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2 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

Not the brightest bunch.. wouldn't the guy in charge be the one who actually knew stuff?

Yeah really.  Next soldier “I don’t know the answer to your question, but the guy you just shot had just gotten back from the briefing with HQ”.  

I suspect that anecdotal story is just soldier BS. Yeah I am sure there are some incidents, but not a routine practice. 

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32 minutes ago, sburke said:

Yeah really.  Next soldier “I don’t know the answer to your question, but the guy you just shot had just gotten back from the briefing with HQ”.  

LOL although I'm not sure if a smart aleck remark would be the best choice in this situation.

 

32 minutes ago, sburke said:

I suspect that anecdotal story is just soldier BS. Yeah I am sure there are some incidents, but not a routine practice. 

Yeah that level of war crime (cause that's what it would be) if used routinely would have been all over the documentation of the war.

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3 hours ago, Aragorn2002 said:

It's all over the German documentation. And it didn't start after Malmedy.

Documenting hearsay doesn’t make it true 😀

seriously there were undoubtedly war crimes on both sides.  It is true of every war and every side. What isnt usually true is that it is as routine as you’d think from some sources in different periods. 

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9 hours ago, sburke said:

Documenting hearsay doesn’t make it true 😀

seriously there were undoubtedly war crimes on both sides.  It is true of every war and every side. What isnt usually true is that it is as routine as you’d think from some sources in different periods. 

Perhaps you're right. Apart from that, we can't imagine how it is to be in a war like ww2. Trying to survive in such misery, constantly getting shot at, constantly too cold, too hot, hungry, sick, no sleep or not enough, seeing comrades getting wounded or worse, worries about your loved ones etc. etc. And on top of that all that propaganda rubbish from both sides. If that's not enough to make you hate, nothing is.

I'm not sure whether I would have been in the mood to take prisoners.

Edited by Aragorn2002
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My pixeltruppen shoot up surrendering enemy troops with disturbing frequency. Obviously they think its unfair that their opponents can use a Geneva Convention "Get out of War free" card and embrace the safety of captivity while they have to carry on risking life and limb.

Either that or the TacAi never got those Laws of War lectures...

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21 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

Not the brightest bunch.. wouldn't the guy in charge be the one who actually knew stuff?

Good point. I think part of it was just hatred and anger. The para said they were usually easy to spot with arrogance, a sneer on their face etc.

Mind you this wasnt an interrogation to say get info about spies or somethung - this is info that probably lots of the other German troops would know

e.g. Are there tanks? Whats around the corner?

@sburke I thought it was anecdotal at first too.Upon reflection I dont think so. He spoke in first person terms like he was there. He didnt gloat or anything. Just had that hardbitten cold truth look infantry vets have.

Again anevdotal stuff whem it involves war crimes is rarely mentioned in the first person - though Ive been seeing a lot more of it in recent interviews and its making me wonder if its an old age get it off my chest thing.

This includes interviews with Waffen SS that admitted to being in killing squads. Waffen SS being told if they took black PoWs to kill them on the spot but break their necks not "waste"  bullets.

The American paras story. Again I think you fellas are all thinking high level intelligence when the GIs probably wanted to know something like "are you a patrol or are there others etc?"  This is probably whythe shootinh was important. It was more relevant to the on the spot in that moment info they were after - stuff that would be worthless after the PWs were processed.

Theres also an imterview with the US pilot Bud Andersen ( actually I have to recheck that name ) who. himself on his own words saw a German pilot purposefully machine gunning American aircrew in parachutes. He chased the German down shot him down let him bail and emptied his 6 .50 calibers into him.

Can old men lie? Absolutely. Does age affect memory? Absolutely. Would I sit and call any of these men who are verified to have been the places they were and NONE of us were at liars? Absolutely not.

Edited by Sublime
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Trying to get this thread back on track, after reading the comments about role-playing the game and also reading the document "Command Friction" from Bil Hardenberger and Peregrine rules. Most of if, not all of it, is for WW2 scenarios. Is there one for modern battles?

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Nidan1 and I used to roleplay a PBEM campaign in BS.  Basically we were allowed 1 light bttn sized group. We.d keep track of AFVs and MBTs lost and delete them in following engagements. 

We.d throw in special stuff like a random night infantry only battle where say the Ru player had to goto buildings ans hold them 10 minutes to simulate going through files and sabotage. If they won they say there wouldnt be Blufor air support next battle or no resupply.

We kept looser track of infantry but would delete squads or platoons just by adding up KIA/WIA figures.

IIRC he got strykers and Ukrainian until the 5th day when he got Abrams.

I had 2 BTGs - one T90A one T72B3.

Ill look for the file we had. The initial rules were VERY loose anything went as long as it was both ok.d to a previous battle.

 

As for as advancing and retreating we had a rule units in last tile had escaped even if KO.d later.  We basically operated on a 2 cities 1 town 1 vill 1 wilderness then same other way. Campaign started in wilderness and as battles went one side would progress towards the more urban area of the other side eventually winning the campaign if it won at the 2nd city battle.

We never finished it but it was a lot of fun.

RIP buddy.

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37 minutes ago, JohnO said:

Trying to get this thread back on track, after reading the comments about role-playing the game and also reading the document "Command Friction" from Bil Hardenberger and Peregrine rules. Most of if, not all of it, is for WW2 scenarios. Is there one for modern battles?

Not that I am aware of.  However I use a modified version of Peregrine's rules for both WW2 and modern that I'm happy with.  One of the things I find interesting about the rules is modifying them to make them work in different circumstances.  IMO Peregrine's rules are an excellent base to start with.  I add to the rules and modify them as needed.  Bil's rules are also very good but I struggled with the Excel document and in the end made a Unit Tasking form on a Word Document to use with a modified version of Peregrine's rules.   

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1 hour ago, MOS:96B2P said:

Not that I am aware of.  However I use a modified version of Peregrine's rules for both WW2 and modern that I'm happy with.  One of the things I find interesting about the rules is modifying them to make them work in different circumstances.  IMO Peregrine's rules are an excellent base to start with.  I add to the rules and modify them as needed.  Bil's rules are also very good but I struggled with the Excel document and in the end made a Unit Tasking form on a Word Document to use with a modified version of Peregrine's rules.   

Is it possibly to send me those Word documents?

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On 6/18/2018 at 1:12 AM, Erwin said:

What is this?  Never heard of it.

What? Really? Pretty good tactical series, well, since quite a while two families. The original branch with quite some Civil War games and the other about Napoleon‘s 100-Day Campaign.

The games have some interesting concepts:

- One can choose the his own level in the Army. Means you can lead a brigade, division or the whole army, as you like.

- A Commander has very limited control of sub-ordinate or other units. I once played a Civil War battle as Division Commander. Had my line finally nicely arranged. And then one of my bloody Regiment Leaders decided, it was time for his Regiment to chase the Confederates over an open field. The rest ended in a desaster.

- As indicated above, subordinates act very independently. As Commander you can „shout“ to nearby units and have them fairly well under control. If you want to direct units further away, a rider is despatched to deliver your order. I.e., the order anyway is delayed due to his travel time or the messenger can be killed on his way and your order will never be delivered or the message is delivered and then it is up to the receiving officer how to react to it. Obviously, he may decide to completely ignore your order.

- you can „see“ only, what the currently activated Commander sees, adding quite some Fog of War.

Interesting system, though it has a steep learning curve and can be quite frustrating.

If you like Civil War or Napoleonics, check SoW out at Matrix Games.

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  • 4 weeks later...

On the subject of interrogation, I remember in Cornelius Ryan's "A Bridge Too Far" a description of a XXX Corps officer whose technique was simply to walk up close to the prisoner and scream questions into his face while simultaneously shoving the muzzle of his pistol hard into the prisoner's belly. Apparently it never failed. 😊

Edited by Holdit
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Again the anecdote I mentioned regarding the shooting of German COs or someone who stood out seeming arrogant and leader like was told by US PARATROOPERS THEMSELVES why would they lie about their own actions?! When people say "this level of war crime" I point them to interviews of Bulge survivors and ask anyone to see how many fux are given over treatment meted out in the initial moments after capture towards German POWs, especially after Malmedy etc.

Sorry it happened. It wasnt systemic. just for those guys platoon or whatever, and definitely wasnt a written order. It probably really pissed off some intel officers etc. But then again you tell some scared sh!tless 18 yr olds freezing in combat that learning about the TO&E of Hans divisionand fate of Hans division commander  following the 20 July plot is more important than -BLAM! " Anyone else want to act arrogant? Wheres the next (mg, minefield, tank, around that corner)"  I know Id be immediately more concerned with the immediate situation.

I think people look at it too logically as well - " oh that was dumb they just offed the CO"

First we.re applying peace time logic and no experience on the ground onto guys in an absolute hell hole of a situation and there was probably a lot of grim pleasure in just killing the enemy especially if he seemed 'arrogant'.

2. This logic doesnt hold up as well with the Heer but does work a lot better than if the situation was taking place in 1941 with well trained German troops.  Still the old trope about German NCOs being trained in the next two( or one?) positions above their own jobs etc. meaning that the CO only probably wouldnt be privy to much more than the group and especially not so far forward

 

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On 6/20/2018 at 5:33 AM, JohnO said:

Trying to get this thread back on track, after reading the comments about role-playing the game and also reading the document "Command Friction" from Bil Hardenberger and Peregrine rules. Most of if, not all of it, is for WW2 scenarios. Is there one for modern battles?

Not sure but one of the reasons for using iron mode is to more explicitly see what info units are getting from C2, but if you are really into the role playing side you can use the soft factors to decide how quickly a particular unit can process orders or even if they will respond correctly :D 

for modern generally you theoretically have better comms, but the issues Joker 1 had for example in Ramadi trying to establish comm links is hard to replicate in CM. Trying to overrule our god mode view is the heart of all these role playing concepts - instantaneous reactions, absolutely correct location info etc.  one issue I know I struggle with is understanding how quickly a QRF might be expected to take to rollout much less how long it would take to appear on map. 

Mogadishu is another good example. Getting lost, missing turns etc. it just doesn’t happen in CM but there are ways of kind of forcing it in a scenario.  You can force some improvisation in CM using obstacles but you never really get lost. 

Edited by sburke
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