Sherman tanks - useless?

[datsupahero]

Playing through Allied Corps and I have to say that I can't figure out the tank selection you get. The only tank I ever use is the Churchill. It's the only thing with near enough armor to stand up to panzer weaponry. I want to switch it up and use different sorts of tanks but in every situation I find that if I'm losing the answer is just to field more Churchills. I feel like I'm missing something with regards to the Sherman and other tanks, but maybe not. At this point I'm ready to just convert all my tanks to a high level Churchill. It just seems... lame, I guess?

tldr: any tips on using tanks with below 15 ground defense?

[TSPC37730]

I've only done one play through in Allied Corps. I wound up using a lot of M-10's & M-18's. I also used a lot of over-strength strategic bombers. Attack first with the B-17's & M-12's to strip away as much ammo as possible & to get the most suppression possible. A Panther with 1 ammo will at best get one shot at you - and the damage from that one shot will be all the more limited if its effective strength is only say 3/10 due to suppression. Once you've reduced your target's ammo, get 3 units in close to prevent resupply or reinforcement.

Also don't forget about baiting your target into terrain like a city or hills where it will wind up using it's close defense value. An attack with infantry can do real damage.

Having said all of that, I must admit there's very limited value to the allied tanks. I believe it was a rule of thumb in the actual war that you needed 4-5 Shermans to take on a Tiger. Seems like it's reflected here. When I looked back at my saved games, I had more of the anti-tank, artillery & bomber units than tanks - so, that was my way of coping. Good luck & hope you're enjoying the game.

[Razz1]

You needed 5 Shermans to kill a Tiger and 3 to kill any other tank in WWII.

Unfortunately this could have been modeled better in PC by scenario design and cost of Sherman.

If you're looking for a Sherman to go toe to toe with another German tank, it ain't gonna happen in real life or in Panzer Corps.

[datsupahero]

Yeah I wasn't thinking I could just send shermans up against German tanks, but they always get caught by one. Just not worth bringing them out because even if I try to just target infantry, some panzer or anti-tank is going to sneak up and obliterate them in one shot.

[captainjack]

I occasionally use the captured Shermans in 42 and 43 East and the auxiliary ones in AK. They are not bad for dealing with infantry but have few other advantages. If they happen to get up to 2 stars I keep them in reserve to upgrade to better tanks later on.

In theory Shermans were supposed to be used as infantry support units while the tank destroyers dealt with enemy tanks, but whether this was ever a realistic expectation is open to debate. The US forces also retained the 37mm AT gun well after all other armies had realised it wasn't capable of fighting modern tanks (though they were still good against bunkers which was the original intent of the 37mm guns in WW1). In the circumstances, if you have lots of rubbish tanks and nothing else, then swamping the enemy tanks is about the only alternative to blasting them with endless airstrikes and heavy artillery.

This approach has a precedent: reports from the Battle of France show that the German tank and anti tank guns weren't very good against most of the French tanks. Though having similar numbers of tanks, the German organisation and control allowed better concentration of numbers at strategic points - ie swamping better tanks with superior numbers. Airstrikes and artillery were also critical for dealing with the well armoured French tanks.

In AC, however, there are so few core slots that you have to use Churchy's for the durability, even though the Sherman's 9SA would be much better than the Churchill's 4SA against soft targets. In Panzer Corps terms you could only really get people to use Shermans by providing large numbers of auxiliary Shermans which then would do roughly the same job as Russian conscripts in soaking up ammo and taking off the odd point or two.

In brief: Shermans - useless? Yes!

[Egge]

Ground defence is by far the most important unit stat in this game. Units with poor defence get killed very easily which is very bad in a campaign game because you have to replace it with an inexperienced unit. Even if the unit does survive, you still have to spend atrocious amounts of prestige to replace the losses. It's a bit of a design flaw, imo.

BTW, the exact same thing happens on the German side where Panthers are pretty much useless. Tigers are the only viable option.

[BiteNibbleChomp]

BTW, the exact same thing happens on the German side where Panthers are pretty much useless. Tigers are the only viable option.

Panthers are probably better in offensive scenarios. ONly that by 1943 there are few offensive scenarios and most of those are the America ones - where Maus, Tiger 2 and Arado 234 trump all!

Though Panthers are 300 cheaper than a Tiger II and have twice as much fuel than either Tiger, so they are also better prestige-wise. There's a trade off with everything though!

I personally prefer Tigers as well, but most of that is due to the louder and more supreme bang that their attack animation has (That's why I chose it specifically for my fictional WWI 75mm-gunned tanks, rather than the one for the Pz IVG)

- BNC

[shawkhan2]

Panthers are OK when they have defensive heroes.
I only use TigerIIs with movement heroes.

[shawkhan2]

Oh, BTW, to be back on topic. Sherman tanks were designed to attack soft targets primarily.
The US planned on using tank destroyers to errr, destroy enemy tanks.
That was the doctrine of the time.

[flakfernrohr]

After reading this thread discussion I am wondering why you guys don't "tweak" your units you like with just a little "tweak" or even sometimes "cheat" a little with the cheat codes. Sometimes tweaking makes the units more realistic as in real life, as in the Stugs, Pzr IV, Panthers and Jgdpanzers.

[captainjack]

Sometimes tweaking makes the units more realistic as in real life, as in the Stugs, Pzr IV, Panthers and Jgdpanzers.

Tweaking stats can make a big difference to capturing the feel of a period - eg French tanks with 1 spotting or slightly reduced initiative to reflect the overworked commander, and a PaK75 that actually does more damage than a 57 mm 6pounder. It's not that hard, but back up your original files first. I'd recommend restraint, as it's surprising how much difference a change of only 1 or 2 points can make.

The real difficulty comes in if you try to be consistent across many different theatres and campaigns, as a small tweak here can require another there and before you know it nothing fits again. But then you can just reload the original file and start again with no real harm done.

[BiteNibbleChomp]

Sometimes tweaking makes the units more realistic as in real life, as in the Stugs, Pzr IV, Panthers and Jgdpanzers.

Tweaking stats can make a big difference to capturing the feel of a period - eg French tanks with 1 spotting or slightly reduced initiative to reflect the overworked commander, and a PaK75 that actually does more damage than a 57 mm 6pounder. It's not that hard, but back up your original files first. I'd recommend restraint, as it's surprising how much difference a change of only 1 or 2 points can make.

The real difficulty comes in if you try to be consistent across many different theatres and campaigns, as a small tweak here can require another there and before you know it nothing fits again. But then you can just reload the original file and start again with no real harm done.

WWI Artillery is a very good example - it goes from being a support unit to a doom unit by modifying an 8 or 9 to a 25.

- BNC

[captainjack]

WWI Artillery is a very good example - it goes from being a support unit to a doom unit by modifying an 8 or 9 to a 25.

That's a good example. Kaiserschlacht Gold has a feel of being dominated by artillery, which is how it should be for the period, but wouldn't work for WW2. Similarly, the adjustments to the Mongol units reward using historically effective light cavalry tactics but wouldn't be right for Napoleonic times.

[BiteNibbleChomp]

WWI Artillery is a very good example - it goes from being a support unit to a doom unit by modifying an 8 or 9 to a 25.

That's a good example. Kaiserschlacht Gold has a feel of being dominated by artillery, which is how it should be for the period, but wouldn't work for WW2. Similarly, the adjustments to the Mongol units reward using historically effective light cavalry tactics but wouldn't be right for Napoleonic times.

You haven't seen the A11V in action yet

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For those who haven't played the mod, basically artillery in it does -6 to nearly every unit it gets within 6 hexes of (I seriously buffed them and made them have super range). Siege Artillery (30.5cm guns) have 36 HA, which will annihilate a strongpoint or a tank with ease.

And also, if you haven't played it, then you should!

- BNC

[proline]

Ground defence is by far the most important unit stat in this game. Units with poor defence get killed very easily which is very bad in a campaign game because you have to replace it with an inexperienced unit. Even if the unit does survive, you still have to spend atrocious amounts of prestige to replace the losses. It's a bit of a design flaw, imo.

BTW, the exact same thing happens on the German side where Panthers are pretty much useless. Tigers are the only viable option.

A situation that similarly makes me sad is the German anti-tank. I'd love to use the jagdpanther with its wonderful speed, but the ground defense on the Elephant is so much better than it is pretty much always the better choice. Plus the Elephant comes out in '43 and is great right to the end of the war.