gameplay > realism + gameplay & realism

[mr.powell]

Yes we see it a lot of times in CoH but as the devs think that the axis have the heavy hitting elite units and the allies the plentyful and quick but flexible units so why we do not keep it at that with just some differences that are necessary to keep gameplay balance.

But as everytime we have a lot of people still complaining about how imbalancing the weaps of the allies still are and some (or should i say a lot of people) want to have all axis weapons as powerful as they should be from their point of view (or at least what they heard/read/saw about those units whether in TV shows/documentaries or books or just like the usual gossips/myths).

The problem is that not all informations regarding certain things about those two particular factions are always right as many would perhaps have thought and that not all can be done to be perfectly usable at ANY given time so we have useless nebel"schein"werfers or bugged damage tables regarding the axis mortar or even rangers that are simply a bit off (with aiming their bazookas) et cetera ... !

Well what a part of this thread is about should now be clear as it is pretty understandable that not everything can be like reality maybe looked like and that means gameplay is more important at those specific moments and points than realism ;)!

So (now comes my question) why for the sake of the game do we always have so much whine threads from people that think that (just a recent topic) e.g. the 105mm howitzer is OPed or that the axis also needs a sticky bomb?!

I mean this game needs diversity doesn't it?! -but it seems the endless whining people just want the Wehrmacht to have everything in 'perfect condition' so that nothing can beat their war machinery that they are bout to unleash on the US (as if the OF expansion is not already on its way to deliver a new gameplay experience that will maybe even shift the whole whining on to the allied side!!!)

And another thing i noticed quite recently (again :rolleyes: ) is why does everybody think that several guns of the US units were unrealistically and unbelievable powerful to the Wehrmacht units in this game! Just before the quote i want to point out that the game actually always 'seems' to use the best available shells each side ever had (that means HVAP shells for the US and Pzgr. 40 for the Wehrmacht) so lets use them then just for comparison purposes and to show why the devs are right with certain values those US tanks ingame actually have! ( ...and why some values are actually toned down a lot [from the allied side] just to provide a stable gameplay)

e.g.


.
.
.
now it is supposed to have all these damage modifiers because that was the power of the gun. it did high damage. however, unlike what gamesguy said, the 3inch gun could only penetrate ~70 mm of steel at 300 yards. the lightest of Axis tanks in game, the StuG III and Panzer IV had 80mm thick frontal armor. it couldn't really penetrate the frontal arch of the PIV or StuG very well, it was designed however, to manuver around and do a Flanking Shot on the lighter non-frontal armor and its heavier gun would do higher damage.
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.
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Well here is the answer the M7 3 inch gun had enough firepower at 2000 yards to destroy nearly 100mm of armored thickness ;)!

Just as stated in the realiable source i got over here (http://gva.freeweb.hu/weapons/usa_guns5.html)!

The same goes by the way for the so called 'easy eight' 76mm M4Sherman upgunned (M1A1C) versions as those guns or sherman versions also were called. So both of these tanks whether M10 or M4 with its 'easy eight' (was by the way an abbreviation from the german infamous 'eighty eight cannon') were tanks that could put a dent at nearly 2000 yards (which is the American range for 1828meters and may equal those 2000m range weapons statistics of the german guns) to the frontal armor of even a Tiger I or (perhaps) a Panther as it was able to destroy nearly 100mms of armor at up to those ranges and that at an armor sloped at 30° angle (by the way the Panther (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panther_tank) is in the game the only tank that has enough sloped armor at 55° by 80mm at its frontal hull and 100mm at its turret front to withstand perhaps those shots from those guns and ricochet them due to its slope [and one more thing the standard M26 pershing, which we have ingamem had a slope of 45° @ ~102mm frontal armor and is actually better armored then a Tiger I and even a Panther at its frontal upper hull]{and another thing regarding the JP which had a very similar armor to the standard Panther and was due to all those myths and 'urban legends' not so 'much' better armored as the standard Panther as both had a very similar armor and even a standard Pershing could penetrate both tanks frontal armor at up to 2000 yards}).

Just about another thing that i actually read from a book recently borrowed by a mate where i found a pretty interesting excerpt and the good thing is that just this excerpt can be found in the picture below (so this time my scanner was spared hehe :P) as i do not want to deny my informations regarding certain findings as far as they are useful to underline my impressions and especially the usefulness about the WWII and its units/weapons and so here we go :).

picture (http://www.forum.fun-online.sk/files/m26a1e2.jpg)

Well i can even underline why this is so (which is written in the book 'Death Traps' from Belton Cooper) as the standard M3 90mm (http://gva.freeweb.hu/weapons/usa_guns7.html) gun has already an armor penetration that is way beyond (over 40 mm more armor penetration at nearly 2000ms then the german 88mm kwk36 at similar range) that of the ingame 88mm kwk 36 and that also the so mighty/(VERY)overhyped called 88mm kwk 43 (from a KT) even with a Pzgr.40/43 can at the max. destroy 152mm at 2000ms range which is actually weaker then that of a Super Pershing and just a 'bit' better then that of the standard m3 90mm cannon ..., one more thing that i found out which kinda was very surprising is that the 12,8cm pak 44 was actually at 2000ms with around 148mm of armor destruction as seen here (http://gva.freeweb.hu/weapons/german_guns9.html) weaker then the lower calibred 88mm kwk 43 (but this should not be that amazing as the JT just saw little action at the end of the war and as such perhaps did not had the testing and time to improve its main gun or get better shells for it but the same could go for the ALL the other tanks from the other factions in the WW2).

Well this 12,8 cm pak 44 was the gun of the Jagdtiger but is weaker then that of the KT and all these germans guns are actually weaker then that of the Super Pershing and its 90mm L71 calibre (http://gva.freeweb.hu/weapons/usa_guns7.html) gun which was THE most powerful gun to ever shot a slug into enemy armor at the WW2 (i think the only tank at that timeframe that would dwarf all those tanks above was the T28 Super heavy tank destroy as it had 88mm resistend armor and a 105mm gun which was considered to be nearly double the firepower of the standard M3 90mm Pershing gun and that would mean that this tank would go up to nearly 200 to 250 mm of armored destruction at 2000 yards to nearly one shot a Jagdtiger! -whereas JT would have problems with the extreme amount of armor the T28 have) as it was the best AT weapon ever fielded by a tank (that weighentend around 53 tons and had several tons of extra armor welded around it (mostly from captured Panther tanks) which made him kinda similar to the KT in armor but even more powerful in firepower ;) ).

Well why do i just bring this up in addition to this thread you may now ask ... well its a simple answer i just want to remind people to if they argue with real values in the real world that they (which they try to base on gameplay values obviously from a realism standpoint is just not possible as this game does not resemble their real life counterparts and as such those realistic values do not 'fit' into the GAME and its balance) then at least they should also take the time to look up those and not post stupid things about things they never wanted to read or look up.

So if anyone wants or have something to say about this, he can as this thread is there to talk about those things but in a kind, polite and respectable manner and not in any way insulting, rude nor flaming as it would most certainly result in a closed thread and sorry if we have already a thread that goes this way but as i did not found any that incorporates these two different 'topics' i just opened one :).


edit: Holy shit. Giant Image of Death turned into a link to stop the forums being stretched to oblivion. - Ap0k

[Wischmopp]

So what?

[mr.powell]

So what?

Well i just noticed that about nearly every weapon of the allies had been several whine threads (i mean whining is 'somewhat' o.k. as people show that they care about the game but only as long as its not overused and at as far as my knowledge and experience goes this game is one of the most whiniest [IoI did this word even exist ;)] forums i have ever been and i have seen a lot of forums tbh) that they should get tweaked or at the very least their counterparts made way stronger to even compete with them though we all know that the allies have a overall lower unit count and as such they have units which are more flexible (and therefore its necessary for the US troops to have more all around units then rather specialized units) and then everyone just wants to tone them down as weak as possible to be no threat anymore thats what ;) (and thats just one example of my post as i could go on with it but am not in the mood right now :) )!

[ABraun]

I don't want to sounds rude, as english may or may not be your first language but... Please try to punctuate a little more, it makes for an extremely hard read. I barely understood anything.

Realism is not a priority in most games, unless it is a simulator and even then. Games are NOT about realism to begin with.

Its about -realistic- elements to improve the gameplay. There will always be people with different opinions and ideas, some whine, some do it the proper way.

[ChefPacman]

Unless of course the game is realism based. The problem with the current game is that the balance is screwed up. The allies At gun owns all german armor except for the tiger which instead of one you need two guns. Tier 4 is damn near impossible to get to and if you do then again, the At gun blows it apart quite easily. The german At gun costs more than the american counterpart, yet the american AT gun dominates armor. Then you have the doctrines and companies that are still screwed. So the gameplay is currently fuxored whether it be realistic or not.

[kasrkinsquad]

I love sims. I love realism in games.

However I must say this isn't the place to bring up realism.

[Riddles]

lol ok. I just tried quickly skim reading some of your post, and i understand it to mean, you think people shouldnt whine about balance issues, when they base thier arguments on realism.

Ok... Heres a tip. Take a deep breath, sit down and think for a moment. Then form a cohesive argument. The thread you refer to about the howitzers was whinging about them on a gameplay level not a realism one. In fact i would say the vast majority of 'whinging' is based on gameplay, and is thus ignored for the larger part because people can blatantly see thier opponent in said examples took advantage of weaknesses etc. (Even in that thread, the river seperating the sides was taken into account as turning it into arty duel and not common balance issue on other maps.)

I do like to watch the history channel, and movies like downfall however, and having seen panzerfausts as disposable A.T. weapons i started a thread discussing whether or not they should be made cheaper/cost effective. So in this instance yes, it is an argument born of realism, but i was not so much whinging as I was trying to see if others felt the same way.

Many of CoH's features are abstract representations of reality, formed into a gameplay friendly system. Allied War Machine represents superior American industry and numbers on the western front. The Axis veterancy system reflects the fact that the Axis forces had been fighting in battle for many years before the normandy campaign. As they come onto the field with thier increased survivability from previous war. The Volks represent conscript forces "Volks - Peoples Grenadiers."

So they actually do take realism and history, into account when designing the game and that is a simple explanation as to why sometimes a so called whinge may appear based on realism Mr Powell.

[trash.the.ego]

If you're going to make a long post... Please consolidate your points at the start of the post and then rebuild to them with the substance. Too many trail on sentences and paragraphs starting with suppositions. If English is your second language just take this as advice. Hard to have something real to respond with when it takes extended effort to follow.



The majority of arguments about balance in this game are at a loss. And to be truthful, the entirety are 'whining'. People complain for an 'even playing field', but it will never exist because one player is going to play better than the other (and this is always going to piss people off).

I've never seen an instance where a strategy is unbeatable. I've seen a strategy implemented so that it seemed unbeatable. Realism or not, there are issues that could be tweaked to 'improve' game play, but they rarely have to do with implementation or effectiveness of units and instead the variables of resources. In the end most gripes are overblown to make certain strategies weaker than they should be and really have nothing to do with balance.

When it comes to realism arguments about balance issues... I don't really listen to them any differently than others because this game already implemented plenty of realism to make me happy.

[mr.powell]

Well first off its very interesting what you guys think about these (kinda) major topics that are in this forum quite everywhere to a certain degree present.

@ Riddles

Well i agree to a certain extent but the problem is that this game just tries to introduce a very slight sense of realism with those abilities/upgrades whatever as otherwise CoH does not have any kind of realism in it! I mean the games havoc physics effects as well as the game engine itself are the major factors that try to picture us one way of how the WWII may have looked like (and i have to say in a quite nice way) but the matter of fact is that the rest of the game which is mainly about gameplay et cetera does not have any sense of realism in it as i never saw tanks fight at 20 meters (vaguely measured from ingame fights) or that a group of grenadiers just consisted of 4 men nor that an allied airstrike would just consist of one airplane doing only one bombing raid ;) ... !

But apart from this its the atmosphere and (esepcially) graphics as well as you said some few abilities that mainly contribute to the realism factor of this game but thats about it as otherwise this game is not based on realistic combat behaviours or even certain basic physical laws which tanks and troops would be influenced by.

@trash.the.ego

Well thats what i wanted to point out as it is kinda like an nuisance that always someone needs to whine about something just maybe because he lost to a certain kind of tactic in a recent battle at semois or angoville ... and as a follow up to this you get immediately the 'oh no WTF the XXX is OPed!' threads and then we have what i already said again a 'whine thread' and as you said it is the majority of whining people that complain for an 'even playing field'.

I for example try to say newbies that come to AVP(2) or the like in online gaming to first understand that they ONLY play a game and do not need to be angry when they loose or at once need to complain about certain 'imba tactics/attacks' whatever as they will not loose anything in their RL if they lost this game ... and it seems in here that many people did not understand that this is ONLY a game like every other else where i do not care whether i win or not as long as i do not want to be a pro player! So just enjoy what you have and if of course it turns out that the game has a major flaw or gameplay destroying unit/tactic whatever then you should have the right to post it in a constructive manner and not just whine about it as if your life depends on it ;)!

Apart from all that i do agree with you guys about it :). Thanks for the answers :).

[nichtganz]

Another LAWL America is 1337 thread.

[Pyro Paul]

1.) you're source isn't reliable because you are not using it correctly. the M-10 used AP rounds, not HVAP. the Game does not mirror the values of any round rather it is subjected to strict scruteny and balance before being accepted. if it did use the most powerful round each side, had, no axis tank would Ever have a defelection against any allied tank. the 75mm gun on the PIV and StuG could penetrate the frontal glaice of the Sherman and M-10 with ease, so No shot should ever be a deflection.

2.) that chart is against Rolled Homagnous Steel. not against the plate constructed armor tecniques of War time tanks. how many tanks do you know that was constructed purely out of 1 sheet of rolled steel?

3.) during war time the M7 3 inch gun was marked as penetrating 3 inches of Panzer IV frontal armor. 3 inches translates into 76mms. the penetration is often = to that of a Panzer IV's Frontal armor.

4.) the M-26 Pershing's M3 Used T33 AP rounds. of which had less penetration power of Standard 88 Flak cannons round.

5.) the Super pershing also used a much weaker round than the one you quoted it to using. of which had = penetration to the 88.

6.) the powerful round you quote as penetrating more than 150mm of armor began development in 1945, and was produced after the war was over in europe. making the usage of that shell moot.

7.)the Super pershing is not the most powerful tank in the war, nor did it have the most powerful gun. the Russians produced a tank called the IS-2 during 1943 which was mounted with a 122mm gun that could penetrate most tiger armor at range. (against RHA it could penetrate above 150mm at 1000 meters) even when the round didn't penetrate, it provided enough kenetic energy that it could Shear the turret right off of a tiger. no other tank in the war was capable of doing this except for the StuH using a unique round.

8.) before you start throwing numbers and charts around, try and understand the context of which we are speaking in. of which most people whom spout 'realism' are talking in Context of the war, not the 'Best avialiable'

the quote you used, which is mine, is talking about the the M7 3 inch Gun using M76 AP shot, which during times of war was cited as only being able to penetrate 3 inches of German plate Armor. since the Lightest german tanks in game have = to 3 inches armor then penetration against those tanks should be touch and go, not spot on 100%. is represented in the game.

further more, we say in game why Axis armor Is better than Allied armor is strictly because it is. almost all Axis tanks used HV rounds and where designed to take out structures and tanks. where as most all allied tanks where designed to be Infintry Support vehicals use HE rounds instead of pure Anti Tank vehicals.

which is why we say a Sherman can not penetrate the frontal glaice of a Tigers or Panthers Armor even at point blank range. it is because the Best round used by the Sherman, or even the Sherman with upgun is using a standard AP round not an APC-CR round.

and even so, the Shermans armor was built only to stop most light anti tank, like the 50mm AT gun. the 75mm gun could cut through the armor like butter, and because of poor internal protection, the tank would often explode or blow the turret off after a Single round in a brillent ball of flame, gaining the dubious name 'Ronso' it lights up the first time, every time.

[Sarcasm]

Mr Powell, you made this EXACT SAME thread three weeks ago. Same subject, same analysis, same complaints, same lack of any worthwhile suggestions. I don't know of the final fate of your original thread, but I presume it was closed...like this one inevitably will be.

[noname0112]

i guess people here want plain realism. oh well, if you want plain realism I wonder how long would the game take for it to finish. in reality, bunkers cannot be built in seconds and barracks would not produce rifles out of nowhere and suddenly springs out from the ground like mushrooms.

[Sturmtruppen]

did you buy WWII with $50? no you didnt

[noname0112]

but anyway, enough with this realism whinings. no one can even survive a rain of mg bullets catching them all not even dodging.
maybe mr.powell is right about some facts that the allies are a bit powerful. to make things fair, why not make allies weaker and cheaper, while the axis the same as they are yet a bit more powerful. not to the extent that the allies have no chances of winning.

[Wischmopp]

The headline is logical nonsense already :p

[Rottweiler|Soul]

Another typical Mr. Powell thread. I'm relatively new to the forums but even I can detect a pattern.

Look: The Allies won the war. Does that mean the Allies should win all the matches? It's a game.

Honestly, I think we'd have avoided a lot of these patriotic whine threads masked in a veneer of balance critiques if it was the Russians vs the Germans instead of the Americans vs the Germans.

[nichtganz]

Well the Germans had better tactics and weapons at their disposal whereas the allies had more of everything. The Russians for instance had lots and lots of artillery more than the British. The sad thing is even the Italians had more artillery than the British, so stereotypical of a game to make British have lots of artillery.

Russians should be offensive and offensive only, and once they lose territory lose the game. But the are like the Slugga spam from DOW with infantry, as far as tanks are concerned AWM should be a joke.

[Rottweiler|Soul]

Hell, the Russians killed a million Germans while retreating. Now that's something I'd like to see developers try and figure out how to implement gamewise. ;)

[ABraun]

And thus, the thread is reduced to a WW2 discussion.

Listen, if Relic deems it betetr for the game to have Tigers go at 200mph, they will. In the end, it is about what make sthe gameplay enjoyable.

You use realism to provide a setting and a limitation. The limitations allow for entertainment and the setting provides an enjoyable experience.

So the MG42 could fire X amount of rounds in X amount of time. They won't do it precisely.
The M10 had more range, Artillery could destroy tanks, etc etc etc.

I will insist: Just because it has REALISTIC elements, doesn't mean it has to be based on REALISM.

[>Rubberduckie<]

I sort of understand the point of this, but it comes off as nothing more then a rant. Virtually you are saying allied tanks could 1-shot axis tanks.... well all axis tanks could do the same to allied tanks. Yet, in game... neither 1 shot each other. Gameplay > Realism

Also, a majority of your post talks about your love affair with the pershing. If we are going with your realism argument, then the pershing shouldn't even be in the game. They are not in the time frame of the game, and therefore do not belong... realism can be fun ;)

[nichtganz]

Well design for the armies should be realistic not the gameplay. Gameplay is always better balanced then realistic. However the army design should be accurate but balanced and manageable.

[ABraun]

Correct.

As in: Germans had the STG44, Allies had the M1, thats all part of the setting

[nichtganz]

The STG however should have no counterpart, the BAR is nothing like it was in real life, in all honesty if i saw a bar lying on the ground and i had a thompson or a m1 in my hand i wouldnt bother with the BAR.

[Rottweiler|Soul]

I'm still having trouble understanding how an LMG with a 20 round clip suppresses so well.

But hey, that's just me.

[mr.powell]

1.) you're source isn't reliable because you are not using it correctly. the M-10 used AP rounds, not HVAP. the Game does not mirror the values of any round rather it is subjected to strict scruteny and balance before being accepted. if it did use the most powerful round each side, had, no axis tank would Ever have a defelection against any allied tank. the 75mm gun on the PIV and StuG could penetrate the frontal glaice of the Sherman and M-10 with ease, so No shot should ever be a deflection.

2.) that chart is against Rolled Homagnous Steel. not against the plate constructed armor tecniques of War time tanks. how many tanks do you know that was constructed purely out of 1 sheet of rolled steel?

3.) during war time the M7 3 inch gun was marked as penetrating 3 inches of Panzer IV frontal armor. 3 inches translates into 76mms. the penetration is often = to that of a Panzer IV's Frontal armor.

4.) the M-26 Pershing's M3 Used T33 AP rounds. of which had less penetration power of Standard 88 Flak cannons round.

5.) the Super pershing also used a much weaker round than the one you quoted it to using. of which had = penetration to the 88.

6.) the powerful round you quote as penetrating more than 150mm of armor began development in 1945, and was produced after the war was over in europe. making the usage of that shell moot.

7.)the Super pershing is not the most powerful tank in the war, nor did it have the most powerful gun. the Russians produced a tank called the IS-2 during 1943 which was mounted with a 122mm gun that could penetrate most tiger armor at range. (against RHA it could penetrate above 150mm at 1000 meters) even when the round didn't penetrate, it provided enough kenetic energy that it could Shear the turret right off of a tiger. no other tank in the war was capable of doing this except for the StuH using a unique round.

8.) before you start throwing numbers and charts around, try and understand the context of which we are speaking in. of which most people whom spout 'realism' are talking in Context of the war, not the 'Best avialiable'

the quote you used, which is mine, is talking about the the M7 3 inch Gun using M76 AP shot, which during times of war was cited as only being able to penetrate 3 inches of German plate Armor. since the Lightest german tanks in game have = to 3 inches armor then penetration against those tanks should be touch and go, not spot on 100%. is represented in the game.

further more, we say in game why Axis armor Is better than Allied armor is strictly because it is. almost all Axis tanks used HV rounds and where designed to take out structures and tanks. where as most all allied tanks where designed to be Infintry Support vehicals use HE rounds instead of pure Anti Tank vehicals.

which is why we say a Sherman can not penetrate the frontal glaice of a Tigers or Panthers Armor even at point blank range. it is because the Best round used by the Sherman, or even the Sherman with upgun is using a standard AP round not an APC-CR round.

and even so, the Shermans armor was built only to stop most light anti tank, like the 50mm AT gun. the 75mm gun could cut through the armor like butter, and because of poor internal protection, the tank would often explode or blow the turret off after a Single round in a brillent ball of flame, gaining the dubious name 'Ronso' it lights up the first time, every time.

Well first off before i begin i really ask myself where do you get those facts from ;) (apart from not even stating any sources).

1.) How do you know that my source (which actually a lot of people from different WWII only forums, i know of, use) is unreliable when you never even read it! On a note the US delivered monthly ~10000 HVAP rounds as of August 1944 to the several 'easy eight' Shermans and M10 3inch M7 tanks, though the 3inch M5 gun did not receive HVAP shells!



A few rounds of the HVAP M93 APCR projectile were rushed to France in August 1944. Subsequently limited numbers were issued to troops as only 10,000 rounds were produced each month.


And about the deflection ingame i never took the game as an example as i stated those RL facts above i just showed that in RL these particular tanks would be that powerful as they are made by the Devs in the game so its ok to have their guns that way as they are (maybe not totally that powerful but they certainly pack a punch agains a Tiger I and even Panthers frontal RHA armor)!

2.) Well i think you misunderstood the technic of Rolled Homogoneus Armor and how it functions so i will help you with this small explanation ofRHA (http://gva.freeweb.hu/weapons/introduction.html#Rolled_Homogenous_Armour) By the way nearly ALL tanks of the WWII used RHA and not like you said that the germans ONLY used FH armor on all of their tanks including the heavy ones!

3.) Well again i ask me where did you get those stats ... i mean look up the HVAP shots which were used at the Normandy in which timeframe the game takes place ;). Its actually a fact that this tank could destroy at 2000 yards (=1828ms) 98mm of RHA and that armor has been used mostly at the whole WWII from all factions ... though of course their were exceptions like for example the Pz.Kpfw.IV Ausf. g mit Zusatzpanzerung und Schürzen (Sd.Kfz.161/2) which had FH armor and some others from other factions but neither the Tiger nor the Panther nor the Tiger II had those armor as they should stick with RHA which is a fact!

4.) Like before where do you get these stats ... please enlighten me, because as far as i can tell even with standard APBC T33 shot rounds this tank would destroy at 2000yards ~110 mm which equals the maximum firepower of a 88mm Flak 18 or the Kwk 36! If you then consider using (HVAP) APCR rounds it would be one of the best tank cannons in the whole war!

5.) 90mm L71 calibre (http://gva.freeweb.hu/weapons/usa_guns7.html) sorry but as i do not want to stretch this post into an unlimited page of words i will simply post this link which should give you all info you need and which will hopefully enlighten you that this SP gun is actually more powerful then the KT and even JT gun! The firepower of the SP would actually exceed that of a 88mm Flak 18 by nearly over 70mm of additional armor destruction! And as far as those stats go the 90mm L71 could penetrate the armor of a KT at nearly 2000 yards though they never fought agains each other in a real combat so we have no evidence on thos but like i said on pure facts the SPershing would destroy a 150mm RH armor sloped at 40° with his upgraded gun!

6.) Well iam sorry as far as i know as soon as the first Pershings arrived in France they got until after a small delay (due to false shippings to the pacific theatre) their proposed 90mm standard shells as well as several of the HVAP shells which were also distributed among the only 2 M26A1E2 SP's ever fielded within the war.

7.) Well iam well aware of the Josef Stalin series in Soviet tank design and am well aware of those so called 'JS-1' and 'JS-2' tanks (and i think they wanted to get into the war the 'JS-3' but this tank just arrived at the capitulation of germany towards the allied forces and as far as i know it was therefore seen during a winning parade after the war ... and perhaps other events) and their guns (http://gva.freeweb.hu/weapons/soviet_guns9.html) but did you also know that these guns were not the ordinary tank guns but rather from the navy derived guns that had an enormous calibre which also describes why they have such a high impact force due (to shear off the turret of a Tiger or similar heavy german tanks by ricocheting) to a (for navy standard guns) high MZV which without a doubt was powerful as the shell alone was so big that the gunners inside the JS-2 needed to take seperat ammunitions with them and therefore the max. nr. of those rounds has been very limiting and the reload phase of those guns where enormous (i guess a standard Tiger I could shot three times until the JS-2 could get one shot of its barrel!). But now ask yourself why those guns were so efficient at destroying heavy armor though their penetration is not that powerful as seen ;)! Well and about the Super Pershing not being the most powerful tank i think you should remember that those sentences came from a book that deals a 'bit' about the WWII and i would NOT say that they are writing nonsense in it ... only of course if you are a veteran yourself who fought in the war himself or simply are ALL-knowing but i think no one of us is this or am i wrong ;)?! I also think that with powerful they obviously meant in the book that this tank had the best AT equipped gun to ever shot a slug out of its L71 calibre barrel in the WWII and well its even underlined by the site i provided.

8.) Well i do not know with who you mean 'we' but as far as i know i use stats from an independent side that is not affiliated with the major war factions. So neither the American, Soviet nor German factions influence this site! This means we have a neutral look from a site which takes its informations from various (e)books and of course several testings from (ballistical) engeeniers which did those tests, and to be honest i trust engineers that try to show the rest of interesting WWII people around how powerful those tanks actually were more then gossip/rumors/myth/Hollywood movies whatever ;).

paragraph 10.) There you are partly right but the problem about all this is that we all know that germany only relied on heavy units rather then on more flexible and quicker to produced units like the US army and or other factions with exception of course to the Soviet union and guess what people ... who do you think wanted to have Tigers or even Tiger IIs in his arsenal ... yes it was Hitlers vision of having a unite 3rd Reich through enormous armor and firepower (like Kane said in CnC3 'Peace through Power' -the madman Hitler was not far away from this) which means that everyone who does not want to follow us either will be rolled over or simply gased or burned alive like in the KZ's (Konzentrationslager = Concentration camps) it was (on a nearly daily basis)! So all these powerful tanks you guys see in this game and will probably in OF are actually a thought of the mind of the madman Hitler who simply was impressed by French Char 1 and or British Matilda 1 heavy tanks so that he thought he needs some too to wage war and oppress the other countries around him ;)! And about what i wrote at the beginning of this point just because the germans used mostly heavy armor is the reason why no one ever talks about allied heavy tank designs nor wants to know anything about them as we all just like to hear about powerful units and the myth and or legends around them and as the Allied forces did not rely on heavy tank designs which they could have done (T28, Sherman Jumbo, Super Pershings, et cetera) we simply do not talk about them as they simply had no real common knowledge based impact on the war like the so called 'mighty' Tiger had or the like!

paragraph 11.) Please read the points above.


Mr Powell, you made this EXACT SAME thread three weeks ago. Same subject, same analysis, same complaints, same lack of any worthwhile suggestions. I don't know of the final fate of your original thread, but I presume it was closed...like this one inevitably will be.

1.) Well it seems you want to enflame the thread all over again do you? Please remember on the last paragraph at the starting post!

2.) Are you 100% sure that this is the EXACT SAME thread which i did once :noway: ;)!?

3.) Was it ever meant to have any lack of suggestions in this thread ;)? Well because as far as i know i wanted to tell certain peoples that whining all over will not bring them to the desired changes but constructive criticism perhaps will and that of course this forum is maybe one of the most whining forums i have ever seen but it seems to me you once more misinterpreted and misunderstood me ... and apparently i used some correct facts to correct certain peoples and to show at which points those people are wrong ... remember the quote i did in the first post!

4.) Well if the thread will be closed it would be no wonder as i 'see' how certain people behave towards someone who said from the start on to talk (if you ever have anything to add or to talk) in a polite and respectable manner as it should be and as everyone should expect it from an adult but well it seems i sometimes am wrong with being clear enough or simply being treated as if i would be a child and not an adult ;)! -though i guess that i am actually older then those particular people that accuse me of talking nonsense or having a bad grammar but about the grammar thingy i am happy about any constructive criticism towards it, as i want to improve in english as we all do improve in certain things/matters daily ;) (sometimes without even knowing it as it is an automative process).


did you buy WWII with $50? no you didnt

If you mean me ... well i obviously did not as i never ever said that i know all about WWII and many times i even stated it so that no one thinks that he has a bragging moron in front of him, as i am just like everybody else but with the slight difference that i take my time to read and understand/comprehend certain things about WWII or just read the books i get and inform myself a bit about this topic though i have just limited time due to my studies and also working at a nightshift to even have money to buy me something to eat ... ;).



but anyway, enough with this realism whinings. no one can even survive a rain of mg bullets catching them all not even dodging.
maybe mr.powell is right about some facts that the allies are a bit powerful. to make things fair, why not make allies weaker and cheaper, while the axis the same as they are yet a bit more powerful. not to the extent that the allies have no chances of winning.


Well its like i said necessary for the allied troops to have more flexible units as they HAVE a lower unit count and as such not 'so' much specialized units as the axis have ... i mean everyone should actually have seen this as soon as the game was out as it is kinda 'incalcuable' aint it ;)!



The topic is logical nonsense already


haha hehe :D

Just as a last tip to ALL who whine in here and still thing certain things should be changed asap as they are 'way' to imbalanced please take a look at this site (http://www.gamereplays.org/coh/portal.htm) which will undoubtly provide you with the best replays i have seen in this game from some of the best players of this game like Nystrom, Sepha, Omar et cetera ... and you will see how they play and as far as my mind remembers me i never really saw them whine about a unit being totally imbalanced ... i know this will NOT help us standard/casual players a lot nor solve certain problems which 'we' considered to be 'imbalanced' but the games balance is from a devpoint always judged by the best players we have in a game and if they say something is imbalanced then it will change with a high probability in the next patch as it is with nearly every game ;). Perhaps you can learn something from them as i at least think i did.

Phew finished and brain dead hehe :D :p.


Edit:
Another typical Mr. Powell thread. I'm relatively new to the forums but even I can detect a pattern.

Look: The Allies won the war. Does that mean the Allies should win all the matches? It's a game.

Honestly, I think we'd have avoided a lot of these patriotic whine threads masked in a veneer of balance critiques if it was the Russians vs the Germans instead of the Americans vs the Germans.

Well is it really a typical thread by me (as if i ever made a lot ;) ) and is there any pattern if yes please tell it me apart from what you assumed wrong that i am a pure allied only player as i am not and as i many times posted in other threads that i play both races only with the difference that i tend to play the allies more as i like more flexible units that can still pack a punch ;).

Well by the way look up into my second post as i stated there that i always told newbies in games like AvP2 which i also play and am (i would say) quite decent as Tomar that first off they only play a game so that they do not get upset at once when they start losing the first matches ... but yes reading (the whole thread) can help :).

[Ariel]

I'm sorry, but I can't even begin to make heads or tails of your post Mr. Powell. Your spelling, sentence structure, and punctuation are, quite frankly, atrocious. I realize that English may not be your first language, but in posts this large you need to find some way to present your point in an organized coherent and easy to understand fashion.

As it is, your posts consist of little more than unreadable run on sentences and spelling mistakes. This makes it nearly impossible for me to actually understand what you are trying to say. Its just too much effort.

So, I suggest at the end of your post you just make a bullet point list of your ideas/comments/suggestions. Theoretically, that would make your posts easier to understand. Maybe...

[mr.powell]

I'm sorry, but I can't even begin to make heads or tails of your post Mr. Powell. Your spelling, sentence structure, and punctuation are, quite frankly, atrocious. I realize that English may not be your first language, but in posts this large you need to find some way to present your point in an organized coherent and easy to understand fashion.

As it is, your posts consist of little more than unreadable run on sentences and spelling mistakes. This makes it nearly impossible for me to actually understand what you are trying to say. Its just too much effort.

So, I suggest at the end of your post you just make a bullet point list of your ideas/comments/suggestions. Theoretically, that would make your posts easier to understand. Maybe...

Well thanks for your criticism but can i ask you how i should post so much in an organized coherent and understandable fashion? -apart from the 'big issues' where i used numerical points to make it easier to understand at which point or paragraph i am and talk about.
I mean it would simply be not enough to just give a small essay of what i wanted to say to so many different quotes ;).

Where are the spelling mistakes so that i can look them up in my books and correct myself?

[Ariel]

Well, normally, yes..., an essay would be a good way to communicate your ideas and suggestions as long as it was properly formatted. Unfortunately, your post lacked both punctuation and good sentence structure. Even using proper punctuation would make your posts 100% more readable. So just try to use periods (or whatever punctuation seems appropriate) at the end of your sentences and capitalize the first letter of each sentence. This alone will make your posts much easier to understand.

As for spelling, I'm glad you asked. This forum doesn't have a spell check (the dastardly evil-doers) but you can download the Google toolbar. It has an integrated spell checker that really does a great job. You can find it here...
Google Toolbar (Click Here) (http://toolbar.google.com/T4/index_pack.html)

Plus, its just convenient to have the power of Google on your browser's toolbar.

Like I said, I'm just pointing this out so you will be more effectively able to communicate your ideas with others. I understand that English might not be your first language, so I'm not trying to attack you or anything. Just trying to help...

[mr.powell]

Well, normally, yes..., an essay would be a good way to communicate your ideas and suggestions as long as it was properly formatted. Unfortunately, your post lacked both punctuation and good sentence structure. Even using proper punctuation would make your posts 100% more readable. So just try to use periods (or whatever punctuation seems appropriate) at the end of your sentences and capitalize the first letter of each sentence. This alone will make your posts much easier to understand.

As for spelling, I'm glad you asked. This forum doesn't have a spell check (the dastardly evil-doers) but you can download the Google toolbar. It has an integrated spell checker that really does a great job. You can find it here...
Google Toolbar (Click Here) (http://toolbar.google.com/T4/index_pack.html)

Plus, its just convenient to have the power of Google on your browser's toolbar.

Like I said, I'm just pointing this out so you will be more effectively able to communicate your ideas with others. I understand that English might not be your first language, so I'm not trying to attack you or anything. Just trying to help...

Thanks and i do understand that you want just to help and thats why i am so kind and try to comprehend :).

The problem is in a forum its hard and especially for someone who does not use english as its mother tongue to make an essay out of this but as far as i know it is also from my knowledge in english nearly impossible to make an essay about this as i do talk about different situations with variing problems and their respectable standpoints and therefore it would be a near impossible work and amount of time to maybe even do it but like i said i will try to find easier ways to make it more comprehensible though like i said it would be for me kinda impossible to make all those different things in one small essay (and is like i already mentioned maybe even impossible to do).

But like i said thank you and next time i will watch my spelling but like i said i did not found any words that were wrong pronounced in my ALD or PONS but i think i will to be absolutely sure just also look up the different words for their context i used them in to see whether i used the right words but from first glance i would say that quite everything is right used/spelled but like i said i will double check it just in case :).

[wokelly]

Just gonna pick a few things here.


3.) during war time the M7 3 inch gun was marked as penetrating 3 inches of Panzer IV frontal armor. 3 inches translates into 76mms. the penetration is often = to that of a Panzer IV's Frontal armor.

The 76.2mm in essence was just as powerful as the 75mm L48 on German tanks. It could go through 3 inches of armor at 1000m, not at point blank. Given the short range in game the 76.2mm should be able to go through the 100mm Tiger armor and the 120mm Mantle of the Panther (Hull armor would be way too thick for it though). Most battles in this game are within 200m, which would give the 76.2mm the power to defeat those tanks frontally without much problem.

I do however see the need for balance as the German tanks will never have the range advantage in game they would have had in real life. The 76.2mm Sherman dealing death to all German tanks in game would cause problems because, while in real life at 200m or less it could kill a panther or Tiger, in game that would be unfair for the German armor because they are forced into that small range.


further more, we say in game why Axis armor Is better than Allied armor is strictly because it is. almost all Axis tanks used HV rounds and where designed to take out structures and tanks. where as most all allied tanks where designed to be Infintry Support vehicals use HE rounds instead of pure Anti Tank vehicals.

Better in what sense? The German tanks were tough to deal when they were on the defense, but they were not monsters when they attacked. The German tanks of 1944 had sacrificed their ability to Blitzkrieg by 1944. 1 unit in the 7th Armor Division equipped with Cromwell's for example after the breakout from Normandy during the Race to Belgium did 250 miles in 6 days (Thats over 40 miles a day) and did not lose a single tank to Mechanical Failure. Not one tank. Once the Allies broke out their tanks were easily better then most German tanks. While German tanks retreating often broke down, the allied tanks just kept on advancing. Hell the Allies average 26 miles a day after Normandy, in 1940 the Germans managed 21 miles.

The majority of Axis tanks in Normandy were no better then the Sherman or Cromewell. The Mark 4 still made up over 40% of the German Tanks deployed in the battle. Only 30% of German armor in Normandy was clearly superior to the Allied tanks and even then on the attack they rarely did any better. The Germans had a doctrine of constant counter attacks, which is how they often halted the allies. But they suffered terribly casualties on the offensive just like the allied. The Germans were not better at attacking then the allies, mainly because the terrain would alway allow a determined defense to beat off a determined offense.

The German tanks were not really better. Not the majority at least. Even the Panther and Tigers were not much better against the modern British AT guns such as the 17 pounder.


and even so, the Shermans armor was built only to stop most light anti tank, like the 50mm AT gun. the 75mm gun could cut through the armor like butter, and because of poor internal protection, the tank would often explode or blow the turret off after a Single round in a brillent ball of flame, gaining the dubious name 'Ronso' it lights up the first time, every time.

One of the many myths of WWII. The Sherman was not unique in terms of brewing up. Most tanks in WWII more often then not brewed up. The Panther was especially notorious for brewing up when it was penetrated.

By 1944 onwards all Sherman's being produced had Wet Storage (designated by the W in their name ie Sherman M4A3(76)W)in their tanks, which brought the chances of ammunition fires down to below 20%, in fact making the later variants of the Sherman the safest tank fire wise to serve in WWII.

-----

All that aside yeah, this game will take balance over realism. I dont think many players would like it for the allies to have many times more players then the Germans get, and also it would be terrible to have to micro manage all those units while the German player could micro manage fewer yet better quality units.

There has to be compromises in this game.

[>Rubberduckie<]

German tanks could also NOT be nearly as effective as they could be after normandy because they could not gather in groups. They would get bombed to shit by the allied planes. The german armour had absolutely 0 air support to protect them.

[nichtganz]

You must be thinking about a different normandy, allied planes had to be careful because of Flak 88 fire, and Flakvierling fire. Despite what you hear many fighter-bombers were destroyed during normandy due to the fact that allied intelligence on German AA positions was inaccurate.

[Pyro Paul]

@powell

1) it is unreliable because you are taking labbed situations and uniformly applying it to all scenarios. when Labbed scenarios only test one variable, as on war other variables come into play. Lets say a Tiger tank has ~75% accuracy rating at 2000 meters when stationary on 5x5 targets in labbed situations.

however, put this into combat context, you are attempting to hit a moving target at 2000 meters, with rudimentary telescopic sites. the target kicks up a dust cloud behind it, it moves awkwardly because it's speed and momentum causes it to bounce every once and a while off the hilly terrain, and every 5 or so seconds it creates a massive plume of smoke in front of it as it fires in your general direction. not to mention that near by explosions and conclusive blasts slightly alter you and the tank your in.

with all those things active... do you think a 75% accuracy is still achievable? the Labbing Says So! so after 4 shots 3 should hit. but when he shoots 8 shots and only 1 hit, where are your lab results there?


and since you are a logistical expert, how many of those rounds where shot? how many hit their target? how many where lost? how many where just sitting in a munitions depot through out the war being left unused?


2) I know what Rolled hemagnous Steel does. and how its made. it is a continual baking, tempering, pressing and cooling process which changes the molecular structure of standard steel allowing it to be harder in general.

but speaking of armor, let us talk about it then shall we?

Sherman Armor was made of what?
Cast Homogonous Steel. because of its quicker production times and cheaper methods of production, it became a clear option in the mass produced model tanks, despite its 15% inferiority to Rolled Steel armor. This made the armor incredibly weak against the 75mm guns found on most tanks during 1944.

the Panzer IV was made of what?
Face Hardened Steel, which takes Rolled Homogenous Steel then submits a single side to another treatment causing it to warp. after flattening it again that face is substantially harder, although slightly more brittle. Although it slightly weakens it to any Capped round. and speaking of which, these capped rounds where used by Tank Destroyer units and Only Tank destroyer units. the same stands for the HVAP rounds as they where exclusively supplied to the TD class tanks and no Sherman class tank was given them. however, most Sherman tank crews would barging things off in order to get just a few rounds of APC or HVAP from a supply officer or an allied TD tank. just incase they did run into a heavy tank.

3) you don't know your history very well, so you probably don't know why they used Face Hardened armor do you? and despite what you might believe, HVAP rounds did horribly against the Face Hardened Armor of the German tanks. hence why they used APC shot instead.

but let me enlighten you. Face Hardened Armor creates a more dense surface which the round has to penetrate. standard AP shot and HVAP shot would hit the armor then the head would Shatter on the armor or bounce off. since the Panzer IV to Panzer VI models where all designed to counter Russian tanks, they directly reflect the fact that the Russians where unable to produce any Armor Piercing Capped Rounds. however, the Americans and British forces, where more capable of producing Armor piercing Capped rounds proved to be more effective against the brittle Face hardened armor, as the shells often Shattered the impact point and caused hot molten shards to bounce around inside the tank. often cooking off the tank.

4) fine, be enlightened (http://www.fprado.com/armorsite/tiger1-03.htm) and again, No, it wouldn't be. several other Tank cannons out preformed it, and many where used during the war. the 88 Out preformed it in many aspects, the Russian 122 out preformed it in almost every aspect there is. hell the long barreled 7.5 cm gun of the Panther out preformed it in some tasks.

5)
90mm L71 calibre sorry but as i do not want to stretch this post into an unlimited page of words i will simply post this link which should give you all info you need and which will hopefully enlighten you that this SP gun is actually more powerful then the KT and even JT gun! The firepower of the SP would actually exceed that of a 88mm Flak 18 by nearly over 70mm of additional armor destruction! And as far as those stats go the 90mm L71 could penetrate the armor of a KT at nearly 2000 yards though they never fought agains each other in a real combat so we have no evidence on thos but like i said on pure facts the SPershing would destroy a 150mm RH armor sloped at 40° with his upgraded gun!

this further proves how little you know about the tanks and guns you so willingly try and put up.

the KwK 43 L/71 using APC/CR rounds out penetrated the 'super' Pershings APC T44 shot. I leave out the HVAP t44 shot because that Was developed After the war was over in Europe.

further more, you say that the 90mm L71 on the experimental Pershing could penetrate all armor. and it could penetrate 150mm of Rolled Homogonous Steal armor sloped at 40 degrees. and that it can 'Defeat' the Panzer kampftwagon VII 'Tiger II' at 2000 yards. however the Panzer VII 'Tiger II' has 180mm thick frontal armor... and was combat proven that the Frontal Glaice of the Tiger II could NOT be penetrated by Any Allied Anti tank weapon.

shown here (http://www.fprado.com/armorsite/tiger2.htm)


6) and when did the tanks arrive and when did the munitions for the HVAP rounds for the 90mm gun arrive?


7) the 8.8 cm gun Isn't a Tank gun either. it is an Anti Aircraft gun. the 90 mm Gun on the Pershing was originally an Anti air gun as well, however, they are accepted as 'tank Guns' simply because they are fitted on a Tank. the IS-2's 122mm gun is No different. it is a gun affixed to a tank. ergo- Tank Gun.

and those sentences are made by an opinionated person. not a factually derived truth nor set against any standard for comparison. the most Powerful tank in the War was the Strumtiger (http://www.fprado.com/armorsite/tiger-variations.htm). fitted with a 38 cm assault mortar. and it too had 150mm frontal armor, being unable to be penetrated by Any allied ammunition as well. that is if you are talking purely about punch. Armor wise? the Tiger II with 180mm Frontal armor. and these tanks actually saw quite a bit of action unlike the experimental tanks you will probably say.

8) I’ll save you the trouble since we could very easily just look back at what Actually happened and use That as a guide.

the M4a3 Sherman used a shorter inaccurate 75mm gun which couldn't achieve the velocity to penetrate any German armor at range, and had difficulty engaging all but Panzer IV's armor at any closer range, further more it was designed to be Infantry support and was supplied with abundent HE and limited AP rounds, both of which where very ineffective against the Face Hardened armor of most Axis tanks.

the M-10 Wolverine used a heavy 3" inch gun, because of limitations, the primary ammo used was Also, AP rounds, proving less than effective against the Face Hardened Panzer Armor. it wasn't until early-mid 1944 did the M-10 crews gain access to AP Capped rounds which shattered axis armor. still because of the shorter barrel, it has lower velocity, which meant lower accuracy at range, and lower penetration at range.

the M4a3 with 76mm Gun uses the Same gun caliber as the M-10 wolverine, the more tight rifling coupled with the muzzle brake allowed it to shoot more high velocity rounds allowing it to engage heavy axis tanks at ranges beyond 100 meters and successfully penetrate them. however, since HVAP and APC rounds where almost strictly given to TD tanks (the wolverine and Jackson) it too proved slightly less capable of engaging Axis armor at range.

the M26 Pershing with 90mm gun could effectively equal the penetration power and accuracy of a tiger. and because of its weight and speed, it was an Equal to the panther. the only difference is that it had a larger gun than the Panther. however, these tanks where supplied in very limited numbers across only a Single armored division and was deployed in the early months of 1945. just before the European war ended. few saw combat.


the Panzer IV is in effect Equal to the basic variants of the Sherman. having thinner armor which was often modified by the crew to make it thicker by welding plates on key areas. these tanks where fast, and hit hard with their 75mm guns. they could penetrate most all Sherman tanks in a single shot.

the Panzer V 'Panther' identified by the Germans as a Medium tank it is arguably the Best tank produced in the war. its heavy thick sloped armor allowed it to stop most all rounds from either front and its Highly accurate 75mm long barreled gun meant it could accurately dish out death at ranges which you couldn't reach. was only defeated at closer ranges by the 76mm gun and up.

the Panzer VI 'Tiger' the German Heavy tank. the 88mm gun allowed it to reach out and kill most tanks produced and its frontal armor couldn't be compromised by anything except an 88 gun equal or better. of which, only the Pershing was armed. as an ode to this, most all tigers destroyed where not destroyed by tanks, rather almost every tiger lost was lost due to either mechanical problems or by American Anti tank planes.

the Panzer VII 'Tiger II' aka "King Tiger" the Best German tank produced during the war. with the thickest armor around, and 88 long gun, it could kill ANY Tank in the War at range, like wise, No Tank in the war could penetrate the Frontal glaice of the King Tiger. even Flanking shots where ineffective to a degree as the only true weakness to this tank is the rear.

the IS-2. the Russian Super heavy tank. a deadly behemoth which could destroy every tank on the field with a massive 122mm shot. the problem was its incredible loading time, as by the time it shot a single round, most German tanks could of shot a bakers dozen. as proof to its power, the kinetic energy of a single bullet is enough to shear the turret off of a Tiger's hull. the only weakness of the IS-2, mechanical problems. no IS-2 was lost to combat, rather all of them broke down turning them into basically massive turrets on the field.







@wokelly

yes, better is purely judgmental in this case.

the Axis tanks out ranged and out damaged most all allied armor, however they lacked any real mobility during late war. a Tiger's best tactic was basically to find the highest hill and park on the top of it and killing all those in sight at Maximum range. this of course would make them an ideal bomb target.


if they stayed with the old blitz war tactics and tank designs they could of better contended against allied forces.



as for the ronso. well it really isn't a myth. it is a truth, even during 1944 several Sherman’s did not have wet storage, but they lowered the chance of a brew simply by welding a 1/4 inch to 1 inch thick steel box around their magazine. better protecting it.


==================================

game wise. realism would really break it.

having my tigers pick off your tanks half way across the map would get really annoying to any player.


as much as i would love to have realism, or mirroed realism (like double the range of the in game tiger to give the sense that it has extream long range) i know, putting realism into any game is hard to do simply because it makes it Player unfriendly.

look at the FPS game Operation Flash point, and ArmA.

they are super realistic first person shooters used as combat simulators by the Armed forces. they are good games and fun to play to an extent.

however, you getting Killed at 1500 meters by a well placed sniper shot, and not knowing where the sniper is, nor having a weapon which can counter said sniper is Really really annoying and not condusive for good gameplay.

[mr.powell]

@powell

1) it is unreliable because you are taking labbed situations and uniformly applying it to all scenarios. when Labbed scenarios only test one variable, as on war other variables come into play. Lets say a Tiger tank has ~75% accuracy rating at 2000 meters when stationary on 5x5 targets in labbed situations.

however, put this into combat context, you are attempting to hit a moving target at 2000 meters, with rudimentary telescopic sites. the target kicks up a dust cloud behind it, it moves awkwardly because it's speed and momentum causes it to bounce every once and a while off the hilly terrain, and every 5 or so seconds it creates a massive plume of smoke in front of it as it fires in your general direction. not to mention that near by explosions and conclusive blasts slightly alter you and the tank your in.

with all those things active... do you think a 75% accuracy is still achievable? the Labbing Says So! so after 4 shots 3 should hit. but when he shoots 8 shots and only 1 hit, where are your lab results there?


and since you are a logistical expert, how many of those rounds where shot? how many hit their target? how many where lost? how many where just sitting in a munitions depot through out the war being left unused?


2) I know what Rolled hemagnous Steel does. and how its made. it is a continual baking, tempering, pressing and cooling process which changes the molecular structure of standard steel allowing it to be harder in general.

but speaking of armor, let us talk about it then shall we?

Sherman Armor was made of what?
Cast Homogonous Steel. because of its quicker production times and cheaper methods of production, it became a clear option in the mass produced model tanks, despite its 15% inferiority to Rolled Steel armor. This made the armor incredibly weak against the 75mm guns found on most tanks during 1944.

the Panzer IV was made of what?
Face Hardened Steel, which takes Rolled Homogenous Steel then submits a single side to another treatment causing it to warp. after flattening it again that face is substantially harder, although slightly more brittle. Although it slightly weakens it to any Capped round. and speaking of which, these capped rounds where used by Tank Destroyer units and Only Tank destroyer units. the same stands for the HVAP rounds as they where exclusively supplied to the TD class tanks and no Sherman class tank was given them. however, most Sherman tank crews would barging things off in order to get just a few rounds of APC or HVAP from a supply officer or an allied TD tank. just incase they did run into a heavy tank.

3) you don't know your history very well, so you probably don't know why they used Face Hardened armor do you? and despite what you might believe, HVAP rounds did horribly against the Face Hardened Armor of the German tanks. hence why they used APC shot instead.

but let me enlighten you. Face Hardened Armor creates a more dense surface which the round has to penetrate. standard AP shot and HVAP shot would hit the armor then the head would Shatter on the armor or bounce off. since the Panzer IV to Panzer VI models where all designed to counter Russian tanks, they directly reflect the fact that the Russians where unable to produce any Armor Piercing Capped Rounds. however, the Americans and British forces, where more capable of producing Armor piercing Capped rounds proved to be more effective against the brittle Face hardened armor, as the shells often Shattered the impact point and caused hot molten shards to bounce around inside the tank. often cooking off the tank.

4) fine, be enlightened (http://www.fprado.com/armorsite/tiger1-03.htm) and again, No, it wouldn't be. several other Tank cannons out preformed it, and many where used during the war. the 88 Out preformed it in many aspects, the Russian 122 out preformed it in almost every aspect there is. hell the long barreled 7.5 cm gun of the Panther out preformed it in some tasks.

5)

this further proves how little you know about the tanks and guns you so willingly try and put up.

the KwK 43 L/71 using APC/CR rounds out penetrated the 'super' Pershings APC T44 shot. I leave out the HVAP t44 shot because that Was developed After the war was over in Europe.

further more, you say that the 90mm L71 on the experimental Pershing could penetrate all armor. and it could penetrate 150mm of Rolled Homogonous Steal armor sloped at 40 degrees. and that it can 'Defeat' the Panzer kampftwagon VII 'Tiger II' at 2000 yards. however the Panzer VII 'Tiger II' has 180mm thick frontal armor... and was combat proven that the Frontal Glaice of the Tiger II could NOT be penetrated by Any Allied Anti tank weapon.

shown here (http://www.fprado.com/armorsite/tiger2.htm)


6) and when did the tanks arrive and when did the munitions for the HVAP rounds for the 90mm gun arrive?


7) the 8.8 cm gun Isn't a Tank gun either. it is an Anti Aircraft gun. the 90 mm Gun on the Pershing was originally an Anti air gun as well, however, they are accepted as 'tank Guns' simply because they are fitted on a Tank. the IS-2's 122mm gun is No different. it is a gun affixed to a tank. ergo- Tank Gun.

and those sentences are made by an opinionated person. not a factually derived truth nor set against any standard for comparison. the most Powerful tank in the War was the Strumtiger (http://www.fprado.com/armorsite/tiger-variations.htm). fitted with a 38 cm assault mortar. and it too had 150mm frontal armor, being unable to be penetrated by Any allied ammunition as well. that is if you are talking purely about punch. Armor wise? the Tiger II with 180mm Frontal armor. and these tanks actually saw quite a bit of action unlike the experimental tanks you will probably say.

8) I’ll save you the trouble since we could very easily just look back at what Actually happened and use That as a guide.

the M4a3 Sherman used a shorter inaccurate 75mm gun which couldn't achieve the velocity to penetrate any German armor at range, and had difficulty engaging all but Panzer IV's armor at any closer range, further more it was designed to be Infantry support and was supplied with abundent HE and limited AP rounds, both of which where very ineffective against the Face Hardened armor of most Axis tanks.

the M-10 Wolverine used a heavy 3" inch gun, because of limitations, the primary ammo used was Also, AP rounds, proving less than effective against the Face Hardened Panzer Armor. it wasn't until early-mid 1944 did the M-10 crews gain access to AP Capped rounds which shattered axis armor. still because of the shorter barrel, it has lower velocity, which meant lower accuracy at range, and lower penetration at range.

the M4a3 with 76mm Gun uses the Same gun caliber as the M-10 wolverine, the more tight rifling coupled with the muzzle brake allowed it to shoot more high velocity rounds allowing it to engage heavy axis tanks at ranges beyond 100 meters and successfully penetrate them. however, since HVAP and APC rounds where almost strictly given to TD tanks (the wolverine and Jackson) it too proved slightly less capable of engaging Axis armor at range.

the M26 Pershing with 90mm gun could effectively equal the penetration power and accuracy of a tiger. and because of its weight and speed, it was an Equal to the panther. the only difference is that it had a larger gun than the Panther. however, these tanks where supplied in very limited numbers across only a Single armored division and was deployed in the early months of 1945. just before the European war ended. few saw combat.


the Panzer IV is in effect Equal to the basic variants of the Sherman. having thinner armor which was often modified by the crew to make it thicker by welding plates on key areas. these tanks where fast, and hit hard with their 75mm guns. they could penetrate most all Sherman tanks in a single shot.

the Panzer V 'Panther' identified by the Germans as a Medium tank it is arguably the Best tank produced in the war. its heavy thick sloped armor allowed it to stop most all rounds from either front and its Highly accurate 75mm long barreled gun meant it could accurately dish out death at ranges which you couldn't reach. was only defeated at closer ranges by the 76mm gun and up.

the Panzer VI 'Tiger' the German Heavy tank. the 88mm gun allowed it to reach out and kill most tanks produced and its frontal armor couldn't be compromised by anything except an 88 gun equal or better. of which, only the Pershing was armed. as an ode to this, most all tigers destroyed where not destroyed by tanks, rather almost every tiger lost was lost due to either mechanical problems or by American Anti tank planes.

the Panzer VII 'Tiger II' aka "King Tiger" the Best German tank produced during the war. with the thickest armor around, and 88 long gun, it could kill ANY Tank in the War at range, like wise, No Tank in the war could penetrate the Frontal glaice of the King Tiger. even Flanking shots where ineffective to a degree as the only true weakness to this tank is the rear.

the IS-2. the Russian Super heavy tank. a deadly behemoth which could destroy every tank on the field with a massive 122mm shot. the problem was its incredible loading time, as by the time it shot a single round, most German tanks could of shot a bakers dozen. as proof to its power, the kinetic energy of a single bullet is enough to shear the turret off of a Tiger's hull. the only weakness of the IS-2, mechanical problems. no IS-2 was lost to combat, rather all of them broke down turning them into basically massive turrets on the field.

.
.
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1.) a)Well i never talked about the combat situation and obviously never talked about combat environment nor about the differences of accuracy on those tanks. The only thing i mentioned was that my source is to 100% reliable as it is even underlined by your own site which you posted by trying to 'enlighten' me as nearly ALL the penetration tables we see from this independent site are actually correct! Thats why i am right about the source i talked about and thats what i wanted to point out apart from the matter that you thought that all german AFVs used FH armor which they simply not did as their heavy tanks never even had FH but RHA and agains this armor the US guns are very effective as stated by the penetration tables ;). -though you are of course right that many other factors are actually coming into play as soon as we are on the BFs of the Normandy but even than the allied firepower does not necessarily diminish as tank battles are often being fought in ranges way below that magical 2000 meters mark we always see/take as reference due to the combat environment as i already said s.a. . This means that the tanks that had HVAP rounds could get off a deadly shot to a Tiger independent of its facing as even its frontal armor would not protect it from a HVAP round which after all would destroy around 116mm of RH armor which would be in a range below these 2000 meters ... and actually your site you posted even says that the actual combat distance of the Tiger I was considered to be:



...the most effective engagement range for the Tiger I was between 800 and 1,200 meters, and kills beyond 2,000 meters were considered lucky hits.
...

b) By the way those things with losing ammo et cetera could account for every faction in the war as every side will certainly have had unused shells or simply lost some during combat ... so this is not really a statement to support your new interpreted accuracy thoughts as it can be accounted for every side ;).

2.) a) Please do not forget that the Super Sherman (which was the peak in Sherman series production in the WWII at the year '44) or the more familiar name 'Easy Eight' (http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Quarters/1975/m4a3e8.htm) also existed which used the upgraded 76mm M1A1C and or M1A2 and that this tanks actually used HVAP shots powerful enough to punch a hole into any Tiger I ;). By the way some rare Jumbos were also equipped with those 76mm guns and had these HVAP rounds aboard just for any case if they ever encounter german heavy armor to be prepared as the US knew that their Sherman tank battalions need some firepower to face the heavy german tanks and these Jumbos by the way had also welded additional armor parts to its all around armor and had even an frontal armor that exceeded that of a Tiger I! -by the way the Shermans used a mixed armored plating at its frontal hull meaning that they used Rolled and cast homogonous armor welded together to make it better protected at its frontal glacias.

b) Panzer IV was one of the very few german tank designs that used it but like i said you NEVER had such armor on german heavy tank designs as simply all of them mostly sticked to RHA which can be (as seen at the source i posted) quite fairly penetrated by upgraded US guns and especially by the heavy US but also British/Russia tank guns.

3.) a) Well the articles never state anything that an Armored Piercing Composite Rigid could not penetrate FH armor as it was just more resistend to the standard AP and APBC rounds and as such does not show that an APCR round would not be of equal performance as an APC or APCBC, so we can not argue around this, as without any facts nor stats, we can not say whether a tank which had around 50mm FH armor would withstand a high density solid core round which actually had enough firepower from a 90mm cannon which could destroy three times these amounts of same RH armor!

b) Thankfully most of those penetration tables are actually aligned to RHA and there you can 'see' why the (upgraded/heavy) US guns were formidable agains german heavy armor with the exception of the JT which had an armor that was uncrackable with exception of perhaps the 105mm gun of the T28 which would certainly eat the JT for breakfast (d**m it why did the US never used this tank hehe ;) ... d**m i know why ... but oh well :rolleyes: )

4.) Well this site just stated (and even underlines those aspects i already said ;) ) the penetration (http://www.fprado.com/armorsite/tiger1-03.htm) tables of the very reliable source (http://gva.freeweb.hu/weapons/german_guns7.html) i posted and as you see those stats are exatly the same! In fact it does not state anything why the M3 90mm L52 caliber standard Pershing gun should be ANY weaker to the standard kwk 36 as the standard 90mm gun is way stronger then that as you have seen several times at this site but as i want to spare you the time for looking it up, please look here (http://gva.freeweb.hu/weapons/usa_guns7.html) :). Do not forget the site you posted actually even says what i already stated above that the actual effective combat range of the Tiger I was rather between 800 to 1200 ms and >=2000m shots under battleconditions where rather lucky shots! Finally always remember that the 90mm caliber is actually a 'tad' bigger then the 88mm caliber of the german guns as we here have a 9cm gun agains an 8,8 cm gun and this is already more then a difference as you can see that the M3 90mm Pershing gun can burn up to 156mm RHA at a range of 2000 yards with an Armored Piercing Composite Rigid shell or the so called HVAP round and that would be enough to stop nearly everything dead in its tracks, as just the 17 Pounder of the Firefly with around 164mm at those 2000 yards and of course the 90mm L71 with around 173 mm at those 2000 yards would still dwarf the max. firepower of the M26 Pershing if they used either the APDS or APCR rounds ;).

Without a doubt those cannons could certainly gun you to victory hehe :D.

b) I have just one more thing about this site that they actually tested the Tiger I firepower agains a T34 Russian tank which had just around 45mm of frontal sloped armor but never says anything about the Pershing (and another thing i noticed is that with such a low armor rating a Pershing [this is now fiction so do NOT take it to the letter!] ,if the US of course would ever fought Russia as the germans did, would litteraly splitted a T34 in two pieces even at 2000 yards with an american APCR round as the Tiger also used his Pzrgr. 40 which is stated as an APCR round but now you just can guess as you heard from me what a Pershing could have done to such a tank with such a low armor rating and 'see' certainly that the Pershing has nothing to worry about with his firepower ;) -luckily the US and Russia were allies at that time). I really beg you to rethink what you wrote about the Pershing as you do it no justice as just because the tank did not saw so much action does not reduce/degrade his 'firepower' like you try to do, as you now have seen on several sites how right my source is and that the 7,5 cm kwk 42 of the Panther would never even come close to the max. firepower of a M26 Pershing and especially not to a Firefly nor M26A1E2!

5.) a) Well iam sorry but just look at the sources i gave you as you will see that the 88mm kwk 43 with a max. of 152mm RH armored damage at 2000ms can not outperform a 90mm L71 caliber gun which does 173mm of RH armored damage at 2000 yards! Its simply a fact that you need to accept, as it will not change over time due to being history (which you litteraly can take to the letter ;) ) and as much as you wished it would change, it simply will not and like i said the source isnt influenced and is from a neutral site that posts actual tests/informations from books/whatever and not some gossips/rumors/myths which you still want to believe so hard and more then actual facts or even facts that i took out of the book 'Death Traps', where it even states the SPershing has been the most powerful tank of WWII (and like i said from the context that they certainly meant its incredibly powerful 90mm L71 caliber gun) as i would never say that a book about historical events would lie! -as iam NOT all-knowing nor a WWII veteran that actually were in a tank battle between those two tanks.

b) Well about the actual HVAP rounds of the SPershing i do not have any reliable sources which state whether this tank used the newer HVAP rounds or not as he just had a very small appearance but even if it would just take the APCR rounds from the standard M3 Pershing which after all HAD some APCR (HVAP M304 rounds) these rounds would certainly pack a punch from the much bigger upgraded 90mm L71 caliber gun at 2000 yards which i would say would be certainly enough to still have around 160 to 165mm of armored destruction but thats just a pure guess so i can not give any evidence to this but the same goes for the HVAP T44 rounds as i have not seen any evidence whether they did not arrive in time as those 2 SPershings where in germany where one has been testing its gun and had been used in Niederaussen Germany!

c) Iam sorry but i think you once again misunderstood the page/source you stated or just not read it as it already at the second picture states that the KT just had a '150mm' frontal RH armored plate sloped at 40° and that ONLY its frontal turret mantlet was 180mm thick armored but as the turret mantlet was just a tiny area to hit, it was way more probable to hit its 'weaker' (haha hehe :D) armored frontal glacias and from the penetration tables the SPershing gun would have enough firepower to do this but like i said as they never really encountered that way its just pure speculation and should be treated that way. Therefore we can not argue about those things but its just my personal opinion that there would be no chance for a Tiger II to withstand a direct HVAP (whether T44 or M304) shot from a SPershings upgraded high velocity gun!

Sorry the last bit with rather theocrafting but like i said its my opinion and from the raw statisics its even underlined by them ;).

6.) Well like i said the first Pershings arrived february '45 and just several days later the actual 90mm ammo which incorporated several HVAP shells also arrived to be used for the Pershings (as the ammo like i already stated in my post before, if you had read it clearly, that they had some shipment problems as the Pershings were send to france whereas the ammo was sent to the Pacific theatre)

7.) Well iam sorry about the 122mm d-25T adaption as i rather talked about the IS-7 there, which had an 130mm naval derived gun but was only built three times at '46 which was obviously after the war.
Well i am certian that the Sturmtiger was not armor wise the most powerful tank in the War but rather the JT as it had around 100mm more frontal armor and like i said about the armor of the KT ... please look the page you posted to actually underline your facts and you will see that you misunderstood the site you posted!
Do not worry i will not come up with experimental tanks as it would be unfair as german experimentals did not really function, whereas some Allied (US and British ...) (very) heavy experimental designs [b]did function ... you know which tanks i would now call up but like i said i will not as i do not want to use those tanks as they never were involved in the war but from a gaming point i would without a doubt propose them for the allied side ... but NOT ONLY for the allies as i play both sides and therefore i would also like to see some 'doable' designs for the axis (Panther II anyone ;)?).

8.)

b) Do not forget that i still just think of the Pz IV from which you posted as he would be one of the very few tanks that had FH armor ... still do not underestimate the M7 3inch gun of the Wolverine which can pack an equal punch to the 'Easy Eight' 76mm gun of the Shermans and that means enough to deal some serious heavy damage/total destruction to some heavy german tanks!

e) Well the same goes for the upgraded 'Easy Eight' series production Shermans that used the 76mm as well as the Wolverine with its M7 3 inch gun as they could also with the right rounds one shot the Pz IV ;).

f) Well i would even say that the Panther was not only the best german tank in the war but also that it succeeded in many different ways under real combat conditions in comparison to the original Tiger I, as it was just way more reliable, faster and also featured sloped armored which tended to ricochet enemy rounds more frequently as the Tiger I armor! (which was without a doubt not sloped just thick whereas the M26 Pershing armor was not only a tad thicker 102mm at frontal glacias but also sloped at 45° which gave the Pershing also the ability to ricochet rounds from its frontal armor)

g) Well i think an 'Easy Eight' Sherman variant would have a good chance if it closes in to the Tiger from the front at under 2000 yards and just shots an aimed and well placed Armored Piercing Composit Rigid shot, at its frontal unsloped standard RH armor as it would then simply destroy the Tiger I. But as we all do not know how ALL the Tigers in the whole WWII were ever killed we can not simply just say ONLY the air superiority of the allies did this job to clear those tanks out and therefore i said this above ;) (because why would the allies then even bother to develop the M1A1C or M1A2 guns if they would anyway just use airstrikes to clear the BF which maybe even in some places could not be used to maybe heavy german based flak anti-air coverage so there MUST be other reasons how they took out Tiger Is except the 5 to 1 ratio tactic/myth we all just hear always when pitting Tigers agains Shermans).

h) Well i guess now you really overestimate this tank as you as well as i know that due to the heavy Ostfront fightings many KT were destroyed from Russian JS-2 tanks and if ever there were more KTs in the Western front the 2 Super Pershings over there may have had more chances of justifying their firepower ;), but without a doubt, it was a good tank but which had a lot of mechanical problems, complete breakdowns and so forth, which made it for its crew like a ticking timebomb whether its being destroyed by an enemy shell or simply just stopped moving due to shortcomings in fuel or mechanical failures in his engine/gear ratio!

I) I am sorry but you vastly overestimate that Tank. It was also never classified as a Super Heavy Tank as far as i know. Do not get me wrong it was without a doubt a very powerful adversary but even this tank would have been destroyed by either a KT or a Pershing with just one shot, but as this tank could do the same to the other two tanks it was not only therefore a match for them but also some kind of a deadly balancing act in the huge BFs to get for one of those tanks into the right firing position and to get the aim to tell their gunner:'SHOOT NOW!!!' (kinda dramatic aint it hehe :D )
But actually this tank was even upgraded to the JS-2 model 44 which had a faster-loading drop breech and new fire control as well as an improved simpler hull front.

[wokelly]

as for the ronso. well it really isn't a myth. it is a truth, even during 1944 several Sherman’s did not have wet storage, but they lowered the chance of a brew simply by welding a 1/4 inch to 1 inch thick steel box around their magazine. better protecting it.

Yeah sorry the myth is that the Sherman brewed up more often then any other tank. All tanks in WWII brewed up fairly often, not because of the design so much as because of spall or the shell hitting the ammunition.

Plus many allied tankers carried more ammunition then they were suppose to in their tanks. The exposed ammunition was much more likely to cause the cordite fires in the tanks as a result of penetration.

[nichtganz]

Anyone who thinks a Sherman has a good chance against a tiger should just walk in the middle of a busy road.

[ABraun]

I'm still having trouble understanding how an LMG with a 20 round clip suppresses so well.

But hey, that's just me.

He he... Place yourself in front of me, give me a .22 pistol and I'll show you how a single bullet can supress someone. Sure 20 bullets aren't as good, I agree but it isn't impossible when fired in accurate shots.

[mr.powell]

Anyone who thinks a Sherman has a good chance against a tiger should just walk in the middle of a busy road.

Well do not forget that i mean an upgraded Sherman and not the 75mm version which was solely just for infantry support ;).

If a 76mm Sherman would for example come close (lets say between 700 to 1400 yards[do not forget the effective fighting range of a Tiger I in real combat situations]) it would have a good chance to destroy the Tiger I with an APCR round if its been provided with one as the penetration tables would more then justify this but as its ONLY theocrafting i can neither underline nor bring up any evidence that this ever happened but the WWII was long (as i consider 6 years to be long at least for the British allies though the US just were involved from '44 upwards but still nearly 1 year is enough to have something like this and NO ONE of us knows every little fight of ALL tanks that ever were fielded!).

[Pyro Paul]

no, your theorycrafting. again your taking the best statistics and putting them in your favor. further more you don't have a grasp on logic or historical fact. you probably don't even understand over half of what you are posting.



if shermans could go head to head against a tiger and win, why did most Tigers achieve 50-100:1 Kill death ratios?

if the allied tanks where so powerful, howcome a single tiger ace could roll through several collums of them destroying over 50 in a couple of hours and only losing the Tiger because it had a mechanical failure?

if the Sherman with 76 gun was so deadly, why did sherman m4a3 crews abandon their tanks at the hint of a tiger collums?

[Rottweiler|Soul]

He he... Place yourself in front of me, give me a .22 pistol and I'll show you how a single bullet can supress someone. Sure 20 bullets aren't as good, I agree but it isn't impossible when fired in accurate shots.

Compared to that of a belt-fed HMG, though? Or even a GPMG with 75 round drum? I agree that anything sending small, hot bits of metal flying towards my head will make me duck, but... :P

[mr.powell]

a) Well do not worry i am well aware of what i do write and if you wish i will give you more detailed explanations of what i am talking about but of course via pm as i do not want to spam my own thread more then i already did hehe ;)

b) Well ask yourself; why does over 40 to 50000 shermans being (from which NOT all had 76 mm upgrades!) built whereas just around ~1300 Tigers were built?!

c) Well like i said the same goes for this here like stated above and in addition why do we never heard of a Tiger that tried to attack allied columns with high performance units like the Firefly ...?!

d) That is again just rumors but even if they would do this it would kinda contradict with the allied air superiority as when a single sherman would see a Tiger closing in it could simply call for air support or if it has the right gun and ammo put itself into an ambush position to simply destroy the Tiger when it comes to close and that could also be a reason why this crew you mentioned from the upgunned sherman perhaps has left its tank as it simply lacked the HVAP shell it needed but like i said it kinda sounds again a bit to much of rumors/gossips!

[Oxyde2]

b) Well ask yourself; why does over 40 to 50000 shermans being (from which NOT all had 76 mm upgrades!) built whereas just around ~1300 Tigers were built?!Two words: MASS PRODUCTION.

The United States had a HUGE and UNDAMAGED industrial park that allowed them to build the very simple Sherman in accordingly huge numbers. Germany was already fighting the war for years, then later its industry started being air-raided. Furthermore, the Tiger was a much more complex design that require lots more time and precision to build. Sounds hardly fair, huh?

The Sherman was a fairly bad tank. Thin armour, weak and short-ranged gun. Tigers could engage them at much longer ranges and kill them one by one. After the first tank in the column goes up in flames after being hit by an 88 shot, all the others start being very careful. That's how you effectively supress tanks.

[Pyro Paul]

Compared to that of a belt-fed HMG, though? Or even a GPMG with 75 round drum? I agree that anything sending small, hot bits of metal flying towards my head will make me duck, but... :P

well the real aurgument is how 20 rounds of 30.06 rounds supress better than the 75-200 rounds of german 8mm rifle rounds.



really its the 'pops'. sure the sound of bullets wizzing by and gun fire makes you duck. but the sound of a bullet popping the ground right next to you scares the crap out of you.


think of it like this. which is more scary, having a person throw a grenade at you and have him miss and it go flying out a window, or having a grenade land at your feet.

[Oxyde2]

Eh, bullets are bullets. I'm sure as hell not standing up when they're shooting me, regadless of it being a 9mm or a .50... the caliber doesn't make that much difference when compared to sustained rate of fire.

[Pyro Paul]

the caliber does acctually, next to no military man will hit the dirt in fetal position several minutes of sustained 9mm smg fire. you take a single, much slower firing m2 .50 BMG only one round has to land near you to make you crap your pants in fear.

it is like comparing a hand grenade explosion to a howitzer explosion.

it makes me wonder why the BMGs on the tanks and crap don't supress better.

[Oxyde2]

This is ridiculous. I challenge any military man to raise his head while being fired upon by any kind of fast-firing automatic weapon. Sure, the bullets hitting the floor all around you will scare you more if they're of larger caliber, but no one on their right mind exposes themselves to enemy fire when they know the bullets are almost hitting them (or hitting their cover). No one thinks "it's alright, it's just a 9mm" and goes for a walk in the enemy's line of fire.

Comparing a hand grenade explosion to a howitzer explosion? Sure, if you're not killed, you'll throw yourself on the ground on both cases.

[Pyro Paul]

i know plenty of Marines which would get up and move around while under fire from 9mm automatic. the round isn't very powerful or loud in nature. the military prepares you to be shot at.

[mr.powell]

Well a 9mm automatic weapon would not impress me that much but this freakin human mowing lean mean killin machine from MetalStorm (http://www.metalstorm.com/) would and its just the very tip of the iceberg because Ladies and Gentlemen please have a look at the future of high tech weaponry

And watch out for the fastest and deadliest handgun/pistol to ever be constructed where the so called 'DEagle' or 357 Magnum just looks like a small piece of child toys :D
Firepower (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DRmuljq9yw&mode=related&search=)

Mass killing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8hlj4EbdsE&mode=related&search=)

well and after this one i think everyone will agree to O M G!!!

And well apparently the US Navy has a contract with them? ... hmm... as if the best MBT, Huge aircraft carrier fleets ... are not enough ;)

[nichtganz]

Metal storm is overrated. Total peice of crap if you ask me, the total costs cost more than a modern artillery weapon, thanks but no thanks.

[mr.powell]

Metal storm is overrated. Total peice of crap if you ask me, the total costs cost more than a modern artillery weapon, thanks but no thanks.

Yes i know what you mean nichtganz but i have no real business with them and therefore can not argue whether their weapons are overrated or not but i am kinda afraid of what those crazy weapons scientiests of the future are actually up to ... these weapons make any kind of vest for personal protection useless as those dozens/thousands/millions round fired in under a second will decimate anything and i think they could even just with these freakin killing RoFs cripple even a heavily armored MBT with just standard bullets as the sheer amount of those bullets that impact at the armor would certainly leave a 'dent' in every nowadays modern tanks armor!

[nichtganz]

The problem is to use it like it is intended you need a fast Advanaced radar jamming vehicle to tow it. Otherwise the Metal storm gets blasted by Artillery, jets, planes, or subject to enemy attack. It's easier to just deploy a 155mm gun.

[Oxyde2]

Ooooh, right. A million projectiles per second. Do you have a million bullets to fire in a second?

That stuff is extremely overrated. What good is having a weapon that can fire that fast if you can't keep that RoF for more than one hundredth of a second? What happens if you actually miss your shot? You're left with an empty barrel and a very sily face, that's what happens.

Lots of propaganda for little practical result.

[mr.powell]

@ nichtganz

Yep, you are right.

@ Oxyde2

why are you so aggressive towards me ... did i said anything offending at you or anybody else that you need to answer me so 'unfriendly'?!

[Pyro Paul]

it is incredibly over hyped and over rated. wooo, i can shoot 1 Million bullets per minute!

big freaking deal, i can load a 120 tank gun with a honnycomb shot and achive the exact same effect for a fraction of the cost.

also, the weapon will NEVER enter the personal combat weapon, or veheical combat weapon markets Ever. it is too ackward and wasteful to serve any purpouse other than Large static defencive positions. hence why the Navy, and ONLY the Navy has looked into this. it is to serve as a replacement to the Missle defence platforms on the large ships.


why it will never enter personal weapons is because of this simple question that they can't answer.

"How do i reload in combat?"

[AlliesOwnAxis]

Sometimes, realism can hinder gameplay.

[nichtganz]

And i would assume loading the thing is no walk in the park XD.

[Andalar]

All bullets hit the same spot? Isnt one bullet usually enought incapacitate someone? and what happen if you miss?

PAUSE ?

[Pyro Paul]

the idea is supposed to be more like a hammer and nail. as bullets hit the side armor of say a tank, it leaves a dent (regardless of the caliber size) in theory, if you where capable of hitting the same exact point with enough rounds, you could penetrate Any armor produced by man.

in theory this weapon could fire a 1 minute barrage of .22 bullets and penetrate the armor of a Challanger 2 or M1a2 Abrams


and that goes for almost all armors. the hand gun version could shoot 3 rounds preciesly with pin point accuracy and penetrate the strongest of body armor with a very very low caliber round.

[Guardsman Yoshi]

The design looks pretty basic. I don't see why it would cost very much. Once its in mass production, it shouldn't be so expensive. But the ammo usage is just insane. Metal storm could possibly replace the machine guns and cannons on fighters.

[Pyro Paul]

it may look basic but it is acctually an extreamly complex design. basicly it packs pouder then bullet then powder then bullet. it then electronicly ignites the powder in a sequence miliseconds apart.

which is what makes it complex. shooting a bullet miliseconds by eletric charge can not be done with a conventional barrel. it requires a very unique barrel as well as a unique processor. not only that, it doesn't support a clear reload option either, as reloading the weapon seems to require machine tools.


again, the only option i see it being used in is static defences, where you can take the several minutes required to reload the thing

[Oxyde2]

why are you so aggressive towards me ... did i said anything offending at you or anybody else that you need to answer me so 'unfriendly'?!Agressive towards you? Not really. More like tired of the whole "zOMGMETALSTORM PWNZALL!1!ROFFLE" idea. I used "you" as an example.

And on the Sherman vs Tiger thing... well, that was the truth. The germans had limited production capability for an overly complex design, while the americans had much more industrial power couple with a simple but weak tank. What's wrong?

[Doombringer126]

First off, I just want to say to Mr. Pyro Paul that I'm a Lance Corporal in the U.S. Marines who's been deployed to Iraq.

I wanted to let you know that there isn't a chance in hell that I would simply get up out of cover while being shot at by an automatic weapon, regardless of caliber. Our SAPI plates are only rated to withstand one or two shots before the ceramic plating fails, and your chances of that happening are significantly increased when the rate of fire of whatever's shooting at you is that high.

The military doesn't just teach you to how to deal "with getting shot at" in order to to throw yourself at the enemy. Situation dictates. Sure, I'd get up in a real hurry if while being shot at, I heard an incoming mortar, but otherwise, the Marines trained me to fight smarter, not harder, and use tactics to flank the automatic weapon or use counter-suppression fire from a different position.

That is all.

[trash.the.ego]

A majority of those who saw combat in World War II went through a fraction of the training you've had and it was usually rushed.

[Rottweiler|Soul]

i know plenty of Marines which would get up and move around while under fire from 9mm automatic. the round isn't very powerful or loud in nature. the military prepares you to be shot at.

Your argument sorta negates the entire point of machine guns, whose purpose would be to assert control of a situation through sheer continuous volume of fire. By your logic, riot guns with loudeners would better serve that purpose.

Marines are indeed trained against them, but that doesn't mean that suppressive fire isn't their purpose.

[wokelly]

The Sherman was a fairly bad tank. Thin armour, weak and short-ranged gun. Tigers could engage them at much longer ranges and kill them one by one. After the first tank in the column goes up in flames after being hit by an 88 shot, all the others start being very careful. That's how you effectively supress tanks.

Totally untrue. The Sherman was a good medium tank. By 1944 armor was a moot point. Not even the massive 150mm frontal armor of the churchill 7 could stop the panther 75mm gun, nor the new 88 L/71 guns. The Tigers and Panthers of the German army were vulnerable and routinely knocked out at long ranges by the British 17 pounder gun, which made up 50% of their ATG force and were mounted on 20% of their tanks by D-Day, and over 40% by the end of 1944.

The Sherman was easily an equal match for the majority of tanks they fought in Normandy, and while their armor could do little to stop the guns on Germans tanks, for the majority of the German tanks in Normandy, at the below 800m combat ranges their armor was just as vulnerable. Only 30% of the German tanks in Normandy were Panthers or Tigers. The Mark 4 Panzer alone made up over 40% of the German tanks fielded.

For all intents and purposes the Sherman and Cromwell were fine tanks and served the Allies well. All tanks in 1944 did bad when attacking a prepared enemy position. Many think Goodwood was a failure of Allied tank design and thin armor, but the truth is against a fixed position any tank would do badly. If it were British or American ATGs and tanks defending and the Germans attacking, German tanks would have faired little better during Goodwood.

The allied designs proved themselves during the breakout phase of Normandy when the allied crews came to appreciate their tanks reliability allowing them to keep pressure on the Germans without constant breakdowns of their tanks. One Cromewell unit of the 7th Armor division did over 40 miles a day for 6 days (250 mile advance) without losing any tanks to mechanical failure. On the other hand the 101st Heavy on their way to Normandy lost around 50% of their Tigers doing 100km journey to mechanical failure.

The Panther and Tiger were both superb tank designs, but they did not as grossly outclass the Sherman as many think. Maybe i one on one battles, but those tanks never scored the 5 to 1 kill/loss ratio many people state because simply they would have killed more tanks then the allies lost in the battle on their own. That would be to say that all the ATGs, and other tanks besides panthers and tiger did not get a single kill.

[Oxyde2]

Compared to a Tiger, on a purely 1vs1 basis as it was being done here? Yes, the Sherman IS a bad tank.

I wasn't saying it was a bad tank per se. I was saying that in comparison to a Tiger or a Panther, it is inferior and not equal or superior as the OP seemed to think. The Sherman had its redeeming qualities, of course, or wouldn't have been fielded in such huge numbers. But it was still outranged (and consequently outgunned) by Tigers and Panthers in most cases.

[Brendan]

punctuate, please

[Pyro Paul]

First off, I just want to say to Mr. Pyro Paul that I'm a Lance Corporal in the U.S. Marines who's been deployed to Iraq.

okay mr. lance corporal.

you are controlling a 4 man fire team, 1 rifleman, 1 SAW, 1 grenadier and you as FTL. your second fire team with squad leader is about 30 meters behind you

your squad comes in on a town, and a 5 man fire team armed with MP-5's engage you before you enter the town from the safty of a central building 500 meters away, there is little cover between you and your target.

your Squad leader comes up and says 'Get up! Get moving! Take out that Position!!'

you get up and you start moving as your trained. and order your fire team into their proper positions. you properly flank, supress and destroy the target.


same situation, your squad enters a town, ZSU-23 Shilka turns its quad 23mm guns on your position and Opens fire. the 200 round bursts explode dangerously near by. and little can be heard over the sound of the bullets wizzing by and explosions of the HEI-T rounds the Shilka is using.

your Squad leader comes crawling up behind you hits you on the back and says "Get up! Get Moving!! Take Out that Tank!!"

knowing your fire team, you know you don't have any SMAW, SRAW or AT4s on hand...

what do you do?
well, as my GySgt Father, my Drill Instructor Grandfather, my Cpl friend currently stationed in Pendleton all would say:

"With What Sir? Rocks?"

your a Marine, your trained to fight smarter and not be a mindless robot blindly marching against a situation which is hopless.

[mr.powell]

@ Oxyde2

Well i am sorry Oxyde2 that you misunderstood me but i never said in a basis of one vs one that a Sherman is better then a Tiger ... i think you just misunderstood me as i said that a Tiger I in a real combat would need to come into certain ranges (like once described at the page (http://www.fprado.com/armorsite/tiger1-03.htm) Pyro Paul provided, which said that the effective range was at 800 to 1200ms) and at those ranges the 'Easy Eight' could with a well placed apcr round one shot and penetrate and as such destroy the Tiger I as its 76mm (provided that it is loaded with an apcr round) could exactly do this in this range but i think you rather interpreted it that way that i compared in this 'ideal' situation between those two tanks their armor and main gun which i did not as you are right that it should be obvious that a medium tank is weaker then a heavy tank in those terms ;).

[Oxyde2]

Pyro Paul: what kind of inane situation is that?! Comparing a fire team versus submachineguns with a squad with no anti-tank weapons versus a 23 milimeter vehicle-mounted high-ROF autocannon?!

mr.Powell: well, then I probably misunderstood your point. Huge blocks of text aren't very friendly for comprehension, you know? At any rate, in real combat a Tiger would most likely keep its distance and a clear line of sight. That's one of the reasons they were considered so dangerous: they could disable Shermans from beyond their range. Plus they were fighting defensively most of the time, which kind of skews the reports... :P

I agree, though. The upgunned Sherman has a chance against a Tiger, but I'm not sure a tank commander would be so willing to take that chance.

[Karius]

Mr powell, please answer me this:

Can a 57mm anti-tank gun penetrate an armor plate of 60mm thickness if we're talking about WWII equipment. Moreover, could a 75mm tank gun penetrate 80mm thick armor plate? Again, with WWII tank ammunition.....

[Pyro Paul]

Pyro Paul: what kind of inane situation is that?! Comparing a fire team versus submachineguns with a squad with no anti-tank weapons versus a 23 milimeter vehicle-mounted high-ROF autocannon?!

does the 9mm SMG's pin you and your squad?


does the 23 quad auto cannon pin your squad?
.

[Doombringer126]

I've kinda lost what you're trying to prove in that situation, Pyro Paul. Like I said, situation dictates my actions.

The guys with SMGs, like you said, are 500+ meters away. I can hit a target accurately that far away with my M16, or suppress them with the SAW while my own or the other fireteam moves to flank, because I know for a fact that it's extremely unlikely that five guys with guns that have a maximum effective range of 200m will hit me from a half a klick away.

However, I doubt my team could do the same against a Zeus firing 23mm rounds at me at 30-1000 rounds per minute with a max range of about 3 klicks.

Your original point was that the caliber of the round matters when talking in terms of being suppressed. No, if you're inside either weapon's maximum effective range, then it doesn't matter. Your situation, however, includes the variable that I'm only inside one of the weapons ranges to do harm to me (which makes an enormous difference in terms of how likely I'll be to just get up and mosey into some better cover) and that I have no way of even harming the second weapon system at all(also making an enormous difference in my squad's decision making abilities).

Say the guys with MP-5s actually had a couple mounted M1919 .30 Machine Guns (a smaller caliber than 9mm!) with max effective ranges of 1370m, and I'd be just as likely to sit still as I would be against the ZSU, at least until I figured out a way to take them out.

Or instead, put me only 50m away from said sustained 9mm fire, and again, I'd be just as 'suppressed' as I would be against a ZSU.

Sure, there are major psychological differences between getting shot at by a 9mm and a 23mm autocannon, but the principles remain. If I'm getting shot at, and in just as much danger by leaving my current position as I would be for both weapons systems, I'm not fucking moving until the gunner's attention is elsewhere or I have another Fire Team "fixing" the issue. Both weapons pin me, regardless of caliber, until I find a way around or through them.

[mr.powell]

Mr powell, please answer me this:

Can a 57mm anti-tank gun penetrate an armor plate of 60mm thickness if we're talking about WWII equipment. Moreover, could a 75mm tank gun penetrate 80mm thick armor plate? Again, with WWII tank ammunition.....

Well just look here (http://gva.freeweb.hu/weapons/introduction.html) Karius.

There you will find your answers for sure :).

[Pyro Paul]

Mr powell, please answer me this:

Can a 57mm anti-tank gun penetrate an armor plate of 60mm thickness if we're talking about WWII equipment. Moreover, could a 75mm tank gun penetrate 80mm thick armor plate? Again, with WWII tank ammunition.....


if we are talking about standard armor testing, yes, and No.

a 57mm using standard AP rounds could technicly penetrate about 70mm of armor at 1000 yards. a 75mm sherman tank gun on the other hand was often too short barreled to penetrate anything more than 30-40mm of armor at 1000 yards.

if we are pitting them against German Armor. no and No. the 57mm used standard AP rounds which most german armor was built to defeat.

[Karius]

Quite a few errors on that page mr powell. When I read that Panther Ausf A and G were 'identical but had different chassis' I've stopped reading. Rather biased work and selective quoting all over the place. Still, I'm waiting for your answer to my question.....

[Pyro Paul]

I've kinda lost what you're trying to prove in that situation, Pyro Paul. Like I said, situation dictates my actions.

The guys with SMGs, like you said, are 500+ meters away. I can hit a target accurately that far away with my M16, or suppress them with the SAW while my own or the other fireteam moves to flank, because I know for a fact that it's extremely unlikely that five guys with guns that have a maximum effective range of 200m will hit me from a half a klick away.

However, I doubt my team could do the same against a Zeus firing 23mm rounds at me at 30-1000 rounds per minute with a max range of about 3 klicks.

Your original point was that the caliber of the round matters when talking in terms of being suppressed. No, if you're inside either weapon's maximum effective range, then it doesn't matter. Your situation, however, includes the variable that I'm only inside one of the weapons ranges to do harm to me (which makes an enormous difference in terms of how likely I'll be to just get up and mosey into some better cover) and that I have no way of even harming the second weapon system at all(also making an enormous difference in my squad's decision making abilities).

Say the guys with MP-5s actually had a couple mounted M1919 .30 Machine Guns (a smaller caliber than 9mm!) with max effective ranges of 1370m, and I'd be just as likely to sit still as I would be against the ZSU, at least until I figured out a way to take them out.

Or instead, put me only 50m away from said sustained 9mm fire, and again, I'd be just as 'suppressed' as I would be against a ZSU.

Sure, there are major psychological differences between getting shot at by a 9mm and a 23mm autocannon, but the principles remain. If I'm getting shot at, and in just as much danger by leaving my current position as I would be for both weapons systems, I'm not fucking moving until the gunner's attention is elsewhere or I have another Fire Team "fixing" the issue. Both weapons pin me, regardless of caliber, until I find a way around or through them.

but at 500 meters the accuracy of both weapons is in general the same

a shilka shoots basicly 20-50 round bursts from each gun at a rate of fire of 200-500 rpm per barrel. giving you an 800-1000 income rounds of fire. and since it is a Radar guided anti aircraft gun system, it doesn't have an indicators to help it fire at ground based targets, which means that it is just as accurate as the 5 man fire team shooting at you.

the MP-5 shoots 900 rounds per minute and from 5 men, you are having an income volume fire of around 4500 rounds per minute. and the effective range is 600 meters on 9mm so you are well with in the are of effect of the SMG. even though the optimal engagement range is 100-300 meters.





although yes, you do have a very valid point, if your in the most effective kill zone of that gun, it would supress almost any one regardless of the caliber size. it is just 9mm effective kill zone is a stones through, while a 30.06 high powered support rifle's effective kill zone is around 800 meters.

i am just saying that is why BAR's are more effective at supressing than LMG42s. the sound on a BAR coupled with the large round, and high accuracy even at long range makes the BAR better at supressing than the MG42s volume fire of a smaller caliber with great inaccuracy.

[mr.powell]

Quite a few errors on that page mr powell. When I read that Panther Ausf A and G were 'identical but had different chassis' I've stopped reading. Rather biased work and selective quoting all over the place. Still, I'm waiting for your answer to my question.....

Well i would not say that every page is perfect in the sense of having always everything correct as from history there are different approaches towards certain issues and as informations many times vary they can then sometimes have slight differences from one another but that should be obvious for everyone.
I mean one site can have slight differences concerning the same issues as some another can have but if they are independent and are not influenced by any major war factions i tend to believe them more as those several german/american/russian sites that post certain things about their own and other tanks as these major factions sometimes tend to show their tanks in the 'right' spot light and as such i do not tend to use those sites a lot but of course even there you can have sites that still try to be neutral and as right as possible ;). But as i know that this site is even been used by WWII forums/members which (as it should be obvious) talk about the many facts/events in the WWII i believe this site even more and as they even post some sources about their informations i am more then willing to go with this sites and to use them as one of many other informational sources i have :).

1.) Now i ask myself what for a problem or what did you misunderstood about your self proclaimed 'issue/problem' that Ausf. A had the same turret as Ausf. G but the Ausf. G had a redesigned chassis as they NEVER stated that these two tanks were identical in every other sense so i have to assume that you clearly misunderstood the informations over there and newly interpreted this new thing that they are otherwise 'completely identical'!

2.) If you mean my posts that they are biased then i would say you should see and read some of those WWII pages and even books about it as i do not talk about biased matters but rather official informations about certain issues that were released to inform us about the WWII, its events and units that came to bear! Furthermore it is TRUE what this site writes about the penetrational stats you see there as they were taken directly from tests and books that stated certain mid/post war tests and as such i would not say that such a site has errors in it regarding those terms. Otherwise ignore what i wrote ;).

The answers:

Ok to answer your questions as they are held in general i would say that a 57mm can destroy with a single ap round at around 1000 yards 69mms of armor. On the other hand a standard 75mm gun would be unable to destroy a 80mm thick armored plate at any range as it did not had the muzzle velocity and lacked an extended barrel to do so.

As an addition, the only guns (within these caliber range) that would be possible to destroy those armor would be the 76mm M1A1/M1A1C/M1A2 and the 3 inch m5/7 anti tank guns which could with the right round penetrate up to 98mm of armor at 2000 yards!

I think i answered now your questions did i :).

[Karius]

Correct about the 75mm, rather dubious about the 57mm I'm afraid. Unless you're referring to the Soviet 57mm gun. It was a proven fact that Allied 57mm were unfortunately unsuitable for their intended role, i.e. taking out tanks.

Once faced with armor well in excess of 60mm which was the case with late-war German tanks, it could not penetrate as it showed the same issues that the short barreled 75mm tank gun had. Relatively low muzzle velocity as well as ammunition performance. Not to mention shatter gap effect due to German armor's high Brinell hardness values, especially on Tigers and Panthers. In addition the crude spaced armor concept with respect to Schurzen in Pz IV, StuG and/or Jagdpanzer vehicles. Granted, it wasn't their intended role, however they did perform similar to one.

As for your suggestion in reading about WWII, I can assure you that I am and I propose you do the same. Just pick a number of different sources from most sides as possible that attempt a non-biased approach as possible.

[mr.powell]

@ Karius

Well thank you :).

The sources i use are in most ways non-biased, as this one is, so do not worry ;).
Thats what i also said in the beginning, so just take it and read a bit.

About the U.S. 57mm you are correct. The only gun of this caliber that could for example penetrate german armor widely is the British 57mm, as far as i know, which is also called the 6 pdr but only with apds rounds it was well worth it but still unable to crack thick german armor at max. range like a Tiger I. Furthermore i never said that the 57mm ingame is realistic (do i?!) as i also dislike it having to have such a gun (costs just around 280 mp) that can ingame destroy a Tiger. I also would like to see another approach towards this kind of gameplay but thats the devs from relic ... be thankful to them because instead of making the Pershing how it should be, they simply decided (for a more infantry related army) to make the 57mm godlike to prevent making the Pershing how it should be but that also should be obvious and already been seen by all at CoH's near release ;).

[wokelly]

Actually I have to also back away from some of my statements on the 57mm. It could penetrate the frontal armor on a tiger at 100m, but really not with great consistency and only with a really good angle without many shattering rounds plus at a very flat angle.

For all intents and purposes during combat, especially during Normandy when APCBC ammo was being used, it would not likely take out a tiger frontally, maybe with some luck from spall but otherwise not enough really to make it likely. As for game mechanics, probably just balance as you really don't have

-----------

Aside from the Tiger issue I wonder how you have come to the conclusion the 57mm did not kill enemy tanks well? From the stand at Snipe onwards the 6 pounder did a good enough job too keep it in service years after WWII. Granted APDS was a big part of it surviving and staying in service in Normandy, but its after penetration power was not great and I am sure the British would have known that. The 57mm remained a good tank killer against the most common threat, the Mark 4 panzer.

--------------


Once faced with armor well in excess of 60mm which was the case with late-war German tanks, it could not penetrate as it showed the same issues that the short barreled 75mm tank gun had. Relatively low muzzle velocity as well as ammunition performance. Not to mention shatter gap effect due to German armor's high Brinell hardness values, especially on Tigers and Panthers. In addition the crude spaced armor concept with respect to Schurzen in Pz IV, StuG and/or Jagdpanzer vehicles. Granted, it wasn't their intended role, however they did perform similar to one.

Could you clarify what you mean here. Especially on the spaced armor part. I really cant make sense of what you are saying here

[Pyro Paul]

the American 57mm M1 Anti Tank gun was a shorter barreled version of the british 6 pounder gun, as well as only had AP rounds developed for it, unlike the 6 pndr which had all types of exotic ammo types develped for it including APDS. because of better german armor design, and the exclusive use of Face Hardened Armor the american 57mm could Never penetrate the frontal armor of most german tanks during the normandy invasions. after all Face Hardened armor is designed to defeat the use of Standard AP rounds, as shown through out the Eastern front.

the comment about the Schurzen is the over sized armor skirts placed on 1944 tanks (see Vet 3 Stugs and Panzer IVs for examples) the Schurzen was designed to stop the newly developed HEAT round which proved deadly effective against all tanks. a simple counter to the HEAT rounds is Spaced armor. and by extending an metal plate a foot away from the tank in a crude method added the spaced armor required to stop heat rounds.

however, it also had an unintended effect on lower velocity AP rounds as well. basic balistics dictates that when a round hits, it tends to tumble. as the 57mm round hit and penetrated the simple metal plate, it would inturn partly tumble before it hit the tank hull lessening its penetration power even more.

[wokelly]

Hmmm, okay didn't know that about the M1.

As for German armour, I'd be a bit cautious about talking about their armor. All tanks produced from the beginning of 1944 onwards had lower armor quality then before due to the switch from cromium-molybdenum type steel to a cromium-vanadium type steel. Plus given the improper quenching techniques by the Germans in an attempt to get as many tanks as possible out the door most German armour produced from the beginning of 1944 was inferior quality and very brittle.

I wonder what effect this would have on the M1 AT rounds given the armor they may have been facing would have been of a more brittle and lower quality (German cromium-vanadium armor was .5% carbon, which is pretty terrible, as bad as Italian Armour quality). Depends on how many tanks equiping German units in Normandy were built after the switch.

I will agree however on the FHA against AP shot. The British went over APC and later APCBC ammo because of how badly their AP shot was performing against the German FHA, as shown in North Africa.

I am curious about the tumbling issue you state though. I am somewhat surprised that a 5mm thick side armor sheet could cause tumbling in a large AT round. I know that it would cause tumbling for an AT rifle round given how small they are, but I find it odd that it could affect larger rounds.

A source would be nice, at least so I can learn a bit more about the subject.

[doomlord520]

"Well here is the answer the M7 3 inch gun had enough firepower at 2000 yards to destroy nearly 100mm of armored thickness !"

Yea, well the King Tiger, or TIGER ACE, you get 132mm of penetration at 2000 Yards.

Thats more than the front armour of ANY allied thank.... i STILL havent seen it. :wtf2:

[nichtganz]

The 3 inch m7 didnt even penetrate 75mm of armour at 1.800 m.

75mm @ 1.371 m

[mr.powell]

@ doomlord520

Well actually it is not more then any allied tank had ;).

See OF the Churchill Mk VII which had about 152mm of frontal armor or see even the Pershing 2 (Super Pershing) which had welded around several thick armored plates at its frontal turret as well as around his whole superstructure and especially at the front which was even sloped at 45° (which made ricocheting enemy shells way more probable). By the way actually the standard Pershing had already a better frontal armor then any Tiger I as it had tad more armor and its frontal armor was even sloped which made it more harder to penetrate. Furthermore people do not forget that the allies are not ONLY consistent of the U.S. faction but also of the many years longer in the WWII involved and battle-tested U.K. faction and many others hence the Allied Forces(like Canadia, France ...) and the U.K. had very good armored tanks (comparable to even a KT) and even better guns than the whole german tank army as the 17 pdr was one of the best AT weapons in the whole war and could just been dwarfed by the 90mm L71 caliber gun of the Pershing 2!

By the way i said that with apcr rounds such a gun including the 76mm M1A1C would destroy and as such one shot a Tiger or Panther in a range between 1000 to 1500 yards and could nearly do so in 2000 yards but as most tank battles are held at ranges between 1000 to 1500 yards, every tank destroyer that was fitted with those shells and had such a gun which was way more common in late '44 due to the monthly production rate of the U.S. War machinery, could one shot a Tiger or Panther independent of their armor facing!

As a last note, afaik the Tiger Ace was not the KT it was rather a symbolic meaning to those famous Tank commanders of the nazi germany Wehrmacht forces like Michael Wittmann or the like, so do not get it wrong as if it would be another name for a KT!

@ nichtganz

nah it did so at 2000 yards nichtganz with a standard apcbc round ... believe me!

Well about the Schuerzen, i also do not have a real evidence for it but as far as i know they were built on existing and new nazi germany tanks after encountering Russian anti-tank rifles, namely the 14.5 mm. PTRD and PTRS, which were small, easy to conceal and very effective against especially the side and rear armour of German tanks -and this up to Panthers! Therefore i would not say that they can withstand a direct AT gun shot but like i said there is no real evidence about this as those Schuerzen were just designed, used and tested against infantry based AT weapons as far as i know.

Edit:

@nichtganz

Well as far as i know apcr rounds are actually hvap rounds (which are rather a more common U.S. name for effective german anti tank rounds) and at late '44 the U.S. army produced about 10000 apcr rounds (designed for the M7 3inch and 76mm guns) on a monthly basis which would be enough to support several anti tank devisions with some of those babys and they would certainly not be that rare then just 90mm caliber apcr rounds which on the other hand were rather rare and would go into those categories though even they existed 'sufficient' in comparison to the only tanks (namely the Pershings ...) that could be outfitted with them.

[nichtganz]

I was talking about standard AP rounds which some 80-90 percent of the m10's had. APCR were slightly better. Only HVAP could do something like you mentioned and they were a rare sight and often put in better tanks.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M36_Jackson

[Cheech Marin]

Doomlord520, the King Tiger is not the same as the Tiger Ace. The Tiger Ace is just a regular Tiger with a crew of elite tankers that's probably been fighting since 1941.

[doomlord520]

Hmm... good point.
But most OF the Tiger 2s where operated BY Vetrans of the original Tiger, so that the more expensive (and even MORE complicated) Tiger 2s wouldnt go to waste.

[Panzeh]

The Tiger 2 was a mechanical monstrosity. More were lost to mechanical problems than the enemy and about as many reached combat as Pershings.

It's important to note that in western europe there wasn't normally 1000+ m of visibility and tanks normally engaged each other at close ranges. Allied tank losses were nowhere near 100:1 or even 2:1. The only way I might ever see anyone get 100:1 kill ratios is if you compare total tigers lost vs total allied tanks lost.

At close range, pretty much anything can kill anything. I can name many situations where shermans and allied TDs got favorable kill ratios against German armor.

Oh, and food for thought. The only tank unit in the normandy area when the invasion happened was the 100th panzer battalion, a unit of 40 or so captured french R-35s.

[nichtganz]

The King Tiger was nowhere as bad as people portray it to be (just slightly worse than the regular Tiger, but both tanks had their own problems, mainly with turning too fast, and the underpowered engines) . Fully maintenanced it was a god amongst mortals when it came to supporting friendly armor in armored combat.

[wokelly]

Its fuel efficiency was terrible though. The tank had 860 liters of fuel, go could 170 km on road, 120 off road. That comes down to:

On road = 5 liters/km - 1.2 gallons/km
Off road = 7 liters/km - 1.7 gallons/km

Germans would have been much better off with more Panthers I think. The King Tiger was really a waste of resources and really did not affect WWII at all. It was a very powerful tank, but at a time when Germany lacked resources it was an unwise decision and more Panthers would probably have been more effective.

[Pyro Paul]

well the thing was, even when fully maintained they still broke down.

when moving your column, you expected at least 20% of your tigers to fail because of technical reasons. even when the thing came straight from the shop.

[doomlord520]

Well actually it is not more then any allied tank had .

See OF the Churchill Mk VII which had about 152mm of frontal armor or see even the Pershing 2 (Super Pershing) which had welded around several thick armored plates at its frontal turret as well as around his whole superstructure and especially at the front which was even sloped at 45° (which made ricocheting enemy shells way more probable). By the way actually the standard Pershing had already a better frontal armor then any Tiger I as it had tad more armor and its frontal armor was even sloped which made it more harder to penetrate. Furthermore people do not forget that the allies are not ONLY consistent of the U.S. faction but also of the many years longer in the WWII involved and battle-tested U.K. faction and many others hence the Allied Forces(like Canadia, France ...) and the U.K. had very good armored tanks (comparable to even a KT) and even better guns than the whole german tank army as the 17 pdr was one of the best AT weapons in the whole war and could just been dwarfed by the 90mm L71 caliber gun of the Pershing 2!

i'm getting tired of these exadurations of allied tanks...

Well, actually the Churchil only had up to 102mm of armour, NON SLOPPED. Thats still a kill at 2k yards from tiger 2. The Pershing had upto 110 thats STILL a kill for the tiger at 2k yards. This Super Pershing, was completely useless, because only 2 were built. Just to get your facts straight, here is some info on what pershing were built.

M26A1E2. Experimental version armed with a longer T15E1/E2 gun.
M26E1, T26E4. Longer gun, single-part ammunition.
M26E2. New engine and transmission and M3A1 gun. Ended up as the M46 Patton.
T26E2, eventually standardized for use as the Heavy Tank M45 — a close support vehicle with a 105 mm howitzer (74 rounds).
T26E5. Prototype with thicker armor — a maximum of 279 mm.
M26A2. Not an actual design, just a drawing of a T26E3 with 150 mm armor, the 105 mm gun and 750hp engine of the M60 Patton and M48 Patton, with the double-baffle muzzle brake retained.

The fact is, the Tiger, and Tiger 2 where the biggest and most heavily armoured tanks in WW2. Although the allies did Develope tanks with more armour, they were never put into service.

[mr.powell]

i'm getting tired of these exadurations of allied tanks...

Well, actually the Churchil only had up to 102mm of armour, NON SLOPPED. Thats still a kill at 2k yards from tiger 2. The Pershing had upto 110 thats STILL a kill for the tiger at 2k yards. This Super Pershing, was completely useless, because only 2 were built. Just to get your facts straight, here is some info on what pershing were built.

M26A1E2. Experimental version armed with a longer T15E1/E2 gun.
M26E1, T26E4. Longer gun, single-part ammunition.
M26E2. New engine and transmission and M3A1 gun. Ended up as the M46 Patton.
T26E2, eventually standardized for use as the Heavy Tank M45 — a close support vehicle with a 105 mm howitzer (74 rounds).
T26E5. Prototype with thicker armor — a maximum of 279 mm.
M26A2. Not an actual design, just a drawing of a T26E3 with 150 mm armor, the 105 mm gun and 750hp engine of the M60 Patton and M48 Patton, with the double-baffle muzzle brake retained.

The fact is, the Tiger, and Tiger 2 where the biggest and most heavily armoured tanks in WW2. Although the allies did Develope tanks with more armour, they were never put into service.

First of all i am well aware of most of this info even before the release of CoH and to be honest i do not ALWAYS trust all the informations from your nice little wiki site which you showed me here though its good at some points but also have very much flaws regarding correct and detailed informations.

That being said, i want to be fair and tell you about what i actually talked! The Churchill Mk VII (http://www.mapleleafup.org/vehicles/cac/churchill.html) (which will be in the game OF) had around 152 mm of thick frontal armor which was more then enough to be impenetrable by 88mm kwk 36 (fielded by the Tiger I) at ranges beyond 500ms and then again only if this gun used Pzgr.40 which is of the german aquivalent type of apcr rounds which were becoming rarely at the late '44 of lesser tungsten income for those rounds to be manufactured! Even the 88mm kwk 43 (used by the Tiger II ) would only achieve a critical blow if it used apcr rounds but could therefore effectively destroy a Churchill Mk VII in one go at its frontal armor (though we all know due to the increasingly crippled german industry that those rounds got more and more rare as the war progressed and even the german armor like already one time stated somewhere was becoming also more instable/weaker protective [due to certain materials that the germans needed but lacked for their highly sophisticated and complex machines] and as such easier penetrative!).

About the M26 Pershing you actually meant the frontal turret armour which was at 110mms,(like i said do not trust everything that wiki writes :) ) its frontal armour was rather around 102mms [b]but in comparison to the standard Tiger I sloped at 45° which means 45° from vertical! This sloping was meant to make it even more harder armored at its front and even giving it a way higher chance to ricochet or like you would call 'bounce the shell off' of the armor from the Pershing. This attributes actually gave the M26 Pershing the nickname the 'Tiger Tamer' as it was more then a match for any Tiger I ever fielded.

The Super Pershing or Pershing 2 (which weighted around 53 tons and was nearly as heavy as the Tiger I though still faster and way better armoured and armed) was a more advanced version of the Pershing which had the newer and obviously longer and better 9 cm L71 caliber gun which was without a doubt one of the very few guns which would certainly be a match for any axis tank ever fielded (with exception of the JT=Jagdtiger) and its gun was supposed to be lethal in any way towards anything that considers itself heavily armoured and or armed ;). The same was with the Pershing 2s armour which used parts of the Panther armor to significantly increase its protection at its frontal turret and also around its superstructure which still retained its 45° sloping, though it got welded thick armored parts to all its sides and especially to its front!

I never said that the Tiger or Tiger II were not the biggest (which i would consider in a tank battle as a HUGE weakness) and the Tiger II obviously one of the best armoured tanks in the WWII though even those tanks had their matches as out there were tanks like the JS2-model '44 and Pershing 2s, Fireflys which could destroy this tank and the JS2s even proved it though the Pershing 2s had not so much luck to encounter T IIs enough to prove how effective the most powerful tank gun ever fielded by a Tank in the WWII would be,(of course apart from the 17pdr) but thats another story ;)!

Apart of this and of course the regular problems those tanks encounter and these problems are leaned especially towards the Tiger II which was unreliable and even could brake down (in the worst case) in the heat of the battle which would render the whole tank + crew a big target in the battle ... were things that were kinda like a big non debattable and rather unimportant facts for gameplay in this game! -but lets see what the future holds with CoH:OF.

Do not overestimate these myths/legends/gossip you always hear doomlord520 as facts speak the truth and i personally do trust more facts and stats about actual tests and books/documentations more then any myths or the like as should you and actually everybody else but like i said thats what is the truth about those units and what is even being said by several books relating to WWII ;).

[Pyro Paul]

funny you mention the Churchill VII.

yes, it did have 150 mm of frontal armor. however, it was still destroyed by the Tiger tank in massive numbers. even with the heavy armor, the Tiger tank could penetrate the Churchills armor Long before the churchill could get in range to penetrate the Tigers armor.

and fireflys couldn't destroy most tigers during the time frame reprsented.

there are accounts of a firefly landing consecutive hits on a Tiger I's frontal armor and only lightly damaging it.

and there are accounts of 76mm-90mm guns being shot at the Frontal plate of a Tiger 2s armor and being deflected.

[mr.powell]

funny you mention the Churchill VII.

yes, it did have 150 mm of frontal armor. however, it was still destroyed by the Tiger tank in massive numbers. even with the heavy armor, the Tiger tank could penetrate the Churchills armor Long before the churchill could get in range to penetrate the Tigers armor.

and fireflys couldn't destroy most tigers during the time frame reprsented.

there are accounts of a firefly landing consecutive hits on a Tiger I's frontal armor and only lightly damaging it.

and there are accounts of 76mm-90mm guns being shot at the Frontal plate of a Tiger 2s armor and being deflected.

Well the same would account in many occasions for the Pershing where i heard of one which reflected several shells in '45 from several different german tanks like the Panther, Tiger I, Pz IV et cetera and was still operational and even destroyed those tanks in a few days! (sorry for this as i am not sure whether it happened as i just heard about it)

But you know all these things are maybe very rare as in a war many those things can happen but (like i said the same can be said about the other sides where those accounts can also have happened and without historical proof they are to be considered non-existent and rather myth and theocrafting) i would NOT think that a 17 pdr or a 90mm cannon would be reflected as even the standard shells would one shot a Tiger I from each gun (in the tank ranges they fought at that time) and especially not a 17 pdr which was a tad better then the standard 90mm M3 gun ... so like i said never trust rumors or the like which were said to be true actions but no one can actually confirm them as they are just meant to propagate the myth of the german tanks even more and thats what many people sometimes seemed to believe in, as for example the Reichpropagandaministerium was very good at exactly doing this during the war and especially at the late phases where they motivated the last men of nazi germany to fight with their life for the Führer Hitler! (though he already killed himself at early '45 within his private bunker before the Allies would invade Berlin and take him as a POW ... ya what a mighty Führer aint he!!!)

And it seems to me as non-American, non-British ... that many those tv shows et cetera were easily impressed by so much propaganda ;) ... where just maybe (at max.) half of those propaganda had actual proof or was not containing certain lies (or was just meant to bring down the morale of the enemy troops ... yes people trust me psychological warfare is very effective when it is being used wisely!) which just were used to strike fear into the hearts of their enemies ;)! It is kinda lame to see that no tv show actually says anything about inventions like the 17pdr or the Pershing or the Firefly or so many other tanks that the allies had to finally stop this indirectly ongoing of spreading propaganda already many decades after the war from a really, really bad side ... i mean i like a good and especially technically based tv show but please guys talk a bit about other things like the Sherman Firefly or for example the Pershing or even about the Pershing 2 which ALSO was in the WWII ... even if it had just a 'guest appearance' so that the people of today do not get influenced by this whole propaganda where half of it (if not even more) is totally myth and rumors to spread about how powerful those WWII german tanks are! (Unfortunately the general audience even believes what they say as they do not have any background knowledge or knowledge AT ALL to be even able to differ what is actually truth and what is rather more myth/gossip/rumors :rolleyes: )

Just my :twocents: .

Edit: Pyro Paul could you give me a (historical) source where a Tiger I destroyed a Churchill Mk VII at a range of lets say 2000ms effectively at the Churchills frontal glacias, because i really would like to see an actual proof around this myth ;) ... furthermore i am interested in this as i also want to expand my knowledge about the British units a bit.

Edit2: It is also very fascinating for me to 'see' and 'notice' how certain U.S./U.K. shows (which we see a lot of in the 'youtube section' and which seems to me sometimes that many people try to use as their knowledge base/foundation which is actually not a good idea but thats perhaps just me ;) ... ) talk so impressed about such weapons and topics of the WWII (though they even faced them and those weapons even killed their soldiers, family fathers and veterans and they still are so impressed by it [by the way here you obviously 'see' the effect of propaganda from the Reichspropagandaministerium though it does not exist anymore ... fortunately]) and in Germany everyone just wants to not even be confronted about such a very bad time the 'normal' germans had to go through. I mean nobody actually cares those events in germany or those units as all the sane people just hate this era and all what happened there and do not want to be remembered about such an ashaming and even worse time.

[Pyro Paul]

i didn't say 2000 meters. i said a Tiger could penetrate a Churchills mk VII long before the Churchill could penetrate the Tigers.


a Tiger could penetrate the Frontal Arch of a church hill with his 88 gun at 500-600 meters.

the Churchhill MK VII armed with a Short barreled 6 pounder QF cannon could Never penetrate the frontal arch of a Tigers armor save for point blank (50-100 yards)


so in turn, a Tiger could penetrate the churchills armor long before a churchhill could penetrate a tigers.

[mr.powell]

i didn't say 2000 meters. i said a Tiger could penetrate a Churchills mk VII long before the Churchill could penetrate the Tigers.


a Tiger could penetrate the Frontal Arch of a church hill with his 88 gun at 500-600 meters.

the Churchhill MK VII armed with a Short barreled 6 pounder QF infintry support cannon could Never penetrate the frontal arch of a Tigers armor.


so in turn, a Tiger could penetrate the churchills armor long before a churchhill could penetrate a tigers.

Well thats of course right but i think no Churchill Mk VII commander would like to come into those ranges to fight the Tiger I but would rather call in a Firefly to destroy the Tiger I before it even knows what happens as the Firefly as well as the Pershing had a gun that could destroy the Tiger I way ahead of 2000ms as their guns did damage that would exceed the armor of the Tiger I by far at even ranges that would go higher then 2000ms ;) ... so the Tiger crew would not even notice what hit them as soon as one shell landed from lets say 2200 ms from a Firefly from its 17pdr and destroyed therefore the Tiger I (granted that you have such a top gunner at your 17pdr gun who can aim at those ranges under certain circumstances and of course terrains)!

Apart from that and that you should know that the Churchill Mk VII was a tank that was build for infantry support as it did not had a 6pdr gun but rather a QF 75mm infantry support gun which was actually a weaker gun agains armour but more potent gun against infantry you are right ... what you possibly meant with 6pdr Churchill was rather the Mk IV which had around 101 mms of frontal armour and a British 6pdr gun which would destroy a Tiger I at nearly 2000 yards at its frontal armour ;).

[doomlord520]

Origian post by Mr.Powell (Post #96)
The Churchill Mk VII (which will be in the game OF) had around 152 mm of thick frontal armor which was more then enough to be impenetrable by 88mm kwk 36 (fielded by the Tiger I) at ranges beyond 500ms and then again only if this gun used Pzgr.40 which is of the german aquivalent type of apcr rounds which were becoming rarely at the late '44 of lesser tungsten income for those rounds to be manufactured!


AGH!! THE TIGER FEILDED A KWK 43!!! Here is a nice little chart with the penetration values of the KWK 43 L/71 88mm gun using PzGr. 40/43
(APCR) rounds , Its from a company which spends its time resotring, and researching WW2 tanks.

Name: PzGr. 40/43
Shell Weight: 7.3 Kgs
Initial velocity: 1030 m/sec.
Range / Penetratio
100 m / 238 mm
500 m / 217 mm
1000 m / 193 mm
1500 m / 171 mm
2000 m / 132 mm

[mr.powell]

AGH!! THE TIGER FEILDED A KWK 43!!! Here is a nice little chart with the penetration values of the KWK 43 L/71 88mm gun using PzGr. 40/43
(APCR) rounds , Its from a company which spends its time resotring, and researching WW2 tanks.

Name: PzGr. 40/43
Shell Weight: 7.3 Kgs
Initial velocity: 1030 m/sec.
Range / Penetratio
100 m / 238 mm
500 m / 217 mm
1000 m / 193 mm
1500 m / 171 mm
2000 m / 132 mm

Well first off please read my first post and especially the last paragraph which states to be nice and respectable in this thread doomlord520 and i beg you kindly to follow this rules in my thread. (So you can calm down as we just talk/discuss and do not want to flame each other)

1.) If you would read my posts and would have even more background knowledge which you seem to lack (only if you really always misunderstand and misinterpret me but as i try to be as exact as possible, which is shown in the quote you made by my post, it slowly comes to my mind that you really lack the knowledge or just do not want to understand what i write :) ) about the WWII (please do not take this as an insult as it simply are things i recognize when talking with you which is not meant in any way offending as i would like to help you getting more knowledge about the WWII if you like :) [but only via PM due to obvious reasons]) then you would 'see' what i meant with my states i posted.

2.) Well i have said this about the Tiger I and not II as the II had a kampfwagenkanone 43 but as we talked about the Tiger I ... well please see for yourself as i do not want to always explain everything and get tired sometimes doing this in a game instead of a military science forum (where i would certainly do it more times but that for obvious reasons ;) )



Originally posted by myself :)
The Churchill Mk VII (which will be in the game OF) had around 152 mm of thick frontal armor which was more then enough to be impenetrable by 88mm kwk 36 (fielded by the Tiger I) at ranges beyond 500ms and then again only if this gun used Pzgr.40 which is of the german aquivalent type of apcr rounds which were becoming rarely at the late '44 of lesser tungsten income for those rounds to be manufactured!


Well please read and be enlightened as the Tiger I did not had the kwk 43 and if you want a prove head over to wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_I) which is one of the things where i would not intervine nor say that you are wrong if you this time would quote/bring up statements from wiki ;).

By the way for accurate test/book/documentary related, independent, and uninfluenced info about weapons stats and some other things look here (http://gva.freeweb.hu/weapons/german_guns7.html) :).

[wokelly]

i'm getting tired of these exadurations of allied tanks...

Well, actually the Churchil only had up to 102mm of armour, NON SLOPPED. Thats still a kill at 2k yards from tiger 2. The Pershing had upto 110 thats STILL a kill for the tiger at 2k yards. This Super Pershing, was completely useless, because only 2 were built. Just to get your facts straight, here is some info on what pershing were built.

There were more then ONE verson of the Churchill. The Churchill 3 and Churchill 4 (the 3 having a welded turret, the 4 having a cast one) had 101mm hull armor and 86mm turret armor.

The Churchill 7 had 152mm of hull and turret armor.

However Churchill 3 and 4s did served in Normandy and while I have no idea about numbers compared to the Churchill heavy (church7), their armor would not have been increased I dont think, leaving them quite vulnerable compared to other Churchill 7 tanks.



and fireflys couldn't destroy most tigers during the time frame reprsented.

there are accounts of a firefly landing consecutive hits on a Tiger I's frontal armor and only lightly damaging it.

and there are accounts of 76mm-90mm guns being shot at the Frontal plate of a Tiger 2s armor and being deflected.

Thats quite the statement. Most 76mm to 90mm guns problems was simple the hardness and quality of the Tigers armor. The Tiger had the highest quality armor of any WWII tank, which often mean rounds that should have penetrated often broke up on contact due to close proximity and bad angle the round impacted.

In most cases the 17 pounder and 90mm ventilated the Tiger frontally from long and close ranges.

As for the King Tiger, there is no recorded instance of a Tiger 2 being penetrated frontally, though the really powerful weapons the Allies possessed could do the job at decent ranges. When you get armor like the King Tigers which is really thick and sloped, it is harder for rounds that should statistically penetrate to actually penetrate.



a Tiger could penetrate the Frontal Arch of a church hill with his 88 gun at 500-600 meters.

the Churchhill MK VII armed with a Short barreled 6 pounder QF cannon could Never penetrate the frontal arch of a Tigers armor save for point blank (50-100 yards)

The Tiger could only cause internal spalling at 500m at best. 100 meters is the only range the 88 might be able to get through the front armor, even then with shatter gap the 88mm might simple break up upon impact at that range if it hit at a bad angle due to the really thick armor.

The churchill was armed with a 75mm. Some earlier 75mm armed churchills had 6 pounder guns who's barrels were carved out allow 75mm rounds to be used due to the shortage of the Guns in Britian. They had [b]slightly]/b] better penetration but not enough to notice a difference. You might be getting confused with that. Either way it could not hurt a tiger frontally except maybe a gun kill or taking out the tracks.

You are right, the tiger could kill the churchill 7 long before the churchill 7 could kill it, simply because the churchill 7 could never kill the tiger frontally while the Tiger had to get really close to get a penetration, though a non penetration kill because of spall could be achieved at 300-400m.



AGH!! THE TIGER FEILDED A KWK 43!!! Here is a nice little chart with the penetration values of the KWK 43 L/71 88mm gun using PzGr. 40/43
(APCR) rounds , Its from a company which spends its time resotring, and researching WW2 tanks.

The Tiger 1 did not have the 88mm L/71 gun. It had the 88mm L/51 which would could not penetrate the frontal armor of a churchill7 except maybe at 100 meters distance, though it could cause internal spall probably out to 300-400m.

[doomlord520]

Well first off please read my first post and especially the last paragraph which states to be nice and respectable in this thread doomlord520 and i beg you kindly to follow this rules in my thread. (So you can calm down as we just talk/discuss and do not want to flame each other)

1.) If you would read my posts and would have even more background knowledge which you seem to lack (only if you really always misunderstand and misinterpret me but as i try to be as exact as possible, which is shown in the quote you made by my post, it slowly comes to my mind that you really lack the knowledge or just do not want to understand what i write :) ) about the WWII (please do not take this as an insult as it simply are things i recognize when talking with you which is not meant in any way offending as i would like to help you getting more knowledge about the WWII if you like :) [but only via PM due to obvious reasons]) then you would 'see' what i meant with my states i posted.

2.) Well i have said this about the Tiger I and not II as the II had a kampfwagenkanone 43 but as we talked about the Tiger I ... well please see for yourself as i do not want to always explain everything and get tired sometimes doing this in a game instead of a military science forum (where i would certainly do it more times but that for obvious reasons ;) )



Well please read and be enlightened as the Tiger I did not had the kwk 43 and if you want a prove head over to wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_I) which is one of the things where i would not intervine nor say that you are wrong if you this time would quote/bring up statements from wiki ;).

By the way for accurate test/book/documentary related, independent, and uninfluenced info about weapons stats and some other things look here (http://gva.freeweb.hu/weapons/german_guns7.html) :).

ok, i just spent a long time looking up the armour of the churchill 7. The thickest armour, was NOT 152mm, but 139mm (http://www.wwiiequipment.com/churchill.aspx). Now, according to you, the Tiger 1 had a KWK 36, which is what the wiki link you gave me said. The kwk firing a Pzgr. 40 (APCR) (according to the wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8.8_cm_KwK_36)) could penetrate 138mm at 1000m. Thats 1mm LESS than the churchill 7 frontal armour. All that pretty much means, a Tiger 1, with a KWK 36 firing the standard armour percing round, could kill a chcurchill 7, at slightly less than 1000m.


The Tiger 1 did not have the 88mm L/71 gun. It had the 88mm L/51 which would could not penetrate the frontal armor of a churchill7 except maybe at 100 meters distance, though it could cause internal spall probably out to 300-400m.

ok, I could not find ANY info on the L/51. Infact, i could find any info that it was even a KWK. Do you have a link?

[Pyro Paul]

several pages ahead there was a big aurgument about it. the Tiger I was fitted with a 88 mm KwK 36 L/56 gun. (although it isn't 51 as he mentioned, it is much closer than to the L/71 which you mentioned)

Tiger I info (http://www.fprado.com/armorsite/tiger1-03.htm)

the Tiger II on the other hand was outfitted with the powerful 88 mm KwK 43 L/71 gun.

Tiger II info (http://www.fprado.com/armorsite/tiger2.htm)


and on that note. the L/## is not the designation of the gun. the KwK is the designation as to how it is used, which is then followed by the number designation (often the date it was first developed)

the way the german guns where identified where by its bore size, designation, then length. in which length is found by multiplying the length of the bore by the number shown after the L.

so a Tigers main gun was only about 500 cm long, where as a Tiger IIs main gun was about 625 cm long. and just so you don't think that the L/## is uniform, the Panther used a 7.5 cm KwK 42 L/70 cannon. however the barrel length was only 525 cm long.


ok, i just spent a long time looking up the armour of the churchill 7. The thickest armour, was NOT 152mm, but 139mm (http://www.wwiiequipment.com/churchill.aspx)

um. that link you just gave Does show that the Churchill MK VII did have 150+mm of frontal armor.


|Hull Front| 88.9(I.T.80)+12.7(MS)| 152.4(I.T.80)| 152.4(I.T.80)|

the first number being the Churchill VI, the second being the VII and third being VIII.

the Churchill 7 has 152.4 mm of frontal armor. really, i have no clue what in the world the hull upper nose and lower nose are. unless if it is talking about the under carriage. in which the 139mm is the thickness of the under side of the tank

[wokelly]

ok, I could not find ANY info on the L/51. Infact, i could find any info that it was even a KWK. Do you have a link?

Typo on my part. I meant the L/56



so a Tigers main gun was only about 500 cm long, where as a Tiger IIs main gun was about 625 cm long. and just so you don't think that the L/## is uniform, the Panther used a 7.5 cm KwK 42 L/70 cannon. however the barrel length was only 525 cm long.

No its not uniform. The L/56 or L/71 is based on the length of the barrel divided by the diameter of the shell.

Tiger 2 gun = Shell Diameter is 88mm, barrel length is 6250mm

6250/88 = 71.0227 which is rounded to 71. So 88mm L/71

Panther gun = Shell Diameter is 75mm, barrel length is 5250mm

5250/75 = 70.0. So its the 75mm L/70

Regardless its still a pretty easy way of distinguishing between the two types of guns. Its just the way I distinguish between the two but I thin it still get the point across.


ok, i just spent a long time looking up the armour of the churchill 7. The thickest armour, was NOT 152mm, but 139mm.

Okay you do know that website says the max armor was 152mm right? The only frontal place on the Churchill that was 139mm was the lower hull, which was sloped anyways to give the lower hull an effective strength of around 152mm. There was another part on the front of the tank that was only 57mm, but it was so sloped I doubt any shell could actually hit it with its nose. See below:

http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/1708/imgp3474tg1.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

I apologize for the darkness of the picture. The mesuem did not have ideal lighting inside.



Now, according to you, the Tiger 1 had a KWK 36, which is what the wiki link you gave me said. The kwk firing a Pzgr. 40 (APCR) (according to the wiki) could penetrate 138mm at 1000m. Thats 1mm LESS than the churchill 7 frontal armour. All that pretty much means, a Tiger 1, with a KWK 36 firing the standard armour percing round, could kill a chcurchill 7, at slightly less than 1000m.

What the hell are you talking about. Pzgr 40 WAS NOT the standard 88mm round. It was Pzgr 39 not Pzgr 40. Pzgr 40 was a specialty round that had a tungsten core in it. The Germans had very little if any shells left with a tungsten core left by 1944. Their stock piles had depleted by late 1943 and any supplies they were getting were used to make machine tools to build guns and tanks.

I don't give a sh*t what Pzgr 40 could do. The Germans didnt even have any left except maybe a rare shell here or there. There was a rumor that a shell or two was given to Tiger crews and Panther crews to deal with IS-2's on the eastern front, but it is hardly confirmed.

Specialty ammo is hardly a way of evaluating the effectiveness of a gun, especially since it never made up more then a small portion of the ammo carried by a tank. The Germans had little or no tungsten ammo in 1944, the allies had no tungsten ammo until early 1944. Thus for you to talk about the Tigers 88mm gun using Pzgr 40 in a 1944 campaign would be like me talking about how the 57mm could kill tigers frontally in North Africa in 1943. Neither of those scenarios are plausable simply because neither side had a supply of tungsten specialty ammo during that time period.

[Pyro Paul]

i like my explination better, even though it says the same exact thing.

i said 'its not uniform' trying to point out that an 8.8 cm gun with marking L/71 wouldn't be the same near length of an 7.5 cm gun with marking L/70.

[mr.powell]

.
.
.

What the hell are you talking about. Pzgr 40 WAS NOT the standard 88mm round. It was Pzgr 39 not Pzgr 40. Pzgr 40 was a specialty round that had a tungsten core in it. The Germans had very little if any shells left with a tungsten core left by 1944. Their stock piles had depleted by late 1943 and any supplies they were getting were used to make machine tools to build guns and tanks.

I don't give a sh*t what Pzgr 40 could do. The Germans didnt even have any left except maybe a rare shell here or there. There was a rumor that a shell or two was given to Tiger crews and Panther crews to deal with IS-2's on the eastern front, but it is hardly confirmed.

Specialty ammo is hardly a way of evaluating the effectiveness of a gun, especially since it never made up more then a small portion of the ammo carried by a tank. The Germans had little or no tungsten ammo in 1944, the allies had no tungsten ammo until early 1944. Thus for you to talk about the Tigers 88mm gun using Pzgr 40 in a 1944 campaign would be like me talking about how the 57mm could kill tigers frontally in North Africa in 1943. Neither of those scenarios are plausable simply because neither side had a supply of tungsten specialty ammo during that time period.
.
.
.

Right!

Yep it is actually a fact that at '44 germany was rather 'regulary' pounded by allied bombing runs which especially tried to target weapons and tank factories though unfortunately due to barely good sight on the targets (due to bad weather/night missions [yes at that time they lacked modern radars and or targeting computers et cetera and mostly bombard on sight!]) mostly bombarded whole areas to shreds as they wanted to make sure that the main targets would not be spared which of course was something really bad as the bombers did not care whether they bombed civilians or not which was of course a crime on the allied side towards the german civil population and which i personally would punish to the max but as war (unfortunately) nearly always has civilian casualties ... well ... you know.

But what i wanted to say with this is actually that wokelly is true about the fact that germany had less and even fewer materials to even use tungsten for their apcr rounds whereas the allied war machinery got more and more of those rounds and as such had more and more a chance of destroying even the german heavy tanks at considerable ranges as even the german armour suffered under immense material losses but thats again another story. So its sufficient to say that whereas the allies got at '44 (and upwards of course) more and more efficient ways of destroying germans tanks the germans get less and less efficient ways of protecting their highly complex war machines from allied fire during the course of the very last years/months!

[wokelly]

^^^^^^

Right, though the tungsten shortage was more due to the fact the county that supplied them Tungsten was pressured by the Allied nations to suspend shipments. I believe it might have been Sweden that was the German supplier of Tungsten, but to be honest I forget if it was. Regardless the shipments eventually stopped by sometime in 1943. Any tungsten they did get went to replacing worn out drill bits to make more weapons of war.

But you are correct on the Germans running out of raw materials to keep their war machine going. One of the most important shortages was the material Molybdenum, which was a key material in German Armor on their tanks. Molybdenum was running out by the end of 1943, and from early 1944 the Germans switched Molybdenum with Vanadium, an inferior material that resulted in inferior armor on German tanks from early 1944 until the end of the war.

German armor thus went to a .5% carbon, 2% Chromium, and .14% Vanadium composition. One of the problems was the high carbon content. Good RHA (Rolled Homogeneous Armor) in the US or UK typically is no higher than .3% carbon at worst. Poor quality steel such as was found in some of the Italian AFV ran as high as .5-.6% carbon, and that of course yields generally horrid shatter performance. Thus German armor was often of a lower quality then Allied armour on their tanks.

The lack of quality armor when added with improper quenching of German armor and the use of less alloy to allow the vanadium based armor to remain a given weight, the Germans often ended up with armor of an inferior hardness then what they were seeking. And to top it off with the improper tempering of the armor led the Germans to actually induce brittleness into an already faulty plate.

During the war the Allies conducted tests of German, Italian and Japanese armor. The armor was flame cut in a way to make sure it did not affect testing. Tests done on the glacis of a Panther showed all the symptoms of faulty armor plating. Its not that the design of the plate or the weld was bad, but that the Germany was out of alloys required for good steel production, and the substitute process adopted was inferior in every way to the material it was replacing. When you throw bad manufacturing process on top of that (improper quench and temper) in hurry to get the vehicle out the door, you get what was seen in combat; brittle and shatter failures in plates which shouldn’t have those issues.

In regards to armor of 2" or less, it was an outright disaster, with examples of Shermans cracking or blowing off entire sections of Panther side armor with High Explosive shells. Obviously this should never have happened on any tank if their armor was up to snuff, and it surprised US officals to see such a drop in Quality, leading them to conclude the Germans were nearing the end (materially) of the line.

It should be noted this was NOT just a problem with the Panther. All german tanks from early 1944 onward built suffered from the change in armor composition.

[doomlord520]

Typo on my part. I meant the L/56



No its not uniform. The L/56 or L/71 is based on the length of the barrel divided by the diameter of the shell.

Tiger 2 gun = Shell Diameter is 88mm, barrel length is 6250mm

6250/88 = 71.0227 which is rounded to 71. So 88mm L/71

Panther gun = Shell Diameter is 75mm, barrel length is 5250mm

5250/75 = 70.0. So its the 75mm L/70

Regardless its still a pretty easy way of distinguishing between the two types of guns. Its just the way I distinguish between the two but I thin it still get the point across.



Okay you do know that website says the max armor was 152mm right? The only frontal place on the Churchill that was 139mm was the lower hull, which was sloped anyways to give the lower hull an effective strength of around 152mm. There was another part on the front of the tank that was only 57mm, but it was so sloped I doubt any shell could actually hit it with its nose. See below:

http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/1708/imgp3474tg1.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

I apologize for the darkness of the picture. The mesuem did not have ideal lighting inside.



What the hell are you talking about. Pzgr 40 WAS NOT the standard 88mm round. It was Pzgr 39 not Pzgr 40. Pzgr 40 was a specialty round that had a tungsten core in it. The Germans had very little if any shells left with a tungsten core left by 1944. Their stock piles had depleted by late 1943 and any supplies they were getting were used to make machine tools to build guns and tanks.

I don't give a sh*t what Pzgr 40 could do. The Germans didnt even have any left except maybe a rare shell here or there. There was a rumor that a shell or two was given to Tiger crews and Panther crews to deal with IS-2's on the eastern front, but it is hardly confirmed.

Specialty ammo is hardly a way of evaluating the effectiveness of a gun, especially since it never made up more then a small portion of the ammo carried by a tank. The Germans had little or no tungsten ammo in 1944, the allies had no tungsten ammo until early 1944. Thus for you to talk about the Tigers 88mm gun using Pzgr 40 in a 1944 campaign would be like me talking about how the 57mm could kill tigers frontally in North Africa in 1943. Neither of those scenarios are plausable simply because neither side had a supply of tungsten specialty ammo during that time period.

ok, from that picture, it looks like a brick on treads. There isnt very much (visible) sloped armour. The Gun on the chruchill looks really weak, probably a 75 or something. The tiger COULD fire more than 1 shell at the thing. The first causing strucutal damage, and the second one taking the thing out.
Again, The churchill 7 couldnt penentrate Tiger armour from long range, so that would mean a close range tank battle, where the Tiger's 88 would kill the thing.

[mr.powell]

@doomlord520

Well doomlord520 it seems that you do not want to understand us :(.

We never said that the Tiger I could not kill the Churchill Mk. VII but that ONLY at very, v e r y close range and therefore those tank battles would never been fought as no Churchill Tank Cmdr. would like to face off a Tiger at ranges between 100 to 500ms which should be obvious why ;)! Anyway we also never stated that the QF 75mm would destroy a Tiger (maybe from behind) as it was meant for Infantry support ... you need to read and understand then again read and comprehend what we said :).

However the 6pdr. gun of a Churchill Mk. IV could destroy a Tiger effectively at a range between 1000 to 2000 yards with one shot but as this is outta discussion i will not go further into detail with this!

So please understand before you write once more a post which seems that you simply want to get the last word on the matter :) (so i am sorry as i will not go into further discussions about this as i do not want to have the last word on it but i just felt the urge to answer this as this post was kinda ... well redundant as no one of us said anything that would justify it ;) ).

[wokelly]

ok, from that picture, it looks like a brick on treads. There isnt very much (visible) sloped armour.

Yeah not the best. This one shows it much better.

http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/1660/canchurchill1campbordenhn9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

The lower hull, which is 140mm thick is sloped so in effect it has 152mm effective armor. The picture above is the churchill 2, it did not have 152mm armor anywhere but the hull shape remained the same, thus it can be used to show how the lower hull of the churchill 7 was sloped, not a lot but enough to make 140mm into an effective strength of 152mm. Its not a hugely noticeable slope, only about 20 degrees, just enough to make it an effective 152mm.


The Gun on the chruchill looks really weak, probably a 75 or something.

Weak in what sense? The 75mm could deal with the majority of German tanks. In Normandy there were over 900 mark 4 panzers, over 600 StuG tanks, and over 200 other tanks from marauders to maybe panzer 3s. That made up about 70% of the German armored force in Normandy. The 75mm could deal with those tanks within 800m, which was about the max range most battles took place in Normandy due to the foilage, it was 500m for the Americans in their sectors.

Obviously the Churchill couldn't do anything to a tiger, and it was easily dead if it encountered a Panther frontally, but otherwise it could deal with 70% of all german tanks and easily all ATGs with HE shells, while at the same time being invulnerable to to all Anti-tank tank guns frontally except for the pak 43 (which was rare) and to the guns on 70% of the Geramn tanks.

However i am not going to claim the 75mm was an terrific gun, a better gun should have been installed on Allied tanks. Indeed it was hoped the 77mm HV gun that was on the Comet tank in 1945 would be able to be fitted to all Cromwells but the turret ring was too small. I would not call the 75mm really weak, but the single biggest problem with allied tanks was their inadequate firepower when facing the big cats of the German army, and while the majority of German tanks in Normandy could be dealt within the 800m range battles usually took place, at critical times during a battle the allied tanks were often unable to bring sufficient firepower to bear on heavy German tanks that were sighted and supported. The 17 pounder went some way to fix that problem, combining a powerful gun (more powerful then the 88 on the tiger) and an extremely reliable chassis, but their numbers were small and in the end the 75mm armed Sherman's and Cromwell's and Churchill's had to shoulder the burden.


The tiger COULD fire more than 1 shell at the thing. The first causing strucutal damage, and the second one taking the thing out.

Armor doesnt work like that. Granted if the armor is hit many times it will weaken, but its not just a two shot thing. Armor generally deflects or gets penetrated. It spalls rather then bends or weakens, but enough near penetrating hits can cause the armor to weaken.

Again, The churchill 7 couldnt penentrate Tiger armour from long range, so that would mean a close range tank battle, where the Tiger's 88 would kill the thing.

Yeah that much is true. But the chances of Churchills and Tigers meeting would be rare. There were 120 tigers in Normandy (160 if you include the 40 King Tigers deployed from Goodwood onwards) and only about 300 Churchills serving at the front at any one time.

Thus we come back to what started this debate, for all intents and purposes anything short of a 75mm L/70 or 88mm (both kwk 36 and kwk 43) should bounce off the frontal armor. I was originally against the Tiger hurting the Churchill frontally but I will relent on that, between spall and maybe frontal penetration at 80-100m.