Colonel J Lee

I posted this thread (and it's content) because it was a 'good read'. I enjoy reading the comments you guys have made. There is some real knowledge about the subject matter of WW2 and its men and machines on this forum. Very good stuff. Thanks. I can tell the article is biased (most are one way or the other; most, not all). Certainly Wittman's victories were in a vehicle that, overall, was better than all (or most) of the allied vehicles it faced. Yet, he did destroy, apparently, largely tanks whereas Pool destroyed 'vehicles' (though we're not told the exact number of each kind - someone said 12 tanks). At any rate, he was a bold tanker using a vulnerable vehicle (Sherman) late in the war. He had to drive close enough to the enemy to destroy that many vehicles (I would guess very few of them were Kubelwagens!). One thought came to mind, he had to have some serious nerve to get close enough to vehciles, and therefore, German soldiers who typically had those vicious panzerfausts at their disposal! Wittman never had to think about dealing with enemy infantry carrying those things (Bazookas didn't compare with them). All said, I would say Wittman was the best. Certainly these two men and others like them knew their machines strengths and weakenesses, how to employ them, and had the command and respect of their crewmen.

This was a fun read: http://www.3ad.com/history/wwll/pool.pages/armor.myths.htm From Col Rodney Thomas (ret) by way of Maj Michael Williard (ret); both 3AD Cold War/Gulf War veterans. EXPLODING A FEW MYTHS ABOUT WORLD WAR II ARMOR EXPLODING A FEW MYTHS ABOUT WORLD WAR II ARMOR Including a Comparison of Lafayette Pool and Germany's Michael Wittmann By Stephen 'Cookie' Sewell Museum Ordnance Magazine September 1993 Sitting at a table on behalf of The Ordnance Museum Foundation, Inc., here at Aberdeen Proving Ground on Armed Forces Day 1993, I noticed that a great number of people are believers in myths that surround the German Army of World War II. Many of the people who stopped by had a number of negative comments about the perceived "lack of interest" by the museum in their favorite German tanks and the reasons they were so significant. (It must be noted that the charter of the ordnance Museum is to preserve the history of the development of American ordnance and armored vehicles, and to include significant foreign developments where possible.) I believe it was Abraham Lincoln who is credited with the quote. "It is easy to defeat a lie with the truth; it is much harder to kill a myth." Of the many comments that were made to us about the mythology surrounding the German armored vehicles, I would like to address certain issues from other points of view in this short article. Myth #1 The Greatest Tank of the Second World War was the Tiger I. Oh? Why? Maybe the best KNOWN overall, and the most notorious, but far from the greatest. This tank was designed as a 30-ton tank (later upgraded to 45 tons) but still came in between 56 and 62 tons; it was underpowered and poorly suited for any kind of mobility battle. Tanks are weapons of the offensive; this tank was not equipped for that type of warfare (remember Blitzkrieg?), nor was it well suited for "cornfield meets" at 500 meters or less. The Russians were very respectful of the Tiger, but they were also under no illusions as to its combat potential. Their tactics - charge until you are inside the 500-meter range where the T-34's 76mm gun could penetrate the sides or rear of the Tiger - were born out of the desperation of having many more tanks than the enemy but with a less powerful cannon (until 1943) that forced them to adapt. Once the T-34/85 and the IS series of tanks appeared, the Tiger was treated as the dinosaur that it was. Tanks like the Tiger were designed to combat tanks like the Soviet KV series. Were it not for the KV, it is doubtful the Tiger, as we know it, would have ever developed. Myth #2 The Panther was the Best All Around Tank of the Second World War. Strike Two. The Panther only came about because the German leadership suffered a bout of "NIH" syndrome (Not Invented Here) and ignored the pleas of commanders like Guderian to simply reverse-engineer and adapt the T-34 for German production. As a result, it had a higher silhouette than any Soviet tank, a gasoline engine, and a very weak running gear system that plagued the tank during its combat career. To give the Panther its due, it carried the hardest hitting 75mm gun of the Second World War; this weapon contributed heavily to French thinking after the war and was the basic weapon chosen to be developed into the 75mm autoloader cannon in the EBR 75 and AMX 13. Its armor was thicker than the T-34 and the Sherman, but it was not well designed; D and A models had a marvelous shot-trap beneath the mantlet that was used to ricochet AP shells down into the thin roof where they would kill the driver and bow gunner. Reliability was poor - the vehicle was not noted for its ability to conduct long road marches, and the Soviets enjoyed the fact that they could not get captured models to make a simple 200-kilometer road march without breakdown. This was partially due to the poor suspension design (interleaved road wheels) and partially to the conditions under which the tank was used. This tank was also over its targeted weight limit and to the Soviets was a joke - a medium tank that weighed only one ton less than their heavy tanks and did not have the mobility, reliability, or overall useful firepower of the IS-2. Tanks excel based on balance: the Panther had superior firepower, good armor protection, and poor mobility. That's not balance. Myth #3 The Tiger II was the Most Influential Tank of the Second World War. On what and by who? The Tiger II was a desperate design of overkill that combined the design of the Panther with the concept of the Tiger and wound up with a 68-ton tank that had the worst deployability of any tank of the war (one has to keep things like bridges and roads in mind when designing tanks!!). If the Tiger II was so influential, then what was its legacy? Surely no tanks were designed to copy its features. It used the classic German balanced layout of transmission front-engine rear which all other countries ditched for either cross drive or "guitar" transverse engine and transmission layouts. It used massive weight of armor for protection which only added to its troubles; being "Sherman-proof" from the front does you no good if you can't catch the little devils. The Tiger II was also a victim of the late war German economy. It had no real reliability due to the fact that its rubber-hubbed wheels tended to flex under load and, placing uneven strain on the tracks, tended to snap links at the hinges. Like the Tiger I before it, this is a desperation defensive weapon that did not give them advantages. Finally, even the Soviets had no fear of this tank. The first one they encountered in combat during 1944 was immediately knocked out by a T-34/85; the Soviets made capital over the fact that one of Porsche's sons was the commander of the vehicle and was killed instantly by the shell. (They felt at the time he was most responsible for the Tiger series; it was only after the war when the captured the Nibelungenwerke that they found out Edward Anders of Henschel had more to do with heavy tanks design than Ferdinand Porsche.) A far more influential tank of the war was the Soviet IS-3; this inspired much more Cold War mythos of its own and was directly responsible for a number of US and foreign designs, as well as the US Ml03 and British Conqueror programs to defeat it on postulated European battlefields. Myth #4 Michael Wittmann was the Greatest Tank Commander of the Second World War. This is a subject of even more speculation. Wittmann was no doubt brave and skillful, and he is given credit for a great deal of prowess on the battlefield. His score is listed as 138 tanks and 132 anti-tank guns destroyed in a career stretching from June 1941 to August 1944. While awarded every major German combat award up to the Swords for the Knight's Cross (Germany's second highest combat decoration), it should be pointed out that he was an unrepentant Nazi who had joined the Party in 1937 and was posted to SS units. Lacking good Information on Soviet tanks aces (which do not appear to be many due to a very short life in many units), my personal counterclaim to the title of greatest tanker of the war would be an American staff sergeant named Lafayette G. Pool who, while operating a 76mm Sherman, managed to destroy 258 enemy vehicles between 27 June 1944 and 15 September 1944. This is a far greater achievement than Wittmann's, and given the relative merits of each man's case puts him in a better position to be the supreme "over-achiever" of the war. To compare them, they have many things in common and many things that differentiate them. Both chose armor as a branch. Wittmann joining the SS Llebstandarte Adolph Hitler Division in 1939 and Pool the 40th Armored Regiment in 1941. Both men had taken punishment and it showed - Wittmann, a shell explosion that sliced up his face and body, and Pool, a few "souvenirs" as a Golden Gloves champ in Texas. Both were skilled in tactics and use of their respective tanks, and both were excellent at small unit leadership. Wittmann is best associated as a company commander from the 2nd Company of SS Panzer Abteilung 501. Pool was only associated in combat with the 3rd Platoon, "I" Company, 3rd Battalion, 32nd Armored Regiment, 3rd US Armored Division. Wittmann is best known in his Tiger I number 805 from the 501st. Pool's tank (he went through three in his short career) was always named IN THE MOOD; it was a 76mm M4A1 WSS Sherman. Both men had a personal hold on their crew members and remained close where possible. Wittmann kept the same gunner, SS Oberscharfuehrer Balthasar Woll, through the war. Pool also kept the same crew: CPL Wilbert "Red" Richards, driver; PFC Bert Close, assistant driver/bow gunner; CPL Willis Oiler, gunner; and T/5 Del Boggs, loader. Both men fought their tanks to their best advantage. For Wittmann, this was using either ambush or a slow advance with the heavy firepower of the Tiger's 88mm gun and its massive frontal armor limiting enemy responses. Pool, on the other hand, was noted for moving right into the enemy and mixing it up. When one considers that his favorite foe appears to have been the Panther - never a good choice to take on with any Sherman at any range - the fact that he only lost three tanks in combat, while racking up the score that he did, seems all the more remarkable. However, the two men ended their combat careers in different ways. Wittmann with a whimper and Pool with a bang. Wittmann appears to have been killed in a series of Allied air raids called Operation Totalize; he never had a chance to fight back, and his company and his tank were destroyed in the bombing. Pool found out the hard way that "three's the charm" and, while functioning as the "spearhead" of the Spearhead Division south of Aachen, Germany, tried to shoot it out with more Panthers. This time Pool lost and the Sherman backed into a ditch and rolled over after two 75mm shells hit the tank. The four crew members survived with minor wounds, but Pool was blown out of the turret and wounded badly enough to require being medivaced; he was sent home to convalesce and survived the war. Wittmann was undoubtedly the best that the Germans had, but his time in combat (as a tank commander) was something in excess of 25 months. Pool was only in combat for 80 days (21 engagements). Based on time, equipment, and accomplishment, Lafayette Pool is a better call for the best tanker of the war. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yeah, Mikey D...I noticed some technical mistakes (but not as many as others since I don't have that much technical knowledge about things like Christie vs. Tortion bar suspensions, etc.). He did make a reference to PzIVs having thicker armour than Panthers and similar type mistakes. However, what I enjoyed about the book was the first hand accounts of battles, skirmishes and the things that happen in war (e.g., the story about watching the 5 B-17s get shot down by the rocket firing fighters and fishing a guy alive out of the tail section after it landed several hundred feet away or the King Tigers routing the US HT and Tank column and two of the TIgers being taken out by phosphorus rounds, etc.). That's what I've enjoyed from the read. I have also noticed the repetitions. Not perfect book but fun to read. I guess I don't read a lot of WW2 stuff.

Yeah, Mikey D...I noticed some technical mistakes (but not as many as others since I don't have that much technical knowledge about things like Christie vs. Tortion bar suspensions, etc.). He did make a reference to PzIVs having thicker armour than Panthers and similar type mistakes. However, what I enjoyed about the book was the first hand accounts of battles, skirmishes and the things that happen in war (e.g., the story about watching the 5 B-17s get shot down by the rocket firing fighters and fishing a guy alive out of the tail section after it landed several hundred feet away or the King Tigers routing the US HT and Tank column and two of the TIgers being taken out by phosphorus rounds, etc.). That's what I've enjoyed from the read. I have also noticed the repetitions. Not perfect book but fun to read. I guess I don't read a lot of WW2 stuff.

I'm just curious, Jon S: what did you mean by Cooper 'staying in his lane'. I thought there were a couple of technical errors he made (in the appendices, for e.g.), but I would like to know (cordially) what it is that you are referring to. THANKS.

I'm just curious, Jon S: what did you mean by Cooper 'staying in his lane'. I thought there were a couple of technical errors he made (in the appendices, for e.g.), but I would like to know (cordially) what it is that you are referring to. THANKS.

Thank you for posting this, John. It's sad to hear. He seemed to be a great man. His service certainly was. I am just about finished with his book, "Death Traps". It is the most interesting and engrossing WW2 read I've done in a LONG time. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves WW2 history. It reads like an action novel throughout most of its parts and has many good and surprising insights. Thanks again for bringing to our awareness the loss of another great soldier from a dying generation.

Thank you for posting this, John. It's sad to hear. He seemed to be a great man. His service certainly was. I am just about finished with his book, "Death Traps". It is the most interesting and engrossing WW2 read I've done in a LONG time. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves WW2 history. It reads like an action novel throughout most of its parts and has many good and surprising insights. Thanks again for bringing to our awareness the loss of another great soldier from a dying generation.

No problem. THANKS for the clarification. I started playing "Chaos in the Ardennes" with my son. We got a real charge out of seeing those Germans in Snow White Winter Uniforms! And the Americans with brown gloves!!! OUTSTANDING. By the way, were those Pines a BMP mod, too? I don't recall seeing those trees elsewhere in CMAK (or CMBB for that matter!).

DAVID I wrote: "BTW by using the "Shadow" Game technique I now have the following CM Games - CMAK 1939 to 1944, Italy 1944 -'45, CM Normandy, CMETO, CMBB and CMBB Late War, each with it's own look and feel." David, what does the CM 1939-1944 look like for the years 1939 and 40. What kind of tanks do the French have; no Char B-1s or Hotchkiss', right? Or, are they in the CMAK engine?

David, I installed everything and it was a breeze! Great instructions and everything looks great. ONE QUESTION: should I have deleted the BMP files that were in the duplicate (CMETO) BMP Folder (the original BMP files that came with CMAK)? I did not get a "yes" to replacing all files prompt when installing CMETO. Let me know if it will effect viewing the mods or not. THANKS. Great work, again!

Frankly, I would have liked to see them. Especially given the historical depth of this game. They were famous, especially the King Tiger. BUT, I CAN LIVE WITHOUT THEM.

Barkhorn1x: There are no King Tigers, American M-36 Jacksons (with the 90 mm gun), nor British Cromwells. Everything else is there.

Thanks for everything David. I'll be getting into this weekend. Awesome!

Wow. Amazing "technique" and lots to use in the future (with the other modded games). I think I'd rather wait a couple of days to get it all in one shot from the "tspindler_cmak_mod" site. Seems easier to do. QUESTION: I cannot run CMAK without having the disk in the DVD/CD Rom drive. If I re-install CMAK as "CMETO", will I have that same problem? Will I be able to run it with the original BF CMAK Disc in the drive? Curious. THANKS again.

David, Your work is EXCELLENT! I just got the instructions on how to set up CMETO, but cannot access the www/tspindler.de/cmak_mod/ web page; are these mod materials (scenarios, files,etc.) available elsewhere? I'm chomping at the bit!

Can someone tell me where on this forum the detailed instructions for using CMMods is? I would love to use these! Thanks for your direction.

Thank you so much, Schrullenhaft!....for your patience and informative responses. My computer is for word processing, internet searches, financial records management, and CMx1 with my boys, so the ABS system may be best (sufficient). Newegg also had a monster HP box for $1,250 with everything, but it didn't include a monitor. Money is important so....it looks like ABS, but I will deliberate a little more before committing.

..and what graphics card is working for you? I've got to buy a new computer and need to know what decent graphics card works with Vista. THANKS.

Schrullenhaft, Another good post. Helpful again. I just got back from Best Buy and they are offering the following machine: AMD Athlon 64x2 Dual-Core Processor 3800+ with vista as the OS. 1024 MB DDR2, 250 GB Hard Drive, & NVIDIA GeForce 6150LE graphics. This and a 19" LCD monitor will cost $800. I'm thinking about it since you wrote: "I know people have been able to use the CMx1 series with Vista (Nvidia 7800 series and other cards)". I would assume that 6000 series card (on board), like the 6150LE, would work. Best Buy says they will let me try it out and that I could return it if it does not work (with CMAK and CMBB); i.e., they have a 14 day return policy. I may try this...I need a new box anyway, but I really want CM to work and I can't seem to get a system under $1,000 that offers XP as the OS. Even Dell doesn't except for the XPS710 machine, and the best I can do there is $1,400 with the monitor.

THANKS a lot Schrullenhaft, for an EXCELLENT and HELPFUL post. I will try to stay away from Vista for now. Dell offers an XPS710 machine with an GeForce 8800 card but with XP, not Vista. I wonder if getting "Vista" out of the formula with the 8800 card will work for CMx1? :confused: Their XP410 machine looked good (and cheaper!), and with an upgrade to the GeForce 8600 it would be a nice buy, but this machine ONLY HAS VISTA. Dang! The 7300LE comes with this machine but, again, it's the VISTA operating system. Should I Avoid VISTA altogether, or only with the 8800 card?

Thanks so much for the response, Schrullenhaft. The reality is I don't have enough time to get tired of CMAK/CMBB and buy another game. I love the CM1 series enough to busy with if for a long time. Two more questions: 1) Is the nVidia GeForce 7300LE better than the FX5900 XT? 2) how is the GeForce 8600 GTS compared to both? That will be all I need to know at this point. I believe all three, being nVidia technology, should display fog, right? Dell offers both ATI and nVidia cards for the XPs410. I am thinking the 7300LE will be it. Later I can upgrade to the nVidia 8600 GTS.

Will it do for CMAK and CMBB. I don't plan on getting theatre of war or CM2. Just me and my boys playing good 'ol CMAK and CMBB. What do you think, Redwolf? Should I pay a couple hundred extra for one of Dell's better graphics cards, or would that be a waste seeing that I'm only going to play CMAK and CMBB?

I am wondering about getting the new Dell XPS410 machine and it has the following video card: 256MB nVidia Geforce 7300LE TurboCache3; will this give me fog graphics? FOG is important to me while playing CMAK and CMBB. The information on the XPS410 can be found at: http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx

I am wondering about getting the new Dell XPS410 machine and it has the following video card: 256MB nVidia Geforce 7300LE TurboCache3; will this give me fog graphics? FOG is important to me while playing CMAK and CMBB.