More doubts in CM

[Slapdragon]

According "Medical Service in the European Theater of Operations", produced by the US Medical Corp as a research study on casualties (and in many ROTC libraries) "US tank casualties, like German. were far lower than expected, especially in the area of burns. largely because experienced tankers learned to pile out of their tanks as soon as they were penetrated, especially if they were smoking or seem about to brew up."

In a tank filled with gas and ammo, and in the days before comprehensive halon systems, crews were very aware of the threat of being cooked alive. US tankers figured they would get another tank and the one shot out from under them would get recovered. German tankers had no such faith, but the Eastern front taught them it was better to be a live tanker on foot than a dead tanker in a brewed up tank, or worse, with 90% burns on your body and a medical system which had been slowly failing since 1943.

Allied forces (except the Russians -- who tended to just build more tanks) recovered over 3/4 of the destroyed AFVs left on the battlefield, half of those went back into service in their original job. US tankers would even abandon bogged down tanks and get new issued tanks, since the bogged tank would be back in service in a few days in any case.

The Germans were not so cavalier, but they still saw the tank crew as more important than the tank.As it should be, if you think about it.

[Dunnee]

Points well taken, especially Commissar, I was waiting for someone to say that. No, I haven't operated a tank, ever. I've been in one, but I've never seen combat in one. I HAVE been in life threatening situations. From being inside of one, I could see how terrifying it might be to be in that turret and get hit. However, My opinions were made in regards to "minor" hits. Hence the rear view mirror comment. I perfectly understand the dangers of being a tank crewman in WW2, and you're right. Experienced crews were more valuable than tanks during the Normandy campaign, so they would bail if being hit. My posts were based largely on near misses and being able to continue. If a shot takes off your antenna, sure it's scary, but would you bail? My main area of concern with this topic is the subject of tenacity. The confidence in yourself and your ability to get through difficult situations and not turn tail and run. If you read my posts, I never accused a single veteran of being a "wuss", I was just trying to raise an issue I thought was important. Would you bail if you could continue to fight? That's what I was trying to say. Now I think I'm through, but to all the 'grogs' out there, I have opinions, I'm gonna post em. Love me or hate me, I'm here so deal with it...

[Scipio]

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

Good point - you could e.g. see the 'Gun damage' message as an indication of a turret-ring hit. While the gun would still be functional, it would also be aimed at one point only, so it is technically not correct, but the effect of either would be that you retire and draw a new tank.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, I guess this could be solved relativ easy with more detailed damage messages - of course, this would be against my other opinion about to detailed infos about the enemy units - or not? Do the AT crew know what they hit? I mean, in battle conditions?

[Andreas]

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

Do the AT crew know what they hit? I mean, in battle conditions?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

They have Zeiss glasses (either their own or 'liberated') and they would see the tank retire or stop and brew.

But seriously, from the memoirs of Bidermann ('In deadly combat', Kansas University Press 2000, a must read) who started as a Panzerjaeger on the 37mm At gun in 163 ID in Russia, I think they would know what/if they hit. Their life depended on it, and the crew commander is there to observe the fall of shot.

[Subvet]

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

However, My opinions were made in regards to "minor" hits. Hence the rear view mirror comment. I perfectly understand the dangers of being a tank crewman in WW2, and you're right. Experienced crews were more valuable than tanks during the Normandy campaign, so they would bail if being hit. My posts were based largely on near misses and being able to continue. If a shot takes off your antenna, sure it's scary, but would you bail? Would you bail if you could continue to fight? That's what I was trying to say. Love me or hate me, I'm here so deal with it...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Actually what you said you were talking about were penetrating hits that didn't knock out the tank. You think a penetrating hit is a minor concern? Now you're talking about near misses and being able to continue? When is the last time you saw a crew bail from a near miss AP round in the game? Or a round that took off an antenae? As far as dealing with "it," that is what people responding to you are doing.

[Cinnamon J. Scudworth]

And actually, there are times in CM when a tank will show a "turret penetration" or "hull penetration" and keep fighting. This doesn't happen very often (at least in my experience), and usually the crew is "shocked" for a bit, which seems accurate. So I'm not really sure what the complaint is about.

-Andrew

[ 07-15-2001: Message edited by: Mirage2k ]

[lassner.1]

Just for everyone’s information:

I have spent considerable time at the BA/MA in Freiburg. During my research there I had reason to collect and examine, systematically, the Zustandberichte for numerous various (German) divisions, corps, and armies, and all of the Panzer Divisions. One of the interesting things that they show is how destructive virtually any action was to the number of tanks in action. Without going into detail, it is normal to see divisions reduced to ten or twenty operable tanks (even less in some cases) after a battle of any significance. This agrees substantially with the books cited by Germanboy. It did not take much to k.o. a tank. I personally think that CM has it about right.

[Darwin]

I cant help but recall the psycho Russian tank commander in The Beast.

Great movie, if you haven't yet, check it out.

[David Aitken]

I was once playing Quake and a zombie started throwing slime balls at me, but did I run away? Hell no, I stayed and fought. I died anyway, but then I just pressed a button and reincarnated. You might say it's just a game, but it's photorealistic, and I have a really big monitor and speakers with surround-sound, and it's completely real. What a bunch of cowards these veterans are.

Ahem.

Andrew is right, on one or two occasions in CM I've put rounds into an enemy tank which has fired back and killed my tank. It doesn't happen often, but it sucks when it does happen. What happens more often is that two tanks kill each other. Maybe the percentage of crews sticking with their tanks should be higher when the enemy unit that just put a shell through them was subsequently knocked out within seconds of firing? Mind you, then your opponent would go berserk because his tank / AT gun which just managed a last-second kill before it was knocked out, in effect died for nothing. Never mind...

[PiggDogg]

Mirage2k is correct. In the past week or so, on 2 or 3 occasions in CMBO, tanks have been penetrated but continued fighting. Although, this action is by no means the norm.

Also, Dunnee's general comments are, to say the least, most interesting and , maybe, cavalier. Dunnee says "minor" hits which I can understand only after his later explanations. However, in real life, if one's tank is penetrated, the crew is going to bail, because the gun that hit the tank does not get a CM title that says 'abandoned'. Almost for sure, after one penetration, further hits are going to come. No sane person is going to hang around for more hits to come. The crew is going to bale.

Cheers, Richard Cuccia

[Stalin's Organ]

I'd like to third that - I just finished a game where a Pantehr got penetraetd in het side by a Greyhound, lost a crew memeber and kept fighting - it was still there at the end of the game.

And contrary to popular belief the Russians DID recover and repair a lot of tanks!!

[Slapdragon]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Stalin's Organ:

I'd like to third that - I just finished a game where a Pantehr got penetraetd in het side by a Greyhound, lost a crew memeber and kept fighting - it was still there at the end of the game.

And contrary to popular belief the Russians DID recover and repair a lot of tanks!!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The Russian recovered nearly 0 tanks 1941 to 1942. In 1943 they began a serious effort to recover and repair tanks, but they never did repair many tanks short of returning them to frontal shops, essentially small factories, they just did not have the manpower devoted to repair and service of vehicles that US and Commonwealth units did at Division level. By 1945 they did a better job, but Russian units never had the tail to recover and repair units on the the scale of the Western and Central Powers.

[Slapdragon]

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

Points well taken, especially Commissar, I was waiting for someone to say that. No, I haven't operated a tank, ever. I've been in one, but I've never seen combat in one. I HAVE been in life threatening situations. From being inside of one, I could see how terrifying it might be to be in that turret and get hit. However, My opinions were made in regards to "minor" hits. Hence the rear view mirror comment. I perfectly understand the dangers of being a tank crewman in WW2, and you're right. Experienced crews were more valuable than tanks during the Normandy campaign, so they would bail if being hit. My posts were based largely on near misses and being able to continue. If a shot takes off your antenna, sure it's scary, but would you bail? My main area of concern with this topic is the subject of tenacity. The confidence in yourself and your ability to get through difficult situations and not turn tail and run. If you read my posts, I never accused a single veteran of being a "wuss", I was just trying to raise an issue I thought was important. Would you bail if you could continue to fight? That's what I was trying to say. Now I think I'm through, but to all the 'grogs' out there, I have opinions, I'm gonna post em. Love me or hate me, I'm here so deal with it...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Actually Dunnee, the society for the censorship of Dunnee and other silly people from New Jersey had its first meeting last week, and it was decided that your opinions are so dangerous to grogs every where that you had to be universally suppressed, especially as your level of argument (nanny nanny boo boo, I am here and you can't do anything about it, so blahhhhhh, fart on you!) is so rarified that most grogs must spend six hours in the library just to figure out your sig line. You have rocked the intellectual world of so many people that the group has hired a set of black helicopter flying survellience experts to keep twenty-four hour tabs on you, even during the summer when Brick Town Middle School is closed.

[Blenheim]

Just a note... differenciation between "abandoned" tank and "knocked out". Does the first one means "****, Lt., we got scared" and the second one "****, Lt., the engine was useless"?

I mean, maybe CM models scared crews after all. An AP round comes in, passes through the turret, and leaves a 128 mm. hole in the other side. Nobody is hurt, but well... that Jagdtiger is deadly serious about us. So we "abandon" our soda can, just in case.

"knocked out" is when the 128 mm. decides to go BOOOM right inside our small tank, and shows us what "detonation in closed rooms" means... Lots of pain, and 3 killed crew members.

[ 07-15-2001: Message edited by: Blenheim ]

[Ellros]

Frankly, if an AP round penetrated my tank and decapitated (or otherwise blew away) my bow machine gunner/driver/loader/whatever), I would get the heck out of Dodge in a hurry. That would be a major blow to my morale, espcially if it could have been me.

And based on reports I've read, that occurred more times in WW2 than you can count. Keep in mind I am referring to Shermans being penetrated.

[chrisl]

"Abandoned" is when there is damage that renders the tank combat inoperable for the next hour or so. It may be repairable in hours or days.

"knocked out" is when the tank is rendered unrecoverable (brewed up or other very substantial damage that would require more than a few days to fix).

In an operation these distinctions are important, because an abandoned tank can come back (assuming the crew isn't wiped out) in a later battle and the tank doesn't wind up behind enemy lines. For this reason, if you cause a bunch of tanks (or one KT) to be abandoned, it can be worth advancing your lines to prevent recovery. A knocked out tank is gone.

[Wolfpack]

Another factor that I think would apply both to the light AT guns knocking out tanks, and crews abandoning tanks would be the use of rivets and bolts in the construction of ome earlier tank models. When hit, even with a non-penetrating shot, these things had a nasty habit of shearing off and riccocheting around the crew compartment. I don't know about you guys, but I start taking hits from any gun and it starts red hot slugs of metal around me, I'm getting the hell out, even if nobody has gotten hit yet.

[Subvet]

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

an abandoned tank can come back (assuming the crew isn't wiped out) in a later battle and the tank doesn't wind up behind enemy lines. For this reason, if you cause a bunch of tanks (or one KT) to be abandoned, it can be worth advancing your lines to prevent recovery. A knocked out tank is gone.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Can't you also target an abandoned tank to make sure it is knocked out for good? I haven't played operations, so I'm not sure about that.

[Stalin's Organ]

Slap your comments about Soviet tank recovery are demonstrably wrong - the Sov's captured a couple of hundred Stugs and converted them to SU-76i's in 1943.

Now they may have had to send them back to teh factories to do so, but so what? A reovered tank is a recovered tank, and whether it's repaired at eth front or not it is still a ersource that is easier to get than building a new one.

If Sov tank recovery numbers weer low in 1941 it's probably be cause they were mlotly going backwards and didn't control the battlefields after the battle.

They certainly had sufficient resources to recover tanks - that's how they got hold of the first Tigers in 1942 after all!

[Slapdragon]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Stalin's Organ:

Slap your comments about Soviet tank recovery are demonstrably wrong - the Sov's captured a couple of hundred Stugs and converted them to SU-76i's in 1943.

Now they may have had to send them back to teh factories to do so, but so what? A reovered tank is a recovered tank, and whether it's repaired at eth front or not it is still a ersource that is easier to get than building a new one.

If Sov tank recovery numbers weer low in 1941 it's probably be cause they were mlotly going backwards and didn't control the battlefields after the battle.

They certainly had sufficient resources to recover tanks - that's how they got hold of the first Tigers in 1942 after all!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It is a question of degree, speed, and effort. The Western Allies could return a tank to service in a few weeks if it could be returned at all. The Soviets only returned a couple of hundred German vehicles to service through out the entire war, again mostly by sending back to factories. Most other vehicles where captured in tact.

For the Soviet field armies, it made much more sense to treat tanks and even whole units as ammunition, to be expended and replaced. The reason is that it takes nearly twice as long to train a mechanic as to train a tanker, and the Russians only gained breathing space in late 1943.

This is why the Soviets did not produce the sheer number of tows and recovery vehicles that the US and Great Britian did. This is the reason why Soviet mechanic strength is only a fifith the size per tank in Soviet tank units than United States, and the reason why Soviet truckers would discard trucks rather than repair them. Not because the Soviets were sloppy or ignorant, they just put their men and material into the teeth rather than the support elements of the Soviet military, and paid for it in this area.

[Stalin's Organ]

Slap the SU-76i wasn't a captured Axis vehicel returned to war - it was a conversion - like taking a Sherman and making a Hetzer out of it.

The Sov's did use many captured vehicles as-is. On the Russian battlefield site there's a story in the T34/85 section about a Russian armoured regiment that had a battalion of T34/76's, 1 of T70's, and one of captured Hungarian tanks! They got their first T34/85 by capturing it off the Germans and put it into service!

Certainly they may have treated their vehicels with a different philosophy to the west, but they were not stupid - they knew it was often easier to repair than build anew, and if they set their damaged vehicles well to the rear to do it then what of it? New vehicles weer bought to the front on railways - so why not utilise the empty return carriages?

And keeping down the number of men at the front lessens the supply and transport requirements for keeping those men fighting as well. It's probably something that other armies wished they CAOULD figure out how to do!

[Ellros]

Yes, you can indeed continue to target abandoned vehicles until they brew up or you get a 'knocked out' result.

[Stalin's Organ]

Yep - especialy useful if yuo'er doing a defensive operation.

IIRC CMBB will have an "extreme" fog of war option which will not give you any information on hits on enemy vehicles, so teh only way you can be positive you've killed one will be to "brew it up", which seems jolly historical!

[Slapdragon]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Stalin's Organ:

Slap the SU-76i wasn't a captured Axis vehicel returned to war - it was a conversion - like taking a Sherman and making a Hetzer out of it.

The Sov's did use many captured vehicles as-is. On the Russian battlefield site there's a story in the T34/85 section about a Russian armoured regiment that had a battalion of T34/76's, 1 of T70's, and one of captured Hungarian tanks! They got their first T34/85 by capturing it off the Germans and put it into service!

Certainly they may have treated their vehicels with a different philosophy to the west, but they were not stupid - they knew it was often easier to repair than build anew, and if they set their damaged vehicles well to the rear to do it then what of it? New vehicles weer bought to the front on railways - so why not utilise the empty return carriages?

And keeping down the number of men at the front lessens the supply and transport requirements for keeping those men fighting as well. It's probably something that other armies wished they CAOULD figure out how to do!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Sure, but the 76i was fixed in factories -- the difference was that a wrecked Sherman that did not brun was returned to service in weeks, the Russian tank in a year or two (unless it was not damaged in the first place).

It is common to make fun of Armies for the amount of tail they have, but this is really just ignorance of modern warfare. In modern western warfare every effort is made to minimize casualties while maximising sustainability. THus Western armies have always maintained service and support units at a far higher level than their eastern counterparts. But except when faced with a multiplication of padding positions (hotel officers , etc) these force multipliers have turned into the best method to fight a conventional war without killing amn entire generation of young men and women. IThe Iraq war was an example of a Eastern, attrition based army meeting a Western firepower based army on the conventional battlefield. For that matter, so was all of the Arab Isreali conflicts.

[russellmz]

a lot of enetrations but continue fighting have to do with thin skinned afvs: priests, us tank destroyers, etc.

i just played a scenario where a tiger and two jumbos tooks turns bouncing rounds off each other. funny. the tiger had a lot of internal flaking but refused to budge.

and no one talked about the mines, which is what i posted about

another cm error:i have jeeps parked in rubble. a 500lb bomb lands dead center there. the jeep crews almost always survive, like 90% or better. but whole squads die if they were in same place. jeep offers too much protection to crews.