PANZER GENERAL II

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Listed below are changes to the PG2 database that I find are most in need of change or addressing.... All suggestions made below have been corrected in the Armory database. Please read on:
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AIR DEFENSE UNITS:

This is where I had my biggest gripes...

What started me off was seeing that the German Wirbelwind was rated BETTER than the Ostwind.

Oddly enough, the Ostwind was the successor to the Wirbelwind, and the Germans determined that the quad 20mm guns on the Wirbelwind just didn't bring down aircraft as well as a single 37mm gun. Strange as it may seem, the war records proved the Germans right.

In the end, the Wirbelwind was CANCELLED due to it's inefectiveness in favor of the Ostwind... yet in PG2, the Ostwind is weaker than the Wirbelwind! This was my first major gripe, and proposed game fix.

Secondly, the INCREDIBLE weakness of the 8.8cm gun in favor of much smaller guns like the quad 20mm. Why the 8.8cm gun only has an AA of 10 compared to the rating of 14 of the quad 20mm I do not know!

Lastly was the range factors... the 37mm gun had a better range than the 20mm gun, and the 20mm gun (quad or single) was really only used for point defense against direct attacks, it couldn't bring down any planes at range, yet the 20mm guns in PG2 all have a range of "2", the same as the 37mm gun, and only one less than the '88! Speaking of the '88, I was shocked to see the 3" gun, Russian 76AD gun, and US 90mm gun all rated so poorly.

Just my observations on AD...

FIGHTERS:

The Bf-109b vs Me-109e issue can be resolved easily... simply put, the Bf-109b did not carry any 20mm cannons, only machine guns, while the Me-109e did carry both machine guns and 20mm cannons, ergo the AA rating of the Bf-109b should be dropped (perhaps to 12) and the prices can remain the same... I know SSI gets a lot of flak for that one!

ANTI-TANK GUNS:

In the true spirit of prestige changes, I noticed that all of the AT guns were more or less in-jive with one-another, but really weren't any bargains when compared with the tanks... since AT guns are more or less useless without the expensive organic transport, and self-propelled AT guns are the "poor-man's tank", I didn't think that AT guns should cost as much as they did (almost the same as the same guns mounted in thier tank counterparts), so I took the liberty of lowering the price of most AT guns by approximately 24 prestige points.

Also in the AT department, the Russian 7.62 AT gun and SU-76 caught my attention...

The Russian 7.62 gun was rated VERY poorly... the 7.62 AT gun was in fact a VERY long-barreled HIGH VELOCITY gun similar to the German KwK48 or US 76. It is NOT the same gun mounted in the T-34 (it is much longer and with a much higher velocity).

When the germans captured these guns, many were mounted in the Marder II and Marder III tanks since they were so good!

The 7.62 gun should be considered high velocity with appropriate range, initiative and attack rating changes.

Furthermore, though SSI correctly changed the T-34/85 and KV-85 in the tank category, SSI forgot to change the SU-85 in the AT category! (oops)

ARTILLERY:

Didn't have any gripes here but one... SSI seemed to forget to change the ranges on most of the German SP Artillery!

All heavy artillery got a one-point range addition in PG2... but someone forgot to change the German SP Artillery, as they still have the old PG ranges of 3 for 105mm and 150mm Hummel & Wespe artillery!

This is certainly not due to any vertical elevation limit on these units, because they could all reach full elevation for maximum range fire.

Certainly the British Sexton, Bishop and American M7 & M12 self-propelled pieces all got thier full ranges, so why not the German SP artillery?

RECON:

Only one problem I noticed here... why in the world was the German transport halftrack 250/1 included in the recon category!!!???

Shouldn't that vehicle be an organic transport!?!

It is known that halftracks were used for recon, but weren't very good in the role compared to German armored cars. Why force gamers to use a vehicle for something it was never good at? Let PG2 players use armored cars for recon and halftracks for transport, just as the Germans built these vehicles with those respective roles in mind!

TANKS:

Always the controversial topic, here are my findings:

I'm still convinced the same tank should have the same stats across the board... don't know why a German Pz-IV tank is any better than a Finnish Pz-IV tank (and Finns even dejected German SS units as not being good fighters!).

PzIIA and PzIIF models should be same speed... only the PzIID was the "fast" tank.

PzIIIG comes out way too late in the game... the PzIIIG was available for the invasion of France in large numbers, but in PG2 the PzIIIG is only available well after the fall of France.
NOTE: The initial production run of the PzIIIG were 37mm armed tanks, as were all PzIII tanks in France, and it is well known that many PzIIIG's served in France!

PzIVC... big hang-up on this one... the Pz-IVC and Pz-IVD were almost 100% identical tanks with only two major differances... the Pz-IVD was slightly better armored and had one more machine gun, yet the main gun on both tanks was COMPLETELY the same.

In PG2, the PzIVC is rated VASTLY lower than the Pz-IVD especially in the HA category, the one area where the missing machine gun would surely NOT interfere with the stats... furthermore the StugIIIB also has one less machine gun than the Pz-IVD, yet it has the SAME HA and SA ratings as the Pz-IVD... I do not at all understand where the crummy ratings are coming from concerning the Pz-IVC! Don't even mention HEAT ammo, as this type of Ammo wasn't available till well AFTER both the Pz-IVC & Pz-IVD were obsolete!

Hungarian Turan I & II tanks... firstly, the release dates are ALL wrong... as both the Turan I and Turan II were well available a full year before SSI showed them! (PG2 lists them as 1943 and 1944 when the Turans were more or less no longer used!). Secondly, both tanks have very poor ratings for thier main armament... the Turan I had a good 40mm gun, a SA-3, HA-3 rating is VERY poor for such a gun, and the Hungarians were good tank crews to boot! The Turan II had a nice 75mm gun, yet has ratings belonging to a 37mm gun (SA-4, HA-7)... what's up with the Turans?

No such animal as a Panther IIF (emphasize the "F"). There was indeed a Panther II, and the ONLY ONE in existance (or ever made) is now at Fort Knox. Where did SSI come up with the "F" in Panther II? There was a Panther F model, but not a Panther IIF.

The British Churchill III & IV tanks... have VERY differant gun ratings... why? Both the III & IV mounted the 6pdr gun! In fact, the ONLY differance between the III & IV was that the IV had a cast turret instead of a welded one!

For a differant gun mounted Churchill, the V had a 95mm close-support howitzer and the VI and above carried a 75mm gun. (the Churchill VII was a major redesign with much improved armor).

American M3A1???? Why was this designation chosen for what is clearly the Stuart? The "traditional" M3A1 is "usually" the Grant/Lee tank... yet the game portrays the M3A1 with a Stuart's icon and a Stuart's stats? The Stuart is far more commonly refered to as simply the M3 (or M3 Stuart), and the Grant is far more commonly called the M3A1... The Stuart is a light tank while the Grant is a Medium tank... using M3A1 for the Stuart tends to muddle and confuse those who know the Medium Grant as the M3A1. Furthermore, the British have a Grant (with Grant stats and a Grant Icon), but why don't the Americans?

Also on the subject of Stuarts and M5's, why do they have such high stats? They have armor like the Pz-IV's and guns much stronger rated than the 37mm's that they truely were (HA-9 as opposed to the universally accepted HA-7 for 37mm's). They were traditionally thin-skinned and underarmed... why so high stats?

Speaking of strong armor and strange guns, I'd like to bring up the EARLY Soviet Armor, like the T-26's and the BT-5 & 7's... These tanks were traditionally well-gunned (if not overgunned) but EXTREMELY underarmored! Yet in PG2 it seems the opposite... they have poor gun ratings with excellent armor... why so? (the BT's for instance had 45mm guns, but get poor gun ratings, yet the BT-7 whose armor was basically as thin as the BT-5 gets a good armor rating [better than the Pz-38t for instance which is a far cry]).

Finally the T-60 and T-70... why in the world does the 7-20mm armored T-60 have a "12" armor rating, and why does the far superior T-70 have a weaker armor rating and a lower cost (when it boasts a much superior gun, and yes, it had much thicker armor!).

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SSI Tech Support

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Steven Strayer

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