76mm

Sigh, by all means carry on then...at this point it is tough to complain about this thread being off-topic, but it would be nice if the two math professors would tone down the rhetoric.

My thoughts exactly about both of you. There is something pathetic about watching two grown (?) men argue about crap like this in such a vitriolic manner on a wargame forum. What are you trying to prove, and to whom?

Ahem, don't forget about the CMAK Companion, described here: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=108873&highlight=cmak

at the tactical level, I don't think partisans should be any harder to spot than any other troops, it is not as if they were invisible or super-camouflaged. To the extent that partisans were harder to find, I think it was because they operated in smaller units and in forests and similar terrain with good concealment.

Well sure, but then you just don't select those flavor items in other regions. For instance, while I probably wouldn't put a T-34 hulk in Sicily, I personally am not going to get hung up on whether the dead cow I put in a CMFI scenario is in fact a breed only found in Normandy... I would just prefer not to have to buy a seperate flavor object pack for each of the four East Front games, for instance.

I would think that at some point down the road a "pack" full of flavor objects (usable in all games/modules) would be snapped up like hotcakes. Is such a thing possible (ie, being able to use them across the platform)?

\ Thank you Yeknodathon, back on track! LOL. sorry BigDog, you're right, we're just too subtle for our own good I guess.

Actually I was being a bit tongue-in-cheek...

Holy thread hijack, seriously, who cares? Open a separate math thread or better yet, a separate forum. This thread is reserved for important topics like whether the 1940 Germans were better/tougher/stronger/better equipped/bigger/more numerous/meaner/better led than the 1944 Germans.

Whew, I'm willing to read a couple of posts on obscure math topics, but I draw the line at watching youtube videos about them. Next we'll be singing math songs or complaining about the lack of fibonacci curves on the alephant included in CMFI... I beg you, no more!

ooh boy, math fight!

Sure, probably Russians too, although I have not seen as many accounts to that effect. The point is that this kind of mistake is pretty common in war and not necessarily based on the efficiency of British riflemen.

Jon, thanks for the link, the book is available for Kindle, so I've put it on my (rather long) wish list. I'm sure I'll read it sooner or later... Regarding the text quoted above: actually, I don't think any of the pundits, commanders, and rulers were necessarily surprised by the fact that victory depends on how forces were employed--rather they have been surprised by the fact that their enemy was able to employ their troops better than they themselves could. But from your explanation I now understand that Biddle is not just pointing out this fact as true, but is actually trying to quantify the various factors which make it true, which is obviously a much more challenging and potentially interesting undertaking.

You've tried to describe Biddle's "insights" several times, and frankly I haven't seen anything which is not rather obvious, if not trite. Victory depends on how armed forces are employed--surely this is no surprise to anyone? The quantity vs quality calculus is not necessarily based on the quantity and quality of the equipment, as you imply, but of the overall force, which includes leadership and tactics. In your Goodwood example, the German force was better than the larger British force. Perhaps Biddle's writings contain some insights but so far I don't see them...

hmm, and the Germans were able to convince every British and American soldier that every German tank approaching the battlefield was a Tiger.

JasonC, I actually agree with many of your points, and agree the the max for *most* curves would peak in the later years, but I'm not sure that you can say that for "every metric"...for instance, one could argue that soldiers and officers in 1940 were better trained and in better physical condition (to the extent that matters)...or one could argue that soldiers and officers in 1944 had more combat experience and were better-conditioned for combat conditions? So which soldiers were better? I don't know and I don't think you can convince me that you know either. Anyway, I don't mean to get drawn into a debate on this topic because frankly I consider the whole argument rather sterile and pointless. [er, I don't even now what aleph 1 is...]

Well as someone who has followed this thread with some amusement, it sure seems like people have been talking about all different types of "combat power"--at the level of the individual median soldier, company, battalion, division, wehrmacht, etc., each one of which could have at least one such curve, and in reality you could draw an infinite number of such curves, each of them different to some extent, based on what you are trying to graph and what you are trying to reflect. So from my perspective, while lots of intelligent people have made various interesting poitns, this whole thread is a bit ridiculous...

Maybe for CMBN, but I'm not buying it anymore...hate to sound like a broken record but this was something present in CMx1 and I completely fail to understand why it was not in CMx2 long ago.

OK, we can probably do without anti-tank dogs (at least until the Barbarossa game) but everyone knows that the dogs went under the tanks, and did not ride on them. Come on, man... But seriously, it will be difficult to really get the full East Front immersion without tank riders.

I think tank riding is pretty impotant and from what I've read it was also used tactically. Not sure if I would hold up bag ration for it but just sayin...

I've seen the words to this song before, but have not heard it sung...I have to say it is not very easy on the ear...

I don't know enough about the war in the Pacific to compare the two, but the statement above is not correct. While it is true enough that entire armies/garrisons did not fight to the last man, at the tactical level I don't see how you can say that troops in Russia surrendered "nearly every time"?

heh, who needs infantry-portable anti-tank weapons when you have anti-tank mine-dogs, sheesh!

In anticipation of the upcoming East Front game, I recently played the Panzer Camaigns Minsk 44 game. Fortifications, swamps, and rivers pretty much sums it up. So hopefully this game will include plenty of scenarios from operations other than the intial stages of Bagration. Also, I haven't read enough about Bagration to know if the Sovs conducted many river assaults, but given all of the rivers in the area it would be great to get assault rafts back (in any event, I know that did some river assaults later in the campaign).

The cost of permissions was really all over the map...some publishers gave permission for free, others wanted a reasonable fee, others wanted ridiculous amounts, and yet others simply refused permission altogether, didn't respond at all, etc. Finally, for some books, I couldn't even find the rights-holder (authors died, publishers shut down, etc.). Altogether I spent several thousand dollars paying for these permissions, I forget exactly how much at this point. Also, I should point out that Heckman's account about the early German-British encounter in Africa is also in my book (although also from the British side) (see excerpt 9).