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Hell Let Loose

Started by jomni, April 24, 2018, 09:34:21 AM

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JasonPratt

Of course it still has SOME problems...

ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

MengJiao

Quote from: MengJiao on February 03, 2020, 11:00:36 AM
Quote from: MengJiao on February 02, 2020, 08:38:36 PM

  Here's the non-verbal things coming soon:



   Big update.  Here's a screenshot from Purple Heart Lane:

 


W8taminute

Non verbal marking and comms?  Imagine being a squad leader trying to sift through the multiple and many chatter that will come from your squad mates.  It must really be challenging in real life to make sense of a situation and report the results up to the chain of command.  Puts a new perspective on leadership I had not thought about before for me.
"You and I are of a kind. In a different reality, I could have called you friend."

Romulan Commander to Kirk

MengJiao

Quote from: W8taminute on February 18, 2020, 03:17:00 PM
Non verbal marking and comms?  Imagine being a squad leader trying to sift through the multiple and many chatter that will come from your squad mates.  It must really be challenging in real life to make sense of a situation and report the results up to the chain of command.  Puts a new perspective on leadership I had not thought about before for me.

  Well in HLL, the "units" are pretty small (6 men including the Officer/Corporal).  Actually the markings may cut down a little on the chatter since you won't have people trying to explain "on the other side of that hedge west or north of the little house with the blue roof".  It may be also that a flow of relatively reliable information will help the overall commander a bit.  As for coms in WWII in real life, the number of amazing blunders reported in the official US Army history is pretty horrifying and a lot probably either was glossed over or simply assumed to be the way things go in war.  I was just reading Martin Blumenson's Breakout and Pursuit and he uses such things as telephone logs to try to figure out what actually happened sometimes.

MengJiao

Quote from: MengJiao on February 18, 2020, 02:47:30 PM

   Big update.  Here's a screenshot from Purple Heart Lane (Easy8 Sherman with better armor and a 76mm gun):



Father Ted

Quote from: MengJiao on February 19, 2020, 12:20:16 PM

Easy8 Sherman with better armor and a 76mm gun


Was that a historical thing?  The Brits had the upgunned (17pdr = 76mm?) Sherman they called a Firefly, but did that (or the US version) have better armour?

MengJiao

Quote from: Father Ted on February 19, 2020, 05:48:32 PM
Quote from: MengJiao on February 19, 2020, 12:20:16 PM

Easy8 Sherman with better armor and a 76mm gun


Was that a historical thing?  The Brits had the upgunned (17pdr = 76mm?) Sherman they called a Firefly, but did that (or the US version) have better armour?

  The 17 pdr is a very different gun (much higher velocity) than the US 76mm.  The US 76mm Sherman began to arrive at the front after Normandy so neither it nor the Tiger I historically were in the US sector in Normandy.  The US 76mm tank was pretty effective BUT the Easy 8 was the final version of the tank so again...not historical.  Still, even the garden-variety 76mm sherman was statistically 3 times more effective than the Panther so it was not a bad tank at all.  Still I guess the game needs some tanky excitement and anyway historically WWII was not much fun so why not?

  On the front of the British 2nd army, the 17 pdr could be found on the Achilles (an M10 with a 17pdr), the archer, as a towed gun and in the Firefly.
Fortunately for the German players, the game is featuring the US Army at the moment rather than the British Army.

MengJiao

Quote from: MengJiao on February 19, 2020, 05:57:52 PM

  On the front of the British 2nd army, the 17 pdr could be found on the Achilles (an M10 with a 17pdr), the archer, as a towed gun and in the Firefly.
Fortunately for the German players, the game is featuring the US Army at the moment rather than the British Army.

  For a change of pace, here is the up-armored 75mm Sherman -- the classic "Jumbo" -- This one would have been more common slightly earlier than the up-armored 76mm or the ultimate Easy-eight that is also in the game:

 

Rayfer

MJ...is that guy about to shoot the tank with a pistol?  A fatal mistake?

Pete Dero

Quote from: MengJiao on February 19, 2020, 05:57:52 PM
Still, even the garden-variety 76mm sherman was statistically 3 times more effective than the Panther so it was not a bad tank at all.

Are you sure ?

Some quotes from soldiers of the Second Armored Division :

"I have engaged the German Mark V tank with our M4 Medium. The Mark V tank is superior to our M4. Its wide tracks give it greater flotation although the German steel tracks do not have as great a mileage as our steel tracks. They are more heavily armored but still have greater mobility. The Mark V gun is far superior to our 75mm gun with much more penetrating power. The sight for the low machine gun is also a valuable feature of the tank."

"I have seen our 75mm and 76mm AP bounce off German Mark V and Mark VI tanks. I haven't seen a German tank knocked out, that was hit in the front; you always have to hit them in the side or rear compartment."

"I've been told that the M4A3 tank (with 76mm gun) is the equal if not a better tank than the German Mark V 'Panther'. That's not so! The only reason that we've gone as far as we have is summed up in 'Quantity and the Cooperation of Arms.' Until such times as the Army puts out a tank that can knock out a "Panther" from the front at 1,500 yars, or adds enough armor to stop a shell from the same distance, we'll continue to lose a heavy toll of tanks, men and equipment."

"In comparing the German tank with our own medium tank, there is one thing that I would like to bring out; that is, the armor plate on each tank. The Mark V has about four and a half inches on the front. The Mark VI has a little over six inches. When placing tank against tank, you must consider the armor of each. In past engagements with the enemy, we have placed tank against tank very often. In one tank battle, our M4 was in the front by an AP shell from a Mark VI. It went in the front and came out the rear. I have also seen our 75mm AP shells bounce off the front of the Mark V and Mark VI tanks."

"Our tank guns, both 75mm and 76mm, haven't the penetrating power that the German tanks have. At Elbeuff, during August 1944, our AP shells bounced off a Mark VI at point-blank range while we were on a road block."

MengJiao

Quote from: Pete Dero on February 21, 2020, 08:33:55 AM
Quote from: MengJiao on February 19, 2020, 05:57:52 PM
Still, even the garden-variety 76mm sherman was statistically 3 times more effective than the Panther so it was not a bad tank at all.

Are you sure ?

Some quotes from soldiers of the Second Armored Division :

"I have engaged the German Mark V tank with our M4 Medium. The Mark V tank is superior to our M4. Its wide tracks give it greater flotation although the German steel tracks do not have as great a mileage as our steel tracks. They are more heavily armored but still have greater mobility. The Mark V gun is far superior to our 75mm gun with much more penetrating power. The sight for the low machine gun is also a valuable feature of the tank."

"I have seen our 75mm and 76mm AP bounce off German Mark V and Mark VI tanks. I haven't seen a German tank knocked out, that was hit in the front; you always have to hit them in the side or rear compartment."

"I've been told that the M4A3 tank (with 76mm gun) is the equal if not a better tank than the German Mark V 'Panther'. That's not so! The only reason that we've gone as far as we have is summed up in 'Quantity and the Cooperation of Arms.' Until such times as the Army puts out a tank that can knock out a "Panther" from the front at 1,500 yars, or adds enough armor to stop a shell from the same distance, we'll continue to lose a heavy toll of tanks, men and equipment."

"In comparing the German tank with our own medium tank, there is one thing that I would like to bring out; that is, the armor plate on each tank. The Mark V has about four and a half inches on the front. The Mark VI has a little over six inches. When placing tank against tank, you must consider the armor of each. In past engagements with the enemy, we have placed tank against tank very often. In one tank battle, our M4 was in the front by an AP shell from a Mark VI. It went in the front and came out the rear. I have also seen our 75mm AP shells bounce off the front of the Mark V and Mark VI tanks."

"Our tank guns, both 75mm and 76mm, haven't the penetrating power that the German tanks have. At Elbeuff, during August 1944, our AP shells bounced off a Mark VI at point-blank range while we were on a road block."



   The Sherman 76mm even without extra armor had a lot of advantages over the Panther in December 1944 apparently:

   A greater proportion of better-trained, more experinced crews
   Better recon support
   Better maintence and plenty of gas and lubricants
   Better situational tracking periscopes and sights
   Much, much higher reliabilty

   Which meant that it took 3 times as many Panthers to get the same battlefield results as say X number of Sherman 76mm tanks.  What tended to happen with the more heavily armored German tanks in the Ardenne in 1944 very much resembles what happened with heavy French tanks in 1940:
a very high proportion broke down or ran out of gas, ie were ineffective.  Statistically, it doesn't matter why a tank fails to get in or out of battle and presumably even if Panthers won most of their head-to-head fights, if most of them ran out of gas or broke down, they aren't as effective as tanks that get to the fighting.

MengJiao

Quote from: Rayfer on February 21, 2020, 08:10:49 AM
MJ...is that guy about to shoot the tank with a pistol?  A fatal mistake?

  That's my tank.  I got out to take a photo and was shot...I think by a straffing plane!  Yes, a 109...which is appropriate for Purple Heart Lane since two Stukas seriously messed up a US Airborne company on this road historically.

MengJiao

Quote from: MengJiao on February 19, 2020, 12:20:16 PM

Purple Heart Lane


  Wet view from a canal boat.  There are several canals and a number of canal boats on this map.  also it is raining and lots of things are flooded.  If you fall into a canal you die more or less instantly.  This seems reasonable to me.  Falling into water over your head while carrying a lot of weapons and ammo could kill you and why not in 4 seconds...do you really want to have your drowning simulated in great detail?  However, apparently this is going to be patched -- you can fall in and maybe climb back out.  As far as I know, the canals are the only place where you can drown and they are marked in RED on the map...so (after drowning a few times)...I learned to be careful.  By the way...on this map, having all your visuals turned up all the way can definitely help you see better ways across flooded areas since the details of the plants can show you where to go to stop sloshing along.


Father Ted

Quote from: Rayfer on February 21, 2020, 08:10:49 AM
MJ...is that guy about to shoot the tank with a pistol?  A fatal mistake?

In one of the Armas you could make a tank move by shooting it with a sidearm

MengJiao

Quote from: Father Ted on February 22, 2020, 01:40:43 PM
Quote from: Rayfer on February 21, 2020, 08:10:49 AM
MJ...is that guy about to shoot the tank with a pistol?  A fatal mistake?

In one of the Armas you could make a tank move by shooting it with a sidearm

  I once blew an STGIII out to sea with a gammon bomb in an early ARMA.