Michael Dorosh Posted February 25, 2004 Share Posted February 25, 2004 Originally posted by Panther Commander: How would the Germans know for sure how many Shermans were knocked out, unless they controlled tha battlefield, after it was all over? Who's to say they knew for sure? Oh wait, PK men never lied, I forgot. heehee!! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve McClaire Posted February 25, 2004 Share Posted February 25, 2004 I believe it was CCA of US 2nd Armored. They were trying to take Vire August 4-6th and lost at least 14 Shermans on August 6th (all from the same company) which is specifically mentioned in the source I have, though it does not give a total of tanks lost on that day. See pages 240-242 of "Hell on Wheels" by Donald E. Houston. Here is a brief quotation: "Corps and Division artillery shelled Vire heavily during the night of August 5th ... Brooke (Division CO) ordered Rose (CCA CO) to take the town the following day...the attack started at 8:00am and met heavy artillery, mortar, AT gun, tank, and small arms fire. After an entire day of trying to advance the command made only 500 yards...One tank company lined up behind a hedgerow, planning to rush the Vire river. German fire knocked out ten of the tanks; when the other nine moved out to cross the river four of the were promptly destroyed." Early Houston states that, on August 5th, CCA captured some prisoners while taking Martilly (NW of Vire) who "revealed that two infantry regiments and an artillery regiment had moved into the area to relieve the 2nd SS Panzer division, which had begun moving out of the area the previous evening." If this is correct it sounds like the StuGs were supporting a German infantry unit, presumably under the same Corps as 2nd SS Panzer. Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Russian Posted February 26, 2004 Author Share Posted February 26, 2004 Originally posted by Steve McClaire: I believe it was CCA of US 2nd Armored. They were trying to take Vire August 4-6th and lost at least 14 Shermans on August 6th (all from the same company) which is specifically mentioned in the source I have, though it does not give a total of tanks lost on that day. See pages 240-242 of "Hell on Wheels" by Donald E. Houston. Here is a brief quotation: "...One tank company lined up behind a hedgerow, planning to rush the Vire river. German fire knocked out ten of the tanks; when the other nine moved out to cross the river four of the were promptly destroyed." Steve An interesting thing about this passage is that doing a check on map quest there is no Vire river in the 2nd Armored Division area of operations. That river lies in the British 11th Armored Divisions area of operations. Thanks for the quote though. I think we have finally found the tank fight. And although not an actual battlefield map of the exact starting locations at least a situation map for the day. Panther Commander 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve McClaire Posted February 26, 2004 Share Posted February 26, 2004 Originally posted by Panther Commander: An interesting thing about this passage is that doing a check on map quest there is no Vire river in the 2nd Armored Division area of operations. That river lies in the British 11th Armored Divisions area of operations.The way "Hell on Wheels" reads it is pretty obvious Houston is often paraphrasing (or perhaps even quoting) the various unit AARs. I suspect the tankers were refering to whatever river it was as "the Vire river" and he just brought it along without checking. Same for the apparent math problem w/ number of tanks in a medium tank company (10 knocked out, 9 continue = 19, when TO&E was 17). There are details scattered through the narrative about exactly what CCA units were where. I can sort these out if you want more details. Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Russian Posted February 26, 2004 Author Share Posted February 26, 2004 Originally posted by Steve McClaire: </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Panther Commander: An interesting thing about this passage is that doing a check on map quest there is no Vire river in the 2nd Armored Division area of operations. That river lies in the British 11th Armored Divisions area of operations.The way "Hell on Wheels" reads it is pretty obvious Houston is often paraphrasing (or perhaps even quoting) the various unit AARs. I suspect the tankers were refering to whatever river it was as "the Vire river" and he just brought it along without checking. Same for the apparent math problem w/ number of tanks in a medium tank company (10 knocked out, 9 continue = 19, when TO&E was 17). There are details scattered through the narrative about exactly what CCA units were where. I can sort these out if you want more details. Steve </font> 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve McClaire Posted February 26, 2004 Share Posted February 26, 2004 Prior to 3rd August CCA is out of the line refitting. 3rd: Ordered to seize Martilly and protect left flank of XIX Corps. Attack begins 0600, 3/66th Armor Rgt in the lead. Advance 5000 yards and then (at 1000) make contact with German roadblocks backed by dug-in tanks, AT, and infantry. Fighting unitl 1730 and reached a stream 2 miles north of Martilly. Rose requests more infantry but is denied. 4th: Attack at 0800, coordinating with 29th Infantry. Left-hand column led by 1/66th Armor moved west of Vire and captured hill 219 - ordered to continue attack and seize high ground south of Vire but held up by German infantry infiltrating hill 219. 2/66 fought into Martilly against opposition of the same type described above. 5th: Results for the day summed up as "...unable to dislodge opposition..." which seems to indicate little action. Assume there was little activity as they had acheived their initial objective. That night ordered to attack SE and take Domfront. 2/41 Armored Infantry attached and division & corps artillery support promised for attack. 6th: Action as described earlier. 7th: CCA pulled off the line again, save 1& 3/66th which 29th Infantry did not allow to leave hill 219 (which implies CCA is under command 29th?). CCA was normally built around the 66th Armored Rgt with 1 battalion 41st Armored Infantry and 1-2 Armored FA battalions, 1 armored engineer company, and some elements of the divisions 82nd recon bn. Note that 2nd Armored was a 'heavy' armored division. Cheers, Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Russian Posted February 26, 2004 Author Share Posted February 26, 2004 Steve, That is excellent information. Thank you for the research. I'll use most of it. You should have a scenario headed your way by the first part of next week. Panther Commander [ February 26, 2004, 09:32 AM: Message edited by: Panther Commander ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingfish Posted February 26, 2004 Share Posted February 26, 2004 Here are a couple of interesting excerpts of other battles near Vire at or around 8/6/44 The first describes a battle on 8/8/44 in the Brit sector The actions for which Fey won his German cross in Gold are recounted in detail here and are typical of the type of material presented by individual SS tank commanders in the book. By the beginning of August 1944 the German lines in Normandy were crumbling. On 8 August as Allied forces crept towards Vire, west of Falaise, Willi Fey as an SS-Unterscharführer from the 1st Company of sSSPzAbt 102, launched an attack, supported by the 1./Pioneer Btn 600 under Oberleutnant GAUL, on a column of 15 Shermans and gun carriers from the 23rd Hussars/11th Armoured Division, sighted approaching down the valley from the direction of the hamlet of Houssemagne. Opening fire at a distance of 600 metres, 4 Shermans are rapidly put out of action. Feys Tiger «134» is disabled by a number of hits. Kommandeur Pz. Ab 102 Obersturmbannführer Weiß orders Fey to blow up his Tiger. Fey continues firing at the Shermans accounting for 14 off them in a 30 minute action. His Tiger is towed back to German lines later that night. Weiß recommends Fey for the Deutsche Kreuz in Gold following this action and the award is presented by General II Panzerkorps Bittrich on 15 September 1944... The second is a military print of the Jagdpanther's debut in Normandy The Jagdpanther was considered by many to have been the most potent anti-tank weapon of the war, combining the armoured lines of the Panther tank and awesome power of the 88mm gun. This was probably first demonstrated during the British advance through the Caumont Gap during "Operation Bluecoat" when the Jagdpanthers of Heavy Tank Battalion 654 engaged the Churchills of the 6th Guards Tank Brigade. A squadron of Churchills covering Point 226 suddenly started exploding one after another. Breaking cover from the "Bois du Homme" 2 Jagdpanthers covered by a third proceeded to pick off more of the British tanks only retreating when they came under fire. Although the 2 Jagdpanthers had to be abandoned due to track damage, they managed to destroy 14 of the Scots Guards tanks in an engagement which lasted only 2 minutes! August must have been a bad month for allied tankers 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Dorosh Posted February 26, 2004 Share Posted February 26, 2004 Originally posted by Kingfish: August must have been a bad month for allied tankers That is indeed the same month that the British Columbia Regiment went up the wrong hill and got wiped out the following morning. They lost 47 tanks out of 52. http://www.ashofc.ca/ashist195.htm 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Russian Posted February 27, 2004 Author Share Posted February 27, 2004 Originally posted by Kingfish: Here are a couple of interesting excerpts of other battles near Vire at or around 8/6/44 The first describes a battle on 8/8/44 in the Brit sector The actions for which Fey won his German cross in Gold are recounted in detail here and are typical of the type of material presented by individual SS tank commanders in the book. By the beginning of August 1944 the German lines in Normandy were crumbling. On 8 August as Allied forces crept towards Vire, west of Falaise, Willi Fey as an SS-Unterscharführer from the 1st Company of sSSPzAbt 102, launched an attack, supported by the 1./Pioneer Btn 600 under Oberleutnant GAUL, on a column of 15 Shermans and gun carriers from the 23rd Hussars/11th Armoured Division, sighted approaching down the valley from the direction of the hamlet of Houssemagne. Opening fire at a distance of 600 metres, 4 Shermans are rapidly put out of action. Feys Tiger «134» is disabled by a number of hits. Kommandeur Pz. Ab 102 Obersturmbannführer Weiß orders Fey to blow up his Tiger. Fey continues firing at the Shermans accounting for 14 off them in a 30 minute action. His Tiger is towed back to German lines later that night. Weiß recommends Fey for the Deutsche Kreuz in Gold following this action and the award is presented by General II Panzerkorps Bittrich on 15 September 1944... The second is a military print of the Jagdpanther's debut in Normandy The Jagdpanther was considered by many to have been the most potent anti-tank weapon of the war, combining the armoured lines of the Panther tank and awesome power of the 88mm gun. This was probably first demonstrated during the British advance through the Caumont Gap during "Operation Bluecoat" when the Jagdpanthers of Heavy Tank Battalion 654 engaged the Churchills of the 6th Guards Tank Brigade. A squadron of Churchills covering Point 226 suddenly started exploding one after another. Breaking cover from the "Bois du Homme" 2 Jagdpanthers covered by a third proceeded to pick off more of the British tanks only retreating when they came under fire. Although the 2 Jagdpanthers had to be abandoned due to track damage, they managed to destroy 14 of the Scots Guards tanks in an engagement which lasted only 2 minutes! August must have been a bad month for allied tankers I knew about Fey's action it is recounted in several other places...but the Jagdpanthers debut is not one I had heard of. Two minutes isn't much time to kill 14 tanks. What a fight. Interesting stuff. I am in fact working on the Fey engagement and am trying to get it done to release with our Battle for France pack that we start to release tomorrow at the SD. We will release a few scenarios a week until they are all released. I may have time to get the Fey engagement done by then. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. Panther Commander 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andreas Posted February 27, 2004 Share Posted February 27, 2004 PC - I expect to get the war diary pages of the allied unit involved in the Fey fight covering that fight sometime next week. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Russian Posted February 28, 2004 Author Share Posted February 28, 2004 Originally posted by Andreas: PC - I expect to get the war diary pages of the allied unit involved in the Fey fight covering that fight sometime next week. Are you going to share them? :confused: :confused: I for one would love to see them. Of course they will be in German and I may have to muddle through that but it would still be interesting to see them. Panther Commander 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andreas Posted February 28, 2004 Share Posted February 28, 2004 Err, why would diaries of an allied be in German? Sharing them will be impossible, since my server is broken, and they are paper copies. May also be against the copyright agreement. I can give you some info in email though. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Russian Posted February 29, 2004 Author Share Posted February 29, 2004 Originally posted by Andreas: Err, why would diaries of an allied be in German? Sharing them will be impossible, since my server is broken, and they are paper copies. May also be against the copyright agreement. I can give you some info in email though. Sorry missed the Allied part. Sharing doesn't mean breaking copyright laws. Some info by Email works. You have mine use it anytime. Panther Commander 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iron Cross Posted February 29, 2004 Share Posted February 29, 2004 The British Columbia Regiment of 4 Canadian Amoured Brigade / 4 Canadian Amoured Division had lost its way during a night advance and was actually near pt. 140 not pt. 195. That's why their calls for artillary support were useless as they were landing on pt. 195. A zug of Tigers of s.SS-Pz.Abt.101 and a zug of PzIV's and Panther's from 12.SS-Pz did most of the damage. Basically destroyed the BCR. Check out my Worthington Force v3.0 CMBO scenario on the Scenario Depot. I used an accurate map with elevation data and various historical references to try to piece together this battle. Also see my Rocherath-Krinkelt (for 12.SS-Pz. Div.) Operation for CMBO on the Scenario Depot. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Russian Posted March 4, 2004 Author Share Posted March 4, 2004 The operation is finally being playtested. I decided on two 30 turn battles to cover the one hour fight. Anyone interested in getting a copy of the operation can email me directly. Once I get it playtested to my satisfaction, I will post it to The Proving Grounds for further playtesting, then post it to the Scenario Depot. Since you were all instrumental in the background research I have included you in the credits. I would expect it to ready for serious play in about another month or so. Like I said if you are interested in playtesting it or just looking at it I'll be happy to forward it on to you. Just put Vire in the subject of the email so you don't hit the trash can. Panther Commander 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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