Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aircraft and Vehicles => Topic started by: Urchin on December 22, 2004, 04:11:15 PM
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Well, I've been playing around with this tank for a few days.
I do like it. I don't think the Panzer IV completely outmatches it like I did on the first day of using it.
However, I will say the major reason that I think nobody uses it is because of the Tiger. The T-34 literally can't hurt the Tiger. Doesn't matter how close it is, where it shoots from (unless you somehow catch one climbing up a 45 degree slope and you can shoot down into the top of it, unlikely at best in my opinion), or how many times it shoots.
The very best it can hope for is to track it, which is again a pretty long shot considering the Tiger has absolutely no problem popping the T-34 at any feasible range.
I did talk to Pyro about it, and he confirmed that with the ammunition that is modelled it is just about impossible for a T-34 to hurt a Tiger.
One thing that would remedy this is if the T-34 was modelled with the BR-350P APCT round.
The penetration data I found for the round (to the best of my knowledge the Soviets defined penetration as 75% of the fragments of the round going through the armor, the Germans was 50%) was as follows
Angle --- 100M ---- 500M --- 1000M --- 2000M ---
0 ------ 133mm --- 95mm --- 62mm ---- 28mm
30 ------ 96mm --- 68mm --- 45mm ---- 21mm
60 ------ 33mm --- 25mm --- 17mm ---- 11mm
The regular round that is modelled (BR-350A) has the following
Angle --- 100M ---- 500M --- 1000M --- 2000M ---
0 ------- 81mm ---- 73mm --- 63mm --- 28mm
30 ------ 76mm ---- 68mm --- 60mm --- 45mm
60 ------ 40mm ---- 37mm --- 34mm --- 31mm
The armor our Tiger has (I think) is
Location --- Front -------- Side ------- Rear
Turret ---- 102mm @8d -- 82mm ------ 82mm
Upper Hull- 102mm @10d - 82mm ------ 82mm
Lower Hull- 102mm @24d - 62mm ------ 82mm
Top armor is 25mm on turret and hull. I'm pretty sure the "lower hull side" means behind the treads, but I'm not positive on that.
The armor is unsloped, except for the front.
However, our T-34 as modelled has no hope of ever doing any damage to the Tiger, which I think is kind of screwed up.
The BR-350P round was, as I understand, kind of an "emergency" round in that only 4 or so were in each tank. It was introduced in the summer of 1943.
Since the T-34 has been introduced, the Tiger is 3802/69 against it. I'm relatively positive that the 69 kills were as a result of a T34 dropping more rounds into the treads of an already disabled Tiger than anyone else did for the kill.
I really think the T-34 needs a limited number of these rounds to be a viable tank in the MA.
Right now, you can use it on defense alright, as long as you don't go head to head against the Panzers coming in. Using it on offense is relatively suicidal, since all it takes is one Tiger to render any number of T-34s essentially useless (or dead).
I hope that HTC will consider adding this round to the T-34.
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Search 'shatter gap', Soviet 76mm rounds even though theoretically they 'could penetrate' some tended to fail and shatter between a given range (close) rather penetrate.
The western allies had the same issue. Not that this could be possibly modelled in AH but who knows...
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Well, even with the 350P the T-34 would only be able to get through the front armor at ~100 yards or so.. and it would be dead long before it got there.
But, with that round you could at least get to the side or rear of the Tiger at close range and have a couple rounds that *might* hurt it.
That'd be enough for me.
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Hi Urchin,
Are you aware of the "Tigerfibel" tank crew training manual?
http://www.geocities.com/tigerfibel/tfindex.html
In the appendix, it has penetration diagrams against different Allied tanks that might be interesting for you :-)
(Not that I have a clue when it comes to tanks.)
Regards,
Henning (HoHun)
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That is pretty cool looking.
I have absolutely no idea how to read it though lol.
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OK, if I am reading that right, according to that (if the little tank in the middle is the Tiger) it looks like the T34 could hurt the Tiger from 1500 yards in a side shot or rear shot, and 500 yards in a front shot.
Looks like the Tiger could hurt the T34 from 800 yards in a front shot, and 2000+ in a side or rear shot.
Kind of interesting, I think it is probably wrong, given the other data I've found.
According to the Goggle translator, the big warning in white says "Entering the clover leaf of the T34 is forbidden" (well, that isn't what it said, but I think that is what it meant)
The big arrow reads "XXXX I can you, but you do not YYYY", probably means "I can hurt you, but you can't hurt me".
The little one reads "I am shot" lol.
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Hi Urchin,
You figured it all out :-)
>The big arrow reads "XXXX I can you, but you do not YYYY", probably means "I can hurt you, but you can't hurt me".
Quite right! :-)
The headline "Anti-Götz" refers to a stage play by Goethe, famous even among the less literally interested due to a rather graphical curse the knight Götz von Berlichingen hurls at the enemy when he's asked to capitulate. "Tell your captain he can lick my a..", with different degrees of "bleeping" depending on the respective publishers' bigotry level. (I'd love to see the original manuscript ;-)
By the way, the make of the Tigerfibel is a direct rip-off of the RAF's "Tee Emm" training manuals, featuring P.O. Percival Prune. Prune really caught on (and remember, he got awarded the Iron Cross for the destruction of a great number of RAF aircraft, so the Germans were really fond of him!), so the comic style was copied quite accurately (and "enhanced" by adding a generous dose of pin-ups).
The Luftwaffe's "Schießfibel" is another example of a "Tee Emm" rip-off, though it's not as close to the original in style as the Tigerfibel. You have probably seen it already:
http://rafiger.de/Homepage/Pages/Schiessfibel.html
Regards,
Henning (HoHun)
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We have a expert tanker in our squad. He discloses that there is a weakness in every tank that will disable it with no more than two shots from another tank, and that is to aim for the "turret ring", where the hull and the turret meets.
Some of my squaddies confirmed that one shot at a Panzer turret ring from a T-34 will kill it, and one shot from a Panzer to a Tiger turret ring will also kill it.
Perhaps you could try it and see if it works.
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Our AH TIGER has two weak spots that I have found...
1. Seam where Turret meets Hull
2. Side in the Wheels just under the fender, but you have to be close to use this shot. One or two can kill him. (With the Panzer IV). But if you just damage him you have to run like HELL!
Our TIGER has a problem with it's rear armor IMHO. "Historically" that was the TIGER's only real weak spot. Many combat stories report that the only way to knock out a Tiger was to get behind it.
I have hit a Tiger square in the rear at close range with 10+ AP shells from the PANZER IV and did nothing to it. Something is not right here. Wish HTC would check this.
Also something wrong with our 5" HVAR rockets and the 40mm guns on the Hurrican IID. The other night I seen several rockets and at least 10 or my 40 mm rounds bounce off his stern with no effect. The rockets are equivelent to a 5" (127mm) shell off a Destroyer. Don't think even the Tiger should be able to stand up to that!
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Jester,
I hit a Tiger with a 500lb bomb, saw the hit sprite, and got nothing for it.
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I bet guppy has photos of a flipped over tiger somewhere near bastogne, the result of a 500 gp bomb carpet bombing.
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I've disabled the turrets on Tigers with the Hurri-2d, but that it is all. However, that is all I usually aim to do anyway, even with Panzer IVs.
Actually, when I go "Tiger hunting" per se, I always use the Hurri-2D, so I've no experience in dropping bombs or shooting rockets at them.
I've also got very little experience Panzer IV vs Tiger, but I was under the impression that they were quite killable if you got relatively close. I know a couple times I've distracted a Tiger by getting up right behind it (5 yards away), richocheting a couple rounds off its bellybutton end, then driving to stay in front of its gun while a Panzer came up to kill it. That is a couple times this week, that is.
But in my experience I've been completely unable to damage one in the T-34.
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V134 was camped yesterday, and while I managed to escape the VH, someone was busy trying to turn his T34 turret around before the vulching Tiger could reload, and by the time I made it around the second VH to flank the Tiger, it was fleeing with its turret smoking.
Didn't film it, so this theory's to be continued..
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Originally posted by Karnak
Jester,
I hit a Tiger with a 500lb bomb, saw the hit sprite, and got nothing for it.
I have seen TIGER's sitting in a "moonscape" of craters of 1000lb bombs all at least touching the tank and all it did was de-tread him. Didn't even take out the damn pintle MG! Tell me what is wrong with this picture.
TIGER's armor here in AH has some real issues and needs looked at. It should be hard to kill a TIGER due to it's armor and guns but not to the extent of some of the reports we have all seen while playing the game.
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Moot, would you mind headin to the DA with me sometime to play around with Tiger vs T-34? I mostly just want to drop a lot of T-34 shots into a Tiger and see if it ever gets hurt.
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I'll make sure I film it any time I see a tiger and T34 facing off.
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OK, the results of our findings.
At ranges up to around 150 yards, if the T-34 is exactly perpendicular (within about 2 degrees) to the surface it is shooting at on the Tiger (rear or side) the round will not ricochet. It doesn't seem to do any damage either, which is about right, considering the upper range of its penetration is just about the thickness of the armor on the Tiger.
Inside of 100 yards, it seems that 3 hits to the same panel (the Tiger has a hexogonal turret, front, 2 front side, 2 rear side, 1 rear "panel") will disable the turret. It was always 3 hits, every time we did it (many many times). Again, the T34 shot must come in almost directly perpendicular to the panel you are shooting at, or the round will ricochet off.
Shooting at the rear never knocked out the engine (well, perhaps I just didn't have the patience to do it). Shooting the side (hull) about 12-14 times seemed to kill the Tiger. Shooting the Tiger a seemingly random number of times after the turret was disabled killed the Tiger. These hits didn't necesarily have to be to the same panel you hit 3 times to knock out the turret, sometimes one hit to an undamaged panel will kill the Tiger if the turret is already disabled.
Should a T-34 catch a Tiger with a roof shot (seemed the threshold was fairly steep, we were unable to replicate this other than by having the Tiger basically tip himself over one of the flat sided hills used to get hull down with), it can kill it with one shot inside of about 1500 yards.. takes 2 at that range. I don't see this happening in the MA.
I'd still like to have the BR-350P round modelled with a limited number of rounds per load (4 seems nice, and historical :)), simply because I think it is exceedingly unlikely any Tiger would sit still and let a T-34 pound out 3 shots at the exact same panel of the turret without moving either the tank or the turret even slightly.
It is possible for the T-34 to kill a Tiger however, if the Tiger driver is cooperative enough.
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I'll vouch for the armor being normal on the Tiger, at least whatever one I'm in. Had a 500 lb'er kill me earlier.
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500 lbers routinely kill tigers, agreed. T34 should be able to penetrate tiger at point blank range. Heck, the osty should be able to have a few ap rounds so it can defend itself at point blank ranges too for that matter. Agree that t34 not very useful with the slow rate of fire and effectiveness of gun. its main advantage is the quick traverse that permits getting spawn campers set up behind the spawn.
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Originally posted by Karnak
Jester,
I hit a Tiger with a 500lb bomb, saw the hit sprite, and got nothing for it.
Now this is truly ridiculas. The damage against tigers with bombs has been a long overdue issue imo. It is very frustrating to see 10 to 20 bombs droped 5 yards from a Tiger only to see it mozey on is merry way.
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I've never seen it.
Ever Tiger I've ever been in died no problem at all, hell, I don't even think the 500 lb bomb that killed me landed on me. I was moving under some trees when the guy dropped, so he either had fantastically amazing aim with bombs, or the Tiger doesn't have any kind of special immunity.
I think they may have fixed the "Tiger bounce" too.. I detracked a Tiger in a T34, then someone else tracked his other side, later once the Tiger figured out where I went he killed me in the predictable one hit.
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Four direct AP hits on lateral of M16 and no damage at all. Please, dont start any discussion about GVs whilel GV war is not much more than a joke. An, BTW, my Tigers dead on the very first ping, not that I care at all about it.
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Given the slow reload time of the T34 gun, the 85 mm of the late war should be available and not be perked, since if you miss or only take out an engine or track, then you had better run, because the amount of time it takes to reload is near the same as it takes a Tiget to rotate it's turret.
The 85mm is more on par with the Tigers' 88 mm and really would only allow a small advantage, since armor and other specifications remain more or less the same.
85mm 215 S-53 or D-5T gun , 55 rounds of ammunition (pick your shots)
"At the end of August, a conference was held at Factory #112. It was attended by the People's Commissar for Tank Industry V.A.Malyshev, Commander of Tank and Mechanized Troops of the Red Army Ya.N.Fedorenko, and ranking members from the People's Commissariat for Armaments. In his introduction, V.A.Malyshev noted that the victory at the Battle of Kursk cost the Red Army a high price:
"Enemy tanks opened fire on ours at distances of up to 1,500 metres, while our 76 mm tank guns could destroy "Tigers" and "Panthers" at distances of only 500-600 metres. Imagine the enemy has a kilometer and a half in his hands, while we have only half a kilometer. A more powerful gun needs to be put into the T-34 quickly."
In actual fact, the situation was significantly worse than Malyshev painted it, though attempts to correct the situation had been undertaken at the beginning of 1943.
As early as the 15th of April, the GOKO, reacting to the appearance of the new German tanks on the Soviet-German front, published order #3187ss (the "ss" suffix means top secret) "Measures for improving anti-tank defenses." This required the GAU (Glavnoye Artilleriiskoye Upravleniye, Chief Artillery Directorate) to put all tank and anti-tank guns then in mass production through range trials, and present findings all within a 10 day period. In accordance with this order, Deputy Commander of Tank and Mechanized Forces Lieutenant-General V.M.Korobkov ordered that a captured "Tiger" be used for the trials, which were conducted from 25 to 30 April at the NIIBT (Nauchno-issledovatel'skii Institut Bronetankovoi Tekhniki, Armored Vehicle Research and Development Institute) proving grounds at Kubinka. The trial results were of little comfort. The 76 mm armored-piercing tracer round for the F-34 gun did not penetrate the German tank's side even as close as 200 metres! The most effective weapon for dealing with the enemy's new heavy tank turned out to be the 85mm 52-K anti-aircraft gun model 1939. It penetrated the 100 mm frontal armor at distances up to 1,000 metres. "
Excerpts are from the http://www.battlefield.ru/t34_85.html
A look at the specifications and armor penetration values
http://www.battlefield.ru/guns/defin_4.html
I for one am not surprised at the relative invulnerability of the Tiger, when faced with the T34 mounting the 76mm gun.
Just imagine what will happen if/when they field the Sherman with the low velocity 75mm gun :D
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Originally posted by Urchin
I've never seen it.
I can produce a boatload of whitnesses for you.
The latest episode, we managed to track a running tiger to stop him with 5" rockets. Then about 5 or 6 of us started bombing him with rockets and 1,000lb bombs repeatedly. He had craters ALL AROUND him with many touching his tank.
I personally bounced at least 4 rockets and a 10+ 40mm hits off him plus several very close hits with 1000 pdrs. Viewed several 5" rockets from Duke glance off with no apparent damage.
Finally, took Bear in a flight of 3 B-24's dropping 1,000 pds to kill him.
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Originally posted by Leayme
Given the slow reload time of the T34 gun, the 85 mm of the late war should be available and not be perked, since if you miss or only take out an engine or track, then you had better run, because the amount of time it takes to reload is near the same as it takes a Tiget to rotate it's turret.
If you hit the engine on the Tiger then the turret has to be hand cranked since the power drive for turret rotation is gone. But, then if you knock out the engine the shell had to go through one of the fuel tanks, if hit from the side.
It required 720 turns of the handwheel by the gunner to have the turret do a 360. This handwheel was also used for final taget acquisition as the power traverse was not fine enough. Hand traversing required from 1/2lb of force at the 12 o'clock position to over 20-28lb of force at the 3-9 o'clock positions. Power traverse was 6*/sec.
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Oh, I don't doubt it has happened Jester. I don't think that is a problem with the Tiger so much as a problem with the person inside it (or possibly the person shooting at it).
If the Tiger really had some kind of uber armor, all the Tigers would be extraordinarily resistant to damage, not just the one freak Tiger.
I've seen Panzers that took a beating like that and didn't die until another tank upped and shot them a few times. Hell, I've been IN a Panzer that took something like 19 hits from another Panzer IV to the bellybutton from about 15 yards before it exploded.
I'm not exactly sure why it happens, I think maybe if the recieving GV is dropping a lot of packets it just won't ever get the message that it just got killed by XXXXX (a bomb, a rocket, whatever).
All I can say is no Panzer or Tiger (or T-34 for that matter) has ever lived very long once the bombs started dropping.
I think the longest I've ever made it recently was in a Panzer tucked away inside one of the little red barns near a field I was covering.. I think probably about 6 or 7 planes dropped bombs/rockets all around me, finally someone dropped a couple bombs near me and I blew up. That probably qualifies as a freakishly tough Panzer, especially since I saw some of the other bombs hit quite close.