[Looking for a Primer on Equipment]

On July 15, 2017 at 2:14 AM, Michael Emrys said:

Stubborn cuss! 

I had to dispose of the bulk of my library a couple of years ago, but off the top of my head, here are a few book titles that might give you a little help. Some of these are out of print but possibly available through such vendors as ABE.

WW2 Fact Files by Peter Chamberlain and Terry Gander. This is a multi-volume work that covers pretty much everything from pistols up to heavy artillery of the major belligerents. Physically, they are packaged more like magazines than your typical book. They are far from being the most comprehensive sources on their topics, but for beginners like yourself are a good place to start if you can find copies.

German Infantry and Assault Engineer Equipment 1939-1945 by Chris Ellis. A small booklet on a narrower topic, but containing nevertheless a wealth of information.

British and American Tanks of World War Two by Chamberlain and Ellis. Actually this covers more than just tanks, including most AFVs that ran on tracks.

Encyclopedia of German Tanks of World War Two by Chamberlain and Ellis. Basically the same deal as above but for the Germans.

The American Arsenal (no author listed). This is basically a reproduction of an official catalogue of most the ordnance used by the US and Lend-Lease recipients. Lots of hard data.

Well, this should get you started. From there your search should lead you to some interesting places. Just as a personal note, like you my greatest interest in the war has been more at the operational and strategic-grand strategic level rather than at the tactical small unit level. But CM is such a great game that I wouldn't miss it for the world. Have fun!

Michael

 

18 hours ago, Xorg_Xalargsky said:

There is a Combat Mission Series wiki, but it's on the anemic side...

On the other hand, the manuals do a pretty good job at explaining what's at your disposal.

For armor and penetration data, I find the game's Defenses Report to be almost useless. Luckily, there are alternative and much more accurate (Front Yellow vs. Large Shell isn't very descriptive) sources. The free-to-play WW2 tank/aviation/navy game War Thunder features a wide arsenal of vehicles for all major nations of WW2 and an Armor Visualization feature that lets you see the thickness/angle of armor. Another source is the Penetration Calculator tool at http://www.wwiiequipment.com/pencalc/. It even shows you a nice little graphic to see where you should position a unit armed with a given canon to take down a given tank.

^{I've been known to frantically consult this website when I'm facing heavy German armor...}

Thank you both for the recommendations, these will complement nicely the resources I've managed to find myself. Like you, Xorg, I've found wikis/strategy sites for other WWII games to be helpful in gleaning knowledge that can be applied the Combat Mission games. For anyone else reading along and wanting the same information, I've found the wiki for World of Tanks (http://wiki.wargaming.net/en/Main_Page) to be useful in comparing different nations' tanks and relative utility, and the site Military Factory informative for more general information and history about WWII military equipment, especially when search filters are applied (http://www.militaryfactory.com/armor/by-country.asp?Nation=Nazi Germany, for example, is a relatively comprehensive list of armor fielded by Nazi Germany).

 

If anyone here has more titles and links to recommend they are welcome to post them here and help newer players or curious vets grow this knowledge base. Thanks guys!

[Looking for a Primer on Equipment]

7 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

Welcome. I recommend putting Kampfgruppe Engel on pause and doing the Task Force Raff mini-campaign if you haven't already done that. Then continue with Road to Montebourg. KGE is quite challenging.

I couldn't possibly abandon the fine men of Kamfgruppe Engel to those impudent Canadians! Even if you've got to break a few IGs to make an omelet.

I'm definitely in over my head a bit in this campaign, but I'm enjoying it a ton. The worst that can happen is I lose.

Thanks for the pointers everybody, still hoping someone has a link or book name handy to get me pointed in the right direction. Until then I'll keep lobbing sh*t at the untermensch and seeing what sticks.

[Looking for a Primer on Equipment]

Hello folks,

 

I'm a lifelong strategy gamer who is new to the Combat Mission games, and am elated to finally be able to join you all now that I have a computer powerful enough to run it! Hopefully I'll be hopping into PBEM battles after I've cut my teeth a bit against the AI. I'll be sure to make my way over to The Few Good Men forums when I'm ready.

I come to you today with a seemingly simple set of queries which I have found near impossible to answer. Though I am a WWII history nut, my focus was always on the politics and grand strategy of the war, never the nitty gritty tactical battles which the Combat Mission series so masterfully recreates. When I started playing a month ago, I could have talked all day about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact but couldn't have told you the difference between a Panther and a Panzer III.  I've had a lot of fun learning these things myself, even though I've found the manual to be woefully inadequate when it comes to describing the materiel present in this game. Finally, now that I am on the fourth mission of Kamfgruppe Engel, this paucity of information has become too much.

(Kamfgruppe Engel Mission 4 Spoilers) In this mission, I have been tasked with interdicting Allied armor simultaneously with repulsing an infantry assault; to aid me in my tasks, I have been provided a host of on- and off-map artillery, of greatly varying caliber. I am at an absolute loss of which of this artillery would be better directed towards the armor and which I should use to repulse the infantry. I know my 81mm mortars are useless against armor, but what about the field guns? Is the 105mm shell from the Wespe adequate to penetrate armor? What about the daunting 120mm shells from my off-map mortar, even though they're HE? While I am aware of the dichotomy between HE and AP & HEAT, surely the Hummel, with its 150mm (!!!) HE rounds, will be more than sufficient to penetrate most Allied armor? Normally. I'm more than happy to learn by trial and error, but here I can't even begin to formulate a plan until I understand the capabilities of my artillery assets. (End Spoilers)

 

Question: Is there a resource where a neophyte such as myself can begin to learn about the materiel in the Combat Mission games and their relative strengths and weaknesses against one another? Free and online would be preferable, but print is fine, too. If it was geared towards the Combat Mission games it would be fantastic, but a solid primer on common WWII equipment should work just as well, or, failing that even something like a wiki for some other WWII strategy game. I ain't picky.

 

I have already read Bil Hardenberger's excellent Battle Drill blog, and watched the excellent six part Wargaming tutorial on YouTube. What I am looking for is not a primer on tactics, but a primer on the equipment itself. Thanks in advance for any help you can offer, and if any of you would be interested in starting an assuredly one-sided PBEM game at some point in the near future, feel free to PM me—I think you'll find that I live up to my name