Andreas

Talk to me about it... Haven't been to AHF in months, so all I knew where the last conversations I had with him on that from earlier this year. Good to see he is getting closer to finishing it. Should be a good article, he always has a lot of interesting stuff. All the best Andreas

He has been preparing that article for a long long time, I think. I guess him finishing it depends on whether Marcus offers for him to publish it on AHF. All the best Andreas

With the parallel events in Russia, I have serious doubts that the necessary transport assets, as well as manpower and combat air assets, would have been found anytime before the situation in Russia cleared up in Spring 1942. Witness e.g. the use of Division Meindl as fire brigade on the Volkhov. By the time the pressure in the east eased, everybody was planning for Fall Blau, and a lot of transport planes had been lost supplying Demyansk and Kholm. September 41 is not only the soonest, but probably the only realistic point during which this attack could have happened. While regrouping in Russia, send transport and combat planes on a Md jolly for two-three weeks or so, to have them back in time for Typhoon. The drawback of this is that (unlike in 42), no sustained effort of suppression would have been undertaken, creating a much higher risk and likelyhood of losses. Whether the Malta garrison would have stood an attack in the same way that at least parts of the Crete garrison did is an open question in my view. Certainly the units of the garrison that went to Leros and Kos in 1943 did not cover themselves with glory there. I also wonder if the Maltese would have been as fired up for a good fight as at least some of the Cretans were. Timeline of the Siege of Malta All the best Andreas

Your illustrious colleague would like to point out that he presented holding at Alamein as a 'best' outcome. Watching Hustler TV while browsing this message board is clearly over-taxing your sensory input processing capabilities. Focus! Unless of course you meant Kesselring by 'your illustrious colleague' (which may work, considering your age), in which case the board's resident Nazihunter will be along to chase you down shortly. All the best Andreas

A look at the TO&E of a Commonwealth recce battalion should prove instructive in terms of the capabilities of the formations. Found e.g. in 'Salt's Snippets'. If you don't have the USOrg and Britorg documents, email me (Profile) and I send the documents to you. From one of Delaforce's books, it appears that the modus operandi during the dash across northern France was as follows: 1) Recce party consisting of ACs motors along. 2) They run into an ambush (noted by one of the Humbers disintegrating under shell impact, with the driver usually a casualty) 3) They bring up the assault platoon backed by the 3" mortars and Vickers to dislodge the Germans/Russians/Hungarians/Volksdeutsche/Moongoose opposing them 4) Lather, rinse, repeat 5) If 3) does not work because the opposition is rather determined, a set-piece battle would develop involving the lead infantry battalion of the lead brigade. Just like German recce formations, Commonwealth recce units were also used for flank protection in static situations. Apparently the book to read is 'Only the enemy in front'. The scenario to play is CMBO (with recent CMAK conversion) '49th Recce', or another one of my CMBO scenarios, whose name now escapes me (it might be 'Another Village'). Somebody else will be along shortly explaining why I am wrong, why my scenarios suck, and what the X-country capabilities of the Marmon-Herrington really were. All the best Andreas

A look at the TO&E of a Commonwealth recce battalion should prove instructive in terms of the capabilities of the formations. Found e.g. in 'Salt's Snippets'. If you don't have the USOrg and Britorg documents, email me (Profile) and I send the documents to you. From one of Delaforce's books, it appears that the modus operandi during the dash across northern France was as follows: 1) Recce party consisting of ACs motors along. 2) They run into an ambush (noted by one of the Humbers disintegrating under shell impact, with the driver usually a casualty) 3) They bring up the assault platoon backed by the 3" mortars and Vickers to dislodge the Germans/Russians/Hungarians/Volksdeutsche/Moongoose opposing them 4) Lather, rinse, repeat 5) If 3) does not work because the opposition is rather determined, a set-piece battle would develop involving the lead infantry battalion of the lead brigade. Just like German recce formations, Commonwealth recce units were also used for flank protection in static situations. Apparently the book to read is 'Only the enemy in front'. The scenario to play is CMBO (with recent CMAK conversion) '49th Recce', or another one of my CMBO scenarios, whose name now escapes me (it might be 'Another Village'). Somebody else will be along shortly explaining why I am wrong, why my scenarios suck, and what the X-country capabilities of the Marmon-Herrington really were. All the best Andreas

Will the monologue contain something on Eisenbahnbaubatallione? Or will it be restricted to Strassenbaubatallione? In which case I would not be interested. All the best Andreas

Deathknell, and no. It would have enabled the Axis forces to hold on to North Africa, but it would not have changed the theatre from being a backwater in the overall German planning (if that is the right term) of the war's strategy. The best the Axis could hope for was a stalemate on the Egyptian border, after taking out Malta and thereby resolving the supply issue to some degree. All the best Andreas

Plus the divisional replacement battalion. Minus one regiment if Jäger or Gebirgsjäger division. Minus one regiment, and each of the two remaining regiments (post 1939) minus one battalion if motorisierte Infanterie or Panzerdivision. Etc.pp. Minus most of the list if a British division at Waterloo. All the best Andreas

I know. All the best Andreas

I have seen the 28/20 in the OOB for a Panzer unit, ISTR it was in the AT Coy of the Panzergren regiment of 6. PD during or after Wintergewitter. There was however a special, light-weight version for the paras. Lexikon der Wehrmacht All the best Andreas

Mr. Picky would like to point out that those divisions were not understrength, but on a different TO&E. All the best Andreas

I think however that stacking will (despite shortcomings in the CM engine) not always work, because of the human element. This is based on my experience from CMMC, where I have seen operational and tactical commanders on both sides take some spectacularly bad decisions. in CMMC1, the Allied side managed to defeat the German thrust (but not win the game) by a defense in depth. I have seen battles there where a whole reinforced battalion was ground up by a German armoured attack. In the next battle, that same armoured spearhead consisting of numerous Panthers was mauled very badly in an ambush by two Churchills and a few 57mm ATGs, because the German commander got cocky, and the British tactical commander was a genius. If the attacker has a large advantage and is playing the top of his game, he should not have trouble defeating the defense. But that does not always happen. I think Jason is right to raise the problem, and I do not think that any of the replies thus far have really addressed his point. I disagree - the attacker will only get punished if he does not pre-empt this action. If the campaign is good, it should have a realistic OOB, giving the attacker the assets (e.g. in the form of mobile AT or reserve AFV formations) to defeat such attempts at counter-attack. I do not believe that in a realistic campaign you will see lots of maneuvering and counter-encircling going on. That's early war stuff. The average CMC player will quickly figure out to avoid such mistakes. All the best Andreas

A comparatively big HE charge in the round makes for a better behind-armour effect. Also, the game simulates manufacturing flaws in the early war ammo for the 45, reducing its penetration capability. All the best Andreas

Probably a site bandwith issue. I have had trouble in the past as well, but more in that it takes ages. You can forget about just clicking and opening them in a browser though, you need to right-click and save the file. That does work for me (I just checked). All the best Andreas

If it had been that easy, the Germans would still be in Romania. All the best Andreas

A minor point before this gets locked up. I am not belittling the Soviet contribution. It is clear that without it the western Allies would never have finished off the Germans. But at the same time, it was a team effort by all those involved. I think the Red Army would eventually have won, with or without an invasion, with or without the bombing campaign, with or without lend-lease. But remove any of these and it would have been even bloodier for the Soviets, if that is imagineable, and remove all and it gets difficult to imagine how they could have won it. But had they managed they would have had more of Europe under their thumb to show for it too. All the best Andreas

I visited Budapest last week, and a few pictures can be found here: Page I of pictures from Budapest Not all Siege of Budapest, but some nice kit to see. Budapest has a military history museum on Castle Hill that is well worth visiting, not only because it is free. But that helps for cheap people like me. All the best Andreas

Jason - I don't think that we disagree. I am just confused I guess because it appears to me that you use 'stacking' and 'overloading' describing different actions, maybe one unsuccessful, while the other is successful. I had brought the same examples you brought in your post-before-last above. What I am saying is that the game should not artifically punish stacking/overloading (to me that is the same thing), because historically it worked sometimes, and whether it worked or not was to some degree depending on the skills of the commanders on both sides, and to some degree on the local situation. So in CMC I would expect a good commander/team to get away with it if he/they play a bad commander/team, and if the local situation allows. And in the converse case the game should allow the defender to spank the attacker very very badly. But ideally, CMC would allow me to set up a battle like the Iassy one, in which the defenders are going to get beaten no matter what, but where the victory conditions can be specified in such a way that they can win despite being wiped out, because of the victory conditions. All the best Andreas

Shrug. Who cares? The logic still is not obvious to me. Tombraider II is also a game. All the best Andreas

How is deportation (where to?) different from extinction in this case? What about the not exactly insignificant number of Jews in western Russia whose life expectancy dropped to somewhere close to 0 if they were overrun by the Wehrmacht? The Viet Nam comparison is not really relevant, since the war never threatened the US home, life style, and existence. I am not aware that there were any plans to introduce own-rule for the Russian/Ukrainian satellites. The plan was for colonies, in which the agricultural population would be allowed to slave-work on the large farms, while the urban population would just disappear - hunger, disease, active killing. Maybe (and that is a big maybe) own-rule would have come for the Baltic states, but otherwise that was simply not on offer under the post-victory plans. The war was total, from day one. To submit to this would have been irrational and criminal on the part of the Soviet, or any other leadership, democratic or not. All the best Andreas

1) No democracy or modern state would have surrendered under similar conditions, if it was clear that to do so would mean complete subjugation as Untermenschen. The Soviets could read, and they knew the programme that was in store for them. That is the difference to 1918, when the Kaiserreich had no racial and political ideology that included murdering the occupants of the occupied territories. There was no negotiated peace treaty on offer to Stalin and the Soviets, it was from day one a war of extinction. 2) Stalin a lunatic - I think not. A cunning mass murderer yes, but he was completely rational in his actions. And completely immoral. 3) Your description of the fighting in the West bears little resemblance to historical events. The German soldiers there were not demoralised, and they were well supplied with tanks, compared to their comrades in the east. In fact, if those tanks had not been tied down in the west, the great Soviet summer offensives of 1944 would have hit much harder resistance. All the best Andreas

They are included in the 11m figure, AFAIK. There has been a fairly involved discussion on the AHF on this matter. The 11m (actually somewhat less) is based on Krivosheev's research in the Russian archives. All the best Andreas

So what the Soviets did at Iassy was not overloading? What was it then? All the best Andreas

Nice sig you've got there. Alles Gute Andreas