ASL Veteran
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Posts posted by ASL Veteran
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You are playing a scenario or a Quick Battle? If you are playing a QB you would have to be playing with a map that had AI plans but if it's for a scenario then maybe if you say which scenario you are playing we can look at it.
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here is an instance where the turret crew bail out and the driver and radio operator remain fighting in the tank.
QuoteJust before the next terrace was when it happened. Both of us drove onto mines at practically the same time. We still had luck in our misfortune. Werner promptly brought our rig to a halt. The tracks were still on, and we had relatively good cover. However, we had only a very narrow field of fire. Feldwebel Wolf, who was about fifty meters to our left, and a little behind us was worse off. His tank had been moving forward at a good clip when his tracks were ripped off by the mines. His tank was positioned in the open without tracks. Our own artillery ceased its fire at about that moment. It had used up its ammunition.
Soon thereafter the other side started its own barrage. The Russian artillery fired without pause and gave special attention to Feldwebel Wolf’s tanks. At the same time, an extremely large number of Russian anti-tank guns started their target practice. The tanks were hammered.
We were able to silence the Russian anti-tank guns in our own narrow field of fire, but that didn’t do much to help our neighboring crew. They continued to be hit and could not defend themselves. Their main gun had been hit. During a break in the fire, the crew bailed out. Several members of the crew were severely wounded in the process. The radio operator did not make it.
(Snip)
We had missed out on the fact that the crew in the turret had bailed out. We had been totally involved in combating the Russians attacking in front of us. The escape hatch had been opened in the turret. We were all alone in the tank. It was high time that we found out what was going on behind us. Two of our tanks were immobilized not far from our own anti tank ditch. The German infantry had been swept away by the Russian artillery. We were all alone out there in the midst of those Russian bastards, about two and a half kilometers in front of our lines, and Russian infantry reinforcements had again infiltrated its own system of trenches.
The hope that the two tanks that were sitting behind us could be put back in action and help us turned out to be wishful thinking. It was a really difficult decision to abandon our tank. With covering fire from one or two tanks we could have stayed in our relatively well concealed position and fixed the tracks – if the Russian artillery left us in peace. The other option – waiting until dark and then clearing out – was overcome by events.
When there were too many Russian infantry already behind us for our own comfort, we decided that we would also bail out. For reasons of safety we chose to use our own hatches, which we cautiously opened. We then played a lively game with the Russian infantry. Constantly alternating, we set a cap on a machine gun barrel and showed it above the hatch. Each time it was greeted with furious infantry fire. We kept that maneuver up until there was only an occasional Russian reaction. Then we both leaped out simultaneously. We crept into a shallow depression behind the tank and agreed that since we were only armed with a pistol we would attempt to get back to our own lines separately.
So anyway, the long and the short of it is that people can quote regulations and from that derive opinions of what tank crews are supposed to do or act, but the reality can be something entirely different. The only way to know for sure what really happens is to read first hand accounts - lots of them because one veteran's experience will not always be the same as another veteran's experience, but you can sort of get a picture of what is probable and what isn't by sifting through the accounts collectively. Some of the ways reality differs from the game is
1. If a tank takes a casualty the tank retreats off the battlefield. There is no crew swapping of positions or anything like that. If the driver is dead or otherwise incapacitated then the tank is immobilized. If the driver is okay then he drives off the battlefield if any crewmember is killed or wounded.
2. If a tank takes a penetrating hit and actually notices it (sometimes they don't even know it), but no crewmembers are killed or wounded they will typically withdraw off the battlefield. Taking a penetrating hit and just sitting in place never happens unless the crew doesn't know that they took a hit.
2a. If a tank takes a non penetrating hit that causes damage to the vehicle it is likely that the vehicle will withdraw off the battlefield although this isn't 100 percent and it is situationally dependent. For example, a Tiger took a turret hit that knocked the turret MG back inside the turret which then knocked the gunner out cold. The tank withdrew from the battlefield. Another Tiger took a hit on the turret and the gunner's eyepiece was driven into his eye and blinded him so the vehicle withdrew from the battlefield. I guess that also falls into category 1 above.
3. If a tank crew bails out of a tank the crew retreats to friendly lines and counts themselves as lucky to have survived. They are lucky to have a pistol if they are armed with anything at all.
4. Just as many tank crewmen are killed in the process of bailing out of the tank due to jammed or blocked hatches or other complications as are killed when the tank is destroyed. In CM everyone gets out of the tank as there are no jammed or blocked hatches. A big offender in this is the PzIV with the turret skirts - if the turret is turned the skirts can block the driver and radio operator hatches. The Panther commander's hatch is also an offender since it apparently has some sort of a screw mechanism and can be difficult and time consuming to open in an emergency even if the hatch wasn't damaged.
5. A tank crew typically won't recrew a tank that they bailed out of, although it does happen on occasion it's relatively rare. I've never read an account where a recrewed tank immediately rejoins the fight though or recrews the tank when it is under fire with the intent of engaging the enemy. Usually there is time spent away from the vehicle and when it seems the situation has changed they might recrew it. Certainly no crew would jump back into a tank that wasn't theirs if the enemy is nearby since there is no way for them to know what the situation is with the tank mechanically if it's just sitting abandoned in a field somewhere.
That's all I can think of at the moment, but generally speaking tank crews in CM are already supermen in many ways. They don't need any additional morale boosters in the game. The problem is that if tanks acted the way they really act players would complain about it because their tanks aren't doing what they want their tanks to do so some compromises are to be expected.
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Okay so in fairness I decided to put a couple of good Soviet accounts up.
Just in case anyone had doubts about the veracity of the descriptions of tank crews bailing out of moving vehicles here you go. I should point out that these are Soviet veterans describing their own troops and not German accounts which some might doubt - although there are German accounts that describe the same thing
QuoteSome men could not overcome their fear. Some veterans described cases of crews abandoning their vehicles before they were hit. Anatoli Shvebig, Deputy Brigade Commander (Technical) of the 12th Guards Tank Corps, recalled: ‘This became more common at the end of the war. Say there was a battle going on. A crew would bail out and let their tank roll down a hill; the tank would drive on and be knocked out. This could be seen from our command posts. Of course, measures were taken against such tricks.’ Evgeni I Bessonov mentioned the same episode, which he saw during the Orel offensive ‘The tanks were knocked out, and it was the crew’s fault. They’d abandoned their vehicles beforehand and the tanks just rolled on towards the enemy empty.’ However, it would be wrong to say that this was common practice, because other veterans didn’t encounter such incidents.
This is just one of those things that make you go hmmm
QuoteThe German’s still didn’t have the means to burn KV tanks from the front. So the commander of the division to which the 20th Tank Brigade had been attached said: ‘Send a KV tank out onto the ice to cover the infantry.’ And the battalion commander said to me: ‘Son, you have to drive on the ice’. Well,’ I said, ‘you do know that the tank weighs forty-eight tons and it’s 21 January, which means that the ice isn’t forty centimeters thick yet and it won’t hold?’ ‘Son you have to drive on the ice otherwise the infantry won’t stand up. Make sure you don’t drive far, so that when you start to sink, you’ll still have time to jump out.’
My driver was Miroshnikov, a former actor from the Voroshilovo grad theater, who was four years older than me. So, I told him: ‘Miroshnikov, you just make sure you put the transmission in neutral if we go to the bottom that way when they pull the tank out it won’t drag, it’ll roll on its tracks’. ‘We know this Lieutenant, we know.’ Then I told the rest of the crew: ‘Don’t close the upper hatch.’
We drove seven to eight meters and then the tank sank to the bottom. Thank God that we all had the strength to swim to the shore in our tank overalls, padded jackets, and felt boots. The infantry had already seized the enemy shore, so there was no machine gun fire from that side.
Here is an extended account and at the end he basically explains why you might need to be cautious about taking some accounts at face value.
QuoteI saw a clearing bathed in sunlight at the other end of the village and had only one wish – to get to that clearing. If it was not defended, that would mean that the village was mine, and I wouldn’t advance further – I would have carried out my mission and stayed alive. As soon as I thought that, I saw through the periscope a German Anti-tank Gun! A round hit the side of my tank! The driver cried, ‘Commander! They killed radio operator Tarasov!’ I bent down to see Tarasov – he was all black, the round had gone right through him. There was another bang. The tank stalled and caught fire! We had to save ourselves because the tank was burning. I threw back the hatch, yelled ‘bail out’ to the other two crewmen, and jumped out into a potato field. Bullets whistled around.
I had been wounded and blood gushed from my left leg. The driver crawled over and said, ‘Lieutenant, give me your revolver and I will protect both you and me.’ ‘and where is yours?’ ‘Well, it got accidentally unhooked and remained in the tank.’ But I knew that he always took it off and laid it on the seat because it impeded his work with the levers, and so this time fate punished him. ‘No’, I said, ‘I can’t do that because I’m wounded, and if anything happened, I wouldn’t have anything to kill myself with, because I’m not going to give myself up as a prisoner to be tortured. And why did the tank stall?’ The driver told me that before the second hit the batteries which send the current to the starter, were damaged. ‘So why didn’t you try to start it with compressed air?’ ‘I forgot’ he said. While we lay there the tank stopped burning, ‘Why aren’t you burning?’ After all, if it didn’t burn, I was facing a penal battalion, because I only had the right to leave the tank under two circumstances: if it caught fire or if its armament was out of order. But now the gun was fine and the tank had stopped burning. It turned out that the tank itself wasn’t burning, but that the vapors inside it were. Once the vapors had burned out, and the oil burned out on the bottom as well, the tank had stopped burning.
I lay there thinking about my responsibility for the abandoned tank, and what would become of me if I survived. So I told the driver, ‘Crawl over there. You alone can crawl over there. The Germans think that we’re all gone, so crawl over there and try to start the tank.’ I wanted to live so badly! ‘Then’ I said ‘drive over us and try to get us in through the bottom hatch.’ Then I’d thought it was possible, because I really wanted to live, but now I understand that it was impossible. What kind of a driver, under enemy fire, would drive over us, open the bottom hatch, and pick me up, wounded, as well as Slepov, the loader? It was impossible.
The driver jumped into the tank. The tank let out a roar, turned like a dog chasing its tail, and drove back to our lines. Now I can see that he did the right thing. Otherwise if he had tried to pick us up we’d all have been killed. And so he went back to our lines and saved the tank. But back then …. Incidentally I later read an article about this battle in Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper. It said there: ‘Seven times the Germans set fire to the tank and seven times the driver put it out.’ Well this of course was all a lie, written by some battalion Komsomol secretary who’d never seen action.
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I'm not sure that's it, but the author is using the Japanese description of it (the book is from the Japanese perspective). They describe it as thin flat metal strips and they don't mention any barbs on it but maybe it is? Or maybe Piano Wire in Japanese is their word for Concertina wire and the author is just translating it exactly? However, the Japanese describe it as though it's some mysterious new thing that they never encountered before which seems odd if it was concertina wire, unless they just never saw any before?
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Okay, well maybe one last one just because it's so ridiculous for a tank to be taken out by a tree but odd things can happen I guess
QuoteMine was the panzer at the point. Since the stops to fire were becoming more and more risky, I raced towards the edge of the woods for cover. A shell exploding in the treetops turned out to be our undoing. The tree top fell down on us from a great height and hit the center of the vehicle in such an unfortunate way that the leafy branches cut off our visibility completely, the turret got stuck, and we were thus out of action. We quickly turned back and forth but were unable to strip the monster from us. I bailed out and wanted to get into another panzer. In the meantime, however, two of my vehicles had driven forward past me. They both were hit when they next stopped to fire. One lost a track, the other kept exchanging fire for a while yet. The fourth panzer had slid sideways into a shell crater and was also stuck. The panzers were out of action even before they were really involved in any.
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I found a couple of Japanese accounts so I figured I would post those. I could probably post a different account every day for the next couple of months, but I think I'll just put these Japanese ones up and leave it at that. These Japanese ones can probably be characterized as extreme behavior relative to what could be expected from tank crews for most armies.
QuoteAs for Lieutenant Ito’s 2nd Company, the regimental reserve had entered battle on the difficult right wing, between In and Tamaki, where its support was most needed. An anti-tank or artillery shell penetrated Ito’s ammunition compartment behind the driver, exploded, and set the fighting compartment ablaze with yellow flame. Ito was severely burned in the face and limbs. The enlisted gunner’s face and hands were also burned, and he was wounded by shell fragments. Flames seared the back of the corporal driver who was cut by fragments too. The tank’s engine stopped and could not be restarted. After fruitless efforts to put out the fire Ito decided to evacuate the tank. He struggled out of the turret, fainted from pain, and toppled to the ground. The driver managed to drag himself out of his seat, and the gunner painfully revived Ito when he accidentally fell on him. Visible to friend and foe because of the flames, Ito’s tank drew continued gunfire.
Oppressed by the need to resume command of his company, the lieutenant limped off with his men, the three of them leaning on one another, in search of friendly armor. After staggering 150 meters, Ito and his driver were picked up by the 2nd Platoon leader, 2nd lieutenant Niikura Masakichi, while the gunner, who could not get inside Niikura’s vehicle was rescued by another tank. Niikura remained in combat, engaging armored cars and overrunning enemy defenses. Having become separated from his own company by now, he managed to catch up with Captain In’s main force at the corner of the attack. Ito, blinded, lay inside Niikura’s tank, unable to command his company.
Ramifications of the action involving the unfortunate Ito remained to haunt Tamada, the 4th Regiment, and presumably the lieutenant. It was not reported immediately to the colonel that Ito’s tank had been abandoned on the battlefield. Intensive searches had to be conducted. No trace of Ito’s tank was discovered. The thunderstorm had undoubtedly put out the flames and the search officers could not be sure that they were scouring the exact area where Ito’s tank had been hit.
Only after the fighting on 6 July did Tamada learn the circumstances attending the loss of Ito’s tank. It had vanished by then only to reappear later in a Soviet photograph showing six exultant Russian soldiers clambering over the vehicle. The problem for the Japanese was the practice in the IJA tank corps for crews to meet the same fate as their vehicles. As Tamada tells it “Somebody came from Japan [the war ministry] and apparently went to see General Yasuoka. It was said that I, as the regimental commander, had to assume responsibility for this regrettable episode. The general, however, defended me and reached a generous decision: that cases such as this one could very well occur during close, confused combat.” Consequently Tamada was not obliged to commit suicide or be otherwise disgraced although the matter troubled him greatly.
Here is another one
QuoteWakabayashi broke out a red ball flag and tried to wave off what might be elements of Tamada’s 4th Regiment. All doubts about the identity of the attacking tanks were eliminated when they redoubled their fire.
Wakabayashi was heading for cover in a dip when his tankette was hit on the right rear. Fortunately for the crew the shell was a dud; only the fuse detonated, while the projectile itself landed behind the ammunition box. Wakabayashi’s tankette continued moving but fire broke out among the three smoke candles stored inside, and the machine gun ammunition began exploding. Although the tankette’s battery was damaged, the fuel tank remained intact. Actually the Japanese vehicle was saved by the fact that the burning candles emitted billows of smoke, causing the enemy to think that they had destroyed their target, which they stopped engaging. Using a fire extinguisher, Wakabayashi tried to douse and eject the candles. The smoke was choking the driver who opened the front exit and the hatch, kept his foot on the gas pedal, and continued driving the tankette, occasionally sticking out his head for air. Eventually the crew managed to throw out the smoke candles.
To the right, Wakabayashi discerned two Japanese medium tanks, silent and inanimate, although three Russian corpses lay nearby. Although Wakabayashi had lost his bearings he kept going until his tankette fell into a trench and its engine stalled. Luckily for him and his men, the trench belonged to a unit from the 64th Infantry Regiment. Dazed and hallucinating, Wakabayashi was treated for burns on both hands and for leg wounds caused by a spontaneously fired machine gun bullet.
and one more
QuoteA Japanese machine gunner saw two-meter rolls of troublesome piano wire that was thin, flat, and strong, like the mainspring of a watch. At various points it was tightened sideways in a shape resembling electric coils. The elastic, indestructible wire was strung in more than one line conveying the impression of ‘cotton carpeting the earth’. One infantryman encountered piano wire that was not coiled but instead posted ‘up, down, and sideways’ forming cross shaped netting amid grass 30 – 40 cm high. Two or three meters wide, and as long as an obi sash, the wire was stretched along the anticipated routes of advance of the Japanese. Nearly invisible when concealed in grass, collapsible and easily portable, the piano wire was a very handy defensive weapon. In many instances it separated tanks from infantry support, as intended by the enemy. A machine gunner from the 2nd Battalion of the Yamagata regiment remembers a rare instance of tank infantry cooperation near Heights 731, when three machines tried to move up in support of the foot troops and ran into piano wire entanglements. The wire coiled up deeper and deeper in the treads ‘Like butterflies caught in a spider web’ the tanks could move neither forwards or back and enemy gunfire pounded them mercilessly. Smoke billowed from the stricken vehicles, which won the admiration of the infantry by continuing to fire their machine guns despite their helplessness. Within 30 minutes the tanks had been scorched to destruction.
Not really sure what this piano wire stuff is. Apparently it was used by either the Mongolian or Soviet troops and it doesn't seem to be like normal barbed wire. Piano wire is the only way they describe it in the book "Nomonhan" so (shrug)
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Here are a few Tigers rampaging through a British battalion position who end up getting immobilized - one with a non penetrating hit from a PIAT and the other just running into the first one and getting stuck. All crews bail out and surrender
QuoteAt approximately 0600 hours we heard tank noises in the north. Some of us thought that those were Sherman tanks, but their unmistakable rattle could not be heard. A few minutes later, three German Tigers came into view. They immediately came under fire from all available weapons, machine guns and pistols, but they rolled undamaged through D company and reached the crossroads which was occupied by C company and the battalion staff. The road was blocked by the armored personnel carrier of the artillery observer. The point Tiger rammed it and pushed it through the wall of a barn until it had enough room to pass. The Tiger then attacked the carrier of the commander which had been hastily and unceremoniously abandoned. When the path was open, the Tiger continued toward B company. A keen radio operator had warned that company. Soon after we heard three loud bangs. The battalion staff believed that the Tigers had opened fire with their 88 mm guns, but a few minutes later the chief of B company called to express his regrets that one had got away. That was an understatement. The point Tiger had missed the brackets holding the Hawkins grenades deployed in the vicinity of the command post. The second Tiger however, detonated two of them and slipped into the road ditch. The third tank, driving at top speed as did the others, ran into the other Tiger stopped in front of him and which had in the meantime been hit by a PIAT. It’s gun muzzle was wedged tight under the baggage carrier of the second tank. The hit from the PIAT had not penetrated the armor, but both crews bailed out in all haste. Those crew members who survived were taken prisoner.
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So here is a Soviet account
QuoteHaving waited for darkness we set off for the crossing. Marder and I were covering the withdrawal with our two tanks. We were the last to reach the pontoon bridge and had already crossed the most exposed part, when strong cannon fire struck us from behind. I found time to tell Misha over the radio “We’re on fire!” Then I heard his reply “We’re on fire too!”
The Germans had managed to set both of our tanks ablaze by hits on the rear. One shell struck our transmission, and the engine caught fire. At the same moment, flares lit up the crossing and the riverbank. A storm of fire ensued! There was no chance to leap out through the turret hatches – everyone would be mowed down. We slipped out underneath the tank through the emergency floor hatch in the middle of the fighting compartment, having first grabbed the most necessary stuff: submachine guns, ammunition drums and hand grenades. We also removed a machine gun, first aid kit, and camouflage cloaks, and then hid in waiting beneath the tank. My entire crew was alive, not even wounded.
We had to find our way back to our lines. We looked at the map in the light of a pocket torch, determined a route and headed out. We noticed a column of smoke rising from the ground ahead of us. Having approached it, we discerned a whole row of dugouts, with a sentry strolling about. The German was scared at first, but Marder threw up his arm in the fascist salute: ‘Some of your own!”
The guard had just begun to raise his arm in response, when my gun layer Misha Tvorogov clubbed his head with a submachine gun and the German toppled over. We didn’t throw hand grenades to avoid raising an alarm.
So obviously I wasn't there so maybe everything happened exactly as described but I have my doubts. Was the tank hit by fire and did he bail out? More than likely. Did he spend several minutes inside a burning tank gathering extra SMG ammo, first aid kits, camouflage cloaks, and removing a machine gun? Unlikely. Did they spend time hiding under a burning tank? Unlikely. Did he make his way back to friendly lines - more than likely. Did he encounter a German sentry and get past him by using the 'Fascist salute' (I guess clicking his heels, raising his arm, and saying Heil Hitler?) Seriously? That's almost like it was pulled from a comic book. So anyway, take it for what it's worth. Like I said though - there are some good Soviet accounts, but I think the best are probably not from prominent 'Heroes of the Soviet Union' or perhaps stuff written after the 1980s.
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7 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:
The only thing I can think of is that the whole bogey pitched over leaving the torsion bar wedged between the top & bottom track runs.....But if that was the case surely they could have just removed the bogey entirely?
Intrigued to find out what actually happened, as I said, I have no doubt of the veracity of the account, but it's hard to reconcile with the peculiar suspension design of the Elefant.
Either way, it was a bloody silly way to design a suspension, biggest weakpont of the Merkava too, IIRC.
So the diagram shows what the suspension would look like with the wooden skid. Now I'm not an expert in tank suspension, but from what I can tell there were six road wheels arranged in pairs on each side. I guess each pair of road wheels would be a bogey? So the picture shows two road wheels from a pair and there is a smaller center round thing between the two road wheels that he has identified as the 'Rollenwagen / Idler Arm'. I'm guessing that what he is referring to as the Idler Arm is the part that attaches each bogey to the body of the Elephant and upon which the bogey is centered. Actually scratch that - because it shows the part that attaches the wheel to the center round part behind the roadwheel, so I think that is what is the idler arm although I'm not certain (one half of the bogey). It shows the front roadwheel as still mounted to the 'idler arm' or 'bogey' not sure which and then the road wheel behind that is removed. It shows 'free hub' where the missing roadwheel would have been and attached to the free hub is a wooden skid with a notch in it where the free hub 'Freie Nabe' sets. So looking at your sketch for Fig 1 - I think the center round part would be 15 (or III). I think the idler arm might be 13. I don't see 16 in the diagram, but it might be there and he just didn't draw it (don't know). It seems like 16 would be the likely part to have bent, but I don't know. The Free Hub would be number 5 in figure 1 so that's the wheel that would have been removed.
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IIRC they actually have a diagram of what they are doing in the source material so I may pull it out and look at it later to see if maybe there are some terms that didn't translate in the way you are reading it or something.
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I decided to go ahead and post a typical account for you guys. I might look for the Japanese accounts for comparison, but I would have to look for them as I don't seem to have that document handy anymore and I would have to retype the accounts from the source book again. This is just one account of many.
QuoteHeinrich Schafer was the gunner in the Ferdinand commanded by Unteroffizier Werner Kuhl. Oberleutnant Stein (schwere Panzer Abteilung 508), as was customary in our unit, moved along the road at the head of our attacking tanks. Due to their heavy weights, the Tigers and Ferdinande had to remain on solid roads. Open terrain was too soft.
Oberleutnant Stein had Unteroffizier Kuhl to take over the lead position because of the heavy frontal armor on his Ferdinand. Oberleutnant Stein would screen the flanks with his turret. A destroyed bridge in front of the town of Isola Bella ended the advance. Unteroffizier Kuhl turned the tank destroyer around on the road. The Ferdinand went off the road and into a ditch with one of it's tracks and became stuck. Oberleutnant Stein wanted to recover the Ferdinand with his Tiger. Both loaders refused to exit their vehicles because of the enemy mortar and artillery barrages. Heinrich Shafer therefore voluntarily left his vehicle and attached the Ferdinand to the Tiger. The road wheel on the second road wheel arm was already shot up. Two S hooks broke during the recovery attempt. All subsequent recovery attempts were in vain, because the non functional idler arm was bent diagonally between the lower track and the entire upper track. It made no difference whether the vehicle attempted to move forwards or backwards. A typical Porsche Tiger ailment.
Completely out of breath, Heinrich Shafer reached the crew compartment again and, fortunately for him, collapsed, exhausted, at the rear of the compartment. A kinetic energy round penetrated the armor on the side of the crew compartment. Unteroffizier Kuhl and one of the loaders suffered minor shrapnel wounds. Unteroffizier Kuhl gave the order to abandon the vehicle and all of us hastened back to our front line.
This was the first Ferdinand destroyed in Italy. Unteroffizier Reinhold Schlabs was also a member of Kampfgruppe Stein and his Ferdinand was positioned on the macadam reinforced road. Another ridiculous recovery attempt had to be made that evening.
Werner Kuhl suffered a serious injury to his shoulder during the attempt and died from his wound the following day. He was posthumously promoted to Feldwebel.
At this point, I had to create a skid like road wheel replacement out of a large wooden log. We tried and practiced this in Velletri. The defective road wheel had to be removed and the freed hub inserted into a groove carved into the log. About 30 combat engineers were to provide infantry support for us during a night operation. The destroyed bridge at Isola Bella was to be captured in a raid beforehand. This failed in a rain of steel and phosphorus. We were not able to get near the Ferdinand. The operation had to be scrapped. In the end, schwere Panzer Abteilung 508 suffered many killed and missing. The Ferdinand was located between the two fronts and, as a result, was not reported as a total loss at first.
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I actually have collected numerous first hand accounts of what tank crews do when the tank is hit and typed them into a word document for these kinds of discussions. In the case of an immobilized vehicle it's probably around 50/50 as to whether the crew bails or not (in general). If the crew knows or suspects that there is a gun capable of destroying their vehicle they will bail out of it as soon as it's immobilized because an immobilized tank is a sitting duck. If the tank is in a relatively safe environment or they don't think they are in immediate danger they tend to remain mounted. The only case I have ever read where a tank crew will remain in a burning / immobilized vehicle under all circumstances are accounts of Japanese tank crews who, needless to say, would take things well beyond what most would consider rational behavior. On the opposite side of the spectrum there are accounts of Soviet crews that bailed from a moving vehicle when taking hits from guns that didn't penetrate, but there is no way to know what experience level those crews were - not sure if any 'booty' Ukrainians were used as tank crews or not, but if they were their motivation levels would certainly be suspect. I also seem to recall something with an American tank crew bailing after a rifle grenade hit.
When reading first hand accounts of tank crews you have to read a lot of them before you get any sort of a decent picture of what may have happened on average. Some of the Soviet accounts that I've read come across as a little suspect relative to what I have read from other armies (which tend to paint a similar picture), although certainly not all of the Soviet accounts fall into that category. I would just recommend branching out beyond just Soviet accounts if you want a fuller picture.
I have made numerous suggestions to BFC at various times about how I think tank crews should act, but I'm pretty sure players would not look upon more realistic tank crew behavior as an improvement to their gaming experience.
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I found this YouTube video about what it is to be British courtesy of the Spiffing Brit
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Happened across this - just showed up on the main YouTube page when I went to it. I figured I would post it even though we've moved on from the Flak Tower stuff. There are also a lot of videos on YouTube about Flak Towers where people go and tour them. Apparently they were too difficult to destroy after the war and many still stand today being used as retail space. Imagine Hitler's reaction if he knew that nightclubs and music stores would be in his Flak Towers one day!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jgvkzD8d3k
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29 minutes ago, SimpleSimon said:
Sorry what? Based on a Swedish currency? How was that negotiated? How and why was the American process cheaper? American workers were unionized and made use of the some of the most sophisticated machine tools in the world, which all sounds far more expensive than slave labor and hand-crafting ubiquitous in German factory firms. I'm sorry if it seems like I'm interrogating you a bit here but a lot of this statement creates more questions than it answers. It's baffling to me.
Market value is useful in peacetime conditions but I would caution referencing it during wartime. Currencies not limited to the Reichsmark when through explosive inflation/devaluation cycles with the war's turns and this fiscal instability continued for a number of years after the war until the consequences of the Marshall Plan and Bretton Woods Conference stabilized the world's markets a bit through rebuilding booms.
Material values, ie: tons of steel, rubber, copper, etc are "safer" measures of value at least in the sense that represent objectively measurable inputs, but that's still not the system I think CM should reference for unit values. I would say within the timeline of the game's narrative values should be reflected by frontline reserves of units or maybe even something more local. "X" Panzers under the command of Army Group B and such. Production value is outside the scope of the game ultimately.
I don't care about QB point values in the slightest, but what is baffling to me is how anyone could think that anything hand crafted would be cheaper than anything mass produced. The element that's missing in your ... analysis ... is time. Let's say that two different manufacturers are producing toenail clippers. Let's assume that each version of toenail clippers uses the same amount of steel per unit. If company A produces one toenail clipper per minute and company B produces one toenail clipper per day well then the cost of company B's toenail clipper is higher even though the objectively measurable input of steel is the same on a per unit basis. Granted, company A would be acquiring more steel because they are producing more toenail clippers, but if the manufacturing process is efficient enough then that cost isn't going to have a significant enough impact on a per unit basis since company A is producing so many more clippers than company B. That's pretty basic manufacturing knowledge and it comes down to efficiency. Unionized workers only cost more if two manufacturing processes are similarly efficient. The slave labor thing is probably a little overstated in your comments as there would still have been specialists involved.
However slave labor is notoriously inefficient since there is a distinct lack of motivation for the 'worker' to do anything beyond the absolute minimum to stay alive and in the case of German manufacturing how many times would the same part have to be reproduced because of sabotage or inattention to detail? A slave isn't going to be working as fast and as efficiently as he or she could in order to support the war effort. Maybe the slaves themselves aren't being paid a 'wage', but the guards and infrastructure that is created to support your slave laborers isn't free. You still have to feed them something and you still have to house them somewhere. At least with unionized workers they can pay for their own transportation, living arrangements, and food out of the wages that are paid to them by the company. With a slave the state has to pay for all the guards, housing /camps, food, and transport for moving the slaves between camps and various work sites. You also have to power the manufacturing site and run all the machinery and if that machinery is being powered such that you are making the same part over and over again because your slave labor can't make it right the first time or is taking an extra hour to do the same thing a union guy is making well then how efficient can you be?
So no, simply measuring inputs isn't necessarily safer - at least not in the way being suggested. Without accounting for waste then perhaps more aggregate inputs would suggest greater aggregate outputs since more materials are probably being used in the manufacturing process, but then that would be reflected in the per unit cost basis as already suggested by using the Swedish currency. In other words, the difference in the consumption of material inputs within the manufacturing process would be reflected by the difference in the cost basis through the use of a third party currency. Measuring material inputs would not put Germany on an equal footing with America in WW2. It would only reinforce the discrepancy in manufacturing efficiency between the two.
Sorry for the interruption - you may all get back to your regularly scheduled QB points discussion
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For the curious the first quote came from 'With our Backs to Berlin' and the second quote is from "Berlin Dance of Death"
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Here is another account - wherever he is referring to shelters or bunkers he is referring the Zoo Flak Tower
QuoteWe go along Budapester Strasse and turn left into the Zoological Gardens where the colossal bulk of the Zoo-Bunker stands close to the S-Bahn. Sentries and tanks standing under the trees stop us and we are then led to the bunker, which is one big field hospital. All the camp beds and the air raid shelter beds are filled with wounded. Soldiers, refugees, and wounded are packed close together in the passages and the big shelter rooms. We are shown into a big room, in which every last place has been taken, and have to wait for further instructions. We split up, everyone looking for a place for himself in this already overfilled room.
There is a sound of loud voices in the room. The air extractors are working, adding to the din with their monotonous whirring, which only makes one more tired. An unbearable heat presses on one’s brain and makes one’s head ache. Then a new group of soldiers enters the room and pushes inconsiderately through the mass of humanity, settling themselves down beside us. They say that the Russians have thrust forward to Nollendorfplatz and that Savignyplatz has been occupied. The enemy is trying to drive a wedge between the Zoo and Wittenbergplatz from the corner of Augsburger Strasse and Passauer Strasse. It has been possible to clear Hardenbergstrasse only as far as the Knie. The ring around the Zoo is being drawn tighter.
The civilians say that Hanna Reitsch and Major Rudel are supposed to be in the bunker (flak tower). It is to be defended to the last man as the last strong point offering a focal point should the government quarter fall to the Bolshevists.
Sleeping in all this noise is unthinkable. We are lying here in a vast coffin with meter thick walls, in which soldiers and civilians have been thrown together from all parts of Berlin. A woman from Weissensee is bemoaning the fact that she did not stay at home, and that the Russians were able to take that district without a fight. It is in this bunker that one first gets some idea of what the lunacy of fighting has caused, tearing the civilian population into this whirlpool of destruction. They sit around without hope, praying only that this misery will end.
Goebbels has ordered the bunker to be defended to the last man. There is talk of a breach between the Americans and the Russians. On the eve of Hitler’s birthday, while we were standing on the Oder, Goebbels made a speech in a radio broadcast on these same lines. A leaflet is going the rounds after the newspaper. An elderly woman with a child, who tells me that she is its grandmother and that its mother has been killed, lets me read the leaflet. “The perverse coalition between plutocracy and Bolshevism is at the breaking point. The head of the enemy conspiracy has been crushed by fate. It was the same fate that allowed Hitler to stand upright and unwounded among the dead, severely wounded, and rubble on 20 July 1944. I never saw him waver or lose heart. He will follow his way until the end and there expect, not the downfall of his people, but rather a new happier beginning to an unparalleled blooming of Germanness.”
One soldier says that Hitler got married in the bunker under the Reichs Chancellery yesterday. A latrine rumor? That would have been a jolly wedding night under the thunder of the guns! And we have to go on fighting for this man, to whom Germany no longer belongs! Because of the oath we swore to him, soldiers and civilians have to go on dying. Someone says that Hitler has married an actress and that she will appear as a milkmaid on the new twenty Mark note.
A soldier claims to have seen Hitler climb into an armoured personnel carrier on the 27th demanding to be taken to the scene of the fighting in the Tiergarten. However, I think this is just another fairy story like so many others. Suddenly our Ruhleben combat team leader enters the room and we have to get ourselves ready. The war goes on. Then he disappears again. The civilians become restless as we get up and make our way to the door in a long file through the passage, men joining us from other rooms as we pass. Then we go down the stairs and past some sentries to step out into the night.
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I decided to try and dig up my first hand accounts - here is part of one
QuoteThe zoo bunker was the most comfortable of the three big flak towers in Berlin. It was well equipped with the best available materials. The zoo bunker’s equipment consisted of four twin 128mm guns on the upper platform and a gallery about five meters lower down with a 37mm gun at each corner and a twin barreled 20mm gun in the center of each side flanked by solo 20mm guns left and right. The twin 128s were fired optically whenever the weather was clear enough, otherwise electronically by remote control. The settings came from the small flak bunker nearby, which only had light flak on its gallery for its defense, but was especially equipped with electronic devices. A long range Blaupunkt radar was installed there and our firing settings came from a giant Wurzburg radar as far away as Hannover.
We suffered no casualties from air raids, but comrades were killed by gun barrels exploding and recoils. The shells for the 128s relied on the radar readings for their settings and were moved centrally on rubber rollers up to the breech. If there was the slightest film of oil on the rollers, the already primed shell would not move fast enough into the breech and would explode.
When we were on the gallery below with the 37s or 20s driving off low flying aircraft we would hear the din and have to grimace to compensate for the pressure changes that came with the firing of the 128s. We were not allowed to fasten our chinstraps of our steel helmets so as to prevent injury from the blast.
Later when we fired the 128s at clusters of tanks as far out as Tegel, the barrels were down to zero degrees and the shock waves were enough to break the cement of the 70cm high and 50cm wide parapet of the gallery five meters below, exposing the steel rods beneath.
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2 hours ago, Vacilllator said:
From what I remember of my daring exploits in Sniper Elite 2 they had windows closed off with metal shutters?
Yes pretty grim, reflects the futility of war in real life. Did a KV2 actually make it to Berlin other than in the captured variety
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It's entirely possible there were steel shutters - I'm not exactly sure since I'm going from memory of the account. I seem to recall that the accounts would also relate that when the guns on the roof fired it would send a concussive shock down into the tower that was very uncomfortable to everyone huddled inside.
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I have read a first hand account or two of what it was like in the towers during the battle for Berlin. From what I can tell it was utter chaos in and around them IIRC. The towers had no windows and all the levels below the roof were filled with civilians and soldiers in various states of combat worthiness. Wounded were all over the place mixed in with crying babies and a lack of food and water etcetera. Just going from memory though.
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As I recall BFC stated that it was intentionally done that way as a way for the player to have more visual stimulation of something 'happening' when the tank fires or something along those lines. Anyway, it's not an oversight but rather a deliberate thing included in the game.
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I get this when I try the new link - I suppose I could just ignore the warning and go through, but there it is
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Binkov Battlefields did a decent overview of this hypothetical - at least this one was much more reasonable and well thought out than any of the others I found.
Passive attacking AI
in Combat Mission Final Blitzkrieg
Posted
Drive them out has an American AI plan. I know because I made it myself lol. Not sure what you are doing - you sure you selected the German side? I'm at a loss as to why they wouldn't be moving for you unless you maybe selected the American side instead of the German side after picking the scenario.