Rinaldi

Another excellent experiment. Just so happens I've started a PBEM where Im defending as well. Time to put this to the test.

Well; the Americans faced quite a few Tiger IIs at least.

Having the bulk of the German armored units in front of you will lead to higher tank losses, that's part of it, not the whole picture though. Vanir's quote is relevant: ...its supported by gentlemen like Hastings, who I find you should never read with anything but a bit of scrutiny, the man is a journalist first and very much a historian second. JonS also brings up a lot of good points, particularly: ...which also ties into the fact that the apparent lack of effective combined-arms co-ordination between British infantry and their armor support may have to do with the great husbanding of British manpower. Remember, the British that landed in Normandy was the last great army they were able to muster - we're talking bottom of the barrel. They landed with what they had, not necessarily what they wanted, and the 'You may not get the reinforcements you need' was something that would've weighed on every regiment commander. I mean, full disclosure, but Zaloga is my husbando. I deeply respect his works if only for the dismantling of the Panzer Myth and challenging what was once a very dominated field of British authors in the late 60s and 70s. Unfortunately now the pendulum has swung the other way in English-language histories, and its quite visibly US-Centric. The US also had the advantage of 'standing on the shoulders' of the British, Soviets and German doctrine-wise. Attaches in North Africa and being able to be (distant and detached) spectators to the first 3 years of the war in the West and East gave the US a lot of practical and theoretical groundwork. They were able to see, at little cost, what the two sides were doing right, what they were doing wrong, and how best to proceed. Its an argument that Hofmann makes in Through Mobility We Conquer and I always found it compelling. Stuff translated from the German remains useless as always however, with a few shining exceptions. I die a little bit inside every time someone take's Carius's word as law.

Yes, it was the Panther. Rather a good job of lining up a good angle on his part.

His attempts to push through the forest usually led to equally poor results in terms of infantry. Why he never moved the Luchs forward I'll never know - most likely he believed I had more T-34s there, which was a safe assumption on his part. I put down considerable mortar fire on the treeline off-camera to deter movement through it. I cut alot of extraneous stuff like that out of my videos because I simply do not want to upload a 2 hour video - no one will watch those. The right flank had to more or less pull back to my edge of the tree line, and he was content to sit there with half-strength fireteams and just wollop me when I decided to move up. I think it was a case of mutual exhaustion. The LMG team managed to crawl down to the bottom floor and hide, but was unable to recover the DP. I should've dismounted the SMG platoon in line rather than in columns of squads. The time it took to fan them out let him dump 60 odd men in there. When I wanted to shift over to the left flank, but leave my right secure, I redeployed both of the 45mms just behind the treeline in case he decided to roar out with any armored vehicles. He was largely reactive by that point anyways, and I think he redeployed the Luchs closer to the Panther in reaction to my movements on the left.

I've only played it as the Germans in a PBEM, and didn't have too much trouble trading space for time, but my opponent was conservative with the Stuarts - the AI plans probably aren't to the same degree. I'm sure its winnable against AI despite the disparity in numbers.

An indecisive meeting engagement PBEM. Forgive the audio (its gotten worse if anything...) - I'll be going over to more traditional narrating post-facto after this.

Screenshots after my own heart, nothing like a good old smashing of armor. Can you drop a link or a name to the Uniform mod however?

Slightly on topic question; but isn't the 80mm of the Ausf. H variant of rather shoddy construction? I always assumed it didn't properly gel until the J, and that the earlier variants - such as the G- was in fact only applique.

Rough luck man. 60mms firing over open sights and 81s firing a heavy barrage walked in by a FOB almost never fail me. Sometimes I need a second barrage, sure, but that's war.

Gah. Heinrich you're making me lament my lack of time to play CM lately. Keep them coming, I'll enjoy vicariously.

Thompsons were issued to the Company, I believe 6 per, and handed out on a mission basis, at least in theory. In practice they were openly pilfered and kept by men. Edit: Bah, akd beat me to it.

Gruppe is the term for squad. Gruppen make up Zugs; Platoons. "Truppe" is the term for a fireteam or element when used in that context. So, "Stosstruppe" - Assault team, "Deckgunstruppe" - Cover team, "Schutzentruppe" - Rifle team, so on and so forth. Haven't the foggiest what the Bundeswehr would use today, but I'd be surprised if it has changed. There's really no need to.

I've had this happen in several games across the series. I'll give you the two most immediate examples and my thoughts on them: Case 1: Black Sea; a BMP-2 was hit with a through and through in the turret at range by a T-72B3. "Weapon Mount" was shown as hit and the appropriate sounds of penetration occurred, save for no red text saying "PENETRATION" or destruction of the vehicle. Vehicle failed to return fire and was destroyed immediately thereafter. Case 2: Red Thunder; a Marder-III exposing its side to my T-34 was hit at close range. "Weapon Mount" was again shown as hit and all occurred as in Case 1. A second shot promptly knocked it out. Curiously, in between shots 1 and 2, the enemy crew bailed out. My best guess, and we'll use the disclaimer that its far from educated, is that its not showing penetration because its not actually hitting anything 'meaty' for lack of a better word. I know post-facto from my opponent that in case 1 the weapon was disabled by the fire but that it hit no crewmen and caused no wounds as it exited the vehicle. Case 2 is still an on-going match, against the same opponent so I'm not sure what happened to the Marder. Presumably the first shot also disabled its main cannon. Edit: I'm on the latest version for all games, however, I also know there's some dissimilarity to your instances but it might help.

Stop pointing out our collective problem! That's the first step, and I don't want to take it.

Honestly couldn't tell; my educated guesses are a staged photo in Tunisia or a Mojave training photo. Bunch of lads in Brodie Helmets tearing across sand in M3s; suited my tastes.

MOS I see you do these little experiments fairly frequently. Have you thought about taking a page out of Bil's book and compiling it in a blog or something similar?

Well I mean, got to be careful with the Geman units; and some of the harder hit US infantry outfits. Veteran outfits doesn't necessarily mean an outfit of veterans. I'm hoping a few scenarios capture this with wildly fluctuating skill and veterancy levels even down to the individual platoons and squads, given the 'trickle-in' system of replacements used by the US at the time. I think that's as applicable to the Germans, at the larger unit level - You tend to run low on experienced junior leadership when you get your teeth kicked in all the way back to the Franco-German border.

Immobilized to boot Antaress; very dramatic.

I dig it, thanks for putting this together MOS. To whomever said use the XOs as pseduo-liason officers; good idea. I'm going to put it to the test in my next PBEM.

Of course, will do.

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Was hoping someone would post the video of the Armata eating ***removed*** on parade. So much half-assed sperging and speculation from folks with basically 0 goddamned actual information of it....asides from videos of half-finished prototypes doing their best impression of a tractor.

60mms firing over open sights are the unsung heroes of the Allied infantry unit. Good rate of fire, deadly accuracy; and a godsend in the bocage. I swear by 'em. Good way to balance out the battle for fire superiority as well with those pesky German MGs. Same goes for the smaller British ones, I've always used them as glorified grenade launchers and to fairly good effect.

Wow you guys are working hard and fast, thank you so much!

Almost certainly the latter; I'd trust your word over my own on this any day of the week. Yeah, I just went in a checked; that's precisely what it is.