Andreas

Cory whether there is a break or not is pretty meaningless if German resupply is set to the lowest level. They will have the break, but no resupply. Also, I believe that there would be at least a short break, if only to sort out things for the two Russian battalions (second commander needs to be briefed on what happened with the first etc.) I think CM can simulate this quite well in a static operation.

Cory, in your example, you set it up as a static op, with the Germans set to a very low supply level. 2 battles, 40 rounds each. First battle one of the two Soviet battalions, second battle the other, fresh one. Special rule in the briefing that the first Soviet battalion is not to be used in battle two. To make more sure it is adhered to, also set Soviet re-supply extremely low. Of course players can disregard it, but then again, who cares if they do? Only thing you could argue is that the Germans get the chance to redeploy a bit, but I don't think that is unrealistic, because there will be a break in the attack when the two battalions switch.

Cory - that is why I am experimenting with static operations. You would expect breaks in the combat in which you reorg, and bring up ammo, evacuate the wounded, and do whatever infantry does when they are not shooting at the other guys, but are too close to them to have some Schnaps. I think it is impossible to have a generalised answer to your questions. How reliably? - are your LOS secure and covered from enemy view? Is there another formation that needs resupply more? What is the general state of supply in your sector? How much? - how many chaps do you have available in rear echelon to do the carrying? What is the general state of supply in your area? Are you cut-off?

Our family has had cats for the last 25 years (not the same, obviously). Unfortunately I am not prescient enough to know what sort of particular attachments to particular animals other posters have. So I'll refrain from more remarks about cats. No worries.

We like to think of Berli as the garbage collector. Someone who can be bribed with a tenner, or a can of beer. Cats make very interesting noises when they enter the garbage press.

They don't give a flying monkey's about the rules? Look, just show some respect to those who control the forum. We are not even interested in honest respect, a bit of frightened deference does it, just fine, thank you very much. You are welcome to mutter under your breath how much you hate us. Now shoo.

Is the right answer.

Does anyone have the BMP numbers for the German and Soviet winter uniforms? That is all I keep missing. Also, while we are at it, what is the number for the fence?

Nice screenshots. I rock.

The initial design for Der Kessel, that Mensch came up with, is IMO still by far the best I have seen - which is why Berli has kept it, I guess. It takes quite a bit of work though for the author and the webmaster, so I would not expect it from the depot.

No they have not. I tried this, and when using Stuarts they get to within 150-200m of the 88s, but they do not manage a single casualty, and they all die horribly. As Basty says, the problem for the 88s is when the British turn up with 75mm HE (37mm) does not cut it if the 88s are protected (I have them in sandbag emplacements). Even then you need to use tactics, just relying on speed and suppression will get the M3s killed. There is a reason that most of these Flakfront tales occur when the British had no HE for their guns, or at least no HE worth its name. Once the Lee appears in numbers, it is game over. But so it was historically.

Yeah, but you lack the steely glint in your eye that the veteran elite Tiger crews had. I am sure they just went back to get some towels to clean up the mess, and were very upset when someone had taken their tank while they were gone.

I started with a shooting range, then moved on to a billiard table, and finally to fairly realistic looking terrain (brush, rocky, dips and undulations). The shooting range made me think something was wrong, but then on the real maps it works as advertised. Basty - gut feeling is those are the numbers I saw, maybe a bit better.

Redwolf - you are looking at the heat haze effect there. For my test, I had chosen cool conditions, not very hot, because in that case they will not spot the tanks, although they do have LOS. It appears that the heat haze effect is really messing things up for the gunners. How historical that is I don't know, I have not done a lot of reading on Africa. If you redo this scenario, or want to have a look at what I did, you will see that the 88s have no problem at all with tearing the enemy apart.

On the specific issue raised here about how 88s perform. I just tried a number of setups with 15 Crusaders attacking 4 88s on a reasonable frontage (1200m) starting 1700-1900m out. Regardless of whether they approach 'fast' or 'move', it is not even a contest. The result is always 15 dead Crusaders, not a single casualty amongst the gun crews. It is different with HE armed tanks. With Grants, if they have no ammo, they die just like the Crusaders, and hits are being scored reasonably easy out to 1900+ meters. Once you arm them, it gets ugly for the 88s. In that one case, the result was 3 dead Grants out of 15, for all 4 88s. With Stuarts, again the same result. Then I tried it with Lees - first time round (just charging) it was a massacre, not of the 88s. Second time round I used tactics, and managed to bring three out of 15 Lees through, killing three out of four 88s. I have not played 'Flakfront', but on the face of it, what I just tried seems reasonable to me.

Alas, you are right. If only those had been German troops I was commanding, I am sure it would have been a major victory. See, you can't win. Puuuuuurrrrr...

To paraphrase the late Gustav Heinemann, first social-democratic president of west Germany: 'I love my girlfriend'. I like the Depot. It is a great place to publish scenarios and advertise scenario sites. Der Kessel has always supported the Depot, and I think most of us will continue to do so. I think any way of doing it has its drawbacks, and I have not thought about what could be done to make it right for everybody. At the moment it is the worst of all general scenario hosting sites, except all the others. But at least this discussion made me get off my rear and post all those scenario descriptions (as usual, you have to go to Der Kessel to get the scenario itself) I had not gotten around to posting over the last year or so.

It is 'stuffed' with stuff-it software (most likely the designer used a Mac). Try WinRAR or sumfink on it.

Hmmm... Sounds a lot like what the typical landser had to endure in Russia in '43, but they weren't exactly surrendering in droves... ianc </font>

Muhahahaha - the Finnish hordes, benefitting from the superior generalship of us, have successfully rubbed the proletarian snouts of the scum of world revolution into the drenching mud of defeat for a magnificent victory of White Finland (under German direction) over Bloodred Russia. The insult is avenged. Sergei may grovel. Hear our booming laughter resonate around the dank forests of neverwhere, 45 miles E of Helsinki. Harharhar

Try the Byte Battle section at www.derkessel.org

Nice way of putting the boot in. Dear Joachim, in case you have not realised it, the scenario we play has you attacking. So why don't you stop camping, and get on with it. Hugs War

A lot of the pictures on the Battlefield.ru site (and the one of the IVH on Skalman.nu) show German vehicles still flying German crosses - that indicates to me that they are not really being used in the frontline.

The numbers I have seen all indicate that it was a very low ratio of captured to home-built tanks. Kip says that the Soviet experience with the captured/remanufactured Stugs was very bad. As Sergei said, spares, crew experience, ammunition all were problems. You see a lot of pictures of them, but that is probably because it was so unusual and eyecatching. Konev states that ~200 German tanks were captured intact by his 2nd Ukrainian Front during the mud offensive in early 1944, and that these were put to use by his forces. He does not give more detail than that. A book about Soviet tank recovery on the Leningrad Front I just finished does not indicate any significant efforts being made to retrieve bog-standard German tanks. For the Germans, the usual situation was probably that these tanks would be used in rear-area security quite extensively, where the spares and ammo situation is less severe. I have also read something saying that Soviet tank turrets were used in defensive emplacements in the east by the Germans. What was used extensively by the Germans were Soviet guns. To the extent that they manufactured ammunition for the 76.2mm m1927 infantry gun, the 122mm howitzer, and the 76.2mm divisional gun.

Well, the Schreck team is still waiting for you to come through on your promise. Where's my turn you Finn?