Market Garden

[Shadehawk]

For 1, I found the following information here: [font=calibri]http://www.combatreform.org/groundvehiclephotos.htm[/font]
 
MYSTERY: the British tank museum's Tetrarch light tank has a 3" gun for high explosive fire support as shown above. So don't even try to whine about these light tanks being inadequate to kill heavier German tanks, they were needed primarily to BLAST GERMAN INFANTRY OUT OF BUILDINGS, BUNKERS AND DUG-IN POSITIONS. This was known AT THE TIME as proven by the Tetrarch with the 3 inch gun. Yet we only know the 6th Airborne Division having an Armored Reconnaissance unit with light tanks, not the 1st Brititsh Airborne which landed near Arnhem. The photo above of a Hamilcar at a landing zone west of Arnhem adds to the mystery as SOMETHING has rolled off its front nose ramp. We also know 412 Hamilcar heavy gliders were built so the question arises WHY DIDN'T THE BRITISH GLIDER-LAND A FORCE OF 100-400 LIGHT TANKS AND BREN GUN CARRIERS WEST OR ARNHEM AND PUNCH THEIR WAY THROUGH TO REINFORCE LTC FROST'S MEN? Why didn't they fit large guns to Bren gun carriers and glider land them?
[font=verdana][/font] 
Keith Flint in his startling book, Airborne Armour solves the mystery.
1. The slacker British industry didn't have any urgency to make Hamilcar heavy gliders so there were less than 50 at the time of Arnhem
 
2. The British military being smart to see the need for glider-delivered light tanks was not bright enough to realize that just because German tanks CAME TO THEM when in the DEFENSE at Normandy to be blasted by their static after being towed by trucks 6-pounder and 17-pounder anti-tank guns---did not mean they should not take any light tanks that could fire-from-the-move to Arnhem when in the OFFENSE. This fatal error cost them the battle and extended the war by 1 year.
 
3. 18 Bren gun tracked tankettes were glider-landed 8 miles west of Arnhem bridge but instead of mounting 75mm or other guns they were used to CARRY SUPPLIES for the infantry. According to General Gavin in his 1947 book, Airborne Warfare a mere two armored cars held up the British infantry from reaching LTC Frost's men already at the bridge by blasting Freddy Gough's 1st Recce Squadron's unarmored jeeps towing 20mm Polsten anti-aircraft guns that were not ready-to-fire.
 
4. 1st Airborne Recce Squadron commander, Major Freddie Gough had asked for the 6th Airborne Recce Squadron's unused Tetrarch light tanks for his coup de main mission but was ignored and thus failed because he was in unarmored jeeps.
 
I don't know if it's acurate, but it's what I could find on the subject. [:)]

[Jeffrey H.]

Regarding your item 2, I found this wiki page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guards_Armoured_Division

There is a photo there of a Sherman crossing the bridge @ Nijmegan. From the hull shape and gun, I'd say it's an early Sherman, possibly even a 75 mm gunned version.

[Jeffrey H.]

And this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Ar ... _World_War

[Jeffrey H.]

In particular this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_Guards

Note the following excerpt:

"...While they battled on in those theatres the 1st and 2nd joined the Guards Armoured Division, with the 1st Battalion being infantry and the 2nd armoured..."

[Jeffrey H.]

Not sure if you found this:

http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/ba ... rnhem.html

[Grymme]

Shadehawk & Jeffrey: Thanks guys. Appreciated.

Work is going steady, although slow. Had a setback last week when i managed to save over a couple of days work. I am slowly placing units and reinforcements and working on some events when i have the time over. Which is not often.

This mod will have some changes to the system of readiness. Basicly there will be dayturns and nightturns. During day turns units do not recover readiness. So a unit that looses readiness because of combat or lack of supplies will have to wait to a nighturn to recover it. Also possibly units that move might loose a little readiness (havent decided this yet).

During night rounds units do recover readiness. Units can move as normal, but units that do move loose more readiness than they would have recovered because they are using time that should be spent resting to move instead. Also during night turns there is a -50% modifier on offensive action.

One reason that work is going pretty slow is that i constantly have to check what equipment is in a certain type of unit and then create the SFTs for that unit. So far i have created the following SFTs.

Light Rifle
Rifle
Bren Machinegun (MG)
MG 34/42 (MG)
MP 38/40 (SMG)
Sten Gun (SMG)
Piat (AT)
RP43 (AT)
2inch mortar
3inch mortar
81mm Mortar
Engineer
Gun Crew
Staff
6pnd Antitank Gun
17pnd Antitank Gun
75mm Pak 97/38
Jeep
Kubelwagen
Wagon
Motorcycle
Truck
Bren Carrier (994)
SdKfz 250/1
Daimler Dingo Scout Car
Humber Scout Car
Staghound T17 Armored Car
Sdkfz 233
Sdkfz 234/1
75mm Pack Howitzer
Sexton SP 25pnd Gun
M7 PRiest 105mm How
17cm Kanone 18 (283)
105mm LeHF
25pnd gun (230)
Grille SiG 15cm (365)
Cromwell
Sherman M4 Firefly
Sherman M4
M5 stuart
Jagdpanzer IV
PzKpfw IIIJ
PzKpfw IV
PxKpfw V Panther
88L56 FlaK18
2cm Flak38
Quad 2cm Flak38

I have now placed all the starting units of the XXX Corps.

A lot of units, as can be seen by this screenshot. The white units to the right is the Dutch Princess Irene Brigade. Missing from the picture is 2/3rds of the 15&19th Hussars (light green in the lower left side of the map. But other than that this is the entire British starting forces.

[lion_of_judah]

Grymme
how did you get it too look night-time in one of the earlier screenshots, looks rather cool. I'm normally tired of WW2 scenarios, but this has peeked my interest....

[Grymme]

Lion. Its actually quite easy. There is an exec in the editor called Execweathercolour that changes the entire colour of the map.

Still working on this mod although it is slow going. Adding some 5-10 units every day. Which isnt that much considering there are maybe some 1 000 units to add.

[Jeffrey H.]

Well, maybe I can help ? If it's just sort of grunt labor type stuff, metahporically speaking, maybe I can take some of the load off you ?

[Grymme]

Thanks for the offer. It is a lot of grunt labour stuff. But to be honest i think it still wouldnt be more efficient to send savefile back and forth.

Still i am making some progress. As i think i stated before i was thinking of making separate smaller scenarios for each of the divisional landings. As for the Arnhem landing i am finished with all of the 1st Airborn Division units, all of the Polish Brigade units, all at start german units and have only 71 german reinforcements left to place. That isnt actually not as much as it sounds since a lot of the placements are of several units of the same type in the same place. If you account for that its 31 individual placements left. Since i make around 5 placements each day this should be finished in a week or so.

I have also finished all of the 30th Corps units at start and all of the german units at start opposite 30th corps. But havent started reinforcements at all. Also have all of the central sector units at start, reinforcements, and all US airborne units left to place.

A cool sidenote. This scenario will feature a german tank company equipped with the old french heavy tank Char B. Its not to often you find scenarios using this.

[Jeffrey H.]

Ahh, the mighty Char B. Tough nut to crack. FWIW, the game Close Combat V had scenarios where the Germans used captured French vehicles.

[lion_of_judah]

was wondering how this scenario is coming and if you have been able to overcome some of the obsticles. This looks like another fantastic scenario from Grymme folks......

[CSO_Talorgan]

ORIGINAL: Jeffrey H.

What would you consider to be the smallest possible map scale for a WWII style ATG scenario?

I had thought 1 km hexes with single man SFTs, but it looks as if that idea has just been blown out of the water!

[Grymme]

Hi

Progress on this and other scenario projects have come somewhat to a halt i am afraid. I have almost finished a smaller scenario covering the second Boer War and have been working on them simultaniously. I guess for now i have become a little bit (a lot) tired of Advanced Tactics. Have been playing a lot of Civ IV over the Internet with some childhoodfriends. I sometimes open the scenarios but rarely do anything about them.

The good news is that this has happened once before, i didnt touch AT for half a year and then came back to it with a vengeance. Hopefully it will be the same again. I am starting to get a little tired of Civ IV right now.

[Jeffrey H.]

FWIW Grymme, I now have a physical copy of the 2nd edition SPI game. If your're in need of any materials from that let me know, I'll happily get them to you.