NATO tank gun accuracy / effectiveness
Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2026 10:02 am
Iam just going to copy and paste ChatGPT Pro's assessment of scen 5 of the big red one campaign.
Yes—the numbers are genuinely extreme. From the beginning of the scenario through 16:56, your Abrams fired 527 M256 main-gun rounds. At least 394 rounds—74.8%—failed to destroy or cause the fall-out of a single enemy runner.
Your American ATGM units fired 122 missiles, of which at least 67—54.9%—produced no runner loss.
Complete count
Weapon Fired Maximum possible losses caused Minimum non-killing shots Minimum non-killing rate
Abrams M256 main gun 527 133 394 74.8%
TOW-2A 91 38 53 58.2%
TOW-2 15 8 7 46.7%
Dragon II 16 9 7 43.8%
All ATGMs 122 55 67 54.9%
Main guns + ATGMs 649 188 461 71.0%
This is deliberately generous to your weapons. Whenever an engagement included M256 fire plus machine guns or other weapons, I credited every possible target loss to the M256. Consequently, actual main-gun effectiveness could be worse.
Abrams results by range
Engagement range M256 rounds Maximum possible losses Minimum non-killing rate
≤1,333 m 109 45 58.7%
1,334–1,667 m 62 14 77.4%
1,668–2,000 m 77 22 71.4%
2,001–2,500 m 147 29 80.3%
>2,500 m 127 20 84.3%
Range is clearly hurting you: beyond 2 km, roughly four out of every five M256 rounds produce no loss. But range does not explain everything. Even within 1,333 metres, nearly 59% of the rounds were non-killing.
By target class
The results are not solely caused by T-72B armour:
Target M256 rounds Maximum losses Minimum non-killing rate
Tanks 198 41 79.3%
APCs 96 27 71.9%
Infantry-class contacts 69 18 73.9%
Self-propelled AT units 25 8 68.0%
Headquarters 42 4 90.5%
The poor results against APCs, headquarters and SP AT vehicles cannot simply be blamed on T-72B protection.
What “miss” means here
The save records ammunition fired and destroyed/fallen-out runners, but it does not give a dependable per-projectile flag for:
clean miss;
hit stopped by armour;
hit defeated by cover;
non-lethal damage;
loss of guidance;
projectile wasted in a multi-round salvo after another round killed the target.
Therefore 394 is not an exact clean-miss count. It is the hard minimum number of M256 rounds that caused no runner loss. Of those, 288 rounds occurred in engagements producing absolutely no target loss at all. The remaining minimum 106 were surplus/non-killing rounds in engagements where some other round obtained a loss.
For ATGMs, 45 missiles were fired in completely unsuccessful engagements, with another minimum 22 non-killing missiles contained in partially successful salvos.
Verdict
Your impression is supported by the save: the Abrams are producing extraordinarily poor combat results.
Yes—the numbers are genuinely extreme. From the beginning of the scenario through 16:56, your Abrams fired 527 M256 main-gun rounds. At least 394 rounds—74.8%—failed to destroy or cause the fall-out of a single enemy runner.
Your American ATGM units fired 122 missiles, of which at least 67—54.9%—produced no runner loss.
Complete count
Weapon Fired Maximum possible losses caused Minimum non-killing shots Minimum non-killing rate
Abrams M256 main gun 527 133 394 74.8%
TOW-2A 91 38 53 58.2%
TOW-2 15 8 7 46.7%
Dragon II 16 9 7 43.8%
All ATGMs 122 55 67 54.9%
Main guns + ATGMs 649 188 461 71.0%
This is deliberately generous to your weapons. Whenever an engagement included M256 fire plus machine guns or other weapons, I credited every possible target loss to the M256. Consequently, actual main-gun effectiveness could be worse.
Abrams results by range
Engagement range M256 rounds Maximum possible losses Minimum non-killing rate
≤1,333 m 109 45 58.7%
1,334–1,667 m 62 14 77.4%
1,668–2,000 m 77 22 71.4%
2,001–2,500 m 147 29 80.3%
>2,500 m 127 20 84.3%
Range is clearly hurting you: beyond 2 km, roughly four out of every five M256 rounds produce no loss. But range does not explain everything. Even within 1,333 metres, nearly 59% of the rounds were non-killing.
By target class
The results are not solely caused by T-72B armour:
Target M256 rounds Maximum losses Minimum non-killing rate
Tanks 198 41 79.3%
APCs 96 27 71.9%
Infantry-class contacts 69 18 73.9%
Self-propelled AT units 25 8 68.0%
Headquarters 42 4 90.5%
The poor results against APCs, headquarters and SP AT vehicles cannot simply be blamed on T-72B protection.
What “miss” means here
The save records ammunition fired and destroyed/fallen-out runners, but it does not give a dependable per-projectile flag for:
clean miss;
hit stopped by armour;
hit defeated by cover;
non-lethal damage;
loss of guidance;
projectile wasted in a multi-round salvo after another round killed the target.
Therefore 394 is not an exact clean-miss count. It is the hard minimum number of M256 rounds that caused no runner loss. Of those, 288 rounds occurred in engagements producing absolutely no target loss at all. The remaining minimum 106 were surplus/non-killing rounds in engagements where some other round obtained a loss.
For ATGMs, 45 missiles were fired in completely unsuccessful engagements, with another minimum 22 non-killing missiles contained in partially successful salvos.
Verdict
Your impression is supported by the save: the Abrams are producing extraordinarily poor combat results.