Oh yeah, I just remembered one BIG design flaw with the T34 that I didn't mention before that REALLY screws up shootin' on the move. The Gunner's and loader's seats were not mounted to the turret. Unlike most WWII and later tanks they were mounted to the chassis turret ring. Thus when traversing the turret the gunner and loader had to skitter around the cramped turret trying to avoid getting wacked by the gun mount, breach and gunnery controls. Imagine doing this at 15mph ("hunt" speed I think) over open, hilly ground.

Wile E.

I'll give you another theory:  the T-34C/D in Combat Mission is under-modelled, both in firepower and in armor.   Yes it had a two-man turret and a cramped one at that = slow rate of fire.  Yes it had Russian optics  ( i.e.  no optics worth squat) = poor accuracy.  Yes  Russian crews had a lower training standard than Germans right to the end of the war. Yes  German guns of 60mm and up had higher velocity and higher kinetic energy than comparable Russian guns.   All  true.    But who among us has not seen  T-34s lose a fight to Pz IIIs ?  Let alone heavier German tanks.  Soldier  will attest that in the scenario we played my Pz-IIIs, some armed only with the 37mm, wiped out his T-34s while losing only 2 of their own, and in a scenario when max range was under 600 meters.    I'm not an engineer and I don't have encyclopedic knowledge of armor tables or penetration values or etc,  but based on everything I have read concerning the German tank crews' complaints about facing the T-34,  I simply refuse to believe that T-34s were as fragile as the ones modelled  in Combat Mission.

I suppose my next dump question is, did WWII tanks actually fire their guns while on the move?
Speaking of the one's that did not have gun stabilizers, which was most of'em i presume..

Yes, I remember that scenario very well, how could I forget.. :-)
That is when I began to wonder and started to question all of my old premises derived from the Combat Series, etc.

But, I like the game very much, mostly because of it's three D life like replays and the claimed accuracy in simulating many if not most of the real aspects of WWII battles.

Not being much of an expert on armor, guns and their capabilities, seeing how easily some of the German weapons (inferior in caliber) perform against the Russian sloped armor, that combined with the fact that the Russian did win the war eventually, makes me wonder How did they win such a seemingly loosing (to them)war!?

Soldier

I should have included the caveat that I love Combat Mission, despite any real or perceived flaws.    I grew up on Squad Leader, so Steel Panthers was great when it came out, and then Combat Mission was and is even better.

The scenario you speak of wasn't Directive #3 was it? I just played that against Matt. All Matt's light armor went up in smoke (partially due to my trusty little door knocker in the woods) and things were lookin' good. Then his T34s started tearing my 38s and PzIIIs a new arse. My armor was dropping like flys to 4 T34s parked in a cluster. I can't count the number of hits my tanks scored on em and all I kept getting was "Richochet", "armor flaking" etc., I lost 6 or 7 tanks before I bagged 2 of his T34s. By that time I was down to 2 PzIIIs and a plucky PSW AC. Needless to say, at these odds and effectiveness, my infantry were ordered into the woods adj. to the pair of T34s and managed to bag one and chase the other off. Oh yeah...and the plucky AC crew ended up hoofin' it. :sad:

Wile E.

How did they win such a seemingly loosing (to them)war!?
Simple...quantity over qaulity wins every time.If i remember correctly german tank production maxed out at around 400 per month while the russians were producing 1000+...no contest

If that is the scenario he's referring to then i have to say that a big reason his PzIII's enjoyed so much success against the T-34's is due to the fact they have only conscript and green crews. Put veteran crews in those T-34's and you have a completely different (and unbalanced) scenario!

I see your point!
As long as the stock of able buddied men don't run dry, before the big objectives is reached and conquered (Berlin in this case) the one with the "mostest" of foot soldiers wins the war.. :-)

Soldier

Should also point out that the 75mm/L43 is actually reasonably high velocity.  It was a first gun that could deal well with the T34 and was mounted on PIV/F2 and PIVG as well as the StugIIIF.  The 75mm/L48 was the next step up and was used till the end of the war, no particular problem in dealing with T34s.

It's the 75mm/L24 that the Germans had trouble with.  That's restricted really to shorter ranges, say up to 750 metres, but its HEAT round will still cream a T34 nicely if you can hit it.

At medium range a PIII with a much faster firing 50mm gun has a reasonable chance against a T34. It has to hit the turret, which is curved, at a reasonable angle, which it will usually do in 2-3 shots and then keep doing it more often than not.  Its major problem is the much lower lethality of a 50mm round as opposed to the 76mm round which will generally speaking kill what it penetrates.  The PIII has to get a killing or "shocking" pebetration before the T34 finds the range.  It's risky, but ofc the German doesn't have much choice. The PIII would never suceed at 2000 metres....but probably wouldn't get hit in return either and might score a immobilisation or gun hit.

The 37mm gun, and I've played Directive #3 as the Russians, is only any use against the very early T34s with only 45mm of turret armour.  The 37mm in the German tanks is much better than the 37mm AT gun.  In Directive #3 the Germans were peppering my T34's more or less at will with shoot and scoot tactics and getting numerous penetrating hits as my slow conscript crews struggled to target them.

Regards
Ivan McIntosh