76mm

Rob Ross, We are probably indeed arguing shades of grey, especially among the more impassioned arguments in this thread. But I still don't see why Hitler's attempt to kill 100% of a racial group is more evil that Stalin's attempt to kill 100% of an economic class (or for that matter why killing 100% of a racial group is more evil that killing 10% (or whatever) of an entire population). I guess my point is that as far as I'm concerned, Stalin was *pretty much* in the same league as Hitler.

Rob Ross, your state is technically correct but morally irrelevant. While it is true that Stalin did not practice genocide, which is wiping out a particular race or ethnic group, I don't find that his killing of millions of innocent people belonging to religious, economic, political, or intellectual groups which he believed threatened the Soviet state to be "wholly different" from Hitler's policy of genocide. I don't think that it is less morally reprehensible to kill millions of people just because they belong to a group other than a racial/ethnic group. That said, if I had to choose which of the two regimes were "more evil," I would certainly choose the Nazis for two reasons: 1) rightly or wrongly, mass gassings just seem even more demented and evil (to the extent that is possible) than the typical Soviet methods (starvation, bullet to the back of the head, etc.); and 2) at least Stalin seemed to believe (however wrong that he was) that the millions he killed had to be done away with to ensure the survival of the Soviet state and the world communist revolution. Hitler's apparent justification--to cleanse the Reich of Jewish and other filth to "purify" the nation (or whatever it was) just seems like an *unbelievably* trivial reason to slaughter millions. Bottom line: both regimes were morally reprehensible, but the Nazis were more so (to me).

I read the book PANZER ACES a year ago or so (not sure about its accuracy as a source) and was surprised that Russian ATRs featured in most of the accounts. I was also suprised that the panzer crews seem to worry about them (if not fear them). While the ATRs probably weren't capable of knocking out a tank outright, with enough of them firing at a tank they could start doing damage to sights, road-wheels, machine guns, etc. so that they could degrade your combat power enough so that the tanks were vulnerable to bigger Soviet weapons.

I typically play very large games and have never had a problem like that, although I'm sure it depends on your computer's specs. (I've got 3GHz, 2 GB RAM).

John Kettler: If this is true, I suspect the reason is that your definition of solid evidence is somewhat different from that of many people. Um, I don't see how you've even addressed my point, much less "driven a Mack truck" squarely through it. The fact is that the Punic Wars were incredibly brutal and not marked by the diplomatic niceties that you are professing admiration for--in fact, during the Second Punic War there was virtually no diplomatic action at all (at least between Carthage and Rome), and throughout all of the wars both sides only stuck to the "treaties" as long as it was expedient to do so, before reneging. Moreover, regardless of any diplomatic activity, I find it hard to hold up warfare of this period--involving the wholesale slaughter of entire cities--as some kind of model for how wars should be conducted in a "civilized" fashion. So I don't understand the point you're trying to make. And I'm not sure why you think that I point an accusatory finger at you "as a defualt setting". I've never posted any responses to you until now, when I detected factual errors in something I actually know about, and decided to point them out.

Not that distinctive--friendly fire is always a problem for tankers, including during Gulf War I.

John Kettler: You make assertions which are not quite correct. While the two examples below are trivial, it makes me wonder what more material issues you give the same treatment: I find this a very curious statement, especially because at the end of the Punic Wars Carthage was utterly burned and destroyed and its inhabitants exiled. Prior to this end, Rome offered harsh terms to the Carthaginians if they gave up hostages (children of the most prominent citizens) and all of their arms. Once Carthage had delivered its hostages and arms, the Romans announced that they had retracted their harsh terms and now insisted on even harsher terms--unconditional surrender--and the city was then destroyed following the siege. Is this the kind of "fine example" of civilized warfare that you have in mind? James Clavell is the director of that film and did not write a novel of that name. As I said--trivial examples--but if you pass this stuff off as fact it makes me even more dubious about your other outlandish assertions.

Lots of discussion of 73 Easting as being a real battle--isn't this the engagement where many of the Iraqi tanks were loaded on tank transporters, etc.? If so it demonstrates US superiority in C-cubed and technology, not combat acumen.

Well, that explains it...I tried to mod an early Tiger in December 42, but the camo mod didn't replace the grey. Thanks.

Thanks for the reply--I never knew that about mods... Does this also apply to vehicles--you would think that the mod would apply to a particular vehicle in all time frames in which it appears, but it sounds like it doesn't work like that. Does this explain why some of the CMMODs mods are called something like "late war Pzkw XX"? I always thought that that meant it was a late war camo pattern, etc., not that it would only apply to late-war CMBB scenarios.

I have a basic question about mods: I have installed some mods to use when playing a scenrio that I created before installing the mods. But when I open the scenario, the mods are not used. But if I create a new scenario, the mods are used. I have tried exiting/launching CMBB and deleting and adding back the modded units, but it hasn't helped--still no mods. I'm surprised that it works like this--am I doing something wrong?

Generally I've had really poor luck with Marders as well, but in a recent scenario I had a green Marder on the attack bag 3 T-34s (against the AI) and survive the battle...unbelievable!

I'm hardly an expert, but I will say that I don't play operations because of how the front lines move between battles--for the new battle the lines are moved somewhat arbitrarily based on the positions of the units at the end of the old battle. It's fine in theory but in practice you often get odd--and frustrating--results, with units giving up hard-won positions, etc.

While I agree that it is possible for vehicle and crew casualty % to diverge significantly, I think they they would tend to track each other: Just as not every tank destroyed is not written off completely, not every destroyed tank results in 100% crew casualties.

JasonC, thanks for the response. Even a 75% casualty rate (including killed and wounded) is much higher than I would have expected, but it does track with the vehicle stats that you cite. Just curious--any idea how these figures correspond to casualty figures for other fronts/armies?

Hi, just finished reading the book IVAN'S WAR by Catherine Merridale. Overall pretty disappointing, in that it is not really military history. In any event, on page 215 (of the hard-cover edition), she says: "Of the 403,272 tank soldiers (including a small number of women) who were trained by the Red Army in the war, 310,000 would die." She cites "Erickson, THE SYSTEM, p. 239" I find these numbers--that 3 of 4 Red Army tankers were KILLED during the war (?)--very difficult to believe.* Can anyone shed any light on this, or does anyone have the source that she cites? *Actually, read another way, I would say that ALL of the 403,272 tankers "would die"--just not necessarily during the war.

JG--that is an intriguing example, but perhaps not evidence that the AI acts in real time--it could just be the routine that TacAI goes through when a unit is captured?

If you don't get a response here (other than mine), you might want to post this on the tech support forum, if you haven't already.

Gasmask--OK, just checking! There's lots of subthreads within this thread and I sort of lost track of what you were arguing about...

Originally posted by Gasmask Gasmask: clearly the type of situation you describe is horrific and it perfectly illustrates why the current war in Iraq is so difficult, both for the nation (US) and especially for the troops. But what point are you trying to make? That the US soldiers involved would be justified in retaliating against the kids, who might have been complicit in the sniping? Or that because of the sniping the US forces would be justified in obliterating the surrounding buildings to "accomplish their mission"? Note that I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, just trying to determine which side you're arguing.

Big Duke--just so that I understand your position--are you saying that because due process has unjustly protected thousands of concentration camp guards until the present day, that I or anyone else would be perfectly justified in simply walking up and killing someone that I had a reasonable belief might have been a concentration camp guard? Presumbably no statute of limitations should apply, because such statutes are after all, another manifestation of due process preventing true justice being done. And another question: I know that you are extremely knowledgeable about the Soviet Union and currently live in Ukraine. I am a bit shocked that someone with this background could condone collective responsibility, given the horrific uses to which it was put by the Soviets. The wholesale slaughter of the kulaks and unnumbered other categories of people whose existence supposedly threatened the Soviet state--was that "justice" (assuming that the commissars really believed that they posed a threat)? And where does collective responsibility stop? Why not also kill the families of those SS camp guards? After all, they no doubt benefitted from their position and moreover such a policy would presumably contribute to justice by deterring some people from becoming guards. And now that we're at it, how about wiping out the villages where the camps where located? Their inhabitants surely knew what was going on and yet enabled the camps' existence by providing rations, etc. You might try to argue their your "collective responsibility" is somehow different from what I've outlined above, but I contend that it is no different and indeed cannot be any different, for once you deviate from the principal that an individual is responsible for his own actions and only for his own actions, there is no logical stopping point.

Assuming that you're most interested in sources at the CMBB-level of combat (company/battalion), I recommend the following: Tigers in the Mud by Otto Carius: Excellent account of Tiger companies/battalions in action, mainly on the Eastern Front. The History of the Panzerkorps Grossdeutschland, Vol. 2 (Hardcover) by Helmuth Spaeter: I found this book to be rather poorly written and dense overall, because it is kind of a strange hodge-podge of detailed operational history and personal acccounts. That said, the numerous personal accounts are some of the best first-hand descriptions of tactical combat on the Eastern Front that I have found. Panzer Operations: The Eastern Front Memoir of General Raus, 1941-1945 -- by Erhard Raus, Steven H. Newton (Compiler)--If you're after tactical, small-scale operational accounts, the first half of this book is pretty good--Raus starts as a regimental (?) commander and ends the war as an army commander. I lost interest about the time he became a corps commander, maybe halfway through the book. Panzer Aces by Franz Kurowski. While this book is kind of fun and interesting, it mainly focuses on what the individual crew/tank are doing rather than the platoon/company, so not very interesting from a tactical perspective; kind of like reading about a tank-centric FPS. Finally, a book to avoid if you're looking for military history: Ivan's War by Catherine Merridale. I'm half-way through this book now; while it is a good, well-written book, it is NOT a military history--rather it is a kind of sociological history of Russians during WWII.

Big Duke, Now that we're talking about Ukraine, I'm surprised that you didn't point out the attractiveness of Ukrainian women...you do live there right?

As far as I understand, the victory flags can't be moved by the campaign designer, so I don't think that will be possible. But you did leave out another possible solution, which is for campaign designers to create their CMBB maps so that the flags aren't in the middle of wheat fields. While this might not be possible with 100% of the quadrants, I think it should usually be possible to place a small rise, a building, a patch of woods, etc. under the flag.

It was Raus. According to the translator of Raus' work, "...the US Army Historical program has valued Raus highly and made his writings the focal point of several well-known topical studies on the war [on the Eastern Front]...". (see p. xiv of the introduction for additional details). The translator also points out that other German generals, including Guderian, Manstein, and von Mellenthin, are rather faint in their praise of Raus.