Tunisia'43 1.02: The balancing effects of the 25% reduction of Hard Attack Values

[Bayes]

Thanks Volcano Man -

I am also playing the Tobruk campaign with the new values and they give a very historic feel there too imo. BTW. when one takes quality into account, e.g, A vs D, 3:1 turns into 4.5:1. Add shots at range 2 and 3, and we are pretty close to 5:1 - 6:1 for
Tiger vs Sherman.

Bayes

The reduction in values is due to a recalculation John did and the adjustment of the range fire modifier. In the past, the range modifier was 3, meaning that any direct fire at 2 hexes or more was at 1/3 strength. The Alt values (which are used in Tunisia '43) were originally calculated so that the ranged fire at 2 hexes would be high enough to be effective, but this alwtays resulted in a situation where fire at adjacent hexes was too devastating, a whole tank battalion could be wiped out entirely (or rendered combat ineffective) in three shots in some extreme cases,
which is a bit drastic as it comes down to "whoever fires first".

However, John has now enacted a floating point value for ranged fire, so the standard value is now 1.5, which provides a great deal of effectiveness at long range, more so than before with higher hard attack factors even. Essentially the ranged fire is more effective now, but the point blank adjacent fire is now reduced to a more reasonable level. If I didn't agree with the change then I would not have gone along with it in the Alt 3.2 values; I think the change is a good one since I never really liked how deadly the 1 hex hard vs. hard came out, (again) all because I was trying to dance around a whole number PDT value which is no longer a problem. Besides, I believe the historical loss ratio of Shermans to Panther/Tigers (or the ratio required to kill one in an engagement) was something like 5 or 6:1, so if anything this is an improvement in that respects, which I recall was indeed another reason for the change because there were complaints that the Tiger/Panther was too brittle in comparison to the 76 Sherman.

Naturally it goes without saying that not everyone will ever be satisfied so feel free to do what you think is right in a mod of your own, but hopefully that helps answer the reason "why".