King Tiger and elephant Armor, OP and actually very unrealistic

[AngryGren]

I am bringing up this topic because i was recently in a game where i used two Fireflies with APDS rounds loaded in an attempt to take out a player's king tiger. I scored one hit to the side and one to the front, which did no damage before the KT opened up and wrecked one of my Fireflies with one shot and i had to withdraw. Im not contesting this, obviously a KT should be able to kill a Sherman Firefly in one shot. However, the fact that a 17 pounder with APDS rounds cannot pierce the side armor of a KT is utter fantasy and shows BK mods perplexing bias and favor for the AXIS. In fact, even the standard AP rounds had no trouble penetrating the KT's side armor, even if you factor in a moderate angle impact on the side armor increasing the effective thickness of the armor.

First off, for my comparisons i am using the armor penetration abilities of the following weapons at 500 meters, a common engagement range for armor in WWII. Additionally, the type of steel in these comparisons is face hardened armor (FHA). This armor was harder to penetrate than RHA, which was the most common in WWII.

17 pdr Penetration Performance:
QF 17 pdr with standard AP: 175mm
QF 17 pdr with APDS (the upgraded armor piercing rounds avaliable in game): 256mm

KT armor
King Tiger FRONT armor EFFECTIVE thickness at thickest point: 238mm
King Tiger SIDE armor EFFECTIVE thickness at thickest point: 120mm

Why is it, that a German heavy tank which costs a little over twice as much as the CW's flagship AT tank completely invulnerable to only weapon in the commonwealth that was effective at defeating it. This is frustrating, unrealistic and is very detrimental to gameplay to have a tank that is virtually invulnerable to all ground based attacks.

The same math can be done with the Elefant's SIDE armor, which has the SAME maximum effective thickness as the KT's. i also scored hits on with APDS rounds loaded in the same match and I failed to do any damage. f***ing ridiculous...

[drivebyhobo]

However, the fact that a 17 pounder with APDS rounds cannot pierce the side armor of a KT

CoH doesn't have side armor in its modelling. Only values for the front and back armor.


Sergeant Conti lied, Allied soldiers died.

[MarKr]

Hi AngryGren,

As drivebyhobo said, the engine of the game does not have anything like "side armor". The game simply counts any hit to the front half of the vehicle as hitting fronta armor and rear half as rear armor. When you attack from the side, depending on your relative position to the target, you always have chance to hit either font half or rear half. This is engine limitation and we cannot do anything about it.
Then you speak about engagement ranges of 500m...what s that in the game? In the game you have no way of measuring in meters. There are range units simply given in numbers and the maximum attack range for most cannons is "60" but there is no way to somehow transfer that to real life units of length because if "60" were to be e.g. 600m then it means that most units in the game throw grenades at the rage 250m. So another engine limitation.

BK is not WWII simulator. It is a mod which is more realistic than the vCoH but we cannot make it 100% realistic and to be honest, I don't think we should. Reality brought many problems, which are not reflected in the game, to both sides.

EDIT:

Sergeant Conti lied, Allied soldiers died.

lol but technically speaking, from the side you have chance to hit the rear armor where the M10 can penetrate Panther, so did Conti really lie?

[JimQwilleran]

First off, for my comparisons i am using the armor penetration abilities of the following weapons at 500 meters, a common engagement range for armor in WWII. Additionally, the type of steel in these comparisons is face hardened armor (FHA). This armor was harder to penetrate than RHA, which was the most common in WWII.

17 pdr Penetration Performance:
QF 17 pdr with standard AP: 175mm
QF 17 pdr with APDS (the upgraded armor piercing rounds avaliable in game): 256mm

KT armor
King Tiger FRONT armor EFFECTIVE thickness at thickest point: 238mm
King Tiger SIDE armor EFFECTIVE thickness at thickest point: 120mm

I will not repeat after markr and drivebyhobo that CoH engine recognizes ONLY front and rear armor, but I would like to ask you where does your data come from?

You say that at 500m 17p's penetration is 175mm. But the basic ammo for 17p was APCBC which scores penetration of:
--140 mm
(source: http://www.wwiiequipment.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=75:17-pounder-anti-tank-gun&catid=40:anti-tank&Itemid=58)

--http://imgur.com/YXokU

--http://imgur.com/BS1SR6m

or
-- 125 mm
(source: http://www.wwiivehicles.com/great-britain/penetration-tables.asp)

--http://imgur.com/Jj37H1m

Seems like the only source that matches your info is wikipedia. I am afraid that this data might be wrong though. APDS values also dont seem correct. I found that it's about 207~209mm of penetration.

PS. Also I assure you that axis bias is no more really xD..

[Warhawks97]

Besides whats being said. I am also not sure where you got the data from. The normal 17 pdr rounds had to be as close as 700 yards to penetrated panther frontal armor. KT was way thicker than that.

During ww2 there is no record that the KT got ever penetrated frontally.

The 17 pdr couldnt penetrate the frontall hull of a KT, no matter what range. The APDS only the turret.

The APDS was highly inaccurate. Thats not reflected in the game. The US tested the their own 76 with HVAP rounds and 17 pdr with basic apcbc and APDS. The apds from 17 pdr was by far the most powerfull but extremley unrealiable in terms of accuracy (today APDS are APFSDS rounds... means fin-stabilized)

The allied and axis tested in different ways. Axis for their guns counted just what penetrated for sure... allied more often by chances.
Also in tests US did with their guns against armored plates they later figured that their steel is not comparable to axis. In pro and contra.

Axis often had higher BHN scale... means the steel was very hard, allied rather soft. Advantage of Hard armor (high BHN) was that it could bounce more shots. Downside was that if its penetrated (or taking many hits) the armor plate cracked and fragmenated and killing the crew. Soft armor was more "clear penetrated" but far less fragmentation and thus keeping the crew alive (sherman crew deathtoll was quite low after introducing the wet armor storage thet prevented burnings. This combined with "soft armor" and more clear penetrations).

Axis armor was later also extremly different in terms of quality. You can see this for example in shooting tests allied did against several Panther tanks.


Another thing is the overmatching factor. That is the realtion between shell diameter and actual armor thickness. Like 75 mm rounds that would lets say penetrate 50 mm armor will penetrate maybe a 30 mm slopped armor with effective armor of lets say 60 mm. Shell diamter> Armor plate thickness

a 76 shell that shall penetrate 110 mm of armor will maybe fail to penetrate a 100 mm unslopped armor because the diameter of the shell is just too "light". Shell diameter< Plate thickness.
Takte a look for example for the development of AT guns. Allied had 37 mm AT gun bc axis had 30 mm armored tanks. Axis got 50 mm armor, allied got 57 mm gun. Allied got 76 mm guns, axis 80 mm on most of their tanks and so on.

Sherman would technically bounce 75 mm shells from 75 mm L/48 guns quite well due to slopping armor, but the plate was simply not thick enough and still penetrate when it actually shouldnt (i cant say how effective the 75 mm L/48 was against sherman at the end though)



There are soooo many factors. But afterall i dont think KT has any wrong armor in game. It got basically just improved to its current state few patches ago. Coz it was often quite frustrating to see it being penetrated even by standard US 76 AT guns.


From a realistic perspective you could always find ways to argue for or against something. But let alone things like that the 37 mm AT guns outrange any tank, even KT and stuff.

We try to keep it as realistic as possible (arap... my idea:P ) but also keeping balance. And the KT is definitvely nothing you shall got head on... Use off maps, infantry and mobile units.