Infantry VS Armor

[Juha]

Soren
what is your source that there were 200 Fireflys in Normandy? All sources I have seen stated that British got ready just before D-Day their planned quota of Fireflys, ie one per troop. And after all in June there was only 45 Tigers in Normandy, two more sPzAbtn arrived in July. So even with your numbers there were over 4 times more Fireflyes than Tigers in June in Normandy.

On realism on your game, how the Tiger got the 2 25pdrs? Because in real world they would have been at least a couple km further back giving indirect fire support. In a game you can create a world that perfectly suited for you but the sorry fact is that world isn't perfect place, especially during wartime, too much uncertainties and unexpexted things.

And what went wrong in real world, why for example paratroopers were so difficult opponents to unsupported panzers? Or for ex the case of "A" Coy/5th DCLI, which after all happened in Holland, not most famous for its forests?

Juha

[Soren]

Parsifal,

Wait a minute, in your scenario the Allies start out waaay too close to the town. The original scenario was that they had to cross a field ca.1,300m in lenght and width to get to the town, and the terrain is flat with no cover other than a few spots out in the field with four trees and some bushes or less.

There is an entry road on the west side, with trees running along the west side of that road, with about 10m in between. Otherwise its three big and wide open plowed fields which need be crossed. Now in my simulation that ended in 98 Allied casualties and 2 Shermans knocked out, plus two 25 pdrs destroyed.

The reason for this result was that the smoke screens weren't anywhere close to covering the entire field, and as such much of the infatry was in times exposed which the Tiger took full advantage of and litterally mowed them down. The Shermans tried to take full advantage of the smoke screen to get on the Tiger's flanks, but one got bogged and the other got knocked out 15 secs after it got through the smoke screen with a single hit.

_________________________

Juha,

The number of Tigers you claim to have been in Normandy just barely accounts for sSSPz.Abt. 102 alone!

And as for my source on the number of Firefly's present, read John Buckley's "British Armour in the Normandy Campaign". There were only a mere 200 present.

Now also if you would've actually read what I said you'd have know I was talking about Tigers AND Panthers.

And as to the real world, well if a single Tiger can charge at an entire British tank collumn with plenty of trucks, halftracks and gun carriers and succeed in knocking all of them out by itself (Including a Firefly), and at close range, I'd say Combat Mission did a pretty good job of simulating the suggested scenario.

You're more and more beginning to sound like someone who serves with the national guard as they have a habbit of believing infantry are supermen.
__________________________


Here's an interesting account for all to read on the Firefly in action:
South Alberta Regiment

[Glider]

Re SSPz abt102
They had
45 tanks on 29th May 1944
14th June ordered to Normandy Front
Last tanks arrived at Versailles 2nd July
10th-26th July lost 7 tanks

SSPz abt101 were in Normandy but lost all their tanks in June so are of limited help. The maximum they had was 37 operational tanks on 1st June making a maximum of 80 Tigers in the whole of France.

Smokescreen from 2 x 25pds would not be sufficient but 25pds were in units of 8 which would be enough and had on almost instant call 24 guns and the ability to get 72 very quickly, so where on earth did you get 2 from?

Where did you say Panther?

How are the 25pds knocked out when they will be thousands of yards away?

Why have you taken away the 17pd Firefly, when they were standard 1 per platoon?

Why have you ignored the AT guns and SP AT guns that were integral to the Infantry Division?

Why have you got Tigers when they were so few in number?

[ScOoTeR1992]

sorry but this is probably brought up but i cant be bothered reading all the post isnt it possible for infantry to climb up onto a tank and get it from there cause i was just wondering

[Soren]

Glider,

Like I said, if we were to go by the rules there'd be NO support for the Infantry at all! So why the heck do you keep blabbering about why there's no firefly or 24x 25 pdr's ??? Are we going to stick to the topic or shall we wonder away from it ?

And as for the number of Firefly's in Normandy, like I said 200 where there, so unless there were no more than 200 platoons then viola. But again, the Firefly isn't part of the debate, but ofcourse you'd like it to be there, it's afterall great to have some AT support - problem is that this is about wether infantry could do without it.

[parsifal]

"They had
45 tanks on 29th May 1944
14th June ordered to Normandy Front
Last tanks arrived at Versailles 2nd July
10th-26th July lost 7 tanks

SSPz abt101 were in Normandy but lost all their tanks in June so are of limited help. The maximum they had was 37 operational tanks on 1st June making a maximum of 80 Tigers in the whole of France.

Smokescreen from 2 x 25pds would not be sufficient but 25pds were in units of 8 which would be enough and had on almost instant call 24 guns and the ability to get 72 very quickly, so where on earth did you get 2 from?

Where did you say Panther?

How are the 25pds knocked out when they will be thousands of yards away?

Why have you taken away the 17pd Firefly, when they were standard 1 per platoon?

Why have you ignored the AT guns and SP AT guns that were integral to the Infantry Division?

Why have you got Tigers when they were so few in number?"[/quote]

Hi glider

I will try to explain the background that has led to this rather bizarre situation.

A disagreement has developed about the ability of Infantry without Heavy and dedicated AT support to withstand the impact of pure unsupported armour. Essentially the starting point in the debate was that the Infantry would scatter in sheer terror at the mere sight of the armour. It was pointed out that for trained Infantry this was rarely the case. The argument was then slightly modified by saying that Infantry could not withstand armour in open country. two parrallel and supporting counter arguments were developed to that position. the first was that Infantry was seldom without its supporting elements, and secondly there were all manner of substitutes to dedicated AT that the Infantry could use, including artillery over open sights (and indirect fire), all manner of passive defences such as AT Ditches mines and the like. Juha pointed out that the Finnish infantry, with virtually no dedicated AT support was quite capable of withstanding an unsupported armoured attack. I pointed out that similar things happened in places like Tobruk. We have tried to point out to Soren that the really effective way for good armour to dominate a battle was in fact for it to be used as part of an all-arms team, but Soren has rejected that, continuing his argument that heavy armour does not need any support.

All of a sudden, for no apparent reason, the thrust of the argument changed. We were confronted with this "what if scenario, in which the Infantry force was not allowed its heavy AT support, but more importantly, the Infantry was now being asked to attack, under the most unfavourable conditions. Both Juha and myself pointed out that this was not the original argument, which has not registered with Soren, but we still continued, acknowledging that as an assault it would be difficult for the infantry to be effective in a daytime assault. However, at no time have either myself or Juha accepted that casulaties would be intolerably heavy, even under these quite obviously unfavourable conditions. Soren has rejected that. Because we cannot agree, nor have we any real way of testing, I suggested that we use military simulations to test the theory. There are any number of commercial simulations, either as boardgames, or as computer simulations. But forst we needed a map, to develop the scenario. Soren had provided a photo, on which the map was to be bbased, but then prodeuced a new map, with even harder terrain paramet6ers before, and introduced an infantry support component (in the form of an OP attachment). to be fair we were given 4 75mm tanks of our own plus 4 bazookas, and "Light Artillery support" which evidently in Sorens eyes is equal to just two 25pdrs. I has been ppointed out that for an assault of this nature a more realistic number would be 24 guns in support, but Soren has not acknowledged that. It is getting sillier by the minute, as you can see.

I went away, and prepred a scenario using a computer simulation called "westfront" to test the theory. The results of that simulation conclusively showed the single tank defence model to be hopelessly outclassed and Infantry casulaties seldom getting past single digit figures. To achieve some balance, I had to increse the number of defending tanks to no less than three, with armoured car support as well. Even then the tanks generally were unable stop the Infantry from getting into this village.

Soren has rejected that, saying the simulation is unrealistic, although he has previously admitted that he does not know and is not familiar with the the game i was using. He has now presented his own simulation results, suggesting that the Infantry force will be almost completely wiped out by his single tank.

At this point i have referred the whole question to the wargame design group that I contribute to, which includes the Australian wargaming champion, a playtester who has competed several times in the International wargaming championships held every four years in the US 9Origins), and a whole playtest team for some of the premier wargaming titles on the market atr the moment. I have no doubt what the reaction will be, if the results that come back from those tests arent what he insists is the truth. he will deny the validity of those tests as well. Sometimes i wonder why i bother

[Glider]

War isn't a game played by rules. Its undertaken with the forces in place and the structures with each army.

The original scenario was Infantry attacking your village which had a Tiger in it.

The list I gave you are valid, real questions, based on real forces in place. A small obvious item is that 25pds were not depoyed in this manner in Normandy, simply never.

Just don't compare the real world with the limitations in a game.

[parsifal]

Originally Posted by Soren

Glider,

Like I said, if we were to go by the rules there'd be NO support for the Infantry at all! So why the heck do you keep blabbering about why there's no firefly or 24x 25 pdr's ??? Are we going to stick to the topic or shall we wonder away from it ?

And as for the number of Firefly's in Normandy, like I said 200 where there, so unless there were no more than 200 platoons then viola. But again, the Firefly isn't part of the debate, but ofcourse you'd like it to be there, it's afterall great to have some AT support - problem is that this is about wether infantry could do without it.

Soren, you raised no objection previously to the Infantry having "normal" support", except for AT defence. You have never previously raised objection to the artillery support. is this yet another change to the scenario parameter???

I have no objection to there being no heavy tanks, or for ther being no AT support, that was the starting position of this argument. But now you are also taking away the artillery support. "Light Artillery" in the British army would at minimum mean 24 guns in support

[parsifal]

[quote=Soren;349953]Parsifal,

Wait a minute, in your scenario the Allies start out waaay too close to the town. The original scenario was that they had to cross a field ca.1,300m in lenght and width to get to the town, and the terrain is flat with no cover other than a few spots out in the field with four trees and some bushes or less.

The starting ranges for the allied forces in the scenario that I created was 2000 metres. There is a distance of 800 metres to the western cover, and about the same to the eastern side. The eastern side distance is a guess, but the western distance is claculated from the data gleaned from the photo. I did this by measuring the length of the trees at the same distance point in the photo and then estimating the height of that tree so as to get an estimate of the total distance across the photo. I did this using software that i have access to at my work, but it can also be done manually.

If the distance to the western hill is 1300 metres, as you have estimated, then the town as well must also be 1300 metres as well. All this will do is to increase the frontage of your defending Tank, and makes its job even more difficult.

The trees and elevation to the east and west of the village can be measured and it is approximately 800 metres to the east
There is an entry road on the west side, with trees running along the west side of that road, with about 10m in between. Otherwise its three big and wide open plowed fields which need be crossed. Now in my simulation that ended in 98 Allied casualties and 2 Shermans knocked out, plus two 25 pdrs destroyed.
The reason for this result was that the smoke screens weren't anywhere close to covering the entire field, and as such much of the infatry was in times exposed which the Tiger took full advantage of and litterally mowed them down. The Shermans tried to take full advantage of the smoke screen to get on the Tiger's flanks, but one got bogged and the other got knocked out 15 secs after it got through the smoke screen with a single hit.


The problem with your scenario is that have only given 2x 25 pdrs in support, that is not the normal amount of artillery support that would be afforded to an assault of this kind. If you had the right amount of support, which is at least 24 guns, then perhaps the amount of smoke would be more realistic. it also sounds as if in your simulation, it is not possible to lay rolling smoke, to advance with the Infantry, and completely shroud the advance. your original assertion was that Infantry without proper dedicated support could not defend against armour. Over time that has changed to Infantry unable to attack, to which you have now added infantry without AT Support, Infantry without cover, and Infantry without artillery support. May i ask again, do these infantrymen even have rifles????

[parsifal]

Glider

I generally agree with you that no simulation is as good as the "real thing", but games are as close as we are going to get to testing this theory. i would also point out that the germans used Kriegspiel, literally wargaming (of the sand table type) to train their officers, and test many of their more important offensives during the war. the sorts of games I play are based on those Krigspel thories, rigid, historical, and quite accurate to be honest. What is getting a bit farcical is the ever decreasing and quite unrealistic restrictions that are being impoised at every juncture. For one thing, the germans would never leave their tanks unsupported, but for another, the allies never deployed their 25 pdrs in groups of two. it was not uncommon for a single divisional sized assault in the british army to be supported by no less than 700 or 800 guns. i have already pointed this out to Soren, but he is not listening.

[parsifal]

.
Have anyone info on British A/T mines, were they powerful enough to break the track of a Tiger with some certainty?

Juha[/quote]


Juha

The most common form of british AT mine was the hawkins Mine (sometimes referred to as the Hawkins grenade) it wa fully man portable. It was not heavy enough to penetrate the armoured hull of a tiger, but more than enough to make likley that the tank, whether it was a tiger or not, losing a track

It would take 90 sappers 150 minutes to lay a 1,000 yard mine field consisting of 1,250 Mk 7 British anti-tank mines, weighing a total 17 tonnes. In comparison it would take on 30 sappers 60 minutes to lay a 1,000 yard minefield consisting of 655 barmines weighing a total of 7.2 tonnes. [1]

Mines are some of the most underrated weaponsystems available to the lowly infantryman. Against unspported armour they are usually deadly. Yet another hole in the Soren defence plan, but nobody is listening

[Soren]

Soren, you raised no objection previously to the Infantry having "normal" support", except for AT defence. You have never previously raised objection to the artillery support. is this yet another change to the scenario parameter???

Come on, the only one who has been changing the parameters is you guys. I mean seriously, suddenly there's supposed to be Firefly's and lots of 25 pdrs plus unlimited explosives and what not.. Heck the whole argument started when I said that the Allies were absolutely dependant on either AT or Artillery support when faced with German armour, you disagreed upon that for some reason.

I have no objection to there being no heavy tanks, or for ther being no AT support, that was the starting position of this argument. But now you are also taking away the artillery support. "Light Artillery" in the British army would at minimum mean 24 guns in support

Hey I said that the Allies were absolutely dependant on either AT or Artillery support when up against German armour, with none of these they would be cut to shreds in most cases.

Essentially the starting point in the debate was that the Infantry would scatter in sheer terror at the mere sight of the armour

That's untrue Parsifal.

But like I said the mere sight of a Tiger was enough for some to panic, and then try to imagine what it would be like after seeing your armoured support being blown to pieces by one while all you've got just bounces off of its armour.

What some of you (Not saying you Parsifal) seem unable to understand is that soldiers aren't supermen, they get scared and some are inclined to panic, everybody has a threshold which can be crossed, and if you feel that you know that you're going to die if you don't get the heck outta there, then there's isn't much which is going to stop anybody. Now experienced soldiers can keep their cool to an amazing degree but if they're head to head with a tank that they know they can't possibly hope to knock out and its just tearing your fellow soldiers apart you're gonna want to get out of there, heck you'd do your outmost never to get in that situation in the first place. A sane soldier won't mess with a tank out in the open if he's got no way of hurting it.

[Glider]

Originally Posted by Soren

Hey I said that the Allies were absolutely dependant on either AT or Artillery support when up against German armour, with none of these they would be cut to shreds in most cases.

And the Germans in the open wouldn't be?

[parsifal]

Hi soren

[quote=Soren;350005]Come on, the only one who has been changing the parameters is you guys. I mean seriously, suddenly there's supposed to be Firefly's and lots of 25 pdrs plus unlimited explosives and what not.. Heck the whole argument started when I said that the Allies were absolutely dependant on either AT or Artillery support when faced with German armour, you disagreed upon that for some reason.



Hey I said that the Allies were absolutely dependant on either AT or Artillery support when up against German armour, with none of these they would be cut to shreds in most cases.

Soren, this was the opening post (by yoou) that lit the fuse that led us to this point

However out on the countryside and without AT support I'm afraid you will find very few examples of infantry pushing back or even halting an armored advance.

The Allied infantry was absolutely dependant on AT support in any way or form when faced with German armor, otherwise it was a one way trip outta this world.

Not too far down the track, you repeated yourself. Also have a read of some of the posts I have made. they constantly refer to the use of artillery, and other weapon systems in the AT defence. My position, and that of Juha, has always been that the dedicated AT Units represent a relatively small part of the AT defence options open to the Infantry. Neither of us have ever said that infantry without support can tackle tanks very effectively. However, the parameters of this discussion are a moving feast as we firstly have to prove the effectiveness of Infantry without AT, then infantry without AT, in the open, then Infantry without AT, on the attack, and now finally, Infantry without AT, in the open, and without any other support as well. As I said in my last post, when are you going to remove the Infantry's side arms.

What the other people are starting to point out to you is that the parameters of your position are becoming so far divorced from reality as to be quite ridiculous. I am starting to agree.



[b]That's untrue Parsifal.

But like I said the mere sight of a Tiger was enough for some to panic, and then try to imagine what it would be like after seeing your armoured support being blown to pieces by one while all you've got just bounces off of its armour.

What some of you (Not saying you Parsifal) seem unable to understand is that soldiers aren't supermen, they get scared and some are inclined to panic, everybody has a threshold which can be crossed, and if you feel that you know that you're going to die if you don't get the heck outta there, then there's isn't much which is going to stop anybody. Now experienced soldiers can keep their cool to an amazing degree but if they're head to head with a tank that they know they can't possibly hope to knock out and its just tearing your fellow soldiers apart you're gonna want to get out of there, heck you'd do your outmost never to get in that situation in the first place. A sane soldier won't mess with a tank out in the open if he's got no way of hurting it

Actually the fear factor is just as strong in a tank. When i was at staff college, one of my instructors was a tanker in the British 11 armoured Div (I think...its over 25 years now). i think he fought at Caen. He talked quite a bit about his personal experiences, and the sound of artillery exploding all around him, of bullets hitting the tank allover the place, the ever present fear of flame throwers, Panzerfausts, Tigers, 88s, and all manner of other nasties, was enough to test the nerve of anyone. If you think that is a peculiarly Allied or Soviet phenomenon, think again. my mother remarried when I was 14, to a German veteran of Stalingrad. he was a machine gunner, and extremely cool in any situation, as you would expect in any german MG (the core of any Infantry squad). He said he spent the entire campaign in the doomed city just about sh*tting himself, and says anyone who claims otherwise, doesnt know the true fear of war. Everybody feels it. I know I did, when i though we were going to have to repel 30 Tu-95 Bears, with a standing air patrol of just two A4s. But you are overplaying the human factor. Trained Infantry (or tankmen for that matter), almost never broke at the sight of an enemy. they were actually trained to deal with the threat by various means, and in a combat situation that training takes precedence over the fear....usually. An Infantry squad is a strange beast, almost tribal in concept, the bonds between the members of the squad are strong, and you dont let your mates down. there are any number of factors at work, that keep you at your post, but the one that works hardest is your wish to survive, and thats when all those drills, with the QMG yelling in your ear make their mark. Breathe, aim, fire, move, get your a*se into gear soldier before i kick the bl**dy thing into action, breathe fire , move, breathe fire move....then try being an officer where not only do you need to think about your own skin, but the welfare and survival of your men, as well as the objective of the task, and do it without showing fear. Trus me, thats hard, but it gets done in nearly every army. You should listen to Juha, however much it annoys you. he knows what he is talking about, insofar as how Infantry should, and usually does, react to an armoured threat.

I will repeat myself yet again, in the hope that finally you are listening, Good armour, used as part of an all arms team, whether that team is attacking or defending, is a formaidable weapon. If however, you isolate each part of the Infantry/armour/artillery combination, you have a less effective team. AT support is important, make no mistake, but it is not one of the main pillars of the team. It remains, even today, the Infantry, the armour, and the artillery that are the very core of the combined arms team.

Why you are wrong, is because you are trying to argue that just one arm, the armour, can defeat all the reamining arms of an army. This was proven to be wrong in WWI, and also by the allies at the beginning of WWII when their unsupported armour was cut to pieces. Same thing happened to the russians in 1941-42. Only when the allies and the Soviets put proper combined arms teams together, did they start to make an impression. As a proponent of german prowess, i am surpised that you would allow yourself to regress back to what history shows is a proven falure in the use of tanks, even if those tanks are the best available. And what i am saying is applicable in nearly every type of terrain , including the open stuff you are trying to concoct now. [/QUOTE

[Soren]

Originally Posted by Glider

And the Germans in the open wouldn't be?

Not if they had a Panzerschrek for example, otherwise yeah it would be the same deal, lots of dead or routing infantry. Panzerfausts would do little good out in the open in most cases as you'd have to get as close as 100 - 150m, and chances are mostly that you get mowed down before you get that close.