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I was hoping the Gauls might work for Irish or Welsh ???

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Excellent points Mr. Curtis!

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Folks,

Going to ground is not a permanent situation.  I strongly suspect small units frequently went to ground, displaced and began the advance anew (if so ordered).  Units catching h _ _ _ would stay down.  Certainly the presence of an enterprising officer or personal initiative by one individual can change things in the short term.  That said if the individual getting things moving again become the recipient of a posthumous medal as a result of his action, that momentum is quickly lost.

Soviets are no exception.  The human wave attacks that many find so stereotypical were most often executed by troops of limited value (inexperienced draftees) or penal battalions.  The Soviets knew well the value of battle hardened veterans and used these troops in an appropriate manner – not unlike other armies.

There are literally hundreds of actions involving battalion strength pinning actions launched by the Soviets following Kursk and extending to the end of the war.  These actions were never intended to succeed but rather to keep the troops to their front occupied.  A battalion that attacked at dawn would be defeated, melt away and attack again in the afternoon or evening.  This kind of activity was sustained for weeks on end on a front of 100 to 200 miles.  (’43-’44 Christmas Offensive in particular).  If you do the math, you have to conclude these attacks were intended to probe and exploit weakness if present.  If not, disengage and live to fight another day.  It is true they lost some men in these attacks but it is equally true that these losses were not so severe as to prevent the unit from resuming offensive action within a 4 to 12 hour period.  The Soviets were not merely expending bodies in these attacks.  A certain degree of sophistication undoubtedly played a part.

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Nicely done and nicely depicted.  German Forward Observers were tied to a land line.

 

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Thanks again all.

To my mind the crew has essentially two mutually exclusive options.  Either re-crew the gun or retire.

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Thank you all, your differing perspectives were very helpful to me.

I tend to agree with some of you that a battle hardened squad is going to out perform others no matter what the nationality.

IMO there is a lot of misinformation about the Russians — especially late in the war.  This having to do with propaganda pumped out by both the Soviets and the Allies.

It appears to me that the Soviet infantry came in many flavors and trying to make them all vanilla is a mistake. They range from penal units to draftees from occupied areas (human wave material), to inexperienced trained troops, to battle hardened veterans to politically motivated fanatics.

Accounts of small unit actions tend to support a view of an experienced Russian rifleman who knows his business well and is equally adept  at taking ground and holding it.  The proof is in the pudding.

I do think German leaders were expected to utilize initiative if and when the opportunity presented.

In game terms I think this means the German player may have options where the Russian player will be constrained in a similar situation.

Arguments about fire power, given the examples may be specious.  Late war experienced Russians were armed at least as well as their opponents.  Often with German equipment!

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I was going to do a year by year “firsts” in aviation.  That went crashing down with my Taube build and my Voisin build.  Got them almost there but the rigging is deeply discouraging stuff (on the Taube).  Much easier to avoid these aircraft (and the whole project).  I know, I know, what a slug!

 

mjc

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Slogans had to be approved before being applied to the tanks.  Often every tank in an outfit sported the same slogan!  I don’t read Russian so my info is limited.

My son is the local Soviet expert.  His tanks have one slogan on one side of the turret and a different slogan on the other side of the turret.  All tanks in the same outfit are decked out exactly the same.

I have no idea where he got his source material.

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The short answer is “it depends”.   On the year and in some cases, the theater.  SS outfits and Elite outfits like Gross Deutschland and Lehr often had unique organizations for reasons I will not discuss here.

Parts and maintenance and repair issues often dictated that units be homogenous.  (two types of tanks literally doubles the inventory of spare parts needed).

The 1940 Tank Division actually had 4 different TO&E !

The 41 Tank Division had one tank regiment of three battalions.  (African units had two battalions).  Each battalion consisted of three companies of 22 tanks (2 Pz III and one Pz IV).  Each company was entirely Pz III or Pz IV.  Hard to tell how they were actually employed.  You can find some interesting accounts that make you wonder what was going on  — I suspect the regimental/battalion CO had great latitude.

The next big armored division shake-up took place in June of 44 (officially).  Panzer III’s long gone by then.

 

Hope that helps.

 

 

 

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Going to Ground is a “product” of doctrine and training.  I have personally eaten my fair share of dirt.  Volume of fire has nothing to do with it.  A single sniper shot will do just fine most of the time.  Just not healthy to stand up and look around to see where that shot came from.

Suppression is something else again.  This, IMO, is a volume of fire at a particular point which either keeps the target from returning fire, forces the target to move to another location (which experienced or well trained troops will be doing anyway — fire and displace – I think they did that in WWII didn’t they?), or if the target does return fire, that fire is hurried and hopefully less accurate.

They can be similar in some respects but are not identical.

 

mjc

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Great Table and Wonderful Paint Jobs!

 

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I think Allen nailed it.  If a target unit waited until it was hit by fire before deciding it was going to ground, those men would be casualties!

Whether a unit chooses to stay “suppressed” or do something else has little to do with the shooter and everything to do with the training leadership and motivation of the suppressed unit.

BTW, Allen’s example of paralysys to fire from MILES equipped weapons is too much, LOL.  My guys used to position a group of 3 or 4 guys around an M-60 (usually an ambush situation).  The report from the M-60 was often enough to auto fire the M-16 — thus allowing the firepower of the M-60 to increase x4 without using any of the ammo issued to the M-16 😉

 

 

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I have never found a set of Ancients rules that I liked.

The Die is Cast is a well thought out rules set that often produces acceptable results

http://www.3vwargames.co.uk/rules2.htm

I play Warhammer Ancient Battles because that’s the only game played locally

Neither is strongly endorsed but they are a place to start.

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A nice job indeed.

JFWIW the 1st Australian Squadron were Bristol Fighter Bombers.  Dunno exactly when they went entirely to the Brisfit but that did indeed occur.  If you are gaming the middle east, you should not miss out on this opportunity to use them in just about every role.

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Great table!

 

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WWII project is just that.  Designed to replace FOW and use their bases and figs (which is where all similarity ends) — albeit sans heavy artillery (which is abstracted most of the time).  Hopefully a very tactical game (which is what you get with 1 fig = 1 man.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/726603304017887/

 

mjc

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The data for armor and penetration values were derived (with permission) from Panzer War.  I believe Panzer War was published as a computer simulation later on.

http://www.panzer-war.com/

Two page tanks was my initial foray into this realm and has it’s issues.  Just the same it has a following.   I don’t play Two Page Tanks anymore — admittedly it has its problems.

WWII project is geared along similar lines but uses 2D6 rolls which allow for a more detailed look at things.

As for your issues with penetration, all I can say is it depends on what you hit, where you hit it, the angle you are firing from and the thickness of the armor.  All these criteria are virtually impossible to address in a game where you roll a single D6 (Two Page Tanks) or 2D6 (WWII project) for damage.  One has to simplify and accept some potential inconsistencies if  you want to avoid wading through a bunch of tables.

The WWII project was devised to play a very low level small unit game in 4 hours or less — hopefully with more meat on it than your ability to roll 6’s.  That is the “box” that drives all else.  Many fine ideas have been submitted for this game and ultimately rejected because the time needed for implementation was not justified by the benefit conferred.

All things considered WWII project is rounding into shape nicely.  It does a nice job of modeling WWII combat and games (each player running a platoon) often run about 3 hours.  The problem with WWII project is that players generally want to control a company — and this can run into some serious time (which is fine if you want to spend all day playing a game.

I have written rules that exceed 120 pages (Watch Your Six!).  Perhaps the most comprehensive “game” (certainly not a simulation) dealing with Great War Aviation.  Games often run 3-6 hours depending on the numbers of aircraft involved.

At the other extreme — Two page tanks is about as simple as it gets.  All the rules appear on one page (both sides) and you need an additional page with the unit data.  Scale is 1 turn – 1 minute.

Different strokes for different folks.

mjc

 

 

 

 

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Clarence,

Men would often rush forward and go to ground– relying on the men or MG behind them to provide cover fire.

Prominent examples are D-day, the US Marines in the pacific Island hopping battles, and many examples by trained Germans (that was the doctrine).

Men that go to ground do not return fire they keep moving to the next cover.  If done well, you present a target that is hard to hit and you can close to the enemy unit.

Of course it all depends on the nature of the game.

If going to ground is going to cost you 10 minutes of firing this may not work for you.  If it costs you 2 minutes of firing — that is another matter.

 

mcj

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The WWII Project uses both …. I think.

A unit can voluntarily go to ground after movement.

A unit can be “hit” and either automatically go to ground or go to ground if it passes a discipline check (bad things happen if you fail that check).

If a unit that has gone to ground has a leader or hero attached, it can get right back up and keep moving at its next opportunity.  Otherwise it must pass a discipline check before it will rise from the ground and do “whatever”.

 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/726603304017887/

 

mjc

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