|  Author | Topic: Kursk Mission (Read 1,443 times) |
Bogan
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|  | Kursk Mission
« Thread Started on Apr 17, 2004, 12:06am » | |
Adrian will possibly produce a Kursk mission or scenario to be used with the ostfront mod.
Kursk was a massive battle in July 1943, with german forces striking simultaneously from the north and south shoulders of a huge 'pocket' or salient some 80 km deep and 160 km wide - Operation Citadel
German forces approximately 2700 tanks and assault guns, 1800 aircraft, 43 divisions
Russian forces 100 divisions, 3300 tanks, 2650 aircraft.
The vanilla Blitzkrieg version of the battle attempted to recreate the battle in a strange way. i am fairly sure it was loosely based on some facts of the battle.
that battle was called "not one step back" and features in the custom missions, and the demo version of blitz.
it tried to weave in all the generally understood interesting key aspects of the battle, such as the deployment of panther and ferdinand tanks, and perhaps the SS spearheads to some extent, the deep soviet defence with heavily defended anti tank emplacements.
and finally the massive soviet counterstrike, that ultimately bled the panzer divisions white.
but at what scale? the directions of assault are all wrong, historically inacurate soviet assault guns are in force, and it's just nowhere near big enough.
in the real battle, the ferdinand companies attacked from the north, and the 200 new panthers attacked from the south, as part of two seperate massive combined arms groups, so cannot reallistically be intermingled at early stages of the battle, if at all.
nerbelwefers played a big part in the bombardments, as in the vanilla game.
the German attack really ceased at Prokhorovka, the limit of exploitation of the Waffen SS Panzerkeil, here the Russian reserves were unleashed, finally taking their toll.
The SS battles generate a lot of interest, and they were not equiped with any of the newly released "wonder weapon" Ferdinands and Panthers.
They had Tiger I, PanzerIII and IV, Stug III etc.
So what would people like to see from Kursk?
personally i would like to see a recreation of the Leibstandarte actions on a 1:3 scale, but that still makes a lot of units. they had 67 panzer IV, 13 Panzer III, 13 Tiger Is. thats just the tanks!
so that would be 22 Panxer IV, 4 Panzer III and 4 Tiger I. and on that scale could Michael Wittman be realistically included?
and some of the soviet tank formations were huge, 100 at times, so scale down, it's still more than 30.
too many units to control, for us and our processors! 
so some sort of compromise must be met.
i would also like to see a battle centred on the ferdinand companies, or perhaps just certain elements of the ferdinand assault, because that fascinates me.
The panther deployment is also another good one for excitement. and all of the seperate actions required a lot of engineer work!
and lots of cornfields, or fields at any rate.
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sunray
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|  | Re: Kursk Mission
« Reply #1 on Apr 17, 2004, 6:20am » | |
wolfgang,
And if you are going to somewhat duplicate the attack of the SS "Leibstandarte" division at Kursk, on a ratio of 3:1, then based on that ratio how many infantry squads would be required for the battle? Then how much artillery (both towed and SP), mortar platoons, halftrack companies, AA guns (towed and SP), engineers, HMG platoons, etc etc?
That's the trouble, a lot of people only ever think of representing the tanks. But to make it realistic, support units have to be thought of in the same proportions.
Then of course there is the air support as well.
regards
sunray
 
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Adrian Taylor
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| | Re: Kursk Mission
« Reply #2 on Apr 17, 2004, 8:12am » | |
To truely do Kursk you will need to commit a whole chapter if not mini-campaign to it, involving several mission maps.
Each mission will take a particular part of the battle not as a whole.
This is why I advocate a scale ratio of 1:5, it does help
Wittmann would not be individually repesented but his section would could be.
Specific random maps could be generated to handle the many skirmishes that took place while the historical maps dealt with the set peice actions.
Adrian
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Bogan
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| | Re: Kursk Mission
« Reply #3 on Apr 17, 2004, 10:00am » | |
i haven't forgotten the infantry and artillery Sunray, i just used tanks to emphasize the problem with too many units.
II ss Panzer Corps also had 2 rocket Regiments, 2 artillery battalions and the 167th infantry division attached.
they had their own panzergrenadiers and combat engineers.
with all of their support elements.... lots of halftracks, the usual array of mortars and machineguns. etc etc.
dozens and dozens of squads to represent all those platoons.
i would like to see situations where the player forced to use engineers under cover of smoke screen to clear minefields, and some way to represent an anti tank ditch that can only be breached by building wooden engineer bridges across.
some strongpoints will have to be taken by pioneers in bloody fighting before the tanks can come as reinforcements....
i forget the ratio is 1:5 not 1:3 
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foxy
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| | Re: Kursk Mission
« Reply #4 on Apr 18, 2004, 10:24am » | |
For sure, the battle of Kursk will have to be brocken down into missions, iff it is to be, at all realistic.
And there will have to be some admissions to this chapter, and remember the Blitz engine its self can only take so much.
The numbers will be difficult to represent on the real scale of this battle, so some comprimise will have to be made I think.
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Adrian Taylor
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ilija
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| | Re: Kursk Mission
« Reply #6 on May 21, 2004, 5:09pm » | |
i have to agree that the best way to bring this batle is try chapter,but your is final.
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foxy
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| | Re: Kursk Mission
« Reply #7 on Jan 26, 2005, 9:22pm » | |
Well chapters are the key to this and with some missions in each Chapter.
But should not take the same course as Original blitz took in its missions to upgrade units /rank with the same type of maps/missions in each chapter.
This next Kursk I think will be differant.
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docandy
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| | Re: Kursk Mission
« Reply #8 on Jan 27, 2005, 6:14am » | |
Over the years and playing many different computer based war games through the Talsonsoft Campaign games,the Close Combat Series, Sudden Strike Series , and finally Blitzkrieg I have yet to see Kursk properly represented. It is usually portrayed as a single day tank battle which fails to do justice to the titanic struggle in which tanks played only a part and which lasted several bloody weeks. For the first time a dedicated team have an opportunity to do this battle justice and portray the battle as accurately as the constraints of the program will allow. Good progress is being made. Watch this space!
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