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From the New World Dictionary of the American Language: Second College Edition:

Open 1. in a state which permits access, entrance, or exit; not closed, covered, clogged, or shut (open doors) 2. a) in a state which permits freedom of view or passage; not enclosed, fenced in, sheltered, screened, ect.; unobstructed; clear (open fields) B) having few or no trees, houses, ect. (open country) 3. unsealed, unwrapped 4. a) not covered over; without covering, top, ect. B) vulnerable to attack, ect.; unprotected or undefended

[ 12-11-2001: Message edited by: Vanir Ausf B ]</p>

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<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by tero:

Originally posted by Simon Fox:

[qb]Before this 'conversation' goes any further it might do well to define what people mean by "open ground". From a tactical point of view you can hardly lump all terrain which is denuded of vegetation into the same category regardless of topography.

To me "open terrain" means any terrain not covered by dense woods, regardless of topography. In other words if you can not traverse the terrain diddy bobing upright without being spotted from several points over a 180ยบ arc in front of you then the terrain is open.[/QB]<hr></blockquote>

At what distance would the observer be?

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Basically, this whole conversation is pretty silly. If someone prefers to attack over long stretches of open terrain in CM and can make it work for them, then I say more power to them. If someone historically is arguing for the success of the frontal assault through open terrain, then likely they are making the mistake that endless generations have of not learning from history. In face of modern firepower, attacks across open terrain (as defined by CM) do not work, unless of course the open terrain you have to cross is limited, or you have an extremely healthy 5 or 10 to 1 balance of power (numbers discovered in the Civil war and tested since then -- if you do not have to charge through open terrain then a 3-1 is all that is needed for an attack, or less if you can isolate and attack individual units one at a time by destroying C3).

Let me restate again, if you like frontal attacks through open terrain, by all means do them. I think it is great preperation for the Eastern front since open terrain attacls were the only way for Russians to coordinate their attacks early in the war, and the Germans sometines had tanks which could and did use frontal, open terrain attacks.

. For Brian and Gallipoli, I have to refer to the Turkish historian Huseyin Kivrikoglu who said, "The Commonwealth soldiers who failed to take Gallipoli did not fail through lack of courage or ability, but through the unfortunate choice of landing locations where cover was lacking, and through a sense of lethargy that the Western front taught; that gains where measured in meters instead of kilometers." I realize that this is an area that wont be possible to discuss sensibly, but most of the commentary on the various phases of this battle mention the high casualties caused by the CMPlayer style frontal assaults. The attack on Scimitar Hill where troops had to cross 400 meters of open terrain resulted in "a holocaust from which none of my boys returned", "the fire tore into us even as we climbed 'over the top', "endless courage could not put a man on the hill,"" it was murder" (the last from a Turkish soldier). Hill 60 saw 9 in 10 attacking Australians killed without coming within 50 meters of the crest. General Hamilton recorded in his diary, "In this terrain, and with these losses, it is impossible for me to continue an offensive". The only chance at Gallipoli was if the original landings had moved rapidly inland before defenders had entrenched. Once the defence was set up and covering the open terrain, the attack was lost.

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Originally posted by Simon Fox:

At what distance would the observer be?

More than a couple of bounds away if you were to advance towards him and you would have to use bounding overwatch.

Beyond minumum safe distance if he calls in mortars.

A bit vague and convoluted I know but it depends on the situation.

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Tero,

I think what you're describing makes sense if you have extensive forests with a relatively low population density, like in Finland. But I was thinking of the opposite situation, like for example Huertgen, which is quite small and was packed with troops.

Slappy,

I'm not referring to the last 1000 meters of the approach towards a well dug in position being a pool table. Of course there the flatter the ground the more they are going to get chewed up. I mean that there is a advantage in attacking in generally open country, and where the defender is in the same kind of ground as the attacker. Then there could be lots of good long LOS (to take advantage of the attacker's advantage in long range support), but local uneveness of the ground or wooded patches etc. for the groundpounders to creep into or hide tanks behind while waiting for air recon to call in the arty.

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I understand now. Your definition of open ground (or country) is ground with trees, hills, towns, etc, providing extended cover for advance, but with occasional longer lines of LOS. Much different than the Marine Corps manual definition and quite a bit different from the CM definition in scope.

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<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Slapdragon:

... For Brian and Gallipoli, I have to refer to the Turkish historian Huseyin Kivrikoglu who said, "The Commonwealth soldiers who failed to take Gallipoli did not fail through lack of courage or ability, but through the unfortunate choice of landing locations where cover was lacking, and through a sense of lethargy that the Western front taught; that gains where measured in meters instead of kilometers." <hr></blockquote>

This is a bit silly. When the landings were made at Gallipoli, WWI had only been underway for some 8 months. For a reasonable part of that it had been a war of movement, with the Germans advancing some 3-400km (?exact figure?) in a couple of months. The forces involved at Gallipoli had never been to the Western Front anyway. Kivrikoglu seems to be confusing the salient features of the mid-war period with the early war.

As for Gallipoli being open - well, the Turks usually had the high ground. Being high up makes most types of terrain look 'open'. Also, note that the terrain at ANZAC Cove and at Cape Helles were very different.

Regards

JonS

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<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by JonS:

This is a bit silly. When the landings were made at Gallipoli, WWI had only been underway for some 8 months. For a reasonable part of that it had been a war of movement, with the Germans advancing some 3-400km (?exact figure?) in a couple of months. The forces involved at Gallipoli had never been to the Western Front anyway. Kivrikoglu seems to be confusing the salient features of the mid-war period with the early war.

As for Gallipoli being open - well, the Turks usually had the high ground. Being high up makes most types of terrain look 'open'. Also, note that the terrain at ANZAC Cove and at Cape Helles were very different.

Regards

JonS<hr></blockquote>

I guess it all depends on how you look at it. By Gallipolli, the Western Front had been stalled for 5 months in 8. In other words, the front had been static longer than it had been dynamix. While we can look back today and say worse was to come, the battles which stalled the Western Front were seen with a great deal of frustration by the action oriented Generals Joffre and K. The British and French commanders saw Gallipolli as a flank where they could attack around the rapidly formed trench system. As Churchhill wrote in Janurary 1915 trenches stretched without interruption from Switzerland to the sea.

Soldiers going to Gallipolli were all slated for the western front, and were all being taught the new tactics of the trenches when diverted, as were their commanders. It makes perfect sense to me that the Turks would see this as a point of failure, since they knew how poorly positioned they were in the initial landings and how easily a more agressive attack could have taken them.

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Gallipoli is one of those subjects that are nearly impossible for people to discuss rationally because it was a major defeat that had such high asperations and came to so little. Turkish and British Historians agree that it could have succeeded, then totally diverge on why it failed.

And on the flip side, few people recognize how professional and effective the Turks where in their defense, bolstered by a few German officers.

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<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Slapdragon:

Gallipoli is one of those subjects that are nearly impossible for people to discuss rationally because it was a major defeat that had such high asperations and came to so little. Turkish and British Historians agree that it could have succeeded, then totally diverge on why it failed.

And on the flip side, few people recognize how professional and effective the Turks where in their defense, bolstered by a few German officers.<hr></blockquote>Well if you don't feel you can discuss Gallipoli rationally then well and good, let's don't. Clearly your definition of open ground is somewhat different to CMplayer's and a few other people besides.

Anyway your examples were pretty much irrelevant to the discussion since the Somme, Verdun and Gallipoli were major battles/campaigns which encompassed hundreds if not thousands of CM size engagements some of which were successful and some of which were not. In the main success or failure resided more in the proper application of sound military principles than in raw numerical odds or the openness of the terrain.

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<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Simon Fox:

Well if you don't feel you can discuss Gallipoli rationally then well and good, let's don't. Clearly your definition of open ground is somewhat different to CMplayer's and a few other people besides.

Anyway your examples were pretty much irrelevant to the discussion since the Somme, Verdun and Gallipoli were major battles/campaigns which encompassed hundreds if not thousands of CM size engagements some of which were successful and some of which were not. In the main success or failure resided more in the proper application of sound military principles than in raw numerical odds or the openness of the terrain.<hr></blockquote>

Actually I never said that i could not discuss this subject, only that for historians it is a hot subject. You need to reread my comments a bit more carefully to see I was commenting on how divergent and even testy historians get on this one battle, making it very difficult to navigate through the quagmire of primary and secondary sources. Especially since Gallipoli was such a spectacular failure against an Army that had been dismissed by British General Kitchener only eight months before as "wheezy decrepits" and by Churchhill as "supported only by inertia".

As for Vedun, Somme, and Gallipoli they clearly are directly related to the subject at hand for the very reason you dismiss them: they contained hundreds of CM sized battles. These hundreds of battles provide hundreds of examples of why advancing over open ground into modern weapons is a "bad idea". Having hundreds of examples is better than just one any day. As you no doubt read in my examples, I choose to pick for Gallipolli individual Battalion attacks to illustrate how the people who fought there felt about the copious amount of cover they found in their attacks.

CMPLayers definition is a bit warped from a military stand point and from a CM stand point, since open ground in CM is a defined terrain feature and in most (I am not sure of all of course) military manuals in the west the terrain he describes is more often called "close terrain" when it is not further described, while open terrain would be terrain lacking cover .

In fact, Vanir and his dictionary definition, although obviously very different from CMPlayer and the "others" you mentioned, is very close to the military definitions that I have available to me. I might also add that for those who think verticle ascents make terrain not open, it does, unless the enemy happens to be sitting at the top of those ascents with the ability to take you on, in which case the argument would swing the other way, they are worse than open.

[ 12-11-2001: Message edited by: Slapdragon ]</p>

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<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Slapdragon:

Actually I never said that i could not discuss this subject, only that for historians it is a hot subject. You need to reread my comments a bit more carefully to see I was commenting on how divergent and even testy historians get on this one battle, making it very difficult to navigate through the quagmire of primary and secondary sources. Especially since Gallipoli was such a spectacular failure against an Army that had been dismissed by British General Kitchener only eight months before as "wheezy decrepits" and by Churchhill as "supported only by inertia".

As for Vedun, Somme, and Gallipoli they clearly are directly related to the subject at hand for the very reason you dismiss them: they contained hundreds of CM sized battles. These hundreds of battles provide hundreds of examples of why advancing over open ground into modern weapons is a "bad idea". Having hundreds of examples is better than just one any day. As you no doubt read in my examples, I choose to pick for Gallipolli individual Battalion attacks to illustrate how the people who fought there felt about the copious amount of cover they found in their attacks.

CMPLayers definition is a bit warped from a military stand point and from a CM stand point, since open ground in CM is a defined terrain feature and in most (I am not sure of all of course) military manuals in the west the terrain he describes is more often called "close terrain" when it is not further described, while open terrain would be terrain lacking cover .

In fact, Vanir and his dictionary definition, although obviously very different from CMPlayer and the "others" you mentioned, is very close to the military definitions that I have available to me. I might also add that for those who think verticle ascents make terrain not open, it does, unless the enemy happens to be sitting at the top of those ascents with the ability to take you on, in which case the argument would swing the other way, they are worse than open.

[ 12-11-2001: Message edited by: Slapdragon ]<hr></blockquote>Well since I was unable to detect any irrational discussion of Gallipoli in anyone else's posts there was only one other explanation. Unless of course you were assuming that everyone else is incapable of rational discussion?

I imagine CMplayer was talking about CM terrain in which case Gallipoli would comprise at least partially rough, brush and slope. You are right about hills, attacking up hills comprising rough, rough-slope, brush, brush-slope and slope would be much worse than just open. Which is why it's a poor example.

I am not familiar with this Huseyin Kivrikoglu blokes work, perhaps you could give the source of your quote?

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<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Slapdragon:

I guess it all depends on how you look at it. By Gallipolli, the Western Front had been stalled for 5 months in 8.

<hr></blockquote>

Errr, why the emphasis on the Western Front? Turkey would have looked a great deal more to the Eastern Front, where it was dynamic for most of its existence.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>

In other words, the front had been static longer than it had been dynamix. While we can look back today and say worse was to come, the battles which stalled the Western Front were seen with a great deal of frustration by the action oriented Generals Joffre and K. The British and French commanders saw Gallipolli as a flank where they could attack around the rapidly formed trench system. As Churchhill wrote in Janurary 1915 trenches stretched without interruption from Switzerland to the sea.

<hr></blockquote>

The commanders did no such thing. Joffre and Kitchener, like French and Haig (his successor) saw Gallipoli as a waste of time and resources. The politicians, most notably Churchill and Lloyd-George saw it as a useful strategy.

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<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Simon Fox:

Well since I was unable to detect any irrational discussion of Gallipoli in anyone else's posts there was only one other explanation. Unless of course you were assuming that everyone else is incapable of rational discussion?

<hr></blockquote>

I understand. More careful readfing of the post would have cleared up your misconception so no harm, no foul.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Simon Fox:

I am not familiar with this Huseyin Kivrikoglu blokes work, perhaps you could give the source of your quote?<hr></blockquote>

Again, please reread my previous posts where I give the title of the book, and the two coauthors of it.

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<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Brian:

Errr, why the emphasis on the Western Front? Turkey would have looked a great deal more to the Eastern Front, where it was dynamic for most of its existence. <hr></blockquote>

I had assumed that the British and Australians did not fight in any vast numbers on the Eastern Front, and would be more effected by the Western Front where the British and French where heavily engaged for the past eight months. What Eastern Front battles did the British fight in? Was it in Crimea? I must say that in all my WW1 reading I have never heard about extensive Commonwealth service with the Russians, so I am amazed to hear that this would be the overriding experience of the Commonwealth military planning staff, many fresh from the Western Front.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Brian:

Where they? Funny, nothing in my reading about the ANZAC corps suggests any such thing. Indeed, the poor initial performance of the Australians and New Zealanders in France in 1916 was largely attributable to the fact they had not been trained in trench warfare but had been trained, as most of the British Army was, up until that year, in open maneauvre tactics.<hr></blockquote>

History can sometimes be weirdly different, and seen in different ways. French wrote that the Australians "disposed of themselves quite well." He of course was infamous for hating conscripts, especially conscripts from the colonies, a held over opinion from the Boer War when some conscripts handed him some rather nasty surprises before he burned enough Veldt homes down to enforce a peace.

In fact, it was the leaders who, surprised at the gains they made in the initial landings, stalled the attack, and not the common soldiers who fought bravely.

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<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Slapdragon:

Again, please reread my previous posts where I give the title of the book, and the two coauthors of it.<hr></blockquote>

I think Kivrikoglu - the current Turkish Cheif of the General Staff - would be surprised to be credited as co-author of this book. He wrote the foreword, but that seems to be about it.

Regards

JonS

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Hey, I can tell this is going to be another slam on Slapdragon with Brian and Fox lining up for a fight, so to preserve board sanity I will bow out now. However, Gallipoli is a fascinating battle to study, and it has been interesting to hear that "open terrain" is view with so much variance by people.

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<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Slapdragon:

Hey, I can tell this is going to be another slam on Slapdragon with Brian and Fox lining up for a fight, so to preserve board sanity I will bow out now. However, Gallipoli is a fascinating battle to study, and it has been interesting to hear that "open terrain" is view with so much variance by people.<hr></blockquote>I don't see anyone getting personal here, so far we're just trying to determine the antecedence of this "historian" you are quoting and clearing up some confusion as what people mean by "open ground". One can hardly have a discussion regarding the merits of attacking over open ground when there is confusion regarding what is meant by that term, can one?

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<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Slapdragon:

Hey, I can tell this is going to be another slam on Slapdragon with Brian and Fox lining up for a fight, so to preserve board sanity I will bow out now. However, Gallipoli is a fascinating battle to study, and it has been interesting to hear that "open terrain" is view with so much variance by people.<hr></blockquote>

No one is "lining up for a fight", Slappy. You keep making these contentious statements which do not appear to be supported by anything that I've read on the subject.

So, rather than defend your statements, which it appears now were made not by a historian but rather by the Chief of the Turkish general staff, you've ducked out again. Keep this sort of behavior up and you'll end up being labelled a troll or worse.

I even provided you with a perfect example of "open" terrain, where in WWI a long {b]cavalry charge, whats more, over several kilometres of flat, open terrain did succeed. You however chose to duck that one as well. I wonder why?

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<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Slapdragon:

I understand now. Your definition of open ground (or country) is ground with trees, hills, towns, etc, providing extended cover for advance, but with occasional longer lines of LOS.<hr></blockquote>

Actually no. I was using YOUR definition, from when you repeatedly characterized the terrain in our game as flat pool table ground. When in fact it consisted of small hills and many patches of forest of varying size, but also with many longer lines of sight. It seemed to suit you then to call that terrain 'open' (perhaps to excuse the failure of the attack).

[ 12-12-2001: Message edited by: CMplayer ]</p>

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<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Brian:

No one is "lining up for a fight", Slappy. You keep making these contentious statements which do not appear to be supported by anything that I've read on the subject.

So, rather than defend your statements, which it appears now were made not by a historian but rather by the Chief of the Turkish general staff, you've ducked out again. Keep this sort of behavior up and you'll end up being labelled a troll or worse.

I even provided you with a perfect example of "open" terrain, where in WWI a long cavalry charge, whats more, over several kilometres of flat, open terrain did succeed. You however chose to duck that one as well. I wonder why?<hr></blockquote>

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<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by BigAlMoho:

Hello,

Just a comment on casualties in CM:

They are not all dead and wounded... ANYTHING that takes a man out of the battle at hand is included in the totals... Alot of them are not official casualties but only ineffective for the duration of this battle... and so CM casualities appear alot higher than the historical reality...

Thanks,

Al<hr></blockquote>

i always figure "KIA" are really 'dead or incapacitated' and other "casualties" are often the result of cowering and not any actual wound. that way the casualty figures at the end of the game usually seem more reasonable.

andy

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Originally posted by CMplayer:

I think what you're describing makes sense if you have extensive forests with a relatively low population density, like in Finland. But I was thinking of the opposite situation, like for example Huertgen, which is quite small and was packed with troops.

That is actually irrelevant. If you compare troop density per square km Huertgen is no more (or less ) packed than most of the killing grounds along the Finnish frontier. The fact that the forests continue beyond the borders of the combat zone is irrelevant.

Incidentaly, if you look at the succesful Soviet 1940 and 1944 breakthrough attacks you will find that the Soviets massed up to 10 000 (give or take) guns along a 50km stretch of the front in the most open part (best tank country in the Western part) of the of the Isthmus. And even then they sustained heavy armour and infantry casualties and failed in their objective. The LOS was up to 1000 meters in that part of the front.

I mean that there is a advantage in attacking in generally open country, and where the defender is in the same kind of ground as the attacker. Then there could be lots of good long LOS (to take advantage of the attacker's advantage in long range support), but local uneveness of the ground or wooded patches etc. for the groundpounders to creep into or hide tanks behind while waiting for air recon to call in the arty.

You should rent the movie Winter War in case you have not seen it already. The combat sequences are filmed in 98% topographically correct terrain (as in the match with the historical places and the movie location are VERY accurate). Unlike the Hollywood epic sagas the story is actually true. Look past the Soviet period tactics and you will find that no way no how can any force come across such "uncovered" terrain and not sustain casualties if going against a determined defender.

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