M26 Pershing

[striderx2048]

Originally Posted by MkH^

Correct me if im wrong, but wasn't Firefly able to take out a King Tiger quite easily with shot to side of the hull if it got a chance.. It was 80mm, wasn't it? Does it really need a counterpart, if it did not have one in real life? In my opinion, it need only a clever opponent.

The Firefly would only apply for the Brits. Now what do you have for the Americans? more jacksons? m10? some other sherman varient?

[MkH^]

Yes.. good point. But weren't Tiger II's taken mostly out by airpower, which allies were superior in by the time most King Tigers reached the fields?

[Ohioan]

Originally Posted by KillorLive

I fucking hate the pentagon, it should be firebombed for the good of America. No more OICW, no more Commanche, no more V22, no more LAV, M2, M16, et al. We'd be so much better off without a centralized army. The less they can do to fuck themselves up the better.

Heh, I have to agree with you on that. There has been a lot of bad decisions, but you know what they say:

Hindsight is always 20/20

[Anlushac11]

Originally Posted by striderx2048

The Firefly would only apply for the Brits. Now what do you have for the Americans? more jacksons? m10? some other sherman varient?

Actually I have found a source that has documented evidence that the US operated Sherman Fireflys in Italy and that the US was awaiting conversion of two groups of M4A3(W) 76MM hull Shermans to Firefly's when the order came down that any units operating the Firefly were to return them to the Brits and that the US Firefly coversions were to be cancelled.

The US was bring its 76mm armed Sherman into service and the Firefly's would no longer be needed.

My data also shows that there were 200 M36 Jacksons and little over 100 Fireflys in northern Europe between June 6th and August 1st. Some sources say the M36 didnt enter combat til July of 1944. That may be true but I have seen film dated supposedly for D-day+10 and there were M36B's coming off the beach. I remember it because at the time I didnt know what a M36B was and thought WTF? a Sherman with a non Sherman turret with long gun and muzzle brake? anf that sent me scurrying to small collection of books.

Another thing I have seen that I have never found documentation on. Also seen on film dated just after Normandy was a M10 turret on a M4 Sherman hull. and the M10 had a plate over the top of the turret.

Im guessing this to be a field mod from a Sherman with a wrecked turret and the turret off a M10 that had just been converted to a M36. When you hear veterans talking about losing 87 of 103 Shermans in les than 24 hours I could easily see a repair depot grabbing a M10 turret oand throwing it on a good Sherman hull to get a 76mm armed tank out into combat. Losses were so horrible at that point that if it ran and had a gun it would have been sent forward to fill the ranks.

[Luscious]

Originally Posted by MeanMrMustard

Im guessing the thing about not wanting tank crews to go after enemy tanks was because tanks weren't supposed to be taking out other tanks, they were designed for primarily infantry support roles, it was the Tank Destroyers, such as M10's etc. that were supposed to go after the tanks. Of course I dont think the rule was stuck too very often, but that was the initial intention, hence the reluctance to upgun the sherman. But yeh, it was still a stupid decision.
Harry

Yeah very stupid. Here we have the powers that be trying to dictate that our tanks are not to be going after enemy tanks, when the enemy is clearly not following the same rules. How many tank crews had to die because of this stupid thinking? It gets me pissed just thinking about it! One american tank crewman wrote about his feelings, saying how he was lead to believe his Sherman was the best in the world...then he got to Europe, and went up against German tanks "with guns the size of telephone poles."

[Solo4114]

If no counterpart is included, we're gonna have problems. As has been pointed out, the mod has already stretched "realism" in the Polish campaign, by having what was a prototype become standard issue for Polish troops for the sake of balance. Personally, I applaud the effort, if only because I think it'll make things more FUN.

I'd be fine with throwing the Pershing into some later war maps. But even if they don't, something has to be done balance-wise with the Tiger and King Tiger. The way I see it, IF no counterpart is introduced, you could do one of the following:

a.) Control "production rates" by spawn times. I've seen figures that say that there were only about 1300 Tiger I's produced during the war and somewhere between like 250 and 500 Tiger IIs produced. This is compared to 50,000 Shermans and 70,000 T34s which, while inferior one on one could eventually just overwhelm the Germans. Now, setting the Tiger's spawn speed at some 50-70 times the speed of the Shermans isn't much fun either. But I could see where the spawn speed being, say, 10 times slower than Allied tanks would be fair, given the relative power of the equipment. This might prove problematic if you have Kamikaze pilots who blow the Tiger up just to make it take forever to spawn, while Allied armor overwhelms the Axis. But it'd beat having the tiger be basically unstoppable as it is currently (or at least very VERY hard to stop).

b.) Control for "production" by providing 4-5 allied tanks per Tiger. If the Axis get a Tiger on a map, the Allies get 4-5 tanks to counterbalance. After that, you can do your usual 1-1 ratio (IE: Axis gets a PIVd, allies get another Sherman or one of their "heavy" tanks). Again, this could lead to the same problems listed above. Take out the Tiger, and Allied armor overwhelms just on numbers alone.

c.) Combine the two. Start the Allies with, say, 3 tanks for every Tiger, and have the Tiger also spawn 3 times slower than an Allied tank. If you want, you can give the germans a mobile repair vehicle too, just to make things interesting, and have it spawn like an APC or something. Thus, you could extend the life of the tank, but the Allies could still concentrate their fire on it to overwhelm it.

The production balance is tricky to do well, because you have to kind of assign relative values to the vehicles (IE: 1 Tiger = 5 Shermans or 1 Tiger = 4 T34s or whatever). But SOME kind of balance has to be achieved.

[Luscious]

I feel this is the best way, and the most realistic. Germans had the quality, but the allies had the numbers. Single Tigers should be facing 5-6 T-34's or Shermans at once.

[striderx2048]

you could control spawn time the allies planes. exspecially on maps like OMG Dice version.

[PFC. Bryan]

If the FH team won't have an M26 or IS2 ready for .6 I think they should implament tanks at a ratio of 3 to 4 shermans per tiger. After all...the allies didn't win by technology alone but by the sheer numbers of it.

[MkH^]

Supposing they have not radically changed the damage system, I guess King Tiger will be eventually blow up, after it's been shelled enough.. just like Tiger I does. If it has a horde of engineers behind it and allies dont have any airpower... well, they are f*cked.

Im more concerned about people not willing to play on allies if they don't get any new toys. An army of Shermans won't be much of a use when there aren't enough people to control even a half of those.