Mr. Tittles

1st Guard Kursk-Belgorod operation. Defensive period 5/7-20/7.1943 631 (511) 954 (783) 854 (716) 100 (68) In 15 days this unit loses 716 MBT/SP to battle? thats 47.7 a day. If it kept this rate up (or other units stepped in and took these rates), it would be 18250 a year. [ May 06, 2004, 05:25 PM: Message edited by: Mr. Tittles ]

Luckily there is some data from the Soviet side... http://www.battlefield.ru/library/bookshelf/losses/losses3.html 1st Tank Corps. Encircling the Konigsberg 18/1-2/2.1945 Start 175 (120) Losses 340 (210) Battle 270 (165) Tech 50 (37) Other 20 (8) This unit, in a little over two weeks losses 165 MBT/SP to battle. It started with 120? Over 10 tanks a day? plus it lost other afv it seems? Look at the website and see some of these reports.

Kill? What happened to knocked out/destroyed? You are all over the place as usual. The fact is I raised the point of multiKOs earlier. That is, your basic numbers need to account for KOing and repairing of both sides vehicles. So you are behind the ball.

Hey, a speech was made anyway. Its sounds like JasonC is getting my relijun now. Anyway, Lets suppose that there are 40 Panzer Battalions operating on the eastern front in 1944. They see 73 days of combat in the year. They get 3.4 enemy afvs per combat day. Its a little less than 10,000 afvs for the year. [ May 06, 2004, 04:25 PM: Message edited by: Mr. Tittles ]

Ill ignore JasonC's posts and continue the analysis. So what about this supposed 5:1 ratio? Well, any fool can cast doubts about claims. No need for a speech about that. TWO is probably a very hard data point though. The Bn claims 3.4 AFV destroyed per day in combat on average. Some days none and some days perhaps 6.6 or so at most. Not great numbers really. But this battalion had a fluctuation in strength from damaged vehicles. It starts Jan with about 26 AFV. This gets whittled down to 1 runner on Jun 1. This 7.6:1 kill ratio (Taking data from JUST Jan to Jun) has cost the battalion its combat power from damaged vehicles. The Bn is refit and from Jul to Aug only attains a 3.2:1 kill ratio. It again sees a decline in runners and combat power. So whats it mean? In CM terms the Bn is probably kicking ass against T34/76, SU76, SU122 in the first part of the year but is recieving its share of gun hits, immobes, and spalling. Many vehicles are abandined but picked up later. In the second part of teh year, they are about as half as effective. The T34/85, SU85, and other better AFV are taking the toll on the once mighty 75mmL48 vehicles.

1.44-2.44 XXXXVII 8. Armee Süd Tscherkassy 3.44 Reserve 8. Armee Mitte Tscherkassy 4.44 XXX 6. Armee Südukraine Pruth, Jassy 5.44 XXXX 6. Armee Südukraine Pruth, Jassy 6.44-7.44 (Refreshing) Reserve 8. Armee Südukraine Ceterini 8.44 Reserve 18. Armee Nord Kurland 9.44-11.44 X 18. Armee Nord Kurland 12.44-1.45 II 18. Armee Nord Kurland 2.45-4.45 Reserve 18. Armee Kurland Kurland From January to June, 1944, the 14.Panzer took part in actions in the Kirovograd, Zveningerodka, Kishinevo, and Jassi regions. The 14th was pulled from the front in July, 1944 for rest and refit, and then sent to the nothern sector of the Eastern Front in August to take part in postional defensive actions in Kurland, mainly near Libau, until it surrendered with the collapse of Germany in May, 1945, when the Kurland Pocket fell. [ May 06, 2004, 01:55 PM: Message edited by: Mr. Tittles ]

A better analysis can be made with battalion level data over a long period of time. If you have Panzer Truppen 2, please turn to page 215 and 216. The analysis is of 3rd Bn/Panzer-Reg 36 (14th PD)Jan-Oct 44. This is a mixed Bn of Panzer IV and StuG III. Some quick highlights: 1. In these 10 months, the Bn had 61 days in action. A high of 17 in Jan and a low of 0 in Jul (rebuilding/rest?). They basically fought 1 out of 5 days on average. 2. TWO are 25 Panzer IV and 14 StuG and 1 HQ vehicle. This works out to 1.56 AFV per day in action. 3. KO'd /Destroyed Tanks/Assault Guns totals 175 and 34 respectively. These claims give approx 5:1 ratio. They also claim 161 ATG also. [ May 06, 2004, 01:54 PM: Message edited by: Mr. Tittles ]

Maybe he's just a little bit Canadian and mildly retarded.

I agree. This top down math is weak. Also, I am trying to point out that at CMs level, immediate tactical battlefield victorys approach better numbers than long term accounting. Other things such as 'is the vehicle defensive or offensive in nature?' plays in. The StuG, being a defensive weapon system, would have this in its kill ratio advantage. Any vehicle operating in an defensive role would have a better kill ratio than when it is in a offensive role. [ May 06, 2004, 12:50 PM: Message edited by: Mr. Tittles ]

wake me up when its over. I could use 10 pages of sleep..

Oh good. Someone threw a Peng thread and noone came...

{silence} Oh thank god. All these losers finally found something to do with thier useless selves. Er, Seanachai, stop doing that to yourself..we can all see from here.

{silence} Oh thank god. All these losers finally found something to do with thier useless selves. Er, Seanachai, stop doing that to yourself..we can all see from here.

I dont want a new beginning. I dont even want an old begininning. I just want this Peng crap to stop already. OK, all Pengsters, all together now...stop!

I dont want a new beginning. I dont even want an old begininning. I just want this Peng crap to stop already. OK, all Pengsters, all together now...stop!

Well [reluctantly] okay...you're gamey and unrealistic. </font>

I dont think any afv system got anywhere near 33:1 just to set the record strait. But unless someone is only counting 'brew-ups' or captured-damaged enemy vehicles, these probable over-kill stats emerge. A uncontrollable fire that reaches either the fuel tank or the main ammunition area typically reduces a afv to scrap. Most other non-catastrophic damage can either be repaired or the vehicle can get a major sub-system swap or become a useful 'donor' for the mechanics. In the east when the Germans were retreating, many kills could have been actually recycled. That is not to say that the Panzers and StuGs and others did not have tactical battlefield victorys. An example could be a section of two Tigers facing a company of 10 T34. The Tigers ambush them and hit and smoke up 4 vehicles (2 of which blow turrets). They hit three more which are abandoned and chase the rest away behind a hill. The Tigers, seeing the need for ammo/fuel/etc retreat (they also have a minor injury from a glancing blow on the bow MG which breaks the radio operators shoulder). They report 5 kills and 2 probables. The truth may be that only 2 were TWO, 1 long term and 4 short term. Seeing a tank smoke is not the same as a brew-up. But a point is that the IMMEDIATE short term CM-like victory does follow the Tigers claim! So JasonC needs to see these claims and modeling AT CM's level! Depending on the front/year/etc, I think Tiger Is could have MAINTAINED kill ratios of 3:1 to 6:1 depending on attacking/defending. [ May 05, 2004, 10:48 PM: Message edited by: Mr. Tittles ]

'Had' meaning built and rebuilt? I still have not seen JasonC address the point of allied armor rebuilds and re-KO's. Lets say that the soviets built 100K afv. They ended the war with 15K afv. But they HAD 150K knocked out. Its certainly plausible that the germans had some good ratios AND the soviets had some rebuilds. [ May 05, 2004, 10:00 PM: Message edited by: Mr. Tittles ]

I think further de-borging of this relative spotting might take into account if the spotter is firing or moving himself. Also, the number of spotting 'attempts' one unit can make should be limited. Getting back to the origional topics: 1. Yes to some kind of contour map (detail depending on conditions) 2. LOS improvement devices. Only friendly unit based. Certainly. 3. FOW for terrain. Yes.

Ok. Lets say you have a Soviet 76mm ATG. It KOs two panzers but is captured. It is then used to destroy 4 T34 and a small horse drawn wagon. How do we do the accounting on this gun?

This is a very astute observation by Kallimakhos. He is basically saying that the often heard chant of the "relative spotting can't be fixed" is not exactly right. Its the detail of the spotting thats important. Lets say a conscript half squad out of C&C is out on a flank. He spots 8 infantry types breaking cover and coming at the flank of his platoon. Now, are they 8 12 man squads? Or 3 full squads and a HQ and 2 lmgs? Or maybe 4 depleted half squads and some shot up crews? So its the details that are the shades of omnispotting that were missed by the designers? [ May 05, 2004, 05:02 PM: Message edited by: Mr. Tittles ]

Please clarify your point: I am in favor of terrain FOW. I am not a fan of making the game 'sneaky-graphics' that are hard to look at and rely on players crawling all over the place and stretching LOS lines and looking at them from strange angles. The design intent being, lets make it miserable so that the player makes mistakes.

Thats a bit much there tom. My opinion is that there is better reality at smaller TO&E. By that, I mean there is no borg when I play a game of one tank against one tank. Spotting is just spotting (and hopefully it was tested this way). Likewise, playing a platoon of infantry against a platoon of infantry can be very realistic. The shared spotting, not getting unreasonable. But the borg is a big looming slob over these huge scenarios that are designed. The players identity in the game is blurred and the gaminess rules. The main point is; What is the scale of the game? Is it a company level game? Battalion level? You could not get me to play one of those battalion level desert eyesore scenarios. Is it always relative spotting's fault? If there was multiplayers for each side, relative spottings effects would be decreased. As far as units getting lost, thats a different topic. I think command delay is a pretty good abstraction. I think that delays longer than a minute turn should not be allowed to be canceled or edited later. That is, the player has committed himself to those 60 seconds. If nothing else, it would speed up play and decrease micromanagementitus. [ May 05, 2004, 04:31 PM: Message edited by: Mr. Tittles ]

Ive read a stat where a StuG unit (battalion i suppose) destroyed over 2000 enemy tanks. Someone could take that stat and divide by 33 stugs (or how many were in the unit) and get a false idea. Each stug did not get 60 tanks. The unit operated over time (perhaps a 1.5 to 2.5 year run) and cycled through plenty of equipment. But it is still an amazing stat. Even if they used up 10 stugs a month for 2 years, that works out to a 8:1 kill ratio. Even if that number were off 100%, any weapon system as cheap as the stug that could get such a positive effect is amazing.

You are operating under a mistaken assumption here I think. Very very few deserts are actually sand; most are arid rocky terrain and the terrain features, at least the prominent ones, do not change. I point you to Fort Irwin near the Mojave for an example. Maps there are perfectly serviceable. No. I do not consider deserts to have to be sand (where did that come from?) but I do consider dunes to be sand. Dunes are similar to other terrain features like vegetation. That is, they change with time. One does not map a forest with individaul tree symbols for a good reason. The area is dilineated by a closed area and symbols or color show that area to be a forest. A major point is that sparsely populated areas like deserts in Noth Afrika may not have had maps smaller than a certain scale. Navigation being akin to travel on the seas.