Tank Tracks

What are tank movement points based on?  In all the times I've checked numbers of the founding fathers of ASL I've found that there is a pretty solid mathematical backstory.

However, I'm pretty dubious about movement points as I am generally certain that the game is biased against the heroic Red Army.

First, let's understand what the movement point is.  It is an abstraction of the speed of the vehicle.  However, it is also reflective of the terrain, because different types of terrain cost different amounts for different types of vehicles.  Some MP expenditures are the same for everyone, which seems a bit abstracted because clearly an armored car is going to have to slow down more to make a sharp turn.

However, today I am going to reflect on the main types of tanks of WWII.  If I were going to come up with a MP system, I would take the data of all vehicles and develop a formula to condense speed into MP.  Let's compare off road top speed to MP:

If we want to base our system off of top off road speed, we see that it works out like this.  The PzKw IV had a horrific off road performance which is not reflected in the game.  However, after this, we can see that generally, the heavier a tank is the more likely it is to have a higher MP to top speed ratio.  This makes sense, because we don't want to penalize heavy tanks for making turns, etc.

What's going on with the Pershing?  It receives a rather generous amount of MP for its off road top speed.  Well, historically, it did have very poor performance and its usage was sort of road bound in the later stages of WWII.  I think a precipitous drop is warranted.  Maybe FW module players can fill me in on this.

Of course, off road characteristics isn't all there is.  What about horsepower to weight?  Let's look at these tanks in KW/T.

Power by weight tells a different story, with the Churchill and the Royal Tiger lagging.  The story here could well be more about reliability than speed because theoretically the underpowered engine could put strain on the transmission.  However, the Royal Tiger, the early version of the Tiger and the Panther all have red movement and the Tiger and Panther both have the Maybach V12 engine which had sufficient power and were pretty robust.  Clearly, with the Panther there were other issues going on with regard to the transmission and engine, but the story that it was underpowered is simply not true.  The engine had been in use for the Tiger I for about a year, so the Panther, which was lighter, could not have had "teething pains" at Kursk, at least, not related to the engine alone.  In fact, very, very few of the Panthers at Kursk were total write offs and many of those that were were not burnt out but destroyed by their crews (or captured) after suffering from transmission problems.  The M26 also comes out very poorly with regard to off road speed when considering its adequate power to weight ratio.  However, the most important story is clearly the T34/85, which stands out.  Considering how poorly it does with regard to its MP/top speed ratio, I am thinking that it really should have at least 18 movement points.

Finally, let's look at another element of tank movement:  ground pressure.  Here, I am going to present actual ground pressure numbers for these tanks in kilos per square centimeter:

Now, it is important to point out here that both the Tiger and Royal Tiger had two sets of tracks, a wide one for operation and a narrower track for road and rail transportation (the Tigers were too wide for rail transport through European tunnels without removing their off road tracks.)  I'm not entirely sure that the comparison is apples to apples here.  I'm relying on other people's data.  BUT...  what is clear is that there appear to be some mistakes in the ASL system of assigning ground pressure.  First, these are fully tracked vehicles, which have far, far lower GP than wheeled vehicles.  But the Tiger, which has normal ground pressure, here leads the pack in high ground pressure, while the Royal Tiger is roughly equivalent with the M4 Sherman (which had rather narrow tracks.)  Note, again, the T34/85 does not get any benefit from low ground pressure (nor does the Mark IV Panzer) nor does any T34 after the 1941 version.

It also makes sense to say that off road performance was FAR more important on the Eastern Front, accentuating the problems of the Tiger and, to a lesser extent, the Royal Tiger (which by the time of introduction was fighting on better roads in Poland and the Reich.)  Yet clearly the off road performance of the Pershing (which probably didn't occur often) needs to be more heavily penalized in ASL.  I'd like to look into problems with the Pershing's off road performance, but considering how little they come up in ASL, perhaps it isn't worth the time.

Here there is no argument.  The math speaks for itself.  While we can explain away the difference in GP for fully tracked vs. wheeled vehicles by difference in the MP costs for each category of vehicular movement and various modifiers for bog checks, there is really no argument to be made why the Tiger 1 has normal ground pressure just like the T34.  It just doesn't make any sense.  Especially considering the vast difference in power vs. weight the T34 enjoys.

As a quick, final look, I want to cover something about operational range.  While we don't generally care about operational issues in ASL (one of the chief downfalls of the Royal Tiger), psychologically, operational range affects speed.  If you are getting peppered with shells, you aren't generally concerned with saving fuel.  But in normal movement, high speeds mean consumption of enormous amounts of fuel, especially for heavy tanks.  The greater your operational range, the more willingness that a tank commander would have to open it up, in my mind.

Operational range:

The advantages, here, of the Soviet tanks and the M4 are too pronounced to ignore.  Further, the paltry ranges of the heavy tanks (aside from the IS series) also underscores just how crazy German tank design was later in the war.  You keep designing tanks that eat enormous amounts of fuel you don't have.  Again, the T34 is screwed.  Despite the fact that their tanks are going to drive farther than any of the other tanks examined here, Soviet tankers get a lower MP per TS ratio than any others.  Boo.

People frequently talk about the superiority of German tanks, but here we have a clear example of an advantage enjoyed by the Red Army that was completely ignored (or even warped) by ASL game designers.  Also, I think the problems related to the engine of the Panther A are overstated, so I am not showing any bias here.  Now, I know there is not going to be a new version of ASL coming out.  I know this.

But if a third party wants to put out a counter with a T34 that has 20MP and a low ground pressure, I'm buying it.