CM:N Safe to say 2011?

[dan/california]

I will point out that if Steve wanted to anything about a release date he would have by now. Just saying...

[Migo441]

Very cool Steve!

Where are the Sherman grogs hiding? I would expect identification of the pictured variants and a discussion of their strengths and weaknesses by now.

I was checking out the wikipedia page and was surprised to see that Great Britain received nearly as many M4s as the US Army: 17,184 compared to 19,247.

[Barkhorn1x]

Where are the Sherman grogs hiding?

Well I did point out the Sherman M4A3E2 (Sherman Jumbo) Assault Tank - last one in the last row.

Form Wikipedia: "In June–July 1944, the Army accepted a limited run of 254 M4A3E2 Jumbo Shermans, which had very thick armor, and the 75 mm gun in a new, heavier T23-style turret, in order to assault fortifications."

Yea, that may have been the original intent, but then battalion and company commanders soon figured out that they were quite handy at leading armored columns to act as shot magnets for German AT guns or prowling panzers.

[Praetori]

Hehehe.

I wonder if the "burns easily" trait returns. I always felt it was bogus.

Great to see the .50 in the AA mount modelled. But will be interesting what usage we'll get from them.

I see the M7 Priest but it's a real pity the M12 GMC is juuuust off screen. Right? Right?!

"The British called them "Ronsons", after the cigarette lighter with the slogan "Lights up the first time, every time!""

"The diesel-engined M4A2 used by the Marines was considered far less prone to burn and explode than the diesel Soviet T-34.[1] At first a partial remedy to ammunition fire was found by welding one-inch thick applique armour plates to the vertical sponson sides over the ammunition stowage bins. Later models moved ammunition stowage to the hull floor, with additional water jackets surrounding the main gun ammunition stowage. This decreased the likelihood of "brewing up".

So yes if early and no if late war?

[Dietrich]

Great to see the .50 in the AA mount modelled. But will be interesting what usage we'll get from them.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I reckon I'll get pretty the same use out of them that I get from the turret-mounted 7.62mm MG on any MBT in CMSF. (But I'm sure some grogs will be along shortly to elucidate in excruciating detail how incorrect and unreasonable that reckoning is. )

I wonder if the "burns easily" trait returns. I always felt it was bogus.

"The British called them "Ronsons", after the cigarette lighter with the slogan "Lights up the first time, every time!""

And the Germans called them Tommykocher, "Tommy cookers".

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Ah, but why did Shermans get that reputation? Because they used petrol engines? So did the Germans and they don't get this trait. Oh hell, not even the Panther got the "burns easily" and they caught fire without anyone shooting at it!

Besides, these are tanks loaded to the brim with explosives and the fuel, in the safest area of the tank, is supposed to be that big a factor? Hmmm, that doesn't seem likely.

I'm of the strong belief that there wasn't all that much in the design of the Sherman that made it catch fire any easier then other tanks. IMO it's a case of fairly weak armour meeting up with the potent guns of the Germans. Even the 75L48 is a pretty bad ass gun.

Germans typically had better armour going up against weak Allied guns. So no wonder that they enjoyed a better reputation. But the moment German tanks got shot at with decent guns, they went *woosh* too.

Shermans brewing up should be the natural result of armour v gun, not some magical +2 bonus to catching fire.

[scottie]

No M12 in this release, sorry! That's another M4 model off to the left. As I said there's 6 more.

Volltreffer:

Yeah, crazy isn't it? With this being the first temperate game there's been a ton of things to do and those things each need several rounds of refinement before we're happy with the end results. And then there's just the volume of things that need to be textured, tested, and fixed.

If we had stopped putting in new features and didn't have other games going we would have been done probably 6 months ago. But we found a few things we wanted to get into the first release and we do have other games under development. Which is one reason why we hired Phil as our First Second Programmer. Too much to do even with the amazing work of Webwing on the Modules.

The great news is that with Phil, Cassio, and the work done on Normandy to make both a WW2 and temperate setting... we should be cranking right along from now on.

Steve

Sounds like CM:N is taking a front seat so cannot be too far away now.

[Ron]

Ah, but why did Shermans get that reputation? Because they used petrol engines? So did the Germans and they don't get this trait. Oh hell, not even the Panther got the "burns easily" and they caught fire without anyone shooting at it!

No, they got that reputation due to the design of the ammunition stowage not because of using petrol engines.

The Panther's compact engine compartment was designed to be watertight making it prone to overheating and catching fire early on in its production. As far as a I know the Panther was not susceptible to 'brewing up' as the Shermans.

[Volltreffer]

Thats great to hear Steve... ill be buying any and all releases associated with WW2.....keep up the great work Guys.

No M12 in this release, sorry! That's another M4 model off to the left. As I said there's 6 more.

Volltreffer:

Yeah, crazy isn't it? With this being the first temperate game there's been a ton of things to do and those things each need several rounds of refinement before we're happy with the end results. And then there's just the volume of things that need to be textured, tested, and fixed.

If we had stopped putting in new features and didn't have other games going we would have been done probably 6 months ago. But we found a few things we wanted to get into the first release and we do have other games under development. Which is one reason why we hired Phil as our First Second Programmer. Too much to do even with the amazing work of Webwing on the Modules.

The great news is that with Phil, Cassio, and the work done on Normandy to make both a WW2 and temperate setting... we should be cranking right along from now on.

Steve

[Tactical Wargamer]

Thats great to hear Steve... ill be buying any and all releases associated with WW2.....keep up the great work Guys.

The first module is going to be the commonwealth IIRC. Any idea on the second? I take it with each module they will include some Axis equipment.....or will there be separate Axis modules.

Still have my fingers crossed for an Xmas release!! I like the idea of pre-orders getting the copy a tad earlier

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Normandy>Commonwealth>Arnhem>Odds and ends, IIRC.

[Barkhorn1x]

I take it with each module they will include some Axis equipment.....or will there be separate Axis modules.

Yes, the Axis TO&E will be expanded in each one - no seperate Axis modules.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

No, they got that reputation due to the design of the ammunition stowage not because of using petrol engines.

The Panther's compact engine compartment was designed to be watertight making it prone to overheating and catching fire early on in its production. As far as a I know the Panther was not susceptible to 'brewing up' as the Shermans.

Sorry I wasn't very clear. The petrol engine thing gets trotted out a lot, and as the most erroneous I focussed on that. In hindsight I should have addressed ammo stowage too.

Thing is, early Shermans aren't exactly stowing their ammo in some unusual way to make them cook off. If you look at the Panther ammo stowage, you'll see most (all?) rounds are in the fighting compartment, completely unprotected. So I can't see why their ammo is stored any safer then a Sherman. So I'm highly sceptical that the method of stowage in Shermans was at fault for their reputation. It was a situation helped by better ammo stowage, but it is not at the root of the problem, IMHO.

To be very clear, I expect Shermans to frequently ignite when hit.

But that should be the natural result of what gets hit where with what. Not some mysterious combustion bonus.

Since for the Shermans this typically means weaker armour hit by more powerful German guns, they should still go *woosh* more then most other tanks. As they should.

[Battlefront.com]

Normandy>Commonwealth>Arnhem>Odds and ends, IIRC.

Correct!

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

One of the things about the Sherman is that their own crews viewed them as being prone to burn. The Shermans, not any other Allied tank I know of, earned the nickname "Zippo" by US forces and "Ronson" by Commonwealth forces. Now, it's true that soldiers sometimes are the worst perpetuators of urban myths, but it is interesting that crews of other US and British armored vehicles did not nickname their vehicles based on something flammable.

It is also important to note that the Shermans had a very specific feature added to mitigate brewing up. This is called "Wet Stowage". No other armored vehicle, by any nation, had such a feature added as far as I know. At the very least only the Sherman has it part of its official designation. Which does lend credence to the concern over brewing up by its crews.

That being said, one must take the Shermans burning up thing with some degree of skepticism as one should ANY broad generalization of Shermans. The family is too diverse to make many blanket statements that will hold up.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

An interesting "myth busting" article found here:

http://www.weaponsofwwii.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=41

While I do think there is some case to be made that earlier Shermans may have been more prone to brewing up than others, I also think that it's hard to establish. Which also makes it hard to debunk.

As I said above, it's very difficult to make generalized comments about Shermans because of their huge array of variations. The author points this out too, but then makes the same mistake of generalizing things to support his own point. Specifically, he cites the case of Germans needing to take several shots to brew up a Sherman as evidence that they weren't easy to brew up. But are we talking about several shots to get a (W) equipped Sherman to brew up? Or one of the earlier, lighter armored Shermans without Wet Stowage? One would expect that (W) tanks would take multiple shots to brew up, so it could simply be evidence that later models addressed the earlier problem.

I doubt there will ever be an adequate answer either way.

Steve

[Sitting Duck]

...While I do think there is some case to be made that earlier Shermans may have been more prone to brewing up than others, I also think that it's hard to establish. Which also makes it hard to debunk....I doubt there will ever be an adequate answer either way.

Steve

Ah, but the hours that will be spent discussing and debating the point! Now that your game has returned to the WW2 era, I am expecting to see a lot more of these threads. Let the flow minutia begin!!!!

[Elmar Bijlsma]

A possible explanation I'm considering is that the location of the bulk of a Sherman's ammo is stored right in the area where a gunner would be most inclined to shoot it.

Here's a cutaway drawing of a Sherman

http://www.warchronicle.com/men_and_weapons/tanks/tankinside.jpg

And right in the middle of it, roughly where you expect people to aim, it's practically all ammo storage.

For comparison a Cromwell

http://www.richardchasemore.com/flyingmachine/page17/page5/files/page5-1014-full.html

There, in the middle of the hull there isn't just ammo but also the engine compartment just behind. A shell fired at the middle could just as easily hit the latter as the former, dramatically reducing the chance of ammo cooking off.

Could it be that simple?

Anyway, that's just thinking out loud. If someone can come up with something better to explain the Sherman's singular reputation for brewing up, I'd be very interested

[Michael Emrys]

Could it be that simple?

Could be. Also the fact that the Allies painted a big white star over it to act as a handy aiming point might have had something to do with it.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/us_army_rolling_along/2637170956/

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:M4-Sherman_tank-European_theatre.jpg

Michael

[dan/california]

The simplest explanation of the Sherman's reputation, and this is already been mentioned above, is that first of all it was to a vast extent the primary Allied tank of World War II. It's production numbers dwarfed those of everything else put together as I understand it. The second uncontested fact, is that it's armor was about as resistant to the heavier German antitank guns/main guns as Iraqi

T-72's were to modern US ordnance. I will note that those also have a lousy reputation.

In short, the primary problem was German ordinance going in one end and out the other. All other factors are secondary to this one little fact.

[JonS]

In short, the primary problem was German ordinance going in one end and out the other. All other factors are secondary to this one little fact.

This.

If, in a parallel universe, the Germans had been trundling about mostly in short-75 PzIVs while the Allies were equipped mostly with Sherman Fireflys ... well, I think we'd be hearing a lot more about Kraut Kebabs, and a lot less about Tommy Cookers.

[dan/california]

I don't have time to look up the references, but it was an explicit decision that quantity has a quality all its own. The engineering was done, the assembly lines were running, it was reliable and maintainable. They figured if one wasn't good enough the next four in line would be. It certainly won the war. It was kind of hard on the crew in the first tank though.

[dan/california]

It has always peeved me that we couldn't copy the T34, at least.

[Chops]

Here are some statistics from Tank Tactics by Jarymowycz.

[c3k]

Cool. Thanks for the bone.

As for brewing up Shermans, we will see better burning animations, right? Especially flames coming up from hatches! And smoke from hatches. Any flame bones?

C'mon, you KNEW we'd want more!

Thanks,

Ken