mjkerner

It looks like the tanks were shown as an example of how they will come with the game...snow camouflaged. If I were BFC, i wouldn't even bother showing or telling anything until release day. They just get incessant whining and baseless speculation when they throw bones.

Don't like it, don't buy it. What's so difficult about that concept?

^^^^ This. Chris was clear that they from the Alpha phase, so I can't imagine they are even close to the final product.

Minute 11 -13 (By the way, all times are relative, because I can't seem to count backwards --plus, I'm not sure what minute Phil turned this battle over to us!)
 
Overall plans, just as before:
 

 
...2nd Squad runs right into at least one Trooper amongst that gaggle of contact markers in the above shot.  Should be easy meat...
 

 
Hmmm, I recall mentioning what poor shots my men are...
 

 

  Later, a single Trooper causes havoc in 1st Squad on the right...       ...as 2 men of 1st Squad are hit, possibly from the same Trooper that was shown surrounded above.        On the left, in the woods, 2nd Squad encounters more resistance, and a grenade battle breaks out.  I can't tell if I hit anything, though.       But at least I gathered some important intelligence for this little battle...it appears that many Troopers were hit while descending or injured upon landing.  I count 8 down in the field east of the woods, and I am pretty certain my men didn't hit any of these.   

Sitrep Minuten 3-5
 
First, an act of kindness and mercy:
 

 
 
Zonderz's men did manage to pick off one Para at least:
 

 
 
The Paras are making for the buildings toward the SE. Brauer needs to get the men moving and try to catch as many as Paras while they are on the move. But he has to be cautious in those woods.  There is some light undergrowth in there.  The Paras will rip his men a new one if they aren't careful. Here's the overall situation:
 

thank you,  pic endup looking like this

The only way Patton would of got a war, is if the Russians continued it on taking Europe.
 
Considering the Germans had more power in the east then the west, is a telling event in itself. If the russians had continued on, they would of made quick gains, however the longer it went on the west would of worn them down by sheer air support and supplies alone. But the russians could of easily won europe if they were quick enough, but would of probably been stopped at the rhine and then suffered germans fate, quickly thrown back because their support lined too stretched by then.
 
I feel for the Polish out of all this, the west went to war over Poland and never won Poland's independence just handed it to another dictator. They had to wait 40 odd years for there independence one again.

Teamsters Union strikes again!

The Good Hauptmann Doktor von Bletchler has been called away on urgent business, leaving the senior leutnant, Zonderz, in charge of 3 Kompanie, 28th Sicherungs Abteilung. Zonderz has been relentlessly exhorting his men to continue entrenching and fortifying their positions in Valkenswaard proper, when KG Kerner HQ excitedly radios that Allied parachutists are dropping just east of town!  Zonderz is ordered to send a platoon to scout the situation, and capture and destroy all enemy troops encountered.
 
Schiesse, no need to panic, my men spotted them in the distance before HQ even contacted us.  A dozen or so chutes in the sky--could be some poor bomber crew whose bird just couldn't quite make it back home. But too, it looked like too many for that.  Well, hopefully only a lost "stick" of parachutists, and not some sort of Commando raid or worse, a "pathfinder" group like they used in Normandy, leading the way for who knows how many more!  
 
Doppel scheisse, Normandy was the ****s, and now it's happening again.  My security kompanie was nearly wiped out in just the first week of the invasion by chasing and engaging American 'chutists.  Devils in Baggy Pants, as they are known. Then, being chased all across France, barely escaping with our lives, and finally stopping here, I thought, for a much needed rest and refit. No such luck. Mein Gott, what a situation, thrown together in a slap-dash kampfgruppe of discipline cases, marine schutzen, rear area luftwaffe troops, and training school units. And my own men are mostly green, just out of training, and really no more than glorified policemen!   And this kampfgruppe is stop to an armored juggernaut! OKW is just plain crazy!
 
And now these parachutists.  Ach....
 
My men need experienced leadership in the trials ahead. The other platoon commanders have little actual combat experience, so I will lead this patrol myself.  I don't have a good feeling about this...
 
Leutnant Zonderz barks orders to his Alarm Gruppe,1st squad, 3rd Zug, to follow him, shouting to the other squad leaders to get their men ready, grab a section from the machine gun platoon, and follow as soon as possible. He'll need the heavy gun, because only the platoon and squad leaders have automatic weapons. And these parachutists will be armed to the teeth!
 
                                                                  *****************************************************************
Minute 1 
 
Good, I can see the north-south road already, and discarded chutes in the first field. Maybe we can catch them in the open.
 

 
There are woods and buildings bordering the area...if they are allowed to dig in in those trees, or hold up in those buildings, it will be nearly impossible to dig them out without being bled white!  Okay, I'll send the following squads into the woods from the left, but skirting them so as to keep them in sight, while I take 1st squad and the machine gun into the copse of trees on the right as a base of fire to cover the other squads and lay down fire on that first building down the east-west road...
 

 
Contact! We caught them still in their chutes!  Feuer manner! Feuer!
 

 
Minute 2 
 
Mein Gott, these men couldn't hit Brunhilda's ass if it was wiggling right in front of their faces!  Dozens of shots and not one hit!! They are escaping into those woods....
 

 
 
Lt. Zonderz is worried.  A mortar or bazooka round hits the road behind 1st squad as a BAR team opens up from the wood line, while 3 or 4 paratroopers pop up from the long grass and make a run for the trees... 
 
 
Chasing verdammt fallschirmjagaers!  That never ends well.  I hope to Gott that was only a rifle grenat, 'cause if they have a mortar, we're fu...Ooooff!
 
 
A sniper lets one single round fly...
 

 
 
...and Zonderz is down with a nasty wound to the neck and shoulder.
 

Lol, no idea what horizon I have, I'll have to check. Could be from Italy for all I know! I'll have to grab Aris' mod, if I don't already have it. Does it include an Amsterdam Hash Bar?

Yes, it's juju's UI mod.

I agree, looks like Tim Whatshisname. He also looks like the new bad guy in Season 2 of Broadchurch...can't think of his name, but looks sort of like a cross between Timothy Hutton and Anthony Perkins.

Heinrich, you might be on to something regarding Zonderz's ID tag!

Guy Sajer's "The Forgtotten Soldier" .

Hello everyone,
 
As the Axis commander in this campaign (what was kohlenklau thinking???), I want to thank kohlenklau for all the work and creativity he has put into this, and for helping me get re-acquainted with the Tiller Pz Campaign engine. I also want to say that our team has three very, very astute CM Forumites that I have enjoyed getting to know a little bit over the last few days: the inimitable, the one-and-only master tactician and AAR king, Bil Hardenberger;  that geekiest of Geeks, and more-hot-blooded-than-Inigo Montoya, BletchleyGeek, and,  the cool, suave, Bofors gun heir, Fizou. They are a great bunch, and will certainly give the Allies a run for their money.  I'd also like to say hello to the Allied team; we're looking forward to being steamrollered by your Allied might!
 
While rummaging around in my great-uncle's old steamer trunk, I found a treasure trove of items that coincidentally, and quite amazingly, are directly pertinent to this campaign!
 
Here is just a teaser of what I found:
 
 

 

 

 

 
 
I'll be posting more pages from that Archive report as the campaign progresses. It has a lot of meaty information, including bios of the leading officers of the campaign.  Next post has some loose pictures that were in the trunk.
 
Cheers!

It begins.  Units of KG Kerner pull into Valkenswaard.
 

 

 

 
1./Schiffsturm Abt. 19 resting in a Valkenswaard park.
 

 
Hpt. Fizou and Hpt. Dr. von Bletchler scouting their positions in and around the city.
 

 
Leutnant Stefan Burke heading to his Srafkompanie.
 

 
The beginnings of "Festung Dommel".
 

My initial thoughts...this movie will bite the big one.
 
I didn't bother to go see it in the theater.  I read about a dozen "professional" reviews, and literally hundreds of wargamers' and military history buffs' reviews on this and several other forums.  I knew it would suck--from all the hype it received.  I knew it would suck when I saw the trailers--from the grim seriousness of the actors' portrayals (and the actors' commenting on the making of the film. I knew it would suck because it is a Hollywood production with no doubt an anti-war message as big as the Goodyear blimp. I knew it probably would suck when my youngest son and his girlfriend said it was great and that I really should go see it. (He's never been interested in military history or wargaming, and is quite the pacifist, bless his heart.) And I knew it would suck when I read about the crossroads battle scene. I knew it would suck because in one way or another, every Oscar-bait Hollywood movie usually does.
 
Last week, when it became available on Pay-per-view, I figured I would give it a shot just so I could take the moral high ground when dissing it later (can't do that if you don't actually watch the movie).
 
I wish I had gotten over myself and seen it in the theater! I really, thoroughly enjoyed it.
 
LemuelG and slysniper hit the nail on the head, as far as I'm concerned.  The crew was surprising believable...2nd Armored, been in the war since North Africa, would tend to have an older crew, and with the ravages of war, they look close-enough to late 20's for me. (My Dad was 23-24 years old in the Pacific, and the pictures of him after hostilities ended on Saipan show a man somewhere between 30 and 40.) There in-fighting at the dinner table rings true to me, just like my extended family when we get together on the Holidays... someone is always bitching about /fighting with someone else--usually over politics--but woe to the outsider who tries to diss one of us.  I wonder about the forced execution scene, and how likely that type of thing would occur, but who knows. More importantly, the war-is-hell and we are gonna have to take it to the enemy with balls to the wall sentiment rang true to me.  Again, only going by my Dad's experience, his outfit had that attitude in spades in the Pacific.  can't imagine it would have been much different in Europe at the end..."let's kill as many of these bastards as possible, as quickly as possible, and get this damn thing over with. I want to just get home already." 
 
The overall dialogue was way above what I thought it would be.  Face it, SPR's dialogues was mostly hokey, corny and cliched as hell. And Matt Damon just plain sucked.  Band of Brothers and even The Pacific did a much better job in that department. And frankly, so did many of the great movies listed above (and I like or love them all).  To me SPR is only good in the first 20 minutes and the last battle scene.  And come on, both have WTF? moments--in the landing scene, a German in sandbag emplacement on the ridge gets shot, falls forward, and the whole emplacement just falls apart by the weight of his body. How the hell did it stand up to the pre-invasion bombardment, fer chrissakes??? And the last battle scene, unhistorical and relatively improbable to boot.  But regardless, both those battle scenes were excellent eye candy, and were so far ahead of any depiction of WWII combat than anything before it, who can not enjoy them?
 
Fury does that for armored combat, in spades!  (Battle of the Bulge, anyone?) Those freaking awesome AP ricochets were freaking awesome, the crews' teamwork was well done, and to be expected in a crew that survived that long together, and the tension and intensity of combat was well depicted and believable.
 
Note to sound modders...Oddball, Waclaw and AKD and anyone I missed...I hope you are thinking of lifting sounds from this movie.  There's a particularly good, close-up rrrrriiiiippppp-ing MG 42 in the crossroads battle, hint, hint. And did I mention those awesome AP ricochets?
 
And seriously, even if you didn't care for the movie, you gotta hand it to the set directors and costuming departments--everything just looked right, tanks, equipment, uniformsoy the sets, uniforms, etc., etc.  Those 41st Armored Infantry fellows looked like I would expect them to after just coming through a gruelling winter campaign in NE Europe.  (As an aside, I loved the armored company CO.  Well done.).  
 
So for me, grog factor, production and drama, as LemuelG categorized the movie elements, all worked for me in this movie.
 
That said, a lot of the tactics sucked, as they do in most war movies.  But even there, there is some saving grace.  The attack straight at the AT guns, as has been pointed out, was done to cover and pull out a trapped infantry platoon.  I really liked the tactic they used--uncovering the platoon, and having them get behind the tanks, but of course could be argued that they should have tried flanking the German line.  Who knows, maybe more enemy covering their flanks? And, apparently, Wardaddy did came at them from a flank, or at least not directly at them down the road which the ATG's had covered  (his comment to the infantry company CO).  
 
The Tiger scene was believable in that they were ambushed and then were backed up against a tree line, with only one recourse left...to charge forward and hope to get a flank shot.  Those trees looked pretty skinny, and should have been easy to retreat through  (but I assume there were heavy forest tiles underneath ).  The worst part was the Tiger's tactics.  It was in a covered position. If they wanted to get out from the smoke, then they should have reversed and gone left or right and sat there, blasting the 3 Shermies as they advanced. And was it supposed  to have come direct from the factory...no camo, unit markings, or anything?  In fact, the paint scheme looked like it came direct from Sicily. 
 
The crossroads battle was preposterous as executed, but their orders were to stop the SS battalion from getting to a supply column.  What ya gonna do?  A wiser course would have been to blast them with all guns blazing while they were in march column, set charges to blow the tank, and run like hell before the Germans regained their composure.  But it's a movie, and many others (SPR for example) suffer from the same type of unbelievability in parts as well. And for what it's worth, the actual number of German casualties depicted in that fight appears to be around 50-60, which if they had blasted them in column could probably be about right...just saying.  When I saw Pork Chop Hill as a wee lad in the theater, I remember thinking that practically the whole company was wiped out in the initial attack up the hill--how could they have gone on and captured and held it? (It was after all, basically a true story.) When watching it again years later, I counted the actual number of men depicted as being hit, which was only about 25--manageable under the circumstances, it would appear.   If you assume that the SS troops were likely green and yet fanatical, I can see their initial tactics actual being as depicted, and casualty numbers reasonable. I remember one story from A Bridge Too Far, and many from books about the Bulge, that relate green German infantry committed to similar disastrous frontal attacks.  Still, I have to agree with the detractors of the movie that it was just too much of a stretch. 
 
So, overall, I wanted to hate the movie before i saw it, and ended up truly, thoroughly enjoying it.  In fact, I purchased the full HD package off Netflix, and it is well worth it if you liked the movie.  I have watched the first two battle scenes (but not the last battle  ) about 8-9 times over the last week.  There are about 50 minutes of deleted footage, too. None are added battle scenes--well, there's an extended scene showing the plastering of the plaza area when the girl and her apartment block get blown up, that shows the armored infantry CO getting killed.  But there is an important 7 or so minutes of exposition when Wardaddy and Norman are shooting the **** sitting on top of the tank as they are headed to what will be their confrontation with the Tiger, in which Wardaddy reveals why he has taken a bit to Norman, wants to toughen him up, etc....has to do with Wardaddy's girlfriend and his younger brother...and it goes a long way toward explaining Wardaddy's motivations.  It is one scene that I think should have been included in the final cut.  
 
Anyway, I rambled more than I planned, but put me in the column that enjoyed the movie--really enjoyed it.  I have seen almost every known WWII movie in existence that I could get my hands on over the last 55 or so years, including many foreign language ones.  I own about 45 on DVD, last count (Belle and Blade video is an excellent source for all war movies of any era).  Many of them are overall better in either screenplay, or acting, or whatever, but this one will remain solidly near the top, despite my initial desire to hate it.
 
YMM (and it apparently does!) V

Hmmm, never modded vehicles.  I thought they started with a "1".  I know uniforms don't.  Well, anyways, glad Ghost got it working.

My initial thoughts...this movie will bite the big one.
 
I didn't bother to go see it in the theater.  I read about a dozen "professional" reviews, and literally hundreds of wargamers' and military history buffs' reviews on this and several other forums.  I knew it would suck--from all the hype it received.  I knew it would suck when I saw the trailers--from the grim seriousness of the actors' portrayals (and the actors' commenting on the making of the film. I knew it would suck because it is a Hollywood production with no doubt an anti-war message as big as the Goodyear blimp. I knew it probably would suck when my youngest son and his girlfriend said it was great and that I really should go see it. (He's never been interested in military history or wargaming, and is quite the pacifist, bless his heart.) And I knew it would suck when I read about the crossroads battle scene. I knew it would suck because in one way or another, every Oscar-bait Hollywood movie usually does.
 
Last week, when it became available on Pay-per-view, I figured I would give it a shot just so I could take the moral high ground when dissing it later (can't do that if you don't actually watch the movie).
 
I wish I had gotten over myself and seen it in the theater! I really, thoroughly enjoyed it.
 
LemuelG and slysniper hit the nail on the head, as far as I'm concerned.  The crew was surprising believable...2nd Armored, been in the war since North Africa, would tend to have an older crew, and with the ravages of war, they look close-enough to late 20's for me. (My Dad was 23-24 years old in the Pacific, and the pictures of him after hostilities ended on Saipan show a man somewhere between 30 and 40.) There in-fighting at the dinner table rings true to me, just like my extended family when we get together on the Holidays... someone is always bitching about /fighting with someone else--usually over politics--but woe to the outsider who tries to diss one of us.  I wonder about the forced execution scene, and how likely that type of thing would occur, but who knows. More importantly, the war-is-hell and we are gonna have to take it to the enemy with balls to the wall sentiment rang true to me.  Again, only going by my Dad's experience, his outfit had that attitude in spades in the Pacific.  can't imagine it would have been much different in Europe at the end..."let's kill as many of these bastards as possible, as quickly as possible, and get this damn thing over with. I want to just get home already." 
 
The overall dialogue was way above what I thought it would be.  Face it, SPR's dialogues was mostly hokey, corny and cliched as hell. And Matt Damon just plain sucked.  Band of Brothers and even The Pacific did a much better job in that department. And frankly, so did many of the great movies listed above (and I like or love them all).  To me SPR is only good in the first 20 minutes and the last battle scene.  And come on, both have WTF? moments--in the landing scene, a German in sandbag emplacement on the ridge gets shot, falls forward, and the whole emplacement just falls apart by the weight of his body. How the hell did it stand up to the pre-invasion bombardment, fer chrissakes??? And the last battle scene, unhistorical and relatively improbable to boot.  But regardless, both those battle scenes were excellent eye candy, and were so far ahead of any depiction of WWII combat than anything before it, who can not enjoy them?
 
Fury does that for armored combat, in spades!  (Battle of the Bulge, anyone?) Those freaking awesome AP ricochets were freaking awesome, the crews' teamwork was well done, and to be expected in a crew that survived that long together, and the tension and intensity of combat was well depicted and believable.
 
Note to sound modders...Oddball, Waclaw and AKD and anyone I missed...I hope you are thinking of lifting sounds from this movie.  There's a particularly good, close-up rrrrriiiiippppp-ing MG 42 in the crossroads battle, hint, hint. And did I mention those awesome AP ricochets?
 
And seriously, even if you didn't care for the movie, you gotta hand it to the set directors and costuming departments--everything just looked right, tanks, equipment, uniformsoy the sets, uniforms, etc., etc.  Those 41st Armored Infantry fellows looked like I would expect them to after just coming through a gruelling winter campaign in NE Europe.  (As an aside, I loved the armored company CO.  Well done.).  
 
So for me, grog factor, production and drama, as LemuelG categorized the movie elements, all worked for me in this movie.
 
That said, a lot of the tactics sucked, as they do in most war movies.  But even there, there is some saving grace.  The attack straight at the AT guns, as has been pointed out, was done to cover and pull out a trapped infantry platoon.  I really liked the tactic they used--uncovering the platoon, and having them get behind the tanks, but of course could be argued that they should have tried flanking the German line.  Who knows, maybe more enemy covering their flanks? And, apparently, Wardaddy did came at them from a flank, or at least not directly at them down the road which the ATG's had covered  (his comment to the infantry company CO).  
 
The Tiger scene was believable in that they were ambushed and then were backed up against a tree line, with only one recourse left...to charge forward and hope to get a flank shot.  Those trees looked pretty skinny, and should have been easy to retreat through  (but I assume there were heavy forest tiles underneath ).  The worst part was the Tiger's tactics.  It was in a covered position. If they wanted to get out from the smoke, then they should have reversed and gone left or right and sat there, blasting the 3 Shermies as they advanced. And was it supposed  to have come direct from the factory...no camo, unit markings, or anything?  In fact, the paint scheme looked like it came direct from Sicily. 
 
The crossroads battle was preposterous as executed, but their orders were to stop the SS battalion from getting to a supply column.  What ya gonna do?  A wiser course would have been to blast them with all guns blazing while they were in march column, set charges to blow the tank, and run like hell before the Germans regained their composure.  But it's a movie, and many others (SPR for example) suffer from the same type of unbelievability in parts as well. And for what it's worth, the actual number of German casualties depicted in that fight appears to be around 50-60, which if they had blasted them in column could probably be about right...just saying.  When I saw Pork Chop Hill as a wee lad in the theater, I remember thinking that practically the whole company was wiped out in the initial attack up the hill--how could they have gone on and captured and held it? (It was after all, basically a true story.) When watching it again years later, I counted the actual number of men depicted as being hit, which was only about 25--manageable under the circumstances, it would appear.   If you assume that the SS troops were likely green and yet fanatical, I can see their initial tactics actual being as depicted, and casualty numbers reasonable. I remember one story from A Bridge Too Far, and many from books about the Bulge, that relate green German infantry committed to similar disastrous frontal attacks.  Still, I have to agree with the detractors of the movie that it was just too much of a stretch. 
 
So, overall, I wanted to hate the movie before i saw it, and ended up truly, thoroughly enjoying it.  In fact, I purchased the full HD package off Netflix, and it is well worth it if you liked the movie.  I have watched the first two battle scenes (but not the last battle  ) about 8-9 times over the last week.  There are about 50 minutes of deleted footage, too. None are added battle scenes--well, there's an extended scene showing the plastering of the plaza area when the girl and her apartment block get blown up, that shows the armored infantry CO getting killed.  But there is an important 7 or so minutes of exposition when Wardaddy and Norman are shooting the **** sitting on top of the tank as they are headed to what will be their confrontation with the Tiger, in which Wardaddy reveals why he has taken a bit to Norman, wants to toughen him up, etc....has to do with Wardaddy's girlfriend and his younger brother...and it goes a long way toward explaining Wardaddy's motivations.  It is one scene that I think should have been included in the final cut.  
 
Anyway, I rambled more than I planned, but put me in the column that enjoyed the movie--really enjoyed it.  I have seen almost every known WWII movie in existence that I could get my hands on over the last 55 or so years, including many foreign language ones.  I own about 45 on DVD, last count (Belle and Blade video is an excellent source for all war movies of any era).  Many of them are overall better in either screenplay, or acting, or whatever, but this one will remain solidly near the top, despite my initial desire to hate it.
 
YMM (and it apparently does!) V

Further comment re: Translating suppression and other factors...
 
Chris wrote:
 
Leadership, yes. If the leaders are hunkered down in their holes, too, concentrating on survival and without situational awareness, then they've stopped leading. So if a unit is suppressed in the boardgame and is entering a CMRT battle in that state, I knock down the leadership rating to -2, and also worsent its starting motivation. Also, the unit has to start the action on HIDE and keep a temporary, very small fire arc for the first several minutes. After that, I let the owning player lift the arc and issue any orders. 
 
But experience should not change from suppression. Their training and battle-savvy doesn't disappear, it's part of who they are. Some games even make suppressed units harder to kill, because once they go to ground they make tougher targets.

@sburke: Thanks for posting about our latest battle. Once I get Turn 9 and the single Night turn completed, I'll post another summary here of the overall operation "for all you folks watching at home."
 
@chris: Great questions!  I'll tell you how I handle it the personnel/casualty translation between layers, but this may or may not be to everyone's taste. 
 
Let me preface it by saying that when you use a boardgame system like the GTS, you'll always have lots judgment calls to make about things like this. That's because Cohesion Hits simulate casualties and losses to unit cohesion, all in one. There simply is no ironclad set of policies that will cover every situation and objectively reflect the reality of CM in the boardgame, or vice-versa. So I use some general rules, and then look at every battle as if I'm a forensic historian -- using any knowledge I have about the historical campaign, doctrine, and common sense as  I try to interpret what story the pixels are telling for translation into cardboard (or Cyberboard). This fuzzy logic is a big reason why op-tac campaigns turn some players off, I think. It goes back to the schism between wargamers of an engineering mindset, who prefer games where things are objective and transparent, and those who favor "design for effect" and are perhaps more wiling to tolerate imbalances and anomalies in games as part of the cruel fortunes of war.
 
You're correct about the 11 possible situations of a unit in Panzer Command. But to keep things simple, I like to view it this way:
 
Consider 40% personnel losses as the threshold for a unit to be eliminated. (Extrapolating from the 15% threshold that the Pentagon found tended to be the case in American WW II rifle battalions, the actual losses among the front-line rifle companies for that figure would be closer to around 40%.) Elimination doesn't literally mean dead, just that the unit is combat ineffective, not able to perform its mission anymore, and shattered as far as this campaign's time frame is concerned.
 
In Panzer Command, 4 Cohesion Hits eliminate a unit. (It gets 2, the third one flips it over to its last step, and then since it retains its original 2 Cohesion Hits, a third hit will kill it).  If 4 hits = 40% losses, then I treat each Cohesion Hit as equivalent to 10% losses.
 
But 10% of what number? In Bagration, the German units were lucky to have even 50% of their paper TO&E strength at the start of the campaign. That usually was true for the Soviets, too, but before Bagration they made a big effort to beef up the manning levels in unites slated for that attack.
So I usually start my Soviet units with 70% of TO&E. CM doesn't let you reduce personnel strength below half, and that's OK because it's more realistic to start consolidating depleted platoons and companies into single, more effective formations.
 
Even these policies should leave ample room for judgment calls. It's documented that a unit's ability to sustain losses and keep fighting also depended on other things, such as morale and leadership, or even its particular mission at the time. I just eliminated a German heavy grenadier company that took its fourth Cohesion Hit, because it had just been close-assaulted by a fresh Soviet Guards SMG company. The attack was in dusk, from a flank where an entire Soviet regiment was bypassing them. And this German unit had already had quite a busy and rough day. To quote from its battle log (a text note that travels with the counter in Cyberboard):
 
----
4th (Heavy) Company 1/195 Sturm Regiment 78 Sturm Division XXVII Corps --- Battle history: 1100 hrs, 23 June: Despite being cut off, this unit's Opportunity Fire destroyed final step of adjacent SU-152 unit from 11 Gd Mot Inf Div that was in Hex 4707 and was trying to deploy from the forest track into fighting formation in the open. 1500 hrs, 23 June: With 195 Sturm Reg leader defying Hitler's standing orders, the unit attempts to break out of encirclement to the SW. Opportunity Fire costs it 1 Cohesion Hit, but it succeeds and regains friendly lines in Hex 4809. But, in the Peat Bogs,  it ran into a battalion of the Soviet 40th Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment that was flanking the German line. Their opportunity fire caused the German company to suffer its 2nd and 3rd Cohesion Hits and thus lose a step. But it avoided suppression and made to Hex 4710, where it formed a refused flank on the extreme right of its regiment's line. At that point the unit was down to about 35 men. Turn 9 (evening 23 June): Assaulted by 1 SMG/167 Gd in Hex 4710 during the Soviet flanking attacks in the Peat Bogs. Lost final step and eliminated.  
On the other hand, sburke had a German Sturmpioneer company that was heavily engaged throughout Day One. It was consolidated to a single remaining platoon, but because it fought from trenches and bunkers I let it fight longer and harder. It managed to repulse an attack one last time before finally succumbing to elimination. Here's its battle log:
 
---
Sturmpioneer Company 195 Sturm Regiment 78 Sturm Division XXVII Corps 
 
23 June, afternoon: Suffered 1 Cohestion Hit (10% casualties) in the Battle for the T Junction. In the second wave Soviet attack that afternoon, this company lost a further 13 men (19%) for its second Cohestion Hit. Occupies woods fortifications in Hex 4508 with its remaining 56 men. Then, after the battle but still in Turn 6, direct fire of MG Co/171st Reg causes it to lose its 3rd cohesion hit, and the unit loses a step. --- Sturmpioneers made their final stand in trenches in Hex 4508 on the right flank of the Single-Track Railway, fending off a MG company and hanging on by their fingernails.  While they beat back the attack, they lost 25 of their remaining 56 men and were eliminated as a combat-capable force. -----   It's stories like this, as they develop, that make op-tac campaigns so rewarding and entertaining. You start to get a sense of the human character of a unit. My particular favorite is this little German dismounted AT platoon that turned heroic and performed far beyond what might have been expected:   --- Tank Destroyer Platoon/14th (Antitank) Company 481st Grenadier Regiment 256th Infantry Division VI Corps   23 June, 0915 hrs: Reinforced battle for Hex 4506 fortified position. Saw light combat, cleared casualties and evacuated position with the StuG company. 23 June, 1100-1300 hrs: Tremendous valor holding the fallback defensive position at Hex 4507, despite artillery barrages and assaults by Soviet SMG and SU-76 units. Suppression by SMG unit removed by Rally event at 1300 hrs, further illustrating this unit's superior leadership and toughness. 23 June, 1300hrs: Repelled 3-round Close Assault by Soviet SMG company of 1 Gd Inf Div, with no casualties. In its final action, the platoon infiltrated the swamps to harass a Soviet armor-infantry column as it moved up to attack the Single-Track Railway on the afternoon of 23 June. But the swamps provided insufficient cover, and the teams were hunted down and wiped out by Soviet SMG-equipped tankodesantniki troops. Still, their presence slowed the momentum of the attack and wore down the infantry enough that it was unable to reach the RR and accomplish its assault mission. ----------------   Bottom line: For all the numbers and factors involved in a board wargame, using it with CMRT in an op-tac campaign often feels more like "playing with army men in the backyard" (and as much fun, too) than something objective and quantifiable.

My initial thoughts...this movie will bite the big one.
 
I didn't bother to go see it in the theater.  I read about a dozen "professional" reviews, and literally hundreds of wargamers' and military history buffs' reviews on this and several other forums.  I knew it would suck--from all the hype it received.  I knew it would suck when I saw the trailers--from the grim seriousness of the actors' portrayals (and the actors' commenting on the making of the film. I knew it would suck because it is a Hollywood production with no doubt an anti-war message as big as the Goodyear blimp. I knew it probably would suck when my youngest son and his girlfriend said it was great and that I really should go see it. (He's never been interested in military history or wargaming, and is quite the pacifist, bless his heart.) And I knew it would suck when I read about the crossroads battle scene. I knew it would suck because in one way or another, every Oscar-bait Hollywood movie usually does.
 
Last week, when it became available on Pay-per-view, I figured I would give it a shot just so I could take the moral high ground when dissing it later (can't do that if you don't actually watch the movie).
 
I wish I had gotten over myself and seen it in the theater! I really, thoroughly enjoyed it.
 
LemuelG and slysniper hit the nail on the head, as far as I'm concerned.  The crew was surprising believable...2nd Armored, been in the war since North Africa, would tend to have an older crew, and with the ravages of war, they look close-enough to late 20's for me. (My Dad was 23-24 years old in the Pacific, and the pictures of him after hostilities ended on Saipan show a man somewhere between 30 and 40.) There in-fighting at the dinner table rings true to me, just like my extended family when we get together on the Holidays... someone is always bitching about /fighting with someone else--usually over politics--but woe to the outsider who tries to diss one of us.  I wonder about the forced execution scene, and how likely that type of thing would occur, but who knows. More importantly, the war-is-hell and we are gonna have to take it to the enemy with balls to the wall sentiment rang true to me.  Again, only going by my Dad's experience, his outfit had that attitude in spades in the Pacific.  can't imagine it would have been much different in Europe at the end..."let's kill as many of these bastards as possible, as quickly as possible, and get this damn thing over with. I want to just get home already." 
 
The overall dialogue was way above what I thought it would be.  Face it, SPR's dialogues was mostly hokey, corny and cliched as hell. And Matt Damon just plain sucked.  Band of Brothers and even The Pacific did a much better job in that department. And frankly, so did many of the great movies listed above (and I like or love them all).  To me SPR is only good in the first 20 minutes and the last battle scene.  And come on, both have WTF? moments--in the landing scene, a German in sandbag emplacement on the ridge gets shot, falls forward, and the whole emplacement just falls apart by the weight of his body. How the hell did it stand up to the pre-invasion bombardment, fer chrissakes??? And the last battle scene, unhistorical and relatively improbable to boot.  But regardless, both those battle scenes were excellent eye candy, and were so far ahead of any depiction of WWII combat than anything before it, who can not enjoy them?
 
Fury does that for armored combat, in spades!  (Battle of the Bulge, anyone?) Those freaking awesome AP ricochets were freaking awesome, the crews' teamwork was well done, and to be expected in a crew that survived that long together, and the tension and intensity of combat was well depicted and believable.
 
Note to sound modders...Oddball, Waclaw and AKD and anyone I missed...I hope you are thinking of lifting sounds from this movie.  There's a particularly good, close-up rrrrriiiiippppp-ing MG 42 in the crossroads battle, hint, hint. And did I mention those awesome AP ricochets?
 
And seriously, even if you didn't care for the movie, you gotta hand it to the set directors and costuming departments--everything just looked right, tanks, equipment, uniformsoy the sets, uniforms, etc., etc.  Those 41st Armored Infantry fellows looked like I would expect them to after just coming through a gruelling winter campaign in NE Europe.  (As an aside, I loved the armored company CO.  Well done.).  
 
So for me, grog factor, production and drama, as LemuelG categorized the movie elements, all worked for me in this movie.
 
That said, a lot of the tactics sucked, as they do in most war movies.  But even there, there is some saving grace.  The attack straight at the AT guns, as has been pointed out, was done to cover and pull out a trapped infantry platoon.  I really liked the tactic they used--uncovering the platoon, and having them get behind the tanks, but of course could be argued that they should have tried flanking the German line.  Who knows, maybe more enemy covering their flanks? And, apparently, Wardaddy did came at them from a flank, or at least not directly at them down the road which the ATG's had covered  (his comment to the infantry company CO).  
 
The Tiger scene was believable in that they were ambushed and then were backed up against a tree line, with only one recourse left...to charge forward and hope to get a flank shot.  Those trees looked pretty skinny, and should have been easy to retreat through  (but I assume there were heavy forest tiles underneath ).  The worst part was the Tiger's tactics.  It was in a covered position. If they wanted to get out from the smoke, then they should have reversed and gone left or right and sat there, blasting the 3 Shermies as they advanced. And was it supposed  to have come direct from the factory...no camo, unit markings, or anything?  In fact, the paint scheme looked like it came direct from Sicily. 
 
The crossroads battle was preposterous as executed, but their orders were to stop the SS battalion from getting to a supply column.  What ya gonna do?  A wiser course would have been to blast them with all guns blazing while they were in march column, set charges to blow the tank, and run like hell before the Germans regained their composure.  But it's a movie, and many others (SPR for example) suffer from the same type of unbelievability in parts as well. And for what it's worth, the actual number of German casualties depicted in that fight appears to be around 50-60, which if they had blasted them in column could probably be about right...just saying.  When I saw Pork Chop Hill as a wee lad in the theater, I remember thinking that practically the whole company was wiped out in the initial attack up the hill--how could they have gone on and captured and held it? (It was after all, basically a true story.) When watching it again years later, I counted the actual number of men depicted as being hit, which was only about 25--manageable under the circumstances, it would appear.   If you assume that the SS troops were likely green and yet fanatical, I can see their initial tactics actual being as depicted, and casualty numbers reasonable. I remember one story from A Bridge Too Far, and many from books about the Bulge, that relate green German infantry committed to similar disastrous frontal attacks.  Still, I have to agree with the detractors of the movie that it was just too much of a stretch. 
 
So, overall, I wanted to hate the movie before i saw it, and ended up truly, thoroughly enjoying it.  In fact, I purchased the full HD package off Netflix, and it is well worth it if you liked the movie.  I have watched the first two battle scenes (but not the last battle  ) about 8-9 times over the last week.  There are about 50 minutes of deleted footage, too. None are added battle scenes--well, there's an extended scene showing the plastering of the plaza area when the girl and her apartment block get blown up, that shows the armored infantry CO getting killed.  But there is an important 7 or so minutes of exposition when Wardaddy and Norman are shooting the **** sitting on top of the tank as they are headed to what will be their confrontation with the Tiger, in which Wardaddy reveals why he has taken a bit to Norman, wants to toughen him up, etc....has to do with Wardaddy's girlfriend and his younger brother...and it goes a long way toward explaining Wardaddy's motivations.  It is one scene that I think should have been included in the final cut.  
 
Anyway, I rambled more than I planned, but put me in the column that enjoyed the movie--really enjoyed it.  I have seen almost every known WWII movie in existence that I could get my hands on over the last 55 or so years, including many foreign language ones.  I own about 45 on DVD, last count (Belle and Blade video is an excellent source for all war movies of any era).  Many of them are overall better in either screenplay, or acting, or whatever, but this one will remain solidly near the top, despite my initial desire to hate it.
 
YMM (and it apparently does!) V

My initial thoughts...this movie will bite the big one.
 
I didn't bother to go see it in the theater.  I read about a dozen "professional" reviews, and literally hundreds of wargamers' and military history buffs' reviews on this and several other forums.  I knew it would suck--from all the hype it received.  I knew it would suck when I saw the trailers--from the grim seriousness of the actors' portrayals (and the actors' commenting on the making of the film. I knew it would suck because it is a Hollywood production with no doubt an anti-war message as big as the Goodyear blimp. I knew it probably would suck when my youngest son and his girlfriend said it was great and that I really should go see it. (He's never been interested in military history or wargaming, and is quite the pacifist, bless his heart.) And I knew it would suck when I read about the crossroads battle scene. I knew it would suck because in one way or another, every Oscar-bait Hollywood movie usually does.
 
Last week, when it became available on Pay-per-view, I figured I would give it a shot just so I could take the moral high ground when dissing it later (can't do that if you don't actually watch the movie).
 
I wish I had gotten over myself and seen it in the theater! I really, thoroughly enjoyed it.
 
LemuelG and slysniper hit the nail on the head, as far as I'm concerned.  The crew was surprising believable...2nd Armored, been in the war since North Africa, would tend to have an older crew, and with the ravages of war, they look close-enough to late 20's for me. (My Dad was 23-24 years old in the Pacific, and the pictures of him after hostilities ended on Saipan show a man somewhere between 30 and 40.) There in-fighting at the dinner table rings true to me, just like my extended family when we get together on the Holidays... someone is always bitching about /fighting with someone else--usually over politics--but woe to the outsider who tries to diss one of us.  I wonder about the forced execution scene, and how likely that type of thing would occur, but who knows. More importantly, the war-is-hell and we are gonna have to take it to the enemy with balls to the wall sentiment rang true to me.  Again, only going by my Dad's experience, his outfit had that attitude in spades in the Pacific.  can't imagine it would have been much different in Europe at the end..."let's kill as many of these bastards as possible, as quickly as possible, and get this damn thing over with. I want to just get home already." 
 
The overall dialogue was way above what I thought it would be.  Face it, SPR's dialogues was mostly hokey, corny and cliched as hell. And Matt Damon just plain sucked.  Band of Brothers and even The Pacific did a much better job in that department. And frankly, so did many of the great movies listed above (and I like or love them all).  To me SPR is only good in the first 20 minutes and the last battle scene.  And come on, both have WTF? moments--in the landing scene, a German in sandbag emplacement on the ridge gets shot, falls forward, and the whole emplacement just falls apart by the weight of his body. How the hell did it stand up to the pre-invasion bombardment, fer chrissakes??? And the last battle scene, unhistorical and relatively improbable to boot.  But regardless, both those battle scenes were excellent eye candy, and were so far ahead of any depiction of WWII combat than anything before it, who can not enjoy them?
 
Fury does that for armored combat, in spades!  (Battle of the Bulge, anyone?) Those freaking awesome AP ricochets were freaking awesome, the crews' teamwork was well done, and to be expected in a crew that survived that long together, and the tension and intensity of combat was well depicted and believable.
 
Note to sound modders...Oddball, Waclaw and AKD and anyone I missed...I hope you are thinking of lifting sounds from this movie.  There's a particularly good, close-up rrrrriiiiippppp-ing MG 42 in the crossroads battle, hint, hint. And did I mention those awesome AP ricochets?
 
And seriously, even if you didn't care for the movie, you gotta hand it to the set directors and costuming departments--everything just looked right, tanks, equipment, uniformsoy the sets, uniforms, etc., etc.  Those 41st Armored Infantry fellows looked like I would expect them to after just coming through a gruelling winter campaign in NE Europe.  (As an aside, I loved the armored company CO.  Well done.).  
 
So for me, grog factor, production and drama, as LemuelG categorized the movie elements, all worked for me in this movie.
 
That said, a lot of the tactics sucked, as they do in most war movies.  But even there, there is some saving grace.  The attack straight at the AT guns, as has been pointed out, was done to cover and pull out a trapped infantry platoon.  I really liked the tactic they used--uncovering the platoon, and having them get behind the tanks, but of course could be argued that they should have tried flanking the German line.  Who knows, maybe more enemy covering their flanks? And, apparently, Wardaddy did came at them from a flank, or at least not directly at them down the road which the ATG's had covered  (his comment to the infantry company CO).  
 
The Tiger scene was believable in that they were ambushed and then were backed up against a tree line, with only one recourse left...to charge forward and hope to get a flank shot.  Those trees looked pretty skinny, and should have been easy to retreat through  (but I assume there were heavy forest tiles underneath ).  The worst part was the Tiger's tactics.  It was in a covered position. If they wanted to get out from the smoke, then they should have reversed and gone left or right and sat there, blasting the 3 Shermies as they advanced. And was it supposed  to have come direct from the factory...no camo, unit markings, or anything?  In fact, the paint scheme looked like it came direct from Sicily. 
 
The crossroads battle was preposterous as executed, but their orders were to stop the SS battalion from getting to a supply column.  What ya gonna do?  A wiser course would have been to blast them with all guns blazing while they were in march column, set charges to blow the tank, and run like hell before the Germans regained their composure.  But it's a movie, and many others (SPR for example) suffer from the same type of unbelievability in parts as well. And for what it's worth, the actual number of German casualties depicted in that fight appears to be around 50-60, which if they had blasted them in column could probably be about right...just saying.  When I saw Pork Chop Hill as a wee lad in the theater, I remember thinking that practically the whole company was wiped out in the initial attack up the hill--how could they have gone on and captured and held it? (It was after all, basically a true story.) When watching it again years later, I counted the actual number of men depicted as being hit, which was only about 25--manageable under the circumstances, it would appear.   If you assume that the SS troops were likely green and yet fanatical, I can see their initial tactics actual being as depicted, and casualty numbers reasonable. I remember one story from A Bridge Too Far, and many from books about the Bulge, that relate green German infantry committed to similar disastrous frontal attacks.  Still, I have to agree with the detractors of the movie that it was just too much of a stretch. 
 
So, overall, I wanted to hate the movie before i saw it, and ended up truly, thoroughly enjoying it.  In fact, I purchased the full HD package off Netflix, and it is well worth it if you liked the movie.  I have watched the first two battle scenes (but not the last battle  ) about 8-9 times over the last week.  There are about 50 minutes of deleted footage, too. None are added battle scenes--well, there's an extended scene showing the plastering of the plaza area when the girl and her apartment block get blown up, that shows the armored infantry CO getting killed.  But there is an important 7 or so minutes of exposition when Wardaddy and Norman are shooting the **** sitting on top of the tank as they are headed to what will be their confrontation with the Tiger, in which Wardaddy reveals why he has taken a bit to Norman, wants to toughen him up, etc....has to do with Wardaddy's girlfriend and his younger brother...and it goes a long way toward explaining Wardaddy's motivations.  It is one scene that I think should have been included in the final cut.  
 
Anyway, I rambled more than I planned, but put me in the column that enjoyed the movie--really enjoyed it.  I have seen almost every known WWII movie in existence that I could get my hands on over the last 55 or so years, including many foreign language ones.  I own about 45 on DVD, last count (Belle and Blade video is an excellent source for all war movies of any era).  Many of them are overall better in either screenplay, or acting, or whatever, but this one will remain solidly near the top, despite my initial desire to hate it.
 
YMM (and it apparently does!) V

That wasn't my point and you should know it - the script deserves some praise for showing such intense animosity between comrades, rather than the typical mawkish best-of-buddies-everyone-loves-each-other schtick - and more, that you were specifically complaining about cliches in one sentence, then the next moaning about their absence, it's about consistency - for you the film is apparently damned if it does and damned if it doesn't. It can't logically be both too cliched and not cliched enough simultaneously. Choose one.
 
For me, judging on three categories: grog-factor (props, detail, minutia etc), production (sound, effects, music etc), drama (script/screenplay, acting, verisimilitude, etc), I wonder 'what soldier's movies are better overall than Fury'? Das Boot, Platoon, Thin Red Line... anything else? Saving Private Ryan? Great movie, has same flaws and strengths as Fury (fraudulent/implausible but 'enjoyable' final battle included), but with a fake-ass Tiger... after this point it all gets highly subjective - I love some Cross of Iron or Dirty Dozen as much as the next man, but they are lesser movies. Yes, Fury has definately benefited from being made well into the 21st century! But so?
 
I would, as a committed grog who nearly switched the film off after the opening text, heartily recommend Fury - the best parts are super-scary effects (those AP rounds... can we get some o' that in CM? Watch that PTSD) and really good performances from the whole cast - best role by Pitt in AGES. And a real Tiger. Of all things, the music was possibly my least favourite part - the extraordinary events for me were offset significantly by the overall authenticity of the props, effects etc; and the cliches not tedious because they were executed so well by the cast.

All the negativity. You guys really suck.

You almost wrecked the movie for me before I even watched it.

Yes, does the scenes play out like they would in real life. Heavens No. But really, do they in any movie. Really, Maybe Band of Brothers, since they were trying to mimic the real stories.

But, let me think, what other movie has focused on Tank warfare and gave you so much camera time on Armour and tried to delve into the mindset of the crew and so forth. (actually there has been a few). None even close to as good as this.

Just two comments about the final scene which is easy to insult, since you all want to. There is comments about how impossible it would be for the germans to be so stupid about coming up on the crossroads like they did. All I will say here is do some more reading. I have read actual accounts at the Battle of the Bulge of just as stupid stuff. There was plenty of incompetent small unit leaders by this point in the war. Now if you want to complain, by April 45, I would say it would be almost impossible to even find a German unit like that, that was anything of a coordinated fighting unit.

The second comment about the fact they would never have stayed and fought. Again I will disagree, it is in the realm of possible happening. There is many studies that show how soldiers at some point somewhat give up on the fact that they will make it alive through a conflict and will do things that endanger themselves because of their present mental state. And normally it is for the saving of someone elses life. Which if you recall they were to stop the germans from getting into their rear area troops, which would be a blood bath.
Very likely, no. But have men sacrificed their life's for others before . We all know the answer.

Hey klk, you get the stuff i left in the Dropbox yesterday?
 
I think we should rename this subforum "kohlenklau's Sandbox"...you're a creative maniac, my friend!