Just to add a little to the T34/Tiger debate and relative costs I think it is very important to include the speed of these units when looking at their relative abilities. I have always found that the principal asset of the T34 is its speed around the battlefield. It can keep up with HTs when attacking at speed [unlike much of the lendlease soviet equipment] and in a long battle with an ebb and flow about it the T34 is an excellent machine. Head to head I would never take on 20 tigers with 20 T34/85s, but I would try to outmanouevre them and destroy them using different tactics. Paul is right - it is very difficult to get an exact comparison and I do not think that an examination of armour and gun tells the whole story.
From another perspective though the radio situation has also been left out here. I have only had time to play 2 pbem v1 games, but in both I was the Russians and found that well over 90% of my T34s did not have radios. This is a REAL problem when trying tactical alterations although I like the fact that the lendlease tanks almost all have radios. Very realistic. If you play with c+c ON [and in my opinion this is the only way to go
] then this is a big factor.To summarise then the T34 has excellent speed and should indeed pay for it. Contact via radio is extremely problematic though and for this reason they are not quite what they might be unless you keep them in a very tight formation. I guess what I am trying to say is that a comparison must take into account so many factors that we must be careful not to make it sound like a simple "my 20 could take your 20 head on and therefore are better tanks and should be more expensive." In very hilly terrain I would take the T34s any day - in a flat desert the tigers. Buy what you need for the tactics you are going to employ.
Complicated this, but a good discussion. Anyone else got a view?
Cheers
Al
