Tactics All right, I've had it. Just tell me how to use an AT rifle already!

[clambo]

Any time you are experimenting with effective hits - look for the flash.


When you see the flash you are doing some kind of damage.
One of the easiest flashes to see is the frontal track hit on a German tank.
It flashes right away. I think you are damaging the brake drum when you hit it.
If you notice it is having trouble turning after flashing both sides you have
damaged both brakes. Aim for the drum part of the sprocket wrapped with track links.

 

[Mekhazzio]

That's not actually the case. You can see the penetration flashes and still not be inflicting any damage to the tank at all. Even on the hits that do generally deal damage, once you've destroyed whatever subsystem you're penetrating into, further hits will still flash, but you can't exactly make the engine twice as broken or the commander twice as dead (barring the player moving another crewman into that position, anyway)

There's no real way to be sure when you're dealing damage except for seeing smoke or crew kill messages. All the flash actually guarantees is that the player(s) inside the tank are getting their view knocked around, which takes you out of gunsights and can be pretty distracting, but that's it.

 

[DAT]

One of the big factors I think most of you are overlooking is the psychological factor with AT rifles. If you are a tanker and you have rounds pinging off your armor, you tend to focus on that AT threat instead of the enemy tank or infantry you were just mowing down. Also regular hand grenades and sustained MG fire on a tank have same effect and can even cause suppresion on the tank crew. When I am infantry with no AT capability but grenades I always throw them on the tank to at least throw them off.

 

[Amizaur]

Well, Im posting those two images again with some changes.

The areas marked in blue - it should really not be possible to penetrate them with AT rifles. The armor in real tanks is either too thick, too sloped or usually both. Those areas were designed to withstand rounds from (smaller calliber) AT guns. AT rifle should be useless agains them.

And (with exeption of T-34's front turret) the blue areas should be also AT-rifle proof in game, when looking at the armor stats and ballistic calcs. At this thickness/angle combination, no AT rifle should penetrate them in game.
Maybe some tweaks in collision models are needed...

Especially bugs me the T-34 turret front (mantlet) ! It may some kind of error.

And the areas on T-34 upper front hull plate in the upper corners.
It's just solid and heavily angled 45mm plate, absolutely no reason for 14mm bullet to penetrate it.
Some 14mm bullet achieves what 50mm AT gun can't ?

Well, maybe the rear inspection hatch in T-34 couldbe vunerable under some conditions - conditions being that the gunner tan hit the very edges of the hatch and get a beter (almost 90deg) hit angle.

No AT rifle also was able to penetrate the angled (upper) side armor or rear armor or sides of the turret, can't remember what was the thickness of the rear of the turret, but I believe it was also quite thick, similar to the side armor.

The yellow area on T-34 diagram is where the main ammo store really is . There are also smaller ammo stores (located on the sides below the turret), and also lot's of fuel tanks, but hitting them don't make so much damage as the ammo does.



The ammo/fuel/engine diagrams from RO1 - well they are very basic and give only a very general knowledge of where to aim in RO2.

The ammo/fuel/crewman/sensitive gear locations in RO2 are much more realistic (they have different shape, size and positions than in RO1, instead of one or two huge ones, there are several smaller ammo stores and hitboxes for other stuff) and - in general - they are just where they should be. Just like in real tanks.

The German version of the PTRS (PzB784r) has (in game) more penetration power than Russian PTRS. In the other case, it would be useless (as it really was) because it would be uncapable at in penetrating any part of T-34 front/side/rear armour which is at least 40mm thick. It could be the used only for hunting vision slits and for damaging sensitive stuff.

P.S. Could someone confirm or deny, that the front hull machinegun port in T-34 can be penetrated with PzB784r AT rifle ? It would be interesting to know.

The PZIV front hull machinegun should not be penetrable any easier than the rest of the front plate, AFAIK. There is no reason for that.

 

[Colt .45 killer]

The infantry vs tank mechanics in this game are currently more broken than Ost.

Ost you just had to worry about the unholy shambeh bambeh.

Here you've got to worry about grenades that kill tanks on contact, magnetic mine's that kill tanks when thrown at it, shambeh's 2.0. And last but not least, extemely buggy armour. Isnt the mantlet on the t34 some of the thickest armour on the whole tank? Yet it is the go too place to kill the Gunner repeatedly, with an AT rifle or a tank gun.

 

[Field Marshal Rommel]

The areas marked in blue - it should really not be possible to penetrate them with AT rifles. The armor in real tanks is either too thick, too sloped or usually both.

Small addition to your pic, Amizaur:

The PZIV front hull machinegun should not be penetrable any easier than the rest of the front plate, AFAIK. There is no reason for that.

Interesting fact: The PZIV front hull machinegun BALL by itself weighs about 25 kilograms.



.

 

[Jippofin]

Those penetration points make no sense to me at all. Since the side armor is uniform rolled steel plate, why does the AT rifle penetrate where there is most steel of all places? Namely at the leading wheel and the drive wheel? These areas are the strongest since the mechanical stress of the tracks is located there. Nevermind the gear boxes right behind the armor, track tensioning system, etc. etc...

And why should the external muffler be a weak point? There are two exhaust ports on the lower corners, but not behind the muffler and they are armored as well making penetration extremely unlikely...

These points make absolutely no sense at all...

 

[DesiQ]

Those penetration points make no sense to me at all. Since the side armor is uniform rolled steel plate, why does the AT rifle penetrate where there is most steel of all places? Namely at the leading wheel and the drive wheel? These areas are the strongest since the mechanical stress of the tracks is located there. Nevermind the gear boxes right behind the armor, track tensioning system, etc. etc...

And why should the external muffler be a weak point? There are two exhaust ports on the lower corners, but not behind the muffler and they are armored as well making penetration extremely unlikely...

These points make absolutely no sense at all...

Better question: why is the entirety of the T-34 a weak point, considering the idea of sloped armor was hammered home by the T-34?

 

[Mekhazzio]

The Pz4's exhaust pipe is a prime target just because from the typical rear angle, shooting there will put the round into the starboard ammo storage. It's a useful thing to line up on, not a target on its own. If you don't angle towards something vulnerable inside you can actually shoot the Pz4 in the rump from most angles without inflicting any damage, even with tank shells. Everybody who plays the T-34 has their share of stories of "I flanked around that panzer, put two / three / four rounds into it, and the aimbot gunner just traversed around and killed me with one shot"

The durability difference between the two tanks is huge enough that one of them has to have a badly broken armor model. Either the T-34 is too fragile or the Pz4 is too durable, because there shouldn't be much of a difference between them.

 

[Jippofin]

Do you think that an AT-rifle should penetrate tank rear armor, the radiator, the engine block, the intermediate compartment wall between crew and engine, hit the ammo storage AND make a round explode? That just goes to show how messed up this is.

In real world tank combat the problem is and was getting a penetrating hit. After you get a penetration enemy is usually combat ineffective due to all the metal pieces from the round and the penetrated armor flying about. Crew members are wounded or dead and the oil, petrol and other liquids in the tank might be on fire. Round may have been set of and the tank annihilated. It is worthwhile to remember that the ammunition stowage everyone is aiming at held only a fraction of total rounds carried by the tank: the rest were scattered around the crew compartment.( <a href="http://panzerfaust.ca/AFV%20interiors/pz4b.html" target="_blank">http://panzerfaust.ca/AFV interiors/pz4b.html ) So any penetration has a good chance of hitting a live round.

It is exactly wrong that you put a single tank round through weak area in the armor (sides, rear) and the "aimbot gunner traverses around and kills me with a one shot." Armored combat isn't about guessing where the gunner sits or where certain ammo storage is located in a certain tank. It is about manouvering into flanks and to the rear of the enemy and killing him without a chance of him surviving. Getting hit in a tank is a really bad thing and it means that it is the time to get the **** out of Dodge. Pop smoke get in to a cover and find another firing position. Getting penetrated is a really ****ty thing and it truly often is just "once in a lifetime" -experience.

Current tank combat is totally silly: tanks exchange fire and then other one more or less randomly explodes. Flank or rear shots are not rewarded...

 

[DesiQ]

Current tank combat is totally silly: tanks exchange fire and then other one more or less randomly explodes. Flank or rear shots are not rewarded...

Of course they are. Plenty of times I've used flanking maneuvers in tank-to-tank battles to destroy Panzers in 1-2 hits. Hell, I've killed tanks with four or five HE shells by hammering the rear.

 

[Jippofin]

And I've hammered AP's to lower side hulls of T-34's and to the rear of Pz-IV's only to have them spot me after a while, turn around and kill me.

I say good for you, but I've had worse experience.

 

[Schnurx]

Yeah, those are the brakes.

I don't think so. imho it's the Seitenvorgelege or the final/steering drive (not sure about the english word for it). Brakes are mounted on the same axis, but are located inside the hull, steering drive gears are mounted outside of the hull.

 

[Gorlikov]

This debate is important. How has the game evolved since 2011?

Are rear and flank shots better rewarded today in RO2?

Im still new to this game, never played RO1, - that's why i

 

[OfficerMeatbeef]

All I'm seeing here is lot of anecdotal data, and a lot of incorrect assumptions too. Pretty hard to tell if there's actually bugs in the model from the "data" getting thrown around.

The most common and obvious error is the standard overestimation of ranges. The vast majority of combat in this game takes place at 100-200 meters, even tank combat unless you're on a purely tank-based map. That IS point-blank range for tanks AND AT rifles. Hell, it's basically point-blank range for EVERY infantry weapon save for maybe pistols and bayonet! Even PPSHes and MP40s are well in effective range at 100 meters. If nothing else, I hope everyone can remember this: it might look far, but 100 meters is NOT far for weapons of even the WWII era.

The PTRS is firing a 14.5mm round that could penetrate armor 35mm thick at 100 meters, 0 degrees. The PZIV has 30mm of flat side armor. Ergo, the AT rifles have an extremely high chance of penetrating on most side shots you'll be taking in the game.

From that fact, there's no need to even get into fancy penetration calculation considerations; it's pretty easy to extrapolate that the 75mm and 76mm AP rounds of the PZIV and T34 have a more than decent chance to penetrate, even firing at that thick front armor, at the ranges they're typically fighting in the game.

Pure tank levels and maaaaaybe Barashka are where this stuff really matters, and nobody plays them because they have no idea how tanks work so it's rather hard to judge. Even then, combat tends to happen at pretty close ranges as well (ie. 400-500 meters).

Another thing: unless your shot brews or blows that tank up, you have NO idea what kind of damage you're actually doing beyond maybe what you can guess from how the enemy tank behaves. So you shot a couple penetrating rounds into the back, and the turret turned around and killed you? That doesn't mean you didn't destroy, say, the engine; you just didn't hit anything of value.

I honestly can't understand what side some of you are arguing actually; some seem to be simultaneously complaining that any hit you make doesn't just explode the tank, and also that tanks are too easy to penetrate blow up too easy. You can't have this both ways. Penetrating hits are already appropriately catastrophic, I don't know what else needs to be done there. It's extremely unlikely to be penetrated and not suffer some critical damage.

Yes, typically if a tank suffers a penetration the (surviving) crew would probably bail and the tank would effectively be knocked out, but this is still a game so dying isn't a huge deal and you might as well fight to the bitter end.

As for the T34/76's armor... yes, it had fantastic armor when it first appeared in the war. However, the PZIV in game's isn't mounting the old 50mm, it's a 75mm gun that very much overmatches the T34's armor at even its thickest point. Keep in mind that the game models round deflection as well, so a round can bounce off that rounded turret mantlet straight down into the much weaker top armor.

 

[Razvan]

These may be useful.

 

[oldsoldier173]

My 'tactic' against a tank with an ATR is simple, de-track it don't kill it, now it is immobile and just a bunker you can avoid. You kill it and it just comes back mobile again. Unless the crew scuttles that de-tracked tank is now not a true threat as you can avoid it's fields of fire.

 

[ParanoidBaboon]

My 'tactic' against a tank with an ATR is simple, de-track it don't kill it, now it is immobile and just a bunker you can avoid. You kill it and it just comes back mobile again. Unless the crew scuttles that de-tracked tank is now not a true threat as you can avoid it's fields of fire.

The tanker can always type "suicide" in the console and respawn within seconds.

 

[oldsoldier173]

There are those not that smart and sit there for quite awhile.

 

[JagdpantherX]

Going to have to agree with oldsoldier. You also need to consider when he dies and respawns it will take him a while to get back to the front lines and in position. And often this gives your tank crew the chance to catch him out of position and on the move when he is vulnerable.