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ORIGINAL: istari6
- Challenger I - my first chance to lead the Challenger was in "Rhino", where I was surprised at how poorly the Challenger did versus the T-80BV, often exchanging at a ~1:1 ratio. Now much of that was undoubtedly due to my particular tactical failings, but when I examined the stats, was surprised to see that the vaunted Challenger I's 120mm rifled cannon only achieves a 29 AP penetration. Was this because the British didn't develop DU penetrators? Was there some other failing of the 120mm rifled cannon vs the smoothbores of the US, Germans and Soviets?

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ORIGINAL: istari6

- Leopard 2A4: The M1 Abrams evolved from frontal armor of 27, to 33 in the M1A1 to 41 in the M1A1(HA) using depleted uranium inserts. The cost for this improved protection was in the M1's speed, declining from75 kph to 66 kph as it was weighed down with heavier armor. I was thus surprised to see that the Leopard 2A4 also has a frontal armor of 41, while maintaining a 78 kph speed. I didn't think the Leopard 2A4 had DU armor - how did the Germans technically achieve such a robust armor protection while also maintaining the blistering speed?

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- Challenger I - my first chance to lead the Challenger was in "Rhino", where I was surprised at how poorly the Challenger did versus the T-80BV, often exchanging at a ~1:1 ratio. Now much of that was undoubtedly due to my particular tactical failings, but when I examined the stats, was surprised to see that the vaunted Challenger I's 120mm rifled cannon only achieves a 29 AP penetration. Was this because the British didn't develop DU penetrators? Was there some other failing of the 120mm rifled cannon vs the smoothbores of the US, Germans and Soviets?

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- T-80BV - in my earlier readings about the Cold War, I'd understood that Soviet tank ammunition was often technically behind NATO because of the need to supply it to a such a huge tank fleet. Thus they would use cheaper materials like tungsten rather than DU. I thus had an unpleasant surprise in fighting the T-80BV with a 38 AP, achieving the same power as the latest M1A1s and Leopard 2s. I thought this might be a rare experimental "silver bullet" I hadn't heard about. Then I found the T-72Bs, T-64BVs, T-72AVs also had the 38 AP capability, so it was fairly widespread. Did the Soviets develop DU penetrators and have them in widespread distribution by 1989? How else did they achieve such impressive penetration capability?

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- T-80U - one model (the base T-80U) has a dazzling 81 kph top speed while also achieving frontal protection greater than the M1A1(HA) (42 vs 41). However, the T-80 [m] adds only the AT-11 Sniper, but slows down to 69 kph. Why would the addition of the ATGM system drop the top speed so much?

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- BMP-1/2 - in other Cold War games I've played, the BMP 1s AT-3 and BMP-2s AT-4 or AT-5s have often been a real challenge for NATO. If BMPs get established, they can form an "instant" AT screen that makes counterattacking difficult, even if the latest NATO tanks can shed most of the rounds via Chobham armor, they often take damage, and the Bradleys, M113s, Marders, Warriors and others are forced to stay low. Yet many of the BMPs in FPRS don't carry ATGMs at all. There seem to be several models, some with ATGMs, most without. Thus the ATGM capability of the BMP has played very little role in my battles to date. Is this an accurate reflection of the Soviet Army of the time? They couldn't afford to mount ATGMs on all their IFVs? This is a game mechanic to limit their impact somewhat given real-world technical problems with the ATGMs?

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Finally, what is the unit in which these various numbers are calibrated? Is there any real-world scaling of a Frontal value of 33 vs 41? When the AT-11 Sniper has a 47 HEAT penetration, is that a scaled # based on mm penetration from real-world data? How were these numbers developed?

Thanks for any information - love using these games to learn more about one of my favorite subjects :).

Chris

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P.S. Just saw the news about Player's Edition on the 21st. Huzzah! Really appreciate the dev team for continuing to support FPRS so strongly. I'll be purchasing Southern Storm as soon as it's available, because while I have high hopes it'll also be a great game, even if it fails somehow, I'm happy to support this team in general. This kind of postrelease game support does really secure future sales, at least from this customer :>.

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ORIGINAL: Mad Russian
The Leo2 uses composite armor. Much like the British Challenger. Notice that the sides of the Leo2 are flat or what is known as slab sided. They aren't angled. That's because composite armor is/was hard to mold to anything other than a flat surface. This goes back to the thread we have about ATGM's and what to do to protect a tank from them. The composite armor is specifically designed to defeat shaped charge warheads.

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Look at the difference in ranges. The NATO tanks hit that hard out for much longer ranges. If only because they can hit a target at much longer ranges. The last thing you want to do as a NATO tank commander is let the Soviets get close to you. Their ammunition will destroy NATO tanks if they are close enough.

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IFV's and especially Soviet IFV's are very susceptible to having fired their ATGM's. To show this there are 2 versions in the game. Those with and those without ATGMs at the start of the battle. The scenario designer can then choose which version he wants to add to the battle.

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We appreciate your comments about the game and your support of our efforts. We will do our best to incorporate the changes to the game and continue to make it as good as it can get.