Troop Quality in preferences

[narwan]

Charles22 said:Okay, obviously I took the first T38M1938 I saw and didn't know of the other (the one I took was buried deep enough as it was).

I did the same, the one with the extra 45mm appeared first (I have the PT version of the game which has some additional sorting features so the order in which they appeared in my encyclopedia might have been different from yours).

Charles22 said:
Despite it hitting less, I just can't get over the '40 T34 having a gun, that when it hits will smash every enemy AFV, and have the cream of the armor crop (aside from the KV series) and have all that speed, and still is the same encyclopedia price as the pretty much worthless PZIIIE (in the game the T34 would be closer to 50).

Think of it like this; the T34 1940 can kill the PZIIIE, but the PIVf2 can kill the T34 1940, and the PZIIIE can kill the PIVf2! So how to work out the pricing between these? Now add all the other units in the game to come to an as realistic as possible cost balance between all of these units for all of the time period covered by the game. The current cost structure is what you end up with.
The trick when playing is, and that's basically the whole issue of 'the art of war' is to find the right tool against the right enemy unit. Optimizing your own effectiveness and minimizing the enemies. Clearly you don't want to go head on with T34's if you've got PZIIIE's. Lure them into pak traps like rommel did...

Charles22 said:
Again, I just think the 45L66 is overated in punch (not that it's a T34 gun), and if it were doing so well I would have to wonder why the USSR wouldn't have kept just putting that on their AFV's as they were doing with the T35 and such early on.

They did. It become the standard weapon for their light tanks (T70, T50, T80). The multiturretting of the T35 was discontinued because it wasn't cost effective to produce and extremely hard to command during combat, so no secondary gun armaments anymore.

Narwan

[Smersh]

he's right in general the 45mm gun remained the standard anti-tank gun throughout the entire war.

[Nick_Hyle]

I'm not going to get into minutia, but the reason (in SPWW2) I played a lot of campaigns as the Germans, and damn few as the Soviets, is that it seemed a hell of a lot more challenging to play as the Germans. (And damn near a walkthrough as the Sovs.)

I haven't tried a campaign as the Sovs yet in WinSPWW2, but from battles, that's still my opinion.

I think it has to do with a combination of A) the calculator, B) the picklists, and C) the fact that a human can get synergies out of the German OOB that the AI just, IMHO, can't.

All opinion, no tabulated data to back it up, not going to dig any out either, peace.

[Smersh]

there are no Non-randomly generated campigns for you to play as the soviet union.

The problem with battles is that your always playing a fair game, where both sides "point-wise" (I don't think anything is wrong with the points system) are equal. If everything is equal I guess you could argue that the soviet union would have an advantage, but this is not what happened in reality.

I human created scenario or campign that takes into account historical conditions will be a much more challenging experiance.

here are some things you could do, which I assume most people don't do.
sure it would be a cake walk as the soviets if you use a ton of t-34s, JS tanks, big AT guns. In reality, for much of the war and in other areas during even the later periods everything was in short supply.
the su-76 gun carrier was the second most common afv after the t-34 during the war, try using this more often, instead of big assualt guns, and like I said the 45mm gun was the most common and standard at.
in the early war period, the t-34 and KV were exceptions. use bt tanks and t-26 tanks, and see if its still a cake walk.

[Mobhack]

The reason the Soviets have a "walk through" is the quality of the tanks, if you choose T34 or KV in 1941, less so in 42 as the Germans get hold of the 50L60 and especially long 75mm guns. The T34s armour suite is about eqiuivalent to a Sherman and the gun is much about the same too. So points will be about the same.

The Soviets just get these a bit earlier than the Germans.

The amswer, as a human player is to simply handicap yourself in the early period of the GPW to having mainly T26 and BT tanks. Then you wil have to use skill and finesse against the AI, as you would be doing as a German player with the panzer 3 on the other side.

The AI will tend to buy a historical mix, with the 34 and KV being balanced by a nuber of BT and t26 in 40-41.

Thinks.

The points calculation can only work on raw numbers. There is absolutely no way it can figure out that some armour suite or gun is the "M1 Abrams" for this month and year of the war. A matilda 2 in 40 is a beast, but in 44 it simply is not so. And in any case the calcultor cannot take date into account, as units can be available for long periods (like the Matilda say, if available in an OOB from 40 to 44).

So perhaps we might look at allocating more points for "super" armour in some way, by charging more for say side armour of 6 or more and maybe at 9/10 or more. As a sort of "WW2 special armour invulnerability bonus". or maybe by charging side and turret armour at twice value (the sides being larger slabs of steel lready get 1.5x costing). Some sort of tweak to armour costs over 5 or 6 cm probably.

That would tend favour the thin tin (like the P3 and p4 with 3-4 sides) a bit, and add to the matildas,valentines and t34 or better types with 6s and 8s on various faces.

So, perhaps we should charge a higher premium for armour in WW2 as steel was a more expensive commodity (plus engine power to drive it etc) than post WW2?. I will investigate this matter further, but the points are really about right, just may need a tweak.

Cheers
Andy

[serg3d]

Mobhack said:
The reason the Soviets have a "walk through" is the quality of the tanks, if you choose T34 or KV in 1941,
Andy

No. As I told ealier in this thread, I replaced KV with T35, T34 with T26/28 and it still walk through. Russian DSHKs suppress everything (especially uber 3-gun DHSKs), 57mm ATG in frontline and 88mm AA on the overwatch kill any german AI offence easily, russian squads with sniper rifles, DHSKs, OT-132 and artillery break through any german AI defence. The problem is not in any specific russian weapon, the problem AI should get compensation for its tactical shortcoming. AI need bonus points. Best of all ajustable per battle. I also tried to play russian with troop quality 35 versus german 70. Still russain win without serious problems.

[Charles22]

Smersh said:
he's right in general the 45mm gun remained the standard anti-tank gun throughout the entire war.

Oh yeah, just look at all of those T34's, KV's, and JS's that had them.

In that case we should get the 20L55 German gun another 4 or 5pts of anti-tank punch because it was used the whole war.

[Smersh]

Charles22 said:

Oh yeah, just look at all of those T34's, KV's, and JS's that had them.

sorry if I wasn't clear enough, the 45mm remained the standard stationary anti-tank gun. it was redesigned in 43 with new more powerful round, and remained in service as the standard at gun. yes of course, 85mm, and even the 100mm were supplements, to the increasingly obselete 45mm gun. but the 45mm remained the most common and on paper the "standard" at gun.
your correct medium tanks and heavy AFVs used larger calibere rounds.

and in my opinion the german 20mm gun is overpowered already, it has (from memory) a penetration of around 6.

[Charles22]

Smersh said:

sorry if I wasn't clear enough, the 45mm remained the standard stationary anti-tank gun. it was redesigned in 43 with new more powerful round, and remained in service as the standard at gun. yes of course, 85mm, and even the 100mm were supplements, to the increasingly obselete 45mm gun. but the 45mm remained the most common and on paper the "standard" at gun.
your correct medium tanks and heavy AFVs used larger calibere rounds.

and in my opinion the german 20mm gun is overpowered already, it has (from memory) a penetration of around 6.

No, it's not 6, Smersh. I stated earlier that it's AP round is stronger than ANY German round in '39. I only mention '39 with certainty because that's where i have campaigned and saw it). The best round they have has an AP punch of 5, and I suspect, correctly, that the 20L55 is a 4 or less (probably a 3).

It's good to see you clarified your view on the 45L66, but I think you will find that probably from '42 onwards that the 76mm gun was produced in considerably higher numbers even for ATG's (just guessing though).

[Mobhack]

The 45mm gun was issued at infantry batallion level, 3 to a platoon AFAIR. No 76mm issued to rifle bns, or even 57mm I think during WW2.

It was rather mobile, and could deal with Marders, halftracks and so on easily, any P3/4 or Panthers from the flanks.

It was used also as an infantry gun in the DF role, and to deal with bunkers.

The grunts would wheel it around to where it was required and blaze away.

Cheers
Andy