ISU-152

[acur1231]

This is a very odd vehicle. It was used both as a self propelled assualt gun, and as a tank destroyer. However, the AP shells it used were never very good. What made it a brilliant tank destroyer was the huge amount of HE used in the shells, killing crews and destroying tanks through sheer blast effect. As such, I propose that the ISU-152 be given the HEAT tag, like the Bazooka, PIAT and Panzerfaust/Shreck, as the power of the shell is not affected by how long the shell has travelled. It will thus be able to kill a KT at max range, but this is balenced by the high reload time and low accuracy caused by the size of the shells and the lower velocity gun. A high risk, high reward vehicle, as it does not have particularly thick armour, and does not really have sloped armour.

Graphically, a hit by the ISU-152 should look like a hit by the ARVE on a tank, after all, it did kill by sheer blast effect.

[Ulater]

acur1231 a écrit :

Did you not see the photo?

There were no Ferdinands destroyed by SU-152 at Kursk.

And yes, I did see the photo.

Another one of clever soviet firing tests, where you can very clearly notice that the plate ruptured along at-least 3 previously made penetrations.

Ones made by KwK 42.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_q6fSCwZAQs/VKHLpHXnx3I/AAAAAAAADw4/2TD-aFeFNvc/s1600/ferdi-penetration-7.png

I hope you were not actually thinking this was a Ferdinand destroyed in action by SU-152.

Ferdinand losses are all more or less known at Kursk, you can find that they were caused by many things from direct 203 mm howitzer hits at cupolas, through direct bomb hits from Pe-2 bombers to self-ignition, but none was atributted to SU-152, because it physically could not have happened.

[acur1231]

I am too lazy to search for quotes, but a direct google search led to this.

http://tankarchives.blogspot.com/2013/03/suisu-152-vs-german-big-cats.html?m=1

Some pretty clear pictures that show what the 152 did to the German big cats and the Elefant.

Not to mention the fact that the ISU-152 does not need to penetrate to kill. The blast frequently killed crews.

In fact, that is probably why this is not on your little list of Elefant losses(can you share that please, I would like to see what they were mostly lost too). The Elefants were not destroyed, they survived, but their crews did not. They were remanned and sent back into action the next day. I cannot remember where I read this, but when I find the source I will share it. It is a pretty safe bet that it happened, though, since Kursk was where the SU 152 got the nickname "Beast Killer", for knocking out Tigers and Elefants during the fighting.

And it is definately true that the ISU-152, which uses the same gun, knocked out and destroyed Tigers, Panthers and King Tigers throughout 1944 and 1945, being used as a heavy tank destroyer and largely suceeding at that role.

[Lucky Stralex]

The 152mm cannon most certianly did smash german latewar tanks and their brittle steel, but magical pressure exchanges killing the internal crewmen are something i have yet to see properly documented.

acur1231 a écrit :

"The magnitude of damage due to the blast wave is dependent on the peak of the initial positive pressure wave, the duration of the overpressure, the medium in which it explodes, the distance from the incident blast wave, and the degree of focusing due to a confined area or walls. For example, explosions near or within hard solid surfaces become amplified two to nine times due to shock wave reflection. As a result, individuals between the blast and a building generally suffer two to three times the degree of injury compared to those in open spaces."

Now if this said that individuals that stand behind the wall get wounds, it would mean something.

A shell bouncing off a tank armour does not change the air pressure there is inside it. The russian 152mm would simply use kinetic energy to ddamage the structure of tanks.

You know that it takes 0,66 MJ of energy to lift a tiger II 1 meter in the air and that the 152mm HE shell would release almost 10MJ on impact? Figures are, that much energy can't possibly pass like that without doing anything to a structure of brittle steel.

[Andariel]

acur1231 a écrit :

...

"Vast, lumbering Elefant self propelled guns, also known as Ferdinands" Anthony Beevor, The Second World War, Pg 474.

He also mentions that the Elefants were intact, but the crews were dead. In future, ISU-152 crews would be ordered to hit disabled tanks again and again until physical damage was caused. It is entirely possible that Brummenbar and that Elefant were disabled by the first hit(killing the crew with the blast effect), and then subsequently hit again and again until they physically deformed so the Germans could not use them again...

Nice try. A. Beevor didnt mention any SU 152 or ISU 152 in his book. The only ambush with Ferdis were through soviet infantry.

Otto Carius Tiger I was hit twice by two ISU-152 , none of the crew was injured and the Tiger was destroyed.

For example: for the Hvy. Tank. Bat. 502 are only 3 reported kills through SU or ISU-152 from overall over 100 Tigers lost.

"As a result of these relatively unsatisfactory Soviet AT capabilities against the Wehrmacht’s heaviest tanks, in June 1944, Zavod Nr. 100 began developing new, high velocity 122 mm, 130 mm, and 152 mm guns to be mounted on the ISU (and perhaps IS and KV) chassis."

This became the:

Object 243 (ISU-122-1)
Object 246 (ISU-152-1)
Object 247 (ISU-152-2)
Object 251 (ISU-122-3)
They never came to service.

"The “ISU High Powered Gun Projects” were, in many respects, a failure. True, the guns were incredibly potent, particularly in the case of the S-26-1 (Object 251), which could penetrate 204 mm from 1000 m. They also had a very long range, only limited by the elevation of the ISU mantlet. However, they were simply not practical and mechanically reliable enough for their intended purpose, which was to knock out the thickest armored Wehrmacht tanks consistently, and from long ranges."

[Vityaz]

An HE-shell can destroy tanks not only by just the massive blast, but also by the shrapnel that occurs by the shell exploding. The shrapnel of the HE-shell of the ISU-152 penetrates 49mm at close range, this is more than enough to go through the roof of a Panther for example when hit at the turret, which has just 15mm to 17mm armor, depending on the model.

Nevertheless, an HE-shell is not consistent at destroying tanks, therefore the ISU-152 also had AP shells. The first one, the BR-540 was not good against slopes and often bounced off at the the UPG of the Panther. However, the BR540B, an APHEBC, was able to punch through the armor more reliably. Still, the ISU-152 was a (very successful) makeshift, as high velocity, high rate of fire and long range are important factors in a tank battle and it lacks these.

[Ulater]

acur1231 a écrit :

I am too lazy to search for quotes, but a direct google search led to this.

http://tankarchives.blogspot.com/2013/03/suisu-152-vs-german-big-cats.html?m=1

Some pretty clear pictures that show what the 152 did to the German big cats and the Elefant.

Not to mention the fact that the ISU-152 does not need to penetrate to kill. The blast frequently killed crews.

In fact, that is probably why this is not on your little list of Elefant losses(can you share that please, I would like to see what they were mostly lost too). The Elefants were not destroyed, they survived, but their crews did not. They were remanned and sent back into action the next day. I cannot remember where I read this, but when I find the source I will share it. It is a pretty safe bet that it happened, though, since Kursk was where the SU 152 got the nickname "Beast Killer", for knocking out Tigers and Elefants during the fighting.

And it is definately true that the ISU-152, which uses the same gun, knocked out and destroyed Tigers, Panthers and King Tigers throughout 1944 and 1945, being used as a heavy tank destroyer and largely suceeding at that role.

Yes, its pretty clear,

Ferdinand that got hit and the armor gave away exactly on the line of 3 previous penetrations, a lot of AP and AC shell hits, and a HE that penetrated the armor, and exploded inside the turret.

No outward damage formed by blast pressure at all.

Blast did not kill crews frequently, if at all, to the point where tests with epxlosives detonated inside AFVs failed to do any substantial damage to test animals inside the same vehicle.

Or really, when using heavy artillery baragge ON advancing friendly heavy tanks was consideredt a viable tactic.

No, ferdinand crews were not killed by any blasts. Logistics involved in your made-up situation are exactly what makes it made-up.

No, A blast that would kill a crew by itself, would render a vehicle in-operable. No, ferdinands disabled on enemy territory were consistently blown up to avoid capture because germans had no expedient way of towing them away.

No, crews werent running through concentrated fire to re-crew the same disabled vehicles.


Just no. Its time to stop.



As I said, most ferdinands were lost due to hits on ventilation grilles and mines.


"beast killer" nickname comes from delusional propaganda that 24 SU-152 destroyed 22 Tigers, or more that were lost at Kursk as a whole, 7 Ferdinands, or 7 more than could be substantiated by soviet research teams on site, and 50 other tanks and AFVs.

[acur1231]

Look, argue all you want. But the ISU 152 was known to be a good heavy tank destroyer. Since we all agree it could not penetrate a Tiger or Panther, it must have been using its HE shells to kill them. Else I really don't know how much the Germans must have sucked, to be killed by an ineffective TD. Eugen knows this, but they will probably give a high AP value instead of HEAT like a Bazooka. That means that it will get progressively higher AP values as it gets closer. Do you really want that? I am not here to argue about the ISU-152s tank killing abilities. They are well known, and Eugen will represent that. It is how they should be represented so they will not be completely useless or brokenly OP.

Good to see you again Ulator, still going to be giving daft arguments with no evidence? Just so you know, the German crews did not run through fire to get to the Elefants. The Soviets withdrew to their next defensive line after the ambush, and the Germans found that the "destroyed" vehicles were still intact, and subsequently re-crewed them and used them again the next day. This brought about the orders to ISU-152 crews to keep firing at a crippled German tank until it caught fire or changed shape, lest the enemy use it again.

As for Soviet propaganda, they did not claim the SU 152 killed any tanks, since they would never focus on individual actions and overblow them, as the Germans did. They would make their victories seem larger, and used rather crude but effective propaganda focusing on what the Germans were doing in occupied USSR. But aside from snipers, the Soviet propaganda machine never really glorified individual weapons, people or units. I would love to see where you found propaganda claiming thay the SU 152 destroyed 22 Tigers or 7 Ferdinands/Elefants, since that would be rather out of character for the Soviet propagandists.

[Andariel]

acur1231 a écrit :

... But aside from snipers, the Soviet propaganda machine never really glorified individual weapons, people or units.

Yeah sure, what did you smoke in the morning?

https://themoscowtimes.com/news/russian-archives-cast-doubt-on-legends-of-soviet-war-heroes-48026

Want more examples?

[acur1231]

Andariel a écrit :

acur1231 a écrit :

... But aside from snipers, the Soviet propaganda machine never really glorified individual weapons, people or units.

Yeah sure, what did you smoke in the morning?

https://themoscowtimes.com/news/russian-archives-cast-doubt-on-legends-of-soviet-war-heroes-48026

Want more examples?

Yeah, them and Pavlovs men, but other than that, hardly any cases. For a war of that size and scope, a few examples hardly makes a trend.

Also, I see Ulator has brought back his sock puppet. Odd that the two of you vanished at about the same time last year.

[Vityaz]

acur1231 a écrit :

Look, argue all you want. But the ISU 152 was known to be a good heavy tank destroyer. Since we all agree it could not penetrate a Tiger or Panther, it must have been using its HE shells to kill them. Else I really don't know how much the Germans must have sucked, to be killed by an ineffective TD. Eugen knows this, but they will probably give a high AP value instead of HEAT like a Bazooka.

As said before, the ISU-152 had two AP shells that could be used. The BR-540 and the BR-450B. The first one was not that good against slopes but punched through 137mm at 1000m at 90°. The latter was an APHEBC, thus better against slopes and punched through 135mm at 1000m. So it can knock out a Tiger or Panther with its AP-shells if it hits.

[tyke]

and the IL-2 "Tank Buster" pilots were propaganda that never happened, like all the "Tank Busting" planes.

I mean I hadn't thought about it but my brain had just assumed (i)su-122/152 would just have an Anti-Tank weapon alongside the HE weapon, probably because of the hype and propaganda that's been drilled into me while I feel asleep to History Channel and they started talking about SUPER SU-122 TANK KILLERS inbetween episodes of Ancient Aliens building Pyramids, but if I stop and think then it's true that it doesn't make sense we'd leave this out from assault guns as many could do it too.

It's not that these assault guns had "tank killing abilities" but more than there are stories of Soviets supposedly using them for it.
A lot of what other assault guns were firing could also do serious damage to a tank. As someone else said in terms of "realism" it should really be that if such assault guns damage tanks with HE then so should Brumbarr etc.

Yea, most Assault Guns you wouldn't want to use for a tank fight as it's totally impractical.... but then in reality so is a ISU-152.
In gameplay you will want to use an ISU-152 to shoot at tanks to stun them anyway.... but then in gameplay on SD1 so do we already do with other Assault Guns like Brummbarr lol

In reality it wouldn't be optimal to put such assault guns in a fight directly firing anything at tanks as tanks could potentially run circles around them and easily dispatch of them. It seems like it would be a waste of a valuable and expensive weapon and unnecessarily risking it. Just bumrush them with the T-34s. I haven't seen any serious data on numbers of ISU-122 ISU-152 killing tanks.

I'll take anything in Operation Barbarossa: the Complete Organisational and Statistical Analysis quite seroiusly. From what is available of the books on GoogleBooks search can find one part mentioning them in The Relative Overall Combat Proficiency (ROCP) of Soviet and Axis forces during WWII Volume V:

An important factor not yet considered within either the RF factor or RFE factor (Rapidity of Fire Effect), specifically in relation to MFMs, is the reduction in rate of fire due to having ammunition with separate warhead and charge. This is particularly critical in tanks and assault guns with very limited available space and hence only one loader.

During WWII most AFV ammunition came in one piece, so the loader could pick up and load the whole round in one go. For calibres over 110mm the round becomes very heavy and large. FOr AFVs with guns over this size there arises the multiple problems of ammunition storage, manhandling such a large round in a small space, and the maximum weight that can be manually lifted. One way to reduce the problems related to excessively large rounds is to load the warhead (shell) and propellant (the charge) separately. This increases the number of rounds which can be stored and reduces the load on the loader. It also results in a severe reduction in the rate of fire because the loader has to effectively locate ammunition and load the gun twice per round fired. In addition they may have to 'ram' the shell to make room for the charge. Separate ammunition is common in medium and heavy artillery, but these weapons have a large crew. In these cases several crewmen can lift and load each shell and charge, additional crewman can ram the shell if required, and ammunition stowage is not a problem with yet more men bringing ammunition forward to the weapon. For artillery the normal RF factor already effectively includes separate ammunition in larger calibre weaopns.

MFMs with separate ammunition and only one loader have their RFE factor multiplied by 0.8, and MFMs with separate ammunition and two loaders have their RFE factor multiplied by 0.9, to take account of this effect.

The only significant AFVs in WWII which suffered from this effect were the IS-2 with a four man crew, and SU-152, ISU-122, ISU-152 and Sturmpanzer IV with five man crews. All these AFVs were direct fire weapons designed primarily for the assault role. This goes some way to explaining why combat accounts of these vehicles successfully suprising and engaging multiple enemy tanks are non-existent. Most major tank, assault gun and tank destroyer types in WWII, have combat accounts of a single AFV inflicting damage on numerically superior and possibly qualitatively superior enemy AFVs. This is often due to suprise, ambush, or some similar tactical reason. In these situations a reasonable rate of fire is essential because the firer needs to inflict maximum damageo n multiple targets in minimum time (i.e. before they can recover). The firer needs a lot better than around tow rounds per minute, which was common in WWII AFVs with separate ammunition. This is also one of several reasons why these apparently powerful vehicles had relatively poor kill ratios against enemy AFVs. It should be said however that their kill ratio against dug in defences (where they could stand off at medium range) was good, and this is what these vehicles were primarily designed for.

Other factors which can dramatically affect rate of fire are: the tank commander doubling as the loader or gunner, thep resence of a turret basket (both factors included in Fire Control Effect (FCE) below), and the design of the ammunition stowage in the AFV. Ammunition stowage layout and design is not specifically factored into our MFM OCPC calculations. Generally tanks with smaller internal volume have reduced efficiencies in this area. FOr example, in the IS-2 a portion of the ammunition propellant (charge) was stored in boxes such that the box roofs became the turret floor. When opened, the loader and other turret crew had to side step open ammunition boxes to move around the turret. At the same time the gun rotated above the loader, independent of his orientation, as there was no turret basket. Given all these factors, and its two piece ammunition, it is not suprising the IS-2 had such a low rate of fire.

Mostly no ♥♥♥♥ Sherlock but I'll take its word for it that there isn't anything reliable and impressionable about them getting results fighting tanks.

So to think about gameplay: In game a SU-152 even with Anti-tank weapon alongside its HE weapon may generally suck in a tank fight because slow rotational traverse and slow reload time and low accuracy etc, but the key thing is aim time as if it is quick then we can camp an ISU-122 or ISU-152 in specific places and the moment any heavy enemy armour comes around that corner these Soviet Assault Guns can take them out.
There's also aspect of, that as Assault guns already are in SD1, it's worth shooting at tanks because of the stun effect. If these Soviet Assault Guns have big stun values then they will already have large effect against tanks without them dealing any damage.

We have for example big Axis Assault Gun and some Pz4s duking it out with big Soviet Assault Gun and some T34s.
The Assault Guns already have a large effect stunning the Pz4s and T34s, should it be that one of the Assault Guns also gets to deal damage while the other doesn't?

I duno. It's also a matter of price, availability, what else is available in the division(s) that the ISU-152s etc are in, and matter of how it generally performs with aim time etc.

Honestly I'd rather thave them virtually absent from the game, like I'd rather not have SU100 or King Tiger etc in the game. SD1 would've been better without King Tiger. I want mainly medium tanks fighting medium tanks, and for weapons that were uncommon to be a rare occurence, and you can't do this by having a division with 100 T-34s and 2 SU-100s because in practice it means the player deploys 10 T-34s and both SU-100s.
If there was any King Tiger in Steel Division it should have been one King Tiger in one Division (prob 21st) to keep them from being anywhere near silly levels of overrepresentation.

If we're talking about realism of what a weapon does then not only what many Assault Guns are firing could potentially send a tank to the ICU in all sorts of ways - a direct hit could render the armour so that the crew can be directly exposed to the blast effect, nevermind through it, but then so will artillery wreck tanks!

[Andariel]

Operation Barbarossa: the Complete Organisational and Statistical Analysis, and Military Simulation, Volume I, Nigel Askey

[tyke]

And this part of the discussion was silly:

acur1231 a écrit :

Are you trying to be dim? How many times must I explain this?

oh no, wrong part, this one:

acur1231 a écrit :

See what it says about such injuries being compounded when you are in an enclosed space? Like a tank?

"The magnitude of damage due to the blast wave is dependent on the peak of the initial positive pressure wave, the duration of the overpressure, the medium in which it explodes, the distance from the incident blast wave, and the degree of focusing due to a confined area or walls. For example, explosions near or within hard solid surfaces become amplified two to nine times due to shock wave reflection. As a result, individuals between the blast and a building generally suffer two to three times the degree of injury compared to those in open spaces."
bla bla bal wiki

Read it. It's talking about the blast effect in the same confined space as a person.
Like ya know if you have a suicide bomber with a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ little suicide vest go off in the same small area as you, then you may be protected from the primary blast effect and shrapnel by other people's bodies between you and the suicide bomber, but the blast effect that is happening within the same confined space as you that reflects off walls and ceilings can hurt you.

If want to get into weapons having a realistic effect then of course in reality the likes of a 152mm artillery shell doesn't even need to directly hit a tank to damage it.

Artillery of course can destroy tanks, as the great magazine article RoyalColor linked talks about on Pages 8, 9, 10, 11:

RoyalColor a écrit :

http://sill-www.army.mil/firesbulletin/archives/2002/NOV_DEC_2002/NOV_DEC_2002_FULL_EDITION.pdf

Article on p.8 is an interesting read

As it says on Page 9:

Test Results. The first test was conducted in 1988. Researchers confirmed that the US 155-mm HE round was a reasonable surrogate for the Soviet 152-mm HE round. An M109 155-mm howitzer battery using Soviet fire direction and gun procedures fired the test. The targets were manikins placed in fighting positions, US trucks, M113 and M557 armored vehicles, and M-48 tanks. Several different computer models were used to predict results. The test was fired
three times using 56 HE rounds with point-detonating (♥♥) and variable-time (VT) fuzes.
The resulting effects on the trucks and personnel were close to model predictions. However, the effects on the armored vehicles and tanks were significantly higher than model predictions.
The model predicted 30 percent damage to armored vehicles and tanks; however, 67 percent damage was achieved. Fragmentation from the HE rounds penetrated the armored vehicles, destroying critical components and injuring the manikin crews. (See an example of such damage in Figure 1.) In addition, the HE fragmentation damaged tracks, road wheels, and tank main gun sights and set one vehicle on fire. Interestingly enough, none of the damage to the armored vehicles or tanks was the result of direct hits—all the damage was caused by near hits.

Artillery ♥♥♥♥♥ up tanks, without even directly hitting.

If ISU-152 kills armoured vehicles based on what it is firing for realism then so will pretty much all artillery killing armoured vehicles.
People will be able to use German artillery to blow away the ISU-152s all the same.

However ultimately artillery in WW2 usually wasn't very effective against tanks. During WW2 there were studies on this and they found results of artillery targetting tanks didn't do much.

I'm not certain, but I think somewhere in papers of No.2 Operational Research Section in North Western Europe they have some research finding effect of artillery against armoured vehicles in practice on the moving battlefield as sorely lacking, but I'm not sure if it's there so don't go through it and hold me to it, but when Western Allies did research on this they found artillery wasn't effective against tanks in practice and it usually took a whole lot of pounding to get results.
I can't find good copy online right now, lost my old bookmarks, but here is a crappy one with original documents that are hard to read http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a951850.pdf

And it was the forces of the U.S.A and British Commonwealth which had such effectively integrated artillery - U.S of course reknowned as the King Arty Spammers in WW2 who would often call in a truck load of artillery to deal with any problem. Germans generally didn't have such integration of artillery into their forces, and the Soviets troops far less so able to call in artillery.

If we have realistic battlefield results then it shouldn't be the ISU-152 killing anything, it will be Soviet Armour getting shredded by German artillery.

In practice overall in WW2 a very small fraction of tanks were destroyed by artillery, one data I do have on hand is the article previously linked when talking about how the T34 was trash and it quotes a Soviet study of T34 losses from June 1941 and September 1942 and identified 2.9% of T34s as lost to 105mm.
http://www.operationbarbarossa.net/the-t-34-in-wwii-the-legend-vs-the-performance/
CAUSES OF T-34 LOSSES FROM JUNE 1941 TO SEPTEMBER 1942 (EXPRESSED AS % OF TOTAL).
Weapon Calibre - % Lost
20mm - 4.7%
37mm - 10%
Short 50mm - 7.5%
Long 50mm - 54.3%
75mm - 10.1%
88mm - 3.4%
105 - 2.9%
Unknown - 7.1%

Really that's quite alot if you think almost 1 in 30 T34s were identified as destroyed by 105mm.
About 8,000 T34 lost in that time period so it's about 240 T34s killed by artillery, but then over that 1 year and 3 months how many artillery rounds did it take ot be targetted at T34s to kill those 240 T34s?

Also interesting to see artillery killing as much as the 88mms when supposedly at this time the 88m was the only thing the Germans could use against the SUPER STRONK T34 ARMOUR! That's not saying much with only 3.4% of T34s killed by 88mm compared to 2.9% killed by 105mm.
More interesting is that more T34s are being defeated by 37mm (10%) than by 88mm and 105mm put together (6.3%).

In game we can just click artillery click where we want it super fast and everyone would just spam artillery at tanks. Can't just have realistic effects of weapons.

Another perspective of putting "realism" is that in SD "Tank Buster" aircraft can kill tanks, so why can't artillery? "Tank Buster" aircraft very rarely destroyed armoured targets through all of WW2 while in SD1 they destroy armour far more easily.
Now this I know for sure is in the No.2 Opoerational Research Section papers where they are analysing Normandy battlefields and find that "Tank Busters" only killed about 2% of the vehicles they claimed.OperationBarbarossa site also has article on this but lacks information you get in the research papers.
They also not only write how few German armoured vehicles they found to be destroyed by "Tank Busters", but they write how many sorties were flown and how many Rockets and Bombs were dropped so this can get interesting and give us a good picture.
I can't remembr off top of my head but it's something crazy like:

They fired 1,000 rockets and dropped 300 bombs and destroyed 10 armoured vehicles.

The question then is how many of these 1,000 rockets and 300 bombs of whatever were they targetting at armoured vehicles?
Well we can look at the claims. If considering how many AFVs they claimed they killed (300 or whatever), and also that there weren't even 300 AFVs ins the area but only about 150 (so they were repeatedly strafing same targets), then 300 times of them thinking they killed an armoured vehicle would figure out to all those munitions they fired.

I really can't remember what munitions the aircraft are documented as firing and dropping but planes flew hundreds of sorties over 3 days targetting just about 150 AFVs and they killed less than 10 tanks.

But the reason for "Tank Busters" actually busting tanks in SD is because SD gameplay accomodates that, even if in SD aircraft are so very powerful against AFV compared to real life. You must deal with enemy dogfighters and anti-air and it all works in the gameplay (sort of, I'd rather it wasn't there).
With artillery being able to kill tanks it would just be artillery spam.
This is a gameplay discussion.

If we want realism in terms of weapon effect then 1 Tiger will eat a milion ISU-152s for breakfast before they know what hit them, we can left click artillery and then right click enemy tanks all day long and blow tanks away so there'll be no point in deploying tanks anymore while you'll need to do 100 strafes by a "Tank Buster" aircraft to kill a single tank etc.

Personally I think make all artillery off-map and make all aircraft off-map call ins.
Call in 50 IL-2s to target an area of 15 German AFVs and they maybe destroy 1 or 2 or 3. Fewer call-ins of dogfighters to react.

Also that line in the magazine article:
"The physiological and psycholoigcal effects on personnel could not be measured as Army regulations prohibit using humans or animals in this type of testing."
Awwwh

[Ulater]

acur1231 a écrit :

Look, argue all you want. But the ISU 152 was known to be a good heavy tank destroyer. Since we all agree it could not penetrate a Tiger or Panther, it must have been using its HE shells to kill them. Else I really don't know how much the Germans must have sucked, to be killed by an ineffective TD. Eugen knows this, but they will probably give a high AP value instead of HEAT like a Bazooka. That means that it will get progressively higher AP values as it gets closer. Do you really want that? I am not here to argue about the ISU-152s tank killing abilities. They are well known, and Eugen will represent that. It is how they should be represented so they will not be completely useless or brokenly OP.

Good to see you again Ulator, still going to be giving daft arguments with no evidence? Just so you know, the German crews did not run through fire to get to the Elefants. The Soviets withdrew to their next defensive line after the ambush, and the Germans found that the "destroyed" vehicles were still intact, and subsequently re-crewed them and used them again the next day. This brought about the orders to ISU-152 crews to keep firing at a crippled German tank until it caught fire or changed shape, lest the enemy use it again.

As for Soviet propaganda, they did not claim the SU 152 killed any tanks, since they would never focus on individual actions and overblow them, as the Germans did. They would make their victories seem larger, and used rather crude but effective propaganda focusing on what the Germans were doing in occupied USSR. But aside from snipers, the Soviet propaganda machine never really glorified individual weapons, people or units. I would love to see where you found propaganda claiming thay the SU 152 destroyed 22 Tigers or 7 Ferdinands/Elefants, since that would be rather out of character for the Soviet propagandists.

No ISU-152 wasnt known for being a good tank destroyer.

Im seriously questioning your reading skills by now. In the link provided by you, it is clearly explained that except for one HE shell, all examples of damages were done by anti-concrete or armour-piercing shells.

No ISU-152 tank killing abilities were not known. Something with 2 rounds-per-minute fire rate and no tracers to observe fire is not going to be able to engage tanks effectively at all.



"The first defensive position, designated to engage the enemy in front of the defenses and to absorb the first enemy blows, engineer preparation (see figure 12). involved the most thorough
It consisted of two to three trench lines and communication trenches, interspersed with engineer obstacles, and was occupi.ed by the two first-echelon rifle battalions of first-echelon
rifle regiments. Infantry and heavy weapons in the second and third trenches, located 150 to 250 meters and 1 to 1.5 kilometers from the first trench respectively, provided covering fires for trenches to their front and gave depth to the battalion defensive region. "

Thats a description from CSI Report No. 11, Soviet Defensive Tactics at Kursk, July 1943, a brief description of basic rifle corps defense.


So yes, if a Ferdinand was disabled anywhere inside or in front of soviet defense network, you are proposing that they would be recovered or re-crewed under fire of small arms, multiple regimental weapons and several separately commanded gun-nests and fortified regions. Given they even managed to clear out forward trenches and firing positions.



Soviets were payed for destroyed tanks.

And Im not sure what are you trying to say, when things like Kolobanov exist.

Not even talking about the fact that Soviets reported to have destroyed more german tanks than were present at Kursk, spawning dozens of Hero of the soviet union citations for individuals for destroying multiple Tigers.



And just to end this completely ridiculous discourse:

http://i.imgur.com/V8qgiph.jpg

Orientation of fragmentation of 75 mm shell.


I invite all present to have a moment and think as to why it looks like that.


Then, when you consider that HE shells are typically set to delayed fuzes, you can finally appreciate the degree of absudity being expressed by Acur here.

[Andariel]

acur1231 a écrit :

Andariel a écrit :

Yeah sure, what did you smoke in the morning?

https://themoscowtimes.com/news/russian-archives-cast-doubt-on-legends-of-soviet-war-heroes-48026

Want more examples?

Yeah, them and Pavlovs men, but other than that, hardly any cases. For a war of that size and scope, a few examples hardly makes a trend.

Also, I see Ulator has brought back his sock puppet. Odd that the two of you vanished at about the same time last year.

Ah my master Ulater responded

Soviet Union and modern Russia had and have a fine history in myth making and hero worshipping. Why not? Its a good instrument for might preservation and national inducement.

The title "Hero of the Soviet Union" is a good example for this. And from where did you think came the whole bunch of "Guard Divisions", this was a title of honor.

And of course cinema, radio and newspaper celebrated this. Time to travel to russia to visit their monuments and of course the Мавзолей В. И. Ленина and the Некрополь у Кремлёвской стены.

If you have time read this:

Myth Making in the Soviet Union and Modern Russia: Remembering World War Two in Brezhnev's Hero City, Vicky Davis

The Positive Hero in Russian Literature, Rufus W. Mathewson