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Discussion of Soviet Offensive Tactics


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:)

I can't believe that we still used R35 in Sicily in 1943... :eek:

Well, in some ways you were lucky to have even those, given that there were no armoured divisions on the island. As an "armoured car" in an infantry division, the little Renault isn't too bad a prospect. Tougher than most ACs. The Germans used "antique" French armour in Normandy, as a stopgap/reserve/garrison formation :)

What I have most noticed is the inability to spot things in time not to get killed, which may be partly related to lack of communications.

I think it's more to do with the variety of things that can kill you. The 47mm TD can be functionally killed by a rifle: it's open topped and losing the driver means it can't move (and has no turret, so is easy to avoid thereafter), and either of the gunner or commander and it can't fight, for example. And even if there's no crew kill, they're so badly protected that heavy small arms fire drives them off. And tanks spotting infantry is always going to be iffy. The Semovente 90 is a usable little TD with a low profile and a sledgehammer gun, and their ACs aren't really any worse than anyone else's. For infantry support, the Semo 75 and even the R35 aren't bad; they're just not up to fighting the SotA (for early Summer '43) Sherman on even terms, and the .50cal was designed as an AT weapon to deal with this class of armour :)

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Okay I will attempt to bring it back to the original subject. I have not played Italian armor, such as it is, from CMFI enough to determine what difference a lack of radios in AFVs makes. I assume sharing of spotting info is reduced and vehicles go out of command much easier.

Honestly, Italian armor is so bad you can't extrapolate anything from their performance against radio-equipped vehicles.

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Well, in some ways you were lucky to have even those, given that there were no armoured divisions on the island. As an "armoured car" in an infantry division, the little Renault isn't too bad a prospect. Tougher than most ACs.

True, except that IIRC the Italians had their R35s independent of the inf divs and grouped into what they considered to be, and tried to use as, armoured battalions.

SotA (for early Summer '43) Sherman

SotA?

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True, except that IIRC the Italians had their R35s independent of the inf divs and grouped into what they considered to be, and tried to use as, armoured battalions.

So they didn't have any Armoured Divisions in Sicily, but they did have independent Armoured Battalions... Still second-rate units, though? Handed the dregs of the inventory?

SotA?

State of the Art. The Panther had only seen its first action in the same month, and was still finding its teething troubles, so I'd call that "bleeding edge", but the Sherman was combat proven, had learned lessons from its predecessors in its design, so I'd say that in July '43 it was the state of the art for medium tank development.

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So they didn't have any Armoured Divisions in Sicily, but they did have independent Armoured Battalions... Still second-rate units, though? Handed the dregs of the inventory?

Pretty much. The real Italian armored formations had been destroyed in Tunisia, and at the time of Operation Husky (and at the armistice), they were near Rome, still reforming and re-equipping. In Sicily they only had mobile groups with armored battalions, mostly equipped with R-35s that the Germans had given to them after capturing them from France. They were really only meant for coastal defense, not any sort of real fighting. But circumstances dictated otherwise...

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I'm thinking the easiest way to model the Soviets is to just give them a higher mark up for having experienced troops. Conscripts get no mark up, green get a reasonable mark-up. Anything above green gets a huge markup. That way the force will be composed of mostly conscript/green replacements and a small number of regular/vets. Whereas the German force is all Vet. Simply forcing the Soviet side to always be conscript implicitly models all the personnel issues.

The problem with that is that by 1944, the Soviets were able to train their troops better than in 41 or 42. Saying they should just be all set to conscript is a very broad and inaccurate generalization. Green and +1 morale would be a better representation for standard 1944 line infantry, with higher skill ratings for specialist troops like sniper teams.

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Well if you look at 1944, the average Soviet inf. unit would probably be 1/3-1/2 Regulars and 1/2-2/3 Green.

The average German inf. unit would probably be 1/2-2/3 regulars and 1/3-1/2 Green.

Infantry training had pretty much the same standard by then and most units had about the same proportion of kids fresh from basic training.

The advantage the Germans had was more in leadership, i.e. greater number of qualified, experienced NCOs and junior officers. So more +1/+2 leadership modifiers for the Germans, more -1/-2 for the Soviets.

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  • 4 years later...

Bringing this back from the dead. Lately I've done much more reading on Soviet forces in 1944. I'm having a much better game consequently, both from a role playing and game play point of view.

 

What I can't find out, is how dismounted Cavalry squadrons should be used. I know they should accompany tanks and assault guns, and I know they have much more weapons support than infantry units. However making those 4 squadrons of 2 sections platoons work is proving difficult.

Is it just a matter of pushing up the machineguns and shooting the Germans off their positions?

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  • 1 month later...

You should know that a number of Red Hammer's scenarios are deeply flawed in setup, and do not allow the Soviet player sufficient flexibility of action or the assets necessary to reasonably affect the designer's idea of the play through. 

On 7/6/2018 at 12:48 PM, DougPhresh said:

Is it just a matter of pushing up the machineguns and shooting the Germans off their positions?

More or less. The idea with Allied play, especially the Soviets and to a slightly lesser extent, the British, your aim should be to position your units so the Germans must engage in a straight up brawl with your men with no particular advantage to their side and after a receiving a severe preparatory "beating" from your own fire support assets. Whereas with the Russians you'll probably make greater use of "pre planned" fires in the deployment and leave relatively little in reserve except mortars. With the Commonwealth you can be a little more flexible and withhold more in reserve to deal with emergencies. 

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