Andreas

Yes, quite. Anything is possible, if doom does not descend beforehand.

Hmmm - well at least being one of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, I don't actually have to get off the bloody high horse until after doom has descended. All got its advantages. In the meantime, I go through my list of whiney cry-babies to tick off those for a public stoning who have not already spontaneously combusted in their shrill complaints about the forum mafia. Crikey - some days I wish I was running these forums, and not that bleeding-heart softie Madmatt.

I think you really need to think about what you want to write yourself. For CMBB, and again for CMAK, we have been given a structure for the briefings by Rune. I quite liked it, and have adopted it in all my scenarios now. Length is depending on how much time I have when I develop the scenario, and how much background material I have, or how interesting I consider it to be. Other authors have different styles, going into much more detail, or trying a different way to immerse you in the action, using e.g. a narrative, while I use a more formal, somewhat military briefing style, most of the time.

Regarding high-ranking officer casualties at the sharp end, I would suspect that first the encirclement battles of 1941, and then the destruction of army groups Centre and South Ukraine would have yielded a lot of these in the Red Army and the Wehrmacht, respectively. Also, the Soviet love for forward observation posts from which formation commanders could observe the battle directly would presumably add to these. A Major General may have been an important figure in the desert, in Russia they came a dime a dozen, or sumfink.

Crikey - you getting into Grog Porn again Michael? Has Ethan not told you to lay off it?

When did he enter the service? Counter-example of my grandfather, who managed to get himself promoted from Obergefreiter to Unteroffizier (big freaking whoop) in six years of war, while receiving EKI&II. Then again, he was in a branch where people rarely had to do really silly stuff that can poke your eye out.

Stalingrad was not evacuated until it was too late, and quite a number of civilians did not make it out at all, AFAIK.

Jack Grossdeutschland was certainly in the same class as the Waffen-SS when it came to equipment. I am not sure if they had their own Tiger company in 1943 though, as some of the Waffen-SS divisions did, and which must have done wonders for their kill stats and ability to deal with Soviet operations. Michael will know the answer to it. The Soviets in their Kursk general staff study refer to Grossdeutschland as an SS division, interestingly enough. My point is that because of the nature of the fights the SS units often found themselves in, and (these are connected) their preferential treatment in terms of equipment, strength, presumably reinforcements, etc. pp., they are simply easy to write about. This then feeds on itself, by providing more material for others to use in their writings. Not many people are as unhinged as I am (well, I know for a fact Kip is), and prefer to look at more mundane stuff such as the lot of the ordinary soldiers in the east, who fought and often died in some numbered infantry division, in a forgotten battle for a place with an unpronouncable name to support a despiccable cause (in Kip's case it is simply a strange fascination with the SU-76 tank destroyer, BTW).

Shame, I thought it was the one you should have gone to BFC with.

Good example - because IMO it shows the dangers of the approach. You are assuming that because it was a good system, it stayed unchanged. Which is a fair assumption to make, until you consider the changes in conditions in the late 1930s. While the Reichswehr managed to do this, I am almost 100% certain that the practice, if not the principle of the training 'one rank up' went out of the window with the massive expansion of the Wehrmacht in the late 1930s. While they would not have liked to change the running system, I am pretty certain they abandoned it. German infantry, officer and NCO training almost certainly declined as the war went on, based on what I have read.

Key words in your posts italicised. Los, I am sure you are in a prime position to advise BFC on how to measure the little quirks in a combat simulation. I am certain you are completely right about this, but I am almost equally certain that in a combat simulation like CM, there is a very serious risk that it degenerates into the old 'all Italians run, and US pilots can't hit squat' very quickly, because hard data on this is very difficult to come by. I am not saying there should be 'no' national differences. I am saying that they should only be there when it can be shown that they existed, based on at least a semblance of hard data. E.g. the Soviet experience level modifier, or the Human wave order. As Michael says - do you want the game to be designed along those lines?

I'd say that if you talk about QBs with player-purchase, your stattement that in CMBB artillery on tanks is not worth it, is wide off the mark. I can not quite remember when I played the last QB with player purchase forces. May have been during the beta-testing of CMBB. In scenarios, or with computer-purchase, you won't see the Tigers. If you want to rephrase your statement to become 'In CMBB QBs with player purchased forces, using artillery on tanks is not worth it.', go right ahead, you won't get any quibbles from me. Well, it is called a 'kill-zone'. Have you ever thought whether it is not the smartness of your opponent in avoiding your killzone, but your ineptness in drawing him into it, that is your problem?

I would have thought the best way to do this is to give a fanaticism modifier, which is in the game for scenario design purposes. To give the SS a general moral modifier is not a good way to simulate anything like this, IMO. It would be a blanket bonus based more on the SS-rememberance industry then anything else. Ordinary German infantry units fought well too, and did not exactly relish being captured by the Red Army, going to great lengths to avoid it. Because they did not wear cool uniforms, and did not get to play so much with the latest toys, that is less well documented though.

Don't agree with that as a general statement. It depends on the density of the target. In an operation I currently play with Lindan, 122mm artillery has killed at least two tanks (one Panzer III, one Panzer IV) if I observed correctly, but more importantly stripped light-armoured accompanying vehicles and infantry off. It may also have immobilised another tank. I consider that pretty good as an effect of the 122mm barrage. It did of course help that he assembled for his assault on a TRP. Edit to add - the Germans did not just have Tigers, so to use them as a measure of the effectiveness of artillery against tanks is not really that fair. [ October 06, 2003, 08:19 AM: Message edited by: Andreas ]

This finding could well have been skewed by a possible failure to correctly compare who does what in various armies. In the British army, the platoon leader was almost invariably a Lieutenant (officer), although there have been exceptions, of course. In the Wehrmacht (and at least until the late 80s in the Bundeswehr), you find a lot of NCOs in platoon leader positions. Therefore, if the 'last few NCOs standing' happen to be the platoon HQ, it would be no surprise to anyone aware of this organisational difference that the unit stays organised.

Makes me wonder though, why do idiots always have to announce in public they are leaving? Can't they just go and leave me to run the forum the way I like it? Do they have to unveil the secret deal that Steve and I struck, that the forum is mine to do with as I please, and Matt is my henchman? *SIGH* Anyway, now that the ferret is out the bag, you lot can start wearing something warmer, to put it into the German vernacular. Either you get a bit funnier, or it is the chaingang for you sorry excuses for Pengthread dwellers. Get a move on.

Those discussing transport of Ukrainian 'stuff' into the Reich etc, would do well to look up the relevant chapter in Vol.4 of the (sort of) official German history 'The German Reich and the Second World War - Vol. 4 - The Attack on the Soviet Union', in which the question of Ukraine's productive capability is discussed in depth. The idea that better treatment of the Ukrainians would have delivered the goods is pretty much a non-starter, for various reasons, IIRC. The interesting thing though is that the Germans could have known that the planned (very bad) treatment of the inhabitants, would not deliver the goods either, because they experienced it 23 years earlier, when they occupied Ukraine in 1918. Then they also failed to unlock the productive capabilities of the country.

As it was, they may not have been that great a bonus anyway. In a study on the German defense on the Vistula in January 1945, Magenheimer quotes an intercepted Soviet radio transmission, following a German programme of disruptive artillery strikes into Soviet concentration areas before the attack. It read: "Send the west-Ukrainians to the rear trenches. We won't win the war with them anyway." Whether they did send them in the rearward trenches or not, I don't know, but the Red Army certainly performed well when they attacked.

I can do whatever I like? Coooooollll... Hmmm.... Well, I think I like a cup of tea now. Somehow it appears to be very mundane, this 'do whatever I like' thing. It would be far better if I could get all the other forum members to make me a cuppa whenever it is my want. That would be cool. Hmmm... Teeeeeaaaa...

ROTFL!!!!! Andreas doing that bit from 'My Cousin Vinny' had me rolling on the floor </font>

Joachim I think this is typical von Mellenthin. He is good at making observations, but crap at drawing conclusions from them. It could also be much improved training and junior leadership, or a total change in doctrine. But of course, reliably v.M. plumbs for the explanation that fits in with the general view of the Wehrmacht world about the Red Army. He does that throughout his book, and he is in good company with some of the other German ex-officers who were on the Marshall project. Raus comes to mind. von Mellenthin is strongest when he describes the decision-making process on the German side, and weakest whenever he infers anything about what went on with the Soviet side.

I don't have time now to read through all of this, as free drinks are waiting. Just a quick comment. von Rundstedt agreed with Hitler on halting at Dunkirk. Halder did not. IOW the responsible commander on the ground was in favour of it. There were also sound military reasons for not attacking the encircled Brits, one of them being that evacuation was a long-shot project. In relation to sending Guderian off south, it has been claimed (amongst other places in Hoth's "Panzeroperationen", IIRC) that Guderian himself made a strong effort to have his Panzergruppe 2 sent south. So here is a "maneuver-minded" commander in accordance with Hitler's view. Just some food for thought on the matter.

Thank you - it is a good bit of fun designing the small ones, and I much prefer it over designing bigger ones. Now if only I could pull my finger out, I have a number of almost finished ones lying about for CMBB. Some of them that are otherwise unpublished are on the CMBB retail CD, I think.