Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!att!cbnews!military
From: allen%codon1.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Fire control
Message-ID: <7208@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 7 Jun 89 03:36:14 GMT
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Organization: University of California, Berkeley
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From: allen%codon1.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU

I've played a lot of WWII armored miniatures games and a lot of board
games on the topic too.  One thing I find hard to judge is the relative
effectiveness of certain tactics compared to each other in real life.  I
can judge how effective they are in any particular game system.  An
example:  I remember reading that in North Africa, the preferred mode of
engagement for light tanks like Stuarts and Cruisers to engage AT guns was
a zigzag approach until the tanks reached their effective firing range,
hopefully using confusing dodges to make up for the lack of effective
cover.  Anybody have data on how effective such a tactic is in making a
tank harder to hit?  If such tactics are used by, say, a company of 15
Stuarts to attack a battery of, say, five 88's, are any of the Stuarts
likely to make it close enough to take out any of the 88's if the LOS of
the 88's is unimpeded by any considerations of ground?  I'm assuming this
is purely an exercise in targeting and rate of fire vs speed and dodging
and shooting by the tanks because any hit by an 88 on a Stuart will pretty
much trash it.  Are there other tactics for the tanks that will do better?
How much so?  Assume the eighty eights are hastily set up and not in
protected emplacements to begin with.  If they are dug in, how much does
this change the situation?  If the defending AT guns are German 75s, how
much does this change the situation?  If they are 57s?  What ratio of
Stuarts to 88's are needed to overwhelm the AT guns ability to pick them
off?  How much does the situation change if we swap in Shermans for the
Stuarts?  What I guess I'm looking for is a database of situations that
are simple enough in the real engagements to get a sense of the
actual interplay of the factors involved.  I'd like to have more than a
set of wargamers' best guesses to go by.

Perhaps to approach the problem in a different way, if I am trying to
shoot an AT gun at a moving tank, how do the tank's speed, range, angle of
approach, and frequency of jinking affect my probability to hit?  How much
does it matter if the ground is uneven, making the tank move up and down
alot to a degree smaller than the height of the tank?  What's the effect of
the the tank occasionally dipping into dead ground on my aim?
How much slower is the real rate of fire of AT guns under combat
conditions than the ideal rate of fire under testing ground conditions?

So does anybody have real data or experience to share that can help an
armchair warrior evaluate these kind of questions?

All replies  appreciated, by e-mail or posting.
Ed Allen (allen@enzyme.berkeley.edu)