Andreas

K_Tiger - aiming for the turret ring was practiced in training a lot, according to info from the father of a friend of mine who was with an AT unit in a Panzerdivision (France and Italy), crewing a 3,7cm PAK35. He says that they could hit turret rings of moving tanks regularly in exercises. A turret ring hit does not need to penetrate to disable the tank - it won't kill it, but it usually induces the crew to retire and get it fixed. BTW - my comment about pressure on the crew was not aimed at you specifically, but at the discussion in general. Where did your grandfather serve? Mine was in AG North, at Leningrad. I have some pictures at the site linked in my sig (Beobachtungsabteilung). tero - I guess I don't play enough to have that sort of data. BTW - if you want to simulate zeroing in of AT guns, you need to use TRPs on the spot where the gun is zeroed in to. It is my understanding that the presence of a TRP increases to hit chance. It follows that zeroing in is in fact modelled through TRPs, and all claims about guns missing at first shots are talking about non-zeroed in guns, unless a TRP was present.

K_Tiger, since you are wondering. I posted this to illustrate that there is no such thing as a 'the gun should hit 4 times out of 5 at 150m, because it has a flat trajectory and the target is the size of a barn and my little indicator tells me that the probability to hit is 80%'. There are a lot of things outside the pure mechanics of the weapon that influence whether a crew hits with the weapon it operates, and a lot of these are modelled in CMBO, and even more maybe modelled in CMBB. Just looking at the '80% to hit chance' tells you diddly squat, if you excuse my voyage into the vernacular. All this going on about how wonderful a gun the 88LXX was and that it should never miss or somefink, or can take out a fly's eyeball at 3,000 yards at the first shot misses the point. I.e. that no matter what piece of equipment you have, it is used by humans in a highly adrenaline charged situation, and that this has a rather large effect on the way results are arrived at. IRL™ and to some extent in-game too.

My favourite RL example of 88L71 accuracy is still the case of an 88 in Russia, firing at a KV-1 bearing down on it at 50 yards or so, and missing. I wonder if this was poor modelling of the gun on the part of reality. I mean really, did these gunners know that they could not miss? My second favourite one is the anecdote of an 88L71 firing at 7,000 yards in the Caucasus, achieving a first shot brew-up on a T-34 located in the valley below. I think these two are probably at the outer ends of the bell-curve for what the gun could do. Anything in between is an acceptable result to me.

Yeah! Bad, bad BTS, go and sit in a corner! Why does 'spoilt child' come to mind reading posts like yours, Incoming? BTS are still a very small company, and they all have their hands full. I am sure Steve tosses in the presumably few hours of sleep he can grab about your unhappyness with their information policy... I mean, really, maybe you should try and get a grip.

Oh golly Seanachai, I did not put you down as one of those people who use the term 'artistic licence' as a readymade excuse for total ignorance and oblivious disregard for facts. Your statement about Shakespeare (apart from the implied arrogance of comparing your drivel to his magnificent writing) is just irrelevant, because the Bard did not have the access to the same sources we have today. If he had, he may well have used less 'artistic licence'. In closing - your metaphor stinks about as much as your rhyming. I hope you have a rotten day that will get worse overtime. I already have one - I have to go to West Bromwich for work.

I think that is good point about spotting and the value of the intel. Extreme FOW with none of the info we currently get would be helpful. CMBB may go further down that way - the problem is of course that at some point info has to become 'firm' for the spotter. James, I think I don't agree with your statement that no level of command is removed with your proposals - it is. If I can not act as the squad commander of every individual squad on the battlefield when I want it, that command level has to all intents and purposes been removed from the game. You may think that is desirable, or that the benefits of doing that outweigh the loss of control, but that is a different question.

What? Marcus Aurelius biting Seanachai in the arse? Afraid not, the movie is the poorer for it.

I am still with Kip on this one. I also think that there seems to have been very little of an argument here outlining where the command level should be situated, if you restrict it. The thing that makes CMBx (current engine) so attractive and replayable is that you can be the commander on all levels. Clearly that is only possible if you can flexibly switch between being the Squad/Platoon/Company/Battalion (S/P/C/B) command levels. Removing the possibility to command the squad as fully as the company not only takes one level out of the potential range of play, but it could e.g. restrict the playability of very small scenarios. At least that is how I understand some of the suggestions that were made here. In many ways, larger scenarios solve FOW a little bit by default, because it is no longer possible to collect and process the information as it is in a small scenario. So there is already an element of the command FOW in the game, without it being explicit. If you play a Der Kessel Byte Battle™, you will micro-manage, and care very much about the loss of a single vehicle, be it a Bren carrier, or the mauling of a squad. If you play Helge's 'Cintheaux Totalize', I somehow doubt that even a platoon of Panzers, or half a company is going to be much of an issue to you as the commander. So what people here clamour for is already there, at least in my way of playing - which is why I don't see absolute spotting as something that needs to be fixed. How would you expect the game to deal with command delays between the higher levels? If you are serious about this, you would have the scenario designer establish which level of command the player is playing, and that would fix the command delay. What would be the point of removing just one layer of command (S), but allowing the player to still command P/C/B? There are delays in getting information in and processing it from P to C, as there are from C to B. So, in a very large game, where the command level is B, you just sit around not doing a lot, once you have committed your forward assault companies. Don't like it? Well, it's realistic, isn't it? Maybe after 20 minutes the info is trickling in that makes you want to consider to commit your reserve company or break off the assault. Once you have done that, it is back to twiddling thumbs again for a while. I really have not seen the coherent argument that addresses Kip's point. I.e. command delay and information bottlenecks do not solely exist between squads and platoon HQs. They exist on all levels - what is the reason to just simulate them on one level, and not on all? What is the consequence of that to game-play? A game that allows instant comms between any level of command is inherently unrealistic (i.e. a game). So is the argument to restrict one level of unrealism (is that a word?) that some people don't like or care for? If not that, then what is the argument? Also, something else to think about is the immersiveness that would probably go. How many of us enjoy watching two tanks, or a tank and a squad fight it out? I doubt that would be possible to the degree it is now, since in some cases all you would ever see of the fight is the burning hulk or the casualty marker. How would you handle simultaneous combat with different information flow speed? I think that this is a problem that is far larger than just having squads not pass on spotting.

No, he's been out drinking, or so an informant tells me. It is obvious that alcohol has an interesting effect upon this lad. </font>

I am tending to favor this approach, but I'm not at all sure that BTS would. I have the impression that the one minute turn is integral to their whole conception of the game...but I would be happy to be proven wrong. Michael</font>

You are an American, so I shall go lightly on you, since history to someone from your trailer park probably only started when the new Drive-Thru Wendy's opened last year. Having said that, you do realise that Rome happily continued to hang around for another 400-500 years after the dodgy characters you mention (and that is just West Rome, East Rome/Byzantium made it through another 1300-1400 years), most of the time even without taxes, and still a marvel of civilisation? Well do you?! You Sir, fancying your chances of the Peng Thread taking over the board by allying itself with some 2nd rate uniform grog are about as realistic in your expectations as the Gauls were coming along to ravage Rome in 390 BC. Wait 340 years, and Caesar in 52BC paid it back to them, interest and all, leading to the establishment of the proud French surrender-monkey tradition. Still, go to France these days, and they will claim never to have heard of 'that Alesia'. One might even argue that the true height of the Roman Empire was only reached after the squabbles of the first century AD - but then again, I am sure you would not know Marcus Aurelius or Hadrian if they came along and bit you in the arse. More the fool you are. I look forward to continued world (well, board) domination by the grogs, arguing about how the absence of modelling Michael's sewing kit in TacOps fundamentally undermines the veracity of that simulation. Now go and hang your head in shame. I doubt you would make a good circus clown, and nobody should let a shady character of your ilk close to kids anyway. Shoo.

Is that a male or a female Rhino? According to this website, there is quite a difference in their ranging. Also, according to this website, a Hippo can beat a Rhino any day, when it comes to effective range: So there.

Hehe - I did not even see that one.

Was es nicht alles gibt... Cossackweb Site in English or Russian.

Skipper, thanks for the info on the Poles. I had read either in von Luck's or von Mellenthin's memoirs that is was most likely manufactured by German propaganda, but I had not known the more exact circumstances.

I would also recommend reading John Keegan's discussion of cavalry charges in 'The Face of Battle' (IIRC). That should dispel some illusions about them.

Are you 100% sure that those are actual pictures of an attack? I doubt it, from the position of the photographer in the lower picture. Zaloga in his 'Red Army Handbook' has a picture of a charge but labels it as training/posed, and not actual combat, IIRC. The further info you provide from Glantz very clearly indicates to me that charges just were not successful. So much so that Gehlen's information appears to dismiss them as a tactic by 1943, which is supported by Skipper's info. Edited because I can not tell 'upper' from 'lower'. [ April 19, 2002, 09:18 AM: Message edited by: Andreas ]

Markus, it is either a 'can of worms', or 'Pandora's Box' which you open. Seeing that the ancient Greeks did not have can-openers, the world would have been spared a thing or two if it had been 'Pandora's Can' (unless it had one of these convenient integrated opening mechanisms, of course, like a can of coke, or somefink - I had to say that to guard myself from the Wrath of the Cangrogs[tm]). I'll go and eat worms now.

From dictionary.com: mus·keg Pronunciation Key (mskg) also mas·keg (ms-) n. A swamp or bog formed by an accumulation of sphagnum moss, leaves, and decayed matter resembling peat. The manual is talking about the Arctic, not NW Europe.

Sorry mate, but I think this part of the statement is absolutely wrong. I am 100% certain that all other things being equal, a player who keeps his squads in C&C will always wipe the floor with an opponent who employs his squads (and in CMBB vehicles) helter-skelter, without due regard for the thin red line. Command delays and morale penalties will see to that. I am with Kip on this one - if I wanted to play the game you describe, I would get Airborne Assault, or play CMMC.

Some more points regarding your claims: - motorised divisions in CMBO (and presumably CMBB) are not modelled truck mounted, but as a squad type, therefore your comparison is in effect showing why BTS is right in their approach - motorcycle battalions (ditto - BTS has made a statement on how they will be modelled, do a search) - The success of the operation. Well, they broke through, granted. Care to tell us how many of them made it back or what the operational consequence of the breakthrough was? At best this can be described as a Phyrric victory, and I would be generous in doing so. So, despite you finding one example of a charge, the points remain: - cavalry charges are outside the scope of CMBB - horses were a vehicle for cavalry that would get them to the battlefield and enable them to achieve rapid maneuver in difficult terrain - cavalry as a general rule fought dismounted None of what you posted disproves that.

I think that is a misinterpretation. I have read that book and numerous others by Glantz, and the passage you lifted is the only one that I can remember talking of a charge. But feel free to refresh my memory. While you dig, may I also recommend looking at the US Army's 'Red Army Handbook TM 30-450' from November 1945, in which Soviet Cavalry force tactics are discussed in quite some detail (it is based on the information from Oberst Gehlen's 'Fremde Heere Ost' Department in OKH). It says things like 'Assaults are generally made dismounted' (p.88) or 'Whenever enemy resistance was strong, cavalry units dismounted and attacked together with the tanks' (p.89) 'Rapid transition from mounted to dismounted attack [...] are basic principles in effective pursuit operations.' (p.89) and 'Dismnounted assaults are made simultaneously from all directions' (p.94, talking about pursuit again). Cavalry was a successful arm of the Red Army, but not because it could attack mounted and scare the Germans by sabre waving. The foundation of its success was its high mobility and speed, combined with the fact that horses don't break down for mechanical reasons (while KV-1s do, a lot). Also, the wide spaces of Russia lent themselves to deep striking operations. To be frank, I think you are jumping to conclusions based on one example. The success you mention are due to the characteristics I mention above, not due to sabre charges. Did Soviet cavalry never use sabre charges? No, I am sure they did. Did they use sabre charges when they faced a defender that had fight in them - I don't think so. That is what CMBO models, and realistically, that is what they were there for. Get into the breach, exploit deeply, use maneuver, mobility and speed to surprise the enemy. If you come across a supply column, by all means charge it, but if you come across a prepared defender, use tactics.

What Mayer says on the matter is reasonably irrelevant If Meyer had admitted to any such thing, he could have been (and probably would have been) prosecuted by the West German state, and could very likely have ended up in jail. So I think there were some incentives for him to stick to that line. WWB - I disagree, I think that the political opinion of people can make their statements on events they were involved in (or not, as in the case of Carrell) very questionable. Also, as I said before, according to Reynolds Meyer was dramatising to quite some degree - which basically puts anything he says in doubt unless it is corroborated by an independent source. For scenario design I would look elsewhere. There are many good books covering the time around that will most likely be better sources. Then again, that is a matter of taste - to me, the political views of the man make me not want to pick up anything he wrote.

Haven't read 'Grenadiers', but IIRC 'Steel Inferno' (which is not without its own problems) does quite a good job at exposing Meyer for a bit of a drama queen, by comparing his constant 'my poor division got annihilated' to actual strength returns, which suggest nothing of the sort. So I would not go overboard on the historical correctness - I guess it is an amusing read if you can make yourself forget that the guy was apparently a convinced Nazi. Regarding Sepp Dietrich's abilities, he was not universally well regarded by the professional officers who had to deal with him (hardly surprising, seeing his NCO background), and he made a bit of a hash out of the Ardennes shoulder battle he was tasked with.