Real firing tests with CMBN weapons

[Erwin]

I think you can afford to use less circumspect and diplomatic language and just bluntly say what you mean to get your point across more effectively, Jon.

[Andrew H.]

Propaganda, as trustworthy, as any other either from US, german or other origin. How many GI´s got injured or killed after seeing this film, cause they thought, german MG´s were inaccurate ammo wasting devices? How many GI´s got injured or killed, cause they thought, there´s just a lone, way forward german HMG, that exposes a famous "flank"?

[snip]

Greetings from Hollywood

Well, it's hard to know what effect having seen a training film would have on GI's down in their foxholes while the MG-42 is fired overhead; I'm guessing not much...

Still, the most dangerous thing that soldiers can do, generally, is to take cover and not return fire. (A problem with US troops in Normandy; maybe a problem with all untried troops). So by convincing them that they can shoot back effectively (even if not as effectively as they might think), the film is helping save lives overall.

And the film is sophisticated in that way - sure, there are a lot of German bullets flying around...but they're not that accurate! And don't worry about shooting back; you'll be more accurate than they are.

So it almost doesn't matter if the mg 42 is more accurate than depicted and the m1919 is less accurate: to survive you have to shoot back with what you have, since you won't be issued with a different MG.

[John Kettler]

JonS,

KR is right; that so-called citation is worse than useless.

It is useless because:

* it is not "very careful"

* it is not "post war"

* it is not "Russian"

* it is not a "General Staff analysis"

* it has no "conclusions" about "surprise"

* it does not talk about "introduction of powerful new weapons"

* it does not show a "temporary increase in combat power of 50% for the introducing side"

In short, it does nothing to address any element of your claim. The MOH regurgitation you offered is about as useful as responding "Banana!" to a request for the current time.

It's worse than useless because it directly calls into question your competence and/or integrity. It would appear that either you have no idea what a citation is (and therefore no idea why they're important) or that you are prone to just making stuff up, and when called on it conduct feeble attempts at misdirection.

Either way, when you chose to conduct yourself in this way then your input has little value, except as an object of derision.

Your evasion of this citation request has not gone unnoticed.

You, of all people, have no basis for questioning my integrity!!! You were quite evidently being a pain, so I gave you a citation, seeing as how you'd asked for one. It was a perfectly valid citation, just not what you wanted. You seem to feel you can attack and demean me as and it when it suits you. By rights, you should've been banned long ago--for behavior WAY beyond the pale, not once, but many times, over many years.

Turning now to the issue at hand, I was presenting information based on something I read decades ago, and I don't remember what, as I explained to KR. You, as usual, are infinitely less concerned with a search for the truth, than with this obsessive need (which you REALLY need to take a look at) you have to vilify me. You wouldn't dare talk to me this way face to face, but the Internet gives you the means to behave in a way I think your loved ones would find both shocking and abhorrent. Do learn to behave as a civilized person.

Regards,

John Kettler

[JonS]

Wasting people's time by knowingly posting utterly irrelevant material as a nonsensical "citation" doesn't put you on the moral high ground, John.

You, as usual, are infinitely less concerned with a search for the truth

au contraire, mon cherie.

You made a big claim. It is a claim that is interesting, and I would be quite happy to believe if you can prove it. But if you can't - or won't - do that, your claim remains worse than useless.

Regarding the other thread; you made a claim that CM should have tank riders because Doubler talked about tank raiders on Stuarts in the bocage. I believe that claim is false. At least, I'm pretty sure it is, having searched both Doubler's US CGSC "Busting the Bocage" thesis and his "Closing with the enemy" book which grew out of it. But maybe there's another book of his, or another Doubler who writes about the US Army in WWII, that I'm unfamiliar with? So provide a citation so the claims you're making can be verified.

Or maybe you simply misremembered it. It happens. But why should CM be altered if the claim can't be verified, or is flat-out wrong?

There's is an excellent chance that you’re also misremembering the claim about the Russians and their "General Staff analysis," which is why a citation was asked for. I want to know it's true before basing any decisions or deductions on it.

Asking people to prove their assertions is pretty much the definition of “searching for the truth”. It's your usual methodology - believing any old bollocks - which is truth’s antithesis.

[John Kettler]

JonS,

If, and this a big if given all the reading I did in that field in over eleven years in military aerospace, I can find the source of that statement, I will GLADLY and HAPPILY provide it.

Turning now to Doubler, I went through Busting the Bocage but did not find the Stuart tactic there. Unlike you, I am certain it's in CLOSING WITH THE ENEMY, and there's even a diagram depicting the tactics in much the same way Doubler showed the other ones used. There is no scribd version of it, nor is there a CGSC study which has the same content. Since my military library may or may not still exist (when I had to crash move, was left with a friend who's since gone through a life implosion and may or may not still be in California), I can't waltz out to the living room, pick up the book, find the page and come in here and give you the citation. I would ask that you or some kind soul who has the book please check it, for it is there. I bought the hardback and was thrilled to have it. My memory is not always the best, but that Stuart based bocage busting technique was so unusual and graphic that it burned itself into my memory. I distinctly recall how very Hollywood it was, yet it was real.

CM should NOT be altered on my mere say so. I mentioned the Stuart bocage busting tactic as a counterargument that tank riders were irrelevant to CMBN. I hoped that someone would dig up a copy, read the amazing account and come back and discuss it.

Your disbelief is in no way the same as disproof of my assertion.

Summing up, if I could provide you the desired citations, I would. Presently, I can't. Should that situation change, and one or both come my way, I shall be delighted to provide the requested information.

Regards,

John Kettler

[JonS]

Turning now to Doubler, I went through Busting the Bocage but did not find the Stuart tactic there. Unlike you, I am certain it's in CLOSING WITH THE ENEMY, and there's even a diagram depicting the tactics in much the same way Doubler showed the other ones used.

I know the diagram you're talking about. It refers to Shermans. Not Stuarts. And there is NO reference to tank riding in relation to the tactics that diagram depicts, regardless of which tank is being used.

There is no scribd version of it, nor is there a CGSC study which has the same content.

CWTE is available on Amazon.com 'look inside', which is word-searchable.

That aside, the bocage chapter of CWTE is a really just a very light retouching of BTB, and moves one of BTBs chapters (on US organisations and equipment) into an appendix. Searching BTB is functionally the same as searching CWTE.

My memory is not always the best, but that Stuart based bocage busting technique was so unusual and graphic that it burned itself into my memory. I distinctly recall how very Hollywood it was, yet it was real.

I think you'll find your memory has let you down badly.

I mentioned the Stuart bocage busting tactic as a counterargument that tank riders were irrelevant to CMBN. I hoped that someone would dig up a copy, read the amazing account and come back and discuss it.

Your disbelief is in no way the same as disproof of my assertion.

I've searched both CWTE and BB. I am certain that the thing you refer to does not exist.

Summing up, if I could provide you the desired citations, I would.

That would be splendid, and appreciated, and is entirely reasonable. And certainly far more productive than yelling "Banana!" at random intervals.

However, your expressed intent to provide a useful citation is not the same as actually providing one. Until you do neither Stuart riders charging through bocage nor 50% increase in effectiveness can be used as crutches.

[winkelried]

au contraire, mon cherie.

just to help you to improve your french it's "mon chéri" without the e at the end if you address a man. "ma chérie" would be the female form . In the current context "mon chèr" would probably be a bit more appropriate. naturally only if you are sure that John Kettler actually is a man

[John Kettler]

JonS,

I find your interaction with me to be much more civil, and I appreciate it!

I just went to Amazon and did some checking of my own. The index is dreck; doesn't even have an entry for canister. And it was canister that was directly and specifically detailed as being fired into the back corners to kill the MG-42 HMGs.

It shows one whole mention of a Stuart, on page 302. That mention was available without signing in (search by keyword found two) and was in an appendix describing the composition of U.S. forces. Not helpful. I don't recall my access info to Amazon, so I can't comment on what the second entry was or wasn't.

Is your copy of Doubler hardback or paperback? Maybe some tweaks were made to the text when the format transition was made. Case in point, Rudel's TANK KILLER, where only the early editions of the paperback had the pages of combat photos on glossy stock. These were signally absent in later reissues. I know, since I got all excited over a book I hadn't seen in ages, one of my brothers having carried off the family copy long since, only to see that this wasn't quite what I thought it was. Of course, if we both have hardbacks, and there was only one print run of it, then this potential explanation simply isn't germane.

My memories of what I read and what I read it in are clear and specific: a)explosive breach at the two friendly corners of the hedgerow, Stuarts (not Shermans--too slow) charge in spewing canister and every MG that'll bear at the MG-42s at the back corners to clobber them; c) Stuarts are protected from German infantry by U.S. infantry on the back decks.

The above had to be CWTE, seeing as how I devoured the book, having NEVER encountered information like that anywhere. I was blown away by not one but a whole series of tactics I'd never heard of or read about until then.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Praetori]

JonS,

Here you go. It's for a Medal of Honor.

It's unsettlingly similar to 2 Para John "Patch" Adams during the battle of Plaman Mapu in Borneo.

http://www.militaryimages.net/forums/showthread.php?t=7307

[akd]

As I recall, one of the early tank-infantry team bocage busting tactics involved using one of the tank's in the team to move the engineer's 100-lb breaching charges up to the next hedgerow since the engineer's had no dedicated off-road means of moving such large amounts of explosives.

[John Kettler]

Praetori,

What a fabulous story! I fear, though, you've let pop culture bleed into your post. Your guy is "Patch Williams," the incredibly brave soldier. "Patch" Adams is a surgeon. Please go to the DF mortar thread and post this story. It is highly pertinent to the issue of firing mortars inside Rmin.

Regards,

John Kettler

[MikeyD]

I'm bumping this for no other reason than I thought the video was too cool to have disappear.

[John Kettler]

OK! The surprise thread has now resurfaced, and I have something worthwhile to share.

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=106496

The above thread contains some good analyses of the effects of shock and surprise in war, to include something astounding on surprise as a negator of even extraordinary force ratios.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Sublime]

KR,

He asked for a citation, so I gave him one! On a more serious note, I've been trying to remember what, out of a ton of Soviet writings I read while in military aerospace, had the relevant passage. Internet digging has produced some staggering interviews (senior ex-Soviet strategic planners interviewed 1990) and Cold War period analyses, but not what I specifically need.

Regards,

John Kettler

JK what did you search for to get the ex-Sovt officials interviews? im interested..

[JasonC]

The only thing close in Doubler is the diagrams and detailed walk through Cota's 29th ID tactics for hedgerow clearing, which involved neither Stuarts, nor canister, nor riding tanks. This occurs in the *book* Closing with the enemy, within the *chapter* of that book called Busting the Bocage (also the name of the earlier work by the same author - hence the possible confusion as to the source).

Instead it involved a single Sherman suppressing the enemy hedgerow while infantry closed with that hedgerow with grenades. The only special ammo mentioned is white phospherous, specifically targeting the corners of the field (just where JK mentioned canister) to suppress any MGs located there. I note that canister would be singularly ineffective at this role, whenever the Germans had solid cover, which was usually - their MGs were sighted for interlocking grazing fire along narrow fire lanes, not directly observable, straight ahead, wide fields of view. This was a measure precisely to limit the arc through which the defending MGs would be vulnerable to any form of direct fire.

WP neatly got around that, because it could suppress the gunners by its fumes, it could blind them regardless, and it could potentially set fire to the vegetation around their fire nest and force them to abandoned their post, if they wanted to keep breathing.

The tanks were not used to carry men into the field - due to the danger from fausts and schrecks at close range, they remained behind the hedgerow supporting by fire until American infantry were well into the field, and could toss grenades over all its edges, thus protecting the tank from enemy infantry AT.

It is also very noteworthy that the same passage gives the role of an accompanying 60mm mortar team as tossing shells into the fields behind the German position. Not onto the corners. The reason is, the inherent accuracy of light mortars is not as high as is depicted in CM-N - and also the effect of their light bombs on men with good dugouts was very small. But they could make open ground movement in the fields beyond, hazardous, and thus prevent easy repositioning of German defenders, exploiting the LOS blockage of the hedgerows to mass in front on an attack or get clear of an area getting too hot, etc.

Also noteworthy is the early comment that field artillery was of limited utility due to the close ranges involved. The figure given is that the fighting usually took place within 300 yards, and this was too close for the rounds before observation / correction to avoid landing on the attackers. So much for the pinpoint fire missions 60-80 meters away that we try in CMBN.

No uber canister. No tank joy riding. No uber mortars. No pinpoint fire missions less than 100 yards away. Instead, one tank firing, shells at weapon team targets and MGs at whole hedgerow "treelines", to allow infantry to close within grenade range, covered by that fire. Then and only then, the single tank advancing into the already held field, to repeat the procedure on the next one.

[Sublime]

It.s interesting they only would expose one tank at a time. was this because a general armor shortage or..?(i mean due to the invasion being a few days to a month old) why not two shermans, for example?

[Apocal]

No uber canister. No tank joy riding. No uber mortars. No pinpoint fire missions less than 100 yards away. Instead, one tank firing, shells at weapon team targets and MGs at whole hedgerow "treelines", to allow infantry to close within grenade range, covered by that fire. Then and only then, the single tank advancing into the already held field, to repeat the procedure on the next one.

Honest question: Was this a pre-emptive technique or one only used on fields that were confirmed to hold Germans?

[JonS]

It.s interesting they only would expose one tank at a time. was this because a general armor shortage or..?(i mean due to the invasion being a few days to a month old) why not two shermans, for example?

Probably because they didn't have all that many on the continent. An indep battalion of armour in spt of an inf div would provide about a platoon of tanks per inf battalion, or a bit more than one tank per rifle company (on an even-stevens, no-main-effort basis), assuming that the entire tank bn was committed to action.

[JonS]

Honest question: Was this a pre-emptive technique or one only used on fields that were confirmed to hold Germans?

Probably either/both, depending on circumstances.

[JasonC]

Because the fields were small and one sufficed to place the opposite hedgerow under fire, and there was no point in exposing more if there were a PAK there, or a faust shooter got lucky. If enemy AT took out one tank, then they'd retaliate against that AT, and bring up another afterward.

It was purely a matter of having the right tool for the job, and the thing they were exactly trying to get away from was sending more of the wrong tool and getting it whacked.

[JasonC]

Apocal - if at anything like a front line, pre-emptive - if a platoon of infantry were going to enter a field not previously held, then the opposite "treeline" was going to get plastered before anyone step into the open. Anything else could mean a dead platoon.

They might send 2 scouts if they didn't think they were yet in contact with the enemy, just empty no man's land. They wouldn't risk a platoon. But they weren't going to recon by death at 2 men a field in places actually held.

[womble]

My memories of what I read and what I read it in are clear and specific: a)explosive breach at the two friendly corners of the hedgerow, Stuarts (not Shermans--too slow) charge in spewing canister and every MG that'll bear at the MG-42s at the back corners to clobber them; c) Stuarts are protected from German infantry by U.S. infantry on the back decks.

A quick review of the implications of what you're suggesting would seem to cast some doubt that the tactic was ever seriously proposed, or used more than once in the face of the enemy if it did survive the morning-after critique following its whisky-fuelled conception...

Shermans are pretty quick tanks. Stuarts won't be much quicker in crossing the torn-up bocage (especially if they have to remain steady enough for tank riders to retain their perches). The rear deck of the M5 Stuart is also significantly smaller than that of the Sherman; how you'd get a fire team on there and have them remain combat effective, I'm not sure.

Canister, as JasonC says, isn't some magic dugout-vapourising tool. The HE of a Sherman would be as effective against a point target like that, with no depth to it, and 75mm WP even more so.

How do infantry on a careening engine deck "protect" a tank against infantry AT when it's charging along at full pelt, cross country? I'd be astonished if their eyeballs remained steady enough to even see a Shreckist, especially before firing, behind good concealment, let alone have them lay down accurate-enough fire (while hanging on for dear life) to neutralise the blighter in time to stop him toasting the M5 (and probably some of the riders).

I think, especially given that people have looked and not found what you remember being where you remember seeing it, that your memory has confounded you.

[cireland65]

MGs are not suppose to be accurate, they are designed to bounce around and spray their fire to create an oval beaten zone, the film seems to miss that point with the 1919s. I have fired these MGs a ton, although the converted ones to 7.62 Nato, but none the less they do not put their rounds into a tight grouping but spread them out. If I remember correctly (it has been about 20 years now) the pattern at 300m is about 15m.

Accuracy was the problem with the Bren, you could snipe with it when you want your MGs/LMGs to suppress.

So I would have to say the MG34/42 did a better job if you go by the film. I liked how they gave the M3 grease gun high marks...pure rot.

[Georgie]

It.s interesting they only would expose one tank at a time. was this because a general armor shortage or..?(i mean due to the invasion being a few days to a month old) why not two shermans, for example?

I would imagine that the idea was to find out where the threat is by advancing one tank and if it came under AT fire to withdraw if possible, return fire if possible and for another tank with the aid of infantry spot the AT gun and take it out while exposing as little as possible of itself. Hull down , corner shot etc.

[Bradley]

I wish the in-game weapons sounded like the ones in the doc. (At least they don't sound quite like that on my rig.)

+1 sounds great.