think it makes sense.</font> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonC Posted May 30, 2002 Share Posted May 30, 2002 There are two obvious reasons for the high number of turret kills the Russians report. One is hull down fighting, which should increase the incidence of turret hits compared to the portion of the overall tank area the turret represents. That one would be general, though perhaps a bit larger effect for tactical defenders. The other factor is particular to the Russian tank fleet. T-34s are much more highly sloped on the hull front than on the round turret. If shells hitting the round turret draw effectively randomized "stick" angles, then some will get comparatively "flat" hits and others more sloped ones. The ones with flatter hits will encounter significantly less adjusted armor resistence than hits on the highly sloped hull front. So, if kills generally happened at ranges where at least some of the hits were not kills, then at that range the likeliest place to achieve a penetration would be the turret, with a particularly flat hit. And it is easy to see why a high portion of kills would tend to happen at such ranges. Because once the range is low enough that any hit is a kill, surviving tanks still in LOS of enemy shooters have become rare birds. Imagine the kill distance of 75mm vs. T-34 front hull is 1000m (I am not saying it is, but just to pick a figure). But of flat hits on the turret is say 1500m. Then you'd expect live T-34s under 1000m to be rare, but live T-34s between 1000m and 1500m to be common. That being so, turret kills must be relatively numerous compared to hull kills, out of that population. Notice, this is not a selection on shots or hits, but on kills, and in a particular configuration of ranges to how many tanks. That 40% are from other plates (hull front closer, or sides) still leaves plenty of room for ambush situations at closer range, or for the leading tanks that get closer being killed through the hull, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rexford Posted May 31, 2002 Share Posted May 31, 2002 It turned out that majority of IS-2 tanks had rounded 100mm turret front and mantlet, compared to 120mm at 60° on glacis. So turret front/mantlet was much more vulnerable and a better shot. Russian Shermans in Russia fired at Tiger tracks, Russian anti-tank rifles fired at vision slits, hull MG mounts and the smoke dischargers on the Tiger turret. Hitting smoke discharger could cause all sorts of problems when they went off, and this is why they were discontinued. Directed aim occurred and sometimes worked. Problem is that under stress of combat, many forget everything they have been taught or learned. My favorite example is a 75mm armed Sherman face to face with a Panther. The Sherman hit the Panther glacis and continued firing at the same point cause they were getting accurate hits, even though they bounced. The Panther crew realized the first Sherman would continue the useless but accurate fire and rotated its turret to pick off another Sherman, betting that the accurate Sherman would not change target area. And it didn't. It is not so easy to think logically on a battlefield during combat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patgod Posted May 31, 2002 Share Posted May 31, 2002 no doubt rex, which is why i brought up the cracks, and elites. expecially the elite tankers. to me the extra cost and title say "this is one bad mutha who has seen it all and is still alive to kick your ass." the type of crew i would expect to be much calmer under fire, and realise "hey that shot bounced, better aim somewhere else". just a thought, i could be wrong, but i dont think i am Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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