Vickers .50 CMG Killing Pz IVes?

AbsntMndedProf · Post by **AbsntMndedProf** » Thu Oct 25, 2001 4:03 pm

I'm puzzled! I just finished a scenario between Britain and Germany, and three of my Pz IVes fell victim to a Vickers Mk IV's .50 CMG. All were more than four hexes away from the Mk IV at the time. That's one heck of a machine-gun! ???

Eric Maietta

Redleg · Post by **Redleg** » Thu Oct 25, 2001 4:32 pm

50 cal MGs have had the capability of taking out armor for several versions - they don't usually get an outright kill but they will definitely "bring smoke" on armored vehicles.

The .50s are one of my favorite weapons.

Charles2222 · Post by **Charles2222** » Thu Oct 25, 2001 5:05 pm

From what I've seen, there's not an MG out there that penetrates over 29mm of armor, all of which the PZIVE has all the way around if I'm not mistaken (except the top of course). There's also the issue of vulnerable hits and crews abandoning. The vulnerable hits, should display they are such, whether we noticed them or not, and also abandoning won't destroy the vehicle, though it may be difficult to make out if it's abandoned or destroyed, if there's tons of craters and other units in the hex.

In a recent game, I had an ATR team penetrate with ordinary rifle fire on 8mm of armor! This was a rifle that definitely has no penetration, because I checked. The range was either 4 or 5 hexes, after it had fired it's ATR it fired the regular rifle (Polish ATR) and it definitely didn't have a vulnerable hit either. Sort of sounds like a fluke where the ATR teams have the secondary rifle which penetrates for some reason, whereas the infantry units with the same gun do not (but then again, how frequently do I let my HTs get hit by rifle fire or ATRs in the first place?).

AbsntMndedProf · Post by **AbsntMndedProf** » Thu Oct 25, 2001 5:47 pm

Charles 22 Posted:

"and also abandoning won't destroy the vehicle, though it may be difficult to make out if it's abandoned or destroyed, if there's tons of craters and other units in the hex."

These Pz IVes were definitely destroyed. They blew up and spewed smoke after being hit by the .50 CMG. Two were hit on their front hulls and one on the turret front and gave the 'unit destroyed' message. Pretty fancy shooting! <img src="rolleyes.gif" border="0">

Eric Maietta

Larry Holt · Post by **Larry Holt** » Thu Oct 25, 2001 6:38 pm

The armor penetration values are normal values. The combat resolution routines allow for penetration above the normal values. I forget what the super limit is. This simulates armor that is not to standards. This is different from the vulnerable location hits. That simulates hits on spots that are weak by design, e.g. vision slits.

Nikademus · Post by **Nikademus** » Thu Oct 25, 2001 8:22 pm

I always hesitate to throw the 'B' word around but in this case i do have to wonder. For me it rarely shows up but a few battles ago in my current campaign i did see a Finnish Ski platoon armed with rifles (pen value '0') take out a T-26 frontally at over 100 yards. The 'vulnerable hit' announcement did not display.

Even if it had, what does it matter if the armor value is halved when the attacking weapon has zero penetration? Half of zero is still zero.

It does'nt crop up very often so i would'nt consider it a great cause for concern.

Charles2222 · Post by **Charles2222** » Thu Oct 25, 2001 8:37 pm

Nikademus: I agree, but that may have a lot more to do with not having to play up close with infantry very much. I have played a bit in some fairly close-quarters as Soviet against the Finns, and though I haven't seen enough action there to come up with a definitive conclusion, it does start occurring to me that the incidence of vulnerable hits may be way too high. I can't imagine men at 100yds., or further (Are vulnerables only out to 100yds.?) hitting vision slits, for example, in combat conditions, at what appeared to be about a 50% ratio of it's hits, but my brief excursion seemed to display such a thing.

peter hellman · Post by **peter hellman** » Thu Oct 25, 2001 10:12 pm

If we have a fresh armour plate of about 15-25 mm thick, and hit it whit one or a few rounds of a .50 cal MG, it probably doesn't do much. But when the same plate is hit tens of tens of times with rounds of the same gun, I'm sure the plate isn't as good as new anymore.

But I'd think that with proper infantry support etc, a Mg wouldn't have the time to harrass a tank for ages.

-this all is just based on a feeling-

peter hellman · Post by **peter hellman** » Thu Oct 25, 2001 10:17 pm

Forgot to mention that while playing the "watchword freedom" a few days ago, my Panther A took out a log rifle bunker with it's mg. Before that the bunker had been hit with numerous 75 mm from the Panther and similar calibres and suppressed by heavily artillery. But then, the mg burst was all it took.

-based on more than a feeling-

Charles2222 · Post by **Charles2222** » Thu Oct 25, 2001 10:25 pm

peter: I believe the logs of the log rifle bunker, aren't treated as armor, but as just open air (no armor rating), so that a higher HE factor weapon would be more effective.

Lars Remmen · Post by **Lars Remmen** » Thu Oct 25, 2001 10:27 pm

I think that whenever you score a good hit on a bunker that does not kill it outright, one man from the crew becomes a casualty. When the last man is gone the bunker blows up. I think the MG hit just took out that last man.

Regards,

Lars

Paul Vebber · Post by **Paul Vebber** » Thu Oct 25, 2001 11:42 pm

You can have vulnerable location hits at greater than three hexes, and sometimes because of the sequencing of things the "vulnerable location" message doesn't "stick" in the message queue.

Armor on real vehicles is neither uniform across an entire facing nor always up to "spec" or repaired perfectly (ie many vehicles may have been prviously holed or damaged and the armor cracked or simply made brittle). Hatches can be momentarily opened at an inopportune time. THe game does not mean for "brewed up tanks" to be actual balls of fire, just cases where you can tell that it is no longer opperative, for whatever reason.

Bottom line is there is a small chance of unexpected things to happen in any combat situation.

11Bravo · Post by **11Bravo** » Fri Oct 26, 2001 2:38 am

Originally posted by Paul Vebber:
Bottom line is there is a small chance of unexpected things to happen in any combat situation.

And that's the way my men like it. Things like good chow, sleep, pay, and survival... <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

RichardTheFirst · Post by **RichardTheFirst** » Fri Oct 26, 2001 1:42 pm

Originally posted by AbsntMndedProf:
I'm puzzled! I just finished a scenario between Britain and Germany, and three of my Pz IVes fell victim to a Vickers Mk IV's .50 CMG. All were more than four hexes away from the Mk IV at the time. That's one heck of a machine-gun! ???

Eric Maietta

I think I had a Pz IIIe destroyed by one of those too. Isn't that an armoured car? And the sound of the .50 CMG was more like a cannon than like a machinegun. I think maybe that weapon is a high velocity/low calibre cannon....

"Vini, vidi, vinci" - Iulius Cæsar

Don Doom · Post by **Don Doom** » Fri Oct 26, 2001 2:04 pm

Don"t forget on early tank's and panzers had a large amout of openings on the front[two vison ports on the turrent front on the pzk4D & E, and the T-26 was very lightly armmored].

Panzers forward!

Charles2222 · Post by **Charles2222** » Fri Oct 26, 2001 4:24 pm

Don Doom: That would only be applicable if it were a vulnerable hit, but if I understand Paul correctly some of the vulnerable hits don't appear on the log (EEKS! They're a higher rate than what the log shows? <img src="eek.gif" border="0"> ).

Frank W. · Post by **Frank W.** » Fri Oct 26, 2001 7:52 pm

Originally posted by peter:
Forgot to mention that while playing the "watchword freedom" a few days ago, my Panther A took out a log rifle bunker with it's mg. Before that the bunker had been hit with numerous 75 mm from the Panther and similar calibres and suppressed by heavily artillery. But then, the mg burst was all it took.

-based on more than a feeling-

absolutely okay.

rifle bunkers and such usually have a shooting hole (in german: schießscharte) that not very big,but with a bit luck you shoot a full round of mg ammo through the hole,what could bring heavy cauallities to the bunker crew. or even blow up some ammo lying around there...

heavy mg´s are very okay weapons. in my current campaign US vs. Ger 1944 i use .50 cal mg´s with best effect against all kinds of SDKFZ and recon vehicles of the gerries. the big at guns safe their ammo for the "real hard targets"......

you can even be lucky and kill a tiger I with the low velocity gun of the sherman I on the front. that and 2 of M10 tank destroyers saved my fate in the last battle where the germans attack my line with great amounts of tigers and even brummbär´s...but american heroism,the 2 M10 with side shots in the tigers,M9 bazookas and of course some air support made this another vic for me. but it was a hard fight.

Dave R · Post by **Dave R** » Fri Oct 26, 2001 11:58 pm

Originally posted by Nikademus:
I always hesitate to throw the 'B' word around but in this case i do have to wonder. For me it rarely shows up but a few battles ago in my current campaign i did see a Finnish Ski platoon armed with rifles (pen value '0') take out a T-26 frontally at over 100 yards. The 'vulnerable hit' announcement did not display.

Even if it had, what does it matter if the armor value is halved when the attacking weapon has zero penetration? Half of zero is still zero.

It does'nt crop up very often so i would'nt consider it a great cause for concern.

Perhaps what actually happened here, was that while you were advancing the T-26 one of the Finnish ski boys, ran about collecting socks off his buddies, filled them with gunk and explosives, then while the T-26 crew was laughing their heads of at them trying to take it out with rifles, he dashed in and stuck the socks to the tank! (grins)

Easy8 · Post by **Easy8** » Sat Oct 27, 2001 12:42 am

I've had numerous PzIV, PzV, and even Tiger kills with .50 aamg bottom hits. Very satisfying!

Charles2222 · Post by **Charles2222** » Sat Oct 27, 2001 2:16 am

Easy8: That's one thing that though I run into it very few times, I dislike quite a bit, though it's an interestiung attempt to add another place to hit and therefore add another armor rating for the vehicle. I don't think there's any way we can see those ratings for individual tanks is there? Are the bottom ratings universal to ALL AFVs? I ask this because I've browsed through by no means an exhaustive set of RL bottom ratings on AFVs, and often it's at the same rating as the top armor, but I wonder if that rating is firstly universal, and secondly if it's something artifically low like 10mm.