ORIGINAL: M60A3TTS
Some good points on some common troubles in maintaining tanks. Like Carnage, I had first-hand experience dealing with them, although it was before the M1-A1s rolled out.
I can envision a typical scenario, let's say a T-34 hits a panzer III in the engine compartment during a battle, immobilizing the vehicle. The damage is not catastrophic, but what happens between that moment and the time it rolls again.
First, the vehicle isn't being recovered in the middle of a battle. If the area is actively contested, the Germans best bet is to try and recover it at night. Otherwise you just wait for the successful outcome (you hope) of the battle.
Next is recovery of the vehicle from the battle area. You will have to tow it with another vehicle, either one designed specifically as a recovery vehicle, or a combat vehicle that has sufficient pulling power.
You have it pulled to safety, so someone can now do a damage assessment. Engine is a loss, and if replaced the tank can move again. And that's being generous and somewhat simplified. Throw in an engine fire as a result of the hit and we have burned out wiring that needs to be replaced. Ok, who has a spare engine lying around? Now we're either taking an engine from another vehicle that's a complete write-off or going to need an engine that had been shipped from the Fatherland by train, then truck to a field repair depot. Regardless, pulling a vehicle to safety was one move, now we have to transport it to the field depot, since the engine has to come out and we just can't tell 4 sturdy crewmen to lift on the count of three. You need the device that can get that sucker out, and that's at the depot.
ok, so it's at the repair facility and you're ready to have the engine pulled, but this isn't Jiffy Lube. Other vehicles may be ahead of yours, so the repairmen and equipment needed may or may not be ready to go. Once they are, there are various hoses that need to be disconnected among other stuff, and at least from my experience if you just need a new engine, before we can replace it, it has to be separated from the transmission first.
Engine comes out, the needful as mentioned above gets done, engine reassembled to the tranny goes back in, fluids are added, etc. and finally the vehicle is signed off as ready to go back. Then it has to make its way back to the company assembly area, may need to be reloaded with ammunition before it can be moved into a battle position.
What all of this comes down to is similar to what Marquo said, even if your panzerkompanie sits still, you may need more than a week to see your PzIII back among friends.
I think M60A3TTS and Carnage have hit on the finer points of what the game engine is simulating. I too was a tanker with 8 years in the British Army on Chieftain, a tank with enormous fire power, armour, etc, ( we used to liken them to a modern Tiger ), but its power pack was basically a huge modified bus engine called the Leyland L60 pack. This engine was ok if it was worked hard everyday, but once they were back in barracks sitting around being started once in the morning to drive them out of the hangers for maintenance, and once in late afternoon to put them back in the hanger all hell would break loose, from minor mechanical faults to major mechanical faults developing out of nowhere. ( and I can assure you, my Regiment took maintenance extremely seriously ). This of course was in peacetime, without anyone trying to kill us, or any battle damage to deal with, and we were close to our permanent stores and heavy workshops on hand to rectify faults quickly.
Being stuck out in the middle of nowhere, constantly under threat of enemy action, with a myriad of faults developing at the drop of a hat would have put enormous strain on the German tank regiments and divisions, and their Light Aid Detachments/ Workshops. As mentioned in previous posts, cannabalisation of 'dead' tanks would have been a sort of mechanical 'triage', with some creeping back to the units after a week or two, but some never returning from the field workshops, condemned to be stripped to hulks.
Just imagine for a moment how inefficent that is and the strain it would put on an already overburdened AFV production line thousands of miles away in the Reich. Also mentioned was the excellent example of an engine damaged by a shell and the resulting fire. Time is a major factor, but also imagine the logistical nightmare of trying to reorder ALL the parts required to replace your stock before the next victim of the same sort of problem rolled into the workshop.
I think there maybe a problem though if what you say is true about no tanks being produced, although we would need to see screenshots to try to deduce what is going on.
From my point of view I have found the production system to work pretty much as it should do, and I have'nt found any major problems.
