front armor on transport vehicles - why?

[Arralen]

I noticed that with v6.x all transport vehicles (that I checked) have a front armor of at least 4, be it Jeeps, trucks or similar. Only exception are the wagons

I doubt that a hit on the lower front (i.e. the engine) will prevent the vehicle from getting damaged, and also this causes a strange behaviour of units shooting at those vehicles - they use AP ammo if possible .. .

But which tanker would waste a AP shot on a truck ? (Unless he has AP already loaded, but than the game should use that AP round against Inf. as well).

So I would like to suggest removing these values again - together with all 'shields' from truck-mounted guns - 'standalone' guns don't have them either (as the game engine cannot handle them), so why shoud they be handled differently?
Especially as it causes this weird AP-usage ??

Arralen

[john g]

Originally posted by Arralen:
I noticed that with v6.x all transport vehicles (that I checked) have a front armor of at least 4, be it Jeeps, trucks or similar. Only exception are the wagons

I doubt that a hit on the lower front (i.e. the engine) will prevent the vehicle from getting damaged, and also this causes a strange behaviour of units shooting at those vehicles - they use AP ammo if possible .. .

But which tanker would waste a AP shot on a truck ? (Unless he has AP already loaded, but than the game should use that AP round against Inf. as well).

So I would like to suggest removing these values again - together with all 'shields' from truck-mounted guns - 'standalone' guns don't have them either (as the game engine cannot handle them), so why shoud they be handled differently?
Especially as it causes this weird AP-usage ??

Arralen

I checked after I read this, and found the vehicles like jeeps and kubelwagens have it, the Sdkfz 7, and then the Chevy WA. None of the "non-combat trucks" that I checked had it. It seems to be a way of letting the kubel-mg or the Chevy WA stand up to infantry fire so that they can use their mg's without getting blown up by rifle in return. It seems to just be a way of adding staying power to the combative trucks.
thanks, John.

[panda124c]

Originally posted by Arralen:
I noticed that with v6.x all transport vehicles (that I checked) have a front armor of at least 4, be it Jeeps, trucks or similar. Only exception are the wagons

I doubt that a hit on the lower front (i.e. the engine) will prevent the vehicle from getting damaged, and also this causes a strange behaviour of units shooting at those vehicles - they use AP ammo if possible .. .

But which tanker would waste a AP shot on a truck ? (Unless he has AP already loaded, but than the game should use that AP round against Inf. as well).

So I would like to suggest removing these values again - together with all 'shields' from truck-mounted guns - 'standalone' guns don't have them either (as the game engine cannot handle them), so why shoud they be handled differently?
Especially as it causes this weird AP-usage ??

Arralen

Shoulds not the kublwagen have a rear armout of 4?

I'm not sure but this may be a way of getting ATR's to shoot at trucks since they seem to have been very effective against truck engines. But not effective aginst truck bodies like HE ammo. So by giving trucks an front armour that is small, HE damage is not effected but you can use AP against them, of course the side effect is that all guns with AP will use their AP round against trucks. Limitations of the game and side effects.

[Arralen]

Originally posted by john g:
I checked after I read this, and found the vehicles like jeeps and kubelwagens have it, the Sdkfz 7, and then the Chevy WA. None of the "non-combat trucks" that I checked had it.

Strange .. in my OOBs all trucks (German, US, Japan, etc.) have FH armor 4 .. formation 1001 reads "SPWAW 5.2"..

Installed v5.01 and patched all the way up to 6.1 .. maybe something went wrong so I don't have the latest set of OOBs? But I doubt that ..

A.

[john g]

Originally posted by Arralen:


Strange .. in my OOBs all trucks (German, US, Japan, etc.) have FH armor 4 .. formation 1001 reads "SPWAW 5.2"..

Installed v5.01 and patched all the way up to 6.1 .. maybe something went wrong so I don't have the latest set of OOBs? But I doubt that ..

A.

I stand corrected, I had been looking at the second page for each vehicle in the encyclopedia, where the armor and slope are listed.

Indeed all trucks seem to have 4 points of frontal armor it just doesn't show on the second page like it does for jeeps and kubels.

It didn't seem to make much of a differance, even rifle squads could still kill trucks at 4 hex range in a test I just ran.
thanks, John.

[Arralen]

Originally posted by john g:
Indeed all trucks seem to have 4 points of frontal armor it just doesn't show on the second page like it does for jeeps and kubels.It didn't seem to make much of a differance, even rifle squads could still kill trucks at 4 hex range in a test I just ran.thanks,
John.

IMHO the problem is not with Inf. killing the veh. or not, but with the annoying habit of tanks to fire AP ammo at any veh. that has only 1 armor slab somewhere .. while HE would be totally sufficient even it would hit the front hull.

So I suggested to remove all those values again, and to remove all gun shields from truck mounted guns as well, as they trigger the same behaviour - and 'standalone AT-guns' don't have shields, too ...

A.

[Paul Vebber]

This is fixed (ie eliminated) in the v7 oobs

[Venger]

Paul -

By "fixing" this, are you removing all protection from trucks? I can see some logic in doing so, but an infantry squad would likely destroy a truck in that case with simple rifle shot, rather than, as likely happened, shot out tires or the engine, rendering it immobile but not neccesarily destroyed, with a large loss of passenger or crew. The gun crew of the truck would still be available to pour it on.

I guess what I'm saying is that it'd seem for plays sake that infantry hits on vehicles like that shouldn't end up with a destroyed truck, at least from rifle fire, very often.

I hope you understand what I mean, I almost don't!

Thanks,

Venger

[Paul Vebber]

THe armor is gone, but "survivability" is raised, so their is no armor to force AP shot, but it they will not be as prone to explode if hit.

[Truckeye]

did you say v7?? whens the taget date and projected mods other than truck armor change? thanks jp

[Paul Vebber]

The main thing for v7 is to add the ability to have a human play "opfor" in campaigns (including the MC) The human opponant has to be careful, becasue in many of teh existing scenatios the AI has enough force that a human would likely win all the time, but the human "opfor" can use the "waypoints" and putting units under computer control to "direct the AI" so to speak. That seems to work the best.

I've had a blast playing myself hot seat where I set up a basic "opfor" plan using the waypoints and turning most of the forces over to the AI from the HQ menu. I then "execute to the plan" as teh OPfor and play the "campaigner" side as I would a normal campaign against the AI.

That and fixing the "Yugo bug" in the MC. We are about ready to ask for some volunteers who had been having trouble with "yugo bug" crashes to try out the new beta v7.

[Arralen]

Originally posted by Venger:
By "fixing" this, are you removing all protection from trucks? I can see some logic in doing so, but an infantry squad would likely destroy a truck in that case with simple rifle shot, rather than, as likely happened, shot out tires or the engine, rendering it immobile but not neccesarily destroyed, with a large loss of passenger or crew.

---

Front hull armor (4) will not protect either the vehicle or the passengers/crew unless the veh. is hit at exactly that location .. any other hit will damage it as if hadn't any armor at all (at least that is my impression from gaming).

The current survivability rating of 3 or 4 (which most trucks have) should be sufficient to give them decent chance to survive rifle fire and even the occasional 20mm hit. 40mm HE should be devastating, shouldn't it, so I don't see much need to givem them higher surv. .
After all, these transports are not meant to actually enter fighting areas - use armored transport (halftracks etc.) instead.

So it's not even a gameplay issue IMHO ... use them in a proper role, and everything will be fine - use them instead of APCs because they're cheaper and risk loosing them quickly!

A.