Historical versus game

[gdpsnake]

I have a few issues perhaps someone can enlighten me on.

I've been playing the mega campaings a lot and have noted the following:

First, I've had over 40 Stuka attacks on Russian armor and NOT ONCE-EVER- has a Stuka destroyed a tank of any size/shape. NEVER! (I've heard the damage sound twice and did confirm one immobilization) The first bomb drop has NEVER impacted in the center of the hex and about half the smaller ones have. This seems very unrealistic considering the historical effect of stukas killing tanks. I remember earlier versions of SPWAW when Stukas killed the armor about half the time. I have 100% on the preferences. Is the Stuka not rated correctly? What do I need to set in the preferences to get some historical results?

Second, historically, the STG IIIB knocked out T-34's at ranges of 500 yards (Look at Wittman - he was better than most but his tank gun and shells were still manufactured the same as everyone else.) SO how come my STG III's have NO CHANCE to kill a T-34 even at 0 range in the rear? In the scenario I noted the designer had to almost TRIPLE the gun AP values in Wittman's tank so it could kill T-34's! I've also found that my 50mm tank guns can't kill them either although the pak 50mm ATG does kill them. Are the guns/shells different? I thought they were the same?! I realize the T-34 and KV tanks were awesome but they were obviously knocked out on occasion by panzers. It never happens in the game even from above/behind/side down to ranges of 0. Is this right? What setting in preferences would be more realistic if any?

Third, I've noticed the survivability of the russian armor is awesome! Even the early BT tanks take an average of 4-5 hits before dying and usually it's a crew bail. On the other hand, the panzers seem to blow up everytime with one hit from 33 and 45mm shells! I understand the 75 and 76mm shells but why the hell did they put any armor on the tanks at all since it never seems to protect the tank. This occurs at battles at all different ranges. The russians fire an average of 20% chance to hit and hit 40% of the time with a 85% percent chance of a complete kill. The germans fire an average of 65% chance to hit and hit 33% of the time and need 4-5 hits to take out BT's , T-26 and T-28 tanks. I would have thought the early Russina tanks more vulnerable. The only tank that blows up consistently is the T-35.

Which settings on preference would give a more historical result? Thank god for the PZII's and there 20mm with APCR which surprizingly knock out the russian tanks at long range and for infantry assaults. The PZIIIg's, h's and PZIV's are just cannon fodder even at 750 to 100 yards which irritates and surprizes me no end considering the armor and penetration values!

I don't mean to sound like I'm not having fun. I'm just curious as to the historical results. I set up in wonderfull places and ambush the Russians in the flank at 500-750 yards with PZIII's and end up getting slaughtered by the BT'S in a shooting match. So long PZIII's and maybe one BT is toast.

Any comments especially on the Stuka?

[Belisarius]

I assume you use the 7.1 version?

Anyway, T-34s are not invulnerable at all - 75mm KwKs crack them open from the front at 10 hexes. I don't have a good experience with the 5cm PzIIIs, but I'm playing vs. Goblin now and his PzIII's toasts my T-34s 4 times out of 5 This is of course at close range (less than 5 hexes), but it proves that the III's are tank killers!

And yes - the 20mm cannon is awesome!

[Goblin]

Wittman was in a Tiger, not a Stug IIIB. You don't have to triple anything to kill something with an 88! The Stug IIIB had a low velocity 75mm gun, and I doubt it ever killed a T34 at 500 yds, unless the round fell in the hatch, or went thru a view port!

I kill T34E's with PzIII's all the time. The regular T34's are easier for sure. The 75mm will kill them for sure, and I have killed KV (1C)'s withit from the front! The key is to get close, get on a flank, and get rounds on target! It helps if you pin them with arty too. Even if you don't kill the tank, usually the crews won't return fire after a coupla hits, and you can manuever for a kill!

In the battle with Belisarius, he has KV(1C)'s with MASSIVE front armor, up near my line! I killed one from the front with a StugIIIF, and I'm smiling, because the others can't get away ! They are too slow, and will die shortly. Thats the way you have to approach it.

Goblin- A Goblin has a giant nutcracker:D

[Charles2222]

gdpsnake:

Wittman was in a Tiger, not a Stug IIIB. You don't have to triple anything to kill something with an 88! The Stug IIIB had a low velocity 75mm gun, and I doubt it ever killed a T34 at 500 yds, unless the round fell in the hatch, or went thru a view port!

This is kind of an odd occassion for me. I'm talking to gdpsnake, but using Goblin's quote to emphasize his quote. Gdp, I wouldn't despair with the PZIIIs (assuming you're talking Hs and Js only). In the current Axis all-stars campaign I have have going I've faced so far 2 platoons of T34s in 6/41. If their numbers aren't very great or at least if you have exchanging fire with them, 2 to 3 times their number, there are a number of routes open to you. Understand, the megacampaign may have superstar T34s or lousy PZIII crews, but these tactics work give the isolated circumstance I described above.

How to nullify or destroy superior armor with your armor:

1. Just keep hitting it. Some crews will bail, some I think even when the tank wasn't damaged from a hit. Even if that isn't so, there's always 'the suppression war', where you try to suppress it so much that it fires very little and cannot advance, and may even retreat or rout.

2. Hitting it may immobilize it, therefore rendering rear hits easy later in the battle.

3. Find out the top armor rating and see if you force consists of any artillery with a rating in HE penetration superior and use that. BTW, in some instances bombarding a hex with direct-fire may be the better way to go, because the HE penetration even from a tank may be higher than the enemy top, should the top be hit.

4. Hitting it may not destroy the tank, but particularly guns 50mm and up can destroy systems. The radio mast isn't probably too important (unless the tank is on it's own) but the main gun gets destroyed fairly frequently. Tanks without main guns functional are no threat to your armor.

5. And this one surprises me. What about vulnerable location hits? In the battle I described I know I had 2 or 3 vulnerable hits with at least one of those hits destroying the T34 outright from a PZIIIH at approximately 20 hex range. I didn't think vulnerable hits went past 5 or so hexes for some reason, but I've seen a number of them in this campaign. The vulnerable hits are thankfully very infrequent at that range, but they do happen.

6. Top armor, again. Quite a few GE tanks can destroy the T34 from a good distance with the top hit from a superior height. The odds of being on a hill and hitting either with a vulnerable, top, main gun, or immobilization hit are maybe 7%. That may not seem like much, but if you vastly outnumber the T34s, and have no other threat at the point where contact is made with them, the odds are actually higher than if you confronted say a Sherman one-on-one with a PZIVF2 (my theory anyway), because in the one-on-one, the PZIVF2 can be destroyed almost as easily as the reverse, but with the T34 situation the T34 in most cases is pretty badly inaccurate, but it also will be lucky to get off more than one shot against such superior fire being brought against it. "Maybe" one T34 against 5 PZIIIHs (at a distance mind you) ends up with a PZIIIH destroyed 5% of the time, but failing that the T34 will either rout out of the battle for 2 or 3 turns, or the continous firepower will destroy it in 2 or 3 turns.

These observations are considerably more difficult to pull off if the outnumbered tank normally has a high ROF, and is very accurate, but then the T34s pretty much aren't. The outnumbered tank's crew having fair or worse ratings don't hurt much either.

[Gen.Hoepner]

Well,I'm playing LV and my experience with Stug and PzIII pak50 is not that bad. Wittmann used to have a stug before being promoted to a Tiger.....the Stug are effective vs.T-34 but you have to learn how to use them.U cannot use the 75mm short barreled as if it was a 88.You have to manoevre and find a flank firing position.My 3 stugs in LV are tank killers!!!!Much more than those hated pzIII....the point with these it is not the gun,but the precision of the shots....BTW it happened many times to me to kill a KV with a pak50.....just ambushing them....the german tanks were not t-34 or kv killers because of their technical issues,but 'cause the ability and skill of their crews!This is the lesson u have to learn from LV....(the same in DF with Tildas....)

[Kevin E. Duguay]

gdpsnake, on Stukas, I agree, they suck! And Im more concerned about the tank buster version than the bomb carrying one. In all the times I've purchased the 37mm tank busting Stuka, only once of twice did they kill even one tank. The bomb carrying version is even worse. This should be looked in to.
The 75mmL24 on the StugB has only slightly better armor penetrating performance than a 37mm PAK. (75mm-39mm at 500m vs 37mm-29mm at 500m, CZ 37mmKwK38(t)(A7)L47.8-35mm at 500m all at 30 degrees from vertical) With out HEAT ammo engaging T34s and KVIs with these weapons is almost suicide. On the other hand if you have Heat ammo and you can secure a hit, both of these troublesome tanks can be delt with. In one scenario I played I managed to hit a KV tank with a HEAT round at about 14 hexes and it blew up nicely.
50mmL42 is usefull only at short ranges vs T34 and KV types. Keep lots of APCR handy!
50mmL60 tank gun and 50mm PAK are different, but this difference would not show in this format. It's onlt 2-3mm of penetration. This weapon may be slightly under rated in the game but not by much. The PzIIIs mounting this weapon had to come well within the kill range of the Russian 76mm tank guns on the T34 and KV types to successfully engage either of these tanks.
German armor in the 1941-42 period was not very heavy. A PzIVF2 only had 50mm of hull armor. Some PZIIIs had armor up to 70mm but almost all Panzers had 30mm side armor and it had almost no slope! The Russian anti-tank rifles could if close enough punch holes in the sides of German tanks. This was the original reason for the invention of armored skirts. The skirts slowed the ATR rounds enough so that they would'nt penetrate the main side armor. It just so happened that it was also effective against HEAT rounds too.
Concerning other German weapons of that period. The 75mmL43 is under rated. In the book Panzer Truppen by Jentz (Schiffer Millitary) there is mention of this weapon "cleanly penetrating" the T34 at all angles at ranges up to 1200 meters. I have yet to see that happen in Steel Panthers WaW. As for that matter, I don't even think German tanks can see vehicles in open ground that far in the game. From vol.2 of Panzer Truppen comes this interesting tidbit on page 39. This is about Tiger Is and may be a little out of this time frame but here it is anyways. " First round hits were usually achieved with the 8.8cm Kw.K gun at ranges between 600 to 1000 meters. At these ranges, the Panzer-Granate absolutely penetrated through the frontal armor of T34 tanks. After penetrating through the frontal armor, usually the Panzer-Granate still destroyed the engine at the rear of the tank. In very few cases could the T34 be set on fire when fired at from the front. Shots from the same range hitting the side of the hull toward the rear of the tank resulted in 80 percent of the cases in the fuel tanks exploding. Even at ranges of 1500 meters and longer, during favorable weather it is possible to succeed in penetrating the T34 with minimal expenditure of ammunition." There is more good stuff so buy the book and read it for your self.(Panzer-Granate=AP) Has any one out there killed a T34 with a Tiger I from 30 hexes away? Further? In SPWaW 7.1 it will never happen. One other thing mentioned in these books is the finding of T34 turrets with very poor quality armor. The report stated that some T34s had turret armor made up of 1cm of steel 6cm of steel shavings, fileings and other assorted scrap and enclosed with another 1cm of steel. How effective could this be? This obviously was not the norm. But then again how common was this practice?
GOBLIN! Wittman started his trade in a STUG IIIG. And Im not sure about the numbers, but if I remember correctly almost half his kills were gotten with this vehicle. The STUG IIIG may also be under rated.
Have you had enough??? GOOD!!!! But Im not done yet! I think the HS 129 is under rated to! This is another tank busting aircraft that in this game just can't get the job done. If these aircraft were so ineffective, then why did the Germans put so much time and resorses building them?

Tell me what you think. Have a nice day, thats it good by!

[stevemk1a]

I may be wrong, but Wittman manned an SPW armoured car, first. Then he manned a STUGIII, where he learned to face any threat with frontal armour. Wittman was a commited nazi, with simple tastes and limited imagination. He was in the right place at the right time to humiliate a British offensive. He was one of the greatest individual tank aces of WWII... Is Wittman overrated as a commander... Is the legend justified?

[antarctic]

Hmmmmm.... Stukas missing their targets......
Okay. What version of the Stuka did you use?... I think the G version was the Anti-tank ones, with the 40mm cannon.
If you used to bomb toting ones.... well, I'm not really surprised. Think about it. Each hex in SP is 50x50m. A tank's top area is about 6x3m. And it takes a pretty close hit to damage/immobilise a tank, and an almost direct hit to kill one.
And you're trying to do this in a chunk of metal diving at 200mph? I know stukas are legendary for their accuracy... but they're not THAT accurate!
If you want to go tank busting... and you're German, stick to tanks. Stukas (Except the G) are better used against infantry.

Antarctic

[Grenadier]

This must be an anomaly. In testing the Stuka's killed a large number of tanks. The Wittmann Stug in Lost Victories was modified in order to give the player a fighting chance. In the other battles you may have run out of AP or APCR ammo and hitting with only HE, The Stug was designed for infantry support and I am currently designing a scenario showing the debut of the STuG and how it was originally designed, so early war models had a higher amount of HE and less AP. This changed as the weapon became primarily a tank killer.

[learnerever]

some anomaly

I think the stuka's are as poor tank killers as
mentioned in the above posts.

also could fix aeroplanes always searching for anything
vehicle to shoot or bomb.The instant the enemy runs
out of vehicles your own vehicles become targets for
your planes instead a gruop of say 200 enemy infantrymen
right below and ahead of the plane . Make them attack a
designated spot whether they actually spotted anyone or
anything there or not . Could bomb infantry this way instead
of tanks and trucks .

[tiggwigg]

Regarding aircraft attacking my own tanks...I find I can reduce this by selecting the direction the aircraft arrives from...if the aircraft flies from the german side, it often attacks my own vehicles without selecting a russian target...probably, in game terms, because it can see my tanks before the concealed russian infantry...but by flying the attack approach from the russian side my stukas bomb the russian infantry and usually leave my tanks alone.

SPWAW is a game and has limitations, so the short 7.5cm gun is alot less effective than it was historical, particular as russian armour is not representative of the diverse quality found on the battlefied...up to date I haven't been game or had time to set up ambushes in my LV battles.

That said, the massive armoured counter-attacks have been my most successful battles...the computer simply charges its tanks forward, and by positioning my own so that I can bring a crossfire down on the leading tanks, I can knock our the Russian vehicles piecemeal as they arrive...the important thing is to knock-out the light tanks first (BT's and t-26)...as others have observed, this can be very hard, taking up to 5 hits in some cases...knocking out a tanks gives 6 points suppression to all nearby vehicles...so destroying a dozen of them, in conjunction with artillery barrages, can render inaccurate russian fire totally useless...having knocked out all the light tanks who's 45mm AT guns do seem inordinately able to knock out my MarkIII's, I can then start on the heavies...the 20mm on the Mark II's and Sdkfz223 are excellent at immobilising the Russian heavies...a few mortar rounds on target will have the crew abandon ship...all that's left is to overun the crew, while sitting a turn on the abandoned tank results in a destroy.

I forget the battle, but it consists of a defense against an armoured counterattack...I was reinforced with a company of Stug's...I simply advanced them onto the railroad line crossing the map (the rough terrain increasing their defense factor and their frontal armour was impervious to a 45mm hit) and 7 StugIII between them knocked out about 40 light tanks and stopped the complete offensive...of course the late arrival of a compnay of Mark III's rescued them from the T-34's and KV's

[Kevin E. Duguay]

After testing report indicates that my views on the Stuka W/bombs is correct. Don't use them on moving tanks. I mannaged only 2 tank kills on IMMOBILISED tanks. Moving tanks,0 so far.
Stuka G-1 W/37mm guns took out 13 tanks but unlike the bomb carrying version also left 13 crews running about. Bomb carrier killed all crew members when tank was destroyed.
My deepest appologies go to the HS-129 W/30mm gun. It was by far the best with 34 tank kills but it to left 29 crews on board.
Testing was done on med map, all open ground with 10 T34 immobile and 60 T34 on the move.
12 aircraft were used in each test all of the same type.
All attacks came in from behind.
CONCLUSION- Bomb carrying Stukas should only be used against immobile targets. These aircraft only have a slim chance of destroying a moving tank. The Stuka w/37mm guns Is only held back by it's historical ammo load (can't remember but think it was 6 rounds per gun). The HS-129 was aided by it's historical ammo load. Some aircraft of this type still had a few rounds left at the end of the 12 turn test senario, flying about 6 sorties each.
Sorry HS-129 I'll never say anything bad about you again. That is untill you wipe out my last tank when I have victory in my grasp, then I will curse thee with glee and viggor!!!

[Belisarius]

Originally posted by willy
I may be wrong, but Wittman manned an SPW armoured car, first. Then he manned a STUGIII, where he learned to face any threat with frontal armour. Wittman was a commited nazi, with simple tastes and limited imagination. He was in the right place at the right time to humiliate a British offensive. He was one of the greatest individual tank aces of WWII... Is Wittman overrated as a commander... Is the legend justified?

In many ways Wittman is a product of Nazi propaganda, much like Hans-Ulrich Rudel, another commited nazi.

However, Wittman was very talented and knew how to best use tactics for giving him and his crew an upper hand. He also had great help in Bobby Woll, his gunner. Wittman rarely had to assign targets to Woll, he knew which ones Wittman wanted to engage anyway.

[gdpsnake]

Thanks to everyone. I have 7.1. I seem to get the following:

Person versus person games are more realistic since panzers can take out the russians. I know there's at least one cheat for player versus AI and that's in opportunity fire so maybe there's a little tweek in to hit and kill as well? Comments?

I agree with bomb toting A/C but if that's true, then why was so much reliance placed on these A/C and how did they achieve so many kills? I also HATE that the A/C will never go to the "piles" of infantry I target them for but always for a vehicle (Armor then truck/wagon and then MY OWN Vehicles!) This really needs to be fixed! Anyone agree?

I think the early panzer guns are underrated for penetration or perhaps the inability to correctly model the armor is the problem especially as each tank is a little different. I once read a document of a debriefed pole who worked in a tank factory during the cold war and he said that half the time the tanks left the assembly line without working parts due to sabotage/tinkering. It was a big joke with the factory workers on quality control! I do see the armor value change with each hit based on the routines so there is some modeling but maybe a small random to the actual amor value can be added to account for the different manufacturing techniques. (Some better, some worse!) Comments?

I was discussing Wittman in his StgIIIb. The tank in the scenario was HEAVILY MODIFIED to give the player a chance. That was my question - why did it need to be so heavily modified to do what it did historically.......

Having fun!

[AmmoSgt]

Some thoughts on Stuka accuracy .. check the record of Stukas v British Ships .. Ships are much larger than tanks and Merchant Ships are slower .. Warships are faster than Tanks usually .. Stukas , even with Air Superiority in the Mediteranian Theater were not all that effective, I'm not saying they were bad , But I think alot of their Initial Reputation was from novelity and shock .. The US SBD had a much better record ..
The game has limits .. the Players have limits ..I suggest that Whittman's Stug is beefed up to get Historical results to compensate for the Difference between a truely exceptional Tank Commander and your average computer game player ... Of course for those of you that are actually as good as Whittman, I humbly appologize.

[Charles2222]

AmmoSgt: OTOH, how many tanks do you think saw it coming? The ships I gather were most of the time seeing it coming.

I'd also wonder how much of the time flak was involved in one scenario or the other. I would also wager that when you think of the merchant attacks you are thinking in the early war years around Battle of Britain time when the pilots were prbably a tad less experienced with dive-bombing ships.

don't recall what was doing the sinking, and most of it might have been by JU88s or JU87s via dive-bombing, but I recall the danger to Murmansk convoys was so great due to air-attack that the whole project was scraped. It seems they got better since that famous British radio broadcast of the Stukas dive-bombing that convoy in the Channel.

[tiggwigg]

"I was discussing Wittman in his StgIIIb. The tank in the scenario was HEAVILY MODIFIED to give the player a chance. That was my question - why did it need to be so heavily modified to do what it did historically.......

The only enhancement to Wittman's Stug was the use of a 75L43 (I think)...that is the scenario designer simply chose a standard StugE and, using the editor, chose a different weapon for the vehicle at the same time as he changed the name to "BUZZARD" and upped the ammo....this is the only way to give the vehicle an improved fire power and I expect the 75L43 was the only weapon which was reasonable to use as a replacement...it would have looked even stranger and provoked more comment if it had been a Russian 76.2, a sherman 75mm or an 75L70!

That said, in the battle, I hit one T-34 about 5 times before knocking it out...including 3 times from 1 hex distance!

[gnoccop]

Don't forget that this is a simulation of the reality, it's not reality!

For my taste this simulation is the right balance between playability, reality and history.

(and now i'm waiting Combat Leader)!

[Charles2222]

I'd like to follow up a bit on my comments to AmmoSgt. Found a tad of documentation to somewhat back my position about tanks not being extremely difficult to hit with dive-bombing Stukas.

From Aces of the Reich by Gordon Williamson:

Rudel's achievements were truly unique. He had flown 2,530 missions and his score included more than 500 tanks destroyed, one battleship, one cruiser, one destroyer, 70 landing craft, four armoured trains, more than 800 military vehicles, and a large number of artillery pieces, Flak guns, etc.

Divide the tank total into the total missions, you have a 20% tank destruction ratio per mission. Also, with a high amount of other miscellaneous kills it's likely that he was given to tank-busting maybe only 50% of the time, which would run the tally of tanks destroyed per missions where he was likely attacking tanks closer to a 40% kill ratio.

Of course whether this ratio of tanks killed per mission was typical for Stuka pilots is another matter.

From www.achtungpanzer.com I quote the following:

Rudel was then posted to the new special "Panzerjagdkommando Weiss" unit formed at Briansk to test newly developed tank-busting version of Ju-87 D-3.Modified Stuka armed with two Rheinmetall-Borsig 37mm (BK) Flak 18 guns (each mounted in special canopy under each wing with 6 rounds of ammunition) was developed at the Luftwaffe's experimental station at Rechlin (near Neustrelitz, Germany).

I quote that in order to show the total amount of rounds the gun had.

In March of 1943, during a tank battle around Belgorod, Rudel knocked out his first tank with his new tank-busting Stuka

Note the time there.

On April 14th of 1943, Hans Rudel was awarded Oakleaves to his Knights Cross.Captain Hans Rudel's squadron of nine tank-busting Ju-87 G-1 was assigned to support of the 3rd SS Panzer Division "Totenkopf". On the first day of the Operation Citadel, during his first mission,Rudel knocked out four Soviet tanks and by the evening, his score grew to twelve.

I provide this quote to show that on his first mission of Citadel he had 6 rounds in each gun (and whether they fired simultaneously or alternating I don't know) for 12 total. He knocked out four tanks meaning that at the "worst" he was destroying a tank with every third shot, hardly the mark of a difficult target (at least for him), and it's a Stuka configuration which he had only been flying for a month (new 37mm guns).

During his career, Rudel flew over 2530 (around 400 of his sorties were flown in a Focke-Wulf 190 fighter plane during whichhe was credit with 11 air victories) missions and destroyed around 150 various artillery pieces, 519 tanks, around 1000 various vehicles, 70 landing crafts, 2 Lavochkin La-3 fighters, Il-2 Stormovik and sunk Battleship "Marat", 2 Cruisers and a Destroyer.

In this quote we see that he didn't fly the Stuka for all 2530 missions, but that 400 were in the FW190, which presumably wasn't sent on tank-busting duty, therefore if this data is correct he destroyed 519 tanks in 2130 missions. It is interesting to note that he was also not only a anti-tank ace, but an air ace since he had 11 air victories.

[AmmoSgt]

Charles .. Ok .. so even if we assume every Stuka pilot is Rudel , then , add it up . Rudel sucessfully engaged only 1 target ( actually a little less ) each sortee. and only got a tank about 2 out of every 5 missions , On average. With a special AT version of the Stuka . That sounds like about what most folks who are complaining say they are getting with average pilots in non AT versions of Stukas .. So maybe we ought to further cut back on Stuka accuracy and effectiveness , so that in the game not every early version , non AT Stuka flown by Very Good but not quite Rudel pilots are matching Rudels Record.. say they do half as good .. that would mean half of all Stukas bought would do no damage and only 1 in 5 Stukas bought would actually be expected to knock out a Tank ? Thats what your numbers imply ? Is That what you want? Why are you so aginst Stukas being effective in the game?