Sgt Joch

very good summary. The smartest thing the Assads did was to concentrate their kinsmen, the Alawis, in the best equipped formations. Most of the defections have been in the regular/reserve units which are manned mostly by Sunnis. Whether that will be enough to keep them in power remains to be seen.

Nice find. Good to see that the U.S. Army thinks CMSF is realistic enough to use in training. Of course, those of us that play it regularly have known that for years.

That is what a lot of people are wondering. Why is Russia through Iran supplying Hizbollah with state-of-the art SAM systems? The Syrian Rebels don't have an air force. IAF? maybe. sending a message to NATO? maybe.

And you are again trolling, everyone knows where you are going with this. You have been warned once, abide by the rules and you can stay, continue trolling and you will soon be out. Your choice.

Apple? :confused: There does seem to be a worldwide conspiracy to get everyone to buy a I-Phone... :mad:

Dresden was more a victim of Target creep. It was on various lists, but always a low priority target. By feb.45, pretty much every other target had been destroyed and Dresden's number came up. More a case of military bureaucracy creeping along.

War is generally a dirty business and WW2 was dirtier than most. The Allies did what needed to be done to win, generally not noble, but better than letting the other side win. I never heard that before, is that how Stalin justified it?

Oddly enough, it turns out the number of civilians who died at Dresden is about the same as the number of Polish officers murdered at Katyn. I am pretty sure they did not qualify as a military target.

Oddly enough, it turns out the number of civilians who died at Dresden is about the same as the number of Polish officers murdered at Katyn.

Im am no longer sure where this thread is going, although that is not unusual. There may be a question as to whether Hiroshima and Nagasaki were warranted. Everyone is always feeling guilty about the 200,000 or so japanese civilians who died. Oddly enough, no one ever talks about the estimated 20,000,000 or so chinese civilians who died during Japanese invasion of China. Unlike Germany, Japan has never really apologised for its actions in WW2. If you watch a movie like "Flowers of wars", you will see the extent to which the Chinese still have a lot of resentment towards the Japanese. As to the Russians, in preparation for CMSF2, I have been reading FM 100-2-1 which deals with the tactics of the Soviet Army. It was published by the U.S.Army in 1984. One thing that comes though very clearly in the document is the great respect the U.S.Army has for the capabilities of the Russian Army.There is a difference between propaganda and what professionals really think.

actually its the Russians who did everything they could to appease the Nazis. The Russians allied themselves with Hitler in 1939. The Russians carved up Poland with Hitler and murdered 30,000 Polish officers at Katyn. The Russians gave Hitler every supply he needed to conquer Europe. Stalin even ordered his own troops not to fire on the Germans on the morning of June 22 hoping he could still appease Hitler.

I thought the third evil was Tojo..or was it Mussolini..or Franco..Mao?..Chiang Kai Shek..Kim il Sung..Antonescu..Petain..Salazar..Vargas..Ho Chi Minh..

I was going to respond... ...but why do you bother posting this tripe? slow day at work? The West had two choices, fight against the USSR or fight against the Nazis. We chose the lesser of two evils. Everyone suspected that the USSR would probably not leave the areas it "liberated", again not much we could do without going to war with the USSR. Churchill did try to negotiate some influence in Eastern Europe and did manage to carve out Greece. Again lesser of two evils. Forced repatraiation of the Cossacks after the war? yes, not the West's finest hour, but there were realpolitik considerations.

I would love to see a Korea game, lots of good books on that. I strongly recommend David Halberstam's "The Coldest Winter" to anyone who has not read it. I just wanted to add that the defenders of the world revolution also had a hodgepodge of nationalities. Now that Soviet archives have been opened, we have found out that the Soviets used to rotate east european squadrons as well into the war, so you also had east german, polish and czech pilots who flew against the capitalist invaders.

I had played the first few missions of the "Road" campaign in CMBN v.1.00 when most U.S. troops were "regulars". While testing 2.01, I played through the first 3 missions of the updated campaign where most U.S. troops were "Green". In 2.01, I won all 3 missions with light casualties. If you play with proper tactics, you wont notice much of a difference. "If" is the key, since we may all have become sloppy in our tactics. When I first played the beach mission in v. 1.00, I was able to quick move almost all my troops to the gully in the middle of the map with very light casualties. In 2.01, my scouts were shot down and pinned as soon as they left the beach...:mad: The learning curve may be a bit steeper than before, but isnt that why we love this game...

I did not mean to imply that a general has no role to play during the battle, but the higher up the food chain you go, the more your influence should be felt during the pre-battle planning. A good leader will have gamed out the battle/operation before hand: when and where to commit his forces, when and where to commit his reserves, what to do if the enemy does X or Y, etc. Cota and Roosevelt jr. were both good officers, but on D-Day, they were both assistant division commanders, basically glorified XOs. The actual infantry division commanders were sitting on ships most of the day trying to figure out what was going on. The only major decison they had to make on D-Day was when and where to commit their divisional reserve. Back to Salerno. I have read that Monty was opposed to the landing at Messina. He did not think the germans would be fooled by the diversion or would defend southern italy. He also thought it was dangerous to split up the armies since the Germans could concentrate against the landing at Salerno. All his predictions turned out to be true. Is this discussed by Atkinson in his book?

2.01 was just a quick fix. There are plans to look at this issue more in depth in the future.

Too much of military history focuses on the Generals. In WW2, as now, the role of generals is much more as a planner/administrator. The General develops/shapes the plans to carry out the objective he is assigned. This is often a collegial efforts with higher HQ, lower ranking officers, specialized planning staff. D-Day was a good example, no one person thought up the entire plan, input came from many sources. Once the plan has been developped, the General has to make sure he has the resources: men, equipment, supply to carry it out. He has to make sure everyone understands the plan, that the officers have the capacity to carry it out. Once the battle actually starts, there is actually very little for the General to do other than hope everyone knows his job and that he did not forget anything. D-Day was the most pre-planned operation of WW2, but ultimately the battle on Omaha beach was decided by small groups of non-coms who advanced on their own. In fact, the General's presence may not even be required. In november 41, during the "dash to the wire", Rommel was out of radio contact with his HQ for two days. His chief of staff, a lt. col., became the "de facto" HQ and issued orders in Rommel's name based on the plan, the situation and what he thought Rommel would do. When Rommel came back, he ratified all his chief of staff's decisions.

in terms of the HMG/LMG changes: -accuracy is up a bit, but is basically the same. Bursts are a bit more tightly grouped. -ROF is up, but now variable based on range, so it goes way up at short range. The increased ROF probably accounts for most of the increased hits. -suppression is up which has the biggest impact on game play. In terms of gameplay changes, advancing towards an unsuppressed LMG/HMG is now a definite no-no. Suppression is the name of the game now. On the attack, you will be rewarded by using proper fire-maneuver tactics with a lot of suppressive fire. On the defense, remember the new suppression code works both ways, so leaving a LMG/HMG is an exposed spot where it can be easily suppressed is not a good idea.

After the war, the Soviets stated that a minimum 3:1 ratio was necessary in the attack, namely, as stated above a battalion to attack a company or a regiment to attack a battalion, i.e.: This is from the U.S. Army's FM 100-2-1 which is based on several Soviet Army military manuals. The 3:1 combat ratio is calculated on "combat power", not number of men and is considered the minimum to be able to continue the attack. In 41-42, the Germans were often outnumbered on an operational level, but achieved combat ratios of up to 20-30:1 at the 2 or more operational breakthrough points. This was achieved by choosing a reatively weak sector and massing forces against it. Realistic, but it does not make for a very fun CM battle. Once a breakthrough had been achieved and the follow on armor forces were loose in the enemy's rear, the remaining defending units had to choose between retreat or encirclement. This "formula" has basically been copied by pretty much every competent army since.

In Korea, the US knew many of the pilots were Soviet or East European. The Soviets would rotate in entire squadrons so they could get actual combat experience. The pilots were supposed to only speak Korean on the radio, but most found it too difficult and slipped back to Russian, German or whatever in the heat of combat. The US never raised it publicly since tensions were already high enough, but this has been verified now that US and Soviet archives from that period are now public. Korea established many of the standards for a limited war. The US did not bomb any territory outside of Korea even though all the red squadrons were based in Manchuria. China never officially acknowledged it had any troops in Korea and the Soviets were very careful not to let their pilots fly over South Korea or the ocean to minimise the risk of capture.

It depends on the situation, I can see many scenarios where a U.S.-Russia confontration would spin out into a full blown nuclear war. However, since the Russians got the Bomb in 49, there have been many hot confrontations: Korea, East Berlin 53, Hungary 56, Cuba 62, Vietnam, six day war, Russia-China 69, yom kippur war 73, Afghanistan 79-89, Kuwait 91, Kosovo 99, Iraq 03, Georgia 08, which did not spin out into nuclear holocaust. In Korea, US and Russian pilots fought and in Vietnam, Russian technicians helped to operate the SAM networks shooting down american planes. I could see certain limited situations where the US and Russia could clash without going "Nuklear". The only certainty is that it would probably be a very short war, 1-2 weeks at the most, since the ROW would go into absolute panic mode if the US and Russia ever actually stated firing on each other.

Villers-Bocage is interesting, but it is an outlier, one of the few battles where everything went right for the Tiger. OTOH, the Firefly which was a lot cheaper to build also scored outstanding victories, like the CAN. firefly on june 7 which knocked out 6 panthers with 7 shots breaking the back of the German counterattack. Wittman himself was most likely killed by a CAN. Firefly during TOTALIZE. On the other extreme of Tiger performance, you have a unit with 14 Tiger I's which drove from Rome to Anzio and back in may 1944 (about 120 km total) and lost 12 tanks to complete mechanical breakdown. That is basically one breakdown every 10 km on dry roads. 5 broke down on their own and were towed by other Tigers which then broke down under the strain. 4 were destroyed along the way because they could not be towed. 10 made it back, 2 operational and 8 to be repaired, these 8 were in turn destroyed when the Germans left Rome. So 12 out of 14 Tigers lost without even engaging the enemy. From a cost-benefit ratio, it is hard to justify the Tiger as a good investment. In 39-42, the Germans and in 43-45, the Allies were able to advance even though their tanks were "inferior" to the enemy.

The Tiger was at its best when it was sitting on top of a hill with an unobstructed view so it could kill other tanks at long range. Unfortunately, once the Allies figured that out, they stopped attacking Tigers from the front and just went around. The typical way for the Soviets to deal with a Tiger was to pierce the front where the german armour was not and to drive deep behind the german lines. The Germans were then forced to retreat. Most Tigers I and II were detroyed by their own crews when they broke down, ran out of gas or were encircled. CM style battles only you show you a small window into a tank's overall effectiveness.

try the first mission of PTs "Road to Montebourg" campaign if you want a real taste of the changes.