McIvan
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Posts posted by McIvan
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There was a fellow picked up at the Blitz for (when about to commence playing a scenario) editing his units to include extra ammo, extra experience levels, couple more minor teams (bazookas from memory).
Again, if memory serves, there was a bloke picked up by CMHQPL who had hacked the actual game mechanics to alter his chances to hit, increase unit stats etc. I don't know the exact details, only that it apparently involved a lot of work.
Finally, I understand that if two players use PBEMHelper in trusted mode, an unscrupulous player can watch the replay and then, if they don't like the results, go back and redo their orders until they get a result more to their liking. The offender was caught when they inadvertently sent two "finished" turns off the their victim.
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I've read it and enjoyed it. I don't have depth of knowledge on Dunkirk to evaluate it against.Originally posted by kawaiku:BTW since we are on the subject of books, has anyone read this one? Dunkirk: Fight to the Last Man
Just stumbled upon this and wondered if any of you guys have read it or heard about it?
The lack of even 2pdr AT guns was something I hadn't realised before. Not many formations had 2pdrs, some had the French 25mm At guns, and some had literally no AT weaponry at all, baring maybe some AT rifles. Just how a Brit formation was supposed to hold in the face of German armour without any At weaponry defies belief....evoked the terror the solider must have felt well. All the absolute chaos of war is conveyed in very frank accounts.
Notwithstanding my recommendation, the author does have an annoying tendency to:
1. Over-analyse things and the possible reasons for them to beyond breaking point;
2. Do the same with what people should have done...x should have done this, and then possibly y could have done that, etc etc; and
3. Be more than a little unfair to the French. For example, he would rightly castigate the demoralised French rabble for their lack of fighting spirit but later, when Brit formations want to withdraw but firebrand French commanders are objecting, he will drag up all sorts of justifications for the sensible Brits doing so and in fact castigate the French commanders for being unrealistic and just plain mean; listing all sorts of factors the French commander "should have known" or should have taken into account eg that the Brit soldiers were very tired and had been in action for days, etc etc, as if this was any different for either side. It tickled my hypocrisy meter. He does redress it a little toward the end with his description of Alexander walking out on the French and leaving them well and truly shafted.
As long as you can bear this in mind, and it doesn't happen too often, it's a good read and goes into exhaustive detail. Can be difficult to follow on the maps as the author will refer to placenames that aren't shown.
Recommended, say 4 stars of 5. Maybe 3.5.
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I think there would be a reasonable chance that the first and all subsequent bullets would go stright through 1cm of plate, if they hit it at close to 90 degrees.
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Actually the Hurribomber carried its 3 metre long 40mm guns in two pods under the wings, much like the Stuka.
The info below is taken from the Wipipedia entry on the Vickers S gun, which was the 40mm gun concerned. I make no claims as to its accuracy, however the article seems to have a reasonable idea of air-to-ground overclaims and the factors causing them.
The Vickers Class "S" 40 mm gun was developed in the late 1930s as an aircraft weapon. The ammunition was based on the 40x158R cartridge case of the naval 2 pdr AA gun. The weapon was a long-recoil design derived from the 37 mm 1½pdr C.O.W. gun.The gun was originally intended as a bomber defensive weapon and was tested as such in a turret fitted to a modified Vickers Wellington II. This was not adopted for service, but when the need to attack tanks from the air was identified the "S" gun was chosen and special armour-piercing ammunition developed.[edit] Combat History
Two underwing guns were fitted to Hawker Hurricane IID fighters which were issued to No. 6 Squadron RAF. They served in North Africa from mid-1942 where they achieved considerable success; claims included 144 tanks hit, of which 47 were destroyed, plus nearly 200 other vehicles. However, they suffered heavy losses, mainly to ground fire (the Hurricanes were poorly protected) and also lacked effectiveness against the Tiger tank. In 1944, the aircraft served in the Far East, mainly firing HE ammunition against road and river transport.
Tests in the Far East showed a high level of accuracy, with an average of 25% of shots fired at tanks striking the target. Attacks with HE were twice as accurate as with AP, possibly because the ballistics were a closer match with the .303" Brownings used for sighting (the HE shell was lighter and was fired at a higher velocity). By comparison, the practice strike rate of the 60 pdr RPs (rocket projectiles) fired by fighter-bombers was only 5% against tank-sized targets. Operational Research following the Normandy battles of 1944 revealed that in action this fell to only 0.5%, presumably because of problems in making the complex mental calculations about the trajectory of the slow-accelerating rockets, although the effect of a salvo of RPs on the morale of tank crews was admittedly considerable.
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Actually the Hurribomber carried its 3 metre long 40mm guns in two pods under the wings, much like the Stuka.
The info below is taken from the Wipipedia entry on the Vickers S gun, which was the 40mm gun concerned. I make no claims as to its accuracy, however the article seems to have a reasonable idea of air-to-ground overclaims and the factors causing them.
The Vickers Class "S" 40 mm gun was developed in the late 1930s as an aircraft weapon. The ammunition was based on the 40x158R cartridge case of the naval 2 pdr AA gun. The weapon was a long-recoil design derived from the 37 mm 1½pdr C.O.W. gun.The gun was originally intended as a bomber defensive weapon and was tested as such in a turret fitted to a modified Vickers Wellington II. This was not adopted for service, but when the need to attack tanks from the air was identified the "S" gun was chosen and special armour-piercing ammunition developed.[edit] Combat History
Two underwing guns were fitted to Hawker Hurricane IID fighters which were issued to No. 6 Squadron RAF. They served in North Africa from mid-1942 where they achieved considerable success; claims included 144 tanks hit, of which 47 were destroyed, plus nearly 200 other vehicles. However, they suffered heavy losses, mainly to ground fire (the Hurricanes were poorly protected) and also lacked effectiveness against the Tiger tank. In 1944, the aircraft served in the Far East, mainly firing HE ammunition against road and river transport.
Tests in the Far East showed a high level of accuracy, with an average of 25% of shots fired at tanks striking the target. Attacks with HE were twice as accurate as with AP, possibly because the ballistics were a closer match with the .303" Brownings used for sighting (the HE shell was lighter and was fired at a higher velocity). By comparison, the practice strike rate of the 60 pdr RPs (rocket projectiles) fired by fighter-bombers was only 5% against tank-sized targets. Operational Research following the Normandy battles of 1944 revealed that in action this fell to only 0.5%, presumably because of problems in making the complex mental calculations about the trajectory of the slow-accelerating rockets, although the effect of a salvo of RPs on the morale of tank crews was admittedly considerable.
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Was a reference to Stalin's Organist...you posted while I was writing mine, usual story. I've now edited my post to respond to yours....
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Was a reference to Stalin's Organist...you posted while I was writing mine, usual story. I've now edited my post to respond to yours....
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Mobility isn't a be all and end all in itself, and I would not pretend that it was. It's simply another factor going to whether something is a ship or a wreck.
To me, the Marat was sunk, in shallow water, and was to all intents and purposes inoperative.
Over the course of two months compartments were pumped out, repairs made, and three turrets brough back into action. It was still, however, a sunken ship. Those pictures don't show a structure capable of floating upon the water, and it wasn't floating. Whatever it was, a ship it was not. The ship was sunk; a battery may have been resurrected but not a ship. I presume we can agree that a ship needs to be capable of floating?
I know you're looking at it from the point of view of whether it gets put completely under the surface of the water and/or whether it's a total loss, but I think that raises it's own problems when you think of ships put to the bottom in slightly deeper water yet raised and repaired, eg the examples at Pearl Harbour. At what point, if we accept the way you are looking at it, does the ship become sunk? I would say they were sunk, but were then raised and repaired....I would not say that they were never sunk in the first place.
Likewise I think the stronger view is that the Marat was sunk, and then partially repaired.
With regard to Jon's post, I would agree if you could describe a ship solely in terms of its gun battery, but the ability of a ship to project the power of that battery comes from mobility. I think its a unworkable criteria to judge whether a pilot got a kill on whether or not the owner of a ship intended to move it in the forseeable future.
Even if the soviets would never have moved the Marat again, the potential threat of moving is an attribute...eg Tirpitz holed up in the fjords. A bunch of immobile ships sitting on the harbour bottom represents an entirely different threat to a squadron which could, if it received orders, sally forth.
Hard enough for aircraft to hit a ship in the first place without trying to target the turrets specifically. Surely sinking a ship is generally the best method of making a ship non-operational? But if the Germans had known how shallow the harbour was and that anything holed would simply sink to the shallow bottom and potentially be repaired, then yeah. Even so I doubt they could have done anything other than what they did.
I think I may have flogged this horse enough now. I will do my best not to post on it any more
[ February 27, 2007, 03:25 PM: Message edited by: McIvan ]
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Mobility isn't a be all and end all in itself, and I would not pretend that it was. It's simply another factor going to whether something is a ship or a wreck.
To me, the Marat was sunk, in shallow water, and was to all intents and purposes inoperative.
Over the course of two months compartments were pumped out, repairs made, and three turrets brough back into action. It was still, however, a sunken ship. Those pictures don't show a structure capable of floating upon the water, and it wasn't floating. Whatever it was, a ship it was not. The ship was sunk; a battery may have been resurrected but not a ship. I presume we can agree that a ship needs to be capable of floating?
I know you're looking at it from the point of view of whether it gets put completely under the surface of the water and/or whether it's a total loss, but I think that raises it's own problems when you think of ships put to the bottom in slightly deeper water yet raised and repaired, eg the examples at Pearl Harbour. At what point, if we accept the way you are looking at it, does the ship become sunk? I would say they were sunk, but were then raised and repaired....I would not say that they were never sunk in the first place.
Likewise I think the stronger view is that the Marat was sunk, and then partially repaired.
With regard to Jon's post, I would agree if you could describe a ship solely in terms of its gun battery, but the ability of a ship to project the power of that battery comes from mobility. I think its a unworkable criteria to judge whether a pilot got a kill on whether or not the owner of a ship intended to move it in the forseeable future.
Even if the soviets would never have moved the Marat again, the potential threat of moving is an attribute...eg Tirpitz holed up in the fjords. A bunch of immobile ships sitting on the harbour bottom represents an entirely different threat to a squadron which could, if it received orders, sally forth.
Hard enough for aircraft to hit a ship in the first place without trying to target the turrets specifically. Surely sinking a ship is generally the best method of making a ship non-operational? But if the Germans had known how shallow the harbour was and that anything holed would simply sink to the shallow bottom and potentially be repaired, then yeah. Even so I doubt they could have done anything other than what they did.
I think I may have flogged this horse enough now. I will do my best not to post on it any more
[ February 27, 2007, 03:25 PM: Message edited by: McIvan ]
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It is often worthwhile to push forces forward into cover located ahead of your mine line of resistance, take potshots at the enemy, generally force them to become cautious and use advance rather than move etc. It buys you time, you can inflict some damage, and confuses the enemy as to where your main line is. Can be very tricky to time the right moment to withdraw however....thats the fun of it, trying not to lose the troops you send forward. However, if you can manage it, the delays created will often win you the game.
Thinking about it, that would probably not work so well against the AI. But then again the AI is rubbish on the attack anyway.
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It is truly amazing how many websites of entirely doubtful usefulness can be found when one is trying to back something up
(Referring, incidentally, to the websites I've trawled through over the last day and a half, not your nautical websites.)
[ February 27, 2007, 02:21 PM: Message edited by: McIvan ]
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It is truly amazing how many websites of entirely doubtful usefulness can be found when one is trying to back something up
(Referring, incidentally, to the websites I've trawled through over the last day and a half, not your nautical websites.)
[ February 27, 2007, 02:21 PM: Message edited by: McIvan ]
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I think a ship that is aground has usually gotten that way by moving, whilst in a seaworthy condition, into water too shallow for its draught. I do not think it is intended to apply to ships that had their bottom blown out in what fortuitously happened to be shallow water...
Anyways, I rest my case.
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I think a ship that is aground has usually gotten that way by moving, whilst in a seaworthy condition, into water too shallow for its draught. I do not think it is intended to apply to ships that had their bottom blown out in what fortuitously happened to be shallow water...
Anyways, I rest my case.
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This is true [referring to Stalin's Organist's post], but I suggest there is a difference between being immobile and simply engineless. A barge is not immobile because it can be moved. Propulsion may be irrelevant but mobility is not.
Lack of mobility is especially relevant when it results from the ship being abruptly plonked on the bottom of the nearest sea-bed.
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This is true [referring to Stalin's Organist's post], but I suggest there is a difference between being immobile and simply engineless. A barge is not immobile because it can be moved. Propulsion may be irrelevant but mobility is not.
Lack of mobility is especially relevant when it results from the ship being abruptly plonked on the bottom of the nearest sea-bed.
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No, I don't think you've got that quite right....although first up I'll concede that the position is arguable and that my first post overstated itself in certainty.Originally posted by Stalin's Organist:Oh to heck with it - here's a couple of definitions from dictionary.com!!
Sunk:to displace part of the volume of a supporting substance or object and become totally or partially submerged or enveloped; fall or descend into or below the surface or to the bottom (often fol. by in or into): The battleship sank within two hours. His foot sank in the mud. Her head sinks into the pillows. (one of many - the one dealing with water)
Submerge:
1. to put or sink below the surface of water or any other enveloping medium.
2. to cover or overflow with water; immerse.
3. to cover; bury; subordinate; suppress: His aspirations were submerged by the necessity of making a living.
–verb (used without object) 4. to sink or plunge under water or beneath the surface of any enveloping medium.
5. to be covered or lost from sight.
Right - so to be sunk requires at least partial submergance, and to be at least partially submerged requires covering or overflowing with water, or going below the surface of water.
So the ships are sunk, by definition, if part of them is entirely under water - and I dont' count internal decks 'cos by that standard mr picky says that all ships are sunk even when they'er floating!!
Certainly the ship is not floating tho - but floating and sunk are not binary situations for a ship - a ship that is grounded is neither! [/QB]
Although I think that Rudel's tank claims are far fetched and certainly overstated as were all air to ground tank kills in WWII, I just thought that the drive to deny credit for the Marat was just a bit....miserly, really....and motivated even if just a little bit from dislike of Rudel as a person. Which is why I plunged into it.
Going briefly back to the defintions. Firstly, the sunk definition also includes "fall or descend into or below the surface or to the bottom", which the Marat did; it "descended....to the bottom".
Secondly I think you're going too narrow on partial submergence when leaving out internal decks. They were certainly submerged, making the Marat partially submerged I reckon, and thus puling it into "sunk". Mr picky can have it pointed out to him that all ships are not sunk because under normal circumstances the "surface" is displaced outside the hull.
Anyways, all this dictionary definition stuff is semantics and I'm now wondering whether I should even post it (but obviously I just did). I guess we're agreed that Rudel gets credit for a "kill" of a battleship then, even if we're at odds as to whether it was sunk or not. I had to grin at the suggestion that it was of little moment that it was non-floating and immobile as the Soviet baltic fleet hadn't gotten out much anyways.
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No, I don't think you've got that quite right....although first up I'll concede that the position is arguable and that my first post overstated itself in certainty.Originally posted by Stalin's Organist:Oh to heck with it - here's a couple of definitions from dictionary.com!!
Sunk:to displace part of the volume of a supporting substance or object and become totally or partially submerged or enveloped; fall or descend into or below the surface or to the bottom (often fol. by in or into): The battleship sank within two hours. His foot sank in the mud. Her head sinks into the pillows. (one of many - the one dealing with water)
Submerge:
1. to put or sink below the surface of water or any other enveloping medium.
2. to cover or overflow with water; immerse.
3. to cover; bury; subordinate; suppress: His aspirations were submerged by the necessity of making a living.
–verb (used without object) 4. to sink or plunge under water or beneath the surface of any enveloping medium.
5. to be covered or lost from sight.
Right - so to be sunk requires at least partial submergance, and to be at least partially submerged requires covering or overflowing with water, or going below the surface of water.
So the ships are sunk, by definition, if part of them is entirely under water - and I dont' count internal decks 'cos by that standard mr picky says that all ships are sunk even when they'er floating!!
Certainly the ship is not floating tho - but floating and sunk are not binary situations for a ship - a ship that is grounded is neither! [/QB]
Although I think that Rudel's tank claims are far fetched and certainly overstated as were all air to ground tank kills in WWII, I just thought that the drive to deny credit for the Marat was just a bit....miserly, really....and motivated even if just a little bit from dislike of Rudel as a person. Which is why I plunged into it.
Going briefly back to the defintions. Firstly, the sunk definition also includes "fall or descend into or below the surface or to the bottom", which the Marat did; it "descended....to the bottom".
Secondly I think you're going too narrow on partial submergence when leaving out internal decks. They were certainly submerged, making the Marat partially submerged I reckon, and thus puling it into "sunk". Mr picky can have it pointed out to him that all ships are not sunk because under normal circumstances the "surface" is displaced outside the hull.
Anyways, all this dictionary definition stuff is semantics and I'm now wondering whether I should even post it (but obviously I just did). I guess we're agreed that Rudel gets credit for a "kill" of a battleship then, even if we're at odds as to whether it was sunk or not. I had to grin at the suggestion that it was of little moment that it was non-floating and immobile as the Soviet baltic fleet hadn't gotten out much anyways.
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You don't think the Italians would have noticed they were thirty feet lower in the water than before? Mmmmm, well, maybe not. They were sunk dammit! They're full of bloody water. Bah.
Ok then....how about drawing analogies with the battleships at Pearl. Some of them were left on the bottom with the water just about at the level of the decks. At least two iirc were refloated in 1942 and 43 respectively and repaired thereafter. Were they sunk? They are counted in the tally of losses. They differ from Marat in respect of the time taken to repair them.....also because they were refloated first and repaired second rather than the other way round....but who's to say they couldn't have had some limited functionality, eg AA guns, coms and radar, restored?
In the case of the Marat, immediately after it went down it was an inoperable and sunken piece of junk. I'm guessing that a week after it went down, the situation is exactly the same, other than that it looks like it should be possible to restore function to the mid and aft gun turrets. It's not until two months later that they get the guns firing. The ship still can't move, nor can it float...it's arguably not a ship at all, just a sort of shore battery in an unlikely location.
The other bit I lost with my mouse click, which is now really hacking me off because (never having now to expose it to scrutiny) it was a MODEL, I tell you, of CLARITY and AUTHORITATIVE PROSE, was an analogy with tanks knocked out on the battlefield, returned to base, repaired and back in action say three weeks later.
Were they knocked out or not? Does the enemy responsible for knocking them out get credit for a kill, or do they now merely rank amongst the own side over-claims?
I put it to you that total write off is far too harsh a criteria to apply when determining whether or not a combatant should be credited with a "kill" or, for that matter, a sinking. A tanker that knocks out an enemy tank gets a kill, and a flier that knocks out an enemy ship which sinks to the bottom of a shallow sea-bed gets credit for sinking it. They can put the tank in the repair shop and get the engineer into the ship, but that doesn't turn back time.
For the same reasons, when I read JasonC's excellent posts about claims v losses - when aggregated over a campaign rather than specific actions such as Mortain - I tend to think that that claims weren't as overstated as they appear, because did not the Germans apply a total loss policy to their reports rather than tanks knocked out on the battlefield, whether or not subsequently repairable? Of course, I don't see what else Jason could do in terms of getting reliable figures.
A kill is not always a kill. Or is it?
**** **, quarter to five. Bloody hell
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You don't think the Italians would have noticed they were thirty feet lower in the water than before? Mmmmm, well, maybe not. They were sunk dammit! They're full of bloody water. Bah.
Ok then....how about drawing analogies with the battleships at Pearl. Some of them were left on the bottom with the water just about at the level of the decks. At least two iirc were refloated in 1942 and 43 respectively and repaired thereafter. Were they sunk? They are counted in the tally of losses. They differ from Marat in respect of the time taken to repair them.....also because they were refloated first and repaired second rather than the other way round....but who's to say they couldn't have had some limited functionality, eg AA guns, coms and radar, restored?
In the case of the Marat, immediately after it went down it was an inoperable and sunken piece of junk. I'm guessing that a week after it went down, the situation is exactly the same, other than that it looks like it should be possible to restore function to the mid and aft gun turrets. It's not until two months later that they get the guns firing. The ship still can't move, nor can it float...it's arguably not a ship at all, just a sort of shore battery in an unlikely location.
The other bit I lost with my mouse click, which is now really hacking me off because (never having now to expose it to scrutiny) it was a MODEL, I tell you, of CLARITY and AUTHORITATIVE PROSE, was an analogy with tanks knocked out on the battlefield, returned to base, repaired and back in action say three weeks later.
Were they knocked out or not? Does the enemy responsible for knocking them out get credit for a kill, or do they now merely rank amongst the own side over-claims?
I put it to you that total write off is far too harsh a criteria to apply when determining whether or not a combatant should be credited with a "kill" or, for that matter, a sinking. A tanker that knocks out an enemy tank gets a kill, and a flier that knocks out an enemy ship which sinks to the bottom of a shallow sea-bed gets credit for sinking it. They can put the tank in the repair shop and get the engineer into the ship, but that doesn't turn back time.
For the same reasons, when I read JasonC's excellent posts about claims v losses - when aggregated over a campaign rather than specific actions such as Mortain - I tend to think that that claims weren't as overstated as they appear, because did not the Germans apply a total loss policy to their reports rather than tanks knocked out on the battlefield, whether or not subsequently repairable? Of course, I don't see what else Jason could do in terms of getting reliable figures.
A kill is not always a kill. Or is it?
**** **, quarter to five. Bloody hell
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The next round involved a whole bunch of references to and pictures of US battleships sunk....sorry, I meant to say "aground"....at Pearl Harbour, prior to them being refloated...sorry, I meant to say "ungrounded".....but I stupidly went and wiped my post with an unwary mouse click...sigh.
So I shall await the lightning-like riposte of her Majesty's loyal opposition....
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The next round involved a whole bunch of references to and pictures of US battleships sunk....sorry, I meant to say "aground"....at Pearl Harbour, prior to them being refloated...sorry, I meant to say "ungrounded".....but I stupidly went and wiped my post with an unwary mouse click...sigh.
So I shall await the lightning-like riposte of her Majesty's loyal opposition....
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Going on a bit further, I see now that Stalin's Organist has discovered that Italian frogmen failed to sink either the Valiant and the Queen Elizabeth in WWII, a fact which will no doubt come as a devastating surprise to the Italians concerned, seeing as the harbour waters didn't get over the decks in that case either. Although I note that all the websites I visited referred to them as having been "sunk", that must just be the ignorant layman's version of the term.
I remain of the view that a ship that sinks in shallow water has been "sunk". I suppose you can make a case for the view that it's just crippled or even (god help me) "aground", if you equate "sunk" with total loss. I would think the stronger view, even if that were accepted, is that Marat was "only" crippled because it was sunk in shallow water, not that it wasn't sunk at all.
Edit: Quite right in that the distinction between camps seems to be drawn around total loss or not, as Mr Dorosh pointed out while I was writing this post and trying to do odd bits of work.
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Going on a bit further, I see now that Stalin's Organist has discovered that Italian frogmen failed to sink either the Valiant and the Queen Elizabeth in WWII, a fact which will no doubt come as a devastating surprise to the Italians concerned, seeing as the harbour waters didn't get over the decks in that case either. Although I note that all the websites I visited referred to them as having been "sunk", that must just be the ignorant layman's version of the term.
I remain of the view that a ship that sinks in shallow water has been "sunk". I suppose you can make a case for the view that it's just crippled or even (god help me) "aground", if you equate "sunk" with total loss. I would think the stronger view, even if that were accepted, is that Marat was "only" crippled because it was sunk in shallow water, not that it wasn't sunk at all.
Edit: Quite right in that the distinction between camps seems to be drawn around total loss or not, as Mr Dorosh pointed out while I was writing this post and trying to do odd bits of work.
Cheating/Hacking re-visited
in Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin
Posted
It's never happened to me, as far as I know. That's all I can give you, sorry....
GreenasJade, the bloke concerned admitted to the first one.