50 Cal verse Tank

[Toad]

I don't remember Pyro talking about the different definitions of penetration.

I do remember him saying that the angle of incidence, velocity curves, etc. ARE part of the AH programming.

He also said damage modeling IS subjective and there were things they wanted to look at.

The game will continue to evolve. I think the DM will get a look from time to time during that process.

There are gameplay concessions in every "sim" or game.

[Kweassa]

But, as robsan asked and Hortlund answered, do we really need this 'gameplay concession'? Or rather, can we even call it a 'concession' or should we call it a 'bug'?

 Let's say the probability of penetration on main battle tanks with very steep and fast strafing runs in AH is reasonable. If so, what about the instance of M3 or M16s, Ostwinds disabling Panzers?

 Yes, the AA vehicles stand no chance if the tank spots him first and knocks him out from afar. But usually, if you are in a heavy tank, and there is one lightly armoured AA vehicle defending the town, you would hesitate to charge in. That 'light vehicle' literally squashes the 'main battle tank' Panzer IV like a bug if the distance gets close. By the time you fire two 75mm AP rounds, the M16 or Ostwind rakes across the body of the tank and knocks out every damageable part there is. How can this be explained with the penetration values? Quad .50 AA guns splashing against Panzer armour and disabling it like a cardboard box!

 Why would anyone take up a slow-firing Panzer with weak AA capabilities when any plane or GV can just strafe it and disable it in the first pass? It is no wonder people usually use just two GVs. Ostwind for ground attack/assault + AA defense, and the M3 for capture. The M8, M16 and PzrIV is pointless.

 ....

 This 'concession' allows people to kill a main battle tank with a plane or a GV that would have none or very very slim chance of even damaging it in real life.

  The result we ended up with is every plane armed with Hispanos and M2 .50s becoming a multi-purpose fighter which effectively negates the usage of some many interesting and specialized planes which have been modelled in AH. As it is, they are modelled in vain(sorry Natedog and Superfly ).

 There are GVs advancing to town. What do you do? Up a fighter and go strafe it. Why'd you need an IL-2 when a Spitfire with bombs would do the job? Drop the bomb, strafe it a few times and the engines smoke, tracks shatter, turrets bend...  plus, if there are enemy fighters nearby you could even fight them too.

 If there should be a gameplay concession, they should just hard-code the DM so heavily armoured GVs are immune to anything less than 37mm cannons. Unrealistic? Yeah. But at least with this simple coding you'd see people upping IL-2s or Hurri2Ds, Yak-9Ts.

[Toad]

Not to beat it to death, but I think they're aware of what you guys are saying.

However, remember that you have 7 folks doing all the work. Two of those are almost exclusively doing artwork. Figure two are doing "customer service" related issues... accounts, tech support, etc. That leaves three to do all the "master plan" deep thinking, research and programming, debugging, implementation of new features (Mission Theater), etc.

Yes, they are aware of the GV issues in the thread. Be patient. They've done well for us so far.

[Kweassa]

I agree. It is a lot of work for such a handful of people.

 Let's just say these threads are 'suggestive' discussions to perhaps move some of the 'priorities' the community thinks nicely of up the list of 'to-do's for the staff.

  The longer the wait, the better the results, we hope. Impatience is a way of showing affection in the aggressive manner.

[Masherbrum]

"If a high velocity 57mm cannon is ineffective, where do you think that leaves .50 cal fire or 20mm fire?"  

Were they AP rounds or HEI?

"The Mark IV had a lightly armored rear deck that could be penetrated with our 50 API rounds and set the engine on fire, but the panther and the Tiger were mostly impervious to our strafing. In those tanks the crews would just button up and hope that we wouldn’t call in AC that had bombs since that would finish them. There is a case on record where a Panther tank was strafed by P-47's for an extended time. The massive strafing shot off all the equipment parts carried outside the tank, and entombed the crew by dinging the hatch lips, effectively welding the hatches closed. If we could catch the tanks while on a road march far from the front lines they sometimes-carried extra fuel and ammunition strapped on the outside. In those cases strafing could ignite the fuel or ammunition, possibly destroying them. Although we couldn’t be sure of damaging or destroying a heavy tank, our strafing was sure to affect the crew psychologically, having to stay cooped up hearing the constant rattle of our rounds hitting the tank and not knowing when a bomb or other heavy gun would finish them off. In summary, strafing a tank could do nothing or it could destroy them, depending on the circumstances.”

Wotan, I never would have guessed that the rear of the Panzer was vulnerable which is precisely how I straf the GV's.  

I never would have guessed that the Republic P-47
Thunderbolt WASN'T a "tankbuster", wait it WAS and it's grandson is too, the Fairchild A-10 T-Bolt II.

The rear of the Panzers were vulnerable.

Jay

[john9001]

why do people keep calling the panzer MK IV a "main battle tank" and "a heavy tank " the MK V & MK VI were heavy tanks but they are not in game yet, the ostwind was built on a MK IV chassie so it's body armor is same as PNZMK IV, the MK IV was a medium tank.

a rapid fire 37mm has always ben used as a anti tank weapon.

a .50 cal AP will knock holes in a masonary wall, and had effective range of 1300 yds.

the US penitration data is "if 50% of the rounds go through , it is penitration".

no AP rounds "bounce off" they all cause some damage, deforming the outer skin and/or causing spalling* of the inner surface which can damage people and equipment.

panzer mk IV had 10mm top armor , early MK IV had 14mm side and rear, later MK IV 30mm side and rear.

for the metric challenged, 10mm =3/8" , 14mm= 1/2", 30mm=1 1/8" app.

so stop whining about your german super tank that gets damaged by the puny US .50 cal.


* spalling: thats when hard metal pieces brake off the inside surface and fly at high speed around the inside of the tank hitting things.

44MAG

[Wotan]

try reading the thread and following the links.

[wulfie]

Just 2 clarifcations here...

1. I was commenting on .50 MGs vs. the Pz VIE.

2. I don't have any concerns about HTC and 'realism' when it comes to AFV armor and gun penetration effects. For those who do - there have been errors in lethality and FMs in every sim ever made. HTC fixes the errors when they find them. That's about all you can ask for in my book.

Mike/wulfie

[hitech]

50Cal penitration chart.



HiTech

[illo]

Originally posted by john9001
why do people keep calling the panzer MK IV a "main battle tank" and "a heavy tank " the MK V & MK VI were heavy tanks but they are not in game yet, the ostwind was built on a MK IV chassie so it's body armor is same as PNZMK IV, the MK IV was a medium tank.

a rapid fire 37mm has always ben used as a anti tank weapon.

a .50 cal AP will knock holes in a masonary wall, and had effective range of 1300 yds.

the US penitration data is "if 50% of the rounds go through , it is penitration".

no AP rounds "bounce off" they all cause some damage, deforming the outer skin and/or causing spalling* of the inner surface which can damage people and equipment.

panzer mk IV had 10mm top armor , early MK IV had 14mm side and rear, later MK IV 30mm side and rear.

for the metric challenged, 10mm =3/8" , 14mm= 1/2", 30mm=1 1/8" app.

so stop whining about your german super tank that gets damaged by the puny US .50 cal.


* spalling: thats when hard metal pieces brake off the inside surface and fly at high speed around the inside of the tank hitting things.

44MAG

Im not whining..why would i need to..hell i don't even play this game.

I just say 50cal penetrations to Panzer IVh didn't happen atleast by looking battlefield research.

Btw you should check your numbers. Early war PzKpfw IVe and late war PzKpfw IVh differ like night and day,

Top turret armor is 15mm and rear deck armor is 12mm. Yes if you shoot in near vertical dive at point blank rounds will penetrate.

About spalling and armor flaking effect...it really is subject when tanks are shot with rounds over 75mm calibre.

[Hortlund]

hitech, what is the definition of penetration in that chart?

Is it the US variant ("penetration" meaning that it was possible to see light through a crack of armour) or any other variant (such as complete penetration by the projectile)?

Since that seems to be a US penetration chart, Im guessing it might be penetration=Possible to see light through crack in armor?

Because that difference might explain the discrepancies between in game effects and effects described in real life.

[AKDejaVu]

Seems that would only apply if you're talking about a single round hortlund.  If its penetrating enough to put a visible opening in the armor... and you have 6 .50's shooting at close to the same area... well... I think even you can understand that it will be a cumulative effect.

[john9001]

hortland , here is the link to the US definition of pentration

http://web.archive.org/web/20010710224457/www.wargamer.org/GvA/weapons/usa_hardness_gun.html

compared to other countries the stats only vary by a few % points even though each country used different testing methods.

as i said above, the US said if 50% of the rounds went through it was pentration.

here is a link to the whole site

http://www.freeweb.hu/gva/index.html

[Hortlund]

Seems that would only apply if you're talking about a single round hortlund. If its penetrating enough to put a visible opening in the armor... and you have 6 .50's shooting at close to the same area... well... I think even you can understand that it will be a cumulative effect.

Why would that only apply if we were talking about a single round? We cannot know what bullet #2 will do even if it hit the exact same spot as bullet #1. Penetration tables are more about averages than anything else. Most have some sort of explanation like "the graph shows the max penetration acheieved by 50% of the fired bullets" or stuff like that.

It is much more complicated than just looking at a graph and follow the lines to where they cross and say "yup, at distance x, angle y and speed z, the projectile will penetrate 2,782 inches of face hardened steel". It doesnt work that way. What you will get is more like, "at distance x, angle y and speed z there is a 56,745% probability that the bullet will penetrate 2,782 inches of face hardened steel".

And besides, questions like "How much would the penetration be if we fired 1000 rounds at the exact same spot?" are pretty useless to everyone.

And the odds of two rounds fired from a moving airplane hitting the same spot is...well not too good.

And just because there will be a cumulative effect, it doest mean that there will be penetration. A cumulative effect is not the same thing as cumulative damage.

Take a look at the facts, the British study of tank kills is an excellent place to start. The brits actually went over every single tank wreck they could find from Normandy to Bastogne, to find the reason what killed those tanks. Not one was killed by MG fire, not one.

[brady]

Ok lets for a moment say that the Chart that HTC is using is sound and that under optimonal conditions a penatration could be acheaved( although in all reality a tank doesent seam to of ever been killed by this 50call ammo).

 Why am I being killed by 50 cal fire outside the effective envelope of fire from this weapon?

 Why am I loosing an engine from over the ranges that 50 cal fire could  effectively penatrate my rear plate.

 Why are my tracks being taken out at range when this has been proven imposable at almost any range and angle.

 Why does the above hapen frequently.

  Why can I disable a Panzer IV engine with a MG 34 at 400 yards?