kwk 38 cannon or machinegun
 

Hi All
The KwK30 and KwK38 Guns were fitted into the panzer II, sdkfz 222, sdkfz 231, sdkfz 234, sdkfz 250 amongst others. It was obviously a popular and widespread weapon used throughout the war. It was an adaption of a flak cannon able to fire single shots. In version 6 of this game this weapon had its "correct" ammo loadout of 90 HE and 90 AP. However when this weapon was reclasified as an autocannon for v7 its ammunition loadout was drasticly reduced. For example in the case of the current sdkfz 222 to 10 HE and 10 AP the assumption being that the gunner is unable or unwilling to fire single shots. So the vehicle now has 20 bursts rather than the previous 180 shells.
For the 10 HE bursts the gun gets the compensation of a higher HE Kill factor. for the loss of 80 AP rounds it gets AFAIK, no compensation. If the vehicle is facing either a hard or a soft target it is out of ammo for its main gun in two turns, ie as currently modeled it can have a useful battlefield life of 6 minutes, which to me seems a bit short. One of the underlying assumptions for this change is that commanders are in the habit of firing off the entire magazine in one burst ie 10 shells. The reason the germans used this gun in particular was because it was magazine fed, not to increase rate of fire but to relieve the commander from the burdon of reloading allowing him to concentrate on command, in a two man turret and command and gunnery in a one man turret. Firing the large bursts as currently modeled means the Commander is busy continually reloading which ignores the reason for its use in the first place
Some arithmatic, if the weapon fires single aimed HE shells then each should have a HE Kill of 1 (my preference) if it fires a 90 round burst HE kill should be about 90. Currently it fires a 9 shell burst so the HE Kill should be about ten. (actually 12 in game, giving a conversion factor of 1.2). If the commander was a little more sensible then he might fire two five shell bursts giving 18 instead of 10 HE bursts, each burst with a HE Kill 6. Or if he maybe has had some training he is firing three shell bursts giving 30 HE bursts in total, each with a HE Kill of 4.
After some mobhacking and testing I think the weapon if by far most useful with 90 HE rounds each with a HE Kill of 1, not forgetting that you get 6 or so shots per turn. This gives the weapon some battlefield persistence and allows it to zero in on a target without wasting all its ammunition doing so, especially after moving. I justify this with the assumption that it is employed as a main tank gun rather than an oversized machine gun.
So HE is simple to model, bursts of AP are another matter. Again each burst is firing 9 shells if the burst hits is the routine that calculates penetration called 9 times? if not then the AP ability of this weapon is seriously underrated, even if this were so would any tank commander seriously fire 9 round bursts of AP? Surely he would fire one shell at a time until he is on target? just like any other tank gun? and then perhaps, just perhaps fire a burst but most likely single shots would remain most advisable.
For these reasons I think that 90 AP Shells is a much better option than 10 AP bursts and for simplicity and practicality 90 HE at HE Kill of 1 seems sensable also. As far as I can find the weapon recieved 180 rounds no matter what vehicle carried it.
To summerise I believe this magazine fed weapon was chosen to remove the neccessity of a extra crew member, the loader, not to increase ROF. So its employment should be as a single shot main gun, jusifying the ammo loadout of 180 shells.
I would appreciate it if this thread wasnt moved into the OOB area as I think it deserves some general discussion.
Berst Regards Chuck.

Re: kwk 38 cannon or machinegun
 

Chuck,
I agree that using this weapon to fire 9rd bursts is unrealistic. But giving up the auto fire capablity also seems unsuitable. Perhaps a 3rd burst best models to use of this weapon on average. The problem here is that it was used in both auto and single shot firing and it is not possible to model this into 1 weapon slot.

Re: kwk 38 cannon or machinegun
 

What about 30 rounds of he, and 90 rounds ap. He fires a 3 round burst, and AP fires single shot?

the weapon stats would have to be adjusted to reflect a 3 round burst over a 9 round one.

Re: kwk 38 cannon or machinegun
 

Same problem still exists, it won't model the auto fire with AP ammo. For the types of vehicles using this weapon getting on target quickly was fairly important as they were fairly vulnerable themselves. Only single shots would mean that in the span of several minutes they would fire only a maximum of 6 rounds. While in reality a lot more than 6 would likely have been fired. Even if not firing in full auto mode, the weapon still allowed a rapid succession of shots. So giving them 90 AP ammo would lead to game effects that aren't realistic either. For example they'd rarely if ever run out of AP ammo during a game while in reality they could fire off their complete ammo load in a matter of minutes.

The simple way to model that is to model the weapon firing bursts, with an adjustment made for accuracy (compared to what it would be for single fire mode) reflecting that the first few rounds fired are for 'zero-ing' in. That abstraction also takes out the need to call up the hit routine several times. Could well be that the current system does just that.

What I think the question that could be discussed is is not single fire or auto, but how big the bursts should be. In other words how much ammo is carried, how big the HEK and accuracy should be to reflect these bursts to have the resulting game effects be as close to actual use as possible.

Narwan

Re: kwk 38 cannon or machinegun
 

Talk about flogging an old (but perhaps not quite dead http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif ) horse....

Just to keep others in the loop: Chuck brought this up on the old Yahoo board in January 2005, were it was discussed quite a lot. Some things have actually changed since then, partly accomodating some of the issues that were raised at the time.

Lets look at a bit of data from the German OOB....

The German 2cm tank and armoured car gun is found in several different versions:

Weapon #37 2cm KwK 30 Gun (Class 5)
Weapon #8 2cm KwK 38 Gun (Class 5)
Weapon #58 2cm KwK 35 AC (Class 5)
Weapon #17 2cm KwK 38 AC (Class 19)
Weapon #38 2cm KwK 30 AC (Class 19)

The Class 5 weapons are the basic turret mounted weapon while the Class 19 weapons also have an AA capability, reflecting the special mount found in some German armoured cars. The KwK 30 is the early version, the KwK 38 is a similar, but later design and the KwK 35 is an oddity found only the the Austrian ADGZ armoured car used by the German Army. So all the KwK 30/38 are basically the same type of weapon, that could fired burst or single rounds as the gunner pleased.

Then lets take a look at the vehicles in the OOB that carries these weapons and their ammo load, looking at the number of rounds carried in the game vs the actual ammo load (actual load mostly from Chamberlain & Doyle):

834 - PzKw IIa/b: 36/180
002 - PzKw IIc: 36/180
388 - PzKw IIc: 36/180
460 - PzKw IIc: 36/180
835 - PzKw IIc: 36/180
215 - PzKw IId: 36/180
003 - PzKw IIf: 36/180
836 - PzKw IIf: 36/180
838 - PzKw IIf: 36/180

004 - PzKw II Luchs: 36/330

585 - Maus V2: 100/?

390 - SdKfz 222: 20/180
391 - SdKfz 222: 20/180
844 - SdKfz 222: 20/180
068 - SdKfz 222: 20/180
(Class 19 weapon)

070 - SdKfz 231 (6): 22/200
392 - SdKfz 231 (6): 22/200
833 - SdKfz 231 (6): 22/200

071 - SdKfz 231 (8): 20/180
384 - SdKfz 231 (8): 20/180
590 - SdKfz 231 (8): 20/180
845 - SdKfz 231 (8): 20/180

072 - SdKfz 234/1: 52/480
(Class 19 weapon)

162 - SdKfz 250/9: 22/100
383 - SdKfz 250/9: 22/100
860 - SdKfz 250/9: 22/100
(Class 19 weapon)

950 - Aufklarer 38t: 20/180
951 - Aufklarer 38t: 20/180
(Class 19 weapon)

Some inconsistencies aside, it would seem that in general, one shot in the game terms equals a 5 round burst from a tank like the Panzer II and a 9 round burst from armoured cars.
Exactly how these numbers were reached, I dont know. As has been pointed out several times, they may have been made by different OOB designers for different reasons over time as the game developed and the logic behind the differencies may seem rather fuzzy by now. In any case, these are the actual numbers that we are dealing with.

In the game, the 2cm KwK can only be treated as either an autocannon (firing bursts) or as a single shot weapon. In reality, it could do both and I think we can safely assume that the gunner would choose whatever option he thought appropriate for any given target. There is, however, no way to model this kind of flexibility in the game.

Chuck makes the case for treating it as a single-shot weapon, so allow me to make a few arguments for treating it as an automatic.

- The 10-round magazines were loaded with an equal amount of AP and HE, alternating the rounds. So in many cases (in combat probably most cases), selecting the right ammunition for the job would mean firing two rounds. This suggests that giving the Panzer II 180 single-fire rounds (90 HE, 90 AP) is excessive.
- Combat reports from France in 1940 suggest that since the 2cm gun wasn't very effective in penetrating most French tanks, the preferred method was to fire bursts against them. That would often rattle the crew sufficiently to have them surrender or bail out (but did not result in penetration, apparently).
- Same combat reports speaks of bursts being fired against enemy anti-tank guns.

Point being that bursts were fired against targets requiring AP as well as HE. And both type of targets did in fact recieve a dose of both due to the way the magazines were loaded.

So a single-shot weapon with 180 rounds would be just as wrong or right as a full-auto weapon with only 20 rounds.

It would seem that OOB designers have taken that argument into account in the case of the Panzer II, taking the middle road of giving the tank 36 rounds, representing 5 round bursts.

It would seem to me that the armoured cars armed with the Class 5 weapon should be similar to the tanks, while I guess you could make the case for the Class 19 weapons firing 9 round bursts by virtue of the their AA-capability. Firing against planes, they would likely try to get as many rounds into the air as possible.

Claus B

Re: kwk 38 cannon or machinegun
 

I didn't mention what I thought a reasonable size of burst would be but I was thinking about 5 rounds. But I didn't realise that the ammo was mixed, which almost halves the effective ammo load (as half the rounds fired at soft targets would be AP and half the rounds fired at hard targets would be HE). If you take that into account and still assume a 5 round burst of rounds of the appropriate type (which means also wasting 5 of the other type making it a burst of 10 rounds total), you more or less end up with the current ammo load for the armored cars.

Alternately, you could assume a 3 round effective burst, meaning 6 rounds would be spend in total which would result in a slightly higher ammo load (15 HE and 15 AP). Problem with that is though that the ammo cases don't come in multiples of 6. But that's an abstraction we could overlook I think.


Narwan

Re: kwk 38 cannon or machinegun
 

Hi Narwan,
So just let me check, You dont want to change back from burst to single shots because we wont run out of rounds quick enough? So instead the designers should somehow work out what the accuracy should be changed to if we want to factor zeroing in for the number of rounds in a burst (which is probably not possible as it appears zeroing is a function of no of bursts not rounds in a burst) and change the code to call multiple hit routines, when the alternative is to just change the ammo loadouts for the different vehicles back to what they were in v6 of the game?
By the way what happens I wonder if the first round in a burst destroys the target? dont forget were not firing whole magazines just single, albiet fast, aimed shots, then the the rest of our "burst" 8 more rounds is wasted, right? what of the second round in the "burst" is satisfactory? Heres an example of the problem,
For antipersonal work these guns have a coaxial MG so the HE rounds are mostly for soft targets such as trucks AT guns etc, I did a test, Using 222 as our example with HE Kill set to 1 and then to 12, everything else unchanged. Firing at trucks at close range it takes 2 shots to destroy the truck in both cases (HEk of 1 and HEk of 12). So with burst modeling we have to spend 18 HE rounds to do 2 rounds work, No matter what burst size you choose you will "lose" a goodly proportion of your HE and AP rounds because of this effect. So Sdkfz 222 with the "correct" ammo loadout of 90 HE can destroy 45 trucks in a game, but with the current loadout of 10 HE it can destroy 5 trucks only.
Soft vehicle effect is I think a very strong argument for changing the HE loadout back to the actual number of rounds as in v6 of the game. ie increasing the HE Kill doesnt compensate for the change of ammunition from single shots to bursts.
Getting on to target involves a lot of factors other than ROF; range, vision, optics, traverse and elevation speeds all play a part.
A LMG MG42 can also fire off its complete ammo load in a matter of minutes, did it?


Changing back to single shots only downside is that we have to assume the gunners are firing single aimed shots ie have some training.
disadvantages of using bursts are
Because of limitations in how bursts are modeled the majority of rounds now have no effect
For HE shell types the increase of HEK does not compensate for this loss. AP shell types are uncompensated.
Hit routine needs to be called several times for AP burst modeling to be correct but how to handle first round hit?

Regards Chuck.

Re: kwk 38 cannon or machinegun
 

Don't put words in my mouth. Size of burst, accuracy of weapon and HEK are all related. What I said is that IF one would want to change the burst size you'd have to think of the other two too. Just as the designers have already done for the current version. THAT is all.

Again you seem to miss the point of abstracting real world effects into a workable game system by coming up with an example were real world effects aren't exactly matched by what the game has to offer. Guess what, it doesn't matter which way you go to model this, one will always be able to come with such an example. And not just for this gun. It's inherent of ANY model, game or no game.

This micromanaging is pointless. Take that final question for example "how to handle first round hits". Doesn't matter. Just like it doesn't matter that if an infantry squad fires their rifles and kills a sniper on the first try, ALL riflemen in the squad effectively lose a round of ammo even though the first one to fire could have hit the sniper. It's an abstraction.
If you're so worried about first round hits, just assume that the gunner isn't sure (and often can't even be sure) if the target is really out with the first round so puts a few more rounds in it. Makes sense since he can do that very rapidly with this gun and he's got plenty of ammo. He could wait a few moments to get a clearer picture, with the risk of being treated on for example a handgrenade or not wait and just put a few more in there. Better to be safe than sorry, right? Sounds realistic to me too.

There's no doubt for me that this weapon is far better modelled as a burst fire weapon than as a single shot weapon (so a big no on going back to v6 of the DOS game on this). And as I said earlier, if you assume the burst to contain 5 rounds of the relevant ammo type and assuming that the ammo was stacked alternating between HE and AP you end up with what you have now.


Narwan

Re: kwk 38 cannon or machinegun
 

As chief apologist for these phantom OOB designers you should know that these changes all came into place after v6 of the DOS version. The logic is that the weapon was now to be treated an anything other than a main gun, whether mounted in either a tank or an armoured car. The weapon is now forced to be used an an oversized machine gun or as an AA gun. The problem is that these secondary roles have been interpreted as its main function and then modelled incredibly poorly, making the weapon virtually useless, ie because it could fire bursts it now has to always fire bursts. This is about as sensible as modeling MG34 as a rifle because it could fire single shots.

I would like to see a reference for this statement I would think the magazines would contain either HE or AP. Even if this is true and using sdkfz 222 as an example its ammo loadout should be 45 HE and 45 AP not 10 HE 10 AP. And in any case HE is not totally ineffective aganst Hard targets and AP still puts a hole in a soft target so to model bursts a number somewhere between 90 and 180 would be appropriate. The crew would certainy vary this if they found they were running out of ammunition anyway.

Would you be able to share these combat reports with us Clause? Firstly when the weapon is mounted in an armoured car which has bumped into french armour the response is to get the hell out of there and report it, not engage in a pitched battle that cant be won, And for the panzer II in a panzer regiment, again best to go round this sort of opposition rather than get shot up, leave the french tanks for the infantry AT or pz III or better. Not forgeting these french tanks were encountered peicemeal.
In any case This is a rare occourance and so doesnt justify modeling bursts, These vehicles are far more likely to meet other similarily thinly armoured reconnaissance vehicles in this case it is more useful to fire single shots.

Still probably more accurate to fire single shots at about one a second than just pump off the entire magazine. This allows enough time for the firer to gauge the effect.

No because no one fires 9 round bursts. Also modeling single shots works fine, However modeling bursts is a failure resulting in the weapon taking a massive performance drop.

Again replacing the weapons primary function with its secondary function resulting in a huge performance loss. How often did these vehicles fire at aircraft ? considering that in the first half of the war germany pretty much had air superiority wherever they were, And the weapon is in reconnaissance vehicles not likely to be targeted anyway. In the second half of the war when enemy air was a problem, the 234/1 appeared, I notice you have convieniently missed out the ammo loadout for 234/1, its 480 rounds. Perhaps by this time of the war the AA capability of the weapon was becoming important enough for bursts to be fired and hence the appropriate larger ammo loadout. ie when these guns did begin to be used regularily as AA they were given the correct ammo loadout to do so. note also the 250 replaced these armoured cars on the eastern front and had the smallest loadout, however germany could still gain local air advntage on this front for attack when these reconnaissance vehicles were busiest.

Claus you have suggested some very limited and highy specific examples where bursts may be appropriate but in the vast majority of cases single shots are more apropriate, thats the real world
In the game forcing bursts results in a seriously underperforming weapon for no gain, disadvantages being:
Only one AP round in each burst actually has an effect.
The number of soft targets that can be destroyed is seriously reduced.
When firing single shots each successive shot is more accurate, with bursts you cannot track on to targets this way and waste vast amounts of Ammo doing so.
Any comment on these 3 points Claus or am I correct in these statements?
Regards Chuck.

Re: kwk 38 cannon or machinegun
 

Hi Narwan
In the real world yes he has plenty of Ammo in the game world he effectivly has only 10 AP rounds as he has to fire a full burst each time. I am not micromanaging I am pointing out that everytime sdkfz 222 hits a kills a target with its first round it will always then proceed to pump a further 8 rounds inot the target very unrealistic. Please take the time to read and understand my posts as otherwise you are forcing me to repeat what I have already said to help you understand my point. You are very good at saying burst is better but you fail to supply much justification, you think it is more realistic which obviously it isnt and other than that the only contribution you have made is to say that the rate of ammo usage, all AT expended in 6 minutes seems correct again this is obviously wrong.
Best Chuck.

Re: kwk 38 cannon or machinegun
 

Chuck

The panzer 2s have 36 bursts for its 20mm autocannon. Various versions have slightly more or less allocated to HE or AP/APCR but you usually have 16 to 20 AP bursts in the mix (about 5 being APCR where fitted), and not the 10 you are claiming.

All autocannon have been reworked to bursts, in both WW2 and MBT, so they no longer have the "fire all day" ability of SP1 and SP2. Also involved in this was a recalculation of the terminal effects of bursts for both HE and AP. That is the way the oobs are, and this will not be changed.

As usual - you want a particular viewpoint. In this case that the thing is a single shot weapon which can fire all day. If that is your particular world view then as usual, you have the solution avalable to you that we always suggest - we provide the Mobhack editor for this purpose. Simply edit the ammo loads to whay you believe they should be, and then adjust the terminal effects to be for single shots (not bursts, or for 3 round (say) bursts) and then run the oobs through the cost calculator. Also - remeber to edit any that are marked as "autocannon" class to normal guns etc. If you then think these OOBS are worth sharing with the user community - then release them as "chucks modified OOBS" or suchlike.

Cheers
Andy

Re: kwk 38 cannon or machinegun
 

Or simply run your game with the V6 OOB's since these seem to be the ones you prefer. I have modified the AC guns in the master OOBs to "5 round bursts" to match the tank guns. That's the way that weapon in our OOB's will be handled and that's as far as I'm going with this. If you disagree ( as I'm sure you do ) then follow Andys advise and release your own OOB set.

Don

Re: kwk 38 cannon or machinegun
 

First of all, the point of my post was to show how the game actually works and what data is actually at play. I'm not "apologizing for the phantom OOB designers" as you suggest, I'm pointing out how the game currently works. People reading your post could easily get the impression that you knew what you were talking about, which is evidently not the case. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

I'm also pointing to some of the limited sources that actually deal with the problem at hand to counter your arguments which are, as usual, only based on your opinion.

Actually, some things have changed since DOS V7 was released. Some vehicles now model 5 round bursts, not 9 round, there have been changes in the composition of the ammo load etc.

They can be found in Jentz: "Panzertruppen..." vol. I. As usual, I dont really care what you think, I'm more interested in what documentation can be dug up to shed light on the issue at hand. Do you have anything other than your own opinions to support the changes you want made to the game?

I dont know. Do you?

How exactly did I "miss" that? It is in the list I posted between the 231(8) and 250/9.

FWIW, I think the 9 round burst thing introduced in V7 was wrong, as it reduced the combat effectiveness of vehicles (not only the German ones) with autocannons way below what their actual combat performance would suggest. Clearly, at some point OOB designers have thought so as well, as the Panzer IIs are now modelled as firing 5-round bursts

Whether bursts of 5 rounds or 3 rounds or something else is the "right" number can be debated ad nauseam (as I'm sure it will be http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif ) but as Narwan says, it is really a pointless discussion. The real issue is how to model the gun (and any other autocannon) in a way that take into account its dual-fire nature. We all know that you want single round fire and that you have wanted that since you brought up the issue the first time 20 months or so ago. So far, you havent brought forward any actual evidence on how the gun was used.
I think your idea about how the gun was used is wrong and I have some hard data to back that opinion up. If you can come up with some good evidence (as opposed to opinion) as to why it should be different, go ahead and share.

Claus B

Re: kwk 38 cannon or machinegun
 

Hi Andy
First nowhere have I claimed that panzer 2 has 10 bursts I have been using sdkfz 222 as my example which does have 10 bursts which is obviosly, patently ridiculous, unless of course it is an anti aircraft unit which it isnt. I have chosen this unit for my example as having had an extreme reduction in ammo loadout it best illustrates the points I am making. the same problems exist with pz 2 but to a lesser degree.

No with single shots it can't fire all day it can fire for about one hour (180 loadout).

Dont forget Ive already shown you where a completely ficticous formation(mech inf coy) and unit (armoured mortar) can be found in your OOB, would anyone have cared if they were missing from some obscure OOB id posted? Because I perserverd with those two mistakes now everyone can enjoy a more realistic OOB. So when I hear the old "use Mobhack" to me this sounds like "get lost were not interested". Isnt this forum for discussing your game isnt that what I am doing? I might point out that these current changes I am suggesting arnt my particular viewpoint. I am pointing out where your OOB and reality dont match. In this case in particular I have pointed out that the cost of using bursts is very high in performance terms, I notice that none of the posters disagreeing with me addressed these points perhaps you could? Ive listed them below for you, Also I notice that yes I am correct in what I am saying ACs have been changed down to 5 round bursts, would this have happened if I hadnt started this thread?

So my question to you Andy is "What are the changes to terminal effects that are meant to compensate for the decrease in available shots? you can answer this by addressing the points below

Only one AP round in each burst actually has an opportunity to penetrate the target.
The number of soft targets that can be destroyed is reduced.
When firing single shots each successive shot is more accurate, As each shot is now a burst, all "extra" shots in a burst are wasted when aquiring a target.

Re: kwk 38 cannon or machinegun
 

Hi Don
The reason I mention v6 is that Clause intimated that noone knows who or why or when these changes came about. So i thought that I could help him by pointing out when the changes occoured then maybe the person responsible could say yes thats right I did that because these weapons can only fire automatic or whatever.
Depending on what the terminal effect adjustment actually are I think most people would agree that 3 round HE bursts and single shot AP would be the best solution, making the old 90 90 loadout into 30 90. But thanks for giving the ACs some more bursts, 234/1 should be 48 48.
Best regards Chuck.

Re: kwk 38 cannon or machinegun
 

Hi Claus
Well Well Well no reference for your alternate HE AP Magazine Ammo loadout? A convienient fiction perhaps? ,As Usual? Just your opinion, as Usual? dont know what your talking about, as Usual?
Chuck

Re: kwk 38 cannon or machinegun
 

Hey, that is my line http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Anyway, first you missed the 234/1 data in my first post, now you missed the reference adressing this issue, stated in my last post.

I wonder whether you have a reading disability or deliberately misread peoples posts to get attention? If it is the former, you have my sympathy, if it is the latter, it is trolling, something which you should avoid on this board, as I believe it can get you kicked out. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Claus B

Re: kwk 38 cannon or machinegun
 

Gentlemen,

Please, try to avoid personal attacks.

cheers,
Pyros

Re: kwk 38 cannon or machinegun
 

Hi Clause
There are 280 pages and I cant find anything about mixed ammo loadout, would you be so kind as to give me the page number where it says kwk 38 used mixed ammo loadout in its magazines?
Chuck.

Re: kwk 38 cannon or machinegun
 

Considering your attitude - no. You just read on and find it yourself like the rest of us have to do http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Claus B

Re: kwk 38 cannon or machinegun
 

Hi Claus
Well Im sorry but I still cant find anything about mixed ammo loadout, as far as I can see it doesnt exist. Personally I think you should either admit you are mistaken or supply the reference. I think one of the unspoken rules in the forum here is that your not allowed to make stuff up and pass it off as fact.
Best Regards Chuck

Re: kwk 38 cannon or machinegun
 

I'm with chuckfourth on this one. Admit that it doesn't exist or you are just acting childish.

Re: kwk 38 cannon or machinegun
 

No I'm not http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

If I say the reference exists, of course it exists.

And it is not difficult to find if you have the book, it took me about 10 minutes together with a lot of other 2cm KwK information. In the book in question, all German terms are in bold, including references to guns, ammo, tanks etc. So skimming the book for references of this nature is fairly easy.

Why Chuck cannot find it, I dont know. I have a few ideas, but since they would likely be considered "personal attacks", I'll refrain from posting them http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

As for being childish, try looking at Chucks posts where he has at least twice stated that I've omitted information or not provided the reference when it was not the case. He is simply trolling and you should know better than to jump on his bandwagon.

Point proven, here is the reference:

- Jentz: "Panzertruppen" vol. I, p. 132

Claus B

Re: kwk 38 cannon or machinegun
 

HI Claus
Well I have been waiting for some time now to hear from Andy what the "recalculation of the terminal effects of bursts for both HE and AP" were and how these changes fix the problems I've identified but as this information doesnt seem to be forthcomming I'll just take this opportunity to summerize this thread.
Claus Ive had a close look at your claim that the weapons magazines are always loaded with a HE/AP mix.
Here is the passage you are refering to, verbatum
"The 2 cm tank gun was proven to be especially effective in combating antitank guns. Magazines were loaded with a one to one ratio of Panzergranaten (AP) and Srennggranaten (HE)."
To put the quote in its correct context, it is a two part combat report by a brigade commander describing how his tanks performed against other tanks and AT guns. The quote is in the tank vs AT guns section
He could easily have said in the first section on tank vs tank engagements that magazines loaded with just AP were especially effective against tanks but he hadnt realised you would be reading his report.
What he is saying is that half HE half AP is an effective mix against AT guns, he is not saying that every magazine in every vehicle that carried this weapon had this mix as you would have us believe. In any case it is obvious the units themselves could decide to use whatever mix they wished. Perhaps just AP when engageing armour and just HE when engageing infantry or would that be to simple?

It is mentioned on pg 111 that "It (kwk) was effective firing Sprenggranaten (HE) shells" looking at this line through your goggles one could easily interpret it to mean that they had HE only in the magazines.
Another passage on the same page has this to say
"A considerable expenditure of ammunition occoured during the battles with enemy tanks as a result of the inadequate penetration ability of the 3.7 and 2 cm rounds. As as example, almost 100 percent of the 7.5 and 3.7 cm shells were fired during the major battle on 13th may. The brigade had to be resupplied before they could continue."
Notice that 2cm guns didnt use up all their ammo. If they can only fire bursts as currently modeled Pz II would have run out of rounds in one quarter of the time that the 3.7 cm weapons did. As this didnt happen perhaps these guns were a bit more judiscous with there ammo than is currently modeled in the game.

In any case I dont mind if they are modeled as firing bursts or single shots what my gripe really is is that the bursts are modeled so poorly that the weapon is effectively neutered. In light of no further input from Andy let me just run past you the difference in in-game performance with the weapon firing bursts and single shots
lets use Pz II as our example with its current 5 round burst. And say it hits the armoured target on the third burst.
Because he has fired two bursts to aquire the target rather than single shots he has wasted 8 out of 10 rounds thats a performance hit of 80%
Now the third burst containing 5 rounds hit the target so there are 5 "chances" of penetrating, but in game there is only one. So once again a performance hit of 80%. Whats 20% of 20% you ask, its 4 %, yes thats right in a normal situation when engaging armour with the currently modeled compulsory 5 round burst the gun is now exactly 4% as effective as when it used to fire single shots. Thats a 96% reduction in performance, this is what I am complaining about.
An 80% decrease applies to the guns performance when engaging soft targets, as described previously.

from the program World at War in episode 3 battle of France, there is footage of the the crossing of the muese with an 8 wheeler Ac and 222 firing in supoort, and yes the are both firing single shots.
By the way no-one has presented anywhere in this thread any advantages to modelling this weapon as a machine gun
Best Regards Chuck.

Re: kwk 38 cannon or machinegun
 

Or to be more precise, that's not a summary of the thread, but just of your opinions as voiced in this thread.

And as you probably know already, work on WinSPWW2 is currently halted, and has been for a little while, in favor of the new patch for WinSPMBT. So no need to whine. It's somewhere on the to-do list, patiently waiting it's turn to be looked at further and considered.

Narwan

Re: kwk 38 cannon or machinegun
 

The report is simply stating what kind of mix they were using. As this is the only place in that text it is mentioned, I take it as a comment on how the magazines were loaded in general. It is the only comment I've ever seen on how the magazines were loaded at times when both AP and HE were used.
As you probably have read already, at least one regiment appears to have stopped using AP by early 1942 as it was no longer considered effective just as HE appears to have been in short supply in Poland in 1939. In such situations, you may have seen AP or HE only magazines, but as I suggested previously, it does not seem very practical to have to change magazines every time new type of target presents itself.
What you seem to be suggesting is that they had some magazines loaded with pure AP for anti-tank work, some with pure HE for soft targets and a mix of AP and HE for anti-tank guns. I think that is rather unlikely and it is not supported by the available evidence, as the only direct mention of the loading is the AP/HE mix.

Now you are just trolling again. This says nothing about the loading of the magazines as opposed to the quote on p. 132, which is talking about just that.

It doesn't mention 2cm ammo expenditure at all, so your conclusion is just you twisting the text to fit your agenda.

No one is denying that the 2cm could fire both bursts and single shots. In fact, the evidence is that it did both (as you can see on p. 132 as well) That is exactly why its ammo load in the game is a compromise between the old 10 round burst mode and single shot mode.

Claus B

Re: kwk 38 cannon or machinegun
 

Hi Claus
I dont have an agenda, I have a valid point.
Lets have a look at your performance maybe you have an agenda?
You lead with a statement that all magazines are loaded with a mix of HE/AP
I ask for the relevant reference, you realise you have been caught out and refuse to give one. You have to be forced to come up with it. We have a look at the reference and find that you have twited the text to suit your purposes. ie your story is a bit different now isnt it, apparently they are only "generally" loaded with a HE/AP mix now. Well this is your opinion only. All we can say conclusively is that in one battalion in one campaign some vehicles used this mix when engageing AT guns, a far cry from your original claim. Seems you are prepared to go to some quite extraordinary lengths to "prove" your point.
I am not disputing that these weapons could or did fire bursts as you are well aware. What I am saying is that AFAIK other than increasing the HE hit value, the modeling changes put in place to model bursts consists of throwing 4 out of every 5 rounds out of the hatch before we go into battle. ie no provision has been made for shots wasted in bursts when aquiring a target of for multiple hits within a burst of AP, amongst other things. I am also saying that there is no need to model bursts the weapon is perfectly and accurately modeled if given single shots. Though it is somewhat underrated as once the target is aquired the rounds can be pumped into it fast enough so that the target returns far fewer shots than it receives.
Nor is the 5 round burst any sort of compromise, it is bursts only, the guns ability to fire single shots has been completely removed. A compromise would be what has been sugggested by Smersh, 30 rounds HE, 90 AP.
It would be a simple matter to have no magazine loaded and when a target appears stick the appropriate HE loaded or AP loaded magazine into the gun. This would give you twice the effect against any target other than an AT gun. or maybe you think thats not worth considering? Also the vehicle will often know what sort of target it is to engage before it engages it. ie can load the appropriate magazine.
Best Chuck.

Re: kwk 38 cannon or machinegun
 

You are just trolling again, this time by flat out lying.

You asked for the reference and I gave it immidiatly in my 10/02/06 12:21 PM post as Jentz: "Panzertruppen.." vol. I. The fact that you were incapable of finding the right page by doing what I and the rest of has have to do - searching the text - is your problem, I'm afraid.

It remains the only reference to how the magazines were loaded. That is a fact. Anything else is just speculation.

No, because it does not take into account that the magazines were loaded with both AP and HE (even if it was only one some occasions) and it it does not take into account that bursts were used also when firing AP. The issue here is not to make the 2cm KwK armed vehicles in the game as good as possible, it is to find a compromise that can deal with the limitations of the game and stil reflect the historical reality in a reasonable way.

Sure, that would be possible.

A tank is spotted. The commander/gunner/loader grabs the magazine - lets assume that he knows exactly which magazines are where - pops it in, cocks the gun, aims his gun and fire. If the guns was already loaded with the AP/HE mix, he would just aim and fire.
Of course, things get even more interesting if you consider that anti-tank guns, particularily the small ones used in the Panzer IIs heyday, were often not seen until they fired. A hidden gun with a commander, gunner and loader would be able to get off a lot of shots while the commander/gunner/loader in the Panzer II was fiddling with his magazines.
Of course, if magazines where changed every time a new target presented itself, you would end up with a lot of half-filled magazines in the racks, never knowing how many shots you had available in each magazine. You would get a lot more magazine changes that way.

Doesn't sound particularily clever to me, but if you can document that it was done that way, I'm all ears.

In any case, to apply you suggestion to the game would require the ROF to reduced considerably for these vehicles to reflect the commander/gunner/loader constantly changing magazines.

Claus B

Re: kwk 38 cannon or machinegun
 

Gentlemen,

I am considering to lock the thread if this evolves into a flame war, so please continue to behave like gentlemen and avoid personal attacks.

thank you,
Pyros

Re: kwk 38 cannon or machinegun
 

Pyros,

Since it is hard to respond to Chucks trolling posts without commenting on his misreading, non-reading and flat out lies with regards to what has already been posted, personal comments are a bit hard to avoid.

Since the powers-that-be are apparently willing to allow Chucks trolling, never commenting on it, but issues warnings whenever I respond, I guess my conclusion has to be that Chucks style is what you want, mine is not.

That is duly noted.

Claus B

Re: kwk 38 cannon or machinegun
 

Claus,

First of all, I am a true neutral.

Secondly, I am not at all interested in the essence of the topic and I don't personally know neither you or Chuckfourth.

I only wish that the forum remains pleasant for everyone else.

If you or anyone else wish to debate on the subject you are welcome to do so but please avoid calling names.

cheers,
Pyros

Re: kwk 38 cannon or machinegun
 

Errm,

This is plain wrong. In the given reference (p.132 Jentz Panzertruppen Vol.1) it is clearly stated: "Magazines were loaded with a one to one ratio of Panzergranaten and Sprenggranaten."

How much clearer do you need it to be ?

cheers

Re: kwk 38 cannon or machinegun
 

Gentlemen,

I apologise for posting the following inside this thread (because it may be off topic) but I strongly believe that it might help everyone involved to act accordingly:

copy/paste from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll


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



Therefor I think that everyone is entitled to an opinion whether a person is "trolling" or not and if someone thinks that another person is actually "trolling" then the best thing to do is the following:

...the most effective way to discourage a troll is usually to ignore him or her, because responding encourages a true troll to continue disruptive posts


cheers,
Pyros

p.s please don't reply to this post because there is no real reason to open a discussion (or an online "trial") whether someone is "trolling" or not. Have respect for everyone inside this forum and try to enjoy your time.

Re: kwk 38 cannon or machinegun
 

Hi desert fox
I suggest you read the thread before posting. For your benefit Ill repeat what you seem not to have gathered as yet. Claus originally claimed that all magazines were loaded with a HE/AP mix he has since admitted that this is in fact incorrect.
Best Chuck.

Re: kwk 38 cannon or machinegun
 

chuckforth, the post you reply to actually points to the reference where Claus' point was proved.

I am in full agreement with both the responding posters (who happen to be long term members of the SP community and are well known for thier level of research in WW2 history).

I have already posted in this thread what you need to do with Mobhack to change your OOBs to suit your own point of view.

Now, I am really getting fed up of your pointless and repetitive circular arguments about trivia. You have already been warned about this behaviour before.

Consider this your final warning, chuckfourth. Please read and digest the board rules.

This thread will now be closed.

Andy