MarKr wrote:US 57mm gun:
Accuracy: 1/0.9/0.65/0.65
Accuracy vs "puma" type of vehicles: x1, when moving: 0.8
Penetration: 1.25/0.92/0.8/0.7
Pen.modifier against StuG: x0.65 (81%/59.8%/52%/45.5%)
Pen.bonus from camo: x1.25
Pen.bonus from AP ammo: x1.3
Chance to pen. PIV H: 57.9%/42.6%/37%/32.4%
Axis 50mm gun:
Accuracy: 1/0.9/0.65/0.65
Accuracy vs "greyhound" type of vehicles: x1, when moving: 0.8
Penetration: 1.25/0.9/0.85/0.75
Chance to penetrate 76mm Sherman: 65%/46.8%/44.2%/39%
The "evasion bonus" against puma-type vehicles was removed some time ago. A comparable situation (Axis mid-tied AT gun vs US armored car) has same chance to miss/hit.
Tanks still suffer that heavy accuracy penalty even when Puma is not moving. You fixed it for AT guns but not tanks. Thus M10 ambushes can be relatively easy triggered by Pumas with good chance to survive.
A comparable situation of attacking a medium tank by these guns. As you can see, when 50mm attacks Sherman, it has a penetration advantage but it is about 7% more penetration than what 57mm has against PIV H. On the other hand the 57mm has damage of 50-90 (final damage per shot vs PIV H is 250-450) but the Axis 50mm has damage of 50-80 (250-400 vs Sherman) so the average penetration is slightly higher, but average damage is slightly lower for Axis 50mm and on top of that PIV H has 636HP while Sherman has 700. So in case of attacking medium vehicles, the guns are pretty similar in performance.
It does matter. Adding ambush pen and Ap boosts and this 7% difference becomes 12,27942188% difference
Also:
1. The 50 mm fires much faster. Even the axis 75 mm reloads faster as the US 57 mm. So in terms of dps the 50 mm is better at the end.
2. The P IV H/J from TH doc still has 650 HP for whatever reason.
3. You deliberately ignore the 25% damage boost on all axis and cw guns while US has that 25% boost only for their 57 mm. Fun fact:The 57 mm with AP can thus bypass the 90 mm canon in terms of damage when these uses AP rounds. The max damage for 57 mm with AP goes up to 562,5 damage while 90 mm min damage with AP drops to 552,5 damage.
I could make a comparison of 57mm vs StuG and 50mm vs some US unit but US don't have a TD comparable StuG...M10 probably but there are some major differences, most notably the tradeoff of less armor for more mobility so it doesn't make much sense to put into comparison such different units.
Stug is 0 CP, M10 costs 2 CP unless you go specific doc. And activating flank speed costs 35 ammo which means that you pay something for mobility.
But all in all, is that 7% more penetration really such a huge advantage that one can say that for Axis this gun is "reliable" but for Allies their gun is "useless"?
The 57 mm seems "fair" at the moment even though i dont get why the 50 mm has to keep any advantage over the 57 when it comes to countering mediums. The 50 mm became obsolete when T-34, shermans and heavier armored churchills showed up towards end of 41/42. The 57 mm could beat any axis armor except tiger untill the arrival of Panthers and new tank destroyers mid 43 or actually till 44 when panthers got build in larger numbers.
Anyway.
MarKr wrote:Isn't that the case for every faction? I mean, people simply go for units that have high-performance for as little effort as possible. Why people play Luft so much? Is it by any chance because of the very strong infantry that can survive relatively easily (compared to other infantry units in the game) and comes with strongest weapons in the game? Why people don't use PIV F2 that often? Isn't it because in their arsenal is usually something that can do the same for either less price (L48 HTs or Marder/Geschutzwagen) or has better chance of surviving hits (usually JPIV/StuG)? Or actually why are there so few Stubby PIVs seen (exept for F1 in TH doc)? Isn't because they are mostly anti-infantry units and Axis have a lot of more effective (and often cheaper) infantry counters ("puma" with 20mm cannon, or actually most of their infantry)?
So we gonna fix it?
it also raises the question: Why dont axis need any sort of HE rounds to shred inf while allis need special anti inf units like HE shermans, AA tanks with HE rounds, scotts etc?
is it bc allis bullet based weapons are crap (eg top mounts cal 50)? Is it bc axis inf is too boosted (healthy, heavy cover bonuses etc)? Are axis bullet based weapons too good? Just saying that what you say itself raises new questions.
Why was it that WM players, when facing US, used to rush for Panthers and Tigers before the 90mm cannons got a buff? Wasn't it because they knew that these tanks had very little counters from the side of US no matter what doctrine so they knew they would get the job done? And isn't also the reason why after buffing the 90mm cannons, these tanks were not rushed for so often because suddenly there was a really good chance that opponent has Armor doc and so the chance of losing the Tiger/Panther was a lot higher? Wasn't it after the buff of the 90mm guns that the Armor doctrine was played a lot more often and people started to rush for Pershings? Why was that? Because suddenly they could get things done better than most other units in the arsenal. I would say that on both sides you would units that are used almost in every game and units that used very rarely or not at all (Bren carrier, M20, several types of Axis HTs are rarely seen, Gepard, already mentioned stubby PIVs, MG teams in general because people rather go for MG-mounted vehicles because of better mobility, several reward units are rarely picked etc.).
90 mm used to bounce off from Tank IV´s. Now it doesnt anymore. Perhaps players dont rush for Pershings and 90 mm guns bc its soo good and cost effective and instead they rush for it bc its the only gun in your arsenal that allows you to effectively engage silly (stubby) Tank tank IV´s?. I mean the 76 mm gun has like 67,5% to pen a stubby tank IV E/F1. Under harsh conditions that nothing i could call reliable when the time to kill matters most. I dont trust into M10 to counter large waves of Tank IV´s and rush for jacksons instead. I dont want to but i have to. The 90 mm is even more mandatory when you try to engage these mini tigers and when you have no ambush boosts.
And remember the fun fact: 57 mm with AP can at times deal more damage as 90mm with AP rounds active.
So as people spoke here about giving a Jackson to Infantry doctrine - won't that be the case too? Suddenly it will be the best AT unit you have, reliably killing PIV/JPIV and other medium stuff, also reliable counter to Panther/Tiger and with camo and AP at about 50% chance at max range to penetrate KTs, which is not god-knows-how superb but still would be the best chance you've got.
Perhaps. But the same goes for the jumbo. Isnt this unit the best weapon infantry doc has to deal with axis elite infantry? Thing is inf doc does have (now) tools to deal with inf and with defenses. 7 men rifle squad, Rangers can actually hit something at range, calli jeep to clear at guns etc. But what is a huge pain are tanks. The best thing you can do is to bunker in with tons of AT emplacments, Td´s and throw arty at them hoping a shot will immobilize them.
Recently Figree blaimed me and erich for playing sim city. We won the early game and axis team started to build up heavy defenses with Hetzer, JP/70, AT guns etc. I lacked ammo for long tom (used it extensively on calli jeep for winning mid game and to prevent any bigger defensive build up). Our armor mate was rather poor (3 played games in total) and me and erich with inf and RE doc could do nothing else as to try to lock down enemies with tons of AT emplacments and throwing arty once the KT arrived. Our extensive arty use helped preventing that KT got a defensive back up but the KT on the other hand was a one unit army that smashed several of our tanks.
Bottom line: Inf doc could perhaps have jackson A and losing jumbo at the other hand. M10 become non-doc td and AB gets M18 unlock.
So wouldn't that just add to the "only few useful units, rest is not used"?
The jacks A is a defensive weapon. It does cost something and is fragile. Inf doc would still need their AT squads and stuff to engage many of the TD´s and for the offense. Currently every doc that has a panther has either superb infantry as support to deal with AT emplacments or good arty to kill AT guns and crews. The Maultier is just epic vs soft targets and emplacments now due to the ammount of missiles, the very good AoE and the flames it causes to burn the area. Also arty isnt the "ultimate tool" to counter tanks. Inf doc thus stuggles a lot when facing panthers backed by missile arty as ultimate inf killers and elite infantry. If you have map controle you can try to lock down the enemie forces untill they cant afford more arty. Else you bleed out slowly by wasting lots of res for arty and infantry hoping to somehow take out a single panther.