Jump to content

Vehicle identification ?


Joerg

Recommended Posts

Tanks are often mistaken for other, similar tanks in the game at longer range or low visibility. This can ruin your day when you see a "Tiger?", adjust your tactics to avoid and surround the beast, losing time and a few extra tanks while doing so and then it's only a lousy, rusting old Pz IV. Or you ask yourself how that Stug? can survive 3 hits from a Sherman 75 at 100m.

I'd like to know if you know of any other pairs like

- Tiger/Pz IV

- StuG/Hetzer

that are commonly mistaken for each other ?

And does troop quality help identify them earlier ?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've seen a Panther? that was a Jagdpanther. And I just paid the price for assuming that a Halftrack? was a 251/1, when it was a 20mm 250/9 that ate my prized Scout Car.

I've also seen an M4A3(W)75mm Sherman as a Chaffee?

Some crews are dumb though, like a regular 40mm Bofors crew who thought a PzIV was a Tiger...all the way up to about 80m. Maybe they're programmed to be poor at ID'ing tanks, and better at "ID'ing" F/B's?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Allies have it easy, most of their misidentifications are Tiger?, so you end up treat the harmless panzer IV as a more deadly Tiger and the caution probably saves you several Shermans.

The Germans, on the other hand , identified everything as Sherman? which can be anything from a M4 to a Jumbo or Firefly.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

MisIDing vehicles and other units is a really great touch in CM.

I've gotten burned badly thinking a nashorn was a hummel. Funny thing was, my priest seemed to know it before I did.

"What are you doing? Fire at the Hummel! Don't run! Get back there!"

:thunk:

Crackle, hiss, "1st platoon reporting, that Nashorn just waxed our Priest, what were you thinking commander??"

-marc

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Originally posted by xerxes:

[QB]MisIDing vehicles and other units is a really great touch in CM.

I've gotten burned badly thinking a nashorn was a hummel. Funny thing was, my priest seemed to know it before I did.

"What are you doing? Fire at the Hummel! Don't run! Get back there!"

Priest are rightfully 'fraidy-cats, yet sometimes too brave. I gave one orders to fast-move, with many waypoints, through and QUICKLY out of a PzIV's LOS. However, the Priest stopped dead in its tracks on sighting the PzIV, tried to duel it, and took 2 straight shots, brewing it up. If it had followed orders, it would have been in and out of LOS right quick. Court-martial to the survivors, I say.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey, Joerg, you were the one that insisted on heavy fog. Serves you right, having to chase my "lousy, rusting old Pz IV" all around. I never said I had a Tiger, I just said you'd find out. And you did. Next time you pick heavy fog, I will get a Tiger, just to mess with your head.

I did just finished a game where I saw a Stug III, and it turned out to be a Hetzer. This in clear dry conditions at short ranges, except using green units. My opponent saw my vanilla Sherman as a M-10 throughout the game. So, evidently experience levels has a profound effect on spotting and identifying units.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When a target is ID as say Tiger? I find it helpful to also take into consideration the context in which the ID was made.

For example:

I was just recently playing a scenario that had my Stuarts ID Tigers? all over the place but I noticed that the position and movement of the Tiger was not quite what it should be doing in those circumstances. It was scurrying around in scattered trees moving between hiding spots instead of moving down the nearby roads and clearing my pesky little Stuarts out of the way, which had been hammering away at approaching halftracks. Because of this I had my Stuarts stick around and wait behind some buildings for a good shot and sure enough they began to knockout a couple of those Tigers? from side and front shots. They ended up taking out what turned out to be 4 PzIVs and and a couple of StuGs.

Lesson learned is don't always believe what the ID says but always leave yourself plenty of room to bug out of there just in case.

ps. In my case the graphical depiction looked just like a Tiger but after they were knocked out they looked like a PzIV or StuG but not yet positively identified.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A friend of mine and I always used to have a running joke about mis-identification. Seeing as the JadgTiger is probably the most overpriced, expensive, and therefore most unused German tank (but still you have to fear that 120 mm gun and 250 mm frontal armor), we would always say "see my JadgTiger yet?" when the other guy id'd a Tiger?.

One time in a big battle, I heard this enormous cannon coming from the far eastern side of the map. He kept joking about his JadgTiger, me ignoring it. Of course, it turned out he HAD bought Jadg, and I mis-id'd it the whole game. The sound, however, made me wonder.

It took him the entire game to CRAWL that thing over to the battle, proving how worthless that AFV is. I'm sure he bought it just to take advantage of the running joke.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

i dont think i have ever correctly ID'd a mark IV tank as a mark IV tank! they seem to always wear a tiger? mask. they also commonly ID any tank as the panther.

when you look at history, this was a reality. the AT gun crews and tank crews were scarred to death of the tiger and panther and would almost see things very often! i saw the numbers posted before about how common this was, but BTS got this little point right.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...