Armour penetration and repeated hits.

[Battlefront.com]

CMx2 will have a more detailed armor model than CMx1, that's for sure. One of the things we will need to track, in some ways, is where the round hit and what possible negative ramification that might lead to. The most obvious one, which in a quick scan of this thread I didn't see, is reactive armor. Reactive armor only works once in that location. The amount of the protective layer that is lost is not insubstantial due to the nature of how the system works. So in theory if you had a tank with reactive armor, you might survive one hit to the turret side, but the next hit might sail through both sides of the turret because the reactive armor is no longer there to defeat the round.

Steve

[SgtMuhammed]

Even rounds that don't shatter the armor can do nasty things to the stuff behind it. Radios can be busted or disconnected, turrets can jam, etc. I would love to see a more extensive list of possible hits. How about a hit that knocks out the stearing linkage? What do you do with a tank that can only go forward and back?

The ability to disable without killing a tank (more so than you can now) would give a more realistic veiw of combat losses.

[SgtMuhammed]

Reactive Armor?!

Are we opening the possibility for Cold War and beyond?

[ozi_digger]

I know I've been harping on a bit lately about weaponeering in other threads, but Morris Driel in Weaponeering: Conventional Weapon System Effectiveness covers some of this stuff.

One area he covers is P(kill) given more than one round is needed to kill a target. He says such calculations can be done using the binomial distribution function in a M$ spreadsheet (p. 244-246).

Second area is Target Representation (pp. 363-369). Basically you divide up a target (his e.g. is a tank) into 4"x4" squares and each square hit has a P(effect) e.g. kill, mobility kill, firepower kill. These squares can also be represented at the component level, i.e. a hit at this square will affect this component. A simpler method is offered by dividing the tank up into larger panels or compartments which, when hit, produce effects based on a Monte Carlo sample of the 4"x4" boxes. Driels even offers a simple programming loop structure to do this.

I guess the thing is, for reactive armour, that you program cell/compartment/panel x,y,z needs more than one hit to create an effect (kill/mobility/firepower). When hit the first time it creates a register. In essence, the prog checks the register every time the tank is struck.

From a wargaming perspective, I find some of Driel's stuff fascinating and his model for tracking pin-point hits on a vehicle has the potential to offer some enhanced realism.

[Ardem]

Originally posted by Mike:

Just a note on someone's comment that the tank commander always gets killed - that isn't so - it's jsut that he has to fill in the now vacant crew position!!

I should of said shifted not killed, sorry i know what I meant <smile>

Which is incorrect, if a driver got hit the radioman would get into the Drivers seat.

If the gunner was killed perhaps the TC would take over that role.

The radioman was more likely be used as the spare man not the TC, if the driver and radio man both died, you may find the TC, loader and gunner, decide not to bail and may fight a little while longer.

Again this is more pointed at german tank crews which had 5 men rather then 4.

But I would prefer the actual decision on modelling the inside positions of the tank better.

[Sivodsi]

"but the next hit might sail through both sides of the turret because the reactive armor is no longer there to defeat the round"

er is that assuming the reactive armor on the other side was also hit???

[JonS]

siv - which way does reactive armour work? Which side of the steel is it on?

[Michael Emrys]

Well, it would be hell on a round exiting the other side!

Michael

[Ardem]

Jeez the kinetic energy lost in punching a hole in the armour probably be not be enough to punch out the other side regardless of reactive armour.

I don't remember photograph of too many swiss cheese tanks, although yes with light armour it was possible.

[Battlefront.com]

sgtgoody, remember we are trying to think of pretty much everything while we make the engine so we don't have any surprises later on. Horses, reactive armor, laser weapons, whatever... we need to be thinking of this stuff so we don't box ourselves in with the basic code structure.

Reactive armor has a nasty habit of rendering the vehicle (and nearby infantry) useless. The main purpose is to protect the crew and at least give the vehicle a chance of at least retreating under its own power. Of course, not all reactive packages are created equally. Likewise, if you have no reactive armor on your topside and you get shot at with a top attack ATGM... lot a good it does! Actually, Javelin and LOSAT missiles aren't bothered by Soviet/Russian style reactive armor.

We are planning on allowing vehicle systems damage. So yeah, in theory you could find your tank drivable, but no turret traverse. But we'll just have to see how much we get in right away and how much will wait to later.

Steve

[Soddball]

The new game will be set in Assyria in 3,800 BC!! Steve's above post confirms it!

[Bigduke6]

I sure would like to see a way you could use AP rounds to batter through tank armor with cumulative hits, as in the Soviets reported about tests on a TigerII in this linky:

http://www.battlefield.ru/library/weapons5_r.html

And as is pictured in this linky:

http://www.battlefield.ru/library/weapons7_r.html

It sure would be great to fight face-hardened plate armor with lots of high-caliber rounds. It would be even better if there was a way the damage could accumulate algorithmically, so that the first hit weakens the armor a bit, but the fourth of fifth het weakens the armor a good deal more than a bit, and the bigger the rounds hitting, the faster the degradation.

Reactive armor as far as I know is designed to defeat HEAT warheads by exploding outward, as the HEAT warhead explodes inward (towards the tank's interior), and so hopefully the force of the HEAT warhead is cancelled out by the reactive armor.

AP (or HVFSAP these days) pretty much ignores reactive armor, so a game engine would have to make the reactive armor effective against HEAT, but negligible against AP.

Steve, just so you know, the Russians and Ukrainians mount reactive armor on the tops of their tank turrets these days, sometimes, and the official word in Moscow and Kiev is that that armor will in fact stop a top-down HEAT attack from Javelin or similar. I have no idea if it's true though, and I doubt very seriously either country has tested their vehicles against Javelins.

The Pentagon apparently is not absolutely sure of the answer to that question itself, they have been trying to buy a couple of copies of T-84 and/or and T-90 for years, but so far the Russians and Ukrainians aren't selling.

[kipanderson]

Hi,

I agree with flammingknives; it is a very close comparison between face-hardened plate of WWII and the first generation of Chobham amour as used in the 80s and early 90s.

When it comes to “reactive” amour it is important to distinguish it from “active hard kill” defensive aids systems. These are now fully mature, if not fully deployed, by all the more players. Hard kill, defensive aids shoot down/disrupt incoming ATGMs by firing directional grenades, almost flying claymore mines, into the path of the ATGMs.

The system that really started all this off, the first to be taken to full maturity and work, was the Russian Arena system of the early and mid 90s. It was demonstrated to the Germans in ’97 and caused something of a panic. According to the Israeli versions of Jane’s, Defence Update, it would have “devastated” the Hellfire and TOW generation of western ATGMs.

Anyway… every, or almost every issue of Jane’s Defence Review and Defence Weekly, are now full of information on such hard kill systems from all major countries. If ever there were a war between industrialised nations, from the off, all sides would deploy them as standard. It is a very good example of systems that are fully developed by all countries “just in case” there is a major war, but are not really needed in wars against Third World nations.

It is also a good example of how the tank just will not roll over die. Tandem, top-attack ATGMs were meant to be the end of the tank as we know it, but as long ago as the mid 90s there were answers to the threat they posed.

I know what follows is one of my standard rants but never confuse what we have all seen in both Gulf Wars with what would have happened if First World nations, including the Russians, had gone had gone up against each other. All the major players have land warfare technology, taken to maturity, in the same ball park as the US. It is just that because there is no immediate threat nations tend not to deploy/series produce the kit. Nations tend to take these systems to maturity and then leave then sitting on the shelf until needed. Sometimes produced in small numbers for export.

All very good fun,

Very much hoping any contemporary very version of CMX2 will allow us to fight First World v First World battles shame not to

All the best,

Kip.

[Folbec]

Originally posted by stoat:

In CMx2 will we see undermanned tanks? I don't mean just losing a crewman in battle, but starting out in a Sherman with four crewmen, for example.

It's in CMx1. Use random losses in QB.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Folbec:

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

In CMx2 will we see undermanned tanks? I don't mean just losing a crewman in battle, but starting out in a Sherman with four crewmen, for example.

It's in CMx1. Use random losses in QB. </font>

[Brent Pollock]

...and just to clarify, random losses do affect vehicles, but they affect the entire vehicle & crew as a single entity, not just bits of the crew.

[YankeeDog]

In re: crew losses.

'twould be great to see modeling of who, exactly gets hit.

Another element that needs to be considered is the internal design of the specific AFV, and how quickly and easily one crew member can take over another's job.

The Stuart, for example, has redundant drive controls for the Radio Operator, so he can take over driving the tank very quickly if just the driver gets hit. I'm not sure, but I think the T-34 may have had this arrangement as well. On the other side of the spectrum, in some tanks it is not possible to get from the turret to the forward compartment where the driver (& radio op/bow MG/whatever, if the tank has one) sat without going outside the tank.

Cheers,

YD

[roqf77]

depends on the t-34 i think? maybe im wrong but im sure that many did not have radios until late war though.

[Battlefront.com]

Steve, just so you know, the Russians and Ukrainians mount reactive armor on the tops of their tank turrets these days, sometimes, and the official word in Moscow and Kiev is that that armor will in fact stop a top-down HEAT attack from Javelin or similar. I have no idea if it's true though, and I doubt very seriously either country has tested their vehicles against Javelins.

Yup, seen it. Also personally seen a Javelin kill a T-72 with roof reactive armor at 2500m. The result was a total kill, though there was only simulated ammo in it. The test before had full ammo loadout and it was, well, more dramatic

The "active hard kill" stuff Kip talked about is still far from universally deployed. On top of that, it is unlikely to be found in 3rd world nations. They can't afford such systems, or at least in any great numbers. Heck, there are still a ton of T-54s running around this world with only minor upgrade packages on them.

Steve

[SgtMuhammed]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Heck, there are still a ton of T-54s running around this world with only minor upgrade packages on them.

Steve

Shoot, there are still T34's as well.

[dalem]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

Huh? ISTM it doesn't effect crews of any kind - infantry support weapons or vehicles. They always have full crews regardless of random losses.

Pre-battle casualties definitely affect SW crews. I don't recall any vehicle crews being affected, but whole vehicles will be taken as casualites instead.

-dale

[Bigduke6]

Steve,

Not that I'm claiming it's gospel, but the Russian and Ukrainian armor boffins will tell you a T-84 and/or a T-90, and the reactive armor they are sticking on it there days, is a long durn way from T-72. I wouldn't point it out except that they seem so sure. Complicated arguements about mircrodelays on the reactive armor charges to defeat the incoming round's own delay, sequential detonations of adjacent blocks to make the jet cone go more lateral stuff like that.

I've seen the stuff defeat an RPG round, but maybe Javelin is a different kettle of Space Lobsters.

[Bigduke6]

As to the T-34 -

Only the driver could drive the tank. The machine gunner/radio operator wasn't trained for it, and he had no means of driving the vehicle, except physically sitting in the driver's position.

At least officially, all T-34s were equipped with radios, and the MG gunner was trained and responsible to run communications.

Source - ГАБТУ КА. ТАНК Т-34 в БОЮ. Краткое пособие. Воениздат НКО СССР, 1942

(This is the Red Army operator's manual/user's handbook for the T-34 tank, 1942)

I know for sure the Soviets were big on flags as well, as radios didn't always work, due either to lack of quality, terrain, or combat noise. The Soviets say their radio quality improved dramatically as the war went on.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

differences between tanks are marginal these days. it's nothing like in WW2. even several decades old tanks can confront most modern tanks, with cheap modernizations. it's not just getting things like reactive armor, but ability to KO modern tanks.

i talked with a Finnish tanker some time ago and he considered the modernized Finnish T-55 to be a better tank, on some parts, than the Finnish Leopard 2A4. he said the FCS is as good and T-55 actually has better AP ammo. survivability and mobility are of course a lot worse. still amazing for something as ancient as T-55.

one thing that has changed things is the accuracy of the most recent generation of AT weapons systems. if a tank has a known weak spot, AT weapons have good chances of being able to hit it. for example here's a video from a demo day of Finnish defence forces, it shows EuroSpike AT missile being shot in right thru T-54's machinegun port: EuroSpike vs T-54

[YankeeDog]

Originally posted by Bigduke6:

As to the T-34 -

Only the driver could drive the tank. The machine gunner/radio operator wasn't trained for it, and he had no means of driving the vehicle, except physically sitting in the driver's position.

I can't say whether or not the Bow MG/radio op. had any official training in driving the tank, but in the field, many of them definitely learned.

I've read multiple stories of the bow MG gunner taking over the driving duties in combat when the drive is wounded/killed.