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I wouldn't say unreliable but they didn't have enough replacement parts, a lot of them just were abandoned. And yes in the late conflict, Germany couldn't compete with the huge american industry. They also had problems with ammo supply.
There is a common myth Germany had perfect supply lines when in reality it was full of issues and they largely benefited from their looting.
There is a common myth Germany had perfect supply lines when in reality it was full of issues and they largely benefited from their looting.
If you have some interest in this matter, i would advise you to read the huge study of Adam Tooze - the wages of destruction : the making and breaking of the nazi economy.
The making of the German economy, Mass mobilasation of work force and building of many factories.
Breaking the economy, not making said factories B-17 proof.
Breaking the economy, not making said factories B-17 proof.
They had massive under ground factories crewed by slaves that were bomber resistant.
Problem was that transit infra can't be made bomber proof. Knocking out random rail lines or smashing towns to rubble plays hell with industrial resource allocation and any sort of manufacturing time table.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mittelwerk
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Riese
Can't find an English version of this one :
https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/B8_Bergkristall
With tank reliability, the Germans strived for efficiency and often neglected practicality. An example would be their road wheels, which were in an overlapping pattern. This provided excellent spreading of the weight of the tank to the ground. However, if a wheel was on the inside was damaged, that meant that multiple other wheels had to be removed before it could be repaired, then afterwards they had to put back into place. This made servicing/repairing the tank complicated and time-consuming, and made field repairs often impossible. Another issue was the extensive modifications of their tanks. The Panzer IV for example, the later war variants such as the G and H were significantly heavier than the models original design was intended for because the Germans just added more armour and a bigger gun without considering properly modifying the tanks design appropriately. This led to the tanks weight negatively affecting its performance and reliability.
As for war production, it's important to note that Germany, unlike the other major powers, was not driven by a war economy until 1943. We see this with their tank production. Even though the Allied bombing campaign reached its zenith in 1944, and Germany was more ham struck with its resources and industry than ever before, it still reached its peak tank production in 1944. This is because Germany didn't have war material as a main part of its economy, and they simply opened up more factories as they were lost.
Look at their Panzer IV production, from 1939-1941 only a few hundred were built each year. But from 1942, that changed significantly to a few thousand a year, and continued till the end of the war, even though the situation only got worse for them.
Another example is the Panzer V 'Panther', it was only produced in the last year and a half of the war, and yet 6,600 were built, making it the third most produced German tank of the war.
To answer your question directly, yes, German tanks were less reliable and produced in fewer numbers, but these were largely due to the German industries relation to the war effort (it should also be noted that Germany spent a lot more time building a lot more submarines and aircraft than others did) as well as Germany's philosophy on tank design, they simply chose differently when it came down to the pro's and con's.
As for war production, it's important to note that Germany, unlike the other major powers, was not driven by a war economy until 1943. We see this with their tank production. Even though the Allied bombing campaign reached its zenith in 1944, and Germany was more ham struck with its resources and industry than ever before, it still reached its peak tank production in 1944. This is because Germany didn't have war material as a main part of its economy, and they simply opened up more factories as they were lost.
Look at their Panzer IV production, from 1939-1941 only a few hundred were built each year. But from 1942, that changed significantly to a few thousand a year, and continued till the end of the war, even though the situation only got worse for them.
Another example is the Panzer V 'Panther', it was only produced in the last year and a half of the war, and yet 6,600 were built, making it the third most produced German tank of the war.
To answer your question directly, yes, German tanks were less reliable and produced in fewer numbers, but these were largely due to the German industries relation to the war effort (it should also be noted that Germany spent a lot more time building a lot more submarines and aircraft than others did) as well as Germany's philosophy on tank design, they simply chose differently when it came down to the pro's and con's.
Werent most of the underground factories meant though for prototypes and heavy vehicles?
Two major examples of poor reliability with the "big cats" are design problems that were later overcome but plagued their early in service models and then tarnished their reputation from then on.
The Tiger 1's Maybach HL 210 TRM P45 fitted to the first 250 tanks in the production run had reliability problems, due to which crews had to keep the RPM below 2600 significantly restricting its performance. Due to the tanks extreme weight it could only be moved by 2 or three standard recovery vehicles and towing damaged units with other tigers only caused further damage to still functioning tanks.
Early Panthers had similarly problematic drive train problems. Intended initially to have an epicyclic gearing system like the Tiger, it was changed to a double spur due to the difficulty in producing enough epicyclic gearing systems to meet the Panther's mass production target. These double spur units suffered greatly under the stresses and strain required to move the mass of the Panther tank which had grown in mass due to adjustments made to its armor thickness and caused the tanks to struggle and drive units to fail as the final drive gears broke under the torque required to move the tank over difficult terrain.
Breakdowns were so common the Wehrmacht moved its Tiger and Panther Tanks by rail in 1943.
The Tiger 1's Maybach HL 210 TRM P45 fitted to the first 250 tanks in the production run had reliability problems, due to which crews had to keep the RPM below 2600 significantly restricting its performance. Due to the tanks extreme weight it could only be moved by 2 or three standard recovery vehicles and towing damaged units with other tigers only caused further damage to still functioning tanks.
Early Panthers had similarly problematic drive train problems. Intended initially to have an epicyclic gearing system like the Tiger, it was changed to a double spur due to the difficulty in producing enough epicyclic gearing systems to meet the Panther's mass production target. These double spur units suffered greatly under the stresses and strain required to move the mass of the Panther tank which had grown in mass due to adjustments made to its armor thickness and caused the tanks to struggle and drive units to fail as the final drive gears broke under the torque required to move the tank over difficult terrain.
Breakdowns were so common the Wehrmacht moved its Tiger and Panther Tanks by rail in 1943.
Shermans tended to absolutely slaughter Panthers in combat, so even if more were produced it wouldn't have been a big deal. Zaloga actually tabulated out all the engagements between Panthers and Shermans, and the Shermans killed 5 Panthers for every 2 that were lost. In theory the Panther was a great tank. In practice, not so much. Against the Soviets the German tanks did OK eight up until Deep Battle hit its stride, at which point their lackluster operational mobility began to take its toll and huge numbers fell out due to mechanical defects.
Shermans
* tended to spot enemy first
* tended to hit enemy first
* even when they spotted and shot second, tended to win
* had WP shells to prevent enemy crew from functioning
* were more effective against substantially more common targets like fortifications, buildings and infantry
* had vastly superior operational mobility
Tooze debunks the whole "no German war economy until 44" thing. The Germans spent pre 44 investing in productive capability to prepare for the inevitable (in their view) war with America for dominance of the world, and that effort began to pay off in 44.
They also bid factories literally everywhere to avoid bombing. Not as well as the North Vietnamese, but still pretty well.
Shermans
* tended to spot enemy first
* tended to hit enemy first
* even when they spotted and shot second, tended to win
* had WP shells to prevent enemy crew from functioning
* were more effective against substantially more common targets like fortifications, buildings and infantry
* had vastly superior operational mobility
Tooze debunks the whole "no German war economy until 44" thing. The Germans spent pre 44 investing in productive capability to prepare for the inevitable (in their view) war with America for dominance of the world, and that effort began to pay off in 44.
They also bid factories literally everywhere to avoid bombing. Not as well as the North Vietnamese, but still pretty well.
So with all that said... do you think this game does a good job at simulating both the positives and negatives of german armour? The german tanks seem to have higher veterancy, almost impenetrable armour (in the front at least), almost always fire first, fire longer distances and have higher accuracy. Yes they cost a lot more, but you only have to kill one allied tank and they have paid for themselves already. When I say paid for themselves, I mean you only have to kill a single 200 point allied tank and your axis tank effectively now only cost you 200 points. It's like going all in when playing a game of poker but knowing you have a 90% chance your hand will win; that's pretty good odds. I'm not trying to say the german tanks are OP, I'm just wanting a sensible discussion around whether this game accurately portrays the realities of tank combat effectiveness from the two sides.
If the game were realistic we'd spend a week sitting around doing nothing, then 30 minutes getting shot at and generally tons of excitement, then another week where nothing happens except for the army losing all our shit and making us fill out the paperwork that allows us to fill out the paperwork that gets the paperwork that gets something done. Where something is defined as someone shows up and maybe does what you want and maybe just does fucking whatever and you have to fix it afterwards.
Aside from including random breakdowns to the game not much more can be done, the game tries reflecting the poor operational reliability of German armor by adjusting the availability of the units to each division to reflect breakdowns that prevented some vehicles making it to the front line at all. You sort of have to assume that what you are fighting are the vehicles that didn't develop any faults.
They could possibly add a function to the game whereby vehicles have a cumulatively increasing chance to breakdown as their distance traveled increases, but adding more random number generation to a game already frustrating due to percentages on hit calculations may be a step too far. Realistic though it may be, having your armored assault be halted because your Panther tanks sheered their drive gears or your Tiger's engine overheated as you moved to advance would be extremely frustrating. This is especially true if you are outplaying your opponent tactically and the game then punishes you randomly by having a 280 point unit breakdown and become unrecoverable.
I think the game represents German armour well enough as is, we already see that the Panzer IV is not spectacularly better than the Sherman or Cromwell, and most Panthers are either novice or only veteran, very few elite, which means that they can get hit first due to poor accuracy on their part. Tiger's aren't very heavily armoured, it's less preventing penetration and more minimising the chance for penetration. And there are many more examples.
Regardless, I think that Both the germans and Allies are pretty well represented, and it really comes down to how you utilise your equipment, Everything in this game has a use. I would say though I wish that the Panzer IV got some sort of improvement so that more players used it rather than skipping to Panthers and Tigers. Maybe a buff to their accuracy? (They had what is generally considered to be be better optical sights for long-range shooting)
It already has accuracy 6, the highest of all the 1000m tanks.
The Panzer IV is ok at max range, especially against the early model shermans, the problem is, if you're in a ranged firefight with a sherman you might as well reach for the 1200m range options every germany armored deck has. They also get wrecked by TDs/fireflies so, once again, go for the marder/jp4/panther/tiger.
Still, they did make a german division where panzer IVs are somewhat appealing.
Yes.
The glorious Soviet Union embarked on a massed army development program in the late 1920's. The first phase was development of an industry that could create the weapons and train the troops for a massed army. After the purges in the mid 1930's to remove reactionary elements, the Soviet military was fully prepared for WW2, despite cowardly attack by fascist capitalist westerners, including having an industrial base that increased tank production for every year of WW2, and whose tanks were the cause of the germans having to follow suit and produce both upgraded Pzr IV models, and the Pzr V's and VI's, although all german production was far less than produced T34 base models by glorious Soviet worker proletariat ( and far less capable, battle-worthy, and effective than soviet equivalents).
It is May Day, after all...
The glorious Soviet Union embarked on a massed army development program in the late 1920's. The first phase was development of an industry that could create the weapons and train the troops for a massed army. After the purges in the mid 1930's to remove reactionary elements, the Soviet military was fully prepared for WW2, despite cowardly attack by fascist capitalist westerners, including having an industrial base that increased tank production for every year of WW2, and whose tanks were the cause of the germans having to follow suit and produce both upgraded Pzr IV models, and the Pzr V's and VI's, although all german production was far less than produced T34 base models by glorious Soviet worker proletariat ( and far less capable, battle-worthy, and effective than soviet equivalents).
It is May Day, after all...
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I think that aspects of the engagement between Allied and Axis armor seem to be really far from reality. Doing things like engaging at max range with a M4A1 vs a Stug IV or M4A3 76mm vs a Panther is basically suicide, whereas there are many accounts of Allied tanks being far from helpless beyond 400m. However, in the game, being effective with Allied armor involves basically hide and seek until you manage to killbox the cat. Part of this comes down to how hive mind IFF and ID work, but the fact that it is practically impossible to duel in this game with many tanks says something against its authenticity.
Eugen has always struggled with the realism of combat parity. Wargame has always suffered from issues with infantry being drastically worse at engaging armor in the game than they are in real life. Tanks in EE basically walked over infantry in essentially every scenario. This was somewhat reduced in ALB with the advent of city blocks which allowed infantry to basically teleport around, finally making towns pretty much entirely impractical to enter with pricier vehicles, yet forests were still dominated by vehicles as exemplified by the BMPT which was basically God in forests. Then in RD, forests became dmg shelters for infantry sometime after release and infantry as a rule now started carrying AT tools that were actually threatening to tanks from the front, especially on cheap 15 pt infantry. Yet even with those changes, BTR 90s and LVTPs are still entirely capable of raping far beyond their logical asking price when microed correctly.
Eugen has always struggled with the realism of combat parity. Wargame has always suffered from issues with infantry being drastically worse at engaging armor in the game than they are in real life. Tanks in EE basically walked over infantry in essentially every scenario. This was somewhat reduced in ALB with the advent of city blocks which allowed infantry to basically teleport around, finally making towns pretty much entirely impractical to enter with pricier vehicles, yet forests were still dominated by vehicles as exemplified by the BMPT which was basically God in forests. Then in RD, forests became dmg shelters for infantry sometime after release and infantry as a rule now started carrying AT tools that were actually threatening to tanks from the front, especially on cheap 15 pt infantry. Yet even with those changes, BTR 90s and LVTPs are still entirely capable of raping far beyond their logical asking price when microed correctly.