Development questions, please respond.

Marcello · #1 July 2nd, 2007, 10:05 AM

Game weight and carry capacity is more about preventing an helicopter which can carry a BMD from being able to lift a Maus as well, rather than an accurate reflection of actual weight/carry capacity. Tentatively one ton equals one point IIRC, but this is more a starting point for further fine tuning than an hard value.Also crew is added to the weight for carry capacity IIRC, so keep that in mind.

"How do you come up with values for weapons if they never got off the drawing board?"

Without a penetration table I would not dare to touch the issue with a barge pole, but if you have worked out the AP penetration the rest is relatively easy. HEAT has already been dealt with. For Sabot do you mean APCR or proper APDS?
What's the timeline?

RecruitMonty · #2 July 2nd, 2007, 03:51 PM

Regarding Sabot rounds I am fairly sure we are dealing with APCR/(APCNR) rounds. As far as I know that is what the Germans use. However having said that they did pinch the early design, the APDS, from the French they could also use that I suppose. Which is better?

IIRC? (Probably a stupid question but...).

As for the 105s, I have decided to just use the Leopard 105s for anything after the mid 50s.

Could you explain what "3*" or "10*" mean? I have never come across this before. (Stupid question perhaps).

Marcello · #3 July 3rd, 2007, 04:20 PM

"Which is better?"
APDS and APCNR are both better than APCR. Between APDS and APCNR it is a bit harder to say. APCNR is a one trick pony, in the sense that you can only fire efficiently AT rounds (the HE shell sucked, especially for the small calibers, given that it had to fit a taper bore barrel) and you have to deal with higher barrel wear. Further you need a secure supplies of tungsten for the rounds (and managanese for the barrel); while with a conventional gun you can supplement your APDS with conventional AP this isn't as easy with a taper bore design.An APCNR might,but I am not sure, be lighter in construction; this would be handy for a towed antitank gun, like the PAK 41 was. But for large caliber tank guns I think you are much better off with a conventional barrel and APDS rounds. Frankly I am not even sure a 150mm taper bore design would be feasible in first place.

Marcello · #4 July 3rd, 2007, 04:38 PM

And thinking about it, what is a 175mm tank gun for?
The Pak 44 with an APDS should be able to deal with pretty much everything that the russians can field. But a 175mm? the HE shell for that caliber weights nearly 67 Kg. How are you supposed to load it?

RecruitMonty · #5 July 3rd, 2007, 08:47 PM

Thankyou for your answer.

I should think it would be used with an Auto-loader. The Germans had a semi-auto loader, in as much as it still required help from a crewman or two to get it to function. An auto-loader was not beyond them. As for its function, well I suppose it is an overkill weapon. It was after all intended for the next generation Jagdpanzers. We all know those things were monstrously huge.

Yes, an overkill weapon. Lets be honest, the 150mm and 128mm would likely be the mainstay of the jagdppanzer force. The 175mm would be the extra big piece wheeled out on special occasions to cause terror in the enemy ranks.

Any more answers, to the other two questions?

PlasmaKrab · #6 July 4th, 2007, 04:13 AM

For the HEAT warheads, I meant by the 3* and 10* that the penetration value for new rounds could be rounded up with the following rule: penetration equals 3 times caliber for anything 50s to 80s, give and take 10-20% depending on the date and tech level.

And IIRC is internet slang abbreviation for "if I remember corectly"

Marcello · #7 July 4th, 2007, 05:11 PM

I have thought more about it. If the 175mm gun is meant for a tank destroyer, rather than some uber tank as I assumed initially, it might be possible to set up something to load it without an autoloader. The shell for the Sturmtiger was 345kg so handling a 175mm round should be technically feasible,if still massively unwieldy. Still it isn't a good idea; you have to remember that in real life the germans were cut off from tungsten sources when Franco turned the back to them. Given that all those advanced shell designs required tungsten this meant that they could not be produced. Therefore the only way to improve AP performance was building bigger guns, despite the disadvantages.
Assuming that instead tungsten can be purchased it seems to me quite likely that the germans would have developed more sophisticated rounds, it is not like they were clueless in this area (see the PAK 41 for example). As I said a 128mm with an APDS would deal with everything the russian can field, save maybe (and I mean maybe) the few IS-7 which will be made. For those a few 150mm with APDS will be more than enough.