""Gunner's Eye View" Question " Topic

I've been wondering just what it was like to look into a gun's targeting scope. How WIDE would the sight picture be at say, 500 meters? At 1,000 meters? At 1500 meters?
I know from shooting my rifle that a deer at 20 meters would fill the whole lens, but at 200 meters I could see a whole herd of them.

I'm thinking of a rule that discourages players from operating their tanks fender-to-fender: If You destroy an enemy AFV you get a "free shot" at any other enemy AFV within X number of meters to it.
I know all sights arn't the same, but a general idea would help.
Thanx.

panzer-war.com/page37.html
Mobius has quite a bit of research on his Panzer War site.

I thought the rule to prevent tanks and infantry from bunching was called "Heavy Artillery"? :headscratch:

If you want to write a separate rule for that and want to be any approximation of accurate, you need to define that "within view of the scope" as X many inches per unit of range.

According to Mobius' site, a German tank 'scope had a 25 degree field of view, while Allied scopes only had a 13 degree field of view. But let's stick with the Allied numbers. One degree is a BIG distance at 100 yards. How big? One degree is 5 feet at 100 yards. So your 13 degree field of view will be ~25 yards wide (ok, 21 and change yards, but the Germans had wider fields of view than the allies for the most part) at 100 yards (and ~50 yards at 200, etc).

So call it "anyone within 1/4 the range to the shooting tank from the target tank is easier to hit." How much easier? That's up to you, but I'd make it about 15% (or +1 on a d6).

Here is a graphic I worked out for field of view in different degrees. It looks like the rule of thumb is at 28 degrees you get a 50% FOV at range and at 14 degrees 25% FOV.
Link:
link

I think the big factor about shooting at another target from the same platoon or same range is that once you hit a target any other targets at the same range are engaged with no range estimation error. Once you hit it's pretty easy to keep hitting at the same range. The view from the Tank Commanders binoculars would matter more than the gunners view in acquiring a new target.

Wolfhag

As Wolfhag alludes, it is not the gunners job to identify new targets but the Commander who spots a target and swings the turret on so that the gunner can acquire and engage the target.

However engaging targets that are bunched up should be easy, byt remember the ground scale etc of the rules in use!

Tally Ho!

It is nice to think that one hit equals one kill, but, a rule of thumb was to keep shooting at the same target until you get a visible event like it blows up, catches fire, the crew bails, etc. Shoot it til it burns was a common recommendation. In WWII there is no commanders override to traverse the turret. The commander had to guide the gunner to a spotted target. Don't think that just because the commander sees something that the gunner will automatically see the same item. However, the vehicle commander can give a fire command that alerts the gunner to what he desires to accomplish on closely grouped enemy. "Gunner, AP, three tanks, right tank first!" When the target is hit the commander can either state "Target, reengage" or "Target, left tank". In modern gunnery, a good crew can go thru a 3 tank threat drill and hit all 3 targets at 1000m in 15 seconds, one round per target. But stress can do funny things to crews and sometimes something in plain sight is just overlooked, I know because my crew and I have.

Another way to prevent wall-to wall tanks is to insist each player field 10 trucks for every tank model. Fully painted and all. However some fanatics will actually buy the trucks to do that! Which is good for us retailers!

There is a rule of thumb one tanker stated which was, a target within 40m of another that has been hit, is a single correction, so is unlikely to be missed. i.e equivalent to a second shot at the same target. This has some plausibility as tank secondary positions need to be beyond 50m of their first position. In addition global security's sight nots on an excercise tanls with alternate positions 75m away did better. Its one rule we think should be in our rules that we missed.

In my rules, a second shot at the same target has a much better chance to hit than the 1st shot -- so just say that any other enemy target within X of the 1st target can be rolled at the second shot % instead of the 1st shot %. Make X = whatever you like, but I'd say c. 50 yards/meters or less.

Well, it seems as though the sight picture is WAY bigger than I had thought. My idea was that the gunner only had to click one increment to the left or right and he'd be lined up for the next, adjacent target.

And by the way, yes, I certainly did think of artillery and aircraft. I didnt think I actually had to preface my question. Perhaps not EVERY scenario features masses of bombardment and strafing?

Tango 2 3 Ditto: So YOU'RE the one I got it from! I knew I ripped it off one of you guys. Thank you!

In the ruleset I'm developing – there's a simple rule to acquiring and being allowed to shoot at another target within the same turn, provided you have a rate of fire to accomodate that possibility. Having said that, the rule takes into consideration the time frame of the game turn, and as such, it allows you to acquire a shot, meeting all the other requirements, to fire at any secondary target, or even a third, as long as it's within 6" of the primary target, or if the target is within the games "point blank range" as defined, and turret rotation doesn't exceed the prescribed turret rotation for that weapon system in that turn. All other typical penalties not withwstanding.

- Tibor

I agree with Don Lowry and Ushcha, that the separation proximity to the secondary target and related odds are quite good and make sense. This parallels my rules in this regard . . .
-Tibor