Horse transport

[Guest tero]

>On Arty 'But not nearly as quickly as, later in the war, self-propelled artillery could be positioned. Horses took a couple of hours, half-tracks at least half an hour, but SP guns could open fire within seconds of halting.'(1990 Deighton) Guess which one were deployed closer to the front?

The ones that had the shortest effective range. Naturally.

Are we are now talking about indirect or direct fire ? I think Deighton is murking the water by mixing apples with oranges to make the SP artillery look sexier. I assume Deighton is talking about a full battery to full combat readiness with sufficient ammo to execute prolonged fire missions, not a single gun being deployd for hasty direct fire action. From the arty fire procedure point of view that "a couple of hours penalty to horse drawn artillery" argument is not quite accurate and thus it is irrelevant. All of the above take that "couple of hours" to set up if it all is done by the book. No matter how fast they can start firing, that two hours assumes prepared arty positions with camouflaged firing positions and full ammo stocks - ie the works. In a tactical, "snapshot" fire over open sights situation the SP is of course the fastest, the horse drawn gun is as fast (if not even faster ) to set up as the the HT/truck drawn gun (reasoning: if the team is moving limbered and the enemy is spotted in front of them there may not be room or suitable terrain to move the motor vehicle out of the way while the unlimbered horse team can go practically anywhere). The non-SP gun still remains as heavy to manhandle, wether it is towed by a motorized vehicle or a team of horses. The only real question is how much "ready" ammo does the limber carry. And ALL limbers do carry some.

Incidentaly, I trust you are aware there were different gun carriages made according to the need. The ones intended for motorized tow were equipped with suspension that could handle the increased speed of the motorized vehicle while the ones intended for use with horses were not as robust. It would be nice to know, for the sake of this debate, the ratio of carriages manufactured to determine how many guns the Germans had that were actually suited to be towed with a motor vehicle.

>Also your 'perfectly feasible scenario' never occured, paras jumped in to secure postions that were static to break the dead lock not to catch fleeing german infantry div on the move. Maybe its a 'perfectly feasible scenario', but not to me or history for that matter. There were only 3 drop operations carried out by allied para forces, I have never read any of these 'perfectly feasible scenario' occuring.

Really ? From what I have read about the D-Day Para (June 1944) actions the jumps missed the drop zones more often than not and that they did have to move around quite a bit to reach their designated drop zones, rally points and intended objective locations. These included villages, cross roads, bridges and other point objectives of similar nature. The Germans had to deploy forces from garrisons to secure key locations. There were numerous battles fought that can be said to have been meeting engagements. The fact that it did not happen 100% as I envisioned it is really besides the point. The operative word is after all "feasible".

>The fact that 7,5cm IG were so light should indicate that pushing them around for several hundred metres was not usual and were desgined along with the 3,7cm PaK for this,

Ever tried moving one around dragging full combat ammo load with you ? The Soviet 45mm AT gun (which is comparable to the 37mm PAK in size and weight) is an absolute bitch to push around for more than 50 meters or so. Our team was doing it over fairly even ground. And we did not have to take into account possible enemy action. BTW: I think the exhaustion caused by pushing these babies around is underrated in CM. The crews recover a bit too fast. As we are talking about the scope of combat of CM I would say that in the 20min/60min timeframe the gun crews could not have pushed the guns around for several hundred meters without becomming totally exhausted, even to a point where the accuracy and response time of fire would have been affected very adversely.

Anyway, for any prolonged movements there should be a transport of some sort available. Including the horse drawn limber.

> the 15cm sIG were another matter and had the same problems as the bigger guns indicated above, although to a lesser extent, which is why the Germans were so intrested in placing them in chassies such as the Grille at least for the Panzer and Pz Grenadier Divs, or why most infantry Divshad moved to 81cm and 12cm mortars at this stage of the war for their indirect capabilty.

Yes. But what about the Infantry divisions and their needs in direct fire support ? There were not enough SP's like the Stug. The 75mm IG's were around for the duration of the war, so were the horses drawing the artillery (and other stuff).

[Guest Germanboy]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by tero:

But what about the Infantry divisions and their needs in direct fire support ? There were not enough SP's like the Stug. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

As Bastables said (and getting into another debate), this was handled by producing mortars. According to Wilmot 'The struggle for Europe' (his figures are either from the Strategic Bombing Survey or from German original documents), the monthly production of 81mm mortars was 7-8 times that of IGs in 1944 (2,000-2,500 vs. 300-350 per month). This makes sense, since they were easier to produce and to handle, AFAIK. It would be interesting to know where the IGs went (east, west or Italy, ordinary IDs or motorised/Panzerdivisions).

This has nothing to do with the horses question, just saying that IMO the humble mortar came to replace the IG at this stage in the war. I would be glad to receive some confirmation on these production figures and on where they went.

------------------

Andreas

<a href="http://www.geocities.com/greg_mudry/sturm.html">Der Kessel</a >

Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission.

[This message has been edited by Germanboy (edited 11-23-2000).]

[Bastables]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by tero:

>On Arty 'But not nearly as quickly as, later in the war, self-propelled artillery could be positioned. Horses took a couple of hours, half-tracks at least half an hour, but SP guns could open fire within seconds of halting.'(1990 Deighton) Guess which one were deployed closer to the front?

The ones that had the shortest effective range. Naturally.

Are we are now talking about indirect or direct fire ? I think Deighton is murking the water by mixing apples with oranges to make the SP artillery look sexier. I assume Deighton is talking about a full battery to full combat readiness with sufficient ammo to execute prolonged fire missions, not a single gun being deployd for hasty direct fire action. From the arty fire procedure point of view that "a couple of hours penalty to horse drawn artillery" argument is not quite accurate and thus it is irrelevant. All of the above take that "couple of hours" to set up if it all is done by the book. No matter how fast they can start firing, that two hours assumes prepared arty positions with camouflaged firing positions and full ammo stocks - ie the works. In a tactical, "snapshot" fire over open sights situation the SP is of course the fastest, the horse drawn gun is as fast (if not even faster ) to set up as the the HT/truck drawn gun (reasoning: if the team is moving limbered and the enemy is spotted in front of them there may not be room or suitable terrain to move the motor vehicle out of the way while the unlimbered horse team can go practically anywhere). The non-SP gun still remains as heavy to manhandle, wether it is towed by a motorized vehicle or a team of horses. The only real question is how much "ready" ammo does the limber carry. And ALL limbers do carry some.

Incidentaly, I trust you are aware there were different gun carriages made according to the need. The ones intended for motorized tow were equipped with suspension that could handle the increased speed of the motorized vehicle while the ones intended for use with horses were not as robust. It would be nice to know, for the sake of this debate, the ratio of carriages manufactured to determine how many guns the Germans had that were actually suited to be towed with a motor vehicle.

>Also your 'perfectly feasible scenario' never occured, paras jumped in to secure postions that were static to break the dead lock not to catch fleeing german infantry div on the move. Maybe its a 'perfectly feasible scenario', but not to me or history for that matter. There were only 3 drop operations carried out by allied para forces, I have never read any of these 'perfectly feasible scenario' occuring.

Really ? From what I have read about the D-Day Para (June 1944) actions the jumps missed the drop zones more often than not and that they did have to move around quite a bit to reach their designated drop zones, rally points and intended objective locations. These included villages, cross roads, bridges and other point objectives of similar nature. The Germans had to deploy forces from garrisons to secure key locations. There were numerous battles fought that can be said to have been meeting engagements. The fact that it did not happen 100% as I envisioned it is really besides the point. The operative word is after all "feasible".

>The fact that 7,5cm IG were so light should indicate that pushing them around for several hundred metres was not usual and were desgined along with the 3,7cm PaK for this,

Ever tried moving one around dragging full combat ammo load with you ? The Soviet 45mm AT gun (which is comparable to the 37mm PAK in size and weight) is an absolute bitch to push around for more than 50 meters or so. Our team was doing it over fairly even ground. And we did not have to take into account possible enemy action. BTW: I think the exhaustion caused by pushing these babies around is underrated in CM. The crews recover a bit too fast. As we are talking about the scope of combat of CM I would say that in the 20min/60min timeframe the gun crews could not have pushed the guns around for several hundred meters without becomming totally exhausted, even to a point where the accuracy and response time of fire would have been affected very adversely.

Anyway, for any prolonged movements there should be a transport of some sort available. Including the horse drawn limber.

> the 15cm sIG were another matter and had the same problems as the bigger guns indicated above, although to a lesser extent, which is why the Germans were so intrested in placing them in chassies such as the Grille at least for the Panzer and Pz Grenadier Divs, or why most infantry Divshad moved to 81cm and 12cm mortars at this stage of the war for their indirect capabilty.

Yes. But what about the Infantry divisions and their needs in direct fire support ? There were not enough SP's like the Stug. The 75mm IG's were around for the duration of the war, so were the horses drawing the artillery (and other stuff).

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

So what your saying is that the Div fire support was deployed in the direct firesupport role with the leading elements, because at this stage of the war at Regt and below Mortars were the prefered indirect weapons due to there speed into action over horse drawn IG's. I'm sorry but your going to have give me these AAR which state the use of IGs in the direct fire support role in the battle front with guns being unlimbred in the face of enemy fire in attempts to clear paras from crossroads. Horse drawn arty was behind the lines in prepared positions not rippling across normandy as if it were the Nepolonic wars.

[Guest YK2]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by PeterNZer:

for goodness sake man, are you telling me soldiers rode around on the battlefield? "come on fritz, get Donner und Blitzen to drag that gun to those trees over there, never mind the yankie tanks". Blah Blah Blah.............

Well I'll join in. I think we should have the cookery companies in here too! I want to buy SS cookery companies! I bet they do a much better apfelstrudel than anyone else Blah Blah Blah..........

And cyclists, yeah! I mean, you could 'move fast' and charge down the allies on your bicycles. This happened all the time in ww2!

Really.

People, if you want horses in CM, what are you going to do with them? realistically they'd be sitting about 1km away in a padock with some pimply lad looking after them. Same argument for bicycles, infantry DID NOT storm the enemy picket ridding a bike, they dumped them some way away. Unless you think BTS should take some time out to model a bike rack and bikes in the middle of town.Blah Blah Blah.............

I'm an optomist, perhaps beating your heads against the wall will improve things, go try it.

PeterNZ

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Now Peter,take deep breaths and Repeat after me.............

Rhudolf the Red nosed Reindeer...........

------------------

"What about those other a**holes? Mark IV? jdmorose? OldGimpyStumpoFile? Yak2? PatBoone? Gerbilboy?"

[PeterNZer]

Now there's nothing wrong with assault Reindeer on the battlefield! Happened all the time in Finland

.. had a very shiny nose

PeterNZ

[Guest tero]

>So what your saying is that the Div fire support was deployed in the direct firesupport role with the leading elements, because at this stage of the war at Regt and below Mortars were the prefered indirect weapons due to there speed into action over horse drawn IG's.

The question is were the 75mm IG's used in Divisional, Regimental or Company fire support, direct and/or indirect ? Or option D: All of the above. Were they in fact used in direct fire support role in below Regimental level ? How often were the higher echelon fire support elements entangeled in direct fire firefights with enemy units, for what ever reason ? Also, how far back EXACTLY were the horses from the guns. Tommi stated 750 meters behind the FRONT LINE, which in CM terms in a large map (even in a small map) is quite close to the imaginary half map line. I you set up a custom battle where the attacking Allies get 1/3rd of the map area from the out set that 750 meters is well within the confines of the map.

>I'm sorry but your going to have give me these AAR which state the use of IGs in the direct fire support role in the battle front with guns being unlimbred in the face of enemy fire in attempts to clear paras from crossroads.

Why ? You seem to be willing to entertain all sorts of "what if" scenarios in other contexts so why not also this one ? Or am I making too much sense and you have to fight my arguments with demands I produce smoking gun evidence of an actual engagement of this kind. If you are going puritanist history buff on me you will have to start demanding the horses be represented in the game as a matter of cause.

Do you accept Finnish AAR's ? I can access some at short notice so I can look up if there were any recorded incidents of guns unlimbering to fight the on coming enemy. Off hand I remember some but to produce proper source info I need to look up my library.

Here is one that gives evidence to the contrary: at the start of the Soviet assault in the summer of 1944 at least one Finnish division lost most of its artillery because most of its horses and tractors were doing farm work far behind the front line and could not be brought forth quick enough to be able to save the guns.

>Horse drawn arty was behind the lines in prepared positions not rippling across normandy as if it were the Nepolonic wars.

That is the general rule. But you do agree sometimes there was not enough time to prepare the positions or to pull the horse drawn artillery back and they had to duke it out with the enemy over open sights ? I have seen pictures taken during the battle that show dead horses in the Normandy area of operations. At that point they were not rippling anywhere anymore but they at least show they were there.

[Guest tero]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by PeterNZer:

Now there's nothing wrong with assault Reindeer on the battlefield! Happened all the time in Finland

PeterNZ<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Actually, that would fall under the cathegory of "gamey recon".

And yes, they were actually used in the Lapland just like the horses were used elsewhere.

Trivial Pursuit tid bit: Rudolf is Petteri Punakuono in Finnish

[This message has been edited by tero (edited 11-23-2000).]

[PeterNZer]

There's not nearly enough 'i's, and those words aren't really long enough to be REAL finish, you're making it up!

PeterNZ

[Guest tero]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by PeterNZer:

There's not nearly enough 'i's, and those words aren't really long enough to be REAL finish, you're making it up!

PeterNZ<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

OK. Try this one for size:

vesihiisi sihisi hississä (spirit of the water hissed in the elevator). :-D

[PeterNZer]

ok that looks like real Finish!

You're let off, now go off and cut down those trees with a herring etc etc, like a Real Finn!

PeterNZ

[Guest Germanboy]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by tero:

I have seen pictures taken during the battle that show dead horses in the Normandy area of operations. At that point they were not rippling anywhere anymore but they at least show they were there.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Point of order - I have seen lots of pictures from Normandy with dead cows - does that mean that cows were used to tow guns? If so, could we have a morale bonus for the Germans, because they would get fresh milk every day. And we could have scenarios where the English infantry goes out to capture a cow to ensure milk supply for their brew-up.

Seriously, these horses more likely than not (if dead lying around the frontline) were farm animals. The tractor was very uncommon in those days.

As for the distance - if we accept the 750m behind the frontline it is still quite a bit. This would put it out of reach for all but the largest maps in CMBO (2x3.2km is the current max size, IIRC). Even there the question stands whether it is worth it from a coding point of view.

------------------

Andreas

<a href="http://www.geocities.com/greg_mudry/sturm.html">Der Kessel</a >

Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission.

[This message has been edited by Germanboy (edited 11-23-2000).]

[Guest tero]

>Point of order - I have seen lots of pictures from Normandy with dead cows - does that mean that cows were used to tow guns?

Valid point. One way to verify is to accertain if the cows were harnessed or if they had fallen in front of a (demolished) limber or cart.

:-D

>If so, could we have a morale bonus for the Germans, because they would get fresh milk every day. And we could have scenarios where the English infantry goes out to capture a cow to ensure milk supply for their brew-up.

Now you mention it.... why are there no hens and the chickens (the poltry) in CM, except in the sound effects (if even there) ? :-D

>Seriously, these horses more likely than not (if dead lying around the frontline) were farm animals. The tractor was very uncommon in those days.

True. But then again the Germans commandeered all "excess" horses to war duty.

>This would put it out of reach for all but the largest maps in CMBO (2x3.2km is the current max size, IIRC).

Depends where you determine the front line runs.

>Even there the question stands whether it is worth it from a coding point of view.

Up to the guys in the shop. But so far the reasons they have given do not include "coding difficulties". They have done a marvelous job so far so I would imagine the coding for a realistic horse drawn vehicle is not beyond them.

[tss]

nijis wrote:

Actually,there's a truly excellent movie about Finnish bicycle troops in the Continuation War upon whose scenes I'd really like to base some scenarios.

That movie is very loosely based on a real mission of two jääkäri platoons under command of Lt. Pentti Perttuli. In the real life the unit met Soviets three times during the mission and there was only one combat.

1) A small Soviet unit was guarding the burned bridge (that was really almost 300 meter long). This unit withdrew without combat because they weren't sure of how many Finns were coming. Perttuli's men noticed their foxholes when they reconned the area.

2) Another small unit had prepared an ambush on a small bridge over a brook. This unit hesistated opening fire and the first squad passed the defence line. At this point the Soviets became concerned that if they now opened fire, they would be encircled and they decided to let the unit pass. Perttuli found out about this ambush only about a week later when one of the would-be ambushers was captured and told the story. Note that the usual practice was to stop before a brook and send a half-platoon on foot to outflank the possible defences. So a probable ambush spot was not approached from front. However, this happened late in night after the unit had cycled for the whole day and Finns were getting careless.

3) The unit was ambushed on another bridge North of Koroli the next day. That bridge was just after a steep hill that had caused the bikes to get in a big clump. When the Soviets opened fire Perttuli was certain that the point platoon would be destroyed immediately. Luckily, the defenders were green and all of them had aimed at corporal Juho Kärkkäinen, the point man, so rest of the platoon had time to get in cover. Also, the road had a turn just before the bridge and its exact position was covered by thick bushes and that caused the Soviets to fire about a meter too high. Finns returned fire and a firefight raged for about 15 minutes before Finns retreated. Later it was found out by blood traces that at least two Soviets were wounded or killed. The only casualty on Finnish side was Kärkkäinen who was hit by 10-15 bullets. Quite amazingly, he survived and was able to crawl back to Koroli where the rest of the unit had retreated. I don't know whether he returned to front later or was he released from service, but at least his name is not in the database of Finnish KIAs so he survived the war.

The climatic end battle didn't happen in the real life and the unit managed to get contact with own troops at Virta Straits. However, the Soviets did have positions in the area so the combat could have happened and the unit just got lucky by choosing an undefended route.

I think the Finnish version translates as the "Road to Mustapekka" or something.

"Road to Rukajärvi", to be exact. Rukajärvi was a village near a lake with the same name where Finnish advance was later stopped. However, the lake in the movie is Lieksajärvi that lies several dozens of kilometers West of Rukajärvi.

- Tommi

[Guest YK2]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by PeterNZer:

Now there's nothing wrong with assault Reindeer on the battlefield! Happened all the time in Finland

.. had a very shiny nose

PeterNZ<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

But did you ever see them...........

------------------

"What about those other a**holes? Mark IV? jdmorose? OldGimpyStumpoFile? Yak2? PatBoone? Gerbilboy?"

[Guest Germanboy]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by YK2:

But did you ever see them...........

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, I have seen pictures of Russian long-range patrols wearing necklaces made from the Reindeer's red noses. Stavka required these as proof of the destruction wrought unto the Finnish supply trains and arty units by the Russian units.

297% of all horse-drawn transport north of Lake Peipus was actually carried out by Reindeer in Winter 1944. The Russians benefited hugely from a little known extension of lend-lease under which the Canadians provided them with Moose which, being stronger and bigger than Reindeer, from 17th October 1944 made a huge difference in logistics effectiveness and enabled the Russians to destroy Army Group North. The program was named 'A Moose is for war, not just for looking stupid in Canada'.

------------------

Andreas

<a href="http://www.geocities.com/greg_mudry/sturm.html">Der Kessel</a >

Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission.

[This message has been edited by Germanboy (edited 11-23-2000).]

[PeterNZer]

and moose have bigger spikey horny things, much more dangerous

[Guest YK2]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Germanboy:

Well, I have seen pictures of Russian long-range patrols wearing necklaces made from the Reindeer's red noses.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Awwwwwwww sheesh, If Peng gets to hear this it might give him ideas.

------------------

"What about those other a**holes? Mark IV? jdmorose? OldGimpyStumpoFile? Yak2? PatBoone? Gerbilboy?"

[patboivin]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by PeterNZer:

and moose have bigger spikey horny things, much more dangerous<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

But they are blind.

They would only be good for charging.

[Bastables]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by tero:

>

>I'm sorry but your going to have give me these AAR which state the use of IGs in the direct fire support role in the battle front with guns being unlimbred in the face of enemy fire in attempts to clear paras from crossroads.

Why ? You seem to be willing to entertain all sorts of "what if" scenarios in other contexts so why not also this one ? Or am I making too much sense and you have to fight my arguments with demands I produce smoking gun evidence of an actual engagement of this kind. If you are going puritanist history buff on me you will have to start demanding the horses be represented in the game as a matter of cause.

Do you accept Finnish AAR's ? I can access some at short notice so I can look up if there were any recorded incidents of guns unlimbering to fight the on coming enemy. Off hand I remember some but to produce proper source info I need to look up my library.

.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Normandy incidents, if you have none say so.

[nijis]

Thanks, Tommi, for all the info. I guess one shouldn't expect non-Hollywood war movies to be any more dead-on accurate than the Hollywood stuff, although with the exception of the final battle and a couple other details it sounds like they stayed pretty close to the actual events.

[Guest tero]

>Normandy incidents, if you have none say so.

I have not come across any.

But does that mean it never ever happened ?

Your turn:

Please produce hard evidence that the German horse drawn artillery was never ever forced to deploy from marching order to hasty direct fire positions to counter enemy actions. Or that German horse drawn guns were never ever moved near the front with the horse teams to redeploy them to better firing positions.

[This message has been edited by tero (edited 11-24-2000).]

[Bastables]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by tero:

>Normandy incidents, if you have none say so.

I have not come across any.

But does that mean it never ever happened ?

Your turn:

Please produce hard evidence that the German horse drawn artillery was never ever forced to deploy from marching order to hasty direct fire positions to counter enemy actions. Or that German horse drawn guns were never ever moved near the front with the horse teams to redeploy them to better firing positions.

[This message has been edited by tero (edited 11-24-2000).]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Proving a negative? How very quaint, try again.

Yes well since CM does not model Horses the onus is on you to provide the evidence that this happened to such a great degree that perhaps there are German battle drills dealing with such, since it would be something that was practiced before hand but apparently dropped with the advent of mortars, negating the need to deploy guns from there limbers for direct fire support in the face of enemy fire. So you have nothing then, nothing at all.

------------------

From the jshandorf

"Why don't we compare reality to the game like Bastables likes to do all the time?"

Mr T's reply

"Don't touch me FOO!"

"Yes that's right Jerry, RUN, Run for your little lives because Tommy's gotten close enough to assault mhahahahah."

Nizam al-Mulk, (Order of the realm) In speaking of his superb disregard of maneuver warfare, in the destruction of OGSF hamsters who then carried on to flee the battle in their own notion of maneuver warfare. Tally HO!

[Guest tero]

>Proving a negative? How very quaint, try again.

No need. Both of our positions lie in the realm of "what if" and a load of probabilities and possibilities. My glass is half full while yours is half empty. Or vice versa.

>Yes well since CM does not model Horses the onus is on you to provide the evidence that this happened to such a great degree that perhaps there are German battle drills dealing with such,

I know for a fact that ALL towed artillery units practice speedy deployment, no matter what the towing vehicle is powered by.....

well, least least in the Finnish army as even today we have subtantial numbers of towed artillery units. And they STILL practise firing over open sights as a matter or course, in case they get up close and personal with the enemy. Even a T-80 or M-1 feels the sting of a 155mm HE shell hitting it in the face.

>since it would be something that was practiced before hand but apparently dropped with the advent of mortars,

So the artillery pukes unlearned their hard learned and practised drilles when they could count on the mortars to take the brunt of the fighting. I do not think so. And the advent of mortars did not make the horses turn into trucks over night.

>negating the need to deploy guns from there limbers for direct fire support in the face of enemy fire.

That does not make sense now, does it ? The US plans may have gone smooth and by the numbers but the rest had some difficulties at one time or another.

>So you have nothing then, nothing at all.

I think I do. At least as much as you.

[This message has been edited by tero (edited 11-24-2000).]

[This message has been edited by tero (edited 11-24-2000).]

[Bastables]

Well Mr I want change the ascendant argument but have no proof to back my thesis.

Taken from http://home.swipnet.se/normandy/index.html I personally don’t believe that Horse drawn artillery cruised the front lines limbered up looking for some action. Therefore I’ll confine my self to the Battalions integral mortar (GrW), IG and PaK support for the German Infantry Divisions during Normandy in this I ignore the Fus Batt and Pion batt/coy since they posse no IG at all:

77: 45 GrW, 8 IG, 12 PaK38 5cm half with Mot transport, 12 Pak40 7,5cm all with Mot.

85: 72 GrW, 12 IG, 4 sIG, 25 PaK40 all Mot.

91: ? Although on the 27 of June the report stated that it had PaK40 Mot, 21 StuG (from? 902 StuG abt) and 10 PaK40 sf (Marder III or maybe a French lash up).

243: 70 GrW, 12 7,62cm Russian guns, 12 Marder III, 10 StuG.

265: only a mobile Kampfgruppe saw action totalling around a regt, 16 GrW, 6 7,62cm Russian.

266: Kampfgruppe, heavy weapons unknown.

272: Of interest in that the total number of Guns/howitzers/IG’s is listed as well as the total number of towing veh, 91 and 71 respectively. 54 GrW, 32 sGrW, 19 IG, 9 sIG. The horse (4000) apparently did something eles

275: only a Kampgruppe saw action (It should be noted that the creation of Kampgruppes for the infantry division was based on the available number of motorised transport, in affect the remainder of the division whether in central France or the Netherlands became a static formation) 18 GrW, 2 IG, 2 sIG.

276:?

277: 58 GrW, 19 IG, 6 sIG.

326: 56 GrW, IG ? sIG? 14 Marder III, 10 StuG, 8 PaK40 mot.

331: 72 GrW, 12 IG, 4 sIG, 14 Marder III, 10 StuG, 12 FlaK 38 mot.

346: unknown number of GrW. 13 kp (aka the IG one) is listed as GrW armed.

352: 72 GrW, 14 IG, 8 sIG, 13 Marder III, 10 StuG.

353: 72 GrW, 14 IG, 6 sIG, 14 Marder III, 10 StuG

708: Static div aka its all horse drawn no 13 kp (IG’s included)

709: 71 GrW, no 13 Kp, all PaK mot

711: Static, no Kampagruppes detached, no 13 Kp listed or reported.

716: idiosyncratic in that it’s the only div which posses no motorised transport for the 14 Kp, no 13 Kp.

It should be realised that the 13 Kp was considered a Regt level resources, as opposed to the mortars (GrW), which were Battalion level and tended to be kept away from the front lines. This work by old Nick has also surprised me in that the majority of the PaK’s and IG’s were to have been mot and equipped as such.

What do you have to indicate roving batteries of horse drawn leFH 10,5cm looking to engage the enemy in direct fire actually occurred?

Lets compare the game to reality shall we?

[tss]

nijis wrote:

I guess one shouldn't expect non-Hollywood war movies to be any more dead-on accurate than the Hollywood stuff

Yes, the director wanted to add some special effects and a love plot to the original events. However, I think that there's one big difference in "Ambush" compared with Hollywood movies: if "Ambush" wasa Hollywood movie, Kari Heiskanen's character Jussi Lukkari would have been killed in the final combat scene. There's no way a guy that evil could have survived a Hollywood movie.

- Tommi