Panzer Battles 2 - The Official Teaser Thread

[Strela]

David: I should've checked it at range 1. I was trying to calculate it for range 3 (a range I randomly picked), where rounding through the range modifier made the result not match what I thought it should, based on the formula you used as well. The T-34's Fire effect is indeed only slightly higher, but it is higher.

As noted before, results gravitate to 1 vehicle loss results, which limits the effect of the quality modifier.

Seen from a historical perspective, the system currently includes the things that made the T-34 a good tank

-Speed.
-Decent firepower compared to 1943 medium German tank armour.
-Decent to good protection against the average German tank gun.

whilst abstracting or not including the things that made it perform worse on the battlefield than it should in 1943 based on those advantages:

-Smaller crews resulting in less efficiency when operating the tank. (The game doesn't include values for things like rate of fire, nor does it track crew quality after losses, which combined with Guards being C quality to differentiate them from regular tank units means neither side suffers from drops in unit quality after combat).
-Poor quality munitions, combined with mediocre gun sights resulting in a quick drop in performance at longer ranges. (As noted in my previous post, the range modifier is not modified by a value for guns performing better at longer ranges. One possibility might be to add a value to the database where designers can set a range for when the range modifier comes into effect, for example: for Panzer IV's it comes into effect at range 3 instead of 2 or something like that).
-Poor communications between tanks and tank units. (You could say this is abstracted into quality, but there were no significant differences in T-34 layout between Guards and non-Guard units in 1943 as far as I know)
-Inflexible tank doctrine. (The player decides the doctrine, as well as having full knowledge of where his tanks are and when they're used)

Generally speaking, the PzC/FWWC/PB system has difficulties with dealing with sides with poor communications, poor leaders or strict doctrine, presumably for gameplay reasons because there are only so many penalties that can be slapped onto units before it feels artificial, so it is usually limited to Fixing units in place, delayed arrivals, poor HQ quality or EP '14s way of treating units out of command range. It's perfectly understandable, but it can lead to situations where a side is not necessarily hampered by its historical problems, like the Soviets in Ozerovskii.

Considering that the T-34 is a better tank in terms of raw stats, without including quality modifiers, and knowing that the quality modifier combined with generally infrequent and ineffective opportunity fire won't be enough to counter it, a situation where the Soviets significantly outnumber the Germans is dangerous for the Germans.

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As I wrote when it was introduced, the hard fire mod has an effect on all hard fire, so on anything firing at vehicles (including infantry units and artillery) as well as units firing at bunkers, which means that in my opinion it can unbalance the scenario in situations where the Soviets have a lot of artillery, or rely on a bunker defense. Admittedly, this isn't much of a problem in Ozerovskii.

However, the effect has an effect on both sides, which doesn't necessarily favour the Germans. If the Germans mostly have to deal with Soviet tanks on the Soviet turn, when the Germans rely on opportunity fire, the Germans are likely to be the ones taking the higher losses first.

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Dog Soldier: assaulting with tanks currently mostly works because opportunity fire is so infrequent. If that would be balanced, those 25 tank stacks would be butchered before being able to assault. In my opinion, assaulting with tanks currently feels to much like using a less developed part of the system (opportunity fire) in your favour, even more so than cycling tank units around.

Besides, I'm not convinced it's more efficient than simply firing at the German tanks because you sacrifice 2 firing actions and possibly being able to move away if the assault disrupts your tanks for inflicting marginal losses. Panzer IV's also have an assault value of 13.

There's also still the matter of historical results, specifically historical loss rates. I recall reading that on the whole day of July 6th, LSSAH either lost or suffered damage to about 35 AFV's, only a handful of which were write-offs, including Marders and StuGs. I don't know what Das Reichs losses were, but I'd be surprised if they were significantly higher.

As noted in the briefing, the Guards lost about 100 tanks. The regular Tank Corps might not have performed much better.

Let's say the Germans lost about 70 tanks at Ozerovskii (noting that LSSAH's StuGs and Marders were not there) to around 200 Soviet ones, for a kill to loss ratio of about 2.5:1 - 3:1.

It is my assumption that regardless of what happens, this historical loss ratio currently is unlikely to be achieved between capable players for the tank vs. tank fight, as I have yet to see a situation where it can be achieved. In my best German turns against RickyB, I knocked out ~15 T-34's for a loss of 4 or so tanks of my own to return fire (and that's with smoke making sure only single tank companies can fire back), but the Soviets then knocked out 5-10 on their turn. Admittedly, my opportunity fire was rather lacking throughout the game.

The main reason for that as I see it is the Soviet ability to concentrate in a way that their historical counterparts didn't. Similarly, my tanks were always concentrated with both Panzer battalions: Das Reich's StuGs all in the same area to avoid having to deal with the tank corps with weaker forces.

I just lost a very clear and long post in answer to this............... 

Seriously - 2000+ words. I can't believe I lost it (and I don't have time to rewrite it)...




The short answer is there is a lot we can do and the team have tried a range of different things over the last six months including code changes.

My suggestion is try dropping the range attenuation down to somewhere between 1.05 and 1.1. That will make a huge difference in Kursk.

As far as esoteric values such as ammo, range finders etc, they are built into the range and hard/soft attack values. Compare a Sherman's 75mm at 18 HA and 8 range to a T34 43's 17 HA and 6 range. The range in particular reflects sights, crew and other factors. Morale is meant to represent training, experience and doctrine. Another point of comparison is the KV1 42 where the same 76mm gun  is 16 HA and 6 range. This again represents factors such as turret speed, overall manoeuvrability etc

Finally, there is an argument that's worth debating on the longevity of armour in battle. It could be argued that armies only committed their armour when there was either a clear advantage or an emergency. If it was viewed as more of a one 'use' weapon system due to the lethality of tank/anti-tank warfare play would be dramatically different. Players would only commit their armour when it truly mattered with the expectation of potential heavy losses. This could be achieved with the change to range attenuation mentioned above, increasing the lethality out towards maximum range and potentially also with the hard attack modifier. The issue with the hard attack modifier impacting bunkers is easy to fix with adjustment to bunker strengths in the parameter file and essentially other weapon systems like artillery or infantry based AT would just reinforce the fragile nature of armour.

All the above can be tested and I will try a few more tests to see what makes sense, but as highlighted you can create your own idea of 'reality'.

David

PS I still can't believe I lost that post - you all would have got a lot more insights!