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Defeat at Kasserine--A meaty, groggy Master's thesis


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Sorry I should have put the source!!! The question is the same as why did McNair say what he did.

In passing I was reading about Fireflies and there general loss rate was less than nomal Shermans - probably due to being used like TD's and being treated carefully by the platoon commander. It is also possible that in a target rich environment that German crews did not wish to tangle with a potential killer if easier stuff was available.

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The chap who wrote the piece put it at the more practical level and said that troop commanders would leave the risky stuff to the vanilla tanks of which they had plenty rather than risk the scarcer resource. I find that a much more compelling argument in this case.

And the Germans did target Fireflies as a preference so putting them anywhere too vulnerable was always going to be risky. Unfortunately the AI in CM does not do this much to my chagrin and will switch from a manually targeted Firefly to a Sherman because of a minor percentage gain.

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And the Germans did target Fireflies as a preference so putting them anywhere too vulnerable was always going to be risky. Unfortunately the AI in CM does not do this much to my chagrin and will switch from a manually targeted Firefly to a Sherman because of a minor percentage gain.

.. percentage gain in armour penetration or percentage gain in survivability? I thought the arnour was the same (I'm well prepared to be wrong on that). If it's survivability then the AI is programmed wrong - it should take out the greater threat (as you have with the manual target). Of course, if the Firefly is at greater range, then you (and the AI) have a differential equation to solve...

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Armour is the same it is simply a percentage hit increase as the vanilla Sherman was marginally closer - I am talking perhaps 10 metres at 600metres and possibly slightly more broadside. So it ignores a manually target during my order phase and goes to the one that cannot harm him. Yep bad AI.

Also bear in mind that the 76.2mm and the Firefly both fire at too high a rate and withot target re-acquisition penalties that they both suffered from. BF did not play that very nice - but then given it was a decade ago perhaps there were bound to be problems.

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