German armor at '36

[binTravkin]

Hey!

I know this must've been discussed at length here, but could someone tell me in a few sentences why Germans have 3 divisions of medium tanks (presumably PzKpfw Neubaufahrzeug VI) at the start of campaign?

At that time they should be having a force mostly consisting of the very light PzI.

On October 15th of 1935, first three Panzer Divisions were formed. General-Colonel Maximilian von Weichs commanded 1st Panzer Division with headquarters in Weimar, 2nd Panzer Division was commanded by Colonel Heinz Guderian with headquarters in Wurzburg and General-Colonel Ernst Fessmann commanded 3rd Panzer Division with headquarters in Berlin. Each division had one Panzer Brigade composed of two tank regiments with two abteilungs (battalions) each along with other units. Each battalion had four companies with 32 light tanks (PzKpfw I and II) each. Entire brigade had 561 tanks including command tanks.

http://www.achtungpanzer.com/articles/pzdiv.htm

This is not the best source one could ask for but there aren't much in this detail on the web, as opposed to books.

 

[ShadoWarrior]

Probably because these divisions were, later in the war, upgraded to medium tanks (when they became available) and AFAIK there is no mechanism in CORE for changing L-Arm divisions into Arm divisions. If the 3 starting GER Arm divisions are redefined as L-Arm, then you'd need to add an event to remove the original 3 divisions and replace them with Arm once the necessary techs have been researched. Creating such an event is certainly feasible, and it would certainly add more flavor and realism if the CORE team makes such a change to the OOB.

 

[binTravkin]

Well in vanilla L-Arm 3 upgrades to Arm 3 why can't CORE use this sequence?

I understand it might be for game balance issues, though, as german tanks' power was not in their guns, armor or any other part, but their usage.

 

[ShadoWarrior]

Well in vanilla L-Arm 3 upgrades to Arm 3 why can't CORE use this sequence?

I suppose it's possible, and perhaps even reasonable, to require that Germany upgrade their L-Arm 2 to L-Arm 3 via the '36 Tank (9bn) tech. This avoids the need for a special upgrade event, and forces the Germans to research one more tech, which helps to slow their technological advancement by a wee bit (which is good).

 

[unmerged(66019)]

AFAIK the only difference between L-A divisions and ARM divisions in CORE is that L-A divisions represent 6-bn divisions and ARM represents 9-bn divisions. Hence an ARM division can actually be a unit of early light tanks and a L-A division can be a unit of T-34.

 

[baylox]

Exactly. And the tanks used in the model in question are the PzKpfw.IIa & PzKpfw.Ib. ARM and L-ARM units are 9-bn and 6-bn Tank Divisions respectively. "Light" Tank Division refers to the number of tanks, rather than the weight/size of the actual tanks.

Please do not presume regarding CORE - it helps the discussion if you bring actual facts to the table on what is happening or not happening in CORE.

So all is good then?

(Btw, the L-ARM 3 to ARM-3 upgrade is nothing CORE has any control over - its a feature of the HoI2.exe and nothing we mod)

 

[binTravkin]

Well, I was not talking about how it's named.
I was talking about:
- the cost
- the training time
- the hard attack
- the toughness

of those 3 arm divisions at Berlin in the start of campaign as none of those values seem to go well in line with the historical fact the tanks were very light.
Neither PzI nor PzII were any good against contemporary enemy tanks (hard attack), nor very well armored (toughness). They also were quite inexpensive by design being 'training tank' (PzI) and 'recon tank' (PzII) by initial purpose, which would make one think they should be rather cheap and quick to produce.

PzKpfw Neubaufahrzeug VI, however seems to be in line with the stats of those arm divisions, having 75mm main gun, reasonable armor, and being expensive and complicated to produce.

I'm not really pushing for a change here, myself being a german player (one who plays predominantly as Germany ), but if CORE aims to be realistic, this should be looked into.

EDIT: I might have the wrong GFX then, if it is as you say baylox.
Still, the points about at least the hard attack (which I find unreasonably high) remain.

 

[baylox]

Please remember also that we're dealing with generalizations here - and Germany was more often than not the exception rather than the rule. Therefor the game cannot be centered on what Germany always did, but rather the entire world.

I'm not responsible for the Armor tree so I can't discuss this all with certainty, but I suspect that this is the reason for some oddities like this.

EDIT: And yes, the GFX can't be explicitly trusted (especially if you haven't installed additional graphics packs), its better to look at the given names (in text) in the game.

 

[unmerged(66019)]

Well, I was not talking about how it's named.
I was talking about:
- the cost
- the training time
- the hard attack
- the toughness

of those 3 arm divisions at Berlin in the start of campaign as none of those values seem to go well in line with the historical fact the tanks were very light.
Neither PzI nor PzII were any good against contemporary enemy tanks (hard attack), nor very well armored (toughness). They also were quite inexpensive by design being 'training tank' (PzI) and 'recon tank' (PzII) by initial purpose, which would make one think they should be rather cheap and quick to produce.

PzKpfw Neubaufahrzeug VI, however seems to be in line with the stats of those arm divisions, having 75mm main gun, reasonable armor, and being expensive and complicated to produce.

I'm not really pushing for a change here, myself being a german player (one who plays predominantly as Germany ), but if CORE aims to be realistic, this should be looked into.

EDIT: I might have the wrong GFX then, if it is as you say baylox.
Still, the points about at least the hard attack (which I find unreasonably high) remain.

You do realize that it's not possible to make the units different for each nation? All unit types HAVE to be standardized- so even if German tanks were inferior to contemporaries at the time it's impossible to mod via unit stats.

 

[binTravkin]

You do realize that it's not possible to make the units different for each nation? All unit types HAVE to be standardized- so even if German tanks were inferior to contemporaries at the time it's impossible to mod via unit stats.

Yes, of course, I was just thinking it would be more realistic to have 1 level earlier armor (if there is such), to more properly portray the fact those tanks were pretty light.

I do agree with baylox, however, in the fact Germany was an exception and their efficent use of tanks probably cannot be portrayed only by doctrines alone, so some boost in starting setup is acceptable.

 

[Hagar]

EDIT: And yes, the GFX can't be explicitly trusted (especially if you haven't installed additional graphics packs), its better to look at the given names (in text) in the game.

For the record I aim to follow the models as closely as possible graphicswise. So getting all those experimental aircraft models and tanks Dec and you insist on including are giving me all the headaches you both were aiming for. And that includes using Reichswehr images for the early infantry (with old model helmets and such), whenever possible.
But those models will not be added to the basic installer, so you'll certainly need one of the graphics packs.

 

[baylox]

Well we can't have you getting too cocky because your work is too easy, can we now?

 

[dec152000]

Hi,

I'm the actual developer for the Armor portion. While I agree that the Pzkpfw. ! was a bit weak, it isn't grossly out of place for the 1936 unit type. Plenty of other countries used equally weak vehicles at this timeframe. Additionally, GER has the MG Armed Lt Tank tech, which is somewhat designed to reflect the small armarment on both of these models. Finally, I'm discounting the strength of all of these units down to 40% at game start. This effectivelly forces GER to "build" most of the Pzkpfw. II portions of the unit. I think this works somewhat better than setting the divisions to the 1935 Tank Brigade model as these units were full sized in other respects.

mm

 

[Hagar]

Well we can't have you getting too cocky because your work is too easy, can we now?

I'll be cocky regardless... :rofl: