undead reindeer cavalry

i'm the last person to complain about graphics, but if you are going to do something about the look of that grass, consider also what the grass texture look like at those views where the camera is far above the terrain. detail texture is showing at too great distances or sumfink? it appears to give an unintended (i guess?) miniature table look (which may be cool for some players, perhaps me myself included) - like the map was a 1-2 meters wide board placed on lawn.

as far as i recall it's excellent and certainly detailed. it's been some years i read it (don't own it, got it from library).

no optional CMx1 system for CMBN?

np, i'm just talking. many of his books cover the logistical problems. my quoted Soviet numbers come mainly from his books. i honestly don't think that any of what i wrote about Soviet logistics is controversial. i don't mean to downplay Soviet successes either. it's remarkable what they achieved in those conditions. even in many of the worst cases of screw ups there are elements of great achievements. the frustration levels of the brighter officers must have risen all the way to the moon during those operations, because the magnitude of FUBAR is so huge. yet they sucked it in and pushed on. for example when you read some of the reports of intial border battles of 1941 you can't help wondering about the emotions felt but not expressed in the cold analytical words used. EDIT: BTW you can read some of the reports online. for example check the article titled "Where Did the Tanks go?" (heh) over here http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADA335406 (starts at page 19 of that PDF. first article contains some logistical info as well). if Soviets had lost the war in 1941 and some of those commanders giving those reports would have ended up living in US so that they could write their memoirs without having to worry about getting the bullet, what do you think would their memoirs contain whining excuses about fighting made hard because of bad logistics? EDIT 2: there are too many things one could quote in that article, but i choose this one: well, we all make mistakes. nobody is perfect and we can't remember all the tiny details all the time. to err is human. etc

the whole idea was deeply ideological and while many nazi actions and policies were direct results of their ideological views, many of their actions were directly opposed to their ideology. the whole agricultural field (and directly related to it the labour/manpower questions) was one of the most glaring examples of such policies. they were supposed to create a racially pure Germany and bring forth utopistic romantic agrarian lifestyle. what they did was bring millions of foreigners into holy German soil, most of whom were of racially undesirable stock, and modernize agriculture (or outright destroy it by massing resources into industrialization). in that light i think the most questionable aspect of the plan was where to get the millions of extra Germans to do the farming after the 20 million Slavs were dead. there's of course a whole political aspect of it. Nazis weren't that popular and IMO it wouldn't have taken much to change history so that we would be playing historical Heer vs Waffen SS Combat Mission scenarios as the highlight of WW2.

typically Soviet railheads were 50-150 km from the front. there's quite an amount of bitching in between the lines in staff AARs for example for Kursk when they have to supply by trucks some 70 km. oh the horror of muddy roads. the worst i remember reading is around 300 km between railhead and the front. more bang for buck? compare something like AG Centre in August 1941 vs Bagration in 1944. Centre receives about 12 000 tons/day. Bagration has 3 000 000 tons (yeah six zeros) in depots at front to start with and receives additional 45 000 tons/day. still it stalls after 300 km.

after the first week of the infamous logistical catastrophe knows as Operation Barbarossa the German spearheads have advanced around 500 km. the nazi weaklings start to whine at somewhere around 700-800 km. when the cowardly fascist advance is finally stopped by the heroic and patriotic defenders of the worker's paradise the German supply line distance is 1600 km. if we look at the latter half of the war, the greatest advance the Red Army achieved was around 650 km, during Vistula-Oder in 1945. in contrast in summer 1944 the brilliant Operation Bagration had to stop after around 300 km because of running out of logistical capacity. in 1943 the advancing Soviet tank corps typically run out of "logistical reach" after around 100 km, or about a week of activity (does not equal combat), when tank losses have mounted to 40-60% due to "logistical factors" alone. since Soviet science of war, including logistics, was perfect only a Trotskyite or a Nazi would find any reason to whine.

i'm sure third parties will develop tools to make PBEM WEGO as close to TCPIP WEGO as possible, if the game is that good. unless of course scenario start up times are still what they were during the early days of CMSF. BTW i recall there was some talk that CMBN would have enhanced C&C features, like command delays. if so, i think there's a possibility that RT could be much more tactically stimulating than it was with CMSF.

the disparity in German vs Soviet tank production is not related to GDP, resources, management or anything like that. it's simply based on having "factories" that can produce tanks. Soviets had all that done in 1930s, just like the plans to evacuate facilities located close to the borders. their mid 1930s tank production capability is in that sense equal to that of mid 1940s. none of their "factories" pumping out T-34s at the first half of the war are new. their tank fleet size is equal as well. Germans on the other than are still building the new mass production facilities as the war is already being waged. they start with, in comparison, pathetic small workshops with maximum output at hundreds. when the new facilities, one by one, open up they start reaching the Soviet numbers. of course Germans did make great errors what comes to strategic production. e.g. most naval projects were futile.

yeah it's quite special considering the whining begun already before the war had even started. so German analysis was incorrect when in july-august 1941 they considered they had just most likely lost the whole war? i agree, that's such a poor excuse. yeah, most notably by STAVKA.

Soviets suffered tank corps level attrition because of badly planned logistics well into the war. they most likely suffered more tanks to logistical screwups than to enemy action during the first half of their war. if you want true logistical gems, 1941 contains stuff like sending an entire tank division to stop German panzers... without being delivered a single AP shot.

lot's of separate parts here and there, mostly as scans. these two complete ones (but sadly offtopic) i bookmarked for later review: http://wargaming.info/ww2-history/us-army-1944-firing-test-no1 http://wargaming.info/ww2-history/us-army-1944-firing-test-no3

i think they are online but google is failing me. i only keep hitting 1944 tests. wrong terminology or something.

certainly makes it all the more strange. i think it's the first time i have ever heard of a 30mm Panzer III front plate that wouldn't be FHA. BTW i only now checked that T&TT article and see that they in fact do list longer ranges for other plate & gun combinations. some are peculiarly specific, such as 1700 and 1800 yards. PLUS they give general ranges such as "over 2000". in that context the 1000 yards figure for M61 seems to indicate that they think it wouldn't penetrate reliably at longer ranges (which would be extremely odd, considering they think the 37mm should penetrate at 200@20). i think it also means that at least some of those numbers are based on theoretical calculations. it would be interesting to see the actual reports.

certainly agree. BTW i checked and didn't find any deeper insights regarding the two FH plate thing from Bird's and Livingstone's "book".

oh my, i went to look at it again thinking about checking the 37mm numbers as well and i seem to really have mixed my curves earlier. i'm still going just with official numbers per August 1944 edition of "Terminal Ballistic Data" so it's far from proper analysis. the capped 75mm M61 at 1000 yards at 20 degress equals around 78mm FHA penetration. 69mm FHA penetration would be at around 1500 yards. 200 yards at 20 degress for the capped 37mm equals around 61mm FHA penetration. to penetrate 69mm FHA it would require around 250 yards at 0 degrees or at 10 degress around 50 yards and "never" at 20 degress. so if the 37mm numbers are correct and the Panzer III combo plate resists as 61mm FHA, like per 37mm penetrating at 200 meters at 20 degrees, the capped 75mm M61 should penetrate it at over 2000 yards. makes that 1000 yards number a bit peculiar. i suspect the "TBD" curves for 37mm APC are either partly based on those trials without any thought given to the combo plate setup (it's quite a coincidence that the FHA penetration is exactly the combined plate thickness) or someone reported succes at 200 yards at 20 degrees simply by looking at the curves for 61mm FHA penetration (the wording in the quoted text is a bit vague which makes it possible if unlikely) or that they tested the 75mm M61 only up to 1000 yards (not realizing it would penetrate at double the range) or that here's simply too much at play for such simplistic curves to catch (naturally the most likely option). the velocity difference alone is quite considerable for the two projectiles. the odd thing is that the 75mm should benefit both from the overmatch and lower velocity (considering the angle). BTW i also checked 37mm APC for that single 50mm FHA plate and according to the same official curves it should penetrate it up to almost 800 yards. penetration at 500 yards at 20 degress equals 55mm FHA.

sorry, i don't have enough time at the moment to really dig into this. IIRC the single plate approach was considered more economical. going quickly by official numbers your quote's capped 75mm M61 round penetration equals about 71mm FHA. thus it would be crucial to know if they tested at longer ranges. if the combo plate would resists as 69mm FHA, the M61 should stop penetrating after around 1200 yards, again going only by official numbers. EDIT: reminder for readers: the Soviet 76mm BR-350A is uncapped.

so you dismiss the actual firing test results that show that 32mm FHA + 30mm FHA combo resists as 69mm against 75mm APCBC? if not, i can't see how the uncapped 76mm BR-350A would have chances against hitting the 50+30 combo at an angle.

i don't have the books here so i just googled some talk here, possibly with pointers (too long, didn't read): http://www.wargamer.com/forums/tm.aspx?&m=31715&mpage=1

this is damn impressive. tanks a tons for providing this link.

i guess it's the same effect that's at work with angled shots bending towards 90 degress, but reverse. to be frank the theoretical explanation espaces my demented mind at the moment, but the thing itself (added resistance) was proven with trials (Panzer III plates IIRC).

yeah. i agree. totally. i wish you would post replies to all my posts, making my looney sh*t sound rational, sound and all.

i'd like the battles to play better* in general. can't say MG animations would top my priority list. *) yea, "better" is the bestest to describe it all

the armed forces of the baltic triplet is not overly impressive. other than the platoon of finnish instructors located in eastonia that singlehandedly defeat the first wave of russkie hordes.

yay, this thread will last forever so please type in with your dear input apparatus (keyboard, pad whatever) links to musical pieces related to history and warfare!!½11 preferrably ones you judge to hold some educational value or individual cases you for some meaningless reason find to be valuable personally. i start with Rasputina - 1816, The year without a summer i think this is the most informative educative musical piece i have ever listened to as it awakened me up to the whole subject. it makes me wish there was a song about all the years of recorded history. it's tempting to post ones ranging from Jedi Mind Trics to Bolt Thrower, but i resists. one song per post pls. orly? ya rly!