Mid game and Mid-late vehicles

Based on my research the puma's 50mm should have less penetrating power than the panzer IV

"The 5 cm KwK 39 L/60 (5 cm Kampfwagenkanone 39 L/60) was a German 50 mm caliber gun used during Second World War, primarily as the main armament of later variants of the German Panzer III tank between 1941-1942. It was developed as a variant of the towed gun 5 cm PaK 38. This gun proved successful in North Africa against British cruiser tanks and light American M3 Stuart tanks. However, it was not sufficient against Soviet T-34 and KV-1 tanks. Rottman says, that for this reason it was phased out in favour of shorter 7.5 cm KwK 37 L/24 gun that could fire HEAT rounds. Nevertheless, the first gun considered fully effective against these Soviet tanks was 7.5 cm KwK 40 L/43 mounted on Panzer IV Ausf. F2." Wikipedia

I'm sure we can trust wikipedia on this.

In coh2-stats.com I found something that puzzles me.

Panzer IV's gun has a penetration of 120.0/110.0/100.0
Puma's gun has a penetration of 160.0/120.0/80.0

The question is why is the puma better at penetration the armour of T34 than a Panzer IV that was fitted with an anti-tank gun meant to fight the T-34. This causes some awkward situation where a Panzer IV shell bounce off the T-34 but the puma's inferior gun penetrates the T-34.

What's worse it that the "paperweight" M4 Sherman has more armour in game( Everyone knows that the Americans M4 was worse in terms of armour compared to the T-34, yet in game the T-34 has lower armour at front and rear by 10 ) making it even harder for a panzer IV to penetrate the armour of the M4. Balance I know, but can't we have at least a better representation of real war?

It makes like zero sense when you think about it. Shouldn't it be like the M4 has less armour but a top gunner, crews that can jump out and repair, smoke and High-Explosive shells.

Remember that the American tank doctrine was that the tanks will support the infantry while tank destroyers will destroy tanks. Why is it that everybody rushes their tank destroyer into the enemy, gets it destroyed and complains it's UP because it dies from 3 pak shots while all other medium tanks (except panther) dies from 4. The only flaw I see with the M36 Jackson is the lack of penetration ( High velocity 90mm shells bouncing off tigers, really... )

"The M36 was well liked by its crews, being one of the few armored fighting vehicles available to
US forces that could destroy heavy German tanks from a distance." Wikipedia

Another thing, the SU-76. That thing is using the ZIS-3 gun yet has the same penetration as the inferior T-34's F34 gun. Give it more penetration.

Also, T-34/85 needs better penetration. Why is it that the SU85 and T34/85 share the same 85mm D-5T gun yet the SU85 has way better penetration in game? Where's the logic?

TLDR

I propose these changes

Puma - lesser penetration than the Panzer IV gun.
M4 - lesser armour but price reduced to same as T-34 or lower.
T-34 - As long it's better than a M4 Sherman armour-wise.
Panzer IV - Superior penetration to a Puma's gun but more expensive.
M36 - More penetration for better realism and better balance as well as no more awkward
situation of shells bouncing off German heavy tanks' armour 3 in a row or more.
SU 76 - Penetration buffed to the same as the ZIS-3 or slightly worse to get rid of the illogical
state of it being just a weaker T-34 health and armour-wise without a turret.
T-34/85 - Penetration buffed to the same as the SU 85 or slightly worse to get rid of the
illogical state if it being a weaker SU85 firepower wise but better in armour, a turret
and health. Perhaps a slight price drop for the SU 85 or price raise for T-34/85 and
maybe even raise the price of heavy tanks ( Though I don't seem to see the reason for
this since calling 2 T-34/85 is pretty much equivalent to calling an IS-2, just choose
whether you want 2 mediums or 1 heavy ) so that the T-34/85 still has some use early on
in the game.

What do you think of these changes and state your reasons if you agree or disagree. If you see any contradictory statements or things that are not clear enough, ask away. I'm here to answer about my own post.

Changing any values to sov tanks require changes to Ostheer and so on. Don't forget this is a game, units needs to be balanced against each other on a faction scale (price, stats, timing and other similar factors).


Gameplay is more important than realism. Most of these changes are simply unnecessary.

It's this way because balance comes before realism. Relic wanted a cheap and fast AT option for OKW, but there wasn't one in real-life, so they created one using the next best thing, a heavy scout car with a tank gun on it. And as such, changing the Puma to fail at fighting the T-34 and Sherman would utterly break OKW, who rely heavily on the Puma for its fast AT.

It's this way because balance comes before realism. Relic wanted a cheap and fast AT option for OKW, but there wasn't one in real-life, so they created one using the next best thing, a heavy scout car with a tank gun on it. And as such, changing the Puma to fail at fighting the T-34 and Sherman would utterly break OKW, who rely heavily on the Puma for its fast AT.

Well the Raketenwerfer 43 is not there for nothing. If you have enough ammo then panzerschrecks (Though the price could use a little reduction) still work.

Gameplay > realism always. Also, specified unit roles makes the game more diverse and interesting. I mean, tank combat on the ranges we see ingame is hardly accurate. Or reload times, or stugs being one of the most valuable tanks with a really good kd ratio. Give me one example of a real military unit called "ober soldaten" in ww2. Men automagically appear out of half tracks and ambulances. The lost goes on and on and on. To start arguing about armor thickness when we can see all this feels quite odd. However, I don't say go haven't got a point here, units should feel somewhat like in real life, but... It's a game. There are a lot of better mil sims out there.

While gameplay is better than realism for thie game and tank combat range at unrealistic range, can't we have like a scaled down version of real war. After all, can't we have a modest representation of real war? I think throwing in some realism would do well for this game since games like Men of War requires tedious micro and you have to manage every man on the field. Doesn't it feel odd that the troops don't seem to have a mind of their own.

The Puma needs to die faster to stuff, otherwise its fine.

There are so many things that are not close to reality in this game, we just have to accept that Relic makes their own adjustments.

For example, the StuG III G should probably be harder to destroy than a P4, yet in the game it dies a lot easier.

Or as an extreme example, American Anti-tank rifle grenades penetrating a King Tigers front armor without any problems in the game (although this is complete bullshit even for gameplay reasons in my opinion).

There are so many things that are not close to reality in this game, we just have to accept that Relic makes their own adjustments.

For example, the StuG III G should probably be harder to destroy than a P4, yet in the game it dies a lot easier.

Or as an extreme example, American Anti-tank rifle grenades penetrating a King Tigers front armor without any problems in the game (although this is complete bullshit even for gameplay reasons in my opinion).

Lol at the last part I agree with you although once again is for balance. I personally prefer the COH1 panzerfaust which was more on damage than module damage.

There was an armored recon car with the 75mm pak 40:



If translated in-game, the 234-4 would be a gimped Puma with no turret.

It's this way because balance comes before realism. Relic wanted a cheap and fast AT option for OKW, but there wasn't one in real-life, so they created one using the next best thing, a heavy scout car with a tank gun on it. And as such, changing the Puma to fail at fighting the T-34 and Sherman would utterly break OKW, who rely heavily on the Puma for its fast AT.

These vehicles are fine as they are atm, only the call-in system and the new faction's vehicles need balance.

There was an armored recon car with the 75mm pak 40:



If translated in-game, the 234-4 would be a gimped Puma with no turret.

Now, adding that would be interesting. Imagine running into one of those turretless things

Real-life wise, basically the same as running into a StuG, except much easier to kill

Also, nobody mentioned that the 234/4 was nicknamed the Pakwagen? Best nickname ever