CMBB: Armor Ratios

[Col Deadmarsh]

Does anybody know if the armor ratios will return to 1:1 or will they remain at 3:2 as they are now? I assume that the Russians didn't roll out quite as many tanks as the Americans did and thus would not have the option of having more armor on the battlefield as the Allies do in CM. Plus, for the sake of an equal balance in game play, the Russians could go toe to toe with the German armor and thus don't need the extra numbers.

I'm sure BTS hasn't commented on this so what do you guys think? What should the ratio be when purchasing units for QB's in CMBB?

[Grisha]

Actually, the USSR rolled out more tanks than the USA. More than Germany too.

___________1939___1940___1941___1942___1943___1944___1945

USSR________2,950__2,794__6,590_24,446_24,089_28,963_15,400

USA________________c.400__4,052_24,997_29,497_17,565_11,968

Germany____c.1,300__2,200__5,200__9,200_17,300_22,100__4,400

From Why the Allies Won by Richard Overy

[ 10-28-2001: Message edited by: Grisha ]</p>

[Andrew H.]

IIRC, the armor ratios were adjusted due to the high number of potent "vehicles" that the Germans had. That is, after maxing out his "Armor" category, the German player has the capability of drawing on a wide variety of vehicles armed with 50 and 75mm guns which can take out regular allied tanks,and which can also be effective vs. infantry. US and british vehicles don't have this capability.

So to some extent the answer might depend on what sort of armored vehicles the soviets have.

A better solution, IMO, would be to redefine "Armor" to include all armored vehicles with weapons in the 20mm and above range; vehicles would armored and unarmored vehicles with MGs or less.

An even better solution (although this would have to wait for CMII or beyond) would be to have multiple overlapping categories. So a Daimler AC would be considered "Armor," "Light Armor," and "Recon."

So in a Combined arms type battle, the Daimler's points would count against the "Armor" category. But the multiple categories would permit different kinds of battles, such as battles involving only "light armor," or battles involving a certain number of "recon" units.

The latter two hypothetical battle types would be particularly interesting in Russia because the soviets had some nice light tanks that it would be fun to play with -- T-60s and 70s as well as the BT types

[Col Deadmarsh]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Andrew Hedges:

IIRC, the armor ratios were adjusted due to the high number of potent "vehicles" that the Germans had. That is, after maxing out his "Armor" category, the German player has the capability of drawing on a wide variety of vehicles armed with 50 and 75mm guns which can take out regular allied tanks,and which can also be effective vs. infantry. US and british vehicles don't have this capability.

So to some extent the answer might depend on what sort of armored vehicles the soviets have.

A better solution, IMO, would be to redefine "Armor" to include all armored vehicles with weapons in the 20mm and above range; vehicles would armored and unarmored vehicles with MGs or less.

An even better solution (although this would have to wait for CMII or beyond) would be to have multiple overlapping categories. So a Daimler AC would be considered "Armor," "Light Armor," and "Recon."

So in a Combined arms type battle, the Daimler's points would count against the "Armor" category. But the multiple categories would permit different kinds of battles, such as battles involving only "light armor," or battles involving a certain number of "recon" units.

The latter two hypothetical battle types would be particularly interesting in Russia because the soviets had some nice light tanks that it would be fun to play with -- T-60s and 70s as well as the BT types<hr></blockquote>

I agree with your suggestion for moving these units around to represent their true worth in CM. Now I'm sure there are some people on here that would cringe at the thought since the armor category represents tracked vehicles and the vehicle category represents non-tracked vehicles. This makes sense in the real world, but in CM the difference between tracked and non-tracked vehicles is insignificant. In fact, I'm not sure there IS an advantage to having a tracked vehicle in this game, is there?

The fact that the Germans have 75mm armed vehicles like the 234/1 and are able to use vehicle points to purchase those give the Germans the ability to make up for the small amount of points they get for armor. Since we know the Soviet armor is equally as tough as the Germans, they vehicles they possessed should determine what the armor ratio is, just as it does right now with the Allies.

Does anyone know what the Soviets had as far as support vehicles? Were they capable of taking out German tanks?

[offtaskagain]

Well, they had some early armored cars that carried the 45mm gun that early in the war could definitely cause problems. I have a feeling the Su-76 will be in the armor category instead of support, so I can't really think of much else at this point.

[Grisha]

Most Soviet armor, as defined in this thread, were tanks. As panzerwerfer42 states there were a few armoured recon cars variants, but the vast majority of Soviet armoured vehicles were tanks. Support vehicles were either horse-driven wagons, or trucks. There were also tractors for pulling artillery, but there is nothing outside the armoured recon cars that compares with the large array of German light-armoured vehicles. An encounter with Soviet armor should be an encounter with tanks nine times out of ten, and recon cars for the remainder. And when I use the term tank please assume it to include such vehicles as the SU-76, SU-85, JSU-152, etc.

[ 10-30-2001: Message edited by: Grisha ]</p>

[Grisha]

nitwit double post.

[ 10-30-2001: Message edited by: Grisha ]</p>