Skipper

As one soviet general (don't remember who) put it "When you have more than 150 arty tubes per kilometer [of frontage], you don't report about enemy positions - only how far own troops advanced".

Havent heard about KTs being used in soviet service, but as a result of the first encounter with King Tigers (namely 501st heavy panzer batallion at Sandomir bridgehead, 13 Aug 1944) 6th guards tank corps captured three KTs in good working condition. One (#502, currently on display in Kubinka) was found abandoned in Oglenduv complete with full ammo loadout and technical manuals. Two KTs were promptly sent to Kubinka for testing.

You are simply not well informed. I can give you five-six incidents like that just off the top of my head. Including raids on concentration camps (don't remember camp names right now).

Interesting tidbit bout the debut phase of WWII: "I once again spoke to Mr. Beck [Polish foreign minister] about politics of Germany and Poland regarding Soviet Union... Mr. Beck does not conceal that Poland pretends to Soviet Ukraine and access to Black Sea" Ribentrop, diary entry, January 1939 To put this into some context, two months later Poland participated in german "takeover" of Czechoslovakia. And five more months later was crushed by Germany, of course.

> had just come off of the production line (from > the Stalingrad factory IIRC Stalingrad factory just before it was shut down has produced some very fancy T-34s. Like, with friction bearings, no turret motor and so on - they were just trying to use whatever they had in stock to make "sort of like" tanks. On the basic principle "something is better than nothing". So, if it was one of those T-34s, then no wonder.

Afaik, standard recipe for armor plate changed quite a bit during the 4 years of war. Besides, there were large deviations from standards due to availability of rare metals in a given place at a given time. So, it's not at all surprising that one book says one thing, and another says something completely different.

> I think robustness and value were both involved. Surely enough. Actually, from below TSword's quote it looks like this is end of day - not morning - reports. > 12.7. After repelling a counterattack Pssel- > river is passed and adv. to NE into area 2 km > NW of Pole Shajew. Later to Beregowoje- > Kartaschewka road. UntStrm Köhler KIA. > 13.7. 4 Tigers in repair. Planned attack on > Kartaschewka-Prochorowka road in cancelled. > Counterattack and destruction of strong enemy > forces. All 10 Tigers out of action Can anyone clarify this?

OK, so if I understand you correctly, these are not end of day, but rather beginning of day figures. And the right way to interpret them is somethgin like this: On the morning of 12 July the unit was at 80% TOE strength, and within 24 hours taken out of action completely. However, no write-offs and within the next four days divisional repair base managed to fix them all. I wonder, if anyone has similar figures for the whole vehicles park of that division (it's safe to guess that Tigers were priority #1 to evacuate and fix).

I think, it's a lot better than nothing. Ex: QTE Experiment/experience of combat of the parts of 24 armies in period 20.7.5.8. 41 g. in the region Yelnya with the entire obviousness it revealed following main disadvantages in training of our troops:I. Pekhot.Parts have the high percentage of the soldiers badly prepared in the tactical and rifle relations and junior commanders;departments, platoons and companies in many parts were not hammered together.Questions of the combination of the fire/light of their weapon and motion are very badly depleted.It is bad with the bounds and the creeping under the fire/light of enemy, with the forward movement instead of the established/installed chains/circuits rapidly they converge in the groups (but sometimes also crowd) and substitute itself in this form under the fire/light of enemy.In infantry the necessary faith/belief in force and power of its weapon is not brought up.Because of ignorance and inability to squeeze out everything which is possible from its weapon.rifle, machine gun, grenade and mortar frequently are estimated as little effective means.On this basis is born the tendency the majority of the tasks in combat of solving by artillery, by tanks and by aviation. UNQTE

"They" here means the divisional HQ, I guess. Thing is that all these figures seem to be with one day delay (?)

Panzer division SS Tottenkopf (sp?) Number of combat-capable Pz-VI tanks in the end of day: 4 July 1943 - 11 10 July 1943 - 2 11 July 1943 - 10 12 July 1943 - 10 13 July 1943 - 0 (sic!) 14 July 1943 - 5 15 July 1943 - 7 16 July 1943 - 9 Question: how did they count them?

> The full vodka bottle has a powerful AP effect. Only on NATO and other 'potential opponent' personnel.

In some sort of operational game where a unit is tank division, difference in practical ROF of about 1.5 times would probably be about right. CM, however, uses two-dimensional model - separate spotting/targeting and reloading times. When firing repeatedly at the same target, tanks should obviously use maximum ROF (?)

> Huhh, not sure what that means? Maximum ROF (8 and 12 rpm, respectively) is determined purely by the speed of firing-loading cycle. Assuming rughly similar cyclogram, duration of this cycle is very much dependent on the weight/size of the round, i.e. caliber of the gun. When we start speaking about practical ROF, target spotting, acqisition, aiming etc, at this stage so many other factors come into play, that you can only speak about qualitative differences. Qualitatively, Pz-III had an advantage over T-34-76 in that department, thanks to things like three men turret, commander cupola and so on.

Regarding mortars, if it's a myth, it's an officially propagated one - I've heard it from my tactics instructor in RVSN training center. 76.2 mm, on the other hand, is a traditional 3 inch caliber.