Tero

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Cogust: Tero, That 60 second flick of yours were dated 1996, so it went right to the bottom of my mail program. I've found it though. <hr></blockquote> How many unread messages do you have then ?

It has taken Cogust a week to view the 60sec flick and send it back to me. Not that I am complaining, but....

I am a huge fan. Good HE, excellent AT accuracy and apparently extremely lucky. The AT accuracy is so uncanny I am inclined to think there is something amiss there. In a PBEM I had one shoot at a contact (SP-gun ?) with HE at ~500 meters and all the shots went wild. Then on the other side of the map at approx the same range a confirmed Stug lit up and I targeted it. Wham-bam-thank-you-mam, first shot right between the eyes. And in a recent PBEM I lost a Stug to a first shot despite my effort not to let his Chruchill see my Stug so the Stug would not have a chance to shoot first. Lesson: always have some infantry around to back up spotting so the AT shot is fired againts armour.

Originally posted by Wolfe: Even pillboxes can be hulldown. Since they are treated as vehicles by the game engine. An interesting question: can they fire the gun if they are "hull down" since they have no turret ? If they are immobile Stugs then being hull down is not really a good thing since it rarely happens and they are more likely to be spotted but they can not fire than they being able to fire back at the enemy.

Originally posted by Big Time Software: However, understand that there will NEVER be a "zero delay" artillery strike. It simply is not physically possible. IRL it is possible to get such a mission (the only delay between the call and impact is the shell flight time): FO Aleksei Arty calls in a 30 RPT mission on (preplotted) target refrence Vatjusha, it lands and sometime after that he calls in a follow up mission on the same target reference (assuming of course the battery did not fire other missions in between the calls and they were instructed to leave the guns pointing the way they pointed during the last mission). Since there is no "memory" in the game previous targets are forgotten so that means there is no way to track where the FO ordered the last mission. Right ? So we are talking about small delay (couple minutes), medium delay (several minutes), long delay (closer to 10), and massive delay (greater than 10). Or something like that In essence, I agree. First time we agree on something ? However, I think organic, dedicated TRP's for high level arty with minimal response delays(representing preplots in a fire plan) along with first turn 0 delay fire would bring about the appoximation and abstraction of a full fledged fireplan. If they could be made to have activation periods like TRP 1 activates after 5 turns, TRP 2 after 7 turns (reserves as it were) the issusion would be even more real. Disclaimer: this applies to the Red Army arty.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Andreas: Err, the production numbers from LdW say that 8,500 were produced in 1942. I believe this would have been a pilot run, and mass production taking off in the last few months. Then you have to get it to the front. I somehow doubt that they would have reached the front in significant numbers before late Jan 1943 at the earliest.<hr></blockquote> Sorry, I was a bit unclear. The forgot to state that by "it" I meant the entire Panzerhandmine/HHL family. <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>First use of the PzHM 3 was in the battles at the Wolchow in russia in May 1942; production and destruction figures are unknown.<hr></blockquote>

Originally posted by Big Time Software: On fireplans: Unfortunately, I don't think there is much of a chance. This is a far more complex issue than you appear to think it is. But who knows. Could there be separate TRP's with different delays ? A separate (organic ?) fireplan TRP with for higher level arty with 0 delay and you would get a number of them (say 3)when you purchase the FO. To supplement them there would be the regular TRP with regular delays for the regular arty. The 0 delay TRP's would not work for the lower level arty, they would have to use the regular one or none at all (since their delay will be shorter anyway).

Originally posted by Treeburst155: Section 3 I will give them until 1200hrs (GMT -6) on Saturday to respond. At that time I will immediately start the replacement procedures if I don't hear from them. Treeburst155 out. Be advised: all my last turns and PWD's (which I hope I remember by heart) to these people were on the machine that died. Hopefully the pop did not crap out the HD. In case I can not get it back on line I would appreciate it if they could forward the last turn I sent them to the new opponent in case they are replaced. The game with Cogust was a follow up on the game he took over when he stepped in as replacement. There are IIRC 8 turns to go on that one (and things were just getting interesting when he went AWOL ). The game with tss progressed to IIRC turn 4. I do not remember the game with Loke but it too could not have progressed very far.

Originally posted by Andreas: 1. The HHL3 may or may not have been successful (we have to take the word of the guy writing Scipio's reference text for it), but it certainly was superseded by the Panzerfaust, which to me indicates that it was not a loved design, since it was dropped quite quickly once something better came along. Concur. "Run up to the tank and stick the HHL on it my arse". Even the überFinns turned the HHL down. Mainly because the improvement over the satchel charge and the Molotov were marginal at best when it came to tactical employment. You could at least throw the satchel charge and the Molotov from a distance whereas you had to count coup to apply the HHL. Not something you would want to do when facing hordes of tankodesantniki armed with SMG's. While the tech spec of the HHL3 were impressive enough I'd imagine any soldier would go for a stand off weapon if it was available. 2. For a discussion of German infantry combat vs. tanks in the early years in the GPW, the HHL 3 is a red herring. Concur. But after early 1942 it was present. 3. Production figures in total are 553,900 HHL3, vs. 8,245,300 Panzerfaust of all types. Assuming production started in November 1942, over the 29 months this would give us a consumption/wastage rate of 17,000 units per month. To compare, for the Panzerfaust (of all types) this figure would be ~305,000. Just to give you an impression of availability, and likelyhood to see one or the other in the frontline. If there is to be special tank killer teams in the OOB in CMBB then I think they should get these rather than the regular infantry squads. So, based on this info (which I have not verified elsewhere), the German infantry did not have HHL3s available to deal with the T-34 that their Heeresanklopfgeraet (aka 3,7cm PAK) could not dispatch in December 1941. Then the only real solution is to model the empty champagne bottle instead.

Back up on line. The P166MMX is really S L O W and the navigating the big maps takes a lot of patience. Lunael in contact. Still nothing from tss, Loke and Cogust.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Bastables: There are no facts Pertaining to the objective success of the HHL series. All it states is that they were successful that on the page is unsubstantiated. Unless due to the google translation I’ve ‘missed something’.<hr></blockquote> "Die HHL 3 kam an allen Fronten zum Einsatz und wurde mit großem Erfolg gegen Kampfpanzer aller Art eingesetzt." My high school German makes me think this means: The HHL3 was used in all fronts and it performed with huge success against all kinds of combat tanks. Or something to that effect.

Originally posted by Bastables: Production figures are an indication of what the Heer wanted granted it's hazy when seen in the light of the MP 44 example, and your quite correct on the number of panzerfausts used vs afvs it seems that most of them were used as super handgranades. If the infantry AT assets were of no consequence why did all the armies develop measures to counter close assault by infantry ? One of the prime missions of the Soviet tankrider infantry was to act as dedicated body guards to the tanks against infantry close assaults. Even these days a commander of a superpotent M1A1 would not even dream of outrunning his infantry cover. But It still stands that the Hafthohlladung series was seen as a poor weapon when compared with the panzerfausts. You should take a look at http://www.geocities.com/Augusta/8172/panzerfaust.htm There you will find such interesting factoids like the Hohlhaftladung penetration capability (140mm). Not too shabby IMO when compared to the Pzfaust penetration capability. Again I stand by the thesis that successful close assaults were not a big killer of AFVs relative to gun kills and/or mechanical defects/lack of fuel. Some stats: http://www.geocities.com/Augusta/8172/panzerfaust4.htm#destr Four (4) months worth of data from early 1944 which would indeed indicate the infantry AT measures were not effective. Only the number of known kills vs known causes leave as much as 50% of the kills unattributed to a clear cause. There is stats available on the winterwar.com site but it is on the blink. IIRC the numbers were something like 900+ kills attributed to artillery, 400+ to mines and satchel charges and 300+ listed as "burned" (which I take it would mean Molotov coctails). While statistically the close assault kills were not perhaps significant you can not forget the fact that each and every army actively sought to diminish the risk of enemy infantry getting too close to the armour. A team of tanks against a team of infantry is at a disadvantage. For all their firepower the tanks are blind, slow and cumbersome, lets face it - dead meat, in the face of determined and competent infantry opposition. A lone behemoth can well withstand an attack by an entire infantry division fielding only can openers and angry hedgehogs. But sooner or later the tank will run out of ammo and fuel, the crew will get tired or demoralized. Contrary to popular beliefs not all infantry will not run like jack rabits or sit by idly and get lined up to be killed by the illustrious and fabeled tanks. Weapons like the Molotov, satchel charge or the Hohlhaftladung are desperate measures. But they are countermeasures nevertheless and with a bit of skill, courage and luck you stand a change of killing a tank with them. The only downside is you are likely to get killed using them as you have to expose yourself and count coup.

A related question: Will captured equipment use the same skin when available/present for both sides ? I hope a German operated T-34 will not sport the same paint job as its Red Army counterpart.

I had a confirmed sighting of Juha Keratar this morning. And then my machine puffed out some smoke and started playing dead. I will try to get a replacement ASAP. It may take some time but I project the down time will not be more than a few days at the most as I do have a P166MMX as a backup. The thing is I will have to wrestle some KB time from my four year old son to be able to use it. On a (slightly) more serious note: like Stefan I must deglare tss, Cogust and Loke AWOL as of December 4th-5th.

Originally posted by The Commissar: Moon, you better watch it there buddyboy. If you're not careful about all this "dangerous" and "unsuccessful" talk, you're just going to get stomped on by a bunch of uber-finns. Dangerous, yes. Unsuccesful, not always. The entire matter is too dependant on prevailing circumstances. In fact, if BTS does not include such a command, all the uber-finns on this board will go into a raving frenzy because sooner or later one of their Finnish half squads will actually fail to destroy an enemy tank from close up. I'd say the raving frenzy will be more likely brought on by an ahistorical Finnish OOB. During Winter War platoons and companies formed special tank killer teams (which BTW had a close to 90% casualty rate but never lacked volunteers). The other units tackeled the infantry while the tank killer teams took care of the tanks stripped of their infantry cover. This worked reasonably well until the Soviet revised their armour/infantry co-operation tactics. After that it became virtually impossible to approach the tanks to count coup. Nevertheless a considerable amount of the ~1200 tanks the Red Army lost to combat related causes in the Isthmus alone were taken out by close assaulting AT teams using Molotovs coctails and satchel charges (which had glue panels attached to make them stick to the armour). The practise of keeping separate infantry AT teams as an integral part of the OOB was continued after Winter War. In 1944 both the Pzschreck and the Pzfausts were operated by separate teams and they were not officially distributed to form an integrated part of the infantry squads arsenal. Hell, we might even see such grand historical inaccuracies like Finnish teams armed with nothing but a can opener and an angry hedgehog being repulsed by a battalion of Soviet BT class tanks. You'd be surprised what kind of a mess an angry hedgehog makes. There is a clitch in the www.winterwar.com. When it is back up you can see the official Soviet figures on the tank losses in the Karelian Istmus. ~1200 tanks to combat related causes, 3000 tanks to all causes does not indicate a battalion of Soviet BT class tanks alone ever repulsed Finnish teams, if the conditions were right. The BT's did form the backbone of several Red Army units encirceled in the forest wilderness north of the Lake Ladoga. IIRC hundreds were captured when such mottis collapsed but most of them could not be transferred out before the peace came because they had been dug in and there was no fuel so they were returned to their original owners minus gun, optics and other assorted removable items. I think all of us here want the crew of BTS alive and well to code us more CM games. I say appease the Finns - give us "assault vehicle" commands! I am actually apprehensive about this kind of a command. I'd rather see an "Evade Vehicle" command that would make the infantry squad "invisible" to the tank (the men would actively seek spots in the tanks blind spots and keep out of its field s of fire) while maintaining its current position and opposed to the Hide command the squad would still engage non-vehicle targets. By Bastables: I think that's the point, they're supposed to be ineffective. That is just it. They were not ineffective as such, they were dangerous to the user because in order to use them you had to expose yourself to the battlefield elements. Infantry close assaulting tanks was not a major reason for AFV losses. If any of those makeshifts petrol bombs and parachute granades that the german military produced through '41 '42 was of any effect vs Soviet tanks there would have been no reason for the development and then deployment of Panzerfaust. [/qb] The hand thrown weapons were not ineffective due to tech spec (admittedly the Molotov did become less effective when the engine air intakes were redesigned to prevent them from damaging the engine). Most of them were ineffective because you had to get very close or actually cout coup to be able to take the tank out. A stand-off weapon was called for. ATR was too expensive, cumbersome and ineffective. To get the penetration power you had to use a shaped charge. The Hohlhaftladung was good enough but you had to stick it on the tank while with the Pzfaust you could keep your distance (initially 30 meters).

Originally posted by Bruno Weiss: Horsee's, by golly I see horsee's! You long range sniper you !!! Yes, I have watched the movie more than a couple of times too.

Originally posted by Treeburst155: Hmmmm....let me know if you go too long without hearing from your opponents. I'm in a replacing mood right now. Look at Stefans list. We just ended our game and we are both missing the same opponents. But lets not be too hasty about replacing anybody just yet. I am more interested in any openings in the Wild Bill rumble anyway....

Originally posted by Treeburst155: Tero, Things should start picking up since I've replaced GhostDog. He is not in my section, sir.

My Nordic turney section is so lazy I can take up the Wild Bill tourney on the side.

Originally posted by Big Time Software: 3. Showing clear and direct bias against Anglo American forces simply because they were not Germans or Finns. Nope. It is not bias against them because they are not German or Finns. I just do not show proper respect for them. That is mainly because for all the nice little captions of Allied heroics in the "bloody" combat in the bogace I have never ever seen any actual figures on the Allied infantry losses. For example in "Closing with the Enemy" there is an entire section on bocage fighting. The usual rethorics is observed (heavy casualties, how heavy is not stated). There is nothing about the actual casualty figures except a off hand remark about 1st Army requesting 25 000 replacements. 5. Ignoring, dodging, or (at best) not understanding direct and fundamental challenges to your core "evidence" supporting your muddled claims. Well, I ask for some evidence for the validity of the mantra when the Western Allies are in the offensive and you and others grace me with a nice and impressive bunch of stories mainly about the use of massive arty fire to beat back counter attacks against hard pressed defenders, not how the Allies could excert it from the move or after some preparations and bust the German defences into a pulp forcing them into a headlong retreat. Sorry, but I can dig those up from the überFinnish archives if I wanted that kind of evidence. If your argument is that the Anglo American forces sucked compared to everybody else, you have not proved it. Does it really mean I think they sucked when I refuse to take the composite Allied casualty figures at face value when discussing combat of different nature inside a single operation ? If your argument is that the Germans somehow maintained freedom of action (initiative) while at the same time being clobbered and quite quickly conquered In Closing with the Enemy there is a phrase "regain initiative for the attacker" or something to that effect. How can that be if the attacker has the initiative already ? (how many months did the Finns hold out against the Soviets compared to the Germans against the Anglo American forces in Western Europe?) 4 months against 11 months. But our army was demobilized in the end, not disarmed and marched into captivity. And the casualties sustained were close to 1000% lower than those sustained by the Germans. On the contrary, I and others have done a pretty neat job debunking your weak arguments, even if you wish to undersand this. You guys still haven't been able to explain the extent of the Allied infantry casualties away. The Western Allied arty excelled in breaking up counter attacks. I knew this. But when it comes to breaking up prepared defensive lines it falls far behind the power of the Red Army artillery practises. I am fully satisfied that I can leave knowning there are no lingering issues which need to be addressed. To be able to gain moral high ground you need to prove the US war experience was more relevant that that of the rest of the armies. The debate is over tactical and doctrinal principles and you seem to think anybody elses data except that of the US Army is irrelevant in the theoretical level. Your sources are mainly US, mine mainly Finnish. I hold both source to be of equal value. You think that the weight of evidence you have can inundate the weight of evidence I can present simply because you have more bits of data to pour in. When I postulate things from the casualties for a certain timeperiod not normally observed in your sources as relevant you accuse me of manipulating them and taking them out of context. You can not prove the data is actually wrong so there must be something wrong in my approach because I can show there is something amiss in the formula as presented by your sources.

Originally posted by Vanir Ausf B: I am not aware of any "cut off" for the consideration of casualties in US history books. Perhaps you are refering to some I have not read? Could you be more specific? That is a very broad statement. Are the Allied casualties or are they not almost invariably listed per complete operations, not per phases of the operations ? The "unusual cut off" I refer to is not the temporal cut off for the usual historical for the entire Normandy operation. All else being equal, it is generally expected that the attacker will suffer more losses than the defender, especially in "close terrain". I don't see what that proves. Disregarding such questions like does the German figure up to that date include German casualties inflicted by the British the historical cut off evens out the American total casualty figures over a longer period of time. After the Germans lost Avrances and the Allies burst out into the open I would think the Allied casualties would shift from foot infantry to mechanized troops and armour. And that the casualty figures per engagement for the Allies would decrease. If the different nature of these two phases is disregarded then the total American casualty figure can not be distributed correctly to depict the combat during the different phases. Here you go again with another "Anglo-Saxon biased historian" tangent. Could you be more specific, or do you believe there is not a historian west of the Rhine worth his salt? They are not necessarily biased. They are just not doing their leg work properly. When was the last time a major Anglo-American WWII myth was busted ? Daylight bombing got busted, CAS is being debunked. Are there really no other myths still in the foundation ? Churchills memoires are still being considered a prime source and the views presented in it still prevail for crying out loud. You're comparing turnover rates for US units attacking Germans in Normandy to Finnish units fighting a defensive war against Soviets!? What are you trying to prove here? If the mantra "firepower for lives" was true then one would expect the average turnover rate during the entire NWE campaing (June 6th 1944 to May 1945) to be different. But pray tell where did the Allies actively dislodge the Germans from their positions with a single deliberate ground attack with infantry, armour, artillery and other assets before the Germans were willing to give up the positions. People provided multiple examples of this, and now you are making claims of "uberAlliedness" or whatever. I have seen nothing of the sort here. Your current ramblings seem to have little to do with your earlier assertions. Please read my "claim" again. All the examples thrown at my face do not fit the bill exactly. Not one instance was provided where a single deliberate ground attack with infantry, armour, artillery and other assets before the Germans were willing to give up the positions. All of them mention artillery busting up a German counter attack or two. Ie: the American force is either bogged down or forced into a defensive posture. And all of the examples involve a series of actions. Not one have given an example when a single Allied attack before the break out decisively busts the German defence open at the outset and the Germans are forced to retreat. BTW, I have a small revelation for you: All armies attempt to trade firepower for casualties when they can. Not a revelation. Why get your own killed if you can make the enemy get killed. The überFinns actively avoided frontal assaults if at all possible because they would inherently involve heavier casualties. If there was any way to use a single pointed thrust in covered terrain and then roll the enemy defences from the flanks or go around the defences and take the defences from the back the additional time would be spent instead of the casualties taken. The Soviets deviced a system where they made a decoy break in and then direct heavy arty barrages where the projected counterattack would fall. This is why I am trying to ascertain why these kind of infatry casualties are given and still the mantra prevails. And this is why I strive to segregate the POW figures from the other losses as they distort the Allied casualty rates because the totals are being compared, not the different classes of casualties. You're swimming upstream on that one. So what else is new ?

Originally posted by Simon Fox: The facts are that the Allies developed vastly superior, more efficient and flexible systems for the application of firepower than the Germans did. Are you talking just about artillery ? "Application of firepower" covers much more than just artillery. I am not familiar with the "Allied" "firepower for lives" doctrine. Perhaps you could enlighten me as to the military manuals of the time which lay it out. I could propably dig up the proper FM number but since they are not readily available I have to direct you to such books as "Closing with the Enemy". I am sure that German doctrine too emphasised the benefits to attacking of a combination of all arms. Unfortunately they were just never able to get it right. JasonC in the "What happened to the Lorraine panzer brigades" sums it up pretty well. The Germans were way too aggressive when comparing their available assets and their tactics and doctrine to the prevailing tactical and strategic disposition.

Just a reminder Christmas post is also fauling up the ISP email servers so please send the turns early to avoid the peak hour trafic.

Originally posted by Juardis: Well now tero, that's asking an awful lot. When I wrote it I had just come in from outside, -10ºC with 10mps wind (corresponds around -40ºC on the skin) and I was dressed like the Germans on their way to Moscow, thin jacket, thin leather gloves. You see, if you include wind chill, then there'll be all these people complaining that a Finnish Wind chill is really more severe than that modeled and the exposed flesh is not falling off rapidly enough. Or sticking to bear metal fast enough. But then you'll have those in Southern Russia saying it's too severe and the uber Russians could live 3x longer than the Hungarian counterpart because Russians are used to wind chill. Then you open the whole of pandora's box on ambient temperatures and their effects on, oh, say 37mm AT guns or some such nonense... .... like first shot delays because the gunners keep the sight or other stuff close to the body against bear skin so they are kept warm. Also überFinnish mittens with a place for the index (trigger) finger sown separately vs German thin leather gloves/Soviet thick regular mittens and how that affects the game.

Will there be a wind chill factor ?