Tank Squad - WW2 armor and management sim

Jarhead0331 · April 28, 2025, 05:28:14 PM

This game is developing nicely. You guys should check out the latest demo. It is still a bit "janky" but it is fun and exhibiting a lot of potential. Looks like there is some pretty impressive ballistics, penetration and terrain destruction details. Also models combined arms with armor, infantry and off-map support. It is sort of a mix of War Thunder, Gunner, Heat, PC! and Steel Fury Kharkov 1942.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1498130/Tank_Squad/

Apparently, release is fairly imminent.

Destraex · April 28, 2025, 10:29:57 PM

Really happy to hear that this game is still in development. I will wait to see if they achieve coop mode though.

Jarhead0331 · April 28, 2025, 10:56:35 PM

Quote from: Destraex on April 28, 2025, 10:29:57 PMReally happy to hear that this game is still in development. I will wait to see if they achieve coop mode though.

There already is a coop mode in menu system. I haven't tried it though.

Destraex · April 28, 2025, 11:07:03 PM

Oh wow. Good news.

Skoop · May 02, 2025, 03:43:42 PM

I played the coop last summer, it works and was fun. Interesting to see what's been added since then.

Jarhead0331 · May 02, 2025, 07:41:10 PM

I've been playing this a lot. It really is a blast. Takes some time to figure out the UI and the way to interact with other squads, but stick with it and will come together. There is so much to do with your vehicles between missions too. Really neat stuff. It sort of like combines a tank combat simulator with a tank mechanic simulator and then wraps it up in a really cool Eastern Front battle simulator with infantry, support guns and vehicles and offmap assets.

DesertFox · May 08, 2025, 01:36:56 PM

Looks like this released today! Reviews for it are pretty negative, although there aren't many and I always take those with a grain of salt. I'm sure most people are comparing it to World of Tanks...

I'm still going to eventually try it out if I ever can find the time.

Jarhead0331 · May 08, 2025, 02:57:21 PM

I bought it based on my positive experience with the demo. I wish it was released as an EA title with the promise of further development. The developers seem to be active in the forum and promise to work on polish and quality of life stuff, but they do concede that they needed to release regardless of bugs due to money concerns. Hopefully, they get enough in sales to stay afloat and continue support.

DesertFox · May 08, 2025, 03:00:16 PM

I'm glad you said that... I will buy the game to support them as soon as I can. There are a lot of promising games/devs out there right now that are worthy of support. It's getting tough to figure out where to spend my time/money! :)

Jarhead0331 · May 09, 2025, 08:00:15 AM

I'm glad I bought it. The game is just as fun as the demo. Yes, it has problems. The UI is pretty ill-conceived. The AI is off. It is hard to coordinate forces and friendly AI. There are some LOS issues and ballistics are questionable. But man, few games let you assault a village on the eastern front with armor, infantry and off-map support. I was attacking a village outside of Kursk last night and as I was advancing, I heard the scream of a dive-bombing stuka, as artillery was exploding in the distance around the objective. Infantry was moving up on the left flank and armor was swinging around on the right and straight up the center. It was pretty damn epic.

I'm still trying to figure out the supply point system and how recovering tank wrecks from the battlefield and repairing them in between missions works. When not in battle, you're at your little base that has different tent areas. HQ for requesting reinforcements from reserve. Quartermaster for requesting new equipment and upgrading tank. The repair area for bringing damaged vehicles back into combat. The developers are the same guys who made the Tank Mechanic game and they have tried to incorporate some of those systems into Tank Squad. It is sort of like a game within the game. In these sequences, you're controlling your tanker outside of the vehicle in sort of an FPS mode. So you actually walk around the base area and interact directly with the various systems...and yes, you can do this in battle too. You can exit your tank and move around on foot.

I like developers who try new things, even if the implementation falls short. This game falls into the "let's try something new" category.

DesertFox · May 09, 2025, 11:46:42 AM

That sounds amazing, and you definitely just chalked them up another sale with that description!

Jarhead0331 · May 09, 2025, 01:35:43 PM

Was just playing around with the tank customizer and the repair and recycle options. It is a pretty in-depth system. All of the major components of the tanks are modeled. Turret, hull, gear box, fuel tanks, wheels, treads, etc. These can be damaged or destroyed in combat and in between operations, you can directly repair, recycle, sell, disassemble and assemble them. This can be tedious working on them one at a time, but I believe there is a way to do it automatically. The customizer is cool too. In my last battle, I capture a platoon of T-34s and two KV-1s. I could have sold them, but instead, I repainted them into German field colors and added German markings from the 2nd SS Panzer Division.

I could lose hours in just this part of the game. I mean really...lets say I have a tank with a destroyed engine. I need to either repair it, or replace it. If replacing, I need to first spawn it in the vehicle repair area. Then disassemble it and use a crane to install the new engine. Cool, but a bit nuts if I'm going to be honest.

Also, in order to make the tanks combat ready after battle, you also need resupply fuel and ammunition. You do this by loading up an ammo crate from the ammo dump and a canister of fuel from the fuel truck. You then go over to each tank and replenish. Nuts!

Like I said...points for trying new things!

Jarhead0331 · May 09, 2025, 03:21:12 PM

Here is a shot of me working on one of my captured KV-1s. You can see I have already repainted it in German colors and you can also see the detail of some of the internal components.

Destraex · May 09, 2025, 03:33:18 PM

Sounds amazing. I will consider getting this after giving it a go with a mate.

Jarhead0331 · May 09, 2025, 04:03:02 PM

One thing that really disappointed me in the last battle was the enemy spawn system. I already did not like how Russian infantry seemed to charge out of nowhere when you reach an objective and are about to take it. They always appear danger close and start lobbing molotov cocktails. Not fun.

In the last battle, I'm assaulting a Soviet airfield and there is a well defended river crossing with many dug in tanks, gun positions and infantry. I literally watched T-34s multiplying, with some sometimes nearly falling out of the sky and bouncing next to other tanks in the line. This really ramped up the difficulty unnecessarily and I found it really frustrating.

It's still an otherwise awesome game, but I have to report the bad too!