Armor Penetration Snafu?

[Vanir Ausf B]

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

But that was my point. If we fought a realistic balance for games, we would have lots of infantry vs infantry, a good number where the US have tanks and the Germans have nuthin, and some where both have tanks, and very few cases where German tanks fail to meet US tanks.<hr></blockquote>

Oh. Heh. I guess you were agreeing with me and I was just being dense or somefink. :eek:

But, yes, you're right. A realisic balance would not be very fun, especially for the German player. I was just pointing out that people who don't know any better can get the wrong impression from playing CM.

[Redwolf]

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

I read somewhere (don't nail me down on the facts) that the Russians had produced ~40.000 T34 of all types, bud the average lifetime of a T-34 were only ~7 days, while the Germans had only 30.000 PzIII (including StuG), PzIV, PzV, PzVI & PzVI KT together, bud the German losses were not so extreme.

This looks like: the Russians had high casualties, bud the Germans were simply outnumbered. The Russian loose more tanks per battle, but they still win. In general, the Russian casualties were extraordinary, as we all know. The only important thing were to succeed in the mission - casualties were secondary. Is this right?

<hr></blockquote>

Tank losses in WW2 were almost constantly in the 75-80% / year range, at least for Germans and Western Allies.

I read reports that the Soviets did not bother to recover and repair damaged tanks as much as the other nations, because of the long distances to the factories, the bad transportation situation and generally other resources than the Germans (fewer shortage of raw material), and simpler construction of the tanks.

If so, it has of course a heavily distorting effect on loss statistics, but the change in statistics doesn't reflect combat effectivity of the country, neither that the tanker were loosing more vehicles, nor that the army was more or less well equipped.