winkelried

This is not correct. The Güterbahnhof Friedrichsstadt (freight terminals, 2 km from the city center), Bahnbetriebswerk Altstadt (repair facilities, 1km from the city center) und Hauptbahnhof (main station, 500 m from the city center), the Bahnhof Dresden-Neustadt (another train station, 1 km to the north of the city center) are located just next to the old town (you can verify this on google maps - so when you want to destroy these targets with the accuracy available at this time (RAF at night and the USAAF through cloud cover) you will automatically hit the adjacent old town. e.g. the British pathfinders targeted the Stadion am Ostragehege of the Dresdner SC (today Heinz-Steyer-Stadion). The RAF bombs then fell in a 45 degree angle towards the south-west of the stadion (see also this map) between the Elbe and the main station (4). What is true, is that rail traffic for troop transport re-started approx 2 days after bombing, but it took two weeks to get the traffic back to some kind of normality. In addition the industrial areas in Reick und Niedersedlitz were hit. These areas are apporx 5 to 7 kms SE of the city center. BTW - the bombing happened mid February - barely 3 weeks after the end of operation "Nordwind", the German operations in Hungary to get to the encircled troops in Budapest had just ended, operation "Frühlingserwachen" in Hungary which would create a bit of a headache to the Soviets would start only a few weeks later, the Bulge had just been erased and operation "Veritable" just started. I don't believe that Germany looked beaten in the eyes of the Allies in mid February 45 - more like a cornered dog ready to bite everybody coming too close.

Conceptually the Panther was one of the first truly modern tanks by combining adequate protection, mobility and an effective gun. Despite its flaws its design influenced quite a few post-war tanks. IMHO it is the archetype of the main battle tank as the heavy tanks "died out" in the 1950s. The Germans designed a successor for the turret the so called "Schmalturm" (lit. narrow turret) for the planned Ausf. F - this turret was as high as the original one, but did away with some of the weaknesses.

And armored TD units were structured a bit differently than medium tank batallions. The TD batallion had a full recon company (almost like a cavalry troop) and in addition each platoon had two recon elements (plt leader and hq support team in CMBN). so the armored TD rarely entered battle without having "eyes" in the combat zone. therefore they could achieve local fire superiority and surprise by popping up in a coordinated manner at the right moment.

when i have such potential avenues for AT fire, i put a scout team (or even better a HQ) at my end (best with scopes) and then try to provoke the AT to fire (at the beginning of your video you see the icon of the ATG so it probably just fired). Then pop/fire smoke or even better call mortars/arty to zap the ATG. doesn't work all the time, but most of the time. One rule out of RL is to never pop up at the same spot twice :-) run a see-saw pattern is the optimum.

maybe we should BFC to give us a shrink-unit: some truck with a couch where you could send in your broken troops. the shrink could then get their mental health back. i am sure this would work with most allied units. for the germans maybe a squad of Feldjäger would be enough to bring those troops back to reason.

but here an advice from a veteran - especially when looking at your performance as a commander in the parking-lot exercise - even for a flanking shot never expose your tank more than 15 seconds !!!! Usually 10 seconds is enough to ID the target, to aim and to shoot. The panther turret turns 360 degrees in 15 to 45 seconds ... so as soon as you expose your tank you have something between 5 and 15 seconds until the panther has zoomed in on you so better be quick to get back into cover again ...

if you penetrated the panther glacis with the 76er you should play in the lotery the same day 'cause it's your special verrrry lucky day. you can penetrate at the soft spot - but to hit this spot is another lotery of its own ...

yes you need to hit the soft spot (if it isn't a late Ausf G) ... or you're cooked (literally if sitting in a ronson )

you should get court-martialled anyway doing the whole parking-lot exercise in prolongation of a road and w/o smoke ...

too true ... so what would be nice, is to have an unlimited force selection option in the QB - you would have the "protocol" to set up a QB, but could select much more freely the forces w/o seeing the enemy's troops. for the victory conditions/setup zones the scenario editor is just fine.

Playing CM for 10 years now - played a lot of excellent, nerve-wrecking QBs - but still ... a good scenario PBEM/H2H feels a lot more realistic

Hear! Hear! Considering myself rather on the grog side i always (even in CMx1) considered QBs to be inherently gamey - they pitch artificially selected (and limited) forces against each other in a bit of a too clean environment (don't get me wrong there is certainly a market/community for this - so it is important that CM has this kind of gameplay). I prefer you guys investing in the scenario development tools (as you did with the higher number of AI groups or the overlay) - there is a lot of room for becoming even better: Triggered AI, taking over damage on the map from one battle to the other in campaigns, AI vs AI play to facilitate early playtesting etc. And there is certainly some challenging stuff for the TacAI to be done like formations (wedge, line, column or just a follow command) or "AT-sniping" in MOUT etc. etc. And last, but not least Market Garden, Bulge, Eastern Front :cool: looking forward to the new challenges you'll give us

don't get too frustrated - what you go through is pretty normal. a few hints based on my experience ... almost 10 years of CMxx now ;-) try to have HQs close to the frontline so that they can call fire - sure their delay will be a bit longer than a FO, but to get the FO in position can even take longer in total. keep the FO for your key kill zones where you will try to pin down you enemy with all possible means. try to anticipate areas where you will need fire and call it early - e.g. call fire on the hedgerow/bocage already when you are still holding it (barely) - you still can call off fire when you still hold or fall back just in time to leave the enemy you line of defense - with a nice gift coming down :-) try to find overview positions for your FO where you see farther and can call fire early. keep fire orders long so that you can adjust fire - this is faster than calling a new strike. you still can cancel fire if its is too long. don't underestimate the value of harrassing fire. in some battles i call harassing fire on potential avenues of approach already at the begin of the scenario (without delay) and keep it there as long as possible (up to 15/17 minutes IIRC).

Interesting graph - but the rest of the Tigerfibel only speaks about the T34/76. And on page 86 explicitly mentions the T34/76 to be capable of penetrating a Tiger frontally at 500 meters ... probably just a safety margin?

Fully agree to this. When on the defensive in a QB I like to get 57mm/6pdrs and place the in pairs (!!) to cover a certain area. Open fire at close distances and they wreak havoc - even against panthers. There is one scenario with Polish troops - something around Falaise where this worked perfectly (no Tiger's though, but Panthers).

Not sure about this. Even the Germans were aware of the vulnerabilities of the Tiger I. Chart for the Sherman 75 mm - no penetration from the front, but danger up to 800m from the side and the back. With the T-34 there was even a vulnerability from the front below 500 meters - they probably refer to the T-34/76 - although I am not sure about this. On pages 84 to 86 of the Tigerfibel the Germans refer to the Mahlzeiten-Position which means that the Tiger commander tried to position the Tiger in a duel with one of the front corners showing towards the enemy. This meant that the LOS armor increased from approx 80mm to approx 130mm, but would expose at least one side with the more vulnerable wheels and tracks. IMHO this shows also that they knew or expected some stronger guns on the other side. The Tigerfibel says : "If you turn your Tiger from 12o'clock to 1o'clock your armour increases by 2cm and your adversary has to close in by 1000m" Best is to get a flanking shot. Was also like this in CMx1 - i remember a QB where I killed 3 Tiger IIs in a row with a nice flanking position with a 76 Sherman - three times shoot and scoot at a distance of 700+m if I remember well. Same for the Tiger I. In a QB not long ago my adversary had placed a Tiger in a perfect overlooking position. I called 25pdr artillery and immobilized the beast. The rest was exploitation of the terrain, so that the guy couldn't get a shot - and some smoke in situations where I feared a LOS on some of my units. In addition I tried to have fast lateral movements with short visibility times (e.g. sprinting from one cover to the next) - you have to know that it takes the Tiger I 60 seconds to turn the turret by 360 degrees.

And did you win?

Yes the firefly is quite good machine - when used with care it can achieve fabulous things. In the Wittmann scenario you get a good feeling for its strengths and weaknesses.

At least here we have agreement - Most of the time I play the Allies and with my tanks i fear the Panther much more than all the Tigers was already like this with CMx1 - BTW my first kill in a PBEM with CMBB was a Kingtiger i zapped with a T-34/85 flanking shot naturally :cool:

That's not the conclusion - The Tiger battalions were rarely deployed by Guderian's doctrine. Where they were they underachieved in the way, that they had bigger losses (due to damage, not full losses) than expected - mainly due to AT assets (not tanks). But later in the war they were deployed mostly like normal tanks. and there IMHO the two Panthers you could get for the cost of one Tiger would have achieved the same results (at least). Thus the development of the main battle tank (T-55, Leopard) after the war which can be used far more flexible.

btw - that's probably the reason why the role of the heavy tank/breakthrough tank disappeared in favour of the main battle tank - which was more based on the concept of the designs of the Panther (and therefore of the T-34). the specialised tank like the Tiger just wasn't worth its money and effort.

sure you can bring them

too true. no. it is an important, but limited role. yes. most of the time during Citadel the engaged Tiger battalions were not deployed accordingly to Guderian's doctrine and orders - the battalions were fed into the battle piecemeal as companies attached to Panzer divisions. When they were deployed as battalions they didn't meet the expectations as breakthrough formations although they did achieve good results in destroying enemy tanks. During and shortly afterwards of the battle doctrine was adapted, since the after action reports showed that the use of the Tiger battalions as point elements did not achieve the results expected since it was realised, that if the unit could achieve the initial breakthrough it would not be available to the following decisive battle due to battle damage.

Your observation is correct - here the figures for the Soviet losses in 1941 (same source): total losses 20'500 (900 heavy, 2'300 medium, 17'300 light). What is interesting too, is that the main part of the SPG losses (11'800) in 1944 and 1945 were light SPGs (8'000) - probably built on chassis of the then obsolete light tanks - the losses of light tanks drop to 11% of the total losses in 1944 and to 3% in 1945.

e.g. the mission for s.Pz.Kp. 312 (Fkl.) (subordinated to s.Pz.Abt. 505) in operation Citadel was: conduct agressive reconaissance detect minefields clear lanes through these minefields destroy hard to overcome positions such as fortified anti-tank positions and super heavy tanks ok - they also had their Borgward IV to do this - but IMHO a typical breakthrough assignment.