Grand Strategy Hearts of Iron

[Malakal]

Yes but we are talking about major powers not China or N. Korea. USA/Germany/UK/France/USSR/Italy/Japan have very different tech teams that in no way reflect their actual capacity in certain fields and are based on bias.

Couldnt USA develop extremely good tanks? Yes it could. Didnt USSR have the best tanks in the world? Yes it did. Its not represented in the game with tech teams favoring Germany and Germany only. USA gets some carrier love, sure, but ultimately its all German centric bias. As is IC allocation but thats a different matter.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

T-34 was the bestest tank in teh world, herp derp.

http://www.cybermodeler.com/hobby/ref/arm/book_arm_t-34.shtml

Unless you actually believe in ubermenschen theory, which would also explain the losses ratio.

 

[mondblut]

The primary advantage of zerg-34 was that they could be produced faster than they were destroyed. Nothing outstanding about their performance other than low cost.

 

[mondblut]

Yes but we are talking about major powers not China or N. Korea. USA/Germany/UK/France/USSR/Italy/Japan have very different tech teams that in no way reflect their actual capacity in certain fields and are based on bias.

I never looked at anything else than Germany, but I find the fact France or Italy do not have the equal to Messerschmitt or von Braun reasonable.

Couldnt USA develop extremely good tanks?

It could and it does. It just takes them a bit more time due to slightly inferior scientists working in the field. Hey, we all know about Krupp and Porsche, but can anyone here name the designer of Pershing without googling it?

Didnt USSR have the best tanks in the world?

LOL no. The vatniks specialize in human wave for a reason

 

[Malakal]

Hurr durr, lets look at 1941, best German tank deployed in Barbarossa is what, Panzer IV (Pz.Kpfw. IV)? 25t 10-88mm armor, 75mm gun. Best Soviet tank? KV-2 with 53t 100mm max armor and 152 mm (!!!) main armament. Its like comparing flies to elephants really - soviet tank could one shot any German tank directly from the front from huge distances while German tanks couldnt even penetrate soviet tank rear armor from point blank distance.

AND because of that obvious soviet superiority in every aspect there is Germany gets the better tank tech teams. Not biased at all.

Also soviets didnt use human wave tactics as their doctrine, its extremely inaccurate in HoI series, they used mechanized approach.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Yes, and actual performance in combat is irrelevant, because russian tanks had thicker armour

Btw, even the "88 was the only weapon able to stop kv and t-34 in 1941" is a myth for ww2 laymen:

Causes of T-34 losses from June 1941 to September 1942 (expressed as % of total).

Weapon Calibre 20mm 37mm Short 50mm Long 50mm 75mm 88mm 105mm Unknown
% Lost 4.7 10 7.5 54.3 10.1 3.4 2.9 7.1

Edit: the formatting doesn't want to paste, but you can read it anyway - 88 was responsible for only 3,4% kills.

 

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

Actually, the Soviets were always the ones ahead in IFV and MBT technology, from WW2 to almost the end of the Cold War. It's a common misconception that their tech was simply lulzerg.

Even the T-34 was a great achievement in the early stages of the war. It could rape any tank the germans had but their crews were badly trained and co-ordinated, not to mention not equipped with radios. (they had to use flags signals)
By the end of the war they were far ahead in tank research.

Also soviets didnt use human wave tactics as their doctrine, its extremely inaccurate in HoI series, they used mechanized approach.

Far as I remember this was reflected well in the HOI2 doctrine tree. Evolved from Human Wave to deep operations as well as some other techs giving you massive defence and counter-attack bonuses. (to illustrate the 1943-44 period I think)

But yeah, I'd prefer tech teams. But what I'd prefer more is if they kept the hihg number of provinces and combat model and took a more DH approach as to how events fire and alt-history. Every single game of HOI3 can be summarised as this:

1.WW2 happens
2.Germany loses at Russia, Cyrillic everywhere.

or
1.WW2 happens
2. Germany blobs everywhere (if the player is germany ofc)

Yeah, no. Was fun for 4-5 or so playthroughs but I went back to DH again.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Actually, the Soviets were always the ones ahead in IFV and MBT technology, from WW2 to almost the end of the Cold War

Despite the fact that combat performance showed otherwise.

Even the T-34 was a great achievement in the early stages of the war. It could rape any tank the germans had

Despite the fact that combat performance showed completely otherwise.

By the end of the war they were far ahead in tank research.

In 1944 the Soviets still managed to lose 23 700 fully tracked AFVs of which only 2 200 were light tanks: the highest number of AFV losses in a single year by any country in history. Of these losses 58% were T-34s, the large majority being T-34/85s. Despite all possible factors being in their favour and despite massive German operational losses during 1944, the Soviets still managed to loose around three AFVs for every German AFV destroyed, or around four tanks (mostly T-34/85s) for every German tank destroyed.

 

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

In 1944

 

[Malakal]

Yes, and actual performance in combat is irrelevant, because russian tanks had thicker armour

Btw, even the "88 was the only weapon able to stop kv and t-34 in 1941" is a myth for ww2 laymen:

Causes of T-34 losses from June 1941 to September 1942 (expressed as % of total).

Weapon Calibre 20mm 37mm Short 50mm Long 50mm 75mm 88mm 105mm Unknown
% Lost 4.7 10 7.5 54.3 10.1 3.4 2.9 7.1

Edit: the formatting doesn't want to paste, but you can read it anyway - 88 was responsible for only 3,4% kills.

Combat performance IS irrelevant when discussing technology. Maybe those excellent tanks were crewed by monkeys or maybe their commanders were drunk, who cares. You could give a super star destroyer to illiterate peasants and it wouldnt amount to much but that doesnt mean its not an excellent weapon.

You say German tanks were better, I say prove it with their stats. Better armor? Soviet. Better weapon? Soviet. Better engine? Soviet again.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Combat performance IS irrelevant when discussing technology.

Jebus, really, I mean - really. Get out, reconsider, and only then comback before I get a total meltdown and spam this page with hundreds of [retarded] emoticons.

You say German tanks were better, I say prove it with their stats. Better armor? Soviet. Better weapon? Soviet. Better engine? Soviet again.

Well, let's tart with irrelevant, minute detail like firing control and efficiency? Even experienced crews couldn't hit a barn with these tanks. Just read some actual detailed literature on the subject instead of wikipedia-like entrances with "soviet tanks widely considered the best, big gunzz hurrrrr" statements

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

GarfunkeL settle this tank war.

 

[Raghar]

LOL no. The vatniks specialize in human wave for a reason

I heard about stuff like IS-2. It didn't receive 100 mm gun because they would need to use new tooling and learn new stuff, and A-19 somehow worked. And Stavka decided to rather manufacture a lot of ammo instead of making effort to make few lines with high quality control for HVAT.

Russians were always crap with introducing new stuff fast and efficiently. However US were always crap with inventing stuff. With exception of first few months of war, Russian didn't use HW stuff because they were smart enough to know they would lose if they used HW. (It's tank drivers were crap, which is the reason why current Russian shows make effort to show how well maneuverable and well driven are Russian tanks.)

Basically when you look at current tanks, each country spend extraordinary efford to remove main flaws from WWII.
Swedish tanks can run backwards.
US tanks have armor.
China tanks can shoot.
Japanese Type-10 is large.
Russian tanks can jump.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

GarfunkeL settle this tank war.

The war was settled long time ago, Russians won. But the tank kills ratio was so ridiculous that it's a basic common sense to treat the "soviet tank best tank" statements as fairytales. Crew experience was a huge factor, but not that huge and its impact was mostly in first month of the war, later on soviets were considered, as Malakal himself said, skilled at mechanized combined arms operations.

 

[Malakal]

GarfunkeL settle this tank war.

The war was settled long time ago, Russians won. But the tank kills ratio was so ridiculous that it's a basic common sense to treat the "soviet tank best tank" statements as fairytales. Crew experience was a huge factor, but not that huge and its impact was mostly in first month of the war, later on soviets were considered, as Malakal himself said, skilled at mechanized combined arms operations.

You keep referring to results but in war its not always the best tech that wins, its more reliant on industry, manpower and strategy. So Finland gave a good beating to USSR but no one will say they had better anything. Soviet tanks at the beginning were caught like the rest of the army - unprepared for a defensive war, deployed and designed for offensive actions. Then they were crewed with whatever drivers soviets could muster. Those people gained experience with time but ultimately the ratios dont favor soviets. Doesnt mean that they didnt have the best shit.

BTW I consider being able to manufacture a lot of T34s because it was easy to build and maintain as a quality and design way better than Tiger's general shitiness when it comes to mechanical wear. So you can make one Tiger for every 10 T34s and it needs general rehaul and maintenance every 1000 km, wow, thats a shit tank even if in 1 on 1 it can win.

 

[ohWOW]

Russia won by a classic zerg strategy, completely funded by US. If they didn't have their monies (and trucks), they would easly loose.

I mean, the fucking lost to Finns earlier when no one funded them. How pathetic is that.

 

[Raghar]

Nazi Germany supported Finland.

 

[Average Manatee]

Tech teams were stupid. The idea that your people were predestined to suck in certain fields was astronomically retarded. If there was an invest in techteams ->get tech teams specialized in fields you want ->use tech teams, then that would be a good mechanic, simulating you investing in drawing in good scientists/engineers and sending your own off to be educated. But it doesn't, and it's stupid. How do you think North fucking Korea got nukes? Were koreans magically born with nuclear knowledge? No, the government decided it wanted nukes, and geared themselves to generate educated individuals of that nature.

Thanks for illustrating my point. North Korea took fifty fucking years to raise education levels, personnel and facilities necessary to create something US scientists possessed by the mid-40s. And 45 of those was building the tech teams the US had.

Hell, the fucking China with its largest manpower in the world took 30 years to stop purchasing or cloning soviet weapons and begin developing their own designs.

And what exactly makes you think that research doesn't include cloning technology designed by others?

Manhattan Project also cost (from my un-biased source of the first result on google) $23 billion dollars to produce a nuke. Several times what North Korea could spend given that that is several times their entire GDP. Nearly every other country should be able to develop nukes nearly as fast as the USA did if they invest as much money into it.

 

[Endemic]

4:1 is no worse than Allied tanks in the west did (I don't know about the Firefly but it took 4 regular Shermans to destroy a Tiger). The ratio was even worse with something like the Jagdpanther (6:1 IIRC). Most Jagdpanthers were destroyed by aircraft or abandoned after running out of fuel or ammo. German tank commanders were legendary for their combat efficiency (Michael Wittman for example), you'd be hard pressed to find many equivalents in other WW2 armies.

 

[darkpatriot]

Interesting website with lots of research and statistical analysis of some common WW2 misconceptions

http://operationbarbarossa.net/Myth-Busters/MythBusters1.html

T-34 (and Russian tanks in general) are not as good as they are given credit for, or it seems they should be based off of looking at armor thickness and gun sizes. Specific weaknesses they had was their fire control systems. German tanks (even if they had less armor and weaker guns generally) were able to identify and engage targets more accurately and more quickly. This was even more lopsided and apparent early in the war when German tank crews were better trained and more experienced. But even as the war continued and Germans lost more experienced tankers to attrition and the Soviet crews gained experience and improved training the German tanks were still achieving better kill/loss ratios than the Russian tanks were. And not just a little better but quite a bit better.

http://operationbarbarossa.net/Myth-Busters/MythBusters2.html

Airpower did not destroy many tanks during WW2. All the countries Airforces claimed extremely high numbers of tanks destroyed however these are all the result of overestimation and exaggeration and are not reflected in actual analysis of the detailed battle damage reports conducted by the ground forces.

http://operationbarbarossa.net/Myth-Busters/Mythbusters4.html

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Nazi Germany supported Finland.

Not during the Winter War. In fact, Nazi Germany supported the Soviet Union then by embargoing Finland.

Russia won by a classic zerg strategy, completely funded by US. If they didn't have their monies (and trucks), they would easly loose.

I mean, the fucking lost to Finns earlier when no one funded them. How pathetic is that.

Technically they didn't lose. We just lost with such style it looked like a win.

Now, the effect of Lend-Lease is often seriously underestimated (GarfunkeL has posted plenty of statistics about how vital it was for Soviet ability to beat the Germans), as it enabled Soviets to focus entirely on the war effort. But it was hardly zerg rush warfare either. They stopped doing that after winter '39.

 

[ohWOW]

Not becoming annexed by CCCP is the highest victory someone ever achieved fighting with this shit. Also, Germany wasn't supporting Finland in '39. They couldn't support it, because they basically sold them to soviets in the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact.
39-41 CCCP and Germany were considered allies in Britain's and France's HQs. Read into operation Pike.

 

[curry]

It was an Unholy Alliance, a stroke of genius. Imagine Russian monkey-men with Nazi-level knowledge. We could be living in the future by now.

 

[Average Manatee]

If WW2 had been a multiplayer game Hitler and Stalin would have been called gamey bastards for allying with what were supposed to be their greatest enemies.

 

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

There used to be someone on /gsg/ (or the one on the /v/ days, not sure) who posted a hilarious fanfic on Stalin, Hitler, Tojo and the rest playing HOI2 multiplayer.