Odd AI Behavior

[PopskiPPA]

Originally Posted by RERomine

[snip] As Don mentioned, what I was seeing was based on my experience. I'm playing a German campaign and am currently in North Africa. I did some test firing against of a British 2pdr against a Pzkw IIIe. At a 30 degree angle, 61% of hits deflected, while at a 0 degree angle 26% of hits deflected. Hits that didn't deflect penetrated doing damage or killing the target. So what I was seeing is true.

[snip]

Now, lets look at a tank like the Panther A. It has front hull armor of 14 with sides and rear of 5. Without doing the math, I have to believe that my 30 degree angle is not going to generate a ballistic thickness for the side that occurs with the frontal armor and it's normal slope at a 0 degree angle.

A 30° angle (towards enemy) adds 2 to the front armor of 14 and doubles the side armor from 5 to 10. Side hits come in at an angle of 60° and should ricochet very often, as you experienced (just like me).

I would (and I do in the game) angle my tank and pray that the auto pivot does not kick in, especially when the range is such that the enemy round is just barely able to penetrate the armor. On the other hand I'm praying for my opponent to present the full front, which is the stupidest thing to do for that crew...

The probability of a side hit should be very small compared to a frontal hit as there is only a little bit of the side visible, so I'm taking the chance (and counting on ricochets). I hope the game takes this into account when determining if it's a front hit or a side hit.