Tank supply imbalance

[dm79]

29 minutes ago, JAMES10 said:

It is my understanding that Overmatch results in catastrophic armor failure and not penetration. It is also my understanding the measurements are the diameter of the round vs the actual thickness of the armor struck, ignoring the sloping calculations. ie 40mm of armor at any angle.

Cheers.

At the extreme end yes catastrophic failure, not in this case of 4g/Stug G vs S75 and S76.

See my post on page 9 for the calculations but in brief you work out the effective thickness a slope gives the plate, you look at the normal non slope thickness of the plate (actual thickness) in comparison to the round diameter then divide these two last figures to indicate if the round will overmatch this is the T/D ratio 0.1 to 1. Higher than 1 and overmatch will not take place as either the projectile or thickness is too great.

For example the S75 51mm plate vs a 75mm 4g round would be 51/75 = 0.68

T= Thickness of armour

D= Diameter of projectile

In this situation it would not lead to catastrophic elements but would lower the effective thickness of the Sherman plate from over 100mm to 90mm.

 

Edited May 29, 2021 by dm79

[fidd]

39 minutes ago, dm79 said:

Thing is i am not, i am deliberty trying to stay away from going that deep and as i said trying to keep it as simple as possible, as a realist there is no way all the complexities can be coded in and also why would you want that, it's taken me 3-5 posts just to try and explain what i view as the basics, imagine the developers trying to explain mega complex stuff in a game.

 

Sorry I wasn't replying specfically to your points, but rather to the photograph of catastrophic failure of the armour, which triggered a recollection of the metallurgical side of things.

[JAMES10]

30 minutes ago, dm79 said:

At the extreme end yes catastrophic failure, not in this case of 4g/Stug G vs S75 and S76.

See my post on page 9 for the calculations but in brief you work out the effective thickness a slope gives the plate, you look at the normal non slope thickness of the plate (actual thickness) in comparison to the round diameter then divide these two last figures to indicate if the round will overmatch this is the T/D ratio 0.1 to 1. Higher than 1 and overmatch will not take place as either the projectile or thickness is too great.

For example the S75 51mm plate vs a 75mm 4g round would be 51/75 = 0.68

T= Thickness of armour

D= Diameter of projectile

In this situation it would not lead to catastrophic elements but would lower the effective thickness of the Sherman plate from over 100mm to 90mm.

 

Hello dm7, how are you.

If I may make a little observation.

You are dealing 3 different numbers:
1:  the actual armor thickness.
2:  effective armor as a result of the actual plate being angled.
3:  the actual diameter of the round.

You then use only 2 of the values leaving the other to generate confusion.

In your example
Value 1 = 51mm, the actual armor thickness.
Value 3 = 75mm, the actual diameter of the round.

to achieve a TD value of 0.68. at this value you indicate Overmatch WILL occur. ie. less than or equal to 1, by your definition.

Value 2 = effective armor as a result of the actual plate being angled, doesn't even get a look in so why even calculate it?

On those numbers the Sherman front hull armor shatters under the effect of Overmatch, regardless of its effective armor value.

Cheers.

Edited May 29, 2021 by JAMES10

[dm79]

1 hour ago, JAMES10 said:

Hello dm7, how are you.

If I may make a little observation.

You are dealing 3 different numbers:
1:  the actual armor thickness.
2:  effective armor as a result of the actual plate being angled.
3:  the actual diameter of the round.

You then use only 2 of the values leaving the other to generate confusion.

In your example
Value 1 = 51mm, the actual armor thickness.
Value 3 = 75mm, the actual diameter of the round.

to achieve a TD value of 0.68. at this value you indicate Overmatch WILL occur. ie. less than or equal to 1, by your definition.

Value 2 = effective armor as a result of the actual plate being angled, doesn't even get a look in so why even calculate it?

On those numbers the Sherman front hull armor shatters under the effect of Overmatch, regardless of its effective armor value.

Cheers.

No you need to read my full post on page 9 it will make more sense, i was just cutting down one of the calculations. 

Forget shatters at least when we are talking about 75mm guns shooting S75/S75,  i have not talked about that others have brought that into the conversation but its a very extreme example unlikely in ww2ol unless you are thinking dd's shooting ac's or maybe 17p/88 shooting very thin plates but even then i think these would just go right though, maybe not the dd shell.

[JAMES10]

Hello again dm7.

I believe you are attempting to equate armor failure with armor penetration. The Overmatch conditions result in an armor failure which has nothing to do with effective thickness. Effective thickness is only significant where the armor needs to be penetrated and not destroyed (Overmatched) due to shattering, splintering, cracking and generally breaking up.

I have read your earlier posting. The core of the posting is Overmatch WILL NOT occur if the Thickness (armor) to Diameter (calibre) ratio is greater than 1. your cited example shows that:

For example the S75 51mm plate vs a 75mm 4g round would be 51/75 = 0.68 is <= 1 or Overmatch.

The question I do have in this discussion is, how much energy is expended by a round to achieve the Overmatch?

Cheers.

[dm79]

2 hours ago, JAMES10 said:

Hello again dm7.

I believe you are attempting to equate armor failure with armor penetration. The Overmatch conditions result in an armor failure which has nothing to do with effective thickness. Effective thickness is only significant where the armor needs to be penetrated and not destroyed (Overmatched) due to shattering, splintering, cracking and generally breaking up.

I have read your earlier posting. The core of the posting is Overmatch WILL NOT occur if the Thickness (armor) to Diameter (calibre) ratio is greater than 1. your cited example shows that:

For example the S75 51mm plate vs a 75mm 4g round would be 51/75 = 0.68 is <= 1 or Overmatch.

The question I do have in this discussion is, how much energy is expended by a round to achieve the Overmatch?

Cheers.

Hi James.

This is about the size of a shell + high velocity being able to decrease the effective thickness of a plate, this happens if the normal amour value divided by the shell diameter is less than one, if this figure is greater than one then this reduction in effective amour does not take place.

So in effect, the armor loses about 19 mm of effective strength by being hit by a larger shell.

The larger the shell compared to the thickness of the normal  amour in this case 75mm vs 51mm plate causes a reduction in what the effective armor thickness (108.63mm) this changes it a 90mm effective thickness.

Once you have this lower effective figure you are working within the normal tables of penetration for a round that's why a short 75mm gun on the earlier p4s has no effect as its penetration is so bad.

I have been trying to find other explanations to try and explain what i am saying better but interestingly i came across this from around 2005 with someone clearly talking to DOC about the same thing and being told it's not in the game.

Quote

I hope when you say "cannot" you mean "currently is not" DOC because there is no theoretical reason why overmatch factors as an influence on the effectiveness of sloped armor cannot be quite easily included in a ballistics simulation.

Overmatch is calculated as the T/d ratio - namely, ratio of thickness of armor (a known quantity) to diameter of shell (again, a known quantity). As the T/d ratio drops the influence slope has as an armor multiplier (again a known quantity for each angle) declines.

To take a completely hypothetical example, say a 90mm shell hits 40mm armor sloped at 30 degrees. Ordinarily the slope multiplier would be about 1.25 for 30 degree slope, giving about 50mm effective resistance.

However, because you have a high degree of overmatch here (90mm v 40mm) your algorithm calculates that for a 40/90 overmatch ratio the overmatch factor is say 0.2 (ie an overmatch factor of 1.00 represents no overmatch, the lower the figure the higher the overmatch)

Then the effective armor of the target would be:

effective armor thickness*(1+( (slope multiplier -1)*overmatch factor))

so in the example above the calculation would be:

40mm * (1+((1.25-1)*0.2))
=
40mm * (1+(0.25*0.2))
=
40mm * (1+0.05)
=
40mm * 1.05 = 42mm effective

so the effect of the high degree of overmatch has been to reduce the slope multiplier from 1.25 to 1.05 and the effective armor is now 42mm instead of 50mm.

T/d ratio also has an influence on the penetration of unsloped armor, but that would be a lot more complicated to model. At least including overmatch factors in hits on sloped armor would eliminate some of the more obvious discrepancies between real life and ingame weapon performance.

 

[Scotsman]

There are a lot of things that were started in this game with regards to penetration mechanics that were simply not finished. Face hardened vs RHA for example. The stubs are present for material hardness but no calculations were done. Nothing was ever done with spaced armor configurations for HEAT or KE. For that matter the game really doesn’t differentiate between capped or uncapped penetrators, projectile destabilization or a million other things I could go into. ‘Overmatch’ vs RHA is different than FHA. The plates act differently even if they are the same thickness...so you can’t simply go by a T-D ratio and have a properly working penetration mechanic. Material characteristics have to be there to do it properly. 
 

i’m just going to be semi-blunt here and state that not everything not everything in the public domain with regards to overmatch is correct. I worked on a KE overmatch missile system for decades and have access to years worth of modern test data against numerous targets that directly refutes some of what is being written here. That applies to both penetrators and non-penetrators, as well as many different kinds of penetrators. I can’t say much about that. We did test a huge variety of penetrators and non-penetrators including WWII ammo configurations. 
 

I’d LOVE to get the programmer time to redo it all the way it should have been done but that’s not going to happen anytime soon. Ask Xoom directly on that. 

I think players need to understand that we inherited this code ... we didn’t write it. I’m reluctant to apply too many band aides on top of band aides because the entire system needs to be redone imho. Anyone that really understood what needed to be modeled would have included FHA and differentiated between the various ammo types from the beginning. 
 

until/unless we can differentiate between AP, APC, APCBC correctly with the proper material science behind it and account for decap, projectile yaw and a million things the game has never accounted for - we are where we are. Is there a plan for a better model in a 2.0? Yes. 

As it is today overmatch as defined in the game only increases the mass and number of spall fragments. It does not reduce effective armor because (a) the data required to fo the calculation isn’t present currently and (b) modern testing has provided additional insight into the particular instance. I can tell you that the assumption that projectile t-d alone is a reliable overmatch indicator without additional data is not correct. 

I will also say that some of these modern test results surprised us all - and provided conclusively that what was once assumed to be true wasn’t true at all. 

 

Edited May 30, 2021 by Scotsman

[dm79]

22 minutes ago, Scotsman said:

There are a lot of things that were started in this game with regards to penetration mechanics that were simply not finished. Face hardened vs RHA for example. The stubs are present for material hardness but no calculations were done. Nothing was ever done with spaced armor configurations for HEAT or KE. For that matter the game really doesn’t differentiate between capped or uncapped penetrators, projectile destabilization or a million other things I could go into. ‘Overmatch’ vs RHA is different than FHA. The plates act differently even if they are the same thickness...so you can’t simply go by a T-D ratio and have a properly working penetration mechanic. Material characteristics have to be there to do it properly. 
 

i’m just going to be semi-blunt here and state that not everything not everything in the public domain with regards to overmatch is correct. I worked on a KE overmatch missile system for decades and have access to years worth of modern test data against numerous targets that directly refutes some of what is being written here. That applies to both penetrators and non-penetrators, as well as many different kinds of penetrators. I can’t say much about that. 
 

I’d LOVE to get the programmer time to redo it all the way it should have been done but that’s not going to happen anytime soon. Ask Xoom directly on that. 

I think players need to understand that we inherited this code ... we didn’t write it. I’m reluctant to apply too many band aides on top of band aides because the entire system needs to be redone imho. Anyone that really understood what needed to be modeled would have included FHA and differentiated between the various ammo types from the beginning. 
 

until/unless we can differentiate between AP, APC, APCBC correctly with the proper material science behind it and account for decap, projectile yaw and a million things the game has never accounted for - we are where we are. Is there a plan for a better model in a 2.0? Yes. 

As it is today overmatch as defined in the game only increases the mass and number of spall fragments. It does not reduce effective armor because (a) the data required to fo the calculation isn’t present currently and (b) modern testing has provided additional insight into the particular instance. I can tell you that the assumption that projectile t-d alone is a reliable overmatch indicator without additional data is not correct. 

 

 

Thank you very much so like i originally said the tanks in game with sloped armor are having improved performance from the sloped fronts making them better amour wise than they were historically, while tanks with flat plates or with FHA get no benefit (German). On the flip side tanks using heat are also getting improved results vs spaced armor which also means the anti tank inf using zooks, piats, shreks and sappers  also getting better results than they would as well.

There is very little data in the public domain as it is, so i am sure there is still even ww2 data that's classified, i am surprised it's such a huge thing in modern weapon systems with all the advances in chemicals, explosives and delivery systems, fascinating stuff.

I would be interested in your opinion on if my calculations are correct using known data excluding the other stuff that you can't say, would the effective hull plate be lowered to 90mm on the M4a2 if incorrect which you kinda hinted at what would it be like i said excluding the stuff you cant talk about?

I would love nothing more than for them to sit down with you and re code all this in, i am 100% sure you have all the data and calculations already and its purely a time thing, Xoom hope you see this.

 

Edited May 30, 2021 by dm79

[Scotsman]

Does this frustrate me no end ? Yes it does - because with programming time the majority of these current ills could be history, I don’t drive the ship though... 

Edited May 30, 2021 by Scotsman

[Elfin]

Thanks Scotsman. Appreciated what you shared.

 

[fidd]

9 hours ago, Scotsman said:

There are a lot of things that were started in this game with regards to penetration mechanics that were simply not finished. Face hardened vs RHA for example. The stubs are present for material hardness but no calculations were done. Nothing was ever done with spaced armor configurations for HEAT or KE. For that matter the game really doesn’t differentiate between capped or uncapped penetrators, projectile destabilization or a million other things I could go into. ‘Overmatch’ vs RHA is different than FHA. The plates act differently even if they are the same thickness...so you can’t simply go by a T-D ratio and have a properly working penetration mechanic. Material characteristics have to be there to do it properly. 
 

i’m just going to be semi-blunt here and state that not everything not everything in the public domain with regards to overmatch is correct. I worked on a KE overmatch missile system for decades and have access to years worth of modern test data against numerous targets that directly refutes some of what is being written here. That applies to both penetrators and non-penetrators, as well as many different kinds of penetrators. I can’t say much about that. We did test a huge variety of penetrators and non-penetrators including WWII ammo configurations. 
 

I’d LOVE to get the programmer time to redo it all the way it should have been done but that’s not going to happen anytime soon. Ask Xoom directly on that. 

I think players need to understand that we inherited this code ... we didn’t write it. I’m reluctant to apply too many band aides on top of band aides because the entire system needs to be redone imho. Anyone that really understood what needed to be modeled would have included FHA and differentiated between the various ammo types from the beginning. 
 

until/unless we can differentiate between AP, APC, APCBC correctly with the proper material science behind it and account for decap, projectile yaw and a million things the game has never accounted for - we are where we are. Is there a plan for a better model in a 2.0? Yes. 

As it is today overmatch as defined in the game only increases the mass and number of spall fragments. It does not reduce effective armor because (a) the data required to fo the calculation isn’t present currently and (b) modern testing has provided additional insight into the particular instance. I can tell you that the assumption that projectile t-d alone is a reliable overmatch indicator without additional data is not correct. 

I will also say that some of these modern test results surprised us all - and provided conclusively that what was once assumed to be true wasn’t true at all. 

 

Many thanks for an illuminating and fascinating post.

 

[undercova]

On 5/27/2021 at 9:53 PM, tater said:

Yesterday (or the night before?) it was 3-4 of us total. No tanks. No planes. 1 of the 4 might have been an ATG.

This isn't a side based complaint on my part, BTW, being grossly overmatched sucks universally.

As for poor unit choice, if I spawn in and there are not more Allied defenders than CPs by some margin, I don't even bother playing the game the server cares about (capping/guarding). I just try and shoot people without getting shot since "winning" is completely impossible. If that involves grabbing a zook and taking out a tiger? What difference does it make, the town is lost anyway.

Allies ... plz stop crying about TZ3 when allies are underpop and get rolled again

just classic right now. you guys lost 3 towns in a row ... but nevertheless you stick to an AO that is trapped and going allied within next hour anyway. full EI EWS .. AWS ...

 

Edited May 31, 2021 by undercova

[goreblimey]

Nothing unusual about that from either side....

[delems]

*** Does this frustrate me no end ? Yes it does - because with programming time the majority of these current ills 

The current ill is not about programming.

It is simply about unfair numbers, 12 to 4 and 18 to 10.

Easily fixed.

 

Maybe it needs to be said again:
an axis 3 AB town attacking a USA 1 AB town has less than 1 to 1 odds of top tanks.

a USA 3 AB town attacking an axis 1 AB town has over 4 to 1 odds of top tanks.

[drkmouse]

36 minutes ago, delems said:

*** Does this frustrate me no end ? Yes it does - because with programming time the majority of these current ills 

The current ill is not about programming.

It is simply about unfair numbers, 12 to 4 and 18 to 10.

Easily fixed.

 

Maybe it needs to be said again:
an axis 3 AB town attacking a USA 1 AB town has less than 1 to 1 odds of top tanks.

a USA 3 AB town attacking an axis 1 AB town has over 4 to 1 odds of top tanks.

but but      6 YEAAAARSSS  SIIIIX YEAAARSSS>........ sorrry had to get teh elelpahant in the room to leave.

delems is  1000%  correct

and the frenc STILL need a bit of love  but not even NEER teh extent of this dare I say BS numners set up?

[rob]

On 5/30/2021 at 10:55 AM, Scotsman said:

Does this frustrate me no end ? Yes it does - because with programming time the majority of these current ills could be history, I don’t drive the ship though... 

Lol... you said "history"...

 

[drkmouse]

On 5/30/2021 at 12:55 PM, Scotsman said:

Does this frustrate me no end ? Yes it does - because with programming time the majority of these current ills could be history, I don’t drive the ship though... 

and  we do not  blaim you, we thnak you for your time and effort.

now about those  fully funcyional sheep...

[fidd]

9 hours ago, delems said:

*** Does this frustrate me no end ? Yes it does - because with programming time the majority of these current ills 

The current ill is not about programming.

It is simply about unfair numbers, 12 to 4 and 18 to 10.

Easily fixed.

 

Maybe it needs to be said again:
an axis 3 AB town attacking a USA 1 AB town has less than 1 to 1 odds of top tanks.

a USA 3 AB town attacking an axis 1 AB town has over 4 to 1 odds of top tanks.

Which might have a point if those heavy tanks had the same performance, and TOE's were calculated on just numbers of the best tanks on each side. Note that I did not say the equally best. TOE's are NOT calculated this way, as you've been told many many times by both rats and players. TOE's are built to confer each nationality an equal chance of taking a town from the other. 

The only problem with this approach, is that it's calculated across the whole map, regardless of the terrain. So, the axis armoured Bde TOE's, being uniform, or "vanilla" are sub-optimal in some terrain, and better than should strictly be the case, in hilly terrain. Which is why I've been arguing for the axis to be split into 3 armees or Korps, with 3 different TOE's, one optimised for flat terrain one for intermediate, and one for hilly terrain. More nuanced TOE's for axis armoured Bde's are needed, however, this might require a raised number of Sh76's, rather than a lower one, as these might have to take on some axis Bde's with relatively large numbers of Panthers and Tigers.

In the meantime, accept the fact that TOE's are not established purely on tank v tank numbers or stats, but on the overall chances of a nation taking a town; and be thankful you too are not shackled to the useless corpse of the Arfr in tier 3+.

[delems]

Did it ever occur to you, to think?

How come... on a Friday night; we have 1 AO and there is WBS active?

That is simply atrocious.  Down right disgusting.

Just maybe, maybe... something is wrong?

Edited June 5, 2021 by delems

[Kilemall]

On 5/30/2021 at 11:17 AM, Scotsman said:

There are a lot of things that were started in this game with regards to penetration mechanics that were simply not finished. Face hardened vs RHA for example. The stubs are present for material hardness but no calculations were done. Nothing was ever done with spaced armor configurations for HEAT or KE. For that matter the game really doesn’t differentiate between capped or uncapped penetrators, projectile destabilization or a million other things I could go into. ‘Overmatch’ vs RHA is different than FHA. The plates act differently even if they are the same thickness...so you can’t simply go by a T-D ratio and have a properly working penetration mechanic. Material characteristics have to be there to do it properly. 
 

i’m just going to be semi-blunt here and state that not everything not everything in the public domain with regards to overmatch is correct. I worked on a KE overmatch missile system for decades and have access to years worth of modern test data against numerous targets that directly refutes some of what is being written here. That applies to both penetrators and non-penetrators, as well as many different kinds of penetrators. I can’t say much about that. We did test a huge variety of penetrators and non-penetrators including WWII ammo configurations. 
 

I’d LOVE to get the programmer time to redo it all the way it should have been done but that’s not going to happen anytime soon. Ask Xoom directly on that. 

I think players need to understand that we inherited this code ... we didn’t write it. I’m reluctant to apply too many band aides on top of band aides because the entire system needs to be redone imho. Anyone that really understood what needed to be modeled would have included FHA and differentiated between the various ammo types from the beginning. 
 

until/unless we can differentiate between AP, APC, APCBC correctly with the proper material science behind it and account for decap, projectile yaw and a million things the game has never accounted for - we are where we are. Is there a plan for a better model in a 2.0? Yes. 

As it is today overmatch as defined in the game only increases the mass and number of spall fragments. It does not reduce effective armor because (a) the data required to fo the calculation isn’t present currently and (b) modern testing has provided additional insight into the particular instance. I can tell you that the assumption that projectile t-d alone is a reliable overmatch indicator without additional data is not correct. 

I will also say that some of these modern test results surprised us all - and provided conclusively that what was once assumed to be true wasn’t true at all. 

 

Wow how did I miss THIS masterpiece?

I was hoping we were further along.  Heck, we were talking FHA at the first convention in 2005 I think.  That's when I got sold that you just wanted an accurate model in.

It will make some people cry and move dog bowls, but I just don't see this game being true to itself if it doesn't go there.

[Kilemall]

On 5/30/2021 at 11:41 AM, dm79 said:

Thank you very much so like i originally said the tanks in game with sloped armor are having improved performance from the sloped fronts making them better amour wise than they were historically, while tanks with flat plates or with FHA get no benefit (German). On the flip side tanks using heat are also getting improved results vs spaced armor which also means the anti tank inf using zooks, piats, shreks and sappers  also getting better results than they would as well.

 

Keep in mind the brittle part of FHA once the joules go up.  Axis tank performance would go up in early tiers, but those FHA tanks can be hurting later on.

I think 2lbers end up being sadder at later tiers.

I think FHA should be in definitely, not sure about the weakened 1944 alloys bit.

[fidd]

8 hours ago, delems said:

Did it ever occur to you, to think?

How come... on a Friday night; we have 1 AO and there is WBS active?

That is simply atrocious.  Down right disgusting.

Just maybe, maybe... something is wrong?

I imagine your endless and unremittingly negative posts are having an effect - or there was a rage-log on Friday.

[warspite]

15 hours ago, delems said:

Did it ever occur to you, to think?

How come... on a Friday night; we have 1 AO and there is WBS active?

That is simply atrocious.  Down right disgusting.

Just maybe, maybe... something is wrong?

Surely then the Allies should have huge numbers of people playing?

Or maybe it could just be that the game is very, very old and doesn't appeal to gamers like it used to... 

[dm79]

13 hours ago, Kilemall said:

Keep in mind the brittle part of FHA once the joules go up.  Axis tank performance would go up in early tiers, but those FHA tanks can be hurting later on.

I think 2lbers end up being sadder at later tiers.

I think FHA should be in definitely, not sure about the weakened 1944 alloys bit.

Yeah i am under no illusions its will move a lot of performance around, i think manufacture weakness should be ignored, it goes with things like engine failures, or breakdowns due to no spare parts, that takes Sim into the unfun zone. 

With the current equipment set in game i can see the Axis gaining the most at the moment from more accurate armour and ballistics.  

Just the overmatch alone would be huge.