Tactics Bouncing shells for Panther kills

[[3.SA]Shchekurov]

This inquiry comes from a story told by my WWII-veteran great uncle, who was a tanker:

Years ago he told me that in his undergunned/underarmored Sherman, a common tactic was to 'bounce' his AP shells in front of the oncoming Panther (if you were unlucky enough to be directly in front of them) and thus get a belly shot.
This was especially useful, he said, during the Ardennes Offensive (Bulge) when the ground was frozen enought to allow it.

I've tried in different practice maps to recreate this in RO with lots of AP tank shells (75/76/85/88/122), but no luck so far.

Has anyone ever seen an AP shell in RO do this, that is, 'bounce' and still get a hit/kill? Ar do they just burrow into the ground when they land short?

 

[worluk]

shells dont bounce off the ground and the weaker armor on the belly is not modeled in the tanks atm.

 

[DAT]

I have been killed by a richoceting shell off a tank before

 

[[3.SA]Shchekurov]

So they can bounce OFF tanks. . .

So they can bounce OFF tanks. . .

This is a direct quote from the "greatest Moments" thread:

Greatest moment happened today on Arad. A Russian got vaporized by a 85mm shell that bounced off the Panther he was trying to satchel.

 

[Colt .45 killer]

btw the lower part of the panthers hull is weaker, if your ever below a panther tank and can aim more then 30degreees up at its front and hit the lower part, you can cause damage there with a 76 or 85mm gun.

 

[Rapp]

Bouncing shells make the engine go red in the tiger all the time but rarely seem to kill it.

 

[[3.SA]Shchekurov]

Penetration shots?

Penetration shots?

Can an AP round go through a tank and not kill it with this sim? My WWII-vet realtive had this happen to him, where a 88 round went clear though his Sherman without exploding.
However, it did take the arm off the loader and give everyone else a nasty shock concussion and bloody noses/ears.

 

[D3terioNation]

Can an AP round go through a tank and not kill it with this sim?

This is NOT a tank sim mate!

Infantry sim yes, tank sim - a definite NO!!

Unfortunatly there is no such penetration in tanks & there has been no word as to whether it will ever be added.

 

[merder]

I've had a German tank kill itself with it's own shell that ricoched of my tank.

 

[Oberstjon]

Ive heard of the bouncing of rounds off the frozen ground to hit German tanks. This however is very unlikely to happen in game. Ive bounceed a shell off of a tiger and it destroyed the Panther right next to it. Ill take a kill anyway I can get it.

 

[karl stiner]

yes i have been in a panzer 3 and had a duel with a very good player in a well angled T34 and i have made my shells ricoched off his turret and gone down to the drivers hatch and killed him i have had many duels like this its very hit and miss afair

 

[MERLiN88]

Once i was in a panther and had a teammate TK me from 1400 yards with a regular AP round from a Panzer III. And he hit me from the Front. He didn't kill just me, the driver, but the entire tank.

 

[Jhaxavier]

Can an AP round go through a tank and not kill it with this sim? My WWII-vet realtive had this happen to him, where a 88 round went clear though his Sherman without exploding.
However, it did take the arm off the loader and give everyone else a nasty shock concussion and bloody noses/ears.

Actually, yes.

The RMFMOD on various servers now have that feature. I remember one time our Tiger got hit by a T34/85 and it plowed through my driver and gunner, but I was left alive in the MG gunner seat. It didn't kill the tank, amazingly

 

[LordKhaine]

Can an AP round go through a tank and not kill it with this sim? My WWII-vet realtive had this happen to him, where a 88 round went clear though his Sherman without exploding.
However, it did take the arm off the loader and give everyone else a nasty shock concussion and bloody noses/ears.

I remember a British Tanker saying on a documentary how he came face to face with a Tiger in a street. He fired at virtually point blank with his Sherman, and the shell bounced harmless off the front of the Tiger. Then the Tiger fired and the shell penetrated straight through the Sherman and out the other side.

As an interesting side note, the tanker got a load of shrapnel in his eyes, but thankfully a near by doctor was an eye specialist. And used a magnet to **** the shrapnel out of his eyes!

 

[Grottenolm]

My WWII-vet realtive had this happen to him, where a 88 round went clear though his Sherman without exploding.

Maybe this is because many types of AP rounds in WWII normally did not really explode

 

[Peter.Steele]

Virtually -no- AP round has a bursting charge in it, except for the big naval guns.


For ground combat, though, it's generally going to be just a tungsten (or other similar metal) core that punches through the enemy based on kinetic energy.




As far as getting killed by a bouncing projectile ... I had it happen the other day, sorta. I was in a Panther on Arad, coming out of the second spawn. There was a Tiger about 20 meters to the right of me, and a single T-34 on the north side of South Field. I had cleared my tube of HE and was reloading with AP, when the T34 fired at the Tiger. The round whanged off the Tiger, straight into the right rear quarter of my Panther, and suddenly my engine was red, my tank was yellow, and I had a nice smoke flare marking my position.

Not being able to move, I didn't last long after that ...

 

[Schnurx]

Maybe this is because many types of AP rounds in WWII normally did not really explode

Yep...and even if they were supposed too, often they didn't. There were duds with tank ammo as well as with aerial bombs or other artillery/gun ammunition. Judging from the performance of other types of ammo, I'd guess from 1/10th to 1/4th might have been duds. Of course an AP-dud would still do a fair amount of damage to a tank and it's crew when it penetrates.

 

[Schnurx]

This inquiry comes from a story told by my WWII-veteran great uncle, who was a tanker:

Years ago he told me that in his undergunned/underarmored Sherman, a common tactic was to 'bounce' his AP shells in front of the oncoming Panther (if you were unlucky enough to be directly in front of them) and thus get a belly shot.
This was especially useful, he said, during the Ardennes Offensive (Bulge) when the ground was frozen enought to allow it.

I've tried in different practice maps to recreate this in RO with lots of AP tank shells (75/76/85/88/122), but no luck so far.

Has anyone ever seen an AP shell in RO do this, that is, 'bounce' and still get a hit/kill? Ar do they just burrow into the ground when they land short?

I haven't seen these bouncing shots in RO yet. But then, they didn't really happen in reality too. You can safely place this story in the realm of mythology....
I know of these stories, but they are really just legends.

Frozen ground is still much, much softer than the hardened steel of armour plates.
So, what you're trying to do with this method:

You try to bounce a projectile, which was specifically designed *not* to bounce, even from very hard surfaces, from a relatively soft surface.

To have even a remote chance of getting it to bounce, you would have to fire it at a very flat angle.

Alas, the exit angle will be like the entry angle, so it will hit the bottom of the tank at a very flat angle too. And -guess what- bounce again.
Because even the (relatively) thin steel bottom of a tank is much, much harder than the ground.

 

[Schnurx]

Virtually -no- AP round has a bursting charge in it, except for the big naval guns.

Well, today maybe, the core might also be depleted uranium.
But in respect to WWII combat this is just wrong. Most were of the AP-HE variety with about 1-3% of the total shell weight consisting of an explosive.

E.g. the Panzergranate 39 (7.5cm), most used by the Wehrmacht, had an explosive filler of 18 gramm RDX.

 

[ImNotRyan]

I think that HEAT rounds made a modest appearance during WW2, high explosive anti-tank which is something of a shaped charge.