Breakdowns/Immobilisations

[dieseltaylor]

As I know some people are very keen on this I thought this excerpt might be interesting:

The last accomplishment before the battalion went through a long series of losses was an attack across the Cisterna-Littoria railway embankment on 23 May 1944 in which fifteen Shermans were destroyed (see figure 10).

The 3d Company experienced the majority of the trouble, and its problems are indicative of the problems experienced by the entire battalion. According to a German report shortly after the attack, three Tigers broke down crossing the line of departure, a railway embankment. The Allies fell back around three kilometers and several U.S. tanks were destroyed. One Tiger was damaged when an artillery round destroyed its radiator, forcing it to limp back to the battalion assembly area in Cori. On the morning of 24 May 1944, Army Group C ordered a retreat because the Allies had managed to break through between Cisterna and the Mussolini Canal. Because of maintenance breakdowns and recovery problems during the withdrawal, the company destroyed every Tiger except one.

During the three day period from 23 May to 25 May 1944, s.Pz.-Abt. 508 lost twenty-two Tigers. Every one of these was destroyed by its own crews and only a handful were damaged in combat prior to their destruction. Of those damaged in combat, none were damaged beyond repair, but because they were under enemy fire and recovery was impossible, the crews were forced to destroy them.

SWINGING THE SLEDGEHAMMER: THE COMBAT EFFECTIVENESS OF

GERMAN HEAVY TANK BATTALIONS IN WORLD WAR II

[Paul AU]

I'd like to re-state that the recent thread in the CMx2 Forum, and the original thread started by me in the CM:BB forum - made clear, rather repetitively, I thought, that the realism or otherwise of some kinds of immobilisation were irrelevant to the game-design issue at, er, issue.

[Redwolf]

The report has railway crossing (I think everybody agrees this is a bad idea), radiator damage by artillery and unspecified breakdowns.

Am I the only one who thinks lack of fuel is the most likely cause of the unspecified ones?

[dieseltaylor]

Strange that the article says "maintenance breakdowns" not unspecified breakdowns. And so no I do not think at all that it is petrol shortage! : )

And just for completeness sakes it was not railroad crossings but a railroad embankment in the quote.