hey!

i was wounderign if anyone could recomend me the best ww2 tank sim?

another qouestion....can you eran medals and promotions in panzer elite or panzer comander?

Panzer Commander may or may not work for you, if you have Windows XP and a graphics card with newer drivers. I can get it to run on my FX5900 with current drivers by disabling "real physics" in the game options, but I get odd graphics anomalies in game (turret is sitting offset from the tank not on it). Didn't have this with older drivers but I'm in no rush to roll thenm back to get PzC to work.

If you can get PzC to work, it's got its little foibles but it's not bad, decent range of vehicles, easy to pick up, some good careers and single missions, and a bundle more of both (was?) available at wargamer.com. No separate infantry figures and the field defences look crappy but still it's not that bad a tanksim. About 6 out of 10.

Panzer Elite is a better tanksim in most respects, at least if you apply one of the many excellent mods avalable (don't use the ones that come on the Special Edition bonus CD, download the latest versions from the net). It's a bit clunky with tanks teetering jerkily over the angular landscape. Shells travel instantly so there's no decent tracer round effect, and there infantry but the're crude sprites, while AT guns have invisible crews. The canned missions are mostly pretty unmilitary, with rather erratic briefings and objectives whose achievement often involves your tank troop/platoon having to wandering around the rather empty battlefield, more like schoolboys on a paperchase than a tank unit in a properly-co-ordinated company-level military operation.

But PE's about the best there is now, for WW2. Modded, I'd give it 7-8 out of 10. There's an improved user mod in the offing too, which will further improve grahics and gameplay.

I think you can earn medals in PzC, there's a nice little award ceremony clip. Not sure about promotions. Can't remember about PE, was never a medal-chaser anyway

My all time favourite is Panzer Commander; I still fondly remember my time playing in the campaign of the 21st Panzer Division. Panzer Commander was a game that was not only was entertaining, but you also learnt an interesting history lesson as well, as you progressed through the various campaigns. They were quite historically correct as far as the dates of battles are concerned.

Panzer Elite was a more realistic attempt at a WW2 tank sim, at an operational level (however the ballistic modelling was highly questionable); also the graphics are sub-par, even when it was first released. This, however, is subjective and ultimately is down to your personal view. For me, I much preferred the older Panzer Commander 3D graphics.

thanks for the info, guys!

i think i´ll try panzer elite...it runs on windows xp, right?

Frankly WWIIOnline, on a purely sim level, is pretty good in the tank department. Live targets are nice also, but otherwise you will probably find that the game gets in the way of the sim.