Los

I would like to say all the previous recommendations in the thread I heartily agree with. I'll just add a few more. "On the Front Lines" by John Ellis (The older version of this book was called "The Sharp end".) Covers all the details of combat experiences from infantry, armor, artillery, casualties, discipline and morale, rear areas etc etc. VERY highly recommended. he does the same thing for WW1 wih "Eye Deep in Hell". William Manchester: "Goodbye darkness" Marine Combat vet goes back to the Pac thrity years later and tours all his old haunts excellent read.) EB Sledge: "WIth the Old Breed" (more Marines in the PAC) James Jones: "The Thin Red Line" Guadalcacnal by an ex-grunt who wa sthere. Arguably my favorite war book ever written (has nothing to do with the Travesty that was recently released by Terrence Mallick of the same name.) James Murphy: "No Better Place to Die." Covers the actions at La Fiere on D-day by 1/505th PIR (82d) A small book, ultra detailed, excellent. I have a soft spot for it becasue Murphy was in my old company. (A-1/505th before I went to the scouts) Also I was there in June and walked all over that battlefield. Stephen Ambrose: "Band of Brothers" 101st rifle company. IMO the best thing he did. There's a couple a great Brit books that I read but I can't remember their names right now (was years ago) I'll check my booshelf when I get home. I could go on but I won't.... Los

"He also stated that about all the 60mm was good for was smoke and taking out MG nests." Interesting. It is believed by some that the 60mm mortar did not fire smoke rounds. (I know the modern ones do). I might have to go dig up my machineguns and mortars book and confirm this. That would make a difference. Was your girlfriend's grandfather a grunt? Ask him about smoke grenades. (Use carrying etc) BTW, regarding the MG sound in SPR. Hmmm, I would seriously doubt that they took the sound right off of the live shoot into the movie. They usually redo the sound in the studio. There is a big difference between a blank firing and a live firing and even a big difference between firing blanks through an open muzzle and a BFA (Blank firing adapter). Los

RE: Garand vs Bren: Well even though the Granad was probably a better weapon for it's role at the time I just love the way the Lee Enfield No.1 Mk III looks (I have one muyslef) so would be hard pressed to cast the slightest disparagement its way. RE: BRen vs BAR. WHile the Bren may have been a better weapon,it was not significantly so, and as far as I'm concern the absolute loyalty that the BAR engendered from its users speaks well for its performance. SO both were pretty much legendar weapons, even if neitehr were in the same league as the MG42. "Another weakness of the MG42 was that the barrel had to be changed frequently because of the heat generated by the extremely high ROF." This is (and remains) a problem for ALL machineguns. The MG42 was better off than any of its counterparts because you could swap out the barrel in seconds. Whereas an M1919A3 you'd be long dead before you could fix that porblem. And a fifty cal? Yeesh you have to reset the headspace and timing after each barrel change! Los

The only problem I have with TOE numbers is that few squads are ever at our near TOE full strength even at the start of an operation. Units back then, in combat were lucky to ever be at 75% strength even with replacements. Heck in the past 21 years I have very rarely been in a squad of team that was at even 90% strength. Los

"started out on ASL, then progressed to more intellectually stimulating FPS games." Priceless! Actually I've been boardgaming since like 68-69. Got into ASL in 1980 and have played a fair amount. been into computers and PC gaming and the net since mid eighties (was one of the original Air Warriors). Got into miniatures back around 95 or 96, Went through Napoleanic, SYW WW2 phases and spend most of my time now w/ Stargrunt a great squad based rules set that's good for any era but concentrates on future conflict. I've also been writing and am working onthe last chapter of an internet novel which you're more than welcome to check out here: http://www.concentric.net/~Los/ft/lossf.htm If you are into combat Sci Fi you should enjoy it. Cheers... Los [This message has been edited by Los (edited 09-29-99).]

BTW there are otehr porfound effects to night operations other than how far can you see with a flare. Namely morale issues around fear, confusion, and isolation. As well as moving slower, and straying of course much easier. Just to name two effects. Los

RE: Starshells. Hand held parachute flares, starclusters and what not, which are by FAR the predominant tyupe of illumination used in almost all cases light up very small areas for like a minute or so. We're talking a few hundered meters of useful illumination. BTW there are also ground based flares (more common) that you set out there with other noise makers in your defensive belt. Artillery and mortar rounds can light up to a klick but are usually in such short supply via a vis HE and smoke that you can't afford to keep them up there all night long (or even the length of a CM scenario unless it's been planned for way in advance. If you are tracking smoke rounds for your IF units (Or smoke misisons) than you can track illum rounds too. RE: the Night vision thing. The first thing every private in basic training is tought in the field phase is to keep an eye shut when flares go up! Unless the thing is in your face it shouldn't be too major of an issue. Say you are in a defensive position and somebody sends up a parachute flare, it's not that big an issue. Once a battle starts or you start shooting you are going to have night vision probelms caused by the flash of the weapon your are fired also. But it shouldn't be overstated. Though I wouln't mind seeing a night option available I wouldn't advocate taking time away from more pressing issues to explore the possibility. Maybe in some subsequent release if it works out. Concentrate on getting what's in there now working right! Los

Well I think it's been pretty much been determined through many sources that the German Squad had superior firepower due to the existance of that MG and the way they used it. Note that post war, most countries increased the number of MGs available to the platoon leader and squads. In fact TOE for a current bradley squad has 2 SAWs available for a measily 6 man dismount! Nor should the differences between the Kar98 and the Garand ( great weapon!) be made too much of. (In fact every army in WW2 lugged bolt actin rifles except the US) The Kar98 is not a "crappy" rifle it is a very good bolt action rifle. The garand has a greater weight of fire but this is not as significant a factor in the overall squad vs squad comparison as the difference between a MG42 and a BAR. Nor should it be believed that in the German squad, riflemen spent all their time lugging ammo for the MG42, they also fought with their rifles, The German squad was broken into a MG team and a manuever element. Of course as with any army in the worlkd, when you loose your gunner you replace him. ALways keep your crew served weapons manned at the expense of riflemen. ALso the MG42 was capable of being fired by one man, as a crew served weapon, from a bi-pod, from a tripod, or even with neither if necessary. (The MG42 is damn heavy though! More so than an M60.) Anyway firepower is important but is nowhere near as important a factor in squad battles as doctrine, training, leadership and experience. BTW Beyond The Beachead is a great book. I read it twice. Los

"BTW, all Beta testers are working under a gag order for now." What part of this sentence don't you get? sorry...

Note that nothing I mentioned about breaching obstacles demands frontal assaults on bunkers. In fact bunkers should always be attacked from outside their covered arc. Obstacles as a whole should be always bypassed if at all possible but if the defenders half way competent that has been foreseen in the defensive plan. But then again "shoulda woulda coulda". Sometimes you have to do nasty things. That's the business that we're in. (As I'm fond of telling young troops) Cheers... Los

(Warning toungue firmly implanted within cheek) "Um... Im in the army and as an infantry officer I would not tell engineers to charge an MG post to clear mines. I tell my engineers to stay close, but behind the infantry, they are not expendable. They are still very brave for they will clear mines during morter and sniper fire but no direct infantry fire......... CM is right on this one!" Alright young lieutenant in case you slept through your assault breaching drill classes I'll go over it in detail here, (this way you won't look foolish if your company is ever tasked with conducting a dismounted assault breach): 1. During planning unit identifies point of breach for the attack. 2. During preparation attacking force is task organized into at least a security elelemnt, supporting fire element, assault breach element. Rehearsals are conducted ad nasuem. 3. Attacking force moves into poistion and ISOLATE the breach from the rest of the enemy's defensive scheme. This is done with direct fires, indirect fires but most of all with smoke. This way supporting positions can not bring adequate fire to the breach. 4. With the breach isolated support forces pour fire on any enemy directly across from the breach, or that can still see the breach. 4a. smoke smoke smoke em if ya got em! 5. The small breach force moves forward consisting of engineers with bangalores and infantry. The engineers lay bangalores and blow a small 3 meter wide tops lane through the obstacle (mines, wire whatever). (Of course all the charges have been pre-rigged) This may take more than one BT depending on the depth of the obstacle. 5. A small force moves through and quickly secures the far side of the breach. Of course the support force keeps up the smoke, IF and DF as necessary. 6. A clearing force moves through and begins clearing the enemy defensive belt (bunkers, trenches etc) This may also include engineers with flame throwers, special demolitions charges or whatever. 7. Normally the breach engineers will continue to work on widening or creating other breaches as the fight continues ahead of them. If the fire has slackened this can be done with mine detectors or probes. Note: Most NTC or JRTC rotations include this drill for battalions to be rated on. (And Canadian battalions occasioanly go through NTC) If you really are an infantry officer, this should have helped jog your memory. Of course you can also just ask your friendly local platoon sergeant to help get your finger out, that is what they're for after all. (grin) Los

"I havn't yet found a reference to them using Star Shells on that night though, which if they were going to use them anywhere, youd think they would be there, though a lot of their forces were trying to avoid contact in the earlier hours" I've seen numerous pictures of hand held starcluster or verylight pistols being carried by german leaders. It's so much a mundane and normal part of operations it almost doesn't need to be mentioned, sort of like striiper clips for rifles. I have to get my hands on my "The German Rifle Squad" handbook which is a direct translation form their wartime manual. I seem to remember mention of mortar illumination, which would have been starshells. BTW the US infantry battalion Field manual circa 1950 (I have a copy) has a extensive chapter on conducting operations at night. This would have been materials lifted directly from WW2 SOP. One other little aside re: mortar fired starshells: A good FDC and moratr platoon can arrange their firing so they make neat little designs in the night sky like starshaped patterns, crescents, whatever. Seen it myself. Los

Yes IIRC Esperanto was actually invented sometime around the turn of the century> The inventor hoped that by our planet having one common language that it would make wars less likely. AS an aside the Agressor uniform was a US style helmet with a single ridge along the crest. The 1970s edition of the Agressor order of battle is more LIC oriented witha guerilla war being fought in the country of Patria Liberata (with provinces with names like Middleland, Coastland, southland, eastland, westland, and northland.)It's brodered by Esperanta (the enemy, Armanda, and nuetralistan. Funny stuff. Los

What did you want to know about satchels? The two standard ones today both weigh in at 20lbs. When used untamped they can breach a three foot thick concrete wall. Tamnping refers to placing something heavy of thick on eth opposite side of the charge (from where you want the hole. When you tamp something it directs more of the blast in the direction you want it and makes it more powerful.

snagged the following manuals re: engineers: FM 5-100 Engineer Combat Operati0ns (1979) which is an overall guide to various comabt engineering ops. I snagged the oldest one we had since it's merely for reference. FM 90-13-1 Combined Arms Breaching Operations (1991) which covers the subset of tasks known as breaching (hasty Deliberate and assault) which basically is all the stuff I was talking about above.) From the stash in my locker I also grabbed an old rare classic FM30-103 The Aggressor order of battle. (1973) Before there was the OPFOR there were the agressors. This was a fictional enemy cooked up by the Army in the 50-60s for training. An incredibly detailed background was developed with Army info officer names etc etc and a history where they invade the US. (including the occasional liberal use of chemical and nuclear weapons on the battlefield) Makes for fun reading. They even had their own language known as Esperanto (some of you might remember it) and people actually had to learn esperanto. ANyway cool stuff. I also brought back from my locker FM 90-10-1 "An Infnatrytman's guide to Combat in built up areas" (1990) which is a great resource. Los

Any GI that ditched his garand for a mauser would be an IDIOT! Los

Hey guys I raided the compnay manual library today for pertinent info on combat engineering operations and I have a few manuals if any info is needed. I grabbed all the oldest ones. Los

P.S. WHat would be cool is that in night operations for CM you would have map areas outside of night vison range or outside of spotlight, flare, or starshell range to be darkened, greyed out etc. And you could see flashes from enemy positions. Would really add to fog of war and look nice.

Well without even picking up a single reference flares and starshells were common fare in night operations during WW2. Particularly during defensive operations. It is true that there were not a great many of night operations during WW2 part form the common work of raiding patrolling, pre-attack infiltration and other intelligence gathering. But flares and starshells were used liberally on the defense. The bulge was one operation that saw the Germans use spotlights shown onto low hanging clouds to create artificial light. When you get to the Pac of course you gte many instances of night offensive operations being used particularly by the Japanese. The attacker usually tries to keep out of the dark nutil the last minute while the defender will usually pop flares or starclusters at the slightest provocations. Night operations usually see (saw) the attacker making small probes at first to try and get the defenders to fire off their crew served weapons and give away their positions. For accounts of night operations in WW2 check out: "Night Drop" (SLA Marshall), Most any Bulge account, (For the spotlight use) "On The Front Lines" (John Ellis), "Guadalcanal" (Richard Frank) "Fighting in Hell" (various authors), "On Infantry" John English, and Small Unit Actions during the German campaign in Russia. (DA Pam 20-269) If you can get your hands on FM21-75 (the early pre 1970s version is best ) Combat Training and the individual soldier and patrolling or FM7-70 Light infantry platoon and squad has whole sections on night fighting most of it without the use of modern technical gadgets. Most of it is lifted from ealier manuals dating back to WW2 experience. Now if I can get my friend to return my copy of The German squad in combat) they probably have stuff too! Cheers... Los

My neighbor, (who has since passed away) was in the 30th. He was a crewman on a quad fifty AA half track. His experience was this. They spent a whole week digging their Halftrack into teh frozen earth using etools. As soon as it was in place to their satisfaction they were ordered to move. My best friends dad (also since passed away) was the Communications Officer for Third Army during the drive across France and Germany. Patton's first communique when he reached the Rhine River was: "I pissed in the Rhine River today." Both Bradley and Ike had a ****fit and rapidly ordered the message changed to something more palatable for the American people. And another little bit of history was slightly changed to make it better for the books.

I actually have a five-volume set on the history of the LAH (Includes 2 map books) These are excellent books with much much detail lots of published operations orders, pictures, maps, and first hand accounts. They were done by Rudolf Lehmann (I think he was the eventually the div Ia) There is also a seperate large volume by Lehman (I don't have it) which is just pictures. They're available through a number of sources, schiffer, scholars bookshelf etc. These also a history of 7th Company/1ss panzer regt which is in the same format but for one company. Pretty good. I'm also reading right now the div history of the 12SS which is very well written full of all the mundane details a historian would love (training schedules etc) witha seperate map book and pictures. And one on the 17th ss div which did most of it's fighting in Yugo. Other recommended title: Two volume set on the 3rd Parachute regt including so many rare photos from Crete. That just scratches the surface. Los

It is true that by and large and engineer waiting for the last second to blow up a bridge in the enemy's face is porbably carrying out the demolition in what is at best a highly irresponsible fashion. (SPR/BTF situations excepted) That's hollywood. Too many things to go wrong to risk such a vital task to the last minute. One other thing. I'm not an engineer so I don't have a lot of first hand experience with blowing bridges and have never seen one blown for real. I do know how to calc and place demo (P=plenty) to blow and cut various items (I'm not an expert but get cross trained on such matters at least once every 12-18 months). However I do know that to blow any bridge other than a simple small woodedn one takes a lot of time to prep and palce the charges (including fixating and tamping) we ell as wiring and what not so it is not unreasonable to leave out rigging bridge demolitions giving the time frame of a scenario. However detonating a demo prerigged before a scenario might be another matter? Cheers... Los

Keep in mind that I'm not talking Deep minebelts or any such. I'm talking the typical minefield erected by at a prepared or hasty defensive point. They aren't deep, they are usually 10-30 meters and include wire and mines. The engineers only have to clear a lane of say 3m or 8m depending on if they are passing infantry or vehicles. What are the size of minebelts used in CM? The key is either being able to clear a narrow lane for troops to pass through or then by having engineers adjacent to the mines/lanes it diminishes the possibility of regular uits being hit by them. I'm only asking becasue it's always been a regular part of an engineers task and people seem to be caught up on the misconception of most minefields being these huge things dealt with on the Siegried line and the Atlantic wall, but most minefields are of the more mundane type meant to cover hasty or semi-permanent battle positions or just scattered about to harass(can't do much about those). If CM isn't going to cover clearing lanes or addressing this issue it's not a big deal. I only point it out because this was a standard thing infanty had to deal with particularly in deliberate assaults. Cheers... Los

I don't know what you consider time consuming but at NTC or JRTC if you haven't cleared a lane through a minebelt within a few minutes you are dead or the assault has failed anyway. Is that within the time scope of a CM scenario? We're not talking about ten mile wide barrier of mines anyway. Usually when you are saying going across a trenchline or to a bunker the minebelts a very narrow and put in certain spots, (Often to cover "dead space" which cannot be observed by the defenders fire but make perfect avenues of apporach to the attacker. Unless you are talking assaulting the Atlantic wall or some other crazy-assed defensive belt where the defenders have had unlimited resources to lay out mines unmolested, then these are the hasty or limited minefields (mines cost money too) which are teh most typical kind encountered in the assault. I guess the point of all this discusison is: do CM units or at least engineers have any capability whatsoever to clear LANES through minefields (at any rate of speed) within the game or are they simply "permanent" obstacles? Los

"While the Mogadishu debacle didn't start as a "block-clearing mission" it certainly turned into one by necessity. Anyway, you may have missed my point the posting - the better trained troops came out on top and suffered less casualties." Obviously better trained troops will usually come out on top and suffer less casualties (given equal numbers and in similar terrain) in all situations so this is hardly a revelation which would merit CM programmers scrambling back to their code. Incidently, special forces types such as Delta, green berets, SAS, Seals etc, and rangers train up for MOUT, (they do have to teach it to regular foreign troops on occasion) but actually specialize in a very narrow subset of this genre, that is Room clearing and house clearing. WHich supports their hostage rescue-prisoner snatch type operations. They are as a rule almost never committed to the types of city fighting we are talking about in CM. That is an infantry company task. You would never commit and "waste" expensive resources such as these to the daily grind of clearing blocks. Nor are they equipped with suitable heavy weapons to sustain a task such as this without significant augmentation. If you want to see the performance of elite specialist city fighting units in high intensity urban combat, one needs look no further than Stalingrad. (Anthony Beevor, "Stalingrad", or Paul Carrell "Stalingrad" for starters good good grunt level accounts of the fighting) Prior to the launching of operation Hubertus, the Germans brought up five battalions of assault pioneers. They were Combat veteran (elite) battalions (an army level assett)which then underwent an extensive re-organization and training program in preparation for the Novenmber offiensive to clear the remaining resistance from the city. When they went into the line they were as good at clearing blocks as any ever had been (except for maybe the guys across the street) While they made good progress against the staunchest possible resistance, within two days they were pretty much wiped out. But that's a macro view. A commander goes into a city assault knowing he will suffer high casualties (and they've very rarely been wrong), but it is true that at our level, (companies and battalions), it is possible to put together a well executed block clearing operation so long as you have the support, good troops, prep time, and all the moons are aligned the right way. Cheers... Los