Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: hazed- on March 19, 2002, 11:03:34 AM
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Its getting real old driving for 20 minutes to get to any action only for some 50 cal armed plane killing you in 1 or 2 passes.
I think its roadkill and its spoiling the fun in tanks.
Lets make it so tanks require the CORRECT tools for the job.
we have rockets and bombs to kill them with so why do we have to cater for the quake heads and make tanks killable by machine guns?
AH claims to be realistic but this is getting to be a joke.
after several sorties in a panzer and im venting it.
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What Hazed said.
(http://www.swoop.com/images/logo_small.jpg)
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1)Panzer armour and suceptability to small calibre fire
Agree. Panzers should ONLY lose their tracks and their pintle MG to 50 cal planes. I think only the 37mm in the yak9t and the 40mm on the hurricane should be able to damage the panzer. Ostwinds should lose their turret to ANY MG hit (including 303).. its an open hatch for feks sake. M16's and M3's should lose their gun turrets with a few hits of 50 cal. Their bullet shields only worked against rifle caliber , not 50 cals or bigger.
2)pintle mg on panzers is too powerfull for its rifle type calibre
Totally agree. I dont know how the hell a 7.9 mm can cause instant pilot wound every whoopee time a pz hits you. I've HO'd p47s and I still have to get a pilot wound. And guess which one is shooting more lead at you.
3)ball turret on B17 can fire through fuselage and tail up to 30 degrees too high
Lanc tail turret can also fire to 4 oc and 8 oc .
4)durability of LA7 seems too high(just opinion here)
Yep, considering its just an La5 with a few mods to its engine.. the La5 dies sssooo much quicker.
5)HE rounds on a 75mm gun are FAR too weak.(things like fuel tanks take 3-4 hits? ack has to be almost hit spot on)
HE rounds should, IMO, be the equiv. of 100lbs bomb EACH shell. Ive hit hangars with nearly all the M8 HE ammo and it was only until I had like 10 shells left that the hangar blew up.
6)smaller 100lb-250lb HE bombs are generally too weak.
Yes, there is no use for them in the game. Why take a small bomb when taking the biggest one is much better? Both bombs will drag you, both will be salvoe'd if in trouble, and the bigger bombs will do much more damage/flatten more town buildings. Would be nice if the heavy bombs were only available if the field's ammo dump or strat ammo factory are 100%. If they 75% or lower, only the 500lb or lower will be avaliable.
Ill add to your list:
7) Bombs have very little blast damage. A 1k bomb dropped a dozen yds from an M3... does NOTHING. You literally have to hit the thing directly or right next to it (inside 5 yds or so) to do any damage. IRL even a 100lb bomb dropped in 10 yds from it would flip the thing over. Would also be cool to see the shockwave from the bombs :)
8) M8's need smoke rounds. LOTS of them. Since there is no cover in the terrain for tanks, the smoke rounds would provide it. Give the M8 about 50 smoke rounds please.
9) Gunners on bombers wear deflector shields. Sit on the tail of a lanc and put a good spray of 50 cal on the very tip of the tail... and that tail gunner will shoot you down. Strafe a b17 from nose to tail with 50 cals or 303's... nada, all gunners keep firing. Only cannons seem to blow gunners away. Last time I checked the b17s' armor was nonexistant, even rifle bullets went through. So how is it a 50 cal or 303 hits all throught the fuselage does zilch to the gunners?
10) Truck convoys... strafe a truck with cannon and 50 cals.. and it keeps going. It takes 2 to 3 passes depending on plane's loadout to take down a single truck.
11)
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I can understand your frustration, Hazed. While I have no analytical data to offer, I've recently read a book called "Fighter-Bomber" by a 9th AF pilot in WWII. According to his book, this pilot (a squadron commander with over 140 missions in P-40s and P-47s) notes that the American 50-cal was devastating to most armored and non-armored vehicles. He talkes specifically about killing tanks with them, though not specific types of tanks. Also, it may be that he uses the term "tank" to generically describe armored vehicles.
I certainly don't have any ballistics and penatration charts to back that up. However, the P-40 was a principle US fighter bomber in Africa through the first half of the Italian campaign. As it carried only a modest bomb load (no rockets, I believe), it's principle ground attack weapon were it's six 50-cals. So they were probably more effective than you're giving them credit for. Is it possible that the Pnzr-IV's top armor was thin enough in spots that 50-cal AP could penatrate and do damage? I would think it possible.
The main question I have regarding armor, ballistics and penatration in AH has to do with how they are modelled. Does the model actually check if a weapon penetrates, or does it simply require a certain weight of ordnance on target to cause damage? In other words, will any weapon eventually destroy the target if you put enough rounds into it? I know that if you dump enough 30-cal on an AH building, you will eventually destroy it. Too, with ships it is the weight of ordnance that hits that is important. Whether I drop eight 1,000 lb boms or sixteen 500 lb bombs, that CV will sink. Is it the same way with armored vehicles? Lastly, does the penatration model take into account the hit location and angle/velocity of the impacting round to determine if damage to the target occurs? I don't know, but it should.
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GV damage model needs work, there's no question of that, but as an ex-tanker, let me tell you that the armor on the top of the turret and rear deck can be real thin in spots even in modern super tanks. Tank armor is distributed to defend against other tanks, not aircraft. I don't have any data, but from personal experience, it seems ok the way it is now. Now, about those killer trees :rolleyes:
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Have u ever seen the tracks of a PzIV AusF? I cant figure out how 50" may damage them except for very very lucky shots.
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This could be solved so easily.
Look at historical records of what was useful in attacking a tank and then gear up the armor so it resembles the historical record. We dont need tony williams to tell us only a lucky 50 cal shot should KILL a tank. Disable parts of it easily, but not the formulaic 'if i strafe it 3 times with 50s, that should be enough lead to kill it'.
If our tanks are being knocked out by 303s and 50cals, raise the armor value on the dam thing. IF IT TAKES 10 AP ROUNDS TO KNOCK A TURRET OFF ANOTHER PANZER AT 800yards RAISE THE DAMAGE CAUSED BY AN AP ROUND!!!! HE shells are a joke and that is all there is to say about that. You hit a fuel tank with a tank, it should blow up.
This is ridiculus. I cant believe they are sitting on this one. Change it, see what happens. Cant get any worse.
Oh and while your at it. WHY NOT MAKE THE STURMI, YAK9T, AND HURRI ACTUALLY DO SOME SERIOUS DAMAGE TO TANKS!!! Whats gonna happen? if you raise the damage from those rounds it wont have impact on planes, as they pop with one hit as it is!
This is a definite example of something that pyro could sneeze and change, just to see what the result is. If you are strafing tanks with your spit (guilty) you shouldnt expect any kind of result. If you whine about them being to strong bring an egg or a rocket. Then whine about fixing that (pilot) heat seaking 303 on the roof.
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>>M16's and M3's should lose their gun turrets with a few hits of 50 cal. Their bullet shields only worked against rifle caliber , not 50 cals or bigger. <<
Interesting because I have tried to strafe each of these with .50 cal a/c and had to do way more than 2 passes; and I don't bother strafing FPz or M-16s anymore because they are just too impenetrable to mg fire. I have had more success strafing panzers with .50 cals than the other two...go figger :(
The .50 cal was no wussie round yet there seems to be some weirdness with it and certain vehicles. And no, it isn't my aim;)
In most cases I am registering hits from 600 yds up to 200 feet and no joy. I can see .50 cals disabling armor with armor peircing rounds but, it would take a helluva lot; to my knowledge ap .50 cals aren't modeled in AH aircraft.
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ooops sorry tac i edited it out after rereading it :)
now it looks like tac is on a different thread :)
but the list i originally made was the 6 points he mentioned:
I cut it down because i thought we would just end up with another 'stop whining' thread.
kinda suprised me that no one has started this old tactic of spoiling issues brought up by customers by starting the whine anti whine arguements :)
sorry tac but still im glad you agreed
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btw just because the P40 was the principle ground attack plane in north africa and it was armed with 50 cals does not prove it can kill tanks or that because it was sent to kill tanks it was capable of doing so with its mgs.
In real life crew didnt spend 24/7 in their tanks and were thus vulnerable, the fuel trucks and ammo trucks and repair trucks were targets as were ground troops supply dumps , just about anything that hindered the enemies ability to fight or wage war.
You menton the small load of bombs planes carried and before i edited my post i made the point that even a 50kg bomb 'should' throw vehicles around and possibly destroy tanks etc and as a panzer driver in AH i can accept dieing in this manner.
What i object to is having the game tailored to a person who cant be arsed learning how to divebomb or launch with an aircraft that is loaded with rockets or bombs and wants to be able to kill everything with what is essentially a small calibre machinegun.
If HTC want to cater for the quake heads then good luck to them.But they will lose those players more interested in simulating the battlefield with a little 'computer help' along the way to make it a fun experience.This doesnt mean we have to have totally unrealistic quake like weapons but it should reflect closely what was used for what, and what objects were damaged with whatever weapon.
take out a panzer? USE A DAMN BOMB OR ROCKET. otherwise why bother adding them to the game?
HTC if you leave it as it is then you may as well arm EVERYTHING with 50 cals and call it WW2 starwars. :mad:
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Amen!
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Couldn't find penetration tables for U.S .50cal but here's something:
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you got it brother! AMEN!
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that would be nice...
1) make all tanks (flak, pzr,m8) invulnerable to MG and cannon fire that's of 23mm or lower caliber. (that way the il2, 40mm hurri, yak9t and the 30mm rides can strafe tanks.. and again, it would only be those carrying AP rounds that can kill it, so the 109's 190's and 110's and 262's 30mm wont kill a tank)
2) Make the tanks lose their tracks to 50 cal fire or larger, but ONLY if the bullets hit the tracks themselves. Thus, an attacker would have to fly treetop level and aim low to the track to pop the tracks.
3) Make all open-top vehicles (flak, m3, m16, lvt's, ptboats) LOSE their gunners when strafed by any MG. Make the Pzr lose its pintle MG in the same manner (even if the gunner is inside the hatch, the gun itself is very easily knocked out in a hail of bullets).
Zoso: you really saying a 50 cal would penetrate the top armour of a tank? from 500 yards+ (assuming best 90 degree angle shot, and any plane wanting to pull out from such a dive must do so at around d500 IF he's reaaly slow)?
"kinda suprised me that no one has started this old tactic of spoiling issues brought up by customers by starting the whine anti whine arguements "
Damn! I was hoping for just that ;) :) :D
I would also seriously check on the ammo fired by the flaktank. The flaktank is THE best TANK there is.. will beat a pzr, will beat an m8, kicks the crap out of any plane dumb enough to get close with one ping, incredibly refire rate and ammo load.... why use anything else?
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maybe the .50cals killing tanks are in place of something. like ricochet for example. i've read numerous accounts of p47 pilots saying they used to shoot right in front of tanks to ricochet the bullet off the ground and hit under the tank where they werent armored.
my .02
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btw just because the P40 was the principle ground attack plane in north africa and it was armed with 50 cals does not prove it can kill tanks or that because it was sent to kill tanks it was capable of doing so with its mgs.
Easy, there Hazed. If you look again at what I wrote I believe you'll discover that I never said it "proved" anything. What I said is "they were probably more effective than you're giving them credit for." I'm just offering testimonial evendence to suggest the tanks might indeed be vulnerable to 50-cal fire. what I was trying to convey was that this pilot I refer to claimed he and his fellow 50-cal armed pilots killed tanks on a regular basis, along with many other types of vehicles. We also have Zoso stating a professional opinion that even modern armor would likely not be invulnerable to 50-cal AP rounds. Is the damage model in AH's armor too susseptable to it? Perhaps. I just don't have hard evidence to back that up.
As far as the bomb load goes, what I meant was the number of bombs they carried, not the size of the bomb. In combat descriptions in this book, the impression is that most of the damage they did was by strafing. Yes they used bombs, but only for the first pass. After their one bomb was dropped, they would swoop in and go to work with those 50's.
Tac, I hope you're not suggesting that we arbitrarily and artifically say that anything 50-cal or below can't destroy a tank, even if data can be found that proves they could. I agree this should be looked at, and adjusted if hard data proves it should. I also think we shouldn't arbitrarily demand it be changed just because it doesn't seem right to us.
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Vehicles, particularly the PnZ IV H, should be much, much tougher.
20mm cannons should only have a small, very small, chance of destroying the PnZ's engine or tracks.
PnZ's should be nigh immune to 20mm fire, let alone 12.7mm or 30 cal fire.
The RAF ordered the Mosquito FB.XVIII with the Mollins 57mm cannon as an anti-tank weapon, but by the time the FB.XVIII was ready they had concluded that the 57mm Mollins gun lacked sufficient penetration to destroy German tanks effectively and so gave the FB.XVIIIs to Coastal Command. That was a 57mm cannon that wasn't good enough, 989,000 joules at the muzzle. Hispano MkII 20mm cannon, by comparison, have a mere 50,300 joules at the muzzle.
There is no way that aircraft guns, not even the Yak-9T's 37mm or the Hurricane Mk IId's 40mm, should be anywhere near this effective agaist tanks. Bombs and rockets should be the only realistic hope a pilot has of doing anything to a tank, and the rocket needs to actually hit the tanks, the bomb needs to be damn close.
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I watched the P-47 show on the history channel. Watched several gun cams of p-47's blowing the living crap out of tanks with their 8 .50 cals. So, don't tell me its not possible. Unless you're claiming they faked the footage?:rolleyes: When they learned to bounce their round from underneath, they were REALLY meat on a hook.
If anything, their too tough still. I've poured long streams of 50 cal ontop of osties just to see them keep shooting. All it would take is ONE 50 cal round to hit inside that open gondola and rattle around and those guys would be nothing more than a quivering bowl of red goo.
Wab
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For numbers look here
http://www.hitechcreations.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=48031&highlight=penetration+armor+tank
and
http://www.hitechcreations.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=45974&highlight=penetration+armor+tank
From what I have read over the months, this is a joke. No excuses, no whines, no bouncing bullets. Just beef the bastards up. Why? GAMEPLAY! I want to have a reason to up a sturmi or a hurri, besides a love of pilot wounds and old slow aircraft.
If spits 303s did to planes what the 50s do to tanks people would complain.
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"Tac, I hope you're not suggesting that we arbitrarily and artifically say that anything 50-cal or below can't destroy a tank, even if data can be found that proves they could. I agree this should be looked at, and adjusted if hard data proves it should. I also think we shouldn't arbitrarily demand it be changed just because it doesn't seem right to us"
Of course I am. Remember that "Tank" means Pzr, Flaktank and M8. The other vehicles would not withstand a 50 cal burst from 4+ MG's. Now, that their open hatch guns die with said MG fire, yes! . That their tracks can be disabled by a low level , concentrated strafe on the sides, yes!. That they can be strafed and make it blow up? NO.
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Thanks AKWabbit, I meant to mention that in my post but couldn't remember where I'd seen it.
Tac, I'm honestly not sure as I don't know the pentration values of a .50 in real life or otherwise. Without trying to hard, I can think of a dozen places on the top of the turret and back deck of an M1-A1 where the armor is no thicker than 3/4 inch. Can 6 fiftes go through that? I sure wouldn't want to be standing under it. What's too thick for a .50?
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Nevermind Zoso, al that footage we saw must have been faked. :rolleyes: It's all part of that pro-US Air Force conspiracy.:rolleyes: The footage was faked by the same guys who faked the moon landing tv coverage.:rolleyes:
Wab
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If you want a legitamate gripe, its not the penetration model. Its showing the icons for enemy GV's. It should be no icons from the air on enemies juyst like on the ground.
Wab
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maybe the .50cals killing tanks are in place of something. like ricochet for example. i've read numerous accounts of p47 pilots saying they used to shoot right in front of tanks to ricochet the bullet off the ground and hit under the tank where they werent armored.
That is simply not possible.
Most panzers had bottom armor well over 30mm to protect crew from AT-mines. From 90 degree angle at point blank range .50cal cant penetrate 30mm of armor. I posted link to discussion about this on other thread about this very same subject. It was well researched by examining abandoned/KOd german tanks after allied advances in france that this didn't happen.
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Originally posted by Karnak
Vehicles, particularly the PnZ IV H, should be much, much tougher.
20mm cannons should only have a small, very small, chance of destroying the PnZ's engine or tracks.
PnZ's should be nigh immune to 20mm fire, let alone 12.7mm or 30 cal fire.
The RAF ordered the Mosquito FB.XVIII with the Mollins 57mm cannon as an anti-tank weapon, but by the time the FB.XVIII was ready they had concluded that the 57mm Mollins gun lacked sufficient penetration to destroy German tanks effectively and so gave the FB.XVIIIs to Coastal Command. That was a 57mm cannon that wasn't good enough, 989,000 joules at the muzzle. Hispano MkII 20mm cannon, by comparison, have a mere 50,300 joules at the muzzle.
There is no way that aircraft guns, not even the Yak-9T's 37mm or the Hurricane Mk IId's 40mm, should be anywhere near this effective agaist tanks. Bombs and rockets should be the only realistic hope a pilot has of doing anything to a tank, and the rocket needs to actually hit the tanks, the bomb needs to be damn close.
I entirely agree Karnak.
Just like you said It was possible to damage panzer engine by shooting through air ventilation holes on rear deck.
Germans were enough desperate to fit even 75mm Paks to planes like ju88 and hs129 to ensure tank kills. Even 37mm Flak with wolfram cored ammunition could just barely penetrate T-34s side turret. Everything under 30mm HV cannons wasnt just enough to kill mid/late war tanks. .50 cals and 20mm were very effective against lightly armored vehicles like halftracks, open topped TDs, trucks and armored cars. Against tanks they were almost useless.
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Originally posted by AKWabbit
I watched the P-47 show on the history channel. Watched several gun cams of p-47's blowing the living crap out of tanks with their 8 .50 cals. So, don't tell me its not possible. Unless you're claiming they faked the footage?:rolleyes: When they learned to bounce their round from underneath, they were REALLY meat on a hook.
If anything, their too tough still. I've poured long streams of 50 cal ontop of osties just to see them keep shooting. All it would take is ONE 50 cal round to hit inside that open gondola and rattle around and those guys would be nothing more than a quivering bowl of red goo.
Wab
How did you witness KO? Did the crew bail out?
What tanks? Im sure not Pz-IV,Pz-V or PZ-VI. Maybe some Panzerjägers, Armored cars or halftracks?
About bouncing the rounds...thats simply not possible as i mentioned before.
1. rounds will lose much of their KE when hitting the ground.
2. rounds will deform(right term?) which greatly reduces their penetration capability.
3.bottom is well protected in any german main battle tank. Over 30mm generally to protect crew from AT-mines.
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There is simply no way a .50 cal round fired from a distance could bounce off a surface and penetrate the hull armor of a late war German tank. For one thing, the round would begin to tumble, it would be deformed, both of which would degrade its penetrating power. Also, it's kinetic energy would be much lower after striking the ground. This might have been possible with a halftrack or something, but certainly not a main battle tank. Surveys done revealed that aerial claims on tanks were greatly inflated. The overwhelming majority of tank kills were by other tanks or anti-tank weapons.
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I havent had much success destroying PNZRs with .50s alone.
I have had some success getting PNZRs to smoke after several spot on passes but I usualy get shot down by those 20mm err...30 cal pop guns. Dont even get me going about OSTIs
Those things are vicious. If you in a PNZR and can reasonably expect to be targeted by planes, have a few OSTIs on hand.
Fact is there is a disparity to be found here and the gameplay solution is problematic at best. I cant even fathom the details as Im not the programer here but suffice it to say that the ballistics in AH are in "some aspects" slightly goofy.
Anyhoo......heres hoping for a more challenging guns solution somewhere down the road ;)
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Here is what gripes me:
Several times in the last week I have hopped in an M8 and went out PNZR hunting.
After hitting their side armor with the 37mm with no effect (which is to be expected), I jump to the pintle .50 cal and open up, hear a BOOM, and see smoke starting coming out of the tank.
So, after killing the guy, I find another one, decide to test just how effective the MG is.....one to two second burst and he is smoking and soon I have another kill.
Somewhere in the GV damage model coding, something is amiss.
If you can hit an armored vehicle with a 75mm or 37mm shell and have no effect, yet kill the guy with a mere .50 cal machine gun quite rapidly and easily, there is NO way the damage models are correct or even close to being correct.
Heck, an M3 can kill a tank with it's one MG, while the tank is getting the range with his 75mm cannon! Direct hits from the cannon do nothing! I might understand more if I fired an AP round through the bed, but I have hit the engine compartment and other "solid" spots and not a damn thing happened.........except the M3 driver jumped to his machine gun and killed my PNZR from the front, which is total absurd BS.
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Even soviet NS-37 with 900m/s MV could penetrate only 40mm of armor in ideal circumstances. So rear attacks against German tanks(Pz-IVh) with it would be most effetive. From front it would have no change of penetrating. And from sides changes would be very slim too unsless fired from point blank range in almost level flight. Top penetrations would be easy. VYa 23mm could penetrate armor up to 25mm. So only rear and top penetrations possible.
http://www.aviation.ru/gun/
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Would love to discuss this topic on vehicle damage, but first I wan't to know what you wish us to accomplish.
1. Tank damage with different armor thickness at different places on the tank, effected by angle of penetration,all set at real levels.
or
2. Damage modeled for game play purposes only.
Either is perfectly acceptable to me, but if we wish to discuss it I just wan't to know what we are trying to accomplish.
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HT, get yourself a copy of Operation Flashpoint (or download the demo http://www.flashpoint1985.com).
There ya go. That's about as complicated as we'd like it. No need to go down the WWIIonline route of all kindsa stuff modelled which doesnt come through to the player unless you've got a log to view and 4 hours to spare to read it.
(http://www.swoop.com/images/logo_small.jpg)
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What I would like to see is some more believable damage modelling, HT.
It is pretty strange to see the 8 50-cals from a Jug have no damage to a PNZR or Osty, yet the one 50-cal in an M8 or M3 can knock the thing out. Multiple hits from 75 or 37mm cannon required to kill an armored vehicle, but the MG just mows them down.
In the same vein, you hit that M3 or M16 with cannon fire and you see the hit sprites and the guy drives on undamaged. You almost have to open up on him with your MG to slow one down or kill it.
I've seen all sorts of weird scenarios in here, some in the name of gameplay, some just weird things that I know you guys haven't had time to look at yet.
If I strafe an armored vehicle with just my MG's, all I really expect to happen is maybe knock out the pintle MG on a PNZR, should kill the gun crew in an Osty since it is open topped, same thing with an M16 or M3, not sure about the armor on an M8.....it being basically an armored car I don't think the armor plate was too thick so it might be possible to concentate fire in one spot and punch through it.
Maybe its time to put the vehicle armor to where it really was in RL, and let the GV's perform their role, taking ground from the enemy. I know there is no one easy solution, but it's worth thinking about. Would it make the damage model too complex? Only you and Pyro know the answer to that one.
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hitech, this is just your decission. You cant have an idea about what people wants just asking here cause only a minimal part of AH community post here.
If you want to know what the community wants, what about setting up one question poping up each time someone enters the game?
Personaly, I would like to have a system where tanks are the primary antitank weapon. The situation, actually, is quite different. When someone detects GVs near a friendly base and notify it, some other will pick up a tank and will start a very long travel trying to get into firing possition, when this tank gets to the enemy GVs zone, there are a lot of jabos killing all the enemy GVs.
Also, in RL, tanks would look for good and protected firing posstions, but here we have no place to hide our tanks. You can see their dots from long distance and they have no hope to survive once detected. In RL, tanks were easy targets when traveling on roads, but very difficult to detect from the air with engine stopped even in open field (good camos).
Aside any modiffication to the armour modeling, what about making GVs invisible (icon and 3d object) to planes when stopped and not firing, at least invisible for ranges greater than 500 yards. 3d object visible only up to 5000 yards when the tank is moving (engine smoke), 3d object visible up to 500 yards when the tank is firing but firing flash visible up to 5000 yards with or without tracers. In any case, no icons at all for the GVs.
What I mean with 3d object includes the "dark" dot at long distances.
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I think Gameplay is most important here, but if accurate modeling of armor is easier in the long run then do it right I guess......
I think the quick fixs could be......
1. panzer oblivious to 50cals, 30s (besides pintle, engine, and tracks). Not sure what to do about the osties blowing tanks away. And pretty much no way to die from getting strafed by machineguns, otherwise, why did they make tanks? I am trying to imagine the troops who used tanks as cover when advancing, worrying about the 50cal machine guns taking out the tank in front of them. Why would there have been so many anti-tank guns in ww2 if all they needed was a trusty 50cal at 800 yards?
2. Tanks, trucks, convoys, whatever should be damaged reliably by the big shells. If this one could be fixed, wow what an improvement. If a truck takes it in the grill with an he or ap then boom!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Maybe getting close to a truck or m3 with a HE should have an impact?
Probably cant do most of this though.
Thanks hitech
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I would prefer to have believable results. I dont care whether its a game or a simulation.
FWIW, most of my encounters in the ground vrs ground catagory come away pretty squared but every once in a while something really queer happens. Mostly I have fun and enjoy.
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4 passes by 51's yesterday and pop went my osty. Not just turret (it went on pass 3).
just make MG's completely ineffective against armor (but not the guy standing in the Osty turret)
SKurj
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Being a ground pounder who kinda drifted into this flight sim, I know alot more about tanks and armor than about aircraft. Someone wanted historical data, so this is what I can offer.
Armor penetration is dependent on a thousand variables, just about everything from the air temperature to the carbon percentage of the iron ore when the steel was made. It is not realistic to have a 100%, or even an 80% accurate damage model for armor penetration in a simulation like this, because soon you would reach impossible calculations. Just to determine if a projectile should richochet or not would take a very impressive formula indeed, and in the end you would realize that a simple random number would have given a just as accurate result.
Someone asked how effective airpower is/was against tanks. Many use the battles in Normandy as examples of how devastating airpower is against ground units. In fact, most Whermacht-wieners (LW whiner sounds wrong when talking about ground units, but you find these guys everywhere there is a discussion about wwii) will claim that the only reason the allies won in Normandy was because of their airpower. While this may be true or not, airpower had an almost neglectable effect on combat damage in Normandy. Let me give an example:
Often the German attack at Mortain is used as an example to show the effectiveness of the fighter-bombers as tank killers. But in fact this engagement is rather an example of vastly exaggerated claims. The British 2nd TAF claimed to have destroyed or damaged 140 German tanks in the Mortain area 7 - 10 August, while 9th US Air Force claimed 112. This actually exceeded the number of German tanks employed in the operation. In fact no more than 46 tanks were lost in the operation and of these only nine had been hit by air weapons. That is 9 out of 178 tanks actually used in the area. It is also interesting to see the claims. British and American pilots claimed 252 German tanks destroyed or damaged, the real number was 9...
It seems that very few German tank were lost due to hits from weapons carried by aircraft. Probably no more than about 100 tanks were lost due to hits from air weapons during the entire Normandy campaign. Rather it seems that air attacks on tank formation protected by AA units were more dangerous to the aircraft than to the tanks. Allied losses of aircraft were considerable, the 2nd TAF (including elements of Air Defence of Britain that took part in the Normandy campaign) lost 829 aircraft, while US 9th Air Force lost 897
The main reason for the poor results of air attack on tanks was lack of suitable armament. Machine guns and cannons had sufficient accuracy, but lacked the power necessary to produce more than superficial damage. Heavy bombs could destroy a tank, but it took a direct hit, which was very difficult to achieve. The vaunted rockets had sufficient penetration capabilities. Trials against captured German Panther tanks showed that the rockets could penetrate the armour except on the front of the tank. The accuracy of the rockets was however alarmingly low, even when fired in salvos of eight. At trials on training ground in England the probability of achieving a hit on a tank was at most 4 %. On operations, when the aircraft was subjected to AA fire and the targets not stationary on an open field, hit rates must have been even lower.
Mortain is not an example of unusually low efficiency for the allied air forces either. It is interesting to see the causes for losses of Panther tanks. Three British studies of captured Panther tanks (or wrecks of Panther tanks), two of them during Normandy and one during the Ardennes battle gave the following results:
6 June - 7 August 1944
AP shot: 36
Hollow charge projectile: 7
HE shell: 7
Aircraft rockets: 7
Aircraft cannon: 2
Destroyed by crew: 6
Abandoned: 3
Unknown: 13
8 Aug - 31 Aug 1944
AP Shot: 11
Hollow charge projectile: 1
HE Shell: 1
Aircraft rocket: 2
Aircraft cannon: 1
Destroyed by crew: 44
Abandoned: 30
Unknown: 6
17 Dec - 16 Jan 1945
AP Shot: 16
Hollow charge projectile: 0
HE Shell: 3
Aircraft rocket: 3
Aircraft cannon: 0
Destroyed by crew: 10
Abandoned: 10
Unknown: 5
Evidently two of the main causes for losing Panthers were abandonment and destruction by the crews. These two categories accounted for nearly half the Panthers lost and during the period in August they constituted 80 % of all the Panthers lost. Air power only accounted for about 6 % of all the lost Panthers investigated. Those investigations showed above also included other types of tanks. Of 40 Tigers only one was hit by air weapons, of 121 Pz IV's (yup..our panzers) nine were hit by air weapons. Evidently allied air power was not really capable of destroying large numbers of German tanks.
Hm..drifted off the subject a bit perhaps, but I hope you found it interesting.
Oh..and the number of German tanks knocked out by MG:s or .50 cals is 0.
Source: I. Gooderson, Allied Fighter-Bombers Versus German Armour in North&endash;West Europe 1944&1945: Myths and Realities (Journal of Strategic Studies, vol 14, No 2 June 1991) p. 221. The basic sources for the data on destruction of German tanks and other equipment used by Gooderson are the reports of the operations research teams that investigated the battlefields after the end of the battles and examined the wrecks found. These are probably the most reliable sources for such information avialable today.
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HT thnx for answering.
my answer would be no. 1
But if this starts to behave strangely (ie 50 cal pintle guns are more effective than 75mm ap rounds) then it will need adjusting.
I would like for the GV model to 'behave' believably.If at all possible id like it to be highly accurate to how it really was BUT if this means that GVs become next to useless as a tool in the game then some concession is necessary.
So far my favourite suggestions are:
from tac concerning which guns should be able to penetrate armour. 50cals,(non AP)20mm or 30mm should not peirce the armour protection IF its there.
Aircraft historically used as anti tank planes(ie iL2 or ju87 with 37mm,hurricane with 40mm etc) should be more of a threat and therefore more of a temptation to use FOR THIS JOB :)
Open topped vehicles should be easy to knock out (as they would be in real life right?).In the case of the ostwind the gunners should be vulnerable but not the driver or gunner in the protected main body of the tank.
If the shots come in from an angle where armour would protect them then let the shots fail to kill.Its only fair that some skill be needed to take out vehicles.
As to the ease with which GVs are spotted heres what i think would be an excellent idea if its possible.
We all know the 'black dot' is very easy to spot and in an aircraft the final part of an attack on GVs is very easy due to the icon range finder so i would request that GV icons be removed for aircraft all together.
Could we have the long distance dot removed also? if possible i think this should also be done.
What we then have is the ability to sneak in vehicles which is sorely missing at the moment.
However, tracked vehicles moving fast should produce dust clouds that CAN be spotted from a reasonable distance.
This would mean if you move fast as you near enemy bases you can be seen but if you plot yourself up in a forest or near some trees you become very hard to spot.
My personal opinion at the moment is that whilst vehicles are so vulnerable to almost any gun they are going to be looked at as the most unrealistic aspect to AH and therefore spoil the whole point of AH which is claimed as an accurate simulation.
(a good example of this was when i used the 50 cal(30 cal??) on an M3 to knock out a ostwinds engine from extreme range. the bullets were spread all around the ostwind with one or 2 flashes of hits and bingo there goes his engine) Good for me but absolutely frustrating for the other player.
Basically no concession should damage or impair the enjoyment of other players.
We dont need super pintle guns : pilots are then frustrated at the ease with which they die
We dont need small calibre fire from aircraft killing tanks : this leads to frustration on the tank drivers side
We dont need super armour either : all we need is an acceptable death ie killed by rockets,bombs or guns designed for the job and used skillfully.
we need to allow what ever model we choose , be it aircraft or ground vehicle, to have their real abilities. Ground attack being more stealthy,tank buster planes better for the job, bombers that may be less accurate but can plaster the area with more bombs.
fast vehicles like m8's that had low profiles and were camoflaged should be able, upon spotting an aircraft, slow to a stop, duck into trees and become HARD to spot.
its really a matter of making us all feel our deaths in whatever we choose to fly/drive is an acceptable one and matches the things we all love to read about.Thats where the immersion comes from and thats when the fun starts.
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what hazed said
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Hazed, on one had you are stating you want it realalistic , on the other hand you are stating you wan't it balanced to game play, i.e. you state that a 50cal should not be able to kill a tank, well if in real life it could,even thow it wasn't done much, what do we do?
For instance right now the most complaints I see on the damage modeling with vehicles is quite francly do to the more realistic aspects of the damage model.
People complain that they put 20 ap rounds into a tank and it dosn't die, yet they get killed with 1 round.
This is completly realistic. what people are not considering is where and at what angles they hit the tank, if your round isn't penatrating the armor, more rounds won't either.
I was in a tank battle the other day at a range of about 1500 to 1800 yards. Before I stoped to shoot i turned my tank directly at the other tank. He was stoped , and shooting out the right side of the tank. He took out my track, but thats all he could do, i on the other hand blew him up with 2 hits. He comes on the radio complaining how the damage model is porked because he hit me quite a few times and couldn't kill me. Well guys this is what pure realism produces, his shots were all hitting in my strongest armor, mine hit him on his side armor. Mine penatrated, his did not.
Now look at an m3, if you put an ap round into the side of the truck, odds are in real life it will just put a hole in the sheet metal and continue on.
So once again ill ask what you guys desire, not so much what we will implement, but on what basis do we start this discusion on.
Understand that if you make sweeping statments like a 50cal should not be able to kill a tank, you are in no way on the realism side, unless you can show that 50 cals will not penatrate any armor on the vehicle in descusion.
Understand also that if you wish to use antidotal evendence you are also comming down on the game play side because you wish to change the damage to match uses vs match what could be done.
Please don't let this discusion get into a flame war, this isn't a contest to see who wins, this is a descusion to figure out how we wan't things to work.
For me im just playing more of a modirator function, pointing out what different desires entail.
HiTech
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Nice info HortLund. That's the kind of arguement I like to see.
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HiTech, for sticking your head into the beehive here. My own personal opinion is that number 1 is more important, with concessions for gameplay only where absolutely necessary. I would like to see greater realism in the armor penetration and damage model. True, you can’t model all the variables, but average values would suffice. We can’t do away with icons IMO, as it’s too easy to frag a friendly that way. Likewise I like the current range counter as a concession to gameplay, one that overcomes limitations imposed by our computer-generated environment. What I would like to see regarding visibility of tanks is for them to be harder to spot from a distance when they’re stopped and not firing. I’d like to see a rooster-tail of dust when they move (like the smoke plume from a damaged airplane we have now), and the big puff of dust when they fire their main gun (you’ve seen those US Army commercials, where the M1 Abrams fires and the dust clouds swirl up around it, haven’t you?).
The point is, the target/mission should determine the most effective weapon. If ballistics and physics say the weapon shouldn’t penetrate, than it shouldn’t. A head to head contest between a tank and an M-8 should result in the M-8 dying, unless the M-8 driver manages to use his superior speed and/or the element of surprise to get a rear or flanking shot. If you’re caught by a Panzer in your M-3, than you should be toast unless you run and jink like heck. A hail of 50-cal fire should have a realistic chance of doing realistic damage. Gameplay is also about taking the right weapon for the job, and using its strengths against the other player’s weapon’s weakness. My two cents worth, and thanks for listening.
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Hortlund/Steve -
Don't confuse me with the facts, my mind is made up. Nice bit of info though.
I think we need to keep in mind that GVs were added for a little spice in the game, not as a major element. If armor divisions become impervious to aircraft, it will cause game imbalance.
That said, I'd rather have HTC working on more aircraft, better strat elements, etc than worrying about the DM of GVs. Leave the DM alone (for now).
Sour
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I'm for the maximum realism here. If 50" were really able to kill a panzer, so be it. But, in any case, make the GVs very hard to detect from the air. I agree with Swoop, OPF is a very good example of how hard are the armoured units to be clearly detected from the air, even when moving.
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Hitech, I think you are right, but many times I have tried to 'line up' for a fight, cause I have seen the bullets bounce and ricochet off the front of the panzer. (nice effect particularly when charging field guns) But really it is more luck of the draw. I have sat facing another panzer in the same situation you mention, and unloaded shell after shell changing my aim each time into the side and rears of tanks (without even taking out a track).
I have also knocked out an m8 with one ap round. I have also put 10 shells into an osti without result.
The kicker is that as mentioned many times before in this thread and others, if you cant kill the beatch with your monster 75mm cannon, just start pumping it with your 50 (maybe the commander should pop out with his 45cal pistol! that should finish off the panzer real nice! just kidding).
It is really the random nature of these things that makes it frustrating. If I shoot at a weak point in a tank with a tank, I want that tank to act like it just got hit by a 75mm (size of a fricking grapefruit) shell. As it is now, that is not the case.
I am not sure if it is a front end/lag problem, but in the cases of the 10 shots, niether tank was moving. Since i have never been hit 10 times before I die in a tank, I am supposing that communication is off somehow between my fe and the opponents. Many times I have heard that somebody shot me 6-10 times before I die, yet I only heard one bang. If somebody is pounding my tank armor causing no damage to me, why dont I hear it? I can understand with a MG because of packets all arriving at once causing a one ping death, but with cannons that take 8 seconds to reload, that should not be the case.
Thanks for paying attention htc. I really believe that the answer may lie in fixing the wierd fe problem. (oh and the mg thing too).
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Originally posted by sourkraut
Hortlund/Steve -
Don't confuse me with the facts, my mind is made up. Nice bit of info though.
I think we need to keep in mind that GVs were added for a little spice in the game, not as a major element. If armor divisions become impervious to aircraft, it will cause game imbalance.
That said, I'd rather have HTC working on more aircraft, better strat elements, etc than worrying about the DM of GVs. Leave the DM alone (for now).
Sour
uhhh. okay.
Did anyone say that the hurri, yakt, or sturmi would not damage tanks? Wouldnt it be nice to have a strat element that gave a purpose to those great planes?
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Not to deliberatly take the oposing viewpoint of Mandoble, but I'd put myself on the gameplay side. Since AH is primarly a flight sim (at this point anyhow) Id say make GV realism secondary to GV integration into gameplay. In an ideal world, max realism would yeild the same results that I'm looking for. Namely, a better reason to fly the Hurr2d, Yak-9T and Il-2. I know that there are others who have posted the same objective in this post and posts in the past. It seems that there must be a way to change the damage model that would increase the usage of both the Tanks themselves (assuming that this is desired) and the usage of the traditional "tank busting" aircraft.
If nothing else, It is possible that increasing the number of tank users could have the effect of creating a different battle dynamic. Instead of hi-alt fluffs being protected by fighter escorts and being attacked by interceptors, we might wind up with something more resembling the Eastern front where the fights are lower and ,more concerned with the land war. I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing though. I guess it depends on what you want to fly.
-Sikboy
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Nice thread
If we are talking review armor and such, and the oragami IL-2 get a looksey too? The GV guns are tearing apart my armored bird before I can point cannons at em. ;)
How an they destroy my tail on a head on attack?
Also!
Can we implement crater damage? If a GV drives itself into a crater made by a 4k bomb, its should so something, yes?
Thanks!
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LOL Sikboy, thanks for the clarification
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You guys seriously need to wake up and realize this is a GAME!
When was the time in wwii that bombers went out alone? when was the time where ppl could die and come back to life?
jeez,
get a grip and stop whining
you realisim ppl make me sick sometimes.
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Well HT, im more go for gameplay than realism on this issue. Just for the simple reason that GV's must operate in close proximity to fields where any doofus can up a plane loaded with bombs and rockets and smack you down continously. The thing is, right now, they arent even bothering with bombs and rockets, MG's and cannon does the trick. I very, very rarely see people even taking an IL2 or yak9t for tank busting, the 50 cal planes and cannon (mainly spitfires and n1ks) planes do the job in a pass or 2.
I'd say make the tanks imprevious to anything lower than a 23mm cannon. HE cannon rounds (like the 30mm in 262/109/190) should not be able to penetrate the tanks either.
This would make the tanks be vulnerable to rockets and bombs only...and other tanks.
It would be very nice if the model could be done so that a GOOD long burst of 50 cal or higher on the tracks would take the tracks out (after all, m3 resupply of vehicles fixes them!), 50 caliber bullet hitting the pintle of the tank should take it out..same in m3, m16 and open hatched flaktank and M8 should kill the AA gun on them.
M3's/M16's/LVT's should be very vulnerable to any caliber weapon.
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HT I'm all for the realism in the DM. If a .50 could punch through a panzer's armor, than so be it. So far I've never been killed by .50s while in a panzer, though I have had almost the entire damage list turned red.
If an AP round is just gonna punch a hole in the cargo area of an M3 then I'll aim for the cab/engine area and look for a fireball.
One thing I'd love to see, even though it's just eye candy, would be the turret on a hammered tank shooting straight up a hundred feet or so :D
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For both realism and game-play in mind, I would like to see the top mg on a panzer killable.
I don't recall losing the top mg apart from the main gun... they seam to be linked to each other.
I also don't recall losing the top gun by mg gun-fire. Clearly the mg should be destroyed by a single 50 cal hit, the gunner should also be susceptible to mg fire. It seams however that he and the gun never die. This is my opinion after dozens if not hundreds of Panzer sorties - shooting back at planes, and likewise, dozens if not hundreds of sorties in planes attacking Gvs.
As a tanker, and an attack pilot, I think the top mg and gunner needs to be more susceptible to damage.
I also feel that the Ostwind main gun needs to be more killable. It seams that only a direct hard hit on the gun itself will kill it. The gun crew should be killable as well. As an FP gunner, I have never been killed or wounded. The gun, however, occasionally gets killed. It seams to take a heck of a lot of fire to kill a Osty gun. I would say that the vast majority of FPs in AH that are killed by gunfire still have operable main guns when they die. High angle of attack gun passes on a Flack-Panzer, with lots of hits in the turret, rarely disable the gun. This does not make sense, and for gameplay consideration seam to give the FP an unfair advantage.
Again, I wish to point out that I am both a very experienced ground vehicle driver/gunner and an attack pilot.
As a FP gunner, and an attack pilot, I think the FP main gun and gunners need to be more susceptible to damage.
Lastly, I have a question for Hitech on the issue:
Does the 75mm AP round have better armor penetration than the 37mm in AH and in real life?
They seam to be about the same.
Are they?
Or, how should they be.
Thanks,
eskimo
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HT let me clarify what i was trying to say:
if like you said certian areas of the tanks were able to be penetrated by 50 calibre fire then fair enough let them penetrate.However like hortland has shown this was not common if indeed it EVER occoured. I have not seen any evidence that the 50 caliber could penetrate the armour but at the same time i have read that with the poorer types of armour used on some tanks on the eastern front often there were flakes or chips of armour that often injured crew members inside when machine guns hit them anyhow. Im aware that given perfect situations there are ways in which almost any weapon can kill tanks. Molotov coctails thrown onto engine grills, mortar rounds actually going through hatches, the 'stories' are endless but should all of these be modeled into a game when so much of the real world isnt? we dont have real weather, we dont have real forest cover or camoflage and we dont have the numbers deployed on a battleground. Its usually 1 guy in a tank spending 20 minutes rolling up huge hills when in real life they would use a road or train to transport them.There would be artillery support infantry etc etc. That poor guy in the GV has none of this protection.
SO what im saying is if a tank was pretty much safe against all but the luckiest of hits with a 50 calibre in real life then there is no need to introduce these rare occourances into the game in AH. Theres so much real stuff missing already that would favour ground vehicles its a wonder people use them at all.
Why do we use them? because we all crave the ability to blow things up in a huge armoured vehicle :D and we try to ignore the fact we get killed all the time by machineguns. Im just fed up with it myself and as you can plainly see so are many others.
as to the 75mm model you speak of concerning areas hit/angle/distance then sure leave it AS IS if you feel its accurate.
same with the 50 cals if you say it could do what we see it doing in AH.But could you at least tell us just what 50 caliber is capable of penetrating? from what ive seen staga post its very unlikely in real life yet it is common in AH.I think losing the 50cal-30mm(he) damage to all but the very rear or top where armour is really thin would improve enjoyment and encourage use of the tank buster type planes.
Surely you'd like to see more use of il2s,hurricanes 40mm etc?
If we stick to the current model and invulnerability to 50 calibre or 20mm means a heavier tank than the panzer IV then ok but please hurry up and give us one before it drives me crazy.(Ive had too many long journeys with no action cut short, before i even see my target, by a single pass in a lightly armed p51).Mind you, then you wont see anyone using the panzer IV ever again as no one will want to be killed by marauding p51s or p47s etc :(
Also what I would like to know is the type of ammo used for each gun in AH.
50 cals are AP?
hispano MKII 20mm are AP?
hispano MKV 20mm are AP?
Mg151/20 are HE?
Mg131 13mm are HE?
MK 108 30mm are HE?
HO5 20mm are HE? AP?
NS 37mm are AP?
VYa 23mm are AP?
Shvak 20mm are HE?
UBS 12.7mm are ?
ive never quite worked it out myself. Couldnt we have some sort of guide to what we should expect to accomplish with these weapons?
maybe if we knew what to expect from these guns we would accept the model for panzers is acceptable? perhaps its time for tony williams to show us? :)
P.s. if like you said ap rounds tend to go through rather than destroy then why do ap rounds do so much damage to planes as well? shouldnt an AP round be good for armour but less usefull against thin skins of wings etc where they would pass through?
very confusing.
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We are talking about small cal guns capability to penetrate armour, but we are not talking about the chaces to do any damage once into the hull due the tremendous energy loose.
A question here, wasn't the 190 seat armour more than enough to stop 50"? If that thin armour was able to protect a flesh made pilot, is the rear PzIV armour enough to protect a metal engine?
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very good point mandoble........
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A question here, wasn't the 190 seat armour more than enough to stop 50....
The answer is: No it wasn't.
Hooligan
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what was it for? june bugs? small arms fire, from the 6? .303? (doesnt seem to protect you from the almighty pintle gun....)
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Originally posted by hitech
I was in a tank battle the other day at a range of about 1500 to 1800 yards. Before I stoped to shoot i turned my tank directly at the other tank. He was stoped , and shooting out the right side of the tank. He took out my track, but thats all he could do, i on the other hand blew him up with 2 hits. He comes on the radio complaining how the damage model is porked because he hit me quite a few times and couldn't kill me. Well guys this is what pure realism produces, his shots were all hitting in my strongest armor, mine hit him on his side armor. Mine penatrated, his did not.
Now look at an m3, if you put an ap round into the side of the truck, odds are in real life it will just put a hole in the sheet metal and continue on.
HT, are the armor values for planes and vehicles published anywhere? This account makes me want to take a look at them because it would REALLY alter my tactics.
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Hehe...yes there was even occasion where tank was forced to abandon with mud. Yes you heard right mud. One überfinn seemingly out of his mind attacked KV-1 heavy tank with mud in his hands. He then climbed over it and rubbed mud on vision slits which completely blinded tank. After some time crew realized they had no choice but to abandon vehicle since it's rather hard to drive anywhere without seeing a thing. I think this mud fellow earned mannerheim cross for this action. And finns got brand new KV tank for their own use.
Also there was numerous occasions where finns pushed logs between roadwheels of russian tanks immobilizing them. :D
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>>suffice it to say that the ballistics in AH are in "some aspects" slightly goofy.
Anyhoo......heres hoping for a more challenging guns solution somewhere down the road <<
Hear Hear! Well said Yeager.
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ergRTC:
The armor was proof against 30cal/.303 class weapons and provided some protection against .50s (i.e. high angle shots or rounds sufficiently slowed or destabilized by passing through other aircraft elements). Some protection is better than no protection.
Hooligan
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Hooligan, are u sure that a 13Kg panel of 12mm armour for the head was there to stop 30cals in a 1944 190A8? :eek:
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Mandoble I know you are not a native English speaker but what part of "provided some protection against .50s" is confusing you?
Hooligan
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The seat armour had 5mm and this would be intended to provide some protection against 50". A hit in the seat would had passed through some other parts of the plane. But not in the head, these 12mm of armour should provide total protection or just none, "some" protection for the head is like no protection at all.
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Mandoble:
Your reading comprehension problems are breathtaking. I suggest you reread what I originally wrote. .50 AP rounds could penetrate over 12 mm of armor plate at 600 meters.
http://home.earthlink.net/~jayboyer/50pen.htm (http://home.earthlink.net/~jayboyer/50pen.htm)
Hooligan
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Here some armor and penetration values for AH vehicles
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
M8 Greyhound
(mm/dgr)
turret, front 19/0 side 19/20 rear 19/5
upper hull, front 16/50 side 10/25 rear 10/0
lower hull, front 19/30 side 10/0 rear 10/0
deck 6, open top
37mm MV=884m/s
(AP Penetration(mm) at 100m, 500m, 1000m, 2000m)
0dgr 68, 58, 48, 35
30dgr 54, 47, 39, 28
60dgr 29, 26, 22, 15
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ostwind
(mm/dgr)
turret, front 25/37 side 25/30 rear 25/30
upper hull, front 80/10 side 30/0 rear 20/11
lower hull, front 80/12 side 30/0 rear 20/9
deck 12, open top
37mm MV=820m/s
(AP Penetration(mm) at 100m, 500m, 1000m, 2000m)
0dgr 57, 46, 34, 19
30dgr 45, 36, 27, 16
60dgr 22, 19, 15, 9
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
M3A1 Halftrack
Armor(mm/drg)
7/0 all surfaces.
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PzKpfw IVh (thickness/slope)
top turret 15mm
top deck 12mm
FRONT - turret 50mm/10, upper hull 80mm/14, lower hull 80mm/14
SIDE - turret 30mm/26, upper hull 30/0, lower hull 30/0
REAR - turret 30mm/15, upper hull 20/11, lower hull 20/9
75L48 MV 792m/s (100,500,1000,2000m)
dgr
0 - 141, 130, 113, 91
30 - 108, 100, 90, 73
60 - 53, 50, 46, 39
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Originally posted by hitech
I was in a tank battle the other day at a range of about 1500 to 1800 yards. Before I stoped to shoot i turned my tank directly at the other tank. He was stoped , and shooting out the right side of the tank. He took out my track, but thats all he could do, i on the other hand blew him up with 2 hits. He comes on the radio complaining how the damage model is porked because he hit me quite a few times and couldn't kill me. Well guys this is what pure realism produces, his shots were all hitting in my strongest armor, mine hit him on his side armor. Mine penatrated, his did not.
Now look at an m3, if you put an ap round into the side of the truck, odds are in real life it will just put a hole in the sheet metal and continue on.
Hello Hitech.
He should have penetrated your front turret easily from 1800yards.(Numbers above)
If he was hitting your front hull it would be just on edge of possible penetration. (75mm gun of Pz-IV penetrates 91mm at 0degrees at 2000m.)
But ofcourse trajectory of shell makes 90degree hit angle not likely. Some round might penetrate...some might not. If round just barely penetrates it wouldn't easily destroy tank tho. Armor flaking inside would possibly injure crew member(s) or do just nothing.
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.50 AP rounds could penetrate over 12 mm of armor plate at 600meters.
Yes at optimum angle. So lets guess 400-500m for likely penetration from 6 a clock in aircombat until Tony(he must have some numbers for .50cal) comes here.
5mm might be enough after rounds tubling trough fuselage. Direct hit to 5mm plate would go through to 1000m atleast. But rounds go all but tip ahead and straight after hitting something.
I think i've seen 2 types of head armors in FW190. Other is like angled tube(which seems very good for ricocheting rounds away) other is this 12mm plate youre talking about. I think angled was to have better protection against .50cals since 12mm doesnt seem enough.
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Also , a lot of the armor up front would not cause a 0 deg hit most of it is sloped.
HiTech
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Actually those are the same rounds (M2 AP and M8 AP/I) that were commonly used in WWII. Modern rounds like M903 SLAP and M140 Raufoss rounds have significantly better penetration.
Hooligan
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Yes hooligan, i was just editing my post. Noticed.(just little problem with inches and stuff, im an european idiot:D)
Thanks for numbers. I've been looking for those.
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Hooligan, I suggest you reread what I originally wrote too, penetrating NOT EQUAL damaging what is behind. Hey, I have english comprehension problems being spanish, but your case is much more alarming :D
Just to add a point about your link, it states that it was MAXIMUM penetration, I suppose also for optimum conditions, but, in the case of traveling these 12mm, what is the resulting deformation and kinetic E loose of these projectiles?
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Armour in different angle:
To penetrate 30mm armour in 30 degree angle ammunition needs to have better than 37,5mm penetration.
30*1,25=37,5
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Staga:
That's real interesting information. Do you know if that is for homogenous or face hardened armor? Could you tell us the source. I'd like to see what else they have.
thanks,
Hooligan
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I believe it's for RHA but I can't be sure. It's a part from a rtf-file containing loads of penetration tables etc.
Send me a email and I'll post that file to you.
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PzIV-H, turret 50mm@10degr = 50,5mm armour to penetrate.
7,5cm L/43 or L/48 with PzGr40 APCR [tungsten core] could penetrate 60-62mm@30degr.angle from 2000meter.
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My email is jayb@exmsft.com, send it there.
thanks in advance,
hooligan
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What information is being used to argue that 50 Cal. mgs could cause serious damage to a tank or other heavily armored vehicle?
I am not an expert. But there were experts within each major country involved in WWII. Did they miss something?
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Im trying to get a picture and post together showing all the different armor thicknesses and some penitration data we are using.
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Originally posted by Staga
Armour in different angle:
To penetrate 30mm armour in 30 degree angle ammunition needs to have better than 37,5mm penetration.
30*1,25=37,5
Good chart. But not allways good for reference.
Penetration for different angle depends much of round shape too. For example Soviet flat nosed AP rounds could better penetrate agled armor but worse flat armor compared to normal AP rounds. Also tungsten cored ammo has relatively worse penetration against angled surface.
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Because AH is a primarily a flight sim, it will be forever? Wouldn't it be nice if people joined AH because of the GVs? They started out as spice. They won't necessarily stay as spice.
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Thanks hitech
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I found interesting post at Battlefront.com forums at this subject.
posted March 22, 2002 01:07 AM by Bastables
'Ian Gooderson's 'Air Power at the Battlefront', London 1998, contains
a couple of cases studies.
I. Roncey Pocket.
In the wake of the Allied breakout from Normandy, Operation COBRA
which began on 25 July 1944, large German forces in the Cotentin
peninsula were forced to risk air attack by moving in daylight to
avoid being encircled by American armour. Just south of Coutances,
near Roncey, some six German divisions were cut off in what became
known as the Roncey 'Pocket'. Choking the roads, the German columns
became ideal targets for attacks by Allied fighter-bombers whose
attacks succeeded in preventing any organised breakout [...]
Some indication of the destruction caused specifically by air weapons
is provided by an RAF anti-armour operation on the same day [29 July].
Rocket Typhoons of 2nd TAF were requested by US forces to attack a
concentration of some 50 German tanks observed in the Roncey area,
near Gavray. Consequently Typhoons of No.121 Wing of No.83 Group flew
99 sorties in the area between late afternoon and dusk, and claimed
the destruction of 17 tanks with a further 27 damaged. The pilots
reported that there was little sign of life or movement during their
attacks and the area was littered with damaged and burning tanks,
making target selection difficult. There was no flak, and pilots were
able to attack at very low level. Only one Typhoon was lost, hit by
flying debris and forced to crash-land.
The Typhoon effort had been concentrated mainly against a German
column near the village of la Baleine, and shortly after the air
attacks this area was investigated by the British Army's No.2 ORS. The
column had been a formidable mix of armour and transport, including
Panther tanks. The surrounding terrain was heavily wooded and
dissected by deep, narrow valleys and the column had used a side road
which descended to la Baleine where a bridge crossed the river Sienne.
On one side of this road was a steep, wooded cliff and on the other a
sheer drop to the river; caught by fighter-bombers at this point the
vehicles had been unable to pull off the road. P-47s had attacked the
area with 500-lb bombs before Typhoons had been called for, and the
bridge over the river had been sufficiently damaged by their bombs to
prevent heavy vehicles from crossing. After examining the tanks and
vehicles the ORS outlined the causes of destruction. This is shown in
the following table:
LA BALEINE - LOSSES AND CAUSES
Destroyed Possibly Unknown Unknown Aban-
by Rockets Rockets Shells Causes Crew doned Totals
Panthers 1 - 1 - 3 3 8
Pz Mk IV 1 - - - - - 1
Armoured Cars - 1 - - - - 1
Armd. troop carr. 5 - - - - - 5
75 mm SP Guns - - - 1 - 1 2
50 mm AT Guns - - - - 1 1 2
Howitzers - 1 - - - 1 2
Rocket launchers - - - - - 1 1
Lorries - - - 8 - - 8
Cars - - - 10 - - 10
_____________________________ _____________________________ _________
Totals 7 2 1 19 4 7 40
The motor transport was so mangled that identification of the cause of
destruction was impossible and the ORS acknowledged their 'unknown
causes' table to be unduly loaded. They suggested that a more accurate
picture would be provided by the motor transport being spread over the
table in the same proportion as the other losses. Although rockets
appear as the biggest single known cause of destruction, the amount
attributed to them is small compared to the relatively high number of
Panthers destroyed by their crews or abandoned intact. How they had
been left suggested abandonment in haste, almost certainly as a result
of air attack or the threat of such attack, and possibly even before
the arrival of the Typhoons. Craters of 500-lb bombs were found in an
orchard within 50 yards of two Panthers; neither tank had been hit but
the crews obviously baled out and later set fire to the tanks, one of
the guns being destroyed by a high-explosive round left in the
chamber.
Although lack of fuel in a retreat could be expected to result in the
abandonment or destruction of tanks by their crews, this was not the
case at La Baleine; near similar bomb craters two Panthers were found
completely undamaged, their fighting ability unimpaired with full
complements of petrol and ammunition. One of the 75 mm self-propelled
guns, its armour reinforced with concrete, was found abandoned
undamaged 35 yards from a bomb crater. As it had not been set on fire
by its crew it was considered more likely to have been abandoned in
haste rather than left as a deliberate roadblock.
Possibly the tanks had been abandoned or destroyed by their crews
because they could not negotiate the damaged bridge. The ORS noted
that the German crews could have forced the river further downstream,
as American Sherman tanks later succeeded in doing, but this ignores
the fact that in their hurry to escape encirclement the Germans
probably had little time to reconnoitre the area. That all the troop
carriers discovered had been destroyed by rockets suggests the
possibility that other similar types may have escaped over the bridge,
not needing to be abandoned like the heavier tanks. At la Baleine the
most significant evidence of demoralisation was that there were no
German graves. Only one German corpse was found and local civilians,
many of whoom were interviewed, confirmed that it was of a sniper
killed after the air attacks, while no evidence could be found that
American forces had removed bodies for burial. This suggests that the
German troops may have dispersed from the column when it became
obvious air attack was imminent, which squares with the Typhoon pilots
observing little German activity during their attacks.
La Baleine was the first ORS investigation of its type, and certainly
reflects the shortcomings of air-to-ground weapons against tanks.
Despite the craters none of the tanks or self-propelled guns had been
knocked out by bombs, and the number destroyed by rockets is
unimpressive. Nevertheless, there was a good deal of evidence
discovered by the ORS at la Baleine to suggest that air attack was
responsible, even if indirectly, for the disruption and abandonment of
the column, and that the German crews preferred to abandon or destroy
their armour rather than invite further air attack by attempting to
salvage combat-worthy tanks.
-
Part II (due to lenght limit)
II. Mortain
Similar evidence of German tanks being abandoned under air attack is
seen in the example of the only large-scale German armoured offensive
mounted in Normandy. Early on the morning of 7 August 1944, the strike
force of XLVII Panzer Corps, the 1st SS, 2nd SS, and 2nd Panzer
divisions, attacked positions held by the US 30th and 9th Infantry
divisions near Mortain with the ultimate objective of reaching the
Cotentin coast at Avranches and cutting off American armoured
spearheads from their supplies. Although tank strength was depleted
after weeks of heavy fighting the Germans mustered 70 Panthers, 75 Mk
IVs, and 32 self-propelled guns for the attack. By noon on 7 August
they were within nine miles of Avranches after penetrating the front
of 30th Division to a depth of about three miles. Having arrived in
Mortain only the day before, 30th Division had nothing but its 57 mm
towed anti-tank guns and 3 inch gun tank-destroyers with which to
engage the German tanks at close range. Despite its determined
defence, the credit for bringing the German attack to a decisive halt
on the afternoon of 7 August is generally regarded as belonging to
Allied fighter-bombers, particularly the RAF Typhoons, which were
called to intervene.
The response of the Allied tactical air forces to the German attack
was swift. The Typhoons of No.83 Group RAF were made available, and
plans co-ordinated directly between the headquarters of No.83 Group
and IX Tactical Air Command. Rocket Typhoons were to engage the German
tanks, while American fighter-bombers were to attack transport moving
to and from the battle area. The Ninth Air Force was also to provide a
fighter screen to intercept German aircraft, a vital task as the
Luftwaffe had planned to make an all-out effort to support the attack
with some 300 planes. The German command had relied upon fog,
prevalent on previous days and which had been forecast for 7 August,
to protect their armoured spearheads from air observation and attack,
but at about 11 am that day the fog over the battle area began to
clear.
At about midday the first Typhoons took off for the American sector
from their advanced landing grounds, and went into action just before
1 p.m. against a concentration of some 60 tanks and 200 vehicles
observed along a hedge-lined road near Mortain. The tanks, some
heavily camouflaged, were grouped closely together as if unprepared
for the rapid lifting of the fog. After overflying at low level to
confirm them as German, the Typhoons commenced dive attacks upon the
front and rear of the column, which was immediately brought to a halt.
The pilots observed that their attacks caused great confusion, and saw
German tank crews bailing out and running for cover regardless of
whether or not their tanks were left blocking the road. Also at this
time the first American fighter-bombers arrived in the area, with
P-47s, including the squadron equipped with rockets, attacking German
transport.
The weather remained clear and between 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. flights of
five or six Typhoons were taking off roughly every 20 minutes to
attack, returning to refuel and rearm before setting off again for
Mortain. As the afternoon wore on the pilots found the task of
locating the German tanks increasingly difficult due to their
dispersion and to clouds of dust and smoke in the battle area, but the
forward movement of the German attack had been halted. By the end of
the day No.83 Group had flown 294 sorties and IX Tactical Air Command
200 sorties in the Mortain area. Three Typhoons and pilots had been
lost. Though the level of flak had initially been light, it had
increased during the day with box-like patterns being put up over the
tanks, and many of the Typhoons were found to have suffered damage
from this and small-arms fire.
German accounts clearly attribute the failure of their attack on 7
August to the fighter-bombers. The commander of 2nd Panzer Division,
von Luttwitz, later recalled that his tanks had made a swift advance
of about ten miles when suddenly the fighter-bombers appeared,
They came in hundreds, firing their rockets at the
concentrated tanks and vehicles. We could do nothing
against them and we could make no further progress.
Hans Speidel, then the Chief of Staff of the German Army Group B,
later wrote of Mortain that
it was possible for the Allied air forces alone to wreck
this Panzer operation with the help of a well co-ordinated
ground-to-air communication system.
The German troops received no air support on 7 Aug. Their aircraft
attempting to reach the battle area were intercepted by strong
American fighter patrols and none reached within 40 miles of Mortain.
Although fighting continued in the area for several days, with Mortain
being recaptured by American forces on 12 August, the Germans made no
further attempt to reach Avranches after 7 August. Typhoons took no
part in the battle after that date, with responsibility for air
support reverting to the IX Tactical Air Command. The claims made by
the Allied fighter-bomber pilots for the period 7 - 10 August are
impressive, and are shown below:
ALLIED FIGHTER-BOMBER CLAIMS, 7 - 10 AUGUST 1944
Probably
Armour Destroyed Destroyed Damaged Total
2nd TAF 8 35 21 140
9th AF 69 8 35 112
Motor Ttansport
2nd TAF 54 19 39 112
9th AF 94 1 21 116
Yet these claims are misleading and cannot be substantiated. During
12 - 20 August the Mortain battle area was examined by two separate
British ORS teams; No. 2 ORS and ORS 2nd TAF. No German vehicles were
missed by the investigation as the areas was not extensive; moreover
the area was examined from an observation aircraft at low level with
no further vehicles discovered. The destruction attributed to various
weapons can be tabulated as shown in the following table, which is a
compilation of both the RAF and Army reports:
DESTRUCTION ATTRIBUTED TO VARIOUS WEAPONS,
MORTAIN AREA, AUGUST 1944
FORM OF DESTRUCTION OR NEUTRALISATION
Cannon/ Aband.
TYPE Rockets MG Bomb intact Crew US Army Unknown Total
Panther 5 - 1 6 4 14 3 33
Mk IV 2 - 1 1 - 5 1 10
SP Guns - - - - - 1 2 3
Arm.Troop Carr. 7 4 - 1 - 3 8 23
Arm.Cars 1 - - 1 - 5 1 8
Arm Recov.Veh. - - - - - 1 - 1
88 mm Guns - - - - - 1 1 2
75 mm Guns - - - - - 1 - 1
50 mm Guns - - - 1 - - - 1
Cars 2 2 - - - 4 3 11
Lorries - 6 - 1 1 2 20 30
Ambulances - 2 - 2 - - 1 5
Motor Cycles - - - 1 1 1 2 4
_____________________________ _____________________________ ___________
Totals 17 14 2 14 5 38 42 132
This shows that a total of only 46 German tanks and self-propelled
guns were actually found in the battle area, and of these only nine
were considered to have been destroyed by air weapons.
-
Part III. :)
It was not possible to discriminate between victims of British and
American aircraft as the latter had also fired some 600 rockets. Many
of the 'unknown causes' were found some distance from any sign of air
attack - such as cannon and machine gun strikes on the ground and
rocket or bomb craters - and could not be considered as possible air
victims. An obvious question is whether the Germans had been able to
recover any of their tanks. The presence of a German tank recovery
vehicle would seem to confirm they had but, while it is likely that
some tanks were recovered, this can hardly be an adequate explanation
for the discrepancy between air claims and the destruction found.
Armoured and motor vehicles destroyed by air weapons were invariably
burnt out, and for recovery purposes damaged and abandoned vehicles
had priority over such. German prisoners, many of whoom were
questioned on this subject, consistently stated that burnt out tanks
were never salvaged. In effect, a tank hit by a rocket or bomb was not
worth recovering and the ORS should have found what was left of it.
Another question is whether German accounts of the fighting can shed
more light on the number of tanks and vehicles destroyed by air
attack. The histories of the German divisions that fought at Mortain,
compiled post-war, stress how decisive the intervention of the
fighter-bombers had been, but are ambiguous with regard to the
question of losses. That of the 2nd Panzer Division states of the
Typhoons that they attacked with great accuracy and succeeded in
knocking out even the heaviest tanks, but the number of tanks actually
lost in this way is not given. The history of the 1st SS Panzer
Division (LAH) is similarly unclear as to the actual number of tanks
knocked out from the air, though it implies that the number was
considerable and quotes an account of the air attacks by a panzer
grenadier who recalled seeing many black oil clouds indicating the
position of destroyed tanks. Also quoted is a panzer grenadier officer
who, after describing how a fighter-bomber shot down by flak crashed
onto a tank and put it out of action, adds that most of the other
tanks and armoured personnel carriers also fell victim to the intense,
hour-long, low-level attacks. Yet such German accounts attributing
heavy tank and vehicle losses to air attack are misleading. They take
little cognizance of the losses inflicted by US ground forces which,
though almost certainly overestimated at the time in the confusion of
battle, were none the less considerable. American accounts of the
fighting indicate that, on 7 August, the forward troops of the US 30th
and 9th Divisions claimed the destruction of at least eighteen German
tanks, fourteen of them by the 30th Division's attached 823rd Tank
Destroyer Battalion alone. Moreover, the ORS confirmed that US troops
accounted for more heavy German armour than the fighter-bombers, the
destruction of twenty of the total of forty-six tanks and SP guns
found being attributed to US ground weapons.
The principal reason why such German accounts should be regarded with
caution, however, is that they provide no explanation as to what had
become of the tanks and vehicles destroyed by the fighter-bombers by
the time the ORS examined the battle area. Nor do they explain the not
inconsiderable number of tanks found abandoned or destroyed by their
own crews. To some extent, German attribution of tank losses to air
attack may stem from the confusion of battle, but it may also suggest
both a reluctance to acknowledge the morale effect of such attack, and
a desire to ascribe the halting of the armoured thrust, which was much
in the nature of a forlorn hope, to Allied air power rather than to
defeat at the hands of US ground forces.
Despite the toll taken of the German armour by US ground weapons, the
commanders of the US units engaged on 7 August later confirmed that it
was the fighter-bombers that brought the German thrust to a halt. At
the time of the ground survey, a member of ORS 2nd TAF visited the
headquarters of the US 9th Division's 39th Infantry Regiment. He was
told by the Commander how the German attack had cut off part of his
regiment from its headquarters and how his anti-tank guns had been
insufficient to halt such a large number of tanks. He also told how he
had remained 'vulnerable and anxious' until Typhoons arrived to attack
the German spearhead. A visit was also made to the Commander of the
30th Division's 117th Infantry Regiment, which had been in the path of
the 2nd Panzer and 1st SS Panzer Divisions on 7 August. He recalled
that when the mist lifted at about 12.30,
Thunderbolt and Typhoon aircraft came in immediately and
attacked, Typhoons attacking for what seemed to him to be
about two hours. This, added to the resistance of the ground
forces, stopped the thrust.
Such appreciation of the close air support on 7 August is significant
in view of the tendency of Allied aircraft to attack friendly
positions inadvertently in what was a very fluid ground battle. The US
30th Division recorded that the Typhoons and P-47s often attacked its
positions, the 120th Regiment alone receiving ten such attacks during
the day.
Given the lack of tank destruction by air weapons, the undoubted
effectiveness of the sustained fighter-bomber assault on 7 August must
have been largely the result of completely disrupting the German
attack by compelling tanks to seek cover or their crews to abandon
them. The level of destruction attributed to air weapons by the ORS is
too insignificant to have been decisive, and even if the unknown
causes for destruction of both armour and motor transport were added
to the air attack totals the number would not be a quarter of those
claimed. Yet no fewer than ten of the 33 Panthers found, or 30 per
cent, had been abandoned or destroyed by their own crews. This was an
important discovery at that time, and a contemporary RAF tactical
study stressing the demoralising effect of the 3-inch rocket (RP)
projectile offered this explanation for the German abandonment of
tanks and vehicles at Mortain:
Interrogation of prisoners has shown without question
that German tank crews are extremely frightened of
attacks by RP...Crews are very aware that if an RP
does hit a tank, their chance of survival is small.
It is admitted that the chances of a direct hit are
slight; nevertheless, this would hardly be appreciated
by a crew whose first thought would be of the disastrous
results if a hit was obtained.
Prisoner of war data further confirmed the demoralising effect of air
attack upon tank crews. German tank crewmen questioned for the later
joint RAF/British Army study of Typhoon effectiveness indicated an
irrational compulsion among inexperienced men to leave the relative
safety of their tank and seek alternative cover during air attack:
The experienced crews stated that when attacked from the
air they remained in their tanks which had no more than
superficial damage (cannon strikes or near misses from
bombs). They had a great difficulty in preventing the in-
experienced men from baling out when our aircraft attacked.
It is certainly plausible that tank crews under a heavy scale of air
attack would be induced to bale out, despite the interior of the tank
being possibly the safest place to be, and in this way the bombs and
rockets did not need to strike the tanks to be effective. When asked
for an opinion by the ORS on the number of abandoned tanks in the
Mortain battle area, an experienced NCO of a US anti-tank unit
replied,
There is nothing but air attack that would
make a crack Panzer crew do that.
-
SORTIES AND CLAIMS BY ALLIED TACTICAL AIR FORCES
FALAISE POCKET, AUGUST 1944
RAF 2nd TAF US 9th AF Total
Sorties 9 896 2 891 12 787
MT destroyed 3 340 2 520 5 860
Armour destroyed 257 134 391
_____________________________ _____________________________ __
Total claims 3 597 2 654 6 251
Claims per sortie 0.36 0.91 0.49
Shortly after the pocket had been closed No.2 ORS conducted an
extensive investigation in the area to determine the German losses
caused by air attack and the effectiveness of air-to-ground
weapons.The principal roads taken by the Germans were patrolled in
three areas; the 'Pocket' itself around Falaise, the area at the mouth
of the pocket near Chambois and referred to as the 'Shambles', and the
area known as the 'Chase' which led to the Seine crossings. The result
of the investigation is shown in the following tables:
GERMAN ARMOURED AND MT VEHICLE LOSSES IN THE FALAISE 'POCKET'
AUGUST 1944
Abandonded/
TYPE Rockets Bombs Cannon/MG Destr.b.crew Total
Tanks, SP Guns, AFVs 11 4 18 100 133
Lorries, cars, mcs 4 43 278 376 701
Guns - - 1 50 51
_____________________________ _____________________________ ________
Totals 15 47 297 526 885
Percentages 1.7 5.5 33.5 59.5
Of the 133 armoured vehicles of all types located by the ORS in the
'Pocket', only 33 had been the victim of any form of air attack. The
remaining hundred had been destroyed by their crews or simply
abandoned. Air attacks were far more effective against soft-skinned
vehicles. Of 701 cars, trucks and motor cycles found in the 'Pocket',
325 had been the victim of attack from the air, and of these 85 per
cent were hit by cannon or machine-gun fire - a testament to the
effectiveness of this form of attack. The fact however remains that of
a total of 885 vehicles of all types lost by the Germans in the
Falaise pocket nearly 60 per cent were destroyed or abandoned by their
crews rather than as the direct result of attack from the air. The
large number of armoured and motor vehicles abandoned or destroyed by
their crews is hardly surprising in such a retreat, and it was thought
many of those destroyed by air weapons had already been abandoned. Air
attack, though, was considered responsible for much of the abandonment
as a result of causing disorganisation; moreover, destroyed vehicles
had completely blocked roads. Cannon and machine gun attacks had
proved to be extremely effective against the densely-packed motor
transport. Such vehicles hit by cannon or machine gun rounds were
invariably burnt out, and the report noted that where pock marks of
strikes appeared in the roads a burnt vehicle was usually found.
IV. Ardennes
The influence of Allied tactical air power upon German ability to
carry out large-scale armoured operations was so great by the end of
1944 that the timing of the German Ardennes offensive was dictated by
the occurence of bad weather. In the early stages of the offensive,
which began on 16 Dec 1944, fog and low cloud protected the tank
spearheads from aerial observation and attack. Then the weather
cleared and Allied fighter-bomber pilots were presented with targets
such as they had not seen since Normandy and, as in Normandy, they
made large claims for the destruction of armour. Between 17 December
1944 and 16 January 1945 the IX and XIX Tactical Air Commands of the
Ninth Air Force and RAF 2nd TAF claimed a total of 413 German armoured
vehicles destroyed in the Ardennes salient, 324 of which were claimed
as tanks. In early January No.2 ORS began an investigation of these
claims, in the middle of the month they were joined by ORS 2nd TAF and
a joint report was produced.
Although hampered by thick snow which prevented the discovery of
rocket craters and burnt patches caused by napalm bombs, the ORS were
able to examine 101 armoured vehicles - the practice being to search
an area within 2 - 3 kilometres of each claim. The claims for
destruction within the salient are shown below:
ALLIED AIR CLAIMS FOR GERMAN ARMOUR DESTROYED
IN THE ARDENNES SALIENT
IN AREA EXAMINED BY ORS IN WHOLE SALIENT
Armor. Armor.
Tanks Vehic. Total Tanks Vehic. Total
IX TAC 62 23 85 140 69 209
XIX TAC 2 0 2 176 19 195
2nd TAF 2 1 3 8 1 9
_____________________________ _____________________
Totals 66 24 90 324 89 413
The air weapons used were general purpose high-explosive bombs,
fragmentation bombs, napalm fire bombs, and rockets. Many of the tanks
claimed by Ninth Air Force had also been engaged by machine guns, some
only by this means. For the 101 tanks and armoured vehicles examined,
damage was atrributed as in the following table:
Light
Tiger II Panther Mk IV SP Gun Armour Total
AIR
Bomb 1 - - - - 1
Possibly
air attack - 3 - 2* 1 6*
GROUND
AP Shot 1 16 1 9* 8 36
HE Shell - 3 - 1 4 8
Demolition 2 10 1 - 4 17
Abandoned 1 10 - 4 7 22
Other Cause - - 1 1 - 2
Unknown - 5 2 1 2 10
_____________________________ ___________________________
Total 5 47 5 18 26 101
Considering that this represents the investigation of claims for the
destruction of 66 tanks and 24 armoured vehicles the effect of air
attack seems unimpressive; a maximum of seven out of 101 vehicles
examined, some six per cent. It was found that fighter-bomber attack
had also involved some wastage, with bombs dropped among tanks already
knocked out by American troops, and it is revealing that even when
these bombs landed within 15 yards of the tanks no additional damage
was done. Not surprisingly, the report concluded that, while the
contribution of the air forces to stemming the German offensive had
been considerable, this
was not by the direct destruction of armour, which appears
to have been insignificant; but rather by the strafing and
bombing of supply routes, which prevented essential supplies
from reaching the front.
V. The Identification of Kills
As regards the reliability of the ORS ground surveys, one may wonder
if tanks attributed to destruction by ground weapons had in fact been
knocked out by aircraft and subsequently used as target practice by
Allied troops. However, such mistakes were very unlikely. Bombs and
rockets were harly ever, if at all, used singly, and near vehicles
destroyed by such weapons were always found the craters of near
misses. Moreover, rocket craters were distinctive, oval in shape and
usually with part of the rocket tube or fins in or near them. Parts of
the rocket were also often found in tanks or vehicles destroyed by the
weapon. In or near tanks and vehicles destroyed by their crews were
often found the metal cases that had contained German demolition
charges, these being placed in a specific part of the tank, such as
under engine hatches. Pock marks on roads or holes roughly six inches
in diameter in the ground indicated machine gun or cannon attacks, and
tanks and vehicles that had been strafed bore holes or dents on upper
surfaces. It is possible that tanks abandoned intact were subsequently
used for target practice, and attributed to a particular ground
weapon, but this has little relevance to the effectiveness of air
weapons.
Reposted again due tot he number of people apparently ignoring the findings of the ORS reference the efficacy of bomb and gun/cannon kills.
RE Charlie Rock
So the P-47 flight commander ignores attacking the top decks because they are too heavily armoured. The rest of the flight also ignores shooting the top decks in favour of shooting suspension components. Apparently the top armour is considered too thick to enable a kill with .50cal. He states that the belly armour is considered weaker than the other armoured surfaces, which is only true in the In the PIV. The forward belly of the Panther was almost double the thickness of ?top armour? (30mm) the StuG top and belly armour were identical at 16mm and directly comparable to the 16mm top superstructure and top turret armour of late PIV J and top armour of the Panther. Gaining better angles through ricochets defeats velocity and deforms rounds thereby reducing their effectiveness at perforating armour. The pilots note themselves that they could not be sure.
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That can't be true. Guy in TV said they destoyed many tanks by shooting ground after them with their Thunderbolts :p :D
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Make the tanks impervious to 50 cals,tracks included...
20mm can kill tracks...
Anything larger of course would damage the armour.
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btw illo: what your stats do not show, is how may tank crews were killed.
-
let us summerize
A: air attacks cannot destroy tanks
B: air attacks make tank crews abandon and destroy their tank
C: end result , same...one tank destroyed
so now we know how the "weak" .50 cal can take out a tank, you shoot at tank, crew destroys tank,(realistic modeling by HTC)
it doesn't matter what the after battle assessment said about who killed what, the facts are a air attack stoped a armored attack.
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Originally posted by john9001
let us summerize
A: air attacks cannot destroy tanks
B: air attacks make tank crews abandon and destroy their tank
C: end result , same...one tank destroyed
so now we know how the "weak" .50 cal can take out a tank, you shoot at tank, crew destroys tank,(realistic modeling by HTC)
it doesn't matter what the after battle assessment said about who killed what, the facts are a air attack stoped a armored attack.
Read again. :)
-Experieced crews knew it was much safer to stay inside tank.
-Abandonement and destruction was usually done after bomb/rocket near misses.
so now we know how the "weak" .50 cal can take out a tank, you shoot at tank, crew destroys tank,(realistic modeling by HTC)
With your logic we should have all fighters exploding by themselves when enemy tanks come in 5miles distance of airfield. :D Also we should have forced auto-bail whenever our aircraft gets pings.
Come on.
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I'll take gameplay if thats the option which stops MG's destroying armor. I have no probs with MG's damaging certain components like pintle, Osty turret etc
I also don't have a prob with MG's wiping out the halftracks.
I just don't feel MG's completely destroying a PZ is realistic.
Perhaps have the DM recognize if the player is in the commander position when hit, disabling that position altogether. The gunner would never be exposed like that so the main gun would still be available.
Maybe 50's did stand a SLIM chance of causing fire, if so let the PZ burn until it eventually blows up or the crew abandons(player ditches)
I think most players would consider it realistic (not gameplay) this way, as armor kills with MG's were very rare if they occured at all.
SKurj
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Only thing that bugs me about armor is that a select few players take 20 times the punishment to kill in the MA. most armor dies with 1-2 rockets or a single 100# even(i dont use larger stuff since it doesnt do any better here), but many many times encountered the same 3 guys and seen them take bombs from 6-10 planes and 30-50 rockets and they dont even smoke. they just sit there in the craters and blast away at everyone then nobody will be attacking them and they just explode or ditch and someone gets a kill.
The lastest wierd thing i'm seeing is a guy in a flak that when you bomb him his flak spins around like an alien gonna jump outta its belly and then it leaps to a position about 200yds from where it was bombed did this like 3-4 times till i questioned him on open channel then he exploded without being attacked.
Beginning to wonder whether its possible to manipulate the damage packets or whether some guys connnections so bad that they get dropped, but if you cant kill them how can they kill others. (btw last ping test was 45-58ms and off 99 packets/0 loss for me)
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HiTech,
I understand your point about where you hit the tank with an AP round, but it isn't all that simple...really. I find it very hard to believe that I am hitting the thick armor, or making glancing shots 100% of the time! I can count on one hand the number of times I have had a 1-2 shot kill with AP rounds. 99.999% of the time I have to hit somehting over 10 times with AP....and this isn't always head-on shots...I am literaly talking POINT BLANK in the side, the turret, etc. It's pretty damn disgusting and frustrating to be within 100 yards of an enemy tank and bust him in the turret and sides over 10 times only to have him turn his turret and kill you with one shot.
One other interesting note...and this may hold a key to all this. About 2 weeks ago I was in a large tank battle. I got a 1 shot kill (and I was quite elated!)....I noticed that EVERY time I shot the same opponent, I got a 1 shot kill...regardless of range and angle. All other enemy required my usual 10+ hits. I killed this guy 4-5 times with 1 shot before he gave up spawning, yet all others required LOTS of hits. Perhaps net status or ping times come into play here? The weird part is, I rarely, if ever have trouble killing othe rplanes while flying. It's as if hits with GV's aren't registering most of the time or somehting.
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IMO, looking for information about antitank weapons in the western/mediterranean/pacific fronts is like looking for information about naval warfare in the black sea.
The two countries really involved in massive tank battles with close air support specialized in antitank operations were just Germany and Russia. What they need to acomplish this kind of missions? 12.7mm AP ammo?? Even the 30mm mk103 was not considered enough to effectively kill tanks.
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Mandoble if you're interested about guns vs ammo penetration tables collected from several sources send me a email: EMail Staga (olli.vaisanen@hartwall.fi)
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sry...nothing
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the WINNER!!! i got the 100th spot :D
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HITECH:
In real life 50cals were not used to kill tanks, 30mm, 37mm, 40mm, 57mm, 75mm aircraft cannon were used.
The only concrete evidence I have ever read of 50cals putting out tanks was damaging the engine/radiotors.
Its that simple.
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http://www.p47advocates.com/messages/464.html (http://www.p47advocates.com/messages/464.html)
The crucial excerpt:
I've often wondered about reports of "bouncing bullets off the road into the bellies of tanks to set them afire"-- as the bellies of these tanks are still too much for such light projectiles to handle, particularly after losing much energy by striking the road surface first, and then likely tumbling or yawing severely before strking the belly armor. However, having been a tank officer for several years, and having armor-antiarmor study as part of my civil job for many years, I think that the answer may be that these stories ARE TRUE-- but not due to the penetration of the belly of the tanks, but due to strikes against the "drain plugs" and access plates (or places where they should have been installed) beneath the tanks. All tanks have to have these (to let spilled oil, fuel, oily engine "slobber", and of course, rainwater and melted snow drain away, or to gain access to the underside of the powerplant and other machinery inside the tank. Tanks of all types are notorious for having lots of oily, fuel-soaked, greasy gunk all over the bottom of the engine compartment, and they're also widely known for having "missing" drain plugs and access plates-- at any given moment, a surprising percentage of the world's armored vehicles are driving around with one, several or many of their drain plugs and access plates missing, even today. In combat, with hasty, midnight servicing and repairs always being made, often in deplorable muddy, slushy ground, or in the churned up grass and turf of hasty assembly areasa, it's only natural that small drain plugs, and access plates (typically 1.5" to 4" in diameter) are lost, or come loose, or are purposely "lost" or left "open" by the crew. I think that the basis for these type reports may be just that-- the P-47 pilots were bouncing rounds right into these areas of the tank, and vs. the Germans' gasoline-fueled vehicles, a single burning tracer or burning fragments from an API strike would easily ignite the spilled or dripped grease, fuel, oil, dried fragments of vegetation, greasy residue, and all the other gunk that coats the bottom of the engine compartments of tanks in combat. They weren't penetrating the belly of the tank, but it probably worked well enough to keep on doing it.
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well if you go back in this thread and read illo and hortlunds replies about the examination of german armor on the battle field after mourtain and in hortlunds case an broader examination over the front you will find that not to be the case.
Folks wanna believe because their "favorite" ace said so. Well it didnt happen. killing tanks from the air was hard even with bombs landing close.
Now the morale of the tanks crews is something seperate the concusion of the bombs the noise of 50 cals smacking the tank and rockets would have caused panic. If you read those previous threads you will find alot of tanks abandon and in good working order.
Now to claim 50 cals exploding tanks is to reflect "crew abandoning" their tanks or the the loss of the crew in side I would have to call bs.
We have buffs in ah that we can fill the fuselage with rounds the crews never died till the buff is ded. You never bail out of a plane whos oil or radiator or fuel is hit or if your lit a flame you fight on.
Whether its "real" or not the fact is gvs died rether easily. After a long drive to be strafed by a zeke and sent to the twr imho hinders gv gameplay. I do believe that m16 m3s and osties ought to be vulnerable to the smallest caliber round. Its easier to kill the eng or the track on an ost wind the disable the gun (in my experience).
I think even now I am happy with most gvs except the panzer. It should take another panzr to kill it. Also I would like to see gvs a bit less easy to spot from the air.
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If crew abandonment is the culprit here, perhaps we just need to change the "man" model here. That way, when someone bounces rounds at your tank, you're forced to bail. Then HTC could also model a yellow stream of tinkle running down your leg.
Just a thought
-Sikboy
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I have a movie, made yesterday, of myself in a panzer, getting strafed to death by a spit. Oh and a p38 tried to hit me a few times. How many passes? 3 spit passes and I was back in the tower. If you want the movie Hitech, I can arrange it. As the title says, what a load of BS. The only good thing about the encounter is he took my engine first. Oh and I did take a wing off of a p38 in one pass with my 303 pintle. Didnt hit him much either.
We dont model bad engines in nikis, so I dont think we should be modeling crew behavior or missing plates in gvs.
This really is a joke.
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Originally posted by ergRTC
This really is a joke.
Actually, in my case it was a joke. Damn, shoulda used the [joke] tags.
-Sikboy
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I know sikboy. Your sarcasm is not hard to miss. ;)
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Calm down ppl. :D
I'm sure HTC is looking on this.
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I'm not so sure this problem is very easy to fix. I think (and please correct me if I'm wrong here) that the current damage model is something like this: Every piece of ordinance, and every bullet has some kind of damage value. Lets assume that a .50 cal bullet has 1 in damage value. Then every target, or target surfance has some kind of damage resistance (cant come up with a better word). When it comes to aircraft, every part of the plane has its own damage resistance. When enough damage points is inflicted upon a target surface, that surface breaks (and we get to see a wing fall off etc).
I suspect there is some kind of randomizer in there somewhere too, so that that .50 cal bullet sometimes inflicts 2 damage points, and sometimes 1/2 damage points.
Now, if I'm correct in my guessings here, that would mean that everything can be destroyed by everything. If you shoot long enough on a Hangar with the 7.92 rear MG on a 110C4, eventually the hangar will be destroyed. It will take alot of time, because the Hangar can absorb the equivalent of 3k lbs worth of bombs, but eventually you will be able to shoot the hangar to pieces. Every single 7.92mm bullet will make .25 points worth of damage to the target or something like that. Then it only becomes a question of time and ammo before the hangar is destroyed.
Over to our PzIV, like every other target in the game, each target surface on the pz has a damage resistance value. And since the panzer is armored, I suspect that this is reflected either by giving it a high damage resistance value, or by reducing incoming damage values by some factor.
The same should apply here. If you shoot enough 7.92mm bullets on the frontal armor of the Pz, eventually it will be destroyed.
I havent had time to test this theory yet (because I just came up with it, and Im at work). But if I'm correct, or at least close to the truth, then the whole .50 cals taking out armor-issue would need a complete rewrite of the damage model to fix.
As I pointed out earlier, it is not realistic to ask for a fully realistic damage model. The number of calculations that would be required for a realistic damage model in tank to tank combat is astounding. And besides, it should not really be neccessary. What we want is a realistic simulation, at least that is what I want. And 90% of the calculations that would be required in a realistic damage model for tank combat can be reduced to a couple of randomizers within certain variables to achieve as good a result as any.
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I think you are right hortlund, but I have seen field ack 'bounce' off the front of my tank and richochet (how the hell do you spell that!). So there must be some kind of ability to model immunity.
Last night I took out a shore gun with the 40mm on the back of my pt boat.
Only took about 50 shells.
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hahem ... yet another Candide question :)
If I figured right the penetration are based on the impact of one single shell/bullet on a steel plate at given range.
But what happend if it's a "burst"(stream ?) of bullet hit the steel plate ?
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Easy, the first bullets will act as added armour for the second ones and so on :D
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Dohhhh !!!
Didn't thought of that this way !
So they are just trying to immobilise tank by increasing their weight ? ;)
It was so obvious and I missed it :D
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Effect of airpower against tanks (http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=024238)
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I saw on the history channel the P47 shooting at tanks and have bullets ricochet off of ground hitting the underneath of tank where there is very little protection.. with its 8 50"s and knocking out tank.. so i guess it is possible
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Good link Illo; but it, and it's response, only illustrate further what has already been discussed on these boards:
Allied air superiority post D-day actually resulted in relativly mínor physical destructiobn of Axis resources.
Allied Air superority was, nontheless, paralysing to armour movement.
I'd be very interestèd in hearing about the Eastern Front, an area I'm too ignorant of. What was the claimed effect of the oft asked for additional load outs for the 190 ?
Did the Axis find air power an effective tool in armour supression?
Are there Soviet analysis of their losses to air power?
How did the Panzer fare against the IL-2?
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Originally posted by Sarge1
I saw on the history channel the P47 shooting at tanks and have bullets ricochet off of ground hitting the underneath of tank where there is very little protection.. with its 8 50"s and knocking out tank.. so i guess it is possible
Did you read anything above? Research has shown this didn't happen. No single incident found. How can you confirm you saw KO from bottom hit? How tanks was KOd? Explosion? or??
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I'd be very interestèd in hearing about the Eastern Front, an area I'm too ignorant of. What was the claimed effect of the oft asked for additional load outs for the 190 ?
Did the Axis find air power an effective tool in armour supression?
Are there Soviet analysis of their losses to air power?
How did the Panzer fare against the IL-2?
Yup me too. It's kind of funny how little we know of WW2s main front.
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Its difficult to argue historical in a thread like this. Hortlund's post is a pretty good example of why.
Historically, in the environment those tanks were in, that information could be 100% accurate.
Now translate that to what we see in the main arena. There is no air defenses for the straffing aircraft to worry about... so they can take prolonged shots from virtually any angle.
All ground vehicles are exposed from virtually every side at all times. There is no digging into a hillsided to protect the weak areas.
Those two things alone virtually invalidate comparisons between WWII numbers and what we could expect in the MA.
That said, what would increasing GV strength accomplish in the MA? Right now, bases are virtually defenseless (AI) against GVs... especially Panzers. My main concern with hardening GVs would be the likelyhood of seeing them used as runway vulch platforms much more often. There just isn't another use for them in the game right now.
Perhaps a better idea would be to come up with a use for GVs that doesn't involve spawning them at enemy airbases. Introduce some kind of real land war vs the base centric setup right now. A system were ground has to be held or it is lost. If you don't have that... GVs will always be the eye-candy they are right now.
AKDejaVu
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>>Would love to discuss this topic on vehicle damage, but first I wan't to know what you wish us to accomplish. <<
HT:
What I'd like you and your staff to do is take a look at the damage modeling, particularly on the Ostie and perhaps on the M-16. I only know what I experience in the arena. I'm not gonna post up lines of data on ammo performance; I don't think that is relevant in a virtual reality game/sim.
I have attempted on numerous occasions to kill FPz and M16s with bombs; mg fire (.50 cal & 20 mm) and rockets; they just wont die or suffer the damage they ought to. Sometimes my aim is bad, and I can see it as I pass over; the craters don't lie but,
I will make passes on an ostie and purposely fire 8 rockets dead on, only to look back and see the ostie drive thru with craters all around it w/o a scratch. And the same with the M16 although, a proximity will usually kill it.
They seem to be way too tough for the nature of their armor as I compare my experiences with killing Panzers. I have had success strafing panzers with either .50 cal or 20mm guns; that is odd to me.
So for me, all I would want is a close look at the modeling and perhaps a brief test. If my experiences (and those of others) are not founded in fact, then I will accept it. Until that time, I'm thinking that something is porked.
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>>just make MG's completely ineffective against armor (but not the guy standing in the Osty turret) <<
And then I want, and then I want, and then I want ;)
And it took 4 passes to get destroyed by 6 fifties? And you don't think several hundred rounds; possibly a thousand rounds, should have damaged your Ostie? Sheesh.
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+) u didn't get it Don
Anyways!! make the osty turret soft against .50's but the rest of the vehicle invulnerable to them.
2 passes in a jug and any pz or flak is dead bang boom (not just disabled)
I know cuz i've done it several times the last few days
SKurj
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"A .50 caliber API round is easily capable of penetrating armor up to at least 19mm of face hardened plate ... at 100 meters."
http://www.rovingguns.com/lunatic/wwII_gun_analysis/
A fantastic article that may turn me into a 50 cal. convert in regards to aircraft damage. It does not address the 50 cal. vs. gv armor issue however, but there is plenty to chew on.
Taking this penetration data at face value, how would the armor of the Panzer IV and Ostwind compare? At what ranges would the 50. cal penetrate their armor?
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Originally posted by Seeker
Good link Illo; but it, and it's response, only illustrate further what has already been discussed on these boards:
Allied air superiority post D-day actually resulted in relativly mínor physical destructiobn of Axis resources.
Ya know, Seeker, from my reading of it, I gather this:
Air attacks killed anywhere from one-third to one-half as many tanks as did armor-piercing shot from anti-tank artillery and other tanks.
Doesn't sound so shabby when you put it that way, does it? Add to that the fact that, unlike with ATGs and other tanks, there's not (really) a damn thing you can do about the air attack, and it must be pretty demoralizing.
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"Ya know, Seeker, from my reading of it, I gather this:
Air attacks killed anywhere from one-third to one-half as many tanks as did armor-piercing shot from anti-tank artillery and other tanks. "
I didn't know that, to be honest, but you make a good point.
My point was that despite what appears to surprisingly low amounts of actual destroyed hardware on the field, all those involved at the time, from the highest Axis commanders to the lowest Allied grunt hunkered down and watching; all agree on the absolutly paralyzing effect of unopposed airpower on armour movement.
After all, it seems both sides had to re-invent the wheel numerous times. Just as the Allieds failed to learn the buff lesson from the Battle of Brittain, and had to learn it all for them selves, so the Axis seemed to forget the effectiveness of the Blitzkrieg they themselves invented, and seemed to have no plans, doctrines or tactics to combat Blitzkrieg turned against them. Funk once posted a late war Spit pilot's log book, and I was very surprised to see that over 90 % of sorties were Jabo, not a role one immeaditaly associates with the Spit.
Again, I'd love to see some Eastern Front analysis for balance, as most of the discussions on this board are post D-day, but there's valuble comparisons to be made in both the Italian and North African campaigns too. I'm afraid to say I know absolutly nothing of the Pacific theatre's use of armour either.
What was the Finnish experience against Soviet armour?
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Finnish didn't have anything in air to kill tanks with except ju-88s. Ju-88s were mainly used as divebombers. I think 4x500kg bombs would take out soviet tanks. Situation changed when KG Kuhlmey arrived in with Stukas and Fw190s of SG2 and II/JG54 finland at summer 1944.
Bombs were only thing that could damage medium/heavy soviet tanks.
"A .50 caliber API round is easily capable of penetrating armor up to at least 19mm of face hardened plate ... at 100 meters."
http://www.rovingguns.com/lunatic/wwII_gun_analysis/
A fantastic article that may turn me into a 50 cal. convert in regards to aircraft damage. It does not address the 50 cal. vs. gv armor issue however, but there is plenty to chew on.
Taking this penetration data at face value, how would the armor of the Panzer IV and Ostwind compare? At what ranges would the 50. cal penetrate their armor?
With that data any of side rear and front plates(of PzKpfw IVh) can't be penetrateted from any distance. Top turret(15mm) and top deck(12mm) can be penetrated if shot from high angle dive(over 60dgr) at less than 250-300m.
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>>2 passes in a jug and any pz or flak is dead bang boom (not just disabled)
I know cuz i've done it several times the last few days <<
Skurj:
My not getting it is exactly my point.
;)
For me there has been way too much inconsistent performance where strafing runs and attacks with other ord against Osties are concerned.
But as I read Hortlund's post about WW2 and the battle or Mortain, I get the impression that attacks against heavily armored tanks was a bit if a crapshoot. Okay, I can accept that, and it helps me rest easier. But, the Ostie's hardness has been near impossible for me to understand. I think there should be not much difference between a Jug shooting a thousand rounds at an Ostie in the MA, and a P-51 shooting a thousand at the same target.
Is there something wrong or porked? I don't know. My point is, I'm thinking there is. So, I will be looking closely at it over the next few weeks to get some actual info to support my suspicions.
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My recent experience:
Saw gv's coming into a19's city on the "uterus" map. Upped a pz to go hunting and got a glimpse of an m3/m16 speeding off towards the city. When I finally got there, I saw three gv's... 2 m3/m16 and 1 m8 that was shelling the city. I ranged in (about 4 shots) and killed the first m3/m16 that I saw, the tail end charlie. Then I ranged in and damaged the m8 (also about 4 shots). It was about 1400-1600 yds away. The last m3/m16 was a little to the left and slightly further down range compared to the m8. I saw tracers come in my direction from the m3/m16 so I figured I'd better tend to it since the m8 was already smoking. I think I got one shot off that was a bit short before I was sent back to the tower. It was the m16/m3 that killed me and not the m8 because I have not been killed by m8's during tour 26 (this incident occured Saturday 3/30). So I was killed by possibly 4 .50's at a little over 1500 yds on my front plate, front turret, or mantlet (I usually like to face the front to my targets by habit). I really wish I had filmed this, but was feeling confident I could kill all three from out of their effective range. Plus the films cannot show the gunner view so you have to take my word that I can estimate range ok. Was a bit miffed that this still happens, but I don't get frustrated enough to not play.
mauser
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seen on the history channel about the P47 and the 8 50's and the P51d... seen both on film killing german tanks .. they used the undercarriage as it is the weakest spot on the tank.. see them shouot ground and bullets bounced off and up into tank causiong it to be stopped.. so 50's do kill german tanks.. even the panzer, and the tiger.... (http://web4.facelink.com/edit/raw/image/79/5411679.jpg)
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Originally posted by Sarge1
see them shouot ground and bullets bounced off and up into tank causiong it to be stopped.. so 50's do kill german tanks.. even the panzer, and the tiger....
An aircraft "stopped" may be killed, because it's falling from the sky. A tank stopped is just a tank stopped - not a tank killed.
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Atleast you can't flip tanks with your gear like you could in ww2ol.:D
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Originally posted by Sarge1
seen on the history channel about the P47 and the 8 50's and the P51d... seen both on film killing german tanks .. they used the undercarriage as it is the weakest spot on the tank.. see them shouot ground and bullets bounced off and up into tank causiong it to be stopped.. so 50's do kill german tanks.. even the panzer, and the tiger....
Sarge, can you read? Did you bother to? The same toejam you just posted was ALREADY posted at least twice in this thread. Exactly the same thing "Well, I saw on History Channel that P-47s shot the road and it bounced up into the bottom of the tank and killed it".
Well, I saw on Private Ryan that the guy blew up a tank with 4 shots from a pistol (my DVD player wouldn't play the end of the movie". I demand that bailed pilots be given Colt .45s so we can go tank hunting if we get shot down while near an enemy base.
And yes, I just lied. I saw the damn movie (the whole thing).. I just wanted to see if I could post something more ludicrus than him.
The CLAIM that .50 caliber MG fire could kill a tank after being bounced off a roadway has been made and shown to be false (with some possible if very very very very very very very very very unlikely exceptions).
And yes, I'd dearly love to see it fixed, because it IS broken.
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Originally posted by Sarge1
bounced off and up into tank causiong it to be stopped..
I imagine the panzer commander saying to his driver:
Stop, I heard some extrange noise below the tank...
And the P47 pilot:
Hurra!!! panzer stopped and destroyed!!!
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Btw gents here is the 50cal balistic info.
(http://www.hitechcreations.com/pyro/50chart.jpg)
An axample of reading this chart. at 400 yards with a 20 deg shot on the armor, the 50cal will penitrate .6 inches.
Will post armor thickness for the panzer on the top and back portions soon as pyro gets back from lunch
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nm +) figured it out i think...
Follow the range value vertical until it meets the MV line then go horizontal until u find the angle?
SKurj
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Armor thickness on top and back is no more than 12mm i.e. 0.47 inches.
Also increase the muzzle velocity from the chart by the speed of the airplane.
Any questions?
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I think the main problem is the armour modeling..
It seems that AH armour will be destroyed by any gun as long as it gets hit sufficiently long. It doesn't take into account the fact that if an armour is thick enough it will take an infinite number of hits before failing from a small calibre weapon. Then again a powerful weapon will penetrate and destroy the armored vehicle in 1 shot which is likely with 75mm rounds.
So in AH 10 osty rounds is equivalent to a single 75mm round.
For example. Because osty can fire these rounds much faster than the tank main gun it results in having better penetration by time.
Same thing with .50 guns, they can throw an amazing amount of lead in the air and while in real life they would not penetrate the armour, AH damage model calculates the hit value away from the armor and finally destroys the vehicle.
This can result in weirdness like a jug is able to kill osties faster than the 2x40mm hurricane - only because hurri guns have such a low rate of fire and a single round can't kill the armour.
Am I far from the truth? Because if it's so the only fix is to change armour modeling so that it will simply ignore or give a fraction of value to the hits which do not carry enough power to penetrate.
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Top and back are the largest parts of a tank and so the easiest parts to aim and hit, so, yep, a question: Why to use the less accurate rockets and bombs?
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Thanks for the chart HT :)
Yep, that seems to work Skurj. In my example, I was hit from at least 1600 yds front quarter. It looks like the striking velocity at that range would be under 1200 fps, and assuming that the angle lines are continued down to the x-axis it seems that the .50 will penetrate less than 0.3". Worst case, 0.3" works out to about 8mm. The top armor of the PzIVH seems to range from 10mm to 12mm (from achtungpanzer.com). So even with a worst case hit to the top armor at 0 deg (this would probably not happen in a ground to ground scenario) the bullet would not penetrate. I would guess that in a ground to ground scenario I was hit in the front hull/mantlet (50mm) and the striking angle would most likely not be 0 degrees, but that's only from intuition not definite. Also, this is all moot if I'm reading the chart wrong :)
mauser
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mrsid, that is now how ah models armor.
With vehicles armor is either penitrated or not, it does not take any damage, what is hit after the armor is penitrated takes damage, btw the bullet is slowed after passing threw the armor.
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Oh.. That's good then.
Thanks for the reply.
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I think my last post got caught and appeared while everyone else was editing theirs. Can anyone confirm if my assumptions are correct and if I was reading the chart correctly? I am considering m16 mgmc vs. the pzivh. More information in my post about 10 spots before my last one.
mauser
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That chart is gold. Thnx Hitech.
Am I reading it correctly to say :
@ 1575 yds the 50 cal. (short barrel) will have 1200 v and penetrate .3 inches of armor @ 0 degrees?
How does the targets relative velocity enter the equation?
Modeling the angle at which aircraft components are struck must be a headache.
The AH environment allows us to fire under perfect conditions, maximizing the 50 cal.'s capabilities: Perfect weather, smooth air, constant wind, better than perfect eyesight, steady platform, no physical exertion or Fear of God. Until these are added in 1.10 ( 'Fear of Yankee' already finished I hear ;) ) there is no better gunnery model.
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now +) all this being said... how does an M16 penetrate a panzer when both are on a level plane?
Should be IMPOSSIBLE.... the angle of any hits to the upper decks would just skip off... Any hits to the top of the turret impossible. Soo... an m3, or an m16 should not be able to defeat a panzer, yet they do in the ma...
SKurj
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The back armor is also 12 or 10mm skurj
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Virage: Yes you reading it correctly.
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Ok, charts confuse me :).
Here is what I'm going to do. I'll try to interpret that chart according to what range/angle you'd need to penetrate .47 inches of armor. By the way, what kind of metal was used in the test? Would it be the same kind of metal used to make the tanks?
The following is all for the 'short barrel' airplane .50.
At a zero degree angle, the .50 will penetrate at about 1050 to 1100 yards.
At twenty degrees- Roughly 850 yards?
At thirty degrees- Roughly 500 yards?
At fourty degrees- Roughly 375 yards?
At fourty-five degrees- Roughly 75 yards?
Anything over that is impossible I think (at least if I'm reading the chart right).
By the way Hitech, thanks for posting that information. Really cool of you to do it. I'll have to do some checking out of my films and maybe do some math (along with guessing what angle the enemy plane was coming in at lol) to see if what I've seen jives with the facts, but the fact that you gave me the information I need to do it with speaks volumes as far as I am concerned. Thanks HT.
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" but the fact that you gave me the information I need to do it with speaks volumes as far as I am concerned"
Just remember to use an Imperial protractor, the metric ones are porked.......
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Originally posted by hitech
With vehicles armor is either peni-trated or not...
:eek: :D
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Hi All,
Well even if we don't get any practical changes out of it, at least the discussion has been informative.
HT - thanks for being willing to discuss the damage model, and for being concerned about the realism of the ground war aspects of the game in the first place (unlike another late game that I wont mention). It seems to me that 3 concerns at least need to be addressed:
1) Certain calibre bullets simply cannot destroy or even damage anything on a Panzer either than the pintle MG. 7.9 and .303 calibre bullets should be useless in this role. There was nowhere on the Pnzr IV H with armor thin enough to be penetrated with a rifle calibre round - even the tracks and rollers.
2) History teaches us that the actual combatant forces created aircraft like the Hurri 2D, the 37mm armed Stuka, and more recently the A10 precisely because the standard armament on fighters - while sufficient for A to A combat - was insufficient for killing AFVs. I've read many reports of German Panzers destroyed or knocked over by bomb hits (or the crews killed or disabled by the shock wave) and in a few cases rockets. But never have I read of a German late war Panzer (IV+) or even STUG being killed by machine guns. Again, if we are going to have them "killable" by .50 cals or even 20mms, lets ensure that these are only rear or top armor hits. Even then, I know of no point on the turret of a PZR IV that could be penetrated by a .50 cal. Somehow we need to make sure that there is a historically accurate niche for the Hurri Ds and Yak Ts.
3) Accordingly - the damage model has to be based on actual armor thickness at the strike point + as new AFVs are added like the T34/85 (please ;) ) glacis or armor slope will also have to accounted for. Lets not make the new perk tanks expensive iron coffins - so a 202 shouldn't produce more than pinging sounds. But lets make sure they all quiver at the thought of a Hurri D attack from behind or a 500 pounder from an accurate P47 pilot.
Keep up the good work!
- Seagoon
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Well Illo, what are your thoughts on HT's chart?
Just because other planes were developed that did it "better" doesn't prove that it was "impossible" for .50 cal aircraft to kill the type of panzers we have.
I strafed a tank the other night in a jug 4 times without killing it. That doesn't mean it was "impossible" for me to kill it. It just means I didn't come in from the proper angle and hit it in the right place.
You show reports that only a small percentage of tanks were taken out by aircraft. That doesn't mean that it was "impossible" to do so. It prolly means they didn't come in from the right angle and hit it in the right place.
I'll trust Pyro's data and HT's math. If they find an error, fine. I'm sure they'll fix it. All I ask, is if the data show that a certain part of the armor can be penetrated by a .50 cal within a certain angle of incidence and a certain range, that that be represented in the damage model of the game and that tanks not be "artificially" hardened to satisfy a vocal minority. If the data proved it was "impossible" for a .50 cal to penetrate ANYWHERE on the tank then I'd be the first to join your cause.
Regards,
Wab
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Seagoon, the model already does have different armor thickness thought the vehicles.
Some of the armor is only 10mm some is 12mm other is much thicker, we already have all the slops in the damage model. Now how is it that a 50cal can not penitrate and kill the tank?
History does not teach us that 50cals could not kill a tank, what it does show is 50cals were not the most effect weapon against them.
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Originally posted by Seeker
Just remember to use an Imperial protractor, the metric ones are porked.......
LMAO :D
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Originally posted by Mathman
LMAO :D
Once, last year I was having a party at my apartment. There were a whole bunch of my fellow poli-sci nerds there, and we were having a lively discussion about the role of the UN in the post cold war era (and there was a side discussion about supply side economics, but I was trying to stay out of that). Anyhow, somebody had called the cops on us for being noisy. The cops show up, expecting to see a rowdy party, and instead see a dozen nerds standing around a BBQ grill talking about politics. They just shook their heads and told us to keep it down. They were laughing about it. I mean, what a bunch of nerds.
Anyhow, after reading that protractor comment, I know EXACTLY how they felt lol.
Math Geeks. Your's is a different world.
-Sikboy
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Hi HT,
Thanks much for the reply.
Originally posted by hitech
Seagoon, the model already does have different armor thickness thought the vehicles.
Some of the armor is only 10mm some is 12mm other is much thicker, we already have all the slops in the damage model. Now how is it that a 50cal can not penitrate and kill the tank?
History does not teach us that 50cals could not kill a tank, what it does show is 50cals were not the most effect weapon against them.
Ok, I should never enter into a thread where math is involed as I'm apalling at it and I tend to think only in metric where military discussions are involved. Just a few questions and observations, I think you'll find that only the TOP armor of the IV was between 10-12mm in thickness. Take a look at http://www.achtungpanzer.com/pz3.htm for instance.
If we assume the max penetrating power of the .50 cal was less than .8 of an inch, then the armor everywhere else on the Tank should have stopped it. So can we assume that only Top hits on the IV penetrate? Also can we assume that if we introduce a Tank like the Tiger (not the King just the plain old Tiger) which has top armor of 25mm, i.e. 1 inch, and a min. 80mm elsewhere, that NO .50 Cal hits will ever penetrate it?
BTW - are there plans to introduce another tank?
Just wondering.
Thanks again,
Seagoon
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Some of the back armor had 12mm but was blocked by the eng,
When you hit this portion of the tank you can take out its eng but you are not able to kill it.
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What's the highest elevation angle for the panzer's main gun?
I'm begining to think I may have to adjust my thinking on this one to the gameplay side. I was in a panzer a few days ago and had a pony come at me nearly head on. Maybe 15degrees right of dead head to head, and at an angle where I could (and did) blast him with the 75mm.
Being generous, and saying 50degree angle, at 600yds the .50s from that pony could only penetrate just under .4 in, looking at HT's chart. 600yds is roughly the range where his wing came off from the 75mm AP round that hit his wing root. That attacked took out my turret/main gun and the pintle gun, and killed my engine.
In another incident an n1k approached from the near the same angle and in a single pass took out both tracks, the turret/pintle, and the engine. Second time facing this guy (same guy, bout 5min later) he approached from the beam (about 80degrees off the nose) and took 1 track, the engine, and the turret/pintle gun. Oddly enough, the track that he knocked out was opposite the side he approached from. This one was one of the most frustrating times I've had in the panzer, as this guy was just circling the spawn point and ripping up GVs as they spawned, and getting them on one pass.
Conversely, in the ostwind I have survived up to 5 passes from everything except hizooka armed aircraft and suffered only tracks damaged.
There have been many times I've wondered if the damage models for the ostwind and the panzer were accidently switched because of the seeming ease of killing a panzer's turret and near impossibility of killing the ostie's turret.
Also, what effect would the 20mm and 30mm of the 110g2 have on the armor? I thought the LW cannon didna carry any AP shells and were basically worth less than .303s when straffing armor. Every time my panzer is strafed by a 110G2 I lose everything: turret, pintle, both tracks, engine, hull gun. Everything except driver wounded. From a single pass.
In related news I've made multiple high angle strafing passes on ostwinds only to have them keep shooting. See all my hits centered on the turret area but it knocks out thier engine w/o touching thier main gun.
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History does not teach us that 50cals could not kill a tank...
- The posted 50 cal. M2 AP chart shows that it is 'POSSIBLE' to penetrate thin armor with the 50 cal. IMO HTC models this chart.
- Another source
19mm = .75 inches
(http://www.biggerhammer.net/barrett/fas/cal50evol.gif)
http://www.biggerhammer.net/barrett/fas/
- Design history When the United States Army arrived in France in 1917 it found a need for a machine gun firing a larger round than that used in contemporary rifles, which was required not only for use against troops but also for new tasks such as attacking tanks, balloons, and aircraft: It proved impossible to convert any US weapon to take the 0.43in (I 1mm) round then being tested b'y the French, but at that point the US Army happened to capture some new Mauser anti-tank rifles with their ammunition.The excellence of the round was quickly recognized and a new United States O.5O" cartridge was rapidly developed along the same lines.
http://www.gunplot.net/armoury/fiftycal.html
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...what it does show is 50cals were not the most effect[ive] weapon against them.
- Previously posted first hand accounts and statistical surveys show how inefficient/impractical the 50 cal. would be in a REAL WORLD SETTING.
And this difference is the root of this argument. BOTH SIDES ARE CORRECT.
You are not going to find many stories about multiple low angle passes on a tank using a weapon that shows no visible effect other then alot of sparks.
Military designers would not be satisfied with the probability of 'knocking out' a tank with 50 cal., hence the development of larger weapons.
The MA is another world. GV drivers will head to the tower with minor damage. GV's r easily spotted. No withering ground fire. No trees, hills to navigate. Endless supply of pilots and planes with no regard for their safety, etc. The relatively sterile environment of the MA allows for the modest effectivity of the 50 cal. to show.
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a single 50call round not penetrating top armor, even 25mm ...ok, but 50 or a few hundered strikes. I wouldnt want to be hiding under just 25mm or worse yet just 10-12mm of metal.
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So you say the US 50cal is a copy of German cartrige. :)
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Someone had posted earlier in this thread that a bomb would have to be dropped right next to it to do any damage. Umm, while the armor would maybe hold up. The concussion would probably kill the crew (1,000lb). Everyone always says that the M-1A2 Abrams' armor can withstand 120mm shells, the crew would be almost killed by the concussion of that.
You need to give more credit to the .50cal. The .45ACP has been replaced, most of the .308 (M-60) has been replaced by the SAW (7.62mm), but they still have the .50cal. It would mess up armor.
Jay
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Originally posted by Sikboy
Not to deliberately take the opposing viewpoint of Mandoble, but I'd put myself on the gameplay side. Since AH is primarly a flight sim (at this point anyhow) I'd say make GV realism secondary to GV integration into gameplay.
I say, improve the GV realism and you'll improve the overall playability of the sim. I'm glad to see 3 new aircraft are going to be introduced, so how about introducing some new GV, too? Why not a Sherman tank? Or one of the British tanks? Give the troops a reason to use the faster but less-lethal Sherman and it'll bring more of a variety of missions the pilots can take - "do I take the faster Sherman to get to the enemy base faster, or do I take the Panzer to do more damage?). Make the ground war a more integral part of the simulation so that I'll have more tagets for my Corsair. :)
Originally posted by Sikboy
In an ideal world, max realism would yeild the same results that I'm looking for. Namely, a better reason to fly the Hurr2d, Yak-9T and Il-2. I know that there are others who have posted the same objective in this post and posts in the past. It seems that there must be a way to change the damage model that would increase the usage of both the Tanks themselves (assuming that this is desired) and the usage of the traditional "tank busting" aircraft.
Exactly. Bring the ground war into the picture and give pilots a reason to fly the aircraft that, quite frankly, are death traps in a dogfight but better suited for ground support. If .50 cals can destroy a panzer, then remove the capability of .50 cals to take out a panzer (but still destroy an Ostwind, etc.) but let the 20mm guns have some effect (there was a reason why they were installed on the Hurricanes, after all).
Originally posted by Sikboy
If nothing else, It is possible that increasing the number of tank users could have the effect of creating a different battle dynamic. Instead of hi-alt fluffs being protected by fighter escorts and being attacked by interceptors, we might wind up with something more resembling the Eastern front where the fights are lower and ,more concerned with the land war. I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing though. I guess it depends on what you want to fly.
Imagine a flight sim where, instead of everyong grabbing for max alt as soon as the gear goes up, some of the pilots have to stay low to check for advancing enemy armor while others go high for top cover. Right now, just looking for 2 or 3 tanks crawling down the valley isn't worth the liability of staying low and risking getting bounced by the 6 or 7 enemy fighters screaming in from 20k up. If there was more of a reason to stay low, there would be more air battles down low (which is a much more challenging dogfight!).
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very good Thread, very good :D
i have only five Questions.
Why did they use Rockets and Bombs on the Planes?
why they called this Planes Jabos?
Why build them Special Planes for Ground Attacks like il2, etc etc
Why the tested and build Weapons w 37mm and more for ground Attacks?
Why they build no plane w 20 x 0.50 Mgs, that must be the Upper-tank-Killer-Plane.
Hmmmmmm think all my Books over the East front, Tank Battles and Tanks-Casulities from Planes are stupid lies.
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y use a panzer at all to an enemy base when an osty can do several times the amount of damage quicker... +)
SKurj
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the laboratory conditions , hmmm yes there many things work fine ,but in real life it wil fail about to 98 % , no parts of pnzr are a simple plate ! nowhere ! it have a crap load of diagonal pieces of steel frames , how the 50 caliber efect the dmg in AH ? is it the kinetic energy transformed to heat ? or just goin trought and virtualy kiling all around ?
my old military experience teling me how hard was to hit anything at 1000 m with heavy machine gun , it was not 50 caliber just the eqivalent , examinnet many time the target , the symple stell plate around 5 mm and barely got holes in! many many inpact marks but not many holes , pnzrs are not my speciality but sure is they are not just a symple steel plates
sugestion to HTC crew , in Texas is it surely free , in EU i go in jail for this kind of experiment , take some 50 caliber an try to hit something at 1000 m , then please revisite 50 caliber gunery precision :D :D :D
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Originally posted by Wulfmen
very good Thread, very good :D
i have only five Questions.
Why did they use Rockets and Bombs on the Planes?
why they called this Planes Jabos?
Why build them Special Planes for Ground Attacks like il2, etc etc
Why the tested and build Weapons w 37mm and more for ground Attacks?
Why they build no plane w 20 x 0.50 Mgs, that must be the Upper-tank-Killer-Plane.
Hmmmmmm think all my Books over the East front, Tank Battles and Tanks-Casulities from Planes are stupid lies.
When you read through all those books... look at the area around the tanks. Was it conducive to low flat straffing runs? Where the tanks difficult to see? Where there trees all around them? Where there sand dunes built up around them?
I don't believe its the armor that is modeled incorrectly that is causing the problems people are whining about. I do believe it is the fact that very little of the cover necessary to protect the tanks is available. Also.. .the fact that AA was usually in the area in some capacity is also missing.
Basically... very few people had clear shots even to as close as 200 yards with fighters on tanks. There were always other considerations. In AH, we have very few of those other considerations... if any at all.
AKDejaVu
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dejavu
Thats right, but dont forgett this, thats i RL Fighter dont hit a Tank from 1000 yards like AH.
Dont think thats RL Fighters have this accurate gunnerymodell like a PC Sim.
there are more thinks around this
What i mean w my post is, thats from 5000 Tanks 20 or less was Full destroyed by Plane-Mgs. Thats Reality and not that a 0.50cal can pentrade the hull armor from a Pz.
All Countrys build fighters w Special equipment only for Groundwar. in AH we dont need it, for GV attacks i used many Times a Niki and get 8-13 Kills w this Plane 2Kills w the Bombs, the others all w the cannons. Why we have this Special Planes like IL2? we hae Planes here they do they same and better job w MGs as this special Planes w all this Rockets, Bombs and Big Guns.
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Originally posted by Wulfmen
dejavu
Thats right, but dont forgett this, thats i RL Fighter dont hit a Tank from 1000 yards like AH.
Dont think thats RL Fighters have this accurate gunnerymodell like a PC Sim.
there are more thinks around this
Sure they could.. they just didn't do any damage.. just like in AH. Now.. get that fighter within 500 yards and see what happened... or even 200 yards. Those are the ranges most GV kills occur in. What i mean w my post is, thats from 5000 Tanks 20 or less was Full destroyed by Plane-Mgs. Thats Reality and not that a 0.50cal can pentrade the hull armor from a Pz.
Once again.. what environment did that occur in? How often did aircraft have unobstructed access to repeated straffing runs on Panzers? My money says its somewhere near 20 in 5000.All Countrys build fighters w Special equipment only for Groundwar. in AH we dont need it, for GV attacks i used many Times a Niki and get 8-13 Kills w this Plane 2Kills w the Bombs, the others all w the cannons. Why we have this Special Planes like IL2? we hae Planes here they do they same and better job w MGs as this special Planes w all this Rockets, Bombs and Big Guns.
All countries try to kill something without loosing something else. Its the loosing something else aspect where AH cannot compete with real life. Loosing an aircraft in AH does not matter. Loosing a pilot in AH does not matter. IRL... it did. Thus you make adjustments.
Now.. quit trying to use history to prove/disprove physics.
AKDejaVu
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bump, hope theres something about Hizookas in here. .50s will still completely disable a tank, but I havent actually blown one up in a while with em.
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it's still doable, one pass kill.