There is a huge difference in guaranteed to pen and 1 in 4shots will do no damage (statistically of course) on tanks that only take 4 shots to kill.
You see under rating the value of taking 0damage from a dedicated counter.
No. I don't agree here. There is almost no difference at all. What happens in game is more of a melting of a tanks's health. There are usually multiple at fire sources and a tank just starts losing health. Whether one or two shots bounce or not, does not realistically matter. If you get snared or hit a mine, the vehicle is gone anyway, if you retreat you repair it. The frontal armour difference of less that say 150 has almost zero impact on it. Health is possibly more important, but again, it might only allow you to stay under AT fire for a tiny bit longer (usually not worth it, as you will need more time to repair later). You just have to retreat a medium tank if you face at guns and that is it. IMO accuracy and range of at guns/tank destroyers will be much more important than those small differences in front armour values. Also how much one pays for a tank will matter more. The cheaper, the better in general.
I'm well aware of the armour values of all, or at least most (there are a few that have been tweaked and I still recall the old values more clearly than the new ones) as well as the statical chances to pen. Rng can decide that a 25% chance to pen = 7 bounces in a row if it so pleases, however a 100% chance to pen will never bounce no matter how many shots you try. It's not negotiable. An armour value above the attacking units pen is better than one below it.amd again, allies have high armour units, but they are heavily restricted. The odds of fighting a KV1 are significantly lower than the odds of fighting an up armored p4.
That is imo a typical vacuum analysis (and also not that correct with the bounc possibility). Allies have a lot of different types of snares (including mines) and the snared vehicle will most often die and armour will not help. Again, I believe that any armour values in the region off 50 above and below 200 (typical at penetration) will give You very similar results. The bounces will happen plus there will be similar number of misses and rear armour hits. At wall plus snares will melt armour and the differences on frontal armour between medium tanks are just too tiny to matter much.
While I do think the zis is under priced given its utility and durability, I have yet to see a zis retreat through enemy fire and arrive at base A-OK. probably on account of not having a target size nor speed bonus while doing it.
ZiS, like many allied units, is designed to be very forgiving and allow new players to have some fun and not get punished. Generally, Soviets are a very good faction to play with, as they can basically build no mortars because of ZiS, and spend all saved manpower on mailine infantry or tanks. It is a huge balance issue imo. Rak is just meh compared to that.
I like the 5th man in the rak as it helps bridge the gap, but I don't feel it needs retreat anymore on account of the 5th man.
OKW is much more difficult to play with than the Soviets. I don't think that there is a problem with rak. My personal preference would be to make at guns more expensive. And ZiS barrage should be moved to vet 1 or just made to fire a single shell (a grenade equivalent). Soviets are OP as hell imo. But they won the war and well deserve it Good for the new players, I guess.