kwk 38 cannon or machinegun

[chuckfourth]

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

[Dedas]

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

[cbo]

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

No I'm not

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

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

[chuckfourth]

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.

[narwan]

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

[cbo]

chuckfourth said:
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.

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.

chuckfourth said: 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.

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.

chuckfourth said: 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.

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

chuckfourth said: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.

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

[chuckfourth]

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.

[cbo]

chuckfourth said:
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.

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.

chuckfourth said: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.

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

chuckfourth said:I am also saying that there is no need to model bursts the weapon is perfectly and accurately modeled if given single shots.

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.

chuckfourth said: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.

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

[Pyros]

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

[cbo]

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