East Front

[JasonC]

The only time masses of infantry surrendered because tanks drove around behind them was the Italians in Libya in 1940.

In France in 1940, full combined arms armies with more tanks in them than had driven around behind them, were destroyed in a couple of weeks of hard fighting after being isolated. Several hundred thousand evacuated by sea and there was no mass surrender.

In Russia in 1941, numerous times armies were cut off by mechanized armies; those so cut off included their own mech formations as large as those cutting them off, but they were completely ineffective whether cut off or not.

In Russia in 1941, only their infantry formations were effective - their mech corps evaporate on contact, even when ordered to attack a single German infantry division with 1000 Russian tanks. The Russians take to relying on infantry armies because they are still on the map a week after an attack order, and mech corps are not. They are gone, poof, less than 30 runners remaining.

After the pockets formed, there was large scale fighting to reduce them, with forces inside them attacking to get out until their ammunition was exhausted. When they had wooded terrain large numbers escaped even after the ammo for the artillery gave out (which is the proximate cause of collapse - arty vs. none I mean), by evading through them. Others flat hid and went partisan. Large numbers did surrender in these cases, typically after a couple of weeks of pocket reduction fighting against infantry enemies who had full artillery support etc.

After that point, nobody gave up just because somebody drove around them. Pockets the size of armies occasionally formed, and fought for months. Pockets the size of corps sometimes formed, and fought for a week or two. Pockets smaller than divisions usually collapsed in a few days. The small ones "go" because the enemy can readily get any odds needed against them. Larger ones "go" if they can't fight their way out or relief forces fight their way in, when the artillery ammo goes and enemy attacks into the pocket cannot be stopped.

In all of it, the armor formations and their clashes certainly matter to the pacing and flow of the war. But they are 20% or so of the engaged forces. Millions of men are fighting each other with artillery and machineguns throughout. The point of the armor operations is to make better conditions for one's own side in those fights.

As for waiting and seeing when CMC comes out, since I don't expect it to I am not waiting. We will have good campaign systems when we come up with them, and they will work when we run them. If you try to run a campaign today with 2 km op squares it won't work.

[Urban Shocker]

Thanks for proving my point! I'll let you guys figure out which one it is.

[sross]

There seem to be several campaigns out there being done by players. I think they generally run at a slow pace due to lack of players or lack of GM's to handle all the work. I'm sure some could use talented volunteers to help out.

[JasonC]

Players are not the problem, although sometimes scheduling the game times when both sides can make a long TCP IP is an issue for a few days - and that counts as "work", of the secretary meeting arranger variety. Which I always asked my team leaders to do, but frequently had to do myself. The hold up is essentially always referee time. I could turn over op turns in a few days when I had little else on my plate, which is what is needed to keep moving on a game a week schedule. But frequently something else is going on and it slips to a week and change, instead. That is still livable if it is only occasional and always made that week. When I had to do something that took me away from gaming completely for a month or so, campaigns could just die, or be significantly delayed. The best arrangement would be a back up ref or two.

[civdiv]

Oh crap, EF and WF. Goddamned I hated those games. Panzerblitz with counters that went 'vroom, vroom.' Buggy crap that never got fixed. Remember the manual fiasco? Then they finally fix EF but no, it's a new game, give us $50 for your copy. The copy protection scheme that led to lots of users not even being able to install the game. Everything Talon-fraud did was a buggy mess. Panzerblitz loaded on top of whatever that series of games that they used the engine of, yeah, real tough to execute. I used to get banned from their forum like once a month for complaining about their buggy crap and lack of company morals.

Sorry, you struck a nerve there.

[pwncake]

Hi all, i read your stories and i have some questions about the foot soldiers. I thought that german doctrine said for every division, 2 on front and 1 in the back for reffiting or local reserves.

And from al the thing a read where the germans in attack always depended on armor. So nearly all attacks including foot soldiers on the eastern front was backuped by armor. I thought that the doctrine was first have small groups probe the frontline to seek out the weak spot then move up the pioneers to make lanes in the minefield then have all arty blast the hell out of the spot. And attacked by armor (normaly the haviest tanks on the front to take hits from antitank units and behind it mark4 en 3's)When they broke throught they rushed to destroy supply lines and arty. By then the foot soldiers will come thru the gap and try to widen it more.

This is how blitzkrieg was preformed. By attack with armor and mobile division and leave all strongpoints for the inf which came much later.

Now my question regarding TOW is can i use the same tactics as the germans by bypassing strongholds en rushing to the next map to destroy there reinforsments and later destroy the stronghold with my inf. Or do we play from map to map?

And also can the enemy retreat when i have already rushed him to the next map??????

tia

[JasonC]

pwncake - sorry, just a hopelessly false doctrinal wish rather than the war.

First, the Germans were attacking when a Pz III was a heavy tank, and the Pz IV was the heaviest in their arsenal. The only occasion where they still held any overall initiative and had heavier tanks to lead with, was Kursk. Where about 1 AFV in 6 was heavier than those types, half were Pz IV longs (or equivalent StuG), a third were older 1942 era types (III longs or 75 shorts).

And no the artillery didn't wait until after lanes had been cleared, instead it fired well before the advance, most of the time. Up to 30 minutes before in many cases. Renewed, reactive fire at remaining active defenders was used as you see in CM, but for a modest portion of the overall fire.

As for counterattacks after loss of the overall initiative, there were tons of them certainly, sometimes armor led. But since instant counterattacks to retake any ground lost were doctrine at all echelon levels, they were also delivered by pure infantry, the local reserve, whatever was available.

And IDs were called upon to attack, regularly, throughout. Late in the war they were "rich" enough in AFVs that those would typically have a few supporting StuG. Earlier they just used fire support from towed guns and heavy weapons.

Various German commanders and offensives also had the doctrine that IDs made the holes and PDs exploited them. Notably the north face of Kursk had 6 PDs but only put 1 in the first wave, using IDs reinforced by SP guns for the breakthrough. In that case, with plenty of armor it is true. In the Bulge in the west, on the other hand, the armor was not committed in the first wave, because infantry was expected to make the holes for them. In someplaces they did, in others they failed to do so.

Then there was the stunning non-seq where you jumped from German doctrine to therefore there were no infantry attacks on the eastern front, as though the Russian army does not exist or never attacked anything or weren't mostly rifle divisions or didn't lead off with them as a matter of course.

As for the questions about how it will work in the new program from BF, the crickets are chirping.