Did Tanks Lose their Importance? And what it means for the Tank Designer?

[Hippob4]

So, i think we all tend to think of these big tank battles and tank formations in the war. And historically the opening years of WW2 did see mass armored formations. But from what little I read, didn't tanks start to become less like armored spearheads where large tank formations attacked a narrow front, and instead tanks by 44 and 45 saw themselves supporting infantry units more?

There seems to be several reasons for this. Towed Anti Tank or Tank Destroyers seemed to be more effective at taking out tanks than actual tanks. Airpower had a strong impact on disrupting tank units. Infantry began getting portable effective AT rocket launchers.

Even the US Tank Destroyer doctrine of mobile TDs fighting massed panzers turned out to be flawed as massed panzer formations were no longer a thing and thus US TDs mainly were attached to infantry units as assault guns.

Here's a chart of tank losses suffered by the Brits.

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So with that said, given how more and more effective anti-tank countermeasures developed later in the war, doesn't that make the upcoming Tank Designer a bit less important as time goes by? If infantry and airpower can seriously dent armored formations like in real life, would developing advanced tanks with upgrades and such not really matter? Because i also heard Paradox is gonna buff Anti-tank capabilties by now making armor penetration less binary. It's no longer 'You either penetrate and destroy Tanks. Or don't" but now it might be "if you're X percentage, you might inflict Y damage on tanks"

And the decreasing role of tanks would mean we might need a Plane and Infantry designer too? Which may add even more research upgrades to the tree?

Thoughts?

 

[Cavalry]

If you want to see real tank fight, then look at the Eastern Front, particular the South.

There are some tanks to assist the breakthrough, but those Tank Armies was often kept to exploit the breakthroughs. Almost nothing can replace them in that role, no truck can run safely deep into enemy rear without tanks.

 

[jpd]

At the start off WW2, you saw panzer concentration only by the german army. That's why it worked so well. The tanks faced mostly infantry (with allied tanks dispersed in little numbers all along the front).

In africa, Rommel used his tanks not as an armoured spearhead, but as bait for the brittish tanks to lure them into his anti tank traps (using the famous 88 guns). That's why that number is 40% in your chart.

In Kursk, the german concentrated panzer formations smashed into concentrated soviet tank formations. Which blunted the advance. And by then, quick advances by an armoured spearhead were basically over. Every side, by then, had figured out how to deal with a concentration of panzers.

What followed was an arms race in armour penetration against armour protection. I can imagine that the tank designer would capture this arms race in one form or another.

 

[mursolini]

Tanks became even more important. Deployment of countermeasures was by and large countered by increase in tank numbers, counter measures becoming more expensive and less numerous (compare horse draws and man-portable 37mm cannon to 88mm PAK43/88Flack, 17pdr or a TD, and far better combined arms.

Early war Germany and many other nations didn't have enough armor to have both armored divisions and distribute some armored support along infantry, by later was, both allies and Soviets had enough to have dedicated armor formations, and have spare tanks distributed everywhere.

 

[parkerg12]

Even the US Tank Destroyer doctrine of mobile TDs fighting massed panzers turned out to be flawed as massed panzer formations were no longer a thing and thus US TDs mainly were attached to infantry units as assault guns.


Actually The doctrine worked great, but since Germany didn't have the fuel or the tanks left it was only used a few times. Look up the combat record of the M18 Hellcat. The issue wasn't the doctrine - it was the lack of German tanks and actual offensives. While AT guns work great at initial engagements that cant really be repositioned effectively leaving them vulnerable to mortar's, artillery's, being bypasses, flanked etc. Thus the introduction of the Shoot and scoot strat. At the battle of Bastogne a few hellcats jumped on the road and cruised at 55 mph to get ahead of a German armored offensive and blunt it. So What's the best way to stop an armored offensive? an Armored offensive to take critical positions in front of such. You need tanks for that.

 

[CrasherZZ]

Read about Operation Bagration - the destruction of Army Group Center in the summer of 1944 on the Eastern Front. It could be the greatest "blitzkrieg" in history but done by the Red Army. It would have been impossible without the use of thousands of tanks.

 

[Jamor]

I would say that tanks didn't lose their importance...rather that the nature of their importance evolved.

What you are seeing later war is in fact improved combined arms proficiency from all the major powers, as they figured out in action what did and didn't work. The image of massed armadas of tanks sailing across the green fields of France owed a lot to a few facts:

• they were largely unopposed by effective, integrated antitank defense
• the terrain on which they were operating was unusually well suited to such a concentration of armour
• the early war German Panzer Division was composed of two tank regiments, one motorized infantry. Both for the doctrinal reason to increase their self sufficiency and ability to fight through and hold complex terrain, as well as the simple inability to provide enough tanks to fill out the rapidly growing number of divisions, that ratio was reversed in 1941.

Basically, what you were seeing later in the war, in both attack and defense, was more integrated combined arms teams replacing giant fleets of tanks smashing blindly about the countryside without adequate infantry, artillery, and engineer support. The reason the latter worked earlier on is because people had not learned how to block such an attack effectively yet.

I should also state here that the effectiveness of close air support in knocking out AFVs during the war has been vastly overestimated. For example, the Soviets claimed to have left "hundreds of Tigers burning on the Steppe" at Prokhorovka, when in reality there were barely more than a hundred Tigers in the entire southern prong of the offensive (45 in S.Pz.Abt 503, and a company of 14 in each of the Panzer Regiments of the LAH, Das Reich, Totenkopf, and GD Divisions), and only a portion of those were actually permanently lost. The technology of the time was just not precise enough to reliably score direct hits on hard, moving point targets, guided by the Mk. I eyeball alone. There are a ton of articles online comparing the wild kill claims of all air forces, vs the actual verified losses from air attack, if you're interested. The chief effect of air bombardment on armoured forces was not in killing tanks themselves, but rather causing losses and disorganization to the armada of soft skinned vehicles on which the armour relied for fuel, ammunition, repair and infantry protection.

Also, we shouldn't get the idea that a massed tank attack was not done past a certain time. Just look at the furious attempts by the British to break out around Caen in the Normandy campaign (Goodwood, Totalize, etc), with hundreds of tanks and their supporting arms attacking on fronts just a few kilometers wide. The desire to land hammer blows like this was always there, it just needed the prerequisites of sufficient mass of forces, decently open terrain, and generally air superiority as well. At places like Lake Balaton, the Germans jumped off without even that, right at the twilight of the war.

 

[George Parr]

I'm not sure why you would consider that chart to be proof for what you are suggesting. Notice how the numbers for tanks + self-propelled guns stay roughly the same. The only difference is that Germany didn't really have many self-propelled guns in Africa, while it did have a ton of them later on. It also seems like the numbers for North Africa seem a bit off. Germany did have Panzerjäger 1 self-propelled guns in North Africa, and a few Marders as well. Somehow I doubt that they managed not to take out a single tank, so their numbers must be included in the anti-tank gun category instead.

Then there is the issue of terrain. North Africa was open, if it weren't for the sand it would be ideal for tanks. Italy, on the other hand, doesn't exactly have the terrain for open tank battles, it does however have nice terrain for ambushes, which is good for tank-destroyers / self-propelled guns.

There really is no indication that the use of tanks changed much at all. Plenty of large tank battles happened in 1943 and 1944, and Germany still tried to focus its tank divisons into as strong of a spearhead as they could, even as late as 1945, when they tried to retake Budapest. They did however, make heavy use of StuGs and other tank-destroyers on the defensive.

 

[Corpse Fool]

Because i also heard Paradox is gonna buff Anti-tank capabilties by now making armor penetration less binary. It's no longer 'You either penetrate and destroy Tanks. Or don't" but now it might be "if you're X percentage, you might inflict Y damage on tanks"

They are actually nerfing piercing. You have to exceed the enemy armour by 33% with your piercing to get the same effect that you used to have.

The armor bonus still being mostly binary means that armour value is still going to be important, and so concentrating tanks is still going to be somewhat important. If we can make tanks with 330+ armour like was shown in the screen shot, we're going to need a whole lot less tanks to be able to reach whatever amount of divisional armour. The highest piercing shown on the dev diary was something like only 210.

 

[Shadow_Edwards]

Tanks became such an important part of warfare that the US military thought tanks and airpower would be the key techs to win wars moving forward and even developed doctrine that focused on using these two things. They called it AirLand battle in the 1980s. If I remember correctly it was the yom kippur war that showed the power of ATGMs and completely changed how we looked at fighting in the modern age. Though if you look at most military formations Tanks are still a large part of their force composition.

 

[Leinad965]

They are actually nerfing piercing. You have to exceed the enemy armour by 33% with your piercing to get the same effect that you used to have.

The armor bonus still being mostly binary means that armour value is still going to be important, and so concentrating tanks is still going to be somewhat important. If we can make tanks with 330+ armour like was shown in the screen shot, we're going to need a whole lot less tanks to be able to reach whatever amount of divisional armour. The highest piercing shown on the dev diary was something like only 210.

Binary and capped is different thing

Binary = 0% malus OR 50% malus, nothing between
Capped = linear FROM 0% malus TO 50% malus and after that cannot be worse

 

[Leinad965]

And as OP said, it is probable, that piercing/armor numbers will be chanded accrording to new mechanics.

 

[kettyo]

At the start off WW2, you saw panzer concentration only by the german army. That's why it worked so well. The tanks faced mostly infantry (with allied tanks dispersed in little numbers all along the front).

This is very similar to how the Japanese were the first to use aircraft carriers as the main units of an assault task force. They were traditionally used as support ships or as raiders.

 

[kaguravitro]

There's something that I don't see mentioned in anywhere. The actual front line system that consist in s front line without a backline. In real life the were several deep lines in front to cover the intrution of faster units as tanks backed by motorized in the best case. As the frontline system don't get into this, there's some problems, like the units swapping but also the tank breakthrough nerfed Bennie broken the point with it a second line, the front start to collapse, getting worst by the unit swapping.

The second thing and it's not still solved for ai in game is the tank update. The French have many tanks that were not useful at all. Getting changes to medium tanks and update model was vital. The model of the tank should be as important as the number, but numbers are still much important as the urss show as in Easter front

 

[Corpse Fool]

Binary and capped is different thing

Binary = 0% malus OR 50% malus, nothing between
Capped = linear FROM 0% malus TO 50% malus and after that cannot be worse

It's still mostly binary. Yes, there is a bit of slide from 50 to 0 now, but the vast majority of combinations of piercing and armour, especially those that are commonly going to be used in the game, are going to either be at 0 or at 50.

 

[Cavalry]

I should also state here that the effectiveness of close air support in knocking out AFVs during the war has been vastly overestimated. For example, the Soviets claimed to have left "hundreds of Tigers burning on the Steppe" at Prokhorovka, when in reality there were barely more than a hundred Tigers in the entire southern prong of the offensive (45 in S.Pz.Abt 503, and a company of 14 in each of the Panzer Regiments of the LAH, Das Reich, Totenkopf, and GD Divisions), and only a portion of those were actually permanently lost. The technology of the time was just not precise enough to reliably score direct hits on hard, moving point targets, guided by the Mk. I eyeball alone. There are a ton of articles online comparing the wild kill claims of all air forces, vs the actual verified losses from air attack, if you're interested. The chief effect of air bombardment on armoured forces was not in killing tanks themselves, but rather causing losses and disorganization to the armada of soft skinned vehicles on which the armour relied for fuel, ammunition, repair and infantry protection.

I know those info was spreaded by a certain website, that try to "de myth T34" but spreading myths themselves. My opinion is not so quick to believe in some blogger that claim he is smarter than all German, Soviet, US tank and aircraft designers and leaders combined. Yeah, all these nations have specialized anti tank aircrafts in WW2 and anti air tanks (SPAA).

The tanks was hard to kill, yet it is still worth to attack them with CAS. No need to play with numbers to say it is completed useless to use planes to attack tanks.

Example of info mis spreading:
- in a wiki:
According to German sources, the 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf experienced many concentrated IL-2 airstrikes of the 2nd Air Corps in the area, and lost a total of 270 tanks - armored vehicles and self-propelled artillery. After the first shock, German tank crews over the next few days switched to a more dispersed operational and combat formation (each tank would run hundreds of meters apart instead of tens of meters as before) to reduce the likelihood of being bombed by Il-2s. Due to the more scattered German tanks, the effectiveness of the IL-2's air strikes using PTAB was reduced by about 4.5 - 5 times, however, its effectiveness was still 2-3 times higher than that of using conventional bombs. often. On the other hand, the German distributed vehicle tactics also reduced the combat effectiveness of German tanks, increased deployment time and made communication between tank formations more difficult.

- In English wiki, quote from an English book 2006: During the Battle of Kursk, VVS Il-2s claimed the destruction of no less than 270 tanks (and 2,000 men) in a period of just two hours against the 3rd Panzer Division.[26] On 1 July, however, the 3rd Panzer Division's 6th Panzer Regiment had just 90 tanks {we see how 270 armor vehicles was changed to 270 tanks in the book, and change "German sources" to "Soviet IL2 claim"}

- Some blogger may change further, that the Russian claimed hundred of Tigers.

 

[Eisscrat]

The max strenght of a Panzerdivision 43 was around 150 tanks 20spg and 50 armored personnel carrier a number divisions in the field never reach. So kill numbers of 270 are not possible cause the were not enough armoured vehicles.

 

[Jamor]

I know those info was spreaded by a certain website, that try to "de myth T34" but spreading myths themselves. My opinion is not so quick to believe in some blogger that claim he is smarter than all German, Soviet, US tank and aircraft designers and leaders combined. Yeah, all these nations have specialized anti tank aircrafts in WW2 and anti air tanks (SPAA).

The tanks was hard to kill, yet it is still worth to attack them with CAS. No need to play with numbers to say it is completed useless to use planes to attack tanks.

Example of info mis spreading:
- in a wiki:
According to German sources, the 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf experienced many concentrated IL-2 airstrikes of the 2nd Air Corps in the area, and lost a total of 270 tanks - armored vehicles and self-propelled artillery. After the first shock, German tank crews over the next few days switched to a more dispersed operational and combat formation (each tank would run hundreds of meters apart instead of tens of meters as before) to reduce the likelihood of being bombed by Il-2s. Due to the more scattered German tanks, the effectiveness of the IL-2's air strikes using PTAB was reduced by about 4.5 - 5 times, however, its effectiveness was still 2-3 times higher than that of using conventional bombs. often. On the other hand, the German distributed vehicle tactics also reduced the combat effectiveness of German tanks, increased deployment time and made communication between tank formations more difficult.

- In English wiki, quote from an English book 2006: During the Battle of Kursk, VVS Il-2s claimed the destruction of no less than 270 tanks (and 2,000 men) in a period of just two hours against the 3rd Panzer Division.[26] On 1 July, however, the 3rd Panzer Division's 6th Panzer Regiment had just 90 tanks {we see how 270 armor vehicles was changed to 270 tanks in the book, and change "German sources" to "Soviet IL2 claim"}

- Some blogger may change further, that the Russian claimed hundred of Tigers.

I'm not basing my statement on wiki articles or blogs, but on WW2 German and Allied strength and loss reports, and testing done by the RAF themselves in wartime. They found that even with expert pilots, test firing at stationary targets in perfect weather with no flak, a hit rate of <10% was achieved with rockets fired from Typhoons.

Of course it's not useless. It's just not as effective as popularly claimed.

 

[George Parr]

I agree, all sorts of actual army reports, testing and battlefield evaluations have proven that all airforces vastly overestimated or exaggerated their kill-counts.

None of that has anything to do with "blogs" stating such things, and it certainly isn't a case of spreading myths themselves. It can be found in actual reports from the time, and gets covered in all sorts of reference books and papers from highly acclaimed historians.

 

[Hippob4]

Wait, so is CAS overpowered in HoI4? They seem to do a ton of Damage to divisions ig (as well as organization).