But there are no terrain obstacles on the steppe (except for the very occasional balka) ... and none in North Africa.
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But there are no terrain obstacles on the steppe (except for the very occasional balka) ... and none in North Africa.
US armor, often in full battalions fired as indirect artillery under artillery direction. You
can see numerous picstures of them in both Italy and France/Germany with their front
blocked up by trees to give them more range. Tanks also fire into buildings to flush troops
out (thats called indirect fire too...)
Again you are wrong on the antitank. You read the technical parts but not the operational
parts of their usage. Its not "german superiority" its training and doctrine which allows the
Germans to so well use their AT guns thruout the war as well as armor that early on was actually
inferior to French/UK/Russian armor and later vastly outnumbered. Its doctrine and training
(and having the 88 with the crews trained in AT roles helped. Regular AAA crews were not very
good at it...)
can see numerous picstures of them in both Italy and France/Germany with their front
blocked up by trees to give them more range. Tanks also fire into buildings to flush troops
out (thats called indirect fire too...)
Again you are wrong on the antitank. You read the technical parts but not the operational
parts of their usage. Its not "german superiority" its training and doctrine which allows the
Germans to so well use their AT guns thruout the war as well as armor that early on was actually
inferior to French/UK/Russian armor and later vastly outnumbered. Its doctrine and training
(and having the 88 with the crews trained in AT roles helped. Regular AAA crews were not very
good at it...)
then dig a hole and hide... besides, even steppes and desserts are not completely without obstacles for tanks.
of course and so were german tanks. the point is that tanks can't survive alone against infantry. sure, the infantry will suffer heavy losses but, as hard as it might sound, tanks are more valuable then infantry. it easy to disable a tank when the infantry can get close enough.
germany realised soon that the early tank divisions were not effective enough because they lacked the necessary infantry support. the number of tanks per division was reduced and the 4 light divisions reformed into tank divisions.
THe 88 was used to very good effect on ALL fronts Germany served, including North Africa, and even in France they were used to great effect by Rommel to stop an armored attack that would have pushed him back . The 37mm did kill tanks, but in many situations the 88 was critical to stop attacks, and versus a T 34, KV 1 or Matilda, the door-knocker was useless with frontal shots - not to mention vulnerable to counter fire at the ranges it was useful. BT-7 and the others (which were the tanks the 37 DID kill on regular basis) had paper armor and doesn´t count. By 1942 37mm was obsolete.
http://www.lonesentry.com/intelbulletin/tt_trends.html
Lots of info for everyone to see, including comparision of the 88mm use to the their counterparts. So yes, Germany does deserve a special AT unit that´s better than everything in 1940 and no, AA brigade isn´t it. Obviously the gap would close later, with 1943 AT brigades being similar in power.
As for infantry and late game armor, answer is simple - create a Shaped Charge research section in either the infantry tab or artillery tab that would give anti-tank weapons to troops.
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Can the infantry bring their trenches and terrain obstacles with them when they charge against the tanks head on too?
When you say infantry you mean an infantry brigade that contains AT weapons and Artillery I assume. Infantry alone could not do much against tanks at all in open terrain.
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not really. the 8,8-cm-FlaK 18/36/37 did only serve in anti air units. the 88 was never very numerous at the front. at the beginning of the war germany had 2.459 pieces of 8,8-cm-Flak 18 and 36. most of them were used to protect german industry and cities against enemy bombers. as comparison at the same time every infantry division of the first wave had 75 Pak 3,7 cm (anti tank gun) and no 8,8cm flak. they only had 12 2cm anti air guns.
the 88 was used because the 3,7cm anti tank gun was not powerful enough. it was a desperate measure and the 88 had several disadvantages against a proper anti tank gun.
germany has already a special anti tank unit ingame though: the anti tank regiment (something that never existed though).
Can the infantry bring their trenches and terrain obstacles with them when they charge against the tanks head on too?
When you say infantry you mean an infantry brigade that contains AT weapons and Artillery I assume. Infantry alone could not do much against tanks at all in open terrain.
why should they charge them? tanks are never numerous to cover the entire front so infantry can usually avoid them. if they really have to they only need to get close enough. grenades, molotow cocktails, anti tank rifles...
sure, the losses would be high but it is not impossible.
germany had a special award for it. the "Panzervernichtungsabzeichen". it was awarded to soldiers which had destroyed an enemy tank in close combat as lone fighter. around 18.541 were awarded. Oberstleutnant Günther Viezenz alone received 21.
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2400 is hardly a small number... and killing stuff other guns couldn´t kill, at 2000 meters more than offsets many disadvantages, hm?
Agree that a brigade of 88s is not realistic however. An option would be to give germans a special mobile AA unit with a higher hard attack and penetration compared to other countries. It would have a side effect of making such units useful.
There are too many situations the game can´t depict, the classical one being that russian medium tanks were better than their german counterparts in 1941... but dunno how that one could be fixed, apart from blocking german AI from researching heavy tanks until 1941.
Agree that a brigade of 88s is not realistic however. An option would be to give germans a special mobile AA unit with a higher hard attack and penetration compared to other countries. It would have a side effect of making such units useful.
There are too many situations the game can´t depict, the classical one being that russian medium tanks were better than their german counterparts in 1941... but dunno how that one could be fixed, apart from blocking german AI from researching heavy tanks until 1941.
it if you consider that most of them were stationed inside germany it is a small number. a heavy flak battery had only four 88mm guns. one battalion 2-3 batteries. those were the biggest units you could find on the front and they were rare.
just because you heard much propaganda about a weapon does't mean it should be specual. normal artillery killed more tanks but you would never demand a spezial anti-tank-field-artillery regiment...
The biggest advantage of the 88 was its 360 degree traverse. And ironically its height as it could be set to fire just over a ridge with only the top of the gun showing.
+1.
And besides, tanks can not just stay in the open, they will get easilly destroyed by artilery fire, that most armies had light, easilly movable artilery at low level.
Indeed, the small caliber artilery was very, very effective at cleaning up trenches. Like in WW1,..
1. Pak 38 is 50mm gun, that in fact, according to russian sources killed the most T-34s in 1941, by far. Soviets, also used 45mm gun as their major source of AT, for entire war.
2. the number of tanks killed by 88s in early war(up to 1943), is neglictable, even in 1941 still neglictable.
People simply read too much apologistics about the super weapons.
super, invincible tanks, super interseptors, and other crap.
Fact is, there was basically no instances of invincible tanks. Armies always had the high caliber high velocity artilery guns.
Tanks are always vulrnable to flanking fire.
The succes of armour is dependent on the infantry that supports it. If infantry does a good job, tanks do not get flanking fire and enemy`s infantry in close. Ofcouse the allied artilery greatly helps.
But if the allied infantry didn`t keep the phase and was cut, tanks become helpless, even if they breach the lines on themselves, they just get hunted down and destroyed by enemy infantry.
Why do they need to charge tanks?Can the infantry bring their trenches and terrain obstacles with them when they charge against the tanks head on too?
When you say infantry you mean an infantry brigade that contains AT weapons and Artillery I assume. Infantry alone could not do much against tanks at all in open terrain.
Also, what exactly do tanks defend in the open field?
But if you`re so sure, you may probably come up with a number of good examples of armour without infantry support destroying infantry en mase
Yeah.
AA brigade Ha values represents the AT capacity perfectly well, so does the HA value of ART represents the AT capacity of ART.
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Wow, it turned into another German 88mm discussion again. I never would have guessed. It's almost like we're not playing a strategic game.
It is good that more units become useable, but will we end up with 1xinf+1sup+1xothersupport+1xyetanother support divisions? Will more brigades in a division be the answer? Didn't ICE try smaller, but more numerous divisions and found that it improved the AI performance?
It is good that more units become useable, but will we end up with 1xinf+1sup+1xothersupport+1xyetanother support divisions? Will more brigades in a division be the answer? Didn't ICE try smaller, but more numerous divisions and found that it improved the AI performance?
No. This is not a tactical game and the 88 being good at shooting tanks sometimes really isn't something we'll model beyond AA having some HA. Armour doesn't become invincible when A>P, it just takes half damage. View the damage it does take as a mix of things like Molotovs/Mines/LancesthroughtheMGport etc. and of lower numbers of heavier weapons mixed into brigades.
Arty will not have Pen. As a game, it is wise to have unit types have distinct roles, and here if you want to kill tanks well you'll need AT/TD/Tanks. I think the last thing Arty in HoI3 needs is a further use to make it even more ubiquitous.
Will penetration be mod-able. Eg, can you make a tech to give infantry an amount of penetration?
What you say would only be right if you detached a tank brigade and put it against an inf brigade.
But I'm talking division level or even higher level like a combat with several divisions on each side. So im not talking tanks vs infantry in shootout, im talking armoured and mechanized divisions operating versus pure infantry foot divisions without AT guns. As you know armoured divisions have MOT inf or MECH inf in them and the game uses Combined bonuses to those that use a mixed setup , which makes them highly effective when tanks work toghether with infantry in a division. Such armoured forces featuring all WW2 high tech stuff, which are tanks, motorized inf, assualt guns, halftracks, armored cars and self propelled guns, should beat the hell out of pure infantry forces which are in superiour numbers. I would say 1 armoured div should be able to hold out vs 3 infantry divisions on open ground during normal conditions. Currently even with great combined bonuses it can barely hold out vs. 2 inf divisions, and it matters little if they have AT guns or not, because numbers count more than that. its still 30000 vs 12000 men and 12000 men lose.
Also it would be cool if artillery got some new features in expansion such as increased org-damage in addition to normal damage. Artillery really stirred up things, and could weaken armored forces as well by destroying support units and supplies and trucks with infantry. But anyway the news here that AT guns would be an effective countermeasure in the expansion because of new Armour Piercing stats is something I think is a big step forward.
Well this would be fine, if the 2xSPART took much of the damage and the 2xARM was barely scratched, in terms of repairs and reinforcement needed. Because it would be realistic that infantry+artillery damages ARM division badly this way, allthough not that it damaged ARM brigades. That would be something else. The 2xSPART shouldnt be safe at all when u construct a division this way. It would pack a great punch but 2xSPART and no MECHs should imo suffer like that, and in my experience they often do. I see these support brigades often devastated, at least when I use mostly August Storm mod.
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