Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Blackhorse

ORIGINAL: Ian R

The real political problem that was never solved with the proposed Cth X corps was the UK insistence on a British CO. If MacArthur was simply given a couple of Australian/Canadian divisions & attached tank units (and maybe a French one) that fitted seamlessly into US corps formations, that was a lot more likely outcome IMHO.

IIRC - and I may not, I looked into this over a decade ago - the US military command had agreed to a "Commonwealth Corps" led by some British Empire officer.

You are right to highlight the geo-political infighting that would have gone into the selection of a commander. I suspect the British would have pushed through Charles Keightley, one of their own, to command. But I tend to agree with the Australians that they had the best potential commander in-hand: Leslie Morshead - 'Ming the Merciless', Hero of Tobruk, veteran of El Alamein, New Guinea, and Borneo.

ORIGINAL: Blackhorse

ORIGINAL: Ian R

The real political problem that was never solved with the proposed Cth X corps was the UK insistence on a British CO. If MacArthur was simply given a couple of Australian/Canadian divisions & attached tank units (and maybe a French one) that fitted seamlessly into US corps formations, that was a lot more likely outcome IMHO.

IIRC - and I may not, I looked into this over a decade ago - the US military command had agreed to a "Commonwealth Corps" led by some British Empire officer.

You are right to highlight the geo-political infighting that would have gone into the selection of a commander. I suspect the British would have pushed through Charles Keightley, one of their own, to command. But I tend to agree with the Australians that they had the best potential commander in-hand: Leslie Morshead - 'Ming the Merciless', Hero of Tobruk, veteran of El Alamein, New Guinea, and Borneo.

ORIGINAL: Ian R

ORIGINAL: Blackhorse

ORIGINAL: Ian R

The real political problem that was never solved with the proposed Cth X corps was the UK insistence on a British CO. If MacArthur was simply given a couple of Australian/Canadian divisions & attached tank units (and maybe a French one) that fitted seamlessly into US corps formations, that was a lot more likely outcome IMHO.

IIRC - and I may not, I looked into this over a decade ago - the US military command had agreed to a "Commonwealth Corps" led by some British Empire officer.

You are right to highlight the geo-political infighting that would have gone into the selection of a commander. I suspect the British would have pushed through Charles Keightley, one of their own, to command. But I tend to agree with the Australians that they had the best potential commander in-hand: Leslie Morshead - 'Ming the Merciless', Hero of Tobruk, veteran of El Alamein, New Guinea, and Borneo.

Ming was a citizen soldier - which was probably OK by the Canadians/Australians/NZers. The Brits, not so much.

In the end, as I suggested in the notes, Bernie Freyberg* may have been the easiest political choice - despite his cock-ups on Crete and at Cassino. Hopefully they would have given him a capable ops officer to actually fight the battles for him.

[*Despite being a New Zealander by birth, he was actually British army, and he had a VC from WW1 and was a good bloke. He ticks a few boxes.]

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

The professional Australian officers became the staff officers when war broke out because either the militia was not trained to do those jobs and/or there were not enough professional officers to do both. The militia officers were already in command of the militia units.

ORIGINAL: Alpha77

@Blackhorse:

Cool thanks for the fix and someone actually cares about these issues: Of which I have 2-3 more - only in relation to land units for which you seem to be the specialist. Can I post those here too ?

I am just curious what might be behind the "issues"

IIRC one of these was Sherman modells strange differences and also compared to eg. T34 too high stats. But will post the details if more time to again look in the data.

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

ORIGINAL: Alpha77

@Blackhorse:

Cool thanks for the fix and someone actually cares about these issues: Of which I have 2-3 more - only in relation to land units for which you seem to be the specialist. Can I post those here too ?

I am just curious what might be behind the "issues"

IIRC one of these was Sherman modells strange differences and also compared to eg. T34 too high stats. But will post the details if more time to again look in the data.

You might be referring to the Sherman 'Firefly' mod done by the British and Canadians in France to deal with the German Tiger tanks. They took a Sherman tank, modified the turret slightly and installed a 17 pounder A/T gun which could penetrate the 4" armor of a Tiger.

EDIT: I don't know if any of the Firefly tanks made it to the Pacific Theater in 1945.

ORIGINAL: Alpha77

@Blackhorse:

Cool thanks for the fix and someone actually cares about these issues: Of which I have 2-3 more - only in relation to land units for which you seem to be the specialist. Can I post those here too ?

I am just curious what might be behind the "issues"

IIRC one of these was Sherman modells strange differences and also compared to eg. T34 too high stats. But will post the details if more time to again look in the data.

ORIGINAL: Alpha77

@BBfanboy: I doubt Fireflies were in the Burma area at all (or Pacific) they were needed in Europe just like the TDs mentioned in this thread. Eg. mostly Hellcats could not play out their main advantage anyway (= agility and speed)so it would also be not logical to send them to the pacific at all - only later when more were produced and German tank force mostly neutralized.

@Blackhorse: Sounds reasonable and after a 2nd thought it might be a useless discussion anyways. There won´t be major updates. But if I am in a data or micromanagement mood again I still might post the issues [:'(]

ORIGINAL: Alpha77

Yes you bring up one of the issues I spoke about, there is a British Sherman V in the database, with higher stats. However it a) arrives too early to be a Firefly and b) is not indicated to be a 17pdr armed tank.

You also have a soviet Sherman (lend lease) but I believe only 1 US Sherman (I mean outside the flame and 105mm). Which is wrong, there should be 2 x 75mm US Shermans (can be called eg. early and late) plus at least 1x 76mm Sherman (or even 2x too if we count the late easy8 modell)

Your reasons for Firefly in Pacific are all valid and certainly would be done in reality if an invsion of the homelands had happened, but when? Late 1945 ? But the British "better" Sherman appears already in end of 43 or early 44 (going from memory)

The "early" US Sherman would be weaker then the "late" one, people might think Shermans did not change much, that is mostly true for the 75mm gun, but the later Shermans had eg. better running gear/tracks, better armor and most importantly wet storage for the ammo.

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

ORIGINAL: Alpha77

Yes you bring up one of the issues I spoke about, there is a British Sherman V in the database, with higher stats. However it a) arrives too early to be a Firefly and b) is not indicated to be a 17pdr armed tank.

You also have a soviet Sherman (lend lease) but I believe only 1 US Sherman (I mean outside the flame and 105mm). Which is wrong, there should be 2 x 75mm US Shermans (can be called eg. early and late) plus at least 1x 76mm Sherman (or even 2x too if we count the late easy8 modell)

Your reasons for Firefly in Pacific are all valid and certainly would be done in reality if an invsion of the homelands had happened, but when? Late 1945 ? But the British "better" Sherman appears already in end of 43 or early 44 (going from memory)

The "early" US Sherman would be weaker then the "late" one, people might think Shermans did not change much, that is mostly true for the 75mm gun, but the later Shermans had eg. better running gear/tracks, better armor and most importantly wet storage for the ammo.

Ho is the improved durability modeled in the game for AFVs?[&:]

ORIGINAL: Alpha77
Mathilda is also overrated. In this case the Anti Soft is too high 2pdr had no HE shell, well there was one, but not issued to most tank units and appearing later. So we can only count the MGs and a low value HE value for the gun. Plus perhaps a "shock" value for the infantry attacked by Mathildes early on. The armor is too high, Mathilda had oldschool not angled armor.

ORIGINAL: Ian R

May I please ask what the source of your understanding of the armament, and ammunition loads, of the Matilda II in SWPAC use by the Australian Armoured Corps is?

ORIGINAL: Ian R

No, there is only one Matilda, but only the AMF use it. It is device #1097. And the howitzer armed version is not separately represented. Nor is the flamethrower version. Could they have been represented separately like the various M4 sub types? Perhaps, but they are not so it's possibly just factored in. But here are a few key points.

First, the AIF 43 infantry section (with one Bren gun) has a higher anti soft rating than the Matilda. A coaxial BESA with lots of ammo in a moving pill box, you would think, might have a better a/s value than a bipod LMG, but the developers didn't think so. Over -rated? I would say no. But there is more.

Secondly, the weapon mix, and ammunition mix, of Matilda IIs in AMF use in the SWPAC theatre was not the same as in the 1940-41 period in UK use.

(a) Instead of 2 (or maybe only 1) CS tanks per squadron (initially intended to throw smoke) as originally issued, in SWPAC we used at least one per troop of 3 tanks, usually the troop commander's mount. Some troops were entirely comprised of CS tanks.

(b) The APBC solid shot was found to be effective for bunker busting. (With splintering hard wood instead of spalling metal.) The 3" howitzer was preferred though.

(c) A new improved HE round was developed. See photo below. Apparently it wasn't as useless as the original one.

(d) 25 Matilda FROGS were converted. As there were only a few regiments operational, these were ultimately deployed in multiple vehicle formations.

I would argue the anti-soft value of the Matilda should be fashioned so as to represent the significant proportion of 3" CS howitzer armed tanks, and the FROGs. The anti-soft of the Sherman flame tank (device #1182) is 96, and the effect is 200. The M3 Lee with a relatively short barrelled sponson mounted limited traverse 75mm howitzer (device #1179) is 31/12. Th at suggests to me the mixed model Matilda regiments fielded by the Australian army should be somewhere near the M3 at least, and are currently undervalued.

The tank in the foreground has a 3", the far tank a 40mm (2lbr).



Also, here is some useful HE ammo being loaded for later use:



And, a froggy.