Infantry support tanks ?

[Le_Carabinier]

Recently, while gazing into the armor tech tree and wondering what it could look like for the Soviet Union, the UK, France and Japan, I found myself thinking : "Where do the infantry support tanks fit ?"

During the 30s, several nations, most importantly the SU, UK and France, fielded tanks that managed to combine the flaws of all classes. They were lightly armored, had a very unimpressive firepower and were very, very slow.

The problem is, the current armor tech tree has no space left for them.

- They're not WW1 tanks, but actually evolutions of the FT-17 archetype.

- They're not nimble recon tanks like the Panzer I, so the "Light 1934" slot doesn't suit them.

- They're very lightly armored and weakly armed, so the "Heavy 1934" doesn't suit them either.


The solution ? Simple create a "Medium 1934" which would represent models such as the D2 tank, T-26 or Type 89 tanks. The T-26 was produced in larger numbers that all other contemporary tank variants put together, going over 10.000 tanks produced. Yet, the current tech tree, which goes "Light 1934" "Light 1936" and then branches between "Medium 1939" and "Light 1941" prevents it from being accurately modelled into the game...

Or at worse, put them in the game as heavily buffed "Variant" of the Great War Tank.

 

[ikeokp]

Im pretty sure this is taken care of by your chosen "country directives".

 

[Snow Wolf]

doctrines
no need for extra units

 

[Secret Master]

How do we know that the first tanks in everyone's tech tree won't meet your requirements for being slow, underarmed, and under armored?

 

[parnis]

I am new to this forum, so I apologize if what I say here has been said many times before, and I am beating a dead horse.

But what Le_Carabinier describes does not sound to me like infantry tanks as I understand the term. His description - small, slow, weakly armed, not useful for reconnaissance - sounds more like the "tankettes" that so many European nations built in the mid-1930's. Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and especially Italy built these and found they were almost useless in combat. Mostly, they were inspired by a British Carden-Loyd design. Ironically, in Britain, this type developed into the Bren Gun Carrier and the Universal Carrier, which were actually useful provided no one tried to use them like tanks. Instead, the British developed their own line of light tanks, which were at least big enough to carry a radio and fast enough to be somewhat useful for reconnaissance.

An infantry tank as I understand the term is a medium to small tank that sacrifices speed for armor. The classic examples are all British: the Matilda I, the Matilda II, the Valentine, and the Churchill. There were also some late-war prototypes - an improved Valentine called the Valiant, and bigger Churchill-style tank called the Black Prince.

Hardly anyone else built this kind of tank. The only US example that fits is the small batch of heavily armored Shermans called Sherman Jumbos (I forget the US Army designation). The US also built a prototype infantry tank for the British, but by the time it was ready, the British had lost interest.

The Germans, the Russians, and I guess the Italians all used what the Germans called "assault guns" in this role. The Russians, I have read, also tended to use US Lend-Lease tanks like the Lee and the Sherman for infantry support, but of course, that did not make them infantry tanks.

The French light tanks of 1940 might also be considered infantry tanks, because compared to other light tanks like the T-26, the Panzer II and the Panzer 38(t) they sacrificed speed (and crew) for armor, and were intended for an infantry-accompanying role.

All this is just off the top of my head and is just my opinion, of course. I'm sorry if it has nothing to do with the tank development categories in HOI-IV.

 

[Stenner]

I didn't know infantry tanks were different, I knew that some things the germans made were designed to be used with infantry like the stug.

I guess if you /wanted/ a worse tank you could just crank out the basic tank with no xp upgrades.

During the early war the majority of tanks were interspersed with infantry and now that we can put regiments into divisions you could just give a lot of your inf div a tank bat.

I mean. Technically it would be the same.

If you want good tanks spend the xp and if you want a tank in every inf division then make older models and overproduce.

 

[keynes2.0]

The T-26 seems like a pretty clear example of a light tank to me. It was just slow because it was an early model.

 

[Big Nev]

Recently, while gazing into the armor tech tree and wondering what it could look like for the Soviet Union, the UK, France and Japan, I found myself thinking : "Where do the infantry support tanks fit ?"

During the 30s, several nations, most importantly the SU, UK and France, fielded tanks that managed to combine the flaws of all classes. They were lightly armored, had a very unimpressive firepower and were very, very slow.

The problem is, the current armor tech tree has no space left for them.

- They're not WW1 tanks, but actually evolutions of the FT-17 archetype.

- They're not nimble recon tanks like the Panzer I, so the "Light 1934" slot doesn't suit them.

- They're very lightly armored and weakly armed, so the "Heavy 1934" doesn't suit them either.


The solution ? Simple create a "Medium 1934" which would represent models such as the D2 tank, T-26 or Type 89 tanks. The T-26 was produced in larger numbers that all other contemporary tank variants put together, going over 10.000 tanks produced. Yet, the current tech tree, which goes "Light 1934" "Light 1936" and then branches between "Medium 1939" and "Light 1941" prevents it from being accurately modelled into the game...

Or at worse, put them in the game as heavily buffed "Variant" of the Great War Tank.

The one glaring omission from your list of countries that produced "infantry" tanks is, of course, Germany.

The Pz IV started life with the specific roll of Infantry Support. Being given reasonable armour, reasonable speed but a gun only worthy of lobbing HE.

OK. Now shoot me.

One of the major characteristics of the classical (British/French) infantry support idea is that they were slow & heavily armoured. Therefore, the infantry support tanks should, IMHO, be 1934 (& onwards) HArm with a really crap gun. Either no HE (Soft Attack) to speak of (Matilda with a 2pdr & no HE. How THAT is supposed to work as "Infantry Support" is beyond my understanding) or with a half decent all-round gun that has such a low rate of fire (Char B/S-35 with one man wearing three hats in the turret) that they have really crap SA and crap HA.

@ parnis. I've never heard anyone refer to a Jumbo Sherman as infantry support. As an assault tank, yes, but not Inf-Sup.

I'm not sure the Black Prince was really infantry support either. It was supposed to carry a 17pdr for AT work (a gun notorious for its poor HE) so... I think British tank designers still weren't getting all their memo's. The Churchill with a sawn-off 3.7" AA gun would be a good example for infantry support though.

 

[PlacidDragon]

The one glaring omission from your list of countries that produced "infantry" tanks is, of course, Germany.

The Pz IV started life with the specific roll of Infantry Support. Being given reasonable armour, reasonable speed but a gun only worthy of lobbing HE.

OK. Now shoot me.

No reason to shoot you

You are correct, the doctrine at the time (simply because nobody knew better), was to have a tank for breakthrough's and that went toe to toe with other tanks (the German Pz. III, the British Cruiser series, etc), and a heavier and better armored tank strictly with infantry support in mind (blowing up strongpoints, bunkers, etc) like the Pz. IV or Matilda.

 

[Poh]

Hve you considered that a Panzer 1 is a 1934 light tank with upgraded engine and reliability. While a T-26 has upgraded gun and reliability?

Even though the Line has a specific flavour name doesnt in my optics mean that the base model is similar to the one fielded in WW2.

 

[ikeokp]

A tank is a tank is a tank. In HOI4 I would probably just boost up the armor and gun of the Pz2/Pz1 and give the leftovers to my infrantry divs lol.

 

[parnis]

Like I said, I think the OP, Le_Carabinier, is talking about tankettes. You can see what I mean here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankette

Tankettes were pretty much a dead end in AFV development. Still, they were the major type of armor some countries (like Poland, Hungary, and Italy) had when WWII started in Europe.

They were a tracked, almost-AFV for countries that were not yet able to build real tanks.