Please up front armor of panther G (like bef panther)
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In what way? Some American tests put the PzGr 40/42 at 262mm of pen.
Isn't that exactly where Panthers should suck? Like historically speaking it was where they sucked.
This reads like an undergrad student's attempt just to have something written published online. It's superficial and lacks any serious research or critical thought.
Whew lawrd this is interesting.
Anyway:
Commentary: Tanks in general
Most tankers do not want to get shot. Even by small, or doubtful to penetrate weapons. This image of panzerwarriors grinning like idiots while rounds ping off, Panthers, M1s, whatever is patently false because you as the tank crew are stuck in a machine that is best described as "hardened" vs "immune" to being broken. The more often you are shot, the more likely it is the next one hits something important, you lose a track, or the round finds something neat to explode.
I thought about this while playing skirmish one night. There was one stupid BEF Panther that would emerge, kill a few things, get forced off by return fire, disappear into part of the map I really couldn't get into that well, and then emerge to do the same thing all over again. I took to calling it "Bruce" after the shark in Jaws simply because improbably, there it was, attacking again, LOL LOL I KILLED A M3 AND A STUART!!! before being driven back.
Historically this isn't a result that occurred often. Regardless of poor armor or not, the law of averages generally results in something breaking badly enough to disable the tank, or it's enough to encourage the tank to find somewhere else to go.
I think a realistic outcome for heavily armored tanks is still a high probability of various critical hits. Perhaps not ammunition racks exploding, but were the Panther's tracks especially resilient? Was the Jumbo Sherman's gun tube made from armor plate as thick as the frontal slope? Did the rank novices Germany stuffed into Panthers really know it's only smoke from the outside of the tank vs fire inside of their notoriously fire prone tank?
Real tank employment regardless of armor relies on smart employment. Right now you can certainly win playing smart against Panthers. You can also win with Panthers with no talent whatsoever though. There is none of the historical punishment that came with using Panthers stupidly, like at Dompaire where Groupment Tactique Langland from the French 2nd Armored Division killed 34 Panthers and 28 Panzer IVs in exchange for 5 Shermans and two Stuarts. It's worthwhile also to note that the Panthers on several occasions were driven off by M10 fire at ranges in excess of 1800 meters, with no lethal effects, but the German crews were too scared to close the gap.
Basically there's no strictly "mechanical" reason why Panthers should lose from the front, if we're just going round to frontal slope. But very often in battle they were immobilized, or fire power killed (gun destroyed/rendered useless), or after welds came apart, or that lovely leaky engine caught fire, the crew bailed.
Re: Armor fracturing
There's numerous reports, documented occurrences, in labs, in tests, on the battlefield. German armor had a problem with fracturing when it was really not supposed to. This would make for an interesting way to make employing German heavy armor more tactical, in that you're correctly gambling that you will be able to take the shots your tank is supposed to be able to handle.
As to the M4A1, I don't really care. It generally can be knocked out by its historical threat weapons, and doesn't seem to be terribly unfair, but I cannot speak for Thonar's tactical acumen so I must simply assume they give him fits.
It's okay. Try cannons?
Re: Target acquisition
I quoted it earlier in the tread, but the French found it too 20-30 seconds for the Panther to go from the commander spotting a target, to the gunner shooting it, and specifically noted it was inferior to the Sherman in that respect. Here's what the Panther did right though in terms of targeting:
a. Very good commander's position with good all around visibility without needing to operate a periscope
b. Gunner's optic very clear and precise
Here's what it did not do well:
a. The power traverse for the Panther was a power-take off method, which basically meant the turret speed varied on how hard the engine was going. At low speeds this could be problematic, and it required good driver-gunner cooperation to get the turret going at a good speed (as the driver had to rev the engine to provide that additional power). Basically max rotation at optimal conditions was 18 second total traverse, but in practice much slower.
b. The gunner's only view out of the tank was a narrow field of view gunner's optic that covered a very small part of the battlefield, making him very reliant on the commander's ability to see targets. He was not especially useful for target acquisition, and on the move he was effectively useless given lack of stabilization
c. The Commander did not have the ability to "lay" the gunner onto a target, instead being reliant on vocally guiding the gunner to his target. By contrast the Sherman had a power control for the Commander so he could swing the turret roughly onto the target.
By contrast in terms of shooting first for Shermans:
a. Late model Sherman (all of the 76 MM armed models, Most M4A3 75Ws) had commander's position similar to Panther in regards to vision (earlier models had a periscope)
b. The Gunner had a wide field of view optic in addition to his narrow field view. This allowed him to better acquire targets either from a Commander hand-off, or realistically he could much better find targets on his own (allowing the gunner to look in one direction, while the commander searched for targets elsewhere). Also while firing on move was still not a good idea, he could much better acquire and select targets going into a short halt thanks to the wide FOV optic.
c. As already mentioned, the Sherman commander had the ability to direct the turret onto targets he spotted, making for a much faster target hand-off.
d. Sherman turret traverse was independent of engine RPMs, it did a 15 second 360, sitting still, going full speed, whatever.
To it's detriment:
a. Earlier models (M4, M4A1, M4A3 "dry" stowage, and early run M4A3 75W) did not have vision blocks for commander and relied on hand aimed periscope for under armor commander observation.
Basically the Sherman is better equipped to see the target first, and put the gun tube on the target faster. What happens when the tube gets there is a different topic, but in practice the Sherman shot first.
Re: Panther Crew Quality
Case in point, the existing 12 SS Panzer division.
While 2000 of it's personnel were veterans (and already war criminals!), they represented chiefly the higher brains of the organization (think battalion staffs, company commanders, etc). The overwhelming majority of it's personnel were fairly green (the unit didn't start standing up until September 1943, and was not ready for deployment until March 1944). Their armor training was complicated by a combination of limited tanks available for training, and the short mechanical life expectancy of their rides (as again, Panther was good for about 150 KM worth of movement between overhauls) limited how much actual time on tank many of their crewmen and junior leaders had. Many only fired their main weapons system less than 5 times per crew.
To put it in perspective 3rd Armored Division was conducting division level exercises by October 1942, and was training in Europe from 15 September onward. It had lavish supplies, and indeed could and did burn out tanks during training from sheer mileage accumulated (which on a Sherman means something). Gunnery was extensive and complete, and the unit maneuvered at every echelon from platoon through Division.
Basically when forces collided in Europe itself, the Nazis had a small corps of combat veterans pulled from the East, but their rank and file was more poorly trained than their opponents, and largely benefited from a defensive posture that minimized their vulnerability. When the Germans went on the counter offensive, they suffered very high losses and ultimately accomplished not much more than making the resumption of the following Allied offensive easier for lack of resistance.
Re: Anything based on "Deathtraps"
Just stop and go home. There's so much wrong in Cooper's book that's just factually incorrect as to be absurd. It's a good "memoir" in the sense you read it to get a feel for where someone's head was at, but he's exactly the wrong person to cite for tank operations. Indeed if you're tracking his numbers for how many Shermans were lost according to Cooper, relative to total lost World War Two, 3 AD alone represented 10% or so of all tank losses for the US Army in World War Two which should make you raise an eyebrow.
Read this instead:
https://www.ausa.org/articles/irzyk-explains-performance-american-tanks-world-war-ii
Actually a tank commander, actually fought German tanks, likely knows more than some rando undergrad with a copy of Cooper's book.
Re: "The 10,000"
But what killed those? By most estimates, for instance about 20% of all Allied tank losses were from mines (a threat that did not really affect the Germans on the Western Front). Basically looking at that number it's easy to decide all those tanks lay smoking in front of the two panthers that got knocked out or whatever, but the reality is that in a high intensity offensive war, tanks will be lost. And indeed, on the offensive tanks will be lost at a much higher rate than on the defensive.
This is oddly enough proven rather handily by the utter shambling disasters that were the German armor offensives on the Western Front (Mortain: Panther units get crushed by US infantry divisions. Arracourt: Panthers get crushed by US and French armor. Bulge, despite a massive advantage in armor and artillery against several depleted or brand new units, German armor bogs down and is destroyed in detail).
I've seen a ratio of 1.6/1 stated in favor of the Germans for tank on tank. Which sounds all lovely except for you look at the disproportionate numbers involved, and again keep in mind the Germans were using bigger tanks, with bigger guns, from prepared positions more often than not...and still often effectively trading tank for tank.
Basically envision this, not as a video game were the metric is killing X number of points more than the enemy, think of it in terms of using assets to accomplish things. Did the German armor accomplish it's mission? It did not. It failed, and even failed when it had a fair number of advantages. Did the Allied armor succeed? Yes. Most of the time it did.
TLDR:
The Panther had a lot of flaws in real life and was not such a great performer.
Tanks should take a fair amount of criticals even if they're being hit on the "strong" armor to better represent reality.
Anyway:
Commentary: Tanks in general
Most tankers do not want to get shot. Even by small, or doubtful to penetrate weapons. This image of panzerwarriors grinning like idiots while rounds ping off, Panthers, M1s, whatever is patently false because you as the tank crew are stuck in a machine that is best described as "hardened" vs "immune" to being broken. The more often you are shot, the more likely it is the next one hits something important, you lose a track, or the round finds something neat to explode.
I thought about this while playing skirmish one night. There was one stupid BEF Panther that would emerge, kill a few things, get forced off by return fire, disappear into part of the map I really couldn't get into that well, and then emerge to do the same thing all over again. I took to calling it "Bruce" after the shark in Jaws simply because improbably, there it was, attacking again, LOL LOL I KILLED A M3 AND A STUART!!! before being driven back.
Historically this isn't a result that occurred often. Regardless of poor armor or not, the law of averages generally results in something breaking badly enough to disable the tank, or it's enough to encourage the tank to find somewhere else to go.
I think a realistic outcome for heavily armored tanks is still a high probability of various critical hits. Perhaps not ammunition racks exploding, but were the Panther's tracks especially resilient? Was the Jumbo Sherman's gun tube made from armor plate as thick as the frontal slope? Did the rank novices Germany stuffed into Panthers really know it's only smoke from the outside of the tank vs fire inside of their notoriously fire prone tank?
Real tank employment regardless of armor relies on smart employment. Right now you can certainly win playing smart against Panthers. You can also win with Panthers with no talent whatsoever though. There is none of the historical punishment that came with using Panthers stupidly, like at Dompaire where Groupment Tactique Langland from the French 2nd Armored Division killed 34 Panthers and 28 Panzer IVs in exchange for 5 Shermans and two Stuarts. It's worthwhile also to note that the Panthers on several occasions were driven off by M10 fire at ranges in excess of 1800 meters, with no lethal effects, but the German crews were too scared to close the gap.
Basically there's no strictly "mechanical" reason why Panthers should lose from the front, if we're just going round to frontal slope. But very often in battle they were immobilized, or fire power killed (gun destroyed/rendered useless), or after welds came apart, or that lovely leaky engine caught fire, the crew bailed.
Re: Armor fracturing
There's numerous reports, documented occurrences, in labs, in tests, on the battlefield. German armor had a problem with fracturing when it was really not supposed to. This would make for an interesting way to make employing German heavy armor more tactical, in that you're correctly gambling that you will be able to take the shots your tank is supposed to be able to handle.
As to the M4A1, I don't really care. It generally can be knocked out by its historical threat weapons, and doesn't seem to be terribly unfair, but I cannot speak for Thonar's tactical acumen so I must simply assume they give him fits.
It's okay. Try cannons?
Re: Target acquisition
I quoted it earlier in the tread, but the French found it too 20-30 seconds for the Panther to go from the commander spotting a target, to the gunner shooting it, and specifically noted it was inferior to the Sherman in that respect. Here's what the Panther did right though in terms of targeting:
a. Very good commander's position with good all around visibility without needing to operate a periscope
b. Gunner's optic very clear and precise
Here's what it did not do well:
a. The power traverse for the Panther was a power-take off method, which basically meant the turret speed varied on how hard the engine was going. At low speeds this could be problematic, and it required good driver-gunner cooperation to get the turret going at a good speed (as the driver had to rev the engine to provide that additional power). Basically max rotation at optimal conditions was 18 second total traverse, but in practice much slower.
b. The gunner's only view out of the tank was a narrow field of view gunner's optic that covered a very small part of the battlefield, making him very reliant on the commander's ability to see targets. He was not especially useful for target acquisition, and on the move he was effectively useless given lack of stabilization
c. The Commander did not have the ability to "lay" the gunner onto a target, instead being reliant on vocally guiding the gunner to his target. By contrast the Sherman had a power control for the Commander so he could swing the turret roughly onto the target.
By contrast in terms of shooting first for Shermans:
a. Late model Sherman (all of the 76 MM armed models, Most M4A3 75Ws) had commander's position similar to Panther in regards to vision (earlier models had a periscope)
b. The Gunner had a wide field of view optic in addition to his narrow field view. This allowed him to better acquire targets either from a Commander hand-off, or realistically he could much better find targets on his own (allowing the gunner to look in one direction, while the commander searched for targets elsewhere). Also while firing on move was still not a good idea, he could much better acquire and select targets going into a short halt thanks to the wide FOV optic.
c. As already mentioned, the Sherman commander had the ability to direct the turret onto targets he spotted, making for a much faster target hand-off.
d. Sherman turret traverse was independent of engine RPMs, it did a 15 second 360, sitting still, going full speed, whatever.
To it's detriment:
a. Earlier models (M4, M4A1, M4A3 "dry" stowage, and early run M4A3 75W) did not have vision blocks for commander and relied on hand aimed periscope for under armor commander observation.
Basically the Sherman is better equipped to see the target first, and put the gun tube on the target faster. What happens when the tube gets there is a different topic, but in practice the Sherman shot first.
Re: Panther Crew Quality
Case in point, the existing 12 SS Panzer division.
While 2000 of it's personnel were veterans (and already war criminals!), they represented chiefly the higher brains of the organization (think battalion staffs, company commanders, etc). The overwhelming majority of it's personnel were fairly green (the unit didn't start standing up until September 1943, and was not ready for deployment until March 1944). Their armor training was complicated by a combination of limited tanks available for training, and the short mechanical life expectancy of their rides (as again, Panther was good for about 150 KM worth of movement between overhauls) limited how much actual time on tank many of their crewmen and junior leaders had. Many only fired their main weapons system less than 5 times per crew.
To put it in perspective 3rd Armored Division was conducting division level exercises by October 1942, and was training in Europe from 15 September onward. It had lavish supplies, and indeed could and did burn out tanks during training from sheer mileage accumulated (which on a Sherman means something). Gunnery was extensive and complete, and the unit maneuvered at every echelon from platoon through Division.
Basically when forces collided in Europe itself, the Nazis had a small corps of combat veterans pulled from the East, but their rank and file was more poorly trained than their opponents, and largely benefited from a defensive posture that minimized their vulnerability. When the Germans went on the counter offensive, they suffered very high losses and ultimately accomplished not much more than making the resumption of the following Allied offensive easier for lack of resistance.
Re: Anything based on "Deathtraps"
Just stop and go home. There's so much wrong in Cooper's book that's just factually incorrect as to be absurd. It's a good "memoir" in the sense you read it to get a feel for where someone's head was at, but he's exactly the wrong person to cite for tank operations. Indeed if you're tracking his numbers for how many Shermans were lost according to Cooper, relative to total lost World War Two, 3 AD alone represented 10% or so of all tank losses for the US Army in World War Two which should make you raise an eyebrow.
Read this instead:
https://www.ausa.org/articles/irzyk-explains-performance-american-tanks-world-war-ii
Actually a tank commander, actually fought German tanks, likely knows more than some rando undergrad with a copy of Cooper's book.
Re: "The 10,000"
But what killed those? By most estimates, for instance about 20% of all Allied tank losses were from mines (a threat that did not really affect the Germans on the Western Front). Basically looking at that number it's easy to decide all those tanks lay smoking in front of the two panthers that got knocked out or whatever, but the reality is that in a high intensity offensive war, tanks will be lost. And indeed, on the offensive tanks will be lost at a much higher rate than on the defensive.
This is oddly enough proven rather handily by the utter shambling disasters that were the German armor offensives on the Western Front (Mortain: Panther units get crushed by US infantry divisions. Arracourt: Panthers get crushed by US and French armor. Bulge, despite a massive advantage in armor and artillery against several depleted or brand new units, German armor bogs down and is destroyed in detail).
I've seen a ratio of 1.6/1 stated in favor of the Germans for tank on tank. Which sounds all lovely except for you look at the disproportionate numbers involved, and again keep in mind the Germans were using bigger tanks, with bigger guns, from prepared positions more often than not...and still often effectively trading tank for tank.
Basically envision this, not as a video game were the metric is killing X number of points more than the enemy, think of it in terms of using assets to accomplish things. Did the German armor accomplish it's mission? It did not. It failed, and even failed when it had a fair number of advantages. Did the Allied armor succeed? Yes. Most of the time it did.
TLDR:
The Panther had a lot of flaws in real life and was not such a great performer.
Tanks should take a fair amount of criticals even if they're being hit on the "strong" armor to better represent reality.
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So I Im not here to talk up the Panther, but some of your impressions are not correct. To be clear, I agree that the Sherman was a good tank and the Panther had many flaws. BUT there are some things to correct here.
Firstly, your are making too much of Panther armor cracking. This is not as big a deal as your are making it out to be. The main issue is the that the lower ductility resulted (sometimes) in armor that would potentially fail from extended abuse. For all statistical purposes, the armor was still giving appropriate resistance per hit. For example, the tanks at Isigny failed only after extended abuse towards the end of the testing, at which point a section of the front armor caved in. Up until that point, the armor was resisting as you might expect.
Second, non-penetrating hits that do not cause damage in some form do not generally cause tank crews to panic. Tanks in WW2 can and did shrug off multiple hits and keep fighting. There is an almost endless supply of accounts of this. Not only in WW2, but beyond. You are too casually relegating armor to some tertiary luxury that really doesnt matter much. Non-Penetrating hits can sometimes cause mission kills or crew panics, but these are the exception, not the rule. Only the most green troops would flle their tank at slight provocation.
Which brings us to the last bit. German tank crew quality was neither force of supermen or an array of neanderthals. Especially in Normandy, German tanks crews were still decent. Very late in the war, crew quality dropped off. But this is not carte-blanche to justify making all crews have the spinal columns of a mouse. Its utter nonsense to imply that the majority of crews panicked under ineffective fire.
all these information about armor quality and turret travesal speed, I'm surprised there isn't a single post about how the bef panther have damn near 100% accuracy at 1200m.
Just a thought if the Sherman was such a better tank vs Panther or German tanks why did so many get blown up and why did they have more losses vs panther or really any German tank on the west front. I mean you have the Air, Arty and the numbers how do you go about losing all of these superior tanks????? Also when did all the death trap rumors start and from who I have seen ww2 vets who recall this so it was not some hollywood movie invention.
Don't be so sure.
"The US Army's Ballistics Research Lab (BRL) conducted some operational research of tank-verses-tank fighting in an effort to determine what factors led to battlefield success...records indicate that typical tank-verse-tank engagements were usually small unit actions, on average involving nine tanks on the US side and four Wehrmacht AFVs; less than one-third of the engagements involved more than three German AFVs. The average range at which the US tanks inflicted kills on the panzers was 983 yards, while the German kills on average were from 946 yards...The study concluded that the single most important factor in tank-verses-tank fighting was which side spotted the enemy first, engaged first, and hit first. Of the incidents studied, defenders fired first 84 percent of the time. When defenders fired first, the attackers suffered 4.3 times more casualties than the defender. When attackers fired first, the defenders suffered 3.6 times more casualties than the attackers. During 29 engagements involving Shermans and Panthers, the Shermans had an average numerical advantage of 1.2:1. The data suggests that the Panther was 1.1 times more effective than the Sherman when fighting from the defense, while the Sherman had an 8.4 advantage against the Panther when fighting from defense. The overall record suggests that the Sherman was 3.6 times more effective than the Panther. This ratio was probably not typical of all Sherman-verses-Panther exchanges during the war and may also be due to inadequate data collection. Nevertheless, the popular myths that Panthers enjoyed a 5-to-1 kill ratio against Shermans or that it took five Shermans to knock out a Panther have no basis at all."
-Zaloga
You can tell how the death trap rumors started by looking at the psychology in play in this very forum: all of my units suck, everything the other player has is unkillable. It's easy to feel inadequate when you're there to witness half your platoon get wiped out in an ambush but not there to witness all the German tanks getting knocked out in kind. This kind of thinking fueled excessive military R&D spending throughout the entire Cold War. You should read some of the reports both sides wrote about each other's supposed unstoppable pieces of equipment. I saw a Soviet report that basically treated the F-14 Tomcat like it was god's wrath incarnate.
More to the point, the "death trap" rumors come from individual's memoirs. Their experience is not reflective of the actual reality when actual historians do research and write history books about the war, as you can see in the quote above.
Just a little overstatement, but please don't think different branches wouldn't change certain information to get a higher budget or newer toys. It happened in all armies at all times.
Come on, you know that this isn't a point.
I'm completely with you on this.
This would make any kind of tank-gameplay just coin-flips and might even have worse implications upon gameplay if implemented this way.
I'm with you on that too, but please differentiate between the outcome of tank-engagements and the correct technical relations to get the tanks themselve into proper relations.
Tanks turning their own axis wouldn't happen under fire as it is now and especially not so fast at all. This is a huge buff to tanks with high FAV.
RoF are generally far too low for all tanks.
Ranges make not much sense currently (it would be far better in granting all tanks 2000m range, which would also fit with the current accuracy model).
An example: German Panther-Crews were keen to engage Allied Tanks on ranges even above 2000m range, despite a drop-off in accuracy they knew a hit still kept a high chance for a kill. Allied tanks, while maybe unable to penetrate the front of the Cats at these ranges, will still cause suppression (Moral Damage as now, even when this should be lower the further away the fire comes from).
First when these basics are starting to look okay, we should model tanks in their relation and afterwards we can think about the point costs to balance things out.
You are starting to argue here, maybe without intent, to change tank-relations in favor for the allies because of reasons.
Only because the Germans didn't shoot Smoke-Rounds at Shermans to cause the crew to bail out and MG them down afterwards... the Germans haven't done so, because they didn't had to.
Of course smart Sherman commanders were able to win a frontal engagement but it wasn't the norm.
Why not just granting Shermans finally Smoke-Rounds? They might not be able to kill a Panther on 2000m, but they can block his LoS and drive him off with the "Attack-Position" and the following Moral suppression... yes, this is a lot of Micro-needed but therefor Shermans should be more numerous, more general-purpose and cheaper.
The Panther on the other hand will be far more deadly (especially at ranges below 1200m) and will need less micro, but with correct point-costs his loss will be far more hurtful.
When you now start to change certain relations, e.g. Panthers having a flat aim-time but high-accuracy (something around 80-90% at 1000m and 30% at 2000m) while Shermans get lower accuracy but an increasing aim-time as closer they get to the target, while at the same time changing general tank behavior like above, things will start to be asymmetrical but highly interesting.
A good deployed Panther will be able to stop (not destroy) a whole Sherman company on its own, but as soon as he moves or get spotted he will be just a sitting duck, smoked out and rushed, maybe even getting destroyed by the allied air-force.
Imagine Shermans supporting the Infantry attack on the other end of the map with smoke and better HE than any German tank could.
And we speak here just about the Sherman-Panther relation.
So,... Nerf Panthers arbitary but do not touch my Shermans despite they deserve the same treatment?
Yup, that's how to balance things in the way we all want.
Ohh god, this topic again: The French report is highly flawed at that point as there are different hand-over-processes between the Sherman Cmdr and his Gunner and the Panther Cmdr and his Gunner. It is highly likely the French used the same hand-over-process they took-over from the Sherman which doesn't work that way, as the Panther Cmdr has to take over some of the duties in the Hand-Over-Process the Gunner would do in the Sherman.
Correct is the general statement: As closer the target as greater the advantage in aim-time for the Sherman in comparison to the Panther.
You forget the advantage of having a milliradian optic and the higher ability of the commander to guide the gunner on target (while on the other hand the gunner had a far smaller situational awarness, nevertheless the simple magnification change in the optic caused the advantage of the Sherman to diminish as greater the ranges became).
Also the very flat trajectory and accuracy of the German 75mm in comparison to the US 76mm and 90mm was praised by the French.
Yes, it wasn't the best system and it isn't even so good when we talk about the Panther D but it is better as you make it in the Versions A and G.
Nevertheless US-American M10 crews stated that when they faced Panthers the cats turret traverse, despite being slower, was always fast enough to keep up with US-tanks and thus wasn't really a disadvantage during the aiming process (I think we both a agree that it is a disadvantage when the cat is getting flanked).
Yes, absolutely. Why they changed this since the PzIV is really beyond me. Nevertheless the Panther-Cmdr had a bit better ability to guide his gunner onto target than the Sherman Cmdr, but we both agree that especially in close-range engagement the Panthers system is problematic, not to say flawed.
Yes and no.
The Sherman Cmdr could traverse the turret roughly.
The Panther Cmdr couldn't do this but had instead in gun-direction a small "Aiming-Device" so he knew when his gunner was on target (even when not in elevation). Together with the Magnification-Switch for the Gunner the hand-over process was pretty much directed by the Panther-Cmdr.
Sherman and Panther Crews don't have a huge difference on longer engagement-distances (read roughly about 800m with 500m seeing the Sherman with a deceisive advantage).
Vision was similiar but not the equipment for the hand-over-process (see above) and Shermans missed a Periscope to look "above" the muzzle-flash, which could be optionally mounted by the Panther-Cmdr.
The Wide-FoV has no Magnification. The Magnification FoV is worse than the German FoV in similiar magnification-ranges.
Again, as longer the engagement-range become as smaller the advantage for the Shermans gets.
Also people seem to forget that German tank-optics have already above-average FoV on all Magnification ranges compared to allied optics. Together with the Magnification Switch the advantage of the 1x-Wide-FoV-Optic on the Sherman is pretty much only allowing the Sherman Gunner to have a higher situational awareness and allowing on shorter ranges to engage targets far sooner.
Which is also how it should be modelled ingame: Shermans should get an aim-time-increase as closer to the target they get, while Panthers should have a flat-aim-time on all ranges, with both sides becomeing even and staying even at roughly 800m or 1000m when Ranges get increased overall to 2000m
To balance this out the Panther got its big gun and should get a higher accuracy due to using a milliradian optic.
The Sherman its Smoke-Rounds, more available and cheaper.
See above.
As stated, it had mostly no rL advantage in tank-on-tank engagements
Than the question is: When M4A3 and Panther get "bad-optics" do these tanks deserve "very-bad-optics"? And how about a critical for M4A3, Panther-D/A and Tiger H1 for "Cupola-Shot-off-Cmdr-Dead" which reduces Aim-Time and Optics?
Yes, most of the time, especially within the Bocage and against Panther. Against PzIV it is pretty even.
Nevertheless German Gunners had a very high first-round-hit-probability up to 1000m and even between 1500m and 2000m first shot hits were highly likely (due to Milliradian Optics).
Again: I would really like to see this in an asymmetrical balance, especially with the Photographic-Maps we have ingame.
Shermans being cheaper, more general-purpose with Smoke-Rounds, more plentiful with deceisive advantages below 500m, fair game up to 800m and lost above 1000m (when all engagement ranges are up to 2km) and Panthers being frontally invulnerable above roughly 1000m, expensive, rare, just "specialized" in their long-range AT-Role.
Please let us not forget here that Shermans will be able to out-micro Panthers (Smoke-Trick, Suppression, ...).
That might be something everyone could live with. Point-Costs will have to be adjusted accordingly obviously.
1. Kurt Meyer and the SS might have been veterans, but received nearly never a higher Staff- or Officer-Training or at least not in the same quality as e.g. Heeres-Units. Something even lower echelon-army leaders realized.
2. The 12th-SS were otherwise nothing but fanatic boys.
Without a doubt: Panther-Crew quality was most of the time at best average during the Normandy and fell far below average during the Bulge. Exceptions existed and in the Normandy it is probablyonly the Panzer-Lehr-Division as general. Otherswise Panthers really don't deserve stars except maybe Bef-Panthers and PzLehr.
On the other hand, especially for Heeres-Units: The German Feld-Ersatzsystem was far superior to the US-replacement-system in terms of preparing the newcomers for war and in creating a unit (in terms of creating an esprit-de-corps).
Absolutely, funnily enough the most veteran allied Units, as for example the Desert-Rats, are closer in deserving a "Low-Moral" stamp than the more inexperienced units.
2-star-Low-Moral units anyone?
Nope, again, you underestimate currently the German Feldersatz-System. Unlike the US forces, which pretty much took a man out of his basic-training-unit and sent him to some unit that needed him or that sent recovered soldiers into completely different units, German replacements often were drawn from the same area, trained together and sent to a Feldersatz-Bataillon that also came from the same area of Germany, got there their final training by combat-veterans of the same unit they were sent to and then went out with these guys on to the frontline.
This is, as a matter of fact, a huge difference.
To this comes a far higher trained NCO and Officer corps with more allowance for initiative and leeway than their counterparts in most cases.
"Fighting Power" by Martin vs Creveld examines this quite well.
Germans went on the Counter-Offensive often times against well trained enemies, without air-superiority, numerical often times inferior, with less artillery at their disposal and often even with less information than the allied needed to even conduct an offensive at all.
E.g. the battle of the Bulge is seen by some historians as a "wonder" in itself just because it is actually quite a feat to just muster such an offensive at all with the striking-force it had and with its achievements, despite the situation the German forces were actually in.
Trevor N. Dupuy even used it in its pre-text.
I do not disagree with your statement, but you forget several other factors to mention that e.g. affected the battle of the bulge, as e.g. less trained crews, fuel-shortages, ammunition-shortages, no aerial superiority, no mechanized supply-line, no industry left to support e.g. replacement-parts, ...
If you take these circumstances into account the German Panzerwaffe was actualy pretty deadly.
It had a lot of flaws, but it's lack of perfomance is often times based on circumstances than on technical inferiority.
IMO: No, it would make tank-vs-tank engagments too much of a coin-flip, especially under the current mechanic in which small-damages can't be repaired (e.g. "Throw Track").
Instead general-tank behavior has to change.
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Because it would kill the balance and make even Jumbos completely useless against Panthers, making them almost impossibble to hold off.
Did you thought about that?
Well this is just full of bollocks.
The Sherman M4A3 had anywhere from 122mm to 118mm of Glacis effective armor. Not 110 in "some places." The cast armor M4A1s had around 93mm, but the slope varied so it really depends on the cast models.
German APCR, just like everyone elses, was hyper rare. Additionally, APCR is massively affected by slope, so its utility vs such armor is limited. Performance vs the Jumbo would be better, but you'd still be having a very hard time with one.
Not to mention that the accuracy of most APCR rounds was rather bad.
PzGr 40s accuracy dropped off significantly after roughly 1000m.
You have a very strange definition of notoriety.
Cool story. I doubt you will be capable of not getting emotional If I would post out of context tallies from SS Panther battalion of HJ.
Such circumstantial evidence is present in abundance for both sides.
You are welcome to present any relevant evidence of what you are saying.
In a very specific set of circumstances, close-range, running fights. Past that, it was not much of an advantage. Being an unmagnified scope.
This is not exactly true. Boehringer-Sturm L4S used to traverse the turret in A and G also had two gears controlled by a lever provided to the gunner, which meant that turret could be traversed faster even on comparatively low RPM, 360 degrees in 46 seconds at 1000 RPM on high gear and 23 seconds for a full rotation at 2000 RPM on high gear.
Germans stabilised the whole tank.
And stabilizer proved to be so hard to maintain for mechanics and operate for replacement gunners that it fell out of active service very soon.
Commander in Panther had an open sight for rough indications, and also can relay the position of targets via azimuth indicator in cupola. It worked like this: " The gunner was also equipped with a two-dial turret position indicator, driben by a pinion from the turret rack and located on his left. The left-hand dial was divided into 1-12 divisions with 64 subdivisions each of 100 mils, the right-hand dial being divided into mils with 100 subdivisions. The indicator did have a use during semi-indirect fire shooting, but had originally been intended for use in conjunction with a 1-12 clock scale recorded around the inside of the commander's cupola on a toothed annular ring. This scale worked on the counter-rotation principle. When the turret was traversed, a pinion which also engaged the teeth of the turret rack (ring) drove the scale in the opposite direction but at the same speed, so that the fiure 12 remained in constant aligment with the hull's center line, looking directly forward. This enabled the commander to determine the bearing of his next target and inform the gunner accordingly. The gunner would then traverse onto the bearing ordered, using his turret position indicator, and find the gun approximately "on" the line."
Panther - Germany's quest for combat dominance, Michael and Gladys Green, pg. 103
Study based on unverified war diary claims.
P.S: And regarding 12th SS - on 1.6.44 division had a shortfall of 144 Unterfuhrer and 2192 Fuhrer but a surplus of 2360 enlisted men.
They received 2055 Unterfuhrer and men from LAH, 50 officers from Heer.
600 Hitlerjugend were picked for Fuhrer courses, those who were rejected stayed as NCOs.
Aditional 20 officers were sent from SS to Pioneer and artillery battalions, because of lack of specialists.
Unterfuhrer = NCO (For example Feldwebel, that by this time still had 3 times more tactical training than US captains)
And also, well memed. Firearm training guidelines for entirety of mechanised units in whole Wehrmacht and SS were changed to emulate what HJ was doing during their training because inexperienced.
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Lets compromise Panthers get Ultra stats Shermans get ultra numbers and German planes are removed from the game as they were non existent during the Normandy campaign unless you count the planes cratered into the ground.
on a more serious note we have no idea how the balance of the game will shift once divisions like Panzer Lehr are in balance threads right now are kind of shoddy due to not seeing the over all balance between all the divisions it could be a rock paper scissors type division system were right now Germany gets 2 papers and a rock and Allies get 2 scissors and a paper (just a example not meant to be taken literally) were overall it may be more balanced upon release of all the Divisions.
on a more serious note we have no idea how the balance of the game will shift once divisions like Panzer Lehr are in balance threads right now are kind of shoddy due to not seeing the over all balance between all the divisions it could be a rock paper scissors type division system were right now Germany gets 2 papers and a rock and Allies get 2 scissors and a paper (just a example not meant to be taken literally) were overall it may be more balanced upon release of all the Divisions.
You are seriously under-estimating the importance of a unity sight for the gunner. In all situations save the specific circumstances of waiting in a defensive position for the enemy to appear at pre-determined positions, it is a huge benefit to have the gunner be able to get a good look at what's happening in front of the turret. It is a particularly useful asset when advancing on the offensive, as it allows the gunner to join the commander in searching for threats. So, considering that the Heers doctrinal use of its' panzer forces in 1944 was to keep them in reserve for counter-attacks, it is obvious that the lack of a unity sight for the Panther's gunner was a serious drawback.
As previous posts in this thread has explained, the lack of unity sight also meant that it took longer for the Panther to acquire and fire on targets. This is also a serious problem as a majority of tank on tank engagement ended with victory for whichever vehicle got the first shot off and it severely hampered the Panther's ability to engage its' attackers. Keep in mind that in 20 to 30 seconds, the mean time of detection to first shot for a Panther, most medium tanks of the era could get some 3-4 aimed shots off.
Compared to 15 seconds for a Sherman and 12 seconds for a T-34. The Panther, at full engine power, had a respectable turret traverse time (15-18 seconds), but it slowed considerably as soon as engine power dropped off. This is before we mention problems like the added acclimatization and proficiency needed from the gunner to deal with the fact that the turret slewed at different speeds depending on the engine settings used by the driver. A Sherman or T-34 gunner knew how fast their turret would slew, no matter what. A Panther gunner knew once he started slewing or after talking to the driver and that slewing speed would change if the driver shifted gear or let off the gas.
Not in the way you are thinking no and not in a way that applied to the gun in motion. The German interleaved wheel system allowed for smoother running over rough terrain, but the running was still rough enough that aiming on the move was pretty much impossible. To get a solid aim, any German tank would still have to stop, wait for the tank to settle and then take aim. A Sherman in the same circumstances could begin aiming the moment the tank stopped, since the stabilizer would compensate for the motions of the tank as it came to a halt, thus lowering the time to first shot.
This is cute and all, but it only proves that Germany worked around the problem of the Commander not being able to slew the turret. Let's imagine this situation from a Panther and a M4; both tank commanders spot a target at their 3 o'clock, directly to their right:
Sherman: Commander calls out the target, starts traversing the turret towards the target as he does so. When he has traversed into the general direction he lets up and allows the gunner to acquire the target, first via unity sight and then via gun sight for final precision.
Panther: Commander calls out target, waits for gunner to start traversing the turret. When the gunner is reaching the intended direction the commander will have to pinpoint the target ("between the two rocks, looking like a massive antitank gun") so that the gunner can start fine adjusting until he gets the approximate area inside his zoomed in gun sight. Once he's found the target, he has to adjust aim and fire.
The Panther is at a massive disadvantage in these situations, no matter how you dice it. The Panther crew must co-operate much more efficiently and intensely then the Sherman crew must, simply to make up for the deficit in the Panther's design.
Because official studies from US military departments are known for their unreliability. Here's the deal, either you prove that the BRL fudged its' numbers or didn't care about them or you provide other numbers that you surmise are accurate. If you don't do either of those, you are just blustering to avoid having to face the fact that your preconceptions about the Panther probably are wrong.
Yes, close range, running fights.
Test states that acquistion was 20-30 second longer, not that it took 20-30 seconds.
Actually, you had a completely void frame of refference as to how much unity sight helps.
Thats not how hydraulic pumps work.
Cute indeed.
Let me correct you:
Panther - Commander calls out a bearing in hours and minutes, and gunner traverses to said bearing on his azimuth indicator, and commander stops him when his vain sight aligns with the target. This doesnt take significantly longer, however you want to strech it. It might take 20-30 second more, but the basis of Sherman acquistion would have to be in region of 30-40 seconds.
Or this all is just a misunderstanding, and said sherman and Panther were idle on the gunnery range, and Panther thus had a plain 20-30 second slower traverse.
Again, without the time it takes Sherman to acquire a target, you have no reference to criticize.
I dont have to prove anything.
Overwhelming majority of Military Operational research documents are made from war diaries of frontline units, without cross-checking, and thats british organisation, not americans, who did not know what happened to roughly every 5-6th tank when they wanted to number-crunch it in ORO-T-117, a comprehensive study into 11 000 allied tanks.
Panther had a 6,9:1 ratio against allied tanks in Normandy.
Yeah man!
Panther's armour gots to be this thick!
"A picture included as an attachment with the report shows one of the 3 Panthers used in the August, 1944 Isigny tests. Note how the plate has shattered around the hull MG bulge – a catastrophic failure indicative of the “edge effect”. This picture demonstrates the difficulty of interpreting firing tests when the shots fired are many, and the targets are few."
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Except, it does take significantly longer. You even admit so yourself. 20-30 seconds longer is between 50-100% longer then what you state the acquisition time for a Sherman is. 50% tends to be a significant number (100% or twice as much even more so), and as I said, in that time frame a Sherman can send 3-4 shots against its' targets.
The problem with the Panther's lack of vision for the gunner remains, even with the bearing called out in "hours and minutes" because the gunner still has to rely on the commander to find the target and the commander has to rely on the gunner to turn the turret to the correct angle and then find the target using a zoomed in sight that is not suitable for quickly scanning large areas (try it yourself: hold a binocular to your eyes, turn 90 degrees and try to quickly train in on something a friend called out in the short to medium distance). This problem translates to the 50-100% longer target acquisition time. This is a serious deficit and I have no idea why you keep insisting that it isn't and that the German system was somehow equal to the Sherman's, when the Sherman could acquire a target in half the time.