Blitzkrieg Mod Forum

The following video is unlisted, not public.. and is only aimed at the devs as well as other users who usually stick around the forum.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzW_HfS5bXc

Now, I would like to quote 2 specific sentences that were recently posted by 2 different users on other topics, though... I am not going to include the writer's name Nonetheless, I guess most of you would quickly realize who exactly are those 2 users anyway!

Axis tanks have way better resistants to arty.

Are you sure about that, my friend?

However BK is a germanophile universe/science fiction game/alternative history game.
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Now, just keep in mind Blitzkrieg is not a realistic mod, nor it is historically credible so far. It is more likely a fantasy simulation where axis would have win the war And I would agree with that to have a correct balance. Problem is, it is more close form a german(ophile) fantasm than a fantasy simulation.

Damn, it seems to be the opposite here!
Or wait, maybe just a game after all where things can just go wrong for both sides?
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Back to the point of this video...

Recently the barrage price of the 210mm Nebel was increased from 85 ammo to 100 due to the fact that it's too deadly, but by having a look at this Priest ability here called "aimed salvo" then I would wonder really; isn't it a little bit too OP actually for such a cheap price, which is only 50 ammo?

Also, the Achilles "hit and run tactics" ability.. specifically when combined with APCR at the same time, is in fact capable of penetrating and killing any Axis tank frontally at max range. While keeping mind that the Achilles are unlimited and available for all CW docs for a price cheaper than the Jackson tank destroyer on the other hand, not to mention that the Jackson is limited.

So, the Achilles more or less seems to be 3 different tanks all combined in 1 cheap tank... I mean;
Achilles has HE, flank speed, hit and run, all docs have it, also cheap, and 360 degree turret.

M10 Wolverine has hit and run ability, and flank speed... However, it doesn't have HE, or 360 degree turret.
Hellcat has 360 degree turret.. but it doesn't have flank speed, and very weak "vehicle" armor type.
Both versions of Jackson don't have HE rounds or hit and run ability...

This means Achilles combines all the Allied TD advantages altogether, without any drawbacks???!!!

Probably a Pershing under 105 mm arty shell would suffer the same punishment.

Arty is a bit the magic wand players use to solve all problems. Artillery have no faction.

The valid point however would be to ajust cost to efficiency both side.

Jalis wrote:Probably a Pershing under 105 mm arty shell would suffer the same punishment.

Theoretically.. perhaps a Pershing would suffer the same... Yes.
Arty has no certain faction too, that's also true!

Practically HOWEVER; Wespe and Hummel don't have ANY such "aimed salvo" abilities.. so they can NEVER be as much accurate.
Not to mention that their basic barrage cost is also higher.
So... NO! Except with pure luck when all Wespe or Hummel shells would hit the exact same spot.. but again, Wespe DON'T have any such CHEAP ability which can allow them to hit the same spot over and over again. And even 155mm barrage by Hummel for 125 ammo would never be this accurate...

@Tiger: I am not sure what your point is here..."Axis tanks are more resistant to arty" - that is true. Most Axis tanks in general take reduced damage from arty shells, while most Allied tanks take full damage from arty shells.

Priest and its "aimed salvo" - when an arty shell lands near any of your units, move them away. That's what everyone does. If you keep the unit in the place even normal salvo will make short work of them.

"Also, the Achilles "hit and run tactics" ability.. specifically when combined with APCR at the same time, is in fact capable of penetrating and killing any Axis tank frontally at max range." So? You need to activate the Hit and Run (60 ammo), you need to buy the APCR ammo upgrade (25 ammo) and activate the ability (50 ammo). In your "test" you used 2 Achilles TDs - that means the cost of destroying one KT was 270 ammo (135 x 2) - there are way cheaper options to destroy KTs (e.g. airstrikes). Sure, planes can be shot down, but scouts units are in the game for a reason.

Try with grille. Accurate as hell it can one shot a Pershing in arty mode for the same cost than the priest, and dont need marked target.

For some reasons I have not so much interest on UK side. I would more compare wespe or Hummel with Sherman 105.

MarKr wrote:@Tiger: I am not sure what your point is here..."Axis tanks are more resistant to arty" - that is true. Most Axis tanks in general take reduced damage from arty shells, while most Allied tanks take full damage from arty shells.

Priest and its "aimed salvo" - when an arty shell lands near any of your units, move them away. That's what everyone does. If you keep the unit in the place even normal salvo will make short work of them.

"Also, the Achilles "hit and run tactics" ability.. specifically when combined with APCR at the same time, is in fact capable of penetrating and killing any Axis tank frontally at max range." So? You need to activate the Hit and Run (60 ammo), you need to buy the APCR ammo upgrade (25 ammo) and activate the ability (50 ammo). In your "test" you used 2 Achilles TDs - that means the cost of destroying one KT was 270 ammo (135 x 2) - there are way cheaper options to destroy KTs (e.g. airstrikes). Sure, planes can be shot down, but scouts units are in the game for a reason.

If that's a "reduced" damage, then I wonder how "full" damage would look like... I have hard time believing it, I know you might have your Crosix numbers etc. However, according to what we can see here on this video and also on the actual game.. both obviously die just as fast!
Just except that Axis tanks are often significantly more expensive of course.

Also, here is the problem.. the ability called "aimed salvo" follows the target even while it moves. And the rate of fire is very high!
Not to mention that most of the times your tank would be immobilized after the first or the 2nd hit anyways.. which is exactly what happened in this video by the way.

Regarding the Achilles, the problem is not exactly the hit and run tactics ability itself.. but the circumstances of the ability. I mean, the problem is in fact the Achilles itself. I would dare to say that the Achilles is the best TD in the game for its cost value and availability conditions... The tank simply has no drawbacks. Easy to spam, cheap.. available for all doctrines, and has all type of abilities that would allow it to counter any kind of targets. Against infantry, it works. At long range, it also works... Also has great mobility!
I have illustrated how the Achilles is extremely over-performing in my previous post when I compared it with Jackson, Hellcat and Wolverine.
So, my point is that the Achilles somehow combines all the advantages of those 3 tanks at once! That's even more deadly than the Comet.


@Jalis
Grille can't 1 shot full HP Super Pershing, in fact.. not even the SturmTiger could. Which is fine though, because SP is available only once.. but don't forget the Grille also costs more command points than Priest, and is not a cheap vehicle to deploy...
It costs 600 MP/70 Fuel/50 Munition. While the Priest on the other hand costs less CPs and only around 700 MP from out-side the map.
Grille is also limited to only 1 at a time, Priest is not. However, just to be honest here... I never said the Grille is fine either, I definitely think 50 ammo for this precise shot is also too cheap without any doubts.

for grille I spoke about Pershing not the SP. I though it was fair to compare tiger to Pershing under accurate arty shelling.

The Achilles weakness is turret traverse (lack of) speed. It is manual like the wolverine. It could hit and run, but run and hit is an other matter.

Looking at numbers, it seems, at bk, hit and run greatly increase gun range, that let me a bit perplexe.

a bit off topic, I sometime feels some peoples make more lobbying than game improvement propositions. That dont means what they say is wrong, just it become suspect.

Fact: Allies tanks do take more damage from arty.

Take a sample: A direct hit on a sherman using a 105 mm arty shell deals if i checked correctly 502 damage. A silly Tank IV D on the other hand takes just 376,875.

At the end you can calculate that an axis tank takes approx one more direct hit to die than the allied counterpart.

The heaviest axis tanks like Kingtiger takes just 251,25 damage from an 105 mm shell. The Super Pershing takes the full 502 damage just as a comparision.

The Jagdpanther, actually a medium tank, has also a 40% standard damage reduction from arty. The brits crocc churchill has the same arty resistance as a german Tank IV D. (Sure crocc has more HP, still takes more damage per hit).

Funny also is that axis howitzers dealing more damage to axis tanks as allied howitzers do.

Even axis vehicle such as the sdkfz 234 has a better arty resistance than an allied tank. An axis 105 will kill any allied vehicle outright in direct hit. A sdkfz 234 can survive a direct hit (with vet its survivability becomes even better).

So when maps get hammered by arty all time long, the axis have much better chances to survive shells randomly dropping on them.
In order to take out allied tanks, you just have to fire all arround. Two lucky shells and any allied tank is dead. Or one hit and one close hit is enough.

If you want to take out an axis tank, you have to fire your most accurate arty. And as you proved with your vid, A tank stands even after 4 direct hit using the most accurate arty barrage in game which in return has a super long cooldown and it just crippled your tank.

Fire a 210 in the general direction on allied tanks and a single hit can kill it.



At the end just for you: The Jagdpanther boosted with zimmerit. The damage calculation for an 105 allied shell is as follows:

335 (damage)x 1.5 (direct hit) x0.6 (Jagdpanther resistance to allied arty) x 0.75 (Zimmerit damage reduction)= 226,125 damage.
The Jagdoanther is a medium tank that has 1000 HP.

Or Tank IV H from PE with Zimmerit: 282,65652 damage. The tank has 650 HP. How likely is it to score 3 direct hits (i mean in your vid, even the accurate barrage did not always score a direct hit. Otherwise the tiger would have been dead.
So how likely is it to kill an axis tank just like that by random arty shells landing on it when it has full HP. Actually 0%.
How often do you see full HP allied tanks somewhere on the map suddenly blowing up bc an arty shell landed there or missiles of the 210 nebler.
I asked Lehr last time if he could upload his game (he didnt sadly). Allied tansk blew up all the time by arty fire and his 210 nebler scored like a bad ass.
I would say that in longer lasting average arty games, almost half of my sherman fleet has been killed by random hitting arty before i could actually send them into action. I do have memories losing many of my axis tanks to allied arty, but never "just like that" like "ups, its gone, where did he die?"

And where do allis cost so much more? A tank IV F2 from any doc costs as much as a normal 76. Where is a Tank IV H more expensive than a firefly? Where is a tank IV D more expensive than a sherman? Where is a Panther costing more than a pershing? Where costs a Hetzer more than achilles? A IV/70 more than a jacks?.... A Greyhound cheaper than a axis vehicle?
+ How much arty allied have or even movable howitzers? Yes, one arty doc.

Your entire argumentation is based on the assumption that allis always have CW arty and armor doc to have most accurate arty+ cheap tanks. And axis always a team of idiots unable to move their single Panther and unable to use their own arty in any smart way.

On top of that, axis have, besides these 105 arty, also two docs with 150 mm arty (one with sniper accuracy), a Sturmtiger that can kill an entire pershing platoon in a single hit (a mate yesterday killed pershing ace and jackson that way, thus winning the game. It was his first BK game after 3-4 years not playing). And rocket arty in three docs which missiles can cause severe damage when hitting (hotchkiss, stuka, 210).
So they have almost every doctrine equiped with arty capable of easily killing tanks by random hits. And my main critic is exactly on the words random hits. If you focus your arty fire on a single tank, fine, it can die. np here. But this "oh, tanks over there, shoot barrages all over the place" and still scoring several tank kills in a game.... this is what is so absolutely wrong.


Regarding the Hit and run thing: Yes, the ability is crap. Not that its wrong that there is a chance to kill a KT with two achilles.
I also belive that the penetrations are not just a result of APCR but also of the ability itself. Even the normal M10 seem to ignore armor values while doing it.

I don’t know if it relates, but in a game I played I suspect an abuser that some how said he got an m10 ability to shoot way far out of range. It felt really exploity. I don’t think I have a replay unfortunately, but it sounded really suspicious and gimmicky.

I believe there is no point to bring up an old topic out of nowhere just to say this kind of stuff, specifically when you don't even have a replay to backup what you say! As I think this way you only make your own statement sound suspicious and so vague by itself...

I'm pointing out a potential exploit that amplifies the OP ability mentioned in this thread that I am unaware of but maybe others would know and would have the guts to spill the secrets.

Well, the ability will be removed altogether anyway.. as MarKr once mentioned on a different topic.
It's enough to know how the functions of the hit and run tactics ability are totally messed up.. it suppresses enemy vehicles once activated even when there are obstacles preventing the TD from actually shooting at the target! Though, I would be absolutely OK to replace it with the ALRS ability at Vet.1 for the Wolverine and Vet.2 for the Achilles... I also think that the ALRS could be given to the Elefant.

Dosn't henschel patrol count as a OP hability too?

In certain cirumcstances. Yes.