Massive oversight in the tank designer: there is no advanced medium cannon.

[Crecer13]

From a cursory reading of some materials, it looks like it had problems using that big gun in an actual turret.

but was it meant to be a TD? I can’t tell if it was just meant to replace other T-34s or if it was meant to be specialized.

The T-34-100 was planned for production, but the war ended and there was no point in it, since the T-54 was being developed, which was much more adapted to a 100-mm gun.
If the war dragged on longer, then the T-34-100 most likely would not have become a replacement for the T-34-85, but would have become a quality anti-tank strengthening.

 

[Secret Master]

The T-34-100 was planned for production, but the war ended and there was no point in it, since the T-54 was being developed, which was much more adapted to a 100-mm gun.
If the war dragged on longer, then the T-34-100 most likely would not have become a replacement for the T-34-85, but would have become a quality anti-tank strengthening.

Sounds like it fits the “up gunned medium tanks with bigger guns yet to be tank destroyers” paradigm. It won’t look right with a fixed mount, but it can meet the need.

 

[Corpse Fool]

One thing I did notice is that apparently it's more efficient to have one production line building empty chassis and a second production line converting those chassis into real tanks than it is to have all of the factories building tanks. Not exactly sure why that is, probably has to do with conversion speed bonuses from techs.

I certainly hope this is not the case. I specifically warned them about this.

 

[el nora]

I certainly hope this is not the case. I specifically warned them about this.

'tis. (allow 2 mils on producing new panthers, it's still only 3/week). sorry for the names, this isn't my screenshot.

 

[MinhowMinhow]

I am a bit disapointed because in the majority of guns, you have only 2 variants, a basic and an improved. It doesn't scale with all tech upgrades.

 

[blahmaster6k]

'tis. (allow 2 mils on producing new panthers, it's still only 3/week). sorry for the names, this isn't my screenshot.

View attachment 777666

Yeah this is rough.

 

[FLUX2226]

Honestly, the research for tank components feels like a mess. There's some treasure hunting involved in trying to find where the correct component is supposed to be unlocked, only to find out, as previously mentioned, that it doesn't make much sense where everything is.

It also takes quite a while to research the desired gun if you weren't going for the respective "main tech" in the first place (personally I never researched AT guns before). Naval components have independent techs (with the exception of AA) with short research times and no fillers in between since the buff techs are optional.

People wanted less additional techs for the tank designer than for the naval designer, so I understand why the guns were included here, but I'm not the biggest fan of how it turned out.

 

[Louella]

I think the idea is that you have the "medium gun 1", and "medium gun 2" to build your early and mid war medium tanks, and then you have a decision to make, as to what you want your late war medium tanks to actually do, i.e. you have to decide if you want them to take on enemy tanks and lean towards a tank-hunter role, or lean towards an infantry support role.

So, you fit a high velocity gun, to make a mediumweight tank to take on enemy tanks. Or you fit a howitzer to make a mediumweight infantry support tank.

But you can't make a multipurpose all-rounder medium tank that is superior in every way

 

[blahmaster6k]

I think the idea is that you have the "medium gun 1", and "medium gun 2" to build your early and mid war medium tanks, and then you have a decision to make, as to what you want your late war medium tanks to actually do, i.e. you have to decide if you want them to take on enemy tanks and lean towards a tank-hunter role, or lean towards an infantry support role.

So, you fit a high velocity gun, to make a mediumweight tank to take on enemy tanks. Or you fit a howitzer to make a mediumweight infantry support tank.

But you can't make a multipurpose all-rounder medium tank that is superior in every way

If that were the case, then why is there a regular "advanced heavy cannon" for heavy tanks? If it were like that then heavy tanks would also be just using high velocity cannons or howitzers and not have a middle-of-the-road option.

 

[Joshua Happytree]

The T-34-100 was planned for production, but the war ended and there was no point in it, since the T-54 was being developed

1. Nope, for a bigger gun you need a bigger turret race ring. And for a bigger turret race ring you need a totally redesigned - and heavier - hull. You can save some weight by changing length to width ratio and optimizing component density or reallocating armour weight - read differentiate protection or keep protection constant while reducing weight through the use of more modern metallurgy and armour design. But you cannot avoid a bigger race ring - e.g. T-54 while having a 100mm gun has the same race ring diameter as IS-2 with 122mm gun.
2. T-34-100 was not a successful design again due to turret race ring being too small. So the sequence is not T-34-85 -> T-34-100 -> T-54 but rather T-34-85 -> T-44 -> T-54. T-44 was first made with 85mm gun and a turret similar to T-34-85 yet with a bigger turret ring. Or rather two options yet both bigger than T-34-85. And T-44 certainly had a new hull able fit a bigger race ring which was the whole point of the exercise. They tried 122mm and 100mm guns and settled on 100mm due to higher ROF. Yet they selected a bigger race ring for the new tank - 1800mm - out of two options - 1800 and 1600mm.And again IS-2-122mm of WWII vintage had the same 1800mm ring. And only after that they decided to make a more efficient turret design for the new race ring. So there was a kind of HoI4 tank designer between T-34-85 and "true" T-54

 

[Feeblezak]

I think the idea is that you have the "medium gun 1", and "medium gun 2" to build your early and mid war medium tanks, and then you have a decision to make, as to what you want your late war medium tanks to actually do, i.e. you have to decide if you want them to take on enemy tanks and lean towards a tank-hunter role, or lean towards an infantry support role.

So, you fit a high velocity gun, to make a mediumweight tank to take on enemy tanks. Or you fit a howitzer to make a mediumweight infantry support tank.

But you can't make a multipurpose all-rounder medium tank that is superior in every way

 

[Louella]

If that were the case, then why is there a regular "advanced heavy cannon" for heavy tanks? If it were like that then heavy tanks would also be just using high velocity cannons or howitzers and not have a middle-of-the-road option.

probably because you're unlikely to want to operate multiple different kinds of heavy tanks, but more likely to want to operate multiple kinds of mediums.


if you look at historical tanks - the Panther's HE shell was only about the same explosive power as HE shells from earlier tanks & guns, but the Panther's gun was considerably better in the AT role.
So I see that as equivalent to using the high velocity gun, rather than an all-rounder gun. And tanks other than the Panther would be used to support the infantry, while the Panthers were used against enemy tanks.

Meanwhile heavy tanks can fit more powerful all-rounder guns, because they are much larger tanks, and have the hull & turret space to fit such guns. Mediums don't.

 

[Praetori]

Yes, but the most modern light chassis in the game is a 1941 model. Medium tanks go all the way to 1943. It makes sense that light tank development stopped as they became obsolete, but medium tanks were the mainstays of armies throughout the war before the MBT concept became dominant.

And yet still the "medium" philosophy didn't survive ww2. 75mil PzIVs did serve after ww2 (but panthers, fireflies and 34/85s did not to the same extent). The MBTs of the late 40s and 50s were basically a compromise between production techniques of ww2 mediums and the "heavy" designs as portrayed in-game rather than an upgunned medium tank.

There were very few turreted "mediums" with guns larger than 75-85mm ever fielded during the war itself. So few in fact that the step from medium/heavy to MBT with the corresponding ordnance makes perfect sense to me at least.

Now there might be things to discuss from a MP balance type of perspective but that's a completely different discussion IMO.

The problem I see has more to do with the mechanics of the different "battalions" being light, medium, heavy and superheavy despite the new tank designer mechanic than anything else.

 

[minimouse007]

my larger problem is which gun can go to which chasse/turret. 1941 light tank represents tanks like the chaffe and amx-12, which should have a medium gun or sort of thing. single man turrets with large guns make 0 sense. the fact that there is no way to represent the difference between a pz3 and pz4, makes roleplaying kinda pointless, and the tank treaty 50% useless (and is bugged), since the difference was a larger (thus costlier) chasse, which allowed a larger turret, which in turn allowed a longer barrel 75, despite both of them being able to be fitted with a short 75

 

[Crecer13]

1. Nope, for a bigger gun you need a bigger turret race ring. And for a bigger turret race ring you need a totally redesigned - and heavier - hull. You can save some weight by changing length to width ratio and optimizing component density or reallocating armour weight - read differentiate protection or keep protection constant while reducing weight through the use of more modern metallurgy and armour design. But you cannot avoid a bigger race ring - e.g. T-54 while having a 100mm gun has the same race ring diameter as IS-2 with 122mm gun.
2. T-34-100 was not a successful design again due to turret race ring being too small. So the sequence is not T-34-85 -> T-34-100 -> T-54 but rather T-34-85 -> T-44 -> T-54. T-44 was first made with 85mm gun and a turret similar to T-34-85 yet with a bigger turret ring. Or rather two options yet both bigger than T-34-85. And T-44 certainly had a new hull able fit a bigger race ring which was the whole point of the exercise. They tried 122mm and 100mm guns and settled on 100mm due to higher ROF. Yet they selected a bigger race ring for the new tank - 1800mm - out of two options - 1800 and 1600mm.And again IS-2-122mm of WWII vintage had the same 1800mm ring. And only after that they decided to make a more efficient turret design for the new race ring. So there was a kind of HoI4 tank designer between T-34-85 and "true" T-54

Then the T-34-85 cannot be considered a modification of the T-34-76? because the T-34-76 has a ring diameter of 1420 mm and the T-34-85 has 1600 mm.
The sequence T-34-85 - T-44 - T-54 does not make sense. Because the T-44 is a completely different tank and the T-54 is based on it. The T-34-100 was created on the basis of the T-34. The T-44 also had a project to install a 100-mm gun. These projects are not sequential but parallel. Again, the T-44-100 was abandoned because the T-54 was in development and was originally designed for a 100mm gun. The main goal of these parallel projects was the modernization of the tanks that we have to the new standard 100 mm guns.

 

[Praetori]

Then the T-34-85 cannot be considered a modification of the T-34-76? because the T-34-76 has a ring diameter of 1420 mm and the T-34-85 has 1600 mm.
The sequence T-34-85 - T-44 - T-54 does not make sense. Because the T-44 is a completely different tank and the T-54 is based on it. The T-34-100 was created on the basis of the T-34. The T-44 also had a project to install a 100-mm gun. These projects are not sequential but parallel. Again, the T-44-100 was abandoned because the T-54 was in development and was originally designed for a 100mm gun. The main goal of these parallel projects was the modernization of the tanks that we have to the new standard 100 mm guns.

There were quite a lot of contemporary soviet designs. The T-43 was probably the most prominent attempt to standardize everything but in the end the already existing production of T-34s (especially the 34/85s success) and KVs meant it didn't materialize.
As far as in-game terms go I would say that the 34/76 is a medium with a 2 man turret and the cannon while a 34/85 is a medium with a 3 man turret and the high-velocity gun.
Everything aside it's important to remember that the actual tank values are diluted in the final divisional stats and even more so in combat so while the tank designer is a nice feature it doesn't fully carry over to the actual combat mechanics.

 

[blahmaster6k]

Then the T-34-85 cannot be considered a modification of the T-34-76? because the T-34-76 has a ring diameter of 1420 mm and the T-34-85 has 1600 mm.
The sequence T-34-85 - T-44 - T-54 does not make sense. Because the T-44 is a completely different tank and the T-54 is based on it. The T-34-100 was created on the basis of the T-34. The T-44 also had a project to install a 100-mm gun. These projects are not sequential but parallel. Again, the T-44-100 was abandoned because the T-54 was in development and was originally designed for a 100mm gun. The main goal of these parallel projects was the modernization of the tanks that we have to the new standard 100 mm guns.

What this says to me: The T-44 had a bigger gun than the T-34, but was still a medium tank.

With the vanilla tank designer, this is not possible.

There were quite a lot of contemporary soviet designs. The T-43 was probably the most prominent attempt to standardize everything but in the end the already existing production of T-34s (especially the 34/85s success) and KVs meant it didn't materialize.
As far as in-game terms go I would say that the 34/76 is a medium with a 2 man turret and the cannon while a 34/85 is a medium with a 3 man turret and the high-velocity gun.

I wouldn't say that in-game terms the T-34-85 was a high velocity cannon in game terms simply because of the diameter change. Sure in reality it was higher velocity, but high velocity doesn't necessarily mean bigger. The Panther apparently had better penetrating power with its 75mm gun than the Tiger did with its 88mm. Also, using a high-velocity cannon makes the tank worse against infantry when that just wasn't the case. In reality tanks could load HE shells into their guns to deal with infantry, and those HE shells weren't worse just because the cannon was considered "high velocity." Sure they would be worse than a howitzer, but a t-34-85 was certainly not worse against infantry than one with the 76mm. In-game you can either have middling soft and hard attack or a lot of one and barely any of the other.

Upgrading from a 76mm to an 85mm could just a bigger regular gun if we're just talking about how things seem to be modeled in-game. Or, like you said, it could be switching from a regular cannon to a high-velocity cannon. We don't really know, because the way the tank designer works is abstracted so much.

Personally I wish that there were Light, Medium, and Heavy high-velocity cannons to be more representative of different designs, but that's just me.

Another thing that doesn't make sense to me is that the advanced heavy cannon and advanced high velocity cannons have 170 and 200 piercing respectively. 1943 advanced heavy tank? Which is unlocked by the exact same tech as said tank guns? A mere 125 piercing. It makes no sense how tanks have more piercing than the same gun but towed. Literally, the normal advanced heavy cannon, which is explicitly not high velocity, has 50 more piercing than the purpose built contemporary anti-tank gun.

 

[Corpse Fool]

and those HE shells weren't worse just because the cannon was considered "high velocit

In some ways, yes it does. Higher velocities means there is more stress on the shell, the shell needs to be stronger to avoid tearing itself apart. Strength usually achieved by making the walls thicker, which means there is less room for explosives.

 

[Praetori]

Sure they would be worse than a howitzer, but a t-34-85 was certainly not worse against infantry than one with the 76mm. In-game you can either have middling soft and hard attack or a lot of one and barely any of the other.

To be fair, it did carry less HE shells (O-365K for both 85 gun variants) and those were arguably not much better (nor as numerous) as the combination of shells that could be carried by the 34/76s (OF-350M and Sh-354T) which would warrant the lower SA stat in the "grand strategy" scheme of things.
But yes while it does fit for the T-34s it doesn't make complete sense for other tanks such as the Firefly or StuGs but the tank-designer isn't really meant for that kind of accuracy and flexibility (or we'd be able to cheese the builds even more).

A more "accurate" tech-tree and designer would probably require mechanics to produce components separately from the tanks in order to stop any exploits (like guns and engines as a "resource" to build specific tanks).
A large part of the decisionmaking behind which guns were used and not revolved around availability of the guns and production components. There WERE better guns than those used in most tanks but producing them in relevant numbers and adjusting the production of turrets etc wasn't trivial in when there was a constant shortage in the field of vehicles already in production.

Another thing that doesn't make sense to me is that the advanced heavy cannon and advanced high velocity cannons have 170 and 200 piercing respectively. 1943 advanced heavy tank? Which is unlocked by the exact same tech as said tank guns? A mere 125 piercing. It makes no sense how tanks have more piercing than the same gun but towed. Literally, the normal advanced heavy cannon, which is explicitly not high velocity, has 50 more piercing than the purpose built contemporary anti-tank gun.

The higher PEN of a tank gun could be explained with the fact that a tank has the ability to maneuver and thus it would have an edge in terms of PEN compared to a stationary platform with the same gun which has to rely on the target exposing any weaknesses by its own volition.

 

[blahmaster6k]

The higher PEN of a tank gun could be explained with the fact that a tank has the ability to maneuver and thus it would have an edge in terms of PEN compared to a stationary platform with the same gun which has to rely on the target exposing any weaknesses by its own volition.

That's possible, but that's a lot of mental gymnastics required to arrive at that conclusion when it still doesn't make a lot of sense up front. I don't really know how often tanks were brawling at close range where they could actually shoot at the sides and rear of an enemy as opposed to shooting each other from across fields, I'd have to look into it.