Andrew H.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by rexford: T34 design centers about speed and giving it the ability to move quickly through a defense. There are stories about the ability of KV-1 to waddle through an obstacle course or even cross a bridge without destroying things as its steering prevents straight movement. Nothing published states the design philosophy behind T34 and KV-1, but all of the armor characteristics and shapes suggest different battlefield roles that called for different armor thickness, slope and hardness considerations. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> This is probably right, and is consistent with some other design innovations in the T-34, such as the fact that, IIRC, the engine block was made of aluminum. Making the engine block out of aluminum is more complex and costly than it would be to make it out of iron; the fact that the sovs went to this trouble for a part of the tank that (1) isn't the gun; (2) isn't the armor; and (3) doesn't affect reliability; suggests that they did so only to obtain more speed out of the T-34. It's not like the T-34 was so underpowered that it would be immobile if this part was not cast from aluminum. It's also important, in this context, not to forget that the multiplying effect of sloped armor means that the armor has the effective thickness of, say 90mm armor with the weight of 45mm armor. So while we tend to think of slope as making a tanks armor "thicker," it would also be logical to believe that sloping armor is a way to make a tank with "90mm" of frontal armor lighter.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jeff Duquette: Andrew...whats page number for this account. I only read about 1/2 the book (not that its not a good read).<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I don't have my copy of TfT with me, so I'm not sure of the page number. This incident just got one or two sentences, though, so I'm not really sure how you could find it quickly.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by rexford: 37mm APCBC penetration against face-hardened and homogeneous follows: 100m 78mm homogeneous, 73mm face-hardened 500m 69mm homogeneous, 67mm face-hardened 1000m 59mm homogeneous, 57mm face-hardened <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> There's a brief account in MacDonald's "A Time for Trumpets" of a Stuart driving out of some woods toward a road (presumably to avoid encirclement), encountering a Panther, and knocking it out with a short range side shot. Which is not really a surprise to CM players (actually, the surprise is that it didn't happen more often), but it's nice to know that some improbable things that are theoretically possible actually occurred.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Slapdragon: The CM model for SMG versus rifle appears to be dead on, <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> That's just wrong, at least when SMGs are used offensively. Even BTS doesn't believe that their SMG model is "dead on", which is why they're changing things for CM2 wrt to moving and firing. As I mentioned earlier, the US history of the Bulge (which featured a lot of attacks by SMG armed troops) and which contains a lot of small unit actions, doesn't suggest that the use of SMGs gave the Germans the type of overwhelming advantage that they frequently have in CM on the attack. You can argue, of course, that this is meaningless because it is proving a negative, but that sort of misses the mark. Lots and lots of CMBO players have noted that SMGs are particularly deadly on the attack. The historical record does not reflect that US troops found that SMGs were particularly deadly on the attack. Moreover, US troops were not particularly reticent when it came to pointing out German equipment that they felt was better than their equipment. One way of interpreting this data would be to suggest that SMGs were really effective on the attack, but no one mentioned it. A more reasonable interpretation would be that SMGs were not particularly effective on the attack. To the extent that CM doesn't model this, it should be fixed to do so.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Slapdragon: Pretty much, without evidence, we just have to leave it alone. If evidence comes up, then maybe it can be presented again.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Well, there's plenty of evidence that SMGs in practice were not as effective as they are in CM. There are no instances, AFAIK, of US units demanding to be equipped with SMGs so that they could fight on even footing with German SMG-equipped infantry (and US troops were not shy about pointing out areas where they believed the Germans to be better equipped; cf. MG42s and tanks). I don't recall any instance in the Official History of the Battle of the Bulge (which I recently read and which featured a lot of SMG armed VGs) of SMG troops being particularly effective. Given this unrealism in CM, Jason's ammo-tweaking suggestion has a lot of merit, not least because it is pretty much the *only* way that CM players can make SMG units more historically effective. That is, weaker. I mean, it's fine for players to talk about tweaking firepower and suppression, etc...but that's something that players can't change. I suppose you could also insist that VG SMG squads be green, which was mostly the case in '44. The real reason that SMG troops were less effective in real life than they were in CM is because -- in the ETO -- they were usually not able to close to a range where their SMGs could be used to best effect. I don't know whether this has to do with undermodelling of rifles, overmodelling of SMGs, or underestimating the suppressive effect of trying to close range with a weapon that will not be effective until you close range...or maybe, as BTS seems to suggest, it may have to do with the fact that troops generally can't fire and move as much as CMBO allows them to do. But regardless of the reason SMGs were less effective in real life -- and ammo usage could definitely be a factor -- ammo usage is pretty much the only thing that can be tweaked by the players. So I think that players should do so because it will make the outcome of battles more realistic.

But you should be able to see inside the buildings. That way you could mod the interior and furniture. Biedermeier furniture for the fighting in the Reich, and several variations (from Provencial to Louis XIV) for the French homes. Not to mention wine cellars. Maybe rough wooden plank furniture for russian villages in CM2. CMHQ could have a special furniture section, featuring, say, Magua's Biedermeier chest, or Richard's Velvet Sofa.

I think that the 15% dud rate is interesting, but it's important to know whether the duds were randomly distributed among the ammuntion, or whether the 15% were located in "bad batches," all of which were duds. The difference being that if batch KHX1002-53 is mostly duds, the bad batch after firing a couple of shells. This would mean that the number of dud shells fired in the CM environment would be much less than 15% because most of the dud shells wouldn't be issued to the troops. (It would also mean that the troops would get 15% fewer shells, give or take, a production inefficiency that is way beyond CM's scope). On the other hand, if 15% of shells fired in anger were duds, that would probably be worth modeling. If only 2-4% of shells fired were duds, I would imagine that this would not be statistically significant given the certain amount of randomness that is built into CM's combat resolution system. I would like to know how the dud rate was determined, too -- in particular, how large the sample size was. If US troops captured an ammo dump, surely they didn't explode 25,000 mortar shells to determine the dud rate.

Don't adjust the points. Make the attacker use green troops; give the defender medium quality troops (or regulars). This has a couple of effects, all of them realistic and consistent with what you read about fighting in '44. First, MGs become more effective. They don't really cause any more casualties, but troops crossing in the open at ranges out to 500m will be disrupted by MG fire and often run back to cover. Second, lower powered artillery is more effective; green troops don't like being mortared, consequently, it's easier to break up an attack with the kind of lower powered arty a defender can afford. Third, green troops generally are more sensitive to being fired upon, to the extent that if there is an enemy regular squad in a foxhole, you will probably need to advance with a green platoon simultaneously to attack it and have a chance of rooting it out. By contrast, with more experienced units, you can usually send one squad forward and keep the others back, and then advance the other squads while the first one occupies the guys in the foxholes. This won't work as well with green troops because the first squad won't hang around and fight it out alone. Fourth (although this is really related to (Three), because green squads are more sensitive to fire, it's important to suppress even lone enemy squads as much as you can. This means waiting for MGs to come up and fire on the foxhole before you assault it, or using arty first. Fifth, it all ties together. Being more sensitive to fire means that green units have to act more like a military unit: they have to coordinate with their fellows and with stuff like artillery and tanks. They also need to use smoke to get close to the battle in good shape. But the fact that they are more sensitive to fire means that it is much more difficult to get the units to cooperate in the first place If you want to try this out, do a 1500 pt attack (or probe) against the AI. If you want to, for more realism, give the AI infantry and take Combined arms yourself. I would chose moderate trees; even the AI kills me if it's too open. FYI, I usually give the AI +1 experience, and take -30% if I'm the attacker; if you give the ai a different handicap, use that. FWIW, IMO a defender in the above scenario is probably better off choosing regular (vs. vet) troops; you get more bodies that way.

Yet another advantage to playing green troops is that they often won't hang around and get killed. If you order your fancy-schmancy vet squad to advance to some woods where a company of enemy infantry is hiding, the squad will advance to the woods and try to stay while 12 other squads try to kill it. Finally, when there are only one or two live men, the vets will bug out. By contrast, if a green squad advances to woods concealing a bunch of enemies, the greenies will bug out pretty soon after being shot at, and your green squad comes running back with but one or two casualties. In Panic, of course, but at least they're alive.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Dan Robertson: Kip I think one of the advantages of the German sight was the stadometric ranging ability, and the fact that it was marked up to these very high ranges. Looking at sight pictures for the 17 pdr it had only a set of sighting bars for different ranges. Where as the Germans could dail in the range more accuratly. What made a great difference was the German muzzle break and smokeless powder enabled the German gunner to more accurately track their rounds. Where as guns like the 17pdr produced so much smoke the gunner couldn't track his round. I would suspect that this is true with tanks like the IS II. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Well, most of the reports that you read about US troops being impressed with German optics deal with the fact that that things seem to be clearer and brighter; I don't recall reading any reports on optics that specifically laud the type of sight used. I've also seen US comments on how smokeless powder made it more difficult to spot German tanks, but I haven't seen any reports on how it made it more difficult for tankers to see where their shot fell. But I don't know that much about British practice; maybe problems were more severe with the Firefly. On the other hand, if BTS models that, they should also model the difficulty that Tiger crews (and 88 crews, for that matter), would have had because of all the dust thrown in the air from the muzzle blast. There are lots of descriptions of this; sometimes 88 gunners would use oil or water and hose down the area in front of their gun to prevent the dust from rising up. Most of the advantages the German optics seemed to have was that they used coated optics. This is hugely important in photography, but less important in tanks, except in certain situations. These situations would include: (1) spotting stationary objects at long distances, especially if they are concealed. (2) spotting objects at twilight, where the increased light gathering ability of coated optics would allow you to see things you wouldn't otherwise be able to see. (3) identifying vehicles -- this is easier if the vehicle is not blurred. These differences don't have much to do with actually hitting the target after you've spotted it. Which is consistent with reports; AFAIK, US tankers never complained about being unable to hit vehicles due to the quality of their sights. Which stands to reason; if there is a tank at 1500m (which is an extreme range for most US WWII tanks, even a modest 3x telescopic sight will make it appear to be at range of 500m, which is plenty good enough for targeting. The fact that coated optics would permit you to, say, read insignia painted on the tank might matter for photography, but wouldn't matter for targeting. On the other hand, if you don't see a stationary German tank at twilight in a treeline at 900m because of your non-coated optics, it will matter quite a bit. If it sees you.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by M Hofbauer: The last step would be taking smokeless powder and camoflage into effect as well - imagine a Marder under a heap of treenbranches and bushes on the edge of some woods waiting in ambush for the enemy tanks, not being spotted only after the first few rounds... [ 06-17-2001: Message edited by: M Hofbauer ]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I'd kind of like to see something like this, too. The best way might be to have "camoflage" as a sort of fortification that can be purchased by a side allowed to buy fortifications. Considerations like smokeless powder (or, for that matter, winter uniforms) should also play a role in spotting, subject to a couple of caveats I can think of: (1) Obviously, the spotting benefit gained from smokeless powder would only apply to units which are at increased risk of being spotted due to having fired. That is, a StuG shouldn't get a generalized concealment bonus for using smokeless powder; it should only get a benefit after it has fired. (2) It's possible that not all concealed German vehicles using smokeless powder should get a benefit from it -- if you read reports of 88's firing, for example, there is often a description of how much dirt and dust the gun threw into the air because of the muzzle blast. If this is generally true, there probably shouldn't be a smokeless powder advantage for some units because the muzzle blast effect would cancel this out. However, it might also be that these units would only lose the smokeless advantage in "dry" conditions; if the ground is damp or muddy (or frozen?), probably no dust would be thrown up and so there would be a smokeless advantage. (3) At smaller calibers, there may be no real advantage to smokeless powder: a 37mm AT gun using non-smokeless powder may not be, realistically, more difficult to spot than a 37mm gun using smokeless powder because the amount of smoke produced would be quite small. This would probably *not* apply to a small caliber weapon with a high ROF, though, as the amount of smoke in the air might be quite significant. (4) In certain environmental conditions, non-smokeless powder should be as difficult to spot as smokeless powder. This would probably be true in the following conditions: (a) Rain. ( Snow (i.e., snow is actually falling). © Fog. (d) Night. (e) High or gusty winds (if CM simulated this). (5) Vs. dogs. Smokeless powder is not scentless powder, so war dogs should not be penalized in locating vehicles using smokeless powder. [ 06-17-2001: Message edited by: Andrew Hedges ]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Slapdragon: But, the Finns and Russians can be simulated without any spurious national modifiers mostly based on grammar school myth. The Finns, with their back against the wall, are defenders. Skis given them mobility the Russians did not have in the snow. They are mostly regular or better, and get a fanatic bonus becuase for many of them, their homes are only 20 kilometers back, not 2000 kilometers away. The Russians are all green troops, with clunky T-28s, green artillery, but lots of cannon fodder.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Yes. CM doesn't need elaborate changes to simulate the type of results that occurred during the winter war. Set up a, say, 1500 point infantry attack with the nationality you choose to be the Finns (say, the Germans) being Regular and Vet, and the unit you choose to be the Sovs (say, the British) being Green and Conscript). Have the ground be snow (although this is not necessary). Attack. One of the most difficult things to do in CM is attack with inexperienced troops; it's almost impossible with conscripts. At a range greater than 500m, German HMGs hitting units in the open will cause them to go to ground, sometimes to even retreat in Panic; this is the usual result, not simply something that *can* happen. This would go far to obtaining historical results, although there are a couple of other things that would make it more realistic: trenches and dugouts for the defenders to make them more impervious to artillery, and some way of simulating the lack of winter preparedness that the Sov. troops had (maybe the fitness modifier would work?) The other factor in the Finns' success is outside the scope of CM; that is, they had the ability to manuver and obtain local superiority against sov. units. This would simply be reflected in the scenario setup that would give the finns local superiority.

If you go too close to the side of the map, it's possible, I think, for a unit to actually exit off the side. Never to return. Could that have happened? Also,can you find the unit using the + key?

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jeff Duquette: "Bad" commanders are typically weeded out rapidly by natural selection. Sure some slip through the cracks and many good ones "buy the farm". But in the Case of the German Army in Normandy, a fair number of their formations had seen several years of this weeding out process on the Eastern Front. Most Allied formations going into Normandy had seen no prior action. German tactical level leaders had a strong feel for terrain and how to best weave the weapons at their disposal into the terrain advantages offered to a defending army in Normandy. This can't be reflected in a tactical level game by artificially enhancing a squad's firepower.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I agree with this, of course, and pretty much think that CM gets it right. A "typical" June '44 battle in CMBO should have mostly Green US troops (with a smattering of Regulars, maybe), vs. mostly Regular German troops with a smattering of Vets, maybe. US on the attack in mostly defensible terrain. The German troops will be much more "effective" in this battle if you look at the casualties from AAR. Even if the US wins the scenario, the Germans will probably end up being more effective, in terms of actual casualties taken vs. inflicted. This is historically accurate, and pretty much so for the correct reasons.

It's very silly (as Vanir pointed out) to base troop effectiveness just on Normandy and ignore, say, the Breakout or the Falaise pocket. Particularly as most of the fighting in Normandy was designed to attrit the Germans to as to make a breakout possible. That would be sort of like trying to figure out German/Soviet combat effectiveness at Stalingrad, but cutting off consideration of the encirclement part of the battle to focus only on the city fighting. (Which, from the sov. side was so fierce so as to permit the encirclement). I do think that the Dupuy numbers are interesting, and I also believe that German defenders at Normandy were more "effective" in some vague sense, than the allies. But to just use Dupuy's numbers, even assuming that they are accurate, takes all the fun out of wargame design. The really interesting question is *why* certain troops were more effective. To the extent that Germans were more effective than the allies, or Finns than the soviets, it is certainly not because they were born German or Finn. It has to do with things like morale, training, firepower, equipment, tactics, etc. CM, or any game, should model these things in such a way that they are consistent with historical experience; that is the ultimate touchstone of realism in this genre, after all. But CM shouldn't take ahistorical shortcuts to achieve historical results; that's both cheating and not as much fun. For example, if we assume that German troops in Normandy were, say, 1.5 times as effective as US troops in June, CM could make German and US squads completely identical, but give the German troops 1.5 times the firepower of a US squad. This might lead to results that completely square with the historical record. But it's a completely worthless exercise because, for all of the reasons that German troops of this period might have had a 50% effectiveness bonus over the US (and once again, I am just using this number for illustrative purposes), it was *not* because they had 150% of the firepower. Instead, increased effectiveness was probably due to a combination of a lot of things, including more experienced troops, flexible leaders, better use of combined arms, more use of automatic weapons, etc. It's these things that CM needs to model.

I'm surprised that the defender was able to get a draw here, too. I think that the defense was basically sound, but I'd have made a couple of changes. --Defense-- (1) HMGs are good,and you can have an effective defense with spread out HMGs with enough space and open area. (2) Flamethrowers aren't flexible enough and are very fragile. I would bag them and substitute infantry units, preferably SMGs, to back up the HMGs. Ideally, the SMGs are in a location where they can't be shot at except from close range -- so when infantry charge to take out the HMGs, they get hit by SMG units at close range. Foxholes help a lot here. (2) Minefields. I generally don't pick minefields because it seems too random. If you have an isolate HMG based defense, though, you can be pretty certain that the enemy will, at some point, charge your HMGs (after suppression, etc.), so it's sort of a safe bet to put a minefield in front of them. It can be very effective if the enemy hits the minefield at the same time that the SMGs are uncovered. (3) Panthers. I thought your tank choice wasn't bad. Maybe it would be worthwhile to give up one if you needed the points for more infantry. (4) Arty. 81mm mortars are effective at breaking up attacks across the open, but they might be too expensive. (5) AT guns. Maybe on the flanks instead of a Panther. Although it's really hard to argue with your use of the Panthers. I still don't think I could do as well as you did with that set up, though. --Attacker-- I think that that attacker made a worse unit selection than the defender. (1) Tanks. I think the attacker chose too many. I probably would have given up one, or maybe two platoons of tanks in exchange for one or two additional infantry companies. (2) Arty. 81 + 105 is not a bad choice, for artillery; I think that the biggest problem you had was not using smoke; in a battle like this I think it should be used from turn 1. With that in mind, 81 + 81 isn't a bad choice because of the extra smoke; I might have gone for that; it would also give you the flexibility to smoke two areas at once.

I read once that some soldiers at a checkpoint during the Bulge became confused when they challenged a high-ranking general (I've forgotten) whom by asking him what the capital of Illinois was; they confusion came about because the general answered "Springfield," but the soldiers had been of the impression that the capital of Ill. was a larger, more northerly city. Apparently most of the other people passing through the checkpoint were under the same impression, though.

Actually, "Kamerad, Kamerad" should be translated as something like "I give up." Actually, because it appears in so many war movies, BTS should have the Germans say "Fuer Sie ist der Krieg vorbei!" Although I suppose it might be more appropriate in English with a German accent, "For you, ze vorr iss ofer!" [ 06-13-2001: Message edited by: Andrew Hedges ]

Of course, using HE against 2-man ATGM teams is not the most effective way of dealing with infantry either; see, e.g., the Ferdinand. I'm not exactly sure what you do in non-tank country, but I don't think that HE is the answer.

I can see the scenario: "In late April 1945, the Soviets decide to attempt to capture the Kummersdorf proving ground in a coup de main in order to seize the top secret German Maus tank before it can be destroyed. To do so without interfering with ongoing operations, the Soviets decide to use a company of the new IS-3 tanks."

Too bad there's not a "low ammo" sound. Otherwise, I would suggest the "low ammo" sound to the Germans, as they realize that the major assault they just defeated was in reality simply the scouting units.

I don't know that I would use the "in combat"feature much, but I think it could be a useful feature. But I would definitely use the "variable unit quality" function, since I believe that most US platoons in the CMBO time frame should be made up of green/regular mixes. Green/regular is not a bad platoon makeup for Germans later in '44, either, although I think that it would also be common -- given how Germans handled replacements -- for there to be more uniformity in platoons, and but less uniformity across platoons. So a more realistic way of depicting a regular US company in Dec. 44 might be to have each of the three platoons consist of two regular plus one green squad (and this could, of course, be randomized a little more); whereas a regular German company might consist of two platoons comprised entirely of regulars, plus one platoon comprised entirely of greens. That's not entirely realistic for the Germans, since I don't think that they really substituted completely new units in at the platoon level either. More realistic would probably be two regular platoons (say rifle) plus one *different* green platoon (say VGSMG). Although maybe the most realistic way to do things would be a combination of both of Jeff's ideas. A regular US company might end up being 2/3 regular, 1/3 green, as described above. An equivelent German unit would consist of all regulars, but with missing squads (say, 2 reg. platoons plus 1 additional squad). This would simulate the US replacing troops with greens, and the Germans using new troops to make entirely new formations.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Ignus: My overall point to all this is that owning a PC these days requires you to upgrade about once a year (to be conservative) in one way or another. Technology is moving so fast that we don't really have a choice. Ignus<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I think that this is generally not true for most people, including gamers. If you look at the system requirements for most new games (I just checked on Amazon), you will find that they are relatively modest -- Black & White, for example, requires a 350Mhz processor, 64M of ram and an 8M video card. More would be better, of course, but these reqs were common on 3 or 4 year old computers. I didn't see any games that required more than a 400 Mhz processor, 64M of ram, or an 8MB vid card. So I think that CM is, if anything, pushing the envelope on system requirements; there's no real need to upgrade every year unless your computer was barely adequate to begin with. Having said that, though, I'm happy that the release of CM2 appears correspond with my planned computer replacement anyway. :cool:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Skipper: > OBs for this small of a force are in > general very poorly documented. :confused: OBs of every unit from platoon upwards were documented in the end of every day.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I think it's generally true that force returns for every unit (I'm not sure from what level) were completed almost every day. As a practical matter, though, these records are hard to get ahold of, though, as they tend to be microfilmed in some inconveniently located military archive. I'm not sure how much CM-applicable information these returns would have, although even minimal personnel information (39 of 47 men combat ready) would be of some use. I think I've seen books with some of this information attached as an appendix, for some units during some dates. This could be useful. But a month is too great a period of time for this info to be relevant; the status of a US infantry unit on 14 Dec 44 will likely be very different from that unit's status on 19 Dec 44. But this info would still be interesting. It seems less like something that BTS should do and more like something that someone should collect and put on a website.

I don't think it makes a lot of sense to bring CM1 to CM2 stds because, as I understand things, most of the CM2 improvements will primarily relate to specific EF things. CMBO would not be improved by including the Steppe terrain type. Nor would there be much improvement by adding all of the rules CM will need for radioless tanks. I suppose CM1 would be improved by the addition of non-frozen rivers in snow and city fighting, but they were a relatively minor part of WF fighting. So CMBO won't be obsolete until the engine rewrite comes out, if then.