Stacheldraht

Here are some pictures of current mortars. Generally speaking, they're indirect-fire support weapons with high firing angles, so you don't want a structure over your head when you use one.

Fwiw, Matthew Hughes and Chris Mann in The T-34 Russian Battle Tank state that "during some of the Red Army's acute manpower crises the hull gunner/radio operator position was occasionally left unfilled" p.40 If that were modeled in the game, I guess such a tank would be essentially useless if the TC bought it. Were Soviet tank crews regularly cross-trained to handle all the different necessary functions? I.e., would the hull gunner and make-believe radio operator generally know how to use the main gun adequately? [ January 31, 2002, 11:38 AM: Message edited by: Stacheldraht ]

Fascinating and disturbing. Glad I never read his books. Thank goodness for things like the Wehrmachtsaustellung opening up greater dialogue in Germany about the period from more perspectives.

A question for BTS: Is there any way you could sometime post here or perhaps print in the CMBB manual the (primary) research sources you're using to help design the game? Yes, I realize the list would be extensive I think that would be extremely useful for those of us looking to expand our detailed knowledge of the conflict. Searching on your own for obscure contemporary documents and technical data can be quite a task. Of which, does anyone know of any sites that host archived German military documents of the period? (Preferably in the original tongue.)

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>The way I see it, it looks like they just threw vast numbers of equipment and men at the Germans and defeated them by pure numbers.<hr></blockquote> That seems to be partially true from what I've read--not to denigrate the efforts of the US troops and commanders. Even at its height, the German war economy had little on the Soviets or the Americans. The Soviets miraculously moved most of their heavy industry eastward as the Germans pushed deeper into their territory. They literally took their massive factories apart, loaded them on trains, and rebuilt them in new locations. The US provided massive Lend-Lease aid to both the Soviets and the British. (And the British also supplied aid to the Soviets). If it weren't for the countless trucks, locomotives, and similar equipment, things would have gone very differently for the Soviets. Those supplies enabled them to (re)build the infrastructure needed to move their vast armies ever westward as the war turned in their favor. And remember that the Soviets tied up the vast majority of German troops for about four years. It was in the East that the Germans suffered most of their casualties and POW's: around 10 million of 13 million total. The US also played a major role in keeping the British from starving to death during the U-boat campaign. Britain had long needed to import much, if not most, of its food. And, as you see in CM, the Americans supplied much military materiel to Britain as well: witness their reliance on Sherman tanks. Either way, the US economy grew enormously during the war years and provided more than enough raw material and goods to supply both itself and its allies. Of course, the Americans and Soviets also had massive populations with which to build armies and support them in the factories. There are many books and studies on the economics of the war. Alan Milward's War, Economy, and Society, 1939-1945 is supposed to be good. [ 01-29-2002: Message edited by: Stacheldraht ]</p>

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Of course, Stalin was worse because he did similar things to his own people. <hr></blockquote> A murder isn't more or less reprehensible because it's carried out on a foreigner or one's "own kind," so to speak. Anyway, Hitler was guilty of crimes against his own people, not just foreigners. Here's one example: "By 1945, between 100,000 and 200,000 peple had been killed as part of the Nazi euthanasia program, most often in gas chambers. The victims included Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, Communists, the feeble-minded, people suffering from tuberculosis, and a large group of individuals loosely referred to as "antisocials," which included drug addicts, prostitutes, homeless people, and others." Over 200,000 people with similiar "deficiencies" were sterilized during that time span. Bruce F. Pauley, Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini: Totalitarianism in the Twentieth Century, p. 139. [ 01-28-2002: Message edited by: Stacheldraht ]</p>

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Its funny how people seem to forget that the Nazis had much more blood on their hands then just the happless Jews they rounded up and killed. What about millions of Soviet citizens from Belorus, Ukraine, etc.? Germans butchered entire villages, over such villages 600 in Belarus alone.<hr></blockquote> Do some research on the so-called "Wehrmachtsausstellung" ("Vernichtungskrieg: Verbrechen der Wehrmacht 1941-1944." War of Annihilation: Crimes of the Wehrmacht 1941-1944), which has drawn so much controversy in both Germany and the US. A lot of people still don't like to hear about the full (purported) extent of German criminality during the Nazi years. As one of the leading scholars of German war crimes, Omer Bartov, notes in conjunction with this exhibit: "That the Wehrmacht was involved in mass crimes in the Soviet Union is by now a well established fact. Some 3.3 million Red Army POWs out of 5.7 captured died at the hands of the Wehrmacht or after being passed on to other Nazi agencies. Between 25-30 million Soviet citizens, the majority of them innocent civilians, died during the German occupation. The Wehrmacht was heavily involved in the destruction of an estimated 70,000 villages, towns, and cities in the USSR. It was directly responsible for the death of about 1,00,000 citizens of Leningrad during its siege of that city. It was the primary provider of forced labor in the USSR (whose compensation is still being debated today). And it was both indirectly and directly involved in the genocide of the Jews. These facts are not denied by any respectable historian today." (And that's not to mention their occupying and anti-partisan "duties" in other parts of the world. Of course, even outside of war crimes and atrocities, the Germans invaded or annexed numerous nations without provocation or justifications, ruining or taking countless people's lives and property.) There's been loads of historical scholarship on both sides of the Atlantic about these issues in recent years, btw, for anyone who wants to research it. Needless to say, it's a contentious issue, but a sadly instructive one. [ 01-28-2002: Message edited by: Stacheldraht ]</p>

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Somehow I have doubts the U.S. could have done much with an extra 200+ veteran German divisions freed up and ready to rip. Don't even dare play the "nuke" card, either. Without throwing untold ammounts of resources at fighting the USSR, Nazi Germany would have had a lot more resources for some of their own unique projects and experiments.<hr></blockquote> David M. Glantz in When Titans Clashed notes that "German armed forces' losses to war's end numbered 13,488,000 men (75 percent of the mobilized forces and 46 percent of the 1939 male population of Germany). Of these, 10,758,00 fell or were taken prisoner in the East." p.284 (These figures included the wounded.)

I've been playing CM well over a year and have never seen a tank gun repair itself, though I've seen plenty get hit or hit and damaged It wouldn't make sense for that to happen anyway, if you think about it. It would need a replacement, and you can't do that in the middle of combat

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Err..., I don't know. The idea of being disloyal against your brothers-in-arms makes me puke. The only good thing with the Finns fighting Germans was that it wasn't decisive and there weren't much casualties worth the name (few hundred in 6 months). A shameful era in the Finnish history if you ask me, necessary or not.<hr></blockquote> Bear in mind Finland's historic relations with Russia and the results of the Winter War. As I understand it, Finland was primarily only involved with the Axis fight against the Soviets in order to regain the territory it had lost during the Winter War. After that, Finland seemed to be pretty much satisfied with their situation. When the tides of war turned, their only realistic options were to be obliterated by the Soviets (or at least lose much of their territory), or make concessions in a peace treaty and live to tell about it. They were never any great friends of Germany and its ideology, afaik. Either way, what's better: saving your country or going down in a blaze of "glory" with the devil himself, aka Nazi Germany? (Yes, I know that the Soviets, Stalin in particular, were no saints, either.)

Talk of Beutepanzer reminds me, has any info been released on what lend-lease tanks the Soviets will get in CMBB? It will be both interesting and depressing to see Shermans and Churchills and whatnot again.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Err..., I don't know. The idea of being disloyal against your brothers-in-arms makes me puke. The only good thing with the Finns fighting Germans was that it wasn't decisive and there weren't much casualties worth the name (few hundred in 6 months). A shameful era in the Finnish history if you ask me, necessary or not.<hr></blockquote> ? I think most of the civilized world would say that fighting the Germans wasn't a bad thing in the end, turncoat or not.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Exactly. There's no way to know. It could drive game designers mad Maad MAAAAAD, trying to figure it out. Best, I think, to stick with the actual belligerants and their real equipment, and let What If scenarios be based on that.<hr></blockquote> Oh, I agree. I just wanted to point out that, at least if you were going to play "what if" on a larger scale than just individual engagements, those weren't irrelevant issues that the original poster raised. [ 01-23-2002: Message edited by: Stacheldraht ]</p>

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>None of this would affect game play of CMBB <hr></blockquote> Not necessarily: consider the presence or absence of lend-lease equipment. For that matter, a renewed Japanese threat in the East (after their first dust-ups in '38 and '39) would have siphoned off troops that otherwise headed West, iirc. Ergo, different overall force strengths, which might or might not have an effect on CM-scale battles. Who knows what it would do to the TOEs? [ 01-23-2002: Message edited by: Stacheldraht ]</p>

Don't forget those inexpensive little Wasp flamethrower carriers, either. Obviously, they lack the armor and heavy firepower of a Croc, but they're cheap and fast. In swarms, they can torch whole towns in a few turns. As long as they're working in concert with infantry (as all vehicles should when anywhere near the enemy), they're effective on the attack or defense, particularly in urban areas, where the can move between buildings for cover--and then torch them should some Germans stupidly pop their heads out [ 01-23-2002: Message edited by: Stacheldraht ]</p>

A description from someone who was there at the relevant time: "Norman farmers who wanted to divide their land among their sons would plant rows of hedges and trees to separate the fields, which were often only one to three acres in size. The roots embedded themselves deeply and held the soil. Natural erosion over seven centuries of Norman occupation washed away the land, leaving these hedgerows--earth mounds six to eight feet high and ten to twelve feet thick at the base [emphasis mine]. Reinforced by tree and hedge roots, these natural fortifications could not be penetrated by tanks." Belton Cooper, Death Traps, pp. 8-9. He later goes on to discuss the invention of the "hedge-chopper" or "rhino" attachment that was mounted to tanks to plow through the bocage. Anyone who's ever had to dig up a tree or old shrubs or bushes knows how tenaciously they can root themselves. [ 01-22-2002: Message edited by: Stacheldraht ]</p>

Fwiw, you can find a little more about the details of city fighting in Fighting in Hell: The German Ordeal on the Eastern Front, ed. Peter G. Tsouras, p. 105-07. (An ironically titled book...) Also see the Handbook on German Forces Ch. IV, pp. 26-8. Here is something on modern Russian practice, from the fighting in Grozny, Chechnya. (Interesting that they mounted something akin to Schürzen on their tanks to negate shaped-charge rounds from man-portable AT weapons.) The MOUT Homepage may be of interest, too. Again, contemporary. [ 01-22-2002: Message edited by: Stacheldraht ]</p>

OTOH, one should be careful not to write off (potential) weaknesses of the game as myths, too. BTS obviously interacts with fans for feedback, and if lots of people say city fighting or whatever doesn't work well, that may induce BTS to reexamine it. (Of course, as noted, such criticisms may be the product of misunderstandings of the game.) I think a lot of the "complaining" one sees around here is really an act of devotion or love for the game, not just some dude mouthing off--though that happens, too, naturally Why else would people even know or care about all these little teeny details if they didn't play the game so much? I'd have to say, for instance, that the AI on the attack in QBs is, in fact, extremely inept compared to a competent, experienced human player. Mass flag rushes, poor force coordination, amazingly strange armor movement, predictable arty targeting and timing, etc. don't bode well for the computer's success. Even after giving the AI force and experience bonuses, it's not often hard to end up causing five to ten times the casualties you receive. That admittedly presupposes an understanding of how to set up a solid defense, purchasing your own units for the best cost/benefit ratio, and having played the AI enough to learn its patterns, though. Favorable terrain helps, too [ 01-21-2002: Message edited by: Stacheldraht ]</p>

A very interesting discussion, indeed. Perhaps there's some info on Soviet practices in this matter at The Russian Battlefield? I suppose the big question is, what does BTS' research on this subject conclude and how, if at all, will these sorts of findings be modeled in CMBB? [ 01-21-2002: Message edited by: Stacheldraht ]</p>

Well, I suppose it depends on how you use your spotters in CM. If you're the AI, sending them ahead of your infantry to test for mines the hard way, then they're like the FOO's Seriously, I imagine the accuracy of the comparison either way depends on the scale of the particular CM battle.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Regarding your quote from Ian Hogg…OPs function as the Commonwealth equivalent of an FDC? <hr></blockquote> I don't believe so, if I understand FDC and the page I skimmed correctly. I haven't read the book in some time. "Each troop [4 of the 8 guns in a battery, with 3 batteries and one HQ battery per field regiment] provided one [OP (observation post party)] and each battery was also capable of providing one extra from the HQ section. ... The troop OPs would be deployed in some suitable area, as laid down by the CO after conferring with the infantry, so that the brigade front would be covered by observers." p.36 These were in addition to the mobile FOOs, so it sounds like the OPs were more along the lines of the arty spotter units you see in CM.

Ian V. Hogg on the British field regiment of 44-45 in Barrage: The Guns in Action (Ballantine, 1970), p. 37: "...mobile observation parties, known as forward observation officers (FOOs) were available as offshoots of the troop OPs [observation posts] in order to accompany the front infantry on foot or in armored vehicles [emphasis mine] while advancing. These FOOs were in radio contact with the OPs, who could relay their messages back to the gun troops." There might well be more in there, but the book isn't indexed, which is inexcusable for a work of non-fiction (Otherwise, that's an excellent book, particulary in conjunction with Hogg's The Guns: 1939-45, for an overview of artillery design, evolution, practice, etc.) From Ch. IV of the US War Department's Handbook on German Military Forces TM-E 30-451, p. 3, discussing Panzer division armored car recon patrols: "Armored car patrols are normally composed of three armored reconnaissance cars, one of which is equipped with radio. An artillery observer often accompanies the patrol so that in an emergency fire can be brought down quickly." p. 14: "Liaison between artillery and tanks during the attack is established by the commanding officers and the artillery liaison group, which normally moves with the first wave. Artillery forward observers, if possible in armored observation posts, ride with the most forward elements. A German field expedient is to take along a forward observer in one of its tanks. It often happens that the tankman himself has to take over the observation for the artillery. He himself can request artillery fire and shift concentrations when the situation requires such changes." (There's an illustration of a grid map with target reference points used by a panzer commander.) [ 01-20-2002: Message edited by: Stacheldraht ]</p>

Fwiw, the 15cm s IG33, which I assume is the one we're talking about in CM, used a 38kg round (15cm I Gr 33: fuzed s I Gr z 23, in the technical nomenclature): "The standard high explosive shell, of elderly design with a blunt nose and a non-streamlined base. A single sintered-iron driving band replaced the copper band during the war. The filling was 8.3kg of amatol 50/50." (I believe that's a ratio of ammonium nitrate and TNT.) From Hogg p.27 cited above in this thread. The howitzer could also fire smoke, hollow charge, and demolition shells for bunker-busting, mine-wire obstacle clearing, etc. The latter aren't represented in the game. The Hummel had a 15cm sFH18/1 L/30 (Selbstfahrlafettehaubitze "self-propelled (gun) carriage howitzer," very roughly, of 30-caliber length) howitzer and used 25kg Gr39 H1/A HE rounds. Gr is "Granate" (shell), and H presumably "Haubitze" (howitzer). The gun is presumably, by its looks, a relative of the various schwere Feldhaubitzen (s FH) field artillery models. You can see in photos and in the game the significant difference in length between the guns, as well as the distinctive recoil damping cylinders on the Hummel's gun. Can't find more than that off hand. Data from Chamberlain and Doyle's Encyclopedia of German Tanks of World War Two. The contemporary U.S. Handbook on German Military Forces (War Dept. Technical Manual TM-E 30-451) lists the weight of the Hummel's HE round as 95.9 lbs. [ 01-19-2002: Message edited by: Stacheldraht ]</p>

For that matter, what about Russian searchlights, as used during the final push towards Berlin (with mixed results, apparently, temporarily blinding and disorienting their own troops), for example?

Another vote for Glantz's When Titans Clashed for a dry as dust but informative operational account with rather more interesting (yet limited) assessments of strategic issues. Despite claims to the contrary, it doesn't put a face on the Soviet war machine since there's no focus on the commmon soldier or civilian experience at all, nor hardly any information on tactical concerns. Zaloga's Red Army Handbook seems quite impressive from what I've read of it so far. Like Glantz, Zaloga is considered an expert in the field and makes use of Soviet archival material. The book is divided into essay chapters that discuss the evolution of the various sections of the Ground Forces branch of the Red Army: armor, cavalry, arty, etc. It also features chapters that discuss the equipment of the Army and its evolution, including armor, small arms, etc. Lots of TOEs and photos, and some fascinating tables on Soviet tank production by model and Soviet tank losses to guns of different calibers. [ 01-18-2002: Message edited by: Stacheldraht ]</p>