Gamer58
-
Posts
95 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by Gamer58
-
-
I don't think anyone advocating for major changes to AT Guns is suggesting that they should be able to be raced all over the map like handbarrows.
Fatigue should take care of how far and fast they're able to move.
Terrain should take it's toll, at present it doesn't.
AT guns absolutely need a major overhaul in flexibility and maneuverability to have any relevance in Combat Mission.
Defense then relocation to an alternate position, as quoted by Childress, should be a viable tactical option.
It isn't.
Not even on a paved road with the lightest assets.
At present, AT Guns are barely more than a fixed emplacement without the benefit of a roof.
I'm going purely on memory here, but I seem to recall that part of the problem with fixing AT Guns was that they have to have the capacity to be mounted onto vehicles.
Which has put them in a grey area as far the functionality that can be applied to them.
If anyone knows more about that, I'd be interested to hear it again.
This.
AT Guns in CM suck dogs ****s.
They suck!
1. No mobility WTF?
2. No ability to reman them after making team move away during enemey mortar or arty attack
3. No ability to place them in buildings - even Close Combat back in 99 had that
4. No ability to use haystacks or other camp
THEY SUCK
-
I'll post my results on Iron after some more posts.
I won decisively with only a handful of casualties.
However... I didn't use the default defensive layout.
-
All I know is that the Luftwaffe Inf. had some of the best looking uniforms.
I also know that Crete was regarded as a brutal campaign and the FSJ must have done a good job as far as it could.
Back to the uniforms: I'm guessing the white flashes on caps/shoulders of the LFD were not altogether a good thing in combat?
-
How does Axis win Vallebrucca?
What changes in the defensive setup would you make over what is provided for in the default scenario?
-
Gamer58 is amusing but he is also right, a 30 ton tank knocks over trees easily when it runs its beak straight into them. The problem is the running gear on the sides, where the tank meets the ground. Those work just fine as long as everything stays under them. Get stuff in between 2 track sections and it is carried around to the next sprocket - maybe that breaks it off like a matchstick, maybe not. Get enough strong hunks of wood in the gears and the tracks stop running freely over the gears; drive strength still goes to the track, and the tank's engine is then struggling to tear its own tracks to pieces. That is how wood immobilizes 30 ton tanks - jams that make the metal bits fight each other.
As an aside on round nomenclature, I assume that most know that the 30-06 is called a 30-06 because it was a 30 caliber round adopted as an army standard in the year 1906. (It was a pointed bullet upgrade designed for the new Springfield M1903, the first Mauser pattern US infantry rifle). The British .303 on the other hand is a black powder era designation; they measured the diameters differently back in the 1880s. Its actual bullet diameter is .312 inches or 7.92mm. FWIW.
You learn something new every day.
-
Im in
Have CMFI
Using a Macintosh
Is IP/TCIP real time gameplay possible?
-
The 42 doesn't sound like a buzzsaw/linoleum being ripped. Im disappointed.
Have no idea how the 34 sounds IRL, so no basis to be disappointed.
Are the in game sounds accurate?
-
Apparently (from a WWII infantry weapons video available on youtube) a 303 from a Garand could pierce a sizable tree trunk from some distance and kill the guy on the other side of said tree.
So why not a 30 ton tank?
-
Am I to understand that there are no FSJ units in CMFI (not the expansion)?
Were the FSJ always part of the Luftwaffe?
Were they always separate from Luftwaffe Infantry units, or were they included in these units and deployed in a similar manner on the ground?
-
Wasn't there a theory that hugging the enemy formations would result in enemy ship borne artillery being rendered ineffective? I understand that's easier said than done. What reasons did Rommel have for thinking that his tactics could work? Wouldn't enemy air be just as effective or dangerous against such a counter-attack as ship borne artillery?
-
Thank you Jason.
In your estimate, how many men would they have lost trying to get back across the Med?
What made Kesselring want to stay there in North Africa?
How would all of this have made a difference to the war in Europe? Would Italy have stayed on as part of the Axis? Would it have resulted in a different looking Europe? Would it have made a difference to Allied command decisions or Soviet ones?
At a lower strategic level, isn't there an argument that hugging the enemy on the beach is a valid way to slow or stop them, because sea borne artillery will not be used as effectively? Wasn't there something famous about Rommel's view on this on D Day?
What happened during Goodwood? I can't see the point. Counterattacking is a fine art it seems and Italy has very interesting terrain.
Wouldn't a bloodied nose in Italy have resulted in the Allies taking a different view of France?
Were there any lessons from Italy that were transferable to the Wermacht's effort in France or were they not useful at all given the terrain or other factors?
-
Gamer58 - first I want to address the rather bizarre references to Goering, as though he mattered. He didn't. He had very little influence by this point in time, and Kesselring had never had very much to do with him anyway. Later I will get to Kesselring.
Goering was not important in the Third Reich primary as commander of the Luftwaffe, it was the other way around. He got command of the Luftwaffe because he was a Hitler crony who happened to have flown in WW I. He was one of the first to join the Nazi party and basically created the SA in that early incarnation. At bottom he was a paramilitary organizer and a party thug.
When the regime took power, it came in initially in coalition with pro army and conservative support, and the first order of business was to seize total power and remove all dependence on those elements. To appease them, the Reich interior minister of the new government was a non-entity they trusted. But Goering became interior minister of the state of Prussia instead, in a characteristic Nazi move of parallel appointments and bureaucracy building. Goering quickly fill the Prussian state police with his own men and that was the Gestapo. Goering did not have power in Germany as creator of the air force but of the Gestapo (and before it the early SA). He used it to destroy all the party's enemies by criminal direct action, as any capo might.
In 1934 he turned over the Gestapo to Himmler because the SS became the central organization when the SA was put down. In turn, the regime was encountering resistance from the finance ministry and central bank, and to bypass those opposition with a massive armaments program, the four year plan bureaucracy was created and Goering put in charge of it. He then had power as an economic dictator. The Luftwaffe was being formed at the same time, to be sure, and he held both portfolios, but the economic one was the larger commission, and in its own way gave him powers as wide as the police power had given him earlier (which passed to Himmler).
But all that was ancient history by mid 1943. Economic power had passed to Organization Todt and then to Albert Speer and Goering's role there shrank to nothingness. His standing from the Luftwaffe command suffered from the failure of the Battle of Britain and later from overpromising at Stalingrad (a pattern with him), and was in the process of collapsing due to the loss of the air war over central Germany. It wasn't until the fall of 1944 that his power was reduced to next to nothing and he became a standing joke, but he was on that path already. He was mostly focused on looting the art of Europe and eating whole bakeries at this point.
Kesselring has an old army Prussian officer, not a party type and not an air force creation. He was one of the few army officers retained in the smallest interwar force and responsible for parts of its training then - as pure a army general staff creature as existed at that point. In the mid 1930s he was transferred - by others, not at his own initiative, simply because his planning brain was wanted - to the Luftwaffe. He was an intellectual and a staffer type, used for talent not line command or political reasons, though he proved pliable enough politically to be popular with the ideologues running the party bureaucracies.
The MTO command was a Luftwaffe one simply because it was the most important German contribution to a mainly Italian theater in the early and early midwar period. The Italian air force was not equal to the task of denying the British the Med, the Luftwaffe was. There was a typical tug of war between Kesselring there and Rommel as field commander once he got going, and as was thoroughly typical the field command pulled its nominal superiors along, as long as Rommel appeared to be winning. So Kesselring didn't get his way in operations, until the Tunisia period, basically.
On Tunisia his strategic judgment was horrible and his operations technically sound and well directed. As usual, the importance of the former vastly outweighed the latter, and all his efforts were wasted. It made some sense to save Tunisia long enough to get the DAK out, but Kesselring optimistically tried to hold it and to even win by overly ambitious counterattacks. That predictably failed with the loss of 250,000 Axis troops and an irreplacable 4500 aircraft, more than half of them German. It was very dumb to fight on the other side of the Med, on thin air supply lines getting cut up by superior Allied air or thinner night time convoys. It was twice as dumb to throw away the cream of the Axis air forces in the Med in the attempt, but that is what Kesselring did. As usual, he was supported in all this because he was promising more than anyone could deliver and that is what the national leaders wanted to hear.
In Sicily he showed the reverse pattern - bad local direction (again the error was excessive optimism, more on that below) but eventually concluding, correctly, that the place could not be held and getting the heck out. What do I mean by bad local direction? He put Panzer Division HG on the main beaches in the south, and moved the more experienced 15th Panzergrenadier to the west. He thought HG PD was the stronger because it had more of the tanks - true - but it was newer to the place and still very untrained. (The previous version of the division had been destroyed in Tunisia; the infantry were green with less than a month's training as a unit and no familiarity with Sicily).
Next he thought he could hold the beaches by instant counterattack. He thought the Dieppe raid showed the way to defeat invasions, not comprehending the scale of a full Allied invasion of the kind of major fire support it had to call on. (The allies had more aircraft *squadrons* supporting the invasion than the Germans had individual *tanks* on the ground). The armored counterattacks at the beaches predictably failed as they ran into a wall of HE firepower from naval gunfire and air etc.
To Kesselring's credit, he then realized he had to run, and did so successfully - arguably his best piece of work, operationally.
Then in Italy, he thought the Italians would not switch sides, and was hopelessly wrong about that. He then was operationally competent in seizing southern Italy from them anyway. When the allies land at Salerno, he again expects to defeat them with a quick armored counterattack. It gets one day of successful "break in" that overruns one US battalion, then gets stopped by massive fire superiority. Here Kesselring saw the effects of naval gunfire first hand and finally got the point, but after throwing away two divisions plus worth of armor in the typical grand counterattack attempt.
Arguably his next best bit of operational work was selecting the positions for the Gustav line across southern Italy. He is frequently credited for the basic optimism in this, seeing that it could be held, but to me that is a stopped clock virture - he always oversold, and gets credit when it worked. The selection of the actual line was, however, technically competent as usual.
He next got to show his judgment dealing with the Anzio invasion - which, had it succeeded (which it could have with more aggressive allied and especially US command on the spot) would have made his decision to defend in the south look as stupid as Rommel thought it was, incidentally. Kesselring's solution to the invasion was - wait for it - optimistic that it would fail, plus a big instant armored counterattack. Which - wait for it - ran into a firestorm of Allied fire superiority and failed completely. The Germans would send a panzer division with 200 tanks and the allies would respond with single air raids by 500 heavy bombers saturating the battlefield with 500 lbs bombs until it was a muddy moonscape where nothing could move.
He managed to contain the beachhead for five months. It is fair to say the allies had failed, but what he got for it was stalemate for less than six months followed by large scale defeat - his usual pattern of "success".
By the time Rome fell in mid 1944, the whole theater was a sideshow, just as American strategists had always said. It was the British who thought it would be a softer target than France, where the Americans correctly saw all along that no victory in Italy would decide anything. The most that could be achieved was knocking out Italy and making the Med a safe English lake, and that was already achieved by the fall of 1943. Everything after that was an indecisive grind and a mutual waste of resources, at best marginally useful as an attrition drain on the Germans.
The big gain the Allies got from the whole campaign against Kesselring's command, from Tunisia on, was that the Med was part of the graveyard of the Luftwaffe. Even by mid 1943 they had hopelessly lost the air war in that theater, with thousands of planes lost etc. The allies could put up 10 planes to 1 by the time of Salerno and for the whole period after. This wasn't what broke the Luftwaffe over central Germany - that came later, only in the spring of 1944, and required P-51s and direct air to air combat over Germany - but the late 1943 Med fighting had already put their pilot pool into its long decline, kept their fighter count from building while the US air force count went up by a factor of 4, etc.
Hence my overall assessment of Kesselring - he is overrated. Yes he was technically competent, yes he had his occasional operational successes that can seriously be credited to him personally as a capable commander (getting out of Sicily successfully and cheaply, picking a good set of positions for the Gustav line). But he equally has staggering strategic errors (overcommitting to Tunisia) and tactical blindspots (overly aggressive with the armor and overconfident with it; poor appreciation for what allied firepower superiority did to any attempt to take the initiative even locally), for which he is unaccountable given a pass. And some of the items he is given credit for were just luck (defending southward, would have looked predictable and "predicted by Rommel" stupid if the US had taken Rome the day after the Anzio invasion e.g.).
One man's opinions...
So...
What was his alternative to Tunisia? Losing half his men trying to get back across the Med... and then what?
What was his alternative to counterattacking the Allies on the beach - at Gela or on the boot of Italy? Staying back and getting pounded from the air and the 6" naval artillery?
-
I see now. Thanks.
-
Or greatest German general?
What say you?
-
Does your squad have grenades left? Even satchel charges or rockets? If you can get them within range they will use those when all the bullets are gone. Otherwise sneak them out and scrounge some ammo, from bodies or vehicles. No hand to hand.
How do you collect ammo from dead units?
-
I guess if they were placed in or near hay bales or other cover, and with a tarpaulin at the front ( to stop the upkick of dirt from the blast ) they would be practically impossible to see. There's no crew to pick out or pick off, and I guess they would have a very low profile compared to any piece of at or tracked artillery. Think of a dozen of these things as a portable, quickly deployable, localized to where the enemy is heading, Maginot Line Lite type defense.
-
Now we are getting somewhere. JasonC's view of Kesselring, and yours too. This is what it's all about. Italy was an essential part of the campaign, important almost as much as the Eastern Front not in scale but symbolic and strategic importance as the gateway to Vienna.
Kesselring's influence over the campaign is what I and many others are interested in. Caliber of divisional commanders, influence over others through Goering, or otherwise, and ability to get the job done during the campaign. Just how good were they? What attempts did they make to ensure their front line soldiers were up to the job? There's a lot of revisionism about the quality of certain units and branches of the service, and surely the commanders did their level best to ensure that the bodies at the front line knew what they were doing. Did they?
-
OK, well put (and thank you for the concision).
There's still one thing I don't understand:
1. What do you think of Kesselring as a ground commander
2. What were his sub-commanders like? Where did they come from? Any from the Heer?
3. Surely, even though there was jostling at the table for crumbs, Goering had a lot of say, given that he was after all, Marshal above all others and by 42? deputy Fuhrer and to Hitler in all other offices (until the revocation appointing Doenitz some years later). Would he not have had the ability to marshal more than practically everyone else, including even Geobbels/Himmler (for the Waffen/Security SS)?
-
Interesting.
So when the took the spare Luftwaffe troops and formed them into fighting units, these guys were trained by equally inexperienced infantry commanders? I don't get why they would not be well trained - was there no interest at all in this from Goering? If so, why?
Also, what are your views of Kesselring as a commander? Surely if there were guys around just like him, he would have done his best to ensure that the men under his command were beaten into shape before they hit the front lines?
-
As I understand it
1. Goering was the head of all marshals and generals in any service - a special rank was created for him
2. The LI got the best of equipment and was not often denied what they wanted because of Goerings position within the Reich
3. The LI were not any less well trained than the Heer, on average.
Right? Wrong?
Also, Kesselring was one of the better commanders in the war. What made a Heer commander transfer to the Luftwaffe? Curious as to how it worked.
Thanks.
-
More screenshots.
-
You have to treat your infantry very carefully. Take small steps, not bold ones, even if there is some cover. Expose only one unit at a time, dont swarm forward in a large line if you can help it. Remember to split your squads into three if you can, and use them to pin the enemy and then maneuver with the other squad to the enemy's flank or at another angle. Here are some more screenshots from the game. I am sorry but they are a little out of order - I think in reverse chronological order. You can see that one unit made it up behind the topmost overwatching Mk IV and took it out with satchels.
-
I played it differently a second time, this time deploying the platoon originally deployed in the orchard to the far left of the map in the woods there. That platoon was eventually routed, but it did allow me to move up my Shermans (the three reinforcements) to the far right flank of the enemy and do substantial damage.
Here's the final deployment at around 40 minutes to go.
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
I declared a cease fire and these were the results. Difficulty settings were on Iron.
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
I feel I could have lost fewer of the infantry in the counterattacks to their right flank, when I tried (sometimes successfully) to have engineers use satchels on their tanks at the very end of the battle. You can see one such team trying to run up onto the last remaining Axis vehicle, a Mk III.
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
I deployed the GMCs to the left and right of the villa, and they did a remarkable job on infantry and enemy armor. The heavy artillery was called in across the front of the orchard as enemy infantry had taken position but was being held back from advancing over the open ground. Remember, you may reposition your sandbags near the villa, I did for a few.
Let me know what you think of my result. I'm always willing to learn something.
-
Playing it now. Destroyed all armor in their first attack using one of the guns.
The first thing I did - withdrew the platoon on the orchard to the rear of the villa, with the exception of the rocket guys who are on the 4th floor. Hide all infantry except your platoon commanders and an MG. The M2 should do some damage on those tanks, so keep that at the ready.
Reinforcements arrived. The Sherman is going on their left flank on a hill in the distance to their far right. The infantry is going to the left down the hill to the U shaped road ready to blast them. The two machine guns are heading to the foxholes at the front of the villa. I had already deployed the orchard platoon, originarlly redeployed to the rear of the villa, toward that area, near the vineyard. I have nearly two platoons about to hit them on their right flank if they decide to come close enough. The line they need to clear is now 3x longer than the front line of the villa. If they decide to go to the villa, I will roll them up from their right flank.
The GMCs are going on the hill to the rear of the villa until I need them. Then they will emerge and blast anything coming close.
Let's talk about the Road to Nijmegen
in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy
Posted
There is a serious underrepresentation of artillery in almost all CM campaigns. IRL enemy positions were bombarded for hours if not days before assaults and there was a lot more arty available during assaults.