Shermans and Panthers

The inestimable Mr. Elliot said:

" I checked back on my WW2 stats for DS2:

Sherman: Size 3, Armour 2, Slow Tracked, Stealth 0, ECM None, Firecon
Basic, 1 * KEC/3 or KEC/4 in turret, 2 * APSW.

Panther: Size 3, Armour 3, Slow Tracked, Stealth 0, ECM None, Firecon
Basic, 1 * KEC/4 in turret, 2 * APSW.

The Panther has better armour and the Sherman only has as good a main
weapon as the Panther when it represents the Firefly with a 17pdr gun.
Perhaps in retrospect the Sherman should be Size 2 - but that would
actually make it harder to hit.

Sorry, Tom, don't know why you think I rated them the same?"

[Tomb] -- Okay, first, the Panther is (AFAIK) noticeably faster than the
Sherman. You might argue the granularity of the conversion doesn't allow
us
to represent this difference but I think it should be there somewhere
because it was a signficant difference in the period in question. One of
the
shortcoming of DS2 is the class based qualification - very much like the
old
hull classes in FT. If DS3 is ever released, I'd hope to see this
artificial
boundary approach banished. Then you could see something like a Sherman
and
a Panther represented by a difference in mobility speeds within a
tracked
mobility type. 

Also, I don't suppose I'd realized that the KEC/4 was the Firefly and I
thought a KEC/4 for both was selling the german long 75 short if you
were
comparing it with the normal Sherman weapon which was rather inferior in
comparison. My fault for not catching that (which is not entirely
obvious
without being stated, but after you say it I see it). If I'd realized
your
selection of KEC/4 was the Firefly with its far better main gun, I'd
have
had a moderated sentiment. I thought when I read this that you just
hadn't
made up your mind on the conversion and were suggesting it might be
equivalent to the German 75 on the Panther! :-) 

Like the Russians, the American forces wouldn't win on a 1-1 with the
German
tanks like the Panther. OTOH, they both usually brought (in the late
war)
some pretty potent air assets and tanks in the large numbers - I've seen
camera reels of US forces using Shermans in line as almost an artillery
battery - quantity has a quality all its own. 

------------------------------------------
Thomas R. S. Barclay
Voice: (613) 722-3232 ext 349
e-mail: tomb@bitheads.com

2001: To the New Millenium! The next thousand years
are MINE. 
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