Determinant

Good idea! The Mountains in the background had bothered me for El Alamein scenarios.

Thank you for your MOD. Very nice. I am now enjoying the Desert with an eye out for those critical small rises and folds.

Spot on. The classic example for me of the difficulties of assessing gunnery accuracy and effectiveness can be seen in the battle of Jutland. Here you have a score or so of BBs and BCs engaging each other with their primary armament. There are hundreds of trained professional observers in both fleets with no other aim than to record data. They purport to record targets; range; direction; bearings; locations; and the effect of the fire. Despite all this and despite the most painstaking post-action examination of the primary material historians are still able to disagree on what it all meant. A battle on land is far more confused, various and it is not recorded with the same attempt at precision that the navy would purport to have.

Spot on. The classic example for me of the difficulties of assessing gunnery accuracy and effectiveness can be seen in the battle of Jutland. Here you have a score or so of BBs and BCs engaging each other with their primary armament. There are hundreds of trained professional observers in both fleets with no other aim than to record data. They purport to record targets; range; direction; bearings; locations; and the effect of the fire. Despite all this and despite the most painstaking post-action examination of the primary material historians are still able to disagree on what it all meant. A battle on land is far more confused, various and it is not recorded with the same attempt at precision that the navy would purport to have.

But, dear boy, you haven't produced any evidence. No-one has. No-one ever does. Just stop and think about what 'evidence' would mean. It's the usual speculation from partial sources. AKA your best guess as to what represents reality. For my money CMAK still feels 'about right'.

But, dear boy, you haven't produced any evidence. No-one has. No-one ever does. Just stop and think about what 'evidence' would mean. It's the usual speculation from partial sources. AKA your best guess as to what represents reality. For my money CMAK still feels 'about right'.

Well I'm sure you'll be sadly missed. And you didn't even get your knees brown. There is too much Rain Man autism in the consideration of penetration figures. Let's take a more anthropological human view. The 2lbr was, pound for pound, a very good gun. The British Army may not be the sharpest tool in the box but it is not entirely stupid. The decision to arm tanks with the 2lbr was not completely illogical. It was able to penetrate most enemy armour most of the time. But it is not a killing round. Just because it can get through doesn't mean that it will kill a vehicle. The bigger the round the more the killing effect once it is 'under armour'. The problem with the 2lbr is that even if it gets through it isn't necessarily a show stopper. With -SPOILERS- Ambush! the Quick Play Scenario on the CD-Rom is a good example. It is a swirling dog-fight fought in a dust storm. I played as Axis in an unthinking way wanting to check out complaints about the '2lbr uber-gun'. The results were instructive since most of the Brits were shooting 2lbrs. The Allies lost 21 vehicles; Axis 9. Interestingly the Axis had 4 KIA while the Brits had 13. Most significantly the Brits had 9 tanks that brewed against a single Axis tank that had been hit by 75mm. The lesson: Axis 50mm kills tanks. In contrast the 2lbr can penetrate and disable tanks but it is not a killer. Tanks that blow up and burn are base area repairs if not scrap. Tanks that are perforated with minor damage/crew casualties are fixable at formation level. Thus we arrive at the anthropology: You are Brit crew. The Enemy only fight you at 1500m unless they have made a mistake. They outrange you. They co-ordinate fire. You can see your mates brewing up around you. You can see no perceptible effect from your fire on the enemy: neither hits nor kills. How do you feel now my blue-eyed boy? There is nothing significantly wrong with the way that CMAK models the 2lbr.

Well I'm sure you'll be sadly missed. And you didn't even get your knees brown. There is too much Rain Man autism in the consideration of penetration figures. Let's take a more anthropological human view. The 2lbr was, pound for pound, a very good gun. The British Army may not be the sharpest tool in the box but it is not entirely stupid. The decision to arm tanks with the 2lbr was not completely illogical. It was able to penetrate most enemy armour most of the time. But it is not a killing round. Just because it can get through doesn't mean that it will kill a vehicle. The bigger the round the more the killing effect once it is 'under armour'. The problem with the 2lbr is that even if it gets through it isn't necessarily a show stopper. With -SPOILERS- Ambush! the Quick Play Scenario on the CD-Rom is a good example. It is a swirling dog-fight fought in a dust storm. I played as Axis in an unthinking way wanting to check out complaints about the '2lbr uber-gun'. The results were instructive since most of the Brits were shooting 2lbrs. The Allies lost 21 vehicles; Axis 9. Interestingly the Axis had 4 KIA while the Brits had 13. Most significantly the Brits had 9 tanks that brewed against a single Axis tank that had been hit by 75mm. The lesson: Axis 50mm kills tanks. In contrast the 2lbr can penetrate and disable tanks but it is not a killer. Tanks that blow up and burn are base area repairs if not scrap. Tanks that are perforated with minor damage/crew casualties are fixable at formation level. Thus we arrive at the anthropology: You are Brit crew. The Enemy only fight you at 1500m unless they have made a mistake. They outrange you. They co-ordinate fire. You can see your mates brewing up around you. You can see no perceptible effect from your fire on the enemy: neither hits nor kills. How do you feel now my blue-eyed boy? There is nothing significantly wrong with the way that CMAK models the 2lbr.

Well my copy of CMAK arrived in the post today. Thank you BFC. Keep up the good work. I like the mini-manual with the helpful covers. Very nice. Cheers!

I know how you feel. It's hell on the road isn't it? What model of Corby trouser-press do you have? Any means to turn off the heating or open a window? Get home safe soon...

BFC post from a depot in the Irish Republic. They sent me TacOps4 that way and it arrived pretty smartish so the boys down there seem quite swept up. And thanks to the dear old EU, customs isn't an issue (probably the only thing it's good for). I also think that the Eire-UK postal service is quite efficient (as long as you don't mention us shelling the Dublin Main Post Office in Easter '16 - Ooops!). But the clincher for me is that by buying from BFC you are at least putting the money into the hands of people who do actually give a toss about the game. Now, all together, 1, 2, 3: 'When Oirish Eyes are Smiling'

I think that a good default setting is to never believe any unsubstantiated aircrew claims. There must be a good reason why they are the only folks who are forced to carry and use gun cameras in action. The debriefs must run like this: 'So, you claim to have shot down a squadron of FW190s and diabled a Pz Div through clever deflection shooting? Sounds splendid. Shall we just look at the film before we post that up officially?' And if the old flyboy was brazen enough to make a claim like that years afterward can you imagine the stuff he would have come out with at the time when trying to get into a girl's knickers? The sound you can hear is my flesh creeping...

Oh, Charlie. An average human casualty. Extremely manportable? For shame man. Where did you do your soldiering? Amongst the little wee leprechaun folk? The things we carried. Games and chat, games and chat. All this stuff weighs like a bunch of anvils. Anyone who thinks that it is easy to carry is welcome to it. And then there's the ammo. It makes me want to sob just thinking about moving the fricken ammo. No wonder my knees are shot and my piles are playing up something rotten. But seriously, why can't my MGs run in CMBO? I really want to know...

I wonder where he rode, on the rear deck? It's kind of tight quarters inside those Russian tanks even with three, isn't it? Or would he ride in one of the company trucks? Michael </font>

I had a chat to a Pakistani cavalry officer a few years ago who had come off T-72s. Trying to appear like I knew what the frick I was talking about (always a struggle) I made some comment about how it must be tough doing maintenance with a three man crew. 'Oh, No,' he said 'We carry a spare man with each tank'. AKA: the Track Basher but more importantly the Cha Wallah! Ties that bind. I'm not ashamed to say that a tear came to my eye...

Well I've paid for all three. And to be perfectly honest if BFC decide to ease their cash flow before the launch of CM 'X' by taking CMBB back to Normandy and the West Front then I'll be very happy to pony up for that too. Go on fellahs you owe it to yourself - those green fees can eat into your petty cash after a while!

Ahh - that made me chuckle. The British Army's current LAW is obviously a cousin, in rocket motor terms, to the SMAW. I've never fired it myself just sat next to one as safety supervisor with double ear defence and a respirator on. I thought that I'd died when the main round went off. And the smoke it produces - you can barely tell if you hit anything! An incredibly noisy way to attract a lot of attention toward yourself I thought at the time. I think that the older rocket motors were a bit more gentlemanly. More 'whooz' than the 'bang' of the modern motors: the dear old 66mm LAAW was a lot less intimidating for the firer. But I still wouldn't want to fire one indoors...

Well here is a site that refers to the base plate as an aid for rapid traversing in the anti-tank role. Just the thing when a bunch of Mk IIIs motor through your gun-line!

Lest we forget.

I apologise if I left you with the impression that I was bothered by being described as a 'barbarian' by the Greek officers whose company I so enjoyed. In fact I was very flattered: I felt myself to be Hagar the Horrible or similar: a great compliment! Thank you by the way for your fascinating posts from the Greek perspective. The problem with the Anglo-Saxon world view is that it tends to exclude material that is not written in English: 'it is all Greek to me' as the saying goes. So thank you for your efforts in struggling to educate us!

Fiaros, very good posts. I should not worry overly about Alan Clark. A remarkable man in many ways, but not much good as a historian. I very much enjoyed his reply when asked what his source was for the quote that the British soldiers in WWI were 'lions led by donkeys'. His reply: 'I made it up'. Enough said? And please, having enjoyed the privilege of serving with Greek officers I must insist that you refer to non-Greeks not as 'foreigners' but as 'barbarians' which I am given to understand is the closer Greek translation!

Was it not originally Assault Vehicle Royal Engineers? Later turned to Armoured VRE in an early display of political correctness?

You could still do a scenario of an airfield raid. Use trucks to simulate parked up aircraft. It obviously requires some imaginative effort, but not much in a hobby where we were happily pushing around little cardboard counters until a few years ago. And after all what is a transport aircraft but a flying truck? I will certainly put the point to the next blue-job I come across. Warming to theme: of course you would have to park your 'aircraft' on a spot of rubble to stop them taxiing off the airfield when the SAS/LRDG turn up to get nasty.

A very good point indeed. I'm reminded of the blue-on-blue that 3 PARA suffered just after landing in the Falkland Islands. Two patrols from the same battalion got into a nasty firefight with each other. It wasn't until each patrol commander called in a fire mission from mortars that the penny dropped in the fire planning cell that what they had thought was two separate firefights was actually both sides in the same fight: each commander gave grid references for the other patrol. If that had been an inter-unit, or worse still an inter-formation, blue-on-blue a lot of indirect fire would certainly have been fired at friendlies...

Some very interesting and informative posts here. The debate over the 'pursuit' (if that term can be used after El Alamein) raises a general point of principle: Is it not faster to withdraw than it is to advance? Some deception in whether you will stand or not - force the attacker to deploy and plan; cleverly fought and determined rear-guards; an evil and ingenious obstacle plan. Lots of factors to aid a withdrawal. Which takes us to a more particular point: did the British Army in the 20thC ever overtake and destroy in pursuit a withdrawing German formation of any size? For some reason I keep thinking of the successful and almost untroubled German withdrawal to the Hindenburg line in WWI. Was that setting a pattern? And come to that even killing the Italian Fox in the open at Beda Fomm was a damn close run thing... Perhaps Monty, if he failed after El Alamein, should be judged like for like against his British comparators who did pin down and destroy the Hun time after time in aggressively fought pursuit battles. Errr. Can anyone think of any names?