Andreas

There is actually a game-play reason for that, but I leave it up to Matt to answer it or not.

Kingfish forgot Trun, which is a Byte Battle. Also at Der Kessel. All of these are semi-historical, but To the last man is trying to get close to the real historical forces on the Canadian side. BTW - the best account of the fighting in St. Lambert that I know is in 'The South Albertas' by D. Graves. Enjoy.

Thanks, it is called poetic license You get screenies with the next installment, in which you will learn how Kapitan Ieremenko fared, whether newly demoted Leytenant Juraev managed to pull his finger out, what really happened to the cook, and whether Peter Pan and Wendie ever got properly married. Maybe if I figure out how to take screenies by then, I do one or two.

Thanks, very interesting. Are 'kriegsmaessige Bedingungen (which I translate as 'combatlike conditions', but not 'combat conditions') for the IVL70 primarily ambush conditions by any chance? Seeing that it was a Panzerjaeger. Edit - while a native speaker, I am not certain of the vernacular in this case. I don't proclaim to know what kriegsmaessige Bedingungen meant in an official report in 1944. [ April 30, 2002, 02:04 PM: Message edited by: Andreas ]

[slap]They did encounter Tigers in Normandy, some of them (very few even Koenigstiger variant.[/slap] A number of sPzAbt were present in Normandy.

Soddball, the 17-pdr was probably the best AT gun of the war, so there is nothing wrong with it defeating the Tiger at any range as far as I am concerned. It came as a very bad surprise to the Germans in Tunisia, who just thought they had gotten themselves a tank that would shake off the 6-pdr. By 1944 the Tiger I was outdated and beyond its prime. It acquired its reputation against Sherman 76s on the Steppe, and the fact that the Germans stopped producing it in August 1944 shows that they understood that as well.

Just to reiterate - the Tiger did not get its reputation as a close-in, knife-fighting weapon. Neither did the Nashorn or the Elefant. On the contrary in the latter case, it fared extremely badly doing so. These are long-range, stand-off weapon systems, designed to destroy an opponent that can not touch you in open battle (Tiger v. T-34/76 or KV-1) or from an ambush (Nashorn/IVL70/Elefant v. the above). They did not earn their reputation by fighting it out at 250m, in fact they lost it that way. If you test them in that environment, you will conclusively prove that if you use the tank in an ahistoric manner, it will perform in an ahistoric manner. Anyone claiming that you don't hit at extreme ranges in CMBO, I suggest you try again. The 88 and the 75L48 are perfectly capable of achieving hits at long ranges (defined as >1,600m, or roughly twice muzzle velocity). Depending on crew quality, also first shot hits.

Soddball, one interestig statistic would be how often Shermans did face Tigers at 250m on the Western Front. My suspicion is that it would not have been that often, so the test is really not that relevant as it is creating an artificial situation. At 800m (a much more standard range) they had good reason to be afraid, since they could not penetrate the Tiger, while the 88 easily could go through their Sherman. Mattias, I too would be interested in what kind of situations they were talking about. Do you know?

Tom, you are falling into the old trap again. There is no such thing as your regular Tiger @ 250m. That regular Tiger is being shot at, in a multiple target environment, yada yada. We have been around this before. Using physics but ignoring the human equation is the straight way to a 'garbage-in = garbage-out' equation.

I would rather go with Mattias explanation as well. The Germans post-war went for wheeled lightly-armed (20mm + 1 MG3) recon vehicles as well (the 8-wheeler, incidentally called 'Lynx'), and not for fully-tracked fully armoured vehicles. I think it is more a matter of doctrinal thinking than 'uh, we could have won the war if we had not overlooked the smashing potential of the light tank, you know'. Mind you, the Stuart was not used for fighting in Real Life as it is now in CMBO, unless there was no other way. It was used for recce, and its speed was used to get you out of trouble quicker than you got into it, while the pop-gun was used to frighten hostile crunchies. If you read the accounts of the recce squadron of the South Albertas this will become quite clear.

I tried being a shining beacon of intellectual discussion and in-depth knowledge on the board. In the end I settled for shameless adulation and I got me a Betatester place. You have to know when to abandon pretense and ambition to get anywhere in this world, ya know...

Gospodin Ethanovich, I am pleased to inform you that the cook has been exposed as the fascist traitor Trotskyist swine that he was, and assigned to mine-sweeping duties. Faced with the enormity of his crime, he confessed and repented. Let this be a warning to all traitors to the Rhodina. For the motherland, Jefremovich James, we posted at the same time. It was against the AI.

von Lucke, thanks. This was a battle against the AI, so there won't be a review of the German side. Depending on my availability and motivation over the next few weeks, I will write some more AARs on battles I test, and hand them to Matt for doing stuff with them.

Scott is correct. The barrage was fired on a predetermined line at the start, and was not switched. I would be interested in a bit more discussion of this matter though - did the Red Army artillery really not have the ability to use their 76mm guns in indirect mode in 1941 at all? I find that hard to believe, but I don't know enough about it.

Cory, according to my ingame stats, it is the PzB39, 7.92mm ATR. Have a look at Hofbauer's Panzerfaust site for more info, I am sure there is more. Wolfe - 'AT artillery' is a term I use for AT guns. The Red Army referred to them generally as 'artillery' in many documents I have seen, and in the British Army, dedicated TD units were part of the Royal Artillery. So no, it is not some kind of AT mortar. Kip - the pictures you saw were probably later war guns with bigger 'booms'. I am quite convinced that the very light guns (in this example a 3,7cm Pak35) could remain undetected, especially if you take the following into account: - only the tanks had LOS to the gun (they had to withdraw from a more exposed position due to persistent ATR fire) - Red Army tanks in this battle had a two-man turret and were buttoned Someone also raised the use of 76mm guns in indirect fire. Thanks for that pointer. I was never quite sure on how these guns were employed. I know a lot was in DF mode only, but are you quite sure that this was the only possible mode? BTW - the report is detailing the first battle of an operation I designed. Unfortunately I am not allowed to tell you how much fun I have testing this game. If Madmatt knew how much, he would probably charge me for the privilege.

It is my understanding that it does not show up in the to-hit chance, but that the fire of a gun becomes more accurate. I have done very limited testing that confirmed that to me. ISTR that is how Moon explained it to me once too.

ohhhhhh, yeaaaaahhhh, now thaaat would be looovvveeellllyyy (or somefink)

If all that was that easy, why did they bother with the funny-coloured measuring sticks? Just from a quick 'few seconds' glance through your magical Scherenfernrohr you know the distance to a spot 2km hence accurately enough to hit a small moving object? I would like to hear that from someone who has actually done it, under combat conditions. Also, I am reasonably certain that you assume that far more info was passed on to the gunners than was the case in reality. Remember that below platoon level (and often below battalion level) at least the Germans preferred to give orders orally. Which means they had to be succinct. The examples of these orders that I have seen talked about go in no way towards the detail you assume. What is wrong with TRPs? Except that you don't like them as a modelling tool? Have you actually ever tried using them for DF guns?

Clearer, yes. Correct, probably not. You are assuming that stress levels are the same. This is not necessarily the case. If you have one Tiger in the open targetted by four Fireflies in hull-down, do you think that the Firefly crews are going to be as stressed about this incident as the Tiger crew? If you do think that, why do you think that? Regarding the gyros. BTS has always been open to be persuaded that gyros were disabled or not used. The last evidence I have seen was at best anecdotal, and there is anecdotal evidence to the contrary too. I suggest you do a search with BTS member number and 'gyro' or somefink. So no, 'we all' don't know that gyros were disconnected.

A CMBO battle is averaging at 30mins. The type of battles you talk about took longer, and there was more time to bring up the guns and emplace them. Particularly in the desert, the Germans also used a screen of AT guns behind their tanks combined with the British cavalry idiocy to kill them a lot, IIRC. The German tanks would attack, withdraw, and then be pursued by British tanks. These would then run into a screen of AT guns and die. For a CMBO battle, you would have to assume that this set-up has happened. You also have to find someone very stupid to play against. One feature CMBO does not model is that the 88 could be fired while still on wheels (lots of dramatic shots of that around). There are desert pictures where the gunner stayed seated on the gun instead of in the prime mover, presumably to be able to engage a target immediately when the combination stopped. ISTR that the reason for not modelling this ability is because it would be used all the time, and not just in exceptional situations. It is also doubtful how appropriate this tactic would be for CMBO.

Thanks Skipper, very informative.

Tero, I wonder what is so hard to understand in the sentence 'CMBO uses TRPs to model zeroed-in guns - if you do not have a TRP, your gun is presumed not zeroed-in in CMBO'. Please enlighten me. As for in-game data, I have seen a crack Tiger kill a Cromwell with the first shot at 1,600+m, and regular Panzer IVs achieve 2nd or 3rd shot kills on Shermans at 1,800+m distance. I have also seen a Jagdpanzer IVL70 kill two Shermans at 1,400m or thereabouts with five shots. All the while the Allied tanks did not even get close to hitting anything, let alone being in a position to do damage. Anyone wanting to observe long-range tank gunnery in CMBO and the difference between Panzer Ivs and Shermans should play 'Cintheaux Totalize' from Der Kessel.

It was Pillar who posted it, I think.

Blood and Marriage? Ehe = marriage Ehre = Honour

Does anyone have information on the capabilities/quality of Soviet 21st Army attacking the southern flank of AG centre near Rogachev in mid-July? If so, I'd be interested to know a bit more about it. Also a bit more information on Yelnia would be welcome. TIA