Andreas

Would be most interested in your comments on game length. Sorry for invading a mod thread with such pointless babble about scenarios. Now, has anyone done a nice SU-122 mod? In a few weeks I may have a scenario ready to go with it...

Ah... Well, I just tried to annoy Kip, to be honest anyone with his email needs a kicking every so often... Did you ever send me your comments on it?

Shouldn't that read 'This self-propelled trashcan needs a facelift!'? You must have serious self-esteem issues as a German commander if you consider the SU-76 a menace.

I picked a noticeable example from 1944, if you have trouble with that, tough. You are free to provide your own noticeable examples from 1944. We have a lot of time, and about 200 more posts before this thread will be closed. Noticeable examples from 1943 are, as we both know, an irrelevancy, because the Germans simply did not suffer 1,457,000 irrecoverable losses in summer and autumn 1943, as they did in June-Nov. 44, according to Ziemke (quoted in Glantz) - unless you want to pretend that the vast majority of these occured in the west and Italy, of course. As for your mathematics - the Germans lost virtually all of AG South Ukraine (German loss figures of 250-260,000 reported by the Soviets are accepted by German sources - German records are not complete enough to piece all the losses together, but according to Glantz again, strength returns went from ~500k Germans down to ~200k Germans in the space of 9 days). Just before that, they had lost another 400,000 or so in Bagration, and maybe 100,000 in L'vov Sandomierz. The vast majority of these men (and women) went missing. Which to me would indicate that there is an awful lot of space for strongpoints with 1,500 men to simply evaporate into historical nothingness in a very messy way. That is of course why the German records have such a hard time telling us about it - nobody knows, because nobody came back to tell. That phenomenon is called 'survivor bias' in statistics, I believe. But I am sure that with the U of Chicago library that is at your fingertips, you will be capable of showing me that Leontina was an outlier, and that the standard story was one that would make the strategy appear a sound one. I look forward to hearing all about it. With sources please. Because that 'basic argument' of yours is irrelevant. The war was not fought in averages. It was a short, sharp period of action in Byelorussia, Ukraine, Romania and also Normandy that broke the German back in summer 1944. Anything after that were the convulsions of a dieing beast. Still dangerous until it stops hitting out, but finished already. The law of averages did not apply, neither did it need to. The Soviets did not need to inflict an average of the casualties they inflicted from 22nd August to 1st September in Romania over the next 8 months. It was enough to do it once, in one week. So of course these were not typical examples of combat. But they could have been the typical examples of combat when it really mattered . The places the Germans desperately needed to hold, at least for a time, to be able to cope, in the face of another Soviet offensive. After the steamroller hit 306.ID at Leontina, and a few other units elsewhere in the breakthrough sectors, AG South Ukraine was history. There was neither the need, nor the time, to fight another Leontina over the next 10 days. If strongpoint defense had worked here, the Soviet attempt to break through on a narrow front would have failed. AG South Ukraine might have been pulled back with comparatively fewer losses. Nowhere did I claim that this was everyday combat. Your statistical method is far too high level to elucidate whether strongpoint defense was a good tactic to defend against the Red Army in 1944. I'll wait for your examples then, shall I? [ August 19, 2003, 03:57 PM: Message edited by: Andreas ]

I think that would normally have been a Major-General, commanding them. At least the commanders list in 'Zhukov's Greatest Defeat' has all Corps commanded by Major-Generals. Which reminded me, the Corps organisation (with Brigades as subsidiary units) was also used for the Mechanized and Tank formations of the Red Army, through the whole of the war. For Cavalry, Corps were the highest formations, with the weak Cavalry Divisions as subsidiary units, but as was the case with the Mech Corps and Tank Corps, they really only were divisions in size, compared to the Wehrmacht formations they were fighting. I think the pre-war Corps were much larger beasts, but I know next to nothing about them.

I am not assuming anything, I offered it as an example. You are assuming it is an outlier, yet you have absolutely no evidence for that, at least any that you care to mention. Why don't you give me an example of German another strongpoint somewhere else that held out for days, or even completely defeated a 5:1 attack, in the time-frame we are talking about, instead of lecturing me on statistics that have no relation to the question at hand until you have shown it is an outlier. As we all know, the German side is much better known, so it should be no problem for you to show me where German strongpoint defense actually worked in 1944. I (and I am sure others) would be particularly interested in examples where it worked against a breakthrough attempt, instead of later during the pursuit operations. 'The Russians' (in this case Mazulenko in his excellent study 'Die Zerstörung der Heeresgruppe Südukraine') may or may not have studied Leontina, I would not know, because that is not what Mazulenko's work is about. He treats this event on one page of a 112 page treatise, with a fairly good map added. Hardly an overly extensive treatment for a key strong-point in the direct path of the breakthrough, and at the juncture of two large formations.

I think the one nation where things would be very different is the Soviet Union. Soviet divisions were really much more 'shallow' than western or German divisions, with a much higher infantry/support ratio. This meant that they were not as capable on a division-by-division basis. Then again, it appears to me that for the Red Army, the division was really more a tactical formation, not intended to be capable of sustained independent action, but instead just filling a tactical role, with Corps commands taking on the role that divisional commands had in the German and western allied armies. Interesting to note in this respect that many (most?) divisions in the Red Army were commanded by Colonels. A rank rarely found in divisional command in the Wehrmacht (only towards the end of the war), and (almost?) never in charge of a US or British division.

In general I would agree that this would be a useful addition. To avoid gamey abuse of the crews, their ammo status should be 'low', i.e. only suitable for self-defense. Having said that - do you usually buy security elements when you buy AT guns? In the German TO&E for AT gun batteries, there would be an lMG for every two AT guns, to provide some safety from being overrun. IIRC there were also Brens in British gun formations. My suspicion is that most people don't bother buying this. In a scenario, JonS has given me some good advice. For Soviet artillery guns use recon half-squads (the ones with all rifle load-outs), lMG teams, and/or tank hunter teams stripped off their AT explosives for local security.

I prefer designing smaller battles these days. Small being about 1-2 coys plus some support as a maximum force for an assault, with correspondingly low defenders. Reasons for this preference are that they are much easier to design right, I believe that CMBB works better with them than it does with large battles, and I can focus on what interests me most, the depiction of tactical problems, or how solutions to them worked. Basically real-world tactics with real-world kit in the real-world environment of CMBB. The only thing where I go away from small is in battle length. I am by now reasonably convinced that battles with less than 30 turns are almost not worth playing. Too often they just turn in an exercise in frustration.

Some more food on this matter. German studies looking at operations surrounding the Fester Platz Tarnopol desaster in March/April 1944 (Fricke) and the Panzeroperationen Doppelkopf and Caesar in August 1944 (Niepold) mention the rapid deployment of independent AT units on the Soviet side. I would argue that these two case studies are providing the AARs of Panzerdivisions that, if not stopped, are finding it very difficult to deal with the Soviet Pakfronts in front of them. Panzerverband Friebe, consisting of an armoured element of 8.PD, most significantly its Panther Abteilung, failed to break through a defensive line consisting mostly of infantry and PAK. No own losses are given, and the Soviet losses claimed are 25 PAK/light guns, and 3 T34s. Interestingly, Friebe in his AAR writes that the denial of a Tiger Abteilung was one major reason why his attack failed. Because his unit by itself was too weak to broaden the breakthrough, it was constantly threatened from the flank. A repeat occured on the 14th April, when what then had become Gruppe Friebe, reinforced by armoured elms of 9th SS failed in attacking "a strong infantry and AT defense supported by artillery." (KTB AOK 4. Pz Armee). On the day, the strength of Gruppe Friebe is 12 Tigers, 21 Panthers, 38 Panzer IV, and 27 Stugs. A total of 98 AFVs.

25-pdr DF: I think what we are discussing here are the design properties, and what they tell us about actual use of the gun. My point would be that having a shield is not a sign that a gun was intended primarily for DF. It is however a sign that the design requirements considered the likelyhood/risk of DF employment as high enough to warrant the extra weight, and expense, of fitting a shield for crew protection.

I would be interested in what the offensives post-Kursk are as well. Local, sometimes operational counter-attacks happened more often, and could assemble hundreds of tanks (Zhitomir 1943, Baltics 1944, Stargard and Lake Balaton 1945 come readily to mind) - but they were never successful, beyond the tactical level, and such outcomes of operational significance that could be achieved never lasted long enough to matter.

Just to clarify, AFAIK the status of an Abteilung (literally: 'Department') was always that of a battalion, regardless of its size.

For traditional Corps, that is only correct from late 1941 to mid 1943. At around the time of Kursk, the Red Army re-introduced Corps. They were abolished in 1941 because of a lack of support assets to assign to them, and as you say, a lack of competent staff officers, AIUI. By mid 1944, over 100 Corps are active again in the Red Army. Apart from that, there was also a more peculiar formation type, of usually four brigades, that was called a Corps in the Red Army in the intervening time.

I would tend to think that the Grille variants were just attempts to create a more mobile gun for the identical purpose of the towed variety, whatever that was. The sIG33 on Pzkpfw. I chassis I believe to be more of an assault gun - one reason for this is that the latter came in special companies, while the former was just given to Panzergrenadier regiments in replacement for the towed variety. The IG18 is a whole different kettle of fish, being far more mobile at only 400 or so kg weight. Who needs horses? Try doing this with a sIG33...

Only for a few months, and then Armee Abteilung Hollidt on the Mius is renamed 6th Army. Then you get to watch it being destroyed again in Romania 1944, and again in 1945. It is like something out of 'Night of the living dead armies' - obviously the Soviet soldiers did not aim their 12 gauge right. 6th Army, like a bad breakfast, it keeps coming back!

Yep, it would be good to see someone come up with the DV for the blimmin' guns. My suspicion is that they are far too valuable to be used in the direct fire employment often. Also, they were one of the first heavy guns to be made self-propelled by the Germans (the other one I can think of is the 88 on FAMO unarmoured half-tracks), which would again indicate to me that the towed version was probably not much use as a traditional infantry gun (von Senger und Etterlin criticises it specifically for the weight).

This is quite an interesting point (especially since I am currently reading Niepold's 'Doppelkopf und Cäsar', on the armoured operations at the seam between AG Centre and AG North in August 1944), and one I had not thought about like that before. With the Soviet ability to chew up attacking German armour in their Pakfronts, combined with the late-war weakness of the German infantry, a more defensive minded use of the armoured forces would certainly have been more useful than throwing them away at grandiose schemes. I can hardly imagine something worse than what happened to the poor chaps who were stuck in the strong-point of Leontina on the first day of Iassy-Kishinov. For all the effect they had, the Germans could have spiked the guns a week earlier. At 6pm on the 20th August, the 30th Guards Airborne regiment claimed 1,200 German dead, 250 POW (sic!), and 37 guns, 7 of them SP (the only German history of the operations uses the same figures - it states this was a two-battalion srongpoint). The historian acknowledges that the artillery preparation did most of the work, indicating to me that using a strongpoint defense when you can not compete with your artillery and airpower is a slightly dubious tactic. I am not even starting on idiocies like the Feste Plätze idea. I think that there may have been an issue of lacking innovation at the Wehrmacht end, in trying to deal with the much-improved Red Army of 1944. Clearly thre strongpoint tactics worked extremely well in the defensive battles in 1942 - but faced with the Red Army of 1944, they seem to have been seriously outdated.

Err, both the lFH18, the US 105mm M2A1 howitzer and the British 25-pdr have shields. Shields were used on many guns/howitzers (standard artillery pieces) that could expect to see direct combat, even if this was not necessarily their primary purpose. They are usually not present on the heavy guns, but with the lighter field pieces they are quite normal. And please read closely - I did not say the regiment would by addition of a cannon company be able to act 'independently'. I said it would be able to act 'more independently'. I am perfectly well aware that the Division was the smallest unit capable of independent sustained action.

One big issue with the 15cm IG33 and its use in direct fire mode is its weight and size. The gun comes in at 1,750kg and is quite sizeable, compared to the IG18. This means that it would be difficult to get it into position to regularly engage over open sights, and even more difficult to get it out in a sticky situation. Also, the max range of 4,650m would make me suspect that it was, if not designed for dual use, at least best used that way. The Kompanietrupp of a 13. Kompanie had survey personnel, signals personal, etc. Every gun platoon had Richtkreispersonal (I guess these are gun layers for indirect firing?). All that is needed, AIUI, to make indirect fire possible. I would hesitate to agree that the cannon company was meant as an asset to be used mainly for firing over open sights at 'centres of resistance'. I think it is more likely that doctrinally it was meant to make the regiment more independent, by providing an artillery element to it. I believe that in later TO&Es, 12cm mortars replaced the 15cm IG33. I would be interested in seeing some more info on this though. [ August 18, 2003, 08:49 AM: Message edited by: Andreas ]

Is the right answer. The Hummel was introduced in 1943, answering a need that had bugged the German Panzerwaffe for the last four years. Artillery support that could keep up with the advancing panzers. They would not be kept out of the battlefield entirely, but they would be off most CMBB maps. The maximum range of the Hummel's 15cm sFH18 was ~15km. That of its smaller brethren, the Wespe's 10,5cm lFH18 was ~10.5km (12km with the lFH42). It is clear that this constitutes a problem in mobile combat operations, where your artillery guns have to shift very often. At first it was tried to overcome this by adding one battery of 10cm K18, with a range of ~19km to the Panzer- and ID (mot) formations. This was inadequate due to the low HE load on the K18 rounds. So from mid-1943 onwards, Panzerartillerieregimenter received self-propelled guns, all to be kept (normally) in the I. Abteilung of the regiment, which meant that this was a mixed Abteilung. The batteries were of six guns, instead of the usual four for towed artillery. There would be three batteries, two with Wespe, and one with Hummel. For a fully loaded Panzerartillerieregiment, this meant an immense increase in hitting power, because these 18 FH (4 of them sFH) would replace an Abteilung with only 12 lFH. The old III. Abteilung with its 8 sFH and 4 K18 was apparently kept. With this move, and continuing increase in SPW equipment for some divisions, the German Panzerdivision of 1943 onwards looked (at least on paper, reality often rudely intruded by not making the needed guns/SPWs/tanks available) like a very mobile and heavily armoured formation, not just in the Panzerregiment, but also in the supporting force elements - finally, after four years of war.

Soso - Haupt is one of the 'Vielschreiber' about the war with the Soviet Union. It is a semi-decent start to the topic. Gives you an overview, and accuracy is not too bad.

BUMP because Abbott was asking. Hey, do a SEARCH!

1. By that counting the original 9 battalion division, is in effect a 12 battalion division (3x3 plus Recce, Pioneer, replacement battalion). 2. In practice though, what seems to have happened late in the war is that the mobile forces were split up to 'stiffen' the frontline, because it was clear that the infantry divisions by themselves could no longer handle it. This led to a frittering away of reserves, and placing them too far forward in harms way. 3. I would not quite agree with that. I think they were also very bad at defending against a capable attacker. I have a few quotes by Soviet officers/historians on how, during the 1944 offensives, surprised that they found a third defensive line after fighting through the first two, but it was not manned. Presumably because the infantry was not there to man it. Had it been manned, it would have slowed down matters, in some cases probably considerably, giving the German commanders more time to react, and it may even have stopped total routs. Basically with this structure you have to put everything into the shopwindow, and risk losing it all there, in one fell swoop. 4. Yep, that stand at the borders in Poland was particularly impressive . The stand at the borders really only happened in the west, because there the border happened to conincide with a big river. Where there was no natural obstacle, as in Poland, no stand happened. The Oder river did not become a border until after the war. 5. I would disagree again, see 1. The flat structure invited desaster in 1944. It was okay when the Soviets were fairly inept (1942, and early 1943), or when the defense was backed up by nature (Italy/Normandy) or massive amounts of armour, in relation to frontage (Normandy), but in the more open country of e.g. Byelorussia, with all the mobile reserves on a 1,000km front being a single Panzergrenadier and a Panzer division, it was just begging for a vicious kicking. Which is what they got. But of course, by that time even the firepower force multiplier was no longer working, because the frontages did not allow the divisional heavy assets to support all battalions. While correct, I am at a loss what this has to do with anything. The battalion as a weapons group with its organic weapons is not the issue. The question are the regimental and divisional support weapons. If, as you say, the only difference between a 9 and a 6 battalion division is that one is 'all up', while the other is '2 up, 1 back', then it follows that the frontage covered by the six frontline battalions, all other things being equal, is the same. So there would be no difference in the ability of one or the other to bring the organic support weapons to bear. The only difference is that in an 'all-up' formation you have another set of regimental support weapons up as well. In closing, the real problem by early 1944 was two-fold. The Wehrmacht was overtaxed, particularly in the east. The available forces stood in no relation to the frontage to be held. That was bad strategy. This by itself would not have caused the pretty much total collapse of summer 1944. This was finally caused by a clear development in Soviet command capabilities on all levels. But the Soviets again benefitted hugely from the shallowness of the German lines, and that is a tactical problem that turned into an operational nightmare, when the 'flat' structures collapsed with a speed that made any attempt to react impossible. This is where I think your analysis that the 6 battalion division was as capable as its predecessor, is just wrong. Having a different structure, with consequently fewer infantry divisions, may well have forced hard but sensible choices at a time when these choices could still have made a difference, i.e. sometime in 1943. That at this time the Germans principally were able to still make those choices is shown in the order for the retreat from the Rhzev salient ('Büffelbewegung'), although this may well have been driven by the need to prepare for Kursk.

Actually yes, and I was going to comment on it. Whether anybody else reads it, who knows.