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Rundstedt Sends His Best - a CMFB Comic AAR


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Bud,

Kraka-Thoom!!!  Beauty, eh?

Love it.  Am surprised IanL tried to trade 20mm lead with the Sherman.  Seems to have ended...ah...badly.  :o

Heinrich505

I get the impression he was playing shoot and scoot - with the aim of damaging components - and his driver was not up to executing the scoot part of it...

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Ah, but they are, as of December 1944. This battle is happening in January 1945, but the fuzes were available for December as well. 

Somebody with more precise information on the subject can correct me if I am mistaken, but my belief is that the VT fuses were only available for artillery—howitzers and the like. I don't think that they would have worked with direct fire weaponry, such as your tank here, because proximity to the ground would have set them off as soon as they left the tube, or soon thereafter. I don't know if the assault guns would have carried a conventional timed fuses or the facilities for setting them. I think what you have here is an in-game anomaly which happened to break your way this time. Maybe the gods are making up for their little bogging prank earlier.

:D

Michael

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Somebody with more precise information on the subject can correct me if I am mistaken, but my belief is that the VT fuses were only available for artillery—howitzers and the like.

Hmm, if I am not wrong, 105 Shermans were also used for indirect fire role missions, so it is posible that they had VT fuses too.

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Somebody with more precise information on the subject can correct me if I am mistaken, but my belief is that the VT fuses were only available for artillery—howitzers and the like. I don't think that they would have worked with direct fire weaponry, such as your tank here, because proximity to the ground would have set them off as soon as they left the tube, or soon thereafter. I don't know if the assault guns would have carried a conventional timed fuses or the facilities for setting them. I think what you have here is an in-game anomaly which happened to break your way this time. Maybe the gods are making up for their little bogging prank earlier.

:D

Michael

Hmm, if I am not wrong, 105 Shermans were also used for indirect fire role missions, so it is posible that they had VT fuses too.

That is my understanding too. In any event, I've read somewhere that the Sherman 105s were issued VT fuzes in the Pacific. I assume it's not impossible that they would also have been issued them for use in Europe, where this type of tank was more common.

I'm not an expert by any means however.

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Somebody with more precise information on the subject can correct me if I am mistaken, but my belief is that the VT fuses were only available for artillery—howitzers and the like. I don't think that they would have worked with direct fire weaponry, such as your tank here, because proximity to the ground would have set them off as soon as they left the tube, or soon thereafter. I don't know if the assault guns would have carried a conventional timed fuses or the facilities for setting them. I think what you have here is an in-game anomaly which happened to break your way this time. Maybe the gods are making up for their little bogging prank earlier.

:D

Michael

Hmm, if I am not wrong, 105 Shermans were also used for indirect fire role missions, so it is posible that they had VT fuses too.

You're both, kinda right. I think Michael's skepticism is warranted. Although the Sherman's 105 COULD fire the VT fuzed shells, the way they worked is, aiui, the way Michael described. (The acceleration armed the fuse; coming down, as it sensed ground, it would go off. Very different than modern distance-fuzed airbursts.)

Something to look at and possibly correct before release. Although, in this case, perhaps the shell was detonated by an outbound 20mm hit? Or the aerial? Or a swallow (unladen) fluttering in front of it at just the wrong time?

Ken

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In light of scarcity and the very real SAA (Safe And Arming) issues presented regarding use of VT in direct fire (goes boom as soon as armed because of ground reflection), I find it a profoundly bad idea to put VT on the Sherman 105. In the game, the Sherman 105 is conducting DF only, which is precisely the wrong way to use VT, since IF is depicted via FO. Unless BFC has figured out a way to let the M7 Priest and the 105 mm Sherman conduct IF while on the map, there is no basis whatsoever for giving either VT. This is particularly true, methinks, since we can reasonably presume that BFC won't write special code which prohibits use by either of VT in DF, while allowing it for IF. If VT's in for those two, and anything like them (Sexton, say), then I think, prior to release, it needs to be removed from the ammo loads for them. While I can foresee a few situations where VT DF might work (firing hilltop to hilltop with a deep valley between, for one), I see no point in generating the headaches and ahistorical capabilities arising from allowing VT aboard the named SPA weapons.

Regards,

John Kettler

 

 

Edited by John Kettler
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Bud,

  If this singlehanded charge by the Chaffee works, LT Blanchard is going to owe that Chaffee crew all the beer they can drink...forever!!! ^_^

  Judging from the fact that the Chaffed doesn't look like a Gypsy caravan overloaded with looted stuff, it can't be Telly Savalas's tank.

  They are bogged at a most inopportune moment, I'd say, staring up at the maws of Hell, even though the maws appears to be gun damaged at this time.

   Half a league, half a league,
space.gif Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
space.gif Rode the six hundred 5 crazy guys in a Chaffee
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
"Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death...umm...bogged again?  Come ON!!!!  Seriously???
space.gifRode the six hundred.

[apologies to Lord Tennyson...] :unsure:

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Bud,

  Couldn't resist.  A suggestion?!  My two cents...

 

Thomlinson could sense the desperation in the voice of the “Old Man.”  Those two kraut tanks hovered over the village like the Sword of Damocles.  The things you remember from high school history, he shook his head ruefully.  The rest of his crew would likely have no clue about the history of the ancients.

They needed to do something though.  If those monsters were just left there, then the Germans would fix them and then the killing would resume.

He thought about all the good men who had already died trying to stop the attack.  His best friend was the commander of the destroyed Sherman.  He was pretty sure there were no survivors.  [He didn’t know the bow gunner was alive]

Caution and prudence dictated that they reverse and seek cover.  His acting CO was asking…no, more like pleading, that they try to resolve the dangerous situation by knocking out the damn behemoths once and for all, and gaining intel on the situation.

Ah, yes, there was the crux of the argument.  They were Recon, supposed to push forward into unknown and dangerous territory, bringing back intel for the rest of the unit to act on.  That was their job.  A dirty job, dangerous to a fault, but they were good at it, very good.  He reflected on that with pride.

No choice then, he realized.  If they could end this German attack and gain a look-see over the damned ridge, the bloody ridge, then it would be worth it.

“Forward,” he ordered quietly.  “Eyes wide open…let’s see if they got anything left.”  Then he smiled for the crew to show them he wasn’t completely insane.  Inside, his guts were churning.  Every dirty job, he groused under his breath.

 

Heinrich505

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