Panzerpanic

Didn't F&R came out Friday last week?

Maybe for a future west vs east Germany expansion !
Also, a little bit related:
 
 

Maybe for a future west vs east Germany expansion !
Also, a little bit related:
 
 

Another great video of 1980s Cold War porn to put you guys in the mood. 😃
 

Let's take a closer look at the AOK 9 records on this Hungarian excursion:
Sturm-Mörser-Kp. 1000 is last shown on AOK 9 list of einsatzbereiten (operational) panzers on Oct. 10, 1944.  

There is then no mention of Sturm-Mörser-Kp. 1000 in the operational panzer holdings or transport records until Oct. 15, when the company is noted as in transport from XXXXVI Pz.K. to Budapest by train:

However, departure from Warsaw does not happen until the evening of Oct. 17:

Two days after departure, Sturm-Mörser-Kp. 1000 has switched from the Abtransport section to the Zuführung section. It is on the train to Budapest, but will be returned to the Warsaw area:

The following day the company arrives back in Warsaw at 12:10 a.m.  The entire "Hungarian jaunt" was no more than 52.5 hours.  Today (not 1944, not wartime) the train from Warsaw to Budapest one way takes 10.5 hours. I have serious doubts the company even made it to Budapest before being rerouted back to Warsaw.

Then the next day Sturm-Mörser-Kp. 1000 is back on the operational panzer list, but with one Sturmtiger instead of two: 

Does this mean that one of the Sturmtigers was lost during the "Hungarian jaunt"? Not necessarily because this is a list of operational panzers, not all panzers.  It's quite possible that one of the Sturmtigers suffered some sort of irreparable mechanical casualty during this period and remained off the operational list until the company returned to Germany Nov. 22. In fact, given the shuttling back and forth, this seems plausible.
Source: NARA T-312 R-348

TIK is great when he's just reading Glantz. The graphics and presentation is excellent. Straying from that is where things become a lot more contentious.

Steve: "final phase of the 'last minute details"'
Me: F5

Some great shots taken by @George MC featuring the T-80:




And a bonus shot of an M577 in the Fall:

gimme gimme gimme 😉

When you buy it on Steam, both Steam and Slitherine take a cut before it gets to BFC. When you buy direct from BFC there is no cut taken. It's pretty simple.

2 intersting videos on soviet materials:
 

Is the release for April, cuz I watched Slitherines "Tea Time" broadcast and they showed a chart of upcoming releases and had it penned in for June 😟

sounds like someone has discovered why ww1 was a meat grinder.

By coincidence just today the testers got a fresh Beta build with M60A2's weapons specs downgraded. There had been several urgent 'it performs worse than you assume it did' emails swapped on the topic. Some months back I convinced 'em to include the modern war 'ECM Warfare' feature after I stumbled on a early 80s Pentagon report cataloging in detail the Soviet's robust ECM capabilities at the time.

There is so much wrong with the above post. God bless him at least he is consistent and keeps all of us honest. Variety is the spice of life!
Im going to avoid directly quoting anything here because I am already not looking forward to the inevitable gobbledegook word salad response, but I have to point out the idea that the US was unaware of the T-64 is especially hysterical to me. It was a well known tank, and it was not kept in the interior of Russia. In fact, GSFG were entirely supplied with T-62/64/80 tanks throughout the late 70s and 80s. 
 
Ahh but what am I doing? Why bother. 
 
The PT-76 is a real fun light tank to play around with. It’s featured in a very well done scenario by @MOS:96B2P I won’t spoil anything about the scenario, but it’s a good one!

Oh dear.  Ok, my point of view on these things is pretty simple...."you get what you paid for, CM is good but it is not Jesus".  CM is a really good tactical level game that borders on simulator (BFC MOD work is proof of that).  It is very good, maybe the best, at Battalion and below tactical engagements; a test of skill and a challenge that provides a lot of entertainment.  The level of accuracy and detail is crazy...at that level.
Now if we are going to start to expand beyond that then a lot of other factors come into play and frankly we move out of entertainment and start to encroach on professional military problems.  And hey, if the game takes you there, then that is great but you will likely get frustrated trying to port those lessons back into the game.
So, for example, the quality of T64 manufacture is not a tactical problem.  Sure, a few extra dice rolls for throwing a track but in reality poor manufacture is an operational or strategic problems that in CM you may see in the course of an entire campaign as narrative.  For example, the outrageous cost and slow production of the M1 in the early 80s has little effect on the CM battlefield beyond "rarity", which means little when the beast shows up but was a significant strategic shortfall.  
Vehicles and systems are simulated "as they would normally function" in a 1-2 hour window of a tactical engagement.  Here a fully functioning T64B is one tough beast.  
In fact if you want to get into a "battle of logistics" the west is at a significant disadvantage overall.  All of our systems took ridiculous maint-ratios to keep in the field and we did not have a steel mountain of replacements to pull on.  In short the Soviets did not care if 1/3 of their T64s failed to show up when they had a 6-to-1 advantage.
Here is a good analysis of the maint require for the M60 series...and it is not small.
https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/463382.pdf  

This subforum is about CMCW, not pontificating about what the causes of World War II were. Please take it somewhere else.

March to Glorious Victory - Post #6  "The Devil's Red Right Hand" (12-15)
First off I apologize for the long return on this one, beyond Bil's glacial return pace, the main reason is that nothing really happened on the Soviet side of this thing.  I am sure Bil is doing a frame-by-frame Warren Commission-esque analysis (because that is what int nerds do) but frankly he has already missed his early victory boat.
When I left you we were discussing options and landed on the least suicidal of the bunch given the somewhat less-than-optimal starting position.
The only question left is "what will Bil do?".  I have thoughts on this but let's leave them til the end (someone remind me if I forget).
So the only interesting thing to happen before the big push was the loss of another T64

This little fella bought in on my left, which was unfortunate but I also observed something interesting before the kill.  

These two T64s soaked up over a dozen hits between them from those M60s on the ridge.  Clearly not bullet proof but from the front these beast are very hard to kill.  This also speaks well for the Plan, as I would rather Bils tanks pinging off my T64s rather than killing my BMPs and T-62s. 
So here was ol Bil's shot to end this thing about 13-14 mins in:

You can see here we are all bunched up moving into position for the slot.  If Bil had DPICM'd this traffic jam, that pretty much would  have been it.  The bridge may have saved a couple but it would have been a bloody massacre.
But he missed that boat.

Turn 14 and I can start to breathe, the troops moving up the slot saw no direct fire.  Bil is lobbing shells into the area but frankly the steel soldiers of mother Russia give exactly zero F's about artillery.

All that arty has about 2-3 casualties on me so far but I am sure it makes the old man - sitting in a faded bathrobe, the one from the 70s, his old-lady slippers, old man underwear with the torn waistband - feel better.   By end of Turn 15, we are about 1/3 through.

So on the far side of the slot we have pretty much a tank pl and 3 x BMP.  In turn 16 I should be at 50%.  The dismounted pl on my left is looking good and pretty much unmolested.  They are going to link up with that scout pl and be my hands.  You can see on my left I have a screen in place of 2 x T64s and about 4 BMPs, that is a very good position in case Bil gets frisky on my left, which based on that smoke I am guessing is a possibility.  The biggest threat now is a DPICM strike but I am less worried about it now as my Tank Coy and BMPS are spread out and moving fast, so at worst I may take a few casualties.  Main concern now is getting that inf platoon on my right into those buildings.  The HQ and squad did get pinned so I need them to get going.
And let's not forget the Eyes on my Right.

 So I have 2 x T64s on the right with good LOS (I just noticed one got immobilized, which is a pain but it is in a solid position).  That little BMP in the little clump of woods nails another M150.  These guys on my right can actually cover the ridgeline and the left, so pretty happy with that for now.  I am very happy at nailing the M150s.  It may seem odd to a bunch of tank nerds but these thing are actually more dangerous right now.  They have TI, so can see through smoke and those TOW are not going to take 6 hits to kill me.
So now what?  Well finish moving through the Slot and then we spread out and start the knife fight in the woods.  So what is Bil going to do?  Well my bet is he is looking longingly at my left flank, two or three columns of smoke are singing sweetly to him do doubt...I welcome him to try.
Next he could focus on the village and do a center push but in about 120 seconds I am going to have 2 x Inf platoons at near 100% with options for tank and BMP support.  Bil has ACR scout teams, M113 which are basically halftracks and a bunch of M60s who will not do well in an urban fight. 
So that leaves the woods on my right.  Here he has better approaches but if thing go even half decently I will have a another Soviet infantry pl back up by a lot of armor for this little dance against Scout teams, who are not really designed for this sort of thing.  So all in all, I am liking my odds...but...and there is always a but....the next 120-180 second have to go well.  That and I know that Bil has Cobras...so this thing is not over yet.
 

The Fourteenth Minute - Spoiling Attack Plan
“Be like water making its way through cracks.
Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.”
Bruce Lee
Bruce said it… “…adjust to the object…”, that is how I play… remaining flexible and adjusting my planning according to the enemy position and movements.  For several turns now I have been building to something… and the moment is close to when I put it all into action.
The 14th Minute
This one changed the battlefield calculus some.  Warren has moved a BMP-1 platoon and the surviving, undamaged T-64A to the tree-line overlooking the approach I wanted to move my M-60s down.  This complicates the approach, but doesn’t change my mind.  I may have to delay my move for a few turns so I can drop a mix of cluster munitions and standard artillery on this position.  But then again... I may start a movement through some masked terrain, or under a smoke screen to keep him busy and interested.

I don’t know if Warren has spotted my tanks starting to assemble, or if this is in reaction to my 1st platoon tanks, which up to this point have been pretty effective.  From that position though, Warren cannot spot my 1st Platoon tanks, so he is probably attempting to close his left flank.   
In this turn I had moved my 2nd Platoon Tank Hunters forward into Hull Down positions to cover the center-right of Warren’s force.  Immediately the M150 highlighted below spotted and fired one TOW at the BMP-1P indicated.  It missed long but is reloading for another shot next turn.

 
Spoiling Attack Plan
My initial goal in this fight was to clear Warren’s left flank (my right) and open it up for a tank heavy spoiling attack into his center. 
I am not interested in the Dolbach objective... my objective is the Soviet force.  My intent is to kill as much of his long range firepower as possible, then his infantry won’t matter.    

All of my positioning up to now was in support of this move.  The 2nd and 3rd Platoon’s tanks have joined the 1st Platoon’s tanks on my right and are currently in their assembly area, or entering it.  What I wanted to do was, using my 1st Platoon tanks as over-watch, drive all eight of the 2nd and 3rd Platoon tanks deep into Warren’s left flank and then drive toward the center, disrupting his assault on Dolbach and hopefully attrit him to the point where his combat power is significantly reduced.
The way I see it I have two Courses of Action (COAs):
COA 1 – Deep Attack.  This was what I had hoped to do, but with Warren’s flank security position this one comes with increased danger for my tanks. COA 2 – Short Attack.  I actually like this one as well, it will unhinge Warren’s flank security and force him to react to my move, plus it will provide some pressure on the center and Dolbach. Follow on Force.  Regardless of which COA I decide on, I do intend to follow the 2nd and 3rd Platoon tanks with 1st Platoon’s tanks as indicated in the planning map below.
I have moved two platoons worth of scouts to my left flank for a dual role:
As a decoy force The scouts, armed with Dragons as flank security and a reserve I have called in my attack helicopter support on the main enemy assembly area, but that is still several minutes away. 

Thuringia. Right beyond Fulda Gab. Same landscape. It always depends if you are in the valley or on a hill. But there are many hills with just agricultural fields, not all have forests on top. And there you can have wide and far views.
The point is there IS open space for 3000m tank duels. Not everywhere, everytime, maybe even more often not - but certainly not just in "rare" cases.

2 intersting videos on soviet materials:
 

Wow...no pressure.  Ok, so this is not as formal turn report, I will do a summary once we get a bit further but here is an example of the Soviet Missile Hell ("SMH" copyright) awaiting the US player.
First a M150 get cocky and crest a hill, and three AT 3s light up (red circles)

And 2 out of 3 aint bad...(Capt's Rule #4)



Bil is lucky that was an M150 because those AT 3 would have killed anything short of an M1.  [edit AT3Bs..my bad, AT 5s are even deadlier].

You know things have changed in CM when 'Sagger' becomes a fearsome weapon!