Heavy Tanks *Video*

[CWO Marc]

@GeneralHandGrenade:

More ideas would be greatly appreciated.

I don’t know if historical accuracy or even technical plausibility are factors that you’re considering – but in case they are, here are a few comments.

A few genuine heavy tanks like the IS-2 and the Tiger did see combat in WWII, but this was not the case for super-heavy tanks (like the Maus) and even less the case for “land-battleships” like the Landkreuzer P. 1500.  The closest the Maus ever came to operating was the single unit that was fully aseembled (meaning chassis + turret) at the provings grounds where it was being tested.  The 188-tonne Maus was pretty much at the extreme limit of what was physically achievable in terms of tank size with WWII technology, and even then the results were hardly worth the effort.  The thing could barely crawl on its own, it was too heavy to cross bridges, and shipping it by rail would have been a severe challenge because of its width and weight; finding rail lines with the required width clearances and weight capacities would have required taking circuitous routes to get near the zone of combat operations.  Moreover, as I mentioned in another thread, the Maus would have been relatively easy for the Allies to knock out of action by a form of attack against which its armour offered no protection: napalm bombs delivered by ground-attack aircraft.

All of these problems with the Maus would have been even more severe for the Landkreuzer P. 1500, which unlike the Maus was probably not even an achievable design from a physical standpoint, let alone as a weapon with any practical battlefield value.  And remember that, as a general rule of thumb, the heavier a tank becomes the more maintenance it requires and the shorter the distance it can travel on average before breaking down because of the strain on its treads, suspension and transmission components.

Note that even though tank technology improved after WWII, very few super-heavy tanks were ever built; most, I think, were designed in the decade or so after the war, mostly as test vehicles.  Even conventional heavy tanks were ultimately abandoned when the more practical concept of the balanced-design Main Battle Tank emerged and became technologically feasible.  Super-heavy tanks and land battleships have only ever flourished in sci-fi stories like Keith Laumer’s Bolo series and in games like the Ogre series; they’re simply too impractical for real-world use.

[GeneralHandGrenade]

As usual Marc you are a wealth of information. I knew taking this on was going to be an impossible task to create a heavy tank unit for the game and be completely accurate. I did research the unit and could see that there were no tanks in this class that were comparable to each other and it would take some poetic licence to add it to the game. The articles that I read must have been referring to pre-war use of heavy tanks (maybe ww1). When I was trying to design them the thought actually popped into my head " Hmm…I wonder what CWO Marc would do?"

So do you think there’s any way to add a heavy tank unit to the game and be close enough to accurate that it would be plausible? I accept that this game isn’t a WW2 re-creation but rather a way for all of us to re-fight the war in our own way.

[Erocco]

For heavy tanks here are my house rules:

A3 D3 M2 C8. Special ability - take two hits. They can’t be repaired once hit.

This way they can blitz.

[CWO Marc]

@GeneralHandGrenade:

So do you think there’s any way to add a heavy tank unit to the game and be close enough to accurate that it would be plausible? I accept that this game isn’t a WW2 re-creation but rather a way for all of us to re-fight the war in our own way.

I’m not very good at translating historical information into actual game rules, so you should definitely get the opinions of experienced players and house rule designers on that point, but here are a few off-the-top-of-my-head ideas.  The numbers I’ve given may not work, but I’ll just use them to illustrate how I’d view the question from a historical angle.

As a very rough guiding principle for most A&A unit modifications, I tend to think that the HR adjustments which have the best chance of being both reasonably realistic (allowing of course fof the fact that A&A is fairly abstracted) and of not unbalancing the game too much (or making it overly complicated) are modest adjustments, not radical ones.  Especially when one is talking about creating a different category of the same unit (like a heavy tank category for the tank unit) rather than a completely different unit type.  So here’s what I’d be inclined to do with the heavy tank concept.

At the time of WWII, existing technology was not sufficiently advanced to produce a tank that was excellent in all three basic facets of tank design: firepower, armour protection and mobility.  You could get good performance in all three areas at the same time (which is essentially what a well-balanced WWII medium tank delivered), or you could excellent performance in two areas at the expense of poor performamce in the remaining area.  That’s essentially what WWII heavy tanks did: most of them optimized firepower and armour protection over mobility.  Another less obvious trade-off was affordability: building a heavy tank was more time-consuming and resource-intensive and costly than building a medium tank.  (Even medium tanks were not equal in this respect: the crudely finished and relatively simple but highly effective T-34 could be manufactured more quickly than the more fussy Panzer V Panther.)

Therefore, compared with the standard tank unit:

• To represent the enhanced firepower of heavy tanks, their attack value could perhaps be raised by 1.

• To represent the enhanced armour protection of heavy tanks, their defense value could perhaps be raised by 1.

• The compromised mobility of heavy tanks could be represented either by dropping their movement value by a suitable figure, or by taking away their blitz ability, or both; I don’t know what the best option is.

• Heavy tanks should cost more than standard tanks, for two reasons.  First, as I said, they were more time-consuming and resource-intensive and costly than building a medium tank.  Second, heavy tanks units in the game are presumably meant to be more capable units than standard tanks, so they should cost more than less capable units.  How much more, however, is the question, and I don’t have an answer.  It might not have to be radically more because the heavy tank isn’t an all-gain, no-pain unit: it comes with the drawback of decreased mobility.

• As an optional refinement, consider allowing only Germany and Russia to purchase heavy tanks.  There are several reasons for this.  First, the required sculpts can easily be obtained from A&A 1941; the models its uses, the Tiger and IS-2, are exactly correct for this application.  Second, Germany and Russia were pretty much the only WWII powers to field heavy tanks in actual combat.  Third, Germany and Russia conveniently happen to be fighting a major land war against each other in the game, so the heavy tanks on both sides would balance each other out nicely.  As less strict option would be to only allow heavy tank purchases by the US, the UK, the USSR, Germany and Japan, all of which have correctly-coloured heavy tank sculpts in A&A 1941 – though it would be rather funny to see the Americans and the British using Soviet-design tanks and the Japanese (who, moreover, were more inclined towards light tanks) using German-design tanks.

[General 6 Stars]

Only in game for heavy tanks.

German Heavy Tank - C8 A4 D4 M1  if M2   no retreat   Buy 2 per turn only
Russian heavy Tank  - C8 A4 D4 M1   if M2   no retreat     Buy 2 per turn only

Can’t buy these tanks until at start of turn 2 or 3.

[CWO Marc]

@SS:

Russian K-2

Do you mean the KV-2?  It was a poor and ineffective design, produced in small numbers, and it wasn’t a true tank because it was armed with a howitzer rather than a high-velocity tank gun.

[General 6 Stars]

Yes KV-2. Was there a better tank then. NVT something like that ? No need to call it KV-2 then. Just using as name.

One of these 3 then.
KV-85
IS-2
IS-3

[CWO Marc]

How about just calling the heavy tank unit a heavy tank?  A&A units types are represented by model-specific sculpts. but the types themselves are just designated by a general collective name that applies to all nations.

[General 6 Stars]

I got no problem calling them just Heavy Tanks. Thought maybe somebody wanted to call by a name. I changed my post.

[CWO Marc]

Speaking of the A&A 1941 heavy tank sculpts, by the way, I posted yesterday the silhouette of the IS-2 sculpt over here…

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=38912.msg1603112#new

…for the 2017 badge design, to follow up on last year’s post of the silhouette of the Tiger 1 sculpt…

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=36987.0

…for the 2016 badge.

[GeneralHandGrenade]

This is all great information and I appreciate it very much. Here’s what I’m thinking;
Cost-8 not much explanation needed for that.
Attack- 3 More firepower but less mobile than a medium tank which equals them out for the most part.
Defence- 4 heavier armour and not as much mobility needed in a defensive position.
Movement-1 Slower than a medium tank and I want to clearly differentiate between the 2 or else why bother?
Ability- First hit in a battle is free( shell bounces off). Second hit is damage which cost 2 IPC’s to repair on player’s next turn during Repair Units Phase. This gives others a chance to take it out while it’s damaged. If owner doesn’t repair it for some reason (like no money) then it can’t move but can still defend itself. Once repaired has 2 hit ability again for next battle.

I’m not in favour of creating a unit that isn’t available to all nations but that doesn’t mean it can’t be accomplished by other means. My initial setup would be;
1 on Moscow
1 on Germany
1 on Western Germany
1 on France
To be fair and not add any caveats to the unit by limiting it to only 2 nations;
Heavy Tanks can only be built on a major I.C.
They take up 2 spots on a transport
They do not take part in an amphibious assault but can land after if assault is successful. (they shouldn’t anyway because they’d be such a pain to unload how could they fight at the same time.)
Only 5 can be built by any nation for duration of the game.
No more than 1 heavy tank per territory per nation.
These rules would apply to all nations.

Only Germany, Russia, India, and Italy have a major I.C. on the dual continent of Eurasia. America, Anzac, Japan, and U.K. would have a difficult time employing them which is probably one of the reasons they didn’t have them. U.K. had 3 Tortoise tanks but they never left the U.K. during the war. Italy would have a tough time getting one to Africa. India would take forever to crawl one to Europe.

These rules would make them rare in the game except for Germany and Russia. India  and Italy would have a hard time purchasing them due to economic constraints. My goal when starting down this rabbit hole was to make them an interesting addition to the game while avoiding a proliferation of them allowing it to dominate the game. This might work.

I will test those parameters and let you know how it turns out.

[GeneralHandGrenade]

The test went very well. As expected only Russia and Germany built heavy tanks in numbers. Neither America nor ANZAC built any in the first 9 turns of the game. Limiting them to one per territory ensured that they didn’t dominate the game but did add an extra element of strategy. I’ll edit my original post to reflect the changes and to add this video;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8K4Vo5lORA&feature=youtu.be