nik mond Posted June 16, 2011 Share Posted June 16, 2011 My favourate tank in the game is not a tank but the M8 gray hound. I can dog fight any tank with it and win, almost every time. I have taken on 2 platoons of stugs with ONE of these and took them all out. Below is a picture with ME as the tiger. The AI as the grayhound. I didn't consider it a threat. Surprise as a side shot lost the battle. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gunnergoz Posted June 16, 2011 Share Posted June 16, 2011 There supposedly one instance of an M8 winning such a duel in the Ardennes, closing on the Tiger's rear (so close the 88 could not depress) and pumping 37mm rounds into the engine compartment until it caught fire. Read of it in one of my Bulge books, just which one escapes me now. If it did happen as written, that crew had big brass ones...but one wonders since so many German tanks were "Tigers" to the GI's in those days and I'm not sure how many Tiger I's were in the Bulge. Doing it to a Tiger II defies even my feverish imagination. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Broken Posted June 17, 2011 Share Posted June 17, 2011 My favourate tank in the game is not a tank but the M8 gray hound. I can dog fight any tank with it and win, almost every time. I have taken on 2 platoons of stugs with ONE of these and took them all out. Below is a picture with ME as the tiger. The AI as the grayhound. I didn't consider it a threat. Surprise as a side shot lost the battle. I assume you are playing against the AI. Have you tried M8s against a human opponent? Oops, I didn't see that you lost your Tiger to an AI controlled M8. That is impressive. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vergeltungswaffe Posted June 17, 2011 Share Posted June 17, 2011 Sounds like the damn the torpedoes BO crew attitude. Hope cower still works for crews of vehicles that have no business doing anything but hightailing it versus serious threats like they did in BB and AK. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeyD Posted June 17, 2011 Share Posted June 17, 2011 'Crazy' M8 AC tactics should be every tanks tactics. We always get in trouble when we assume our ubertank is invulnerable. And we usually succeed when we aggressively maneuver for the optimal shot and avoid being fired on. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oddball_E8 Posted June 17, 2011 Share Posted June 17, 2011 i still remember when i lost my panzer 4 to a jeep with an M2HB in old CM playing hotseat with my friend i had spent most of my points on that one tank, and he just wiped it out with a few disastrous bursts from behind 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tux Posted June 17, 2011 Share Posted June 17, 2011 'Crazy' M8 AC tactics should be every tanks tactics. We always get in trouble when we assume our ubertank is invulnerable. And we usually succeed when we aggressively maneuver for the optimal shot and avoid being fired on. Seconded. Looking at that screenshot you were asking for something to plug your Tiger through the flank, nik. M8s are useful, but nowt more than a nuisance to competently-driven medium tanks or bigger. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkEzra Posted June 17, 2011 Share Posted June 17, 2011 ...competently-driven medium tanks or bigger. Ahhh...So That's My problem! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tux Posted June 17, 2011 Share Posted June 17, 2011 Heh. Actually, having said what I said I now remember using an M8 to put rounds through the front turret of a friend's Pz IVH in a PBEM game and he is generally very good at using armour. I suppose, if the gun is a threat, then any vehicle mounting it is even more so in certain circumstances. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Emrys Posted June 17, 2011 Share Posted June 17, 2011 Is it just me or does it seem that the 37 mm HE isn't quite as effective as it was in CMx1? I remember being able to really work over squads and MGs in foxholes with a few rounds from one and forcing them to bug out. Michael 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nik mond Posted June 17, 2011 Author Share Posted June 17, 2011 'Crazy' M8 AC tactics should be every tanks tactics. We always get in trouble when we assume our ubertank is invulnerable. And we usually succeed when we aggressively maneuver for the optimal shot and avoid being fired on. Yes, and in that case it was a bad recon. The live AC was not spotted. Too confident against the AI. I thought cool, I just got waxed by an AI M8. Impressive. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonC Posted June 18, 2011 Share Posted June 18, 2011 To gunnergoz - that same story (of 37mm AP killing at Tiger) gets recycled endlessly but I've yet to see it backed up with an actual contemporary AAR with exact date, unit and individuals involved. And not for lack of trying, or endless repetition with the same citation issue. At the moment I consider it an urban legend or fish story. Having e.g text searched all the US army green books, I have found no such account. Theoretically there is essentially zero chance of 37mm AP penetrating the Tiger on its 82mm sides, even at point blank range. It is barely possible that it might penetrate the lower side hull (only 60mm), below the deck over the running gear but above or between the running gear itself - but nearly that entire surface area is covered by the actual running gear. It is also unlikely that small 37mm AP would even do significant damage to that gear or the tracks. Accounts from e.g. Stuart crews from actual identifiable engagements against Tigers from as early as Tunisia describe the experience as throwing spitballs and completely hopeless - not as just needing to maneuver for a close range flank shot. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JasonC Posted June 18, 2011 Share Posted June 18, 2011 P.S. My attempts IDed the most likely original source for the story as a report from a cavalry squadron (87th) of the 7th armored division, which reported a "Tiger" KOed by an M8, in an area where no Tigers were known to be operating from German side accounts. But a Panther battalion was, and was likely the source of a mis-ID. Obviously the 45mm sides of a Panther are much more readily penetrated by 37mm AP than the 82mm sides of a Tiger I. FWIW... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tankgeezer Posted June 18, 2011 Share Posted June 18, 2011 That reminds me, when did the Allies start issuing 37mm canister to those M8 Greyhounds? It makes for great tool on overwatch in an infantry action. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gunnergoz Posted June 19, 2011 Share Posted June 19, 2011 P.S. My attempts IDed the most likely original source for the story as a report from a cavalry squadron (87th) of the 7th armored division, which reported a "Tiger" KOed by an M8, in an area where no Tigers were known to be operating from German side accounts. But a Panther battalion was, and was likely the source of a mis-ID. Obviously the 45mm sides of a Panther are much more readily penetrated by 37mm AP than the 82mm sides of a Tiger I. FWIW... I finally decided to put this to rest one way or the other and began to dig into my resources at home and online. The original source of this account seems to be a publication by the US Army Armor School entitled "The Battle at St. Vith, Belgium, 17-23 December 1944, An Historical Example of Armor in the Defense". My research indicates that the author of that study was likely Major Boyer of the 7th AD (see below). The reported incident is said to have occurred on 18 Dec 44 and was reported to Major Donald Boyer, the S-3 of the 38th Armored Infantry Battalion of the 7th Armored Division's CCB, by the commander of Co. A of the 38th AIB, who witnessed it. Troop B/87 CRS seems to have been the parent unit of the M8 in the incident. I could not accurately get text from the .pdf copy I located, but here is an image of the relevant portion of the report: Hugh Cole, whose book "Ardennes Battle of the Bulge" is the Army's own definitive study of the campaign, cites Major Boyer and the 7th AD histories as being exceptionally thorough in their documentation: The history of the 7th Armored in the battle of St. Vith is better documented than any part of the Ardennes story, with the sole exception of the defense of Bastogne. All of the units organic to this command prepared AAR’s, including the division trains and artillery. The unit journals, as is common in an armored division, are rather slim, although, in this case, fairly accurate. A quite complete and accurate account was prepared by one of the participants, Maj. Donald P. Boyer, Jr., in 1947 and was published as St. Vith: The 7th Armored Division in the Battle of the Bulge, 17–23 December 1944. (I have used Major Boyer’s original typescript which is written in greater detail.) The combat interviews (particularly those compiled by Robert Merriam) are very informative. So what German units were involved at or near St. Vith that might have had tanks in that time frame? St. Vith was on the border between 6th Panzer Army in the north and 5th Panzer Army in the south. The closest units were those of the 6th Panzer Army's 2nd SS Panzer Corps and it seems that elements of the 9th SS Panzer Division were possibly those involved since it was sent in to support KG Hansen of the 1st SS Panzer Division farther north at Poteau. There was much intermingling of units on the limited road networks in the area and getting definitive location/time fixes for the units is not simple. Heavy tanks in the German armored units in the area all seem to have been Tiger II's, though Tiger I's were with one battalion (PANZER-ABTEILUNG (Funklenk) 301) that did not make it into the area. I spent some time looking at all these Tiger units' histories and could find only losses of Tiger II's on the 18th and none in the vicinity of St Vith, although Panzergruppe Peiper had some just north of St. Vith. The 7th Armored Division's combat on the 18th, according to Maj. Boyer's account, was primarily with elements of the 1st SS Panzer Division and the division's reported kills by the end of the 18th included 1 King Tiger, 9 Pz. IV's, 1 "assault gun 88mm (Ferdinand)", 2 75mm assault guns and 8 armored cars. Since there were numerous Pz IV's and Panthers operating with all these known German armored units, the possibility that the tank said to have been killed by the M8 was one of them cannot be ruled out, given the frequency with which the IV's and Panthers were misidentified as Tigers, and (for that matter) Nashorns and Jagdpanthers were misidentified as Ferdinands. Given what we know of the Tiger II's rear armor being 80mm, similar to that of the Tiger I, it stretches the imagination to conceive how a 37mm weapon (with at best around 50mm penetration) could succeed in knocking one out, even at point blank range from the rear. To be fair, both Tiger I and II did have openings in the rear hull for exhausts and it is not impossible for a lucky hit to penetrate one of those exhaust port openings and proceed on to ricochet in the engine compartment and perhaps damage the engine and/or fuel lines. Is this what happened? Like Jason, I have to agree that the evidence to prove this story is conflicting and not necessarily convincing. We have the documentation of a mechanized infantry company commander that he witnessed this M8 knock out a tiger and he was convinced enough of his facts that he reported it to his battalion S-3 (operations) officer, Major Boyer. In the end, each reader will have to decide what he elects to believe about this story: either the wartime reports of witnesses (and the well-regarded histories published after the war) or to depend upon postwar analysis of data, albeit by an amateur (yours truly.) Objectively, I have to give great weight to the latter (data), but the former (wartime reports) cannot be entirely discounted since, as we all know, in wartime almost anything seems to happen at least once. My take on it is that it is entirely possible that it happened, but the odds are frankly against it working out as described. Now I leave it to some other forum member to simulate the attack and see if his M8 can penetrate a Tiger's rear from point blank range. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Williams Posted June 19, 2011 Share Posted June 19, 2011 I like the Greyhounds also, and will choose them over Stuarts in QBs. No good reason...I just think they look cool. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Emrys Posted June 19, 2011 Share Posted June 19, 2011 I like the Greyhounds also, and will choose them over Stuarts in QBs. No good reason...I just think they look cool. And, on a road at least, they are speedy little devils. Michael 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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