First off let me say I was considering starting a new thread
Then decided to continue with this one as it seems to be the in the same vain on a number of points I would like to pursue. So my apologies for reserecting a thread from several years ago.
Of late just for fun I have been using the Ostwind a fair bit & it is one of the few platforms in AHII that I seem fairly competent at. The gun to me is some what like the manned soft guns at bases just not as accurate & can't reach out & touch some one like the soft manned gun can.
The one thing I think that we all can agree on is that the turret is of course very easy to disable with just a few well placed rounds. I would agree with this.
Since we don't have cartoon soldiers in Ostwind's & Wirbelwind's to replicate a disabled gun due to a non functioning crew. So to have the smoking turret is a fairly decent way to represent wounded & dead crewmen & a damaged gun platform.
The one thing I noticed of late is that after the gun is knocked out the Wirbel or Osti will eventually explode from enough 50 cals after a few passes from aircraft. I have also heard enough people complain over the years that 50 cals should not explode a flack Panzer on the BBS & in game while playing. So I decided to find out a little more on this issue. Can these two vehicles be destroyed by bullets alone in a real flack Panzer during WWII?
There is a few books about these platforms & one really stands out & there is a couple that have a few pages dedicated to the vehicles in question. All the books are done by reputable authors that did a lot of research & came up with the conclusions that they did. The one problem that I have is they don't all match each other on certain points.
So the question is who is right? Frankly I don't know & I have no bias as to who is correct. The one document I would like to see is the German manual mentioned earlier in this thread. Reason being if this is the document presented to the crews of these vehicles I would think they are most likely to be the most accurate since your asking your troops to risk life & limb in it to fight for your country. Sadly I have not found such a document to date.
So lets start with our AHII flack Panzer's & address can these vehicles be destroyed with bullets alone.
Here is a screen shot of the turret floor of the Ostwind. This is view you wont see much while playing because you would not be looking down at all while in play.
The Wirbel is not that different.
As you can see in the screen shots there is a void that extends in to the body of the tank. Now actual Ostwind information is very hard to come by there is few photos & near no surviving documents & no actual Ostwind's left after the war. So most books are a little vague about this platform & they say as such in the books.
I did find a photo of an old Ostwind turret photo & you can see it below.
As you can see a very large hole with no plate at all protecting the inside of the Panzer like in the AHII screen shot. Plus a very narrow surface area for the crew to step on when needed.
Now there is no surviving Ostwind chassis I will use photos from the only two surviving Wirbelwind's as they were supposed to be very similar in regards to the mounting of the turret to the chassis.
Now in this picture the quad gun of the Wirbel is clamped in to place.
Just to give you an idea off the gun this picture from WWII shows a portable platform.
When you look at line drawings they clearly show a very large hole around the guns.
So the question is now how deep is the recess of that hole around the guns
& why would you have such huge gaps in your armour?
Answer is all the way to the bottom of the tank.
The picture in the middle shows the top of the transmission.
Second part of the answer is here in these images.
On the left & right near the loaders is the magazine racks as mentioned by Lusche in this thread & some how I don't think 3200 rounds will fit in those two racks. The area below the gun is clearly to store the magazines & a crewman had to be below handing the magazines to the loaders above.
In one of the books it mentions that flack panzer's were sent to ground armour units to protect them from attacking aircraft. Those same aircraft made it a point to get rid of the flacks first after they were gone the rest of the unit was meat on the table nothing really to stop them.
As seen by these photos they did try & hide them as much as possible.
So the chances are of a attacking aircraft seeing them would be slim until they were fired upon & the tracers could be seen giving away there position. At that point after they were sighted I would imagine they would drop bombs rockets & shoot with anything they had.
With all that ammunition stored below & a big hole for bullets to bounce about in and explode & start a possible fire.
I would say yes a flack Panzer could be destroyed by a few well placed bullets.
So I think HTC has it right with the damage model on these two platforms.
Enough for now more to come on other issues later.
