Doctrine

[Entropy13]

One thing that I always kept in mind when playing a World War II game, or anything later, was the difference in how the Germans, the Russians, or anyone else, saw the use of tanks.
The Germans always went for the best quality available, and the Russians went for quantity. Most German tanks had 4 or 5 crew members, as opposed to the 3 and later 4 of the Russians.
In modern times, Russian doctrine and tank design even got worse, with the auto-loader, which, after the first shot, automatically took the barrel OFF of the target, to load another round. Other nationalities, like the USA, were going toward a tank that got better at hitting that target, not worse. I have been playing SPWAW for a long time, and I can't believe a Russian can fire that many rounds back at you, when you are the better crew, the better design, etc. The Israelis, in desert warfare, learned to train their gunners in the size of the target, to show the distance, and adjust accordingly. If you look at the kill ratios against their enemies, you will see why. And I'm not discrediting the difference in the training of the Israelis versus their enemies-if someone outnumbers you to that degree, you are willing to sacrifice your homelife to the point that they did to become the baddest dudes on the planet for the time. Just wondering what other people had to say about this. I'm not trying to be a jerk; just want to hear other opinions.
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[mkr8683]

I would argue that the lower firing rates of Soviet armor versus Germans is reflected quite well by the game. And the autoloader of a T-72 only took it off target by three degrees.

When I was a gunner on a M2A3 Bradley back in my infantry days, the A3 was considered hot stuff because the commander could lock onto a target with his independent sight. When I was done engaging a target, he could say 'target designate,' hit his lock button, and the turret would automatically turn and lock the 25-Mike Mike onto whatever he wanted to shoot, and all he had to do was pull the trigger. Sad commentary on an APC being more sophisticated than many MBTs still in service.