88mm

[Sgt Colon]

Anyone got the drill manual for the 88mm Flak?

[Wilson]

I think this would be interesting, for a game in parcticular. Imagine being aboe to crew this gun, and play everyon one of the crew members.

I too would like to know more about the way these guns were sighted and operated.

[reinald@berlin.com]

Had the opportunity to interview Mrs. Reinald's Grandpa yesterday. He's been a 88mm FlAK-gunner with the Arikakorps. All I was able to get out of him was that the 88mm didn't bother to aim for weak-points on British tanks cause they'd kill them anyways.

The 37mm and 5cm PAKs did bother to aim for the turret.

He took part in a battle for the Halfaya-pass where his FlAK-coy, according to him, was credited with 25 killed Brit MarkII tanks. He also claimed he was among the first Germans to breach the fortifications of Tobruk. Repatriated due to illness before the Alamein-battle he spent the rest of the war as leader of a 20mm-FlAK-Vierling crew inside Germany.

[Wilson]

Originally posted by reinald@berlin.com:

Had the opportunity to interview Mrs. Reinald's Grandpa yesterday. He's been a 88mm FlAK-gunner with the Arikakorps. All I was able to get out of him was that the 88mm didn't bother to aim for weak-points on British tanks cause they'd kill them anyways.

The 37mm and 5cm PAKs did bother to aim for the turret.

He took part in a battle for the Halfaya-pass where his FlAK-coy, according to him, was credited with 25 killed Brit MarkII tanks. He also claimed he was among the first Germans to breach the fortifications of Tobruk. Repatriated due to illness before the Alamein-battle he spent the rest of the war as leader of a 20mm-FlAK-Vierling crew inside Germany.

Wow Afrika Korps. Nice story. Could you ask him whether he encountered any Australian troops or what he had heard or thought about these troops please. My great uncle was at Tobruk.

Thanks.

[reinald@berlin.com]

I'll try to get a comment next time I meet him.

He made no secret of his opinion about the Italians. He said their officers were seldomely seen on the line but were 'doing around' with whores safe back while the enlisted men were left without leadership. Another recollection was that during retreats one could hardy drive on roads due to dropped Italian handguns and equipment. His impression was that Italians routinely beat POWs with their rifle-butts while the Germans treated them well.

[Brightblade]

Well, I guess most German soldiers had a very similar opinion on Italian troops in North Africa. I remember a quote from a German war diary saying "Und wären uns die Italiener nicht zu Hilfe gekommen, so mancher deutsche Landser wäre noch am Leben" (And if the Italians hadn´t helped us, quite some German Landser would still be alive).

That´s not my opinion, I wasn´t there, so I don´t know how far it´s justified or not.

[illo]

Originally posted by reinald@berlin.com:

Had the opportunity to interview Mrs. Reinald's Grandpa yesterday. He's been a 88mm FlAK-gunner with the Arikakorps. All I was able to get out of him was that the 88mm didn't bother to aim for weak-points on British tanks cause they'd kill them anyways.

The 37mm and 5cm PAKs did bother to aim for the turret.

He took part in a battle for the Halfaya-pass where his FlAK-coy, according to him, was credited with 25 killed Brit MarkII tanks. He also claimed he was among the first Germans to breach the fortifications of Tobruk. Repatriated due to illness before the Alamein-battle he spent the rest of the war as leader of a 20mm-FlAK-Vierling crew inside Germany.

Great!

Could you possibly ask what range could they hit enemy vehicles? Were kills from range of 3000m normal?

[Splinty]

My father was with the British in North Africa. He was a forward observer for a tank regiment,the 22nd IIRC. He has quite a few stories of being on the recieving end of 88 fire in both North Africa and Italy. I'll talk to him and see if he will tell me a couple of them and if he minds if I pass them on here.

[Panzertruppe]

My grandfather flew "Hurricanes" in North Africa but says he never shot up anything but supply trucks and an ocasional caravan. He was flying "Typhoons" in France after D-Day and was shot down by ground fire, which turned out to be an American quad fifty halftrack company that mistaked him for a German! Oh well.....

[Louie the Toad]

Hey Splinty,

I see that your father was an FO for a tank regiment. What type of unit was he in?: How many men, what vehicles? What was their job exactly?

Were they scouts?

Then would you please ask him, (dare I do this?} if surviving crews from knocked out or immobilized tanks were used as scouts?

gamey Toad.

[Splinty]

Hi Toad, I sent off an E-Mail this afternoon asking my dad for some anecdotes on his service. I'll try to get get some more "grog specific" information after I get his reply.

[Louie the Toad]

Thanks Splinty,

I would love to know what he has to say.

Toad

[Splinty]

Sorry this is taking so long guys. I'm still waiting for my Dad to reply.

[JasonC]

I assume the original poster meant a user's manual in CMBO, rather than the literal field manual. On that assumption, here are some pointers on using the 88mm FLAK in game terms. It has some quirks that make for serious pitfalls for inexperienced users, but can be a powerful weapon when used correctly.

Usually you want to use it only on defense. That way it is dug in and doesn't have to move. You can't limber one up in game - it took too long - unlike other ATGs. Unlimbering them once is possible, but trying to start limbered and find a place to set up is a bad idea. Because if anybody can see the spot, you get shot up, and if no one can, it can't see anything. The only movers for it (transport class 9) are unarmored.

You can use it on offense in a pure "overwatch" role, set up in cover at the start. Good defenders try to stay out of sight of initial cover of the attackers, though, and not being dug in it isn't terribly robust once it opens fire. The pluses are that it doesn't use "armor" points, has useful firepower against anything, and has high ammo load. You often won't get to use too much of the last on offense, though - people just get out of its LOS and then it can't be moved. If it can see everything, everything can see it and it gets taken out.

That trade off occurs on defense, too, but it is a lot easier to deal with when you are dug in (therefore more survivable against replies) and the enemy has to come to you (making it much harder to consistently avoid LOS). This is the ordinary way to use it.

On its anti-armor firepower, it can kill almost any allied tank. But thick Churchills and Jumbos are immune from the front. If you are revealed and the enemy has either of those, it is trivial for him to pull into LOS and KO you with HE. You are a big target, even dug in. A cross fire can sometimes help, with one 88 getting a flank if a tank is facing another, but that is hard to manage and goes against other siting points particular to the 88 FLAK. W+ Shermans will bounce shells from the hull, but the turret remains vunerable, an intermediate case.

A key weakness of the 88mm FLAK in CMBO is its rotation behavior. It is not the fastest rotating gun, compared to the smaller pieces. New players often think in terms of the widest field of fire and set them up someplace in the center and high up, where they can see lots of places. They are vunerable that way, because they track this or that target and are a long way (time wise) from tracking others that can see them. The replies from the shooters you aren't facing will take you out before you can rotate back through each. It is also easy to get distracted by the wrong target. The more time spent rotating the less spent shooting.

The solution is to put the 88 FLAK far back. That keeps the field of view relatively narrow. Some "keyholing" in the siting also helps - meaning, a position that can see half or a third of the field rather than all of it, because obstacles near the gun obscure other parts of the field. You want long cones of 30-45 degrees, but so long that they cross the map or most of it. That way enemies have to show themselves to the gun sometime. Two or more criss-crossing cones make it much harder for the enemy to get through.

Then you should hide and wait for a good target picture. You don't want to fire on the first half squad that waltzes into view. You'd blow it up, alright, but once you show yourself it is pretty easy for the other guy to see your sighting cone and either avoid it, or take you out before proceeding. So get something valuable the first time you open up, and hide until then.

One tank anywhere in view, and lots of other stuff in the middle of the field of view, is an optimum target. Take out the tank first and then the 88 will blow the heck of of the rest before they can get out of LOS. The HE is quite powerful and the ammo load is ample. You don't want several gun-armed tanks unless they are all along one line, because you will get KOed by HE from the second while rotating to it. At long enough range and dug in, infantry type fire will not hurt you at all, so you can blow up any of those trapped in the middle of your field of view, at leisure.

Taking out a located 88 usually proceeds like this - step one, everybody skeddles out of its LOS, taking their lumps in the meantime. Step two, light mortars firing indirect or an artillery FO puts down fire on the 88s location. Step three, nobody moves back into LOS until the beastie is dead. If thick tanks are available (rare) they can take them out frontally. Sometimes distraction tactics will be used and a vanilla tank will try to KO it with HE while it is facing the wrong way, though that is hard against "keyhole" positioning.

The trade off then becomes - the 88 costs you 84 (regular), which means at attacker odds it has to take out 124 points worth of stuff to break even. If it bags a tank on its opening shot, you are there. Then the enemy spends arty ammo KOing you, which costs him more. If the initial sight picture was nice, maybe you blew up a second vehicle or a ragged out an infantry platoon, too.

Compared to cheaper guns, it is harder for the 88 to show a big "profit", but if you place it correctly it will usually kill something. And it will hold up the enemy until he takes it out. If you have criss crossing cones from two 88s, then you get the fun part where he comes forward again and crosses the second one's LOS, and gets plastered and slowed once more.

The AI doesn't know how to deal with them and they are much more effective against it. It will keep waltzing stuff into LOS which the 88 will blow to kindgom come. Sometimes it will put arty down on it, but often not, and when it does it will often blow a whole module of artillery on one 88. Humans are much less forgiving. They will avoid LOS once revealed and fight "assymmetrically".

Like all towed guns, 88s have limited useful lives against humans and do their worst from ambush, in the three minutes or so after opening up. It takes that long for people to get out of LOS and to call down arty. Compared to cheaper guns, they will clean out their sight picture in that period of time much more thoroughly, with fewer direct fire counters available.

Arty will still kill them, and their LOS can still be avoided once found. And they need narrow sight pictures due to rotation problems. So don't rely on one staying around for ages as the key to your defense.

There are also ways you can make them more effective by integrating them with other assets. There are lots of examples of this; I will mention a few.

1. Put an infantry platoon in cover ahead of the 88s position, with height or an angled view allowing the 88 to see the area ~250 yards ahead of the infantry. This prevents premature discovery of the 88, and can stop infantry from getting close. The 88 can unhide to blow up stuff brought forward to push the infantry out of the way.

2. Put AT mines at "breaks" in trees or buildings that allow advance along the lines your 88 does not cover, while the 88 covers wider areas with a keyhole "cone". When the enemy tries to avoid the mines etc, he will be driven into the 88s line or fire - or vice versa.

3. Put hidden schrecks or a lighter gun in the blind spot created by the 88s "keyholing". It may not have the range or lethality of the 88; doesn't need to. Vehicles avoiding the sighted 88 will skirt its LOS to close.

4. Use a lightly armored vehicle - 20mm armored car or 75mm halftrack e.g. - as "bait" to draw enemy tanks into LOS of the 88. People love to go after vehicles they can kill that can't kill them with their reply, so full tanks often come running to get LOS to such vehicles.

5. Keep a thick skinned true AFV (Hetzer, Jagd, Tiger or Panther) well behind your 88 "keyhole crossfire", in dead ground. Wait for the enemy to discover an 88. When he thinks he has punched his way through the AT screen by e.g. nuking one 88 with arty, spring the AFV on him, hunting forward while facing the ground he thinks he just made safe or the approaches to it. Sometimes there will be bunches of armor waiting to pass once the 88 is killed. Your thick front plate will be facing all of them at once.

I hope this helps.

[JasonC]

Guess not. Perhaps he did just want a field manual, lol.

[CombinedArms]

Wow, Jason! Quite a post! Good to have you back....