For you Kursk grogs--a post Krivosheev Master's thesis

[jtcm]

Inspired by this exchange, I went and played the JasonC scenario, "1SSInitial Assault"-- as the Germans on day 1 of Kursk, hitting the Russian line and trying to break clean through.

I don't think it's a spoiler to say that it's hard-- true, the Germans have lots of resources (that keep piling on, thus creating pressure to move move move); damp ground and bogging; but they're up against very thoughtfully placed ATGs and THs, roadblocks, arty barrages.There might be mines, but I actually haven't ground far enough to encounter them-- which is just as well, because my pioneers are all dead or cowering in ditches.

Maybe all this doesn't matter at the high chess level, and at the end of the day I'll have punched through but it's pretty hard at worm's eye view. Good scenario against AI. I've played it three times and still gave up in the middle with traffic jams, burning hulks, lost infantry.

SPOILERS

The first time, I tried to move everything right, and dash across open ground. Did I say dash ? The horror of this lumbering traffic jam of a move under arty barrage and long range ATG fire and bogging and reinforcements that kept coming...

The second time, I thought i'd dash down the road, cut left before the block of woods and marshes, and move along side the left side of map. Horrible, too

[JasonC]

Yep. Egg-xactly. lol.

The wet ground is the single biggest problem. Between wet for bogging, the realistically soggy low lying areas, and one lousy dirt road, it is an *automotive* challenge to make the advance at sufficient speed.

And the Russians knowing this, are waiting along the one lousy dirt road, with mines and infantry AT ambushes, and beyond the outposts, a full infantry position with heavy weapons in an appropriate spot.

The Germans do not have the time or the space to slowly send infantry ahead searching for a less defended route. If they try, then their vehicles will pile up in a traffic jam and present a very compelling massed artillery target. Even beneath light armor, and even taking care to button, 122mm shellfire will take a toll if you try that.

That means tanks have to lead, not follow. Which is how they actually did it, anyway. Also, the main Russian infantry position has enough stealthy heavy weapons firepower from machineguns and mortars that infantry ahead would get pinned down anyway. Given infinite time, the Germans might try to deal with that with supporting artillery fire, but against largely unlocated enemies in full trenches, even that slow approach isn't promising.

So it is tanks first.

The Russians have ATGs that can KO the bulk of the German armor, which is Panzer IVs (as it actually was). The Germans can't rely on rare uber armor to clear the way for everyone. The Russian guns will get targets and they will occasionally kill tanks. Cannot be helped.

So the key is to silence those ATGs rapidly and win the duels with them. Yes losing some Panzer IVs in the process. But the guns need to be rapidly located and KOed by replying tank fire, as rapidly as possible.

Rapidly locating them would be furthered by lots of tanks with LOS and unbuttoned. But "unbuttoned" gets hard under a 122mm artillery barrage - and ATR fire, etc.

But the Russian ATGs are not infinite. Trade them off and the defense will weaken significantly. You need to "draw trump" to get anywhere, in other words. Trade some Panzer IVs for the Russian ATGs, and have reinforcing additional Panzer IVs and a little uber armor left, after the Russians run out of heavy AT hitters.

Then there is still a lot of light armor to move. Weapon halftracks and infantry halftracks. And lighter stuff is dangerous to them. But with live tanks left and the Russian heavy AT net smashed, you can use the tanks to suppress things that can hurt the light armor, again as soon as it is found. ATRs being pretty stealthy, though, the tanks need to push forward to get spots in this period. They can't just hang out on overwatch on the right-center ridge (or not all of them, anyway).

The effect you want once the heavy ATGs have been silenced is intimidating overwatch firepower from the tanks, covering the risk moves of the light armor and, once close, the dismounts. Which need to overwhelm positions to clear the route forward. They are unlikely to accomplish this without taking their own lumps. You can't simply hide them all and send only the remaining tanks recklessly forward though. There are too many AT ambushes and dangers from mines and chances to bog, for that to work.

The role for the panzergrenadiers is to clear the road. The role of the tanks is to shoot them in.

In the early period, though, you just have to recklessly challenge the Russian anti tank guns and outshoot them. No shying away from them or conceeding them the front slope will work. If you crest alone they will dominate; you need to many on few them and trade through them. One for one is fine.

Small tactics can help with that. For example, smoke masking one gun to let you gang up on another. Cresting together. Finding spots in "shadow" to one of the enemy guns, to take it out of the firefight until you are ready to tackle it. Indirect fire, and creeping to the edge of LOS next to a "shadow", then area firing adjacent to the gun. Using the Tiger (hull down preferably) to challenge a lone spotted gun.

You will rarely be able to use such techniques against every enemy gun. They will open with surprise, after all. But such smart tactics can lengthen the odds in your favor in the exchange duels afterward. Take risks, be as fast about it as you can, but reach into that bag of tricks to stack the duels. You just have to trade through them, with those tactics as your balance to their edge when each gun first reveals itself.

The problem isn't solved even after AT "trump" has been drawn. It is still hard. But it can be solved, once that is accomplished.

[jtcm]

So in real life terms: drive with armour, aggressively but not without tactics. Why not lead with the Tigers ? If they get bogged, they might as well get bogged while fighting, and while having LOS to the enemy.

In game terms, it's not huge, but the demands in term of micro-managing get overwhelming. I wish you could just give broad orders (support plt a, move out) to AI-driven units which could implement tactical SOP competently-- while you concentrated e.g. on fighting the point plt past an ATG crossfire-- instead of having to give precise orders, all of which matter and all of which are necessary, to a myriad of squads. Of course, this relates to CMBB generally not to this very good scenario

!

[JasonC]

You can lead with the Tigers if you like, but their greatest strength is their front armor, and especially their front armor when hull down - and their killing firepower at any range. You make them the most vulnerable when you drive them over ground that could be mined, or 45m from cover that might hide a tank hunter, or 30m from cover that might hide a pioneer squad with demo charges. And you risk them, at least somewhat, whenever you drive them far enough forward that their flanks become visible to possible enemy gun positions -especially if the side angle to such possible positions gets low, which it will at some point if they twist and turn through the whole enemy position.

And they do not need to get close to kill things. Yes it does help to get close in order to get spots. But their single best use is challenging an already spotted 76mm gun from a hull down position, front facing. They can KO the gun with powerful HE in a minute or two, even in a trench. And the replies are going to hit 200mm reinforced turret front 2/3rds of the time, and 100mm upper front hull the rest of the time - essentially invulnerable.

Instead shows sides, and there is the off chance of a lower side hull hit, where the armor is only 60mm. The tracks can get hit, reasonably hit chance, with M-kill a 50-50 or so result if they are. With enough side angle and range, the upper side hull probably won't be penetrated, but it is possible (weak point penetration, or a partial penetration if the range gets short enough, etc).

Overall, yes you want them in a spot with LOS shooting things. But you probably don't want to drive them half way across the map with the rest of the German force still sitting back in the set up zone or hiding behind the initial ridge. (Note also that even the AI is less likely to open up at Tigers with his guns than at Panzer IVs he has a chance to kill - and you want to "draw trump" rapidly...)

As for the amount of micro management, this fight is indeed a bit larger in scale than I typical prefer. But it needs to be to show how a company of armor trades through a real ATG defense. If you put a platoon up against one gun, you don't get the same tactical relationship you get with a company vs. a battery. A battery has realistic cross fire and can cover the whole field. Until you are at that scale, the real problem dug in defending guns create cannot be seen. Similarly, the value of infantry protected by light armor is not seen until the fight has sufficent scale (and danger from arty and infantry heavy weapons) that shuttling from one tactical infantry firefight "zone" to another is valuable, and breaking up enemy resistence nests in sequence becomes a realistic possibility. If you slice off just one of those fights, mobility doesn't show its power.

For all those reasons, this was the minimum scale at which the real tactical relationships could be shown, for this sort of break-in fight. There is no excess giantism just for its own sake.

How to manage the whole German force anyway... Well, give full orders to the forces you have on the map, and then give full orders to each reinforcement group as soon as it arrives. Yes you may need to adapt some of them to react to e.g. spotting a gun at location X or seeing enemy infantry or trenches at Y. But the force that needs to adapt should generally be the one given a specific mission several moves ago, and amount to a platoon or two on any given turn. If your initial plans were sensible and are working at all, there should be full platoons that don't need new orders, because they are continuing a movement ordered as soon as they arrived, or their last adaptation a few turns ago, or they are stationary and firing at already visible targets, and the like. If you find yourself needing to give detailed new orders to every single unit every single turn a third or half of the way through, then it is probably because your plan fell apart completely.

[jtcm]

Will try again, by Jove.

The plan: set up the Tigers slightly to the right of the road as a firebase, then basically angle everything to do a right hook.

[jtcm]

Some further thoughts:

-- the roadblock can't be moved-- so armour *has to go off road

--infantry has to stick close to the armour-- and take its lumps, too, i assume (mounting and dismounting under fire to get close enough to enemy positions-- no use if it's cowering 300m away from the action.

-- what *did real life tank riders / ht riders do once their wheels were shot up ? I'm in a squad of tank riders, i fight with my tank, I screen the tank from THs and my tank big brother shoots up anyone who messes with me-- but what happens when the tank is finally brewed up by an ATG at 500 m ? I raise my head, I see the tank burning, the rest of my h-squad is fine and still tactically coherent, the other tanks are churning away with their tank riders, or alternately the tank riders are lying flat in the dust, too, while their tanks are burning-- who decides what next ?

[JasonC]

Riders can go to ground where they are if the fire is too hot - meaning, before the tanks have won their firefight -or they pick their way forward in the wake of the armor and help mop up, after the tanks win their firefight. If the tank attack fails completely, they stay down and hold the ground they reached, improving positions as they can.

That is history and real doctrine. In CMBB, you are often on a shorter time table, and will be more inclined to press them hard. But it still makes sense for them to first get some scrap of cover, second rally, and third wait for a reasonable time in the tank firefight. It is pointless to charge away with a few half squads at a position that a tank company can't take out.

That should not happen in this fight, however. Temporarily for the riders of the first wave, sure, can happen. But by the time the bulk of the armor has arrived, closed to LOS, and fought it out with the enemy guns, there should be attacking armor remaining and it should have fire ascendency over any enemy shooter that can be spotted.

Once that situation has been achieved, the role of the riders is to advance forward by bounds from cover patch to cover patch, to force enemies to reveal themselves and to help get spots.

The reason riders are wanted in the first place is to prevent enemy infantry from just going deep in their holes on "hide", ignoring the attacker's armor.

[Vark]

What happens though when, all to frequently, fire forces a dismount and the tanks blithely charge on leaving the stranded desantki hundreds of metres from their objective. By the time they rally the SMG troops are all but useless and the HMG's who knocked them off are often not spotted. I have read Tank Rider and the whole squad did not dismount if under fire, is this because they gain no cover bonus in CMBB? I have seen photos of tank riders under fire, and they are all huddled behind the turret.

[JasonC]

By definition, in photos a tank rider under fire is on a tank, while a tank rider who got off the tank doesn't look like a tank rider. Doesn't mean anything.

If the enemy opens fire at long range to brush off the riders or to keep them pinned down after they have taken cover, then the fire gives the tanks targets they can see and plaster, and they go ahead and do so. If the range to the shooters is still too long for a spot, the tanks charge closer until they get one. When they are closer, the enemy machineguns either "shut up" or the tanks spot them and plaster them. If they "shut up" then the riders dust themselves off and advance. In a matter of a couple of minutes they are up with the tanks again - or the enemy has to fire to slow them. He fires with something. The tanks plaster it.

The whole error consists in seeing the problem as one of movement and protection as how it is solved. That isn't the idea at all. The problem is the defender's stealth and fire discipline options, and the solution is a "fork" threat that he cannot answer with one "move".

If the tanks can see something, there is no reason for anybody to move. The tanks murder the target. All of it. If the tanks can't see any target, then the enemy isn't firing with anything too dangerous, and everybody can move. In the intermediate case of limited firing, riders are in cover and the tanks move ahead of them to spotting range. Those are all the adaptations required.

The tanks are not there to help the riders, but the other way around. The tanks can do almost everything for themselves. The one thing they can't do is force a hiding enemy to open fire. A few dozen men with tommy guns and grenades can force that, because they are too dangerous if allowed to close all the way to point blank and they will discover the defenders even if the defenders never open fire.

[jtcm]

On that view, it's all SOP-- the consequence of which must be th e need for high grade training for tanks and tank riders to know what to do. (HMG opens up, I jump off, tank steams forward, I wait for the tank to finish the job, tank waits, I catch up and mount the tank, we move off, etc).

But if things get a bit hairy-- how did infy communicate with a buttoned-up tank ? I seem to remember that the old M-60 had a phone in the back to talk to the crew.

[Michael Emrys]

But if things get a bit hairy-- how did infy communicate with a buttoned-up tank ? I seem to remember that the old M-60 had a phone in the back to talk to the crew.

So did some Shermans. If tanks of other nations had the same, I would like to hear of it.

I suppose the inf. might have tried to bang on the turret in some kind of pre-arranged code, but I don't know how well that would have worked with bullets pinging off it.

Michael

[Vark]

The whole Borg spotting routine makes Jason's observations perfectly reasonable, in reality I doubt the tanks appreciate a whole squad jumping off when ever a tank rider is hit or spooked. With no radio and zero visibility in the rear when buttoned the T-34's would motor on to destruction.

[JasonC]

You open the hatch. Simple.

As for "motor on to destruction", what sort of fantasy is that?

Overall I see in the comments a continuing misunderstanding of the role of the tank riders and their relationship to the tanks. It isn't the US system of infantry support, where some lieutenant of infantry is in charge and giving specific orders to individual tanks to solve his own infantry problems.

The man in charge giving all the orders is the tank company commander. He is on the radio with his tankers. He sees what happens to each platoon and each tank and each set of riders. He tells the tanks when to move and when to shoot, toward what or at what, how far, and when. If riders drop off one tank due to fire he treats it as a battle casualty, same as he would a gun blasting one of them, and adapts his plan to his remaining resources.

They are not trying to solve an infantryman's problem of closing in.

When there is tight terrain, he needs his riders to protect against infantry AT and to find the enemy positions exactly. But by definition his riders have cover. When the terrain is open enough that they don't have good cover, neither do potential enemy infantry ambushers. If enemy MGs have long lines of sight over wide areas, his own tanks have long lines of sight right back, with full visibility and firepower integration. The tanks don't need help from 40 tommy gunners in that situation - they have 20 full machineguns and 10 cannons, themselves.

The only intermediate case is the one we are discussing, where the defenders are in a covered area but the approaches to it are open enough that the riders can't readily make it close. Then the tanks stand off the edge of the cover and plaster things as they show themselves, until the riders are able to move again.

It isn't the western infantry support tank system, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with it as a tactical system. It does everything it needs to do. It is harder on the riders in dangers and hardship than riding around in an SPW. But it gets the job done.

A tank company is not a weak asset that needs to be pampered lest it break a nail. It is a very powerful robust combat formation that can butcher most of its opponents with sheer firepower, while shrugging off a lot of crap thrown its way, that would halt and decimate infantry. It needs a few special jobs done for it, that it can't do for itself, in definite tactical situations. Riders are a patch that covers its very short range, in heavy cover, vulnerabilities, and that is all they need to do.

[jtcm]

Did any one read that book, "Tank Rider" ? I saw it in a second-hand bookshop a few months back. Didn't buy it, now it's gone.

[JasonC]

Yes I've read it. It isn't very good, and it tells us practically nothing about actual tactics.

[Vark]

Yes, I have jtcm get it if you can, a considerable ammount of the time they act as infantry, and as the tip of the spear face being outnumbered, with their tank support engaged elsewhere. An interesting assertion is the effectiveness and frequency of the German CAS, which causes casualties and delays, as they hide in woods. The accounts are mecifully lacking the, "Gefreiter Schultz single-handedly held off the cowering Red platoon whilst Sergeant Kunnitz accounted for two T-34's and and a Sturmovik", crap that infests some ubermenschen recollections. The author slaps himself on the back a bit too much, 'I was the most popular officer, the men knew I was firm but fair' but shows the poor competency of most Russian company commanders and obviously respected the Germans as an opponent.

[jtcm]

Must get it

[Vark]

Do, it's not, as Jason has said a treatise on tactics, and suffers from the typical leaden translation syndrome occasionally but is worth the read for the little day to day details.

Talking of tactics, I'm finding it hard to find anything concrete about the use of 'desantki' which is a vague term in itself. The only source seems to be a $300 tome on Russian developments of organisation and subsequent changes to operational/tactical matters. German accounts often say that Russian infantry followed closely behind tanks, giving effective support and Russian accounts support the deployment in close terrain idea. If this method of attack, beloved of wargamers, was so widespread why is there so little official documentation. US intelligence documents, during WWII, so it as a compromise between wanting to have close support infantry and lacking in mechanised units.

Anyone have anything concrete about the tactical use of Tank riders, or is that term itself a misnomer? Perhaps soldiers who travelled on tanks, so they could keep up, would be more accurate.

[JasonC]

First on the limitations of the "Rider" book - it suffers from all of the typical low level veteran eyewitness vices, showing a complete lack of awareness or interest in any aspect of the military art. Instead it focuses exclusively on the human experience of the war. Gosh it was hard. We had to hike uphill to work both ways. People were shooting at us. Gosh it was hard. A lot of my friends got killed. Then I almost got killed. People were bastards about it sometimes, because they were scared and looking out for themselves and people were getting killed. That tends to cause callous cynicism. There was some cruelty, we did it too. Then we found some vodka. We had to live on potatos. We once got to remain stationary for months and could build an improved dugout and have fires every night. Gosh it was cold. You had to be there.

Anyone wanting information on how they actually fought is better off looking at lessons learned documents circulated for training purposes, or general staff studies, or closely detailed operational narrative by trained historians. Occasionally a gosh it was hard eyewitness level book has a few scattered insights about real conditions as opposed to doctrinal best abstractions. But as a whole, the genre is utter dreck and useless, and the Rider book in firmly in the middle of that average pathetic performance.

[JasonC]

As for riders and their widespread use, the Russians developed it over the course of the war and that is clear from operational accounts and German side reports of Russian attacks, as well as photographic evidence. They become much more common from 1943 on and are a regular feature of the whole offensive phase of the war.

The Russian tank formations featured layers of supporting infantry in a variety of specialist roles. Take a typical tank corps. It has 3 tank brigades, a motor rifle brigade of 3 motor rifle battalions (plus weapons etc), a pioneer battalion, and a motorcycle battalion. Each of the tank brigades has an organic motor rifle battalion, to the equivalent of a western battalion's worth of armor (53 to 61 tanks at TOE).

The motor rifle brigade usually operated as an actual motorized rifle formation, and was typically given the job of holding ground taken by the tank brigades. It was not common to "cannabilize" it for additional supporting infantry assigned to each tank brigade. The motorcycle recon battalion was often given an independent screening role but was also frequently split up into smaller detachments. The pioneers were sometimes used in pure rear area tasks (especially bridge building, road improvement, and sometimes mine clearing in areas already taken), but frequently subdivided into detachments supporting the brigades, for tactical mine clearing or route improvement etc.

But the motor rifle battalion organic to each tank brigade typically was not given a separate detached mission. Instead it fought as infantry support for its tank brigade. And usually provided riders themselves. Its trucks, if at TOE in the first place, were not sent into actual combat conditions, and might often be used as first line transport for resupply of the brigade. When people speak of tank riders as an organizational thing, this battalion in each tank brigade is what they are talking about.

Note that this tasking is quite different from that used by the Germans or Americans. The Germans put Panzergrenadiers in their own regiments. They formed KGs around regimental headquarters. The headquarters of the panzer regiment in each panzer division typically led an armored kampgruppe, which would have some form of infantry attached. This was usually the single SPW equipped battalion in the division, sometimes the armored recon battalion. KGs formed around the regimental HQs of the panzergrenadier regiments, on the other hand, tended to be infantry heavy, with tanks or assault guns attached to be sure, but subordinate to an infantry formation commander.

The Russians were less inclined to attach tanks to the motor rifle brigade of the corps. It might fight in column behind a specific tank brigade, and for some infantry heavy missions (say a river crossing, or a night infiltration) might independently have a "point" offensive role - but generally without tanks. Its normal role was as a tactical defender of ground seized by the tank brigades, protection of the flanks of an ongoing penetration, and the like. (The Germans often made similar use of infantry heavy KGs within a PD, or motorized infantry divisions within a panzer corps, especially in the first half of the war where such motorized infantry formations hadn't been armored up etc).

This left the tank component of the Russian tank forces quite tank heavy - but did leave them organic infantry support. It frequently rode the tanks rather than trucks. The tanks were frequently pushed along cross country routes, or quite unimproved roads, and the cross country mobility of the T-34 in particular was considerably better than that of trucks. This kept some close combined arms cooperation and it made better use of scarce trucks for tactical resupply - always a weak Russian link, and especially so in the mech arm to about midwar (late, more abundant US lend lease vehicles improve the motorization of the mech force; but it also expands significantly to make use of them).

The organizational structure favors a tactical doctrine subordinated to the tanks, with a tank heavy mix, tank commanders in charge, tanks directing the objectives set, etc.

Sometimes, tactically speaking, this leads to loss of combined arms as the limited rider infantry is stripped, and the tanks attack effectively alone. Sometimes, the tank force as a whole is fighting on frontage also assigned to rifle formations, e.g. in a penetration attack in sequence, or as an arriving reserve -then the ratio of infantry to tanks may rise, but the coordination between the arms may be weak because it crosses organizational and command boundaries. But normally, the riders are a minimalist dedicated infantry support arm for the tank heavy tank brigade forces, coming from the "motor rifle" battalion organic to each tank brigade - with the other factors or force types layered on top of that level of infantry support.

FWIW...

[jtcm]

For some of us, "human experience of war" is at least a large part of what military history is about-- as a worthwhile object in itself, and also as a way of understanding the whole picture of how a society, or an army, fights. At least, i speak as one who greatly admired John Keegan's Face of Battle, or some of the Napoleonic era memoirs-- "gosh it was hard" is a bit unfair

[JasonC]

Keegan tries to understand why tactics actually work or didn't, why they were the way they were, and the actual tactical relationships among the different weapons and formation types in every era. He is an actual historian and actually interested in the military art. "Rider" is not "Face of Battle". A bit like saying "The Family Guy" isn't William Shakespeare. Rider frankly sucks as a book, and doubly so if you expect to learn anything from it about how they actually fought (of the sort you definitely can learn from Keegan).

And no, gosh it was hard is not unfair. This stuff is dreck, and there are acres and acres of it, and it adds exactly nothing to the sum of human knowledge.

[John Kettler]

Here's the Wiki on tank desant, showing the practice went back to the 1930s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_desant

1942 Combat Regs Can someone translate?

http://militera.lib.ru/regulations/russr/bup1942/11.html

Wargame thread with a great pic of a tank descent going into infantry combat

http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=194876

From another gaming thread, a real find (Fair use)

http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=167562

"Read Grechko's (editor) "Official Soviet (Russian) History of the Great Patriotic War" (revised after Stalin's death. (IIstoria Vtoroi Mirovoi Voeni 1939 -1945).

The tactics, training, implementation, unit organization & designations are covered in volumes 6 & 7 of 12 volumes total, if memory serves me correctly. You will need to read Russian or know someone who does, but the tactic is covered in detail.

Bill"

HSU Loza's own memories of tankodesantniki serving with the Emchas he commanded.

Pages 74-77

http://books.google.com/books?id=klpmTGf_GdAC&pg=PA76&lpg=PA76&dq=tankodesantniki&source=bl&ots=iBq9s7TvlY&sig=7CPrqbu2mPsZI73SVPm-riJ0mEc&hl=en&ei=4rd8S4v4Bom2sgOM9Ly8Cw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CBQQ6AEwBjgU#v=onepage&q=tankodesantniki&f=false

Regards,

John Kettler

[jtcm]

JasonC-- you could reverse the relation, and say that "Gosh it was hard" can be resolved to say "it was hard in *this way, for *this bundle of factors or reasons"-- and these are social, cultural, and also tactical-strategic-- military factors have their autonomy, just like economic factors, but within particular worlds.

Keegan, after all, does use e.g. Captain Mercer's superb memoirs-- both to explain what's going on militarily, but also why it was "hard" on the day, in particular ways.

I suppose it depends what you're interested in. "Art of war" ? Keegan specifically argued against there being a timeless art of war (he was criticizing his colleague David Chandler), in favour of "sharp end" sort of studies. C. Merridale (debated and citizcized here when Dorosh etc actually still posted) is only interested in the human dimension, not the CMBB style homunculi carrying out or not their waypoint orders. I suppse I'm interested in the "what was it like" question, simply finding it difficult to visualize what's going on on the ground. Of course, this impacts on both the question "how to fight" and "what is it lke to fight / why people fight / how people fight"

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?p=1107627&highlight=ambrose#post1107627

I may give "Tank Rider" a try, if I see it.

[John Kettler]

jtcm,

I haven't read it, but it got good reviews and seems to be sui generis.

http://www.amazon.com/Tank-Rider-Into-Reich-Army/product-reviews/1853675547/ref=cm_cr_dp_all_helpful?ie=UTF8&coliid=&showViewpoints=1&colid=&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending

Some tank brigades had body armor for the tankodesantniki.

http://www.monsterswatmonkey.com/vest

From HSU Loza's second book, Defending the Soviet Motherland (own and highly recommend), illustrating the total integration of the tank crews and supporting tankodesantniki. They messed together, if wounded were treated together and in death were buried together. Can't get any closer than that!

http://books.google.com/books?id=xjvDP8xHfVQC&pg=PA177&lpg=PA177&dq=tankodesantniki&source=bl&ots=N3ljNNfRZo&sig=16uwe3zcmt1fZHCQf17EqF1n5gM&hl=en&ei=7R59S_rDKpHwsgOGuM3KCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CAoQ6AEwATg8#v=onepage&q=tankodesantniki&f=false

A tank paratrooper (bad translation?) who became a tank driver. He blithely quotes a 40% fatality rate for tankodesantniki in battle.

http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&langpair=ru|en&u=http://www.iremember.ru/content/view/734/75/1/2/lang,en/&rurl=translate.google.com&client=tmpg&usg=ALkJrhiKuv7RWAqtk7HnUIBOOJ1Z2oFU_g

A young officer commanding tankodesantniki

http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&langpair=ru|en&u=http://www.iremember.ru/content/view/434/75

DP gunner tankdesantnik and his very short career in the unit. Wounded defending Leningrad. (Paragraphs 5-7)

http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&langpair=ru|en&u=http://www.iremember.ru/content/view/417/75/lang,en/&rurl=translate.google.com&client=tmpg&usg=ALkJrhi_dwf8NhlNPHJtKy2bLIsTAApgiw

There are doubtless more such accounts at www.iremember.ru , but I'm tired. Found the above under Infantry, and the search engine for the site came up zilch when I looked for tankodesantniki and similar terms.

Regards,

John Kettler