A few armored car musings and misc. requests

[John Given]

You may never be able to get that explaination. Also there is nothing easy about it. There are so many unique factors (ie. the giant engine air intake grille on the left side of the Char B1, the poor quality steel used in the IS tank series, the PZ III F having a weak spot in the turret ring, the unbreakable rubber filled wheels of the BA20,........etc, etc, etc) that there is no easy formula that can be slapped in place.

While I think it would be really cool to have a system that would account for these things, I agree it would not ever happen, as it's out of scope of the game engine. But can you imagine a game engine that did take into account the giant air scoop on the left side of a Char B1 by lowering the defense value of that vehicle when shot from that side for example? But that's not what I'm advocating.

What I am advocating is some consistency in the defense values in the vehicles used in the CS (this horse I'm beating looks pretty much dead by now). I cannot be more clear on this - there are some vehicles in the game that have too high a defense factor for the armor listed.

And, there are also vehicles that are "under" armored, having a defense that is TOO LOW considering the historically accurate armor value. The Marder series comes to mind; the Marder III in particular. It had about 50mm of armor on the front, yet it only has a defense of TWO in game?? I seem to recall I mentioned this to Jason a while back though - he seemed open to revisiting the defense factor of this family of vehicles for the next patch. (and Marder II's had about 35mm of armor).

This is false. I encourage you to read up on the BA20. The BA20 was fully armored (agreed thinly) steel structure welded onto a civilian car chassis. It has reinforced axles and specially designed unbreakble tires. It was better than a truck.

I stand corrected on this one Hawk; the in-game description of the vehicle differs, quite a bit in fact, from the info I've been finding on this machine on the web. In reality, this machine is largely the same as the BA-10 in terms of speed, armor, hell, a lot of things. Pretty much the same vehicle. But in game, the two vehicles have different icons and very different pictures.

I will also concur that the speed of a vehicle seems to have something to do with its defense, but I can't pin down to what extent.

What light tank has 30mm of armor and only has a 3 defense factor?

a. The British A-13 and A-13CS tanks have a defense of 3, and 30mm of armor, for starters. However, I have not checked the entire CS light tank oob roster for all the various nations and time periods for WF / EF / RS (too much work).

Here's a few runners up that I did spot 'on the fly' though;

b. French AMD35 Armored Car, defense 3, 26mm of armor.

c. French FT-17 tank, defense 3, 22mm of armor (and it's sooo slow)

Yet, many of the light armored vehicles in the game with a defense of 3 have barely 10mm of armor max, and often less. Something is wrong here!

...lower them to 2, they will die like flies. Net game effect....none.

No, we disagree. Indeed, that's the whole *point* of this thread Hawk. If we're going to play a tactical simulation game, then we might as well have defensive armor values that are consistent with one another.

I certainly understand your point - you think that minor changes to defensive value for the sake of realism won't make a difference. We'll just have to agree to disagree, as I think they'll make a big difference in the performance and survivability of light armor.

To all you trollers viewing the thread, I sure would like your input on this!