Also S Bakker

Well it seems i managed to misinterpete the text i myself posted _____________________ At most what you're seeing here is the German commanders telling their tankers they shouldn't be afraid to be 100 metres in advance of their infantry for a few minutes. _____________________ Fionn, thanks for putting everything in perspective. Indeed when i read the article i had visions of Panzers speeding through the country side with no infantry supportlike in the early blitzes. ____________________ It is very important to provide interpretation of documents such as this since so many people don't understand and appreciate the full context and gestalt awareness of tactical doctrine which was being assumed to be known by all readers of this piece. ________________ Well you made that obvious now didn't you? Glad you shed yor light on this one. CoolColJ: nope, i'm a secret worshipper of the great god CopyPaste Grtz S Bakker PS: ______________ i.e. It would be stupid to pick the only clump of trees within 2 km as your bound for obvious reasons _________________________ Hey, wait a minute, are you calling me stupid ?

Fionn, agreed i was joyfully stating the strength of the units as found in 'general' TO&E charts. Which sometimes were far from their real numerical strength on the battlefield. Particullary in the later part of the war, when general shortages (replacemants, repair parts ect.) plagued the panzer regiments, operational numbers decreased greatly. But then again i gave them as a 'rule of thumb reference' so that the dimensions and numbers in the article became more aparent. I stand correected Grtz S Bakker.

Hi guys, while wandering through the attic (searching the archives) i found this thread about 'sudden strike' (10-14), an WWII RTS game. At www.cdv.de If you can bear the overuse of exclemation marks, hyping fluff (blockbuster !!) and funny typo's (Feature: Long-rage howitzers ). You can have a bit of fun checking out their website ..... must admit it's a pretty site and the screenshots look good. Might be fun to twiddle with this game for a week or so ... Don't count on to much realism though .... We could all download their beta (when it's done) and have a competition about who detects the most blatent incosistencies. (ehm ... spelling ?). Grtz S Bakker.

Here's the third promised installement ! This time it's about how German regimental tank attacks were conducted. Although out of scale for CM it gives good insight of the dimensions for such an attack. For reference; one German tank battalion (abteilung) consisted of four compagnies of roughly 20 tanks each. One tank regiment consisted of two tank battalions. _____________________________________________ ATTACK BY MECHANIZED AND MOTORIZED FORCES. (1) The attack. In armored-force operations, the Germans stress the need for the concentrated employment, at the decisive place and time, of the entire combined commmand of tanks and other arms, less necessary reserves. The tanks constitute the striking force of such a command and normally advance as the first echelon of the attack. Their primary mission is to break through and attack the enemy artillery, rather than to seek out and destroy enemy tanks, which can be more effectively engaged by antitank units. The mission of the other arms is to assist the tanks in their advance, and particularly to eliminate antitank weapons. The smalles combat unit in such a force of combined arms is the company. The basic formation for the tank platoon, company, and battalion are file, double file, wedge and blunt wedge. The type of formation used for a specific task depends to a large extent on terrain conditions and the strength of enemy opposition. A German tank platoon normally consists of one command tank and two tank squads of two tanks each. The tank regiment normally attacks in waves, in either of the following manners: The tank regiment is echeloned in depth, one tank battalion following the other. The regimental commander's location is between the two battalions. This formation has the advantages of a sufficiently wide front (about 1,100 yards), and close contact by the commander of his units in the conduct of the attack. The normal depth of such a formation is about 3,000 yards. This is the usual form of the tank attack. When two tank battalions are attacking, one behind the other, it takes them about half an hour to pass their own infantry. When the two-battalions-abreast formation is employed, it is almost essential that another tank regiment form the following wave. This formation usually has the disadvantage of being too wide. The regimental commander cannot observe his units, and he has no units of his own behind him which he can commit in a decisive moment. The attack normally proceeds in three waves. The first wave thrusts to the enemy's antitank defense and artillery positions. The second wave provides covering fire for the first wave, and then attacks the enemy's infantry positions, preceded, accompanied, or followed by part of the Panzer Grenadiers, who dismount as close as possible to the point where they must engage the enemy. The objectives of the second wave are the remaining antitank positions, positions of heavy infantry-support weapons, and machine-gun emplacements which hold up the advance of the infantry. The third wave, accompanied by the remainder of the Panzer Grenadiers, mops up. These three waves now often are telescoped into two, the first wave speeding through the enemy's positions as far as his gun positions, the second crushing the enemy's forward positions in detail and mopping up the opposition not dealt with by the first wave or which has revived since the first wave passed through. A typical attack formation of this type might be divided up among the Panzer division's units as follows: the first wave, on a frontage of about 2,000 to 3,000 yards, might consist of one tank battalion, two companies forward, supported on the flanks by elements of the assault gun battalion. Close to the rear of the first wave usually follow one or two Panzer Grenadier companies in armored half-tracks. About 150 yards to the rear of the first wave moves the second wave, formed by the second tank battalion in the same formation, closely followed by the remainder of the armored Panzer Grenadiers, who are in turn followed at some distance by the motorized Panzer Grenadiers. The flanks are protected by antitank guns which normally operate by platoons, moving by bounds. The artillery forward observer travels in his armored vehicles with the first wave, while the artillery commander of the supporting artillery units usually travels with the tank commander. Assault guns nromally also accompany the second wave. The tanks help each other forward by fire and movement, medium or heavy tanks taking up hull-down firing positions and giving covering fire while the faster tanks advance to the next commanding feature. Then the latter give covering fire to the former moving forward to their next bound. Once the first wave has reached the rear of the enemy's forward defenses, it pushes straight on to attack the enemy's artillery. As soon as these positions have been neutralized, the tanks reform beyond the artillery positions and either prepare to exploit the attack or form an allround defensive position on suitable ground. The tank unit commander, as the leader of the strongest unit, is in most cases in command of the combat team, and all the other participating arms (Panzer Grenadiers, artillery, engineers, and antitank units) are placed under him. The Germans realize that a strong and unified comman is an essential feature of any military operation. For certain missions, however, tank units are attached to another arm, in which case the tank commander is consulted before the final plans for the operations are made. _____________________________________________ The next two parts will be about tank-infantry and tank-artillery cooperation during such a mechanized attack, which brings us back to CM-level'' tactics. Grtz S Bakker.

Ehm ... that would be spw wouldn't it ? Your alter ego

I was just wondering .... are swp 251/1 w. wurfrahmen 40 to be included in CM ? It would be nice to pound a village or two with them. Maybe they shying from all human contact after being shamelessly abused in CCIII ? Grtz S Bakker

Great moon ! That would spare me a lot of work ! Everybody check out his link! Grtz S Bakker.

I'm glad we all have made the same mistakes The reason i looked up this kind of articles is because my men were tired of being mowed down. That gave me the impression i did something wrong . I promise to post the second part somewhere later this week and look up other relevant material for next week. Maybe it will lighten up our 'waiting time'a bit. Grtz S Bakker

Mark IV has nailed it. (except for the actual name off course which only intelligent dutchmen like panzershark and me can spell tight ). The Nahverteidigungswaffe was used as a smoke projector and close defence weapon for German AFV's. I believe it was introduced after the Germans had bad experiences with turret-side mounted smoke projectors (Nebelwurfgeraet). They tended to be set off by small arms fire and the resulting smoke tended to be sucked into the tank by it's own ventilators resulting in the temporary incapacitation of the crew members. For close defence it is said to launch S-minen and / or wurfgranaten. (i've read contradicting statements about this). Grtz S Bakker (behind his trusty old laptop)