ORIGINAL: elmo3
ORIGINAL: gunnergoz
Combat power is irrelevant if the tank can't move because it is out of fuel or won't start for mechanical reasons. ....
Here is an interesting footnote from
Operation Barbarossa Hitler's Invasion of Russia 1941 by Glantz that perfectly illustrates your point. I added the bold lettering for emphasis.
Kurkin’s 3rd Mechanized Corps, whose strength was 651 tanks, including 110 new models, threw a fright into the 6th Panzer Division, which led the XXXXI Motorized Corps’ advance. Attacking just east of Raseinai with its 2nd Tank Division, two battalions of T-34 and KV tanks crushed the 6th Panzer Division’s reconnaissance elements and drove the division to the outskirts of the town. After the Soviets failed to exploit their success, German sappers systematically destroyed the Soviet tanks with explosive charges. Later they learned that the Soviet tanks ran out of fuel and had orders to ‘ram’ the German tanks, since the T-34s and KV’s had not been bore-sighted and thus could not fire a round. Within 24 hours after the engagement, German forces bypassed, encircled and destroyed the immobile Soviet tank division.
So while I think there is value in getting the numbers right for 22 June 1941 there is only so much DC3 can do at the chosen design level to recreate the actual conditions faced by commanders during the campaign. Yes, fuel is modeled in the game but certainly not whether guns have been bore sighted or not. Given that fact for 3rd Mech Corps somebody could argue that those tanks should not even be included in the game.
Glantz himself in "When titans clashed" (I'm quoting from the expanded and revised edition recently published) says, referring to the above mentioned actions, that:
This halted the 6th for two days even though the Soviet tanks had run out of gas and become immobile pillboxes on the river's western bank.
This to underline that it wasn't exactly a walkover for the Germans. This is also confirmed by what is reported in another book, edited by Glantz, i.e. "The initial period of war on the Eastern Front", a collection of the proceedings of a symposium held by the US Army War College focused on discussing the operations at the start of Barbarossa using archive material and the recollections of German veterans that were speaking guests at the symposium itself.
The actions that involved the 6. Panzerdivision at the start of Barbarossa were described with abundance of details in the aforementioned book by General Johann von Kielmansegg and Oberst Helmut Ritgen, respectively the senior staff officer in the HQ of the 6th Panzer, and an adjutant in the second battalion of the armoured regiment of the same division. So, if one wants to know what was the German perspective on what happened when the czech tanks of the 6th Panzer met the KVs of the 2nd Tank Division, well, I dare to say that it's impossible to get better info than this.
After a brief description of the internal organization of the 6th Panzer, including the fact that the division was equipped with 105 PzKpfw 35(t), von Kielmansegg chimes in declaring that:
6th Panzer division was the only division in the German Army which had such equipement. That compelled us, from the very beginning to fight only in mixed combat groups. That was the rule at this time.
So, it seems that, after all, how the single divisions were actually equipped was a concern for German officers.
Colonel Ritgen describes the action on the 24th of June:
On 24 June, at first light, Soviet tanks in great numbers crossed the Dubyssa River supported by artillery. Some of our riflemen were cut off by the assault. These hiterto unknown Soviet tanks created a crisis in Battle Group Seckendorff, since apparently no weapon of the division was able to penetrate their armor.
[...]
I suppose the Soviet tank crews had no time to familarize themselves with the guns of their tanks or zero them in, since their fire was very inaccurate. Furthermore the Soviets were poorly led. Nevertheless the appearance of these heavy tanks was dramatic.
This explains that the supposed absence of zeroing-in was, for all practical purposes, indistinguishable from poor training. So, it can be simulated in the game giving a poor experience rating to the unit considered.
In the end, the Germans were victorious but the 6th Panzer was stopped for two days (that is half a move, in game terms) and suffered a numbers of casualties (especially in the 114th Motorized Infantry Regiment). This, probably wouldn't have occurred if the confrontation were between two different equipped divisions.
The game already has all what is needed to simulate this.
I'm not asking the designers to rethink their base assumptions and decision, just to be always consistent with what they themselves said.
If they said that the inferior czech tanks are considered, in game terms, more comparable to the light Panzer II rather than to the medium Panzer III, that's totally fine with me. But why, then, do not represent these tanks with the Pz II?
If they decided to include the KV in the game because they deemed opportune to differentiate it from the T-34, that's good, so why not give it to the divisions that were actually equipped with that tank?
The argument that the 51 KVs of the 2nd Tank Division were, in the end, dispatched, so they could also be not included at all in the game is not convincing, in my opinion. If this is the case, the entire first two echelons of the Red Army could be not included in the game, since they didn't manage to stop the German advance or to inflict crippling casualties to the Axis troops.
The point is not whether the Red Army can stop cold the German in the border battles, it cannot. The point is: did German advance rates and casualties depend on how well equipped and led were the Soviet divisions they were facing? My answer is a resounding yes.
