A Quick Battle AAR: Shermans vs Pz IVs, Not Your Fathers Combat Mission

[LongLeftFlank]

Can't wait to see the CM equivalent of

[LJFHutch]

What I'd really like to see is Combat Mission with the CoPlay in which the battle size would essentially be double the size to allow for a good 2vs2 matchup. I think something like that would be epic.

Will CoPlay be in the game anytime soon?

CoPlay would be awesome, 3v3 would be incredible I think, especially on much larger maps. Leeeeerrrrooooyyy!

[aka_tom_w]

Fantastic post! I have never seen those graphics before. Just know one thing, you NEED to trust Rexford, and if you don't know what I am talking about don't bother posting, FWIW.

I've read the fine AAR with keen interest. I'm very interested in this sequel of the Combat Mission series.

Some questions to Bil_Hardenberger or The_Capt. Is the US-Tanks popping smoke done automatically or does it need a command ? For as it seems to me we are back with the old set gamey situation of tanks popping in and out of smoke and therefore reset the targetting cycle of the opposite side a very bad feature in my eyes.

As I understand it the M4 for instance has a type 60mm Launcher with which smoke grenades or maybe even HE-rounds can be shot. The smoke round contains phosphor which is quite nasty for the eyes and respiratory system when inhaled. The same basic system is also installed in german tanks though they mostly used it to launch small HE-grenades but also augmented the earlier used Nebelkerzen mounted at the turret or on the deck. To my knowledge smoke popping was used very seldom because in real life the benefit was minimal, because the time it needs to develop a full screen if at all... won't save one from the next round.

Another point. I also read the other AAR with the US attacking with a mixed grouping. In both this and the other AAR the M4A3s enjoyed a strange amount of luck of bouncing or absorbing rounds. It would be interesting to hear what damage each round did to M4s, we know it for the PzIVs already.

There was a discussion about the M4A3 (Mids, with the partially welded upper glacis) having something of an advantage at around 500 yards.

Now if we check the vulnerable area of the PzIV H vs. the M3 75 mm

From CMAK for the M3 Gun at 500 m:

ca. 96 mm at Normal, 76mm at 30° and 38mm at 60° (around 50-70 % or rounds will achieve this) we can suppose the PzIV being vulnerable for almost 100% of round to the turret if pointed to the shooter. The upper and lower glacis however is only marginally overmatched and already quite save when at a slight angle (20-30°). It was standard procedure to do this btw. when being in a firing position not intended to advance.

Here is the vulnerable area:

Notice only the turret is largely vulnerable.

For the M4A3 Mid (The one with old type glacis) things look much worse:

KwK40 L48 at 500m (from CMAK: 131mm at Normal, 101mm at 30°, 48mm at 60°). We can deduce that theoretically the M3's glacis should be quite safe at 56°, however the glacis is not a single piece.

Looking at the actual glacis things look much worse, here is the picture:

Here almost all of the turret and much of the Glacis because of the welding- and even screwed seams together with the vertical observation domes is actually very vulnerable to the KwK40 round leading to fatal high energy penetrations with lots of internal damage.

So in conclusion technically the PzIV would have the upper hand even at 500m. It is correct that once 1000m are reached the advantage becomes substantial because of the quite small 40 x 1.5m area being still very vulnerable and the much better gun (flatter trajectory).

In the M4A3 late with the 47° 2.5" untiled upper glacis things look much better and closely matches the PzIV. However the late was unlikely to have been in Normandy in quantity because the first prototypes were not finished before Feb. 1944.

So in light of this data I think the M4 and P4 should generate very similar results atleast at 500 m. The KwK40 round heavily overmatching the M4s turret as does the M3 Gun to the PzIV Turret. First round hits to the glacis might or might not penetrate for both the M4 and the PzIV but a good gunner might get it right the second time around.

Luck is bad company in a prolonged war....

Regards

Tsword

[Battlefront.com]

CoPlay is not up for consideration for a while. It's a huge thing to put in and we're not convinced it's commercially viable. A military contract would almost certainly require such a feature, so if we ever get one (low chance there), it could happen quicker.

Steve

[sfhand]

Was rereading your "The road ahead... a recap" thread from a couple of years ago. That was a great thread about the direction of the CMx2 franchise. You're probably really busy right now -I imagine you're usually pretty busy - but I'm sure I'm not the only one who would find a recap of the recap, i.e., how you percieve things now in terms of feature sets for the next family/ies, a fascinating bit of reading. Also, having reread that thread, I'm inwardly glowing with optimism about the timeline for the CMBN modules. You guys (BF + BETAs) are amazing!

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=84156

[Migo441]

CoPlay is not up for consideration for a while. It's a huge thing to put in and we're not convinced it's commercially viable.

BOO! Since this feature has been bandied about for years now, I assumed that some groundwork would have been laid in the early stages of CMx2 development for this which would make it less than "a huge thing to put it" by now.

But I concede that I'm ignorant of the technical challenges. And even though I personally think it would be the official coolest thing EVER, I suppose it's conceivable that many people just don't care about it. Sigh...

OK, I'll now go back to being happy with everything else about CM:BN.

[Wrath of Dagon]

So is the armor quality modeled as in the picture above or not? You can have as accurate formulas as any but if the model they're applied to is wrong it won't do squat.

[Kanonier Reichmann]

Very interesting diagrams. I'm wondering however why the vertical round hatch area on the upper hull of the PzIV is not considered a vulnerable spot like similar areas on the Sherman?

Regards

KR

[YankeeDog]

It will be interesting to see how things perform once we have the full game and can run larger trials.

TSword's diagram's and analysis is very interesting. However, preliminarily, I note one important omission:

IIRC, CMAK's figure of 96mm penetration at 500m at normal by the Sherman's 75mm gun firing APCBC (far and away the most common AP ammo type carried in Shermans by 1944) is meant to represent the penetration vs. a theoretical, "perfect" RHA plate.

However, the PzIVH's frontal armor isn't pure RHA; it's face-hardened. And while face-hardening can improve resistance against some types of projectiles, especially uncapped AP, it's actually a liability against other penetrators, including APCBC. That is, in many situations, an M61 APCBC shell will penetrate a face-hardened plate more easily than it does a pure RHA plate of the same thickness.

As to exactly how much this changes the calculations, I'm not knowledgeable enough to say... IIRC, you really have to get down to the specifics of projectile, velocity, and angle to state with certainly which resists more effectively, and by how much. I guess that's where Rexford's work comes in (wish I had a copy!).

Cheers,

YD

[The_Capt]

Ok well I think this little scrap is pretty much wrapped up. Not sure if Bil is going to post again but rather than charge out of the wood to see what would happen we pretty much caller her quits at this point.

So beyond my sins, what have we seen? I see the tank-grog crew is out in full force, good to see actually as it really shows people are getting into this. That said, however this scrap was much more than a simple techical matchup.

From my seat (which was pretty close) I have to say that the result was pretty realistic overall.

Now before anyone gets exited, lets look at the results and how this really went down. I smashed roughly 6 tanks/TDs up against Bils right flank, where he had 4 tanks. For my troubles I received a mobility kill (with crew bail out) and Bil lost 3 tanks. It was 6 on 4 going in at very close range so not really a huge suprise. Maybe I should have lost a second Sherman and Bil one less Pz IV, try it again it it may very well work out that way.

Then Bil committed his reserve to his nearly destroyed right flank and use his left to obtain a better firing position on my exposed flank after taking out two badly placed M10s, who did manage to pick off a single Pz IV on Bils left.

I like an idiot kept slugging it out in the center and essentially fell right into the trap. Bil quickly made short work of of me at that point, except for when a single TD got lucky. Is this a huge surprise. Bil managed to swing 8 tanks (7 effective) onto the 6 (5 effective) I had in a bad position.

So for two roughly equal tanks at these ranges the outcome is no where near out of whack to my mind. The side with the more experienced crew, more tanks and simply better positioning won the day BUT they took a bloody nose doing it.

You technical guys can discuss but overall if you ran this game the same way 10 times, my bet is this type of outcome would happen at least 5-6 of those times. The other ends of the bell curve would see me wiped out even faster on Bils right or Bil losing 3-4 more tanks (and here my bazookas would need to get lucky).

Seems pretty balanced to me. For those that think (and I actually don't think there are) that the Pz IVs should have killed all my tanks without taking a loss, I don't think the technical data, nor the tactical situation support this in the least.

Now lets runs this simulation with Bil having Panthers. Here the center of that curve would be in a much different location.

Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this little write up. A quick and dirty armoured scrap filled with all sorts of tank-porn. A round of applause for Bil, who not only won the day but also put together one helluva picture show!

[Bil Hardenberger]

Thanks for that Warren.

I am in the midst of putting together my wrap up post.. stay tuned, should be finished later today!

[Zatoichi]

Excellent job guys - thanks for your hard work and genuine enthusiasm for the game!

I simply cannot wait to get this game installed on my PC!

[Michael Emrys]

A round of applause for Bil, who not only won the day but also put together one helluva picture show!

I second that!

Michael

[Praetori]

Great work guys. My fingers are itchin.

[Bil Hardenberger]

CEASE FIRE Part 1

If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.

Winston Churchill

After turn 18 when Warren lost his last TD and two bazooka teams I offered him a cease fire, as it would be pointless to continue. I had the objective covered by fire, he could never hope to get his infantry on it safely, I had seven operational tanks and could bottle up his infantry before they had a chance to retire... of course digging them out would be out of the question.

For this wrap up I want to show you final positions of all the players in our drama, their kill stats, etc. Here are the final positions, labeled with the identities of each participant. This image also is color coded (for the German forces anyway) by Platoon to show what US kills were attributed to whom:

If you remember the “brave tanker” from a few turns back, well he did survive the battle, even though he is meters from the HQ 1 tank. His name, in case anybody is interested is Pvt. Gibson.

I think he deserved to be singled out:

German Force

Overall I think my force did fair… after I lost the initial four tanks and decided to try a different approach I only lost one tank, and I think I can chock that loss up to user error, as I reported earlier.

This entire game was a learning experience for me, and I think I really know how to apply armor better now, whether it be a Pz-IV, a Sherman or an M-10, or even a Panther. This AAR is full of lessons, from both sides, if you decide to heed them.

1st Platoon Performance

1st Platoon unfortunately had a bad start. It lost Tank 4 on turn 2, and Tanks 2 and 3 on turn 4. It was then that the light bulb switched on in my brain and I started to get smart about how to use the equipment I was issued. Losing the HQ Tank on turn 16 was a screw up on my part, but also Warren’s good positioning of his M-10 obviously played a part.

The Platoon had one hero tank in my opinion, Tank 1. This lone tank, with the Company HQ element as backup pretty much stalled Warren’s advance down AA3. It only had two kills, but the numerous hits (did anybody bother to count them?) had a huge impact on how this battle played out.

They had a 1:1 kill ratio… they killed three tanks and one armored car and lost four tanks.

2nd Platoon Performance

2nd Platoon lost one tank early when I made an idiotic move and rushed it across an open field without prepping the area with smoke first. After that sad incident, the platoon performed perfectly and except for Tank 4 getting hit, bailing, and luckily being able to re-crew, they stood out.

Interestingly, they performed very well despite having the least experienced crews of my force, the four tanks that were in action had two veteran and two regular crews.

They had a 4:1 kill ratio, three M-10s and an M4A1 to one tank lost.

Company HQ Element Performance

The Company HQ element performed admirably as well and in conjunction with 1st Platoon’s Tank 1 they held my right flank against the horde of Shermans, M-10s, and armored cars heading up AA3.

HQ 1 stood out and had all three kills, two Shermans and an armored car.

Next: US Forces

[[hirr]Leto]

Bill,

Quick question, what does the -1 stand for in Ruckner's box directly above this post?

Cheers!

Leto

[gunnersman]

Leto;1243365']Bill,

Quick question, what does the -1 stand for in Ruckner's box directly above this post?

Cheers!

Leto

It's a leadership modifier, of sorts. It's a way of saying he does not have the best leadership skills. 2nd Platoon HQ has a +1 (Von Steuben). He would have better leadership skills compared to an HQ that has no number at all, much less a negative one. Edit Added: That number is for the leader (CO, XO, Sergeant, etc) of that particular unit/squad/what have you. It counts towards the morale of their subordinates.

[Bil Hardenberger]

US Forces

I’m not going to get too much into analyzing the US force performance. I will say this, Warren learned a lot from this PBEM game (and the one after it too I suspect) and he is handling tanks much better in our current game. Using the terrain (ie. getting into a good hulldown position) is an art that you had better learn if you want to succeed in CMBN.

Sherman Platoon

This platoon along with two M-10s and two M-20 ACs attempted to steamroll over my 1st Platoon. They failed, but the cost was high on my side, as is to be expected I suppose when opposing any main effort.

The Sherman Platoon had a 2:5 loss ratio, two Pz-IVs killed for the loss of all five Shermans.

M-10 Platoon

The M-10s underperformed in my opinion during this game. They should be used like I used the Pz-IVs, namely they should be kept hulldown and in ambush positions, or if on the attack, they should carefully use the terrain.

The M-10s had a 3:4 loss ratio, killing three Pz-IV’s but losing all four TDs.

Additionally Warren had a two AC section of M-20s, which played little role in the battle, and a Company (-) of Airborne infantry, that except for the bazooka teams that fell in the last turn also had little influence on how things developed.

This battle ran the gamut for me, from despair to elation, and felt very realistic. I loved being able to use real world tactics (outlined in both the German and US field manuals of the time) in the game to good effect.

I appreciate all the comments throughout while pulling all of this together for you guys. It’s been a fun ride.

Here is the final AAR screen:

FINI

[ClarkWGriswold]

Does "Men Missing" mean POWs? If so, where did the two American men missing come from?

[Blackcat]

Does "Men Missing" mean POWs? If so, where did the two American men missing come from?

Missing means, well missng. Nobody knows what happened to the guys. It might later turn out that they are POWs, or wounded, or deserters or dead, or it may never be known what happened to them.

Missing in action (MIA) occurs frequently in war. There are still more than 72,000 British missing on the Somme alone and the MIA from Vietnam was still a source of contraversy well into the 1990s.

[Chops]

Seems like there should be a category added to the results screen for POW's.

[Michael Emrys]

MIA usually meant that in addition to the factors Blackcat mentions they couldn't find any pieces big enough to identify. Now with DNA testing that is less of a problem.

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

Seems like there should be a category added to the results screen for POW's.

Didn't CMx1 have something like that? "Men surrendered" or something?

Michael

[zukkov]

thanks guys! awesome job to both of you! warren, no worries mate, just report back that you were facing tigers. that's what i'd do.

oh yah, and raise hell that you weren't given air support! damn flyboys must've been having coctails at the o club... :-p

[Medex]

Thanks Bil and The_ Capt.

Nice job on the AAR.