Andreas

I would also love to see John Salt start quoting from classified information in this thread

The book I referred to earlier (Przytocki - Im Aufklaerungspanzer) turns out to be a very interesting read. The chap was apparently in charge of the Recce company of 1st Polish Armoured Brigade 'Heroes of the Westerplatte'. It has a lot of info on combat operations, and what kind of recon was undertaken. In line with my earlier classification, it was almost entirely '2)', and a little bit of '1)' and '3)', with the latter more often than not ending pear-shaped it seems. Some interesting observations - while he was regularly ordered to bring in 'tongues', often he was not given the time needed before the operation started. So he ended up bringing back a prisoner while the tanks trundled past him to the attack, without the benefit of the information. Another interesting info is that at times the grand total of tanks in the Brigade was <10, with battalions made up of 3 or 2 tanks. Talk about attrition...

ISTR that is an indicator for the amount of structural damage a plane can absorb. Expect a Shturmovik to be more sturdy than an I-16 'Rata'.

I'll have a dig.

Longest kill range in DF I read about was 7km on a T34 in the Caucasus. First round brew-up. The reason given for the accuracy was the very clear mountain air, and the fact that there was a significant height difference between the gun and then tank's position. Not sure if it is a fairy tale though.

My guess is that the Abteilung commanders would be in a PzBefWg, i.e. earlier in the war a tank with no gun. You often see 2-3 PzBefWg on strength in the returns of PR 11, which leads me to believe that one would be with the PR commander, and the other two for the Abteilungs commanders. As an aside, company commanders in mixed III/IV (lg) units were encouraged to use the weaker IIIs, to ensure they concentrate on fighting their company, instead of fighting their tank (Scheibert - 'Bis Stalingrad 48km'). This is for the 1942/3 timeframe.

That mug would go very nicely with my B24 Liberator, two Royal Tank Corps, Orkney Battleship Wrecks, and Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry mugs. Where can I get one? I somehow knew Combat Mission is a mug's game (painful groans in the auditorium)... [ December 15, 2002, 08:12 AM: Message edited by: Andreas ]

Re: noting down targets at the guns. My comment was based on a statement in the memoirs of a Soviet battery officer (2i/c) from 1941 stating that the gunners would write down all the laying information on a sheet of paper at the gun. Re: FOOs. In 1941, again going from the memoir, it appears that a battery would be directed from a forward OP by the battery commander. The battery officer would be in charge of the execution of fire at the gun pits, the building of the gun pits, camouflage of the guns, ammo supply etc.pp. Only one FOO per battery (of four heavy guns in this case). Source: W.S.Petrow - 'Kanoniere'; Petrow served in a Corps Artillery Regiment on 152mm and 107mm guns during the battles for Ukraine, and escaped encirclement. He rose to Major General later in his career.

Out of curiousity, just how many copies has CMBB sold anyway? I'd like to see how the sales figues compare to more "mainstream" war games.</font>

1) Kip drives lots of T34 and T70 into minefield 2) Kip comes up with cunning plan - drive more T34s and T70s into minefield 3) Kip decides to become an energy trader The end.

At least I am working on green energy issues

High - I am sure we are both sad people with no life. What are you doing, and do you have any jobs for a frustrated Policy Analyst? Hear what others have to say about him: Oh, Andreas?! </font> does not play well with others </font>runs with scissors </font>eats paste </font>doesn't suffer fools gladly </font>a bit awkward </font>

Really? Damn, should have ordered it too, I might have learned somefink

Adm. Keth, first of all thanks a lot for the great service that the Depot provides. You know that I have always supported the idea and the implementation of the work. I think it is great that you and the others offer so much of their time to perform this service for the CM community. It is good to see that you take this discussion as driven by our feeling that the scenario depot could be, and should be improved. I think it is proof that designers think it is a great contribution, and very relevant, because otherwise we would not argue for 120 pages over what the improvements should look like. Now to answer one of your questions - how to deal with the old scenarios when/if redoing the criteria. IMO it would be alright to leave them be. There is no need to redo scores, or tinker with the reviews at all (although there maybe coding issues I am not aware of, being an idiot when it comes to webpages). Just focus on the future, and introduce a cut-off point.

1) DL scenario 2) Soviet player to open scenario in editor 3) Change Soviet core units as desired 4) Sends to German player 5) German player to open scenario in editor 6) Change German core units as desired 7) German player to start game I don't think I would design scenarios to allow this, I would be interested if some designers would do that?

I think it is clear that there are various types of recce work and I will attempt a grouping. These are situation dependent, and not mutually exclusive. 1) Recce by observation 2) Recce by patrolling/small scale combat 3) Recce by fighting/larger scale combat - this includes seizing objectives 'off the march' 1) and 2) are not exclusive, and would presumably occur in fixed positions, where 3) is most unlikely. They include amongst other things observing firing positions, trench works, relief in place procedures, supply procedures, gathering of prisoners, gathering of information from locals/partisans behind the enemy lines. 3) is different from that, and can either be a stand-alone operation, or part of a larger operation. Forces for undertaking three are operating either in a void ahead of the bulk of ones own forces, or to the flanks, in highly mobile situations (German army 1940/41, Africa, 3rd Army, Northern France 1944, Soviets 1943-5). If in battle, they are units detached from the bulk of the assault that are to be launched into less well established positions of the enemy (e.g. his 3rd line of trenches, which could not be observed/patrolled well). Anyway, I have to run and catch my train now, I post more from work.

You have to look at it from the front - while I agree with your basic point (ISTR we had a discussion on this in beta days), it is not 30 vx 33 - the Valentine driver plate does not go across the whole front like the Panzer IV's does. Looking at a side-cutaway gives a completely wrong impression. You can see that quite well here:

Grisha, thanks a lot for that. Very illuminating posts. I knew about the business of 'tongues', but did not know the play on words surrounding it. Very amusing (except for the 'tongues' themselves). All the Soviet unit commander memoirs I have refer again and again to the following points: </font> recce of enemy firepoints </font>recce of enemy artillery positions </font>'tongues' </font>recce of enemy reserve positions </font>need to camo ones own positions against enemy recce </font>Particularly Lastschenko (GOC 322nd RD) harps on about it, and mentions how he got a rocket from Koniev two days before the Lvov-Sandomierz operation started for not having recce'd enough. He also states how in the initial assault he used one battalion of 1089th RR for 'Battle Recon (Gefechtsaufklaerung)'. This is of course late in the war, and practice would have improved a lot. It seems quite clear that sophistication had grown considerably at that point, and that recce was considered and treated as a key element of the battle, absolutely irreplaceable if you want to avoid losses.

I am not particularly impressed with those comments. Combat on the vast plains of Russia... Hmmm, if you have a look at the pictures on my site, you see there was nothing vast empty and flat about northern russia, or the baltics. The same goes for the area around Rhzev with its deep forests, or around Orel. The 'vast and flat' plains were actually cut through with balkas, steep ravines that afforded cover for movement and laager, and a lot of combat centered on clearing these. Sounds to me as if Mr. Kurtz needs to brush up a bit on his geography. Russia is not a vast billiard table.

First of all an apology to Jaegermeister for inappropriate and snippy remarks. I'll control myself a bit better in the future. Brightblade, thanks for the explanation. All I know about Gefechtsaufklaerung you can see in the CD scenario of the same name. It is based on a picture with that label from my grandfather's collection (check the Beobachtungsabteilung site linked in my sig for more pictures). His battery (flash ranging, 3./Beo-Abt 26) undertook a lot of Gefechtsaufklaerung on the way to Leningrad, assigned to 53. ID. This was the division that captured (briefly) the tram terminus in Urizk that is marked today with a plaque indicating one of the furthest inroads the Germans made into Leningrad. In the unit history in Froben's 'Aufklaerende Artillerie' it states that this was the main occupation of his unit throughout the late-summer advance on Leningrad. They were neither trained nor suited for any sort of rapid recon, being counter-battery observers. Anyway, where was I The forces in the scenario are those that can be seen on the picture, with some additions. So, that's basically all I knew, and your post was very helpful. I fully agree that these units on all sides were used for other tasks. In particular flank protection (49th Recce during 'Martlet', K1 during the advance to the Dvina IIRC - I presume their high mobility and firepower made them well-suited for it), or as ordinary line infantry (e.g. 12th SS AA in Normandy 1944, or that US Mech Cav unit in the Losheimer Gap on Dec. 16th).

See below: I guess the 'read' in this case are at best Kurt Meyer's memoirs, and probably the odd Signal excerpt quoted in Carrell/Schmidt and passed off as a genuine memoir. Or a Konsalik book

This is the classic account of work in the Recce Corps: Only the enemy in front - the title is the official motto of the Recce Corps I think. The unofficial line following it was: 'every other bugger behind'. I also recommend 'The South Albertas', for the real work of an armoured reconnaissance regiment in 4th Canuckian Armoured, and there is a memoir of a chap in 49th Recce that is extensively quoted in Delaforce's 'The Polar Bears'. For US Mech Cav, have a look at the website I linked above.

Since you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, I have decided to start a new thread on this topic here. I think those seriously interested should let JaegerMeister continue to live in Kurt Meyer's Ra-Ra fantasyland. [ December 12, 2002, 02:36 AM: Message edited by: Andreas ]

Well, in another thread, I have been called a bad person, because I like to use some form of evidence, preferrably other than 'I read it on the back of a Frosties carton which I have waylaid, and hence it must be true.' when it comes to discussing things here on this board. If you find this disagreeable, stop reading. So, don't say you have not been warned I will be working from memory here though, so some errors are to be expected. It is late, and I can't be bothered to dig out the sources. With that said - I would be quite interested in a discussion of different recon doctrines of the powers involved in WW2. In that other thread, it was suggested that the Germans were somehow unique in fighting for information (called Gefechtsaufklaerung BTW), while all the other nations had a policy of sitting on their asses (I paraphrase) and just watching what the Germans were doing. There are various pieces of evidence that make me think this is not quite true. First of all would be the actual OOB of Allied forces. Both the British and the US forces had independent mechanized recce/mech Cav units on the Corps and divisional levels, of battalion size. They had recce platoons on BN level AFAIK, and presumably coy or plt size units on regimental level. I will ignore the latter two for the time being. I would divide (I maybe wrong in doing this) Recce in operational and tactical levels. The BN size units are IMO deployed for operational recce, and the smaller ones for tactical recce - in general. Looking at the TO&E, it becomes evident quite clearly that the intended role of these battalion size units was not necessarily to sit on their asses and watch the Germans go about their business. The vehicles sported include amongst others: </font> Staghound AC 6-pdr </font>Daimler AC 2-pdr </font>M8 AC 3,7cm </font>M7 HC 7,5cm howitzer </font>M3/5/6 Stuart tanks in armoured formations </font>Cromwell tanks in armoured reconnaissance battalions (although these were often just used as line armoured formations)</font>Integral artillery included 3" mortars for the British, and the M7 HC was mostly for indirect use, AIUI. This is a fair amount of firepower going along on the Recce mission, and I would be surprised if this was intended to be used for sitting around. In terms of infantry manpower, IIMU that Recce units were quite weak - that is logical, and was the case for the Germans too. If they hit a problem they could not solve with their limited resource, it would be appropriate to let others (the line BNs) take over. But the presence of a platoon called 'assault troop' in the British TO&E would indicate that this troop was to assault something. I close this particular discussion with saying that certainly the western allies were perfectly capable of fighting for information. Now for some evidence - Memoirs and unit histories including various Delaforce books, 'The South Albertas' etc. and this splendid page would indicate that they actually did every so often get in a scrap. In particular this sentence from the section on doctrine: Some scenarios that will depict such actions are Moon's 'A day in the cavalry' op from the CD, or my '49th Recce' (not as well), '5th Glosters move east' (both British) or 'Hasselt' (US mech Cav). On the tactical level, stealth was a lot more applicable. Gaining information about firing points, capturing prisoners, learning the outline of the position on the opposite side are often informations that are easier gained by sneaking, than by driving up an AC to see wherefrom it will draw fire. Now for the Red Army - that is a topic I know a lot less about, so my thoughts may very well be quite wrong. Again it is my understanding that independent Recce units existed at divisional level throughout the war. In 1941, these were supposed to be partly mechanised (with all those lovely tankettes and funny ACs) and fully motorised. They were certainly equipped to fight for information. Once the Germans had destroyed all the gun-armed ACs, and the lovely tankettes, the BA-64 became the only recce vehicle designed for the purpose. Troop transport was provided by lend-lease armoured HTs or lorries in mech formations. The Soviet doctrine evolved during the war, and later-on involved reconnaissance in serious force. Whole battalions were sent into the German lines on the eve of Bagration to establish the German firing points, and fortifications. If that is not fighting for information, I do not know what is. Memoirs that would lead me to believe that the Soviets also liked to fight for their intel include various division commanders' memoirs (322nd RD, 10th GRD), and a very interesting memoir (which I have yet to read fully) by a Polish Lieutenant who fought in armoured reconnaissance. Certainly an interesting topic, and in particular the role of forward detachments as elements of fighting reconnaissance is something I would like to learn more about. I would also be interested in comments on the German doctrine, something I do not know much about (other than that German ACs could get out of trouble as quickly as they got into it, acquired big guns during the war, and were generally oversized) Comments, refutations, seastories?