Simon Fox

I don't find the assessment of the 21st Panzer as particularly suprising, after all the "green" Commonwealth units which struggled ashore and then milled around confused as to what to do next had little trouble in disposing of it's counterattacks on the 6/7th June. Babs, Some good points about "green" and "veteran" that are all to often ignored. "Green" troops if properly trained and led may well have a well-spring of "willingness" which they will lose with time. Even so I cannot agree entirely with your views on Normandy. They strike me as too closely aligned with those of Max Hastings. I think you place too much emphasis upon issues of armour-infantry cooperation (which would have been a waste of time in Normandy anyway) at the expense of other deficiencies. On the whole I think the performance of Commonwealth forces in Normandy could have been better for a whole host of reasons. But I seriously doubt that, given the quality of the opposition, remedying these would have made any significant difference to the progress or outcome of the campaign. The only real difference I could see would be the acheivement of the same aims with less casualties. Making blanket statements about performance is always a problem given the variable performance of different divisions, even given the relative evenness of allied divisions. I don't see much mention of the very variable quality German infantry divisions (oops sorry, forgot they were fighting the Americans, hehe). Generally, to quote an interesting reference does not always imply that one agrees wholeheartedly with every point that author makes. Sydney Jary, 18 Platoon ------------------ "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"

Simonides was the poet who wrote the epitaph for the Spartans at Thermopylae. Not as some might think Simon because he was a zealot and I am a member of the CM Jihad Brigade. Fox because I usually play allies and you need the cunning of the fox to win against the king of tigers. It used to be SimonFox but I got bored with that and put in a space for a fresh start. Creative hey? Hey Dan I thought KwazyDog was somefink to do with the fly by night club, dog collars and other crazy stuff? ------------------ "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"

There may be some merit in the idea, but I had to laugh when tom wrote this Sounds like war to me ------------------ "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"

Welcome back!

For once I'm going to have to go against my long standing principles and agree with a "Jeff". An update would great for this useful database. While we're on the subject what ever happened to Jason? Hope he's 'OK'. BTS please do somefink and find guachi! ------------------ "As has been said, we only listen to bootlickers, and Simon is one of the best out there!"

Goodness gracious Andreas, captured 88s? Yes please! Firing indirect airburst too by the look of it, whatever next? ------------------ "As has been said, we only listen to bootlickers, and Simon is one of the best out there!"

You ought to be ashamed of yourself rexford for citing the commentary of John Salt (a secondary source) completely out of the context in which it was clearly stated that these comparisons are "rough" and "The original document emphatically stresses the approximate nature of these results". More completely from John Salts precise of WO 291/171, "Effectiveness of British anti-tank guns" dated 1943, Comparative meaning not armour but the relative performance of British AT guns. and Sheesh! Dear Parent, Rexford started out this semester with some outstanding and carefully researched assignments. Now however, he appears to have become somewhat lazy and prone to 'resting on his laurels'. I suggest an interview with the headmaster and a good caning would be in order. ------------------ "As has been said, we only listen to bootlickers, and Simon is one of the best out there!"

Sheesh errr? producing what? This is a 'taking the piss' kinda thread so lets not get too serious here Pacestick. Where did I use the term 'petrol'? In fact it is petroleum. Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries

You must be right Maximanus, that's why it's called OGEC not OPEC. I mean everyone knows when you say gas you don't actually mean it is, well that's perfectly logical isn't it? BTW I see your best mate Rob/1 has been giving you thread title composition lessons.

Purely coincidental as early rexford threads were slanted that way, also coincidentally I presume . My only concern was the brevity of the early posts which required some prompting to produce dialogue. ------------------ "As has been said, we only listen to bootlickers, and Simon is one of the best out there!"

What a brilliantly evil idea. Little will they know that their opponent actually doesn't play CM but just spends all their time composing windy overblown treatises and posting them in that same thread. Just imagine their frustration and confusion as they see post after post appear in that thread and elsewhere while no turns appear. Positively cunning. ------------------ "As has been said, we only listen to bootlickers, and Simon is one of the best out there!"

An interesting interpretation of my mood. Wryly amused would be more accurate or cackling with glee even. Is that "emotional"? In a sense perhaps. I was just amused that this thread didn't get quite the response some others do hehe. Surely Ari you've been around here long enough to know that the only bitter I get is the "Vic" variety. I would definitely like to see some more comment from "rexford" on this issue of FHA vs RH and the relative performance of APCBC against them. Also do slope effects vary. It is interesting to note that many of the armour penetration results bandied in discussions about are against RH plate and I wonder how that might vary? ------------------ "As has been said, we only listen to bootlickers, and Simon is one of the best out there!"

Well I am reading a history of the 79th armoured division at the moment and unfortunately you just can't use Crocodiles the way they did in CM. I have lost count of the number of times I have read: " The infantry were flamed onto the objective" Or driving down bocage roads flaming the hedgerows to keep the schreks and fausts at bay. As for rarity, if it was in CM1 there would be crocs all over the place for the Brits. Especially in Ops. ------------------ "As has been said, we only listen to bootlickers, and Simon is one of the best out there!"

Now this thread is taking on the nature of detective story it is starting to intrigue me Check out this upgunned MkIV (all photos are very useful for this discussion) http://freespace.virgin.net/chris.shillito/a22new/mk6/ch601.jpg Rexford wrote You are absolutely right. I never looked at the game data before but zero degrees is clearly wrong. The specs I have indicate 25 is the correct angle for the lower hull front. Furthermore only a small part of the front hull is at zero. Above the lower plate is a steeply angled plate ?thickness. The third hull plate is at zero but the co-driver/MG gunners position is protected by a thicker plate which extends across at least 50% of this area. This is the impervious area indicated by the Tiger Fibel. Andreas wrote It's only an educated guess but I can think of a couple of possible reasons. Since these were early Churchills it may be that they were armed with the older type 6pdr gun which did not have the same capabilities against armour as the later gun. I am unsure as to how the early gun compares to the 75mm, though the later is clearly superior especially with APDS. Also no HE was available for the 6pdr gun for some time. The conversions may have been performed for this reason. Jeff wrote Absolutely right. But a lot of these III's and IV's were 'reworked' and upgraded in various ways. Also the VI designation was used fairly freely to indicate 6pdr versions converted to 75mm. The existence of official 'kits' for field modification of the Churchill for: (1) conversion from 6pdr to 75mm (2) addition of applique armour for earlier versions definitely confuses the nomenclature of these tanks. So while we have the factory produced marks there are also various combinations of original vehicle with modification. For example the VII we see in CM could be a factory produced version or a conversion from IV using applique armour and the 75mm gun. Given the contraversy over the 6pdr/75mm conversion would one also see versions with the applique armour but retaining the 6pdr gun? Unfortunately our local library service seems to have lost it's copy of The Churchill Tank - The story of Britain's most famous tank, 1939-1965 by Chamberlain & Ellis which would go some way to helping the confusion (and definitely answer Andreas's question too). ------------------ "As has been said, we only listen to bootlickers, and Simon is one of the best out there!"

I must have missed this one. Heaven forbid that I should let it slip. What? No backslapping 'good on you rexford' posts? What does this mean? Well one could suggest that it means that German FHA armour isn't so good against western allied tank rounds as against russian. What are the implications of this for the so-called 'undermodelling' of the Panther glacis? Should the slope modifier for APCBC be different for FHA than for RH armour? More anon. ------------------ "As has been said, we only listen to bootlickers, and Simon is one of the best out there!"

There is absolutely no doubt that the Churchill underwent massive revision following it's woeful debut at Dieppe. As pointed out by Andreas we are entering an area of somewhat shakey foundations when we start to make suppositions about late Churchills based on early Churchills. I think it would be fair to say that the Churchill didn't find a lot of favour in it's tank role although I understand it was considered to be a mobile vehicle (as distinct from fast ). It was in it's role as the basis for a number of 'funnies' that it really shone. The Brits really loved the Crocodile. The workshops of the 79th armoured division converted well over a hundred Churchills to Crocodiles well after D-Day. The AVRE and it's 'dustbins' were quite useful too, good for bocage and roadblocks, but alas not in CM. ------------------ "As has been said, we only listen to bootlickers, and Simon is one of the best out there!"

So that must be a different Churchill to that encountered by the Germans in North Africa, right? A German commander was heard to declare "I am being attacked by a British supertank" after a Churchill shrugged off a point blank hit from an 88 and proceeded to wreak havoc on his force. Bulletheads point is a good one, it is very perplexing given the quality of British naval armour. The question really is when did British armour production get its' act together. Also the point about applique armour for Churchills is a good one but it cuts both ways. Many so called Churchill VIIIs are really uparmoured early versions. So what is better 152mm of 'dud' armour or multiple plates of 'good' armour? Which German projectiles 'overmatch' 152mm armour? How does 'face hardened' armour respond to overmatching projectiles? ------------------ "As has been said, we only listen to bootlickers, and Simon is one of the best out there!"

That sure is a funny Russian flag. ------------------ "As has been said, we only listen to bootlickers, and Simon is one of the best out there!"

Unlike a lot of rexford's posts this thread is full of conjecture and giant leaps of statistical inference. What is "good quality" and how is it defined with respect to ability to shrug off a single round? As pointed out by Andrew, could there be regional variation across the plate? What about poor welding of joints (as remarked upon by allied inspection of some German tanks) and consequent impact of the infamous 'free edge effect'? Why define .85 as your lower limit? Perhaps that is the median quality? Why define 1.00 as your upper limit? Metallurgical test results please ------------------ "As has been said, we only listen to bootlickers, and Simon is one of the best out there!"

It does seem fairly ineffective sometimes but I think that the main problem with it is it's not 'area' fire at all, it's 'point' fire. You can't spray a hedge line with MG fire or work it over with HE which was a fairly common practice. Pity. ------------------ Muddying the waters as usual.

Gee Kitty you're a top sheila. ------------------ Muddying the waters as usual.

My recall is that the 17pdr APDS wasn't available in quantity until a couple of months after D-Day, but of course I can't cite a particular source other than those already used. I think the rationale outlined by Germanboy seems spot on. If anything I would like to see a few more 6pdr 't' rounds around than other gun types. This rationale was ably demonstrated in the havoc wreaked by 6pdr, and 17pdr guns and armed tank destroyers upon counterattacking German Panthers in the aftermath of Epsom. Arrgh, did you have to bring up one of my pet hates. From my reading they did get 't' rounds ahead of the infantry battalion organic 6pdrs I think. Unfortunately they are not in the game, curses. Maybe if I started bootlicking earlier instead of starting arguments about captured Fausts, tank crews, bocage (which is still no good), etc etc then I might have been able to influence the matter On the subject of availability. I am not sure that the date for the introduction of the Achilles is right. It seems far too late to me. I am sure that I have read somewhere that at least some were ready for D-Day. Also that the conversion of M10s to 17pdr was accelerated when they found that it was a much better gun/vehicle combination than the original. Can anyone throw more light on this? This is the problem with the APDS accuracy question. Lots of sources say this or similar and I agree that 't' rounds should take an accuracy 'hit', but how to quantify it? If the Isigny results are with the "early rounds" then how do the 'later' rounds perform? Which British tests are with 'early' rounds and which with 'later'. ------------------ Muddying the waters as usual.

Stop that sycophantic twaddle slappy, sheesh, bignoting yourself like that. Anyway I'd like to see no map at all. Just blindly blundering around in the dark until you run up against the enemy. Or maybe a lying map with wrong bits. Or one with gateways which transport you to the victory location but only after you defuse the mines (oops wrong game). Only girl guide veterans need reply to this post. ------------------ Muddying the waters as usual.

Gee mensch, I was thinking you were some sort of modern manifestation of a protohominid with an incurable case of literary Tourettes Syndrome. Who wrote that for you? ------------------ Muddying the waters as usual.

Did the Black Prince have the 17pdr or was it the 3.7" AA gun? I know they investigated putting that on a tank. Now that would have been something to whinge about. As it is the Churchill is tough but hasn't got much sting. ------------------ Muddying the waters as usual.