Simon Fox

How delighted I am to see those two brilliant authors of historical fiction Sven Hassel and Paul Carrel mentioned so appropriately in almost the same breath. Just for Mike I should mention that the first Hassel book wasn't actually written by him. One wouldn't read Guderian or Manstein with an uncritical mind in the expectation of a full and frank account of events, would one? At best one would expect an insight into the mind of an individual bent upon self justification and content to assign responsibility to the conveniently dead. However, one might expect to get a reasonably accurate indication of the authors motivations during their most brilliant successes. As for the rest, a number of outright lies and curious omissions have been well documented in both books. As a counterpoint to the portrayal of the valiant and unblemished Heer battling in the East one might want to peruse the first four chapters of Michael Burleighs "Ethics and Extermination" which deal with their gallant deeds against those nasty "Jewish Bolsheviks". [ December 06, 2002, 12:24 AM: Message edited by: Simon Fox ]

Well who'd have imagined it: a former German General blaming his own failures on Hitler after the war. Wonders will never cease.

Stolfi's arguments are made in a total vacuum with regard to Soviet dispositions, reserves, strengths and intentions. Perhaps if the Germans were swanning around Russia in the absence of any opposition they might hold a shred of credibility. The absence of a balanced viewpoint terminally undermines Stolfi's thesis. Suprise, suprise that one of his collaborators on this one was von Mellethin. Personally I'm rather fond of Greenbaum's demolition of this one on Amazon: Ouch! Now that's gotta hurt. In my opinion Stolfi, Hoth and Andreas are wrong. Keke and Foxbat seem to have a firmer grasp of reality

Really 'Capt' your originally point was just that and had the nasty little sting of truth to sharpen its barb. Now by squabbling with the dung beetles you're just muddying the waters and diminishing the effect.

I beleive that BTS have indicated in previous discussions on the subject that they will look seriously at a more complex mechanism for modelling morale/experience than the current one when the engine is rewritten. It is likely that limitations in the current engine preclude anything other than minor tweaking of the system as it exists. http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=12;t=000556;p=2 http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=12;t=001593 http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=13;t=012130;p=7

Yep, that would be right. Finnish books are right to say their arty was very good and use of firepower efficient and responsive. Since they fought the Russians they might be in a position to say, we think our arty usage was more efficient than theirs. But they couldn't be absolutely sure about that because they don't seem to have done any kind of comparative analysis of organisational and communications structures. They might also be able to comment upon the Germans and their arty practices since they had an opportunity to observe them fairly closely. However, when it comes to the practices of any other nation they don't have a clue and flounder around in a morass of ignorance and chest beating fuelled no doubt by whatever throat searing concoction they guzzle down over there. Most people in such a situation would reserve their judgment based upon lack of knowledge but not this lot, they just go ahead and proclaim the "uberness" over the entire rest of the planet based upon the fact they managed to give one of the participants of WWII a bloody nose on a few occasions. It's bad enough that we have to put up with the Seppos blowing their own trumpets, now CMBB has unleashed the Finns, not that they weren't a bit feral beforehand. Our lot kicked the arses of the Italians, Germans, Austrians, French and Japanese in WWII without the benefit of discount rate TRPs and there's no wood to make toothpicks in the desert so we had to make do with grains of sand. So there! Basis for comparison =1 does not make an argument for uberness.

This is an interesting discussion and certainly a peg or two above the usual dross but it seems to me that many posters are talking at cross purposes and the distinction between whether comments refer to the tactical and operational is rather blurry. I think that in order to understand the issues of comparative adaptibilty between the Germans and Soviets in WWII it is necessary to examine the issue of doctrine and organization and their interplay. Essentially in 1941 the Soviets possessed an excellent offensive doctrine but lacked the means both organisationally and physically to implement until 1943. In contrast in 1941 the Germans possessed a rather haphazard doctrine but possessed an excellent instrument to employ in whatever way they decided. The most significant insight that one gets when one reads on the subject is that there is actually no such thing as "Blitzkreig" doctrine (Doughty, 1998). As a coherent military doctrine it does not exist. German military doctrine at the begining of WWII was merely an extension of earlier German military theory (Cooper, 1978). Certainly the organisation of tanks into powerful combined arms units was a revolutionary idea brought to fruition by Guderian but mobility and combined arms is hardly unique in German military thought. In WWII they merely utilised these formations as superior instruments to apply the doctrines of annhilation (Vernichtungsgedanke) and cauldron battles (Kesselschlacht) which originated in the late 19th century. In this respect what is clear and telling is that the Germans made no organisational effort to promote and maintain develop deep penetrations by armoured formations, it seems that such events occurred more by default than design (at the doctrinal level at least) (Corum, 1993). That is not to say that it did not happen, but that it was not doctrinally and consequently organisationally provided for. This contrasts markedly with the Soviets who continuously refined their organisation and planning to this end. Returning specifically to the original point of this thread, I have seen elsewhere on this forum an analysis of the relative success of the northern and southern German efforts at Kursk based on the fact the Model planned conduct his break in battle with infantry divisions whereas in the south the panzer divisions led the way. It is certainly an interesting viewpoint to comparatively analyse an offensive operation based solely upon the compostion and organisation of the attacking force and without regard to that of the defender nor the terrain, but it is not one to which I would ascribe. Even taking the southern front as a microcosm, just witness the difficulty that III Pz Corps suffered south-east of Belgorod jumping off with the 6th, 19th, 7th Pz and 168th Inf divisions in the van, especially against the 81st GRD. Furthermore it is seems from recent analysis (Glantz and House, 1999) that a proportionally heavier toll on the Germans was taken by the Soviet rifle divisions and their supporting units operating in the 1st and 2nd defensive belts in comparison to the subsequent more open battles between the 2nd and 3rd belts. Therefore one might consider that the employment of these units for the break-in battle actually took the "sting" out of them somewhat when they subsequently bumped into Soviet reserves. Even so considering the relative strengths of the units involved at the point of contact it should hardly be suprising that II SS Corps eventually was able to bull it's way through the tactical defense of 25th GR Corps. Cooper, M (1990) The German Army 1933-1945. Corum, J (1992) The Roots of Blitzkrieg: Hans von Seeckt and German Military Reform. Doughty, R (1998). "Myth of the Blitzkrieg" Glantz, D. and House, J, (1999) The Battle of Kursk.

Yes it is. Mortar TRPs should be separate to arty TRPs.

It's amazing what a good nights sleep can do to clear the head. The assumption that I'm trying to protect John or consider myself a self-appointed "bodyguard" being incorrect, all other comments in the same vein are irrelevant, including the rather farcical suggestion that my actions imply that I consider John gutless or sooky. More likely I'd be commiserating with him. I don't resile for an instant from anything I have written in this thread. I totally reject your suggestion that I'm here to intercede between John and Slappy or to flame the latter. In fact it is you who I disagreed with. If John decided to clear off it would hardly be due to the likes of Slappy. More likely would be if he drew the wrong conclusion to the boards administrator coming down on him, however nicely, for getting a bit edgy in response to Slapdragon. An edginess which was in my opinion entirely justified, which was quite mild compared to thousands of other posts here many of them directed at Slappy for some mystifying reason As for thread hijacking, I was addressing your OT post. If other people decided there was some sort of Slappy free for all going then that's their look out. As a final point I note that this thread was started by John Kettler to whom I and my fellow conspirators fully apologise for making him an unwitting dupe in my devious master plan for a Slapdragon BBQ. <---redundant smiley added for the ironically challenged

Leaving aside everything else you had to say, there are a number of possible explanations for this: (A) I got it, had a fit of pique, didn't bother to reply. ( I got it, replied, you didn't receive the reply. © I didn't get it. I'd be going for © if I were you. Maybe you should have banned me for not receiving it or somefink. I'm sure that would have got my attention.

No I let numerous opportunities pass by. I can't speak for Edward of course. I'm here now because I value John's contributions to this forum and I wouldn't want to see him go away in disgust. Other people might have personal vendettas on this BBS, I don't.

Of course the intended D-day task of the assault engineers and their AVREs was the clearance and destruction of beach and other obstacles not to provide fire support for the infantry. Probably the most significant benefit of the AVREs was in enabling the engineering tasks to be carried out with armoured protection for the engineers. There were problems with the DD tanks on a number of other beaches as well, although possibly not to the same extent as Omaha, with late arrival due to launching closer in, losses to swamping, going astray or just merely being landed 'dry' but late. In these instances the AVREs and other vehicles present took up the slack and provided additional fire support. In this respect the contribution of Sherman Crabs, which were specifically trained prior to D-day for taking out pillboxes, and RM Centaurs would have been important. The redundancy of all the armour arriving on the Commonwealth beaches was surely of benefit in swamping the defenses despite the inevitable stuff-ups with DDs etc.

I'm not so sure about that, you're exagerrating somewhat there. Possibly those who belabour the beast indiscriminantly with crudely fashioned cudgels. [ April 16, 2002, 11:22 PM: Message edited by: Simon Fox ]

All good points Martin except that: (1) It is still very time consuming. (2) The AI remains ignorant of these "simple rules".

Funny, I was just thinking he was being admirably restrained considering the provocation. For all the history of the Bren tripod saga John Salt is not part of it and neither as far as I can see has this thread got much to do with it. John's just getting his introduction to the Slapdragon modus operandi, testiness is the natural initial reaction. As we can see he's already got it well and truely sussed out: Very perspicacious. Don't worry, I'm sure he'll soon settle down now he's familiar with the nature of the beast.

Don't bother, we don't have that much time.

You forgot: c) could barely scrape the wit together to recognize you weren't up to the task.

You don't have to apologise dale. I expect no more from an ignorant seppo.

No fair - you can't back both of them!</font>

Not nice. Kidding aside, it was a tough decision, and I had hoped it was recognized that some degree of thought went into it. I had thought SuperTed set the precedent, as he is "on staff" at CMHQ, and I didn't take the matter lightly. But after asking quite nicely said person several times to at least honour his offer to send his password (something I would never dream of asking anyone for), and being called childish in return and told to "act like a man", I reacted. If BTS doesn't want this type of discussion to go on here, I'll honour that request, but seeing one of their employees do the same, and the comments of several people in this thread, leads me to believe otherwise. The negative comments towards me have been noted, and I will obviously know better than to do this again. I'll also think twice about playing someone who emails me from out of the blue looking for a game. Oh, and if our friend wants to get in touch with me, this thread would be the only way - I had his email address blocked at the server level, meaning I wouldn't know if he tried to email me.</font>

Damn, I wish I knew that my purpose was to get people falling over themselves to worship my level headness. If only I knew beforehand that I was merely seeking your approval. Still I'm sure I'm basking in it now. Alternatively, you could just SOD ORF!!

Depends what happens on page 2. How does it feel to be on the sharp end of a few sermons for a change.

So you have personally dealt with this individual and can attest to their "jerk" title have you?. Or are you generally of the habit of taking second-hand opinions and getting hot under the collar about them? By all means let's see Dorosh lay some formal charges before the official CMBO kangaroo court. So far it seems either through ignorance or malevolence this individual might have tried to pull a swifty on Dorosh. Since Dorosh turned the tables on him and by his account acheiving ascendancy in the game that should have been enough. Rather than personally confront this individual Dorosh chose to gather up a little band of assistants even if it was not his intent to do so. The fact is that there are far more idjits in the world than Machiavelli's, when confronted with the suspicious the correct answer is generally ineptitude.

Oh, so kowtowing to the mob is now bowing to "peer pressure" is it? You'll consider withering on the vine a pleasant interlude if you poke your head in here, it's trampling in the mire you'll get. This is not the general forum you know. You can't just wander in here using made up words like "rudiousity" and expect have people falling over themselves complimenting you on your erudition. "Seanachai Challenge" is an internally inconsistent statement or as Mace would say, an oxymoron.

Oh yes why stop at just naming him in the thread let's pop it in the title as well. When's the public flogging? Can we lynch the whingers who whine about whiners too? Or even the whinging whiners whining about whining whiners? Really, Dorosh, I disagree with Panzer Leader; you are not "rude" you are a very silly boy indeed. This one is really crying out for the padlock, are BTS all asleep or what? Come on guys let's put an end to this spectacle.