[RERomine]

I was reading through and agree completely that StuGs and North Africa don't mix. It isn't that StuGs aren't good, but their limited rate of fire combined with their relatively low ammo stowage makes them unsuited for high armor environments. Even with good tank killing capability, the two liabilities I mentioned become a major factor. This, I learned the hard way. In Assaults, Advances and Meeting Engagements, they are fine. Your force is generally no worse than equal to the enemy, with some variations based on core experience.

Once you get into Delays and Defends, the enemy vastly outnumbers your force. This is where rate of fire and ammo supply comes into play. In North Africa, British armor is fairly inexpensive and you see them come in massive waves if you have it set as "AI Tank Heavy". I had one battle where I destroyed about 275 enemy vehicles. All my StuGs were running out of ammo and I was trying to rotate them off line to resupply. This is not something you want to have to do in the middle of a major battle. Once you start running into more expensive tanks, it becomes less of a problem. In North Africa, the 50mm guns on your tanks is fine until you start running into American Shermans.

My core was very expensive in that battle. I had a company of tanks and two companies of infantry, each supported by one platoon of StuGs. My overall solution to the problem was to replace the StuGs with Tigers, as it was 1/43. I'm not sure if they had any Tigers in North Africa, but I wasn't as focused on realism at that point. The Tigers solved the problem; better rate of fire and more ammo. StuGs might have been more realistic support for infantry, but the "AI Heavy Tank" setting tossed realistic opposition out the window.