Armor, penetration, and damage

7.1. A hit picks a location by the facing of the target relative to the shot.

From the front a hit most often lands on the hull front, then on the turret front and mantlet, then on the tracks; a few hits find the gun and a few do nothing. From the side or the rear most hits land on the hull side or rear, the rest on the turret side or rear and the tracks; from the side almost every hit does something, from the rear rather more do nothing.

Hull-down targets treat hull locations as turret locations.

7.2. Effective armor is the plate thickness divided by the cosine of the combined angle, where the combined angle is the plate slope compounded with the horizontal angle between the shot and the plate’s normal. Shots at a very steep combined angle ricochet without a roll.

7.3. Penetration at range comes from the ammunition table in section 10, interpolated. The margin is penetration minus effective armor. The chance to penetrate rises smoothly with the margin: even odds when the two are equal, near certain when the shell has a comfortable margin over the plate, near nothing when the plate has a comfortable margin over the shell. A failed penetration is a ricochet, or a shatter if the shell is APCBC and the margin was a near thing. Both are heard and felt inside the tank as an own-tank hit.

7.4. A penetration rolls on the internal effects table for the location, each row independently. A turret penetration risks the commander, the gunner and the loader, the gun and the turret’s traverse, and, in a dry-stowage tank, very likely an ammunition fire. A hull-front penetration risks the driver and the bow gunner, the transmission (the tank immobilised), and again an ammunition fire. A hull-side penetration risks one hull seat and one turret seat, an ammunition fire likelier still, and a fuel fire. A hull-rear penetration usually stops the engine and may start a fuel fire. A hit on the tracks usually immobilises the tank and a hit on the gun usually disables it; neither needs a penetration.

A casualty is more often wounded than killed. A wounded man stays in his seat with effective skill halved and his stress up, or is carried out if the crew bails. A tank with an ammunition fire or a fuel fire is knocked out and brews up within seconds. A tank with two or more seats empty, or with gun disabled and immobilised, is knocked out. An empty seat is a dead man or one who has got out; a wounded man still fills his.

The ammunition-fire rates for dry stowage are high on purpose. Wartime surveys of penetrated Shermans put the proportion that burned at roughly two in three for dry stowage, and wet stowage is what brought it down to about one in ten; that is the whole reason wet stowage was fitted. The two are meant to be that far apart.

7.5. Bail-out takes a few seconds per unwounded man and longer per wounded man, through the hatches in seat order. Men still inside when a brew-up completes are killed. Bailed crews are an infantry team with no weapons, strength equal to survivors, and full suppression.

7.6. Infantry teams and gun crews take suppression, from none to complete. An HE round landing close adds a great deal, less occupant cover; one landing farther off adds less; a machine-gun burst on the team adds a fair amount, less occupant cover; an AP shell close by a little; a tank closing on them adds some every period; and a casualty in the team adds a good deal.

Suppression decays steadily. A team is pinned at about half: it does not move and fires at half rate. It is broken higher up: it does not fire, and each period rolls to leave — an infantry team fairly often, a gun crew half as often. The two are separate numbers because a crew dug in around a heavy gun in a prepared position is not the same proposition as a rifle squad caught in the open, and the anti-tank gun’s staying power is what a scenario is usually tuned on. A team that runs falls back away from the nearest enemy vehicle each time it replans. A pinned gun crew lays in twice the time.

7.7. Infantry strength drops with each HE impact close by and with sustained machine-gun fire on the team, both reduced by occupant cover. A team down to its last few men is combat-ineffective.

7.8. Close assault. An enemy infantry team close to an immobilised or halted-and-buttoned tank, not pinned, assaults. Each period it may succeed, likelier if the tank’s bow gunner is dead or frozen. Success immobilises the tank if it was not, and knocks it out, with a casualty likely in each seat, if it was. Tanks with an active bow gunner or unbuttoned commander firing suppress the assaulting team first.