tanks

[RedDevil]

yes but your optics were MUCH better than your Soviets of that day were :)

whereas you could see the rivets at 1000 meters, they were lucky to see the whole tank

[McIvan]

Ok, couple of obs then:

I am an ex zipper-head trained as a driver and gunner. Yes, being buttoned up makes it harder to spot new targets (mostly infantry not vehicle if to your front facing) but we never had any trouble tracking a target once registered unless it went into dead ground.

You won't lose a vehicle track, but infantry going to ground will often turn to a "last known position marker" after a little while, unless you have other units observing them.

Edit: and what Randy said about modern tank optics/cupolas.

Tanks on hills should be much harder to hit as only their gun and very top of turret is showing. I checked from the stugs POV and indeed that is all that could be seen of my T34s on the hill; so that was wonderful shooting on his part. As for my T34s, they never came close to hitting the stug (btw - the germans were green and my reds were regular) and if they did it should have been a top hit.

They should be harder to hit and usually would be. You can end up in games with both sides shooting and repeatedly missing little bits of enemy tanks with a percentage hit chance in the 1-10% range, because of terrain obscuring all but the top sliver of the turret. Four hits from four shots from a green Stug at 850 metres is a heck of rare occurrence.....simply sounds like very bad luck.

[RedDevil]

StuG optics are set up for long range, the German optics were much superior to any other of the period. Soviet optics were typically maxed out at about 750 meters during the early war years and only gradually got better after 1944

stories show most kills at ranges over that were "lucky hits"

MR might have better details, I'm only going on the Osprey T34 book I have in front of me.

[Weasel]

Agreed on German optics. As for the optics we used; for the Leo 1A5 yes, however, for 90% of my tank time we were in Cougars which use the scorpion turret which is only slightly better then the sherman sight. It was still very much fire round, correction, fire round correction until burst on target. A trick to this was to fire your first round and then take that impact and move it onto the target; your next round should either be target or burst on target (meaning you are within 50 feet). However, if you screw up and don't move the impact correctly then you are in real trouble.

Cougars were only suppose to be tank trainers, but just like the PZ I and II we ended up using them in combat in the Balkans.

Good discussion we have going!!

[RedDevil]

Oddly enough the Soviets removed American optics on their lend lease Shermans and retroed them with Soviet ones! Go figure...

I believe it was because they didn't want their tankers wasting long range shots and wanted them to close with the enemy before firing.

[WarHammer11A]

Shoot Move Communicate

I am a treadhead also. Shoot, move, and communicate is the base line for any tanks success. One with out the other leave it vulnerable. The Germans did a fine job of balancing this with the Panthers. The T34s lacked in the optics and commo. It's (T34) mobility is by far one of its best traits. If used properly this can have awesome results against alot of the German armor (dollar for dollar). Being a treadhead, its hard to get out of the "Modern tank tactical mentality". In my M1, I would stand up and duke it out with almost any modern day tank on the battlefeild. I can not do that in 1940 whatever with soviet armor and expext to win. Move, Move, Move... They are cheaper (T34) and faster. Use this against turretless and turreted armor. Don't be afraid to loose your wingman (sad to say that). Try using soviet doctrine of large mobile numbers of tanks to overwhelm the advanced guns, and optics.
warhammer11a

[Chipmunk]

Historically didn't the T-34 have a problem in that its gun wouldn't depress very far, which prevented it from entering proper hulldown positions on elevated terrain? I don't think this is modelled in the game.