Profile of AvNY

Part of the good fortune of being born American. The call-up age for UK went as high as 51 apparently But of course, UK is and was a far smaller country, both wrt population, as well as geographical size

Well, none of them were US born at the time. Most of the adults had been born in Poland or Russia and the kids in France. But being older, in the US, with kids, non-English speakers I can't see how they were high on the list unless they would actually enlist.

We had one family friend (my grandfather's first employee) who was on a boat that left Poland the day before the Nazis invaded. But he was young (11-13?) and by the time he was 18 and it came time for him to be drafted he spoke English (and had been working for my grandfather almost 4 years). His first deployment was in an armored division for the invasion of Japan. They were en route when news came the atom bombs were dropped and those units became the first occupying troops.

We both know he was extremely lucky to survive that.

It gets better. He escaped Auschwitz once, was recaptured, and was recognized by someone he knew when they were going to kill him. That person had him picked out for forced labor. I didn't realize until recently just how few actually escaped Auschwitz. Many many more survived the camps somehow than escaped them.

And he escaped death again at Gusen. That was where tunnels were where rockets and planes were built. The SS planned to blow the tunnels with all the laborers still in them but US forces got there a day before that happened.

Find out the units with whom he served and get their unit histories. Maybe contact them and find out what exists in the archives that refer to him or that he wrote. Officers had a lot of report writing responsibilities (see how often they show in Band of Brothers the officers at typewriters) and if he was a Capt he no doubt wrote a bunch of them. They may not be riveting descriptions of combat, but they will probably give you a good idea of what his responsibilities were.

I don't know how much your name reflects your beliefs or those of your grandfather, but my grandfather found much comfort in the Book of Psalms. #121 is very apt for when someone is facing their last days.

He's in hospice care, my mom said he might live 1 week, to as much as 1 month. I'm very sad to lose the old man, he's been a part of my life for, well, my whole life.

When he found out I had a huge interest in WWII, the nicest thing a relative has ever done for me, he gave me his old WWII-vintage Army-Captain bars. He finished the war as a Captain.

I got them in a display case along with my Uncle's Purple Heart and Bronze Star my Uncle got in the Battle of the Bulge.

My grandpa mainly fought in Africa and Italy during the War. In Italy in particular, he had a much higher opinion of the German's general, Albert Kesselring, than he did his own, Mark Clark.


My favorite story about Grandpa, one day we were sitting down to play a game of scrabble, and he spells out "A-N-Z-I-O" Anzio, with a triple word score with a Z. I tell him he can't use that since it's a proper noun. He then starts telling his old war stories about fighting in the Battle of Anzio, and god damn, it was such a great story, we wound up allowing it, and he WON the game.

F this website. I wrote a huge response that got lost because the login got timed out.

Suffice to say we both know more than 99.9% of people about this, including most who think they are well versed in WW2. I have read much of what you have, but from different sources than you cited including the Aberdeen tests of the various Allied AT guns and if you don't mind I am stealing your description of 17pdr as "musket"-like.

As to the comparable advances of the allies, considering their supply restrictions in the first 3 months after D-day what they accomplished logistically was astounding. I have made the point before and would be happy to make it again that most successful operations in WW2 moved about as well as the supply allowed. It is easier to try and make a stand with a 30% effective force low on ammunition, fuel, rest and current intelligence than to advance with a 50% effective force that routed them that is also low on ammunition, fuel, rest and current intelligence.

BTW, the idea that the Allies were "bumbling" is how Germany lost the war. Think about it.

And more circlejerking over outnumbering 20% of the Wehrmacht. Hey, did you ever notice that it took the Western allies more time fighting less of the enemy to cover less ground than the Soviets? Hmm . . . it's almost as if western allies were a bunch of bumbling morons who could barely fight a war without spending weeks fighting over single towns before their numbers advantage came into play. That or using hilarious amounts of artillery to push tiny distances into German territory before being pushed back, and then trying again. And again. Until their opponents' lack of materiel and manpower gives way. See Caen and well... the entire Normandy campaign and the Gothic Line.

And turbotortoise, current Wargame has more detailed armor models and weapon profiles than CoH with 1000+ units with 30x the scale. Terrain is not simplified, in fact there is more varied terrain in Wargame than CoH with more gameplay implications. LoS is also truesight, just like CoH. Steel Division is going to be even more detailed than Wargame in terms of game mechanics and certainly more than CoH... Thats why Wargame series is so good, they don't sacrifice detail and depth for scale. They go overboard on all three. The learning curve is a bit much though.

IRL allied CAS was about as effective firecrackers vs tanks. Go look at allied CAS tank kill claims and compare them to actual unit losses. And Wirbelwinds and Ostwinds were operational in Normandy and although rare completely decimated Allied CAS IRL . . . It's not like Germany will be helpless. The meme of allied air strikes being entire panzer division killers is a meme I hope Eugen will chuck into the trash, unlike CoH devs who actually believe it.

Also the game takes place on the divisional level. It is only division vs. division. To historically balance German qualitative superiority allies will obviously have access to more unit availability per card and more offmaps.

When Eugen says they will make the game realistic they mean absolute realism in game mechanics and no unit hand holding. If a tank can't penetrate another, it won't. There is no deflection damage. Riflemen will have a 0% chance to win against Fallschirmjager. British Commando units will have no combat effectiveness outside of forests and town sectors. British infantry sections are not arbitrarily better, but will likely be worse according to history. A flanking shot on armor will almost always result in instant KO, just like in WG. Artillery without a spotter is worthless, hidden AT guns completely slaughter tanks.etc

A new mechanic similar to "teching" seen in kid RTS is appearing. As time progresses the battle will enter different "phases" and both factions would get stronger units/offmaps. It is said divisions like the 101st Airborne division will have early game advantage thanks to elite, numerous infantry and the Panzer Lehr division will be weak early game but have elite mechanized infantry and heavy armor as the battle drags out. This is authentic in some ways because a Panzer Division would not mobilize it's heavy armor unless absolutely necessary in a meeting engagement like Steel Division is portraying. And wow, the game is balanced theory wise in a realistic way without hand holding units.

Victory points are gained by holding more territory than the other so SS panzer divisions and the like would have to push hard to take back lost ground assuming they survived early game. Seems well designed to me. . .. ..... . . . . . . . .

OMG what garbage history did you learn? Or do you get your facts from neo-Nazi Youth magazines?

True, CAs was not as effective in the AT role as was thought during the war. But CAs was still very effective at killing all the things those tanks needed to advance, from light armor, to support and supply vehicles. That the Germans had difficulty moving during daylight hours was the truth, even if they didn't automatically lose their tanks to air power.

And most allied AT, including the Sherman variants, were also much better than their reputation. Furthermore, the reputation of Axis materiale was much higher than the reality due to many factors, from actually being under-engineered, to lacking the proper materials for the original design specs, to being too complicated in their design for easy field maintenance, to a plethora of designs and the supply issues that implies.

And one matter that is often unaddressed was the tremendous superiority of both the quality and quantity of allied artillery systems (equipment, training, and most of all, organization) over that of the Germans.

Likewise the quality of the troops. The average US infantry division was of superior quality (not to mention firepower) to a Wehrmacht division while possibly slightly lower quality than one of the elite divisions (since aside from Airborne, the allies didn't have "elite" divisions). Usually the big difference was in experience, not training. As '44 progressed US troops became much more effective, while German units, because of the attrition to their experienced troops, became less effective. Nevermind the "new" units that kept being organized who proved disastrously bad in combat against the now much more experienced US troops (see the battle of Arracourt where Shermans and TDs trounced a larger force of Panthers).

One has to remember that "memory" and actual accounts are finicky. Every Sherman crewman who bounced a round off a Tiger wishes he was in the Tiger. But the Tiger crew of a broken down or out of fuel Tiger wishes their tank too was better. But more to the point, the Wehrmacht infantryman wishes there were a whole lot more Tigers or Panthers or PIVs or StuGs when facing Shermans when they don't have any of their own armor in support.

There was simply no way you could combine the (turns out not so elite) German units and material into a force that can counter the allied artillery, armor and infantry SYSTEMS (logistics, support, synergy, training, etc.)

I always had the idea that Relic cherished CoH more than they do and did CoH2. This interview pretty much shows this. Nothing will compare to the experience and fun that CoH gave me. The first time playing that game is something I have never experienced with any other game before or since.

I had that feeling once, maybe twice before. The other time for sure was the first SHogun Total War. as limited as it was by todays standards, the mix of an explore expand and conquer game with an RTS battle phase was astounding.

And when Civilization first game out. It wasn't as much "fun" but it was insanely addictive. ("... just one more turn....")