New Combat Mission game Announced. Combat Mission: Afrika Korps!!! Pt2

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Andreas:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Michael emrys:

The exact mixture in 1940 was pretty higgledy-piggledy, with little in the way of a standard. But I think that by 1941 things had settled down with something like 2-4 PzIVs to a company of PzIIIs.

Michael

Err, that may have been the case in the actual fighting, once losses had been incurred, but on paper it was a neat organisation, with no mixing within platoons, or even companies, at that stage. There would always be two light (Panzer II/III/38t/35t) to one medium company (Panzer IV) in an Abteilung, with Panzer II later providing the recce platoons.</font>

[Andreas]

There is evidence (comment from a company commander in 6.PD during Winter Tempest battles December 1942) that mixing on company level occured once the 75L4x versions of the Panzer IV were introduced. But even then I would think that whereever possible, the smallest unit broken out would be the platoon, and no mixing within that. ISTR that 12.PD detached a platoon of 75L4x Panzer IVs to 1.PD during the battles SE of Belyi in December 1942.

Before that, I do not think there is much of a point of doing it, and IIRC the breakdowns for Kampfgruppen given e.g. in Glantz 'Early period of war' deal with company-sized attachments, and not below. ISTR that German doctrine frowned upon using anything smaller than the company to cross-attach.

Of course, in a tight spot that goes right out of the window, but I think if BFC were to start having any organisation that could be, the platoon purchase list would be about as long as Heidi Klum's legs, and not anywhere near as shapely.

[BeauCoupDinkyDau]

Hey guys. How's it been?

Anyway, are we ever going to see any more previews of this game? Where are the bones? :confused:

[ July 02, 2003, 12:33 PM: Message edited by: Vader's Jester ]

[General Bolt]

Everything you always wanted to know about DAK and were afraid to ask:

http://www-cgsc.army.mil/carl/resources/csi/Toppe/toppe.asp

[Rob Murray]

Here is a book that you may want to add to your Afrika Korps reading list. It's called The D-Day Dodgers by Daniel Dancocks. The author focuses on the Canadian campaign in Italy. I read it years ago & it was quite good; covering a topic which all too often gets lost in the shuffle.

[Doc]

I hate to bother you fellas all so familiar with WWII Mediterranian battles. I´m an old fart, as many of you more experienced lot on BF.com know by allready. I just came back from a diving trip on Corfu (occupied by the Italians, Germans and The Brittish in WWII). It would be nice to get some scenarios depicting German garrisons lured in the relaxed island life being threatened with an allied invasion in the game.

Just my two cents

Doc

Finnish Navy Officer of the reserves

M.D.Ph.D

Helsinki,

Finland

[Doc]

I think the western allies made their dumbest mistake in setting an allience with the russians. General Patton said it best: We are fighting the wrong enemy..." He saw the cold war beforehand. As should have any intelligent officer by that date. Russians were as keen (if not more so) to rule over Europe as were the Germans. So counting the allied without includind russians is a very valid thought. England and the US actually were pro-finns when russia covardly attackecked Finland. <<<<<<fortunately the Finns held their ground and were the only nation in addition to UK and the soviet union in WWII Europe , whose capital was never garrisoned by foreign troops.

[SeaLion]

I don't see it as a 'mistake' to have helped the russians, as we would have had a equally bad cold war with Berlin if the Germans had won. Do you think we would have been the eventual victors if Germany (and remember how darn smart those guys were in inventing new tactics, weapons, jet engines, etc) had had 50 years to build up arms against us? At least the Russians were manageable.

[maroule]

I can see why a finn would say that, and I respect it

however, let's not forget two basic facts :

- the Nazi attacked us, not the commies, and when we were both done with it, none of the 'allies' were really raging to start a new war.

- the russians defeated the germans, primarily. The most telling statistic of the war is that 70% of all german soldiers killed or injured severely during the war were so on the eastern front. Stalin and his gang might have been utter crap, but the russians soldiers who fought (and sometimes got shot in the back by political commissaries) did so for our benefit. They were not any less brave than GIs, Spitfire pilots or French Resistance fighters

[v42below]

Russia did not "cowardly attack Finland". They simply used it as a sparing partner for a big military exercise. Not to mention the fact that prior to the revolution Finland was just another Duchy of Russia. Large countries tend to absorb or "neutralise" their smaller neighbours for strategic advantage - what Russia did was not nice or fair, but it was logical.

[benpark]

Just ducking in to make a humble request-"import forces", like an "import map for QB, but for troops/AFV's. Would silence all calls for Campaign mode, and make nice large Operations possible without killing small systems.

Back to our regularly scheduled programme...

[General Bolt]

I'd like to see some directory structure in the Scenario listing. Something like:

North Afrika

Crete

Italy Gustav Line

Italy Gothic Line

Then the scenarios are stored in the folders.

Also even where you can name your owo folders with names like Single Player Allies, Single Player Axis, Human Opponent.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Allow immobilized vehicles to use the rotate command to rotate the turret. Or better yet a rotate turret command. Very usefull in streetfighting in particular.

Picture this: A M10 rotates it's turret 90 degrees to the right and then moves onto a crossroads and takes on the armour located down in the side street.

As it is now you need to carefully arc your tank into a sidestreet and hope you strike the perfect balance between minimal turret rotation and maneuvre time and ability to haul ass back to cover.

[JonS]

uh, Tweety? Everything you ask for, and more, is already in CMBB. It would be rather a surprise if BF.C took that out for CMAK

[ July 12, 2003, 05:42 AM: Message edited by: JonS ]

[Denwad]

New feature for CMAK? Captions on screenies?

[ July 12, 2003, 03:59 PM: Message edited by: Denwad ]

[Elmar Bijlsma]

D'oh! I just tried cover arc as a rotate turret command. Hardly ever used it for armor, and only when I wanted to limit hull and turret rotation to a certain arc. I'll be a lot more dangerous with this knowledge. I can now be as dangerous as a fluffy lil' bunny. Thanks JonS.

You live and learn, eh? And sometimes not. :eek:

[v42below]

How about providing in game support for user designed purchasing rules for PBEM? I.e. I could design a rule on which units and how many are allowed and when I save the file to send to my PBEM oponnent, the rule is saved in the file itself.

v42below

[Denwad]

Don't forget, at least some tools for a 'grand campaign' let us make the maps, or just let us hit random grand campaign.

[Ex Bellator]

Ooh I haven't put in a plea for the Indians and South Africans for a while so there's another one. C'mon BFC there's no way they should be left out if the ANZACs are in, they made just as big a contribution and for a longer period.

After the usual opening plea I have had a thought regarding the Allied unit make up of a typical Desert War action, and am wondering how CMAK will handle it.

British and Commonwealth units were thoroughly mixed on many occasions, as for production purposes (for better or worse) it was agreed that Commonwealth nations would provide Infantry Divisions and the British all the armour. In another example at Tobruk it was a real mix, with Aussie infantry supported by British tanks, guns and MGs.

So my question is how will CMAK reflect this when it is purchasing Allied forces? It would have to be a bit like the CMBB AI purchasing Romanian infantry and German tanks, which the current system does not handle. Any thoughts?

[Michael Emrys]

Just to make it even more complicated, the South Africans, Indians, and New Zealanders all eventually raised armoured units (maybe the Aussies did too?), though I believe only the NZs appeared in the theater in question (corrections from the cognoscenti welcome).

Michael

[JonS]

Aussies raised armour, but was only used in the Pacific.

South Africa raised an armd div which saw service in Italy.

AFAIK, no Indian armd unit saw service in the Med. (Well, except for inf div recce regts - Central India Horse for example).

Interestingly (well, to me anyway), by late 1944 all Commonwealth Armd Divs in Italy had moved to an organisation consisting of two infantry bdes and one armd bde, (in NWE the org was one of each) which was essentially the org of 2(NZ)Div, though that remained an 'infantry' division throughout (though by 1945 this div had moved to a three-inf, one-armd org). Further, this two-inf, one-armd org was the same as the so called 'mixed division' trialled in 1942 in the Home Forces back in the UK but abandoned in 1943. Only one of these mixed divs (4th or 44th - I forget which) saw active service, with 1st Army in Tunisia, and at that time wasn't really seen as too useful.

Rex wrote:

... the Indians and South Africans ... there's no way they should be left out if the ANZACs are in, they made just as big a contribution and for a longer period.

Not strictly true. In the Med the Aussies made a larger committment (3 divs) and the Kiwis made a longer commitment (continuous from 1940-1945).

That said, I too would like to see the various major Commonwealth and Dominion Armies represented individually, although a generic "Commonwealth" label might suffice.

British and Commonwealth units were thoroughly mixed on many occasions, as for production purposes (for better or worse) it was agreed that Commonwealth nations would provide Infantry Divisions and the British all the armour. In another example at Tobruk it was a real mix, with Aussie infantry supported by British tanks, guns and MGs.

Again, not strictly true. The Aussies and Kiwis in particular were very staunch about not allowing their divisions to be broken up and farmed out all over the desert. The case of the Tobruk fortress is a special case, and shouldn't be taken as typical in any sense.

At the CMAK scale such mixing didn't really happen. British, etc, bdes were often attached to 2(NZ)Div, but this is rather different to being "thoroughly mixed." Finally, in pre-built scenarios this is a non-issue anyway, since the scenario designer can 'cherry pick' forces as required.

As an aside, unless minefields and fortifications are substantially revised (which I don't expect they will be for CMAK), scenarios based on El Alamein from about August 1942 onwards are going to be very tricky to implement.

Regards

JonS

[ July 16, 2003, 08:00 PM: Message edited by: JonS ]

[HeinzBaby]

IICR, both the NZ and Aus Divs had a Cavalry Bn in their ToE, and most Inf Divs always had an attached Inf Armd Bde.

On another issue was the so called animosity from the NZ and Aussie Divs towards the British Armd Divs (7th Armd in particular) because of their percieved non cooperation between with them. Sidi Rezegh (Op Cursader) was a shining example of the 7th Armd not calling for help from the Kiwis 'down the road' when their 7th Spt and 7th Bde were being destroyed. El Alamein was another when the Armour refused to lead, much to the disgust and contempt of the the Diggers and Kiwis

[JonS]

Originally posted by HeinzBaby:

IICR, both the NZ and Aus Divs had a Cavalry Bn in their ToE,

All CW infantry divisions had a recce/cavalry regt/bn in their TOE. They equipped with ... a great miscellany of lightly armoured vehicles . They had various names, eg, Central India Horse in 4th Indian Div and Divisional Cavalry Regiment in 2(NZ)Div, but their internal org and role within the division was generally the same between divisions.

most Inf Divs always had an attached Inf Armd Bde.

Que? "Sometimes", yes. "Always", no.

Regards

JonS

[Ex Bellator]

JonS - good posts, and Tobruk was a special but long running case. CW units certainly stayed together, it was the British armour which had to go to them. FWIW I sympathise with the armour, everybody seemed to want tank support all the time in every direction and IMO it was the main contributing factor to the fact that Rommel tended to fight British armour piecemeal.

Just to make it clear I don't want the plethora of nationalities involved all to be in CMAK, it would be impossible. But I do think that South African and a 'generic' Indian nationality have to be there because of the scale of their commitment and their frequency of involvement in the battles. I can't really imagine a serious attempt at simulating the North Africa campaign without those two. I'm not sure how much their TOE differed from regular British units (except I do know Indian Divisions were 1/3rd British) so perhaps it's 'not too much' work to get them in with different graphics and voices.

What I'm really pondering about is the ultra typical CM situation, a Combined Arms QB. The AI in particular is going to need a way of backing CW units up with British armour when purchasing units. Can and will it be done?

El Alamein was another when the Armour refused to lead, much to the disgust and contempt of the the Diggers and Kiwis

Sorry Heinz but I think you have that completely wrong. At Alamein it was the infantry who lead, not the armour. Do you have any sources?

[HeinzBaby]

mmm...I don't think so. I did say Infantry lead at El Alamein. The Kiwis being the spearhead of 'supercharge' [Lt Col Bauer - World War II].

Regarding British Armour,

'Panzer Battles' by Von Mellenthin. Chapter 8, 'Farewell to Africa' the Alam Halfa/Alamien Battles. Covers the Infantry battles, typical was the dispair was Maj Gen Keppenberger CO of 5th NZ Brigade, describing an AAR from july 14 Ruweisat Ridge night attack; 'a bitterly disapointing battle,' and ascribes the reverse in the evening to a lack of co-ordination between infantry and armour. ( First Armd Div was supposed to support the New Zealanders). He says signifcantly that, "at this time there was throughout the Eighth Army, not only in New Zealand Division, a most intense distrust, almost hatred of our armour'. One more, I'm not going to quote the whole chapter ad nauseium. Aussies took Sanyet el Miteiriya, South Africans lifted mines for British 69th Inf Bde and 1st Armd division to follow up, the 69th advanced but the CO 1st Armd declared that the minefield gaps were unsatisfactory and refused to move. The 69th Inf Bde left without support suffered crushing losses...

When I was in the RNZE, I use to drink with a few ex-servicemen who were with the NZ Div, two of them (long passed away) were 6pdr AT gunners, they use to summed up their contempt,...'pommie armour were bloody gutless...' you can add a few expletives.

My argument still holds true, British Armour were reluctant.

Even at Normandy in Max Hastings book 'Overlord' give a 'poor' opinion of the 7th Armd and Guards Armd Divisions.

[ July 17, 2003, 10:33 AM: Message edited by: HeinzBaby ]