Sigrun

Funny you should mention that. I remember a CMBB game me and my brother had a couple of years ago, where he attempted to rush a Tiger1 he knew I had around a corner of a woods with twelve T34/85s. The Tiger took out every single one of them, withstanding multiple hits itself. Ten to one worked out splendidly on that occasion. I also remember when we decided to do that hoary old five-to-one Tiger vs Sherman gig, did it a number of times in fact. The Tiger never quite made it, though it did manage four kills and an immobilisation in the end. So please don't be sneering at what you consider to be German tank fan-boys mate, you're not the only one who has done his research and has a valid opinion. Indeed, your own game has borne out my expectations of German armor performance on more than one occasion. No, the Tiger is not invulnerable, and nor should it be. But used properly it totally dominates the battlefield and kicks arse...just like the real ones did.

Like I say, and have always said, CM does it best and has always done it best, based on fair objective means with zero bias or attempt at bias. There are a whole raft of other developers who would do well to come and get themselves some of this integrity, instead of handing out the revisionist pap of which we've all become so weary.

Kelly stated that both tanks were un-buttoned, both had their commanders stood up in the turret and looking around but that the German T34 always acquired a visual first, under equal conditions.

No you are not. You are either a liar, or monumentally stupid, on top of batting 0 and being a Nazi fanboy. And you seem to think those reading your drivel are stupid. But as we say in Germany, one should not draw conclusions about others based on oneself. If that was your idea of a tactical withdrawal, it failed. Regards Andreas </font>

That might be a good point mate. I most certainly am talking specifically about tank duels.

Vapid is it? What, like your's and others' asinine assumption that every single one of the 1200 Tigers on the EF was deployed simultaneously, with it's own crew? Tigers were deployed gradually, and most of the crews went from one to the next as the old ones were lost. So much for "A handful of extremely effective crews and a majority of pretty average ones". Most Tiger crews were hand picked as veterans from other types. Yes, and that's another reason why 10-1 is not at all unreasonable. Still batting "0" am I Andreas? Au contraire mate, my facts are all over your revisionist allied-fan-boy BS. Sgt Kelly, the captured T34 does better than the soviet T34 because the German crew is supposed (rightfully) to be superior to the Soviet crew. I have to agree that the points system does seem somewhat at odds with the Soviet ability to field so many tanks. Was Soviet output (industrial resource) so much greater than Germany's? I thought both countries had roughly equal industrial output for most of the war (obviously not right at the end), so how is it that only two T34s are approx the same value as one Tiger? Rough cost of a T34/85: 164,000 roubles. Rough cost of a Tiger: 250,000 marks. Can anyone translate those WW2 values into present day dollars? Then we'll be able to comment properly on CMBB's point values. Wicky, I'm not sure what your link concerning John Kettler's site is supposed to prove, other than provide an interesting link concerning yet more possible criminal activity by the US government? There's certainly nothing at all outlandish about the possibility of an extinct civilisation upon Mars, and even less about the idea that the scum leading us would attempt to hide it.

Finally, somebody objective who makes some sense. The rest of you, a bunch of resentful children making childish (and highly predictable) "He says the German panzers did well, he must be a goose-stepping nazi" comments. Grow up, you're making yourselves look pathetic. I despise the jew-murdering nazis as much as I despise the child-raping soviets, both as bad as each other. John's post finally brings us back full circle in a way, to my original contention, that any Tiger was good for at least ten T34 kills, averaged out. Russia was prime tank country, in that it allowed huge fields of fire...and gee, guess what the Tiger had...a cannon capable of killing a T34 long before the T34 could get even within hitting range, never mind penetrating range. Tigers, operated by highly trained and highly motivated crews, against poorly designed, poorly made crates that were under-crewed by barely trained peasants. And Jason would have us believe these were capable of holding a less-than 5-1 ratio. Puh-LEESE!!! Ten to one...a highly conservative estimate. The Tigers slaughtered the T34s, wholesale, day in and day out. The soviets threw THOUSANDS of them into German defensive positions, and the Tigers destroyed THOUSANDS of them, with very few losses TO THE T34s in return (majority of Tiger losses were arty, assault guns, mines and break-downs). Allied fan-boys...responsible for most of the axis-neutered, game-balanced a-historical crap we get foisted on us by most developers these days. And when somebody finally has the BALLS to do it right, my god how you bleat and whine!!! Battlefront got this one BANG ON...deal with it, or bugger off and go play Red Orchestra, they have the soviet armor just the way you like it.

That's it. That's really all there is to Jasons analysis. The rest of it - the statistical stuff you write off so glibly - is just a sound way of figuring out which German tanks types got what proportion of the Russian fleet that was KO'd. If one type in the German fleet gets more, then another type MUST get less, because at the end you can't have the Germans KOing more tanks than the Germans lost. The Pareto analysis is a good way to figure out the expected range of individual results within each part of the fleet - in this case the Tiggers. A few Tigger drivers get the kind of scores that give you and your ilk wet dreams and woodies, a bunch of them get nothing, and the bulk only get a couple. It cannot be otherwise, else you have the Russians losing more tanks than they fielded. Which hopefully even you can see makes no sense. The results might be unpaletable, especially to a good little goosestepper, but you really can't argue with them. You can quible about whether the average was 1.1 or 1.2, but the core argument is sound. </font>

No, I don't think so. I've come across the "blind 'em with bull****" tactic more than once before, and Jason is a true master. Hats off to him, I actually admire him for it because he does it so incredibly well. Unfortunately for him it counts for shinola against anyone who is capable of independant thought. It fools the chimps, nobody else. He needs to learn that, because the very people he clearly most wants to impress are the very same who are least likely to be taken in by it.

Jason, I have never before seen somebody applying such an utter load of theoretical tosh to a real-world scenario. Do you really think you can assess real-world WW2 kill ratios by the use of theoretical formulae?! You threw a figure out there (5-1, probably less), so did I (10-1, probably more). You base your conclusions upon abstract formulae, I base mine upon the combat reports of those doing the killing. And your comments re the Panther are so painfully spurious as to beggar belief. Did I specify T34 kills in regard to the "Panther did somewhat better than the Tiger"? Or should you have read "in general" between the lines? Considering the multiple inputs in this thread, from various people, concerning various aspects, it's not particularly easy to maintain a pure response. I think I said it before, or something like it...put down the goggles and step away from the loud-hailer.

I'm not, but you appear to be a very insecure russian.

Excuse me Andreas, but when Carius says his group knocked out X amount of T34s for X loss of Tigers he was indeed THERE, and knows exactly of what he talks. He and his direct command/comrades were the ones doing it. And considering his frankness concerning friendly losses, failures and Soviet fighting abilities (which he often praises) his word is good enough for me. Unlike the Soviets, he wasn't writing everything he wrote with consideration to who might end up reading it and having him shot for 'anti soviet' whatever ("Our T34s are vulnerable to 88mm" HAVE THAT MAN SHOT FOR ANTI SOVIET SENTIMENTS! Get my drift Andreas? That's why soviet reports are so unreliable; and current ones are simply about weak soviet ego and bolstering already falsified claims. Like they're going to admit now that they talked crap in order not to fall foul of commisars). I'd take the word of a German officer over that of a Soviet any day. Or indeed over that of Jason, who does indeed appear to have wood for the Soviets and was nowhere near the events he analyses so judiciously. [ September 19, 2006, 06:17 AM: Message edited by: Sigrun ]

Sorry chaps, this thread is being pulled right off topic, by irrelevant political stuff and personal feelings and turning into a counter German/Russian bash session. Let's just leave it at me not accepting Soviet combat reports.

I speak as I find, and it's not about race, it's about culture and personal behaviour. Yes, there were plenty of Germans who betrayed their culture, not least the nazi leadership (vermin). But at least they had one to betray. The Soviets, en-masse, both officers and enlisted men, raped millions (yes, millions) of German women, including old ladies and children. This wasn't sporadic and occasional, it was practically institutionalised and with full approval and encouragement right from the top. Your average Soviet grunt came out of a bog and couldn't even spell his own name. Most of them didn't know how to wipe their own backsides. As for being 'invaded', most of them regarded the Germans as liberators from Stalin's oppression and butchery. Shame the Germans had plenty of their own verminous mad dogs to spoil the party, but that came back and bit them in their own collective arse. More recently there have been hundreds, if not thousands, who have discovered Russian online games players to be amongst the most dishonest and cheating to be found. Then I could go on about those I met in Japan when I was teaching there, and how they behaved. Yes, I've met a handful of good ones, and called some of them friends, but the vast majority of them, past and present, have something seriously wrong up top. And you can "call me Meyer" if I ever give a shred of credence to any combat report written by a Russian.

BigDuke, I did check that first link you posted, but it was all in Russian and neither the UK version nor the translation function made any difference. Regarding the veracity of Otto Carius' recollections, I take them largely at face value for the same generical reason I discount most Soviet accounts as blatant lies...the average German officer was educated, honourable and truthful whilst the average Soviet officer was little better than an animal. Let's not forget the behaviour of these vermin at the fall, a stain upon Russia's 'honour' that will never be wiped clean. Trust their AARs? I think not. The same thing as you say above about Carius was said about Luftwaffe pilots and their kill numbers...until they were verified by historians much later, doing proper research. I believe approx 1200 Tigers were deployed on the Eastern Front. A 10-1 ratio would give a figure of 12,000 T-34s destroyed by Tigers in total. Considering there were approx 60,000 T34s deployed by the Soviets during WW2 I do not consider 12,000 to be even remotely unreasonable. Indeed, as I said earlier, that would be conservative. MkIVs didn't have the same clout, all the assault guns struggled and only the Panther could, and did, do better (as they should, there were considerably more of them, they had a more powerful cannon and only little less effective armor, by virtue of slope).

Jason, you place too much emphasis on me reading Signal (only ever read Luftwaffe articles, online) and too much on Kursk (un-representative of typical Tiger vs T34 engagements). I was on the crapper half an hour ago, re-reading Otto's 'Tigers in the Mud', and went through a typical AAR in which three Tigers (started with two, a third came up later) took out thirty four T-34s (and a KV1 and a bunch of ATs and infantry) for zero loss over a period of four or five days, both offensively and defensively. Those kinds of accounts are hum-drum typical in the stuff I've read and still read. As for all the comments on force selection etc, I kind of thought my online war would offer an interesting solution to that...too few purchase points, lots of players demanding as many of them as they could get and the generals getting ulcers as a result.

I think trying to tackle your arguments on a like-for-like basis would be like going up against a Tiger with ten T34/85's. I'd lose every one of them. <snigger> What I do know, from combat accounts on both sides, is that the only way a T34/76 had any chance against a Tiger was by getting right up it's arse at point-blank range. That didn't happen often, and Kursk was hardly typical. T34/85s were normally engaged at ranges greater than their ability to return effective fire. I've lost count of how many accounts I've read of buttoned T34s being picked off one by one by Tigers (and other tanks), un-spotted or unable to even hit in return, never mind kill. Your maths look impressive, but they don't make a lot of real-world sense. You seem to think that the number of killed T34s are somehow bound to be shared out equally amongst all German armor types. Do you actually have hard evidence, figures, that indicate exactly how many tanks, by type, each type of German tank killed? Nor do I, but I've read plenty of anecdotal evidence from the chaps doing the killing to reckon a 10-1 ratio, Tiger vs T34 (whatever model) is plenty reasonable, including claims of such by those chaps themselves. I can see you're a bit of an allied fan-boy Jason, and there's nothing unusual or wrong with that. You'll just have to try and match your very impressive, but not perfect, knowledge with a bit of objective acceptance that the German Panzer Corp absolutely slaughtered the Soviet tank armies all the way from 1941 to 1945. Lucky the Sovs had as many men and tanks as they did. And CMBB does an excellent job of allowing that reality to be simulated, when a good player is at the German helm.

General rule of thumb: attackers need at least 3-to-1 advantage to have an attack succeed. Plenty of good commanders have confounded those odds (either way), but in general...

The allied players are able to out-number the axis by virtue of cheaper kit (as it should be), and have the advantage of tactical 20/20 hindsight (it's a game after all). No game could ever replicate the real deal with perfect fidelity, but with all caveats considered CMBB has managed almost complete perfection, at least at a single game /single operation level. Configuring it for an online war has proved more difficult, but it was never designed for that in the first place. I think Jason needs to get his head out of the technical tables for a while and read some actual first-hand combat accounts. There meets theory with reality, and theory usually comes out second best. No offence meant Jason, just barracking you a tad.

"Historically you'd kill Tigers by flank and close with T-34Cs. You can in CM, but you need ranges around 100m or APCR or both, and flat side angles. In addition, behind armor effect is poor against large tonnage vehicles. You can expect to need 3-5 penetrations to get a kill result. A single T-34C with T ammo placed 100m from a Tiger side facing it and ready to fire, has approximately a 1 in 5 chance of killing the Tiger before the Tiger kills it. Which is nonsense of course, Tigers had about that operational record against them without such placement..." Absolute rubbish! Where did you get such nonsense?! Apart from the fact that the T34/76 was hardly the main course by the time Tigers were deployed in significant numbers, the Tigers did far better than 5-1 against the superior breed of T34, the T34/85. Try 10-1 and you'll be in the right ballpark. A very conservative one.

Exert from a Tiger company's AAR and combat evaluation document, Jan 29th 1943 (page 244 of Otto Carius' 'Tigers in the Mud') "At no time did fire from 76.2mm anti-tank guns result in penetration or heavy damage among the Tigers of our company." In 30 years of reading I've absorbed enough data to know CMBB's modelling is practically spot on. That is to say, nothing about the performance of the armor leads me to feel that anything is wrong or odd or stands out as incorrect. Other games, of whatever genre, continue to suffer the usual bias of allied weaponry being over-modelled, whilst axis equipment is nerfed. I offer you RO (Red October) as the latest victim of such revisionist BS, that nonetheless claims "simulation standard". CMBB is a breath of fresh, and honest, air. Otherwise known as integrity.

Mmm...where shall I hide mine? :eek:

The chap's quite incredible. :thumbsup:

Well, I brought the camera in behind them and all they could see was sky. The problem is, how is one supposed to know when one has positioned one's men safely? I started the battle and they were immediately spotted and drew fire...so next time I'll have to place them half way down the slope? It's a rather hap-hazard way of doing business and somewhat negates the point of analyzing the terrain in any meaningful way. Still, it's what we've got, unless they regain their sanity and decide to do a WW2 game with the new engine (yeah, like I'm busting to get my hands on Syria vs the UN ).

Funnily enough I noticed this very issue yesterday when I had a few units in foxholes well down on the reverse slope of a hill. They still had LOS to the bottom of the blind side. How did the devs manage to make such a pig's ear of this? It's pretty off, not being able to trust distinctive terrain features to protect one's men and equipment. :confused: