pamak_1970

o.k. This is my first campaign in the CM2 series. I normally play games requiring minimum micromanagement, but I wanted to try this game and eventually found time to do it. I played all the missions of the first German campaign (Conrath's counterattack) and now I see a huge map for the last mission. Personally, I think that without a LOS fan to check the visibility conditions of each location (or unit) the game becomes unmanageable with big maps (and yes, I have tried also the mods with the gridded ground). Anyway, the CM2 engine is still impressive. One question: Before I spend my time with this huge map, can somebody tell me if the Germans can actually win the last battle? I read this thread and noticed that some players managed to get a draw in the last battle and a minor defeat in the campaign? Can somebody actually win the last battle (and the campaign), or is it supposed to follow the historical result?

Thank you for the link. Yes, I was aware of it and it is a useful source of information. Regarding the OR studies, their results regarding the effectiveness of airpower on ground targets naturally weren't welcomed in the air force. On the other hand, the last used OR to quantify results, like the effectiveness of AA fire and there are some very interesting studies in this area. They set the foundations for what was called "flak analysis" which was used by the bomber command to pick the best avenues of approach or the size and seperation between air formations to minimize losses.

Right on target! This is exactly what I was looking for. I really appreciate that you took the time to browse the reports to find what I asked for. You are my Santa Clause, lol. Have a happy holidays!

Perfect! Take your time. By the way, the worst thing was that I didn't let this book go. It was lost together with my suitcase in one of my trips. Now try to imagine that! :mad:

Hello everybody, I came here cause I recall there were certain members who owned this magnificent book which unfortunately I don't have any more, so maybe somebody can help me trace a piece of information from inside the book. I recall there was a certain study inside examining the effects of artillery fire on wire communications. It was a case study of artillery bombardment on German positions and the authors calculated a rule of thumb about the intensity of fire necessary to disrupt wire communications after an hour of bombardment. If I recall correctly, they had the size of the area under bombardment and the tons per hour of ammunition expended in order to destroy wire communication in an hour. Can somebody give me these figures- approximate size of area under fire and ammo expenditure? Thank you

This is an interesting link quantifying combat damage, bogging and mechanical breakdowns during the course of a few days of combat operations in difficult ground conditions http://www.royaltankregiment.com/9_RTR/tech/reichswald/Reichswald%20Report.htm from the above link Tank Casualties, own troops By Enemy Action Mines 5 Bazzoka 3 HE 5 AP 2 Total 15 By other causes Turret segment 13 Mech failure 20 Clutches (total failure) 3 Bogged 32 Total 68 i.e. A total casualty for two regiments of – 83 At some point it states that at any time only 7% of tanks in the forest were immobilized. The conditions in the forest were actually better compared to the ground outside of it.

related to immobilizations. Tanks in mud and forest fighting (operation veritable). The link below is very interesting. It includes a detailed description of operations, terrain appreciation and casualties with detailed description of the causes. http://www.royaltankregiment.com/9_RTR/tech/reichswald/Reichswald%20Report.htm from the above link Tank Casualties, own troops By Enemy Action Mines 5 Bazzoka 3 HE 5 AP 2 Total 15 By other causes Turret segment 13 Mech failure 20 Clutches (total failure) 3 Bogged 32 Total 68 i.e. A total casualty for two regiments of – 83 Note: It is estimated that only 7% of the tanks in the forest were bogged at any one time. ( It will be seen that, although casualties through enemy action were low, the overall wastage was extremely high. This was due in part to the absence of fitters but chiefly by reason of the abnormal ground and weather conditions and the rough usage unavoidable in forest fighting, especially by night. 3. Main Concerns (a) Turret Segments There were two reasons for the damage to segments. These were:- (i) Turret or gun being struck by trees. While every care was taken by tank commanders in this respect it was impossible, when fighting, to avoid it at all times. (ii) Mud, undergrowth and small branches packing between skid rails and lifting the track to a point where the turret is heaved from its ring. Despite mud ploughs and stripper bars this happens in certain conditions of going and the result is exactly similar to ice trouble already well known. ( Mechanical failure Many of the tanks that failed mechanically were very old and were in any case due to be back-loaded for rework. During the period under review the tank crews had neither time nor the facilities to carry out the constant maintenance required by these old tanks. It is considered unnecessary to enumerate the various causes of failure. © Clutches The clay sub-soil, sometimes under water, together with the general forest conditions, put a severe strain on clutches. Attempts to get forward when bogged were perhaps the greatest single factor causing failure. While 3 was the number of total failures a great many more gave considerable trouble. (d) Bogging This was inevitable and it is considered that only a Churchill tank could have operated over the ground encountered in certain places during the advance. The prohibition of the axis to all tanks made difficult the recovery of tanks bogged – eventually all but two, which required workshop assistance, were recovered by units. (e) Electrical Systems Complete failure of the system was prevalent in tanks with damaged turrets. The connections in the junction box were broken by the wrench as the turret was lifted by packed mud.

somehow i think we got distracted I will post a link trying to steer the conversation to the original path http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/readings/drew1.htm from the above link Then the authors give an example of how the French doctrine counting on WWI experience became irrelevant because of the interwar tech advancements. The above shows that doctrine is affected by technology and this is why i mentioned the radical different characteristics of Helos and TDs. This is why i said it is a stretch to argue both doctrines are the same. And i have to point something else which i didn't have time to address before. The AT helo was a a design of the late 70s-80s. The TD doctrine in the US army died way before the first appearance of the Apache. Now i understand you find similarities between TDs and modern AT helos and it is not surprising. All different doctrines have common roots. The deepest one of course are related to what we call "principles of war". Here is one principle- "security", you want to avoid surprise. Now the next level of abstract doctrine (the article compares the different levels of doctrine to a tree) puts more details into the picture. So when you advance for example, you lead your troops with an advanced guard. Then you have more specific doctrine-say TD doctrine which will state for example that during marches of TD units you have recon and advanced or flank guards at such a distance so that you can have security. Eventually you become more specific. There is an area where doctrine overlaps with tactics. The above of course is linked to various factors including technological ones. If your unit needs x time to react-deploy and the enemy is capable to advance with an Z rate then you calculate how far the advance guard should be (and how strong) in order to delay him x time and give the opportunity to the main body of friendly forces to react. Then you take in consideration other needs, like the need to preserve the advanced guard and delay the enemy without being decicively engaged and destroyed, support or communications and finally you have a manual saying that the leading element marches say 10 km or 2 hours ahead of the main body. Now it doesn't matter of you advance with TDs or infantry, or tanks. All are going to use some type of guard and try to "satisfy" the security principle of war. Does this "similarity" imply they are all the same? Another example: take for example modern cavalry. Its mission is similar to the one of the traditional cavalry in wwi and wwii. Basically security of larger units. Does the modern Armored cavalry regiment use the same doctrine as the American cavalry units in wwi or wwii? Or let's take the French or other countries who actually deployed horses for securing larger units during wwii. Can we argue that their modern mechanized cavalry doctrine is the same to the one they had in wwii simply because both had the same mission? Before you reply, i encourage you to read the link and before you try to counterargue that all these technical details are related to tactics and not doctrine, i will post the following from the same link note that the TD doctrine is an organizational doctrine. In addition if you read read the FM 18-5 /TD manual 1942- title: "organization and tactics of tank destroyer units", it says in the forward section "This manual contains doctrines for the training and combat employment of tank destroyer battalions and groups" Well these "doctrines" certainly discuss tactics. Just read the manual and see it for yourself. All the above explain better what i meant before when i argued that i saw your definition of "basic doctrine" as very basic indeed. Yes when you strip a subject from all technical details, you can find at the core some basic unified military theory. It is just that i see this as a very weak assosiation to argue that both doctrines are the same I will end the discussion here because i will not have time the next few days to participate. You are welcome to reply and disagree. I still think it was an interesting conversation.

It is not the limitations themselves i pointed. Every system has limitations and yes you want to minimize them through combined arms. No argument here. I mentioned the totally different characteristics of the systems. They apply so different tactics, including basic ones-which is why i mentioned defense,because of their different limitations i find it a stress to argue they both come from the same TD doctrine. Ok, everybody wants to use superior speed and firepower to destroy the enemy. We find the same objective in many different "doctrines". This doesn't mean that all are the same. I guess in theory we can say there is an overall military doctrine which links all together, but this is a very weak assosiation.

first of all there is no black and white. Their primary purpose in theory was of course to actively seek and destroy. They did this by occupying first advantageous positions and by using this they certainly denied the enemy an advance. The AT helicopter can't stay too long in the battlefield to have similar effects. They will find the enemy, destroy some tanks and when they return back, the rest of the enemy force may still continue its advance. It depends on what portion of his force is intact. You can't do this against a ground force. I think this is obvious.

and i would like to add something else. The vision of TD use didn't relate to combined arms operations. I am not sure why you mention it did, perhaps you read somewhere a proponent talking about "combined arms", but i prefer to let actions speak for people's intentions. Look for example the design of the TD platform. The M10 turret was topless. The board's official reason was that increased observation and reduced weight, both important in their vision to seek, find first enemy tanks and favorable firing positions, and use speed to occupy them, gain an advantage and defeat enemy armor. It seems to me they underestimated the threats from multiple sources in a combined arms enviroment. It still worked against a desperate enemy attacking carelessly with minimum artillery support- often as a result of poor observation conditions since he tried to avoid CAS, but NATO didn't expect Russians to employ armor the same way.

I guess it is a matter of what you mean by "basic doctrine". If we want to simplify the subjects, totally ignore different characteristics of the platforms and their different strengths, limitations and so on, we can find "basic" similarities among everything. You can find similarities at the most basic level between CAS and artillery doctrine too if you want. I think we have to see the whole picture, including tactics techniques and procedures used to exploit the "high maneuverability and speed" of AT platforms against enemy tanks. I can't ignore the fact that AT Helos are simply incapable to defend a locality, due to their limitation of staying in the battlefield for a long time, or the fact that they have different threats against them. Nor i can ignore the fact that even modern theory of AT helicopter use, doesn't believe that these assets can free firendly tanks from the need to defeat enemy armor, which was one of the pursued objectives of TD doctrine in the beginning.

Yes!! Thanks

There was a misunderstanding I talked about a tread (misspelled as thread ) which continued after wwii. We all know mechanization didn't start after wwii. But i think we agree that the level of mechanization continued to increase after wwii. And when all infantry in US army became mechanized, it was logical to see their supporting weapons - including AT assets to become fully mechanized too. The fact that we see AT assets on vehicles after wwii, is not a sign that the TD survived after wwii. It is just a result of the above tread. But all these assets continued to function in the same way AT assets did during wwii, meaning supporting infantry and not riding ahead trying to locate and destroy enemy armor, which was the TD dogma objective.

ok, but i don't see them as descendants of TD doctrine. Even during WWII we had an attempt to use air assets to fight tanks and often we had dedicated tank busting units. These units and their tactics are not related to TD doctrine. The last is basically the product of a debate between more protection or more maneuverability-power. The application of airpower on the battlefield is not related to this dillema. But on a broader front, we still find a type of debate which is somewhat similar to the one we saw in the TD doctrine. Can airpower by itself confront and defeat enemy armor? or is it still necessary to confront enemy tanks with friendly armor?

Adding to my previous post, here is one paragraph describing the TD doctrine which has no similarity to the employment of Tows and other AT assets post WWII. It comes from a monograph titled "Employment of 4 TD battalions in ETO". I should note here that the above monograph doesn't deal with the general TD doctrine debate. Still it starts by giving a general picture of the situation . So it quotes T-61 document from TD school (school doctrine), Department of Tactics, Camp Hood, Texas, page 1 Consistent to the above is also the organization of TD units which includes even Brigade level units (FM 18-5). Of course the lack of enemy "targets" as pointed before, led to the silent abandonment of the TD doctrine and the breakdown of TDs to smaller units. This however was not the case during cold war. A TD doctrine trying to actively engage and defeat Soviet numerous armor, would need Brigade level units equipped with TOWs but we never saw this type of organization. THis is because they served just like the WWII AT weapons, which their use according to T-61 was "to deny certain terrain feature to tanks".

I disagree. These dedicated assets do not show that the TD doctrine survived wwii. We have to see if these assets were expected to act according to the TDs doctrine of wwii. And they weren't. The main idea behind the TD doctrine was that you could sacrifice protection for speed and better gun to maneuver and engage tanks from favorite positions. In this way TDs dealt with enemy tanks and freed friendly armor to perform other missions. ITvs Tows and all the rest, were not expected to deal by themselves against enemy armor. They were integrated at the lower levels and were used as systems to beef up the infantry AT capability. They maneuvered at local level and they were never expected to give the final answer against the enemy tank thrust. They were more the descendents of AT batallions of wwii, but of course they followed the general thread of mechanization and these modern AT assets were put on vehicles, just like mortars, artillery and so on. But the general idea after wii was that the best AT weapon was another tank. The main enemy tank force would be dealt with friendly tanks. Of course in order to do this and have the luxury to keep your tank force concentrated, you need to have infantry capable to defend itself against low to moderate tank threats. Otherwise you will be forced to commit tanks piecemeal to plug gaps all over the front held by the infantry. So the modern AT systems gave answers at tactical level but they weren't design to produce the operational level answer envisioned by the proponents of the TD doctrine. This is why you don't see high level HQ and branches dedicated to tank destroyers, ITvs or Tows. There were also other technical reasons which made difficult to justify the sacrifice of protection for better armor and speed after wwii. One was the advancement in tank gunnery and protection. Sacrificing protection for acheiving longer range kill power didn't make much sense anymore, because of topographical limitations which remained constant. LOS restrictions wouldn't permit the realization of the theoritical advantage of a longer range weapon. Second, the advancement of the combined arms warfare exposed even more the limitations of the TD doctrine-meaning the sacrifice of protection. It was difficult to operate in an enviroment of combined forces when even enemy mechanized infantry with heavy .50 MGs or small cannons mounted on AFVs could penetrate the armor of a M113 "tank destroyer"- all these of course on top of the modern artillery threat.

My view is that in light of the horrible situation in 1944, every mistake of the German "Masters" at that time, was punished immediately. But this by itself doesn't imply that there was such a huge gap between the early and late German leadership. If somebody wants to create a list of serious mistakes at operational and strategic level, he can do it easily for the "glorious" years of the German Army too. France- Dunkirk (no it wasn't just Hitler. The "Master" Rundstend was also nervous and supported the pause) North Africa- Complete lack of unity of command at strategic and operational level. Italians do things on their own (Greece) and later even when Rommel is there he can't control much of the army even after becoming Field Marshal. Not to mention other decisions related with supplies, Malta and so on. Russia- The definition of Strategic and operational blunder according to many. If someone is surprised by the over optimistic German plans to crash Allies in Ardenness, then what can we say about the German plans to start a war with Russia without even a total mobilization? At operational level we have more problems. Hitler and operational commanders have different views about the proper objectives. Tons of papers have been written about the dillema "Moscow or Kiev". Nomatter what your opinion is, the "Masters" committedbserious mistakes. If you believe that going after Moscow was just a sign of maneuverist illusions, then Guderian the "Master" was lucky he wasn't allowed to go for it and have the fate of a modern Caster. If you believe that Moscow was the right objective, then the Germans committed a serious blunder which cost them the war. These are just some examples to point that things are more complicated than it first appears to be.

combined with I am not convinced about the intellectual inferiority of the "Masters" moving the German pawns against the Allies in the western front. We can't use the results as a proof they were worse than a "12 year old intelligent boy". If i use the analogy of chess, i will say that the Masters were forced to play a blind game and on top of that, for each movement of theirs, the Allies could make two moves. Allied air supremacy and high level of mechanization (which Germans never had to such extend, even during their best days), coupled with a Western Front, ideal for rapid maneuvers, gave the Allies a decisive advantage when they found an open space. This doesn't take away from the fact that Allies performed well, but it is also a fact that Germans could move mostly only at night and their best source of operational level information was basically Signal intelligence which gave less information (and at a slower tempo) compared to aerial reccon. When Germans were faced with situations of attrition warfare against the Allies, they fought well. They did it in Normandy and in Italy, but they just collapsed when they had to fight a war of maneuvers. I am not going to blaim the "Masters" for the horrible operational level operations. The thing is that the strategic situation was horrible and as a result, whatever operational sub-set came from the first, was going to be horrible too. If there was any obvious mistake, that was their decision to lead an army in this strategic enviroment and try to win. But the moment they decided to do it, they had to develop an operational plan which was going to be "silly" anyway, since the defeat was certain by the August of 1944. The truth is that these generals had limited options and none of them was a good solution to the problems they were facing. Sure, they could withdraw from Normandy earlier and preserve more of their army, but at the same time this meant they were comfortable with the idea that they could defend a front ten and twenty times more the one they had in Normandy, the front they had to abandon because they couldn't hold anymore!. So, if you see it from this perspective, it is not so irrational they decided to go for broke in desperate indeed actions aiming to hold Allies in the Normandy peninsula. Or take the Ardennes. They aim for an operational level victory-a proper objective for any high rank General fighting to win a war- but at the same time they had to acheive it during a limited window of opportunity when they were unseen from the Allied air force and for a short time they could "play" their "pawns" on equal terms and speed. So they tried to drive deep and fast in a forested area filled with deep snow. Even if they had the logistics and the resources (which they didn't), they couldn't have chosen a worse combination, but on the other hand it wasn't they had a better option to score an operational level victory. On one hand deep snow and forests do not fit well with rapid decisive results. They pulled it off with just one or the other in previous campaigns, against unskilled opponents and even then, they avoided the worst weather periods in the theater whenever they started decisive operations. But by December of 1944 in the West, they simply didn't have the option to manuever deep into enemy territory in an open country, with horses and barely enough fuel against full mech divisions with better logistical support, or under clear skies with all kinds of Allied planes and eyes monitoring their movement. Nor they had the option to wait and keep committed thousands of men and equipment in the West when the Red Army seemed unstoppable in the East. Notice that up until now i haven't even discussed the usual issue of casualties because of air power in the battlefront. This, to whatever extend it happened, comes as extra to everything i mentioned above which is more related to the ability to move faster and see the opponent in more detail than he can. Under these circumstances, playing blind (hearing only the chess notation of the oppnent's moves) and offerring one move for every two the opponent makes, Kasparov couldn't win a game against a decent chess player. And this comes from someone who has participated in Chess tournaments

ok, I have many studies related to calculation of suppression (quantified as probablity related to various factors), lethality of machine guns, mortar rounds and artillery and how all the above affect "stall point" for a company (stop movement) and "break point" (abandon attack and reorganize) In addition i have validation studies comparing actual smal fire engagements in Vietnam related to casualties, suppression and so on, with predicted results of scientific models. One reminder. No model is going to give the "truth" or final answer. However, it is interesting to study them and see if the assumptions used there (coming from military consultants) are comparable to the ones you see in the game. Again, even military experts do not have a unified opinion related to various assumsions used by these models. Still it gives a very interesting picture of the situation you try to analyze here. Just read the 120 page study about a single small arms engagement calculating the probabilities of all the things you talk about as a function of things like "received machine gun rounds" These studies are accompanied with the text of taped interviews of the participants. I am not going to put them in a particular order. Most of the links are about the Fast Val model, but there are a few which describe others and give a better picture of the scientific effort to quantify small arms effects in simulations during the 1970s. Enjoy (all download for free) Do not dismiss the first link because of the title (air support). It actually gives results for ground fire engagements and is a summary of comparisons between FAST Val predicted outcomes and real engagement outcomes http://www.rand.org/pubs/reports/R811.html http://www.rand.org/pubs/reports/R821.html http://www.rand.org/pubs/reports/R818.html http://www.rand.org/pubs/reports/R819.html http://www.rand.org/pubs/reports/R823.html The next document goes in depth about the Fast Val equations for the secodary effects of fire http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=AD0875820 The following link gives some examples of how scientists designed live field experiements to calculate probability of suppression as a function of radial miss http://sill-www.army.mil/famag/1980/MAY_JUN_1980/MAY_JUN_1980_PAGES_48_51.pdf And the last link shows different models all related to the effort of quantifying small arms (and mortar artillery) effects http://www.dtic.mil/srch/doc?collection=t3&id=ADA081134

Here is one good start for you first (free download) http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=AD0059384 "Casualties as a Measure of the Loss of Combat Effectiveness of an Infantry Battalion" second (free download) http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA201405 "Forced Changes of Combat Posture" i read both of them a few years ago. From what i recall a the "breakpoint" (defined as decision to abandon fight and retreat) is relevant to many other factors with casualties one of the less important ones b there are some data about historical levels of casualties at the moment a unit decides to abandon fight. From what i recall is more than 15% (KIA and Injured). For equipment losses the percentage is even higher. Anyway, since it has been some time since then it is better to see the details yourself. I can't guarantee the accuracy of all the above

I think what happened was that british were using the same type of argument Germans used when they suffered high casualties in tanks. "we lost many because of break downs and we were forced to abandon them". I don't say that it is not possible to have more reliable and less reliable tanks. But it is interesting to note that when Germans had also numerous breakdowns but were winning, this didn't pass into the bibliography. It became an issue only when they started losing battles. In other words when you are a winner, it is a given that you will experience many breakdowns during operations and marches. When you are the loser, you feel the need to point this given fact Depending on what level you read an event, you will see that books examining operational victories talk about swift panzer maneuvers which was true. But if you go to micro-level and especially to armor repair bibliography, you see high amounts of breakdown during long marches. But most of them were minor ones quickly repaired and rejoined the unit when the last halted for a few hours for reorganization and refueling after a long march. When you read stuff like "our division didn't lose many tanks during the 100 km march", it doesn't mean they didn't have numerous breakdowns. It means that whatever brokedown was quickly repaired and joined the following attack. I can't post online some of the stuff i have, but i can post something which is already online to make comparisons. It is a study from RAND "The Impact of Equipment Availability and Reliability on Mission Outcomes" This is about modern tanks which are much more reliable. Although most of the study is about the construction of a computer model, the hard data they use come from national training center statistics where US units execute long road marches. here is the link. You can download the pdf file for free http://www.rand.org/pubs/documented_briefings/DB423.html Go to page 31 and notice the bar graph which expresses the availability of equipment if breakdowns during a march of 50 and 100 km is taken in consideration. The percentage of vehicles becoming unavailable because of breakdowns is big. Try to imagine now the situation in wwii

The same is true in France with plenty of space to maneuver, an excellent road network and good weather conditions (compared to eastern front at least). Operational level exploitations produced excellent results for the winner. It happened in 1940 and in 1944. Italy on the other hand was different.

and because i want to avoid changing the subject to arguments about the material situation in other theaters of war, i just want to point that my main objection to what battlefront stated is that the material disparity in ETO 1944 is not comparable to that of France 1940 or North Africa 1941. That's all

I agree partially. Yes they had radios while French didn't but i see this as a quality issue not quantity. I used the term material advantage implying quantity, but i agree that in France and in Russia there was a German material advantage in many areas but not because of strict numbers. On the other hand even these material quality advantages were close related to the different doctrine and Germans should take credit for it. French decided to go with thicker and bigger armor. Their doctrine counted on this type of "quality". Germans used a different approach. In Africa things are more complicated. First the superior German "reliability" maybe related to superior German doctrine. Their evacuation and maintenance procedures were certainly better at that time. The qualitative advantage regarding tanks used didn't favor Germans all the time. During certain months they had an advantage but other times british employed comparable equipment. And then of course we shouldn't forget the quality of Italian machinery which was low. I don't know if the german airforce was simply better in North Africa. RAF proved a worthy opponent during the airbattle over England. They had good equipment and pilots.