General Jack Ripper
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Posts posted by General Jack Ripper
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Do they seem a little rag-tag to anyone else?
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On 3/1/2018 at 8:12 PM, Ivanov said:
Where did you get this information from? On 22nd of June 1941, USA wasn't involved in the war and it's industry wasn't fully switched to the war production. The first significant weapon deliveries to USSR took place in the autumn of 1941 and it were the British who delivered to the Matilda tanks and Hurricane fighters.
U.S. Lend Lease became law in March 1941, and the first shipments of over 300,000 tons of supplies (in 1941) began on June 22.
Granted, the total amount of Lend-Lease to the Soviets in 1941 was very small, only about 2% of the total wartime shipments; 1942 amounted to about 2.5 Million tons, or about 14% of total. The British delivered weapons in 1941 on the back of American credit, in fact, almost all British supplies sent to the USSR were paid for with American credit.https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/ssd?id=mdp.39015004950914
On 3/2/2018 at 2:32 AM, BletchleyGeek said:Some observations about some of the statements on this thread:
- Another historical fact is that it did really take a long time sometimes to set up production thousands of miles from the original site. You can check the bibliography on Gary Grigsby's War In The East manual for more details, and also the section of the manual on the industry relocation rules will prove a good read, as it tries to account for the process.
- Lend Lease was very important for the Soviet Union, way more than the Soviet propaganda wanted to admit from 1943 onwards.
- The consensus amongst historians regarding "when Germany lost the war" as in unable to win is to put it at some point during September and October 1941, when it became apparent that the Soviet Union would not collapse like France a year and a half before, even in the face of crushing defeats in the Ukraine and right in front of Moscow.
- The stupidity of the latter, and utter lack of basic understanding of the United States, will confound many generations to come.
1. I've heard it took until early 1942 (February or March) to get production up to the levels of 1941 before the factories moved, but I haven't seen anything specific yet. (Citation Needed)
2. Post-war, the Soviets had an almost fanatical censorship campaign in place which systematically devalued the contributions of the other nations in WW2. It got so bad that battle records of campaigns were literally burned in order to cover up the full scale of Soviet defeats early in the war.David M. Glantz has written extensively on this topic, and an interesting yet abbreviated lecture for the U.S. Army War College is on YouTube:
3. I think the evidence is conclusive that Germany did not plan for a campaign against the Soviet Union lasting longer than one year. I'm reminded of an anecdote from Vietnam I once heard: In the basement of the Pentagon, the Department of Defense wanted to know how long it would take to win the Vietnam War. So they compiled all statistical data they had available, fed it into a supercomputer, and went home for the weekend while they waited for it to spit out the answer. When they arrived Monday morning, the computer had spat out a card with one sentence on it: "You won the war in 1965, but the enemy also gets a vote."
4. I think it's relatively simple. Hitler and the Nazis did not possess a rational worldview. In fact, Dan Carlin recently released a video where he speculates the overall reason Germany lost World War Two is because of the Nazis themselves:
I know Dan Carlin is not a historian, but he makes a very compelling argument. Based on my own reading of Mein Kampf, I have to agree. Hitler was not a rational individual.
On 3/2/2018 at 2:09 PM, Lethaface said:It's comforting to know that lunatic despots usually make plenty of unsound decisions, especially on the more conceptual / higher levels of the decision aiding/making processes.
Anyway decisions win or lose wars, not oil. Simply because oil itself doesn't start wars, neither loses them ;-P.
It has been said elsewhere in this thread, but I agree completely. Wars are not fought by individuals.
If they were, we could simply mobilize our wargamers to command legions of unmanned weapon systems and conquer the world...
On 3/3/2018 at 1:55 AM, Bozowans said:He argues that yes, Germany lost mainly due to oil, and the turning point of the war was not Stalingrad, not Moscow in 1941, or anything like that, but that Germany lost the war right when it was winning -- in the middle of 1940, when Britain refused to surrender and end the blockade.
WW2 was an industrialized war of production, not of manpower. In fact, the numbers between the Allies and Axis were not really all that different.
But comparing the economies between Germany and both the US, Britain and the Soviet Union, it is by no means a contest of equals. It's like comparing an 800 lb gorilla with a chimpanzee. It was never going to be a fair fight in any way. I thought it was pretty common knowledge that the Allies were able to massively out-produce the Germans, producing several times the number of tanks, planes, artillery shells, ships, and so on. Why? Oil.
Germany was, of course, a mostly horse-drawn infantry army and had relatively tiny numbers of tanks. From June 1941 to the beginning of 1943, what weapon did the Soviets massively increase production of more than anything else? Mortars. Because they were facing an army of mostly infantry and didn't feel the need to massively increase production of tanks and anti-tank weapons, because the Germans were never able to produce tanks in significant numbers (because of, again, oil). The Germans had loads of men already. Nazi Germany was one of the most militarized countries in all of human history.
When looking at it in terms of oil, it's remarkable that the Germans managed to even last as long as they did, but this was because of their synthetic fuel plants. They allowed the Germans to fight the war, to tread water so to speak, but not to win it. When those were bombed to oblivion in 1944, Nazi Germany collapsed along with it.
> I disagree. The Germans acted quickly to secure the Balkan oil fields specifically because they knew the blockade would not end. After their experience with the British blockade in WW1, I refuse to believe they would not anticipate such an eventuality from happening again. Things like "The Turnip Winter" will stick in the memory of people for generations.
> Indeed, and when you see things like the Detroit Tank Arsenal ALONE out-producing the entire German Tank-Building Industry during WW2, you realize oil alone is not the deciding factor in that equation. Overall, the Germans did not fully mobilize their economy and industry towards war production until 1942. Hitler was adamant about not encumbering the German population with things like rationing and shortages like they faced in WW1. Like I said, "The Turnip Winter" tends to stick in the minds of the people who went through it.
As far as manpower goes, where do you get the idea the Axis and Allied manpower were close? They weren't even in the same hemisphere.
Even a simple wiki search shows the extraordinary gap: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_production_during_World_War_II#Historical_context> Is it oil, or is it the fact the United States had vast amounts of natural resources, food, strategic minerals, steel production, etc. and simply gave it all away with the understanding that the cost for everything would only be counted after the war was over? It wasn't just war materiel that got sent through lend-lease, but things like raw steel, coal, oil, gas, food, etc.
Meanwhile, Germany had a chronic inability to fully mobilize and take advantage of the strategic resources and production facilities they took over. Not planning for a long war led them to simply disregard the ideas of re-tooling captured factories for war production until it was too late. French factories mostly sat idle in the occupied territories, and while Germany did take over the entire Czech tank force, they made relatively little use of the excellent arms production facilities available. If every scrap of resources had been put towards the war fighting effort from the very beginning... well, we'll never know the answer to that question...> From June 1941, to the end of 1942, the Soviets produced some 30,000 tanks, and received several thousand lend-lease tanks. Which is at least four times as many as the Germans produced in the same time period. Just because your enemy doesn't have as many tanks, is no reason to not produce them in staggering numbers. Even in June 1941, the Soviets had a 2:1 advantage in tanks, and made ruthless efforts at increasing production all throughout the war, to the point they used substandard metals and far looser tolerances than were seen as standard in the western nations.
"The Red Army categorized tank readiness in five categories, from 1 to 5, with 1 being new and 5 being retired for scrapping. In the western military districts that bore the brunt of the 1941 fighting, there were 12,782 tanks, of which 2,157 (17 percent) were new (Category 1), 8,383 (66 percent) were operational with minor maintenance issues (Category 2), and the rest (18 percent) in need medium maintenance or capital rebuilding." - Zaloga, Steven. Armored Champion: The Top Tanks of World War II (Kindle Locations 1491-1494). Stackpole Books. Kindle Edition.
Weapons production is a question of DOCTRINE, not statistical analysis. Soviet doctrine emphasized the use of light, highly mobile artillery, and so they built large numbers of mortars.
Soviet doctrine also emphasized the breakthrough role of tanks and mechanized infantry, and so they build many thousands of them too.
http://armchairgeneral.com/deep-battle-the-vision-of-marshall-tukhachevskii.htm> When the vast majority of your major industrial base is powered by coal, which the Germans had in abundance, then the lack of production of war materiel cannot be summarized as:
"They didn't have enough oil."
The Germans needed oil for OPERATIONS, not PRODUCTION. If World War Two is a battle of production (as has often been stated), then the Germans did not lose it because of a lack of oil.They lost it because they didn't want to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in a fully mobilized wartime economy. At least, not until it was clear they were losing, and then their utilization of forced labor tells a clear and understandable story. Not only did they lack production, but they also lacked manpower. They couldn't meet the manpower needs of the military, and also run their factories at their maximum rate. They had to utilize forced labor to ensure their production could meet it's goals, and even then, a chunk of their dwindling production capacity was spent on projects that would not prove to be of any benefit. Vengeance Weapons for example. Their incompetence in the realm of strategic planning is obvious.
Compare Germany to the United States, which had a clearly defined production plan, immediate and effective national mobilization, a well-organized industrial base, and highly competent businessmen and army personnel in charge of planning, design, development, and production.
But this brings me back to the Dan Carlin video I posted up above: Why were such incompetent people in charge of the German war effort?
Because of the Nazis...Anyway, that's all I have to say about that.
Thanks for the thread, it went down well with lunch. -
That was a very fortuitous disaster on my part...
On 5/12/2018 at 6:52 PM, BletchleyGeek said:My calculation is that I would have like 6 to 8 minutes before the shells started coming... but I did that on the back of wishful thinking, as you had a TRP right on top of Casa Fanella. That was great forward thinking and probably the second small decision which saved the bacon of your left flank.
That was part of my initial planning, I figured I could surrender a victory location, then immediately bombard it, then counterattack.
It worked, but I had to lose a Platoon in order to do it, which negated the "counterattack" idea.
I see now neither of us were expecting action. No wonder things were so vicious.
I often find when both sides are surprised, the side that wins either has more bodies, or more bullets. -
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On 3/22/2018 at 9:17 PM, Bil Hardenberger said:
I will be honest, I struggle the most with the defense, I am very offensive minded and just can't help myself sometimes and overextend, right Baneman?
Defense is just an offense conducted in reverse.
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On 5/7/2018 at 8:30 PM, Sgt.Squarehead said:
Should this be reflected in CM:SF II?
No.
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"The rifles were being fired more often than planned..."
Who designs a rifle that is intended not to be fired? The Germans...
LOLZ. -
16 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:
Wow.....They got mugged! Impressed they got out of that without losses.
Is that Beta 5 or 6?
Beta 7.
An attempted mugging, repaid in kind. -
So far, we have seen an excellent infiltration and attack on one of the victory locations. My forward line in that sector was easily overcome, and mostly destroyed.
Vicious close range fighting then erupted between the leading Canadian troops, and my elevated positions of the second line.
Somehow, my boys were able to hold off the enemy long enough to bring in artillery. To this day, it still confuses me how this was possible.
The sudden pause in the enemy advance gave me time I needed to re-organize my defense and consolidate my combat power.
The next segment of the AAR videos will focus on the fight at Casa d'Antonio. -
The fight for Casa Fanella finishes.
The big question I have is: "Why did Miguel stop his advance?"
I suppose that will be up to @BletchleyGeek to explain.
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4 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:
Sadly my p00ter has died so I can't play it right now.
Then you can live vicariously through mine:
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12 hours ago, sburke said:
This is one you have to play slow as you are likely going to have to divide your attention in multiple directions all the time. It is also apparent that you need to study the briefing. This is not a "I have an hour let me start a quick fight to kill some time" scenario. This is one you have to study first before you launch turn 1. Be sure that you have some idea of how the mechanics work and the capabilities of your force before you ever touch the big red button.
I'm testing this one, and I agree. If I wasn't going as fast as possible for testing purposes, this is the type of scenario I could bury myself in for a month or two.
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11 hours ago, MikeyD said:
(Spoiler alert) I advanced to the next turn and the spotter immediately fell to enemy fire. Perhaps the poor spotter's fate had already been sealed as the previous turn came to an end. Like bullets-in-the-air kind'a stuff.
Once 'Fire for Effect' is called, the strike should arrive, regardless of the health and safety of the spotter.
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Having finished for the day, I will offer one piece of advice for the future player of this scenario:
Ukrainian Separatists are NOT Shock Force Combatants.
This is NOT asymmetrical warfare.
When you meet the enemy, be prepared to kick their butts, or you WILL get yours kicked in turn.I got quite a rude shock upon witnessing the realities of CMBS. Combats I would not hesitate to undertake in Shock Force are quite suicidal here.
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1 minute ago, grunt_GI said:
Well, some of us don't even get the happiness (or excuse) of inebriation when we make poor decisions that get our Pixeltruppen killed....I think your way is at least more pleasant.
Going at it sober so far doesn't seem to be making much of a difference.
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10 hours ago, grunt_GI said:
CMBS $60.....Bottle of Good Whisky-$40....Inebriation while playing CMBS...PRICELESS.
It is a good time, but inebriation also leads to poor decision making, and many casualties.
Thankfully, my men are all made from pixels. Pixeltruppen, if you will...
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2 hours ago, c3k said:
Man, you're just cold. That poor guy obviously got hit with a case of the shakes. It happens.
I WILL NOT HAVE COWARDS IN MY ARMY!!
Thanks. I was just mad because his diddling around cost me several casualties.
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During a recent game in CMBS, I called in some on-map 120mm mortars, received the 'Fire For Effect' call the previous turn, then the mortar man decided to do this for the next minute:
I've reported on this issue before. Save game is available here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/rzfj3nbmnh6sf2h/FIRE FOR EFFECT.bts?dl=0
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The play-through has begun. Unfortunately, due to the low framerate of very large maps, no video will be forthcoming.
I will endeavor to take screenshots, so long as my inebriation doesn't cause me to forget.
I will also endeavor to avoid any potential spoilers. -
I am, as ever, a busy man.
Here's the next part: -
So yeah, I went and bought Black Sea. This is now officially a 60 dollar scenario!
I did have a thought, if you receive points for Red casualties, do the forces that EXIT from a destroyed base count towards that? Or do you miss out on inflicting those casualties if you prevent them from operating?
Anyway, my work break starts on the 8th. If the scenario is not released, would you mind hooking me up with a test copy? -
On 2/14/2018 at 11:10 PM, MikeyD said:
I read a first use report by crews of then-new Panthers complaining to the manufacturer that the Panther gunner ONLY has a high-powered telescopic sight. They said it greatly reduced the gunners situational awareness over T-34 (and Sherman) which included a secondary panoramic periscope for the gunner. The manufacturer did nothing to address their concerns, except give the loader a periscope.
One thing that surprised me greatly as I began reading more into the manufacturing side of the war is how much the manufacturer is responsible for these sorts of upgrades.
It really gives me warm fuzzies when you read reports of how responsive American manufacturers were, even sending teams of company men to the front to directly listen to the gripes of the soldiers in the field!
It's a whole side of warfare I had never considered before. -
21 hours ago, Artkin said:
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Ha! I get it!
*Caution, Volume* -
Before I begin, a disclaimer of sorts:
The next three parts of the AAR videos were all done simultaneously, so any conversation I had not already seen will not factor into the video discussion until at least Part Five.
On 4/25/2018 at 4:13 PM, c3k said:So, you're saying Truman was right about "the domino effect"?
Are you saying he wasn't?
On 4/26/2018 at 7:19 AM, Bil Hardenberger said:I finally had a chance to watch these videos last night.. very interesting, and I love the presentation @General Jack Ripper and I'm very impressed with @BletchleyGeek's tactics. In fact I would say that the assault on that objective is the best example of infiltration tactics that I have seen in a CM game. Well done Miguel.
I would say, as far as the scouting goes that you made two major errors:
- You left way too much distance between waypoints. When I scout I move forward two, maybe three action spots, then pause for 10-15 seconds. It is better to move in short segments more slowly, than to give your teams long movement paths.. that is very dangerous in the face of an unknown enemy. You can assign long movement paths if you feel relatively safe, but as you start to get closer to probable contact you need to slow down and shorten your movement.
- Your lone scout team had no support. You should always try to scout with at least two teams... I know I don't always follow my own advice.. but with at least two teams you can have one team moving while the other is stationary.
This is good stuff.
The approach on Miguel's side was very well done, but don't underestimate the environmental factors. Practical visibility in any direction is only about 20 meters, unless there is another factor, such as the unit firing it's weapons.
- You are exactly right.
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The team was not expected to survive in the first place.
On 4/27/2018 at 9:43 AM, c3k said:Back to the first turn recon squad. Even I have never given such an order! If, at any point, that recon team ran into the enemy, there's no way for them to get back. Sure, dead scouts DO tell tales, but that mission, as ordered, was something that even Carlos Hatchcock would refuse to do.
But I got the idea from listening to your rhetoric about the glorious death and noble sacrifice of your Pixeltruppen!
WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?
Alright, so here's my read on the "scouting situation":
My intention with the team was to verify whether or not the enemy was using Approach Route #1, by simply bumping into them if they were there, which they did.
They would then run away if possible, which they did not.
The rest of the path was only going to be used if they met no resistance...Honestly, being the defender (remember, this is an ALLIED ATTACK QB) I had no real intention of conducting a proper reconnaissance, or I would have done so. I had a few points left over from my force purchase, couldn't think of anything useful to use it on, so I bought a scout team, bumped all their soft factors to the max, (which is surprisingly cheap, btw) and sent them off to cause confusion and terror with their sacrifice.
Clearly, that did NOT happen, in fact, the only effect that seemed to have was to cause my opponent to waste about 10 minutes of clock time.
In hindsight, I should have bought several CONSCRIPT (-2) scout teams, and had all of them go on suicide marches.
This guy is worth a watch
in Combat Mission - General Discussion
Posted
I think that may go down as the worst decision in all of human history.