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The Internet is Just a Big Pile Of Steamy Poo! Thursdays (sorta) Update on CMHQ

Guest Madmatt

By Guest Madmatt
in Combat Mission Archive #2 (2000)

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Guest Madmatt

Guest Madmatt

Posted
Posted

Well the network troubles are still showing their stink on my system so the update was cut short I am afraid. I WAS able to get one new item posted at least and it will have to hold you.

A new SPECIAL inductee into the Heroes Corner which will also just go to show you that scenarios in Combat Mission don't have to be huge in scale (although they can be to some extent) to be totally cool! This one featured (at least for the first half) a single WELL KNOWN Tiger tank versus ohhh....about the whole British 7th Armoured Division!!! Those of you that know your history are already clicking that link! wink.gif

I am may be down and almost out but I'll be damned if I'll let the stinking internet keep me from giving you guys the best I have to offer! biggrin.gif

By the way, none of these problems should affect your getting to the page. This is purely a RoadRunner Cable ISP issue I believe...

Madmatt out...

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

If it's in Combat Mission, it's on Combat Mission HQ!

combathq.thegamers.net

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Guest Zigster

Guest Zigster

Posted
Posted

Yeah, bullet, I was thinking the same thing. The incident I recall occurred in a low, slightly sunken, lane, wooded on both sides. Wittman picked off the first and last vehicles and the rest couldn't get out... I forget how many he trashed, but it was impressive.

I tried recreating it in Steel Panthers, but of course there was no real movement penalty for the British tanks to move through the trees, and no restriction at all in moving through wrecks. The scenario failed due to game faults.

One of my first impressions after trying the CM demo is that here is a game engine in which that situation might be recreated accurately.

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Guest Madmatt

Guest Madmatt

Posted
Posted

No Elite is the Highest, TRUST US!!! hehehe inside beta joke...

Crack than Elite...Elite is the best...

Madmatt out..

p.s. for an excellent book on the subject pick up Tiger Ace by Gary L. Simpson, A little flowery on the prose but all in all a worth effort

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

If it's in Combat Mission, it's on Combat Mission HQ!

combathq.thegamers.net

[This message has been edited by Madmatt (edited 01-14-2000).]

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Guest JonS

Guest JonS

Posted
Posted

Considering the multi-part nature of this action, it might make a good candidate for an operation, rather than a single scenario?

WBW, can you let out any hints on what you've done with this one? confused.gif

Regards

Jon

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Guest Zigster

Guest Zigster

Posted
Posted

There were a few Panzergrenadiers present although I'm somewhat unclear on whether they were under his direct command. He was, after all, a Tiger company commander. What is clear, though, is that sensing the vulnerability (!) of the Brits, he charged in alone, leaving behind the four other Tigers and one PzKpfw IV he had with him.

At the moment of impact, the Brits had dismounted from their vehicles for a rest. He destroyed somewhere in the neighbourhood of thirty tanks, carriers and halftracks in the space of five minutes, including his run through the town, after which he withdrew to call up the rest of his force.

He returned later in the day with the five other tanks and infantry support and savaged "A" sqdn of the 4th CLY, of which only one man made it back to the British lines.

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

Der Zig

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Berlichtingen Senior Member

Berlichtingen

Posted
Posted

The following from Tiger Ace by Simpson:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>The thirty year old panzer commander was very anxious to maneuver his vehicles under his command out of their nearby staging area, but insisted that he alone and his Tiger I crew be allowed to reconnoiter the area northwest between his present location and Baleroy.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>At the road junction to Caumont, (main square of "Villers-Bocage") 'B' Squadron halted their vehicles for their tactical break and guarded this important intersection. The Allies at this time were very confident that the war was to be over very soon, and also felt the German forces had had a belly full of fighting and were not the mighty war machine they once were in past years. A false sense of security seemed to filter through out the Allied camp, and everyone concerned was only interested in returning home to family and loved ones.

Wittmann immediately realized that this opportunity could not be lost! He had to act quickly in order to disallow this juicy prize to escape. He did not however have time to radio his comrades, as he did not know how long the British tanks would besituated on the N175. If he radioed his other Tiger Is to move up, his transmission would surely be monitored by Allied radio and the element of surprise would be missed altogether.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

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Berlichtingen Senior Member

Berlichtingen

Posted
Posted

The following from Tiger Ace by Simpson:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>The thirty year old panzer commander was very anxious to maneuver his vehicles under his command out of their nearby staging area, but insisted that he alone and his Tiger I crew be allowed to reconnoiter the area northwest between his present location and Baleroy.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>At the road junction to Caumont, (main square of "Villers-Bocage") 'B' Squadron halted their vehicles for their tactical break and guarded this important intersection. The Allies at this time were very confident that the war was to be over very soon, and also felt the German forces had had a belly full of fighting and were not the mighty war machine they once were in past years. A false sense of security seemed to filter through out the Allied camp, and everyone concerned was only interested in returning home to family and loved ones.

Wittmann immediately realized that this opportunity could not be lost! He had to act quickly in order to disallow this juicy prize to escape. He did not however have time to radio his comrades, as he did not know how long the British tanks would besituated on the N175. If he radioed his other Tiger Is to move up, his transmission would surely be monitored by Allied radio and the element of surprise would be missed altogether.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

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Fionn Senior Member

Fionn

Posted
Posted

Well seeing as my online nick is Wittman (a bastardisation obviously of his name) I think I should speak up here...

There were FOUR distinct actions in and around Villers-Bocage that day.

The first two occured when Wittman ran into the British advance party which had advanced just beyond VB and was stopped on the road there AND ON EITHER SIDE OF THE ROAD IN COVER (something that is often forgotten).

He ran down that road shooting as he went. Action 1.

Action 2 occurs when he actually enters the town does a bit of shooting of Cromwells but turned the 130 degree corner which led downhill near the bottom of the main street and encountered a firefly IIRC. He got the hell out when he saw that thing aiming at him wink.gif

Action 3 occurs after he got 2 more Tiger Is and a Pz IV to join him and went back into the town. All vehicles were knocked out including Wittmann's by a 6pounder shot into the rear left hull aspect from about 30 metres.

Action 4 occurs when nearby Panzergrenadiers went in and cleared the town of surviving Allied crews and infantry although it must be noted that the 4th action was not hotly contested.

Action 5 basically occured over the next days and weeks as Villers- Bocage was pounded into rubble by Allied Strategic Bombing assets.

The Panzergrenadiers came from the neighbouring Panzergrenadier regiment and it must be noted that during the course of what I am labelling as the THIRD action while the Panzergrenadiers did not enter the town they did conduct mopping up operations of the survivors of the Allies who were ambushed on the main road leading from VB (NOT to be confused with the "route ancien" running beside it which was just a dirt-track but which was the route taken into VB by some elements of the tank platoon during the 3rd action.

That's the basic gist of what happened.

A LOT of misinterpretation and misunderstanding of what happened in VB has gone on. The British were not incredibly poorly tactically situated. Their tanks were off the road in scattered trees oriented to cover any German tanks which attacked DOWN the main road. That Wittman's attack came in behind the leading tank OP and via an artery road joining the route ancien and the main road which was almost at the exact junction of the leading tanks and the follow-on infantry company was just incredibly bad luck for the British.

Also, many kills attributed to Wittmann in popular understanding of this action occured during the 3rd attack and were really due to his comrade's tanks. It is also salutory to note that Wittmann did NOT recapture the town. His attempt to drive the British out resulted in the loss of 3 Tigers and 1 Pz IV ( quite high losses for any formation and when pitted against the extent of Allied tank losses the loss ratio isn't all that good, especially considering Tigers were lost) and necessitated the committment of the Panzergrenadiers to clear the town.

On the other hand the audacity and ruthlessnes of his attack ( if you ever see real pictures of the road column he attacked and the lines of British soldiers lying dead in ditches beside their vehicles (killed by tank MG fire and taken on the morning after the battle) you'll see why the commander of the force in VB decided to pull back rather than contest the village.) Wittmann's action was not militarily decisive BUT its shock effect was enough to break the will of his enemy to resist and the British withdrew easily rather than risk such losses again, even though they had, by any accounts, the superior force.

Wittmann applied some good SS doctrine there as applies to breaking the spirit of one's enemies by always, ruthlessly seizing the initiative and attacking to gain "moral ascendancy" (as they termed it). I've always admired that doctrine of offensive thought to break your opponent's will as you can probably tell wink.gif.

Ooh, just got a VERY interesting PBEM challenge in the mail wink.gif... VERY, very interesting in a "come to the slaughter" kind of way wink.gif.

___________

Fionn Kelly

Manager of Historical Research,

The Gamers Net - Gaming for Gamers

[This message has been edited by Fionn (edited 01-14-2000).]

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Guest Zigster

Guest Zigster

Posted
Posted

I'd be interested to know how the biographer came across the information that the British were dreaming of homes and loved ones at the time rolleyes.gif Especially considering they were forming up for an assault. Sounds like some pretty subjective writing to me.

I got my info from D'Este, who writes:

"At 0800 'A' Squadron, 4th CLY and 'A' Company, 1st Battalion The Rifle Brigade pass through Villers Bocage. At 0905 lead elements of the Yeomanry reach Point 213 accompanied by an advance party of the infantry from 'A' Company. The main tank-infantry column consisting of some twenty-five half-tracks and tanks of both units halt several hundred yards behind on a hedge-lined section of the highway awaiting instructions before moving forward to deploy with 'A' Squadron around Point 213. The infantry is summoned forward at the same moment that two or three Tigers are spotted running parallel to the column, screened by a hedge. The Tigers swing around and face the column whose crews have just dismounted. Wittman, who has observed the column halt from a position on the wooded high ground several hundred yards north of the highway, recognizes its extreme vulnerability and decides to attack at once on his own without waiting for the other Tigers to assist."

I know very little about WW2 electronic warfare, but unwillingness to use a radio in the presence of an enemy already in line of sight, and which he had every intention of making VERY aware of his presence in a matter of seconds, doesn't seem reasonable to me.

What is also confusing is why the other two or three Tigers (and probably the fourth as well) in the immediate vicinity did not immediately assist.

Sadly, due to his death shortly after this incident, the details of this, his most famous fight, will be forever shrouded in a good deal of mystery, and what is known has been reconstructed from dozens of different sources.

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Berlichtingen Senior Member

Berlichtingen

Posted
Posted

Zigster,

I have posted (at least twice) that I hate Simpsons writing style. However, I recommend the book... you just have to ignore his "flowery style." He lists the people he interviewed while researching the book... an impressive collection of people who were there.

Every account I have read has Wittmann making the first run alone... with no mention of other tanks in the immediate vicinity. Every account I have seen also indicated that after the first run, he returned to his company, switch tanks and returned with more tanks.

Fionn,

The real value of Wittmann's attack (aside from the homefront value) wasn't the kills... it was stopping the threat to the Panzer Lehr (for which he got his "swords")

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Fionn Senior Member

Fionn

Posted
Posted

There were at least 2 other Tigers with him when he made his first attack. Those Tigers were, however, in the general vicinity and NOT directly beside him..

It was to get these tanks that he withdrew from the village after seeing the Firefly at the bend of the road.

The thing about "monitoring of radios by the enemy" is pure unadulterated crap and any author who would write that about WW2 in a tactical battle environment is simply a moron who doesn't know what that war was like.

While higher level HQs definitely would monitor radio transmissions by enemy units in their area to even intimate that an enemy formation of company size would monitor enemy radio nets is wrong to the point of congenital idiocy.

Berlichtingen,

Agreed, the shock and casualties caused caused that brigade push to stall.

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

___________

Fionn Kelly

Manager of Historical Research,

The Gamers Net - Gaming for Gamers

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Guest Zigster

Guest Zigster

Posted
Posted

Hmmm... let's run over what we can say with certainty.

1) He doesn't radio for assistance, but charges in lone gunman style.

2) He doesn't radio for assistance in the town, but withdraws to go find them.

I may be way out on a limb here, but I'm thinkin' he didn't have a radio -- at least not one that worked. That would at least explain why there wasn't time to call for the rest of his company (well...platoon strength company).

My Chronology differs from yours, Fionn, but only slightly:

Action 1, around 0900, is as you described.

In Action 2, (alone in the town) D'Este contends that he was not chased out of town by a Firefly, but by Sgt. Lockwood, B Sqn. 4th CLY, in a Cromwell at the road junction. On his way out, he destroyed another Cromwell of RHQ (Capt. Dyas) which was stalking him.

Action 3, the return by Wittman with the rest of his group, doesn't occur until early afternoon, after he has re-ammoed and gassed up (and perhaps changed tanks as suggested elsewhere -- maybe to get one with a radio?). It is possible there were up to three tanks from arriving 2nd Panzer Div in this group (see below). They molest the remnants A Sqdn. The lone survivor of Height 213 who makes it back to British lines tells of the vehicle crews being killed or captured by the German infantry supporting the Tigers. This fight occurred not in the town, but at Height 213.

In Action 4, still near Height 213, he molests A Company of the Rifle Brigade. When he is finished here, both A Coy and A Sqdn have effectively ceased to exist.

In Action 5, now definitely reinforced by leading elements of 2nd Pz Div, he returns to Villers Bocage. This time the British are waiting and the PzKw IV and three Tigers (including Wittman's) are knocked out. The four tanks are set on fire by the crews to prevent their recovery.

A 22nd Armoured Brigade intelligence report of 13 June estimates 40 tanks of 2nd Panzer Div in the immediate vicinity. Allowing for exaggeration, there were probably far fewer than that, but still some.

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Der Zig

(EDIT): Just after finishing this post, I stumbled across another account in my history of the 1st SS Panzerkorps in Normandy by Michael Reynolds. It gives a very much more detailed and quite different story.

If requested, I will lay out the chronology, but essentially the main differences, as far as our hero are concerned, are that Wittman's tank is knocked out while alone in the town in Action 2. He then makes his way on foot, seven kilometres to the HQ of the Panzer Lehr at Orbois. He collects a Kubelwagen for himself and 15 Pzkw IV of Panzer Lehr and heads back. He meets up with Hauptman Mobius and his Tigers of 1st Coy.

Sometime after 1300 Mobius and the 15 tanks of Panzer Lehr into Villers Bocage, which had been occupied in force by three companies of the 1/7 Queen's. At least one Tiger and one PzKw IV were knocked out by PIATs and sticky bombs (are they gonna be in the game?) dropped from upper storey windows. Reynolds claims 6 Tigers and 2 PzKw IVs were knocked out in the town.

Some time after 1400 hours 2nd Panzer Div arrives on the scene... and then the stories really get mixed up.

Just goes to show, we THINK we know something and...

[This message has been edited by Zigster (edited 01-14-2000).]

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DesertFox Senior Member

DesertFox

Posted
Posted

Hahaha wink.gif

Forget Simpson! His book is a piece of crap, full of historical faults and other major glitches. Reynolds is very close to reality, he is basing his description on the 1st SS PzCorps report that has been written to award Wittmann with Swords, but don´t forget that this report has been written with a clear intention in mind wink.gif

In fact Wittmann only made one run along the N158 starting from hill 213 that morning, mopping up the british column alone (that was outside eastwards VB) he then entered the town from the east alone and was immobed by a 6pounder. He had to bail out and went 14km by feet to the Division HQ of PanzerLehr (how long do you think it takes to marsh 14km? 1 hour 2 hours ?)

When he returned from the HQ he ordered Möbius Kp into action and they lost all of their precious Tigers that day because they where silly enough to drive into the town without any infantry backup.

Go read Patrick Agte if you want to know what REALLY happened that day.

BTW: At that time you are mentioning Wittmann doing his second run into the town, he actually gave an interview at the PanzerLehr HQ, after he ordered Möbius to take over, with a Kriegsberichterstatter, there are tapes and pictures of this interview wink.gif

You might want to have a look at this page:

http://www.leibstandarte.uni.cc/

What they present is basing on Patrick Agte´s book

Helge

==============

Sbelling chequed wyth MICROSOFT SPELLCHECKER - vorgs grate!

- The DesertFox -

Email: desertfox1891@hotmail.com

WWW: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Capsule/2930/

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Guest Zigster

Guest Zigster

Posted
Posted

Yes, and it turns out the only units from 2nd Panzer Division were some armoured cars.

The way it breaks down is it looks like Wittman went on a joy ride. The rest of his company (possibly with Mobius' help) whacked A Sqdn and A Coy. Mobius and Panzer Lehr attack Villers Bocage and get their butts kicked. Wittman gets a medal for doing all of it wink.gif

Ah, the glory boys...

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