Posts made by Obergruppenfuhrer

The B-17 by FAR. I personally have an affection for the He-111 but in terms of the “best bomber” I love the Fortress with all my heart. I believe daylight bombing helped us win the war in a much speedier time frame and arguably, in general.

My all time fave is the B-17F (ie: The Memphis Belle). Those were to first full squadrons of heavies into Germany and other bomb targets with NO fighter escort beyond what could make it just past the channel and hopefully link up with them on their way back. These bombers took tremendous losses and the stories of some of these planes landing when it was scientfically impossible blow my mind. Marting Caidens “B-17’s, The Flying Forts” is the best book I’ve read about that planes role in every combat theater it played a part. From it’s beginning and technical aspects to many personal accounts, the book paints one of the most colorful pictures I’ve ever encountered regarding what the crews of this plane went through, what the B-17 achieved and most of all, the sacrafices their crews made, especially in situations where they didn’t have to.

Thanks buddy.  :-) (if you were talking to me that is)

@AA:

my favorites were the P47 Thunderbolt because they survived even the worst damage.
And the F6F Hellcat,because they were fast enough to take on the Zero’s and the other fast Jap fighters.

That Thunderbolt is one hell of an aircraft. A book called “Spitfires, Thunderbolts and Warm Beer” along with “Thunderbolts!” by Marint Caiden are great books hailing the amazing abilities of this plane. The first book is about an American volunteer who flew for the battle of Britain and eventually switched to the Thunderbolt once the americans came over. That plane could outdive, and outclimb and German aircraft. It’s superior fire power is responsible for the loss of many Fock Wulf 190 Aces that attempted to contest it.

You hit a German plane with those 8 50 cals and it would just take it to pieces while the thunderbold could take an incredible amount of punishment. Great choice!

@Jermofoot:

“Quantity has a quality all on its own.” (or something like that)

-Josef Stalin

Totally. I think that quote sums up the Russian victory on its own.

Well don’t be so modest!! :lol: Your an expert in my book. Definately well read in the least. Thanks for the help. I really appreciate it.

The soldier facing is one of the rules we’ve personally altered for the sake of the game. We play that you can ambush troops by coming up to the rear of them and they can’t make defensive fire or fire at you unless they change their facing. It adds the whole “ambush” thing to our games. Maybe we should try it with the real rules but this way seems more fun. It also adds to the whole “flanking” strategy making facing much more important.

Question for Motdc. Sorry to but you again but your the expert. If a unit, (example, a partisan or inspiring hero is deployed on the map adjacent to an enemy unit does the enemy unit get defensive fire on them assuming the facing is correct?

@Motdc:

Face-down conters?  No problem moving, the combat effect doesnt get applied until its flipped face up.  Its supposed to make combat feel more simultaneous.  Its the whole, “if you shoot the guy that just threw a grenade at you, you’ll still get blasted when the grenade lands” thing.

Once again, Motdc to the rescue. Thank you very much. After all this time it’s odd this situation hasn’t come up unitil last nights all night 150 point battle. My first loss in 11 games.  :-(

If a unit is has a face down destroyed or disrupted counter, can they use their combat phase to move? I’m guessing no especially with disruption because they were disrupted in a certain spot. Can someone help clarify this for me please? Thanks!!

It’s ok. That’s what I voted but in retrospect, I probably should have at least said “I like it.”

With “The European Battle of the SS”, “The battle for Narva” and the Demansk Pocket all strongly repelled by divisions of the Waffen SS, I was really hoping for more infantry that would go deeper into members of the Waffen SS. Even going into specific divisions that did outstanding like Totenkopf, Das Reich, Leibstandarte and even notorious foriegn legions like Wiking.

Just on a side note, I also think the Weihrmacht Oberleutnant is still WAY too many points. I could maybe see 10 but 13 is ridiculous.

They should have an SS Oberleutnant. Also, while the Allies have a number of partisan troops, some of which are really good, they don’t repressent the Anti-partisan units recruited by the SS on the Eastern Front very well. These volunteer units played a very significant role in repelling other partisans and Russians. In addition to that I wish they would have gone deeper into the Russian NKVD units used.

On the other hand, one can’t complain too much. The Germans are excellent in this game. My main complaint is if the Allies (Russia) can use partisans to deploy anywhere on side hexes of the board, with an urban combat bonus then the Germans should be able to symolize the anit-partisan units they raised that successfully repelled a significant part of this activity with that same bonus.

I don’t know about all the new rules. There’s something to be said about simplicity. We’ve adapted “overwatch” into our game but we’re still playing with the same rules with a couple minor variations that just speed up the game play and make it more fun.

BTW –- Since “Overwatch” is a play on defensive fire, this means that a tank on overwatch cannot shoot at soldiers that move into its row right? I figure it’s true since vehicles don’t get defensive fire on soldiers. Just want clarification if you guys don’t mind.

How’d you get that map? Also – I don’t feel like going into my book right now, well…wait. Just for you I will. Hook me up on the Karma for this one buddy  :wink:

Ok ok. I dug out the info. The year is 1944. You could do many scenarios involving the Battle for Narva. The Germans were dug in really well and the Russians continued to establish small bridgeheads only to have them wiped out and be pushed back again and again. The only thing was the Soviets could afford and easily replace their losses while the SS couldn’t.

Still, The SS was so dug into Narva that eventually when the city was shelled into ruins, the SS merely dug into the ruins deeper and continued to repell attacks.

The Soviets in “The Battle for Narva” were the 8th and 47th Armies and the 2nd Shock Army.

At the beginning of February, the Soviets forced a crossing of the river between Hungerburg and Narva and established a small bridgehead. The Germans own 11th Panzer Battalion "Hermann von Salza and Waffen SS grenediers were able to destroy it. You may want to recreate that scenario and see if you can change history. Or you can recreat any of the failed attempts to gain ground on Narva. I think with what you have, you could do an excellent battle with one of the spearhead initiatived the Soviets were using.

One being the brigdhead they set up at Ssivertski which was pushed back by an SS Battlegroup. That would be a great one for you as well!! You are lacking obviously in Soviet Troops so you have to recreate a smaller battle for one of the bridgheads. Your German troops are perfect for this!! In Narva there were Luftwaffe men forced to help as infantry and plenty of SS units that would be the equivalent of what you have. You also have the appropriate armor to represent facets of the 11th Panzer Battalion.

You could even change the objective to something different like either holding one hex for a certain amount of turns or merely having the Germans outnumber your Soviets and the goal for victory would be a percentage of German Casualites you have to take by the end of Turn 7 or until the Red army is wiped out entirely. Then calculate point wise, if you were able to take out that decided percentage of the German army.

The only thing I would say your really missing here is pillboxes but that’s no big deal! The cover of a city and maybe making mock pillboxes would work just as well. I would be happy to give you the pill box stats and point values. After all, the pill boxes are not a very special piece. You could just make up a marker for them and use them on either side.

I admire your adoration of recreating an accurate scenario! I think that’s great but you’ll have to leave out the 262 which didnt play any part of that battle to my knowledge. Personally I think its a little ridiculous using the plane considering it was used to counter the bombing of German Territory and saw almost exclusive air to air combat in it’s short career.

So tell me what you think of my ideas? I would love your feedback. I’m glad your post motivated me to dig that info out of “The SS, Hitlers Instrument of Terror” by Gordon Williams which I took direct quotes from. I’m excited to try one of these scenarious myself. Let me know if you like any of my ideas and if not, maybe I can help you with some others. I’ve been studying the battles of the Eastern Front avidly these last few months so I think I can be of help to you. Let me know how it works out for you!

@Subotai:

until now, war that Europeans have been fighting since before 500 B.C.  Reasons have never changed, explanations and propaganda have changed quite a lot.

I like the “larger picture” viewpoint expressed here. It’s almost more philosophical than anything else. We as humans, are a conquering species, constantly at war for one anothers resources and territory. We collectively at base instinct, in my opinion, are insatiable, selfish and greedy. Hence wherever man is gathered you will find curruption to these degrees. It cracks me up when people say there’s so much blood on the hands of “the government” or “organized religion”. Try wherever mankind gathers in masses. There you will find these things. It’s what we are.

Now on a smaller more specific scale, I believe the Treaty of Versailles caused WW2. Hands down. Our US delegate, (I don’t feel like looking up his name to remember) would not sign that treaty and said something to the degree of “I see 21 wars in this treaty.” …or something to that degree (sorry if I misquoted)

That treaty was drawn up and then carried out in the manner of revenge and the poverty stricken and vastly anti sematic climate was ripe for a national socialist movement to become a solution to Germany’s woes. The Allies were demmanding that Germany, in addition to paying astronomical restitutions on many levels were also demmanding the army hand over thousands of veterans to become prisoners. Hate was in the air and I believe this treaty ultimately, was the match that lit the proverbial kindling.

I think both Legion 3 and Imperious have made excellent points here.

We must not forget that despite Hitlers insane lust for power, he was a negotiator. I chose the loss of Mechant ships. THe US was publically very opposed to another war in Europe. If Hitler had been able to negotiate (or had the sanity and foresight to do so) with the US, terms could have been reached but we’ll never really know if that ever could have happened.

We must not forget that The British won the Battle of Britain almost completely on their own. We really didn’t help them significantly unitil war was declared. I do believe that us supplying England with oil or anything else was a definate act of war in Hitlers eyes. Let us not forget how hard The German ambassadors tried to come to terms (with false promises) with England. If only Hitler could have given up on the idea of taking The UK and come to a cease fire with them prior to or in the beginning of the Battle of Britain, I believe England would have backed off and Hitler could have allocated resources to defeat Moscow.

I still think theres a strong chance the UK would have used that time to for a military build up and things would have errupted between Germany and them eventually but had Germany already taken Moscow, things could have gone far differently and the war gone on much longer. However the US involvment meant certain defeat for Germany one way or the other so I think that if the US would have agreed to stop sending supplies to England, (who knows if they ever would have but public opinion could have swayed that decision after Peal Harbor) then the US involvment would really depend on provokation by Germany.

However it’s been said in this discussion and I agree that Hitlers greed, pride and anger may not have allowed any of this to happen. Every major mistake he made was due to his pride and anger and a demonic like power lust. This is a very tough situation to look at in hindsight. We don’t really know what COULD have happened. We do know that the US was strongly opposed to a Euopean war however and we do know that Hitler considered our helping England an act of war. Great topic and great points here from everybody so far.

Wow. and I thought the old 4 10 shotgun I first fired kicked like a mule. I can only imagine. Soldiers back then had a lot to compensate for. I sitll hope to find an original 98k someday at a gun show or somewhere. That’s the ONE weapon I want to own the most.

@dezrtfish:

I love my K98 it is an original 1942 with matching numbers and I fire it all the time.

Wow. That’s awesome! What I wouldn’t give to own and fire that weapon often. Very impressive collection I must add.

Thank you Flanshman. FINALLY, someone who speaks out against the Soviets atrocities. 21 million murdered in Russia alone. Their “labor camps” people rarely returned from. When The Soviets began raping and murdering axis refugees after the war, American soldiers happened to be present. At first, when out soldiers tried to stop it, the Russians turned their weapons on us. Finally, the soldiers began opening fire into the air and a Soviet commander had it stopped.

To save face in front of us, that commander had a number of his men hung on the spot.

I do however disagree that the holocaust interfered with the war effort on a significant. My backbone to this opinion being that many camps were bieng used as slave labor for profiteers. Inmates were helping not only the manufacturing of war goods such as clothing, shells and aircraft, they were also used in other companies such as Germanys main porcelain concern.

Suprisingly, Himmler actually suggested that skilled workers be fed and housed better but this was not really followed.

I’ll readily admit I’m not educated enough on this particular tank to make a statement about them I’m comfortable with. However in A&A miniatures, I think the point value of the Sherman Tank is fair considering how good they are based on the mass production of them

Not to change the subject, but I think the Tiger is a tank that is definately not underrated in the game. My only qualm is the point value. Tigers should have a slightly lower point value based on how common they were on the battlefield. The more I read about their role in operation Barbarossa, the more I’m beginning to learn how many of these superior tanks were being used.

When I lived in Orange County Ca, I remember seeing the platforms for old ww2 anti air guns. Same on the “Queen Mary” docked there.

I think it’s correct in the game to have the guns. Because the nature of the game can cange the way the war really played out, america would have had many more batteries than it did based on the war. We did have anit air batteries but not even close to the amount in England.

For instance, in one of my games, my German airforce bombed the American fleet in the gulf of mexico. If Germany would have had long range bombers like the B-17 and/or carriers capable or bombing the East or West Coast, Americans response would naturally been to have more AA batteries. That’s merely my speculation though.

Mauser all the way. While it arguably could be considered inferior to other weapons, it’s reliabilty and accuracy amazes me. I’ve held an original German 98k, I’ve never had the priviledge of firing one. The very fact that the snipers used it along with infantry, the only difference being a higher ballistic round and scope says a lot about that weapons accuracy.

I love your polls AB!

I have to change my original opinion of the Italians upon further studies of the SS. While many of their units performed horribly on the Russian front, units enganged in repelling operation TORCH performed with extreme bravery. They originally were not allowed to where the SS patch on black and eventually many Italians wore red collar tabs with white SS runes instead.

After heavy losses and an extraordinary performance engaging the allies invading Italy, Himmler awarded them full SS status “with all rights and priviledges.” Even units not involved in the fighting directly were awarded this promotion. They were brought into Germany for further training. I’m learning that staunch Italian facists volunteers performed extremely well in the European theater despite being outnumbered and suffering heavy losses. Many units were upgraded to official SS units with a German officer as commander.