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tecumseh

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Posts posted by tecumseh

    Newb a little shell shocked

    in Combat Mission Fortress Italy

    Posted

    JonS,

    Did you do some Kiwi riff on Rutger Hauer's speech in BladeRunner for your sig, or is that simply the way you recalled it? When I went looking for the speech, I unexpectedly found myself in a strange new world of Kiwi and Maori expressions (hangi pit, bogans, taranaki gate).

    As a kiwi myself I can tell you that "like spots on a knife" refers to spotting, a popular way of smoking pot in NZ using a knife blade, and that it's also called blading or doing blades, which is kinda similar to 'Blade Runner'.

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    Antony Beevor - any good?

    in Combat Mission Fortress Italy

    Posted

    He's fantastic. He's one of the few WW2 authors I feel I could spend an evening with, and wouldn't need to invent an excuse to escape back to normal people. He's not pompous, he's not lost in fantasy. He has empathy and he has perspective and balance. I've read all his books and probably enjoyed the one on the Spanish civil war the most.

    I never really saw an anti-soviet bias, but he mentions rape in most of his books and I think his personal feeling is the suffering of women by rape is a horror of war that doesn't get enough attention, so he focuses some time on it.

    And he doesn't attempt to excuse the horrific Red Army rape statistics by talking at great length about the reasons a soviet soldier might think it was warranted. Which I think is the right thing, just as he doesn't try to excuse other atrocities by giving the criminal's POV.

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    It ain't half hot mum

    in CMSF Strategy and Tactics Forum

    Posted

    I got a tactical defeat as well, after I called a ceasefire with 20 minutes left. I'd already suffered 34 casualties and didn't feel I could take the rest of the central block without a whole lot more, since my Apaches were out of ammo. My boys had seen enough horror for one day. So I wussed out, dug in and called for reinforcements!

    Brutal stuff, but great fun. Thanks paper tiger

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    Pacific war book

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    Many years ago I got good advice from this forum on books, so...

    I’m looking for a book/books on the pacific war, and I was hoping someone could recommend one for me.

    I’d like it to be in the same style as Erickson’s Road to Stalingrad and Road to Berlin – strategic and operational level, sensible writing without hyperbole, lots on the Japanese side of things.

    OR operational/tactical stuff in the style of Glantz - detailed, factual, dispassionate. :)

    Clinical strategy grog stuff rather than gung-ho popular history that “recreates” the events.

    Any suggestions?

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    British Army on the eastern front?

    in Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin

    Posted

    Was there any possibility for UK & commonwealth troops to fight in numbers on the eastern front?

    I just want to get a sense if it was possible but rejected, extremely difficult and rejected, or simply impossible. It’s in response to this Russian chap who feels belatedly aggrieved: :D

    What UK troops (corps? division? army?)

    The moment of rout at Dunkirk and the period I’m talking about (November of 1942) is separated by two and a half years. I think this term was more than enough for Britain to have regimented a considerable number of men (having desire of course). I remind you that Russians could only dream about such moderate conditions. In addition I suppose the involving of British colonial troops from Middle East, India, South-East Asia and Africa.

    landing where?

    The transfer of troops could be accomplished through Iran (not only by sea - directly from Britain, but by land too -from India and Middle east) and further through Central Asia using Trans-Caspian railway straight to the banks of Volga.

    when?

    Active arrangements could started to carrying out immediately after the 22nd of June 1941.

    fighting with which soviet army and affecting which offensives?

    By the beginning of winter 1942 we concentrate in the south of Stalingrad additional 300 - 500 thousand Allied troops. Released Soviet forces (one or two of soviet 51st, 57th, 28th armies or maybe all of them) are transferred to the north for strengthening the Don and South-west fronts.

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    Good Stalingrad Scenarios?

    in Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin

    Posted

    Those combats are at a smaller scale than I am talking about. The fighting for mamayev kurgan involved regiments and battalions – for example, on 28th Sep, it was the reduced 95 RD and bits of the 284 RD that attacked. Many times the soviets sent divisions in piece-meal in the desperate 'kitchen sink' way you describe.

    My point is that significant soviet forces that could have been sent into fighting were instead being held back for the ‘master plan’ of mars and uranus. This is not the behaviour of a stavka throwing everything at the enemy. They were hording whole armies. Not coz ferries couldn't get them into Stalingrad either.

    From Sep 7, Stalin was culling troops from elsewhere and sending them into reserve - 4th, 17th and 18th Tank Corps for example. They could have been sent into combat any time in October, but they weren't. The huge 5TA was not milling around waiting for ferries into Stalingrad, or going into attack off the march. They were part of a master plan.

    From mid september, the red army was not swinging wildly like a punch-drunk boxer, lucky enough to land one blow out of 10. The red army continued to jab and parry and duck like any boxer will, taking a dreadful hammering, while building up for the huge hooks of Mars and Uranus. One missed by a mile, but one landed flush on the jaw.

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    Good Stalingrad Scenarios?

    in Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin

    Posted

    Originally posted by JasonC:

    The Russians were ordering massive frontal counterattacks still outside the city, and from within it (northern suburbs etc) in September. Which failed with horrible losses. If they could have pushed the Germans back they would have, and they sent all the men they could to fight in the city. They just lost that fight. They won the next set, and it was enough. It wasn't some master plan trap. It was trying three things and one of them working, because the other guy's forces and decisions only beat two of them.

    OK, I maybe read authors with a soviet bias, but I would interpret the constant attacks on the 6A flanks and the dribbling re-inforcement of the 62A - all the while as reserves were being pooled and earmarked for Mars and Uranus - as definately part of a master plan. To keep the battle in Stalingrad as a stalemate.

    Sure, if they'd pushed germany back earlier they would have taken it, but making significant ground was not expected by any soviet operation until Uranus. Chuikov was to hold on, not push back. The counter attacks to the north and south were to relieve pressure on 62A, with attempts at small-scale tactical encirclement only.

    Of course, this may be erickson propaganda working on me.

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    Good Stalingrad Scenarios?

    in Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin

    Posted

    Originally posted by JasonC:

    Thus, they did all they could to hold the city, but accumulated forces that could not get into the city, and could not aid the battle there from the east bank. So they sent them to the operational flanks, and planned the counterattack. Well.

    The planning for the uranus encirclement began in mid-september, before the german assaults on sep 13 and before the brutal october fighting had carved up chuikov so precariously.

    I know you're not implying the counter-attack forces were standing about the flanks because they couldn't get on ferries, but...well, you almost are ;)

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    Hitler vs. Stalin

    in Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin

    Posted

    Originally posted by Martyr:

    Stalin--he has the wide-shouldered, low-to-the-ground mass of a true wrestler, while Hitler's float-like-a-butterfly posturing would only trip him up eventually.

    But Stalin had that useless withered arm, so unless he had learned whip it about like a stegosaurus tail, he would have been pretty pathetic in a fist fight.
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    Andreas - more please

    in Combat Mission - Scenario Talk

    Posted

    Alright, I'll look forward to them.

    Yesterday I finished Small Assault, which means I've worked my way down the DK CMBB list. I got a total victory, but I figure that scenario is more about minimising casualties and ammo management than not losing. Overall it played very realistically, as usual.

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