Ammunition types

[joblue]

I am the newbie with a million questions...

Is there a way to switch ammunition types that a unit is currently firing? Also, could someone give me the "Joe-Six-pack" rundown of the ammunition types and their uses?

I am very impresed and thankful that my previous (beginner) questions are being answered with patience and speed.

Thanks
Joblue

[Wild Bill]

That is Paul V's area of expertise. I'll defer to him, JB. We are trying. Thanks for writing...Wild Bill

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Wild Bill Wilder
Coordinator, Scenario Design
Matrix Games

[Voriax]

Originally posted by Wild Bill:
That is Paul V's area of expertise. I'll defer to him, JB.

Perhaps I could lessen Paul's job a bit (and let him concentrate on fixing bugs
Afaik you can not select what type of ammo gun fires. If I'm right and you cannot make it so, would it be possible to make it same way like weapons, that it would be possible to make a certain ammo type 'inactive'? This way you could save your precious APCR rounds until they are needed, and not let the computer waste them at some lightly armoured vehicles.

Here are the ammo types:

HE = High Explosive, your standard explosive filled shell that is used against infantry, wooden bunkers, soft vehicles and lightly armoured vehicles. Does not work that well against tanks though larger ones are likely to cause damage even to tanks.

AP = Armour piercing. Standard anti-tank ammo. Can be used against bunkers too. Initially just a solid steel round, sometimes a small explosive filler was also used. It evolved to the following two rounds that are not (directly) represented in SPWAW.
- APC = Armour Piercing Capped. When round velocity increased ammo shattering became a problem. To overcome this a thinner metal cap was added on the nose of the AP ammo. however as this cap was blunt it ruined the ballistic qualities, thus another cap was added, creating APCBC, Armour Piercing Capped Ballistic Capped round.

Back to rounds found in the game...

APCR = Armour Piercing Composite Rigid. This round has a small dense slug that is the actual penetrator. It was/is usually tungsten. this slug is encased in lighter material, I think aluminium was used? This type of ammo has higher initial velocity and penetration but it loses speed rapidly and after 400-600 meters or so it is actually less effective as normal AP. The american name for such round is HVAP, HyperVelocity Armour Piercing.

HEAT = High Explosive Anti Tank. This round works by the shaped charge in it. This shaped charge is roughly bell shaped lump of explosive and the inside of this bell is lined with metal, usually copper. When this round explodes it accelerates this liner to very high speed and this liner acts as a high velocity penetrator. The important part with this type of round is that the penetration stays the same no matter what is the range.

This should cover them, not too far off I hope. One question though. When an AP penetration value was assigned to a gun, what kind of ammo was used as reference? ap/apc/apcbc? Best available during service entry? Something else?

Voriax

[Paul Vebber]

Thanks! Actually we are taking a bit of a break - but plan to have a patch ready in a month or so.

APCBC was the baseline for AP and APCR for "Sabot".

Guns that only used AP where degraded, guns that used APDS had their min range enhanced.

APDS is one type you missed, its Armor piercing discarding Sabot. IT used a subcaliber round that separated from the sabot (unlike APCR - "composite rigid" meaning the tungstun core was mated to a soft steel casing that stayed with it in flight producing drag, and in some cases tumbling after a short distance).

Also for HEAT, the maximum penetration stays teh sam, but because a lot of factors affect the achievement of maximum penetration, HEat rounds are much less predictable than kinetic rounds. You will find there is a 10% chance a HEAT round fails to priduce an effectic jet, and even when it does the penetrationa will vary substantially (from about 50% to 100%)

The AI control of shell type accounts for the fact that while you as the player may know some things about the enemy, the crews of all your vehicles do not, so occasionaly they make mistakes in choosing ammo, real crews do teh same. We will be trying to increase teh fog of war in teh futer as right now teh game is still to a great extent an excercise in "what if the Borg had WWII weapons and fought each other".

At any rate the "Army After Next" would kill for the situational awareness you get in SP:-) Allowing the players even more control, is hardly an improvement in my eyes.

At the Regimental level, the Commander does not choose rounds for his troops to fire, and the prospect that future commanders could have the capability to do so in "real life" scares many tankers

[Pack Rat]

Originally posted by Paul Vebber:


The AI control of shell type accounts for the fact that while you as the player may know some things about the enemy, the crews of all your vehicles do not, so occasionaly they make mistakes in choosing ammo, real crews do teh same.

At the Regimental level, the Commander does not choose rounds for his troops to fire, and the prospect that future commanders could have the capability to do so in "real life" scares many tankers

I was a C/V crewman ( CV not VC hehe ), Chaperral/Vulcan and I certianly would not have taken the time to unload the Vulcan and releod to a more suitable ammo or barrel mount. They would have gotten what I had.

To a certian extent they did, in the sense that we were told what to load for a given task. If the task had changed to a ground mission when you were set for air, see above.



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Peace,
Pack Rat

[Voriax]

Originally posted by Paul Vebber:

APDS is one type you missed, its Armor piercing discarding Sabot. IT used a subcaliber round that separated from the sabot (unlike APCR - "composite rigid" meaning the tungstun core was mated to a soft steel casing that stayed with it in flight producing drag, and in some cases tumbling after a short distance).

I left this out intentionally Wasn't the only weapon during the WW2 that had these rounds the British 17 Pdr? APDS can also fail badly if the sabot doesn't discard as planned.

Also for HEAT, the maximum penetration stays teh sam, but because a lot of factors affect the achievement of maximum penetration, HEat rounds are much less predictable than kinetic rounds. You will find there is a 10% chance a HEAT round fails to priduce an effectic jet, and even when it does the penetrationa will vary substantially (from about 50% to 100%)

On a certain other forum I once got flamed by a certain 'expert' who thought that WW2 shaped charge ammo didn't 'earn' the name HEAT... That failure rate is good thing. Btw, there has been some talk that the 'schuertzen' or 'skirts' some German tanks had actually increased the effectiveness of HEAT rounds because they detonated the round earlier and allowed more time for the penetrating slug to form. The skirts themselves were so thin they didn't add much to the armor.

I recently read from somewhere that the US doctrine which said Tank Destroyers fight tanks meant that these units had the HVAP rounds...and the poor guys in Shermans had a barter/beg/steal if they wanted few of those rounds in their tank just in case they come up against a Tiger. I think those rounds were called 'Silver bullets'

Oh and good points about the ammo selection control. Actually if you want to enchance the 'crew making mistakes' you could have a random factor (small) when a tank fires an HE round against a tank even though they have AP, like they'd had already loaded HE. Or AP against a truck...afaik they didn't unload/reload but just fired the round and hoped for the best.

Voriax



[This message has been edited by Voriax (edited 05-13-2000).]

[O de B]

In fact i would be very pleased that tanks fire AP at trucks, because HE accuracy seems far worse, ans my tanks waste their shots firing at trucks with ridiculous accuracy (<5%) with HE, whereas with AP they would smite the trucks with 1-2 shots (which happens when they have used all their HE allocation) and not lose more opportunity fire

Well, for the moment i think Matrix Crew takes a well deserved rest, so i won't complain, this game is really far more the best i expected from Steel Panthers !

[Larry Holt]

Originally posted by Voriax:
[snip]Oh and good points about the ammo selection control. Actually if you want to enchance the 'crew making mistakes' you could have a random factor (small) when a tank fires an HE round against a tank even though they have AP, like they'd had already loaded HE. Or AP against a truck...afaik they didn't unload/reload but just fired the round and hoped for the best.

Voriax

You are correct. I can't speak about WWII but current US armor tactics are that you don't bother to unload a round in the tube if you have HE & come up against a tank. Its quicker to fire off the HE and reload sabot.

Now if you hidden and have time to reload, a crew might do that but in duel the one who shoots first wins.

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An old soldier but not yet a faded one.