Joachim

The ATRs were more than 200m from the HTs - so few ATRs I had to protect them. ATRs don't kill HTs - sometimes they got crew kills. But the remaining crew member did not bail as they were vet or crack. DShKs worked better, but limited ammo, rarity and distance to save the few available meant their overall effect was neglible. M5s with quad .50cals and lots of ammo worked well at 400-600m vs the front of the 251s. Below the MG42 of the 251s worked better vs the thinner armor of the M5s. Molotovs.... Never came close enough for those. 251s are open topped and spot like inf - even the last remaining man. Dismounted crews spotted well - and 2-man HT crews are as stealthy and hard to hit as 2-man teams. Add borg spotting... It was a campaign where Soviet inf was scarce initially. I had issued orders to conserve inf so I could not waste them myself. So Molotovs were not used. And in that battle there where about 30+ HTs vs 2-3 ATRs, 2-3 DShKs and 2 M5s - to little to make much effect. T34s hunting HTs quickly died to German tanks in overwatch - not many attempts on that either. Most effective where 76mm inf guns at ranges of 400m. Especially when opening up with one 76mm vs HTs and one 57mm taking care of tanks. Of course the guns did not last long once the surprise was gone.

@Vark: This is an example of the "stationary" exception - scroll down to the last post http://the-battle-of-lauben-campaign.foren-city.de/topic,463,60,-phase-2-spotreps-all-fighting-commanders-to-report.html And I did more tests for that one: http://the-battle-of-lauben-campaign.foren-city.de/topic,815,75,-phase-4-battle-j5.html The sappers are in the lower right edge, as is a TH team. The original situation saw the Panther 250 up, to the right of the woods, just below the 2 T34s which were far away then. One vet sapper squad in command range of a max bonus HQ near the Panther.... a German inf squad most likely would have done the job. SOP for my opponent: Running his HTs 50m in front of my inf. Those couldn't even kill HTs.... ....except for one lucky hit vs a JPzIV that was done by sappers advancing inside trees. Compare the AT capability of Soviet inf with their German counterparts... especially late war. schreck, zook = good PIAT = standard RPG = substandard in range, but better performance than PIAT when in range ATR = forget it faust = good German tools early war, satchel charges = standard Molotov = forget it The Soviets need specialized THs with RPGs for a job almost any German inf squad can do. Satchel charges are the best toy for Soviet sappers - worse than the tools of most German inf squads. Plain Soviet inf squads have no effective AT weapons. Gruß Joachim

RPGs only come with some TH teams. Extensive tests in March '45 showed that Soviet inf is abysmal at killing tanks. Exceptions are sappers in stationary positions with good cover and low viz or TH teams with RPGs. A test row of rushing (advance, assault) a vet sapper squad from 45m at 10 o'clock vs a lone buttoned Panther resulted in failure. The Panther survived all 10 tests - the sappers were lucky if they survived.

Never did much with MM, but are your Windows Desktop screen resolution and game resolution the same? To change game resolution, rename the prefs file in the game folder, then start the game and cycle thru the available resolutions. If this does the trick, rename the prefs back to get your standard settings again.

You need a command line from the spotting unit. If another HQ wanders by it might take over the mortar. Apart from that, any HQ will do. Dust is a major problem - if the mortar fires into the LOS line between HQ and target then LOS is blocked. No LOS - no barrage. So set up the mortars to the sides of the HQ, not straight behind it. Checking the wind direction helps, too. If you target an enemy gun, even the dust that gun kicks up might block LOS.

Hunter - thank you for trying it! Gruß Joachim

Best Wishes to you and your family! From all of 3 GTA at Lauban Gruß Joachim

That would ruin the entire business of all grogs!

1.) Use "advanced search", search for posts instead of topics and enter an author. 2.) Search the archives only 3.) ROW does not work as a search phrase - it is too short. "Invitational" brings up lots of results

bump........

John, the link provided above is a pretty good arty primer by Treeburst155. It is not my work. I just quoted it as I was too lazy to test myself - and knew this thing was out there somewhere. Gotta bump it a bit, it deserves it. Gruß Joachim

John, you are wrong. Below a link and the relevant excerpt. Maybe the whole post is relevant to Fritz. Gruß Joachim CM Artillery Synopsis [Treeburst155] http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?p=35246&highlight=artillery+parallel+edge+board#post35246 Impact Patterns for Guns You have two choices here, "target wide" and "target". The first gives you a circular impact pattern. I like to make sure friendlies aren't within 120 meters of the target point when using "target wide". Most rounds will fall inside a circle of this radius; but even at 120 meters distance, friendlies are at risk. With the "target" command you will get an elliptical impact zone, the deadly area being about 160 meters by 80 meters centered on the target point. The orientation of the long dimension of the ellipse can be north/south or east/west, depending on how the friendly map edge parameters are set. When the north map edge is friendly to one side, and the south edge friendly to the other, the long dimension of the impact pattern will be north/south. If one side has the west edge friendly, the other the east, the long dimension of the arty pattern will fall east/west. In cases of ambiguity, the program will cause the long dimension of the impact pattern to run east/west. This means that in most cases arty will fall parallel to the axis of advance, rather than along the front lines; but a tricky designer can easily make it so the impact pattern is the opposite of what is expected.

IIRC the AI targets not just flags but spotted units for a prep barrage. Are the lorries in the open, in good view of AI units? This should do. If not, try valuable units like tanks.

http://www.nachlassdatenbank.de/viewresult.php?sid=23f06f73496a37f547957 http://www.nachlassdatenbank.de/viewsingle.php?category=B&person_id=1817&asset_id=1981&sid=23f06f73496a37f547957#condition Nachlass = inheritance Datenbank = database The "inheritance database" is published oline by the German federal archive in Freiburg. Breith's inheritance is listed as available in the archive in Freiburg (SW Germany). It consists of papers including diaries from Russia, Hungary and the western front. Part of the inheritance is in private hands - no notes online whether these parts are in the archive or not. Volume is 0,2metres - ie 20cm on a shelf. Index only available on paper Guess Jentz et al read those papers in Freiburg. Gruß Joachim

give them additional quality and the problem is gone. All troops act as one level lower, so if you want "real" regulars go for vets. This works in scens, should work for PBEM. After all the Soviets in '41 have the equivalent of Tigers in stock, but at a reasonable price. It pings most tank guns, even from the flanks. Massed T34s in '41 are just as bad as massed StuGs in '43. The pen figures for US 76mm is overrated Absolutely. And don't ask about JPzIV/70 in '45. These shrug off 122L48. But assault gun turn rates are bad. Which makes it pretty interesting to counter them. But it might be more for vets. For conscript players CMAK might have an advantage here. Or just ignore certain months in CMBB if you play against cherrypickers. Which is worse if you own turretless guns. Tough for StuGs. Any tank that can't kill its opponent with plain AP and has AP is prone to cower. PzIVf with lots of HC cower from Shermans at 200m - even vs the flank of buttoned tanks. This feature is in CMAK, too. Try '45 and you will see T34M44 not cowering from JPzIV/70 if the latter are id'd as Stug? only. Which is pretty annoying, too - if you already id'd the enemy from gun sounds and deflecting shots. Can be dealt with in scens. Could be dealt with in AAR screens - but then you gotta calculate. If you don't play for the AAR screen victory points, then it does not matter anyway. Wait.... (unmodded) CMAK has Africa and Italy, CMBB has Finland down to the Black sea, Berlin to Stalingrad. Even for the Western Allies, the Med was a sideshow. And for the Germans, anything except the east front was a sideshow. If the question is which one to buy if you buy only one, it is CMBB. If the question is which one first, it might be CMAK. You'll buy the other one a few month later anyway. But the bundle is cheaper than two single games. So I suggest the bundle. Gruß Joachim

Six. I met 5. Females? The one who did the Hamstergrenadier mod comes to mind. Long time ago...

[OT] 5 players in one town? Well, I even happened to met 5 CM players on a wedding once [/OT] McIvan is in NZ. But I guess there are lots of people playing PBEM who will discuss moves even during the game.

Just spread your troops. The interior (away from outer walls) of large stone buildings is a good place to survive a barrage, as is the rubble from buildings. So have only a few men (halfsquads, LMGs, ATR,...) as lookouts, rest hidden deep inside. Once the building gets damaged, you can enter the sewers for a while or rush somewhere else. Once dropped, rush back in. Troops in sewers are not affected by buildings collapsing above them. They'll just return to the rubble. It is usually direct HE that destroys buildings. The chances of several arty rounds hitting a house till it collapses are too low if it ain't 170mm+ rounds so I would not care much about arty when _deep_ inside buildings anyway. That is if you don't fear direct fire HE concentrations on single buildings already damaged from the arty barrage.

KOSAVE data: Kursk operation simulation and verification exercise. Lots of data. http://dialspace.dial.pipex.com/town/avenue/vy75/data.htm Gruß Joachim

Your move was much better as you had some intel and a clear objective. Still risky, but well worth the risk. Could have stressed that a bit more. Regarding Jo's StuGs, I think StuGs need targets before moving, so it is ok to wait for them. The big mistake was lack of inf protection for them - and wasting the light AFVs that could also provide cover vs your Stag or act as eyes or decoys. IRL lack of turrets was made up by close coordination with inf. Stugs were mobile pillboxes - or armored, mobile IGs. IIRC StuGs moved "infantry first". Lots of inf and lots of StuGs to avoid open flanks. Not well suited for dense terrain - except if inf covers their flanks. You had a company sized battlegroup on a map that might have seen a regiment or even a division (with losses). Put a regiment on it and it will be much easier to coordinate inf and AFVs. Given the existing map and forces, I would have opted for the following: - Light flanking force, acting as decoys and eyes. Not pushing them too far, just giving advance warning. One unit per side watching your rear, 1-2 units trying to infiltrate the enemies rear - either from both sides or just from 1. - Mortars providing smoke is a good idea - but they are slow and can't protect themselves. I would have split them, ideally one coordinated with a section HQ on a flank, the other with a plt. Could have wrecked havoc on your 25pdr or Wolverine. - Lots of half squads. Whoever gets ambushed on the street dies - whether a halfsquad fires at a squad or a squad at a halfsquad. Halfsquad reduce losses and add fighting power as you can cover a bigger area. The trouble is the command range, but a company has 3 plt HQ with 4 halfsquads each, a Co HQ with 4 halfsquads - and 2 halfsquads as flank recce. Proper use of halfsquads sees the LMG team a bit back. Lots of markers on one flank might trick the opponent into believing all of your force is there. You will suffer a morale penalty - but only for one half of the squad. The other fires back and stops the enemy from closing in for the kill. - I would not expect arty that really hurts in large stone buildings. So AFVs are not arty magnets for their CS inf. Besides there are no really good places for FOs in dense terrain. So AFVs indicating inf positions is not a problem. Having an inf screen ahead instead of "inf close support" around the AFVs moves the AFVs a bit from the inf, so reduces intel for the enemy. - Then it is just a wide line of inf in the center, AFVs behind that screen and eyes on the flanks - except for the increased inf screen this resembles your basic plan - Find: inf - fix: inf - suppress: AFVs - destroy: inf (only suppressed targets) and AFVs

Comments based on what I saw in the thread. Thus I may be wrong with my conclusions. Both sides showed little coordination between inf and AFVs. Both sides used light AFVs as expendable. Your Stag was well timed - but had lots of luck it wasn't killed by a faust on the approach march. Jo's SdKfz had less luck. In such a dense terrain StuGs need close cover and recce from inf. That was Jo's big mistake. Mutually supporting positions - ie both facing each other with at least 100m between them on narrow streets or both facing one direction with 100m to the nearest crossroads and inf covering the rear. Plt 2 is positioned so it has covered approaches to plts 1 and 3. Not a bad place for a reserve. But with limited troops the reserve can double as guards for the armored reserve. The small foot flanking forces could act as a diversion. But they are pretty far from the action - which makes it possible to ignore them, reducing their value to almost null. The fast moving ACs were pretty much in the center. Combining these forces, using the ACs as transport - if possible - would have been better.

My advice is save&reload if a turn doesn't play as intended. If the plan fails only once, it is bad luck. If your plan fails several times, it is your mistake. Try to change your plan a bit and compare the effects. Learning from advice is one thing, but learning from your own mistakes will improve your ability to plan turns that run smoothly - just like Tux in his current AAR

Timing (and the corresponding micromanagement) is a key element in CM. You can take risks dueling it out. Or you find and exploit a situation where you can get off some shots without any return fire. Looks like Tux masters this, too.

"area fire" is the orange line.

Go to the Tech support sub-forum in the CMAK forum for more details. It deals with CMBB issues, too Gruß Joachim