Three planes, a tank and an arena

[Karnak]

Way I heard it was the numbers were reversed, and it was side hits. If they penetrated the front, it was only due to poor quality armor on the Tiger II (not an issue here).

Different story if yours has three T-34/85s against a single Tiger II or a single Tiger II destroying three T-34/85s.  First was through the side, second was through the front of the turret ring and the last was in the rear apparently.

From here: http://www.warrelics.eu/forum/history-research-3-reich-ww2/3-king-tigers-vs-t-34-85-a-272607/

One of the most memorable tank engagements of the war occurred towards the end of the Lvov-Sandomierz offensive in Poland. On the evening of 11 August 1944, Lt. Aleksandr P. Oskin of the 53rd Guards Fastov Tank Brigade (6th Guards Tank Corps) was ordered to patrol the Polish village of Ogledow where he was expected to link up with the unit's 2nd Battalion. The patrol included a team of tank infantry which had been riding on his vehicle through the Byelorussian and Polish fighting since June. On reaching the village, no friendly tanks were located, and German troops were approaching the opposite end of the town. Oskin informed the brigade commander and was told to take up a defensive position and monitor the German troops. The tank hull was already well camouflaged in a field of corn, and Oskin's crew and the tank infantry camouflaged the turret with corn stalks. A German tank column entered Ogledow that evening and shot it up, but halted after dark.


Although Oskin did not know it at the time, the tank unit was a platoon from sPzAbt 501, the first German tank unit on the Eastern Front with Hitler's latest 'wonder weapon', the new King Tiger heavy tank. The unit had disembarked earlier at Kielce with 45 King Tigers but by the time it had reached the vicinity of Ogledow on the evening of 11 August 1944, it was down to only eight tanks. The rest had broken down during the 45 km road march, mainly due to reduction gear failures.


On the morning of 12 August, the King Tiger battalion was ordered into action to help crush the Soviet bridgehead over the Vistula River near Sandomierz. Sitting in his tank, Oskin saw the King Tiger s move out of the village. They appeared to be Panthers, but Oskin recalled an intelligence briefing in which the Soviet crews were warned to keep an eye out for a new German heavy tank. In the event, the Germans had not spotted Oskin's well camouflaged tank, and they were moving down a road where their more vulnerable sides would be exposed. Oskin ordered the loader, A. Khalyshev, to load one of his precious BR-365P hypervelocity rounds. When the King Tigers had closed to 200 m and were broadside, Oskin ordered his gunner, Abubakir Merkhaidorov, to fire. The round hit the turret side of the second tank, seemingly without effect. Actually, it had penetrated and killed some of the crew, but this was not immediately apparent to the Russians. Oskin's tank fired two more BR-365 AP rounds against the turret, and in frustration he finally ordered up another round of sub-calibre ammunition and told the gunner to hit the rear fuel tank. The King Tiger finally began to burn.


By this time, the lead King Tiger had begun to swing its massive turret looking for its tormentor, but in all the dust raised by the impacts of the 85 mm gun, they could not find a target. Oskin's tank fired three rounds at the front of the turret, which bounced off without effect. The fourth round penetrated the turret ring, and the lead King Tiger began to burn from an ammunition fire. The third King Tiger, blind in the smoke from the fuel fire on the second King Tiger, began to back off the road at top speed. Oskin detonated the MDSh smoke cans at the back of his tank to give himself some cover, and began chasing after the third King Tiger. The fleeter T-34-85 soon caught up and Oskin managed to manoeuvre around to the rear of the King Tiger where they knocked it out with a shot into the engine compartment through the thin rear armour. On returning to the road, one of the King Tigers had stopped burning, so Oskin fired at it again with his last round of hypervelocity ammunition. Two of the King Tigers subsequently suffered catastrophic ammunition fires which blew off their turrets. German losses were eleven dead of the fifteen crew including Lt. Karnetzki and Wieman, and some of the survivors were taken prisoner by Oskin's tank riders. The Tiger battalion did not know what had hit them, and their losses were attributed to 'massive anti-tank defences'.


The third King Tiger was later recovered and sent to the Red Army tank proving ground at Kubinka, where today it still rests in the armoured force museum. Lt. Oskin was decorated with the highest Red Army award, the Hero of the Soviet Union gold star.

Doing a google search for Lt. Aleksandr P. Oskin yields many more hits.

[Tank-Ace]

If Hi-Tech modeled the 152.4 mm ML-20S gun-howitzer correctly ... there would be no question. The in-game Tiger II would have a genuine threat from the ground.

So I say if anything is going to be added to this "game" then the JSU-152 and/or the SU-100 should be top priority if there is going to be Allied vs Axis sides. If not then we'll all jump into Tigers and Panthers and keep having Big-Cat Fest 2013.

HE rounds bounce in Aces High. I suspect that either the ship guns are modeled differently, or there exists a KE/thickness threshold necessary to penetrate armor with an HE round, or both.

The latter is certainly true for tank guns currently in game, given that you can penetrate the weaker areas of a tank with a high velocity HE round, but not a low velocity round, such as from an M4(75), or Panzer IV F1.

Anyway, given the thickness of the Tiger IIs frontal armor,  it's probable, bordering on certain, that the Tiger II will still be nearly invulnerable from the front, it the modeling remains consistent.

If they model it as a ship gun, then it will be heavily perked.

[Fox]

HE rounds have a much higher tendency to bounce, but they don't always bounce.  I have killed lots of tanks from a B25H with HE rounds.  I have also killed other tanks at close range with HE from another tank.  Have always wondered how the penetration of HE rounds is determined.