Tank Crew: Is gun - armor performance an important part of a tank SIM?

[LachenKrieg]

 

I would hope that most if not all would agree the answer to the question in the thread's title is yes.

 

And while most systems modeled in the SIM appear to be done to a very high degree of accuracy, I have seen questionable in-game results with the 75mm M4A2 Sherman. And while the in-game Sherman did have a better armor setup then the Pz IV G especially on its turret, the Panzer IV G had the more powerful gun. The strengths and weaknesses of both tanks should make for some very interesting game play, except the current Tank Crew model seems to favor the Sherman too much.

 

The linked video shows examples of SP game play between the Sherman and Pz IV G where even at 200m using APCR rounds, the Pz IV G has trouble knocking out the Sherman. Like others that have reported a similar experience, I have also seen this in MP game play. While the Pz IV G has weaker armor, it also has a much smaller silhouette and should be able to utilize terrain to its advantage against the height of the Sherman's turret. 

 

In a related thread that questioned whether the Sherman could penetrate the Tiger's gun sight from 1000m, it was shown that this result is theoretically possible, but the calculations used to make that determination were by no means complete. Part of the problem it seems is that it is difficult to determine the exact armor thickness of the gun mantlet that houses the gun sight view ports. Using a very credible source, it was discovered that the area around the view ports themselves is hollowed out to a thickness of 70mm, lending to the assumption that the Sherman could penetrate there. It is also mentioned that this area is then stepped up to an 80mm thickness.

 

An important question in this regard is the dimensions of the 80mm thick area, as it is implicated in making a determination as to whether or not the Sherman can penetrate the Tiger's gun sight from 1000m. One poster to that thread suggested that the stepped 80mm area has an opening in the face of the armor of approximately 100mm x 180mm, and also superimposed the armor thickness of an early Tiger mantlet on a top-down drawing of a later design.

 

I have since communicated with the original source of the information pertaining to the hollowed out section of the gun sight to ask if he had more precise measurements for the 80mm subsection.

 

The following is his response: " There is no simple answer. The back of the mantlet in this area was carved out in a complex way.
I have not yet drawn it or got to grips with it.

Hopefully these will help (temporary images, download them)."

 

Unfortunately, he was not able to provide more details as to the dimensions of the 80mm area, but in the attached images he provided, we can see that large parts of the 70mm area are not stepped up to 80mm as previously suggested, but appear to be more tapered. This is especially visible along the upper edge of the gun sight housing in the mantlet as shown in the image of the actual tank interior. The implications of this are that it affects the amount of armor in the area of question. And while the calculations done likely underestimated the amount of armor thickness, it would still have to be significant enough to overcome the inherent weakness created by the openings for the view ports themselves. 

 

The issue of whether the in-game result is possible was further complicated by two photos showing an early Tiger mantlet that had been penetrated through the gun sight, and a revised mantlet with improved armor thickness capable of withstanding direct hits. It was correctly proposed that the image of the revised mantlet is not relevant because it uses a different armor setup then the Tiger tank modeled in-game, but this point is somehow overlooked when viewing the image of the early Tiger mantlet that was penetrated, as the cannon that fired that shot was likely not the gun of the 75mm Sherman modeled in Tank Crew. 

 

Never the less, another poster to that thread reasoned that based on an unconfirmed date of the the early Tiger photo in question, the most likely caliber was a 76mm gun. I can only guess that the importance of this is an attempt to further bolster the claim that a 75mm Sherman could penetrate the Tiger's gun sight. And his assumption was further supported by the claim that the penetration mark in the photo was <100mm, when in fact the opening has to be >117mm, and could easily be 122mm.

 

The endpoint to this being whether or not the Sherman can penetrate the in-game Tiger tanks gun sight from 1000m. Since it is theoretically plausible, then having it modeled in Tank Crew is reasonable. But considering that there were about 100 Tiger tanks with this type of mantlet and that nearly all of them were knocked out by shots other than through the gun sight, it also raises questions of probability. Just in a span of a couple of weeks, two players have already reported seeing the Tiger tanks gun sight penetrated, and one was from 1200m. This already doubles what was historically seen after months of combat.

 

If we consider this in view of the other issues demonstrated in the linked video above, it seems that there is a problem with the damage model as it relates to the Sherman. This is not about trying to make Tank Crew look bad, it is about trying to make it better.        

[Monostripezebra]

Not sure, what you want to show here.. but you should know that armor on AI vehicles works different then against the player vehicles. It is much more simplified

 

for example, if you shoot a revolver at exposed crew of AI vehicles, it does nothing.

 

For multiplayer, I find it odd to complain about how a maybe possible issue puts your tiger at risk to shermans. I mean in the current vehicle set in online MP, the Tigers are so dominant, that often  there are not even enough players wanting to go against them and the german side often has 1.5 to 2 times the players on those settings then the opposition. IF you want realism.. then you need some at least 10:1 odds for your tiger... but since that actually never happens, everyone in a tiger is actually in a fairly well pampered and comfortable position, ie: I fail to see the real problem. But then again, me driving around in a GAZ means, I probably can´t understand tiger problems.

 

Edited June 26, 2021 by Monostripezebra

[Thad]

Now if the GAZ could take out a Tiger... we'd have a very real problem.  ?

[Irishratticus72]

28 minutes ago, Thad said:

Now if the GAZ could take out a Tiger... we'd have a very real problem.  ?

You mean, "When the Gaz takes out a Tiger"..... ? 

[ShampooX]

Noel Gallagher has a couple of videos in the "Fix the GD Sherman" thread that are the difniitive proof that the code written for the Sherman is broken.  Anyway, to answer your question- ballistics and armor are the most important thing in any tank sim.  Take War Thunder for example.  Beautiful graphics. Really improved sounds. Outstanding crew damage mechanics.  Ok yes small, crappy, "Dr. Seuss maps," but the terrain potential for realism is off the hook. Great historical vehicle cammo's and decals.  Excellent explosions, etc etc. etc...........  All completely and totally nullified by incredibly unreliable hit and damage code.  The game is unplayable for this reason alone.  TC is not perfect, but it's the best thing out there today as far as this goes.  Steel Beats and Gunner Heat PC show tons of promise but right now on the Finnish Server and Advance & Secure, this is the top of the food chain for PvP tank sims in my humble opinion.

[[F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly]

I would like to point out once again that you are using a picture from the Tiger E, which is not the tank modelled in the game (which is the Tiger H1). You made this mistake repeatedly in the previous thread, and this has repeatedly been pointed out to you.

3 hours ago, Thad said:

Now if the GAZ could take out a Tiger... we'd have a very real problem.  ?

Tbf a Gaz can take out a tiger by driving further then 200 kilometers. Manoeuvre kills count right?

Edited June 26, 2021 by [F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly

[SCG_judgedeath3]

5 hours ago, Shampoo_Actual said:

Steel Beats and Gunner Heat PC show tons of promise

Both are modern tanks and not ww2, and steel beasts get funding from militaries around the world for use in their tank schools, quite a difference in budgets there, a reason why marder and cv90 and other veichles was added was due to demands from the military to have them.(im not then talking about mods)

[LachenKrieg]

9 hours ago, Monostripezebra said:

Not sure, what you want to show here.. but you should know that armor on AI vehicles works different then against the player vehicles. It is much more simplified

 

for example, if you shoot a revolver at exposed crew of AI vehicles, it does nothing.

 

For multiplayer, I find it odd to complain about how a maybe possible issue puts your tiger at risk to shermans. I mean in the current vehicle set in online MP, the Tigers are so dominant, that often  there are not even enough players wanting to go against them and the german side often has 1.5 to 2 times the players on those settings then the opposition. IF you want realism.. then you need some at least 10:1 odds for your tiger... but since that actually never happens, everyone in a tiger is actually in a fairly well pampered and comfortable position, ie: I fail to see the real problem. But then again, me driving around in a GAZ means, I probably can´t understand tiger problems.

 

A common response to this issue in other threads has been to suggest that it might be due to internet lag issues. I have also seen this in MP, but I just wanted to show that I am also seeing this type of issue in SP game play.

 

Good point, and you might be right there could be a difference between AI and real players in terms of armor/gun performance. I have asked this same question before, but I don't think there should be, or that there has to be. AI behavior will likely be different from what you would expect when you go against a real player, but the gun-armor performance should be the same for a tank regardless who/what drives it IMO.

 

In terms of using your revolver to shoot AI, you probably stumbled onto something that has not been implemented yet. I don't know if it has been added yet, but when I first got Tank Crew, I remember if you used the commander's personal weapon while in F2 view, you could see the dirt fly at the place you were aiming at, but there was no sound. But when in F1 view, you could see and hear the shot.

 

And I completely agree with you, I would like to see the actual gun-armor performance modeled as opposed to juicing anything up for game play. I don't think they should pamper any tank German or Russian. I think if you are in a tank that can penetrate another vehicle at the place you are shooting, then it should penetrate. That especially goes for the back of a Tiger tank.

 

I think I remember in one of your videos where you showed a T34 peppering the back of a Tiger with no effect. I don't think that should be. But in terms of game play, I think having the servers create balance in game play by controlling type and number is a better way to go. If there is a problem with uneven teams, and I don't know that there is, I for one would not mind if teams were assigned if it means we could have more realistic performance. This would not only serve to balance the number of players on each team if that is in fact a problem, but it would require that players learn the strengths and weakness of all the available vehicles in Tank Crew. There are no bad tanks in this SIM IMO.     

 

7 hours ago, Shampoo_Actual said:

Noel Gallagher has a couple of videos in the "Fix the GD Sherman" thread that are the difniitive proof that the code written for the Sherman is broken.  Anyway, to answer your question- ballistics and armor are the most important thing in any tank sim.  Take War Thunder for example.  Beautiful graphics. Really improved sounds. Outstanding crew damage mechanics.  Ok yes small, crappy, "Dr. Seuss maps," but the terrain potential for realism is off the hook. Great historical vehicle cammo's and decals.  Excellent explosions, etc etc. etc...........  All completely and totally nullified by incredibly unreliable hit and damage code.  The game is unplayable for this reason alone.  TC is not perfect, but it's the best thing out there today as far as this goes.  Steel Beats and Gunner Heat PC show tons of promise but right now on the Finnish Server and Advance & Secure, this is the top of the food chain for PvP tank sims in my humble opinion.

You and I appear to be looking at this through the same lens.

 

Part of the fun to something like WT is learning how the various vehicles compare with each other in terms of their battle rating and gun/armor performance. Very little of it translates into real world, but from inside the game, it allows the player to develop their own play style and tactic. I left the WoT/WT arena a long time ago, and doubt I will ever return. Not at least with things like Tank Crew on the shelf.

 

And I couldn't agree more Gunner Heat PC is definitely something you want to keep an eye on if you are into tank simulation, but there is absolutely zero interest in WWII there and that is where my interests is.

 

And I agree, there are so many ways that they could add to this SIM, smoke and 3D camo's to mention just a few.  

 

4 hours ago, [F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly said:

I would like to point out once again that you are using a picture from the Tiger E, which is not the tank modelled in the game (which is the Tiger H1). You made this mistake repeatedly in the previous thread, and this has repeatedly been pointed out to you.

Thanks for pointing that out again. That is why I drew the red line to highlight the modification that was done. The first Tigers left the assembly line in August 1942. Tanks with the modified mantlet were already being built in November of 1942.

 

The point of interest is the inside of the mantlet. The modification to the early Tiger mantlet did not affect its shape on the inside as far as I understand. Like in the other thread where Peasant used a hand drawing of a later mantlet design to superimposed armor thickness of the original design, I am simply using the images I was given to show what the inside of the mantlet looks like.

 

If you can recall, we had to guess a little in terms of how big the 80mm subsection was. I think it was also Peasant who provided a front view of the area to suggest the size of the opening. At that point in the discussion, we were going on the assumption that the progression to 80mm was stepped and that it left an opening of 100mm in height.  

Edited June 27, 2021 by LachenKrieg

[Monostripezebra]

10 hours ago, Shampoo_Actual said:

 this is the top of the food chain for PvP tank sims in my humble opinion.

Dunno.. I am not much of a tank guy, I but I would assume that die-hard tank fans may see that different. "Tank Crew" certainly has a lot of nice aspects, such as the modeling of the tanks.. but I think it is still more of a tank side thing of a flightsim.. from invisible objects to very open undetailed maps.  That is not necessary bad, but you gotta be aware that games focussing different have also a lot of freedom to frame things different.

 

But for starters, TC would greatly benefit from smaller fixes such as having less stupid spawn mechanics (in the sense of beeing less enticing to make spawn blockading and spawnkilling one of the most powerful tactics because there is only 1-2 spawns with always the same locations), removal of invisible objects, more comandable formations and tactical stuff like maps with info on own troops and reported enemies..

 

3 hours ago, LachenKrieg said:

In terms of using your revolver to shoot AI, you probably stumbled onto something that has not been implemented yet.

 

Naa, AI vehicles are simplified to save performance and also partly from a time before there even was "tank crew".. so you can´t really blame them. Overall singleplayer gameplay with tanks is kinda hard and for me  does  not make so much sense in tank crew, because the AI has no real "detection" realism but much rather is either too dumb or too perfect (knowing where you are and able to shoot over the horizon with no line of sight like the AA guns) For quality singleplayer you actuallywould  need carefull mission design and crafted terrain, skripts, triggers, pathfinding ai that does taktics etc.. overall I don´t see that working currently and I am a bit skeptical it ever will be a full comprehensive thing with the current AI.

 

3 hours ago, LachenKrieg said:

 

But in terms of game play, I think having the servers create balance in game play by controlling type and number is a better way to go. If there is a problem with uneven teams, and I don't know that there is, I for one would not mind if teams were assigned if it means we could have more realistic performance. This would not only serve to balance the number of players on each team if that is in fact a problem, but it would require that players learn the strengths and weakness of all the available vehicles in Tank Crew. There are no bad tanks in this SIM IMO.    

 

The longer I play flight games, the more toxic I find the "ooh, but it does not have to be balanced because its a sim!!". Balancing and matchmaking is a huge topic in all games.. and flightsims are notorious for denying that and limiting their own player base growth by either people who play for decades and mercilessly slaughter any single new players in well organized groups or people who just "Hartmanning/Wittmanning" ie the fanboying of a playable unit á la "I just came to play equipment XY and while get very exited over a single vehicles/planes nuts and bolts and are obsessed with fringe realism when it comes to how I think the equipment must perform and off course it is the best because... " all while ignoring other wider aspects of realism, fairness or balance or even just how fun missions could go..  "yeah but war is not fair.. and it must be realistic!" is the most dumb repeated phrase of people who never actually play the to-be slaughtered side/equipment.

 

And there are a ton of mechanisms.. from fill quotas (letting the server operator decide at what imbalance factor the larger team can not be joined anymore (as for example done by Red Orchestra, Rising storm vietnam etc.. all games that also argue a certain realism up to match style setups where fixed teams play 2 rounds one on each side. there realls is no shortage of options, but generally over the years I have seen mostly very negative reactions to that along the lines of "yeah, but what if I want to play plane/tank XY and then I can´t? I WOULD NEVER PLAY THEN!!" Funny, that it works in all other games, but heavenly god forbit somebody mentions it in flightsims!!1!.

 

I mean, I just played 1 vs 7 on advance and secure.. and it can be fun sometimes, but in the end if that happens too often it is basically just coop PVE for the other team.. and it does not make anys sense to even try and play serious. But I think that may also not doing a good job in enticing new players or letting a servers population grow... I mean, it does have humourous sides when people join a very unbalanced server, hop on the larger team and then at the end make snarky remarks like "we really showed you!! BEST TEAMWORK WON!"  but overall, I would assume games that are open ended in the sense that both teams actually theoretically could win would do a better job in terms of fun, challenge and excitement... or competion and skill development.

 

But the whole "there no bad tanks" is really bullshit.. it is not the tank, it is always the circumstances. Only fools would argue that the heavy german tanks in open terrain are not superior, because in certain combinations, they can one-shot every oposing thing while beeing nearly invulnerable if the certain shots at weakspots like the tigers side are deniable.

 

tanks have different power.. defined by firepower, armor and mobility.. and what matters of those 3 depends a lot on the circumstances, here is one example.. also from advance-and-secure, low player count (1 vs 3).

 

A ferdinand in a postion with open fields of fire preventing flanking with AI placement and teammates vs a stock T-34 STZ

 

 

it only died by AI bombing from a PE2.. I mean it can be fun to experiment with such "kill the leviathan" things, but as general daily practice for "hey it is a sim, therefore no balance needed" that is not gonna win so many hearts and minds, I´m afraid.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 27, 2021 by Monostripezebra

[ShampooX]

History is the ultimate balance maker in any real tank sim.  I don't want some fantasy world based on "potential" - that's why I quit War Thunder.  If it was that way in 1943, that's the way I want it now.  Not 1944, or 1974.

[[F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly]

1 hour ago, Shampoo_Actual said:

History is the ultimate balance maker in any real tank sim.  I don't want some fantasy world based on "potential" - that's why I quit War Thunder.  If it was that way in 1943, that's the way I want it now.  Not 1944, or 1974.

There's three problems with this mentality:

 

The first is the human element. We can all talk about how one tank performed historically against another, but that hugely undercuts that a significant part of that matchup is down to training, experience, and environmental factors. None of these can be simulated in a sim because players have the ability to learn from their deaths, are shooting at tanks from the comfort of their own home, have the ability to communicate with eachothers with equipment that is far ahread of what the SS had, let alone the Soviets, and have about 70 years of hindsight. Nowadays you can just go on the internet and find diagrams that expose all the design flaws and weaknesses of the Tiger and put that knowledge to use in the game. This goes both ways, it's become a bit of a stereotype that axis players presume that their tank is superior and then don't bother with actually playing tactically. User error is then blamed on historical inaccuracy

 

Which brings us to the second problem: what you think is historical may not at all be what is actually historical. A lot of axis players in particular have massively inflated beliefs about the superiority of German armour, despite the tank crew crew being far better at historical research then them. So what it often comes down to is that people demand history to be replicated in the way they thought it was, rather then how it actually was (this is a problem with history anywhere mind, popular conceptions tend be valued more then actual research).

 

The third problem is that historical outcomes are hard to simulate in an environment where people can just pick and choose. Every axis player wants to be the SS with their superior equipment. The result being that axis players in multiplayer often outnumber the allied players and everyone shows up in their best tank - and this changes the way the battle is fought entirely. It doesn't matter if the tanks are modelled to an exact degree (which they are), if the context in which they are used isn't historical (which it will never be in multiplayer unless someone replicates the Order of Battle to a tee), any outcome is not going to be historical. In the real battle, the SS was outnumbered and on the defensive. In multiplayer, the Soviets are outnumbered and on the defensive most of the time.

 

 

Edited June 27, 2021 by [F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly

[Monostripezebra]

5 hours ago, Shampoo_Actual said:

History is the ultimate balance maker in any real tank sim.  I don't want some fantasy world based on "potential" - that's why I quit War Thunder.  If it was that way in 1943, that's the way I want it now.  Not 1944, or 1974.

 

Well, fine. But technically that would mean no player has much of a choice in terms of side and equipement.. that would be historical, that you get conscripted and assigned stuff..

 

 

Or if we just play the history numbers game, just by "Battle of Prokorovka"-stats:

 

-the russian side would always have to be filled up until 2.1:1 times numerical advantage in tanks (616/294 historically),

(and that would still not account for the numbers of anti-tank guns, minefields, ditches and infantry defences the germans unestimated.. and that played such a historic role in the overall Kursk campaign... )

 

-there would also only be 15 Tigers overall which would mean any german tankplayers chance to a tiger is just 5% (15/294x100) also while always facing 1:2.1 odds in tanks plus some vast unknown anti tank defenses.

 

if you excuse my non-tank-nerdness and just pulling up the numbers from wikipedia, but you probably get my drift... If you now look at your own server stats you´ll see you as a german-only player never once faced those numerical odds and probably personally lost  2/3rds of all Tigers there ever where at Prokrovka just last month. So what history exactly are we talking about? What happens on the servers is not history, it is not "realism" it is a game.. and a game has to be somewhat fair.. else we could just default to allied victory in the long run.

 

People in sims allways say they want "realism" and "history" but rarely ever act accordingly. Or chose equipment accordingly, I think that is a well established fact. And "Tank Crew" as an online game has a balancing problem, because the german hardware is clear better and thus people prefer that side and it simply shows in the numbers. And if you have by and large gameplay where the side with more players has the better stuff, you have an online game with an issue. It´s as simple as that.

Edited June 27, 2021 by Monostripezebra

[[F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly]

20 hours ago, LachenKrieg said:

The linked video shows examples of SP game play between the Sherman and Pz IV G where even at 200m using APCR rounds, the Pz IV G has trouble knocking out the Sherman. Like others that have reported a similar experience, I have also seen this in MP game play. While the Pz IV G has weaker armor, it also has a much smaller silhouette and should be able to utilize terrain to its advantage against the height of the Sherman's turret. 

 

I feel like this highlights the issues with the mentality here (aside from the post in a large part attempting to resurrect a locked thread that was already settled against the poster's favour). Two things:

The pzIV having a smaller silhoutte and technically being capable of utilizing terrain to its advantage makes no difference when the person driving the Panzer 4 elects not to utilize the advantage, or does not know how to utilize this advantage. Any tactical advantage these tanks would have in real life is negated by the player(s) lacking the opportunity or knowledge to utilize these tactics - like when you're closing in on 200 meters from the front.

 

Secondly, the premise that firing APCR rounds at very close range at a Sherman should be able to knock it out faster then a Sherman firing APHE at the same range is based on the false premise that these rounds are equally effective: The APCR round is designed for one thing and one thing only: Punching a hole in steel. To do this the kinetic energy is concentrated at the tip, so the impact diameter is very small, and the hole it leaves in anything it punches through is not going to be very big. If you don't hit anything vital (like, say, the face of a crewman), all it does is give the crew a breath of fresh air. It is a slug that does nothing except travel in the direction it's going to travel, and if that direction goes through a non-vital part of the tank then the tank is not knocked out - despite popular belief, a fuel tank doesn't explode when hit by a simple bullet, it will only cause a fuel leak. This is all way more complex then "If Armour Penetration >= Armour then TankHP--20. With APCR, the place your shot lands matters a lot more then it does with other rounds - and it already matters a lot to begin with.

 

Conversely, the APHE round is designed for another thing: To penetrate the armour of an armoured vehicle and then explode. There's the big difference: Once the APHE round is inside your tank (which it can get very easily if you're charging in at 200 meters with no attempts to evade enemy fire) it's capable of doing much more damage simply becuase it will subsequently explode, making life very difficult for anything inside the explosion and fragmentation radius. Any flammable or explosive material is far more likely to detonate and crewmen are either in physical hell or ethereal hell.

 

And that's just looking at the generic round types, and doesn't include factors like: The actual placement of ammo storages and fuel tanks and how easy they are to hit from the angle you're engaging at, the differences in round production as used by the Nazis, the Soviets or the Americans, and the effects that sloped armour has on changing the direction of the round that impacts it even if it does penetrate.

Edited June 27, 2021 by [F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly

[69th_chuter]

AP penetrations do nothing but provide the tank crew with fresh air unless they hit something vital?  That's like saying HE can't do any harm to a crew unless it actually blows a hole in the armor, or AP will only cause a fuel leak if it punctures a crew compartment located fuel tank (not possibly hydraulically rupturing the tank and clouding the interior with fuel mist - I'm talking about you, Mr. T34.)  When a penetrator goes through armor plate it deflects, in varying degrees, in the direction the plate is angled, so penetrating the upper front plate of the T34 will deflect shot somewhat downward, is this effect accounted for in game?  Ultimately, the issue for the game is how deep into these complex physics is it willing, or even capable, of going.

 

There were some late war Russian armor supported attacks where IS-2s were beaten back without a single penetration because the crews sustained spalling injuries due to the characteristics of the IS-2's armor.

[JG1_Wittmann]

8 hours ago, [F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly said:

There's three problems with this mentality:

 

The third problem is that historical outcomes are hard to simulate in an environment where people can just pick and choose. Every axis player wants to be the SS with their superior equipment. The result being that axis players in multiplayer often outnumber the allied players and everyone shows up in their best tank - and this changes the way the battle is fought entirely. It doesn't matter if the tanks are modelled to an exact degree (which they are), if the context in which they are used isn't historical (which it will never be in multiplayer unless someone replicates the Order of Battle to a tee), any outcome is not going to be historical. In the real battle, the SS was outnumbered and on the defensive. In multiplayer, the Soviets are outnumbered and on the defensive most of the time.

 

 

What MP serer  is it that you play on ?   It certainly  must not be Finnish,  or it must be a very different set of hours  than  I  go on there.   I  very rarely  see the axis with a #'s advantage  over the reds  in tanks.  Quite often I see the reds outnumber  axis  2-1,   all the way up to 6-1  in tanks.    I have been flying  and saw team chat asking for help as a large # or red tanks are moving on a cp.   I have come across  groups when I was alone,  of  4 shermans   later joined by 3 T34's   and the multiple tank rushes  by red is not an outlier as I have seen this many times   and have seen  no other axis tanks near  or maybe 1 other.  The Tiger is only available for  half of the planesets, and the qty per spawn is 2.   The reds get Su122,   Su152,  KV1  earlier and  I might be mistaken,  but I believe the kv1 #   is 10 per spawn,  and  5 each of the SU's    .  Now the SU152 and SU-122 are more than capable  of destroying the tiger,   in MP   as I have done so using one several times at ranges of   1600m    all the way up to 2300m.   5 of those, vs 2 tigers. The Ferdinand  is all but useless  in most  of the MP scenarios I see online.   I have used it on rare occasions, but you certainly have to have alot of time and patience to get near the action.   I  don't believe the panther to be  much  more capable than the t34 or sherman,  except or a better gun.  The developers, in their  "wisdom"  have made  the panther one of the worst handling tanks in game,IMHO,  even though in reality,  it, along with the tiger,  and perhaps Ferdinand  should be the most Agile tanks in game,  far superior   to the  clutch/braking tanks  the russians deployed.   They just made them all behave like clutch/brake  steering  to even things out,  so I would say  they are not accurately modeled  in that regard,   and as has been pointed out,  some aspects of the gun modelling   seems to fudge the russian guns performance slightly higher,  and the german guns slightly lower   than  reality. 

[[F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly]

17 hours ago, chuter said:

 

There were some late war Russian armor supported attacks where IS-2s were beaten back without a single penetration because the crews sustained spalling injuries due to the characteristics of the IS-2's armor.

How [edited] did I forget spalling? aaaaargh. (Though I would argue that spalling is a bigger factor with APHE then it is with APCR)

17 hours ago, JG1_Wittmann said:

The developers, in their  "wisdom"  have made  the panther one of the worst handling tanks in game,IMHO,  even though in reality,  it, along with the tiger,  and perhaps Ferdinand  should be the most Agile tanks in game,  far superior   to the  clutch/braking tanks  the russians deployed.  

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panther_tank#Steering_and_transmission
 

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Steering was accomplished through a seven-speed AK 7-200 synchromesh gearbox, designed by Zahnradfabrik Friedrichshafen (ZF), and a MAN single radius steering system, operated by steering levers. Each gear had a fixed radius of turning, ranging from 5 m (16 ft) for 1st gear up to 80 m (260 ft) for 7th gear. The driver was expected to judge the sharpness of a turn ahead of time and shift into the appropriate gear to turn the tank. The driver could also engage the brakes on one side to force a sharper turn.^[48] This manual steering was a much simplified design, compared to the sophisticated dual-radius hydraulically controlled steering system of the Tiger tanks.

That sounds like a terribly steering tank to me!

 

17 hours ago, JG1_Wittmann said:

t certainly  must not be Finnish,

Finnish does, imo, a very good job at keeping the sides more historically balanced throughout whole affair, but ofc. this gets an unending amount of complaints

Edited June 28, 2021 by SYN_Haashashin
Language

[LachenKrieg]

11 hours ago, Monostripezebra said:

Dunno.. I am not much of a tank guy, I but I would assume that die-hard tank fans may see that different. "Tank Crew" certainly has a lot of nice aspects, such as the modeling of the tanks.. but I think it is still more of a tank side thing of a flightsim.. from invisible objects to very open undetailed maps.  That is not necessary bad, but you gotta be aware that games focussing different have also a lot of freedom to frame things different.

 

But for starters, TC would greatly benefit from smaller fixes such as having less stupid spawn mechanics (in the sense of beeing less enticing to make spawn blockading and spawnkilling one of the most powerful tactics because there is only 1-2 spawns with always the same locations), removal of invisible objects, more comandable formations and tactical stuff like maps with info on own troops and reported enemies..

 

 

Naa, AI vehicles are simplified to save performance and also partly from a time before there even was "tank crew".. so you can´t really blame them. Overall singleplayer gameplay with tanks is kinda hard and for me  does  not make so much sense in tank crew, because the AI has no real "detection" realism but much rather is either too dumb or too perfect (knowing where you are and able to shoot over the horizon with no line of sight like the AA guns) For quality singleplayer you actuallywould  need carefull mission design and crafted terrain, skripts, triggers, pathfinding ai that does taktics etc.. overall I don´t see that working currently and I am a bit skeptical it ever will be a full comprehensive thing with the current AI.

 

 

The longer I play flight games, the more toxic I find the "ooh, but it does not have to be balanced because its a sim!!". Balancing and matchmaking is a huge topic in all games.. and flightsims are notorious for denying that and limiting their own player base growth by either people who play for decades and mercilessly slaughter any single new players in well organized groups or people who just "Hartmanning/Wittmanning" ie the fanboying of a playable unit á la "I just came to play equipment XY and while get very exited over a single vehicles/planes nuts and bolts and are obsessed with fringe realism when it comes to how I think the equipment must perform and off course it is the best because... " all while ignoring other wider aspects of realism, fairness or balance or even just how fun missions could go..  "yeah but war is not fair.. and it must be realistic!" is the most dumb repeated phrase of people who never actually play the to-be slaughtered side/equipment.

 

And there are a ton of mechanisms.. from fill quotas (letting the server operator decide at what imbalance factor the larger team can not be joined anymore (as for example done by Red Orchestra, Rising storm vietnam etc.. all games that also argue a certain realism up to match style setups where fixed teams play 2 rounds one on each side. there realls is no shortage of options, but generally over the years I have seen mostly very negative reactions to that along the lines of "yeah, but what if I want to play plane/tank XY and then I can´t? I WOULD NEVER PLAY THEN!!" Funny, that it works in all other games, but heavenly god forbit somebody mentions it in flightsims!!1!.

 

I mean, I just played 1 vs 7 on advance and secure.. and it can be fun sometimes, but in the end if that happens too often it is basically just coop PVE for the other team.. and it does not make anys sense to even try and play serious. But I think that may also not doing a good job in enticing new players or letting a servers population grow... I mean, it does have humourous sides when people join a very unbalanced server, hop on the larger team and then at the end make snarky remarks like "we really showed you!! BEST TEAMWORK WON!"  but overall, I would assume games that are open ended in the sense that both teams actually theoretically could win would do a better job in terms of fun, challenge and excitement... or competion and skill development.

 

But the whole "there no bad tanks" is really bullshit.. it is not the tank, it is always the circumstances. Only fools would argue that the heavy german tanks in open terrain are not superior, because in certain combinations, they can one-shot every oposing thing while beeing nearly invulnerable if the certain shots at weakspots like the tigers side are deniable.

 

tanks have different power.. defined by firepower, armor and mobility.. and what matters of those 3 depends a lot on the circumstances, here is one example.. also from advance-and-secure, low player count (1 vs 3).

 

A ferdinand in a postion with open fields of fire preventing flanking with AI placement and teammates vs a stock T-34 STZ

 

 

it only died by AI bombing from a PE2.. I mean it can be fun to experiment with such "kill the leviathan" things, but as general daily practice for "hey it is a sim, therefore no balance needed" that is not gonna win so many hearts and minds, I´m afraid.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Regarding AI being simplified, I am certain there is some truth to that, but I wonder if we are talking about the same thing? What ever they do to simplify things for performance, they still have to include a penetration and gun performance stat for AI tanks. So there is nothing really gained, or lost by using the same performance stats for all vehicles. Things like modeled interior/crew positions and such are obviously not needed.

 

Regarding balance, I think we are also discussing two different issues of the same topic. I agree totally with you, in order to grow an online game/sim community, the activity has to be fun. I mean lets face it, why would you spend your time doing something that offered you little enjoyment. There is nothing fun about playing a game where you believe the other team has an advantage. So you are absolutely right, it is no small task to create balanced game play so that two teams of players remain content and continue playing. In that regard, it wouldn't make much sense for a server to allow just the Tiger tank on the axis side, and the T34 for the allied side. That would get boring real quick I am assuming.

 

But at the same time, I came here because of what the IL2 franchise represents. I came here because I wanted something more realistic. I could have continued playing WoT, or WT, but I switch to Tank Crew because it is meant to be stepping closer to the real world vehicles. But in terms of game play, there is probably no easy solution, and certainly one without faults.

 

Take something like WoT for example, other then being rigged to better serve its business model, the entire game is centered around balanced game play, and yet the most common complaint in that community is still that it is not balanced enough. So I don't think a perfect balance is actually achievable 100% of the time, because by its nature, game play is usually defined by winners and losers. I haven't played enough MP game play to know all the issues at hand, but going by your comments and the comments of other members, it sounds like part of the problem with IL2 MP game play are the teams themselves. There is no easy fix to that if it is in fact a problem, and its not like there are a ton of options either. Assigning teams would help resolve a number of issues, but it also creates some as well.

[NoelGallagher]

[[F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly]

1 hour ago, NoelGallagher said:

 

[LachenKrieg]

6 hours ago, [F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly said:

 

I feel like this highlights the issues with the mentality here (aside from the post in a large part attempting to resurrect a locked thread that was already settled against the poster's favour). Two things:

The pzIV having a smaller silhoutte and technically being capable of utilizing terrain to its advantage makes no difference when the person driving the Panzer 4 elects not to utilize the advantage, or does not know how to utilize this advantage. Any tactical advantage these tanks would have in real life is negated by the player(s) lacking the opportunity or knowledge to utilize these tactics - like when you're closing in on 200 meters from the front.

 

Secondly, the premise that firing APCR rounds at very close range at a Sherman should be able to knock it out faster then a Sherman firing APHE at the same range is based on the false premise that these rounds are equally effective: The APCR round is designed for one thing and one thing only: Punching a hole in steel. To do this the kinetic energy is concentrated at the tip, so the impact diameter is very small, and the hole it leaves in anything it punches through is not going to be very big. If you don't hit anything vital (like, say, the face of a crewman), all it does is give the crew a breath of fresh air. It is a slug that does nothing except travel in the direction it's going to travel, and if that direction goes through a non-vital part of the tank then the tank is not knocked out - despite popular belief, a fuel tank doesn't explode when hit by a simple bullet, it will only cause a fuel leak. This is all way more complex then "If Armour Penetration >= Armour then TankHP--20. With APCR, the place your shot lands matters a lot more then it does with other rounds - and it already matters a lot to begin with.

 

Conversely, the APHE round is designed for another thing: To penetrate the armour of an armoured vehicle and then explode. There's the big difference: Once the APHE round is inside your tank (which it can get very easily if you're charging in at 200 meters with no attempts to evade enemy fire) it's capable of doing much more damage simply becuase it will subsequently explode, making life very difficult for anything inside the explosion and fragmentation radius. Any flammable or explosive material is far more likely to detonate and crewmen are either in physical hell or ethereal hell.

 

And that's just looking at the generic round types, and doesn't include factors like: The actual placement of ammo storages and fuel tanks and how easy they are to hit from the angle you're engaging at, the differences in round production as used by the Nazis, the Soviets or the Americans, and the effects that sloped armour has on changing the direction of the round that impacts it even if it does penetrate.

You have completely misunderstood the meaning and point of my post. I am going to respond to each of your points in hopes that I can clarify some of the issues for you, but understand that your entire post being quoted is a complete miss as you aren't even in the right ball park... again!

 

To start, the purpose of the linked video is to demonstrate an issue related to the Sherman tank, which has already been brought up by a number of community members. The video is not a demonstration of me trying to play Panzer ace, or how to use a PzIV effectively against a Sherman. Understand that what I am trying to do in the video is get the AI tank to shoot at me so that I can demonstrate the issue at hand. Also note that when people reported the same issue, others have suggested that the cause may be due to internet lag/ping issues. So another goal of the video was to try and capture the issue in a non MP setting using both APHE and APCR rounds at different ranges. The purpose of doing this was to be able to demonstrate the Sherman tank issue in a variety of scenarios.

 

So no, I am not closing in on a tank at 200m to see if I can get him to ram his gun through my visor as some new armored warfare tank tactic. I am trying to get the AI to shoot me at close range on purpose. That is the point of the video. You might notice me messaging the AI tank with my turret MG to get him to shoot, but when that didn't work, I had to drive closer before the AI would take a shot. 

 

The way this relates to my comment about the smaller silhouette is that in actual game play, while the player in the PzIV G can easily destroy a M4A2 Sherman, the Sherman can also easily destroy him so he should be careful not to expose his more vulnerable armor. That mission becomes a little fruitless though if the Tank Crew model wont allow you to knock the Sherman out in cases where you should clearly be able to. So again, the point was not to demonstrate tank tactics, but to point out that tank tactics are mostly wasted if the model doesn't include appropriate gun/armor performance. 

 

And I never said, or even suggested the premise you introduced. This is something that you are making up on your own. My point was regardless of the ammunition being used at acceptable ranges, I have trouble knocking out the Sherman. This includes the use of APCR at very close range where there can be no question about penetrating power. I wont even entertain your discussion about APCR rounds other then to ask how big do you think the inside of a Sherman turret is? 4 rounds through the turret? Puts a whole new spin on dodge ball don't it? And the point is, I am able to reproduce this, hence the issue! BTW, how many Sherman tanks do you think had 4 APCR rounds go through the turret without anything critical being hit like the crew inside? 

 

But aside from that, only two of the cut scenes were taken using APCR rounds. All of the other cut scenes used APHE.

@ 9 seconds in the time line - 2 APHE rounds on hull front from 500m no pen.

@ 42 seconds in the time line - 8 APHE rounds on turret from 500m no pen. I think this is the kind that goes BOOM! Although in the case of the PzIV it might be more like... boom!

@ 2:14 in the time line - 3 APCR rounds on front hull/turret from 900m no pen.

@ 2:54 in the time line - 4 APCR rounds on turret from 200m no pen.

@ 3:42 in the time line - PzIV hits my Sherman with APHE at very close range. I fire back and drive on.

@ 4:36 in the time line - PzIV hits my Sherman with APHE at very close range. I fire back. PzIV hits my Sherman again with APHE. I fire back and destroy him.

@ 5:16 in the time line - Single APHE shot from Sherman destroys PzIV.

 

These 9 scenarios are not hand picked, but were simply taken one after the other. And if we add this to what others have reported including a recent video showing a Sherman in MP game play with more holes then a block of Swiss cheese, the conclusion is reasonable. Something is out with the Tank Crew DM.

 

Regarding your highlighting mentalities and threads that were settled, what mentality are you highlighting, and what in your mind was settled, because I can list a few things that weren't. I know you often label people as "wehraboo", or claim to know what they think by assuming you know their tank of choice in a computer SIM, but it would be interesting to get your take on the mentalities of people here.

 

 

     

 

 

[SYN_Haashashin]

Hi all,

 

Previous topic about the exact same issue was locked for a reason. If you want to have a contest between 2 of you, take it to the PMs.

 

Locked

 

Haash