Turret vs hull hits?

[panzerman47]

Just for my general curiosity, does anyone have any info for WW2 as in how many percent hits were on the turret and the hull.

I’d read somewhere roughly 33% turret and 66% hull. That’s what we used in our home brewed armour rules back in the day.

I know many rules don’t give differences between hull and turret armour for playability reasons, but we did.

[Ian Shaw]

Fraid I use the reverse, but it depends what is firing at you. A/T guns would normally hit the hull and tank guns the turret. However with the majority of British tanks, and from memory it males no difference, as they were built on an armour basis, with the turret front being the flat value, and thickness + slope adjustment giving the same value for the hull front.

[Ian Shaw]

It should read "and Sherman"

[Rumblestrip]

In my own rules I also went for 33/67% turret/hull on the basis of the approximate relative proportions of total target available. Additionally however, if the firer had a certain percentage hit chance or higher (70% as I recall), he was permitted to add or subtract one to/from his 1D6 die roll which determined a turret or hull hit, and therefore 'aim' for one area or another. This was particularly useful when facing a hull down target where 67% of the hits automatically 'missed' by hitting the ground before the tank.

But anyway I don't play tactical rules anymore.

Cheers

Andrew

[dadlamassu]

For tanks in the offensive mode 33/67 seems reasonable for most tanks - though King Tigers might be 50/50. However in defensive mode where tanks are most likey hull down then 67/33 might be playable?

Hull hits are more likely to "kill" a tank as penetration is not required to blow off the wheels and tracks allowing a subsequent shot at a stationary target. Especially from the side.

[UshCha]

Inevitably its a difficult issue, as alaways its a compromise. To a certain extent its dependent on range and elevation. You can be hull down to lower ground and not to higher ground and accuracy is a function of range. At very close range the dispertion may be small enough ypu don't miss but you do have to hit the turret. For Maneouver Group we addopted the option of 60% hitting the turret. This was on the basis of a WWII study where only 1/3 of hits were below 1m. Not perfect by any means bur we considered it good enough. So if a hull hit is achieved during hull down its a miss.
For completeness we allow the hull to be targeted directly below 500m. however the odds of hitting the hull is reduced vs hitting the whole tank as minor undulations will hide the hull a bit. This is only usefull if you cannot penetrate the turret armour and is a measure to be used only on desparation.

To be honest its not realy a big driver (If you are not the one dieing. Tanks of equal power obey the squre law relating to power. Therfore 3 hull down tanks at best represents 4 tanks. Against 5 tanks in the open its still a disparity.

Happy new year to you all and we Will be at Hammerhead in March,