Medical units

[Dutchguy]

Most interesting.
But Guz is right, in the Arnhem-Oosterbeek area there is somesort of geological stuff in the ground that produces somesort of magnetic radiation, causing wireless sets to malfunction. Even today people in the area who play around with radio's/wireless sets have trouble getting trough to anyone.

[Arjuna]

While there may be some geological factors at play in this particular area, nearly all units from all WW2 armies experienced radio comms problems when in built up areas. The radio sets they were using then were pretty primitive and low powered and suffered interference problems due to the buildings etc.

The British were very much aware of this problem from Normandy. The 1st Abn Div comms staff knew before they dropped that they would have problems. That's why it's pretty inexcusable to use it as a justification for failure. It was a classic reaction of putting your head in the sand and hoping the problem goes away. That an the complacency borne from being over confident and ignoring intelligence reports.

What they should have done was do what other military forces were doing to get around the problem and that is keeping their forces together so that direct comms can be maintained or at least runners can easily pass messages.

It follows from this then that the whole Division needed to move and operate as one force. And therefore the notion of splitting the Div into two entities on Day 1 was courting disaster. So too was the decision to further split the 1st Para Bde and advance on Arnhem in three separate columns.

Anyway you can trial the different "approaches" with the historical campaign and see for yourself. I for one believe and I think our simulation bears out that had the Div advanced on Arnhem on Day 1 with all its available force ( 2 bdes of infantry ) it would have secured the prime objective and maybe the rail bridge as well.

Sure the follow up drops by 4th Para and the Polish Para bdes would have been into unsecured DZs, but hey they were going to do that with the Polish Bde anyway. They could have dropped the 4th Para on Day 2 close to Arnhem. Sure it might have been a hot DZ but more of them would have got through than the 700 that actually got through to the Div HQ after their disasterous attempts to fight through to Arnhem.

It was not so much as poor comms that failed on the day but poor command that failed before and during the battle.

[Dutchguy]

amen.


I agree.

[Kevinugly]

A major part of the attraction of 'Market Garden' as a wargame is the 'what ifs' of the battle. Let's face it, as a gaming experience, it ends up as a slogging match over a few choke-points but as 'armchair (or swivel-chair!) generals we like to see whether we can out-do our professional predecessors. Hopefully, HTTR should give us all our 'what-ifs' plus an enhanced gaming experience with more historically based scenarios. ..... shouldn't it Dave!

[Arjuna]

I can't guarantee that you will outperform your professional predecessors. ( That's really in your hands. )

But I can assure you that HTTR will deliver a whole swag of historical and "what if" scenarios and an enhanced gaming experience.

[Golf33]

On the subject of radio communications, from A.D. Harvey (1991), Arnhem, London: Cassell & Co. (coincidentally the only book on Arnhem that I own & one I bought after I purchased RDOA all that time ago), p.49:

The signals personnel with the 1st Airborne Division had experienced problems with their short-range radios on previous occasions, and were not taken by surprise when communications broke down. In the one sphere where wireless contact over several miles was vital, namely control of artillery fire... radios worked perfectly satisfactorily in any case: both the 75mm howitzers landed with the division and later the medium and heavy artillery of XXX Corps firing from well south of the Neder Rijn were directed by wireless on to their targets efficiently and accurately. Perhaps the most important result that can be attributed to the problems with unit radios... was Major General Urquhart's decision to go forward... into Arnhem instead of staying with his headquarters staff, but the immediate occasion of his leaving his headquarters was the impossibility of getting through to the division's reconnaissance squadron, and this was caused by the reconnassance squadron, on temporary assignment to the 1st Parachute Brigade, failing to inform divisional headquarters that they had retuned their sets to the brigade wavelength... The Germans, incidentally, had no radios with their minor front line units, and at Arnhem did not even have radio communication between division and corps level headquarters: they managed well enough with the public telephone system.

In other words, what a cluster. I note with interest however that the gunner net - as usual - worked perfectly even when no-one else could get through

Regards
33

[RayWolfe]

Talk of efficient Gunner Net, last time I was part of a Gunner Net, I responded to a Drop 200 signal with a Raise 200 and blasted a flock of sheep in Mid-Wales. This was with 1940s vintage radios in 1960. My wife, who is an animal rights activist, has never forgiven me … nor did the range safety brass!:o
Ray

[Arjuna]

Hey Ray, surely that story should be classified. After all doesn't it reveal a lot about the competency level of the nation's military.

It reminds me of an incident when I was the Range officer for our Regimental shoot. I was running the Anti-Armour Range and we had the usual burnt out wrecks as targets. But then someone spotted to the right of the range these old WW2 artillery tractors - the one's with the sloped backs. I had been specifically told not to fire at these as they were yet to be stripped by the museum staff. Alas, one soldier chose to ignore my instructions about leaving these alone and put a Carl Gustav round right into it. Boy did it make an impact and everything burned. This was too much for all the other soldiers and within a minute the tractors were blown to smithereens. The smoke billowing up could be seen for miles. I know this because I quickly got a call from Range Control. I certainly had a hard time explaining how this so called one stray shot did so much damage.

[RayWolfe]

Doesn’t it also reveal that “mistakes” are rarely sufficiently modelled in wargames? I remember that W@W did model blue on blue airstrikes but I imagine that the majority of gamers wan’t total control and don’t take too kindly to the game doing other than exactly what they told it to do. And that probably includes me!

Incidentally the tractors you refer to were probably Quads, which were used to tow 25 pounders in WWII. They really were a throwback to the days of the horse artillery in that you had the towing vehicle (horses) then a limber with the ammo then the gun.
Ray

[Guz]

Originally posted by Kevinugly
Yeah, maybe we could have a 'Vera Lynn' unit to devastate the the morale of all units apart from the Brits;) .

Maybe a "Ginger Lynn" Unit too

[Sarge]

Originally posted by Fallschirmjager
I dont see these modeled in the game

Wasnt it stardered practice to set up field hospitals?

Id like to see these be in the game

Maybe have wounded taken their and saved
The benifiet being you get less points deducted for wounded men than for killed ones

Didn't you post the same thread on the EYSA forums. Im starting to think your were a Medic at some point in your life.