Bad quality designs

[Ramage]

One query - The current research assumes that all countries acheive a good quality design at the end of the reseearch.

However, the British anti-tank gun (the 2 pounder) was dreadful, woefully inadequate with poor pentration - the shells would simple bounce off the Panzer frontal armour.
Similarly the Boys Ant-tank rilfe was similarly useless and the desert rats quickly dropped it in favour of 0.50 M2 Brownings.

What can be done to rectify national differences in "standardardised technology?"

 

[Duke_Dave]

Nothing, because this would create a balancing nightmare and lead to endless discussions about steel quality and what is a good weapon or not.
there was a discussion Germany for example, which I followed, whether their national army rifle G-36 is good or not. They ordered new ones and there was a lot of media reports on how shitty it was, but a lot of soldiers said it was good, and that the issue was that it wasn't used in the right way.

The early Anti-tank canons aren't that good, so if the British don't research Anti-tank this lack is represented. Likewise if the Germans mod their 1941 heavy tanks with bigger canons and armor their engine and reliability suffers (like the real-life tiger).
Also all these developments happened in relationship with each other. Would the Panther have slopped armor if the Germans never fought the T-34?
It is just not feasible, but the current system is a good replacement.

 

[Surimi]

Such a system would be problematic on a number of levels.

For example, if it is fixed along historical lines, then British players will use their metagame knowledge to simply avoid the 2 pounder, either by tech rushing to the next level or getting their hard attack in other ways.

If it's random but permanent, then it seems like it could be demoralising and anti-fun if you end up with a terrible design you can't do anything about, particularly if it's a late game design you will never get the chance to update.

The only way I could see such a system working is to give a chance when researched for each piece of equipment to be created as a variant with random upgrades, meaning that any time you research something there's a chance it will be superior to the typical basic equipment at that level, and making new researches unequal without inflicting frustrating or demoralizing penalities and allowing unlucky players to catch up by spending army XP. But this would obviously require an expansion of the current variant system to cover all forms of equipment, and then balancing of that new system and.. it's a lot to do for relatively little gain.

This system would also probably be quite annoying to players looking for the most historical experience possible, since the randomness would result in historically inferior equipment occasionally getting a lucky roll and being created superior.

It's also a bit unrealistic, as in reality differences in the effectiveness of a design weren't really the result of arbitrarily good or bad design but battlefield experience and the expertise of designers, which are reflected by the current variant system and the current design company system, respectively.

 

[Bronterre]

"One query - The current research assumes that all countries acheive a good quality design at the end of the reseearch.

However, the British anti-tank gun (the 2 pounder) was dreadful, woefully inadequate with poor pentration - the shells would simple bounce off the Panzer frontal armour.
Similarly the Boys Ant-tank rilfe was similarly useless and the desert rats quickly dropped it in favour of 0.50 M2 Brownings."

Okay, I'm not sure where you've got this idea from, the QF 2 pounder anti-tank gun was actually a very good anti-tank gun for the pre and early war period. It was able to defeat all German AFVs used during the invasion of France and remained a threat quite late. It outperformed the French 25mm, German/Soviet (as they are prety much the same design) 37mm and the Bofers 37mm with only the Belgian 45mm being better at destroying armour. The problems it had were that it was used for longer then it should have been because the BEF left most of its equipment behind so it was kept in production rather then the 6 pounder which had just been developed as it allowed the army to be re-equipped faster and it was a bit bulky compared to other systems (as would be expected by a larger caliber gun). It had the same problem as a tank gun partially for the same reason but also because turret sizes couldn't accomodate a bigger gun and because it had been decided that due to the small size of a HE shell it wouldn't be useful in combat which caused problems against anti-tank guns. It remained in service with armoured cars (particularly witht the littlejohn adapter) and in the far east until the end of the war.

The Boys Anti-tank Rifle was also reasonably effective but had the same problems with all anti-tank rifles. At close range in ambush against pre and early war tanks it could prove effective. Training materials for the Boys anti-tank rifle suggest that it be used only at a maximum range of 100 yards (I believe but could have been 100 foot), from ambush and that it would likerly take multiple well aimed shots to disable a tank, it also outright says that against medium and heavy tanks users should aim for the tracks and to disable the guns rather then try to destroy them as the gun is unlikerly to penetrate their armour and that they should be mobility killed and left for artillery and anti-tank guns to destroy. The problem in the desert was that engagement ranges are long and there is little cover and that German AFVs became increasingly heavily armoured. Against armoured cars, half tracks and soft vehicles the slow rate of fire of the bolt action Boys rifle would make the M2 Browning as well as the 20mm captured Italian guns and British heavy machine guns being taken from obsolete tanks prefered weapons as they are roughly equivelent but with a much greater rate of fire.

I'm against things that make specific weapon systems worse even if those systems were not very good (like the Italian Lince ground attack plane and the german Me210 heavy fighter) compared to their equivelents as it limits people's choices. Having a random system that makes some be worse would I think just annoy most people. Maybe if each level of tech had a range of stats for each element (so say if hard attack in vanilla would be 10 then you could have it fall in a range between 8-12 at a base level and so on) and army experience for varients was more available (generated faster and had a higher max) then I would quite like this as a mod but wouldn't like it in the base game.

 

[Ramage]

Ah - thanks. That makes sense . Gotta have limits somewhere.
Actually it shows in the British starting tech as they have towed anti-air but not towed anti-tank.

 

[Retry]

One query - The current research assumes that all countries acheive a good quality design at the end of the reseearch.

However, the British anti-tank gun (the 2 pounder) was dreadful, woefully inadequate with poor pentration - the shells would simple bounce off the Panzer frontal armour.

Relative to what?

The German equivalent to the 2pdr, the PaK36, penetrates 63mm of RHA with its Pzgr.40 round (APCR) @ 100 meters, 30 degrees from the horizontal. It'll penetrate 22mm @ 1,000 meters and at the same angle. This is more expensive tungsten round and you can expect its regular solid shot Pzgr doesn't even penetrate that much at close range.

The 2pdr penetrates 73mm of RHA with its APCBC round @ 91m, 30 degrees from the horizontal, and 57mm @ 914m. In other words, the 2pdr has more penetrating power than the German light anti-tank gun using its expensive Tungsten shell, and being solid-shot with a ballistics cap it also holds penetration far better at longer ranges and more oblique angles.

The 2pdr can penetrate the front hull and turret of a Pz.IV without the reinforced hull armor to at least 1,000 meters (50mm FHA both), only failing to penetrate the hull when the 30mm Applique FHA plate was added to the hull putting total protection up to 80mm. The story is similar with the Pz.III, where the 2pdr can handily knock out the Pz.III's 50mm frontal and turret armor to about 1,000 meters, only struggling heavily once the J1 variant and up introduced additional 20mm RHA plates on the hull and turret. The sides and rear of the Pz.III and Pz.IV would essentially be free game for the 2pdr at any range it could realistically be expected to engage at, regardless of model.

The German tanks that would be able to bounce or shatter the 2pdr with ease are the Tiger, Panther, and many of the heavier german Assault Guns and tank destroyers (StuG III G, Hetzer, Jagdpanther, etc.). That's not really an insult to the 2pdr though, since this design would be at least a half-decade old by the time these arrived en masse and no light anti-tank gun would be sufficient at destroying these. (Even the 6pdr would struggle to some extent, a 17pdr would be preferable to consistently penetrate most of these vehicles.)

If a player is still producing 2pdrs when the German player starts to produce Tigers, the British player is going to be unpleasantly suprised anyways. The 2pdr was perfectly capable of dealing with common early-war armor and was still capable of penetrating many tanks commonly encountered on the Western Front, and since the gun was physically fine itself I don't see any value in a mechanic that nerfs the gun based on what is basically hearsay

(At these small levels of penetration, the stricter German criteria for their penetration would only add perhaps a couple of millimeters if adjusted to be equivalent to British criterion, so I've neglected it.)

 

[elektrizikekswerk]

the PaK36

It was called "Panzeranklopfgerät" (door knocker, or lit: tank knocking device) for a reason. Sufficient to let the enemy know that you are there. Not sufficient to do much else...

 

[CrazyZombie]

It was called "Panzeranklopfgerät" (door knocker, or lit: tank knocking device) for a reason. Sufficient to let the enemy know that you are there. Not sufficient to do much else...

Well, when it met T-34s and KVs...

 

[elektrizikekswerk]

Well, when it met T-34s and KVs...

Even before that...

The Battle of France in 1940 revealed its inadequate penetration capability against French and British heavy tanks, receiving the derisive "door-knocker" nickname from its crews, [...]

On the Eastern front it just got worse.

 

[mursolini]

It was called "Panzeranklopfgerät" (door knocker, or lit: tank knocking device) for a reason. Sufficient to let the enemy know that you are there. Not sufficient to do much else...

Even before that...

On the Eastern front it just got worse.

You conveniently ignore that it could penetrate majority of armor that Allies and Soviets did have at that time. By the start of Barbarossa, at most 10% of Soviet armor was KVs and T-34s, and Germans had guns to deal with those as well, but they had to be maneuvered properly.

 

[elektrizikekswerk]

You conveniently ignore

It was not me who gave it that name, was it?

 

[mursolini]

It was not me who gave it that name, was it?

It was you, who did post it`s "name" in this thread.

It was called "Panzeranklopfgerät" (door knocker, or lit: tank knocking device) for a reason. Sufficient to let the enemy know that you are there. Not sufficient to do much else...

To which I point out that you are spreading info that was wrong in overwhelming amount of cases, before late 1942.

 

[elektrizikekswerk]

It was you, who did post it`s "name" in this thread.

To which I point out that you are spreading info that was wrong in overwhelming amount of cases, before late 1942.

Late '41, according to wikipedia (en), but I see your point.
However both the English and German wikipedia state that the name was "introduced" at the Western Front in '40.

As (partially) quoted before:

The Battle of France in 1940 revealed its inadequate penetration capability against French and British heavy tanks, receiving the derisive "door-knocker" nickname from its crews, but it sufficed to defeat the bulk of the Allied armor in the campaign.

And the German version

Die 3,7-cm-PaK 36 erhielt von Bedienmannschaften im Westfeldzug auch die spöttischen Beinamen „Heeresanklopfgerät“, „PanzerAnklopfKanone“ oder „Panzer-Anklopf-Gerät“.

Granted, I know that wikipedia is not considered a scientific source (in many cases rightfully so), but at least it's a source everyone has access to and which has in most cases a fairly high quality despite being open to be edited by anyone.

 

[CrazyZombie]

Anyway, I don't agree with major idea of topic. We don't need more random. Yes, current system is flat, doesn't allow any... national variety, and there are not many techs. Will random stats make this... better? I think, no.

We need extension of tech trees, rework of designers system, maybe also variant system improvement. But surely, no random mess.

 

[Duke_Dave]

Anyway, I don't agree with major idea of topic. We don't need more random. Yes, current system is flat, doesn't allow any... national variety, and there are not many techs. Will random stats make this... better? I think, no.

We need extension of tech trees, rework of designers system, maybe also variant system improvement. But surely, no random mess.

100% agreed. More tech, maybe even tying tech in with maybe industry for example that I need X-amount of military factories invested over a certain time to develop heavy tanks representing factories developing new tools, building prototypes etc.
Also tech like armored cars, mechanized and motorzed variants, etc.

 

[stl3l9n]

I think there should be a bit of difference in the stats of equipment, espicially between majors (Tiger might be stronger than KV-1 but should have worse reliabilty and higher cost). Not too much, but it should affect your strategy a bit.

 

[Duke_Dave]

I think there should be a bit of difference in the stats of equipment, espicially between majors (Tiger might be stronger than KV-1 but should have worse reliabilty and higher cost). Not too much, but it should affect your strategy a bit.

But if I don't want to design Tigers? If I want to design highly motorized and reliable heavy tanks as Germany?

 

[CrazyZombie]

But if I don't want to design Tigers? If I want to design highly motorized and reliable heavy tanks as Germany?

Optimally, you should customize your tech with designers, which have specialization on something, and also, commanders, who also add some more specifics to vehicle concept. Both should be picked not for PP (where is the logic here?), but for army XP, or anything.

So, you research some "heavy tank 2" as Germany and then - go into variant screen and get designer, which gives you buffs but also debuffs. You can't produce variant without any designer at all. So, some designers should be free, some more... unbalanced (?) if used right - for army XP. Commander, who will also affect final variant, can go only for army XP, and there should be some choice between "cheap" and "better".

As for national specifics - designers focuses and effects combinations can repeat for some nations, but there also should be unique ones.

So, in this way you finally get some nation-unique vehicles and maybe some more sense to license stuff not to just exchange couple of factories for research buff. Also, designers "value" won't inflate, as game comes closer to the endgame.

 

[elektrizikekswerk]

Optimally, you should customize your tech with designers, which have specialization on something, and also, commanders, who also add some more specifics to vehicle concept. Both should be picked not for PP (where is the logic here?), but for army XP, or anything.

So, you research some "heavy tank 2" as Germany and then - go into variant screen and get designer, which gives you buffs but also debuffs. You can't produce variant without any designer at all. So, some designers should be free, some more... unbalanced (?) if used right - for army XP. Commander, who will also affect final variant, can go only for army XP, and there should be some choice between "cheap" and "better".

As for national specifics - designers focuses and effects combinations can repeat for some nations, but there also should be unique ones.

So, in this way you finally get some nation-unique vehicles and maybe some more sense to license stuff not to just exchange couple of factories for research buff. Also, designers "value" won't inflate, as game comes closer to the endgame.

I really like that approach - I'll just quote myself from another thread. Thread was about giving each nation's equipment it's "historical skills".

If the design companies got some more love and you could switch the design companies more freely (e.g. switch them for every new model or even variant) that would be all which is needed to get some "national flavour" into the whole thing.
In that case each nation had access to a base version of every type of equipment with "bad" stats. The stats of that equipment get altered dependent to the design company chosen. Maybe you can take it to the extreme where this choices even alter the cost (in IC terms, not resources) of the given item.

For the given example of Pz IV vs T-34 they both would base on "Medium Tank 2".
But the German company adds some armor and piercing/hard attack, but lowers reliability -> Pz IV
The Soviet company otoh adds speed and decreases IC cost, but lowers armor and piercing/hard attack -> T-34
(These are some random values. In fact I'm not quite sure if the base T-34 has less armor and piercing compared to a base Pz IV, but that doesn't really matter for the point I'm trying to make. So please DON'T make any comments like "but in fact the Pz IV has xyz". Thank you.)

Most major countries already have at least two companies for a given category. If this was more elaborated and if every country had at least similar (best would be identical) options (so Germany could build a tank similar to T-34 and USSR could build a tank similar to Pz IV) every nation could build "every" tank - dependent on the given strategic situation.
Minors wouldn't have much choice in design companies (if any) and would be stuck with the "bad" base models. As a side effect this would push the use of licenced productions, too.

 

[CrazyZombie]

I really like that approach - I'll just quote myself from another thread. Thread was about giving each nation's equipment it's "historical skills".

I'll post that idea already as a suggestion today. But, closer to the evening. Designers (doctrine theorists) are currently the system, that works completely wrong (I have no idea, what for PDX game designer was getting his money in case of HOI4) and you are free not to use it at all (save some PP and don't lose much in fact).