Armor over run attacks.

[juan_gigante]

I'm honestly not sure if Ardem is joking with the last bit of his last post.

Originally Posted by Ardem:

"Infantry squashing, tank drivers loved to kill infantry its the only way they could of killed anything."

If you weren't joking... dude.

[Ardem]

I was saying it tongue in cheek cause men move faster then most tanks in WWII, but below are some examples of time that squashin gof positions were achieved.

http://www.greenhillbooks.com/booksheets/blood_red.html

http://www.lonesentry.com/articles/methods/

http://www.normandyallies.org/cyh02.htm

http://migs.concordia.ca/memoirs/lecker/lecker_5.html

http://www.tankbooks.com/amile/bussell/bussell.htm

http://www.22ndinfantry.org/wwllpage2.htm

http://www.wwiionline.de/www/web/forums.php?m=posts&q=1175

Note on soft skin vehicles

Just do a search on the documents with the word 'run'

http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/wwii/makin/mak-drive.htm

'crush'

http://www.isidore-of-seville.com/kursk/6-2.html

Picture of note bottom left corner, stuffed if I would practise that.

[ September 20, 2005, 08:41 PM: Message edited by: Ardem ]

[Battlefront.com]

Ardem, I've read four of the links and found:

1. reference to tanks driving over already dead bodies:

http://www.22ndinfantry.org/wwllpage2.htm

2. referene to driving over burried shelters and allowing the weight of the tank to compress the ground;

http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/wwii/makin/mak-drive.htm

3. what appears to be a joke:

http://www.wwiionline.de/www/web/forums.php?m=posts&q=1175

Specifically:

"A side note, I was asking about kill markings on the tank, and he said that they were all armour kills, tanks and armoured cars that is. Softskin trucks and things like that didn't count because they couldn't shoot back and you could just run over them anyway."

To me this sounds like the Tiger commander was making a joke, not a factual statement. Like saying something is so thinly armored that a spitball can penetrate it. I've heard of M5 Stuarts being called "bicycle smashers", but I doubt that is what they were used for.

Running over trucks, while certainly possible, would be an extremely foolish thing to do. Especially because they were worth their weight in gold captured. But if one decides to destroy a truck when he instead could capture it, I doubt that running it over was the prefered method. First off, trucks have this stuff called fuel, and that stuff can be rather nasty if you're in the middle of it when it suddenly combusts. There is also the thought of "gee, wonder if that truck is carrying ammo" that should spring to mind as the tank driver is contemplating the maneuver. Then of course the usual "sure driving over trucks is fun, but not if I throw a track and have to spend 4 hours in the hot sun repairing it while possibly under enemy observation".

4. A picture of Soviet troops practice having their trench crossed by a tank. This is a very common thing for tanks to do, but that isn't the same as crushing them like described in this thread. Nope, this is a perpendicular crossing that is completely safe for the tank provided that the trench isn't too wide and there isn't some brave soul in the trench with some sort of explosive device. The latter could be avoided by going fast.

http://www.isidore-of-seville.com/kursk/6-2.html

So anyway, I stopped wasting my time since none of this has anything to do with anything. Tanks running over infantry positions, as a matter of routine, is a Hollywood fantasy. Tanks going around like bumpper cars smashing into each other is also a fantasy. Did these things happen from time to time? Not a single person here disputes that they did. But are they valid to simulate? See my previous posts about that and be satisfied with that as the final answer.

Steve

[ September 20, 2005, 09:45 PM: Message edited by: Battlefront.com ]

[JonS]

Originally posted by Ardem:

I was saying it tongue in cheek cause men move faster then most tanks in WWII,

From If you survive, by George Wilson, page 22 (first day of St Lo breakthrough, late July 1944):

A little while later, as we rested against the hedgerow facing the front, we heard one of our tanks making a big racket coming up to the hedgerow behind us. We got out of there fast, except for the sergeant. We yelled at him to get moving, but he just sat in a daze as the tank plowed through and buried him alive. A bunch of us dug him out at once, but it was too late.

[hoolaman]

Yeah I found those links a little useless too.

One reference I did find of relevance was using tanks to crush japanese wooden bunkers and revetted emplacements.

Occasionally the tanks rode onto the shelters to crush them with sheer weight.

[Hortlund]

Originally posted by JasonC:

If you want to attack other men for having opinions, you might as well attack them for having noses.

No, I want to attack them for making **** up while pretending it is the truth.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

ramming, or vehicle collisions in other words, is, in my honest opinion, a key part of using, and not using, tanks and other vehicles. causing collisions by purpose is naturally something that was avoided if possible, but often things weren't & couldn't be done in the optimal way. unexpected encounters with enemy vehicles and limited maneuver options, say like when moving in a road in woods and suddenly facing enemy motorized infantry column, sometimes resulted in situations where purposefully colliding with other vehicles became a desirable option. collisions with other vehicles of your unit was certainly avoided. collisions, causing them purposefully or avoiding them, with immobile objects were important part of using vehicles in combat, as others pointed.

like i wrote in my earlier post, i can see well that modelling collisions would further emphasis some of the flaws of CMx1. the non-existent modelling of column movement and the resulting vehicular dance of death is an example that is known to all. more detailed graphical representation will emphasis them as well, as there's lot less room for visual abstraction and collisions with immobile objects can be witnessed in detail.

saying that modelling of vehicle collisions is not a key element in a game like CM is a bit silly. those who ridicule the importance of modelling vehicle collisions most likely do not see the big picture and all the elements that follow and are included. vehicle collisions, and their avoidance, is not unusual phenomena in the battlefield. it's something that is so usual that most of it is taken for granted.

lastly, i don't buy it for a second that it would be a big task to code some basic vehicle collision modelling into CMx2. there's already collision detection in there, so adding some very basic checks (on data that already exists) and results (as state changes that already exist, e.g. immobilization, destruction, injury) should be no big deal.

i'm not asking for 1:1 graphical representation, thrughout damage modelling or brilliant TacAI awareness of ramming. i'm certainly not asking to see tanks transformed to some mythical invulnerable metal beasts, that flatten infantry and crush thru the surrounding environment with ease, but quite the opposite.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Leutnant Hortlund:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by JasonC:

If you want to attack other men for having opinions, you might as well attack them for having noses.

No, I want to attack them for making **** up while pretending it is the truth. </font>

[vincere]

(avoiding the who spins evidence to fit their pre-conceptions charge)

I think JasonC's consequences approach the strongest and most persuasive so far. Correct if I'm mistaken but I think that what you were highlighting is that if armour routinely or even significantly ran troops and buildings over then there would probably be consequences of that, which we do not see. A little like when armoured vehicles are specialised for other roles, they tend to look different. Mine clearing tanks spring to mind but there have been other outlandish prototypes that didn't make it.

The practical limits of increasing armour on a tank mean that the front is most heaily armoured than elsewhere. Doctrine and practical employment of tanks rely on this fact. If tanks were routinely used to run over troops why was the armour on tanks never spread more evenly? Why is the underbelly of a tank one of its weakest areas?

Why invest so much on stand-off weapons in infantry support armour such as the Stug? Why didn't armoured bulldozers become the infantry support vehicle of choice?

[ September 21, 2005, 05:53 AM: Message edited by: vincere ]

[YankeeDog]

Lt H:

Since you obviously haven't taken the hint from Steve and other, a friendly suggestion: IMHO, 4-letter words rarely improve an argument. Quite the contrary, using them makes it look like you lack actual evidence and intellectual ability to forumulate said evidence into a cogent argument.

You may very well have a valid argument. I can't tell because you can't seem to stop throwing Junior High School level insults at Jason long enough to get your point across.

If your goal is to insult Jason and make yourself look like a 6th Grade playground bully, you're doing a good job. But you're failing miserably at convincing me of anything further - I've simply stopped reading your posts after the first sentence or two due to the crude language.

Regards,

YD

[aka_tom_w]

wow

this thread is a little more highly charged than usual.

What's left to discuss?

Really?

-tom w

[JasonC]

A fun set of links. We have -

A training document pointing out halftracks are useful in counterattacks, using their MGs, with the rather hopeful statement that the 'tracks themselves can run over enemy personal and MGs. I don't doubt halftracks are useful in counterattacks against infantry, and running over an abandoned MG is a good way to "spike" it and prevent later remanning.

That occurs in one clause of a small paragraph that is devoid of narrative or detail. It is in the midst of a detailed description of days of tank-infantry fighting in desert. Nowhere in the detailed description part is anyone run over. On the contrary, the effectiveness of tanks is explicitly said to stem from well directed fire at close range, keeping men down until infantry is right on top of them. Tanks penetrate infantry positions and fire with MGs and HE - but the infantry hold the position when the tanks are unaccompanied. It is hard to find a better example of the contrast between sober military description of the actual use of tanks, and flip hopefulness without detail.

Then we have another in which people describe finding "horses or men killed by artillery or run over by tanks". They can't even tell. All they have is a mess, and they don't know if a shell made the mess or a tank made the mess, or a bullet killed something and then shells spread it around, or tanks did, or... Enough, there is a roadkill mess and no info, and someone searching for an explanation imagines a tank might have done that.

Then we have a description of a battle, lasting 3 hours, which the witness spent hiding in a cellar helping wounded. On coming out, in addition to prisoners, he sees dead, some of them run over by tanks. Meat, again. He has no knowledge of whether they were machinegunned first or not. Tanks maneuvering over a battlefield with bodies on it will run over bodies. We know this, it is not relevant.

A tanker runs over 3 parked motorcycles. They are explicitly said to be parked. He adds that one can run over anything in a tank, but never so much as hints that he ever ran over a person.

Men in a training exercise let a tank pass over their heads while in a trench, and do so with entire safety. Yeppers, that's dispositive isn't it?

Log bunkers are run over by tanks. Entirely believable. It is even believable that some Japanese, unwilling to surrender, were actually still inside, occasionally. Then again, more elaborate log bunkers might take the weight - bridges do - but a pile of sticks and sandbags might well be collapsed by 30 tons. Notice however, that like a parked motorcycle or a dead body, a log bunker doesn't exactly get out of the way. Useful, not directly on point.

Then we have one report of a man injured when his foxhole was run over by a tank, who spent months in hospital but is alive and well. It is a contact attempt being related by a third party relative. It is useful and believable as relating one incident, subject to some quibbles. It isn't eyewitness, it is hearsay. None of the particulars are given. We don't know if getting run over meant getting overrun in the military sense and the relative garbled it.

Show me the fifty passages in standard, professional military narrative when the ability in question had an actual tactical effect. B company attacked hill howhigh and took 30 prisoners, countering the foxholes by... Lone sentry style narrative is the desired form, if you have any doubts about what I mean. See the above link, read all of it not just a sentence picked out by search, and then explain how the tactical effect of tanks stemmed from running people over. Or look for a dozen other narratives of similar length and detail, that say so. If the thesis were correct, this would not be hard.

[JasonC]

LH - so it should be easy to point to the statement I made that is not the truth, and to establish that it is false. Show the actual error, the concretely false statement. Explain how you know the statement is false, what you know is true instead. Explain how we are supposed to know it, too. Shouldn't be hard. If you can't show this, then you are objecting to my having an opinion about a question you may have a different opinion about. You might also explain how you distinguish between what is true and what you believe (not what someone else does). You could offer your way of distinguishing them to us, recommend it. We could take it or leave it. Personally, when I hear or read something from you I take it to be your opinion and what you believe.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

I'm curious. What exactly is it you think that Jason has made up? Can you provide any quotes?

see Jason's post earlier on this thread. he appears to put his own ideas to GD officer's mouth.

the original:

Perhaps even more persuasive testimony comes from a member of the vaunted Grossdeutschland Division itself Herr Helmuth Spaeter a former major who commanded the division's reconnaissance Abteilung during the war and served for a period as the head of the division's veterans' association. Quoted by Kennedy as one of Sajer's most vociferous critics Spaeter was absolutely convinced until recently that The Forgotten Soldier was fiction. However when I provided him a copy of Sajer's letter to examine he was evidently moved enough to completely reexamine his earlier position.

"I was deeply impressed by his statements in his letter " he told me. "I have underestimated Herr Sajer and my respect for him has greatly increased. I am myself more of a writer who deals with facts and specifics-much less like one who writes in a literary way. For this reason I was very skeptical towards the content of his book. I now have greater regard for Herr Sajer and I will read his book once again. Thank God I still have a copy of it here."28

Apparently here is one skeptic who is willing to abandon his preconceptions and look at Sajer's book from a new perspective and a well-known member of the Grossdeutschland Division who fought in the same battles as Sajer did no less. Spaeter's reversal suggests a course of action that might wisely be taken by other skeptics far less personally engaged in these matters.

and this is what Jason wrote:

Ardem - read the GD officer's statement again, and you will notice he calls himself factual and Sajer literary, and never says he believes a word of it. He does say he has new respect for him and will read him again - in reaction no doubt to Sajer explaining it was his duty to glorify the German soldier. In other words, before he thought him a poser, now he considers him a friendly propagandist.

perhaps Jason has another source, but judging from his post he is speaking about the part i quoted above. please note that, amongst other things, in the original it is said that "Spaeter was absolutely convinced until recently that The Forgotten Soldier was fiction".

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by JasonC:

A fun set of links. We have -

I gave up after the first link; I saw an enormous document with very little relevant content. Thanks for documenting this.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by undead reindeer cavalry:

perhaps Jason has another source, but judging from his post he is speaking about the part i quoted above. please note that, amongst other things, in the original it is said that "Spaeter was absolutely convinced until recently that The Forgotten Soldier was fiction".

Unfortunately, Herr Spaeter is dead now. All the quote says is that he decided to give the book a second chance; his eventual conclusions aren't stated.

Spaeter undertook the monumental task of writing the history of the GD - first a Regiment, then a Division, then an entire corps, including the Brandenbug Commandos and the Fuhrer escort units. A giant task. Spaeter was a fair propagandist himself - I understand he was a Knight's Cross holder and certainly no coward; as an historian, I think he left one or two things to be desired.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

Unfortunately, Herr Spaeter is dead now. All the quote says is that he decided to give the book a second chance; his eventual conclusions aren't stated.

it is not all he said, and in my opinion Jason clearly put words into his mouth, but i have no axe to grind with this subject.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Show me the fifty passages in standard, professional military narrative when the ability in question had an actual tactical effect.

no doubt, you will not be given what you ask for.

we would see them in CMx2 battles very rarely, not least because the player would very soon find out the foolishness of such tactics, and they would have practically zero impact on battle results.

still, i don't understand how it's a reason to not model them in, as long as it's not a big task to do so. i rather prefer the model in which the player can do stupid stuff and the game penalizes the player for doing so, rather than the model in which the game knows it better and doesn't let the player to be foolish. i don't want an interactive documentary, i want a game.

i'd also like to see CMx2 games that have cavalry, chariots etc but don't have over run modelled.

[Sergei]

Originally posted by undead reindeer cavalry:

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

Unfortunately, Herr Spaeter is dead now. All the quote says is that he decided to give the book a second chance; his eventual conclusions aren't stated.

it is not all he said, and in my opinion Jason clearly put words into his mouth, but i have no axe to grind with this subject. </font>

[Hortlund]

Originally posted by JasonC:

LH - so it should be easy to point to the statement I made that is not the truth, and to establish that it is false. Show the actual error, the concretely false statement. Explain how you know the statement is false, what you know is true instead. Explain how we are supposed to know it, too. Shouldn't be hard. If you can't show this, then you are objecting to my having an opinion about a question you may have a different opinion about. You might also explain how you distinguish between what is true and what you believe (not what someone else does). You could offer your way of distinguishing them to us, recommend it. We could take it or leave it. Personally, when I hear or read something from you I take it to be your opinion and what you believe.

Yes Jason, it is very easy to point out your made up stuff.

Originally posted by JasonC:

Ardem - read the GD officer's statement again, and you will notice he calls himself factual and Sajer literary, and never says he believes a word of it. He does say he has new respect for him and will read him again - in reaction no doubt to Sajer explaining it was his duty to glorify the German soldier. In other words, before he thought him a poser, now he considers him a friendly propagandist.

The bolded part contains your made up stuff. The italized part is where you are way off in "lets-make-****-up-and-pretend-its-true"-land.

Do you understand the difference between having an opinion on something (I believe Sajer is a liar), and making stuff up to justify that opinion (Sajer and the GD officer agreed to spread the Sajer-lie to make german soldiers look more heroic). Do you understand that difference? Im asking because I work as a lawyer, and to me, the difference between what you are trying to do now (pretend that your original statement was just expressing an opinion) and what you originally posted (stuff made up by you to reinforce your opinion on something) is enormous.

And no Jason, it is not ok to make stuff up to reinforce your point, even though you are 100% convinced your opinion is correct.

[Battlefront.com]

undead reindeer cavalry,

lastly, i don't buy it for a second that it would be a big task to code some basic vehicle collision modelling into CMx2.

Obviously what you think is irrelevant. Like many "oh that is easy" commens, yours lacks technical expertise to know what you are talking about. So I find it rather amusing that you are nit picking what Jason's post when yours is far worse

LH, you're being a nitwit. If you can't refrain from using foul language, your ability will be removed. I've warned you several times that you are in violation of the Forum rules, but yet you insist on acting like a child. Don't test my patience.

Again, I don't understand what the heck the fuss is about. Jason clearly put his own spin on something. We ALL do it. Ardem did the same thing too. Yet for some reason LH has a hair across his butt and is making a big issue out of something that isn't even an issue. Well, unless he wants to blow a gasket pretty much every other time someone posts. And whatever Jason did or did not do, in LH's opinion, is so irrelevant to this discussion that I can't understand why he keeps bringing it up. Very frustrating.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

undead reindeer cavalry,

i'd also like to see CMx2 games that have cavalry, chariots etc but don't have over run modelled.

Everything is context sensitive. That's the whole point. We support things based on the criteria I mentioned a few pages back. So when we simulate cavalry or chariots we'll make design decisions based on that. This is exactly why CMx2 can not be a generic game engine for modders to make up their own games. As flexible as the game system is, we will still have to code a whole bunch of stuff for each new setting the game simulates. It just isn't possible to code for all possible settings at once (even for a single setting!).

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

URC,

it is not all he said, and in my opinion Jason clearly put words into his mouth

Maybe I am a lot smarter than you because I never thought for a second that the bit you quoted from Jason was, as LH thinks, being posed as "fact". I guess my superior intellect could plainly see that it was his personal interpretation of an ambigious quote which was trotted out to support a position that had already been knocked about by other facts by other people.

Fact is people do just what Jason did all the time, especially in a discussion forum like this. Heck, even you did this when commenting on how "easy" it would be for us to put in collision detection. Otherwise you would have stated:

"lastly, i don't buy it for a second that it would be a big task to code some basic vehicle collision modelling into CMx2. there's already collision detection in there, so adding some very basic checks (on data that already exists) and results (as state changes that already exist, e.g. immobilization, destruction, injury) should be no big deal. Then again, I don't know anything about coding or how CMx1 is coded or CMx2 could be coded, so this is just my uninformed opinion and should not be taken as a statement of fact by anybody who is predisposed to such unreasonable literal readings of posts on a discussion forum."

Steve

[Hortlund]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

LH, you're being a nitwit. If you can't refrain from using foul language, your ability will be removed. I've warned you several times that you are in violation of the Forum rules, but yet you insist on acting like a child. Don't test my patience.

You have warned me several times? *confused*

Anyway, I apologize, maybe its a cultural thing, but over here "****" is not really considered foul language. If it bothers you I shall endeavor to stop using it.

Again, I don't understand what the heck the fuss is about.

Well, then I dont think it is possible for me to explain it to you. Jason made stuff up and used the made up stuff to reinforce a point he was trying to make. That is generally frowned upon, but apparently not by you. Fine.

[ September 21, 2005, 11:35 AM: Message edited by: Leutnant Hortlund ]

[Michael Dorosh]

Incidentally, cavalry "overruns" may be largely a myth also. See Keegan's book THE FACE OF BATTLE; horses - generally speaking - will balk at penetrating lines of infantry. Keegan uses some interesting sources - such as video footage of mounted police at a soccer riot - which is open to interpretation (were the police horses simply not trained as military horses might have been to make them less shy of lines of people?) but nonetheless interesting.