John D Salt

Yes, I'm sorry if it wasn't clear, that is part of what I intended to convey with "How representative this might be of other guns being brought into action in other circumstances is left as an exercise for the reader." I cannot imagine that something like a 6-pdr, with the weapon weighing more than a third less than the 25-pdr and the projectiles weighing two-thirds less, with no firing platform and simpler sighting arrangements and gun controls, could not have been brought into action in less than 30 sec. Unfortunately, I seem to be able to find very few references giving expected times into action, for guns of any type. Although he doesn't give a time, I expect that about the quickest time into action possible would be on a shoot as described by Shelford Bidwell on p. 42 of his "Gunners at war". Here he describes the use, in action, of the order "Halt, action front without unhooking ammunition supply". With an 18-pdr battery, this means that all you do is unhook the gun, drop the trail on the ground, and start banging away, with the limber still hitched to the horses who are close at hand for a quick getaway. This technique was used to shoot at pursuing German infantry at 500 yards range. Ellis & Chamberlain's "The 88" gives, for the Flak 18 using a six-man detachment, times of approximately 2.5 minutes to change from travelling to firing position, and approximately 3.5 minutes to change from firing to travelling position. Chris Foss' "Artillery of the world" says that it takes "less than one minute" to change the 105mm light gun from travelling to firing position or vice-versa, using the firing platform. I rather doubt that the much-quoted delay for German 10.5cm field guns mentioned by Len Deighton was due to unlimbering the guns; to me it seems much more likely that this was due to communications delays or getting the guns on the grid (or whatever the German equivalemnt is). 30 minutes is enough for the detachment of a 105mm Light Gun to re-assemble it from the two loads it breaks down into for helicopter transport (if you can't just take it as an underslung load). All the best, John.

In Real Life, at least in Western armies, you would have specified a "bomb line", indicating that you would prefer not to have any air-delivered ordnance this side of it, thankyouverymuch. The scale of this sort of thing is a bit off for CM -- I would expect the bomb line to be several kilometres ahead of your forward localities. One could even argue that any appearance of aircraft in such close proximity to friendly forces as happens in CM implies that someone or other has forgoten about the bomb-line anyway. All the best, John.

I don't think so. If the 85mm is being modelled with stinky amn quality, this would show up in the information screen that appears for a selected unit when you hit "enter", wouldn't it? Having run a very quick-and-dirty test myself, there does seem to be some evidence of 85mms not penetrating StuG IIIF fronts at ranges where the infmn screen shows they overmatch it by a comfortable margin. This may of course just be bad luck; longer testing might show there is no real effect. Still, I'd be interested to hear what the BTS folks have to say on this. All the best, John.

Not I, but my father did his national service in the Royal Artillery a couple of years after the end of the war. Although he went to a survey battery, everyone had to learn to shoot the 25-pounder in basic training. A well-drilled detachment of RA recruits moving into a surveyed battery position could get their first shot off 30 seconds from the wheels on the Quad stopping. I don't doubt that this involved various tricks and short-cuts; one of the reasons my father liked this practice was that, as gunlayer, he was seated (and making the coarse adjustments to sight in on the ranging-pole used as the gun position reference point) while the rest of the detachment were struggling to get the gun up on the traversing platform. How representative this might be of other guns being brought into action in other circumstances is left as an exercise for the reader. All the best, John.

Mais quel mod utilise-t-il pour l'herbe? Et est-ce-qu'il prend le dejeuner sur l'herbe? Meuilleurs voeux, John.

Do you have a source for that, please? I donlt have much in the way of StuGly reference materials, but Chamberlain, Dolyle & Jentz seems to imply that the 30mm applique was bolted directly on to the 50mm basic armour. If there was an air gap, I would have thought that this would have been mentioned, and I cannot recall ever hearing such a thing. One would also wonder why the F/8 should be superseded by the G with 80mm monobloc frontal armour, which would be less effective against 85mm APHE (but slightly better than 50mm plus a 30mm applique with no air gap). All the best, John.

The scene: A 1500-pt armour vs armour QB, Central Front, June 1944, lightly-wooded rural terrain with moderate hills, everything else set to random except that I picked the Sov forces to play with. I like to fight pure tank companies from time to time. Having the choice between "Green" or "Conscript" troop quality, I plumped for Green. By mixing '43 and '44 model T-34/85s, I found it possible to buy a 10-tank company for exactly 1500 points -- HQ and 1 platoon riding '44 models, the other two platoons in '43 models. The first unpleasant surprise was to discover that the situation was an Axis probe, and the weather was fog. Ah well, no matter, adopt, adapt and improve. Looking at the shape of the ground and the location of the VP flags, I decided on a right-flanking counterstroke, hoping to take the enemy in the flank as he drove over the low ground in the centre. First contact was an odd experience. A solitary Pz III was spotted and enagaged by my right-flank platoon. Troop quality counts; disdaining to shoot back, it drove across the platoon's front at a range of about 200 metres, with apparent unconcern for the 85mm projectiles whistling over and around it from my green gunners. Having driven across the front of the first platoon, it came to grief after several shots from the centre and left-hand platoons finally registered a hit. By this time HQ and the left-hand platoon were starting to pick up infantry movement at the limit of vision in the central low ground, and started to brass it up. I planned to put left and centre platoon with HQ on the ridge to shoot down into the low ground. The right-hand platoon was sent off on a wide sweep to flush out any lurkers in the top right-hand corner of the map, and then to attack into my planned kill-zone from behind, following Genral Patton's dictum of "Hold 'em by the nose and kick 'em in the pants". Then, I thought, they should probably be sent on a gunnery refresher course. Unfortunately, the tanks of the Fascist Invader began to emerge from the fog before the flanking force had made it all the way round. The Company Commander's was the first tank to go. Over the next few minutes, a succession of enemy tanks loomed out of the fog and knocked out tank after tank. A Puma stuck its nose out, and after a few shots was knocked out. Before long, four fascist tanks had accounted for all 7 T-34/85s of the left and central platoons and HQ. My return fire was completely ineffective, no hits being scored despite the short range. To add insult to injury, the enemy tanks were identified as "T-34?". Yup, those German Uberpanzers were, apparently, Soviet sverkhtanki, under new ownership. What could the remaining three tanks of the flanking platoon hope to do against the four fearsome enemy who had already obliterated the rest of their company? I don't know if the Russians have a proverb equivalent to "It's not over 'til you're in the pub", but this platoon apparently believed it. Hunting through the planned kill zone, they destroyed all four of the German T-34s for the loss of one of their own. In fact, the platoon commander (whose gunner had obviously remembered to take the lens-cap off his gunsight some time over the last few minutes) scored all four kills -- a striking example of what I call the "Lucky Alphonse" effect. The two remaining tanks of the platoon then rolled into the rear of the German panzergrenadier force, destroying three half-tracks and a Flammpanzer III before succumbing to some close-range dirty work by German assault pioneers. The final result was a Soviet surrender and minor defeat. The reason for the apparent passivity of the first tank contacted was that it, too, was a Flammpanzer III, and so incapable of returning the fire it was under. The captured German T-34s were T-34/85 '44 models, all Veteran quality. I think my right-flank platoon redeemed itself for its initial poor shooting; they might have felt somewhat miffed to discover that the Germans had a later model of T-34/85 than they did themselves. What a great game this is -- even when you get a spanking from the numerically-inferior AI! All the best, John. [ October 28, 2002, 09:40 AM: Message edited by: John D Salt ]

Actually the metre as well as the second have been redefined at least three times since the sixties, and it will probably be changed again in the very near future! [/QB]

Is that how the Russians indicated wind direction?</font>

I think everyone is assuming that BTS are following the well-established, centuries-old and undisputed convention. In much the same way, I assume that they have not chosen to redefine the metre, the second or the degree Celsius. What a strange thing for them to do. This reminds me of the use of the word "flammable" on warning markings, on the assumption that some people were unaware of the conventional meaning of "inflammable". All the best, John.

Mr. Picky hopes that everyone is aware that Port and Starboard are not exactly the same as Left and Right. Just ask a rower to hold up his starboard hand. All the best, John.

<Mr. Picky hat on> Psychologists can and do measure differences in attitudes between national and cultural groupings. Measureable it may be, if we ignore the minor difficulty of administering the test instruments retrospectively to people 55-60 years ago. It's not clear that it is terribly meaningful, though. <Philosophical hat on> I suspect that many of the troubles of the world arise from the confusion between "measurable" and "meaningful". <Tactical hat on> True in CM:BO; not quite true in CM:BB. Thanks to the "Human Wave" order, there is one uniquely-Russian piece of tactical behaviour. Personally, I would like to see this distinction removed, by making the "Screaming Jesus bayonet charge" option available to everyone. <All three hats fall off in a confusion of bouncing millinery> All the best, John.

To my surprise and delight, I've just had (in CM:BB, obviously) a green partisan 43 squad end the game with 3 losses to itself and 46 kills, mostly crack German rifle 41 and recon 41 squads, to judge from the bodies strewn around its foxhole at the end of the game. The whole platoon it belonged to (all green but for one conscript squad) recorded 85 kills for 7 losses. A 12:1 kill ratio for green against crack troops is fairly respectable, I think, even fighting from foxholes in woods. All were still holding their foxholes on a wood edge at the end of the game. Serzhant Lapkin and Leitnant Bayunov will be in line for an Order of the Red Banner, at least. Fortunately for me, my computer opponent continued to feed its crack squads in dribs and drabs into the killing zone to the platoon's front, and the hummock just in front of the treeline prevented any suppressive fire from long range being brough to bear, making it effectively a reverse-slope defence. The computer's other thrust ran into a mess of barbed wire, mines and Maxims, and did little better. In a spookily-symmetrical result, I had 155 men left and 38 casualties, and the computer's Germans had 38 men left and 155 casualties. This QuickBattle was generated using automatically-chosen forces for both sides and every possible setting set to "random". Huge fun -- I shall try that again, I think. All the best, John.

You should try it the way the Royal Marines do it in "mud runs" at Lympstone -- through the thick, clinging, stinking alluvial mud of the Exe estuary. They do press-ups and sit-ups, too, to make sure you get a good coating of foul-smelling gunge all over. Having said that, I understand that the CM:BB "Sneak" combines the old CM:BO "Sneak" and "Crawl" modes of movement. It seems to me, therefore, that, especially in covering terrain, the troops may be using other methods of movement than just the leopard crawl (as we call "low crawl" this side of the water). All the best, John.

That is indeed the Panhard. It wasn't all that rare, in its time, by German armoured car standards. The old stand-by Chamberlain, Doyle & Jentz says that 190 were issued unmodified to recce companies before Barbarrossa, and that 107 were lost in action in 1941. 190 may not seem like a lot, but only about a hundred each of the Sd Kfz 233, 234/2, 234/3 and 234/4 were produced, and only two hundred of the 234/1. Not only would I like to see the Panhard in its long and short 25mm incarnations, I'd also like to see the version with the turret replaced by a 5cm KwK L/42, using guns that became availabkle after the up-gunning of the PzKw III. Mind you, I think the Tetrarch for the Sovs should come first... All the best, John.

I don't think that Molotov cocktails are really all that lethal. Petrol bombs used in riots in the UK proved themselves so impuissant that they were removed from the list of "firearms" some years ago; I believe that the only soldier killed by a petrol bomb in NI was killed when a Pig drove over him as he rolled on the deck to extinguish the flame. PRO document WO 291/308, "Effectiveness of flamethrowers on military personnel", makes the assumption that a gallon of burning fuel in contact with a person will kill them -- a pretty safe assumption, you might think, but a gallon is considerably more than a litre. Someone I knew at university in the early 1980s was a member of a re-enactment group, and they (rather irresponsibly, in my opinion) used to throw real petrol bombs during some of their re-enactments. During the course of one of these, a petrol bomb hit him on the leg, splashing it with burning petrol. Thanks to the stout serge of his German naval infantry uniform, he escaped injury simply by wiping his leg on wet grass. Even though I think there is good evidence that Molotivs are not especially effective, I would urge you not to try this at home. I understand that Diesel oil was their usual flamethrower fuel, but I would have thought that that was little use for Molotov cocktails. All the best, John.

Has the algorithm used to calculate penetration on CM been published anywhere? I haven't seen it, and without having done so cannot really comment on how its input values might be twiddled to produce what I would consider a more satisfactory penetration performance for the PaK 36. All the best, John.

Ah, an excellent all-purpose Russian phrase, which will serve you well. The verb "davat'" has the root meaning of "to give", but can also mean "let's", in phrases such as "Let's go down the pub". "Let's, let's" is not a terribly idiomatic translation, so I would say it translates as "Let's go", "Come on!", "Hubba-hubba", "Juldi", "Chop-chop", "Move it!", "Hup-two" or "Howay the Lads", depending on context. I can't work out what that is supposed to be. "Strelitye" would be simply "shoot!" Yup. All the best, John.

CM:BB gives the PaK 36 an expected penetration figure of 42mm at 500m at 30 degrees. Let us compare these with the figures found in the literature: 38mm is given by Chamberlain & Gander and Playfair, both for a range of 400 yards. This seems consistent with the figure of: 36mm, far the most popular answer, given by Bidwell, Hoffschmidt & Tantum, von Senger und Etterlin and Pemberton for 500 yards, and by Hogg in two separate publications, and by Quarrie for 500 metres. 35mm is given by Ogorkiewicz for 500 yds; this was read from a graph, and so might equally well be another vote for 36mm. There is then a bit of a jump to lower figures favoured by other sources: 30mm is given in the Bovington booklet Fire & Movement for 500 yards. 29mm is given in Chamberlain, Doyle & Jentz, Jentz' "Panzertruppen" for 500 metres, and by and Woodman for 500 yards. 28mm is given by Messenger and John Ellis. It seems that we have about ten sources (although it;s not always possible to tell who's copying who without attribution) favouring a figure close to 36mm, and about half as many favouring one of about 29mm. That is a big enough gap to make me think that these are not referring to the same thing, and that one or more of the projectile design, armour type or penetration criterion is different between the two cases. Shoots against FH or MQ armour, for example, could easily account for 5-7mm difference in penetration performance. The CM:BB figure, however, is as much again above the higher of the two documented figures. I would favour reducing the penetration performance of the PaK 36 slightly more than Rexford has suggested, to be consistent with the widely-agreed 36mm figure. 6mmm might not sound like much of a difference, but with such a puny gun as the PaK 36 that difference over-states its penetrative power relative to the two figures found in the literature by 17% of the higher figure, and 40% of the lower. All the best, John.

Quite right. Yup. In fact so far we are in such lamentably vigorous agreement that I probably wouldn't have bothered posting if I'd read your post first instead of wrestling with BT over a dropped ADSL connection. I wonder if it is worth considering a general revision to the decidedly Squad-Leaderish way CM models the effects of, and reactions to, bullet fire. I for one find it rather unconvincing that infantry sections (squads) in low morale states and under intense fire will abandon good cover, including foxholes and trenches, apparently preferring to put their heads up and attempt to run through heavy fire. I would have thought it more likely that they would have remained in the bottom of their holes until they either recovered, or enemy infantry either killed them or took their surrender. It's not clear to me (after a couple of quick tests) whether troops with their heads down in trenches take casualties from bullet fire in CM, but it seems that they do in slit trenches (foxholes). It seems to me that bullet weapons should be completely incapable of inflicting further casualties on people who are at the bottom of holes in the ground; I suspect that, once people have gone to ground and are making no attempt to return fire or observe, it would be remarkably hard to hit them in any kind of covering terrain, and not easy in what passes for open ground. The WRG 1925-50 miniatures rules (and the WRG do more research and thinking about their rules than most rules-writers) are interesting in that they give small-arms or MG fire no chance at all of eliminating personnel elements in HOLD mode (that is, not moving, not firing) above 25 metres (which one might consider to be grenade range, so it is no longer bullet fire). I suspect that CM would be even better if it adopted a similar approach. This was a favourite question to instructor NCOs. The canonical answer was something like "Fire is effective when casualties occur, or would occur if movement were to be continued". So, if you had a casualty, then the fire was, by definition, effective. This left you with your own betting man's instinct as to when a casualty was just about to occur; it was generally regarded as better to take cover five seconds before the first man got hit rather than five seconds after. Which reminds me of the story about the ship that, reportedly, joined the wrong end of the reviewing line at the Spithead Royal Review one year. The Commodore in charge of the reviewing line had already signalled that the first ship in line would cheer ship when the signal to cheer ship was made. Subsequent ships in the line were instructed to cheer ship at intervals of 30 seconds, which had been calculated to match the progress of the Royal yacht along the reviewing line. When Captain Hopeless-Twytte moored ahead of the first ship in the line, he was favoured with the signal "You are to cheer ship 30 seconds before the signal to cheer ship is made". All the best, John.

"Dash, down, crawl, return fire" when I did it (1978-82), with the unofficial variation "Dash, down, crawl, whinge" for signallers, stressing the point that you should get out a partial contact report ("CONTACT, wait, out") as soon as contact happened, not later. The "dash" bit means that you didn't just hit the deck if there was better cover within a few steps; and you tried to make sure there was always good cover within a few steps. Another of the things drilled into your head was to think, all the time you were walking, where you would take cover if you were shot at now. Or now. Or how about now? The "crawl" bit is pretty short, especially if you're in the gun group (you can kitten-crawl with a Bren in front of you, but you don't want to). The point of it was to observe and shoot somewhere other than the spot you went to ground. The length of the "dash" or the "crawl" would be only a few paces, which is pretty insignificant on the CM scale of things. The sort of "cover" that you would be looking for would quite likely be the accidents of terrain that are below the resolution of CM's terrain modelling -- individual tussocks of grass would be sufficient to hide behind. Another thing to remember is that this is the usual "Action on meeting effective enemy fire", so it is really only applicable for the advance to contact. In other circumstances, you would do different things. Once in contact, you might need to move regardless of casualties. Night ambush drill (changed in about 1980, IIRC) was not to take cover, but to make an immediate assault into the ambush (the thinking here being that there was no future taking cover in the ambush killing zone, and you might as well take some of them with you). Conversely, for recce patrols, the action on contact might be simply to leg it back to the last RV. Some people might think it would be nice to be able to specify "actions on contact" for units (assault if within 50m, halt and return fire, run awaaay) but I think that it would tend to turn CM into a "command game", and something other than the game we know and love. All the best, John.

...which includes within it both high and low pressure chambers. This is made quite clear on page 632 of "Jane's Infantry Weapons" for 1975. Alternatively, point your browser at any of the following web sites http://www.soft.net.uk/entrinet/us_weapons4.htm http://www.specialoperations.com/Weapons/Grenade_Launchers.htm http://www.adtdl.army.mil/cgi-bin/atdl.dll/fm/23-31/f2331_9.htm The last of thee takes a while to load, but as it seems to be the USA army FM on the the M-79, I think it can be regarded as authoritative. I refer you to para A-10. Ian Hogg mentions in his "Encyclopedia of Infantry Weapons of WW2" that the high-low pressure system was also used in a Swiss tank gun, but I do not know what weapon he is referring to here. All the best, John.

Mr. Picky suggests that the right way round to say that would be "The Panzerschreck fires Puppchen ammo". You are, however, quite right that the round fired is essentially the same. Puppchen is certainly pretty unusual; I couldn't offhand name any other breech-loaded closed-tube rocket-launcher that has seen service. It was not enormously popular, as the extra weight was not felt to be worth the additional range as compared with Panzerschreck. The PAW 600 fired its own ammunition, a hollow-charge round capable of penetrating 140mm at normal impact. The main point of interest which makes the PAW 600 beloved of military scientists is that it was the first to use a "high-low pressure" system, since used to my knowledge only in the M-79 grenade launcher and the Soviet 73mm gun in the BMP-1. There was a 10cm version in the works at the end of the war, but nothing ever came of it. As to availability, my copy of Gander & Chamberlain says that 10 were delivered for troop trials in late 1944, and 260 were delivered, some on PaK 38 carriages, by the end of the war. Whoever told you that only the US had recoilless rifles was more vastly mistaken than a person who believes that Ivor Novello is still alive. The Germans had them first, particularly for the Fallschirmjager. While I am blethering out of myself on this subject, it might be as well to mention those other monuments to German extreme cleverness in the field of anti-tank guns, the Stielgranate and the Gerlich guns. The Stielgranate was a rodded over-calibre HEAT projectile that could be inserted into, well, you most often see a 3.7cm PaK 36, but versions existed for other calibres. The idea here was to give an otherwise hopeless anti-tank weapon a chance of knocking out a real tank. Because the round was fitted into the end of the barrel, stabilisation was by fins rather than spin. As you might expect, accuracy was not great, a couple of hundred metres being about as much as you could expect. The "squeeze-bore" guns devised by Dr. Gerlich used tapered barrels and APCNR (Armour Piercing Composite Non-Rigid) projectiles. Just like APCR and APDS, APCNR has a tungsten-carbide penetrating core. The outer part of the projectile, however, is squeezed down by the reducing diameter of the barrel when it is fired. There were three guns in the Gerlich series; the 2.8cm PzB41, 28mm reducing to 20mm calibre; the 4.2cm lePaK 41, sometimes known as the PJK 41, 40mm reducing to 29mm calibre; and the PaK 41, 75mm reducing to 55mm calibre. All saw service and had fierce armour penetration performance for their size and weight, but suffered the disadvantages of a high rate of barrel-wear and an inability to fire useful HE rounds. The barrel-wear problem was addressed by Dr, Grotsch's design for the PaK 44, another 75/55mm weapon, which never saw service but had the tapered portion of the barrel capable of being changed relatively easily. Quite why development of this weapon continued is a bit of a mystery to me, as the decision had been made to reserve tungsten stocks for the machine-tool industry in late 1942 anyway, which spelled the end for all the Gerlich guns. The idea has AFAIK not been used elsewhere with the sole exception of the Littlejohn adapter for 2-pdr and 37mm guns. It's been out of print for years, but if you ever see a copy of John Weeks' "Men against tanks", buy it; it is a highly readable account of the history of anti-tank weapons, and covers all this stuff and a lot more. Can anyone tell me how many of these weapons feature in CM:BB? All the best, John.

Roughly right, yes. Here's what Mike's books says: HQ 1 SS Regt (Peiper) 2 x Panther - 1 SS Pz Bn (Pötschke) -- 1 Coy (Kremser) 17 x Panther -- 2 Coy (Christ) 17 x Panther -- 6 Coy (Junker) 17 x Pz IV -- 7 Coy (Klingelhöfer) 17 x Pz IV - 501 SS Hvy Pz Bn (von Westernhagen) -- 1 Coy (Wessel) 14 x Tiger II -- 2 Coy (Möbius) 14 x Tiger II -- 3 Coy (Bimschein) 14 x Tiger II - 3 SS Pz Gren Bn (Diefenthal) -- 9 Coy (Leike) 16 x SPW -- 10 Coy (Preuss) 16 x SPW -- 11 Coy (Tomhardt) 16 x SPW -- 12 Hvy Coy (Thiele) -- 13 Inf Hvy Gun Coy (Koch) 6 x 150mm SP - 9 SS Pz Pnr Coy (Rumpf) -- 1 Pl SPW -- 2 Pl SPW -- 3 Pl bicycles -- 4 Pl motorized - 3 SS Pz Pnr Coy (Sievers) -- 1 Pl SPW -- 2 Pl SPW -- 3 Pl motorized -- 4 Pl motorized - 10 SS Pz AA Coy (SP) (Vögler) -- Pl 4 x 37mm -- Pl 4 x 20mm -- Pl 3 x Wirbelwind - 1 SS Pz Arty Bn (towed) (Kalischko) -- 1 Bty (Neugebauer) 6 x 105mm -- 2 Bty (Werner) 6 x 105mm -- 3 Bty (Freist) 6 x 105mm - SS Pz Supply Coy (Unger) - SS Pz Repair Coy (Ratschko) - 84 Luftwaffe Flak Bn (-) (Wolf) 20 & 37mms Hope that helps. All the best, John.

I think both treatments of arcs, relative to the observer or relative to the terrain, are entirely reasonable. You may have different ideas about what constitutes "natural" language, but I would have thought "Left of arc, small cottage, right of arc, bushy-topped tree" and "Watch half-left" would be more like the way the commands would be given in the field. However, from my TA experience, I am used to having arcs assigned in defence (and you go into all-round defence every time you halt), and being told to watch in a particular direction while on the move (watching behind is the one that people msot often forget). So, while it might be nice to have both ways of specifying arcs, if you have to make the choice between one way or the other, I would say that the current way is the one I find more convincing. All the best, John.