Boys AT Rifle

[Nikademus]

I'm gonna side with Paul on this one.

Sources i have often have called the 2pdr one of the finest if not the finest anti-tank weapons of the early portion of the war *in terms of pure armor penetration*. At the very least, given it's size and all i'd expect it to preform comparably with the German/US 37mm and also the 50/L42 KwK.

However as Paul pointed out, there are several variables, hard to express in the SP:WAW engine. The primary ones being the early shatter problem of the 2pdr round and the German switch to face-hardened plate. One must ask, what motivated the Germans to make the switch if the 2pdr was so mediocre?

I'd actually argue against reducing it's power. My most recent experience with the 2pdr hardly showed it to be the 'uber-weapon' people in this thread are ascribing it too. Heck, in a shootout with experienced Italian tankers in M13's I found their 47mm weapons doing far more damage and penetrating more often at range (500+yards) than the mightly two pounders were doing.

I also found that often with penetrations the small round would'nt ace the tank but would only cause minor damage. And this was against M13's!!! Not even talking about face-hardened Pz-III and IV tanks

The biggest problem of the two pounder was that it did'nt have an HE round which made it useless against the variety of other targets out there. Tanks dont primarily fight other tanks, they fight infantry and their support weapons (guns/artillery) the bane of commonwealth forces in Africa were not the Panzers.....it was the AT guns. This is part of why the 50mmL42 was a better weapon overall for the early/midwar period, its HE round was quoted as having a good chance at causing suspension and other damages even in non-penetrating situations and of course, it could be used against infantry.

And with it's APCR round.....it can take out KV's frontally (not sure about that! 130mm seems high)

The other problem of the 2pdr was that it was a victim of progress. It started out a good weapon but was quickly overtaken by the developments of war and was kept in production for far longer than it should have for reasons touched upon already in this thread. <img src="eek.gif" border="0">

as for the Boys AT rifle. hav'nt seen it taking out too many tanks frontally. Think this might be due to the 'vulnerable hit' location popping up from time to time. Otherwise, a suspension hit is the best i'd hope for. I would expect them to at least have a chance against halftracks. The weapon was designed to take out light tanks, not just halftracks and such and there lies in the true disapointment of the weapon. virtually useless against any decent AFV but marginal against halftracks and other similar types. With the new infantry rules though it takes a brave man to fire off his weapon and only a half track. I've often made the AI pay for such tactics

[Nikademus]

Originally posted by Paul Vebber:
Arralen:the "feature/bug" that allowed small arms to penetrate small amounts of armor has gone away as of version 5.2 so its once again imposssible for snipers (or MGs) to destroy fully armored vehicles - even with "vulnrable location" hits.
[ August 10, 2001: Message edited by: Paul Vebber ]

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Actually, it is still happening Paul. Have had it happen to me several times in the current campaign. Of them i do specifically recall the first occasion (all with version 6.1), a Finnish sniper destroyed a T-26 frontally with a vulnerable hit location shot courtasy of his rifle. I remember it clearly because i was so shocked to see it happen the first time.

I mean, i know the T-26 was a tin can but really......

<img src="biggrin.gif" border="0">

[Nikademus]

Originally posted by Grumble:

Well the 250/251's armor was sloped at 15-20 degrees frontally and about 30 degrees and the sides-which effectively doubles its protection.
The Canadians used the Ram because it and the surplus M7s had better cross-country performance than the M2/3 halftracks. In the lowlands of Belgium and Holland they found that the underpowered US halftracks could not keep up with the armor. The only other alternative was the bren-gun carrier and that was too small to carry a full squad. The additional protection was part of it, but the MAIN reason was tactical mobility equivalent to the tanks.

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I just checked out the link provided at the beginning of this thread. The Finnish figures were garnered from tests they conducted and the info states that the target armor was at 70 degrees (which i'm assuming is actually 30 degrees if one assumes 0 degrees is completely verticle, i think the Finnish quote assumes the opposite.....that completely verticle (i.e. unsloped) is 90 degrees)

So it would appear that the Boys weapon and all ATG's in general had at least the power to penetrate halftrack armor under combat conditions. Getting a kill with one shot though is another thing. I've seen halftracks take multiple ATG rounds that penetrated on numerous occaisions

[john g]

Originally posted by Nikademus:


So it would appear that the Boys weapon and all ATG's in general had at least the power to penetrate halftrack armor under combat conditions. Getting a kill with one shot though is another thing. I've seen halftracks take multiple ATG rounds that penetrated on numerous occaisions

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Remember an at rifle has the ability to pick its shot, varying the aim to pick the very best part of the target, while an at gun will generally just shoot for dead center of the vehicle, so indeed an at gunner might shoot for the driver's shutters, or a tire, or any other vulnerable location.

I remember reading about the winter war, where the Finnish at rifle crew were instructed as to the few vulnerable locations they were to aim for when firing at the Soviet tanks they were facing. They had a chance for penetration if they hit those exact spots, none if they hit anywhere else.
thanks, John.

[Richard Harris]

I suspect the main cause of the problems people are having with ATR's of any type, is (as mentioned earlier in this thread) that the warhead size of these weapons (or most of them) is 2. The penetration values seem to be fine for most weapons. The oddball of the bunch is the PzB39 which gets a game pen of 38 compared to Hogg's (yep, him again!) datum of 25mm/300m/30deg the interesting point here is, the PzB39 has a warhead of 1. So the high game penetration value may be on purpose in this case...

Some dodgy data (courtesy of Infantry weapons of WW2) for people to laugh at:
7.92mm PzB38/39 25mm/300m/30deg (AP + tear gas)
7.92mm wz35 Marosczek 20mm/300m/0deg
.55cal Boys Mk.I 20mm/500m/0deg (Tungsten cored stuff, based on Mike Rothery's data - see earlier)
14.5mm PTRS/PTRD 25mm/500m/0deg (AP-I ammo)
20mm Solothurn (Fucile-cc etc...) 35mm/300m/0deg
20mm Type 97 12mm/200m/0deg(!?)

Does anyone know if the French ever developed an ATR around their 13.2mm Hotchkiss cartridge? If not, just what are the French meant to be using early on in the war?

As for the R-Boat. Well obviously the bullet penetrated the bridge plating, smashed the autographed portrait of the Fuehrer on the wall, ricocheted off the Kapitan's monocle, rolled down the stairs tripping the chief engineer who dropped his scalding ersatz koffee on the nearby rating who dropped his spanner on the contact horn of a stowed sea mine... Boom...
Happens all the time. <img src="biggrin.gif" border="0">

[Paul Vebber]

Excellent Richard - you are getting into the spirit!

Unfortunately the game engine thinks all things are tanks, so if you "penetrate" youhave a chance for a "kill" - I have tried to increas the survivability in large things some more, but it will take Combat Leader to really fix the need for "damage levels" and not simply a catastrophic kill or system damage.

[panda124c]

Originally posted by Richard Harris:
As for the R-Boat. Well obviously the bullet penetrated the bridge plating, smashed the autographed portrait of the Fuehrer on the wall, ricocheted off the Kapitan's monocle, rolled down the stairs tripping the chief engineer who dropped his scalding ersatz koffee on the nearby rating who dropped his spanner on the contact horn of a stowed sea mine... Boom...
Happens all the time. <img src="biggrin.gif" border="0">

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I really hate it when this happens. It's those darn monocles. <img src="biggrin.gif" border="0">

Hey Paul, there was some suggestions about giving the Germans Tank Killer teams, with the German OOB being so full, I had a thought (dangerous) if you were to take the German ATR Uit and move the ATR to slot 2 or 3 and give the unit AT mines as it's first weapon this should give you the Tank Killer Teams and the ATR in one unit. This way is you want to use the ATR it could be done manually (I usually set the ATR to range of 1 so I can control what it fires at) giving a ranged AT capability and a healthy close up AT ability. What do you think?

[ August 14, 2001: Message edited by: pbear ]</p>

[Larry Holt]

Originally posted by pbear:

I really hate it when this happens. It's those darn monocles. <img src="biggrin.gif" border="0">

Hey Paul, there was some suggestions about giving the Germans Tank Killer teams, with the German OOB being so full, I had a thought (dangerous) if you were to take the German ATR Uit and move the ATR to slot 2 or 3 and give the unit AT mines as it's first weapon this should give you the Tank Killer Teams and the ATR in one unit. This way is you want to use the ATR it could be done manually (I usually set the ATR to range of 1 so I can control what it fires at) giving a ranged AT capability and a healthy close up AT ability. What do you think?
[ August 14, 2001: Message edited by: pbear ]

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I don't know about what Paul thinks but this is what I did, except that I put AT mines in the last slot. They work fine in close assaults there.

[Paul Vebber]

This is in the new OOB - German 4 man recon teams have AT mines

[Nikademus]

Originally posted by Richard Harris:
As for the R-Boat. Well obviously the bullet penetrated the bridge plating, smashed the autographed portrait of the Fuehrer on the wall, ricocheted off the Kapitan's monocle, rolled down the stairs tripping the chief engineer who dropped his scalding ersatz koffee on the nearby rating who dropped his spanner on the contact horn of a stowed sea mine... Boom...
Happens all the time. <img src="biggrin.gif" border="0">

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I'm writing this down for a future chapter in my fiction story. Its SO plausible after all!!!!

<img src="tongue.gif" border="0">

[Larry Holt]

Originally posted by Paul Vebber:
This is in the new OOB - German 4 man recon teams have AT mines

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They do in the 6.1 OOB. I suppose that this unit can be used for both recon as well as AT team duty but it wasn't clear to me upfront.