Armor Penetration Snafu?

[KEEF888]

I've noticed that AFVs which normally should stand up to certain weapons' fire, end up buying the farm way too often, i.e. Shermans with 75/76 guns, constantly taking out Panthers with front shots. In reality, this was a very rare occurrence. Now, I understand that the game takes in account such things as weak points, lucky shots, etc. But this seems to be a CONSTANT and CONSISTENT situation, which leads to problems in how to attack/defend a position. The US War Department even admitted that when dealing with a situation of Shermans versus Panthers, the ratio was 5:1! Shermans would try for a side/rear shot if possible, but barring that, much of the time their best tactic was to run like hell and get in a better position. Seems like in CM, a Sherman can go toe-to-toe with a Panther any day - which drives me nuts! Is anyone else experiencing this problem, or do I just suck? :confused:

[Bruce Robert]

I don't know about specific stats. or if CM models accurately, but I have a couple of ideas.

All games are going to fall short of yours/mine view of historical reality because the game is a game, not the real thing. I don't mean to state the obvious but sometimes CM is so much fun and realistic feeling that I expect it to do more than a game can do. It is frustrating to be using what I think are historically good tactics, only to have the game mechanics, probabilities, etc. blow me out of the water. But it does seem to work both ways. I've gotten very lucky as well.

As to U.S. killing German armor, I think there is more to it than field tests and lab reports. I read an american battle report from Cantigny War Museum in Winfield, IL. that had a M-10 fire an HE round striking a Panther in the front. The shell caused no damage to the tank, but the driver panicked, or was momentarily stunned, and drove the already moving tank into a house that had a cellar. The tank was immobolized, and the crew bailed. There is more than one way to get a kill!

And to be realistic, the game would need more direct air support,and heavy Arty directed by F.O.s in piper cubs. That would offset any German armor advantage.

Thanks

[rune]

Take away the tungsten rounds and watch the shells just bounce off. Also the steel plate on the Panther was suspect at this time of the war, see rexford's excellent post about the problems with the panther's armor. BTS models this as the armor at 85%.

There are plenty of people here who write books on this stuff that think BTS's model may have little flaws, but over all is quite accurate.

Rune

[ 12-20-2001: Message edited by: rune ]</p>

[Moon]

Keef888, take the time to search for any post made by Rexford and you will realise that the level of detail of CM's penetration model goes way beyond "5 Shermans for 1 Panther" statistics.

[aka_tom_w]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by KEEF888:

I've noticed that AFVs which normally should stand up to certain weapons' fire, end up buying the farm way too often, i.e. Shermans with 75/76 guns, constantly taking out Panthers with front shots. In reality, this was a very rare occurrence. Now, I understand that the game takes in account such things as weak points, lucky shots, etc. But this seems to be a CONSTANT and CONSISTENT situation, which leads to problems in how to attack/defend a position. The US War Department even admitted that when dealing with a situation of Shermans versus Panthers, the ratio was 5:1! Shermans would try for a side/rear shot if possible, but barring that, much of the time their best tactic was to run like hell and get in a better position. Seems like in CM, a Sherman can go toe-to-toe with a Panther any day - which drives me nuts! Is anyone else experiencing this problem, or do I just suck? :confused: <hr></blockquote>

"I've noticed that AFVs which normally should stand up to certain weapons' fire, end up buying the farm way too often"

First off What is "normally" based on?

Based on reality of WWII tank combat AAR's or "normally" based on your exposure to inaccurate wargames that have been notorius in the past for exagerating the armour protection of certian well know "ubertanks"?

The HVAP 76mm round fired by the 76 mm equipped Sherm and Hellcat had a tungsten core and was in limited supply but it was also known to penetrate most axis armour from the frontal aspect.

IF you are still curious perhaps you should purchase Rexford's GREAT book on Armour Penetration in WW II.

-tom w

[ 12-20-2001: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]</p>

[tools4fools]

I had the same feeling when I first started playing CM; but then I did a couple of tests, one for example ten 75mm Shermans with regular AP ammo frontally against ten Tiger I without ammo and immobile in rubble at a range of 200m (if I remember right). I just counted the HITS and out of some 250 hits, there were only 3 "weak spot penetrations", two knocking out the Tiger, one doing no serious damage.

But then you have to take into account that the 76mm Sherman with toungsten rounds is a completly different story as Tom mentioned.

Regards

Marcus

****

[Redwolf]

At least *my* reading of historical accounts support most of CMBO combat quite well, especially the Sherman versus Panther part.

You shouldn't forget that in reality the Shermans would usually not stand and fight against Panthers, that is why you see few such knockouts. In CMBO, they are forced to fight, and they never disobey. That distorts your impression.

Another thing is the short trap on the early Panthers, which makes an unsuccessful end of battle against Stuarts and Shermans much more probable. When you do testing, use the late model. And yet another is the different rounds for the US 75mm, for which CMBO only has one model with an average penetration, this makes early-month fighting stronger for Shermans.

There are a few odd ends, like the knockout probality on penetration, which seems too high to me and especially makes 40mm and smaller rounds very dangerous, maybe more so than in reality. Also I would like to see random armour quality and different armour quality for front and other sides of tanks.

[Redwolf]

And another note: read about what exactly Michael Wittman did different from other tankers. Answer: cover. He moved his tank like an infantryman, from one spot to the next, always with minimal LOS to areas he did not intend to exchange shots with. And this behaviour did not change when he switched from a StuG to a Tiger.

And he was as paranoid about towed AT guns as Fionn is about artillery, another datapoint that supports much of the tank slaughter we see in CMBO.

[JasonC]

The Germans sent 2500 AFVs to Normandy including 700 Tigers and Panthers. They lost virtually all of them in two months time, only about 100 coming back. Allied armor losses were not significantly higher than German. The US seems to have lost less than 1000 mediums in Normandy. British losses were probably higher, but in the same general range. Even total German claims (claims almost always being higher than true enemy write-offs, by up to a factor of 2) were 3750 Allied AFVs in Normandy - so 3:2 is the highest it could have been, and even is just as likely.

The Germans sent 500 AFVs to counterattack Patton in the Lorraine in September, including 1/3 to 1/2 Panthers. They lost most of the Panthers in just three one-day engagements, on 8, 13, and 19 September. They lost most of the rest of the AFVs by the end of the month. Allied tank losses were far lower than German, with e.g. CCA 4th Armored losing 32 mediums in the Arracourt fighting, to German losses 2-3 times as high. CCL, 2nd French Armored had only nominal losses on the 13th, when it destroyed the 112th Panzer brigade almost entirely. US 90th ID had some infantry losses, but minor AFV losses, destroying 106th Panzer brigade on the September 8th.

The Germans sent around 2000 AFVs against the Americans in the Ardennes, including about 200 super-heavies (Tiger IIs, Tigers, and Jagdpanthers) and around 1/3rd of the remainder Panthers. The armor commitment was similar in scale to the Normandy campaign (especially if you throw in the Alsace counterattacks in January). They lost between half and two thirds of the AFVs sent. US losses of mediums seem to have been only about 1000 AFVs, roughly the same amount. There are numerous occasions of large German armor formations being wiped out, from Peiper's spearhead of 1SS, encircled by three infantry divisions and one combat command, to almost all of the 2nd Panzer division at Celles, counterattacked and destroyed in about two days by the US 2nd Armored division.

These results could not have occurred if it were literally true that every Panther was worth 5 Shermans in combat power.

The dictum to send 5 Shermans to tackle a Panther was not based on trying to achieve fair fights with even chances. It was a piece of Allied advice about how to kill the superior German tanks relatively cheaply. If they have a platoon, send two companies, if they have a company, send a combat command, if they have a tank battalion, send an armor division. It worked. But it hardly meant each Panther battalion was "equal" to an armor division - it wasn't, not even close. The idea was to kill them relatively cheaply, to stack the deck, not to even the chances. In large engagements, each tank cannot keep only its front facing the enemy, so applying the maxim would always result in some Shermans getting side shots.

The Allies had around 5 upgunned tanks built (TDs, Sherman 76, Firefly, etc) for every uparmored German AFV the Germans could send against them, in addition to as many more again with plain short 75s. Such uparmored types were also only about 1/3rd of the German AFVs sent to the west - with the others split between Pz IVs and SP guns. That was the basic reason the unquestionable superiority of the best German tanks was not decisive in any campaign in the west. The Allied dictum reflected this overall strategic match up. The Germans could not achieve odds better than 5 to 1 against their improved makes, except locally and temporarily. Use that. That was the point of the saying. There were plenty of times when Panthers lost without being up against such odds, but you won't find times when they faced such odds and won anyway.

As for CM modeling, you will find that British Fireflies and Achilles, and US Jacksons, can regularly kill the heavies from the front. And they did. You will also find that US 76s with T ammo can kill the heavies from the front, but will often get deflections from the most angled plates, and they lose effectiveness at the longest ranges. And they could. You will also find that the US 76s can kill Panthers and Tigers from the front at close enough range (a few hundred meters), although they need to hit particular plates on the Panthers to do so. And they did - several AARs about M-10s vs. Panthers in the narrow Normandy lanes make that clear. You will also find the US 76 straight AP mostly encounters "shell broke up" results against the German heavies at longer ranges - which is correct, and due to the "shatter gap" problem. You will find US 76s can kill just about anything from the flank or rear, which is accurate.

One area where you will find the plain 75mm Shermans more effective than they probably ought to be early on, is when they shoot at Tiger Is from side angles. The early US plain AP for the 75mm had lower penetration than the CM figures give, and around the time of the Normandy fighting this was all they had. But by the end of the year, they also had APCBC (armor piercing cap with ballistic cap) ammo, the M61 round, which had higher penetration than the CM figures, and could penetrate Tigers from the side reliably.

Since CM uses an armor penetration model with some random variation in it, they just took a compromise figure for the 75mm AP penetration, between that of the plain AP and that of the APCBC. Then a "good roll" on penetration will perform like an APCBC, while a "poor roll" on penetration will perform like plain AP. For the later parts of the war, this is quite accurate (might underrate APCBC availability by the Spring of 45, but that is a quibble). But for Normandy, it does make the 75mm somewhat better than it really was at that date. About the only case were this better is enough to make a difference between kill and bounce, though, is Tiger Is from the side, and even then only if the side angle is in a certain range.

Can plain 75mm Shermans afford to go toe to toe with Panthers from the front in CM? Not at all. They will get clobbered, and they know it - they will pop smoke and back up. In fact, Pz IVs will outperform plain 75mm Shermans, especially in the 1-1.5 km range window - since there the Shermans need turret hits. W model armor evens the score on that match-up, however. 76mm Shermans with a few rounds of tungsten will get clobbered by Panthers in long range duels, because beyond point blank the plain AP usually won't penetrate (only a rare lower hull plate hit will), and there isn't enough tungsten ammo to keep shooting it at ranges with low hit probability per shot. They also won't even fire it without a complete target ID. They wind up getting "shell broke up" results and an occasional lower hull penetration, while the Panthers kill them regularly.

Put a platoon of 4 Panthers up against 5 Shermans at ranges over 1 km, and the Panthers will clobber them. Keep adding improved types of Sherman up the chain of models, and you will only draw close to even with a 76mm W+ armored version (its turret vunerable to the Panther, the Panther's lower hull vunerable to it). Only a 76mm Jumbo will beat it - and they were about as rare as Jagdtigers.

[Redwolf]

An another rant about heavy tanks.

Germans and Soviets had heavy tank formations, usually commited in breakthroughs (which was infantry's job, but they couldn't do that with high unit density anymore) or to smash identified large concentrations of enemy forces. In addition, at least the Germans had heavy tank destroyers formations for the latter task (don't know about Soviets).

(Tigers and KVs are heavy tanks, Panthers are not. Elephants, Jagdtiger and Jagdpanthers are heavy tank destroyers).

So, what is a heavy tank unit? It is robust. It is that kind of unit that is built to withstand direct fire, to expose themself to direct fire. That doesn't mean that direct fire was good for them or even that they could drive around carelessly in enemy fire, see Wittmann example. That only means, they were least fragile against enemy fire and when that job had to be done, they were less unsuited than anything else.

But how did they gain this robustness? Thick armour plates? Well, maybe a Tiger in 1942 or KV in certain timeframes.

But for every use afterwards, a heavy tank formation gained its robustness first of all through numbers, and only to a much lesser degree through armour plates. Same thing as the robust 12-men armerican rifle squads CMBOers know so well.

The casual reader may assume that the Tigers were used to single-handendly destroy enemy formations, and stories like Villers-Bocage support that, or that a Jagdpanther in the vegetables snipes one T-34 after another. But in reality the heavy tank formations were committed in larger, not smaller, numbers than regular tank units. Great efforts were made to concentrate them. The Guderian order about the Jagdpanther units goes as far as explicitly forbitting use of single Jagdpanthers. That is a pretty significant step, usually the Germans would assume that locals commanders only get guidelines and judge about these matters themself (as opposed to frontline correction matters...).

If you see a lone Tiger die in CMBO, it deserves it.

[Bastables]

I think you'll find the biggest single killer of Panthers during Normandy and the Ardennes was abandonment due to lack of fuel. The tally of German tank losses and reasons for are covred extensivly by Allied operational research teams findings. Jentz has these within his series of books ie PanzerTruppen vol II and Niklas Zetterling has them in reference to Normandy.

QUOTE]Originally posted by JasonC:

The Germans sent 2500 AFVs to Normandy including 700 Tigers and Panthers. They lost virtually all of them in two months time, only about 100 coming back. Allied armor losses were not significantly higher than German. The US seems to have lost less than 1000 mediums in Normandy. British losses were probably higher, but in the same general range. Even total German claims (claims almost always being higher than true enemy write-offs, by up to a factor of 2) were 3750 Allied AFVs in Normandy - so 3:2 is the highest it could have been, and even is just as likely.

The Germans sent 500 AFVs to counterattack Patton in the Lorraine in September, including 1/3 to 1/2 Panthers. They lost most of the Panthers in just three one-day engagements, on 8, 13, and 19 September. They lost most of the rest of the AFVs by the end of the month. Allied tank losses were far lower than German, with e.g. CCA 4th Armored losing 32 mediums in the Arracourt fighting, to German losses 2-3 times as high. CCL, 2nd French Armored had only nominal losses on the 13th, when it destroyed the 112th Panzer brigade almost entirely. US 90th ID had some infantry losses, but minor AFV losses, destroying 106th Panzer brigade on the September 8th.

The Germans sent around 2000 AFVs against the Americans in the Ardennes, including about 200 super-heavies (Tiger IIs, Tigers, and Jagdpanthers) and around 1/3rd of the remainder Panthers. The armor commitment was similar in scale to the Normandy campaign (especially if you throw in the Alsace counterattacks in January). They lost between half and two thirds of the AFVs sent. US losses of mediums seem to have been only about 1000 AFVs, roughly the same amount. There are numerous occasions of large German armor formations being wiped out, from Peiper's spearhead of 1SS, encircled by three infantry divisions and one combat command, to almost all of the 2nd Panzer division at Celles, counterattacked and destroyed in about two days by the US 2nd Armored division.

These results could not have occurred if it were literally true that every Panther was worth 5 Shermans in combat power.

The dictum to send 5 Shermans to tackle a Panther was not based on trying to achieve fair fights with even chances. It was a piece of Allied advice about how to kill the superior German tanks relatively cheaply. If they have a platoon, send two companies, if they have a company, send a combat command, if they have a tank battalion, send an armor division. It worked. But it hardly meant each Panther battalion was "equal" to an armor division - it wasn't, not even close. The idea was to kill them relatively cheaply, to stack the deck, not to even the chances. In large engagements, each tank cannot keep only its front facing the enemy, so applying the maxim would always result in some Shermans getting side shots.

The Allies had around 5 upgunned tanks built (TDs, Sherman 76, Firefly, etc) for every uparmored German AFV the Germans could send against them, in addition to as many more again with plain short 75s. Such uparmored types were also only about 1/3rd of the German AFVs sent to the west - with the others split between Pz IVs and SP guns. That was the basic reason the unquestionable superiority of the best German tanks was not decisive in any campaign in the west. The Allied dictum reflected this overall strategic match up. The Germans could not achieve odds better than 5 to 1 against their improved makes, except locally and temporarily. Use that. That was the point of the saying. There were plenty of times when Panthers lost without being up against such odds, but you won't find times when they faced such odds and won anyway.

As for CM modeling, you will find that British Fireflies and Achilles, and US Jacksons, can regularly kill the heavies from the front. And they did. You will also find that US 76s with T ammo can kill the heavies from the front, but will often get deflections from the most angled plates, and they lose effectiveness at the longest ranges. And they could. You will also find that the US 76s can kill Panthers and Tigers from the front at close enough range (a few hundred meters), although they need to hit particular plates on the Panthers to do so. And they did - several AARs about M-10s vs. Panthers in the narrow Normandy lanes make that clear. You will also find the US 76 straight AP mostly encounters "shell broke up" results against the German heavies at longer ranges - which is correct, and due to the "shatter gap" problem. You will find US 76s can kill just about anything from the flank or rear, which is accurate.

One area where you will find the plain 75mm Shermans more effective than they probably ought to be early on, is when they shoot at Tiger Is from side angles. The early US plain AP for the 75mm had lower penetration than the CM figures give, and around the time of the Normandy fighting this was all they had. But by the end of the year, they also had APCBC (armor piercing cap with ballistic cap) ammo, the M61 round, which had higher penetration than the CM figures, and could penetrate Tigers from the side reliably.

Since CM uses an armor penetration model with some random variation in it, they just took a compromise figure for the 75mm AP penetration, between that of the plain AP and that of the APCBC. Then a "good roll" on penetration will perform like an APCBC, while a "poor roll" on penetration will perform like plain AP. For the later parts of the war, this is quite accurate (might underrate APCBC availability by the Spring of 45, but that is a quibble). But for Normandy, it does make the 75mm somewhat better than it really was at that date. About the only case were this better is enough to make a difference between kill and bounce, though, is Tiger Is from the side, and even then only if the side angle is in a certain range.

Can plain 75mm Shermans afford to go toe to toe with Panthers from the front in CM? Not at all. They will get clobbered, and they know it - they will pop smoke and back up. In fact, Pz IVs will outperform plain 75mm Shermans, especially in the 1-1.5 km range window - since there the Shermans need turret hits. W model armor evens the score on that match-up, however. 76mm Shermans with a few rounds of tungsten will get clobbered by Panthers in long range duels, because beyond point blank the plain AP usually won't penetrate (only a rare lower hull plate hit will), and there isn't enough tungsten ammo to keep shooting it at ranges with low hit probability per shot. They also won't even fire it without a complete target ID. They wind up getting "shell broke up" results and an occasional lower hull penetration, while the Panthers kill them regularly.

Put a platoon of 4 Panthers up against 5 Shermans at ranges over 1 km, and the Panthers will clobber them. Keep adding improved types of Sherman up the chain of models, and you will only draw close to even with a 76mm W+ armored version (its turret vunerable to the Panther, the Panther's lower hull vunerable to it). Only a 76mm Jumbo will beat it - and they were about as rare as Jagdtigers.

[Puff the Magic Dragon]

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

...These results could not have occurred if it were literally true that every Panther was worth 5 Shermans in combat power...<hr></blockquote>

Have I missed it in your post, or have you forgotten to mention that a lot of German vehicels of all kind were victims of the Allied air superiority?

[Ari Maenpaa]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr> One area where you will find the plain 75mm Shermans more effective than they probably ought to be early on, is when they shoot at Tiger Is from side angles. The early US plain AP for the 75mm had lower penetration than the CM figures give, and around the time of the Normandy fighting this was all they had. But by the end of the year, they also had APCBC (armor piercing cap with ballistic cap) ammo, the M61 round, which had higher penetration than the CM figures, and could penetrate Tigers from the side reliably.

Since CM uses an armor penetration model with some random variation in it, they just took a compromise figure for the 75mm AP penetration, between that of the plain AP and that of the APCBC. Then a "good roll" on penetration will perform like an APCBC, while a "poor roll" on penetration will perform like plain AP. For the later parts of the war, this is quite accurate (might underrate APCBC availability by the Spring of 45, but that is a quibble). But for Normandy, it does make the 75mm somewhat better than it really was at that date. About the only case were this better is enough to make a difference between kill and bounce, though, is Tiger Is from the side, and even then only if the side angle is in a certain range. <hr></blockquote>

Hey, isn’t there potential for bigger concern? Tiger’s side armor is 80mm thick and that should be a problem for the plain AP to penetrate in side angles, right? Well, there are lots of other German armor surfaces which are 80mm too. Panzer IVH and J frontal hulls, StuG late and StuH late model FHs, StuG IV FH. Also King Tiger and Jagdtiger hull sides and rears are 80mm.

Sherman’s 75mm gun seems to be used on very large spectrum of allied tanks. And the performance boost applies to every one of them. And more: at the same time CM puts an extensive low armor quality modifier on almost all of the Axis tank models, which widens the gap to reality even more.

Suddenly it occurs to me that this little abstraction may have quite an impact on the CM battlefield. The British 17 pdr gun gets a precise performance improvement in February ’45. Wouldn’t it be better to model the 75mm same way?

Yeah I know, little details, but in a tactical game with this kind of unequaled accuracy, even these can make the difference.

Ari

[Vanir Ausf B]

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

I think you'll find the biggest single killer of Panthers during Normandy and the Ardennes was abandonment due to lack of fuel.<hr></blockquote>

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Puff the Magic Dragon:

Have I missed it in your post, or have you forgotten to mention that a lot of German vehicels of all kind were victims of the Allied air superiority?<hr></blockquote>

Sounds like good arguements to start modeling Allied air superiority and German tanks running out of fuel/breaking down. Reality is the objective, right?

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Ari Maenpaa:

Well, there are lots of other German armor surfaces which are 80mm too. Panzer IVH and J frontal hulls, StuG late and StuH late model FHs, StuG IV FH.<hr></blockquote>

A small note here: According to Rexford the Mk IVH armor was actually more vulnerable to US 75mm AP than what CM shows.

[Bastables]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Vanir Ausf B:

A small note here: According to Rexford the Mk IVH armor was actually more vulnerable to US 75mm AP than what CM shows.<hr></blockquote>

Abandonment occurred during periods out side of the ‘battle’ that CM portrays. Allied air power claims are vastly overstated For example Mortain 2nd Tac Air force claimed 140 German tanks in the area from 7-10 August. The 9th air force claimed 112. In total 46 German Tanks were lost and only 9 had been destroyed by air weapons.

[Ari Maenpaa]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Vanir Ausf B:

A small note here: According to Rexford the Mk IVH armor was actually more vulnerable to US 75mm AP than what CM shows.<hr></blockquote>

Good catch. IIRC that was the problem of face hardened armor, wasn't it? So the H-model had FH armor, but what about the others. StuG III and StuH are made on panzer III hulls, but Stug IV, Ostwind and some others belong to panzer IV family. Which had FH armor and which hadn't?

Damn, I haven't the Rexford book yet.

Ari

[Priest]

Just to chime in here, but airpowers main acheivement was the fact that it interdicted the Germans movement and logistics regularly.

[gredeker]

(Group of strange looking men bursts in with weapons drawn)

Everybody down! We, the grogs, are hijacking this thread!

(They suddenly put down their historically accurate weapons, sit down, produce voluminous charts and graphs, and begin discussing WWII minutiae... everyone else slinks out of the room as the argument grows more heated)

[Priest]

My charts are in the "bar" format?

Anyone have "pie" charts?

And does anyone feel this post is dirty, I cannot shake that feeling!

[Andrew H.]

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

Everybody down! We, the grogs, are hijacking this thread!

<hr></blockquote>

Well, somebody's got to keep order around here.

[Ari Maenpaa]

KEEF888,

I dug into old posts and found some of Rexford's accounts about Panther's frontal armor, which seemed to cause the primary problem for you.

Couple of the known facts about Panther’s armor quality:

- Many Panthers had flawed glacis plates, but not all. Basing on very small sample, it seems that about half of the plates were good and half bad.

- The deficiency multiplier for the flawed glacis plates varied from 0.85 to 1.00.

- Lower front hull and mantlet were good quality armor. So were the sides and rear.

So the problem arises from the fact that CM models all the armor surfaces to be flawed steel. Even more so, because Panther’s armor isn’t very thick and the protecting power comes from steep angles at which those plates are placed. Seemingly small adjustments on the quality modifier (=thickness) would have perceptible effects on Panther’s protection.

Although Panthers in CM aren’t necessarily ahistorically weak, they surely don’t represent the toughest individuals from reality. And the player should quickly notice that the current quality multiplier makes the lower hull a very vulnerable spot on Panther’s front. CM allows the Sherman 76 to hole that plate up to 1200 meters regularly. Hull down position is very highly recommended

Ari

[Ligur]

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

(Group of strange looking men bursts in with weapons drawn)

Everybody down! We, the grogs, are hijacking this thread!

(They suddenly put down their historically accurate weapons, sit down, produce voluminous charts and graphs, and begin discussing WWII minutiae... everyone else slinks out of the room as the argument grows more heated)

<hr></blockquote>

Haw haw haw! Good one =)

[Redwolf]

While I generally agree with the Panther comments, I have to remind that these vehicles would be more expensive if modeled stronger in CMBO.

For sure, I prefer the Panther as it is now for 200 points than a stronger one for 250 or so points. Because the Panther is the only way to get an Axis tank with good going in open ground or scattered trees and fast on streets. The only other turreted tank, the Pz IV is too weak turret-wise. A price of 200 allows me to select a platoon in a very big game, more expensive would be bad. The same applies for knockout points - a lot of Panther kills would kill a 95% armour quality Panther as well.

The same applies for the King Tiger. OK, for now its sides are vulnerable to the 75mm and the Bazooka at too wide a range of angles. But would I pay more to lower (not eliminate) that risk?

[Ron]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by redwolf hates artillery:

For sure, I prefer the Panther as it is now for 200 points than a stronger one for 250 or so points. Because the Panther is the only way to get an Axis tank with good going in open ground or scattered trees and fast on streets. The only other turreted tank, the Pz IV is too weak turret-wise. A price of 200 allows me to select a platoon in a very big game, more expensive would be bad. The same applies for knockout points - a lot of Panther kills would kill a 95% armour quality Panther as well.<hr></blockquote>

What kind of logic is that? :confused: Sure a Panther with an open top would be cheaper yet and allow you to purchase even more, but this is a tactical simulation trying to model things as they were. Wouldn't you agree?

Ron

[Redwolf]

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

What kind of logic is that? :confused: Sure a Panther with an open top would be cheaper yet and allow you to purchase even more, but this is a tactical simulation trying to model things as they were. Wouldn't you agree?

<hr></blockquote>

I agree, but two issues:

1) The choice here is cheap and at the lower boundary of reality or expensive and at the upper level. All I say is that I prefer the former. A middle price and random armour quality would be better, of course.

2) In the context of current CMBO pricing rules, it happens that a 200 points tank barely allows you to buy a useful number in a big game. The strongest tank is useless if you have too few. My comment only makes sense when seen inside the current quickbattle purchase rules.