Andreas

Err, yes. Just googled up what sounds about right. Ridgeway succeeded Walker when Walker was killed. Clark came in in 1952, succeeding MacArthur.

I thought Eisenhower was commander of Allied forces in Korea. </font>

Amazon US lists this one and another of the same title by a different author. I suspect this is the one Andreas means, but I want to be sure before I spend my money. Michael </font>

Well he is wrong, in a factual sense, if you quote him correctly, "Beginning on the early 1960's, an increasing number of able historians began producing accounts of war and operations on the German Eastern front.". The accounts were begun in the 1950s. Some accounts were translated in the 1960s into English. Yeah I know I am being anal about it. So what? I am not sure what your point is.

Then he goes on presenting shortly "the best and most substantive of these works" of this 'era', including writers Alan Clark, Earl Ziemke, Paul Carell, Harrison Salisbury and Albert Seaton. The initial Carell-quote was from this chapter. </font>

I interpreted YD's post to be such a suggestion. That is why I responded to it, quoting it. If YD meant something else, then it is not a problem. Personally, I would like to see 24-gun and 72-gun FOOs, to be able to properly simulate MIKE and UNCLE targets. The more the merrier. Mike, I notice that quoting Forty makes you happy. What does he have to say about the tactical use of the troop. Where was the second FOO team attached to? Could it have been that the troop was merely an administrative unit, with the second FOO team in the battery alternating in the job with the first, i.e. both are attached to the battalion HQ they support, with one of them being off the frontline at any one time? Did troops have their own fire control?

Sigh. I guess I have to repeat myself, but never mind. I HAVE NO PROBLEMS WITH THE INCLUSION OF A 4 GUN FOO FOR THE 25-PDR. I hope that is clearer now. You could also have taken a clue from my earlier post where I say that adding a 4-gun FOO would be the ideal solution. I do have a problem with the removal of the 8-gun FOO and its replacement with a 4-gun FOO, unless someone can show historical evidence that standard USE, i.e. not number of FOOs in Forty's book, was by troop, and not by battery.

He is not overselling. CMBB has always been called "Combat Mission 2" in Europe (PC version published by CDV)

Battlefront, Der Kessel, Scenario Depot.

Personally, I think it is a big deal. Unless someone can show that the regular employment was on the troop level, not on the battery level. While I appreciate the information from Forty that Mike has provided, I think there is more to this than just having an FOO per troop (if indeed this was what happened in practice), because there are questions about fire control for individual troops, and also about actual employment, on the ground. One thing that is being raved about the effect of UK artillery is the 8-gun battery, and that seems to sit very badly with the idea that they actually fired as troops most of the time. Again, I am coming to this from the scenario design perspective, and from the experience in CMMC1 where this was a big problem. I never play QBs, so while I am sympathetic to this problem for QB players, it does not affect me, and I do not want to see, what I perceive as, a historically correct aspect of the simulation removed to fix something that does not affect me.

There is another one at Der Kessel (also CMBO), called 'Cintheaux-Totalize', by Helge.

Great stuff, and thanks for digging. KTB entry of PR11, so that settles it for me.

Never read him.

Are you sure that each troop had its own spotter, out in the field? That was not the impression I got from reading Blackburn. Yes, that would be the ideal solution.

Mike How often did troops fire independently? So far I have always assumed, and that maybe wrong, that the main tactical unit was the battery, not the troop. It is, IMO, not alright to 'break' historically correct doctrine to fix a problem in an ahistorical part of the game. Your proposed solution forces scenario designers to employ all sorts of workarounds, that are unenforcable, and therefore undesirable. It is quite different from the simple solution of reducing ammo loadout, which a designer could fix in the design screens.

I have to agree with CMPlayer here. It is a new and extremely annoying issue, and it is not too much to ask for a response by the owners of the forum. I would also not like to see the US dwellers' responses if this issue cropped up at the best posting/catch-up time for them.

For Italian forces: http://www.comandosupremo.com/

This really can not be repeated often enough. For whatever reason, be it ignorance, language, inaccessibility of documentary evidence due to cost and distance, far too many historians ignore the other side of the hill. They either ignore it totally, like Ambrose, or partially, by using lesser quality sources, for one side, rather than the other, like Glantz. In the latter part I find that excruciatingly frustrating because the evidence is there, even in the US, where the KTBs are kept at the National Archives. I don't really care much about Ambrose, because US oral histories send me to sleep immediately. That failure to use both sides is a grave failing in trying to achieve an understanding of what went on, in reality. A very good study looking at both sides, using interviews and documentary evidence is 'Churchill's Folly'. Another good one looking at documentary evidence is Ben Ariel 'Monte Cassino 1944'. A good German divisional history that uses secondary Soviet sources to place the actions of the division in an operational context is the history of 21. ID.

The one I have is more about structure, organisation, equipment, and history. But these are not independent of doctrine and tactics, so these get a good treatment as well. The artillery book is a very good entry into the subject, and I suspect the infantry one will be as well. A good divisional history on the topic is 'Die Magdeburger Division - zur Geschichte der 13. Infanterie- und Panzerdivision'.

Judging from your email you speak some form of German commonly known as Austrian. If you can find a Piefke to read them to you, these two books maybe of help. Motorisierte Schuetzen und Panzergrenadiere des deutschen Heeres Motorisierte Artillerie und Panzerartillerie I own the latter of the two, and it is a good overview.

I think it is billed as serious history.

I appreciate the clarification. I was thinking of the motorized recce units. I'm most familiar with Canadian recce formations, and they all seem to have been heavily armour based; infantry division recce had armoured cars whil armoured division recce had tanks. Armoured formations are not represented in game (this included Kradschützen units for the Germans). The Jäger recce unit may have been included as it was infantry-based? </font>

Right, I hope I managed to fix the quotes. "and does not use primary source material for that either." What do you mean? He uses primary source material for his books on Russia. For an author that you don't seem to care too much for, on Soviet history, you certainly quote him as a primary source for your scenarios extensively. </font>

My grandfather got the EK II (Iron Cross second class) for good service, that seems to have been quite normal at mid-war. He received the EK I for lying behind a wall, thinking that he had a few more moments to live with his four comrades when a Soviet assault on their position was underway. When the Soviet soldiers were close enough that he could hear their shouting, a defensive barrage came down on them. That is all he cares to remember about it. The Ritterkreuz, at higher levels of command, was apparently often given for being a competent commander, not for personal bravery. I believe the same is true for the Eichenlaub zum Ritterkreuz. It is therefore not quite comparable to the VC, which AIUI is always given for personal bravery.

Try the other possible interpretation. You are Finnish, your English should be up to it. Keke - but that is the problem - Carrell is not a historian. His works are not undergoing any peer review process. He was not trained as a historian but as a propagandist. He has not gone back to primary data (e.g. KTBs) when producing his work. He did not describe himself as a historian when he was accused of abbetting murder in 1965 over the Hungarian jews issue (charge was dropped in 1971), bu as a journalist and author. To compare him with the likes of Earl Ziemke is just showing that Glantz's selection of German sources is not as good as it could be. Regarding your question of whether I ever studied history - no, but I am a trained social scientist (insofar as one can ever be trained in this). Interrogating sources is something I learned at university. I apply that here. Los - I am sure that Col. Glantz would tell me that about the reliability of Soviet primary sources. But I am also sure that the only way to get back to basics is to use these primary sources, critically, i.e. not accepting them for face value, instead of using 3rd level accounts that are unverifiable. German primary sources are also suspect in many cases, with historians identifying serious errors even in KTBs written very close to the event.