Vark

What is going on? I loved the "guarded by special patrols comment". , http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/7338097/200-Russian-tanks-found-abandoned-in-forest.html

I've gone through the thread and have not seen this title mentioned, which I perused yesterday in Waterstones bookshop. http://www.amazon.co.uk/T-34-Action-Stackpole-Military-History/dp/0811734838 Seems to have lots of maps about small scale actions, including use of supporting infantry. Anyone who has this, will it shed any further light about actual tactical use of 'tank riders'.

Appalling maps, not apalling spelling!!

Little dubious about the 'new' revelation that the forces were far weaker than previously thought. In Fire and Movement magazine the designers notes for the original version of the monster boardgame "Streets of Stalingrad", explicitly state there are no step losses for counters, because most units (each counter is a company) were operating at or close to 50%. I have looked at Volume 1 but shyed away because of the apalling maps, I have a visual memory and when I browsed came across numerous examples that Jason cites eg the Shame, perhaps if somone produced Collin's notes for such books, with big colour maps I might try!! Interestingly whilst playing Streets you never thought you were in an urban brawl, but a conventional battle with artificial close terrain. Perhaps this is a direct result of the unrealistic gods eye view the player has, or it could be that C&C problems in BUA's has been over exagerated. Or could it be again the pernicious influence of the World at war programme!

Yes, the enemy has a plan as well, but if you outnumber him with equivalent tanks, outgun him and have total air superiority why take so long. Why do all the first hand accounts I have read state the superiority of German armour (when it was encountered) was a given, if not in terms of purely size of gun but optics etc. Why the problem? Compare the rapid advances of the Russians with inferior armour, artillery (apart from numbers) and only partial air superiority against, as Jason has pointed out, the majority of the German tank park and combat proven divisions. Numbers cannot be the reason as the allies had similar operational ratios so that leaves terrain or Russian operational/strategic superiority, over their allied counterparts. Still confused, so much intuitively does not make sense, so either it is my failing intellectual/analytical faculties or something is screwy with the analysis. Does anyone have the distribution data for 76mm armed TD's or Shermans serving in fronline armoured units? What proportion did they make up of smaller tactical combat formations . I know the 1 to 4 ratio for Fireflys to basic M4's but how many 76mm M4's saw operational duties. Anecdotally, photographs taken in 1945 still show large numbers of 75mm models.

I'm now genuinely confused. If you are correct Jason, given the vast superiority of allied artillery, in terms of doctrine, equipment, technology and logistics and the domination of the skies, why did the allies take so long to achieve their objectives? If the Germans were so overmatched, who let the side down? I like alternatives to the received wisdom but some of your examples raise more questions than they solve, and some of the examples used (Mortain, Six Day War) seem to reinforce the orthodoxy you are challenging. Surely Mortain showed the loss rates to any attacker in close terrain, especially whilst being conducted under the shadow of air superiority. The Israeli Sherman boasted a far more powerful gun and as Egypt only lost 55-58 T-55's I doubt it battled many as most of the Egyptian tank park comprised of obsolete Soviet WWII/post war armour. As for the 1940 scenarios my knowledge is basic so I will let more knowledgeable voices speak, though I do know an army using carrier pigeons should be at a disadvantage, or was this again false history perpetrated by "The World at War"?

Loss rates seem low for such a conflict and there seems to be an uncharacteristic Russian squeamishness on taking losses. Retreat to start lines because 4 MBT's are engaged from the flank, what about the other 20+? Or are the Medvedevian Russians as casualty averse as the West?

What, that button is a life saver! Take a platoon advancing to contact, each squad has an advance order but using the pause button you can have the squads sequentially advance as the others are stationary. Make sure each squad only advances in short bounds that take 20 seconds, all the squads have a 10 second delay so Squad 1 keeps the original 10 second delay Squad 2 pause 20 seconds so moves 30 seconds later Squad 3 pause for 40 seconds so moving 50 seconds after squad 1 Squad 4 should move 10 seconds into next turn, so maximum pause and pause/cancel next turn, depending on the delay incurred (sometimes you can get 60 seconds sometimes not) The HQ unit should move with squad 2 or 3, but the pause button allows great tactical flexibility. I always found it highly satisfying when one squad of pixel truppen dashed forward as the ones ahead stopped and began to kneel down and this pattern was repeated. Once I'd read Jasons posts about infantry tactics my advances become fearsome waves of slowly rising and resting units. The tactic is invaluable as you close, because advancing troops have firepower reduced by 50% and the pause button, used this way, allows maximum suppressive firepower to assist an assaulting squad. I might add it is highly unrealistic for Soviet units who used the move/fire routine with platoons not individual squads, though their tactic of all dashing forward to reach broken ground/brush etc is penalised by the stupid morale affects for running. Modern British infantry are still taught to dash for cover, if close by, when under attack, try that in CM and see the result! Another tactic is quite risky but valuable if mortars are running low on ammo, fire an on board mortar but plot a sneak move and pause it for thirty seconds. Your support unit will now fire approx 10 rounds before stopping to start to sneak and be ready to fire next turn because the set up delay will have the same effect. I was getting sick of engaging targets, spotted by an HQ (which means area fire) and having the desired effect on the target within 30 seconds, only to have the mortar waste its entire supply on empty ground. Now when troops try to hide in buildings or advance my mortars play havoc, breaking up attacks repeatedly. Warning, using this tactic against guns can be tricky, as sometimes a whole minutes worth of firing is needed to achieve results, though sometimes using a short move order means your mortar starts engaging at 30+ seconds, this allows you to monitor the effects after the turn has finished. ( a routed crew will appear as another hidden unit icon, next to the gun, a dead giveaway!)

I'm just thinking that if a non-penetrating hit can knock out the electrical traverse of a 56 ton Tiger, or cause hydraulic`lines to rupture, what effect a 120mm Sabot has. Or is it the case that the new composite armours negate the shock waves more effectively, so the auto-loader itself, or any any electrical or lubricating sub-sytems are not adversely affected. My scenario is a front/side impact that does not penetrate, but comes close, is the high velocity but low weight saboted dart only a penetrate to kill munition (by kill I mean fire power, mobility, mission or total). I now the loader must be robust, as it is designed to be capable of dealing with the maingun recoil, but is it on a dampened mounting or does it not matter.

Could be worse, think about the poor sods in this T-72 Just thinking, looking at the operation of the auto loader, would a non-penetrating impact throw the device out of alignment or cause it to malfunction? It certainly looks quite susceptible, given the number of actions needed to load a round.

Gargh!! £1.4 million! Sorry Elmar, posts today are riddled with errors. I am trying to find the report, I think it was a link from a post on this forum, as the officer was relaying the tale he walked over and showed the pile of expended launch tubes and there must have been 15 plus. I know when I brought it up with some Afghan specialists, they all had similar tales of wasteful uses of kit. The received opinion, amongst the military analysts, was that they should have given out scoped Lee-Enfields to the troops so they could engage beyond 500m without use of SAW's amd GPMG's. Then again some of them seemed to want to reintroduce the Bren, so perhaps it was the beer talking!!!

Surely firing a third generation missile, costing upwards of a $100,000, at a suspected sniper is a tad wasteful? Surely if we are going to be in theatre for ten plus years we should have developed/fielded a less expensive, albeit high effective, way of taking out such targets. Is a fire and forget, soft ejection/multi engine, dual warhead missile really needed against Afghan compounds, even with very thick walls. Sure, the thermal sight on the firing unit must be a great help in target aquisition but the missile it launches could be more economically designed, perhaps the missile with only direct fire mode and not the top down capability? I watched an account of the Paras hunting a former farmer turned sniper, who only turned violent because the British were offering, what he thought was, derisory compensation for clearing some of his trees. The difference between the offer and what he wanted was in the region of a thousand pounds, but the Paras were operating under strict guidelines about amounts of financial compensation. They killed him eventually, by using Javelins costing a total of £14 million!

Drager, take three 50mm's from each platoon and group them under a company HQ, to create an unrealistically powerful support unit. Germans abandoned their 50mm mortars as wasteful and inefficient, but in CM they are life savers, especially when infantry are pinned down, enemy support weapons, during an advance.

Tyrspawn, if you want to do some more research about cold war tactics use the following terms to perhaps help. First units encountered (not the dedicated regimental recce) as hcrof said they would be busy trying not to fight. 1. Combat Security Patrol (CSP) made up of a platoon (composition depending on the parent regiment) 2. Foward Security Element (FSE), as the name suggests they are screening the lead battalion and look to detect and destroy counter-recce units and find a soft spot. If involved in a serious contact would attack and if repelled go firm, harrass/scout the enemy and wait for the AG. 3. Advance Guard (battalion, less elements used for the CSP and FSE), although only battalion strength they could have substantial artillery assets available and gunship support. Composition is as John suggested, though there are no hard and fast rules, (big debate amongst analysts about just how accurate our intel was). What you do have is a steady escalation of combat power with a fixed purpose and a massive number of tubes, including MRL's. Down load the demo for TacOps 4 it shows the units involved (you cannot play the Opfor) but you certainly experience the progressive build up and probing attacks. If I were designing a AA II scenario it would have this steady build up, built in, and woe betide the defender who does not maximise his mobility, sit it out and you will be overwhelmed or bypassed!

Do, it's not, as Jason has said a treatise on tactics, and suffers from the typical leaden translation syndrome occasionally but is worth the read for the little day to day details. Talking of tactics, I'm finding it hard to find anything concrete about the use of 'desantki' which is a vague term in itself. The only source seems to be a $300 tome on Russian developments of organisation and subsequent changes to operational/tactical matters. German accounts often say that Russian infantry followed closely behind tanks, giving effective support and Russian accounts support the deployment in close terrain idea. If this method of attack, beloved of wargamers, was so widespread why is there so little official documentation. US intelligence documents, during WWII, so it as a compromise between wanting to have close support infantry and lacking in mechanised units. Anyone have anything concrete about the tactical use of Tank riders, or is that term itself a misnomer? Perhaps soldiers who travelled on tanks, so they could keep up, would be more accurate.

Yes, I have jtcm get it if you can, a considerable ammount of the time they act as infantry, and as the tip of the spear face being outnumbered, with their tank support engaged elsewhere. An interesting assertion is the effectiveness and frequency of the German CAS, which causes casualties and delays, as they hide in woods. The accounts are mecifully lacking the, "Gefreiter Schultz single-handedly held off the cowering Red platoon whilst Sergeant Kunnitz accounted for two T-34's and and a Sturmovik", crap that infests some ubermenschen recollections. The author slaps himself on the back a bit too much, 'I was the most popular officer, the men knew I was firm but fair' but shows the poor competency of most Russian company commanders and obviously respected the Germans as an opponent.

The whole Borg spotting routine makes Jason's observations perfectly reasonable, in reality I doubt the tanks appreciate a whole squad jumping off when ever a tank rider is hit or spooked. With no radio and zero visibility in the rear when buttoned the T-34's would motor on to destruction.

What happens though when, all to frequently, fire forces a dismount and the tanks blithely charge on leaving the stranded desantki hundreds of metres from their objective. By the time they rally the SMG troops are all but useless and the HMG's who knocked them off are often not spotted. I have read Tank Rider and the whole squad did not dismount if under fire, is this because they gain no cover bonus in CMBB? I have seen photos of tank riders under fire, and they are all huddled behind the turret.

Jason, a good summation of the command zeitgeist of the two sides, thanks. Are there any good sources about the planning of Citadel, I know that Hitler said just thinking about it made him sick to the stomach, but what were the planners thinking? I have just read Martin Middlebrook's book on Arnhem and found the first quarter, detailing the planning for the operation, fascinating. As the years creep on I find my fascination is for the operational and strategic overviews rather than the mud and blood of the tactical, in direct contrast to my younger days, when battles exerted a fascination that their campaigns never did. On the point of the delay imposed by the fortifications I did not make myself clear, I was alluding to the operational delay caused by the wait for the Panthers/Ferdinands appearance. The latter, with its thick side armour tasked to take on Russian inter-locked AT strongpoints. Did the very presence of such an extensive defensive network cause critical months to be wasted or would the outcome, sans Uber Kitties, (Tigers excepted) have been the same?

Just as poor tactical performance has an adverse affect on operational issues, surely overestimating the ability of your troops tactical superiority to rescue an operationally/strategically flawed plan is also an issue? Did previous examples of German tactical superiority make the Citadel planners complacent, expecting any Russian counter to be defeated at the tactical level, which would then result in operational success. Final point, perhaps the extensive fortifications most useful purpose was to delay the operation so that the new AFV's could be deployed to tackle them. Or if the Germans had gone earlier would the outcome have been similar?

John, just the kind of guy I am. I used to read about modern weapons and devise counters to them using off the wall solutions. Tanks, easy, forget sophisticated warheads in your ATGM's and fill them with a mixture of industrial fouling paint and adhesive (binary munitions set up) then either explode the warhead with a proximity fuse or direct impact. I don't care how tough your armour is, if you cannot see you cannot fight. Soviet paras were taught how to make a viscous mud mixture which they were instructed to smear on AFV optics... brave men those Soviets! The chilling thing is that if your opponent was equiped with a battle winner it might turn out to be a war-winner, such was the accelerated temp of the expected conflict. The Soviet timeline, much discussed, was the channel in two weeks, hardly enough time to find a counter to your enemies curve-ball. Senior commanders, on both sides, must have realised that a failure, by themselves or a subordinate, could rapidly escalate to near or total defeat for a front. Perhaps this thought, lurking at the backs of the higher echelons minds, was a powerful deterrent to starting hostilities and not the tactical nuclear weapons, which the Soviets proposed to use liberally.

Could the TOS-1 rockets be fitted with the mixture so that a vast cloud of obscurants could be projected just before specific areas of the FLET, leaving the individual AFV's to defend after they exit the smoke barrage?

That should have read student's with an apostrophe, not a bloody comma!

Souldierz, know how you feel, as a teacher I am amazed at the lack of knowledge of my students, about the war in Afghanistan and why British troops are deployed. This is in a school where a large number of fathers are stationed there, or are in the forces. We feed our young syrupy liberal pap and wonder why they struggle in the real world, pretend to want to listen to their 'real opinions' but upon hearing them defend from the PC playbook and then wonder why they rarely bother to get 'involved'. As for the answer about two people locked in a garage, surely one would expect only the sane man to walk out, having disposed of his reality challenged companion! On a brighter note, the next generation are far more conservative bunch, so there is hope here! John, fascinating, I'm now a neophyte Afghan rug-grog! An a different note, I'm whiling away any odd spare hour by playing the free demo of Tac-Ops 4 just defending against a MRR and finding the endless stream of T-80's and BTR's a bit hard to handle! I love the order menus flexibility and the changeable SOP routines and TRP priorities, just wish morale was a factor, the OPFOR attack like terminators and have to be killed to a man!

My friend, an Afghan expert, has a collection of these 'works of art'. Given the intricate patterns of a traditonal Afghan rug I suspect that the crude patterns of these items suggest they are tourist/advisor fodder for souvenir hunters.