Patch?

[Dog Soldier]

This is a great analysis in this thread, but one huge consideration, IMHO, is that in actual game play as in historical reality, the Quality and Morale functions of the game should (and do) trump pure ballistics.

Tigers & 88mm Flak guns, when handled historically in the number of games I have experienced PBEM here since the game was released, can do a lot of damage to even a full brigade of Soviet tanks. PzIVs & PzIIIs used in cooperation with the Tigers, 88mm, 75mm, 50mm ATG make a formidable force for Soviet players to overcome.

The concept I am illustrating is, that over time, say two to three turns, the 'C' & 'D' quality of a Soviet tank brigade degrades considerably in heavy action against the 'A' quality Axis armor and ATG assets to 'D', 'E' & 'F'. Axis units degrade to 'B' and only over extended time to 'C'. This results in the Soviets having a a steeper grade to climb to victory. Using quantity to replace the quickly fatigued and damaged (through destroyed tanks) units is a more difficult task in actual game play under the current system than one would think form the posts in this and other threads. Suggesting that the powerful Axis AT tank & assets be even more deadly seems to tip the scales too much in the Axis favor to my thinking.

A lot of analysis I am seeing is quite good and valid, but confined to only the first turn of contact. It has been my experience of trying to keep a Soviet tank force viable over the length of four to five intense combat turns is already a very difficult task already.

Anyone who wants to try out their ideas or just plain show me the 'light' can take the Soviet side in any scenario where there is significant tank fighting. I will demonstrate what I am seeing as a German commander.

These scenarios on July 6, 1943 in the II SS Panzer Korps sector will demonstrate my point of the power of the German panzers in the game.
#0706_01 II SS PzK - July 6: Breakthrough!
#0706_04 Nechaevka - Das Reich's Full Force
#0706_07 Nepkhaevo - The Meeting Engagement
#0706_06 Ozerovskii - Hurrah!! Counterattack Comrades!!

Of these Ozerovskii is a really intense experience with both sides having opportunities to attack and defend in the scenario. It appears quite balanced, IMHO under the current game mechanics.

#0705_08 Cemetery - Where the Panthers come to die
This scenario is a good example of how the Panthers with their lower 'C' quality perform compared to the 'A' quality SS panzers. The 'C' quality rating is for not just the 'teething pains' of the new Panther design, but also for the inexperience of the crews with the new machine.

#0708_01 Voronezh Front - July 8: While the Cats Away...
#0712_02 Hill 252_2 - Avalanche
These two scenarios will show the difficulties Soviets players have even on the attack with overwhelming numbers of tanks versus the current German ATG and panzers.

Pick any of these scenarios. We will play with default optional rules. I will play the Germans to demonstrate my POV on the current game. The German armor is very deadly.
Prove me wrong and pick up a ladder victory! At the very least, such actual HTH PBEM game results are very informative to Strela as he works on the first patch.

Dog Soldier

[Jeff Conner]

Gentlemen

Do not forget that there is a lot of abstraction going on here. You do not have to have to have hull penetration at this level for it to be an actual loss. A mobility kill would still be a kill. Spalling from a non-penetrating hit could cause a kill, especially on a tank with poor morale. There are lots of reasons why a tank that gets hit might not continue the fight, which is what a loss at this level represents. You also have to take into account that there are no flanks in this game. Consequently, you can't determine if your are shooting at the front facing at an angle (worst case) or the rear, straight on (best case) or even the top. In theory, the target values and hard attack vales take all of this into account and gives us a simple value to use.

My rational for suggesting that the range attenuation be based on the maximum range of the weapon rather than a flat value probably has more to do with the time I spent as a firearms instructor rather than anything else, but I do think you should reward those weapons that were inherently more accurate and had better optics and stability. I can't understand why Tiller thought that all weapons should degrade at the same rate and it makes some weapons, like infantry guns, rather useless.

Just my penny and a half.

Jeff

[ComradeP]

Bayes: ah yes, it seems I was mixing the tables by you and Strela up as in your example N is firing range whilst in Strela's table it's the range modifier. I thought you meant that N was the range modifier in your example though, even though you called it firing range.

Dog Soldier: you illustrate the problems of balancing a game with such varied scenarios. "0712_02: Hill 252_2" and "0708_01: Voronezh Front - July 8th" have the Soviets either attacking a strong defensive position with limited armour or with spread out and depleted forces. In the second scenario, the Germans also have very strong air units that can kill the weakened tank companies in 1 attack run.

One thing I don't understand about "0712_02: Hill 252_2" is that in the Prokhorovka scenario on the same date, the Soviets have an additional Tank brigade as well as significant infantry forces and artillery north of the German positions which are not included in the scenario. The Germans, on the other hand, have all of the defenders in that sector at their disposal.

As with any shorter scenario with numerous Fixed units, the Soviets are also far more limited in their strategic options than in a longer scenario where they might deeply their forces more freely (such as in 0706_06 Ozerovskii, if they get the chance to do so).

I would still say 0706_07: Nepkhaevo illustrates the problem of the Germans not being able to kill Soviet tanks quickly enough in a tank vs. tank engagement. If you had at your disposal an additional Tank brigade, or even a battalion of additional T-34's, it would've been far more difficult for me to win, if not impossible.

0706_04: Nechaevka is another example of different starting conditions in a larger scenario making the situation at the start of what would be a shorter scenario (Nepkhaevo) quite different. In Nechaevka, the Germans have dozens of additional tanks, both in the Panzer regiment itself and in the Panzerjaeger unit (which mainly consists of T-34's), StuGs and strong air support.

The Soviets in Nepkhaevo are Fixed until 19:00. The Soviets also have some additional tank forces, but those are D quality and likely to suffer a few breakdowns before they get to Nepkhaevo. Even if they do get there, they still can't coordinate with the Guards Tank Brigade as it's Fixed. The numerous Soviet AT assets can reliably be taken care of by German infantry and artillery. Soviet artillery support is minimal.

In a purely tank vs. tank battle with the Soviets (with good tanks) outnumbering the Germans, without there being German infantry or AT assets to act as tripwires or to keep the Soviets busy, the Germans have a much more difficult time than in a situation where they do have AT and infantry assets to support the tanks. That is logical in away, and the same situation applies to the Soviets to a lesser extent (as in: the Soviets also have a greater chance to hold their positions if they have AT and infantry with tanks in support). Historically, instances where the Soviets had strong AT and infantry positions were more difficult for the Germans to overcome than instances where the Soviets outnumbered them with tanks up until 1.5:1-2:1 odds in numbers of tanks used.

[Strela]

One thing I don't understand about "0712_02: Hill 252_2" is that in the Prokhorovka scenario on the same date, the Soviets have an additional Tank brigade as well as significant infantry forces and artillery north of the German positions which are not included in the scenario. The Germans, on the other hand, have all of the defenders in that sector at their disposal.

That's because those forces to the north headed west down the valley to try and take the bridges Totenkopf was using, not to hit the left wing of Leibstandarte.

0712_02 only includes the forces that actually fought on the hill.

David

[ComradeP]

I guessed that might've been what happened. A lot of units moving and attacking along a 1 to 2 kilometre wide section of the front.

In small scenarios where the attacker loses some of the units historically in the area to a historical counterattack elsewhere can make things easier for the defender, as in the case of this scenario the Germans can pretend not to have a flank in the north and west that they would normally also need to protect.

[Richie61]

I can't understand why Tiller thought that all weapons should degrade at the same rate and it makes some weapons, like infantry guns, rather useless.

I thought he did this to reflect ammo supplies. I have been against the weapon systems degrading since
I came into SB.

[Volcano Man]

I have been lurking and I just want to pop my head up for a moment to add something here (since historical loss rates were mentioned):

When we talk about historical losses, what we have to remember is that at this scale you CANNOT take the losses of what happens in a few turns and then say 'this is what would happen over X number of turns in a single day * Y number of days = non-historically high loss rates'. IMO, this mentality should be left at a higher scale (like PzC) because the problem with this at the tactical level is that in armor combat, your situation directly determines the tempo of the battle. At the tactical level you could burn up your formations in minutes, so historical losses cannot be taken into much account unless you are erroneously trying to diminish results in order to spread it across a set amount of time (ie. factoring in the strategic situation). In reality a tank battle's intensity is decided at any given moment and thus, the long term historical loss rates are irrelevant. A poor tactical decision will result in the battle being over in minutes, and high levels of losses should cause the attacker to fall back and regroup rather than parking adjacent and expecting to slug it out for X turns - the tempo, violence and intensity is at the tactical commander's discretion and directly depends on how he utilizes and commits his forces.

For example, in a well orchestrated defense a platoon of modern M1A1 tanks can completely destroy a soviet T-72 tank company in (literally) a matter of 10 minutes, but they couldn't do this for 10 minutes all day. Just because they destroyed 10 soviet tanks in 10 minutes does not mean they will destroy 1,400 tanks in a day.

Of course someone will say that my example is too modern, but the point is that tactical battles can be violent in a short period of time, then friendly losses, fatigue, supply, the presence of enemy, movement, etc all plays into the rest of the time spent. And besides, the quality vs. quantity difference is very similar to some of WW2's late war match ups (3:1 and 4:1 situations).

So, taking this to a WW2 situation, a platoon of Tiger tanks could literally destroy a company of T-34s in 10 to 30 minutes, this would not be unheard of. This might seem like excessively high losses, but what is important is that both sides have to cooperate in this situation. In reality, and this is something that the tactical game player must learn, the intensity of the losses being inflicted upon him should cause his tactics to change. If he is met with intense fire then maybe he should hold off on his "balls out" en masse tank assault for the moment, and instead pull back and continue to use artillery, air support, and infantry support before sending in the tank force. Imagine the tanks as a hammer that decide the situation, and if you pull the trigger too soon then they will be spent quickly. Most tactical level battles involve a lot of preparation and waiting, reconnoitering and infantry attacks, then 15 to 45 minutes of terror where the entire situation is usually decided in moments.

Anyway, what we expect though is that if five turns into a 12 turn scenario the Russians have lost half a battalion of tanks then this is somehow incorrect because it means they would a-historically suffer 200,000 tank losses in a week. In reality though, and this is my point, these tactical battles occur in bursts of intensity -- and if a bonehead tactical commander commits his force to get it annihilated in three turns of a 12 turn scenario then that is his own mistake. Thus, the problem is that if you factor in loss rates at the tactical level then you invariably end up with a situation where both sides MUST sit adjacent to each other and blast away for the full amount of turns to meet the drawn out loss rate, and that is when the tactical level game begins to break down.

Not sure if any of this makes sense, and I am not criticizing here -- I am just saying that "historical loss rates" at the tactical level should be mostly irrelevant and I would be very cautious about taking them into account because it more or less ties the tempo a tactical game to the a long battle and stretches out the casualty rate to fit the amount of time available, sort of putting it on rails and making it indecisive. Of course you don't want extremely excessive losses rates either, just saying that it must be taken with a pound of salt. If anything, maybe the turn limit for most tactical battles should be shorter if losses are so high that the battle is decided in shorter amounts of time - just saying.

Just my two pesos. ;)

edited: typos/clarifications

[Volcano Man]

Sorry, I had to reword my post quite heavily -- lots of typos and clarifications had to be made. (I quickly typed the original while mutli-tasking.) :(

[ComradeP]

I guess that's where we disagree to a certain extent Volcano Man.

Tank losses in tank vs. tank combat shouldn't be like the losses in tactical games like Steel Panthers, Combat Mission or Panzer Command, but they do need to be higher for units that can fight less effectively than their attacker to allow for a situation where the defender has a credible chance when outnumbered in a tank vs. tank fight.

It's important to keep in mind that this isn't a WEGO system, but IGOUGO. That means that there's a phase of the turn where one of the sides can only rely on automated rolls and can't act.

Currently, the (effective) volume of fire generated by opportunity fire is low, which means enemy tank units can close in at a rate that would not be possible historically without taking serious losses. In your example, if that Tiger platoon facing the T-34's would be second to act, it might very well take losses from T-34's moving close to them while the Tigers can't act in a fully responsive manner.

Relative to the amount of fire, movement is rapid. Your men ignore their personal safety, they will happily charge into a hopeless situation and as you have full control over all your units and always know where they are, you can always maximize the effects of a breakthrough.

Combine the limited amount of (effective) opportunity fire, advantages given to an attacker by the IGOUGO system and the rapid advances with:

-the limited edge quality currently gives.
-the inability to coordinate air operations with ground operations because air operations require 1 turn of preparation, can only target known enemy units and thus won't hit anything if the other player moves his units during his next turn.
-being able to manually select targets and concentrate your fire, instead of spreading it out to deal with all the threats on the battlefield.
-the ability to fully screen an attacking force with smoke.

and you get a system that is currently not yet as good as it could be at modelling tank vs. tank combat in a situation where one side significantly outnumbers the other, but not in a way that would historically be likely to result in serious losses for the numerically weaker side.

Your comment about units not being able to perform at full capacity is very true, but a fatigue model is in place to model that and I'd say that's the part of the combat system that works fairly well (although depending on the amount of fire that is concentrated on a unit, units sometimes become fatigued in 1 or 2 turns).

[Volcano Man]

Actually, I don't see how anything you typed was contrary or in disagreement with what I wrote. All I was saying is that historical losses shouldn't be taken into too much account the lower scale/level that you go, because the player(commander) determines the intensity of the battle at the tactical level, rather than stretching the results to equate to the historical losses by the end of the scenario. Translation: in just a few turns, "very bloodly results" (high losses) at the tactical level shouldn't necessarily equate to "a-historical losses at the higher scale". Nothing about opportunity fire per-se.

That said, yes, opportunity fire is tricky at the tactical level because units can move so quickly (very long distances) in one turn. The answer there might be to double or triple the effectiveness of opportunity fire or just have a higher abundance of opportunity fire in general. Alternatively, opportunity fire could sap a small amount of Movement Points from the moving unit(s), to represent them reacting to it, getting detracted by it (buttoning up, calling it out, taking cover from it, etc.) thus slowing down their overall movement the more they are shot at, or you introduce Pinned effects. There are several ways to skin that cat, so to speak, but this is something I wasn't necessarily referring to in the previous post. ;)