Andrew H.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JasonC: "someone had better tell the US government" The M-1 was certainly a revolutionary and successful MBT in the meantime. At least half of its superiority, though, comes from superior gunnery, vision, and fire control equipment. Few are aware of it, but Bradley's (having only those advantages) were also highly successful in the Gulf war, without the benefit of the heavy armor. But then that result was overdetermined.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Don't forget the M-1's speed and reliability: it's hard to encircle enemy forces if your tank moves at a crawl and breaks down every 15 miles. Also, the armor on the M-1 was not of decisive importance as very few M-1's were even hit by Iraqi tanks.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Fenno: This raises also the question, that if japanese would have hade a lot of good artillery on those islands, would the marines have succeeded?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Yes, because Naval bombardment would have destroyed the artillery (choose 14" guns as artillery to see how that goes). The problem with a lot of the pacific island fighting was that the Japanese would wait out the naval bombardment in deep caves or fortifications, and then come back up when it was over. Individual guns could be manhandled up and down the caves as well, but this wouldn't have worked with large scale artillery units; they would have just become targets for planes and more naval bombardments. Putting an army in a 2km by 5km space is going to really get pretty crowded. A sov. army is approximately equivalent to a Western style Corps...but that's still an awful lot of men.

There's a funny scene in Gavin's "On to Berlin" where, during the invasion of Sicily, some paratroopers capture an Italian. Apparently the Italians had been told that the paratroopers were dangerous criminals who were only let out of prison if they agreed to become paratroopers; the punk-style haircuts worn by the paratroopers was seen as further evidence of this. Anyway, after the paratroopers captured this guy, one of them was going to cut the buttons off of his fly (apparently so he couldn't run away without his pants falling down). Anyway, having a paratrooper grab his pants and put a knife up to his crotch (quite reasonably) caused the captured soldier to panic, and he apparently panicked so effectively that he actually escaped. I think that my motivation to escape would also be pretty high in that circumstance. I think BTS doesn't model this exactly; I think it's handled as an abstraction.

What kind of Sherman? What was the range? What was the time period?

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JonS: Andrew, if you aren't interested then save your keyboard some wear and tear, and don't bother posting. There are several aspects of this game that interest me not a jot - mods being foremost among them - but manage to restrain myself when yet another mods thread appears. Please, for both our sakes, have the good grace to do likewise. Thank you Jon<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> The real point of my post is that vehicles like this are outside the scope of CM and belong in some other game that is more suited to their actual deployment. Presumably, that's why BTS didn't spend the coding time to put these engineering-type vehicles in the game in the first place. Look at CM as it is actually played and it is hard to imagine anyone purchasing these units. In a, say 1500 point QB, who's going to buy a bridging unit or a flail tank? Not many people, I would suspect. True, you could have a scenario with, say, a bridging unit (assuming, for the moment, that CM had terrain that could be bridged by these units). But it's hard to imagine that as a very interesting scenario, because if you destroy one key unit (the bridging vehicle), that side loses. If CM had a larger scale -- large enough that the attacker could pick a weakly defended sector of the front and use engineering vehicles to cross obstacles so as to force a breach in that part of the front, it would be a mistake not to include these vehicles. But that game isn't CM. CM is a tactical, squad level game depicting battles between approximately equally matched opponents. There's not a lot of room for much of the engineering battle at this scale.

Maybe we all need to wait for CM:BF. Imagine the excitement as your funnies: Clear Mines! Lay Fascines in Gullies! Bridge Small Streams! Clear More Mines! Create Artificial Moonlight! Cut Barbed Wire! Clear More Mines! Ahh, the anticipation. I can't wait.

I thought the largest tank battle in history occurred between the US and Iraq. Also, does "France land" mean the French mainland or "French land."

There's a difference, of course, between names for things that are supposed to be secret, and names for things that just need names. When the US started desert shield, it was not a secret that we were sending a bunch of soldiers there to defend saudi arabia. But I do wonder if the operation had a different name before it was announced ("beige microphone") or something similarly obscure. Germany had obscure names for its attacks at first: the invasion of Poland was Fall weiss (case white); France was Fall gelb (case yellow). AFAIK, yellow doesn't have the same connotation in German as it does in English. I suppose Fall rot (red) for the invasion of the USSR would have been too obvious, although Barbarossa does have that red element to it.

Barbarossa was a real person - Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor until 1190. He was pretty successful. He went on crusade with Richard the Lionhearted and died on the crusade. The mythical part is the bit about him being in a cave, where he will wake up of the German people face disaster. Or Barbarossa has a very apocalyptic view of disaster.

After you knock out a tank, if any crew survive, there's a metal-on-metal sound of a hatch opening. This represents the survivors opening the hatches and climbing out. There's typically an explosion sound that lasts a couple of seconds, then a second or so of silence, then the metal-hitting-metal (sometimes with a slight squeak) hatch sound. You won't here the sound if no crew survive the explosion (which happens rarely).

To a great extent, arty effectiveness depends on what kind of troops you're facing and what kind of battle you are fighting. If you are fighting against troops that are dug in or in buildings, you probably want something more than 81mm mortars. If you are defending, or fighting a ME, 81mm mortars can be quite effective, at least against green or regular troops, which is what I tend to play). An 81mm mortar barrage against regular troops advancing in the open will generally stop their advance, and often send them cowering back to the cover from which they came. (Green troops will usually go back to the cover from which they came). Two turns of 81mm mortars on troops in trees may not cause massive damage, but with greens/regs, it will usually disorganize them for a couple of turns. Larger arty would, of course, do even more damage, but the delay is so great that it would be pretty difficult to hit a specific attacking platoon soon enough to break up the attack. Plus, it's a no brainer to quickly switch between smoke and HE with an 81mm mortar. I would be much more reluctant to do the same with expensive 155mm arty.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by redwolf: Am I alone in this opinion, or was the original U.S. plan for TD units with "AT-capable" guns and keeping the normals tanks out of German AFV's way better? We know it didn't work. However, it occurs to me that it didn't work because too many commanders didn't understand the roles of the TD's, abused the TD's and then naturally the tankers cried for other help. Being let down before, the most desireable help was getting their own AT capability. What would have happend if TD units had been properly employed and the money spent in upgunning Shermans, new 76mm Shermans and more complicated ammunitions logistics had been invested in more tanks and TDs?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Well, the TD concept wasn't as bad as it looks in retrospect. At the beginning of the war, the main combatants all had what could be described as a Tank/TD dichotomy. The German had their 37mm main battle tanks for anti armor purposes, and their PzIV for anti infantry purposes (the Pz IV with the short 75mm gun had less penetration and accuracy than the 37mm). If you were fighting a bunch of infantry, you wanted PzIVs. A bunch of tanks, you wanted Pz IIs and IIIs and 35(t) and 38(t). Of course, the British 2 pounder didn't have a HE shell at all. And even later in the war, both the Germans and the USSR fielded what could be called TDs with some success. The biggest problem was not the TDs per se; it was that the existence of TDs was used as an excuse not to upgun the Sherman or make new tanks. If there were Sherm 76s and M10s in 1943, I don't think that anyone would complain about the existence of TDs. If Pershings and M-36 Jacksons had come ashore at Normandy, no one would have complained about TDs; even if logistics prevented the Pershings from being produced in large numbers by 6/44, 76mm Sherms plus M-36s would have been fine. The Germans never complained about their TDs because, as many dumb decisions as German arms designers made, they never did anything like refusing to upgrade the PzIV to the 75mm L/48 on the basis that this gun was already used by the Marder, and the PzIV should be fighting infantry, not tanks. But some reasons that US tanks were undergunned had nothing to do with TD doctrine. The M-36 probably could have been produced in goodly numbers by June '44; the reason it wasn't was because a lot of people felt like having such a well armed TD wasn't a priority. (It's not clear that this could have been done with the Pershing even if there had been the desire; it was sort of a buggy tank even by the time it was finally introduced, for normal design reasons). Some commentators have also said that the TD doctrine wouldn't have worked by 6/44 anyway because allied air superiority prevented the Germans from having large masses of armor for the TDs to go and stop. This seems a little simplistic, both because (1) there were many other reasons that could and did prevent panzers from massing; and (2) notwithstanding (1), supra, German armor did mass, on several occasions, to little effect.

I remember Avalon Hill's report of a SL beta test (or whatever they were called in those pre-computer days...playtest?)"Okay, I do an AFV overrun attack on the infantry in this hex with the flail. I'd just love to see that happen, history be damned. Or...a companyof flail tanks, lined up shoulder to shoulder attacking a group of..unarmored flak vehicles. Yeah, baby! :cool:

IIRC, BTS's response to this was that there were many rivers in the CMBO area that were passable by infantry but impassible to vehicles because of the steep banks leading down to the river. It is certainly true that there are far more rivers like this (and smaller canals would be like this, too) in NW Europe than rivers that can be forded by vehicles and infantry. Although of course vehicles did ford some rivers in NWE in WWII.

:cool: :cool: :cool:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Bad Dog: Similar to what Roach said, if I want to go into tall pines (or got flushed out after trying to to in), and I know the bad guys are in there just some 10 meters away from the edge of tall pines. I'd love to supress the bad guys with my mortars before I attempt to go in (again)... Or is that too gamie? :eek:<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Just target the edge that you can see; you'll easily get more than a 10 meter scatter. These are not precision weapons.

A quick calculation of the Lorraine battle makes it about an 8000 pt. ME. This is a rough estimate, but Germans get 3 infantry battalions and maybe 9 105 FOs. (They'd get assorted PaKs, too, but I don't want to look that up). US side gets 2 companies of infantry and about 7000 points of artillery.

Hey, Tom, I just downloaded them and they sound great. (I always hated "Das Blut, das Blut!"). Oh, I got an error msg when I tried to download the arty sounds.

I've always sort of wished that BTS had included the Hetzers with the 150mm IG, although I do wonder how many shells they could carry. My PzKw 38(t) In Action is silent on this point. There's a picture HERE, scroll about halfway down.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by M Hofbauer: It's a fault in the system. To give them a movement order, even sneak, you have to cancel the "hide" state. Once they execute the sneak order, they *will* sneak. However, there is a considerable time delay between issuing the order (and thereby unhiding them) and the execution thereof. This results in the annoying situations you describe. I agree with your frustration and experienced it myself. A solution would be to have hiding units hide until the *execution* of an order commences. Makes sense to me.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I don't think that the way CM models it now is exactly right, but I'm not sure keeping the men hidden until the execution of the order would be exactly right, either. Think of what's really happening: you have 10 men scattered over a, say, 15 meter area, hiding from enemy units that are very close. You want these men to move to a new location. Well, the squad leader has to tell (signal, whatever) the men to move, and he can't do it telepathically. It's possible, I suppose, that all men are hidden in such a manner that they have LOS to the squad leader and could therefore see what he wants them to do and carry out the orders right away. But that's not necessarily the case. So I would suggest that the most realistic solution would be for there to be a *chance* that the men stay hidden until they execute their new orders, and a *chance* that they stop hiding (which would actually simulate them realizing that they are about to be discovered due to their trying to disengage. I suppose the chance of them unhiding should depend on the terrain they're in (it's easier to coordinate when the men are hidden in a building or behind a wall then it would be if they are concealed in trees), their experience level, and perhaps the closeness of the enemy units. [Edit] Oh, also very important, being in C&C and the leader's stealthiness rating. Being able to disengage while staying hidden seems like exactly the kind of thing that the stealthiness rating should affect. [ 09-09-2001: Message edited by: Andrew Hedges ]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Slapdragon: Any tank can be killed by any other tank if the right combination of events occur.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> And the LORD looked down on the enemy panzers, and the enemy panzers did not find favor in the LORD'S eye. And lo, the LORD stretched out His hand from Heaven and smote the enemy panzers. And because the LORD stretched out His hand from Heaven, He smote the enemy panzers from above, and His hand easily penetrated the weaker top armor of the enemy panzers, destroying them. And there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth among the heathen, who turned their back on the LORD, and called Him "gamey." But there was much rejoicing among the righteous, for they recalled the saying of the LORD'S prophet Matthew (in whose likeness the dome of the rock was constructed), that "it's a game, so everything is gamey." And thus the righteous rejoiced in their Victory, and gave praise to the LORD, and the LORD was well pleased.

I didn't think that CM was going to specifically model women, either. Although I suppose if someone wanted to, they could use the new "fitness" modifier to simulate weaker units. Although, as Michael pointed out, women were mostly (although not entirely) used in non-infantry roles, where the absence of sheer physical strength would not have been much of a disadvantage. It appears to be true that, due to basic physiological differences between men and women, men always have the potential for greater upper body strength. However, the actual physiological strength potential of women is greater than comparisons of modern western women with modern western men would suggest. I.e., for various social reasons, women in the west today do not approach their physiological strength potential as closely as men do. If you look at pictures of American farmwives of the mid 1800's, or of female slaves of the same era, it's often striking how large these women's hands and forearms are...basically from a lifetime of hard labor starting as a child. Including stuff like pushing a plow, chopping wood, carrying water, etc. They're not particularly attractive, but they sure are strong. I would suspect that many peasant women in the USSR in the 40's would have a similar physique. So you might find, among women who performed a lot of manual labor in the USSR in the 40's, that, say 30% of them were able to perform at a level that the top 50% of men could perform at. Which is probably good enough for most common infantry purposes. It's probably also true that 0% of women would be able to perform at the level that the top 10 or 15% of men could achieve -- but that's not really relevant for infantry, as no country could afford to make infantry training so demanding that only the top 10-15% of *men* were able to do it. However, IIRC, most women used in infantry-type positions were in all-woman quasi militia units. I don't think that these women should perform worse than men in similar units. There shouldn't be a moral problem with men because the infantrywomen weren't integrated into male units

I would be interested is seeing what sort of figures back the 10-1 claim; I rooted around on the internet and, as is so often the case, found a lot of sites repeating the claim, but nothing really supporting the claim. 1. Why I could believe the claim. From mid to late war, Tigers were often employed in heavy detachments used as a roving fire brigade to stop enemy breakthroughs. This type of employment probably meant that the Tigers would often be fighting enemy tanks with a minimum amount of supporting infantry, etc. This is a recipe for a lot of tank kills, without having to worry much about side shots or too many heavy PaKs. It's easier to rack up high kill numbers when you don't have to lead a breakthrough yourself. 2. Why I'm skeptical The absolute numbers are just so high, particularly given the relative rarity of the Tigers. Also, the Tigers just weren't uebertanks. Gavin and his men dealt with them pretty handily on Sicily, and the Soviets captured one of the first ones used on the Eastern front pretty easily by simply using an AT gun. I guess it wouldn't really surprise me if certain heavy tank units had 10-1 kill ratios, especially at the end of the war. But claiming that Tigers knocked out 12,000 allied tanks seems, well, improbable.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Colonel_Deadmarsh: The Sherman M4 has a positive ID on it. It is though, firing down from a slight hill. My Hetzer is hull down in a ridge slightly below it about 300m away. As for the armor quality, I thought those numbers showed the result of the armor quality not being 100%. If not, why are there meaningless numbers in the tables then? What would be the purpose of that? The only thing that I can think of is that the shot was fired at what visually looks like the frontal side. Of course, we don't get the messgage, "Frontal-side" hit (at least I don't think we don't) so maybe that has something to do with it. Are frontal-side shots taken into account with a armor penetration in the middle of the two used, or is there no grey area there--only frontal 60mm and side 30mm?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I think the actual armor numbers (non-adjusted for quality) as a way of "showing their work." Plus, if they just listed the Hetzer's front armor as 51mm, everytime a new grog came to the board, he would point out this error. I think it was a combination of the hill slope, the poor armor quality, and the 300 meter range that did in your Hetzer. Although it was a near thing. I don't think this is exactly like a critical hit in SL/ASL. A critical hit would be a "penetration at weak spot," which would be shown on the screen. Your frontal-side question, if I understand it correctly, is a good question, although it's much more complicated than you might think. Others here know more about it than me, but, basically, for all shots, CM calculates the angle of impact and uses that figure to determine the effective thickness of armor. Grossly simplifying, the steeper the angle, the more effective the armor is. But there are two kinds of angle an armor can have. The first is the regular up and down slope that you see in the stats -- like the 60 degree slope for the front of the Hetzer. The second angle is the angle of deflection, which, basically, is the angle that your shot hits the armor at (this is *different* from the 60 degree angle being reduced from shooting from above. Here's an example. If you have two tanks directly facing each other on level ground, and one tank has a 60 degree sloped front glacis, the shell fired by the other tank will have to penetrate whatever the effective armor thickness is for that armor at that slope. There is no deflection because the shot hits dead on. Now if the tanks were not directly facing each other, and a tank rotated it's turret and shot the second tank, the shell might hit the second tank at a 45 degree angle from straight on. *This* angle is called deflection, and it makes a tanks armor seem thicker the same way that the up and down angle does. So in order to calculate the effective armor thickness of a tank, you have to know both the slope of the armor and the deflection of the shot. In the above example, the CM engine would increase the effective armor of the tank because it has a 60 degree slope, and increase the armor's effective thickness *again* because the shot had a 45 degree deflection. Now, all of this goes to answer the question you originally asked about "frontal side" hits. The CM engine will determine whether a shot hit the front or the side of a tank based on some sort of probablity model that depends on what percentage of the side was showing. It will use armor base, plus slope, plus deflection to calculate armor thickness. Side armor is usually much weaker than front armor, but if the tanks are almost facing each other, the shell hitting the side would hit with such a great deflection that it would be almost impossible to penetrate...imagine if the angle of deflection was, say, 87 degrees. So, anyway, that's the simple answer to how it works. Keep in mind, when you watch the blue bar slowly resolve the turn, that CM also has to keep track of deflection at the exact moment that the shell hits the tank. So if a tank is rotating towards you, the engine needs to know exactly how far toward you the tank had rotated at the instant it was hit so that it can apply the proper deflection. (A similar process obtains when you shoot at a rotating turret). Hope this helps!

One effect that I think the pregame/1st turn bombardment might have is that it will emphasize historical weaknesses that certain weapons systems -- like infantry guns -- had. In one of the (countless) earlier threads dealing with whether certain items of German equipment were too cheap, the IG guns came up as an underpriced item. Someone responded that these weapons were appropriately priced because they were particularly vulnerable to artillery. A historically true point, although one that has less relevance for CM given the cost of artillery, the limited number of fire missions, the delay, and the opportunity costs of firing at an IG. Especially if it is not around other vulnerable units. If there are pre-game bombardments, however, the weakness of these guns vs. artillery will be increased. Which might bring their costs more in line with their historical effectiveness. Of course they can be dug in or placed in bunkers trenches or whatever new fortifications CMBB permits (the fortress of Brest-Litovsk? )...but that will also increase their price.