manchildstein (ii)

the account i saw of this had the tanks as t-34s.. i would think that would be highly impressive in cmbb terms... if on the other hand you went with bt tanks in the scenario it wouldn't be as impressive. some people seem to think wittmann was commanding a long-barrelled stug in july of 1941. i don't tend to buy this as the game itself doesn't make long-barrelled stugs available at that time. i find it difficult to believe that as well-equipped as it may have been, lssah was outfitted with long-barrelled stugs whilst the rest of the wermacht was still fielding - at best - the b model... i read somewhere that wittmann was still fielding an 'a' model for that engagement. my best speculation on this particular action is that wittmann was in a short-barrelled stug and that the soviet tanks were bt-types and not t-34s... if you put a single stug b up against 18 t-34s in cmbb i would think the going would be very tough for the stug...even against the ai... so perhaps wittmann was really in a long-barrelled stug (although i can't really fathom that) and those were t-34s... if so that would make things interesting in cmbb terms... this all has me curious... will check out and review your scenario.

i like the matchup: 20mm psw armored cars versus light tanks...

it never occured to me to get into wedge formation after the battle, but yes during the battle i try to keep the platoons operating together... sometimes in multiple wedges... sometimes most all platoons in a single line...

it's been said that the raf was seriously 'on the ropes' just before the luftwaffe started targetting cities instead of airfields. apparently the target switching was in response to the raf's first raids against berlin. as for dunkirk, i'd thought that every available british vessel was pressed into service for that. the conventional wisdom is that the germans could have simply crushed the bef beachhead with an attack by their encircling panzers. i think though that - everything else such as weather and luftwaffe ineffectiveness being the same - that the royal navy would have showed up and shelled the panzers into oblivion. i get this sense from what the allied naval guns did to german counterattacks at normandy 4 years later... as for the high water mark, i would go with the moment the luftwaffe switched from targetting airfields, over to cities. but the point about the period between polish and french campaigns is a good one... if by some accident of hystory hitler and stalin had been allies, they would have eventually ruled from kamchatka to gibraltar, and probably all of africa as well. that would have been a twip [ June 08, 2003, 02:02 AM: Message edited by: manchildstein II ]

what about the stg 33? was it just a stopgap measure, used in the attempted relief of stalingrad? it carries 30 rounds of ammo for its 150mm howitzer, and if memory serves it has the 80mm frontal. it only moves something like 11km ph though. was it quickly superseded by the brummbar and/or the stuh 42? edit: i included them in my 'kharkov' scenario because - if memory serves - there was an article somewhere on the web about them as part of 'kg wunsche' in the feb 1943 kharkov battles... admittedly the su-122 and su-152s on the soviet side in the same scenario are probably not 'realistic'... [ June 07, 2003, 08:25 PM: Message edited by: manchildstein II ]

did you know that he was the nephew of horace greeley? it's in 'wall street and the rise of hitler' by antony c. sutton what amazes me about hitler was his utter sangfroid... especially for a guy with just one ball i mean to rise up from street life to command the wermacht... that was quite the run for the little corporal... myself... while anti-democratic... well the whole thing with having to address someone as 'leader' ... well that's a bit much for my tastes... and by the same token it would make me highly uncomfortable if others addressed me as such... in any event, while hitler may have been just a bizarre hystorical anomaly... well-loathed by his detractors and opponents at that... such in no way vindicates democracy... for democracy is a false religion... itself doomed to failure... having said all of that, hitler certainly had the 'slogans, scapegoats, and symbols' thing down pat... all it takes is a little hyperinflation and we'll see it all again... even though alas the 'three esses' might 'change'

i thought wittmann was commanding a stug b or somesuch in the summer of '41? edit: by the way, my 'nogai steppe' scenario at the scenario depot also 'depicts' the 'lssah stug detachment' in action [ June 01, 2003, 09:43 PM: Message edited by: manchildstein II ]

"Alexejweka" has the STG33... it's at the depot...

oh so the soviet infantry regiment did not have a 'permanent' detachment of su-76 or t-70 or whatever? so it was on more of an 'as-needed' basis as determined by army hqs? interestink

i would guess that - at least from early '43 onward - that the soviets would have had afvs in the majority of their battles. overall they had very high production numbers, and on paper their infantry - at least at some level - had organic armor support, even if just t-60, t-70, or su-76... now i'm not saying their were is-2 tanks or t-34/85s everywhere up and down the line, but that most formations - even the infantry - had some kind of afv support. so if the 'correct' type of soviet afv is chosen, it is probably never really 'out of place' in a given battle... as for lssah in spring awakening, i believe franko was developing a scenario based around simontoryna. as for simontornya, there is also my own, 'ragnarok' to be played against the soviet ai i have to agree with a couple of observations made here... that armored cars are probably overpriced for quick battles but that scenarios designed with them are highly interesting; ...and that, in general battles with the earlier-war afvs are more interesting as well...

i played a scenario with a mixture of about 6 or 8 45mm and 76mm (short) soviet pillboxes mixed with some machinegun pillboxes. if they're all in the same general location, it can be very difficult for vehicles to take them out... in the scenario i'm talking about these were all more or less covering the same road and they killed a lot of vehicles without too many of the bunkers being knocked out... and this was also with a dose of offboard 150mm being dropped within their midst for something like 15 turns straight...

i have posted a version 2 (v2) of this scenario through the scenario depot... the link-through is to http://peter_panzer.tripod.com if memory serves it should be set to 1941 in the scenario...

it seems to me that the antennas were on the company command vehicles and up... not on platoon commanders... from what i've seen the ai definitely likes to take out platoon commanders first though...

aar/spoiler info: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i had a chance to play this final version and it was quite the fight. i left the german recon in the town area in their default positions then fired the game up. the best early victory was over by the farmhouse along the road toward the west side of the map. there the flamethrowers in the rubble and the spw 251/9s facing them managed to knock out 6 t-34s coming down the road. i lost all three flames and an hmg42 but all of the 251/9s were intact. interestingly, it turns out later that the ai took all of the west-side infantry-type units from their start locations and moved them around the edge of the 'orchard'... not along the road in support of the t-34s but completely around the edge through the trees and into the town... not a single soviet infantry unit attacked the flag there by the farmhouse. in the town my units were eventually mauled by about turn 15. in particular the platoon of 37mm halftracks placed diagonally in the orchard over there were toasted quickly. the eastern-most infantry platoon fared the best with one squad surviving in some ruins with 2 members left. the main thing of note was the performance of the 2 150mm guns... one of them had 88 infantry casualties and 4 afvs (tanks or assault guns) knocked out. between the two of them there were probably 140 infantry casualties and 6 afvs knocked out. the two platoons in the south part of the town area were simply overwhelmed by the soviet attack. in fact the soviets are attacking with 3 cavalry regiments. this is about 3 battalions, supported by 91 afvs... and the worst of these are the twenty or thirty t-70 tanks... then there are the 10 su-152 and 10 su-122... all crack... it's quite a force. another feature are about a dozen t-34 flamethrower tanks. so against this juggernaut those two platoons didn't stand much of a chance. to add to the mistake of having left them out there, i moved the turn 8 reinforcement platoon up into positions around the factory/rubble tiles. they were swamped like everything else. in retrospect i would have pulled everything back out of the default setup - except perhaps for the ambushing units to the west... and placed all of the units west of the town center, there by the one flag to the nw of the 'road' going through the town. as for the relief forces, they lined up with the heavy stugs ('stug 33 or somesuch... 80mm front with 150mm L/11) on the west (left), and the panzer iii platoons strung out to the east. the spw 251/2 (81mm mortar) and spw 250/11 (28/21mm) halftracks followed this armored picket by about 50 or 100 meters, then the rest of the vehicles - the ones carrying infantry - followed up beyond that. the picket certainly didn't arrive in any kind of fashion to help out the units in the town... it wasn't until about turn 20 that major contact was made, there in just about the middle - from west to east - of the approaches to the town. the heavy stugs were moving in diagonally through the west orchard, and some panzer iiis were out on the right (east) flank, but the majority struck in the thickest area of trees in just about dead center. leading up to that the armored picket destroyed every gun or infantry (antitank rifle, mg) it met without loss... by about turn 15 the stugs were within sight of the treeline leading into the western orchard. once i had sighted this treeline, the two armored infantry companies moved into that same treeline. still having - on the other side - 251/9s in the field and mgs in the farmhouse, i could tell there probably weren't a lot of soviet units around. the armored infantry hit the treeline and debarked, mopping up on some more guns, at rifles, and mgs. from there the two companies swept by foot throught the orchard and toward the buildings of the town. the 251/1s started running recon ahead of them, looking for soviets. the west orchard was empty. the town was abandoned but that one flag in the nw was still contested, so i ran one platoon of mg42s up to some trees. they unloaded and met their deaths as the remainder of my force hadn't kept up. by then the soviets were swarming through the area. i wondered later if it would have been better to have simply run 1 or even 2 armored infantry companies much further forward before having debarked them. as it was the infantry platoons debarked but took a bit of time crossing the west orchard on foot. eventually the heavy stugs met up with the surviving 251/9s and they started provided HE support for the advancing infantry. in the center my panzer iiis mauled the first few soviet tanks they encountered, but after awhile my losses turned grievous. on my far left i ran about 4 37mm halftracks along with maybe a half dozen 251/1s up into the orchard. then there were the 251/9s south of the road, then looping around more east than south were the heavy stugs and then the panzer iiis. the infantry was intermingled and the panzer iiis right flank was about at the entrance to the other orchard in the east of the town area. the 251/2 and some 251/1s continued to mop up on some straggler soviet gun positions on the right, outside of town. a few panzer iiis also helped, but at some point they were facing the guns to their east and being engaged by soviet tanks advancing out of the town to their north. it was a mess and as i said, they ended up with high losses. i was down to about 8 or 10 afvs with guns other than machineguns, and things were looking up. then in a single turn i lost 3 of those - 1 heavy stug to a gun hit from a t70... and my last mobile, functioning panzer iii on the right was also cooked then... as well as another heavy stug on the left. my truck bound infantry had unloaded in the center trees and had met up with the other 2 companies. two platoons of machineguns were unloading in the center trees. by the time i called a cease-fire on turn 34 or so, my infantry had made its way through the south part of the town and all the way to the east-west road. that flag in the nw was contested, and the flag in the south was under german control. the soviet infantry was clearly routed, but they themselves had 6 or 8 functioning afvs with guns, including probably 4 assault guns. my functioning armor (with cannons) was down to 2 heavy stugs, a panzer iiiN, a 37mm halftrack, and a 251/9 halftrack. only the halftracks had any kind of special tank-killing ammo. there were also 3 disabled panzer iiis (2 N and a J) and an immobilized heavy stug... but all of these were outside of the fighting. with the pressure being put on my right flank, the mgs in the center woods were in danger from a couple or three soviet afvs. halftracks bringing up the last mg platoon were dodging in and out of soviet tank los. the 251/2s and a couple of supporting 251/1s were scrambling for cover over there, being exposed to that last-gasp soviet armored onslaught. my remaining 'heavy' afvs were all over on my left. i probably had another 5 or 6 251/1 halftracks with ammo remaining over there on the left as well. with my infantry in relatively good shape, i decided to go for the cease-fire. the final stats were 56 afvs lost by me, and 50 by the soviets. in a cease-fire, it must not count abandoned vehicles as lost. the infantry casualties were in my favor, about a 4:1 ratio with well over 1000 soviet casualties and over 400 'dead.' so some impressions i had were that the t34 flamethrower tank is a powerful afv... its flames reach out 150 meters!... and it has a 76mm cannon to boot... so you don't know it's a flamethrower until it starts spewing... the su152 was also very impressive, creating many exploding german afvs with its 152mm gun... it may have been 'hc' ammo in some cases... i didn't check... the stug33 afv was also very impressive... even with simple HE it stood a chance of taking out enemy afvs. as for turn computation times, at about turn 20 these peaked at almost an hour per turn... quickly though the times fell back to about 5 minutes... after about 3 or 4 turns of heavy combat around the edges of town between my main force and the computers, computation times dropped quickly. from turn 4 - when the main german relief force is on the board - up until about turn 20 the compile times were also about 5 minutes or less per turn. anyway, with just 5 functioning afvs having cannons, and my infantry in good shape, i was certainly ready for that cease-fire... as i might have mentioned... i probably wouldn't try to stop the soviet attack cold at the start if i were to play this again... i would 'hover' over toward the west a bit more and try to 'link up' with the relief forces, instead of being practically wiped out and leaving the relief forces almost completely on their own for their break-in back into the town area... i would also use a lot more keyhole positioning for the early defenders... for instance those 37mm halftracks in the eastern orchard may as well have been hung out to dry in the default setup... . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..

i heard that in the indonesian battles (timor) one side was employing an m1 carbine chambered for 22 magnum. that would have been an interesting piece.

if you're designing a scenario, there is a way to get some soviet 122mm and 152mm into a game... even if it's 1941 you can temporarily set the parameters to 1943, then buy su122 and 152s... then set it back to 1941... have the soviets defending and set it to 'dug in including vehicles'... then set the SUs up dug in with locked setup... or better yet have no soviet setup zone at all then everything will automatically be locked... except for trps if memory serves... anyway, by using dug-in su afvs, you can emulate soviet 122mm or 152mm in the direct fire mode... another choice could be the kv2 ... which is actually what i'd originally used... but i think SUs make for a better fight...

along these same lines, last night i had an spw 251/10 with 37mm and 7 rounds of tungsten attack a 1943 t/34 from the rear... the spw rushed ahead and fired a couple rounds of tungsten as it went... interestingly, when it got within about 120 meters and the end of its move orders... and when it still had 5 rounds of (t) left, it began firing regular ap as the t34 turned around... i was thinking if the spw had just fired its t rounds then things might have been different... as it was, the t34 spun its turret around and waxed the spw... what first clued me into the halftrack using standard ap were the ricochet sounds as two rounds bounced - one first off of the rear, then the second off of the side turret of the t34... the spw had the highlight and sure enough, when i glanced down it had switched to firing ap... arg one behavior i have not seen modelled in the game is some sort of 'desperation fire'... sometimes i'd like to see an overmatched vehicle stand fast, and not only continue to fire its main gun, but to fire all of its machineguns at the threat... just like some drivers and crews would panick and retreat, i believe others would simply attempt to empty all of their weapons at the threat instead... trying desperately to get some bullets into vision slits or down the gun barrel of the threat... anyway, my spw not 'dipping into' its last 5 rounds of t ammo when it most needed them... that didn't make any sense to me... now this was with 1.02 so maybe things will have changed with 1.03...

at least for armored combat... it sounds like the british 40mm was better than the soviet 45mm... was the main difference between the two ammo quality? i hope they have 'british 40mm trucks' in cmak

it was made in 1.02 so i'm fairly certain it should successfully load into either 1.02 or 1.03...

available at: http://ns9.super-hosts.com/~dragonlair.net/combatmission/ as "Alexejweka" Briefing: Title: Outside Alexejweka Play as Axis against Allied AI Default AI Setup Semi-Historical Meeting Action Feb 1943 Very Cold, Very Dry, Blizzard, Heavy Wind, Mid-Day Size: 1.6k x 1.6k Map Axis SS: 100+ AFVs, Battalion+ of infantry Allied Cavalry: Massed Cavalry + AFVs Roughly 12500 points per side Turns: 60 Scenario Version: 1.0 Feb, 1943: Fighting is swirling in the areas around Karkhov. The Liebstandarte (LAH) Recon Battalion is cut off behind enemy lines around the town of Alexejweka. Also from LAH, KG Wunsche has been sent to relieve the Recon Battalion. Overnight the Soviets have massed units of their 6th Guards Cavalry Corps - supported by armor - in an area on the outskirts of Alexejweka. After daybreak these same, high-quality Soviet units are poised to attack; to clear the road into town of any German elements which are screening it. At that very moment, elements of KG Wunsche are speeding to an attempted relief of their surrounded comrades. As the German commander, you start the game on the north side of the map with elements of the LAH Recon Battalion screening a suburb of Alexejweka: 4 x PSW 233 (75mm L/24) 4 x SPW 251/9 (75mm L/24) 8 x SPW 251/10 (37mm) 4 x SPW 250/10 (37mm) 1 Recon Company + 1 Recon Heavy Company Substitutions and additions: 2 x 150mm sIG instead of 2 x 75mm 3 x 42mm AT instead of 3 x 50mm 2 x Czech MG extra The at-start units are at 60-70% strength. Elements of KG Wunsche will be arriving in the area within minutes. They should approach out of the southwest. Included are a Battalion of Armored Infantry (3 Company), a mixed Company of PZ IIIJ (50mm L/60 and 75mm L/24), and a Company of 150mm L/11 StuGs. Having seen earlier combat, the Panzergrenadier squads are below full strength. To depict earlier halftrack losses, one Company of Panzergrenadiers is transported by truck instead of armored halftrack. Your at-start Recon KG might also expect some reinforcements from the Battalion but like you they are already stretched thin. You can expect an immediate, major Soviet attack. The Soviet fast units involved have outrun their main artillery so you can expect only 82mm indirect fire at the worst. Expect though to see the newly-introduced heavy Soviet assault guns supporting their Cavalry. Notes: The "actual, real-life" fighting took place in deep snow. Playtesting shows deep snow taking much longer to load than with dry ground; and a greater "jumpiness" when scrolling around the map. This was on a Duron 1200 running Win98 with SiS onboard video (cheap), 512mb of system RAM (64mb shared to video). Also, the 'white' screen of deep snow is a bit hard on my eyes. But if you want deep snow you can load this into the editor and change it under "Parameters" to "Deep Snow" for your ground conditions. In either case (snow on the ground or not) you still get the very limited LOS of ongoing blizzard conditions (about 300-400 meters). Notes: You can either wait in an all-around defense for your relief forces to show up, or you can attempt a break out. There are Soviets on three sides of your at-start force. The main attack appears to be coming out of the east. KG Wunsche reinforcements begin arriving on turn 2. They are all on the map by turn 4. This was mainly - not having these units on-board at the start - done to avoid foxholes as the scenario is set to "Soviet Attack," but in reality these reinforcements are the main attacking units of the scenario. These southwest reinforcements should arrive in an orderly, easy-to-move fashion. As noted, you may or may not receive units - recon elements - from the north edge as well. There are Soviet pickets between your relief force and the town. On the other hand you want to get into town as quickly as possible as the forces already there probably can't hold out forever under the weight of a massed Soviet attack.

a couple of things about the ammo: the cartridge for the mp44 would have cost less per shot to have produced. i don't have any specifics though since the cartridge for the mp44 was smaller than the one for the k98, more mp44 cartridges could have been carried in the same amount of space, or at the same amount of weight. this wouldn't entirely erase the difference between bolt-action and semi-auto or automatic ammo consumption considerations but it would make the comparison closer than one might at first think.... as for the mp44 being a 'long range' gun in an fps... i'm not sure that's realistic... i still think its effective range would have been 150-200 meters max... the bolt action should have the mp44 beat in single shot accuracy at 300 meters+ and the penetrating power of the '7.94' must certainly have been greater as well..

it is interesting reading here about some successes of the bt7 tanks... i would think that in cmbb this would involve making the crews 'elite' (crack)... from advanced squad leader i'd always thought the bt to be a fairly decent series of tanks... good guns... good speed... and armor never mattered much to me... but in cmbb they seem fairly abysmal... but that's with 'green' (conscript) crews for the most part

--TIME SCALE: 3 months (seasonal) per turn MAP SCALE: Point-to-point system -- when i saw this in 'wizards of the coast' it reminded me of one i'd been developing with a friend... point-to-point... 3 months... well the 3 months is nothing unusual and 'point to point' is another way of describing 'zones instead of hexes'... still i thought it interesting the first time i saw it... mine was called 'second world war' and covered not only eto but pto as well... my buddy kept saying 'we need to test the theatres separately' and i was always... 'nah' interestingly this 'b to b' and 'second world war' both start with 'june 1941'... i put in some optional rules for starting back before the british raids on taranto and the sinking of the bismark, to give the axis more navies...

my guess is that the bug fixes exist and are fixed in the .exe file for the game... not in the scenarios... in other words scenarios from 1.0, 1.01, 1.02, etc... should all work with their bugs fixed in the 1.03 'engine'... hopefully someone will be by to correct me if i'm mistaken...

try the command, 'follow vehicle'... i think this works inside 40 meters... also if you have explosives other than grenades, the 'area fire with explosives' is a good one... just make the tank disappear with shift-v then plot the spot to attack underneath it, then turn tanks back on with shift-v again... unlike grenades though explosives have a range of about 20 meters or less...