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Melchior

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  1. Upvote
    Melchior reacted to Blazing 88's in Kursk anyone?   
    By all means yes.  Barbarossa and North Africa 41-43 as well.  BFC please hurry. 
  2. Upvote
    Melchior got a reaction from JSj in German attack doctrine in CM   
    Moreover, you are expected to be sitting on that terrain within an explicit time table. It is implied to me in the scenarios and campaigns that these objectives must be seized violently due to a strategic window of opportunity. Circumstances dictate its immediate seizure. Storming an objective with infantry is yes costly and hard but for one reason or another The Brass have told you it must be done here. If they could've neutralized a given objective with corp artillery or mines or trained ninja chimps they would have. Fact is those assets are not available for various reasons beyond your control but this damned hamlet needs to be ours by tonight and it's not because Pvt. Timmy heard they serve great croissants.
  3. Upvote
    Melchior got a reaction from shift8 in German attack doctrine in CM   
    Moreover, you are expected to be sitting on that terrain within an explicit time table. It is implied to me in the scenarios and campaigns that these objectives must be seized violently due to a strategic window of opportunity. Circumstances dictate its immediate seizure. Storming an objective with infantry is yes costly and hard but for one reason or another The Brass have told you it must be done here. If they could've neutralized a given objective with corp artillery or mines or trained ninja chimps they would have. Fact is those assets are not available for various reasons beyond your control but this damned hamlet needs to be ours by tonight and it's not because Pvt. Timmy heard they serve great croissants.
  4. Upvote
    Melchior reacted to shift8 in German attack doctrine in CM   
    What is not being understood here is that "murdering" the enemy force IS NOT the objective in war. Neutralizing the enemy force is. 
     
    And no, that is not just semantics. Like Bill pointed out earlier, unless you have a massive advantage in firepower or manpower, you cannot ignore terrain in a fight, and even then doing so would be wasteful in most circumstances. In reality, all battles are won by achieving and advantage of some kind. Whether that is through troop concentration to achieve mass for assault, or bombardment reduce the enemy's ability to resist, or through maneuver to force the enemy into a disadvantageous position that enhances your own forces ability to fight. 
     
    Attacking the enemy with cookie-cutter fire and movement is a recipe for suicide. It is very much akin to clearing  a room. NOBODY in their right mind stacks up and breaches a room through weight of bodies if your rules of engagement would have allowed you to satchel the entire building instead. Room clearing or building clearing tactics  are a basis for clearing a structure with the fewest possible casualties by attempting to mass bodies into a room before the enemy can cut you all down. Somebody is going to die though if your enemy is not caught unawares. Same goes with platoon or company fire and maneuver. Im not going to initiate an assault involving suppressive fires and bounding movements when I could just sneak around the back of a hill and come up inside the enemies flank. 
     
    That being said, the terrain objectives on a map have to be assumed to have some sort of strategic/operational/tactical significance. Lets just look at another historical example shall we? 
     
    During the Mortain Counter-Attack in August of 44, Hill 317 Could not be bypassed because it was an important spotting point for artillery and air support. IE: Terrain dictated the focal point of an entire offensive, and successful defense of that objective impeded the entire advance (among other things.)
     
    Bastogne, possessed a road network that was important to maintaining the German advance in the Bulge. Not taking it tied down units that could have been doing other things. 
     
    We could also mention the cities of Caen or Saint Lo, or the Rhine as important pieces of Terrain that influenced how battles were fought and their outcomes. 
     
    If a mission designer puts a box around a town, it only makes sense that on some level it is necessary. Going beyond that objective, and attempting to destroy the enemy beyond what you were ordered to do would in most cases be stupid. For example, lets say you are orders to seize a high point that overlooks a bridgehead. You successfully do that. So are you now going to assault the bridge on your own into enemy forces that might now have a defensive advantage? What your force even set up for such an operation? Are you authorized to go on wanton assaults you were not ordered to? 
     
    It therefore makes sense to push into or closely around Terrain objectives as (as the terrtain allows) because if I get there first, then I can be on defense for the rest of the match. If I ignore the "stupid designers objectives" I will most likely fight myself having to fight and offensive battle that I might have entirely avoided. Commanders issue limited terrain objectives FOR A REASON. By taking important pieces of terrain, I  might force the enemy to retreat to some other place where the battle for the rest of my army will be easier. Its alot like how in  game of chess, you sometimes move pieces into certain spaces just so you can get the enemy to move his pieces somewhere else, some where when you can reap far greater rewards than if you had committed totally on the spot. 
     
    So in short: If there is a terrain objective, it is there for a reason. Maybe not for the tactical battle you are fighting, but for the larger war you are fighting in. If I fight for a road junction and lose far more men than my opponent, that is just fine, because at the end of the day holding the junction (perhaps not useful for me tactically) might mean the difference between between resupply or reinforcements arriving. 
     
    I cannot emphasize enough that there is no single paramount military objective. In certain circumstances, a terrain feature may be a means to and end. In others, maneuver might be, or in others simple reduction of the enemy force. A nation fights to defeat another nation: not the nations army. If I can blockade you and starve you out, then Id rather do than than fight a pitched battle. If killing the enemy was the only thing that mattered, then any time you came across a superior force you would just retreat. But eventually you would run out of places to go, and would have to make a stand somewhere. So in effect, seizing terrain produces increasingly less realistic options for your opponent. If you do that well enough, they might just give up without a fight. 
  5. Upvote
    Melchior got a reaction from Baneman in German attack doctrine in CM   
    Combat Missions's scenarios aren't designed for textbook applications of tactics. They're designed to be challenging. In that light terrain objectives and short mission timers make perfect sense. I could see QB essentially being the place to go for a by-the-numbers approach. The scenarios, campaigns, etc should not be so easy.
  6. Upvote
    Melchior got a reaction from Doug Williams in German attack doctrine in CM   
    Combat Missions's scenarios aren't designed for textbook applications of tactics. They're designed to be challenging. In that light terrain objectives and short mission timers make perfect sense. I could see QB essentially being the place to go for a by-the-numbers approach. The scenarios, campaigns, etc should not be so easy.
  7. Upvote
    Melchior got a reaction from JSj in German attack doctrine in CM   
    What bite and hold is is cautious. The British were loathe to repeat unprecedented disasters like the Somme.

    The British saw armor like metal cavalry for too long and often just charged tanks into heavily fortified (and mined) defensive positions. The British believed through the entire war for some reason that the German defense line was always just a thin crust of gun positions with nothing behind them. That the German defense line at Alamein wasn't 1 km, or 5km, or even 25km but 50 kilometers of overlapping positions was what the British failed to appreciate. Note the Germans ran into the same kind of problem at Kursk. You can stop armor with a thick enough defense line but that calls for the enemy to sit totally idle while you prepare it. (Which the Germans obliged to thanks to Hitler's delays.) At circumstances like Kursk the most successful vehicles were usually the heaviest ones and suddenly the value of weapons like the Tiger or even partial insanity like the Maus suddenly don't seem so crazy anymore.
  8. Upvote
    Melchior reacted to Bil Hardenberger in German attack doctrine in CM   
    I am all for making the enemy force the main objective, however you cannot ignore the terrain objectives completely, in fact they should be used to help you focus your efforts and analysis, and will be your guide on helping to find the enemy positions. So though you can say things like "ignore the victory conditions" it is a bit simplistic and not really realistic.
  9. Upvote
    Melchior reacted to panzersaurkrautwerfer in Meanwhile in Korea.......   
    I spent the last bit of my active duty career (or at least the useful part!) in Korea.  Some comments:

    1. The primary goal of the DPRK leadership is the best off person in the worst country in the world.  Milton had it right in that it is "Better to rule in hell than serve in Heaven."  Whatever they will do, it is for regime preservation.  The biggest danger in terms of chances of the regime being toppled is brought by B-2s flying wingtip to wingtip over Pyongyang, and Third ROK Army blasting a breach through the DMZ with 1st CAV and 25th ID in tow.   Pushing the ROK too far, or large scale military action will end the DPRK as we know it.

       Caveat A.  However, where the playing with gasoline comes in is in the immortal words of the respected poets, Tears for Fears, in that Everybody Wants to Rule the World.  There's lots of the ruling elements that want to be Kim Il Song.  Kim keeps them in line by shooting them with rabid dogs fired from a tank, but there's always a chance one of them gets lucky or Kim gets complacent and we're looking at a total breakdown of order in the DPRK.  This is honestly the most dangerous scenario I can think of.  

      Caveat B.  If pushed to the point where regime survival is less likely with status quo than success in military conflict the DPRK might roll the dice.  This is doubtful however as if the DPRK was that weak, the odds of military success in a conflict against Latvia, let alone the ROK and her allies would be remote.
     
    2. A significant part of being the DPRK requires appearing both dangerous, and crazy enough to be really dangerous while not being too dangerous to live next door to.  It's two parts, the first being to made invading the DPRK seem too daunting to even consider, while also never being so dangerous as to overcome ROK and UN resistance to offensive military action.
     
    A bit part of this is asymmetrical attacks that are blatantly obviously DPRK origin but to a degree DPRK allies can still ignore the burden of proof.  The mine wasn't there to kill ROK military, it was there to show what the DPRK could do.  They want sugarplum visions of thousands of NKPA ninja warriors planting mines on every surface of South Korea because the God-Emperor demands it be so!  This is something that is not so egregious as to be worth starting a war that will cost thousands (tens of thousands perhaps) of military losses to ROK and Allies, but it's designed to make the idea of starting a war so spooky as to make putting up with another 20 years of DPRK being terrible preferable to open warfare.
     
    Same deal why they love nukes, they don't plan on nuking a hole through the DMZ, they just want to make attacking the DPRK so daunting they can more or less do enough shady stuff to keep the Kim family rolling on Johnny Walker and caviar without fear of invasion.
     
    In regards to China, they want the DPRK to shut up and behave, and buy Chinese stuff/give China natural resources.  They don't want to deal with a full spectrum bloody conventional war on their border pumping thousands if not millions of starved, functionally uneducated North Koreans who will turn into a humanitarian disaster in short order once they cross the border.  Status quo, and if not status quo, the least chaotic outcome.

    So in that regard I would suggest a Chinese intervention would be to establish a buffer zone to keep DPRK refugees south, secure possible high value Chinese investments in the Northern parts of the country.  Likely they'll coordinate some level with the ROK-US elements (possibly stipulating how far north the US goes in exchange for keeping intervention limited, while allowing the ROK all the way to the Chinese front line).  .
     
    That said at least the way I'm reading it, this isn't an incident worth getting too excited about.  It's higher tension than usual, but not quite the highway to hell.  
  10. Upvote
    Melchior got a reaction from DougPhresh in Russian doctrine in CMRT   
    There is much to be admired about the Red Army's manner of fighting I think. It is crude and it is ugly but it ruthless, a force of nature even. Tacit in the Russian manner of fighting is the admission that war is hell and many people will die in name of victory. The Russians are not intentionally cruel though. They just understand that war is horrible and the only right way to do it is to seek victory in the surest possible manner. 
     
    It's not like western thinking that prioritizes force preservation and low casualty figures, even if the battle is a loss. The Russians use as you emphasize, the Trafalgar-esque mentality that stresses simply outfighting the enemy. Maneuver is only used as a means to an end, to eventually force the enemy to battle or see his advantages slowly and surely eroded away. 
     
    Western Armies* are obsessed with "getting inside the enemy's head" so to speak. This is the nature of the recon pull and why battlefield intelligence is so important. It's to capitalize on an enemy's mistakes, or prevent your own forces from making one. The Russian concern is purely about their own force. They couldn't give a crap what Fritz is thinking. You'll know what he's thinking after you've parked your force where he doesn't want you to be. 
     
    A history of balanced rivalries between powers in Europe has led western forces into pursuit of the infamous "Decisive Battle"**. The go-for-broke engagement that allows you to triumph over an equal or superior opponent without a large investment in lives and time. Hard won victory is not really seen as victory in the west after all, it needs to be easy. Even defeat can be more rewarding than victory as long as the cost was low. The lead up to the battle usually requires western forces to disseminate much and operate with natural complexity. Intelligent and headstrong leaders are placed at low levels in the command chain and expected to capitalize on opportunities at their level. The advantage is a gamble, a good opportunity can lead to a cascade of victories that works its way up into better circumstances for the Great Battle. A bad or misread opportunity leads to infamous disasters like Kampfgruppe Pieper , or Pickett's Charge. 
     
    The gamble is a major character of war in the west. Because the historically low populations and fragile political climate of Europe essentially required you to triumph over the odds. While the results from this can be spectacular they can also very easily lead to many wasted lives. 
     
    I don't like everything about Deep Battle. It's predictable and it's unsophisticated. It doesn't seem to have answers for a direct encounter with an equal or better force. If the enemy can match you strategically and tactically it seems it won't work as well. If the war is distant it's just impractical. The Soviet Union was usually not successful in its overseas adventures. Where Deep Battle clearly does work is against the backdrop of a major conflict with a state that can take what it can dish out. 
     
    The best thing about DB to me is that it clearly takes war seriously. Western thinking seems to think of war too much as adventure. A card game with the potential to yield big payouts. This thinking has too often been used by men of questionable morality and intention to sell bad wars and hurt many people. 
     
    *It's not necessarily accurate to describe all of Europe's Armies as one kind of character. They aren't. 
    **More appropriately known as the Decisive Campaign. Single pitched set piece battles have not characterized war since the end of the 19th century. 
  11. Upvote
    Melchior reacted to JasonC in Russian doctrine in CMRT   
    Don't spend lots of time scouting. Don't bother to fix and flank, except with tank forces, who can do it at speed. But also don't just run infantry at the enemy or ignore casualties. That isn't Russian doctrine or how it actually worked, it is just a cartoon slander of their methods spread by the Germans, whomthought it made them defending against it sound all clever and also heroic for braving it etc. (A rather incoherent set of spin objectives, incidentally, but that is an aside).

    The first idea is that any definite plan pushed will be faster than slow recon pull. The next is that the process of destroying the enemy really isn't that complicated - it is a matter of laying your ship alongside the enemy, as Nelson put it before Trafalgar. Meaning close aggressively with the enemy, brave what he can dish out to dish out as much as you can yourself, and trust in your strength to destroy him before he destroys you.

    But that isn't a headlong charge. Above all, it isn't about movement in the first place, it is about firepower and punishment dealt.

    The first infantry wave is fixing, but doesn't have to do it everywhere, or care too much about finding the enemy. Walking over your chosen route of advance will either penetrate the enemy and break up his defense, or he'll find you, and reveal himself stopping that. Let him. Then blow the living crap out of everything that reveals itself, with all your firepower arms. Tanks, mortars, artillery support - call down the wrath of God to avenge the first wave. All the first wave itself needs to do in the meantime is hit the dirt, take what cover they can, and rally as best they can. They did their part drawing the enemy's fire. Don't press. It isn't a race. Save as many of them as possible, by blasting the guys shooting at them and skulking them out of sight.

    Then send the second wave. Not a new idea. Not a fancy razzle dazzle end around head fake double reverse. Send them at the spots your artillery and other fire support just blasted into the lower atmosphere, while the dust is still moving upward. They may occupy the places so blasted. Or they may draw fire from a new set of shooters, and repeat the experience of the first wave. You don't really care which. There is no rushing. You have all week. Everyone will get a turn before you are done, every bit of fire support you have will chew on something, and the enemy will need to shoot you all down and still have something left. If they don't, it may be in the bottom half of the clock that they start crumbling. Waves that have been out of the leading role are rallying the while, shooting back. You don't care how long it takes, but not because any of it is tentative or any part of the clock is quiet. Reuse the rallied early waves as fourth and fifth attacks. The whole point is to outlast them, to have the last rallied wave standing. Inexorable is the watchword.

    Each wave doesn't bunch up. It isn't trying to run the enemy off his feet in one go. You only expose what it takes to make a serious threat to enemy position if he doesn't open up with a major line of battle. The ideal size of one wave is a numerical match for the defenders on the same frontage. You don't want to give them denser targets that make all their weapons more effective. Instead you want them to face trying to hold off the third wave with empty magazines and surrounded by blasted friends, worked over repeatedly by all your fire support.

    They won't stand. Lean hard enough into them, back off for nothing, make no mistakes, and use every weapon in your force for its proper target - and they will go down. Trust your combined strength, believe it, press home and make it so.

    No captain can go far wrong who lays his ship alongside one of the enemy.
  12. Upvote
    Melchior got a reaction from Doug Williams in Tiger Vs Stuart   
    Results like this are why I love the game. Truly anything can happen.
  13. Upvote
    Melchior got a reaction from Doug Williams in Soviet SMGs   
    They were for the time. That's why both the Russians and Germans equipped whole Companies with them, and would've equipped even more men with them if they could have. The assault rifle's invention came earlier than people think, and was predicated on the invention of an intermediate cartridge between the power of a full rifle round and pistol round. Most nations couldn't change their standard ammunition dead in the middle of the war though. Just ask the Italians and Japanese how good that worked for them. The Russians waited until the war was past its decisive stage before they started fiddling with Kalashnikov's designs and the Germans were desperate enough to try just about anything.
     
    So you know, the Thompson was still in use with the US Army in Vietnam, and it was quite popular. The issue with the Thompson is that the ballistics of the .45ACP round are not very good beyond about 100m or so. The round loses energy too fast. It could kill someone much farther out but the trajectory falls off a lot at range. Their is a reason modern machine pistols and SMGs prefer the 9mm parabellum round. Assault rifles replaced SMGs because they offer all the advantages of a compact machine gun with none of the disadvantages of a pistol cartridge. Older ARs used to be somewhat unwieldy in tight quarters but a modern M4 is about the size of the Thompson and weighs less.
     
    I hate hate hate these video-game esque K:D ratio statements. They totally gloss over the operational realities of the war and encourage people to remain ignorant of how fighting in a modern war works. I hope you don't frequently paint pictures of the war to laypeople like this. Really I don't because it's actually very irresponsible and unhealthy.
     
    You should try being shot at, half starved, and fresh out of a 200km road march if you want the truly realistic experience.
     
    You should know that the developers are wary of "I think XYZ is too strong/too weak". Do some tests, come back with some figures, and do some research. I'm a little surprised that everyone is so befuddled with Russian SMG squads when they're no better armed than the Syrian militiamen we all played against in Shock Force. If you stumble into a killzone and don't cover sectors right than it barely matters if your men are armed with M4s or K98s, they'll get wrecked.
  14. Upvote
    Melchior got a reaction from A Canadian Cat - was IanL in Soviet SMGs   
    They were for the time. That's why both the Russians and Germans equipped whole Companies with them, and would've equipped even more men with them if they could have. The assault rifle's invention came earlier than people think, and was predicated on the invention of an intermediate cartridge between the power of a full rifle round and pistol round. Most nations couldn't change their standard ammunition dead in the middle of the war though. Just ask the Italians and Japanese how good that worked for them. The Russians waited until the war was past its decisive stage before they started fiddling with Kalashnikov's designs and the Germans were desperate enough to try just about anything.
     
    So you know, the Thompson was still in use with the US Army in Vietnam, and it was quite popular. The issue with the Thompson is that the ballistics of the .45ACP round are not very good beyond about 100m or so. The round loses energy too fast. It could kill someone much farther out but the trajectory falls off a lot at range. Their is a reason modern machine pistols and SMGs prefer the 9mm parabellum round. Assault rifles replaced SMGs because they offer all the advantages of a compact machine gun with none of the disadvantages of a pistol cartridge. Older ARs used to be somewhat unwieldy in tight quarters but a modern M4 is about the size of the Thompson and weighs less.
     
    I hate hate hate these video-game esque K:D ratio statements. They totally gloss over the operational realities of the war and encourage people to remain ignorant of how fighting in a modern war works. I hope you don't frequently paint pictures of the war to laypeople like this. Really I don't because it's actually very irresponsible and unhealthy.
     
    You should try being shot at, half starved, and fresh out of a 200km road march if you want the truly realistic experience.
     
    You should know that the developers are wary of "I think XYZ is too strong/too weak". Do some tests, come back with some figures, and do some research. I'm a little surprised that everyone is so befuddled with Russian SMG squads when they're no better armed than the Syrian militiamen we all played against in Shock Force. If you stumble into a killzone and don't cover sectors right than it barely matters if your men are armed with M4s or K98s, they'll get wrecked.
  15. Upvote
    Melchior reacted to JasonC in Soviet SMGs   
    Small arms fixation, rather silly.  70% plus of all casualties are caused by artillery fire, including the common medium mortars,  but heavily dominated by divisional artillery, where all the fire control and ammunition supply was concentrated.  Of casualties caused by bullets, machineguns are by far the leading cause, both infantry crew served and vehicle mounted.  Maybe 1 in 6 battlefield casualties were caused by all smaller arms combined, and perhaps less.  Those split between close range fire at broken enemies or very rapidly decided knife fights, and long range fire making up in time-extent what it lacked in specific lethality.  Meaning rifles taking isolated potshots for *hours* on end, whenever a target briefly exposed itself.
     
    CM players try to use infantry as an arm of decision in its own right, accepting very heavy casualties to mash like on like and trade with similar enemies, at ranges down to point blank.  That did happen occasionally in the actual war, of course, but always as a sign of a fearsome stuff up in the chain of plans and maneuvering and combined arms application.
     
    Normally SMGs don't kill many infantrymen because normally friendly infantrymen spend very little time within 50 meters of the enemy.  Artillery and mortars and tanks and such all plaster him at 500 to 1000 yards.  Then MGs, modestly supplemented by aimed rifle fire, mostly keeps him from getting within 200 yards - the MGs rather more effective in the 250 to 500 yard range envelope and the rifles and such kicking in from 250 down to 100 - with few ever getting that close.
     
    When infantry does get that close to the enemy it is after the heavier stuff has seriously messed him up, to finish him off or force him to retreat or to take prisoners.  Sometimes it has to threaten that to reveal the defenders by the threat of close approach in far superior numbers - then it mostly gets stopped as described in the previous, and the friendly heavy stuff finds something to "chew on" and goes to work.  In all of which, infantry are targets far more than direct threats, and their firepower mostly defensive, suppressing their opposite numbers long before they can close.
     
    Armies went to intermediate rather than full power cartridges after WWII because they had found that infantry only has to deal with the 300 yard and under range, because heavier stuff in the combined arms toolbox completely dominates all fighting at longer ranges.  Everyone with a carbine caliber weapon capable of full automatic fire gave all the benefits of SMGs without their limited range drawbacks, while being fully capable out to the 300 yard mark, beyond which small arms fire was tactically irrelevant.  
     
    To get a realistic sense of these things in CM, you just have to play realistic scenarios that make full use of the combined arms "kit", and that reflect the "never fight fair" lopsidedness of real combat.  When instead you artificially force everything to be a short range, even odds, infantry dominated encounter, and in lots of cover, you won't get historically realistic outcomes or importance of different weapons.  You've cherry picked the occasions for automatic small arms carried by each man, to shine.
     
    Fight in open steppe terrain and see how important SMGs are.  Give the attacking side 12 tubes of 105mm artillery with 100 rounds per gun and see how important SMGs are.  Give one side an SMG infantry company and the other side a Panzer IVG company and see how important the SMGs are.   That war as a whole was not even knife-fights inside 100 yards between evenly matched infantry companies.  When it was - some city fighting e.g. - infantry loss rates were astronomical and SMGs were highly prized.  That just wasn't the whole war.
  16. Upvote
    Melchior got a reaction from LukeFF in Soviet SMGs   
    They were for the time. That's why both the Russians and Germans equipped whole Companies with them, and would've equipped even more men with them if they could have. The assault rifle's invention came earlier than people think, and was predicated on the invention of an intermediate cartridge between the power of a full rifle round and pistol round. Most nations couldn't change their standard ammunition dead in the middle of the war though. Just ask the Italians and Japanese how good that worked for them. The Russians waited until the war was past its decisive stage before they started fiddling with Kalashnikov's designs and the Germans were desperate enough to try just about anything.
     
    So you know, the Thompson was still in use with the US Army in Vietnam, and it was quite popular. The issue with the Thompson is that the ballistics of the .45ACP round are not very good beyond about 100m or so. The round loses energy too fast. It could kill someone much farther out but the trajectory falls off a lot at range. Their is a reason modern machine pistols and SMGs prefer the 9mm parabellum round. Assault rifles replaced SMGs because they offer all the advantages of a compact machine gun with none of the disadvantages of a pistol cartridge. Older ARs used to be somewhat unwieldy in tight quarters but a modern M4 is about the size of the Thompson and weighs less.
     
    I hate hate hate these video-game esque K:D ratio statements. They totally gloss over the operational realities of the war and encourage people to remain ignorant of how fighting in a modern war works. I hope you don't frequently paint pictures of the war to laypeople like this. Really I don't because it's actually very irresponsible and unhealthy.
     
    You should try being shot at, half starved, and fresh out of a 200km road march if you want the truly realistic experience.
     
    You should know that the developers are wary of "I think XYZ is too strong/too weak". Do some tests, come back with some figures, and do some research. I'm a little surprised that everyone is so befuddled with Russian SMG squads when they're no better armed than the Syrian militiamen we all played against in Shock Force. If you stumble into a killzone and don't cover sectors right than it barely matters if your men are armed with M4s or K98s, they'll get wrecked.
  17. Upvote
    Melchior got a reaction from Odin in German 'Handy Top Tips' armoured tactics document   
    Maneuver is still the basis of Teutonic war. While a Russian guide in this vein would emphasize smashing an enemy with direct fire and an American guide would emphasize surgical precision strikes from air support and artillery prior to attack, the advice strikes me as quintessentially German.
  18. Upvote
    Melchior reacted to JasonC in German 'Handy Top Tips' armoured tactics document   
    Given the choice between discussing whether German armor doctrine was effective or wasn't, and discussing whether they wrote halt as they clearly did, or half as some fool on the internet guessed, the brilliant tacticans of this site spend 3 pages weighing in on the second "question". This is why I write for Board Game Geek these days, far more than this forum. Just saying...
  19. Upvote
    Melchior reacted to womble in Minor Gameplay suggestion   
    Thing is, they aren't really scouts, they're "walking point". The SL isn't going to give his expensive binos to guys who're pretty much expected to get shot and might have to be left where they fell. They're called "Scout" teams, because if you told Smith and Jones off to form a "Bait" team, they might not appreciate the glory you're offering them.
     
    In the same vein, when you have a three-team German squad, with the SL and his assistant both having MP40, if you split an Assault "A team" off, the Assistant (who stays with the B team) doesn't pass his Schmeisser over to one of the A team. Because, though there are many like it, that SMG is his.
  20. Downvote
    Melchior reacted to Aragorn2002 in Soviet Storm WW2 in the East   
    And the crimes they commited and the suffering they brought over other people.
  21. Upvote
    Melchior reacted to MikeyD in When should BFC start to develop a CMx3 engine ?   
    Steam = "giving away the profits to a parasite company".
  22. Upvote
    Melchior reacted to rocketman in What is your best lesson learned from CMBS experience?   
    That pic reminded me of one of my favourite games, Shadow of the Colossus:

  23. Upvote
    Melchior got a reaction from cool breeze in What is your best lesson learned from CMBS experience?   
    Never stay in one place for very long.

    The M1A2 and most modern MBTs are basically this.


  24. Upvote
    Melchior reacted to MikeyD in How do you guys manage multiple units at once, without turning around and finding half your units are dead?   
    Remember you are not playing the part of all-knowing Godalmighty in the game, you're playing the part of - usually - the company commander. Sometimes the company commander discovers to his horror that his western outpost has been over-run while his attention was turned elsewhere and he's being encircled. War is hell that way.
  25. Upvote
    Melchior reacted to sburke in Bugging Hitler's Soldiers   
    it is interesting, not earth shattering in any sense.  What is sadder is how little they made use of the info.  I get that you hate to give up intelligence collecting methods, but this material is graphic enough to really have an impact.  For one thing the myth of only the SS being culpable would have been wiped out.
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