Optics in CMBB - how are they better?

[Little_Black_Devil]

Okay - I did a search, and could not find anything immeadiately relevant to my question.

What I want to know is what was changed to the optics in CMBB? How will they be "better" than what we currently have in CMBO?

I recall reading something a while back (that I foolishly didn't bookmark), which briefly touched on this topic.

Essentially, the jist of what I remember, was that CMBB optics will play alot more on the fog of war, and that range will now actually be a benefit for weapons which were designed to make use of it (like the Nashorn or Elephant for instance).

Anti-tank guns, and Tank Destroyers will finally be able to use range so as to stand off from the enemy, or ambush him without fear of being immediately compromised and then honed in on by the "hive mind".

I just can't recall all of the specifics.

Can anyone help?

[edgars]

Considering the fact, the we have no optics modelled in CMBO...

Yes, optics will be improved in CMBB due to the fact that optics will be modelled.

[John Kettler]

As one of the attendees at the SoCal Sneak Preview, I saw firsthand a) that optics are in, in that they were rated on the data card for the tank I was using; and what good optics can do when combined with high quality crews (veteran and crack).

Given that optics on the tank I was using listed a category called "good," I believe it would be reasonable to infer the existence of several other

such quality levels, both better and worse.

I can also tell you from direct experience that the combining of high quality crews with good optics makes for fearsome military capability. Tank gunnery improved dramatically, so much so that even

small dug-in AT guns in brush which opened fire were taken out with only a few shots, this under extreme FOW. Let's further say that the tank guns were smallish, with puny blast radii.

I can only imagine what a dug-in 88 on the steppe will be able to do, now that that lovely rangefinder will be explicitly included. Preliminary reports suggest a single gun can get ten kills and still remain unlocalized by the enemy. Based on what I saw, and engagement ranges as great as 800 meters plus (LOS upwards of 2000 meters at times) in the battle I fought, weapons like the Nashorn, Tiger, Marders of several stripes, etc., will be really worth buying, for they'll be able to exploit their long engagement range and mobility, rather than simply being overloaded, outtraversed and overwhelmed in engagements which start at almost spitting distance.

Bluntly put, people are going to need to fundamentally rethink their entire approach to armored warfare, especially with command and control factored in. This holds especially true for the Russians early in the war, but T-34s move amazingly fast...once you get them to act on their orders. Since I was concentrating on battle tactics, I didn't ever check the T-34's data card, hence have no idea how good its optics may be.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

John Kettler

[aka_tom_w]

I have not been to any previews...

BUT if I understand this issue correctly, better optics is VERY closely related to the ability to accurately determine the range to the target. Most German optics in tanks had superior range finding capability due to the way they were designed. I'm afraid I don't know much about Russian gunnery optics. With Optics now being modeled in CMBB, we can see (from the previews) that experienced crews can now determine range and target location and the shot fall more accurately and this (it would seem) can be modeled more correctly in CMBB resulting in the units being able to get the shot on target with fewer misses I would guess, this means (I suspect) MORE first shot kills and much quicker ability (within 2-3 shots for an experienced crew) to accuratly lay the round on the target.

I know it is ONLY a video game but if you want to play around with WWII gun accuracy and range determintation check out Panzer Elite (Special Edition now available) and play both the Germans and American with REALISTIC ballistics and try to determine the range and site the gun and lay the round on target while in the middle of a tank battle while being shot at from things you can't see! Its like CMBO with Ironman (Frankco's) rules (view the battle from level one only) STRICTLY enforced. Its clear to me the German sights have the advantage in range determination.

check out these sites for more info:

http://www.simhq.com/simhq3/sims/turret/pegunnery/pegunnery.shtml

http://www.panzerelite.com/zeiss/zeiss.html

and this page ALONE has good info on range determination:

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~pref8u/PEgunneryGER.htm

see this pic

"These Tips require the 1000m calibration for the German Site - else it isn't really "full realism" gunnery

PE's german gunsight is calibrated for 500m. To get the 1000m calibration just use notepad or edit to open PE_Game.ini from in C:\Program Files\Psygnosis\Panzer Elite\Data and change aimscale1=16384 and aimscale2=16384 for both zoom levels of the german sight. This does not effect the mg sights or US sights. P.S. The big triangles height in the german sight is 4m at 1000m and the smalls are 2m at 1000m. This lets you estimate the range to the target by how much triangle is covered by the target.

TIP 1: How to gauge range with the German Sight

After estimating the range by how much triangle the tank covers set the sight to that range by using F9 / F10, Depending on where your shot lands you may change the range setting or just move the sight to compensate for how much you missed." End Quote from Page.

tom notes:

That pic above assumes the gunner has identified a Allied Sherman and KNOWS it is 3 meters high, then doing FAST math in his head he figures if that 3 meter object takes up ALL if my 4m (the big one) triangle then the target must be 750m (3/4 of 1000m) away and I will then dial in the correct range before I fire to hit the target. You can see this makes sense when the target is 3m high and takes up .75 of the big triangle the the gunner then guesses that the target is 1000m away.

hows that?

(I have been practicing at PE gunnery using the German Panzer Mk IV, on my best day with an "Outstanding crew" using REALISTIC ballistics (I aimed, and HIT "by hand" (on the mouse) each kill acting alone as the gunner), I had 33 kills in one turkey shoot scenario (La Haye) using all the AP and HE I had. I accounted for 33 dead Allied Sherms at an average range of 1450m from a GOOD hill top position overlooking a valley that they were all advancing into. This was a very unusual result. But it sure was FUN!

-tom w

P.S. Can't wait for CMBB???

Try Panzer Elite in the mean time!

[ August 15, 2002, 05:00 AM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

[Bastables]

heh PE. I remember the insanity of shooting at PIV I could not even see due to the elevation of the sight required, thanks to the worthless Sherman optics.

[Moon]

Better rangefinding is only one of the capabilities of good optics that CMBB models. But there is more than that. Narrow field of view making tracking of moving targets more difficult for some tanks(especially at close ranges), for example. Or nighttime and adverse weather (including temperature) sighting abilities (impacting ranges and spotting chances). Besides simply rating optics as "good", other "ratings" include for example "narrow" or "long range" or "binocular" to simulate this.

Martin

[Ari Maenpaa]

Originally posted by Moon:

... Besides simply rating optics as "good", other "ratings" include for example "narrow" or "long range" or "binocular" to simulate this.

Martin

Now this is really getting better than I had even hoped for. Sounds very nice indeed.

Heh, I'm sure we are going to have long and interesting discussions concerning these new features after the game's releaese.

Ari

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Moon:

[snips]Besides simply rating optics as "good", other "ratings" include for example "narrow" or "long range" or "binocular" to simulate this.

What difference are binocular sights supposed to make?

All the best,

John.

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Moon:

Better rangefinding is only one of the capabilities of good optics that CMBB models. But there is more than that. Narrow field of view making tracking of moving targets more difficult for some tanks(especially at close ranges), for example. Or nighttime and adverse weather (including temperature) sighting abilities (impacting ranges and spotting chances). Besides simply rating optics as "good", other "ratings" include for example "narrow" or "long range" or "binocular" to simulate this.

Martin

Thanks for the reply Martin !

That sounds great. We are all (I think ) enthusiastically awaiting CMBB AND its new optics modeling! Your post makes it sound like CMBB will be MUCH more historically accurate and realistic with regard to gunnery optics compared its earlier and now becoming, distant cousin, CMBO! (he he Little gunnery range joke there, get it? "distant"? Ok its early it was a BAD joke.... chortle)

You know we JUST CAN'T WAIT to play with and the new ballistics, gunnery, damage and optics models in CMBB (not to mention Extreme FOW and all the rest of the goodies!!! )

-tom w

[ August 15, 2002, 09:07 AM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

[tools4fools]

Originally posted by John D Salt:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Moon:

[snips]Besides simply rating optics as "good", other "ratings" include for example "narrow" or "long range" or "binocular" to simulate this.

What difference are binocular sights supposed to make?

All the best,

John.</font>

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by tools4fools:

[snips -- I asked what difference binocular sights would make]

Only guessing here, but

"Narrow field of view making tracking of moving targets more difficult for some tanks(especially at close ranges), for example"

as stated by Moon might be a problem with binocular optics. Advantage for those could be magnification on long range then.

But there's no correlation between binocularity, field-of-view (FOV) and magnification, is there? Surely it's FOV and mag that matter, not the number of eyepieces.

The only case I can find, on the very limited information available to me, of binocular and monocular sights having important differences in these respects is the case of the TZF12 and 12a, as mounted in the Panther. In this case the binocular version has a greater FOV than the monocular, although the same magnification. However, the monocular sight relaced the binocular one in service.

All the best,

John.

[aka_tom_w]

Maybe he was refering to binocular "Donkeys ears" which the spotter on the 88 anti tank flak gun would have used to more accurately determine range.

Binocular opitics may in fact only refer to an enhanced ability to determine range when used by the spotter, (eg the commander of a tank or the spotter on an 88mm AT flak gun?)

Just guessing?

-tom w

[YankeeDog]

Originally posted by John D Salt:

But there's no correlation between binocularity, field-of-view (FOV) and magnification, is there? Surely it's FOV and mag that matter, not the number of eyepieces.

The only case I can find, on the very limited information available to me, of binocular and monocular sights having important differences in these respects is the case of the TZF12 and 12a, as mounted in the Panther. In this case the binocular version has a greater FOV than the monocular, although the same magnification. However, the monocular sight relaced the binocular one in service.

All the best,

John.

As far as magnification optics in general, binocular magnification devices do not necessarily have narrower FOV. In fact, many modern binocular manufacturers make wide FOV binoculars. It is possible that most WWII era binocular scopes in general were of narrower FOV for some design reason, though. I know very little about WWII optical sighting devices.

In general, the biggest single advantage of binocular devices over monocular ones is that they afford much better depth perception. Looking through a monocular device is just like closing one eye; you can only judge distance by the size of an object and it's position relative to other object (i.e, whether it's behind or in front of something).

This may not seem like a big deal, but for some applications it's very important. Consider the case of a platoon commander looking out across a field for likely enemy hiding places. Through a monocular scope, minor folds in the land will be very difficult to perceive as the scope will 'flatten' the terrain and make relief much more difficult to discern. With binoculars, the lieutenant is going to get a much better picture of the 3-D nature of the terrain in front of him.

Another minor advantage of binoculars is reduced eyestrain; looking through monocular eyepieces for long periods of time gives most people a splitting headache.

There's probably other issues with monocular vs. binocular devices, but that's what I can remember off the top of my head.

Cheers,

YD

[MikeyD]

I understand the monocular sight replaced the binocular sight on Panthers and Tigers because of the difficulty of finding suitable gunners (apparently not everybody has stereo vision!). The old Binocular sight was probably better IF your gunner could operate it. I got that info from Jentz, I think.

The 'quality of gun optics' means just that - quality. The Germans were famous for their high quality lenses that let in a great deal of light and kept the view sharp. The Russians copied their standard gun sight from an old British design, I believe. I recall an Aberdeen Proving Ground test report on the KV-1 heavy tank commented on the low quality gunner optics, including imbedded bubbles in the field of view!

Oh, and talk about accuracy, the 88's hit probability model has been heavily reworked in CMBB. There's much fewer of the old "How could it miss from that range?!" remarks while playing the game. Combining the huge maps, long range high quality optics, and revised hit model it seems the 88 will get back a bit of it's uberweapon mystique!

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by YankeeDog:

As far as magnification optics in general, binocular magnification devices do not necessarily have narrower FOV.

Well, quite. That is why I mentioned that in the only case I could find where FOV differed appreciably between monocular and binocular versions of a sight, it was the binocular version that had the wider FOV.

Originally posted by YankeeDog:

In general, the biggest single advantage of binocular devices over monocular ones is that they afford much better depth perception. [snips]

With binoculars, the lieutenant is going to get a much better picture of the 3-D nature of the terrain in front of him.

That seems pretty unlikely to me. I understand that the stereoscopic effect of human vision vanishes above about 30 metres.

Originally posted by YankeeDog:

Another minor advantage of binoculars is reduced eyestrain; looking through monocular eyepieces for long periods of time gives most people a splitting headache.

Now that seems to make good sense.

All the best,

John.

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by MikeyD:

I understand the monocular sight replaced the binocular sight on Panthers and Tigers because of the difficulty of finding suitable gunners (apparently not everybody has stereo vision!). The old Binocular sight was probably better IF your gunner could operate it. I got that info from Jentz, I think.

The 'quality of gun optics' means just that - quality. The Germans were famous for their high quality lenses that let in a great deal of light and kept the view sharp. The Russians copied their standard gun sight from an old British design, I believe. I recall an Aberdeen Proving Ground test report on the KV-1 heavy tank commented on the low quality gunner optics, including imbedded bubbles in the field of view!

Oh, and talk about accuracy, the 88's hit probability model has been heavily reworked in CMBB. There's much fewer of the old "How could it miss from that range?!" remarks while playing the game. Combining the huge maps, long range high quality optics, and revised hit model it seems the 88 will get back a bit of it's uberweapon mystique!

If they (Steve and/or Charles) are reading this I wonder if I might humbly suggest that the "new" 88mm AT gun be "featured" in one of the Demo Scenarios as a demonstration of the new way it is modeled? (I'm sure they have already thought of that! I hope)

I know we are more than a month away from the release of the demo and demo scenario(s) BUT it would be nice to have the now newly legendary 88mm AT gun in one of them now that optics are in

(I am reminded of the scenario in the orginal CMBO demo (Riesberg I think), where that 88mm was sort of disappointing when it came down to knocking out those attacking Sherms, because it would occasionally miss and then give away its location then rather promptly get knocked out by Sherm HE rounds.

:confused: )

anyway food for thought!

thanks again

-tom w

[ August 15, 2002, 11:20 AM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

[YankeeDog]

Originally posted by John D Salt:

[snip]

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by YankeeDog:

In general, the biggest single advantage of binocular devices over monocular ones is that they afford much better depth perception. [snips]

With binoculars, the lieutenant is going to get a much better picture of the 3-D nature of the terrain in front of him.

That seems pretty unlikely to me. I understand that the stereoscopic effect of human vision vanishes above about 30 metres.

[snip]</font>

[Andrew H.]

The biggest advantage that binocular gunsights have is ease of use; telescopes are actually much more fatiguing to use, especially when the telescope is moving (as in an even slowly moving vehicle) or when the object you are watching is moving. That's one reason why people take binoculars to sporting events (binoculars can also be made shorter than telescopes).

The binocular gunsights on the Panther were not rangefinders and are not like the scissors rangefinders, being only a couple of inches apart. Thus, they would not be of much help in determining range because, as someone else pointed out, depth of field would flatten out at relatively close ranges.

Having binocular gunsights means that you have to drill another hole through the turret front; I wonder if this is why the Panther dropped this idea?

I'm very pleased that CMBB will model not just magnification, but the wide or narrow field of view. The tradeoff in having high magnification is a narrow FOV, and there is such a thing as too much magnification - if you are trying to put your scope on an enemy tank in a treeline, you don't want the magnification to be so great (or the FOV to be so narrow) that each individual leaf on the tree fills the viewfinder.

It's important to note, too, that modeling FOV/magnification is *different* from modeling optical quality, and, with reasonably close optical models, should make a much greater difference than the simple difference in optical quality (which was pretty close between the western allies and Germany in '44).

That is, something like a Nashorn operating at long range, with specialized long range optics, will be far superior to a Sherman, with general purpose optics, not so much because the quality of the Sherman's optics is inferior as because the Nashorn's optics are optimized for firing at the range of, say 2000 meters, while the Sherman's optics are not. (And, in general, you want lower magnification/greater FOV when you're spinning your turret around to fire at at target less than 800 meters away.)

W00T!

[John Kettler]

The usual rangefinder for 88s and other flak guns is not the "donkey's ears," a type usually found in artillery observation and specifically designed for use in observing while protected by a trench. This type also saw service in StuGs and Jagdpanzers, plus some Tigers and Panthers, I believe.

The flak weapons tend to have a one meter or longer

rangefinder which looks like a pipe with inserted optics. It was either held in a special cradle by the range taker or was mounted on a tripod.

I don't have the nomenclature or tech specs handy for either type, but people with detailed references will doubtless appear shortly.

Some here have mentioned the effects of magnification and FOV, but we need to also mention

zoom optics, as opposed to, say, manual optical replacement in a Sherman, and optical filters, which can do all sorts of things to improve gunnery

under otherwise marginal conditions by cutting glare, sharpening images in fog, improving optical contrast, etc.

Having played the aforementioned Panzer Elite myself, I can assure people here that there is a huge difference between what a Sherman can see at a given range and what a Tiger can. Where the Sherman may or may not even be able to see its target, the Tiger can, for example, not only see the target tank, but ID it, then aim at a specific part. This sort of capability is useful for getting both the big picture, then zeroing in on

particular targets. It greatly improves target discrimination. This, by the way, is without anything other than standard fit optics.

With the above in mind, imagine what kind of benefits proper rangefinders will yield when their refined range estimates are grafted onto that received via the already installed optics on the guns and AFVs. Some hint may be gleaned from the German practice of firing MT fuzed 88 shells to strip tank descent infantry prior to engaging the T-34 underneath. This account was from a Panzerjaeger veteran and was reported in the now defunct AFV-G2 magazine.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Moon]

Some good and correct points about binocular systems. Perception of depth IS improved, even without "donkey ears" binoculars systems, and especially when one has to look through the sight for more than just a few minutes. All the points mentioned (ease of use, eye strain etc.) really combine into making binocular systems somewhat superior to a monocular system in viewing quality, which really is what is rated in CMBB, with various implications on gameplay.

The reason why the binocular sights were dropped from what I read was due to ease of production and complexity of design more than anything else.

Dual-magnification optics are taken into consideration, as well as optical fillers (which only the Germans used in a way that it actually improved sighting it seems) and even glass quality (affecting among other things edge sharpness and contrast, the most visible thing are the "bubbles" somebody mentioned in this thread, which were often found in poor Allied sights, especially early war).

Optics with high magnification also behave in the game as you would expect - excelling at long ranges, but rather detrimental when firing at moving targets at short ranges. And so on... but really what has to be kept in mind is this - optics can tilt the favor to one tank or another in a one on one duel, but they are rarely decisive all by themselves, as their effects on armored shootouts, all things considered, are fairly small. In your typical CMBB style combat situation, you can fire at a tank even when you can't see all the bolts on its armor It's the extreme ranges (Steppe) and environmental conditions (fog, night, rain etc.) where differences in optics start to really kick in.

[Andrew H.]

Originally posted by John Kettler:

Some here have mentioned the effects of magnification and FOV, but we need to also mention

zoom optics, as opposed to, say, manual optical replacement in a Sherman, and optical filters, which can do all sorts of things to improve gunnery

under otherwise marginal conditions by cutting glare, sharpening images in fog, improving optical contrast, etc.

Zoom is very handy, and helps deal with FOV issues because you can quickly zoom out. Zoom lenses don't produce as clear a picture as non-zoom (i.e., prime) lenses, but they're definitely what you want to have in a tank battle.

It is important to keep in mind that shooting at a tank is different from photographing a tank, and slight lens imperfections wouldn't compromise gunnery optics at all.

Filters do matter at the margins, especially in glare or low-light situations. Fog is more problematic because of the effect that fog has on lenses. Condensation is one obvious problem, but optics can also get fog on the inside, which is not ideal and which can persist after the actual fog has gone. (Modern higher-quality lenses use generally use a "nitrogen purging" process that replaces the oxygen inside the lenses with nitrogen (or another gas - argon works, too), which prevents fogging on the inside of the optics. I don't think that the Germans did this in WWII, though.

Having played the aforementioned Panzer Elite myself, I can assure people here that there is a huge difference between what a Sherman can see at a given range and what a Tiger can. Where the Sherman may or may not even be able to see its target, the Tiger can, for example, not only see the target tank, but ID it, then aim at a specific part. This sort of capability is useful for getting both the big picture, then zeroing in on

particular targets. It greatly improves target discrimination. This, by the way, is without anything other than standard fit optics.

Is this a result of the magnification and zoom aspect of the lenses, or is it a lens quality issue? That is, is the difference in PE primarily due to the design of the optics or the manufacture of the lenses?

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Moon:

snip

"but really what has

to be kept in mind is this - optics can tilt the favor to one tank or another in a one on one duel, but

they are rarely decisive all by themselves, as their effects on armored shootouts, all things considered,

are fairly small. In your typical CMBB style combat situation, you can fire at a tank even when you can't

see all the bolts on its armor It's the extreme ranges (Steppe) and environmental conditions (fog,

night, rain etc.) where differences in optics start to really kick in."

snip

It's the extreme ranges (Steppe) and environmental conditions (fog,night, rain etc.) where differences in optics start to really kick in.

AS THEY SHOULD..... sounds like all is well with the new optics modeling. !

-tom w

[ August 15, 2002, 06:52 PM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

[rune]

Due to the difference in design. How do I know? I am the one that did research for Teut and am in the manual.

Rune

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Andrew Hedges:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by John Kettler:

Some here have mentioned the effects of magnification and FOV, but we need to also mention

zoom optics, as opposed to, say, manual optical replacement in a Sherman, and optical filters, which can do all sorts of things to improve gunnery

under otherwise marginal conditions by cutting glare, sharpening images in fog, improving optical contrast, etc.

Zoom is very handy, and helps deal with FOV issues because you can quickly zoom out. Zoom lenses don't produce as clear a picture as non-zoom (i.e., prime) lenses, but they're definitely what you want to have in a tank battle.

It is important to keep in mind that shooting at a tank is different from photographing a tank, and slight lens imperfections wouldn't compromise gunnery optics at all.

Filters do matter at the margins, especially in glare or low-light situations. Fog is more problematic because of the effect that fog has on lenses. Condensation is one obvious problem, but optics can also get fog on the inside, which is not ideal and which can persist after the actual fog has gone. (Modern higher-quality lenses use generally use a "nitrogen purging" process that replaces the oxygen inside the lenses with nitrogen (or another gas - argon works, too), which prevents fogging on the inside of the optics. I don't think that the Germans did this in WWII, though.

Having played the aforementioned Panzer Elite myself, I can assure people here that there is a huge difference between what a Sherman can see at a given range and what a Tiger can. Where the Sherman may or may not even be able to see its target, the Tiger can, for example, not only see the target tank, but ID it, then aim at a specific part. This sort of capability is useful for getting both the big picture, then zeroing in on

particular targets. It greatly improves target discrimination. This, by the way, is without anything other than standard fit optics.

Is this a result of the magnification and zoom aspect of the lenses, or is it a lens quality issue? That is, is the difference in PE primarily due to the design of the optics or the manufacture of the lenses?</font>

[Andrew H.]

The design issue is helpful. One of the problems I've always had with optics discussions is the "quality of manufacture" issue, simply because (esp. with Western Allies in '44), the qualitative difference couldn't be large enough to make much difference - to a tanker - except in unusual cases. Moon's "you don't have to be able to count the rivets on the tank to be able to shoot at it" comment sort of sums up the point I had been thinking of (although much more clearly than the examples I kept coming up with.)

But it's nothing but sensible that if you have a scope with a high magnification and the other guy doesn't, you are going to have an advantage if you are dueling at long range.

I'm still skeptical that the mil triangles on the German scope made as much difference as some PE players claim. For one thing, I think a trained gunner - not a computer gamer, necessarily, but an actual tank gunner - would be able to estimate the range pretty well based on the target's apparent size - at least out to about 1000 meters. It's one thing for a player to be able to get some idea of the range by using the aiming triangles; I think that a tank gunner who had actually shot at tank-sized targets in training would have a pretty good idea - not a perfect idea - what the range was. The same would be true of German tankers, of course.

There are reasons US tanks shouldn't fight German tanks at long range, but I think that they have much more to do with the German guns and the telescopic sights than with the rangefinding markers that the gunner had. (Of course, they may have marked the ranges ahead of time anyway).

And of course the next obvious question is...what were soviet optics like?