Tank combat discussion/suggestions for improvement

[ComradeP]

Penetration values for the L/60 were certainly not great, but in my opinion they were not so bad as they are in the game relative to the penetration values of other tanks.

Penetration comparisons can be difficult to make as it's not always mentioned at what angle a certain penetration in the table is achieved. It is also not always clear what criteria were used. 50% of the rounds penetrating several times in a row?, 75%? and so forth.

In order to decide how good a gun should be in the game, it would be helpful to establish what angle or range we're using as a base for comparison. To further a point made in the previous post: if the gun is rated for how good it is at longer ranges and the penetration drop rate for a certain distance travelled by the shell, we'll end up with the current situation where better guns seriously outperform their lesser counterparts at any range.

Effectiveness at a certain distance uses the range modifier, so in order for a tank to be effective at a long range, it has to have a high HA value. The problem with that is that in order for a tank to be effective out to (say) 4 hexes, it needs a high base HA value. This is the situation you have with the German tanks using 75mm or 88mm guns.

Penetration for the Panzer IV's L/43 and L/48 at 500 meters is often given as being about ~90 millimetres or so, with the L/43 being slightly worse. In the game, they're over two times as good instead of a bit over 50%. Assuming we use effectiveness at a range of 500 meters as standard (which, for the period, would make sense), a Panzer IVg would have a HA of about 20 or so at most, with a slight increase to allow it to sometimes take out tanks at 4 hexes.

German 50mm and 75mm AT guns had longer shells/bigger charges than their tank gun counterparts, so that explains why they're better (although the 6 point difference between the PaK 40 and the 75mm tank guns feels like it's a bit much).

I'm just not sure where that huge jump in HA value comes from, comparing the Panzer IIIm to other tanks. As mentioned in the previous post, the Soviets found the F-34 had somewhat better penetration values at 500 meter compared to the L/60, but the T-34 has a 5 point higher HA. The Panzer IIIm's gun wasn't that hot, but neither was the F-34, which also didn't commonly have tungsten rounds at this point.

Being able to penetrate the frontal armour of a tank gives a significant advantage, but rate of fire and accuracy are just as important. The Panzer IIIm, as a weapon system, is superior in those categories to the T-34. The T-34 is also a fairly long tank, a meter longer than a Panzer IIIm, with the added length in practical terms coming from the sloped frontal armour.

If you're facing 10 T-34's with 10 Panzer IIIm's, one of the T-34's facing one Panzer IIIm means it's not facing 9 others. That's how you can knock out tanks with heavier armour with early war German tanks in tactical wargames: you aim for the side of a tank that's not facing you (Allied and Soviet medium and heavy tanks can be fairly bulky in appearance) and use superior accuracy and rate of fire to deal with them.

Not being strong doesn't automatically mean you're weak, but in Panzer Battles it currently does, which is a problem for the Panzer IIIm.

The percentage bonuses favouring stronger tanks or guns leads to situations where Tigers, Panthers or PaK 40's on a hill fire with a notably higher chance of taking out an enemy tank with the new height modifier, the Panzer IV's and T-34's also benefit from it but to a lesser extent. PaK 38's and Panzer IIIm's much less so.

A problem with increasing the hard attack modifier is that it would apply to all hard attacks, so the boys in the bunkers would also suddenly be in a world of hurt, and the same goes for other vehicles (including hard halftracks, which would be a problem for the Germans and in Panzer Battles 2 also for the Allies). It would also mean anything, from MG platoons to actual tanks, gets more kills against hard targets.

I was wondering if it was possible to make the check for whether a vehicle is lost 5 men instead instead of 10, with the vehicles still representing 10 means for stacking purposes. Ideally, that number would only be applied to tanks or guns firing at tanks, otherwise artillery and infantry would get far more tank kills as well.

Another problem with any possible measure to make tank battles more deadly is that it further favours getting the first shot in and would make the relative lack of opportunity fire more painful for the defender, although the opportunity fire that does happen being more deadly might be enough to counter that.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting that the Panzer IIIm should be significantly better than it is now. I'm suggesting that the significant differences in HA values might be less suitable for this scale than they were in PzC, that engagement ranges could be lowered to allow for them to be more realistic, and that within those more limited ranges tanks would have one or more hexes where tank fire is good with the effectiveness dropping afterwards. Even if the Panzer IIIm is only "good" against T-34's at 1 hex, that would already be a significant improvement.