"41/42 armour penetration table" Topic

88mm Flak. ( 9 )

Pz4 long 75mm. ( 8 )

6prd, Sherman 75mm. ( 7 )

Pak 50mm , ( 6 )
25prd in AT role.
Grant 75mm

Pz 3 shorter 50mm. ( 5 )

2prd, PZ4 very short. ( 4 )
75mm, Italian 47mm

Stuart 37mm, ( 3 )
German 37mm

What do you think ?
6prd , 25pr to powerful?
Stuart 37mm weaker than 2prd ?
Pz3 shorter 50mm superior to 2prd ?
What changes would you make ?

What do the parenthesised numbers represent? Without context they're just meaningless.

Wicked,

They are the penetration value of AP .
They are then compared to the enemy tanks armour rating .

From a relative perspective, looks about right. But also depends on how you rate armor.

I would guess the armor values are for about 10mm vertical thickness.

I would bump the "Long 75" (I assume you mean 75/L42) to 7 and the 6prd to 6.

PZ general,
Yes 75/42 so this was on par with the Sherman 75mm.
Would the later L48 75mm on the Pz 4 be far superior?

Stuart's 37mm slightly inferior than 2prd?

Pan 3 shorter 50,mm superior than 2prd ?

Thank you kindly

All depends on how the dice work.

Is it a subsonic automatic "If the penetration is greater than the armor, it automatically succeeds"?

In WW2 penetration drops dramatically with range, how are you accounting for this? How do the numbers rate to real armour thickness?

Ush

The penetration drops one point med /Long
Example 2prd up to 6" , penetration 4,
From 6" to 12" penetration 3 , long 12 to 18 penetration 2.
Penatration is measured against armour thickness.
Trying to keep it simple and clean as l want a lot on the table.

Emc Kinney
Yes your right

For fun, let me excerpt from Steven Zaloga's book Armored Champion (notice he quips about computer games here, but completely ignores us grogs who still play on the tabletop – I guess he's giving us a pass, or probably because we don't even register as a meaningful hobby group to target anymore).

"How much ammunition was needed on board a tank? Contrary to popular computer games, it took a lot of ammunition to hit another tank in typical World War II combat. For example, the Tiger tanks of Panzer-Abteilung 502 during 24-30 June 1944 claimed the destruction of 27 Soviet tanks and AFVs, expending 1,079 88mm armor-piercing rounds. This equals 40 rounds for each Soviet vehicle destroyed. In the next engagements during 4-27 July, 85 Soviet tanks and AFVs were destroyed, for an expenditure of 555 rounds or about 6.5 rounds per target destroyed. The difference between the two engagements were battlefield circumstances. The first set of engagements took place at very long ranges, often 2 kilometers: the second set were meeting engagements at closer ranges.

These high rates of ammunition expenditure per kill claim were not unusual. From 1 December 1943 to 31 May 1944, 23 StuG III brigades on the Russian Front fired a total 51,595 armor-piercing rounds against Soviet tanks and other armored targets. This resulted in claims for 1,899 Soviet AFVs destroyed as well as 132 disabled. This indicates that it took more than 25 rounds of ammunition for every Soviet tank destroyed or disabled. German 88mm Flak guns used in an antitank role in the Western Desert in 1942 might seem the ideal tank-killing weapon since they were on stable, stationary mounts with excellent telescopic sight, firing in open desert, using very powerful, high-velocity projectile. Yet unit records over the course of several days showed that on average, it took 11 rounds for every tank claimed."

This type of reality factored into rules play would never fly with tabletop enthusiast, let alone PC twitch-gamers.

So how long do we have to get our game off today……at this rate we're only going to get a couple tanks KOed before we have to hit the road again.

I'd put the Stuart 37 the same as a 2pdr.(4)

The German short 75mm was a very poor AT weapon without HEAT, which is why it was mainly used for smoke and HE.(3)

The 25pdr as AT (5)

6pdr same as Pak38 (6)

Martin,

I read so many conflicting information. In Battllegroup rules the 6prd is remarkably high. I've read that on Churchill's that they retained occasional 6prds over the 75mm as they felt it was more effective in AT role ?
So the Stuart 37mm better than the German Pak 37mm , better velocity?
Thank you, that is how l would have played it originally.

What would you give Semovettte very short 75mm only firing HE in anti tank role ?

Yes the Stuart 37mm is better than a Pak 36.

Strictky speaking, the 6pdr is better than the Sherman 75, but only at close range and it depends on the context. In the desert the Germans regarded the Sherman as a heavy tank, it could knock out anything they had at Battle ranges, while it was impervious to any AT weapon below 75mm calibre.

In Northwest Europe (where it was common to keep one 6pdr tank in a 75mm troop), the target mix was very different. Panthers, Tigers… A 6pdr could knock out a Tiger, and with APDS, a Panther. There wasn't any APDS ammo in the desert as it wasn't required.

So for desert game purposes, if you are only using a single AT number, I'd treat the 75 and 6pdr the same. The 75 obviously has far better HE.

I'd treat the Semovente the same as the short barreled Pz IV.

Thank you Martin,

I will adjust my penetration table with your recommendations.

Cheers

Maybe it can be like a 40K toughness thing.

The 88 is Str 10 and the Sherman is T5 so more the. Double penetrates on a 2+. The Jumbo can be T6 and then it's a 3+

I think Apds was a bit late for north Africa.

FlyXwire,
Regarding the historical account of the 88 excessive ammo expenditure to knock out a tank. Unfortunately, it does not detail who reported and collected that data and if it was verified. Can you get any other details because it seems to be the direct opposite of German and Allied tank crewman.

Some of the reasons for the poor performance could be poor training, poor equipment, terrible conditions, etc. If it is true about taking 40 shots to knock out a tank Allied tank crews is a bunch of liars. Especially the ones that claimed they were hit on the first round and brewed them up.

Some explanations could be:
Poor verification of a destroyed target so shooting more rounds even though it was already destroyed from not being able to detect if the round hit or missed.

Crews over-reporting their ammo expenditure in an engagement at the individual, platoon, and company level resulting in many times the rounds fired. This is common practice in all militaries. If you need 10 rounds you report you need 20.

In N. Africa the British tank's SOP was to move as quickly as possible and zig-zag to get into range where their 2pdr guns could do damage. In a desert haze, this would make them a very difficult target to hit resulting in many misses. That's the gunner's fault, not the gun itself.

Below is the trajectory table of the German 88L56. It is the inherent performance of the gun under ideal conditions (unless the Germans made it all up for propaganda). Combat is not ideal conditions. However, in normal combat conditions, an 88 battery was hidden and dug in and extremely hard to detect, at least according to Allied accounts. That meant that the crews enjoyed almost range-like conditions back home.

The biggest factor in accuracy is the range estimation but 88's used a rangefinder so that would not be an issue. At 800m 50% of the rounds would group in a 1.5 by 1 foot. That's the inherent accuracy of the gun. The gun is accurate, the fact that it takes so many rounds to knock out a tank has to do with many other variables.

Wolfhag

Wolfhag, all good points (as usual).

I think Zaloga's excerpts speak more to an operational-level of warfare (and/or analysis of).

As you mentioned, differing battlefield conditions/potential results, but this grouped into aggregate data.

This type of anecdotal performance info is perhaps more informative as rule sets move up the chain of command, with attempts to characterize larger unit actions.

Your points are still valid, and with data, always well-supported.

There just sometimes seems to be a 'scaling' difference from what the technical data supports.

Taking a side-step, a similar discussion characteristic seems to occur with observing analysis for smoothbore musketry performance in the linear warfare periods, vs. actual battlefield results.

Again, the technical data is what we have to work with, or use to 'perfect' game systems – then Zaloga throws out some numbers like this.

Now I will be flippant – "Amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics".

It's been a facet/feeling that sometimes the engineering of game systems from available hard data could be over-engineered…..or that there's sometimes a disconnect from the hard data and the aggregate results from battles.

I used to be a 'techie', and still respect tight analysis work. Evolving as a gamer though, I feel a lot of the tech becomes chaff 'in the big' picture (but then this thread was about penetration factoring…… that's my bad).

Wolfhag, and interested tank-heads – to my inquiry in another thread of potential interest/discussion -

TMP link

I suppose if you are on the receiving end of incoming 88mm AT fire the first time you are hit is a kill. Would they be aware of misses though?