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Are trenches too effective?


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I have been playing CMAK exclusively since it came out vs. my standard opponent. In the early war desert encounters trenches seem to be virtually unbeatable. In these games I always play the Axis and my opponent always plays the Allies.

In a night scenario (don't want to spoil it) I am playing the Germans and my opponent puts an entire ammo load of OBA 25 pounder directly on top of my position containing an infantry gun, an MG and a company commander. I literally have zero casualties (they were pinned for a bit, but no big deal).

In other games, I have been on the attack vs. trenches and gotten absolutely no where in terms of harming the enemy, short of using 150mm IG and point blank fire. My opponent resorts to driving his Matildas and other heavy tanks on top of the trench, or sacrificing a Bren carrier or two if my AT guns have been disabled.

I realize that part of this is due to the fact that there weren't a lot of high explosive guns of high caliber in the desert - no SU 122 guns or SU 152 guns, or even 105mm Shermans or STUGS. You can use the 150mm IG and OBA of 105mm or 150mm, but these are typically expensive or unusual weapons. As a German player I consider myself lucky to get a high velocity 50mm tank gun or the occasional 75mm early war PZ IV. The Italian Semovente with its 75mm gun is a real treat. On the Allied side it is bleak until you get to the Grant / Lee with the bow 75mm gun and then of course the Sherman. British tanks mostly stink in this regard.

Is the effectiveness of the trench over modeled? Or are trenches over represented? Certainly you have trenches around Tobruk and when the Germans were on defense in Crusader, and around El Alamein. However, in most attacks the defender probably ought not to have trenches given the difficulty of digging / blasting them out of rock in the desert.

Any thoughts appreciated.

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Sounds like you are using the wrong weapons. Indirect HE is what trenches are best against. Infantry fire, including MGs from tanks, is also a long suit. The thing trenches are vulnerable to is on map HE, direct or from mortars.

The HE has to go off within the trench. Small arms fire does little (though it will pin men who try to move along the trench), and arty that hits outside it will also do little. Accuracy of HE is the key to beating them.

It doesn't have to be large. 50mm HE from tanks - 14 blast stuff - will break units in a trench. It takes a couple shooters or a couple minutes (the couple shooters work better because the target has less time to rally), but they will do it. 75mm HE will do it in a minute flat.

As for on map mortars, 3 inch or 81mm will do it, though only 1/6 to 1/3 will land close enough. You have to watch the "fall of shot" to see if you've hit close with a few. Tiny stuff, 45mm, 2 inch and 50mm mortars with single digit blast, isn't going to do more than pin, though, even with 2-3 firing at once.

"But I don't have good HE tanks". So use field or infantry guns, if the terrain is open enough. Also, follow up. Modest but accurate HE will pin or panic units in trenches. But you don't want to give them a chance to rally. So put an MG on them (high ammo shooter) to slow or prevent rally and keep the pin level you've got, and then close with infantry (and vehicle MGs pushed down to short range, if safe from AT weapons).

Infantry works fine to mop up. It doesn't lack the firepower if it gets close enough. It is only its own vulnerability to the replies that is an issue. The cover differential is the problem, not inability to hurt targets in a trench if e.g. a platoon of infantry gets within 100m.

So pin their shooters with accurate on map HE, then close, and the infantry's firepower will finish them off. Once they get to "routed" they will generally abandon the trench to run for it, and your MGs should cut them to ribbons once that happens.

Yes, early Brits have no HE tanks. But they can have 25 pdrs on map, and 3 inch mortars likewise. The former are somewhat vulnerable once they fire and show themselves, the latter don't even have to be in LOS.

Smart defenders will put some trenches in reverse slope positions that can't be seen from the start line, if the terrain permits. Those can indeed be tough. Reverse slope positions with good cover always are, and it is always best to flank them if possible. Or clear the forward slope first and you can have a carrier bring the 3 inches up to your side, below the crest. It is a familiar tactical problem.

Incidentally, infantry dug in in the real deal, extensively. They also planted enourmous numbers of mines (the main reason Tobruk held out so long the first time, for example). But the desert is big, and entrenched infantry could not be everywhere. Mobile forces went around them, fighting only selected portions of them when they had to. Then it took all arms cooperation and deliberate attack. Forces that didn't have such coordination failed to make much of an impression on fully prepared, mined in infantry defenses.

[ March 17, 2004, 02:45 AM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

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Originally posted by Carl Puppchen:

I am playing the Germans and my opponent puts an entire ammo load of OBA 25 pounder directly on top of my position containing an infantry gun, an MG and a company commander. I literally have zero casualties (they were pinned for a bit, but no big deal).

Indirect fire is not effective against trenches. That was true in WW1 and still true in WW2. In WW1, direct cannon fire was the order of the day (French 75s being particularly effective)
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I appreciate the feedback. As far as whether trenches are over-modeled or over-represented, the answer is probably over-represented. The assault on Tobruk and the defense of Bach in Crusader do show the power of the trench on the defense, as well as the stubborn defense in Bir Hakeim and of course El Alamein. In a typical attack / assault / QB that we play from time to time if you give the defender trenches you are really giving them a powerful defense in the desert and that ought to be taken into account in the overall balance of the scenario (expectations). Trenches were just very hard to create in the desert - you needed to blast them out - and a typical scenario would see the attacker flank them or avoid the built up position in favor of surrounding them or going for a more favorable target. Thus the scenario where you have to pound out a defender with weapons readily at hand in 1941 are typically going to be very bloody for the attacker (or a repulse entirely, look at the Easter battle for Tobruk or the ferocious defense of Bach at Alam Halfa or the Free French)

As far as 25 pounders and 3 inch mortars, dragging them forward into good firing positions in the desert isn't an easy task, especially if the opponent has weapons to return fire. In a particularly maddening scenario I was painfully dragging up 81mm and 50mm mortars and 65mm and 150mm IG's (Italians and Germans) and my opponent bought a strafer plane and knocked out a ton of my weapons sitting out in the open.

Reverse slope with bunkers and trenches is particularly onerous for the attacker, including where the attacker doesn't start with good firing positions for mortars and guns.

From our head to head QB's we will probably put in our own "house rules" to use good judgement on the pick of fortifications, buy some occasionally but then leave some $$ unspent, using 1941 and early 1942 weaponry.

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I'd rather say foxholes are undermodeled than treneches overmodeled.

One thing that real treneches did but CM trenches don't do well is movement during the fight.

CMBB and CMAK MGs have than unconditional 50m radius supression area around the impact point and the engine applies that to troops in that area unconditionally, no matter what cover is between the unit and the impact point. As a result, area fire from MGs prohibits movement in trenches very well.

Once you inhibit movement in the trenches you can go on and attack the trench defense like a defense with no reserves which should be doable.

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I have to comment on the French 75s vs trenches while indirect fire was supposedly ineffective, WW I comments. That is indeed the impression one can get playing CM, which strongly rewards putting the shell within the small trench icon, and makes that relatively likely even on a flat trajectory of fire. But it was not remotely true in real life, in WW I in particular.

Small cannons like the French 75 were meant for open field fighting. They were expected to fire on troops in the open or with natural cover, but without any prepared defenses. When that was the target, they were fine weapons, with their rate of fire and ease of redeployment their most valuable features. But against real trenches they sucked. So did field caliber shrapnel, used in huge amounts by the British in the first half of WW I.

What destroyed trenches in WW I, and made manning the forward ones suicidal, was seriously heavy artillery, firing on a high trajectory. For the Germans, who were the best at it at midwar, it was the 210mm Morser. Hundreds of them were available e.g. for the attack at Verdun, and leveled whole miles of forward trench. The French had their 155s - less effective than 210s and less numerous until late in the war, but reasonably good at it. To protect against such things required deep underground shelters and concrete casemates, not mere trenches.

Calibers below 105mm were so useless against trenches that they were commonly relegated to a rolling barrage role, which was designed simply to keep the enemy's heads down during an attack - or to standing barrages in open areas to prevent passage. Sometimes they were expected to cut wire, but they were bad at that too, and frequent failures due to finding it uncut resulted.

In the course of WW I, direct fire HE was developed, but very short range mortars were the preferred means of delivering it. Their high trajectory and ability to fire from full defilade were essential. Some launched extremely heavy projectiles by later standards (more like an AVRE than a 3 inch). The other ever present HE weapon against trenches was the grenade.

In CM, one generally can't afford true heavy artillery. With tiny shell budgets, trenches are poor targets because only a few hit directly. And CM is overly kind in the effectiveness it gives to flat trajectory HE vs. trenches.

As for how rare they were in the desert, it was SOP for infantry to dig slit trenches wherever they halted - but these are more like CM foxholes. Full trench systems required months of work in place, which could only happen when the front went static for long enough.

The hardness of the ground, and any need to blast holes to make them, was only a serious issue in limited areas. But one of these was around the Egypt-Libya border, which is where the front was static for any length of time, on several occasions.

When the front went static elsewhere, large systems of field fortifications were used. Tobruk in 1941, the Gazala and El Alamein lines in 1942, and German positions at the border of Tunisia with Libya in 1943, are examples. Huge minefields were also placed. The area from Bardia to Halfaya pass was exceptional in not allowing easy digging, so positions there relied more on breastworks and sandbags than on digging.

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Jason's comments touch on some aspects of HE fire that I hope get modeled in greater detail in CMX2.

Namely, I am hoping that the new engine models the effects of weapon trajectory on lethality and targeting.

As it is now, with on-board guns (towed or vehicle-mounted) there are no negatives to a high, velocity, flat trajectory weapon. IRL, high velocity wasn't better against all targets in all situations. Infantry in trenches is one good example of a target where a high velocity, flat trajectory weapon sometimes has trouble effectively hitting with HE.

It would even be nice to see this sort of thing extended to the off-board artillery model. I don't think impact angle necessarily needs to be modeled down to the mil. For example, off-board mortars could be assumed to have an impact angle of roughly 60 degrees, off-board howitzers about 45 degrees, and off-board field guns about 30 degrees (or whatever is an appropriate average for each tube type - these angles are off the top of my head). These angles could be used to roughly model the differences in impact pattern, "shadows" behind hills and other high relief that sometimes render targets unhittable by artillery, and also issues like the effectiveness of different kind of artillery against dug-in targets.

As it is now, with the exception of on-board mortars' indirect fire capability, all HE is pretty much equal no matter what kind of tube it comes from. I think this puts Howitzers especially at a disadvantage since their low-velocity, high trajectory fire should allow them (1) some limited indirect fire capability like mortars, and (2) better lethality against dug-in targets, and *especially* against dug-in targets on a fighting crest.

But getting back to the original issue, I don't think trenches are necessarily overmodeled in CM right now. In fact, as Redwolf mentions, in terms of ability to move along a trench under small arms fire, they are probably undermodeled. I tend to think of trenches in CM as good quality, deeply dug, prepared foxholes with perhaps a few interconnecting communication slits rather than an actual complete trench system for this reason.

Similarly, I don't think foxholes are currently undermodeled, so long as you assume that the foxholes in CM depict the "hasty" foxholes of a force that has had perhaps a few hours to dig some defensive positions, but not several days' preparation time to dig full, deep foxholes.

Ultimately, I would also like to see perhaps one or two more levels of defensive preparation in CM. If I ran the circus, the fortification possibilities in-game might look like this:

1) In-Situ Defense, representing a defensive force that has had at most an hour or so to prepare a position. Troops fight from natural cover. All defensive units, however, should get a "camouflage bonus" if left in their original setup to model the idea that troops on the defense have generally had at least a few minutes to study the local terrain and find good hiding places.

2) Hasty Defense, representing a force that has had at least a few hours, but no more than a day to prepare a position. More or less like CM's current regular defensive setup, with hasty foxholes as the dominant "fortification." A small fortification budget limited to units that can be set up quickly (such as daisy-chain mines, and a limited number of TRPs).

3) Prepared Defense, representing a force that has had at least several days to prepare a position, and probably has also received some limited help from engineering units. Dominant fortification type is good quality foxholes that behave more or less like CM's current trenches, though perhaps with a bit less cover. Bigger fortification budget, with more possibilities like wood bunkers (with better modeling, of course!) and some wire and/or minefields, but no concrete fortifications.

4) Fortified Defense, representing a force that has had at least several weeks to prepare a postion, and has definitely received engineering assistance. Interconnected dug-in, connected defensive postions allowing communication under fire. Large fortification budget allowing (indeed, probably requiring) purchase of wood & concrete bunkers, minefields, wire, etc.

Gee, it might be nice to run the Circus someday. Then again, I don't have the skill, experience, and I'm also probably not up to the T&E. I think I'll go have a seat in the bleachers again and get away from the smell of all that elephant dung. . .

Cheers,

YD

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One other thought from my perspective is that 15 points is too cheap for trenches in terms of desert defense. I realize that fortification costs are constant throughout all years of the game and their value in reality depends on the type of terrain and the opponent you are facing but IMHO trenches are HUGELY valuable in a desert game without much in the way of cover. Roadblocks, on the other hand, are virtually useless, and wire is of some use depending on the type of terrain.

I don't have a "simple" solution for this but we probably will increase the costs using the honor system to something like 30 points / trench from 15 (you have to leave unspent $$).

I know that the grogs don't really care about the relative cost of stuff but I like QB's and in general the costs are a good representative of overall effectiveness of individual weapons across the board. In this rare case the cost of a trench is too low in the desert.

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First and foremost, trenches are designed to provide protection from direct fires, specifically the machine gun. Because they are point targets, they are relatively difficult to hit with artillery, too, especially since artillery's now more of a hammer than a scalpel in CMAK, as opposed to CMBO. Still, if trenches were that great against artillery fire, then it stands to reason that the Germans would not have dug deep reinforced casemates below their trench systems all over the Western Front. These were necessary because heavy artillery, used in enormous quantities, could and did smash the trenches. But the trenches in CMAK are not even remotely on a par with the WW I variety, there being, for example, no protective dugouts in the CMAK ones.

Another difference is that CMAK trenches do not usually model the traverses (doglegs) found in real trench systems. This makes it much simpler to enfilade them than would be the case in real life.

Indeed, it would be fair to say that trenches in CMAK are more like a WW II slit trench used to jump into in case of an air raid than proper fortification entrenchments.

Whenever possible, attack the trench on its worse protected long axis, preferably while pinning the occupants from the front and using smoke and/or dust to blind the occupants to the incoming assault. Firing down on the trench is a big plus. On board mortars are indeed the way to go and don't have to be big to cause a world of pain. Even a small one can knock out an antitank or infantry gun in an trench, an exercise which can take a great deal of time and effort with direct fire. I ran a test scenario in which Matilda IIs went up against a dug-in 37mm Pakfront, in an effort to learn whether tanks could kill with just AP shot. As best I can tell, after many turns of fire one gun died, and it cost me one abandoned Matilda II and several shocked ones. Wasn't entirely able to stop the co-ax MG fires, but I tried. In conjunction with MG fires, ideally delivered from several directions at once, even infantry units can be defeated by using a small mortar. Though you may think of units in trenches as being all but invulnerable, the reality is that units can be shot to ineffectiveness and worse using nothing but high volume MG fire, sans mortars. The MG-34/42 does this job phenomenally well when used in multiples. I know, having had it done to me. Direct fire HE helps, but unless it manages a direct hit or is pretty large, is more effective at suppressing and keeping heads down than it is at killing.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

John Kettler

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Just wanted to add some of my recent and ongoing experiences with trenches in CMBB.

*****Possible spoilers for the operation Models Last Hope***********

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I am playing the operation Models Last Hope PBEM,and in an attempt to accomplish a break through,I launched a massive assualt against around 250-500m of trenchline at night .It was preceded with what I consider to be an enourmus amount of artillery(105,120,150,158mm rkt,170mm,plus much less effective 81mm)I dont remember the exact HE loadouts,but suffice to say that the whole thing took atleast 5-8 turns(using fire plans for most of the heavy stuff).The arty was called on TRPs,which was still somehow ridiculously inaccurate,even though all the guns have the exact co-ordinates(but this is another rant that I am saving for some other time).

I then launched phase two,which(and since this is an ongoing PBEM,I cant give indepth details)consisted of numerous Tigers,PzIIIs,PzIVs,HTs,and infantry.

Now granted,FOW can be very misleading,but from what I can gather,the entire artillery bombardment was ridiculously ineffective(170mm =blast of 452!!!)Now,I dont give a rats ass,but at night,if one of those rounds landed anywhere near infantry,whether they're in craters,foxholes,or trenches,they should have been routed,panicked,or atleast taken casualties,and remained pinned for awhile.

I understand about fanatical behaviour,but I have,for the past 4-5 turns,watched infantry in trenches at night,not only not be suppressed by MG fire from infantry,and HTs at a range of less that 50m,but also HE rounds from Tigers,PzIVs,and PzIIIs(which JasonC says is supposed to break units in trenches).I dont know for how many hours I am supposed to pound on them(i have 15 turns :eek: )to get them to break,but I(and I would think for good reason,considering the negative morale effects at night)am just not seeing the results that I should.

In RL,this massive assualt should have far exceeded the results I am seeing in CMBB.So yes,I am begining to think trenches may be overmodeled,or something.If they're not,then I dont understand what else I am supposed to do,aside from having my Stukas drop nuclear ordinance :D

[ March 22, 2004, 03:59 AM: Message edited by: no_one ]

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no_one,

Hmm. At the CMAK Sneak Preview hosted by ACTOR, I had occasion (don't recall the scenario) to attack an entrenched force across essentially flat desert ground. I didn't have either your fire support or anything even close to your armor, yet managed to tear up the occupants. How? Smoke and infantry assault while flanking and enfilading the trench with light armor. You do NOT want to fight the entire trench line. You want to isolate a section and overwhelm it. As for your lack of results from artillery fire, unless the round in real life lands either in the trench or close enough that it can bring down part of the trench wall, then if the troops are head down, they can handily survive quite heavy fires, for blast propagates in a straight line, as do shell fragments.

It is true that under certain conditions other target neutralization phenomena can occur. My father worked on a high tech flak locating system during the Vietnam War. Initially, the weapon of choice once a flak site was located was cluster munitions. Submunitions detonating in the weapon pit, which was big enough to hold the entire gun mount (Soviet supplied 57mmm S-60), trails and all. The North Vietnamese responded by first digging in the gun, then backfilling the emplacement so that only a small pit remained for the crew to work the gun. One U.S. solution? A 3000 lb. bomb with fuze extender (detonates about three feet above ground). It created such extreme vacuum effects that it sucked crew and gun right out of the ground, killing both--without needing a direct hit. Another proven solution for troopps in trenches is a fuel-air munition, for the mixture is heavier than air and when detonated goes off inside the trench. I hope this provides a little historical perspective.

If you're playing under EFOW, things may be much worse for your opponent than they seem to you, and it may simply be that despite a hurricane of offboard fire, you got no direct hits on the trenches proper. If you had, and the round or rounds landed on or near a unit, it would've made quite an impression on the recipient. Even a few 60mm mortar rounds delivered accurately into the trench on/close to a targeted unit can cause a lot of pain, let alone, say, a 15 cm. shell. Remember, though, what happened in WW I. Despite stupendous barrages lasting days, it was found that once the barrage stopped, it took only a few minutes for the Germans to emerge from their trenches, dugouts and casemates, set up their machine guns, and scythe down attackers by the thousands. See the Battle of the Somme for a particularly telling example. John Keegan, in his THE FACE OF BATTLE, devotes an entire chapter to this grim topic.

Regards,

John Kettler

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John(and everyone),

***more spoilers****

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I fully understand what you are saying.If you have never played the operation in question,you should take a look at it from the russian side to see the trench network that I am attacking.It is the middle portion around the road.It is isolated and split down the middle by a road,though it is still some 250-500m in length.Now while I didnt surround it,I was/am attacking virtually ever portion of the front(the side opposing me)and the sides.

I also did indeed see some of the heavy stuff fall into,or very near the edges of,the trenchline.Considering the amount that I fired,you could go out on a limb and say that somewhere around 5% of all the rounds should have fallen to full effect.Was there anything in that area of trenchline?I dont know.

The main points that I am trying to get across,is the apparent lack of night time morale effects on the entrenched infantry.Believe me,I know it all to well.It was very difficult to get my own infantry to stop being pinned by my own armor that was mere meters away.Not to mention them constantly rotating to face my own armor even though it was firing at targets some 30-50m away.And anytime I mention my infantry,they were either in craters/foxholes,or HTs.

The method that you used in the Sneak Preview would not work in my case.The flanks on both sides of the road were wheatfields that had many hidden sharpshooters,tank hunter teams,and squads(?)I tried to flush some of them out,but with cover panic being what it is,I had either entire platoons,of a few squads at a time suppressed by secondary fire from sharpshooter(ie pistols)If I had attempted your style of assualt,I may have been able to obscure the LOS of the infantry in the trenchline they were attacking,but would've taken cross fire from both flanks,and I dont even want to imagine what the result would've been.In addition,the enemy had arty too,and it was just as big and in similar abundance to mine.

I was attempting something similar to what you propose in battle 2,but it was quickly halted by said arty.Since the arty for both sides can last for about half of a battle,it stopped me cold for the remainder of battle 2 by immobilizing and gun damaging the armor that I had in the are of effect.Extensive minefields and other trench networks(most of which were still not fully ID'd)prevented me from exploring the flanks,oh and so did the arty.

So,do you blame me for trying the night assualt that I did?It allowed me to "roll up" my flanks by advancing and eliminating all the sharpshooters and tankhunters that were hiding there.I was also able to ID alot more of the trench networks and such.

Perhaps it was more succesful than I realize,but when you are attacking in the style and scope that I did,atleast in CM,you/I would expect better results.

Beats me :confused:

Ps,

Some more useful info.Battle one was dominated by fog,and I'm still not sure whom this benefitted.Also,yes it was EFOW.As always,its the only way to fly :D

[ March 22, 2004, 08:12 AM: Message edited by: no_one ]

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no_one,

Sounds ugly. Night attacks in the CM system are inherently iffy, as you've found, and they also lack many features found in real combat to help the troops--flares, light flak firing tracer to demarcate sectors, searchlights, etc. Even so, night attacks were not all that common during WW II, precisely because it was very hard to coordinate activities and because it took so little to derail the whole attack. Commandos and the like preferred to operate at night in many cases, but they were the exception to the rule. There's a reason why so many attacks commence at dawn, not the least of which is that when done right, you catch the other guy half asleep, disoriented, and can see to maneuver your troops and bring down support fires, with an entire day to press the attack.

Night is beneficial when trying to advance easily spotted high value assets, such as flamethrower teams, into engagement range. Fog is great for getting in close, infiltrating through what would be interlocking defenses, moving in recon teams and so forth. Be advised, though, that it can seriously screw up otherwise useful weapons such as light mortars advancing with your troops. The very short LOS ranges frequently yield situations where the mortars can't shoot, even with an HQ spotting. When fighting in fog, you need an FO with a radio. If defending in fog, the same comments about on board mortars are true, unless you have TRPs in the avenues of approach. As long as you don't move your mortars after setup, they can fire blind on the TRP at will, using either Target or Target Wide. And a good radio FO, under a strong command rating HQ, can save your bacon by bringing down deadly fires rapidly to break up attacks. A handful of well sited TRPS will let your FO walk fires into all sorts of embarrassing locations. What you really need to watch out for at night and in fog is running into something at close range. The firepower involved is such that a unit can be shredded in a single turn. When I played Sounds in the Night in RoW for CMBO, our battlefield was full of dead units stacked practically atop each other. An entire platoon died trying to get into a single, hotly defended house.

And here's a thought on the artillery vs. trench problem. The CM series does not model delay fuzing, treating all but the expensive proximity fuzed shells and mortar bombs as having instantantaneous fuzing, meaning the shells and mortar bombs detonate on contact. When attacking entrenchments and other fortifications, the shell's detonation should be briefly delayed in order to let it penetrate cover. If a 15 cm round goes off near the trench but at parapet level, that's one thing. Drop the same shell close to the trench but buried several feet deep before detonating. You now are likely to be looking at a trench wall blow in.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

John Kettler

[ March 22, 2004, 10:38 PM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

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Indirect arty is ineffective against trenches in CM. I don't know how many times you need to hear it before you believe it, and stop putting exclamation points after blast values, and expecting enemies to crumble because of loud noises outside their actual cover.

A test - Russian regular infantry in trenches at night, each platoon with 5 trenches, a company position, with the HQ and weapons (w/ 2nd Maxim) in the fourth position behind the line platoons. One targeted by 150mm, 35 rounds - result 2 men hit. Another targeted by 170mm, 20 rounds - result 6 men hit, because of 3 good shells. The company HQ position targeted by 210mm, 20 rounds - result 4 men hit and a 50mm mortar KOed. That location was overkilled, but the worst any other unit suffered was one MG cautious a few times. 75 heavy shells, 12 men hit. In the real deal, incidentally, the average was 10 shells 105mm or larger per man hit. These were a bit bigger, to be sure.

Meanwhile I went after the remaining platoon with one Pz IVG and one Tiger I. They area fired as soon as they spotted the trenches, without seeing the men in them. When they had the right location they panicked the men shot at inside of one minute. If they missed by 10m they did essentially nothing. When panickers ran they MGed them. After dosing the forward position, with little HE left (a few from the Tiger, only) they moved to the next - the position that had only lost 2 men to the 150s - and expended their remaining ammo. The Pz IV caught some routed men from the first position at this time in a wheatfield and MGed them. After 15 minutes total, I cease fired.

Kills for the Tiger - 17. Kills for the Pz IV - 24. 25-30 of these were men in the trenches hit by the HE before it ran out, the remainder were MGed "runners" caught in the wheatfield.

Direct HE is the way to kill men in trenches. In this case it was harder because it was night, making it particularly hard to get exact locations. The tanks were still effective. If they had friendly infantry along to help ID the exact defender locations, they would have been even more so.

None of your indirect HE preliminaries mattered a tinker's darn. Your attack started when your tanks got IDs. A platoon of tanks with any infantry along to help spot, will kill a platoon in trenches inside of 10 minutes even at night with sighting problems, and inside of 5 minutes under typical conditions. With ammo left to do it again, again under typical conditions.

Use the wrong weapon and you get nothing. Night makes coordination with infantry important for spotting. The shooting itself will take a little time, though with an accurate location serious HE (75mm or better) will panic or at least pin in a single minute of fire. 2 50mm, 14 blast tank guns along with MGs will do about the same as 1 larger gun. Once everyone has been worked over, infantry can close. Many of the defenders will then run, leaving the safety of the trenches, and get MGed or cut down by your infantry.

No other portion of your "total dose, hope something sticks" attack matters.

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no_one and JasonC,

Here's another datum for this discussion, taken from Soviet official artillery planning numbers.

Target = troops in the open. Weapon = 152mm D-20

gun-howitzer. Expected casualties (NOT percentage) per TON of shells fired? 15.8! Yes, you read that

correctly. Change the target to dug-in troops, and the number of casualties drops to 1.58, or roughly two casualties for every ton of shells fired. The chart is found in David Isby's WEAPONS AND TACTICS OF THE SOVIET ARMY, Fully Revised Edition, page 241.

Regards,

John Kettler

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Perhaps if I bold it it will make a difference.

The apparent lack of "night time morale effects" on infantry in trenches is one of my main complaints The smallest amount of fire at night will "alert" ,and if prolonged,will quickly panic or rout infantry.Not to metnion the fact that infantry will be alerted,and often times,rotate to a friendly that isnt even firing at them.

Even though I was firing around 2-3 times as many rounds per gun as your test did(minus the 210mm),not to mention the 105 and 2 81mm.If a 50mm main gun of a tank can suppress and panic units in a trench ,I would assume that 105 and 81mm indirect would as well,provided that it landed in or close enough to the trenches.Some or all of the infantry apparently had no lasting moarale effects when the second phase of my assualt hit them.Which,to clear up,was taking place as the arty barrage was coming to an end.So there was no rally time given.Even though some of the arty had a blast value of 452,I never expected to outright annihilate anything that was in the trenches,but instead to make them "less than willing" to fight(panicked/pinned atleast).Oddly it seemed to have the opposite effect.It seemed to make them more fanatical,especially when you consider that units in trenches,way away from the arty barrage,did indeed succumb to the direct fire HE(and in smaller amounts),as they should have.

Your test results(and this is what I think of results gathered from editor tests :rolleyes: )are rarely comparable to real CM combat conditions/situations.Much like tests and studies done in RL,it may work perfectly on paper,but simply will not work in RL.

There was a situation where a ATR team was ID'd to the point that I knew what it was for atleast a few turns.It was fired on for atleast a few turns by tanks(Tiger,PzIII)infantry and HTs,and not only was it not quickly paniced/routed,but sporadically continued to fire at the tanks and HTs( :eek: )After I think a total of 4-5 turns(granted,it wasnt continous fire,but there were full turns where it was fired on non-stop,and when LOS contact was lost,it had indirect tank MG or 50mm HE fired "area target" on the trench under it)it finally succumbed to the hail of destruction that it had no trouble shrugging off.

Another problem with your editor tests.

each platoon with 5 trenches
Now I'm not 100% sure what you mean here,but I think your test was much more elaborate than what I actually launched the attack on.I think this is another of my main points.For the width and length of trenchline I attacked,it was almost over-kill considering the amount of arty,and or the total amount of fire,called on such a small area.

I was hoping to get an idea of the total amount of forces my opponent had,but thanks to what looks like a generous screwing by the broken operation setup zones,I may not know until it is all said and done.I do know that he still had a good amount of forces left in the trenchlines in question though,as I found out the hard way(IOW,last ditch infantry assualt,on the trenchline,on the last turns =NO,NO!).

Another thing that may be mis-leading us,and I'm sure I may be doing it too,the comparisons to RL info.This isnt RL,it is CM,and we are talking about the undermodeled night time effect of combat(or the lack thereof).

Irregardless of all this,I appreciate the disscussion so far.This was without a doubt one of my most dissappointing CM moments,for whatever reason.

Ps,

Sorry for the numerous spelling and grammar errors,I got sick of proofreading :D

Edit to add my closing statement(doh!):

In conclusion,are CM trenches too effective?As compared to RL,no.Considering the time constraints in CM however,I say yes they are.

[ March 23, 2004, 09:35 AM: Message edited by: no_one ]

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Originally posted by John Kettler:

no_one and JasonC,

Here's another datum for this discussion, taken from Soviet official artillery planning numbers.

Target = troops in the open. Weapon = 152mm D-20

gun-howitzer. Expected casualties (NOT percentage) per TON of shells fired? 15.8! Yes, you read that

correctly. Change the target to dug-in troops, and the number of casualties drops to 1.58, or roughly two casualties for every ton of shells fired. The chart is found in David Isby's WEAPONS AND TACTICS OF THE SOVIET ARMY, Fully Revised Edition, page 241.

Regards,

John Kettler

John,

So I'm confused.If arty was "the big killer" in WWII,why are those numbers so low?Or am I misunderstanding?

I guess my confusion is dealing with how many shells = a ton?

[ March 23, 2004, 09:41 AM: Message edited by: no_one ]

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Originally posted by no_one:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by John Kettler:

no_one and JasonC,

Here's another datum for this discussion, taken from Soviet official artillery planning numbers.

Target = troops in the open. Weapon = 152mm D-20

gun-howitzer. Expected casualties (NOT percentage) per TON of shells fired? 15.8! Yes, you read that

correctly. Change the target to dug-in troops, and the number of casualties drops to 1.58, or roughly two casualties for every ton of shells fired. The chart is found in David Isby's WEAPONS AND TACTICS OF THE SOVIET ARMY, Fully Revised Edition, page 241.

Regards,

John Kettler

John,

So I'm confused.If arty was "the big killer" in WWII,why are those numbers so low?Or am I misunderstanding?

I guess my confusion is dealing with how many shells = a ton? </font>

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A 152mm shell weighs about 100 lbs, so a ton of then is around 20 shells - maybe 25 at most. Meaning a single module's worth was expected to get 25-30 men in the open, but only 3 or so in cover. The average for the war as a whole was around 10 heavy shells fired for each man hit by arty, so most of the shots fired achieved the "cover" result not the "open" one. (Some miss outright, obviously, meaning they are shot when there is nobody even close).

As for blasting away for 5 minutes at an ATR, it is just dumb. One, the ATR is not dangerous. Two, it was probably pinned by a minute of fire, after which infantry should have taken over. Three, small 2 man units - or 3-4 man HQs - will always lose less per round or ammo point expended than full squads. It is a misallocation of ammo to a tiny, unthreatening target.

And I don't know how many times I have to say it before you stop repeating your incredulity and believe it, but in CM *indirect fire is not effective against men in trenches*. Your comment, "if 50mm direct does it, then so should some of the 81mm indirect" is just completely wrong and utterly misses the point.

Practically every round fired direct will land within a few meters of the aim point. Only a few percent of indirect rounds will land within a few meters of the aim point. Indirect fire requires a large target to be effective. And trenches are very small targets - only stuff that lands in about a 4m width front to back will do anything. Tanks do this with nearly every round (1/3 might be slightly long). On map mortars do it with 1/6 to 1/3 of their rounds. You can fire 100 heavy shells from FOs and not have a single round do it - easily.

How did arty kill in the real deal? The Germans (alone) fielded 25 million rounds of 150mm howitzer, and over 100 million rounds of 105mm howitzer, and over 75 million rounds of 81mm mortar. Did the allies lose 200 million men? They did not. When you fire hundreds of millions of shells, you will hit tens of millions of men.

That is all it takes. Shells are not scarce, over the length and breadth of an entire war. In a CM engagement, you might have scores or you might have hundreds of shells, while the enemy may have hundreds of men. In one fight that is realistic. Over time, the men have to last and the shells keep on coming, until many times more of them than there are men, have been used. The result on an operational scale - a few weeks to a month or two - is to bleed dry every front line enemy infantry battalion.

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JasonC,

You know,I was going to let the issue drop,especially since you cant seem to refrain from,what I persive to be,personal jabs.The thing is though,I simply have to know one thing.Where is the logic in that on map mortars are better against trenches than are off map mortars?Especially when the off map mortars are called on a TRP,which to my understanding is supposed to increase accuracy,atleast slightly.

One(a German 81mm on map mortar)has,at the most,around 40 rounds.The other(a German 81mm FO)has 150 rounds,unless a scenario designer has given him more.So,if a 1/3 or a 1/6 of a on map mortars rounds land to full or partial effect.Then wouldnt a 1/3 or a 1/6 of a off map mortars do the same?Even if its only an 1/8,wouldnt it,atleast on occasion,be the same amount?

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Well, there is a discrepancy between on-maps mortars firing indirect and the off-map mortar spotters. The fall patterns are too different to explain just by radio/wire comms versus yelling.

Another issue is the fall pattern of CM artillery, it is north-south, but WW2 artillery was very well capable of firing boxes and east-west lines with about the same overall distribution. Obviously an east-west line pattern would be more useful against a trench parallel to the defense line.

Last but not least the off-map patterns don't improve with unit quality (but this would be useless if you couldn't request a wider pattern somehow).

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On map means the individual fall of shot is being observed. They see whether each round is an "over" or an "under". (An under obscures the target, an over shows it in sillouette against the blast plume). And they also see whether it is off-line, in the direction of the target. They correct after every round. Off map is firing in battery, on a single angle from each of 4-6 mortars spaced side to side, then just dropping rounds down the tube as fast as they can reload.

A spotting round or two might be used, but only to get within about 50 yards. For the rest, they just count on lots to cover the whole area. Which works just fine against men *above ground*, against whom the blast radius of an 81mm round is tens of meters, not 2 meters. It is meant to saturate an area, not to hit a point target. They aren't trying to hit a point target. If you want them to, you take on map mortars not an FO.

It is just the wrong military means for hitting the type of target involved. It is meant to e.g. make a large wood dangerous to uninhabitable, or to prevent exposed infantry from crossing a given field.

When I tell you what works and how to do things, it is to help you do them. You either are reasonable enough to take instruction or you are not. That is up to you. It is a least slightly silly to complain about stuff you tried not working, and then also to take it personally when someone you said it to, tells you what you are doing wrong and how to correct it.

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JasonC,

Again,you are citing RL examples,instead of commenting of how things really work in CM(see redwolfs post for example).I completely agree with the RL example/explanations you have given.

When I tell you what works and how to do things, it is to help you do them. You either are reasonable enough to take instruction or you are not. That is up to you. It is a least slightly silly to complain about stuff you tried not working, and then also to take it personally when someone you said it to, tells you what you are doing wrong and how to correct it.
Aye,very true,but when you say that someones ideas or strategy is "dumb",you take a few steps away from advising and a few steps toward demeaning.But hey,were all adults here,no harm no foul smile.gif

I also apologize if I have hijacked this thread,or caused it to go off course.

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