Quote
Originally posted by Devil M:
Tiger isn't necessarily a tank to get jazzed about: Panther had the superior K.w.k. L/70 anti-tank gun with the greater credit to enemy tanks destroyed; at less weight, Panther offered about the equivelant armor protection across the frontal arc as the brute force of Tiger's vertical plates- this came only at the expense of a moderate advantage in all-around protection for the Tiger.

Futhermore, Panther and T-34 simply overran more enemy troops and captured more territory than Tiger could ever dream of doing: Tiger's mobility was quite limited and it was too heavy for most bridges- it received a combat bonus in good defensive terrain supported by concealed panzergrenadiers, anti-tank guns and tank destroyers, particularly as that kind of set-up tended to favor the War's later years. In other words, Tiger was the poorer compromise in tank design at least in one respect or another- as an offensive weapon its performance was often quite limited in light of the expense to manufacture and maintain one in the field. A Tiger might serve well the individual crew (their fearsome reputation obscuring the actual combat records and real numbers deployed, plus their larger turret space means more crew comfort and room for sleeping), but as a field commander I would rather have as the core of my manuever elements something more capable to keep pace in a moving front. Tiger consumed too many resources which could be better focused elsewhere just to operate as a slightly mobile pillbox- again though, in defensive operations that won't matter so much.



But how would this translate into entertainment for the player if he were forced into tedious road marches for long stretches before the gearbox breaks down in his Tiger?
You are naturally completely right. I guess that few will argue with you about the excellence of the Panther (at least when they had fixed the mantlet shot trap end engine problems of the first examples).

For the purpose of multiplayer between the Tiger and the T34-85 we still have a problem though. To make the T34 competetive at all we have to be at close range (a few hundred meters). The T34 has to use those pesky tungsten rounds that the soviets had very few of and their quality was doubtful (they often broke on impact or worse, in the barrel). Besides that, they lost effectivness fast with increasing range and where not good performers against sloped armour (not that the Tiger has much of that wink ).

Not that CMBB is to be considered correct but it's easy to set up a test with it and it does have quite a lot of parameters included regardning armour penetration etc...

I put up 10 Tiger I:s and 10 T34-85 (1944) in rows facing each other with regular crews and default loadout (1-4 tungsten for 7 of the 10 T34:s). The distance was 450 meters to be nice to the T34:s and I started the game without orders and let them "shoot it out standing". These are the results for 10 trials:

Tigers lost - T34:s lost
1-10
3-10
2-10
2-10
10-8 (T34:s won! Many lucky shots initially quickly tips the balance!)
2-10
0-10
1-10
1-10
1-10

A lot of Tigers lost tracks and got partial penetration hits, flaking killing some crew members etc but those where the results.

So I did it again giving the T34:s 20 tungsten each:

Tigers lost - T34:s lost
5-10
7-10
1-10
1-10
2-10
2-10
1-10
2-10
2-10
4-10

Well - it's in no way scientific but it says something at least... By the way, all but three rounds (of 20) where over in 60 seconds.

Here's some shots from the test:

The "test" running:
[Linked Image]

CMBB:s Tiger 1 data:
[Linked Image]

CMBB:s T-34-85 data:
[Linked Image]


Regards / Mazex