The 37mm on the Panzer III B and E is awful when compared to the tanks armed with the Soviet 45mm, outside of getting a 50mm gun and new turret the armour thickness is the same. This comes from experience of sturggling to kill all the soviet light tanks even when I have the drop on them, it doesn’t appear to do any form of significant damage.
I’d also like to bring up the consideration for the replacement of the Panzer II C with the F, Panzer III B with the Czech 35(t) and giving the T-60 higher pen ammuntion. That has been brought up before.
To counter the inevitable the T-26 has paper for armour arguments, it has the punchy 45mm gun that can in most cases 1 shot kill the panzer II and III.
iirc the first versions of pn2C was the late version that had additional armor which t-60 couldn’t pen which is why they did what they did
Why I’ve added to give the T-60 the API HV ammo to compensate and make it more comprable to the Pz II in terms of ap performance
what actually happened was that they presumably by accident put the PZ.2 F armor values on a PZ.2 C chassis
that’s not gonna help much just replace the T-60 with the BT-5 or T-26-4
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It doesn’t need 50mm gun to kill any soviet tank - none of them have more than 30mm armour, and hte T-26 and BT7 have only 15-22mm.
Plus they have small crews for even less survivability…
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So just power creep all-round… how about… NO!
I’ve been debating with myself whether to reply to this for a good while given it seems every single thread you appear in regarding Germany getting a buff is very unhelpful and reductive but after my last match I’m going to.
At what point did I say the 37mm couldn’t kill, I didn’t I said it was awful compared to the soviet 45mm.
Armour isn’t the problem here the post pen damage is, I’ve had and seen tanks dueling it out where the pz3 puts several rounds into the soviet tanks and In the case of those with the 45 and 76 put one round into the pz and it goes up in that one shot.
The only thing I have mentioned that is even close to powr creep would be the pz2f.
The rest would be bringing germany upto par with the soviet in terms of killing power in the early to mid campaign. Where the Soviet tanks thanks to the BT will retain the mobility advantage.
35(t) is no better protected towards the 45mm, is a colser comparison to the T-26 and it’s turret can be pened by the T-60.
As mentioned above the Pz3 F has the same armour profile as the E so it would still be as suseptable to being penned an one shotted as before, it would however have the ablity to one shot things back.
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And where did I say you said the 37mm couldn’t kill?
Armour IS part of the problem the P3E can angle to make life harder for the 45mm - the Soviet tanks have no such ability - they are paper thin regardless of angle, and regardless of hte German gun shooting at them.
I’ve been in games where the 38(t) has bounced multiple 45mm, and the P4E bounced multiple 76mm… as well as games where they’ve been OHK’ed by the same.
Your anecdotal evidence is worth as much as mine…
The tanks are relatively well balanced - not perfectly - but you aren’t going to get perfect. Soviets have some mobility superiority from the BT 7 but not otherwise, and the T60 has better armour than the Pz2, but hat is the only armour advantage they have. The 45mm is better than the 37mm in it’s HE effects, but all the other German tanks have better armour than ALL the Soviet tanks, and that IS an advantage for them whether it suites your purposes or not.
Adding in the P3F with it’s 50mm L42 is far too much of a correction for any minor shortcomings German tanks might have.
ETA: Just looked up WT for the P3F - note that it gets 37mm front turret armour - this makes the turret completely impervious to the 76mm of the T-28, which has only 34mm penetration for its “AP” shrapnel shell - angle it’s 30mm front and side armour a bit and it becomes a very difficult tank for hte T-28 to kill…so that’s an even bigger NO
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The armour on the Pz3E is not thick enough for angling to matter against the 45mm and nethier would the F’s.
Thee 38(t), Pz4E and T-28 gun aren’t what this thread is intended to talk about but fine we’ll touch on them.
The 38(t) has a paywall infront of it to start with and while the armour can be angled the 45mm still has the ap power to punch through it.
The Pz4E while it has a tougher hull the turret is still 30mm thick.
Sure the T-28 has the weakest gun when it comes to AP but it’s an infantry support tank and the only tank that can’t be bought that is totally impervious from the front is Pz3J.
Yes the German tanks have better armour exception being the 2C and 3B but that armour doesn’t count for anything when faced with the Soviet 45mm gun which the majority of Soviet tanks are armed with and fact you’ve brought up the 76mm says to me you know the 45mm is perfectly capable and are looking at anything to make it look like the Soviet tank force is weak.
They only have a little bit of armor but its sloped or curved trolly armor.
I’ve hit the BT-7’s turret 3-4 times with the 75mm cannon from the Panzer 4 and got richochets and ‘absorbs’. Overlapping/curved armor REALLY breaks the Dagor engine and guess who has it all?
T-26 is honestly not too effected by it, but its not uncommon to hit the UFP with a 37mm and have all the turret crew 100% fine, so they just turn the turret and 1 hit kill your whole tank because apparently 45mm soviet rounds are made of antimatter or something.