Keith

ScoutPL, you are correct on the contradiction between how TD battalions were initially envisioned to be used vs. how they were actually used. According to the document the TD battalion was designed to be kept independent to quickly counter concentrated armored thrust by german panzers. The TO&E of TD battalions reflected this in the sense that they had no organic infantry or artillery. But the reality was that the Germans used combined arms tactics, never sending their tanks into combat without support. Thus the whole philosphy behind the TDs were flawed from the start. Nearly all of the American armor commanders (including Patton) thought that TD production should be scrapped in favor of up-gunning the main battle tanks. With regard to the TDs secondary roles as infantry and artillery support, this was something that was clearly not envisioned by creators of the TD units. TDs were successful in this role and typically a TD battalion would be attached to an infantry division. The TDs would then be parceled out with one platoon per an infantry battalion. As far as indirect artillery is concerned the TDs were used in this role for interdiction purposes and were quite accurate and in fact out ranged the 105mm howitzers. During one major river crossing the TDs first provided direct fire support against the far side of the river. Once the infantry crossed and pushed beyond the range of direct fire support the TDs switched to indirect fire support with the help of TD indirect fire spotters attached with the infantry.

I just read a Combat Studies Institute document titled "Seek Strike and Destroy: U.S. Army Tank Destroyer Doctrine in WWII". One suprising fact is that TDs were often used in an indirect artillery fire role. In fact, in Normandy 87% of ammunition expended by TDs in VII Corps was fired in indirect missions! Typically the TDs used the same fire support communications network as the regular artillery battalions. In the indirect fire mission the M36 could throw a shell 19,000 yards! The M10 could reach out 14,000 yards. The second intersting fact is that the TDs were used as the primary weapon to reduce enemy pillboxes with direct fire, firing at the embrasures. During the Sept. 44 assault of the Gothic line in Italy one TD battalion supported the advance by placing rounds through gun embrasures of pill boxes at a range of 1,500 yards.

I also prefer games that are in the 25-35 turn range. I think most scenarios, even historic ones, can be distilled down into this time frame. The normal ammo load for most units will not allow them much ammo beyond 25-35 turns, including the movement to contact time. If something requires more than 35 turns to develop I would think an operation type game would be in order. p.s. Thanks for plugging my scenario "Indian Fighting" Wild Bill in the Scenario Tips forum. I am glad you enjoyed it

I have seen Winter War and I have to say that although the battle scenes are excellent I found the movie to be confusing and I had a hard time identifying just who were the core characters. The action centers around a particular platoon, but there were no real main characters. The men are just faces that get killed one by one. Also the fact that the film jumped around a lot made the film difficult to follow. However, it is worth getting just to see the fight scenes and the vitange T26 tanks.

This whole beret business is a silly attempt by the Army brass to improve the morale of the troops. Currently the number of company grade officers leaving the service are at an all time high. This probably has to do with 1) Low pay vs. private sector 2) Uncertain and long overseas deployments I personally think they should be spending more time thinking about restructering the military and changing its mission. The US military's whole structure is still based on the Cold War notion of fighting two wars simultaneously. This is an outdated and expensive philosophy. Why in the hell are we still in Korea?

I think it is entirely sufficient to model early war Soviet units as having "Green" or "Conscript" experience level with a high percentage chance of fanaticism. Both the unit experience level and chance for fanaticism are already available in the current game. If you want to penalize the Russians further they might want to give the Russian troops a little extra time delay for executing orders - simulating the lack of radios, lack of trained officers, and general indeciveness of the troops. Each year of the war this extra delay penalty would diminish and ceast to exist around 1944.

"Apocolypse Now" was based on the classic novel "Heart of Darkness" featuring an Eglishman venturing deeper and deeper into the African Jungles down a river to find a fellow archeologist. The deeper he went the more removed from "civilization" he became and the the more chaotic and disturbing the journey. The jugle assumed a dark life of it own. "Apocolypse Now" was trying to show the insanity and futility of the war and did an excellent job doing this. With regard to SPR, this movie was NOT a war documentary. It is a movie for ENTERTAINMENT with a compelling FICTICOUS story. It featured an American outfit that landed on an American beach and rescued an American paratrooper. It is NOT a movie about D-Day, showing the contributions of each of the combatants involved. If you want to watch a movie about D-Day, go rent the Longest Day. My votes for the worst war movie is split between "Green Berets" "Battle of the Bulge" "Midway"

I happen to have an electronic copy a famous speach that George Patton gave to the American troops of the Third Army the day before the Normandy invasion. If you have seen the great movie "Patton" you have heard the watered down version. The language is EXTREMELY colorful, but I think it gives us a good idea of what kind of man Patton was and his attack philosophy. So here is the last third of the speech: "When a man is lying in a shell hole, if he just stays there all day, a German will get to him eventually. The hell with that idea. The hell with taking it. My men don't dig foxholes. I don't want them to. Foxholes only slow up an offensive. Keep moving. And don't give the enemy time to dig one either. We'll win this war, but we'll win it only by fighting and by showing the Germans that we've got more guts than they have; or ever will have. We're not going to just shoot the sons-of-bitches, we're going to rip out their living Goddamned guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We're going to murder those lousy Hun cock suckers by the bushel-****ing-basket." "War is a bloody, killing business. You've got to spill their blood, or they will spill yours. Rip them up the belly. Shoot them in the guts. When shells are hitting all around you and you wipe the dirt off your face and realize that instead of dirt it's the blood and guts of what once was your best friend beside you, you'll know what to do!" "I don't want to get any messages saying, 'I am holding my position.' We are not holding a Goddamned thing. Let the Germans do that. We are advancing constantly and we are not interested in holding onto anything, except the enemy's balls. We are going to twist his balls and kick the living **** out of him all of the time. Our basic plan of operation is to advance and to keep on advancing regardless of whether we have to go over, under, or through the enemy. We are going to go through him like crap through a goose; like **** through a tin horn!" "From time to time there will be some complaints that we are pushing our people too hard. I don't give a good Goddamn about such complaints. I believe in the old and sound rule that an ounce of sweat will save a gallon of blood. The harder WE push, the more Germans we will kill. The more Germans we kill, the fewer of our men will be killed. Pushing means fewer casualties. I want you all to remember that." "There is one great thing that you men will all be able to say after this war is over and you are home once again. You may be thankful that twenty years from now when you are sitting by the fireplace with your grandson on your knee and he asks you what you did in the great World War II, you WON'T have to cough, shift him to the other knee and say, 'Well, your Granddaddy shoveled **** in Louisiana.' No, Sir, you can look him straight in the eye and say, 'Son, your Granddaddy rode with the Great Third Army and a Son-of-a-Goddamned-Bitch named Georgie Patton!' " "That is all."

Good Films ----------- SPR Das Boot Patton Tora! Tora! Tora! A Bridge To Far (disjointed) Cross of Iron Stalingrad (too long and slow) Battle of Britain (excellent vintage plane footage) The Longest Day (Hokey acting on the part of John Wayne and Robert Mitchum but some solid performances by Richard Burton and others) Kelly's Hero's (fake but fun + Clint Eastwood) Mediocre Films -------------- When Trumpets Fade (Yawning cliches) Winter War (The story goes nowhere and is very confusing) Memphis Bell (Too much mom and apple pie) Battleground (Hokey over acting, but that was the craft of the period) Worst Films ----------- Battle of The Bulge (ridiculously inaccurate) Midway (horrible acting and cheezy effects) Thin Red Line (Every soldier is a poet) Just about anything with John Wayne in it

Here is a direct quote from an email inquiry I recently made to an actual Kangaroo Squadron veteran on the role of the Kangroo and Universal Carriers in the Canadian/British Armies: "Regarding the evolution of the Ram Kangaroo conversion, I can make a few comments. First, Universal Carriers ('Bren Gun Carriers') are not really personnel carrying vehicles. They were too small for this job, and tended to be employed in specialist roles such as mortar-carriers, flame-throwers, FOO communication vehicles and gun tractors. As well, of course, they moved ammunition and supplies up front, and retrieved wounded. A loaded carrier (we have several) can carry perhaps two or three fully-kitted infantry in addition to its crew - not terribly efficient! They were developed when infantry was expected to walk. BTW, Canada manufactured 33,992 Universal and Windsor Carriers during the war, at Ford of Canada, Windsor, Ontario. Ours were well-respected for their durability and reliability, so no problem there - it's the role that gets confused. Canadians used the U.S. M-14 International Harvester halftrack mostly, with some M-3s and M-9s. Their tractability cross-country was a problem, as was the thin armour (in the attack). Incidently, the Universal Carrier itself only had a ¼-inch or armour too, so was little protection for other than shell splinters or small arms fire as well. In the summer of 1944, it was decided that the infantry needed to be able to advance WITH the tanks, under similar levels of protection from close defenses and in at least section-sized groups. Hence the conversion of the original Priests, and subsequently, Rams for that role. It worked remarkably well." There is an excellent website at http://www.mapleleafup.org discussing the Canadian contribution in WWII with wonderful links and bibliography.

dfgardner, If you haven't already, check out my historical scenarios on the Gamer's Net Scenario Depot: "The Bloody Causeway" "Indian Fighting" I too prefer to play and create historically accurate scenarios.

When CM3 comes out, which should cover the Med/Afrika, I am sure there will be a number of scenarios for ANZAC troops. I have made a few historic scenarios featuring ANZAC troops for Talonsoft's West Front game. From what I have read the ANZAC troops were definitely the best infantry the Brits had.

CavScout, You need to get your hands on the U.S. Center of Military History "green book" called "Riviera to the Rhine", which covers the U.S. operations in southern France and Germany from Dragoon to the end of the war. There are some excellent chapters regarding the delaying tactics of 11th Panzer. I don't believe this book is online, although it is pretty cheap to order (although it takes a while to receive it from the government). Perhaps a local library has it?

I suggest first applying Mad Matt's Mod Pack (MMP). This mod pack covers everything from vehicles to terrain and is of very high quality. Then apply mods for individual vehicles or terrain by downloading the appropriate 3rd party mod. BTW if you don't like a particular mod you can always back it out by restoring the original BMP files on the CD. Just look in the zip file to determine which file number you need to copy over.

Thanks for the compliment Terry. It didn't "suck", it just needed some fine tuning and I think you did an excellent job fixing things. It should be a real fun scenario for PBEM. In a shameless plug for my own scenarios, check out "Indian Fighting" and "The Bloody Causeway". -Keith

I had a situation where a tank slammed into a KO'd tank in damp conditions and the tank got immobilized. Pretty cool and very real.

There already exist a partial solution to your problem. You can select your tanks, which are out of LOS to the enemy panzer, to target the enemy panzer. Even though your tanks cannot currently see the enemy panzer they will immediately engage the panzer when they have LOS.

And no they were not Ad Hoc. As far as rarity is concerned, I suspect they were not too common considering the shortage of the number of assault rifles available. They should be considered specialist. I imagine the organization was developed as a response to the street fighting in Stalingrad.

I believe they were independent battalions organized for assault purposes. I remember reading about such a battalion assaulting the American Airborne troops in Ste. Mere Eglise during the Normandy campaign.

This is a legitimate use of the weapons. AA guns of all calibar were used in an anti-infantry role when necessary.

What I recommend is moving a platoon up to but not through the bocage. The troops should be positioned right behind the bocage so they can look/shoot through it. You can veryify the troops are positioned correctly by using the Line of Sight tool. Once the enemy is sufficiently suppressed advance one squad through the bocage with the other two squads remianing behind the bocage providing cover fire. Once the single squad has a firm fire base move up the rest of the platoon. Repeat. If you happen to have armor, move them up to the bocage first (but not through). After the infantry pushes through move up the armour again. Defensively it is a good plan to position your squads/MG teams at the corners of the fields, behind the hedgrow. This allows them to have interlocking fields of fire.

Check out the Holocaust exhibit. It is definitely the most impressive thing there, followed by the WWI trench system.

Leave the point system as is. If you play against someone who uses "gamey" tactics, simply don't play them again. We are making a mountain out of a mole hill here. BTW jeeps are in the TOE for U.S. recon troops and were used in the front lines. Period. As long as someone doesn't send the jeeps blindly careening down the road into my lines, I don't give a damn how they use them.

This subject has been discussed to death long ago and it was decided not to include star shells because the designers felt that the shells were not typically used in tactical situations during night combat. The consensus was that the shells hindered more than they helped due to the illumination. I personally disagree with this assesment. As far as coding star shells in, this would be a pain because you would have to model the illumination effects. This is not trivial. At this point CM1 is pretty much wrapped up except for tweaks to the AI. BTS priorites are adding internet support to CM1 and staring work on CM2. I personally much prefer BTS put their efforts there rather than catering to every whim or idea.

Not to rain on your parade, but I noticed that the CM CD came with a scenario of the same battle. I think it is called "Christmas Day" or something. It really is a challenging scenario. How does your scenario differ?