leadtothehead
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2013
- Messages
- 64
On the contrary, armor was not crucial to the conquest of Poland, and, though it was decisive in the Battle of France, German tanks were not only inferior to Allied (particularly French) armor, they were outnumbered nearly two to one. The invasion of the Soviet Union failed (in part) because German strategy was insufficiently tank-based: armor and mechanized infantry pushed deep into Russia but could not be quickly reinforced and resupplied and so could not consolidate their gains or deliver a fatal blow to the Soviets. The Germans did not have nearly enough tanks, halftracks, or even trucks for the war they launched; their supply lines relied largely on horse- and mule-drawn wagons.
(for those of you joining in the middle of our program: Landsknecht > Panzer)
This issue of who is the king of the armor is a difficult one because really one could argue that both the German and Soviet legacies of the golden age of armor are represented in the autocracy and order ideologies Germany with the lightning warfare tenet and the Soviets with the Kremlin wonder, personally I like the Panzer UU because no matter what side you come down in on the argument of WWII armor you cant deny that the German Tiger was the most feared the recognized unit of WWII and frankly in Civ its about recognition and fame not actual Xs and Os. In other words when you think of the WWII German military you think of the Panzers and when you think of Panzers the Tiger is most famous.
And not to nit pick but the Panther wasn't designed to take on KV2s, KV2s were heavy tanks that are arguably more then a match for the heavy German Tiger, the Panther was a medium tank designed to utilize sloped armor that the T-34 pioneered to outclass the Soviet mainstay but like you said it come too late, cost too much and suffered from the allied bombing of key resources and supply lines.
The Soviet vs. German thing is basically the quantity of the Soviets vs. the quality of the Germans, personally I would have no issue with replacing one of the Russian bonus with a + whatever % production bonus when building armor and replacing the Kremlin wonder bonus with something else.