Tea Time. Beta AAR discussion threat. Not for Bill or Elvis ;-)

[Michael Emrys]

Somebody dump a roll of whites into Charles' jar to give him more confidence.

Michael

[Dadekster]

This topic has peaked Steve's interest but its anyone's guess if the code supports acquireables on tanks. I suspect it'll either be very easy or absolutely impossible - nothing in between. We're at the mercy of Charles on this.

Very nice to hear it's something that's been tossed around then. If it can be implemented that'd be fantastic but not the end of the world if it can't be done. I'm hoping the game engine could support it as I'd love to see the consequences of placing ammo on top of your engine deck :eek: assuming that would be capable of being modeled as well.

Just gotta love that Russian shrug the shoulders and go with it mentality

[Terkin]

You might think the ISU-122 is a good mobile ammo point, but what you see there is specifically intended for and assigned to provide local defense for the AFV when laagered at night or otherwise exposed to infantry attack.

Further, that ammo is also used for munitioning dismounted reconnaissance, as seen in HSU Loza's Fighting For The Soviet Motherland, where he and his driver disembark from the Lend Lease Matilda he commands to go forward and check out a suspicious cabin. He takes the PPSh-41, additional ammo and F-1 grenades, and is assisted by the driver, who's armed with the dismounted coax MG.

Thank you, John, for your answer and welcome

Yes, I know that they were meant for "self-defense", but to be honest, 21 disc is too much for it, in my opinion. For you see, as you correctly state, there were 5 men in a crew, but not everyone had an SMG on them - there would be only 2 SMGS (of course, that was standard; but it could be varied on the ground, after all, I remember reading that ISU-152 crews even had a trophy MG-42 with them). So, one drum in each PPSh, and two more for them - that makes 6 drums, which leaves 15 drums in the fighting compartment.

If things went south, the crew could use all of that ammo for themselves, of course, but I find it hard to imagine such situation (two men firing all of those 1400 rounds - scene looks like a copy of defense from a zerg rush to me ).

The tankodesantniki have what they have on their persons, and that's it. To date, I've read nothing to contradict this view. Moreover, even during the Cold War, a Russian Motorized Rifle infantryman would've gone into battle with one 30 round mag in his AK-47s and three more in his canvas carrier. That's it, and this is straight out of the Defense Intelligence Agency publication The Soviet Motorized Rifle Company (U).

I don't know much on Cold war topic, but wasn't there additional ammo in each of BMP for them? At least in CMSF there was.

On topic of tank riders, I will have to re-read Bessonov's account, maybe he mentions anything of these sorts in his book.

[Glubokii Boy]

I guess this would be a good time to try and implement the feature of aquireing more ammo simply by being NEXT to ANY veichle (that is capable of offering more supplyies).

I feature that has been asked for for quite some time...Perhaps not the most important thing but this seems to be a good time to look into it...

[sburke]

Bummer. Looks like Elvis tried to move that unit in kit 5 forward. If it goes down now, all the info he has acquired is exactly what Bil wants him to know. Bil knows of their presence so their role is almost blown.

[Dadekster]

When outnumbered moving around on a defense is imo never a good thing. Good positions and patience are key. If possible have a mobile reserve which for me would have been his tracks to support where needed. I would guess most of us are familiar with the phrase regarding plans and enemy contact but I feel Elvis never gave his plan a chance prior to contact. I'm rooting for him as I love supporting the underdog in fights and he is definitely the underdog in this time period.

[Battlefront.com]

To follow up on the ammo thing. Yeah, 1400 SMG rounds for one vehicle is a huge amount. No way that was meant just for the crew. To contrast that, German AFVs contained 1x SMG with a total of roughly 128 rounds. The SMG was there to perform the same functions as the SMGs in Soviet vehicles. If the Soviets felt they needed 10x as much ammo then they were doing something wrong

A friend of mine spent some time in Bahrain doing logistics work at the beginning of OIF. Being Navy they issued him a M-16 and *ONE* magazine. When they asked why only one magazine they were told "you're not infantry. You have enough ammo to get out of trouble, not enough to get into trouble". I am sure the same thinking applied to WW2 vehicle crews.

Steve

[Michael Emrys]

Yeah, 1400 SMG rounds for one vehicle is a huge amount. No way that was meant just for the crew.

You're probably right, but it does occur to me to wonder if they were planning on maybe having to go days without resupply, such as on a deep penetration. The priority for resupply would of course have been for the main gun ammo. Could personal weapon ammo resupply have been pushed to the back burner? And since that much doesn't take up all that much space inside the vehicle compared to main gun rounds, why not load up ahead of time?

Airy speculation here not grounded on much data, but the question did occur to me and I thought I might as well throw it out.

Michael

[Battlefront.com]

When outnumbered moving around on a defense is imo never a good thing. Good positions and patience are key. If possible have a mobile reserve which for me would have been his tracks to support where needed. I would guess most of us are familiar with the phrase regarding plans and enemy contact but I feel Elvis never gave his plan a chance prior to contact. I'm rooting for him as I love supporting the underdog in fights and he is definitely the underdog in this time period.

Agreed. In general the worst thing a defender can do is prematurely decide the setup positions aren't going to work. Moving things around impromptu leads to all kinds of possible opportunities for failure. I think it's one of the biggest mistakes players make.

In my previous post where I speculated how I might handle the defense, one key component of it was attempting to recognize limitations to my capabilities ahead of time. As I look at the map and the forces I said to myself "I don't think I can defend everything", which meant developing a plan that did not hinge on what was likely a lost cause. In my thinking OBJ Blau had to be sacrificed and I could win on casualty points and retaining the other two Objectives. One good point about my plan is that force shifting on the fly wasn't part of it.

Of course I don't know if my plan would work or not, or if Elvis' plan would or wouldn't work if he stuck to it, or if his new plan will work or fail.

[Battlefront.com]

You're probably right, but it does occur to me to wonder if they were planning on maybe having to go days without resupply, such as on a deep penetration. The priority for resupply would of course have been for the main gun ammo. Could personal weapon ammo resupply have been pushed to the back burner? And since that much doesn't take up all that much space inside the vehicle compared to main gun rounds, why not load up ahead of time?

Airy speculation here not grounded on much data, but the question did occur to me and I thought I might as well throw it out.

Michael

If that were true the AFV would likely be out of ammo long before then and would have been withdrawn if they couldn't resupply it.

Steve

[Michael Emrys]

If that were true the AFV would likely be out of ammo long before then and would have been withdrawn if they couldn't resupply it.

Reread what I wrote. I was assuming that resupply would occur, but that supply of main gun ammo would be the priority concern for AFVs and whatever small weapons ammo was coming through would be bypassing them and going to the infantry. That might well be a false assumption as I don't know exactly what logistic arrangements were made or how efficient they were in practice.

Michael

[renaldo1]

If I might add my two penneth to the thread then I'd like to suggest an alternative defence for this scenario.

Given that Bil and Elvis will eventually read this thread then I'd like to start off by thanking them both for another very enjoyable AAR. I'm one of the countless people that get much enjoyment from these AARs without usually joining the discussion. So thank you both for the effort and time that you put into it.

So my suggestion for a defence is what I would always consider on such a large map with few points to spend - much less (or even no) armour and AT guns instead. Now I know that this idea is not going to get much support from the regular posters so please let me try to give a little reasoning.

First let's consider what you could buy as AT guns instead of armour.

From the points screens in Elvis's "what I purchased post" and from what I know in CMBN then I think you could replace the Panther and 1 Hetzer with 2 x AT platoon each consisting of an HQ plus 3 50mm AT guns and an extra 75mm AT gun attached to each. To do that you might need to drop the quality level of all guns and the remaining Hetzer. Maybe all at Green with some -1s thrown in. Personally, if I didn't have quite enough points that way I'd consider to sacrifice the second Hetzer for another cheaper vehicle to get the remaining needed. The other option I'd look at to make the points balance and keep the second Hetzer is to reduce the artillery - either in quantity or in calibre (preferably in calibre).

So assuming I've got 6 x 50mm and 2 x 75mm and a Hetzer.

My preference for guns over armour is to a) increase my total AT assets get better concealment. I don't mind the loss of mobility - I agree with the other posters that are suggesting that as the defender I really shouldn't be moving around too much. And anyway I'd still have the 1 Hetzer and the panzerschreck teams for some level of mobile AT assets.

And I would be specifically going for a higher number of smaller guns (i.e. more 50mm rather than take all 75mm and have less guns). Firstly to have more guns and spread the risk of losing them early due to an unlucky spot or unlucky "random" artillery fall. Secondly because I would likely get off more rounds per gun before they were taken out due to being harder to spot. I would want a couple of 75mm guns in just to make the attacker think a bit more about the inevitable "unspotted AT guns" when he got hit by or saw one.

I would have used this kind of defence even for "Eye of the Elefant" and I think that this map is much better for offering good places to conceal guns (at least as far as I can see from the posted screenshots). What really helps in the CM2 engine (compared to CM1) is that the relative spotting model really helps AT gun survivability. Not for the whole battle but at least to get off a reasonable number of telling hits.

And that brings us to the second big benefit that CM2 brings to use of AT guns (compared to CM1) - attritional damage to armour from lower calibre weapons. In CMBB 1941 scenarios I'd buy a couple of KV1s and just expose them shamefully knowing that everything would just bounce off with no damage done. Very rarely I'd lose the gun on one of them due to an unlucky hit. Now in CM2 it is possible to do considerable damage to strong armour with multiple low to medium calibre guns. Sometimes not getting a complete kill but often enough to take them out of the game. It's often not enough to do that to armour when on the attack - they can still sit and occupy VLs. But on the defence you only need to halt the attacker to win. And there is always a time limit.

I tried this tactic against the AI after thinking about this defence while reading Eye of the Elefant. At the time I only had the base CMBN so the best I could give to the AI was Panthers. But still they are nominally impervious to frontal attack from 50mm guns. But with about 12 or so well positioned 50mm guns and infantry support I beat off an attack from about 8 Panthers with infantry support. Ok, a human opponent is different but my basic point is that 50mm AT guns can do damage to strong armour if getting a sufficient number of hits.

Consider if Elvis had a 50mm AT gun in the place of the team that first spotted the ISU-122. I would expect to get off at least 4-5 hitting rounds before he could spot, turn and react. What would happen in that time? I'd have a good chance of degrading crew and/or vehicle and taking out some of the squad sitting on it. I'd then likely lose the gun but when I've got 8 guns plus a small mobile AT back-up then it's a trade I'd take every time.

Any thoughts?

By the way, if anyone is interested I'd be willing to play such a defence against a human opponent if we can find a "conceptually similar" map in one of the other games (I now have all of CMBN, CW, MG, CMFI and GL). And also I'd be willing to AAR it in the appropriate forum. Then we'd get to find out if any of my theory has any merit ...

[womble]

And I would be specifically going for a higher number of smaller guns (i.e. more 50mm rather than take all 75mm and have less guns). Firstly to have more guns and spread the risk of losing them early due to an unlucky spot or unlucky "random" artillery fall. Secondly because I would likely get off more rounds per gun before they were taken out due to being harder to spot.

What's the point of bouncing more shots off Russian armour? 50mm are going to be completely useless against any frontal armour, and somewhat chancy even against the side armour of most '44 tanks. I think it would be a mistake to think that Bill would get close enough for 50mm to be a good system. Maybe I'm overestimating the flank defenses of the Russian armour.

[sburke]

This is looking like it is going to turn into a grinding bloody brawl in the woods.

[lurrp]

I think if Bil runs out of ammo with his PPShs he is in a ton of trouble. Of course, it's looking like Elvis chose the one formation least suited to taking on Soviets at close range... Seems to me like Elvis either has to choose between taking on T-34/85s and ISUs at long range or SMGs and OT-34s at close range. Ouch.

[BLSTK]

Talk about "a world of hurt."

[Offshoot]

I'm not sure of the status of Elvis's 120mm arty call - is it incoming? If so, it looks like it's going to land on quite a concentration of Soviets.

[renaldo1]

@womble - thanks for the comments. There are 2 reasons why I have some optimism that 50mm guns could have some effect.

The first is crew casualties from armour spalling. I'm not sure how susceptible Soviet armour is to that but I'm guessing more susceptible than German or US armour and I've seen that happen plenty in CMBN. In the CMFI demo I've even "lost" a Semovente to MG fire from several hundred metres. What happened is that the MG fire, frontal on to a buttoned up Semovente caused a crew casualty from armour spalling. The other 2 crew promptly exited the vehicle and spent 10 minutes running around in panic before I could even get them under control again. Then they were lost to small arms fire whilst attempting to get back in to the vehicle.

The second reason is that I often see that "none critical" hits still have an effect on crew morale and/or response. Very often I see armour taking light hits (relative to frontal armour strength) and then popping smoke and reversing. But they often reverse and turn at the same time leading to them exposing their side armour to the same threat that was previously just faced with frontal armour. Of course we still don't yet know the effect of 50mm shells on 1944 Soviet side armour in CM2. But I would at least expect the chance of crew casualties from armour spalling or partial penetrations to increase once the side is exposed.

[Battlefront.com]

Reread what I wrote. I was assuming that resupply would occur, but that supply of main gun ammo would be the priority concern for AFVs and whatever small weapons ammo was coming through would be bypassing them and going to the infantry. That might well be a false assumption as I don't know exactly what logistic arrangements were made or how efficient they were in practice.

Michael

This would still presume that the average vehicle would burn though 1400 rounds before the logistics tail caught up with it. In theory a vehicle crew should go the entire war without firing it's SMGs even one time. Firing them means they screwed up. Badly. 1400 rounds is planning for a LOT of screwups

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

@womble - thanks for the comments.

And thanks for taking the time to post! It's always nice to see an otherwise "lurker" confirm there are a lot of people out there just as dedicated to the game with a dozen posts to their name as those with a thousand or more. Which is why we always keep you guys in mind when we do things

There are 2 reasons why I have some optimism that 50mm guns could have some effect.

I'd have to go with Womble on this BUT only because we know that Bil has some of the big bastards of the Soviet arsenal. I don't think 50mm ATGs would do much in this particular situation. Now, if Bil had instead bought T-34s or a bunch of SU-76s... yup, a bunch of Pak36 ATGs would have been a pretty good investment strategy.

The thing is... if I'm playing a QB battle from this timeframe against the Soviets I'd presume they are buying big bastards. Which means a Pak36 is more likely than not going to be ineffective. Contrast that with your experience in CMBN and CMFI. For those games you can pretty much bet a Pak36 is going to be useful because the Western Allies have very little chance of buying something that can stand up to multiple hits from a Pak36.

Which is to say you have a GOOD strategy, but not for Red Thunder's timeframe location. At least it's not one I'd want to count on

Steve

[Vanir Ausf B]

It appears there is going to be a meeting engagement in the East woods. Elvis's advance there would be a fine idea if he were going to set up some ambushes. But given his aggressiveness I think he will keep going until his own guys get bushwhacked.

I'm beginning to think Bil could win this fight by simply waiting for Elvis's counterattacks. Interestingly, that was a real tactic used by the Allies to take advantage of the Wehrmacht 's habitual counterattacking. We should probably commend Elvis on his adherence to proper German doctrine.

[Michael Emrys]

Now, if Bil had instead bought T-34s or a bunch of SU-76s... yup, a bunch of Pak36 ATGs would have been a pretty good investment strategy.

The thing is... if I'm playing a QB battle from this timeframe against the Soviets I'd presume they are buying big bastards. Which means a Pak36 is more likely than not going to be ineffective. Contrast that with your experience in CMBN and CMFI. For those games you can pretty much bet a Pak36 is going to be useful because the Western Allies have very little chance of buying something that can stand up to multiple hits from a Pak36.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PaK_36

Michael

[John Kettler]

Renaldo1,

I believe judging AFV vulnerability based on experience with a poorly protected, notoriously brittle and riveted armor equipped Semovente is a dangerous planning aprroach. Even from the side, a T-34 is much tougher than the Semovente nose on, as a result of armor thickness, armor quality and slope. Even if we postulate spall from PaK-38 hits as being possible against this leviathan, it'd be nothing like the issues facing Italian tank and SP crews.

After seeing what happened to GreenAsJade in his CMGL fight against Bil, I suggested that rather than buying those huge, easily spotted 3-inch ATGs, that he would've been better off with equivalent points in 57mm ATGs. Sounds like you came up with something similar, but your weapon-target disconnect's much worse.

The base armor for both the upper front and side of the ISU-122 and ISU-152 is 90mm, and that's without factoring in slope. Sans PzGr 40, and there was none to be had by then, you've got no hope of getting through that armor at any usable combat range. Moreover, numerous combat accounts indicate crews generally don't notice their tank or SP's been hit, unless something major tells them otherwise. If this monster turns in response to your hitting it, your problem goes from very faint hope to hopeless, because now you're looking at angled shots at 90mm thick armor. As I see it, you have three real chances of doing something militarily useful: gun barrel hit to knock out the cannon; track hit so it can't move, or HE into the tankodesantniki. Not sure whether a telescopic sight hit would F-Kill the gun.

Ordinarily, the lower hull would be easily penetrated, but this monster has 90mm (10mm thicker than the hull frontal armor of a Panzer IV/H) there, too. If the game allowed selective targeting of specific parts of the thing, as was done and reported in numerous combat accounts for weapons ranging from antitank rifles clear up to ZIS-3 76.2mm, you could go after the few vulnerable areas directly, but you're relying on a combination of volume of fire and luck. If you're going to play on this table, I'm with womble and Steve. You need to buy PaK-40s. Period. Your approach might, depending on range, engagement geometry and where the hits are scored, work against T-34/85s and would absolutely massacre SU-76Ms.

Given what we now know, I predict house rules will appear like toadstools after a spring rain to limit use of this particular beast and its bigger caliber sibling. The ISU-152 is slightly less tough, having a mere 65mm of lower hull side armor. There may (note conditional) be some possibility of setting these monsters afire by hitting the auxiliary fuel tanks. Rudel says he targeted the aux fuel drums and killed tanks by setting the external fuel supply ablaze, with the flaming fuel entering the engine compartment and destroying the AFV. Steve would have to wade in on whether such things can be done.

Returning to Elvis directly, I think he's his own worst enemy when handling infantry. Aggressiveness is a good thing when used judiciously, but he seems to be running in ACW Confederate mode--attack and die--in the woods. Bil will happily accommodate such behavior. Shall be most interested to see whether Elvis's 120s hit home. If they do, Bil may lament: "Able was I ere I saw Elvis." Yes, it's a riff on a historical palindrome.

Regards,

John Kettler

[renaldo1]

To be clear it is the 50mm PAK38 that I had in mind and not the 37mm PAK36. It is generally the philosophy of "AT guns preferred over armour in order to get higher numbers of assets" coupled with "smaller AT guns with better concealment chances preferred over larger guns and hence relying on attrition damage rather than straight knock-outs". But if the 50mm is also undersized for the "attritional damage" role then I might need to go up to the 75mm guns. But I'd still go that route. I think that 1 Panther = 3 x 75mm AT gun in costs and 1 Hetzer = 2 x 75mm AT gun so I would still get a fair few depending how many AFVs I traded in.

Also I'd then take an extra AT gun and much less artillery (just a bit of 81mm). I am eagerly looking forward to what effect Elvis's 120mm mission is going to have. But I don't hold out too much hope for it. Against an attacker who can move assets quickly in any direction without much fear of exposure to the enemy, then called-in artillery is too slow to have an effect significant enough to justify its cost. Sometimes it pays-off - but rarely in my experience.

@John Kettler - the Semovente was just an example of what can happen even with MG fire. As I said I also have regular experience of armour spalling with crew casualties with German and US armour. That includes with Panthers. I would expect that if a Panther is vulnerable to armour spalling then so is any Soviet armour. Maybe I need to go up to 75mm rather than 50mm to get it with an ISU-122? I'm assuming that all armour is prone to spalling with hits from ordnance "not quite strong enough to penetrate direct"? Is that right? I don't know the physics of it but I doubt that that effect stops completely beyond a certain armour thickness. Does it?

With regards to Elvis's current tactics then there I am with the consensus - counterattacking into woods against SMG troops is going to be interesting to watch but I doubt it will have much success. In my experience as a defender in CM I only need 3 attributes to increase chance of success : 1) Patience, 2) Patience, 3) Calm, happy patience.

Of course, Elvis's approach makes for a much more interesting AAR and so I'm grateful for that.

[womble]

...called-in artillery is too slow to have an effect significant enough to justify its cost. Sometimes it pays-off - but rarely in my experience.

IMO, TRPs are excellent force multipliers. Those few extra points, plonked somewhere you don't want him to go can make arty much more effective: no spotting rounds, faster response time.

I'm assuming that all armour is prone to spalling with hits from ordnance "not quite strong enough to penetrate direct"? Is that right? I don't know the physics of it but I doubt that that effect stops completely beyond a certain armour thickness. Does it?

I think you're probably right, and no, the effect won't "just stop" if the armour's thick enough, it'll just make "not quite strong enough" need to be heavier, to the point that a light gun that might have spalled off one rate of armour won't have enough punch to spall off the thicker/better sloped kind.

Having heard more expert opinions on the vulnerability of Russian mediums, your poroposed "swarm" of PaK38s might have more utility if the protagonist won't be bringing "heavies", but I think such monsters were pretty much guaranteed an outing in such a demonstration match. But absent the heavy armour, there would have been a lot of T-34s to whittle down with flanking ambushes by static guns, if the same points had been spent on mediums.