Heirloom_Tomato

U.S. Lend Lease became law in March 1941, and the first shipments of over 300,000 tons of supplies (in 1941) began on June 22.
Granted, the total amount of Lend-Lease to the Soviets in 1941 was very small, only about 2% of the total wartime shipments; 1942 amounted to about 2.5 Million tons, or about 14% of total. The British delivered weapons in 1941 on the back of American credit, in fact, almost all British supplies sent to the USSR were paid for with American credit.
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/ssd?id=mdp.39015004950914
 
1. I've heard it took until early 1942 (February or March) to get production up to the levels of 1941 before the factories moved, but I haven't seen anything specific yet. (Citation Needed)

2. Post-war, the Soviets had an almost fanatical censorship campaign in place which systematically devalued the contributions of the other nations in WW2. It got so bad that battle records of campaigns were literally burned in order to cover up the full scale of Soviet defeats early in the war.
David M. Glantz has written extensively on this topic, and an interesting yet abbreviated lecture for the U.S. Army War College is on YouTube: 
 
3. I think the evidence is conclusive that Germany did not plan for a campaign against the Soviet Union lasting longer than one year. I'm reminded of an anecdote from Vietnam I once heard: In the basement of the Pentagon, the Department of Defense wanted to know how long it would take to win the Vietnam War. So they compiled all statistical data they had available, fed it into a supercomputer, and went home for the weekend while they waited for it to spit out the answer. When they arrived Monday morning, the computer had spat out a card with one sentence on it: "You won the war in 1965, but the enemy also gets a vote."
 
4. I think it's relatively simple. Hitler and the Nazis did not possess a rational worldview. In fact, Dan Carlin recently released a video where he speculates the overall reason Germany lost World War Two is because of the Nazis themselves:
I know Dan Carlin is not a historian, but he makes a very compelling argument. Based on my own reading of Mein Kampf, I have to agree. Hitler was not a rational individual.
 
It has been said elsewhere in this thread, but I agree completely. Wars are not fought by individuals.
If they were, we could simply mobilize our wargamers to command legions of unmanned weapon systems and conquer the world...
 
> I disagree. The Germans acted quickly to secure the Balkan oil fields specifically because they knew the blockade would not end. After their experience with the British blockade in WW1, I refuse to believe they would not anticipate such an eventuality from happening again. Things like "The Turnip Winter" will stick in the memory of people for generations.
 
> Indeed, and when you see things like the Detroit Tank Arsenal ALONE out-producing the entire German Tank-Building Industry during WW2, you realize oil alone is not the deciding factor in that equation. Overall, the Germans did not fully mobilize their economy and industry towards war production until 1942. Hitler was adamant about not encumbering the German population with things like rationing and shortages like they faced in WW1. Like I said, "The Turnip Winter" tends to stick in the minds of the people who went through it.
As far as manpower goes, where do you get the idea the Axis and Allied manpower were close? They weren't even in the same hemisphere.
Even a simple wiki search shows the extraordinary gap: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_production_during_World_War_II#Historical_context
 
> Is it oil, or is it the fact the United States had vast amounts of natural resources, food, strategic minerals, steel production, etc. and simply gave it all away with the understanding that the cost for everything would only be counted after the war was over? It wasn't just war materiel that got sent through lend-lease, but things like raw steel, coal, oil, gas, food, etc.
Meanwhile, Germany had a chronic inability to fully mobilize and take advantage of the strategic resources and production facilities they took over. Not planning for a long war led them to simply disregard the ideas of re-tooling captured factories for war production until it was too late. French factories mostly sat idle in the occupied territories, and while Germany did take over the entire Czech tank force, they made relatively little use of the excellent arms production facilities available. If every scrap of resources had been put towards the war fighting effort from the very beginning... well, we'll never know the answer to that question...
 
> From June 1941, to the end of 1942, the Soviets produced some 30,000 tanks, and received several thousand lend-lease tanks. Which is at least four times as many as the Germans produced in the same time period. Just because your enemy doesn't have as many tanks, is no reason to not produce them in staggering numbers. Even in June 1941, the Soviets had a 2:1 advantage in tanks, and made ruthless efforts at increasing production all throughout the war, to the point they used substandard metals and far looser tolerances than were seen as standard in the western nations.
"The Red Army categorized tank readiness in five categories, from 1 to 5, with 1 being new and 5 being retired for scrapping. In the western military districts that bore the brunt of the 1941 fighting, there were 12,782 tanks, of which 2,157 (17 percent) were new (Category 1), 8,383 (66 percent) were operational with minor maintenance issues (Category 2), and the rest (18 percent) in need medium maintenance or capital rebuilding." - Zaloga, Steven. Armored Champion: The Top Tanks of World War II (Kindle Locations 1491-1494). Stackpole Books. Kindle Edition.
Weapons production is a question of DOCTRINE, not statistical analysis. Soviet doctrine emphasized the use of light, highly mobile artillery, and so they built large numbers of mortars.
Soviet doctrine also emphasized the breakthrough role of tanks and mechanized infantry, and so they build many thousands of them too.
http://armchairgeneral.com/deep-battle-the-vision-of-marshall-tukhachevskii.htm
 
> When the vast majority of your major industrial base is powered by coal, which the Germans had in abundance, then the lack of production of war materiel cannot be summarized as:
"They didn't have enough oil."
The Germans needed oil for OPERATIONS, not PRODUCTION. If World War Two is a battle of production (as has often been stated), then the Germans did not lose it because of a lack of oil.
They lost it because they didn't want to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in a fully mobilized wartime economy. At least, not until it was clear they were losing, and then their utilization of forced labor tells a clear and understandable story. Not only did they lack production, but they also lacked manpower. They couldn't meet the manpower needs of the military, and also run their factories at their maximum rate. They had to utilize forced labor to ensure their production could meet it's goals, and even then, a chunk of their dwindling production capacity was spent on projects that would not prove to be of any benefit. Vengeance Weapons for example. Their incompetence in the realm of strategic planning is obvious.
Compare Germany to the United States, which had a clearly defined production plan, immediate and effective national mobilization, a well-organized industrial base, and highly competent businessmen and army personnel in charge of planning, design, development, and production.
 
But this brings me back to the Dan Carlin video I posted up above: Why were such incompetent people in charge of the German war effort?
Because of the Nazis...
Anyway, that's all I have to say about that.
Thanks for the thread, it went down well with lunch.

A possibility with this idea would be to set the HQ units as the spot objectives and the rest of the formation as the destroy objectives. The higher up the command chain, the more value for spotting, ie: 50 points for platoon HQ's, 150 for Company HQ's and 300 for the Battalion HQ.

A possibility with this idea would be to set the HQ units as the spot objectives and the rest of the formation as the destroy objectives. The higher up the command chain, the more value for spotting, ie: 50 points for platoon HQ's, 150 for Company HQ's and 300 for the Battalion HQ.

How about some scenario and beta testing work followed by 20 minutes of napping and then back to working on some more amazing QB maps? Please?

Let's see How should I use my time today?
1. Work on Scenarios, and QB Maps while beta testing multiple titles,
2. Read Forum threads written by players wondering 'what's going on, why the delays', OR 'don't you guys understand business or customer service'.
3. Take a Nap.
Gosh, I just can't make up my mind...Why not help me choose.

The one, ok two, mistakes I made all the time at first was trying to move too quickly and spreading my forces too thin. I still have a tendency to fall victim to those same mistakes from time to time.
I always find I am in a rush for some reason to try and hurry the battle along. This leads me to sending my pixeltruppen too quickly into unexplored territory and to their deaths. The saying "Never send a Company where a platoon hasn't been, never send a platoon where  a squad hasn't been, never send a squad where a scout hasn't been" should be something to always remember. The clock in the game is important to keep an eye on, but don't let it force you into poor decisions.
As for splitting up forces, the temptation to send first platoon off to take objective 1 and second platoon off to take objective 2, at the same time, rarely results in success. Keep them together, use the extra troops for more covering and suppressing fire, and tackle the objectives one at a time. Use first platoon as the lead for the first objective, with second backing them up and able to flank or add their firepower to the battle to help overwhelm the enemy. Then use second platoon as the lead for the next objective and first platoon as your reserve. In CM battles it really is almost impossible to use too big of a hammer to hit your enemy with.
The issue I struggle the most with now is timing. When do I call in the mortars or try adding one more squad to the fight? Or the barrage I called in will be ending soon, when do I start moving my men up to take advantage of the barrage, yet not walk them into friendly fires. Or trying to get all the pieces of an assault moving at the right times to effectively support each other.
For all three of these challenges, practice, practice, practice. Hopefully every battle you will get just a little bit better.

The one, ok two, mistakes I made all the time at first was trying to move too quickly and spreading my forces too thin. I still have a tendency to fall victim to those same mistakes from time to time.
I always find I am in a rush for some reason to try and hurry the battle along. This leads me to sending my pixeltruppen too quickly into unexplored territory and to their deaths. The saying "Never send a Company where a platoon hasn't been, never send a platoon where  a squad hasn't been, never send a squad where a scout hasn't been" should be something to always remember. The clock in the game is important to keep an eye on, but don't let it force you into poor decisions.
As for splitting up forces, the temptation to send first platoon off to take objective 1 and second platoon off to take objective 2, at the same time, rarely results in success. Keep them together, use the extra troops for more covering and suppressing fire, and tackle the objectives one at a time. Use first platoon as the lead for the first objective, with second backing them up and able to flank or add their firepower to the battle to help overwhelm the enemy. Then use second platoon as the lead for the next objective and first platoon as your reserve. In CM battles it really is almost impossible to use too big of a hammer to hit your enemy with.
The issue I struggle the most with now is timing. When do I call in the mortars or try adding one more squad to the fight? Or the barrage I called in will be ending soon, when do I start moving my men up to take advantage of the barrage, yet not walk them into friendly fires. Or trying to get all the pieces of an assault moving at the right times to effectively support each other.
For all three of these challenges, practice, practice, practice. Hopefully every battle you will get just a little bit better.

The one, ok two, mistakes I made all the time at first was trying to move too quickly and spreading my forces too thin. I still have a tendency to fall victim to those same mistakes from time to time.
I always find I am in a rush for some reason to try and hurry the battle along. This leads me to sending my pixeltruppen too quickly into unexplored territory and to their deaths. The saying "Never send a Company where a platoon hasn't been, never send a platoon where  a squad hasn't been, never send a squad where a scout hasn't been" should be something to always remember. The clock in the game is important to keep an eye on, but don't let it force you into poor decisions.
As for splitting up forces, the temptation to send first platoon off to take objective 1 and second platoon off to take objective 2, at the same time, rarely results in success. Keep them together, use the extra troops for more covering and suppressing fire, and tackle the objectives one at a time. Use first platoon as the lead for the first objective, with second backing them up and able to flank or add their firepower to the battle to help overwhelm the enemy. Then use second platoon as the lead for the next objective and first platoon as your reserve. In CM battles it really is almost impossible to use too big of a hammer to hit your enemy with.
The issue I struggle the most with now is timing. When do I call in the mortars or try adding one more squad to the fight? Or the barrage I called in will be ending soon, when do I start moving my men up to take advantage of the barrage, yet not walk them into friendly fires. Or trying to get all the pieces of an assault moving at the right times to effectively support each other.
For all three of these challenges, practice, practice, practice. Hopefully every battle you will get just a little bit better.

OK I finally loaded this up and figured out what is happening.
TLDR: The gun teams are *not* suffering any casualties. Therefore nothing wrong here regarding HE or ricochet effects. They are abandoning their guns due to the game feature /  limitation of casualties suffered in one team of a platoon effecting the morale state of the entire platoon. Even though the effect on other team is not large when you have teams in a very bad morale state, like these guns were, it can be enough to push them over the edge.
The full analysis:
First things first the guns do not suffer any casualties - they abandon their guns and the gun get a red base when that happens. So if you just quickly look you can mistake that for a casualty for sure. See images 5 and 6: notice the red base on the gun in the game screen but also notice all the members of the team are fine.
 
The ammo bearers reacted the same due to poor morale just like the gun crews. Also there is a 5s time span for the events in question.
There is a game feature / limitation whereby the combat stress, especially casualties, that happen to one team have morale effects on all other teams in the platoon. Someone did a nice post that showed this effect but I cold not find the post - I thought it was @MOS:96B2P, or @Bulletpoint or @Josey Wales - if anyone can find it please post the link. Basically casualties effect the morale of a squad but it turns out it also effects the morale of the rest of the platoon too. This happens regardless of if other teams can see the casualties happen of if C2 is maintained. Frequently we do not notice this for two reasons: 1) platoons are often located near each other so if a squad is taking casulties the sister squads can see those casualties too, so we don't really find it surprising that the suffer too. 2) frequently morale effects are not as drastic or cut and dry as abandoning a gun, so we are not surprised if squads in a bad way become shaken. In this case we have teams that are separated by a significant distance and we have a noticeable event, the abandoning of the guns, that is an important and significant change.
Here is the condition of the teams and sequence of events:
First we have the team that will take the casualties 4 Squad / Team B. They are shaken and will be under fire from a several enemy units during the turn.
01 Team that gets hit:

The two guns are in the same platoon as the above team (1 Battery). Both gun crews are broken.
02 One gun:

03 Second gun:

At 31:34 the Sherman shell explodes near 4 Squad / Team B and three men become casualties.
04 Team take the hit and three casualties:

At 31:31 the gun Squad / A Team are shaken and have had enough. They abandon their gun.
05 One gun abandoned:

At 31:29 the other gun (also called Squad / A Team) become shaken and abandon their gun.
06 Second gun abandoned:

So, the bottom line is this even is due to the way the game works and is not a problem that needs to be fixed. Although I suppose we could debate if the game should work that we or not. Frankly I am not sure that would be a worth while use of our time though

The factors are: 
Experience: 6 levels, Conscript to Elite
Motivation: 6 levels, Poor to Fanatic
Fitness: Fit, weakened, Unfit
Leadership: -2 to +2
Supply: 5 levels, Severe to Full
The possibilites exsist to create virtually any situation you can imagine.
In my opinion, whatever preconceived notions one has about the definition of the word "green" or "veteran" with regards to troop quality is meaningless. The game is based off of the definition found in the manual, and for CM purposes, this is the only definition that matters.

The factors are: 
Experience: 6 levels, Conscript to Elite
Motivation: 6 levels, Poor to Fanatic
Fitness: Fit, weakened, Unfit
Leadership: -2 to +2
Supply: 5 levels, Severe to Full
The possibilites exsist to create virtually any situation you can imagine.
In my opinion, whatever preconceived notions one has about the definition of the word "green" or "veteran" with regards to troop quality is meaningless. The game is based off of the definition found in the manual, and for CM purposes, this is the only definition that matters.

The factors are: 
Experience: 6 levels, Conscript to Elite
Motivation: 6 levels, Poor to Fanatic
Fitness: Fit, weakened, Unfit
Leadership: -2 to +2
Supply: 5 levels, Severe to Full
The possibilites exsist to create virtually any situation you can imagine.
In my opinion, whatever preconceived notions one has about the definition of the word "green" or "veteran" with regards to troop quality is meaningless. The game is based off of the definition found in the manual, and for CM purposes, this is the only definition that matters.

Take a scenario you think has a great AI plan and load it up in the editor. Check out the plan the scenario author created and how it flows and works together.  Then experiment and watch your plans over and over again. I am still trying to get my plans perfect and this is the technique I am using.

Death of an ISU 122

CMFI is my favourite of all the CM titles. There are so many unique units and vehicles, I love to setup qb's with oddball units and just have fun. I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of the new Rome to Victory module, can't wait to play a battle or two with the First Special Service Force.
Welcome to the community and try not to get too addicted to the games. 

You are heartless
recalled Waterloo in a topic opened by a french !!!                
More seriously, I live on the ground where the  kampfgruppe Engel campaign is happening
I can not help thinking  about the game  when i move on the ground !
Of it there is in particular a hedge where I lost my jagpanther or I sigh as soon as I pass there
it's there....

I will ask the dumb question but have you tried pressing alt-k to make sure smoke it turned on?

Came across this and thought people here would appreciate this dazzling example in HD. Their full scale warfare demo/wargame/? makes our stateside re-enactor battles look like scripted farces by comparison. How I wish I could be there!
Regards,
John Kettler

I have CMBN installed on 3 machines right now, my main desktop, my laptop and my daughter's laptop. She is enjoying LAN battles with me almost as much as I am.
I have CMFI installed on those three as well as my desktop at work. 
My understanding is the game comes with 4 activations initially and a new one is made available every year you own the product. 
As for Steam, Battlefront have stated repeatedly they will not be using the Steam platform.
 As stated before, my daughter and I have been playing LAN battles with each other without issue. I own a copy of Civiliation V and while it is installed on both our laptops, I need to buy a second copy to battle her thanks to Steam's DRM rules. So a big thanks to @Battlefront.com for not using Steam so I can introduce the joys of CM to the next generation. 

Of course you will! You are a true CM Junkie like the rest of us.
One of the advantages of having so many flavors of CM is that you can read a book, say on the Italian theater, or watch a documentary on Normandy, than go and experience it in one of the games for yourself. I look at CM games (and other good historical titles) not just as games, but as tools to explore and relive the history, a way to immerse yourself in another time and place and interact with the past. No other medium in the history of mankind has allowed that like PC gaming, not even reenacting. Depending on the game, you can delve into the politics, the economy, social constructs, and the warfare of the period. As far as WWII goes the scope of CM scratches that itch for me just fine.
 
Mord.
 

andddd now I'll have to buy CMFI as well.

If the best CM game is the one you spend the most time playing, then CMFI is in my experience the best. It has the longest time frame, July 43 to May 44, most varied terrain and weather, steep mountains to flat farm fields, baking heat to winter blizzards, hard rocky ground to deep mud. And the forces? In my opinion, the widest selection of any of the titles. Italians vs New Zealanders is not a battle happening in any other title. When the Rome to Victory module is released, all the features I just listed will be expanded upon further cementing CMFI as the broadest in scope.
And WEGO every battle, every time. After watching a squad leader run from cover to stand over his cowering squad mate, ignore incoming fire, burn off a few dozen rounds in the direction of the enemy and then escort his man to safety, I was hooked. You can't watch that a dozen times in a row in real time.

I have CMBN installed on 3 machines right now, my main desktop, my laptop and my daughter's laptop. She is enjoying LAN battles with me almost as much as I am.
I have CMFI installed on those three as well as my desktop at work. 
My understanding is the game comes with 4 activations initially and a new one is made available every year you own the product. 
As for Steam, Battlefront have stated repeatedly they will not be using the Steam platform.
 As stated before, my daughter and I have been playing LAN battles with each other without issue. I own a copy of Civiliation V and while it is installed on both our laptops, I need to buy a second copy to battle her thanks to Steam's DRM rules. So a big thanks to @Battlefront.com for not using Steam so I can introduce the joys of CM to the next generation. 

This was posted in a thread in CMFB page but I thought it should also be posted in the general forum. Here is a link to a very large and free collection of period maps of Europe from 1943-1944. For the Italy section there is also the City Map plans available. The central Europe section should cover the area for the next module for CMRT. I think a few people here will find this to be very interesting. Big shout out to @AlsatianFelix for the original find.
https://library.mcmaster.ca/maps/ww2/ww2_topos_home
Here too is the map collection from the University of Texas. They also have some amazing maps.
http://legacy.lib.utexas.edu/maps/europe.html
As a side note McMaster is not too far from home and in a few years when my oldest is ready for university, I think I will have to encourage her to take a campus tour and I shall get lost in the map room.....

Thanks for stating it that way.
I will say, as a beta-tester, coming to grips with this behavior has been difficult. The NDA prevents a lot of what I'd like say (and is a nice way to dodge ) but realize that the HE fleeing behavior was not seen as a deal-breaker before v4.0 was released...or it would not have been released.
Think about the myriad of situations your pixeltroops have been in. Think about how often they do the right thing...and you don't even notice it. Think about when they do something wrong...and the situation which it took to get that behavior.
Without giving too much (anything?) away, I follow two basic courses of investigation: there are areas I dig into to find stuff; and there are times when I get a whiff of something not quite right. In the first case, I start with a set of presumed behaviors and try to stress them to their outlying limits. In the other case, I happen to notice something in passing...and then the Eye of Sauron focuses upon it.
There are fewer and fewer of each. And the gameplay effect of most are very minor.
I can field multiple battalions and have total mayhem reign for four hours...and notice only a few odd cases of behavior. Most (all?) can be explained by men panicking under fire or other reasonable explanations. Think about the magnitude of that achievement: several hundreds of "men" acting realistically over multiple square kilometers whilst killing and being killed and trying to achieve a terrain objective.
The HE behavior slipped through. Now, what if the fix is worse? Maybe men will stick in their locations, but then tanks reverse towards threats. But only if unbuttoned and the threat is known but out of LOS. And only on odd numbered turns. 
Occam's Razor: if the fix were simple, wouldn't you have it already?