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The Road Ahead - Operation Bagration


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One of my favorite AFVs is the SU-100, a military love affair that goes back to high school and my Tamiya 1:35 scale motorized one, which, in things coming full circle (see vid), was also Russian green and running around on the snow.

Regards,

John Kettler

Me too John only it is for the earlier and rarer SU-85 or the even rarer SU-85M.

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSmWE-LNuKgZfPYVPWpq-UJx4ODev5x66u4LXcepODgscNsjLoE

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  • 4 weeks later...

According to some notes I have from my almost 40 year old Destruction of Army Group Center board game, there was also a German tank destroyer battalion, the 281st, that was present in the sector at the start equiped with Jdpz Vs. It strikes me that a whole battalion of Jdpz Vs in June '44 seems unlikely so perhaps it also had a mix of Jdpz Vs Jdpz IVs and Stugs but I've found no other reference to the unit. Anyway, as Jason mentioned there's no need to limit the game to what was present on June 22nd.

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I think perhaps not initially since the early modules would need to concentrate on Heer, SS, RKKA and Guards Units.

However Partisans were included somewhat prominently in CMBB - they were present in the original stock batch of scenarios at least. Plus they were a significant factor so I bet we'll see them, though you do make a really good point about the SS, Guards, etc. Those will almost surely be done before the Partisans. Whether or not Hungarians, Italians, and Romanians will is a different story. Finns as well.

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Sequoia - I find no Jagdpanthers in any such formation at the time of Bagration. There is a 281st StuG brigade, formed early 1944 and assigned to AG center, specifically VI Corps, 3rd Panzer Army, around Vitebsk, on June 1 1944. It had 29 StuG III in 3 batteries, 22 operational. At the start of July it again reports 29 StuG III, 27 operational, without it being clear whether it received any in the meantime. By September it is destroyed and sent to rear to form a cadre for a towed Panzerjaeger formation, number 1052.

I find a couple of Nashorn formation in AG Center around the proper time, and some of those later transitioned to Jagdpanthers, but only toward the end of the year (November and December 1944), if not early 1945, and in many cases they were sent west at the same time they topped off their AFV count with the new and improved Jagdpanthers.

519th heavy Panzerjaeger had a full complement of Nashorns in June 1944 e.g., but by mid July it was reforming without vehicles. It got one company of Jagdpanthers but the other two had just StuGs, it didn't get them until August 1944, and then it was sent to the Hurtgen battle, and later to 15th Army.

So I'm afraid the Germans don't get Jagdpanthers for Bagration. They get plenty of ordinary Panthers and some Tiger Is by the second or third week of the fighting, sent up from AG South - but in the theater initially it is nearly all StuGs, with a new Marders and Nashorns rounding out the mix, and like one Panzer division with a reduced complement of Panzer IV longs.

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  • 1 month later...

Here is a quick question here for John Kettler and other Ostfront/GPW grogs.

Over on the Axis History forum we have been trying to work out the establishment of the Soviet Mech Corps and have some confusion over the make up of the Mech Brigade and the Motor Rifle Battalion that made it up. There are details in the Red Army Handbook but not at the smaller unit level, giving numbers of officers, NCOs, Men, personal weapons and company, platoon, section structure.

Can anyone help with the shtat for 010/420 Mechanised Brigade (Feb 1943) or 010/370 Mechanised Bde (Sept 1942) and the Motor Rifle Battalion.

I reckon it has 4 rifle sections of 9 men in 3 platoons (40 men) and an MG section (2 guns) and 3 companies (124).

Any ideas?

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My guess is most of the '44 German units are already modeled for the other titles... Doing say '41 would require new models for almost everything.

Same reason that a modern EF game is on the cards, once they do the terrain for Bagration it can be used in the modern title with reskinned CMSF units.

That's my guess, YMMV.

-Fenris

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Here is a quick question here for John Kettler and other Ostfront/GPW grogs.

Over on the Axis History forum we have been trying to work out the establishment of the Soviet Mech Corps and have some confusion over the make up of the Mech Brigade and the Motor Rifle Battalion that made it up. There are details in the Red Army Handbook but not at the smaller unit level, giving numbers of officers, NCOs, Men, personal weapons and company, platoon, section structure.

Can anyone help with the shtat for 010/420 Mechanised Brigade (Feb 1943) or 010/370 Mechanised Bde (Sept 1942) and the Motor Rifle Battalion.

I reckon it has 4 rifle sections of 9 men in 3 platoons (40 men) and an MG section (2 guns) and 3 companies (124).

Any ideas?

I've got all the Charles Sharpe TO&E series. Have you looked at them, or would you like me to dig them up?

Ken

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Since we're on the subject of East Front TO&Es, I'd be curious to know how far different the German and Soviet units and equipment would have been in Spring 1943 vs. the Bagration period?

I realize that 1941 and 1942 would be too great a difference because those years were before the massive Soviet shakeups and equipment improvements that preceded the final capture of Kharkov (spring '43) and then Kursk (summer '43). But would Spring '43 be too far from Summer '44 to pull off using what's likely to be in the Bagration module we're going to get?

Fore example, Would MK III tanks for the Germans be totally gone by summer of '44?

It's always easier to modify the game OOBs to remove things, since we can't add anything new. So I'm just wondering how close a little subtraction tweaking could make the CM 1944 forces in the East come close to what would have been likely on a battlefield in Spring '43.

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But would Spring '43 be too far from Summer '44 to pull off using what's likely to be in the Bagration module we're going to get?

Fore example, Would MK III tanks for the Germans be totally gone by summer of '44?

There were 804 PzIIIs of all types "in inventory" on June 1, 1944 but I'm not sure how many still in service. On that date Panzer Abteilung 21 reported:

49 PzIV lang

4 PzIII lang

3 PzIII 75

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Sequ - you weren't lying about Valentines. They replaced T-70s as the lights in at least one tank corps, that worked with a cavalry mechanized group. The same tank corps used Sherman 75s in place of its T-34s, so it was practically all lend lease.

Cavalry mech groups were typically formed around one tank or mech corps plus one or two cavalry corps, and meant to exploit after breakthroughs. The cavalry had good operational mobility through forested areas in the north, complementing the road mobility of the tank formations. This role put a premium on the tanks not breaking down even if out of contact with the rest of the Russian army for extended periods, and LL tanks were superior to Russian ones in that regard.

The Valentine was kept in production in Canada specifically for Russian lend lease long after they stopped making them for the western allies, because the Russians like them so much. They loved the mechanical reliability and the level of armor protection, for so light a tank. They were not comparing them to T-34s but to T-60s early and T-70s from midwar on, and the Valentine stacks up pretty well against those. Not as fast, to be sure. But then once a T-70 breaks down it isn't very fast either...

By 1944 the Russians were switching their T-70 chassis output to SU-76s. But they still took Valentines as lights...

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Thanks guys. I found my source. It was Zaloga in his Osprey book, but the reference is rather vague with him saying only the Valentines were used for recon. Your info adds much detail.

I should have also mentioned there were JS-IIs. Zaloga says 4 regiments totaling about 85.

Besides that plenty of SU-76s and a fair number of SU-152s.

On the German side, Dunn in Soviet Blitzkrieg says the Germans had some Ferdinands.

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