Which Tank Map For Iron Europe?

Thinking about this a little more, the Mark I tank saw limited action on the Western Front.

They were used at Flers (4 tanks), Thiepval (2 tanks but historically one tank broke down), Mouquet Farm (2 tanks but there the two tanks broke down), I think also at Morval (I'm not really an expert on all the Somme battles).


Then, I think they were replaced by the Mark IV tank in 1917, and the Mark IV was used in the Cambrai offensive. I think there were some also used at Passchendaele but with less success due to the mud.

So we could end up making just one tank, both, or I guess none.



Here was an old PM I sent to CrazyThumbs about Cambrai; over a year ago, someone said they were going to model a tank for us, but unfortunately the person never made the tank:

[QUOTE]I flipped through my WWI book by H.P. Willmott for a good tank battle, and found a real interesting one in the Battle of Cambrai, which occurred between November 20- December 4, 1917; Cambrai was a French town, a major rail center, about 50 miles south of Lille, "where the Germans defenses on the Western Front were at their strongest."

The tank used however was a Mark IV, and Willmott says "[t]he tank that fought at Cambrai in 1917 was not very different from the Mark I of 1916, but it did have a better radiator, a silencer, and tracks with better grip. It dispensed with the rear wheels."

Here the British decided to assault the German defenses, which they believed to be undermanned and not expecting an attack, with 381 tanks and a number of infantry units along a 6 mile sector of the German frontlines.

The tanks smashed through the barbed wire (that will have to be fixed, because in vanilla RO tanks can't drive through barbed wire), and the Germans were overwhelmed.

In a single day, the British advanced 5 miles, taking 7,500 prisoners.

"There was jubilation back in Britain, where church bells rang for the first time since 1914 and the newspapers proclaimed the greatest British victory of the war."

There is a special feature with these tanks however.

In order to advance through the trenches and not get stuck, these tanks were equipped with fascines. These large wooden bundles were dropped into an enemy trench, enabling the tank to get across.

It appears from the photo I'm looking at that the tank has a lever mechanism on top of which the bundle of wood at least 5 feet tall sits, which pushes down and drops the bundle.

However, the very next day, a German division, relieved of duty from the Eastern Front due to the Russian Bolshevik Revolution, arrived. Fighting occurred in a village called Fontaine for the next few days, but the British tanks didn't work too well in the narrow village streets, and many were destroyed.

With the British having less than 90 tanks left, the Germans launched a counterattack. The British had to retreat.

The upshot was that the battle was essentially a draw. The British still retained around 7 or so miles of their initial advance from the first and second days, but had lost fresh ground to the south.

Each side had about 45,000 casualties a piece.

I admit the wood dumper lever mechanism sounds a little complicated, but instead of doing the initial assault (which undoubtedly would make a great map), you could have a map centering on the fighting around Fontaine. Hopefully, they dumped the wood bundles by that time (which I imagined they did; afterall, I doubt you can fight in the streets of a village with a 5 foot stack of wood on your tank).

There's a book (which I don't have) which would describe the battle more: Cambrai: The First Tank Battle (publisher Cerberus Ltd.) by Terry C. Treadwell.

If the tank modeler doesn't want to design a Mark IV and insists on a Mark I, tanks were introduced into combat at the Battle of the Somme in July?, 1916, and an engagement from that battle would be the Mark I map.

But I thought I would float the Battle of Cambrai first to you and the modeler since it sounds like it was the big tank battle of WWI. If it isn't feasible to map it now, perhaps then in a future release.

[/QUOTE]


Both Thiepval and Fontaine sound somewhat similar (tanks in a village).


Although both battles were important, Thiepval was probably, strategically speaking, the more important battle, since Thiepval and the Schwaben Redoubt (which would not appear in the proposed Thiepval map) were the lynchpin of the German defensive line on the Somme.


We could just do Thiepval, or wait until the Second Release, Iron Europe: 1917-1918, and make a Mark IV instead, or we could do both scenarios.

The difficult part though is not so much making the tank, since N!ghtmare wants to and can do that, but it is animating the tank.

And we need an Animator to do that.

United States Societal Disgrace On Veterans Day, 90 Years After The Armistice

Well, I was home on Veterans Day here in the United States, and I can tell you that all the Cable and the Big Three TV Networks care about is the amount of revenue they receive from running commercials and attracting as many eyeballs as they can to their particular channel.

90th Anniversary of Armistice Day; 50,000 American soldiers who gave their lives during the First World War.



Does the Establishment in our society pause and take some time to remember them? The men who served our country and sacrificed their lives for their freedom to own commerical TV networks and stations, run mindless television programs, and receive millions of dollars for one minute television commercials.

The Answer: no.

There was nothing of any substance on television here in the United States about Veterans Day.


None of the major TV network affiliates (ABC, NBC, CBS) ran any special programming to remember the men and women who served and who are now serving this country.


There was nothing about World War One; nothing about the Armistice.

MSNBC ran about 6-7 minutes of Vice President Dick Cheney's speech at Arligton National Cemetery Veterans Day Ceremony, and then cut him off to run commericials and never returned to the Ceremony.

None of the other Cable News Networks (CNN, Fox News) showed any of the Arlington Ceremony.

I forget exactly what the other Cable News networks were talking about while the Arlington Ceremony was taking place; one station, either Fox or CNN (I think it was CNN) was talking about Michelle Obama and her impact on womens' fashion here in the United States.

CNN, about noon, did talk briefly about some WWII veterans' stories during the day (I saw about a 4 minutes segment).


None of the local major TV network affliates (ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox) showed the Arlington Ceremony.


We do not have a two minutes silence that's observed in the United States.


The History Channel did run some military history programming; one show was about the Iraq war; almost all of it was about WWII.

They did run one of their "Dogfight" programs, which for about half an hour (including commerical breaks) did talk about American WWI Flying Ace Eddie Rickenbacker.

Then the second half of the show was about a WWII dogfight.


Only the Cable System Public Affairs channel, C-SPAN, showed the Arlington National Veterans Day Ceremony live.


For about 10 minutes, however, their microphone lost the sound, so they changed to some filler "talking heads" programming, but they were able to get the sound back on before the Vice President made his speech.


I watched NBC Nightly News at 6:30PM, and besides briefly mentioning that it was Veterans Day and showing Cheney lay the wreath at Arlington and Bush giving a speech at the USS Intrepid in New York City, NBC had no news segment about the First World War or the 90th Anniversary of Armistice Day.


If anyone knows if NPR Radio in the U.S. ran any special Veterans Day programming or about the Armistice and the First World War, I would appreciate your comments.



All in all, these Cable and TV networks disgust me.

It is all about making money.


That all said, there were quite a number of Hollywood movies about World War II on the Cable movie channels.

Public Broadcasting System (our public, non-commercial) also re-aired Ken Burns' 13 hour documentary about World War II called "The War".

But PBS ran nothing about the Armistice or any programs about the First World War.


Shame.

Tank Question For The Mod Leader

Just some more computer mod business stuff on the subject of Tanks:


I guess the other thing we have to remember is that, at least in 1916 (I think later on, 1917-1918, the French (who had the Renault tank) in just a few battles in 1917-1918 had several hundred tanks, but at the Somme, they were just being introduced.

So the amount of tanks was very limited.


When the tanks were introduced on September 15th, 1916 the British had 50 tanks.

About 1/3 broke down, so that left about 32 tanks.

These tanks were used to capture the town of Flers on September 16.


Of course, the Germans had no tanks at this time.

There apparently was only one tank used at Thiepval.

I think that historian I quoted who said there were 13 tanks used to capture Thiepval may have been mistaken (some historians and authors make mistakes, mispell place names, get some facts sometimes wrong, etc.).

I have a few books on the Somme, so I'll have to consult those.


I'm just trying to think which scenario would be better?


The first appearance of the tanks would allow the player to relive a historical moment.

Plus, it may help balance our Somme maps out.


I wouldn't give the British a lot of tanks on the map, I don't know, maybe like 3 tanks (with 3 men Game version crews).

I'm not sure how Gommecourt and Mouquet Farm will turn out as far as gameplay is concerned.

The Germans will be defending in those maps, with strong defenses in Gommecourt.

Mouquet Farm should be a little more level playing field, but the Germans will still be dug in the trenches, dug-outs, and shell holes.


If we gave the British 3 tanks, and say they could respawn twice, that would be 6 tanks altogether.

In real life, the Germans basically just abandoned the area and ran for their lives.

But they'll have no anti-tank weapons, maybe unless we have rifle grenades.

Thiepval might be then a more balanced if there is only one tank.


So, which scenario do you think is better? September 15 or September 26th at Thiepval??