Spook

The central fallacy, to the question type of of "Would more of a specific weapon had mattered in WWII's outcome?", is that it puts far too much on one weapon system as deciding the course of WWII. How then would one do a comparison like the following: "If Germany could've produced more Mark IV tanks, or more Type XXI subs, or an actual strategic bomber force, what should it have made?" No one weapon system alone was going to turn around Germany's fortunes in a war of attrition and of resource limitations. Sure, there could've been more Mk IV's cranked out, but what if the fuel production couldn't keep pace? What if infantry manpower was still too limited to support the added tanks for combined arms tactics? What if transport to support the logistics for the tanks similarly remained in a bind? CombinedArms touched earlier on the note of Allied strategic bombing. To which JasonC has noted in addition that the Allied bombing IN SUM didn't do very much PHYSICAL damage to the German industries in specific until 1944. However, the overall pressure of the Combined Bomber Offensive still chainlinked in many other ways than just hitting specific factories. Efforts and logistics were consumed to disperse the industries, or in some cases, move them underground. Anti-aircraft artillery was built up and manned in counter, thus siphoning manpower, guns, and ammunition that otherwise could've been applied on the front. And many German aircraft and pilots that could've instead stayed on the East Front to provide air cover & support were also shifted over to homeland defense. And all of this is just the Allied side of the "strategic air equation." The coin could flip around and show that Germany, lacking a comparable strategic air force, couldn't "impede" on UK or USSR production in a similar way. Of course, one must understand that air power alone did not dominate the strategic flow of events. But when provided as an example like above, it gives larger perspective that the strategic situation depended on much more than X number of some given weapon produced. The recent "Kursk" thread, at times, fell into a similar trap too. While some very informative commentary was given there, the thread at times SEEMED to focus on the notion as that the means of German victory hung mainly on the balance of available German tank strength. But less comparable discussion is given if German infantry manpower had sufficient strength to keep pressing on with the tanks after ten days of fighting. Now, JasonC did hit the nail on the head concerning German strategic chances in one regard. The German industry had not yet been "tapped" to the extent of its capabilities in the earlier war years, and this indeed impacted on the entire German war machine's ability to sustain an attritional war. But the "tooling up" had to go much farther than just tank production, and some war resources like fuel would always remain a precious, limited commodity. By mid-1944, when the US & British bomber forces went after oil production and rail lines in a focused way, the German industries couldn't cope regardless of the level of physical damage to same.

The "Modmaker_Readme" HTML file in your CMMOS folder will describe how to create a ruleset, basic or advanced.

Gag if you will, but the charcoal mellowing of Jack Daniels No. 7 suits me fine. (BTW, hi, Mom, and hi, Auntie Bea. I didn't know the two of you were into leather & whips.)

Or rather termed, "ego." And why not? Ego is inherent to human nature, and pride in one's work is a part of ego. Perhaps there are those who believe that scenario and mod makers are able to contribute without having to feel satisfaction for what they offer, on how it is received. The demonstrated history just on this forum, however, is almost always the opposite. Ego, taken to extreme, is corrosive vanity, but otherwise can be a great motivator for one to seek a higher standard in his personal work, or to always strive for improvement later on. Michael was NOT acting like a "ballerina primadonna." He didn't tell El Cid not to create scenario packs, nor insulted or belittled what El Cid was trying to do. Michael asked, straight up, for his OWN scenarios to be removed, as was fully his right to do. And if El Cid doesn't let "ego" get the best of him in turn, he will realize that this forum will lay out a big fat welcome mat to him to participate in, if he so chooses. Many indeed did thank El Cid earlier for his concept and his efforts. 'Nuff said, hope now this topic thread fades out.

I don't think you need concern yourself, Michael. The vast majority of those performing scenario downloads probably never noticed the subject thread. And even if they did, you didn't act in a way (IMO) as to affect people's decisions. As to wwb and the review scoring system, I wouldn't read too much into it. My own review scores haven't been overly generous in the three scenarios I've had a chance to review, but I think that will change with "Regiment Dies Ten Times" when I have a chance to finish it.

I did take mental note of Scott's recommendation, Grisha, thanks. I had actually heard of that unit too in some generic Stalingrad references. Andreas's follow-up, however, helps make note of the battle honors of the 13th beyond just the Stalingrad fighting. Though, if per Gpig's note, the 13th was repeatedly "spent" in Stalingrad, one from within might have named that unit the "unlucky 13th"?

Just to clear the air, I was only teasing Battlefront, not being testy or impatient with them. The backorder means nothing to me personally, it's actually GOOD news in that CMBB has sold well enough to HAVE a backorder. Perhaps I could've worded it a bit better at first. In fact, I will.

Perhaps; I didn't see this in the archived news, nor remember any announcement then, but that could have happened.

I just noticed the comment on the BF site front page about the CMBB Windows version now being backordered. It brought back memories on how CMBO sold out so quickly than per BF's expectations that it resulted in a scramble to get another batch produced. I surmise that BF had a larger initial batch of CMBB made up before putting it on market. Even so, the Windoze version still has sold out. GREAT news. I'm glad to see that Battlefront is doing that well on the wargamer market again, in sales volume. [ January 17, 2003, 05:50 PM: Message edited by: Spook ]

CMMC = Combat Mission Meta Campaign

It sounds like your friends may enjoy strategy games if they are big on Civ3. Not to mention that Civ3 is more "epic" in its scope of guiding a people from the stone ages to near-futuristic eras. Wars can be part of it all, but so can alliances & diplomacy, economics & trade, exploration, technical evolution, and so forth. The CM system is epic in its own environment, but that environment is far too removed from Civ3's scale. Instead of building a nation, you're fighting to hold a ridge or road junction or town, or just wipe out the opposition. It's straight-up war, thus far more narrow in scope. If your friends like to stick to "big" strategy games, they should consider instead Europa Universalis II, Age of Wonders, Medieval:Total War, Hearts of Iron, and so on. Or if striving for galactic conquest, perhaps Master of Orion III (due late next month) might do the trick. But IF they are willing to try WWII tactical combat as an added theme, then to help them "get into" CMBB, have them play against each other, either TCP/IP or e-mail, on some fast-paced or "mobile" scenarios that aren't too large. Or maybe they might like CMBO instead if they want to play US forces.

I just checked the CMBB strategy guide on Soviet armor listings. Apparently, the IS-2 has two Model 1944 versions in CMBB, the standard and an "early" version. The early M1944 utilizes the same armor as for the IS-2 M1943 (about 90-100mm front hull thickness), while the "standard" M1944 utilizes the values cited in the British intelligence report (127). I suppose it depends on which M1944 version is being assessed here, and it doesn't help that I'm not an expert to specific IS-2 versions.

Thanks, Andreas & Grisha. Grisha's listing of armies may be "bigger" in scale than what I nominally consider, but then, I can always roll up sleeves and use the referenced armies for seeking information within, later on.

I appreciate the initial feedback. Indeed, it can be a challenge to "pick out" Soviet smaller-scale units (division & below) when one considers the enormity of the deployed Soviet frontal forces. I guess how it could be rephrased as to how many smaller Soviet units are known to be reasonably documented with long-running combat records -- "glorious" or otherwise. After all, in playing CMBB, we don't play Soviet corps or armies. We typically play Soviet companies, battalions, & regiments. I just think that some more attention given to such smaller-scale Soviet units -- if possible -- could give some added "balance," or at least serve as future prospects of CMBB operations designed from a Soviet perspective.

It does give pause for thought if anyone would try a CMBB scenario of a map with 1-km width (frontage) and comparable density in units, fielded AT guns, and artillery support. [ January 15, 2003, 10:40 PM: Message edited by: Spook ]

Bump, in case anyone might be willing to venture on "candidate" Soviet divisions & such.

This might or might not correlate, but back in the 1980's, in the days of ASL, it was discovered at one point through some article in the Avalon Hill "General" that the IS-2 (I forget the specific model) had a thinner gun mantlet than had been presumed in the ASL game specs.

If taking Saddam's military into account too, one then seems to forget quickly about incidents like the USS Stark.

being........??? This query comes a bit from this other new CMBB topic: American views of the East Front where the initial post linked to an earlier article by David Glantz. This article highlighted the typical limited perspective of East Front history in the eyes of ordinary Americans, and grappled with the reasons for this. It was quite compelling to read. However....... Even here, in this CMBB forum, it MIGHT seem as that the "limited perspective" has taken hold a bit. Not to sound judgemental about it, in fact, I also hold myself accountable. If I am presently asked of division-size units I am familiar with as having fought on the East Front, I can think of many German units, particularly the mechanized or Panzer divisions. But if I was asked on how many comparable veteran Soviet units I know of or their battle records, I could count more fingers on one hand. And it can be that way sometimes at various CM sites too. Sometimes I will read background histories of "the GD division holding off attacks by the 5th Guards Tank Army" or sumfink. Ultimately, I hope to rectify this to a degree with increased review of select East Front references over this year. However, I am posting as to provide a topic thread for others to nominate which they think were among the more "legendary" of Soviet ground units, from division-scale on downwards. (Perhaps some corps-sized formations can be advocated too, but I'm disinclined for it to scale up to army level.)

If BF puts it in, I can rest assured that Grog Dorosh will design the 120-turn scenario to allow its usage. (Fired once, kills everyone on the map, spends the scenario length reloading so to fire again on the last turn. )

There is a problem with games at exactly this scale. And that involves such things as accounting for individual vehicle placement and facing within the unit. That's important for determining things like penetration. This can be averaged out for larger units without losing too much fidelity, but gets to be a problem at this scale. Better IMO to use companies or battalions. Michael</font>

Great. If it's possible to shed new light for Battlefront's sake, all the better.

Possible, given that German glass/optics vendors like Carl Zeiss have quite a reputation that extends even to this day. As far back as 2000 -- nearly three years ago --- I recall posts from BF's Steve Grammont where he tried to grapple with anecdotal evidence on what the Soviets CONSISTENTLY applied for gunnery optics in the war. He related one such anecdotal case where a newly-built T-34 had, for its "optics," the bottom of a bottle which was cut off and polished, and with a painted dot for the "aiming point." If this was CONSISTENT for Soviet manufacturing practice, then one could argue that Soviet gun optics, especially in the "crunch years" of rush production of 1941-43, would have NEGATIVES applied, so as not even to rate as "standard." Then a later story was offered of a T-34, delivered to the US/UK for proving trials, being rated by British analysts as having "superior optics," although not relating much of the details as to how they rated well. Were they specialty-built for the delivered tank, as to impress on the Allies of Soviet technical capabilities? Or applied to enough of a standard for fielded tanks? These related stories in earlier years here at the BF forums are contradictory. What doesn't help to resolve the matter is just how much was considered acceptable to "shed off" in Soviet quality control for relocated industries producing weapons "under duress." One shouldn't necessarily argue as that the Soviets were incapable to keep pace in optics development. After all, if looking at their tanks, mortars, and artillery pieces overall, it actually was often the case of the Soviets SETTING the pace instead of keeping it. But when production shortcuts were mandated to get equipment out fast, quality could suffer, like in armor casting. Effective optics requires no small application of quality control if precision is desired. The matter the seems still speculative is just how extensively such quality control was indeed applied, considering the changing circumstances over the war years. Furthermore, were the Soviets using "mechanical center" optics or "optical center" types, the latter more common with German systems? If the former, then it would not make that much a difference even in 1944-45.

Battlefront, in prior posts running over two years, indicated its desire to resolve just what exactly the Soviets used for gunnery optics on a CONSISTENT basis. Perhaps they found a good number of references in this search, only that these couldn't provide the desired and VERIFIABLE technical information. Not being a BF rep, however, I can only speculate. But if you wish to search it out, and provide information to BF on your results, by all means go ahead and do so. The BF guys aren't particular about who sends information to them, in fact IIRC some outsiders like "rexford" provided some useful technical info that was applied in CMBB unique from the earlier CMBO. I never asserted as that the Soviet Army of 1941, at least that facing the Germans on the frontier, didn't have ANY "veteran" soldiers. But would you assert in turn as that all across the East Front, when Barbarossa started, the Soviet soldier was fully comparable in training, experience, and proven tactics to his German counterparts, all the way down to squad level? Especially given the earlier "flux" of the Soviet officer corps prior to the war? I can recognize that some select Soviet units here and there in 1941 put up a good fight, giving as good as they got or even better. But when taking the ENTIRE frontal results for the period June-Sept '41, an argument made as that the Soviets were fully equal ON AVERAGE in tactical abilities in that same time is rather daunting to prove.

I in turn understand what you are trying to say, Cpt Kernow, but when you wrote: this was not stated properly. If all things are left random in a QB ME of equal points, even letting the computer choose the forces, then there's no guarantee of a "balanced fight." The only equalizing constraint is of points, but a fully random-generated map and randomly selected forces may still produce an unbalanced game when played between two gamers of fairly equal skill. On that matter, how can it be guaranteed that balanced fights will result, under equal-point ME's, if one player has much greater skill at playing CM? It can't be. However, in your follow-up: Now this is stating it better, and I concur in general, though the scenario timeframe can qualify. Some CM gamers may claim that Battlefront intended to apply arbitrary biases, either pro-German or anti-Soviet (or both), without some historical basis. But such a claim of bias is completely unsubstantiated to me. And your statistical sample certainly doesn't disprove my own view. Some CMBB gamers will always complain and cry "foul." So be it. But I doubt that they represent the majority of CMBB gamers. Heck, from my end, my own preference is Soviets regardless of timeframe. There's no real rationale to it, it's just my own "bias."