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We have to be a bit careful though as teh Sherman evolved quite a lot. An Easy 8 was quite different machine from an orignal M1. Fireflys were quite capable also. Many accounts that show German disdain for the M4, go to great pains to except the long barreled versions which were very much respected.

just to be a little bit perverse ..i must take exception to the statement in part .. first the Tech to build the tanks ..The Germans were ahead by about a full year thru most the war on the technology to make turret rings that could handle the load of both gun and armor ..IIRC it had to do with alloys and ring race hardening and being able to make enought high quality stuff to support the other elements of production .. The US had the M-6 Heavy which I see very little info on and i think that was in '41 and just as surely and the Ordnance Department thought That repeating rifles were a BAD Idea in the Civil War and thought that Machine Guns were wasteful in WW1 .. they were to swift on the uptakeof what we call common wisdom in World War 2 ... but the Germans didn't start out mounting 88's they had 75l 24's!!! 20mm !!!! real short 50mm not really set up for Killing T-34's ...
Experience in making any weapon of war, and finessing a feature, in some subtile way maybe, even an arcane way to the man on the street , to turn it into a powerful advantage , however obscure to the untrained eye , so it could be a war winner only comes with time and Trial and error ( probably something like making and programing a war game )
The Germans had about a Year's lead in that 'X Factor" in Armor and maybe 6 months in Aircraft.. The US had about a 55 Year lead in making aircraft carriers .. and that makes about as much sense as the tank tech lag..except for "what if" situations
The will to exploit very complex technology , which starts with being able to generate usable power , steam /electrical, to machine tool manifacturing, to resourch allcation, to skill of workforce ,to ad infinitum , is what gets the end product on the Battlefield I don't have any references handy but check out the US M-6 heavy tank IIRC 60 tons 4+ inch armor 3" at gun with coaxle 37mm about 5 MG's full traverse Turret and in 1941 ... I think i am real close on those specs .. and some were made .. I haven't a clue how many or how fast they could go or anything else .. so .. it 's not just tech and not just unit experience .. it has a lot to do with what was a ctually at any given battle
I see alot of ratios of how many and what kind of tanks would be at a battle .. what i don't see is, what would be the ratio of Infantry to armor for any Given side,,, most battles would have to be pretty much tankless fights for the germans ( perish the thought, but..) maybe even for the Americans , but other factors come into play .. 251's were somewhere around 16,000 for the whole war all varients ( US made more DUKW's than that, something like 24,000) .. one could ask just as easily why didn't the germans build more halftracks .. my off the wall Guess would be about 20-25 Infantry divisions per tank division for the Germans and 80% of those would be unsupported by mechanized transport horses or walk and pick it up at the BahnHof ... and hundreds of thousands of horses were killed ..I have no Idea how many were used .. The US didn't use horses ..made the descion to be fully mechanized 600,000 2 1/2 ton trucks 400,000 jeeps .. this may have factored into tank production decisions, something like 150,000 halftracks ( check that, i don't have that number handy)
Mr White said it best " The Americans saw the Shermans as a combined arms tank" and it was combined with both quanity and in a good many cases superior quality ..


arty there ! i said it

Originally posted by Joaquim:
Way back in the first post:

For me units should have two costs: one tac - based in their value in combat (averaged to player, terrain - perhaps incresing when you buy it, to avoid large armies of PzIs, halftracks...) and another of production, based in production costs... this would, perhaps, make easier, the making of a campaign using the old Third Reich map...

I agree. I'd love to see two separate unit cost systems with a toggle feature.

One cost system would be based on the unit's value in the game. I realize this would be somewhat subjective, but there have been numerous discussions about this issue and I'm sure we could come up with something that would lead to very competetive play. I don't care if there were 500 times as many M4A1 Shermans as Jagdtigers, if the calculation says the Jagdtiger is worth 2 Shermans, then it should cost twice as much to lead to a competetive game.

The other cost system should be based more on scarcity and availability. This system would be even better if there was some way to make the cost change over time! For example, a Tiger 1 should be very expensive in late '42 through early '43, when they were quite scarce, but then become progressively cheaper as they became more common. This would have an impact on campaigners (like me) that upgrade the instant a new tank becomes available.

We ahve tried to do that, albeit largely subjectively and the subject of much tweaking once it comes out

In V 5 with rarity on units frequency showing up in the purchase screens is linked a 3 point system - plentiful, common and uncommon - with the old "Radio code 3" guys a "special case".

What happens is then teh p=urchase screen comes up, unit names in red are not available. THis means sometimes you don;t get teh support MGS or AT units in an infnatry CO or don;t have teh full range of choices, and if you uy multiples of teh same formation, it gets "rerolled" each time so the odds of buying additional formations of scarce things rapidly goes down.

THis is not a perfect solution, but will help to increase the diversity of units in battlegenerator games as players will not be able to count on buying "optimum" mixes of thier favorute unit types all the tme and will usually (particularlyin big games) get stuck with some odd assortments of units. But it has seemed a considerable improvement in testing overall.

The costing thing is easy to tweak in the scenario editor.....

I'd like to see more human v. human scenarios developed for online and pbem. In fact, that is going to be my next little project. Anxious to see how will work out.

Originally posted by Redleg:
The costing thing is easy to tweak in the scenario editor.....

I'd like to see more human v. human scenarios developed for online and pbem. In fact, that is going to be my next little project. Anxious to see how will work out.

I have started to work on a spreadsheet to generate a "fair" point system for all units. I've fooled around with it off and on a few times and then gave up. I don't think it would be terribly difficult to do, but it is more time consuming than I had originally anticipated. It would be helpful if there was somewhere I could get a spreadsheet of all the unit values, I'm too busy/lazy to input them myself.

Use Freds OOBDump utility
www.Freds.webprovider.com and drop Fred a little note, seems he's ben in some sort of accident!

Let me tell you after nearly over a month, a 44MB "spreadsheet from hell" and much wailing and nashing of teeth, its easier said than done....

Originally posted by Kluckenbill:

I have started to work on a spreadsheet to generate a "fair" point system for all units.

Kluckenbill,

It's a noble gesture, but I think you will find you're beating your head against the wall after you start passing it around. I think everyone out there has a different idea what is "fair" for unit costs. I saw at least seven different opinions in this message thread alone. Every version change of the game so far has generated a lot of heated debate over what people think is the "fair" cost of units. (Sometimes I think people just want something to argue about.) This is why Matrix listens to the gamers in forum and on occasion changes the unit cost. Most of the time though, they stick to thier guns and leave things as-is. This is why Matrix includes the OOB editor (along with several others) with the download of the game. That way, if you don't like something, you can change it to the way you want it. Just don't expect everyone to think your idea is right.