3 concrete ways U.S. is under-modeled in CM.

[Bastables]

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

How rare was the M16 AAA compared to, say, the Puma?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Depends if you were fighting units such as Panzer Lehr which possessed them in strength, which oddly for an elite spearhead formation tended to see a great deal of combat. A much more useful addition would be the 6pdr armed Churchill’s or the subtraction of all the fireflies, which are not of the VC type. Hell BTS put the Super Pershing and even the standard Perishing in, how many of them saw combat? As was their right they made some calls in which veh/troop types went in to their game and given the reasons why.

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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!"

[Guest Big Time Software]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>How rare was the M16 AAA compared to, say, the Puma?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Total number made? Puma far more rare. % of vehicles made used in CM style frontline combat? Puma has it all over the M16 If you are asking why we did a Puma before we did an M16, what I just said is part of the answer. The rest of it is simply that we did combat AFVs first, combat support vehicles second, AAA vehicles last.

We gave preference to the Germans because it is more likely they will face Allied air attacks. Plus, there are really only 2 German AAA vehicles in the game. The Ostwind and Wirbelwinds were basically made at the same time, as were the SdKfz 7/2 and 7/3. The guns had already been made, so it was only a matter of making the platform and textures.

Steve

[Guest grunto]

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

How rare was the M16 AAA compared to, say, the Puma?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

i would like to see the brumbar. 298 were built, according to hps.

100 or 101 pumas were built.

my hps encyclopedia doesn't give production figures for the u.s. m16 halftrack.

andy

[Wilhammer]

Josh, I am with you.

From what I have read, US should get artillery deliverd for all types in 2-3 minutes, and the TOT thing is missing entirely. German artillery should be delivered in 10-15 minutes and should be most inflexible in correcting. Why do you think the Germans had so many SPGs? At this scale, the OBA stuff is not quick enough or plentiful, except for maybe directly attached mortars.

The Allied AA tanks is, in my opinion, a balnciong choice and not historically accurate to omit. An M-16 would take out any HT or light armor it pointed at due to all that firepower.

The US Army was first and foremost concentrated on firepower, and an M-16 was valuable. These things wer in high demand, and omiting them is equal to including the Puma.

Will now begin the search to see just how prevalent they were.

[Guest Germanboy]

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

German artillery should be delivered in 10-15 minutes and should be most inflexible in correcting. Why do you think the Germans had so many SPGs?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Do you have any sources for that? Does not chime with what I read, so I would like to see where that comes from. Also, the Wespe and Hummel was used as arty of the tank divisions, and the assault guns had a completely different remit. I don't think that this has anything to do with German arty procedures. The Allies had lots of SP arty as well (Priest, Ram, Long Toms), according to your logic their ordinary arty would then take very long too.

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Andreas

[Pain]

The only thing which is missing for my opinion, are real trenches. These foxholes are quite not such cool like trenches...

Greez

Pain

[Dittohead]

I for one, believe that concrete is correctly modeled in the game.

[JoshK]

Steve,

Thanks for the reply. I take your point about FACs, if you include air in a scenario, and call for it in turn 15, then that can be your abstracted FAC.

I was not aware that FO were such an abstraction. So you suggest as a workaround giving a FO to every platoon that has a working radio. Or in a prepared defense, one can also assume landlines. This is OK, I guess, but in a perfect world (i.e., I made CM) I think I would have done it differently.

In your last point, I am surprised by your claim that a much greater number of Pumas were used in combat than allied SPAA? I doubt that a single source exists that can address this, but I would guess that many here (yourself included) have read tons of WW II history over the past months, years, or decades. The impression that I got was that using SPAA in a direct fire role was not that rare at all. While I am not claiming that it was common, I do think they fit in CM both in terms of their tactical use, and also in terms of the other decisions to made to include vehicles that were far less numerous.

[Bruno Weiss]

Thank you Steve for the explanation. It cleared up a couple of questions in my mind. I am now less concerned to utilize the Puma for example. I did not think about the Allied air superiority factor in creating the German TOE.

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"Wer zuerst schiesst hat mehr von Leben"

Moto-(3./JG11 "Graf")

Bruno "Stachel" Weiss

[Guest ciril]

I agree with what's been said here (good discussion BTW). I too would like to see FOOs call in while riding on vehicles. This might also compensate for the lack of arty observation vehicles, no?

What I don't like about FOOs is that their battery is gone when they die, and they die

easily because they have no protection (passive or active) and have only 2 men. We can now debate how realistic this is, i.e. whether the loss of FOOs or radios in the platoon actually meant the total loss of fire support, etc. In some cases yes, in some no, but in CM it's always yes. It pays more to have them hide and sacrifice the LOS to target for safety - is this how it should be? Assuming that a prudent player will not send them into DF danger, I suggest they be given more men so they don't evaporate with the first treeburst.

Hopefully the above wouldn't be too hard to implement and would make FOs a bit more realistic and useful.

Ciril

[Kanonier Reichmann]

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

I for one, believe that concrete is correctly modeled in the game.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

But hang on....only German concrete is in the OOB of the game. What about American, British, French etc. concrete? This has been left out & is a slight on the game.

Oh, and my research confirms that American concrete used much heavier guage steel mesh in its construction so when it's included in a later patch it better be harder to penetrate than the flimsy German stuff! (Does this remind you of anything?)

Regards

Jim R.

[Chicago Boy]

For those of you wish to read a good article on artillery practices of the major players in the ETO during WW2, I recommend the following address http://tigertank.com/aslcrossroads/tactical/arty.htm it is a part of The War Times Journal website-lots of other great stuff there as well.

Regarding US air power I would like to quote Mr Steven Zaloga-from his book LORRAINE 1944 "The effectiveness of close air support in WW2 remains controversial. Both the Allies and the Germans tended to exxagerate its power: the Us Air Force in its post-war struggle to become a seperate service, the Germans as an excuse for poor battlefield performance. War time and post war operational studies have concluded that the ability of fighter-bombers to knock out tanks on the battlefield was greatly exxagerated. In a post battle survey after the Ardennes fighting in 1945 of the XIX TAC sector, it was found that aircraft had knocked out about six armored vehicles of the 90 claimed. the munitions of the day -unguided rockets, bombs, and heavy machine guns-were not sufficiently accurate or sufficiently powerful to destroy many tanks. On the other hand , fighter bombers had an enormous pschological impact, bolstering the morale of the GI's and terrifying the average German soldier. German field commanders spoke of the fear instilled by close-air attack in much the same way as they spoke of the "tank panic" of the 1939-41 blitzkrieg years, and as in the case of tank panic, the psychological effects of close air attack lessened quickly through experience.

The most effective employment of close-air support was to attack supply columns, storage areas and other soft targets. Even if not particularly effective against the tanks themselves, fighter-bombers could severely limit the mobility of panzer units by forcing them to conduct road marches only at night. Furthermore, the avaricious demand for fuel and ammunition in modern armies made them vulnerable to supply cut-offs. A panzer brigade could be rendered as ineffective by destroying its trucks and supply vehicles as by destroying the tanks themselves. The commander of CCA of the 4th Armd. D., Col. Bruce Clarke later remarked, "We were certainly glad to have close air-support but I would say their effect was certainly not decisive in any place." "

[kverdon]

Steve,

Any Chance that the US AAA vehicles may get added at a later date?

Please <G>,

Kevin

[brucer]

Snort! Very few unbiased historians agree that American artillery doctrine (with the notable exception of TOT fire, which only they used extensively) was in any significant way superior to British/Commonwealth gunnery.

The Yanks' FO system (as opposed to the FOO system their Allies used) was criticized then and since as being inefficient, inflexible, and slow to respond. Don't believe everything you read about it: the Commonwealth countries are still using a FOO system over 50 years later, with no complaints.

Sure, lots of Americans were trained to locate potential targets, but the command to fire in those cases generally came from an artillery officer in a CP van, miles from the action, with an often imperfect knowledge of the situation. This often led, as a previous post alluded to, to wasteful fires, completely out of proportion to the target, or no fire at all, if the section commander on the other end of the radio couldn't convey the proper sense of urgency, or off-target fires, or fires with the wrong ammo for the job... in the British system the command to fire almost always came from an experienced observer with the target in view, with all the benefits that entailed.

Many historians have concluded British fire landed as fast, with no worse accuracy than the Americans, and often in greater strength (due largely to the Brits' higher ratio of field-grade pieces to soldiers on the ground: 8 field guns to a line battalion, instead of 4)

As to that piece on Artillery Doctrine referred to earlier, it has largely been discredited... it's discussed more fully in the other thread.

Regards,

Brucer

[ibucephalus]

Originally posted by brucer:

Snort! Very few unbiased historians agree that American artillery doctrine... was in any significant way superior to British/Commonwealth gunnery.

[Major Tom]

From many of my readings I have come up with the conclusion that the British and Canadian Artillery arm might not have been the largest (US and USSR took this), but, it was the best organized (1944+).

If anyone is to recieve better artillery accuracy, speed, and coverage it should be the Commonwealth.