Andreas

Public service bump for Matt's announcement.

On top of what Michael said, a lot of the Bren carriers captured in Northern France and Belgium in 1940 ended up in the east with a 'WH' number plate.

mch - great sig Nippy - sure that was not AT ammo for the 25-pdr or whatever they handed out for it?

Hey - I have a bridge in downtown Brooklyn to sell, and you look like just the kinda fella who would be interested in the deal...

The Bren carrier model is used for the Carro Leggero CV-33.

While we call Madmatt all sorts of names, nobody on the beta board ever called me Germanboy. You don't really want to know what they called me

If you like playing the Germans you also need your own delousing station - and lots of lice in your uniform, for that special trench itch...

I presume you could always order it from e.g. Amazon.co.uk, or some online UK software shop, not? I order lots of books in Germany from Amazon.de to be delivered here, and it is quite cheap.

Whose grass are you using? [ September 19, 2002, 07:58 AM: Message edited by: Andreas ]

There goes the thesis...

You lost - apparently they are delivering in reverse membership number, and Germans first. Suits the old-timers right, eh? First recipient to make it to the board

Email is in the profile. I am kzh, so I will be around most of the day. BTW - I am going to be in Worms at the end of October, so let's see if we can organise drinks or somefink, maybe with Helge and some of the other bottom-dwellers in the Rhein-Neckar region.

Oh, Parabellum, email me for a TCP game if you are interested.

Yeah, damn CDV, can't they get anything right?

I believe that it would have had to collapse quite a lot earlier (at least two months) to have that effect. The overstrength 6th PD arrived at Tatsinskaya and Kotelnikovo from 28th November. According to Raus, the failure of the Red Army to interfere with its deployment in the next ten days was quite critical. It is probably fair to say that once 6th PD and the other reinforcements arrived and had deployed, the chance for the Red Army to break through to the Sea of Asov and cut off the Germans in the Caucasus was gone.

Well, to say that the Soviets forces did not change much over the years war shows that you really don't kow a lot about them. I'd still be interested in where your figures come from. First time I have seen this 2:1 figure. Is that the same as the 5 Shermans for 1 Panther figure?

Had overlooked this one somehow so far. Very good read. Thanks for the link.

In a nutshell: Graphics are a bit dusted, the game rocks. Is that enough?

You want to bugger the post-office? Aren't there laws against that in Germany? Filthy lout you are...

While Erickson's books are excellent, I think that as introductory texts they are worse than useless. I find myself reading them again now that I have a much deeper knowledge of specific operations. Now I use them to pinpoint specific occurances, and set these into a larger frame. As an accessible one-volume text, you can not get anything better than Glantz/House 'Clash of Titans'. I think the accolades speak for themselves. Yes, it does only give one page on Kursk, but if that is not enough for you, then you just get the full treatment on Kursk in Glantz/House 'The battle of Kursk'. Provided you are still interested.

Daniel, I have no intention to start a fight either. I sensed there may have been a misunderstanding in your post regarding the coverage of these two DVs. I am happy to scan the pages for you, but to be honest, you may want to just get the book. At €16 it is worth it. Get it at Amazon.de. Regarding the prime movers and carriages, that is the reason given in the eastern front DV. As you will know, there was a continuous shortage of half-tracked vehicles in the theatre, and the risk of losing mobility due to some dashing cavalry/gun charge was probably deemed unacceptable. In the desert, things were different - warfare was more mobile, and engagement ranges were much longer, increasing the survivability of non-armoured prime-movers significantly. If you have access to any later-war DVs from the east, I'd be keen to see them. Clearly, the German manuals evolved over time, and took the experience of warfare in (with a time-lag for institutional digestion, as proven by the somewhat latish date of publication of the desert DV), so I would expect a 1944 manual to look different from the September 1942 one, which was probably based on experiences from around winter 41/42.

Daniel, please read my post closely. One (43) was the desert DV, the other (42) was for the eastern front. I only translated snippets from it - things I did not translate cover the offensive use of the 88. A matter of course in the desert, with instructions how individual guns should be commanded by an officer. Verboten in Russia, due to problems with the availability of prime movers and carriage (Lafetten) that did not allow this. This alone affects the incidence of firing while mounted. So unless you can dig out a DV for the east that says something different, I am inclined to stick by my conclusions. While soldiers often disobey DVs, this was a clear statement that an officer could use to disallow the offensive use of the gun. The DVs seem to take combat experience and operational factors into account. As the development of German DVs did during the war. So sorry, but you have to bring some evidence if you want to convince me.

First time I hear that - all the complaints by Germans I came across mention the T34 and the KV1 as their headaches. Not any of the other tanks.

Here is an AAR by MrSpkr:

I am already on here with lots of praise - no need to wait until Friday for that one.