Battle Of Stalingrad Questions

[Solana Axton]

During the Wiktor Weintraub Memorial lecture, sponsored by the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Davies used the disarming question as a wedge to pry open the real story of the war in Europe.

Davies prides himself on having been a schoolteacher for four years before getting down to the business of writing history. It was an experience that taught him the usefulness of big questions, and the narrative power of analogy.

And epic battles? Try the six-month battle for Stalingrad, he said, where 1.5 million were killed. Or the monumental clash of Soviet and Nazi tanks, planes, and soldiers during the battle of Kursk in 1943. More than 6,000 tanks were involved, almost as many planes, and a staggering 2.2 million soldiers.

Poland, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, and other nations at the crossroads of combat were gobbled up by the Soviets in 1944 and early 1945, while the Red Army idled outside Berlin waiting for the Allies to creep toward the Rhine.

First - I was playing 'Port Novorossiysk' (I think), I got hit I backed up behind a destroyed brick building. Next thing I know I'm dead, watching the kill cam (I know it's not accurate) it appeared that the enemy shot me through 2 brick walls (the side of the building then the back of the building). I understand that AP (with no HE) can pen buildings but I would have thought that going through 2 walls would reduce its pen enough to not be able to pen me. Honestly I tried to find the replay so I could tell you which tank I was in (it was an allied M4 variant) and what killed me but this was during a 6+ hour gaming spree and I just couldn't find the game.

Second - I was stopped behind a corpse of a team mate, an enemy tank was 100m or so away and was able to shoot me through the corpse. I know in previous games (e.g. before the last couple patches) if I was behind a corpse it provided some protection (as it should) since the armor is still there. Again I can't tell you what the enemy was shooting at me with, in this case I just remembered this so I don't even know if it happened Friday or Saturday or the map.

Anyway, the main gist of my questions is, is there a way that I can know if a building/corpse/debris will provide some form of 'cover' for me? I know that some buildings can not be shot through at all.

I'll echo what the previous guys have posted. You CAN shoot thru most structures in any of the desert maps , as well as wooden structures like in Fire arc or American Desert. As far as Port Novo, and talking about the 3 point domination map here, if youre sniping from the structures in the SE across that body of water, it may appear youre going thru walls but if you position your tank right youre actually shooting thru the windows but the opposite side can also get you thru those same windows so you have to be careful. When i spawn on the NE side i always go there to get guys trying to get to B as most of the time i dont even bother trying for B, the team that spawns there loses about 90% of those matches.

Just the usual lack of consistency, some buildings are solid, some buildings are solid but destructible, some buildings you can shoot through and they will get destroyed, others will not get destroyed or show any impact.

As the others have said there's variables that can let you shoot through or get shot through something. I'm bad about sniping through windows or cracks between buildings, the map you mentioned is one of those you can do it on.

Played WoT for few years and, few days ago, I decided to give War Thunder a go. To be honest, I would, maybe, understand a shell going through a wall or a few, for that matter. As far as I understand, there is some sort of "realism" advertised by this game.

What I don't understand, is how a shell can go through solid ground or a rock. For example, you pop out your binocs, as there is not much to see through your gunner sight, from your own cover, and you can only see the other tank commander hatch or, sometime, just the silhouette of that tank behind a rock or a hill ... and next thing ... you're dead. I know latency plays a huge part in what's going on, and mine lacks a bit, but still, cannot blame it all on latency.

Some 'solid' ground are not that solid as mud and snow won't catch all the kinetic energy of a shell, if the remaining kinetic of the shell is enough to do damage, it would just penetrate. This is quite common in higher battle where APFSDS is a routine.

Also, don't take it for granted that you are 'covered'. Press C and take a free look to check if you are exposing your turret check or hull to your enemy. If you found someone suspicious, make sure to use the replay system to report:

Apart from latency, the ballistic characteristic of cannon matters. Take a look at Brummbr (German Tier III premium) and Centurion Mk.5 AVRE (British Tier V premium), those tanks are equipped with howitzer or launcher of lower muzzle velocity which make them capable of shooting behind hills. Don't even expose the commander's cupola to these tanks for their shell would be detonated by the cupola and kill the crew.

Please remember that I am no stranger to most, if not all, of these things even if they come from a different "background". I didn't want to make my post too long but I did consider most of those things before posting. To be precise, my post wasn't about me getting hit, which it is understandable, it was the other tank getting a shot through his own cover of solid object, behind a rock and a hill.

As for the OP post - I am very new to this game and, of course, I could be wrong. As an assumption only - while I can understand getting shot behind a windowed wall or a dead tank (you can never be completely covered behind objects like those) or getting shot behind any kind of "destructible" object (be a wall or a sandbag), in my opinion, simply from a coding point of view, it is (highly) unlikely that the game calculates the speed decrease of a bullet going through something (simply because it there would be too many variables to consider). But then, as unlikely as I think that would be, I could be wrong.

I'm not sure what's been fixed and what hasn't but there hasn't been total consistency across maps on what structures you can pen and what you can't. For example you might find you can pen a wooden shack on Berlin but a wooden house on Frozen Pass no but a wooden house on (whatever the new Kursk is called) yes. I'd like to see more time cleaning these things up and giving us new maps to play rather than so many new vehicles.

I believe dead tanks still have same armor values as they did in life. In war thunder it is possible to kill two tanks with single shot if your cannon has enough penetration to do that. So if you are hiding behind a dead tank you should only expect as much protection as it's armor values (tip: never try to hide behind R3 T20 or other wheeled bois; it will work if your enemy is only armed with HEAT shells though).

Desert ( Middle East and US) have four variations. US wood frame houses and most mud Mid-East buildings are penetrable, some mud buildings in the Desert are more like concrete and are not. US commercial structures and brick types are not penetrable. Lastly wood frame buildings are mostly penetrable, village houses on Fire Sac and Japan for example (Japan pagoda structures are not).

Terrain- Snow banks are penetrable, you'll see this by the tanks outline showing thru the snow. All other terrain is not penetrable, however the difference between the arc of flight of your shell and the sight ling of the gun sight or gun barrel will allow shots to be taken at targets behind terrain if the trajectory will allow a hit. You may see the target outline beyond the terrain obstacle enough to line up a hit.

The last example is the possibility of a hit on a target that is out of your line of sight, with no marker present, (in Arcade). There are circumstances, admittedly rare where a previous spotted target disappears from LOS behind cover, especially rubble( ex. Stalingrad) or foliage. A shot taken at the last known target location sometimes will register a hit, the game is telling you you can't spot the target but your gun can still hit it. Take the shot you never know you might get lucky..

The award-winning military historian Antony Beevor, 56, failed his A-levels at Winchester College. He joined the Army, becoming a regular officer with the 11th Hussars. Five years later, he left to become a writer and has since published four novels and six works of non-fiction, including The Spanish Civil War and Paris after the Liberation, co-written with his wife, Artemis Cooper. He hit the bestseller lists in 1998 with Stalingrad, which has been translated into 25 languages and has sold more than a million copies. His most recent book, Berlin: The Downfall 1945, was also a No 1 bestseller. Beevor lives with his wife and two children in London.

Saddam is indeed obsessed with Stalin. He certainly has fantasies about turning the battle for Baghdad into a Stalingrad on the Tigris. But history never repeats itself, and there's certainly no parallel here. The Iraqi army is not the Red Army. It is certainly not in a position to counterattack and encircle its enemy, as the Red Army managed to do at Stalingrad. So that is pure fantasy. But I'm not saying there will be an easy victory in Baghdad. Saddam is totally ruthless, just like Stalin, in being prepared to sacrifice as many civilians as needed to win the battle. I simply cannot tell how long it will take. War is the most unpredictable of all human activities.

c80f0f1006