88mm gun please be transportable and (semi-deployed)

[snarre]

to Blazing. i know maps can be make big but usually thous are master maps and if you try make max side map , game crash or go unplayable. sou there is nou point right now make sou large maps and i sayed earlier we dont have operations in game mode. sou units moving example 88 are not sou big thing to mode in game right now. one tip place your 88 edge in wood to trench and you will see how well they are camoed.

[akd]

In CM:BB the 88mm build up time was something about 8-10 minutes if i remember right and not 2,5 minute.....and it was not retransportable (3,5min in real life) and it was not capable to firing quite instantly in the mentioned semi-deployed mode still being on wheels.

I hoped all that would be corrected in CMRT.....but it happened the opposite...it got worse.

transportable Antitank-guns and semi-deployed modes are already in the game even sdkfz transport vehicle....i do not think it should be a big "modelleing" issue to give the 88mm their flexiblity.

Someone may say it is not a gamekiller....sure...may be....but what else could be a "real" game killer? I won´t buy the 88mm in its actual condition.....to unflexible and to vulnerable (because of the bad protection/trench system and the high spotting ability and firstshot accuracy of tanks, even on high distances and deep entrenched 88mm)

The germans used the 88mm gun in all roles especially as Anti-tank weapons in roles of fire brigades (if i have it correct in mind there were about 20 000...10 000 as AA in homeland and 10 000 at the fronts) the 88mm was quite often the best way to undermine the russian tank spams not only at beginning of the war (and they had about 150 000 in the war in total ).

The German military would not have "bought" the 88 either if presented with a QB battle type of choice on how to equip themselves for AT defense.

[wadepm]

What about the 88mm AT gun? Was that successful, or still too large to lug around the battlefield?

[kensal]

Zetterling wrote an interesting critique of theory of the AT role of the Flak 36 88mm gun in Normandy.

He quotes source from the HQ of III Flak Korps in which the vulnerability of the weapon in an AT role and its limitations were noted:

- the high silhouette made it difficult to dig in and therefore vulnerable to artillery fire. Proper AT guns were considered to be less vulnerable;

- the high silhouette made it easier to spot the weapons;

- its armour penetration capability was only 15% better than the PAK 40

- its accuracy over long ranges was limited, so its capacity to knock out tanks over long ranges was also limited, and once its position was revealed it was more vulnerable to being taken out by artillery or by the tanks. This may have been less of an issue in the western desert where it was used to knock out tanks at long ranges - and those tanks did not have adequate HE capability and were out of range of british artillery.

As a result of these limitations III Flak Korps was primarily used in an air defence role in Normandy. It had 108 Flak 36 88mm guns (and numerous light AA). it claimed the destruction of 92 tanks during the Normandy campaign, of which 12 were said to have been destroyed by panzerfausts. The Korps claimed to have shot down 462 aircraft. As a comparison the Heer and SS claimed to have destroyed 3,663 tanks during Normandy, so the 80 tanks claimed by the 108 Flak 36 88mm guns of III Flak Korps form a tiny proportion of that total. They were clearly not considered to be nor used in an AT role in Normandy, except in limited situations (i.e. Operation Goodwood).

They were not, at least in Normandy, the wonder AT weapon some people are describing

[JonS]

III Flak Korps was primarily used in an air defence role in Normandy.

Which was, of course, exactly their intended role. They were secondarily used to provide indirect fire support. Only tertiarily(?) were they used in an AT role, and only then in second or third lines. This was the case in GOODWOOD, where they were positioned several kilometres (Cagny was about 5km behind the front?) behind the front line.

Edit: III FK claimed 80 tank kills with the 88, but we know what that means.

[niall78]

Which was, of course, exactly their intended role. They were secondarily used to provide indirect fire support. Only tertiarily(?) were they used in an AT role, and only then in second or third lines. This was the case in GOODWOOD, where they were positioned several kilometres (Cagny was about 5km behind the front?) behind the front line.

Edit: III FK claimed 80 tank kills with the 88, but we know what that means.

I was reading 'Panzer Commander: The Memoirs of Colonel Hans von Luck' recently. After his front had been smashed by carpet bombing he came across an 88mm battery that had a good field of fire on the flank of the Goodwood advance. Von Luck claims in the book to having to pulled his pistol and threaten the battery commander to get him to engage the British tanks in a direct role. The battery commander didn't believe it was his job to directly engage armour and favoured pulling back and setting up his guns in an Anti-aircraft role in a different position.

[BLSTK]

Come on, Niall. Don't leave us hanging.

Who won? The Colonel or the Commander?

[JonS]

Well, it's von Luck's memoir, and he wasn't the most modest of characters . . .

[BLSTK]

I guess we'll just have to wait for the sequel.

[niall78]

Come on, Niall. Don't leave us hanging.

Who won? The Colonel or the Commander?

The Colonel won the contest of wills. The battery commander was spared a bullet and became a hero disabling many British tanks.

[niall78]

Well, it's von Luck's memoir, and he wasn't the most modest of characters . . .

From a military stand point he had little to be modest about.

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

Wiki has a bit about the 88mm battery and Operation Goodwood :

Luck set out for the front, and to his dismay saw a large contingent of British tanks rolling over what had been the dug in positions of I Battalion/125th Panzer Grenadier Regiment, in the direction of Cagny. Spotting a Luftwaffe Flak battery of 88mm guns, Luck ordered the commander to open fire on the flank of the British tanks. The battery commander, a young captain, refused to do so, as he was under orders to engage enemy aircraft. At this refusal Luck drew his service pistol, leveled it at the man and said "Either you're a dead man or you can earn yourself a medal."[21] The battery thus engaging the enemy, Luck spent the remainder of the day furiously trying to plug the gaps in his line. Most of the Kampfgruppes armour had been destroyed in the heavy barrages earlier in the day, so it was left to a few scattered antitank and assault gun batteries to take on the advancing British tanks. In recent years the truth of this portrayal of Luck's guns has been questioned by academics such as Ian Daglish who have studied the aerial photographs of Cagny taken hours after the battle; these show no sign of an 88mm battery or even that one had been positioned in the village. However, no suitable alternative seems to explain the heavy destruction wrought on 11th Armoured.

Assuming the story is fact, the 88mm guns at Cagny had indeed stopped the British advance, inflicting heavy casualties on the 11th Armoured Division. The following division, the Guards Armoured Division did not heed the fate of the 11th, and it too took massive losses in the area, effectively halting the British armoured advance. Advancing without infantry support, the armour units were unable to overcome the entrenched antitank guns. The Luftwaffe 88mm battery Luck commandeered earlier in the day accounted for about 40 British tanks alone. In the afternoon the first elements of the 1st SS Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler had moved up in support and the situation was somewhat stabilized.

During 19 July Luck's Kampfgruppe, still supported by the SS armour, held the British at bay, counterattacking on the flanks and causing them heavy losses. The British advance ground to a halt after having covered only 9 km, and suffering the loss of some 450 tanks. In the evening the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend relieved Luck's men. For his important role in defeating the British in Operation Goodwood Luck earned the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 8 August 1944 as Major and leader of the Panzergreandier-Regiment 125 and was promoted to Oberstleutnant.[22]

I found his sense of forgiveness and understanding (if those are the right words) for his trials inside a Russian Gulag at the end of the war very refreshing. He also made friends with his old adversaries in Normandy. He came across as a decent man.

[Michael Emrys]

I was reading 'Panzer Commander: The Memoirs of Colonel Hans von Luck' recently. After his front had been smashed by carpet bombing he came across an 88mm battery that had a good field of fire on the flank of the Goodwood advance. Von Luck claims in the book to having to pulled his pistol and threaten the battery commander to get him to engage the British tanks in a direct role. The battery commander didn't believe it was his job to directly engage armour and favoured pulling back and setting up his guns in an Anti-aircraft role in a different position.

This came up a year or so back and was soundly discredited. I think the proof was that there was no such unit in that area at the time.

Michael

[niall78]

This came up a year or so back and was soundly discredited. I think the proof was that there was no such unit in that area at the time.

Michael

It's disputed/discredited by a writer who analysed aerial photos of the battle but did zero primary research in the German or British archives.

There's the issue of what exactly knocked out so many British tanks if it wasn't this 88mm battery and there's no doubting Lucks military record in general.

There's a very interesting discussion here :

http://www.ww2f.com/topic/45330-hans-von-luck-and-the-cagny-88s-fact-or-fiction/

Including aerial photos and a guy writing a book who dug up dozens of 88mm shell cases in a position Luck indicated was probably the position of the battery.

[Michael Emrys]

Okay, that may put a different light on the matter. Thanks, niall. Goes to show how hard it can be to pin these things down. Now all we need for someone to show up with a record that a truck engaged with cleaning up the battlefield was destroyed in that location, scattering spent casings...

Michael

[LukeFF]

I finally found what Steve had to say about this matter back in January:

Pak43 (not the Pa43/1) is like the Flak36 in that it has no attached wheels. Therefore, it's not something that was tossed about the battlefield willy nilly, but instead carefully placed and then moved between battles when it was safe. The Pak43/1 is similar, though obviously less troublesome to move relative to the others.

Bottom line is these weapons were not used for improvised roles. They were higher level assets that were deployed ahead of battles, not during. They were also removed prior to battles, not during. Of course there are exceptions to every rule, but that's not a concern to us.

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showpost.php?p=1494820&postcount=246

[TheBog11]

In CM:BB the 88mm build up time was something about 8-10 minutes if i remember right and not 2,5 minute.....and it was not retransportable (3,5min in real life) and it was not capable to firing quite instantly in the mentioned semi-deployed mode still being on wheels.

I hoped all that would be corrected in CMRT.....but it happened the opposite...it got worse.

transportable Antitank-guns and semi-deployed modes are already in the game even sdkfz transport vehicle....i do not think it should be a big "modelleing" issue to give the 88mm their flexiblity.

Someone may say it is not a gamekiller....sure...may be....but what else could be a "real" game killer? I won´t buy the 88mm in its actual condition.....to unflexible and to vulnerable (because of the bad protection/trench system and the high spotting ability and firstshot accuracy of tanks, even on high distances and deep entrenched 88mm)

The germans used the 88mm gun in all roles especially as Anti-tank weapons in roles of fire brigades (if i have it correct in mind there were about 20 000...10 000 as AA in homeland and 10 000 at the fronts) the 88mm was quite often the best way to undermine the russian tank spams not only at beginning of the war (and they had about 150 000 in the war in total ).

You use a lot of ellipses....

Makes you seem kind of....spacey....

[JonS]

Okay, that may put a different light on the matter. Thanks, niall. Goes to show how hard it can be to pin these things down. Now all we need for someone to show up with a record that a truck engaged with cleaning up the battlefield was destroyed in that location, scattering spent casings...

I guess it's lucky that there was exactly one 88 battery in Normandy, and it was engaged in just this one engagement. I mean, what're the chances that those rounds were fired at aircraft, or indirect, or sumfink

FWIW, I think there probably was an 88 det in - or near - Cagny, and vL probably spoke to the commander during the 19th, and the det probably fired on the FF Yeo. However I also think that vL furiously gilded the lily in his memoirs (which is a common trait in all mil memoirs, but especially common amongst WWII German generals). As to what stopped the tanks? Well, I always thought it was mostly down to the large number of Panthers maneuvering and sniping from up on the Bourgebois Ridge.

[niall78]

Okay, that may put a different light on the matter. Thanks, niall. Goes to show how hard it can be to pin these things down. Now all we need for someone to show up with a record that a truck engaged with cleaning up the battlefield was destroyed in that location, scattering spent casings...

Michael

I'm not sure myself if the story is completely rooted in facts - as you say pinning these things down is very difficult and there's certainly room for doubt in Von Lucks story unless primary sources can verify the story. Von Lucks military achievements and major experiences aren't in doubt though unlike a lot of German WW2 personal memoirs.

It amazes me that even for major well known operations like Goodwood that have been written about for decades there is still such fog covering incidents such as Von Lucks story.

Who stymied the assault? Was if Von Luck and this mystery Luftwaffe Flak battery. Was it Major Alfred Becker's Assault-Gun Battalion 200. It probably wasn't Heavy Tank Battalion 503 that had been carpet bombed and need to dig their tanks out and fix their optics. Panthers sniping from up on the Bourgebois Ridge didn't arrive till later in the day. It's all very confusing.

On a side note Major Alfred Becker's unit is very interesting. It contained a lot of improvised armour units - I'd love to have more detail on what exactly was the strange ToE of this Assault-Gun Battalion. Becker could well be the unsung hero of Goodwood from the German side - Luck's story overshadowing his own.

[BLSTK]

Niall, I know very little about this engagement. Could you suggest a title for further reading? (Besides the Colonel's memoirs, OC.)

[Volksgrenadier]

This came up a year or so back and was soundly discredited. I think the proof was that there was no such unit in that area at the time.

:D

The Germans used Houdini and imagined only the losses. The forum propaganda brigade claims the same about the effectiveness of the Stukas. The Germans attacked and simply imagined the effectiveness of the previous dive bomber attack. Imagination was the secret of their combat power.

Ofcourse the 88s in the game are modelled perfectly, like everything else that undermodels German weapons...

And if nothing helps, a smearing author comes handy to be used by the forum brigade to support jokingly bad models...

[A Canadian Cat]

The Germans used Houdini and imagined only the losses. The forum propaganda brigade claims the same about the effectiveness of the Stukas. The Germans attacked and simply imagined the effectiveness of the previous dive bomber attack. Imagination was the secret of their combat power.

Yep, imagination and the accompanying hyperbole then turned into propaganda is exactly what happened.

Ofcourse the 88s in the game are modelled perfectly, like everything else that undermodels German weapons...

Well as you know, assuming you read for facts, they are property modeled except for pack up and deploy which is not in the game. That has been excluded because of a combination of: doing the needed work, adding the needed vehicles has not reached the top of the priority, and the CM tactual time scale is not really conducive to creating a new emplacement for these guns.

And if nothing helps, a smearing author comes handy to be used by the forum brigade to support jokingly bad models...

Now you are being silly. People are upset with you because you are being unreasonable and not arguing about facts but instead conjecture. The fact that 88s cannot be moved or fire on their trailer is not a major draw back for the German forces in this game.

You sound like someone I used to know - I wonder...

[niall78]

Niall, I know very little about this engagement. Could you suggest a title for further reading? (Besides the Colonel's memoirs, OC.)

I have :

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Goodwood-Offensive-Normandy-Stackpole-Military/dp/0811735389/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1398715548&sr=1-3&keywords=operation+goodwood

Which is a pretty good overview. If a bit dry.

The operation also features heavily in the different unit history's of the 21st Panzer Division, the 1st SS Panzer Division and various British unit histories. Most decent Normandy campaign books will also have a Chapter on Goodwood that'll give you a good starting point.

[JonS]

Who stymied the assault? Was if Von Luck and this mystery Luftwaffe Flak battery. Was it Major Alfred Becker's Assault-Gun Battalion 200. It probably wasn't Heavy Tank Battalion 503 that had been carpet bombed and need to dig their tanks out and fix their optics. Panthers sniping from up on the Bourgebois Ridge didn't arrive till later in the day.

This isn't really an either-or situation though. I'd say they all played a role, along with confusion and friction created amongst British by the carpet bombing, delays in getting through 6th ABs unmarked minefields, severely restricted deployment and maneauvre space, lack of fire support as the British soon advanced beyond the range of their artillery and the one FAC available was KOd early, and a little bit of help from the GAF division that was otherwise obliterated.

[sburke]

You sound like someone I used to know - I wonder...

Speaking of which did you see the little neo nazis get togethers in France to celebrate crazy Adolph's 125th birthday? What do you get a dead guy for his 125th? I felt so unprepared.. However my bet is most of the evening was spent watching the cartoon network.

[BLSTK]

What do you get a dead guy for his 125th

I dunno. How about The Fourth Reich?