John D Salt
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Posts posted by John D Salt
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Didn't everyone?Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:Did Jerry ever master the TOT?
For some reason, I don't know why, TOT shoots seem to be treated in many wargamerly quarters as a uniquely American trick. As far as I know, any competent gunners should be able to manage this. After all, you only need to be able to subtract the time of flight from each gun position from the required TOT. Probably German and certainly Japanese gunners were able to co-ordinate the impact timing of their shoots with the timings of enemy salvos, in an attempt to get the firers to check fire because they think they are dropping short. I doubt that they'd have much difficulty co-ordinating things with friendly guns.
All the best,
John.
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The weapon you're thinking of must surely be the Avtomat Federov, some of which were used during the Russian Civil War. The 6.5mm round is not all that unusual, being the same round as used in the Arisaka, and also seeing limited service as the .256" British. A shame more was not made of it, as it is more or less the ideal intermediate round for rifle and LMG applications. See the article "The .256" British: A missed opportunity"Originally posted by Slapdragon:EM, I am not sure if Siminov designed this weapon, but it used an unusual 6.5mm Japanese round with low power to fire from an internal magazine. I was not carrief through with though, but some were made.
on Tony Wiliams' excellent web-site at
http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/
All the best,
John.
[ August 14, 2002, 09:57 PM: Message edited by: John D Salt ]
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Mr. Picky will now point out that several of the titles I listed -- the "Mech War 2", "Assault" and "First Battle" families -- do indeed include vehicle facing. In "Mech War 2" individual vehicles are accounted for, so this is little different from the technique used in "MBT" (Steve Peek, icky) where strength chits can be used to make one vehicle marker represent 2, 3 or more vehicles.Originally posted by Michael emrys:Sorry to disagree with you, John, but I always felt the platoon/counter scale was a bad compromise. It doesn't really give a feel for all the variables, such as facing, that enter into tactical combat as well as a single vehicle/counter simulation does. I would actually prefer to go the other direction and see a company/counter simulation with such things abstracted more convincingly.
I tend to agree that company-a-counter is a more sensible scale, because a company is really the basic element of maneouvre that will tend to fight together and be more-or-less homgenously equipped. However, following John Hill's game design guidelines, one might prefer a unit-elimination platoon-a-counter game to a step-reduction company-a-counter game; and it certainly makes life easier for the designer to deal with the composition of infantry support companies, for example.
It is noticeable, though, that most of the platoon-a-counter scale games I've listed are ones I consider unsatisfactory, and my favourite two are "Panzer Commander" (company-a-counter) and "Team Yankee" (individual vehicle).
Tactical games always seem to have a strong tendency towards complexity -- the "Kampfpanzer" sub-family of games had to be quite restricted in numbers of counters so that SiMov plotting was not too much of a chore -- but it needn't be so. Take a look at Courtney Allen's superb "Storm over Arnhem" and "Thunder at Cassino"; one is section-a-counter, one platoon-a-counter, and both can happily handle handfuls of counters on the map because the mechanics of the game are elegantly simple (I didn't include either game in the above survey because they are in no way related to Panzerblitz).Originally posted by Michael emrys:Another thing, and I acknowledge that this is mostly a matter of personal taste, is that I find "monster games" where more than, say, a hundred counters per side are in play, an unsupportably laborious burden to "play". This is especially true of tactical games because the mechanics are usually quite a bit more complex.
I share your horror of monster piles of counters, and this is perhaps another argument in favour of the company-a-counter scale; by cheating only mildly and treating arty battalions as companies (12-18 guns in a battalion, 10-22 tanks in a company, it doesn't seem too bad) I reckon you can represent an armoured division in around forty counters.
I'd dearly love to have a set of rules of DBA-like simplicity that let you fight encounters between brigades with 12-15 counters a side, or division battles if you fancied taking more than half an hour over the game.
I would have been five years old at that time, so still at the rolling-marbles-at-toy-soldiers stage of development. I think board wargaming was still pretty unusual in the UK in 1971; we've always been much more miniatures-based.Originally posted by Michael emrys:BTW, I too own most of the games you mentioned and a few you did not. I got my copy of Afrika Korps in 1965.
Michael
Oh, and I have got a couple of hundred games on my shelves apart from the ones listed.
All the best,
John.
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Harrumph.Originally posted by Drexler:I´ve played a few a games as Axis defender using Panzer IVH as my choice of tank. Though it seems they have plenty of firepower they appear to weak when it comes to armor.
Having just lost two Pz IVs in a head-to-head shootout with a single Daimler against the AI, this is a bit of a sore point with me at the moment.
I didn't mind so much when I lost three Conscript Pz IVs against a single Crack Sherman in similar circumstances, because conscript is conscript, crack is crack, and the Sherman is at least a tank.
All the best,
John.
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What particulars do you want to remember?Originally posted by Shep:Panzerblitz?
[snips]
But let's go back a ways in wargaming history...
It's the early 70s, and Avalon Hill releases Panzerblitz, and all of us grognards don't even have pimples yet, right? But we dig it because it's soooo historical and has a high realism factor (nostalgic sigh).
Anyone here old enough to remember the particulars?
I certainly remember Panzerblitz -- I got my first board wargame, "Afrika Korps", in 1971, and became an S&T subscriber in 1974. I found it curious that Panzerblitz was the best-selling wargame ever (a record that I think may have been taken from it by now, but I'm not sure). I never owned a copy, but I did dabble with "Tactical Game 3", the mini-game included in the S&T issue that had "Renaissance of Infantry" as the main feature.
The main innovation of "Panzerblitz" was its being the first boardgame to deal with minor tactics (platoon a counter). I don't think it succeeded in convincing anyone much about its "realism", even for those who believed in such things, especially if they had a miniatures wargaming background. There is no doubt that it provided an awful lot of gamers with a great deal of fun, though.
I think the platoon or company a counter level is probably the ideal one for players to be close enough to the detail of individual vehicles, yet still handle a large tactical force up to brigade or even division strength. Unfortunately, I think it's a level that has rarely, if ever, been done well.
"Panzerblitz" spawned a lot of other tactical armour games at the platoon/company a counter level. "Panzer Leader" (AH) and "Combat Command" (SPI) used much the same system, with improvements; "Red Star/White Star" (SPI) made the innovation of trying to simulate modern armoured combat, and so, a bit later did "Arab/Israeli Wars" (AH).
It became evident that some steps needed to be taken to model the command difficulties and confusion that are arguably decisive in tactics at this level. SPI attempted this with its SiMov/Panic system, an innovation in that the "soft" factors would be modelled separately, rather than used to whack up attack or defence factors arbitrarily. The family of second-generation PanzerBlitz games consisted of "Kampfpanzer", "Desert War", "Panzer '44" and "Mech War '77".
"October War" (SPI) then added the innovation of keeping track of individual vehicles and squads using strength-point markers. Then came a third generation of the Panzerblitz family, which included much more sophisticated morale and command control rules, and finally did away with the silliness of weapons effectiveness categories, instead doing the sensible thing and rating units ability to attack hard and soft targets separately. This third generation focused mainly on the modern period, with "Suez to Golan" and "Red Star/White Star 2" making up the "Mech War 2" package; "Panzer Battles", set in WW2, did not go down well, probably because of the very restricted number of scenarios in the magazine game format.
Frank Chadwick at GDW struck out in a different direction with the "Assault" series, which as well as "Assault" included "Boots and Saddles", "Chieftain" and "Bundeswehr". The approach taken to command control here was the use of command points, which TOCs could save up to use in one go.
GDW's second attempt at this level, again the brainchild of Frank Chadwick, was much simpler, and gave us the "First Battles" series. "Team Yankee" was the first (and to my mind the best) of these. As befits a book tie-in aimed at a wider audience than diehard wargamers, its mechanics were very simple. Command and control was acknowledged, but modelled very simply; the ability of players to engineer a turn flip-flop when they held the initiative could be a battle winner. Successive titles in the series were "Test of Arms", "Sands of War", Battlefield Europe" and "Blood and Thunder". An odd thing happened during the course of the development of this series; the declared scale went up from being one vehicle a squad a counter in "Team Yankee" and "Test of Arms" to being platoons in some the later games.
Victory Games' only effort in this area, "Panzer Commander", was set at the company-a-counter level, and focused specifically on battles around the Chir river in Russia. The sequence of play and command control system were to my mind the best ever done for this level, and worked very well. At last, it was possible for the Germans to out-maneouvre and out-fight Russians they neither out-gunned nor out-numbered. It is a shame the system has not been applied to other theatres, or, for that matter, the rest of the Russian one.
Finally, West End Games persuaded John Hill (designer of "Squad Leader") to design "East Front Tank Leader" for them. "West Front Tank Leader" and "Desert Tank Leader" followed. The key idea is a card-play system of command control, which, I regret to say, I have never been able to get to work satisfactorily.
That makes, I think, 27 games in the "Panzerblitz family"; if there are others, I'd like to hear about them. I own 16 of the titles mentioned above, covering all of the generations. Considerable ingenuity has been exercised over the years to model the way tactical command works, yet, to my mind, none of the methods tried entirely succeeds -- "Panzer Command" comes closest.
How many other people would be in the market for a WW2, platoon-a-counter, tactical armoured boardgame if a 28th attempt were to be published tomorrow?
Sorry it's a long post, but it's a hobby-horse of mine.
All the best,
John.
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A nice idea, but I can see the game-mnakers being a little concerned at the possible size of their initial revenue stream. How many people would be in the market for a CM-like tactical game covering, say, the Gran Chaco war, or the Nomonohan and Lake Hassan battles? And how much harder would these be to research?Originally posted by Sgian Dubh:[snips]
The vast majority of these all start with the Western Front, which means that this theater of operations always has the "basic" engine and the other theaters have the "improved engines".
[snips]
So I guess my wish for the future would be to have someone write a wargame in which the WF is the last theater produced, so that it would have the best of all that procedded it in the series.
All the best,
John.
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It's a dirk (Jockanese pudding-jabber) and you'd wear it in your hose tops. I'm not sure if they count as underwear, but I can't seem to think of any other underwear worn by Jocks. Not even Jockey shorts.Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:There is a prize for the first person to post with what a Sgian Dubh is, and in what article of underwear it is commonly worn....
All the best,
John.
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Though I doubt it contains anything new to most readers of the forum, I thought the following mught be of interest, taken from "The First and the Last: The story of the 4th/7th Royal Dragoon Guards, 1939--1945", by Maj. J D P Stirling (Art & Educational Publishers, 1946; reprint edition DP&G, Doncaster, 2000).Originally posted by Wreck:[snips]
But I am not really sure of that. So one question I should like to throw out to the grogs is: how much did tank effectiveness vary based on the loss of individuals? Could the loss of one important man (probably gunner or commander) turn a "crack" tank to "green"?
Also, I got curious as to what the 5th crewman in some tanks does. I know he sometimes mans the bow MG; is that all he does? [snips]
American. British. German. Russian even. Discuss.
"The Sherman has a crew of five: the Commander, who stands in the turret all the time, gives orders to the crew over the “inter-comm” wireless set, gives or receives orders over the Squadron wireless set, reads the map, looks for targets through his glasses and when he finds one, speaks in tones of urgent entreaty to: the Gunner, who sits all day on a small seat, peering through a small periscope about 6 ins. by 2 ins. He moves the gun on to the target by means of two handwheels, fires it with a foot-pedal, and waits for it to be reloaded by: the Loader-Operator who spends the time-when he is not ramming shells into the breech or struggling with a jammed machine-gun-in operating and answering on the wireless set.
These three are all in the turret. Down below is: the Driver, who also looks after the engine and the tank in general; he is assisted by the fifth member of the crew: the Co-Driver, who sits beside him-except on the 17-pounder tank, where the ammunition takes up so much space that there is only room for a crew of four-and is usually appointed cook as he has least to do.
This is the crew. They live, eat, sleep and fight together. Their tank is their home, and each tank is more or less self-contained; food, water, petrol-cooker, bedding, kit and bivouac tent are all stowed away on it.
In the morning they move out on the day's work ; all day they fight, or, which is just as tiring, sit watching and waiting; after nightfall when they are released by the Infantry, they rally back with the rest of the Squadron to a chosen “harbour” where they can cook a meal, replenish the tanks, and get a little sleep before the next day starts. If the enemy artillery is active they either sleep in the tank, or else, if they have time, dig a pit, drive the tank on top of it, and sleep underneath."
Ken Tout's "To Hell with tanks!" (Robert Hale, 1992) includes a first-person description of what it feels like to be each of the crewmen in a British Sherman, interspersed with the main text.
Macksey & Batchelor's "Tank: A history of the armoured fighting vehicle" (Military Book Society, 1970) shows on page 121 all five of the possoble crew layouts used during WW2. For the five-man crew, it says that the co-driver "was just that, fired the bow gun and made the tea". It also states that Russian, German and French practice was to put the radio in the hull.
In the British Army at least it has always been a principle that every crewman should be able to do every job, but obviously the specialist does the job better. I think it is John Foley's excellent "Mailed Fist" (1956ish I think, copy not to hand) that mentions exercising a "general post exchange", where everyone tries to do someone else's job; the results seemed a touch chaotic.
I don't think it makes much sense to try to rank the contributions of individual crew positions to the overall effectiveness of the tank (except, perhaps, to say that the co-driver or lap gunner, if not operating the radio, is pretty much a "spare"). If you have ever heard of Meredith-Belbin's research on management styles, or used a software development technique such as RAD or Fagan inspections that rely on people taking on well-defined roles, you'll know that the performance of a group of people collaborating in specialist roles is much more than the sum of its parts. I would expect a similar effect to apply to the performance of tank crews.
All the best,
John.
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I don't think there's necessarily a vast amount of disagreement.Originally posted by kipanderson:[snips]
It seems not all writers of reports agree on these matters.
I'll certainly go along with that -- while flonking around my collections of Hoggs and Weekses I found a critcism of the MG-42 on exactly these grounds. However, Mr. Fabry seemed to disagree.Originally posted by kipanderson:There does seem to be agreement that the Bren was the more accurate. To be even more specific, in the report I read it was made clear that, in the LMG role, the reason for the lack of accuracy with the MG42 was uncontrollable recoil.
Considering some vaguely comparable weapons, from my own limited experience, I know the L4 Bren to be a more accurate gun than the L7 GPMG -- despite the fact that they fire the same cartridge, both use gas-operation, and are comparable in mass.
However, when we talk about "inaccuracy" here, I think it's not the spraying-rounds-half-across-the-horizon kind of inaccuracy you'd get if you tried firing, say, an FN-FAL on full auto from the shoulder. The weapon remains perfectly controllable, it's just that the stream of bullets is wider (a "positive cone of fire" as you say if you think it sounds better than "inaccurate"). Instead of putting every burst on the black, you'll spread them around a bit. If the people you're shooting at are using proper tactical spacings, this may be no bad thing, and I imagine that MG-42 fans regard it as a virtue rather than a vice (and the findings from project Salvo would support them).
For a long time I liked the Bren better than the GPMG, not on;ly for accuracy but because it was more pleasant to shoot and easier to strip and clean. I was definitvely converted to a GPMG fan after a shoot when we had a lot of rounds to burn, and I was given the memorable fire order "Gun, 200 metres, target to your front, in your own time, f***ing obliterate it". None of your namby-pamby bursts of 3 to 5 rounds then, by golly -- it's fun to send long, ripping bursts down the range and see wood splinters, dust and small pebbles flying all over the place. I don't dount that anyone in the target area would have considered themselves thoroughly suppressed.
I should perhaps have mentioned that the rates they calculated assumed a barrel change every 280 rounds, so not all that much different. This reinforces the point, made on another recent thread, that there really is a considerable difference between a proper LMG (with a quick-change barrel) and a heavy-barrelled automatic rifle in terms of delivering intense firepower.Originally posted by kipanderson:Also, the book I have on Small Arms from Shrivenham, in its section on the problem of heat, seems to set the limits rather lower than your chaps. It agrees with your figure of 200 rpm, but, without a spare barrel, that is more or less your lot after just one minute for that gun until it has cooled.
I'll look forward to that, it sounds interesting.Originally posted by kipanderson:To give one specific figure from the table and stats that stuck in my mind, the maximum average rate of fire over fifteen minutes, without a barrel change, is just 50 rpm. Note, within that there is very little room for “mad minutes” that go over 50 rpm. Up that ROF to, say, 70 rpm, and it is all over in half the time. When I have unpacked all my books I will no doubt produce a bunch more stats. It is a great section with graphs on rates of cooling and all sorts.
In the interim, I have just found these figures for the M-60 from http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Quarters/9283/page29.html
Cyclic rate: 550 rds/min, barrel change every minute.
Rapid rate: 200 rds/min, barrel change every 2 minutes.
Sustained rate: 100 rds/min, barrel change every 10 minutes.
The "by-the-book" deliberate (as the Brits call it) rate for the Bren was 1 mag per minute, and the rapid rate 4 mags per minute (28 and 112 rds/min respectively); for the GPMG, I think unless dame memory deals me a turd that it was 50 rds/min deliberate and 200 rds/min rapid. There must be some suspicion that the deliberate rate was determined with reference to the report you mention.
I think the high rate of fire makes it only a little less than perfect. I could fire bursts of one round with the L4 and two rounds with the L7, so I would think that 3-round bursts at 1300 rds/min should be perfectly possible -- there must be someone on the board who's fired one, so tell us! Then again, one of the regular contributors to the soc.history.war.world-war-two newsgroup who served as a raw grenadier at the close of WW2 absolutely hated the thing. He had very little time for the Panzerfaust, either.Originally posted by kipanderson:I am sure the MG 3 is a very fine gun, but at the lower rate of fire, at 1200 rpm it is just wasting every ones time. Hence, my point about the US, Soviet and FN post-war GPMGs not even having a 1200 rpm option.
"If we were all the same, they wouldn't sell many mixed biscuits", as somebody's Scottish granny probably said once (if I may introduce an ethnocentric biscuit perspective).Originally posted by kipanderson:That is what makes life fun, we do not all agree!
Perhaps I should mention here a French veteran of the Algerian war I once met who regarded the FM-BAR as "l'arme le plus terrible au monde" ("the most terrific weapon in the world") because of its accuracy. It takes all sorts, I suppose.
All the best,
John.
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Quite correct.Originally posted by Michael emrys:HVAP is not the same as discarding sabot. If I am not mistaken, it more closely resembles the APCR round of the Germans.
The only anti-tank weapons to use APDS during WW2 (not counting German field artillery non-tungsten APDS) were the 6-pdr 7 cwt, the 77mm ("HV 75") and the 17-pdr -- all of which had muzzle brakes (the 6-pdr in its later version and the 77mm and 17-pdr in all versions).
All the best,
John.
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Mr. Picky says that of course you really want something pumping out 1200 rounds a minute; what you don't want to do is carry all those ammunition belts around all day, every day.Originally posted by John D Salt:</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by kipanderson:
“Was the MG42 really the right weapon for the job of "squad automatic"? Do you really want something pumping out 1200 rounds a minute on the attack, or was a Bren-type weapon far more suitable?”
Got it in one. No, it was not a suitable LMG for the reasons implied above.
The MG-42 was certainly a pretty dam' good light-role MG, or at least looked that way to the folks on the receiving end. Jary has been referred to before; James Lucas, who was also an infantryman who faced German MGs, has this to say on p. 36 of his "The British Soldier" (A&AP 1989):
"The German soldiers were good fighters who handled their weapons well -- and their weapons were first class; many of them superior to those in our own service. Because they had a higher distribution of machine-pistols and faster-firing machine-guns which were capable of being used in a light or medium role, the Germans could put down a volume of fire which we could not match. Their attacks rode in on waves of bullets and the assualts of their enemies died in the criss-cross fire of their fast-firing MGs."
For a contrary point of view, we have Colonel I. W. Gore-Langton, late Commandant of the tactical wing at the School of Infantry, who is quoted on p. 113 of Jac Weller's "Weapons and Tactics: Hastings to Berlin" (Nicholas Vane, 1966) as saying that area fire may be psychologically important, especially against inexperienced troops ; he found he needed three Brens to make as much noise as one MG-42, but reckoned the Bren as good as two MG-42s for hitting people.
I can only think of two; conservation and overheating. I believe that the MG-3 (descended directly from the MG-42 and long in service with the Bundeswehr) has the option of two buffer and bolt combinations. The Type N buffer and V550 bolt give a RoF of 1150 to 1350 rds/min; the Type R buffer and V950 bolt produce 750-950 rds/min, much more in line with the post-war GPMG fashion.Originally posted by kipanderson:I have read a British, 1950s report that reaches just this conclusion. Contrary to popular belief, the MG42 was not considered the ideal squad LMG, by all the major powers, post WW2. Note that all the new General Purpose Machine Guns developed by the top players in the 1950, the US, Soviets and FN of Belgium, had a ROF of between 550-750 rpm. There is along list of very good and important reasons for this.
As I still have the old 1978 IDR special no. 5 on infantry weapons on my desk, I shall mention that a piece in it by Maj. F W A Hobart (founder editor of Jane's Infantry Weapons) rates the MG-3 as being "at least as good as any GPMG in service".
There is also an article by one T. Fabry of Dusseldorf (whose affiliation is unstated, but we suspect Heckler & Koch) which says of rate of fire:
"A burst from a machine gun with a low rate of fire against a moving target is often ineffective as the target area is not covered in sufficient density. The rapid firing MG-3, on the other hand, is most effective against fast-moving infantry targets. Objections are made to a high rate of fire, on the grounds that it is too costly in ammunition; but what is the point of saving ammunition, through using a low rate of fire, if the bursts are ineffective? It is a fact that if a comparison is made between the effectiveness of two machine guns using the same quantity of ammunition, one having a low, the other a high rate of fire, the latter is found to be more effective. Only an intense concentration can deny the ground to the enemy. Ammunition saving should be effected, not by reducing the rate of fire, but by a more efficient usage of a high rate of fire."
One could wish that Mr. Fabry had included a source for his statement. I'm afraid he also reminds me of the Colonel who said "I want to hear less talk of denying things to the enemy, and more talk of biffing."
I would suspect that the reason for choosing the Bren was merely that there were so many of them lying about. PRO doc WO 291/474, "Rate of fire of the LMG", which I have referred to before, did if I remember correctly contain a mention that it was already settled policy to move to a belt-fed gun after the war. This report (dated 1944) indicates that more advantage is to be derived from belt feed than from a high cyclic rate of fire. The high-RoF belt-fed gun does show up as the best in the (theoretical) study, but not spectacularly so except in the case of enfilade fire (where the failure to allow for over-hitting may have biased the results).Originally posted by kipanderson:The report I read was designed to address the question of the type of weapon the British should adopt as a LMG for the new NATO 76.2mm round. The conclusion was to use a new version of the Bren. Later they used the FN GPMG.
Another point not mentioned in the report that favours belt feed is that, if one is carrying a large amount of ammunition, belt links add less extra weight than do magazines.
The study mentioned above considered four theoretical guns, each with different feed mechanisms and rates of fire. The peak rates of fire achievable (rds/min) were considered to be:Originally posted by kipanderson:[snips]
Even using two quick change barrels the maximum “useable” ROF of MGs is very far below the “cyclical” rate that is always quoted.
Feed__Cyclic_____Bursts___Continuous fire
Mag_____500_______112______218
Mag____1000_______120______285
Belt_____500_______124______400
Belt____1000_______134______660
Major Hobart, in his IDF special no. 5 piece, seemed to think a sustained rate of 200 rds/min from the MG-3 highly creditable, for a period determined by the supply of spare barrels.
One can perhaps argue that a minute is too long a time to consider for problems of this kind; ISTM that a competent infantryman will not expose himself as a target for more than a few seconds.
All the best,
John.</font>
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'Scuse me, finger trouble.
I seem to have quoted myself instead of editing.
See next post.
Or not, just as you please.
[ August 10, 2002, 08:23 AM: Message edited by: John D Salt ]
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You may historically think that, but it isn't true.Originally posted by Janster:[snips]Historically I think 5 shermans died for every german tank, which is a lot.
You could no doubt make a strong case for there being a higher issue of SMGs than is shown in the CM:BO gamut of infantry sub-sub-units. Unfortunately, such weapons were not officially authorised, so it is hard to see the basis on which they could fairly be allocated. Apart from anything else, I'd really like to see British airborne squads toting MG-42s...Originally posted by Janster:I do remember there being more types of allied infantry modeled in both close combat and steel panthers, but here we're stuck with rifle squads only?
Is this historical, did they only have rifle squads???
Right. I don't know what the magnitude of the penalty imposed in CM:BO is for firing on the move, but it does not seem to me to be high enough. Does anyone have a firmish figure. or am I going to have to do some tedious experiments?Originally posted by Janster:Btw, when it comes to tactics, I thought it was a big no-no to move and shoot, I remember it being a pretty sad affaire in most games, to try and move and shoot with tanks...
All the best,
John.
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Double posts, arenchyasickofem?
John.
[ August 08, 2002, 06:07 PM: Message edited by: John D Salt ]
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What took her so long? The Hungarian Uprising was in 1956 (four minutes to eight in the old money). Surely even a Russian tank with the big fuel tanks on the back would have run out of petrol by then. Maybe this is why we need turn linits in CM:BB.Originally posted by Wicky:or was it '58 mmmmmm
All the best,
John.
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For the British, a reasonable guide to the likely "by the book" loads is I think given in "Infantry Training Volume IV, Infantry section leading and platoon tactics", dated 1950 and therefore presumably based on later-war experience.Originally posted by tero:[snips]
How about the other armies ? The British, the Russians, the Hungarians, the Rumanians, the Italians, the Finns ? How were their LBE configured ?
The Bren gunner, Bren no. 2 and NCO in charge of the Bren group each have a set of utility pouches, and carry 4 mags (each 28 rounds) for the Bren. The NCO and no. 2 also carry a rifle and 50 rounds. The NCO also carries 2 HE and 2 smoke grenades.
In the rifle group, the section commander carries an SMG and 5 mags, 2 HE and 2 smoke grenades. Each rifleman carries a rifle with 100 rounds and 2 HE grenades. Everyone in the rifle group also carries 1 Bren mag.
Of course, loose .303 rounds can be loaded into empty Bren mags if necessary.
All the best,
John.
[ August 08, 2002, 11:50 AM: Message edited by: John D Salt ]
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Dammit, I hate it when this machine eats my posts and I have to do them again.
If you see this twice, things are screweder up than I thought.
Was it? Where does he say this?Originally posted by kipanderson:[snips]
The statistical analysis done by Dupuy was designed to work best at numbers between 10,000-30,000 men.
I don't know who you're referring to in the British OA community (maybe DOAE, as was?), but among my colleagues at Fort Halstead (none of whom go back as far as the 70s) the attitude to Dupuy is generally "Nice historical research, shame about the statistical method". He richly deserves the stick he gets, I'm afraid -- dodgy modelling, and even people who've done the short course on model validation ought to know how silly it is to validate against historical outcomes (they dopn;t, but they ought to).Originally posted by kipanderson:[snips]
He some times gets a lot of stick; however, his work was accepted by both the US DOD and UK’s Operational Analysis units in the 1970s.
IIRC Dave Rowlands' historical studies into "national characteristics" multipliers came up with Americans, British and Germans being on a par.Originally posted by kipanderson:[snips]
Dupuy was tasked with the specific job of studying this question and the conclusion was clear. German combat effectiveness was still higher than US combat effectiveness during the Battle of the Bulge. Also, by a margin that is consistent with Normandy and the war as a whole.
All the best,
John.
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...recalling, of course, that when Germans talk about armour sloped at 60 degrees, they mean 60 degrees from the horizontal.Originally posted by K_Tiger:[snips]
Uhm..saw it to late...at 60 degree!! But still a bit to low at 100m.
All the best,
John.
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Errh -- what was the question?Originally posted by Andreas:[snips]
Now - anyone got the answer on the Soviet use of sound-ranging?
Never mind, I've just tried out my new OCR toy on pages IX-31 to IX-32 of TM 30-340, "Handbook on USSR Military Forces", and if this doesn't say what you want, then I don't know.
All the best,
John.
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8. SOUND RANGNG EQUIPMENT
a. General. The Soviets have made wide use of sound ranging equipment for counterbattery operations since 1909. This type of equipment is superior to optical equipment when used in cold, fog, snow, or rain. Thus, it is suited to conditions in the USSR. This equipment also may be used to adjust fire, but seldom is used with calibers smaller than 107-mm.
b. Equipment. A sound ranging set consists of three pairs of ranging posts and a central control station. The posts normally are surveyed in before operation, although methods exist which obviate the need for surveying. Each post is equipped with a sensitive microphone, coupled to a recording tape similar to that used in the central control station. The microphones are buried just below the surface of the ground to eliminate surface noises. The data is relayed from the ranging post to the central station by special low resistance cable or by supersensitive radio equipment.
The central control station receives the data on a recording tape, one for each of the ranging stations. The pattern on the tape indicates the nature of the source of the sound recorded. The time difference of the sound as registered by each ranging post is recorded automatically at the central station. This recording. serves as the basis for further computation on special sound ranging slide rules and graphical tables to locate the origin of the sound by converging rays.
9. FLASH RANGING EQUIPMENT
Observation posts employ battery commanders scissors telescope, stop watches, and range finders. The battery commanders scissors telescope is modified so that two persons can observe simultaneously; one tube is fitted with an additional eyepiece. An optical range finder also is employed. All optical instruments are equipped with lighting devices to aid night observation. For observing at long ranges, a monocular tube, which has three eyepieces to develop magnification of 15 X, 23 X, and 30X, is used.
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[ August 01, 2002, 02:07 PM: Message edited by: John D Salt ]
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PRO document WO 291/496, "Anti-personnel effect of small HE shell", says:Originally posted by Olle Petersson:[snips]
In what way was the 40mm HE effective other than for direct hits on material (aircraft and soft vehicles)?
"It is frequently stated that the 75mm HE shell is the smallest that is likely to be useful. This is probably the case at long ranges where the angle of descent is large, because the small shell will be mainly below the surface at the moment of detonation, and small irregularities in the ground will have a large screening effect. The calculations of this paper suggest, however, that at short ranges with ricochets smaller shells will be effective."
The paper also gives figures for the "vulnerable area" (= area of effect) of 40mm Bofors, 6-pdr and 75mm HE shells showing that the 40mm has about a third the VA of 6-pdr HE, which in turn has half the VA of the 75mm.
All the best,
John.
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AFV Profile no. 6 by B T White (undated, but oriced in shillings and therefore published before 1971) says:Originally posted by Mike:[snips]
NZ Valentines in hte Pacific had a number of 2 pdrs replaced by 3" CS howitzers, but it's unclear whether or not they had HE for the 2 pdr as well.
"Nine Valentine close support tanks formed the strength of the New Zealand Tank Squadron, together with 16 normal Valentines (for which some 2 pdr HE ammunition, made in New Zealand, was provided) and were used successfully in the SW Pacific operations. Some of these tanks were still in use by the New Zealand Army up to 1955."
All the best,
John.
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From Wolfgang Fleischer's "Panzerfaust and other German infantry anti-tank weapons" (Schiffer, Atglen PA, 1994), page 11:Originally posted by Michael emrys:[snips]Can you cite me any examples from the actual war of people getting hit by falling turrets?
"Again and again there were tragic accidents. In one case they were able to push a T-mine under the rear end of a T-34, and when it exploded it tore the turret from the hull. It was thrown exactly in the direction where the two soldiers had taken cover, and they were buried under it. Such and similar episodes continued toi emphasize the need for more effective close-combat anti-tank weapons."
This exhausts my stock of flying-turret-falling-on-people stories.
All the best,
John.
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Four guns to a field or medium battery is one of the most solid organisational rules of thumb I know for the WW2 period. The only exceptions I know of are some 6-gun SP batteries (US and German armoured divisions), late-war reduced-strength 3-gun batteries in some German organisations, and the odd Soviet habit of having 2-gun batteries of 122mms. The British army are of course different, having 8-gun (late war) or 12-gun (early war) batteries, but both organisations use a 4-gun troop.Originally posted by freaky ol'man w/very long wings:This make me think that a battery could be four guns
All the best,
John.
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I think we need to know whether the "rally point" is intended to represent what in British lingo would be called an RV (for RendezVous), or if it is meant to be a straggler line.Originally posted by Ozzy:I agree with Andreas. In most cases the time required to reorganize a routed unit is beyond an average battle timeframe (60-90 minutes).
Other than for operations, but for that you won't need the rally point.
Running to the friendly edge is sufficent IMO.
RVs are very common, right down to section level, and should cost nothing -- all that happens is that the relevant commander says "The platoon RV will be at Home Farm" when giving his orders, or, as a section is advancing, the corporal will at intervals signal that a particular point is now the section RV as he passes it. If the section has a messy contact, everyone will rally back to the last RV.
A straggler line is a rather more elaborate affair, for higher organisations, and might be manned by MPs, or, in other armies, Feldpolizei or Blocking Detachments.
While I would like to see control measures like this represented in a game, CM might not be the game to do it in if (like Kip Anderson) one does not want it to become a "command game". Personally, I would love to have a game where I directly manipulate RVs, start lines, phase lines, report lines, objectives, boundaries and all the rest of it. It occurs to me that the structure of prior command decisions represented by these control measures would make it easier to code believeable behaviours for the TacAI, too. Such a game would not be CM as we knmow and love it, though.
All the best,
John.
Optics in CMBB - how are they better?
in Combat Mission Archive #4 (2002)
Posted
All the best,
John.