Originally posted by AmmoSgt
Leo I am not sure what issues of yours I am not addressing .. I am trying to address them all, as well as everybody elses. It iis very frustrating not having access to the US Army Ordnance Corp History which has the details of what and when stuff was introduced and the performance records, as well as not having ready access to Army FM's anymore. I am doing my Honest best to remember what I have read from these sources, and from what I know from personel experience ( such as firing while in protective gear and the usefullness of rangefinding sights ).
The Bazooka was a popular weapon with the troops and the Troops had a lot of confidence in it . Yes the "test Tank Diagram " talks about side and rear hits, thats because some folks are more concerned with what does work and how to best use a weapon, than to just focus on what doesn't work and try and just dismiss a weapon because it has limits. Every weapon has limits and every weapon has good points.
I don't know where you are getting that the bazooka round tumbled and had Fuzing Problems ( ignition you call it ) ..HEAT ammo regardless of nationality or time period has critical limits to proper fuzing , jet formation and sucsessful penetration, this is recognized and is an "in the game" calculation for all HEAT ammo. This has been exploited by almost all Armies since HEAT was introduced, from track skirts to spaced armor to reactive cells, and HEAT ammo has evolved to overcome these countermeasures. HEAT ammo operates on the Monroe effect, it forms a plasma jet that is focused forward and uses about 80% of the blast energy in a directional plasm jet of molten material from the "cone" various penetrative effects can be achieved by varying "cone " material and "cone " angle, but invariably the blast going to the sides and rear is much reduced and special arrangements in the ammo itself is required to make a HEAT round an effective anti personnel weapon in it's own right. On troops inside a closed space the plasma jet can be devestating (closed modern APC's, pillboxes , inside tanks ..ect) but in the open you have two problems .. first the ground itself is usually at to much of an angle for relaible fuze operation and regular earth, brush, wood , and even small stones do not make good shrapnel in the case of a Heat round except to the front of the round. Buildings , especially stone/concrete do make good shrapnel and provide a perdendicular and hard enough surface for imediate detonation for proper jet formation.
Yes, the US used Captured German Equipment.. we even had an Ordance Company in WW2 that was formed to assess and supply captured German 88mm ammo to 2 US Arty Bn's that were formed to utilize the large numbers of German 88's we captured as we overran Europe. In the article that mentioned the US troops picking up the German Fausts it also mentioned they picked up German Rifles as well, since they lost theirs in a river crossing. It does not imply either way a preference for German Rifles or US Rifles , just a preference to being armed over unarmed. It also reflects a rather high order of Bravery and Morale in persisting in accomplishing the mission under very difficuult conditions and after high losses to men and equipment IMHO. The article never said they prefered the Faust and discarded the bazooka , just that they captured them and put them to use. I am sure Germans would do the same with captured US Bazookas .. in fact that is one of the theories behind how the Germans got Bazooka technology and the Idea to make the Shreck. The Faust was an original German weapon and I'll give them credit for that.
The Bazooka in the game is about right as it now stands , given the limitation of the accuracy code , and I find your solution to that a good one. I think the Shreck is being over rated , especially in the Antipersonnel role as it attemps to be a Bazooka instead of a dedicated Anti-tank weapon. It is definately more useful with a HE capability , would have been nice in real life , but the ammo simply didn't exist. I agree many Shrecks and Fausts were fired in other than an anti tank role , but their effectiveness was very limited due to lack of proper anti-personnel ammo. There can be no doubt as to the effectiveness of the WP round from the bazooka in an anti-personnel/ anti material role, burning WP showering a gun position will put that gun out of commision and cause the crew to evacuate the area until the WP and ammo burn out . WP wounds are very painful and very hard to treat since the WP fragments continue to burn inside the skin at 2700C for about a minute more or less.. they are usually not outright fatal , but usually do result in death and are usually inmediately incapacitaing. Until I can prove the existence of the HE Frag round I'll leave the Bazooka with AT HEAT and WP for AP( anti-personnel) /smoke even without the smoke feature.
The German had perfectly good rifle grenades ( as did the US for anti- personnel work , IMHO given the relative effectiveness of a proper anti-personnel HE rifle grenade and the limited number of Shreck rounds a team can carry and the unusually large proportion of tanks that the game structure usually causes , it is a mystery why you would even want to take away AT ammo from a shreck and replace it with a HE type round unless you have the Shreck teams carrying 90 pounds or ammo and weapon already.
Basic load for a two man Bazooka team was only 12 rounds , I can't see a Shreck team having more than 6 due to the increased weight of the larger Shreck round.
I do not want to deny the German player anything they actually had or even anything they think they need to have a even chance of winning in the game .. I don't really care how the German weapons are represented in the game so long as the US weapons get represented correctly with the correct ammo type and performance. Bazookas reliably knocked out German Tanks .. if not always from the front.. the tactics and deployment are the players responsability. I think it is a wrong thing to beef up anybody's weapons so that players can get "best performance" without having to use tactics and placement to achieve them. I also happen to think that leaving whole categories of ammo out of the game is not right, and I happen to think that if you want HEAT to have a anti-personnel effect in the game, it is better to address how HEAT is handled as a whole instead of making a work around for just one type of HEAT round. I happen to support HEAT having a very limited effect against anti personnel / anti material targets if all HEAT has it. Given the limited numbers or rounds both sides carried and the indiscriminate nature of opfire once you click "yes" I would rather my antitank teams NOT have the HE or if they did at least get some smoke masking effect from a WP type round, certainly fring and revealing position with a round of very limited effectiveness and not smoke capable is not the best solutuiion in the enevitable tank heavy enviroment of SPWAW.
If I missed any of your concerns , please repost them, or point them out. And Please remember I am addressing SPWAW and making no comment whatsoever on how you handle items in your version of H2H ( other than I think you have a workable solution to the game accuracy coding problems).
Three points mainly:
1. I simply do not believe that HEAT rounds were so useless against personel as you say. Reason is the statement of US personel as I listed before, that credits PzSchrecks and Bazookas a good effect in this regard. Note I'm by no means supporting any unrealistic masskilling with these weapons, but a casualty here and there is the least one can expect. I know exactly how these rounds work, I fired them myself and I did a lot of research on their use on personel.
The way I modeled them, I would say it is kind of a compromise. They are underrated in lethality in hous to house fighting and overrated on open ground...but the system cannot support more then I did.
BTW, I think it will take some more time (we discussed this topic a year ago or so and you started looking for a Bazooka HE round last time already with no result), till you realize, that the second most used US Bazooka round against personel was the HEAT round and not an almost or even non-existing special HE type.
And you will also find out, that the US troops were quite pleased with the HEAT rounds effect against other targets than tanks or pillboxes.
2. I find it very disappointing to not have WP modeled in SPWAW, but I think we can't do anything about it...I have no idea how to work around the engine to make it work like it did in history...maybe you'll find something...BUT I found a way to model the anti-personel effect of PzSchrecks and PzFausts. I was able to take a few rounds from the AP ammo, make them HE and behave like HEAT when they hit armor. The result is that you CAN fire a PzSchreck at soft targets (I almost never saw more then one casualty), but you always fire a round you also could use against tanks...and with reduced ammo on you got around 5 shots all in all for a PzSchreck...so what's wrong with that ?
If I cannot model one weapons features, that is really disappointing, but it is by no means a reason for me, to keep a second weapon down, although I actually can model it very close to historical behaviour.
3. I know you have terrible problems to change your impression the PzSchreck was the better weapon in terms of range and accuracy. I thought the same (mainly supported by it's behaviour in SPWAW, I have to admit), before I did a lot of research on that topic. I have no interest in pushing any German or other nations weapons beyond realism, I just want to know the truth...I brought up statements of US army personel that actually tested both weapons...the result looks very clear to me...why not to you ?
I think I found an explanation for the Bazooka's strange behaviour (loosing penetration ability over range) and why almost any source gives it 120m effective range and the PzSchreck 150m (nothing dramatic...but still a bit better) against tanks.
What is wrong in my research that makes you think the opposite ?
Personally I'm more concerned about the 'zookas, as they are killers....it's OK with me, but since every Joe down to the company cook has one, they can be a nuisance.
Also as the recoild wasn't always eliminated they tended to damage the aircrafts where they were installed...and eventually the project was cancelled, designer was arrested and probably ended up in some Gulag.