Soft attack and hard attack.

[Ragatokk]

Soft attack should be inefective on hard targets.
But hard attack should do full damage on soft targets.

There is no reason why a tank should not sloughter 200 men with rifels.

 

[kviiri]

But there's a reason why a slow-firing anti-tank rifle would be worse at slaughtering 200 men with rifles than a machinegun.

 

[Cowsnipe]

Soft attack should be inefective on hard targets.
But hard attack should do full damage on soft targets.

There is no reason why a tank should not sloughter 200 men with rifels.

Tanks have both soft attack and hard attack

 

[Denkt]

Hard attack represent the ability to fire armor piercing rounds while soft attack is about high explosive stuff. So against infantry soft attack rounds would be used, everyone is considered to have some form of each type of weapon and can switch between them.

 

[Ragatokk]

That makes sense, so flesh makes you immune to armor pirceing attacks... Got it!

 

[Denkt]

The anti tank gun would use high explosive rounds against infantry. It don't make it good against infantry compared to something like artillery.

 

[Ragatokk]

Are you really trying to say the main cannon of a tank was never used to shoot at infantry?
Are you really saying the only thing used was the machine gun?

 

[Alex_brunius]

There is no reason why a tank should not sloughter 200 men with rifels.

If the tank has no explosive shells and no machine guns ( = no soft attack ), sure it should not be able to do anything against infantry while still being a threat to enemy tanks ( AP shells = hard attack ).

A good historical example is the Ferdinand tank destroyer which had an impressive anti tank gun but not a single machine gun. They were a disaster against infantry and after Kursk ( where many were knocked out by mines or molotov cocktails ) all were retrofitted into Elefant models with machine guns.

Are you really trying to say the main cannon of a tank was never used to shoot at infantry?
Are you really saying the only thing used was the machine gun?

The main gun was not very effective against infantry no, especially when you have no or very few explosive shells ( which was common in tanks whose main job was engaging enemy tanks ).

The maingun is slow to move and slow to aim, and infantry is normally in good cover ( trenches ) where they are well protected except for short periods of time when they will be running for their life if there are enemy tanks with their main guns aimed their way.

 

[Denkt]

No, but soft attack represent stuff like high explosive weapons and hard attack represent stuff like armor piercing weapons.

Everyone have a soft attack and a hard attack so anti tank weapons can be used against infantry but they use their soft attack value.

 

[kviiri]

That makes sence, so flesh makes you immune to armor pirceing attacks... Got it!

No, didn't you read anything that was posted? No one made such claim, but instead presented you with a logical reason why it works the way it does.

Are you really trying to say the main cannon of a tank was never used to shoot at infantry?
Are you really saying the only thing used was the machine gun?

Many tanks had HE shells for taking out concentrated infantry, but WWII tanks are still not particularly good at it. Sure, a hit will kill a soldier, no problem - but when there's lots of them, the relatively slow rate for fire and lack of accuracy of the main cannon makes it an inconvenient choice. It works but is not optimal.

 

[Cpack]

Are you really trying to say the main cannon of a tank was never used to shoot at infantry?
Are you really saying the only thing used was the machine gun?

That's why tanks load HE Shells. You can fire with AP Shells against infantry, but with very less effect.

edit: Emu'd

 

[Denkt]

Early tanks generally had a low velocity gun and used high explosive rounds while later tanks was armed with high velocity guns so they could fight enemy tanks much more effectively although they probably lost a significant part of their value against infantry.

 

[kviiri]

Yeah, you could think about in this way: a soldier has two weapons, a submachine gun and a support anti-tank weapon (LAW or something like that). The submachine gun is an epitome of soft attack, the LAW is clearly designed for hard attack. By saying that hard attack should work as well against soft targets, you're effectively saying the soldier would do pretty well using the LAW instead of the submachine gun.

Yeah, pretty much - a direct hit of a LAW will kill an enemy soldier. With some luck, it will incapacitate nearby ones too, but since its explosive warhead is tailored for anti-tank use, it's not particularly effective with this "area of effect" business.

But there's never just one enemy. A shot from a LAW takes, I dunno, maybe ten to fifteen seconds to get off (edit: based on my own experience - I think that's how fast a good soldier does it. I'm way slower...). It can't be fired in bursts, so if you miss, you give your enemy precious seconds while you get another LAW ready to kill another soldier or three. Meanwhile, with the submachine gun, you could've downed maybe ten guys, and given them much less "free time" between your shots - constantly keeping them on their toes, which is a big asset in itself.

So all in all, this whole "flesh makes you immune to armour piercing" is just your misguided interpretation of what constitutes hard and soft attack. The attack values reflect not only whether you get instagibs on hit, but also aspects like rate-of-fire (very important against small individual targets like humans), accuracy, ability to provide cover, etc. Equipment good for hitting a large object so it leaves a big mark have good hard attack, equipment good for hitting multiple small objects has good soft attack, equipment good for both have good hard and soft attack. It's not like Doom where you just run around gibbing zombies with your BFG because you're maxed on energy cells.

 

[LordOfWar16]

Tanks have both soft AND hardattack. They arent incapable of fighting infantry at all. It just makes zero sense to let them use hard attack against soft targets. Its like firing a 17th century iron cannonball at infantry. It just isnt very effective at all. For that tanks (and cannons) have soft attack, i.e high explosive shells to deal with them.

The problem with that is, the better a guns anti-tank capabilities are the worst they are against soft targets (irl). The Panther and Tiger for example had very good armor piercing performance but rather weak high-explosive performance, since they had to have a much thicker wall due to the higher velocity. You cant accelerate a egg to 1000m/s without it breaking aswell. Infact, thats why basicly all tank mounted 105 howitzers are very short, to lower the velocity of the shells.

Artillery is of course something different. They are designed to fire high-explosive shells and pretty much always have alot bigger guns like 120mm, 155mm or 203mm, which results in a much higher payload than with a 75mm or 88mm gun.

To sum it up, the higher the armor piercing potential, the lower the high explosive potential for guns and vise versa in general.

 

[Kovax]

There are two factors to consider with AT weapons: projectile size, and velocity. A larger shell provides simply "more". Bigger IS better, until you have to reload that heavy shell from your limited magazine space, and until you have to build and then mount that bigger gun on a chassis.

Higher velocity provides better armor penetration, but requires a thicker shell wall, lowering its HE performance, as well as building up far more pressure in the gun barrel, requiring a lot more weight for the same diameter round. You can generally use both AP and HE rounds in the same gun, but the shorter, larger caliber low-velocity howitzer will toss MUCH more effective HE rounds than the long, thick-barreled high velocity weapon of the same mass. Conversely, the high velocity weapon will typically punch holes in targets that the howitzer rounds will fail to penetrate. Of course, you can go the 152mm KV-2 route and use enough explosives to cave in the armored target's hull by brute force.

The advantage of the high velocity 75mm L70 (length 70x its diameter) used on several late-war German tanks and TDs was that its high velocity could punch through just about anything at short-to-medium range. The fearsome 88mm (L56?) excelled at greater distances, because the slower but heavier projectile burned off less velocity over distance, and was still fast enough to provide comparable medium and short range performance. Meanwhile, the stubby 75L24 (Panzer IV versions up to F1, and early StuG III) delivered a slightly more effective HE round than the 75L70, at a tiny fraction of the weight and cost.

 

[Secret Master]

Soft attack should be inefective on hard targets.
But hard attack should do full damage on soft targets.

There is no reason why a tank should not sloughter 200 men with rifels.

Umm, did I miss a DD where they said tanks would have zero soft attack? They certainly had plenty of soft attack in HOI3. (Not as much SA per IC/day spent, but that's why artillery found its way into so many of my builds. )

And even in HOI3, hard attack and soft attack could be used against most divisions. Even INF/ART had some vulnerability to HA, while SHARM/HARM divisions could still be harmed by SA. It was a question of efficiency, not absolutes.

Hell, I've eviscerated armored divisions with TACs, and INF divisions with CAS.

If the tank has no explosive shells and no machine guns ( = no soft attack ), sure it should not be able to do anything against infantry while still being a threat to enemy tanks ( AP shells = hard attack ).

A good historical example is the Ferdinand tank destroyer which had an impressive anti tank gun but not a single machine gun. They were a disaster against infantry and after Kursk ( where many were knocked out by mines or molotov cocktails ) all were retrofitted into Elefant models with machine guns.

Let's be fair, Alex. The Ferdinand might get one lucky shot at a rifleman with that armor piercing shell before the others swarmed around it and killed it.

So, that one rifleman would be a pink mist, and the Ferdinand would be destroyed. HA would still have some effect, but it would not be very efficient (hence the combat in HOI3).

 

[ComradeCommissar]

Some tanks did indeed have worse HE and anti personnel abilities, like the Ferdinand already mentioned. Also there was the T-34-57 which, despite having good armor piercing, had a small HE round - not good.

But yeah I'm pretty sure all tanks have soft attack.

 

[Gort11]

Yeah, this complaint has no substance unless you can find a unit that has hard attack and no soft attack.

 

[RVallant]

No, didn't you read anything that was posted? No one made such claim, but instead presented you with a logical reason why it works the way it does.

He can't spell 'sense', and you expect him to have some level of reading comprehension?

Eh, don't feed the troll etc.

 

[Viktor_Vertex]

Wait.... So Soft attack doesn't measure a units effectiveness in pillow fights?
Damn i thought that hard attack is a combat value while soft attack is how good your soldiers can make 'yo mama' jokes etc thus reducing enemy morale.
I've been playing HOI3 wrong...