The Ridiculous PTRD...

[ImNotRyan]

^^^ All true... But I accept it as one of those areas where the balance and fun of the game is put behind realism.

Let's take Leningrad for example. If the tanks were as untouchable as they could be - the infantry wouldn't stand a chance. You could balance that by making only one or two tanks available to the Germans or Russians for the entire length of the map - but it was decided at some point that it is more fun for the tankers to get a steady stream of them. Coming full circle if the tankers must get a steady stream of Panzers, than the infantry must have a way to dispatch them effectively.

It's a gameplay issue.

Guys honestly, I was about to make a thread in General Discussion about how just last night I played Day of Defeat Source... My god... This game is universes apart in its realistic depiction.

 

[LordKhaine]

^^^ All true... But I accept it as one of those areas where the balance and fun of the game is put behind realism.

Fun and balance isn't the reason why it's like this. The reason is that it would require a HUGE amount of coding to impliment anti-tank weapons as realistically as many people hope for. And it's not really that fair for people to expect TWI to do all that work for a game already out.

But I'll still keep posting about how broken they are!

 

[Heinz]

a search would have revealed complaints about the strength soviet ATR dating back to release. it's effectiveness is overpowered in the game, and obviously so to anyone with historical knowledge and an objective mind.

ATRs in general were old tech garbage, not capable of doing much to anything but early-war AFVs. they are in the game, in over-modeled strength, for playability reasons.

 

[Solo4114]

Khaine's right. You could design a fun and balanced tank model that accurately models the necessary aspects of tank combat. But you'd probably kill most people's processors in the process, and would drastically slow down tank combat. The level of realism there would be much higher than even a realistic FPS. You'd need a real sim, I think, which RO is not.

That said, I WISH there was a real, good WWII tank sim.

 

[Solo4114]

a search would have revealed complaints about the strength soviet ATR dating back to release. it's effectiveness is overpowered in the game, and obviously so to anyone with historical knowledge and an objective mind.

ATRs in general were old tech garbage, not capable of doing much to anything but early-war AFVs. they are in the game, in over-modeled strength, for playability reasons.

I think it's also a question of weighing which breaks believability more. While there are other longer-range anti-tank weapons, including man-portable ones, the Russians didn't have tons and tons of lend-lease bazookas. What they used mostly (towed AT guns, artillery, and air support) were either not implemented for TWI concepts of gameplay (IE: no towed AT guns originally because they felt it was unrealistic to have "invisible loaders" and no fun to have dedicated AT-gun crews), implemented in various forms (IE: we have artillery), or simply not included (IE: air strikes, although the practical effect of this has been added with available arty calls).

So, as far as a longer-range man-portable AT weapon, pretty much your options are the PTRD/PTRS and....um.......I think that's about it. The Germans have the panzerfaust, and the PTRD/S is about as close as the Russians get. If you give the Russians a bazooka, the Germans should be getting a Panzershrek, and those weren't added because either they weren't available in high enough numbers, or they were "team" weapons.


Personally, I'd have no problem with adding them, but given the effectiveness of the AT weapons we have currently, it doesn't really matter that much in the end. The bazooka and 'shrek would be identical for all practical purposes, except in the most extreme cases. They'd also be INCREDIBLY powerful due to their range, which would be even more effective on most RO maps given how "close quarters" most of the fights are.

 

[Helmchen]

The German tanks didn't run on diesel like the Soviet tanks but on lovely easily ignited gas thanks to the German tank manufacturers.

Well gas doesn't ignite as easy as it's shown in movies. Have seen a test where they tried to blow up a jerrie-can with normal rifle rounds, which is compareable to the effect of an AP round as both don't explode on impact. Even with tracers the gas didn't ignite instantly. The tanks started more likely to burn through gas or diesel reaching some hot engine parts and I guess parts of a tank engine are hot enough to ignite diesel too.
Furthermore didn't the russian heat up their diesel with the warmth of their engines to make it work at extremely cold situations? That would at least make the diesel more likely to ignite too.

 

[Heinz]

I think it's also a question of weighing which breaks believability more. While there are other longer-range anti-tank weapons, including man-portable ones, the Russians didn't have tons and tons of lend-lease bazookas. What they used mostly (towed AT guns, artillery, and air support) were either not implemented for TWI concepts of gameplay (IE: no towed AT guns originally because they felt it was unrealistic to have "invisible loaders" and no fun to have dedicated AT-gun crews), implemented in various forms (IE: we have artillery), or simply not included (IE: air strikes, although the practical effect of this has been added with available arty calls).

So, as far as a longer-range man-portable AT weapon, pretty much your options are the PTRD/PTRS and....um.......I think that's about it. The Germans have the panzerfaust, and the PTRD/S is about as close as the Russians get. If you give the Russians a bazooka, the Germans should be getting a Panzershrek, and those weren't added because either they weren't available in high enough numbers, or they were "team" weapons.
Personally, I'd have no problem with adding them, but given the effectiveness of the AT weapons we have currently, it doesn't really matter that much in the end. The bazooka and 'shrek would be identical for all practical purposes, except in the most extreme cases. They'd also be INCREDIBLY powerful due to their range, which would be even more effective on most RO maps given how "close quarters" most of the fights are.

I'd leave most of that crap out of the game altogether. it would give the infantry a much more realistic fear of tanks. period.

no more super-arcade kids with nOOb-bags and magic all-powerfull ATRs.

 

[Basil]

If there's something that should be done to PTRD, I think it should be to weakened it so that it wouldn't penetrate frontal armor of any German tank in the game. Because in this sense it is simply too effective. One day I was playing Berezina at some noob server, and German tankers were constantly attacking in waves of three tanks. I alone routinely took them out with my PTRD wave after wave and mostly they didn't show anything but the front of their tanks. That was a little too much even for me.

 

[karl stiner]

i was in a panther one time and my panther went red from the Ridiculous PTRD