Brick Walls - stopping bullets

[dieseltaylor]

In one thread someone opined that a rifle bullet would easily penetrate a double brick wall. I was a little doubtful and asked my ex-Army F-i-l and he was doubtful also. A little searching finds this:

http://ingunowners.com/forums/general_firearms_discussion/145187-range_report_penetration_testing_of_residential_brick_walls_pic_heavy.html

Repeated shots to the same area where effective but then they are not solid bricks, they are not doubled and mortared, and they were shot at close range.

I cannot say I recall how 1930's French bricks were made or the the way they were used so this is not a conclusive item

[womble]

Most ammo fired off in WW2 is not "...hollow point defensive ammo...". It's not the bricks that you should be looking at, but the fact that even the AK rounds they used in the test are low power assault-rifle rounds, not the full power .30-06/7.92mm FMJs or even AP rounds which were issued to the combatants represented in the game.

There have been a couple of threads adressing the performance of small arms against cover, and one led us to a US Army training film which demonstrated the penetration of foot-thick treetrunks and walls up to a handspan thick concrete by the AP round out of a Garand. Trees are not cover, they're concealment. Ditto 14" cavity walls. And AP rounds were not some special-issue rare thing, either.

[Renaud]

With the exception of the mosin-nagant (7.62x54) FMJ steel core, the weapons fired were very low foot pounds of power.

The mosin-nagant blew both bricks up, and would have sprayed the interior of the building with fragments were it not for the drywall+waterjug backing (drywall was not around in Normal houses i'm pretty sure). A house typically targeted in CMBN will get showered with hundreds if not thousands of rounds even more powerful (7.92, .30...not to mention .50 cal). This would just totally destroy a modern residential building. Cinderblock probably wouldn't fare much better. Of course, old Norman buildings wouldn't be built with modern (crappy) fired-clay residential bricks, but probably with more substantial fieldstone and timbers. But I feel confident in saying that only the strongest fieldstone buildings are going to protect from ww2 full caliber rounds. The 3rd and 4th columns are most important (foot pounds of energy):

MV (fps) V @ 200 yds ME (ft lb) E @ 200 yds

7.62x54R (150 SP) 2700 2193 2428 1602

.30-06 Spfd. (150 Sp) 2910 2342 2820 1827

7x57 Mauser (150 Sp) 2690 2278 2411 1729

and the coup de grace...(!!!)...better be behind a lot of rock/stone/timber if this is coming your way:

.50 BMG (750 SpBT) 2750 2578 12592 11070

Pistols just don't measure up:

.357 Mag. (158 FP) 1830 1138 1175 454

Even the .223 (5.56) is wimpy compared to ww2 full bore rifles...nowhere near the same class when you talk about ability to penetrate stone/brick/wood walls:

.223 Rem. (55 Sp) 3240 2304 1282 648

[akd]

In one thread someone opined that a rifle bullet would easily penetrate a double brick wall. I was a little doubtful and asked my ex-Army F-i-l and he was doubtful also. A little searching finds this:

http://ingunowners.com/forums/general_firearms_discussion/145187-range_report_penetration_testing_of_residential_brick_walls_pic_heavy.html

Repeated shots to the same area where effective but then they are not solid bricks, they are not doubled and mortared, and they were shot at close range.

I cannot say I recall how 1930's French bricks were made or the the way they were used so this is not a conclusive item

I spent some time recently going through hundreds of pics of damaged buildings from Normandy in 1944. The vast majority of structures had walls composed of mortared stone 2-3 feet thick, no comparison at all to modern residential brick walls.

[dieseltaylor]

That undoubtedly explains the CM BN infantries desire to take on armoured vehicles with MMGs etc. : )

womble do you have the linkies or thread name?

[MikeyD]

The closest you can get in-game to modern assault rifle rounds vs full power rounds might be Kar 98k vs MP44.

The place to go to really conduct comparitive weapons tests would be CM:Afghanistan. All different flavors of AK, M16s, FNs, Ppsh, AR-10, SVD, SMLE MkIII. The old Enfield turned out to be an unexpectedly lethal weapon in that game, a nice combination of range and superior wall penetrating power. Just like the Garand.

[LemoN]

Another thing is that traditionally European buildings have far thicker walls than American buildings, especially old ones.

The house I'm living in was built in 1936-1940 (slightly damaged by US bombings in 1944) has solid outer brick walls at last 40-50 cm thick. Interior brick walls range from somewhere between 10cm and 30cm. There's also a bomb shelter in the cellar with roughly 2m thick interior walls (don't know about the shell). You'll also have a hard time finding a single piece of wood in the wall of a building built after 1900.

[dieseltaylor]

Well not having a linky I have done some more digging.

I am having trouble with converting the rifle velocity figures to brick hardness details to penetration. The strongest brick I have found [1899 source] could stand 9700lbs per square inch whilst a good hard brick would be about 4000lbs. There is also the nature of bricks in thta you can have soft bricks - which are fairly porous and if soaked for 24 hours take on 25% of water and hard bricks that absorb less than 5%.

I do wonder if Afghanistani bricks are the softer variety being hand made probably, and possibly mud. So what happens in CM:SF may not be reliable for translating to western Europe.

The US source suggests 12inch for a two storey house and if a more important building like a warehouse [?] 20" [500mm]. Stone is 20" whtever the type, add an extra story and it is another 4" for both brick and stone. Bear in mind that there would have to be internal walls or supporting piers over a certain length of wall, and lintels plus timber for flooring and tying the walls across. I stayed in a French cottage where the centre beam was at least 2 ft square probably of oak .

Here is a non-armoured 0.5" bullet against 18" earth at 3100fps.

http://earthbagbuilding.wordpress.com/2010/12/31/bullet-resistance-of-compressed-earth/

And then the marines demonstrate their weapons. No commentary but I assume they would be wanting to use AP as it is to demonstrate penetration. The building they are shooting up would count as a shed given it merely has a single brick or block skin. I would think 12" brick would be the minimum in Europe and probably 16".

The test shows going to 45 degrees means the GPMG cannot penetrate single brick at what seems very close range. No it may not be AP- I am no expert on ammo though I do understand buildings. The 0.5" HMG is of course a bit of an exception : )

[PanzerMike]

Yes, this has been discussed before. I also argued in that thread that Norman houses were quite sturdy with pretty thick walls. They should be able to take quite some punishment by small arms fire unlike more modern houses. A bit more than is now the case IMHO.

Also bunkers in CMBN are pretty vulnerable to small arms fire. I have seen the US army instruction films in which small pillboxes are penetrated by small arms fire. These are the kind of bunkers represented in CMBN I guess. I am making a Omaha beach battle currently and have been doing a lot of playtesting accordingly. I have created a German strongpoint (WN62) with 5 concrete bunkers with HMG42 teams. The Americans start on the beach some 400 metres from the bunkers. I get messages that the bunkers are penetrated very regularly, pinning and eventually panicking the MG crew. I have been to WN62 many times in Normandy (last time 4 weeks ago!) and read many reports (including the book by Hein Severloh). The bunkers at WN62 were not penetrable by small arms fire, these were very strong bunkers indeed. Even tanks only chipped them. Only lucky hits through the firing slit would knock out the crew.

These kind of bunkers it seems are currently not available in CMBN.

[Renaud]

These kind of bunkers it seems are currently not available in CMBN.

Absolutely...the 'bunkers' in CMBN are like the bunkers in cmx1. I don't consider these to be bunkers, they are stand-alone 'pillboxes' really. I consider a 'bunker' to be a reinforced shelter partially or completely embedded in the surrounding terrain (at least 2 sides, usually 3, possibly all 4 plus top if completely underground). This could be logs or concrete (just like the current 'bunker/pillboxes'). I'm hoping that by CM:eastfront(?) there will be true 'bunkers' modeled, but I kinda doubt it.

I have tested them against artillery fire and they do provide very good protection there, though you will eventually get some wounds and casualties through the firing slits (you can't make the men inside a bunker 'hide', so they will stupidly remain standing in front of the firing slit). So they are good holdout positions if you need to hide from an artillery prep, then deploy to your firing positions after the prep lifts. Unfortunately they are expensive, like the cost of 2 good squads for the germans. They are basically unavailable to allies in QB's if you have rarity turned on.

[Divadov]

I don't understand how an MG42 can kill soldiers inside a brick building with no windows or doors on the side where the MG42 fires.

[A Canadian Cat]

13 minutes ago, Divadov said:

I don't understand how an MG42 can kill soldiers inside a brick building with no windows or doors on the side where the MG42 fires.

This seems to show that having a brick wall between you and an MG42 would not be a guarantee of safety:

 

[ALBY]

With modern 7.62 NATO black tip AP, it would eat brick walls for sure.  30 cal turns cover into concealment.

not sure what it does in 8mm Mauser and I’m also sure bullet tech in wwII was not as good as modern NATO 30 cal. 

all that being said, I doubt you’d feel safe behind a wall if someone was pounding away at it with a MMG.  
 

 

 

Edited June 2, 2023 by ALBY
Punctuation

[PEB14]

Is there any notion of "materials" as far as CM buildings are concerned? I am under the impression that changing modular or independent buildings' appearance does just that - changing the look of the building, without any influence on the cover it offers. So wherever they are made of stone, brick or anything else, the behave the same. On the other hand, I am under the impression that cover is higher when windows are less numerous on a given side. Am I correct?

It looks like the barns are made of softer materials and a lot more prone to collapse. Is it true?

17 hours ago, IanL said:

This seems to show that having a brick wall between you and an MG42 would not be a guarantee of safety:

 

[chuckdyke]

6 minutes ago, PEB14 said:

Is there any notion of "materials" as far as CM buildings are concerned?

I know one thing 81mm mortar shell will crack through roof tiles and explode in the space below. In CM the suppress units on the top floor only. On the ground floor units are generally safe. 

[chuckdyke]

17 hours ago, Divadov said:

I don't understand how an MG42 can kill soldiers inside a brick building with no windows or doors on the side where the MG42 fires.

Even a 9mm sten fires through those wall. Units can throw hand grenades through them. Why? buildings in CM are pretty generic. The place to attack a building is to approach where there are no windows or doors. You can fire from the outside inside but units inside can't see you. 

[womble]

20 minutes ago, PEB14 said:

Is there any notion of "materials" as far as CM buildings are concerned?

Not as such, no. There are a few different grades of building, which each offer different levels of cover.

21 minutes ago, PEB14 said:

I am under the impression that changing modular or independent buildings' appearance does just that - changing the look of the building, without any influence on the cover it offers. So wherever they are made of stone, brick or anything else, the behave the same.

You've identified two of the classes I'm aware of, there: modular buildings are a lot safer to be in than independent buildings. I believe "Churches" are safer-still. AIUI, you're correct. Changing the appearance of a given building from "wooden" to "stone"  (or whatever) doesn't change anything about the protection to its inhabitants that it offers.

 

23 minutes ago, PEB14 said:

It looks like the barns are made of softer materials and a lot more prone to collapse. Is it true?

Barns are, I believe, a fourth class of building (not saying there are only four  ), with the general protective value of a string vest, and sturdiness of a well-whisked meringue. Troops in barns are worse off than fish in barrels.

[PEB14]

41 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

 buildings in CM are pretty generic. The place to attack a building is to approach where there are no windows or doors. You can fire from the outside inside but units inside can't see you. 

Is it true? I mean, it sounds so stupid that I never even tried to do it. That you can MG fire through a solid wall, why not, but throwing grenades through a windowless wall ??? Does it really work in CM? Tell me quickly, I'm fighting @kohlenklau in my very first PBEM game right now so I need to learn all the tricks before it's too late !

Seriously, one can program generic buildings while keeping a minimum of realism… No window = no grenades, protective effect of a side = inverse proportional to the number of windows/doors, etc.

[chuckdyke]

9 minutes ago, PEB14 said:

Is it true?

It is true and I bet my last dollar that @kohlenklau is fully aware of it. It simulates that you sneak up to a house and lob a grenade inside around the corner. You peel of an assault team British CW are the best. Four men end up with 15 grenades in their assault team. Inside 16 meters or so it becomes the primary weapon. It doesn't matter they have bolt rifles. Approach the wall with no doors or windows and plot a 15 second burst through the solid wall. Now watch the grenades go off inside. Flamethrowers are good fun too using this technique. Plenty of tricks if you can call them that with buildings, not going on balconies is my favorite. Also picked it up here on the forums.

Edited June 3, 2023 by chuckdyke

[chuckdyke]

17 minutes ago, PEB14 said:

Is it true? I

One more example one of my .45 ACP handloads went through a 44 gallon drum. That was a slow 200 grain going at 900ft/sec. Let alone 8mm Mauser going with three times that velocity. Bricks Imo wouldn't be able to stop it.

 

[kohlenklau]

I have a thread somewhere (and others have done this too), where I ran tests in CMRT with Soviet Maxim HMG firing at a German squad in various buildings. I recall that the churches had the best protection. 

BFC goofed this all up in my opinion. There SHOULD HAVE BEEN a clear distinction in visual look AND game code parameters by stone buildings versus wooden structures with regards to protection. Like with ASL boardgame, you have wooden light construction structures and stone heavy construction structures. In CM instead we have various buildings with BOTH options for wooden texture look AND stone look but no rhyme or reason to level of protection in the game code. oh well.

So, I did make a mod called [tuffhaus] that used one of the church mdr 3D models but altered to look like a solidly built house. It seemed to work to offer better protection to the troops inside.

Edited June 3, 2023 by kohlenklau

[PEB14]

11 minutes ago, kohlenklau said:

I have a thread somewhere (and others have done this too), where I ran tests in CMRT with Soviet Maxim HMG firing at a German squad in various buildings. I recall that the churches had the best protection.

Can you find it ?

 

11 minutes ago, kohlenklau said:

BFC goofed this all up in my opinion. There SHOULD HAVE BEEN a clear distinction in visual look AND game code parameters by stone buildings versus wooden structures with regards to protection. Like with ASL boardgame, you have wooden light construction structures and stone heavy construction structures. In CM instead we have various buildings with BOTH options for wooden texture look AND stone look but no rhyme or reason to level of protection in the game code. oh well.

Absolutely.

 

Anyway, does anybody confirm the grenades-through-the-wall trick ???

[kohlenklau]

tuffhaus mod thread

https://community.battlefront.com/topic/140651-tuffhaus-project-building-mdr-swap-experiment/?do=findComment&comment=1897535