Skipper

I understand that "Finding opponents" section is for TCP/IP games only. Where should one go to find a pbem opponent?

> Oh, and buy one of those small Russian- > English dictionaries if you dont believe > me you klutz ! You better believe him, cause he is right. iirc my english lessons , Babushka = Grandma.

Hmm... To say that 4 tubes will cover 120 meters of the front (that converts to 35 tubes per km) is okay as long as we are talking about one single trenchline only. The kind of concentration that was required to punch through prepared deep defense in WWII was about 3 to 5 times as much. I've seen somewhere the then norms of shell expenditure per target. By the order of magnitude it's something like a hundred 75 mm shells per 100 m of trenchline and about same number for each bunker.

An affordable heavy tank, the workhorse of breakthrough tank brigades. I dont have my books here, but I sure remember that IS-2 was much lighter than Pz-VI. Much simpler and cleaner design, too. Finally, in 1943 soviet war industry could afford to produce something like that in large numbers without geopardising other weapon programs. Until then they were making thousands of T-34s, SU-76s and so on. In case of Germany, their focus on Pz-VI in 1942, as well as on various other uberweapon programs throughout the war, was a grave mistake.

Besides, Pz-VI was too wide to travel by rail without disrupting opposite-bound traffic. As for the best overall tank of the war, in my (heavily biased ) opinion, IS-2 was THE THING. IS-3 even better, but it is not clear if they saw any WWII action. OTOH, the only (afaik) tank of the era that is still in active service in third world is T-34/T-44 family.

Comparing these two machines is like apples and oranges. They are of different class. Tiger: extremely heavy, slow, big gun. Used as a breakthrough tank, or a glorified AT bunker (well, that's a somewhat stretched description, but you get the idea). Panther: medium tank; primary role - to exploit breakthroughs. Medium gun and armor, good mobility. IMHO, Tiger is a mediocre example of heavy tank class (too big, too heavy, too expensive, logistics nightmare, crappy mobility, 88mm not big enough HE for a breakthrough tank), while it is a matter of taste to decide whether T-34-85 or Pz-V is better medium tank. Surely enough, as a semi-mobile AT bunker, the Pz-VI was a large threat to soviet tanks. However, it was very poor "value for money", if you see what I mean.

> Purges do things like that, y'know. Massive mobilisation in what still was a largely peasant country, rather. After losing the bulk of regular military in summer '41 disaster. Severe lack of heavy weapons and ammunition for them, too. In more than a few cases, the lack of artillery support made the infantry assault (with corresponding heavy losses) the only viable tactical option available (as compared to sitting still, or withdrawing). It is just natural that a private grunt who was lucky enough to survive the horror of it will always complain that it was unimportant hill, or village, or what-not. Well, the batallion commander who ordered it usually knows better. To judge soviet commanders' abilities, it is worth remembering who won the war. These so-called "military purges" were not nearly as large as advertised, besides they did not involve many officers from regimental level down. Incomparably (say, 100 times) bigger numbers of them were killed in the first few months of the war. [This message has been edited by Skipper (edited 02-05-2001).]

"When you have 200 tubes per 1 km of front, you do not report enemy positions to the HQ, only the ground covered". I do not remember who exactly said that, but he was a WWII soviet general. Speaking of large artillery formations (although I've never heard about armies, unless you are talking about Stavka Reserve), Soviets had them not because their employment methods were inferior, but simply because back somebody at home was building them and more importantly (as it was pointed out), enough shells for all those tubes. Also because Soviet military leadership did not toy themselves with super fighting beasts, but rather had a no-nonsense approach to weapons procurement. What would you prefer for your money - a T-34 platoon or a single Pz-VI? Esp. keeping in mind that you can shift the former around much easier and faster, and it wouldn't mind going off the highway, too?

The notion that 150mm guns was VERY effective against infantry is correct (and 120 mm mortars - even more so). After all, over half of the KIA in WWII were killed by HE shrapnel. That was the reason they put (relatively) short 120 mm gun on IS-2, when the alternative was a long 100 mm gun - because army customers wanted to trade off AT capability for the HE punch. Speaking of IS-2, I wonder if Eastern Front is in the plans. I could probably help Battlefront to get in touch with some russian guys who know the old hardware. Kubinka Armor Museum, anyone?