bazooka effectiveness???

[duckEfuzz]

Am i missing something?

I've been doing a lot of testing with bazooka's and i'm amazed at how poor they are. it really is a gamble using them.

i've set up a couple of squads of elite/fanatic/high leadership bazooka troops and pz4's can just keep rolling by despite upto 4 side penetrations, same with the panther.

And as for the regular troops!!

now dont get me wrong i've had many first time kills and a few rather pretty big bangs but on the whole a bazooka armed troop stands very liitle chance it seems, even while laying in wait , facing right way etc etc.

i also recognise that bazooka troops had very very short life spans, the other guys considered it suicide duty.

so i guess i'm asking what were the historical effects of a penetration made by a bazooka? and what does the game mean by penetration?, small hole, light shrapnel inside tank??

any ways that you use your bazooka guys will also be gratefully recieved.

[MikeyD]

I understand Bazooka's behind-armor effect wasn't particularly impressive. It was a first generation weapon, after all. After playing CM:BN for awhile I revisited CM:Afghanistan for a couple games today. The first time an RPG-7 round streaked past my APC fired from 500m+ away I jumped! Yikes! That ain't no panzershrek! :eek:

[beatmasta]

While ago in one of the first pbem games I killed a pather with very ballistic bazooka shot! I think the range to that tank was over 250m and max height of the trajectory was maybe about 20m and the rocket landed and penetrated top turret! That was pretty amazing shot and have not seen like it after that incident

[Battlefront.com]

The Bazooka was a GOOD weapon when it's examined as a whole, but on a 1 to 1 basis... it did have problems against the big German tanks. Especially if your looking at the performance of the older, less powerful, M1A1 type. The M9A1 was better, but still not good enough to comfortably defeat the more heavy German AFVs. This was recognized early in the NW Europe campaign and it got worse as the war went on. They worked on a replacement, eventually called the M20, but it didn't see service during the war and it was basically never produced in large numbers due to budget cuts after the war. It wasn't until the M9A1s were bouncing off of Soviet armor in Korea that the M20 went into service.

Steve

[LibyanRebel]

I have to admit to a similar diasspointment expending 2 teams worth of rounds, hitting 5 times against a P4, causing immobilization on the first hit, then watching 4 pentrations from the side or rear fail to inflict further damage on the crew or persuade them to bail.

I am thinking, are the skirts that good, each hit is absorbed, and if so effective, why would the team just aim at the same spot?

All this is a real time 2 player and this was the crucial tank.

i think the earlier comments have it on the improved version, which i will aim to utilise. Best results are i think in trees or forest, where 2 or 3 bazooka teams ( eg Airborne) can persuade even a german heavy (ie Mark V or VI) tank to retreat, even without inflicting damage.

even so i tihnk it only kills rarely versus a german tank (not AG)

[ClarkWGriswold]

I've very rarely gotten kills with bazookas. Heck, I very rarely even get HITS, much less kills. One of my first games I hit a PzIV *three times* in the rear and he just kept on rolling like nothing happened. A game I'm playing now I hit a PzIV twice and he doesn't appear to have received any damage at all. However, it's not always bad. I've also seen one 200+ meter hit (amazing, considering that most of my men seem to miss from inside of 50m) and had one 2-man AT team take out a Panther's main gun with a hit. They paid for it with their lives, but that shot undoubtedly won me the scenario because that Panther would have otherwise rolled over the rest of my defense.

[womble]

I'm relatively happy with the performance of bazookas when I've employed them so far against armour. It's by no means a large sample, as armour to defeat has been relatively rare, and armour close enough to infantry for zooks to be of use has been even rarer

I've had a mix of results, from taking an team's entire allocation of bombs to take out a StuG at 10m, to a one-shot Panther kill. They're mostly pointless out beyond about 50m, I feel, as they're just too hard to score hits with. I'm not worried too much about the behind-armour being too weak, as it's not that much worse than tank/ATG rounds, which also often require multiple penetrations to score a kill.

[hoolaman]

I think the armour skirts are particularly effective at defeating bazookas and rifle grenades, which is probably about right.

[womble]

I think the armour skirts are particularly effective at defeating bazookas and rifle grenades, which is probably about right.

There was some discussion about this a while back, and it seems that the skirts weren't much use against the HC rounds of the day. Initially, they were bolted on to protect against AT Rifles in the East, and they worked well against that threat, causing the bullet to tumble and deform and reducing its effect against the tin side armour of the IIIs and IVs. But it was early days in the development of HEAT rounds and they hadn't figured out good ways of getting the rounds to explode at the ideal distance from the target surface. Mostly they detonated too close to the target, and the jet wasn't properly formed by the time it hit steel, and AP performance was degraded. It's even speculated that the skirts, by detonating the charge earlier, at a better stand-off distance, might have done more harm than good.

In all, I think the "skirts were good against hollow charge" perception has at least been called into doubt. How BFC have modelled the penetration of HC against skirts, I have no idea, though, so you may well be correct that skirts are helpful against zooks in-game, even if your feeling about its historical accuracy may turn out to be inaccurate.

[Hessian deserter]

So far the best luck I have had with Zook teams was taking out a platoon of StuG III's, that were attacking down a road. I was able to get one team right up next to the hedgerow by the road before it destroyed a StuG. Then other StuG's were made immobile and then I could attack them from behind. I think turrentless AFV's are obviously a bit easier for Zook teams I did have quite a few Zook teams in this particular battle.[bumper cars] I believe it was the 5th battle of the Courage and Fortitude Campaign.

[womble]

So far the best luck I have had with Zook teams was taking out a platoon of StuG III's, that were attacking down a road. I was able to get one team right up next to the hedgerow by the road before it destroyed a StuG. Then other StuG's were made immobile and then I could attack them from behind. I think turrentless AFV's are obviously a bit easier for Zook teams I did have quite a few Zook teams in this particular battle.[bumper cars] I believe it was the 5th battle of the Courage and Fortitude Campaign.

Yeah, that was one of my encounters with StuG. One of them was destroyed by close assault before I even knew it was there. My attention was elsewhere the first couple of run-throughs, and I didn't realise it had been spotted, IDed and destroyed... The other two used up both my remaining zook teams' ammo. I'd allowed one zook team to "Target" (rather than "Target Light") a sniper earlier, thinking I wasn't going to be facing any armour. Shan't make that error again

One of the StuGs survived longer than the other two because it kept backing off after taking non-killing hits and partial penetrations. Its AI Plan orders forced it to keep coming back and try to move past the location of my AT teams, though.

[dpabrams]

I've very rarely gotten kills with bazookas.

Man I remember the first time I killed a Panther with a bazooka. You'll never forget that feeling. I have had pretty good luck with Bazooka's but I use some rules.

Set covered arc at no more than 80 yards

Avoid frontal shots on everything but halftracks and armored cars

Split your squads for two man AT teams, they are easier to conceal

Fire from cover

[winkelried]

Man I remember the first time I killed a Panther with a bazooka. You'll never forget that feeling. I have had pretty good luck with Bazooka's but I use some rules.

Set covered arc at no more than 80 yards

Avoid frontal shots on everything but halftracks and armored cars

Split your squads for two man AT teams, they are easier to conceal

Fire from cover

Another rule for high value targets: operate with pairs of bazookas

[womble]

Another rule for high value targets: operate with pairs of bazookas

Yeah. First time I went after a Panther with zooks, I had three teams all due to pop out of or round the corner of a row of buildings at roughly the same time behind the tank. The first one was the one round the corner, and its round crossed with the Panther's, scoring a kill, but they were both killed by the detonation of the 75mm. Pretty sure the other two teams would have nailed it, though; they were closer and would have had plenty of time for their shots.