The start of actual news

[ChrisND]

The 805th Tank Destroyer Battalion entered Italy in October 1943 equipped with the towed M5 3 inch ATG, however just after the fall of Rome in summer 44 they switched to the M18 GMC. They remained in Italy for the rest of the war and was the only unit in Italy equipped with the M18. (info from a Zaloga book)

[BLSTK]

In what very narrowly defined, no-true-scotsman, way are you attempting to claim that they all are not comparable

You may certainly wish to compare them. But they are in no way "comparable".

[Sergei]

This would probably be simpler if you explained why similar items are in no way comparable, rather than just saying so. You and the others might even be in agreement but not having the same point of view, but if you don't explain your POV it's hard to tell.

[John Kettler]

JasonC,

This 805th TD Battalion issue is too easy. June-August 1944 was the M18 switchover. The 805th was the only M18 unit in the entire Mediterranean Theater of Operations.

http://www.tankdestroyer.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=249:805th-tank-destroyer-battalion&catid=45:battalions800s&Itemid=103

The relevant info for the other units is there at www.tankdestroyer.net, too.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Sgt Joch]

You may certainly wish to compare them. But they are in no way "comparable".

I presume you mean in terms of reputation?

because the U.S. 90 mm AT/AA gun has very comparable performance.

[BLSTK]

This would probably be simpler if you explained why similar items are in no way comparable, rather than just saying so. You and the others might even be in agreement but not having the same point of view, but if you don't explain your POV it's hard to tell.

Language is often quite subtle. Posters are often less so.

[JonS]

Oh. It's you.

Enjoy your (brief) stay.

[BLSTK]

Oh. It's you.

Enjoy your (brief) stay.

I shall be brief: Your welcome. Has been. Overstayed.

[Bergerbitz]

Hm...I smells a ****fight a-brewin'.

Is this what happens when actual news starts to expire?

[iMolestCats]

Is this what happens when actual news starts to expire?

Actually yes when news expires most of the "Members" and "Junior Members" become very ignorant of simple things. They also don't listen they just wash others' opinions down the drain.

[JasonC]

Normal Dude - thanks for the date of the 805 switchover, the correction is friendly...

[hoolaman]

I presume you mean in terms of reputation?

because the U.S. 90 mm AT/AA gun has very comparable performance.

The US 90mm is not a badass nazi ubergun, so no comparison.

[ASL Veteran]

Is this what happens when actual news starts to expire?

I think we've gone way past the front page headlines and we are now reading the last column of the back page.

[Erwin]

FWIW: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070811131736AAdMg2s

The German 88mm proved so devastating to Allied tanks that there was indeed debate at the time about reverse-engineering it. The reasons why that never happened seem to boil down to: -

[a] The 88mm (at least in its early versions) wasn't actually as good an AA gun than the British 3.7inch AA, nor than the American 90mm. Moreover, on the few occasions when they were employed in a ground-to-ground role, including AT fire against Panzers, those guns proved very effective indeed.

So, from an artillery engineering perspective, the German 88mm really wasn't enything special, and certainly did not warrant the disruption to Allied manufacturing production lines that would have been involved in producing copies of it.

In reality, the 88mm got its well-deserved reputation as an AT super-gun ... not because it was so very much better than anything that the Allies had ... but because the Wehrmacht USED it so much more intelligently.

As early as 1941, in the Western Desert, British tank men began crying out for the deployment of heavy AT guns in the same way as the Afrika Korps was using the 88mm. They even got the ear of Winston Churchill himself. In October 1941, Churchill stated that Auchinleck's 8th Army hoped "'to deploy .. over 100 heavy mobile anti - aircraft guns, exclusive of those in Tobruk"; and he wrote a memo to his generals saying "every .. mobile AA gun should carry a plentiful supply of solid armour - piercing tracer shot" suggesting that they use the 3.7" in the same way that the Germans used the 88mm.

All to no avail. The horrible truth is that the German army was much more adept at tactical combined arms integration than the Allies. Rommel (and others) understood very well how to coordinate mobile Panzers with much-less-mobile AT guns. Allied generals (OK, just possibly excepting Patton) did not manage to do that effectively. Even if the Allies had exact copies of the 88mm, they would probably have failed to use it effectively.

For more on this topic, I commend the following websites and forums.

Source(s):

http://wnet.suomi.net/kotisivu/harri.kaa…

http://www.achtungpanzer.com/articles/88…

http://www.1jma.dk/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=

The German 88mm proved so devastating to Allied tanks that there was indeed debate at the time about reverse-engineering it. The reasons why that never happened seem to boil down to: -

[a] The 88mm (at least in its early versions) wasn't actually as good an AA gun than the British 3.7inch AA, nor than the American 90mm. Moreover, on the few occasions when they were employed in a ground-to-ground role, including AT fire against Panzers, those guns proved very effective indeed.

So, from an artillery engineering perspective, the German 88mm really wasn't enything special, and certainly did not warrant the disruption to Allied manufacturing production lines that would have been involved in producing copies of it.

In reality, the 88mm got its well-deserved reputation as an AT super-gun ... not because it was so very much better than anything that the Allies had ... but because the Wehrmacht USED it so much more intelligently.

As early as 1941, in the Western Desert, British tank men began crying out for the deployment of heavy AT guns in the same way as the Afrika Korps was using the 88mm. They even got the ear of Winston Churchill himself. In October 1941, Churchill stated that Auchinleck's 8th Army hoped "'to deploy .. over 100 heavy mobile anti - aircraft guns, exclusive of those in Tobruk"; and he wrote a memo to his generals saying "every .. mobile AA gun should carry a plentiful supply of solid armour - piercing tracer shot" suggesting that they use the 3.7" in the same way that the Germans used the 88mm.

All to no avail. The horrible truth is that the German army was much more adept at tactical combined arms integration than the Allies. Rommel (and others) understood very well how to coordinate mobile Panzers with much-less-mobile AT guns. Allied generals (OK, just possibly excepting Patton) did not manage to do that effectively. Even if the Allies had exact copies of the 88mm, they would probably have failed to use it effectively.

For more on this topic, I commend the following websites and forums.

Source(s):

http://wnet.suomi.net/kotisivu/harri.kaa…

http://www.achtungpanzer.com/articles/88…

http://www.1jma.dk/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=14…

http://boards.historychannel.com/thread.…

[Sgt Joch]

My understanding is that the U.S. 90mm gun was developped as a direct response to the German 88mm. The U.S. built thousands to use against German tanks, however by the time they started being fielded, Germany was on the defensive, so most wound up being in depots/storage or only used in a AA role.

[YankeeDog]

My understanding is that the U.S. 90mm gun was developped as a direct response to the German 88mm. The U.S. built thousands to use against German tanks, however by the time they started being fielded, Germany was on the defensive, so most wound up being in depots/storage or only used in a AA role.

Not exactly; the 90mm M1 was developed pre-war and was in full production by 1940 so initial development and production began before the FlaK 88 had seen substantial combat. During the 1930s, as bombers became more and more capable of attacking from higher altitudes, most nations recognized the need to increase the caliber of their AA weaponry so that guns could effectively target high-flying bombers.

However, you could argue that the the M2 modification, which came into service in 1943, was a response to the success the Germans had deploying the 88mm FlaK as an AT weapon - among other things, the M2 90mm added the ability to depress up to -10 degrees, specifically so that the gun could more effectively fulfill a secondary AT role.

[Sgt Joch]

makes sense, its been a long time since I looked at it.

[jep]

What about multiplayer campaign? Seems like hotseat campaign is already implemented; any changes this will be extended to support LAN/PBEM?

[JonS]

In reality, the 88mm got its well-deserved reputation as an AT super-gun ... not because it was so very much better than anything that the Allies had ... but because the Wehrmacht USED it so much more intelligently.

The horrible truth is that the German army was much more adept at tactical combined arms integration than the Allies. Rommel (and others) understood very well how to coordinate mobile Panzers with much-less-mobile AT guns. ... Even if the Allies had exact copies of the 88mm, they would probably have failed to use it effectively.

That's a matter of perspective. The British did use the 3.7-in as an AT gun on a couple of occasions, and investigated how they might use it more regularly, because they knew it'd knock the socks off any panzer which came its way. But they found that the 3.7-in, even in its 'mobile' configurations, just wasn't designed to be used in any sort of mobile situation. Because it was such a good AA gun it was too heavy and too large to be used tactically.

But even so, they could still have used it in a tactical role, but consciously decided not to, because they felt that using them to secure the logistics base area around the Suez Canal and Alexandria was more important than knocking out a few tanks in the middle of a desert. And they were right. Rommel lost the North African Campaign logistically, in part because his 88s were knocking turrets off Matildas outside Tobruk when they should have been protecting Benghazi and Tripoli from the RAF.

The actual horrible truth - at the tactical level - is that in the Western Desert the British managed to convince themselves that combined arms wasn't so important anymore. The tactical answer to the 88 wasn't "an 88 of our own". It was using indirect fire more effectively to neutralise the horribly vulnerable German guns. With the arrival of the 6-pr in mid-42 negated the need for HAA in the ground role anyway, and with the arrival of the 17-pr in early-43 the British had an AT gun that was completely superior to the 88 in the that role. The supposed "need" for the use of the 3.7-in as an AT gun is only over the period from about November '41 through to June/July '42. It would have been nice, maybe, if you're prepared ignore the logistic and strategic, but it clearly wasn't "needed."

[Michael Emrys]

I think we've gone way past the front page headlines and we are now reading the last column of the back page.

Or the bottom of the personals column.

Michael

[ASL Veteran]

Or the bottom of the personals column.

Michael

Perhaps we are even reading the Obituaries now?

[Michael Emrys]

In reality, the 88mm got its well-deserved reputation as an AT super-gun ... not because it was so very much better than anything that the Allies had ... but because the Wehrmacht USED it so much more intelligently.

If we're talking about North Africa, maybe not. Rommel complained constantly about supply shortages. One of several reasons why those shortages existed was that the RAF was regularly bombing the ports and warehouses necessary for the movement of those supplies. And one reason those raids were as effective as they were is because the medium flak that should have been protecting the ports was instead in the front line shooting tanks. So it was a question of competing priorities and trade-offs between them. Were the Germans wrong to put 88s in the front line? Not necessarily, but their use did not come without costs elsewhere.

Michael

[Sequoia]

In the Vehicle Pack thread Steve posted:

MG did have some French tanks involved, but they weren't the R35. And yeah, it was just a single engagement from what I remember so not high up on our list to do, especially since we don't have Char B models yet.

The R35 is not currently slated to go into Market Garden. Throwing stuff in willy nilly is not really a good idea since it makes it harder to focus on a particular battle without having to purchase a bunch of stuff. The plan is to make a D-Day Pack with all kinds of crazy stuff that was used on both sides.

Note that this philosophy is not something to push things off to another purchase. That's what a glass half empty personality type would conclude. But the facts say otherwise. There's a large number of AAA stuff going into Market Garden and much of it is completely unnecessary for it. So why so much? Because of what I just said... we want them to be pretty much all kept together. Which makes it easier for you guys to answer the question "what do I need to purchase in order to get standard AAA stuff?"

You guys have no idea how much thought goes into seemingly simple decisions

Steve

The way I interpret this is they want a logical grouping of items so that future buyers can select which product to by if they are looking for a certain thing. Therefore it seems logical to me that the Market-Garden Module will have all things Fallschirmjaeger and all AA guns and vehicles even if they weren't involved in the M-G battle. What it won't have are things such as the Hellcat as though they fit the timeframe they would be a better fit for the Battlepack as they don't fall under the M-G theme or group of new additions. Bridges fall under the theme however so it is possible we might see the Pegasus Bridge or the ability to create a reasonable facsimile.

[LukeFF]

With M-G coming, I humbly ask again that the following 3D / textures be resolved:

-Missing Lee-Enfield buttplate (it was fixed for GL, after all)

-Missing Bren buttplate

-Deletion of the finger grooves on the stock of the Springfield M1903A3

-Removal of the bayonet lug (and its attachment on the barrel) from the M1 Carbine

-Removal of the post-war windage / elevation sights on the Garand and replaced with the proper "lock-bar" sight

Thanks.

[Gromit]

With M-G coming, I humbly ask again that the following 3D / textures be resolved:

-Missing Lee-Enfield buttplate (it was fixed for GL, after all)

-Missing Bren buttplate

-Deletion of the finger grooves on the stock of the Springfield M1903A3

-Removal of the bayonet lug (and its attachment on the barrel) from the M1 Carbine

-Removal of the post-war windage / elevation sights on the Garand and replaced with the proper "lock-bar" sight

Thanks.

Weapon Grog...

Calamine lotion works purty good when you get to itchin' from seeing those texture faults.

Just saying. ;p

Oh, and guys... it's somefink if you're an old fart around here. Surprised Steve didn't call foul.

Looking forward to all the Market-Garden goodness Steve- thanks!