Count Sessine

In June 1944, 1SS, 2SS, 9SS, 10SS, 12SS and 17SS were all experienced outfits (I would label them veteran and crack in CM, esp. 1 and 2SS), withdrawn from the Eastern Front specifically to counter allied landings in France. After the Falaise collapse, however, these divisions were destroyed and what the allies encountered in the winter 1944-45 was a different story. At this point the SS drafted 'ordinary' people in large numbers, and was not, morale wise, to be considered 'elite' troops any more. Until the end, they retained their an edge in equipment compared to ordinary Wehrmacht formations. In his memoires, General Guderian has much praise for the combat value of the Waffen-SS divisions, which he thought should be differentiated from units of the regular SS, ie. the Dirlewanger Brigade, that was nothing more than thugs (Guderian writes that he's overheard SS-Brigadefuhrer Fegelein telling Hitler this. Fegelein was Hitlers brother-in-law and SS representative in Fuhrer HQ). Does CM model different behaviour for different unit types? /CS [This message has been edited by Count Sessine (edited 07-16-2000).]

Concerning ASL Veterans comments on night combat he most definitely has a point... gunflashes, flareguns should be included, but hell, perhaps we could give the designers some slack LOL. /CS

Mark: I got a review copy for my review in Politiken this upcoming Thursday (or maybe next thursday, depending on the editorial whims), which should hopefully generate a lot of sales here in DK. Phoenix: I've read a lot about the bombing of the Shell-house. My grandfather (farfar)always tells the story, as he was nearby when it happened. It must have been a rare example of precision bombing (or rather trying to) in WW2... BTW, did you guys know that Steve Grammont has danish origins as well ? /CS

Well, that's good to hear. As Kingfish, I'm curious to know whether there's any good advise as to positioning and such, that you guys could give ? It would seem that I've been pretty unlucky with my AA too... /CS

How does AA work, indeed, does it work? *Little spoiler* I have played the interesting scenario 'Jabo's!' by Dick Reece three times, and in this I had something like 6 Wirbelwinds lined up in close proximity. Whenever the jabo's attacked, which they did just about every other turn, the Wirbelwinds turned towards the incoming fighers (often shifting between targets several times during a turn, making their fire completely ineffectual) and fired their guns. Problem is that they never, not once, hit anything !! This deserves to be looked into, as its pretty much the germans only defense against jabo's, which intrinsically are very annoying, since its pretty much a 'throw with a dice' and not something a german player can do much about (apart from parking vehicles under scattered trees, from what I hear)... Has anyone ever seen AA guns hit anything ? /CS

A couple of weeks ago. /CS

Min røg igennem uden told... /CS

Hi guys, I'm posting a review of Combat Mission in next weeks edition of Politikens Internet section. That should expend danish awareness of the game substantially /MW I'm on for PBEM's.

Well, well. Thanks for the qualified support, JTMauney. Its nice to know I'm not alone with my point of view. My experiences with armylife is limited to a two year period as a sergeant in the Danish Royal Guards regiment, infantry, and since that was before Bosnia I never saw active duty. But my initial reaction to artillery effectiveness in CM was that, wow, those german East Front veterans sure gets scared easily, running like little girls, like you said LOL. I hope your input revives my case, that at least arty damage when soldiers are in foxholes should be dramatically toned down. /CS

Hi Morten, I actually received my copy monday in Copenhagen. Since we're both in the same timezone, so to speak , we could perhaps consider a PBEM when you receive your copy ? /CS Frederiksberg

I spoke with my girlfriend on the cellphone, and she said that the lead singer fom Pearl Jam broke down and started crying when he realised how bad things were going... What can I say... **** happens, but I think they were right not to shut it down, after all. Tragic accident. Nobodys fault in particular, unless you want to blame security mesures, or lack thereoff, but I'm not sure thats an issue, at least not with the police. /CS

Yes. I heard it at 2 o'clock this morning. My girlfriend is there, so a bit of worrying ensued, needlessly, as it turned out. It fortifies my distrust of large crowds... /CS

I received my copy monday 26th, and I'm in Copenhagen. One would think our new bridge should facilitate these matters /CS

I too would like an answer to that question... /CS

Hi guys, I too loaded up the scenario as one of the first, but I was quite disappointed with it. I know only of the Villiers-Bocage incident from various historical sources, and from what I have gained through these, the scenario map seems to be totally unhistorical. Its a bit difficult to go into, but the terrain around V-Bocage is NOT flat, and the village was smaller than is depicted here. Its too bad, but it just might make me do my first scenario ... This serves to illustrate the importance of the maps. They vary a lot in the game. Some are beautiful and look 'real', which is important for immersion, others are uninspired and do CM's graphics engine little justice. Examples: the first map in the 6 FJ reg operation is very good, whereas the Arnhem map seem too sterile. Just a few thoughts. /CS

Gentlemen, Since the consensus seems to be that the artillery is satisfying as it is presently modelled in CM, I’ll button up for now As for the Artillery as the number one killer, I wasn’t aware of the statistics made by the US Army, but faced with facts (or statistics), I fold (if that’s an expression in english). However, one could turn the argument about harassing fire around, and state that since no one can tell who gets killed by what kind of artillery fire (FO directed or harassing), one could legimately speculate about the ratio. Its possible that ‘surprise’ harrassing, or interdiction, fire killed more people than frontline bombardments, which after all, couldn’t achieve the element of surprise. As told by Stetter in my first anecdote, fetching supplies in the rear of the frontline could be a rather scary experience because of the random interdiction fire. I understand the reason behind Steve’s choice of the VoT scenario for the Gold Demo. Good choice. The 105 artillery has presented me with some excellent opportunites of impressing my friends… Someone mentioned Raymond Gantter’s ‘Roll me over’ book. In a very interesting encounter, where his company unwittingly runs into a prepared german assault, and generally takes a beating during 5 or 6 hours of intense village fighting, the americans finally manages to call in artillery on the village. Three (3!) whole field artillery battalions bombard the village for sixty minutes. This completely levels the village, makes even the americans tremble when they try to light cigarettes afterwards (they weren’t hit), and concludes the battle in american favour. This incident is telling in many ways. First that sometimes local battles last for longer than 30-40 minutes. Second, (remember this when you design scenarios), that although the 1st US Inf Div was considered a crack formation in the US Army it was by no means used to intense fighting at this point of the war, that is the beginning of 1945. Raymond Gantter himself, and his platoon with him, indeed most of the company, panicked and ran during this battle. It isn’t surprising, when you consider their combat losses: Gantter joined the ourfit in September/November ’44, and by May ’45 he and another guy were the only ones left in his platoon from the previous automn… Gantter also tells, that during his 10 months as a platoon CO with this outfit, he never, as in never, had the full TOE of his platoon. According to Gantter, his available manpower usually gravitated around 20 men, for a platoon that was nominally 30 or so. This is an overlooked aspect in scenarios, which doesn’t cease to annoy me as I often play as the germans /CS

Thanks for the kind responses. It is true that the first account mainly deals with harassing fire. This doesn’t negate the information about the damage done by an exploding shell merely 10 meters away. The second account, however, most definitely falls within our VoT category of a well planned and targeted fire mission. As for the cellars, it seems true that since soldiers seemed to use them all the time during bombardments it’s a disaster for any defender in Combat Mission that they’re missing from the game. I can very well believe that artillery was an important weapon in WW2. Whether it was the number one killer or not is likely a matter of conjecture. What is more certain, is that if artillery effectiveness was as high in WW2 as I think it is in CM, I find it hard to believe Germany could have kept any divisions on the frontline, for more than a few hours before they were whittled down, much less dreamed of initiating local counter attacks in the face of such overwhelming fire. And, despite the excellent american field artillery, this was clearly not the case. Counter attacks could proceed in the face of artillery fire, a three minute bombardment of dugin troops did most definitely not remove them as a threat, and concrete bunkers did not blow up whenever a tank decided to lob a few shells in its direction. In VoT, the US combat engineers don’t have anything to do. The tanks deal just fine with bunkers. Its satisfying that the bunkers vulnerability is increased in the patch. Artillery should be toned down in CM, or rather the damage it does should ‘lean’ more towards morale and movement penalties. /CS

Hi everyone, Combat Mission is the game I have been waiting for for something like 15 years. Ever since I first played D-Day on my old ZX Spectrum, I’ve longed for a more realistic, and historically accurate simulation of WW2 combat. And since I know I’m going to spend a lot of time with this game in the future, I would like to join the ongoing debate about, and if possible, influence, its future evolution. I haven’t got a copy of the full game yet, so these comments are based on the Gold Demo, and especially the VoT scenario. For some time now, I have been wondering how BTS would historically defend the excessive casualties an artillery bombardment (ie. the 105mm in VoT) always incurs. I have tested the results of a bombardment on soldiers in all sorts of terrain, and the result is almost always identical. If a squad finds itself in, or close to, the epicenter of a bombardment the squad is eliminated. It doesn’t matter if its in foxholes, trees or open terrain. It doesn’t matter if its moving or prone. The result is the same. Of course there are variances on the pattern. It would seem that being in foxholes hiding could possibly extend its survival with a minute or two, but this might just as well be my imagination. I can’t even begin to imagine the devastating effect of a 150mm bombardment … Since I’m an avid reader of historical accounts I’ve tried to go back and find examples of first person accounts by people who has survived artillery in WW2. It seemed that the most appropriate period of the war for such a search, and most well documented, would be the Ardennes battles. I have found a book by a Roland Gaul ‘The battle of the Bulge in Luxembourg’, ed. Schiffer Military History, 1995, that throughly interviews soldiers from both sides, and of all ranks. The german accounts are generally very impressed by the sheer volume of US artillery fire. The american shells followed all german movements, by day and by night. The fire was precise, and vast numbers of shells could easily be brought down on any section of the front. Even veterans from the Eastern Front shows surprise at the intensity of the US artillery on the Western Front. There are many accounts, and selecting a few won’t prove or disprove anything about realworld artillery effectiveness in WW2, but neither does the parameters in Combat Mission. They are approximations, as they should be. Account by Unteroffizier Wilhelm Stetter, 3rd company, GR915, 352 VG Div.: “The trucks brought us as far forward as possible; then we had to go through the familiar thunder og the US artillery… Because of the constant artillery fire, we settled in a cellar that offered us some protection against the shells… Now every night we had to transport ammunition and rations from Hoesdorf for the two platoons located in Bettendorf, then load up with sacks of flour from the mill there and bring them back. And there were always American harassing fire, which was heavier in Hoesdorf than down on the Sauer. On January 6 I was almost caught by a direct hit, but was able to throw myself on the ground at the right time while the shell came in. The mortar exploded on the street ten meters from me but I was not wounded. On the next day, a shell went off right at the entrance to our cellar quarters. One of our men took a splinter through the knee and was taken away. How we envied him!”, page 98. This shows that the incoming shells were no surprise (they had plenty of sound cues) and because Stetter was a veteran from Russia, and as such an experienced soldier, he knew when to throw himsef on the ground. Except for a direct hit, Stetter as a soldier had a way to deal reasonably well with artillery (a realistic prospect of surviving it). He never expresses the belief that suffering an artillery bombardment was certain death. On the other hand artillery did have an effect. It consistently prevented movement, cut telephone cables between command posts, and scared the newly drafted soldiers into complete inactivity. One can also presume that stress levels due to lack of sleep increased and thus diminished overall combat efficiency. And now a very interesting account. Major Schubring-Griese (veteran of Russia and Poland), newly arrived battalion commander of GR916, 352 VG Div. remembers: “A messenger brought me down to Diekirch on foot, under constant artillery fire that served to block the road and the wooded slope north of Diekirch, where artillery observers were believed to be in the trees. This march on foot still seems endlessly long to me today. Not only the road and the north slope were under constant fire, but so was all of Diekirch.Anything that moved were fired on at once. Deeply shaken, I was taken to the battalions command post in the cellar of a hardware store… I had been in Diekirch only a few days when the new year of 1945 began. My fears, that were based on my experiences in Russia, proved to be justified. At midnight Diekrich trembled under a pounding by heavy artillery shells. The bombardment lasted almost ten minutes. No deaths or injuries occurred among the troops though. I had warned my men at the right time. I never heard of injuries among the civilian population.”, pages 110-111. Hmm. No deaths or injuries ?!? That couldn’t have happened in CM. This goes a long way to showing us, that soldiers in prepared positions, expecting an attack (as the germans are in VoT) could effectivily protect themselves against a heavy artillery bombardment lasting 10 minutes, which is a lot longer than the bombardment actually available to the US in VoT. I won’t go on, piling one account on top of the other. But there are more like these, and the general trend points toward the conclusion, that although artillery fire did kill a lot of troops, you had to be inordinately unlucky to have an entire platoon removed as a fighting force in a matter of two minutes, by ten 105mm shells. The effect was, as stated above, more on another level: communications delays, inactivity by panic, severe movement penalties and stress. Answer this question: in a Monte Cassino scenario, how would the german paratroopers survive in Combat Mission? The answer is, of course, that they wouldn’t.

The americans once knocked out my Panther with a top hit too, either by 81mm or 105 arty, so its not that uncommon in Combat Mission.

Yes, that's a really good start. Today I managed to knock out the 76 Sherman with a 81 mm mortar 'top hit at weak point'. I found that rather welcome, since my 75 AT gun was long gone, hehe.

I'll have to concur: especially the sIG150 is next to useless in the Vot scenario as it constantly, and ineffectively, changes between targets. The same problem applies to tanks: when there is a Sherman tank 60 meters away on the other side of the hill on which my Stug is positioned, it is extremely irritating when the Stug changes its facing 90 degrees (thus exposing its side) because of a fleeting (non-threatening) infantry target several hundreds of meters away. What I'm saying is, that in that situation it would be nice to be able to 'lock' its positioning, although I realize this goes somewhat against the game's justified philosophy about 'selfpreservation first'. But when its not a question of self-preservation ? And on the other hand wouldn't it be annoying if the units didn't autoengage at all...?? hmm. /CS

I wrote them an email over at 3dfiles.com, and what do you know (maybe it wasn't my email that triggered it, I like to think so though), the next day or so the demo was up on their site. /CS