"tank commander awareness" Topic

as usually, please excuse my english.

I Am curious about what a tank commander can notice in the battlefield. I am thinking about your average tank platoon (four to five tanks) in a infantry support role (thatīs our average IABSM game), in the tactic combat zone.

I think that the main points are: an available platoon radio net, and if the tank commander is buttoned up or not.

about incomming fire: I think that they would notice the diference between infantry small arms and big weapons hitting the tank (as long as the crew survives, of course). maybe they can discern that a HMG or a heavy automatic cannon is hitting them, but would they notice diference between light AT calibers and big weapons? would they notice the diference between kinetic weapons and HE weapons? would they notice the incoming fireīs direction (from the front or from the flank)?I understand that, as long as the commander is buttoned down (sorry about my english), they wonīt notice missed AT gunfire.

If a radio net is available, would they tell to the rest of the platoon that they are under fire?

I think that unbuttoned comanders will notice damage to other tanks in their platoon, if they are out of combat, etc… but would they do it when under fire, or buttoned up, or will they be spotting they own route and own spotting sector? maybe only the platoon commander will check the other platoonīs tanks status?

Should be given an unbuttoned comadder a bonus to movement as he is able to spot for approach paths better than when the hatches are closed?

Once the shooting starts, the name of the game is confusion. Everything you have mentioned is possible. Most experienced TC stayed unbuttoned but kept an eye-defilade position, where only their eyes and above stuck out of the hatch. From experience, the noise inside a tank in action is tremendous, especially with things banging against the outside. Remember, the MGs and the part of the main gun that goes boom are INSIDE the turret. Just hearing the intercom can be hard sometimes. After a particularly exciting couple of minutes quite a few years ago, we had a chuck of armor gouged from the front slope, as well as a front fender and part of the turret bustle rack missing. We had heard MG and small arms fire hitting the outside, but not the bigger stuff that did the damage.

A TC unbuttoned would not give a bonus to movement. The TC has the best visibility and he had better be watching a lot further out than the next 50 meters. Drivers are trained to pick the best routes. As a TC and company commander, you are constantly observing 1-2000 meters in advance, if possible, while also keeping track of all the other tanks plus the infantry.

Radio chatter between tanks must be kept to a minimum to help reduce the confusion. We trained for very short messages, usually just a couple of words to convey what was important.

the part of the main gun that goes boom are INSIDE the turret.

I once brought a tape recorder in my turret during a live fire exercise. To my surprise afterward, whenever the main armament fired, all that registered on the tape was the gun sliding back and the empty casing ejecting. I'm convinced that when we are inside the tank, most of the sound energy goes out the muzzle.
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Tim

Based on my experience in modern tanks I think that a an unbotted TC should give a bonus to gunnery, possibly rapid movement and definitely backwards movement (with the exception of a few German Armored Cars that had drivers at both ends of the vehicle).

Tank/Vehicle commanders would also observe enemy fire and movement and attempt to communicate that to other vehicles/sections in his platoon.

Ed G

thanks very much to all you for all that interesting info. All this arose when a player complained about the iabsmīs unitīs activation system, that didnīt allow to his tank platoon to react inmediatly to a antitak gun who had destroyed one of his tank.

I am very happy with al the IABSM mechanics, and tried to argue with him explaining that, even with nowaday digital nets, information needs some time in order to flow from one unit to other.

as the iabsm turn is somewhere between 30 seconds and 2 minutes, it looked ok for me that the tank platoon didnīt react swiftly. Maybe some tanks in the platoon didnīt even notice that one of them was destroyed

Maybe some tanks in the platoon didnīt even notice that one of them was destroyed

That could well be, though it depends on the strength of the platoon. I don't know how my US and British friends operate exactly in their modern tank platoons, but Canadian platoons are 4 tanks. In an advance, 2 hold position and watch the ground ahead while the other two advance. They leapfrog or caterpiller forward in this manner. The idea is that if one of the advancing tanks gets hit, the stationary vehicles are watching for such fire to be able to return fire as quickly as possible.

When I went to armour school, the colonel of the school, who was a pretty famous WWII commander, assured us they operated similarly.
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Tim

Just the noise of moveing and the tossing around you get inside makes it hard to see what is going on.

I know one fine mornig one of my gun chiefs didnt even realize we where getting mprter fire close by. He was supposed to be watching the left side of the platoon wedge, and he was. So when the morters landed maybe 200-300 meters to the right he didnt notice. In fact I am not sure the battery commander in his HUMVEE noticed, as they landed a bit behind him.

The amount of confusion is unbelieveable. Sometimes it seems amazing we get anything done at all.

"Maybe some tanks in the platoon didnīt even notice that one of them was destroyed"

Depends on the formation and the national doctrine.

If in what the US calls "bounding overwatch" (what Tim describes as Canadian practice--and yes, it goes back to WWII for all the Anglophone powers, I believe), definitely yes. That's what the stationary vehicles are stationary to observe: enemy fire and any hits on friendlies. This is now called "stationary overwatch", I believe.

If in "traveling overwatch", one section of the tank platoon is located "in trail"--that is, following the other section--but everyone is moving. The task of the overwacth element is the same as when stationary but they might miss something. I believe this is now called "overwatch on the move".

If in "traveling" formation, everyone is moving and looking out for themseleves. The US doesn't do this when expecting contact. It would be standard--really the only formation--for a Soviet tank platoon or even company. As there is no specific intent to watch each other except to guide on each other, a hit vehicle could more easily be overlooked.

On other aspects, Cold Steel has it down cold, as I would expect him to! I am in complete agreement.

Allen

Also remember that at least for the first half of the war in some units only the platoon commander had a transmitter the other tanks in the platoon had receive only radios.

Something else to consider, is ergonomics. Vision devices could be anything from a slit cut into the armour, to more sophisticated periscopes on later US, British, and German machines.

Some tanks had decidedly *inferior* ergonomics, which only added to the confusion. Soviet tanks initially had the TC double as a gunner or loader, and don't get me started on the Early War French tanks with their one-man turrets, sealed cupolas, and worst of all, the acoustics inside of French APX turrets was according to some sources, at the limits of human tolerances, so a hit by an AP round was like being inside of a cathedral bell while Quasimodo was riding on the outside!

"The bells! THE BELLS!! HUR! HUR! HUR! HUR!"

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

After lengthy discussion and consideration I decided that it was simplest if hidden stuff largely remained hidden until enemy forces approach closely OR they open fire.
So the mechanics of sg2 ww2 are similar to IABSM in that respect.
If something hidden shoots then it is automatically seen next bound by any units which could draw line of sight when it fired and were not suppressed.
When the commander is "up" a tank can see forward and up to 45 degrees to each side. When buttoned I make that (roughly) 15 degrees of where the barrel is pointing.

You could argue that super well trained experienced ww2 crews organised themselves well enough to have arcs they each covered.
The idea of my rules is to make things simple but give something of a feel for the difficulty tank crew had in seeing almost anything.

The combination of unsuppressed and arcs means that if a tank is suppressed by something to it's side or rear then it doesn't know where the fire is coming from.

The approach closely thing is largely an aspect of game mechanics. It stops more ridiculous things from happening than it causes to happen. Each unit in sg2 has a quality rating 4 through 12. They roll quality dice of that size as part of shooting, morale etc. When they shoot infantry have range bands of the equivalent inches. They also see stuff automatically to that range.

If anything, reacting next turn might be quicker than it should be to model reality. Next turn is simple and near enough though.

IRL it was quite feasible for one AT gun (or a tank/SP in the right circumstances) to knock out large numbers of enemy vehicles without the enemy being to detect where the fire was coming from, and in some cases, not noticing that vehicles had been knocked out. As Allen says, it depends on the circumstances.

I am minded of two personal accounts, one (from FM Lord Carvers 'Tobruk') where it was mentioned that the only clue they had that a tank had been knocked out was the aggressive click the radio made when the vehicle was destroyed, if it was transmitting at the time. The other was from John Foleys 'Mailed Fist', where after one engagement he went looking for one of his other TC friends (different troop), only to discover he was dead, his tank having been knocked out and the crew machinegunned. When his own tank was destroyed in a different battle, the other tanks in his troop did notice, but he'd left them in 'overwatch'.

If in "traveling overwatch",

Interestingly, I've never heard of that concept – we never practiced it. It was always very strictly "one foot on the ground". I got out in 1991, so things may have changed, but it was not something we practiced in the 80s.
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Tim

This is one of my main issues with the game combat mission- you fire at the rear of a tank, and everyone on the board immediatly that second turns their turrets and instantly pounds you to death.

In minatures games I generally refused ot play them unless trher ewas a ref who knew where the hidden units were and didn;t deploy them until they were really spotted. Such as if no one else was able to see the AT gun fire but the tank it just killed, he'd just say, "this tank went boom" without saying were the AT gun was.

Martin,

an account from the Gembloux Gap battles concerning a Franco-Moroccan crewed 25mm 34SA anti-tank gun was that thanks to the weapons low target profile and an efficient flash suppressor, this particular crew succeeded in knocking out multiple Panzers before they were *finally* located by supporting German infantry and knocked out of action by mortar fire.

The Germans evaluated captured examples of the 34SA and 37 SA post-French Campaign, finding that these weapons were actually in some ways superior to the Pak 36 in penetration performance, and the flash suppressor rendered the guns very difficult to spot under combat conditions.

Even the Panzer IV wasn't safe from these spindly and diminutive weapons in 1940, as a series of photographs taken at Stonne of a number of Panzer IVs all knocked out in rapid succession by 25mm AT guns belonging to a French infantry unit attest. The hapless Panzer IVs look like colanders to put it mildly.

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

"This is one of my main issues with the game combat mission-"

Yes, the 'borg spotting' is a big problem with that game system. Quite why they couldn't implement individual unit spotting I don't know, even paper wargames rules can do that….

Means you have to lay out your AT defences really carefully, firing from full defilade with keyhole arcs of fire so only one or two vehicles are in arc at any one time.