Stalins Organ

Just an idea - what would happen if BTS gave CMBO away in PC-Gamer (& similar mags) a few weeks after CM2 is released? Will it (CMBO) be made officially "obsolete" by CM2? Do you think the publicity would help CM2? Would orders take even longer to get to us? Would a couple of weeks be enough to ensure we all got ours before the rush started??

The Germans also captured thousands of 82mm mortars to use the ammo in!! Also they had captured a lot of 81mm ammo in France and otehr countries that used teh 81mm mortar. Babra what are you referring to about ammo being machined in Africa?

Yes Mike - New Zealand did quite well out of the post war period supplying food to the UK! then the bloody Common Market came along #$%#$^ #$%^*&^ Euro's!! lol I believe the EEC's Common Agricultural Policy has it's roots in the failure of food production during WW2 across Europe too - the policy was designed to ensure that the continent would always have suffient domestically produced food not to have to rely on imports (put very simplistically of course).

Only the 50's Jason? that's not bad - the UK had rationing until the 50's I believe - maybe there are some lister's who could confirm that? I'm not hung up on the cable issue - I use it only as an example of items that the USSR simply may have had to do without - as you say, the western equipment may have been of higher quality and s simply not available if it wasn't given under LL. the next most complete list I've sen lists a steel rolling mill and aluminium smelters (I think - haven't looked at it for a while) among the lend lease that are not included here (at least I didn't notice them). Also I wonder whether the decision would have been to cut back on Yak-9's - the extra plywood wouldn't help make tanks or sub-machineguns, and the engine plant couldn't turn out tank engines anyway (steel block vs Aluminium). Maybe the savings would have been not to start work on the Yak 9 at all, and make do with Yak 7's (or alternatively not to start the LaGG-3 or -5, or the Yak-3 which came later than the 9, etc). You say that LL may have had a "real" value of 14-20% of Russian economy......so now 1/7th to 1/5th isn't important? When does a fraction become important? Lastly I don't understand your point about the invasion being a disaster. Of course it was...but I don't see that taking another 7 or 14-20% of production out of the Soviet System can be written off as having no great effect because of that? [ 05-09-2001: Message edited by: Mike the bike ]

Jason I didn't try to argu your facts or conclusions because I don't know the facts, and I thougth your conclusions interesting. However I dislike "what if" scenarios being used for argument against history because the "what if" can never be proved. As for the 7% figure that's been reached - yuo argue that it's just dollars and therefore a $ provided by the west for, say, explosives, freeed up a $ for the USSR to spend on, say, tanks. Is this true? For example the report notes that the USSR simply didn't have the natural resources to produce some of the material required - they could not produce water-proof telephone cable apparently (for example), and were short on the raw materials for explosives. So it seems to me that one of the effcts of this is that it allowed the Russians a bit of lee-way to pick and choose where they would put their productino effort. For example if they didn't have thousands of tons of western rail for thier tracks they might have had to produce not only fewer tanks, but perhaps those they did make would ahve to be smaller - many more T-60's or T-70's instead of T-34's perhaps (which is exactly the sort of speculation I hate, because it's unproveable and unarguable!) Also it seems to me that 7% is quite a huge amount - it would be a national disaster if production of any state fell by 7% in a year, let alone a sustained loss of so much over 4 years. And lastly you make no effort to address the point that much of the aid came in 42 and 43 when the Russians weer NOT ramped up as much as they weer later on, and was therefoer a higher % of the total in the years when it was really needed.

I hate to disabuse you guys, but I was staying up all night for X-Com, MOO, MOO2, Steel Panthers, SP 3, TOAW and one or 2 others that escape my memory just now. Nothing is new about this....except that now I'm single again!!

Thanks everyone for hte info and clarifications - great stuff!! One point tho' - I agree with Gunneroz that the mortar "bomb" is not a rocket. A rocket has the propellant internal to the projectile, whether it continues to burn outside the tube or not (eg Bazooka and Pz-faust rockets do not burn outside the tube).

Chris the best that yuo can say about speculation is that it is...well....speculative. The original author, and 2/3rds of its truck and significant amounts of rail resource weer obtained from the West. He says that these weer extremely important to the final result. These are facts andcannot be argued with - because there IS a causal relationship and we can see it. IMO Jason's speculation is one person't opinion as to what might have happened if things had been otherwise. It is very interesting and thought provoking, but it's like comparing some of the WW3 novels of the late 1980's with the actual history of the world through the 1990's - interesting but fantasy. Mike

Actually the 120mm mortar (and 81/82mm) are often called "Brandt" mortars. IIRC the guy was a Frenchman who perfected the basic design (or at least sold it to the French first).

Jason you post some interesting "what if's", well reasoned and cogent, but they are still speculation. The author of the article looked at what DID happen, and how much lend lease helped that along.....so he's got in infinite advantage over your own position IMO!!

Maybe an Arado 234? The shadws of all the German a/c I've ever seen have been 1-engined fighters.

Mortar ronuds are lighter than the same calibre of artillery rounds, although I don't have the figures on me.

Hmmm...which conlucion(s) do you disagree with: -that the russians generally didn't like western tanks -that the 2/3rds of trucks used by Russia that were of western origin were important to the final victory -that the timing of most lend lease in 1942 was opportune -or that the 50+% of Russian explosives sourced from the west prevented ammo shortages that might have proved "embarassing"?

I know they used it as FA from time to time - I hadn't read that part of the article yet tho'!! AFAIK they did use the airburst, but I don't know if that was all they used, or if they used the plain contact HE on occasion too.

a great article.....are there going to be platoons of 4 H-39's led by a S-35 for the Germans in Russia?? http://www.wargamer.com/articles/captured_tanks_main.asp

The most complete list of items I've seen yet, including quantities of materials such as exposives, tolulene and 100-octane avgas: http://www.wargamer.com/articles/lldocefx.asp Mike

Can anyone confirm a 4.5" gun in US service? I've never seen any reference otehr than as an experimental pice on the chassis that eventualy became the M41 155mm SP howitzer. and the Brit 4.5 was NOT a joint development with the US - it was a replacement for the 60 pdr (127mm) and initially produced on the 60 pdr carriage as the 4.5" Mk 1 - 30+ of these went to France in 1940. The Mk 2 used the split-trail-vertical-recuperator ccarriage later used for the 5.5" gun/howitzer, and NOT the carriage of the US 155mm. There were no other 4.5" guns in British service AFAIK, although a number of 4.5" howitzers of WW1 vintage were still in use up to at least 1942 on modernised carriages.

This is a "Must Read" for anyone interested in arty tactics: http://members.tripod.com/~nigelef/id17.htm

Jeez Michael - don't go giving away all your secrets!!

The Brits should certainly have 4.5" artillery, since they had a 4.5" gun - it looked pretty much the same as a 5.5" gun, and used the same carriage. Apparntly it wasn't much use tho', as the shell had only a small HE charge, so it was used for counter-battery work mostly. I don't recall the US having anything in the 4.5" class?? The 90mm AA gun was unsuitable for AT work - it was tall, heavy, did not have suitable sights and wasn't needed since the allies were mostly attacking and heavy AT is most useful on the defence. The M36 Jackson with it's 90mm was in pretty common usage by the end of the war. Tungsten ammo was always in short supply, but the British seem to have made it a higher priority than other nations. they used APDS whereas others used HVAP type ammo. The 4.2" mortars used by US and UK were originally intended as a method of attacking with chemicals - gas and smoke. Most nations had similar sized mortars for the same job, and also designated them "chemical" or similar. Of course chemicals were not used in WW2, so they reverted to using HE in a traditional artillery role. dunno about the 8" sorry. [ 05-07-2001: Message edited by: Mike the bike ]

Rex did the 90mm actually have HVAP in WW2?

Great - thanks

Boy Recon you're showing a bit much boy, and too little recon recently!! The soldiers of the BEF could manage 20 rpm in the "mad minute", not 60, and the Germans didn't think the fire was from LMG's because LMG's hadn't been "invented" in 1914!! And the Sten gun was a SMG, not a LMG!!

Just played it as the US (thanks to this thread for pointing it out! ) and won a walkover after the 5th scenario - the only thing the Germans had left was a 105 observer and I couldn't get to him 'cos the bridge to the little section of the map over the river on the left of he map had been demolished by 105's in the 3rd op!!

How do yuo dig in tanks, and wouldn't Brits be better for the Belgians, having bolt action rifles?