Der Alte Fritz

As with all Soviet attacks of this period, the centre of the attack is just off to one side of the JOINT of TWO Armies. To the south is the 31st Army who launch a heavy supporting attack along the northern bank of the river with its 71st Rifle Corps as shown in this map This has another 11 Guards Army supporting attack by 36th GRC just to the north. The main point of penetration was supposed to be just north of here, in the area of the 8th GRC which is shown in the Russian diagram in post Nr.18 at the Middle of the table. There is a less heavy attack by the 16th GRC to the north of this again in support. The next Army northwards, the 5th Army also launches a spoiling attack. But the plan when wrong and the 71st, 36th Guards nor the 8 Guards managed to breakthrough but the 16th did so because the German 78th Sturm had drawn off so many men to meet the main attack down by the river and railway line. So returning to the diagram, the main point of the attack is at the bottom and it gets weaker as you move up the diagram. (You can see the scale of support in the tables in post Nr. 17 shows the 8 GRC gets over 400 tonnes of fire per km compared to 300 for the 36th GRC and 250 for the 16th. The key to the diagram is the Regiments as you can see that they attack side by side on fairly equal sectors, the battalions are slotted into the attack as is deemed convenient for local conditions. 16th attacks with 1 Division and 1 in support (If I remember correctly the third division was in Army reserve. ) 8th attacks with 1 Division and 2 in support - a column of 3 Divisions 36th attacks with 2 Divisions side by side and 1 in support 71st attacks with 2 Divisions side by side and 1 in support

There you go John

So although I have probably bamboozled you with loads of data, it should be possible to work out a small scale artillery attack and then accompanying barrage in CMRT terms. For most Soviet attacks, they would be accompanied by a single or later on a double barrage and so to determine the actual scale and extent of this would be good for scenario purposes.

The only other information that we need if what each group of guns was firing at and where the guns were positioned behind their own lines. I have posted this before but here it is again for completeness' sake: 5th Army position of Fire Groupings on 23rd June 1944 and their relevant targets. Note the German HKL is shown as a single line and the B Stellung 2000m behind it as a broken line on the left hand side only, with artillery positions behind it.

The guns supporting each part of the attack are given in this table: The same information in Russian which adds a few details: We have the fire plans for Bagration 11 Guards Army in the table I posted earlier (showing all the fire plans for the major attacks during the war) To find out what made up each of these segments we can look at this table which is from the Oder-Vistula Operation and see what made up each of the elements such as FIRE ATTACK etc.

Summary of 11th Guards Army attack during Operation Bagration 36th Guards Rifle Corps 8th Guards Rifle Corps 16th Guards Rifle Corps

You will notice that CMRT ammunition allowances do NOT match historic ones (called Beokomplet) and vary considerably. The next stage is to produce a handy guide to typical Soviet artillery usage to convert historic data into CMRT units and fire missions as the click of a button.

Here is the finished Soviet Artillery Data Sheet

Another soource of some Foreign Military Studies Russian site: http://www.maparchive.ru/index.php/guide-to-foreign-military-studies.html They can also supply NARA material cheaper and quicker than NARA (which is not hard ))

This is a common enough phenomenon which is not surprising given the length of time after the event that many of these accounts were written, the pace of events and the political and social landscape which the writers inhabited. Add in Combat Fatigue and disorientation and you are lucky that the Space Lobsters of Doom are not seen more often. To give you an example of actual research conducted into this, the survivors of the Dambuster Raid were interviewed in the 1970s about the raid and the accounts compared with After Action Intelligence reports and other contemporary documents. Part of the findings were that the survivors remembered events depicted in the 1955 film "The Dambusters" as being real events that actually happened even though they were, in fact, complete fiction. Given that Soviet and German accounts of the war rarely cover the same action, it is difficult to compare the two and neither side gets the benefit of the other sides account. In one case, where I have found contemporary accounts from both sides, you would hardly believe that they were talking about the same battle and both sides leave out large chunks that are not to their credit. Both sides claim victory and minimise their losses when a impartial observer would call it a draw.

Here is where I have got to with the Soviet guns. The final column shows the number of shells in a Beokomplet (standard combat issue) for 1941 and 1945.

Good sources for late war minor battles: Panzer Truppen Jentz 2nd volume Panzer Tactics Department of the Army Pamphlet No. 20-233, German Defence Tactics Against Wishing Break Throughs, October 1951. http://www.kingtigerebooks.co.uk/department-of-the-army-pamphlets.htm Items in the Foreign Military Studies (particularly the P series) http://www.fold3.com/browse.php#1|hQ7exmc5xgjfjnchf particularly P-143C Examples from Divisions - Chapter 13 Defence of an Extended Frontage - 15th Infantry Division on the Mius Front August 1943 Chapter 14 A Sustained Defensive Battle - 78th Infantry (Sturm) Division at Orscha November 1943 (I typed up this account in the Axis History Forum http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=166048&start=15 Various US manuals can be got from CARL see list here: http://www.cgsc.edu/carl/docrepository/ In Russian (but Google Chrome will translate): Breakthrough of prepared defences http://militera.lib.ru/science/sb_proryv_oborony/index.html Fighting INfantry Division http://militera.lib.ru/science/boy_strelkovoy_divizii/index.html Middledorf Russian campaign, tactics and weapons (Originally in German) http://militera.lib.ru/h/middeldorf/index.html Artillery Combat and Operations http://militera.lib.ru/science/peredelsky_ge/index.html

Your 'water' looks considerably more 'twinkly' than the original and justa bit darker in blure colour.

You are right that was the convention back in the days of CMx1 as it was very easy to mod then and there were a lot of mods - the temptation of modders to take a substantial part of a mod, make a few tweaks and then post it as its own, was both easy and widespread. However times have changed and modding is a lot more difficult and time consuming as the files are higher definition , far larger and to a higher standard. Also in the world in general we have had a loosening of the copyright protection except at a commercial level as "Open Source" is far more common, Music, Art, Video are awash with 'ripped' and 'sampled' material. I think that nowadays if you release a mod and want to retain some level of control then you ought to put a document in with the download files stating your rights to the design and what you want to happen with them. On the other hand I think that modders such as Veins should keep a record (it is neither hard nor time consuming) of the mod elements they use and give a proper credit at the release point to those people and in a document contained in the download. The bottom line is that it is a courtesy and nothing more, if you put material out in the internet without terms and conditions or authorship details then its is free usage, I am afraid. On a personal note, the five guys who did the bulk of the rescue work at the old CMMODS site and saved and uploaded thousands and I mean thousands of files, for use by the CM community, got a load of abuse off certain authors (who had not put any authorship notes on their files, contact details nor anything else to identify them) complaining about breach of copyright, etc, etc simply because we were moving them from the old site to the new GAJ CMMODS site or posting them in bundles at the Scenario Depot before they were lost for ever. We asked permission where we could get it but in the majority of cases, there were no contact details and these were the people who were complaining. If you want to keep control of your work you need to make the effort and provide authorship and contact details with your files.

George, What are you working on at the moment?

Or you could provide them as a series of individual .pdf documents supplied with the scenario which would allow you to add sketch maps, etc. Do you have "Panzer Tactics"? If not have a look here: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=jKdHKmOrfLYC&pg=PR5&lpg=PR5&dq=panzer+tactics+book&source=bl&ots=VkLd-qVTbF&sig=Lbx1Uzh0yTdWFLgIZ46ATeMAcdA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=QjB_U_vZJbHP0AWBroGABQ&ved=0CE0Q6AEwADgK#v=onepage&q=panzer%20tactics%20book&f=false

The idea of standardised orders were anathema to German Officers - post war US interrogators were surprised that there were not even standardised orders for loading a train - it was believed to inhibit thought and initiative

Have a read of this document: http://f3.tiera.ru/1/genesis/575-579/578000/0ded624c837755427e34d2ca8a4534ad From the German Army Handbook Factor in that the German Army used two kinds of "orders" 1) Directives - by far the most common - where a unit commander would be given his objective, the width of his sector, the units under his command and a time frame but left very much to organise the attack by himself 2) Orders - were quite rare and which were mainly used usually when things were going badly and a superior officer wanted to intervene and re-direct a previous directive or insist on a particular course of action.

This is a really good article (in Russian but Google translates quite well) http://militera.lib.ru/science/peredelsky_ge and the illustrations are excellent. Here is a plan showing the different phases of the artillery bombardment for every major operation in the war:

Well to give meaning to this thread here is map of 5th Army's artillery plan for the 22nd June 1944 which shows an accurate layout of the German defences and then the Soviet artillery plan to defeat them. You do have to know Soviet Tactical Symbols to understand it though but I am sure that John and I can answer any questions. "It is the artillery Fire Groups for the 5th Army (3rd Belorussian Front) for its attack on 22nd June 1944 during Operation Bagration to the south of Vitebsk. 5th Army is composed of 3 Rifle Corps (45, 65, 72 RC) and the 3rd Guards Breakthrough Artillery Division. Solid green areas = AR Destruction Group = Corps Group - HP Howitzers Red Outline = ADD Long Range Group = 152 Gun/How and 122 Guns Red Centre = Bombardment Group = 152 & 122 howitzers 120mm mortars Red Hatched = Rocket Group = BM-13 and M30 launchers Green Hatched = Army/Corps AT Reserve Group = 76mm field guns mainly Green Outline = Infantry Support Group = 76mm field guns, mortars & 122m howitzers So on the Soviet side of the lines, you can see where these various groups are placed in relation to the front line and then on the German side of the line, you can see what is being targeted by these groups as the coloured symbols correspond to the groups above. The scale would indicate that the main German HKL (around 600m of trenches) is represented by the single line of the main line and the B Stellung (Artillery protective trench is the broken heavy lines under the rear most Soviet Rocket fire) and then the artillery zone is behind this at around 3km or greater from the front line. So the bulk of the Soviet fire is falling on the HKL and some fire on the HKF with only the German guns being engaged by the Long Range Group."

WIP on Ukrainian peasant huts Have to adjust the widows and doors to fit the recesses of the old building but other than that the overall effect looking good.

John, what would we do without you! My interest in this stems from this thread on Armchair General and the desire to create an artillery centred scenario. http://www.armchairgeneral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=135327

Does anyone have a table showing what the various parameters for artillery mean? ie. A Medium strike for short duration with 4 guns delivers what?

Can you tell us the trick so that I can correct my current splash screens which are clipped.

Good range of improvements here. Just one thing I am confused about where we are with the building mods. I thought you said that a complete set was coming out - is this still happening in the future - is it for the individual buildings or the modular ones?