Re: German Panther Ausf. D
 

I think the Allies are well represented.

You have the Anmericans with the

M3 Stuart
M4 Sherman
M7 Priest
M10 Wolverine
M18 Hellcat
M36 Jackson

Still need

M4A3E2(76) "Jumbo"
M5 Stuart
M24 Chaffee
M26 Pershing

Brits have

Matilda I and II
Crusader
Cromwell
Churchill
Achilles(M10 with 17lbr)
Sherman Firefly

About only things I dont see is a
Archer Tank Destroyer
Valentine Infantry Tank
Bishop SP Gun

Russians have had several threads dedicated to tehir vehicles.

Re: German Panther Ausf. D
 

Yeah, but the Matilda II, Crusader and Sherman variations are crap models, made by DaCrapper (worst modeller ever) and they should be replaced by "StugIIIG quality" models.

Re: German Panther Ausf. D
 

Yeh, I'm starting to agree with art a bit here.

With the amount of russian maps (at least 2:1 to other front maps) the russians have dick all right now. The t34s are like shermans becuase they get worked by anything bigger then a pnzr4, the 85mm gun doest seem to make much diffrence. The only additions theyve had is 2 handguns and 2 planes so far. They are in desperate need of some new equipment.

Re: German Panther Ausf. D
 

Nice remake!

Now this looks pretty realistic.

Re: German Panther Ausf. D
 

Yep thats a good Panther D.

As for armoured effectiveness the Russian site does explain a lot about poor Soviet weapons design. The 88 shows this in stark reality no other penetration was thru thru. We already know that the 100mm and larger guns could penetrate the KT but that only prove that the bigger the gun the better the penetration. For WWII balistics where AT is concerned the golden rule is if the gun caliber matches or exceeds the armour thickness it will penetrate.

This is the essense of the WWII Tank debate: logistics superiority vs technical superiority. The allies had a 6:1 logistics superiority when the axis had a 4-5:1 technical superiority. All the allies needed to do was pour in the troops and equipment, the germans had to maintain control of the battle field to retain strategic initiative and recover any losses. This was lost by the Germans at Kursk but it was a close run thing.

The germans pressed every serviceable tank, gun etc into service as you can see from newsreel footage and photographs. Whilst they held the battlefield neither the Soviets or the Western Allies could move forward. The germans were masters of the armoured counter attack.

I nearly 12 months of fighting the Germans took territory from the French Coast to Moscow (rough totals of the battles). It took the Allies three years to retake it. In the end the Allied losses were over 50 million (all causes) the Axis was 6 million. This also seems to correlate to allied to axis tank losses Stug 4:1, Pz III & IV 5:1, Panther 4.75: 1, Tiger 1 5:1, Tiger II 3:1.

Ultimately the logistics vs technical debate continued through the Cold War and this is where we find ourselves today. Western armour design is very high tech as compared to former Soviet and current Sino armour.

Re: German Panther Ausf. D
 

Quoted to emphasize importance:

Russians need IS-2's, KV-1's, KV-2's, and some SU-85's and SU-122's and possibly some Valentines.

Then possibly some more US and Brit tanks, and then we can move onto the Elefant, King Tiger, Jagdpanther, and Nashorn.

Edit: Although The game doesn't nearly represent the attrition that the soviets had to endure. (most of it was due to training).

Tank Losses

Year.......German.......Soviet

1941.......2,758..........20,500
1942.......2,648..........15,000
1943.......6,362..........22,400
1944.......6,434..........16,900
1945.......7,382..........8,700*

(1945 figures also include losses on the Western front and losses due lack of fuel)

Re: German Panther Ausf. D
 

I'm Japanese BF fan, I think it nice in model, then I 'm most concerned about its color, but the number of D type was so small,
so I have no information about its original color at Kususk in 1943.

Re: German Panther Ausf. D
 

Kingtigers had a lot of problems with poor quality, but am I wrong if I say that there actually where some that had better armour (I think I have read it somewhere). IS-2 would have had a chance against it, but they had even worse steel. The IS-3 had better and thicker steel and a lot better design, and was undoubtedly at least as good as the KT. The only problem was that it was introduced only a couple of weeks before the end of the war in Europe.
T-34/85 hadn't really so good chances against Panthers, but of course a big amount of sowiet losses was caused by the worse tactics and such things.
And I would like to add a few tanks to the list earlier in this thread:

BT-2
T-70
IS-3
ISU-122
SU-152

And Mosin rifles would be great.

PS. M1-A1 Abrams is a crappy tank, but sadly it will soon be replaced with something better.

Re: German Panther Ausf. D
 

The IS-3 is generally regarded as a parade tanks since none of them made it to the front in time to fight German Tanks and spent most of their time driving up and down Red Square.

Regarding the King Tiger, while it's true that compared to the Tiger I the standards were lowered due to allied bombing and time restraints it's still safe to say that a KT is gonna own an IS-2 in a one on one fight considering the only vehicle mounted weapon the allies had that could penetrate the KT's front hull was the british 17 pounder.

The Russians got penetrations in tests on the KT, but once you take a look at the methods used you can pretty well rule out their validity.