Graviteam

Now up at CombatAce:

http://combatace.com/topic/82833-panthers-at-prokhorovka/

Wow, extremely mint screens of the 'Panthers at Prokhorovka' mission, you can almost feel the heat of the battle. Wicked!  :)

Thank's for the preview. 

Excellent review!
 I've only one note: non-functional, as I believe SF doesn't simulate tanks popping smoke
SF has smoke grenades. To use them u need sit down on loader place and press "space" on keyboard to fire. I remember that this map was hit of the season let's say 2010 year. There are many missions for both sides: German/Soviet. Try T-70 and it'll be a VERY hard mission.
I knew that T-70 had 30% of the Soviet Tank Army quantity. That's why I asked Rends(author) to give me ability to include T-70 in the mission. Also I made replica-mission "T-28 in battle", where I simply replaced all tanks on the early ones.

Very nice to read as usual :D Looking forward to your next report!

I adore your writing. It's so detailed, with awesome screens. Waiting with anticipation for next one

Hi 33lima,

Very nice report !!

Let me ask a question: Which mod were you using to get the grey panzers ?


Txema

Thanks guys! Glad to hear that you can pop smoke, Lockie - I'm still learning with this sim! I'll add that to the mission report.

About the Panzer Grey mod, Txema, this was the one, by Maleskhin:

http://graviteam.com/forum/index.php?action=printpage;topic=10157.0

I think some T-34/76 could be replaced on T-34/43 (mickey mouth).

Sadly, there were no panthers at Prokhorovka :( Only Panzer III's, Panzer IV's, and about 18 Tiger tanks (12 of which didn't enter the battle)

Absolutely right!

Here's an interesting short myth busting article about Kursk!

http://www.uni.edu/~licari/citadel.htm

Excellent read, thank you frinik for the link.

The biggest tank battle of the WWII took place in the triangle Dubno, Lutsk, and Brody between 23 and 30 June 1941. It is known as Battle of Brody.
German: 750 tanks
Soviet: 3500 tanks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Brody_(1941)

One important point to note:


I'm glad you're all coming around to my way of thinking,  :)

Oh yes Kyth's mission's weather! Now we know Kyth; you were there all along on the Ost front! ;D

Rather enjoyed reading that.  Well done!   ;)

Have to chime in and thank you for another amusing AAR. I hope they keep coming! :)
Also, for those hot summer battles you might want to download my summer rework of Lajcak's environmental mod ;)

http://www.4shared.com/rar/SL935PGg/Scorching_summer.html?refurl=d1url

Thanks KapulA!

 I have 'scorching summer' ready to be enabled but haven't tried it out yet - unfortunately it missed the next mission report, which will be up soon, as the second part of 'Red Storm - T-34 twosome' (the first part is there now, but is for T-34 -vs- Tiger).

That's my goal of the missions creating - to make part of the "Operation Thunder". Where Soviet troops moved to the Western Europe to "liberate" nations from Hitler. I know, sooner or later this mission with KV-2, KV-1 will be done!

Where Soviet troops moved to the Western Europe to "liberate" nations from Hitler. I know, sooner or later this mission with KV-2, KV-1 will be done....

Really in which history book did you find this????

The defintion of Soviet liberation = Permanent Occupation in the dictionary ... ;)

I've already mentioned abt it:
http://graviteam.com/forum/index.php?topic=11435.0

BTW
At this moment there is no good mission for the KV-2 tank. I want for that tank attacking mission against strong german defence line with many pillboxes and then repel counter-attack with such cans as Pz35/38(t) and 37mm short- barrel  PzIII.

The KV-2 is awful high silhouette, low ammo count, low reload....Horrible tank!

Really good, but the last point kind've annoys me, as does number 7. Model's forces were withdrawn and sent to Italy after the Sicily invasion. The "insignificant landing by a couple of British and American Divisions" caused the Italian government to fold, leaving the southern German and Austrian borders open to Allied assault from the air and ground, not to mention by Italian partisans.

As for the Germans never being able to win at Kursk, the German 24th Panzer Armee was never committed, being held in reserve by Manstein and ultimately not allowed to participate in the battle by Hitler. At the time of the ridiculously one-sided slaughter of Prokhorovka, there was nothing behind the 7th Tank Guards army. The 3rd and 4th Tank armies were over a hundred miles away, and the ground between the Psel and Kursk was the perfect tank country that Manstein was craving. Had the Panzers of the 24th Panzer Armee been unleashed, History might be very different right now. 

Good point about Italy Whu.I also agree with you that the author was overly dismissive of the Anglo-American threat to Germany's underbelly.With Italy's quick collapse the Allies could basically have gone all the way to Northern Italy before the Germans would have been able to stop them had they not put the necessary forces to stall them.

As for your second point about the 24th panzer Armee even had Manstein been allowed to unleash it and punch a hole through Soviet defences any success the Germans would have won they would simply not have been able to regain the initiative fior long.The time had passed, the asymetry between Soviet and Allied forces and Germany's decreasing resources was become greater every day.Losing 2 million men between July 1942 to July 1943 ( including 300 000 POWS and MIA at Stalingrad & in North Africa + 490 000 KIA and 1.1 million WIA) and the burden of holding on to 3.5 million sq metres of occupied land put such a strain on Germany that it did not have the reserve required to exploit any breakthrough and win the war in the East.By August 1943 it was clear that Germany could delay the outcome but not change it.

I think the Germans would've had more problems with Hitler's grand schemes than their own logistical issues. I'm not quite sure what it is about Officers and Politicians, but they seem to live in a fantasy world.

Kind of a broad statement if you are basing it on the example of Hitler.  Also you need to walk a mile in their shoes before you can form a real judgement.

lol