Bullethead

tero said: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>There is no way to compensate for random inaccuracies, which is what rockets have. Increased weight of fire is one compensatory measure. <hr></blockquote> Which is just another way of saying that you can't make individual rockets very accurate so you have to shotgun a large, area target with them instead of hitting point targets with a smaller number of rounds. Which is what I've been saying and you've been objecting to. Now you've switched sides? Forget it. You are arguing for the sake of arguing. I ain't playing that game. I will, however, answer you're non-accuracy-related questions <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Which model where you subjected to ?<hr></blockquote> Katyushas of some sort and also the Brazilian Astros. Plus I've fired a lot of MLRS. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Rocket launches in the day make HUGE clouds and trails of smoke and at night make bright flames in the sky. Then again so does regular arty. If the rocket propellant burns out in the tube then there is less flames in the sky. Also, if the terrain is not open steppes or desert then the horizon will mask most of the smoke and flames anyway.<hr></blockquote> Rocket arty does NOT burn out in the tube. If it did, it would have no more range than a bazooka. So when a rocket battery fires at night, you see multiple streams of huge (they look like 50' in diameter), ascending fireballs like Gawd's Own Machinegun Battalion firing 100% tracer ammo. It also takes anywhere up to 30 seconds for this fireworks show to end. So all told, it's very catching to the eye--you can't help but notice it . These fireballs rise thousands of feet into the air and can be seen through fairly thick clouds. It thus takes real mountain ranges to hide them. Hills and trees won't do it. In the day, each rocket leaves a dense smoke trail. When a launcher ripple-fires, these trails merge into a very wide stripe of smoke climbing thousands of feet into the sky. So again, you need a mountain range to hide it, unless there's a low cloud ceiling. And even then, you still usually have the lower several hundred to 1000' feet of the trail visible. This all hangs in the air until dispersed by the wind, which usually takes several minutes. Plus, the backblast from the rockets creates a huge cloud of smoke and dust around each launcher. This blob can easily rise a couple hundred feet and, like the rocket trails, hangs in the air a long time. Surely you've seen video of MLRS firings from the Gulf War? Or footage of Nebelwerfer firings? Anyway, combined, these effects eliminate the surprise factor of rocket bombardments. They also paint HUGE arrows in the sky leading directly to the launchers. This is why individual rocket batteries usually can't do sustained bombardments. They have to immediately move a considerable distance from where they fired or they'll get smacked with counterbattery. To get a sustained rocket barrage, you either have to have total air and arty superiority so there's no counterbattery threat, or you have to have skads of batteries firing in sequence from different positions. Arty OTOH has a much lower signature. Shells leave no towering trails of smoke, nor do they look like gigantic tracer bullets. So that leaves the gun itself. And this is very, very difficult to spot even when firing, which is why armies have dedicated counterbattery observation units with highly sensitive and specialized equipment. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Incoming rockets also make much more noise for a longer time than shells do. How much longer ?<hr></blockquote> To clarify, I'm talking about the time between knowing, from judging the sound, that the shell/rocket is going to land near you, and the time it hits. With shells, sometimes you don't hear them coming at all. Either they're supersonic or other battlefield noises drown them out. When you can hear shells well enough to know they're coming for you, it's usually only a couple seconds before they hit. Just enough time to hit the deck where you stand or dive behind a nearby rock. With rockets, however, you generally hear them 5-10 seconds before impact and they're loud enough to be heard over a tank battle raging only a couple hundred meters away. You actually have time to run a dozen yards and dive in a hole.

tero said: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>As I said it seems] the fall density and fall patterns are linked to the ordnance caliber. You just do not get the same density with the 155mm as you do with the 75mm, eventhough there is no RL reason for the densities to be different from each other.<hr></blockquote> In CM, you get exactly the same density with all types of gun arty, regardless of caliber. They all shoot exactly the same number of shells into an area of the same size and shape under the same conditions. There is no difference at all. Granted, smaller calibers LOOK like they shoot less-dense patterns. However, this is merely a result of their crater graphics being smaller, so there is more space between them on the map. But in a given AREA, there will still be the same number of craters of whatever size gun you choose. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>IMO the density is what counts, not the pattern as such. Could you conduct the test with 150/155mm and 75mm respectively ?<hr></blockquote> See above. Pattern size, shape, and density are the same regardless of caliber. I've tested it with all calibers of all nationalities. It doesn't matter if you shoot 75mm, 25pdr, 105mm, 155mm, or even 14", you get the same result in CM. This of course does NOT mean that all these weapons will give you the same net result on a target. After all, the bigger shells are more have a higher CM blast rating and wider kill radii per shell. So the distribution of "firepower" throughout the impact area is different in each case. For instance, a 75mm shell's kill radius in CM is usually less than the spacing of impacts within the pattern area, so targets within the pattern might emerge unscathed. OTOH, a 14" shell's kill radius WAY larger than the impact pattern, making multiple impacts within less than 100m of each other totally superfluous. This is an area where CM could use some improvement, IMHO. I think the larger weapons should have wider patterns so that less of their firepower is wasted as overkill by the overlapping of their kill radii so much. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>However, having neither a TRP nor an LOS greatly increases the size of the pattern. What about the caliber ?<hr></blockquote> As I've said before, caliber has NO EFFECT on the size and shape of the impact pattern in CM. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>For rockets, none of this matters--you always get the same pattern. They are 150 - ~300mm caliber. Would it be an idea to test and compare them against the 14" naval arty (which is of comparable to the larger rockest) ?<hr></blockquote> As I have repeatedly said, caliber has NO EFFECT in CM on the size of the pattern. If you're shooting a gun, you get "Pattern A", regardless of the size of the gun. If you're shooting a mortar, you get "Pattern B", regardless of the size of the mortar. And if you're shooting a rocket, you get "Pattern C", regardless of the size of the rocket. And BTW, the 14" shell had considerably more explosive content than the largest rockets. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Rockets are fired from short tubes or rails, neither of which imposes anywhere near the consistency of trajectory that a gun tube does. Depends what is included in the "anywhere near" in consistency. I am sure some of the inherent inaccuracy was downplayed by deliberate "aiming off".<hr></blockquote> There is no way to compensate for random inaccuracies, which is what rockets have. Instead of being a tight fit like a shell in a gun barrel, rockets rattled around as they moved down their launcher like a roundshot in an old cannon, so left the launcher pointing only in the general direction of the target. A degree or 2 off at launch corresponds to dozens of meters off at the target. And the shortness of the launch tube or rail gave it less chance to minimize this effect. Which is why rockets have to have multiple launchers and/or submunition warheads to be effective--you need to shotgun the target area because they can't hit a point target. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>But any deviation or quality flaws in the shell propellant will affect the shell flight more dramatically than a they affect rockets. Statistically speaking.<hr></blockquote> Nope. First, regardless of quality, it's easier to obtain consistent burn conditions in a gun tube than a rocket. Second, shell propellant can ONLY affect a shell's velocity, whereas imperfections in a rocket can affect both velocity and direction. Third, because arty is usually adjusted by an FO, any problems with the propellant will be taken into account before FFE begins. Rockets, OTOH, usually didn't have this opportunity--they just unloaded without prior adjustment. Nor would it have mattered if they had adjusted first, due to the other inherent sources of inaccuracy (launcher design and possible change in direction due to bad propellant) <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>So it's physically impossible to shoot rockets as accurately as tube arty. Not really. What you need is consistent quality and constant/predictable variables. The rest is just vector physics, statistics, trigonometry and geometry.<hr></blockquote> Yes really. There is no way to eliminate the inherent inaccuracies in rocketry to the same extent that you can in arty. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>And lets not forget the fact that you can blanket a more wide area in seconds with a batter of rockets than you can with a batter of field guns. If you get the benefit or surprise you can do more damage with the rockets than a regular arty barrage.<hr></blockquote> A given number of rocket launchers can put more HE on a wider area in less time than the same number of guns. However, that's only for the 1st salvo. The guns catch up by sustained fire while the rocket launchers are reloading or, more likely, displacing to avoid counterbattery due to everybody knowing where they are now. There is no surprise of targets involved with rockets. I've had them shot at me and can attest . Rocket launches in the day make HUGE clouds and trails of smoke and at night make bright flames in the sky. Incoming rockets also make much more noise for a longer time than shells do. All these factors give personnel at the target more time to react than they get with shells. Then you just have to duck for the 1 big impact because, unless multiple rocket batteries are firing in sequence, there won't be any more for some time. With arty, you never know when they'll stop shooting so need to say in cover longer. Plus, the rocket fire will be over a wide area, without fail. Arty can be fired in a variety of patterns. It could be you want all your firepower delivered more or less to the same point. You can do this with arty but you can't with rockets.

tero said: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Seems to me like the fall patters in CM are directly connected to the caliber. The bigger the caliber the wider the dispersion pattern.<hr></blockquote> This is incorrect. In light of the apparent changes in rocket patterns, I have just re-done my similar experiments with other weapons. This has shown that caliber has no effect on pattern. Instead, only the following variables seem to matter in CM: 1) type of weapon (gun, mortar, or rocket), 2) LOS, and 3) TRP. The results are as follows (with at least 95% of rounds in the boundaries specified): Guns with TRP LOS: 120m E-W x 50m N-S No LOS: same (but the 5% beyond this is further out than with an LOS) Guns without TRP LOS: 120m E-W x 50m N-S No LOS: 220m E-W x 120m N-S Mortars with TRP LOS: 140m E-W x 80m N-S No LOS: same (but the 5% is further out) Mortars without TRP LOS: 140m E-W x 80m N-S No LOS: 250m E-W x 120m N-S Rockets Always have about 80% in 200m x 200m circle and about 95% within 300m x 300m, regardless of LOS or TRP. So, in summary: Guns and mortars both shoot oval patterns with the long axis E-W. Guns shoot somewhat tighter patterns than mortars. Guns and mortars shooting at a TRP without an LOS gives the same pattern as with an LOS, but the few outside this pattern are further out. However, having neither a TRP nor an LOS greatly increases the size of the pattern. For rockets, none of this matters--you always get the same pattern. NOTE: this is just how CM handles this stuff. I'm not saying this is realistic <blockquote>quote:</font><hr> JD said: I am less interested in the implications to specific wargames. Like I said above; "As to whether rockets are being accurately portrayed in any wargame, IMHO I think a wargame should reflect a tendency toward much larger dispersion zones for rocket barrages relative to more conventional artillery barrages". But should the rocket arty get handicapped because of them ?<hr></blockquote> Of course. It's an historical handicap. Rockets are fired from short tubes or rails, neither of which imposes anywhere near the consistency of trajectory that a gun tube does. Also, rocket motors don't burn as reliably as shell propellant. So it's physically impossible to shoot rockets as accurately as tube arty.

chrisl said: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>I just checked-- it's only 30 ambush markers. I've come up against it more than once.<hr></blockquote> They must have changed it in a patch. I haven't played a such scenario in a long time

Scipio said: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>The numbers mean that 50% of the rockets hits a square of x m lenght and y m width Nebelwerfer 41 (150mm) : 130m x 80m Wurfgerät 40/41 (280mm): 160m x ? m 21cm Nebelwerfer 42 (210mm) : 500m x 130m 30cm Nebelwerfer 42 (300mm) : 175m x ? m <hr></blockquote> I just did some testing on CM's German rockets. The test consisted of firing each type of rocket FO (150mm, 210mm, and 300mm) with 100 rounds at a bullseye target made of rings of brush tiles 100m apart. In the center was a TRP and the FOs had LOS to the TRP. All CM rocket FOs produced the same pattern. It was roughly circular. On average, about 80% of all rounds landed within 200m of the TRP, 15% landed within 300m, and 5% landed within 400m. The 50% cut-off is therefore within 200m of the point of aim for all types of German rockets in CM. I have done similar tests in the past but that was several patches ago. I was surprised to see a change this time. Previously, the rocket impacts were more or less uniformly spread over a 750m diameter circle. But now, there is a distinct clustering in the center. Anyway, it appears that CM rockets are at least as accurate on the X axis as they were in real life, if not more so. And I don't think the Y axis of the pattern is a problem, either. Consider that each rocket barrage was fired by 4 or so launchers, which were spaced like 20m apart on a line perpendicular to the line of fire. Thus, the whole battery's pattern would be about 160m wide (40m outboard of each end launcher, which are 80m apart). This would result in a roughly circular are square pattern for the whole battery when combined with the X-axis dispersion of 130m. And remember, this (real life numbers) is for only 50% of the rockets. In my test, more like 60-70% of the rounds landed within this distance. Of course, while CM's modeling works for the 150mm, it appears a bit too tight for the larger rockets. But still, CM's rockets seem a bit more accurate than the best performance of real life. Thus, saying they're "Napoleanic" is rather incorrect.

Colonel_Deadmarsh said: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>How many of those targets do you get per squad?<hr></blockquote> It's not per squad, it's per HQ. Each HQ can make as many as it likes. There is a limit to the total number you can have at once, which I bumped into in the huge "Sherbrooke Fusiliers" scenario, but it's over 100, more like 200. To use an infantry ambush marker, you have the HQ create it. When this happens, the HQ will be targeting the marker itself. You then click on the squads, give them the target command, and then click on the ambush marker. Because an HQ can have a bunch of markers, you can repeat this procedure to give each squad and say an attached MMG their own markers. AT weapons (ATGs, zooks, etc.), can also create ambush markers. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Can they target more than one at a time?<hr></blockquote> No unit may have more than 1 target at once, so no unit can target more than 1 ambush marker at once. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>I noticed that it always targets the last marker you place so it worries me to place more than one.<hr></blockquote> Only the HQ or AT weapon that creates the marker starts out targeted on it. So yeah, if an HQ makes a bunch of markers, it will be targeted on the last one. But that's no problem because you can hit the X key to remove the targeting line, then the T key and target the HQ unit on an earlier HQ marker.

In the Pool's prior incarnation, Senility drooled: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>I will suggest that you have carefully taken a screen-shot of every post Germanboy has ever made, printed it out on a top quality printer, lovingly snipped it to size, and pasted it in to some horrible book of CM memories.<hr></blockquote> Now THAT is old-school taunting, the likes of which even Peng Itself would be envious of. Gojo Pshaw, you are hereby disbarred. Surrender your wand of orifice to Senility, the new JustFistingIt of the Cesspool. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>I await your reply, and a setup. If you've the hair to have a go at it, I would prefer a QB of not more than 1500 base points.<hr></blockquote> Reply? So it is to be brinksmanship, then? Skirting the ragged edge of TOS violations and permanent banning? Very well. I shall divulge the sordid details of your illicit, back-stairs affair with rexford. Your trolling in the outer boards is merely a cover for your playing of the trollop to the ultimate grog. I know how you eagerly lick up every gobbet he gushes forth on penetration, and how you wimper that your armor quality is inferior to his tumescent tungsten. And how afterwards, you lie awake reliving the experience of his all-powerful numbers taking you to new heights of ecstasty. There is more but, not being Bauhaus, I cannot bring myselt to utter it. Expect your set-up with the morning post. Feel free to be as gamey as you want. We all know that's just the closet in which you hide your grog-hood.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Joe Shaw: Thank you for taking the time to complete our survey. It's feedback such as yours that allow us to further improve our service. As a token of our esteem please accept this free gift with our thanks. SOD OFF! Sincerely Yours, The CessPool Customer Service Department<hr></blockquote> Is that the best you got? Even the limp-wristed Senility hits harder than that. Surely the effrontery of calling all you pig-raping afterbirths "grogs", or even "semi-grogs", warrants a harsher response from the Pool's JustFistingIt-or.

Greetings, you shower of spavined goat molesters! May your hemorrhoids never cease to rupture nor your carbuncles to ache and ooze! Some of you older reprobates might recall my all-too-brief manifestation on this quasi-elemental plane of filth. I regret that doing the Pool (I refuse to use the grognardian "MBT" acronym for THIS place) right requires more irons than I have available for my various fires. Basically, I have something of a life and thus don't fit in here. Be that as it may, I still lurk by from time to time whenever I'm in need of a good chuckle at another's expense. Why else visit the outer boards at all? Over the course of my last few visits, I too have noticed a change in the Pool. The water table seems to have fallen, leaving vast, stinking expanses of sewage drying miserably in under a sun that has begun to shine in here a little. The denizens wallow fitfully in the remaining pockets of slime, turning over and over in a pathetic attempt to maintain their accustomed skin moisture. It is truly a sad and depressing sight. For a while I wondered at the cause of this disaster. I have even gone to the extreme of actually reading your whining posts on the subject. And to my great joy, I disagree with all of you <-- gratuitous smiley for Peng The reason for the Pool's current sorry state is not that some of the orginal inmates have been paroled. Nor is it simply running out of adjectives to describe one another's mental, physical, and sexual failings. Nor is it a lack of frivolous sources of on-going argument. It is, simply put, that the Pool denizens have achieved some level of grog-hood. YES, I dare to utter the ultimate heresy! Face it. What created the Pool was the notion that you all were hopeless incompetents, and damn proud of it. You scorned the outboarders and their endless nattering over how many gallons per minute could flow from the M17A2E5 Kitchen Sink. You determined to have fun in the face of grinding grognardism, revelling in your ignorance amongst others of your own kind and heaping abuse on all who faint at the mere thought of something as wonderful, as grognardian, as CM falling hands such as yours. But that was long ago. Since then, you have all fought countless battles under conditions ranging from the mundane to the worst that the most twisted minds in the CM community could conceive. This is a wealth of experience, some of which was bound to stick even to minds as pre-evolved and minimal as yours. Then there's the desire to win--not for winning's sake, that's not the Pool way, but to be the taunter instead of the tauntee. When these forces combine, even in the likes of you, then you have set your scabrous hands upon the rusty ladder leading upwards from this abyss towards grog-hood. And once started upwards, there is no coming back. Where the Hell else did calling The Pool by an acronym for "Main Battle Tank" come from? But even in this bleakest state of affairs, all is not lost! In a few months' time, BTS will toss a few copies of CMBB into the Pool. The gameplay of this version will be so different from what you have become used to that you all will once again be pewling tyros. Even better, once the outboarders get their paws on it, there will be endless grognardian gushings to ridicule and a host of new victims sucked in by the Pool's new-found vigor. So hang in there a few more months. Better times are doubtless coming. The outer boards NEED the Pool. That said, you can all sod off and die of scabies.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by russellmz: no maps under 1 km x 1 km, no turns under 60...<hr></blockquote> My Kohima battle. Map is 1200 x 1500, 60 turns, regimental scale.

YankeeDog said: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Say you had a Tank Sounds contact coming from just behind a rise, and an AT gun position to cover the crest. This would allow you to 'target' the sound contact so the gun would be on the lookout for a tank cresting the rise somewhere around where the sound is coming from, giving the gun a slightly faster 1st shot when the tank crests the ridge.[/QB]<hr></blockquote> Depending on the range, you can have the gun place an ambush marker on your ridge crest. That works well enough. If you can't get an ambush marker there, you can at least have the gun pivot to face that direction. This way, when it spots the tank, it doesn't have to waste time training around to line up with it.

fytinghellfish said: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>if someone can just JUSTIFY math to ME, I'll be happy to take the class AND pass<hr></blockquote> Without understanding math, you won't be able to pick the best bang-for-the-buck units in CM QBs.

Rune once posted up a number of links that gave the number and types of Russian AFVs used by the Germans at various points in the war. I can't find them at present so I suggest you ask him for them.

Moriarty said: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Never lost a foundation, eh?<hr></blockquote> Around here, most houses are pier and beam so we say we've never lost a GOOD set of cement steps. We sometimes lose those made with stale cement, however This house, however, was donated to us by a land-owner who wanted it gone. So we used it for training, setting a number of fires in it and practicing interior attack and SAR all morning. Then we lit the whole thing off and let it burn while we ate lunch, making sure the fire didn't spread into the surrounding hay field. I can only imagine what passers-by on the highway thought. Here's this house with fire out every window and through the roof, there's several fire engines in the yard, but all the firemen are sitting off to the side eating lunch, watching it burn, and throwing their empties into the blaze.

All Jarheads, wherever ye may be, Greetings on this the 226th Birthday of our Beloved Corps! Hope you all had as much fun celebrating as I did. I literally burned down a house

tero said: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>WWI examples make very poor comparisons.<hr></blockquote> What makes you say that? Horse technology hasn't changed any since then . Besides, people back then knew a lot more about horses and their military implications than they do now. So if somebody from WW1 says that horses sucked compared to the primitive tractors of that day, I'd believe him. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Besides, if the findings were relevant for the continental armies they would have phased out the horses from service entirely forthwith. The transportation overseas was indeed a factor. But only for those armies who crossed oceans.<hr></blockquote> The findings were extremely relevant to all armies and all armies took steps to phase out horses. However, you might recall that WW1 was thought at the time to have been the last war, and the whole world was utterly sick of war after that experience, so there was great resistance to spending the fortune it required to re-equip whole armies with motor transport. Especially at a time when military down-sizing was in full swing. And then the Great Depression came along. Crossing oceans is just the most extreme case of the transport problems. Continental armies have to cross large rivers as well. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Not really. How much of the transportation capacity freed from the transportation of these beasts of burden was taken up by transportation of fuel (as ALL of it had to transported, not many chances for forraging locally) ?<hr></blockquote> All the food for the horses had to be transported as well. Think about it. A single regiment of heavy arty required over 1400 horses. If these were turned out to forage, how many acres of grass would it take to ensure they all got full bellies? And if you dispersed the horses so they could feed themselves, how long would it take to get them all back together and hitched up? Plus that's just 1 regiment of arty--what about the rest of the army? Basically, it was utterly impractical for the huge number of horses that armies required back then to live off the land. So armies had to bring along huge piles of oats and similar compact foods, which they carried in wagons with the other supplies. Which wagons were pulled by yet more horses, which in turn required food of their own. As I mentioned last time, a horsed heavy arty regiment needed 1440 horses, could move 25 miles/day, and required 14.7 tons of horse food per day whether moving or not. So to move 50 miles, it required 29.4 tons. The same regiment pulled by tractors could do 50 miles in 1 day and only needed 4 tons of "tractor food" to do it. Thus, the tractors required less than 1/7 the amount of fuel to travel the same distance in 1/2 the time. This huge reduction in the amount of fuel needed reduced the number of vehicles needed to carry supplies. A regiment of heavy arty probably had 36 guns. At 19 horses per gun, that's 684 horses. Yet the regiment had 1440 horses. I'd expect most of the extra were used hauling supplies to feed themselves and the gun horses

tero said: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Provided you had the sparepart at hand.<hr></blockquote> It's a lot easier to get spare parts for a machine than for an animal You can also mix and match parts from several wrecked vehicles to make at least one of them functional. You can't do that with animals. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>How many more extra motorized vehicles were in a motorized formation ? Also, you could move a gun with a team short of one horse. With the tractor it was either go or no go.<hr></blockquote> You're missing the point. One tractor replaced a whole team of horses. Thus, a team short 1 horse is analogous to a tractor with the engine not firing on 1 cylinder. Both still function at reduced capacity. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>The German horses must have VERY big if they were as large as tractors. And the tractors could be made to lie down and take cover.<hr></blockquote> Again, the tractor replaces a whole team. How big a target is a team of 16 draft horses, compared to a tractor? I admit to having as little to do with horses as possible. However, I do know that normally they don't lie down very much--they even sleep standing up. Their normal response to danger is to run away, not hit the deck. Tractors neither run away nor hit the deck. However, you can at least dig a hole to put them in. Try getting a horse in that <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>How many trucks and tractors were written off in a year due to wear and tear ? How much more time did it take for the horse to recover than to completely overhaul a tractor ?<hr></blockquote> It's a lot easier to break flesh and bone than it is metal--tractors are much less likely to fail than horses under the same level of adverse conditions. And a horse with a broken leg from "wear and tear" over a bad road is not fixable in a militarily practical sense. Hell, they're usually not fixable in a peacetime civilian sense. But the tractor will not even notice the pot hole that breaks the horse's leg. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Then again a track left by a tractor speeding across the field was more conspicuous than a track left by a horse team.<hr></blockquote> I disagree. Run a team of 16 straining draft horses over soft ground and see how they tear it up. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>What about a dead battery, cracked block, doors frozen solid, no vision through the windshield, wheel wells frozen solid with dirt and mud ?<hr></blockquote> In such conditions, horses wouldn't be able to move either. But when the thaw finally comes, the tractor could be made to move again. The horses will be corpses. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>I hope you can piss petrol if you wind up too far from your supply source. The horses can at least keep going after that 100km's march (which would be perhaps 20kms as the crow flies) through the wildeness by forraging food from the woods.<hr></blockquote> By and large, there isn't any horse forage in the woods. Horses are creatures of open, grassy plains, not forests. So both horses and tractors would need fuel carried along on such a trip. In which case, the tractor has the advantage by requiring far less supplies over the same distance traveled.

On the subject of horses vs. motor vehicles for towing arty, it was realized early in the 20th Century that over-all, vehicles were far superior. This quote is from Fred Crimson's US Military Tracked Vehicles, page 145, in the intro to the section on Gun Motor Carriages. The internal quotes and cites are from the US Ordnance Department's Handbook of Ordnance Data, published in November 1918. The data used in this handbook was based on careful studies of the AEF experience in France: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>... motorizing a 6-inch howitzer regiment would save 1,440 horses, along with the soldiers required to feed, clean, and doctor them. They determined that in ocean transportaion to Europe, one tractor (at 360 cubic feet) was far less of a problem than the 16 heavy draft hourses and 3 riding horses it would replace. The sustenance of the prime movers being compared was also considered: "A horsed regiment of 6-inch howitzers consumes daily 14.7 tons (29,400 pounds) of forage, whether the animals are employed ... or idle. The same regiment ... (when mechanized) ... consumes 4 tons (8,000 pounds) of fuel, oil, and grease in marching 50 miles, which represents a two days' march for a horsed regiment, while little if any fuel or lubricant is consumed when idle." The studies also noted that tractors were actually more mobile than horses over adverse terrain while pulling artillery weapons, and while horses could offer occasional bursts of speed, the tractor could move along at 7 miles per hour all day. In the area of vulnerability it had become obvious that a shell which exploded nearby could incapacitate or wipe out either a horse team or a tractor, depending on the proximity and the size of the charge. Ordnance felt "... the chances of destruction are about equal ... and therefore this feature may be dropped from discussion." The fact that a tractor could perhaps be repaired or its useful parts applied to the repairs of another tractor was an aspect that the horse could not offer. Even such seemingly remote aspects as the production of leather entered into the equation: one regiment of heavy Field Artillery needed "... 125 sets of wheel harness and 333 sets of lead harness, the leather for which would make 11,720 pairs of shoes." Tractors were easier to conceal than horses (they stand still and do not make noises) and from the sanitation point of view, the Ordnance Department testily advised: "Animals, dead or alive, under conditions existing at the front, are a source of disease and are highly obnoxious. The tractor cannot create these conditions."<hr></blockquote> At the time this report was written, horses were being compared to simple crawler tractors, such as Holt's 10 ton Artillery Tractor M1917 and the 2.5 ton Artillery Tractor M1918 by Holt and RIA. These things looked like bulldozers without blades. By the time of WW2, improved technology had made the horse even more obsolete. [ 11-10-2001: Message edited by: Bullethead ]</p>

Terence said: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>X)How far behind the front lines would a German 105mm artillery unit be positioned. A 75mm unit?<hr></blockquote> Depends on the type of gun being used and the tactical situation. The Germans had several models of each caliber, each with a different max range. But for any gun, distance behind the front is a compromise of tactical utility and risk. The further forward you place your guns, the more of the depth and width of the enemy each battery can cover. OTOH, the guns are more vulnerable to location by counterbattery units and destruction by enemy ground forces getting through the MLR. Another thing to keep in mind. Max range is not what arty usually uses for planning purposes in the above decision. Instead, they use a figure less than the max by about 1000m. This gives the gunners a buffer if they need to adjust further out. So while the 10.5cm le FH 18M might have had a max range of 12325m, the Germans probably considered it as having only a 11000m range and would have positioned it based on that. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>How many guns per battery might one see?<hr></blockquote> On paper, most batteries had 4 guns at full strength. However, heavier weapons often had only 2 guns per battery. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>247.98.2)Is there a standard practice in which German howitzers were set up? Positions? Were gun pits dug? What IS a gun pit.How deep are they. Anyone ever done one on a CM map?<hr></blockquote> As best as I can determine, the Germans were like most other people in that they lined their guns up in a row perpendicular to their center of arc. Center of arc refers to the guns' field of fire. A conventional towed artillery piece's tube can only be trained within an arc of about 60^. Aiming further to one side required that the crew pick up the gun's trails and physically rotate the whole gun, then reset the spades. So when supporting fires are planned, the officers lay out templates that look like pie slices on the map until they get the coverage they want. This process determines the location and center of arc of each battery. Gunpits are just foxholes for big guns. They are used when there is a high probability that the guns will take fire and keeping them in position to provide continuous fire is more important than the risk of destruction. Also, set-up time is not an issue. Basically, in WW2 it took considerable time and effort with aiming circles and such, AFTER the guns had arrived in their new position, before they could shoot. So having to dig a big hole first further delayed the process. And of course, getting a heavy gun out of a hole is rather difficult, so dug-in arty isn't going to be able to do a hasty displacement in a bad situation. The depth of a gunpit depends on the situation. If you expect the guns to have to provide direct fire, say against tanks, then the pit is shallow. It's not deeper than it takes to get the gun tube parallel to and nearly in contact with the surface of the ground. This naturally leaves much of the gun exposed. OTOH, if the gun will only be doing indirect fire, it can be dug in deep because the tube will only be pointing up in the air. In CM, the defending player always starts dug-in. Hence, his guns are all in pits. They are of the shallow, direct fire-capable type, however. On-map mortars might be considered to be in the indirect fire-only type, but mortars ain't guns. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>b)Were gun tractors deployed near the guns? How near? Were the guns moved by trucks as well? Was there ever a shortage of gun tractors?<hr></blockquote> German guns were towed by everything from horses to halftracks to tractors. Whatever tows a gun, where it's parked when the guns are in action depends on the situation. Normally, the towing thing would be fairly close to the gun because it carries the crew, essential equipment like aiming circles and stakes, and usually at least some of the ammo. Horses towed the vast bulk of German arty (that in the infantry divisions) in WW2 so you could say there was always a shortage of towing vehicles, whether tractors, trucks, or halftracks. As the war progressed, even the mechanized divisions ran short on vehicles as well. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Subsection 20) What other units might one see near a battery of 105mm howitzers? AA guns? How many? What kinds. A Scheirung detatchment? How large? Any other assorted units?<hr></blockquote> A battery in action would consist usually of 4 guns, 4 towing things (horse teams, trucks, wagons, tractors, whatever), 4 things carrying extra ammo, and several other things carrying the battery HQ personnel and their communications, fire control, and maintenance equipment. Batteries would usually be responsible for their own local security so there would be a very weak perimeter surrounding all this consisting of whatever personnel could be spared with a few MGs and AT weapons. Arty is usually far enough behind the FEBA that sizable enemy ground forces aren't expected--keeping them away is the job of the grunts on the FEBA, after all--so all that really needs doing is keeping away patrols. The biggest threats to arty are enemy arty and tac air. For enemy arty, you can dig in or you can move; you can't stop it. However, tac air can be stopped. So arty is a frequent beneficiary of available AA assets. Usually, there's not much else in the way of combat troops around an arty battery. Mostly, you'd have more or less continuous ammo convoys and whatever MPs were needed for traffic control. Like I said, enemy ground forces aren't normally expected so there's not usually a need for friendly forces to counter them. Reserve units for the FEBA might be held at the same depth as the arty, but they'd usually be some distance away to avoid getting caught in counterbattery fire. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Were CREWED German artillery batteries ever overrun by allied advances?<hr></blockquote> Many times.

panzerwerfer42 said: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>I believe Charles said this would have to wait for the engine rewrite. Said something about assigning damage states for individual walls isn't possible in the current system.<hr></blockquote> I don't think he needs to go that far. I'd be happy with something much simpler. We already have an acceptable, if abstract, system for destroying buildings. And the resulting flat patch of rubble still provides cover, concealment, and LOS degradation over it. I say keep all that the way it is. The only change would be that instead of using the flat rubble graphic, replace a destroyed building with a 3D building "wreck" like those in the pictures above. All game effects would be the same as now, it would just be eye candy.

Sgt_Kelly kelly said: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>MG crews just move at a ridiculously slow speed until they're down to the last man, who then surrenders.<hr></blockquote> Actually, MGs become immobilized when down to 1 or 2 guys. Far from abandoning their heavy gear, the survivors will remain with it when there are no longer enough guys to carry it all. This is especially strange when the survivors surrender, because they retain their immobilized status despite "dropping" their weapons. Hence, you can't move them to a POW collection point or off the map. This is one of CM's endearing little quirks

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Black Five: The beatings will now begin....<hr></blockquote> .... and will continue until morale improves. Bo's'n mates, turn to.

Vanir Ausf B said: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>I wonder if there is not some misunderstanding about what actually constitutes "scouting" in CM. When most people talk about using scouts in a CM game, what they are refering to is sending out a forward screen about 50-150 meters in front of their main body. The main body then advances behind this screen, springing ambushes and revealing enemy positions. I'm not sure if this really is scouting, or if it's just being smart.<hr></blockquote> I have no problem with using a point element at this sort of distance in front of your main body. As you say, that's simply a good and realistic tactic to avoid walking into an ambush. And the point is close enough to the main body that info can come back pretty quick. But I disagree that that's what most people mean when they say scouting and recon. To me, these terms mean having your main body basically camp out for a number of turns while you send a few units out as far as possible to spot as many enemies as they can. Then you only move once you have learned as much as possible about the enemy dispositions. The difference between these 2 methods is pretty fundamental. With the former, you basically commit yourself to a plan of attack in the set-up phase, based on the info you have available at the time. You then start to carry it out with no further input. This is pretty much how it's done in real life. With the latter method, however, the player is keeping his options open until he can take advantage of the Borg spotting and zero time for giving complex orders. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Most games have a time limit of 25-35 turns. That does not correlate to "right now" in my book. It means you have 25-35 minutes.<hr></blockquote> Well, consider this a philosophical difference. To me, taking an objective doesn't mean just having the flag change color. It means securing the objective. Take the objective, set up a good perimeter around it, and then clear any areas nearby that the enemy might counterattack from. All that has to be accomplished by the end of the game, meaning that you have to get to the objective with plenty of time to spare. I suppose this is just a matter of taste. However, it does provide some useful effects. If I try to do this, I am at less risk of being accused of last-turn flag charges . It also makes me feel like I really did accomplish my mission and precludes post-battle "yeah, but next turn I'd have run your depleted platoon off that hill" arguments. Finally, if I do in fact get to the objectives early enough, I provide my opponent with the opportunity to counterattack and myself the opportunity to beat that off. This makes the game more interesting

Vanir Ausf B said: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Would you also say that using half-squads as scouts on the attack is also gamey? The reason I ask is that they are at least as expendable as sharpshooters (18 pts for a sharpshooter vs. ~16 for a half-squad), and Steve has stated that half-squads were put into the game specifically to be used as semi-expendable scouts.<hr></blockquote> Price isn't the issue. The issue is game mechanics (Borg spotting) in combination with the disjunction between gametime and realtime caused by the pauses between turns. Systematic battlefield recon in CM, by any type of unit, is inescapably gamey because it allows for information to flow back from scouts to the commander, the commander to make plans based on this info, and then send the info down to his subordinates, in what is effectively zero gametime. In reality, especially with WW2 communications assets, this should all take far longer than a whole CM battle lasts.

Michael emrys said: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>That is true so far as it goes. As has been stated many times on this forum, in a typical CM battle, either attack or assault, all the preliminary reconnaissance would have been done. If that were the case, the attacker would have a pretty good notion (within some margin of error) of what kind of forces he was facing and their distribution on the battlefield. In CM, the attacking player knows little of this aside from (perhaps) which service the enemy troops are drawn from and by looking at the map and noting the location of the victory flags and tactical effects of terrain. This counter-balances the effects of borg spotting to some extent. Therefore, the attacking player must to some degree take matters into his own hands to restore the balance of battlefield intelligence. All this applies to the case of deliberate attacks against planned defenses.....<hr></blockquote> In real life, there are basically 2 kinds of attacks: deliberate and hasty. The main difference between the 2 is the amount of time invested in pre-attack recon and planning. Deliberate attacks are preferred because they have a better chance of success. However, the main reason one method is chosen over another is the time available before the position has to be taken, which is a function of larger-scale events taking place outside the confines of the CM battlefield. If the position has to fall RIGHT NOW, then you have to go in blind and hope for the best, knowing you're probably going to take more casualties than you would if you had time for proper recon and planning. This is just one of the terrible things that makes war Hell for battlefield leaders. For this reason, I disagree that "the attacking player must to some degree take matters into his own hands to restore the balance of battlefield intelligence." Simply put, there is no balance that needs restoring. The amount of pre-battle intel available to the attacking player is dependent on whether this is a deliberate or hasty attack, and that is a scenario design issue. Deliberate attacks can only be modeled with pre-made scenarios where the briefings can give the player the required pre-battle recon info. And I'm talking fairly accurate, fairly detailed info on the opposing force. Numbers, types, and locations of a goodly portion of the enemy forces. Info that's of critical importance to the commander on the ground. The type of stuff that would be known after the failure of previous attacks and/or adequate time spent patrolling. A simple overview of the situation, especially just the high-level strategic stuff, doesn't cut it. Unfortunately, this is an area where most scenario designers could stand to improve their art. The fact remains, however, that you are either doing a doing a deliberate attack or a hasty attack. If you have briefing info as outlined above, then you are doing a deliberate attack. If you don't have that info, then you are doing a hasty attack. Period. And the word "hasty" means just what it says. Your mission is to take the assigned objectives RIGHT NOW due to the pressure of events in the larger context beyond the map edges. So here is where it becomes inescapably and completely gamey to do any form of systematic battlefield recon in a CM battle. If you are in a hasty attack situation, then in real life you have zero time for further recon and the planning based on it. Just point your guys in what you hope is the right directions and go for it. Thus, delaying your attack while you scout the map with a few units is totally unrealistic. You don't have time for that in real life so shouldn't be doing it in CM. And scouting becomes doubly unrealistic and gamey besides when you add in the Borg spotting system and the pauses between turns. When your scouts find something, you can take all the time you want between turns thinking over what to do, then give appropriate orders to your troops immediately. The scouting info is instantly available to the player, he uses zero gametime to make his plans, requires zero gametime to brief his troops on the new plan, and only has to wait the normal command delay time before the new plan goes into effect. This isn't right under any set of circumstances. And it's utterly gamey when the context of the situation denies the player time for scouting in the first place. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>there is another case that needs looking into with increasing urgency as the release of CM:BB approaches. That is the case of a pursuing force running up more or less unexpectedly on a hastily organized defense, a roadblock, a defended village, or temporary stop line. In this case, there has been little or no preliminary reconnaissance. Indeed, the player may using a reconnaisance force.<hr></blockquote> I don't see this as being anything new for CM2. The same situations existed on the Western Front at times and are already modeled in scenarios. What you're talking about above is what the Russians called a "meeting engagement". They used this term differently than CM does. In CM, a meeting engagement is a type of scenario where neither side is dug-in and both are attacking centrally located flags. In real life, a "meeting engagement" is an engagement that takes place in the depth of the battlefield after the main lines have been breached. The engagement can be of any type, however, in terms of which side or sides is "attacking" locally. IOW, a real life "meeting engagement" could (and often did) involve an assault on a dug-in enemy, some of which could be of the deliberate attack type. Also, the side on the strategic or operational offensive often has to beat off counterattacks at a lower, more localized level. In any case, the Russians had powerful "forward detachments" in front of their main bodies to win such "meeting engagements". So basically, the possible types of attacks at the CM scale are the same as before. Say the forward detachment of a tank army (usually an independent tank brigade) would itself have some advanced guard like a tank battalion and an infantry company. The forward detachment's mission is to clear the road at once for the main body, to maintain the momentum of the whole offensive. So say its point formation runs into a blocking force. It has to do a hasty attack, no questions asked--that's its whole job. If it fails, the rest of the forward detachment will arrive in the interim and conduct a deliberate attack based on info learned during the failed hasty attack. Anyway, the only time I think it's within realistic boundaries to do battlefield recon in CM is during an operation. Basically, you periodically use a battle simply to gain info on the enemy without making any effort to advance your main body. This removes the realtime vs. gametime constraints because you won't be using the info until the next battle, usually several gamehours later.