Triumvir

It's kinda silly to pit one game against another, but try flying the Ju87G in IL2 and doing a strafing run. I think you'll find that an 80% hit rate is extremely high. Playing a (relatively) realistic sim game has given me some insight into the difficulties airpower has in making a difference on the battlefield.

I've been playing a LOT of IL2:FB recently. Back to my very first love, flight sims. The models are kinda screwed, but it's nice to see the uberFinn legend lives on; try flying one of them English Chainsaws (aka Hurricanes) against I-16s and see what happens... I don't think 8 rifle calibre MGs can saw off a wing with a 2-second burst.

Well, depends on whether you consider points to be relative to the entire pool of German/Soviet resources or absolute based on the merits of the weapon system itself. If relative, then it doesn't seem to make much sense that the costs are equivalent. If absolute, though, it makes perfect sense for prices to be roughly equivalent or even more expensive -- the Soviets had a _lot_ more resource points to spend overall than the Germans and you as a tactical commander only see a small fraction of total points available. Rarity muddles the issue a bit by adding a historical factor, but if variable rarity is used, it makes purchasing a lot more interesting. In CMBO there was no reason to not go with standard forces -- in CMBB, there is a possibility that a slightly unusual force may make more sense when you're allocating your points.

When I build scenarios, I like to scatter the map with significant landmarks. However, if I want to represent something like the results of reconnaissance by plunking landmarks down on suspected enemy side locations, that enemy side can also see those same landmarks, and -- if they're smart -- move their units away from there. Yes, I could padlock units to position, but I believe in doing that as little as possible. Therefore I ask that in CMAK -- and CMX2 at least -- we be given some mechanism for generating side specific landmarks. I expect that it's not possible to do that using the existing landmark interface -- but perhaps you could create a landmark unit, somewhat akin to a flag, that is placeable and visible only to one's side. Is this a feasible request for CMAK?

Well... far be it from me to plug my own test scenario, but -- can I plug my own test scenario? I have attempted to simulate a Soviet assault on a secondary defensive line -- in other words, out of the range of most of the heavy artillery, but with sufficient left over to make ears ring on the German side. I don't do many scenarios, but I'd be very interested in getting feedback on how realistic or accurate my force compositions are, as well as how I should restructure my defensive positions. You can either get it at the Scenario Depot or by emailing me at triumvir@yahoo.com. Cheers, Triumvir

I have a scenario I'd like to release for playtesting, set in June 1943 with a Soviet Guards infantry battalion plus attachments -- including heavy artillery and armour -- assaulting a hill held by a German infantry battalion minus, with no armour attachments. Would anyone be interested in playtesting this scenario? Also, I have the base map of the hill saved if anyone wants to build a different scenario based off it. [edit comment=Remember to say how to get it] If you're interested, email me at triumvir@yahoo.com [/edit] [ April 22, 2003, 06:49 PM: Message edited by: Triumvir ]

Well, it was either go out in a blaze of glory charge or be picked off one by one while running for cover. The important thing is that none of the Soviet tanks stopped and ran.

They are absolutely excellent at killing TCs. When the Panzers came out onto the square in that scenario, the sharpshooters killed the TCs in one turn, leaving the tanks easy prey to the 45mms. Even though I didn't kill them outright, they were immobilized and soon thereafter either the crews bailed or were unable to pick targets. The air support was icing on the cake.

I dunno, I haven't seen this behaviour before. When playing the [CENSORED] operation, on the third battle, my company of T-34s was advancing across the open ground towards a hill behind the second town. To my horror, I saw 2 KTs and 2 Panthers crest the hill 600m away with all my tanks at least 200m from cover. So I charged my T-34s and T-60s forward en masse, with my IS-2s behind trying to plink the Panthers at least at long range. If it worked at Prokhorovka, then it might work here, I reasoned. Out of 17 charging tanks, 5 made it to the base of the hill, and 1 lone, brave T-60 got close enough to ping a 45mm round off the side of a KT before it died. None of them stopped to throw smoke and all of them were charging along like good New Soviet Men. I don't think that the AI's behaviour is necessarily always detrimental to Soviets.

2306102

JonS, I'm from Singapore and an not-quite-ex-gunner (still have reservist liabilities.) I always liked the 25pdr; it's a nice simple gun that six people can easily manhandle about -- one of my fondest memories was the up-hill 25pdr race. In Oriente Primus!

So _that_'s what the conical thing on the 25pdr is for! We only ever learnt how to handle and maintain it for parade firing and I was always curious how the cone worked.

I'm thinking of writing some small unit actions based on actual events in Afghanistan, with the Axis filling in for the Mujaheddin. Would anyone like to test the first scenario I've written, called Block and Sweep? If you would, please email me at triumvir@yahoo.com

By the way, what _are_ uberFinnish ranks? What does Alikersantti stand for?

I had a tank hunter team take out 27 casualties. Not much of a surprise for an uber-Finn; but after _running out of ammo_, he singlehandedly killed an entire elite Soviet cavalry squad, blazing away for two continuous turns, in hand to hand combat. As you can see, toothpicks aren't necessary.

Firefly, I agree, there's nothing like the drawing and quartering of a traitor to make your day brighter... too bad it didn't happen at the end of <ptah> _The Patriot_. I plump, for ACW movies, _Glory_ as being the best. Not necessarily for accuracy of portrayal of battle, rather than for the fact that (although a bit overboard at times) it showed how a significant portion of the American population was ennobled by the rather pointless sacrifice of a few. But how they were ennobled... WWII, overall I have to plump for _Das Boot_, which is almost exactly a textbook development of comradeship among men facing death. As for infantry combat, I still like _Cross of Iron_; even though it comes before the modern drench and gore of _SPR_, in some ways it shows it even better. It's hard to forget the convoy running over that dead soldier, truck after truck... One thing I find distressing about a lot of war movies is their cheap sentimentality. _SPR_ is a good example of how Spielberg, after a nasty, gritty opening, _ruins_ the movie by playing for tearjerking moments like "Earn this." When will Hollywood learn that to be anti-war you don't have to beat people over the head with messages -- all you have to do is show war as realistically as possible. And maybe sprinkle some fleas, dirt and week-unwashed men among the audience.

Note: Michael offered to come last weekend of October. Note: Release date is 20020920. Conclusion: Mr Dorosh is welcome to join us in the city, at an undisclosed location off the Bruckner Expressway. At 2am. Wearing very very heavy shoes.

Hardee har har... but yes, I'm dying to see a preview of CMBB here in Noo Yawk.

With regards to the Sten, from what I know nearly 400,000 of them were produced by the Germans, with some strangely being produced as exact -- down to serial number -- copies of British Stens. That's a decent amount of copying. Note that this happened during 1945 itself, so you can probably imagine why it never made it into service. As for why stamped guns are thrown out of service, it's fairly obvious that peacetime tolerances are much tighter than wartime tolerances and that simply throwing a weapon away to pick another up is frowned upon. Furthermore, to claim that the M-60 is a "debugged" copy of the MG42 is a bit incorrect; it's a mix between the MG42 and FG42. Also, the fact that even the Americans are abandoning it for the FN MAG should say something about how well debugged it's been. As for regular troops, I think we've previously discussed how, all else being equal (training, equipment etc) a cohort of conscripts will beat a cohort of volunteers because the proportion of able men will be quite a bit higher among that of volunteers. There are many dedicated and professional soldiers in the regular portions of armies around the world. They are far outweighed in numbers by the remainder deadweight regulars around them. Everyone here who is a regular belongs to the first category, naturally; deadweight don't bother learning how to play games, eh?

The Sten was copied, extensively. It never made it into service, but since its intended users were Werwolf, that's quite lucky. Personally, I think more highly of the Sten than the Suomi. A cheap nasty piece of stampings, but so fast to produce that you could probably arm at least four people for the cost of one Suomi. Another good weapon, one that never made it into as much use in Soviet time as it should have done thanks to internal Party politics was the PPS-43, which went on to inspire at least 3 post-war copies. Simple, cheap, and producible by starving workers. To claim that the Suomi inspired the PPsh is quite untrue; the mechanisms are quite different with the PPsh having simple blowback while the Suomi has an interesting mechanism where the ignition of the primer creates the seal. The Suomi's drum magazine, however, influenced the Russians to build drum magazines for their weapons. Quite different. Accuracy is nice and all, and in our present world of war by mercenaries -- by which, of course, I mean regular troops as opposed to a levee en masse -- is perhaps the most important characteristics in a weapon. But for arming the masses, nothing beats a weapon like the Sten or the PPS-43.

Yeah Michael, he does sound like a troll with one major difference; I've never known a troll with any competence to back down on points presented. I suppose the day trolls learn how to do that they become even more dangerous... But in any case the obvious answer to his question is neither, of course; the Suomi beats all of them hands down with both thumbs broken.

Does soldier comfort, in your opinion, _really_ seem to be the more important item when I'm talking about using less ammo in a situation where resupply is rare? I admit to perhaps bad positioning by talking about soldier comfort after talking about lack of supply but that's one of the things paragraphs are for -- to signal a shift in focus of content. Cost is obviously a factor for rate of fire in the MG3 -- ammo is expensive. Could the MG42 have been made a better weapon? Sure. Machine it for better accuracy. Reduce the weight. Make the barrel change a lot easier and not require tools (who has time to fumble for an asbestos glove?) Optics? An MG isn't a point target weapon; it's used to cover an area. Barrel? Sure, stellite would make the interval between barrel changes longer. But the easiest fix would be to make the bolt heavier, which is exactly what the Bundeswehr did with the MG3 (as well as rechamber it for 7.62, of course.) As for what you should do in wartime, please note that I've already made this exact point further up in this discussion; and that this particular series of posts have been made to cure you of the belief that high ROF makes an unambiguously better weapon.

As far as I'm aware, MG42 ammo did not come in 50 round belts. It came in 250 round belts, in boxes; perhaps you're thinking of the 25 or 50 round drum magazines for the MGs. And whether it comes in 50 round belts, 250 round boxes or 5000 round crates, you still have to carry it; and the more people you have, the _more_ ammo you carry, not the less. You can't imagine how you can cut down two things and yet have a better weapon because I think you think that bigger is always better. But here's an example that's not to do with militaria, so maybe you might be better able to appreciate it. Let's say you have a series of cars that can only move at 0 or x km/h, with nothing in between. In a case like this, a car which travels at 120km/h is better than one that travels at 60km/h, right? Answer: it depends. If you're on a straightaway, yes, the faster car is better. If you're in any kind of twisty terrain, though, the slower car is better because it's more handleable. Let's add another dimension; let's add fuel consumption to the mix. Even if you're on a straightaway, if the fast car runs out of gas after 200km, while the slow car runs out of gas after 400km, would you still want the faster car? Like so many people, you're focussed on one stat; the rate of fire. But to an infantryman, and to an army, rate of fire is not so much a critical factor as other, equally important things like weight, ease of use, time between resupply, maintainability... There are a lot of dimensions to something, and you're only looking at one. Furthermore, it works out doubly so; if you keep the same amount of ammo, then the team lasts 25% longer without needing resupply -- that's significant if, as was the case at Stalingrad which you mention, you don't have enough supply. I don't think you quite realise how important, how _crucially_ important weight and comfort is for a soldier. If you can reduce weight, increase comfort at the cost of a little theoretical firepower, the productivity gains far outweigh the loss. Learn to think in colour, not black and white...

Given that you can't even be bothered to spell my handle properly when all you need to do is cut and paste, I don't see why you're so surprised that I think you're a troll or that I'm dismissive. Details reveal a lot. Given also that you don't seem to understand that when you're hungry, tired and low on sleep, even the simplest things are hard, I can understand why you seem to think that moving ammo around is a simple task. It's not. I've done it, and your comments indicate you haven't. Experience isn't everything, but in this case, it's a lot. 750 rounds of 7.62 comes to about 25-30 kilos for a single person. That's not an easy load to hump around on top of all your other stuff. If you can reduce this by 33% and still retain roughly the same firepower, that's 10kg you don't have to carry; and that much more energy you can use productively. And all MGs, no matter what their theoretical ROF is, have a practical ROF of about 100-200 rpm, if nothing else because you need to spend time acquiring targets. It's not about bumbling around searching for ammo; it's about the difference between being ass-tired and generative-organs-falling-off tired. When you're tired, you can't think as well; and that makes you a less effective soldier. The more tired, the less effective, obviously; and tiredness brings increasing returns to scale. Am I claiming that all German soldiers in WW2 were less effective soldiers than the equivalent Americans because they were lugging around more ammo? No. Am I claiming that they were less effective than they would be if they had carried 30% less ammo and a weapon with 30% less firepower? Yes.

Gaylord, assuming you're not the troll your name jumps out and proclaims you to be, if you've ever fired an MG in real life you'll know that stats are , in reality, nowhere near as important as you think they are. A cliche that still isn't quite worn out is that amateurs talk about tactics and strategy; professionals talk about logistics. The MG-42 was a revolutionary weapon for WWII because it was the first true GPMG; it could be used as a squad LMG or as an SFMG. This makes supply a lot easier, because you only need to create a single weapon and ammo. You also only need to supply enough tripods and ammo to convert your squad LMGs to SFMGs. Rate of fire certainly helps in some cases; for one, a faster ROF, assuming proper aim etc, gives a better chance of catching someone dashing from cover to cover. But this is all outweighed by the difficulty of feeding ammunition to the MG. You try humping 750 7.62 rounds on a 24km march, in addition to all your gear, and you'll agree with me that sitting down and blowing it all away in the first minute of a firefight is a bit of a waste. It's no coincidence that, as others have said, that modern MG-42s have their ROF reduced by about 25%; this allows a squad to keep roughly the same firepower, but last a lot longer between resupply.