Originally Posted by: Swished3 
What's the justification for the Priest getting 4 hit points? I don't think it deserves it. 3 would be much more fair for an open-topped self-propelled artillery piece. I don't think it should be as tough as a Sherman V....
Something with shooting the crap out of the hull??? disregarding the fact that open hull artillery vehicles weren't armored and any shot usually resulted in a catastrophe as SP's are filled with HE ammo and power charges. Which actually might be the case as I haven't played with a priest. Can any one here say how it works in the game? Do they survive a shot?
Originally Posted by: Axeman In "real life" most Russian artillery would be towed
And adding: -In "real life" real self-propelled artillery (except for Russian as their use of the term of "artillery" differs slightly from the western allies or the Germans) didn't participate in tank engagements unless it was more then >5km between you and any enemy tank. :P
Originally Posted by: Zerstorer The SU-76 would give the Soviets an indirect fire artillery “tank” for the game. Similar to the Priest, it’s open-topped. It’s 76mm gun is decent for antitank work as well. Crew ergonomics were poor, but the Russians made do. Here is a good read on the SU-76:
http://www.4bogreen.com/...016.pdf/at_download/file Power point pdf presentation?
I can fill in that SU-76 was pretty much the Russian answer to the STUG III with several "all thoughs".
First it was intended as a light multipurpose; both direct artillery support tank (~German Stug/Stupa-Sturmpanzer), and tank destroyer (Marder). Soviets don't make difference in the roles as both antitank and direct artillery support is considered simply to be "artillery" whenever on tracks or not, and where "towed artillery" generally is equivalent to allied indirect artillery. But... the SU-76 also had features in the actual design details to incorporate it to act as a mediocre indirect piece if needed, this the German Stug or Marder generally was not intended for.
I say "medicore" as its guns is not a howitzer but a field/antitank gun with a restricted elevation in comparison to real SP artillery and with a very flat trajectory. The SU-76 units (as far as I know) did not have the organic "fire control centers" needed to calculate indirect fire as real indirect artillery units have, but had to attached to towed artillery HQ's or simply improvise with spotters. The SU-76 regiment was more of a general tank regiment.
Fuel lines was also open in the hull so any hit sprayed the crew and ammo rack with fuel setting it on fire. Other issue was that the driver had huge problems getting out of his little hatch so most of the times it was a one man grave.
Another consideration and what many laymen in WWII tank history also generally don't take account of, as its quite rare, is that in emergency all types of turreted or non turreted armored vehicles was capable of indirect fire support. All though not as effective as true artillery, shooting off precious shells and wearing out gun barrels it was used when needed.
Also as pointed out in game many (mid-late war types Western allied and German) had equipment for a sort of "semi-indirect fire".
By using additional, sometimes external sighting/ranging equipment on the turret roof, the commander could fire over cover higher then the hull/turret of the tank.
Exploiting the sighting equipment to target the enemy tank the commander could elevate the gun to higher angles than the gunner was able to keep track of the target in his sight (now basically looking into the sky above the horizon) and engage by order from the commander. But as far as I see it equipment was scarce and tanks usually was used in operations far more offensive then being able to make use this equipment (on german tanks it was stored inside of the tank and you had to spend some time setting it up, oh... and it was used on tanks in firing positions, you couldn't drive around with it).
With this said I can just good luck this game forward and hope for the SU-76, some different models of cheap Marders/Hetzer, the PzIV/70 and maybe some anti-tanks guns, immobile, placed close to friendly set up (being as ineffective as they wore and as effective as they could be at times :) )
/Slim