06-06-2016, 04:23 PM | #1 |
Join Date: May 2016
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Tanks - Slopes, Turrets, Tracks, DR?
I've seen dozens of entries on tanks thanks to the 3e WWII books, but I don't think I understand them on a technical or tactical level, especially the armor.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but here's how I assume the armor is distributed: Front: 100% Sides: 75% Rear: 75-50% Turret: 150% Tracks: 50% Something like that? Watching both real and fictional examples of tanks made me realize that the turret needs to be toughest, since it's the first part that pokes out from a hilltop or other defensive position. Does anyone have more precise numbers or better "tank theory" I could learn? |
06-06-2016, 04:34 PM | #2 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Tanks - Slopes, Turrets, Tracks, DR?
Generally speaking, the tank's front and turret front will be armored to deal with contemporary tank and anti-tank weaponry, the rest will be armored to deal with machine guns and possibly light autocannons. Often this means as much as a factor of ten difference in armor levels between the front and everything else.
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06-06-2016, 04:48 PM | #3 |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: Tanks - Slopes, Turrets, Tracks, DR?
There's not really a general tank theory. Your assumptions are wrong for most tanks, but not in any one consistent direction.
Tanks from late WWII on often have much more bias to front protection than you're predicting. A modern MBT is intended to resist a modern MBT cannon from the front. From any other angle it doesn't try to come anywhere close to that. Look at the T-72 at the back of High Tech: more than 6 times as much DR up front as on the side. Some tanks focus more armor on the turret than the hull, but historically at least that wasn't always true. Look at the Pz. IV stats on HT238 - turret front armor is less than hull front armor. I'm prone to over-detailing, but I don't think giving a single armor value for the entire front hull is actually a good idea. The most resistant part of the front armor is generally going to be the sloped upper surface (the glacis). If the tank is positioned so you have a shot at the lower angle, that's vastly more vulnerable. In an RPG with second-by-second resolution, I for one want to account for that sort of thing. You mention sloping in the title, but don't get into it. It's probably best to treat sloped armor as having DR for its slope thickness: actual thickness / cos(angle). In reality, you can bypass sloping by having the right (usually elevated) firing position, or by some other gimmicks, but treating sloping as not working by default is going to make most modern armored vehicles look nonsensical, so it's not a good option. Also, if it hasn't been mentioned to you, GURPS WWII takes its own special approach to vehicle stats that does not line up with GURPS 4e (and might not with other GURPS 3e, I'm not sure about that).
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06-06-2016, 05:16 PM | #4 | ||||
Join Date: May 2016
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Re: Tanks - Slopes, Turrets, Tracks, DR?
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Oh but of course. I was just thinking about raw DR, which is quite similar in either edition. |
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06-06-2016, 05:34 PM | #5 | ||||
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: Tanks - Slopes, Turrets, Tracks, DR?
Well, for one tank it's somewhat okay, but I wouldn't bet on it even generalizing across modern MBTs. And earlier tanks, or light tanks that aren't designed to survive MBT hits, may have much lower ratios.
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But, well, you're not alone in that preference. That T-72 follows it, for example. Quote:
Modern design has much less of that, but there are still vulnerabilities if the angle is right. I wrote up a detailed armor plan of an interwar/early WWII tank (The T-26) here. I'd be inclined to make up sub-location tables for each facing and attack penalties for called shots to the various bits. YMMV, practicality not guaranteed. Quote:
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This is all hearsay to me (see my tiny sig) but as I understand it GURPS WWII did not follow the same standards currently used for a number of things and DR was among them.
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I don't know any 3e, so there is no chance that I am talking about 3e rules by accident. |
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06-06-2016, 06:39 PM | #6 |
Join Date: May 2016
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Re: Tanks - Slopes, Turrets, Tracks, DR?
In other words... there's no Grand Unified Tank Theory, and tanks are complicated machines with variations on both their base armor and the armor's slope.
But it would be cool if there were some guidelines for those wanting a ballpark idea of a tank. |
06-06-2016, 07:37 PM | #7 | |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: Tanks - Slopes, Turrets, Tracks, DR?
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'Tank' is too broad to fit under one set of guidelines. I'm going to give two, but there could probably be more. Actual tanks can be expected to only approximately fit either set! A main battle tank, heavy tank, or medium tank will typically have:
A light armored combat vehicle, including light tanks, armored cars, and many armored personnel carriers will typically have:
For both types, crew is never less than 2 (driver and gunner), rarely less than 3 (driver, gunner, commander) and many examples have 4 (usually driver, gunner, commander, loader) or in WWII 5 (driver, gunner, commander, loader, radio operator/hull MG gunner). Some have more, mostly early tanks with multiple turrets or hull-mounted MGs.
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I don't know any 3e, so there is no chance that I am talking about 3e rules by accident. Last edited by Ulzgoroth; 06-06-2016 at 07:43 PM. |
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06-06-2016, 07:47 PM | #8 | |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Tanks - Slopes, Turrets, Tracks, DR?
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Typically that means small arms and light support weapons from the sides; what it means in terms of frontal armor depends a lot on what the tank is intended for. |
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06-06-2016, 08:21 PM | #9 | ||
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Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Southeast NC
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Re: Tanks - Slopes, Turrets, Tracks, DR?
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06-06-2016, 09:02 PM | #10 |
Join Date: Oct 2008
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Re: Tanks - Slopes, Turrets, Tracks, DR?
Basically the armor levels of modern tanks get really complex.
A good example can be seen in Leopard-2A0-A4 armor protection estimation at: http://www.btvt.narod.ru/raznoe/leopard2/Leo2a4.htm Specially the image: http://www.btvt.narod.ru/raznoe/leop...d-2A4-LOSy.jpg |
Tags |
damage resistance, help me out here, sloped armor, tanks |
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