Brian

I have my suspiciouns that terrain is not a natural choice, Michael. I'd also suggest that your opponent once he'd tried to rig things his way with a billard table, suddenly found that he should have made the game human choice, with lots of long-rang AT weapons but he'd fluffed it, it would appear. Just goes to prove that infantry is still queen of the battlefield. Good tactics will usually overcome most defences, no matter what the forces are involved. No, I wouldn't recommend making their name public. However, warn them that if you hear of any more such tricks, you will do so.

If anything, I suspect that the LIG18 would be perhaps the hardest weapon to spot firing. It's usually used at high angle and if truth be known, indirectly. Its signature would be small because is both a small weapon and its propelling charge is quite small. One factor which is missing from the game, which does tend to reveal small weapons like the Pak38 and the Flak38 is dust. Both are built close to the ground, both fire directly, both would tend to kick up dust. The Pak38, much more so than the Flak38 which is a smaller calibre weapon, I admit but the Flak38 makes up for that by firing bursts. I'd also suggest that the sound signature of the Flak38 would be pretty distinctive, just as the MG42's is. The MG42 would draw attention to itself because of that ripping cloth sound. The Flak38 because of its thudding burst. I think the clincher would be that every second or third round in the Flak38's magazine would be tracer. Nothing like a nice straight line of tracer to tell you were an automatic weapon is.

As far as I am aware my only relatives to make it into the AIF were in the Middle East, which is obviously now off limits. Thankfully though, none were hurt. I had an uncle who was captured in Crete in '41. Another who served in Bouganville and Borneo. So while I appreciate the thought, I am not personally involved. My family was a lucky one, that while many did serve, all returned. If you would care to lay a single one at the general memorial, in memory of all those who were not as lucky and who went and did not return and to which we owe so much, it would be appreciated.

Nope. The South Africans were using them into the late 80s. They converted them according to one source to 7.62x51mm calibre which wouldn't have done wonders for their accuracy. The ADF brought them back for a short period in the early 80s - about 1982-3 when the M60s were declared unsafe for SFMG use. I knew one of the WOs who rewrote the pam (from memory largely) on them. However we'd sold the filling plant to India in the 70s and as a consequence found purchasing .303in back from them too expensive and it was only ever percieved as a stopgap until we could get sufficient FN-MAG58s. Interestingly, the FN-MAG58 was the weapon which beat the M60 in the original competition but was not adopted for political reasons. Ours went at about the same time, to be replaced by M2 105mm Howitzers. Not a popular gun, by all accounts, compared to the 25 Pdr. Replaced them with the 105mm Light Gun since, which is popular. We also brought back the L5 105mm Howitzer for a short period in the early 80s for use by our ODF because it was easily airlifted but its lack of wheel bearings never endeared it to the gunners very much (limited towing speed to 25 mph). We were using 5.5in until the mid 80s. Again, the South Africans kept them until about then as well. The M198 which replaced them in the ADF was chosen for political and financial reasons rather than necessarily it was the best gun (the FH70 apparently was because of its onboard relocation engine). BTW, I thought Helen was trying to disband your military.

I didn't mean to imply that they were doing it by hand, without mechanical aids, Ned. In fact they were using hand-operated linking machines in the pictures I'm thinking of. I don't doubt they were posed. Out by the dispersals of course, which would make one wonder where their source of power would have been? However, I'm glad you've cleared up the matter of the rounds not being issued loose. Go on - do tell us and stop pulling it ! Edward[/qb]</font>

Then do not keep us in suspense, oh, wise UberFinn!

I think the moral of this story is not that CM makes AT assets too easy to spot, but that AT assets should always remain in cover. ATGs or zooks hiding in cover are virtually never spotted, in my experience, by anything but infantry that is right on top of them. The only time they become spotted is when they unhide and fire. This is as it should be, IMHO. If you need to move AT assets forward, they should move through cover. Zooks should sneak through woods or approach by sneak through buildings. Guns should be rolled through woods until they just attain LOS with the outside world, then hide. If you're unlimbering a gun from a vehicle, do it behind a stand of trees and roll it slowly forward. Otherwise death will be quick and certain. The TAC AI is right to target AT assets preferentially. They're very dangerous to the health of all armored units and are rightly attacked when rashly exposed to view.</font>

De-Tracing is even better!! pulling out every 5th round and then relinking so you don't start fire down range. Bad enough for an Infanteer but AFV's carry tens of thousands of rounds.</font>

Its struck me fairly forcibly over the last few battles that I've fought that the TacAI has IMO a much too easy a time of sighting both AT guns and infantry AT teams. Examples A platoon of infanty cross an open area, overlooked by a hill. The enemy has an tank on the hill. It will automatically zero in on the Infantry AT team within the platoon. It will ignore the other ~30 men who could well be in much plainer view and easier to hit in preference for identifying at even over 500 metres range the bloke carrying the AT weapon. From my own experience, at beyond 500 metres, its hard to pick out from a mass of men whose carrying what weapons. A 6 Pdr AT gun advances to a position behind a house, on a hill, over 750 metres from a Hetzer, through a covered approach utilising forests and dead ground. The moment that gun puts its muzzle around the corner of the house and despite it being to its flank, while its engaging another three tanks to its front, it will almost automatically detect it and rotate to face. Again, from my experience, its hard to pick something the size of a 6 Pdr AT gun shield, half obscured by a house (~1 metre square) at over 750 metres, unless it fires on you, particularly when your attention is preoccupied to an immediate threat to your front. I think the sighting rules need some revision. They prevent the correct use of AT weapons and they make it very likely that they will be destroyed much too easily IMO.

I suspected as much but wasn't sure, never having been in Arty. I was in RAAOC, we knew how to get the ammunition forward, with the help of our friends in RACT (and before that RAASC) but what happens, for the most part beyond the DP is an unknown factor for me I must admit. Having however, also served in a battalion, I know what happens there. Basically, knowing how difficult it is to prevent players from misusing dedicated assets, what I proposed I think is a reasonable and whats more playable compromise. However, I also think you'd agree, Jon that it would be unlikely that guns would actually even appear on most battlefields of the likes of CM. [ April 03, 2002, 09:25 PM: Message edited by: Brian ]

Shorter Term 1) Beaten zones for MGs 2) Linear artillery concentrations 3) Ammunition resupply (see other thread on this qv) 4) Harder spotting of AT guns and Infantry AT weapons 5) Inclusion of landing craft (LCAs,LCMs,LCTs,LVTs) 6) Better mapping system, including importation of mapping data from external sources 7) Some degree of direction for CAS 8) Fix the Commonwealth/British rank structure/Orbats 10) Provision of early war vehicles/troops. Longer Term: 1) Ability to edit section characteristics/numbers 2) Ability to interchange maps between "operations" and "battles". 3) Multiplayer game play For my two sons: 1) Trains (with provision for Thomas the Tank Engine ) 2) Fire engines (to put out all those terrible fires Daddy! )

Its actually a fairly standard tactic with towed AT guns. Rarely do they stand and fight in real life as they do in CM, slugging it out, round for round with a tank. They'll fire a few rounds, if they don't score a hit, then they'll limber up and scoot. While best on the defensive, obviously, its also a tactic which was used quite successfully with light AT guns on the offensive. The Germans were particularly adept at the aggressive use of AT guns on the Eastern Front. Which is why guns were initially small and handy of course. I suspect CM makes it far too easy to spot AT guns, considering how hard I've personally found it getting them to survive beyond more than one or two turns. It seems every tank in view is automatically drawn to the AT gun, even if they're involved in fighting far more important things directly to their front and the gun has not fired. Same of course goes for Infantry AT Weapons. The number of times I've been trying to stalk a tank with a PIAT or a Panzerschreck and had it magically both spot and even pick it out from a platoon of other men the PBI carrying the AT weapon has always dismayed me.

Tero, you are treading on a topic I suspect you have little knowledge in. In reality, the British did not "hold onto onto WWI linear tactics" - they abandoned them in late 1916 after the Somme had proved the problems associated with them. I'd recommend that you read Paddy Griffith's excellent treatise on the subject "Battle Tactics of the Western Front". Then there is the claim that, "The thing is the British army seems to have worked through the officers. It would appear the regular soldiers were treated as cannon fodder more than anything else." This assumes no authority for the NCO's. Obviously you've no experience of the Sergeants' Union and in particular its most fearsome of shopstewards, the RSM! In the British/Commonwealth Army, while the officer may direct the mission, its the NCO's who organise the men and actually achieve it! In reality, in WWII, the British army built upon its excellent experience in WWI and in particular the NW Frontier, to produce a far more flexible army than you're giving them credit for. Men were definitly not treated as "cannon fodder". Indeed, to even suggest it appears to ignore the very obvious tactical innovations introduced in order to save lives, particularly in 21 Army Group. The rest of your post moves beyond the merely tactical considerations which has been the main part of this discussion to higher-level considerations at the operational level. Re-organisation is always necessary, otherwise you end up with an amorphous mass of men at the end of your assault who have no clear lines of command and are ill organised to resist any counter-attack or even perhaps more importantly, to go onto the next objective. You appear to believe that its merely possible for an entire battalion to charge forward and take an objective and once there, not sort themselves out and reassert authority and more importantly direction. This brooks on the silly IMO. To do prevent this from occurring, re-orgs were introduced because in WWI the British found themselves all too often being pushed out of any gains they might have made. Where the British may have fallen down, in comparison to the Germans who also did indeed undertake re-orgs once an objective had been achieved, was that they were slower to actually carry them out and tended all too often to "rest on their laurals". The German re-orgs were speedier and better organised. This still doesn't meant they didn't happen. [ April 03, 2002, 11:28 AM: Message edited by: Brian ]

I believe you are mistaken. The rifles fired 7.62mm ammunition, the MG 7.92mm. This may have been a logistical error by the Germans, but they seem to have coped with it. Michael</font>

Only posting because I have the numbers here.. Rifle man No 1-6: 2 Bren magazines each Bren group leader and gunner: 4 each Bren group No 2: 5 magazines For a grand total of 25 magazines containing, what, 700 rounds. -- M.</font>

Yes, I remember reading that now. The great advantage of the German system was that it allowed them to recover and repair their damaged tanks and demolish the British ones. Don't recall hearing of any advantages of the British system though I can imagine a few possibilities. Michael</font>

I don't know about the difference. One that stuck in my mind from reading various accounts of war in the desert is that the Germans would regularly (almost incessantly, I hear) fire Very lights above their encampments to mark the spot to any stragglers who might be roaming the desert at night, whereas the British preferred a more stealthy approach. ISTR that the British formed up with their tanks on the outer part of the circle. Could be the Germans put infantry and guns there and the tanks on the inside along with the soft vehicles, but that's only a guess. Michael</font>

Out of a matter of interest, does anybody know what the service life of an MG34 or MG42 barrel was? Tangentially, would anybody like to estimate what the load on the German logistics system was of both small arms ammunition and replacement barrels for their MGs?

If you in fact mean 'laager', it is an Afrikans word referring originally to wagons drawn into a circle for an encampment. Was used in WW II to denote a similar arrangement of armored vehicles (although infantry and guns could be part of the arrangement with soft vehicles in the center). Michael</font>