Narses
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Posts posted by Narses
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"I miss seeing after the battle the scores of individual tanks"
Why do you miss this? It is a feature that is in the game. You can even see cummulative scores for a unit in a campaign.
Confused from Sussex
In QB there seem to be only cumulative scores, " 2 tanks destroyed."
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Yet another emotional topic. I'm a player going straight from CMx1 to CM:BN.
I find I do miss some things (like command lines) but haven't missed the old armor strength graphics.
I miss those added pieces of armor info in the original CM games and I miss seeing after the battle the scores of individual tanks.
If Battlefront needed to eliminate this it is OK and really not that important.
Armor thickness isn't the end all of the equation anyway. You also need to know about ammunition, APCBC versus APCR or APDS, etc. Then there is quality of armor with German armor starting to feel the effects of loss of certain alloys. So really its keep the enemy away from your flanks and rear, use hull down if possible and for the Germans and maybe the 17pdr range is your friend - sometimes hard to find in Normandy.
Probably for 85% of us playing we've already processed and have most of this info in our heads. For example knowing that the 80mm on the PzIV doesn't include the the mantlet and turret front. Gosh, I hate that.
Also the CMBN game includes a book that has not only general armor thicknesses but also mentions quality of armor - something many books ignore. Or get a copy of Chamberlain & Doyle's softcover 2 vol Encyclopedia of WW2 Tanks.
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THis is a very nicely developed product. Graphics are amazing. I love playing it as I did all your earlier CM's and a few other products from you.
I would like to suggest that village maps should have their buildings mostly wall to wall down the main street which often has a church. There might be narrow alleyways but in European villages - mostly - those stone building of 2 or 3 or even more stories are side by side. The map views of villages do not look right. Generally I think the city maps are better. There might be some small issues with the farm buildings but its not bad.
Any European guys out there agree? I've lived in Germany, France, Austria and Portugal.
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Ian Hogg in German Artillery of WW2, 1975, says (pg 217 ): 8.8cm Panzerabwehrkanone 43/41. ..... Since the barrels of the PAK 43 were relatively easy to make, but the carriage manufacture was lagging, a temporary expedient was produced. The PAK 41 barrel was fitted with a horizontal sliding block breech mechanism resembling that of the 7.5cm PAK 40 and the semi-automatic gear was a simplified version of that used on the PAK 43. The carriage was a collection of suitably modified stock components; the trail legs came from the 10.5 cm le FH 18, the wheels were taken from the 15cm s FH and the saddle was a steel plate fabrication that tied everything together. But the PAK 43/41's weight (4380 kg/9658 lbs) and awkwardness were notorious and it was nicknamed "Scheuntor" ("barndoor")... In spite of all this it was an effective weapon and it is on record that one knocked out 6 T34 tanks at a range of 3500m (3828 yds). Another report stated a T34 attacked from the rear at a range of 600m had the engine block flung out for a distance of 5m (16.4 ft) and the cupola lid landed 15 m (49.22 ft) awawy.
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Found this picture recently. The story behind it is that the photographer, T/5 Harding, was following the US advance toward Coutances. This column was crossing over a river into a village fortified by the Germans when the halftrack pictured below was struck by a Panzerschreck round. Unfortunately, no one in the halftrack survived. Harding later stated that it was by pure coincidence he was able to capture this hellish moment on film. What he thought would be just an intresting picture of units on the move turned out to be a shot that captured the last moments on earth for the GIs in the doomed halftrack.
Wow! Really great shot. Hard to believe I haven't seen it before based on all the books I've collected over the past 50 years!
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Anyone playing and expecting, or even hoping to come out ahead, has a screw loose, I'll agree. I can see the attraction of taking the money you might've spent on show tickets/coke/hookers or the like and choosing to blow it on the gee gees or the tables instead: there's a thrill in thinking you might get lucky after all
Personally, I'd rather drop a ton on a good restaurant; good food (even if it's a shortcut to the cardiac ward) is healthier than gambling debts.Or dropping it at the Vegas gun range firing a MP40 or Thompson. Then eating is next !
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Why do you think it's "too accurate" to hit 1000m targets with first round ? The natural spread of most tank guns is not that big on such distance. The main source of inaccuracy and errors on 1000m range are errors in range estimation, the precision of aiming, and possibly misalligned sights (or sights that are not well maintained and not properly adjusted). If a tank has a competent, calm gunner that aims precisely, takes his time, if they also have a well maintained and adjusted sight, and if they estimated the range correctly, then there is no reason they shouldn't hit the target with the first round with very high probability. No matter is it's a Panther of 75mm Sherman, the guns are quite accurate if the range is known.
If their range estimation is wrong, then they are quite likely to miss (chances depends on the gun, 75L70 or 88L71 are still less likely to miss than 75L40), but they should hit the target with second round and each round after that.
Only because I am always at 'Regular' or 'Veteran.' However right after posting that I went back and played a saved QB and my stationary Panther this time had 3 misses at 1142m on moving Shrtmans (their flanks) then got one. My other pzs were IVs and they were not yet shooting as the 2 were in a different location. Certainly I've seen the % figures firing on a range for the 75L70 but battlefield creates its own problems for the crew.
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Tanks do seem too accurate getting too many first rd hits around 1000 meters although my panzers are stationary. And I've never tried the highest 2 skill levels either.
At least certain units like anti-tank hunter and bazooka/schreck guys are too prone to fire their sidearms often after firing their AT rd. If they hit their tank target they then start firing sidearms at the crew it seems. Instead they should go prone and hide again as in most of my QB games another enemy unit will get them.
I'm not sure about MG fire on tanks. I tend to think it has advantages to keep the tank buttoned, confused by looking for it or an enemy anti-tk gun or tank.
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Yep. But we aren't talking about scale modelling.
Too bad there are no reasons given why Zaloga is clueless and wrong about his opinions and statements in his fine volume on tank destroyers.
Strange that I mentioned far more information on this subject and quotes from the Ft Leavenworth's US Army Combat Studies Institute on the overall failure of the whole TD concept ( it was disbanded as a force and concept after the war) and you zero in on a couple opinions from Zaloga.
You are certainly welcome to your opinion on tank destroyers and your opinion on TD's has merit but your continual rants about Zaloga as a historian are clearly not adding anything to the TD discussion. Perhaps you should start your own thread on Zaloga ?
Ok, back to this wonderful game.
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Turning up your nose at Osprey genrally and Zaloga in particular would be unfortunate. What issues in particular do you have? Some mistakes can be found almost anywhere. Any non-primary sources can be iffy, even from good authors. I think given the subject matter that Osprey publications are no worse than average. Quite a bit of primary source material is also questionable.
Much historical research is best guess and supposition.
EDITED - re-read you post. Agreed that they are good places to start, but I think more since they are general in nature, rather than terribly inaccurate.
I fully agree with you.
Many of the Osprey issues are quite decent and the history is very short but good however any of us at some particular point might disagree with the opinions. Osprey may not be Col David Glantz but its OK and the current products are much improved over the early years. But that is why I went back to the Leavenworth #12 Combat Studies Institute which in all aspects agreed with Zaloga.
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Narses - every one of the reports of TDs in NA being unsatisfactory is about M3 halftracks with French 75s stapled into them - and those were. The M10s rocked. And in every subsequent engagement against German armor over the entire war, SP TDs rocked. The arm vastly outscored the tanks sent against them.
It was still not considered a great success because the Germans rarely did send armor against the Americans in meaningful quantities. Whenever they did, they adopted an offensive posture that let the TDs shine in their intended role. But most of the time, they had little armor and stood on defense, and then a fully covered tank with more MG firepower would have been preferable.
The complaints about TDs thus fall into 3 distinct categories, frequently conflated by actually having nothing to do with each other. (1) M3 purple heart boxes were ineffective but everyone knew that the moment they were designed. They were a pure stopgap measure until purpose built TDs reached the theater. (2) TDs spent lots of time under employed for lack of their intended opponents, in no small part because they cleaned the clocks of said opponents, very rapidly, whenever it actually came up. Underemployed or used for tasks besides those they were designed for (infantry support to indirect artillery fire), they were thought by higher ups to be a waste of resources. (3) The tankers still in 75mm Shermans wished they had the 76mm guns that had been deployed in the TDs, sooner and in greater quantity, and with more supped up ammunition. They disliked the split of firepower across two platforms and preferred just upgunning the main battle tank fleet.
But it is flat wrong to claim, as many do, that the TDs were actually ineffective in their intended role. This is just utterly false. The only time the *arm* ever failed was when they didn't have modern equipment yet. Which is not a failure of the SP TDs as vehicles, or the tactical role assigned to them, or the way they were employed. As soon as they had modern SP TDs, they beat the tar out of German armor whenever and wherever they met it.
Note, this wasn't because the individual vehicles were superior to German tanks in gun and armor terms. It is because the Germans used that armor quite poorly when they attacked into fully integrated US defenses. Which used artillery and infantry firepower to strip the tanks, and then engaged them with armored reserves, especially TDs, while the Germans had poor tactical intel - from being in the defender's zone and thus not knowing where everything was, from pushing forward without regard for flanks for operational reasons, from the defender's having lots of eyes around them, from being buttoned, from attacking in poor visibility conditions to minimize allied airpower, etc, etc. All created perfect kill conditions for the TDs, which they dutifully cashed.
This happened at El Gutter, at Salerno, against Lehr in Normandy, in the approaches to Nancy in Lorraine, in the later heavier fighting around Arracourt, and in the Bulge, especially north shoulder. You can't find a single case in the entire war, post Kasserine, of a German armor attack of any appreciable size on American forces, met by SP TDs, in which the TDs failed.
All these officers quoted agree the TD's were exactly ineffective in their intended role as originally conceived as a counterattack force to armor attacks. It would have been much better it seems to have put high priority to the 76mm gun tank and start embedding them in tank plts until such time as there were 100% 76mm gun tanks and then the HVAP rd. In any regard we had numbers the Germans couldn't match even with quality in gun power.
Seems to me the TD ended up in a role that it was not designed for and that is the point as it greatly distracted the US Army's armor doctrine but yes they were cetrainly helpful. You are right to a degree that when they finally realized the concept for TD was wrong the guys in the field in the ETO changed it and handed them out to inf and arm divisions a role they were never intended for. And indeed they were then parceled out in the divisions by plt of TD's to inf or arm bns.
Your right about the TD's after Africa but again because they did not fight according to the concept they trained for but usually as split up plts in support. And the TD towed units suffered terrible casualties. You make a good valid point about the M3 weapon in the TD bns in Africa and the few M10s but the main argument of the detractors is not equipment its about concept. They didn't need TD bns just a better tank and let the tk bn take care of the armor fighting and let separate tk bns support the inf when necessary.
I feel good going with the AAR's of guys like Gen Harmon, 2d AD, especially and all the others although I realize some had personal axes to grind like Lucas who was a personal friend of Marshall and was angling for a corps which to our great regret he got.
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Taken from "Leavenworth Papers #12 "Seek, Strike, and Destroy: US Army Tank Destroyer Doctrine in WW II by Dr. C. R. Gabel.
These quoted comments came after North Africa was won and are After Action Reports based on tank destroyer performances:
(pg44) Gen Harmon, Cdr, 2d Arm Div in North Africa: "...there is no need for tank destroyers. I believe the whole organization and development of the tank destroyer will be a great mistake of the war."
(pg44) Gen Devers, Chief of Arm Forces then the AGF: "The separate tank destroyer arm is not a practical concept on the battlefield."
(pg43, 44) Gen Lucas, Special Representative from Gen Marshall to North Africa: "The tank destroyer has, in my opinion, failed to prove its usefullness."
(pg44) No quotes but Dr Gabelo sources Gens Patton and Bradley being dissatisfied with the tank destroyer in North Africa fighting.
(pg43) Maj Cushman, AGF Observer & Tk Detroyer Center Observer: Author says he stated that the TD's "...can not be used offensively to seek out enemy tanks....in slugging matches with them in the open."
(pg38) Author: "The costly victory at El Guettar stands alone as the only engagement of the North African and Italian campaigns in which a united tank destroyer bn met and stopped a concerted tank attack." ( 30 attacking claimed versus 20 M3's and 7 M10s destroyed). Note: Actually a good victory as the M3 was a halftrack mounted 75.
US Tank and Tank Destroyer Battalions by Steven Zaloga (pgs 14 and 15): "Gen Bruce ( CG, TD Center) pointed to El Guettar as a shinning example of the potential of tank destroyers. Others pointed out that tank destroyers had completely failed to stop the German tank attacks at Sidi-bou-Zid and Kasserine Pass.....and that ....El Guettar was a Pyrrhic victory with....losses as high as the panzer losses." Zaloga then goes on to say this gave Gen McNair ( originally an artilleryman)a chance to push through his desire for towed 3" tank destroyer units and on March 31, 1943 after a unit test of mixed results ordered the conversion of 15 self-propelled tank destroyer units to towed.
On Bradley converting towed TD units to SP TD units:
Zaloga pg 75: "...so finally in January 1945 Bradley's 12 Army Group took matters into their own hands and began to convert all towed 3in bns to self-propelled bns.....`
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McNair was the head of TDs (and AGF)
TDs did OK in NA. Their main problem was the feeble nature of most of the weapons with which they were equipped.
I don't know if he created any - the initial plan called for 220 bns, which was eventually pared back to 106 then eventually down to 78 in Oct '43. But even that smaller number saw only 50-odd comitted to battle. McNair did ensure that half would be towed and equipped with the 3-in gun, which was immeasurably better than either the towed 37mm or the 75mm M3 halftrack, based on a somewhat flawed reading of the lessons in NA. He wasn't alone in that though. The dire shortage of 105mm shells in NWE in 1944 was due to another misreading of the lessons from NA.
I doubt that was Bradley's doing, exactly. Also, as more and newer SP TDs became available units were re-equipped. They weren't disbanded and the men sent off elsewhere.
Thise were not my statements and conclusions but those of the author - Steven Zaoga - of the 2 Osprey pubs I sourced.
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Narses,
I think Magpie is talking about having TDs embedded in the Tank Bns, not whole bns of the things within divisions.
The British sort-of went down that path after initial experiences in Normandy. The Churchill regiments in the Tank Brigades did not have any organic 17-pr, so troops of M-10s and M-10Cs were semi-permanently cross attached from the SP A-Tk regiments to given the tanks adequate A-Tk firepower at the unit (and lower) level.
They also changed the structure of the Armd Recce Regts in their Armd Divs, which initially omitted any Fireflies. Since they were effectively being used as a fourth armd regt anyway, they were issued with Fireflies to up their A-Tk firepower and make them functionally identical.
Thanks.
I didn't pick up on that. But almost immediately they requested the M4A1 76mm gun tanks waiting in England and then embedded them in the tank bns of 2nd and 3rd Arm Divs. Though it appears we were not flexible enough because there was only a limited number of the 76mm gun tanks in England (maybe 90) and many, many M10s (743 in July). Even by Nov 44 the 2nd and 3rd Arm Divs had only 60, 76mm gun tanks and about 130 other tanks each.
Seems to me embedding one in every plt would have been a great immediate solution until numbers of the 76mm gun tank became available.
This entire problem had to do with the internal issues about the role of the tank destroyers in the Army. The head of the tank destroyer command was at war with Gen Marshall and Gen McNair over the use, capabilities and NEED for tank destroyers. Especially after their less than sterling performance in North Africa. Mc Nair's solution was to crerate towed tank destroyer bns but this proved a failure and finally Bradley wihout authorization started disbanding them at the end of 44 and asigning the personnel to self-propelled tank destroyer units.
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I find it ironic that they didn't put M10, 18 and 36's in the Tank Units rather than their own special commands. If the US TD's had been employed in a similar manner to the Firefly, perhaps it might have helped ?
According to Osprey books US Tank and Tank Destroyer Bn in the ETO 1944-45 and US Armored Divisions (The ETO 1944-45) tank destroyers although not organic to arm divisions were almost always assigned as one bn each to the arm divisions. (pg44 Osprey US Arm Divs) and:
(pg 70-71 Osprey Tk Dest Bn) "At the time of the D-Day landings there were 30 tank destroyer bns in England of which 11 were towed and 19 self-propelled...... Almost from the onset the bns were attached to the infantry and armored divisions." The M10 bns going mostly to armored divisions and the towed and some M10 bns to the infantry (who, says this book, much preferred the M4 tank bn as they had 50 M4's plus 6 105mm to 36 M10and the M4 had better HE rounds). Initially there were no M4 76mm tanks in Normandy (pg 30 US Arm Div) during Jun and they only were sent in from England on July 24, 1944. Still in Aug there were only 95 76mm gun tanks to about 800 75mm gun tanks in the armored divisions.
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Yeah. So? Ninety-five percent of the time, Shermans were not facing German tanks. For everything else, the 75 was the better gun because the HE shells had a larger bursting charge. American tanks faced far more ATGs and AT weapons in the hands of the infantry than they faced German tanks. People need to stop obsessing about tank vs. tank performance. It matters, sure, but so do all the other things that tanks have to do.
Michael
That's correct as most of the panzers were facing the Brits and Canadians at least initially.
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I think MengJiao makes a good point, the Panther is designed to take out other tanks so the worst thing to attack them with is a tank.
In Osprey's #3 Sherman Medium Tank 1942-45 pg 37 and 38 has Col James Leach a then plt ldr in 4th Arm Div's 37th Tank Bn saying later in 1944 in his plt at least one tank in each plt was a 75mm gun tank and its job was to keep loaded and fire WP smoke as this round was not available for the 76mm gun tanks. When any enemy armor unit was met and had to be initially engaged frontally the 75 was to immediately fire the WP moke round to attempt to prevent the enemy from engaging while the 76 gun tanks scooted around to the flanks. If this did not work artillery was called in.
On pg 37 a report from early in the Cotentin battles (our game) a Sgt Ross Figueroa, 2nd Arm Div, says it was using numbers and sacrificing some M4's. He also said firing even if there could be no penetration or even firing HE was sometimes effective as green panzer crews often would reverse away when hit multiple times and outlier shots might damage optics, jam a turret ring, or crack a track. Sometimes an AP ouotlier hitting the lower mantlet would deflect thru the thin roof armor into the driver's compartment (fixed in the G). This is an interesting tactic as it was used in Russia in 1941-2 against the early T34 and is reported in German AAR I've read - listed as outlier fire.
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We're in agreement. I was simply verifying what you said, adding some extra info on when the T4 was introduced (Aug 44 and mostly later) and it seems the game properly portrays the effectiveness of the T4 round.
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A bit of testing in the game suggests that tungsten significantly increases the chance of penetration against Tiger and Panther front turret. Most -- but not all -- hits will penetrate, compared to 76mm AP which usually does not. This was at 500m. I did not test against Tiger front hull since the turret results almost guarantee that tungsten will work well there.
Against the Panther front hull tungsten doesn't do any better than AP, at least not at 500m. It may be able to penetrate the upper front hull at very short ranges, like 100m, but I didn't test it at that range.
True but the T4 tungsten rd could penetrate 157mm at 500 yards versus 98mm for the M62APC.But the crews firing the T4 were directed to fire at the Panther's mantlet which apparently caused penetration. (See Osprey M10 and M36 Tank Destroyers, pgs 19, 34 and 35).
Osprey says the first 2000 rds were airlifted to Europe in Aug 44 but did not become widely available until November. By March 1945 only 18,000 rds had been delivered (pg 34 & 35). Usually M10 and 76mm gun tanks might have 2 to 3 T4 rds on hand held for Panthers and Tigers.
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This was certainly a huge job and its so well done. Congratulations on an important improvement.
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Generally I really like the appearances of the buildings, farms and churches. The cites are very nice.
I lived in France, Austria and Germany in the 60's and 70's and my recollections are that in villages, even small ones, the buildings in town where the village church always is were wall to wall against each other nearly always. In fact this is often the way in small or older American small towns except for wood and brick rather than stone.
This is not always the case in the various maps I see in QB for villages.
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It would be awesome to be able to detail tweak ammo and equipment being carried by units atleast in the scenario editor. I remember being able to do this in CMx1 games. Like being able to adjust the number of AP, HE, HC... round types carried by all platforms or being able to add a couple of Panzerfaust 30s to a otherwise useless truck in a motorized platoon. For example, you could simulate an undersupplied Panther platoon who are nearly all out of AP ammo but who have plenty of HE or simulate a US tank destroyer that just got a large shipment of Tungsten AP rounds in, or maybe a US infantry platoon that just swapped out their garandes for a couple extra Thompson or grease guns for a close quarters urban engagement. I would love so much for this deep tweaking to return in the editor.
According to several sources in the website GvA "A few rounds of HVAP M93 APCR were rushed to France in August 1944. Subsequently limited numbers were issued to troops as only 10,000 rounds were produced each month." Many went to the M10 units then to the 76 gunned units. So for this game in June-July-August very little should be on hand and only in August.
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2nd Panzer Div traveling from Somme to Caen covers about 200km going by googlemaps. The two panzer battalions report on day of arrival 75% operational PIV and 75% operational Panthers.
The reports of unreliability of Panther's is vastly overstated and or PIV reliability is vastly overstated in 1944.
Certainly this is a complicated subject. But a review of Jentz's 2 vol Panzer Truppen seems to indicate serious issues.
We all know the disasterous employment of Panthers at Kursk where nearly 200 PzV's fell to 40 by Jul 7 (pg 98 Jentz, Vol 2) and more or less remained around 35-40 thru the month. Even the Eastern Front's total operational versus repairables was 1922 total and 775 available on 10 Sep 43 (so roughly 40% available on the entire Eastern Front) but there is no way to determine combat damage or mechanical issues. But this is Eastern Front.
The problems with the Panther were never really resolved with a power train under powered for the tank's weight. Jentz's quotes a British examination of all panzers left on the battlefield in their op area in the West between 8 Aug and 24 Aug. Of 223 panzers examined 108 had been destroyed by crews and 63 abandoned. 13 were unkown. So lets say 171 not combat damaged but many could be no fuel issues. Btw, only 10 appeared destroyed or immobilized by aircraft (7 by rockets). 24 were by AP fire and 1 by HC.
21st Pz Div's 22nd Pz Rgt on the West Front had no Panthers but mostly PzIV's. They had 117 (including 21 kurz 7.5cm cannon) says Jentz. 22 Pz Rgt on 30 Jun had only 7 runners and 52 in repair. Were these all battle damaged ? I doubt it as they mostly did not control the battlefield and could not retrieve. From 23 thru 27 June they had no panzers operational but then 12 on 29 Jul and 41 in repair (Jentz, Vol 2, pg 185). They then fell to an avg of about 5 thru 11 Aug. They reported losses of 54 Pz IV's 6 June thru 8 July. These figures don't necessarily seem to agree with a starting figure of 117 but it included the older PzIV kurz which may not have been employed except for secondary roles.
The operational status of the Tiger Abt is also very poor. On 1 Jun SS Pz Abt 101 had 45 Tigers. 37 operational and 8 in repair. By 1 Jul they had 15 total losses, 11 operational and 19 in repair. Then they had NONE operational on 5 thru 7 July when all 30 Tigers were in maintenance and on 8 Jul had 21 operational ( a great maintenance effort !) and 7 in repair and 2 total losses. By 12 Jul it was 13 operational and 16 in repair. They seem not to have received replacements and operated afterwards thru August with roughly a total of 25 total with 5 to 15 in repair )Jentz Vol 2, pg 184).
As I proposed earlier since in this defensive fighting for the Germans they mostly did not control the battlefields and could not easily have retrieved their tanks damaged or broken down to any large extent. Therefore I believe the panzers listed as "repairable" on their own reports were either breakdowns in their own areas of operation or minor combat damage with the panzer still a runner.
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Yeah sorry my initial post was when away from home and incorrectly off the top of my head, clarified it afterwards after actuly reading the data.
Sorry
Sorry, I posted mine I guess about the same time you posted your correction.
Personally, I'd rather drop a ton on a good restaurant; good food (even if it's a shortcut to the cardiac ward) is healthier than gambling debts.
Armor ratings and CMBN
in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy
Posted
Appreciate your efforts and responses.