Get ready to UNLEARN

[Moon]

One thing I expect the simultaneous turns of CM to finally show is some secondary tank features which are so poorly portrayed in traditional IGOUGO games, e.g. turret rotating speed, the speed of the tank itself and possibly even rate of fire.

In "real" time I imagine that, especially on the attack, a Sherman could quickly engage multiple targets and withdraw if incoming fire is too strong. A much heavier tank, like the King Tiger for example, would be much less maneuverable etc.

In a traditional game these differences have little to no effect - I fire when it's my turn to do so, I move when it's the movement phase. In CM everything happens at the same time, and before that KT actually manages to move that big turret towards my tank, I might get off a couple of shots and quickly disappear behind the treeline... little differences which are neglected by most other wargames (that I know at least) but can even things out a little (or significantly when I read Steve's AARs).

[Guest Big Time Software]

Hi Simon, the tanks in CM are simulated using real world values and real world physics, all in a 3D environment. This exposes the Panthers to their real world limitations and dangers. While it is true that the Panther gave an excellent account of itself, it was not hard to lose one. I recently read an account where 2 or 3 were knocked out from a range of almost 3000km by a platoon of M-10s. They also knocked out some PzIVs that were along with them. And I can not count the times that I have read about Panthers being knocked out by things like Bazookas and even the US 57mm AT gun. Shermans were able to get in and kill too, without much problem, if they were at a decent range and got a flank shot in.

Over the years I have really come to understand that the German tanks, while certainly superior in many ways, are NOT the super tanks that wargames make them out to be. Playing Combat Mission will show you that like no other game. If you drive your Panthers and King Tigers around like they are the Queens and Kings of the battlefield, you will shortly find yourself in command of bailed out crews

We are sure that many Grogs are going to blame Combat Mission for inaccuracies in its treatment of armor, but it is in fact the player's lack of caution and attention to good tank tactics that will be behind this. Oh, and probably a decent dose of bad luck too! We are simulating so much more than any other game has even pretended to simulate, and we have found that most of this missing stuff worked FOR the Germans and AGAINST the Allies. Now that we have it all in, things are very different when handled the same old way.

In terms of production... you forget the shipping concerns. The US decided to keep with the short barreled Sherman, with thinner armor, because they could ship many more in one go. Patton was, as I say, in favor of this. There was also the ramp up and down problem. A country can not simply switch production lines overnight. Even the Germans kept producing outdated AFVs long after it was clear that they were outdated. And they very often kept producing the hulls, like with the PzIII, or reusing hulls, like the 38-T. Again, the BULK of the German panzer force in 1944 and 1945 was a mixmosh of vehicles, some fantastic and others not so great. Most were somewhere in between.

The fact is that the US tanks were good enough, and in some ways better, when going up against the average German force. They weren't the horrible, disposable, useless vehicles that some say they are. One US tank ace destroyed 40 German tanks in 6 months, starting from St. Lo, all from his Sherman! Combat Mission will show the true battlefield potential, and pitfalls, of the Sherman. Like with German tanks, if you mishandle the Allied armor you are as good as dead!

Steve

[Harold Jones]

Steve Said <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>it was not hard to lose one. I recently read an account where 2 or 3 were knocked out from a range of almost 3000km by a platoon of M-10s. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Wow that's almost 1800 miles, where were the M10's engaging from?

[Guest Big Time Software]

They were the top secret M-10s that were orbiting the Earth, or didn't you know about these?

Steve

P.S. Uh, try 3000m...

[Los]

There is always a tendency about non miltary (and some military) typoes to argue equipment and weapons performance over all otehr factos in combat. This is of course because these are easily measures by those that don't do the fighting. All this technical talk is nice, butthe tank itself, but the quality of the crew inside and the doctrine that guides them that counts the most.

Not to dismiss numbers, there is of course some critcial point or mass, where numbers overwhelm quality. (This vaires from situation to situation and takes into account other factors like logistics air power and other fire support agencies, etc) , but look at some of the Golan Height enagegements, particularly during Yom Kippur, the Israelis were grossly outnumbers at time smore than Germans in Normandy, but crew quality and doctrine was so lacking that it pushed that critical mass where numbers overwhelms quality far off the edge.

Los

[CRourke]

Good point, Los... I've often heard it said that france had superior med tanks to the germans in 1940, as well as a superior fighter, and look what that got them.

I'm kind of curious about how much more reliable and easier to produce the panther could have been if germany had been concentrating on a thousand other varieties of armor at the time... Or if the engineers had been made to remove all their gadgets and gimmicks, leaving just heavily armored medium tank with a good gun.

Chris R

[Pak40]

Steve,

"Over the years I have really come to understand that the German tanks, while certainly superior in many ways, are NOT the super tanks that wargames make them out to be. Playing Combat Mission will show you that like no other game. If you drive your Panthers and King Tigers around like they are the Queens and Kings of the battlefield, you will shortly find yourself in command of bailed out crews "

I'm reading a book called "The shock of war" by J.C Doherty. It's an account of the northern shoulder of the bulge. I remember reading a section where German Infantry were approaching with assault guns. Artillery was called down upon the Germans. This drove off the infantry. The assault guns refused to move forward, in fact they backed up to safety. They knew that without infantry support, bazooka teams could easily sneak up on a buttoned vehicle.

The Germans had a healthy respect for US AT weapons. Even the large assault guns kept their distance from AT guns.

[Mike T]

A lot of things are being ignored in this discussion of the merits of quantity vs quality. First of all, this war was fought on more than just the Western Front and for a much longer period than from June '44 to May'45. The Eastern Front was where the vast majority of the German forces were deployed. Not only were the German tanks there deployed against large numbers of tanks, but those tanks were also of the same or better quality. Thus, when combined on both the West and East Fronts, those 5000 Panthers faced 30,000 Shermans and 20,000 T-34's and probably another 10,000 KV's and JS's.

Next, I think that you will find that in the majority of cases, the Western Allies would use their Infantry divisions to tie down Panzer divisions while their Armoured divisions attacked the German Infantry divisions and outflanked the Panzer Divisions. In the instances where the opposing armoured forces clashed - most notably in North Africa and in Normandy the Allied forces suffered considerably even when up against just Mk III's and IV's - when up against Tigers and Panthers the losses were horrible. As even the Western Infantry divisions had as much armour as a Panzer Division it becomes apparent that the German Infantry were at a severe disadvantage no matter who they faced.

Lastly, the key to victory is tactics - using the forces you have to maximum advantage. When the Germans invaded the Soviet Union in '41 they faced a similar task that the West faced in '44, using inferior quality tanks against an opponent with better ones. Not only were they at a quality disadvantage, they were at a quantity disadvantage. They won their stunning victories against the Russians for two reasons, better tactics on their part and the wrong tactics on the Soviet part. The same story for the invasion of France in '40. As Steve shows in his After Action Report, even with superior tanks, if you use the wrong tactics you are going to get your butt kicked.

One final note. In my view the reliance of quantity over quality is criminal. You have to realize that when you are willing to trade 5 Shermans to kill 1 Panther that you are effectively sentencing the crews of those tanks to death. This kind of mentality is what caused the massive casualties of the First World War when the idea was that Elan and Dash could allow an infantryman to overcome a machinegun bullet. Remember, the idea is not to die for your country but to let the other poor bastard die for his.

[Brian Rock]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>One final note. In my view the reliance of quantity over quality is criminal. You have to realize that when you are willing to trade 5 Shermans to kill 1 Panther that you are effectively sentencing the crews of those tanks to death. This kind of mentality is what caused the massive casualties of the First World War<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This kind of rough accounting is misleading.

There is a common - and falacious - error in thinking that data from a series of tactical encounters can be generalised to determine operational effectiveness.

(That is an appallingly unclear sentence... this is one of those days when I'm having trouble writing clearly - up too late last night. *yawn*)

Let me try again.

The comparison with WWI is wrong. France 1944 bears little relation operationally with France 1914-18; the inference from kill ratios is simply misleading. There simply wasn't the same pointless slaughter. The Allies *did* breakout, time and time again.

There were problems and failures, but basically the Allies knew how to use movement.

The numerically superior side can often avoid a lot of the one-sided engagements. It also means when you do pick a fight you can overwhelm the enemy more readily.

A war is much more than a series of tactical engagements. If you are winning a non-essential tactical battle at a 5:1 kill ratio while I've broken through on an undefended flank and am shooting up your HQ and logistics, I'm probably going to win.

The quality vs quantity argument is simplistic. The "quantity" Shermans had better mechanical quality: reliable machines that can be fielded after day. The "quality" heavy German tanks often struggled to field units, or get them where they needed to be (eg the Tiger crews were under orders to drive the things slowly because they tended to break down if driven at speed).

I've seen a few debates of the form "the Germans should have won because the KT had a 37.6:1 (or whatever) kill ratio..." blah, blah, blah.

First off all such stats are dubious (eg they are often based on highly selective anecdotal evidence). They don't account for differences of skill, training, tactics or employment of combined arms (eg a tank vs tank comparison is misleading if you are relying on aircraft to do much of your tank killing). They ignore or downplay the factor of defensive vs offensive positioning (eg even Dupuy's figures seem to underestimate the benefits of the defense).

Most importantly this type of analysis confuses the tactical with the operational.

For example, in _Panzer Battles_ von Mellenthin writes of 48th Corps’s tactical success against the understength 5th Tank Army. What he doesn’t consider is that 5th Tanks Army’s attack was intended to pin 48th Pz Corp down, and that while 48th Corps was winning its fight the Middle Don operation destroyed 49 Axis divisions and the Germans were driven from the middle Don.

Despite the "better equipment" the German's lost on every front Panthers and Tigers fought on. The major victories and high kill ratios (operationally speaking) were early with "inferior" equipment. Once the "superior" equipment reached the field they got their butts kicked.

[Simon Fox]

Gee Brian, I don't think Mike was making his 5 to 1 kill ratio comparison as some sort of measure of the operational efficiency of these tanks. Although this discussion is pretty wide ranging (and I am as guilty as any of meandering) I keep trying to make myself think back to the scale of CM which is in fact: "a series of tactical engagements". Panthers and Tigers had their inherent deficiencies and Shermans were superior in some respects which will hopefully be modelled in CM which will should ameliorate slightly the dreadful disparity found in some games. BUT as Los makes a good point about treating the tank in isolation from the crew. From what I have read anecdotally it seems that superiority of these german tanks also had a psychological effect out of proportion to their numbers. This had a well documented negative effect on the offensive performance of allied units because they adopted a very cautious approach. Conversely German confidence in the superiority of their weaponry stiffened their resolve in many instances.

Some posts seem to imply that the US actually decided to adopt an inferior tank because they could make more of them. Personally I think it was inevitable that the allies would have a massive numerical advantage in whatever tank they produced. Basically they made a serious error in their tank design which they elected to live with, probably because as Steve says: "A country can not simply switch production lines overnight." It was just unfortunate for the poor bastards who had to fight in them.

Brian-I think I kind of get the point of your post but take it that you were tired as you say and I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on that last paragraph as your assessment that the Germans got their "butts kicked" following the adoption of superior equipment is a novel outlook on the fall of the 3rd Reich to say the least .

[Los]

There's a great book called "On Infantry" by John English???<Can't remember his name will post it from home later>. I think it was that book, though it could have been another that's points up interesting differences in training of junior leaders between the major powers. Let me sumarize an example:

Pre-war/early war officer training...

IN UK junior officer training, the students are brought together over a piece of terrain. They are given a situation, forces available and mission. Discussion is made over what they are to get out of the exercize. Several students are tasked with leading the exercize and over night draw up their plans to be implemented in the next day's class.

IN German junior officer training, the students are brought together over a piece of terrain. They are given a situation, forces available and mission. Discussion is made over what they are to get out of the exercize. Several students are tasked with leading the exercize and given TEN MINUTES to draw up their plans and implement them immediately. Though the plans may be screwed up, or execution shoddy, students were not criticized for showing initiative or Not to mention the fact that you can train a hell of a lot more exercizes with tis method.

It is with junior leaders like this that Germany went to war and turned teh military establishments up side down. Of course as casualties began to take their toll, and the Allies (Slowly) but steadily began to emulate German practices that things began evening out.

BTW I'm constantly annoyed with Steven Ambrose's (repeated) quips about how the Germans were robots or automatons much less capable of displaying initaive than their US counterparts. A load of horse**** if there ever was one. There's no doubt that some decisions ("Don't wake up Hitler he's sleeping!" on June 6th for example, which is teh exampel he's always touting), were damn stupid and displayed that tendancy, however there doesn't seem to be any greater display (ON THE WHOLE, of course individually there were exceptions) of stunning initaitive by the ALlies over the Germans on a regular basis.

I agree about stats having their place but it's how those tools are used that matter. Dupuy of course has his very detailed statistical assessments of German performance during the war which point oput the fact that regardless of early war, late war, on defense or on offense, they doled out more casualties against the allies on a consistent basis. Still this is where that critical mass of quantity eventually (or at some point) overcoming qualitative edges comes into play. And quantity is sustained not just by superior porduction but also by superior logistics, replacement systems, etc etc. And that's where the Allies came through pretty well.

Cheers...

Los

(interesting threads here...)

[Guest Big Time Software]

I think there are a few good points that have been hammered home in this loooooong thread. They are:

1. That the US tanks weren't the easy pushovers that German tank bigots would like to think they are. Armor and other stats only tell some of the story when two tanks go up against each other.

2. German tanks weren't as strong as some games suggest. Like I have said, the Panther had VERY thin side armor, even if well sloped. This meant that pretty much any Allied AT gun could whack a Panther from the side. When attacking, side shots are VERY hard to protect against.

3. The Allied strategy of quantity vs. quality isn't as black and white as it seems. Sure, one on one I would take a Panther over a Sherman. But I think I would rather take 10 Shermans over 5 Panthers in a CM game. Not 100% sure I would, but if the terrain was hilly and/or wooded I think I would.

4. The Allied strategy allowed the Allies to use armor whenever and wherever they wanted to. Even US infantry divisions had enough armor that they could take on a German Panzer division and win in many cases.

The thing to take away from this thread is that CM simulates the realities of Allied armor at the tactical level like no other game so far. As my after action report shows, the German tanks need to be treated carefully or they will be lost.

BTW, Simon... we have modeled (to some degree) the psychological factors of the German vehicals on Allied troops. This is done through the spotting model. A US unit, for example, is MUCH more likely to guess wrong about some armor noise or brief glimps. And the results of this guess will most likely make the vehicle bigger than it really is. Example: a Green US infantry squad "hears" something coming around the bend. Instead of guessing that it is a Stug (probably the most common German tank) it might guess that it is a Tiger (one of the least common German tanks). Now, as the player (or AI) you will be forced to act on this information. If you think it is a Tiger, then you might do something like stop an offensive or pull stuff back. But what if it really was a Stug? On the other hand, perhaps it *IS* a Tiger and you think it is a Stug. Imagine what is going to happen when you find out that you are really up against!

Steve

[Mike T]

I think Brian misinterpreted my comparison to the casualties in WWI. What I meant was that if you are willing to accept those kind of casualties simply because of your advantage in quantity then you are acting under the same state of mind prevalent among the Western leaders of WWI. During WWII, mindful of the waste of lives in the previous war (and several of them having fought in that war) the leaders of the Western armies were not willing to accept those horrendous casualties and adjusted their tactics to achieve victory without this slaughter. I really don't think that the Western leaders (and the people of the Western Alliance) of WWII were willing to accept those casualty rates - their use of the quantity over quality quotient was not in a head to head situation where 'I might win if I swamp the defence with tanks but suffer huge losses in return' strategy, but in the 'I'll use some of my tanks to pin your quality in place while I outflank you with my quantity' strategy - which is precisely the type of strategy which you've outlined in your statement. You'll notice that I've left the Soviets out of my statement as I believe that they used both strategies to full effect since IMO they had little regard for the value of human life (apologies in advance to any Russians I may have offended).

On the whole, the point I was trying to make with that statement about criminality was that as gamers we tend to abstract the real cost of war and I was hoping that I could jolt people back to trying to relate those game pieces to real people - which is precisely the same mentality that many WWI generals had - that they didn't relate those little coloured pins on their maps to real people and thus didn't realise the true cost of their decisions. Just as an idea of what I mean, try to see the movie "Oh What a Lovely War" - a black comedy about WWI made in Britain in the mid 70's (I believe).

[Brian Rock]

First of all, I'd like to repeat a point Fionn made recently: it's nice to have discussions like these in a forum without the abusive flaming and that seems the norm on so many other sites.

Mike: I did misinterpret your comment about the Western allies attitudes to casualties in WWI vs WWII. Thanks for clarifying this - yes we are basically in agreement here.

(I do think the situation in Russia is a bit more complex. Orders were given for commanders not to waste soldiers, and officers were removed from command for wasting soldiers lives. OTOH, there were certainly cases of incompetent commanders ordering needless and wastefull assaults, and there was a more - ahem - "pragmatic" attitude towards lives.

On balance I would suggest that the popular conception of the Russians winning by dint of mass and materiel over brainpower is seriously flawed. But this is another thread probably best left for the CM2)

Simon wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>

Brian-I think I kind of get the point of your post but take it that you were tired as you say and I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on that last paragraph as your assessment that the Germans got their "butts kicked" following the adoption of superior equipment is a novel outlook on the fall of the 3rd Reich to say the least .<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Heh. Yeah, I can see the ambiguity there.

I wasn't arguing for a causal relationship, that superior equipment lead the Germans to defeat.

The point I intended to make is that the relationship between equipment and outcome is clearly *not* deterministic - that having better armor or guns does not automatically lead to victory. Tank gun size and armor thickness is only a part of warfighting.

[Jeff D]

In discussing quality vs quantity there is a historical context that should be remembered -- especially with respect to Panthers vs Shermans. The US military philosophy at the time was tank destruction belonged to tank destroyers. The medium tank was not designed to hunt other tanks. Infantry support and exploitation were its major roles. In those roles, the Sherman was a high quality tank – its main draw back being its high silhouette. In hindsight we found that this separation of roles doesn’t work. But it was believed to work when the tanks were designed. There was no preconceived notion of trading 5 Shermans to 1 Panther -- tank crews were and are expensive to train. The reality of warfare forced Sherman crew to fight superior tanks (in terms of Penetration and Armor). Those crews that were most successful used their tank to its fullest -- superior turret traverse, the gyrostabilizer which allowed the tank to fire and target on the move, its smoke mortar, firing HE and MGs while facing your opponents forward target aspects to keep them buttoned up.

I think we all realize that if US tank doctrine had decided that we needed a main battle tank on par with the Panther, we could have produced just as many as we did of Shermans. Doctrine started to change and thus the Pershing (but remember that it was still a medium tank, even though it was categorized as a heavy for morale purposes).

[Warren]

Hmmm...I know this post is a little after the fact, but, I wonder what would have happened if Germany had fielded 50,000 Panthers against 5,000 Allied Shermans?

Nah...forget about it...schtupid qveschun.

[Fionn]

Answer: We'd all be doing a lot of Sieg Heiling is the answer to your question

[Guest BigAlMoho]

In reality, Germany would probably have had to rebuild Europe after nuclear devastation rather than having Europe rebuilt in the historical manner... .. . ?

[Stef]

Hi,

Just some ideas launched in the pot to,maybe , give some precisions or nuance to topics found in this chat.

First I have to say I'm from Belgium ( so sorry for the very bad english you gonna have to undergo )

I think the main factor of the Allied victory is mostly due to their number. My idea is the quality of the soldiers or of the material don't had a lot of weight in the balance at the end of the war , Germany was " out of blood ".

Some very general ideas to depict this:

1) Most of the german soldiers were more experienced and more trained for self-initiative than a lot of Allied soldiers (mostly SS). This caused, I think, by the fact that they were making non-stop war since 1939 and so have earned a very good experience ( despite the casualities and the incessant replacement by a lot "greens" who had to learn very fast to face this critical situation). It gonna seems strange to some people but even if the germans are always depicted by Hollywood as "rigid sticks" and US Gi's as "cool chewing-gum eaters" the german discipline (most in the SS) was more turned toward friendship and self-initiative in their training than in any other allied armies or in the Wermacht ( The SS-Wiking leader Felix Steiner book , " Assault troops " is still used as a basic reference for modern infantry tactic in a lot of armies I think...) . Of course this can't be generalized ,some german units were still from the " old school " as were a lot of allied/Axis unites ( The point is also the allied soldiers (mostly US and UK ....French and Belgians were "very old school"),not endoctrinated, no " political soldiers " and not having this " arrogant " attitude were more able to adapt themself to a new kind of situation/combat. ) Germans were more stick to the orders and punishement for no obediance were more expeditive. ! ! It was the paradoxe of the german soldiers : taught to self-initiative and to much discipline/fanatism. ! ! ( All I depict here is the point of view of my grand father who was a Hungarian soldier who had fought ( ? ?) on the eastern-font along with the german troops and was always astonished of the " warrior brotherhood " between german soldiers and officers, brotherhood which didn't exist in traditional conservative Hungarian army).

2)Germany was the spearhead of military technology (first rockets,best tanks,planes,...) in that era but they were so outnumbered/"out of everything" that they couldn't really achieve ,neither product in mass any of their new weapons ( hopefully !). But according again to my grand father and an old waffen-SS soldier, the " legend " of Tiger tank and such stuffs really brought a moral boost to the soldiers ( but when you're back to the wall, you're ready to believe everything). Sure that feeling yourselves like in a ambulant coffin at the command of a Sherman/Pz IV can't help you to get out of a bad situation.( Hopefully they never had 50,000 Panther tanks ! ! !)

- About the Russian tactic (yes...I know...it's for CM II….. " On balance I would suggest that the popular conception of the Russians winning by dint of mass and materiel over brainpower is seriously flawed. "

It's true and not. We don't have to forget that Stalinien's purge of the Tsar army have killed a lot of competent officers and put instead of them political/un-competent officers ( a lot of intelectual were assasinated too like it also happened in Germany) . Also, old URSS was so a big country that you could find totally opposite minds/education (i.e. about life and dead) between the Ukraine and to the Ural mountains. (Lot of ukrainiens had welcomed the germans as liberator from Stalinism). Again, according to the SS-soldier, he told having fought with such people than him ( young fanatic soldiers), regular soldier and totaly "crazy" soldiers ( mostly from " punishement " regiments...pushed forward by unscrupulous officers ) charging the german lines without weapons ( in fact they could have weapons : the ones they could grab from the germans !) just to consume german ammunitions. (hopefully, something the allied would have never accepted in their war politic !) On the other hand, my grand father never told me about such stories and always was confronted to regulars ! ! ! It's also important to make a difference between western and eastern front as this last one was a real " war of hatred " which made it " seem(??) more cruel than the western side.

- Hope I haven't gave any headache !

and I'm sure CM gonna be the game I'm now waiting for 10 years. Keep on the good work ! !

"Make wargames and not war !"

Cheers!

[Simon Fox]

Some good points in that post and a few to argue about too . But this thread is so looong it takes an age to load. Time to start a new one I think.