tss

Matthew_Ridgeway wrote: I would still like to hear someone knowledgeable on WWII Red Army Artillery protocol throw in his or her three cents worth. Well, we could start by stating that the RKKA artillery practices during the Winter War (1939-40) were bad. Really bad. Terrible, even. In the early part of the war, the artillery crews would wake up in the morning, eat the breakfast, go to the guns and start firing. Once in a while they would adjust the gun elevation, but usually they didn't touch the azimuth controls. If the gun happened to point at a real target, it could cause serious trouble, but mostly they shelled empty forest in a really predictable pattern. Later in the war the RKKA artillery got their act together somewhat and could achieve reasonably accurate barrages against Finnish positions. The fire was often directed from observation balloons that were well-protected by light AA and fighters. The spotter in a balloon would use a field phone to report the corrections. During the attacks of February and March, Soviets coordinated creeping barrages by having the point infantry units indicate their positions by firing signal flares constantly. The artillery observers stayed back and moved the barrage forward when the flares approached too close to it. In at least one case a Finnish corporal managed to kill the flare-shooter, ending the barrage prematurely (this happened at the Terenttilä sand-pit, on February 20th, IIRC). The Soviet counter-battery fire was relatively ineffective. At Taipale it took them over two months to find the Kaarnaoja 150 mm fixed-mount coastal battery. They thought that the Kaarnaoja fire missions had been fired from the Järisevä coastal fort. Every time when Kaarnaoja fired, the Soviets would concentrate heavy shelling at Järisevä. The case of Järisevä is quite interesting, since according the most conservative estimates at least 1000 aerial bombs dropped in the battery area and 50000 artillery shells were fired against it during the war. Some estimates speak of 10000 bombs and 200000 shells, making it probably the most heavily shelled battery of the whole WWII. The battery had originally 2x120mm Armstrong guns, one of which was transported away when the artillery rain against the fort got too heavy. The remaining gun survived the war, although it was severely wounded by a near miss that destroyed its optics and damaged its firing systems. The last seven shots of the gun were fired direct by aiming through the barrel and the by hitting the firing pin with a hammer. The gun is now on display in front of the Suomenlinna coastal artillery museum in Helsinki. - Tommi

Jasper wrote: Anyone want to claim that the early Soviet military could come up a radio controlled way to detonate the dog? Actually, Soviets had radio controlled mines. They left dozen or two of them in the Karelian Isthmus in summer 1941. The detonator was based on three tuning forks that were made to vibrate by sending a certain chord via radio waves. However, the mines that were buried underground needed a 50-meter antenna. I don't know how long antenna would be necessary if someone decided to strap one receiver to a dog. Not that I think it would be a good idea. So the explosives were based on time. No, contact. And yes, that means that if the dog decides to roll over, you are in a trouble. <O>People that like the idea of AT dogs should try the British article "The Army Pigeon" on the Geocities site below. Even more goofy than AT dogs. And don't forget the US Air Force "bat bombs". - Tommi

Panzer Leader wrote: One thing I am unsure of is just how effective were Molotov cocktails? That depends on the situation. A well-placed Molotov coctail on the engine grill will likely result in a destroyed tank, and it probably can't be easily repaired. Also, they create a lot of smoke and may blind the tank crew so that you can approach and destroy it by other weapons (like demolition charges). However, they work best against immobilized tanks since it is difficult to get an engine hit if the target moves. Usually a tank had to be hit by several coctails before it was destroyed, and even then the destruction was not certain. Some time ago I read of an occurence when a Finnish platoon met KV tanks the first time. There were two of them, and both got numerous hits from demolition charges and Molotov coctails (and 45mm ATG and 20mm ATR), but both managed to retreat to safety. The Finnish doctrine was that the tank should be first immobilized by a demolition charge and then finished with a Molotov coctail. I am a litle skeptical of their value. It seems to me that a grenade would be at least as effective, probably more so, and would have a better range, more accuracy, and a more stable detonation. A grenade may be more accurate and have longer range but it certainly is not more effective since a single hand grenade doesn't do anything to a tank barring a really lucky hit. A bundle of grenades may do something, but then you lose much of the accuracy and range. Early in the war 1 kg demolition charges were enough to immobilize (and in a lucky case destroy) a light tank. A 2 kg charge could knock out a light tank and severely damage a medium one. A 4 kg one could destroy just about any tank before KVs came to battlefield. To destroy a KV, you had to get a 6 kg charge on its deck. That big charge has much shorter range than a 1 liter Molotov coctail and probably a lot poorer accuracy (though I'm not certain about that). A Molotov coctail was much safer to its user than a large demolition charge since it didn't have blast radius. In any case, destroying a tank by either a demolition charge or a Molotov coctail took a lot of courage and a hefty dose of good luck and it would be almost impossible if the tanks were adequately protected by infantry. - Tommi

Ales Dvorak wrote: What is the official announcement of CM2? Playing the Devil's advocate: 5th September 2002. - Tommi

And of course, pretty much everyone who was wounded by shrapnell could end up being classified as an artillery casualty. One data point: my father's father was severely wounded when one of his squadmates blew up an AT mine that he was arming. However, his military records claim that it was an artillery shell. - Tommi

And of course, pretty much everyone who was wounded by shrapnell could end up being classified as an artillery casualty. One data point: my father's father was severely wounded when one of his squadmates blew up an AT mine that he was arming. However, his military records claim that it was an artillery shell. - Tommi

Pvt.Tom wrote: Hee Hee Hee, Super Hetzer to the rescue! Too bad I run out of ammo before my opponent run out of tanks. - Tommi

Well, look at the following kill list of a Hetzer: Five tanks with 17 lbr guns destroyed in a single battle... Those tanks fired at least a total of 15 shots at it, with three ricocheting hits and one miss from 98 meters. - Tommi

argie wrote: Seems like some subtle propaganda pamphlet to me... Like: "Hey! Is better Fascism than Communism! They killed less people and they defend Private Property after all!". I got the same feeling. So I just typed "Ingrid Rimland" to Google search and found the following link: http://www.adl.org/holocaust/rimland.html . In short: the author of original text is a holocaust denier. I wouldn't trust her if she told me the time. - Tommi

I agree that Stalin was a paranoid psychopat who caused millions of deaths. However, there was one particular point in the text that caught my attention: Those figures are ten to 15 times higher than the numbers allegedly killed by the Fuhrer and makes him look like an amateur. Allegedly? Ten to 15 times higher? (The highest figure in the text was 57 million and 57/15 = 3.8, much smaller figure than what is usually attributed to Hitler). This one sentence alone causes me to seriously doubt the figures and whole scholarly value of the text. - Tommi

Homba wrote: For anyone who says BTS "already considered it"- very lame answer. Patches 1.01-1.12 indicate that BTS is not ready to call the project perfect, and there is ample room for fresh ideas, constructive criticism, and change for the better. So I'll give a very lame answer and quote Steve's rationale that he posted on one thread about pauses: - Tommi

Heinz 25th PzReg wrote: I guess we all are looking forward to the new vehicles appearing in CM2. But what vehicle are looking forward to the most? T-37! T-37! Feel the thrill trying to escape attacking Panzer Is. Cross a lake with it. Try to swarm a single defending captured Hotchkiss with a platoon of them and fail miserably. - Tommi

Homba wrote: Assuming tanks are in radio communication, it would be possible IRL to coordinate a pincer attack from two directions with a pretty good chance of both tanks achieving LOS and opening fire within 5 seconds of each other. I think that you seriously overestimate real life coordination capabilities. - Tommi

Jarmo wrote: I would probably get a bolt lock rifle or an SMG, as I'm an unimportant low quality type... Hell no, we weathermen are the backbone of the army. - Tommi

Jarmo wrote: The LMG (forgot the model) is very similar to MG42 7.62 KvKK 62. Barleyman wrote: Maxims? Well, modified Maxims. There are also 12.7 mm air-cooled MGs but since I'm not an infantryman I don't have any idea who uses them. At least all vehicle-mounted MGs are 12.7 mm. As in the WWI era HUGE liquid-cooled MG that's heavy with really slow ROF etc etc? Finnish Maxims have ROF that is almost twice the ROF of original Maxims. Also, water-cooled MGs have the nice property that you can shoot as long as you want with no fear for barrel overheating (supposing that you have enough water available). During the battle of Kelja on 25th-26th December, two Finnish MG bunkers fired almost without breaks for the whole battle, preventing Soviets from reinforcing the troops that had already crossed the Lake Suvanto. - Tommi

Olle Petersson wrote: ]Hetzer; has very little MG ammo to start with, only 15 rds IIRC. Since it's a TD it's also short on HE. And short of AP also. In one recent game my Hetzer run out of ammo before the enemy run out of tanks and started shooting HE at them. At that point I called it quits and withdrew the Hetzer out of map. Here's a screenshot of its kill list moments before it exited the map:

Stefan Fredriksson wrote: Did one in ww2 unload breached rounds? I'd say that would depend on an occasion. If the crew believed that spending time to unload the gun would be more dangerous than revealing the position by firing unsuitable ammo, they would fire the round. Actually, throughout the history of guns, the gun crews have preferred emptying the barrels by firing them while the commanders would want them to unload them nicely. One related example on this happened during my grandfather's first battle as an infantryman (Särkisyrjä, 18th-22nd July 1941). The war diary of the heavy 152mm howitzer batallion (28th Rask.Psto) that supported them on the attack shows that one of their fire missions was halted before all guns had fired their first rounds. (It doesn't say why, probably the spotting rounds fell too close to own lines as it was a very difficult artillery terrain (forested hills)). The diary then mentions that the loaded guns were emptied by firing them as harrasment to Soviet rear areas. - Tommi

Commissar wrote: You better get used to massive artillery barrages. When it came to artillery, the Russians were hard to beat. Watch those German lines evaporate!! The RKKA certainly could mass more guns per km of front than any other army and do horrible damage when the barrages hit. However, their capability to concentrate fire on quickly-appearing targets was not as good. At Ihantala on early July 1944 Soviets had at least two times more indirect firing guns (it may have been as high as 5 times more, but I don't remember for certain) than Finns had. However, Finns could achieve 20 times higher shell concentrations on their targets. (Where shell concentration is defined as the number of rounds landing in a minute in a 100 x 100 m target area). - Tommi

Hurricane: In my opinion, crew survivability is just a bit too high. I seem to recall that someone posted some statistics that showed that the average number of casualties in a knocked-out Sherman was around 1.2 (barring catastrophic explosions). - Tommi

JEM wrote: Don't any of you remember the book and movie All Quiet on the Western Front? The hero was done in by a singing bird, he looked up at the bird and got it in the head by a sniper. Weren't that a butterfly? Nice to be in a thread that will be soon padlocked. - Tommi

Leonidas wrote: I don't see what's so mystical about fixing computer-chosen PBEMs. You just add another round of file exchange at the beginning: Your approach is sound but it can be shortened by one message: Player 1 sets the game parameters, enters his PW and sends to Player 2. At this stage the game also generates a random seed that it includes in the parameters. Player 2 agrees to the game parameters and enters his PW. The game then generates the map and forces for both sides, and Player 2 sends the file to Player 1. The game generates the battle by initializing the random number generator to the seed that was sent from Player 1. Now, Player 2 may proceed with setup in the usual fashion since no matter how many times he tries to generate the map and the units it will be the same result every time, since the seed came from Player 1. Player 1 can't cheat because he doesn't know what the seed is and what forces will be generated using it. Player 2 can't cheat because the seed is fixed. - Tommi

Skipper wrote: If you are talking about russian "tsar", it is "tsaritsa". Trust me. And of course, their children were called "tsardines". Sorry, I just had to. - Tommi

Dirtweasle wrote: My question though is if the 150mm Nebelwerfer Rockets modeled in this game could be capabale of even delivering smoke. Well, given that "Nebelwerfer" translates literally to "fog thrower" I would be very surprised if it couldn't. - Tommi

Heinz 25th PzReg wrote: Excerpt from a stenography of the April 14-17, 1940 conference of senior army officers at the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Note for all those who can read Finnish: the complete notes of that meeting have been published in Finnish, in "Puna-armeija Stalinin tentissä". I strongly recommend reading them as it will give a good insight into psychology of the high-ranking military officials. My favourite quote was Stalin's comment on artillery. I don't remember exact words just now, but the main idea was: - Tommi

The following quote is from Sulo Vuorela who served as a Stug gunner in 3./Ryn.Tyk.P. The quote is from an extract where he describes the Tali-Ihantala battle, and the date is either 26th or 27th June 1944. At the time he was in Ps-531-25 that was commanded by Erkki Halonen. And a little later: They then had severe problems in evacuating the bodies under enemy fire and when the Stug bogged on a field. By that time Soviets had blocked all major roads in the area and they had to drive back to own lines along a small wagon trail through the forest. - Tommi