willys

And of course there are instances where anti-tank teams were found to be exactly in this predicament (having no secondary weapons). When the young conscripts were sent into the streets of Berlin with nothing more than a panzerfaust. In the Last Battle (I think) Heinrici rails "what are they to do when they have expended their one round? Use their empty weapon as a club?" I tend to doubt, however, that this was the norm in a typical German TO&E.

Charles, (or whomever else can answer) In your replies about 88/L71 data you mentioned WP ammo for mortars. Since I don't have the full game version, is WP modeled (for tanks) in CM? How about canister rounds? I know that canister is used in CC3 but, honestly, I have only seen the game fire it about twice. When it did I was pretty confused about what was going on until I remembered about these rounds.

I like Bastables idea about one memeber of the HT team getting out and spotting over a ridge. Meanwhile the HT is behind it and out of LOS. This means the enemy would have to deal with the spotter to blind the IF capability or flank the ridge to get at the vehicle itself. Good tactics! This would make this unit more effective and flexible. Also I go along with Michael that the use of HT Mortars was more for operational movement rather than the scale of maps used in CM. On this scale it is questionable whether it would be worth using the points to buy the HT rather than using those same points for a couple extra mortar units.....

I just wanted to elicit some responses about what the folks on this board thought about scale issues in the Russian Front incarnation of the game. Because this was a problem for me in CC3, I would like to know what you guys think an ideal max map size and unit sizes would be? Anyone?

Cooling of tank motors of any size would almost have to be liquid based. Although, of course, after the war Germany did produce the famous Volkswagen, with it's revolutionary air-cooled system. The idea was that it helped cold start conditions in chilly environments. It also was one of the reasons the VW didn't have a very effective compartment heater.

I agree with Juha and Ari on this one. The point of revving engines to DECREASE temperatures does make sense. For instance, my Pontiac gets hotter sitting in idle than it does while I'm moving and the RPM's are up (increases coolant flow). Also, I think anyone can see how proper modeling of traverse speed is highly critical in modeling each tank. Still, when you consider these guys actually considered it in their program design at all when most games don't seem to shows the great effort that was put into this piece of software.

It's not just a "Germans stop retreating for a moment to put up a fight" scenario, or "Americans fend off small German counterattack". David pretty much nailed it IMO. West Front combat does amount to periods when the Germans stopped retreating and put up a fight. If you wanted to capture the typical "battle" on the West Front you would have a game board where retreating German columns are blasted by artillery, hosed down by air strikes, and overrun by outnumbering Allied armor. To get a feel for this Read the book "Death of a Nazi Army". It details the rout and eventual encirclement at Falaise of two German armies. The allies basically blasted a huge hole in the German left flank and ran through it with armored divisions. This is a pretty accurate picture of the hellish position the Germans were put in. Very accurate historically, but who would want to play that as the German side in a game? Not me!

Ok Lindan I think the professional generals were simply trying to limit Hitler's ambitious plans just to avoid the horrendous German casualties they knew would go along with it. The war was over and they knew it. (They had for a long time). They just forgot to tell Hitler......

Ari, I have figures from another source that match up closely with what you have from Jentz. And this was using only solid-core shot! It goes on to say that with APHE rounds there have been recorded cases of T34's being knocked out at ranges of up to 3500 meters....thus my point about CC3's accuracy.

Maybe even more pertinent than France and Great Britain going to war with Russia was how the Germans treated the Russian people in Southern Russia. Many of these people absolutely despised Stalin and would have most likely allied themselves with Hitler's armies if they had been treated properly by the invaders. Instead Hitler launched his EinsatzGruppen into the conquered territories, completely destroying a very important potential ally against their own government.

Helge, From my understanding of the materials I have read regarding German use of tungsten-cored rounds, production fell off dramatically after about 1941 because of the lack of available wolfram to create these projectiles. It is probablt pretty well known to the grognards on here that the Germans created a highly successful squeeze bore gun in the 28 mm size that was made even more dangerous with the use of tungsten rounds. The gun was highly portable and could be setup with an extremely low profile. I've got a picture of one being crewed in a book I have called "Weapons of the Waffen SS". It was sort of an oversized super-antitank rifle.

Andreas, Agreed. The point I was trying to make here is that weapons effectiveness, in some instances, seems to be be toned down significantly in CC3 to facilitate the games purposes. By the way, did you happen to know that I live in Arizona or did you just mention that by coincidence?

Some more thoughts on this post....Perhaps this is why the Russian numerical advantage in this game is not as greatly exaggerated as it could have been...so as not to create an unplayable game from the German perspective? One more thought, only fifteen units per side? This seems too limited....

Don't know about CM because I only have the demo and it isn't represented in the two included scenarios, but.....In Close Combat III this is one of my major gripes. Even with the small scale of the maps (about 500 meters max) Tigers regularly bounce shot from the T34's hulls and 88 guns become almost pointless because the initial starting range between the two forces is too small. This leads to the gun being less effective than it would have been in reality because the tanks can get beads on it pretty quickly once it is spotted. In reality the 88 would have probably picked off several of those rusky tanks before they ever got that close....Also the shortened maps tend to make the Soviet 122 and 150 gunned tanks more powerful as tank killers because, again accuracy at these ranges gives them more of an advantage. Again, in reality a longer engagement range would allow the high-velocity Tiger and Panther guns to be much more accurate at say, 1500 meters or so.

Somehting I think pertains to this topic as well is the concept of scale. In the wargame West front there is a reasoned explanation why the designers chose not to have indirect rounds be a causative agent in tank/armor damage. The showed a photocopy of a report prepared by the us army which showed that less than 3% of tank kills of the ones studied could be traced to indirect fire. (Check it out it is in the very back of the manual if you have the game). But WF is an operational game with much larger maps. Even one hex is equivalent to 250 meters per side of the hex area, creating quite a large targeted area. On this scale a platoon of tanks (say 5), could be widely dispersed within this area and the probability of a round getting close enough to actually damage armor is significantly reduced. On scale with CM you have a much more scaled down area where this could be several rounds landing in a much smaller target zone. I don't feel that there is any question that a 155mm shell landing close enough to an armored vehicle could cause disabling damage, but again it is the scale of the game which could heavily influence this happening.....see my point?