Simon Fox

Why? If each module is 4 tubes then that's 2/3 of a battalions mortar platoon. What's the other 1/3 doing? IIRC correctly the Brits organised their mortar Plt into 3 sections of 2 tubes. A 200round module for 6 tubes isn't exactly generous. My inclination would be that for a battalion sized engagment over a longer battle (40-60 turns) supplying an extra module via a reinforcing mortar FOO wouldn't be unreasonable. BTW the Brit armoured car regiments had organic 75mm support from the halftrack mounted version.

It is impossible to simulate the SOPs of Btitish recon units properly in CM because: (a) AC crews cannot dismount ( SC crews cannot dismount © The recon section is not simulated (d) Recon vehicles seem to be insufficiently threat aware. In a recent PBEM I had a Daimler AC take on two german tanks frontally at 1000m with his 2pdr before my order kicked in and he reversed out of there. Forgive my disbelief, but he has a smoke discharger and the tacAI should have popped the thing and backed straight out of there. In real life these units were often fired upon but infrequently hit. Some British recon action: "Both Troops were fired on by an 8-wheel AC probably with 75mm which had one ineffective shot and withdrew. 3Tp remained in the area which was extremely dense with visibility often limited to the hedge on the side of the road only two yards away. Snipers, MGs and mortars continually stalked the Tp through the corn and long grass. The scout section was dismounted to try and locate a sniper about 100 yards away. Two men, L/Sgt Davies and Tpr Brady crawled through a cornfield to the hedge about 100 yards from the Tp. Unfortunately they had passed through a Coy of German Infantry without seeing them or being seen and shortly afterwards were surrounded and captured. They were disarmed and sent to the rear escorted by a soldier with a rifle. As soon as they were clear of the enemy troops they attacked and overpowered this man and brought him back to our lines. His Regt was identified as 304th Panzer Grenadiers which confirmed the presence of 2nd Panzer Div on this front; it only having gained contact with us this morning. L/Sgt Davies gained a mention in the Div Int Summary the following day for this exploit. 3Tp were continually attacked for more than 3 hours by Infantry crawling through the crops and had to be sent a refill of ammunition." ------------------ "Stand to your glasses steady, This world is a world of lies, Here's a toast to the dead already, And here's to the next man to die." -hymn of the "Double Reds"

That's right Chris lots of people from round here have been using the valuable information on your site for ages. Of course we are also eternally grateful to rexford for directing us back to that bookmark so we can check on 'their' interpretation of Salt's Snippets. Certainly if we really wanted to base an argument on some of this data we would be remiss in not going to the original document to look at the circumstances of the trials. However it's all food for thought and grist for the mill for those with one to grind. What happens is that sometimes they can't hit a squad running around in the open with their main gun, that's what happens.

I assume you have WO 291/324 in that shed of yours since you seem to have additional information to that provided by John Salt in his brief extract/precis of that document. Does the document base it's analysis on firing trials rather than expected error or estimation? What is the date of the document? It certainly seems strange that it disagrees with WO 291/1263, "Firing Trials, 17pdr Sherman." which is also summarised by Salt.

That's right rexford 75mm HE should be better than 76mm HE. BTS please fix or somefink! Err Ooops! Snork ------------------ "Stand to your glasses steady, This world is a world of lies, Here's a toast to the dead already, And here's to the next man to die." -hymn of the "Double Reds"

Thanks Claus that was my inclination having read a few regimental diaries and accounts of M10s with 17pdrs in Normandy. If you have any hard data I would appreciate it. If there perchance ever is another patch for CM it would be nice if the availability matched the historical case. ------------------ "Stand to your glasses steady, This world is a world of lies, Here's a toast to the dead already, And here's to the next man to die." -hymn of the "Double Reds"

I would suggest rexford, regarding your last comment, that you have been reading far to many WO reports and not enough regimental diaries. With regards to your former comments, your startling revelations regarding John Salts collections of data, are not. ------------------ "Stand to your glasses steady, This world is a world of lies, Here's a toast to the dead already, And here's to the next man to die." -hymn of the "Double Reds"

Connall wrote So how does this impact on the Firefly turret traverse speed? I note that in CM it was recently downgraded to medium in comparison to the 75mm Shermans fast. Claus B wrote Claus is correct here. The 1000yds limitation is definitely a guideline arising out of accuracy trials, penetration not being a significant factor in these recommendations. I beleive, however, that your "futility" comment is a little excessive. My understanding is that the British established their range criteria on the basis of at least a 50% chance of a hit with any round (including) the first, against a hull-down target. Maybe Conall could expound further on the criteria issue. On another subject, Claus may know the date the Achilles was phased in, I thought it may be a bit earlier than the CM date. It was such an popular conversion being a much better "fit" with the vehicle than the 3in (other considerations aside) that I thought that the conversion program was rushed ahead.

It wasn't my suggestion, it was what the WO document I was reading seemed to suggest. Not personally having experience firing 17pdrs in tank or AT tank mode I preferred to take some notice of the conclusions of those who did, however wrong they may be. Me peering through a gunsight and then drawing conclusions about the accuracy of various rounds would be as effective as sticking my head up my arse and diagnosing intestinal polyps. My inclination is that the 17pdr APDS rounds didn't get used much anyway since the APCBC was pretty good. The 6pdr was a different matter but then we have a different gun and round. A Littlejohn adapter on the Daimler 2pdr would be really cool, hehe. Anyone know if they ever made and issued a 2pdr HE round? Even experimentally? ------------------ "Stand to your glasses steady, This world is a world of lies, Here's a toast to the dead already, And here's to the next man to die." -hymn of the "Double Reds"

Thanks Berli, I did have a look at that one before but thought it was a little too big. Didn't think of cutting it down. Having tried a few myself I know it is hard to make an authentic looking bocage map with the limited number of tiles available. Le Lorey is quite a good map too, thanks Mike. I never looked at the scenario because I have always felt trying to simulate a real life battle that was super flukey just leads to frustration when a whole pile of people whinge about how their pixelated Wittmann/Barkmann doesn't perform as history.

Thanks guys!

Bah! Thanks fer nothing! ------------------ "Stand to your glasses steady, This world is a world of lies, Here's a toast to the dead already, And here's to the next man to die." -hymn of the "Double Reds"

In his peptalks to junior officers Monty always emphasised the importance of "making the enemy dance to your tune". ------------------ "Stand to your glasses steady, This world is a world of lies, Here's a toast to the dead already, And here's to the next man to die." -hymn of the "Double Reds"

Exactly what are you getting at ro? Are you talking about real life (ie reality) or CM (ie a simulation)? In CM if a sharpshooter expends a unit of ammmunition that is more than one bullet. As I have already said a burst is a bit of a misnomer, on reflection fusillade might be better. If both casualties occur in the same instant in CM it is because it is a simulation. I am not sure if this is the case. Is it one bang per unit or multiple? Even so it is a simulation of him having a few shots. It may not be exactly as in real life since the results of the multiple shots is seen in the same instant instead of spread out over a few seconds but it is a close approximation to it. I would suggest that they probably did it this way to make it consistent with the way other small arms fire is treated in the game (ie individual bullets are not tracked). ------------------ "Stand to your glasses steady, This world is a world of lies, Here's a toast to the dead already, And here's to the next man to die." -hymn of the "Double Reds"

BTW the name "petard" was actually a codename for the spigot mortar. The ARVE (and all the British funnies) was a top secret vehicle, they trained in isolation with it, and came as a complete suprise to the Germans on D-Day. In order to disguise the nature of it's weapon the "petard" codename was used. Of course in time this crept into common use. The round was nicknamed the flying dustbin and I still am not convinced it was a hollow charge round.

It is best not to think of the ammunition expenditure in CM as shots, bursts or salvos (except when you've got naval support ). They are just units of ammunition, just like HMGs carry a fair bit more than 80 rounds. A sharpshooter takes multiple shots for each unit expended.

Actually Martin is right, they were meant to carry engineers. The ARVE is a RE vehicle and the crew were all engineers. They carried a host of other goodies in addition to the spigot mortar. The crew (or part of it) would frequently dismount to perform engineering tasks (place beehive charges etc). The side hatches on the Churchill were ideal for this purpose. They did fantastic work on D-Day (where they landed first in advance of the infantry) and they and the Crabs really made a difference in British casualties. I bet the US could have used a few at Omaha. I am not completely convinced that the 290mm spigot mortar was a true hollow charge round because I can't find a reference on it and it was designed for obstacle removal rather than pill boxes. The flying dustbin as it was known doesn't look right for a true HEAT round maybe it was more shaped HE (which is different), any further enlightenment appreciated. The ARVEs had beehive charges and others for concrete emplacements. Anyway the Brits found them very useful for urban warfare and the spigot mortar was good for blowing holes in bocage too. I would suggest 250m is extreme range, for a moving target 100m or less BTW the PIAT is a spigot mortar too. ------------------ "Stand to your glasses steady, This world is a world of lies, Here's a toast to the dead already, And here's to the next man to die." -hymn of the "Double Reds"

Not all bocage maps capture the feel of the real thing, given the limitations of the map editor of course. Can anyone recommend some scenarios with good bocage maps. Small to medium preferred. The forces involved don't really worry me as I only want the maps to test CM bocage fighting techniques. (In anticipation of the "make it yourself crowd" for some weird driver reason the editor doesn't work on my home PC and designing maps at work is not conducive to my productivity) Thanks in advance. ------------------ "Stand to your glasses steady, This world is a world of lies, Here's a toast to the dead already, And here's to the next man to die." -hymn of the "Double Reds"

Personally German sooking about allied airpower makes me laugh. When the boot was on the other foot and the Luftwaffe dominated the skies over Greece, Crete and Tobruk the allied attitude seemed to be more phlegmatic. http://www.wlu.ca/~wwwmsds/Vogel.htm ------------------ "Stand to your glasses steady, This world is a world of lies, Here's a toast to the dead already, And here's to the next man to die." -hymn of the "Double Reds"

Here's how to mount an ambush Luftwaffe: Hide under your bridge and when the three billy goats gruff come tromp tromp tromping along you jump out and ambush them...and they kick your arse. Here's how to destroy that bridge: Move the three billy goats gruff onto the bridge and leave them there, they will knock it down. Oops wrong thread, oh well... [This message has been edited by Simon Fox (edited 03-07-2001).]

I have always been a proponent of the idea that CM does not accurately model the behaviour of an experienced or well trained AT gun or even tank crew who when faced with a tank which their weapon had little chance of penetrating would seldom aim for the 'centre of mass' but invariably aim for disabling hits on the running gear. ------------------ "Stand to your glasses steady, This world is a world of lies, Here's a toast to the dead already, And here's to the next man to die." -hymn of the "Double Reds"

The question I have to keep asking here is when. I don't dispute that British testing clearly demonstrates that at least the 17pdr APDS was substantially less accurate. The testing also seems to show that proper calibration of the gunsight and experience with firing the round ameliorates this innaccuracy to certain extent. The real question is when these problem were identified (quite early I suspect since the gun itself had been around for ages), what steps were taken to rectify them, when these were implemented and how effective they were. ------------------ "Stand to your glasses steady, This world is a world of lies, Here's a toast to the dead already, And here's to the next man to die." -hymn of the "Double Reds"

I am a little confused Luftwaffe. Why do you want to blow up your own bridge? ------------------ "Stand to your glasses steady, This world is a world of lies, Here's a toast to the dead already, And here's to the next man to die." -hymn of the "Double Reds"

Don't worry mimary, I am sure there are others, given the typical response your thread has received (the "goings on" as alluded to by Kitty) they probably keep a low profile on this forum. Kitty, When you've got a babra on the barbie, watching a bunch of doltish fools, or even being completely misconstrued. You can get it any old how, Matter o' fact, you got it now. A hard earned thirst needs a big cold beer, and the best cold beer's VIC, Vic Bitter!

I try not to venture into the cesspool to often as I prefer to avoid the distasteful decontamination necessary afterward. However, resting as I am from my great moral victory on the outside board over the hair trigger sermoniser, Dorosh, I took some time (about 30secs sufficed) to peruse the latest contents of this thread, I have observed some interesting behaviour from recent denizens. This is the prolific use of the phrase: "sit down, bauhaus!" at every and any opportunity. It seems to me that such a 'cesspool newbie' would have no concept of the origin of the phrase, though clearly it's usage is sufficiently clear that even unineuron organisms can comprehend it. I can only conclude therefore that this excessive use stems from a pathetic and rather unoriginal attempt to 'fit in'. As if the Cesspool were some sort of 'club' or 'gang' whose membership was an attainment rather than a disparate group of individuals whose single distinguishing feature is that they represent the worst that the dregs of humanity have to offer. Elsewhere some might view this ingratiating effort to 'fit in' sympathetically (for all the bluster this is what it is), though it is pitiable. But not here I think. ------------------ "Stand to your glasses steady, This world is a world of lies, Here's a toast to the dead already, And here's to the next man to die." -hymn of the "Double Reds"