Sighs & Portents: Soviets need Tank buster plane variant
- Thread starter JayRaider
- Start date
Iain McGhee
Mongoose
JayRaider said:
Haven't seen the rulebook myself (yet), but the 23mm equipped IL2 could kill anything up to and including the PzIV with rear attacks. Do the rules allow aircraft to attack the top armour or at least get some sort of height bonus when attacking ? The 23mm gun is quoted as being able to pierce 25mm of armour at 400m which is enough to kill Panthers (17mm top armour) but would be lucky to damage a Tiger (28mm top armour). The Russians developed the IL2M, which was first used at Kursk in July '43, to deal with heavier tanks. It only had half the bomb load, but mounted a pair of 37mm cannons that reportedly could punch through 40mm armour. Expect that's one of the reasons the King Tiger had half again as much top armour as the Tiger.
The older IL2 could still carry bombs and rockets (including AP) to deal with heavier vehicles.
Apart from the much needed HE for guns, is there really any need for different AP rounds? With the scale of these rules (whatever that might be) all tank guns are pretty much shooting a very short ranges and would use the appropiate rounds to do so which I assume the gun stats now do. And if you gave the players an option, would they not just choose the best ammo anyway?
Depends on the type. In many cases (HE notwithstanding) you are right; the granularity of the rule system wouldn't make much odds. However there are things like HVAP and other specialist AT rounds that were introduced later in the war that would make a difference to some types, especially smaller guns.
Addition of HE is a "must have" of course
Addition of HE is a "must have" of course
You give them the option, sure - but they take the hit in terms of an additional cost for 'buying it' in a purely points based game.
Also not all ammo is a straight upgrade - APDS gives you better penetration but kinetic penetrators are simply that, so you might get a + to your d10, but lose the multihit trait (as an example).
In scenario based play, generally the Germans will lose out - they didn't have the tungsten available to throw away on making large stocks of HIVAP/APCR ammunition for example. But then again distribution of the ammo would tend to be limited to tank destroyer and AT gun batallions for the allies.
It's just another option to surprise the average Tiger driver with.
Also not all ammo is a straight upgrade - APDS gives you better penetration but kinetic penetrators are simply that, so you might get a + to your d10, but lose the multihit trait (as an example).
In scenario based play, generally the Germans will lose out - they didn't have the tungsten available to throw away on making large stocks of HIVAP/APCR ammunition for example. But then again distribution of the ammo would tend to be limited to tank destroyer and AT gun batallions for the allies.
It's just another option to surprise the average Tiger driver with.
Joe_Dracos
Mongoose
Mr Evil said:
Hollywood was not the cause of this, most german tanks were not killed by ground fire, but by airial bombardment. only 4 out of every 11 german tanks were lost to allied ground fire (most of them were fireflys... not the sherman itself)
Mr Evil said:
This is true, however it was the tiger with the wieght and turret issues and the Panther had issues with its fuel.
Mr Evil said:
Shermans were terrible tanks, poor armour, poor gun, extremely high profile, good speed though. The Canadian army called them Ronsons (lights every time) and the germans called them "tommy cookers". This problem wasn't fixed until later in the war. Fortunately a combination of overwhelming numbers and air power got us through the war.
Mr Evil said:
The aircraft actually do seem to be missing a few of there armaments too. The Typhoon would be a good example, its missing its 40mm cannon (which can be seen in the picture) and its rockets! I wants the rockets!!!
I would be wary of giving aircraft any super-weapons. Yes they should dominate any battlefield but at the moment they actually make a nice addition to the game without being a game-winning unit due to their small payload. That was the problem with BFEvo, bring on a plane and it destroyed everything, and isn't this really a game of land battles?
Joe_Dracos said:
The sherman actually wasn't a bad tank. Look at numbers produced, numbers lost and compare them to the T34, which has a gleaming reputation.
Fact was, in 1942 it was a broadly comparable tank to the t34 - similar armour, similar speed, similar armament. It was also more comfortable and more reliable, and generally more competently commanded.
If the Americans had bought into a doctrine other than the one they did (tanks as infantry support, tank destroyers to... destroy tanks). Like the Brits, who revised their tank doctrine quite rapidly after France and North Africa, then they might have lost far fewer and destroyed far more on the ground.
Sherman was a poor tank destroyer (for late war) - and that's all. It was an excellent tank. It was very mobile (not only tactically, but in strategic terms too), had excellent gun for the job (which is NOT killing other tanks), very mechanically reliable AND it had armor protection as good as the T-34 (better, if you take the steel quality into account). Russian troops preferred the M4 over their own designs - and they had to face a lot more of German tanks than the allied forces in the west did. Most of the M4 went to Guards units (or rather most units with M4s were designated as Guards - the title often came with the equipment).Joe_Dracos said:
Oh - and take a look at Korean War. Easy eights performed much better than T-34/85s.
Most of people saying that Sherman was a poor tank look at only one thing: how well this medium tank performed against German heavy (oh, yes - the Panther was as heavy as IS-2) tanks. Heavy tanks designed with only one thing in mind - destroying as much enemy armor as possible. Sherman's job was different - it was to be used as a tank not a tank destroyer. Support infantry, take out strong points, perform raids into enemy territory. It had to be small enough to be moved across the ocean in significant amounts. Reliable enough not to require major repairs every time it moved a hundred miles. It was all that. It was good enough for Patton
- but then, of course, commanders as good as Patton are rare...Oh, and the US doctrine was not that bad. The German tanks were few and far between. And if you compare US losses to Russian losses (with their "superior" T-34s and heavy IS-2 tanks, many excellent tank destroyers etc) you may be in for a serious surprise.
Pieta puts very good points - I hadn't heard any of the anecdotes about Russian lend-lease Shermans - all the ones I had heard were very negative and referred to M3s
Re: American tank doctrine; it's a point of some contention. Many of the commanders in the field did not buy in to the Tank Destroyer concept - to be frank, I think the less than sterling performance of tank destroyer batallions throughout the war bears that opinion out as truth - they really never 'delivered' except in a very few cases in terms of kills for losses.
Re: American tank doctrine; it's a point of some contention. Many of the commanders in the field did not buy in to the Tank Destroyer concept - to be frank, I think the less than sterling performance of tank destroyer batallions throughout the war bears that opinion out as truth - they really never 'delivered' except in a very few cases in terms of kills for losses.
The story of the Sherman and its perception as a "poor tank" is a classic case of ignoring the requirement and the role that the vehicle was expected to perform. Wargamers are very good at this, often unfairly viewing the capabilities of a tank, ship or plane because it doesn't do what they expect it to do very well. The fact that most wargamers have little real idea of how and why weapon systems developed the way they did, and little or no idea as to how they were actually used, doesn't help
(and before anyone gets on their high horse about this I include myself in that criticism as far as many aspects are concerned )
I have a rather good book in my archive on Russian experiences with the M4, essentially it is the memoirs of a soviet tanker who commanded a unit equiped with them. IIRC he was quite complimentary about the tank (and also the British Valentines and Matildas). I'll see if I can dig it out to see more of his thoughts.
(and before anyone gets on their high horse about this I include myself in that criticism as far as many aspects are concerned
)I have a rather good book in my archive on Russian experiences with the M4, essentially it is the memoirs of a soviet tanker who commanded a unit equiped with them. IIRC he was quite complimentary about the tank (and also the British Valentines and Matildas). I'll see if I can dig it out to see more of his thoughts.
Poor performance of TD batallions is another thing. Simply, the TDs were the ones not good enough - at least the M10s. If you're going against enemy tank in a vehicle which has less effective gun, less armor protection and worse gun sights (the German optics were excellent) - you're simply asking for it. The Hellcats and Jacksons were much better, as they had either good enough mobility or good enough gun to go against German tanks.
The need for Tank Destroyers is quite important thing here - WWII was a time, when the technology was insufficient to create a good all-round vehicle like the modern western MBTs . If you had a gun with good armor penetration, it would be usually less efficient against soft targets - or it would be rather big (like the German 88mm or 128mm, Russian 122mm etc), so the vehicle would have very little ammo (and would have to be rather big itself). Creating a specialized vehicle for each task made sense. The only problem was that some of the choices made during design of the tank destroyers were suboptimal (e.g. the choice to go with turreted design instead of having a big, hull-mounted gun). It may be obvious now - it wasn't then.
Some folks say, that US should have developed and deployed heavy tanks along with the Shermans. They would probably be less useful than the tank destroyers. Why? TDs were mobile enough to keep up with Shermans, so they had at least some anti-tank support. Heavy tanks would be behind the mobile formations (mobility, armor protection, firepower - choose one or any two) and Shermans would be on their own.
The Wolverine was actually an exceptional vehicle before it hit the ETO - in Tunisia in one of the few exceptional engagements I mentioned, (their first operational deployment) 3" equipped M10s destroyed about 3/4 of the 10th Panzer division fielded at El Guettar.
Similarly when the lend-lease Sherman was deployed with the 8th army, it was probably the best 'anti tank' tank that they had in service - it was more reliable than the cruisers, and arguably the 75mm m3 gun was better than the 6pdr in terms of straight AP penetration given the available ammunition at the time, whilst retaining HE capability that none of the contemporary British tanks had.
As you mention, it only fell short when deployed facing Tigers and Panthers.
DM also makes a good point that I think most wargamers miss out on when hyping up how amazing the German tanks (supposedly) were. They lost the war, and so there's more to it than who's got the better tank.
Similarly when the lend-lease Sherman was deployed with the 8th army, it was probably the best 'anti tank' tank that they had in service - it was more reliable than the cruisers, and arguably the 75mm m3 gun was better than the 6pdr in terms of straight AP penetration given the available ammunition at the time, whilst retaining HE capability that none of the contemporary British tanks had.
As you mention, it only fell short when deployed facing Tigers and Panthers.
DM also makes a good point that I think most wargamers miss out on when hyping up how amazing the German tanks (supposedly) were. They lost the war, and so there's more to it than who's got the better tank.
DM said:
Would be an interesting read - quite a significant proportion of British and US tank production went to the USSR
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Valentine-tank-Stalin.jpg
I'd also read a few complimentary points about the Valentine/Matilda - not just from the Russians, but from the Germans. DAK was notorious for retrieving damaged tanks from the field, and if the Germans had trouble killing Matilda IIs, you can guarantee that they were a nightmare for the Brits. Shame that they couldn't be upgunned and given a bigger/better engine...
