Two tanks, one musketmen, one knight?

Originally posted by dainbramaged13
i think its crazy how much some of you know (and in some cases, pretend to know) about wwii. its insane... are you all, like professors of modern warfare or something? or is this place just a hotbed of extreme history/war buffs

I like the Military. I grew up at a time that Military Sevice was regarded as a good thing to do. Since I was 8 years old I knew someday I would be in the Military. I join the US Navy in 1962. Two years later a lot of people my age thought the Military was not so good anymore. Vietnam was starting up for most American.

[MrKhan]

BTW, new to the board but just had to say to whomever said the biggest German tank gun was 88mm...this is not so. The JadgTiger TD had a 126mm gun. This high powered weapon could knockout a modern M1 with a direct hit. Only approx. 85 of these were produced. I remember a story my granddad used to tell: He was on patrol near the Rhine River and came upon about 15-20 flaming hulks of US Shermans and upon a hill in the distance sat one JadgTiger (abandoned due to aircraft attack). Talk about kill ratios...

Corrected: 128mm gun

Originally posted by Tingkai


That's interesting. I was under the mistaken belief that Christie was a Brit. I didn't realize he was American. The fact that he was makes it even more mind-boggling that the Americans failed to use his designs, and as a result, ended up with inferior AFVs while the Russians, Brits and Germans all created tanks based on his suspension system.

Interesting to note that the Russians were able to create the best tank of the war using the initial Christie design as a distant starting point while the Brits, starting from a similar point, failed to create a great tank.

Tingkai; he may have been British by birth, I don't know but he did his work for the US Tank section of the US Army.
I do not know the whole story however in the US during the time between the Wars we had some people with a title in front of their Names and they thought their **** did not stink. Maybe Mr. Christie ran across one them and therefore his Tank was not accepted because of politic. We have lot of story in the US were politic did not allow certains thing to be built.

Originally posted by MrKhan
BTW, new to the board but just had to say to whomever said the biggest German tank gun was 88mm...this is not so. The JadgTiger TD had a 126mm gun. This high powered weapon could knockout a modern M1 with a direct hit. Only approx. 85 of these were produced. I remember a story my granddad used to tell: He was on patrol near the Rhine River and came upon about 15-20 flaming hulks of US Shermans and upon a hill in the distance sat one JadgTiger (abandoned due to aircraft attack). Talk about kill ratios...

Before someone clime all over you, it was 12.8cm Pak 44 L/55 gun. 150 were order but only 77 were produce. The gun could pentertrate 250 mm armour.
Actually in the late days of the war several countries like the US, Russia, England sent bigger tanks to the war but for the most part they saw little action.
Russian KV-85, 85 mm gun
Russian JS-2, 122 mm gun
Russian JS-3, 122 mm gun
US Pershing M-26 90 mm gun
US T-28 105 mm gun prototypes only
British Comet 77 mm gun
British Tortoise 94 mm gun Prototypes only

[MrKhan]

Yes, confirmed and I stand corrected. You seem to know The Encyclopedia of German Tanks of WWII pretty well. Your exact quotes are from pg. 144. I should be flayed for missing the calibre as I am an avid Combat Mission player and this is one of my weapons of choice.

BTW, the JS-2 and JS-3 chassis are still in use in Russia as mobile Intermediate Range Ballistic missile launchers. Moreover, Cuba still employs these tanks and the T-34 for active/coastal defense.

[Shiva]

Originally posted by Tingkai


That's interesting. I was under the mistaken belief that Christie was a Brit. I didn't realize he was American. The fact that he was makes it even more mind-boggling that the Americans failed to use his designs, and as a result, ended up with inferior AFVs while the Russians, Brits and Germans all created tanks based on his suspension system.

Interesting to note that the Russians were able to create the best tank of the war using the initial Christie design as a distant starting point while the Brits, starting from a similar point, failed to create a great tank.

American are like that. Look at the Tank Destroyer mafia durring WW2 in the american army. They're the reason why the M4 didnt have a 76mm for so long but the M10 and M18 did. Lots of stupidity.

As for the T34 being the best tank I'd rather have a Panther. It may not have been as rugged but it was more effective.

[Leonidas]

Whether there is one tank or 100 tanks, it looks like all the modders will busy designing their special brand of armour. . .

[Col Bigspear]

T'was me who said 88mm. I was just taking numbers off the top of my head, I knew the Panther and Tiger had 88mm's so I just said that. Thx for clearing it up anyway. Like I said though I gave a rough estimate without the Numbers nearby.I have heard of the jadgtiger and jadgpanther,but never learned the numbers. Jadgtiger means Hunting tiger I think ?.

[KrazyHorse]

There are way too many of you learning way too much about the minutia of modern military equipment. History isn't about whether the Germans' armour in WWII was using 88mm or 75mm ammunition; such details will be forgotten very soon except by a small number of specialists. History is about larger causes and effects, which are probably not visible less than half a century after the event. Anything you learn about the Cold War should be under the heading of "Current Events", not "History".

[Col Bigspear]

I suppose we are moving away from the point here and it is that modern units are quickly becoming out dated within decades of their development, whereas medieval units pretty much stayed the same for their era.
Its just that WW2 interests so many people and we are having a good discussion without Off-Topic Spammers

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by joseph1944

Ok I forgot for a while.
The King Tiger was/is the PzKpfw VI Ausf B w/Henschel turret. 500 being built. 50 of these Tiger II were fitted with the Porsche Turret.
This tank used the 8.8cm L/71 (3.46in) Gun. It could penetrate 215 mm (8.46in) of armour at 1000m (1096.3 yd) and 80mm (3.14in) at 4000m (4374.45 yds (2.48mi)).

I have a ton of stats too

actually 489 were built

the frist to see action versus the western allies was in 1st Compsny of Schwere Panzerabteilung 503

1354 of the Tiger were built

I have more

Jon Miller

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by MrKhan
BTW, new to the board but just had to say to whomever said the biggest German tank gun was 88mm...this is not so. The JadgTiger TD had a 126mm gun. This high powered weapon could knockout a modern M1 with a direct hit. Only approx. 85 of these were produced. I remember a story my granddad used to tell: He was on patrol near the Rhine River and came upon about 15-20 flaming hulks of US Shermans and upon a hill in the distance sat one JadgTiger (abandoned due to aircraft attack). Talk about kill ratios...

Corrected: 128mm gun

77 of these were built (would have corrected your number but I see you did)

Jon Miller

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by MrKhan
BTW, new to the board but just had to say to whomever said the biggest German tank gun was 88mm...this is not so. The JadgTiger TD had a 126mm gun. This high powered weapon could knockout a modern M1 with a direct hit. Only approx. 85 of these were produced. I remember a story my granddad used to tell: He was on patrol near the Rhine River and came upon about 15-20 flaming hulks of US Shermans and upon a hill in the distance sat one JadgTiger (abandoned due to aircraft attack). Talk about kill ratios...

Corrected: 128mm gun

The danger of posting a message like this is you could be wrong. What about the 150mm gun in the assault tank based on a panzer IV chassis. Can't remember the name, and there was probably another German tank with a larger gun.

[MrKhan]

Heh, yeah or the German SturmmTiger with a 380mm gun/rocket mortar...mainly an assault tank. 18 or these badboys were built. This didn't even have to directly hit an enemy tank. There are accounts of several Shermans being knocked out at once by a nearby blast. Anyway, 'twould be ashame if data such as this were totally forgotten as someone said. This information is still very useful for tactical study.

[Red Khan]

Civ is a very big game, and it can't contain too many units, like for example XIV century musketeer, XVI century musketeer, and so on. The game should show the major breakthroughs of military science. Sure modern tanks have bigger guns, thicker armor, and more powerful engine. But that's just improvements, not breakthroughs, while the jet engine is a breakthrough. That's probably why some people here said that 50 Spitfires couldn't shoot down a single F-15 or Mig-29, but 5 Panzers would win against an Abrams or T-72. I would say that too, before reading this thread.
Anyway, I'm more of an ancient-medieval history buff, so I'm going to talk about this times, sorry for the off-topic and spamming. I found a very interesting article about the evolution of warfare from ancient times to invention of firearms. The original can be found here, but it's in Russian, so I'm putting a summary of the article here.
First there were infantry that gradually improved it's weapons and armor. In about 3000 B.C chariots appeared. Of course they were far from perfect, but still superior to infantry. Every country in the Middle East and Greece were using chariots.
Meanwhile in the steppes of Eurasia people started to domesticate horses and it by 1000 B.C they were able to ride and shoot at the same time. Plus the harsh environment they lived in, made them fierce warriors. And soon scythians were invading the Middle East and ending the Assyrian Empire there. The cavalry spread across Eurasia and every civilized country were employing it in it's armies, from China to Persia, where cavalry were the main force of the army and infantry was thought to be secondary, for those who are too weak or poor. Persian cavalry was armed with bows, spears and short swords. They first wear off their enemy from the distance and then engaged and finished them off. But nobody noticed a small mountain country in South Europe.... When Persians went to conquer Greece, they were thought that it was a piece a cake. But as we know they were wrong. Only two regions of Greece could raise horses and Greeks didn’t respect the bow as a weapon. Greeks lived were every free man was a citizen and every citizen was a warrior, so the main fighting force her was heavy infantry, hoplites. Equipment of hoplites consisted of a helm, body armor, leg armor (sorry I don't know the English term, but I think you know what I mean), a shield, a short sword and two spears. Sometimes it weight up to 30 kg, that's why athletics were so popular in Greece. Hoplites were fighting in tight formations, in several ranks. They were meeting the enemy with a forest of spears, while they were protected from arrows and spears by their armor and shields. This formation was called a phalanx. When fighting the Persians, Greeks were engaging the cavalry (!) and get into close combat, which they were better at, than Persians.
Then came Alexander the Great who conquered the Persians with phalanx. And this time exactly the opposite, phalanx infantry was the main fighting force and cavalry just played supportive role.
Then came the mighty Roman legions. Roman were good learners, but they didn’t just copy the phalanx, they improved it. It was useless to attack phalanx formation from the front, but if enemy attacked from rear or flank, tight formation and heavy armor of hoplites became a disadvantage. Until phalanxes were fighting against phalanx with their flanks covered by light infantry and cavalry advantages and disadvantages were balanced and tactics were narrowed by just a few patterns. So the Roman invented new formation of heavy infantry, the legion. It was more maneuverable, consisted of sub-units that were able to carry out different, but still coordinated tasks. Equipment of a legionnaire was more convenient, lighter and more balanced than that of a hoplite. Armor consisted of a helmet, body armor and shield and they were armed with two throwing spears, a dagger and a massive thrust sword. Add to this perfect training and discipline, quality weapons and good tactics and you will get a big empire. But the East was not sleeping too. To counter Roman legions, Parthians invented heavy cavalry called cataphract. These troops were fighting in close formation, working in team with light cavalry. Cataphracts charged and broke ranks of the infantry and then, without dismounting, finished them off with long sword. So, the Romans suffered their first major defeat from Parthian heavy cavalry. Thus, IV century A.C. heavy cavalry took over heavy infantry on the battlefield. After the great Immigration of nations (sorry, I don’t know the right translation to English, but again, I hope you understand what I mean different parts of Eurasia choose their own path. In steppes, where speed and maneuverability were important it was a cross between light and heavy infantry and in Europe, with it’s forests and hills and constant raiding by Vikings, Arabs and Huns heavy cavalry become more specialized. And that’s how a knight was born, a distant descendant of ancient cataphracts, but even more specialized, and because of this many centuries unmatched.
And it was that way until XIV century, when during the Hundred Years war, at the battle of Cressi (that’s how it spelled in English?), English infantry, consisting of yeomen, shoot down the best French knights using crossbows. (I think the author is mistaken, wasn’t it longbows?). It was the dawn of a new era. Soon the firearms will come and infantry will rise again.

Again, sorry for typos and grammar, I’m too tired again, hope Word corrected it to understandable level.

The bottom line. My idea is that the concept is important. Sure, a modern tank can decimate a bunch of WWII ones, but it still uses the same idea/concept with them. A concept of an armored vehicle with a gun. As same as that scythian horse archers of 1000 B.C. would probably loose to Mongols, because the later had better armor, bows, arrows and horses, but they still use the same concept.

P.S. Can anybody with enough time and knowledge do the XV-modern times thing like this?

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Red Khan
The bottom line. My idea is that the concept is important. Sure, a modern tank can decimate a bunch of WWII ones, but it still uses the same idea/concept with them. A concept of an armored vehicle with a gun. As same as that scythian horse archers of 1000 B.C. would probably loose to Mongols, because the later had better armor, bows, arrows and horses, but they still use the same concept.

If you just want to talk about concept, then tank warfare is based on the same concept of mounted archers: mobile warfare, but at different speeds and with different weapons.

The original post for this thread basically asked why are there two tanks, one musketmen, one knight?

The answer is: because that's what the designers picked. Can their choice be justified? Yes. Can other options be justified? Yes. What's the solution that will please everyone? The ability to make modified units, something that Civ allows.

[Shiva]

Originally posted by Col Bigspear
T'was me who said 88mm. I was just taking numbers off the top of my head, I knew the Panther and Tiger had 88mm's so I just said that.

Panther had a 75mm.

[Shiva]

Well if there was more units that they could add it would make more sense to add them 1890's and before. Since then if you look around at the units things havnt really changed all that much without the the other side staying somewhere close. But in earlier times inovations caused one side to have a marked advatage for a fair amount of time.