T-34s vs. PzIII's vs Shermans

[CombinedArms]

I've been surprised in CMBB at the difficulty that T-34/76's have in killing the PzIII, which by mid-1943 I understood to be an obsolete tank..

PziIII's also have difficulty killing T-34's but can often manage a killing penetration before the T-34 gets in a killing shot of its own, esp. at longer ranges. I'm a bit puzzled by this, because the penetration charts attached to the vehicles would seem to imply that the T-34 should readily kill the Pz III, at least at closer ranges. But when I check the kill chance when lining up a frontal shot, it generally seems to show up as None, Rare, Very Low, or Low. Kills seem to be a result only of flank shots or repeated frontal bludgeoning. Can anyone explain this?

Anyway, I did a little test of eleven Pz III's facing off vs. a dozen T-34/76s (late '43) at 500 m w/ gentle slopes and light trees (so just a little cover). The result after one full turn was just one dead PzIII and just one dead T-34 but all the other PzIII's completely OK, whereas several T-34's had crew casualties and shocked and panicked crews--suggesting a high number of penetrations not fatal to the tank. It looked like round one for the Pz III.

This made me curious as to how Shermans would do in the same situation, so I set up twelve Sherman 75s (M4A2) against the same lineup of Pz III's. The evidence is that the Shermans, while still having trouble killing PzIII's, do substantially better than T-34's. This time, after two turns, there were just 6 OK Pz IIIs, along with 3 dead ones, one gun damaged and one routed. The Shermans had mostly sloughed off innumerable hits. There was one dead Sherman, 10 OK, and one nearly OK (shocked after one crew loss, but now recovered and back in action).

These results are admittedly somewhat inconclusive, but they might help to explain why the PzIII was phased out on the west front in the CMBO time frame but still in use in the east in mid-to-late '43. It looks like, in the east, it took the T-34/85 to make the Pz III truly obsolete.

Any advice on T-34/76 tactics vs. the Pz III would be much appreciated as well as why the kill effect for the 76.2mm gun (and the Sherman 75) doesn't seem to live up to the expectations suggested by the penetration charts.

[ October 27, 2002, 04:21 PM: Message edited by: CombinedArms ]

[Henri]

Originally posted by CombinedArms:

I've been surprised in CMBB at the difficulty that T-34/76's have in killing the PzIII, which by mid-1943 I understood to be an obsolete tank...

I'm not sure about this, but I suspect that it may be the crew quality that makes the difference.

I observed an even worse situation with JS2's, SU-122's andSU-152's against Tigers and Panthers. In the Jaegermeister scenario, a half-dozen of the German tanks knocked out about a dozen of the above without losing a single tank.Now it is true that the Germans in general had superior optics and initially better-trained crews and communications. But this should not make a major difference at distances of 500-800 meters.Seeing the shell from s SU-152 bounce off a Tiger at those distances a couple of times in a row does not spell realism to me.

Although this is pure speculation, I supect that the programmers slanted the German chances somewhat to avoid the screams of outrage from players who favor the Germans (by far the majority of players).So far I have won easily all of the German scenarios I have played and had my butt kicked to kingdom come when I play the Soviets. Of course I have not played them all...

Henri

Henri

[Vanir Ausf B]

Originally posted by CombinedArms:

PziIII's also have difficulty killing T-34's but can often manage a killing penetration before the T-34 gets in a killing shot of its own, esp. at longer ranges. I'm a bit puzzled by this, because the penetration charts attached to the vehicles would seem to imply that the T-34 should readily kill the Pz III, at least at closer ranges. But when I check the kill chance when lining up a frontal shot, it generally seems to show up as None, Rare, Very Low, or Low. Kills seem to be a result only of flank shots or repeated frontal bludgeoning. Can anyone explain this?

This seems to be the case for Soviet AT guns in general. The numbers in the unit stats windows seem to be very optimistic compared to their actual in-game performance.

For another example of this, run some SU-85s against StuGs in '43. According to the SU-85's table it should penetrate the StuG frontally without too much trouble at 500m, but the targeting indicator says Low chance of kill. For more mystery fun, compare the performance of T-34/85s to Sherman 76s in '44-'45. According to their penetration tables the 85mm gun is a little more powerful, but tests will show that the 76mm gun out performs it in-game.

[ParaBellum]

Didn't have the soviets BIG problems with their AT rounds? That is, rounds that should be able to penetrate the armour because of calibre/weight and muzzle velocity but fail to penetrate because the rounds shatter on impact?

[Sarge Saunders]

Originally posted by ParaBellum:

Didn't have the soviets BIG problems with their AT rounds? That is, rounds that should be able to penetrate the armour because of calibre/weight and muzzle velocity but fail to penetrate because the rounds shatter on impact?

Yeah they did from what I have read around this forum. For example, in 42 the T34s have big trouble killing a StuG IIIF (late) with frontal shots. I began to think that in close situations (< 300 meters) that the Sherman would do better. It does from my tests. Better AP rounds must be the reason.

As a side note, Shermans still have much, much more trouble with the StuG III than it ever had in CMBO. In fact, beyond 300 yards it will ricochet more often than penetrate. I wonder if this "tweak" is because of new slope modifiers in CMBB or if it is a result of different AP round heuristics.

Any tank grogs know?

-Sarge

[ October 27, 2002, 05:05 PM: Message edited by: Sarge Saunders ]

[zukkov]

when you really think of it, did the germans lose many tank to tank engagements? take out surprise, overwhelming numbers, etc., and just consider the set piece slugfests(which is what cm is really all about). i would say that german defeats in those cases were few and far between. am i wrong?

[Bruceov]

The Germans will frequently lose if the Russian player takes full advantage of cheap tanks and veteran crews and concentrates his armor. I find Germans players frequently try encirclement when they dont have the strenth for such maneuver. They find themselves outnumbered locally by 2 or 3 to one and are hit so frequently that they withdraw, are immobilized, lose their gun or are abandonedf or destroyed.

[Bastables]

Originally posted by ParaBellum:

Didn't have the soviets BIG problems with their AT rounds? That is, rounds that should be able to penetrate the armour because of calibre/weight and muzzle velocity but fail to penetrate because the rounds shatter on impact?

That and the biggest problem for Soviet AP shells exploding in-between the late42/43 PIII spaced forward armour.

[ October 27, 2002, 06:26 PM: Message edited by: Bastables ]

[Sig]

Originally posted by Henri:

(snip)

Although this is pure speculation, I supect that the programmers slanted the German chances somewhat to avoid the screams of outrage from players who favor the Germans (by far the majority of players). (snip)

Henri

Hello,

After following these forums for a few years, and having developped (I think) a pretty good idea/feeling of how BTS/BFC works and thinks their products, I would like to say that indeed this is pure speculation.

Sig

[Nippy]

Originally posted by Sig:

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

(snip)

Although this is pure speculation, I supect that the programmers slanted the German chances somewhat to avoid the screams of outrage from players who favor the Germans (by far the majority of players). (snip)

Henri

Hello,

After following these forums for a few years, and having developped (I think) a pretty good idea/feeling of how BTS/BFC works and thinks their products, I would like to say that indeed this is pure speculation.

Sig</font>

[CombinedArms]

Originally posted by Nippy:

I agree with Sig on this. Is it even possable for the human mind to count the number of "My Tiger/Panther died! This game is broken!" threads that popped up when CMBO came out?

I completely agree that, in both CMBO and CMBB, BTS is simply trying to render the actual AP performance of guns vs tank armor as accurately as possible. But what puzzles me is that while in CMBO the results of Shermans vs. Panthers and Tigers is accurately predicted by the penetration charts, in this case there seems to be considerable disparity between the charts and the actual AP performance. If anything, the Sherman numbers look BETTER on the CMBB charts than they did in CMBO, but the actual Sherman 75 performance seems worse. On the other hand, the predictions when you directly check a shot vs. another tank seem pretty accurate. I'm not sure what the rationale for this schism might be. If the AP rounds themselves were defective, couldn't that be factored into the penetration charts? Maybe we should actually ask BTS?

[ October 27, 2002, 08:19 PM: Message edited by: CombinedArms ]

[Andrew H.]

Originally posted by Henri:

I observed an even worse situation with JS2's, SU-122's andSU-152's against Tigers and Panthers. In the Jaegermeister scenario, a half-dozen of the German tanks knocked out about a dozen of the above without losing a single tank.Now it is true that the Germans in general had superior optics and initially better-trained crews and communications. But this should not make a major difference at distances of 500-800 meters.Seeing the shell from s SU-152 bounce off a Tiger at those distances a couple of times in a row does not spell realism to me.

Although this is pure speculation, I supect that the programmers slanted the German chances somewhat to avoid the screams of outrage from players who favor the Germans (by far the majority of players).So far I have won easily all of the German scenarios I have played and had my butt kicked to kingdom come when I play the Soviets. Of course I have not played them all...

Henri

Henri

According to the russian battlefield site, in the first encounters between the Panther and the JS-2, the JS-2 could only penetrate the Panther's front at ranges of 600-700 meters; a Tiger 1 could be penetrated out to 1200 meters. In later '44, when Panther's armor became more brittle (due to manufacturing constraints and raw materials shortages), the JS-2 had much better effective penetration.

[Warren Peace]

I don't think your results are typical. I just set up a scenario where I had 9 t34 (late 43) battle 9 pzIIIM's. Battle ended after three turns with 8 PzIII destroyed against 1 t34. Initial range was 600 Meters.

Seems about right to me!

Warren

PS All crews were regular

[ October 27, 2002, 10:05 PM: Message edited by: Warren Peace ]

[White Phosphorus]

Does the game account for turret shapes? Looking at the 34, it looks like about 50% of incoming shots should be landing at the sides of the turret at odd angles, rather than the vulnerable front. The problem might be that the game does not see the intricacies of T-34's sloped armor.

[CombinedArms]

Originally posted by Warren Peace:

I don't think your results are typical. I just set up a scenario where I had 9 t34 (late 43) battle 9 pzIIIM's. Battle ended after three turns with 8 PzIII destroyed against 1 t34. Initial range was 600 Meters.

Seems about right to me!

Warren

PS All crews were regular

I've been doing some further tests on T-34s vs PzIIIs and actually got quite similar results to yours. Original distance 500m. There were twelve one-on-one battles with rows of woods separating each set of paired off tanks--terrain was flat and open with "fields" three tiles wide, so no room for manuever. I didn't give the tanks any orders--just let them fight, but played hotseat so I could monitor details of the battle from both sides. The net result was 10 PzIIIs killed, and two T-34s killed. Nine were T-34/76s, and I threw in 3 T-34/85s for comparison. A couple of the PzIIIs had a couple of tungsten rounds each, and these achieved both the T-34 kills, but once "t" rounds are expended, the PzIIIs were pretty helpless vs T-34s. Two PzIIIs were almost instantly killed by T-34/85s, but one of the PzIIIs facing a T-34/85 had tungsten and he achieved a preemptive kill. So the T-34/76s had a 8-1 kill ratio vs PzIIIs, just the same as Warren Peace's. It took four turns for all of these tanks to kill each other off. They don't kill each other easily (except for T-34/85s or Pz III's with t rounds.)

One lesson I derive from this is that T-34 commanders should not get too easily discouraged--which is what's been happening to me! The PzIIIs might score some early kills because of rare tungsten, but those rounds won't be in all tanks and will be soon expended and after that your surviving t-34s should be able to chew the remaining Pz-IIIs to death. (BTW, some T-34s also had tungsten. They fired these rounds less readily--for PzIIIs it was the first round out of the gun-- but when fired they were effective at killing the PzIIIs.)

[ October 28, 2002, 10:09 AM: Message edited by: CombinedArms ]

[MikeyD]

The PzIII and Stug was regularly updated (hence, all the versions in the game) specifically with the T34-76 in mind, so it should be no surprise to find these vehicles becoming more and more impervious to the T34-76 as time goes on.

A similar thing happened with that Czech light tank. watzit called, the Cz38T? I constructed a balanced scenario Cz38T(A) models vs BT fast tanks. Substitute the (A) model for the uparmnored (D) model and the scenario's all thrown out of whack. The BT's 45mm gun can't penetrate the Czech tank anymore! That's what makes an arms race.

[CombinedArms]

Originally posted by MikeyD:

The PzIII and Stug was regularly updated (hence, all the versions in the game) specifically with the T34-76 in mind, so it should be no surprise to find these vehicles becoming more and more impervious to the T34-76 as time goes on.

.... That's what makes an arms race.

BTW, in my tests I was using late model PzIIIN's IIRC, which were all that were available since I was also trying to get T-34/85s. I'm not an expert on PzIII modification history--it could be that earlier models were much more vulnerable--and the tungsten rounds were probably added to give the PzIIIs some chance vs. T-34s.

[Guest Mike]

Somethign to remember about the Rusian 76mm is that it is firing blunt nosed AP ammo - this is better than sharp nosed ammo vs sloped armour, but appreciably worse vs flat plate such as your typical Pz 3!!!

[jgdpzr]

Originally posted by CombinedArms:

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

The PzIII and Stug was regularly updated (hence, all the versions in the game) specifically with the T34-76 in mind, so it should be no surprise to find these vehicles becoming more and more impervious to the T34-76 as time goes on.

.... That's what makes an arms race.

BTW, in my tests I was using late model PzIIIN's IIRC, which were all that were available since I was also trying to get T-34/85s. I'm not an expert on PzIII modification history--it could be that earlier models were much more vulnerable--and the tungsten rounds were probably added to give the PzIIIs some chance vs. T-34s.</font>

[Silvio Manuel]

The manual sez on p.118 how the Russian ammo switched from flat AP shells to ballistic capped APBC in '44 but I can't see any evidence of this in the game. Anyone know for sure? That should make a big difference in AT performance.

[CombinedArms]

Originally posted by jgdpzr:

Are you sure you weren't using the PzIIIM, instead of the N? The reason I ask is that there was no tungsten round (that I'm aware of) for the 75L/24, just APCBC and hollow charge. The 50L/60 of the PzIIIM, on the other hand, did have tungsten. Also, the N didn't have a spaced armour mantlet like the M, so it's frontal protection was not as effective, at least on the turret. Pardon this pedantic post if you meant to say 'M.'

You are quite right! It was the Pz IIIM, not the N, (hard to read the difference on my CM screen) and I think I became confused. An important difference--definitely groggish but not snobbish.

Anyway, while I was checking I decided to run my test again and this time the results were even better for the t-34. After 4 turns:

9 Pz IIIs dead

2 Pz IIIs broken/panicked (one backed clean off the board)

1 Pz III OK

0 T-34s dead

12 T-34s OK

One T-34 suffered a crew casualty and was broken and hiding in the trees for most of the battle, but he recovered by the end and was starting to think about combat. His opponent was the single OK Pz III.

A couple of notes:

PzIIIs generally popped smoke quite early if not immediately killed, so the T-34's only fired when smoke cleared.

The range started at 500m but gradually opened as PzIIIs backed away.

In many cases it took all 4 turns to resolve a combat, and in fact two were as yet unfinished. These tanks don't kill each other easily, though the T-34 has the clear upper hand. This time even the t-34/85s took some time to get their kills.

If you're commanding Pz IIIs vs T-34s, my advice would be that you have a good chance to survive a single shot, but you won't likely win a stand off duel at 500-700m,so back away and manuever for the flanks.

[CombinedArms]

Oops! Double post....

[ October 29, 2002, 08:20 AM: Message edited by: CombinedArms ]

[Amedeo]

For what concernes the supposed discrepancies of 76.2mm tank guns aganist late Pz-III versions, there are also other factors to take into account, other than APBC performance vs. vertical armour (that is, indeed, worse respect to regular AP).

The other factors are the poorer performance of uncapped rounds vs. face hardened armour a, the T/D ratio that vs 80mm of armour rises over 1 fo the 7.62mm gun.

The numbers listed on the info chart are 'average' and do not take into accunt factors like FH and T/D ratio, factors that are computed into the game engine.

Regarding the introduction of APBC rounds, well, it's not as the manual says. Some guns, correctly, starte with APBC ammo from 1941, others, like the 100mm and 152mm guns, never use it, others again, like the 122mm one, has it by August 1944 (while it seems that actual DOI could have been Winter 44/45).

Regards,

Amedeo

P.S. German reports says that with the advent of Panzers armed with the long 75mm AND 50mm, the T-34s no more ruled the battlefield. So, to me, it seems correct that the advantage switches to Germany until something like the T-34-85 comes to redress the balance in the field of medium tanks. What I'm still wondering about is the performance of _early_ war Pz-IIIs and Pz-IVs.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Sig:

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

(snip)

Although this is pure speculation, I supect that the programmers slanted the German chances somewhat to avoid the screams of outrage from players who favor the Germans (by far the majority of players). (snip)

Henri

Hello,

After following these forums for a few years, and having developped (I think) a pretty good idea/feeling of how BTS/BFC works and thinks their products, I would like to say that indeed this is pure speculation.

Sig</font>

[Andreas]

On the topic at hand - I very well remember one of my first CMBB TCP games when beta-testing. 800 pt ME. I had a platoon T34/85, my opponent 5 late Panzer III (N, or somefink). It was not even a contest. We rolled onto each other on the smallish map and got into a frontal slug-out. I had one T34 immobilised by a 20mm AA gun, and turret penetrated for a crew casualty by a 50L60. The other two T34 made mince-meat of his Panzer IIIs. There was a reason the Soviets put the 85mm gun into the T34.