Tank combat discussion/suggestions for improvement

[ComradeP]

Tank combat in this case refers to combat involving tanks either as the firing unit or the target, so it also applies to guns or other non-tank units firing at tanks.

Now that we've had a bit over a year to play with the new engine, and have recent experience with the tournament, it might be a good idea to think about how tank combat can be improved.

Personally, I feel tank combat is one of the weakest parts of the current engine, primarily as a result of the mechanics being ported over directly from PzC.

As the mechanics are the same, tank combat also had its flaws in PzC, but there they could be concealed within a larger scenario lasting several days, weeks or months, with the ability to regain strength.

The main reason tank combat feels "slow" and the opposite of what usually happens in tactical games (where it's probably too violent) is that tank losses are decided by a die roll, and that tank units more or less fire as a single tank. You'll rarely inflict more than 1 loss per turn for a unit with ~10 tanks.

Keeping in mind that turns are 30 minutes per turn, it's a very low loss rate. Tank losses at the end of a scenario can be more or less accurate depending on how the game went, but getting to that point often requires committing tanks to tank vs. tank combat for far longer than would historically have been the case, or knocking out tanks through infantry assaults or artillery fire. I often attack tanks with both infantry and my own AFV's as it's a bit faster, though not very historical (real infantrymen would be less enthusiastic about crossing an open field to assault a tank with handheld AT explosives).

Having to spend more time dealing with tanks than you would historically also means that the pace of your advance slows down, sometimes considerably.

As a recent comparison: even though my tanks in Das Reich's Panzer battalion outnumbered the D quality separate tank battalion about 4 to 1 after the initial Stuka strikes, actually knocking out most of the rest of the battalion took a significant number of turns, often with just 1 or 2 T-34's actually being lost per turn.

Knowing I'll be facing two Tank Corps in Ozerovskii, that doesn't bode well and at the moment I'm not too sure Ozerovskii will be a pleasant experience, as my tank loss rate is likely to be significantly higher than the historical loss rate for July 6th against a good Soviet opponent.

The main culprit for the lack of effectiveness of the German armour, is the PanzerIIIm's weak HA value. Though in most tactical games (and also war time tests) the penetration of the 5cm KwK 39 L/60 was comparable to that of the F-34 on the T-34 at about 500 meters, using regular AP ammunition, in the game the HA values are presumably (and this is purely a guess on my end) based on penetration at various ranges and lethality of the shell. As there are no penetration values for a certain range (and whether you lose a tank or not is decided by a die roll with no direct relation to the number of tanks or the volume of fire), there is also no hard cap that makes knocking out an enemy tank impossible at a certain range.

Obviously, the T-34's armour is sloped whilst the armour of a Panzer IIIm isn't, but the T-34's actual armour thickness is about 45mm and early war Soviet ammunition could be brittle when fired at armour as used by the Germans (armour thickness comes just from the thickness of the actual armour, there being no slope). At around 500 meters, the F-34 could already have issues with the frontal hull armour of the StuG IIIg or Panzer IVg.

The Panzer IIIm, with a HA of just 12, faces T-34's with a defence value of 18. There is no accounting for engagement ranges, so the Panzer IIIm performs poorly at any range. The chance of knocking out a single T-34 with a 10 tank A quality Panzer IIIm unit isn't very high. Without running a test run but based on experience, I'd guess it's about 25%, maybe 33%, per shot at range 1 (so when adjacent to a T-34, engagement range being 250 meters). Due to the variability inherent in the loss being based on a die roll, and statistical averages being more likely to happen over time, you could very well knock out a T-34 with every shot in a short game, but that is not common.

As the T-34 has a HA of 17 against your defence value of 10, you're likely to lose a Panzer IIIm when the T-34 unit fires. A 10 vs 10 duel isn't something you're likely to win as the Germans, and even if you win, your tank unit will be in a sore shape.

You could say reload time, better crews and overall efficiency favouring the Panzer IIIm are factored into the quality, but the problem with percentage bonuses is that they favour units that already have a high value. Example: a 20% bonus for a unit with a HA of 12 gives a bonus of 2 for a HA of 14, the game usually rounding down as far as I know. A 20% bonus for a Panzer IVg with a HA of 26 gives a bonus of 5 for a HA of 31.

As all bonuses (quality, height, hard fire modifier) give percentage bonuses, the Panzer IIIm will always get the short end of the stick compared to other vehicles.

The low defence value of German tanks also means you're prone to losing some to artillery fire. In a recent Nechaevka turn, I lost 4 tanks to Soviet artillery fire and none of them were in an overstacked hex. Similar to how Stuka's sometimes suffer from ground AA fire, the low defence value of your tanks makes them vulnerable to any kind of fire. I also lost 2 StuGs to 1 hex HA fire from a single Guards Rifle platoon earlier.

I would say cutting the existing HA ranges in half (more or less) would be a good start as to making engagement ranges more realistic, and in the process the HA values of all tanks could possibly also be looked at again. The Panzer IVg's penetration at 500 meters would only be about 50% better than that of a Panzer IIIm for example, yet in the game it's over twice as good. The gap is, in my opinion, just too great for a game with this scale. Cutting engagement ranges and rebalancing HA values will hopefully make the relative quality of the various tanks more clear than it is now. The Panzer IIIm is simply a bad tank currently, whilst it was still capable in 1943.

The Panzer IIIm doesn't feel like the workhorse of the Panzerwaffe at the moment whilst since 1941 it had knocked out more T-34's by mid-1943 than the Panzer IV's did. In tactical wargames, the Panzer IIIm is an excellent weapon when properly used and when engagement ranges are less than 500 meters. With a veteran or elite crew, it has a significantly better rate of fire than the average T-34 in most cases, for example.

Tank combat as a whole feels a bit too uneventful currently, with tank units just banging away at eachother with limited loss each turn. There's often little excitement. It can be quite frustrating for the Germans in terms of the time it takes to remove even limited numbers of enemy tanks from open terrain. The edge the Germans still had in tank warfare isn't felt as much as it could be.

Of course, playing with Panzer IV's instead of Panzer III's is a night and day difference, and LSSAH's Panzer battalion is significantly more capable than its counterparts in Das Reich or Totenkopf (I'd go so far as saying it's as good as the other two combined, considering how weak the Panzer III's are currently).

I hope we can think of improvements that won't mean changing percentages, for the reasons mentioned above (that it reinforces high HA units instead of truly improving low HA units).

So, what do you guys think? What are your impressions on tank combat thus far?

[Strela]

ComradeP,

Thanks for your post. A couple of things are resonating for me here.

The first is that the PzKw III is under gunned. I'd have to defer to Ed on that but looking at the base numbers you mention it is all about the relative hard attack/defense values.

Looking at the hard attack value it's interesting to look at the following table;
http://www.panzerworld.com/armor-penetration-table



Currently there are 2 50mm guns that were mounted on the PzKw III. The first was the L/42 (on the F to J types) and the L/60 on the J1 to M variants. In game these are given a HA value of 10 vs 12.

If we use 500 metres as the base distance to compare the two guns using the PzGr 40 round, penetration increases from 55mm to 72mm - an improvement of ~31%. In game terms that would move a hard attack value of 10 to 13. This is not miles off the current 12.

If the PzGr 40/1 (tungsten?) round was available the overall value is ~38% or an imputed value of 14. The challenge here is that tungsten rounds were in short supply when compared to standard AP ammo.

Talking defence values; the J - M variants had 70mm armour on its forward facing surfaces (50mm base + 20mm applique). In game the defence value is either 10 or 11. I believe the 10 represents the 50mm so it could be argued that with the applique it should be closer to 14. This gels with the T-34 value of 18, which I believe comes from 45mm frontal armour sloped at 60 deg. So 45 mm at 60 degree = 45/cos60 = 90mm effective armor.

Finally this thread lays out Jentz's comments on the L/60 vs the T-34
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=133403

Paraphrasing;

There are several references in Jentz: "Panzertruppen" about the performance of the 5cm L/60 vs T34.

1. 31. july 1942 (p.241, vol. 1)
PzGr 38 was not effective against the hull front, though sometimes it managed to knock the dirvers hatch off. Lower hull side could be penetrated up to 500 meters, turret side and front and upper hull side up to 400 meters. PzGr 40 didn't work in the gun, so there is no data for that round. Later in the report, it is stated that the 5cm L/60 and 7,5cm L/43 guns have made the T-34 inferior to the German tanks whereas it previously was considered superior.

2. May 1942 (p. 231, vol.1)
PzGr penetrates up to 400 meter at hull and turret sides, at 300 meters from the front after several hits on the drivers hatch at 300 meters. PzGr 40 was defective and only fired at KV's

A "Panzerbeschusstafel" from March 1943 shows the range and areas which 5cm L/60 tank gunners should fire at vs the T-34 in order to be sure to achieve penetration:

- Turret front plate, 100 meters with PzGr 38 and 40
- Hull front, the narrow vertical part where upper and lower hull meets, 100 meters with PzGr 40
- Turret side, 600 meters with PzGr 38, 500 meters with PzGr 40
- Upper hull side, PzGr 38 500 meters, PzGr 40 400 meters
- Lower hull side, PzGr 38 1000 meters, PzGr 40 800 meters, but maximum range for the PzGr 40 was set to 600 meters
- Rear turret, PzGr 38 600 meters, PzGr 40 500 meters
- Rear hull, PzGr 38 and 40, 300 meters

So even though the front could be penetrated, the areas, the front turret plate and the narrow band on the hull front, were very small.

So it's a hard one to say that the PzKw III values are grossly understated and that it could go head to head with T-34's for any extended period of time.

The counter point here is that PzKw IV feels 'better' in game and maybe the PzKw II is reflecting some of the assertions above.


The second point that had me pondering is the rapidity of armour combat. I'm no expert on engagement times. My gut says you're right and engagements would be short and sharp. Any armour company losing 3 - 5 tanks (a platoon in size) would tend to break off contact if possible as the losses would quickly become prohibitive.

In play terms this essentially puts armour more as a 'one time' use weapon system. Be prepared to take excessive casualties when in play - so only use it at the critical point. To force casualties up it would be easy to increase the hard attack modifier while leaving defence values as is. This would make engagements sharper and more violent and would require a more careful introduction to the combat zone.

The only challenge I see with this approach is that players will ultimately end up with more casualties than historical due to them burning every unit out when engaged. That said there is an offset in the VP values for those additional lost vehicles.


Anyway, this is a good discussion that is as much about the 'feel' of the game as it is about the historical accuracy.

David

[ComradeP]

Penetration values for the L/60 were certainly not great, but in my opinion they were not so bad as they are in the game relative to the penetration values of other tanks.

Penetration comparisons can be difficult to make as it's not always mentioned at what angle a certain penetration in the table is achieved. It is also not always clear what criteria were used. 50% of the rounds penetrating several times in a row?, 75%? and so forth.

In order to decide how good a gun should be in the game, it would be helpful to establish what angle or range we're using as a base for comparison. To further a point made in the previous post: if the gun is rated for how good it is at longer ranges and the penetration drop rate for a certain distance travelled by the shell, we'll end up with the current situation where better guns seriously outperform their lesser counterparts at any range.

Effectiveness at a certain distance uses the range modifier, so in order for a tank to be effective at a long range, it has to have a high HA value. The problem with that is that in order for a tank to be effective out to (say) 4 hexes, it needs a high base HA value. This is the situation you have with the German tanks using 75mm or 88mm guns.

Penetration for the Panzer IV's L/43 and L/48 at 500 meters is often given as being about ~90 millimetres or so, with the L/43 being slightly worse. In the game, they're over two times as good instead of a bit over 50%. Assuming we use effectiveness at a range of 500 meters as standard (which, for the period, would make sense), a Panzer IVg would have a HA of about 20 or so at most, with a slight increase to allow it to sometimes take out tanks at 4 hexes.

German 50mm and 75mm AT guns had longer shells/bigger charges than their tank gun counterparts, so that explains why they're better (although the 6 point difference between the PaK 40 and the 75mm tank guns feels like it's a bit much).

I'm just not sure where that huge jump in HA value comes from, comparing the Panzer IIIm to other tanks. As mentioned in the previous post, the Soviets found the F-34 had somewhat better penetration values at 500 meter compared to the L/60, but the T-34 has a 5 point higher HA. The Panzer IIIm's gun wasn't that hot, but neither was the F-34, which also didn't commonly have tungsten rounds at this point.

Being able to penetrate the frontal armour of a tank gives a significant advantage, but rate of fire and accuracy are just as important. The Panzer IIIm, as a weapon system, is superior in those categories to the T-34. The T-34 is also a fairly long tank, a meter longer than a Panzer IIIm, with the added length in practical terms coming from the sloped frontal armour.

If you're facing 10 T-34's with 10 Panzer IIIm's, one of the T-34's facing one Panzer IIIm means it's not facing 9 others. That's how you can knock out tanks with heavier armour with early war German tanks in tactical wargames: you aim for the side of a tank that's not facing you (Allied and Soviet medium and heavy tanks can be fairly bulky in appearance) and use superior accuracy and rate of fire to deal with them.

Not being strong doesn't automatically mean you're weak, but in Panzer Battles it currently does, which is a problem for the Panzer IIIm.

The percentage bonuses favouring stronger tanks or guns leads to situations where Tigers, Panthers or PaK 40's on a hill fire with a notably higher chance of taking out an enemy tank with the new height modifier, the Panzer IV's and T-34's also benefit from it but to a lesser extent. PaK 38's and Panzer IIIm's much less so.

A problem with increasing the hard attack modifier is that it would apply to all hard attacks, so the boys in the bunkers would also suddenly be in a world of hurt, and the same goes for other vehicles (including hard halftracks, which would be a problem for the Germans and in Panzer Battles 2 also for the Allies). It would also mean anything, from MG platoons to actual tanks, gets more kills against hard targets.

I was wondering if it was possible to make the check for whether a vehicle is lost 5 men instead instead of 10, with the vehicles still representing 10 means for stacking purposes. Ideally, that number would only be applied to tanks or guns firing at tanks, otherwise artillery and infantry would get far more tank kills as well.

Another problem with any possible measure to make tank battles more deadly is that it further favours getting the first shot in and would make the relative lack of opportunity fire more painful for the defender, although the opportunity fire that does happen being more deadly might be enough to counter that.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting that the Panzer IIIm should be significantly better than it is now. I'm suggesting that the significant differences in HA values might be less suitable for this scale than they were in PzC, that engagement ranges could be lowered to allow for them to be more realistic, and that within those more limited ranges tanks would have one or more hexes where tank fire is good with the effectiveness dropping afterwards. Even if the Panzer IIIm is only "good" against T-34's at 1 hex, that would already be a significant improvement.