jasoncawley@ameritech.net

The armored cars would almost always be tne 20mm variety. The most common gun-armed halftrack would be the SPW-251/9, the larger of the two with a 75mm infantry gun aboard. One of those and 2 of the armored cars is a believable mix, with the 75mm used for HE (e.g. against buildings), the 20mm used against light enemy vehicles. Give the accompanying armored Pz Gdr platoon a schreck too, and if the recce guys are alone, some kind of FO (105mm the most common). The second most common gun halftrack would be the SPW-250/9, which is the 20mm on a small halfrtrack. Don't use the 250 (small) one for the 75mm. It doesn't carry enough ammo. On the British tanks, yes you are correct. There is little difference between the "II" and "V" varieties, just pick one. The serious difference is whether they have the 76mm 17-lb gun or not (= "Firefly" or not). 1 out of 4 should, the other 3 should have the 75mm. There are some scenarios I have seen that have German armored recon, but not exact. Many of them include a wide mix of vehicle types, for no good reason except to show them off or make the fight seem neato. I can only direct you to the CM-HQ to browse for them. One was about a single platoon of U.S. engineers facing a bunch of them.

Two bad ideas on this thread, and one on which I have less of an opinion. Scripts are a horrible idea. I say that as one who played the spread-sheet like 4X space game "stars" for several years and wrote most of its strategy guide. I also wrote 5000 posts on the newsgroup about that game. The level of optimization work thrown at it was rather heavy. The primary effect of that work, in the aggregate, was to create a super-steep learning curve for newbies. Any player who followed the newsgroup regularly for 3 months could not possibly lose against almost everyone who had not - only a few particularly gifted players excepted. Only a resolutely free-n-open culture around these things kept that fine game from being killed by this. (Incidentally, another waypoint and we-go system). The purpose of a game system is not to raise the standard of best play to the highest possible level. That is what scripting, or similar automated "best practices" techniques, do. Nobody gains a single thing from everyone's moves in a CM game being "tweaked" to high heaven. Not a thing. Good game design had nothing to do with good CM play. The second bad idea on the thread is one fellow expressing the sentiment that if he is "playing" the company commander, he "doesn't want" to "be" the platoon and squad commanders too. The reason military strategy games are good strategy games is because the players *do* command multiple levels. An accurate sim of a private's actions in a civil war battle would not include a single interesting decision. For a general, it would include perhaps 2-3 decisions over the whole thing that were not immediate and automatic responses to the tactical situation. The lives of single military officers are frankly just not interesting enough to make a strategy game out of. This is not a criticism of them. It is simply a result of the quite limited impact one person's decisions actually have on a full scale battle. Strategy games are about a battle of wits between two opposing commanders. Their wits, the interaction of their decisions, have to decide the outcome. That is the sole attraction of the things, and it is why chess, which simulates nothing, is a fine strategy game. Meanwhile, while an accurate sim of a single Marine's life on Guadalcanal would be an excruciating ordeal, not fun. We want a strategy game. At the moment we have one. People that want to neuter it into a mere sim do not understand what they are asking for. Good game design is a lot harder than sim design. If you get the level of aggregation just right, and the command span just right, and the degree of fog-of-war just right, you can get a good game out of it. If you ignore those things and reduce the player to a single position, almost nothing he does will have a decisive impact on the outcome. "But I called for fire". Well, somebody else relayed the fire coordinates - maybe he screwed them up. "I told the platoon to advance down axis Alpha". But the point saw what he thought was a mine and went elsewhere. An accurate sim of a typical low-level commander's role in a WW II battle would be a mass of frustration punctuated by three randomly selected decisions actually carried into effect, one of which turned out to be wrong. The last idea on the thread, the one that started it, I have less of a definite opinion on. I see no strong need for the kinds of additions asked for. The game would be pretty useless to me without the strategic AI. (I use it e.g. to command defenders in scenarios I design for players in campaigns). Playability is a vastly more important feature than allowing either the best possible play or the most literal implimentation of every WW II action. If I want to represent dismounting of scouts, I put extra teams on the vehicles. I don't give a tuppenny darn whether they were "really" there. If the game effect is right - Stuart pulls up to here, men proceed on foot, men spot target, side reacts to things seen - then I do not care a whit about the rest of the details, like whether 4 men or 5 were involved and whether one of them had a scoped rifle. On the artillery missions, they actually used lifts not continuous walks. And fine-tuning fire missions to the last shell seems ridiculous to me. Buy another module. You can have all the in-game effects, it is only competitive resource stretching in the first place. But all of that said, if the improvements this fellow wants, or anyone else wants, would *not* hurt the AI, then fine.

"how much armour was typically present when an infantry battalion was on the advance"? It depends on the force type, but you aren't far off. In U.S. infantry divisions, you'd expect 2-5 tanks or 2-4 TDs per company. If a whole battalion is involved, up to 17 tanks, but 10 might be more common. With the Brits, for a whole battalion you'd expect up to 14 tanks. German infantry, the support would usually be assault guns or tank destroyers, around 10. The armor forces on all sides would have a much higher ratio of tanks. The way they would attack in CM would be more like a company or two of infantry, usually mounted by not always, to a company of tanks. That means 13-17 depending in the organization, but in combat they might well be somewhat understrength. As for the types, German infantry units would have StuG IIIs most often, in 3's, and German panzer units would have either Pz IVs, Panthers, or a mix of both, in bunchs of ~4. (So 8 and 8 is fine, as is 8 and 4 or 4 and 4, but usually not 2 and 2 or 3 and 1). The Brits would typically have bunches of 4 in which 1 was a Firefly, and 3 were standard Shermans. Or 4 Cromwell. Sometimes 4 TDs instead, though not as often as the U.S. The U.S. would generally have bunches of 4 tank destroyers (M10-18-36), and/or bunches of 5 Shermans, with 1-2 Sherman 76 included after Normandy. A few Stuarts would be common with a large group of U.S. tanks, to scout for them. U.S. TDs in large groups would have a few M-8s or M-20s instead, the scout cars. The Brits used armored cars to scout for tanks, too, especially with the Cromwells (Humbler and Daimler). Dedicated U.S. scout units did not use halftracks, they used light armor (M-8, M-20, Stuarts) and jeeps instead. (These tended to come in 2s and 3s). The half-tracked infantry for the U.S. was the armored infantry battalions, which were main combat units rather than recon. The Germans on the other hand had seperate recon units, big enough to operate independently, that included both light armor and armored infantry. A typical case would be 3 armored cars, light tanks, or gun-armed half-tracks (not mortars either), plus a platoon of Panzergrenadiers in 4 halftracks, making 7 vehicles in all. I hope this is useful.

Of course it is a strategic rate. I am not trying to deduce that the accuracy at 2 meters was 1/500. The strategic rate sort of matters. And if you enumerate all the factors you like and try to put numbers on them, you will not wind up with 50% of shots equal to kills. Do I know the number of shots? No, nobody does. And nobody is ever going to, either. But you can put plausible, wide-range numbers on the intervening factors, like how many were overrun in depots, and how many were fired at buildings, and how many the would-be shooter bought it first. They just have to all multiply out to 1/300 or 1/500, as I said. If you try to put numbers on those links in the chain, I think you will rapidly find they are not plausible, if you try to get the strategic rate out at the end, with an assumption of high accuracy, shooting at close range, and shooting at the doctrinal targets. What do I conclude from this? That the fausts were mostly not used as the doctrine said they should be. I can give plenty of plausible explanations for that, such as not everyone wants to be a dead tank-hunting hero with a posthumous medal, and a faust is a dangerous item to possess when a sergeant needs something very risky done urgently, and it is a plausibly useful uber-grenade. And the same reasons, and other perfectly obvious ones, probably led most of the ones that were fired at armor, to be fired from rather far away. With a sizeable portion of misses resulting. How sizeable, I do not know, but sizable. Why do I say this? Because most of the other terms of the series between strategic and tactical rate, are plausible factors of 2 at most. And 1/500 covers *9* of those, compounded. And there aren't 9 such layered issues to account for all of the blighters. So somewhere along the way, there are one or more places where the term is not "divide by 2" but is instead more like "divide by 10", or 5. And the only plausible ones in the list, for which numbers that low are believable at all, are "fired at other targets", and "missed". Do you think 90% of the fausts made and delivered, fell apart in the rain? 1/4 I do not mind at all, because being generous about things like that will make no appreciable impact on 9 powers of 2 in succession. Incidentally, with most of the fausts delivered in the last year of the war, if you work it out your own numbers will put the "lifespan" of the ~4-5 fausts per platoon CM assigns, at about a week.

I found my mistake about the Guards - you are quite right. The ~600 figure I saw was for the Guards Armored and 2 brigades, the 29th and the 33rd, not for one other. Those ~600 were in the Bulge. As for the Brit armor changes, they did start with a 6-1 mix when the first ADs were organized pre-war. By the time of France, the 1 AD had a 6-2 organization, but both infantry battalions were attached elsewhere, while the arty was sent up to BEF HQ. In Wavell's offensive in Libya against the Italians, 7 AD seems to have been on a 6-2 basis too. By 1942, 1 AD moves to 3-4 before the Gazala battles. 7 AD was 6-5 by the time of El Alamein. 10 AD was also 6-5 around the time of El Alamein. The transition from 6-2 style tank-heavy to mixed, seems to have occurred during the North Africa fighting. Operationally, I know they were still seperating the armor too much there. In Crusader, the armor formations were largely destroyed while fighting independently, while Valentines working the the New Zealanders fought well (3-9). At Gazala, the attack at Knightsbridge conspicuously lacked support from other arms, and that is May of 1942, after 1 AD had already moved to a 3-4 layout. By El Alamein, there is combined arms in the field as well as the TOEs. The "attaching out" of supporting arms, seen in the 1940 case, seems to have persisted too long in North Africa. But it was eventually corrected there. I also found this on the mixed divisions - "By mid-1942 5 of these brigades ("Army" being dropped) replaced the 3rd infantry brigade in the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 43rd, and 53rd Infantry Divisions. These weren't suitable and the 'mixed' divisions were abolished in 1943." For those who thought the Brits never fielded a 6-2 AD, here is an OOB of 1st AD in France - HQ 1st Armoured Division 2nd Armoured Brigade The Queen's Bays 9th Queen's Royal Lancers 10th Royal Hussars 3rd Armoured Brigade 2nd Bn The Royal Tank Regiment 3rd Bn The Royal Tank Regiment 5th Bn The Royal Tank Regiment 1st Support Group 1st Royal Horse Artillery Regiment *attached to BEF 2nd Royal Horse Artillery Regiment *attached to BEF 101st Light Anti-Aircraft/Anti-Tank Regiment RA 1st Bn The Rifle Brigade (mot) *attached to 30th Inf Bde (55th Inf Div) 2nd Bn King's Royal Rifle Corps (mot) *attached to 30th Inf Bde (55th Inf Div) Divisional Troops 1st Armoured Divisional Signals Royal Engineers Royal Army Service Corps Royal Army Medical Corps Royal Army Ordnance Corps Divisional Admin Troops Fun stuff, and thanks for the corrections.

I was under the impression that the British armor divisions had rather more armor than that, even late. I've seen reports like 600 tanks in the Grds. Arm. plus one armor brigade, for instance. Was the Grds. a special division, retaining 2 armor brigades, or were 2 of them standard in the late war British AD? If the latter, when did they make the changeover to 1 brigade? Or perhaps my source was simply wrong. Earlier, I know the Brits used a 6-1-3 ratio (the 3 meaning artillery) in North Africa, which they later modified to 6-2-3 plus 1 AT and 1 armored car recon. Another interesting fact is that apparently, there was between 1942 and sometime in 1943, an experiment to assign one brigade each to infantry divisions, in place of one of the infantry brigades. This would have meant 3-6-3, a very good ratio. They went ahead with it for 5 different divisions, but then dropped the idea and abandoned them. I have no idea why. The 1-3 ratio of the British divisions when they had armor attached, was indeed a useful one. The Germans were remarking even as early as the Africa fighting that commonwealth infantry divisions that worked well with their "infantry" tanks, gave them the hardest time. Notably, the New Zealanders in the relief of Tobruk fighting.

By late in the war, the panzer-grenadier division was relatively rare and was used for much the same purposes as a panzer division. To understand the issue, you have to know that the composition of the panzer division itself was not static. It changed over the course of the war, and different types were also in existence side by side. Before the war, the Germans had tank-heavy armor formations, though not as tank-heavy as other powers had until much later on. The original panzer division had 2 armor regiments, each of 2 battalions, and 1 infantry regiment, with 2 battalions in trucks plus a motorcycle battalion. There was also a division recon battalion with armored cars, 1 battalion of engineers, 2 artillery battalions and 1 (towed) anti-tank battalion. By later standards, it was light on the artillery and infantry, heavy on recon and tanks. Tank-infantry, the ratio is 4 to 3, not counting recon and engineers. And the portion of artillery and towed guns was 3 to those 7. This formation type was found to be too tank-heavy as early as the Polish campaign. So one of the panzer regiments would be split off to a new panzer division, leaving 2 panzer battalions in one panzer regiment. The infantry portion of the division was raised to 4 battalions, not counting the motorcyle one, and a 3rd artillery battalion was added. This was the organization at the time of the French campaign. The armor-infantry ratio was now 2 to 5, a large swing from the previous. The artillery and towed gun portion was 4 to 7, a small adjustment upward. But the Germans were still experimenting with the mix of tanks and infantry that would work best in practice. Too little infantry in the division had the drawback that any heavy fighting quickly burnt it out, and it then needed support by other formations (operationally bad), or to be pulled out of the line to refit and take replacements (often worse). Too much infantry would dilute the fighting power of the tanks, (e.g. winding up with a wider frontage) and unnecessarily slow the division down by lengthening its columns and its supply needs. Similarly, more tube artillery greatly increased the staying power in slogging matches, as indirect fire bore more of the weight. Other types of towed guns increased the defense ability of the division without over-taxing the tanks. In turn, that took some of the weight off of the infantry too, who are called on to take the losses in defensive fighting. Incidentally, in France it was found that the infantry, if backed by tube artillery and towed guns, could stop massed enemy tanks, even types the German tanks could not handle because of their heavy armor (e.g. British Matildas at Arras). Another division type was tried, basically going in a slightly different direction than the main development above. The infantry was kept to 1 regiment, which kept 2 truck and 1 motorcycle battalions. So armor-infantry-artillery was in this case 2-3-3. The ratio of towed guns to others is in this case 4 to 5, considerably higher than in the previous cases. This was called the "light" division, since it was like the panzer division except for less infantry. The 5th light was Rommel's spearhead in Africa, later renamed the 21st Panzer. The next development modified the previous 2-5 panzer division formula. The motorcycle battalions were turned into recon battalions and not kept as a seperate formation. This reduced the infantry to 4 battalions. In a few cases a 4th artillery battalion was added, and a battalion of heavy FLAK, 88s. So the towed guns are going up, and infantry is going down. Meanwhile, the panzers were reduced to a single battalion. This left a formation that was 1 to 4 armor to infantry, and 5 to 5 (or 6) maneuver elements to towed guns. That proved to be too little armor. But these were panzer divisions, in 1942 and fighting in Russia. You noted that the later Panzer-Grenadier division had only 1 panzer battalion. Well, for a period, so did the panzer divisions. But they soon went back to a 2-battalion panzer regiment. At this point, the late-war German panzer division is recognizable. A panzer regiment of 2 battalions, 2 pz gdr regiments of 2 battalions each, 3 artillery battalions, plus AT, recon, engineers, and when available heavy FLAK. The tank-infantry ratio finally stops bouncing around at 1:2, and the maneuver-element to towed gun ratio is hovering between 3:2 and 1:1. Notice, that is close to the ratios of the rather successful light divisions too. Those just needed a smidgen more infantry. At the same time this whole process of discovery by trial and error was going on, the army was trying to create more mobile formations. It would take and infantry division and equipped the unit with trucks, to enable it to keep up with the panzer divisions. These were called motorized infantry divisions and there were always new ones being added. But they were also disappearing "out the other end". Some of the motorized infantry divisions were remade into light divisions (2-3). Some were made into panzer divisions (2-4). And some were made into - panzer grenadier divisions (1-6). The last was in some ways simpler, as the formation just needed a tank battalion attached, plus an ungrade of its recon battalion to the armored type (with armored cars and halftracks). Compared to a panzer division, these units had more infantry and fewer tanks. This gave them longer staying power before burn-out by loss of front-line rifle strength, but less hitting power on the attack. It was therefore well suited to mobile defensive operations. But it was not heavy enough on the armor for the full benefit of combined arms. In the late war, there was another new unit type, the SS Panzer divisions. These used the same structure was the Heer Panzer divisions, except that they had 6 infantry battalions, 3 in each regiment, instead of 4 (2 in each). Which means, they had the infantry of a Pz Gdr division, and the tanks of a Pz division. Alone, this would have dropped the tank-infantry ratio somewhat, to 1:3, and the towed gun portion, to 1:2. But there was another development going on at this time and a bit before. The anti-tank battalions of these mobile divisions were being re-equipped with armored tank destroyers - Marders, StuGs, later Jadgpanzers. And that meant that the armor ratio was going back up somewhat. So the 1:2 armor to infantry ratio was actually being maintained in the 2-6 SS Pz division structure, because it was really more like 3-6. And the Pz Gdr divisions, when or if they made a similar equipment changeover, move to more like 1:3 - a large change, making them much more like panzer divisions had been for most of the war. But they did not always get the equipment. Regular infantry divisions were also getting armored TDs. A Ps Gdr division that wasn't sent new TDs, was organizationally similar to an infantry division that did get them - provided the infantry division were at least somewhat motorized that is (enough to move its guns and HQs, etc). What in the world is all of this about? Up front, it is about making battle groups with a good combined arms mix. Then giving the formation enough depth to relieve the infantry portion if it gets burned out. Now, let's look over at the Americans. They started out with tank-heavy formations too, and kept them until 1942. In 1943, they went to a 3-3-3 armor, infantry, artillery mix for the armored divisions. TDs could add another 1 to the armor though. These were well balanced for combined arms work, and bigger than the German panzer divisions. But compared to the German organization, there wasn't enough infantry to sustain intense combat for long. The U.S. infantry division had 9 infantry battalions, 4 artillery, plus extra guns that could amount to 2 more (chemical mortars, 105mm cannon companies), plus recon, engineers, and AA. And then the U.S. fielded enough "independent" tank and TD battalions, that half the infantry divisions had both, and half had one or the other. The U.S. infantry divisions therefore wound up similar to the Pz Gdr divisions in weapons mix. They were more infantry-heavy and more artillery-heavy, but marginally so, especially since, by mid-war, typical infantry divisions had 2/3rds rifle strength compared to their TOE. If you scan ahead to post-war developments, there is a near consensus that the right ratio of armor to infantry is between 1:1 and 1:3. Anything in that range can work well. 1:1 does lack staying power somewhat, but not hitting power. The Germans bounced around a lot, but the panzer divisions found the 1:2 area pretty fast and mostly stuck with it. When the Heer divisions started becoming a bit armor-heavy again, from inclusion of TDs in the divisional anti-tank battalion, they lowered the tanks per platoon from 5 to 4, which more or less kept the armor-infantry ratio steady with the TDs included. This is by now so long that it is probably incomprehensible - LOL. Well, you get what you pay for and it is free...

Paul, I wish you would specify what propositions of mine you are disputing, and what ones you are putting in their place. That infantry AT weapons killed 16000 AFVs or less? That PAK killed many times that, while being less common? That faust effectiveness was on the order of 1/500, in terms of kills per deployed weapon? We can deduce that the average German *division*, not battalion, did not kill a tank on the average day - although it was close to that (1), and with "re-kills" it might have equaled that, without exceeding it appreciably. From Barbarossa to the fall of Berlin is 1425 days. There were ~170 divisions engaged, more later after the western fronts opened. 1425 x 170 = 242,250 "division-days". Total Allied AFV production was not more than 210,000. There were larger fleets of Allied AFVs remaining at the end of the war, than had been present at the begining. Ergo, the average AFV kill per day, per division, was less than 1. Or if every AFV was killed twice over, was less than 2. And we now that AFVs were lost in the hundreds per day in particular intense battles, sometimes falling to a single corps. Since the average is low, and the peaks are contributing a high portion of that average, the kill-per-day elsewhere was slender indeed. Mostly because the average division on the average day probably didn't fight seriously at all, beside patroling and occasional shellfire. And those that were in heavy action, were usually infantry divisions in heavy action against attacking infantry divisions, and their supporting artillery. I realise that it would be more convenient for claims that every weapon was superbly effective and every soldier an ancestor of Rambo in his use thereof, if every dead Allied AFV were given out as a credit 100 times over. But one really cannot lose 100 times as many tanks as one built, and be left with more afterward than one started with. Incidentally, the German figure for AFVs KO'ed by all infantry AT weapons is 14,000. It is possible this is low, say by a factor of two just to be absurdly generous - perhaps KOs by men who were overrun, say, so the Germans knew nothing about it. It makes no big difference in the conclusion. You can kill twice as many as the Germans claim and the kills per deployed weapon are still going to be around 1/250. Everyone endlessly repeats the assertion that so many weren't used because they were still around at the end of the war. Yes, 3 million fausts were on hand in March of 1945. 4.4 million others had been built previously, issued to troops, not returned as defective, and were no longer on hand at that date. The Germans also produced 1.8 million schreck rounds (defects excluded) and 290,000 launchers, 1.2 million hand AT mines, 1.45 million rifle grenade launchers and used up 18.3 million AT type rifle grenades (they made another ~5 million). 25 million infantry AT weapons were issued, and ~14,000 tanks were KO'ed. Undoubtedly, the principle reason that use against targets besides tanks, mostly building rather than vehicles of any kind. The rifle grenades were probably ineffective against many AFV types, too. Some of the weapons were probably lost to overruns, or their would-be users were hit before they could use them and they were abandoned on the field or captured. And when they were used against armor, they were probably fired often at long range, where the accuracy was low. Each of these can be a large factor, 3-5 times, meaning only 20-33% of the weapons on the "good side" of each item, in succession. Together, they will multiply out to the 1/300-500 range for the better of the weapons involved. If you only want to count the launchers, and if you want to ignore the hand mines as inadequate in range, then you still get 50 times as many of these things as PAK and heavy FLAK and all gun-armed AFVs combined. But they accounted for something on the order of 10% of Allied AFVs, plus or minus a few percent. 21 million AT mines accounted for another fraction. 2/3rds to 4/5ths were accounted for by the less numerous weapons with far greater range. Yes, the PAK have numerous rounds. For the 75mm towed PAK varities, there are around 160 AP and 140 HEAT rounds built per piece. The effectiveness per round of these may be on the same order of magnitude as the infantry weapons. But the "launchers" here are averaging around 1 KO'ed tank apiece (if you assign ~1/2 the dead AFVs to German AFVs, and some to mines, etc), which is not remotely the case with the fausts. Why the difference? To me it is obvious - range, leading to more shots taken and from greater safety. For what it is worth.

CM tactics are paper-scissors-rock. Artillery is the scissors, and it nukes infantry which is paper. It doesn't hurt tanks (the rocks) at all. The rocks can hurt lots of things, but they can't stay too close to the infantry and the infantry can crawl through lots of places they can't go, so it can hold its own in front of them. Around we go. The real purpose of armor is to make artillery fire ineffective. And as you saw, light armor, the half-track variety, doesn't do the trick. And sure, it is frustrating to be under fire from weapons so big they are out of range of everything on the map. That's the real deal. When you are on the receiving end of indirect arty, you are going to lose men. You can spread out, and especially you can run like quail when the first shells land. What you can't do is ignore artillery and the threat from it. But indirect fire has its weaknesses, especially when overused without enough support from other arms. The biggest and simplest, is that the artillery neutralizes itself as well as the enemy - by running out of ammo. In chess terms, it is "exchanged off", rather than a free "capture". Sometimes the units it neutralizes are more valuable, and then it is a relative success. But it never pops three enemy tanks and remains intact, full strength, like a tank can do. So it is not, incidentally, "low risk" to use. If strong artillery barrages are called down, they *must* neutralize large enemy forces, otherwise the guy who relied on them will be badly outnumbered for the rest of the fight. The second big weakness is slow response, starting, stopping, and moving the barrages, except on TRPs. Which mean you can usually avoid some of the effects by running clear. Eventually, the shells will come down and hurt something, but how much varies widely with how good a target you present. But it seems to me that part of the issue here may not be about artillery, but about infantry. Infantry is always going to get messed up, somewhere somehow, whenever you rely on them. They are the punching bags of WW II tactical combat. They depend on two things - depth and resilience under punishment on the one hand, and terrain and concealment on the other. (Oops that is four things, sorta). Infantry does not just have one "wind". It is meant to recover, rally, and continue the mission, on a shoestring at times. Hit a tank and it is dead; fire off the arty rounds and they are gone. A third of the infantry down and many others broken, and they need 5 minutes to be a formation again. But if they get those five minutes, and if their leaders aren't all dead, then they will be back. The other is concealment and terrain. Guns don't get the full benefits of it because they can't shift their positions (easily enough to matter). Vehicles can't go into cover (though they can hide behind some of it). An infantryman in the open is armored with cotton and wool, but on other occasions he is armored with brick walls or narrow holes. Towed guns firing HE are deadly at range, but dead up close from cover. You undoubtedly know these things, since you like infantry. How do they apply to your situation? Well, the enemy should not see a company of infantry at a time. Ever, really - certainly not on approach marches, perhaps in a "mad minute" or three during a firefight. He should see a dribble here and a dribble there, and be able to tell that was a platoon. Occasionally he may guess right and put down barrages on several good targets. Then the targets run, and some make it while others do not. Sure you will be disorganized. After he fires, his shells are so disorganized they are splinters. You can reorganize, he can't. Artillery is most effective when its moral impact can be made lasting and its destruction deeper, by maneuver elements exploiting the five minutes of shock and chaos after its successful use. Only the heaviest kind of artillery kills outright - the 150mm kind. Middling kinds (105-120mm) leave broken half squads, and neighbors just suppressed and down 1-3 men. Light kinds panic men in the open and pin everyone, but the effects are mostly gone 3 minutes after the shells stop falling. Incidentally, the scope of artillery fire you will encounter, goes up more than linearly with scenario size. Artillery has a great ability to concentrate on the parts of the battlefield that are critical. And larger force sizes give it more abundant targets, compared to a relatively empty battlefield in small fights, where most of the targets will not repay the cost of a heavy barrage. In a big battle, a relatively small maneuver force may succeed with lots of artillery support, used carefully to preserve that force, but in a small one the shells will simply run out. Incidentally, the scale of real artillery some units faced in the war, far exceeds the CM standard. Those were very lopsided situations, however, and not very interesting from a gaming perspective. (Because one side had no chance, I mean). Single artillery battalions sometimes fired 3000 rounds a day (imagine 3x105mm FO with ammo to be used 10 times over), and single front-line battalions were sometimes shielded from larger attackers by up to 18 battalions. Such concentrations were rare. But maneuver elements could not make any serious headway against such firepower, pretty much regardless of how they were equipped or employed. When the guns were able to intervene in a sufficiently lopsided fashion, the side that had that support just won, and the other side just lost. That is why artillery is call the King of Battle.

Hit shift-S. Just like when you are in the game.

Don't go urging revisions that makes them too effective. The highest estimates of tanks KO'ed by all the infantry weapons in the German arsenal in the whole war, is around 16,000. And they deployed millions of these things. The effectiveness per weapon had to be on the order of 1/500 of so, not more. And the reason is obviously range. PAK were less common by a factor of more than 100, but got many times the kills. And that wasn't caused by any great disparity in hitting power if they did connect (perhaps the reverse, really).

Wonderful. So a decent Pz IV driver is all the Germans needed - LOL.

The Hetzer did have problems in this respect, however. A much smaller compartment, and not as well laid out. The gun was designed to be loaded from one side, but the loader was on the other because the gun took up so much of the vehicle. The gun was not mounted along the vehicle center-line in the Hetzer, but off to the right side. As a result, the Hetzer had a lower rate of fire than the StuG or Jadgpanzer. They were still made because they used the Czech-built Pz-38 chassis, and the alternative use of those would have been just poorly armored Marder IIIs.

You are just being fooled by randomness. Randomness does not look random. Patterns appear in it and seem to be streaks. In the long run, all the different "rolls" tend to balance out. But if a few key rolls in key incidents are more important than others (like tank-duel shots), the result will break this way or that. Not just true in CM incidentally...

http://www.siemers.com/wwii/Germany/Brummbar.htm 298 Brummbars built. They certainly belong in CM-2. So do SiGs with 150mm Infantry guns mounted. Both were used for direct fire against strongpoints, supporting attacking Pz Gdrs or infantry. The Sturmtiger does not - 18 built, and in a CM time scale they would be a single shot weapon practically. Just take a high caliber rocket FO if you want to simulate the intervention of such weapons in a tactical fight.

A boon to thinking man is the world wide web. It is out there, gentlemen. All you have to do is look. Did I know the 10th Armored's route when the man asked the question? No. I knew they had been at Bastogne and a few other things about the division, but I didn't know their route through Germany. It took me less than 20 minutes to find out. Then I looked in an atlas a bit and thought about it for five minutes, and wrote my post. If you have a question and can put it into words, you can usually find the answer. Because somebody somewhere knows the answer, and has usually taken the trouble to make it available, if you will look for it. Go here - http://www.737thtankbattalion.org/Webring/divisions.htm Hit mute, unless you like orgi-borgi music or something. Pick "10th Armored Division". Then you are here - http://www.tigerdivision.com/ At the 10th Armored division's website, which has been visited all of 385 times - Pick "10th AD history and combat chronicle". Then you are here - http://www.tigerdivision.com/chronicle.html The text of the unit's path is over in the grey box at the right. You can look at the towns mentioned in your atlas, if you have one. There is a map on the site, but it is a silly cartoon thingie and not helpful compared to the names of the places past through, with dates, in the text. For more details, you can pick the "books about the 10th AD" link and get some suggested reading. Everything you find that has useful info, will link spaghetti style to a dozen others. 2 or 3 of them will also have useful info. On other WW II history subjects, you can go, among other places, to the following - http://home.swipnet.se/normandy/gerob/gerob.html http://www.feldgrau.com/ http://members.tripod.com/~Sturmvogel/WarEcon.html http://www.siemers.com/ http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/ http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/usarmy/default.htm http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/online/Bookshelves/books3.htm http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/collections/eame-cmps.htm http://www.2ndarmoredhellonwheels.com/ http://www.2ndarmoredhellonwheels.com/links.html http://members.aol.com/super6th/6adpubs.htm http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Quarters/8662/home.htm http://www.usarmor-assn.org/links.html http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Quarters/9517/ Surf's up, gentleman. The water is warm...

Correct on the "grizzly bear". But the Sturmtiger had a 380mm "gun". It actually fired a rocket round that size. Took 10 minutes to reload, though. A seige weapon against fortifications, only. Rather silly actually, but I wouldn't want to face one that is for sure. (Unless it had fired recently...)

On another thread, von Lucke made a point about different attitudes toward CM by saying it was "another thing" when - "a German rifle company backed up by a platoon of MkIV's, only to find your opponent has an American Glider company backed up by British Churchills, Wasps, and 3in mortars." So naturally, I just had to try it. I had two advantages. The small one was I knew the opponent's force before the fight. The big one was it was only the machine. But I gave it attack odds. The idea was to take as realistic and vanilla a German force as possible, so I chose 105mm for the artillery support. All units on both sides were regulars. The German force, defending the default village terrain type, was as follows - 1 standard infantry company (rifle 44s) 4 Pz IVH 1 105mm FO 2 TRPs 1 Schreck - 1000 points The attacker's had British - 2 Churchill VII (heavy armor kind) 1 Churchill VIII (same w/ 95mm howitzer) 2 Wasp flame-carriers 1 3" Mortar Fo U.S. Airborne - 1 Glider Company (comes with 7x60mm mortar, 5xZook, 4x50 cal, 2xMMG, 12x12-man squad, 6 HQs - 1500 points. I played the Germans of course, and got a draw, 54-46. It came down to the last turn, and if one German squad of 7 men hadn't been reduced to 2 and broken on the last turn, its contribution to disputing one objective would have given me a tactical victory. (There was an HQ with 2 men left near it as well). The Allies lost 80 men, both Churchill VIIs, and one mortar. The Germans lost 73 men and all four Pz IVs. I mishandled the German armor pretty badly, not having much prior experience tackling Churchills. And my TRP placement was not very good. I had a decent plan and parts of it worked, others were thrown off by the AI's caution and my poor tank work. The village was well built up, with two clusters of stone buildings within it, one a church, and numerous 2 level buildings. I decided right away that there was no way my force was adequate to hold inside of it. Facing south toward the village was a formation of woods behind a stone wall, with one detached small stone building at the western end of it. This made a nice "block" against people coming *out* of the village. To left and right of this position, at right angles to form an overall "L" shape, were two seperated areas of woods and a couple light houses behind them. I chose to defend this "corner", which contained one of the two main objectives, instead of the whole place. There was a minor objective in the town itself, near one of the stone building clusters (not the church one, but not too far either - small enough place). Then the 2nd big objective was east of or through the village (from the attacker's perspective), in a body of woods south of my defending corner. I put a TRP on this second big objective. The main idea was let him into the village, fight him going "shallow" toward the built up corner. When he goes deep to the center objective, the artillery blasts him and the south-face of the "L" stops him from reaching the second objective or killing most of my defenders. Last minute try to get back to the center objective after the artillery lifts. Two of the tanks where hidden behind wooded clump in the "L". Another was on the far south-east corner behind another clump, with the idea of springing it on him from his right rear when / if he re-oriented north to face my "L". The last tank was assigned to a forward detail (see below) and was supposed to shoot up infantry and back away through the village. This turned out to be a bad idea, and this tank would have been better off back in the "L". The company formed a 4th platoon by having 2 platoons give 1 squad each to the company HQ. The company HQ had the west facing part of the L, and another 2-squad platoon had the other face. Each of these got an HMG, set up to fire over wide arcs and to cover the interior of the L. The best platoon commander with 3 squads and a screck, defending the woods with wall corner of the L, farther forward than the other two. The second TRP was put on what looked like the covered approach to this, due west in some scattered trees. The FO was in a house back in the middle of the "L", which could see both TRPs, or call for slow fire between them into the village, south-west. The last 2-squad platoon was the forward or deception platoon, and was set up in the middle of the village. One squad was in the church, the HQ as on one light building 2nd story that could see down the approach roads, and the other squad was in foxholes in woods just ahead of the minor objective and its cluster of stone buildings. These guys were supposed to ambush with fausts and their small arms, then fall back. Deception about where the defenders were, and delay, in other words. So much for the plan. In the event, the forward tank was set up behind a barn peeking around it to show angled-front. But a Churchill VII happened to start staring straight at him. He tried to reverse but was KO'ed in the opening minute. So this part was a lousy idea. I then waited, and sure enough a Churchill VII rumbled into the almost deserted village. And one of the teams in the church got it at 20 yards with a faust. Stupid AI trick mostly - the infantry should have come first. But it made up for my initial bone-head play with the 1st Pz IV, so neither of the commanders was smart enough to not lose tanks unnecessarily - LOL. The ambushers relocated, evacuating the church and moving to the foxhole-woods position slightly farher south. Everybody is hiding. The paras come next. I am calling for fire on the town center, 4 minutes but they will either be there or be on one of the flank TRPs soon, so whatever happens I'll have some sort of decent mission. As it happens he comes up the middle and to the south, away from the "L". Fine by me. Another Churchill is in support. And here I misplayed the armor, underestimating the Churchills and not reading the terrain in sufficient detail. I had planned on springing the southern Pz IV after he was already inside the town, from right-rear. But since no one was coming up north, I thought I might have enough "angle" to spring the northwest tank in the L, and this one in the southeast, simultaneously, and bag the 2nd Churchill with a flank shot, one way or the other. But the tank in the L didn't get LOS as fast as I thought - it had to climb more hill, farther west than I had bargained on, to see over to the south-west corner of the village. The south-east tank got its LOS alright, but the initial flank angle was gone quickly. I had to smoke the 'hill and back behind a house. Then the L tank moved up, but the Churchill had a 95mm buddy not far behind, facing the correct way, and he bagged the L tank before the L tank could hit the forward 'hill. This then left the SW tank facing forward armor and 2 of the things, crawling around for angles around its house. It ran for a position behind woods, made the first leg, had to move again, and was finally KO'ed by the pair of forward-facing 'hills. So one German tank is left back in the deep part of the L, but without a buddy to play "flank" with. The armor war is basically lost. The paras meanwhile run into the forward ambush platoon, and come in such numbers that those have to run almost immediately. They drop a number of men firing into the open at close range, and both squads do get clear of the area, but both also break, 4 and 7 men remaining. The HQ gets clear with 2 men left. All of the following holds the attack in the town long enough for the artillery to come down. A few shells in the area first called, and then a shift to open ground catches 3 squads in the open and scatters them like quail, right after the ambush platoon gets clear. 35 of the 60 rounds expended, I halt the mission, as most of the paras have run to building now. 25 rounds left for the TRP on the center objective later. So now the whole allied force is moving forward through the town in strength, wasps forward, 'hills behind, infantry everywhere (there are 36 units in a glider company, 16 in my own). My HMGs begin sniping at range at anyone moving between the buildings. I just take them off "hide" and let them pick their targets. The last tank adds ranged harassing fire, crawling around a block of woods in the L in "ring-around-the rosy" fashion to avoid LOS of the 'hills. The renmants of the ambush platoon start to rally. A few men are shifted from the west of the L to the interior, south-facing side. The whole battle is now on a north-south axis instead of east-west. The allies have the town and the minor objective there, and begin pushing on for the objective. They also pause to blow up the nearer HMG with mortars, 60mm and 3 inch, and MG and tank fire. The barrage gets a few men in the HMGs platoon (3), and the HMG is eventually KOed, but it dies slowly and keeps firing to the last. The other HMG fires, jams after about 40 shots fire, and eventually recovers and joins in again, coming under 60mm mortar fire in response but not being suppressed much, let alone killed. Meanwhile, the corner of the L sees the schreck crawling behind the stone wall to extra foxholes dug along it with the initial half-squad split trick. From one of these it manages eventually to get a 125 yard broad-side shot at the 2nd 'hill 75mm, rated around 25%, and luckily KOs it with the first shot. Time is running short. The CO's platoon runs forward to reinforce the corner platoon, so ~55 men or half my company is now fighting from that position. The rallied remains of the ambush platoon are back in the fight, though the southern-most 1/2 squad is isolated, gets broken by the fire of a platoon, and a wasp even flames them once after they broke (reduced to 1 broken man, but survived the battle!) The barrage is called on the 2nd objective. And the last 'hill is stalked as follows. One squad full strenth with 2 faust runs through several buildings in the town, ending in a stone one facing the flank of the last hill. This area is facing my main "block", and I have some local fire ascendency. Mostly I just keep a building between the squad and the 'hill until the last firing building is reached. At the same time, another squad (sans faust) charges a building with a depleted MMG in it, and the shcreck heads for the upper story of the same building. If reached, this would give him a down, 80-100 meter shot at the last hill. And the best platoon commander moves up to support these rushers. It fails, just. The schreck is KOed crossing the wall, almost immediately. The fire it draws does let the squad rush the MMG and kill it. The faust-squad makes it to the last building with just "caution" suppression and 7 men up. But they do not fire a faust. The range is longer than I hoped, about 40 yards. Everybody and his brother soon pile fire on this squad, the 'hill backs away, and soon 2 broken men come running back. The last of the 3" mortar rounds now fall on the corner of the L. If the men had stayed put, this would have gotten them. As it is, only half are there. The company HQ runs to the rear and so does one squad, to ensure the middle "L" objective are "held" at teh end. Two squads stay and are hurt by the barrage, one broken the other not. The last platoon on the south side of the L, farther east rather than the corner, races to dispute the center objective as the last rounds of the arty fall on the TRP there. They arrive in time to dispute the objective at the begining of the last turn. 7 men in 1 squad, 2 men in an HQ, and 4 men remaining from the ambush platoon, are in the area as the last turn commences. There are ~50 paras waiting for them in one place or another, but the northern ones have been broken by infantry fire and some of the southern ones are still cowering from the last of the 105s. It was close. There were enough paras left unbroken, or recovering fast enough, to shoot up the ambush platoon survivors, leaving 2 men in a broken half squad in each of two places. A 2 man HQ team are the only Germans "up" near the objective, and they are not sufficient - the union jack replaces the question mark at the last turn, and draw replaces tactical victory. One minute later timing might have done it. It was a blast, obviously, and I thank von Lucke for the idea. I am reminded of a comment I read recently, one practioner in a certain field explaining how he learned things. "As soon as I find myself making a test-able assertion, I test it". If the Pz IVs had been better handled, I do not doubt the Germans could have won. Against humans would be another matter, and I am not disputed von Lucke on the point. A human would have made much better use of the wasps, would have lead with the paras, and the front armor of the Churchills would have counted for more, if they were never risked close to the German infantry's fausts and schreck. It was a formidable enough weapons mix with only the machine giving the orders. I heartily recommend the trial.

I ran a pair of scenarios something like this in my CM campaign. The German AI has an established battery position on a ridge, with field fortifications in front, etc. The first mission on that map is recon, but not dedicated scouts like in the other fellow's, just the infantry platoons of the player's usual force (which varies through the campaign depending on his losses, etc), and a few supporting cav. vehicles. Also 81mm mortars. The briefing explains that it is a recon, and what is already known. The player will get any mortar ammo he doesn't use, in the later main fight. If he loses men in the recon phase then he doesn't have more. Then, before the second fight, the player chooses the reinforcement type he wants, but with some randomness included. He also gets some set reinforcements that do not change with his decision. Then he is to go in and take the position, in a seperate longer scenario. Key is that how hard to "press", or whether to really engage at all in the morning "battle", is up to the player. A few got sucked in and over-committed. One cracked the defense in one place in the course of his "recon", and elected to immediately follow up with the forces available, and a shoestring reinforcement, less than others got. (He did quite well, in the event). Of course with seperate scenarios, the players can't hit "map" after the first one, or they spoil the limited info nature of the case. A few people did that without realising it was not intended, but most played it straight. 3 commanders did the recon with 2-4 men hit, and the information gathered was good in almost all cases. One fellow mentioned for his HQ scout idea (which is good, I hadn't thought of the binocs point), that you can't buy them alone in QBs. This is true. But e.g. if you buy a company, you might use the weapons HQ for this role, parcelling out the weapons themselves to the line platoon, or putting them under the company commander. The company commander can also "borrow" squads from platoon, so if you want a platoon with fewer men in it, that is easy to arrange. These tricks only work for a team working ahead of a full company, though.

On MGs, why walk when you can ride? That is one way to keep up with infantry, at least to the back side of a piece of cover. The slow teams are the ones that should be on the backs of the tanks. When rifles are shooting up SMGs at medium range, the SMGs do not have to stand there and take it. They can back up to the nearer side of cover, away from the shooters - or attack, as the situation warrants. On Schrecks, it is possible to hit things at long range, but I consider it a desperation measure. I will explain why. One thing to remember is that the LOS is often less than perfect for these shots. The schrecks are often in woods, and far enough back in them to avoid being spotted. Sneaking right to the edge of a body of woods to get the clearest shot is a hazardous enterprise. From buildings, you do not have the "branches in the way" problem, but you do have the backblast / self-suppression problem. The clearest shots can be obtained from behind a wall, since it completely blocks LOS when you are hiding but does not obstruct it when you are shooting. One drawback to walls, though, is the terrain right next to them is always open ground. Men often do silly things when they take fire there, instead of just ducking and crawling behind the wall a ways, like sensible people. But here are some sample hit probabilities with a shreck firing at a 100 sillouette Sherman. Various angles and sometimes a moving target, but no hull down cases or suppressed shooters. The Schreck crews are regulars - From buildings - 200 to 175m - 10-11%, 141m - 21%, 121 to 98m - 29-30% From near-LOS blocking depth in woods - 200 to 175m - 4-6% 90m - 19-22% Half LOS blocking distance woods - 150m - 12% From behind wall or very edge of woods, clear LOS - 215m - 5% 200m - 7% 172m - 15%141 to 126m - 28-29% 82m - 50% 62m - 78% If everyone is up and firing, does it make sense to take those 15-30% shots at 125-175 meters? (or closer if deep in woods). Sure. And will you get some hits? Sure. But an exposed AT team draws fire, and can be wiped out before a second shot if the overwatch is good. Sometimes by the tank he fired at. Sometimes he will get off 2-3 before reply, but that is good luck. And if you open up at 125 yards with a 30% to hit chance, then you are tossing a coin whether you get the tank or the tank gets you, even if you do get off 2 shots. And from buildings, you have to recover from your own suppression first. In the 60-80 meter range, on the other hand, the to hit chances are 50-80% if the LOS is clear, and decent even when it isn't clear. You will often get the target on the first go, and if you do need and last long enough to get a second, it is much more likely to kill the blighter. If you wait for a tank to be close enough for the 1st or 2nd shot kill, the AT team is much more likely to live. If you must kill tank A and you have 2-3 teams, then sure you can move to clear LOS locations and let fly with all of them, and you will probably get it. One AT team snuck to 60-80 yards would also do the trick. It is mostly just a point about fire discipline. Especially opening up and revealing yourself for the first time, you want to make the first shot or two count. After that, I prefer to withdraw the team and hide, then stalk something else later. For that it is worth.

Oh gosh, I am so honored. I'd like to thank my parents, and my professors, and derf smerb whoever he is, and all the folks down at Industrial Light and Magic, don't ask why, and above all I would like to thank Xenophon for being named "Slayer of Strangers". Thank you. This means so much. Attrition is indeed the art of wearing others down with a non-stop expenditure of whatever flying scrap iron is available, and quantity has a vodka gargle all its own, especially with orange juice. I am especially touched that this prestigious award was declared by Herr Doctor Uberbansturmfuhrerundausgefreakedunterprofessorcolonel Kanonier Reichmann! To be called long winded by Germans is indeed a special honor. Oh and to all of my critics I'd just like to add... kiss my grits!

Beautiful, makes perfect sense. The tight sheaf is a simple result of short firing range. So the moral is that range has more of an impact on the fire effectiveness of on-map mortars than one might have thought. A useful thing to know. Of course, with the 100m minimum and a possibly moving target group, you don't want to be exactly 100 meters away. But 150-250 meters will get more hits than clear across the map, which makes sense.

Maneuvering, still on the hoof, not meat? Are you daft? Without meat, life itself would vegetate. And you shoot deer from the back of the pickup truck, where the beer is - not out in the woods. Or you wait for them to "boing" into the road and then get 'em mit der pickup truck. As for cows, cows are funnier than deer, though not necessarily gamier. But beware. Not all cows are as poorly armed as you might think. See this link, first item - http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/105/dana_lyons.html

I see that some are under the mistaken impression that the scouting cavalry vehicles never exposed themselves or attacked with any recklessness. The cure for this impression is the following historical account of one such unit in a "pursuit" situation. http://www.acu.edu/academics/history/12ad/92arsx/dtroop.htm They most certainly did sometimes drive anatomy to the wall through or around everything in front of them. At other times, sure they were more careful, or were engaged defensive screening work.

The scout cars originally equipped the armored cavalry battalions, in North Africa for instance. The troops were generally not very pleased with their off-road movement abilities, reliability, and quickness. Jeeps had not been part of the original TOE. They were a field adaptation. The troops prefer them because they were faster, turned in a much narrower circle, and bogged less often crossing fields. They also found them more comfortable on long road drives. So most units had switched over to jeeps for the French campaign. M-20s were another alternative to the scout jeep, and more of them were available later in the war to equipped the rest of the cavalry troop. A cavalry platoon was built around a single M-8 which acted as overwatch and radio. Then they usually had 2 jeeps, one of them carrying a 60mm mortar, which the men prized because it let them shoot up small enemy forces (the common small roadblock for example) without exposing their vehicles. Three of those sections, plus a platoon of 5 Stuarts, makes the typical cavalry maneuver element. They would also have 2 M8MGC (75mm SPA) if they were on the attack, and 75mm FO artillery support instead when screening or defending (the same guns, firing indirect as a battery). You can add one infantry platoon to that size force and just manage to carry them on the backs of the Stuarts and M-8s, split into teams. That let's you do dismounted scouting work. Usually you'd have just one of the other vehicle type, jeep or scout car or M-20, but you could realistically take 3 jeeps and 3 of another type. Thus, in detail - 5 Stuart 3 M-8 armored car 6 Jeep, Jeep-MG, M3 Scout Car, or M-20 2 M8-HMC -or- 1x75mm FO 1 infantry platoon 1-3 60mm mortars 1-3 zook team 1-3 sharpshooter Runs ~1200 pts or so. That is called a cavalry troop, aka a company. It has around 30 MGs and 10 light guns, but it does not have the infantry depth to tangle up close with reinforced companies, nor the anti-tank ability to fight tank platoons. A force that size working with a battalion, or about 1/3rd of it selected out of that mix in the case of a small company team, would commonly work with heavier combat elements (TDs, armor, infantry). It would operate alone only in pursuit situations, or screening defense roles, patrolling, and such.