jasoncawley@ameritech.net

Let me get this straight. A moving, buttoning AFV in *fog* fails to see and fire at a previously hidden bazooka team (in cover I presume) for about 30 seconds, and the reaction is not "c'est la guerre" but "zombuddy do zumfink!" Uh huh. All your troops eat their wheaties, so they should never miss, right? Really...

On your choice of force, you went heavy on the artillery, and that can work ok if you use it right. But you did have a lot of your eggs in that basket - 3" plus 25-lbers is a lot of fire support for a 750-point force. You probably have already figured out by now that the snipers didn't really pay for themselves. Scouting can be done more cheaply by any squad or half-squad, and they can take casualties without being wiped out. You did great to put the mortars on the AA halftrack. On the guns, it is less clear. If they really could see everything, then taking them out with the 25-lbers was a good move. But remember, the defender's problem with lots of nice guns, is they don't move and he doesn't get to decide where you come, you do. It is better pick a point of attack that is out of their LOS and them ignore them, if you can. If not, the artillery on them was ok. A hint though - always reserve some of the heavy stuff for the enemy infantry. When the enemy infantry is all spread out in seperate squads in buildings, arty isn't very effective against it. But when you have to rush a body of woods with defenders in it, nothing will move the fight your way more easily or more decisively than one fire mission right before your rush. It doesn't have to pound them all into sawdust. It just has to pin them to the ground as you rush in. In such short-range firefights, your unsuppressed men shoot more often, suppress the enemy more, then he shoots less often, and so on. Quality helps, and numbers help, and an infantry type with lots of SMGs helps. But everyone on the other side starting out at "taking cover - cautious" or worse, is even better. An arty can do that for you, very effectively. Incidentally, the enemy artillery hitting you was probably 81mm mortars, not 88s. You saw how much it messed you up. Part of the effectiveness against troops in woods is that concealment - not seeing exactly where someone is - protects against aimed small-arms fire, but not against HE firecrackers going off. And the shells can hit the trees and burst overhead, which is worse than it hitting the ground. How do attackers usually deal with wide open ground to cross? Using their numbers and firepower to eliminate some of the defenders before crossing. That can be tricky, though. As you probably saw, the problem is if you go forward, the MGs and such hit you in the open. If you sit still to shoot it out, the mortars hit you in the woods! Having some sort of direct fire HE weapon can help, though. Meaning a tank, or gun-armed halftrack, or whatever it is. Those are especially effective at getting infantry out of buildings, especially if you can afford to do it one at a time. And MG fire from all sorts of light armored vehicles can let you "duel" without much in the way of immediate cover. In the British case, that is usually "carriers", the MG version or the light MG (without much ammo) on the standard ones. Tanks don't have to run down roads into the enemy AT gunsights. You can let infantry find out where the enemy is. You do need *something* to hide behind and peek around, though. Thing is, if you move and the enemy guns don't, on all but the most wide-open maps you can find spots that see enemy A without letting enemy B see you. You avoid the big guns and shoot the MGs, then the infantry can move ahead more easily. With the force you *did* take - reasonable infantry and lots of arty - you were going to win late regardless, if you did things more or less right. A force like that works by just absorbing more punishment than the defenders (with far fewer points to spend) can stand. The arty makes sure they take some of their share. But for your next small outing, you might try 3 platoons (and they don't have to be vets), just the 3" mortars for fire support, no sharpshooters, and some carriers. Actually, you should be able to take 1 Carrier MG per platoon and a Sherman, in return for the 25-lber FO and your sharpshooters. You can decide whether you want the MGs on carriers or on foot, and the experience level of the infantry you are comfortable with. Then you have mortars for when they are in the woods, tank fire for when they are in buildings, infantry to tackle them in close and to firefight them in areas with cover, and MGs on armored carriers to firefight and suppress them when you don't have cover to work with. A pretty useful mix. What a coincidence! That is what they *actually* used - LOL.

The problem with the white Shermans is the absence of shadow effects. They look not only white-washed, but as though, through the magic of Stay-Bright Cleanser, they were emitting in the 100 watt bulb range. LOL. The sides of the turret and the sides of the hull should be grayer, not the same white. Not because the paint was, nor just because of wear, but because light does not fall as directly on those parts of the vehicle. Even whitewash looks greyish in shadow. The starkness of the green showing through in the alternates, also has this "flat" effect, as though one is seeing just the pattern, and not shading. Use more grey. Shade. The verticle surfaces in particular. Have the "underlying" colors be pale, worn green but also light grey, for the drab of weak, thin coats of whitewash in shadow. If you look at the beautiful snowed HTs, part of the reason the scheme works is that it differentiates parts of the vehicle surface. You can tell how long the nose of the track is, for example, just in the snow scheme. The result is a more 3-D feel. I am no artists, and couldn't begin to do it myself. But you know the saying - everyone's a critic...

You can already do this pretty easily. You've got 6 experience levels and 5 different fanaticism settings. If you make people vet but normal, they will be steady under light fire, react quickly to orders, shoot well, but still break under pressure. If you make them Green but 50% fanatic, they will get lightly pinned more easily, shoot worse, take much longer to react to orders, but many of them will fight to the last man. And types will mix, since which act "crazy reckless brave" is random, while how fast they answer orders is well known to their commanders - realistically. You can also produce effects like this by varying the HQ abilities. If all the commanders have no command bonus, more units will be out of command distance more often, with lower reaction times as a result. Higher ones, the reverse. High HQ morale ratings will stiffen anybody, and also create second-wind effects, where men break but rally fast as soon as the HQ comes over. Scenario designers can do all kinds of things with the existing levers. A lot more than just rate everyone on a single scale of "good" to "bad". Incidentally, if you want to see an example of using these effects, offer to playtest a new scenario of mine - LOL. It is called "the kids" and is set in April 1945. If you are interested, mail me. I am also looking for testers for another one - Get the Guns, set in the Ardennes. That is a shameless plug - LOL. I hope this is interesting.

A definition of "attrition" that leads to the conclusion that WW I was "neither attrition nor manuever", is not a definition of attrition but of something else. WW I is the paradigmatic case of attrition warfare. The reason for the silly outcome can be found in the attempted definition. It is simply not true that seeking decisive battle is ipso-facto "manuever". Either manuever or attrition may seek decisive battle or avoid it. Examples - if you manuever to make an enemy army retreat by threatening its supply lines, simply in order to advance to an objective (say, the relief of Ladysmith in the Boer war), then you are conducting manuever warfare without seeking decisive battle. It is equally possible to use manuever to force battle on an enemy army, or to try to ensure that any fight that does occur will have more decisive effects (e.g. pinning an enemy to an unfordable river). But it is equally possible for attrition ideas to seek or to deny decisive battle. Grant attacking frontally in the Wilderness was certainly seeking decisive battle, as was Blucher recommending a head-on attack at Leipzig, and whatever your own ideas, Falkenhayn definitely thought that bleeding the French army "to death" would be a decisive battle. But use of say, U-Boats against Allied or U.S. subs against Japanese merchant shipping, was not seeking decisive battle but applying attrition while denying such, at least with those assets. The differences between manuever and attrition lie elsewhere. Attrition is about hitting the enemy where he is, it seeks enemy strength because it wants to effect the whole enemy force. Falkenhayn said that the French would use *all* of their reserves. He wanted that to be the case. He was *not* trying to fight a smaller piece of the French army and overpower it with numbers or by attacking it from multiple directions. He was trying to fight the *entire* French army, to hit strength. By contrast, Manstein wanted concentrated portions of the German army, to hit the French army at its thinnest and weakest points. He wanted to fight less than all of the French army directly. By overpowering only selected portions of it, rapidly, he expected to gain territory and to use that gain to disarticulate the remaining French defenders and destroy their ability to coordinate their actions. He then expected to be able to defeat the remaining forces in detail, by again applying greater odds against portions of them. This is the main idea of manuevering, it seems to me. Why did Falkenhayn expect results from instead tackling the entire French army? Because he was applying a different means and seeking a different effect. He was not looking for opportunities to employ *shock* action in many-on-few situations, and then to multiply those in sequence, through time. He was looking for an opportunity to employ *fire* action, against a mass of defender's forced to concentrate to stop his own infantry attacks. The infantry attacks, and the threat they posed to the objective that the French valued and would strive to keep, was precisely to bring massed French defenders into the battle zone. The decisive attrition effect he then hope to achieve, would be accomplished by fire. Falkenhayn deployed more than 1200 artillery pieces around the 3 sides of the future battle area, where the whole attacking frontage amounted to 8 miles. The initial stockpile was 2.5 million shells, which were expected to be fired in the first week alone. It had taken more than 1000 trains to bring all the shells to the front. A very high portion of the German artillery was heavy guns, about 45%. They had very large numbers of 210mm howitzers, for instance. During the course of the battle, they also used copious quantities of gas, including new types that they knew defeated the existing Allied masks. At this point in the war, the Germans had a large lead in heavy artillery. The allied artillery arms where significantly lighter, more concentrated on 75mm field pieces most effect only at troops not in trenches, and their heavier and longer-ranged guns generally topped out at 155mm, which the Germans could match for gun dueling. The French had not adequate counterpart to the plentiful 210mms meant to plaster the trenches. And Falkenhayn planned to dole out the German reserves, into the battle zone, with an eye-dropper. He needed the attack pressed enough to force massed defenders, but beyond that he wanted to avoid presenting as dense a target for the French guns, as they provided to the German ones. Now, when the weapon and effect you are counting on is this sort of area fire weapon, whose effectiveness increases with the density of the enemy in the targeted area, you do not want to hit a small portion of the enemy force. You want to hit as much of it as possible. The idea was to draw the French army, in sequence and continually bunched-up, under a devasting barrage of these heavy guns, and just blast them. Because the idea was not "shock action", does not mean the goal was not decisive battle. It simply meant that hitting where the enemy was, was preferable to hitting were he was not. This shock-fire distinction runs throughout the manuever-attrition dicotomy, while not of course exhausting it. The point is, that there are definite and quite concrete military reasons, for hitting an enemy where he is rather than were he is not, when using certain kinds of military force and seeking certain kinds of effects.

You only need "ambush" for point targets (as with "keyhole" sighting) and close ranges. At longer ranges and more open areas, you just make the fire decision yourself, at the right minute of time. So it isn't exact to a second, so what? Nothing in combat really is anyway, that only happens in rehearsals. You also do not have to program the ambush at set up and then never tweak it. Often you will see an enemy tank but want it a little closer for a flank shot or what have you. You just "lead" it with an ambush marker - like a duck, LOL - and when it gets there you open up as planned. Ambush zones are not meant to completely replace your own exercise of the "fire discipline" decision. They are meant to show this unit is *aiming* at this point - which you can only do with a point, not some big long box. For shorter ranges, the use of the ambush function is more critical, because that is when the target aspect, lethal ranges e.g. of short-range infantry AT weapons, and actual overrun of your positions, come into play. You only have to cut the timing to open up so exactly, when you are holding your fire until very close range. Note that infantry HQs can set their own ambush markers, which all units under their command can react to. A company with support weapons can have a dozen ambush markers out. If you are worried about the AT ambush being sprung early, just leave the AT assets on "hide" and the anti-infantry assets on "ambush". After the anti-infantry assets open fire, you can make the decision to shoot with the AT assets or not, half-a-minute later.

Spectacular...

Drag a window around a group of units to select them all at once, just like you do with file icons in Windows. You can position them in groups like that for rapid set up, and give them all a "move" command. They go in the same direction and don't pay any attention to nuances of cover, so you sometimes may want to "tweek" a given unit's movement command afterward. But the oridinary "route march" is a snap. When you get your copy, it is all in the tutorial... [This message has been edited by jasoncawley@ameritech.net (edited 02-04-2001).]

"some of these fears were unfounded" Oh, I think the theory of the guys issuing them to everyone was clear enough. It was that Germany could afford one dead soldier for every Allied tank easily. Or two, even. And if they provided 35 fausts, then 3-5% of those who received them might be willing to go get themselves killed, killing an enemy tank. If so, there would not be any Allied tanks left. But there were Allied tanks left, and plenty of them. And easily 3/4 of the Allied tanks knocked out, were knocked out by other tanks, TDs, or towed AT guns. In other words, be weapons that could do it from a long enough range to have a high chance of survival afterward. But the brute facts of Hans' dilemma can be easily stated, for anyone who thinks I am being too blunt. The Germans issued 7 million Panzerfausts and offered Knight's Crosses and two weeks of leave to anyone who bagged a single Allied tank. The Allies still had fleets of the things left at the end of the war. The U.S. and Russian combined, built less than 200,000 AFVs in the entire war. The conclusion is inescapable. Your average Hans simply did not want to be a dead hero. Who can blame him?

"Myers says that the infantry division also has six SP 105s" 6 StuG 105s I'd buy. On U.S. 155mm howitzers vs. guns, you are probably right. I was indeed thinking of the longer ranged guns for CB and such, not making the distinction among the U.S. 155mms. On the U.S. cannon companies, I think they were usually used together as one extra battery. Occasional exceptions, but that would be the rule I think. One certainly does not hear in the unit histories, about such guns being integrated into an infantry defense as direct fire assets, nearly as often as one hears the same for the German infantry guns, light FLAK, etc. All fun stuff...

Gentlemen: A new scenario has been sent to the CM-HQ, called "the Fire Brigade". It has been tested and got good comments. It depicts a late winter local breakthrough by a force from a U.S. armored division, meeting what the Germans sent to stop it. There is limited intel for both sides, which is half the fun. Two other scenarios are also done and ready for testing. One is called "Get the Guns", and is set during the Ardennes fighting. It depicts a German raid on a U.S. artillery battery. This one is a night scenario. The other is called "the Kids", and is set in April of 1945. It depicts an American motorized infantry force attack, on a German village defended by some "enthusiatic" young men - in the rain. I am looking for playtesters for the second two in particular. The first should become available at the CM-HQ scenario depot, shortly. If you want to playtest, please email me at - jasoncawley@ameritech,net - rather than simply replying here. That way I will get your reply email off of your header and such. [This message has been edited by jasoncawley@ameritech.net (edited 02-04-2001).]

The main infantry formations, CM has already done the work for you basically. Some support formations, it can help to know more about how the various sides did thing. For instance - Towed guns were rarely used individually, although a single gun of one type might remain from a pair once one was taken out. Normally, guns of the same type appeared in sections (2 guns) or batteries (4 guns). 3 batteries or 12 guns made a battalion, and is the largest unit size you'd probably see on a CM scale battlefield, for towed gun types. This applies to Allied anti-tank guns 57mm and 76mm, 40mm Bofors AA, German 20mm AA, 88mm FLAK, 50mm, 75mm, and 88mm PAK, as well as the various howitzer types, but with a few quibbles. Quibbles - German 150mm infantry guns would be found in pairs only, not more. Their 75mm howizters would be found in pairs (when parcelled out to companies), or 6 gun batteries (for a battalion). The light mortar battery sizes were 6 mortars per battery for all nations - this means 3" and 81mm mortars (each infantry battalion had one such battery). They were also found in pairs at the company level. German light AA battalions combined 12 20mm AA with either 2 20mm quad -or- 4 37mm AA. Sometimes these heavier AA guns were mounted on half-tracks, even in the infantry formations. Only Panzer and SS Panzer formations had the 20mm quad and 37mm armored, tank-chassis AA guns (Whirblewind and Ostwind), and these were rare enough that finding them alone or in pairs would be common (to defend one part of a long road column from air attack e.g). In German Panzer and SS formations, 75mm infantry guns would not be found; the same weapons would be mounted on halftracks instead (the SPW 250/8 e.g.). German tank platoons in late war were 4 tanks each, except in the SS formations which kept the 5 tanks per platoon establishment for medium tanks. Individual platoons would not mix types. Tigers were always in 4-tanks platoons (all these are before battle losses and breakdowns, obviously). German Panzer divisions had a balanced tank force of 1/2 Panther and 1/2 Pz IV, 40 of each in a standard Panzer division, which is 9 4-tank platoons, 3 single-tank company command tanks (for 3 platoons), and 1 battalion command tank. In the field, the types were often mixed at the company level, sometimes at the platoon level. Meaning, you would see 4 Panthers and 8 Pz IVs occasionally. You would see 13 Panthers and 13 Pz IVs quite often, if the engagement were of that size. You would not see 2 Panthers and 3 Pz IVs unless these were remnants of 2 platoons. German infantry formations, not Panzer or SS, rarely saw tanks proper at all and only from outside units. Instead they had assault guns and tank-destroyers, especially StuGs and Hetzers. StuGs were organized into platoons of 3, plus 1 for a company command, so that 10 made up a company. You would rarely see more than that one the CM scale. TDs like the Jadgpanter could be organized either like the StuGs or like the tanks. The JgdPz IV series was common and can appear in all formation types; they replaced the towed PAK guns in divisional AT battalions. You usually would not see towed PAKs and Jadgpanzers proper in the same place. The heavier versions, Jadgpanther and Jadgtiger, are quite rare and usually found in the Panzer and SS formations. U.S. tanks were organized 5 per platoon, usually all Shermans, some light tank platoons all Stuarts. The types of the Shermans were mixed. In Normandy fighting, almost all should be straight 75mm Shermans with few of the add ons. Later in the war, 1 or 2 76mm Shermans per platoon can be expected. Platoons of uniform 76mm Shermans would be very rare. Sherman Jumbos are also very rare, but the uparmored + types are more common - 75mm+ varities often lead. A U.S. tank company had 3 platoons of Shermans, and one platoon of Stuarts - but the Stuarts were sometimes detached to work with the recon/armored cavalry units. U.S. tank destroyers were organized into platoons of 4 vehicles all of the same type, and a company having either all the same type, or 1 platoon of an improved type. In addition, 3 of these platoons were aided by a platoon of 4 M-8 armored cars or 75mm howitzer motor gun carrigages (in place of Stuarts, effectively). The 90mm Jackson variety was somewhat rare, but one platoon of those in a company would be reasonable. The straight M-10 (slow 76mm version) was the most common type during 1944. The M-18 Hellcats became more common as the war progressed, gradually replacing M-10s. U.S. armored cavalry would have 1 platoon of 4 M-8s and 1 group of 3-4 motor gun carriages with 75mm howitzer, to 3 sections of 5 M-20s, Jeep MGs, or halftracks carrying scout infantry. A platoon of Stuarts is another likely attachment with them. So Stuarts with Shermans is reasonable; M-8s with tank destroyers is reasonable; M-8s and/or Stuarts with Jeeps, M-20 utility cars, and halftracks is reasonable. A force of pure M-8s, or M-8s and Sherman 76s, is not reasonable. U.S. armored infantry differed from standard infantry. The 60mm mortars were not always there (were sometimes, not always), and a company often had 2x81mm mortar carrier halftracks attached instead. When they have the 81mm attached, they should not have 81mm FO, though. The MGs were often mounted on the halftracks instead of carried in teams for dismount. Up to 6 of the HTs in a company could be the 2 MG versions, but if so they would not have dismount MGs. They could have extra bazookas though. An armored infantry company generally had support from 105mm FO. They might also have a section or battery (2 or 4) of Priests, the SP 105mm howitzer, if they were going up against fortifications. A company of U.S. armored infantry company would have 20 halftracks and a handful of jeeps and trucks. They might also have a platoon of engineers attached, in trucks. There was a tank company for each of the armored infantry companies in the armored divisions, but mixed of 1 platoon of tanks and 1 company of armored infantry would also be found, or mixed companies of 2 tank platoons and 2 armored infantry platoons (1/2 a company, basically). So, the basic difference you'd see between armor and infantry formations for the U.S., is that in the armor you'd have basically 1 to 1 tank and infantry platoons, with all of the latter in halftracks, sometimes including 81mm carrier HTs, and with 105mm artillery support. While the infantry would have more like 1 tank platoon per infantry company (1 to 3-4 platoons), with the infantry in trucks or (in the battle zone) on foot, and supported by 81mm mortars (and their own 60mm) - sometimes 105mm too. For the Brits, the other fellow already provided useful info. The normal tank platoon was 1 Firefly plus 3 Sherman 75. Other units had 4 cromwell. Those are the most common types. The heavily armored Churchills would be found supporting infantry, especially in attacks on fortifications, rather than in armored formations. Supporting infantry, you'd see the same 1 tank platoon per company balance as in the U.S. infantry case. As armor, you'd see company-sized armor units with little infantry backing, or with the infantry in a second wave behind them. For British support vehicles, the carriers and carrier MGs would be extremely common, and the basic support vehicle. The carrier MGs could be as common as 1 per platoon of infantry, but not more so. The straight carriers would not be numerous enough to actually carry all the men as teams, but could carry the mortars, HQs, and such. The Cromwell tanks often worked closely with the British armored cars and scout cars. The armor formations generally (standard Sherman mixes I mean) worked with the gun-armed Humbler armored cars. Same sorts of scouting ratios - a platoon ahead of a tank company e.g. The German recon forces used halftracks, including gun-armed halftracks, more than the armored cars proper. Of the armored cars, by far the most common types were the 20mm gun versions. The 50mm Puma and 75mm howizter versions were quite rare. These vehicles could be used in groups of up to 7. The Lynx light tanks were also rare, and used standard tank platoon sizes. A German late-war recon force should have an ad-hoc look, like 3 20mm armored cars, 1 75mm howitzer half-track, and 4-5 halftracks carrying a platoon of motorized infantry, plus perhaps one artillery FO, MG or Shreck teams. Just a few items to help get a sense. Obviously, seeking historical accuracy in purchases is your affair.

Indeed. People, you have to realize what having a faust meant to Hans. It meant he was expect to go get killed the instant an Allied tank clanked within sight. If he had already used the thing on those dang grenade-tossing infantrymen over there, then guess what? When an Allied tank clanked into range, Hans could grab dirt or skedaddle, just like everybody else.

On the SP and towed, I think there is confusion about those figures. SP is an alternative to towed at the same level of the organization chart, not in addition to it. Only the Panzer divisions usually had the SP versions of the arty, and they often did not have a complete SP establishment. But they certainly did not have *both* the towed establishment listed, *and* the SP establishment listed, in every 6-battalion infantry division. The rockets are not listed because, as I mentioned, they substituted for the mission 150mm guns in the infantry divisions. (SP versions - Maultiers - were used in the armored divisions). They were also used in independent brigades, typically kept together for attacks (prep fires before the battle) or parcelled out to infantry divisions as battalions (2-3 FOs in CM terms) on defense.

If you want to see what the real tactical employment of higher-level artillery fires was like, then here is the way you should do it. Designate a target for a battalion shoot of 3x105mm. Put one 105mm on the target and the other two 50-100 yards from the point of aim of the first, side to side spread, and all of them set on "wide", not narrow. Then do not move the targeting, do not walk shells, do not turn the barrage off. Continue the fire until at least 25 rounds have run off the lowest "expended" count of the three FOs. In the first minute they are all over that, cut off the fire. End of battalion shoot. The three FOs will be good for 2-3 fire missions as above, typically. For 155mm (or 150mm, British 4.5 or 5.5 inch), do the same as the above, but 100 yards apart (+/- a smidgen). Obviously, they fire fewer shells before running out (or switching to another target). Fire the entire ammo load the FOs come with, no pausing or walking. The target should be at least 400 yards, preferably more like 500 yards, from a battalion-level shoot. Shoots by artillery formations above the level of battalion do not happen, except in mass preparatory bombardments that last hours or days and preceed CM-level tactical combat by a long period. Even then, in every army but the Russian, the battalion would be the level of shoot used, and the bombardment would consist in a number of targets in sequence for each battalion, planned out to cover some whole set of targets in the enemy areas by the end of the "prep fire". (The Russians used the physical placement of their guns on the ground as a means of aiming the shells over a wide area for these affairs. Every gun would fire on the same elevation and deflection - essentially, not aiming at all - so that the shells would supposedly fall in the same pattern as the placement of their guns. This is a lot simpler than planning a target for every battalion. It is also much less effective for the same expenditure of ammunition. That is why the Russians used higher level artillery formations, up to "artillery armies"). You would not see the FOs of an attacking battalion walking individual batteries over this target and that one with entire artillery battalions all the way up to everything in his corps. Calling a corps level shoot, would mean assigning a battalion level shoot target to each of a dozen artillery battalions, each one as a battalion (above), and usually in sequence but not in parallel. A corps level shoot might last 1-2 hours, with only one battalion's shells actually landing at a time, spaced apart 5-10 minutes. The reason the 105mms (and 25lber) and the 81mm mortars are shown with so much more ammo than the other types in CM, is that they are organic, not outside fires. Outside fires are going to fire one 6-rounds-per-gun mission and have done with it. (For Germans, 120mm mortars and 75mm infantry howitzer are in between).

A German division had 2 150mm *infantry guns* in each regiment, making 6 guns all told. Their were supposed to be 3 batteries of 150mm, one for each artillery battalion (along with 2 batteries of 105mm each). The 150mm infantry guns were being mounted on SiG assault guns as the war progressed, making them rarer in gun form. (The same happened with the regimental 75mm light howitzers, BTW - they went onto half-tracks and such). You would not expect to find the heavier guns at TOE later in the war, except in SS formations or Panzer divisions during a push like the Bulge. Ammo for the 105mms was more plentiful than for the 150mm. Late in the war, the 150mm rockets become much more common, and the 150mm howitzers less so. The late war infantry division pattern was only 6 battalions of infantry, down from 9 battalions earlier in the war. The earlier (main - division-level arty I mean) artillery establishment was 3 battalions, each 2x4x105mm and 1x4x150mm, total 9 batteries supporting 9 battalions. With the 150mm guns not there, they still had 6 batteries, now supporting 6 battalions, and they had a much simpler (and lower) supply picture (tonnage needed per day in combat, etc). The other fellow's 7-8 figure would seem to be a result of treating the regimental infantry howitzers as 1 1/2 "batteries", when in fact they were used in sections of 2, often on assault guns, and not as indirect batteries at all (they had quite low range from low muzzle velocity, which is why they were designated "infantry guns" rather than artillery). His remaining 6, I can see 3 of them for expecting full TOE in the artillery battalions. The only other 150mm weapons are the rockets, which are not the same item at all. Perhaps he is counting a corps level artillery regiment's guns for the other 3 and expecting they can all fire in support (for a "lead" battalion, that is fantasy).

A 2-lber is a 40mm gun. A 6-lber is a 57mm gun. A 17-lber is a 76mm gun. A 25-lber is an 88mm gun. I hope this is what you were after.

Why would they do that? To try to stay alive. Large numbers of fausts were undoubtedly fired at enemy infantry, especially in buildings or bunkers but anywhere being possible. Same is true for bazooka rounds. The Germans built and issued 7 *million* panzerfausts in the last 2 years of WW II. There were only ~200,000 allied AFVs, so there were ~35 fausts for every Allied AFV. Most AFVs that were killed, were killed by other AFVs or dedicated anti-tank guns, because those were the things that could kill them at range and reliably. There was a definite abundance of fausts, and their use was limited by when anything came into range. (Their *effective* range is only about half the listed or maximum range, thus ~50 yards for the best late-war models). Most fausts were never fired at all, simply because most of them were issued to men who never got that close to anything enemy, period. Whenever there was an enemy within effective range, it would seem sensible to use the darn thing. It made a big bang, like throwing a larger grenade with a rocket assist. What, you think the average WW II infantryman *wanted* to get <50 yards from an enemy tank? - LOL.

Those forces might be everything within range of a brigade's sector (and where did "brigade" come from? There weren't any, unless the fellow meant combat-command in an armored division. Everybody else used regiments). But that hardly means they will all fire in support of a battalion on "point". Every battalion had a battery of 81mm, but they did not support units outside the battalion. "Why, they had radios, so..." Because #1 their own battalion needed support and #2 the limit on shells fired for the entire war is *not* tubes, it is *shells*. Armies provide more tubes than they can continually put shells through, precisely in order for people to have their own tubes assigned to them. Why is it so hard to grok that the number of tubes in range is simply not the issue, at all? Seconds, the 4.2" mortars are the "chemical" mortars. They are a very low priority for HE ammunition. They were indeed used for that sometimes, and they also regularly fired smoke missions for a regiment or a division. When a division logistics officer is planning an offensive and its supporting fires, his actual constraints are thruput of his transport chain and shells he can draw from some depot or port or landing site somewhere. Not tubes. He is not going to say "oh, and gee make sure the 4.2" mortars can all join in, because we wouldn't want them to feel left out", if all it means is space used for mortars shells and 105mm artillery shells and the same total delivery as he'd get using his available transport space for just 105mm. Every regiment had its own 105mm battalion attached. That is 3 batteries of 105mm in CM terms. That is the operational unit for supporting fires. The other two regiments in the division have more. The division has the one battalion / 3 batteries of 155mm, which incidentally have longer range and are the best weapon the force has for counterbattery fire, or shelling a railyard or bridge area somewhere in the enemy rear. An attacking battalion could count on the fire of its battalion mortars, until they ran out of ammo. It could count on the fire of batteries from the regimental artillery battalion, until they ran out of ammo, or another battalion called for their fire, or they had to displace, or they had another artillery target scheduled for bombardment besides "on call" during a battle, etc. If the fight was a determined assault on a dug in defender, then what you could expect is a prepartory bombardment up to 2 hours long, by the guns of the regiment or the division. Guns from other divisions that are "in range", they would not have a snowballs chance of getting. The only time units got those is when one forward unit was defending in the middle of an enemy attack, or in a location from which it could see for 10 miles in several directions. Then its calls were the most target-rich shots in the corps or the army. That did happen, but the result was sporadic fire. But how many fire mission did a battalion call in, in such spots? The highest I've ever heard of in the unit histories is about 40 a day. Not 40 batteries times 3-4 fire missions each in 30 minutes. 40 fire missions, aka about 10-13 CM modules, in an entire day. For a unit surrounded by Germans with clear views for miles in every direction, calling in fire from 3 different divisions, plus corp level stuff. The most any battalion level CM fight merits is 3x105mm plus 1x81mm, meaning the battalion mortars and the artillery battalion attached to the regimental combat team or armored combat command your battalion is part of. If you want to simulate very high ammo for a major attack, you could take 2 FOs for the mortars but only use one of them at a time, to increase the available ammo load. For the Brits it is the same story, just 25 lbers instead of 105s and 3" mortars instead of 81mm. For the Germans, the 81mm are teh same, but the additional stuff could be more grab-bag. 1x75mm for infantry formations, for instance (the regimental light howitzers). 2-3x150mm rockets in *one* barrage. 1-2x120mm mortars. Or 1-2x105mm artillery. But those are *or*, not *and*, once you get past the 75mm.

The grand battery was placed opposite the lowest point of the ridge, left to right, and in front of Picton's position. Its fire routed one brigade rapidly, and that sector continued to lose men. In order to avoid losing men repeatedly, the line had to be moved back about a quarter of a mile. The area along the front between the main part of Wellington's position, and Picton's part, was thus disunited somewhat - at the front. Step one. The ground in front of Picton's position is steep, and there is tons of dead ground there. On the reverse slope means unable to dispute the passage of the French infantry to the forward slope. Then both infantries are in reverse slope to each other; there is nothing to choose between them, and certainly no advantage to Picton or the British. That is step two. The next stage is to move the infantry onto the crest itself, and to dispute only the immediate area with the Brits. Understand, the Brits cannot advance to the crest, or the grand battery just starts up again. So the crest is empty. The French infantry only needs to push the Brits back a short distance, and then they can stop pressing and defend from the crest. That is step three. It was fully expected the Brits might try to use cavalry to get the French off the ridge again. That is why 3 cavalry divisions supported the attack, ready to countercharge. It is also part of why the French moved in formations that could form square rapidly, to repel cavalry. In most cases in Napoleonic warfare, the counter-charger has distinct advantages over the initial charger, in cavalry vs. cavalry fights, and that was the planned use of the supporting cavalry. Once that was accomplished and the crest line made even remotely secure, the grand battery was not going to sit still, but move right up onto it. There is no additional ridge line and little if any dead ground from that crest as far as Mount St. Jean. Nothing would be able to stand on the back slope anymore. And remember, the rest of the defenders over to the left, cannot easily come across to support, if the left part of the grand battery hasn't displace yet. Then the ridge is turned and rolled up right to left. With the reserve - the Guard and plenty of cavalry - available to hit it from the hidden side of the hill, too. (Same location they were eventually used). That was a very dangerous plan for the British, and it could very easily have worked. Why didn't it? First, Picton's troops put up an excellent fight, but they *were* pushed back. They even counterattacked in places, into thinner parts of the French blocks (screens between two denser columns probably). But the infantry was not winning, and that part of the French plan succeeded. But the fight with the infantry had spread some disorder through the French infantry. And the British heavies charged at the exact moment some of them had chosen (probably unwisely by the way) to try to deploy into line. Although you may not realize it, there were proper intervals between the attacking columns, which are supposed to prevent a crowd-like press, even if one column breaks up. But at the moment of deploying into line, these intervals are being filled. It was also about the only time they could not have easily made the changes to form square. That is the state they were in when the British heavy cavalry hit them. That was one of the most successful charges by cavalry against infantry in the entire Napoleonic wars, from end to end. There was nothing "deterministic" about that outcome. The Brit cavalry got lucky. Their charge also carried them through part of the French grand battery, which caught up many of the French artillery's horses in the press. The idea of moving the grand battery forward became much harder. Then they also hit the Cuirassiers that were there to countercharge them. And broke them, which is a case of "wow", considering the disorder they were already in from the fight with the French infantry. The British cavalry then overextended itself and was decimated by the French light cavalry riding them down on blown horses. But they had practically won the battle. As for the charges and Ney in command, Ney did not support the charges with infantry because he couldn't find any that was effective and not committed (outside of the Guard, which was off-limits to him). Napoleon was seeing to the deployment of the reserve VI corps and young guard opposite the arriving Prussians. (It is, incidentally, a myth that he didn't know they were coming - he knew that morning, though not in what total strength). Napoleon undoubtedly assumed that some of D'Erlons infantry would have reformed already, or that Reille would not have committed almost all of his forces (in sequence, not at once) at Hougemont. He therefore assumed Ney was supporting the charges with infantry. In fact he wasn't - all of D'Erlons men that had reformed were trying to take La Haye Saint, and Ney did not move them from that task (which he probably should have, but they may not have been enough anyway). That was a fog-of-war and unity of command stuff up, no question. Which again hardly fits the picture of it being dumb to have attacked frontally. Wellington, who was there and running his army and counting his reserves and seeing who wavered, was not so confident that he had nothing to worry about as your description would have it. He needed and got outstanding performances from Picton's force (he died on the field leading one charge) and from the British heavy cavalry, to escape danger. There was nothing written in stone about it beforehand; it depended on a few critical passages of arms. We are a long way from CM, I notice...

Like the attacker knows which ridge line, and where along it, is the site of the defense... The admonition not to be too predictable is a sound one, but the reverse slope is no more susceptible to its application, than anything else a defender can try.

Fair enough on "I didn't mean all", except there is a definite tendency that way in misidentified examples. For instance, in the same post in which the fellow agrees he didn't mean all, he calls Waterloo an example of s dumb frontal attack that caused terribly losses for the attacker and no corresponding damage to the defender. The problem with this lovely notion is that it is not true. It fits and reveals the pre-conceived idea that all frontal attacks are stupid and fail because they deserve to. But Napoleon, not exactly the dumbest general in all history, looked over that field and decided on a frontal attack. And the Duke of Wellington, an acknowledged master of defensive warfare in the era, himself called in the "nearest run thing you ever saw in your life", which hardly sounds like a fruitless and idiotic attacker loss, easily repulsed. If any of you doubt it, try something like the Battleground Series BGW version, firgue out what Napoleon's plan actually was (it becomes reasonably apparent with the terrain in front of you) and impliment Napoleon's actual plan. You will find it was in fact quite dangerous to the defenders. In the historical event, it took a number of passages of arms breaking their way - notably the perfectly timed charge of the heavy brigades, and the result of their clash with the French Cuirassiers supporting the French infantry - for the British line to hold at all. I can explain more at length to anyone who cares to know, but the point remains. The fellow sees examples of stupid frontal attack everywhere because he is predisposed to regard every frontal attack as stupid, so he sees them when they are not really there. That does not mean there aren't any, obviously. On the subject of Gettysburg, while the 3rd day was obviously a mistake, it is not so clear Lee had the freedom of action monday morning recommends to him, or that Longstreet recommended at the time. People overlook the logistic aspect of campaigns in the era of armies moving on foot. Lee had just completed a long flanking march through mountain valleys with quite limited supplies throughout them, and was undoubtedly eating out such food as existed within foraging distance of his line of march. He is often criticised for not having the cavalry with him, but its forays to the north and east had at least allowed Rhodes and Early's divisions to forage in the lower, more fertile territory east of the mountains. The flank march south that Jeff recommends was recommended at the time by Longstreet, and it may well have been a better course. But it meant trying to supply the army in a hostile countryside that large portions of the Union army has just marched through, which would thus probably yield rather little in the way of food. The men in the meantime were probably living on dried peanuts and hardtack. The success on the first day opened the possibility that Lee might successfully dislodge the AoP, prevent its concentration, and thereby gain very useful space east of the mountains, with all the improvement in the supply situation that would have involved. It is not too surprising that he ordered an attack on the 2nd day, therefore. He hardly knew as much as we do today, about how much of the AoP had arrived in time for the next day's battle. None of which excuse the stubborn attack of the 3rd day. But the point is that wide manuevers over any portion of a map are not always practical for a foot-bound army, especially one that has just made a long march through relatively uninhabited mountain country. In case anybody forgot, the battle started when Heth's men went toward the town looking for *shoes*, because many of them had worn out the ones they had in the march north. For what it is worth...

ASL Vet, that was an exceptionally good post and an exceptionally clear one, and I take its criticisms in good part. I am guilty of the scatter-brained use of terms you have nicely brought out in your history. To me, a large portion of this has to do with the rigidity of the opposition of the two terms (man + att), and the failure to make distinctions between levels of warfare. More on that anon, but first I should clear up my slipshod characterizations of Napoleon, and what I think about or learn from him. My comments about Napoleon as sovereign and his fighting everyone, were suggesting a somewhat questioning begging linkage between cockiness and worship of command genius. There is no actual, necessary connection between these things and the military doctrines themselves. It is more an insinuation than an argument. To put it more straightforwardly, I distrust the hero-worship aspect I detect in some manueverist advocates, because I think overconfidence is a deadly military failing, at the diplomatic or war-decision level. I do think Napoleon suffered from such overconfidence. Lord knows he had perfectly adequate reason to believe he outclassed all the rival generals of his age. Talleyrand was always trying to keep him from relying on that too much, and to limit the number of France's enemies - without much success. "If you give advice to a prince, and it not being taken disaster follows, you will reap great glory" - Machiavelli. LOL. I was recording my agreement with Talleyrand in these respects. The connection of all of that to the actual military doctrine controversies, is dubious and uncertain at best. And those advocating the importance of manuever in warfare, do not really deserve to be painted as the origin of overconfidence, as I painted them. Second, I entirely agree with you that Napoleon made the destruction of the main body of the enemy army the primary object of his campaigns. I have quoted him on the subject myself, on these boards and recently, to that effect. I stated my understanding of that as the proper goal of strategy, and in doing so I am aware that I am agreeing with that outlook of Napoleon. I think he got that right, and that it remains true in WW II and today. Part of the confusion that I caused here, which is certainly my own fault and which you pointed out well, is that I am really arguing against "manueverist ownership" of Napoleon, or against a version of the cause of his successes that I do not think is historically true, of the man and the events. I also agree and have stated, that to me Napoleon is the master of operational manuever. This fact is the basis of the presumptive manueverist "ownership" of the man. The position I am arguing *for*, rather than against, is for #1 a goal of *strategy* focused on destruction of the enemy army plus #2 a view of *operational* manuever as an important "force multiplier". I consider those opinions of my own, to be in substantial agreement with Napoleon's teachings. I am following him. You are quite right that my own statements did not say this, and made it appear the opposite, and that is my fault. But him rather than those who have interpreted him as a manueverist through and through, in their own sense of it. Not Napoleon blended with Sun Tsu, but Napoleon, to put it as a formula of authorities. I also mentioned in passing that I considered Napoleon's tactics to be attritionist. By that I mean such things as the decision by the last reserve, or "le moment juste". I think this was not just a matter of him as opposed to others in his time, but in the nature of the weapons of the age. Frontages were more nearly packed at all times, making local odds impossible to achieve but outlasting an enemy through "depth tactics" (ranks and reliefs, etc) a feasible alternative. In my opinion, the room for manuever on the tactical level has increased since then. To me this is a (somewhat paradoxical, perhaps) consequence of the increase in firepower, especially indirect artillery firepower. Increased ranges for direct fire weapons are also part of the change. Those force and allow units to spread out, reducing the effectiveness or "packed frontages" and all around deployments. When units are more spread out, the ratio of force to space can vary over a much wider range. It is a tactical danger, not a physical inability, that is setting the upper limit on concentration of force. Well, widely varying degrees of concentration of force favor manuever ideas, because they make it possible, under the right conditions, for a more compact body to fight thinner enemies at high local odds, then to repeat that in sequence, and thus to fight an equal number of enemies at always-higher local odds. This simply can't be done against packed all around deployments when all weapons have limited range, and powerful "area effect" indirect fire weapons do not (yet) exist. So the room for manuever to matter tactically has increased since Napoleon's time. I think that both manuever ideas and reserve/rank/le moment juste ideas can matter in WW II and modern tactical combat. It is perhaps a stretch to call the latter "attrition" ideas. "Depth tactics" are probably a better term. I can then unpack my reading of Napoleon to four levels. Diplomatically he was overconfident, or believed his superior generalship could outweigh numerous enemies. Strategically, he targeted the main body of the enemy armed forces and sought to destroy them. Operationally, he was a master of manuever. Tactically, he employed the depth tactics that were practically required by the weapons and force sizes of his day. My own beliefs on the same levels are, first at the diplomatic level, that superior generalship may indeed help win wars against roughly equal opponents, but that it is nearly always an error to rely on superior generalship to justify risking war with more than equal enemies. It make work for a while, but it is a bad bet that it will work long enough. Second, I agree entirely that the goal of strategy is destruction of the enemy force, and third, that operational manuever is an important aid in bringing this about. I probably disagree with many manueverists about the scale and conditions that importance, however. Last, I think that both manuever ideas (or many-on-one through force placement or concentration) and depth ideas (or outlasting, reserves, moment juste, etc) can apply at the tactical level in WW II and modern combat. They lead to different recommendations. Where have I put the stock "manueverists" I pretend I am arguing against? And which of these assigned positionings do I, upon reflection, think are fair or real positions of at least some of them? I painted them as teachers of overconfidence through faith in the power of genius in warfare. But I acknowledge that charge is overblown and tendentious. I think at least some of them, say the Sun Tsu variety, disagree that the purpose of strategy is the destruction of the enemy armed force. They have reasons for that, but I do not find them convincing. When some of them point to the possibility of manuever being decisive, then do not mean "decisive in bringing about the destruction of the enemy force", but capable of being decisive on its own. As in the maxim, the highest perfection of the military art is to attain the objective without fighting. But I acknowledge that not all who accept the "manueverist" label, are of this Sun Tsu opinion. Some of them see the decisiveness of manuever precisely in its ability to bring about the destruction of the enemy force, or to aid in accomplishing that. I am not actually disagreeing with these people on this point alone (but see the next), but I have not made that apparent, I recognize. On the importance of operational manuever, I do regard it as important. But I regard its importance as occurring within limits set by the ratio of forces actually obtaining. That is, I think the force multipliers operational manuever can be expected to generate, are bounded. And I think they are especially tightly bounded, when the opponent has a mostly modern doctrine, a mobile force, reserves, and is not making a few specific mistakes. I think force multipliers from manuever still exist even in that case, and I think proper doctrinal use of mobile combined arms is particularly important both in reaping them, and in avoiding them falling to the enemy. My Kursk example was meant to show, that against a properly deployed and mobile enemy, there are definite limits to the scale of multiplier one can expect from operational use of the available forces. In case anyone doesn't understand my contentions, I think the German attack at Kursk was a mistake and should not have been tried, and I do not think an altered scheme of manuever could have made it succeed. I think a better use of mobile and armor assets available to the Germans then, would have been to conduct a mobile defense, in which there would have been room for manuever "multipliers", but also defender's advantages. Next, I must address your fine direct questions, one going back to the age of fortress warfare. First, I think that the age of fortress warfare is sometimes made too much of by military historians drawing a constrast between the Napoleonic period and the prior ones. I agree a change occurs. But I find decisive battle important in the 30 years war, English civil war, in the time of Marlborough, and in the time of Frederick the Great. Which is every 50 years from 1600 to the time of Napoleon, effectively. But yes, the intensity of warfare increased and the size of armies increased enourmously. To the extent that the actual history fits the contrast drawn by the historians, what I find in the age of Turenne is in large part the principles of Sun Tsu, but with some provisos. He inveighs against the seige of walled cities; it is artless to him (and perhaps it was "attrition"). But there is the same focus on achieving the objective by manipulating the contraints on the enemy commander, besides his srrength in battle - where he can be supplied for example, or whether he can afford to remain in the field for three seasons. Then there is the idea that the defeat of Napoleon was brought about by the "advance on the marshals, retire from Napoleon" plan. It is certainly true in some respects, but I think it underrates the effect of the Battle of Leipzig. They did not avoid Napoleon there, they just hit him with 300,000 men. In particular, Blucher recommended battle with Napoleon himself - "a simultaneous attack, against the point where the enemy has concentrated its forces, might be undertaken". It was definitely a case of "hit 'em where he *is*". In the later 1814 campaign in France, the idea of avoiding Napoleon and pressing his marshals was renewed. This had nastier attrition effects on the men with Napoleon than some might imagine, because it cast them in the role of "fire brigade" running hither and yon and fighting numerous battles in quick succession. This is the "blitzkrieg" engagement in sequence idea, certainly, and the campaign is a masterpiece of operational manuever. But the battles and the forces marches it involved took quite a toll. These were not tanks. Napoleon said "unfortunately the Young Guard is melting like snow". And then there is the fact that he came back, and had to be defeated again in pitched battle. The capitulation of Paris by the marshals was not quite his last straw. All in all, while I recognize nuances in the piece, I am comfortable with the statement that Napoleon was eventually defeated by the effects of attrition strategies (including earlier, Spain and the Russian campaign), and not by manuever. Ultimately, the labels "attritionist" and "manueverist" are still too broad to capture the nuances of doctrine and changes in the art of war, and especially distinctions among levels or scale. Not because they are the same thing. But because there are more differences involved than just that one distinction, and more types or doctrines hiding inside each label than just one each. I want to again thank ASL vet for a most enjoyable and thoughtful post, and for his fair criticisms of my previous efforts.

"idiotic "head-on" attrition" There they go again. Frontal attack does not equal idiotic. I prove it out of the battles of Napoleon. At Jena he attacked frontally against an inferior force and won decisively because the defenders were scattered. At Wagram he attacked frontally and won decisively by breaking the enemy center. At Borodino he attacked frontally and won, a more even battle. At Dresden he sortied against the enemy center, when the enemy was too spread trying to threaten his flanks, and won. At Ligny he attacked frontally and broke the enemy center. At Waterloo he attacked frontally and lost, but it was, in the words of the defender, "the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life". Even at Austerlitz, probably the greatest success of grand tactical "manuever" since Cannae, the decisive movement was a frontal attack on an enemy tricked into turning Napoleon's flank, or in other words a frontal attack on an enemy attempting a flank march while near contact. And his largest defeat, Leipzig, was a frontal attack by the combined Allies, that he could not stop because of weight of numbers. "Oh, but that was only in that era". Grant in the Wilderness, U.S in WW II at St. Lo and in Lorraine, Ridgeway in Korea - all succesful use of frontal attacks. It is no more correct to equate frontal attacks with "idiocy" than to equate running between the tackles in football with "idiocy". It is one of the options open to whoever has the initiative or an odds edge or both, and it is also often a highly effective way of seizing or maintaining said initiative (ask the Russians, post Kursk through Bagration or even down to the end of the war). Nor does attrition equal idiotic. If you want to establish such a proposition, you have to actually argue it. Pretending it is true by definition, or trying to make it seem true by endless repetition of question-begging statements, will not suffice to make it so. Have their been dumb frontal attacks in history? Sure, and Pickett's charge is fine example. Have their been dumb flanking attempts in history? You betcha, see Austerlitz above.

I think you are misunderstanding the use of such an analysis. It is about settling on tactics and techniques, and it is one factor in planning out a defensive set-up and force mix. It is not about analysing on-going events in a battle at all. If I notice that is practice my 50mm PAKs can be neutralized by an enemy combined arms force, I might conclude that they are useless and drop them from the force mix altogether. But this could be an error. The point-like attrition-thinking calculations are only meant to check whether this is so. If the enemy combined arms force that can neutral one 50mm PAK, requires 2 Shermans, an infantry platoon, and an 81mm Mortar FO, and the end result is one dead tank, the ammo of the FO gone, and the entire force above engaged distracted held up or delayed for 5-10 minutes, obviously that 50mm PAK was doing a heck of a good job. And 2-4 of them might do an even better job. And the enemy might not be able to tackle them at all, combined arms or no, or might not be able to tackle my whole force mix with 2-4 50mm PAK included in it. Looking only at an incident in which the enemy took out one of your units by applying superior force to it, you can easily get an incorrect idea of his capability to neutralize such units, and of their effectiveness. There is nothing you can buy for your force, than an enemy cannot defeat if he throws 10 times the force cost at it, to neutralize it. And especially with cheaper, more common weapons, one can easily get an incorrect impression, because at some point in their fighting lifetimes they will almost certainly be hit by a much larger portion of the enemy force, than they represent of your own. The thinking behind this is really quite simple. If it uses up and wears out 10% of his force to neutralize one of my weapons of type A, then whether a tactic or technique using weapon A can be used against him successfully, has everything to do with whether I can have 5 of them or can have 20 of them. (Not that I am going to buy 20 of anything besides infantry squads, mind). The particular context in which this discussion arose, was the use of light cannon - PAK and FLAK especially, infantry guns and on-board mortars too - as part of a German infantry defense force. Some thought the light cannon were too vunerable to enemy artillery to help much. But in fact, no attacker is going to have time and artillery sufficient, to neutralize all the light cannon of a proper German infantry defense, and still have enough left to help him with his main task of taking on the German infantry as well. The apparent vunerability of one gun, to enemy artillery, is a trivial consequence of the fact that 1 20mm FLAK is not nearly as big a military item as a battery of 105mm off-board artillery. In CM terms, the 20mm FLAK costs only 1/8th as much. Concluding that its vunerability made it ineffective, therefore, would be like concluding an infantry squad is "ineffective" because an enemy infantry company can break and rout it with overwhelming firepower. Which is not true, for exactly the same reason - he cannot match every squad of yours with an entire company of his. That is all it is about. Do the guns add to the infantry defense or are they a waste, an ineffective tactic or technique, because of their supposed vunerability to enemy artillery? (Basically, because they can't run away from an artillery barrage zone, in the words). The answer is "no, they are not a waste; yes, they are an effective addition to an infantry force". And an attrition-thinking, "abacus" analysis, will show that. From which the conclusion is just "buy the guns". An additional conclusion of the same nature are - you can afford to lose PAKs if they get kills of enemy tanks, but you *cannot* afford to lose your PAKs after only picking off a half-track or scout car. Which is very important tactical information to have, because it will change the ambush techniques used, the fire discipline decisions, the way enemy scouts are dealt with, etc.