Carl Puppchen Posted May 8, 2004 Share Posted May 8, 2004 I have been playing the axis in the cmbo / cmbb / cmak series against a human opponent. When cmak came out we started with a lot of the early war desert battle with relatively light armor and have recently moved into the Tunisia time frame and then Western Europe. As the German player in general I have been doing well head to head vs Allied tanks in terms of PZ IV and STG III F/G but in CMAK I am really getting my rear handed to me when facing Sherman or even Lee / Grant tanks. The PZ III J with long barreled 50mm gun is really getting creamed. I try to stay away from the uber-tank Tigers and Panthers except to rarely throw one in because in the real war they were rare and it doesn't help my tactics to strut around the battlefield with those weapons (in fact, I get sloppy since it is easy to recover from errors). This wasn't happening to me as much in cmbo, in fact these tanks did very well against the sherman. In cmbb there certainly were very hard times against the T34 and JS series, but this was expected on the East front because in my opinion the Germans were battling uphill almost the entire war over there in terms of quality of equipment overall. I am not saying that this is unrealistic - it seems that more often the sherman is getting in first hits due to fast turret traverse and often I am on the attack which of course gives the defender the advantage because he is not moving and / or using shoot and scoot tactics or firing from hull down positions. I am going back to the bunker and trying different tactics now, including advancing much more cautiously and better combined arms tactics with my soldiers drawing fire and consolidating my tanks into platoons and forcing one side of the field. To be honest these were tactics I should have been using all along but I had a lot of success with more aggressive tactics because I was winning more head to head battles. I saw a thread on the effectiveness of the M-10 and this is similar to my new found appreciation for the overall Allied tanks in CMAK (excepting early war british tanks, with a few exceptions). Just wanted to see if this opinion was isolated or common. Thanks for posting and responding. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shosties Posted May 8, 2004 Share Posted May 8, 2004 Oh, how the worm turns. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flamingknives Posted May 8, 2004 Share Posted May 8, 2004 Sherman Vs PzIII is like Tiger Vs Sherman. It's funny when preconceptions come up against research. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carl Puppchen Posted May 9, 2004 Author Share Posted May 9, 2004 I am not trying to sound defensive but just so you know I am not some dope who just stumbled into cmak after watching saving private ryan. I have played simulations from Tobruk to Squad Leader to ASL to Panzer General to cmbo / cmbb /cmak and have read military history for 25 years, in addition to traveling to museums in the US and Europe for the express purpose of viewing AFV's. I realize of course that in fact the western allies did win the war and that overall their weapons were effective. In general the allies had overwhelming power in artillery and air power but the general feeling is that head to head tank combat the sherman was going to get the short end of the stick vs most german armor. Since GI Anvil of Victory game makers have attempted to balance the Sherman assets of reliability, excellent HE characteristics, fast turret speed and the gyroscopic stabilizer vs. its disabilities including likihood of flaming when struck, high profile, and limited AP effectiveness against the heavier german tanks. The specific question is - do recent changes in the game engine, stats or whatever make the allied weapons a better match for the german equivalents, and on balance, is this correct? I don't know the answer to this, and that is why I am asking for people's opinion. It certainly seems that they do better head to head in cmak than they did in cmbo. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shosties Posted May 9, 2004 Share Posted May 9, 2004 Sorry, these are indeed legitimate questions. I just couldn't get it out of my head the image of the habitual German panzer-heavy player-fetishist getting all fussy and upset when his vaunted armor doesn't perform to the ueber standard. Not saying you fit that archtype at all! You've been giving non-big cats a whirl for the challenge. Rexford and JasonC will probably be arriving shortly to delve into the finer points since you mentioned some of the "magic words" so I will bow out. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
average Posted May 9, 2004 Share Posted May 9, 2004 The Panzer III was obselete by the time the Sherman appeared in large numbers in the Western Desert. I'm not especially knowedgable about AFVs but the accounts I've come across suggest that when the M3 series arrived in Africa the British tankers finally started getting the better of most german armour, if not off course the large calibre anti tank stuff. As for the use of early long barrel panzer IVs and stugs against shermans, I think its fair enough. In normandy for instance the sherwood forresters according to the authour of a recent book knocked out 13 panzer IVH's for no real loss to their own formation. I'd suggest that even the so called objective sources tend to be haevily taken with german qualative superiority, rather than looking at other factors like the poor training of junior allied leaders. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flamingknives Posted May 9, 2004 Share Posted May 9, 2004 The 50mm ATG was useless vs. the Sherman in CMBO, so I seeno reason for it to cut the mustard against it in CMAK. The M3 medium is surprisingly well armoured, but once you're got your head round that, its behaviour is understandable. In addition, defending armour has a huge advantage. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wisbech_lad Posted May 10, 2004 Share Posted May 10, 2004 And try 6pdr armed Valentines with tungsten as a nasty kitty killing surprise... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Emrys Posted May 10, 2004 Share Posted May 10, 2004 Originally posted by flamingknives: The 50mm ATG was useless vs. the Sherman in CMBO...Curious. After losing several Shermans in several games to the 50mm, I would not have said so. In fact, in one game I even lost a Sherman to a 37mm AA gun, but maybe that was a fluke due to the over-modeling of AA guns in the early games. Michael 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Emrys Posted May 10, 2004 Share Posted May 10, 2004 Originally posted by average: The Panzer III was obselete by the time the Sherman appeared in large numbers in the Western Desert.I think I'd even go so far as to say that the early Shermans were the equal of, if not superior to the Mk. IVf2 overall. Michael 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
37mm Posted May 10, 2004 Share Posted May 10, 2004 Throughout the desert war Germans tended to avoid tank battles prefering AT guns & the hideous 8.8cm to do the job for them. I have read plenty of reports in which at short range Shermans kill Panthers so I'm sure Shermans can deal with PzIII's. Even in CMBB Shermans can easily take out PzIII's. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snorri Posted May 11, 2004 Share Posted May 11, 2004 IMO(nm).. knocking through a shermans front is *wrong*. you sure knock `em out from side(side is not inf. flank! ..side means side!). troublesome to cmak tankers is the range. german tanks can make sure hits over long (above 1200m) distances.. but where to do so? around 500 is allied-range(as i call it). at 100-200 your 5cm should work again.(see exp. below) also the tunesian pre-atlas mountain region doesn`t spoil such *battles*. the german`s point was *experience*(some say so..) and a *more tricky* tactical behaviour. german tanks weren`t superior in armour sofar (..did this change, actually?) -this is also the point *k*-ammo became a vital part to tankers interests. (found a sp.-mistake? -keep it) [ May 11, 2004, 08:08 AM: Message edited by: Snorri ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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