[Turning hull towards biggest danger]

I did say that they where spare parts Steve, I'm not an idiot.

[Idea for sharpshooters (reduced borg spotting)]

I for one would still like to have control over the targeting by snipers, at least to the extent that I can manage their fire against exposed tank crews in a time sensitive / tactical way, especially while ambushing them with a hiden ATG.

I'm referring to my technique in CMx1 which has been to open up on enemy armoured vehicles with any availiable ATGs and Panzerknockers with them being helped by snipers and HMGs employed for suppression. Their fire obviously reduces the enemies AFVs spotting abilities and especially can impact upon their return fire by hitting crew members and creating the resultant stunning shock delay. :cool:

Ideally, snipers get the hit without me having to give away the positions of my HMG net or else my HMGs can then be devoted to tackling the waves of supporting Infantry elements.

So I agree with BFC on the maintaining of player handling of snipers in CMx2 and continuing to treat them just like all the other units.

[ September 09, 2005, 11:00 PM: Message edited by: Zalgiris 1410 ]

[Move to Contact]

Originally posted by Cameroon:

I think the idea that Bigduke is looking for is "Move to New Contact".

I can see the usefulness of that, since seen units that are inconsequential are still halting units that should be cautious about new threats, but not about the known and dismissed threats already in view.

I'm not lobbying, because I do'nt deem it a necessary feature.

A "Move to New Contact" order is an excellent way to put it Cameroon, I'm sure BigDuke6 would agree with me. That's definately the best solution to the in game problem IME and I'm sure it would also IMHO help with reducing the need for scripted commands being required and called for by posters. BFC what d'ya think, ay? :eek:

Yes I am lobbying for it Steve, please consider it thanks.

Regards,

Saul.

[What if Poland had defeated the Blitz?]

Originally posted by Bigduke6:

There's a famous story about the top Czech general begging Benes for orders to fight the Germans even after the British sold the Czechs down the river, but Benes nixed the idea as disastrous for the Czech nation.

I hadn't heard that one before 6 could you elaborate upon this or post the story in greater detail when you find your paper (if or when you do so) thanks, that'd be great. :cool:

[Turning hull towards biggest danger]

As this might be slightly relevent here I would like to both see and have it count in protecting tanks the inclusion of having road wheels and spare tracks mounted on the front hulls of tanks as it was often done in practice. :cool:

[Battle Scope]

Yeah, I understand what you are saying Paul AU, the workload of managing larger scale stuff is its main challenging drawback for sure. The effort though is rewarded most of the time for me as it is so much more involving and intense. BTW all of us posting here with the wish to (eventually) continue playing the Btln+ games in CMx2 are still of the opinion of both keeping and improving the Company or two size as the priority. That's because AIUI we are all seeing things in a bottom up, get it right from the lowest level first and build up from there - so that the feel is totally right from the smallest aspects which will determine the quality of the larger sized games just as much. Our concern has been to have the best CMx2 for everyone and definately just as much for the Company and lower stuff. :cool:

[What if Poland had defeated the Blitz?]

Actually I'm a Rugby Union bloke myself, and that's in a State where Rugby practically isn't even in the Sports section! (Melbourne is the birth place of Aussie Rules Football.) The nature and quality of WWI Generals are interesting subjects but yeah I agree outside this thread except for individuals in relevant specific instances.

No offense taken, don't know why you thought that I might have, but I was just making it clear that I didn't intend any to others myself either.

[ September 09, 2005, 07:30 PM: Message edited by: Zalgiris 1410 ]

[What if Poland had defeated the Blitz?]

Mind you roqf77 I can say what I please about the Anglo-Saxon race because I am part Anglo-Saxon myself.

Because of where that part comes from I really ought to barrick for the Cobblers, but the last time I checked they were bloody still in Division 4. BTW I like to say that I go for Arsenal, but stress that I am really more of a Tottemham kind of persons, if you know what I mean!

(I was young and I liked the cannon, what can I say!)

[Battle Scope]

Steve, Steve, Steve you BFC, you may not have thought of them as relevent when, at the very last minute, they were included on the map as a unit in the CMx1 games, but I use my imagination and prefer to think of them as though they are Forward / Tactical Btln HQs. Actually I do the same thing with Company HQs as well, because they seem to operate more like a glorified Pltn HQ than a real Coy HQ with all its attendant equipment and cargo.

Slap me around and call me Susan if you must, but that's how I've always played my CMBB & CMAK.

[What if Poland had defeated the Blitz?]

Whose propaganda? (BTW roqf77, this is a class thing, I wasn't intending to describe the whole Anglo-Saxon race here, just the butchering dimwits at the top.) :mad:

[What if Poland had defeated the Blitz?]

Originally posted by Bigduke6:

I remember the main arguements well enough. They were:

1. The Czechs had right fine weapons.

Besides the tanks and artillery the Czechs had excellent small arms and at that time the Czech MG was the best in the world.

2. The Czechs from a morale and warfighting point of view were not pushovers.

Nationalism was alive and well in Czechoslovakia. (Mass public physical health exercises, youth camps, patriotic songs, media promoting the national ideal, etc.) Also militarism was pretty big there, after all it was the exploits of the Czech Legion in 1918-20 that pretty much put the idea of a Czech nation on the international map.

So, the arguement goes, the individual soldiers the Czechs would have put into the field would not have been particlarly better or worse than the Germans'.

3. The Werhmacht 1938 was nothing close to Wehrmacht 1939.

The arguement here is that the German military was tooling up, training, expanding, and in a general state of flux. Vehicles were in short supply, and something like 2/3 of the German tanks that invaded Poland, either hadn't been manufactured or were being operated by the Czech army.

So the Germans had neither the equipment nor the training to conduct a Blitzkrieg against Czechoslovakia. True the thinkers had a plan to make that possible, but the plan wasn't close to implemented by 1938. So if the German 1938 army had fought the Czechs, it would have been primarily infantry not mechanized warfare, and so the Czechs could have held out.

4. Czechoslovakia's border terrain is really defensible.

Thanks for all that BigDuke6, that makes it clear enough and you've also helped me to confirm my understanding of the issues involved there and then. (Especially in terms of thinking about the German level of military preparedness and amounts of production etc.)

FROM ABOVE: 'Nationalism was alive and well in Czechoslovakia. (Mass public physical health exercises, youth camps, patriotic songs, media promoting the national ideal, etc.)' I had no idea that there was a Czech Nationlistic Youth Group!

From a few things that I've come across regarding both the morale and the performance of Czechs during WWI this makes sense. Apparently they started fighting the war fairly lacklusteredly especially against their fallow Slavs for Austro-Hungaria. However they became quite willing to fight for the Hapsberg Empire, at least before it became ruled by just the Crown alone, when Italy entered the war against the Central Powers. They also fought better under their own leadership because they were to inquisative/intelligent and asked too many questions for their Austrian handlers. (Reminds me of the troubles that the colonials gave their thick headed podgy British (almost always English) controllers.

BTW the smallarms and MGs that the Czechoslovak Army had in 1938-9 are carried by the Rumanians in CMBB, that's their rifles, LMGs & HMGs were all of Czech design and manufacture.

I can qualify your points about the maintenance and brake down issues for the Germans to the extent that they had had the previous experience of these problems in Austria earlier in 1938. AFAIK they still had only some unresolved matters crop up in October 1938 requiring only minor improvements at the most. However, IIRC and AIUI there were not any major concerns during March 1939, at least from what I've read. (Mainly Guderian and one of his biggest military historian fans Kenneth Macksey.)

Cheers Paul, :eek:

Regards,

Saul.

[ September 09, 2005, 11:07 AM: Message edited by: Zalgiris 1410 ]

[What if Poland had defeated the Blitz?]

Originally posted by stoat:

Page two of this thread. I believe that it had been stated that Blitzkrieg had first been performed in WW1.

Please say by who and provide a quote, its become a long thread, thanks stoat.

[What if Poland had defeated the Blitz?]

Sorry BigDuke6 I got confused, I should have typed 'BigDuke6 and Jacobs ladder2 (Paul)'.

The Czechs could definately have given the Germans a very hard time of it in late 1938, since a lot of the Sudetenland was good defensive mountainous terrain with some fortifications. They also had AFAIK a large army and quite a few good light tanks, T-35s mostly, while the Germans had few comperable at the time. That said apparently when the Germans occupied the protectorate over 6 months later well over half were found not to be mechanically functioning. But still the Czechs had better artillery than the rest of their other neighbours although I don't know how much the had. In the areas of ATGs and aircraft I don't know much either.

It is very interesting to consider this baering in mind the effects of the Munich Pact. The consequenses for Rumania was that she lost her main armourer as did Lithuania and I think Poland and Yugoslavia may have somewhat as well.

Consider this if the Czechs had of chosen to have resisted and performed reasonably enough there were quite a lot of geo-political stuff that could have come about. I don't think that the Slovakians would have rised up to separate in any way unless Prugue would have fallen. Hungary might have joined in the German attack at some point and that would have forced Rumania to have heavily consider intervening to help Czechoslovakia. That may have propted Bulgaria to attack her hoping that most of the Rumanian Army was devoted against Hungaria. That situation might by then have induced Yugoslavia to have attacked Germany, Hungaria and Bulgaria a situation inwhich the Croatians could have been more inclined to fight especially againt Hungaria while the Macidonians would definately have been keen to fight againts Bulgaria. :eek:

With all this going, and the probability that both France and Britain (and their World wide Empires) would have to choose to go to war against this Central Powers replica eventually, but at least likely, what would Poland have chosen to do? :confused: (Not to mention Stalin in the long run.)

BTW BigDuke6 do you still have the paper or at least remember your arguement or sources? :cool:

[ September 08, 2005, 11:03 PM: Message edited by: Zalgiris 1410 ]

[Battle Scope]

O.K. BFC now I'm crystal clear, so AIUI with CMx2 I'm gonna get to experience things the way it was in them olden days with CMBO!

[Battle Scope]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

I'm going to guess that multi-battalion sized games are not going to be possible for a whlie due to hardware issues.

Argh... I don't know why it is some people refuse to read what I write! CMx2 is designed the same way CMx1 was designed in terms of the scale. THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE.

So, for the last time... we have not changed anything.

[What if Poland had defeated the Blitz?]

I assume stoat is referring to something he posted in another thread jacobs ladder2, hope to find out which.

It would be interesting and pertinent for the issue in this thread- the concept of Blitzkrig and whether the German invasion of Poland was one.

I think that JasonC doesn't have a good idea of what the concept of Blitzkrig is or at least he is posting with a very different definition of the term than I have and I think that most others do as well.

Munstein, when complaining about Barbarossa it of it not having proper strategic goals, put it something like this, that the Blitzkrieg method was an operational/tactical formula. The use of indirect approaches for the cutting of lines of communications and the surrounding of Soviet forces by mobile (mechanized) formations with air support and recce constitute the methods of this formula.

I am argueing that these techniques were actually employed in Poland in 1939.

BTW BigDuke6 you do realise that the Luftwaffe did have a similar number of Stukas and Me 110 fight-bombers in the Polish campaigne as in the West in 1940. Also many of the same German Officers were commanding Panzer forces in both campaignes, excluding of course Rommell. So if what happenned in the West was a Blitzkrieg then why not Poland. They were using the same techniques basically and the only major difference was Munstein's Sickle-snip Plan. (Paul how about that or did they suddenly all just magically become Blitzkreig-ites in May 1940?) :eek:

Another difference was the massing of the Stuka bombing strikes for the Meuse crossing of the Panzer Korps. Here they were employed in leiu of supporting artillery because of the circumstances. But as I said this only needs to occur as according to Guderine's doctrines when required. When not the Luftwaffe's funtion is recce and interdiction straifing and bombing as well as focusing upon the destruction or at least the disruption of concentrations of enemy forces.

The norrowest of guidence of armoured detatchments and the closest of direct air support imagined were not definative requirements of the Blitzkieg concept. Of course these kinds of force multipliers would have been appreciated and even desired back then but were not technologically capable of being executed. They did use rudimentory mothods of them in Poland, if fact they were very interested in trialing the new techniques that they had developed in these areas and the tests were promising enough. They did improve upon them later on during the war to be sure, but they definately used these virgin methods in Poland.

BTW It was an analytical report that Armenguad submitted to the French General HQ describing what in his analysis were the German methods employed in Poland to the best of his abilities and was not something that the guy just made up, thank you very much JasonC!

[ September 09, 2005, 08:17 PM: Message edited by: Zalgiris 1410 ]

[What if Poland had defeated the Blitz?]

Dear stoat, you're welcome to join in on debating about the concept of Blitzkrieg by all means, please do so.

[What if Poland had defeated the Blitz?]

Originally posted by Sergei:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by roqf77:

i mean what is jasonc dandelion etc basicly arguing?

Jason is saying that Germany won the campaign because it was far more powerful than Poland, so differences in doctrine had little to do with it.

Dandelion is arguing that the Polish and German armies weren't as inequal in strength as Jason claims. </font>

[Battle Scope]

Dear Steve, sorry to have been harping on about the oversized unit layout for multi-Btln/Rgmts thing so much. But if you polled me again it would still now be my number 1 aspect of CMx1 to keep in for CMx2. That said , I guess I just had to take the opportunity to express my opinion in this thread. (I feel like I've been polled where it hurts the most and no BFC is gonna kiss it better...cos he said he wouldn't.)

I should explain why I perfer playing the larger scale over the smaller Company sized way. I like to play thinking in terms of line and manoeuvre elements not just of units. At company level have squads of a platoon or two shot up or bombed to hell is catestophic or my few HMGs, guns, mortars or teams of whatever is detrimentally crippling, not to mention how fatal it can be losing half or more of a lone tank platoon. I rather being able to use companys of infanty especially if one or two of them become ineffective, platoons of guns, a number of HMG and mortar sections and quite a large number of tanks to represent companys or even up to a whole battalion.

I find it more interesting this way, while to me it feels too arcade like just handling a reinforced company or two. The units become for me a bit too suseptible to elements of chance, rather than to handling and in depth planning. May be its just me? Also most of what I've read about WWII fighting is above the scale of company and down focus material so my focus is on the greater tactical scope.

From what BFC is indicating IMO it seems like CMx2 is being designed to be more like a better version of Close Combat than how I think of CMx1. (Not that I didn't like Close Combat but I prefer CMx1 because of the larger scope.)

[Engineering, mines, wire and breaching operations in CMX2.]

Originally posted by flamingknives:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Zalgiris 1410:

Flamingknives have you got a heavy drinking problem? Perhaps you should hit the decaf

How did you guess? My tea mug is a bit on the weighty side and sometimes my hands wreak revenge by typing vitriolic rhetoric.

I see quite a few people claiming that a particular alteration would be simple to program, but I think that Charles is really the only person qualified to comment. Or one of the other guys at BFC.

Perhaps was needed </font>

[Battle Scope]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

I'm going to guess that multi-battalion sized games are not going to be possible for a whlie due to hardware issues. If you went back 7 years ago and tried doing that with CMBO you'd have found it impractical (read "impossible") even on the fastest system.

The 6:1 ratio thing is a joke Nobody plays like that. In fact, I think most people probably play games closer to 2:1 or even 1.5:1. 3:1 was a rule of thumb for Western forces to be "assured" victory. 5 or 6:1 for Soviets, along with CRUDLOADS of artillery. Since nobody plays things that way on a regular basis in any great numbers, why is this relevant to the discussion? Oh wait... I just answered my own question... it isn't

Steve

BFC this is bloody horrible news and very depreessing.

BTW, BFC I think that you are confused about the nature of my CMx1 addiction to playing with Btlns. For CMx2 I'm gonna be hanging out for my need for them, because I don't just play with just one or two Btlns against a reinforced Company or such but with multi-Btln (even Rgmts) combined arms forces fighting against a similarly sized opponent. :eek:

That's what I'm going to be missing out on by the sounds of it.

What am I going to have to do to get my fix then? :confused:

[What if Poland had defeated the Blitz?]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Z - The statement I am saying Bryan P. is just making up, was this -

"The German system consists essentially of making a breach in the front with armour and aircraft, then to throw mechanised and motorised columns into the breach, to beat down its shoulders to right and left in order to keep on enlarging it, at the same time as armoured detachments, guided, protected and reinforced by aircraft, advance in front of the supporting divisions in such a way that the defense's maneouverability is reduced to impotence".

This is imaginary doctrine, not historical fact, about any operation being described. It is an ideal in the mind of the writer, generalized over facts not in evidence, ascribing far more forethought to the means the Germans employed than there actually was. He is describing his ideal of Blitzkrieg and afterward tacking that ideal onto the Germans, not discovering in the actual conduct of the Germans what they in fact did and how each element of it worked or failed to work.

To see this must be the origin of the passage, notice he alleges the penetrations were "guided" by aircraft. There isn't the least evidence anything of the kind ever occurred. You can read every scrap of memoirs of the German commanders and not find a single instance of it.

He is making it up. He thinks it would be neat, and effective. He sees something that is effective overall, and he makes up causes for that effectiveness that he imagines would be adequate to explain it, feasible, and clever. The actual participants did nothing of the kind and we know it.

1) Firstly JasonC you are wrong if you are thinking that Bryan Perrett made this quote up. I think that you must have read my origional post incorrectly. I wasn't quoting him, since this was a quote from an origional second hand source that he quoted, though he probably also had to translated it from the French.

I have this in Bryan Perrett's "A History of Blitzkrieg", published by Hale, London, 1983, its on page 79. I copied exactly the entire notated quote he made from somebody else's first hand report in full in that post. (Most of which JasonC has above.)

As I expained it in that post it was actually put in a report given to the French General HQ in late 1939. It was made by a French observer who was in Polad during the campaigne, the General A. Armengaud of the Armee de L'Air and delivered when he returned to France from Poland.

In his native French, Armenguad included this report in his "Batailles Politiques et Militaires sur l'Europe" published in Paris, 1948. So I fail to think of Bryan Perrett as 'just making it up'! :eek:

I for one consider it immpossible for Bryan Perrett to have ghost written for Armenguad in 1948 or 1939 either, how about you JasonC?

2) Secondly, JasonC I'm beginning to think that you ought to start to provide evidence that proves your questioning of what Bryan Perrett / Armengaud are referring to in the quote regarding armoured detactments being 'guided' by aircraft, rather than emphatically just stating that it was not the case.

Indeed JasonC, of course I had noticed that the author alleges in the quote that the advance of armoured detactments in the front of the supporting divisions were "guided" by aircraft. I kind of liked that term being applied here from when I first came acoss this passage and still do appreciated it, actually.

You claim in relation to aircraft having 'guided' the armoured detactments that there isn't the least evidence anything of the kind ever occurred and delcare that one could not find a single instance of it from reading every scrap of memoirs of the German commanders.

(JasonC, please take this advice into your consideration, asking questions alone is a fine thing to do in any inquiry or discussion, but you absolutely should not argue with statements that are utterly false or at least that you can't back up by providing evidence for. You can express your opinions as much as you want by all means for sure, even if they are based on assumptions or inferrences or without any knowledge at all, but put them forward as such.)

Now getting back to my issue with JasonC on the subject of armoured detatchments being 'guided' by aircraft as described in the quote first calls for definitions. At least I hope to explain here how I interpret the terms and there by be followed by the reader clearly enough what I'm saying.

The two terms and their relationship to one another here are 'armoured detatchments' and there being 'guided' by aircraft.

AIUI, the term 'armoured detatchments' does not just refer to units of Panzers only, but to bodies of forces that include all of the elements combined as mechanised manuoeuvre groups. By this I mean Kampfgroupen (Battlegroups or Task Forces) that have actual Panzers in them as well as the Light and Panzer Divisions more so than the Korps.

The term 'guided' here applied to something that the Luftwaffe's aircraft were providing for these 'armoured detatchments' on the ground for which there is a broad definition and a narrower one. The broader general sense being referred to with this term is arial reconnaissance. The narrow one is restricted to a concept of somekind of a more directly overhead 'spy in the sky' direction commentary / immediate information liassoning.

There are examples of arial reconnaissance providing information to Panzer incorporating Kamfgroupen and to Light and Panzer Divisions and the Korps that they were serving in during the Polish campaigne. First to start things off, in von Mellenthin's "Panzer Battles" he relates, while indicating the the jumpiness of German troops in the first few days of the War, how the troops all shot at an approaching aircraft to find out later that it was the Luftwaffe commander of the air liasson for their 3rd Korps which was deployed on the right (southern) wing of Guderians XIX Korps against the corridor.

The guy didn't see any joke in what had almost just happenned to him.

Mainly though, in a book called "Battlegroup" by James Lukas, 1993 there is the first chapter on the 4th Pazer Divion. In it there are exaple of air recce providing information on Polish movements on the flanks or across the front of the 4th Pz Div as well as reporting such things the next town or village or the flank is clear of the enemy.

For the narrow more later sorry.

[What if Poland had defeated the Blitz?]

Originally posted by JasonC:

(1) Bryan P. is simply making it up, repeating theory rather than any real operational action. That is an example of exactly the "wish-history" unreality we are denouncing.

[Battle Scope]

Origionally posted by Battlefront.com:

I have said that the focus of the game is at the COMPANY level. I also specifically said that we won't be doing anything to SUPPORT Battalion or higher level play, though we are not going to purposefully restrict it. There is a HUGE difference between supporting something and not purposefully restricting something.

[Battle Scope]

Andreas when I'm on a 3x3 map playing for an hour I think the Btln Tactical HQ ought to put in an appairance.

The other better context is for when Btlns and Rgmts have been fighting with drastically reduced numbers in the usual way that they do after getting atrited.

This I would say is the most critical reason for having them. (BFC i hope you are reading!)