Could someone try to explain this to me...

[Billy Riley]

It's probably no surprise to anyone who reda my post that I am a little infuriated with the German campaign, indded I cannot get past the second Mission - Dunkirk.

Particularly, rather bemused by the "inexperienced" uber accurate and deadly French, and the pathetically, almost indecent, innacurate Germans.

However, specifically,I'm missing the numbers or reading them incorrectly perhaps, but I could do with one of you armchair generals explaining this to me...

I have a Pz38t with a 37mm KwK 38(t) L/45 - I'm not showing off here ...it doesn't mean a great deal to me...just reading what the game is telling me. Now the APHE for this tank, of which it has 15, have armour penetration values of

100m - 47mm

500m - 38mm

1000m - 31mm

and so on.

Well, I've inched this tank up the right hand flank of this map and eventually get a sighting on a French tank - a FT-17. Now this tank has, apparently, armour protection of...

Hull f16 s16 ba16 t8

Turret f22 s22 ba22 t8

Now, by my reckoning, my Pz38t should be able to penetrate this tank, from the front with APHE at >1000m.

Now, taking into account innacuracies in figures i.e. not taking the printed figures as gospel, is it not reasonable to assume that at <500 range, I should be able to knock this out?

As it played out, I was 130 yards away and I used ALL 15 rounds of APHE, each one hitting, and I did see them hit, and this thing was still alive!

I reloaded the scenario and went to the same location but farther to the east this time and again, all rounds bouncing off even though I had closed to 70m...then I was taken out by a French AT gun from what must've been 800m or so on the far bank up on the hill??

I'm not bothered about being taken out at that distance...it's perfectly feasible I'm sure. I don't know what kind of French gun it was or it's abilities and range effectiveness.

Now, I am a novice at this game, but giving the user the information i.e. armour protection, armour penetration values, range, allows them to make educated guesses as to where they have to be to make an impact on the field...but removing the effectiveness of that information by porked calculations in the background is counter productive and infuriating...I've played this damn scenario about 20 times now with no progress and easy difficulty!. Sure, if I close to within 200m of an FT-17, I'm sure there will be a few rounds that hit at a funny angle...but all 15? And no sign of visible damage? No gun knocked out? No track knocked off? No damaged turret?

Now, if I am wrong, then I'm all ears as to why a Pz38t at 130m and >100m cannot penetrate the armour of a FT-17 with APHE ammunition.

[Flanker15]

Is it penetrating though? Do you see shell holes when the shots hit or not? The shots could be penetrating and not causing critical damage (if you see shell holes it means the shot penetrated. Also the penetration lists don't take into account armor slope.

[Reichenberg]

Billy Riley, did the FT17 actually shot back still or was moving, reacting or doing something other than sitting there and not being blown up??

I am asking because it is possible that your rounds penetrated the poor French bastard (no offence here ), killed all the crew members and exited the tank on the back side.

Your tank crew just sees hits on the tank, but no clear sign of the destruction of the tank. Maybe you can pick a save game of that scenario, have your Pz38t pound on the FT17 for a few times (with clear hits on the armour of the French tank) and stop shooting then - is the FT17 still acting now, or is it just sitting there??

Uwe

[Billy Riley]

I don't see any penetration.

And armour slope? I know it makes a hell of a difference, so what am I meant to take these tanks out with if my Pz38t is useless, regardless of effective range, because of armour slope?

I might as well chuck ice creams at them. Does the editor have an ice cream van in it?

[Stoppelhopser]

I also remember being astonished hitting the FT17 several times with 37mm AP or APHE from 35(t) or 38(t) in this infamous scenario without doing it any measurable harm.

I don't know, sometimes light armoured vehicles seem to be harder than they really were.

In the Moscow campaign I had a BT7 that was hit repeatedly by 3,7cm from several PzIII and had no holes in the turret and no wounded and carried on. In reality 20mm AP was quite enough for tanks like BT and T26...

I don't know if its the values of these vehicles or maybe some piece of code which gives these results sometimes.

In later war scenarios I find the "gun disable" hits happening much too often to be believeable.

[terra]

Originally posted by Stoppelhopser:

In later war scenarios I find the "gun disable" hits happening much too often to be believeable.

Yes, it seems to happen a lot more then hull being penetrated... which is odd, because the tanks had massive amounts of armour around the gun, compared to the hull.

However, on the Dunkirk mission, I found it easy to knock out the Renault FT17 or ...err ... disable his gun.

[Freeboy]

there was a butg in an early addition, make sure u patch to the most recent patch.. I remember a sole red army tank, one of the little ones as a sole attacker against about eith german tanks just pummeling it,, without scratching it.. so if you are updated, I have no clue, your roundsshould knock it out. pause game and zoom in on the enemy tank and see it your round did indeed penetrate it, shown by round holes

good luck