Cuirassier

JasonC, "Surprise is thus one of the fundamental principles of all combat. Everything is five times as effective when the enemy doesn't see it coming than when he does. Conversely, if your own force announce themselves, so that the enemy clearly sees them coming with plenty of time to adapt, we say you are "telegraphing" your blows. Telegraphed blows are weak blows, and die in ambush, often as not, or "hit air" if the enemy prefers to "skulk" away instead. You want to be inside the other commander's mind, thinking his thoughts as he thinks them, and acting 3 moves ahead - that is how surprise is achieved, at bottom. Terrain and arrangement of forces are just implementation details that can help bring that about." I found this section interesting. While no one can deny that surprise isn't useful, I remember in earlier posts on these forums you cautioned against the danger of trying to get inside the enemy's head. If I remember correctly, you felt it lead to unattainable perfectionism and overly complex plans. Instead, it may be more desirable to come up with a robust plan of action well suited to your own forces, while ignoring the enemy's plans and dispositions. Obviously the you will react to threats, moves forces around etc, but the guiding star is simplicity and robust combat power. The commander does not care if his moves are seen ahead of time nor what is going on in his opponent's head. Just wondering if you have changed your position on this and now ascribe more importance to surprise, or if I missed something.

Interesting summary, thanks. Jason, Have strongpoint defenses changed much since World War II? I'm assuming they have spread out more and obviously incorporate better weapons and sensor techs, but have the essential principles remained the same? I know that Soviet doctrine advocated the Kursk-style strongpoint defense in depth well into the 80's, though I'm not sure about NATO. And do you think that a future land war between first-rate powers would be more similar to World War I conditions rather than World War II? That is, given the advances in modern, guided firepower, there will be a reduction in operational mobility and breakthrough fights relying on concentrated shock action will become much more expensive, even if under armor. Armored artillery, airpower and long range missiles will be in the drivers seat rather than the more traditional armor and mech infantry forces. Thoughts? Just some random considerations that crossed my mind a week or two back. And sorry to the OP for moving off topic. I can start a new thread with this stuff if wanted.

Where was the infantry support?

To Lose A Battle by Horne is a classic.

No. Occasionally US and Commonwealth units were mixed together under a corps, but that was an exception. Most of the time US and Commonwealth units were assigned to their respective armies and there wasn't intermixing (odd exceptions, like Market Garden). Both armies had their own doctrines, favorite commanders and so on; they each did things their own ways. Of course, there would be some unit overlap from time to time (eg at the boundary near Caumont between the US and Brits) but there wouldn't be the level of coordination that you see in CM fights.

Or too low.

Well, if suppression doesn't work, it means you aren't suppressing them. Never send men into a building that you know is occupied by defenders until you have suppressed them. Once they are suppressed, you assault with an infantry section just large enough to kill any survivors (who will be in poor morale states), under the cover of overwatch. A half-squad or full squad works for this. So how do you suppress the defenders. Direct fire HE is your best bet, meaning tank or SP gun delivered typically. The poor man's solution is to use AT or infantry guns as substitutes for tanks. 75mm or larger are the best at the job, though you can get away with smaller guns in a pinch (6 lber, 37mm). Note that you don't have to level every building with this HE fire; you just need to get the defenders heads down, into poor morale states. MG fire will keep them heads down and then you can assault. So often a minute or two of HE will be enough per target. Also keep in mind that mortars do not count as effective HE in this case. These high-trajectory weapons are better suited against point targets in trench lines or wooded areas. If you don't have much HE at your disposal, substitute infantry numbers for explosives. This doesn't mean banzai charge. Rather it means position entire infantry platoons in good cover within rifle range of the target building. Then shoot it up for a couple minutes. As long as its a many on few situation (which it should be, otherwise why are you attacking?) you will get them heads down. Then close assault. Off map heavy arty can also work for concentrated, built up areas, and the same tactics apply as if using DF HE. Just note that it is less accurate and may be better used elsewhere (eg a platoon in the woods). But it can work if there is enough enemy under the footprint and you are using heavy shells (155mm+). And finally, engineers are very useful if you can approach from dead ground (wall with no windows) or from a direction the enemy is unprepared to receive you. Blow a hole through the wall, rush in and smg the stunned defenders. They are the closest thing you can get in CM to applying advanced urban infantry tactics. Hope this helps.

Yes, last time I checked, not all Canadians were Quebecois . That being said, the French-Canadian Regiments performed well throughout the war.

Steiner, No one here is anti-German, just anti-Nazi. And justly so. So please keep your Nazi fantasies out of this thread about mortars. Thanks.

Or what if Canada had the bomb in 1926? Or if they had forged an alliance with the aliens that command death stars from Alpha Centauri. It is a pointless discussion. After the summer of '43, Germany was losing anyway it is sliced.

I don't recall the exact discussion, but I think it had to do with him making stuff up (i.e. interviews with Ike, etc).

Rick Atkinson's "An Army at Dawn" and "Day of Battle" are good. He has an excellent writing style that keeps everything interesting. I am also in the middle of Halberstam's "The Coldest Winter," and am enjoying it a lot. Both authors have a similar style of mixing the strategic, operational and tactical actions into their narratives. They also shed lots of light onto the personalities involved, which also makes for interesting reading.

David Glantz is by far the best author on the subject overall. John Erickson is also good, but older; Glantz improved upon his work essentially. For a German perspective, Ziemke is good. Other good eastern front authors are Zaloga, Zetterling, Krivosheev (on Soviet losses) and Manstein (Lost Victories). For economic strategies (yes that is important to your question), Milward or Harrison is a good start. Glantz will give you the best rundown for your first question (and his answer is much different, and more correct, than how the two previous posters answered it). As for finding tactical stuff, you will find it in the best operational histories. Memoirs do not tend to be good sources for tactical information. The website Lone Sentry has some decent articles and Jentz' books on the Panzertruppen contain some solid tidbits of information. In my experience, to figure out how tactics really worked you have to read between the lines in operational histories and really think about what arms commanders are using in what situations and in what sequence. Playing CM also helps to show how such things work and lets you make more sense of how real battles worked and why.

Has no one mentioned Mark Zuehlke yet? He gives very tactical accounts of Canadian forces in NW Europe and Italy.

Have to agree with Sakai on this one. If Iran were to get the bomb, I think there is a fair chance they'd use it. And they would certainly use it as diplomatic leverage. Surely they would have no problem arming Hezbollah, Hamas, or any other anti-western faction either. One of the scarier considerations one has to make, however, is what other nations will do. China and India have serious interests in Iran and everyone knows Russia would be adamantly against any sort of military response. Its a crazy time.

I'm fairly certain that there are no national modifiers. Elite is elite, regardless of the army.

Kliment Voroshilov could take them all on. At the same time. Still pondering how a firefly would fare...

But everyone can tell a Tiger from a Stug from a Jagdpanther etc. The game would have to "lie" with the 3D models as well, like CM1, for it to work.

I think the original poster makes some fair points. I haven't played CMBN all that much admittedly (Shock Force I have), but from what I've seen armor is overpowered and infantry underpowered. That is, armor spots infantry in cover and concealed far too easily. For example, I'm playing a PBEM right now and had an enemy Sherman spot a two man German infantry team behind a hedge and in a forest within 15 seconds of cresting a hill 150m away. That is a little ridiculous. HE is also overpowered. Because of the action spot system, infantry bunch up far too much and don't take advantage of natural cover as real infantrymen would. As a result they get nuked by HE rounds. I remember a Shock Force game where one Abrams shell killed 7 Syrian soldiers and wounded the other two in a house (yes, I know its not CMBN but CMBN seems to suffer a similar problem). That is not to say CMBN hasn't improved over CM1 in other areas, Snipers, C2, relative spotting, ammo sharing, tracking of different ammo types etc are all big, welcome improvements. However, I think CM1 did better over all with regards to the infantry-armor relationship. Infantry in CM2 is spotted too easily in heavy terrain and is then killed far too easily by any form of HE thrown at it. CM1's "suppression" based model is better than the current "shoot till dead" model in CM2 games.

Hedgerows, I think, are passable. Small and big bocage is not by any units, though you can go through gaps. Hedgerows are the smallest of the three, and infantry units can look over them when crouched. Anything higher is bocage and blocks los much more completely.

Not a website, but you could join the steam group. I think there are two of them.

Yes, air power hardly accounted for any losses. Even less than 10% I think. Zetterling does a good analysis on the subject. Tanks aren't destroyed when abandoned or blown up by the crews. Yes, the Germans loved to write off their tanks many months late by citing such causes. But assuming that that is how the afv's were actually lost is incorrect. What really happened is that German tanks were knocked out of running status by allied weaponry (AFV fired AP rounds the dominant killer) and then moved into the long term repair category on German accounting sheets. Most of these tanks never became operational again, however, and were either abandoned or blown up by the Germans and then officially written off. But in reality, it was allied weapons that killed these vehicles.

There is no way that is correct. Otherwise the Germans would have won the Normandy campaign. Allied armor was the chief German tank killer (TD's included). What else would be? As for attacking numerous Tiger's on open ground, you don't. Nor is that what the allies did. If such a position was found, the allies would immediately switch to the defensive on that sector and probe elsewhere. In the meantime, specialist AT weapons would shift to that sector (mainly 76 TD's). Attacking Tiger's with 75 Shermans over open ground is the tanker's equivalent of sending a regiment of infantry against entrenched MG's supported by a battalion of 150mm+ TRP'd artillery. It is just something you don't do unless your goal is to murder your own command as efficiently as possible.

Rundstedt certainly had the best strategy. "Make peace you fools!"

Here it is: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=94572