Simon Fox
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Posts posted by Simon Fox
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Those Arnhem battles seem to hold an incredible fascination for wargamers at the tactical level. For an operation which was basically doomed from the start due to totally inadequate planning a real mystique has arisen about the valiant battles of the US and British paras. I am currently reading an outstanding and quite concise analysis of the operation, "Arnhem: a tragedy of errors" by Peter Harclerode, which I recommend to anyone. It makes your blood boil to read of the moronic decisions which sent probably the best units the British army produced in WWII into a unwinnable battle, in fact any Arnhem book makes for a pretty fatalistic read.
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That's sounds fine to me as a solution. I guess it depends on the level of knowledge of the scenario designer. Could be included in any scenario design notes someone cares to write?
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I'm still working on the panzerfaust stuff but I did come across some more on US TO&E for around late 1944.
"The 2d Division, like most veteran divisions, had armed itself beyond the limits of approved tables of equipment. Nearly every rifle platoon, as a result, had AT LEAST two bazookas, so that team play to distract and then destroy the target tank was feasible."
(my emphasis)
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You also have to remember the timing of all this. When the Rhino modification was made the germans were getting pretty thin on the ground (first widespread use in COBRA) and tended to concentrate their defenses at key road junctions. The Rhino enabled US tanks to outflank them across country while the germans were restricted to the roads.
While Sgt Culin of the 2nd armoured is credited with developing the idea it originated with a Pvt named Roberts in the same unit. Sgt Culin brought the concept to fruition and did honestly try to spread some of the credit around but to no avail in the face of the publicity machine. Interestingly other units had developed similar approaches to the hedgerows as the following account from CMH publication 100-3:
"The 29th Division had already had much and bitter experience of the difficulties of hedgerow fighting and to meet them, like other units, spent a great deal of time and effort in planning and training for the big attack. Under the direct supervision of Brig. Gen. Norman D. Cota, Assistant Division Commander, the infantry, tank, and engineer elements of the division rehearsed (in fields near Couvains) a tactical procedure for reducing the effectiveness of hedgerow defenses. Particular attention was paid to the necessity of training infantrymen to cross the open centers of hedge-bordered fields, rather than moving along axial hedgerows. This method of maneuver aimed at avoiding enfilade fire along the axials; in the past squads and platoons had been too often pinned down by German automatic weapons that were usually set up at field corners.
Each battalion of the 116th Infantry went into the attack with an attached company of engineers from the 121st Engineer Combat Battalion. The 2d Battalion (Maj. Sidney V. Bingham, Jr.) of the 116th was to lead off the advance, hitting along the axis of the Couvains-la Calvaire road, skirting the division boundary, and bypassing strongly organized enemy positions at St-Andre- de-l'Epine. The 2d Battalion would start on a two-company front (E and F Companies); each assault platoon in these companies was teamed with a platoon of medium tanks from the 747th Tank Battalion. The plan for the opening phase involved operating in small teams, each with a comparatively broad front: one infantry squad and one tank per field, and a squad of engineers to each infantry platoon.
Coordination of infantry-tank-engineer teams, working in these small groups, had been carefully rehearsed. The tanks were expected to give great assistance, by their fire power, in dealing with hedgerow strongpoints, but there was always the problem of getting them through the embankments fast enough to maintain their support through the endless series of fields. Movement along the road was prohibited by German antitank defenses. To get the armor through hedgerows, new devices and methods were being tried out. One was to equip the tank with iron prongs welded to the final drive housing. These prongs could-and did-rip holes right through the upper part of small embankments, but the prongs might be bent and disabled by much heavy work of this sort. They had still another use: that of making holes for placing demolitions. The engineers in the assault teams carried explosive charges of TNT loaded in discarded canisters of 105-mm shells. In the tactics rehearsed, the infantry would seize hedgerow fronting the axis of attack; a tank would then lumber forward toward a place where the engineers desired to make the gap. Driving into the hedgerow, the tank would force the two prongs into the earth, and at the same time deliver a blast of fire from its automatic weapons on the field and hedgerow ahead. When the prongs were with drawn from the bank, two waiting engineers would rush forward, fix the prepared charges in the holes, make the necessary primacord connections, and light the fuze. Additional TNT charges were carried close behind the assault teams on "weasels" (M-29's). Obviously the engineers' task was dangerous; they were so heavily involved in the task of carrying explosives that they could not engage in individual combat and must rely on the fire power of tanks and infantry for protection."
And this of the 2nd infantry division:
"A tank-infantry-engineer team was devised for dealing with the hedgerow problem. The teams were trained to advance as a coordinated unit, each hedgerow representing a new line of departure. When the engineers had blown a hole for the tanks to pass through, the tanks would enter the field, fire their 75-mm guns into the corners, and spray the lateral hedgerow ahead to cover the infantry scouts advancing (in this case) along the axial hedges. These scouts would also be covered by BAR men. Two of the four demolitions men followed behind, and the engineers and the leader of the infantry squad would choose the best place for the tank to go through the next barrier. Special EE-8 phones were installed on the rear of the tanks and connected with the tank's interphone system for tank-infantry communication during action. Two engineers would stay with the vehicle to protect it during advance, scanning and firing at side hedgerows to keep down enemy bazooka teams. In the area close to the line of departure, hedgerow embankments were carefully scooped out on the American side, leaving a shell which the tanks could push through on the day of attack."
Sorry this is so long but I thought it was interesting
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BTS, I'm glad you've decided to do something about the extra BARs for veteran troops and I concur that the 'faust issue is not as widespread and probably not critical, but since I am a finicky argumentative bastard I am not going to let you off the hook this easily:
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I'm not sure how you come to this conclusion. Out of the dozens of books we have read only a few instances of PFs being used by US troops come to light.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
I am currently compiling a list of references with relevant quotes (look out, hehe) but as steve points out if any unit comes to mind in this respect it is the 82nd. You can't dismiss Ridgeway just because he was a general, airborne generals tend to be a bit more involved and he and Gavin were well known for this. The 82nd first began using 'fausts in Sicily because they were sick of bazookas bouncing off german tanks and from then on they employed them "whenever they could get their hands on them" (Gavin).
Fionn,
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>In essence though the Bazooka and Pzf served the same function so not allowing US troops to carry Pzfs isn't that big an issue.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
well theoretically they might be interchangeble but I think you might find the users might not see it that way! Neither the bazooka or the PIAT for that matter were a patch on the 'faust or 'schrek when it came to tank killing (other applications excepted). Of course they were all weapons of last resort.
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I have a couple of questions which are basically unrelated.
1) I know you guys have discounted the use of captured weapons for simplicities sake and because by and large it was pretty rare at the level of CM. But I would like to make a point about panzerfausts which were very much covetted by allied troops especially elites such as airborne and commandos. I think that there are far too many references to both specific instances and general observations of this to discount it as rare. Is it possible to enable scenario designers to access fausts for allied troops at their discretion even if they can't actually be captured on the battlefield and used.
2)On the subject of TO&E. Obviously under battlefield conditions these would vary considerably from the official levels. Is it possible to design a scenario using depleted units or is this to difficult to implement? On the same subject there is plenty of evidence for to accumulation of additional automatic weapons by veteran units compared to the official issue. I quote Cole in "The Ardennes Offensive...": "Although by this time the veteran ETO divisions were carrying BAR's and light machine guns far in excess of authorized allowances". As I understand it often the organic AT companies of US regiments were used to man these. Is there sufficient flexibility in CM to account for this?
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Go Kevin, Don't let Thomm and Fionn hijack this thread and mutate it into the Fighting Steel thread. I guess we will have to wait a while to fight those crete battles in CM as my understanding is that the Balkans, Greece, Africa etc are third in line. Pity, as being an Aussie its nice to play your own nationality ever now and again in a game (especially when their good
). By the way how do you do those HTML smileys? -
Is this the fighting steel thread or the crete thread? From what I read the Crete operation was touch and go. If the allied forces had been able to hang on to the critical airfields just a little longer it might have tipped the balance. As it was the airlifted german reinforcements were landing straight into a firefight at malemo. Also best not to characterise the forces on the island as British they were mostly NZ and Aust. troops evacuated from Greece under the leadership of Freyberg, the garrison of the island itself was pretty unprepared. The overall casualty figures for both sides were pretty even except most of the germans were dead and most of the allies were captured
.Cohesion and lack of support weapons (left behind in greece) were the major problems of the defenders, no air support was also a problem as the attackers made use of excellent close air support from the Luftwaffe to make up for their lack of heavy weaponry. Even so the battle had a profound effect upon both German and Allied use of airborne troops for the rest of the war and probably less well recognised it dissuaded Hitler from a possible island hopping campaign in the Med.
In fact my favourite WW2 'what if' has always been: what if Churchill listened to every bit of advice he had and did not send troops to Greece? Crete garrisoned with a properly supported division (prob NZ or Aust as they were the ones to spare) and accompanied by the air assets wasted in Greece (as far as I know at least one squadron was sent there) would have been a really tough nut to crack. O'connor would have had enough forces to drive on to Tripoli (the italians were shattered) and the North African campaign would have been over in '41. Crete was in strategic bomber range of the Ploesti oilfields which would have given Adolf a real headache (he he).
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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I am under the impression that modern tactical
doctrine is moving away from tanks engaging infantry
and thus the weapon load outs are including fewer
anti-personnel weapons. I believe I have read that
the US and other western nations are following this
path more so than the Russians.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
On this subject and getting back to WW2 I saw some russian post battle data recently which showed that on average 50% HE loads and 16% AP loads were used in tanks. This seems to support that tanks freely used HE to suppress infantry. Which is hardly suprising with all those Fausts around.
Fionn's post regarding german employment of halftracks certainly rings true from all that I have read. It certainly meshes with the persistence of anti-tank rifles and small calibre AT guns in unit TO&E long after their effectiveness vs tanks had become nil. Furthermore it enables rapid exploitation of local success.
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Gee Brian, I don't think Mike was making his 5 to 1 kill ratio comparison as some sort of measure of the operational efficiency of these tanks. Although this discussion is pretty wide ranging (and I am as guilty as any of meandering) I keep trying to make myself think back to the scale of CM which is in fact: "a series of tactical engagements". Panthers and Tigers had their inherent deficiencies and Shermans were superior in some respects which will hopefully be modelled in CM which will should ameliorate slightly the dreadful disparity found in some games. BUT as Los makes a good point about treating the tank in isolation from the crew. From what I have read anecdotally it seems that superiority of these german tanks also had a psychological effect out of proportion to their numbers. This had a well documented negative effect on the offensive performance of allied units because they adopted a very cautious approach. Conversely German confidence in the superiority of their weaponry stiffened their resolve in many instances.
Some posts seem to imply that the US actually decided to adopt an inferior tank because they could make more of them. Personally I think it was inevitable that the allies would have a massive numerical advantage in whatever tank they produced. Basically they made a serious error in their tank design which they elected to live with, probably because as Steve says: "A country can not simply switch production lines overnight." It was just unfortunate for the poor bastards who had to fight in them.
Brian-I think I kind of get the point of your post but take it that you were tired as you say and I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on that last paragraph as your assessment that the Germans got their "butts kicked" following the adoption of superior equipment is a novel outlook on the fall of the 3rd Reich to say the least
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I certainly agree with John that the simultaneous turn system should even things up a little for the Sherman if properly handled but I will be a little concerned if they start turning "panthers into dartboards" as that would be contrary to everything I have read. Personally I have always preferred to play the allies against the AI because the extra challenge, maybe CM will change that
. Should make a swarming attack with T-34 a bit more palatable when the East Front version comes along too.Steve- I think you misunderstood my point about the 5000 panthers vs 50000 shermans economics. I guess that there was not a tenfold difference in production cost so my implication was that if the US could have produced a tank which was on a par armour and gun wise with the panther for say 1.5 times the cost of the sherman then I am guessing that Ike, Bradley and Patton would have gone with 33,000 of those in preference, sorry for being a bit obscure.
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Q. This may seem a little esoteric and may have been answered before but I was wondering if the there is any modifier for nationality in spotting the location/source of enemy small arms fire in CM? The reason that I ask is the well documented difference in flash between allied and german small arms ammunition which in practice made the location of firing US/Brit troops easier than Germans.
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Gee you are dedicated, what is the time over there, I only just came back to check that my post went through OK and there was a reply!
In principle I agree with you that overall quantity won out. But as you would probably agree you can't just look at tanks alone. There is a good argument that the masses of allied tanks had a limited impact in relation to their numerical preponderance. I would suggest that the two arms in which the allies had both a qualitative and quantitative advantage, airpower and artillery, were manifestly more significant overall though probably not at the level of CM. Jabos, jabos everywhere!
As for Patton I don't know in what context his request was made but if it was in the light that all he was going to get was shermans then it was understandable. Also I thought he was a strong advocate of the stopgap jumbo upgrade which I understand was more to combat the 88 (enhanced survivability) than Panthers and Tigers since it retained the original 75mm gun which could not even penetrate the Tigers frontal armour (theoretically). At least the British had the Firefly though considering the 17pdr was designed in June 1941 it was a mistake more weren't available.
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Pixman-I am sorry but I cannot agree with much that you say on this topic. The mobility doctrine to which you adhere matches uncannily with the misconceptions of General McNair who believed that armoured divisions would be employed for exploitation and pursuit and seldom fight other tanks. Thereby discovering that pace in battle is of no value unless matched by survivabilityI can't believe that people are seriously supporting this notion of quantity vs quality. We are not talking about massive technological differences here: just more armour and a bigger gun! It is an absolute disgrace that for all their technological superiority in aircraft production, radar equipment etc US and Brit industries provided their armies with tanks utterly inferior in armour and killing power. The germans made a deliberate decision to go for quality because they knew they could not match the quantity of the allies. I don't agree that this was a flawed concept just a bit futile under the circumstances. There are numerous examples of single german tanks taking out 4-5 allied tanks before being destroyed. Your quantity vs quality concept only works if your tanks are crewed by automatons who don't know their tanks are crap. Otherwise they start to suffer the creeping paralysis and Panther/Tiger phobia suffered by allied tanks crews. The point here is that Shermans were extremely vulnerable to just about every anti-tank weapon employed by the germans: 75L42, 88s, panzerfausts, panthers, tigers etc. This vulnerability translated into an unwillingness to take risks or press home an attack, and as the onus was on the allies to do the attacking...
Your assessment of Cobra, D-day, the Ardennes, seems a little simplistic to say the least. I may be wrong but I think you will find that the panther had a considerably higher road speed than the sherman.
Steve-If three shermans took out 4 Panthers and 4 MkIV in the scenarion you describe then I have got to say that they must have been very poorly employed (even if attacking).
Fionn-I would of thought the Sherman 76 was more on a par with the MkIV and still outmatched by the panther and was there such a thing as a jumbo76.
Steve-what were the relative costs of manufacturing a sherman and a panther after all in purely economic terms the germans may have only been capable of manufacturing 15,000 shermans and for his 50,000 shermans Ike might have got a lot more than 5000 panthers and I reckon that Bradley and Patton would have gone for that deal!
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On the topic of pushing AT guns and lots of other related stuff from a first hand account try: http://library.virtualave.net/memory3.html
Its the East Front but I guess some of the principles still apply here. Quote:"Well, how can you have closed position in street fighting? You’re just rolling your gun down the street. The assault groups: infantry,
76mm gun, and a tank. The mission is the building, help the infantry to get it. We’re opening on the basement windows: this is
where the German guys with panzerfausts would be. So we’re getting them out of there. We would not spare the ammo.."
Simon
City Fighting?
in Combat Mission Archive #1 (1999)
Posted
Larry,
Actually Urqhuart didn't have much choice as the RAF refused to drop paratroops or gliders near the bridge being concerned about heavy flak defenses near the bridge. The latest air recon showed these were actually quite limited but this was ignored! Dropping near the bridge would definitely have made a difference, how much is a moot point as fairly powerful german forces were in the area.
There is some credibility in the idea that the operation would have had a better chance of success if carried out earlier. The failure to do this can be largely ascribed to Montgomery's personality which wasn't conducive to him getting what he wanted from Eisenhower. Eisenhower prevaricated and was half-hearted in his support until the last minute. This delay was fatal to the operation which was also given insufficient resources. There is no doubt that if the 1st Airborne had been informed of the presence of the 9th and 10th SS panzer divisions in the Arnhem area they would have canned the operation. The Allies had this information from BOTH Ultra intercepts and the Dutch resistance.
I think that XXX corps probably could have held the salient if required to. While the germans forces could probably mount a stiff defensive battle they probably lacked the punch to threaten it seriously if in was necessary to hold. The Brits were acutely aware of the dangers of the one road assault but had insufficient resources to mount more. Even so the neighbouring corps should have mounted some sort of diversionary attacks to keep the enemy guessing.