Krautman

Agreed. I see why you were reluctant to use the term 'war crime' in this context and distinguished moral and judicial judgment. Greetings Krautman

About McNamara, he felt uneasy about their deliberate attempts to kill as many civilians as possible. It is not that he considered area bombings ineffective or entirely wrong for winning the war.

Andreas, attacking arms industry is not what I objected to. As far as I know, the air war proved decisively when they started concentrating on the industry (esp. fuel), which they should've done before. No need to burn my Grandma's house on the outskirts of Koblenz (away from the garrison). I will agree though that if you want to win a war, it is effective to fight the enemy country's war effort, including the civilian populace. But that is, in my legally unimportant opinion, a war crime. Greetings Krautman

How good is your German? My link was from the official Confoederatio Helvetica site in Switzerland. I doubt there is a site more reliable on this very question. There were two amendments in 1977, iirc. You might have read the wrong one. Link John D Salt, I don't perceive your argumentation to be much better. I said it is DIFFICULT to decide, not that towns with Flak were definitely undefended. You read my posts only to find something you might use to attack me. The question is not Dresden or Weimar, I don't see an inconsistency there. Andreas brought up Dresden, I picked his example. Most of urban Germany looked this way in 1945. A Flak battery in any German city in 1942 is there because the bombers came first. They could've left the civilian populace out of the air war entirely (which McNamara thought they probably should have). No egg, no chicken. If your main motivation is personal offense and not discussion, go ahead. But had you read my posts you had noticed that I am not the only one clueless in history and laws of war, you yourself didn't know area bombardments were illegal. (Check the link above). As for my being Irvingesque, note that my original point was that area bombardments, disagreeing with Andreas, were a war crime. I never said they were even remotely on the same level as the Holocaust, as Irving did. If you wish to discuss, then you should look at Andreas. He shares your opinion, but instead of just calling me a nazi muddlehead uses actual arguments: As soon as you enter an air war, Flak guns mean a threat to your forces, therefore the respective city is defended and can be attacked. That is a good point and the exact reason why I consider it difficult to decide whether a town far away from the front is defended in the sense of Haag or not. Which you did not understand. BTW: In 1940, the Germans threw incendiary bombs on London. Which i consider a war crime too. The question is not who is the perpetrator. But why am I argueing with someone who takes pleasure in calling others Nazis? [ March 14, 2006, 04:00 AM: Message edited by: Krautman ]

[ March 14, 2006, 03:18 AM: Message edited by: Krautman ]

Hard to see what the difficulty is. You appear to be arguing that a place can be considered undefended because the only defences it has are, ummmm, defensive in nature. What grass mod are you smoking? </font>

Yes, but "undefended" in this context of 1907 means "no armed ground forces, which could counterattack our own forces any moment, are located there". Can you associate FlaK batteries in a city in central Germany, which are entirely defensive in nature, with this "armed and potentially offensive ground forces" category? I admit it is difficult to decide though. Greetings Krautman

Yes, but the later PSWs have 30mm only partially on their front. I think it was the upper hull which is still very vulnerable. That's why I'd include the late PSWs in the "useless" category. Greetings Krautman

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but i think Marders, at least the later models, and SU-76s can withstand an AT rifle, from the front. Which is why i should correct my statement to "Any vehicle which cannot withstand an ATR from the front is useless". Greetings Krautman

Sorry, it's a German language source. Geneva convention (1977 amendment) The translation could be paraphrased as: 2. "neither the civil populace nor individual civilians may be subjected to attacks. Application or threat of violence aiming for spreading terror among the populace is prohibited." 4. "Attacks not distinguishing between military and civilian targets are prohibited." "Attacks not directed against a specific military target are prohibited" 5. "Attacks falling under point 4. are specifically: "Bormbardment on several military targets in an area which contains civilian objects when the whole area is treated as a target." Yes, I know this is 1977. As of now, these bombings are a war crime. I bet the "actively resisting enemy force" was a target from 1942, when the bombing campaign began, on to 1945. What you couldn't get, because it was written in German, was that this pic and the text came from an multi-language/English site. I guess someone wanted the viewers to understand why the allies did this to Wesel and gave that ridiculous apology "there were these evil German forces in there using the civilians as a shield". But Wesel was bombed long before any allied soldier set foot into Germany. Be it far from me to defend the horrible crimes the Germans committed, but the country which signed, if your info is correct at all, was the Weimar Republic. Nürnberg is considered a sad episode of jurisdiction, at least by former law official and historian Sebastian Haffner, on the grounds that there was no real legal basis to some of the verdicts. The Haager Landkriegsordnung (Art. 25) prohibits the bombardment of cities and villages no matter with which means it is conducted. (yes, artillery, not aerial, was meant- it was 1907) [ March 13, 2006, 04:04 AM: Message edited by: Krautman ]

[ March 13, 2006, 04:00 AM: Message edited by: Krautman ]

Just ignore them. Any vehicle which cannot withstand them is useless. They are so cheap -even the German ones- that wasting precious HE ammo on then is, well, waste. If you have to deal with them in a scenario, you could perhaps try and guess were they are, judging terrain and which part of your vehicle is hit. Then send infantry, from maybe 150m you might spot them. A skilled opponent, however, might use their range and hide them in spots were you'll barely find them, maybe on the flanks, where no "real" ighting takes place. If you're a Russian in 1941, no problem: Choose T-34s and KVs instead of T-26s and BT-7s (which you'll do anyway). If you're a German, well, bad luck. Nothing you could do to for your PSWs and SPWs. Greetings Krautman

That's a nice first approach towards an excuse not to maintain halfway decent human behaviour in war. Probably these sentences are heard quite a lot in military courtrooms. Were you merely ready to kill or rather longing to kill?

Tagwyn, you sound like a 16th century Samurai. Honour and combat exclude one another in modern warfare, I think. Andreas, the current legal situation, as google told me, considers area bombardment a war crime. Rightly so, if you'd ask the inhabitants of Wesel in 1945. War crime or not, that's a futile discussion. If area bombing is not, why was offensive land war, until then a legitimate means of policy, declared a war crime, punishable by death, at Nürnberg?

Andreas, On bombing: I believe when you explicitly say it was no war crime, then you have a reasonable theoretical background to do so. When I call it a war crime, it is more out of intuition, I do not know too much about the Geneva convention, or what else is your statement's background. It's not that I entirely condemn what the western Allies did- they had to win the war. Had they known in advance that the bombing of civilians would be much less effective in bringing Germany down than anticipated, I believe they hadn't done it at all, and concentrated on factories and railway lines etc. To them, it was a means, and not the purpose, which the Holocaust was to Hitler. I was not alluding to McNamara's views on Vietnam at all, but to his feeling of the role he had in the strategic bombing campaigns of WWII. I saw the movie (The Fog of War, basically a long interview with McN.) during a stay with friends in the US, at the Santa Barbara Film Festival 2003. Thus, it is quite a while ago, but if I remember correctly, McNamara helped work out all these strategies at which altitude bombers fly (his decision forced the bomber crews to fly lower than their new bombers could- increased danger, but also increased accuracy), and which bombs they should throw first. He tried to figure out, by trial and error, which method worked "better", e.g. incendiary bombs, then explosives: People are supposed to rush onto the street to extinguish the fires, where then they are killed by the explosives. As far as I can remember, he felt quite uneasy about this work afterwards, and said that he surely would have been convicted as a war criminal had the allies lost, and, probably, rightly so. Greetings Krautman

I think this Eisenhower article is just as credible as its language style is scientific. The German POWs indeed did have a hard time in some allied camps, especially in those in the Rheinland were the Ruhr pocket POWs were sent to. But the numbers of those who died which the article on Eisenhower gives are grossly exaggerated. It might be hard to determine, because due to the mass surrender there was no complete registration, but they tried to find out the numbers afterwards. Official German historiography (Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung) gives a maximum of 20.000 who died in those camps. Obviously the allies had not anticipated such huge numbers of prisoners. They also had to provide food, clothing and shelter for the civilian populace and the millions of refugees. Pictures e.g. of the Ruhr area in 1945 show that literally everything was destroyed; it is hard to imagine anyone could survive a winter in this desert of rubble. Transportation and medical care was very hard to setup again. The Allies had to reestablish administration and to provide even the most basic means of survival for a whole nation; no wonder they could not establish prison camps with shelters and good food on the spot like those e.g. in the USA and Britain. Like John Kettler I think the fact that the Allies were also responsible for war crimes should not be denied, and I disagree with Andreas' opinion that the deliberate bombing of civilians, aiming to kill as many as possible, is not a war crime (Robert McNamara's retrospective in "The Fog of War" comes to mind). Depends on what you consider a crime, maybe the end justifies the means. But as many posters pointed out, allied war crimes are often used by the extreme political right to stir up anti-American emotions, e.g. the Dresden memorial day. This article is a nice example. [ March 12, 2006, 11:43 AM: Message edited by: Krautman ]

John Kettler, you mentioned flash- and smokeless propellant being used in WWII. What about today's forces? The muzzle flash of a modern assault rifle or a tank cannon seems pretty bright (at least in those action movies); do modern armies use these kinds of propellants? Would the flash be even brighter if they didn't? Greetings Krautman [ March 11, 2006, 04:26 AM: Message edited by: Krautman ]

Thanks for the replies. I don't get the argument with the Nashorn's vulnerability, because the T-34 is just as or even more vulnerable to the NH's return fire. Thanks, Joachim, for the link. The "many on few" approach is surely sensible, but probably more accessible to the russian side... To find out more about the Nashorn's performance vs. T-34s, I set up a test scenario. October 1943, cool, breeze, ten regular Nashorns (108 pts each) vs ten regular T-34/43(late) (113 pts), open, flat terrain. Each duel pair had its own lane; separated from the others by pine trees. I ran the scenario 5 times for each range. Results will not add up to 50 each time, due to both vehicles destroyed or fleeing. range: 2000m; Nashorn: 13% to hit T-34, chance to destroy it: good; T-34: 7%/good. Outcome: Nashorn:T-34 36:10 1500m; Nashorn: 22%/very good; T-34: 15%/good Outcome: 36:15. Up til now basically confirming what Jason said. 1000m; 34%/very good; 29%/good Outcome: 23:31. This really surprised me: The T-34s were winners at that range, at least in these 5x 10 vs 10 duels. This might lead to the audacious and probably even heretical theory that the 76.2 is OVERmodeled, at least concerning accuracy... No, just kidding. The results in the individual rounds were always extreme, e.g. 2:8 and then 7:3. Might be due to happenstance. However, it becomes clear why the T-34 and the "Ratsch-Bumm" were that much feared. John Kettler, interesting info about the propellant. Never heard of that before. Btw i've seen a pic of a W-SS Marder with some 15-20 victory rings painted on the barrel, the commander proudly displaying various crosses. Panther Commander: can you benefit from TRPs when the vehicle has already moved? What about when it just rotated? Greetings Krautman [ March 08, 2006, 07:56 AM: Message edited by: Krautman ]

There is a feature that reinforcements are only given if the original force was decimated, in various degrees, depending on whether the designer specifies the reinforcement to be battalion reserve, regimental reserve etc. I have not tested this, but probably one could prevent the operation from becoming imbalanced this way. In general, I think operations are too complex to be balanced though; even a normal scenario requires quite a bit of playtesting. With CMC, operations might be superfluous anyway, right? Greetings Krautman

I recently set up a scenario in October 1943, south, cool, clouded sky. A crack Nashorn and a regular/vet Füsilier 43 cpy were about to defend against reg/vet russian Guards infantry and lots of T-34/43 (late). The Nashorn was supposed to lie in wait, snipe at the russian armor and then take up another position. (It was hidden in scattered trees, with gentle slopes to allow a hull-down position). Now when the first lone T-34 appeared at 800m, the odds seemed quite good: The Nashorn's crew, gun, optics, and position should provide a nice advantage. The fact that the Nashorn was in scattered trees obviously hid it from the T-34's sight a few seconds. The Nashorn was able to fire three shots before the T-34 (regular) fired its first. The Nashorn's three shots missed, the T-34's first one hit home and knocked the Nashorn out. Bad luck, I thought, and tried the scenario again, and again, and another time. Results were almost similar: Usually one T-34 knocked out, then the Nashorn was lost. All duels were one-to-one, the Nashorn always had a hull-down position, the T-34s did not. The Nashorn always fired first. It hit with the third shot, the first two never seemed to hit (at 700-800m). As soon as a T-34 could get a first shot, it hit more often than not: Usually the Nashorn was killed by the first shot that was fired on it. (Although once two upper hull penetrations without effect occured) The editor gave a hit % of 30-35 for the Nashorn, in said position and distance. The T-34s had 14-16%. I'll test again, probably this was bad luck in a row, but it seems strange. I remember Marders to also be rather useless against T-34s, despite their being able to penetrate and kill their opponent nearly just as well as the T-34s. The T-34s, in my impression -and I play both sides- seem to hit quite well. Have you had good experience using Nashorn, Marder & co? Greetings Krautman

There you go Dave:

Thanks for the answer.

Sorry if this question has already been asked- but, Moon, will European customers be able to purchase CMC if cdv doesn't take part? I'd guess there is a considerable amount of European CM enthusiasts like zollerc and me. Since some symbols and terms are illegal over here, at least in my country, a European version is necessary for us. Apart from the printed manual issue, I'd guess cdv did a good job. Greetings Krautman

I just love formal language. Since there actually is a "Dictionary of American Slang", probably they even sell a dictionary of formal, old-timey, or Oscar-Wildese language somewhere.

I shalt never again neglect Thine noble time schedule, my liege. Please, mighty Lord, accept Thine humble servant's apologies. Man, that is style! "magnanimous"? I'll have to look that up. A derivate from Latin, I presume.