Can you build German Tank Destroyers and are they worth it?

[Simon_9732495]

I just found that light tank 3 has 30 amor which makes me wonder why even bother with medium tanks against the air when you can simply field very cheap but upgraded light tanks with soft attack comparable to 1941 mediums.

From: https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Armor_technology

1941
Resources: 4 Steel
Defense: 6.0	Breakthrough: 46.0
Hardness: 80.0%	Soft attack: 22.0
Hard attack: 9.0	Max Speed: 14.0 km/h
Armor: 30.0	Piercing: 50.0
Reliability: 80.0%	Fuel Usage: 2.4
Production Cost: 10.0

1941
Resources: 2 Tungsten, 3 Steel
Defense: 7.0	Breakthrough: 51.0
Hardness: 90.0%	Soft attack: 25.0
Hard attack: 19.0	Max Speed: 9.0 km/h
Armor: 80.0	Piercing: 81.0
Reliability: 80.0%	Fuel Usage: 3.6
Production Cost: 13.0

The Medium Tank from the same year has almost 3 times the armor and costs only 30% more.

The ai does not have piercing much higher than 25.

I think I saw AI units with around 60 piercing lately. (My Mediums had 59 armor when fully equipped.)

 

[porta80]

And you need 60 light tanks and only 50 meds, so your even saving less IC then you think...

 

[Simon_9732495]

And you need 60 light tanks and only 50 meds, so your even saving less IC then you think...

Yes, that's true.
I tried a Light Tank Germany lately an thought I could swarm the Soviet Union with a lot more Light Tank Divisions, than Medium Tank Divisions in my normal Germany.
I was disappointed. Didn't have a lot more Tank Divisions.

(But Barbarossa was fun with the fast Divisions against the AI.)

 

[porta80]

The speed limiting factor on and light tanks is Motorised, not the tank. So speed advantage is also not very big compared to medium tanks 2 points upgrade in engine and your next to light tank speed ;-)

 

[Kynes3]

First research the basic tank, then research the tank destroyer by clicking the button shown in the graphic below.

View attachment 588479

Thank you !! somehow I'd missed that you can click on those buttons.

 

[Kynes3]

One point to add:

For a tank destroyer bataillon you need only about half the units of a normal tank bataillon but the costs per unit are the same.
Example:

Tank	Units per bataillon	Production cost per unit	Total production cost
1939 Medium Tank	50	12	600
1939 Medium Tank destroyer	24	12	288

And Tank destoyers have the same armor value as the tank, while SPGs and SPAAs have lower armor.

But surely the medium tank battalion above has higher attack values and can sustain more damage? So wouldn't 1 medium tank battalion equal 2 med TD battalions?

I almost always play singleplayer and from other replies it seems there isn't much point to me building TDs.


Ps. I suppose battalions of TDs would give your panzer divisions high piercing values like heavy tanks do. But wouldn't cost as many resources to produce??

 

[grommile]

The Medium Tank from the same year has almost 3 times the armor and costs only 30% more.

Also twice the Hard Attack and half the Softness.

The tradeoff, of course, is that it's competing for Tungsten with your Artillery.

 

[Fulmen]

Always have a single battalion of TD/MOT-AT/Support AT in your tank template if you're potentially facing hard targets. In MP you might need several, depending on what the enemy is using.

 

[Spelaren]

I just use light tank artillery for loads of soft attack.

 

[Meglok]

Myzael is quite right. I've seen it plenty of times, too.

I've also seen something far more distressing (for my opponent, anyway) when using heavy tank destroyers.

In two games as the Soviet Union, I saw German panzer divisions start a battle against my specialized tank destroyer divisions. They were being pierced on day 1, but otherwise were doing okay. But by day 3, some of the panzer divisions had lost the ability to pierce my tank destroyers.

The losses in armor cut their piercing down to the point that they were simply unable to pierce my tank destroyer divisions. It's not like I designed them to be space marines, but losing even 50 tanks in a panzer division can seriously damage unit stats.

This leads to the other reason to use tank destroyers: stacking hard attack. Yes, you need piercing, but novice players often overlook the value of hard attack in hurting the ORG and strength of panzer formations. And with heavy tank destroyers, you can stack some hard attack, even more so if you pick the heavy tank designer and invest XP into the tank destroyer gun.

Remember, I was referencing playing against the ai. If your templates are getting shredded by the ai then either your template or tactics are sub-optimal. The biggest fear in vanilla is losses due to resistance, not ai templates.

Playing against humans is a wholly different game. Your templates had better be dynamic and anticipating what your enemy is going to do. You will take higher losses, need higher piercing, breakthru, and armor, and should have a solid buffer in armor to piercing ratio.

 

[Xiziz]

Using 41 TD in sp to convert your 39 medium tanks is a very good way to quickly get more 41 tanks in your divisions.

You can convert all self propelled variants from the previous teir tanks. Converting also saves IC and resources.

 

[Kynes3]

I never expected to get so many replies to my question. Thanks everyone for a really interesting discussion about TDs

Ps. I've started using some medium TDs as Germany in my singeplayer game and have been pleased with the results.

 

[desphorin]

Using 41 TD in sp to convert your 39 medium tanks is a very good way to quickly get more 41 tanks in your divisions.

You can convert all self propelled variants from the previous teir tanks. Converting also saves IC and resources.

Wow never knew that... You can still learn something new after 900 hours of playing.

Is there a way to limit them only converting the 39 tanks? dont want them to eat in my 41s.

 

[Mousetick]

Wow never knew that... You can still learn something new after 900 hours of playing.

Example of conversion of 1941 tanks to produce 1941 TDs, while producing 1943 tanks.

Before, producing 1941 TDs from scratch at a rate of 2.75/day and a cost of 16 tungsten and 12 steel:

After, converting 1941 tanks to produce 1941 TDs at a rate of 5.52/day (twice as many) at a cost of 8 tungsten:

Is there a way to limit them only converting the 39 tanks? dont want them to eat in my 41s.

The conversion is on-demand (you have to activate it, see button circled in red above) and only uses outdated equipment. You can stop it at will or it will stop by itself when there is no more outdated equipment to convert.

Now let's say you are producing 1943 tanks, you have both 1941 and 1939 outdated tanks in your stockpile, and want to produce 1943 TDs by converting the outdated tanks. If your question is: "Is there a way to make the conversion use only the 1939 tanks and not the 1941 tanks?" I don't know the answer to that question but you can manually specify which models are obsolete as you wish. I don't think it's possible to convert outdated tanks that are 2 tiers or more behind?

 

[mursolini]

Now let's say you are producing 1943 tanks, you have both 1941 and 1939 outdated tanks in your stockpile, and want to produce 1943 TDs by converting the outdated tanks. If your question is: "Is there a way to make the conversion use only the 1939 tanks and not the 1941 tanks?" I don't know the answer to that question but you can manually specify which models are obsolete as you wish. I don't think it's possible to convert outdated tanks that are 2 tiers or more behind?

It is impossible to convert 1939 tank to 1943 variant, so if switch your production to that, they will not be converted. But you can keep 1941 variant line and only switch tconversions of 1941 tanks to 1943 variant after your 1941 variant line runs out of 1939 tanks to convert.

 

[desphorin]

Example of conversion of 1941 tanks to produce 1941 TDs, while producing 1943 tanks.

Before, producing 1941 TDs from scratch at a rate of 2.75/day and a cost of 16 tungsten and 12 steel:

View attachment 589897

After, converting 1941 tanks to produce 1941 TDs at a rate of 5.52/day (twice as many) at a cost of 8 tungsten:

View attachment 589898


The conversion is on-demand (you have to activate it, see button circled in red above) and only uses outdated equipment. You can stop it at will or it will stop by itself when there is no more outdated equipment to convert.

Now let's say you are producing 1943 tanks, you have both 1941 and 1939 outdated tanks in your stockpile, and want to produce 1943 TDs by converting the outdated tanks. If your question is: "Is there a way to make the conversion use only the 1939 tanks and not the 1941 tanks?" I don't know the answer to that question but you can manually specify which models are obsolete as you wish. I don't think it's possible to convert outdated tanks that are 2 tiers or more behind?

I know about conversion, I always use that, the thing I dont know is that they actually only use outdated or captured equipment. I guess I just have never bothered to read the tooltip lol. Thanks for the explanation.

 

[eastcoastceojam]

Example of conversion of 1941 tanks to produce 1941 TDs, while producing 1943 tanks.

After, converting 1941 tanks to produce 1941 TDs at a rate of 5.52/day (twice as many) at a cost of 8 tungsten:

View attachment 589898

Thanks for this useful reminder- I always forget to optimize the usage of my outdated vehicles!

 

[Cavalry]

Is there a way to limit them only converting the 39 tanks? dont want them to eat in my 41s.

You can only convert obsolete tank. You can convert 41 tank if you want, by mark it as obsolete.

But if you don't need the TD, then it is better just use the old tank, light or medium, because you get more tank division by producing new 41 tank. The old tank is as still good if mixing with new tank. As long as the enemy infantry cannot pierce your tank, just keep producing them in the hot of the war.