Tero
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Posts posted by Tero
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>Perhaps out of sheer ignorance of the German
>policy of abandoning these ineffective and
>rarely used automatic weapons on the
>designers part.
I'm not critizing the procedure, I'm critisizing the timeframe. All the men sit in a ring and they decide who gets dropped out and all else is carried out wthout any delays ? Or in tanks they take turns and it is the commander who is the first to go even if the hull front is hit where the driver used to sit.
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>I don't really know what that claim is based
>on, because during 90's there's been lots
>and lots and lots of remains of Finnish
>soldiers been hauled from Karelian
>during early summer of 1944 (when the Soviet
>all-out attack broke) most of the routed
>front soldiers had better things to do than
>to stop and look why that brother-in-arms
>said "AAAARGH" and collapsed to ground.
Shame on you. :mad:
Finnish losses, timeperiod 1941-1945, including the fighting against the Germans.
(Source: Suomi Sodass)a:
KIA 64 120
MIA 1 924
WIA 145 147
Total casualties 211 191
(note: 1 993 men returned from captivity, 404 died in captivity and are included in the number of KIA. 3 088 were deglared legally dead as they were left in the field and they have been added to the number of KIA.)
A search at:
http://tietokannat.mil.fi/menehtyneet/
brought up 15 331 KIA/DOW/MIA between 09th June 1944 and 30th July 1944.
The figure from the database is 60 845 between 20th June 1941 and 30th July 1944.
Please list figures for these lots and lots and lots of MIA who have been brought home. There were "only" some 4 500 still out there when the book was written and that covered the entire 1941-1945 period.
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>answer to Q#1: yes, regularly.
>answer to Q#2: nope.
See ?
>yes, they (german armor, esp.StuGs) seem not
>to achieve the actual RealLife successes in
>CM.
>
>However, just checking, tero, you *do* know
>that hulldown is an I/0
I am aware of this. Painfully so.
>decision and that this is totally irrelevant
>of actual vehicle layout/dimensions etc.?
Well.... if the terrain tiles are perfectly ideal for a turreted vehicle as tall as a Sherman then I would say the layout/dimensions do have a role in this sordid little production of ours.
>Therefore, it is just as easy or hard to put
>a StuG into hulldown as it is to put, say, a
>Sherman into hulldown, IIRC.
That depends on the TacAI, doesn't it ? As the player can not order a vehicle to assume the (hull down) position and the terrain tiles tell the TacAI moving the Stug to basically forget it in most cases what do you get ? A non-turreted burning hulk that never managed to fire a shot.
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>By the way Fins were not the only ones to
>fight Soviet Union and get peace accord.
Sorry, I should have been more specific. I meant during and after WWII.
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>I guess term "Finlandization" better
>describes post-war status than pre-war
>status.
>
>(Finlandization - country that continuosly
>changes its politics and itself to pacify
>its strong neighbour - until it almost
>becomes a satelite state. I believe US
>strategic cold-war planners came up with
>this term)
I think it was actually the West-Germans who concocted that term. You know, the ones who were still being occupied by foreing armies well into the -90's.
Now that is sour grapes if I ever saw any.
Check out for the offical Finnish version at:
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>Yes I have & I realy doubt it would have
>alterted anything, except bring Germany &
>Russia into the war as Allies. Finland did
>not Opt to accept the peace, Finland had
>very little choice in the matter.
Not quite accurate. There were two options: ask for aid from the West and fight on to the bitter end or accept the terms. Our leaders opted to take the terms.
>Tero the peace benifited Stalin as he had
>bigger fish to to fry Ie, Germany
Yes
>& no he couldn't leave Finland alone they
>broke the peace treaty
Which peace treaty did we break ? They had themselves broken the non-aggression pact by attacking in 1939. Furthermore the vindictive attitude taken by Stalin and Molotov after Winter War was over made it impossible for us to take any other course except the one that lead us to the Germans.
>as well as allowed German troops to operate
>from their borders.
That is a bit of a non-sequitur.
>As soon as fourtunes changed & Finland
>realised Germany was doomed, Finland decided
>it was time to make peace, the choice was
>surrender & keep the WW agreements on
>territory & expell all German forces, or be
>crushed. Obviously Finland chose the first
>option. It's realy moot as to what the
>Allies would have done etc, as it never
>occured.
But that possibility did affect Stalins actions. I trust you are aware Finland sought peace already in late 1943. And I trust you are also aware that the Soviet assault in the summer of 1944 ran out of steam in July 1944 but the cease fire was signed only in September 1944. Why the huge gap between these dates if we were totally beaten ?
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>Sure. But they certainly weren't holding
>hands in any of the pics I saw. If you have
>evidence that they were singing, I'd be
>interested to see it.
I was referring to the singing prior to the "big change" in tactics.
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>It still comes down to counter claims of the
>effectiveness of the MG-42, and player
>skill.
Pretty much so. But I think that the Germans did not lose because they did not have enough MG-42's to go around. That is not at least the prevailing school of thought. Then again there might be something to this....
>Your veteran German tank getting killed by a
>Stuart is an historical event.
From the behind, yes. I have not seen any anecdotes or other written data about the frequency of gun damage and frontal penetrations by smaller ordnance due to defective armour as being major contributors in disabling German armour during WWII.
>That is player ability.
Nope. That is a host of variables in the game engine doing the numbers crunching to produce statistically possible occurances. They just occur a tad too often for comfort. Once in a blue moon is OK. Once every 3 games is too often statistically. They occur "naturally" as no two game affect the other statistically from the game engines point of view but they appear too common for the human player. I wonder (and doubt) if any GI saw an event like that IRL twice.
>While it would be nice to hotrod German
>heavies about the board and leave them in
>exposed positions, in reality they were
>knocked out, even by little sneaky M-18s.
That is why it is so infuriating to lose them when you try to ambush the M-18's as they emerge in to LOS and the Germans get so lousy a first shot hit propability (cross section targeting et al.) that they never get off the second round as all Allied armour spot them immediately and make a Swiss cheese out of them within seconds the German tank opened fire.
>This is an issue ofplayer ability and not
>engine.
Sometimes yes. Sometimes no.
>The Mg-42's effective is shown by the fact
>that it was retained while BAR like ARs were
>not.
Interesting point. To counter: M-1 Garand was developed into M-14 while the Kar98 was dropped. That would mean that that the penultimate American post-war squad would be equipped with the M-14 and MG-42. And by Jove they were. M-14 and the M-60 GPMG.
But that is after the fact. We are discussing the relative fire power of the WWII era squads and then we can not take into consideration facts that happened after the war.
>It was not a defensive only weapon, but a
>weapon of offensive nature since it could be
>fired on the move without switching
>magazince, could maintain its fire with
>barrel changes, and could send a hundred
>round down range in short order if needed.
It had also a distinctive, instantly recoqnizable sound that alerted all to its presence making it also a prime target instantly. I wonder if that was ever used by the Germans as a way to lessen the pressure on the defenders.
>The BAR in terms of firepower was better
>than a bolt action at advancing fire, but
>nowhere in its league.
That is true.
>However, if you want to claim that the MG-42
>is a ho-hum or merely average weapon, no
>nore effective than the BAR, then I will
>bite.
No need to.
I am just trying to point out that not every man in a German squad carried one. That means that IF the crew served weapon of the squad was knocked out or it malfuctioned the Germans were instantly much worse off than the Americans.
>Take a look at a German squad's firepower
>with the MG-42, and compare it to the Bar,
>and then think of the howl that would come
>around if it was reduced in effectiveness to
>that of an AR.
I think that there is something to be said against the musical chairs that is performed every time a squad takes a casualty. As things stand the MG-42 stays operational without any interruptions. I wonder if that was the case IRL.
>More commands is no problem, there will be
>more in CM2, and both sides can avail
>themselves to them.
So I hear. Look forward to the beta release.
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<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Grisha:
Did you say ... Motherland?!
UUUUUURRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>"Wait until you se the whites of their eyes. Do not open fire until I give the order. And when you aim, aim at the belly button. That will take out a man for sure and in his agony he will act as a deterrant to his comrades."
[ 06-18-2001: Message edited by: tero ]
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>Actually, it is important to take some of
>Tero's surmises with a grain of salt.
My word has not been canonized. Yet.
>First off, the average german squad had a
>much higher ability to throw lead about than
>any Allied squads. Dunnigan abstracts from
>Dupuy that the power of a squad is in its
>crew served weapons, since squads unless
>very well trained, spend a lot of time
>muching dirt, while crew served weapons are
>put into use more.
Yes. But crew served weapons draw fire more readily than others so it is fair to assume their crews also suffer more casualties and they can go off the air once they are identified for an indeterminable amount of time. That is why it is tought to fire 3 round bursts with your automatics unless the situation warrants sustained fire. Again, diffences in tactics and doctrine are indicated, not differences in harware demographics.
>Thus the LMG in the German squad is an
>immense advantage over the AR in the US
>squad.
MG-42 was supposedly the bane of Allied infantry. But is it known what kind of a percentage did the claim from overall casualty figures, actually ? For it to be highly effective it would have to obtain the benefit of surprise in opening up AND the regular bunching up on allied infantry. Yet again, diffences in tactics and doctrine are indicated, not differences in harware demographics.
>The only way to make Tero's case is to take
>a 1944 German bolt action armed squad with
>no LMG and match it against a US squad,
>where the autoloaders get the nod, but the
>Germans issue of automatic weapons was far
>denser at a far lower level than any allied
>squad.
Lets say a squad is 10 men. I think the standard German 34-44 pattern OB for a squad had 2 SMG's per squad (half-squad leaders + pistol sidearms), 1 MG-42 (2 men, one with ammo and Kar98 and the gunner with pistol sidearm). That leaves 6 men with Kar98. For the American squad that would be 1-2 SMG's, 1 BAR and 7-8 semi-autos (or a mixture of Garants and semi/full auto carbines). In a tactical situation the Germans would be in a disadvantage because:
a) their MG-42 can not reveal its position by firing full blast unless it is to take out several GI's diddy bopping in a bunch. Once it goes full auto it will draw heavy fire.
to get full benefit from their SMG's the Germans will have to let the GI's get closec) once engaged the GI's WILL be able to put out more led, IF they have not been decimated during the first few seconds of the ambush
From the Finnish experience I know men tend to ditch their less effective weapons in favour of semi- and fullauto weapons. The difference is the Finns could take the weapons off the fallen Soviet soldiers as easily as from their fallen comrades as our army used the same weapons and the same ammo as the Red Army used. That would not have worked for the Germans on a regular basis. In the footage and still pictured taken in France I have seldom seen German soldiers with Allied small arms. And most of them have carried the Kar98, not the SMG's or other automatics.
We keep coming around to the diffences in tactics and doctrine, not differences in harware demographics.
>The next thing was that German troops are
>not all the steely eyed killers with hearts
>of steel trained to a massive pitch.
They were human after all.
>German troops varied a great deal from
>formation to formation, but the game has a
>way to simulate that. If you want the tough
>battle scarred Germans fighting incompetent
>Americans, buy veterans or elite and make
>the other guy buy green forces. Now you
>have the mythical 1.4 advantage but the game
>remains balanced since you paid for your
>balance.
Well... except your Elite German heavy armour is reliable to get shot up and taken out be Green Allied Stuarts and AC on the move due to weak spot penetrations and gun hits.
>The big thing is that to make any mythical
>(racial, cultural, training) advantage work
>in game terms, it needs to demythisized and
>looked at objectively. And not just
>results, but causation. If Germans had
>better commanders at the battalion level,
>and better company level tactics, well that
>is the place of the player to fill that.
It would be interesting to be able to pit Americans vs Americans (or Germans vs Germans) to see if this premise of player deciding the workability of the tactics over the TacAI decision making is true.
And I still say there are too few commands for the player to do anything than approximate actual tactics. It is still the TacAI who ultimately decides what is done in a tactical situation.
>And remember that if we start piling on
>mythical advantages to fit urban legends,
>Germans though that the US Artillery was the
>most deadly and accurate in the world,
>perhaps US artillery needs to be 1.4 times
>as powerful as german artillery on top of
>the objective advantages it already enjoys
>(caused by extensive use of radios and
>switch phone networks). So for every urban
>legend adopted on one side, an equal urban
>legend can be adopted on the other.
Why do you think that I am advoacting a unilateral force modifier ? All the modifiers, advantageous or disadvantageous, would of course be applied to ALL the forces in the game.
If there are aspects in the game that are short changing the Allies (and I think there are presently none) then they would be corrected with the modifiers along with the rest of the modifications.
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>Agreed. Again the relative operational
>advantages or disadvantages – or better yet
>stereotypes -- one often associates with
>Army “X” or Army “Y” become rather pointless
>to try and model at a tactical level.
Only if you plan on creating a game with a hardcoded, predetermined outcome.
>Although as you say game designers have been
>doing it from as far back as I can remember.
I think that what the game designers have been trying to do is to work out a system that resembles the real event by modelling the values that you can easily quantify. Ie. armour thickness, ordnance armour penetration capabilities etc. What you get is a pretty solid hardware compatibility between the game and the real life history. What they have not been able to model "properly" is the human behaviour associated with the conditions. This includes the differences in the basic training each army gives to its recruits. Anybody who has gone through basic training knows it is a simple process of instilling automated, instictive responces to life treathening stimuli (for example hit the dirt instead of run when being fired at). These responces are intended to override the basic human responces (for example run from danger) in such conditions. They are very closely connected to the tactics the army in question is using. People say you can simulate real life in CM by using proper tactics. That is not quite true as there are very many basic commands missing from which you can choose from. You can only use a very limited selection of generic commands. That is why the TacAI is more vital to the outcome of an engagement than the tactics the player is trying to approximate.
One way to get more "life" out of the current TacAI would be to increase the number of commands available to the player.
>This was the intent behind my comments about
>not directly employing Dupuy’s (spelling
>correct
) 1.4 CEV as a means of >justifying arbitrarily multiplying a squads
>firepower level factors by 1.4.
Exactly. If you compare the basic American and the basic German squads you can not arrive to any other conclusion that the American squad had more firepower, if you compare both the cyclic ROF and the practical ROF of the weapons in an average squad. That is why there has to be other, more human, reasons for these seeming discrepencies in actual performances of these squads. And I do mean other than the differences in the level of experience. Even a green recruit fresh out of boot camp will finish the learning curve of "do's and don'ts during combat" in a matter of minutes if he survives the first few seconds of his first engagement.
>Again, a bad player will always be a bad
>player and will go from game to game
>wondering why his digital Germans are not
>consistently beating the Americans, or
>British or Russians. “This has to be a
>function of the game engine.”
I'd rather say a bad player is not working the game engine to his advantage but is relying too much on what he has been told about the game engine and how it works. It not the more obvious traits of the game engine that get you, it is the quirks you never knew about.
>A bad combat leader typically is dead or
>wounded in fairly short order.
I wonder of common was the "natural selection" done by the underlings.
>He doesn’t have time to lament about weather
>a games engine requires tweaking in order
>artificially force more historically
>consistent battle results.
As things stand you can always go to the previous Autosave and start over.
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>For example, Tero is a Fierce Fightin'
>Finn, who wants all Finnish troops crack,
>unbreakable and with a +100% to targeting.
>They should also be able totake out soviet
>tanks with noting but their bare-knckled
>fists.
Actually they would be using the German PAK40, Stug-III, Pzfausts and -schrecks. Since there is to be no Winter War in CM2.
But they should NOT be summarily subject to standard German (or Axis) TacAI automated responces.
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>The funny thing about Tero's belief that
>the German armor get's short changed in
>CMBO is that he is right, but his reasons
>are almost completely wrong
I am happy to hear it is only almost wrong.
>All vehicles in CM seem to be unrealisticly
>good at hitting stuff while moving, German
>included. Hard to prove, but that is the
>impression one gets sometimes.
I can not say I disagree.
>The difference in optics did not make much
>difference at less than 800m. At 300m or
>less the Germans may have even been at a
>slight disadvantage.
Was that due to the optics or manually driven turrets (if there was one) ?
>There is nothing wrong with the Stug or the
>Marder. They will kill almost anything they
>hit and anything that hits them will kill
>them, just like in real life. The Stug's
>profile rating is already quite low.
Have YOU ever gotten a Stug in a decent hull down position from which it could shoot effectively and survive for more than a few turns ?
It is not about profiles, it is about the CM terrain tiles favouring taller vehicles by design.
>The big advantage German tanks had in real
>life that they do not in CM was
>SMOKELESS POWDER.
Live and learn.
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>Tero, see this makes it look as if Finland
>made peace on her own terms or graciously
>decided to surrender rather then inflict
>any more damage on the Soviets, this is one
>of the attitudes i refer to.
What attitude ?
Have you ever heard rumors about a joint Anglo-French expedition to help out the belequered Finns during Winter War ? Would that pitted them against the USSR early in the war ? What would have happened if we had in fact asked for that help and the expedition had sailed ? We opted to accept the terms given. Which was suited all concerned.
>Finland surrendered in both cases because
>it's leaders knew Finland would be crushed
>if they didn't plain & simple & the
>Soviet's got what they wanted from the
>surrrender, Finland out of the war & the
>Winter War gains etc.
That is arguably true. But it was also the Soviets who wanted to make the peace as well. It took two to tango, even then. Stalin could have left us all alone until Germany wa beaten but could he had counted on the Western Allies to let him have his way with Finland once the war with Germany was over ?
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>I see your steering this into the
>same "nationality modifier" debate going on
>in the other thread. I don't want to get
>caught up in that as it has been debated to
>death in the past and nothing we say here
>is going to change BTS's mind on it anyway.
Sorry. I got caught in the mood. But then again the two topics are not totally unrelated.
>Yes, it is possible to isolate and identify
>real trends particular to one side or the
>other, but these are only generalities and
>therefore should not be applied to a small
>scale game like CM.
I think Dupuys intention was to get some... I will NOT say national bias
... quantifiable, nation specific trends that could be compared even if the two forces had never actually met on the battle field. >Example: let's say that we accept as fact
>the Dupuy calculation that on average a
>German soldier in the ETO was equal to 1.2
>American soldiers in combat effectiveness.
>Does this mean that this holds true for
>every unit in every battle? Hardly. There
>is a huge variation from unit to unit and
>at different times in different battles.
Agreed. That is why the battles of time periods have to be viewed as a whole. There may be variables at play that affect the outcome to a surprisingly large degree. Such as weather, ammo shortages, the force commander getting killed in a car crash etc. Also positive things like new equipment being introduced are factors.
>The 1.2 figure is just an average, as all
>trends are. But if you make all German
>units in CMBO equal to 1.2 American units,
>then it becomes true in every battle with
>every unit. Not realistic. If you are
>making a scenario you can simulate this my
>making the Americans "green", so the game
>does allow this to an extent without
>forcing it upon you.
Perhaps we should substitute the names of countries with "blue" and "purple" so there would be less emotinal things that cloud the debate. But if we did that we would have to throw away also many force specific details which are already present but which we take for granted.
>If CM were a strategic level game you may
>be justified in using nationality
>modifiers, but at the tactical level they
>make little sense IMO, unless the
>difference was overwhelming (10:1
>effectivenes, for example).
I disagree to some extent. These national specific differences manifest themselves in the tactical level, not in the strategic level. It is the fundamental differences in the small units tactics and doctrine that make these differences. Sure, these is something to be said about the level of experience being a major factor. But different armier learn different things, even if they go through similar circumstances. You only have to read through the basic training manuals to spot the differences, which points are virtually the same and where the differences are.
Lets take an example (this is based on hearsay but I can believe it to be true
): I claim the best aircraft of the war was the Brewster Buffalo. Bull !!! I can hear you crying out.
The matter is resolved if you use as the criteria the number of aces per airframe built. Look it up. Most of the Finnish aces flew the Buffalo at one time or another during their career and scored most of their victories and became aces flying it. The Finnish kill-loss ratio of the Buffalo is in the order of 44-1.
The funny thing is there are few strategic factores involved in this equation. It was a miracle that our ground crews could keep them up for the duration of the war because there were absolutely no spare parts avaiable.
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>But, really, why just Normandy? If you're
>trying to gauge overall combat effectiveness
>why only talk about a small part of the war
>in the ETO?
The conclusion he did draw are admitedly a bit far reaching. But I think that when broken down into portions like this the events in ETO, indeed any front, can be handeled so that we get trends that can be said to be representative.
>The terrain in Normandy was a defender's wet
>dream.
And it showed.
>If I took stats from just the Ardenes
>Offensive I bet the Germans would come out
>looking rather poor.
Not really. The POW figures bring down the overall value. If you lose them the loss figures adhere to the general trend, ie. the Germans were able to get 1:1 or better loss ratios in combat.
This is why I advocate the POW figures should be left out, unless their inclusion is warranted by other related factors.
>That doesn't tell you much about the bigger
>picture, which is what I thought this thread
>was about, not any one battle or campaign.
>
>In short, his conclusions are way too
>simplistic to be taken seriously. Not that
>what he says is totally wrong, just that he
>doesn't seem to take all factors into
>account, and it is of questionable relevance
>to this thread due to the limited scope, and
>the fact that he obviously isn't using the
>Dupuy formula.
I agree, more windows are needed to complete the picture if more far reaching conclusions are to be drawn to form these "national biases".
But you do agree in principle that some formula, not necessarily the Dupuy formula, could be used to derive some factual evidence of "national biases" IF enough related variables are processed ?
The raw figures from Normandy do seem however to indicate that the Germans were able to extract better ratios, if not else then in the goulish way of cost efficiency in RM expended per enemy soldier killed or maimed. The Allies extracted better overall loss ratios but their cost efficiency in $'s per KILLED/MAIMED enemy soldier was very poor indeed compared to the German figure.
I am not saying it would be easy but with a little effort, a lot of hard facts and an established, well based guide line the comparison to establish the "national biases" could be done.
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>What a bunch of nonsense. The Germans
>deployed a grand total of 600,000 troops in
>the ETO?! IIRC it was several times that
>many.
ETO or Normandy ?
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In a recent PBEM game I was able to divert my Allied opponent from taking the most vulnerable VL by a rather clever (well, I like to think it was clever
) ploy. The location was behind a speck of woods overlooking the perfect attack terrain with beautyfully open LOS and easily traversible terrain coupled with a ridge line which fouled my LOS to his approach. The only thing going for me was a conveniently placed stone wall which I reconed would act a tank obstacle. I placed a 81mm mortar FO, a Pzschreck team and a HMG team with a Lynx light tank (I had a Hetzer too but I did not want to risk that in such a vulnerable position). I placed my other assest to cover a more wooded route with restricted LOS. There was a village between these two positions and I placed an other FO to act as picked. The entrance to the village was an open slope down I reconed he would not take, being a prudent commander he is. I placed a 50mm ATG on a position further back to overlook that slope just in case Sure enough my esteemed opponent directed a preliminary bombardment to that speck of woods (on man from the FO-team casualty) and later he pushed some infantry towards that area. I was able stop his infantry for some time with the Lynx but it was KO'd subsequently by a tank hiding behind the fence. That delay gave me time to call in 81mm off-board fire as directed fire to cause casualties to his infantry. Some of his troops reached the far end of the woods. He suffered enough casualties to prevent him from pushing further inside the woods, as he thought it would be filled with infantry.
Meanwhile my main force engaged his other attack coming in through the low-LOS area. I took out a Wasp and a AC with a 75mm IG and beat back some infantry which had been split into half squads. He was able to push a full squad between my two positions but he did not exploit that breach. For a moment it looked tense but he then widrew the squad from its position.
Some pointers based on that engagement:
Deception: sometimes expecting the expected can be utilized to mask your true disposition and how meager your resources really are.
Identifying avenues of advance: sometimes you can use the fact that your enemy may be ruling out the most obvious choice because it is the most obvious choice to your advantage when trying to make ends meet with few assets.
"Tank safe" terrain: rims of a route surrounded by (heavy) woods offer obvious AT ambush sites. And obvious targets for preliminary bombardments. Terrain impassable to tanks is not impassable to infantry. If you opt to set up ambuses remember to cover the flanks of the ambushes so that they do not get ambushed by simultaneous attacks from the front and the flank themselves.
Good LOS works both ways.
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Here is a post on the subject from the OnWar forum by a guy called Wolf. Makes interesting reading:
>Many of the topics at this board ends up
>with a lot ”playing” with numbers from
>different sources, especially about the
>eastern front. What conclusions can be draw
>by looking at casualties?
>
>If I look at the losses in Normandy Campaign
>(Zetterling&Tamelander 1995)
>
>German 23.019 KIA, 67.240 WIA, 198.616 MIA.
>U.S 20.838 KIA, 94.881 WIA, 10.128 MIA.
>British 16.138 KIA, 58.954 WIA, 9.013 MIA.
>
>I don’t know if the Poles, French or
>Canadian losses are included. The 16.417
>lost allied airmen are not included,.
>
>likewise lost German airmen are not included
>what I know.
>
>Conclusion 1: The allies lost 209.592
>against 288.875 Germans a 1:1,38 ratio.
>
>So Tommy Atkins and G.I Joe saved Western
>Europe and inflict higher casualties despite
>attacking over the Channel against a
>defending foe. But the cost was high.
>
>Conclusion 2: The number of KIA and WIA in
>the German forces was 90.259 against 190.451
>a 1:2,11 ratio. So despite fighting against
>a foe with total air superiority and an
>unlimited(?) amount off artillery
>ammunition(very good logistics) and good
>information about the enemy(resistance,
>Ultra and aerial recon) superior tactics by
>the German forces gave Tommy and Joe a hell.
>
>Conclusion 3: Using the definition
>irrevocable losses (I suppose that it’s
>means KIA and MIA, should invalid soldiers
>be included to?) the numbers are 221.635
>Germans against 56.117 Allies a 3.95:1
>ratio. The Allied army soundly defeated the
>German army with relatively low casualties.
>
>Conclusion 4: The number of deployed troops
>of the Germans was around 600.000 and the
>Allied numbered 2.052.299. That means that
>every German soldier inflicted 0,34
>casualties(209.592/600.000) and every Allied
>soldier inflicted 0,14 casualties
>(288.875/2052.299). The old Landser (and the
>very young) with it’s better training (but
>shorter) fought still better than Tommy and
>Joe in 1944.
>
>Depending what I want to prove about the
>Normandy Campaign I can use any off the
>above conclusions. And that's only from one
>source.
>
>I think all four are pretty good
>conclusions...
Comments ?
-
>It's from Monty Python & the Holy Grail.
It has been ages since I saw that last.
Anyway, how could he have widrawn from the battle in a condition like that AND have fought another day ?
I think the analogy with Robin Hood is more accurate anyway....
>(Looks like the AAR of my latest game, surprisingly.)
..... NOT ?
[ 06-15-2001: Message edited by: tero ]
-
>Er...WHAAAAT???? :eek:
Ever seen footage of Soviet assualts where scores of infantry is running among the tanks ?
-
>Do the Burkinabe get extra points for
>fighting the Bangladeshians?
Depends: are they fighting on their home turf ? And have they been trained purely by foreign advisors or by their countrymen who are applying the tactics they have learned while serving in a foreign army to suit the local conditions and the available resources ?
-
>....while down playing that in both cases
>they lost despite damage inflicted on the
>Soviets.
You have to define the term "lose". What did we lose ? The war, yes. But we did not surrender unconditionally. We were able to fight the mighty Red Army into a standstill twice. After both engagements our army was out of breath but it was still standing. The Soviets had to accept a negotiated settlement twice. The task our army had was to buy time for the politicians and diplomats. And our army did succeed in that task.
>& to this date I have not met 1 Finn
>interested in WW2 who wasn't the same
. That must be because you guys are reading histories on the subject that are less than accurate.
>Anyway they are proud of their past & who
>can blame them for it, their limited
>involvement WW2 successes were very
>impressive & the men who fought deserve to
>be honored.
I could not agree with you more.
Mind you, that is not saying I dishonour the efforts of the rest of the WWII veterans.
-
>Add the United States to that list.
>Although soldiers were often buried in
>makeshift cemeteries at or near the battle
>site, their families did have the option of
>requesting the war department ship their
>loved ones' remains home for reinternment.
But that was after the war, right ? The only armies to bring back their dead while the fighting was going on were, I believe, the Japanese and the Finnish army.
>Tero, I think you are carrying your
>arguments a bit far. I agree with
>Panzerleader (scary thought, that
) - >you obviously hold the belief that once a
>human being put on a Finnish Army uniform,
>they suddenly became so powerful, so
>tactically adept, so rabidly fanatical that
>they might as well have worn a red cape and
>blue tights with a great big "S" on
>the chest.
I am not even trying to say I am not biased in favour of the Finns in some respects.
But as others have pointed out you can only be positively biased towards your country of choice only if you are an American, right ?
My basic argument is the current system works in CM now because the forces included are uniform in demographics and tactics. We Finns were only 3,5 million with an army of beween 250 000 and 500 000 men during the war so we could not afford huge one time losses on a regular basis. That is why the tactics HAD TO BE very different to the armies that could afford to lose thousands of men at one go to reach the desired results. That means that in the game the TacAI has to work differently for the Finns. If the TacAI uses the same algorithms for the Finns as it uses for the Germans the outcome will be ahistorical.
ADDENDUM: the Finnish mobilization system was regional so the units were formed from men living in the same district. That means that they were bonded with bonds stronger than those of shared cause and the same uniform. That was an asset, not a liability (unlike they great armies had thought after their experiences during WWI when they broke up the buddy-regiments).
>Yes, the Finns fought tenaciously. Yes,
>they did fairly well against the Russians.
Fairly well ? Lets not forget we were Stalins only adversaries who fought him into accepting a negotiated peace that secured our pre-war status.
>However, some U.S. troops, British troops,
>Canadian troops, Russian troops, German
>troops and others fought just as hard, just
>as well, and accomplished the same level of
>tactical successes as the Finns.
I am not saying they did not do just that. But the results the each armies reached were not reached using the same basic tactics that were only dependant on the experience level of the troops.
>In CM:BO, this result can be duplicated by
>sound player tactics.
No, they can not, I'm afraid. You have to work the game engine to duplicate these sound tactics. I have been using the Finnish tactics in my games and they work pretty well for the infantry, IF you work the game engine and know how to utilize its weaknesses and strong points. But there are too may TacAI quirks that make the use of purely Finnish tactics on Western Allied and German troops a major pain, sometimes impossible. You can not for example disengage your troops to redeploy them in a way that would be duplicating the actual Finnish tactics (or the tcatics of any other army for that matter). The squad level disepersal of the men is all wrong for the Finnish squads. There are no different basic formations which you can choose from to suit different tactical situations. And so on.
Then there are the armoured vehicles. Finnish Stugs got a 10-1 kill ratio but as things stand my Stugs get killed because you can not conceal the vehicles well enough to make effective ambushes. Also, by design, it is virtually impossible for the Stugs to fire from hull down positions. Then there is the lousy first shot hit propability which heavily favours the Allied armour (mostly due to the fast turret and cross section targeting). Historically the Finnish Stugs got more first shot hits and kills than the Stugs get now in CM.
Do you want me to list my gripes on the on- and off-board artillery and other assets ?
>I see no reason why one side should get some
>sort of national stereotype bonus simply
>because the player running the show is not
>tactically adept enough to duplicate the
>accomplishments of the historical forces.
I wonder why you guys refer to it as national stereotype or bias ? And why do you refer to it as bonus ?
There were quantifiable differences in the tactics and doctrine used by different armies.
[ 06-15-2001: Message edited by: tero ]
to get full benefit from their SMG's the Germans will have to let the GI's get close
) 1.4 CEV as a means of
MORE answers to all your questions here!
in Combat Mission Archive #3 (2001)
Posted
>It says "more answerss to all your
>questions" but all I seem to see are more
>questions, and they even seem to be veering
>into the ridiculous...
Shall we continue our "more serious" debates that got cut off when the old tread got locked up ? So that we get some spunk into this tread