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Hi I thought I had seen some posts about how much better the UHU was over the regular Panther G. I did a search but found nothing. When I look at then in the encyclopedia I do not see any difference. Am I missing something? Why would the UHU have it's own section in the buy screen if it was not special? What makes it better, if it indeed is better?

Thanks
jam

The Panther UHU can see through smoke, you lay your somke screen and advance behind it and bam ! 75mm right between the eyes. That should pretty much explain it.

VikingNo2 wrote:The Panther UHU can see through smoke, you lay your somke screen and advance behind it and bam ! 75mm right between the eyes. That should pretty much explain it.

LOL... so... a bug?... Are these banned for use in PBEM.

As I understand it, the Panther Uhu, (Uhu being German for 'owl'), is equipt with infrared sites giving its crew the ability to see in the dark and through smoke, when looking at any heat source, such as another tank, infantry, etc.. Thus its nickname, uhu.

Eric Maietta

AbsntMndedProf wrote:As I understand it, the Panther Uhu, (Uhu being German for 'owl'), is equipt with infrared sites giving its crew the ability to see in the dark and through smoke, when looking at any heat source, such as another tank, infantry, etc.. Thus its nickname, uhu.

Eric Maietta

I am not sure whether the Uhu was able to see through smoke, AFAIK smoke could also block the active IR. But it was designed to be used at night and I've read in a book about the battle of the Bulge that favourite German tactics was to fire flares against the Allied tanks, thus blinding them, and then kill them with the Uhus and ordinary Panthers.

Yep, the Panther UHU is both a special tank *and* a "bug" in SP:WAW.

The active IR can see in the dark, but should not be able to see through smoke. Active being the keyword here, not passive like the modern IR. The lead Panther had, besides it IR equipment, the Infrarotscheinwerfer or "IR beam light" if you wish who illuminated the target area with IR light. The other tanks in the platoon could then use their sights to see in the dark. (These could also be mounted on a SdKfz.251) From that, I deduce that it shouldn't be able to see through smoke since smoke only should reflect the IR beam. I don't think SP:WAW can handle the difference between smoke blocking LOS and darkness/weather blocking LOS.

From what I understand, the beamlight is visible for the human eye, so it must have made a good target.... :p

Belisarius wrote:...The lead Panther had, besides it IR equipment, the Infrarotscheinwerfer or "IR beam light" if you wish who illuminated the target area with IR light. The other tanks in the platoon could then use their sights to see in the dark. (These could also be mounted on a SdKfz.251) From that, I deduce that it shouldn't be able to see through smoke since smoke only should reflect the IR beam. I don't think SP:WAW can handle the difference between smoke blocking LOS and darkness/weather blocking LOS...

Hehehe, This calls for me. :p

1. AFAIK the beam light on the Panthers itself was only used for driving at night. For the use on the battlefield a SdKfz 251/20 "Uhu" was needed. It had a 60 cm IR Beam (Beobachtungs Gerät 1251) mounted.

2. The designation "Uhu" for the IR Panther is wrong. "Uhu" was only the designation for the SdKfz 251/20. Since the IR Panthers were only tested they were called "Panther with Sperber Solution A" or "Panther with Sperber Solution B".

3. The "Sperber" IR equipment was only installed on Panthers Ausf. A and maybe on some Ausf. D. It exists only one picture of IR equipment on a Panther Ausf. G and that is a fake.

If anyone is interested I could look up the differences between "Sperber Solution A" and "Sperber Solution B".

The current UHU has a bug, unfortunately it's vision is '40' which in here means 10 hex night vision..however that unfortunately is the same code SP3 used for thermal imagers thus the see through smoke ability crept in. If you edit the vision range to 36 (9 hexes) this ability vanishes but it still sees at night.

Fixed in 8.0 to a much shorter range.

Voriax

Losqualo wrote:Hehehe, This calls for me. :p

1. AFAIK the beam light on the Panthers itself was only used for driving at night. For the use on the battlefield a SdKfz 251/20 "Uhu" was needed. It had a 60 cm IR Beam (Beobachtungs Gerät 1251) mounted.

2. The designation "Uhu" for the IR Panther is wrong. "Uhu" was only the designation for the SdKfz 251/20. Since the IR Panthers were only tested they were called "Panther with Sperber Solution A" or "Panther with Sperber Solution B".

3. The "Sperber" IR equipment was only installed on Panthers Ausf. A and maybe on some Ausf. D. It exists only one picture of IR equipment on a Panther Ausf. G and that is a fake.

If anyone is interested I could look up the differences between "Sperber Solution A" and "Sperber Solution B".

Ah. Well, I was partially right about the SdKfz 251/20. Didn't occur to me that that device is much larger than the turret-mounted ones on the Panthers. Makes sense. :p

Uhhh were these never put to use in battle?

Voriax wrote:The current UHU has a bug, unfortunately it's vision is '40' which in here means 10 hex night vision..however that unfortunately is the same code SP3 used for thermal imagers thus the see through smoke ability crept in. If you edit the vision range to 36 (9 hexes) this ability vanishes but it still sees at night.

Fixed in 8.0 to a much shorter range.

Voriax

Wow... I did not realism there was so much about this UHU... It sounds like 8.0 will fix alot of stuff.

I can't wait any longer for 8.0!!! What hair I have left is floating to floor as I type...lol

Belisarius wrote:...Uhhh were these never put to use in battle?

Frankly I don't know.
Depending on what book you read, some say yes and some say no. I don't think there's a proof in form of a written report. Some pictures do exist, but it's difficult to tell if they are fakes or not.
I do believe they were tested in battles though, but surely not in a large scale.

According to Jentz's Panther book, the first "battle-trials" were in march 1945. But it isn't clearly stated if that was a real battle, or only a trial.

Well... 2 months before the end, I'd say there was enough pressure to skip the testing. Not that I know more about it btw.