Wicky

Then the scenario creator can choose to toggle the prebattle intelligence of enemy deployments percentage visible for the allies.

sburke,
 
My reply is very long, but much of it is supporting quotes!
 
There is a world of difference between attacking a port doing almost exclusively logistics, as opposed to one in which 5000 ships are involved, carrying ~133,000 men in the landing force, never mind the following administrative landings. Had V-2s been raining down while the primary stores and personnel preparation and loading were going on, inflicting random mass casualties on formations which had trained for months or even years, there is no way that wouldn't have been immensely disruptive and likely considerably destructive. Here is an excellent piece showing the disposition of the staging areas for the units participating in D-Day. Mind, this presumes targeting for the V-2 other than/in addition to London. Considering the Germans had been attacking Channel ports since early in the war, and that U-Boat attrition was very high by the time D-Day was in the offing, hitting the ports which were so vital to England's survival as reception points for food and fuel, not to mention personnel and every sort of military stores, made considerable sense.  Nor, I think, do you really comprehend the scale of fatalities the V-2s directed against Antwerp inflicted. 

Antwerp as an Indicator of What Could've Happened in the Embarkation and Assembly Areas
 
http://www.v2rocket.com/start/chapters/antwerp.html
 
(Fair Use)
 
Many people tend to associate the V-weapon campaign as one directed only against England; however, Antwerp was the recipient of even more V-2s than London, resulting in more than 30,000 killed or injured.
 
So I'm not accused of cherry picking the data, I deliberately included the last few sentences in the next quote.
 
 In the port of Antwerp itself, despite the bombardment, a constant flow of ships was still delivering supplies for the Allied war effort. Thousands of dock workers unloaded the ships in the midst of the raining V-weapon attacks. One ship was sunk (by a direct V-2 hit) and 16 others were damaged at some point, the Kruisschans lock was damaged, several marshaling yards were hit and the Hoboken petroleum installations were hit twice. Even so, the bombardment never seriously affected the functionality of the harbor. There were some casualties but, it never took very long for repairs to be made to these installations.
 
Or you get things happening like this. Bolding is mine.

Teniers Square
   On November 27, a terrible incident occurred at a major road junction near the Central Station. Teniers Plaats (Square) was the busiest intersection in town (as it still is today). Military policemen were always regulating the heavy traffic for an Allied convoy passing through the square.
 
   It was on the main north-south axis for the supply columns. From the docks, American troops were heading south to the US supply bases near Liege and British columns were heading north to the front lines in Holland. There were four tram lines crossing the square in both directions, plus there were many autos and pedestrians moving throughout the busy intersection.
   "I often went there after lunch to watch the military activity..." said Charles Ostyn. "and the British MP, right there in the middle, regulating and directing both military and civilian traffic. On very busy days there were two MP's."
 
   A V-2 came down at ten minutes past noon and exploded in the middle of all this activity. A British convoy was moving through the intersection and was caught in the blast. This particular rocket was believed to have exploded just above ground possibly having struck the overhead tram lines just where the traffic policemen stood. A city water main burst, water bubbling up from the ground. Soon, the whole square was filled with water.
 
   "I heard and saw this explosion from a short distance away while riding in the back of an open truck and approached the scene about 2 hours later," Ostyn remembered. "There was water running everywhere and the whole place was cordoned off and guarded by U.S. soldiers. There was a massive crowd of onlookers and many people with bandages on their heads walking around. It must have hit something above ground first because no crater was ever found."
 
   The result was total devastation. The water began to pool on the street. Floating on the water were dismembered corpses, various body parts, clothing and large amounts of debris. Several of the vehicles in the convoy exploded or caught on fire, their occupants lay burning. The glass windows of the passing trams near the intersection were all shattered causing injuries to those riding on the trams.
 
   One of the MP's was completely disintegrated and the charred body of another was found sometime later on the roof of a nearby hotel, about 60 meters away. Soon, the story of the unfortunate MP who was blown to bits was infamous among the locals. In all, the dead were 126 (26 were American & British soldiers) and another 309 injured.
  There was also the matter of the catastrophe when a large cinema was hit while nearly full. Bolding is mine.

The Rex Cinema
 
   On the first day of the German Ardennes offensive, December 16, 1944, the worst disaster occurred. The "Rex" Cinema on avenue De Keyserlei was packed full of people in middle of the afternoon, nearly 1200 seats were occupied, all watching the featured movie. At 15.20 hrs the audience suddenly glimpsed a split-second flash of light cutting through the dark theater, followed by the balcony and ceiling crashing down during a deafening boom. A V-2 rocket had impacted directly on top of the cinema.
 
   Charles Ostyn happened to be near the cinema that day and would later learn of a personal tragedy in his life caused by this particular rocket attack.
 
   "December 16, 1944, is a day I can never forget. It all really sank in on us after the massacre at the Rex Cinema..." said Ostyn. He told about his feelings at that time: "I still remember that Saturday as if it were yesterday. I had walked past the theater about 20 minutes before the impact - to think, at that very moment a V-2 was being tanked-up by members of the SS Werfer Battery 500 in Holland, it being destined to kill all those people in one blinding instant."
 
   The destruction was total. Afterwards, many people were found still sitting in their seats, stone dead. For more than a week the Allied authorities worked to clear the rubble. Later, many of the bodies were laid out at the city zoo for identification. The death toll was 567 casualties to soldiers and civilians, 291 injured and 11 buildings were destroyed. 296 of the dead & 194 of the injured were U.S., British, & Canadian soldiers. This was the single highest death total from one rocket attack during the war in Europe.

  You can read the summary for yourself, but the V-2 campaign never amounted to more than 155 rockets a month, but averaged, by eyeball estimate, around 100 or so, taking into account one month with 42, one with 58 and another with 59. According to the info at the site, the Germans had many more rockets, but were jammed up in being able to launch them by fuel bottlenecks with alcohol and LOX.
 
Building on What Antwerp V-2 Attacks Show: What a Real Spanner in the Works Looks Like!
 
In light of what I've provided, both directly and indirectly, are you still sticking to your argument that had Hitler gotten the V-2s online and in quantity (not, say, the 5 missiles/day of Antwerp) in time to hit the D-Day buildup, embarkation and subsequent activities as a side effect, if you will, of attacking England's vital ports that it wouldn't have thoroughly disrupted possibly the most intricate military operation ever seen to that date, together with inflicting enormous casualties to men and materiel? Offhand, I see no way such a campaign wouldn't have been devastating. That neck of the woods was the very definition of target rich environment, and the immense randomness of the V-2 impacts would've exerted enormous leverage because of the cascading effects from so many suddenly appearing points of disruption, destruction and casualties (fires, flooding, road and rail blockage/destruction, hits on docks, warehouses and shipping, power, water and gas outages--dead and wounded by the tens or hundreds from a given impact in a high density target zone). And I'm talking primary effects only, not factoring in the raft of secondary explosions from all that sort of material in its vast array. Invasion planning (and troop morale) never envisioned such things, let alone a variety of air attack against which there was no defense whatsoever.
 
How do you keep a practically bottomlessly intricate operation viable when whole formations are there one moment, but damaged or even gone the next? A DIV HQ here, a radio signals unit there, AA gunners someplace else, an ordnance company (scarce armorers and such) standing by, an FA battalion on the march, the motor pool for a transportation company, a water supply unit, a field hospital (more scarce personnel) an overflowing waterproofing station, field kitchens and mess units. What about photo interpreters, cartographers and weather forecasters? Vast mounds of ordnance, POL in bulk or in jerry cans, rations, parts for, well, everything damaged or destroyed; medical supplies, uniforms, boots, radio parts (fragile vacuum tubes and crystals), commo wire, welding sets, delicate, aircraft instruments and instrument test stations, printing presses--damaged, destroyed or rendered useless, maybe invisibly, by a hit. And the vital paperwork without which no organization large or small can function? Turned to confetti, burned, water soaked or blown all over the place, together with the typewriters. What if the central invasion map distribution point gets hit?
 
Every single man, every crate has a designated place in the coming battle and timing for getting aboard ship, else he or it wouldn't be there in the planning docs to begin with, in a buildup so transportation intensive it cut directly into British civilian food supplies. Put one scarce LST out of business and that alone can have divisional level impact, if not higher. Hit an ammo ship and you could significantly damage a port crammed with ships and men, causing untold havoc and destruction. Knock out a crane or two and screw up an AD's whole loading plan. Try running cranes if a V-2 hit knocks out the power. Naturally, we don't wish to contemplate a hit on a loaded troop transport! A destroyer nest hit could open up the invasion armada to E-boat attack (Slapton Sands for what even a few torpedo hits could do), or one on a battleship or cruiser make it useless for the invasion fire support.
 
Consequences of That Spanner
 
I can iterate this endlessly, but I'm talking Clausewitzian friction on crystal meth; the death of a thousand cuts (more like stabs and slashes), the holing and tearing of unit, logistical and administrative and logistical cohesion in an organization strained to the breaking point and that desperately needs every drop of blood, every organ, bone, sinew and fiber in order to succeed. Remember, even the spares were planned for in advance, and no one ever contemplated the embarkation areas would be attacked like that, generating losses never anticipated by the planners who had been at it for years. As it was, Ike almost called off the invasion without having to deal, before and during with the kinds of chaos and destruction I'm, I believe, reasonably positing. 
 
Childress,
 
I make no objection to your statement, but items from the bugging came out decades prior to those transcripts.
 
https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol11no1/html/v11i1a11p_0001.htm
 
        The Mare's Nest by David Irving. Book review by Edwin R. Walker  
CIA HISTORICAL REVIEW PROGRAM
RELEASE IN FULL
18 SEPT 95
OFFICIAL USE ONLY
Modern intelligence has to do with the painstaking collection and analysis of fact, the exercise of judgment, and clear and quick presentation. It is not simply what serious journalists would always produce if they had time: it is something more rigorous, continuous, and above all operational-that is to say, related to something that somebody wants to do or may be forced to do.
-The Economist of London, commenting on the retirement of Sir Kenneth Strong (1 Oct. '66, p. 20).
 
INTELLIGENCE IN RECENT PUBLIC LITERATURE
The V-Weapons
THE MARE'S NEST. By David Irving. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1965. 320 pp. $6.95.)
THE BATTLE OF THE V-WEAPONS, 1944-1945. By Basil Collier. (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1964. New York: William Morrow. 1965. 192 pp. $5. )
 
We'll skip the second book in this discussion for the following reasons:
 
Confronted by a really good book and an outstandingly bad one, a reviewer has the clear duty to warn against the latter. Let me begin, therefore, by advising you that The Battle of the V-Weapons is to be avoided as the plague. It is a shoddy, ill-conceived, inadequately researched, badly written piece of journalistic rubbish which is as near to being a non-book as anything to be found in a cloth binding.
 
After blisteringly disposed of the first book, Edwin Walker launches into his most astute review of the now disgraced for later Holocaust denail David Irving's assessment of how matters V waffen were learned of, reacted to (or not) and played out and how screwed up British S&T intelligence was, starting with the minor fact there wasn't any organized effort at all!  But let's look at what got picked up and reported in Irving's 1964 book, which I read circa 1970, shall we? Bolding is mine.
 
Hard on the heels of Dr. Jones' assessment came the "Oslo Report," an anonymous letter to the British naval attaché in Norway which told of several new weapons under development at Peenemünde, among them long-range rockets. Subsequent developments proved the Oslo Report to be pure gold, but British intelligence did not take the rocket (the ultimate V-2) seriously until March 1943 when one captured German general mentioned it to another in a well-bugged room.
 
That would be Ritter Von Thoma, whose name I've seen a bunch of times as being one whose discussions were bugged and quite revelatory. David Irving's reporting on such matters need to be taken in deadly earnest, because he discovered ULTRA while researching the book under discussion. That shocking story is at the Mare's Nest Wiki. 
 
Additionally, though I don't recall the book titles, there have been similar reports of bugging derived information regarding what captured U-boat skippers had to say. "Silent Otto" Kretschmer, one of Germany's top U-boat aces, was quite indiscreet in talking with other captured German officers.
 
Regards,
 
John Kettler
 
 
 
 
 

gunnergoz,

While I know they wouldn't like that (see Sepoy Rebellion as a result of rumor that the paper cartridges they were issued were greased with pig fat), I was thinking of other
methods, some more exotic than others. Offhand, there are psychic (with or without technical enhancement), black occult (with or without tech assist), brain pattern ID and targeting, lethal attacks delivered by computer, to name but four approaches.

What the public perceives as doable and what can be done/has been done/is being done are two entirely different things. Did you know, for example, that remote influence over behavior was demonstrated by the Russians in the 1960s? Did you know that Russian telekineticist Nina Kulagina not only stopped a frog's heart psychically, later restarting it, but demonstrated she could interfere with a human heart in a living person? Also from the 1960s. See Ostrander et al., PSYCHIC DISCOVERIES BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN. For a formerly classified discussion of the matter, please see Controlled Offensive Behavior-USSR, also Warsaw Pact Paraphysics, available at the Defense Intelligence Agency's FOIA Reading Electronic Reading Room.

http://www.dia.mil/Foia/readingdoc.html

The intention signal prior to an action was first detected and confirmed in the 1970s, I believe, via a SQUID (Superconducting Quantum Interference Device) helmet, and it's long been known that everyone has a unique EM signature. This guy did some of the key work.

http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/senate/inmemoriam/williamrossadey.htm

If it's unique, it's targetable. The word from inside the Intelligence Community circa 1990 was the equipment to collect that signature already fit into a briefcase. For that, see the appendices in Hayakawa's UFOS, THE GRAND DECEPTION, AND THE COMING NEW WORLD ORDER. Hayakawa, a black project researcher, was given two specially declassified appendices by a SEAL source. Written specifically for Intelligence Officers, one discussed the history of U.S. mind control research from the middle of WW II and the other a range of unconstitutional covert operations the "good guys" had become aware of and were trying to stop.

Here are some examples of what Adey's work made possible. (article link)

http://www.rense.com/general11/mm.htm

Ancient Wisdom and Modern Physics:
The Ultimate Inside Report on the World Technocracy ( a distillation of material from a Hermetic society of leading global scientists known as the Chicago Research Group; this publication is a complete compilation of that group's astounding insider information, published by Trufax.org, an Alexa top rated site)

If you know how, and posses the requisite skill to make them, it's eminently possible to kill people while they're simply online. Here's how. The man writing this had his "bell rung" by such an attack, which was deliberately designed to get his attention, but not kill him. Instead, he barely survived and spent days in bed!

http://www.cheniere.org/correspondence/012501.htm

Details are in FER DE LANCE 2 under "CSR." BTW, since this man's been a source of major controversy here before, you might be interested in seeing this, which speaks directly to several of the areas hotly debated. The speaker is an aerospace insider who risked a great deal (could easily be killed; has happened to many) to come forward at the Disclosure Project's National Press Club Briefing, whose webcast was continuously and sophisticatedly jammed. See particularly 5:48 on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hq3k8pJE0g&feature=related

The blueprint to which he refers earlier in the vid is in Cooper's BEHOLD A PALE HORSE.

Aren't you glad you asked?

Regards,

John Kettler

Having had an exceptionally productive day, and feeling an unusual level of mental clarity, I decided to essay what may well be my own bridge too far and embark upon my very first MG game: Facade Troop. F Troop! Can't say that bodes well. Hard to believe the WO would so much as entertain, let alone authorize, such a singularly unmilitary designation. Hard cheese, the saying goes, and the O Group handed down quite the ambitious mission, coupled with the usual rank optimism the intel types seem to be so full of. Before everything goes pear shaped.

"Take your one Troop, seize and hold a long list of objectives for an hour. There's a good lad. Off you go!"

(strains of music heard "Over the Hills and Far Away")



"King George commands and we obey
Over the hills and far away."

Not any bloody hills hereabouts, but the King still calls the shots. Orders and all that.

54-53

Following repositioning to the FUP, a general advance is ordered, in a direction generally NW. Objective: Seize South Bridge and deploy ATG to stop movement across same by AFVs. Vickers K jeeps and other means will see off smaller stuff. The left flank gets a bit carried away, with some moving in plain sight straight toward the first Objective. On the right, Clausewitz is in evidence, for Pinckney and his merry band of 2-Inch mortar men plainly flubbed the order and are now known to have not left the FUP. A rocket is headed his way.

Will this miracle untold months in the making continue? Will I manage another turn? Frankly, I'm thrilled I got this far--actually playing. Time and again, you see, my brain went into overwhelm simply looking at the battlefield or even the briefing. In any event, rather than agonizing over every little thing, I've taken a page from that British guy who plays CMx2 and CMx3 (reviewed RT) so fluidly and risen a bit above ground level. Unfortunately, we lack the very useful magnify feature from CMx1, so it's difficult to see much from up there. Rather like small ants which are accompanied by larger ants, in fact. Still, progress.

Regards,

John Kettler

There are better articles out there to illustrate some of the points I'm making, but finding them while in the moment is another matter altogether. I know they exist, for I've read them. For a very long time now, by extremely creative accounting, the Pentagon has dramatically reduced actual war losses. If you don't die in-theater, it doesn't count as a war death. If you are badly wounded, released from the service and subsequently die because of wounds sustained in-theater, that doesn't count, either. Nor do war created PTSD related suicide and other fatality inducing problems, such as GWS, also shown to be contagious. For ages the Pentagon denied any responsibility whatsoever to the Agent Orange afflicted Nam vets whose lives, and those of their families (dioxin is a proven and potent teratogen and mutagen), were wrecked by what the Pentagon knew full well had terrible effects on humans. Maybe things have changed lately, in both war casualty definitions and in the way the senior people at the Pentagon operate, but considering every US service academy places enormous emphasis on honesty and integrity, I'd argue that, decades ago, periodic refresher courses in both should've been made mandatory for all leaders at the Pentagon! 
 
I am happy to report, though, the US Army seems to have gotten certain things sorted out. According to my brother, now retired, when you come in, the Army does a comprehensive assessment of your health. When you're getting ready to be discharged, another such assessment is done. The delta is then used to figure out your service related injuries, if any, and resulting disability level, all set forth by category and then summed. If it gets high enough part or even all of retirement pay becomes tax free. This appears to be the human version of the "you broke it, you bought it"approach common in many small businesses, such as antiques. It marks, I think, a major improvement in the care of and respect for our warriors by their parent services. Unfortunately, the VA, which is supposed to care for our soldiers after they leave the military, is so horrendous it may require truly draconian measures to recalibrate its leadership and get it to do such things as provide timely review and fair treatment of veteran's cases and medical needs, as opposed to the documented burning of many  medical files to reduce the case backlog! If that isn't monstrous evil, I don't know what is.
 
 
And don't get me started on the Great Betrayal of military personnel with the promise of free lifetime medical care, then reneging. And that's atop a drastic truncation in access to PX/BX facilities and their vital commissaries. Retirement planning for ex-service personnel was predicated on exactly such access. What used to be conveniently nearby is now hours away for many.
 
Regards,
 
John Kettler

Goodness Kettler - you are a sucker for punishment - Is your memory so poor that you've forgotten your infamous V2 atomic missile silo debacle after you gullibly believed Henshall last time:
 
http://www.subbrit.org.uk/sb-sites/sites/c/castel_vendon/index.shtml
 
Also Germans should have been and were probably aware they were being bugged (though not the extent) as it was practiced on high level POWs going back as far WW1, along with stool pigeons etc.
 
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=5z3o4ZovHBwC&pg=RA1-PA40&lpg=RA1-PA40&dq=German-speakers+stool+pigeons&source=bl&ots=EheW160fTJ&sig=LT0uKQaVEmPa8Hsv-16p4L1Wyw4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCEQ6AEwAGoVChMIuoHO46HExgIV9CvbCh3viQ81#v=onepage&q=German-speakers%20stool%20pigeons&f=false

JonS,
 
I find your math, or maths as your usage has it, I believe, quite remarkable. No shortage when only a month after the war started food imports dropped from 55 million tons of food to 12 million? And look at what was rationed. The information here is  self-contradictory when it comes to fish (in any event, only 30% as much fish was harvested vs pre War), but the general pattern is quite clear. Note, too  the ration sample presented is for an adult for a week. For orientation purposes, here in the States a healthy (in the medical sense) meat portion in a single meal is 3 oz, which is 3/4 of the British ration of ham and bacon for a week. How about I make it official? Below is a wartime Ministry of Information film Rationing in Britain. 
 

 
Obviously, these rations are nothing like (thank goodness) what the citizens of Leningrad went through, but they directly and materially influenced the very development of the British populace. This academic paper (unsure of what level it corresponds to) offers a good look at many aspects of rationing.
 
sburke,
 
The premise was that the Germans managed to get the V-2 operational in time to hit the embarkation ports and surrounds in the context of vengeance and interdiction--without knowing about D-Day. The Germans planned on 36 launches a day (surge mode) from one V-2 assembly, fueling and launch complex alone, with a sustainable rate, based on on-site and brought in LOX production of the order of 8/day per bunker = 24, as opposed to an average of 100/month in the Antwerp case. That should serve to give you some idea of what I'm talking about. The Allies detected and smashed the bunkers, but Dornberger had wanted mobile launchers from the beginning. One of the eight main missile storage sites was operational in February of '44, and half by July '44. Had all that effort and time not gone into the giant V-2 bunker complexes, the infrastructure for mobile launchers could've been in place long before then. The unraveling of the V-2 effort started with the raids on Peenemünde and went downhill thereafter, but if you read the accounts, it took a great deal of effort to  so much as properly ID the V-2 as a missile, gather various oddments of data, retrieve samples from wayward birds and do much else. There were epic rows because an eminent scientist didn't see the blob on the aerials as a threat, dug in his heels and stonewalled efforts to address the threat for months. The smashing of "P" after they finally got past him completely unhinged German missile production, forcing the move to Nordhausen and causing who knows how many months of delays. The Germans had the estimated capability to launch 350 V-2s/week, with surge rate of 100/day, but that's hard to do without the missiles. In 175 days, Antwerp took 107 V-2 hits "in the heart of the city" (whatever that means, but most landed in the greater area, which suffices for my thought model of strikes hitting randomly in the huge target arrays on the South Coast of England) of 1700+ launched. That's only 17 days of launches at the scale of use I'm referring to against the ports. I'd further point out that German fuel and missile shortages were far less in May of '44 than they were in September '44, owing to the far better shape of both German manufacturing and supply lines from not having been so heavily bombed. The United States Strategic Bombing Survey report on Crossbow makes sobering reading:
 
f. Potential rate of fire. It thus appears that except for unforeseen defects in the weapon itself, the launching of rockets against England from France could have been begun in June 1944 at a sustained rate of fire of 200 to 350 rockets per week, or a possible maximum of 100 per day, and was planned to begin at about that time had no bombing of Peenemunde, Watten, Wizerns or of the supply system occurred.
 
c. Lt. Gen. Dornberger, in charge of V-2 development at Peeneraunde, (Reference 16) states that "to start the operation" there were to be three firing units (abteilungen), one fixed and two motorized.
Each motorized unit would fire 27 rockets daily and the fixed unit "twice that many" - a total of 108 daily. Speer (Reference 12A) gives launching plans as 80 to 100 daily. These are fairly early plans and conform reasonably well to Hitler's figure of 3,000 per month. A report
(Reference 11) on the supply organization for the French launching sites states that the "target" was to launch 30 rockets per day, and provides an estimate of the sustained effort envisaged in January 1944. This program, however, was for dispersed launching sites and did not include
the "large site" at Wizernes, which alone would have been capable of assembling and launching 50 to 90 rockets in 24 hours had it been completed. (Reference 1).
 
Elsewhere, it notes Dornberger said the "P" attacks cost two months on the missile development. No word on what it did to missile production.
 
Under Costs, we learn what the Crossbow effort amounted to in men and planes:
 
In addition, 7,810 Allied lives were lost, of which 1,950 were aircrew. The equivalent[*] of 498 aircraft was lost, including 399 four-engined bombers. 
 
Had the Germans been able to get the V-2 program up and running in time, I submit it would've/could've been very ugly in the staging and embarkation areas. Before, during and after D-Day.
 
Glad you had a great birthday!
 
Regards,
 
John Kettler

P.S.

Almost forgot to mention that in researching his book Vengeance! chronicling his own field work and archival discoveries about German V-weapon sites in France, British missile engineer Philip Henshall unearthed a real stunner: the plans for a kind of V-2 stretch with a payload of radioactive sand and the on-site facilities to produce it close to the launch facilities. I leave it to you to think about what even one of those German dirty bombs could've done.

Kettler, you really are a clueless, witless, mong. It is no wonder that US military purchasing ended up with wonder junk like the Sgt York and the A12 with clowns ... sorry; "analysts" like you working for them.
 
THINK about the numbers you just provided, if that isn't beyond you: The British dropped imports from 55M tons to 12M tons after the first month. Why do you think that might have been - a sudden, desperate shortage of shipping? (Hint: the answer is 'no')
 
The British had adequate food for their population. No one was on 'short commons'. Rationing was introduced so that the food was spread equitably, and to stop rampant inflation and purchasing of luxuries bought on by a suddenly fully employed and well paid population. They dropped the tonnage being imported by swapping out bulky, low calorie density foods for much higher density products, and by massively ramping up home production of previously imported foods.
 
Stop doing google dumps and pretending that's you knowing WTF you're talking about. You don't, and this thread is example #5286 of that.

Zebbe,
 
Welcome aboard!
 
I'm absolutely in agreement with Bud_B on playing QBs as a way of learning to cope with a very demanding game in which annihilation is often one or two turns of combat. There is a ton of stuff to stay on top of and, compared to WW II, the pace is blistering, likewise the firepower, weapon accuracy and lethality. The very first time I ever screwed around with a QB, I lost 40% of my reinforced Motorized Rifle Company (BMP-3 Company with attached T-90AM platoon) in two withering turns. Naturally, it was the vital tank force which got clobbered, leaving me with a greatly diminished force of powerfully armed eggshells on flat ground with Abrams and Bradleys on dominating terrain above them. That, was with Bradleys and Abrams firing on the move as they dashed for cover, too! I hit a few of them, but my force was so savaged I simply quit the game, reeling in shock. So shattering was this initial outing that I found myself wondering whether I'd made a serious mistake in using scarce resources to pre-order the game, rather than waiting weeks for the CMBS Demo. What ultimately made me plunk down my very hard to come by bucks was not just getting this wonder ASAP and for less money than at general release , but also finally having a physical game manual and a separate one for CMx2 Version 3.0. That was money very well spent, despite the special tin being a letdown. 
 
My brain's been through an awful lot in the last few years, but even before, when I was able to keep no less than five CMx1 PBEM tournament games going, at the rate of at least a turn per game per day, I seriously doubt that brain would allow me to play RT now. I simply have no idea how that's possible, and I say this as someone who found Halo 3 more than adequate when it came to dealing with fast moving combat situations in a battle in which I had to handle exactly one unit consisting solely of my character. If you wish to play RT, then good on you. In closing, I wholly concur that vs human is the way to go in both QBs and generally. Humans are far smarter and more clever (and twisted) than the AI which, though brilliant compared to what we had under CMx1, still can't really attack effectively or operate in a fast breaking fluid environment. As far as I'm concerned, baby steps are the way to go, and I say this as someone who freely admits he hasn't yet mastered the equivalent of crawling in the game. Am, as the saying goes, not ready for prime time! I believe you'll do very well, though, and I look forward to reading about the fierce engagements you'll fight in the days, weeks, months and maybe years to come. Enjoy!
 
Regards,
 
John Kettler

LOckAndLOad,
 
I never said the article was correct in every particular. I presented it because I thought it covered some previously untrod by us ground. And I did note the apparent mistake on the Armata buy, so I have no idea why you're on about it. In the larger scheme of things in the article, that's fairly insignificant. What is significant to me is that neither the manufacturer nor the buyer will so much as mention a cost number. Yet with cost is at the heart of defense procurement, the conclusion here is obvious: the T-14 must be ridiculously expensive for both parties to hide the tank's cost.
 
Having read the unfortunately weirdly worded English translation of the Afghanit patent (if that's what it was), I absolutely concur that this is a weapon designed to defeat, in ascending order of severity, RPGs, ATGMs and HVAPFSDS--all by hard kill. The technical description was quite confusing, and I'm not at all sure your interpretation of the front end is right, but there is no doubt this weapon is designed to provide a very high probability of survival of the defended AFV vs even the most demanding of battlefield horizontal plane threats. I looked for, but didn't see, any specific discussion of use vs high diver ATGMs. I bookmarked the link not just because of the primary item, but also because of the armor protection stuff, too, including the tear out the glacis armor and replace it with integral ERA protection, and the radical electric armor scheme. This has been discussed for many years in the West, but this is the first detailed description of an actual system I've ever seen. Also, I very much appreciate the helo APS material. Was unaware of it, but the US has been losing helos to RPG fire clear back to the Vietnam War. An open source study I saw, and may still have somewhere, done on the Viet Cong air defense threat directly listed the RPG as an antihelicopter threat and described such use.
 
V-22
 
Turning now to other matters, I wanted to provide some material on the (allegedly successful) V-22 Osprey program, whose test result falsification scandal, which is but a tiny part of what the first link addresses, I previously mentioned.
 
The V-22 Scandal
 
http://www.g2mil.com/scandal.htm
 
How to lie with V-22 statistics? Start by constantly changing the rules of what is and isn't a Class A flying accident--using your own service's people as the deciders! Count the successes of the Air Force's CV-22 Osprey's when it suits, but ignore the failures, especially as it applies to crash numbers. If a V-22 takes off spontaneously, then crashes, invoke "no intent to fly," and the Class A flying accident goes away.  Too many crashes based on a million dollar damage threshold or a fatality? Change the number to two million and apply it retroactively, a forbidden practice. Those deceptions and blatant falsifications alone are but the small portion of a raft of shenanigans, many of which should be actionable, to get the V-22 into service, keep it there and get more of them built, for both domestic use and FMS. See for yourselves. 
 
Osprey Down (from 2011)
 
http://www.wired.com/2011/10/osprey-down/
 
And just look! On May 17, 2015  another V-22 crashed in a hard landing and burst into flames, with at least one dead and another 21 hospitalized. The bird is utterly destroyed. The Marines will have to count this one as a Class A flying mishap.
 
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3085795/One-Marine-killed-21-hospitalized-V-22-Osprey-suffers-hard-landing-training-exercise-Hawaii.html 
 
From the above, it should be eminently clear the US defense procurement system is perfectly capable of all sorts of initiating and continuing all sorts of outrageous behavior which continues to pile up a horrific toll of killed and injured, together with enormous unreported costs. The T-14 may or may not work, and if sent to war, may somehow, which I doubt, be a deathtrap for its crews, but it can't begin to match what the Osprey has cost the US so far--over and above all the tragic, and largely avoidable, human costs--in excess of $30 billion in procurement costs to date. Compared to that, the T-14 isn't even pocket change.

Regards,
 
John Kettler

Well, someone evidently has no understanding, thereby showing once again that rule of thumb applies.
 
Hint: check when the first V1 landed on England.

Glad to serve, John. However the Trent Park transcripts remained classified until 1999. Are we talking remedial high school?

Progress! Got back online shortly after midnight. The kicker is that it could've been many hours sooner. Had the tech I spoke to earlier given me the new local number and the instruction to add "@relaypoint.net" to my user name in a setting box, much grief could've been avoided. It wasn't, though, and tech support had a complete phone outage which lasted for many hours. Grr.

On the plus side, Ben's setup turn came through just fine, and turn one went out to get the battle rolling. Shandorf sent turn 25, and I watched the movie. Unfortunately, when I tried to E-mail him his turn I got this E-mail error message:

Cmd RCPT User not local and relaying not permitted from you...Please check message recipients and try again.

What does this mean in English, please? Why did Ben's turn go out fine and yet Shandorf's
didn't, even after several tries?

Perplexedly,

John Kettler

PS

Kingfish, thanks for posting on my behalf. Given time, I may even forgive you for being a hoodoo.

(withdrawn)

Childress,
 
I've known since high school about the bugging, but knew nothing of the film. Thanks for passing the word!
 
sburke,
 
Judging by what you said, you apparently have no understanding at all of what any real level of V-2 attack on the embarkation ports could've done. By the time embarkation began, the Allies had long since broken the back of the V-1 problem. The buzz bomb sites were pummeled, and the V-1s themselves were clobbered by VT flak and fighters. That crisis was now more of an annoyance. The V-2, though, had no hard kill defense, nor even early warning. BOOM!--followed by the sonic boom!  A CEP of 4.5 km was more than adequate for targeting the embarkation ports, to which seemingly endless men and supplies streamed.
 
Everything to do with the invasion was meticulously planned and scheduled, and that end of the country could fairly be called one vast target. The harbors were full of ships, the quays groaning under the load, the roads jammed with one way traffic, vehicular and marching. There were explosives and POL all over the place, not just in dumps on the docks and being loaded on vessels large and small, but under overpasses, camouflaged in road cuts, in open fields or under the trees, The airfields were dense with thousands of planes, fuel and ordnance, too, and trains were coming in by the dozens crammed with everything imaginable, much of it combustibles and explosives, and being unloaded as fast as possible. Now, start randomly dropping 1-ton warheads into this Swiss watch of an operation and what happens? Things start falling apart in a hurry, with cascading effects foreseeable and not. Remember, even a slight delay in loading results in missing the tidal window, which, coupled with the wholesale disruption of the loading operation and lots of randomly inflicted mass casualties and equipment losses,
 
A scientific reconstruction carried out in 2010 demonstrated that the V-2 creates a crater 20 m wide and 8 m deep, ejecting approximately 3,000 tons of material into the air.[42]
Missile strikes that found targets could cause large numbers of deaths — 160 were killed and 108 seriously injured in one explosion at 12:26 pm on 25 November 1944, at a Woolworth's department store in New Cross, south-east London.[41
]
likely postpones the entire invasion for months! In practice, had Hitler been able to drop, say, a 1000 V-2s onto the embarkation ports it would've likely delayed the invasion by a year, IMO. As it was, the V-2s which did hit England caused severe societal strain on a populace that had been through first the Blitz, then the buzz bombs, and had been on short commons for years, to boot. Worse, in order to make good the losses I envisage, scarce seagoing transport capacity would've had to be diverted, further squeezing the British populace on the food and fuel fronts. I firmly believe a V-2 rain on the embarkation ports would've been a strategic level disaster for the Allies.   Regards,   John Kettler 

Yup
 

 

 
In their study of Confederate symbols in the contemporary Southern United States, the Southern political scientists James Michael Martinez, William Donald Richardson, and Ron McNinch-Su wrote:


 
 
Southern historian Gordon Rhea further wrote in 2011 that:

ikalugin,
 
Most people have never seen such a document, let alone read one. It's a pity the image quality is so dreadful, but even so, it's somebody managed to photograph the interior of a T-64B  tank to such effect that all the gun control gear was identified, right down to the special conroller and switches for the AT-8/9K112 Kobra. Quite the intelligence coup for a tank which was solely in Russian hands back then.  Speaking of controllers, ATGM equipped tanks seem to have controllers very much like the one for the remarkable IT-1 Drakon, which is shown wiping out a static Panzer III while firing on the move. Rest assured, you can't do that with a ground based TOW, for the sights aren't stabilized.
 

 
I was happy to see that, despite the annoying redactions made in 1999 and yet restored, some key information survived, including the vs KE and vs HEAT numbers for the T-64 and T-64B, plus a description of the turret frontal armor scheme.
 
Regards,
 
John Kettler 

Okay. Forgive me, but I've gone blind from the dazzling brightness and am not at all certain I'm not even in the same reality as before. Nothing looks familiar. Very thankful I just got new Progressive lenses, else I'd be screwed on the readability front. Way too much tiny type, even at the headers for the Forum, and the faint gray only compounds the problem. What I love, though, is the wealth of new options for replying. Painless linking, the ability to write things like PK and O2 and so much more. I don't handle sudden change well, and this one will take some time to integrate. I'd welcome a color palette which is easier on the eyes. Oh! Just noticed Auto Save! Can't tell you how many posts got eaten for lack of this feature.
 
Regards,
 
 

Macisle,
 
Beg to differ. It's about this dread condition, which, despite the prevalent imagery, is gender neutral. Once you understand that, the thread title makes perfect sense!
 
All,
 
The suggestion has been made that the ability to produce IP (Improved Positions) be tied to Experience level. I believe that where you'd see that show up would be in the ability to effectively camouflage such positions, which would typically be built combat engineers, under their supervision with locally gathered or engineer supplied items, such as timbers, or from plans and material provided and enforced by officers and NCOs. Soldiers aren't generally issued lumberjack gear, pickaxes  or shovels, as opposed to ETs. Building a foxhole is one thing, but building proper overhead cover, which won't collapse on its occupants if looked at cross eyed, is something else again. And if frozen ground has to be dealt with in order to create proper positions, that takes specialized explosives. Even if we posit everything is built to spec and starts camouflaged to the same standard, the camouflage measures will be to one degree or another undone over time (things like empty ration cans simply thrown out of the fighting position and left lying on the ground, natural vegetation left to dry out and not replaced) by poorly trained and/or lazy troops, unless they have good NCOs, at least, to ride herd on them. There are standards for building various sorts of IPs, as seen in Chapter 2 from FM 21-75 Combat Skills of the Soldier.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/21-75/Ch2.htm

Here is how it was done in the CMBN period.  The planning process is in the front of the FM, but the fun for us begins on page 24. 
 
US Army Corps of Engineers FM 5-15 Field Fortifications, 14 February 1944
 
http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/ref/FM/PDFs/FM5-15.44.pdf
 
Regards,
 
John Kettler

Don't have the book (£365.98!) to hand but does it specify if that result was found out from combat or subsequent allied testing on say captured Tiggers conducted in France after the battles in Normandy moved on. 
 
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Faint-Praise-American-Destroyers-During/dp/0208020063

DreDay,
 
You're welcome. The deeply insightful, now retired from the Army, LT COL Grau is still at FMSO, and according to the Wiki, I'm roughly 100 articles and books shy of being current on his writings! I adore his stuff and have many times found it most useful. I first encountered his work on the First Battle of Grozny, after which I got to read all about the bizarre 240mm Tyulpan laser guided shell. In my view, he is a master of his craft. Fortunately for us!
 
Regards,
 
John Kettler

Currahee,
 
Welcome aboard!
 
Now that you're here and have shown us just a few of your pics, I believe I'm insanely jealous. Why? Your convoy experience makes all of my childhood military convoys vanish into nothingness. To think we got all worked up over 6 x 6s towing M101 howitzers, the same type as we used in WW II. We kids would hoot and holler and wave our little arms off as we cruised past all those guys in the trucks, whose canvas covers were up, but the rear tied open. They'd smile and wave back at us as six kids and their parents cruised past sometimes dozens of trucks. This was before Nam tore the country apart.
 
What you got to see and image is astounding, and you would be the belle of the ball in many model clubs as a result. Strykers don't exactly grow on trees, and the only ones I've ever seen live were bow on in a motor pool well away from the post road I was on. Of that bunch, most were tarped. Somebody should've videoed you while you were going hog wild with your AFV photo fest. Could've gone viral! And thanks to your OP, I've now learned some new to me military lingo, DVH. Please share more of your AFV grog exciting pics with us.
 
Regards,
 
John Kettler

kohlenklau,
 
You cracked me up! I do have a turtleneck, but have never had an appletini, though I hear they're tasty. In truth, I haven't a martineye, as Dad you used to pronounce it in his inimitable style, in ages. This is the man who referred to El Segundo, California as El Segrungy, and that was one of the tamer ones!  
 
I'm surprised no one found the field fortification stuff of any interest. How else are we ever going to CM: Combat Engineer off the ground? Those IPs don't build themselves, you know! As the chart on typical time to do various fortification related things shows, longer CM games allow time to dig foxholes and similar during the game. In an operational context, much else becomes doable in the course of one day. Likewise, there are numbers for wiring in a position, clearing fields of fire, laying mines and such. I believe we need some real progress on the combat engineer side of things, for the engineers figured very heavily in the course of the Bulge Campaign. Also, we need the ability to do things like lay AT mine fields on the road using the ones seen in the side carriers of Armored Infantry halftracks. Tends to discourage charging up the road while otherwise hemmed in. Such mines, coupled with man portable infantry AT weapons and/or ATGs make useful impromptu roadblocks. It would be great to finally get the daisy chain mines back into the game, too. Sorely missed! Everyone used them, and Airborne should be able to deploy Hawkins mines from within any squad, since the scale of issue was one per paratrooper. Because these weapons are organic, I would argue defending Airborne should get some sort of free AT mine field, whether the player is formally allotted such fixed defenses or not. While Daisy Chain is one possible configuration, there are other nasty things which can be done to ruin an attackers day, such as placing a mine where an obstacle forces a detour. Using Compisition 2 plastic explosive, Airborne should also have the capability to do things like drop trees onto the road. Kaboom! Instant abatis!
 
Regards,
 
John Kettler

Cuirassier,

Methinks though hast both the wrong "kov" and the wrong quote. I believe you're thinking of Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Sergey Gorshkov, who famously kept on his office wall this monitory line: "Better is the enemy of good enough."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Gorshkov

Regards,

John Kettler

chohan85,
 
As the extensive discussion at the link LukeFF provided shows, buying a CM game, particularly if you keep buying the Upgrades as they're released, will provide you years of gaming pleasure, not, say, only the 14 hours spent to play a FPS all the way through. Consequently, the whole Steam argument is, as far as I'm concerned, meaningless. Also, there is a steeply discounted CM game. It's called CMBO, and you can have it for a mere $15. Not only is that a third of the original 2000 base cost of $45.00, but we paid shipping, too. In current year dollars, the current price (sans shipping) for CMBO as released would be $62.78, making the game at $15 today a steal. There are thousands of scenarios people have written for it, and the mods are only slightly less plentiful than grains of sand on the beach. With it, you can fight from D-Day to VE day in the ETO--which you can't do in CMBN, and won't ever be able to. CMBB and CMAK are $25/ea, but BFC's got you covered with a bundle which lets you fight from Barbarossa to the fall of Berlin and from the burning sands of the Western Desert, through Tunisa, Sicily and Italy. You can have both for only $40. 
 
Am I being facetious? A bit, but I'm also being serious here. BFC's first priority is survival, and the odds of doing that drop precipitously when it acts upon the insistent requests of people like you who know nothing of the inner workings of the very niche business yet try to tell BFC to lower its price point simply because someone else is doing so on Steam. You may wish to ask yourself "Who else is still selling and making money on a computer wargame released 15 years ago?" And look at the attrition curve BFC has been up against. ~26% of all the small businesses started in 2000 remain open in 2015. In the video game business, 20 studios went under in 2012 alone. 12 went down in flames in 2011. But tiny BFC not only has survived but grown in those very same tough economic conditions. Steve et al. know what they're doing when it comes to marketing and selling their products. To my knowledge, the only times they got into trouble were in dancing to someone else's tune and expectations. That's why you don't find CM in physical stores; why BFC releases products only when it deems them ready (see CMSF as released for what can happen when it's not done that way), why BFC is very choosy about its partnering and outside developers and why BFC eschews the release then discount approach you seek to have it follow. 
 
I wish you vast enjoyment in your CM endeavors, but I'm afraid you're just going to have to rethink how you game and what you buy if you wish to wage war via Combat Mission.
 
Regards,

John Kettler
 
P.S.
 
Understand that I'm no fanboi. Far from it! I go all the way back to the CMBO Beta Demo, and there are people here who can attest that I've hammered BTS/BFC over various things for the better part of two decades, one of which is its utter refusal to cover the PTO. I've pushed hard enough on certain issues, such as M10 AP ammo in CMFI/GL, that I nearly got myself into serious trouble. My means are probably even smaller than yours, but I don't expect BFC to reduce its prices simply because I have little in the way of resources. Instead, I have to save up and weigh carefully what I can afford, what I wish to play and how long I'm willing to/have to wait. For example, I don't own CMFI at all, but I now have the complete CMBN, as well as CMBS, which I pre-ordered in order to get the game for $10 less than at general release, Pre-ordering got me the DL first, the DVD before general release and hard copy CMBS and Game Engine 3.0 manuals. IMO, that was a smart move for me. You have to decide what the right decisions are for you but let go of expecting BFC to follow a marketing and pricing model Steve has directly stated was looked at several times and rejected.