Quote:
Originally Posted by Imp
Pretty sure this game sometimes kills a crewman or two vehicle otherwise unharmed.
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A "*" result may result in a crewman kill, and/or a weapon mount being destroyed. It is a penetration that did not totally destroy the vehicle. If the crew kill is the last man inside - it dies.
If it does a track hit, or an engine hit (same end result - vehicle can no longer move) - then there is usually a "*" result applied as well.
Cumulative "*" results on a vehicle act the same way as kills on a rifle section - they are
damage points and reduce total shots available and base suppression/morale levels for the vehicle.
Large calibre HE hits may
appear to "do nothing" to the player, but may well result in enough suppression to stun the vehicle (no effective shots, or perhaps only a few MG bursts available), or put it into retreat or rout status (which is easily detected by holding the mouse over the target - SP series games generally give you "perfect information" on your enemy).
However, HE anti-armour effects in the game have been reduced from the original SSI formula a long time back. In SP1 KVs slaughtered German armour (and German Sigs returned the favour!)- whether it was the target or those in the same hex and adjacent ones - 2 or 3 hexes away with 15cm guns.
Our HE penetration code requires "over penetration" for HE fire to have any significant effect. In Steel Panthers III, the most effective way to kill M1 Abrams was to use mortars on them - 60mm would do the trick. In SP III, due to the fact that each unit was a platoon, track-damaged tanks were simply deleted.
But anyway - now a 15cm gun on a tiger can get 11 HE Pen, but depending on the face hit on a tiger, that could be no over-penetration (those faces of 12), or maybe 3 (Side 8 from 11). 3 Over-penetration by HE is not a great deal, but may only get a "*" if lucky. (If you were a little halftrack, then it swings way the other way of course!).
A blast hit (as opposed to a direct hit) also gets its HE PEN effects discounted, and that is further discounted as range from the blast hex increases (unlike the original SSI code, whereby a 15cm hit at 0 hexes had the same effect on another tank 3 hexes away).
So basically, large calibre HE is
not a great tank killer in the Camo versions. It
can be used to drive away armour due to the suppressive effects, but to reliably kill tigers it is advisable to shoot
AP ammo at them. ISUs do have access to AP ammo - and due to the large WH size, the AP effect is kept for a longer range.
Observe the figures for weapon 81 in the USSR in APCalc. Base AP is reliable v Tiger I frontally to 550 metres (assuming armour class 12). However, due to the contribution of its high WH size, it can get larger penetrations when it gets lucky and all its "ducks are in a row" so to speak - all the way out to
4 kilometres.
So a battery of "Boyevoi" (
especially if backed up with some komsolets armoured ammo carriers) really should try lobbing 6-inch AP bricks onto tigers presenting 2+ km away. Low hit probability, low chance of a kill, but when it happens, it's well worth it
!. And if they only have HE left - then there is still a small chance of doing something nasty as well. A "*" side turret result that wipes a tigers main gun is still good stuff.
Personally, when I buy an (I)SU-152 in the core, I go for the HE-only versions though. The HE ammo does have a suppressive effect on the large cats, worth firing it in platoon salvos if you happen to see one. But they are really there to cause mayhem to the soft stuff. So I would rather have the version with 7 more HE in the racks than the AP.
The 152mm then keep the tigers buttoned up, while the blast from the big HE bricks coincidentally swipes away any accompanying infantry within 2-3 hexes. Then the T-34s can eventually charge the stunned cats and deliver a coup-de grace sabot round from 50m into the side with high confidence that there is no longer any infantry nearby in any state to hinder them.
Cheers
Andy
Large Caliber High Explosive....
Linear Mode
