The T-60 - Light Tank No More?

[econ21]

Strategic bombers are not affected by remaining movement. Only fighters and tac bombers.

Great - that makes sense from a realism perspective.

I am fielding one strategic bomber. I am not sure if is actually worth it - it doesn't seem that good at suppressing, In old PG type games against the toughest tanks, I would use a level bomber to suppress them, then hit them with stukas (perhaps repeatedly if they retreated). In PzC2, only one plane can attack each hex per turn, so you are probably better going with the tac bomber that can actually do damage. And suppression persisting plus encirclement means the strat bombers suppressive role is less unique. Plus I am not finding fuel/ammo depletion much use outside of encirclement. Stuff dies before it runs out bullets. In early games, it was quite common to have beached whale of a monster unit depleted of ammo.

I put a 3x entrenchment hero on my bomber, so it has some utility.

The other consolation from the strategic bomber is its range - early on, that doesn't matter so much because you need fighter escorts. But later on, it seems to able to reach most places I want it to go. Good supporting attacks on far flung small towns.

Sorry - digressing a lot from this thread's title. No idea why the T-60 is so strong. Doesn't feel right.

[MickMannock]

Strategic bombers are not affected by remaining movement. Only fighters and tac bombers.

Great - that makes sense from a realism perspective.

I am fielding one strategic bomber. I am not sure if is actually worth it - it doesn't seem that good at suppressing, In old PG type games against the toughest tanks, I would use a level bomber to suppress them, then hit them with stukas (perhaps repeatedly if they retreated). In PzC2, only one plane can attack each hex per turn, so you are probably better going with the tac bomber that can actually do damage. And suppression persisting plus encirclement means the strat bombers suppressive role is less unique. Plus I am not finding fuel/ammo depletion much use outside of encirclement. Stuff dies before it runs out bullets. In early games, it was quite common to have beached whale of a monster unit depleted of ammo.

I put a 3x entrenchment hero on my bomber, so it has some utility.

The other consolation from the strategic bomber is its range - early on, that doesn't matter so much because you need fighter escorts. But later on, it seems to able to reach most places I want it to go. Good supporting attacks on far flung small towns.

Sorry - digressing a lot from this thread's title. No idea why the T-60 is so strong. Doesn't feel right.

Personally I find good use of having one strategic bomber. It's a very flexible and quite cheap artillery piece. I find good use for it.

[nexusno2000]

Strategic bombers are not affected by remaining movement. Only fighters and tac bombers.

Great - that makes sense from a realism perspective.

I am fielding one strategic bomber. I am not sure if is actually worth it - it doesn't seem that good at suppressing, In old PG type games against the toughest tanks, I would use a level bomber to suppress them, then hit them with stukas (perhaps repeatedly if they retreated). In PzC2, only one plane can attack each hex per turn, so you are probably better going with the tac bomber that can actually do damage. And suppression persisting plus encirclement means the strat bombers suppressive role is less unique. Plus I am not finding fuel/ammo depletion much use outside of encirclement. Stuff dies before it runs out bullets. In early games, it was quite common to have beached whale of a monster unit depleted of ammo.

I put a 3x entrenchment hero on my bomber, so it has some utility.

The other consolation from the strategic bomber is its range - early on, that doesn't matter so much because you need fighter escorts. But later on, it seems to able to reach most places I want it to go. Good supporting attacks on far flung small towns.

Sorry - digressing a lot from this thread's title. No idea why the T-60 is so strong. Doesn't feel right.

IMO strats are only worth it if you're doing captures with Trophies of War. Then it's suddenly better NOT to kill... In all other cases* they just eat escort capacity, so competes unfavorably with Stukas.

* Except for anti-ship. For some VERY STRANGE reason, strategic bombers are best at ship-killing in this game, dropping their Suppressive fire against ship targets. Lol How many ships were sunk at sea by strats? Zero?

[MickMannock]

Strategic bombers are not affected by remaining movement. Only fighters and tac bombers.

Great - that makes sense from a realism perspective.

I am fielding one strategic bomber. I am not sure if is actually worth it - it doesn't seem that good at suppressing, In old PG type games against the toughest tanks, I would use a level bomber to suppress them, then hit them with stukas (perhaps repeatedly if they retreated). In PzC2, only one plane can attack each hex per turn, so you are probably better going with the tac bomber that can actually do damage. And suppression persisting plus encirclement means the strat bombers suppressive role is less unique. Plus I am not finding fuel/ammo depletion much use outside of encirclement. Stuff dies before it runs out bullets. In early games, it was quite common to have beached whale of a monster unit depleted of ammo.

I put a 3x entrenchment hero on my bomber, so it has some utility.

The other consolation from the strategic bomber is its range - early on, that doesn't matter so much because you need fighter escorts. But later on, it seems to able to reach most places I want it to go. Good supporting attacks on far flung small towns.

Sorry - digressing a lot from this thread's title. No idea why the T-60 is so strong. Doesn't feel right.

IMO strats are only worth it if you're doing captures with Trophies of War. Then it's suddenly better NOT to kill... In all other cases* they just eat escort capacity, so competes unfavorably with Stukas.

* Except for anti-ship. For some VERY STRANGE reason, strategic bombers are best at ship-killing in this game, dropping their Suppressive fire against ship targets. Lol How many ships were sunk at sea by strats? Zero?

Both Junkers 88 and Heinkel 111 were used in anti shipping capacity (using torpedoes). For example, if you look at the infamous PQ17 convoy, a third of all ships that were sunk, were destroyed by the Luftwaffe (Ju88 and He111 and a few He115).

*edit*

So you can't compare Ju88 and He111 with for example the B-17, which used bombs dropped from high altitude when attacking ships. I think it's fair that Ju88 and He111 have a good anti shipping capability.

[nexusno2000]

Having decent anti-ship might be OK, but right now strat are simply a hard counter to ships. Nothing else compares. Which is lame.

[MickMannock]

Having decent anti-ship might be OK, but right now strat are simply a hard counter to ships. Nothing else compares. Which is lame.

Well, in World War 2 there actually was a shift in naval combat, where battleships stopped ruling the seas and carriers (i.e. airpower) became the new king. So I find calling airpower dominance over ships lame a bit odd.

[SineMora]

I don't mind strategic bombers being excellent versus naval assets. It's clearly a balance decision (because tactical bombers are already superior to strategic bombers unless you're trying to force surrenders, and so they really don't need a buff), but considering that the terms are used so loosely in the game it even makes some kind of sense (not every strategic bomber was a massive B-29).

[Hexaboo]

Well, we can also mention that most of the German planes marked as strategic bombers, like He177 or Ju88 are none of the kind: they are mid-range bombers mostly intended, and used, to support ground troops.

(Though if you look at the Blitz, Stukas were used in a strategic role, so it's not just huge long-range 4-engine planes. I guess 'Big bombers' doesn't sound important enough as a category, so we've got 'strategic' ('heavy bombers' might've worked)).

[nexusno2000]

Having decent anti-ship might be OK, but right now strat are simply a hard counter to ships. Nothing else compares. Which is lame.

Well, in World War 2 there actually was a shift in naval combat, where battleships stopped ruling the seas and carriers (i.e. airpower) became the new king. So I find calling airpower dominance over ships lame a bit odd.

Never said that squads should not be able to kills ships. I said the current implementation where a cheap str 15 bomber rules the waves is lame. Ju88 hurting ships, fine. Stuka hurting ships fine.

Ju88 magic counter to ships, not so interesting IMO. Like the flying naval equivalent of Karl/Gustav.

Further compounded by the ais total disregard for air cover.

[George_Parr]

Never said that squads should not be able to kills ships. I said the current implementation where a cheap str 15 bomber rules the waves is lame. Ju88 hurting ships, fine. Stuka hurting ships fine.

Ju88 magic counter to ships, not so interesting IMO. Like the flying naval equivalent of Karl/Gustav.

Further compounded by the ais total disregard for air cover.

But that is hardly a new thing. Strategic bombers were already the weapon of choice against ships (apart form uboats, which they couldn't attack) in Panzer Corps. Under good conditions you could even take down most points of a battleship with a single attack from a strat bomber.

In addition to that, strategic bombers were actually rather successful in sinking ships. Though obviously what consitutes a strategic bombers differs from nation to nation. The Allies rarely used them in such a way, mostly because they either didn't encounter many surface ships (against Germany) or usually ran into them when air-cover was handled by carriers, which didn't carry such large bombers. The heavy bombers were needed to attack land targets after all. Though they did manage to sink the Tirpitz and either sink or heavily damage many of the other German heavy ships with such attacks, though obviously in port and not at sea.

The Germans, meanwhile, made heavy use not just of torpedo-variants, but also of "strategic" bombers carrying the HS 293 or Fritz X glide bombs. The latter sunk one battleship, heavily damaged another two and was successful against some smaller targets as well.

[Hexaboo]

Never said that squads should not be able to kills ships. I said the current implementation where a cheap str 15 bomber rules the waves is lame. Ju88 hurting ships, fine. Stuka hurting ships fine.

Agree on the 'cheap' part. They are indeed more expensive than light bombers in terms of prestige, but not enough. I'm sure the low 2 core slot cost is there for balance (strat. bombers are underwhelming even with it), but a higher prestige/reinforcements/overstrength cost might make it slightly more reasonable.

[OldFocker]

I agree with the OP. The T60 had poor armor (up to 35mm) and a ground defence of 16 is the same as the Panzer IIIJ (which was a more substantial, better armoured (up to 50mm) vehicle. I think the T60 could reasonably be given a GD of 14, the same as the Panzer IIIF/G.

[Rood]

I'm certainly no expert but after a bit of reading here and here it seems the T-60 didn't really perform well at all.

While for gaming purposes the GD isn't just the amount of armor but also it's speed and profile and so on the GD of the T-60 is rather high. This tank should be in the same category as the Pz II series (but with a 20mm gun instead of machine guns).

[Horseman]

I'm certainly no expert but after a bit of reading here and here it seems the T-60 didn't really perform well at all.

While for gaming purposes the GD isn't just the amount of armor but also it's speed and profile and so on the GD of the T-60 is rather high. This tank should be in the same category as the Pz II series (but with a 20mm gun instead of machine guns).

The Pz II series had a 20mm gun too.

[Rood]

I'm certainly no expert but after a bit of reading here and here it seems the T-60 didn't really perform well at all.

While for gaming purposes the GD isn't just the amount of armor but also it's speed and profile and so on the GD of the T-60 is rather high. This tank should be in the same category as the Pz II series (but with a 20mm gun instead of machine guns).

The Pz II series had a 20mm gun too.

My ignorance is clearly showing