Is it me, or are tanks worse now?...please discuss.

[Gigaus]

Okay, so, without looking at forum/reddit or meta guides yet, I have to question.....Are tanks just worse now? Both from where they were previously -and- in a general sense of how the game/combat works? Or maybe I should frame it more as, what's good about tanks now?

From my pov, I'm seeing from previous:

• Increased production cost
• Lower stats
• Longer research time, due to having to research more things
• Increased Xp costs
• Increased fuel usage

And when looking at contenders, mainly arts, SF, and Mech:

• Higher production costs by orders of magnitude
• Lower stats
• No tech upgrades ala +10% [stat]
• Requires Xp to function

Am I wrong in thinking tanks are just bad now?

So far I'm seeing that tanks only really shine in being speed demons meant for empty state snaking, or being armor bricks with damage comparable to mech. Or, rarely, being fort busters now that you can get +45% attack with two supports. You need to research Art to unlock any of their main guns, so you by nature have two options for SA; MArt and tanks. But with the production cost tied to the equipment now, adding on comparable and rarely better damage on the SA side means adding in production cost double to triple that of a single art. Taking t2 art and just a medium Howi:

• Both have 30 SA
• Art is 4 production
• Tank is 12 assuming you go for the absolute lowest production value

To get a light tank back to where it would be without the new system, stats wise, you end up with production costs around 20 while still missing out on breakthrough and armor. For reference, Light t2 was 9 production, 16 sa, and 36 break.

Don't even get me started on SPAs and TDs, it's not even comparable now.

Is there an upside to the new system that I'm missing, or....Am I really missing nothing here?

 

[tagzilla]

It’s not really fair to compare tanks now to how they were before since the ones before I longer exist. Tanks overall have been nerfed by these changes, as the designer along with supply, targeting, and width changes have made the 40width invincible tank divisions much weaker and not nearly as worth it.

That being said, you don’t really have any other choice for mobile breakthrough that also has high hardness, armour, piercing, and attack. Sure you can get more SA now by stacking arty but you’re gonna bleed manpower like crazy without any hardness and breakthrough. And even though motor infantry has been pretty heavily buffed, they’ll still take heavy casualties for similar reasons especially against high SA defenders. Mobility is still just as important, less for snaking and more for getting important targets such as railway junctions and supply hubs.

That all being said, there’s probably some balancing that needs to be done with the tank designer, but over all tanks are in a much more realistic but still very critical role in the game now.

 

[Cavalry]

MOT looks so good now with more breakthrough and cheaper, remove the tank's monopoly of BRK stats. Consider to use TD for armor bonus instead of tanks.

As said, if we test tank divisions vs 10/0 infantry then of course Sp-Art win over tanks. But try to test vs infantry with HTD and line arty?

 

[sdplissken]

The point is that you can't make 40w tank divisions any more. You have to scale back the size of the division to like 20 ish.

 

[Gigaus]

It’s not really fair to compare tanks now to how they were before since the ones before I longer exist. Tanks overall have been nerfed by these changes, as the designer along with supply, targeting, and width changes have made the 40width invincible tank divisions much weaker and not nearly as worth it.

That being said, you don’t really have any other choice for mobile breakthrough that also has high hardness, armour, piercing, and attack. Sure you can get more SA now by stacking arty but you’re gonna bleed manpower like crazy without any hardness and breakthrough. And even though motor infantry has been pretty heavily buffed, they’ll still take heavy casualties for similar reasons especially against high SA defenders. Mobility is still just as important, less for snaking and more for getting important targets such as railway junctions and supply hubs.

That all being said, there’s probably some balancing that needs to be done with the tank designer, but over all tanks are in a much more realistic but still very critical role in the game now.

No, they still exist, through bugs, but even so it's possible to use those tanks; just don't enable the DLC.

Correct me here, but Mech now can get into tank level Hardness and Armor, since they can be upgraded now, no? More over, from the streams I've seen we don't really push with ground units anymore; Cas seems to be the only damage dealing unit now, since Forts were indirectly buffed and entrenchment was hella buffed with the tank plow [Engi+Flame+Tank recon] and staff spirits. Even with massive breakthrough and armor, you're going against max bonus units without mods. So....What's the point of taking offensive stats now if they're not in the 1k range like they were previously?

Beyond that, this is more an economy problem at this point more than anything. I'll need to grab pics next time I reply, but testing with CC showed that Mech+MArt is just...Better in all but two respects-- fuel and speed-- to even the best tank divisions. At it's most expensive, a mech/mart 40 is several thousand less than a 40 mot/tank, while still maintaining the needed 100~200 breakthrough you'd need for a untrenched line push.

That is mostly where the issue I have comes from; Why would I spend Xp and then Mills on a tank unit that preforms worse, when I could build the alternative at a rate of 3 to 1 for better stats? Yes, you can get better SA for say a SPA, but that lacks in defense very heavily now while costing much much higher than we're used to. The point I'm mostly getting at is, this is an economy game, first and foremost; when the hat drops, the likely winner is whoever has more units built up and can buff them at the right time.

I am curious for more feedback on this, because I'm getting conflicting info across the board. 'seeing people absolutely destroying with tanks, but then the same build flops hard in other situations. I would like to see people intentionally build around the idea of 'do not use tanks' to go against someone who has 'use tanks', to be able to compare. Because right now I'm getting the feeling that Tanks are only there to counter tanks now....

MOT looks so good now with more breakthrough and cheaper, remove the tank's monopoly of BRK stats. Consider to use TD for armor bonus instead of tanks.

As said, if we test tank divisions vs 10/0 infantry then of course Sp-Art win over tanks. But try to test vs infantry with HTD and line arty?

Okay, why use TDs over normal tanks? I ask because, besides SPA and SPAA, the roles don't seem to do much beyond change what unit pile a tank will go in. Making a Tank in to a Destroyer just increases the unit width, doesn't it?

So far I've testing tank v tank, tank vs inf, vs mot/mart, vs mech/mart, and vs ACar. Tank is usually just flat losing, so I'm either failing to design correctly, which is likely, or....

 

[Cavalry]

Okay, why use TDs over normal tanks? I ask because, besides SPA and SPAA, the roles don't seem to do much beyond change what unit pile a tank will go in. Making a Tank in to a Destroyer just increases the unit width, doesn't it?

In previous patch the TD have 1/2 the cost, the same armor, the same hardness of tank, and these is more than SPArty or SPAA. And we need just one battalion of TD for boosting armor bonus.

Perhaps we need only 1 TD now, the rest is SP arty and MOT. We may not need even SP Arty, MRLS or towed arty may be OK?

 

[Reman]

Regular tanks are pretty much dead now unless you really want stat concentration for high cost. A better alternative is something like 10 SPGs + 5 mot, which has good stats and is quite affordable. Later on, you can swap these to 10 TDs + 5 mot which are even more affordable and have bizzarely low supply use for something that hits as hard as they do.

Overall, the biggest nerf to tanks has been the changes to supply, which makes tanks run out of fuel more than 5-6 tiles away from a supply dump. This really limits the size of encirclements that you can pull off. A few tank/SPG/TD divisions are still nice to have as shock divisions that can be used at critical points, but overall they've lost a lot of luster. I'm thinking dumping more factories on planes will be the better play going forward.

 

[sdplissken]

Regular tanks are pretty much dead now unless you really want stat concentration for high cost. A better alternative is something like 10 SPGs + 5 mot, which has good stats and is quite affordable. Later on, you can swap these to 10 TDs + 5 mot which are even more affordable and have bizzarely low supply use for something that hits as hard as they do.

Overall, the biggest nerf to tanks has been the changes to supply, which makes tanks run out of fuel more than 5-6 tiles away from a supply dump. This really limits the size of encirclements that you can pull off. A few tank/SPG/TD divisions are still nice to have as shock divisions that can be used at critical points, but overall they've lost a lot of luster. I'm thinking dumping more factories on planes will be the better play going forward.

Air Supply… it’s completely overpowered now, I think they didn’t look at this feature at all. If you have enough transport planes you never have to worry about it, unless you don’t have air superiority

 

[Gigaus]

Air Supply… it’s completely overpowered now, I think they didn’t look at this feature at all. If you have enough transport planes you never have to worry about it, unless you don’t have air superiority

can confirm this. The minute I started seeing people talking about how trash the new supply system is-- namely how easy it is to break rail lines and how utterly expensive hubs are-- my first thought was 'test the 100 berlin lift again.' Yeah, air supply ignores the new system and just directly supplies based on if you have planes in the region. Not how many there are, that just effects how often the dump happens, now how much is in the dump.

Regular tanks are pretty much dead now unless you really want stat concentration for high cost. A better alternative is something like 10 SPGs + 5 mot, which has good stats and is quite affordable. Later on, you can swap these to 10 TDs + 5 mot which are even more affordable and have bizzarely low supply use for something that hits as hard as they do.

Overall, the biggest nerf to tanks has been the changes to supply, which makes tanks run out of fuel more than 5-6 tiles away from a supply dump. This really limits the size of encirclements that you can pull off. A few tank/SPG/TD divisions are still nice to have as shock divisions that can be used at critical points, but overall they've lost a lot of luster. I'm thinking dumping more factories on planes will be the better play going forward.

Okay, this was what I was looking for. Denial or confirmation; Straight tanks are bad now and don't fill a purpose. Or, well, a combat purpose. Pretty sure that they're still useful for buggy rushing for encirclements alongside actual combat units.

But this makes sense....Or, well, why we're using TDs then. The thing is, TDs are limited to specific mainguns, aren't they? Any 'normal' gun that's a class up, or specific HV cannons, no ER guns correct? Perhaps I'm still thinking on the old meta, but the primary focus is still SA, since one bat can add enough pen and HA to deal with the 'low' armor and hardness of mech. Doesn't that mean that a typical DT will have around 15~25 SA from the main gun, and +8~11 from supports? Or does it go higher?

 

[Cavalry]

the new tank looks more powerful than the previous tank. For example, starting 1936 Soviet BT 7 has 12 SA, 15 HA while previous is 12-6. And there should be a premium for concentrated firepower. The TD and SPG are good on previous patch too, but people use them less because tank is quite cheap.

 

[Cavalry]

On Tank vs TD, I take the Basic Heavy Tank KV1 (from Treaty), they start with 72 armor stats, if I change to HTD, I cannot increase Armor to level 9 again (why?), so the armor drop to 61.2

And the Piercing of the TD is the same as Tank, not higher.
The tank have 2w vs 3w of TD, and 20% more break through.

 

[Leinad965]

On Tank vs TD, I take the Basic Heavy Tank KV1 (from Treaty), they start with 72 armor stats, if I change to HTD, I cannot increase Armor to level 9 again (why?), so the armor drop to 61.2

And the Piercing of the TD is the same as Tank, not higher.
The tank have 2w vs 3w of TD, and 20% more break through.

View attachment 778203
View attachment 778200

Breakthrough is lower because you have lower armor. Put same armor and you will see same breakthrough.

You need to research higher armor techs. You have predefined higher armor on KV-1 from focus, which is locked to that particular free design. Until you reasearch it, you cannot use it elsewhere.

 

[Medu Salem]

Regular tanks are pretty much dead now unless you really want stat concentration for high cost. A better alternative is something like 10 SPGs + 5 mot, which has good stats and is quite affordable. Later on, you can swap these to 10 TDs + 5 mot which are even more affordable and have bizzarely low supply use for something that hits as hard as they do.

I wouldn't say that regular tanks are completely dead yet.

For example using Medium Tanks vs Medium Tank SPA... 50 vs 36 equipment, factor 1.39. BUT 2 vs 3 combat width, factor 1.5. On top of that if you mark a design as Artillery it immediately gets a debuff to its hardness from 85% down to 65%, which it doesn't if you leave it as a regular tank. So a huge SPA division will be more prone to soft damage, so you will likely lose a good deal more tanks even to crappy enemy Infantry units, which might end up in a zero-sum game on saved equipment, all while being more space inefficient.

So even using an SPA design as Medium Tank battalion instead of dedicated SPA battalion is likely better off in my opinion.


As for the Tank Destroyers... the main issue here is the use of Tungsten requirement of the cannon I guess, which is also needed by standard Towed Artillery, Anti Air etc. And a country like Germany doesn't have as much Tungsten to begin with and needs to import most of it (eventually the Soviets need to import it too), that can be a huge drain on the economy, so you kinda would only want a few of them and avoid it for the bulk.


In my current playthough I am currently testing a 20 width template with 4 medium tanks, 2 TD, 3 Motorized Infantry.

The medium tanks are the Pz.IV with the Close Support Gun which throw out tons of Soft Attack, and the 2 TD are the Pz.III with the Basic high velocity cannon, they push the division piercing beyond what most enemy divisions have.

In sum 200 Pz.IV and 48 Pz.III per division. I adjusted both designs to be about similar reliability & production cost, so I can schedule factories in a ratio of 4:1.

 

[FindFloppies]

Bottom line: You can't use the old meta and expect it to work like it used to. Experiment, play, figure out what works and what doesn't, and why. Also, terrain may have more influence than previously.

I think the targeting changes have had some very interesting effects. I have had good success with a range of templates from 12 to 25, as long as I could supply and equip them, and mixing them hasn't bothered horribly, either.

One is that if you do actually end up with a mismatch, like an actual 3 on 1 fight, where there's no rescue or support for the 1, they're in trouble very quickly. I've seen org bites of 3 to 4 a day at times in those situations.

Also, the 'worried about' small-div spam meta? No, I've seen too many small units just get plowed under by bigger units.

Still, you can't just take your old 'invincible' 40 wide tank division, aim at the line and let it go, expecting automatic victory anymore.

 

[mursolini]

A combination of TD, SPArt and tanks is probably best.
At least for TDs, it makes perfect sense to get fixed superstructure and fit biggest gun you can. Also, heavy armor seems pretty good due to high armor level. And yes, resource cost is the elephant in the room, that is hard to get right.

Mechanized is also much better, considering you can get -50% cost discount if you are willing to spend 100army XP.

I'd probably gravitate towards Mech+SPart+1 TD and tanks depending on breakthrough needed, and can I fit available large gun into turret or fixed structure.

 

[Medu Salem]

At least for TDs, it makes perfect sense to get fixed superstructure and fit biggest gun you can. Also, heavy armor seems pretty good due to high armor level. And yes, resource cost is the elephant in the room, that is hard to get right.

Fiddled with superstructures around a bit for TD, but early on using only 1936-1939 tech the small High Velocity Cannon is still best in the room for what it does. Also superstructures cost tons of breakthrough.

Later with 1940+ tech when you get better medium/heavy cannons one might argue about it. But they start to use Chromium... which then also sucks even more resource wise.


The big question is... if it the investment even pays off.

Because if you play Germany for example and manage to defeat the Soviets with your 1939 tech equipment, then there's no need to switch around production lines or upgrade anything... and after Soviets there is basically no one left to defeat you either and it's like a luxury game if you want to bash the US with tons of 1939 equipment or if you upgrade stuff first.

So I feel like the most important decisions will be if you are really going to use tanks in your strategy... how can you produce tons of comparably cheap mass produced equipment which still outperforms your enemy in almost every single stat, so that you can defeat them quickly.

In such thought experiments I don't think there is much room for resource intensive equipment that cripples your economy by having to buy tons of resources that would be better spent on building more MICs to produce more of the cheaper equipment.

 

[krios41]

What are you all on about? tanks are amazing!
Did teh german civil war yesterday and used my 2 litle tonk devisiosn to great effect, got screwed by the AI so i got locked out of big parts of my focus tree (THANKS FRANCE)
Tried again today and i won even faster by making more use of those 2 tank devisions you get to have.

 

[Secret Master]

It seems perfectly viable to run SPART or TDs supporting MECH as panzer divisions. I think I'd lean to TDs, though, because I can create a HTD with a heavy cannon that has plenty of soft attack and hard attack and piercing.

But I haven't counted regular tanks out, yet. And then there's the issue that you can create a "tank" that is a tank in all relevant ways (turret, heavy cannon, heavy hull, radio, etc.), but you designate it as a "tank destroyer" just so you can create TD battalions instead of tank battalions.

 

[Reman]

I wouldn't say that regular tanks are completely dead yet.

For example using Medium Tanks vs Medium Tank SPA... 50 vs 36 equipment, factor 1.39. BUT 2 vs 3 combat width, factor 1.5. On top of that if you mark a design as Artillery it immediately gets a debuff to its hardness from 85% down to 65%, which it doesn't if you leave it as a regular tank. So a huge SPA division will be more prone to soft damage, so you will likely lose a good deal more tanks even to crappy enemy Infantry units, which might end up in a zero-sum game on saved equipment, all while being more space inefficient.

So even using an SPA design as Medium Tank battalion instead of dedicated SPA battalion is likely better off in my opinion.


As for the Tank Destroyers... the main issue here is the use of Tungsten requirement of the cannon I guess, which is also needed by standard Towed Artillery, Anti Air etc. And a country like Germany doesn't have as much Tungsten to begin with and needs to import most of it (eventually the Soviets need to import it too), that can be a huge drain on the economy, so you kinda would only want a few of them and avoid it for the bulk.


In my current playthough I am currently testing a 20 width template with 4 medium tanks, 2 TD, 3 Motorized Infantry.

The medium tanks are the Pz.IV with the Close Support Gun which throw out tons of Soft Attack, and the 2 TD are the Pz.III with the Basic high velocity cannon, they push the division piercing beyond what most enemy divisions have.

In sum 200 Pz.IV and 48 Pz.III per division. I adjusted both designs to be about similar reliability & production cost, so I can schedule factories in a ratio of 4:1.

With a basic 1939 medium chassis with a close support gun that costs 16.2 IC, classifying it as a tank and using it in a 15 tank + 5 mot division costs 12837.5 IC, whereas classifying it as an SPG and using it in a 10 SPG + 5 mot division costs 6519.5 IC. The tank version has 50% SA and 50% more breakthrough than the SPG version, but costs basically twice as much. Using 4 spg divisions saves 25272 IC over 4 tank divisions, which is enough to instead make over 1100 CAS. With that sort of tradeoff, I'd say it's well beyond the realm of "reasonable people could disagree". Having 4 "good enough" SPG divisions + 1100 CAS is just way, WAY stronger than 4 "great" tank divisions with how nutty planes are right now. In fact, I think a better case could be made for not making any armored units at all and just going all-in on planes with maybe some mot or 50% discount mech divisions to support them. It depends on how much you value shock divisions I guess.

Outside resource shortages I don't see regular tanks having any sort of niche, at least against the AI.

 

[seldon]

I think with the advent of the tank designer, the whole paradigm of Battalion = X number vehicles, and approximately X/2 number of vehicles SPART, TD etc is broken.

You should build AFVs and put them in battalions of say 50 vehicles. The battalion stats are directly related to the vehicle stats.