Quote from: Orcs on 28 April 2021, 10:04:44 AM
Learn from Napoleon and Hitler, Don't go anywhere near Russia or Russians in the winter.  - Buy them now!

But then they will be ready to fight in Spring!

Quote from: ianrs54 on 28 April 2021, 11:00:36 AM
Since the arceologists have been at work -

*snip naval examples*

Tank design in 1940 was fitted to doctrine, and yes on average the Germans were rather better at it. However compare an A13 MkII with a Panzer IIIE. Armour is of the same order, the 13 is rather faster and has a better gun. THe major difference was in how they were used, and numbers.

Ahhh but soft factors & non-obvious hard factors come into play - which is mostly what wins battles (see your comment on losing Battlecruisers to people ignoring safety procedures!).

Reliability, ease of use, crew comfort and vision - all far better on early to mid war German tanks. All baaaaaad on UK/French designs - compare say bailing out of an A13 (or crewing it up in the first place). The Pzr III crew can be in the tank and fighting in five mins, it took 10-15 mins to get the driver into or out of a Cruiser, and considerable time for the turret crew as well! It's not often mentioned but UK crews bailed early and often - they knew if they waiting till it it was needed they'd be dead. Reliability is another - when you see from the maintenance returns how few actual runners UK & Commonwealth units had even with *fresh* vehicles, it's no surprising that allegedly smaller German formations performed far better - they often had more fighting tanks at point of contact!

Fuelling is a great example - French tanks in 1940 used a terrible system - fill a small bladder from the fuel truck, carry to the tank, attach to fuel tank, squeeze/pump in, back and forth. Took 30-60mins *per tank* to fill up - all of which required special connectors and a lot of manual faff. German tanks - stick the nozzle of the hose connected directly to the fuel truck into the tanks fuel cap, and done - at worst just pour a jerry can into it. Time to refuel? Five mins... whole damn Abteilung refuelled in the time it takes one French tank to be done...

When German design "caught up" with guns and armour the soft factors that had made them so successful just got lost. Meanwhile Allied soft factors exceeded the early war gap and still retained good enough hard factors.

If I could find the link I read a great write up from the Army's comparative testing of Sherman, Cromwell, Pzr IV and T-34 from '43 - PzrIV was really badly made, pretty unreliable and poor on crew fatigue/usability but was clearly worse than earlier examples made pre/early war, Sherman was utterly boss, as was Cromwell ("assuming current problems with reliability are ironed out") - both could do a battalion sized 60km route march across unfamiliar territory and then go straight into combat *as a full battalion* with crews who were still able to fight, and T-34 was... unreliable, virtually impossible to drive and fight, and whilst great for hard stats they felt it was a bad combat tank unless you expected to use it once, briefly and right up from on the front lines as the crew would be too shagged and too many runners have dropped out due to mechanical failure to be useful!

Those are some really good points, and things that are rarely represented in rules. There are occasional rules for '2 man turrets' or similar, but rarely rules for the fatigue the tank causes on the crew (fatigue is often missing from many wargame rules). Perhaps this is where the abstraction of BKC and its command values comes in, and you could limit certain countries / years to maximum CV for their armour.

The fatigue causing and reliability of different tanks was huge - the Allies drove their Shermans and Cromwells 100s of miles from Normandy to Holland in a space of days, with the loss of very few tanks through mechanical faults. I always contrast this to one of the German reinforcements units sent to Arnhem, a unit of 13 Tiger Is, that drove about 12 miles and had 11 tanks break down during that road march!

So back on topic...

Ordered the entire Bavarian Corps for 1809, something you can do at 32p a base. This will be enough for 3 bases/battalion for BP. Blucher and FoGN don't need this many.

Last night started 4 units of Landwehr- now painted grey. Need to do backpacks, boots, faces etc. 48 strips- 384 figures.

Lesson learned was probably best to still do an undercoat with spray paint. I was using a 1 inch brush, and the MDF went a little hairy, plus needed two coats. However method tested on Landwehr means can be explained as substandard clothing. I can use the 1 inch brush for jacket colour, having sealed with spray- I'll find a shop with plastic loyalty cards to have as a paint guard to protect trousers of the undercoat colour

Wondering about doing Württemberg, Westphalia and Poland next, but only enough for Blucher, 12-18 bases each

Quote from: Last Hussar on 30 April 2021, 08:51:47 AM


Wondering about doing Württemberg, Westphalia and Poland next, but only enough for Blucher, 12-18 bases each

Yes!

Going to need more trays.
And that means another box.

Just ordered some mdf bases to go with a load of mdf ACW figures that I got for a good deal off a fellow Blogger.

Quote from: fred. on 29 April 2021, 08:47:26 PM
Those are some really good points, and things that are rarely represented in rules. There are occasional rules for '2 man turrets' or similar, but rarely rules for the fatigue the tank causes on the crew (fatigue is often missing from many wargame rules). Perhaps this is where the abstraction of BKC and its command values comes in, and you could limit certain countries / years to maximum CV for their armour.

The fatigue causing and reliability of different tanks was huge - the Allies drove their Shermans and Cromwells 100s of miles from Normandy to Holland in a space of days, with the loss of very few tanks through mechanical faults. I always contrast this to one of the German reinforcements units sent to Arnhem, a unit of 13 Tiger Is, that drove about 12 miles and had 11 tanks break down during that road march!

Absolutely!

There's many many ways you can model the fatigue and reliability - Commander style with CV rolls (though that's an awkward interface between reliability/fatigue/command - eg those Germans at Arnhem would have had more than two Tiger appear ), random breakdown tables, arbitrarily changing points values not just for ability but also availability and usability, strict adherence to not just TOEs but also unit level maintenance details and actual strengths as modified by how long the unit was in the field for, increased friction in order changes/casualty recovery/armour saves etc etc.

None of the above will suit many gamers, and are especially awkward for competitions where things must be "equal", just like they were in real life

Now back to MDF, I quite fancy some of Walts Romans - anyone got some?

Also, Last Hussar, any excuse for more wood

I have a load of his MDF ACW and they're nice - I really should finish up more than the one BBB brigade I did per side, but even sprayed the grey or blue base coat they actually look OK! Very board game pieces but decent.

Quote from: toxicpixie on 29 April 2021, 10:20:28 AM
T-34 was... unreliable, virtually impossible to drive and fight, and whilst great for hard stats they felt it was a bad combat tank unless you expected to use it once, briefly and right up from on the front lines as the crew would be too shagged and too many runners have dropped out due to mechanical failure to be useful!

But as Stalin said "Quantity has a quality all of its own"

Doesn't do you any good if all the quantity breaks down before it has a chance to become quality

When a portion of your production rolls straight from production line to front line in a couple of hundred yards perhaps expecting to use it once, briefly and right up from on the front lines was a reasonable expectation!

That's more common for late war Germans, as is the factory primer approach to camo

Didn't do them much good then, either

384 faces painted and trousers redone on sides where 1st coat missed.

Hats next.

384 figures on 24 bases of Landwehr finished.

Started Thursday, didn't do any Friday, completed 15 minutes ago

Nice - you've got that mdf painting down pat!

"Scenic" Basing included?