Accuracy of main battle tanks

[Holien]

In a recent rather "critical game" I had an M18 TD miss two 40 meter side shots at a stationary Panther.

This amongst other "bad luck" and poor judgement sealed my fate.

I was rather miffed but I think this could mimic real life.

The TD was then knocked out by a 1st round hit from a Zhrk at 100m plus as my guy had his foot hard on the pedal trying to do a rear move.

Lets face it IRL you will mainly hear about the good luck stories as those guys stay alive. The bad luck close range misses are usually critical to those involved and the dead don't tend to write many AAR's.

The argument about the accuracy of the Tiger vs the Sherman has been resolved in my mind. Yeah sure at that range the percentage chance might be low but lets face it we are dealing with real people.

I have said this before and will say it again. Look around you, look at the people you work with, your school mates, your mother and fathers friends.

Assess their capability to fire straight under extreme stress, with lack of sleep and poor food in their bellies.

I know when I have had not enough sleep I see things differently and I re-act in a poor manner. Just ask my partner.

So when you throw all of that in the pot there are no such thing as 100% chance of a hit.

H

[Doug Beman]

In an ongoing, soon-to-finish, PBEM set in pouring rain, my crack Sherman nosed around a patch of woods and zapped my opponent's last tank with a 1st-round hit&kill at 180m. Then, 10 seconds later, a green-quality PS team KOd the Sherman with a 1st round hit&kill at 184m.

Even with that I was well along to a total victory, but somehow my opponent's green-rated arty FO has been good enough to wipe out half my infantry with 60 seconds' FFE.

DjB

[KNac]

I suggested to use an other computer game because is the better method I have to check optics and aiming systems, since I don´t have a Tiger I in my house or any museum with one near here and remember it only was for checking how should perform the optics and sight system, nothing more. If you have one copy of the system that used the Tiger I or photos and data about it, use it best, I was only suggesting.

However this issue is falling in repeating over and over. The only way to check it out is doing an intensive testing and research, and writing which are the conditions of "human factor" then compare the results of testing with what we expected with the research, etc. The rest of words are just that, more word (me or anyone) without any good prove we cannot say "it´s wrong" or "it´s ok", nothing, just play the game Individual cases and quotes, as I said are not the worth.

As Vanir Ausf said, **** happens in RL. So shooting shouldn´t be 100% accurate all the time, that is more unrealistic that not first/second shot kill 60% of the time. I repeat, but if that **** happens with too much frequency (which I don´t think so, IMO I think the game it´s ok) it´s a problem.

[ May 01, 2002, 10:24 AM: Message edited by: KNac ]

[Redwolf]

Hey, guys,

as this thread doesn't appear to get any useful outcome:

I built a small test-scenario to test whether TRPs actually enhance AT gun shots, apparently they do. However, I really don't have the time to run it often enough to get enough data to tell how much, and more tests would be needed to tell how big the radius around the TRP is that affects shots.

If anybody of you would like to run these tests, please mail me and I send you the scenario and instructions. I know it's a lazy bastard's request, but I really don't have the time right now.

[wodasini88]

hmmm one thing I have noticed and I will have to do some tests, is that the tiger and most other tanks wont miss several times at close range (under 50m)like the panther does.

I know crazy **** happens in real life, I know I live....but lots of that random stuff never happens again for a long time, and if my gunner is going to miss at 20m twice I want an explination as to why he did(even if he had allergies and bumped the elevator or something!!!!)

On a somewhat related note. I've visited a lot of websites on tanks in ww2 and have been noticing the armor penetration tables are all about 20-40mm less than what CMBO's penetration tables show. Why this discrepancy.

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by wodasini88:

[QB]hmmm one thing I have noticed and I will have to do some tests, is that the tiger and most other tanks wont miss several times at close range (under 50m)like the panther does.

I know crazy **** happens in real life, I know I live....but lots of that random stuff never happens again for a long time, and if my gunner is going to miss at 20m twice I want an explination as to why he did(even if he had allergies and bumped the elevator or something!!!!)

What you see is not a wrong or right model for 20m shots in CMBO. CMBO does not have any armor hit model for shots at this range. It is not worth the effort, programming time is better invested elsewhere.

On a somewhat related note. I've visited a lot of websites on tanks in ww2 and have been noticing the armor penetration tables are all about 20-40mm less than what CMBO's penetration tables show. Why this discrepancy.

So, what are those sites? The penetration values for the guns in CMBO are probably the part that fewest people whine about. Most sources *I* know support them very well.

[wodasini88]

hmm nevermind on that question the sites I was talking about dont define what angle the armor is at....they could be an average or at 30ª or something who knows

[Wreck]

Regarding the gun firing model in CMBO: People want to know how a gun can miss twice at 20m. I detect a certain lack of imagination. CM models every tank as if it had a flawless, but slow, autoloader. The tank fires. 10s later, without fail, it fires again. 10s later it fires again. Breeches never jam. Loaders never get sweaty palms and mishandle a round. Loaders always take exactly 10s (or whatever it is) to load their round.

I suggest that in a real tank, in real combat, with real lives on the line, men in tanks functioned a lot less predictably than that. As did the guns they were firing.

If that is so, then one way to model it would be directly. Just as there is a "shocked" tank state, make tank states for "loader dropped shell" or "driver sings aria" or "breech jammed" etc. But another way is just to build in a 10% chance to miss (say), each and every shot. So the butterfingers loader is never modelled directly. This is, I believe, the way BTS have chosen to model rare random screwups in CMBO. So if one of your tanks misses and it's "impossible", just imagine that your loader screwed up, the commander briefly froze in panic, or any of a zillion possible things that can happen in combat that are not worth modelling as specific, separate states for tank crews.

[illo]

Lets face it IRL you will mainly hear about the good luck stories as those guys stay alive. The bad luck close range misses are usually critical to those involved and the dead don't tend to write many AAR's.

I have to disagree. Are you saying all crew members die if tank is KOd? That really wasn't the usual case IRL.

[ May 02, 2002, 02:34 AM: Message edited by: illo ]

[illo]

Originally posted by Wreck:

Regarding the gun firing model in CMBO: People want to know how a gun can miss twice at 20m. I detect a certain lack of imagination. CM models every tank as if it had a flawless, but slow, autoloader. The tank fires. 10s later, without fail, it fires again. 10s later it fires again. Breeches never jam. Loaders never get sweaty palms and mishandle a round. Loaders always take exactly 10s (or whatever it is) to load their round.

I suggest that in a real tank, in real combat, with real lives on the line, men in tanks functioned a lot less predictably than that. As did the guns they were firing.

If that is so, then one way to model it would be directly. Just as there is a "shocked" tank state, make tank states for "loader dropped shell" or "driver sings aria" or "breech jammed" etc. But another way is just to build in a 10% chance to miss (say), each and every shot. So the butterfingers loader is never modelled directly. This is, I believe, the way BTS have chosen to model rare random screwups in CMBO. So if one of your tanks misses and it's "impossible", just imagine that your loader screwed up, the commander briefly froze in panic, or any of a zillion possible things that can happen in combat that are not worth modelling as specific, separate states for tank crews.

Yes, I think it would be nice to see some variation in loading times. So there could be good moments for green crew etc. Bad moments for veterans too.

[Tero]

Originally posted by Doug Beman:

Keeping in mind the non-scientific nature of this evidence, in all my reading about WW2 I've seen/read maybe 2 or 3 pictures/accounts of tankers using dedicated rangefinder gear apart from gun optics

However, AT guns were artillery and it would stand to reason to have them guestimate the range better than their esteemed armour crew counterparts.

Also, even infantry is trained to guestimate ranges by telephonepoles and other objects without actually having to pace the distance. If you see a man standing at a distance you can apply the "rule of the thumb" and basic trigonometry to roughly guess the distance from your position to that man.

So a tank, which might have been driving around the battlefield for a few minutes, stops in a stand of pine trees. Its commander picks out a spot "over thataway" as an AMBUSH marker. Suddenly, the gunner has an exact ranging to that spot, just as though that exact spot had been measured before the battle and the gunner had calibrated his gun specifically for that spot.

Then, the tank moves again, coming to rest behind a house. The commander picks another spot "there," and POOF the gunner has perfect knowledge of that spot.

This is of course infginitely more unrealistic than having the gunner get the perfect knowledge of the spot from data prepared by a FO team (he has never heard of and propably never will hear of) prior to battle. And since that one particular spot is ranged for him a spot some distance to the side of this spot is not ranged and consequently does not apply as a pre-ranged target. No matter how the tank has moved prior to the shot the range data is updated automatically and the gunner knows exactly how far he is from that TRP but the range data to a spot (just as visible as the TRP spot) next to the TRP is not calculated similarly at the same time.

Sorry, can't buy that.

This would presume that every point on the battlefield had been measured to a standard and thoroughness so as to give a vehicle knowledge of range etc from any other point on the map.

Not so. The OBA arty pukes do not move their guns that often during a 30-60 min battle. The TRP represents target coordinates preprepared to match the firing units positions coordinates. Off shore naval fire support would be able to fire at the TRP location even if it moved around. That is because they have integrated fire solution and fire direction capability. Having a tank update its location data all the time to match the TRP cordinates for a firing solution with increased hit chance is, well, plain unrealistic.

Maybe ambush commands should include the TRP-like accuracy boost, but only in cases where vehicles start out with LOS to that point, and don't move at all. Once they move, and lose their frame of reference, the work of measuring the range from vehicle to TRP (whether we're talking ranging shots, pacing off, or simply knowing the optics/gun characteristics) will not apply.

I think it is a question of crew quality and time frame. Having a green crewed tank sit still for 10 seconds and get increased first shot hit chance is not on. Having an green crewed tank sit still for 60 secs focues on a specific terrain feature and get increased first shot hit chance is not that unrealistic. Nor is having an elite crew focus on a terrain feature for, say, 30 seconds.

If so, these points would be purchased assets, similar to TRPs but cheaper because they're specific to one point on the map, and only affect on-map DF guns. Once placed on the map, they're locked on the map, and only vehicles that start out w/ LOS may use that spot as an "ambush TRP."

That would not be very unrealistic. Prebattle preparations often take into account possible ambush locations. If you are attacker and you are going through your battle plan suspected/propable ambush locations are one thing you look for. For example nobody drives through a gap between two rock faces or hills into an open field if there are more inconspicuous routes to take and if there is no hurry or need to take that particular spot.

[Holien]

Illo,

So if a crew messed up and survied to make it back to their own lines do you think they would be talking a lot about thier failure.

Or would they be silent? Or even talking up their opponents ability?

Just offerig some human insight on this debate.

H

P.s. No where did I say they all died.

[ May 02, 2002, 03:02 AM: Message edited by: Holien ]

[Tero]

Originally posted by Puff the Magic Dragon:

In CM I always see the shells fly far to the left or right. This is - maybe - only an 'optical bug', or it is wrong modeled.

I would not say the modelling is wrong as such. The scatter effect is propably straight from the appropriate (flat, 2D) arty hit propability chart where the epicenter (which is in our case the target) is surrounded by 25% hit propability quadrants. But if you are right then I do think that the model is inappropriately applied to the DF guns. When aiming at the center of a target the distance, ie the elevation, is more vital than the lateral placing of the aiming point.

Having a DF gun have its shots scattered to the left and right of the target as if they were fired from a indirect fire gun is not really appropriate. If you order a DF gun (or a tank) to open fire and you get a 75% hit chance reading it would mean there is a 25% miss chance. In other words 3 out of 4 shots would score a hit.

Yet at least I think the statistical consistency to miss the first shot is out of whack with this hit chance. It is as if the miss chance is what gets picked, not the hit chance. If you have a 25% chance to miss the first shot then this is what you will most likely get. At least if you are not sporting a fast turret and/or a stabilizer.

Tanks got often badly damaged by several hits before they were really taken out.

ÜberFinnish AT gunner using 15 PAK40 AP shots (all hits) to kill a single T34 does seem overkill.

Then again the fact a bon-brewed up tank was more likely to be recovered and returned to duty the next day did predispose the gunner to prefer to kill the monsters dead even after they had stopped moving.

Beside that, the damage model for tanks is very limited. Track hit = immobile. Gun hit = gun damaged. Penetration = 95% knocked out or abandoned.

Also realistic crew casualty modelling is definitely missing. One of my early surpises was the musical chairs the crew did when losing a member. The driver does not get killed if the front hull is penetrated. That would immobilize that tank for at leats 5-10 minutes when they are hauling the driver out. The gunner is not disabled if turret is penetrated. The TC is always the first to go no matter who would be killed/disabled IRL.

[Tero]

Originally posted by Soddball:

At the moment, Shermans (fireflies, 76s, 75s) significantly outperform Tigers at ranges below 500m on a chance-to-hit basis, and that doesn't make sense to me.

You are not alone, my brother.

How can a gun get less accurate as the range reduces?

It is perfectly reasonable to have slow/non turreted vehicles acquiring targets more slowly than fast turreted ones, especially if the gun does not happen to face the enemy vehicle already. Keeping a moving target in the cross hairs is a bitch (I went to refresher training last week end and we practised using LAW's. Leading a moving vehicle IS hard ). The closer the target the harder it is.

However, a sitting target you have acquired and gunning for, no matter what the range, should not give you any penalties just because you have a slow turret and no stabilizer.

[Tero]

Originally posted by redwolf:

The game models zeroing in, I think I have the description in this thread. It is important to tell whether you get zeroing-in or not, because the 76mm with its higher ROF will zero in faster. Higher ROF is a big advantage, and it gets much bigger when zeroing in, obviously.

What about things like recoil, obscured vision etc ? Shermans had a narrower base compared to their height than the German tanks had. Even with HVSS Sherman firing its cannon would litteraly rock more than German vehicles which had a more wider base.

IMO high ROF should not give you an advantage just because you can in theory bracket a target faster than your opponent. There were also disadvantages. Have they been modelled too ?

Read my tests in the article. In CMBO, the sluggy gun movement still hurts badly if you are roughly facing the right direction.

Hmmmmm.... are the German gunners firing the first shot before they have gotten the target in the cross hairs ? I hope this is not the case.

The armor doen't matter since both can penetrate each other, so and the lighter and higher ROF gun/carriage combination wins.

I'm not convinced that would work in laboratory conditions. The lighter carriage should be more susceptible to recoil induced problems for example.

[Tero]

Originally posted by John D Salt:

You wait for a bus and then three come at once.

Yes. But you have not gone to the bus stop by chance. Also, the busses are supposed to be run according to a time table.

If you happen to pass a bus stop and almost every time you see three busses going by I at least become suspicious the coincidence is too consistent to be a genuine one.

The porrige of fate is lumpy.

Lumpy is OK. But if the lumps are evenly spaced and in everybody else seems to have them too then the flour is propablyu not mixed in properly.

One in a while, you go through a period of six consecutive misses.

That is OK. But when was the last time you saw a Firefly miss six consecutive shots at the same target ?

[Tero]

Originally posted by Caesar:

The silhoulette of the tiger is much higher than the sherman 120 vs 104 so you would expect that the sherman would hit more often.

Actually, IIRC the Sherman was as high as or higher than the Tiger, the Tiger was most definitely wider than the Sherman.

I would have thought that the turret speed should have given the shemans a slight advantage with getting the first shot off.

Then again the German practise to turn the entire vehicle towards the target to speed up aimimg if preparing for a shot from the move is not modelled in.

the fact that it would have to load the gun with the correct ammo.....

Actually I think they would most propably fire the shot they chambered. That would be faster than reloading.

[Tero]

Originally posted by Andreas:

Just to reiterate - the Tiger did not get its reputation as a close-in, knife-fighting weapon. Neither did the Nashorn or the Elefant. On the contrary in the latter case, it fared extremely badly doing so.

These are long-range, stand-off weapon systems, designed to destroy an opponent that can not touch you in open battle (Tiger v. T-34/76 or KV-1) or from an ambush (Nashorn/IVL70/Elefant v. the above). They did not earn their reputation by fighting it out at 250m, in fact they lost it that way. If you test them in that environment, you will conclusively prove that if you use the tank in an ahistoric manner, it will perform in an ahistoric manner.

Anyone claiming that you don't hit at extreme ranges in CMBO, I suggest you try again. The 88 and the 75L48 are perfectly capable of achieving hits at long ranges (defined as >1,600m, or roughly twice muzzle velocity). Depending on crew quality, also first shot hits.

Getting a Nashorn killed at 250 meters is not hard. Getting the Nashorn to kill at 250 meters is VERY hard.

Well, it at least SEEMS very hard.

I think the question should not be about doctrine alone. I agree a Nashorn in such close proximity to the front is folly. But was the 88L71 it carried really THAT inaccurate close up ?

[Tero]

Originally posted by Vanir Ausf B:

As you can see the differnces at short range are really quite small. I strongly believe these numbers show that the Sherman's greater effectiveness vs. the Tiger at short range is due mostly to higher rate of fire rather than greater accuracy.

However, the higher ROF does not explain away why the Sherman seems to be getting the first shot hits down better.

I have sometimes thought the Sherman fire accuracy calculation is done using the hit propability as the norm and the Tiger calculation is done using the miss propability as the norm.

[Tero]

Originally posted by Doug Beman:

The gunner's sighting gear was a binocular telescope (probably TZF 12a, also mounted in Panther), not quite identical to the rangefinders used in FlaK gunnery.

IIRC the binocular telescope was installed to get better (if limited) coincidence range finding capability.

Genuine FLAK gunnery is done using shell flight time calculation based on the altitude of the target aircraft. When you fire the FLAK gun in DF mode you use the proper sights PLUS you have the help from the gun crew member operating the range finder.

[ May 02, 2002, 05:21 AM: Message edited by: tero ]

[Tero]

Originally posted by redwolf:

I do think that the size of the target may factor in somehow,

It is already reflected in the hit probablity that the LOS or target tool prints.

A tank with silhuette 120 has a 20% (not percent point) higher chance to get hit than a silhuette 100 one, it is plain and simply linear.

Hmmmm..... say both get a 78% solution on each other simultaneously the bigger tank gets 20% knocked off its accuracy because it is bigger and in effect the solutions should read 78% vs 58% (or 98% vs 78%) in favour of the smaller tank ?

Does not sound really realistic. Or plausible.

If this is the case I smell a fish.

Which I hope does not turn out to be a red herring.

[Tero]

Originally posted by Vanir Ausf B:

There is a tendency to underestimate the frequency of rare events. Rare events happen all the time, both in real life and the game.

What is the frequency of occurance that turns a rare event into a commonplace one ?

[Puff the Magic Dragon]

Tero

The TC is always the first to go no matter who would be killed/disabled IRL.

Yep, right. I forgotten to mention this.

IMO high ROF should not give you an advantage just because you can in theory bracket a target faster than your opponent. There were also disadvantages..

This is right. A higher ROF results in a faster overheated gun, this reduces the muzzel velocity and has direct negative effect on the accuracy.

Here a quote from the book PzKpfw IV by Spielberger/Doyle/Jentz :

The 5. Panzer Division, equipted with 4 Pz.Kpfw.IV - maingun 7,5cmKw.K40 L/43, reported kills of this tanks in the time from 22 February to 20 March east of Shisdra(Russia):

17 KV-1

26 T-34

1 T-26

1 Mark II

3 Mark III

1 General Lee (M3)

The battle distance was ussually 1200-1600 meters

With the Pz.Gr.39 2-3 shots were needed, each hit resulted in a deadly burn out (hope this is the correct translation of 'Brandwirkung'), with Gr.HL/B rarely made the tank burn, 1-5 were needed per kill. In this time, the Division lost only one of the four PzKpfw.IV-7,5cmKw.K.40L/43

What can we learn from this?

a) I was wrong in my earlier post. Tanks die fast when they are hit.

The normal distance for real tank battles is above 1000m, at least in the later war. The normal CM battle distance is - even on big maps - usualy below 1000m. I also remember a report about the 7.5cm PAK - the normal attack range was the biggest possible distance to the target.

c) The German guns were very accurate. The chance to hit is about 33-50% on 1200 - 1600 meters - in real battle conditions.

Now I checked this in CM with a stationary PzIV and a stationary Sherman on 1432 meters, optimum possible targeting circumstances, the Sherman shows his side. The chance to hit is shown as :

22% for a regular crew

24% for a veteran crew

28% for a crack crew

33% for an elite crew

So the CM hit probability is even in best circumstances with the best crew on the lower end of the possible results, compared to the real war results.

[ May 02, 2002, 05:55 AM: Message edited by: Puff the Magic Dragon ]

[Andreas]

Puff, basing very general conclusions on one example is maybe a bit rash?

More specifically:

Where is Shisdra? What makes you think this was a late-war example? What makes you think it is generalisable? What makes you think these are confirmed kills? Where did you find that quote saying 'maximum possible distance' for the Pak40? What is the definition of 'maximum possible distance'?

Tanks die fast when they are hit - maybe, but do you always know they are dead? I have a nice example from Stug Brig.276 showing the opposite.

[Caesar]

Actually, IIRC the Sherman was as high as or higher than the Tiger, the Tiger was most definitely wider than the Sherman.

Ooops, yes I actually realised my mistake as soon as I posted but was too lazy to edit. The Sherman is 9 feet vs the Tiger's 9 foot 5.

Then again the German practise to turn the entire vehicle towards the target to speed up aimimg if preparing for a shot from the move is not modelled in.

Was this a German only practise or did other nations use this. Were they rotating the tank on the spot or were they just driving in an agle towards the target. Was this an advantage of their suspension (sorry for the 20 questions, just quite interested in this sort of stuff and you dno't often get info on it in books)

However, the higher ROF does not explain away why the Sherman seems to be getting the first shot hits down better.

This is simply a factor of the size difference and a slight difference in the muzzle velocity. Check out the tests done by Vanir Ausf B

250m

88: 75%

76: 77%

500m

88: 54%

76: 57%

1000m

88: 29%

76: 29%

quote:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

IMO high ROF should not give you an advantage just because you can in theory bracket a target faster than your opponent. There were also disadvantages..

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is right. A higher ROF results in a faster overheated gun, this reduces the muzzel velocity and has direct negative effect on the accuracy.

I would think that in most cases, if you are being shot at you are going to fire back as fast and accurately as possible irrespective of the long term well being of your tank. I think your near term survival would take precedence.