BletchleyGeek

Brilliant (if you're into slapstick) British comedy set in occupied France

Thanks for entertaining us, Ken. The names you chose for the map landmarks are hilarious.

Thanks Bud for these two months of entertainment, besides the awesome visuals you guys had a very interesting game to watch too. Cheers!

The FO can ride on the back of a Stuart, CMFB brings the joys of tank riding to the Western Front. Interesting force, sounds like a fun outfit... even if I am not sure what would be role of the light tanks other than being chaff. On a bigger map - 2kms deep or so - I think the SPArty can work, especially if there's high ground enabling direct fire on enemy positions.

Thanks Michael. Since I posted that I did some reading on the topic... the story gets really interesting when one learns about the tug of war between generals Leslie McNair - the proponent of the doctrine that Badger mentions - and Jacob Devers on this issue (who would go on to command the 6th Army Group). That kind of struggle, and an underestimation of the ability of the Germans to equip and field the Panther goes a long way to explain some stuff.

Good luck with the website, I sense the migration has been a quite bumpy ride...

Good luck with the website, I sense the migration has been a quite bumpy ride...

That is interesting. I found Dupuy's work on the Ardennes very hard, because yes, there's a lot of data in that book but unfortunately: 1) it is usually presented out of context and 2) you can find conflicting interpretations of the data peppered across the text. This also happens on his "Numbers, Prediction and War " which is a book I have studied a lot - it is hard work to make sense of what he says and why he says it. Regarding the coverage of the 6. SS Panzerarmee... Dupuy tends to cherry pick his examples for his Thesis, that of the superiority of the German "magic powers". Of course, the failure of the offensive in the northern shoulder of the Ardennes is a massive outlier, and he just drives around it. Works like Bergstrom, even if I find them somewhat biased, are much more honest and straightforward, going into analysing the reasons for the German failure in the north, and how that changed the nature of the German operation. That is, from a battle to annihilate Allied forces by maneuver (flawed as it was the concept of a pincer movement consisting of one single arm), into a Italian front-style bear trap to cause attrition and tie down as many Allied forces as possible (into which the Allies fell pretty much by default). Another odd thing I distinctly remember about this book was at the end, after substantial remarks along the lines that the US Army performance was "not good" he goes on to say something along the lines "But Patton was awesome"... So yeah sure, whatever floats your boat, Colonel Dupuy.

Looking forward to see what does that quad. 50 does to those grenadiers!

I meant you finished the last instalment with a very suspenseful vignette.

Nice little hook to end Bud

Thanks for the discussion Big Boss, I see that our bookshelves do intersect in interesting ways. I totally agree wrt the impact of air operations at the operational level. It is also something very valuable about Bergström's book: his analysis of the fight in the air, hardly discussed in any depth or elsewhere. Did you read it in Swedish, right? I wasn't very happy with the editorial work on the English Kindle version...

Very nice text book assault with panze rgrenadiers supported by their halftracks :-)

When I classified him under that "category" - which isn't free of irony, mind you - was because I appreciated in his account how his admiration for the Wehrmacht - not the Waffen SS - transpired in some parts of the book. I do think that in general, he has a tendency to elevate the accomplishments of FJ units (still, the episode at Lanzerath with the 99th US Division I&R platoon is pretty much described as a failure in command at the Battalion level, which I think is right on the money). He does indeed criticise - and in this he's not the first, see the works of Charles S. Nipe on the operations of Waffen SS Panzer division during the summer and autumn of 1943 in the Soviet Union - and to point out that SS formations had awful problems when it came to the "boring" parts of waging war, that is, general staff work. And I do think that Peiper wasn't by any reckoning the brilliant panzer leader some American and British authors have claimed over the years. Waffen SS units had a tendency to end up doing frontal attacks... when operating under the command of Waffen SS Corps and Armies. Go figure. His study of the battles around Bastogne after the linking up between the 4th US Armoured and the encircled forces in Bastogne is very valuable, since those battles have hardly been covered from the German point of view, and indeed, most popular (as in number of books sold) such a "Time for Trumpets" all but ignore them. But his analysis of those battles gives a blind eye to processes that I think moulded the battle in fundamental ways - such as the blatant inexperience of units such as the 11th Armoured, the 17th Airborne Division, etc. and the rugged terrain favouring the defense - buying whole the "chest thumping" of veterans of GrossDeutschland (who manned the Fuhrer Begleit Brigade), etc. Comparing the performance of crack troops in prepared defensive positions against greenhorns is hard when one wants to be fair (and in this particular case, Bergstrom wasn't).

Looking forward to the finale, Bud

Congratulations Baneman - I was skeptical of you succeeding but you have :-) You won this hands down, taking setbacks with a lot of heart and pressing the issue to a happy conclusion (for you). And indeed, Veteran Panthers on good terrain are the bane of Allied armor!

Let me echo this - do not apologize, man. I enjoyed watching the match immensely! As I got to observe when CMRT came out (and in some scenarios of CMBN CW such as NEDForce at Les Grandes Bonfaits, for instance), as soon as the fight happens on open terrain (or elevation differences are modeled in the map, so there's a chance to "look over" linear cover) and ranges get longer, the technical superiority of the German armour becomes very obvious. You fought gallantly, but certainly your armour was somewhat overmatched technically and also in crew quality. In my last playthrough of George MC's NEDForce, three veteran Panther crews took out a whole company of keyholed Sherman tanks with average crew experience at a distance...

I think Bil tried to "reinforce success" - but looks like that reinforcing success in this instance would have meant to take a deep breath and a step back. The TacAI reacting to incoming fire and driving the JT onto a "shallow" can still happen... but perhaps when and if it happens isn't going to matter much if Bil's loses numerical superiority in armour (and he's very close to that...)

That's some fire support on top of that crest... any chance of a well timed 155mm barrage coming your way?

Nice one

Same here - that fog looks much better than anything I have seen in the game so far.

Much fairer than heavyweight vs. flyweight...

Bergström book, as Van Creveld, is an example of the "cult of the Wehrmacht". There is a fair bit of cherry picking - avoiding to dwell on Allied tactical successes which we have seen described in books and war games scenarios one time too many perhaps - and fails appreciate that green outfits, with little cohesion and green officers and NCOs will probably have a hard time succeeding in awful environmental conditions against well entrenched outfits, better led and with recent battle experience, regardless of it being US Army or Wehrmacht. And that the defense, especially with the very refined German techniques, learnt the hard way during 1914-18, is a force multiplier. Nevertheless, I think it is a must read, since it gives insight into the German expectations, experience and perspective of the Battle. It also covers in depth the "mop up" of the Bulge, which was in fact a major battle of attrition in crazy weather and ground conditions, whose turning point coincided - not accidentally - with the start of the Red Army Vistula - Oder operation. A perfect companion / counterbalance to the excellent and ancient Green Book by Hugh M. Cole. It has also awesome pictures, illustrations and maps. CAVEAT EMPTOR: the Kindle edition is riddled with typos, creaking Engrish translation and duplicated tracts of text - the hallmark of ebook churning through OCR.I would advise trying it on paper, that "jank" was very distracting.

Bil, this was an excellent example of über effective battle command: get into the enemy commander's head, devise the most disrupting plan and wait for an advantageous situation to develop and fall in your lap. This may look like luck to some, but it isn't, your course of action was designed to cause some trouble to Baneman, the uncertainty was in the specific kind of trouble you would create