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@ Magpie_Oz

I think the use of weapons like bayonets has more effect on the own moral and/or fighting spirit then that of the enemy (at least if they still have some ammo).

Bolster the own moral and spirit can sure be useful sometimes.

@ RockinHarry

I think searching for stuff like "hand-to-hand combat" is pretty pointless.

Because anyone can use this term for nearly anything that is somehow "close".

All i read in your examples is that there was "close-combat" going on...but how close, and if any real (fist, knife, shovel) hand-to-hand combat was going on is something you just cant judge from those few sentences...maybe just some storys told by veterans many years after the actuall event.

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@ RockinHarry

I think searching for stuff like "hand-to-hand combat" is pretty pointless.

Because anyone can use this term for nearly anything that is somehow "close".

All i read in your examples is that there was "close-combat" going on...but how close, and if any real (fist, knife, shovel) hand-to-hand combat was going on is something you just cant judge from those few sentences...maybe just some storys told by veterans many years after the actuall event.

Really?

I do not comment nor judge the quoted examples given and off couse everybody needs his "grain of salt handy". ;)

...so continuing with 1944/45 western front examples, taken from US accounts that are publicly available in the net. I recommend digging CARL in example.

"Lorraine Campaign"

...page 478-479:

CCA, not yet abreast of CCB, likewise found itself involved in a foot-slogging infantry battle on the left flank. At Valette fighter-bombers from the 377th Squadron dropped 500-pound bombs close to the German positions. Then the 9th Armored Infantry Battalion (Britton) charged up a slippery slope with fixed bayonets

and cleared the German position in a hand-to-hand fight reminiscent of warfare thirty years earlier.

...page 540:

For the next two days the lead regiments of the 35th fought their way toward the Blies River in the midst of snow and bitter wind, while the 137th Infantry conducted a battle all its own in and around Sarreguemines.

Here the fight went on from floor to floor, in the larger buildings, and from one air raid shelter to the next.

Buildings were honeycombed with connecting passages running the length of entire blocks. Cellars were “mouseholed” in such a fashion that a BAR burst or a grenade through a window would not suffice and the enemy sniper or machine gunner had to be pried out. On 10 December F Company (Capt. J. S. Giacobello) cornered a company of German infantry in a pottery factory near the south edge of the city and killed or captured the lot in a hand-to-hand fight that raged for three hours from one kiln to the next.

...page 569:

A platoon from C Company, manning a road block on the Beckingen highway, was overrun momentarily by an attack which brought the German grenadiers right into the American foxholes and trenches.

In the ensuing hand-to-hand fight the American infantrymen killed or captured several of the attackers and restored the position. Elsewhere along the perimeter defended by the 1st and 2d Battalions the Germans advanced to the assault in closed ranks, suffering “extravagant losses” from small arms fire but continuing forward. These frontal assaults in daylight offered perfect targets for the American gunners and it remained for the artillery to give the quietus to each attack formation. This kind of close combat took its toll in the American ranks as well as in the German.

page 575:

Finally, on 10 December, resistance in Fraulautern began to crack a little. The 377th, still fairly fresh, wedged through the fourth and fifth city blocks, after capturing a large hotel whose defenders had beaten off several assaults.

Characteristic of this close-quarter fighting, the battle for the hotel progressed from room to room and ended in a hand-to-hand struggle in the ballroom. Said a squad leader, “There was plenty of dancing in that ballroom today, but it sure wasn’t a slow fox trot.” ( :D )

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From "Selected intelligence reports" (1st US Infantry Division) - Volume II, December 1944 to may 1945

page 63:

At 2045 hours, after a very heavy rocket and artillery barrage on our positions in EUDENBACH, the enemy

attacked the town in strength from the northeast, east and southeast with tanks and infantry. The attack achieved some initial sucess and infiltration into the town was reported. Division artillery laid heavy concentrations on the attacking forces and compelled the follow-up troops to withdraw, pounding them heavily on the way. By 2330 hours the positions were restored after bitter hand-to-hand fighting. No indentification was made of the attacking force although it was probably from the 3d Parachute Division, elements of which

had been trying to retake BRUNGSBERG for three days in order to cut the Autobahn.

page 29:

On 19 January four more enemy-held towns were taken in the worst weather of the battle. EIBERTINGEN, the first, was defended by a force of about 130 replacements and stragglers from the ROHR BUSCH. Entrance to the town was blocked by a large number of wooden box mines. Self-propelled guns and one tank were in the town, which faced the attacking 23d US Infantry, and it was only after heavy artillery concentrations forced the enemy to fall back into the town that infantyrmen were able to move forward and seize several houses on the northern edge. The enemy counterattacked immediately, and bitter hand-to-hand fighting resulted, but by 1400 hours the enemy troops began to pull out toward DEIDENBERG. One hundred prisoners were taken and more than 35 enemy dead were counted in the streets.

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From "Selected intelligence reports" (1st US Infantry Division) - Volume I, June 1944 to november 1944

pages 68-69:

5. None of these holding troops could be called the elite of the Wehrmacht; they were strictly defensive units and their organization was slipshod. On the other hand, when provided with fixed fortifications they were capable of putting up a stubborn and occasionally fanatical resistance. How much of this obstinacy could be laid to their fear of retaliation from behind their own lines iffthey slackened, and how much to nationalism in defense of holy German soil is debatable, but in any case their leadership was skillful enough

and their training was sufficient to make the 1st Division fight for every foot of ground gained. The basic defects of the Fortress, Defense and Local Security units showed up in their lack of mobility and cohesion in counter-attack. Here again, however, there were other factors present. In speaking of the failure of the majority of the enemy counter-attacks, an officer prisoner of war remarked that too often large units, up to battalions in size, were led by junior officers, often lieutenants, who, either through inexperience or desire for a Ritterkreuz, failed to make use of all the supporting arms (except artillery) that were available to them, or to weigh the size of the objective against the capabilities of their units. An idea of the sacrificial ferocity of some of these attacks can be had from the fact that after an assault on "I" Company, 16th Infantry, had been beaten off with hand grenades and bayonet fighting, more than 250 German dead lay in front and in the company positions.

page 75:

The next day, at first light, the attack continued, spreading out to include "G" Company, 18th Infantry. More tanks were thrown in, but on that day visibility and the weather improved, and concentrated air attacks and artillery fire combined with obstinate infantry infighting, beat the attack to its knees. Our positions on the high ground were restored in a counter-attack with "B" and "C" Companies, 18th Infantry, in support. The fighting was extremely heavy and the enemy was only driven out by hand grenade and bayonet assault; at one time, in fact, Division artillery support was called down on our own lost positions, with casualties resulting to both sides, although by far the greater proportion were suffered by the enemy. From prisoners taken, it was learned that the attack had been made by three companies of the 29th Motorized Regiment with elements of the 8th Motorized Regiment making a holding attack on "F" Company, 18th Infantry, further west. (See Annex No 2 for composition and history of the 3d Panzer Grenadier Division).

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Really?

Yes.

Even if you will continue and post another 1000 examples copyed from some books... ;)

What would be far more interesting would be the actual sources of those actions you post here. I doubt that you will find them for all you examples and even if, most likely you will only have a veterans account from 10+ years later.

And even if you have a official AAR, you will hardly have one of both sides describing the same action.

"we got in and slaughtered them" is just pointless.

Do you have offiicial casuality figures for those actions ?

Do you have reports from both sides describing hand-to-hand combat ?

Do you have statistics of how many soldiers actually died from stabing or beating ?

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LOL No offense RockinHarry, I think Wiggum is correct. As many others have commented "close combat" is an ill defined term that gets thrown around a lot. It could simply be a difference in degree and not what we are trying to associate to hand to hand. For example in Clay Pigeons of St Lo, he talks about his first battle where he couldn't even really see anyone. That seemed to be a lot of the fighting throughout the war. So does close combat now mean anything under 100 meters where your enemy is in plain sight? Heck if I know.

This is one of those topics where the best we are going to get is anecdotal info about isolated incidents as there just isn't a good wealth of material that is unifomly defined.

Back to the original request- if it were easy to code, hell yeah it would be interesting to have, but I'd put it way down the list of things I really would like to see.

Regarding Stalingrad, I'll take a look. I know the tales of trainloads of recruits being dumped right at the crossings and guns being handed out to every other soldier. Could simply be theatrical reporting at it's best (worst?) similar to the story of the German/Russian sniper duel. I'll see what I can dig up. Conspicuously enough I don't recall seeing anything mentioned in David Glantz' trilogy... and when is that 3rd book coming out already...

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sburke - notice how they always say "bayonets and grenades", over and over?

Here is a hint - the grenades are doing all the actual killing, and the bayonets are just getting press copy...

Most killing yeah, but all? My understanding is you can't count on fragments to wipe out everything. And once you're assaulting, can't just toss another up close. Chances are any remaining enemy received a stabbing while still dazed. Of course, without nades that couldn't have worked.

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Out of theatre- but reading a book about Monte Cassino and the blurb indicates that there was quite a bit of close in work. Anycody else heard this of Cassinio?

I'd just add that I look forward to some animated abstraction of hand to hand for the fun of climatic gaming moments.

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Personally, I don't have any problem believing that during the war lots of soldiers died from bayonet or other non-firing weapons. It's just that against the background of the enormous number of dead and wounded, "lots" in this case is probably much less than 1%. I would also suggest that a goodly proportion of those were bayonettings of men who had already been taken prisoner. The Japanese, for instance, were very big on that. So, is it worthwhile for BFC to spend the time to code that feature in? Maybe...after about a thousand other things have been taken care of.

Michael

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"sburke - notice how they always say "bayonets and grenades", over and over?

Here is a hint - the grenades are doing all the actual killing, and the bayonets are just getting press copy..."

That is just silly. Throw a grenade at someone 5 feet away and at best they will run away leaving you to be blown up by your own bomb by the time it goes off.

The drill is chuck a grenade in the bunker/trench/room and bayonet what ever runs out so you don't shoot yourself or your mates.

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Personally, I don't have any problem believing that during the war lots of soldiers died from bayonet or other non-firing weapons. It's just that against the background of the enormous number of dead and wounded, "lots" in this case is probably much less than 1%. I would also suggest that a goodly proportion of those were bayonettings of men who had already been taken prisoner. The Japanese, for instance, were very big on that. So, is it worthwhile for BFC to spend the time to code that feature in? Maybe...after about a thousand other things have been taken care of.

Michael

I need to remind on my initial post where with regard to the combat situation as shown in the YT video, I asked if anytime some sort of "hand to hand" combat (bayonetting, shovel swinging, knife stabbing, fists punching...) could be implemented in the game. It´s about to get rid of the wild west like point blank gun duels, where Pixeltroopers could also be expected to do something "different" than calmly reloading their rifles in the face of the enemy 1-2m away.

Something "different" could also be instant surrender, fleeing,...dependent upon a forces morale state, experience, leader influence and random factors like battle rage i.e.

It´s also not about how many soldiers actually died in close combat, which surely were many enough. There´s surely enough who got incapacitated, knocked unconsious...or fled, as well as surrendered during the hand to hand combat process. So I would not derive hand to hand combat frequency from just looking at any official losses stats, which could just tell parts of the whole story.

If hand to hand combat is not implemented in CMX2 anytime soon is secondary, if it´s not for the reason that it is declared a "rare" occurance on WW2 battlefields, as it´s simply not true.

"Close combat" (german term "Nahkampf") particularly is likely to occur most frequently under the follwing battlefield conditions:

1. Urban (house to house) combat

2. Combat in forests

3. Night combat

4. Combat in low visibility conditions

5. Combat for fortified positions

often enough when infantry is about to break into the mids of enemy infantry and neither side is able to solve the situation with firearms, hand grenades or supporting arms alone.

Speaking just for germans and their doctrine, if close combat is to be expected in attack or defense, bayonets would got fixed, whether they at last "used" it or not.

Just browsed through some of the US TM from WW2 (FM 100-5, FM 22-5, FM 7-10, FM 7-20), so I assume close combat (inc. hand to hand) to be doctrinally anchored. Off course one could always say, theory (training, doctrine) is one, but practice in combat was different, but was it really so?

Interestingly, while browsing through my sources, germans say about US Gi´s, they´re averse of close combat, while some US sources say the same about germans. It´s obvious that this aims at morale boosting troops and to encourage going into close combat more willingly.

However, the above quoted examples already give me enough reason to believe that close (hand to hand) combat occured often enough in conditions, where neither side could apply enough fire power to root the enemy infantry from its positions. And I just stick to 1944 western front conditions for the case.

And to say it again,..no it´s not a game breaker, not to have hand to hand combat yet implemented in CMX2 and I can wait until CMX3 with lots of relaxation.:)

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Let me add my two cents to this. The casualties inflicted by cold steel were not, in the main, committed on fighting men - a trend common to history and born out by decades of archaeology. Most cold-steel killing was done on those who had already broken and run. In fact, most killing is done on a fleeing enemy, or an enemy advancing to contact across open ground - not on one standing to fight. Morale is the key here and you can see it manifest most clearly in cavalry combats, peculiarly enough. In 18th and 19th century cavalry combats, one side or the other frequently broke before contact - therein came the casualties. In the combats you mention during the Civil War (I presume you mean the US Civil War, though the analogy stands for the English one as well) one side broke under the threat of cold steel, or the perception of 'withering fire'. Picket's Charge at Gettysburg was not repelled at the breastworks, but in the decimating fire that preceded their long crossing to get to grips with the enemy - and, even then, the defenders' morale wavered the closer the enemy came to them.

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Somewhere i read that even during medieval (now thats some real close combat) the actual battle casualties were pretty "low".

Most got killed after the actual battle, if one side run away and the other side choose the slaughter them and the wounded.

But i cant remember the source...

@ RockinHarry

The fact that hand-to-hand combat got practiced by most WW2 armys is just to give the soldiers the feeling that they are prepared for such events.

Its like ABC training, its rarely needed (actually was never needed during WW2) but still done to tell the soldiers "hey, we have prepared you for every possible situation on the battlefield".

The reason why even modern armies give their soldiers bayonets and knifes or some real hand-to-hand training is the same.

The message is "You are prepared and have the tools even for the worst and rare situations".

Why are many people attend self-defence class ?

Just for the moral !

They feel better and feel prepared, although the brutal truth is that actually they are not because you need years of training and some actual experience to be realy prepared for some nasty street fight.

Again, just my thoughts.

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So armies, around the world, waste time and money teaching soldiers useless hand fighting skills for moral? Wouldn't vouchers to a whorehouse be cheaper? They teach it because they know it did, and still does, happen.

Doesnt take away the "you are prepared message"

things can have a double advantage.

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So armies, around the world, waste time and money teaching soldiers useless hand fighting skills for moral? Wouldn't vouchers to a whorehouse be cheaper? They teach it because they know it did, and still does, happen.

U.S. infantry in WWII were also taught to how to carry 40' long tree trunks weighing hundreds of pounds by hand, as a team. How often do you think they used that skill in the combat theatre?

Bayonet and hand-to-hand training has a variety of purposes. First of all, in certainly does have practical application as obviously it does happen at least rarely, so the skills have some combat application. But learning hand-to-hand is also considered a very important part of inculcating a warrior's mindset, which is why to this day a substantial amount of time in infantry trying is spent on hand-to-hand combat techniques, even though soldiers in the field rarely engage in hand-to-hand combat.

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So armies, around the world, waste time and money teaching soldiers useless hand fighting skills for moral? Wouldn't vouchers to a whorehouse be cheaper? They teach it because they know it did, and still does, happen.

I've been in that training and I've also been in combat. Actual hand to hand combat is not widespread when compared to gun fights. The simple fact is that if you've got a knife and a working firearm, your best get is to shoot them because that presents the lowest risk to you, and if that isn't working, you are likely going to surrender or (more likely today) get the hell away and find someone friendly to help you. All this Rambo fantasizing is great when you're behind your computer, but in real life you tend to value your life over being manly. In fact, it tends to make the news when it actually rarely happens. It's taught because 1: It MIGHT happen, and 2: because it gives the trainees confidence.

Honestly, I need to see some real proof here that hand to hand, bayonets-crossing combat was a commonplace occurrence. All I see right now is some folks wishing it were so and offering up some scattered suspect anecdotes and "but it's common sense" pleadings to confirm so. Making sketchy conclusions on random bits of information isn't good enough. Let's see something concrete, eh?

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Honestly, I need to see some real proof here that hand to hand, bayonets-crossing combat was a commonplace occurrence. All I see right now is some folks wishing it were so and offering up some scattered suspect anecdotes and "but it's common sense" pleadings to confirm so. Making sketchy conclusions on random bits of information isn't good enough. Let's see something concrete, eh?

Something concrete? Maybe interviewing WW2 veterans who did not die yet or what? :confused:

I´ve found enough proof for frequent hand to hand combat on US vs. germans in 1944 and did not even include other theatres (eastern front, africa, pacific), participants (UK, soviet) and war years yet.

Sticking to ones point like a dogma (hand to hand combat was rare in WW2) without giving any proof about it, ain´t worth a bit either.

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So armies, around the world, waste time and money teaching soldiers useless hand fighting skills for moral? Wouldn't vouchers to a whorehouse be cheaper? They teach it because they know it did, and still does, happen.

Everyone who was in the military should know how much is just done for the overall moral, the cohesion and the right "warrior's mindset".

Why do they march like napoleonic armies did ?

Its pretty useless today someone could think...but cohesion is still very important.

@ RockinHarry

Search your books for the word "firefight" and then compare. ;)

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Even if there is no stab-stab simulation in the game, "close combat" could be vastly improved. The combat resolution seems geared to distance shooting, there's no emergency fire and stumbling into the same tile as an enemy does not give the chaotic and decisive fight that I'd expect. I think there would be a few quick kills and a lot of quick surrendering or running away. If there were a few swinging rifle butts so much the better, but get the shooting, grenading and surrendering right first I say.

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@ RockinHarry

Search your books for the word "firefight" and then compare. ;)

On previous pages here I posted 16 quoted examples, of which most did not leave space for "interpretations". It´s not up to ME finding evidence, that I´M wrong. ;) While browsing my US sources ( I left out german ones, as some here might doubt "credibility" ), I did not find a single mentioning of close/hand to hand combat been rare on 1944 western front.

So it´s rather up to you guys providing credible sources about the "hand to hand combat was rare" thesis. Good luck! ;)

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