jasoncawley@ameritech.net

OK, here is another attempt to get people to see the issues I am driving at. Consider any game of CM you have recently played, in which the winning side did well because it applied some definite maneuver - used some route over the ground, avoided this or that trap or defender's strength, came at them from this angle, managed to fight these and then those in sequence instead of at the same time. Whatever it is, so long as you think you understand how it worked. Now, ask yourself. If I used the same map, exactly, but *doubled* the size of the opposing forces, and doubled the length of the game in turns - would exactly the same approach have worked? The main variable I just dialed to a different setting is "force to space". I also took away, probably, any need for hurry. There are fewer open areas; it is much harder to move any serious force along any given avenue without it being easily spotted. Reserves can be more substantial and react to a clearer threat. But with a long battle, issues of ammo, rallying disorganized forces, running out of key items like guns or tanks, all rise in importance. It is more feasible to use slower processes of firepower to chew through the enemy force. Fights at longer ranges are no longer as indecisive or "safe". Is there anyone who thinks the situation has not been severely altered by such a change? That the same ideas will work as before, in the same manner, and that new alternatives have not arisen? That artillery hasn't risen in effectiveness relative to the tanks and infantry platoons? That overall odds hasn't risen in importance compared to say, terrain, initial placements, or average unit quality? [This message has been edited by jasoncawley@ameritech.net (edited 02-14-2001).]

I am not the one who first called the Kiev decision a fatal instance of attrition thinking, or departure from true maneuver doctrine. That dubious distinction falls to Heinz Guderian. Who, for those in Rio Linda, commanded the armor diverted, and just incidentally, invented modern mobile doctrine. It has been repeated by numerous historians since. If ASL Vet thinks it wrong and Kiev was advisable, all he has to do is say so, and I will heartily agree with him. So far, however, he has not done so. He has only repeated the statement that both choices are maneuver, without deciding between them himself. If he agrees that Kiev was the right decision, but calls it maneuver, then I shall settle for his departure from the strictures of certain school masters, call it realism and a focus on destruction of enemies forces, and applaud it. If he picks Moscow, I shall continue to see a real difference between his view and mine, and I will continue to trace, what I regard as an error, to certain school masters. But I do not care what he calls it. I just want him to *make* the decision, to choose. Regardless of how improbable it may seem to ASL Veteran, I really am more concerned about the real disagreement between my own conclusion, and Guderian's, than I am with ASL Vet's choice of words. Not to put too fine a point on it, if ASL Vet prefers Kiev, I think he is agreeing with me, and our differences (at least on that) are matters of semantics and the native stubbornness we both are blessed with. If he agrees with Guderian and prefers Moscow, then he really does not agree with me. He may perhaps excuse me if I consider the latter disagreement, which certainly exists between me and some others, as rather more fundamental than which side of it ASL Vet chooses to stand on, let alone what color he paints the standards in each camp. I regard attrition and maneuver as means, below the level of an entire war. They are, indeed, meant to be adapted to the enemy's deployments and choices, and the choice between them should be in the commander's tool box, not decided for him beforehand once and for all. Just as the different choice whether to attack or defend, in the local circumstances, should be. At the strategic level, I think the framework of analysis that I consider attritionist, but which others are pleased to call "total war", or sometimes "decisive battle", is the right one. I notice that my attrition framework applies in a case like Korea, that historians usually call limited war and oppose to total, and to slow processes (like sinking all of Japan's ships in WW II) as well as the rapid ones usually meant by "decisive battle", but those are terminological quibbles. The content, as opposed to the terms, of the strategic frame I recommend, is a focus on the destruction of enemy forces, and the preservation of one's own, rather than (as I conceive it) focusing on territory, or who is attacking. And the reason behind this recommended focus has also been stated. It is, that if a fielded force ratio sufficiently favorable can be achieved, it will prove decisive in itself, regardless of other factors. This is, conversely, as much to be avoided as something conceeded to an adversary. I go over this because it is possible I have created confusion between these two levels, the strategic frame, and the technique of operations and tactics. At both of the latter levels (or as many as their really are, down the "chart"), I regard both maneuver and attrition as tools. For maximum clarity, I will state the two propositions I consider myself to be denying. One, that maneuver is the appropriate framework for the highest level of strategy, rather than a focus on fielded forces. And two, that at all levels maneuver is always the best method and superior to attrition methods in all cases. To me these two propositions are distinct. Because I do recognize the usefulness of maneuver ideas in operations and tactics, as one of a set of options, capable of countering certain enemy choices or making the most of certain situations or advantages. But I find that opposition to the two propositions, comes from more or less the same set of people, and the reasons they give for disagreeing with me on both propositions are more or less the same reasons (or attitudes, or sometimes mere slurs). I call these people "maneuverists". But I am not an inquisitor as to heresy within their camp. Some of them may agree with some of my points made in passing, but neither proposition; some with one of the propositions but not the other. Some may agree with me on both propositions, but still choose to consider themselves "maneuverists" (they are heartily welcome). Some may labor under the misimpression that I think maneuver is not a proper part of the operational or tactical tool kit. Since I am speaking for the usefulness of attrition concepts in particular cases, and weaknesses of maneuver ones, some may think that means I do not recommend using maneuver in operations and tactics, or that e.g. in CM, my own methods are all attritionist. Not at all. I will maneuver like anybody, and when I do I try to apply the same sorts of ideas recommended by the "maneuverists" (from Guderian to modern U.S. doctrine) when I think the situation calls for it. I just don't *always* think the situation calls for it. Proposed "matches" in which I am to use "just attrition" and another to "just maneuver" are beside the point. Half of the point of my own argument is that which to use, depends on which the other side uses; fixing that decision in stone defeats the whole point. One does not tell someone trying to explain that pass-rushing and run-rushing operate on different principles "oh yeah? Then let's play a football game, and you only run-rush the whole time". (Is he trying to get *by* me or trying to get *at* me?). No one proposes boxing matches between fighters who throw only hooks and fighters who throw only jabs. The whole point is to have both available, to assess the situation and the enemy, and to use the right one, while being prepared for the opponent trying either. And while I am certainly disagreeing with those who think there are not two styles to choose between, or that only one of them works or makes sense, I am also asking honest questions because I do not think I have the answers to them. The issue I have been trying to get people to address - which Capt. for instance has - is when to use which style. I am interested in picking the brains of maneuverists too, on this subject. But I can't get their help in addressing the "when" question, if they keep singing "always, always" off the same hymn sheet. I have advanced some factors that I think effect the "when" decisions, and I have given examples of e.g. deployment differences that to me clearly favor the use of one method or of the other. But that does not mean I think I have a definitive answer to the "when" question. Capt. suspects nobody does, and I think he is probably right. What springs to mind, however, are the numerous cases where good battlefield commanders made exactly this sort of assessment or decision, and it seems to me at any rate, were able to get it right. Examples - MacAuliffe at Bastogne, Walker in the Pusan perimeter, Ridgeway after the Chinese intervention. They made excellent decisions about when to be supple enough to give ground, when to stand to avoid enemy maneuvers, when to focus on destruction of the enemy. In other cases the judgments seem sound although the courses recommended were not taken, as with many of Manstein's recommendations for AG South. Some are similar but so obvious it is amazing anyone still defends the opposite course, like Rundstadt on the Ardennes offensive. An accurate assessment of the real capabilities of the opposing forces, of the changing shape of the battle, of the real alternatives on defense and attack as well as the decision between them - that is the noticable feature in those cases, compared to their relative absent in others, or on the part of others making different recommendations. I do not disagree, then, with Abteilung, that these things are pieces and not the assembled puzzle. I do not think we will notice and learn from others before, putting it together well, if we think all the pieces are large squares. Some attention to their edges and how they fit together, the differences in their shapes, is required. But it is not quite enough to simply note that they are all shapes, and it depends, and pretend noticing this will assembly the thing.

The problem with Kiwi Joe's calculation, is that he assumes the effect of number of rounds and the effects of blast are both the same, linear. But they aren't. Blast declines with the distance from the impact point. A few big'uns do have higher "peaks" in total blast delivered, but they deliver less on the average part of the "blanketed" area, compared to more numerous smaller impacts. A better measure of the *expected* delivered firepower on troops under a barrage is blast^.5 times number of shells. Artillery modules are much closer to one another in these terms, varying by about a factor of two at most. If you look at this total mean firepower measure, and divide by the point costs, the light mortars are indeed delivering more average firepower per invested point, but because the module is cheaper, not because it is more powerful. The medium artillery types - 105mm artillery and 120mm mortars e.g. - come out as "bargains" that are about half the same average bang per point spent as the 81s, but of course with their sharper firepower peaks. By the time you move up to 150mm or 155mm, you are down to more like 30% of the mean fp to beaten-area, per point spent. You are "paying for variance" in that case - the chance of a few close shells doing far more damage. Another issue here is troop qualities. The morale effect of delivered firepower varies with the target's quality level, and the rate of the delivered firepower, not just the total amount. Greens will be broken by firepower that does not kill large numbers of men in a short space of time, especially if that fire is continued for any length of time. Regulars are a bit more resistent, but e.g. in woods but not in foxholes, they are easily broken by a minute and a half of 81mm mortar fire. Vets in foxholes are another story, and will ride out such relatively light shelling in much better shape, and recover more rapidly and totally. Even they do not like it very much, obviously, and will hardly be at their best just after a 2 minute 81mm barrage lifts. What is true in Kiwi Joe's point, is that the limited number of shells in the other artillery types, does not mean they don't have much firepower over the whole time of the module's firing. They do. And they deliver it in "higher dosages" per unit time, which matters against higher quality troops in particular. I consider a single module of light mortars standard, effectively part of an infantry force purchase and hardly "supporting artillery" at all. But after the first of those, I will buy heavier stuff. I prefer the 105mm from the Americans (arguably the single best all around module in the game, but fully priced in point terms), and the 120mm mortars or 105mms as the Germans. Realistic too.

I agree with Jarmo. You don't have to *kill* them with the 81mm off-map mortars. Just give 'em a stiff dose and *then* pop your tanks or StuGs into LOS, with the gun already entered as the "preferred target". It isn't that hard for direct fire HE from any tank or assault gun, to take out a gun. It just needs some help not getting killed itself, before it gets to fire. That is what the artillery half of the team does. Off-board makes them duck, on-board takes 'em out while they are ducking.

The defenders in such situations often can't see the attackers, despite them running through the open. Or only a few of them can. Because their heads are in the dirt, under the rim of their holes, and there is grass, and the ground is not pool-table level, and the running men are crouching. Everyone who is up high enough to see is drawing enourmous return fire. And troops do charge straight across "open" ground (grass) to point blank. Sometimes the defenders are not heads-down and blow them up. Often they are, and they get cut to pieces as a result. Overkill like shooting the nearest certainly happens. It is also very common in reading first hand accounts of such situations, to hear from someone who *was* up and firing, that although he hit people they did not go down, or go down fast enough, and he kept shooting the same guy. These are all clear signs of a "fight" psych reaction. From many other participants, they talk about the noise, and when they or men around them got hit, and when somebody said to pull back, and add that they could not see the enemy until they were right on top of them. These are clear signs of a "helper" psych reaction, trying to help the wounded or relying on the group but afraid or unwilling to expose themselves and kill the enemy. Jams and other such problems (wounded e.g.) are another frequent item, with the reaction to them a true test of the overall response. "Helpers" clear jams and get ammo and drag the wounded, but are rarely found firing fully functioning weapons at the enemy, except at the closest range. Others just run, or stay down in their holes, but those two are the most common. Once the range gets under about 100 yards, one side of the other gets the upper hand, psychologically as well as in firepower terms. The other side then gets suppressed, sees little, shoots little, and loses. As for the sizes and space, be sure you put all the units on "realistic" scale. As for Napleonic shoulder-to-shoulder, try a little HE. You can indeed use "area target" for final protective fire in CM. But it effects the targeted area only. That is the only problem with CM's depiction of this type of event. You should be able to put MG one on this fire-lane, and MG two on that fire-lane, and everybody crosses one or the other somewhere. Even that is not as magically effective as some people think, however. No MG can be fired continually, trigger held down, without running through its available ammo in a matter of seconds. And "grazing" fire is often too high to actually "graze". It has to be kept at the height of a crawling man, or dips in ground and such prevent it from working. In CM, single squads will get blown up very easily, which is quite realistic. But platoon positions, in my experience, defend themselves much much better. The reason is that as the range drops, shooting becomes more frequent if a units is *not* suppressed, while running attackers do not fire until they stop running (=reach cover, usually). It is relatively easy to suppress one squad of defenders. 3-5 is a taller order, and the same overkill, shoot the closest, and shoot who just fired, effects, will work for the defender. I have seen platoons get shot down in open or a street very often in CM, when trying to enter a location held by even a small platoon (HQ, 1 squad, half-squad remnant e.g.). When there is supporting fire from another platoon and heavy weapons, covering e.g. the same street, I've never seen people get across, except captured or cowering and soon shot. Unless the defenders are already suppressed (e.g. by arty) - then charges usually work. Which is entirely realistic. It is all a bit at the level of silly in the example given, though, because one artillery FFE and the "masser" is toast. That, and not allegedly killing his own guys or the single squad being able to do anything to them, is the real reason such things weren't often done. But the scale of the real deal, incidentally, was a battalion's worth of infantry charging as seperated company waves on frontages as narrow as 100-200 yards, in some cases. The NVA did things like that in Nam, and on only slightly longer frontages the Chinese did them in Korea, both successfully at times. Debacles in cases where timely arty could be brought down on them before they got "inside" FFE distances from friendlies. In CM terms, 1-2 full squads per "tile", then that 3-4 times in a row at the same spot, over half an hour. For what it is worth... [This message has been edited by jasoncawley@ameritech.net (edited 02-14-2001).]

Oh no, it was a mech force type in CM terms all right. I stayed within the force cost limits. You couldn't buy that many halftracks anyway. It is not written anywhere that a "mech" force type has to all fit in the vehicles purchased. Some of them would really be in trucks, after all, and debus before battle. I do suggest you try it.

You want to know what is wrong with existing doctrine? OK. But it is long. You probably knew that. I was sort of under the impression that you could speak for your position instead of a book, but if you'd rather watch me carry on an argument with a book, that is fine by me. The books are longer, though, so you'll have to put up with "verbosity". If you want me to be pithy, you'll have to cite arguments that fit on one page yourself. >The offense is the decisive form of battle. Except when it isn't. And when that is and is not, we shall yet have to examine. >Divisions seize and retain the initiative through offensive action. Except when they lose. then they lose the initiative and the ability to respond to enemy threats, through lack of reserves. >commanders prefer offensive operations that find and destroy the enemy. Well, compared to him being alive in an unknown location, yes that is preferable. But what does it have to do with the word "offensive"? The level of connection here is so tenuous that as little might be meant as "shoot 'em". But we all know that is not what "offensive" properly means in a military context. >They use the maximum range of available assets Now here is an idea that is actually useful. But it has little to do with the rest. Obviously, stressing the use of firepower at maximum range is not exactly the same thing as stressing the maneuver of battalions to point-blank through supposed weak points in an enemy formation. For those in Rio Linda, there aren't many gaps in enemy formations from maximum range, since usually his entire formation is within the weapons range of his units, or at least many of them. >They leverage technological advantages to gain intelligence and employ lethal and nonlethal precision fires as a precursor >to maneuver, and the decisive blow Slightly mangled syntax, but the meaning is clear. Fires are "prep fires", and the "decisive blow" follows maneuver, i.e. getting closer. There is no such thing as a decisive blow by precision fires. Someone should explain this to General Moore. He obviously must have lost the battle of landing zone X-ray in 1965, because he did not follow this formula. Moore certainly thought he was "leveraging technological advantages", without the rest. Now, here is the clearest statement of the doctrine's purpose - >destroy the enemy's ability and will to resist. So far so good. The question is precisely how to destroy his ability. >This is done by defeating the integrity of his defensive system; This ambiguous phrase obviously means make holes in his formation or penetrate it. But it is stately broadly enough to cover entirely different notions, like destroying his forces. >capturing his territory; Essence of the maneuver idea, to me. >and destroying his supporting fire systems Again, phrased ambiguously enough to mean his forces, but they really mean his artillery, his rear-area long range weapons. >command and control systems, command posts, reserves, and logistics support Reserves are a curious addition to the rest of the list. The clear meaning of the entire statement is - you make a hole (defeat "integrity"), go through it ("capture territory"), and blast his rear area elements - artillery, C3I, supplies. This is offered as the way to destroy the enemy's ability and will to resist. Because the bald statement of the formula would seem insufficiently broad to cover other cases, key clauses are phrased in a fuzzy enough manner to barely allow alternate readings. E.g. if you destroy the entire enemy front line force where it stands, you can say "I was defeating the integrity of his defensive system". Similarly, if a breakthrough battle becomes nothing more than a giant collision of the main forces, you can say "I was destroying his reserves". And the all purpose "destroy his supporting fire systems" can cover shooting anything in the enemy force, even focusing on that rather than his C3I or the rest of the list. Nevertheless, it is clear the doctrine has a real reading, and these other add-ons are qualifications. The doctrine planly teaches that the way to destroy the enemy force is to make holes, run through them, and destroy the "softer" rear area supports of the fighting force. It is plain to any impartial reader, that the idea is *not* to destroy the enemy fighting forces at the front or in place. It is precisely this that is being *avoided*, as a harder task that supposedly superior maneuver attempts will avoid the necessity for accomplishing. So the question is, when is this *not* the way to achieve the end of destroying the enemy's ability to resist? #1 when it is harder to "defeat the integrity of the defensive system" i.e. break through, than it is to defeat the enemy front line forces in place. The most obvious tactical example is a defense in depth in which the forward elements are a very thin screen, but powerful mobile reserves that cannot be neutralized by indirect fire, are available to meet any given spearhead, more rapidly than attackers can be expect to reach the same point - and where, moreover, enemy indirect fire strength makes extremely dense formations to overcome such reserves, impractical (a force to space issue). Because, in that situation, the screening elements of the defender can be destroyed with *little loss*, without any excessive bunching up. And he will then have to replace them. And the operation can be repeated, if he retains the same dispositions of forces. This will not "defeat the integrity of the defensive system" in the sense plainly meant by the phrase. But that phrase can be stretched a few yards to cover it, just. Does the doctrine teach anything about this, as a way to destroy the enemy's ability to resist? No. Because it "sees" the enemy front line forces as *obstacles* to the intended purpose, breakthrough to the rear areas, to be fought when they have to be to remove them. The alternative is to view them as *targets*, as *opportunities* to destroy the defender's capability to resist. To view the forward forces, in other words, as the most *exposed*, *unsupported*, and *engadered* portions of the enemy force, and thus the finest places to achieve lopsided local firefights. To the "when" (or when not) question, then, the answer ought to be "when the enemy is deployed in a certain way." The doctrine envisions most of the enemy firepower concentrated along the front of his defensive system, and the rear area targets, including a catch all "reserves", as a more appealing and softer target. But what if his "reserves" at 2/3rds of his force and all of his heavy armor? And his fearsome "front line" forces. are a thin screen of light vehicles and leg infantry in hasty foxholes? Then which is the softer target, the "enemy reserves" and "defeating the integrity of the defensive system", or just plinking off of whole front screen every day? Few defenders can afford such a regular drain for long. But the "most back" deployment, is *optimized* to defeat attackers seeking *breakthrough*. It is *vunerable* to attackers seeking to attrite the enemy force instead. Is this covered by what they mean? No. Read on - >the preferred method is to overwhelm an enemy force during a *short period of time* throughout the depth of the battlefield Meaning, methods that defeat only the exposed forward portions of the enemy defense, are not at all "the preferred method". There is a proviso about it sometimes being "tactically required" to fight "in sequence", for the sake of "later engagements". But it is clear the breakthrough battle is meant - fighting the enemy throughout the zone. And it is logical to require that when the goal is to reach the enemy rear areas, because otherwise the enemy will react and patch holes or fall back, and hole-making attempts will not succeed. When is this simultaneous attack throughout the zone, doctrine, likely to be wrong-headed? The clearest case is when the attack possesses a definite but limited edge in a combat characteristic like *range*. Remember the point above about commanders seeking to engage enemies at maximum range? Well, that is going to have different meanings with this "hit the whole enemy defense" requirement. If you put your longest range weapons on his furthest back assets, you may be able to cover his whole depth of defense - but only by deploying those weapons somewhat forward, to get the necessary "reach" into his backfield. And those enemy forces will likely be less accurately located, most of the time, than the front line enemies. By comparison, hitting the enemy's *forward* elements at the near the extreme range of your own longest range weapons, cannot promise to defeat the whole enemy depth at once. But it is much more likely to allow hitting them *without reply*. If you think this is academic, consider that an edge in NV equipment can give our maneuver elements a significant, but not unlimited, range edge in night fighting, even against enemies equipped with some NV equipment, just not as good. How does this doctrine wind up recommending that sort of edge be used? Well, you can't use it to hit his whole depth, and also fully exploit the "I see him, he doesn't see me" assymmetry, simultaneously. If you think the *breakthrough* is more important than the *attrition* effects of the front-line fighting, then you might easily decide to use the edge to hit further into the enemy defensive zone. Whereas the other use of it might prove decisive *alone*, if repeated - and do so without loss. Range is not the only characteristic that may favor the attacker, that can render the "hit the whole depth at once to break through" idea, sub-optimal or at the very least not the only or obvious way to go. So can e.g. front line odds, importance of losses to both sides (e.g. through replacement rates), relative toughness against indirect fire, visibility or lack of it which often relates to range but is sometimes independent (e.g. hidden until fires cases). If the enemy's "ability to coordinate" is less *without* engaging all of his depth at once (e.g. when his whole defensive set up is *designed* for that), then the doctrine's recommendation is simply wrong. It is also possible for the doctrine to mislead, not because it overlooks a way to exploit an advantage, but because it assumes the absence of a weakness that is actually present. For instance, attempting to attack the entire defensive zone in some WW I cases, meant expecting to fight at the forward edge of a "scarred" area through which resupply was essentially impossible. Since this would fail, the goals of breakthrough would not be achieved, and moreover the point at which the fighting occurred would be disadvantageous, compared to the defender still being in the scarred zone himself, and within range of attacking artillery. That is an historical example; other weaknesses of a similar kind are possible. E.g. the doctrine might council using air-mobile assets to deal with the depth of the enemy battle zone, but if enemy AD assets are overwhelming, this is not a sound approach. The point, again, is the attacker weaknesses or strengths may be better utilized by stuffing the idea of breakthrough and its co-requirement to attack the entire enemy defensive zone, in particular circumstances. The last paragraph of the fundamentals of attack section is the action hero version, about how the enemy commander decides "it is just too much, I can't take it anymore, aaaaa" and our guys get to do whatever they please. This is not the effect the boys in blue pants found in August 1914. Multiple attacks simply engaged all of the "defender's" firepower, while dissipating that of the "attackers". Since they had thus delivered their stunning and initiative-grabbing daring and decisive simultaneous offensive maneuvers, at about 1:2 local odds, they got creamed. As for maneuvers, the doctrine does not speak of maneuver as thought or success or the absence of failure to learn, as some here have. It speaks more prosaically of envelopment, turning movement, penetration, and frontal attack. It also rapidly changes turning movement into envelopment, at least at the level it is talking about, leaving a total of three. These, briefly, are "flank 'em", "split 'em", and "push 'em". How refreshingly concrete. When flanking them, the doctrine stresses that the purpose is to avoid the enemy strength, which it thus assumes is located along the front of the enemy formation. This is not always the case, as should hardly require repeating by now. The doctrine also states that the flank of the flanking force itself, which is by definition offered to the main enemy direction if not to his local forces, is to be lightly screened, and mentions some of the elements that can do so. It does not say when this can't be expected to prove adequate and flanking attempt therefore have to be foregone - it only envisions not being able to flank someone, when the flankers can't find or get around that flank. Simplistic, and a bit vunerable to certain kinds of traps. (See Scout PLs 1st defense series if you haven't a clue what I am talking about. Suckering an attacker around a seemingly open flank into a kill zone is a standard defender's trick). How so? Well, again the focus of the doctrine throughout, sees maneuver forces as obstacles and sources of front-facing combat power. It does not see them as targets in their own right. That an enemy would want you to put, not your rear areas or C3I, but fighting forces, right about *here*, to destroy them, is not really something it emphasizes or thinks about. The commander is expected to decide based on overall strengths and dispositions of own and enemy forces - fine, that is a bromide without content so it is true, but doesn't say anything. But the doctrine does not just leave it up to commanders. It says flat out "commanders use penetration when flanking is unavailable", which means they use flanking when it is available. There is, you see, a definite chain or ordering of the maneuvers. They go from best case to worst case - flank, split, push. The only reason to drop down the chain is because the higher ones aren't available. That is what "maneuver doctrine" means in the concrete and day to day world. Now, penetrations. The doctrine says directly, the division masses its power usually at a single point. Those quibbling that the maneuver idea is not based on bunching up in definite circumstances, are not quoting their own sources. It does. And it is said that they will be costly in casualties. And why? Because it attacks into the defender's strength. Notice, the front of the enemy is considered his strength, regardless of his actual deployment. And in addition, the costliness is traced to the defender's strength, which the flank attack avoided. It is not traced to the attacker's being bunched up to achieve the breakthrough. In other words, the thing that is thought of as "costly" is simply coming at defenders from the front, as such. The bunching is thought of as a way of achieving breakthrough by overpowering the enemy at a single point, *not* as a way of reducing the maneuver element's vunerability to enemy maneuver elements, or a means of lowering own or raising enemy losses. The stress is put on achieving the hole, holding it open, and widdening it, and on exploitation into the enemy rear areas. There is not discussion of failed breakthroughs or engagement of enemy reserves. It is implicitly assumed, in the "holding open" emphasis, that enemy efforts will be focused on closing the hole again by counterattacking from the flanks of the breach. If he has other ends in view and takes other actions, the doctrine says nothing about it. Attacks generally, it is stated elsewhere, are always to be directed at weak points. There is no discussion of stand-off firepower attacks explicitly directed at strongest points. at the enemy mass, because again the emphasis is entirely on breakthrough and not on destroying the enemy in the combat zone. The doctrine says flat out that frontal attack or pushing, is the least desireable "form of maneuver". It is mentioned, or perhaps "allowed" is better, to fix an enemy (while others turn his flank e.g.), or to "overrun or destroy" a weak enemy. Notice, even there, destroy is half subordinated to getting through them "overrun". It is explicitly stated that it may be "appropriate" in the enemy rear "to destroy forces" (egads!) and to "secure lines of communication". I suppose this means you are allowed to destroy HQ and artillery batteries by frontal attack, and you are also allowed to seize bridges and road junctions, because after all they really are needed. But terrain is at least as important as anything done to the enemy force even in these cases. "The frontal attack is only favored against a weak or disorganized enemy when the situation is not fully developed, when the attacker has overwhelming combat power, when the time and situation require immediate reaction to enemy action, or when the mission is to fix the enemy in position, deceive him, or assist the main attack. Frontal attacks squander combat power." Now, I would like someone to explain this to Matthew Ridgeway's memory. Because he didn't have any of those (unless "disorganized enemy" is turned into a sophistic catch-all), and he didn't squander any combat power. He just smashed the Chinese to heck and gone by an appropriate use of extremely well-time frontal counter-attacks followed by withdrawls. Because he noticed, within weeks of arriving in Korea, that the Chinese logistics were their weak point, and that their whole army was operating in a definite tempo of flurries and lulls. He deduced that these flurries and lulls, and advances and periods remaining stationary, reflected logistical strains, and that when they were prepared for battle they were dangerous, and when they were not they were vunerable. He then pounded out a slippery jazz beat on their quartermaster's heads and tore them to pieces. Oh I forgot. You are not supposed to rely on operations in sequence. Silly Matt. When transitioning to the offensive against a spent attacker who no longer has an edge at the point of attack, it is flatly stated that frontal attack by the forces already in place is the least favorable course of action. It also stresses that time is critical. These two would seem to be in just a little bit of tension with each other. I submit that if you have disorganized an attacker with fires, and he is obviously in extreme confusion and right in front of you, that you tell this doctrine to take a flying leap, and jump out and finish the bastards. Yes, getting "le moment juste" for this operation is a delicate matter. It is safer to err on the side of caution and wait until it is quite clear the attack is broken. But after that, waiting for a whole defense shuffle and an ad hoc battlegroup to "flank em", strikes my as missing the point. The enemy's front is *not* the most dangerous place at all times. Sometimes it is where he is most vunerable, precisely because his forces farthest forward are least supported by and tied in with, the rest of his force. This is especially true in confused situations. The "flank" of the attacking force is probably where his supporting fire base or fixing attack elements were, and they are probably in the best shape, not the worst. As for transition to the defense, it is baldly stated that attacking units only cease attacking because they must. "Without a compelling reason to defend, however, Army divisions continue the attack. The defense is a temporary state". This would come as news to many fine historical commanders, but after all "the offensive is the decisive..." blah blah blah. They do at least tell the commander to "remain mentally agile" and to "anticipate transition to the defense". Since they don't tell him when to, accept when he can't attack, it seems this is synonymous with "be ready to lose and adapt", which is about as far as St. Cyr will go. Literally the only thing mentioned about this transition, is that it is OK to pick your terrain by falling back, instead of attacking forward to seize the line you need. Why do commanders need to be told this? Because they are drilled that "the offensive is..." Otherwise it would be rather obvious. If what you are trying to do is not get territory, but kill the enemy, you want to pick the place where you can do it best, and directions forward or backward be damned. See Ridgeway, above. As for how to defend, the razzle dazzle blind 'em and baffle 'em school is in the saddle here too, writing the manual. There are paragraphs about taking out enemy AD so the choppers can have fun, and the enemy artillery and CB and fire direction centers, and some stuff about how the purpose of air deployed minefields is to allow counterattacks, which sounds to me like the purest possible horsefeathers. The rest of the fire plan discussion is about calling for lots and assigning something to everything and everyone, every deep objective, and some direct fire for each maneuver unit. The mobile defense is at least "oriented on destroying the enemy", which seems however to mean "as opposed to holding the terrain". It is stated that one reason to use it is insufficent forces. Why the retention of terrain would ever take precendence over the destruction of the attackers, is not stated. But obviously it is assumed the attackers are following the same doctrine and trying to create holes, so presumably one can't let them take places. How a hole is supposed to be created by a willingness to fall back, as opposed to by a rigid defense that stays forward even when a flanking unit is overwhelmed, is never explained. But the "mobile defense" aspect is to me the least objectionable part of the doctrine, the part that I think is most nearly right. If it has failings, they lie in what I would call an overconfidence that the striking force or reserve will defeat the attackers if merely placed opposite them. There seems to me to be little emphasis on avoiding an attacker's presumably superior firepower (except by supposedly blinding him, which would seem to require all of your own or assume the attacker has no business trying to attack you in the first place if you have more than enough for that and all other uses - or dispersion in depth, which actually makes the firepower of his maneuver elements more dangerous not less). There is also little discussion of what to do if the attacker is content to kill your forward screening force, not walk into your striking force trap, then yawn and resume the procedure as often as desired. The deep defense is also quite vunerable to this "eat the surface cheaply" approach. Presumably the "unnatural" defensive state is supposed o magically evaporate if he thus "cedes" the initiative. I can't see why. This is certainly not a defense doctrine which envisions the destruction of bunched up attackers by massed indirect fires. Yet if you asked a dozen attack order planners what they fear most, they would say "getting hit by massed indirect fires while bunched up opposite the hole or hole-making attempt". And you are not massing fires for that purpose, when you are striking everything in the attacker's C3I rear, where the target density is south of Florida. This is all undoubtedly because the whole idea is to regain the initiative and to dance with the maneuver elements. It is incidentally stated that the defender's purpose in maneuvering is to shift "sufficient" to stop him. Further "Decisions in defense may be reached through a single, massive counterattack or in a series of local actions", which about sums up the thought applied to the subject. They want to attack even on the defense, and the only alternative they see is "a series of local actions", meaning presumably ambush and fall back, or some idiot attacker feeding piecemeal forces into an interlocking-fire-zone meatgrinder. Then they discuss the use of reserves, and the context is how to attack while defending. The purpose of a reserve is to retain the initiative. Of five cited purposes of reserves, only one, "to relieve depleted elements and allow continuous operations", is wholly a matter of attrition logic. There is a noticable confusion in the discussion of counterattacks, because their entire purpose in a defensive scheme is obviously to destroy attackers, at whom they therefore must be directed, yet the attack doctrine is to always hit weakness. They settle for a muddled "hit a weak spot from which you can shoot at their sides and rear", or in other words, they distinguish where you go (no enemy there) from where you can see (lots of enemy). Of course, the idea that a tank can't fire at its side is, shall we say, optimistic, and where you go is definitely "at them" when you enter a spot they can see. But the distinction allows them to pass the verbal difficulty. Counterattacks are obviously directed at where the enemy *is*, but they can't quite bring themselves to say so. The sum of my criticism is that the existing doctrine is overlooking important "paper scissors" relationships and council a single definite course in numerous cases, where in fact those courses of action are only optimized against a single type of enemy action. Even this type is confused. Thus, in the discussion of maneuvers and the offensive, it is assumed the front of the enemy is the dangerous place. But in the defensive schemes, everything is depth and reserves, so what is so dangerous about the forward edge of the battle area, really? "Massed indirect fires" might be a real answer if the attackers are bunched, but the defender's indirect fires are supposed to be hitting the entire range of tiny and spread C3I and artillery and AD assets, so what's to mass? And if you do not need to mass to overpower thin front defenders, then where is the target anyway? Similarly, in discussion penetrations, the doctrine stresses holding open a hole, but on defense, the defenders fall back so what hole? More, the penetrations are to seek out the enemy rear areas, but the defense seeks to counterattack with a strong striking force after luring the attacker too far forward. Sorry folks, but whenever there are two options there are head games and not one right answer. If you attack the way the doctrine says, then yes the defense set up in the doctrine is the way to beat it, I agree. And it will beat it. I'd predict defense dominance in this doctrine vs. itself with equally sophisticated forces. But to attack this defense, an entirely different doctrine would be possible and ought to work quite well. He is in depth. OK, then don't try to go deep. He has a giant reserve held out of his already inferior forces, if you are attacking. OK, so don't try to break through. Just kill his forward forces with your whole force. If overall you have only 2:1 odds, and he holds out a king sized 2/3rds in reserve or deep, then you've got 6:1 local odds at the forward edge of the battle area, without concentrating to a spearpoint at all. Steamroll frontally in line, using fire from near the limits of practical ranges, and he either backs away, or he loses his entire screening force, not just a little piece of it along one avenue of advance. The forward elements of the *defenders*, are isolated from supports, by the very depth with which they are deployed. If they mass opposite you somewhere to "counterattack", then just concentrate indirect fire on their massed-up point, and stop pushing. You aren't trying to get through him in this approach. You are trying to kill his forces, and at minimum cost to you. Territory is secondary, because you aren't attempting a massed breakthrough anywhere to start with. Now, the defense needed to stop that kind of attack, is not the same defense as the "in depth" one described here. For one thing, you are going to have to worry rather more about replacing depleted forces, because you are going to be getting them regularly from your chewed up screening elements. For another, blind 'em and baffle 'em are not going to help much, when he is not trying to cut a seam in your defense set up, but only wants to lick the frosting off it. What is wrong with the doctrine is that it is only part of the story, and it presents that part as though it were the whole story. Against a rigid linear defense all up-front, the stuff it says about attacking would be true. But not against the deep defense scheme it describes. The things it says you should never do because they will fail, would indeed often fail against a rigid all-up-front defense scheme. But against the defense in depth described, a number of them would work like a charm. Otherwise put, you cannot count on defenders using a rigid linear defense, that you can attack with the formulas described with good expected results. Sometimes instead they will use a mobile defense. And if you get all aggressive pushing for the decisive breakthrough and keep reciting that "the offense is the decisive..." then that kind of defense will hand you your head. Meanwhile, on defense you cannot assume that the attackers will oblige your defense in depth formulas and push to the utmost for deep breathroughs straight into your kill sacks. Sometimes they will just eat your screen with a short, broad front shove, burp politely, and wait to be fed again tomorrow. It would seem to me that these sorts of alternate options, with a full understanding of them as move and counter, their effectiveness not set in concrete but related to the enemy's choice out of the same set, should be taught to all field grade officers. [This message has been edited by jasoncawley@ameritech.net (edited 02-13-2001).]

"a perfect trap is an 88mm flak gun with good LOS paired with a platoon of SMG squads" And if the opponent selects the 105mm off-map solution, then...

In the scenario "just 3 little stuarts", the AI sent two Pumas down the center street of the little village. (Stupid AI trick, I know). The squads in the buildings nearby KO them both easily with their rifle grenades. They seem to be used at "bypass" ranges, not the medium ranges they could potentially be fired at. I think use of them at medium range required a high angle, and was used mostly against infantry, for targets between maximum hand grenade distance and minimum mortar distance. In CM, I see them used at more like ordinary grenade range - 30 meters or so. They are just AT grenades, in effect. I haven't tested in any further detail, though, to see the longest range a squad will fire them.

I took Jagdcarcajou's challenge idea and I heartily recommend it to everyone. I took the French with an all-Green "mechanized" force mix, against the computer's unrestricted high quality Germans. The fight was a probe, with my points set to 90% of the usual amount, the lowest of the handicap settings. I gave him 700 points, which worked out to 850 for me, with probe odds and the handicap. The weather was rain, the time was October 1944, daytime. For terrain I took farmland, moderate trees and hills. The Germans surrendered after 22 minutes; I had taken the objective at minute 20 but the last squad hung on a couple of minutes longer. I took higher overall losses in men (hardly suprising with green against crack), but his force was destroyed. My losses were 77 total with 18 KIA, 1 60mm mortar, a Jeep MG, and an M-20 knocked out. A second M-20 was immobilized. 160 men ok, score 79. He took 47 casualties, 17 KIA, plus 9 captured, and lost a Jagdpanzer IV, a mortar, and an infantry gun. 4 men ran off the map safely. From my losses, the AI earned a score of 21. There was only one gamey thing I did - I took 2 modules of 81mm mortars. It was meant to represent extra ammo. The map was fine for the defender, although as in all probes he didn't have a lot of room in front of the objective. The objective was a simple fork in a road and a couple of buildings beside it, one of them stone. My own base of operations in the center was a church just ahead of my start line, mostly masked by a set of tall pines but with views in one direction. He was atop and just over a hill, with fine reserve slope possibilities. His force was all crack, and contained the following - 1 Jgd Pz IV with skirt 1 Motorised infantry platoon 1 HMG 42 1 Schreck 1 81mm Mortar FO 1 81mm on-map mortar 1 75mm infantry gun. 2 daisy chain AT mines 1 AP mine Not a lot of infantry, is it? But fine supporting weapons and in a useful mix. I took a nearly pure infantry force, and used the vehicle points aspect of the mechanised force not to carry everyone, but to get some supporting mobile MG firepower. Specifically, my force, all green, was - 1 rifle company 1 extra rifle platoon (4 all told) 3 extra bazookas (6 all told) 2 81mm mortar FO 4 M-20 Utility Car 2 Jeep MG An "atrrition strategy" force. I had no heavy anti-armor weapons, not even the allowed M-8 or a towed gun. But I had 12 infantry squads, 9 total MGs in teams or on vehicles, 6 bazookas, and tons of mortar support from 3 on-map 60mm (~100 rounds), and 400 rounds of off-map 81mm. I tasked my platoons with different jobs. With so many commanders (6 all told), I could afford to pick and choose which one got which job. A platoon with +2 morale got the job of "point". Another with only morale and a little stealth was meant to be their flank guard, and gave a squad to the company CO for his own team These two formed the first wave in a right hook. Each brought along one bazooka, and 3 M-20s took the intervals (either side, one in the center) of this move-out group. One commander good at everything but stealth was put in charge of the "fire base" platoon, and given both MMGs and one bazooka, and one of the 81mm FOs. The best platoon leader, +1 at everything but +2 stealth, was given 2 bazookas only and put into reserve behind the fire base platoon, with the last M-20 behind their body of woods. The ungifted weapons platoon leader was put in charge of just 2 60mm mortars, which he was supposed to take foward on the same flank as the "move out" force, then halt and look "inward" from a spot beyond the ridge that masked the likely German positions. The company CO was given a mix - a single squad, the 50 cal, 1 60mm mortar, the 2nd 81mm mortar FO, and one bazooka - and sent to the church position and the woods around it to oversee the battle. Last, the 2 Jeep MGs were to scout the left flank, the one I was *not* going to turn, first, and cover it with their MGs to prevent an unexpected moves on the overcovered part of the map. This plan did not survive contact with the enemy, but it gave me a decent start. The first issue was discoverying the Jagdpanzer, which did not take long. It got 8 infantrymen all told, including 1 squad broken and halved after it panicked and ran to some scattered trees still in its LOS. Cpl Simonet is up for a Cross de Guerre for taking it out with one shot from his bazooka, after running across 80 yards of low but open ground, moving through 40 yards of tall pines, sneaking the last 20 yards of same, and then tagging it in the flank at 60 yards range. Took him between 2 and 3 minutes. This was lucky, but there were 3 different teams after the beastie and not enough German infantry to cover everything. I had more trouble with the HMG 42. Seriously, I did. Because it was shooting "crack" straight and fast, and my men were "green" brittle, any open ground in its LOS produced panic when crossed. He didn't get that many men, but he pinned lots. I also had big trouble with the 75mm infantry gun, which was very well situated. It bagged the one dead M-20, which is how I found it (Clever of me, huh? Oops). Then while I was putting 81mm on it, the green FO on that particular assignment was panicked by the aforesaid HMG and lost the fire mission. Ouch. This FO took one casualty, but lived, as I massed 4x50 cal on the nasty fella to pin him (do you know how hard it is to pin a crack unit in a foxhole in trees at 300+ yards range? Believe me, it is hard - and he had aleady had his first helping of 81mm!), and a 60mm managed to recover its wits long enough to smoke him. Meanwhile, the infantry gun was blowing up everything in sight so i just skulked everybody out of his LOS. But it might be a long wait for those mortars. The point platoon went forward instead of back, therefore. They discovered the only AP minefield on the map (oops) and lost a squad to panic (the company CO calmed them down ~5 minutes later clear back on my side of the field). The discovered German infanry, but fortunately from a flank at 200 yards, not by running into them. Finally, the point platoon, not a glorified squad, flanked the gun through a wheatfield in almost dead ground. Almost. The gun turned on them and blew up several. I gave it lots of M-20s to look at and rushed for the real dead ground - it was 150 yards away now. The point platoon still had its bazooka team, and he ran up to 30 yards away, in a hedge, and got off one round. Then the gun zero'd in and shot at him, and he ran to better cover in some woods - right on top of a half-squad trying to help him. He promptly led a shell to this group, pinning his "help". But then he recovered, the tough little bugger, and plugged that gun with his third shot from 40 yards range. This infantry gun was set up within 60 yards of the German map edge, and I took it out with a *green* zook team from the left rear - LOL. Zhukov was right. Quantity does have quality all its own. I set up my fire base to let fly at the discovered German infantry position, after expending the last of the first FO and still waiting for the other to recover. But the bear blew first. The Germans had off-board mortars too, and I discovered in with a 1/4 mission landing on the same turn as the spotting round, bunched up in the woods and green (though well led). So I told everybody to high-tail it, not monkeying around, just forget about this firebase stuff and withdraw-run 250 yards to the rear. Most of them made it, with suprisingly little loss. The HMG broke one MG team and the fools ran back into the shells - but even they lost only 1 man. Oh, they are all broken to one degree or another. But they lived. It took 3-5 minutes to put that platoon back together. The vehicle 50 cals covered the open ground in the meantime, to prevent any rush to wipe out the broken men (like the "crack" AI had reserves for that! - but I didn't know how much infantry he had or did not have). They went back later in the fight and played a decisive part in the last act, despite this near-catastrophe of being perfectly caught, bunched up in woods, by timely mortar fire. It is more important to *run* when they start landing, than anything else about quality or cover. Better troops will recover faster, which is useful. But anyone who doesn't run will not really "recover", and anyone who does, can - even greens. I finally KO'ed the last diehard on the HMG, the flankers took out the infantry gun, and soon after stumbled upon the on-map mortar and took it out as well. (They also lost one of their remaining half-squads, to the *crew* of the Jagdpanzer - LOL. "Crack" helps up close I guess). I tried rushing the German infantry too soon. I had a covered route, and sent the reserve platoon in with just a platoon and some MGs on overwatch. Regulars on regulars, it would have worked. Green on crack? I lost a dozen guys and the platoon ran away, gradually recoverying in the woods they had approached along. Not ready yet, huh? OK. I waited for the mortars. I expended 135 rounds of 81mm on the same platoon position, and used the suppression from that to move my own fire base back into position, get the reserve recovered, basically get everyone reaady to light up the same spot of ground. They fought back, being crack, but it was ridicule as they say, by this point. The supporting weapons were gone. 2 squads and the platoon HQ are in scattered trees, most in foxholes some out of them to "skulk" away from previous fire, then pinned. I run the vehicle 50s dry. The foot 50 dry. The MMGs are still firing. Two platoons are down to single digit ammo. I must have expended 20,000 rounds in real world terms at the same ~80 by 80 yard plot of ground, on tops of the 81mm. Then 8 good-order squads close in on what is left of two. Not a chance. There was plenty of tactical stuff to do, plenty of problems. The heavy weapons held me up, the supporting arty delayed me and could have hurt much much worse. But numbers and raw firepower will tell in the end. And 6 humble bazooka teams can be in a lot of places on one little map, against a small enemy force. I think the bigger green force is all-around better. If the defender had had more infantry (but keeping the off-board 81mm), then I might have had a harder time. If he had only vet quality and a bit more in the way of numbers, likewise. But if you have greens and buy infanty, and he has crack and buys shiny toys, you will have four times as many men as he does. And it is real hard to fight four times and many men, regardless of quality levels or even shiny toys. Especially when your limited numbers of men, get hit with a lot of crude that falls from the sky and goes "boom". I hope this is interesting.

There is range and then there is range. The longest ranges listed for the Schreck on that site, involve pointing it upward at a 45 degree angle and lobbing a shell like a mortar round. Not suprisingly, with little accuracy. Use a mortar, Hans... Then there are the "static target" figures. This means the proverbial broad side of a (stationarY) barn. It does not mean an enemy 2nd Lieu having a bad hair day. There there is the "recommended engagement range" figure, which lo and behold, is much more closely grouped at around 100-200 yards regardless of type. Why do you suppose that is, boys and girls? If you said, "because the real issue is how well you can aim the darn things, which is nearly the same for all three", then go to the head of the class. A big wobbling 40 pound tube on your shoulder firing a low velocity arching round stablized by nothing but four little tail fins, is not a laser pointer, ladies and gentlemen. And the shooters are not draftsmen in a lab.

I like it too - but where is June? The Black Watch (Canadian) reports start at July 1...

The U.S. TDs had fine armor killing records. But they are all open-topped. The lighter weight that allows means a better gun or faster speed for the same chassis, and in tank fighting that helps. Where it doesn't help is if the enemy dumps arty on you. I don't just mean on the CM scale battlefield, as a "hip shoot", trying to snipe at speed M-18s with 105mm off-board howitzers. I mean the regular daily shelling of every forward position, plus every breakthrough or hole in the line. You will want a top in an artillery barrage. Little, real world factor like that. Oh, I know what you are thinking. Who cares about a slight drawback against arty, when you can get a noticable edge against Panthers and Tigers? Well, Germany produced 45,000 AFVs of all kinds in the entire course of WW II. Many of them before types that heavy were out. Even in the last year of the war, from Normandy on, less than 40% of the AFVs fielded by Germany had as much, or more, armor, than a Jgd Pz IV. The majority were still Pz IV and StuG III, with about 1/4 Panther, and the Jgd Pz IVs and Hezters, the only common more heavily armored types OK? On the other hand, the Germans fired more than 100 million mortar rounds alone, during WW II. On the screen name, I'm sorry it is causing anyone problems. I don't notice because I have a wide screen. I have asked the board people, and they tell me there is no way to change a screen-name, except to delete the whole thing and start from scratch. If people want me to do that, fine I will tell them to. [This message has been edited by jasoncawley@ameritech.net (edited 02-12-2001).]

Point and platoon formation, and a few tricks. Put one full squad 60-100 yards ahead of the rest of its platoon. Put the rest of the platoon behind it, squad-HQ-squad, with the HQ trailing but only a smidgen, like 10 yards back. About 20 yards between them side to side, to the whole rear group is 40-50 yards across. Any slower weappns (MGs, zooks, etc) that are attached, trail behind the platoon group about 40 yards. Use group select, leaving out the weapons if the move if over open ground, including them if it is all in cover. All in cover, use "move", and just travel in formation. Crossing open groung toa new piece of cover, group the forward platoon. Then pick the *point* squad, and give it a "run" order to the *near* side of the next item of cover. Next pick the weapons and give them a "move" command to "on station" behind the main platoon line, or the nearest cover behind them. Why this order? You won't have to adjust speeds. You put the point into the part of cover the rest of the platoon can *see*, and thus protect by fire, from their positions farther back. The weapons can stop in cover, both to protect the small and variable items (zooks, FOs, flame) and to give the MGs are spot to support from at range. The bulk of the platoon should be close enough to *either* press into the cover, ahead or turning a flanl, *or* support by fire, even from open ground, to help suppress a defender. The defenders will mostly be blowing up the point squad as the closest target, so it doesn't matter too much if you are briefly in open ground. Now, once you have entered a piece of cover with the point and found there is nobody there, do the next move slightly differently. This time, selected the platoon, and put their waypoint on the forward edge of the same spot of cover the point is in. One group select, this will advance the point out into the open beyond the cover. But he will generally move out with a little delay, and soon after anybody starts shooting at him your platoon will be in view to reply. (if he panics, so he runs back and rejoins the platoon. Shoot this one out, then pick a new point squad for the next time). The you alternate. Point in cover looking around, with platoon "in the air" behind. Point "in the air" in the next open patch, but with platoon in cover behind. Walk you way to your objective. When you make contact, it may be the point will shoot it out at point-blank with a single squad or MG team he ran into. Let him stay, shooting. Cover him with fire from the rest, and send up another squad at a run to help and get a numbers edge if you can cross easily enough. You will overrun thin enemies this way without much thought being required. When the point runs into a whole platoon, they will blow him up, and he will either rout or die. Give him a "withdraw-run" order for immediate execution, back to the rest of the platoon. Then drop arty on the full platoon position you just identified, while shooting with your own platoon to help on them down. (A tank is an adequate substitute, and better if they are in buildings). Once they are cowering (on the ground, prone), cancel the arty and rush them while they are still pinned. Leave MGs (or tanks) to continue firing at them to keep them pinned when you rush. These modifications will not take you many more mouse clicks. But applied as a formula without much in the way of imagination, they will run over more enemy defense set ups than you might imagine possible for so simple a scheme. Why does it work? Forward units draw fire. Units not being fired on at all, fire much better themselves because they are not suppressed. Spread enemies are vunerable to being pinned by ranged fire and rushed. Concentrated enemies are vunerable to HE, and once broken by HE become vunerable to group rushes. Try it. It is not hard once it has been explained.

On the purges, yes Stalin removed between 25,000 and 40,000 officers and had many of them shot to boot. This effected 2/3rds of the officers above the rank of colonel. The reason for it was sheer paranoia - Stalin was afraid that the army might prove a source of opposition. Stalin was also incredulous about the invasion. The British, using "Ultra" data, had been trying to warn him for months that an attack was about to occur. Russian trains were running west over the border with supplies under the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact trade agreements, up until a few hours before the German attack. Basically, Stalin thought he and Hitler already had a deal and were going to carve up the map between them. Molotov was in the middle of negotiations. The Germans were talking about dividing up the British Empire with the Russians, and Stalin assumed that Hitler wanted to finish that one before starting another. The political surprise was total. Some might argue the surprise was total because fighting on two fronts was a blunder, and Stalin did not expect Hitler to commit it, but however you slice it there it is. And yes, Stalin was in a panic in the early hours of the attack. He tried to find out what concessions could buy the Germans off, but the answer was nothing. He recovered his nerve and loosened the reins on the military leaders pretty quickly, though, when the rest of the Party was still panicking, and bossing the officers around to no purpose (as though punishing them more would help them fight). The real source of improvement in the officer corps during the war, was experience gained in battle and successful field officers being promoted rapidly. Since losses were high and the army was also expanding rapidly, anyone alive and doing anything sensible went up the ranks like a rocket. Russian losses in the first six months were equal to the size of their entire army at the outbreak, but at the end of that period the army was the same size, because it was taking in new men just as fast. Doubling the personnel going through the ranks meant green troops certainly, but it also meant rapid promotion, because somebohy had to command them all and the old officers were mostly dead or captured. As for peace feelers in 1943, Stalin played that card and repeated it or threatened to in early 1944. But he was doing so largely to put pressure on the western allies to increase economic aid and especially to open a second front as rapidly as possible. Stalin thought the westerners might prefer the Germans and Russians to kill each other indefinitely without helping him much. He was quite suspicious of Churchill in particular. Whenever he made these sorts of noises, the predictable result would be an increase in FDR's "bid" to help him, and a quieting of Churchill pulling the other way. It had at least as much to do with post-war jockying for position among the allies, as anything to do with the Germans. He would not have made peace in 1943 or after, without all his territory back, certainly. And he was perfectly capable of making such a deal, pocketing the territory, and starting the war back up again 2 months afterward. There was no way the Germans could trust or enforce such a deal, even if Hitler had been rational, which he wasn't. As for Russian officers set up during the purge by German intelligence, it was all more paranoid and twisted than that. The removed officers were typically accused, yes, of treason and plotting with the Germans. The KGB and the Gestapo also collaborated on many matters. The Russians had even allowed German forces to train in Russia under the Weimar Republic, to evade the Treaty of Versailles. There was all kinds of Russian-German cooperation going on, that Stalin was hip-deep in personally. The Ribbentrop-Molotov pact to divide up Poland was only the last, when the war started. But Stalin was worried about two things - one, his own image among communists and patriots for working with the Germans, and two, the Germans actually penetrating his police and army apparatus with double agents. So he had the police level unsubstantiated allegations of spying against the officers and purged them, complete with show trials. This was a sort of general license to sack your boss and take his job. Turning such forces loose to control an otherwise solid bureaucracy was Stalin's stock in trade, how he got where he was in the first place. He did not care what it did to the quality of the officer corps, he was only interested in its political effects. To wit, that every serving officer afterward was deathly afraid of him, and also usually owed their job to their own guilty use of the means he had provided to eliminate their career competitors. Plus nobody paid any attention to stories that he was working with the Germans - how could he be, when he was arresting "German spies" right and left? Did the Germans use all of the above for their own ends? They probable tried, but Stalin was an old hand at this twisted stuff. He certainly didn't do their bidding rather than his own. As for casualty figures, they are endlessly confused by such distinctions as *deaths* vs. mere wounds, and military or civilian, occupied areas or not, etc. The Germans lost 3 1/4 million military men *killed*, most on the Russian front, plus 1 million that remained alive in Russian captivity in 1945, most of whom never returned. They took another ~9 million *wounded*. Some were lightly wounded and returned to the front, some invalided home, some out for longer periods. The Russian military also had about 3 million killed on the battlefield, plus 5 million taken prisonner, most of them in 1941. 3 million of these prisoners died in German captivity, many of them shortly after being taken prisoner, others later while working in Germany as slaves. I have seen no reliable figures on Russian *wounded*, but their portion of captured to dead was certainly higher than for the German, and their portion of wounded to dead was probably lower. Russian civilian deaths amounted to around 11 million. 3 million of these occurred in non-occupied Russia. Economic conditions in the Russian rear areas got so bad in 1942 and the first half of 1943, that civliian laborers were on rations that contained as few as 1200 calories per day, in some areas only 1000. 650,000 civilians died in the seige of Leningrad alone, mostly through starvation or the diseases that follow it. Of the other civilian deaths, several million were shot purposefully in the first year of the war, as Jews or Communists or local officials. Others were killed in reprisals for partisan actions. The entire Ukraine was systematically starved, by planned requisitions of more grain from the area, exported, than it was calculated the population could afford without starvation. By a general order from before the invasion, no German soldier could be prosecuted or punished for anything he did to Russian civilians during the war. German civilian deaths in the war amounted to around 3 million. The Allied bombing was probably the largest cause. A close second was the ravages in the eastern Germany and east Prussia once the Russians reached them. The civilian losses in both cases are at about the same rate, with the difference in scale - much higher Russian losses - primarily reflecting how long the Germans were in Russia, compared to how long the Russians were in Germany, before the end of the war. Several million German refugees fled from the Russians into what later became West Germany. The German population in 1941 was around 80 million people or not much less. It was a much larger country, geographically, than it is today, with about the same total population. Then it included Austria and what is now the Czech Republic (but not Slovakia), plus portions of Poland, and east Prussia. The Russian population then was around 150 million, or a bit less. In industrial output, the two were quite close in 1941, but in population Russia was about twice the size (discounting some Czechs, etc). The military deaths to the two sides were in about the same ratio as the populations, 8 million to 4 million. Incidentally, it is reported that as late as 1959 there were 7 women for every 4 men in the 35-50 age group in Russia - the "class" that had been 20-35 years old during the war. That implies nearly half the young adult males died, either in the military or in the occupied areas, mostly. You wonder how the Russians could lose so many men, while the Germans with comparable losses were at the bottom of the barrel in manpower terms. The Russians certainly did not have an inexhaustible supply of manpower. They achieved their force size and their tank production figures despite their huge losses, by the most complete focus on these essential tasks imaginable. As mentioned, to the point that famine was general throughout the Russian rear, because so many of the peasants were in the army. Production of civilian items practically ceased, as all the factory workers were in the weapons plants or heavy industry to supply them. Lend Lease was important in three areas that helped this specialization - transport equipment like railroad track and locomotives, trucks and fuel for them, and an often underrated third, food. The U.S. and Britain supplied a large portion of the prepared food for the Russian army diet, so they did not have to starve like civilians often did. (A discrepency, incidentally, which was a powerful spur to recruitment, with work in a war plant the only other reliable source of adequate food). By contrast, the German civilian standard of living was flat from the outbreak of the war until 1943. By delaying total economic mobilization, the German high command spared the people much sense of the home front costs of war. Thye considered this vital to their political goals, and to maintaining support for their war policies. In the course of 1943 that changed, as the economy shifted more exclusively to arms, and as Allied bombing became intense and regular. Another reason for avoiding total economic mobilization is also commonly missed. Once an economy is set toward war output, it loses flexibility. It requires some planned production of definite types of equipment in definite ratios, and it can only ramp up the amounts of these, by sacrificing any ability to switch rapidly between them. To give some understanding of what I am talking about, German industry was ready to concentrate on aircraft and submarines to fight Britain, within a month of the breakthrough in France in 1940. When the Russian attack initially went well, some plants converted back to submarine equipment before the end of 1941. Fighting its sequence of rapid wars against different types of enemies (naval or land etc), Germany put the flexibility of the economy above the gross amount of armaments output. After Stalingrad, there was no point in this anymore. It was clear tanks and Russia were the number one priority, with fighter planes to defend Germany itself a distant second. As for the idea that the labor difference was women, there is slight truth to this. The Germans were still employing millions of domestics as late as 1942. But mostly, women filled in for agricultural work in Germany, replacing the missing men. Most of the laborers sent to Germany did likewise - not all of whom were slaves, by the way. Many came from occupied Europe for the higher pay, compared to administered shortages in occupied countries. Slave labor is also notoriously inefficient, producing little output of low quality and often consuming as much in guards and administrative overhead as the output itself. The Buna plant at Auschwitz killed millions and inflicted incredible suffering, but did not produce a scrap of finished synthetic rubber in the entire war. As for the power of the Russian army in 1945, it was easily the strongest army on the planet. The supply situation might not have met U.S. standards but it was abundant compared to what the Germans had in the second half of the war. They had the largest fleet of the most capable tanks in history, sound veteran officers, huge amounts of artillery and small arms, and a large and often overlooked air-force flying capable planes. They were not by any stretch of the imagination "on their last legs". As for "failing" to capture Berlin, the obvious thing anyone saying that means is that it is possible the U.S. might have beaten them to the city. It was certainly doomed. It was also probably stupid to attack the place itself and fight for it house to house, instead of just surrounding it and blasting it with artillery. Or at least, before doing that for a few weeks. The Germans certainly did not have any force capable of defending the place against thousands of tanks. The Allies had already agreed on the division of Germany, though, so there was not much of a real race involved. There was for Austria, because its post-war fate hadn't been agreed on yet, and the U.S. pushed to occupy it first. The Brits were also sent to the Danish border with a similar aim in view. But if the U.S. had taken areas east of the Elbe before the Russians got there, we would have given them back to meet the peace deals already made. As for the Allied bombing, its impact was limited for many reasons. It caused a lot of hardship and diverted a lot of overall economic effort to cleaning up rubble, rehousing people, fighting fires, and supporting an air force and air defense infrastructure to try to defend against the attacks. It also disrupted transport considerably, especially by rail, What it did not do is destroy German industry and cause an economic collapse. This was due to many factors. First was simply the fact that repairs are easily to accomplish than many people realize, and the plants were often put out of action for only a week and then bombed only once every two months. Second, when plants were hit the Germansa responded by decentralizing production to lots of little plants at widely spread locations, making much less useful targets, when they were known about at all. Third, there was a lot of slack in the German economy, since it didn't go to full mobilization until after Stalingrad, and taking up this slack more than compensated for the effects of the bombing. Fourth, the bombs often flat missed - the British thought an entire city was the smallest target that could be nit reliably in the first place and bombed whole areas at night. The Americans aimed at specific factories and during the day, but many of the bombs dropped hit just anywhere in the city involved, same as with the British. In addition to all of those factors, there was a problem that the Allies just didn't know accurately what the vunerable parts of the German economy were. They went after some - like ball bearings - that they thought were shortage situations, but that simply weren't. The Allies did have one noticable success in the economic bombing campaign, though. It just took them a while to find the right target set and to hit it relentlessly and heavily enough. That target was oil production. The entire German war economy ran on synthetic oil (made from coal extracts), and a few importants from Rumania (Polesti). And high-octane aviation fuel, in particular, was dependent on special processes invented by the Germans and performed at only a half-dozen large, vunerable plants. Oil is an obviously good air target - you hit it, and the targeted item does half of the burning for you. In the autumn of 1944, the Allies hit the German oil industry hard enough that the Luftwaffe could not fly for lack of av-gas. Tac-Air then went after the German planes on the ground, and the entire German railroad network, without any interference from German fighters. By the time of the Ardennes campaign, the Germans had enough trickling production from smaller dispersed plants and repairs and periods of poor flying weather, to launch the actual attack, but Allied fuel stores had to be made a prominent target. And the German spearheads that made it the furthest - 116th Panzer east of Bastogne, for instance - flat ran out of gas. The whole German army was hampered by lack of fuel from the Autumn ot 1944 on, which was directly the result of the bombing. The last effect of the bombing was simply to call out the Luftwaffe and to bring it to battle, during the course of which it was basically destroyed. It had noticable successes against the U.S. bombers in 1943, and even in early 1944 it was still a significant force, on the defense. It had about as many top-quality fighter planes as it had ever had, still. But 6 months later, it was mostly spent. Once the Allies had long range fighters to escort the bombers into Germany, and more to send on "sweeps" and to cut loose looking for German fighters and strafing their airfields, they destroyed the Luftwaffe pretty quickly. And that had huge effects on the rest of the war. Normandy and the breakout campaign in France would not have been possible, or have gone the way they did anyway, without air supremacy, and that was a byproduct of the air battle over Germany. But did dropping bombs break linkage A and B in the German war economy and send tank output plummeting? No. German tank output rose *six-fold* between Stalingrad and the fall of 1944, when it finally peaked. Why did the German line collapse so comletely after Kursk? Because they were outmanuevered and outfought. When the Russian broke through, the German armor was on the wrong place, and in danger of being trapped in the huge Russian pincers from Orel and the Kharkov area. They ran because the alternative was to be surrounded. They did try to blunt these Russian breakthroughs, and they managed to avoid being surrounded themselves. But the slower German leg infantry was not so lucky. They got left behind. When the front line for the mobile forces fighting each other moves 100 miles west in a matter of days, and you are on foot and in contact, it is a pretty dicey situation. Being told to "hold at all costs" doesn't help, but nobody listened to such inanities anymore. If you read the histories, you find the mobile divisions withdrawing again and again, fairly successfully but always with losses. You find the infantry divisions being overwhelmed. They often talk about those enourmous Russian odds, but if you look at the operational maps, you find those enourmous Russian odds are being achieved in sequence, just like manuever warfare manuals say. What do I mean? These 4 German infantry divisions are overwhelmed by this Guards Shock Army. Then these other three are. Pretty soon a Russian formation has "overwhelmed" a force almost as big as itself, always having the local odds edge. That is what happens to less mobile elements left behind in a breakthrough. The enemy can send more after them, than they can call on to help. But once the enemy wins that fight, all the forces he sent are freed up to hit the next bunch. The only way to stop this is to have a continuous front and reserves to send to the guy being hit "today". But that is just what the Germans did not have, because their mobile elements were off west fighting delaying actions against their Russian counterparts, trying to keep them from pushing even further. They never had the mass at one spot to truly smash these Russian mobile formations, in the post Kursk campaign. They fight off a brigade of tanks and fall back 5 miles before the rest of a tank corps reaches them. Which is what they needed to do in the existing situation, sure. It just doesn't help the infantry divisions left behind much, facing the Russian infantry, with is free to move all around them and gang up at will. This is pretty much the same thing the Germans did to the Russians in the south during the summer and fall of 1942. Was this "all Hitler's fault"? He didn't help, but no. Plenty of generals were in favor of the Kursk operation, and plenty of independent mistakes were made in the course of the campaign even after they had decided to fight it, in arguable the wrong way and the wrong place. The generals who saw better courses of action were not numerous, and others argued against them. If they had had their druthers, it is not clear they would have succeeded in their proposed alternative courses of action. But it was enough of a debacle, that it is probably safe to say (with the benefit of hindsight obviously) that they were more nearly right and the decisions actually made were wrong. As for Soviet source materials, my experience is that it is pretty easy to dissociate propaganda from military professionalism, if you've been exposed to both things and if you have a map and can read them - LOL. I mean, I have looked at the Soviet military campaign books, and they are perfectly cogent. Is there boilerplate? Sure. But if you show me where tank corps A was on day such-and-so and again on day so-n-so, I don't have to pay attention to your boilerplate to see whether it was a good move. I mean, I can read a map, I can see whether the position was good, I can see the next set of positions it led to. I have no doubt whatever that the Russians out thought and out fought the Germans from the autumn of 1942 through the late summer of 1944, and that that was the decisive phase of the war as it actually occurred. The Russians started the period with barely parity in overall forces, and by the end of it 2/3rds of the German army has been trashed and the Russian led in fielded forces has become overwhelming. Stalingrad, Kursk, and Bagration won WW II. I know it strikes some as shocking news, but wars are often decided by battles, and this one was, by those three. And the last of them was really "nail in the coffin" or collecting the fruits of the previous successes, in terms of fielded forces remaining after them. As for your particular myths, weather hurt the Germans in 1941 because they hadn't planned on a winter campaign, or in other words because they were arrogant and stupid. The Russians had no advantage in numbers until after the Stalingrad campaign. Where did those numbers come from? One, because in the 1942 campaign, unlike 1941, the Russians fell back rather than remaining inside pockets, and thus lost far less men and material in the German summer offensive than they had the previous year. The defense was not as rigid, and it saved lives. Two, because the Russians were at full war economy output and drafting new men as rapidly as they could be equipped, while the German army was cruising at a force-maintenance level. This difference, which lasted until after Stalingrad and where the Russians had a head start for about the first half of 1943 too, has been discussed repeatedly already. Third, because the Germans threw in reserve after reserve to Stalingrad, wearing them out in fortress fighting, and the Russians barely matched them while building up reserves for a counter-offensive. And four, because that counteroffensive worked, breaking the German minor allies and flanking formations outside the city, and capturing all of 6th Army inside the Stalingrad pocket after attempts to break through and relieved them, failed. The Russian numerical edge in front of Kursk did not come from the country being bigger or something. It came from significant parts of the Germany army being killed, and significant parts of the Russian army being alive, because of differences in how the two sides had handled the other guys breakthrough, the Russians the German summer one (they fell back), and the Germans the Russian's winter one (they "held at all cost" and died). And because the Germans did not bother to panic and thrown everything into high gear until their lost the Stalingrad battle. Otherwise put, you do not exactly get a numbers edge by throwing away whole army groups, or opportunities to equip new ones. As for Russian leadership, it was mostly very professional. There was definitely a curve upward, as the senior field commanders had generally not commanded forces of the size they were asked to, ever before, in the early fighting. Doctrine evolved gradually but uniformly in the right direction in the case of the critical issue, using tanks - though they also made doctrinal mistakes about things like artillery cooperation with other arms. It was common for successful commanders of smaller units to wind up commanding the bigger ones, maing the claim of good high command but poor low command laughable on its face. I mean, they are often the same people. Chukov was a general of division at the start of the battle for Stalingrad, the part inside the city, and he had only commanded a brigade in the earlier, summer 1942 campaign. Byt the end of it he commanded a corps, and later in the war he commanded an army. What *is* true is that the Russians employed mass tactics and echelon tactics, which had a simpicity to them. They are straightforward sometimes to the point of elegance. Occasionally to the point of stupidity. Mostly what is being criticised is simply the fact that they are following another strategy than the critic regards as the standard of excellence. In particular, Russian doctrine was not anti-attrition. Engage the enemy more closely was a signal they would understand. An officer was not reprimanded for fighting even if he did not win; he was reprimanded for not fighting. There was a definite emphasis on placing sufficient combat power next to the German army, with additional effects from manuever desirable, but pressure essential. This was strategically sound, as the Germans were having far greater trouble dealing with and replacing losses than the Russians were, one because of the economic difference down to mid 1943, and two because of the scale of their losses afterward. Envelopment was not avoided, as the graves of Stalingrad ought to make clear to anyone. But the Russians did indeed place great stock in mass as they conceived it. As in, if he's got a division, bring a corps; if he's got a corps, bring an army, etc. This is eminently sound, and relying on it when attacking was not at all unreasonable. It very often worked, without further ado or complexity. The Russians did less cross-attaching than the Germans did, certainly. But they adopted new organic formation types after the lessons of operations. This was effectively an attempt to multiply the impact of one lesson learned by standardized application, rather than relying on every field officer to learn it himself. Thus, when it was found that infantry-armor cooperation needed to be improved, the Russians did not rely on field officers to cross-attach armor battalions to infantry units. Instead, they created a new mechanized brigade structure, with a motorized infantry brigade and an organic tank battalion and artillery battalion, and then deployed a number of these as independent formations under army-level control. It was a more centralized system. It improved the "teaching" aspect of organizations, regarding that as more essential than the "flexibility" aspect of them (adapted to local conditions and variables). For the army they had, officered by newly promoted successful field commanders of smaller formations, rather than long-service schooled staffers, it worked better. Those needed guidance about what worked at which level, but could be counted on to operate the resulting formations practically. As for "straight lines" it is a silly notion. Lend lease has been addressed. It helped the food situation, strategic mobility, and the tranport sector of the economy (where tons of rolling stock had been captured in 1941, etc). Without its aid, the Russians could not have fielded as many riflemen because they would have needed more peasants, and could not have built as many tanks because they would have needed more locomotives and trucks. But they could have built those and grown their food. Their army just would have been smaller and not as well equipped, in armor terms especially, so soon. Since the Germans didn't increase their own production until they thought they were going to lose, it is unlikely this difference alone would have been decisive, let alone have "caused 'collapse'" (whatever that means). Do not overlook another important aspect of this whole equation. When the Germans behaved in Russia as awfully as they did, the Russian populace quickly got a very clear sense of what was at stake, and they did not confuse it with Stalin, communism, or politics of any sort. They were to be untermenschen slaves to overlords who planned to systematically starve them to death to cleanse the world of their presence, while first sweating them enough to build the conquerors new German cities clear to the Volga. When the wolf is at your throat, you do not debate half-measures. It was to them a clear case of win or die. As for Hilter, he certainly contributed mightily to all German defeats, which contrary to the stipulation of the rest of your myth-line, does not mean the generals were uniformly successful and brilliant. The fact that Hitler's involvement in the conduct of the war was ruinous on its own account, however, can hardly be disputed by any dispassionate reader of the histories, including the Soviet ones. By comparison, Stalin and Churchill had the sense to rely more on their professional staffs, while FDR relied on Marshall almost exclusively (so much so that he veto'd him for command of "Overlord", as indispensible in Washington). It is not any mystery why amateur politicians are worse generals than generals are. They aren't qualified. And it is no mystery why delusional and arrogant tyrants are particularly poor military leaders whenever they are dumb enough to meddle in such things, and full enough of themselves to consider themselves good at it. They mix political and military thinking in inappropriate ways. Thus Hitler's fetish about retreating. To say nothing of all the hours he spent ordering around troops that no longer existed on maps of areas long since lost. Why anyone would want to defend his supposed military acumen is beyond me; he obviously did not have any, and that is no "myth". (On the contrary, the reverse is). My answers to your fine questions.

Well, another consideration here is price. Consider the Americans first, and assume you are using regulars. For about the price of a platoon of infantry, you can take - 1 solid tank destroyer (M36 Jackson e.g), with a good gun, able to move through the open quickly, armored thinly and open topped but some protection. - or - 2 57mm ATGs 2 of them instead of one, and easier to hide, but effectively immobile, more vunerable to HE, and not able to penetrate the front armor of the heavier German tank types. - or - 8 bazooka teams (or 6 veteran ones). Short range, about the same lethality as the 57mm, but able to move through any terrain, and lots of them. Or for the Germans, you might face the choice between - 1 Hetzer, or 2 50mm PAK, or 4-5 Panzerschreck. The TDs are capable beasts, but if you do not have much to spend in AT assets they are risky. Much of your AT defense rides on one chassis that a single good AP shot can disable. Of the above choices, the 50mm PAKs look good to me for the Germans. The Allies have fewer heavy tank types; there aren't as many Schrecks "on offer" in exchange, because their prices are higher each, and for close in weapons you already have fausts. (Don't let the supposed 200+ meter range of the schreck fool you - its reliable lethal range is more like 50-100 yards, the upper end of that at best). But with the Americans, *8* teams is an awful lot. In actuality, each infantry battalion had an "AT section" in the battalion weapons company, with 3 57mm towed ATs, and 7 bazooka teams. These could be "farmed out" to line companies as needed, or sent as a reserve when someone needed anti-tank help. So buying lots of zooks is not as "gamey" as it might first seem, if you use numbers or 7 or less added to the "organic" 3 per company. They also usually had a TD battalion in each infantry division, able to send 1-2 TDs to support each infantry company (or to send a whole platoon of 4 from reserve). On the German side, the historical practice was for each infantry regiment to have some PAK guns in a seperate small company, and for the division to have an AT battalion with TDs or PAK, in reserve or farmed out to the infantry. There would be enough for a typical defending company to have 2 or 4 guns, 75mm PAK being the most common gun type in the period covered by CMBO. The TDs would usually be in reserve at first, but could be sent to support a company in platoons of 3. Their "panzer-jaeger" companies in each infantry regiment also often had numerous schrecks, which were usually distributed to the line companies, with 1-4 per company being realistic ranges. I mention these for realism's sake, but also because I find they often did things for decent reasons, so using weapon's mixes close to the historical ones is often more effective than you might think. [This message has been edited by jasoncawley@ameritech.net (edited 02-11-2001).]

Gentlemen, allow me to give you an idea how bad IFF (identification, friend or foe?) can be with vehicles in the real world. I was in a U.S. Army reserve artillery battery. Not normally direct fire, so it was not considered a terribly high priority to be good at IFF. They still had regular classes on it, with packs of ID cards with pictures of the different vehicles of all NATO and Warsaw Pact nations. Right? We have gunners in the battery - the guys looking through the sight, not ammo handlers - who after several years in the service could not tell a Russian tank from a British one to save their life. On a freaking card. Sitting down.

Um, Jackal, let me get this straight. Your zook teams knocked out *6* enemy armored vehicles, and you are *disappointed*? Give me a freaking break... If the 3 zook teams in a standard company, no extras, get 1-2 enemy vehicles and keep the enemy armor at a respectful distance, then they have fully done their job. The things cost 14 points as regulars fer crying out loud. You expect each one to kill a Panther with every rocket or something? What is with you people...

The AI chooses randomly. With the old category restrictions, like "combined arms", it has to pick in a certain mix, so it will pick mixes forces in reasonable ways. With "unrestricted", it can pick anything. And it still picks randomly. So any mix of items that uses up all the points is possible. It is not picking according to any "strategy". It comes up with its strategy after it sees what it has, and its mission. If artillery had no point limit, then it could indeed randomly blow 240 points on one 105mm veteran FO, and 240 more on a second one, and then have 40 points left for the rest of its 500 point force. So, it could take one MMG and a Jeep, say. Well, that isn't much of a force. "But I can tell it to take infantry, and then why can't I take all the arty I want?" If you want to take all the arty you want, make a scenario in which you have all the arty you want. The reason for the "unrestricted" option is more to provide less info to the player about what he is up against, than to let him assemble dream teams. Dream teams you can assembly any time you want in scenarios. The quick battle routines are about providing an unknown enemy. The force % breadowns are guides to historical mixes of forces and there as much for the AI as for players.

Actually, they learned within a month, which is more than I can say for many modern manueverists who repeat their idiotic claims about "the offensive is the only decisive form of warfare" and all that rot. The disciples of St. Cyr are alive and well; they just don't know their own pedigree very accurately. Since when is saying all that is desireable is part of your doctrine, tendentious? Since you made ridiculous question-begging statements like that you think inability to learn should be included in the *definition* of attrition. You are not merely saying you are in favor of mom and apple pie, you are also saying anyone who quibbles with the universal applicability of your manueverist doctrine is against them. Which is called *lying*, or at the very least begging the question. As for the statement that "manueverist" and "attritionist" do not apply to individuals, I suppose you expect me and all bystanders to conclude you are arguing with me not because I criticise the universal applicability of manueverist doctrine, but because I am, perhaps, a Mormon or something - but certainly not because I am an attritionist, because there is no such animal; the term does not apply to people. In fact, all of your critics are figments of their own imaginations, and every actual person agrees with you. Right? As for the Pacific war, I find it another overdetermined case in which the inferior side hadn't a chance in a war place. As such, the contributions of different effects and methods cannot be easily distinguished, but an effort that way can still me made. Always understanding, that question like "what won the war against Japan" do not have logically non-redundant answers, because a dozen different things would each have been sufficient alone. I find the overall strategy employed against Japan to be an attritionist one, or if some prefer the distinction, a total war one. Japan entered the war with only about 1/10th the steel output of the U.S., and an economy entirely inadequate for major war on the scale of a quarter of the globe against both the U.S. and the U.K. The U.S. committed between 1/4 and 1/3 of its overall effort to defeat of Japan, while the U.K. breakdown was evenly more heavily weighted toward Europe, but conscious planning with the U.S. It was predicted, rightly, that these amounts would still prove sufficient to contain and then roll back Japan, while leaving as many resources free to deal with the main threat, Germany, as possible. Elements of manuever were still utilized operationally, and proved to be significant force multipliers, speeding the end of the war or cheaping its overall human costs considerable. There are three most noticable aspects of the Pacific war that used manuever ideas in one fashion or another, on different levels. First, superior intel allowed the employment of U.S. carrier task forces as ambushers. This was mainly seeking decisive battle, a la the doctrines of Mahan, but it elements of it involve the sorts of things manueverists aim for - getting inside the enemy decision cycle, discoordinating enemy forces by proper placement of one's own and by suprise, etc. These were materially aided by a definite Japanese penchant for overly complicated naval manuevering, however, that had the cumulative effect of simply dissipating their forces, and that was especially ruinous against an enemy with superior intel work. Sometimes this edge did not prove terribly useful, though. By late in the war it hardly mattered, and even when "tricked" e.g. at Leyte, the overall effect of U.S. numerical superiority, and Japanese over-complexity and confusion, simply smashed through all such questions and decided things for us regardless of how they had gone. Second, the technique of "island hopping", an application of bypass principles, reduced the cost of clearing the island chains and establishing bases. This was certainly a manuever idea, and useful. It did, however, depend on prior reduction of enemy airbases to be bypassed, by direct attack and attrition of their aircraft and pilots, and further air attacks on transport links, shipping etc. to impliment it. Those transport links (more on them below) were in a way a principle target of the U.S. strategy overall. The third manuever idea was less successful, but not because it failed to be implimented or failed in its intended effect. It simply became redundant due to the overdetermined character of the whole war. I am talking about the U.S. operational idea of driving its chain of bases to the Philipines, recapturing those, and then using that base to close the China Sea to Japanese shipping, thus cutting off Japan from the raw materials of southeast Asia. This was actually done, but by the time it was completely, nearly 90% of the Japanese merchant marine had been sunk, mostly by U.S. submarines in their attrition campaign, some by air power. The transport links that the operation was meant to "cut" had evaporated before the slice was complete, in other words. The most decisive processes of the war were the enourmous U.S. output of ships and planes, the destruction of Japanese air power by attrition methods in direct combat, and the destruction of the Japanese merchant marine by U.S. submarines. I will discuss each in turn, and their complications. The production story is probably the best known. The Japanese navy was small enough, and early in the war the same was true of ours, that the lost of 4 fleet carriers carrying ~250 naval aircraft at Midway could be a devasting blow. But before the fight was over, the U.S. fielded more than 100 aircraft carriers carrying more than 5000 naval aircraft. The Japanese navy simply had a "zero" missing at the end, once the U.S. war economy kicked in - if the pun can be forgiven. It was as bad, or worse, in planes. The Japanese started the war with excellent types, but could not come close to matching the rate of U.S. technical improvements (combined with U.S. air combat tactics innovations), and by mid-war the U.S. types were superior in quality and overwhelming in quantity. This production enabled the U.S. air forces to destroy the forward elements of the Japanese air forces. The Japanese could replace the planes, although they were unable to keep pace with the steadily rising numbers of deployed U.S. planes. But the Japanese could not replace the trained pilots at all, or did not manage to do so at any rate. When newly produced planes were sent into battle against the veteran Americans as standard fighters and bombers, they proved hopeless (e.g. at the "Great Mariannas Turkey Shoot"). Japan did find a desperate way of making her inexperienced pilots effective against the U.S. by late in the war - the kamikazes. Although it is rarely explained in detail in the histories, these inflicted more damage and destruction on the U.S. navy that any navy had ever incurred in war before (e.g. hundreds of ships disabled), and which only Japan's in the same war exceeded. But their sacrifice could not stop the U.S. fleets. The small portion that made it through U.S. fighters and flak were simply outnumbered by the ships the U.S. deployed. Without regular air power to speak of, capable of challenging the U.S. air forces (both carrier and land-based), the Japanese forward bases lay open to the "bypass" technique. Any attempt to supply them anyway, met nearly complete loss at the hands of U.S. air power (e.g. the "Battle of the Bismarck Sea"). It would have proven impossible to supply them in any event, because the Japanese merchant marine was evaporating. That body of shipping was never adequate to the task assigned it by Japanese military planners, from the moment of the outbreak of the war onward. And it was never larger than at the outbreak. The tiny Japanese engineering industry could not produce enough ship engines to power a large replacement fleet, even if the Japanese economy had been up to the task of replacing losses in other respects, which it was not. The Japanese empire at its height span such a huge portion of the globe, its forward combat elements in some of the most primitive and infrastructure-free portions of the world where absolutely everything had to come thousands of miles by ship, and its industrial economy was completely dependent on ship-borne imports for most raw materials, including oil, coal, and iron ore, from Indonesia, China, and Korea. It entered the war with the U.S. with a merchant marine barely sufficient for civilian needs over this extended space, and unable to supply the army in forward areas without causing civilian shortages and bottlenecks. At this taut rope, the U.S. directed a horde of submarines, who mimicked advances in German U-boat doctrine the U.S. was painfully learning about in the Atlantic, and added their own improvements (such as more advanced mine warfare) and refinements suited to the Japanese enemy. These proceeded to sink the Japanese merchant navy, and with it undermined the Japanese war economy and starved all its forward elements. Once Pacific bases were available, the B-29s added to this economic disaster by burning to the ground the centers of the 66 largest Japanese cities, long before the A-bomb. The Japanese final defense plan for the home islands included a militia of 10 million men armed with bamboo spears, as the economy was collapsing. In the island fighting itself or at the tactical level, the U.S. developed an attritionist doctrine of overwhelming firepower and methodical attack. Occasionally this may have been wasteful, as for instance in the Okinawa fighting, when some opportunities for manuever may have been missed. With all the firepower means available, however, this tactical approach did allow the U.S. to establish and maintain a colonial-era kill ratio of 10 to 1 and up, which in most conflicts between major powers would be considered decidedly "cheap". Anyway, you asked for my views about the Pacific war - probably with nothing more than island hopping in mind, is my guess. It was overdetermined. Anything besides sinking our own fleets with friendly fire would eventually have worked. Manuever ideas acted as force multipliers to shorten (intel and Midway e.g.) and cheapen (island hopping), the war. Production, air combat and air interdiction of supply links, and subs destroying the enemy transport links wholesale, were decisive. See, I answer your questions whenever they are real questions. Why can't you do the same in return, and address some of mine? E.g. address the question of when offensive manuever cannot be expected to work, in terms of Captain's elements, or my suggestion about odds, time to front, force to space, etc. I realize this is hard for you, because you think everything else is idiotic by definition or something. So did the St. Cyr crowd. But anyone can look at empirical cases can learn from historical facts, and therefore you ought to be able to say when your own doctrinal ideas would be misleading or useless. "When the commander is an idiot" is not a response. Stop pretending that a definite doctrine is a patent medicine cure-all, and look at the cases where it does *not* apply, where its central concepts are *not* the important items. That is the only way to see its limits. And its limits are what determine its real nature, and its possible value when conditions are ripe for it. If it "doesn't have limits" then it doesn't have a real content, and is just a set of meaningless bromides.

So that when the AI makes a random force selection, it has some manuever units. Pretty obvious to me...

I'll give you some examples on the long end, from the unit histories and "lessons learned" reports afterwards. A battalion commander (call him "HQ", his companies A-D, etc) is told that his battalion has to force a crossing of a defended river. The operation has to be done within 3 days. HQ goes down to physically look over the river from an OP. He calls all his company commanders to his command post and discusses the operation with them. They decide the most important thing is not where it is easiest to cross, but where it will be least expected - therefore, where it looks hard. HQ orders recon guys to look over the stream with this in mind. They scout out positions, and notice several easy crossing sites and probably enemy positions beyond them. The find some other places with steep banks and deeper water, and report these back. HQ calls the company commanders in again. They've got a sand-table made up to reproduce the main features of the terrain. They talk it all over, and decide to try to cross during the night in a column only 1 platoon across, one after another. They also decide that they will need engineer help (especially for the heaviest weapons - mortars and machineguns etc), and prepare a special operation to help that out, which the HQ gives in a partial order to the relevant commanders. Those include - the recon platoon CO, the weapons company CO, and the engineer CO. They meet at the weapons company's command post. They come up with a plan. The weapons company will move into position to cover the crossing site several hours before the rest of the battalion arrives. They will cover a group from the recon and engineers, mixed, with recon guys leading, who will swim the river that night, and set up ropes strung across the river. When the main force arrives, it will use these to help cross, with the weapons again covering if they are spotted and a firefight breaks out. Last, the engineers will help the weapons guys pulley their loads across using the guide ropes. The battalion HQ, meanwhile, has coordinated with the divisional artillery, and will have them fire a prep barrage 15 minutes before the crossing. This will hit several areas, including ones where they aren't crossing, but where they ID enemy positions in the earlier recon. For distraction, and to keep the enemy from patroling, and such. The day it happened, it mostly went like clockwork. The same formation, having to cross another river, one time had only about 18 hours notice. They did not have as much time to prepare. They still made the crossing easily, but not having had time to recon the otehr side, they blundered into a wide AP minefield on the far side of the river, still in the middle of the night. At day break they didn't have much cover because they hadn't gone as far, up to higher ground. Some tanks helped them out of the jam after engineers found a way for them to cross - that was a short notice affair, of a hour or two. Or, once, a small unit planned a single raid on a fortified house on a height that overlooked the Anzio beachhead. This house was covered by minefields and wire, had MGs mounted, and was believed to be an FO position to call down artillery on the U.S. Intel guys wanted a prisoner from this particular spot, not just to wipe it off the map with arty. So a single infantry platoon was going to get the support of a whole platoon of tanks to "raid" this house and leave with German prisoners. They prepared for a week. They found a spot behind the lines with similar terrain, and practiced on it, over and over. How to ride on the tanks, which tank would go to which side of the house, a supporting squad in a ditch to cut off retreats, tanks covering the withdrawl, a red flare signal for the tanks to pull back out, a divisional smoke barrage behind the house to cut it off from fire support from other German positions. The whole thing was less than 40 guys. They were in and out in less than 15 minutes, with 6 prisoners. They lost one tank, immobilized, to mines, and destroyed it with thermite grenades before withdrawing to prevent its capture and recovery. The attackers took no casualties. The high end of planning time was high indeed. The low end was also low indeed - a group in the Ardennes offensive might here the enemy a minute before they came into sight and have to fight as they were, every decision made on the fly. You got everything in between. Incidentally, I personally only address all of this out of historical curiousity, and to answer your question truthfully. I will always prefer We-go to RT, simply because to me RT and strategy are mutually incompatible, and RTS is a contradiction in terms. As a *game*, strategy is not about simulating, but about putting all of the relevant variables within reach of the player's control, and then having the outcome be determined entirely by their matched wits. Chess is not a simulation. But it is a great strategy game. Whereas, some designers forget their job description and become movie directors, putting the player in the position of moreor less passively watching the designer's "cut" of the movie of how said designer happens to think things actually and typically happened (whether they did that way, being an entirely different question, about which people just pretend, as though programming wargames and being an entire historical faculty are the somehow same). The actual military decisions historical commanders, individually and not added together up and down several layers of command, made, that had any appreciable effect on real outcomes and that were not just a matter of doing what military art and experience dictated was the only right answer in some situations (real, critical *decisions* in other words, with real and viable alternatives), were few, simple, and uncommon. And a truly accurate simulation of them would mostly bore people to tears, especially since the outcome would rest on a million outside and larger factors, and precious little on the matched wits of platoon leader A vs company XO B.

I will respond to Capt's excellent list of real factors later on in this response - to me that is a matter of best for last. But first a few matters with ASL Vet and Blackhorse. ASL Vet first. I do not understand timing on battlefields, I am told. It is possible. Instruct me, oh wise one, instead of simply pointing to the alleged issue and saying nothing further. I cited the Kiev or Moscow decision because it was the practical operational choice faced in '41 and the generals argued about it at the time, and maneuverist historians since have made much of it as an alleged departure from doctrine. I did not allege this, they have. Of course they are alternate uses of the original breakthrough. They were mutually exclusive ideas about how to "cash" gains already secured - in territory or in enemy forces destroyed. There is no serious historical question that the Russians around Kiev would have escaped that pocket had AG Center's armored columns not been turned southward immediately. My presentation of this choice is however disputed, because of "timing", in a way that is not specified in any manner. The question is how to employ a certain force for a certain period of time, toward what end. I am told they are "both maneuver", which #1 does nothing whatever to help choose between them, #2 contradicts maneuverist historians who have roundly criticised the Kiev decision. They do so by claiming that is was a survival in German general staff thinking of objectives set in terms of destruction of the enemy force rather than seizing unprotected objectives deep in the enemy rear. They allege such objectives were set because hide-bound traditionalists aka attritionists did not appreciate maneuver itself as truly decisive, but only as ministerial to the goal of destroying the enemy army. If ASL Veteran disagrees with these characterisations and think the Kiev decision was correct, fine, but he is disagreeing with the maneuverist historian's standard line, not with me. Calling them both maneuver illuminates nothing. Since ASL Veteran uses any opposite of maneuver merely as a floating denuncifier, all it amounts to saying it that he sees something sensible in either course. I am asked what should the Germans have done, or rhetorical words to that effect. I have already explained that the single largest mistake (besides fighting the world, i.e. in how that was done) was not ramping the economy the instant the war decision with Russia was made. If you shift the German tank output chart 18 months to the left, suddenly the Russian win looks one heck of a lot harder. I am quite aware that the German high command was gambling recklessly throughout the entire conduct of the war. But if the only recommendation that their later attempts at maneuver have for themselves is gambling and hoping, then thanks I'll pass. And they were not just gambles, they were stupid gambles, and their failure entirely predictable, and predicted, at the time. Furthermore, I find nothing to substantiate the frequent claim that something decisive might be found in a giant armor clash behind Kursk, and nothing decisive might be found in a giant armor clash between Kharkov and Kiev. There is no rational reason to believe that the first "might" prove decisive because it was on one side of the previous lines, and the other could not be because it would occur on the other. It is making terrain "gained" or a mythical "initiative" into a magic talisman to pretend so. When the Russians defeated the German armor, they were capable of breakthrough fighting. There is no earthly reason to believe ther reverse was not possible. If the Russian armor had been smashed between Kharkov and Kiev in the summer of 1943, what would happen in the autumn had every bit as much of a chance of proving "decisive", as smashing against their PAK-front in July or August could possibly pretend to be. It was a reckless gamble, yes. But it was also a dumb reckless gamble, by no means the only or best "bet" on the table. As is often the case, the justification by gambling masks an unwillingness to rationally confront chances, an impulsive mode of acting, no search for the best bet, and magical beliefs in what seemed to work last time. Well, that covers ASL, because he really only replied with a reference ot timing without any elaboration, a defense of maneuver as gambling when lost that does not demonstrate what he needs it to, top say as little as possible about personal abuse sprinkled with specious smilies. Blackhorse enters the analogy sweepstakes with football. While used correctly, I think differences in styles can be seen in football and related to the issues being discussed, in his hands it is simply begging the question. The rules of football are all about taking territory. You are not allowed to win by breaking 8 legs on the enemy team and playing the rest of the game with 11 men against 3. In war you are, and it is called attrition by those who mean to criticise it. I found amusing and revealing Blackhorse's closing statements, that maneuver includes "every other desirable trait you can think of". That is just my problem with it. I think that is exactly what maneuverists use the word to mean. And I think that renders the word utterly meaningless. What they actually mean is just "good". But they say "maneuver", because they are engaged in the sophistical exercise of trying to win an intellectual argument by begging the question. "Everything desireable is defined as 'maneuver'". That is exactly the position Blackhorse has just taken. It is not even an empirical result or claim, it is meant to be a definition. I can use the exact same sophistical violence to prove that all good men are Buddists. But this will come as news to many. As for Blackhorse wanting to pack "inability to learn" off into attritionist as part of its definition, which of course strictly follows from maneuver = good and attrition being its opposite, it prompts me to renew the citation of French military doctrine early in WW I. In case anybody forgot, the "cult of the offensive" and "decisive maneuver" a la arme blanche, led to massed columns of men in bright blue pants charging into German machinegun and field artillery fire, taking 1 million causalties in less than a month and almost losing the war. Because the conditions for the cultish and simplistic claim that the offensive is all that is right and true in warfare and military doctrine, were not present. With the result that acting on such a doctrine was criminally stupid. But the disciples of St. Cyr did not know it, because they had forever been taught, sophistically, that that was the only successful form of warfare. Which was simply not the case. Who is not learning here? You cannot learn a blessed thing if you define whatever is desireable as the content of your doctrine. You cannot see or acknowledge the slightest weak point or failing in your doctrine, when it is defined as all that is right and true. It is logically inadmissable to criticise it. No battlefield experience could have any effect on your belief in its rightness and truth, because that belief is not a matter of anything empirical, but of a mere sophistical "definition". Begging the question is merely an elaborate and wordy way of stopping the ears, and it makes learning lessons - e.g. from the school of St. Cyr and its failures - impossible. If the idea of anything new and attrition strikes you as a contradiction in terms, I also call your attention to Mao's doctrine of protracted warfare, which is not exactly ancient history, in its effects on the world and on modern war. That less pleasant business out of the way, I turn to the Captain's comments. I am going to rephrase those my way, both to see if I have understood you and to start the transition to me own, other factors. But first let me say I agree with most of what you said, and I appreciate the offering of real variables. On troop quality, I think you have an excellent point. In your statement that you have no chance against good enemies until you win "the dogfight", I agree completely, but how that "good" comes about is murkier. They way you put it, I got the impression the troop quality *differential* is important, while there is presumably also some threshold required for the successful attacker. What is less clear is how much good a differential can do, once the enemy is "good enough". One of the reasons I mention these is that I think two other items related to numbers are critical, and they are not really covered by troop quality. I agree offensive manuever is still perfectly possible against low quality enemies, even when the odds are not favorable. It is much less clear whether conditions for it exist, when the odds are unfavorable and the enemy is "good enough", no matter how good one's own forces are, in pure quality terms. (But with a technology proviso - discussed below). Next you addressed the political aspect, but what I noticed is the high variance of maneuver options or attempts. That to me is partly political, yes, but not simply so. I can explain why with an analogy from insurance and betting. Roulette is a high variance thing for someone who puts everyone on 1 number - mostly lose, rarely win big. But if you put 1 on every number, the variance goes away, and the player is left with an automatic small loss. However, the owner of the wheel is in the exactly contrary position, since his "competition" with the players (as a group) is zero sum. To him, bets on every number ensure a small profit, and the more times he gets that the better. He then doesn't care how the individual chances "break". This analogy is often used to explain insurance principles. As long as the average odds are your way, diversified bets and repetition benefit you. But when they do not, repeated and diverse bets only ensure loss. An elaborate explanation of a simple enough point. The thought it leads to is this - is maneuver a loser's strategem? Not meaning one who will inevitably lose, but meaning one who is likely to. When the odds are on your side, why take risks? It is still possible the potential size of gains, or (equivalent really) reductions in possible costs, may justify the risks. And maneuver can have force-multiplier effects that can make it the desireable strategy for reasons besides risk and variance. But other things being equal, it is more important for the guy "ahead" on winning chances, to stamp out the other guys possible long-shot gambles, than to take his own. This might be called maneuver of a kind, but not really. It is more a matter of restricting the opponent's range of maneuver options. (In chess, this is called a strategy of "blockade"). Next, you mentioned opportunity, as an undefinable. I agree, in part. Inchon comes to mind. But I wonder if the cases you'd cover with opportunity, might be broken out a little further, with parts of them covered by your other categories. For instance, part of this is probably chance, but that is just variance or risk-taking wearing a new hat. Part of it is definitely enemy mistakes, whether in deployment or in doctrine, but that is mostly low enemy quality in camo. The remaining factor of command or inspiration, I agree remains. That is not the same thing as one's own troop quality, because it is not as knowable beforehand, for one thing. Last you mentioned tech, but under it the sort of thing you really meant was more about tempo. Tech can multiple tempo (German use of radios widely in WW II e.g.). But I think tech is the wrong term for this one. Tech can have other effects, that are not really troop quality and are not really tempo. I'd place it in its own sphere. I also note in passing that the tempo effects sometimes expected from technical means have not always had the maneuver v. attrition effects that people expected. Helicopters in Nam are an example. They certainly gave us a decidely higher possible tempo for operations, and they were undoubtedly a large force-multiplier as a result. But they did not make the war one of maneuver as opposed to attrition. There were probably many reasons for that including our politics, but what strikes me as the largest such reason was the enemy strategy itself, which was consciously attritionist. Some will undoubtedly say we did not try, and there is truth to that. Other effects of tech strike me as important in a different way. They change overall combat power when one side has them or has perfected them and another does not - simple enough. But they also have effects on things like variability in deployments, defense dominance, times to front, and force to space effects. E.g. increases in artillery firepower lead to spread deployments and wider variance between spread and tight. Go back before indirect HE and force to space varies little across battlefields and the two sides, as packed frontages are common. After the change, tactical opportunities for maneuver ideas are higher than before it. I bring up these other cases, because when I think about military history and the changing doctrines and conditions in the course of it, these effects stand out in a particularly striking way. In WW I, it is not a glaring absence of WW II quality differentials that is immediately apparent, but the deadliness of massed artillery, machineguns, and magazine rifles against infantry in the open, on in other words high defense-dominance for technological reasons. Or consider an issue like times to front. In WW I, breaks in the enemy line were regularly achieved, mostly by blasting the area with artillery in "drumfire" fashion, then sending infantry at the stunned survivors rapidly. But what happened on these occasions is that the defenders always found it easier to form a new line, even without prepared trenches, and to thicken and field-fortify these, before the attacker could accomplish much else. There are a number of reasons for this, but "time to front" is probably the biggest. The defensive zone, miles deep, was a moonscape by the end of one of these attacks. It was not possible to deploy fresh troops through it rapidly. Guns in particular could not displace forward, and could not be supplied with ammo in the enourmous quantities available to the other side, through a moonscape. The defenders were getting trainloads of artillery shells along open and working rail lines, and dumping them all over the penetration. Similarly, their reserves rode in on trains, debused near the new line, and deployed outside of, or just inside of, the field of craters. By contrast, all the attackers had to traverse and be supplied through the entire mess. Horses were tried, but horses and drumfire barrages do not mix. Laying new rail track took forever. Unimproved vehicles do not crawl through cratered moonscapes very well. The term for this difference is time to front, or thruput to front. The defender could simply move more ammunition, reserves, and supplies of all kinds, to his side of the battlezone, much faster and in much larger quantities, than the attacker could. The idea that the attacker had the "initiative", was thus somewhat illusory. The defender might "have to" react to an attack and a hole in the front line, certainly. But he could be sure he'd get there with enough before the attacker did. Tanks get through battlezones faster, and perhaps more important, they proved able to shoot their way through defensive positions without destroying the road net in the process - unlike WW I artillery offensives. There were also far more trucks serving all the armies in WW II - even though horses were a larger part of the trains of all but the U.S. and British forces, than is often realized. In addition, the shock-action spearheads did guzzle fuel, but they needed comparatively little in weight of ammo to achieve reasonable combat power, so the strain of supporting a penetration adequately, was significantly lighter than in WW I. I think your factors and I agree with them. But force to space, time to front, local odds ratios created by dispersion or lack of them because of the threat from indirect fire weapons, overall odds, presence of reserves - these are the other factors I think about, when considering the question of when to "plant one's feet". Do any of these have applications at the scale of CM? Yes, I think so. For example, for a CM-scale maneuver to prove effective, the time from discovery of what is being attempted, to adaptation to it, has to be shorter than the time needed to complete the maneuver. In plainer terms, if he's in a "V" formation, flanking him from the right may just mean he says "right face" and designates a new platoon as his reserve, or shifts one only slightly. To me this is analogous to time-to-front issues. If the maneuver was based on deceiving him about where to deploy his reserve, these sorts of effects might be avoided, but the point is to think about the question in those sorts of terms. For what it is worth, heat taking with the light...

"if you can read it in one sitting" Just did. Great stuff in there. Oh, I skipped or skimmed some parts - med evac, supply (besides ammo) and commo-wire worries. It is so obviously the real deal and so diametrically opposed to all the tactical genius cock n bull stories one often finds instead. Three things immediately stand out. One is the constant refrain of simplicity, or how confusion leads to disasters and its absence to success. The second is tactics that use some defensive aspects even in attack, like a "fire-base" first block as "base" when taking a village (which works in CM too), and this line - "every objective is carefully chosen to invite counterattack over terrain favorable for complete artillery coverage". The third is how important it was to simply know exactly where enemy was, and to hide from him in turn. One other minor thing I also noticed, was the constant references to mines and their impact on operations. The obstacles the real guys encountered, when they encountered them, were much more elaborate affairs that one usually sees in CM. Oh, you do hear about the small minefield spotted by the longer grass (can you *mow* a minefield? Noooo), or the wire obstacle right in front of a fortified house. But you also hear about AP minefields a *mile* long and 300 yards deep, backed by concertina wire, pillboxes, then a hill, double-apron wire, foxholes, plus dugouts to shelter from artillery on the back slope - all behind a river obstacle and forming in total a barrier a mile deep. And still driven through, by using an entire battalion of tanks (and the fire of a corp's worth of artillery prep), once a way was found to get those across the river. CM "assaults" look nothing remotely like this. Wrong scale, really. I also noticed the near consensus on the dismounted 50 cal being too heavy to prove useful in offensive operations. If you look at the ammo loads they carried, even its use in defensive operations must have been extremely limited. You see figures like 100 times the .30 cal MG ammo as .50 cal (not counting the stuff for the M-1s, which is only about half as much as the .30 cal MGs despite the number of M-1s). Part of that may be the mountains of Italy "talking", though. Much harder to lug those .50s around the hills, where trucks don't even run close to many of the fighting positions, than in France. Just my observations on it...

I agree. I am particularly annoyed that there is no way to mix green and regular troops in the same quick battle. I happen to think that was the most common force type of the war, besides all regular. We need to be able to choose 2 or 3 and to position it ourselves. In scenarios it is all easy, but the drawback there is if you make it, you know what the other guy has.