tss

Apparently some conspiracy (and software update) made my reply to vanish into the Great Bit-Bucket of the Sky. Anyway, I've read of a similar event (can't remember where, possibly Clark's Barbarossa or something that I read at the same time): During one Soviet counter attack against a German bridgehead in 1941 T-34s run over pretty much everything that Germans had managed to bring across a big river (Dnepr?), including a 88 mm FLAK battery. However, one of the tanks stalled and then two men run to it, jumped on it, opened the engine compartment hatch, and whacked the engine with a large axe. Then they took a petrol can that was attached to rear deck of the T-34, poured it on the engine and set it aflame. Skipper wrote: while (a) being a cook It may be interesting to note that Larry Thorne (who was born Lauri Törni) started his war-career as a supply corporal. He was once assigned in a ragtag force that was sent to a desperate counterattack against a Soviet breakthrough and he then noticed that he could act calmly under fire and requested a transfer to fighting duties. (He later received medals from three armies, Finnish (up to Mannerheim's Cross), German (Iron Crosses I and II), and American (Legion of Merit, few Purple Hearts) before dying in Vietnam. - Tommi

Tanaka wrote: Back in 44 your country,(as Germany and USA for instances), was a signatory of the convention... But then again, Sweden hasn't been in a war after signing of the convention nor for long time before it. [And they court-martialled their last succesful general, Georg Carl von Döbeln. Quick question to Swedes: has there been any Swedish military victory after the Hamburg affair in 1813? In particular, were there any actual combats during the occupation of Norway?] Holien wrote: I don't doubt all of these types of missions but did they get anything useful? Certainly. With good luck you the prisoner you get (if you get one) will give you a detailed description of enemy positions. If nothing else, you can find out what regiment the enemy soldier belongs to and if you suddenly start to get prisoners from different divisions or even army corpses in a small area, it is a good time to start worrying. However, relying too much on prisoner information could lead into a serious trouble. Perhaps the most famous story is about the defence of the Grain Elevator in Stalingrad (at least, I think it was that building) when one captured Soviet led Germans directly to the firing arc of the sole remaining MG. [i don't know if the story is true but it is reported in quite many books on Stalingrad]. A far more serious mistake was made by Germans (according to Clay Blair): when a downed British pilot was asked how could they locate German submarines, he claimed that they homed on emissions of their radar-detection equipment. As a result, Dönitz ordered that they should be turned off. The real cause was that the British had a newer radar that used shorter wavelenghts. [At least Heinz Schäffer, captain of U-977, still believed the radar-detector-detector claim at the time he wrote his memoirs in mid-50s.] A third example happened at Karelian Isthmus on July 1944, when a Finnish lieutenant of JR 7 was captured and interrogated by a Soviet general. He was asked about the defence on the other side of River Vuoksi and he adviced them to attack at the point where the defences were strongest. The Soviets actually attacked there but it is not known whether the advice affected the decision since the point was strongly defended because it actually was the best point to cross the river. I belong to that part of crowd that thinks that prisoner interrogation is out of scope for a CM game. The actual "tongue missions" (as Soviets called capture missions) are clearly out of scope for CM, since they usually involved small well-trained groups who worked individually or in pairs. The infiltration groups were about 6 men strong and there was also ~platoon-strenght fire base that opens fire only if the mission goes terribly wrong. I would be ready to classify Soviets as the masters of snatching prisoners from enemy trenches. Their operations were generally well-planned and they didn't spare any effort to achieve a total surprise, often spending many nights clearing paths through wide minefields. However, they sometimes also sent men to "tongue patrols" as punishment and they didn't do as well as volunteers. One abysmally failed mission resulted in capture of one of the would-be captors, a demoted communications sergeant, who knew (and told) lots of details about the preparations for Soviet offensive at Rajajoki in June 1944. That mistake might have cost a lot of Soviet blood if it hadn't happened so that in a fit of astounding stupidity Finnish commander of the army corps (Taavetti "Grandpa" Laatikainen) dismissed the information as "rubbish". [He also dismissed air recon photos the same way and believed that a single line of defence can stop any Soviet attack]. The in-battle interrogation stuff was so rare that I don't think it is worth modeling. - Tommi

Terence wrote: It should be plain to the meanest intelligence that, if crewed by blind octogenerian uberFinns, one out-of-gas BT-42 perched atop a hill in plain sight of a brigade of elite Soviet armor would slaughter them to a man. Octogenerian? Is that something like a generic squid? That would explain things, though I think I should consult my copy of Webster before using it ... oh, a person 80-90 years old. On 20 June there were actually few firefights between BT-42s, T-34s, and KV-Is (though it is quite possible that they were IS-IIs or Churchills, instead). In one of them a BT-42 hit the enemy tank 18 (IIRC) times with absolutely no effect. Given that ROF of the poor thing was so painstakingly low (2-piece ammo) I've always wondered what the Soviet crew was doing at the time, maybe they were having a picnic behind some hillock or something. I fear that BT-42 is about the least important armored vehicle in Ostfront so its inclusion is not very probable. Also, it isn't one that comes free because its gun was not used in other vehicles or in direct fire duty. In addition to the battle of Viipuri, the only combat use was when they were field-tested in summer 1943 at River Svir where they knocked out several Soviet fortifications with direct fire. The worst thing about the whole BT-42 project was that they would actually have made pretty good mobile artillery and most of the crews came from field artillery so there wouldn't have been any big training difficulties for adopting them into that role. However, some high-level commander believed that having a gun, a turret, and tracks was enough to make a tank. - Tommi

T-37, T-37, T-37! Faster than a lame sloth! Swims better than a hippopotamus! Its armor can stop SMG rounds! (Rifle rounds too, if you are lucky) As heavily armed as a LMG team! I want it, now! - Tommi

One more thing. An artillery battery commander without a dead wish will position his guns at least 200-300 meters away from all notable landmarks, especially from main roads or, God forbid, from intersections of major roads. This has two purposes: 1) Random artillery harrasment is most often fired at landmarks. 2) Directing counter-battery fire is more difficult without clear landmarks. There's an cautionary tale of a Soviet 152 mm howitzer battery whose commander thought that it would be a good idea to deploy guns 50 m away from the intersection of two major roads in an area where there was on average several dozens of kilometers between roads (Kiestinki). Before the battery had had time to fire a single shot (or entrench the guns), it was knocked out (2 guns destroyed, most of men KIA or WIA) by a surprise artillery strike that was fired blindly and randomly at the intersection. - Tommi

There's also one consideration that I didn't notice being mentioned, yet. If possible, artillerymen like to have a nice hill between the firing positions and the enemy so that enemy counterbattery folks can't see the gunflashes. However, it is strongly advisable to choose positions so that the hill doesn't create a huge blind zone. This is more crucial with cannons than with howitzers because of the different trajectories. Michael emrys wrote: Motorization offers several benefits if you can obtain it. Just about the only advantage of horse-drawn artillery that I can think of was that a horses could take light guns (<= 76 mm) through more difficult roadless terrain than gun tractors of the era. However, this is not very important thing since in general you don't want to get your guns in the end of a very difficult supply line. - Tommi

Michael emrys wrote: If a tank could not be immediately recovered, its best bet was to play dead and hope not to attract undue enemy attention, which having a repair crew swarming over it would certainly have done! One practical example of that: On night between 25-26 June 1944, apparently just before a Finnish counter attack to Leitimojärvi really started, one Finnish Stug (Ps.531-25) was positioned inside an edge of a forest. The crew saw an ISU-152 on the field and took it as destroyed. However, then they noticed that a small group of Soviets went to the vehicle and started putting its tracks back on. Few AP and HE shells later the recovery crew was dispersed and ISU in flames. [The vehicle had been immobilized by a track hit by another Stug in the morning before. And we can be pretty certain that it was in this case a real ISU instead of a misidentified SU-76 (that are curiously missing from Finnish reports even though many of them were present) since it had shrug off more than one direct hit before immobilization.] - Tommi

SurlyBen wrote: I wonder how they tell the difference between a photograph and, say, an illustration? Beats me, but then again, I'm not a lawyer. - Tommi

SurlyBen wrote: Photographs, even ones that are scanned or digital, count. True. For works created after 1978, copyright lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years. For works created before 1978 (such as those pictures) things can be a bit more complicated, and stuff might or might not still have copyright attached to it However, photographs are a special case, at least in several legislation. Berne Convention states that (Article 7, paragraph 4 <blockquote>quote:</font><hr> It shall be a matter for legislation in the countries of the Union to determine the term of protection of photographic works and that of works of applied art in so far as they are protected as artistic works; however, this term shall last at least until the end of a period of twenty-five years from the making of such a work. <hr></blockquote> In many countries (quick Googling results a list of Finland, Australia, and Canada) the limit is set to 50 years since making of the picture, so basically all WWII photos are public domain in these countries. - Tommi

Oh dear, my netscape crashed and took my detailed reply with it. The Commissar wrote: Well, tss mentions that some 200 of the things were destroyed in just one bombing raid. Actually, it is more probable that perhaps a dozen or two were completely wrecked and several dozens damaged. However, this damage was enough to stop the planned attack (that had been revealed by radio interception, if I remember correctly) and rebuilding the unit took longer than what was left of the winter. I tried to dig out an Finnish account of the above-mentioned operation but failed. The only accounts that I found were about an attack to small Lindema garrison two months earlier. Also, Dmitri Gusarov's "Partizanskaja Muzika" (supposing I remember the declination of the Russian title correctly) tells only of that same Lindema raid, even though he was most probably present also in the March one, in the ski unit. (He mentions in one single sentence "failed missions in February and March"). Gusarov is the Soviet author about Partisan warfare around Lake Onega - Rukajärvi area. Unfortunately only two of his books have been translated in Finnish and none in English. - Tommi

ciks wrote, quoting an article: The enemy detected the ski reconnaissance group and counterattacked with superior forces, causing Soviet unit to flee. The Germans began a pursuit. That action was actually against Finns, not Germans. And the significance of their casualties is highly debatable [unfortunately the online Finnish KIA database isn't particularly online just now so I can't check]. I've read few Finnish accounts of it, but right now I can't remember any details since it was too long time ago. Note that the aerosled unit was later put out of comission by a Finnish bombing raid on their staging areas while they were preparing for a large-scale (200 aerosled) raid. The main reason why they were practically useless in normal combat (as opposed to surprise raids) is mentioned down near the bottom of the article: Vulnerability to machine-gun, and mortar, and artillery fire, which limited the possibility of combat aerosleds to conduct independent offensive actions. Recently I read the memoirs of one Finnish FO that had the opportunity to examine a captured aerosled. He noticed that it had armor only towards front and the sides were thin wood. Moreover, the frontal armor was so thin that he thought that even a rifle AP round could penetrate it. - Tommi [ 11-06-2001: Message edited by: tss ]</p>

JonS wrote: Unless they decided to ditch the pistol and rely on their compass and map Then again, there's the old saying that nothing is more dangerous than a lieutenant with a map and a compass... - Tommi

Aacooper wrote: Let's chant "hakaa paale SUOMI!" (beat 'em up Finland - I'm sure it's misspelled). "Hakkaa päälle" This can't be translated to English exactly, most common translation is "cut 'em down". A more literal one would be "charge and slash". The first written mention of this warcry was in memoirs of a Scottish mercenary captain (Munro?) who fought in Swedish army during the 30 year war (his spelling was "hacka pelle"). Nowadays the most well-known version is probably from the movie "Unknown Soldier" where it is "hakkaa päälle, pohjan poika" where "pohjan poika" translates to "Son of North". [Note for other Finns: I'm quite certain that there's a pause between "pohjan" and "poika" in the movie so in this context it is correct to write them separately even though "pohjanpoika" is really a compound word]. - Tommi [ 11-02-2001: Message edited by: tss ]</p>

Me too. - Tommi

Richard Morgan: Somewhere, I have Galland's book "The First and the Last" kicking around. I happened to stumble on a copy of that book on sale on a book fair last weekend, though it had quite terrible price (it was the fist Finnish paperback edition). But anyway, now that the thread has drifted a lot I might add to the commotion by listing few pilot memoirs that I've found to be interesting (hopefully I can manage to correcly connect the German and English titles to each other): Adolf Galland: Die Ersten und die Letzten, ("The First and the Last") Max Immelmann: Der Adler von Lille ("The Eagle of Lille", edited by Franz Immelmann who is marked as the author in the English version) Eino-Ilmari Juutilainen: Punalentäjien kiusana ("Double Fighter Knight", literal translation would be "Being a Nuisance for Red Pilots") Heinz Knoke: Die Große Jagd ("I flew for the Führer", literal translation would be "The Great Hunt") Hans-Ulrich Rudel: Mein Leben in Krieg und Frieden ("Stuka pilot") Saburo Sakai: Samurai von Lucke wrote: Von Richtofen was an excellent shot --- on occasion taking down opponents with single bursts. All high scoring aces got in close before firing because those WWI crates weren't exactly stable gun platforms --- waiting until you can see the whites of the other pilots eyes insures you hit the target, and was a common tactic among veteran aces. Also in WWII there were only few aces who could consistently hit long-range deflection shots, Hans-Joachim Marseille being the most famous of them. Few aces specialiced in very close range shooting. For example, Finnish Lauri Nissinen (32 victories) was called "Terrier" for his practice of setting his sights to 50 meters (IIRC) while most pilots had them in 150-200 meter range. And speaking of WWI aces... Last Friday when I was waiting for few documents to be delivered at Finnish Military Archieves I skimmed through Arne Somersalo's Taisteluvuosien varrelta [he was probably the only Finn to fight on the West Front in WWI, or at least the only one to leave a written account. He volunteered, and surprisingly was accepted, in the German army after he was expelled from university] and it contained an eyewittness account of Immelmann's death. According to Somersalo he saw one day a lone Fokker fighting against a British plane when German AA started to fire into the melee. He then saw the Fokker to explode and believed it was hit by the AA. When he arrived at the crash scene he recognized the pilot by his Pour Le Merite. I have no means to establish how reliable Somersalo's report is. - Tommi

Michael emrys wrote: Jeff, how typical should we regard this performance? As pointed out, the Soviets had a lot of time to prepare the Kursk defenses. That is difficult to say. Soviet artillery certainly could respond quickly on its best days but I can't say how common these were. For example, at Särkisyrjä (19 July 1941) Finns reported "quick and accurate" Soviet artillery fire that was "worse than at Taipale" [where the men had fought in Winter War]. This is quite illuminating comparison since at Taipale RKKA had literally hundreds of guns while at Särkisyrjä they had (apparently) only one 76 mm batallion and some heavy mortars. The defence of Särkisyrjä was more or less improvised with 12-24 hours warning time (Finnish attack was a flanking operation through a roadless forest). Another case of quick artillery responses happened in 1944 during battles of Ihantala. Lt. Lars Holmström who served as a FO at Pyöräkangas reports that Soviets located (apparently by radio DF methods) his FO position and started shelling it immediately after his every radioed fire request, with first shells landing 30-35 seconds after radio use. [He believed that Soviets had allocated a battery or two specifically for silencing the FO post]. - Tommi

Iron Chef Sakai wrote: Galands kills were over 200 I suppose that you have some source for that surprising figure. Surprising, because every book that I've read gives 104 as Galland's (note two 'l's) victories. When I posted my original reply this morning, it took me about 20 seconds to Google that figure out from Internet. he flew an ME-110, I suppose that you have some source for also that astounding information. Spick's "Luftwaffe Fighter Aces" mentions that he commanded a He-51 unit in Spain, a Hs-123 unit in Poland. Then he was transferred to a Me-109 unit JG-27 and from there to JG-26, another 109 unit, where he served until he was removed from front duty in late '41 when he had 97 air victories. In 1945 he commanded JV-44 and got 7 more kills in Me-262. the mustangs had a good kill ratio, because they outnumbered the enemy by odds that would blow your mind, Wow, that must then be a really large ratio. the mustang was a grat long range fighter, but it was not a jet. And Me-262 was a great interceptor but it wasn't a dogfighter. if the gemrans had the same amount of ME-262's as the allies had fighters, you mean to tell me the allies would somehow win? If those Me-262s had competent pilots (it was a beast to fly), fuel, and engines that didn't self-destruct after 3-4 hours, then the Allies would have had a really difficult time. And if Germans had had several squadrons of F-16s, they would have had even more difficult time. Both "if"s are about as realistic. how is it funny taking a pilot that got shotdown as an example? Well, you wrote that a Mustang couldn't match a Me-262 in combat and later cited Galland as an example of an outstanding German pilot. I think that in this context it is rather ironic that Galland's Me-262 was shot down by a Mustang. By the way, it didn't even happen during takeoff or landing. all the great aces were shot down at least once. Change that "all" to "most", then I agree. Enemy planes didn't hit Nishizawa's plane even once during his ~6 years in combat. Juutilainen's plane was hit three times but it was AA each time and they were not serious. As far as I know, Adolf Glunz was the only high-scoring German ace that wasn't shot down even once. von richtoven, the red barron was killed in combat, he actualy was wounded earlier and still flew, because of this that somehow makes him not a good pilot? Of course not. i can't remember its been so long since i've read anyhting on WW1, i have to start brushing up on the thechnicalities I would strongly suggest that you checked your facts before posting them. In Galland's case, just typing "adolf galland" to Google (www.google.com) gives you many, many, links. - Tommi

Iron Chef Sakai wrote: the P-51 were not a worthy adversary of the ME-262, i'm afraid nothing was at the time. Does anybody have statistics comparing Mustang kills by ME-262 and ME-262 kills by Mustangs? I would guess that the latter outnumber the former by a sizable factor but I don't have any concrete figures. Of course, the fact that by the time ME-262s got in active service Mustangs could roam almost at will over Germany will skew the figures. heck even Adolf Galand flew a heavier and slower ME-110 and his kills numbered in the hundreds Supposing that you mean Adolf Galland, then no, he didn't get his kills in ME-110. I'm not certain what he flew in Poland, but already in France he had a ME-109. Also, saying that his kills numbered in hundreds is a little misleading since the total figure was 104. However, it is difficult to say what it would have been if he had stayed longer at front. Also, it's quite funny that you took Galland as your example since he was shot down by a Mustang in his last combat flight in ME-262. - Tommi

Thomas Goetz wrote: Soviet aircraft rarely operated much above 10,000 feet of altitude, and focused entirely on what would be called tactical and operational targets, never on strategic. They operated mostly on tactical and operational level, but there were also few strategic missions also, so "never" is a little too strong word here. In 1943 the Soviet strategic air forces (ADD) had eight regiments of bombers, mostly twin-engined SB-2 and DB-3 bombers, and it increased to ~10 air corps by early 1944. Since the planes were almost exclusively twin-engined, they lacked range (and survivability) to conduct long-distance bombing runs into Germany and many of their operations should probably be classified to happen on operational level. However, few clear cases of strategic bombing exists. For example, three night bombings of Helsinki in early 1944 with ~350, ~650, and ~1000 sorties and a total of ~20000 bombs. Only 799 bombs hit the city proper, roughly 4%. Soviet losses were 20-30 bombers (4 by German night-fighters, rest by AA). - Tommi

MikeyD wrote: I can't imagine a gun being damage in real life as often as it does in CM. What do they make those guns out of anyway, cardboard? Well, for example, Finns had 19 Stugs at Kuuterselkä. Of those, 4 (21%) had to retreat because of gun troubles. One got a gun hit, loading mechanism malfunctioned in one, and two lost aiming mechanisms. - Tommi

Jeff Duquette wrote: I see at least one of your references indicating Red Army tanks following along behind a creeping\rolling barrage. Have you come across other examples? Not explicit mentions. (From Soviet sources, that is). The minutes of the 14-17 April 1940 Soviet meeting give strongly an impression that pre-Winter War regulations didn't allow creeping barrages, or at least following them in close contact (one unidentified person said: "Creeping barrages were forbidden from us, they thought it was wrong and dangerous") When war showed that piecemental frontal assaults against a trench line are doomed to fail, Soviet commanders in different sectors started to improvise new techniques. Arkadi Jermakov, commander of the 100th Infantry Division sums Soviet attitude to creeping barrages nicely in his account: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> ... I don't think it is a bad idea that artillery fires when infantry attacks. In future we have to experiment it. It doesn't matter much if someone gets wounded. We have to practice this already during peace time and in manouvres the infantry should advance so close to artillery fire as possible. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> One of the accounts confirm the above-mentioned Kuleshov's account of capture of "The Black Hill", at least on general level. In addition, it mentions that about a dozen direct-fire guns continued to fire on the hill to maintain the impression of an artillery barrage. I tried to fit the description into Finnish accounts, but unfortunately my references on Kollaa are quite limited. However, the best fit was when Soviets captured "Punaisentalonmäki" on 8 March. Other possibilities are "Bombanmäki" or "Korsumäki", but "Punaisentalonmäki" fits the geographic description best. I strongly recommend reading the minutes for everybody who can access them. I don't know if they are translated fully in English, but someday I encourted parts of them online. (Russian military zone?). They give a very valuable insight on pre-Barbarossa RKKA high command. Not to mention that it is a source of great quotes: "I have to add that mortars are cruel weapons so we should have lots of them" - Nikolai A. Kitsh, artillery commander of the 8th Army. "If we can root out the irresponsible attitude towards underwear and linen, we can reduce state expenses by at least a half" - Lev Mehlis, Chief of the RKKA political department. "Where would it lead us if we fired only at targets? It would be stupid, utterly obsolete." - Stalin And this gem: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> Voice: They publish a daily bulletins abroad where they collect military news of foreign countries but we don't circulate it openly. Stalin: Why? Proskurov: Because it defames the Red Army. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> (Ivan Proskurov, chief of the military intelligence department, was arrested several months later and shot in late 1941). - Tommi [ 10-22-2001: Message edited by: tss ]

Here are three more Soviet Winter War quotes. These are from the minutes of Red Army's crisis meeting on 14-17 April 1940. The first extract is from Ivan Pavlovitsh Roslyi's speech. He commanded the 245th Infantry Regiment at Summa: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> Roslyi: ... Later, when the artillery preparations started, our infantry was sheltered but some units were too far from the enemy front line -- we all know well that moving in deep snow wastes a lot of time when we try to close the enemy -- so I gave the commanders an order, and not only an order but used a month to train them to do it, that they should get their men moving even before the barrage stopped since then the enemy was under our artillery fire and couldn't fire back. The infantry advanced until it was 100 meters from the barrage which was against regulations. Stalin: We have to change them. Roslyi: We advanced very close to enemy which was necessary since after the barrage ends the enemy waits only for a few minutes in their trenches. We knew that and decided to use those minutes few minutes to advance before the enemy rises from the trenches. We had practiced it in advance and the infantry advanced very close to enemy and also tanks started their advance on the right moment. The success was guaranteed because we combined succesfully the operations of different branches. So, after fifteen or twenty minutes we had risen a red flag in the "Molotok" woods ["Saapas"] and after five or seven minutes on top of Hill 65.5 ["Poppius"]. When our infantry saw the flags they rose as a single man and charged shouting "uraa". <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Next extract is by Mihail Petrovitsh Kirponos who commanded the 70th Infantry Division: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> Kirponos: ... So when our infantry hugged close the artillery barrage, the enemy didn't have time to leave dugouts and our success was good when our infantry started to advance. However, we have to note that the White-Finns quickly realized our method and stayed in place even when our infantry was 100 meters from them. They took an advantage on the slow speed of our infantry in deep snow and harassed it with automatic weapons. Advancing 100 or 200 meters in a deep snow is not easy.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> And the last one is by Nikolai Vasiljevitsh Muhin who commanded the 473rd Howitzer Regiment: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> Muhin: ... We also have to realize that there was another essential deficiency, namely that we don't always synchronize our operations with infantry movements. The infantry should advance to 100-150 meters away from the enemy but our infantry didn't follow this order but stayed 350 meters away and so wasted time, the men got tired and were inefficient. We removed this detect only much later. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> There are probably more quotes in there. - Tommi

RMC wrote: Hmm. I accept this as a good point, but does it not assume that all such successes would be rewarded with the MOH? Certainly not. As a practical example (though from Finnish army) Vilho Rättö got a Mannerheim's Cross for destroying four Soviet tanks (with an AT gun) in one combat. Few days before that two Finnish AT gun crews had destroyed a full BT-7 company, 12 tanks, in one ambush at Koivikkomäki. No crosses. It would be interesting to compare MOH citation with those of Iron, Knight's, and Victoria's Crosses to see differences. Here's some data on Finnish awards for tank killers. Finnish army awarded a total of 191 Mannerheim's Crosses during the war. Of these, 19 were awarded for tank killers. The citations mention: - AT guns 11 times - Panzershrecks 3 times - Panzerfausts 3 times - demolition charges 3 times - commanding AT units 3 times - ATRs 3 times None of the citations mention any improvised AT weapons, and only three cases mention demolition charges. In one case it is explicitly mentioned that demolition charges couldn't knock out enemy tanks (T-34) out, and in another the tank killer had to use two charges. Another data point is tank destruction badges that awarded to men of Jääkäriprikaati (Jäger Brigade) in 1944. The brigade commander wanted to award it to 34 men (or to be exact, for 34 cases since in few cases there were more than one suggested recipient), but the division commander accepted only 24 cases. The recommendations are distributed (roughly) as follows: - 16 for AT gunners - 8 for Panzerfaustmen - 6 for Panzershreckmen - 1 for using Molotov coctails - 1 for a close attack with hand-grenades (not awarded) - 2 for AT minefields (not awarded) If someone is interested, I can post a more detailed description of the tank-killing Mannerheim's Crosses. - Tommi

I've read from some Finnish sources that during Winter War Soviet infantry did at least few times attack the same time when last shells of a barrage were falling. However, I can't give now a concrete reference since I can't remember what book that was in and a quick skimming through my bookshelf didn't yield results. However, I found three clear references to Winter War creeping barrages in general [but without mention of the distance from Soviet front to the barrage], two from a Russian source (Stepakov's and Orehov's "Paraatimarssi Suomeen", I don't know if the book is published in Russia or not, it wasn't a couple of years ago) and one from a Finnish source ("Taipaleenjoki", by Mäkelä). The Soviet references were based on interviews of Winter War veterans that were made 50 years after the war. The first one is by A.T. Grtetshiskin who was a NCO in 95th Independend Tank Batallion and tells about an advance on 11 March: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> It was our turn to enter battle. All men were called to HQ and we were given the mission to liberate the Karjala suburb [of Vyborg]. It was 8-10 km away. The road there was bordered by swamps on both sides. In the edge of the suburb there were first wire obstacle, then a ditch followed by a mine field. The road went through all these obstacles but out pioneers cleared the way. The batallion started to attack. When we came to the obstacle, each tank fired a red flare as a sign for the artillery to move the barrage onwards. However, they started to fire closer to us, instead. A short while later they adjusted the fire to correct direction. When we passed the obstacle a Finnish gun started to fire from the church. The Finns stopped the first tank and destroyed the second, and continued to fire along the road. The attack stopped. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> The second one is by Lt. A.T. Kuleshov from 230th Independent Artillery Batallion, 164th Division, and tells about an attack at Kollaa on 7 March against "The Black Hill" (possibly "Punaisentalonmäki", "Hill with the Red House", in Finnish terminology): <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> ... On 7 March the division commander Denisov came to front line observation post. There he asked the platoon leader Rozka: "How could we capture that hill?" Rozka then told his idea and the commander approved it. Rozka took three comrades from his platoon and armed his patrol with one Finnish SMG, a LMG with extra ammo, two carbines, and three hand grenades for each men, as well as red and yellow signal flares and a red flag. Two artillery batteries were allocated to support the team. The team took positions in the trenches of the company that was left to the hill. Exactly at 16.00 Rozka fired a yellow flare that was a signal for the artillery to start firing the whole hill from bottom to top so that each yellow flare moved the fire upwards. When the daredevils had managed to advance to the hill under cover of the fire and they had fired a red flare as a signal, the fire was moved to the reverse slope. Then they rose the red flag as a signal to hold fire momentarily. Whenever an artillery preparation started, Finns usually leaved their positions and withdrew to cover and this happened also this time. When the bombardment stopped, Finns came out of their shelters and started to man their positions again. Now the daredevils opened fire. As the Finns noticed that the situation was difficult for them, they withdrew with no further resistance. The following infantry companies then occupied the positions. After that the hill was called "Artillerists' Hill". The next day the infantry units advanced 10-15 km. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> The problem with this story is that Soviets didn't manage to break through at Kollaa during the war, so at least the last sentence is incorrect. Howver, they managed to capture large parts of Finnish front line in the last days of the war so the description of the actual attack may be accurate. The third reference tells how Soviets marked the front line for artillery by repeatedly firing signal flares at the Terenttilä section of Taipaleenjoki in the battles of mid-late February. Also, the artillery preparation order (as relayed by Tiihonen in "Karjalan kannaksen suurtaistelut") for the Soviet offensive that started on 10 June 1944 lists maintaining a creeping barrage as one of the tasks for artillery. The order mentions that the infantry units should mark the front line by firing flares and that the barrage should fall 150-200 meters ahead of the signals. (Additionally, there were FOs with radios advancing with the infantry to call fire on noticed strongpoints). There are Finnish reports from both infantry and air force that those flares were, indeed, used. - Tommi

l3w53r wrote: like having a sharpshooter aim at the driver instead of the commander I've read of exactly one case of this happening, and I'm not certain whether the report was reliable or not. (In any case the tank in question was a T-26 that had an open vision block). having elite infantry dressed in enemy uniform; This would work really well in a game where both commanders have absolute knowledge about their own units. Not to mention that it wasn't exactly a common thing to do. even mortars firing indirectly They can do that if there's a leader spotting for them. the list goes on and on and on Hey, what about officers driving enemy tanks away by throwing Cognac bottles at them? It certainly happened at least once (Wiking division, Fall 1942, IIRC) so it should be included. BTS, do somefink. oh yeah, I'd just wish I could order my infantry to put some mud on 'em tank periscopes,I dont think they have wipers for those. I've read about cases of infantry blinding tanks with smoke grenades. I've read of cases of infantry blinding tanks using Molotov Coctails (and other similar devices). I've even read of cases of infantry blinding tanks by felling small spruces on them. But I've never come across a description of infantry blinding tanks using mud. - Tommi