[Lend Lease to Russia]

"The author of the article looked at what DID happen"

He engages in speculation about "what if they didn't have lend-lease", and has to in the nature of the case, to arrive at his conclusion about its importance. Nothing wrong with that. Your finding a difference on that subject between him and me seems rather forced. We are both doing the same thing.

I hardly recognized my own comments in your comment on them, incidentally. I spent at least half my post discussing the reason the rail aid was important, as things happened.

But it seems to me the rest of your "objection", if that is what it is, is a simple denial or avoidance of a point every economist recognizes. I stated it thus -

"The thing to understand overall, is the fungibility of most goods to an industrial economy. It does not make much sense to say, "if they didn't get this, they wouldn't have had trucks", for instance. They would have had less, but they would have decided where that "less" fell."

It is saying what did happen, to say the Russians only received 7% of their government budget during the war, by value, in lend-lease. Nothing in the least "what-if" about it.

If anyone wants to conclude from their getting 400,000 trucks by lend-lease, that if they hadn't received lend-lease they would not have been able to launch large-scale offensives, then they are the ones engaging in what-if speculation. They are speculating that the Russians wouldn't have had enough trucks, in a hypothetical situation that did not actually occur.

And in that situation many things would change. One thing that would change, is fewer trucks rolling off ships in Murmansk. Another thing that would change, is more trucks rolling out of factories in Gorki. Why? Because the usefulness of another "N" trucks would have been higher, compared to the usefulness of another light tank made in Gorki, than was the case in the actual event, with more lend-lease trucks available. To trace out how fewer trucks arriving would have effected the Russian war economy, is a hypothetical "what-if" any way you try to slice it.

The statements "getting so many US trucks made it easier for the Russians to launch large offensives", is a statement about an "easier". That "easier" refers to a "harder". The harder is a hypothetical. It is as much a "what if" conclusion as anything I talked about. And formally, it is about the same thing to say, "the Russians would have had to build more trucks themselves, so they would have had less of other things like tanks and airplanes", as to say ""harder".

The only difference is that one or two ordinary economic points - fungibility of output in an industrial economy, and diminishing returns of value according to prior quantity in hand - have also been noticed in the "what if", comparison case, that any "harder" or "easier" claim tacitly makes use of.

In fact, you can't make claims about causes, without use of such comparisons. The only estimate of the effect of a cause is how something "runs" with it operating, and would "run" without it operating. In history, that always involves hypotheticals (or comparisons to similar but not identical cases), because one thing happens.

Back to the economic point. Everything that went into the existing Soviet war program was useful to them. They planned the things they made, to mesh with the other things they made, received; the allocations of personnel likewise, between farming and factory work and riflemen, etc. They picked a mix of things, partially by making requests about what to receive in lend-lease or setting priorities there, mostly by their own production decisions.

From their point of view, requesting something from the Allies was a substitute for the resources needed to make some copy or substitute domestically. Every such delivery therefore freed capacity, which they could apply to the next most urgent task in their mix or plan.

Deciding how much of each thing is needed, to free capacity for other urgent tasks, is exactly what planning is in the first place. It is how economies are directed (by consumers through a price system, or boards in a war-economy situation - both are directed at exactly that problem).

The article writer's conclusion is that the Russians would only have "cleared their territory", if they had 7% less government output available by value (perhaps 14% or slightly more of armaments). Which obviously means he too thinks the Russians would be winning by 44-45, in order to do that much. He does not say, at all, that they would have lost, and I quite agree with him on that.

I added the war mobilization point, because it is the most notorious and massive error in the whole German conduct of the war. I am hardly the first to point this out. I simply showed by reasoning that it was a bigger effect than lend-lease or its absence - comparable in magnitude, somewhat bigger.

I do not doubt that some will instantly jump down the throat of anyone who says so, over anything they can find to disagree about. Because, of course, it implies that German arrogance and the sort of stupidity that stems from excessive pride, had more to do with their defeat in the east, even than western aid to Russia.

This offends anyone who thinks pride isn't a weakness; also those interested in contempt toward the Russians (which was the exact error in question); also defenders of Germany against charges of idiocy in strategy; or those committed to the "overwhelmed by 10:1 odds worth of ignorant peons" fantasy.

Incidentally, in my opinion Germany would not have won the war even if they had held out in Russia, achieving a stalemate there in 1943-44. They still would have lost the air war in the west, as they did. And the atom bombs would still have been ready by August or around then. Germany wasn't anywhere near getting them. If the Russians hadn't taken Berlin, it would have been incinerated, instead of Hiroshima. The whole war might have had a far ghastlier ending, but hardly a different one as to the eventual winners.

[120mm mortar - which country developed it?]

"often called "Brandt" mortars."

A misunderstanding. The Brandt mortar was an interwar design by a French company of that name, their model 27/31. It was the mortar that standardized caliber at 81mm (3.2 inch), and was bought by most armies, except the UK. The Russians made a copy themselves, the 82mm, which was 1mm larger in caliber to enable them to use captured ammo but not the reverse.

But the Brandt was not the original. That was the Stokes 3" mortar of WW I, invented in 1915 by F. William Stokes, a British engineer. The Brandt was a copy of its principles, in a slightly larger caliber.

And there were a great variety of mortars before the Stokes or alongside it. The Stokes principle is still the one used in all later mortar types, in the following sense: a fixed firing pin at the base of the tube, whole projectile goes down the tube, smoothbore, medium caliber, fin-stabilized rocket, achieving a high rate of fire and reliable performance.

In WW I, there were heavier mortars of many types without a fixed firing pin, set off by lanyard from as far as 15 meters away (because they were dangerous). They were glorified stumpy howitzers, in effect, with calibers up to 240mm. There were also types with the bomb staying outside the tube, only a rod going into it, with seperately loading powder charges behind the projectile - so-called "spigot" mortars. Some in light, grenade-launcher caliber. Some in medium, and some huge bombs ("flying pigs" they were called) on the end of the rod. Before that, the UK used "Garlands", which fired a grenade made out of an empty jam tin through a hollow tube with a propellant charge of bags of black powder. And much larger, iron-shell mortars date back to the 18th century - they were used in the US civil war, in the war of 1812, etc - especially as seige weapons or high-angle naval guns for bombardments.

The modern mortars stem from Stokes 3" of 1915, which incidentally the Germans captured in a trench raid in 1916. "Stokes-Brandt" was used in the interwar period to refer to any weapon on the same principles, after the adoption of the Brandt 81mm caliber as standard. But Brandt did not invent the modern mortar, and the Russians were the ones to come up with a 120mm caliber version.

[120mm mortar - which country developed it?]

"the Germans were using Russian 120mm mortars. What's up with that?"

The Germans copied the 120mm from the Russians, and made around 8500 of them themselves. They also captured a number of them and used them, but how many I don't know. The Germans used captured ammunition and also produce 5.4 million 120mm mortar rounds themselves. The German produced 120mm mortar was called the 12 cm Granatwerfer 42. Captured Russian ones in German service were designated the 12 cm Granatwerfer 378®.

The numbers can be compared with 79,000 81mm mortars and 26,000 50mm ones in the early war, with 74 million 81mm rounds made and 22 million 50mm rounds. The 81mm mortar was by far the most common type in German service from mid-war on. It was used at company and battalion levels. The 120mm mortar was used at the regimental level in place of infantry guns. It seems to have been especially common in SS units in the late war, probably because they were more likely to be at full TOE in all weapons.

The timing of German mortar ammo production is also interesting. Large numbers of 50mm rounds were made in 1940. Far lower numbers of mortar rounds of all types were made in 1941 and 1942. In 1943 and 1944, large numbers of 81mm mortar rounds were produced.

This probably reflect large stocks of captured ammo available in 1941 and 1942, as well as phasing out the 50mm mortar, and a continued reliance on infantry guns. In the later defensive period of the war, 81mm mortars were more heavily used and ammo for them had to be made in Germany, rather than captured.

The Russians made around 47,000 120mm mortars over the course of the entire war. Most were produced in 1942 and 1943. They made 152,000 82mm mortars, and in the early war 145,000 50mm ones. Russian practice in the early war was to use 50mm mortars at the company level, 82mm at battalion level, and 120mm mortars at regimental level. They soon found the 50mm lacked sufficient punch and replaced those with 82mm mortars as well.

The much higher portion of 120mm mortars made by the Russians, compared to the Germans, primarily reflects the fact that Germans continued to use infantry guns for additional infantry firepower - 75mm and 150mm SiG. Similarly, the U.S. used cannon companies of 105mm pack howitzers at the regimental level. Essentially the same role was fufilled in the Russian army by abundant 120mm mortars.

The Russians produced enourmous numbers of mortar rounds during the war, though the breakdown by type I haven't found yet. All told, they made 251 million mortar rounds, ramping in 1942 and leveling off at ~75 million rounds per year in 1943-44. By then they had phased out the 50mm mortar, so those were heavier 82mm and 120mm shells.

How many 120mm mortars did the Germans capture? I haven't seen a figure so it is hard to say anything definite, but some reasoning can be supplied. The Russians had relatively few 120mm mortars in 1941. Their common use increased over the course of the war, and most of the weapons used were made in 1942 and 1943. Nearly the whole 1941 production was probably subject to capture, though many were probably destroyed instead. Only a portion of the 1942 production can have been captured, as the Germans advanced a long way only in the south, did most of that advancing before many of them would have been made, etc.

This sort of reasoning suggests the number captured was probably in the thousands, somewhere between half the German-built number and equal to it (i.e. 4250-8500). So the total 120mm mortars available to the Germans may have been around 15,000, plus or minus 2000 or so, with 1/3 to 1/2 of them a Russian-made weapon. The lower end of that range may be more likely.

Deducting their early losses, the Russians may have had ~35000 available, roughly half of them by the begining of 1943 and the other half by the begining of 1944. Mortar tube production in the last year and a half was low, replacement rate or less. Mortar ammo production remained very high. They probably had all the tubes they could feed by the begining of 1944. Mortar tubes are very cheap to produce, and they can fire off ammo rapidly, making the ammo production the real constraint.

I hope this helps, and the detail is interesting to at least one grog - LOL.

[Lend Lease to Russia]

The items in the list that the author of the article does not seem to appreciate, is the amount of railroad transportation equipment, and the raw industrial products - steel, copper, aluminum, rubber.

The Russians lost large portions of their rolling stock and locomotives in 1941. The railroad network the Germans used was a different gauge, and they systematically tore up and relaid the rail lines through captured areas - quite a slow process.

Logistical "leap" distances set the limits on sizes of advances in the east. Only rail provided efficient bulk supply on an east-west axis. The rivers could suppliment it, but only north-south for the most part. There were not nearly enough roads in Russia to make complete dependence on trucks an adequate solution, and trucks burn fuel in large quantities compared to the loads they can carry, if operated over large distances.

The trucks ran from railhead to units. When the front line was far from the railhead - as it always was for an advancer after an advance - the fuel demand just to truck forward other forms of supply skyrockets. That leaves little in the way of fuel for gas-guzzling tanks, which get 1/2 to 1 mile per gallon.

More trucks could indeed stretch the "tether", by providing more "thruput" to the front - though less and less as the distance increases. But they could not supply an new offensive, with its need for full refuelings, reserve stocks, dumps of millions of shells, etc. Only rail could, and the lines had to be reworked close to the new fron before another "step" could be taken.

And rebuilding massive rail networks (more than 12000 miles relaid, and 6000 new miles of completely new track), and running hundreds of trains over them, is not an easy or cheap thing to do. It would have taken a significant portion of Russia's industrial capacity. By providing so much of the equipment and materials for this, Russian industry was freed to concentrate on tanks and aircraft. And the steel and aluminum for that, was also provided in quantity.

The thing to understand overall, is the fungibility of most goods to an industrial economy. It does not make much sense to say, "if they didn't get this, they wouldn't have had trucks", for instance. They would have had less, but they would have decided where that "less" fell.

It makes more sense to look at the total wealth, assuming that it is in a useful form and replaces other equal efforts. Conversions of wartime outputs are not perfect, but an economist's estimate of the value of Russian armament expenditure for the war is on the order of $90 billion, in US dollars at the time, out of total government expenditure of about twice that amount, $180B. US armaments expenditure was $185B, out of a total war program expense of $316B. UK armaments output was on the order of $50B, the whole war program higher, again.

The biggest lend-lease trade was between the US and the UK, rather than between those and Russia. Britain provided ~$5.5B in transfers to the US (especially ship repairs, and oil); about $20B went the other way (some to other parts of the commonwealth, direct). The US sent around $10B to Russian direct. Britain then transfered some to Russia too, of course. Net, around $25B left the US, and around half of it stayed in the UK while around half went to Russia. That was around 8% of US war output.

Now, all told that means the Russians only got around 7% of their wartime government budget, by value, from lend-lease. Some of the other expenses in their budget were hardly optional. It is likely that all of the value transfered in lend-lease went straight to added armaments, which would put the proportion at more like 14%, or 1/7th.

It is unlikely the Germans would have held out simply because the Russians made 6/7ths as many tanks and planes and shells. "But the west supplied half the ammo". Yeah, but you can make a lot more ammo if your aren't putting your effort into making so many tanks. They would have had less ammo and fewer tanks, both. But not, "half".

It is possible some of the items were of considerably higher value to the Russians than to the US and UK - perhaps enough more valuable, that 1/5 of Russian armament output was involved, by value. But that is the range we are talking about - 14-20%.

Incidentally, economists have estimated the amount of their government expenditure the Germans got from exploitation of occupied territories, at about 7% of their whole war program. A similar figure to the boost Russian got from lend-lease.

Now, if Germany had mobilized her own economy fully in 1941, that is a different story. But they didn't. And that had as big, or bigger an impact than lend-lease.

If you take German armaments production and shift a year to the left, then level off at the 1944 level, the net result of 1 year sooner mobilization, is to add 1 year at the 1944 rate of output, and drop one at the pre-mobilization rate of output. You pick up 1 year's worth of the difference. In armaments overall, German production rose 3.3 times over that period, so the pick-up is 2.2 times the pre-mobilization output for a year. German output would have been around 20% higher if she had mobilized a year earlier. In fact, full mobilization did not occur until after Stalingrad, which was 18 months after the invasion, 2 years after the war decision, and 1 year after the failure to take Moscow the first year.

In Germany had mobilized a year earlier and Russian didn't get any lend-lease, then Russia probably would have lost. The two things are comparable in effect, and lend-lease is actually probably somewhat smaller. Just one of them, I think a stalemate in 43 or 44 would have been possible, but with Russia having the upper hand, slightly. That part is admittedly a guess.

[81mm vs 75mm]

"the casing doesn't need to be so thick?"

That is quite true. And it is not at all clear the CM figures are reasonable.

The 75mm shells are much bigger objects. In pure weight terms, they are twice the size of the 81mm rounds, because they are longer and driven by a larger powder charge, etc. But the bursting charges of both are on the order of 1 lb (.5 kg plus or minus), because of the thicker shell walls needed for the 75mm.

Incidentally, CM gives the British 3" mortar a 26 blast rating. That may be a more accurate ballpark for medium mortars, and it is not in the least clear the 3" deserves a much better rating than the 81mm or the US and Germany.

There are arguments about that from tests and sharpnel type and the quality of steel used and what not. There is also considerable variation and dispute over the typical burst effects of 75mm, which may vary considerably with the types of shell involved. E.g. some German 75mm tank gun HE shells had 454 gram bursting charge. Another type seems to have had a 860 gram bursting charge. Some of the charges are amatol mix, some are more powerful pure TNT.

That a 75mm artillery round is a much bigger thing that an 81mm mortar round is quite true and seems to be behind the CM figures. It is entirely possible a more realistic assessment based on all factors, would have the two types roughly comparable in blast effect.

It is a vexed and disputed question, and you are right to challenge or be skeptical of the way it is in CM. But what the exact or right relation would be, is very much up in the air. And BTS seems to be reluctant to change something when the "to what?" question cannot be satisfactorily answered. Entirely reasonable, but not completely satisfying.

[Germans got bombers?]

"Stukas?"

Rockets, as others have pointed out.

The GIs called them "screaming meamies". The Germans called them "Stukas on wheels".

The most common types is a 150mm multi-barrelled rocket launcher with 6 tubes, grouped 4 to a battery, and 3-6 batteries in a firing battalion. In CM, one battery of then gets 25 rounds and costs only 55 points. Heavier types are more powerful but much more expensive.

The saving grace about them is they are rather innaccurate. They will typically land in a pattern ~400 yards wide, by ~200 yards deep. And some will land outside even that wide a pattern. But if a lot of them are fired and catch you before you get close to the Germans, they can mess you up.

A common use of them in CM is for 2-3 batteries of them (the cheap 150mm I mean - the bigger ones are rather expensive, so fewer are typically affordable) to shell the whole enemy side of the board early on, as a sort of "spoiling barrage". Works better against attackers, because they aren't in foxholes so hits don't have to be so close to hurt them.

[So what's 4.5 inch Artillery? And other Arty queries...]

"I reckon this is a waste of my time"

LOL. Well, it was certainly interesting to me. I tracked down some additional "evidence" of US use of the 4.5" gun, in case anyone wants any.

1. the capsule discussion of the Elsenborn ridge affair in the US field artillery association's "history of the field artillery", says the battalions firing behind Elsenborn were 4x105mm howitzer, 6x155mm howitzer, 2x155mm gun, and 1x4.5" gun.

2. This passage from the US official history of the Bulge - "An attempt to give greater weight to the artillery in the St. Vith-Vielsalm area failed when the 4.5-inch guns of the 770th Field Artillery Battalion were cut off at Samree en route from La Roche."

3. The following list of attachments to the 101st Airborne during the Bulge fighting contains 2 field artillery battalions specified as armed with 4.5" guns - one of them the same as the preceeding, the 770th.

"Two platoons, Co. B, 796th AAA (AW) Battalion, 9-10 January.

Batteries A, B, & C, 61st Airborne AA Battalion, 11-18 January.

2d Tank Battalion, 19-30 December.

Combat Command R, 9th Armored Division, 20-31 December.

Combat Command B, 10th Armored Division, 20 December-18 January.

Combat Command B, 4th Armored Division, 8-10 January.

755th Field Artillery Battalion (155 How.), 19 December- 12 January.

969th Field Artillery Battalion (155 How.), 19 December- 15 January.

775th Field Artillery Battalion (4.5" Gun), 19 December- 15 January.

333d Field Artillery Group, 20-28 December.

559th Field Artillery Battalion (155 Gun), 1-3 January, 11-12 February.

687th Field Artillery Battalion (105-How.), 12-18 January.

770th Field Artillery Battalion (4.5" Gun), 13-14 January.

193d Glider Infantry, 3-7 January, 14-18 January.

705th TD Battalion, 20 December-18 January.

Co. B, 811th TD Battalion, 3-11 January.

Co. C, 704th TD Battalion, 4-6 January.

Co. A, 602d TD Battalion, 4-6 January.

611th TD Battalion, 6-7 January.

Co. B, 704th TD Battalion, 9-11 January.

Co. C, 609th TD Battalion, 11-12 January."

4. I found a biography of one member of the 172nd field artillery on the web. It contains a line stating they turned down an offer of 155s in favor of keeping their 4.5" guns, while still in England before D-Day. Here is the URL of the bio (most of it unrelated, but might interest somebody) -

http://members.aol.com/famjustin/Gieskebio1.html

And the same site has a log of all the days of shooting, rounds expended, moves, etc of the battery in the whole war. For those trying to get a sense of what a higher level battery did, how often if was firing and in quantity, at what sort of targets, etc, an interesting lump of data. Not exactly riveting reading, since most days they shot at things but nothing much else happened, but if you want to know what 4.5" guns fired at, there it is. Here is that URL -

http://members.aol.com/famjustin/172FAlog.html

I think it is pretty darn well established...

[So what's 4.5 inch Artillery? And other Arty queries...]

The following US artillery battalions used the 4.5" gun.

172nd, 176th, 198th, 211th, 215th, 259th, 770th, 771st, 772nd, 773rd, 774th, 775th, 777th Colored, 935th, 939th, 941st, and 959th.

It was the US ones that used the US gun carriage, and the British designed tube and shell. Here is a source's discussion of the subject -

"A companion of the 155mm howitzer was the 4.5" gun (an indigenous 120mm gun was one of the few failures of the inter-war design projects). The tube of this gun was of British design, while the carriage was that of the 155mm howitzer (carriage commonality between companion guns and howitzers was one of the hallmarks of U.S. artillery designs)."

So, they used the 155 howitzer carriage, and because the 120mm gun the US army tried to develop in the interwar years was regarded as a failure, they put the British 4.5" gun tube on it.

[Platoon deployment]

"two platoons forward with one in reserve if you have the forces"

Whale. Sometimes.

Yes, a reserve platoon is useful. Yes, two platoons can maneuver by bounds, one moving another not. But I often use a narrower formation at least at first, more like a column in some respects. Or a wedge rather than a "V".

I usually assign 1 platoon to "point", with few supports so as not to slow it down (1 zook or piat is about it), and sometimes only 2 squads (3rd attached to the company HQ). It goes first and its mission is to find either the enemy or a hole. It somehow manages to do one or the other with remarkable consistency. I give it an HQ with good morale but little else.

Then I make an overwatch platoon, or sometimes 2. It has MGs. It does not need to be so fast. It does need a good combat rating, and command helps too. It follows behind the point platoon about 1-2 minute, ~100 yards or sometimes 200. I don't want it to get hit by the same barrage as the point, or run into an ambush in the same minute. Otherwise it follows as close as it can.

Then there are all sorts of grab bag extras. The company HQ, the weapons, a 4th platoon organized as a second overwatch force or assault engineers. They maneuver behind or to the side of the overwatch platoon, or both. Usually they are more spread out, and some details out of them may pause farthe back - e.g. a weapon HQ and a couple mortars. They should be able to move alongside the overwatch platoon quickly (means 1-2 turns), either into the same spot, or on one side of it, or both sides.

Last comes the reserve platoon, which gets the best commander, or the stealthiest if they aren't very good. It will sometimes remain motionless and hiding several hundred yards behind the rest. Sometimes it will stay 100-200 yards back of the HQ-support element but keep moving. Sometimes they will move about level with it but well off to one side. The reserve is suppose to be able to fufill the role of any other part, or to charge a broken enemy "target of opportunity" late, or to change the main axis of advance with its own moves and then be replaced itself by one of the others.

Once in contact, the point and overwatch platoon usually wind up fighting the same enemy, and the HQ-support guys kick in however they can. Whether the reserve comes up, behind or from a new angle, or gets caught by somebody else while trying, or just waits, depends on what happens up front.

When in actual contact, the spacing I use it tight for each platoon with intervals between them. Typically 60 yards for a platoon, side to side. The gaps between (side to side) are usually more like 100 yards, but sometimes there won't be any. LOS stuff dominates.

Ideally you want to be far enough apart that only 1 platoon can ever come under the same artillery barrage (rockets excluded). But you want locations within 100 yards of either of them, to be less than 250 yards from the other, otherwise they cannot give any appreciable fire support to each other's targets. The same distance will generally mean a couple of minutes at most, to get to any useful supporting location - at least, for the fast guys. Sometimes you have to stay tighter, because you can't see from farther away (slopes, etc).

Squads do not operated independently, they only swing around their HQ to present its "face" this way or that, etc. Platoons only operate out of supporting distance from each other as special "details" or as moving reserves, and they try to stay hidden or out of action if seperated. The company is the basic fighting force, the platoons are its maneuver elements.

That's how I do it. For what it is worth.

[So what's 4.5 inch Artillery? And other Arty queries...]

At one point I said "pretty well none", when I meant of course "pretty well known". One of those misfirings upstairs between mind and fingers - LOL. Sorry for any confusion.

[So what's 4.5 inch Artillery? And other Arty queries...]

"Allies (American only?) have the option of purchasing 4.5 inch artillery"

The British have them too. It is a 114mm gun, and was a product of interwar cooperation between the UK and the US. The Brits designed the gun-tube and shell, while the US supplied the gun carriage design - the same as the 155mm howitzer (itself orginally a French design, incidentally).

"I'm familiar with the American 105 mm howitzer, which was a very standard artillery piece."

Correct. The 105mm howitzer was the standard divisional artillery piece, 36 of them in 3 battalions for infantry divisions, 54 of them in 3 battalions (6-gun batteries), self-propelled, in the armor divisions. The infantry divisions also had 6 shorter-ranged 105mm pack howitzers for each infantry regiment, 18 more all told. So both types of divisions had 54 105mm artillery pieces.

Incidentally, 1 battalion of 12 155mm howitzers was also standard equipment for the infantry divisions.

"This one seems just slightly larger (about 110mm)."

114mm actually.

"Can anyone explain what the difference is--and why there'd be this separate non-standard sized piece? Could it actually be a mortar?"

It is not a mortar. It is a *gun* rather than a *howitzer*. A much longer ranged, higher velocity piece, with a longer barrel. It is more like the size of a 155mm howitzer, but with a relatively small bore diameter. It is meant to be a superior weapon for counterbattery fire in particular, using its longer "reach" to hit enemy gun positions far in the enemy rear.

It was used in non-divisional, heavier field artillery units. Corps and army level artillery. I will explain a bit more about how those were organized and how common they were later on. But just as a first approximation, they were a lighter substitute for 155mm *guns* (not howitzers).

US field artillery groups above the division level mixed howitzers with guns, generally around 2 battalions of the former to 1 battalion of the later. The idea was that the gun portion provided reach into the German rear, artillery positions, transport bottlenecks, etc, while the howitzers needed only to reach the front line or near it, most of the time. More on higher level US artillery practices, below.

"what were 4.2 chemical mortars?"

These were heavy mortars intended for chemical warfare, gas warfare, should it break out. I.e. if the Germans used gas, they would be the primary or initial means of replying in kind with poison gas shells. In the absence of chemical warfare, they were optimised to perform smoke missions, both ordinary smoke and white phosphorous.

Originally there was no HE shell for them, but an artillery officer assign to them developed one independently in late 1942. From 1943 on, they were therefore able to provide HE support to the infantry as well as smoke missions.

There were 16 "battalions" of them serving in the ETO, plus 2 in Italy and 6 in the Pacific. These battalions were bigger than standard artillery battalions because they used the infantry, mortar structure and unit size names. That is, 4 mortars were a "platoon", and 12 a "company", instead of those being called batteries and battalions as the same number of tubes would be called in the field artillery. Ordinary practice was to assign 1 company of them (12 mortars) to each infantry division.

"the US 90mm antiarcraft gun was not used as an antitank gun"

Well, it was occasionally in a pinch. I've read some after action reports that recount them KOing Panthers. But it was not a standard practice.

"why wasn't the 90mm used in a towed AT role?"

Just bad doctrine. The men were not trained for it, the gun did not have the best sight for it equipped, 90mm AP was not normally supplied to the AAA, the units were usually kept at army level and above scanning the sky for German planes. A variant of the same gun was mounted on the Jackson tank destroyer and did excellent work, but the towed AA themselves were not pressed into the ground-combat role on any systematic basis.

But in the Battle of the Bulge, the Germans got far enough into the rear areas to run over some of them. And then they were used as anti-tank guns, because they were available and anything that could kill a tank was worth its weight in gold. But this seems to have been a purely ad-hoc measure by local troops, not anything the chain of command planned or approved. They worked quite well by the way, so it was obviously a mistake not to have gotten more work out of them.

"According to MacDonald tungsten (sabot) rounds were rare in Dec '44 for US 57mm AT, but Brits had them. Any comments."

I don't have direct knowledge of that one way or another. The 57mm was the standard AT piece in the infantry for both, at the battalion and regimental levels. Both used heavier, 76mm guns at the divisional level. The Brits had used the 57mm - the 6 lber in their terms - in a number of tank designs, too, while the U.S. never did. Valentines and Churchills with 6-lb guns were built, for example. It may be that they devoted more tungsten to producing 6-lb "T" rounds because of this. Those tank models were obsolete in 1944, but the ammo may have lasted. The US was concentrating available tungsten on 76mm T rounds, which could deal with Panthers and Tigers, and not making enough.

"How common was the 8 inch gun?"

I suspect that the question conceals a misunderstanding. You probably mean, "any 8" artillery piece" and "in US service". "Gun" is a term distinct from "howitzer", but is often used generically as well, for both types. As I use it too, of course, sometimes. The 8" *gun*, proper, was quite rare. But the 8" *howitzer* was reasonably common, though less common than 155mm howitzers.

While the US artillery at the division level and below is usually pretty well known - on this board I mean - the use at higher echelons is often underrated. The US had a substantial amount of corps and higher level artillery. In fact, there was about an artillery brigade's worth of guns above the division level, for every division, roughly doubling the total number of tubes available. And the higher level tubes were heavier than the division level ones.

First the top level guns to get those out of the way, because they are rare enough to matter little. 8" guns (proper) were used side by side with 240mm howitzers, as the longer-reaching part of that heaviest mix. These heaviest guns were different from others, in that a battalion comprised only 6 guns, not 12. The U.S. had 15 "battalions" of the 240mm howitzer, with 5 "battalions" of the 8" guns. Organizationally, that would typically mean 5 "heavy" artillery -groups-, as they were called, each with 24 pieces, 6 8" guns for counterbattery range, 18 240mm howitzers for pulverizing strongpoints. Not very many of these things, they are special purpose items really.

The bulk of the higher level artillery was organized into brigade sized formations. Sometimes doubled up into 6 battalions, sometimes reduced to 2, but generally 3 battalions with 1 long ranged gun and 2 shorter ranged howitzer. And here we are talking substantial numbers - a 3-battalion artillery group for every division.

The pairings were of two general types. The lighter pairing would have 155mm howitzers, two battalions, paired with either 4.5" guns or 155mm guns, one battalion. About half of them had the 4.5" guns, half at this level or pairing type, the 155mm guns. This level or pairing type (155mm howitzer "base"), comprised about 2/3rds of the heavy artillery. The other 1/3rd had 8" howitzers as the base type. 2 battalions of those, paired with 1 battalion of 155mm guns.

So, overall result is 1/3rd have 2x155mm howitzer plus 1x4.5" gun, the next 1/3rd have 2x155mm howitzer plus 1x155mm gun, the last 1/3rd have 2x8" howitzer plus 1x155 gun. In all cases, battalions, so in CM module terms those amounts multiplied by 3. Naturally, they mixed and matched and swapped sometimes, so the structure would not be perfect, but that is the basic plan or force mix.

In addition to all of the above, there were some lighter battalions at the corps level with additional 105mm. Most of the 105mm were at the division level, but there was, on average, about 1 extra battalion per division, at higher levels. Which could be reassigned in 2-6 battalion groupings, to double the vanilla 105mm support a given division could get, when needed.

How common does that mean 8" support ought to be? Well, it means a typical corps had 8" support somewhere. When heavy artillery support from corps level and above is available, you'd expect 4.5" (the low end) 1/9th of the time about, and 8" support another 2/9ths of the time. Most of the time, 6/9ths, it would be 155mm.

Since there were also 155mm howitzers at the infantry division level, that type would be even more common. If you want it in die roll terms, when there is heavy artillery support, roll 2d6. On a roll of 2-3, you get 4.5". On a roll of 10-12, you get 8". The rest you get 155mm. (6/36 155 gun, 20/26 155mm howitzer).

I hope this helps, and that was a fine set of questions by the way.

Correction made, I flubbed some of the chances first time around - sorry.

[ 05-07-2001: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[Yankees, thousands of them!]

"best thing to breaking up mass infantry are on the field mortors." [sic]

No, they don't have the ammo or the blast. ~1/3rd of the rounds will hit near a target aimed at, and in less than 3 minutes they will be dry. On average, they will put down fewer men, than crew the firing mortars themselves. At dense targets, their own number. That will not stop attackers with odds.

Off map FOs are just as rapid with a TRP, and the delay even without one is pretty trivial - 1 turn if you can see the target. There is no reply, and an entire area is effectively denied.

A German 81mm FO gets 150 rounds each 19 blast for 71 points, which is 40 blast per point spent. A U.S. 81mm FO gets 200 rounds each 18 blast for 99 points, which is 36.4 blast per point spent. Brit 3" get 26 blast, 180 rounds, 40 per point spent.

A U.S. 60mm mortar costs 21 points and has 31 rounds each 9 blast, which is 13.3 per, or only 37% as much total firepower for the cost. A Brit 2 inch gets 18 shells each 7 blast, total 127, for 9 cost, which is 14 each. The U.S. 81mm gets 23x18 for 26 points, 16 overall per; the German 81 gets 23x19 for 27 points again 16 per.

The only exception is the British 3", which pays proportionally more for its higher blast per round (26 vs. 18-19, cost 36 vs 26-27), but then gets double the ammo thrown in for free (58 rounds HE), compared to all other light mortars. That yields about the same total blast per point as off-map mortars, 42. Incidentally, this is an obvious pricing (or ammo) anomoly (aka goof), a "perq" for taking the Brits.

Unless the extra accuracy produces dramatic, 3-fold increases in rounds near target, the rest of the on-map mortars are too expensive. Where that accuracy can make a difference is against point targets rather than mass ones, since full off-map mortar barrages would waste many shells firing against a single MG or towed gun.

Light on map mortars are reasonable weapons to suppress point targets for brief periods. More than that they really can't do.

[Case For New Type Of Chain of Command AI]

Don't be daft. Strategy is just greek for "what a general does", and when it modifies "game" it means not the level of military aggregation, but merely that decisions of commanders decide outcomes. Chess is not a strategy game because pawns "are" "divisions". Tactical, operational, or strategic levels of military operations, can and are all made into strategy games.

[Case For New Type Of Chain of Command AI]

CM is a strategy wargame. It is not a sim. It is not a roleplaying game either, but a strategy game. The appeal of strategy games is that the outcome depends on the interaction of match wits of the opposing commanders. Thus Go and Chess are successful strategy games, despite the fact that they simulate little or nothing.

The actual realistic impact that a single higher level commander has on a large, grand-tactical battle, in real life, is very small. The number of decisions between real alternatives (as opposed to just not screwing up), that one commander makes in the course of a 30 minute firefight, can be counted on the hands. If he is lucky a majority of them may actually be carried into effect; it can easily be the case that the majority have no effect for hundreds of local reasons.

One commander's decisions are not a rich enough set to create a challenging strategy game. Real officer's lives just aren't interesting enough. This is not a criticism of them; it merely reflects the reality that hundreds of individuals provide the relevant inputs, and the scale of impact of single commanders is necessarily limited in realistic fog of war situations.

A truly realistic simulation of life of one marine on Guadalcanal, would be torture not entertainment. A perfect sim would be a movie, and not a strategy game, because almost everything the commander tried to do would have little impact on unfolding events, driven almost entirely by interacting forces beyond his personal control. Action movies present a different picture precisely because they are romantic and unrealistic.

The way in which military wargames create the conditions for good strategy games, is that they allow the commander to make decisions that in reality occur at several levels of the military hierarchy. The impact of the combined decisions of a dozen sergeants, a handful of lieutenants, and one captain, on a 30 minute firefight, can be decisive enough (indeed, almost always will be), to result in an outcome that depends on matched wits rather than fate and fog-of-war.

Efficient military units manage to produce highly coordinate actions despite the decisions occuring in parallel at many levels. Strategy games take a real process that occurs outside the level of one man - the "corporate" "meshing" of reactions and commands with one another, in an experienced military unit - and puts that piecing-together inside the player's head. It give him conscious control over what is in reality a distributed process of cooperation.

It is that cooperation problem that contains the real strategy richness present in tactical warfare. Anything that carries the level of "sim" past it, below it, abstracting that cooperation process into deterministic or random game system outcomes, drains the result of its strategy interest. The "player" becomes a cog. The cooperation problem is hard-coded, according to the game designer's personal sense of what is a "realistic" way for it to go. The player feels like he is watching a movie the game designer has choreographed or directed. The outcome depends not on his wits and his opponent's, but upon fate or chance.

The only outright sims that are sufficiently interesting and challenging to be games, are ones in which a single individual has a vastly higher control over relevant outcomes, than in ground warfare. Thus, for a fighter pilot it can work. For a ship commander it is possible, with all the subsystems under him attacking as so many robotic multipliers of his decisions.

Even in those cases, trying to handle battles with higher numbers of ships or planes, tends to encounter the problems already mentioned. Thus 2 or 4 plane sims work, but flying 1 plane in a multiple-squadron dogfight still leaves the "chance-fate" outcome.

Other tactical sims, as shooters and RPGs, simply adopt the action movie formula, and handle the problem that one person's decisions do not realistically have much effect, by magically pretending otherwise. But that is not realism, obviously.

Game design is not the same thing as sim design. It is a different job, and a much harder one. Literalism, engineering, programming, choreography, do not solve the problem of game design, and in practice they are its greatest (because most common) pitfalls. The job description of a game designer is to -design-, a -game-.

Which means, he determines what controls to place in the hands of players, and how the interaction of inputs from those controls shall lead to a space of outcomes. The outcomes can vary randomly, in addition to their variation from player inputs. But the player inputs must be by far the most important factors in the outcome, or the game will not have any interest, because the decisions it presents will lack weight.

The situations presented must be of a practically indefinite complexity, and variety. The interactive effects of move and counter, must not be fully foreseeable or subject to exhaustive analysis (else, the right decision is determined). But they must be partially forseeable and subject to some level of analysis (else the player could improve his play by flipping coins for his decisions. It is less predictable, which is an edge in avoiding -being- analysed).

And the result must be playable, and possess enough immersive realism to attract and hold interest, if the game is to be any "improvement" (as an additional game option, obviously, not a replacement) on Chess or Go.

These constraints are more serious than many who don't design games for a living suppose. There are not that many ways of handling player inputs, level of control, etc, that meet them. And many of them were found (by trial and error) long ago.

Most wargames made, fail. Most that do not fail, follow formulas that have been known for quite some time, with minor improvements or tweaks. This stability is not the result of any lack of imagination or programming skill to make more complicated games or more literalist sims. It is the result of the fact that those things are not improvements - in playability, in depth of gameplay, in replay value, in competitive interest.

[Yankees, thousands of them!]

"Do you know how many green troops you can get for 2000 points?! Any suggestions?"

First, get a piece of terrain. You want a reserve slope deployment of one kind or another, so that elements of the attacked come into view of the majority of your force, while other attackers further back can't see or provide "overwatch" fire. Backside of a ridge, beyond a woodline, interior of a village, whatever you use.

Second, establish a barrier in front of some part of the selected position, that depends on an *area effect* (AE for short). The primary choices are an AP minefield (~10 tiles worth, the cost of a platoon or an AFV, not 1-2. 1-2 won't do anything). Or TRPs plus light mortar FOs (and/or 75mm arty perhaps) - as the two most easily affordable means of getting an AE. AE matters because it multiplies the firepower when the number of enemies increases, instead of being diluted over several targets. And these types are also immune to enemy firepower, as off map or not living. A *shield* composed of a planned AE, forms the forward part of your main "block" position.

Directly behind the AE, place regular infantry in whole platoons. Do not spread out beyond command radius. The danger from arty is somewhat higher, but command and a group tight enough to provide multiple shooters, reliefs, etc, is essential for a "block" position. Some enemy can always get through an AP minefield, or a light mortar barrage. But take out an entire platoon position, they can rarely manage with the piecemeal forces that get through, simply by weight of numbers.

To the flanks and rear of the main block, position ranged fire anti-infantry weapons. HMGs (but not U.S. 50 cals - they don't have enough ammon), FLAK/AA, infantry guns or howitzers, the FOs. Spread in an arc, but able to see the "crest" of whatever reverse slope position you selected, or various bits and pieces of it. Their physical seperation protects them from enemy arty, and distance from most small arms fire. They should also "hide" until several of them they have good targets, then open up together.

Light mortars and some MGs (U.S. 50 cal, German LMG) do not have enough ammo to help significantly against hordes. A few light mortars can be useful, but for the ranged anti-infantry component of the force you need firepower times ammo load. Avoid the low ammo items, or too many of them, on the defense.

Keep a platoon of infantry in reserve somewhere, either behind the block or off to one side farther back. Use it to counterattack portions of the enemy force where they are already broken, to prevent rally, drive up causalties, and break global morale. Retreat afterward, do not attempt to hold ground or present too good an artillery target yourself.

Think of barrages - yours or his - plus AP mines, as "seperators" to allow retreat and lateral maneuver. Think of light barrages as temporary extensions of the minefields, that you can shut on or off, e.g. to allow a lane to sortie, and prevent entry the other way when necessary.

Save some sort of artillery, a full turn's blasting worth, late into the game for "final protective fire" directly ahead of your men. Do not blast empty areas, or waste all the artillery fire on the enemy still distant and approaching. Lighter artillery breaks rather than killing; its proper use is on enemy's in immediate contact, or to cut off units in immediate contact from help from troops farther back. Use heavier forms of artillery for killing fire, in quantity, on forces already located and halted by other arms.

Be prepared to abandon positions that come under heavy enough fire, from artillery or massed enemy getting too close. Do not stand if you will not hold. Break contact and withdraw-run to a new position, and do not monkey around doing it. Use split squads at set up to create additional foxholes, rejoining in the first few turns. Add positions in stone buildings to get more.

Expect to juggle units, leaving little on unthreatened avenues to move more to others. You will not defeat a heavy attack by standing still in front of it. Occasionally let the enemy "hit air", conceeding objectives or other pressed points, then dropping barrages on the position evacuated, or firing into them from 2-3 sides. Stay loose and unpredictable, especially against humans.

I hope this helps.

[Two historical questions on German units/OOB’s]

Useful, at least for stating the claim.

"Readings of OOBs and doctrine prove this"

That is just it. I'd like to see the OOBs and/or a document about the doctrine, not an assertion of their existence. I told Terence I meant the "willing to be corrected" remark, precisely because this seems to me quite possible. But saying it is actually is saying, or hearsay. What is wanted is more like, here are the lists of Armee level troops for these five armies and the locations of the units or what-not, and each one has exactly 1 S.A. Plus a doctrinal brief, would be great.

Incidentally, the quality of men point and number of LMGs and SMGs, doesn't strike me as sound. Of course ad hoc assault units picked men out of larger units precisely to get better than average men, and to collect needed weapons. If you take some of the longest-service sergeants, half the corporals, and men with iron crosses, out of a battalion, you will not get an average quality unit but an improved one. If you let them select their weapons and draw them from the units they are leaving, you will not be short of MGs and SMGs - the units they were combed out of will be, temporarily, but that is all.

If doctrinal sturmbattalions were being formed - which is likely with the claim, certainly - then I'll bet they arose out of the ad hoc process and not the other way around. Meaning, the front commanders may have been so regularly forming comb-outs, that it was institutionalized, to avoid depleting the rest of the units or being caught without, etc. I'd guess that change would have been made in 1943 if that were the way it happened. (Why? Two big Russian offensives met, meaning repeat lessons on the need to have counterattack-ready reserves).

So, I find the claim interesting and plausible, but not proven until I see the evidence from OOBs or doctrinal documents.

[COMBAT MISSIONS: Armour Tactics - King Tiger!]

"I will gratefully acknowlege any corrections"

I believe you. I have only one correction - the Cromwell is fast, faster than Shermans actually. The early models can to 40 mph. Other than that, it all sounded right.

And two additions - Allied "T" rounds can go through the turret front, like the 17 lber - but not through the front hull. One consequence of both of these is that "hull down" positions are not always so desireable with a KT. The hit chance is lower, but against the best Allied AT weapons, the hits are more likely to hurt when you are hull down.

Also, stay at range if possible, because the 88 will kill anything at range, and many of the Allied weapons can touch you. Even from the sides, the vanilla 75mm Shermans and such, will need to get reasonably close.

The main threat is 76mm TDs from the sides (even at range). The secondary threat is "T" rounds and 17-lbers from the front, close, hitting the turret.

[Is anyone using another computer game to generate tactical battle situations for CM?]

"the V for Victory series"

The decent thing for this idea, methinks. It is battalion level, with step breakdowns of companies, and company-sized units for some unit types. Incidentally, they are quite good operational games, the Russian one in particular. They have only two weaknesses to beware of.

One, they have a "unit fatigue" system which is on the whole quite good, but has one loophole. Low level "harassment" artillery attacks cause fatigue when they shouldn't. The reason this is a problem is it is too easy for a player to "tag team" his supporting artillery onto some subset of the enemy maneuver force, and fatigue them every turn. In a day, two at most, the units so treated crumble.

This is not realistic because the effect doesn't depend on the strength of the arty shooting. To "plug" this whole, just do not allow harassment artillery fire. Pure artillery attacks ("drumfire") are allowed, but only with 1:1 or greater odds.

The second weakness has to do with the otherwise excellent supply system. Too much of the supply cost is for the artillery units of a command, while increased "attack" supply for non-arty units is very cheap. This opens a loophole, because you can cross-attach all the artillery to one HQ, and give that HQ lousy supply, then just don't fire the guns. You free up so much supply all the maneuver units can stay at peak supply rates, which gives them huge combat strength bonuses.

To avoid this problem, do not allow shifts of artillery units (cross attachments) from one HQ to another, unless the HQ the unit is transfered *to*, has a *higher* supply setting for that day, than the one it transfers from. Don't game the system, in other words, and basically leave the artillery were it is and pay for its supply if you want to increase the supply to some formation.

Other than those two loopholes, they are fine games still. Interface and such nothing to write home about; they play like board wargames (though with some fog-of-war).

As an operational context for CM scenarios, though, they'd be pretty good. You'd probably want to resolve almost all fights in the V4V game, not in CM, though. They are pretty big battles, meaning lots of battalions in them.

Even a single multi-hex V4V battle would be several fights in CM, probably. You'd want to break up the fight into the attacking hexes, or half of them, unless you want pretty big fights. Because even though V4V fights are battalion units, they often involve 4-6 units going after a stack of 2-3, say.

[BLOOD HAMSTER feud has been declared!]

Sounds like a great fight. And a humorous setting (Chateau...).

For the grogs, though, a few little nits. One, September is hardly "3 months after the breakout", since the breakout didn't start until the last days of July. More like a month and a half after the breakout, and ~a month after the Falaise battles. When, incidentally, the Germans were pretty darn weak and running like the dickens. Two, the units on the German side seem unlikely choices. Here are some particulars on the 352nd Infantry (which was first mauled all the way back in June) -

"The division was in very poor shape on 30 July, when all its battalions were classified as "abgekämpft", which meant that the unit was no longer combat worthy and that the battalion had less than 100 combat ready men left. It had four heavy AT guns and two StuG combat ready and four artillery batteries. [it also had remnants of bits and pieces of 5 other divisions attached].

At the beginning of August the division was withdrawn for refitting in the area south-east of Alençon. The division only spent about a week here before US forces closed in. Elements of the division subsequently became engaged in rear guard actions along the axis Le Mans - Dreux. The remnants of the division were merged with 581. Volks-Gren.Div. on 21 September 1944 to form the 352. Volks-Gren.Div."

All told, the whole division probably had 1200-1600 men left in the infantry, the remnant of no less than 16 original battalions (including 1 engineer and 1 fusilier/foot recon, 6 of its own infantry and 1-3 from other divisions) - along with 2 battalions of artillery and a whopping 6 heavy anti-tank weapons (4 PAK, 2 StuG). The division's own leftover were probably about the strength of 1 battalion, and all the attachments added about the same again to made it a weak regimental kampgruppe.

As for the 21st Panzer, it never had any tanks heavier than Panzer IVs in the Normandy campaign or its aftermath. It lost half its original manpower in Normandy, while replacements kept the manpower strength around 2/3rds at the begining of September, rebuilding to 3/4 by the end of the month. That includes all the rear area troops, so the proportional decline in manpower in the maneuver units must have been much larger. From early August on, the division had only 20 Pz IVs in running order, and no other working tanks.

Should any of this historical trivia stop you for one minute? LOL. No, of course not. It is just offered as drink for grogs, who might be curious about the real strength of the name units on the date in question.

[Did the Valentine see service in Normandy]

"why they did not make the cut"

It is a fine question. 8300 were made, including 1400 in Canada. 3800 of them were sent to the Russians (300 were sunk on the way), including essentially all the Canadian built ones. The Valentine was the only lend-lease tank the Russians ask for more of. That still leaves 4500 more.

The number used for bridgelayers was small, as was the number converted to Bishop SP artillery pieces. Rather more were converted to Archers, but less than 1000 for all of these combined. Which still leaves ~3650 of the things.

650 were apparently rigged out as DD tanks, for invasions. But they do not seem to have been actually used for that purpose. They were used for training, but it is unclear if they ever left England. That still leaves 3000.

The earlier, 2-lber versions (marks 1-7), served in North Africa and were a successful design there. But the number in the field at El Alamein was only ~225, and in early offensives 200 or less. (Comparable numbers of each of Shermans, Grants, Stuarts, and greater numbers of Crusaders, were present). Many were probably lost there, so the ~200 steady number may account for a few times that in total vehicles. But nothing like all the remainder.

The later, 8-10 marks, had the better 6-lb gun. How many of those saw service in the Torch-Tunisia campaign, in Sicily, or in Italy I haven't been able to find out. Against the tanks that saw service in North Africa, a 6-lb Valentine would be a reasonable weapon. But by the end in Tunisia and the later campaigns, the armor faced wasn't half Italian anymore.

The Valentine only ran around 15 mph. It makes a Churchill look agile. Its armament was light for every period it was fielded. The only thing it really had going for it was solid armor for an early to mid-war tank. Against Italian M13/40s, early Pz IIIs with short 50mm guns, or early Pz IVs with 75mmL24 short guns, that advantage was large enough to make it a useful tank. It also benefited from its role as an "infantry tank", in that it was more likely to be used in a combined arms team than other British types, before El Alamein.

But once the standard guns it was facing were long 75mm or better, the armor was not adequate protection. Then you just had a slow, undergunned tank.

So my guess is, the remaining couple thousand were built with the idea of using them eventually in Europe, but they were made obsolete by German up-gunning. So better tanks were used instead, and what remained were sent to the Russians.

[Two historical questions on German units/OOB’s]

"I believe there's not much chance"

Thanks, but I really meant it. I think it is quite possible somebody has much more detailed information - not about the 7th in Normandy (LOL) but perhaps about regular practices elsewhere (e.g. 43-44 Russian front), that might lead me to revise my opinion. If so I'd be all ears, because it is an interesting question.

My sense of it is based on my sense of the sort of operational flexibility the German army typically showed. The way they would scrape together stop gaps, comb reserves out of a line that looks like it has nothing to spare, etc. There are lots of instances of that sort of thing, and on its own it can explain the "sturm" formations I've run across.

But they may have gone to a permanent establishment of some sort in addition, somewhere along the line. I'd just need evidence of a different kind to think so (like, a dozen army reports over 2 years on the eastern front, with always 1 sturm-battalion per).

On your rear guard question, I don't have much to go on but the same general sense of things. In the case of infantry, I'd expect a reinforced infantry-type battalion "block" staying behind while the heavier stuff pulls out, then the rest of the foot sloggers. Last, the "block" evacuates at night.

"Reinforced" means it would have supporting guns, maybe an added company mixed in sometimes (pioneers to blow down trees behind the withdrawl, e.g.). A block means they are in place, dug in if possible, not moving, while the rest of the division column snakes away. Then they "bound" back to a new blocking position at the new tail of the column.

With mobile troops (meaning Panzer divisions etc), I'd expect a bigger kampgruppe, more like a tank or TD/AT battalion plus a panzergrenadier regiment (or the recce battalion), with some supporting artillery. You rarely hear about single battalion forces from the Panzer divisions. And they would use a more continuous fighting withdrawl rather than a fixed blocking position.

Less likely to lose 1 battalion that way, to an aggressive pursuit, since it is a stronger force and keeps moving. That depends on the rest of the division being able to get clear faster. See, the infantry version is ready to sacrifice one battalion to get the rest away, if pressed too hard. If not pressed hard they all get away.

But would it always be like that? No, it would vary all over. It was done that way sometimes, and it seems it worked pretty well. But just because something is sensible doesn't mean it was always done. And in the east, often they weren't acting as rationally about it as they might, because of short-sighted "hold at all cost" orders. For the infantry in particular.

Those resulted in seperated company or battalion level strongpoints strung along a line, that could quickly get cut off from each other. Then they'd either hold out long enough to sneak away some night, or for a counterattack to reach them (rare), or more commonly, the Russians would bring up enough arty or assault guns to pulverize them. Sometimes after failed infantry attacks, though.

That was called the "hedgehog" defense, really meaning "porcupine". So called because the front line units had an all-around deployment, rather than a continuous front line. If attacked with enough strength (and they didn't bug out), that was very dangerous for the defenders (for the obvious reason - nobody gets away), but it could break up weaker attacks. The gaps between the "hedgehogs" get hit by the artillery.

Incidentally, I second PzLdrs recommendation about Manstein's book, or a book about that campaign. It has been a while since I read about it, but the same impression he has remains with me. I can describe the little I remember about it.

What was most striking is that he did not spread the men out to cover the whole frontage. Instead, he formed more concentrated positions out of e.g. 4 infantry divisions side by side on more or less normal frontage for them. With both flanks wide open. Then he'd have their supporting artillery behind that "shield", and their PAK and FLAK ready to reinforce wherever they were hit. But all this was set up out of contact.

Then the Russians, not quite knowing where everybody is, would run into them. They didn't sit still, but pushed back, or withdrew a bit and sidestepped slightly, etc. The idea was to give the Russians trouble finding the flanks of the "shield", and to make them hit either air (missed the shield, ground lost but nobody dies), or hit the line (hit the shield, Russians get a bloody nose because the Germans are deployed "tight", with arty support and PAK able to rush up). Then the whole shield was picked up and retreated as soon as the Russians did find a flank of it and started coming around. Back off ~50 miles, breaking contact completely, and repeat.

Meanwhile, what intact armor he had would refit farther back, jump up to hit Russians that got too far ahead of the rest, throw in local counterattacks to help units get away, them pull out again themselves. The whole thing turned on the fact that the Russians would not know exactly where the Germans were and weren't, advancing into the gaping hole. Naturally, the Germans had to backpeddle "net", too, or the Russians would have found flanks and come around. But backpeddle they did, fast enough to avoid that, but slow enough to give the guys in the caucausus time to get away. Which depended on administering several bloody noses along the way.

By February, he had larger armored reserves being sent to help him. He didn't throw them into the line right away, but kept up the previous game and let them stay "fit" farther back. Then he pulled back farther than a "usual" "bound". The Russians came on more reckless than before, with less in front of them. They got strung out, and then he hit them with his reserve armor in a concentrated, corps-level counterattack. Which went right up the Russian "path", meaning, exactly the way they had come, the axis they were stretched out along. As a result, 2 full strength panzer divisions hit smaller units than themselves, one after another in succession. The "Kharkov counterattack", this one is usually called. Clobbered a lot of units, and the rest pulled back sharply. He had by then stabilized the front.

One of the operational masterpieces of the war. He called the last part fighting the Russian offensive "on the backhand". Incidentally, he proposed to do it again on a larger scale instead of attacking at Kursk, keeping the armor in a defensive reserve for the purpose - but that recommendation was not accepted.

Machiavelli once said, "if you give advice to a prince and that advice not being taken, disaster follows, you will reap great glory". LOL.

[250/8 or 251/9 You choose.]

MrSpkr said "I like them as part of the reserve (infantry support)"

Yep, that is how I use them too. The tanks or TDs get the armor first. The 251/9s (just 2 usually) come out after the enemy armor is dead, to raise the direct HE on the enemy infantry.

Do I buy them because they are better for the point cost than StuH or Hummels? No. I buy them because they are realistic. The Pz Gdrs used them instead of towed infantry guns. Two of them go along with 2 81mm mortars and 4 HMGs, as the "heavy weapons" component of the Pz Gdr company force. Combined with the 2 LMG infantry type in the platoons, the overall mix suppresses enemy infantry at range pretty well.

Compared to buying 1 Pz IV, you get twice the HE shells from 2 251/9s. About the same comparison for the StuG, which has a smaller HE load but isn't as expensive as the Pz IV. 2 StuH have half as many HE shells as 3 251/9 (same cost about), but they are bigger shells so the total blast is a bit higher with them - and of course they have tops and better armor. The 251/9s have more smoke though. Hummels have fewer rounds still, but much more powerful, giving more blast than the StuH for the cost - but low ROF, little smoke, etc.

If you want pure HE fighting power on a more survivable platform for a far, low cost, it is hard to beat the StuH, which is made for the job. The 251/9s are more realistic for Panzer Grenadiers, and they will give you another platform and more smoke. But if game effectiveness is all you are after, the StuHs are probably better.

[Two historical questions on German units/OOB’s]

"Sturmkompanien AS CM models them are Army assets. Each German Army

had 1 Sturm Battalion attached."

I can't verify that is true, and I rather doubt it is. Certainly, armies formed sturm battalions. That it was a permanent establishment in every army I rather doubt.

"These were organised along identical

lines in different theatres etc"

There was a standard TOE for a sturmkompanie as of 1943, certainly.

"and were the hard core of an Army's

attacking force ( along with the usual organic Tiger Abteilung)."

Um, Tigers were hardly present in every army. Panzer corps were supposed to have 1 Tiger battalion, and didn't always.

"What most people are referring to are "Sturmgruppe". THOSE were ad

hoc and formed by Bns, Regts and Divisions etc."

Um, there is certainly plenty of confusion over the different uses of "sturm". But there is at least equal confusion over the term "gruppe". The first just means "assault" and the second just means "squad", and was used as a synonym for a "detail", as we'd say in the U.S.

Incidentally, a "sturm" was also a name of all company-sized units in the SS earlier in its history, before they adopted standard Heer unit size names. Which is reflected in their rank names, which did not change over. Just to get that possible confusion out of the way. Also, pioneers used for assaults were often called sturm-pioneers, to distinguish them from bridge builders and what-not.

"Sturm Battaillon and Kompanien were formations directly subordinate to Armees"

Sometimes, I am sure. That the level under which they were subordinate was always "army", I rather doubt.

"One was present on the Cotentin alongisde von der Heydte's Fallschirmjaeger after D-day."

Certainly, that was the 7th Army Sturmbattalion. The fact that it was so designated, may have lead people to believe that every army always had 1 sturm battalion. There is no evidence for this that I am aware of. The designation simply means it was formed as part of 7th army reserve before D-Day as a counterattack unit. It had the particular mission of counterattacking any air landings that might occur.

To see the process, one has to look at 7th army operations before D-Day. Reserves were formed all along the German position in France. In the case of 7th Army, the 243rd infantry division was pulled out of the line into 7th Army reserve. It was probably chosen for this role because the majority of its infantry was bicycle mounted; it was also at full strength, and with 3 infantry regiments was one of the largest divisions in the corps. It had full amounts of equipment, unlike many other divisions in the area.

The 243rd Infantry was organized on the old pattern, with 3 regiments each of 3 battalions, plus an engineer battalion. But, on D-Day, the 920th regiment (the 1st of the 3) had only 2 infantry battalions present, not 3. Also, the engineer battalion had only 2 companies, not the usual 3. The division had a large field replacement battalion, with 4 companies and a full compliment of MGs (though not of mortars).

Where was the 3rd battalion of the 920th regiment? And the 3rd company of the pioneer battalion?

If you look at other divisions deployed on the penisula, the 91st and the 709th, you find that neither of them had a field replacement battalion. The 91st, however, had a fusilier battalion forming (called up in March) that was not present on the situation maps of 7th army. It was probably consider not ready. It also could act as a sort of virtual field replacement battalion for the 91st. The 91st's engineer battalion also had only 2 companies.

On D-Day, the 6th Fallschirmjaeger regiment, in the area in advance of the rest of its division, was subordinated to the 91st infantry. The 91st was a 2-regiment division, but with the 6th FJ attached it was the size of a 3 regiment division.

I consider it likely that the 7th Army sturmbattalion was formed from the 243rd infantry, with perhaps some pioneers taken from the 91st as well. This battalion was then on alert as it were against paratroop landings. The rest of the 243rd remained the army-level reserve formation (it was deployed on the west side of the penisula on D-Day). The fact that one battalion was thus missing from the 243rd's organization was partially made up, by the presence of its full strength field replacement battalion.

Here are a few additional examples of sturm battalions (and other sizes) formed in the war.

For the attack on Crete, the 7th Flieger division at first formed a KG-type sturmbattalion out of its 1st battalion, under an officer named Koch. It was originally called "Sturmbattalion Koch". Before the invasion, this unit was expanded to an entire 4-battalion regiment, and redesignated the "Luftlande Sturmregiment". Koch remained commander of the 1st battalion. Notice, this is a temporary organization for a particular mission, but is an entire regiment, subordinated directly to a division.

The Herman Goering panzer division formed a permanent sturmkompanie after Tunisia. In 1944 the division was expanded into a korps, splitting the division into a panzer division and a panzergrenadier division. Normally for infantry a Pz Gdr division had 2 regiments each of 3 battalions, whereas Pz divisions had 2 regiments each of 2 battalions. The HG divisions each had 2x2. A single motorised sturmbattalion was formed at the korps level. Each division also had a fusilier/recon battalion and an engineer battalion. Thus the total infantry-type battalions was 13, compared to 6 + 8 on the normal Pz and Pz Gdr TOEs. Notice, this is a permanent sturmbattalion at corps level, not army. Previously (between Tunisia and the split into two divisions) there was a permanent sturmkompanie, at the division level.

Sturmkompanies were quite common in the fighting inside Stalingrad. I have never seen anything to suggest that 6th army only had one sturmbattalion.

The 78th infantry division in Russia was called a Sturm Division for a while. It was later redesignated a Grenadier division.

There were a number of Sturm Brigades in the Waffen SS. Some of them were formed from foreign volunteers. Here the designation harks back more to the early names of things in the political organizations, rather than having any particular "assault" meaning. They were, in turn, named for the assault units of WW I.

It may also help to understand just how far back the idea of selected men formed into special assault units goes. It was a common enough thing back in Napoleonic times. The grenadier companies of various units could be formed into special assault units. This was a standard practice among the Russians of that era, who of course worked closely with the German armies in the wars of liberation in 1813.

When I say that I think they were ad hoc units, I do not mean to imply that it was not a regular practice. It certainly was. And units once so formed, would certainly exist as seperate units until "used up", or subordinated to a lower level parent again.

The 7th army sturm battalion was subordinated to the 709th division during the Cotentin fighting. The 709th lost 4000 men by 16 June. It later retreated to Cherbourg and was destroyed there. But some KG were formed out of units of the 709, 243, 91, and 7th Army Sturmkompanie along the way, so it is not certain the sturmkompanie guys retreated into Cherbourg instead of out of the penisula.

The 243rd lost 55% of its infantry by June 24, and almost all its pioneers; the 91st lost even more heavily in the infantry by that date. The 91st was disbanded on 10 August. The 243rd was supposed to be rebuilt, but that was never carried out and it was formally disbanded on 12 September.

In sum, I do not think the presence of the "7th Army Sturmbattalion", which is certainly accurate, means that every German army had a permanent sturmbattalion, that such units existed at no other levels as permanent units or temporary ones, or that the line between such sturmbattalions when they were present and other sturmkompanies, was so clear.

I am certainly willing to be corrected if someone has additional, more definitive information on the subject.

[How will the increase in Soviet troop quality be handeled ?]

I don't know how they are planning on doing it, but I've made a suggestion in the past that I think is flexible enough to handle the change. For what it is worth, I will go over my suggestion again.

The idea is each side gets a pool of "command points" every turn. The number of these is some low integer - 2, 3 something like that. The player can assign the command points to his HQs - 1 cp means 1 HQ is "fully active" that turn - say, right click on them and select an assignment pull-down, however the interface works. Any unit with a red command line to a fully active HQ, takes new orders completely normally, just like now.

Orders given to units with a red line to a fully active HQ are restricted. They can either use a "group move" or "individual move". The group move is in some ways an exception to the rest.

Group move means the HQ moves (only that one walking speed) toward any waypoint, and the rest of the units commanded also move in parallel, right alongside. A group move can be given to units without an HQ "fully active". This lets less commanded units maneuver in simple ways, and especially before contact, without needing command points.

On individual move, orders can be given normally, but without the fully active in command, the command delay is doubled.

So there is still full ability to intervene and give orders. But the ability to react rapidly is restricted by command points.

Loss of the A-0 HQ on a side permanently reduces the command points per turn by 1. If it is panicking (or worse), they are temporarily reduced by 1.

If command points equal or exceed the number of HQs present, all automatically get one assigned and things are just like now.

Vehicles are not affected. (Unless they come up with vehicle leader rules, or something).

The advantage of the system is that it allows any degree of "reaction", especially for larger forces. A company with 5 HQs and only 1 command point, would react quite slowly to orders, especially if the unit quality wasn't great, or the men are pinned etc. (From those doubled command delays). They could still walk around. But complicated orders would only be acted on quickly by a platoon at a time.

Raise the cps to 4 and most of the company can react normally almost all the time.

I don't claim all the edges of this idea are smoothed out, but it might give some idea of the sorts of solutions that should be available. I have no idea if they will use something like it, or something entirely different.

As I say, for what it is worth...

[250/8 or 251/9 You choose.]

I vastly prefer the 251/9. It has enough ammo to really do damage. The 250/8 is by comparison a pop-gun; it just doesn't have enough rounds.