My Thoughts on USF Anti-Tank Structure...

Yesterday a played a good number of 1vs1 game as USF and I face every time the situation when half of my M36 shot and ATgun shots where bouncing over Panther front armor. It isn't like I could have flank him since he was flanking me, a really good move
A+move his Infantry in front of my line and panther to flank.

His objective was my too powerful Scott, I'm waiting for the Relic nerf - this unit is to good, it can kill Obers.
Anyway.
1st M36 shot max range, on the ground. Panther come closer, 1st Panther shot - 1/3 of my m36 life away.
I try to withdraw the M36 but guess what, the panther is faster. So I managed to reposition my Atgun at the same time to shot at it.
2nd M36 shot, medium range - bounce. 2nd Panther shot = 2/3 of the M36 life away. 1st Atgun shot medium range + buff pen bounced.
3rd M36 shot, close range - 1/5 of Panther life away, 3rd Panther shot = byebye M36. 2nd Atgun shot close range + Buff pen = Bounce!!!
The panther goes behind the Atgun and chase the Scott, 2 shots the scott (it was defending the front line) dead.
The panther goes away but I manage with luck - nothing else than luck at this stage - to Atnade it and damage his engine, from the rear I finally manage to kill the Panther with my Atgun.

Second round couple of minutes later, exact same scenario but I don't have the luck of having a critical engine damage with an Atnade.
1 Jackson dead 1 Atgun dead 1 Scott dead, 3/4 of my Infantry dead, 1 Panther 3/5 life Up. GG

Well, the Jackson loses 20 pen per distance and only tops out at 200 penetration.


Considering the Panther's 320 frontal armor you're going to have a lot of rounds just bounce off until you get Vet 1, and even then. Prior to that? Your realistically going to have half the Panther's armor value in penetration. Factoring in wasted rounds and misses, you're going to have over half your rounds fired fail to penetrate.


And that's going to be the issue- US can't fight late game German armor unless it fields its counters early, doesn't lose them, and consistently destroys German armor while not losing their own, and while Germans can just build more you can easily get snow balled as a US player.


Oh. And not only are German tanks harder to kill, they also have the lion's share of abilities and mechanics that make it easy to escape battles. And they're not exactly slow to begin with.



At least this isn't Relic Forums "my Panzer 4 couldn't outrun your SU85 driving backwards" level bullshit.



If the US is "fine" they're "fine" in the same sense that folks assumed the Panzer Elite were fine provided you just could execute a near-perfect game.

2nd M36 shot, medium range - bounce. 2nd Panther shot = 2/3 of the M36 life away. 1st Atgun shot medium range + buff pen bounced.
3rd M36 shot, close range - 1/5 of Panther life away, 3rd Panther shot = byebye M36. 2nd Atgun shot close range + Buff pen = Bounce!!!
The panther goes behind the Atgun and chase the Scott, 2 shots the scott (it was defending the front line) dead.

Looks like you got very unlucky.

Yesterday a played a good number of 1vs1 game as USF and I face every time the situation when half of my M36 shot and ATgun shots where bouncing over Panther front armor. It isn't like I could have flank him since he was flanking me, a really good move
A+move his Infantry in front of my line and panther to flank.

His objective was my too powerful Scott, I'm waiting for the Relic nerf - this unit is to good, it can kill Obers.
Anyway.
1st M36 shot max range, on the ground. Panther come closer, 1st Panther shot - 1/3 of my m36 life away.
I try to withdraw the M36 but guess what, the panther is faster. So I managed to reposition my Atgun at the same time to shot at it.
2nd M36 shot, medium range - bounce. 2nd Panther shot = 2/3 of the M36 life away. 1st Atgun shot medium range + buff pen bounced.
3rd M36 shot, close range - 1/5 of Panther life away, 3rd Panther shot = byebye M36. 2nd Atgun shot close range + Buff pen = Bounce!!!
The panther goes behind the Atgun and chase the Scott, 2 shots the scott (it was defending the front line) dead.
The panther goes away but I manage with luck - nothing else than luck at this stage - to Atnade it and damage his engine, from the rear I finally manage to kill the Panther with my Atgun.

Second round couple of minutes later, exact same scenario but I don't have the luck of having a critical engine damage with an Atnade.
1 Jackson dead 1 Atgun dead 1 Scott dead, 3/4 of my Infantry dead, 1 Panther 3/5 life Up. GG

Your problem was you didn't have Bazookas. DasDoomTurtle, the "stratey specialist" says you need to use bazookas.

/s

Looks like you got very unlucky.

Jackson penetrating a Panther is basically a coin flip (62.5% at point blank to 50% at long range). His story is pretty typical.

I don´t have the western front armies, so what I can tell you about the Jackson is only from the receiving end. I still avoid it with my armor. Two of them have an incredible damage output and can finish off Tigers in no time - even at range. I´ve lost some tanks to the 60 range before I could react.

The problem I see with the Jackson though is only slightly related to the damage. Its low health and somewhat unreliable penetration is the issue. People make mistakes and in a long game after 40 minutes even the best players get exhausted and start making mistakes. If you make a slight mistake with your Jackson, it´s done. And it will happen.

That being said, I would prefer its damage to go down but on the contrary penetration go up and a small health buff. This way the German player doesn´t lose vehicles in the blink of an eye and the US player has something which he can count on to deal damage reliably and stand maybe one more hit. In the end this adjustment would turn down the rng effects, because right now you either deal huge damage or none at all.

Just gonna throw this out there again since I said it a month ago on a nearly identical thread:

I think the unit to add to the USF faction or on a late-game commander to fullfill their late-game anti tank needs is the M18 Hellcat.



Torsion Bar Suspension and 76mm gun the same as Sherman Easy 8 gives good accuracy on the move and the same weapon as Easy 8 and T34/85.

A whopping 92km/h top-speed compared to 46 km/h of late war Panthers, 48 km/h of M36 Jackson and 51 km/h of M10 Wolverines means this unit could traverse 3v3 and 4v4 battlefields to deal with specific threats.

The M18's Wright R-975 engine is mounted on steel rollers that allow maintenance crews to disconnect it easily from the transmission. This Td is well known for its ease of maintenance. Maybe it can repair faster or is less prone to engine criticals.

Cloaking was on the M18 in vCOH and it could easily be added here.

The M18 also had an M2 Browning .30 cal machine gun which could be upgraded and have some Anti-Infantry capabilities.

Maybe balance this units great strengths by making the crew vulnerable to freezing during blizzards as they were prone to be due to the open-topped nature of their vehicle.

TLDR:: Bring back the M18 Hellcat in a commander that is specifically suited to team games and anti armor (U.S. repair stations please!) It would fit nicely as the U.S. analogue/counter to the Axis Panther and is beloved my many. Me at least.

Also if bazookas didn't suck that would be nice.

As long as they get the proportions right this time, I hated how bad they got them in CoH1.

As long as they get the proportions right this time, I hated how bad they got them in CoH1.

Yea it was oversized

Massively, it was like the size of a freakin' Tiger Tank!

The call for a hellcat is funny. War time M18 where armard with 76mm AT M1A2 gun. The M36 was armed with the 90mm M3 gun. If the later war 90mm M3 gun on the Jackson for the USF in game can not pen the front of a Panther (btw was historically had one of the best front plates of any tanks in the war) then how would a historical 76mm AT m1A2 pen a panther? The hellcat was lighter and faster...but thats it. The Pershing came to late in the war to play a major roll; however, it was armed with a 90mm just like the jackson. Thus how would it theoretically fight better in the game?

BTW......Ik napalms videos, my games were with my good buddy Naplam thank you very much. Furthermore, zooks work great in the game when used in mass and on the weak points of tanks. The combo of zooks/at guns/supporting jacksons does do wonders. Replays can be provided if you need help understanding this concept.

The call for a hellcat is funny. War time M18 where armard with 76mm AT M1A2 gun. The M36 was armed with the 90mm M3 gun. If the later war 90mm M3 gun on the Jackson for the USF in game can not pen the front of a Panther (btw was historically had one of the best front plates of any tanks in the war) then how would a historical 76mm AT m1A2 pen a panther? The hellcat was lighter and faster...but thats it. The Pershing came to late in the war to play a major roll; however, it was armed with a 90mm just like the jackson. Thus how would it theoretically fight better in the game?

BTW......Ik napalms videos, my games were with my good buddy Naplam thank you very much. Furthermore, zooks work great in the game when used in mass and on the weak points of tanks. The combo of zooks/at guns/supporting jacksons does do wonders. Replays can be provided if you need help understanding this concept.

It would be the fastest vehicle in the game. That's reason alone to want to have it.

The call for a hellcat is funny. War time M18 where armard with 76mm AT M1A2 gun. The M36 was armed with the 90mm M3 gun. If the later war 90mm M3 gun on the Jackson for the USF in game can not pen the front of a Panther (btw was historically had one of the best front plates of any tanks in the war) then how would a historical 76mm AT m1A2 pen a panther? The hellcat was lighter and faster...but thats it. The Pershing came to late in the war to play a major roll; however, it was armed with a 90mm just like the jackson. Thus how would it theoretically fight better in the game?

BTW......Ik napalms videos, my games were with my good buddy Naplam thank you very much. Furthermore, zooks work great in the game when used in mass and on the weak points of tanks. The combo of zooks/at guns/supporting jacksons does do wonders. Replays can be provided if you need help understanding this concept.

If a puma can kill medium tanks... Then a Hellcat can fight Axis tanks reliably.

Puma was armed with 7.5 cm PaK 40 L/46, one of the best german AT guns of the time. That is why it can kill tanks;furthermore, US tanks were thinly armored compared to german counterparts.
NOTE: The German Puma modeled in game is mostly based upon drawings for the only operational ones were open topped if I remember my history correct.

Puma was armed with 7.5 cm PaK 40 L/46, one of the best german AT guns of the time. That is why it can kill tanks;furthermore, US tanks were thinly armored compared to german counterparts.
NOTE: The German Puma modeled in game is mostly based upon drawings for the only operational ones were open topped if I remember my history correct.

Not the ingame puma... I think you are referring to the pakwagen? Because...

The puma never had its turret from the VK Leo installed....

The in game puma uses the 5cm KwK 39. It's even called that in the game files.

Top is 5 cm cannon, bottom has pak40, correct?

The one on top is in the game.

If the puma in the game is capable of destroying medium tanks, then im pretty sure a Hellcat would be capable of destroying Axis medium tanks reliably.

If a hellcat is fast enough and has 640 HP it will be really good for tank blocking. Right now Shermans are the only USF vehicle that you can do this with b/c ez8 is slow and jacksons have low HP. Hellcat would be nice for that purpose

Theres really no point in fighting axis tanks from the front, if you don't get behind them theres no point in engagins anways so a weak gun is no problem in my book panther only has 110 armor in the rear

Just out of curiosity, why do zooks need to be as bad as they are currently? Is it for fear of rifle blobs being too good against all targets? I find them to be ok at killing light vehicles like Pumas and half tracks and what not and when combined with at guns they are mildly effective at discouraging flanks from medium tanks but they're not even remotely scary for anything bigger.

Even then, they seem to miss and bounce off of p4 frontal all of the time. Putting a zook on anything but an RE gives up a lot of AI power and currently the trade off seems really underwhelming. When I put a shriek on a volks, I always feel it's worth it, when I buy a zook I often feel I wasted munis.

Top is 5 cm cannon, bottom has pak40, correct?

The one on top is in the game.

If the puma in the game is capable of destroying medium tanks, then im pretty sure a Hellcat would be capable of destroying Axis medium tanks reliably.

You would be correct about the two, the puma variant however didnt leave the factory though if I remember right. However the 5cm gun is capable of penning 69mm at 100m. The Sherman had 51 mm of hull frontal armor. Either way, the Sherman was too thin and the German guns could pen it. The hellcat can only pen so much and the panther was one of the heaviest armored tanks in the war.