Matrix Games Forums

Hi!

Do the panzer division reorganization have to be that drastical in 43? My shining panzer divisions are a peace of crap now... I understand that historically the werhmacht went for stug's and marder's muuch more but it is hurting the wehrmacht so much... I have panzer divisions only with stugs and marder IIIs, and I have a lot of medium tanks (pzIVh and panthers) which I can't use in the panzer divisions. It's ok to transform 1 panzer bn to stug or light tank destroyer bn but not all or 2 bn in a panzer div... I don't think that's historical... I would suggest if I switch to human factory/upgrade control this reorganization won't happen. I can close my medium tank factories and switch to stugs and nashorns... I would say it's unbalanced: *lot* of bn's going to stugs and light destroyers but only a few factories building them. The germans switched too them because they had more of them (cheaper) then tanks.

Originally posted by Tom1939:
Hi!

Do the panzer division reorganization have to be that drastical in 43? My shining panzer divisions are a peace of crap now... I understand that historically the werhmacht went for stug's and marder's muuch more but it is hurting the wehrmacht so much... I have panzer divisions only with stugs and marder IIIs, and I have a lot of medium tanks (pzIVh and panthers) which I can't use in the panzer divisions. It's ok to transform 1 panzer bn to stug or light tank destroyer bn but not all or 2 bn in a panzer div... I don't think that's historical... I would suggest if I switch to human factory/upgrade control this reorganization won't happen. I can close my medium tank factories and switch to stugs and nashorns... I would say it's unbalanced: *lot* of bn's going to stugs and light destroyers but only a few factories building them. The germans switched too them because they had more of them (cheaper) then tanks.

Question for you on this. Had you manually changed the tanks assigned to the tank units prior to this change? Basically, the upgrade to the StuG/TD types is automated based on the current type - the PzKpfw IVs should not change, but if these tank battalions are changed to the PzKpfw III type, they will upgrade. If all types are changing, that is a problem, but otherwise it is a limitation in the way the upgrade process works in general, the key being keeping a mix of types in the divisions. Also, the added 4th battalion that a lot of the divisions got could cause problems, but I tried to make sure that a mix of types was kept in each division. Anyway, I will look further at this tonight. BTW, are you playing the 1941 campaign or the 1943?

Thanks.

Hi!

I play 41 campaign with both human to try things out. This time I did it slowly, I did some simualting battles and so on. And I think you are right I did manually change tanks to pz III, then to pz IV, and in 43 I should have left a lot of pz III bn's... So the message is to beware the pz III? The marder III reorganization was only by one bn each panzer div. But I saw a lot of 70-80 stug IIIg bn's (they were the pz III's). Oh, by the way, based on my test battles armor quality is not getting through enough I think. T34/85 have the same kind of losses then panthers on similar situation. But this is a *lot* better then the previous relase. No real need to change it, just my subjective point.

Originally posted by Tom1939:
Hi!

I play 41 campaign with both human to try things out. This time I did it slowly, I did some simualting battles and so on. And I think you are right I did manually change tanks to pz III, then to pz IV, and in 43 I should have left a lot of pz III bn's... So the message is to beware the pz III? The marder III reorganization was only by one bn each panzer div. But I saw a lot of 70-80 stug IIIg bn's (they were the pz III's). Oh, by the way, based on my test battles armor quality is not getting through enough I think. T34/85 have the same kind of losses then panthers on similar situation. But this is a *lot* better then the previous relase. No real need to change it, just my subjective point.

In what I tried last night, I saw what you are reporting on the StuGIIIs, I think. I had the PzKpfw III battalions converting to the StuGs, although I didn't have enough through the period of my test to convert all, so they showed up primarily in the lowest numbered Panzer divisions, while the higher numbered still had the tanks. This is a problem with the entire upgrade process, and it is probably more noticeable due to the extra battalions I added for the 1941 campaign. I think the key would be to manually change some battalions to the PzKpfw IV and go from there. The other option would be to break the upgrade link from PzKpfw III to the Stug. What does everyone think?

Hi!

I would say break the link. No upgrade to stug IIIg. Werhmacht has enough independent stug units, and asigned units to keep the few stug factories busy. Pz IIIm is little worse then stug IIIg but it can be upgraded to several big bad tanks...

Hi!

I have a question, I think this is somewhat related to this subject. Could be all the tank destroyers in one category? Like no light, medium and heavy. The reason is that you really can't use the medium and heavy td's as the germans. There are nearly no unit to place them, and the nashorns upgrade to jagdtigers, so in early 45 you have jagdtigers which only go to 2 bn's and the ss panzer divs (1-1 bn), and you have no light td factories and a lot of light td bn's. And there are lot of hetzers and some jadpanthers and jpz IV's which you can't really use. So shortly: I think td bn's should be upgraded to any kind of td. Or make much more medium and heavy td bn's for the germans (maybe for the soviets this is right to).

Originally posted by Tom1939:
Hi!

I have a question, I think this is somewhat related to this subject. Could be all the tank destroyers in one category? Like no light, medium and heavy. The reason is that you really can't use the medium and heavy td's as the germans. There are nearly no unit to place them, and the nashorns upgrade to jagdtigers, so in early 45 you have jagdtigers which only go to 2 bn's and the ss panzer divs (1-1 bn), and you have no light td factories and a lot of light td bn's. And there are lot of hetzers and some jadpanthers and jpz IV's which you can't really use. So shortly: I think td bn's should be upgraded to any kind of td. Or make much more medium and heavy td bn's for the germans (maybe for the soviets this is right to).

Tom,

I have a game played as the German at even against the computer that is saved at 6/18/45 just so I could see what the conversions were and I have all kinds of TD Bns equipped with Jagdtigers. Also, all the medium tanks have been equipped with Panthers so the pools reflect what I built as Pz-IIIs and Pz-IVs less loses. There are 3100 Pz-IIIs in the pool and 5100 Pz-IVs. So build a lot more Pz-IVs than Pz-IIIs and manually upgrade the Pz Bns to Pz-IVs especially the last 2 or 3 Bns. The first Bn gets converted to a TD Bn anyway so it doesn't make any difference. Also, the game starts converting the Panzer divisions in the order they are listed in the manual on page 53. The conversions start in early 1943 so have all your low numbered Pz Divs upgraded to Pz-IVs before the conversions start. In my saved game only one division has Pz Bns equipped with Stug-IIIgs. All the rest have Panthers. Its a pain in the neck to have to watch the production like that but if you don't you get the condition you saw.

Svar