wokelly

I just got back into the game and I am encountering this problem. Was this fixed or is there a patch I am unaware of? Because this thread was made a year ago, I can't believe this would not be fixed in 12 months. But I can't find anything anywhere. The commonwealth infantry sections, which were never exactly top notch at dishing out suppression, is now basically incapable of suppressing anything.

Tank riding was used by the Canadians during their advance to various village on June 7th and by the Queens Own Rifles at Le Mesnil-Patry on June 11th. Certainly the men were expected to get the heck off the tanks when receiving fire, but it was a legit means of moving men around quickly. It was also used heavily by US infantry and US Independent Tank Battalions in the aftermath of Operation Cobra to get infantry around quickly. The work load involved is a valid reason to not include it (or at least have a staggered rework of tanks). Saying it was not historical is not a valid reason IMO because it was used in the west. It was not an offensive tactic, but it was used to move infantry around quickly which can be useful in this game as well given the size of some of the maps.

This is not entirely true. By 1918 the British had developed a "standardized" version of the creeping barrage that could be used on the fly (relatively speaking). This was used heavily during the 100 days battles as the tempo of operations increased. It was not as effective as the more detailed planed barrages, but could be called in when there was not time for lots of planning. Certainly they were not meticulously planned. I always felt it was missing from the Commonwealth forces in CMBN, as we have battalion sized battles and rolling barrages on that scale were used quite frequently. Case in point the Shadow of the Hill battles, mission one you have to take a farm complex where your outgunned British infantry really tend to do badly against the SS guys Dug in there unless you bring up the churchills close. Historically the Farm House was overrun rather quickly as the Wessex men came in right behind a massive creeping barrage on a 3500 yard front! I really do wish there was a creeping barrage feature. It should be planned by the guy who makes the mission and be uncontrollable to the player. However the current means in game can not simulate it even reasonable correctly. Even trying to make it a "before mission starts" by making some units suppressed at the start doesn't work as the barrages would go for several hundred/thousand of yards deep and those units farther in the map will regain their composure by the time you make it there as nothing is suppressing them.

I have played this one, the Mark IVs with their flatter trejectory guns have an advantage over the Shermans. The Fireflies tend to be the only tanks able to reply effectively due to their own flat trajectory guns. Best bet is to hide your tanks behind houses and foilage and wait for the Mark IVs to get close.

I dunno, 45mm sloped won't stop much.

My problem with comparing the body counts of Hitler and Stalin, is that we know Stalin's total body count because he reigned for over two decades until his natural death. Hitler was in power for a shorter time, and his reign was cut short by a bullet. You look at Nazi plans for Russia, the planned extermination of the majority of the slavic population in areas occupied by the Germans, Hitlers body count would have been much higher than what stalin managed had he not been defeated. The soviets were no way good guys, but its pretty clear IMO who was the worst on the eastern front (it was the Nazi's).

Despite the presence of some big guns, I think the Russians will sit somewhere between the Americans and British for AT capability. The tanks with the big cat killing guns (IS2, ISU-122) are simply too rare at this point to see them in game in any real numbers, the I/SU-155 is not really designed to kill enemy tanks (low velocity gun, low rate of fire), nor will it be effective at long range to compensate for the lack of a long range tank killer. Even then, as far as Russian standards go it was not a machine built in large numbers (~6000). Except in specific situations where these things are attached to Soviet tank units, they won't be seen often. The bread and butter of Soviet forces are still T-34/76's with about a third T-34/85s. The 85mm is not really better in the AT department then the American 76mm (better HE shell), nor is the SU-85 going to be better than say the M10 at killing enemy tanks. The APCR will help, but unlike HVAP, it loses velocity rapidly and is only really useful within 1000 yards. Terrain in Russia allowed for longer range fighting and the Soviets don't have any real capability to accommodate that fact. 85mm not really comparable to the 17 pounder though obviously a much better HE shell. For all intents and purposes, they will be better off than American units in this time frame for killing panzers (very few 76mm Shermans, nothing with 90mm guns), but worse than the Brits who have relatively high numbers of 17 pounder guns, and even 57mm guns with APDS.

Ostkrieg: Hitler's War of Extermination in the East I would highly recommend. Its a single volume work on the eastern front but with (circa 2011) the most up to date historiography (views in historical community). Its very good at showing how the battles and campaigns fit into Hitlers genocidal war against Jews and Slavs, and how his world view led him to make many of the bizarre decisions he did. Also good at disproving many of the decisions Hitler gets blamed for by Generals trying to hide their own mistakes (Ie Manstein initially advised against withdrawing from Stalingrad during the soviet encirclement, and his views played a big role in Hitler keeping them there. After the war Manstein wrote out his decision to make it look like he was always against it and it was all Hitlers fault). Having read a lot on the eastern front, probably the best single volume work that covers the overall conflict. Pretty sparse on the tactical level, but good on making you understand why things happened the way they did.

I've actually had the opportunity to shoot all three on a limited scale. MP40 is very easy to control on burst fire and fully automatic, surely a great range weapon. The Sten is very similar due to using the same round, the big issue that can affect accuracy is the side magazine which unbalances the weapon and tends to throw the gun around a bit when firing. I understand why you see so many picture of people firing the gun holding the magazine, it helps with the accuracy by stopping the heavy magazine (when loaded) from pulling the gun around. They are pretty comparable (Sten did jam on me twice though). Thompson actually scared me, very hard to hold on to on fully automatic but reasonable enough firing bursts. Funny enough, Canadian soldiers from Italy who swapped Thompsons for stens found the 9mm quite inadequate for putting down Germans with. Makes me wonder if the Thompson, while ranking last on a peace time range, would rank first in combat for being controllable enough and very lethal.

So when do we get them Wasps and Crocodiles? As for the Brits needing two sections to match the firepower of one German section, I can believe that. Luckily the Brits tended not to go into battle minus lots of artillery and tanks so the difference was made up with supporting arms to a degree.

If memory serves, by 1944 the Mark IVs were factory built with the side skirts on, at least on the turret. Given the constant transfer of Panzer units from one front to another, I imagine the side skirts were on simply out of convenience. Also entirely plausible it was psychological, to make the Allies think they were tigers. The Mark IV crews by 1944 had a rather low opinion of the tanks armour protection (there was some nickname, 'something thin beard' or other), probably felt every bit helped. Again I have never seen any kind of tests to show the side skirts were ever effective at degrading the effectiveness of HEAT rounds. Given the American's reaction to finding their guns inadequate in Normandy (many tests done on captured panthers), you'd think you would see similar panic if the primary infantry AT weapon was rendered useless (bazooka and rifle grenades).

I have never seen anything to actually suggest side skirts had any effect whatsoever on HEAT warheads from Bazooka's or Piats. You need a fair amount of space to actually start to degrade the molten jet, something like the equivalent of 3-4x the diameter of the round before anything starts to weaken. The side skirts were never spaced far enough away to have an effect. I saw someone do theoretical calculations on the WWIIOL forum years ago, I think the conclusion was that it may stop a penetration by a bazooka round hitting at a very steep angle, like 60 degrees. If the German actually felt they had an effect, I think you would have seen them on Panthers and Tigers. Both tanks were vulnerable to side shots by zooka/Piat's, yet they never got any protection like the Mark IV. The panther had some skirts for its lower hull around the tracks, but that was because Russian ATRs could penetrate there. Makes me think the Germans were unaware of any benefits against HEAT warheads, or that there were no benefits. Not sure how the game handles them.

They had the option of delay fuzes. I have read in one or two books about HE rounds being fuzed to blow through bocage and detonate on the other side.

Allied tankers had a much lower turnover rate compared to infantry in terms of human losses compared to unit strength, but it does seem tank casualties had a higher fatality rate than infantry. For infantry it was like 1:3-4 KIA:WIA. In tanks it was closer 1:1 or 1:2 KIA:WIA. You are also not really maimed for life as infantry if you are wounded. From the US army's own data: Total WIA in WWII: 592,170 Total returned to service overseas: 363,196 So slightly more than about 60% returned to active service in their respective theaters (doesn't specify if frontline or not).

^^^^^ Yeah, there are certainly examples from WWI I have read where an attacking unit suffers heavy losses rushing an enemy position, reach the enemy position and just then the enemy throw up their arms in surrender. It seems to have enraged the soldiers that the enemy dared slaughter them until a point when they felt their own lives endangered and then gave up. The soldiers proceeded to shoot and bayonet every single German in the trench until every last one was dead. From everything I have read, you have two types of killings of surrendered men. The first is in the heat of combat, where blood must be answered with blood or you simple cannot spare the men to watch them or escort them back. The other is the more infamous behind the lines slaughter of POWs. The first I can understand, the second however is warcrime IMO. The safest way to surrender is in between combat rather than during it, ideally in a large group. Another good tactics caught on video: British use German POW to entice other Germans to surrender: http://www.britishpathe.com/video/invasion-scenes-43/query/WW2 (go to 3:41 on the video) American use German Officer to entice other Germans to surrender http://www.britishpathe.com/video/invasion-scenes-europe-70 (Go to 1:08)