Troop Quality in preferences

[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

[Charles22]

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.

Yes, I know they did, but not because it was effective. The early war guns were always put on light AFV's after they became failures elsewhere. The reason being because they were useless for any role with mediums and heavies (If you can call the KV the replacement for the T35 or T28, then it wouldn't adopt the 45mm - though I think there were a few like that before they found out better). When I say they weren't used anymore, what I really meant is they weren't used with the same sort of units they had been originally intended for, therefore admitting they were all but useless for that role. It's the same reason you would put nothing but one or more MG's on light tanks and AC's because those guns were useless on mediums and heavies as the main gun. I guess you could say the light AFV's were the bottom of the barrel and always got the rejects, but, then again, most light AFV's couldn't handle the larger guns if they tried (apart from major modifications such as turning a light tank into a self-propelled gun like a Marder).

[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.

[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:

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