T-34 seems really weak

[Guderian129]

I play hot seat games with my father pretty often. So far the trend is that he plays the Soviets and I play as the Germans.

Sometimes, our battles take us into the later war where I have access to the Panther and Tigers. When I put those into the field, the Panther expecially, seems to be able to make real short work of the T-34/85. I always thought that the upgraded T-34 cannon would be able to punch through a Panther's armor, yet this doesn't seem to be the case.

In a long range duel, my Panthers will hands down completely decimate the T-34 while suffering little to no losses. Is the upgraded cannon on the T-34 just that shoddy? Was Russian equipment really that inferior to Germany as far as the T-34 "work horse" is concerned? I understand that there are plenty of other vehicles available for the Russians, but was just wondering everyone's thoughts on the T-34 and the later T-34/85. Thanks!

Guderian

[Panzer_M]

The Germans have Better optics than the Russians and the 75mmL70 and 8.8cmL71 have higher velocity than the Russian's gun.

The 88L56 I don't know if it's better than the 85mm.

[Mad Russian]

The Russians preferred way of fighting is in close. Yes, at long range, the German guns have a big advantage. Let those same T34's get close to you and you will start having some tank losses of your own.

Panther Commander

[Sirocco]

The Panther just had a great gun. As a T34 commander you wouldn't want to find yourself head to head with one. Instead you'd want to overload the encounter with numbers, or fire from an ambush position for a flank shot.

[LordCalvert]

The key as I see it is speed outflanking and overwhelming numbers. Get close and swarm, swarm, swarm! Of course it´s difficult on maps with open flat terrain

[JasonC]

T-34/85s will kill Panthers with side hits, and at close enough range with front turret hits. 500m is a good distance, 800m is pushing it, for the turret front. Not every hit will go in, since the Panther's mantlet is modeled as "curved", so it effectively rolls a random angle vs. the hit. Typically you get partial penetrations, not full. But they can kill the tank. You want to duel hull down if at all possible, because the glacis is completely safe.

Note that the Russian 85mm is undermodeled in 1943. You get "shell broke up" results consistently, when the numbers all say it should do in. This makes the front of the Tiger I essentially invulnerable. Do not be fooled by the numbers. Even StuGs and Tigers from the side are marginal. You can bounce shot after shot from the front of a 30+50 StuG at 800m. In 1944 the ammo improves, and "shell broke up" failures become less common.

The best way to fight cats with T-34s is to close and flank. You want to distract them to exploit their slow turret speed, then run cover to cover at "fast" speed. Pop out from multiple angles. To stop flank shots, the enemy will often hide, "keyholing", to protect their vulnerable side plates. The way to exploit that is to advance on fast move through the dead ground the sides of the keyhole create, while hiding behind cover in the cone the keyhole can see.

Then the problem is often overlapping cones from these shooters. You can overpower one with a many on few if the range is already close enough. Another option is to get something (an 82mm mortar, an SU-122) to smoke the keyhole opening while you cross one lane, then avoid the others.

Many on few works if you can kill the target through some exposed plate. You need enough shooters to get a killing hit. You can spread the shots over several minutes using "top hat" drills, one shot per turn per tank. Count on it taking 10-20 shots. Half will miss, half will hit the wrong plate, half the rest won't kill. But it only takes 1. If you have a thick enough hail of fire you will get the bugger.

You can't afford to stand and duel without huge advantages in numbers or positioning, though. They will be killing with every other shot - maybe every 3-4 if you are only briefly exposed and hull down. A platoon is the minimum that can take on one enemy cat. If you don't have that kind of numbers edge, you have no business attacking. Even with those numbers, you also need terrain. Open at long range, numbers won't counter them.

On defense it is a lot easier to deal with thicker enemy front plates. You avoid wide LOS positions, hiding behind terrain. Cross your lines of fire. Short movements should change your LOS picture significantly, without exposing you to every spot on the map. (Side of the hill not top e.g., around a building, etc). Your other defenders should let you see them coming. Pop out only the guy with the side shot.

57mm ATGs are the other great asset on defense. They can kill things - don't let the small caliber fool you. And they can hide. 45mm are useless against cats and 76mm can only hurt Panthers from the side. They aren't the way to go. The 57mm is the cat stopper.

I can't stress this enough. If you have a 57mm ATG for every cat he has, you can hold on defense pretty easily. It is kind of ridiculous that you pay much higher rariety for them than the Germans pay for Tigers, when there were 5 times as many of them. But they are worth it. Rariety off is also a great balancer for the Russians.

Other AT means on defense are AT minefields, pioneer infantry (their demo charges are the most effective Russian infantry AT), roadblocks (especially in cities - AT mines don't work on pavement), and especially Sturmoviks. Sturmovisk are very effective, much more so that all other aircraft. It isn't even the rockets, it is the strafing. They can KO Panthers outright and will frequently get immobilizing track hits on any AFV.

There are some marginal additional methods. Snipers can also help. ATRs and other light stealthy stuff (e.g. 25mm AA) will not get damage on full AFVs and is not worth it. Enough 37mm AA and 76mm AP can damage a tank with "hail fire", if you have enough of them shooting. They don't penetrate but they can immobilize or damage the gun. But it is expensive in ammo and lost guns; use it as a last resort or to take out a single uberTiger. Arty 152mm and above (especially the 203mm) using TRPs can damage tanks, but is far too expensive and inflexible to use on tanks alone. If a cat with infantry around it walks onto a TRP though, it is worth a mission. Smaller stuff won't hurt them.

As for AFVs, it is 1943 that is the real problem period. In 1944 you can use T-34/85s, IS-2s and ISUs. The SU-100 is significantly better but comes late and is rare. In 1943 on the other hand the difficulty is getting anything that will hurt a Tiger from any angle, or even a StuG from the front.

Valentine IXs can be useful pure AT tanks. T-34/57s are also effective, but high rariety. Same goes for captured StuGs. The Russian 57mm has higher penetration than the British one. And the T-34 is a much better chassis. T-34/57s are the best armor war 1943 Russian AFV - but the rariety usually makes them prohibitively expensive. One solution is to insist on playing with rariety off, if the German is allowed to take Tigers.

The best of the 1943 fleet in my opinion is the SU-152, realism, rariety and other threats included. The ROF is very low, but that just means you use top hat drills and fire only once per minute. Always use a pair, because the hit chance with only 1 is not high enough. The HE is a super infantry killer if you live to use it, and will force his tanks to show themselves. Just don't expect the armor to stop a thing. They are eggshells with hammers in this era. They can be your base of fire (not continually exposed, but snapshooting from behind cover) while T-34s close and flank.

The SU-85, which you might think would be the right answer (higher ROF etc), comes post Kursk and suffers from the undermodeled ammo, "shell broke up" problem. They don't do the trick. SU-122s are HE chuckers and don't get enough HC to hurt cats. In 1944, the T-34/85s and long 122s (ISU-122 and IS-2) are better than 152s because of higher ROF and adequate penetration. The T-34/85s need to exploit numbers and speed to get flank shots, though.

Another problem era, surprisingly, is 1942. The reason is German armor cherry picking. While the T-34 is a monster in that era compared to most of the historical German tank fleet, in CMBB your German opponents will almost always take 80mm front StuGs, which kill T-34s at range and are overmodeled as invulnerable down to point blank range. So you have to close and flank. They don't have thick sided tanks yet, though, so even a T-70 can kill them if you get to point blank on a flank.

In 1942 and 1943 Thick fronted 50L60 Pz IIIs are also a match for T-34/76s - better in most armor war respects. (This is largely due to various over and undermodeling issues aka "German physics"). Those you need to flank or hit from nearly point blank range (under 500m). But against humans this is a minor matter, because they will just take uberStuGs. As for Pz IVs, if anybody takes them, duel them hull down and use numbers (like T-34/85s vs. Panthers) and you will do fine.

I hope this helps.

[Guderian129]

Really insightful post, Jason. I'll be sure to keep this in mind next time I play as the Russian and make sure my father reads it. Thanks again.

- Guderian

[Mad Russian]

Jason, that was a very informative post.

Outstanding run down, of the basic capabilities, on the vehicles strengths and weakness'.

Panther Commander

[Yaphank]

Originally posted by JasonC:

The 57mm is the cat stopper.

...we shall see...

[LGMB]

Soldiers,

JC comes through yet again.

[JasonC]

Thanks guys.

Here is a sample Kursk era Russian infantry defense force optimized for fighting armor, with rarity off. 1000 pts. I include an example of its performance against the AI.

Main weapons -

4 57mm ATGs

1 Sturmovik (4 bomb 8 rocket model)

Infantry -

1 Pioneer Company

1 Recon A Platoon

Ranged fire -

2 25mm AA

2 Maxim MMG

3 DP LMG

Fortifications -

7 AT Minefield

4 Trenches

In rural light woods, gentle slopes. The AI didn't have cats, but did have 10 Panzers (IIIs and IVs mixed 5 each) and 4 light armor (8 rad AC plus 3 different gun armed HTs). Plus an FO and a small amount of infantry.

I lost 1 DP LMG, KOed 12 vehicles and immobilized the other 2. The 57s got 4, 2, 1 and 1 kills each. 5 of them in a single "mad minute" on turn 11, when all of the ATGs opened up at once.

One Pz III in LOS survived that minute after popping smoke and was finished off the following minute. The AC was killed later by a 57mm. And the last 57mm kill occurred later still, when a Pz III crawled in range of a single 57mm in a trench, to duel it, and lost.

The Sturm took out 1 Pz IV and a HT during the approach. It got several top penetrations on another Pz IV but was not awarded the kill. It was still strafing when the 57s opened up (its last run). The Germans had an AA 20mm HT as one of their HTs, but it did not deter the Sturm.

My own light AA KOed one halftrack, buttoned a lot of stuff, and may have immobilized one of the Pz IVs with a track hit. Or that might have been the Sturm, as well.

The pioneers KOed one HT with a demo charge just before the mad minute. They got away clean.

One Pz III ran over AT mines but did not set any off. A Pz IV crawled onto another just before the mad minute. I think it was immobilized by a mine hit, but it died very soon afterward to 57mm fire if so.

The remaining Pz IV seems to have bogged on its own while trying to navigate through some scattered trees.

I put a DP with each of 3 mini-platoons of pioneers - HQ and 2 squads. Two of these were forward, connecting with AT mines and impassible woods areas, to block off all routes except a central ATG kill zone. (The DP gives them an ability to pin infantry without revealing the demo charge throwers, who used 29m arcs).

The third of these, led by the company HQ, was back near the flags. The recon A platoon was on the flags with both MMGs - the bulk of my anti infantry firepower. The AA guns went on flanks and just behind the screen, one in woods and another in a trench.

The ATGs were farther back, spread out, half in woods and half in trenches, all of them crossing their fire into the ATG kill zone.

Early on I waited for the Sturm and harassed with the AA and DP LMGs, behind range of spots. On DP kept firing a little too long, got targeted by a Pz IV, and was eventually lost. (Tried to run but panicked). It was my only loss.

The big guns remained on hide until the lead German vehicles had reach the mines and pioneers. After the first demo charge kill they all opened up at once, from 120 degrees on the compass, at about 500m range.

Against the AI that is all it takes. Humans are of course tougher.

37mm AA hits much harder but can be spotted at longer ranges. One could trade both 25s, a DP, and 1 AT minefield for a 37mm AA. ATRs are a reasonable alternative to 25mm AA, too. But I used the 25s in this case, to get more pinning fire vs. infantry in the open at range.

I wanted that since the infantry portion of my force was weak. 57mm don't have strong HE; my arty points went to air support; pioneers have only about half the infantry firepower of other squads. If I kill the armor though, I'm not too worried. There are enough shooters to contest passage of open ground.

Don't think of the ATGs as an afterthought to a mostly infantry force. Think of a whole battery of good ones as the core of the force, the same as you would think of a good tank platoon as the core of an attacking force.

I hope this helps.

[Sir Kozakh Dragonfire]

Выставите на поле боя несколько ИС'ов и увидите, как они справляются с кошками

Т-34 - это средний танк, а Тигры и Пантеры - тяжелые. По моему, сравнивать их пробивные и защитные особенности - дело неблагородное. Они просто применяются для решения совершенно разных задач.

[Matthias]

r..i....g...h...t.... ps good post jason c.(again..and again and soddign again)..u sick of posting good posts yet?

[37mm]

I never use 80mm armoured STUG's (unless in a scenario); If you can't do it with a few PzIV's or III's you have no right playing German!

Fantastic post; I've shown it to a relatively new Soviet player & he found it very useful.

I also think 1943 is the worst year for 'fair' tank combat.

[Sir Kozakh Dragonfire]

To Matthias:

[MikeyD]

The T-34-8'5s gun was roughly equivalent to the U.S. Sherman 76mm gun. Though the 85 may seem slightly superior when viewing the CMBB stats the round break-up problem evens the two guns out.

One reason why the Panther's tougher is its armor. I'm not near my stats, isn't it something like 45mm bow T34 vs 85mm bow Panther? And the Panther weighed about as much as an IS-2! In anyone else's army it would've been considered a heavy tank.

[rexford]

Jason C:

Very good points.

Suggest you bring up the 85mm round break-up problem to the designers and ask why the effectiveness is so low during 1943, and why the round breaks up so much during 1944 and 1945.

I'am sure many people would like to see answers to the above issues.

Lorrin

[JasonC]

"the round break-up problem evens the two guns out."

In reality maybe. In CM in 1944 maybe. In 1943, the Russian 85mm won't penetrate 80mm front StuGs. A US 76mm has no problem at all. It will encounter some shatter related failure against 100mm plates at ranges over 250m. But 80mm? No way. But just try it in CM with the Russian 85mm, using 1943 ammo. They won't kill a StuG from the front at 800m - most hits will give "shell broke up" and fail.

[edgars]

What about 85mm AA gun?

Haven't used it against human opponent, but keyholed, against AI, it is capable of knocking out heavy cats. There are two drawbacks however, slooooooooooooow ROF, and big profile.

To Sir Kozakh Dragonfire:

Nikto i v principe nisravnival Tigra i Panteru s Tridcetichvertjortkoi, vopros stojal, kak ispolzovatj T34 protiv nemeskih "koshek".

[MikeyD]

This 85mm break-up topic reminds me of an old obscure beef of mine. The early war Russian 37mm gun (BT-2, etc.) seems waaaaay undermodeled compared to the same German Rheinmetall gun. I think that BFC is assuming pre-44 Russian metallurgy was crap and overly hard/breakable AT rounds were the norm. Otherwise, the Germans would have a MUCH tougher time against all those Russian guns in the game.