3.7 Pak's vs Matildas

[Dunhill_BKK]

G'day, I've not had much experience with COTA handling tanks, but I'm wondering about the results others have observed. Today 1 Matilda held off two units of 3.7 paks and a number of infantry units over half a day. I only succeeded in getting them to surender by sending multiple units at it from all sides.

I'd have thought that paks firing from under 500 meters and seperated by an angle of at least 60 degrees should have finished off 1 Matilda.

[Prince of Eckmühl]

ORIGINAL: Dunhill_BKK

G'day, I've not had much experience with COTA handling tanks, but I'm wondering about the results others have observed. Today 1 Matilda held off two units of 3.7 paks and a number of infantry units over half a day. I only succeeded in getting them to surender by sending multiple units at it from all sides.

I'd have thought that paks firing from under 500 meters and seperated by an angle of at least 60 degrees should have finished off 1 Matilda.

The German gun that you're talking about had a terrible AP round. At 100m, it could only penetrate 36mm of armour at 0-degrees.

Conversely, the thinnest armour on Matilda was 40mm (lower side-hull).

Now what should have occurred, was that the Matilda should have run out of ammo, particularly for its MG, as I have seen happen before.

At that point the infantry should have been able to assault it.

PoE (aka ivanmoe)

BTW: There were tungsten and shaped-charge rounds for the 3.7 that were really quite good. However, the former was in very short supply, and I'm not sure that the latter was even available in 1940-41. Understandably, these are not included in the game.

[Dunhill_BKK]

Thanks for that.

I think I've become confused by the strength of these AT guns as represented in other games, both paper-based and electronic.

I thought that COTA would have been up-to-speed with regards to accuracy.

Cheers,

[GoodGuy]

ORIGINAL: Dunhill_BKK

I thought that COTA would have been up-to-speed with regards to accuracy.

Just to make sure, since English isn't my first language:

You're saying that COTA is accurate?

There are very few details - and these are mostly tiny details (like some HE 2-pdr discussion or whether the North African theater saw mostly Panzer III "G" or "H" models, for example).

Regarding the performance of the German "3,7-cm-PaK 35/36" (the official designation):

ORIGINAL: Prince of Eckmühl

BTW: There were tungsten and shaped-charge rounds for the 3.7 that were really quite good. However, the former was in very short supply, and I'm not sure that the latter was even available in 1940-41. Understandably, these are not included in the game.

The tungsten rounds weren't bad. The first rounds (59,700 rounds) with tungsten core (Panzergranate 40) for 37mm guns (tanks, AT-guns) had been delivered in July 1940, too late for the campaign in France. The 37mm PaK encountered numerous targets where it appeared to be totally useless without tungsten rounds, namely the french medium tanks with their heavy front armor. The Germans had to bring up their 88mm Flak-36 guns in order to knock out the French tanks.
Even most German tanks had a hard time, that's why they usually bypassed the Frenchies - which was easy, since the French medium tanks were slow - and passed the job to the German infantry and/or flak units. (Rommel remembered the use of the flak in 1941 and refined it for the African campaign).

Although the Germans' stock-level of tungsten rounds (Pz.Gr. 40) had been increased to 982,300 pieces by July 1941, the Germans started to call the 37mm PaK "Panzer-Anklopfgerät" when they encountered the first T-34 and KV tanks in 1941, the term would translate to "Tank-Knocking-Device", as it was pretty much just like a tank-(door)-knocking-device, telling the enemy "we are here", without penetrating the hull at all:
The rounds just bounced on the Russian T-34's frontal armor, even tungsten rounds.
The same would have happened to 37mm PaK units when they encountered Matildas commencing a frontal attack, most likely. So even with tungsten rounds, this gun's performance was insufficient to fight Allied medium tanks.

The 5-cm-PaK 38 could penetrate 60mm of armor (at 500 meters) with regular rounds, and 95mm with tungsten rounds, though.

Anyway, the production of Pz.Gr. 40 (37mm) rounds with tungsten core was halted in March 1942. Tungsten cores had been used for other calibres too, but their production had been halted in 1942 or 1943 as well, since tungsten was a scarce resource for the Germans. Tiger and Panther guns did not need tungsten rounds.... barrels and ammo had been refined to deliver performance with regular ammunition.

There was a over-calibre grenade (Stielgranate 41 - "stick grenade 41") using a stabilizer (tail fin), but its extremely low velocity (110 meters per second, only) restricted a wider use, as the PaK's crew had to wait until the enemy vehicle came as close as 200 meters, before they could fire.
This grenade could penetrate 180mm of armor. So this grenade turned the gun into what I'd call "fixed" or "immobile" Panzerfaust, as it had a similar range and performance as the very late versions of the Panzerfaust.

I doubt that a Matilda tank would have let a PaK 36 come that close, though, unless it ran into an ambush. But, most important for COTA's accuracy, the grenade did not reach frontline units before February 1942.

COTA does fine in the accuracy department. When a 37mm PaK 36 encountered a Matilda, the tank appeared rather unstoppable, unless for some extremely lucky hits on weak spots (tracks?, rear?) - to at least immobilize it.

Quite frankly, without tanks or 50mm guns, PaK 36 crews could just hope that some infantry with hollow charges would have the guts to stop the Matildas.

[Dunhill_BKK]

Yes, Im saying COTA is accurate. I just wasn't sure about the PAKs and I was sure someone on the forums could enlighten me.

~Cheers