ErikinWest Posted January 3, 2006 Share Posted January 3, 2006 For me the best tank has to be the SU-76M. The Goods: - Cheap as DIRTTT! Platoon of 4 costs 200. - 7 Shots in 60 seconds - 60 Ammunition - Lots of HE rounds - Possibility for Tungsten The Bads: - Crap armor. If it's hit, boom! - Can't destroy German Armor from the front I use this tank as scouts and irritators to my German enemy. It can destroy a Panthers and other ‘yellow and orange’ sided tanks from the side or rear. The SU-76M has a speed of 28mph, which isn't bad. It had a blast of 49, so it can suppress and destroy infantry. Front armor is orange to yellow. What's your favorite Soviet tank of '44? Erik 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panzer_M Posted January 3, 2006 Share Posted January 3, 2006 OT-34 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juan_gigante Posted January 3, 2006 Share Posted January 3, 2006 Originally posted by Panzer_M: OT-34YES! Especially once they get the 85mm gun. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fußball Posted January 3, 2006 Share Posted January 3, 2006 The scenario I am playing currently I just knocked out three OT34/42s with two StuG III Gs. Tschüß! Erich 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
l.cassidy Posted January 3, 2006 Share Posted January 3, 2006 Forgive me Erik, I don't mean to be pedantic, though the SU-76 is not a tank. It's a self-propelled gun. Different kettle of fish. So the question is a little "off-track" from the beginning. And I don't agree with the role of "scout & irritator" you give to the SU-76: if you'd try to "irritate" me with a SU-76 scout, you'd be very likely going to lose it to a puny gun. Against a 50mm AT, you'd be dead meat and if you are distant enough (and if I'm lucky enough) I'd give away only a sound contact. An AA gun (37mm or even a 20mm) would put it in serious danger, too, and these two guns are stealthier than the 50mm AT. Using a SU-76 as a scout, the only one you're going to irritate is probably yourself... We're still friends Erik, right? Now to your question (with some comments regard your choice): T34/85, hands down. The Goods: - Not cheap as DIRTTT like the SU-76, just relatively cheap... - High HE ammo load - A frontal armor that, if Lady Luck is at your side, can glance off even a shot by an 88. - TWO MGs. - The thing has a turret, no need to pivot in place in order to fire at another target. - The turret is top armored. Way better than the open topped SU-76 that can be disabled / KOed by anything that comes down from above. - By '44 every T34 has a radio (if memory doesn't fail me), thus order delays are not ridiculously as long as before. - Can penetrate Panthers and Tigers from the front (sometimes)... - Good off-road capability, sometimes better than the enemy counterparts, e.g. Tigers. The Bads: - AP loadout is a relatively low, often you end up with HE only vs. Ubercats...big no-no. Regards, Cassidy 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ErikinWest Posted January 3, 2006 Author Share Posted January 3, 2006 Don't worry my dear friend l.cassidy, we'll always be friends Wordnet (a dictionary from Princeton) describes a tank as: 1: an armored military vehicle; has a cannon and moves on caterpillar treads. I think that the SU-76M sufficiently fits that description. As to the bashing of the SU-76, it does have yellowish armor on the lower and upper hull of the tank, so it can withstand a 20mm AA gun. Also, I put these tanks behind hills and use infantry as my forward observers, so when I see something in a vulnerable position, I shoot and scoot. Then I move my tanks behind another position. Ready to repeat this tactic. Erik 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeyD Posted January 3, 2006 Share Posted January 3, 2006 My favorite is the Lend-Lease Sherman 76. Compared to 76.2mm gun T34s with their 2 man turrets its a freakin' übertank! If only that tank worked that well when you're playing U.S. in CMAK! (oh, and don't forget to pick up my old Sherman tank mods for CMBB ) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
l.cassidy Posted January 4, 2006 Share Posted January 4, 2006 Hey Erik! I'm not qualified enough to argue about a definition given by a Princeton dictionary, since I'm not even an english native speaker! I agree that the SU-76 fits the general idea of "tank". If I asked my wife while indicating a SU-76 "Hey honey, what is this?" she would answer "Are you on crack? It's a TANK, you idiot!!! Don't you play enough of that stupid game to recognize one?"...or something along this line. Though you and I and the other guys that read this forum should be able to tell a tank from a self propelled gun or from a tracked AAA vehicle. All of them are armored military vehicles, have cannons and move on caterpillar treads. But they are NOT the same thing. Anyway, I won't insist any further. If your happy with your idea of tank, let's be it. Life is easy! About the SU-76 vs. 20mm AA issue, I set up a little test which ended with a quite surprisingly outcome: 5 regular 20mm AA guns placed in a woodline facing 5 regular SU-76Ms on a flat 800x1020 meters map in July '44. Each 20mm gun is lined up with a SU-76 on the opposed side of the map, so that each gun fires at the front of the SU-76. I added too much woods tiles in the map, so in the end the distance AA guns / SUs is about 950 m. at the startline. TURN 1: I don't give any cover arc nor fire order to the AA guns and I give the "move to contact" order to the SU-76s: the AA guns do not open up and the SU-76s advance about 100m. TURN 2: I manually give the "target" order to the AA guns, each gun engages his own target at 850 m. (from now on I won't give any other "target" order to the AA guns): almost every burst is on target, all richochets. Lots of track hit, too. Turn ends with 1 crewmember hit and one SU-76 with a gun damaged. No sound contact icon appears. TURN 3:Distance is now 750 m. I give the SU-76s the "hunt" command to make them advance. The AP load for the 20mm is now between 18 and 22. Turn ends with another crew "shocked" and a SU-76 abandoned due to immobilization (track hit). No sound contact icon appears. TURN 4: Distance is about 650m now. The 20mms fire HE now, sparing the few AP rounds left. The leftmost AA guns targets the rightmost SU-76, since his original target is now history. Turns ends with an immobilized SU-76 (track hit). Still no sound contact. TURN 5: Ten seconds in the turn sound contact icons appear in the treeline. Some SU-76 suffers "side penetrations". The one immobilized in the previous turn is not targetted anymore and turns itself in a "red star" icon. In the last seconds of the turn a Su-76 panics. TURN 6: Almost out of AP rounds. One or two 20mm stop firing. Turns ends with the panicked SU-76 killed with a side penetration and another one immobile. The AA guns are still "sound contacts". TURN 7: The only moving SU-76 left is at 450m. and advancing. At 410m takes a track hit (immobile) and the crew bails. The guns are still sound contacts. TURN 8: I end the test since the guns don't fire anymore. The outcome is: 2 SU-76 immobilized, 2 abandoned, 1 KOed. The AA guns never gave away their exact positions, only sound contacts. NO shots fired by the SU-76. Now I recognize that this test was played on the 20mm AA team's turf (flat map, no LOS blocks, guns in cover, SU-76 always exposed) and that a human player would have "area fired" the sound contacts as soon as they appeared. Though it must be noted that before ANY sound contact is established, I already have 1 abandoned SU-76, 1 immobilized, 1 with a damaged gun and 2 crew hits. Not bad, eh? I'm sure that in a "real life" scenario the results wouldn't be so outstanding, though if I were you I would not underestimate the threat posed by a 20mm AA gun if you decided to "use this tank as scout" as you have stated in your first post. All the best, Cassidy 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hensworth Posted January 4, 2006 Share Posted January 4, 2006 The sheer number and accuracy of shells fired by AA guns are deadly to tanks. Multiple AA guns firing on a single tank are almost sure to take it out either through immobilization, gun damage, crew bailing in a panic or a succession thereof. 'Hailfire' from multiple AA guns can take out a monster tank like the KV-2 in 1941 or the Tiger in 1942, when the best AT guns available can't. Some would consider it a gamey tactic though. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
l.cassidy Posted January 4, 2006 Share Posted January 4, 2006 You're absolutely right. The "wall of AA guns" is gamey allright! Though in my quick test each gun was firing at his own target, not all massed firing at a single tank at a time. The scope was to demonstrate that a SINGLE 20mm AA gun can pose a serious threat to a vehicle like the SU-76 even when it's engaged from the front and at a range of almost 1 km. I could have ended the test at the end of turn 2, when 2 out of 5 vehicles had been severely damaged without revealing my positions, not even with a sound contact. Ah, Kelly, your sig is one of the coolest ones on this forum! Good choice! Cheers, Cassidy 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juan_gigante Posted January 4, 2006 Share Posted January 4, 2006 In a recent game, I had to advance a large number of halftracks across a large open area. I didn't have enough time to properly scout the places shooters could be, so I just hoped to rush all of them across as quickly as possible. 18 halftracks fast moving about 750 meters across a wheatfield. One Quad 20mm opens up. Gets five halftracks, without even a sound contact. Later, it forces the abandonment of a Sherman Jumbo, and gets a trio of Greyhounds. Not once did I get any contact. I ended up hurling HE at any place from which a shooter would have LOS to the kill zone, and I pinned it long enough to do what I had to do. Those things can be killers against light armor. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David I Posted January 5, 2006 Share Posted January 5, 2006 I pitched into a thread about light AA guns wall defense and for my pains got told to F... Off. Where was I...? Oh yeah. T34-85 no doubt. I've killed the very big kitty with that tank (ok, in the fog and from the rear, but still I killed 6 KT's for 8 T34 85's). As the Germans I've lost plenty of Panther's to that bad boy gun. Yep hands down. DavidI 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NameUsedBefore Posted January 5, 2006 Share Posted January 5, 2006 T-70s en masse. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PFMM Posted January 5, 2006 Share Posted January 5, 2006 SU 152. No Women can resist a BFG. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ErikinWest Posted January 5, 2006 Author Share Posted January 5, 2006 Interesting report l.cassidy The SU-76M has 25mm for the 2/3 of the tanks front upper armor, and has 30mm for the lower hull of the front armor. The 20mm AA gun has a penetration (with AP) at 31mm (at 100m) and 23mm (500m). So only at about 400m or less can the AP round penetrate at the front of the tank with a 'Rare'. To have a 'Fair' kill it needs to be less than 90m. At 5m it still has a 'Fair' kill chance! From what it seems, your shots seemed to be lucky by immobilizing and blowing off their guns However, if you shoot it on the side, it's mince meat. Ahaha, this is only a 20mm AA gun. The weakest German gun, so not much to brag about. Erik 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tankibanki Posted January 5, 2006 Share Posted January 5, 2006 For me it's definitely not the SU-76. I did a little QB to get a feel for it. At some point one of my SU-76s fired HE at an enemy infantry squad pretty close one of my own SU-76s. The HE shell exploded about 10m from the SU-76. Still close enough to make the crew bail out. After that I looked into the kill stats and it's the first time I have seen fratricide reported in CM (apart from air support and arty). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
l.cassidy Posted January 5, 2006 Share Posted January 5, 2006 Erik, you don't seem to be getting my point: I'm not talking about the 20mm AA gun in terms of absolute "stopping power", so to speak. I'm perfectly aware that if I target a SU-76 1 km. away, the probability of a kill is zero. What I'm stating is that this weapon has some features that can render the approach/recce phase with light armor slow, frustrating or even painful (or a mix of the three). Take a look at it: - high rate of fire (= more shots fired per turn = more chances to hit = more chances to inflict damage) - high and flexible ammo loadout (HE+AP) - very high accuracy (quality optics + flat trajectory) - extremely stealthy (UNDETECTABLE if in good cover beyond the 500m range) - versatile (it's a flak gun after all, born to shoot down planes...) - last but not least, it's cheap. IMHO, these qualities make of the german 20mm flak gun one of the most versatile and bang for the buck weapons of the entire CMBB/CMAK arsenal. I'm not bragging about anything, just reporting facts. I'm not going to advertise it anymore, since Krupp, Rheinmetall and Mauser aren't paying me enough for that... However, I find that to dismiss a weapon with these features with a laugh is wrong and, with due respect, silly. All the best, Cassidy 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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