Pure Armor?

[legend42]

How realistic and/or common was a all armor battle?did they ever happen? i think they would be very rare

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by legend42:

How realistic and/or common was a all armor battle?did they ever happen? i think they would be very rare

A thousand points or so will only buy you about a weak company of armour, depending on era and quality.

It would be most unusual for armour and infantry to by mixed below company level in any army.

All the best,

John.

[jgdpzr]

Sure, such encounters occurred, certainly on the scale portrayed in CM. What you see on a typical battlefield in CM often must be seen as merely a part of a larger engagement, encompassing a much larger area. In such an environment, different types of arms of combatants will come into contact with one another, depending on the specifics of the battle at hand. Sometimes a specific point of contact would involve all or several of the arms organic to, or attached to the larger echelon involved in the engagement (such as a division), sometimes not. While armour tended to have some infantry support nearby, there were many examples of tanks meeting without such support, particularly when one side or both had to quickly cover ground to contest a vital objective. I suppose this would most closely resemble the meeting engagement in CM terms. Sometimes armour, or recon vehicles, had to race ahead of infantry support and fight a screening action to delay an advancing enemy or shield the forward deployment of infantry. In such situations, they would briefly find themselves with little or no immediate infantry support, at least for the length of time represented in typical CM battles.

I believe what John is alluding to is the fact that the make-up of a balanced force at the CM level is really an artificial construct, particularly in smaller scenarios or quick battles. On sub-battalion levels, an autonomous combined arms package like you see in most 'balanced' battles in CM would have been the exception, rather than the rule. (Hope I didn't misstate you there, John) However, coming back to the whole idea of the CM battle being a slice of a larger battle, it is possible to imagine the assets of the larger echelon of which you are a part fighting on both flanks, so you're free to imagine just about anything on your particular little piece of the action.