Maj. Battaglia

That's an interesting thought. I don't know if that is modeled. However, the trajectory is not going to be great if both firer and target are roughly the same level. Although the bazooka, according to George Forty, had a range of 700 yards, you could not hit much that far out. Certainly at such extreme ranges, not modeled by CM, you would have higher incoming trajectories. But at 200m or less they will be much less than 20 degrees I suspect. And relative impact angles are less important for HEAT type weapons than the AP family, anyway.

I read this book last summer and found it quite interesting. One of the things that struck me was the use of HE against armored targets. On page 31, he talks about following up an AP kill with HE against an armored car. On page 57-58, he uses HE after he runs out of AP and talks about the effects of concussion on the internal components of a tank, and I had to wonder about the degree of accuracy of that. He also uses (p. 61) HE to immobilize a jagdtiger. One other thing, not related to tank vs. tank engagements, were comments (pp. 32 & 84) about the inability of the commander to easily use the .50 cal AAMG from within the turret of the Sherman, whereas the Pershing apparently fixed the issue.

JonS, Not to be Mr. Picky, but the US did use brigades before WWI, such as in the Civil War. I can't say without further research when they got rid of them as a standard formation. But even during WWII they were there, even if not always in actual name, and were used for various purposes. For example, the four artillery battalions of an infantry division were a brigade. The Army had six Engineer Special (formerly Amphibian) Brigades. Merrill's Marauders was essentially a brigade (even though smaller than a standard infantry regiment and called a Composite Unit (Provisional)--it was led by a brigadier general). There are other examples as well. Outside of the artillery within a division, the term was used to designate independent units smaller than division, and units of an experimental or ad hoc nature. But your overall point, that they were not a standard infantry unit akin to Commonwealth brigades, is absolutelty true. As you mention, the US reinstated them as a more common formation after WWII, in the 1980s (if I recall correctly).

7.92mm

Jack and Glider, you both raise good points that are problems for gaming tactical battles (i.e. you know the enemy is on the map and likely to be evenly matched). One thing to consider, however, is that CM assumes that strategic, operational, and even some tactical-level intelligence and recon has already occurred. So in fact you, as company or battalion comander, know the enemy is on the map and you've been ordered to attack. Your scenario briefing may even provide some intel on the enemy. It is also one reason why designed scenarios are superior to quick battles. In QBs, you can reasonably deduce where the limit of the enemy setup will be as the attacker. It is unlikely there will be forces forward of that area. With designed scenarios, there can be a lot more suspense. On a big map in particular, there may be a small village you have to pass through that may contain no enemy units at all. No one in their right mind will waste ammo without first reconnoitering. Further, in designed scenarios, it is more likely that balance may not be standard, like QBs. Using victory point handicapping, reinforcements, etc., can help to make the game unbalanced at times (and unknown to the other player as opposed to QBs where handicap is announced), presenting a particular challenge to one side. But when reinforcements arrive or the victory determinations are made there is compensation. I understand how it can be frustrating when there is a flag in a small village and the attacker blows down the few buildings there. Especially when it so happens your strongest defenders are there. But that, to me, is smart tactics. You, as the defender, have to think ahead that there's a good possibility the attacker might deduce the best spots for a defender to be and somehow try to target them even before knowing if your troops are there. You have to find alternate defensive positions, have a flexible defense, and perhaps leave certain obvious places vacant or else use some sort of deceptive ploy to draw fire. In some ways, you can turn this behavior by an opponent into an advantage. Set up in foxholes behind buildings and then move into the rubble or stay put if you have good LOS after the building is destroyed. Or move into the building on the first turn and when he fires his first shells, hightail it back to the foxhole. He'll waste his HE ammo and then have little to support his infantry. Next time, if you play the same opponent, I'll wager he doesn't do the same thing.

I agree. That's why I made a distinction between unrealisitic and gamey. Even if unrealistic (for the reason I outline above) it's not gamey because it cost you quite a bit of ammo (based on your stats) and accomplished nothing (i.e. the result was hard to obtain). To me, gamey is doing something unrealistic by exploiting a game feature and is accomplished without giving up much of anything in return. Incidentally, I disagree with Jack Carr regarding blindly blowing up houses in a town. Not only is this realistic, but it uses a lot of ammo on a target you can't even be sure contains the enemy. If a town contains a dozen buildings of varying size and strength and a guy has a handful of tanks, he is going to use most if not all of his HE to demolish the buildings, and this will unlikely result in the elimination of all the infantry, even if each house contains a unit. As a defender, you should be careful about using houses as cover: don't fill every house with troops. In particular, if you have a spotter in a house, put nothing else there. The last thing you want is a spotter sitting next to a MG unit and having that MG unit draw the fire of a heavy gun and cause incidental casualties to your spotter.

I would not say it's gamey, but as others have pointed out (including Glider, posting the results), it is not typically effective. Certainly, the ammo you expend is tradeable for the low probability of success. If your opponent reverses during the turn he will be safe and you will have wasted ammo. There is a "borg spotting problem," however that can't be helped. So that does make it fairly unrealistic: it would take a long time for infantry unit A, who is under fire from opposing tank X, to direct friendly fire from friendly tank (or gun or spotter) B to some spot near enough to tank X to cause damage if tank X cannot be seen by unit B. If you are a nut for realism, I would say don't do it. What Nevermind posts is more realistic and not gamey (IMO). I have read accounts of tankers (well American anyway) choosing to use HE (or even WP!) on armored targets for various reasons. In CM the friendly AI will always choose some sort of AP unless it's all gone, so this is a way around that. However, if the target moves during the turn, you'll be doing nothing more than making nice shellhole patterns in the middle of nowhere.

Bump in case anyone has missed this. Please follow the above link for details in the General Forum thread. This will take place two days from now (Feb. 12).

Please pardon the interruption to the CM:AK Forum's usual serenity, however please see this thread in the General Forum for news about folks from the Washington, DC area getting together for drinks soon. Please post to the General Forum thread.

I have read this as well. But I have also read many first-hand accounts that say that practice did not last long. The distinctive sound they made (the "burp" if you will) caused those who fired them to at best cause confusion or panic and at worst draw friendly fire. All the accounts I have read mention that they were kept as souveniers but not used in combat (except the ones where the guy used it and got shot at by his own guys--then he pretty quickly stopped or was dead). When you say "Allied," though, I am only talking about US. I don't know about the Commonwealthers. JasonC, one note about the M3 Grease Gun: the M3A1 version was made so that by changing the barrel, bolt, and adding an adapter to the magazine 9mm ammo could be used. Although I'm not sure how readily available these implements were to troops, it would seem that all were capable of being so modified. If one had the implements it would be a fairly quick procedure.

YankeeDog, et. al., I have read a first person account from an infantryman who often carried the bazooka. He specifically talked about after his unit would get behind fortifications using the bazooka to blow down the door. Sorry about not providing a link, I'm not sure which one of the many it is, of if I saved it, or if it still is current (these memoirs on GeoCities, et. al. seem to always change). But a quick use of Google (bazooka door pillbox German) gave this example, among others: Trailblazers Thanks of course go to our own Frenchy who is the webmaster of that site.

While tootling around on the Internet, I think I found the site you are referring to. It has both symbols and military artwork (modern and WWII) that are in a font format. Pretty cool, actually. Mapsymbs

From Web Grognards, I found a link to War Gamer that has scans of various board game counter sheets. There's even one for Cassino, although it has standard unit symbology, not silhouettes. But there are other games with fancy counter art and you could be a bit creative and combine them. Of course, I'm sure having this stuff posted is a gross violation of copyright laws. But it is handy nonetheless for people like me who have lost a Polish Cavalry counter from War and Peace or an optional Fallschirmjäger Korps from Russian Campaign. Find it here.

What kind of symbology are you looking for? Just standard NATO symbols or some kind of stylized thing? If it is just NATO, you can get a .pdf guide from here, although I just tried the link and it does not seem to be working right now. Hopefully just a temporary problem. You can do your own counters with any old art program.

My paternal grandfather was a medic in Company D, 325th Medical Battalion, 100th Infantry Division which served in the ETO. Unfortunately he passed away when I was only six, so I have only vague memories of him. We have some of his things from the war, such as his "Eisenhower" jacket, and a couple of souveniers such as a German Red Cross armband and a Wehrmacht eagle with swastika worn on the brest pocket of German uniforms. Regarding the latter, I used to have this on top of my dresser; it had some corrosion on it. One day I was looking at it and realized that it was made of aluminum, which does not normally corrode. Upon closer inspection I realized the corrosion was from what appeared to be blood. It was a bit chilling. Recently his wife (my grandmother) passed away and as my father was clearing out her house he found a photo album that belonged to his father and had pictures and postcards from his time in the army. Mostly they looked to be taken after the war in the cities he was stationed in (with a few German chicks, one topless even :eek: ). There was one good picture of a knocked-out Jagdtiger and a friend in the turret of a Panzer IV. My grandmother's brother served in the army in Iran (which was a vital link in the Lend Lease program to the USSR). I think he was a radio operator. exSpecForSgt, my wife's grandfather was also in the 75th. He passed away a couple of months after my wife and I started dating, so I never met him. DingoBreath, note that the Yorktown (CV 10) is in Charleston, SC. It is well worth visiting if you are in the area. Thanks for starting this, Frenchy.