Armor over run attacks.

[JasonC]

c3k - no, I do not. Some undoubtedly were. That's easy, isn't it? But hardly the subject being considered.

Because "defensive position" can include a crouch, or a stick-n-sand bag Japanese "bunker" on some atoll, or a hasty foxhole - or it can include slit trenches, full foxholes, full trenches. And not none can mean 5, or it can mean a few a day, or it can mean 10 in every tactical fight, or anything in between.

If that is unclear, my claim is that very few live able bodied infantry in fully prepared positions were run over by tracked vehicles. So few that it was without tactical import.

I claim very few men were ever run over by tracked vehicles to start with. That most bodies run over by tanks were not in prepared positions but in the open, and were already dead. That this left roadkill messes that people wretched at and told horror stories about.

That a few men were run over by their own tanks, as accidents, while in the open not in prepared positions. More than enemy, because they more often operated in close proximity, in numbers. That wounded were more likely to be the victims of this, as they found it harder to get out of the way. That some enemy wounded in the open were probably run over for similar reasons, largely because they were just in the way.

That occasionally terrain bits or positions, soft vehicles, or abandoned equipment were run over by tanks to neutralize them, mostly as a means of "spiking" equipment or clearing a path. That this led to tales of literal "overrun" as a tactic. While almost all instances referred to by that term meant nothing of the kind, this created confusion about its military meaning among civies and greens.

That usually if a tank attempted to run over an able bodied man not in a prepared position, the man easily got out of the way. That a tank's MGs were its main weapon in this situation, not its treads. (Indeed if the threat of physical contact did anything it was flush infantry so the MGs could work).

That tanks rarely went after fully prepared positions, rather than men in the open, because they risk immobilization driving into serious holes. That if they did, men could and did readily avoid them within serious positions, which cannot be readily destroyed by driving tricks. That tanks avoided them in addition because physical proximity to enemy infantry was dangerous, and tanks did not need to take the risk to be effective. That tanks without MGs that attempted to operate right on top of enemy infantry in prepared positions got the worst of it, rather than dishing it out.

That the belief that infantry in real foxholes or slit trenches can be countered by just driving over them and crushing them or their positions, is false, did not happen, was not the typical tactical relationship involved. That including such abilities in a tactical game like CM would completely falsify tank-infantry fights and tactics, and should not be done.

Is that clear enough? Are we done beating strawmen?

[ September 22, 2005, 07:26 AM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by c3k:

Michael Dorosh,

I find the statement, "...skip the sarcastic crap..." incredibly amusing, both in the context you chose and in the fact that _you_ wrote it.

Carry on.

Ken

Sorry if you can't tell the difference, Ken, I was being quite serious.

Do carry on.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

Steve,

actually i do have technical expertice in programming AI, 3D and that kind of stuff. but of course i can not know how CMx2 works and i am quite convinced that i will enjoy the fruits of your labor. CMx2 sounds extremely good.

about JasonC etc, i couldn't care less.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

Originally posted by Sergei:

The quote leaves that open to interpretation, and as such, I suppose JasonC is free to interprete.

yeah, relaxed interpretation and lengthy prose is what JasonC excels in. i agree with 99% of what he writes (i am talking in general here), it's just the parts that he leaves out that tend to annoy me.

Personally, I do have one Axe to grind, but he no longer wishes to play. :mad: Say, you wouldn't be interested in playing a big operation by e-mail..? I need an opponent to continue the play test of a Tali-Ihantala operation. We were close to the end of the first battle, in a fifty-sixty situation, when he turned his back to the PBEM world.

i would really love to play a big Tali-Ihantala operation, but i don't have time for it in the near future. perhaps after a couple of months or so.

[c3k]

JasonC,

Thank you for a detailed response. (I don't know if it was meant to be snide or arrogant: I can see how it could be read that way, however, I choose to believe that is just a function of writing style.)

I will not argue how many able-bodied soldiers were crushed. Nor will I pick holes in the hypothetical examples you took the time to create. I will ask you to consider, in the same context of those hypothetical examples, if soldiers in prepared positions were being heavily suppressed by small-arms fire, would they show such alacrity in leaving their protected positions?

Finally, do you think CMx2 would be a better GAME with, or without, the ability of tanks to physically crush weapons, equipment, and/or men?

Regards,

Ken

[c3k]

Michael Dorosh,

Your responses to me are interesting. I'd love to continue, however, this is not the place. If it would help get you over your 20,000th post, perhaps we could start up a thread elsewhere?

Regards,

Ken

[undead reindeer cavalry]

tanks don't kill infantry that's in trenches by driving over, at least if the trenches are good and the men don't panic & get out, and driving tanks, unsupported by own infantry, close to enemy infantry is stupid in the first place.

still, lots of extremely stupid stuff happens in wars and there's dogmatic stupidity inherent to how armies function. Finns destroyed close to 2000 Soviet tanks in Winter War, only about half of them with guns (meaning indirect fire as well). it sure was stupid for the Soviets to drive their tanks so close to Finnish infantry, again & again, when the result was to get thrown around or get KOed with toothpicks. nonetheless it did happen, a lot. Soviets got results too, e.g. Finns had to change their AT gun tactics because so many guns were being run over by Soviet tanks. it was not only the Soviets who did this stupid stuff, and it was done still late in the war.

armor over run attacks and vehicle collisions include a lot more than just tanks ramming tanks or tanks driving over trenches & foxholes. most who oppose modelling of crews & weapons being run over by vehicles, and modelling of vehicle collisions, seem to think that those who speak for them do not understand how fragile the vehicles (tanks or not) were, and that there usually were serious reasons why such actions weren't preferred.

i believe that if these things were modelled, the actual consequence in CM games would be the opposite: we would have more damaged vehicles and more realistic blunders in using vehicles.

CMx2, with it's more detailed representation, offers much more than "rough terrain tiles" to collide vehicles with. i have understood from Steve's posts that there will be more terrain objects around, and their positions will be more variable than that of the tiles in CMx1. as i interpret it, it will inevitably lead to more vehicle collisions. we can also see where the men are exactly, so running over infantry would no more be so abstract, and "unrealistic results" would be up to unrealistic players to create.

my experience with CMx1 is that there's lots of "unrealistic" stuff going in the battles, it's a game after all, and with the borg spotting gone i think we will see more of unexpected encounters with vehicles in CMx2.

[Hortlund]

Originally posted by JasonC:

LH - I take it that is a "no", then.

Take it for what it is instead. Me trying to explain to you why it is really bad form to make stuff up to support an opinion.

I see you are unable to grasp this simple concept,and therefore I see no alternative but to view all your posts in the same light in the future. That is to assume that you are making stuff up, unless you give us direct sources and quotes.

[Hortlund]

Originally posted by JasonC:

There is another possibility that occurs to me. LH may simply be emotionally invested in the book in question.

Sorry to ruin your little sidetrack/tinfoil adventure here, but like I told Steve, I havent read the book.

[Ardem]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Ardem - believable as a means of spiking the machinegun. Does it say people were still in the hole at the time?

FFS, there was four of the crew still in the hole. (I thought the desperately defended position would of been obvious enough without me pointing it out) One tried to run but a 76mm round from the lead tank blew off his legs. This aint a work of fiction, why is it so hard to believe the russians did this. There tanks are not like the puny little yankie tanks ready to break down under a little pot hole, in my book the T-34 was like the 'AK is to rifles' the most rugged built tank in the war.

Anyway the point is not whether there was people in the trench, the fact that the tank actually attempted to kill or crush or destroy what ever was in the hole is enough.

Jeez

Your arguements although nice and pretty have no substancial weight from any actually eastern front veteran, or any knowledge that you have produced, only your opinion. I have produced example and quotes from veterans that used the tactic or now seen it happen. If people are going to believe your long elegant posts which has nothing but YOUR opinion in it, then they are more interested in logical reasoning then veteran quotes.

I know which I would believe in.

[ September 22, 2005, 05:59 PM: Message edited by: Ardem ]

[Ardem]

Also MD you pointed out in the second quote, that the russian tried this tactic unsuccessful. That shows that the russians and the germans used this tactic if they had to.

In that case it should modelled in such an aspect that it is possible to do but there is the conquenses that it is a very very risky option for a tank.

Just like fix banyonet with no supression assaulting a machine gun position from the front over open land, it is risky and stupid but it is possible to do in CM.

[Battlefront.com]

If we spent all our time simulating things which have no real tactical value, just to prove why it wasn't used much (or at all) in real warfare, we'd have to hire another programmer or simply inform you all that the next game will be released sometime in 2008.

This discussion comes right back around to the same point every time... we can only do so much. Asking us to WASTE (and I do mean WASTE) our time simulating outlier stuff instead of focusing our attention on the core stuff is stupid. I mean completely, idiotically dumb.

Nobody has been able to show that running over infantry and MANNED weapons with tanks is important. By that I mean something that has relevance to real combat and real tactics. Ardem has done a fine job undermining his own position by proving that he can't find any references to back up his claims, but that is not unexpected. You can't find what isn't there.

So... on that note, I'm locking up this pointless and rather heated discussion. It's about as much of a waste of time as it is to spend the time coding it. Would be wonderful if we had endless time to code up whatever any small group of people on this Forum thinks is critically important, but we (the development team) live in the real world of limited time and energy. We MUST prioritize, and this is so clearly a low priority that there is no further need to discuss it.

Steve