jasoncawley@ameritech.net

On T-34 armoring, I see 45mm hull and turret front on 1940 models, and 47mm hull front, 60mm turret front on the 1942 model. If you want to call that no uparmoring, that is fine by me. If you think it is simply wrong, I'm all ears.

You are right, for the T-34 it is ~60mm at 1 km, which will go through the turret front of any model, the hull front of the F2 and early Gs, but not the later Gs, Hs, or Js. A useful correction. Still fits the tactical picture I had, but rougher. Over the course of 1943, the Pz IVs are armored enough in the hull that the T-34/76s need turret hits at range, which probably means they want to close. That is about the same time as the Panthers appear, of course. Still fits the discontinued HEAT, but adds an extra cause for changing Russian tactical doctrine, certainly.

Gen-x87 - more details please. Terrain each was in? Ranges? Quality of your men? Other fire they may have been under, e.g. field guns? It is hard to say what was going on without such details.

I'd expect to see Molotov cocktails as their squad level, intrinsic AT weapons, not always present, like how rifle grenades and fausts are done now. And I'd expect 2 man ATR teams, instead of the zooks, piats, and schrecks the other powers have. There have been long threads on the ATRs, and you can find some of my thoughts there along with everyone else's if you care to look. But I will briefly recap my preference, instead of the argument that leads to it, about how the ATRs might be handled. Penetration modeled something like HMGs are today (bit more), but with a relatively low chance of KOing a vehicle penetrated. In addition, though, some chance, even if small, to bog, immobilize, shock, gun-damage, or cause a crew casualty. That is, the main difference from other AT weapon types is "hit does not equal kill", and even "penetrate does not equal kill". On the other side, they have much better range that schreck, piats, zooks. So, facing Russian infantry, it'd be lots of needles instead of one sledgehammer, with the coup de grace administered by Molotov if the infantry can get close.

The main limit on using them wasn't terrain per se, it was infrastructure. Beyond the cities of the coast, and a short way up the main river valleys, there were almost no roads. And Japan had only a limited ability to supply forces there. The Japanese limited themselves to the coastal areas, and the more developed northeast 1/3rd of the country, because of this. In fact, they didn't possess a land line to Indochina until 1944. Plenty of the land they didn't control was flat, or modest hills. The Chinese forces were internally divided, not only communist vs. nationalist, but by factions within the, especially the latter. The nationalist forces had been formed, before the Japanese invasion, essentially out of a sort of snowballing of local warlords, many of whom remained as officers, with their men loyal to them. The Japanese also patronized various local puppet forces to rival these. And everybody fought everybody else, but with much of it internal security level, guerilla, or political, rather than military fighting. The Japanese still had nearly a million men there, over 50 divisions - some of them garrisoning Manchuria and keeping an eye on the Russians, more than half of them to deal with the Chinese. The Chinese army was huge on paper, smaller but still large in manpower terms. Their problems were political division (already mentioned), and military supplies. There was no industry in country at all - well, tiny amounts in Japanese held areas, that was it. They got some stuff from the U.S. and U.K. (less) through India, and the Russians had sent some stuff back when the war began (and was mostly lost, from the Chinese point of view and in conventional military terms). More came through when the Burma land route was finally reopened, but the war ended not long after that. For most of the period, Chinese military supplies had to come in by U.S. transport planes, while for the Japanese it was shipping. The Japanese never really made the logistic commitment necessary to take control of the whole country. They may not have been able to had they wanted to - Japan had only about 3% of world steel production in 1941, on the same scale as Italy. But even Italy had better tanks, which is saying something - LOL.

On the Japanese supposedly not needing tanks - they fought a land war in China for nearly 10 years, against numerically superior forces, and were still trying to launch offensives there as late as 1944 (to shorten lines, free up troops, etc). Of course tanks would have helped them there, potentially freeing units. They also fought the Russians in Manchuria and saw in the process what tanks could do. They also sent inspectors to Germany to report on tank warfare developments. They had plenty of reason to need decent tanks, knew it, and they made several types. They just never made one that was worth a damn. On the Russians using lend lease, they were free. No further reason required.

Here is what I think is happening. There seems to be a routine that AFVs check, to see whether or not it is suicidal to duel with a given enemy AFV. In pseudo-code - Tanks asks itself - - can that tank kill me? if yes - - can I kill that tank? - if no - override all previous orders. instead ask - - do I have smoke? - if yes, fire smoke - if no, evade That seems to be the routine giving your Sherman 105mm trouble. It seems to me quite likely that at the stage where it checks "can I kill that tank?", is not working properly. The question then is, why? Well, it is possible the reason is that the HE should be enough to kill the tank, in most circumstances, and that is what has it hung up. See, 105mm HE should go through the side of a Pz IV, pretty easily, at that short range especially. So why go to the HEAT when it is not needed? But, if the side angle is steep enough - probably about 45-50 degrees from flat to the side - then an HE round would not go through. If the ammo selection check, and the can I penetrate check, are made differently - one taking full account of the side angle and the other not - then I'd expect the tank to get "confused". Suppose it decides HE is enough before checking the angle. Then it checks the angle, and it finds "I can't kill this tank *from here* - and it can kill me". A test of this wild stab in the dark is whether there was any appreciable angle to the side of the Pz IV. If it was broadside, there is some other issue. Because any 105mm round should take out the target in that case, HE included. It is also possible that a situation in which the "use HEAT?" test *fails*, is always interpreted as meaning, "tank can't be killed". That is, some subroutine is set up to ask "should I use HEAT?" And it returns "no", because it has correctly checked and found that HE will do the trick. But that "no" is then passed back to some other part of the program. Which may interprete a "no" on the "use HEAT" decision, as "can't kill it with the best round". That would be a subtle logic bug, if it is the case. Such things crop up, especially when two programmers have worked on different subroutines. Or they can happen when a programmer didn't see how "use HEAT - no" and "can kill - yes" are compatible, and thought he was saving a step. Because it is relatively rare that the HE shell is enough to do the job, this might have gone unnoticed before. I hope this helps.

Wyatt Earp's idea of armored combat. First to the draw. Let infantry scout for you, staying behind cover. Do not prowl around looking for a target. You go kill a target after it has been located, from whatever angle looks good, no matter how long the path. Go ahead and tackle the big guys, if you have T rounds or a flank - you can kill anything there is from a flank. Just don't approach from a turret's current angle. Reverse to cover immediately after your kill, relocate, then play it again.

A fine question. I think the palm for best program has to go to the T-34. My reasons - 50,000 of them produced, the most of any tank type of the war. For several years, superior to what they faced, and serviceable against the average tank down to the end of the war. Only one major upgrade (though also one minor one set of changes early on), produced in massive quantity, which corrected the perfectly real weaknesses of the original model (2 man turret especially). The guys that had 'em, won. Hampered at first by poor doctrine, but very effective once the Russians learned a thing or two about armor tactics, operations, and organizations. Cheap enough to make tons, simply enough to come from an existing pre-war model. Mobile, though a bear to drive - they certainly proved in practice capable of long range penetration and exploitation work,on several occasions, all of them of extreme operational importance. They also proved capable enough in tank battle work, at Kursk e.g. One fellow mentioned minor powers, and certainly Japan had no servicable tank in the whole war. The French and Italians are easy targets. And one can point out small vehicle types that were failures, but without huge investments put into them. But sticking to the major land combatants, and major tank programs, I give the raspberry to the Crusader. I will explain why. It was not a bad tank, by specs or in principle. It 1940 it would have been a fine tank. But it was a large investment, and there were high hopes pinned on it. In practice, the armament had not improved enough for the time of the war, still the 2 lber, without HE capability. It was supposed to be built for speed but only made 15 mph cross country. The armor was not good enough to stop the mid-war AP rounds it faced - thin sides, very boxy, with near verticle plates defeating what benefits there might have been in the reasonably thick front armor (for its day). Big fleets of them were tried in North Africa, and largely were destroyed by considerably smaller bodies of German tanks, with quite low losses. Some of this was doctrine, some combined arms, some particular SNAFUs. Last model (Mk III) have a better 6 lber gun, but the upgrades always seemed to be behind the curve. It was used at the main tank type from the summer of 1941 until being taken out of service completely in 1943. After that, it was used only for training purposes. More than 5000 of them were built, a high total for a early to mid-war tank, and a significant part of total British AFV production. For the amount of effort invested in them, the tribulations of those that fought in them, any follow-on uses of the same ideas or production lines, I think the return was quite meager. I mean, marginal lines like the Pz II went on to field marders and wespes, and many other types found some useful role for the vehicle program, even if a given model became obsolete. These lost battles to DAK on their own, played second fiddle to Shermans and Valentines in the desert wins, and were then reduced to training vehicles. Not a lot of bang for several years work and >5000 made.

Sandwich on the turret might mean bolted on plates for uparmoring. The turret was uparmored in 1942, and perhaps again, though reports differ on the second. Many of the 1941 production models were probably gone, but some of those, perhaps some early 1942, or later mods if there was a second round of uparmoring, may have plates bolted or welded onto the front. Why soft metals? Maybe for welding? I don't pretend to know, as it is the first I've heard of it. On the "penetrate any angle", including 30 degree side angle at 1200 yards, I have to say that I think that is completely out of line with the combat reports from both sides. I still haven't heard of a single confirmed kill from the front, on the glacis, with AP, above 1 km. More on this below. As for HEAT, 10% variation for hardness hardly sounds "extreme" to me, especially compared to your model suggesting penetration ranges varying from <500 meters to >1600 meters for AP, depending on hardness effects. But to answer your questions - the "B" model Gr38-HL is rated to penetrate 75mm of armor at 30 degrees, and the "C" model is rated to penetrate 100mm of armor at 30 degrees. I would think the former was borderline, and may have needed turret hits. They second of those, I expect was effective. Nobody has been able to tell me how many of which type were produced or fielded, or which arms got how many of them (towed PAK, PzJg units, Pz, StuG, etc). As for the comments from 1941, yes the lower side hull was flat, vertical armor, not sloped. 300-400 yards isn't exactly a long way. Incidentally, the 1941 and earlier models are ~4k tanks all told, out of 34k T-34/76 produced. 1942 and 1943 are the peak production years, and the armor is not as thin. In 1944-45 you get 16k T-34/86 with better armor again, as well as the better gun and 3 man turret, of course. For comparison, the German tanks in 1941 had a maximum of 30mm of armor sloped 25 degrees or less. Penetration by the T-34s main gun, at any range or aspect from which hits were likely in the first place, was almost certain. This changed later on, as the German uparmored their tanks - though the Russians put a better 76.2mm in the 1942- versions, and added souped up ammo later on (including some sub-caliber). In 1942 and early 1943, the effective penetration range was probably around 1200-1500 meters, longer against the turret fronts. Tactical doctrine and publish penetration stats agree. The later model Pz IVs had 80mm hull armor, which were probably penetrable at 1 km, though the turret remained 50mm and was penetrable at greater range. So you can understand, that very serious distortions would be introduced by getting this wrong. The German training statements say the T-34 outranged them. With the L48 and 80mm armor, the mutual penetration ranges were comparable, ~1 km. With the turret vunerable at longer ranges in both cases. Essentially, the better L48 German gun, plus much heavier armor, achieves parity with the better slope of the Russian armor, by 1943. Making the L43 penetrate any angle of the T-34 at 1200 meters, and front-flat shots at 1600 meters, means completely ignoring not only the details of the reports of the participants, but the much more basic question of range choices. It implies the Germans were flat too dumb to figure out that they outranged the Russians, and could have merrily blown them all away at 1.5 km without reply, when in fact the Germans were trying to get to 600-800 yards and the Russians were trying to stay at 1200-1500 yards. This simply makes no historical sense. The participants do not do everything bass ackwards with their lives at stake, because they are flat wrong about empirical penetration capabilities, only to be corrected 56 years later by someone's toy armor penetration model, for a wargame. No model that says the Germans outranged the Russians pre-Panther, can be accurate, because they simply didn't and we know it. The training and tactics stuff agrees, both sides, that the Pz IV and StuG with L48 gun, could penetrate the T-34 at 1 km (turret farther), and the published data say that the T-34 could do the reverse (again, turret farther), after the full uparmoring of the Pz IV was done. This makes obvious sense - the Germans continued to modify the Pz IV until it could hold its own.

I said - "Tough terrain, prepared defenses, muddy thaw, local German counterattacks with armor." Again Mr. Dorosh ignores everything else and accuses others of a fixation on numbers that only he suffers from. In the sense that he is against 'em. It is really very old at this point, and I do wish you'd heed my invitation to drop it, and just ignore everything I write.

How do you think they are supposed to know where to shoot, without any FO? Do you think they are psychic? How do they know what the target is? The on map mortars don't have radios, you know. Only the HQ does, if that. If they can't see it, either somebody that can calls out the target to them, or they might as well shoot a random spot somewhere on the globe. Indirect mortar fire, you can use on map mortars and an HQ as their FO, or you can buy an 81mm mortar FO and use them as artillery. Mostly, the on map ones are for direct fire. Incidentally, the accuracy of on map mortars is, in anything, still incredibly high in CM. It used to be worse. The Germans rated the circular error of their 81mm mortar at around 35 meters, meaning only half the rounds would fall that close or closer. They are stabilized only by a tail fin (like on an airplane bomb), have long hang time, drift in wind, there is windage between barrel and shell size, etc etc. Did they cause lots of casualties? Sure, mostly by the standard means you will see if you buy a 81mm FO and drop 150-200 rounds on a platoon or two, in woods especially, while not dug in. Now do that 40 times, and you've reached the average service life of a German mortar, in rounds per tube. That is sort of the whole idea - throw a bunch of rounds, then walk away whole to do it again tomorrow. The Germans threw ~75 million 81mm mortar rounds at people in WW II. They didn't hit 75 million people, and they didn't need to, for it to be a very effective weapon. If dropping a full module of 81mm ammo caused 10 casualties, they would have hit 5 million people all told. Which they probably didn't, because many barrages probably hit empty areas or whatever. The point is, you aren't "groking" the sheer scale of their use, in numbers at once (in many places) and over time, that made them effective. Artillery weapons work and causes so many casualties, because they throws lots and lots of stuff at the enemy, usually without effective reply, over extended periods of time. Not because every round is a homing whiz bang flash gordon do-witz that never misses. (In WW II anyway - LOL).

How do you think they are supposed to know where to shoot, without any FO? Do you think they are psychic? How do they know what the target is? The on map mortars don't have radios, you know. Only the HQ does, if that. If they can't see it, either somebody that can calls out the target to them, or they might as well shoot a random spot somewhere on the globe. Indirect mortar fire, you can use on map mortars and an HQ as their FO, or you can buy an 81mm mortar FO and use them as artillery. Mostly, the on map ones are for direct fire. Incidentally, the accuracy of on map mortars is, in anything, still incredibly high in CM. It used to be worse. The Germans rated the circular error of their 81mm mortar at around 35 meters, meaning only half the rounds would fall that close or closer. They are stabilized only by a tail fin (like on an airplane bomb), have long hang time, drift in wind, there is windage between barrel and shell size, etc etc. Did they cause lots of casualties? Sure, mostly by the standard means you will see if you buy a 81mm FO and drop 150-200 rounds on a platoon or two, in woods especially, while not dug in. Now do that 40 times, and you've reached the average service life of a German mortar, in rounds per tube. That is sort of the whole idea - throw a bunch of rounds, then walk away whole to do it again tomorrow. The Germans threw ~75 million 81mm mortar rounds at people in WW II. They didn't hit 75 million people, and they didn't need to, for it to be a very effective weapon. If dropping a full module of 81mm ammo caused 10 casualties, they would have hit 5 million people all told. Which they probably didn't, because many barrages probably hit empty areas or whatever. The point is, you aren't "groking" the sheer scale of their use, in numbers at once (in many places) and over time, that made them effective. Artillery weapons work and causes so many casualties, because they throws lots and lots of stuff at the enemy, usually without effective reply, over extended periods of time. Not because every round is a homing whiz bang flash gordon do-witz that never misses. (In WW II anyway - LOL).

The emphasis on logistics and total economy mobilization is on target in my opinion. But it does not excuse the failure to upgun the existing tanks. Uparmoring (beyond wet stowage, which made sense) was almost certainly not worth it for the Americans. But a few other war economy issues. One fellow said the limit was raw materials, and mentioned alloys and oil. Not for the U.S. The only significant limits the U.S. hit were #1 manpower, the most critical of all, #2 shipping space, because everything had to go 2000-4000 miles to reach any battlefield, often through sub-infested waters, and #3, to a lesser extent, engineering and design capacity, mainly showing up in scarcities of particularly skilled workers. The manpower trade off was the biggest issue for the war planners. Basically, you have to balance how many people will make the weapons vs. how many people to draft into the armed forces to use them. And for the U.S., in sharp contrast to e.g. Germany before about mid 1944, capital, cost, and raw materials were not a serious overall constraint compared to this trade off. Per servicemember, the U.S. made available by far the most expensive equipment, especially in the form of airplanes and ships. There was a certain economy to this, because the people were scarcer, and moving them more difficult, which fades into the second issue. At one point the U.S. was considering an army of up to 150 divisions. But this would have entailed an enourmous increase in demand for shipping to get them across the oceans and keep them supplied in combat, along with a large reduction in the work force making equipment for them. They pared back the force size repeatedly, which let the production stay high, and kept the shipping space demand lower. It still would not have been anything like enough on the shipping side, if code breakers, centimeter radar, and escort carriers hadn't won the sub war in the Atlantic at mid-war. This environment has to be understood for all the rest of it. Shipping space is the bottleneck, and the way the balance works, you can only support a smaller force if anything you do raises shipping demand, because more people have to make the ships, and fewer can be supplied at the other end of the logistic chain. It is not just a point about "you can have more tanks if they are lighter". You can't have as many *riflemen* if they aren't lighter, because said riflemen will be spot-welding in a liberty-ship shipyard instead. Basically, I think the U.S. planners called this trade off darn near perfect, and uparmored tanks were therefore out of the question. But upgunned ones were not. And here the third issue comes in, and I think the U.S. planners didn't allocate things as well as they could have. Engineering capacity refers to the ability to design, test, and field whole new systems. This not only takes lead time, it takes personnel, and those personnel are in the highest conceivable demand in wartime. They are needed literally everywhere - to rationalize production techniques, to develop new technical equipment, to act as foremen in plants doing detailed work, etc. The U.S. had lots of this capacity, but it was still a scarce and valuable resource, simply because there is no real substitute for it. You can't train new people fast enough, to high enough levels of expertise to matter, in such short time frames. The U.S. chose to put a lot of these resources on the bomb project, many others on bombers, and other aircraft, and many others on shipping, radar, code work, and production technique (including planning) for everything. There was a certainly logic in this. The personnel were thrown at the problems involving the largest amounts of capital, and the greatest technical challenges, with the idea that success in those areas would have the largest effects. But the side effect of this was that less capital intensive areas of the war effort, were effectively starved of the technical personnel to innovate less capital intensive systems. An engineer working on a better tank gun in 1942, is one not working on a better fighter plane. The reason I think they got this one wrong, is they underestimated the impact of the general economic principle of diminishing returns. There is something to be said for a portion of "a little everywhere" in economic allocations, because the obvious innovations in each field are likely to be easier to "reap", while still having a large impact. For example, a high velocity 76mm gun with abundant souped up ammo, fielded by 1944, would probably have had a much larger real impact that central fire control of remotely operated radar-direct 50 cal turrets on the B-29, or some other comparable whiz-kid success in a well-plowed area. So they erred by starving the Army of tech, somewhat, because they underestimated the importance of tech in the "vanilla" areas, compared to the "gee whiz" areas. That is independent of the question of actually upgrading to the 76mm in a timely fashion. There is really no excuse for that, it was pure stuff up. It is also useful, though, to look at the approach the Germans took to some of the same problems. Because they made mistakes that were not the same, but in strategic effect were undoubtedly worse. The biggest of these is the well known one, not to go to full war economy production at the time of the invasion of Russia, instead waiting until after the defeat at Stalingrad. Everyone recognizes how stupid this was, and that overconfidence was its basic cause. What is often not noticed is some of the side effects it had. When economies go to all out war production, they get their big increases in total output by sacrificing other things to achieve that. And one of the things they sacrifice, is overall flexibility - the ability to switch the direction of production from one area to another, to change types, etc. It is comparatively easy for an economy that is not fully "taut", to switch what it produces. In a "taut" economy, doing so dislocates dozens of other tightly interrelated plans. Speer recognized this, and knew the importance of standarization of types that is a kind of corollary to it. He was always trying to get people to settle on 1 or 2 things and then concentrate on getting more of them. But many discussing these issues, do not notice how timing of mobilization affected this and the related tech-fielded issues. The Russians went to full war economy by the begining of 1942. They hadn't been able to earlier, despite wanting to, because they had to move their factories out of the way of the Germans. They immediately took the best design they had, which was an excellent one, and bet the farm (no, their physical lives) on it. They consequently made 50,000 of the things. They made only one large-scale improvement to it, in the form of the T-34/85 - upgunning and a better turret to correct the largest weaknesses of the design they started with. Notice, though, that this innovation took more than 2 years - it wasn't until 1944 that the /85s were having an appreciable impact on the war. And that was ~6 months after they first faced the Panther. They also made SUs that used the same chassis and were reasonably effective as TDs. Well, the U.S. went to full war economy around the same time, very shortly after Pearl Harbor. The best existing design on the boards was the Sherman, and they ran with it. Overall, more than 30,000 of them were made. Not being in combat, the pressure to upgrade the design was much less. Realistically, the U.S. got upgunned tanks about 6 months after they saw the deficiencies of the standard type in combat. They also put better guns on an effective series of TDs using the same or similar chassis. Those two experiences are not all that different. The main difference is that the U.S. did not start the upgunning cycle until later, because they had not been in heavy action. They still should have anyway - some Tigers were seen in Tunisia e.g. But that is about the only thing to say against the overall performance. Now, the Germans had an extra year before going to war mobilization. For all of 1942, the U.S. and U.S.S.R. were basically sticking with what they had, while the Germans continued to develop better tanks in an economy that had not yet gone to war mobilization. They fielded the Tiger I in that period, developed the Panther, and put the Panther into action 6 months after the decision to fully mobilize. No tank designed from the ground up after that date had a production run with as many as 4 figures. The only late war vehicle produced in quantity, designed after that time, was the Hetzer, a somewhat buggy design that used an existing light-tank chassis, which had become obsolete around the time mobilization began, and had been making marders in the meantime. It was better than a marder, that's about it. The Germans could not afford to abandon a single chassis production line that was in operation the moment the decision to mobilize was made. The Pz II chassis was still being used for marders and wespes. The Pz38 chassis for marders and hetzers. The Pz III chassis for StuGs. The Pz IV chassis for Pz IVs, which were upgunned, and for Jadgpanzers. In consequence, only about 1/4 of the late war vehicle production, if that was of types more modern than these (Panther and Tiger chassis, mostly Panther). If the Germans had gone to war mobilization at the time they invaded Russia, they probably never would have developed the Tiger or the Panther. They would have ramped the production of the Pz III and the Pz IV, as the best types they then had. They would have upgunned and TDed these chassis, fielding Pz IVs with long guns, and StuGs. Which would have resulted in a fleet very similar to those of Russia and the U.S. They Germans had 2 more modern types because they waited a year and a half after the invasion of Russia, before committing their economy to a few types. They still only got about 1/4 of the later war production, of those newer types, while the rest were lighter ones not much different from the ones the Allies produced. And they were also outproduced overall, by 4 to 5 to 1. If the trade off is 7500 Panthers from 1943-1945, and 2500 heavier types, or an increase to the 1944 production rate by the time of the Stalingrad battle, but making only Pz IVs and StuGs, which would you pick? To me it is obvious, the German chances would have been much higher, with a much bigger fleet of Pz IVs in 1942-1943, than with 1/4 heavy tanks well after the tide turned. The adage includes "first", not just "most" (or biggest). For what it is worth.

I am sure they were heard yelling during lulls in the firefights, or from locations with little shooting going on, or when the range was close and firing sporadic because both sides were on opposite sides of some obstacle, etc. The point is simply that voice is a fragile means of control at any distance, in combat conditions. Most NCOs have to be quite close to the men they are commanding, to alter their actions by giving them directions - a consequently, they do quite a bit of scurrying about. That, at any rate, is the clear impression I get from reading small unit histories.

The armor component of a U.S. infantry division was about the same as a Russian tank brigade (which had 93 AFV at TOE). The armor component of a U.S. armor division was about the same as a Russian tank corps, which despite its name was the real division-level organization. The Russian tank corps had a heavier mix of AFV types, but then that is true generally. The vehicle numbers are comparable. The previous fellow's point remains true, that the U.S. infantry division had a serious armor component, and Russian infanry did not. At most, they had a few SU-76s to fufill all the roles of assault guns, TDs, and SPA. TOE of a U.S. infantry division at the end of the war, would include 54 Sherman mixed 75 or 76mm, 6 Sherman 105mm, 36 Hellcat or Jackson TD, 17 Chaffee or Stuart, and 18 M-8 armored car, and 6 M8HMC-75mm SPA. When a full recon battalion was present instead of just a company, that would double the light tanks, armored cars and SP75mm howitzer. So overall there are 96 "heavy" and 41-82 "light" AFV. A U.S. armored division, except for the earlier pattern 2nd and 3rd, had ~350 AFV, roughly 1/3rd of them light types, while those two had more like ~450, around 40% of them light. At least 2/3rds of the armor divisions had been fielded with uniform 76mm Sherman by the end of the war, though some had doubtless mixed in 75mm as replacements afterward. The main differences were simply that #1 the Russians had much heavier tanks on average and #2, the Russians have more leg infantry. On the other side, the Western powers were fully motorized. The balance of those is certainly in favor of the Russians on the ground, primarily because of better tanks. The comparison of the air forces is, however, a bad joke. The Russian air force was numerically large, but had relatively few truly first-line AC (some of the better late-model Yaks, etc), and by western standards nothing like the same sortie and readiness rates. Against the late war Germans, who by the end lacked air cover, the Sturmoviks were quite useful, certainly. But there is simply no comparison with western tac air - as any German vet who saw both places will tell you - let alone strategic air. That changed when Russia developed the MiG-15 after the war (from captured Me-262 plans, among other things), but the earlier Russian fighters were barely in the same league.

To Senor Beef - I get you, and the point is well taken. The mechanics of it are indeed dealing with suppression effects up at the squad level, and individual firing stuff is only modeled in the random firing rolls. To Jeff - I think the idea of shouting having much impact is probably overblown. In reports from Nam, you find things like a newbie talking to his sergeant - "I've never been shot at before. Is this what it sounds like?" Reply from the veteran sergeant "yes, this is what is sounds like. We are being shot at." The punch line? They were screaming at the top of their lungs to be heard, despite being within 5 yards of each other. Combat is loud...

To Mr. Dorosoh - If the period in question even remotely deserves to be mentioned in the same general context as the other examples you gave, then my initial statement is true - "one of..." If you want to claim that it is simply untrue, then by all means do so, and present an argument to that effect. But it seems to me you are merely saying "I wouldn't have said that", and perhaps another misreading of a qualified statement (dropping "one of", etc). I realize that you hate numbers in history, but this is getting pretty silly. Now you want to ban comparative statements. Next it will be adjectives and adverbs. Then perhaps, the crusade against the indirect object. In the end, canonically approved descriptions of history will be "see spot run". As though anyone asked you to provide such canons anyway. Moreover, it is obvious enough that it doesn't have to do with comparative statements, but statements by me, which is even sillier. Since you don't seem to be able to give it a rest, I suggest that in the future you ignore my comments and do not react to them at all. I can assure you I am not interested in your advice on the use or non-use of either numbers or comparatives, or adjectives or indirect objects, in writing history. I don't care what you would or wouldn't have said, and you needn't worry about anyone getting what you'd say, and what I'd say, confused. I thought that the fellow here had a fine and interesting question, and you provided useful information in response to it. Why you choose to turn that success into quibbling with me about what "one of" means, or what-not, is beyond me.

To SenorBeef - Six of one, half dozen of another. The combat system is not deterministic in the first place. Everything ends with a random "roll" for effect of the shot. It makes no difference, mathematically, whether you roll to see how many fire and then give some deterministic outcome to the result, or pretend everyone fired and roll randomly for the outcome. In fact, up to minor changes in the variance (which you could reproduce artificially by altering the "dice" or "outcomes" of the last role), there is no difference between random then random, and determininstic then random, and random then deterministic. Either way, it "composes" to a random determination of the effect of the fire. It is all in the to-hit roll, in other words. I mean, you don't have to roll to see if someone's sock is wet, and then to see if that makes him more or less inclined to shoot, and then whether or not he does, and then whether or not he shoots high, and then whether or not he shoots to the left, and then whether he zeroed his rifle properly, and then whether it went through an empty fold in somebodies clothing or whatnot. You just roll it all into a ball (pardon the expression) and roll to see what the firing unit does. The point of my test, though, was to see how non firing works in CM in practice, because there does need to be something more than everyone having the same chance to do the same thing. I mean, there has to be variance, spread, fire dominance effects, so that how much or how little people or firing, can "snowball". That is not an issue of where you make the random roll, it is an issue of the scale of the effects of non-firing. Because, see, if everyone just fired with a random roll, then you'd expect the symmetry in how the two sides were treated, to result in many combats that were bloody nearly-even exchanges. And that is not the same kind of randomness - effectively, that alone would give is a lower overall variance, because of so many to-hit rolls, washing out the "breaks" of the random chances. And what my test found, was that the implied amount of firing going on over a whole firefight, had to differ by a factor of 3-5 times. Which is not "washing out", not low variance. It is a high variance, snowballing thing, because of the moral system and the way that links to propensity to fire. The point is that who fires how much, is definitely central to CMs model of infantry fighting. Which I think is just as it should be. Incidentally, in the subject others are talking about, don't overlook the fact that crew served weapons generally have much greater range, and in addition can often be expected to have an impact even by area fire, on unseen enemy. Not being close enough, and not seeing enemy, are definitely among the factors making for less firing. A related psych point there, though, is that typically LOS improves dramatically with greater personal exposure. The safest spots in combat can't see anything. The places that can see things are not at all safe. In the unit histories, one often hears of the NCOs, at the moment of contact, reporting that they were spending all of their time "positioning individual men in locations from which they could return effective fire." What does that mean? It means they have their heads down, and don't know where the enemy is, so they aren't firing. And the sergeant has to run right next to them, and say "go to that bush right there, and watch your right front". And then the man will do it. But half of them, without such close direction, will stay in safer spots and not do much. Or they will do things besides shoot, like carry things and run messages, etc. They are not looking for the most dangerous spot, from which they can see the most of the enemy, and shoot the most effectively. The thing is, the natural fighter portion of the unit, *are*.

I don't think this is needed. The higher quality units don't go as "deep" down the chain for the same incoming fire, and recovery back to the upper states is faster, the shallower the "dip". Changes are also modified by commanders. You should not look at the system as one that is operating only in discrete steps at the moment of fire. Units recover, the state is dynamic. A unit that is pushed to "pinned", then rapidly back to cautious, and "alerted" by the end of the turn, was momentarily suppressed and nothing further. It works better than you might think. Watch a whole small firefight, platoon level, and I think you will see there is more dipping and recovery - suppression - going on, than just looking at the end of the minute would lead you to think.

To Claus B - Yes, I can elaborate on the confusion. Incidentally, the accuracy and range figures in practical use are very welcome information about this puzzle. The more you have on it that is definite - e.g. training info or combat reports on the ranges to use the slow HEAT - the better. Part of the confusion is terminology. Some sources mentioned a KwK-38 round, and it is not clear if this is a general reference to all forms of Gr38 HEAT, or a different type of round. It is also not clear whether it refers to a HEAT round or what. One source I've seen said there was such a round with a 1.3 kg bursting charge, which is frankly not very credible. That is twice the size of the bursting charges listed for all the other types of 75mm HEAT. Then there is the issue of the A-C varieties of GR38 HL. Some sources have no specs on the C variety. Some sources say that the C variety could be fired from the 75L24, and others say that it wasn't, without making clear if this was in practice or by the shell design. It is unclear which sources are right. I have not seen data on the actual dates of combat introduction of each round, which it seems you have - it would be welcome. I also have not seen any data on the critical question of how many were made of each, and actually supplied, to the towed guns, the panzers, the StuGs, the Marders, and when. Without such production run info it is not possible to estimate the real effectiveness it might have had in the field, since the A type is hopeless against the T-34, the B is marginal and probably needs flank or turret hits, while the C ought to be effective unless it got a poor angle. Also, if is not clear how angle and hardness issues changed HEAT penetration in practice. Combat reports give good results with 105mm HEAT, certainly, and that is confirmed by later reports (e.g. Korea) and easily believable from technical specs. We know the Schreck, with an 88mm HEAT round, penetrated them. But the practical effectiveness of 75mm HEAT is much harder to pin down. The Germans were making the stuff, and presumably not on a lark. But against 60 degree slope very hard armor, plus side angles, the B type for instance seems likely to have been ineffective. (I've seen it rated as able to penetrate 75mm at 30 degrees, but variations by hardness and slope aren't so readily available). U.S. reports on 75mm HEAT from recoilless rifles in Korea are in the negative, but the rounds may be quite different, and the targets T-34/85 not T-34/76. On the issue of why they would stop making it, there are three obviously possibilities. It may be that it was only effective, for reasons of accuracy, down to ranges that were exceeded by the PzGr39 fired from the 75L48, while still being useful as late as the 75L43. This is somewhat doubtful, though, since the penetration of those two types is so close, beyond the closest ranges. The second possibility is that it was being lobbed at ranges at which PzGr was ineffective, but needed rare turret hits, and was abandoned because that involved high ammo use exactly as you described, or perhaps after the Russians uparmored the turret front. The third possibility, that I myself consider the most likely, is simply that the availability of the Panther changed tactical doctrine. The Russians were no longer trying to stay out as 1.2-1.5 km ranges, because they would get picked off by superior long range guns without being able to reply effectively. They needed to close and increase angles along the line to get flank shots themselves. This brought them down into the effective range of the 75L48s on the other Germans AFVs. It is true that the Russians might have continued to try standoff tactics when Panthers were not present, but I consider it quite likely that they simply did not make such distinctions, tending to lack the local info about the types faced, and just switched their doctrine to "close", more or less in all circumstances. If so, there would have been no role for a round inferior to the PzGr39 at close ranges. Obviously, the kill is more likely with a higher velocity round that does not depend on flukes of detonation angle, *if* the high velocity round is going to do the job, at the range actually involved. On the general issue of the difficulting of hitting at range with such a low velocity round, I understand that the PzGr39 would be more accurate. But that hardly matters, if it can't get through the glacis at 1200-1500 meters. One of the advantages the Germans had with their 3 man turrets was rate of fire. Another advantage they had was optics. They also stressed tactics that were many-on-one, building a "base of fire", not simply dueling. It seems to me entirely possible that a hail of even marginal 75mm HEAT at long range was the riposte to Russians standing off. The change of a hit does not have to be particularly high, and even the kill per hit does not need to be. The tactical effect would still be to deny impunity to a Russian force standing off. Another German group may have tried to close the range to more like 800 yards in the meantime, too. Or even closer - in the summer of 1943, at least 1/3rd of the German AFV fleet still had 50L60 or 75L24 guns, so some of them would have been looking for 500 yards or less and a flank. It seems to me that sort of coordinated larger scale tactic is exactly the kind of thing the Germans must have been relying on, to a large degree, in late 1942 and early 1943, and on many parts of the front through the rest of 1943. It may have originated in a division of labor between the short-75 Pz IVs and the long-50 Pz IIIs, with a 75mm HEAT base of fire covering a flank charge with 50mm APCR. Anyway, the more info you can provide to clear up the actual ammo types, when introduced, available to which German weapons systems in what numbers, how effective against the T-34s slope and hardness, and tactical doctrine on its use - would be most interesting to me.

Um, Dogface, who did your sky? I want it.

Rexford, I appreciate and applaud your efforts to pin down the effect of the armor hardness on the effective range. I simply suggest that there isn't much mystery about the actual answer, because the assessments of the contemporaries and the tactics adopted by both sides leave little room for it. Those items, it seems to me, provide a useful cross check for the stuff you are trying to model. When the German panzer force staffers and the Russian reports both say the effective penetration range was 1 km, and tactically, the Russians try to keep the range 1200 meters, and the Germans try to get the range to 800 meters and report numerous kills when they manage it - where is the room for (large scale, anyway) mystery? Yes, the rounds cannot possibly be bouncing half the time at 500 meters. So the technical details of armor hardness, or the drivers hatch, or whatever, obviously matters. But no, they cannot amount to regular penetrations at 1500 meters, because the information from the contemporaries, and the tactics adopted, simply will not support that conclusion, no matter how many angels dance which way to suggest it. The tactical and assessment data ought to help you constrain your model of the effectives of armor hardness, which it seems to me has considerably more "play" left in it, than the tactical history info. I know that there will be side angles, of course. The Germans aren't opening at 1000 meters, either. Incidentally, I'd be very interested in your thoughts on 75mm HEAT vs. the T-34. There is considerable confusion in the ammo types actually available, and their penetration properties. For whatever reason, the Germans went on a 75mm HEAT kick in the mid war, and made several million rounds of the stuff in 1942-1943. After 1943, they lose interest. That neatly coincides with the time period between facing the T-34 and fielding the Panther. In the 1941 battles, the two reliable ways the Germans had to kill a T-34, were AP from 88mm FLAK and HEAT from 105mm howitzer. If the armor is extremely hard, that makes HEAT much less effective, right? Were the Germans throwing 75mm HEAT at ranges beyond 1 km? I bet they at least tried it. So the Russians don't really want soft armor, because they are worried about reducing the effective range of the best enemy shell. Go soft, and maybe the PzGr39 is stopped down into somewhat closer ranges. But then perhaps the HEAT would get them at 1500-2000 meters - bad move. But make the armor hard, and the HEAT is marginal or ineffective (from the front), and the PzGr only gets them at 1000 meters. The Germans might still want the HEAT for long range shots at the flanks, or the off chance of a turret hit with a good angle. For what it is worth...

Yes I play small scenarios. I like things to be reinforced company or smaller, and 30 turns or less, on maps 1 km or smaller on a side. Playability is king - speed.

I say it because I have seen reports that the 1st Canadian Army took over 15,000 causalties there, in the space of ~3 weeks. That is a quite large causalty toll, around 2/3rds what the U.S. went through in the Hurtgen. Tough terrain, prepared defenses, muddy thaw, local German counterattacks with armor. Doesn't take much to see it must have been pretty hard fighting.