Many stuff during ww2 was in production for a very long time, bf109 was in production during the whole war and the later version was about as good as other late war Aircrafts. Shturmovik was in production from 1941 to 1945 and many other Equipment, like infantry Equipment was often produced Before the war and produced during the whole war.
You don`t have to upgrade anything other than tanks and fighters.
In the game however how often will you keep production lines for like the whole game for Equipment that have technological upgrades like Aircrafts and tanks, in reality many of these Equipment was upgraded and stayed relevant up to 1945 while still being very much mass produced.
Depends on difficulty/other factors. Often, tanks and fighters are the only things that are updated before 1943, If I need to push synthetic techs, and so on.
When Germany introduced tanks like Panther, Soviet simply put on a bigger gun on their t-34 and thus could continue to mass produce a very cheap tank while largly neturalizing the german investment into more expensive and heavier tanks that was notriously unreliable.
When Germany faced new Soviet tanks like T-34 and KV, Germans simply put on a bigger gun (and more armor) on their Pz4 and thus could continue to mass produce a very cheap tank while largely neturalizing the Soviet investment into more expensive and heavier tanks that were notoriously unreliable. And then in 1943 had to rush a new line of tanks, because issues cost and reliability issues tend to get sorted out over time.
In practice, however, there were 1 reasons Soviets didn`t introduce newer designs, that they already had: They did in introduce new designs of higher priority, like IS-2 deployment was prioritized over T-43, and IS-2 transition was very hard, reliability and build quality were poor, and it took a tonne of time to sort out.
Then, you might find SVT-40 that was withdrawn for high cost, PPSH and similar SMGs, that were put in service, and of course their air force, that introduced and upgraded 3 main lines of fighter Yak-1 to 3 to 9, LAGG3 to LA5 to La7, and MIG, a vast array of new light armor and armored vehicles, T-60, T-70, SU-76, and various TDs and AGs.
T-34 is actually the
exception for Soviets, not the rule,
pretty much all other armor, which always get`s ignored for some god known reason was upgraded in 42, 43, and 44, it`s just T-34 hull that was kept through the war, while it`s turret was constantly redesigned.
Some equipment didn't need much more that occasional tinkering and small improvements over time, Spitfire being a great example, lots and lots of tiny improvements kept the aircraft useful from '40 right to the end of the war and beyond. The Supermarine Spiteful, in game as t3 fighter, never saw more than a handful of test models produced and later morphed into a jet used by the RN on carriers.
Yes, same as BF-109, only a few re-engines, and complete change of armament.
In reality it took alot of time to develop stuff and even longer to make it simple enough for mass production and reliable enough to be useful, Panther and Tiger tanks was expensive, often broke down and could not be produced in large numbers so if these tanks actually was any better than the Panzer IV on the strategic scale is probably pretty doubtful. Soviet and USA kept producing T-34 and Shermans who generally worked and could be upgunned which reduced the effectivness of the new German tanks and also could be produced in an enormous scale as both more T-34s and Shermans was produced than the total amount of German tanks during the war.
Just replace Tigers and Panthers with Shermans and T-34, and T-34 and Shermans for Pz3 and Pz2.
It is just a reality of world, that USA and SU had more industry and manpower, and would produce more out of it.
The reason USA kept building Sherman, I know, shockingly, because it was a 1941 designed tank, and US had to fight with something in 1944, not spend another 1-2 years ironing teething problems of Pershing till war was over. Then, despite popular belif, Sherman performed very well, and there was no reason to replace it till 1944, at which point, as you might guess, such replacement would not be deployed till war was over.
A early t-34 was rather expensive, maybe more than the Panzer IV but in the late war it had become so simplified it was a really cheap tank and if I'm not wrong Soviet industry was not much larger than the German, they achieved their production numbers by making their stuff very simple and developing advanced industrial Technologies such as automatic welding.
It was actually made more complex, as war progressed.
Factory 183 produced nearly 30k t-34 by itself (even more than Detroit tank arsenal in terms of pure numbers), the most modern German factory, the Nibelungenwerke produced only like 5000 Panzer IV + 500 other vehicles, but it was only ready in like 1942 but Soviet tank production also only started to ramp up in 1942 due to having to move much of the industry and losing much of their workforce.
It might have something to do with UVZ employing 29-31k workers over 1942-1945, while Nibelungenwerke started at 5k in 1941, and topped at 8k, even then it had to do with lost of labor being foreigners and "nonvolunteer" vorkers, as to stay within forum rules, which, obviously decreased productivity.
