Tigers? Bah...Panthers? Dont need 'em...We have the StuGIIIF!

[WWB]

Hmm, talenn, I would take PzIVs over T34s at any range over 700m. Good optics, accurate guns and the cupolas are a huge advantage.

You seem to only fight the enemy tanks head on, which is usually a bad idea.

WWB

[Talenn]

wwb_99:

Interesting. But unfortunately for the PzIV, in most actual games, engagement ranges of less than 700m seem more common. Also, the StuG will kill the T34s just as easily as your PzIVs at the same range, arent likely to be flanked at those ranges, is still immune to the T34s when the range gets down to 200, and still costs less than your PzIV...I just fail to see the logic of paying for a more expensive vehicle with the same gun that is FAR more vulnerable.

Perhaps its just differences in play style, but I would wager that most people just have ingrained in their history-filled brains that StuGs dont attack as well as PzIVs. Operationally, I would agree.

In GAME terms, I fail to see why that is the case in many situations. Yes, there ARE limitations to the StuG...I never denied that, buy my opinion is that those limitations are far outweighed by the MUCH better protection and with a cheaper price to boot. It seems to almost be a no-brainer decision to me. As I said above, time will tell if others begin to think the same way (especially after having their PzIVs smoked time and again while the StuGs lay there unscathed! ).

Talenn

[Priest]

Talenn

I am still not convinced that we are looking at the whole diverse issue.

In Steppes with flank protection the STUGS will do well as long as it is a clear day. Hmmm that seems like a lot of things have to go right to make the STUG as feasible.

Another issue to remember is that you increase your chances of being killed by smaller faster vehicles. The Panzer IV can track a target as it skirts past its frontal aspect and gain more gun on target time (hence more shots) than a STUG can.

Also the Panzer IV can move to safety while still focusing on the target (due to its turret).

With a Stug either the TacAI or you have to decide whether to run and hide or risk turning to engage.

IIRC you can get two light tanks and probably an ATR for the price of one STUG (do not have CMBB in front of me). Now since your arguement primarily exists in a most basic situation lets look at it this way.

Even generated maps have some cover. So lets assume a basic map, set to all the defaults. Lets say it is a clear day and we will say the units are out of LOS on turn 1. The Stug needs to get across the map, the enemy needs to take out the Stug. EFOW of course.

Germans

Stug IIIF or F8

Russkies

2 T-70s or 2 T-60s or whatever works

1 ATR

Basic high percentage plan for taking out the Stug:

Put the ATR hidden in a position that gives the unit the best possible LOS over the map. Keep the armour in hiding and not moving. At range open up with the ATR on the STUG. This will button and slow the STUG as it hunts for the ATR. As the ATR is opening up at maximum range there is no chance for penatration but also little chance of being spotted. Once the Stug (still buttoned and under ATR fire) gets within a decent distance of the light tanks, both Russian vehicles sprint from their positions at fast speed. One goes hard right, the other hard left.

Now this is where a turret is important. Your Stug will a.) have to stop to track one of the vehicles. This is due to waiting until the STUG is decently close. b.) Reaction will be slow due to the fact that the STUG is buttoned.

By the time the STUG will be able to react the flanking vehicles will be most likely past the STUGs field of fire. Now the STUG must decide to break for it (ground pressure could cause bogging and the STUG is not exactly a speedster) or go for one of the tanks. Turning to face one will expose itself to the other (possibly from the rear) and if the ATR is still active it will have at least side shots from a decent range.

End result is that a turreted vehicle could continue movement, continue to engage at least one tank, and still use it's hull mg (most tanks have them) to harrass the ATR if it finds it. The turreted vehicle would better be able to engage the other tank on the opposite flank also.

That is very basic example and will not always work but it does convey the fact that the STUG is far from an UBER weapon. Especially on the attack.

[Ex Bellator]

Very interesting discussion. I wonder if any of the posters who are saying that Talenn is wrong would be prepared to take him and his Stugs on in a QB ME? Let's get away from all the theories, end the talk, and start the action!

[ October 11, 2002, 05:58 AM: Message edited by: Rex_Bellator ]

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Rex_Bellator:

Very interesting discussion. I wonder if any of the posters who are saying that Talenn is wrong would be prepared to take him and his Stugs on in a QB ME? Let's get away from all the theories, end the talk, and start the action!

Actually I am. The game is somewhat flawed however when I know I will take on StuGs. Also, a single game does not prove much.

It would be most cool to start a number of simultaneous PBEMs on the same map and both sides take different forces and not all German forces are StuG-based. But who has the time?

[Talenn]

redwolf:

My take exactly. Its not the single action I want to see, but trends over time. I KNOW StuGs can be beaten...Tigers can be beaten, Panthers can be beaten... But what I want to see is what vehicles tend to be favored by the majority of QB players.

Talenn

[Chad Harrison]

Originally posted by Talenn:

But what I want to see is what vehicles tend to be favored by the majority of QB players.

In all my PBEM/TCP games, Ill tell you what I see everytime: T34's and KV's against StuG's. I have yet to see a single Mark III or Mark IV. I am starting to already like computer pick and canned scenarios for this reason.

Chad

[Talenn]

Chad Harrison:

And you probably wont see many MkIII/IVs because IMO (and probably in most people's), being frontally immune to return fire far outweighs the benefits of having a turret and being vulnerable, especially if you are paying less for the better protected vehicle.

We saw the same thing in CMBO, and its 'worse' here because the StuGs are 'common' and 'realistic' compared to Hetzers which could be considered 'gamey' when overused.

Talenn

[manchildstein (ii)]

Originally posted by aka_tom_w:

If you have to dual head to head with a StuG III from distances greater than 100 (so it seems) and you don't have any T34/85's what else is there that can penetrate this "monster" frontally?

my understanding is that the russians enjoyed employing artillery in a direct fire role. with that in mind, how about 4 or 5 122mm or 152mm pieces?

[manchildstein (ii)]

Originally posted by Talenn:

They (su/76, t34/76) will happily shoot it out at 500m where they are dying in one shot almost 90% of the time and they can do nothing unless they hit the gun. But get them into range where their weapons can almost penetrate, and they run like schoolgirls.

please bts do somefink!

[manchildstein (ii)]

Originally posted by Talenn:

redwolf:

My take exactly. Its not the single action I want to see, but trends over time. I KNOW StuGs can be beaten...Tigers can be beaten, Panthers can be beaten... But what I want to see is what vehicles tend to be favored by the majority of QB players.

Talenn

in other words will the stug f be to cmbb as the m8 hmc (allied) or jgdpzIV/smg (axis) squads were to cmbo?...

[manchildstein (ii)]

in any event, as steve said, there is no way to make the basic price of a weapon system 'fair' in all situations... i would imagine that in order to do that the pricing would have to take into account the actual map and overall situation (attack-defense, forces sizes, force compositions, weather, ground conditions, lighting, etc.) for a given battle...

you should probably just make agreements with your opponents not to use stug fs... or try a different time frame... or b*tch slap the buggers with 300mm katyushas...

[K_Tiger]

What do you all think about the pricing from the Pz. IIIm ?? If the tank would exist in cmbo, for over 100 points, no one hade use it either.

The gun could only defeat the t-34´s turret and if, the small bullets doesnt allways knock the ennemy tank out. Then low he blast....thin sides and rear.

For 85-90 points, maybe then i would use it in QB.

[Priest]

Funny I have yet to see a Stug of any type in one of my games.

[Silvio Manuel]

Originally posted by manchildstein II:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Talenn:

redwolf:

My take exactly. Its not the single action I want to see, but trends over time. I KNOW StuGs can be beaten...Tigers can be beaten, Panthers can be beaten... But what I want to see is what vehicles tend to be favored by the majority of QB players.

Talenn

in other words will the stug f be to cmbb as the m8 hmc (allied) or jgdpzIV/smg (axis) squads were to cmbo?...</font>

[Redwolf]

No StuG for me in my games either. I was harrassed by thick-variant Pz III, though, which were a bitch to dispatch and their gun could penetrate any of my armor. I had BT-70s but actually flanking doesn't work that great due to the turret. The opponent retreated back into the map as he ran out of other units so it didn't come to a clash.

I don't think that we will see as many pricing anormalies as we had in CMBO. The pricing anormalities in CMBO were to a major part caused by unrelated bugs like the ineffective MGs (on real panzers). Only a small part of the problems came from actual errors in the pricing formular, like IMHO overpricing of side armor (making the Hetzer very cheap and the Sherman expensive).

Now, let us look at the prices.

In June 43 I see the StuGs with 80mm front armor listed as 102-114 points. However, the cheap ones have substancial rarity, so unless you are lucky you will pay 120 points for any 80mm-armored StuG.

The Pz IVG is 127 with zero rarity. But as people said he has the weaker turret, so there's a lot of tradeffing to do here. In any case, it is not that the StuG is actually that cheap as people imply here. In practice the price difference is pretty small so you can do a true characteristics tradeoff.

The Pz III is pretty pricey but unlike the Pz IV some variants come with a very strong turret (50+20mm curved), practially better armored than the StuG. Needless to say, while they are not really fast, they ad least have much better going in difficult ground.

[ October 12, 2002, 12:36 AM: Message edited by: redwolf ]

[Andrew H.]

I'm pretty impressed by the PzIIIM - I was playing a scenario where (due to poor planning on my part) I had one Pz III M against a bunch of T-34s. Much to my surprise, the Pz III survived *8* frontal hits by T-34s at the range of 80 meters, eventually taking out 4 T-34s.

[Tobias]

Hi, I don`t know if anyone has already posted about this. I made a scenario to test the

chances of the StugIII and and the StuH42 to survive against soviet AT. I expected both

to be equally good protected, because everything except the MainGun on these vehicles is similar.

I used early versions of the SugIIIG and the StuH42 against ZIS-2, 76mm Flak and 85mm Flak

cannons at a range of 740m. All crews (AT-Cannons and assaultguns) were elite. The assault guns

had no ammunition, the AT-Cannons had each 100 rounds of AP. What`s surprising is, that the StugIII`s

survived much longer than the StuH42`s. In fact most hits on the StuH42`s caused full and partial penetrations

while on the StugIII´s ricochets and some rare partial penetrations were everything. What is the reason for this??

[xerxes]

Bottom line on this is. Player pick QBers will find the best priced "items" and buy them. There is no way for BTS to prevent this.

Only YOU can prevent cherry-picking!

[WWB]

Originally posted by Andrew Hedges:

I'm pretty impressed by the PzIIIM - I was playing a scenario where (due to poor planning on my part) I had one Pz III M against a bunch of T-34s. Much to my surprise, the Pz III survived *8* frontal hits by T-34s at the range of 80 meters, eventually taking out 4 T-34s.

I think I know the scenario you are talking about. Its not poor planning, its by design.

WWB

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by xerxes:

Bottom line on this is. Player pick QBers will find the best priced "items" and buy them. There is no way for BTS to prevent this.

Only YOU can prevent cherry-picking!

This is not true as such.

Most of the very annoying cherries in CMBO were not actually cherries because of their price alone, but because of some game mechanics problem, e.g. flak, small guns, tank mgs, mgs, turrets etc.

The problems have been addressed. I don't see any substancial supercheap and effective unit like the SMG companies or the M8HMC as of now.

[Nippy]

Better Equipment is no match for better tactics...

[Andrew H.]

Originally posted by wwb_99:

I think I know the scenario you are talking about. Its not poor planning, its by design.

WWB

I suspect you do know the scenario I mean, and I'm happy to believe that it was design.

Until that game, I had always regarded the Pz III as a light tank, at least when compared with the T-34...I envisioned the T-34-Pz III matchup as being like a Stuart-Pz IV matchup in CMBO: the light tank can take out the larger tank from the front at close-ish range, sometimes, but the larger tanks can always take out the smaller tanks at pretty much every range.

But that's not the case at all; the later Pz IIIs are invulnerable to the T-34s from the front, but can often penetrate the T-34s from the front, at least a closer ranges. The high rate of fire is nice, too.

I think that a Pz III/ StuG mixture might be a pretty deadly matchup.