"SCENARIO WW2; Where to shoot?" Topic

This is meant as a bit of fun, so please excuse the poor artwork (!).

SCENARIO: A surprise German attack has overrun your position and separated you from most of your buddies. Those fellow soldiers with you have been shot out of hand as they attempted to surrender. Therefore, surrender is not an option. Concealing yourself and making an escape later is not an option.

You have to bypass the AFV and soldiers in order to reach your other buddies on the far side. You have a Bazooka and two projectiles. Where do you plant the shot(s) in order to maximise your escape?

I suggest that a shot in A6 is a miss, or possibly a distraction!

B3, best chance of hitting "something"

If a shot in A6 is the opposing player than I suggest that it will definitely give you the best chance to get your troops across. Of course you may have trouble moving your troops when the medics arrive with the body bag to take him away. Nice tank though

C2 & C5

B3/C3 First will penetrate lower armor Second will also and cause major hurt on these murdering @[!

-A, 4.
I want to shoot the bald dude in the background… I really like to mess with my opponents heads…

Hey, that ain't bald. Believe me, I know bald, and that ain't bald!

Yep, B3 or B4, so you don't miss, and perhaps some of the shrapnel takes out a few of the riders.

B3 center of the visible mass

B2 for me for first shot. If inside the Stug side armour, possible burn up, if it misses the side plates and hits the glacis the bazooka projectile will bounce up into the troops.

If so second shot avoiding the Schuerzen into the engine/petrol tank area – say B5

Then slip through while they are distracted, diving for cover and sorting out the mess.

C4… No sweat.

1 A1, guy looks pompous and from a Thunderbirds episode!

2. Aim for B2 to hit B3-4 for all the reasons suggested.

3. Given none of the tank riders has spotted you, wait for it to pass then

a) Fire into the rear to avenge my murdered comrades

b) Wait and let it pass, revenge is a dish, and all that.

I went for the tracks as even if it does not penertrate it will disable the tank so I can run around the back where there is no MG

The upper part of C3.

C2 to stop the StuG, then B3 to kill it (and as many of the infantry as you can)

How quickly would it take for one person to reload and fire a second Bazooka round, under the scenario conditions described above?

Thanks

Stug! Stug! Yee Gods! No wonder we're in this mess!

Was Bazooka that accurate?

High B3…hope to penetrate, cause confusion and possible passenger casualties. Those riders will be your biggest threat. Second shot depends heavily on the success of the first.

B3, center of mass. Anything fancier is just Hollywood.

C2 C5 lesser armour…and it will scare the bejebbers out of the troops on top.

First off, you are only going to get one shot, the temperatures are low (the huns have on winter kit) and the enhancing effect cold has on the backblast and smoke trail of the rocket are going to mean that I'm moving as soon as the rocket leaves the tube.

If I have HEAT rounds, B4 above the skirt is the target. The plasma jet should punch through the side armor and into the ammo storage area. If it does and we get ignition, all those jokers will just have enough time to realize they are experiencing a really bad day. If not, they are not going to be focused outside of their squad's needs.

If I have HESH rounds, I'd try for the flat side armor at the upper corner in B2. The splash from the surface blast should WIA (to a good enough degree that they are not fully combat focused) all the guys forward of the commander's hatch.

If I have White Phosphorus rounds, I aim for the guy on the front edge of the roof on the right side. I'll leave the effects of that to your imagination. This scenario actually should provide the most chaos to allow me to get past the survivors.

StuG = SturmGeschuetz = Assault Gun. Which it is.

No, it's a jagdpanzer IV.

B2 and C2. B2 to scrape all the riders off, C2 to hopefully immobilize the beast. (assuming I get 2 shots).

Stug, Jagdpanzer? I thought they were all Tigers!

B3 by the way.

B4!

You sunk my AFV…

Jagdpanzer IV/L70 A, with the A standing for Alkett, a manufacturer of the StuG III, hence the higher superstructure, compared to the standard JgdPz/L70.

The trouble with HEAT rounds is, if they strike any obstruction, in front of the armour, the warheads performance can be seriously degraded. So high B3, and nice to see the Germans have thoughtfully painted a cross to aim at!

Actually, the WWII bazookas used HEAT, HESH ( ref: wikipedia.org/wiki/High-explosive_squash_head ) and WP. HESH was developed to damage bunkers and more specifically the troops inside via the spall they generate.

WP was mostly intended as a smoke round, but like all WP rounds it quickly gets and holds most every body's attention.

Nope there was no HESH round for the bazooka, just HEAT & WP. There was a HE round proposed using two grenades but not accepted.

Man, I need to dust the back shelves. I did find my copy of TM 9-294: 2.36-inch A.T. Rocket Launcher M1A1 and you are right in WW2 only heat and WP. Hesh didn't come out until Korea.

First rocket to clear the troops off the top, second to shake the tank crew up and make them bail. Then hop into the tank and drive off…. ;-)

I would love to put a hit in C5, as that is where the fuel tank was on a Pz IV.

However, on second / third look, I can see that this vehicle has screen-style shurzen over that area, so that's a no-go.

If the track is moving, I'll aim for B3. If not, for B4.

My father, who was trained with the bazooka (in the tank destroyer command) would probably have shot for B5. He was trained to try hard to put his bazooka rounds onto anything other than the heavy armor of a target … he would much rather have had a hit on the engine deck at a high angle than the side-armor at a low angle. I doubt that it would have been beneficial to him, but that's how he was trained "back in the day".

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

There was a US unit "tested" the bazooka against the panzershreck and wrote a letter of complaint.
It seems the bazooka rocket was best shot at a flat on surface. Acute angles meant it probably wouldn't detonate at all.
Plus the explosive effect of the panzershreck was far greater.
The panzershreck was therefore much better in their opinion for anti personnel work.

Anyone with bazooka experience ought to know not to shoot at the rear deck.

Not sure what the superstructure armour of a stug4 is off hand but I'm not convinced the bazooka would penetrate.
I don't like any sort of angle and I don't like shooting for a keyhole shot between skirts.
There are tank riders on top so it's moving, right?
Those SS are notoriously highly motivated.

This is a tight spot.

I think I'd ignore whoever decided I can't hide.
That officer clearly doesn't know what he's on about.
Play dead or hide and wait for the stug and riders to drive past.
Maybe move behind it, shoot the thing in the rear where the armour is thinner and less angled and there's less chance they see us and just shoot us.
I'll take 2 HEAT if the big hand leaning down out the sky is giving me the choice of ammo.
And whilst it's there – I'd like a carbine as back up and a change of trousers thanks.

For those wanting to shoot at C2 and C5, did you spot the mesh wire covering those locations? That might affect a bazooka round.

I've read in a couple of places, including one book by Zaloga, that the distance that the side plate/mesh armor was set at actually improved the effectiveness of the bazooka round by giving it a more optimal stand off distance for the formation of the jet. I'm not sure of the veracity of that claim but would be interesting to find out.

If they are FMJ in late 44 you won't have to worry about motivation or training, they had a less than stellar combat record in the Ardennes (which I think this diorama represents).

It might be more advisable to stay low and hope Guderian's duck, lives up to it's reputation, and bogs down (especially with all the tank riders sitting on her already over-weight nose) You can then stalk it and fire into the rear, or quietly slip away.

There appears to be a gap in the mesh screen at C4 – and like Mark says, that's where the fuel tanks are. Fried kraut anyone?