My "Glitched units" thread...

[John Given]

Hi everyone, I was curious about a unit in East Front that seems to have abilities all out of proportion to what it's apparently designed for.

It's called a ZIS-5 AT truck, saw in in the oob for the Russian side, mid to late 1943 (and probably other times). The firepower, 'hard' armor of '1' and nominal assault of '1' seem ok. However, that's all that's normal about this thing.

Here's a list of the weirdness...

1. When you move the vehicle, you get a sound of...infantry moving. Not a truck sound. Maybe stealth soldiers are carrying it. ;)

2. Can lay smoke.

3. Can remove mines.

4. Is flagged for anti-aircraft fire (however, I could not get it to shoot at a plane now matter how many times I made the enemy plane do fly-by's).

5. The icon (3d graphic) is that of a plain-jane truck. The photo (if you press F2) shows a very different looking vehicle. Interestingly, the 2d icon (silhouette) seems to be pretty accurate.

It occurred to me that this vehicle may be the Soviet version of the 'Werkstatt' - the engineer / wreck removal vehicle, but the vehicle name implies otherwise. I have no idea if this thing will or can remove wrecks.

If this vehicle is indeed the 'Russian werkstatt,' then...

a. the graphic needs to updated...
b. the name of the unit needs to be changed, and it probably (?)
c. ...needs to have it's AAA status removed.

One quick thing since I'm thinking about it.

The German Werkstatt (the extended truck) has a maximum strength of TWO, but the German work crew associated with it, the Werksattzug, has a strength of THREE. If you put both units into a scenario, the Werstattzug will NOT be able to climb into their own carrier - I already tried. Either the Werkstatt needs to be brought up to '3' strength, or the associated work crew needs to be brought down to 2 in the next patch to avoid this problem.

The German engineer vehicles were, for the MOST part, based primarily on halftracks, specifically the Sdkfz 9 (and later, begepanther tanks converted for recovery of heavier vehicles). I have thought for a while now that this needs to be addressed - changing the graphic to a recovery HT would be cool, though the unit would make a 'truck' sound rather than a HT sound.

I think we're only scratching the surface for possible uses for these machines. From all I've seen, the Germans could use a much larger variety of these vehicles in the oob, as certain types of fully tracked, armored, or truck-type recovery units would be most useful depending on the surrounding conditions (Have great roads and need to move fast? - use lastkraftzug / truck-type vehicles. Heavy combat conditions but you really need those wrecks removed? - you'll need Bergepanthers, etc.) The U.S. also apparently used a lot of different recovery units.

A few types of german recovery vehicles

Great recovery HT photos

...still more recovery HT shots

..and last but not least!