civdiv

I am reading this via my Kindle Unlimited subscription. Interesting book and good read; I’d be interested in other’s opinions. Especially interesting is the authors discussion of some rare re-use of captured French vehicles by the 21st Panzer Division. Things like the Somua MCG half-track repurposed as a mobile anti tank gun or rocket launcher, or the P-107 conversion for the 20mm anti aircraft gun. Some of you purists will want this equipment in Combat Mission, or maybe it is already there. The MCG anti tank gun varient looks so much like a German half-track maybe I have already seen it in my readings but did not recognize it as a former French vehicle.
 
 

Twitter thread roll up on Ukraine/Russia
 
This is a great Twitter thread roll up on the Russian failures in Ukraine and Putin’s current dilemma. I do not think this is political, it is more about tactics, decisions, history, mythology, military rivalry and the current military situation. If mods think it is political then lock it up immediately and then folks can still read it.
Please keep politics out of this.
 

Sub 50 meters is not ‘practically point blank’ for someone shooting a pistol and getting shot at. 48 meters is a long pistol shot at about max range against a man sized target. 5-7 meters is point blank, 15 is medium, 25 is long, and 50 is max effective range.

Sir, as someone else said somewhere, this forum is like a bunch of guys heading to the bar. Sooner or later someone is going to say something that pisses you off (Aaron Rodgers sucks) but they are not taking a swipe at you.

I just ordered a copy. I will report back (as if anybody cares about my feedback).

Sorry Sgt, this is called ‘The Monty Hall Problem’ and is fairly famous. Wiki has an article on it. Lots of PhDs wrote scathing letters saying the solution was wrong. One had to watch a computer do this problem thousands of times before he admitted he was wrong.
The bottom line is that if you switch your choice the only way you lose is if you originally picked the right curtain, which you have a 33% chance of doing.

Sorry Sgt, this is called ‘The Monty Hall Problem’ and is fairly famous. Wiki has an article on it. Lots of PhDs wrote scathing letters saying the solution was wrong. One had to watch a computer do this problem thousands of times before he admitted he was wrong.
The bottom line is that if you switch your choice the only way you lose is if you originally picked the right curtain, which you have a 33% chance of doing.

The simplest way I can explain it is that with your first choice you have a 33% of picking the right curtain, so the chance is 67% you are wrong. Since your choice is now binary, changing your choice flips the odds. So you aren’t flipping 50/50, you are flipping 33/67.

Sorry Sgt, this is called ‘The Monty Hall Problem’ and is fairly famous. Wiki has an article on it. Lots of PhDs wrote scathing letters saying the solution was wrong. One had to watch a computer do this problem thousands of times before he admitted he was wrong.
The bottom line is that if you switch your choice the only way you lose is if you originally picked the right curtain, which you have a 33% chance of doing.

Ah, I will throw in a whole other concept here.
The Germans were their own worst enemy as to tank development.
We see in hindsight, what they could not see at the time for themselves.
They also had a leader taking them on design paths that likely they did not even agree on. Hilter was a great help to the Allies at times. 
Weapon design was part of it.
 
If Germany would have seen the obvious, when they first encountered the T34, I believe that tank had the Answers to the most needed tank design for that period of fighting.
I feel the Panther was the Germans answer to that design, using many of the same principles but then as all of their projects of the time, over engineered and made it more complex than needed.
I have this view that if the Germans would have just reversed engineered the T34, realize they needed to increase quantity over quality they might have had the perfect tank and in numbers that could have made an impact.
So a panther, but a panther built on simple systems that we see in the T34 design.
So the track system should have been based on a T34, and other similar steps.
Of course all production should have been reduced to just a few models - so a Panther tank should have been that choice, but only if they had simplified it.
 
With the mindset they had at the time, none of these concepts would have happened. But if I was a time traveler, and wanted them to succeed. they would of had only one tank in production and it would have been a cross between a T34 and a Panther with multi turret gun and turret configs like we see in today armies.
 
 

Sorry Sgt, this is called ‘The Monty Hall Problem’ and is fairly famous. Wiki has an article on it. Lots of PhDs wrote scathing letters saying the solution was wrong. One had to watch a computer do this problem thousands of times before he admitted he was wrong.
The bottom line is that if you switch your choice the only way you lose is if you originally picked the right curtain, which you have a 33% chance of doing.

I just ordered a copy. I will report back (as if anybody cares about my feedback).

In my opinion, the Germans lost a lot of resources and time tinkering away at stupid ‘pet projects’ in terms of tanks. Sure, a lot of this was driven by Hitler who wanted ever bigger dumb stuff, and defying him could lead to a dirt nap. And is anyone aware of any analysis as to what positive benefits (likely in terms of increased numbers of vehicles) this would have allowed? Yes, their was the E-series but it was too late and just stupid at the upper end of the series.
So off the top of my head, the vehicles they should never have considered were; Tiger I, Tiger II, Maus, Lowe, Jagtiger, Nashorn, Sturmtiger and Elephant. Plus all the design work done on a couple of others like Panzer IX and X for example, or the E-series.
I am sort of on-the-fence about the Jagdpanther and the Panther II. Should they have built the Panther II or just fixed the Panther? Should they have skipped Panther because it required too much time to build?
Now, in terms of not building (or designing) Tiger I and Tiger II, they were over engineered, over weight, and unreliable. They already had the unreliable Panther, they probably should have fixed it first. And for the Tigers they were the wrong tank by that time of the war. Germany was on the defense at the time so throwing in heavy, mechanically unreliable ‘breakthrough’ tanks was the exact wrong decision. In ‘Sledgehammers: Strengths and flaws of the Tiger Tank Battalions in World War II”, Mr Wilbeck states that around 90% of total Tiger tank losses during WWII were destroyed by their crews while retreating because of breakdowns or running out of fuel, or bogging. Another huge mistake is the Germans never provided a Tiger recovery vehicle. The Tiger battalions on the Western front frequently used captured Shermans for that.
So my two basic questions are;
- What tank designs should the Germans have skipped to save time and resources?
- What would have been the positive effects in terms of increased numbers of tanks they actually should have produced?
 
So flame away, I am thick skinned and I know Battlefront well!

Remember that Russia invading the Ukraine is defensive in nature. It must be true, Vlad said it.

Yes, the lack of detail in that article is frustrating, especially as it gets posted every single time this comes up.

I actually tried to recreate it as best I could from the description (50x US 155mm shells versus a mix of M113, M577 and M48), and the end result in CMCW was actually significantly more devastating than the vague description in the article - 60% of armour was immobilised, and 100% of the light vehicles were destroyed. That's a lot better than the "50 percent suffered damage that would have prevented them from moving or firing" quoted in the article.

I'm still more than willing to believe that artillery damage against subsystems is too low, but I've yet to see any hard data that actually shows this. Instead, the same article gets posted over and over, which doesn't include any rigorous data.

Soviets never planned an invasion they expected a Barbarossa type of invasion. To be met with massive nuclear retaliation. The West with the undertaking not to be the first to use nuclear weapons expected a Soviet invasion. This is an enjoyable game it is not even a hypothesis of WW3. It all came to an end when the Berlin wall came tumbling down.   

I just ordered a copy. I will report back (as if anybody cares about my feedback).

I just ordered a copy. I will report back (as if anybody cares about my feedback).

Had a lot of fun with this one. After reading some of the comments on the forum I was ready for the gauntlet but I don't think it was too bad. 

First priority was preparing the way for the advance guard. I think people get hung up a bit too much on preplanned artillery with the Soviets. Even with longer call in times they can still destroy a tank with a few minutes of artillery fire. I started off with a preplanned bombardment on the tentative contact then adjusted it to the remaining AFV's overlooking the valley. When my troops rolled in there was only one tank remaining and it was taken out within the first minute. 
Knowing that I faced an enemy light on infantry I decided to rush Mansbach and quickly move to Soislieden. This proved the correct play as I caught the three M113's off guard and barely skipped a beat. At Soislieden, I discovered the bane of all proletariat. Even when opened up the T-62 spots worse than Stevie Wonder! I do not pretend to do iron man runs so sue me but I had to run it back so many times to take out the remaining tanks outside Soislieden. Eventually, with the help of infantry I was able to clear it out right around the time my main force arrived.

Based on some youtube videos I watched, I think people get hung up around this time. I saw people charging their T72's out in the open only to get picked off by unseen tanks and TOW's. Instead, I took my BTR's on the country roads shown above to observe the hill. I was able to spot all AFV's in hiding and called artillery on each target except one which was taken out by an AT-4. By the way, the AT-4 has to be one of the Soviet's most powerful weapons. It's hard to spot (at least with the AI), it spots like no other and reloads extremely fast. 
After the last AFV was destroyed I moved up my main force and took Ulfhausen. My only losses were a few BTR's that were trapped on the country road while the AI used their X-Ray vision to call in artillery on them through the trees... Seriously, how does that happen?
Overall this was a really fun mission and I think it does a good job of teaching you that without proper reconnaissance small numbers of NATO tanks can massacre large Soviet armored units. But if properly managed these combined arms units can be unstoppable.

That’s why I will not buy anything until the new engine comes out.

GFC? Ground Force Commander?
You would have to add tons of new mechanics to get even close. I assume there could be some work arounds and some stuff could be ‘fudged’ but it doesn’t sound very compelling. The assault force gets dropped off in the middle of the night and then walks six kilometers to the target. And then three fireteams enter a building and shoot people! Rinse, repeat.
 
And if you lose an assaulter it is a mission fail unless you killed/captured someone along the lines of Sauron.

I have only recently returned to the forum after only checking in intermittently. But is it possible that English is not Semmes native language and might be a contributor to him being both too direct and not really being able to explain his point of view/complaint?
 
@semmes
And in regards to billions being spent on military truck design, how can you even argue this point? Military vehicles are designed to be able to operate off road. Yes, there have doubtless been many cases where non-military vehicles were used, but that was due to necessity, not choice. And being designed for off road movement makes them more expensive than their civilian counterparts. I mean, look at the HMMWV; it has ‘high mobility’ right in its name.

I don’t understand what you are arguing here but then you likely don’t either.
Are you complaining that the mission might get ended? Yeah, that is realistic because another, higher priority call for fire might have been received or they just don’t want to wasted anymore ammo or they need to displace, etc.
Having been an artillery FO myself, I might call for another adjustment, but the battery might say no.

If people want realism they should join an army as that's the only place they will find it. No game is perfect as somebody will always find something to complain about.

There is a risk of repetition for sure, kind of would only work in a campaign setting (introduce SSE and even cyber).  As to the DA, there is a bit more to it than that, particularly in a near-peer environment.  Which raises the point that a SOF module would work better in a conventional conflict setting against harder targets.  Would have to think about stealth and spotting/sound.  It could work if done right as a DLC, particularly if you escalate GWOT into strategic competition.  
Definitely would need new mechanics. But there are Special Recon and Special Recovery options on the table, ya it might make for an interesting set of small/tiny campaigns.