A New AAR!

[Markus86]

@ Parabellum

Infantry is far from being helpless against tanks, if they are modelled correctly

You say it, if ...

I'm just a little bit sceptical. I saw not any of these weapons you mentioned, except for the confirmed weapons (AT Rifle, Panzerfaust, Panzerschreck)

Maybe someone from 1C or BF can help us out? *hint hint*

[ComradeP]

Blackcat: in my opinion, there are 2 primary reasons why Zitadelle was called off:

-Russian counterattack along the Mius absorbing German reserves previously allocated to Zitadelle's central front (the reserves for the armoured spearhead, so to speak).

-The fact that the southern and northern front never got going, and in fact got "bogged down" within hours. The only unit that was advancing was the SS Panzercorps and accompanying Wehrmacht infantry/motorised units. The weather also worked against the Germans. Had it not been cloudy/rainy (according to weather reports from LSSAH and Das Reich), the Germans could've reaped more benefits from the superior range of their guns.

[Megakill]

1. There a lot of infantry anti-tank weapons in the game - AT rifles, grenades, panzer-shreks

2. We will get this AAR translated next week.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Blackcat:

I am not sure why the actions of the Totenkopf Division should be excluded from the battle as they were part of the same German plan. To hold that the battle was just the assault of the Russian armour seems somewhat arbitrary, but no matter.

It depends on what you look at. They were clearly absent from the part of the battle that is the charge of the Soviet tanks into the leaguered German formations.

Originally posted by Blackcat:

In terms of who won; well neither side wholly achieved their objectives, but the German army did not take the village or significantly expand their bridgehead over the Psel. As they had to do both to achieve any progress for the overall offensive, they failed. Therefore, I would respectfully suggest that what happened was a Soviet phyrric victory. They stopped the Germans but at huge cost. Given the Soviet attitudes to losses, I can understand why they claim Prokhorvka as a significant victory.

But the Germans they 'stopped' were not even going anywhere. The point here is that they would have had the same result without the stupid charge, and without losing hundreds of tanks.

Originally posted by Blackcat:

The article does mention that their were high losses on both sides. So I am not sure how significant the claim that Das Reich and Leibstandarte lost only three tanks as total write offs actually is. They may have been able to drag more off for repair/cannibalisation, but if they didn't have the strength left on the field to take ground that really doesn't matter.

I agree. Clearly what matters on the operational level is how many tanks you have left in fighting condition.

Originally posted by Blackcat:

I suppose the key question might be, if Citadel had not been called off on the 13th would the II SS Panzer Corps have been able to continue with the offensive with any real prospect of success? On the information available about actual German losses on the day there seems no way of knowing.

I think the answer to this is 'no', but again, that has nothing to do with Rotmistrov's p*ssing away of his tank army.

Originally posted by Blackcat:

The Soviets, of course, took back all the ground they had lost during Kursk quite soon afterwards, thus probably converting many of the claimed German mobility kills into TWOs and many of their own TWOs into mobility kills.

Quite so.

Originally posted by Blackcat:

Thanks again for an interesting article.

Cheers

You're welcome - you maybe interested in this discussion we had a few months ago.

All the best

Andreas

[Canuck]

Originally posted by ComradeP:

I believe the "grey" icon indicates an abandoned/broken tank, which would mean that the Russian SU 122 on the left and the T34 on the right are taking a cruise through a field littered with broken tanks.

Ahh ok that's a good enough explanation for me. For a second there I had thought that the entire scenario had descended into an unrealistic clickfest RTS deathmatch

[Markus86]

1. There a lot of infantry anti-tank weapons in the game - AT rifles, grenades, panzer-shreks

Hm, Megakill you posted the ones, which can be seen on the screenshots . But does the game also feature weapons like Hafthohlladungen (sry I don't know an english expression), demolition charge, molotov cocktails, ... ?

Does the game feature flame throwers?

[RMC]

Originally posted by Markus86:

But does the game also feature weapons like Hafthohlladungen (sry I don't know an english expression

No idea about them being in the game or not. It would be cool to see a Landser rush a tank to place one. I've seen them called ATMMs (Anti Tank Magnetic Mines) in English on occasion.

[Markus86]

Anti Tank Magnetic Mines, good expression. Fits well.

Yes it would be great to see this.

[Megakill]

No sorry, no antitank magnetic mines :-(

[M Hofbauer]

No ATMMs, no Zimmerit, I say...

[ComradeP]

Originally posted by M Hofbauer:

No ATMMs, no Zimmerit, I say...

The Germans didn't put the Zimmerit on tanks because there were lots of magnetic mines in service in other countries, they put it there because they thought that was the case.

Zimmerit pasting wasn't halted for nothing: it served no real purpose, especially after rocket propelled projectiles became more efficient.

[Steiner14]

What do we understand as victory? Tactical, operational? For the Germans, a victory was always seen in conjunction with losses of men and material. The Soviets lost 1+ million around Stalingrad, had many times more losses on men and material and celebrate it as glorious victory, because only the operational result seems to count, not the fate of the soldier.

So operationally we have a victory of the Soviets at Kursk, because they succeeded to deny the Germans to turn the war in the east with that battle and as result it was one (important) factor for the loss of the war of Germany.

For the German FHQ, it was a loss, too. Simply because the goals of the battle couldn't been reached: the destruction of the mass of the remaining russian armored forces. It doesn't matter if the result wasn't reached because of the cancel of the attack, when the tide was already turning (according to Manstein). Fact is: operationally it failed. A loss.

But if we look at the performance of the soldiers, at the tactical level, it was a truly fantastic performance of the Germans.

And since here are mostly tactical aspects discussed, everyone should know that Kursk is a great example of the superior german WWII tactical capabilities and a perfect example that tactical victories and operational losses can fit together (i don't agree, that it was operationally a draw, since the whole conception of the Kursk-battle, was, with the enormous number of the soviet armoured masses in the (planned) pocket, to become the decisive battle for the whole war in the east - operationally it was even bigger and more important than the battles of Summer '41 with the 3.5 million soviet POWs - the Germans had lost the operational initiative after this battle in the east).

[ August 14, 2006, 11:37 AM: Message edited by: Steiner14 ]

[M Hofbauer]

Originally posted by ComradeP:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by M Hofbauer:

No ATMMs, no Zimmerit, I say...

The Germans didn't put the Zimmerit on tanks because there were lots of magnetic mines in service in other countries, they put it there because they thought that was the case.</font>

[ComradeP]

Peculiar enough, the Axis nations were the primary users of magnetic mines (for Japanese infantry, it was basically the only thing they could use against tanks) and the ones to design an anti-magnetic paste. It is rather strange that the Allies, facing a fairly significant magnetic threat in the Pacific did not develop a similar paste, even though they thought of other means to avoid the attachment of magnets to their armoured vehicles.

[M Hofbauer]

Originally posted by ComradeP:

(for Japanese infantry, it was basically the only thing they could use against tanks)

personally, I like the techniques better where Kamikaze tank hunters would run up to allied tanks wrapped in explosives, or, better still, wait in a dug cave under the road with a big artillery shell and a hammer.

has more style.

it's the imperial japanese banzai thing to do.

[Megakill]

Originally posted by M Hofbauer:

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

(for Japanese infantry, it was basically the only thing they could use against tanks)

personally, I like the techniques better where Kamikaze tank hunters would run up to allied tanks wrapped in explosives, or, better still, wait in a dug cave under the road with a big artillery shell and a hammer.

has more style.

it's the imperial japanese banzai thing to do. </font>

[ComradeP]

Yeah, Japanese were trained to attach an explosive charge totheir body, run to a tank, roll underneath it, scream a cool oneliner and blow themselves and the underside of the tank to bits.

[M Hofbauer]

Originally posted by ComradeP:

Yeah, Japanese were trained to attach an explosive charge totheir body, run to a tank, roll underneath it, scream a cool oneliner and blow themselves and the underside of the tank to bits.

very interesting.

AFAIR in the instances I read about they threw themselves rather desperately against the front and sides of tanks, with AFAIR little effect.

so apparently this rather gruesome, uh, "AT technique" was "refined". do you by any chance remember where (book/publication) you read about that rolling under tank and delivering a one-liner? I assume targeting the underside made this tactic more "successful" ?

[ComradeP]

The oneliner part was a joke, but the rest is captured on video by the USMC. I remember seeing at least 2 videos containing images of a men running to a Sherman, rolling underneath it and detonating the projectile he carried. In both cases, the Sherman was destroyed in the proces (some of the ammunition or fuel exploded afterwards and no crew bailed out).

There were all kind of desperate measures that were used against the superior American tanks.

[SlapHappy]

"personally, I like the techniques better where Kamikaze tank hunters would run up to allied tanks wrapped in explosives, or, better still, wait in a dug cave under the road with a big artillery shell and a hammer."

Is this a reference to the Japanese pole-mine? Or is that something different?

[BeauCoupDinkyDau]

Pictures like these give me pause...

...

...

...

...

...okay, now I'm done.

So, how many historical tank battles does 1C think looked like a bumper-car arena when they were finished?

Exactly how many instances did enemy forces allow tanks to flank them at five meters?

It looks like an armored ball gone bad. "Now announcing the prestigious Mr. & Mrs. T-34/85!"

[Megakill]

Originally posted by Vader's Jester:

Pictures like these give me pause...

...

...

...

...

...okay, now I'm done.

So, how many historical tank battles does 1C think looked like a bumper-car arena when they were finished?

Exactly how many instances did enemy forces allow tanks to flank them at five meters?

It looks like an armored ball gone bad. "Now announcing the prestigious Mr. & Mrs. T-34/85!"

I had similar engagements in CC3 with a lot of tanks all the time... My 2 cents.

[BeauCoupDinkyDau]

True, as did I.

You have to understand something though. Close Combat (the original) was an infantry game. Tanks and heavy equipment only came in small numbers to support infantry operations. Part of this had to do with the scale of the map, and part of it was probably the designer’s desire to create a combat game with an emphasis on infantry battles.

By CC3, the designers started to move in a new direction. AFVs of all types began to become the focus of the game; tanks in particular. The problem with that is the game was never made to do this. It was built around small unit infantry tactics. When used in that capacity, the occasional close support tank made all the sense in the world. But the CC battles you refer to are from CC3 and on, where the franchise began to drop out of favor with grogs and eventually with everyone else. There’s a reason for that.

Tanks simply do not engage one another like that except in rare or exceptional situations (think bocage country in France). So to use CC as a justification for some of the battles being designed for FoW is just silly. Your game is not an infantry simulator. From what I can see, it's combined arms with an emphasis on tanks, and you’re using a game built to be an infantry simulator (CC) as a guide to build your tank game. That does not make a whole lot of sense to me.

Will the code be open to modification by the gaming community?

[M Hofbauer]

Originally posted by Vader's Jester:

True, as did I.

You have to understand something though. Close Combat (the original) was an infantry game. Tanks and heavy equipment only came in small numbers to support infantry operations. Part of this had to do with the scale of the map, and part of it was probably the designer’s desire to create a combat game with an emphasis on infantry battles.

By CC3, the designers started to move in a new direction. AFVs of all types began to become the focus of the game; tanks in particular. The problem with that is the game was never made to do this. It was built around small unit infantry tactics.

right on.

wasnt the original, real CC originally running under Computer Squad Leader or somefink?

to paraphrase RMC referring to the board game squad leader "there were only StuGs and PzIVs and it was good."

in the original CC, there were only occasional tanks. and it was good.

AFVs made a huge impact, even a small SdKfz with machine gun would require you to adapt your tactics.

tank vs tank duels were a rare affair and modeled rather well for the purpose.

[BeauCoupDinkyDau]

Exactly. :cool: