jtcm

Any suggestions for the attacking force ? The article's figures should probably be given a haircut

Could we have a scenario ?

Has it been colorized post-war, or is this original colour footage ? Good images of FIBUA-- Soviet troops hosing down buildings with HMGs, jeep mounted coupled .50s, and even field arty

What kind of armour is the Battn facing ?

How does a mixed Tiger / Pz III Co. fight ? To help me visualize: how would I use such a Co. in a CMBB fight, say on the attack ? Should I hang back with the Tigers (say in 3 plts), and push forward with the PzIIIs, moving with overwatch ? Should I do it the other way round, with Tiger front armour leading the way and (short) 75s in overwatch ? Should I mix (say a group of Tigers in overwatch, and two mixed fighting groups, with Tigers to deal with armour, PzIIIs to support my infantry ?)

Um, what do you think of the Beevor book ?

What's the newness about it ? I mean-- new archival research ? New angle ?

Walpurgis Nacht knew those pat, in all the conditions-- the values are, indeed, fixed, and you should know them when setting out for the fight. You can do all kinds of redoubtable things, e.g. move to within 1 m of LOS and throw a satchel or fire a FT...

I see. Used tactically, or with strikes on the URSS proper ?

Is the response to that not the M1, then ? (with apologies to JasonC, who sees its emergence as organically growing out of technological changes and specific developments)

I don't think I have the military history culture to appreciate exactly what's going on here-- but is the following correct ? There is a conventional view that US failures at Kasserine and general performance in Europe during WWII is due to faulty doctrine (TDs fight and contain tanks, whereas tanks support infantry ? break through ??)-- due to this McNair chap-- and concomitant choices, namely insufficient armour and armament on AFVs. JasonC disputes this, on two grounds: the armour specs were actually fine for Africa and fine in Normandy too, and the doctrine was good. -Is this right ? -who's correct ?

yep, yep, yep

Was the M1 not the result of a conscious take on what was considered, if I understand JasonC correctly, tendentiously, as the results of US performance in WWII ?

At a slight tangent-- does the development of the M1 (with invulnerable front plates and heavy-hitting gun) fit into this debate, as seen from the post-war perspective ? I.e. the M1 as the "King Tiger" redux, and designed to prove that specs are the things that matter ? Just a thought

I take this means that in Real Life -they were supposed to fight with plts, to give them a bit more oomph; in fact, just dragged them down -they were not grouped in "50 mm batteries", like us CMBB players like to do !

I wonder if should have used smoke and masked the tactical move offroad and to the right ? I thought it better to keep LOS and plaster the ATGs with return fire-- but it took its toll. I also was lucky in that the Russians did not shell my troops on their way in with 122 mm or whatever it is that rained down on my column the first three times

Shame Adam got banned-- he would have liked this thread

Oh I forgot-- a HT got carried away, or lucky, moved alongside the tanks and nearly off the map. I realized that there was no need for it to exit, so I sent it to the back of the Russian held woods, to unload his squad. I thought maybe the squad could help silence the Russians from behind, and help the infy assault progress. What happened ? It was like poking a hornet's nest with a stick-- the squad got shot up from three different directions, the HT got molotoved. Well, maybe it distracted the Guardsmen from shooting at the PzGrenadiers in their front for a minute.

Haven't read through the accounts, thanks for the extracts. The anecdotes about sausages, etc, might be of interest for a historian of logistics-- or other things, too. The idea that it's the individual tank commander that orders the monkeys off his back, and decides on placement, is interesting. The way in which infy trails tanks also good. Victory ? It went like this 1. Tigers take up positions in the back 2. PzIVs angle towards the right, under constant 45mm and 76mm fire, that takes out a surprising number of them (7-8 ?) 3. HTs also move offroad to the right, and take all kinds of fire 4. Finally, the ATGs are silenced 5. Remaining PzIVs dash cross country and exit 6. Tigers motor off 7. Remaining infy move towards spotted enemy infy in trenches. Remaining HT support, under fire from ATRs 8. I lose patience and send in remaining short 75mm HT and fire HT close. They score some hits, but both get taken out (one by ATR fire, the fire HT heroically close assaulted). 9. I'm surprised that the open belt to the right of the road and wooded clump / sump was not heavily mined. Just as well, my pioneers were fighting as infy.

back to JasonC's 1SS initiatl assault scenario: exited 3 pzIV, 1 damaged pziv and 3 tigers off the map. The infantry still brawling with guardsmen, close up stuff, with the ht's coming in for no end of trouble.

thank you, John.

JasonC-- you could reverse the relation, and say that "Gosh it was hard" can be resolved to say "it was hard in *this way, for *this bundle of factors or reasons"-- and these are social, cultural, and also tactical-strategic-- military factors have their autonomy, just like economic factors, but within particular worlds. Keegan, after all, does use e.g. Captain Mercer's superb memoirs-- both to explain what's going on militarily, but also why it was "hard" on the day, in particular ways. I suppose it depends what you're interested in. "Art of war" ? Keegan specifically argued against there being a timeless art of war (he was criticizing his colleague David Chandler), in favour of "sharp end" sort of studies. C. Merridale (debated and citizcized here when Dorosh etc actually still posted) is only interested in the human dimension, not the CMBB style homunculi carrying out or not their waypoint orders. I suppse I'm interested in the "what was it like" question, simply finding it difficult to visualize what's going on on the ground. Of course, this impacts on both the question "how to fight" and "what is it lke to fight / why people fight / how people fight" http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?p=1107627&highlight=ambrose#post1107627 I may give "Tank Rider" a try, if I see it.

For some of us, "human experience of war" is at least a large part of what military history is about-- as a worthwhile object in itself, and also as a way of understanding the whole picture of how a society, or an army, fights. At least, i speak as one who greatly admired John Keegan's Face of Battle, or some of the Napoleonic era memoirs-- "gosh it was hard" is a bit unfair

Must get it

Did any one read that book, "Tank Rider" ? I saw it in a second-hand bookshop a few months back. Didn't buy it, now it's gone.