Wol

A note on tree bursts. any folliage which is sufficiently dense to activate the fuse is likely to increase the rate of descent relative to its horizontal trajectory in the case of guns. In all cases it means that shells are more likely to detonate before hitting the ground casuing more fragmentation damage and blast damage as energy will not be wasted in crater formation. Of course heavily protected structures are less likely to suffer direct hits. As I recall, in the Hurtigen Wald, the Americans had a hell of a time from tree splinters caused by German Arty before the folliage was largely destroyed. How about we turn attention to zones of effect translated into CMXX (necessarily simplified) say Mortars and offtable howitzers - circular Howitzers off table guns - intermediate butterfly other guns standard flat trajectory butterfly one value for fragmentation vs soft targets and (modifed fo use against AFVs), possibly combined with another for blast effects on structures

Mr Tittles can you email me please? Wol

Nice job guys, but a few bugs/features/questions, I have played the first scenario from both sides and the Italian Job from the AMerican sid 1) Covered arc bug with grants? I set a vehicle CA with my grant, and waited, the Hull gun promptly opened up on some inf miles away and gave away its position! 2)set area target as main gun, and fired only with 37mm 3)set area target as other, and still did not fire SA 75mm 4)Anybody know how many grants in Tunisia had the M2 rather than the M3 guns? 5)seems that both guns are KO together with gun hits. 6)I believe that early US optics were rather poor, although I HAVE NO SOURCES TO HAND, if this was true, is this modelled in the game? 7)likewise Hogg claims that early US 37 and 75 ammo was especially poor, is this true and is it modelled? 8)What experience class do you have to be to use gyro stabilisers? 9)I see the return of .30 AA mgs. I see that they were all omitted in CMBB on Soviet tanks, as far as I can tell only because of a lack of slots. We still only have 4 slots, can this be fixed? 10)I am curious to see how the sub-turrets on the CRuisers will work, can they target independently now? liked the game but very sad that it is two US scenarios (I know you guys won the war, and probably yanks will be the biggest buyers but really!) It was just a little like playing CMBO again, what an opportunity lost to do Wavells Western desert offensive! Thanks BTS

How long is a piece of string It depend on the delay, and whether it works as designed. I think most US delays are about .03 seconds, but there is some 25% variation I think, and it depends on how resistent the wall is (probably not very much).

The point about naval shells was simply that that they demonstrate the importance of shell geometry more clearly than any other rounds becuse of the very large range of bursters and shell shape. In the exampoles cites, not only does the british shell have a larger and more powerful burster, but that as it has a dis-proportionally shorter head, the effect on fragmentation is even more pronounced than a simple comparision of charge to weight ratios. Second, that much of the interst in fragmentation effect is driven by the naval ordnance concerns with fragment effects on armour. Fragment effects are also very important for consideration of penetration of light armour. The US spent years working on this starting with Ronald Gurney in 1943, and through project THOR, to the current US FATPEN, and HAZFRAG and Mott-CALE models. Even small 1-20 grain fragments can do a lot of damage if going fast enough.

Just a note of caution: Detonation velocity is less important than characteristic velocity. Shell geometry is much more important than simple charge to to weight ratios - this is particularly important considering semi AP rounds and bombs. Steel hardness has no significant effect on fragment velocity. Peak overpressure and and shock wave (the stuff that damages structures) is a function of explsive content only. Charge mass to wall thickness ratio (and therefore mass) is the determinant of fragment velocity (thus the importance of shell geometry, current US approximations divide the shell into 4 averaged sections - excluding base and nose). Fragment size is dependent upon the power of the particular explosive, and the quantity of explosive with respect to a given mass of wall casing. shell velocity adds nothing to 'blast effects', but does tend to change the spread of fragments increasigly (with increasing shell velocity) to a cone of destruction along the axis of the line of flight of the round. The US (as far as I know) started accurated empirical testing in 1943 following British experience that increasing burster charges in AP Naval shells really did have a significant effect on the fragmentation effects of naval shells and its penetration of adjacent bulkheads. (So a US 16" heavy 2700lb AP shell with a 1.5% explosive D burster has less post-impact fragmentation effect on nearby structures than and less ability to penetrate adjacent bulkheads than a 15" British 1938lb TNT or 60/40 Shellite AP projectile, although a price must be paid in terms of shell strength.)

Look at Glantz's Soviet operational Art and Conduct of Tactical Manouver. Also Mikhail Tuchachevskii - Deep Battle (Simpkin?). I will get the details tonight for you. See also the many article in Soviet Military History Journal or Journal SLavic/Soviet Military History.

Please please put in an index please! CMBB was an abortion in this regard

If you let me know what the weight of shell is, and weight of explosive, I can tell you what the empirically derived theoretical residual velocity is to a first approximation. Better still if you can give me the shell specs indicating wall thickness and and distribution of explosive. I can give you a more accurate result.

Perhaps the administrators (as the administrators) ought not be so touchy... Regardless it would be useful to compile the methods of getting the best out of the AI. This is something that BTS could include in their manuals (especially for CMAK). At least the most important: If the AI is attacking, omit man -portable support weapons they will try to bayonet you with that Light Mortar. - give them SP weapons. Never more than one flag in an operation. etc etc.

I'd hate for this to be forgotten in all this CMAK excitement so here goes First there was Squad leader:BO, then came SL:BB, then SL:AK, promised next however is something even better, ASL, possibly Crescendo of Doom or Overlord II, I do not know. To avoid that nasty feeling of deja vu, could BTS please do a retro for CMBB to add the multi turret tanks and T-50 (there were more of those than T-26A for sure.) please please

They do work, I did a few tests some time back to make sure. They only tend to work if you have tasked the tank to fire ahead and a target appears in the rear. If there is only one target to rear they tend to turn their turret to engage Colin

And now all we need is a retro patch for cmbb! Judging by the screen shots, the war in the desert probably began in late 1943 and was fought between the Americans and the Germans...Must be something to do with the audience

There are two articles on this in JSMS Vol 5 June 1992 no.2 and Vol 6 March 1993 No.1 Titled "what Really happened to the Stalin Line" by Robert E Tarleton, very good with references.

Soviet Rifle Divisions sometimes kept their integral Tank batallion in their TO&E despite the 2nd round of mechanisation in May(?) 1941.

Random sure, but I was sbuying my forces, they were the maximum points i could spend on those catergories!

I just played a QB, all random. I chose soviet. I was given an INFANTRY force (based around 800pts) which allowed me 150 pts infantry and 330 points of armour, and only 90 points for arty. Very very weird.

In terms of danger to personnel, It is worth noting that a Hazardous fragment in current US thinking is one with only 58 ft-lbs of enegy

Why would anyone think that there is some rule of similitude such that because a 2pdr round failed at two 30 mm FH plates (where it might be expected to penetrate 1 60mm Hom plate) other rounds (with no regard for shell geometry, velocity, hardness, cap size etc etc) should perform the same? can someone indicate where the test results of this experience are to be found. I would like to compare it with other results. BTW T/D and velocity certainly do affect shatter. even at T/D (indeeed especially) of .75

Originally posted by Sergei: "...was it [47mm gun]really that effective? From wargames I have a feeling that it's not on par with the British 2 pounder, but I have no real idea." Off the cuff (really off the cuff CMBB gives 2pdr 75mm @ 100m 50/L42 71mm @ 100m 47mm 67mm @ 100m Not bad, and better than short 75 or 37mm "But just how was a T-35 supposed to help in that? Okay, so I can see it penetrating the enemy lines (not really), and then it going deep with all those turrets shooting at everything... or maybe it gets stuck to a gradient/rock/tree stump/dead hedgehog on the way." I think the biggest obstacle are the hedgehogs. It is not designed as a a sort of predecessor to the Elefant. It is optimized for use in what now would be called the Operation Manouver Group. And would most likely be part of the exploitation echeleon. From a tactical point of view, In the early 1930s it was part of the distant action group, 'DD (distant action)tank groups of at least two companies has the mission of operating against enemy artillery and other distant tragets and disorganizing the enemy rear.' D.M.Glantz The Soviet Conduct of Tacticl Maneuver . They might later (post 1936) have formed part of forward detachments, and might have attacked first, but their role was to keep going and aim for distant targets. The idea was to attack the enemy over the whole depth of the tactical zone with air artillery, and infantry and tanks. Not attack each position in temporal succesion. When this had been accomplished, the exploitation forces with their own missions, with their own distant action groups convert tactical success into operational success. Clear as mud? It did not work that way in practice in 1941 because of the well known shortcoming in the soviet army. In any case AT defences had improved from ATRs and field guns firing HE to something much more dangerous. Not the end, but the value in such costly vehicles was greatly diminished. " It is impressive for early 1930's, but bad mobility makes it useless and certainly not worth the price (which I don't know but can estimate to be rather high, including all the crew necessitated). T-28 proved to be a far more succesful design, which must have been acknowledged considering the very low production figures for T-35." Absoloutely. Battlefield .ru states "The production of the T-35A was extremely expensive: a single tank cost 525,000 rubles - as much as nine BT-5 light tanks. This was definitive reason why its manufacture was cancelled." Oh and yes some people do claim it was a copy of, or inspired by the Vickers Independent. This is, as far as I can tell presumption.

A few thoughts ... (raves really) The Char B1bis had a highly effective 47mm gun for AT defence, and a nasty 75mm gun for attacking infantry. Its main drawbacks were short range (87 miles on a good day) hopelessly overburdended commander, and high silhouette. Early Churchills had a 3" howitzer in the bow, and the T100 soviet prototypes had two turrets, one with a 45 mm gun and one 76 mm gun. Many tanks had machine gun turrets (consider early cruiser and crusader tanks. Their chief advantage was wider arcs of independent fire. Their disadvantage was that they were very cramped (Oh what a joy in the desert!),- required a whole extra crew member for only 1 extra mg firepower, and the sub-turrets were usually thinly armoured (and hand traveresed). When armour needed improving they also represented weak points in the armour and served as shot traps. (Mind you the T-28E had additional armour on its sub turrets!). "Russians followed the British land battleship concept with their T-28 and T-35 tanks." There is no evidence that this is the case as far as I know. "T-28 had a 76.2mm gun in the main turret and two MG turrets." Later models also had the longer L10 gun 26 calibres long, rather nasty!, and more had applique armour added to the front bringing it up to 80mm thick. " T-35 had a crew of 12, read about their duties from here ... It had three gun turrets and two MG turrets and was very impractical." The T-35 also had a 3 speed powered main turret with 4 (yes 4) man crew. The commander actually commanded, the others were gunner, loader, and radio operator. he had intercom with seven of the other crew members, There was a proper turret basket, and the 45mm gun sub-turrets were also powered. The vehicle was not fatigueing to drive because of its hydroneumatic assisted steering. It was well armoured for its day, and well liked. For an internal tour try here.[http://www.kithobbyist.com/AFVInteriors/t35/t35a.html] In many ways it was far more spohisticated than the KV tank which replaced it. For a distant action tank intended (experimentally) for deep battle it was about as good as you could get in the mid 1930s. It's main problems were its high track length which made turning dificult, it's lack of power reserve and poor obstacle crossing ability, and great height, poor access (all hatches being on top), and general unreliability (although no worse than other contemporary soviet tanks). By 1941 it's armour was not up to that required of a tank of it's role, although, at 35mm or so it was better arnmoured than the pz III and IV. "T-35 was IMO the worst out of these. It was based on WWI thinking and I just can't think of any good things to say about it or its performance in 1941." Its role has nothing whatsoever to do with WWI, it was the product of theorists such as Tuchachevskii, Triandfilov and others, and represented the highest development of operational theory coming out of the 1930s. Arguably, deep battle endures, blitzkreig (whatever that means) does not. There were too few, and they had to make long approach marches under hostile air attack. They were hard to recover when disabled. It is remarkable that 8MK had the impact it did! More remarkable is their continued use through the defense of moscow and the winter counter offensive. "...Char B1 had more problems, maybe a better engine could have helped it. Then again, most French designs proved catastrophic in 1940." The char Lourd 2C were too old, and they were all destroyed enroute to the front in an air attack. The B1 bis suffered more from poor deployment, dispersion and lack of fuel than anything else. French tanks were not designed primarily for use against tanks (and indeed most tanks were not), Problems with being on the strategic defensive were as much a problem as German tanks. The French counter attack at Stonne was a pretty good effort in the circumstances. The performance of the DLMs on the fron of 1st army was fair given their orgamistaion and strategic role.

I think that a patch near or soon after the release of CMAK might be possible. I really missed the M3s too. I used Valentines for my Kerch landing campaign, (although T34 might have been better!) Some people worry about trivial things like Tigers and Panthers, I worry about the important stuff!

I have to ask... Please since you can include multi-turreted tanks in a modded cmbb engine (as in CMAK), please please consider putting the T-28 and T35 in CMBB, otherwise we will have to wait years for them. Would you consider it if enough people thought it was important? Wol

Beautiful!

And I thought I was entitled to bring it to your attention if a Panther's armour was off by so much as .5 of a degree!