ID armor: Nationality Bonus in Disguise

[FFE]

I hope BTS takes into consider the negative issues they gave to west front Allied armor. Undoubtedly on the Eastern Front, Soviet armor from 41-42 was probably most often initially mis-id as a T-34. Yet when CMBB comes out will the German commander be plagued by the T-34 threat? I often find Allied armor running away from a Panther(?) or Tiger(?), yet watch in utter dismay as German armor never fleeing from a Sherman or Cromwell. In CM this invisible bonus given to the German side is not reflected in the point values. Sure it may be comical and have some historical merit, but it is not reflected in due course. In recent battle I had a troop of Sherman (Canadian) boxing a platoon of Mark IV’s. However one of the Mark IV’s was mis-id as Panther and all my 75mm Sherman’s backed up leaving my Firefly to die. Is this historical? Perhaps. Anything is possible. Is this invisible German attribute reflected in the point values? It is most definitely not. The enemy Panther(?) remained, dominating the battlefield for no additional point value. How can BTS grant such a huge bonus to a single side yet not reflect it in the point value?

This topic falls into the old issues dealing with nationality bonuses. BTS decided to take things by the horn by emphatically dismissing any additional game code that grants a nationality a specific bonus. Yet when it came to armor, BTS decided to mix things up and label a very specific nationality bonus under Fog of War. BTS decided to impose the “Tiger!” nationality weakness. When a contingent of Allied armor faces off with German armor, most often the Allied armor over-id’s the threat level. Axis armor can generally punch a hole in most “TYPICAL” Allied armor. The exceptions are rare, such as Jumbo’s, Churchill VII/VIII’s and Pershing’s. What happens in historically typical situations Cromwell’s + Sherman’s face off Mark IV’s + Panther’s, is the Allied armor geting the brunt end of the deal. In rare situations when a truly heavy tank appears on the field (Tiger’s, Large Churchill’s, etc…), parity is achieved.

Nevertheless, I hope BTS decides to either do away with over-iding threat since it is a nationality bonus, yet in disguise or adjust the game so that mis-iding does not favor one side over the other.

[Doug Beman]

The misidentification of German armor like PzIII and IV as a Tiger does not happen all the time; whether it does or not, and how long this mis-conception continues, depends on a lot of factors including:

weather conditions

quality of the unit that is trying to ID the German armor

morale status

Since the misidentification is so unpredictable, there is no way to factor that into point values. If BTS jacked up a Tiger's value, people would cry about "my armor never gets mis-ID'd as a Tiger!"

DjB

[Durbish]

hmmm, interesting point. Makes me glad not to be playing on ladders.

I like the added flavor things like this give. I dont want the axis and allies to be the same. Using a selected forces pros while dealing with it's cons is what the game is all about for me.

Axis mis ID allied vehicles often, sure the tac ai doesn't fear the allies as much as vice versa but I do. Not realizing that that vanilla sherman is actually a jumbo can be a lot worse than thinking that mk4 is a tiger IMO.