Check6 Posted January 20, 2001 Share Posted January 20, 2001 Why the disparity between reported statistics and game results? Was a lot of artillery's killin' enacted behind the front lines (CB, command disruption, supply depots)? Bah. Typo [This message has been edited by Check6 (edited 01-20-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Germanboy Posted January 20, 2001 Share Posted January 20, 2001 Yes ------------------ Andreas Der Kessel Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Runyan99 Posted January 20, 2001 Share Posted January 20, 2001 And also in between the battles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
109 Gustav Posted January 20, 2001 Share Posted January 20, 2001 That was mostly what guns larger than 200mm were used for, right? That's what it says in the manual. ------------------ Well my skiff's a twenty dollar boat, And I hope to God she stays afloat. But if somehow my skiff goes down, I'll freeze to death before I drown. And pray my body will be found, Alaska salmon fishing, boys, Alaska salmon fishing. -Commercial fishing in Kodiak, Alaska Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Napoleon1944 Posted January 20, 2001 Share Posted January 20, 2001 Anything below 150mm doesn't seem to kill much of anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gremlin Posted January 20, 2001 Share Posted January 20, 2001 Not in my experience. 81mm will definitely cause casualties, and just as importantly, it can break and suppress troops. ------------------ When men are inhuman, take care not to feel towards them as they do towards other humans. --Marcus Aurelius Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jarmo Posted January 20, 2001 Share Posted January 20, 2001 Sub 150mm arty doesn't whack whole squads at a time, making it tough to appreciate the effect. Small stuff kills, but mostly it's a suppression effect. If one wants to see the beauty of the arty, set up a quick battle vs AI, give her a large infantry force. Then first spray the area with sa couple of 81mm's and a wide pattern. She'll rush her troops into the relative safety of woods. Bunching up a huge amounts of men in a small area. Then let go with the +200mm stuff. If you have set the TRP's correctly, that's all it takes to win. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jasoncawley@ameritech.net Posted January 20, 2001 Share Posted January 20, 2001 Do not be fooled by the reported "infantry casualties caused" windows. Those only report confirmed kills, cases in which the unit *saw* the men fall as a result of its fire. Indirect fire weapons will have a far lower portion of overall kills, confirmed, for obvious reasons (it is indirect - duh - that means they can't see to confirm). Even MGs will do more damage than will be reported, simply because of their long range. If you want to know exactly what e.g. an 81mm mortar barrage against a platoon in the woods can actually do, play a scenario with fog or war off (or two-player "hotseat" and playing both sides - or both). You will see plenty of casualties, and plenty of broken units. Broken infantry is especially vunerable to close range infantry, so hitting someone with artillery and following up with a close assault before they have time to rally is a particularly effective tactic. When there is no close follow up, artillery will get more men than you see in the "casualties caused" report, but much of the "damage" will be recovered from after ~3-5 minutes, as units rally from the morale effects of the barrage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMplayer Posted January 21, 2001 Share Posted January 21, 2001 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by jasoncawley@ameritech.net: If you want to know exactly what e.g. an 81mm mortar barrage against a platoon in the woods can actually do, play a scenario with fog or war off (or two-player "hotseat" and playing both sides - or both). You will see plenty of casualties, and plenty of broken units. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Thanks for the really good suggestion! It's obvious once you say it, but I hadn't thought of trying it. regards, --Rett Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dirtweasle Posted January 21, 2001 Share Posted January 21, 2001 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Napoleon1944: Anything below 150mm doesn't seem to kill much of anything.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Really? Care to try a PBEM game? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pilsudski's Raider Posted January 21, 2001 Share Posted January 21, 2001 81 mm and 120mm mortar fire does a GREAT job in sending entrenched troops on the run. Easily verified as I sent a scout car to review the effect of the mortars... ------------------ "Whoever had the choice, would choose an eagle's nest on the cliffs in place of a home. May he know how to sleep, though his eyes be red from the thunder, and listen to the cries of the wild spirits in the murmur of the pines.-That is how I lived." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slapdragon Posted January 21, 2001 Share Posted January 21, 2001 Also realize that according to US studies repeated by Dunnigan, a games theory expert for DOD, artillery caused 60-70 percent of battlefield casualties, and includes 60 mm or higher mortars, support fire by armour, direct and indrect fire from artillery peices, and any other use of large high explosives, including those dropped by aircraft. Dug in infantry with overhead protection in WW2 under a 6 hour 105mm barrage could expect to loose 30 percent combat effectiveness. In basements in a town it was 5 percent (which is why towns were reduced with 155 and 8 inch fire missions). So the 81mm mortar you see firing in the game is only one peice of the puzzle that led to the high casualty rates caused by "artillery". I should also note that by Vietnam the number really was 90%, and has remained there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tss Posted January 21, 2001 Share Posted January 21, 2001 Slapdragon wrote: Also realize that according to US studies repeated by Dunnigan, a games theory expert for DOD, artillery caused 60-70 percent of battlefield casualties, and includes 60 mm or higher mortars, support fire by armour, direct and indrect fire from artillery peices, and any other use of large high explosives My paternal grandfather was severely wounded (lost an eye) when one of his squad-mates blew up an AT mine that he was arming. On his military records his wound was classified as being caused by an artillery shrapnell. Also, at least in some papers the guy who caused the explosion is listed as being killed by a shell landing nearby. So, that accident caused at least two misidentified casualties. (I don't know how the rest of the men of that squad were classified). In the end, the squad was pretty lucky since only two of them died (the other was my great uncle), and the rest survived wounded, even though the building collapsed on them. My grandfather's records have also another mistake. According to them, he was released from the hospital ~20 days before he was wounded. (The clerk mistakenly wrote 'February' instead of 'April') - Tommi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slapdragon Posted January 21, 2001 Share Posted January 21, 2001 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by tss: Slapdragon wrote: Also realize that according to US studies repeated by Dunnigan, a games theory expert for DOD, artillery caused 60-70 percent of battlefield casualties, and includes 60 mm or higher mortars, support fire by armour, direct and indrect fire from artillery peices, and any other use of large high explosives My paternal grandfather was severely wounded (lost an eye) when one of his squad-mates blew up an AT mine that he was arming. On his military records his wound was classified as being caused by an artillery shrapnell. Also, at least in some papers the guy who caused the explosion is listed as being killed by a shell landing nearby. So, that accident caused at least two misidentified casualties. (I don't know how the rest of the men of that squad were classified). In the end, the squad was pretty lucky since only two of them died (the other was my great uncle), and the rest survived wounded, even though the building collapsed on them. My grandfather's records have also another mistake. According to them, he was released from the hospital ~20 days before he was wounded. (The clerk mistakenly wrote 'February' instead of 'April') - Tommi<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> This is a big problem. How did Private Jones get wounded? Big explosion, so at battalion aid it gets written down as artilley fire. No matter what caused the big explosion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Dorosh Posted January 21, 2001 Share Posted January 21, 2001 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Slapdragon: Also realize that according to US studies repeated by Dunnigan, a games theory expert for DOD, artillery caused 60-70 percent of battlefield casualties, and includes 60 mm or higher mortars, support fire by armour, direct and indrect fire from artillery peices, and any other use of large high explosives, including those dropped by aircraft. Dug in infantry with overhead protection in WW2 under a 6 hour 105mm barrage could expect to loose 30 percent combat effectiveness. In basements in a town it was 5 percent (which is why towns were reduced with 155 and 8 inch fire missions). So the 81mm mortar you see firing in the game is only one peice of the puzzle that led to the high casualty rates caused by "artillery". I should also note that by Vietnam the number really was 90%, and has remained there.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I think the percentages for Vietnam include not just artillery but aerial weapons like napalm and rockets, yes? 90 percent is obviously too high a figure for WW II - as you point out. I thought it was more like 75%, with the rest mostly by machineguns. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slapdragon Posted January 22, 2001 Share Posted January 22, 2001 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Michael Dorosh: I think the percentages for Vietnam include not just artillery but aerial weapons like napalm and rockets, yes? 90 percent is obviously too high a figure for WW II - as you point out. I thought it was more like 75%, with the rest mostly by machineguns. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Yes, my book on Vietnam air statistics: "Report on the Air War in Vietnam" says that body counts and probables listed in statistics are supergrouped into artillery, which is planes and guns. The big difference is the booby traps, mines, and the like get their own column, which gets them out of the lists. Still the US Army and Australian / New Zealand forces, along with the Korean unit in Vietnam inflicted 90% of their casualties with artillery and planes, the rest being a variety of means, and had something like 40% of their own casualties caused by artillery. It should not be surprising for Vietnam. For every 20 soldiers in Vietnam 1.5 carried a rifle, 4 supported the artillery, and the rest were support. Oddly enough, in 1969, 60% of all soldiers in Vietnam were doing duties that were not allowed to be performed by soldiers in Germany -- running Pizza shops, producing studies, being a journalist (Al Gore was a Journalist in Vietnam, although he was attached to an Engineer unit that actually took casualties) and, believe it or not, running a water skiing instruction clinic in Cam Ranh. (Interestingly enough of our past 5 presidents only Carter and Bush senior served in the combat arms (in Nuclear submarines and as an aviator respectively). Reagan made anti VD movies in WW2, Clinton and Bush both were draft dodgers in their own way (as was Cheney) It does not mean one thing, and it does not make Bush a bad president that he dodged the draft, I just find it interesting that it seems to be the trend). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest wwb_99 Posted January 22, 2001 Share Posted January 22, 2001 One thing I read which is not reflected in CM: Often, troops fresh off of the boat would not bother to dig in for the night. The were behind the lines, right? Besides, marching all day with 40lbs of gear is tiring. Who wants to spend the evening digging? This usually lasted until a suprise mortar barrage hit them, as the Germans would often harrass rear areas at random times in the night. A couple of casualties, and a sleepless night later they realized that digging a 1' x 6' foxhole was a good idea in the evening. Unless the morar round happened to land on you, you were pretty safe. WWB ------------------ Before battle, my digital soldiers turn to me and say, Ave, Caesar! Morituri te salutamus. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Mikey D Posted January 22, 2001 Share Posted January 22, 2001 If you were to use artillery in CM the way it was used for real you'd see the casualties start to climb. No dinky little 2 minute 30 shell bombardment, but a prolonged devastating rain of shells that just chew up a town. Check out photos of the town of Falaise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kitty Posted January 22, 2001 Share Posted January 22, 2001 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Napoleon1944: Anything below 150mm doesn't seem to kill much of anything.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Hmm. I haven't noticed that myself. I've especially noticed that 105mm VT seems to kill it's fair share. Kitty ------------------ Hamsters at War! Chicks With Tanks Lorak's FTX "I'd rather the Bees than your Mask of Shame." - Stuka The True Blue Aussie Slang Source Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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