Andreas

Actually we aren't. Both the Soviets and the Germans drafted infantry probably up to the age of 40, if not older, quite regularly (no, this does not include the Volkssturm). As an example, 24% of soldiers in the divisions of the 4. Welle, raised in 1939/40 consisted of Landwehr, some of whom had been trained during WW I, i.e. they would be at least 40 by this time. The young fit 18/20-year old may have been prevalent in the US Army (and maybe the Canadian sub-department of the US Army), but not in any other major army of World War II. I am reasonably certain that the British army also drafted up the older chaps. This is before we even get into issues of regular (let alone decent - I believe scurvey occurred amongst forces in the Arctic) food supply, sufficient movement/exercise to stay fit (a problem during winter positional warfare), and the constant stress, which would also take its toll. Also, particularly later in the war, fitness levels would have dropped because of shortened training (one thing to be said for the RAD was apparently that you became fit 'like Oskar', and looked dashing in a uniform) My grandfather started World War II in Poland at the age of 25 as a German private.

Here is one on the 1943 organisation: http://astro.temple.edu/~gurwin/tousinf.htm Star: http://www.adamfive.com/guerrero/zvezda/ There is an excellent site with a clickable TO&E for US infantry divisions that JonS will have the link to.

You are joking, right? It was a simple question for clarification, and a number of other posters here have noted that it was just that, despite the missing flowers, smileys and 'pretty please'. To now hide behind the idea that "you have not been nice to others in the past, so now I don't want to answer a perfectly reasonable question relating to my post because I think you may not be nice to me at some point.", or sumfink, disqualifies you in 0 time as a serious participant in any discussion as far as I am concerned. [sHRUG]But suit yourself, it is an open board after all, and I am sure you find lots of others to talk to. [/sHRUG]

Cabron Could CM's air support model benefit from improvement? Yep. Should it be anything you suggested in your posts preceding my last one? No. Now, since you seem to have trouble providing any sort of information backing up your claims, and instead like to get huffy about being asked for them, I think I'll ignore you until you can. Before I do that, here's a hint though - there is a way to get BFC's attention about matters that need improvement with CM. I can assure you it is not by failing to provide evidence and talking in generalities, though. So unless you want to waste your time doing just that, or impress other posters on this board with your great, if somewhat unsupported by evidence knowledge, you are better off working in your garden or taking a hike, in terms of what you do with your time. Have a good day.

Sorry, but I can only see two examples, unless the generic term 'invasion of their countries' is meant to be a substitute for one or two of them. From your post it is totally unclear whether these terrifying airstrikes happened in a CM battle. From your two examples it is clear that they did not. I am at a loss what can be so difficult to understand about it? Again, I am not sure whether air strikes could be controlled and precise with the precision you want, on the CM battlefield. Certainly none of your examples shows that, and there is very scant evidence of it happening in Real Life. There are certainly ways to improve CM's handling of air strikes, but great care has to be taken not to turn them into an ahistorical Uberweapon, which is what the terms 'controlled and precise' would indicate to me. One way of simulating a precise and devastating airstrike in a scenario is very simple. As a designer, put a few craters and a smouldering house or two on the map. Buy a heavily depleted platoon and put them in foxholes in the area. Set them to Panicked/exhausted. Hey presto, not as satisfying as watching it, but the same result. Of course only possible in scenarios.

How many of these accounts are from the actual CM battlefield, i.e. not on the approach march, the retreat, or while in a trench but not under ground attack? Clearly the two you mention (beaches of Dunkerque and Falaise) are not.

The last two lines don't compute, unless you are even weirder than I remember But I am glad to hear you are having a good time!

Hmmmm... Teeeeaaaaa...

Where's my turn, you gamey suede!? And get a Mac, no more worries about soundboards

Stop posting here and send me a turn. So that a few of your T34s can go back to my maintenance depot when I clean up the battlefield searching for the Vodka rations, you Gormless Gimp of the God of Gulags™.

Can't remember if he asked me, but if some credit is given, why not?

I dont think anybody is suggesting what you are implying here. What I, and others, want is a way to simulate the communications/inforamtion breakdowns that are so common in battle. Communication breakdown is modeled some (with command delays and hopefully in future with borg spotting fixes), but information breakdown is not modeled at all. </font>

How about two different turn limits, one for the attacker, one for the defender? Or has someone already suggested this?

'Grenadiere', not 'Panzergrenadiere'.

Los, I all I intended to point out was that while you may have the impression that the Germans spent a lot of time rooting out incompetents, there are easy-to-find examples where this did not happen, or where on the contrary officers were pushed up based on their political allegiance or their ability to nod bravely in acceptance of every stupid order coming from OKW, while competent officers were sacked. I also have some choice comments on the performance of Bittrich (GOC 9. SS PD) at Tarnopol in April 1944. Again, he was not sacked for it, or even reported to SS HQ as a dud by Balck or Raus. They found another way of dealing with it (by not giving him the important task), and by the time of 9.SS's fight in Normandy and Holland a few months later he seems to have been able to handle it. All this is anecdotal evidence at best though. I can not draw any general conclusion from that, and I have no possibility or intent to compare it to the US or Commonwealth forces and their handling of incompetents. But I would be interested in why you think the Germans were better at handling these cases than the Allies?

In the good old days, the catholic church built itself this: Collegio di Propaganda Fide - Roma I doubt they would use the same name today. Still there though, and still used. I think the best modern term to use for it is 'spin'.

The important thing to know in this discussion, and an information that steiner14 has not provided, although repeatedly asked for it, is that it actually was the case that in March 1940, the first SP ATGs left the production line. 50 to be precise - Panzerjäger I. The total production run was eventually to reach a whooping 132, produced in March, April and May 1940. The website linked by steiner14 earlier indicates though that most of these may have gone to independent Panzerjäger formations, i.e. not to any infantry divisions - it appears the first to see combat were with Heeres-Panzerjägerabteilung 5 in France. The next run of SP ATGs would be the Marder series (unless you want to count the menace that was the 3,7cm PAK36 auf Sfl Bren Carrier) in 1941. There certainly were nowhere near enough Panzerjäger I in 1940 to even begin thinking of equipping all 1. Kps of the divisional AT battalions. Not even for the motorised and Panzer divisions. Since there were obviously neither the equipment, nor the plans, to make any element of the infantry divisions AT battalions self-propelled, I am at a loss why they would be renamed 'Panzerjägerabteilung' from 'Panzerabwehrabteilung'. The only answer I can come up with is, you guessed it, propaganda. it certainly can not have been connected to any plan, or even pie-in-the-sky idea, of giving them anything other than their prime movers to drive around in.

No that is not correct - there is no problem in file interchange, you can either play PBEM, or TCP/IP games between Macs and PCs, at your leisure. I do it all the time.

I find making a decent map the most work-intensive part of the process, so once I have done it, I prefer to do the scenario as a whole. Maybe others feel the same way?

You are quite amusing in your inability to stop digging. That renaming took place when a composition change happened in 1940 is exactly what you were claiming, remember? Now suddenly all these units pop up that according to your logic should be named 'Panzerabwehr', yet are named Panzerjaeger, and that should somehow prove what exactly? I note with interest that you have still not delivered any documentary support for your claims.

While you are wailing about me being harsh to you, may I remind you of that challenge by you to me a while back? Wenn Du keine Lust hast Deine eigene Suppe auszuloeffeln, brock sie Dir nicht ein. But I take it that your little rant is final confirmation that you have no sources to back up your statement. Well, you could have just said so a long time ago. To now complain about the quality of discussion on this forum is the height of cheekyness, when you have been asked time and again to come up with some source for your statement, yet have failed every time. If that sort of challenge to back up your statements to you is 'arrogance', then I freely admit to intellectual arrogance in that regard. Best leave it at that, before I get into my opinion of your behaviour in this discussion. Apologies to non-German speakers, this one does not translate well: 'If you don't want to eat your own broth, don't make it' is the closest, and it is derived from an old German proverb.

Oh dear... A quick skim is enough to show that this website, if anything, disproves what you are still holding up as gospel. Woops! A whole Panzerjaegerabteilung with lots of towed guns. I guess you know something they did not... By Jove, another one! Why could the Heer not look up "Steiner14's guide to naming of tank hunters"? Deary me, will it ever stop? Those idiot Wehrmacht officers. Of course, just picking out the two that seem to prove your point is a time-honoured internet debating technique, that works fine if you expect the other people are too bored by the inane repitition of completely false claims that you exhibit. Sorry it does not work this time. I'm sorry, but it is time to do this: Come back when you have read a book.

Well, just realised that when looking at 'the facts', it also pays off to look at how Mr. 'Why don't you come off your high horse' Steiner14 has shifted his original statement quite considerably, without of course ever admitting he was wrong. Nice try.

How about you bring some evidence for your claims for a change. Which divisions were equipped with Sfl? Division numbers please, date of change, and type of vehicle. Also, numbers of the divisions which were not re-equipped, and where the name stayed the Panzerabwehr after this date (according to your logic). If you can not bring that very simple info, I will stick by my current opinion that you are talking out of your rear-end Steiner, and that it is time for you to admit it. None of that hand-waving and 'everyone knows it' stuff. Pure and simple facts please. For a change. BTW - to continue to call it 'speculation', when someone like Fleischer has given you the exact reason, while you continue to fail in providing a single source for your statements is just ridiculous.

That is something I am not so sure about. An example for a dud would be von Mackensen in command of 14. Armee at Anzio. Other examples are Luftwaffenfelddivisionen, which often seem to have been led by total incompetents. A German historian states that one problem with promotion in the Wehrmacht was that it was all for the wrong reasons - you got promoted for being a dashing risk-taker, not for being a thorough and exact worker. This could have its advantages, but also had drawbacks. Then there are cases where promotion seems to have been as much for allegiance to Nazi ideology as for performance, e.g. Busch, Schoerner. Last but not least you have a significant number of competent officers fired for failing to carry out orders that simply were impossible - especially in December/January 41/2, but already before that (I have a case detailed at home of an divisional commander made scape-goat for complete bollocksing-up by his Corps commander in Autumn 1941). The following promotions of course further draw on the resources of an already depleted class - fully trained general staff officers, cascading down the chain of command. But this just exacerbated an already pressing problem with the rapid expansion of the Wehrmacht.