Andreas

I don't think that is quite correct - what was to become AG SU and AG NU was hit quite heavily following Kursk during Operation Polkovodets Rumyantsev (sp?), and again in the western Ukraine battles following the Dnjepr crossing. Nothing on the scale of Bagration or Iassy though, where months of relative calm were followed by short and very casualty intensive periods. But there was also the matter of the flanks. Crimea and the Kuban needed to be cleared, and were, with the loss of 17th Army to the Germans. I believe though that what happened earlier in 1943 put the fear of God into STAVKA, regarding over-extension. The failure of operations Star and Gallop following little Saturn and Uranus. The destruction wrought by Manstein on Soviet formations in the February/March 1943 battle for Kharkov sobered STAVKA, and lead to a more careful approach later in the war. As the Zhitomir battle shows, that was probably as well. I am fairly convinced that the reason why AGs South and A were not destroyed in 1943 is a lack of Soviet logistical and operational capability and capacity to do so, combined with a higher proficiency of the Wehrmacht in 1943 than in 1944, and also the need to clear the flanks whereever the Soviets advanced, to avoid a repeat of the Kharkov desasters. It had little to do with German strongpoint defensive tactics, IMO. This is because the Germans were not given a few months to prepare anywhere. When they were pushed back from Kharkov they were situated in prepared positions, but very weakened following the offensive (yeah I know Zetterling says differently, but he seems to be a bit clueless about casualty effects). At the Dnjepr they simply had no time to dig in, and the famous Ostwall was probably even more of a figment of imagination than the Westwall. But before Iassy, the Germans had from May to late August to dig in and prepare. Little did it help them. There were more workable defensive approaches in the Wehrmacht in 1944 though. Gen-Oberst Raus, commanding 4., and later 3. Panzerarmee, preferred an approach of retreating for 10km on the eve of a Soviet attack. This would slow down the Red Army because then they have to redeploy again, reconnoiter again, build another 10km of roads, new fortifications, new OPs, etc. Obviously, that is not the greatest solution, but a lot better than having everybody smashed or cut off on day one. Schoerner in Kurland had a different approach, whereby a very deep zone of trenches would be created, on the eve of the attack 2/3rds of the troops would be pulled back, leaving only 1/3rd to face the initial storm. The aim was to keep the first trench (presumably regaining it through counter-attacks) at the evening of day one. Both of the above approaches make good Maskirovka a pre-requisite for a successful Soviet attack. According to a German source, later a high-ranking Bundeswehr general, the Soviets were a lot better at deception and radio discipline later in the war than the Germans. A similar approach may have been used by Busch commanding AG Centre at the time of Bagration. There it spectacularly backfired though, by allowing the Soviets to get through fairly easily in places. Friessner in Romania may have had another, different approach. But he was behind a riverline, and had the political problem none of the others had, to defend Romanian territory. Which could be the reason why he kept everything in the shop window, so to speak. And lost it there. I have no idea what Model did in North Ukraine. Anyone wants a guess what this proliferation of approaches could tell us about the German attitude to share experiences?

How about you wait until you see the demo before you jump to conclusions? To compare BFC to Atomic is just ludicrous. BTW - you seem to have no conception of the importance of dust (i.e. visibility) on the battlefield. How do you think this will impact on the borg spotting in the game?

Does your wife know you're still spending on those "working" girls? </font>

Designing a decent scenario does require more effort for CMBB than it did for CMBO. It is also more rewarding though, in the same way as a 15 mile hike through the North Downs is more rewarding than a 40 minute walk to work. The former I do every few weeks, the latter I do twice daily. As for the lack of sites - people move on. The fact that not as much is being discussed on these forums (well, not as much sensible stuff anyway, there is always the General Forum and Master Goodale's thread) has also lead to people to get their CMBB kicks in other, more private ways. These can be online campaigns (CMMC2 and others), offline campaign weekends (such as the one Kip and I organised a few weeks back), or specialised websites such as Grisha's Red Army Studies project, and many other things. I also think that the translation into different languages has made a difference. This has lead to more dispersal and decentralisation. While once the BFC forums were not just the hub, but actually the only place to go to, to purchase and discuss the game, this has now changed a lot. So a lot of things are no longer visible to us here. Finally, to some extent it is probably also a problem of lack of feedback. Scenario reviews at the Depot are still far and few between. I just reviewed Petrovashchene Ridge (hope I got that right), and my review was No.11 - the scenario has been downloaded 1,223 times and is one of the top scenarios (rightly so for PBEM play!). Then you have the problem with two sites being so good that they are in effect 'winner takes all' sites. The Depot, and CMMODS.com. That is a good thing, IMO. Also, there are still a number of sites around - you just have to look for them. [ August 22, 2003, 06:07 AM: Message edited by: Andreas ]

Well Jason, asking for sources for your claims is now 'getting pissy' and 'debators pose'? Very disappointing, and quite a copout for someone who is so firm in his opinions. Thank you for confirming my suspicions though. You know what, I actually begin to believe you don't know that many AARs. Do you speak any German or Russian? I already dismissed your idea that you can translate the single case statistics into the larger scale - so did tero. Again, you don't address this with one word. The Russians, according to the MGFA history, actually won the war in September 1942. But again, that is strategic, and does tell us bugger all about their performance at the tactical level. And there I believe they spent the whole war improving. And yes, by 1944 they were better at hitting things. They were better at understanding and implementing force ratios, and co-ordinating combined arms. The other factor is of course that the Wehrmacht of 1943 is quite a different beast from the one in 1944. But I am sure some high-level statistic from you will also disprove that. If you don't have time to back up your statements, why do you post them? Always assuming you want to be taken seriously.

Because it was not 1944 - the Red Army was not quite 'there' yet. In the same way that the Wehrmacht that attacked into Russia in 1941 looked quite different from the one that attacked into Poland in 1939. Does the term 'organisational learning' mean anything to you? Now, I take it that you will simply repeat 'it was an outlier', until I get bored and stop asking you for examples? That is the equivalent of putting your fingers in your ears and singing 'lalala I can't hear you'. Where are your examples of successful strongpoint defense against Soviet breakthroughs in 1944 Jason? Come on, just one - if Leontina was such an outlier, you must be able to find one, with all those massive offensives going on. Or is this claim of yours of the same type as your bold claim elsewhere that the AARs of Panzers being stopped by Pakfronts don't exist? I.e. a claim born out of a strong conviction, and not much else? [ August 21, 2003, 12:21 PM: Message edited by: Andreas ]

Go to the scenario depot, do a search for scenarios that are: tiny small medium You'll find hundreds, actually the majority. Certainly none of my scenarios has hundreds of tanks, is on a flat plane with no cover, etc. You can search under my designer name if you are interested. I fully agree with Scott - designing CMBB scenarios is far more work, but I feel I have done better work in CMBB than I did in CMBO.

No.

Ah, I note Steiner14 has come riding back into town. So, brought any answers to my question in your saddlebags? Or have you not had time yet to translate Martin's excellent quote?

No they were not. Brigades and Regiments were very well organised, and well documented, standard formations. At least on paper. They certainly were not composed of 'basically anything', and they were not just thrown together.

Well, after checking on Ebay, there seems to be no way on earth I could shell out that sort of money, even the used ones still go at >US$1,000. The NEC or Sony seem a much better deal. Thanks a lot for the tip. Anyone has opinions on the Formac ADC 17" one? Is it worth the money going from a 17" monitor with 1056x712 to a 17" LCD with 1280xwhatever?

Since most of the things they shoot at, most likely shoot back, I would term that a rotten day.

I have one of the more detailed maps that I have seen on my site: Counterbattery at Yelnia The second map is the one you are after. If you click on it it enlarges.

I think the correct English would be 'CMBB and CMAK might perhaps play quite differently, you know, in the way that CMBB has some slight differences from CMBO.'

Well, I thought this as well, and then I looked at my copy of, err, bugger... the front page is gone... Well anyway, the book about 101. le Div. during the May 1942 battles destroying the Soviet offensive at Kharkov. The artillery regiment seems to have a normal complement of lFH18 and sFH18, just like any Infanteriedivision. Well actually, there is a battery of sFH18, and a battery of lFH18 missing, as well as the complete I. Abteilung, but I would have to re-read the book to figure out why that is. The missing batteries are probably just the losses suffered during the winter battles and retreat.

I always thought the Rangers were some sort of specialised light infantry with special training from the get-go. Maybe I just fell for the myth though? :confused: There certainly were far fewer of them than there were Jäger formations in the Wehrmacht. The main difference I can discern between a leichte Infanterie- (from 1942 Jägerdivision) and an ordinary infantry division is that it has only two infantry regiments. Otherwise the TO&E and OOB seem to be completely identical. The Gebirgsjäger had special equipment (mules, mountain guns instead of lFH18, sometimes RCLs I believe), but not the Jägerdivision, AFAICT.

I assume the German word for that is 'Richtkreis', in which case regimental cannon companies had someone in each of the Zugtrupps (Platoon HQs) to do this job.

That may have been true in the imperial German Army (I would not know), but it certainly was no longer true in 1942, when these formations were renamed (and those are the ones talked about in this thread). The renaming was not just for the divisions, also the regiments were renamed from Infanterieregiment in 'Jägerregiment', with no number change, and presumably without any change to training or equipment. It is also not true today, a friend of mine served in a Bundeswehr Jäger formation in the late 1980s, and he was no hunter.

Hi, I currently have the apple 17" studio display. Unfortunately it does not do more than 1056x792 at a frequency that my eyes can bear. I would be interested in getting a good LCD display to replace it. My videocard is the Apple OEM ATI Radeon AGP 7000 32MB card, which I think has the ADC, and VGA (or is that DVI?) connections. I would go for an Apple Cinema display with no questions asked, if I did not think them ridiculously overpriced. I would like to get a 17" display, or larger. Anyone got any recommendations? Thanks for the attempts to help with the USB problem I mentioned in that other thread. Unfortunately I forgot to mention it is a drive problem only, it seems. The machine recognises USB printers, modems, and scanners fine. The USB extension driver is present, and active.

AFAIK the Sherwood Forresters, and most other regimental names in the Commonwealth forces go back to the mid-late 19th century, when the numbering of regiments was dropped. The wholesale renaming of the leichte Infanteriedivisionen into Jägerdivisionen happened in summer 1942 over the course of a few weeks. Draw your own conclusions.

I would not agree with that - I am not aware that the Jäger received any kind of special forces training, or use. If you have such info, I would be very interested in it. As with so many things, the use of the term Jäger was probably propaganda, and not much more than that. I guess Jäger just sounds more spiffy than leichte Infanterie.

Regular light infantry. The Wehrmacht had a set of light infantry divisions on a two regiment organisation, but otherwise pretty identical. If these came from the mountainous regions of Bavaria, or Austria, they were called Gebirgsjäger (these would also have special mountain guns). Otherwise they would just be leichte Divisionen (light divisions). There were five of these that were converted into Jägerdivisionen in summer 1942, 5., 8., 97., 100. and 101. leichte Division. Additionally, 28. ID was turned into 28. Jägerdivision. I guess the doctrinal use for these formations was to fight in more constrained terrain, where command and control was not as easy with a traditional triangular division structure. It turned out very quickly though that they would just be used as ordinary infantry anyway, and that in this case a two-regiment structure was not good enough. Additionally, there were sometimes independent Jägerbatallione present as Heerestruppen, probably often used for rear-area security (read - partisan hunting missions).

CMBB? When you open the game to check, you can do my turn at the same time, swatting two flies with one, well, swat.

Well, just checked Ian Hogg - 'The guns 1939-45' and he says that the infantry gun concept came from the use of mortars in WW I, which were seen as a useful power addition to the infantry in the frontline. Since mortars are by definition indirect fire (usually observed), one may guess that indirect fire was the main purpose of infantry guns, and that direct fire was a thrown-in bonus. The sIG33 was an aberration by the way, nobody else used something as heavy in the role.

Wehrmacht Kampfgrupppen were an ad-hoc formation of anything that was available, created for a specific task, and early in the war usually dissolved quickly. Later in the war though, the Germans referred to remnants of mauled divisions as e.g. 'Kampfgruppe 21, probably partly to make themselves feel better. ID', a bit in the way that the Commonwealth had Brigade Combat Teams in the desert (the joke apparently went: 'What is a Brigade Combat Team?' 'A Division that was overrun twice by the Germans.') A Kampfgruppe would be created around a staff, which would be given any unit available that was deemed necessary to get the job done. Panzerdivisions were often divided into an armoured Kampfgruppe, based on the Panzerregiment staff, and an unarmoured Kampfgruppe. Kampfgruppen in general seem to have been from reinforced battalion to reinforced regiment size, and would have a combined arms element to them, i.e. added artillery or specialist formations. The commanding units would normally be the next higher staff - so if 6.PD forms KG Hühnersdorff, it will command it. But if the KG is at the point of main effort, higher level HQs would often directly interfere in leading it. In short, there is no general rule for KGs, because they were not an official part of the German TO&E.