Sherm 105's attacking armor (rant/vent)

[MC]

Last night, I was playing a QB online. It was a ME, and both of us were down to 1 tank. My opponent had a Mk IV, and I had a Sherman 105. I had my 105 in a hidden position behind a building, and was trying to take out the Mk IV. (I know it is an Assault Howitzer tank, but my Hellcat, Stuart, and Zook were all wasted by then.) I looked at the ammo load, it had 10 'C' shells. About 4 turns in a row I moved it out just enough to get the Mark Iv is sight (and yes, it did have a clean line of sight) and had targeted it in the orders turn. Every time it would move out, but it would not target it up and fire, even when nothing else was around. We are talking flank shots, good position (nothing else firing at it) and it was not taking fire from the Mk IV. (the Mk IV didnt even see it as it was pounding my infantry in other buildings) Finally after the 4th try of doing this, my Sherman had turned to the side (to look at what I have no idea) and finally the Mk IV took me out. (This was the difference in the battle) Is there something I could have done different to make this shoot at the Mk IV? I could see maybe 1 turn but 4 in a row? And the Sherman was opened up, and the target line stuck to the MK IV every time during orders. And it had 10 'C' shells. Anyone had this happen before? Will they immediately look for soft targets even though the most threating thing around was a tank? I was really frustrated.........

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Don't shoot...let 'em burn! - from opening scene, SPR

[MC]

bump

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Don't shoot...let 'em burn! - from opening scene, SPR

[Freak]

I hear your pain MC and I wish I had an answer for you.

[Jagdwyrm]

Makes no sense. If you had given him targeting orders he should have fired. I could see the 105 withdrawing while firing if the range was great as the 105 gun seems really inaccurate, and the tank crew knew they would be at a disadvantage because of that. Other than that it makes no sense to me.

[Wilhammer]

I played an experimental ME QB with 5 Sherman (105)s and an infantry platoon vs a similar German force with 2 Panthers and 2 Hetzers.

They never fired even one round of HEAT, just smoke.

They all eventually died. The only chance for a kill was when one Sherman fired an HE round at the back end of a Panther and missed.

The TacAI is still pretty weak on employment of special rounds.

[MC]

The range in my situation was probably 150 m or so, and a flank shot and cover was really close. I could see if it was a head on shot or whatever, but not this situation. Has this ever been addressed to BTS? I wonder what they would think about this one, and the experiment mentioned above.

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Don't shoot...let 'em burn! - from opening scene, SPR

[Jagdwyrm]

I havent seen this much. I see them smoke vehicles they dont have much chance against and get out of harms way. Like I had said earlier the 105s gun is not a tank killer. Not very accurate at all. I played an armor QB against a guy who bought all M4 105s. I guess he thought bigger the gun the better. I had hetzers, JPz IVs and a panther. All 105s were destroyed without a single axis kill. In fact I dont think any of my armor even got hit. The 105 is not an effective tank killer and perhaps the crews know it?

[MC]

Why would they be loaded out with 10 'C' shells? I know that it is not a designated tank killer, but it was my last resort. It didn't shoot smoke at it, but I wonder why it just didn't pop off a shot and run to safety. It's not like I tried to park it on top of a hill and trade punches. Oh well, I guess I should have been more careful with my other tank killing assets.

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Don't shoot...let 'em burn! - from opening scene, SPR

[Gen-x87]

I had the same problem with my Wespe last night in a IP game.

I had 2 platoons flanking my opponent and I targeted the enemies positions for some support, and I had a clean line of sight but it never fired.

Gen

[Specterx]

In contrast to all of this, I was playing a game where I was Axis defending against an Allied attack. My JpzIV, which was my primary AT asset, got into a position where it traded head-on shots at medium range with a PRIEST. A PRIEST. The priest fired two shots, the second one hit and destroyed the Jpz.

Now, something is wrong here. A sherman 105 gets scared off by a flank shot at a weak tank, while an open-topped paper-skinned artillery piece attacks a dedicated tank killer head on at medium range.

[MC]

I had the same thing happen to me. I was in a ME, and all my Hellcats were dead, but my opponent still had a couple PZ 70's left. So I crested a hill with my Priest and Sherm 105, to take out what I could. The Priest (of all things) took out a Gun Tractor, a halftrack, and one of the Pz 70's before getting killed by the other one. That is a trade I will take any day of the year, so then I had the 105 vs the other Pz 70 and guess what, the 105 didn't fire. And I thought the Priest would get clobbered fast but it was the other way around. Must be the way the TacAI handles the 105's, I don't know. Maybe the Priest has a more accurate gun and isn't afraid to fire first?

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Don't shoot...let 'em burn! - from opening scene, SPR

[Wilhammer]

I wonder if the open top has anything to do with it.

I have seen my M-8 HMCs fire 75 HEAT many times and kill German AFVs in the process.

My experiment was a consiuos choice to represent a possible situatiion, a misinformed American infnatry assault force with Sherman 105s encounters a German armored force.

The rangs were relatively close, and I tried massing, flanking, etc.

The only time a non smoke round was fired was that HE round fired enpassant; I rushed a Panther nearly head on and tried to kill it at short range using my fast turret advantage. I did manage to get the first shot, but I missed. The Panther got one shot one kill. Range was about 80 meters. Yes, eighty.

[Guest Martin Cracauer]

I just made isolated tests and the Sherman 105 did fire HE rounds only on enemy tanks, never the HC rounds they had.

I tried different target tanks and different ranges from 70-400m, never did a Sherman 105 fire one HC round. They attacked Pz IV and V, but with HE only.

MC, did your Sherman have HE rounds left or HC only?

[MC]

It had both. A lot of HE, and 10 C shells. Hell, I would have been happy if it shot HE at the damn thing. I think that if it hit it would at least immobilized it. Now I was playing a QB last night, and I had a M8 HMC that used up all of it's HE, then fired all of it's C shells at soft targets, infantry and MG's. Why carry the C shells if it's not going to use them when needed, in a situation like this one?

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Don't shoot...let 'em burn! - from opening scene, SPR

[Guest Martin Cracauer]

Originally posted by MC:

It had both. A lot of HE, and 10 C shells. Hell, I would have been happy if it shot HE at the damn thing.

Did you give a manual target order or did you just had it in LOS and expected it to target by itself?

What direction of the PzIV were you facing (front, side) and at what angle?

Now I was playing a QB last night, and I had a M8 HMC that used up all of it's HE, then fired all of it's C shells at soft targets, infantry and MG's. Why carry the C shells if it's not going to use them when needed, in a situation like this one?

CM tanks try to preserve AT-capabale rounds if they only have few of these, which is usually the case for HC rounds.

Since the TacAI cannot count enemy tanks the way the player can, it saves the HC rounds while a HE shell *may* be sufficient for a shot, just in case more and bigger enemy tanks show up where the AT round is better spent. I did an isolated test and the mechanism looks decent, although naturally annoying if you (as the player) *know* that your tank is shooting at the last enemy tank.

If that mechanism wasn't there, you would just have halftracks or cheap tanks dancing in front of the enemy 105mm tank until it spent all its HC rounds. Then come the heavy stuff and the 105 cannot defend with HC rounds anymore.

Martin

[sfhand]

I've witnessed the same mutinous disregard for direct fire orders with a German AFV. In this instance it was a JagdpanzerIV refusing to fire HE at exposed enemy infantry. I gave the direct fire orders for two turns while my infantry was getting pounded. In desperation I moved the vehicle closer (it was at 150m) hoping that would force the TC to take action to defend his charge. Result: one lost JagdpanzerIV as there was a zook team waiting for a better shot, which it got! I lost my infantry to boot. It is my opinion if the JPIV had fired its HE rounds my infantry could have held its position and rather than getting a draw I might have pulled off a minor victory. Wishful thinking perhaps since my opponent still had some large caliber artillery with my name on it.

[MC]

I gave it a manual target order. Each turn I moved it out to where it had LOS but it did not target. Flank shots, the Mk IV was busy pounding my infantry in buildings. It didn't even see my tank. The manual targeting stuck. For about 4 turns in a row I ordered it to move from behind the building to where it had a clean LOS to the Mk IV, and each turn it did this without action. It seemed confused a few times, turning about 'looking' for something, rotating around before retreating back into safety at the end of the turn. It was a flank shot, when LOS would be established, the Mk IV was at about 11:00 and it would be facing 6:00, if this makes any sense to you. Finally after 4 or 5 turns it spotted me and killed me instantly, on a flank shot, while my tank had rotated in another direction. While it is true that the tank driver didn't know that there were any other tanks on the map, a clean flank shot without being spotted (and the Mk IV was buttoned) at about 100 m would be worthy of an expenditure of a C round, especially since it had 10 of them. Or at least fire an HE round before going back to cover.

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Don't shoot...let 'em burn! - from opening scene, SPR

[harpooner]

Wierd things should happen. War is hell and men panic. Crews would have been reluctant to perform a command which was counter to their training snd the intended purpose of their equipment. It's always a crapshoot when MBT's duke it out.

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"So be cheery, my lads, let your hearts never fail,

While the bold harpooner is striking the whale!" -Nantucket Song

[Degrees of Frost]

Originally posted by harpooner:

It's always a crapshoot when MBT's duke it out.

even when they don't

..... if I read the rest of this post correctly.

[Radar]

I've run through some quick tests using Sherman 105's(various loadouts) and German Tiger tanks(empty loadout). The crew quality of all units in these tests was set at regular.

I noted that you can order a manual fire order without a red target line, but it is more effective to move to get in this condition(aquire a red target line) and let the AI fire (then it would fire with no noted exception). It was noted that being unbuttoned greatly enhances your sighting range and crew reaction.

A buttoned Sherm 105 tended to act like they are practically blind. They've consistently displayed the tendency to ignore enemy AFV's(the red line would drop off for unknown reasons), even when less than 100m away, in clear terrain, irreguardless of the 105's facing. Though manual targeting was accepted without a having a red line, the 105 tank could (tended) fire HE or case(rarely), ignore the command(common), or fire smoke at an enemy AFV(common).

Now once a red taget line was observed the 105 would react and fire aggressively, HE, case, and even smoke could be fired.

These tests aren't conclusive.

[ 04-15-2001: Message edited by: Radar ]

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

Here is what I think is happening.

There seems to be a routine that AFVs check, to see whether or not it is suicidal to duel with a given enemy AFV. In pseudo-code -

Tanks asks itself -

- can that tank kill me?

if yes -

- can I kill that tank? -

if no -

override all previous orders.

instead ask -

- do I have smoke?

- if yes, fire smoke

- if no, evade

That seems to be the routine giving your Sherman 105mm trouble. It seems to me quite likely that at the stage where it checks "can I kill that tank?", is not working properly.

The question then is, why? Well, it is possible the reason is that the HE should be enough to kill the tank, in most circumstances, and that is what has it hung up.

See, 105mm HE should go through the side of a Pz IV, pretty easily, at that short range especially. So why go to the HEAT when it is not needed?

But, if the side angle is steep enough - probably about 45-50 degrees from flat to the side - then an HE round would not go through.

If the ammo selection check, and the can I penetrate check, are made differently - one taking full account of the side angle and the other not - then I'd expect the tank to get "confused". Suppose it decides HE is enough before checking the angle. Then it checks the angle, and it finds "I can't kill this tank *from here* - and it can kill me".

A test of this wild stab in the dark is whether there was any appreciable angle to the side of the Pz IV. If it was broadside, there is some other issue. Because any 105mm round should take out the target in that case, HE included.

It is also possible that a situation in which the "use HEAT?" test *fails*, is always interpreted as meaning, "tank can't be killed". That is, some subroutine is set up to ask "should I use HEAT?" And it returns "no", because it has correctly checked and found that HE will do the trick. But that "no" is then passed back to some other part of the program. Which may interprete a "no" on the "use HEAT" decision, as "can't kill it with the best round".

That would be a subtle logic bug, if it is the case. Such things crop up, especially when two programmers have worked on different subroutines. Or they can happen when a programmer didn't see how "use HEAT - no" and "can kill - yes" are compatible, and thought he was saving a step. Because it is relatively rare that the HE shell is enough to do the job, this might have gone unnoticed before.

I hope this helps.

[General Petrovsky]

You wrote that each turn you moved your tank out to shoot at the panzer, does that mean that you told it to move out and then reverse back into it's hidden position behind the building? If that's the case then I would have to guess that even though your tank began targeting the panzer (assuming it had clear LOS) they reversed back out of LOS before the crew could load the hollow shell and fire. If this was the case I would say lose the reverse command and just issue a Hunt order into LOS with a target order on the panzer and cross your fingers....

[Volstag]

I've had very similiar things happen to me as well. I can't explain it. Great LOS, unbuttoned, target lines present, flank shot, etc, etc -- crew simply doesn't fire. It's a rare occurance, but it drives me mad every time it happens. I wish there was some way of knowing why/why-not your units behave the way the do (like a ASCII dump of the TacAI during a game).

"FIRE!!! FIRE DAMMIT FIRE!!!!"

Later,

Volstag

[Volstag]

I've had very similiar things happen to me as well. I can't explain it. Great LOS, unbuttoned, target lines present, flank shot, etc, etc -- crew simply doesn't fire. It's a rare occurance, but it drives me mad every time it happens. I wish there was some way of knowing why/why-not your units behave the way the do (like a ASCII dump of the TacAI during a game).

"FIRE!!! FIRE DAMMIT FIRE!!!!"

Later,

Volstag

[Compassion]

I wonder if this is either a problem with a manuver issue (as the other poster said, perhaps you are pulling back too fast to target the Mk IV... the 105 has a sloooowww turret rotation rate (almost gemanic) or a problem with the current game version.

I remember playing a game with one of the public betas and was able to take a Hetzer from a couple hundred meters in the side with a 10 that I carefully moved into postion totally unknown to my opponent. Stalked that Hetz for about 10 minutes and when I finally got a shot at him he breed in one turn. Turned ou that he had paid for a vet hetz... muahhahahahah.