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Looking for information on Russian tactical symbols


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For a while now I have been using a floating icon mode by @billy_sp which uses native tactical symbols for each army. By that I mean German units have the German tactical symbols and the Allied units have the US tactical symbols. Sadly though that mod was created before the new icons were added in 2.0. Fixing that has been on my todo list for quite a while. Now with the release CMRT creating a set icons for the Russians will push this up on my priority - may be :)

The thing is I have not been able to find examples of the icons the Russians actually used during WW2. Does anyone know of a source?

As an example of what I am looking for here are a couple of pages that show symbols for the Germans and the US.

German

http://orbat.com/site/ww2/drleo/011_germany/symbols/_symbols_43.html

US

http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/11-4/symbols.htm

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I also use this mod and asked the same question. There was some information provided in another thread.

You get so used to using them that I find it kind of difficult to go back to the vanilla picture icons in the game. I now find them distracting and confusing.

I wonder if you can put tags on each of these icons in v3.0 so that you can now have brown for commonwealth, green for USA, Blue for Germans and then yellow for Italians (I cannot remember what the national symbol colour for Italy was).

Also, I seem to recall a game (SPI?) that used national symbols for their pieces? I think it may have been for a Normandy game though but that was the first exposure that I had ever had to German military symbols.

Longest Day

The video is too small to make out but there is a reference to another game like it that may have the symbols.

-----

Update:

Sorry, only German symbols were used in that game and the other game used NATO symbols. I cannot find anything that used Russian symbols. Too bad but I am more than happy to use the Russian symbols (for immersion) if you ever do find them.

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I wonder if you can put tags on each of these icons in v3.0 so that you can now have brown for commonwealth, green for USA, Blue for Germans and then yellow for Italians (I cannot remember what the national symbol colour for Italy was).

I actually tired that once and released Kaki version for the Commonwealth. The trouble with the different colours for nationality is that, at least in CMBN, the HQ and sniper units did not have nationality specific icons so you had to override all the icons and mixed forces looked odd. Tags might help prevent the need to move mods around but will not help with the HQ icons being shared between all allied nations.

Sorry, only German symbols were used in that game and the other game used NATO symbols. I cannot find anything that used Russian symbols. Too bad but I am more than happy to use the Russian symbols (for immersion) if you ever do find them.

Bummer. I hope someone can point me in the right direction.

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Looks like the billy_sp icons of CMA and CMSF form a good start for the Russian symbols.

I love them, also because the are transparent outside the symbol itself, so they float like letters in the air, much closer to the units because they are small as well.

For CMSF there are four sets in different colours, and I move one of them into the Z folder depending on which allied nationality I play.

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Looks like the billy_sp icons of CMA and CMSF form a good start for the Russian symbols.

I love them, also because the are transparent outside the symbol itself, so they float like letters in the air, much closer to the units because they are small as well.

For CMSF there are four sets in different colours, and I move one of them into the Z folder depending on which allied nationality I play.

Good thinking! I almost forgot that I have CMA...haven't played it in 3-4years.

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The US Army had a handbook on the armed forces of the USSR. This has a translation of those map symbols you were asking. I have it on pdf at home on a cd as well as in paper. I believe it was classified as TM 30-430 but I'll make sure once home.

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Excellent, closest yet. Chrome did a pretty good job translating. It is armour centric but a good place to start. Thanks.

This is more modern that WW2. I have no idea how much changed in those years. After all the US WW2 symbols are basically still in use today with tweaks for NATO so why not the WW2 Soviet symbols too.

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The US Army had a handbook on the armed forces of the USSR. This has a translation of those map symbols you were asking. I have it on pdf at home on a cd as well as in paper. I believe it was classified as TM 30-430 but I'll make sure once home.

Now that looks really promising. It is not clear to me if this is freely available for if I'll need to purchase it. Thanks for putting me on the trail. When you get home if you could confirm it has what I am looking for I would be grateful. Thank you.

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Grisha, it is TM 30-430. Unfortunately, the one I saw from the web (I have it bookmarked somewhere) didn't have the 17 pages of organizational symbols it's supposed to have in it. I'll keep looking.

Vark, I always wanted that game, but could never afford it back in the day. I think it has been re-issued, yes?

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Yes, it took my brother and I many months of saved pocket money and yes it has been reissued. Like most monster games, with a 6ft map and thousands of units it rarely was taken out and played to a conclusion, but the level of detail was truly amazing.

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The Streets of Stalingrad had all Soviet and German units with their correct national symbols.

I had that game, but I think it was purchased by another company and split into two games.

I think how long it took to set up games like that, and then implementing an anti-cat barrier. I always beat the AI...which was me.

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ian.leslie,

I don't have the book, but page 103 of the BFC Nafziger book Soviet Infantry Tactics in WW II is all about your topic. Bet you'd find much the same in the book on Soviet Armor Tactics.

http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_flippingbook&book_id=24

The various DIA manuals on Soviet tactical units all have symbology sections in the back, but what I don't know is how many are carryovers from WW II.

TM 30-548 Soviet Topographic Map Symbols will help people read their info dense topo maps.

http://cluster3.lib.berkeley.edu/EART/pdf/soviet.pdf

The above's but a tiny part of the treasures at Soviet Maps.

Regards,

John Kettler

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Terkin posted this link in the thread below, with an excellent 1942 Sov manual on tactical symbols (in Russian):

http://www.maps4u.lt/lt/includes/siuntiniai/Z/Taktiniai_zenklai/Taktiiniai_simboliai_1942.pdf

See post #11 in the following thread for Terkin's original post, and #17 for my brief explanation of where to find which symbols:

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=113614&page=2

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76mm,

Outstanding find!

ian.leslie,

If you want rank insignia and very low level weapon symbology, find H-Hour, by Balboa Games. There are some images of the counter set on Google Images. The Rulebook has nice clear large graphics in B&W showing what's what. I know about the game because, along with brother Ed and some friends, we were playtesters on it and the home of Balboa Games was our favorite haunt, The War House in Long Beach, California.

Regards,

John Kettler

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Terkin posted this link in the thread below, with an excellent 1942 Sov manual on tactical symbols (in Russian):

http://www.maps4u.lt/lt/includes/siuntiniai/Z/Taktiniai_zenklai/Taktiiniai_simboliai_1942.pdf

I had a go at translating some of this with my incredibly rusty Russain and a pocket Oxford Russian dictionary (can't find my good one). Main section numbering follows their numbering and then you'll need to count off for the separate symbols. I haven't provided translations for all the symbols and cannot guarantee absolute correctness. From what I can see, they don't seem to have symbols for individual infantry types (e.g. snipers and engineers, but I could very well have missed them so far).

1. Headquarters

-Headquarters of the western front

-2nd Army HQ

-2nd infantry corps HQ

-4th infantry division HQ

-10th infantry regiment HQ

-Battalion (? (says 'diviziona' but probably not 'division'), detachment) all related force HQ

-1st aviation squadron

-Observation/control/rallying point?

-Reserve observation/control/rallying point?

2. Marching and guarding forces?

-Moving foot infantry column with headquarters

-Moving foot infantry column with tanks

-Moving foot infantry column with artillery

-Moving column of tanks

-Moving column of horse-drawn artillery

-Moving column of machine-drawn artillery

-Motorized column

-

-

-

-Infantry (foot) reconnaissance patrol

-Cavalry reconnaissance patrol

-Armoured reconnaissance patrol

-Armoured reconnaissance group

4. Infantry subsection

-Mounted machine gun

-Heavy (large calibre) machine gun

-Hand machine gun

-Battery of mounted machine guns

-Mortar

-Small calibre antitank gun

5. Artillery

-76 mm regimental artillery gun

-76 mm divisional artillery gun

-107 (122) mm gun

-152 mm gun

-76 mm mountain howitzer

-122 mm howitzer

-152 mm howitzer

-Really big and powerful howitzer

-76 mm battery in firing position

6. Armoured forces

-Light tank

-Meduim tank

-Heavy tank

-Amphibious tank

-Tanks in strike formation?

-Collection point

-Light armoured vehicle

-Medium armoured vehicle

-Light armoured train

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Hi, just uploaded a new icons version to the repository. It contains German and Allied tactical symbols updated to 2.12. I've been using it myself for quite a while but haven't got round to posting it. Also have Luftwaffe Blue and British Brown versions if anyone's interested. Will try to work on Soviet symbols soon, as my CMSF version is very very low-res, but cannot guarantee anything, real life intrudes at this time of year. Any new sources for soviet symbols welcome! Have previously used some of the above pages and APOS. Cheers

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(Continued)

8. Anti-aircraft defences

-Small calibre anti-aircraft gun

11. Engineering constructions

-Communication channel?

-Observation bunker

-Bunker

-Slit trench

-Machine gun nest

-

-

-

-

-

-

-Mine field

-Hidden? obstacle

-Delayed action mines

-Landmine

-Obstacle?

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Hi, just uploaded a new icons version to the repository. It contains German and Allied tactical symbols updated to 2.12. I've been using it myself for quite a while but haven't got round to posting it. Also have Luftwaffe Blue and British Brown versions if anyone's interested. Will try to work on Soviet symbols soon, as my CMSF version is very very low-res, but cannot guarantee anything, real life intrudes at this time of year. Any new sources for soviet symbols welcome! Have previously used some of the above pages and APOS. Cheers

Oh sweet. You mean I don't have to update the exiting ones and create Soviet versions. That would be awesome. Lets hope real life gives you a window of opportunity.

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See post #11 in the following thread for Terkin's original post, and #17 for my brief explanation of where to find which symbols:

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=113614&page=2

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. I totally missed that. Thanks to @Terkin as well for the post - that is just the kind of thing that I was looking for.

I had a go at translating some of this with my incredibly rusty Russain and a pocket Oxford Russian dictionary (can't find my good one).

Oh just brilliant thank you.

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I don't have the book, but page 103 of the BFC Nafziger book Soviet Infantry Tactics in WW II is all about your topic. Bet you'd find much the same in the book on Soviet Armor Tactics.

Excellent John that does look like it is the right info. I think the PDF posted in the other thread by @Terkin and the translation by @Regiment0 will suffice though.

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