M4A3(76)W - first impressions

[gyrene81]

*poop* wacky double posting again... 

[gyrene81]

Reload times in real life vary...the book can say one thing but, tank crews have a way of "optimizing" things to give themselves as much of an edge as they can. Training and experience make a big difference.

I said that...

In real life everything varies, so?

I over reacted to that due to my view of it being dismissive and rude. Subsequent comments were also understandably the same.

You didn't inform me of anything...especially after the comment about me being an internet search idiot, when you proved without question being exactly what you accused me of.

I guess you really are just an internet searching idiot. You really should bow out of this discussion if you not only do not know anything, but do not realize that you do not know anything.

Questions?


My question to you, based on what you have learned about the T-34, Panzer and Sherman trying to prove me wrong in some way...accounting for the ready racks in both tanks do you think the 76mm Sherman should have a reload time close to the T-34/76mm?

[humble]

T34/76 had a two man turret so it is less capable in that regard. Also the injury rate was extraordinarily high for the loader in the T-34/76 due to the poor ergonomics. They were literally beating the bushes for smaller left handed guys to serve in that capacity...

[SmokinLoon]

It is just priorities, and play balance. Every platform in the game has access to its entire ammo load with no chance of breaking or slowing down. Introducing it for one type of platform would only start a problem, not end it. A Cruiser cannot exhaust its 5 inch gun fire at full rate either. None of these weapons were ever designed for the sustained fire they take in the game.  Its just a question of where do you start and how important is it to the game.

Quite true.  I understand the dilemma, but couldn't one make assumptions and educated guesses based on legit printed sources, testimony from those experienced in said weaponry, and common sense?  Those who have fired a belt fed MG, or a larger crew served weapon should be able to comment on reload times.  There are loads of film on the internet showing reloads of the Browning M1919 .30 cal MG, Browning .50 cal MG, MG34 and MG42, and I bet if one were to dig deep enough there just might be a film or two of the 3 AA platforms firing away (M16, Wirblewind, Ostwind).  

I seem to remember a film of a Wirby with a loader standing inside the turret, being handed ammo on a "clip" from an assistant loader on the ground shuffling back and forth from stacks of ammo crates.  If the clips (not magazines, but rather an actual "strip clip" in which the ammo was slid off one end into a fixed magazine) held 10 rounds of ammo, an educated guess would allow for a slight hesitation (1-2 seconds?) every 40 rounds to compensate for that assistant gunner having to shuffle from crates to gunner and a gunner having to fumble with reloading.  In any case, I doubt anyone can argue that constant fire of 3000 + rounds is an accurate rendition of the Wirby's ability.  

Anyone who has fired an M60, M249, or other belt fed MG can attest to the 50 or 100 round belts used and how quickly the gunner or gunner/loader can reload the weapon.  Obviously, the times would be different between a crew served MG with a designated gunner and loader, vs a gunner who had to reach back and grab the belt or box and reload himself.  For the vehicle mounted MG's, either a 50 or 100 round box of ammo was used, just determine which standard to go by and implement a "reload" delay of a few seconds.

The M16 AA platform was fed via drums of 200 rounds, then perhaps a hesitation (3-4 seconds due to heft) at 800 rounds fired to swap out drums?  There were 2 loaders for the M16.

Start with the gv's, then move onto the aircraft with MG's for defense (or not), but as it is using a wirby is no different than playing Space Invaders at the arcade 30 years ago, just hold the trigger down and fire until you hit.    I believe that this is one area of realism than can be dealt with.  If HTC prides itself with its aircraft sim experience and all the effort that goes into that, then implementing a reload time into certain weapons shouldnt be all that difficult, but I'm not a coader so what do I know.  

                  
 

[RTHolmes]

^ +1


there are always diferences between the specs and what is possible under combat conditions, one of the most jaw-dropping examples ive seen was footage of a british army (black watch iirc) 81mm mortar team attacking dug in iraqi infantry positions outside basra during iraq war at night. the specs say 15-20rpm, but this squaddie who was built like an ox must have been getting close to 60rpm. the 2 guys feeding him could barely open the crates quick enough. never seen anything like it.

[gyrene81]

T34/76 had a two man turret so it is less capable in that regard. Also the injury rate was extraordinarily high for the loader in the T-34/76 due to the poor ergonomics. They were literally beating the bushes for smaller left handed guys to serve in that capacity...

You're right about the ergonomics Humble...I've always admired the veracity of those Russian tank crews. At 6ft tall I would be bruised from head to toe trying to operate inside that turret...getting in and out was bad enough. Wasn't the average height of a Russian soldier something in the neighborhood of 5ft 7in at that time? There weren't a lot of fat men pressed into service by Stalin at that time.

It took some digging and I'm looking for more concrete evidence but...If the T-34/76 in AH is the one with the hexagonal turret that was larger than its predecessors and was fitted with the F-34 main gun...the F-34 gun had a semi-automatic breech, which when fired would eject the spent casing, similar in function to the Sherman 75mm M3 L/40 gun...the ammunition bins were covered with some sort of matting to keep them from opening accidentally...I'm assuming they could accidentally pop open when stepped on...the tank commander aimed and fired the main gun while the loader/gunner loaded the gun...3 or 4 "ready" rounds would be on the floor by the loaders feet and 6 more rounds were stored near the commander. With a two man operation and even in cramped quarters the reloading time on the T-34/76mm should be faster than is modelled in AH.


As for the 76mm M1 gun used in the Sherman, it was the same gun used in the M-18 tank destroyer with a similar breech mechanism as the M3 75mm gun...tracing the lineage of the guns it turns out the M1 was a new gun at the time which was created by modifying the breech of the M3 75mm to 76.2mm caliber and attaching the barrel of the M7 used in the M-10 tank destroyer which used an M5 3in anti-tank gun that had a documented 12 round per minute rate of fire. I have yet to find anything that specifies the rate of fire for the M1 gun other than that.




Smokinloon...HiTech views anything that is quoted from individuals who used the equipment as "anecdotal evidence". The specifications used in AH comes from historical military documentation...it keeps people from doing a lot of "second guessing" the decisions made.

[Pongo]

Gyrene.
Dont read the thread looking for some mean thing I said to you 10 posts later to justify how you behaved for the whole thread.
Here is a news flash for you, the only things I have learned in this thread is that your are a fool and they didn't put a turret basket in the T34 85.
every other point of discussion in this thread I came into it with.

If now you want to compare th T34-76 and the Sherman 76 reload times. and of course base it only on the ready racks because the game has no concept of that then we can have that discussion.
There is a document on line somewhere where in the US army ord people evaluate a T34 76 that the russians gave them for that purpose in 1942.
See if you can find it. It may even be linked in from this site.
In a game that doesnt really model any of the design deficiencies of the T34 76, Pyro just abstracted them to a slow rate of fire.
I am fine with that. There is no soft ground or snow or cost based spawn rates to show some of its strengths either.

But no, I do not think that a T34 76 should be able to maintain anything like the sustained fire rate of a Sherman 76. Maybe if we got the Sherman 76 W, that storage scheme might be slower if the wet storage impacted round access times. But I do not know what exactly that implementation looked like off the top of my head. I doubt it was as fancy or as quick as the blast doors in an Abrams.

[Pongo]

Any crew in any vehicle could leave any number of rounds sitting around un-stowed, it is hard to attribute some advantage to one particular vehicle that way.

[gyrene81]

Whatever you say Pongo...your expertise in armored warfare is obviously far greater than mine regardless of the 4 years I spent living it. I bow to your 1337 greatness on the subject.

Maybe you should look at that 1942 U.S. Army evaluation again...it was based on the T-34/76A L-11 main gun and not the T-34/76B,D,E,F that had the hexagonal turret and F-34 main gun. Curiously the AH wiki on the T-34/76 has a jpeg image on it labeled T1341943 which would make it the T-34/76D,E,F model with the larger turret, not the earlier A or B models. In either case if Pyro "abstracted" the rate of fire, then all of the arguments about documented what have you are void since it is a "guess" and in AH world with consideration of how the M1 main gun in the 76mm Sherman came to be, both it and T-34 should have similar "abstracted" rates of fire instead of the nearly 5 seconds of disparity that exists now.

[Pongo]

So for the record. you feel that the 2 man turret 1942 T34 is more like the 76mm T23 turreted Sherman than it is like the 2 man turreted 1943 T34.
That is very interesting.

So.

Do you think the 76mm sherman and the 75 mm sherman should have the same rate of fire in the game?
again..
Do you think the 76mm sherman and the 75 mm sherman should have the same rate of fire in the game?

[gyrene81]

So for the record. you feel that the 2 man turret 1942 T34 is more like the 76mm T23 turreted Sherman than it is like the 2 man turreted 1943 T34.
That is very interesting.

No sir, I feel that the 1943 T-34 is more like the T23 turreted Sherman than the 1941 or 1942 T34s are and according to this:
http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/wiki/index.php/T-34 and based on the turret traverse speed, the 1943 version is the version modeled in AH even though the ammo loadout is based on the earlier models.

Do you think the 76mm sherman and the 75 mm sherman should have the same rate of fire in the game?
again..
Do you think the 76mm sherman and the 75 mm sherman should have the same rate of fire in the game?

No I do not, the 76mm should be between what is currently modeled and the T-34/85 and not just because of the dimensions of the ammunition. And the T-34/76 should be slightly faster than it currently is.

[Nemisis]

oh toejam, hes right  . Never noticed that about the T-34 ammo load out. Ty Gyrene81.

[Pongo]

My assertion has always been simple. The length and weight of the round of the 76mm must be harder to handle then the 75, it must load slower.

You have ridiculed that. Now you seem to accept it.

Amazing.

Coming from a back ground where every one you knew was in the same tank and some could load faster then others, it is logical to start with the assumption that all these vehicles are similar and the crew is the biggest factor.
The crew is a huge factor, but the vehicles where alot different from each other, and something like the two shermans having significantly different rounds to handle could impact it alot. Some tanks had two part ammo,(is2), some had very long rounds, some had different sized crews.

It is hard to establish what someone doesn't understand when they charge around like you do, but it is pretty clear you understood none of this and thought your experience in a modern MBT was the most relevant thing and directly transferable to this issue. As the game abstracts out the crew quality or the laxness of their discipline in ammo storage it was not really relevant, without period knowledge of the vehicles we are talking about.
Now you have some relevant period information to start adding to your MBT expertise, imagine how useful you will be in these discussion.
I have interacted with ex armour guys on the web at times, and they are indeed the most knowledgeable about the practical application of these vehicles. But they have also done some staggering research into the history of them.
I honestly do not think you have done so. You seemed to know almost nothing of what WW2 tanks were like.

I at least have shot a TOW missile at a sherman 76, so I guess that makes me the resident expert at them. And I have seen T34/85s in operational emplacements, so I guess I am probably the resident expert on them as well.

[E25280]

No sir, I feel that the 1943 T-34 is more like the T23 turreted Sherman than the 1941 or 1942 T34s are and according to this:

Not sure why you would say this.  The Sherman still has a three man turret, and the T-34 is still a 2 man turret regardless of the increase in size. 

This site shows a chart with its source footnoted.  It shows the rate of fire of the F-34 gun for the T-34 at 5-10 rounds per minute.  Our roughly 8 second reload time would translate to 7.5 rounds per minute, which is right in the middle.

And here is another site that lists the "practical rate of fire" as 4-8 shots per minute.

More / better sources anyone has would be appreciated!

[gyrene81]

You are truly living up to the S. Korean meaning of the word pongo...no doubt at all.

My assertion has always been simple. The length and weight of the round of the 76mm must be harder to handle then the 75, it must load slower.

You have ridiculed that. Now you seem to accept it.

English comprehension must not be your strong suit any more than actual tank operations...I never did totally disagree with your idea and I think both have a much faster than realistic rate of fire, however the differences in weight and length of the ammuntion aren't great enough to make them the sole determining factor as you were trying to make it. Adding the T-23 turret only added extra space for the gun, it did not significantly increase the space for the crew which is illustrated by the fact that it fit inside the same hull space as the orginal turret, which you also later tried to assert as the reason it had superior firing capabilities over the T-34/76. And after you so kindly necro bumped a similar discussion from 8 years ago, I'm not totally surprised your tune is what it is, you haven't learned anything more in that time period.

I at least have shot a TOW missile at a sherman 76, so I guess that makes me the resident expert at them. And I have seen T34/85s in operational emplacements, so I guess I am probably the resident expert on them as well.

How quaint...resident expert by virtue of distant viewing. I've fired Dragons, TOWs, LAWs, 105mm, 155mm, 175mm and 8 inch howitzers, 90mm and 105mm tank guns at a multitude of objects...guess that makes me the resident gun bunny. What was the last tank you served as a crew member in again?



As to the rest of your diatribe...wrap your little skull around this:

The Russian 76.2mm AP weighed 15.4lbs at 21 inches...used in the T-34/76 F-34 main gun (automatic ejection).
The 75mm (3inch) M61A1 AP round weighed 19.92lbs at 26.29 inches...used in the M4A1 and M4A3 75mm M3 main gun (automatic ejection).
The 76mm (3inch) M62  AP round weighed 23lbs at 33.62 inches...used in the M4A1E4, M4A1E8, M4A2 and M4A3 76mm M1 main gun (automatic ejection).

Ready rounds, stationary position, 2 man gun operation (i.e. gunner and loader)...why would the T-34/76 reload time be nearly 5 seconds slower than both of the Shermans when the ammuntion is shorter and lighter?