[Will there be any model-to-bitmap support in CMBB?]

TIGER!! Good to see you back and already expressing an interest in CMBB mods I look forward to your creations.

[Ever lose an AFV to rifle fire?]

I've lost a real tank to rifle fire, not just an open-top SP gun. Of course, the Hotchkiss isn't much of a tank, but still . What happened was the exposed TC got nailed. Because this tank only has 2 cremen, and there is some code in CM that makes it impossible for 1 man to continue, he bailed out, leaving the tank in an ABANDONED state.

[MG poll at Combat Opinion - interesting results]

I said: Um, ain't "going to ground" the same as "taking cover"?

MD said: No, it isn't.

LOL, now you're arguing the semantics of hiding from fire If "going to ground" in the military context doesn't mean "taking cover", then what DOES it mean, pray tell? Does it describe the soldiers ridding themselves of excess static electricity, perhaps?

I said: Also, can you say for sure these guys weren't bounding from cover to cover in their advance?

MD said: Yes, I can, without a doubt.

How so? Were you there? Is there an actual movie of this action that you've see? Have you even been in a similar situation yourself, from which you may infer how things happened in this action?

No, all you can do is cite romanticized accounts that were written in a standardized, stylized form, and intended at least partially to lionize the participants, their leaders, and the cause they fought for. If you think they portray anything like an accurate picture of what the individual grunts were doing at the time, you're sadly mistaken.

I'm not saying such accounts are inaccurate. They do tell you who was there, what they did in general, and what the results and costs were. But they utterly fail to provide accurate details of what was happening at the lower levels. Nothing about the small unit tactics and drills, just the fact that battalions as a whole advanced or not. But what we are after here is precisely those low-level details, because we are dealing with a game played out at those levels.

I strongly recommend you read at least the introductory sections of John Keegan's The Face of Battle. Specifically, the part about such "battle pieces" as you've quoted all over here and why they're pap at worst and simply inaccurate at lower levels at best.

You don't know what you're talking about. Check Dancocks' books - either GALLANT CANADIANS or WELCOME TO FLANDERS FIELDS.

I think I know rather more about this subject than you do. What we're talking about here is the effect of fear on individual troops, or in groups no bigger than squads. Where in all the sources you cite do you find a reference to that? So far as I can see, the smallest units you've mentioned are companies. In WW1, that was like 200 men. Big difference in scale.

Sure, WW1 battalions were deployed as a column of companies on line. Guess what? Sometimes they do today as well. Yes, that formation had been used by Napolean. But that's as far as the similarity goes. Taking the analogy further, or assuming that identy with Napolean's day continued down to lower levels, is simply incorrect.

In WW1, the companies were in open order. In WW1, they advanced by squad rushes when under fire, often degenerating into individual rushes as men lost sight of each other among the craters and smoke and leaders fell. No Napoleanic troops did this.

Seriously, how can it have been otherwise? Remember the environment this was happening in. The ground was all torn up, the air was so thick with smoke and dust that the attacking troops were soon invisible from the trenches they'd just left. So how could any group of men maintain Napoleanic dress and cover even assuming they'd been trying to? How could anybody claim to know what all of them were doing when they often couldn't see from flank to flank of their own company? Not to mention, if the troops always kept going, why was there any need of sergeants and junior officers to make them move?

I said: What normally happened ...

MD said: Are you talking about Daly, or British troops from 1915-1917?

I'm talking about all soldiers in all wars from no later than 1860 onwards. When attacks went in despite insufficient suppression of defenses, the troops routinely hit the deck and sought what shelter they could find in folds in the ground, shell holes, or scrapes dug with mess kits. This is a situation where you do not have any real combined arms attack. It's effectively just infantry going it alone due to the failure of supporting arms to do their job.

perhaps the point in dispute between us was often this happened?

It's certainly a main point of dispute.

Successful attacks, especially when they are pressed home against seemingly overwhelming adversity, get all the press. Successful attacks are, after all, what win battles and advance careers. So you often see stuff like "The regiment's unwavering lines advanced bravely through the smoke, each man unflinchingly charging forward through the intense fire to carry the enemy trench at bayonet-point." OTOH, unsuccessful attacks are often glossed over to avoid the stigma of failure and fruitless loss of life. For example, stuff like "The regiment launched its attack at zero-hour but could make no progress, and so returned to its starting positions after 3 hours of heavy fighting." But this could well mean the regiment never more than a dozen yards into no-mans-land, where it was pinned down and pounded unmercifully until darkness.

I am telling you, full scale attacks were not common from 1914-1916, and when they were launched, the men were so laden with gear - as much as 80 pounds - many couldn't go to ground, or they would never get up. I am talking not just large pack, but spools of barbed wire, entrenching tools, the works. There was always the belief that the arty would smash the enemy flat.

Of course they could get up again. If they couldn't, how did they get out of their own trench in the first place?

The real question is, how did they remain standing? Put such a load on your back and try to get across a morass of muddy craters and debris as quickly as possible and see how often you slip, trip, and fall.

This without even the added incentive of heavy fire to make you want to hit the deck. Put in all the chaos of battle, add the survival instinct and HUGE amounts of barely controlled fear, and there's no way such troops could maintain their footing to the extent often seen in "battle pieces".

I said: All I can say is, you must not have been shot at very much.

MD said: Irrelevant - you were trained to drop at the first sign of effective enemy fire. Early war British infantry were not. I stated this twice now - big difference.

I can't help but snicker at this. You just don't get it at all and are making ivory tower judgements without any clue of what it's like to be under fire

Training has nothing to do with it. The default condition is that troops will seek cover under fire and only the most rigid discipline, instilled under real martinets of the old school, long-service professional armies of the 17-1800s could override that on a regular basis. Sometimes, under unusual situations, other troops would stand just as well, but not often.

I submit that the training of Kitchener's Army was not of this old-school type. They were trained in the use of their weapons and minor tactics, but as their continued civilian-type indiscipline showed, they certainly were not up to the unwavering standards of, say, the Old Guard.

Look at the wars of the mid-late 1800s. In those days, the approved method of fighting at first was still as in Napolean's day: shoulder-to-shoulder masses firing into each other at short range. Seeking cover was definitely against the rules. But when such formations met rifles instead of muskets, the troops hit the deck and manuever was halted just as effectively as it was by wire and MGs in WW1. So they had to revise their tactics, accept open order, and the use of cover during the advance, in order to get things going again.

So what modern training does is just go with the flow. The troops are going to seek cover anyway so you have to turn this to your advantage by making it part of maneuver.

Also, I wasn't trained to seek cover when at the 1st sign of effective fire. I was trained to do whatever it takes to accomplish my mission. Sometimes preservation of force is more important than gaining ground immediately, but sometimes it isn't. Maybe this is more of a Marine thing, because if we immediately sought cover in our traditional role, we'd stay pinned down behind the amtracks on the beach .

I said: You will drop into the 1st hole you find, regardless of training.

MD said: Prove it.

OK, meet me at the West Feliciana Sheriff's Department firing range. Any day, any time. We'll put you out by the targets and have a SWAT deputy fire his SMG at you as you advance towards the firing line

And if there are no holes?

Your options are all bad. There are 3 choices: press on, stay put, or run away. Which one you pick depends on the situation. But if the fire is very heavy and you've still got a sufficient distance of more of the same to the objective, pressing on usually doesn't happen. Neither does running away, because the enemy has already demonstrated what he can do in the area behind you. So what normally happens is that troops hide behind the corpses of their dead buddies while scraping out shallow holes with whatever tools are at hand, there to await darkness.

I agree with you that taking cover was not uncommon - but you are saying in any and all circumstances. There were also a lot of frontal assaults in the Boer War - and the Civil War. Which was the standard tactic to be employed.

I've repeatedly pointed out that sometimes troops did extraordinary things. But by and large, when faced with an impossible situation, the predictable outcome occurred. The situation was impossible, so the troops couldn't make headway, and as a result were pinned down and annihilated. In every war since the mid-1800s, there have been such impossible situations. There were also certainly quite a few in WW1 (the whole 1st day of the Somme comes to mind ) and WW2 (such as Operation Mars).

Possible situations differ from the impossible only in a matter of degree. As realization of this dawned on the military through the late 1800s, infantry tactics changed accordingly. Open order, squad rushes, etc. Different armies did this at different times but the Brits did so before WW1. These new tactics worked well enough against rifles and a few fieldguns, but not against barbed wire, MGs, and arty on an unprecedented scale.

Fire and movement tactics were well known by 1917. You need to realize that they were not in 1914. Somewhere in between, they learned - or relearned - how to do this.

I disagree with your dates. For the Brits, the change-over seems to have taken place during the 2nd Boer War. The original troops employed there began by using the close order, upright formations that had worked so well on natives armed with swords, spears, and a few muskets. But the Boers didn't come out in the open and had modern, magazine rifles, and so the Brits got shot to pieces. It took numerous disasters to make them devise new tactics.

But by then the government had gotten tired of failure and brought in new troops and commanders. These guys, who belonged to a different "clique" than the old crew, were going to show them "how to do it right". But they came in with the same out-dated tactics and got shot to pieces in their turn, until they, too, learned. Thus, the change-over affected the bulk of the Brit standing army.

[MG poll at Combat Opinion - interesting results]

Michael Dorosh said:

JasonC - if you have any knowledge at all about British casualties and tactics in WW I, you need to demonstrate it.

Oh, come down of your high horse, MD This is other comments in this thread telling people to butt out don't go over well.

Kitchener's Army was nothing like you describe.

You might have meant me with this because I think I put in more of a description of Kitchener's Army than JasonC. So assuming that's the case, why do you disagree with my description?

Like WW1 in general, Kitchener's Army has gotten a lot of bad press and is the victim of long-standing, incorrect dogma accepted without question by most people today. This is the result of the fact that most commentary on the war was written by profession soldiers and historians who used them as sources, and these soldiers never had a high opinion of Kitchener's Army. Plus, Kitchener's Army got wiped out at the Somme and other 1916 ops, so it must not have been very good, right?

The fact is, Kitchener's Army knew how to fight. Its soldiers had been trained and equipped, over the course of a year, as well as possible given the exigencies of the time. It had the better part of a year of actual frontline experience before going into its first major offensive. By that time, the Brits had 2 years of institutional combat experience in the present war to draw on in their training and planning. And its troops certainly lacked nothing in courage or motivation.

But the brass never had a high opinion Kitchener's Army. Why? Because its troops were all civilians who joined up when the war started. As such, they lacked the spit-and-polish, paradeground and barracks discipline of the tiny, pre-war, long-service, professional army. At that time, this counted as much or more with reviewing officers as did competence in combat skills. Also at that time, the professional brass thought it took 10 or more years to make a soldier starting from the blank page of a boy straight from home. So how could you take a bunch of older bank clerks, etc., well set in their civilian ways, and make soldiers out of them in 1 or 2 years?

As we know now, the brass was wrong on this score. You can take masses of draftees, not even volunteers like Kitchener's Army, and turn them into war-winning armies in less time than Kitchener's Army had to get ready for the Somme. This was proven in 1917-18 and all through WW2. Also, "no combat-ready unit has ever passed inspection, and no inspection-ready unit has ever passed combat." Such armies won't be tuned to as high a pitch as the Old Contemptables, so will take higher casualties and may suffer a reverse or 2 on the road to victory, but they will still do quite a good job. Were it otherwise, how do you explain subsequent Brit victories with the draftee armies that came after Kitchener's lot?

Look at Kitcheners' Wood on 22 April 1915 - 10th and 16th Battalions CEF did the same thing - charged through massed MG fire, suffering many casualties - over 400 yards of open ground, at night, and did win the day. I have no estimate on the number of MGs they faced unfortunately. They went to ground initially, after crossing a hedge 200 years from the wood and alerting the Germans. The fire was intense, but one officer yelled out "Come on boys, remember you're Canadians" and both battalions charged full out. They entered the wood, and the charge proved irresistable - with bayonets and etools and fists, the Germans were ejected from the wood. It didn't occur to anyone to take cover - why? Because of their training.

Um, ain't "going to ground" the same as "taking cover"? I always thought it was. Also, can you say for sure these guys weren't bounding from cover to cover in their advance? I can't, and I doubt very much they did otherwise.

This is an example of the exception, not the rule. It's the Canadian version of Belleau Wood, where the USMC had a very similar experience and "Fightin' Dan" Daly, who won the CMH TWICE, got his lads going again with an analogous, though move vulgar, exhortation.

What normally happened was the attacking troops got pinned down by fire and left cowering in whatever cover and craters were available, unable to advance or retreat. And most times, they didn't have a bona fide hero in their midst to get them going again like this. So they just lay out there and got chewed up by arty and MG fire as long as daylight lasted, and then the remnants would stagger back to their trenches in the dark.

The heroes who arise in such situations might just be contagious berserkers. But I think the real reason troops get going again in such situations is that they realize, at least subconsciously, that remaining pinned down is at least as dangerous as pressing on, and that pressing on at least lets them personally have some say in their own survival, whereas hiding in craters in no-mans-land is a totally random thing.

But the fact remains that the instincts of most men cause them to "go to ground" when they start receiving heavy and effective fire while still hundreds of meters of short of the objective. This regardless of their training or current army doctrine. Otherwise, there'd be no need of heroes to get them going again.

All I can say is, you must not have been shot at very much. Having faced the "lead headwind" several times, I can tell you there is nothing greater at the time than the desire to be out of it. You will drop into the 1st hole you find, regardless of training. If you're not totally spooked, you'll wait a few seconds to catch your breath and hopefully allow the enemy gunners to fixate on other targets, then dash to the next hole. If you remember your "modern" training, in your head you'll be running the litany of "I'm up, he sees me, I'm down, he missed" over and over. But if you're still moving at all, this litany corresponds to instinct so isn't that important.

By 1917 the British and Empire forces were reorganizing and pioneering the tactics of fire and movement - but it was a long time in coming, and the troops' training really did not incorporate hiding from MG fire. Look at it through their eyes, not with hindsight.

Both my grandfathers and all their many brothers fought as grunts in WW1. One of these brothers was living in Paris in 1914 and fought through the whole war, first with the French and then with the US. And my paternal grandfather was a machinegunner. They're all dead now, but they all told me their war stories, especially as to the tactics of the time. They advanced in squad and individual rushes because they knew that just keeping on would get them all killed.

In 1815, British infantry were trained to stand in front of enemy fire - to lie down was considered cowardly.

In 1815, the effective range of individual weapons was 100m or less, as proven by contemporary firing trials as canvas sheets as tall and wide as a battalion in 2 lines at close order. The only things that could hinder wandering calmly over the battlefields at longer ranges were arty and cavalry charges.

At some point, it became permissible to seek cover - I would argue this point had not been fully reached by 1916.

So the 2nd Boer War never happened? IIRC, the Boers lacked MGs and didn't have that much arty (although it was the best diamonds and gold could buy at the time). But their rifle fire stopped many Brit attacks hundreds of meters short of objectives. And there the Brits would lie all day in shallow scrapes dug with their messkits. Exactly as the yankee army often did in the 1860s.

The 2nd Boer War lasted a couple of years. It was fought by the professional army and navy. Due to casualties and the difficulty of making headway against such fire, it eventually involved much of the peacetime standing army. The junior officers of this war were the brass in WW1. So the higher-ups knew all about this type of fire.

The training manual (and I practiced this on Legends of the Fall) advocated that infantry advance at arm's dressing, and when close to the enemy to close to shoulder dressing, then fire two rounds rapid, and charge with the bayonet. Defensive fire was irrelevant - and let to costly charges like that at Kitcheners' Wood.

And most times, such manuals weren't used. Hardee's Tactics was supposedly the main manual used in the War Between the States, and it advocated much the same sort of drill. But that isn't what was used in real life most times.

You can scoff at the idea that a soldier in 1914 "should" have known what an HMG could do to him. Pretty easy for us to feel that way, we have been watching machineguns in movies and on TV for decades now. Most men in the volunteer armies of 1914 had never seen one before, much less their effects.

OK, picture this. Assume that for some unknown reason you were trained under the assumptions that Napolean's tactics still ruled the battlefield, despite contrary evidence from the Peninsular Campaign, the Waterloo campaign, the Crimea, the War Between the States, the Franco-Prussian War, the two Boer Wars, the Russo-Japanese War, and the 1st 2 years of WW1 over the intervening 100 years. So you're walking blythely across no-mans-land. Then suddenly MGs open up on your battalion and you see dozens of your buds get mown down at once. Simultaneously, heavy shellfire erupts all over the area, taking out more of your buds. It doesn't take a military genius to see that remaining standing up in such a Hell is suicidal. So what do you do? Keep on ambling slowly towards the enemy or start using whatever cover is available? Your instincts will throw you down into the 1st hole available. That's what pretty much always happened, alleged training otherwise be damned.

[MG poll at Combat Opinion - interesting results]

Originally posted by wwb_99:

One point about simulating WWI-style MG positions:

Try using wooden bunkers. Looking at pictures, it seems that they were much more akin to dugouts than foxholes. While the MG42 ROF is a bit high, the gunners will be about as safe as they were in the 'teens.

WWB

On the Somme, many of the German MG positions were concrete pillboxes. In fact, many German positions over the length of the front had concrete pillboxes, concrete dugouts far underground, etc.

[MG poll at Combat Opinion - interesting results]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Um Michael, that only happened on the one single day of the war in which the utterly green men of the Kitchener New Army first went over the top. The war lasted 4 years and even the battle of the Somme lasted 6 months - with an order of magnitude higher casualties, on both sides, than the Brits took on the first day.

Men who had seen it happen did not still walk through HMG fire with rifles at port arms, to be shot down in their ranks. The Germans had a similar experience in 1914 at first Ypres, and the French had a few in the battle of the frontiers.

It was strictly a result of green crossed with brave equals dead. Not of battle drill. The Brits never lost 20,000 men to HMG fire on subsequent days, and it isn't because they magically developed titanium hides. It is because they hit the dirt like sensible people, every subsequent time.

I wouldn't really call Kitchener's Army all that green. This was the summer of 1916. This volunteer army had begun formation in the 1st month of the war and by mid-1915 its units began arriving in France. This year of training might not have been the best, due to the sheer numbers of volunteers swamping the pre-war establishment, but it was still a year's worth. In the fall of 1915, Kitchener's Army then took over the Somme front. This was a relatively quiet sector at the time, but these troops still held it for about 10 months prior to the attack, becoming enured to frontline soldiering and getting some exposure to combat. So on the whole, I figure Kitchener's Army was better off than many US draftee formations pitchforked into WW2.

The problem was, despite all of that the Brit high command didn't trust all these "civilians". So for the Somme attack, the brass decided to completely centralize control. It was a real lock-step plan that even division and corps commanders couldn't change or influence. There was no back-up plan if things went wrong, and control of the whole battle depended on the forward troops being able to report back to HQ, where decisions were made.

But no plan survives contact with the enemy. And when things went wrong, there was nothing the troops could do about it. Nor could the brass, because every one of the redundant communications systems they relied on to direct the battle failed. MGs and shellfire in no-mans-land defeated telephones, runners, and pidgeons. The dust and smoke defeated visual signals. Thus, the brass didn't get an idea of how badly the initial attack had failed until well into the night. In the meantime, units were continually herded into the meatgrinder according to the schedule (or as close as they could manage) in the absence of orders to do something else.

It didn't help that the German position was one of the strongest on the whole front. They'd made tactical withdrawals here and there after 1914 to get themselves on the best possible ground in the area, and then had 2 years to dig in there. Combine this with a relatively ineffective barrage, spotty wire cutting, a complete loss of command and control, and a total absence of surprise, and you'll get a disaster every time.

[MG poll at Combat Opinion - interesting results]

Let me preface my remarks by stating that I think CM's MGs are undermodeled. Primarily, belt-fed weapons lack the ability to deliver sustained grazing fire to deny approach across open ground. Also, tripod-mounted weapons don't have the ability to fire at pre-set aiming points beyond their LOS or through smoke.

Michael Dorosh said:

A direct comparison to WW I is false for the reason I mentioned - troops were NOT aware of the supprssive effects, or at least their commanders weren't, and they were trained to advance regardless.

I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but that's simply the funniest thing I've ever read in this forum

The suppressive effects of smallarms fire was well-known since rifles replaced muskets in the mid-1800s. After that, troops crossing open ground were subjected to very effective fire for hundreds of meters instead of the dozens of meters that had prevailed in Napolean's day. In all wars from at least 1861 on, attack after attack bogged down short of the objective as the troops hit the deck and returned fire instead of pressing on. And this regardless of training and orders from commanders used to the effective range of muskets and bayonets. The introduction of MGs simply made this worse.

Of course, sometimes troops would keep coming regardless of taking heavy, effective fire. But such instances were the exception, and usually failed just like suppressed attacks, only more bloodily.

There is no way troops can keep from becoming instantly aware of the suppressive effect of even well-directed, long-range rifle fire, let alone MGs. They will hit the deck all by themselves. And certainly Brit fieldgrade commanders, many of whom were veterans of the Boer War, were well acquainted with this phenomenon. Hell, if the WW1 guys didn't understand suppression, they why did they got to such elaborate ends to achieve it with carefully orchestrated arty and MG barrages prior to attacks?

But one thing that's getting lost here is that grazing fire can be quite deadly even if units are suppressed and hitting the deck. If there is nothing to hide behind, just being on the ground does not get you out of the path of bullets fired from an MG only inches above the ground. In fact, hitting the deck can actually make you more vulnerable in such situations because you present a bigger target, including all your vital organs, to the bullets. OTOH, if try to stay erect and the bullets catch you in a leg, they knock you down and you get perforated in the important places. But on the whole, it's often better stay up and running to the next cover than to hit the deck when you're caught in this situation. Not that many troops can overcome their natural tendency to hit the deck when the bullets start coming.

This is where CM's MG modeling, at least for belt-fed weapons on tripods, is under-done. The MGs just fire 1 burst which might possibly inflict 1 or 2 casualties and force the rest to hit the deck. But then it stops shooting, whereas what should really be happening, at least against such an exposed target, is chopping the cowering troops up with sustained grazing fire. And if the squad keeps coming, it should continue to take casualties as bullets find legs.

Simply put - you used your experience in the 1990s to try and describe situations occurring in the 1914-18 war - a decidedly fruitless approach.

This is a misconception. People are still the same, MGs still shoot the same way, and bullets still have the same effects with they hit people. Many people think there is nothing to learn from WW1, but it really wasn't that different from much of WW2.

Middlebrook's descriptions of the opening day on the Somme bear out what I am saying - troops were trained to advance into machinegun fire (I am not saying it got them very far, believe me) and this would account for the losses they suffered.

They were just like everybody else in that regard. To gain ground, you have to advance into enemy fire. And the enemy is going to have MGs. So how were the troops going to get into the enemy trenches if they didn't try to advance into MG fire? That was true in WW1 and it is still true today.

The Brits suffered appalling casualties on the 1st of July for many reasons that had nothing to to with whether or not the men were trained to advance by rushes or just walk slowly toward the enemy with rifles slung:

1) Due to some cock-up, the arty barrage ended 10 minutes early over the whole 8th Corps front, instead of just in 1 small part of it where special circumstances required an earlier advance. So the Germans had 10 minutes to come up from their dugouts, set up their MGs, and call arty on the 1st wave of Brit troops seen lying out in no-man's-land.

2) Due to inclement weather during almost the whole week-long barrage, arty observation and adjustment was largely impossible. Thus, the barrage largely failed to destroy or even suppress the German strongpoints and supporting arty, or cut the wire. As a result, the Brit attack went in against nearly intact defensive positions without any benefit of surprise. And in places the Brits had to cross hundreds of meters of open ground, so there was plenty of time to shoot them.

3) Because there were only a few gaps in the wire, and the MGs were still operational, the Germans were able to blanket all of the gaps with MGs. Because such gaps offered the only possible means of reaching the German trenches, the Brits had to mob through them and got mown down like grass. The Germans also covered the gaps in the Brit wire the same way, and thus kept 2nd and subsequent waves from even leaving the Brit forward positions. It was even worse in some sectors, where there were no gaps at all and the attacking troops milled around under fire vainly searching for them.

4) Once the Brit attack started, the unsuppressed German arty blanketed no-mans-land and the Brit trenches all day, in conjunction with MGs firing in enfilade from unsuppressed pillboxes. Thus, in the few areas where the attack went off more or less as planned and the 1st wave got into the German trenches relatively easily, there was no way for the Brits to exploit this success or even support the forward troops. Subsequent waves and reinforcements were obliterated, resupply could not be got forward, and the forward troops could not retreat. As a result, German counterattacks mopped many of them up by the end of the day.

There's the famous anecdote about some general seeing lines of troops lying like raked hay and commenting favorably on their formation, not realizing they were dead. I don't believe this really happened. From what I've been able to determine, very few of even brigadiers could see the battlefield from their forward command posts, let alone brass from higher up and further back. There was just too much smoke and dust all day long.

Also, the ground was so torn up by shellfire that keeping in straight lines was impossible. The troops seem to have jumped from crater to crater as they advanced. Whether they did this simply by force of circumstance or in a deliberate effort to take cover as they advanced is rather moot.

Insisting that the firing of an MG in someone's direction will automatically make them take cover is false - a good portion of the 20,000 men killed on day one of the Somme would probably disagree with you.

You go out and expose yourself to MG fire and see how long you keep your feet . Besides, most of the Brits killed that day fell to shellfire. The MGs got quite a lot, no doubt about it, but the guns got more. MG fire pinned the troops in craters out in no-mans-land and heavy shelling all day ate them up.

[CMBB Modelling contest - Official Thread]

bump

[How about duds?]

karch said:

I'm sure they were rare, but too rare not to be included? I have no idea myself. It sure would be something to fire off a tank round at infantry or a building and hear a clunk or thud instead of an explosion... same for incoming artillery. What a bummer to lose a 155mm round that landed SQUARELY in the middle of a pack of infantry.

There are some duds in CM. It's most noticeable with VT arty. In these, very occasionally the VT mechanism fails and a shell hits the ground to explode like it had a regular impact fuze (which is the back-up mode for the VT fuze). Also, sometimes solid AP breaks up due to random metalurgical imperfections when it should have penetrated. IIRC, there are also regular HE duds, but that the game's graphics and sounds always show the full explosion thing.

[Please tell me this is fixed in CMBB]

Moriarty said:

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Unless it's swamp grass, reeds, etc., that are 5-foot and taller and there's a 1.5 feet of muck and the damned Dept. of Conservation didn't assess the wind speed and direction before touching it off.<hr></blockquote>

LOL, no, I'm talking about pasture-type grass, like you find in a clear terrain tile. Technically wheat, corn, barley, and all them are types of grass, too, and a burning wheat- or cornfield can be right up there with a house fire for radiant heat. But the short grass doesn't do anything really except make a lot of smoke.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>[snicker]Oh, fire chiefs just love when that happens.[/snicker]<hr></blockquote>

Hehehe, yeah, most times there's no excuse for that sort of thing. 99 times out of 100, there's no need to take that sort of risk. If you damage the truck on one of those days, it's your ass. But every once in a while the situation warrants it, and sometimes the fire surprises us. Then it's just c'est la guerre. I'm lucky in that my chief was in Nam, so he understands that combat equipment sometimes gets shot up

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Hope you weren't engineering any of those times, buddy.<hr></blockquote>

Not yet . However, I am just getting over a piece of shrapnel in my hand slug there by a rescue saw. Tomorrow's my 1st day back at work in 2 weeks.

[Please tell me this is fixed in CMBB]

xerxes said:

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>I has refering to the fire that burns. The problem occurs when you move near an existing fire and your move plot goes wacky.<hr></blockquote>

Well, being a fireman, I don't find that unrealistic either, in most cases. One of the biggest surprises for me when I got into this job was the sheer intensity of the radiant heat thrown off by a large fire. Like a burning house or patch of woods, for example. It's simply amazing. This radiant heat is quite capable of igniting flammables (like houses across the street) within its area of effect. I'm talking just the heat "shining" out of the fire, not sparks or direct flame contact. I've seen vinyl siding melt completely off the exposed sides of houses up to 100' away from a burning garage. We've melted the lights off and blistered the paint on more than 1 firetruck, too .

Needless to say, this type of heat is QUITE unbearable to unprotected personnel and ain't much fun for fully equipped firemen, either. So I think it's good when troops run away when ordered to move too close to burning buildings and such. Troops in battledress just are not capable of sneaking around the corner of a burning house, and they're not going to be able to stand within 20m or so of it for any length of time.

The problem is that CM doesn't distinguish between types of fires--fires all treat units the same way, regardless of what's burning. The above intensity for radiant heat is only applicable for things like buildings, woods, tall pines, and brush and crops in the appropriate seasons. But not for grass fires. Hell, all troops should still be able to sit in burning grass tiles, because the fire is small only only burning in a thin ring. Most of the tile is not burning.

[Please tell me this is fixed in CMBB]

xerxes said:

[CMBB Modelling contest - Official Thread]

I found (but did not order) an SU-76i in 1/76 white metal at the following site:

http://www.brookhursthobbies.com/mms.htm

[Captured KV Tanks]

GriffinCheng+ said:

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>1. I read somewhere that the Soviets like PzIII a lot (here?). Any links to Soviet-converted vechicles based on PzIII?<hr></blockquote>

The Russian Battlefield, among SCORES of other VERY cool articles, has a good write-up on the SU-76i with lotsa pics. This was basically the Russian version of the StuG III. It used a PzIII hull with a modified version of the T-34's gun in a StuG-type superstructure.

http://history.vif2.ru/su76i.html

And if you're really curious, you can buy a 1/76 scale white metal kit of this beast here:

http://www.brookhursthobbies.com/mms.htm

[ 01-28-2002: Message edited by: Bullethead ]</p>

[Captured KV Tanks]

GriffinCheng+ said:

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>1. I read somewhere that the Soviets like PzIII a lot (here?). Any links to Soviet-converted vechicles based on PzIII?<hr></blockquote>

The Russian Battlefield, among SCORES of other VERY cool articles, has a good write-up on the SU-76i with lotsa pics. This was basically the Russian version of the StuG III. It used a PzIII hull with a modified version of the T-34's gun in a StuG-type superstructure.

http://history.vif2.ru/su76i.html

And if you're really curious, you can buy a 1/76 scale white metal kit of this beast here:

http://www.brookhursthobbies.com/mms.htm

[ 01-28-2002: Message edited by: Bullethead ]</p>

[CMBB Modelling contest - Official Thread]

OK, an update and some corrections:

Warphead's got the GAZ-64.

Schrullenhaft says he has not yet ordered the following things, just knows where to find them:

ZIS-30 (1/35 Maquette)

ZIS-42 (1/35 Eastern Express -- NOTE: there are links to a place with several versions of this on page 3 of this thread)

Zrinyi (1/76 SMA)

Czaba (1/76 NRC)

TACAM R-2 (1/76 USCASTS)

CV35 (1/76 SMA)

Hopefully he'll post up where he found them shortly.

[CMBB Modelling contest - Official Thread]

GREAT NEWS! Here's a message from Schrullenhaft I've reposted from the beta forum. He's basically got the whole list single-handedly. We owe him a LOT of beer. Salute Schrullenhaft! Note, however, that he says not to let this discourage anybody else from jumping in on any of these.

I've bolded things that still ain't accounted for even with Schrullenhaft's outstanding effort. I encourage others to search for them. Schrullenhaft apparently knows were to find some of them so contact him if interested.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>I've modified BH's list here to add what I've ordered/found. All of the Cromwell's (UK), Ostmodels (Oz land) and FORT (Germany) I have currently on order and they should arrive within 2 weeks (hopefully - I haven't heard back from United Fun on the FORT's). They are mostly 1/76th scale and may be a very light on details or quite possibly not as accurate in their dimensions/details as some plastic kits or 1/35 versions.

Some of the Hungarian AFV's are made by Botond Models/Resination (Turan, Toldi I, Csaba & Zrinyi). They're in 1/35th scale and very expensive (probably almost $150 for the Zrinyi II). I've found one distributor in the UK for them, but I have yet to hear back on availability or pricing.

My skill as a modeller/painter is probably quite suspect. So if anyone cares to get any of the models I've 'claimed' here, they are more than welcome (especially if their a larger scale).

Russian

T-44 - Schrullenhaft (1/76 Crowmell)

T-26 * -- BH has ordered

BT-5 -- BH has ordered

BT-7 * -- PanzerLeader has ordered

BT-8 - Schrullenhaft (1/76 Ostmodel)

BA-6 -- Gordon has ordered

BA-6M - Schrullenhaft (1/76 Ostmodel)

T-60 -- Schrullenhaft (1/76 Ostmodel & A-variant)

T-70 -- Schrullenhaft (1/76 Ostmodel)

SU-12 - Schrullenhaft (1/35 Fort GAZ-AAA truck only)

SU-57 - Schrullenhaft (1/76 Ostmodel)

ZIS-30 - Schrullenhaft (1/35 Maquette)

GAZ-4M - Schrullenhaft (1/35 Fort GAZ-AA truck only)

ZIS-42 -- Schrullenhaft (1/35 Eastern Express)

GAZ 64

GAZ 67 -- Schrullenhaft (1/35 Fort)

German

H-39 Hotchkiss Don't we have this in CMBO?

PzKw R35 -- Mace has ordered or in work

PzKw 35S -- PanzerLeader has ordered

Flakpanzer 38(t) -- Schrullenhaft (1/76 Ostmodel)

Aufklärer 38(t) -- Makjager has in work

Hungarian

Turan I * -- Schrullenhaft (1/76 Cromwell)

Turan I (w/armor skirt)

Turan II * -- Schrullenhaft (1/76 Cromwell)

Turan II (w/armor skirt)

Zrinyi * -- located model (1/76 SMA)

Zrinyi (w/armor skirt)

Toldi I -- Schrullenhaft (1/76 Cromwell)

Toldi II - Schrullenhaft ((1/76 Ostmodel)

Toldi III - Schrullenhaft (1/76 Ostmodel)

Nimrod -- Makjager might get photos

Csaba -- located (1/76 NRC) - Makjager may get Botond Models-based photo which will be much better

CV35 tankette - located (Italian CV33/35 tankette - 1/76 SMA)

Romanian

R-1 Tankette * -- Schrullenhaft (1/76 Cromwell)

Renault R-35 -- Mace has ordered or in work

Vanatorul de care R-35 - Schrullenhaft (1/76 Ostmodel - known as R35/45)

TACAM R-2 - somewhat located (1/76 USCASTS)

TACAM T-60* - Schrullenhaft (1/76 Ostmodel)

Malaxa Carrier - Schrullenhaft (1/35 Mirage - known as Renault UE) - dependent on availability<hr></blockquote>

[ 01-27-2002: Message edited by: Bullethead ]

[ 01-27-2002: Message edited by: Bullethead ]</p>

[The CM republic]

Lord General Mr. Bill-

You might not know it, but the Justicor of the Cesspool is none other than your ancient nemesis, Mr. Sluggo. Seeing as you have invariably been dismembered, folded, spindled, and mutilated every time you've squared off with Mr. Sluggo, I would recommend against this course of action.

Furthermore, the Cesspool is protected by the Elder Gods. Attempts to destroy it will only bring their displeasure upon you. So if you don't want to be carried off by nightgaunts, I think you should cease and desist.

[Captured KV Tanks]

tero said:

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>How did you resolve this problem in the case of a nation which relied very heavily on captured materiel and which historically kept some of them going almost 25 years beyond the last being produced in the parent nation ?<hr></blockquote>

Don't sweat it, tero. Uberfinns don't need tanks anyway

[Captured KV Tanks]

tero said:

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>How did you resolve this problem in the case of a nation which relied very heavily on captured materiel and which historically kept some of them going almost 25 years beyond the last being produced in the parent nation ?<hr></blockquote>

Don't sweat it, tero. Uberfinns don't need tanks anyway

[What happens to CM when there is no theartres left?]

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

All this talk about other areas CM could cover reminds me of the Pacific theatre discussion. I know that is not one that is being looked at, but I was wondering if anybody out there is working on a conversion for the Pacific, ala the Desert one?<hr></blockquote>

A while back I made a scenario of the Battle of Kohima Ridge, "Gerpanese" vs. Brits. I think it worked OK and will send it to you if you want.

It's not so hard making believeable "Gerpanese". The Hotchkiss makes a good Japanese light tank and you can find German squads with almost all rifles. Make them fanatical vets and they work like you'd expect from dedicated Japanese grunts. Not perfect but OK.

[CMBB Modelling contest - Official Thread]

If anybody else want to try an Aufklarer 38(t), here's one: http://www.aviapress.com/viewonekit.htm?MAQ-012

And here's a Panther II: http://www.internethobbies.com/internethobbies/135scalpanpa.html

[ 01-26-2002: Message edited by: Bullethead ]</p>

[What happens to CM when there is no theartres left?]

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

What about detailing stinky flatlines, had a few of those last week.<hr></blockquote>

Those are just doo-dads on the map.

[Captured KV Tanks]

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

An interesting beast. One would have to wonder what the point was. Do you have a reference/picture of said vehicle, out of a matter of interest?<hr></blockquote>

You can buy a model of it at one of the sites listed on page 3 of the CMBB Model Contest thread. I believe it was called the Pz 753® mit 7.5cm KwK 40.

Just looking at the model box top art, which was scannned and put on the site in question, it appears to be a KV-1 turret with a German 7.5/L48 gun and a Pz IV or Pz III cupola.

[Captured KV Tanks]

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

An interesting beast. One would have to wonder what the point was. Do you have a reference/picture of said vehicle, out of a matter of interest?<hr></blockquote>

You can buy a model of it at one of the sites listed on page 3 of the CMBB Model Contest thread. I believe it was called the Pz 753® mit 7.5cm KwK 40.

Just looking at the model box top art, which was scannned and put on the site in question, it appears to be a KV-1 turret with a German 7.5/L48 gun and a Pz IV or Pz III cupola.