VariousNames said:
sYou're going to be faced with those horrible short-barreled Panzer IVs no one uses in Ost Front and those ridiculous Panzer IIIs....except because this is early war, you can't expect to use APCR ammunition.
Er no..... first the short barreled (75mm L/24) Panzer IV's and Stugs had HEAT ammunition. It was reportedly a good counter measure vs the T-34 tank in 1941-42. Second the Panzer III was a great tank granted in RO1 its not very useful due to inaccurate armor values in the game code and low end "health" values rather than actual design flaws. In combat the early Panzer III's (armed with 50mm L/42's) were superior to the bulk of Soviet armor which would have been obsolete light vehicles such as the Bt-5, Bt-7, T-28, T-26, T-40, T-60, T-70, later lend-lease stuff like the M3 Stuarts, ect. Later however in 1942 the Panzer III received an armor upgrade (Ausf J,J/1) and a longer high velocity gun (50mm L\60) which had good results against the T-34's armor, most notably the turret, and with some skill could even take out a KV tank (as was what happened the previous year with the Pak 38) By Stalingrad the Germans realized the potential of the Pak 40's penetration ability (it could penetrate a T-34 up to ranges of 1,600 meters well past the T-34's ability to reciprocate) and quickly started mounting as many 75mm L/43 -L/48's on vehicles. When no guns were available they used captured Soviet weapons with 75mm banded German ammunition which vastly improved the weapon's effectiveness. So if there are tanks in RO it should be like this for realism:
The
early 50mm L/42 Panzer III's (G-J) should outclass the light vehicles however at the same time be under gunned vs newer & heavier designs. The
later Panzer III's (J/1 mounting lang 50mm L\60) should hold their own vs the T-34 (especially with shots to the turret) and with skill be able to take out a Kv-1 at extremely close range. However, a good T-34 crew could just as easily take the Pz III out. Any German 75mm L/43's-L/48 equipped vehicle (Pz IV's G's, Stug III F-G, Marders,ect.) should dominate the battlefield and have no counter although at the same time the Soviets would hold the monopoly on heavy tanks such as the Kv-1 c which would if employed right could counter these 75 mm vehicles.
So interesting time period...
VariousNames said:
only using Pak-36s (door knocker), and crappy AT rifles that are barely capable of penetrating light tanks.
The PaK-36's 37mm is very useful with its standard AP rounds vs any Soviet light tank and even some mediums such as the T-28. The Pak-36 built its ugly reputation in France, in Russia only a few tanks caused this AT gun Grief The problem was that these tanks became more common later thus by 1942 the Pak-36 was equipped with HEAT rounds which could penetrate over
180 mm of armor.
As for the "crappy At rifles" the Panzerbusche 39 ATR penetrates as much as the Soviet PTRD 35 mm @ 0 at 100 meters which was more than enough for the thousands of older tanks employed similar to PTRD which was effective only against earlier model tanks.
[TW said:
Wilsonam]They were delayed waiting for the first Panthers, not Tigers. Tiger first saw action near Leningrad late 1942..
Operation Winter Storm may have had a few Tigers in it.
They delayed Kursk for the following vehicles:
- Arrival//deployment of large amounts Tiger I's ( they wanted to have a large force in the area ~ 100 or so were deployed in the area making it the largest amount of Tiger ever deployed in a single area)
- Production//arrival of the Panther D's as stated (~200 were deployed)
- Production and arrival of the Panzer IV H tanks ( don't have number deployed but it was a good amount)
- Production and arrival of the Ferdinand (~90 were deployed) tanks.
- I believe I read somewhere the need for more Stug III G as well