Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #8

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funat
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #8

Post by funat »

kondi754 wrote: Thu Feb 07, 2019 9:22 am @Funat
Therefore, please suggest how we should compare different tanks of World War II
How do you see this? What parameters should we take into account and which factors should we reject to be fair?
Write, please, and I will make a comparison according to your scheme.
It's not up to me - I am not even claiming that this or that tank is the best - there are different contexts. One could be better in the desert, other in the cold, one in the mud, other on the road.
But I am not the one boldly claiming that T34 or Panther is the best tank, I am simply stating that you have to have normalised environment, like with any benchmark - that's why all those measurements in controlled environments in physics, chemistry, software, electronics.
Therefore - I AM claiming that exactly YOUR statistics - that YOU pulled out, ACTUALLY defeats your point. If Sherman was to be even equal with an average normalised representation of a German tank, losses should have been 20 to 1 or more, and not often 3 to 1 or 1 for 1. Infantry taking back tanks is nothing new, check a few Polish battles from 1939. German army, with kids and oldmen in its ranks, demoralised and without fuel, food, clothing or reserve parts cannot be compared with American army with everything available at the moments notice and with the full control of air.
Also - if you played US Corps, you know for yourself that with M4, still very underrated in games metrics to german cats - you still won your battles and had less losses thanks to overall numbers and air force. There's your environment.
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #8

Post by Retributarr »

funat wrote: Thu Feb 07, 2019 1:47 pm
kondi754 wrote: Thu Feb 07, 2019 9:22 am @Funat
Therefore, please suggest how we should compare different tanks of World War II
How do you see this? What parameters should we take into account and which factors should we reject to be fair?
Write, please, and I will make a comparison according to your scheme.
It's not up to me - I am not even claiming that this or that tank is the best - there are different contexts. One could be better in the desert, other in the cold, one in the mud, other on the road.
But I am not the one boldly claiming that T34 or Panther is the best tank, I am simply stating that you have to have normalised environment, like with any benchmark - that's why all those measurements in controlled environments in physics, chemistry, software, electronics.
Therefore - I AM claiming that exactly YOUR statistics - that YOU pulled out, ACTUALLY defeats your point. If Sherman was to be even equal with an average normalised representation of a German tank, losses should have been 20 to 1 or more, and not often 3 to 1 or 1 for 1. Infantry taking back tanks is nothing new, check a few Polish battles from 1939. German army, with kids and oldmen in its ranks, demoralised and without fuel, food, clothing or reserve parts cannot be compared with American army with everything available at the moments notice and with the full control of air.
Also - if you played US Corps, you know for yourself that with M4, still very underrated in games metrics to german cats - you still won your battles and had less losses thanks to overall numbers and air force. There's your environment.
Funat has merit in his argument'!!!. Just one point alone stand's out for me... "you still won your battles and had less losses thanks to overall numbers and air force."

I don't have the evidence/pertinent information at my fingertips at this moment, but from my observation of WWII film footage, I have noticed that the Americans in particular had a heavy presence of 'Typhoon' ground attack aircraft (Armed with missles, Armour-Piercing most likely)...which wreaked massive heavy destruction of the German Panzer's on the ground.

That being the case, instead of using Sherman Tanks, the Allies could have used the lowest caliber of Italian Tanks and have then achieved much the same end result in progress on the ground in WWII. Without the heavy Allied air dominance in the theatre' or substantive number's of these Typhoon-Ground-Attack-Aircraft...then "Funat's" remark..."If Sherman was to be even equal with an average normalised representation of a German tank, losses should have been 20 to 1 or more, and not often 3 to 1 or 1 for 1." ...has real merit!.

The German's had the same/similar advantage in their favour when they went into the low-countries and France.
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #8

Post by kondi754 »

It wasn't me who wrote that the US armored divisions were kicked several times in their ass in 1944 by Panzerwaffe, when I write that it is nonsense, you are throwing at me that the German divisions were composed of young boys and older men, tired and scared :lol:

Unfortunately, I think that your arguments are muddled and rely on your imaginations of war and are not supported by reliable knowledge if you refer to a computer game
Another example:
It's not up to me - I am not even claiming that this or that tank is the best - there are different contexts. One could be better in the desert, other in the cold, one in the mud, other on the road.
Sorry, but it's a bullshit since the tank was provided with tracks to cope in various conditions

The last thing - Hawker Typhoon was a British fighter-bomber and flew in the RAF, indeed several times happened that the British acted in favor of the US Army in Normandy (eg. 7 August 1944 in the area of Mortain) but USAAF had its own Jabo: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #8

Post by Retributarr »

kondi754 wrote: Thu Feb 07, 2019 11:17 pm
The last thing - Hawker Typhoon was a British fighter-bomber and flew in the RAF, indeed several times happened that the British acted in favor of the US Army in Normandy (eg. 7 August 1944 in the area of Mortain) but USAAF had its own Jabo: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt
I wasn't really certain that the 'Typhoon' was an American device, I just assumed that it was. Anyway!...I stand corrected, thank-you for straightening out that inconsistency. My point was that due to 'Overwhelming Air-Superiority' and technologically advanced Air-to-Ground-Weaponry...the dominance of the German-Panzer's was essentially Zeroed-Out!.

That's why during the Battle of the Bulge, the German's began their attack during heavy-overcast-weather!.
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #8

Post by kondi754 »

I know that it's a secondary matter if Typhoon was American or British, it was just an information
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #8

Post by TheFilthyCasual »

I'm sorry what exactly is even being debated anymore? Since tactical considerations that actually matter in tank-on-tank combat can't be replicated in a game like this, you have to generalize and basically make up arbitrary statistical differences for tank models based on whatever criteria you want, really.

I would say, for instance, that a Panther should definitely be superior statistically to a Sherman, at the very least in defence due to its frontal armor. But you should not need something ridiculous like 5 Shermans to take out a single unit of Panthers because it's somehow become a meme to say that in isolation a Panther can take out an entire platoon of Shermans. In actual combat, it doesn't really work like that unless the Panthers have a superior tactical position, which is again something a game like this can't really replicate mechanically anyway.
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #8

Post by Retributarr »

TheFilthyCasual wrote: Fri Feb 08, 2019 6:47 am I'm sorry what exactly is even being debated anymore? Since tactical considerations that actually matter in tank-on-tank combat can't be replicated in a game like this, you have to generalize and basically make up arbitrary statistical differences for tank models based on whatever criteria you want, really.

I would say, for instance, that a Panther should definitely be superior statistically to a Sherman, at the very least in defence due to its frontal armor. But you should not need something ridiculous like 5 Shermans to take out a single unit of Panthers because it's somehow become a meme to say that in isolation a Panther can take out an entire platoon of Shermans. In actual combat, it doesn't really work like that unless the Panthers have a superior tactical position, which is again something a game like this can't really replicate mechanically anyway.
"you should not need something ridiculous like 5 Shermans to take out a single unit of Panthers"

`TheFilthyCasual` ...This game is not depicted/played on the 'Tactical-Level/Scale", but on the 'Operational-Scale' whereupon you are not going to see 5-6 Sherman's swarming around a single Panther!.

What was being discussed regarding "5 Shermans to take out a single Panther"...was indeed on the 'Tactical-Scale', not the actual 'Game' or 'Operational-Scale'. In 'Reality' on the 'Tactical-Scale'...it did really take at least 5-6 Sherman-Tanks to take out a Single-Panther. Do a 'Google-Search' on the subject-matter to see for yourself!.

https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/dai ... panther/
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #8

Post by TheFilthyCasual »

Retributarr wrote: Fri Feb 08, 2019 7:20 am
What was being discussed regarding "5 Shermans to take out a single Panther"...was indeed on the 'Tactical-Scale', not the actual 'Game' or 'Operational-Scale'. In 'Reality' on the 'Tactical-Scale'...it did really take at least 5-6 Sherman-Tanks to take out a Single-Panther. Do a 'Google-Search' on the subject-matter to see for yourself!.

https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/dai ... panther/
Er, that's not because it was required to do so, but because there were 5-6 Shermans available for every Panther that was. Whereas the Nazis couldn't even make enough tanks to fully equip all their armored divisions, having to use assault guns to substitute (and even then it wasn't enough), the Americans had enough Shermans to fully equip all their armored divisions, plus the tank battalions attached to each infantry division, plus Lend Lease for all their allies with plenty to spare.

If a Panther faced 5 Shermans alone, it's because the Germans couldn't replace the other tanks that had been lost in that Panther's platoon, leaving it by itself.
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #8

Post by Retributarr »

TheFilthyCasual wrote: Fri Feb 08, 2019 8:18 am
Retributarr wrote: Fri Feb 08, 2019 7:20 am
What was being discussed regarding "5 Shermans to take out a single Panther"...was indeed on the 'Tactical-Scale', not the actual 'Game' or 'Operational-Scale'. In 'Reality' on the 'Tactical-Scale'...it did really take at least 5-6 Sherman-Tanks to take out a Single-Panther. Do a 'Google-Search' on the subject-matter to see for yourself!.

https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/dai ... panther/
Er, that's not because it was required to do so, but because there were 5-6 Shermans available for every Panther that was. Whereas the Nazis couldn't even make enough tanks to fully equip all their armored divisions, having to use assault guns to substitute (and even then it wasn't enough), the Americans had enough Shermans to fully equip all their armored divisions, plus the tank battalions attached to each infantry division, plus Lend Lease for all their allies with plenty to spare.

If a Panther faced 5 Shermans alone, it's because the Germans couldn't replace the other tanks that had been lost in that Panther's platoon, leaving it by itself.
True!...True!:

https://militaryhistorynow.com/2017/09/ ... 4-sherman/
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #8

Post by terminator »

Hey guys, you got it all wrong, the best tank was the Panzer-Attrapen IV :wink:

PanzerAttrapenIV.JPG
PanzerAttrapenIV.JPG (91.42 KiB) Viewed 6445 times
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #8

Post by TheFilthyCasual »

Retributarr wrote: Fri Feb 08, 2019 8:26 am
True!...True!:

https://militaryhistorynow.com/2017/09/ ... 4-sherman/
The doom and gloom of that article is quite odd. Despite being inferior in a straight-up fight with a Panther, the Sherman was nevertheless a safer tank to crew. Shermans were much easier to bail out of, and when wet ammo storage was introduced in 1944 very few burned when hit. Thus, despite the fact the armor couldn't really stop anything that was fired at it (except PAK 50 shots to the front I guess), very few of the crewmen died. The US Armored Force has the lowest death ratio of any tank force in the world at the time (3%), whereas Russian or German tanks routinely got half their crew killed when the tank was hit, due to being difficult to get out of and not having wet ammo storage to prevent them from becoming giant bonfires.
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #8

Post by Retributarr »

TheFilthyCasual wrote: Fri Feb 08, 2019 8:34 am
Retributarr wrote: Fri Feb 08, 2019 8:26 am
True!...True!:

https://militaryhistorynow.com/2017/09/ ... 4-sherman/
The doom and gloom of that article is quite odd. Despite being inferior in a straight-up fight with a Panther, the Sherman was nevertheless a safer tank to crew. Shermans were much easier to bail out of, and when wet ammo storage was introduced in 1944 very few burned when hit. Thus, despite the fact the armor couldn't really stop anything that was fired at it (except PAK 50 shots to the front I guess), very few of the crewmen died. The US Armored Force has the lowest death ratio of any tank force in the world at the time (3%), whereas Russian or German tanks routinely got half their crew killed when the tank was hit, due to being difficult to get out of and not having wet ammo storage to prevent them from becoming giant bonfires.

Watch and Weep!:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ns6l7sCoWX4
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #8

Post by TheFilthyCasual »

Retributarr wrote: Fri Feb 08, 2019 9:04 am
Watch and Weep!:[/b]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ns6l7sCoWX4
Perhaps I should be saying the same to you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNjp_4jY8pY
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #8

Post by kondi754 »

TheFilthyCasual wrote: Fri Feb 08, 2019 9:08 am
Retributarr wrote: Fri Feb 08, 2019 9:04 am
Watch and Weep!:[/b]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ns6l7sCoWX4
Perhaps I should be saying the same to you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNjp_4jY8pY
He is really good but this is what I try to make them aware of the importance of a decent "working environment/conditions" for tankers and how much they can change on the battlefield - armor and cannon is really only 30-50% of the tank value or even less if you have an "easy eight" or Firefly against you (or God forbid M18 Hellcat :twisted: )
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #8

Post by Retributarr »

TheFilthyCasual wrote: Fri Feb 08, 2019 9:08 am
Retributarr wrote: Fri Feb 08, 2019 9:04 am
Watch and Weep!:[/b]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ns6l7sCoWX4
Perhaps I should be saying the same to you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNjp_4jY8pY
This is quite a long video, the speaker sounds very convincing...and he in-fact may be entirely correct in his dissertation.

Without myself really knowing what is actually correct, all I can say is that somehow his figures just don't seem to jive, not really, but...that is just my personal opinion!. I would need more similar references from other sources before I could give a final verdict on this source material.

for now...all I can say is ...."Very Interesting...But...Not Very Funny!".
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #8

Post by PeteMitchell »

kondi754 wrote: Thu Feb 07, 2019 11:17 pm
funat wrote: Thu Feb 07, 2019 1:47 pm It's not up to me - I am not even claiming that this or that tank is the best - there are different contexts. One could be better in the desert, other in the cold, one in the mud, other on the road.
Sorry, but it's a bullshit since the tank was provided with tracks to cope in various conditions
Sorry... I am sure you know that there were tanks with wider tracks and/or tanks with interleaving/overlapping wheels or tanks with just more and/or smaller wheels to lower the peak ground pressure, e.g. on sand, mud or snow. Of course, besides having a positive effect on being better in different contexts, this came with other downsides (e.g. cost of production, mechanical failures, maintenance requirements). Nonetheless, tanks were adjusted to different environments, for example compare here:
https://www.quora.com/How-were-WW2-tank ... ier-tracks
https://www.quora.com/Why-did-German-Ti ... nks-in-WW2

Ah and as we are here already, some more (simple) examples: I am sure you also know that some tanks in Africa were painted yellow/sandy due to the sand while at the Ostfront some tanks were painted white due to the snow. I think they called this camouflage… :D
https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Nazi-Germ ... stly-green

In addition, there were also tropical air filters used for some tank engines in Africa, i.e. due to the sand:
http://tiger1.info/EN/Feifel-air-precleaners.html
Comprehensive Battlefield Europe AAR:
http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=145&t=86481
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #8

Post by kondi754 »

Yes, I know even that there were armored vehicles that didn't work in Africa because of the construction of their engines :wink: - eg some German self-propelled guns
It seems to me, however, that most tanks are suitable for use in all conditions, you only need to adjust them slightly
Sherman was best at El Alamein, where in fact he didn't have a worthy opponent, but later he also did quite well in a moderate european climate (even mentioned in the materials which you place here the battle at Arracourt), after all, the main types of tanks should be evaluated without any specific reference to climatic or weather conditions, because how to find out how would the T-34 operate in the Libyan desert?
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #8

Post by PeteMitchell »

TheFilthyCasual wrote: Fri Feb 08, 2019 6:47 am I'm sorry what exactly is even being debated anymore?
Well, some of the above reactions (from various forum members) were to balance off some fairly strong opinions about the Sherman... :roll:
Comprehensive Battlefield Europe AAR:
http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=145&t=86481
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #8

Post by PeteMitchell »

kondi754 wrote: Fri Feb 08, 2019 10:33 am Yes, I know even that there were armored vehicles that didn't work in Africa because of the construction of their engines :wink: - eg some German self-propelled guns
It seems to me, however, that most tanks are suitable for use in all conditions, you only need to adjust them slightly
Sherman was best at El Alamein, where in fact he didn't have a worthy opponent, but later he also did quite well in a moderate european climate (even mentioned in the materials which you place here the battle at Arracourt), after all, the main types of tanks should be evaluated without any specific reference to climatic or weather conditions, because how to find out how would the T-34 operate in the Libyan desert?
Thanks, I am very glad we are getting back to some more balanced views on various tank designs...
Comprehensive Battlefield Europe AAR:
http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=145&t=86481
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #8

Post by kondi754 »

PeteMitchell_2 wrote: Fri Feb 08, 2019 10:47 am
kondi754 wrote: Fri Feb 08, 2019 10:33 am Yes, I know even that there were armored vehicles that didn't work in Africa because of the construction of their engines :wink: - eg some German self-propelled guns
It seems to me, however, that most tanks are suitable for use in all conditions, you only need to adjust them slightly
Sherman was best at El Alamein, where in fact he didn't have a worthy opponent, but later he also did quite well in a moderate european climate (even mentioned in the materials which you place here the battle at Arracourt), after all, the main types of tanks should be evaluated without any specific reference to climatic or weather conditions, because how to find out how would the T-34 operate in the Libyan desert?
Thanks, I am very glad we are getting back to some more balanced views on various tank designs...
I am also glad that you noticed that many negative opinions here about the Sherman tank were at least unjust :wink:
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