wokelly

I've encountered this a bunch of times, I am not sure what to make of it. At times there seems to be gaps but they are not actually gaps. Other times my men go through hedges that look solid until you get really close and see a very small gap. Gaps in some hedges are not well defined in this module at times. Agreed, personally I am really enjoying this campaign more than the others I have played. The US campaign was endless bocage (which it was in reality but it makes for somewhat stale gameplay), and I found myself using mainly the same tactic again and again. This one I find I have to vary my tactics. At times bocage tactics and other times wide open fields. I am about half way through the scottish corridor. I find it really enthralling balancing my increasingly depleted forces and overcoming the Germans but I feel I have a grasp of how to beat the Germans. They tend to have better firepower but I tend to outnumber them so it is about concentrating your firepower on the Germans piecemeal. The spare Bren per squad is pretty useful in this regard, need to keep him up front.

First mission I guessed the enemy would be in that bush line on the right and nailed it with about a quarter of my arty rounds. Pushed two companies up that route (churchills and Bren teams kept the enemy pinned) who happened upon an ATG and dispatched it. My men saw the enemy bunker so I moved my 95mm churchill up the main road (luckily missed the mines somehow) until the trees lined up such that he could see the bunker through the forest, nailed it. Moved my third company up the road and to the berm line near the KOed bunker, moved my churchills up. Shifted my 3rd company left to the other side of the main road to push in from that direction. Kept my infantry in front of my Churchills and cleared the village with about 30 casualties in the end. In regards to the mortars, was like playing musical chairs until I pushed up to the village. Probably most of my losses were to mortars. Churchills were the big killers for me, both racked up about half of the enemy casualties I inflicted.

Not on hand sadly. Looking a little deeper I may be mistaken on this. Churchills were armed with either the Mark III or Mark V variant of the 57mm, which was L/43 and L/50 respectively (didn't realize a L/43 variant for tanks was produced). I would assume that they would have Mark V guns though by Normandy as the extra barrel length improved performance but to be honest I really don't know. I do know Churchills saw service with both guns.

Luckily I have not run into this bug, knocking out the bunkers fine.

I'm actually surprised the Churchills have a 57mm L/43. Is that a typo? From my understanding all tank mounted 57mm guns were L/50's. The 57mm L/43s were early production Anti-tank guns for use in North Africa until the L/50s could be mounted properly, but the tank mounts were always L/50s.

It is the barrel length in calibers. A caliber being dependent on the muzzle width. So the Churchill has a 57mm gun with a barrel lenth of 57mm x 43 = 2451mm long.

Wow, both the videos the guys are firing the PIAT wrong. What are the chances? Proper way to fire the PIAT is the base plate in your shoulder. Hold on well enough for the recoil the weapon should theoretically recock itself.

I've seen it. Not a biggie for me, I rarely zoom in that closely to look at dead guys.

Just tried this mission twice. Defend against German attack, plenty of foxholes, problem is they are outright useless because unless you put your men right up against the bocage they can't see the Germans until they are on top of them. Some pictures to illustrate: What my men in foxholes can see: What is actually in front of them: The foxholes have absolutely no use right now because my men cannot see the enemy until they are almost on top of them. And the bocage does not offer enough cover allow my men to fight off the attack or even fight a delaying action because the numbers they face just pin them right down. Either you keep your guys in the foxholes and they can maybe engage them when they come with 30 meters, or you move them up to the bocage wall 5 feet away and let them blast away until they get pinned down.

I have to agree. What the (western) allies did should not be brushed off but it was rarely comparable to Nazi atrocities, especially in the east. Hitler and his gang killed more Germans through the T-4 program and the Holocaust than the Allies did firebombing German towns. That is not to ignore the morality of the Allied firebombing, it is to put it in perspective to Nazi crimes which claims far more victims.

Not sure about 1.8x. The Early Shermans had the periscope M38 sights with 1.44x optics. The M70F was a 3x scope: "To correct the problem with the M4 periscope-type sight gun, later production units of the M4 series tank received a new three-powered direct-sight telescope in the fall of 1942. During the winter of 1942-43, several new telescopes with better optical characteristics were developed, and in July 1943, the army standardized the telescope M70F for the M4 Series." "The three-power M70F telescope was tubular in shape, measured 22 inches in length, and was illuminated by an instrument light..." Source M4 Sherman at war. You can find a preview on google: books.google.ca/books?id=SOTDzoncMroC&pg=PA85&lpg=PA85&dq=Sherman+gunsight&source=bl&ots=xeLZY0b6EO&sig=bKi5i4E53GCz2B6DRUOSrrGhEfU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=A6lWT8vwHuLl0gGQwJifCg&ved=0CFkQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q&f=false

It is actually from wikipedia but I have seen this photo debated on Axis history forum prior to its appearance on wikipedia. Interestingly what I read there stated this King Tiger was knocked out in the US sector by a 3" gun firing HVAP. Given HVAP was only marginally better than 17 pdr APCBC, this may indicate armour quality problems on this tank. Looks like it was KOed frontally in battle. Only 5 hits with 1 penetration on the front does not suggest a firing test done by a unit on a hulk, usually you see a dozen or more hits with those ones.

Well both commanders are unbuttoned so I don't see a problem with the results really. Secondly in terms of "better" optics, the German optics are noted for having better clarity and field of view, but in terms of magnification they are little different (2.4x for the German Mark IV and 3x for the Sherman). The German optics are easier to use to acquire targets, but are not necessarily better at spotting targets, especially at 2000 yards where a tank will look mightly small indeed to any optic with power less than 5x or 6x. German tanks with strong magnified optics were the StuG (6x), Tiger and Panther (2.4x and 5x). Jagdpanther and Jagdtiger had strong optics as well, I think in terms of the latter it had 12x optics!

*Cough*

Can you cite what you read? Personally when I tell people this I only have an example I saw someone do on the WWIIOL forum which was pretty well cited but you can not access those without a password. Would love to have something to cite in the future if it is in a book or something.

Yeah ditto. Would happily per-order but I do not want the CD or to pay for shipping.

I honestly have no idea if the Thoma Schilde skirts would have been any better at stopping HEAT. All I know for certain is the steel side plates were of marginal use. I have seen someone do the calculations and theoretically the side skirts provided protection if the round hit at a pretty bad angle.

It is a bit of a myth that the side skirts on the Mark IV provided protection from HEAT rounds. This is due to the use of slat skirts on modern AFVs to protect them from HEAT rounds (mainly the RPG). Modern "spaced armour" doesn't actually work on the principle of stand off range, rather the collection of "ribs" deform the head of the HEAT round and prevent the formulation of a molten jet. The German side skirts were stand off armour meant to stop Russian ATR rounds, but they are not "ribbed" like modern slat armour and do not actually provide much protection from HEAT rounds. The stand off range needed to resist HEAT rounds is pretty big, around a meter until the jet has totally petered out on certain types. The German side skits had an effect but not enough to prevent a jet capable of going through 3cm side armour from hitting it. I think the Germans knew this, as the Panther and later Jagdpanzers did not have side skirts, in part because their side armour was strong enough to stop ATRs and because the skirts did not provide much if any protection. Incidentally this is why the sandbag protection on the Sherman's had no effect either

Try looking for stuff on the 6th Guards Tank Brigade and Operation Bluecoat. The unit ended up crossing terrain the Germans thought impassable, including bocage I think. Also during the Rhineland Campaign in 1945 the Churchill's of one unit pushed through a waterlogged forest to emerge behind the German front line. The German commander famously remarked he didn't think it was fair for a tank to cross impassable terrain and emerge behind him.

Regardless fighting against 3 tigers and bagging all three of them is a pretty amazing accomplishment.

Well there is some mixing allowed. Cromwells and Fireflies in the same unit did occur due to the lack of an effective 17pdr armed Cromwell. In regards to Churchills, M10s were often used to boost their AT punch so mixing Churchills and M10s/Achilles would be historical.

I mentioned the full title and author on my original post, but here it is again: "Ostkrieg: Hitler's War of Extermination in the East" by Stephen Fritz That said it is not without its own flaws, one of the most annoying is how the author talks about the late war Russian operations as based on the German 1941-42 operations which ignores Russian deep operation doctrine. But it is not a real military history as much as a general history of the war and as a single volume work it is quite good. Also I didn't really think when I said what I said about Beevor about his more vocal critics. I personally quite enjoyed Beevors books, they were in fact my first on the Eastern Front and helped me develop an interest in an area I had no knowledge about. My only issue with them is because they are a decade old they are out of date on certain things and thus do not hold up well to more recent books which can incorporate recent historical works. They are still good reads, but if I had to choose ONE work today they would not be it. In another 10 years Ostkriege probably will not be the one I will choose either.

Beevor perpetuates the myths his sources does, as do most other historians. It is not a snide remark at Beevor so much as just inherent weaknesses in his works on the eastern front which rely very heavily on secondary sources. For example Beevors work perpetuates the "blame hitler" myth, especially in regards to Stalingrad. There are works more recently (last decade) which have shown there were generals who agreed with Hitler to leave the 6th Army at Stalingrad (at least initially) because it simply did not have the fuel to conduct a withdrawal of all its units without being mauled if not destroyed by the Russian pincers. It is not that Beevor purposely pushes myths, his works are just a product of what is available and when he published his two work history of the eastern front (berlin and Stalingrad), the sources had flaws. The work is good for the time it came out, but it does not hold up as well with the more scholarly articles written recently that demolish many myths perpetuated by many sources Beevor used. I would not suggest Berlin or Stalingrad now compared to other more modern works, as I stated if you want one work on the eastern Front, "Ostkriege" is one of the most up to date regarding the continuously changing historiography of the eastern front in a single volume.

I'm a bit surprised the Mark III didn't make it as they made up half the total number of Churchills that saw service. Also their welded turrets were up armoured to 12cm on the front and 9cm on the sides which makes them quite a bit more resistant than the Mark IV. Regardless am pretty stoked to use them.

For the best one volume work on the eastern front I would say "Ostkrieg: Hitler's War of Extermination in the East" by Stephen Fritz. The reason I like it so much is because the author, in their own works, sought "to provide a deeper understanding of the complexity and immensity of the Ostkrieg by anchoring the military events of the war within their larger ideological, racial, economic and social context". In short it looks at everything and provides a very good understanding of why the war was fought the way it was. It was not just Hitler was crazy, it explains quite well why Hitler did what he did and how hew viewed things. It also does a good job of demolishing the scape goating of Hitler by generals who at the time agreed with his decisions but after the war rewrote history to blame Hitler for everything (Not that hitler did not make stupid decisions). Very good work for those who want to catch up on where the historiography of the eastern front is at. Books like Beevors and others still carry on too many cold war era myths, this book is good because it is free of most of them because it uses articles and works written in the past decade. It does have its flaws (like all books do), but it quite readable and quite informative.