Warning on Jap type 89 tank

[Weasel]

Never did it fire AP for me, not once. And the HE bounced off everything, even targets with 1 point of armour. Even if the tank was designed as an infantry support weapon why would the commander fire HE at an armoured target? I don't think the Japanese are that stupid to not be able to distinguish a soldier from a tank.

It is screwed.

Don't know about the game but historically it would be accurate for a tank to fire HE at enemy tanks, it was quite common for Germans to fire HE at lighter enemy armour and score kills. They tried to save AP for medium and heavy armour. Also at longer range it was easier to fire a HE to see where it lands, AP doesn't give many hints if it misses target.

You know what give a real big hint that you missed? When the HE fails to kill the target and the target shoves an AP round down your throat.

[Grumbler]

Or it could be a game flaw. I won't say 'bug' since that word gets people upset. Of course, one could just not play as the Japs, or not use thos tanks. IIRC the japs very seldom used armor. They didn't have any tanks worth using and had no real concept of armored warfare. That is why the Soviets tore them up in '38 ( or was it '39?). The BT2's and -3's the Soviets were using were light years ahead of any Jap tank. Remember, the most important Jap anti-tank weapon was some poor dumb schmuck with 20 Lbs of HE throwing his self under the tank and pulling the igniter. The suicide bomber was a Japanese invention.

[Weasel]

Told ya it was screwed up:

Description (From wikipedia)

The Chi-Ro (YI-GO) had a crew of 4 (commander/gunner, loader, driver and hull gunner). The turret was armed with a 57 mm main gun and a 6.5 mm machine gun mounted in the rear of the turret. There was another 6.5 mm machine gun mounted in the front of the hull.

The Type 89 main gun was the Type 90 57 mm Tank Gun with caliber of 57 mm, barrel length of 0.85 m (L14.9) el angle of fire of -15 to +20 degrees, AZ angle of fire of 20 degrees, muzzle velocity of 380 m/s ,penetration of 20 mm/500 m

Now, the FT17 (we were playing Japan vs Manchuka) has a 37mm L21 Type 11 which can penetrate 5mm of armour at 500m. (these stats were actually for the type 21, couldn't find the type 11) ( http://www.tarrif.net/cgi/production/all...on_adv.php )

so why can it penetrate a tank at 100m but the type 89 requires a target to be in the same hex, when the type 89 gun is 4X better?

[Vesku]

Never did it fire AP for me, not once. And the HE bounced off everything, even targets with 1 point of armour. Even if the tank was designed as an infantry support weapon why would the commander fire HE at an armoured target? I don't think the Japanese are that stupid to not be able to distinguish a soldier from a tank.

It is screwed.

Don't know about the game but historically it would be accurate for a tank to fire HE at enemy tanks, it was quite common for Germans to fire HE at lighter enemy armour and score kills. They tried to save AP for medium and heavy armour. Also at longer range it was easier to fire a HE to see where it lands, AP doesn't give many hints if it misses target.

You know what give a real big hint that you missed? When the HE fails to kill the target and the target shoves an AP round down your throat.

Picture a Tiger firing at T-34 from 2000 plus meters, no real danger of getting hurt :) even a long barrel Pz IV could fire the first HE from about 1000 meters without fear of getting caught by the enemy. German panzercrew also preferred to ambush from a good cover which made it very hard to spot the firing panzer after the first shot. I'm not saying that you are nuts for claiming that the game is screwed, just saying that there could be a reason for HE to be fired at armour. I think that 75mm and larger caliber HE should have a greater kill because what I've read is that German tankers usually fired HE at armoured cars and halftracks and killed them with practically every shot while an AP more often went through and through without a kill. Probably quite hard to simulate in game terms.

[Walrus]

Hi All
I am no expert with guns and OOBs and all that but I do know that the SP developers had a plan with the "fire HE instead of AP" when they introduced the code to the game.
I think the idea was, in game terms, to give tanks with crap AP penetration a chance by firing HE when the game assumed that the HE (using over penetration codes) had a better chance of destroying the armoured target.

Now I think Chris and I stumbled onto the wrong end of the bell curve when we were playing this battle. I suspect that the bad performance of the gun is not intended by the CAMO guys but when viewed a whole against the era that winSPww2 covers, the system is correct.
As someone mentioned earlier...the gun was just not very good...however for game purposed perhaps they should tweak the low end of the bell curve on this gun, and I imagine quite a few others, so there is at least the chance of some fun with armour v armour in these early battles.

I am sure others know better than I what the true specs of th guns, ammo and armour of that era actually were...but as always we are constrained by this very old game code and sometimes it just cannot be tweaked past a certain point.

I guess it is lucky that most chaps will not bother playing 1935 Jap v armour type fights.

Just my 2 cents. I am sure Remco will have a more correct interpretation of the code vs the results we have seen.

Cheers all
Jason

[Narwan]

I'm looking into this. But it does appear something is indeed wrong with this tank (or perhaps better put, with the ammo selection for the type 90 gun).
I've done some quick testing eliminating all the HE ammo and the type 89 tank with type 90 gun is indeed capable of penetrating 20mm of armor at 500m ranges in the game by using it's AP ammo (although at this range not all rounds will penetrate and you'll have to hit the target straight on, so no angle). Why the game consistently picks the HE ammo is unclear right now. Could be a specific code glitch, perhaps it's because of the overpenetration and increased chance of a mobility kill by HE rounds.

I do know that making this feature (selecting HE ammo for increased chance of track hits when the AP round has no chance of penetrating) work properly for the very low end of AT guns (where the AP penetration barely outdoes the HE penetration) has always been difficult due to the absolute numbers involved.

I'll let you know if and when I something more conclusive.

Narwan

[Greybeard]

Ahh,

Thanks Narwan, that explains why when I've had swedish 20mm AA guns refusing to fire AP at any armomred target.. will keep that in mind..

GReybeard