Purchasing M10's/odd command chain?

[MisterMark]

Anyway to purchase a command chain of M10's that are commanded all from M10's? Seems when you purchase them (in 44) you get the battalion HQ, the Company HQ, and Platoon HQ all on foot... Makes using the M10 difficult as you have this gaggle of HQ's chasing them around in order to stay 'in command'.

Conversely, you can purchase a command chain of Stuarts with all the HQ's commanded from individual Stuarts themselves. Makes a lot more sense and can't understand why this can't be done with the M10's?

Any info or insight would be greatly appreciated,

-Mark

[womble]

M10s were artillery, not tanks. A product of the "tank destroyer" doctrine, they're upgraded ATG units. I'm sure I've seen ways of buying them where the HQs get jeeps or halftracks to ride in, or you could buy single vehicles to enhance mobility.

[JonS]

The HQs should all have M20s to zoom about in, and if they don't you've done something wrong. A full US SP TD Bn in CMBN has the following vehicles:

36 x M10

29 x M20

9 x M8

18 x Jeep

6 x 2.5-ton 6x6 Deuce

The rationale was as womble outlined. The SP TD Bn is directly equivalent to the towed TD Bn, with the M10 (M18, M36, whatever) replacing the towed 76mm A-Tk gun. Also, TD commanders were supposed to command, not fight. To "encourage" them to do the right thing they were given scooters, not TDs, to ride.

[John Kettler]

MisterMark,

Welcome aboard! This'll help you understand what what womble and JonS are talking about: http://www.tankdestroyer.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=166:seek-strike-and-destroy-us-army-tank-destroyer-doctrine-in-world-war-ii&catid=40:tdarticles&Itemid=86 The whole site is on tank destroyers.

Regards,

John Kettler

[John Kettler]

Guys,

The site has ALL the relevant TMs, FMs, TO&Es and more! http://www.tankdestroyer.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=37&Itemid=68

Go grog nuts! Somebody find Jeff Duquette!

Regards,

John Kettler

[MisterMark]

MisterMark,

Welcome aboard! This'll help you understand what what womble and JonS are talking about: http://www.tankdestroyer.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=166:seek-strike-and-destroy-us-army-tank-destroyer-doctrine-in-world-war-ii&catid=40:tdarticles&Itemid=86 The whole site is on tank destroyers.

Regards,

John Kettler

Thanks will check it out!!!

[John Kettler]

MisterMark,

You're quite welcome! Years ago, I was outbid on eBay for a real WW II Tank Destroyer gunnery FM. The winner's Dad was in tank destroyers during the war, hence, his passion. Offered to pay for a photocopy, but he wouldn't go for it. I have one, though, sadly not here, for tank gunnery.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Crushingleeek]

nonetheless a great resource. posted by your outbidder? ebay outbidders are a pain in the @$$

[John Kettler]

Crushingleek,

Indeed. I thought Gabel's book was impressive until I found this gold mine. I have to say, that my limited CMBN experience with the demo confirms Gabel's conclusion: towed TDs (ATGs) are far less survivable than their armored to varying degrees, mobile counterparts!

Regards,

John Kettler

[John Kettler]

Read most of the gunnery manual and got quite an education in the process! The Battle Plays (how to maneuver an SP TD company) are a must read, and where's the ammo trailer every TD platoon's supposed to have, to include the M10s? I sure didn't see one in my platoon.

Regards,

John Kettler

[womble]

...where's the ammo trailer every TD platoon's supposed to have, to include the M10s? I sure didn't see one in my platoon.

What would be the use of it, since there is no way to transfer the rounds from the truck to the TD?

[John Kettler]

womble,

If bazookas and ammo can be taken from a halftrack or jeep, then why not ammo from a trailer? The trailer is the resupply for the platoon and is so important it habitually travels at the rear of the column. This is straight out of the period instructions.

Regards,

John Kettler

[A Canadian Cat]

If bazookas and ammo can be taken from a halftrack or jeep, then why not ammo from a trailer?

@womble means that in the game there is no way to resupply amo *to* a tank or tank destroyer (or half track for that matter). Therefore there would be little use in an amo trailer.

It is possible that changes to how amo supply are handled could make it useful in the future. We will just have to wait and see. As my son's hockey coach was fond of saying "But don't holder your breath, cause you might die".

[YankeeDog]

If bazookas and ammo can be taken from a halftrack or jeep, then why not ammo from a trailer? The trailer is the resupply for the platoon and is so important it habitually travels at the rear of the column. This is straight out of the period instructions.

I think the issue here is primarily the complexity of modeling this properly. An infantry team can hop into a truck, or reach over the side of a Jeep, and grab a couple of bandoleers of ammo (or a 'zook and a few rockets) in just a few seconds. But AFV main gun rounds like the M10's 76mm rounds are large and heavy. They're also not the sort of thing you want to just casually toss around, for obvious reasons. The M10 can't just pull up to the trailer and yell at the team in the truck to chuck them a half dozen rounds on the fly.

So in order for the game to properly model AFV main gun ammo resupply, it needs to have some sort of routine that models the fact that the crew needs to get out of the AFV and expose themselves, that the rounds have to be carefully loaded through a hatch or the turret top and then properly stowed in the interior racks, etc. It would obviously depend a lot on type of ammo, # of rounds, and type of AFV, but my SWAG is that you're looking at a procedure taking at least a couple of minutes even in ideal conditions.

And main gun round resupply is probably not the sort of thing you want to do under any kind of enemy fire, so the game needs to take this into account as well. Even light, harassing small arms fire would probably curtail the operation.

Perhaps its something that can be added to the game engine eventually. I would not expect it any time, soon, though; I think there are other features that are higher priority on "the list" for game engine improvements/additions. In the vast majority of games I play, the scenario would not be long enough for me to (a) shoot off an AFV's entire ammo load, ( pull the AFV back to a safe location for resupply, © execute the resupply procedure, and (d) return the AFV to action. So I see this as, at best, a secondary priority for game engine improvements.

[womble]

womble,

If bazookas and ammo can be taken from a halftrack or jeep, then why not ammo from a trailer? The trailer is the resupply for the platoon and is so important it habitually travels at the rear of the column. This is straight out of the period instructions.

Regards,

John Kettler

As Ian pointed out, you could allow ammo to be taken, but then the ammo would reside with the crew once they re-embark their TD, and it would not be available to the vehicle main weapon, in the same way that you can't resupply a halftrack's MG by getting the driver/gunner crew to go grab some rifle bullets from a truck.

I spoke of what is, rather than how things might be in an ideal world. Zero point including a vehicle that's effectively an empty truck when you could just, y'know, tack an empty truck on if you absolutely must include it.

[John Kettler]

YankeeDog,

I keep saying it's a trailer, not a truck. It's towed by the #4 TD in the platoon and is left nearby, in cover, or at least concealed, when the platoon goes into battle. The ammo on the trailer gives the platoon an ammo reserve and is integral to how it operates. There is no crew on the trailer, for it is the TD crew which must remunition the M10 in which it fights.

Womble,

I simply do NOT understand BFC's logic here. I can transfer ammo to the crew but then not to the TD itself? Sounds like a prime thing to fix in a patch!

Regards,

John Kettler

[YankeeDog]

YankeeDog,

I keep saying it's a trailer, not a truck. It's towed by the #4 TD in the platoon and is left nearby, in cover, or at least concealed, when the platoon goes into battle. The ammo on the trailer gives the platoon an ammo reserve and is integral to how it operates. There is no crew on the trailer, for it is the TD crew which must remunition the M10 in which it fights.

Yes, I know it's a trailer. My point is that there is no reason to model ammo trailers full of AFV main gun ammo when the game currently does not include the capability for M10s or indeed AFVs of any type to replenish main gun ammunition. The trailers would simply be eye candy.

Further, for the reasons I outlined above, IMO, for most CM scenarios, given the amount of time it would take to move the AFV back to the resupply trailer (it's not like the AFVs actually trundled around in combat with the trailer attached), get the ammo out of the trailer, reload the ammo racks, and then get the AFV back into combat, this not something that would often come into play at the CM scale/duration fight. So this is not something I see as a high priority addition to the game engine.

Of course, some players do enjoy fighting the large-map, 2+ hr. scenarios, and at the larger/longer end of the CMBN scenario spectrum such an ammo resupply feature is more relevant. But this is certainly not representative of the majority of CM scenarios -- this is "pushing the envelope" of what BFC designed the game engine to be capable of. Ultimately BFC has to prioritize their time as to what features they're going to add to the game engine now, and which they're going to set aside for later. I think the case for putting AFV ammo trailers in the "later" pile is pretty solid.

As a side note, M10 TD formations aren't the only AFV formations represented in the game would often have ammo trailers/vehicles associated with them IRL -- for example, formations of many SPGs like M8 HMCs, M7 Priests, Wespes, etc., would also commonly include an ammo vehicle or trailer. By TOE, German HMG teams also often had a handcart with which to carry ammo and gear. Doesn't necessarily mean that the omission of all of these extra-ammo-on-wheels items is a huge problem CMBN. Ammo resupply is usually something you do between engagements, not in the middle of a firefight.

[womble]

Womble,

I simply do NOT understand BFC's logic here. I can transfer ammo to the crew but then not to the TD itself? Sounds like a prime thing to fix in a patch!

I don't believe a total rewrite of the ammo supply logic is the kind of thing they do in patches. And that is what would be necessary. Currently, there is no mechanism for transfer from personnel to vehicle. Crew-served weapons are an entirely different class of programmatic entity to vehicles. While it might appear that just making vehicles more like crew-serverd weapons would make the problem go away, it seems apparent that this is not the easy fix you might imagine, since there are lots of problems (like the uncrewing/recrewing of ATGs) that more similar behaviour would potentially solve. So there has to be a reason it hasn't been implemented.

So they'd have to redefine the properties of an entire class of object, for one.

Second, at the moment, a foot unit can acquire as many units of a given ammo type (of the ones available) as it can carry from storage instantaneously (in RT play; takes a minute in WeGo). If there was an ability to hand the booty over to a vehicle, it would have to have some sort of time delay to avoid the transfer of about 20 shells from storage to portage and portage to storage inside 2 minutes (setting aside any travel time), which is hugely unrealistic.

Third, at the moment, there is no way of arranging resupply of any other "tank-type" vehicle, so there would have to be the generation of resupply vehicles for all weapons systems.

It's just so obviously not patch material. It's probably not even going to happen in Bulge, though I'd love to be wrong about that; better (more comprehansive and with a better interface) inventory management (both tactically, and between the rounds of a campaign) is very high on my wish list.

[John Kettler]

YankeeDog,

Well argued, but I think you actually made my case, rather than destroying it. If you read the accounts, for example, of WW II tank battles, units pull, say, a platoon at a time for remunitioning. This was modeled in Panzer Elite, I believe. That trailer isn't miles to the rear, but a few hundred yards at most. It's close. Similarly, HMGs aren't generally carried around the battlefield fully assembled, though I have seen a pic of the Germans doing this in a high carry position for what presumably was a short move. Mortars and MGs did indeed move in handcarts and the like.

In my view, there has been a crying need for ammo resupply in the CM series going back to Hellcat Ridge in CMBO, where my guys were practically all ammo depleted, but could get none from the reinforcements when they showed up at last. Wanted to rip my hair out!

Regards,

John Kettler

[YankeeDog]

*Shrug* Guess we just have very different play styles, then. I've occasionally had an AFV run out of main gun ammo, but with rare exceptions I've only run AFV main gun ammo dry very late in a battle. Even if there were an ammo resupply point only a few hundred meters away, I don't think in the vast majority of play situations I've experienced there would be enough time to drive the AFV back to the ammo resupply point, dismount, re-load the ammo racks, mount up again, and get back into the fight in time to have an effect on the scenario outcome.

Would it be a nice add-on at some point? Sure. Do I sorely miss it right now? Nope. Is it on my personal "top ten" list of desired game engine improvements/additions? Not even close.

And I'm very skeptical of mortars and HMG teams running around at the CM scale pushing wheelbarrows full of ammo and equipment; those things were designed for road marches, not rapid cross-country tactical movement. On the CM scale, the handcart might be stowed near enough that the MG/mortar team could send runners back to get more ammo, but you can do this in CMBN now; you just have to use a kubelwagen, bunker, or truck as proxy for the cart.

[John Kettler]

YankeeDog,

I've had repeated instances of HE exhaustion, and the inability to resupply made it a real nail biter--when I was already sucking wind.

I don't have a top ten yet, because I have so little experience with the game. Overall, it just seems that everything's harder in CMBN. I freely admit that I find the learning curve very steep indeed, especially after no CM of any sort for quite some time before that. Reading about CMx2 in the CMSF Forum is NOT the same as playing under it, and I'm learning that the hard way every time I play. Frankly, I find some of the Demo scenarios downright intimidating. Took one look at that sprawling urban scenario, went into complete overwhelm and exited the game. Simply didn't have enough brain function to deal with it then.

To get back on M10s, though, I learned from reading some of the manuals that M10s should be at least 75 yards apart when defending. I didn't do that in one scenario where LOS was hard to come by and the Germans had a dominant ridge. The result? Destroyed TD platoon and most of my Shermans! Was under trees, too.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Vanir Ausf B]

Pro tip: In CMBN tree foliage is primarily eye candy. It does not block LOS like you would expect. Only the trunks of trees can be counted on to block LOS. So if you are playing with foliage on be aware that LOS is less restricted than it appears. Plot your moves with tree trunks only showing.

[JonS]

Pro tip: In CMBN tree foliage is primarily eye candy. It does not block LOS like you would expect. Only the trunks of trees can be counted on to block LOS. So if you are playing with foliage on be aware that LOS is less restricted than it appears. Plot your moves with tree trunks only showing.

PROTIP: If you use this approach, don't be surprised if your tanks suddenly start developing ballistically induced apertures Mine certainly did

[Vanir Ausf B]

Why? Do you feel the visible foliage gives a more accurate visual representation of LOS?

[womble]

Pro tip: In CMBN tree foliage is primarily eye candy.

This is greatly overstating the case. It does block LOS most of the time, and it will stop a proportion of munitions that are passing through it.

It does not block LOS like you would expect. Only the trunks of trees can be counted on to block LOS. So if you are playing with foliage on be aware that LOS is less restricted than it appears.

This part is true. It's not a good idea to rely on tree foliage blocking your LOS. You have to check it out, and even then, moving where some enemy the other side of tree canopy could see you will carry some risk.

Plot your moves with tree trunks only showing.

This is good advice to a point, but you'll remain puzzled as to why you can't get LOS where you want to.