Is vertical part of valentines front hull impossible to hit?

[illo]

CM:BB lists Valentine upper hull as 30mm at 68 degrees.

75L24 AP doesnt have ANY changes to penetrate valentine frontally.

Tanks dont even bother to shoot.

1. Shouldnt there be fair (50/50 or more) change that round would hit vertical surface (60mm) of upper hull?

2. Is this surface modeled in CMBB?

3. If yes, why doesnt 75L24 AP shot have changes to penetrate it even under 100m?

I had kill change "none" from 50m and I would suppose gun that penetrates 60mm at 100m(by CMBB info screen) would have even slight change at 50m range against vertical surface.

I would guess almost all rounds that hit 68degrees sloped part would deflect and continue to hit vertical armor.

Btw. PzKpfw. IV has quite similar front hull profile but only vertical surface is modeled in CMBB.(Atleast in info screen) Just the opposite what we see on valentine.

[ December 11, 2002, 10:19 PM: Message edited by: illo ]

[Redwolf]

There is only a limited number of different armor plates that the current engine can handle.

You always have the 1% chance of weak spot penetration, though.

[illo]

Well that seems to scew results quite much making valentine act in early war like super sloped t-34.

Maybe somekind of curved armor value would work better in this case. (Like the one we have in stugs)

All tanks could be abstracted with same basis.

[ December 12, 2002, 06:37 AM: Message edited by: illo ]

[Redwolf]

A shot trap may work, too. It increases the chance of weak spot penetration. Not sure, the CM shot trap may only apply on turret hits.

[MikeyD]

They could include a 'penetration at weak point' thing to balance things out, but I've never seen that pop up while playing with Valentines.

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by MikeyD:

They could include a 'penetration at weak point' thing to balance things out, but I've never seen that pop up while playing with Valentines.

Every hit on every armored vehicle has at least a 1% chance of weak spot penetration in CM. If it has spot trap it has a bigger chance - which might be the right thing to do with the Valentine.

[Pascal DI FOLCO]

Looking at the pic, I see LOWER hull plate @68° and UPPER hull plate at 0° ...

If the lower plate is indeed "upper hull", where is the "lower hull" ??

Look at a PzIV, arrangement looks globally similar, upper plate is just somewhat bigger :

[Sardaukar]

That is indeed interesting question: What consists of "upper hull" and "lower hull" in CMBB ? I think small clarification might be good here.

Cheers,

M.S.

[Redwolf]

Well, the CM model has two entries for front hull plates.

If your actual vehicle has three, then you have to kick out one of them, which means ignore it. You have to pick your two entries.

For the Pz IV this isn't a real problem since it is low-slope armor anyway. But for the Valentine a trick to patch it up may be appropriate, like giving it a shot trap.

[Terrapin]

Originally posted by redwolf:

But for the Valentine a trick to patch it up may be appropriate, like giving it a shot trap.

I agree.

[Silvio Manuel]

Originally posted by redwolf:

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

They could include a 'penetration at weak point' thing to balance things out, but I've never seen that pop up while playing with Valentines.

Every hit on every armored vehicle has at least a 1% chance of weak spot penetration in CM. If it has spot trap it has a bigger chance - which might be the right thing to do with the Valentine.</font>

[illo]

Lets compare PzKpfw IV and Valentine.

Both have "vertical" front hull plate where vision slit for driver is located. Lets call it "driver plate".

Driver plate % of whole front hull.

Valentine ca. 30%

PzKpfw IV ca. 33%

Driver plate CM:BB hit change of all front hull hits.

Valentine 0%

PzKpfw 50% or more.

I think this is unreasonable.

Here I Photoshopped little graphical example.

Red lines are how CM:BB abstracts armor.

[illo]

DOUH!!.. I forgot huge compression ratio on for jpgs.

Well, I hope you get the idea.

[Guest Mike]

One point to remember is that the vertical section of het Valentine hull does not extend across teh whole width of teh hull as it does on the P-4.

Instead it is at it's maximum height for only a couple of feet in width, and then slopes away to the sides of the hull - you can sort of see the effect from this drawing of the driver's station looking forwards.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by illo:

Lets compare PzKpfw IV and Valentine.

Both have "vertical" front hull plate where vision slit for driver is located. Lets call it "driver plate".

Driver plate % of whole front hull.

Valentine ca. 30%

PzKpfw IV ca. 33%

Driver plate CM:BB hit change of all front hull hits.

Valentine 0%

PzKpfw 50% or more.

I think this is unreasonable.

You have to look at it from the front - while I agree with your basic point (ISTR we had a discussion on this in beta days), it is not 30 vx 33 - the Valentine driver plate does not go across the whole front like the Panzer IV's does. Looking at a side-cutaway gives a completely wrong impression.

You can see that quite well here:

[Redwolf]

Good pics, thanks.

On the other hand, since the vertical plate is directly in the center of the vehicle's front the statistcal probablity to hit it is higher per square cm than for plates more off the center.

[illo]

Thanks andreas.

I would like to know if outlined areas are vertical surfaces. If so its actually quite bit larger than 30%.

[Redwolf]

The boxes on top of the tracks most probably contain main gun ammunition. It isn't clear from the crew compartment drawing above.

The whole construction clearly doesn't look like it is especially robust against 75mm L/24.

However, the claim that it is inpenetratable isn't correct either, the Pz IVD has a "rare" kill chance up to 400m, without HC. That is certainly tactically exploitable.

I still think the best solution is to give that ox a "shot trap" rating.

[Foxbat]

Originally posted by illo:

Thanks andreas.

I would like to know if outlined areas are vertical surfaces. If so its actually quite bit larger than 30%.

Only the middle "box" (with the driver's vision slit) can meaningfully be considered a vertical surface for purposes of determening armor protection (penetrating the side "boxes" won't have a very meaningfull effect).

And translating that too a shottrap would probably underestimate the armour value. That would mean 30mm@68/2=40mm effective armor [hope I did my math right, it's late...] in 10% of the frontal hits, whereas in reality it is probably less then 10% of the frontal that is vertical and which has 60mm of armor. Meaning it would overestimate the chance of hitting the vertical plate and underestimate it's armor thickness...

And let's not forget that at the time the Valentine's armor was considered to be impressive.

[Foxbat]

Now this is a boxy tank:

[ December 13, 2002, 09:12 PM: Message edited by: Foxbat ]

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Foxbat:

Only the middle "box" (with the driver's vision slit) can meaningfully be considered a vertical surface for purposes of determening armor protection (penetrating the side "boxes" won't have a very meaningfull effect).

And translating that too a shottrap would probably underestimate the armour value. That would mean 30mm@68/2=40mm effective armor [hope I did my math right, it's late...] in 10% of the frontal hits, whereas in reality it is probably less then 10% of the frontal that is vertical and which has 60mm of armor. Meaning it would overestimate the chance of hitting the vertical plate and underestimate it's armor thickness...

But the hit probably per square inch is higher the nearer you are to the center of mass. So if the plate is 8% but in the middle then it may very well get 16% or so of the hits, depending on what shot distribution BFC chose. And depending on range, a nearer tank would place more hits in this field than a far tank.

[illo]

Only the middle "box" (with the driver's vision slit) can meaningfully be considered a vertical surface for purposes of determening armor protection (penetrating the side "boxes" won't have a very meaningfull effect).

Could you explain me how hitting hull part you call "side box" in Valentine. Differs from hitting of front plate in PZKpfw IV?

As you can see from profile inside those boxes were crew compartment. No additional armor is underneath them.

75mm round inside crew compartment will have some meaningful effect. :/

[ December 13, 2002, 11:35 PM: Message edited by: illo ]

[illo]

Its part of front armor not a side box. [edit]after looking some more pics it seems extension over tracks could be ammo storage. However parts visible over driver plate slopes are actually also front plate. So those slopes at sides wont have much effect considering shots coming directly from front.[/edit]

Isn't this vertical armor plate?

[ December 13, 2002, 11:31 PM: Message edited by: illo ]

[illo]

However, the claim that it is inpenetratable isn't correct either, the Pz IVD has a "rare" kill chance up to 400m, without HC. That is certainly tactically exploitable.

Thanks, that seems quite reasonable.

My tanks must have been shooting slightly off angle then.

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by illo:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Only the middle "box" (with the driver's vision slit) can meaningfully be considered a vertical surface for purposes of determening armor protection (penetrating the side "boxes" won't have a very meaningfull effect).

Could you explain me how hitting hull part you call "side box" in Valentine. Differs from hitting of front plate in PZKpfw IV?

As you can see from profile inside those boxes were crew compartment. No additional armor is underneath them.

75mm round inside crew compartment will have some meaningful effect. :/</font>