Xipe66

As a paranthesis; I looked at the numbers you can get in 1944, which is 18 Marder III's for 5 Panthers - probably not a given deal though as the Panther is quite resilient (maybe it also has better optics?). However, you could also chose to go with 9 Jagdpanzer IV instead of those Panthers, which IMO is a good trade if you want numerical advantage and decent armour. In an ACW-kind of fight (just a plain field with the tanks opposing eachother), the Jagdpanzers perform just as well as Panthers against the T-34's of the period (and you get as many as the russian player gets T-34's). If the russian goes for 122mm weapons in anticipation of Tigers, you will have a serious numerical advantage with your Jadgpanzers. EDIT: Strike that, the SU-122 is dirt cheap in 1944 - but its armour is an eggshell and the rate of fire is really lousy. Also its optics seem to not be the best. As long as you trade shots 1-for-1 you should be fine as you'll hit more often and have higher ROF. I guess I'm repeating what most of you guys already knew, but this info seriously revises some of my thoughts about armour mix and its tactical implications (depending on terrain and mission, etc). This is only a viable strategy in heavy armour games though (500+ pts in '43, 1000+ pts in '44 of armour) as the use of the number of jadpanzer/panzerjäger you get increase proportionally - and these units' use in an anti-personell role is limited (esp. the Marder which doesn't have much HE and lack a machinegun). I'd rather go with 2 Pzkpfw. III than 4 Marder, but might go for 9 Marder instead of 4 III's; or, hell, 2 III's and 5 Marder might be the best of both worlds (the III is decent in an anti-personell role once your combined firepower that the Marders help set up has ridden the opposition of its tanks). (In '43 you also get 5 Stug IIIG (early) for those Pzkpfw. III - but maybe that's the überstug and gamey to chose? In '44 you can get 10-11 Stug IIIG for 5 Panthers) [ April 09, 2005, 07:31 AM: Message edited by: Xipe66 ]

All bigger calibres are really nasty, and can even route your own men if you're too close and out of command (I accidentally routed two of my three spotters with a 300 mm strike that hit 200 m away from two of my spotters that were out of command (actually, the guy who called it down panicked himself )). Unfortunately you can rarely afford those calibres in a QB - 600 pts of artillery easily counters 1200 pts of infantry if the enemy is nicely bunched up though (no more than 400 m wide) and you manage to get the time and the location of the strike right. They have huge command delays though. I'm trying to learn how to use artillery/rockets more effectively though and have found 105mm and 150mm to be the easiest to use, while a far cry from the big calibres they still seem to give good moral damage and decent kills.

Thanks all for your input and info - guess I'll explore some pzjäger-tactics a bit now then. And yes, I probably meant the M (the long-barrelled 50mm whichever that is in 1943, it seemed empirically more potent than the short-nosed 75mm (the N?)).

Hey, turn down your moral relativism knob for a second and look at this soberly - evil does what evil is (not the other way around), so a good start would be to look at the underlying moral and philosophical foundations that drove each party in the conflict, and there's your answer. Besides, you're making a false dichotomy - there is such thing as bad men with hero traits. For instance, were Zhukov and Peiper brilliant and brave men? Most certainly. Were they good guys? Not really. Were they on the good side? Empathically not. [ April 08, 2005, 12:22 PM: Message edited by: Xipe66 ]

I have a question - how was the Marder fielded historically? Piecemeal or én masse? I was playing around with the scenario builder today and was trying out the Pzkpfw. III M (50 mm L/60) against various 1943 russian armour. Accidentally I got one Marder in one of the battles, and predictably it died the second someone gave it a dirty look from across the battlefield. So, never having held Marders in high esteem I was about to continue to believe that the Marder sucks, when I noticed you get NINE Marders for the same price as four Pzkpfw. III M. NINE. So I removed my III's and fielded the Marders - the firepower from nine 75 mm L/48 is amazing. It wasn't even close - where I had to use the III's with care against the T-34's and IS-2's with the Marders it didn't matter that they had worse armour - the numerical advantage was overwhelming. Russian numbers with german weapons. Right on. So, anyone else use Marders like this? Would it be considered cheesy to do in online play? Or am I missing a piece of the puzzle, would they be hard to get the same effect out of them against a human player? I'm guessing they would work best in defence and using the number of guns to seal off parts of the battlefield and effectively neutering the opponent armour (if they show their face they die), but I'm sure a good player could work miracles with them on the offence aswell. (Edited for wrong panzer-modell) [ April 09, 2005, 07:30 AM: Message edited by: Xipe66 ]

I was reading this report, Swinging the Sledgehammer: The combat effectiveness of german heavy tank battalions in WWII (pdf) and throughout it states that VERY FEW Tigers were disabled in combat at all. A russian commander is quoted reporting the ONLY way to penetrate it was to flank and get in close (I seem to remember someone saying that wasn't a historical tactic?) and MOST of the Tigers lost were destroyed by its own crews. Would be interesting to hear more comments on this after the propagents of undermodelled russian weapons visavi Tigers have read the report linked above. Just reading it hints at how powerful it was - it even states that russian crews mostly aimed for its guns and tracks, cause the rest of the tank more or less invulnerable (at the time around Kursk, july 1943). So - the russian weapon effectiveness and the tactics you need to employ in the game (hit a gun, or flank it up close) seems historically accurate? My point: However undermodelled the russian weapons might be against other german AFV:s what I can see from comparing the game to this report it seems quite historical. [ April 07, 2005, 04:11 PM: Message edited by: Xipe66 ]

Use a screen capturing software. My favorite is Capture Plus since it's free, small and easy to set up.