pamak1970

If you did not assume that every sortie was against tanks then why you mentioned the 30000 IL-2 multiplied by 20-30 missions in order to describe the size of the denominator? You do assume in this case that all sorties of IL-2 were aimed against tanks. Farthermore if you choose to calculate and multiply all 30000 planes with the average number of 20-30 sorties which is the duration of their average life of an assault plane,you basicaly imply that these 30000 planes "spent" their average operational life, which is like saying that they were destroyed. If you do not want to assume this ,then you can not multiply the whole number of planes with the average number of "sorties per operational life". Regarding that the average Soviet tank did not kill a German tank , i do not have any objections. My point is not to prove that statistics of strategic level should point that a certain system did K.O an enemy one. My point that these statistics are not indication of the effectiveness of the weapon in the tactical level. Does the fact that a Soviet tank did not KO a German one make us claim that Soviet tanks were not effective to fight enemy tanks in the battlefield? To me it is irrelevant if we can say at strategic level that an average Soviet tank did not KO a german tank,or if it did KO five. I accept whatever you present in this case without challenging the number itself. I focus on the conclusions. Regarding your comment about tanks ,i do not see what is the point you try to make. First if a tank battallion goes for weeks without loosing more than a tank or two , is because the tank battallion goes for weeks without participating in an armor battle. When they get the chance to participate as a front line unit ,losses are inflicted in a matter of hours-or they inflict to the enemy. At least that is my understanding of battlefield experience. The high rate of tank non combat losses is related mainly to mechanical problems .These tanks are not KO since they do return in the battlefield but i am not sure why you think it is so important to mention it. If your point is that this number of non-combat casualties implies a farther diminishing of the "effect" of tank shooting against another tank, i will not agree for an additional reason i have not mentioned. Non-combat casualties does not affect only the number of tank losses by enemy armor. It affects also the number of tanks engaging and shooting at enemy armor. You see only the effect on the numerator and ignore completely the effect on the denominator here. Regarding the effectiveness of the tank cause it destroys other key facilities and weapons, i will agree but this is a seperate observation which does not point anything about the effectiveness of the same platform against other tanks. From what i see, you seem to change your position from FB not being effective against tanks ,to tanks not being effective against tanks either.

Now ,this is the appropiate argument for the issue we discuss here and i will agree. The above logic implies that all missions of IL-2 were directed against tanks and that all 35000 assault aircrafts were destroyed . Therefore the conclusion that the denominator of 35000 aircrafts is much larger than the numerator and the assult aircraft did not take out a single AFV during its operational life. That is something that needs a deeper investigation in order to understand the magnitude of denominator. Think for example that in the same way we can talk about the size of tanks employed by Russians and compare it to the actual loss of German tanks cause of Soviet armor. Again the denominator is much larger than the numerator. Same with antitank mines and so on. We can also talk about the German number of tank busters compared to the actual number of Soviet armor destroyed by aircraft. What are the denominators and numerators in that case? This can not lead to conclusions about the effectiveness of a platform in engaging another one. I think now we are really getting inside the core. of the issue we discuss here. First i do not agree again with the implication that all mission are directed against tanks. "sorties are 35 times the size of the plane" -plane fleet i assume. That needs more data. The other thing i have reservations is the observation of 1/10 more likely 1/20 of German losses cause of air attacks. The 3-4% of losses cause of aircraft attacks according to some Soviet sources talks about the number of tanks beyond repair . The a ctual losses of all tanks put out of action is more than that. I recall a figure of 180 tanks put out of action which at the end became 70 tanks (110 were repaired). This number of 70 tanks was equivalent of 3-4% of all losses but if we use the number of 180 tanks instead we automatically see a percentage of 10% put out of action. So, there is an issue of definition here regarding what is a loss and what is not. Antitank mines fore example result in mobility kills. Do they inflict losses or not? We have also other issues unresolved. The chances to spot a tank are not so big in my opinion inspite the thousands of planes and tanks. If we count weather effects ,clouds ,smoke and thousands of interceptors which are also present in the same area, it is not so easy to spot a unit. I would be interested to see the percentage for example of missions having to abort cause of enemy aircraft,not counting the aircrafts shot down (we have already taken this effect in consideration when we talk about 20-40 sorties per each aircraft during its life) . We can also see the above from a different perspective. Since the denominator of Soviet armor is much larger than the nominator of actual german armor lost cause of Soviet tanks, and since the actual number of engagements that a tank was able to participate during its life period is sginificant .can we conclude that an armor unit during an average armor class was not so lethal against enemy units? Experience shows that actually armor classes were short and brutal with many tanks K.O among the sites which participated. On the other hand statistics regarding ammunition expense related with losses implies that probability of kill is very low Is there a contradiction here? This is relative with what i posted earlier regarding the method they used to link number of rounds expended and actual shots against a target and if it was contacted the way i suspect-either studying industrial production,or even various unit ammo requests, then the results are not credible cause in this way you count shells that were lost without having them directed against enemy targets. For example an ammunition dump being bombed resulted in the loss of thousands of AP shells In my opinion if the typical number of ammunition carried inside a tank was not sufficient to give a good chance to K.O an enemy tank in a typical fight, then i become suspicious of the theory. Decent chance to K.O a tank with a stock of 40 let say shells means an actual average chance of few percentages for each shell to score a hit in actual battlefield conditions. [ August 16, 2005, 11:04 PM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

I beleive you need more details regarding the way the study was made relating rounds expended and kills. For example, how did they calulate the number of rounds expended? Did they use data from industrial production of AP shells? If it is this case, then there are many cases of AP rounds expended ,besides firing against targets? Rounds sunk when they were carried in transport ships . Rounds lost when ammunition comvoys were attacked. Rounds captured by enemy. Rounds lost when a tank exploded and so on.

Since I inflated the FB kills, and deflated the tank kills, for convienient round numbers, I don't believe that. I was trying to explain the theory to you. Ne'er mind. Pat yourself on the back - your averageness has worn me out. Jon [/QB]</font>

Continuing my thoughts relative to the issue we discuss here, we have as many reasons to dispute Rudells record of destroying 500 tanks as to dispute Wittman's record of destroying hundreds of tanks and antitank guns during his service.

I do not have any objections about inflation of losses reports and i said even earlier that i do not find it strange to see FB contribute a small percentage to the total losses inflicted to the enemy during a large operation. My firm objection is only relative with the opinion that since FB score on average 1 tank kill,therefore are ineffective in engaging tanks on the battlefield. If you do beleive that "The average tank kills ~1 tank. The average FB kills ~1 tank." then you have to admit that FB are as much effective as tanks in engaging enemy armor in the battlefield.

So ? Do aircrafts have more time of fight in their belt when according to your post their average life was between 20-40 sorties? How much time of this 20-40 sorties duration is actually spent for attacks against enemy tanks? And why you do not consider these things when you talk about assault aircrafts but you are willing to do so when you talk about tanks? [ August 16, 2005, 03:55 PM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

Next to people still full of illusions of high effectiveness in kills per unit time for items like tanks, some home truths. The average lifetime of a tank is not 10 days, it is a year. combined with The average German AFV with superior armament took out 1 to 1.5 enemy AFVs over its operational life. This makes my argument even more clear. So ,what is the conclusion if we apply these numbers to estimate battlefield results using the logic of average weapons and their perfomance? If an average AFV is KO approximately one enemy average AFV during a period of a year ,360 days, then tranfering this to tactical scale, we should expect to see 360 AFV engaging enemy AFVs in a battle during a single day with the result of destroying a single enemy AFV at the end of the battle. So we "conclude" that an average AFV is basically ineffective in destroying another average AFV. That is basically the implications of your way of thinking and that is why i say that you can not use a deductive logic-reasoning in this case and go from the large picture to specifics.

We do not,or at least me do not discuss the "effectiveness" of a single weapon related to the impact in the strategic economic enviroment. I am talking about the effectiveness of the weapon against another single weapon related more with kill probability during a single actual attack after a single sortie. This is a totally different subject. You talk about the value of Stuka -tank buster in strategic economic terms and from a general observation you go to specifics trying to apply the same relations you see in the general enviroment and this is where i disagree. In a way it is like saying that since Chinese have an average height of 5.5 feet,therefore the basketball coach should be happy to see his team having an average height of 5.5 feet during a certain game against U.S for example. Talking about our specific example. From what i understand you assume that if the Stuka tank buster was an average asset then a 5% of effectiveness per sortie, which was sufficient to have the plane K.O a tank before itself becomes a casualty (after about 20-40 missions) is reasonable. I still do not see this number credible to indicate probability of kills in ACTUAL attacks of tank buster planes against tanks and i will try to explain why. Let's take for example an "average" tank according to the way you want to define it. Now an average tank should be able to kill another average tank before itself becomes a casualty. In fact the average perfomance will be less than one enemy average tank kill , for each friendly unit (since the "score sheet" will include other hits also against AT guns ,MGs and so on). Now let's go deeper and try to apply this at tactical level. What is the duration of "life" for an average tank? Now we can not use "number of sorties" and that is why i prefered from the beginning to relate the effectivenss of a platform to an actual time unit. I do not have data about the above but let say for the sake of my argument that it is 10 days which . According to your logic ,we would expect to see an average tank K.O less than one enemy tank during this period of 10 days of fighting, before itsef becomes a casualty.That is about 37% of chances to K.O less than an enemy tank during a single day (note that in probabilities we do not add or divide numbers.Therefore the result is not 100%:10 days -10% per day). And here comes the strange conclusion of your logic. Someone might claim that the Germans could be satisfied to produce a tank that had 37% of chances to K.O another tank during a period of 24 hours. Again applying this to tactical level and try to find the percentage of effectiveness during a perid of 2.4 hours of tank combat ,we will find a certain number which will be much less than 37% of course. I do not have time to use now calculations but a rough calculation gives about 5% to K.O a tank. So if now we take in consideration an average distance range of engagement we conclude that german scientits should be satisfied to see during the tests a new tank having a kill probability of much less than 5% after expending its whole stock of ammunition at enemy tanks from average ranges, since according to the general -strategic economic enviroment , this weapon does fullfil the definition of "average perfomance". P.S I did not have time to double check my results . For anyone interested to check it i used the formula of P= 1- (1-x)^n P= probability to acheive at least one kill in n trials x= probability of kill in one trial n is exponent to (1-x) and indicates as i said before the number of trials

Hooray! I think you finally got it! This is what we - well, half of us - have been saying all along. And the reason we've been saying it is because the performance of CAS in CM is so radically different. CAS in CM ≠ Cas in Real Life™ CAS in CM >> Cas in Real Life™ BUT ... CAS in Real Life™ was useful, just not at KO-ing armour. And those reasons have been discussed too. </font>

I had a different understanding. In my mind, "overshooting" referred to the fact that the aircraft has to initiate a pull up at some point (I think 180m from the target is used in our example) or else it will fly into the ground. Since the aircraft is pitching up once it is within 180m of the target, any rounds fired will miss the target by "overshooting" it. I don't think it has anything to do with at what range the weapons were zeroed. </font>

] How you would respond if someone was claiming that they could produce the weapon to fly 1000 or 10000 times to destroy a tank or two? What is the red line according to your point that makes a certain system having poor perfomance? Speaking about 50 sorties per airplane we should consider the time-frame in order to reach this number.This gives a more clear picture of the impact of this platform. How many sorties per day was the average for a single assault plane? I do not know details ,i just have some data from the Soviet study of Kursk with the 2nd Air army executing between 250-300 sorties daily. Since the number of assault planes for this army is about 270, this means one sortie per day. It seems very low at first but it is explained in this study that one of the reasons was the lack of availability of escorts . Anyway ,lets boost this up and claim that we have 5 sorties per plane per day which might be generous. If the probability of destroying a tank with a stuka is 4% per sortie ,this means that we have 2 tanks destroyed every 10 days of intense action for each plane. (Using the actual number given for the Russians we talk about 2 tanks destroyed during a period of 50 days for each arcraft). Now all these numbers imply the aircraft HAS spotted the target ,HAS avoided enemy interceptors and flak and so on. Of course as i said before we all know that in true enviroment these percentages will fall much more . So a German designer producing a plane with a kill probability of 4% per sortie would expect to acheive an actual percentage of much less in combat.I would not be surprised to see actual effectiveness of 1% Now why would someone think that this type of CAS is so effective ? Having a formation of 100 aircrafts acheiving 4 tank kill per day -in a single battle (4 sorties per day with actual true effectiveness 1% ), means that there is not really any significant impact of CAS on the tactical battlefield. The meaning of CAS does not have any sense in this case.

I noticed you have mentioned this more than once. can you give some details ,links or bibliography. Even if you can not find relative links, if you give me some more details i might be able to locate information cause i have some books related with operational research. Can you give me for example the name of this mathematical law-theory? For example we frequently talk about lanchester laws when we deal with OR. What is the name of this law you are referring to?

It is not so much that i consider the number so small inside a specific operational enviroment. I consider it small as a number of probability to see a single stuka attacking a single tank and take it out of action. If that was the case, then i do not see why someone would produce such a weapon and second the actual effectiveness of weapon inside the"big picture" with all countermeasures ,flak interceptors, missed spotting and so on would be much more less than 3-4 %. To put it differently, even if someone accepts that the figure of 3-4 % losses per sortie is true inside the operational enviroment , this indicates that the actual effectiveness of stuka as a single platform attacking a single tank, is considerably more.

how many times did Soviet face tungsten rounds? It is not just a matter of caliber, it is also a matter of ammunition.

I have two comments. First one is that although noone disputes the mathematical skills of Soviet scientists, we can still dispute assumsions based on this type of math. The assumsion that a certain percentage of sorties indicates the percentage of kill in a fight between one Stuka G-1 and a tank is thin in my opinion. As many other pointed , looking at the big picture we see that there are many factors that affect the percentage of casualties to sorties (ratio). Sorties that did not find any target ,ot sorties that had to abort mission cause of flak or friendly interceptors do affect the overall results. Another example is sorties where a group of aircraft is assigned to air defence suppression or protection from interceptors while others focus on tanks. So in general we might have for example 100 sorties but this does not imply that we end up in the battlefield having 100 air attacks against tanks. Or the scientists might use as point of reference the results of only total irrevocable destruction ignoring the actual number of tanks put out of action. So, although statistically the ratio of effectiveness against tanks for this particular enviroment might be correct, it does not give clear conclusions without deep analysis and more details of the effectiveness of stuka as a single weapon against a single tank. Imagine for example that a group of 100 stukas trying to resist a Soviet attack put out of action 30 tanks. Let say that that the Soviet attack was successful and at the end of the operation mechanics repaired 20 tanks leaving a total of 10 tanks out of action (from the initial nember of 30) . Now someone can calculate that in this particlar case we have an effectiveness of 10% since 100 sorties inflicted 10 actual losses at the end. If we transfer the above situation altering one parameter and using it in a case where Stukas participate in a successful German ground attack,then it would not be a surprise to see the winning side that captures the battlefield ,to get possesion of all 30 tanks put out of action. In this case we can say that the "effectiveness" is 30% since 100 sorties did put out of action 30 enemy tanks. I gave a simple example to make my point that although statistics might be correct, the conclusions are not so obvious regarding the actual ability of stuka as a platform to destroy a tank. I have also a reservation regarding the claim that shootting too close you "overshoot" the target. I guess what they try to say is that the weapons were "zeroed" to a certain range. I do not have time to do some geometric calculations now. I will just present my thoughts and anyone interested who remembers some things from highschool geometry and thiangles can search it for himself. The basic idea is that the window of opportunity to strike a tank mught be more broader than it is claimed to be. Although guns are zeroed to a certain distance where the trajectory of bullets meet in front of the path of the plane ,we have to see some more details. I will give an extreme case to make my point clear. In all cases i treat the trajectory as a straight line from the aircraft to the tank, since distance is short and the time of flight of the projectile very low . Imagine for example that the Horizontal distance of the gun barrels in the stuka is the same as the length of a tank. If we focus on the issue of zeroing guns at a certain distance of 200 meters ,the above "observation" leads to the following conclusion. If a stuka attacks a tank directly from the side and has the guns zeroed ar 200 meters, then at any distance between 200 and 0 meters from the target, the plane is capable to hit the tank (assumming the aiming is right). In fact in such a case it is more accurate to say that zeroing in 200 meters has the effect of making the aircraft capable to hit a target at any distance between 400 and 0. The geometry of zeroing at 200 meters is such that if the target is well aimed , the path of the trajectory will "collide with the target" at any range between 400 and 0. Take a piece of paper and draw a view from top -down of a stuka and a tank. Draw the trajectories of the projectile assuming that they will meet ahead at a distance of 200 meters. Now try to see at what distance the width between the trajectories is greater than the length of the tank, in which case we have "overshoot" . Using the above numbers , this distance is over 400 meters. In this case the danger for the pilot to miss his target is if he decides to fire too early but there is no any effect if he fires too late. I hope i made myself clear. I might see later actual dimentions and do some comparisons. I do not say that i am an expert in this area of technical details but i think my understanding of the concept of "zeroing" is right [ August 15, 2005, 04:15 PM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

I ddi not read thoroughly all information but i noticed that the loss of 70 armored-vehicles comes from a larger group of about 150? losses from air attack. A large percentage of those was repaired and do not count in the final figure of 70 losses. If we compare the numbers given by Soviets (using 150 since German pilots of course could not predict how many of these tanks would become operational again) and the number claimed by German pilots (700), we see their claims to be about 4-5 times more than the actual losses,which i find it beleivable. [ August 15, 2005, 09:56 AM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

it is nice to see some addotional information from a Russian site. I find many things logical but i have some reservations about some other comments. For example I think that if the round penetrates there will be a lot of mess inside. For example,let's ignore the "dinky" 37mm round and focus on the following question. What happens to the missing material from the hole created during the penetration inside the tank armor ? At least a portion of it will end up in fragments flying and richocet around the compartement. Chances to inflict casualties or destroy equipment will be significant. MY other reservation is about the statistical analysis and the conclusions. . We know that statistics can be tricky and give misleading results. Although i can not comment on the study itself since it is not available, i "feel" there is something wrong with the conclusions. I base this on the logic that such conclusions would be noticed by the Germans during the development and testing of the airplane. I find it difficult to accept that they would commit resources and energy to build a plane,or risk their lifes using a plane that gives them so small chances to destroy an enemy tank. [ August 15, 2005, 08:38 AM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

I would like to give some more information regarding the subject of this thread. First ,look at the following site and its links It has relative information guns, ammunition and penetration. http://homepages.solis.co.uk/~autogun/index.htm Another one which i saw from a wargame site. Although i have not studied it and i have reservations about the actual numbers given, i give it cause i agree with some general comments. For example ,the claim that you can not make generalizations based on the calibre of a gun and that there are different results of penetration based on different ammunition types and other variables. http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:PjV4WQZtJTsJ:www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Arena/5096/upgchart.htm+Tungsten+penetration+armor&hl=en As a last i will give information found in one of my books regarding the Kursk battle. I have the Soviet General staff study for the battle of Kursk, translated and edited by David Glantz. isbn 071464493-5 Thisn was a classified study published in 1944 table 24 -page 233 (at least in my book) tank losses by type of weapon -irrevocable losses For the 2nd tank army 72.5 % burned as a result of being hit by artillery shells 15.3 destroyed by artillery 6.5 put out of action by air attack 5.0 put out of action for other reasons 0.7 blown up by mines for the first tank army 72 % burned as a result of being hit by artillery shells 13 % destroyed by artillery 2 % put out of action by air attack 13 % put out of action for other reasons 0% blown up by mines. Now i have to point that we should be careful when we try to translate numbers. Notice for example the very low percentages of casualties by mines. remember that these are irrevocable losses and this certainly is one explanation about such low figures. Anyway in the next paragraph after this table the study comments " the effectiveness of air attacks against tanks deployed in a positional defence is minor". On the other hand this seems to be more relative on the general situation and enviroment and does not imply that an assault aircraft is incapable to engage a tank. In another paragraph the study claims that " on July 7th enemy tank attacks were disrupted in the Kashara region 913 Army).Here our assault aircrafts delivered three powerful assaults in groups of 20-30 ,which resulted in the destruction and disabling of 34 tanks". Of course in this case the argument that it is difficult to make battle damage assesment and rely too much on pilot's reports hold true. In another paragraph "According to the judgment of our forces and statements from german prisoners ,our air operations against ground forces inflicted heavy casualties. Assault aircrafts armed with hollow charge bombs were particular effective......... In individual instances small assault groups destroyed 15-20 tanks each in a single sortie". A comment from my perspective regarding air attacks. I think that when we survey the battlefield after the battle in order to estimate the results of air attacks we have to take in consideration some things. For example, during a tank battle the winner and owner of the battkefield will claim many hits of enemy tanks which were disabled and abandoned. For the air attacks this is not always the case. Since aircrafts do not occupy the ground they attack ,it is possible that a good percentage of tanks hit by the attack will be evacuated or repaired. We do not know details and i guess it is possible to have a case to see pilots claim they hit 10 tanks and be accurate in their estimation and surveying the battlefield the next day to see much less abandoned vehicles. I guess that a significant number of these air attacks will be executed some distance away from the forward line of troops. recognition problems during the battle are significant inspite various panels and the like carried by ground forces. Weather smoke and the like is a big problem for aircrafts to distinguish friend from foe. Adding the fact that AAA is heavier in these areas,i would not be surprised to see assault aircrafts execute attacks farther away from the line of contact and this is important in our case since the enemy has generally better chances to restore disabled tanks.

I think this is somewhat different from what we are discussing here . Command lines and range as it is now is definetely useful to force players keep sub-units in the same area under the influence of the parent HQ and maintain cohesion of the formation . On the other hand as long as units are inside the comand radious of their parent HQ, the player can move whole formations free and operate inside areas of other friendly formations without any penalty. You can move for example two different formations, and have them "one above the other" in the same area. All sub units will still be inside the command radious of their parent HQ so the player will not expererience any type of difficulty (penalty) during a situation like that. Maybe a partial solution to deal with AoOs using command ranges ,is to build a code which will forbid crossing of one's formation command lines over command lines of a different formations (or impose some types of penalties if something like that happen. Imagine for example that two companies (platoons together with their parent company hq) operate in the same area. Now try to imagine the command lines from each parent company hq towards each platton of the company. In a situation like this ,we will most probably see the command lines of one company crossing over command lines of the other company. Maybe if the engine can detect this event, it can impose some penalties. [ August 10, 2005, 10:59 AM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

The other issue which i pointed from the beginning is that the amount of restrictions must be carefully examined. It does not mean that whenever a unit fires outside the battallion's AoO should suffer a delay. One example i gave is when it receives fire from an enemy located outside the battallion AoO. Another case is when certain units i defence for example have a sector of fire which expands outside the boundaries of the AoO of the parent unit. It is common in real life as long as there is sufficient time to coordinate the defence to see MGs from one company sector, covering by fire the front of the neighbour company. (of course in return a MG of the neighbour company will do the same). We might have similar cases during an attack also. (Attack by fire to support an assault of the neighbour unit) There should not be any penalty in this case to engage targets inside an already established arc. There might be a penalty if you want to rearrange an arc that extends beyond the AoO of the parent formation or establish a new one. But this now brings another possible loophole. Imagine for example a player setting the maximum arc he can get in order to gain freedom of fire against any enemy anywhere outside the battallion's AoO. There are solutions i can propose for the above issue but again we see that complexity is getting bigger and bigger.

First i would not expand this level to platoon level. From what i know platoons are not assigned AoO. The concept we already have of assigning routes using waypoints and arcs for engagements is sufficient for simulating platoon and squad responsibilites. The lower echelon using boundaries that define a certain AoO is company. Still i try to propose things that will not require a massive effort for designers to program them. I would be happy if the concept is restricted only to battallion level. I have the same attitude regarding the possible "penalties". I guess the best would be the most simple one which in addition requires the least amount of computer power to calculate. Many propositions i read here are really nice. On the other hand i guess that simulating friendly fire possibilities and casualties would be more complicated. So i guess it is more simple to go for slower responses in executing certain orders,like firing on targets outside AoO. Still i do not know how difficult it is to program this feature. The issue is that the game engine must understand the concept of AoO . So the player must have the ability to draw lines that define this AoO . This is a new type of order and might require heavy coding. Plus there is the issue of making the nessesary adjastments. For example AoO can not overlap ,otherwise the players can define the whole map as AoO for every battallion. This brings the issue of having a mechanism of how to pass through reserves from behind to the front. How to link the AoO of the reserve which will be committed to the front and the AoO of the unit which already occuppies the sector where the pass-through operation will happen. We have similar issues with retiring through friendly formations , attachments, replacements and so on. I beleive these issues can be solved. The main issue i guess is if people are interested in spending effort to simulate this aspect and i again i guess that the most challenging issue techinically is to make the engine understand that a player assigns a certain area of the map to a certain battallion.

Actually it does. The problem is that the plattoon is not aware of the fire support plan of the neighbour company. What if for example the neighbour company calls indirect fire in that position at the time the platoon moves inside the neighbour AO? Or what would happen if a platoon of the neighbour company spots movement of "some soldiers" in the distance directly in front of them, in a place were they reasonably expect to see only enemy ? The chances during the confusion of the battle to misidentify these soldiers as enemy (while they are actually friendly troops trying to flank the MG) are high . Once i was reading one of the many tactical exersizes i have . I have purchased dozens of them from militaryinfo.com. These are exersizes together with their solutions from the US army infantry school (1940's) Lot of details of how to make a decision and produce a real order counting all things and small details that are nessesary in real life up to the arrangement of radio frequencies and sign calls I clearly recall a tactical case when during a battallion level battle , the situation demanded a reorientation of the axis of attack. In that case, the best way to do that, was to have some subunits cross boundaries , move inside the AoO of the neighbour battallion and then enter again their original AoO to occupy their new assault positions. The battallion commander gave orders to his stuff to contact the neighbour command and inform them about their plan asking for authorization. He did not just sent his units over there without any type of authorizarion or approval by the neighbour commander. In this case the regimental commander did not have any influence in this "authorization". The issue was resolved between commanders of the battallions. I guess the regimental commander would interfiere only if the battalion commanders could not resolve this issue between themselves. In any case , the whole procedure of moving subunits inside the AoO of the neighbour unit was more time consuming since it required "coordination". If the same subunits had to switch direction of movement inside the AoO of the battallion, the execution would be faster. As long as the battallion commander had decided about the proper way to continue his attack, he did not need of course to get any type of approval from his subordinate company commaders. He just had to inform them about the reposition of the units. In other words he actually had to pass this information down to one level of command and give them a short time to take care of the rest ,inform their plattons and so on. In the case of coordination with the neighbour battallion, the information had to pass first to the neighbour battallion commander. Then the latter would require some feedback to see if such an action would impose any problems or limitations to his battleplan or the battleplan of his subordinates. There is no "god view" here and many details are unknown since company commanders are more focused on leading their troops during the battle ,than chating in radio command nets and give detailed reports of what they are doing and how they rearrange their fires and positions. Among others he would certainly have to contact the commander in charge of the company which was going to be "invaded" by the friendly forces) and after all these communicate with the other battalion commander who requests a passage at a certain time and informs him about his decision. Another issue relative with the crossing on AoO is the following. In another exersize i read about a certain tactical situation when the advance of one company was countered by fire from MGs from a neighbour AoO. Two thing here i would like to point. First a company commander will not decide to destroy a MG in a neighbour section if the latter is not a threat for his mission. If his reasoning is to deviade his effort and resourses from his original course in order to help the neighbour company, he is going to be in trouble. This a battalion level decisison. Supposely the battallion commander has already decided that the neighbour company has sufficient assets to advance in its own territory. The company commander lacks the information to decide about the need to help the neighbour company. On the other hand , if a MG threatens his mission firing towards his sector, then he should reply . Still this reply does not involve a deviation from his original movement. In the example i read about, there was a logical sequence of events. For example, first the commander tried to keep moving his company towards his main objective by attacking by fire the hostile MG in the neighbour AoO. In that example , this effort failed. So, then he contacts the neighbour company and requests a neutralization of that particular target.(both companies belonged to the same battallion ) This failed also (actually there was a group of targets). After that, he contacted battallion and asked indirect fire towards that certain area of the neighbour company. So we see for example that units from neighbour sectors do not affect easily the orientation of the movement. Things are more flexible during the exploitation face but even then some type of coordination exists. For example in the case of the company , its commander is not really aware of the overall situation of the battallion he belongs to. His attack might develop very well,but this does not mean that the battallion is in "exploitation" mode. It is the battallion commander who will signal this "exploitation mode" and give freedom of maneuver . This would happen when he will commit his reserve. A company does not have the power to both participate in an attack and continue to exploitation. So the freedom of maneuver might eventually come and the local commander might not have to follow predetermined and rigid AoO. It is possible that the whole area of the battallion AoO extended behind enemy lines will be his new AoO for the exploitation. This "provilenge" will come from the battallion commander and this "freedom of movement" would be known in advance to all members of the battallion which is important for minimizing risks for friendly fire incidents. [ August 09, 2005, 01:40 PM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

Done.

Area of operation. In other posts they call it "command zone". In real life it is the area, zone defined by the boundaries assigned to subordinate units.