Hatten - Schurzen/gyros?

Blackcloud6

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I haven't found any information on what percent used vs. didn't use the stabilizer. This says it was a concern during the war: http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/442747-us-gyrostabiliser-issues/. The "fact" that stabilizers were disabled is repeated widely, but I have not been able to find any quantitative information.

JR
I have never found anything outside of anecdotes and frankly, little sourcing that says this really occurred. This may be a case of "circular reporting" where a notion takes on a life of its own.

Here's an interesting anecdote which is just the opposite (scroll down to the avatar of the 781st Tank Battalion patch): "From my interviews with M4 tank crewmen in the 781st Tank Battalion, the system was used (not disconnected) and helped reacquire a target after movement. The system kept the gunsight "close" to the target in the one axis, so the gunner could reacquire faster than when the system was inoperative."

In ASL terms, this is precisely what the GS will do... help you in the gun duel.
 

Eagle4ty

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Here a good read, scroll to ‘The Westinghouse stabilizer‘ for some info. The whole site is interesting.

http://www.theshermantank.com/category/stabilizer/
Not too bad, but a little thin on talking about the stabilizer. Well worth the read however. It falls into line with my past reads of articles presented in the U.S. Army's ARMOR magazine about the development of armor and armor tactics which basically said it was kind of a hit & miss affair with usage, but probably less rare to have newer units disregard the use of a stabilized system because their training utilized it as a matter of course. I wasn't aware of the differences in manufactures (though probably should have inferred as much by the many different manufacturers of the M4 models), so I found that quite interesting. Thanks for the link.
 

STAVKA

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Seems like a Gyro activated on an AFV should suffer a "stun +1" each time an Original TH DR of 11 is made and
decrease the ROF by one as suggested by the footnote in the rules.

Footnote 12. 11.1 GYROSTABILIZER: The Gyrostabilizer was a revolutionary feature found only in certain AFV of U.S. manufacture, commencing with the M3A1 light tank. This de-vice allowed the Gun to maintain its aim in elevation regardless of the terrain traversed. Other tanks of the period required much longer to re-acquire a target after movement, thus presenting an easier target for return fire. However, many tank commanders dis-connected their Stabilizers, preferring to halt before aiming the MA; this was due both to the danger the unpredictably moving breech presented to the turret crew, and to the difficulty in reloading the Gun when both it and the tank were moving. For this reason, players who feel Gyrostabilizers pose too strong an advantage may wish to consider
lowering by one the Multiple ROF of all guns so equipped. Allowing every AFV
equipped with a Gyrostabilizer the full benefit of a Gyrostabilizer is therefore arguably unrealistic as many crews were not proficient in its use and found it overly complicated.
 

Paul M. Weir

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I'd be strongly inclined to not implement the reduced RoF (or other penalties). In situations where G are allowed by SSR you either are given a limited fixed number of G equipped AFV or have to roll on the Chapter H1.42 table. The implication is that those G equipped AFV that do emerge are already proficient in their use. The others aren't. I view it as that the G winnowing process has already occurred before the battle that the scenario represents happened.
 

STAVKA

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I would suggest to use the SSR that Gyro-users are penalized with 'stun +1 and ROF reduced by one. It would still outperform a switched-off Gyro tank by a good margin. These penalties I guess were more common than the flawless use of the Gyro.

Could modify the stun+1 to only apply to BFF AFV gyro users.
 

Gordon

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How so? Why aren't the "big cats" further penalized by the exhaustion their crews must have encountered lugging those large and heavy projectiles around? Should they have a reducing ROF as the scenario progresses? From the documentation on the stabilizers use it was pretty much set it up (pre-action) and forget it. Why the need to invent further penalties to its use? You either have it or you don't.
 

STAVKA

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The answer can be found in the footnotes
(Sometimes a toothless gyro user or worse, would regret the use of new tech):

...many tank commanders dis-connected their Stabilizers, preferring to halt before aiming the MA; this was due both to the danger the unpredictably moving breech presented to the turret crew, and to the difficulty in reloading the Gun when both it and the tank were moving.
 

Gordon

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Yes, but there's another thread discussing how reliable those statements actually might be.

I would LOVE to see primary source material confirming these statements.
 
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