Wartgamer

http://www.hypospace.net/equipment/mortars.htm This page shows the ballistic shape of the 2 in mortar rounds. Given the ammo expenditure this table shows, there must be some resupply if it is used during a firefight. The US grouped the 60mm weapon at company and one of the main functions of the jeep/trailers was resupplying ammo for the MMG and 60mm mortars. [ March 28, 2005, 08:36 AM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]

http://panzersinnormandy.tripod.com/ Cromwells were only good for towing Panzer IVs

http://panzersinnormandy.tripod.com/ Excellent photos. Some almost look too real. Enjoy.

The 3AD initial battle action clearly demonstrates the 'non-surgical' nature of artillery in the bocage. It is very similar to using artillery in jungle fighting. Hopefully the reader appreciates the staggering losses the 3AD took on its first day. More than likely, 10% or more may have been from friendly-fire. Who knows? It would be nice to know what losses teh Germans took in this battle. [ March 27, 2005, 12:55 PM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]

It is a given. Its when troops are attacking or other situations where they are in the open. The Germans were very insistant on attacking any time they could. It became almost preditatble. Its usually mortars AND artillery that are combined to get those high percentages. It is not always those high numbers either. In jungle warfare, it can be as low as 50%. Heres an interesting stat. In Italy, 1000 KIA US troops were examined in detail. They wanted to see how they died, who died, etc. 87.5% were infantry or armored infantry. 2.7% were artillery. 2.7% were tank. 2.1% Engineers. 0.9% TD and the rest some others. Clearly, the inf/arm-inf were not 87.5% of the troops in the area. Most of the infs were due to either fragments or 'HE'. 80% were non-coms. 5.9% were officers. Rest NCOs. 228 out of 310 of single wound cases were either described as HE or Fragments. About 3/4. Rest were 'samll arms'. Multiple wound cases were very messy and often hard to determine what did the killing. Being machine gunned to death but laying in artillery barrage afterwards starts mucking up the stats. But many HE and Frags could also have been direct fire weapons also. Its a messy business and some of the pics are unbelievable. [ March 26, 2005, 01:29 PM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]

One of these carrier types was featured on a TV show the other day (Its a wierd show with a Marine barking and features 'Mailcall'). Anyway, this vehicle was being driven by the 'Gunny' and he did a complete 180 turn with a locked track. This vehicle turned completely around what appeared to be seconds. Nothing like you see in the CM games. If a flamethrower was mounted on these things, It could easily approach an enemy position quickly, flame it, turn around and be gone.

I think Jason and I are in agreement that attacking defensive positions with artillery, and Veritible proves this out, is largely a waste of material. Veritible was attacking typically dug in troops. Not the Maginot line. Artillery, if not used against an enemy that is attacking, is best used against enemy artillery, mortars, Command Posts, lines of communications. Artillery can not fire full tilt forever. The US found this out in WWII. Shooting 24 guns at platoon sized targets gets expensive. The logistics of moving ammo from a US factory, across an ocean, across France shoots the logistician in the foot. Each 33 pound shell 'weighs' 100s of pounds in fuel, space, time, parts, food, lives, etc. Troops do not have to stay in the cellers by the way. WWI proved this out. As long as a warning system allows troops to reman thier positions with fields of fire, an artillery attack followed by assaulting troops can be repulsed. [ March 26, 2005, 11:53 AM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]

Infantry in buildings are just too vulnearble to direct and indirect HE. The taller a building is, the greater number of indirect fire rounds it will 'catch'. This is because rounds are coming in at an angle. No one is going to stay in a house catching 75mm+ HE for very long. Unreinforced buildings are also very vulnerable to small arms AP rounds. Sustained HMG fire can even 'mousehole' a building.

So the Germans had adequate artillery? They did not even supply adequate panzerfaust. A German estimate of casualties was around 100K for June/July btw. The fact that they lost so many troops to surrender is another 'resource' wasted (not sure if counted in the 100K). Rommel himself brought it to Hitler's attention that he was not being supplied enough men/material to allow fighting to continue. Then a plane shot him up. The Germans should not have held anything in Normandy but fought a war of defensive attrition where they inflicted greater casualties while slowly giving ground. This would have curtailed the loss from Prisoners and stopped the wholesale loss of major equipment. The Germans lost many more men to artillery while attacking than they did while defending. I suppose most of the initial posts in this thread have been forgotten but I will reiterate the points anyway. One of the things that this 'logisticians' warfare supposes is that the enemy will let you just bombard the snot out of you. In other words, artillery supremacy. The US may have had 'shell' superiority but not supremacy. The obvious thing is that an enemy will be able to determine where your very valuable/expensive artillerymen and pieces are (counter-battery). Will you risk losing them to kill/wound a half dozen grunts? If the arty is being used as a pre-lude to an attack, will the enemy artillery not prepare to get its bloody bang for buck by attacking your exposed troops? So even if you get 1 'victory' for each 100 shells, the enemy might get his 1 victory for 15 shells? [ March 26, 2005, 11:23 AM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]

The origional point of the thread was about vulnerability of certain positions to indirect fire. A mortar emplacement being cited I believe. The discussion, while naturally looking at many aspects, is relevant. What is being discussed is how much more effective a 'concentration' (that is, when multiple batteries combine fire on a target area) and the expected payoff for rounds burned. The CW expected about 250mx250m to be a concentration a regiment of guns (24 guns). Thats 62500 sq m. I think nearly everyone would agree with that. What is debateable is the ability to 'move' that square around. Or even to observe it once it starts developing. Now nearly anyone must realize that the shells are not distributed uniformly in the square. In the very real situation where artillery is firing perpendicular to an enemy line (that is, the guns and enemy front line are parallel), The square will basically having greater 'concentration' in the middle parrelel area. So any optimization of using these concentrations relies on a concentration of troops and hopefully near the center area. Its trading precision for numbers. In the bocage, the necessity to concentrate ones own infantry (to cover small individual fields) was offset by the excellent cover/concealment available. Calling in concentrations in the Bocage is hampered by the inability to actually observe the initial ranging rounds and the danger to one's own troops. http://members.tripod.com/~nigelef/errorsmistakes.htm This is a must read. Notice the use of a 'pivot' gun to fire a single round to confirm the calcs. This is somewhat hopeful since the dispersion of a gun can be much greater than the requirement. Just using a single battery of guns, where one gun is used to 'vector-in' the battery, can be prone to error-assumptions. Lets say you are a FO, see a target (platoon of infantry moving), call for a ranging round (based off a nearby terrain feature), estimate its relation to the moving target, and then call for a 10 round FFE. The fact that the ranging round could have been an outlier (see dispersion), makes the whole FFE a crap shoot. At best, given the predictable nature of width of dispersion to length, you may have got quite a few rounds somewhere laong the line between the guns and the target. But getting some of the target guys would have been luck. More than likely, the ranging round and initial rounds of the FFE would have made the target troops scramble for cover/concealment. dispersion This is a top down look at dispersion from a gun showing percentages. Some data for thought.. [ March 26, 2005, 10:54 AM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]

This is Jason's origional argument. He seems to want to imply that just tossing shells will eventually defeat an enemy. Unless they have 6 months of labor/material invested. Its untrue. The German trench position shown would not take anything like 6 months. Hedgerows defeat his time period even quicker. His argument is clearly based on non-typical enemy unit densitys. There is no way that should have been missed.

Cover/vulnerability from artillery can be broken down as follows: 1. None. Out in the open. The impacting artillery will cause casualties primarily from fragments. Being close enough to be killed/wounded from the actual blast would mean 100% death from fragments anyway. Lying down significantly reduces your vulnerability. Height being the factor. Airbursts can negate even lying down. Airbursts can be caused by timed fuses, proxity fuses or shells jumping back off the ground from impact (those shells that come in at a steep enough angle). 2. Beneath ground level. Purposely dug position or naturally occuring terrain feature (ditch, etc). Very good temporary protection. Fragments defeated by earth. Airbursts mitigated but still a problem. ground bursts need very close strikes to defeat the earth cover. 3. Beneath ground level w/overhead cover. Overhead cover defeats most fragments. Safe from falling ejecta. Still vulnerable to direct hits by HE shells that will defeat the structure through collapse. 4. Same as above with additional thickness. Thickness depends on HE content of threat artillery. HE set on delay (even mortars) require substantial earthworks. In the case of the infantry trench I posted before, the weapons positions give cover from direct fire weapons and initial rounds of artillery. The communication trench gives type 2. cover. The individual 'U.' positions give type 3. cover. And finally, the Unterstant gives type 4 cover for a group of men. Bocage: The actual nature of the hedgerows allowed each man to generate an individual U position that also functioned as a Unterstant position also. The Command Posts still would have to dig a substantial fortification I would suppose. The use of Bocage fighting, with its extreme density of troops, is as poor an example of troop dispersion in defense that you could find. I am not surprised that Jason would have to resort to it. I actually copied that map into MS Paint and did substantial measurements. Even in this dense situation, you can't typically get that many positions under a square like he thinks. Artillery can not be as squared as he says. You can not 'place' the square with such precision as needed. [ March 25, 2005, 02:13 PM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]

Actually Jason came into the thread with his attrition theory and used the bad example of DBP as proof of his theory. As has been pointed out, the French were perfect targets. Its hardly material to relate to the armies fielded in ETO. Also, it has been pointed out to him that his 'tons-o-ammo' vs. 'tons-o-building-materials' is wrong in many situations. The hedgerows being a prime example. The tons of material (hedgerows/sturdy buildings) are already there and easily defeats artillery. See the Normandy map he posted. Individual dugouts into a hedgerow do not take weeks to build. It is perhaps a few hours work. Multiple dugouts are positioned throughout that map. He wants you to believe each one is manned. Jason's attrition theory is spiraling closely to using artillery as a tactical weapon. He wants you to believe that you must go out and attack with it AND with other weapons. In other words, combined arms. Nothing new. For whatever reason, winning must be by attrition to Jason. The Germans lost nearly as many men from surrendering units. They will be explained as attrition by Jason. The Germans did not send more than 1 replacement for each 10 men lost in Normandy (June/July). There will be another attrition aspect to this. The Germans were not always defending and suffered horribly at St. Lo trying to counter attack (and in many other actions in Normandy). They were murdered by artillery while trying to counter attack St. Lo (which saved the day since the US units in St Lo were weak). Artillery is best used against troops that are attacking in the open to get the best bang for buck. The US and CW artillery was just too well tied in and the German tactics from the previous years of fighting were old school. Mortars, believe it or not, are more effective in support of units attacking hedgerows than most artillery. They do not have the very long dispersion that artillery exhibits, and the very steep angle, combined with fuse delay, can inflict casualties. The US used HE/smoke mortar concentrations to root out Germans in hedgerows on more than a few occasions. Artillery in the jungle only accounts for about 50% cas usually. The Bocage may have had similar results and inf weapons/direct fire AFV, etc may have made up for the numbers. Being in one hedgerow, facing an enemy in another; I would not want artillery that was behind me to fire at that hedgerow. I would be well within friendly-fire danger.

A Military Encyclopedia Based on Operations in the Italian Campaigns, 1943-1945. They were in demand as infantry support but also functioned as artillery [ March 24, 2005, 06:03 PM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]

The Germans would counter with depth if they could. They basically had a thinly held front line backed up by strength in depth. Putting all your pies in the window was not too smart.

I guess the game should also track barrels then. Once a two barrel LMG gets one hot and swaps (and keeps firing), its starting to reach its maximum temp. Not sure if teh game can get all this detail in.

Then am I correct in making a second layman's translation: Wartgamer is saying that rounds that don't hit what he is aiming at will surely not hit something else? Isn't Jason saying that for every 25-30 shells fired one will normally land close enough to somebody to cause a casualty? Differences in the density of the enemy soldiers within the impact area would not appear to have an effect on the rate of casualties. If the enemy soldiers are spread uniformly through the area, a single shell may miss completely, or only land close enough to affect a single soldier. If the enemy soldiers are concentrated in part of the impact area, more of the shells will miss completely, but any shells that hit the area of concentration may cause multiple casualties. Six of one, half a dozen of the other. Wholesale killing with artillery is neither very romantic nor very heroic, is it? </font>

]web page Here is data for a German 150mm divisional artillery piece. Note the 50% zones in length and width.

Not trying to interest you. Trying to logically find where the 120mm fit into the German Order of Battle. http://web.telia.com/~u18313395/normandy/gerob/gerob.html If you go through much of this information, its evident that not many 120mm are even at the Regt level (and so Andreas is wrong). 81mm are all the rage. So, if in the middle of 1944 (the 120mm has been in production for awhile), these divisions are not using it; Then who is? 81mm would tend to be lost easier than 120mm due to proximity to the enemy. Thats one of the reasons that the production was greater. Speculation: Were they in other divisions in France not in Normany? In Italy? Russia? Certainly those divisions burnt out in Russia and transferred to France/Germany/wherever, did not bring heavy equipment with them. And US heavy mortars were attached to infantry outside of thier typical unit grouping.

Well its either I am one thing or another. No pleasing everyone thats for sure. I forget. Have you ever had anything memorable to say? You seem sarcastic and annoyed.

http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-armour/allied/bren_carrier.htm Its a T16.

http://img62.exs.cx/img62/7726/mgpost4jk.th.jpg' alt='mgpost4jk.th.jpg'> A MG position showing a 'U.' position adjacent

This shows a SQUAD trench system. The shelter at the rear is the bomb proof. The Unterstand was the hide out during intense bombardment. The 'U' in the trench system were small dugouts for less intense bombardment. [ March 24, 2005, 10:46 AM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]

Your math was based on this. The bottom line is your whole argument is based on density of troops in an area. The reality is that troops are spread out in a thin line and area is largely dead space. For a laymen translation: Jason is saying that rounds that don't hit what he is aiming at will surely hit something else.