coe

I had a bunker (concrete) in plain view and had it attacked by airplanes (which had 1000 lb bombs and rockets) I had like 24 - 48 planes....the people in the bunker got scared but that was it (lots of craters!)

hmm let me rephrase that. you said German tanks weren't so good on the offense against the western Allies. Now lets put the same number of Western Allied tanks in the same situation as the German tanks were in when they attacked. i.e. lets assume a whole bunch of allied soldiers (with equipment) defected and now were attacking the Allied units. Your thoughts on how the attacking "defectors" would have done compared to the Germans (particularly the tanks)

interesting - why do you suppose the russians with purportedly better tanks than the western allies kept losing more. And I do agree that german tanks were far less impressive on the offense against the Western allies...do you suppose if Allied tanks used in a similar type of offense (lets say against anotehr allied unit) in a similar way would have been worse off?

so how was it the Germans lost 2000 AFVs in Normandy when the allies were saying it took 5 shermans to take out a panther? Were the AFVs mostly abandoned? (lack of repair parts, fuel, over run? As far as the CM engine goes I'd be most concerend with how many were knocked out during the battle (i.e. totally KO'd or disabled/knocked out and not able to be evacuated immedialely or shortly after the battle as opposed to taken back to the shops and left there when the eventual front lines got to the shops but there was no time to get the tank out of there.

to hold?....hmmm well do you mean holding as the allies advance 3 miles and the maybe lose a mile on a counterattack so that the advance happens slowly? I'm talking about the ability to literally hold the allies in place or actually take new ground and hold it (i.e. lets say counterattack and drive the allies back beyond the start line and hold for an appreciable amount of time.). Not just slowly give ground. Interesting stats I heard in another post - the allies lost less AFVs then the Germans did in 1944-1945?

So in the past it seems that the Germans were rather successful on defense on a very tactical level, but sustained rather large losses on the local offensives at least in Normandy and when doing those stand fast orders and then during the general retreat as well as to heavy bombing and artillery (which might account for their large losses despite saying they were great on defense). So I would like to know, what you all think, if the Germans knew that Normandy was the invasion and thus committed to the battle in earnest all the resources available in whatever style it chose - maneuver or the hold the allies where they were defense: if the Germans were still capable of carrying out successful offensives which might lead to recovery of more ground than lost, sustainable penetrations which would lead to allied withdrawals over a large distance, with more losses to the allies than axis troops. or were the forces in France simply not capable to such a task even if concentrated etc.

whoa so how would you defeat this force in real life plus I'm wondering what might happen if lets say the tanks got hit hard and at the end there wasn't enough tanks to carry the tank riders...what happens to those without any tanks to ride...?

say any info about the german 75mm L/100 also would you take the 57mm soviet AT or the german 75mm AT and the other question - what was the secret to the 57mm Soviet AT being so good compared to the 50mm PAK? (7 mm??) Conan

well I tried this I put like 8 x 20 mm quads at elite or crack level, plus 8 x 37mm at elite or crack level then as a decoy I put several bunkers (concrete) in the open and against it I arrayed several squadrons over several turns at the regular level - it was like minimum of groups of 12-24 planes I think maybe 48-60 in total. I think the flak boys racked up 30 or so and the concrete bunkers got slightly shaken with lots of bomb and rocket holes around - I lost a few flak guns but it was impressive considering that I think Aircraft carriers bristling with many many more AA guns (along with the escorts) probably wouldn't have done as well! Conan

By 1944 were U.S. and British Infantry divisions mostly motorized? It seems like each usually also had a tank battalion or some form of tank destroyer unit attached in numbers greater than lets say a PanzerJager unit attached to a german infantry division - so in effect were all the British and U.S. infantry divisions Panzergrenadier divisions so to speak (thus ignoring manpower matching a German Infantry unit against its Western equivalent would be nott truely an even match?). Conan

so they worked? out of curiosity what were casualty ratios when attacking those strongpoints and how were they overcome?

curiosity question - which are the multiturreted vehicles in the game? (Is the Grant one of them?)

So I had several P-47's and P-38's and Hawker Hurricanes assault a bunker of mine (has anyone ever gotten a concrete bunker knocked out by them?) but the bunker got hit and it reported "Track hit, no significant damage" Nice!!! my bunker has tracks!!! Maybe it's reaaly an Ogre (or whatever that game was). Conan

hmmm I know this is off the wall but I'm trying to imagine what would happen if you concentrated the fire of 800 20mm on a heavy tank (maybe not at the same exact spot but lets say you had an IS-II wander in get stuck and have no ammo and for some reason you had several hunderd 20mm quads hanging around....

So I've done a bit of reading about Army Group South as it retreated to the Dnieper and then battled away at Kiev and places like Fastov, Berdichev until Manstein was relieved. Now other accounts do say the Soviets rather beat up on AGS during the time thus paving the way for the surprise against AGC. I was also surprised to see that the Soviets really did punch back AGS alot in terms of territory (one can see that comparing the June 1942 line with the June 1944 line (pre-Bagration). Despite this, and let us for the moment attempt to discount for the various stand fast orders from above which created things like Korsun and the 1st Panzer army getting cut-off, but were these late 1943-1944 battles considered a defensive success for Manstein (i.e. when given freedom to do what he wanted after Kursk, was he able to wage the defensive battle properly and perhaps if allowed to do so would the start lines at Bagration been different along with the available forces on both sides (e.g. the hypothesis might be, if Manstein, given the operational freedom, the net line might have been further east than it was at Bagration, with more German troops and equipment and perhaps less soviets to face them)? Conan

So historically the germans also lost alot of infantry?

any historical results available? (i.e. what happened in reality?)

What makes an airlanding division an airlanding division as opposed to a regular division or parachute division (role, equipment)? and a curiosity question - I wonder what it would take to make a true armored parachute division (i.e. an armored division parachuting from the sky. Conan

hmmm, that's interesting when you mean the wadi you mean the one on the right (if looking at the british lines from the german point of view).... So I've tried one company route through that and then a company up the hill on the left with all the mortars the FO and 4 machine guns. I think the problem is you can't sit still because you'll get bombarded. That's the problem on the mini ridge in front of the grove - I move the company and naturally the machine gunners are a bit behind...and I can't get the AC's anywhere remotely close because even at 1300m hull down they get plinked off by the unseen 2 pounders or artilleried to death. I've thought of advancing the machine gunners first to the mini ridge and then having the infantry pass through them. since infantry support fire at the distance is not that effective I thought I'd advance all the company at once with one squad way in front (or half a squad) way in front) of each platoon. Then the company commander with the MGs assists in covering fire. I don't know how useful smoke will be and if I can lay down enough of it. As for infantry advance I thought about sending one platoon forward first only but that saves the platoon from artillery fire and the others that are stationary get pounded... Where would you position the tanks?

**** spoiler alert **** ****Note this thread will have spoilers for the two pounders and tigers So my problem is that as the germans I keep getting pounded by artillery and my armored cars get picked off by 2 pounders from over 1100 yards and I can't even set up my machine guns in the rough parts to support the infantry crossing open ground because they get pounded by artillery. Of course I have my tanks but I'm not quite sure how to apply them in this case since the infantry will get stripped off and if I throw them in half tracks the half tracks will get picked off by the 2 pounders from over 1 KM away. Any advice on this (by the way I did look at the layout of the british forces and to assault the vineyard/grove my guys have to cross open ground and there will be alot of fire at them. (I don't have enough artillery to smoke the way and even if I did I'll still be at a manpower disadvantage in close combat on prepared positions.))

Quick question for all out there - what were the ten victories in "the year of ten victories"? (which I presume is 1944). Conan

Wait for the russian SMG squads they have alot more ammunition (so do their rifle ) so how much are they carrying and where do they put it? Conan

Hey I remember two accounts - one during I think Operation Blau when some soviet division or unit like that was caught in the open steppe and disrupted severely or in 1944 during the Brody encirclement when the 8th Pz Div decided to go on the road rather than the forest and was hit hard....maybe those are times when air units did well? Conan

Got a few questions about AT guns... Several scenarios I have to rush AT guns to the scene and it is such that they have to deploy possible under long range fire. (e.g. Stuarts firing 37mm from 2000m against 88's in their Prime-movers. This causes the AT mover to back off and not deploy where I want it too and I have to repeatedly try to force this to happen - the problem is with the 88's I can't drop them off and then roll them up the hill or to where they can see the enemy. any tips as to how to go about making the movers not chicken out. Second with an 88 on its mover - if I try to disembark it, (by using the move command) the blue line seems to originate right at the vehicles origin which would seem to indicate that it would be dropped right at the origin point (since it is immobile) - the problem is that it isn't where it actually gets dropped off. (e.g. prime mover moves up hill and reaches the top while facing the top - you'll notice the AT gets dropped off slightly down hill of the prime mover - on the other hand if the prime mover rotates then the AT gets dropped off higher up. Third, my 88s open up on targets far away - this is all fine and dandy but often they only open up for a round or two then the target disappears in haze and then they target another thing somewhere else and the same happens but at that point the original target reappears at about the same distance - the dust having settled. Now my 88 has to reaquire the target all over again? And this leads to a very low number of hits at a distance than what I'd expect? I'd think that perhaps there was a little built in memory as to what it takes to hit something if it appears again in the similar area. Or does that not happen? Conan

eeek 3.7cm Paks? door knockers?