Tanks and new 500kg bomb

[undercova]

i bombed a Firefly with new 500kg Stuka bomb  ... nothing

so you still need a direct hit .. or your bomb is a complete waste/dump

Now that we have loadouts .. why not implement different bomb types ?

Germans had many different bomb types next to HE => https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Abwurfmunition_des_Zweiten_Weltkrieges

Wiki only has it in german

 

Panzersprengbombe (PC und PD) - Tank busting bombs

- near hits should penetrate the tank armor

Nebelbombe Cylindrisch (NC) - Smoke bombs

- 50 + 250: could use this for Stuka for example => 4 smoke bombs and 1 HE bomb or 4 smoke and 1 big smoke bomb. the smoke round should last longer and be bigger than the ground ones

Edited April 21, 2021 by undercova

[Kidd27]

Although bombs vs tanks is not ideal, "close enough" will make all pilots bombing aces. That wont translate well for tankers in game.

It has to be difficult.

[undercova]

6 minutes ago, Kidd27 said:

Although bombs vs tanks is not ideal, "close enough" will make all pilots bombing aces. That wont translate well for tankers in game.

It has to be difficult.

500 kg bomb next to a tank should at least hurt/kill some crew members

[Kidd27]

2 minutes ago, undercova said:

500 kg bomb next to a tank should at least hurt/kill some crew members

i dont disagree.

The complicated part is balancing how easy it is at almost any point of a  map to get bombs to target.

Within minutes, a couple bombers could be overhead of tanks that took 15 minutes or more to organize and get into position.

Making it easier (even if more "realistic") to bomb, tips the balance too far

[jwilly]

To hurt the crew inside a buttoned-up tank, the shock/overpressure has to be either locally strong enough to break the armor, or overall strong enough to flip the tank around.

Shockwaves and overpressures don't pass transparently through closed strong/stiff boxes. They flow around. 

Bomb case fragmentation...the normal kill mechanism for soft targets near a bomb blast...won't penetrate a medium tank's armor. 

Crew injury/death inside a buttoned-up tank in the flip-around case would be from them violently colliding with the tank interior while it's being flipped around...not from the direct effects of the overpressure.

Bombs definitely can throw tanks around, in extreme situations. That'd be a tank weight/bomb weight/burst distance calculation.

Bombs also can break tank armor, just as artillery shells can. Generally for a WWII medium tank, that took a direct hit.

[vanapo]

2 hours ago, jwilly said:

or overall strong enough to flip the tank around.

We don't have anything like this in game. Even a truck won't flip when a 500kg bomb detonates right next to it while driving in a turn.So if you don't hit the driver with one of the too few shrapnels that are generated inconsistently, the truck might just happily drive away. Don't get me started on how likely it is that a truck with big rubber tires can just drive away from a near HE explosion.

Same goes for medium tanks. They have a lot of rather weakly armored spots a very close bomb drop should most likely damage with its myriad of shrapnels. Possible spalling or some serious and somewhat lasting disorientation should also occur with a near explosion of a very big bomb. None of that either. Bombs are very underwhelming against all kinds of targets. I don't say bombs are tank killers. But a near bomb drop should definitely be dangerous to a tank. In this game, it is perfectly safe from it. Worst thing that can happen is for the tank to lose a track. And even that normally results from a direct hit only.

With the current state of bombs you can plaster an AB with them and most of the EI running around will still be safe. Infantry that made it out of the AB and is clever enough to stay out of intact buildings is virtually immune to bombs.  Every little pile of rubble acts like an impenetrable adamantine barrier and like I said, shrapnel count is far too low anyways. That's why there is no use in bombing a town that has already been leveled.  It's not really worth the effort, yet it boosts morale and still is a lot of fun for scenic purpose. But if we wouldn't have destructible buildings and identifiable infantry spawns in somewhat open areas to drop our bombs right onto, there would be very few bomb kills against anything.

 

 

Edited April 21, 2021 by vanapo

[OLDZEKE]

I just tested the sc500he against a bedford truck. Open area, all 4 compass headings, bomb hitting the ground 60m or closer is a dead driver.

[fidd]

On 4/21/2021 at 2:58 PM, vanapo said:

We don't have anything like this in game. Even a truck won't flip when a 500kg bomb detonates right next to it while driving in a turn.So if you don't hit the driver with one of the too few shrapnels that are generated inconsistently, the truck might just happily drive away. Don't get me started on how likely it is that a truck with big rubber tires can just drive away from a near HE explosion.

Same goes for medium tanks. They have a lot of rather weakly armored spots a very close bomb drop should most likely damage with its myriad of shrapnels. Possible spalling or some serious and somewhat lasting disorientation should also occur with a near explosion of a very big bomb. None of that either. Bombs are very underwhelming against all kinds of targets. I don't say bombs are tank killers. But a near bomb drop should definitely be dangerous to a tank. In this game, it is perfectly safe from it. Worst thing that can happen is for the tank to lose a track. And even that normally results from a direct hit only.

With the current state of bombs you can plaster an AB with them and most of the EI running around will still be safe. Infantry that made it out of the AB and is clever enough to stay out of intact buildings is virtually immune to bombs.  Every little pile of rubble acts like an impenetrable adamantine barrier and like I said, shrapnel count is far too low anyways. That's why there is no use in bombing a town that has already been leveled.  It's not really worth the effort, yet it boosts morale and still is a lot of fun for scenic purpose. But if we wouldn't have destructible buildings and identifiable infantry spawns in somewhat open areas to drop our bombs right onto, there would be very few bomb kills against anything.

 

 

If you read your history, you'd know the one thing guaranteed to provide infantry with "adamantine cover" is to bomb a city heavily. The are impossible to defeat by continuing to bomb them.

Edited April 23, 2021 by fidd

[vanapo]

1 hour ago, OLDZEKE said:

I just tested the sc500he against a bedford truck. Open area, all 4 compass headings, bomb hitting the ground 60m or closer is a dead driver.

Fine. The bomb is 2 meters long and half a meter wide. So you can kill unarmored vehicles within 15x the length of the bomb .... Amazing kill potential. So dropping big HE bombs is 60 times more effective than just dropping bricks.

Let me quote a passage about a 0.4kg grenade holding 0.185 kg of TNT:

The M67 frag grenade has an advertised effective kill zone radius of 5 m (16 ft), while the casualty-inducing radius is approximately 15 m (49 ft).^[45] Within this range, people are generally injured badly enough to effectively render them harmless. These ranges only indicate the area where a target is virtually certain to be incapacitated; individual fragments can still cause injuries as far as 230 m (750 ft) away.

36 minutes ago, fidd said:

If you read your history, you'd know the one thing guaranteed to provide infantry with "adamantine cover" is to bomb a city heavily. The are impossible impossible to defeat by continuing to bomb them.

Strangely I never read about any air force halting their bombardments of enemy troops in a fortified position just because some houses around them already had collapsed. Must be an interesting lecture you are reading there. Seems like you could divert all AA guns to another part of the frontline as soon as there are some craters around for people to take cover in.

Edited April 21, 2021 by vanapo

[fidd]

I was thinking about Stalingrad, and also German efforts to defeat the Poles during the Warsaw uprising. In both cases continued bombing helped, rather than hindered, the defenders to resist attackers on the ground. That airforces in WW2 continued bombing cities was driven by the need to destroy factories, de-house and disrupt workers in said factories, waste enemy resources in repairing and defending cities from air-attack, and (as it was thought then) to destroy enemy morale. Bombing was also employed as a short-term measure to render units unfit for combat, as occurred on the American end of the Normandy bridgehead to allow the breakout, and on the Eastern end in the British bombing prior to Goodwood/Epsom. (iirc)

It was never employed to reduce the defensibility of a city, because even by then it was well understood that with heavy rubble blocking roads, with basements and extemporised sangars, a very high cost could be exacted on attacking infantry and tanks. Just as occurred at both Warsaw and Stalingrad, and Caen.

Retention of AA in the area of an already heavily bombed city was more a case of bolstering Civilian morale, than any purely military consideration. In London in 1940, and most German cities throughout the war, this was the case.

[dewars]

Indeed - and Caen. Rubble makes some good cover and concealment.

Even Japanese log bunkers were amazing resilient to air/heavy naval bombardment.

[drkmouse]

making  flak   ( even the lite aa guns ) more efective would  ad a would of realsie  and feer for pilots they acutlay had.

hel jsu tmake  the  flak fired have a larger   contact range t simlulate  the  flak goign off.  this would in efffect give the esired   rati oof  fear and  acoutabilty

[vanapo]

1 hour ago, dewars said:

Indeed - and Caen. Rubble makes some good cover and concealment.

Even Japanese log bunkers were amazing resilient to air/heavy naval bombardment.

It is still not understood tothis day why allies brought thousands of bombers and shelled the defenders from dozens of large warships to help them with their cover and increase their defensive capabilities against the landings at D Day...

But I got your points, guys. Towns being immune to bombardments, trucks needing a 500kg bomb to hit within a few dozen meters of open flat space to immobilize them and tanks being immune from anything but a few hundred kilos of explosives landing right on their roof. Sounds like the perfectly balanced game with realistic representation. At least it seems to be ok for tankers if their HE shells are less useful than any MG as well. You know, because rubble provides such a good cover. I can only shake my head if people propose artillery over and over again. Seems like they just don't know how ineffective HE is. Dropping a few hundreds mortar rounds into an flat and open AB with infantry running around like crazy will probably award you 1 or 2 kills. If you are lucky. But that's probably ok for everybody but the guy who did all the work to introduce mortars into the game that are solely used for smoking or trolling.

My take way is that the Stukas best weapon still is the siren. Dropping your bomb(s) is just a gimmick.

25 minutes ago, drkmouse said:

making  flak   ( even the lite aa guns ) more efective

They already got pin point accuracy, no recoil, insane aiming speed, render protection, an autoloader and can spawn virtually everywhere. I think the only thing we can add to make them more effective is auto aim. Probably a good idea. Just hold down "destroy opposition" key for a few seconds.

 

 

Edited April 21, 2021 by vanapo

[SicnesS]

i dont even bother bombing anything bigger than a pz2 now, just stick to squishes and buildings

[N8]

27 minutes ago, SicnesS said:

i dont even bother bombing anything bigger than a pz2 now, just stick to squishes and buildings

And bombing me..  

[SicnesS]

30 minutes ago, N8 said:

And bombing me..  

Come back to the allies and you wont get pew pew'd anymore 

[tater]

I always like to reality check stuff in terms of outcomes.

Under the assumption that bombs are doing insufficient damage to tanks—heck, they could just find themselves tipped part way in a crater, or covered with a fallen building yet perfectly functional, but effectively out of action—we then need to look at the exact other side of that equation...

Why are planes over the battlefield literally all the time?

What % of the days in that region of the ETO were air operations not possible in daytime due to weather?

Close air support functioned 0% at night.

Would improved bomb damage come with aircraft disallowed flight at night, and stopped via weather some reasonable % of the time?

An alternate way would be to figure out what % of the time aircraft typically operated in, and "roll the dice" on bomb hits. Say we can fly 100% of the time, and real aircraft flew 25% of the time. Drop bomb in exactly the right spot—and 75% of the time it's a dud. because your plane should have been grounded from weather, low light, etc.

 

[Kidd27]

4 hours ago, vanapo said:

Fine. The bomb is 2 meters long and half a meter wide. So you can kill unarmored vehicles within 15x the length of the bomb .... Amazing kill potential. So dropping big HE bombs is 60 times more effective than just dropping bricks.

Let me quote a passage about a 0.4kg grenade holding 0.185 kg of TNT:

The M67 frag grenade has an advertised effective kill zone radius of 5 m (16 ft), while the casualty-inducing radius is approximately 15 m (49 ft).^[45] Within this range, people are generally injured badly enough to effectively render them harmless. These ranges only indicate the area where a target is virtually certain to be incapacitated; individual fragments can still cause injuries as far as 230 m (750 ft) away.

Strangely I never read about any air force halting their bombardments of enemy troops in a fortified position just because some houses around them already had collapsed. Must be an interesting lecture you are reading there. Seems like you could divert all AA guns to another part of the frontline as soon as there are some craters around for people to take cover in.

Thanks for all the productive information. You've really excelled at adding nothing but insult. Nice job!

 

[undercova]

6 hours ago, OLDZEKE said:

I just tested the sc500he against a bedford truck. Open area, all 4 compass headings, bomb hitting the ground 60m or closer is a dead driver.

why not add AP bombs ??

kinda the same like HE bombs ... but less fragments ... but with armor penetration capability ?

[undercova]

10 hours ago, Kidd27 said:

i dont disagree.

The complicated part is balancing how easy it is at almost any point of a  map to get bombs to target.

Within minutes, a couple bombers could be overhead of tanks that took 15 minutes or more to organize and get into position.

Making it easier (even if more "realistic") to bomb, tips the balance too far

the problem is that the bomber supply is kinda unlimited on map and easy to get new ones to the front line

ppl already demanded to cut the aircraft supply ... like there were demands to cut armor supply too. both could be very healthy for the gameplay and population. and AA guns or air cover finally very important again

[dewars]

Quote

It is still not understood to this day why allies brought thousands of bombers and shelled the defenders from dozens of large warships to help them with their cover and increase their defensive capabilities against the landings at D Day...

Ya, I understand. I do agree with you about the damage in game from flying many bomber sorties, especially with STG2 back in the day. It was always a surprise to a tank in the kill list. After a while I didn't even bother bombing the heavier tanks.

As far as why they did it, I think it is hard to picture just the massive scope of WW2 in all areas. There were plenty of debates during and after the war about the effectiveness of bombing, especially strategic.

And while I think that rubble certainly provided excellent cover for infantry, the devastation certainly wreaked havoc on supply, guns, infrastructure, communications, morale (lowering it significantly for the defender and raising it for the attacker). I mean, I think it's easier to get guys in the mood to storm a beach if they just heard/witnessed hell on earth shelling/bombing. It's a real confidence booster for the attacker if the thinks the enemy was all but wiped out.

[jwilly]

46 minutes ago, undercova said:

why not add AP bombs ??

kinda the same like HE bombs ... but less fragments ... but with armor penetration capability ?

That would work. But, no fragments, not "less", because AP bombs always have short-delay fuzes so that penetration can occur. So, by the time the bomb exploded, it'd be within the tank or maybe within the ground under it, or if it missed, just buried in the ground.

CRS could make AP bombs one of the Loadout choices.

AP bombs are warship killers, of course. That's their historical #1 purpose. So adding AP bombs might fit into the naval game's development path, if such a thing exists.

[Kidd27]

1 hour ago, undercova said:

the problem is that the bomber supply is kinda unlimited on map and easy to get new ones to the front line

ppl already demanded to cut the aircraft supply ... like there were demands to cut armor supply too. both could be very healthy for the gameplay and population. and AA guns or air cover finally very important again

Yes.

Of course if bomber supplies are cut then there will be less targets for people to use AA

[N8]

4 hours ago, SicnesS said:

Come back to the allies and you wont get pew pew'd anymore 

You know I can't do that...

[vanapo]

18 hours ago, tater said:

Why are planes over the battlefield literally all the time?

What % of the days in that region of the ETO were air operations not possible in daytime due to weather?

Those are great questions. I'd add:

Why are tanks at the battlefield at all time even though there were fewer tanks available than planes and they did move around less because they are a bit slower?

What % of the year were tanks able to operate due to weather?

How fast could a truck drive at night without headlights?

How fast is the normal speed for a truck to drive through a forest?

How slow should infantry be able to move around at night without illumination?

Edited April 22, 2021 by vanapo