i44 screenshots

PzU day out.

Damn that's beautiful.

Inv44 Screen Shot Competition

A view of one of the optics in the panzers, this one I have set to 800 meters.

But the question still remains on how to realisticly use the MG scale of that optic

I'd set range against the leader under the central aim triangle.
Whether the scaling is set correctly for that I'd not be able to say, but that seems the simplest method (and therefore the one I favour for an engineering solution).

I've been looking at this image again, and it looks like some of the dots are omitted, and the numerals don't align with their corresponding dot.

The pzgr KwK scale goes from 0-4000 in 200m increments, with an additional dot at each 100m, yet there are three dots too few. The spacing of the dots doesn't support doubling of the interval at any point.

The MG34 scale seems to run to 1200m in intervals of 200m with additional dots at the intervening 100m. However the 400m indicator seems to be aligned with 300m, and the 200m marker with 100m. The zero range marker is apparently absent.

If someone has ballistic information for the MG34 round I could take a stab at redrawing both scales so they match and share the same angular relationship as the aim-point requires.

My data for the KwK pzgr - using the ARL flat fire approximation.
V0 786.4m/s
Velocity drop: -84.37m/s per km at the muzzle
Exponent of velocity drop: 0.42
@ 4000m superelevation required 43.91 milliradians
@ 2000m superelevation required 18.47 milliradians

Hi Lieste,

You are correct in everything that you have pointed out. I hope that the optics get some more attention.

Do we know how the MG scale is used? I can see a few simple methods and some which require additional engineering complexity on the originals.

To be useful the MG34 impact area should be coincident with the KwK at some 'typical' battle range (IMO) so that the MG and KwK can both fire at and hit the target when near this indexed range. (Without any information about this I would expect this to be around 400-700m - But it can also be for 0m.)
This ideal would require a secondary index line in the lower quadrant near 7:30, but does this exist?

The alternative of using the lower vertical would require the MG34 to be aimed about 0.33 degrees above the main gun, so the zero range of the MG would be ~550m for the KwK and this would only get worse with increased range. (Not a good solution IMO).

Using the upper aiming triangle would require the MG to be aimed around 1.89 degrees below the main gun, or 2.88 degrees above or some complex 'flipping' mechanism and cam-set which sounds awfully complex for just aiming a coax.


I have used my ARL approximation to layout the KwK side of the scale over 180 degrees/4000m if you help fill in your requirements for the MG scale (including the variation of velocity/drop with range I can calculate and draw the scale for the left side too).
The scale is marked up using Photoshop Paths so I can reproduce to any required pixel size.

From last nights 2 hour session and we still did not complete the mission.

Larger Version

Last nights foray


Larger image here