Bullethead

Jagdratt said: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>A .5 cal "rifle" is currently deployed in the Canadian Army for plinking AFVs.<hr></blockquote> Why go to all this trouble and expense? Why not just dust off the old Boys ATRs I'm sure you still have in the arsenals

Well, to get back to the subject that started this thread, I watched THC's T34 show tonight. I was rather disappointed. It said very, very little about the T34. It was mostly just a 1-hour recap of the war on the Eastern Front and "oh yeah, the Russian 'steamroller' was mostly T34 tanks. Here's a picture of 1." Then more scenes of arty firing and grunts running around. Oh well. As for Christie's stuff, the US did buy quite a few of his vehicles. Not many at any one time--the biggest sale appears to have been 7 M1931s (4 with 37mm guns called T3 Medium Tanks and 3 with just MGs called T1 Combat Cars). These looked just like members of the Russian BT family. More importantly, the army bought some of Christie's patents, particularly those for his suspension system and the wheels-or-tracks conversion. Throughout the early 30s, army arsenals built numerous experimental vehicles incorporating these features. This amounted to a significant portion of US AFV production during that period because not many of any types of vehicles were made at that time due to budget constraints. So it wasn't like the US Army didn't give Christie's ideas a chance. They didn't just toss him out on his ear as is sometimes believed. They spent millions of hard-to-get early-1930s budgets on Christie's products, ideas, and the development of both at their own plants and test facilities. But eventually they decided on other systems. Oh well.

In the Tank Museum at Bovington is a Tiger that was knocked out by a 6pdr in similar circumstances. The Brit was looking right down the barrel of the 88. His round grazed along the bottom of the gun tube, leaving a crease at each step where it increased in diameter, until it hit the swelling right at the mantlet. Then the round deflected down through the hull roof, jammed the turret, and (IIRC) killed the gunner. If you go to Bovington, you can see this Tiger yourself, with all the scars mentioned above.

The Commissar said: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Well it sure is ugly, but can it really qualify as an Armored Fighting Vehicle? Its basically a MG pillbox on wheels. Probably made to stand around immobile, like real pilboxes - except this one you can relocate.<hr></blockquote> Well, according to the info at Bovington, where the beast resides, it was intended to be a true ersatz main battle tank. The Home Guard was going to use it to repel the invading Panzer divisions. So I guess that qualifies it as an AFV The Bison was a product of the same last-ditch school of design that produced the various and wonderful Molotov cocktail launchers (chambered for widely available soda and beer bottles) as Home Guard ersatz artillery pieces and anti-tank guns. No, I'm not making that up--I've got pictures of them, too Such a weapon could easily have been mounted on the Bison firing over the top edge of the concrete walls. This would have given the vehicle a real "gun" People think the Japanese weren't being reasonable when they armed militia units with spears and such in anticipation of the final invasion, rather than surrendering. Such people forget the Brits were just as unreasonable when placed in the same situation.

While I have to agree that the Kiwi Horror is a strong contestant, my vote goes for this: This was the Bison, a post-Dunkirk lash-up job. It consisted of cement pillboxes on a Thornycroft truck chassis.

SLAP said: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Does anyone know if he wrote any more books concerning his WWII experiences?<hr></blockquote> I just did an author search at both B&N and Amazon and couldn't find any other books by him about WW2. He did write a book called Outlanders but it's about the founding of Johannesburg, SA. BTW, B&N has a 1st Australian edition of Brazen Chariotssigned by Crisp, if you want to pay a lot for it

BTS has said LOS checks are a real eater of CPU time, which is why some desirable features weren't put into the game (ex: moving tanks providing cover for grunts moving right behind them). This being the case, I would imagine that moving a lot of units over cluttered and/or hilly terrain, where their LOSes would change a lot during the course of a turn, would tend to bog the blue bar down. This of course would get even worse when units come into contact.

Cauldron said: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>81 mm (on-board) TRP's add NO difference to accuracy.<hr></blockquote> For on-board mortars, TRPs only have 1 real effect. If a mortar hasn't moved, it can use indirect fire (i.e., no LOS of its own) at the TRP without needing to be in C&C. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>OBA ( I used 105) HQ fed LOS is slower than direct LOS. ie time on target<hr></blockquote> If the FO has no LOS himself, the time before FFE starts is about double the number listed in the info box, regardless of C&C. That's for regular FOs. Higher quality FOs have somewhat shorter times, and vice versa, but doubling the starting number shown is still a good rule of thumb. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Either as a result of C&C OR direct LOS ( I'm not sure) vet + observors seem to fire in a thinner CA widthwise, lengthwise error seems to be about the same as regular direct fire LOS.<hr></blockquote> Hmmmm. In my testing, it appears that if an FO has an LOS, he shoots a tight pattern with most of the shells falling within an area 120m E-W by 50m N-S (slightly bigger for mortar FOs). If he lacks an LOS, the pattern is about 220m E-W by 120m N-S (again slightly bigger for mortars). This doesn't seem to be affected by C&C or FO quality. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Vet + observors with direct LOS with or without C & C have a better drop zone than lesser units widthwise. Crossing the T with two OBA's should give a disernable X pattern.<hr></blockquote> I'm afraid impact patterns are always oriented with their long axes E-W. The direction of the FO's LOS to the target has no effect on this. So you can't make an X with 2 FOs shooting at the same target. If both were aimed at the same point, you'd get the same size and shape pattern as if only 1 FO was shooting, but it would have twice as many shells in it. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>From a health POV "HQ fed LOS" is a good deal but not as good as the mortar one.<hr></blockquote> Seems to me that having an FO in C&C only affects the time it takes for the FFE to start. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>TRP's add very little to accuracy.<hr></blockquote> As mentioned above, if an FO lacks an LOS, he shoots a much wider pattern than if he has an LOS. However, if the blind FO shoots at a TRP, he gets the smaller, LOS-type pattern. So in that case, a TRP has a substantial effect on accuracy.

I recently had a White Scout Car kill itself in a similar manner. There were 2 large buildings with an open tile in between. The car was beside one of these buildings, at the corner closest to the other building, at which the vehicle was doing area fire. The LOS was clear of the building closest to the car. The range was about 32m. The vehicle died at the instant its 1st burst of the turn left the muzzle. Only 1 single tracer traveled to the target area. This was the 1st time this vehicle had fired in the game. The vehicle was shown as "abandoned" and 1 of the crew was dead. When I examined the dead vehicle's kills, it showed "1 unidentified vehicle". I saved the game and surrendered to see what the enemy had in the area and found nothing. Furthermore, none of the enemy units had any kills of vehicles at all. Thus, the "unidentified vehicle" must have been itself . I found this rather strange. This vehicle doesn't seem to have a .50cal, so somehow some .30cal bullets must have come into the open top. As far as I know, MG bullets in CM don't ricochet. If that's true, then the only thing I can think of is somehow the crew got caught its own "grazing fire" area. Perhaps it moved forward a bit as it fired? I don't think so--it had been sitting still for some time before I ordered it to fire. In any case, I've been unable to replicate this "own goal". I've set up little scenarios with the same terrain arrangement and ordered a scout car to area fire from the same spot, but it's always come to no harm. Strange.

Originally posted by Panzer Leader: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Wait, are you saying that the tanks didn't have the one-track-forward, other-track-reverse ability?<hr></blockquote> In WW2, it was fairly common for tanks not to have this ability. Some did, some didn't. One that did not, as far as I can tell, was the Sherman. I don't think US tanks gained the ability to run their tracks simultaneously in opposite directions until the experimental M26E2's cross-drive transmission of late 1945. German tanks, OTOH, seem to have had this ability for much of the war.

Colonel_Deadmarsh said <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>What I was talking about was when your vehicle was already moving, stops to make a turn, but doesn't rotate to the new direction until a certain amount of time elapses.<hr></blockquote> I've never seen such a pause. In fact, I just set up a little scenario to test this. Regardless of whether the vehicle has wheels, tracks, or both, and no matter how great an angle the turn is, the vehicle immediately starts pivoting when it comes to a turning waypoint. It never stops moving.

Most vehicles in WW2 (not only wheeled vehicles but many tracked vehicles as well) could not pivot in place but turned in an arc like a car. However, in CM, all vehicles pivot in place, even wheeled vehicles. To make up for this, the time required to change facing is pretty long--it represents the time the vehicle would really be spending going around an arc (or backing and filling in a tight spot where there wasn't room to travel the arc). At least that's what I recall BTS saying. As for the time delay before rotation starts, that's just normal orders delay. If you have a stationary unit and give it orders to move, it will always take some amount of time in the next turn before it starts to move. So if you order a vehicle to move off in a direction different than its current facing, you will see the vehicle sit there before it starts rotating to face the direction of travel.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by lcm1947: Sorry bout the subject title but it would have been as long as this message so here's my question. Why is it that all the posts are now wider then my forum screen allows? I have to use the left and right scroll button to read the posts and it's boring and slow. Is there something I can do to my computer or is everybody just doing this on purpose? And if so please stop it. Just kidding but it's really a pain in the behind to have to scroll every post like that. Anybody know how to correct or is it just tough stuff? I really hope somebody can help. Please don't make me go to my computer guy for help. He's expensive. Thanks in advance.<hr></blockquote> You could try increasing the resolution of your desktop. I use 1200x1600 and never have to scroll sideways

CombatGeneral said: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>ever happened to free speech<hr></blockquote> It never ceases to amaze me what a lack of understanding of the Constitution prevails among the masses it protects. But I'll try to correct that one more time: The Constitution ONLY says that GOVERNMENTS shall not infringe on free speech, as that has been defined by the Supreme Court. BTS is not a government, this forum is not a government office. So the 1st Amendment doesn't apply here. BTS can shut you or me or anybody up for any reason or no reason. Welcome to harsh reality. Maybe you'll pay attention in civics class next time.

BTW, early this morning I discovered there's another sound that sticks with you: tornados . Anyway, I went to bed last night at the geographic center of a tornado watch. At 0030 this morning, I awoke to find myself sprinting down the stairs and yelling "TORNADO!" to wake up the family. Next thing I noticed was a tremendous roaring noise and that the whole house was shaking. But as I reached the bottom of the stairs, the roar broke up into a series of loud, house-shaking booms that gradually got further apart and finally stopped. Turns out it was just thunder from a couple trees in the yard getting nuked

Gyrene said: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Did you guys send any people to the Hospital Ship offshore? A buddy of mine contracted that "Desert Storm Syndrome" and he was the only one of our guys to go to the ship, and that's where we think he got sick.<hr></blockquote> None of my people got hurt bad enough to go to the hospital ship until after the ceasefire, and when that happened they got sent to a hospital in Germany and then home. Quite a few of us, including me, got varying degrees of Gulf War Syndrome. I think it was just a combination of being exposed for long periods to dozens of different nasty substances, parasites, and diseases all combined with a generally poor state of health brought on by excessive fatigue, short rations, poor hygiene, and the constant cold and wet.

One thing about TRPs: While they are more effective than in real life in that all weapons can use a single TRP regardless of which one created it, they are horribly less effective than in real life because they prevent the rapid adjustment of FFE off of the TRP to follow moving units. It works like this. If you don't have a TRP, you can move your FFE up to 100m and only incur an interruption of a few seconds. However, if you were using a TRP, ANY movement off of it makes you start the whole delay time over from scratch, like 2 or 3 minutes. Hopefully this will be addressed in CMBB

Where's Lawyer when you need him? I actually bothered to read all 3 pages of this abortion so far looking for him to chime in on the title choice. From Black's Law Dictionary: demise: to bequeath or transmit by succession or inheritance. So who is the departed former owner of Peng, and which poor bastard did he demise Peng to in his will? Please tell me it's Gerbiltoy who's dead. But I'm afraid it might be Lawyer--he seems to be MIA. But more importantly, I hope Bauhaus is Peng's new owner.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by panzerwerfer42: BH, I was looking at your webpage and the bottom bit certainly caught my attention. How many chemical rounds do you think the Iraqi's fired at you?<hr></blockquote> In my immediate area, not very many. I never saw a full salvo of the stuff, just sometimes what appeared to be single gas shells mixed in with a volley of HE. The Iraqis used Russian doctrine and at that time Russian doctrine was to mix single vomit agent shells in with HE volleys. Only it appears the Iraqis didn't have vomit agent--at least we were never told of it--but used nerve or mustard gas instead. Anyway, usually when we'd see a shellburst that matched the description we'd been given for gas shellbursts (small explosion, possibly with a vapor cloud), our detectors would start going off soon thereafter. We had the color-changing tape and some little boxes that sniffed the air. So we took that as proof it was gas. Plus we got the metalic taste and tingling nose we were told were symptoms of nerve gas. OTOH, it's difficult to say what was really happening. The Iraqis certainly had their share of duds and low-order shells (I'm alive today because of at least 2 such burst failures). And sometimes the detectors would go off for no apparent reason--some said that all the oil well fumes in the air could set them off. And our minds could have psyched us into thinking we had gas symptoms. But there was no doubt they had gas shells, nor that we set off a lot of them. This was happening even before the main assault. Like one time a plane bombed a reefer trailer full of nerve gas and reported how Iraqis were coming out of their holes all around doing the dead bug dance. But then it blew over our side of the lines and we had to dress up for it. So even if they weren't shooting it at us, there were still wisps of gas drifting across the battlefield all the time. That said, other units around us reported getting hit with gas salvos, tripping gas mines, etc. I think the whole gas issue was hushed up, along with the undoubted mass use of anthrax against us. As you know, US policy for years has been that if somebody uses chemical or bio weapons on us, we'll nuke them in return. But it wasn't politically expedient to nuke Iraq, nor was it to admit we got hit with this stuff and NOT nuke them. Nobody else would then believe our deterrent threat. So it had to be hushed up.

Gyrene said: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Bullethead, it was interesting to read you story in your web page, as I remember when I was at Tanajib we kept hearing about you canny-cockers exchanging pleasantries with the Iraqis.<hr></blockquote> Hope you heard the good stories about us <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>I had a lot of friends with HMH464 from New River floating in the Gulf until they decided to bring them ashore, so you might have been in the same boat with them. If you were on the boat with CH53D's from New River than that were them.<hr></blockquote> I was never on a boat during the war. We put all our gear on boats in early December and then flew out at the end of the month to meet it at the port. Same thing coming home. I really felt sorry for the guys who were stuck on the amphibs the whole war. They were there longer than the rest of 2MarDiv, cooped up with a bunch of squids, and never got to fire a shot. And for some reason, they didn't take kindly to being reminded of that when we all got back to Lejeune. Man, those were some good brawls <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>When the area I was at in Tanajib got hit by a couple of Frog missiles we didn't hear any incoming. We were sleeping, but woke up on the floor. <hr></blockquote> I can imagine. Geez, those Frogs have some big warheads.

panzerwerfer42 said: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>I bet it is that low pitch thoomp sound that tips the target off. Low pitch sounds would travel farther after all.<hr></blockquote> I agree. You "hear" mortars firing more with your lungs than with your ears anyway. It's always seemed to me that the THOOMP is more of fake sound manufactured by your brain to put a label on the body cavity vibration you feel. So I suspect that at long range, as in the story that started this thread, you might not actually hear the THOOMP with your ears, but might feel it and react accordingly, and your brain tells you heard the mortar because it knows that's what made the vibration. That's probably what happened to me the one time I don't recall hearing the firing. [ 11-28-2001: Message edited by: Bullethead ]</p>

tero said: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>I always thought WWII rockets in particular expended their propellant before leaving the rail/tube. The German 280mm has a max range of 1925 meters. That would indicate the propellant is in fact burned out at the tube.<hr></blockquote> Your range for the 280 is off by a factor of 2-3, depending on source. But it could not have reached even 1900m if it burned in the tube. This is because rocket launchers are open at the rear so most of the initial force of the propellant is used just overcoming the inertia of the stationary rocket. If that was all there was, there would have been nothing left to accelerate the rocket to the speed required to reach 1900m. Consider the panzerschreck. It burned in the tube and so could barely, even with a small, light projectile, reach 200m. Put the same projectile in a weapon with a sealed breech, the Puppchen, and it could go to 800m. Simply because this made it work more like a gun (or at least a mortar due to the gas lost around the loose-fitting projectile). But the 280mm was fired from open steel frameworks. No sealed tube, so no way to reach more than a couple hundred meters if the propellant burned instantly. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Surely you've seen video of MLRS firings from the Gulf War? Or footage of Nebelwerfer firings? Yes, both. And Katyusha too. And I am frantically trying to remember if the Nebelwerfer fired the same way MLRS fires. The number of tubes per mount is different (duh ! ) so the amount of dust from the back blast is bound to be different in favour of the Neberlwerfer. What about the propellant burn out. IIRC both the Katyusha and the Nebelwerfer burned out the propellant at or very near the mount.<hr></blockquote> Nebelwerfer footage I've seen shows rockets going far downrange and high into the sky with motors burning and belching huge clouds of smoke. In fact, the trail of individual Nebelwerfer rounds was MUCH bigger than from individual MLRS rounds because the former were spin-stabilized by angled rocket jets. So the smoke wasn't blown just straight back, but also out to the side, forming a much wider trail per rocket. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Thinking in WWII terms here: The Germans could use sustained rocket barrages in the first half of the war. The Soviets could use sustained rocket barrages in the latter part of the war. In the West in 1944-45 the Germans could not use sustained barrages.<hr></blockquote> And these time periods correspond to the times when the necessary preconditions for sustained rocket fire were applicable to the respective nations. Namely, when that side had air and arty superiority. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Yet the Nebelwerfers seem to have rated quite high in the Allied hate/notoriety list.<hr></blockquote> This is because rockets get your attention. They make it abundantly clear that somebody over there is trying to kill you with big, nasty things. And you have longer to appreciate this knowledge as you grovel in your foxhole waiting for the blast than you do with conventional arty, because of how noticeable rockets are. This does not mean, however, that rockets were more effective or caused more damage. You yourself have noted how they didn't cause many casualties. It's because it's not pleasant at all to lie there sucking mud with time standing still while wondering if you're about to be blown limb from limb and knowing you're powerless to affect the outcome. You're not likely to think back on the experience with fondness when telling war stories later. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>The Western armies did not use rocket arty in the same scale the Soviets and the Germans did during the war. After the war it took some time to get them to accept the rocket as a viable supplement to the field arty. I can make it sound like the rocket arty was just like the SMG to the Western Allies, undervalued and misjudged. <hr></blockquote> Rocket arty wasn't really worth anything until the development of submunition rounds. Until then, it could only produce results in sustained bombardments, when the strain of the worry described above would build up enough to sap resolve. A few scattered salvos wouldn't do that or inflict many casualties. Nowadays, however, you can put 1 rocket with very good accuracy over a target, dump hundreds of submunitions from it, and get a destructive effect equivalent to a dozen gun firing several rounds each. Now that's worth something.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by panzerwerfer42: Hey Bullethead, how much long can you hear mortar rounds coming in before they impact? I've heard they are fairly hard to hear coming in, except for the initial firing of them. Regular artillery is quite noticeable when it is about to fall, right?<hr></blockquote> I don't think there's any time between hearing the mortar shell itself and it going off. As I recall, I was on the ground before I was consciously aware of hearing them and the sound of approach was just a grace note of the main explosion. Sort of a zBANG! effect. It has to be pure reflex to get down before that. I can only think of 1 time when I heard the shell but not the firing. Most times, I keyed on the firing. Mortar firing is much more noticeable, and that puts me on the ground pronto. Somehow you can often hear it amongst the surrounding noise more than its volume alone would lead you to believe. Maybe it's because other noises are more high frequency but mortars carry like sub-whoofer pulses. I don't know. But that THOOMP of theirs makes me duck because even when time "stands still", it doesn't seem very long between that and impact. Arty shells have strange sound effects. If things in the immediate area are quiet enough, you can hear them rumbling along through the air all the time, coming and going overhead and passing by on the flanks. That's "somebody else's problem." But when they come for you, suddenly the noise starts rapidly to increase in volume, it has a slightly different pitch than the "somebody else's problem" rumble, and it's more of a constant roar than a wavering rumble. You usually have a second or 2 from when that starts until it hits. And normally, you don't hear both the harmless rumble and the deadly roar from the same shell. That's assuming you can hear it. Most times you can. But this loud sound can blend into the general din of a major engagement (or you're just deaf by then). And sometimes the shells are supersonic. And sometimes the range and trajectory can play tricks on you. One time I was in an exercise at a "do-nut" base, where there's an impact area in the middle and the guns move around the edge shooting inwards. I was on an OP at the edge of the impact area and it chanced that the guns were directly across the impact area from me at this time. When they fired, I could hear the usual harmless rumble because even though the shells were pointed at me, they were landing a couple clicks away. During the course of the afternoon, we shot at different points out in the impact area. And on one change of target, the gunners put way too much elevation on, with the result that they shot over the impact area and hit my OP with 8x105 shells. At first this sounded just like before, the usual harmless rumble indicating a distant impact. But suddenly it got into "HERE I COME" mode. WTF?!?!?!? We all hit the deck and emerged unscathed but our hootch was well ventilated We figured later that because the rounds were going up like mortar shells, we heard the rumble when they were ascending. And the shape of the trajectory and the time of flight was such that this sound crossed the impact area in time to arrive just before the roar of the descending shells right overhead. Strange. Normally that doesn't happen.

The sounds of mortars firing and incoming, airburst HE, and the nearby impact of submunition ordnance are things that stick with you. At least they have with me these last 11 years. And it's amazing how fireworks shows can exactly mimic all these sounds . If I'm expecting it, then such shows don't freak me out, they just make me remember. But if they fire something by surprise, like when somebody hits a home run while I'm digging for change to pay the beer man, I'll be on my face in the aisle amongst the peanut shells

I'll second my co-author JonS and also plug the CMMC arty rules One thing for campaign guys to keep in mind about arty ranges. If you've got a book of gun stats that list maximum ranges, knock at least 1000m off that. The resulting number is the "planning range", which is what is useable on the battlefield. The 1000m between there and the absolute max is a cushion to allow the fire to be adjusted further out. The planning ranges listed below are just handy round numbers. Feel free to use your own along these lines. As for specifics of common German guns (from Ian Hogg, German Artillery of World War Two: 7.5cm l FK 18 max range: 9425m planning range: 8400m 10.5cm le FH 18 (no muzzle brake) max range: 10675m planning range: 9500m 10.5cm le FH 18M and 18/40 (with muzzle brake) max range: 12325m planning range: 11000m s 10cm K 18 max range: 19075m planning range: 18000m 15cm s FH 18 max range: 13250m planning range: 12000m HOWEVER: this could only be achieved with full-power charges, which caused excessive wear. As a result, without written request and authorization in advance, these charges couldn't be used. And even with such permission, only 10 rounds per gun per day could be fired with full charges. Thus, for most of the time, this weapon was limited to: max range: 9725m planning range: 8500m 15cm K 18 max range: 24500m planning range: 23500m 17cm K 18 in Mrs Laf max range: 29600m planning range: 28500m 21cm Mrs 18 max range: 16725m planning range: 15500m 24cm K 3 max range: 37500m planning range: 36500m