tss

IPA wrote: So OT (appologies to JeffRaider) here's one more alternative for their use other than signalling. I'd be grateful for feedback from the grogs enforcing or refuting this one. Quote: "The main purpose of a smoke grenade was an anti-tank weapon, and the tactic was to generate dense clouds of white smoke in order to force out the crew of an armoured vehicle" from "Remember Arnhem" by John Fairley Yes, that did happen. One example (that I've already posted here) happened at Portinhoikka 26 June 1944 when men of the heavy tank company of the Finnish Armored Division smoked out the crew of an immobilized ISU-152. However, only crews of immobilized tanks can be forced out since a mobile tank will simply drive away. Also, at least here in Finland close-defence AT men used smoke grenades to momentarily blind mobile tanks so that men with demolition charges and Molotoc coctails could close in. - Tommi

Head Mahone wrote: I find this to be quite realistic. Especially of the WWII era tanks with small (by todays standards) 75/76/105mm guns. There's also an illustrating early-war example. However, it has even smaller gun, a 47 mm one. Near Salla Germans hit and apparently destroyed a T-26 with something, I don't know what. However, the driver had survived and he manned the coaxial MG opening fire against advancing Germans. They then bought forward a Somua to silence the MG. The Somua hit T-26's turret four times, penetrating it each time but causing no damage to the gunner. At that point the defender decided to try to escape but he was killed by infantry fire. - Tommi

Fuerte wrote: I propose a NNTP server just because I could then easily filter out the Peng thread and all other off-topic posts as well. Actually, I've been thinking for some time to patch some open-source browser to include kill- and score-files for the CM board. However, I don't believe that I have time to do it for a long time. - Tommi

Crank_GS wrote: I read where the US Army command estimated it took 5 Shermans to kill a Panther. No, they estimated that when on attack, a 5 to 1 superiority in tanks would be enough to ensure victory. Quite a different thing. - Tommi

Gronk wrote: How long does it take to notice a 77 ton monster 15 meters in front of you? Some time ago I read an article about a sapper company that was positioned at Summa area (IIRC) during the Winter War. In it one sapper told about his experiences as a "bomber", an AT close-defence man (armed with demolition charges and Molotov coctails). He told that during one attack he was lying in his foxhole waiting for one tank to advance to range. He focused on the tank really intesively but then he suddenly became aware that something was wrong. He turned around to see that one Soviet tank had stopped itself right behind his foxhole, less than two meters away. He had no idea when it had driven there. Luckily, the tank hadn't noticed him, either. The tank was too close so that he couldn't throw his demolition charge on it and he didn't have any Molotov coctails at that time. Fearing that someone else would attack it with explosives, he quickly crawled further and after he had crawled some ten meters away, somebody managed to throw an demo charge on the tank and destroy it. - Tommi

Paul Lakowski wrote: Have you read the historical record lately...the number of detailed accounts from both sides of a particular battle are few and far between. And in many cases the accounts are so different the true course of events is practically impossible to find out. A good rule of thumb is that both sides overestimate the enemy numbers and losses in the accounts. However, even that is not universal (at Kuuterselkä Finnish Stug gunners reported _less_ kills than they actually got). One nice example of this is a battle that was fought on an unnamed hill in July 1943 several dozens of kilometers North of Porajärvi village, East Karelia. I have found two Finnish and one Soviet account of the battle. The Finnish accounts are based on war diaries and to some extent interviews of the participants. The first was written between 1948-50 and the second in early 1970's. The Soviet account was almost completely based on interviews and it was written in mid-70's (the author used also the second Finnish source in few places). The situation of the battle was that colonel Grigorejev's Partisan Brigade (in Karelia partisans were mostly special units of the regular army) had been behind Finnish lines for about a month and was running very low on supplies (first starvation deaths had just happened). It had lost its radio connection to Byelomorsk a week earlier and had only just regained it when the radists were on the high hill. Grigorjev didn't want to risk losing the contact again and stayed on the hill few days waiting for air-transported supplies. Too bad to him, Finns had also intercepted the messages and had sent an infantry batallion to destroy the partisans. All sources agree that the battle was fought in night with Finns attacking from three directions and all sources agree that the main body of the unit broke free through the fourth direction but otherwise the descriptions are very different. According to Soviets, their skilled counter attacks threw Finnish attackers into disarray and that bought them enough time to crush a strong encircling ring. I can't remember the casualty figures but they were something like 200 Soviets (KIA + MIA) and several hundreds of Finns. According to the second Finnish source two of the three Finnish companies (coming from North and East) pretty much crushed their opposition while the third one (from South) was delayed by Soviet fighting withdrawal so that they didn't have time to attack the actual hill at all. There were only one Finnish platoon on the West side that had to withdraw pretty quickly when the started their escape. This source put Soviet losses to 300 KIA, while Finnish losses were about a dozen KIA, several dozens WIA, and one MIA. Furthermore, the book claimed that 300 was the exact body count. The first Finnish source is the only to include a diagram of the battle area. According to it Soviets did mount a few quite succesfull counter attacks on the South. The text doesn't have as much details as the other accounts but it takes a middle ground between the two other accounts. IIRC, it didn't have figures for Finnish casualties but it put Soviet losses to 154 KIA. Now, try to find the truth of that battle. Note that the particular Soviet operation had one of the most hare-brained supply plans that I've ever read off. The commanders supposed that the 700-man unit could forage most of their food from forest. While a man or two with a gun and ammo will not starve in Karelia during Summer, 700 definitely will. In the end only ~70 partisans returned to their base, one in ten. - Tommi

pathfinder wrote: tsk, tsk...the insignia on the MadCat is House Davion (the fist with sun background).. tsk, tsk... it's the insignia of the Federated Commonwealth, that is, the combined Davion-Steiner house. The insignia of Davion (Federated Suns) was a sword on top of a sun and the fist was the insignia of Steiner (Lyran Commonwealth). Hey, I used to play the Battletech board game before that silly Clan thing. - Tommi

Like they say, there's nothing as dangerous as an officer candidate with a map and a compass. Well, to think again there is: a colonel who wants to be a general really much. - Tommi

Olle Petersson wrote: 2) For the Western Allies, yes. Soviet arty (also one of the Allies) was more abundant, but less effective per gun. Last winter I came upon one quote by Stalin that pretty much sums the Soviet artillery doctrine (I don't remember the exact words): <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> Some people think that artillery should hit only the targets. That's an outdated thought. The artillery should hit everything. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> This was from the minutes of the Red Army crisis meeting that was held in April 1940 where they wanted to find explanations why Winter War went so badly. The minutes have been published in Finland in the book "Puna-armeija Stalinin tentissä". AFAIK, it is not translated to English and it is a pity since it gives a nice window to early-war Soviet military thinking. (And it has some true gems in it, like the mention by one Comissar that foreign military periodicals can't been circulated since they "defame" the RKKA and other point where one division commander tries to explain why he couldn't capture the Mantsi Island that was defended by 2x120 mm guns and a single platoon of infantry.) One researcher has counted that even though Soviets had about 3 to 1 artillery superiority at Ihantala, Finns achieved 20 times stronger barrages, where strenght is defined as kgs of explosives falling in the target area in a given time. Some of the Finnish barrages of 5 July (or was it 7 July, my sources are home) lasted only for 15 seconds, but in that time approximately 360 shells (~120 heavy (120-150mm), rest 75 mm) would land in the target area (some areas were 100x100 meters and the biggest were 300x200 meters). Assuming an uniform distribution of hits, the shell hits in the smallest targets would be ~6 meters apart, and in the largest ~15 meters apart. The moral: make sure that your radio code is not broken before you issue orders for major attacks using it. - Tommi

Am I the only one who started to wonder about floating point tanks after reading the title? - Tommi

Maj. Bosco wrote: I remember the first game. I wasted hours on that thing. Anyone else remember the first time they saw those guys with chainguns for hands? Me too, but I don't think there were any chainguns but there were boxes with sauerkraut and schnapps. And SS-men with bulletproof vests shouting "Achtung". - A person who's still bitter that the 3D-thing was not a real Wolfenstein.

Aacooper wrote: Anyway, simulating that in CM, and I haven't tried, would require nine 105mm FO's, and three 155mm FO's. On 21 June 1944 Soviets wanted to cross the Kivisalmi Straits NW of Viipuri. Had they succeeded in it, they probably could have broken through the Finnish VKT-line. The defenders were in big trouble because they had lost contact with artillery since phone lines were cut and radios malfunctioned because of sand. About a kilometer behind the line one Finnish major started to be worried because of noices of the battle, and called to the artillery commander of the section and said "By my orders and with my responsibility, fire, fire, fire". The artillery commander understood the situation and allocated the fire of all Finnish guns to the island where Soviet troops were deploying. A total of a little over 100 guns (118, I think, I'm not certain). In CM terms that would have been the fire of ~30 FOs, (about 50% 75 mm, 25% 120 mm, and 25% 150 mm). The Soviets didn't try to attack over the straits again. - Tommi

Note that "Foobar" is not necessarily the same thing as "Fubar". Computer people use it as a convenient name to designate various things. Here's few quotes from Hacker's Lexicon: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> foobar n. Another widely used metasyntactic variable; see foo for etymology. Probably originally propagated through DECsystem manuals by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in 1960s and early 1970s; confirmed sightings there go back to 1972. Hackers do not generally use this to mean FUBAR in either the slang or jargon sense. See also Fred Foobar. In RFC1639, "FOOBAR" was made an abbreviation for "FTP Operation Over Big Address Records", but this was an obvious backronym. It has been plausibly suggested that "foobar" spread among early computer engineers partly because of FUBAR and partly and partly because "foo bar" parses in electronics techspeak as an inverted foo signal; if a digital signal is coded so that a positive voltage or high current condition represents a "1", then a horizontal bar is commonly placed over the signal label. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> And here's the corresponding entry for "foo": <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> foo /foo/ 1. interj. Term of disgust. 2. [very common] Used very generally as a sample name for absolutely anything, esp. programs and files (esp. scratch files). 3. First on the standard list of metasyntactic variables used in syntax examples. See also bar, baz, qux, quux, corge, grault, garply, waldo, fred, plugh, xyzzy, thud. When `foo' is used in connection with `bar' it has generally traced to the WWII-era Army slang acronym FUBAR (`****ed Up Beyond All Repair'), later modified to foobar. Early versions of the Jargon File interpreted this change as a post-war bowdlerization, but it it now seems more likely that FUBAR was itself a derivative of `foo' perhaps influenced by German `furchtbar' (terrible) - `foobar' may actually have been the original form. For, it seems, the word `foo' itself had an immediate prewar history in comic strips and cartoons. The earliest documented uses were in the "Smokey Stover" comic strip popular in the 1930s, which frequently included the word "foo". Bill Holman, the author of the strip, filled it with odd jokes and personal contrivances, including other nonsense phrases such as "Notary Sojac" and "1506 nix nix". According to the Warner Brothers Cartoon Companion Holman claimed to have found the word "foo" on the bottom of a Chinese figurine. This is plausible; Chinese statuettes often have apotropaic inscriptions, and this may have been the Chinese word `fu' (sometimes transliterated `foo'), which can mean "happiness" when spoken with the proper tone (the lion-dog guardians flanking the steps of many Chinese restaurants are properly called "fu dogs"). English speakers' reception of Holman's `foo' nonsense word was undoubtedly influenced by Yiddish `feh' and English `fooey' and `fool'. Holman's strip featured a firetruck called the Foomobile that rode on two wheels. The comic strip was tremendously popular in the late 1930s, and legend has it that a manufacturer in Indiana even produced an operable version of Holman's Foomobile. According to the Encyclopedia of American Comics, `Foo' fever swept the U.S., finding its way into popular songs and generating over 500 `Foo Clubs.' The fad left `foo' references embedded in popular culture (including a couple of appearances in Warner Brothers cartoons of 1938-39) but with their origins rapidly forgotten. One place they are known to have remained live is in the U.S. military during the WWII years. In 1944-45, the term `foo fighters' was in use by radar operators for the kind of mysterious or spurious trace that would later be called a UFO (the older term resurfaced in popular American usage in 1995 via the name of one of the better grunge-rock bands). Informants connected the term to the Smokey Stover strip. The U.S. and British militaries frequently swapped slang terms during the war (see kluge and kludge for another important example) Period sources reported that `FOO' became a semi-legendary subject of WWII British-army graffiti more or less equivalent to the American Kilroy. Where British troops went, the graffito "FOO was here" or something similar showed up. Severals lang dictionariesaver that FOO probably came from Forward Observation Officer, but this (like the contemporaneous "FUBAR") was probably a backronym . Forty years later, Paul Dickson's excellent book "Words" (Dell, 1982, ISBN 0-440-52260-7) traced "Foo" to an unspecified British naval magazine in 1946, quoting as follows: "Mr. Foo is a mysterious Second World War product, gifted with bitter omniscience and sarcasm." Earlier versions of this entry suggested the possibility that hacker usage actually sprang from "FOO, Lampoons and Parody", the title of a comic book first issued in September 1958, a joint project of Charles and Robert Crumb. Though Robert Crumb (then in his mid-teens) later became one of the most important and influential artists in underground comics, this venture was hardly a success; indeed, the brothers later burned most of the existing copies in disgust. The title FOO was featured in large letters on the front cover. However, very few copies of this comic actually circulated, and students of Crumb's `oeuvre' have established that this title was a reference to the earlier Smokey Stover comics. The Crumbs may also have been influenced by a short-lived Canadian parody magazine named `Foo' published in 1951-52. An old-time member reports that in the 1959 "Dictionary of the TMRC Language", compiled at TMRC, there was an entry that went something like this: FOO: The first syllable of the sacred chant phrase "FOO MANE PADME HUM." Our first obligation is to keep the foo counters turning. (For more about the legendary foo counters, see TMRC.) This definition used Bill Holman's nonsense word, only then two decades old and demonstrably still live in popular culture and slang, to a ha ha only serious analogy with esoteric Tibetan Buddhism. Today's hackers would find it difficult to resist elaborating a joke like that, and it is not likely 1959's were any less susceptible. Almost the entire staff of what later became the MIT AI Lab was involved with TMRC, and the word spread from there. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> - Tommi

Wolf^ wrote: You guys have no idea how many sad Finnish people couldn't get their copies of CM, because they would had to buy from the internet. I went to my bank, bought an international money order (valuuttashekki), and sent it by mail. Sure, it added 110 mk to the cost of the game but this far I have burned more money in telephone bills because of CM. (I would have used my credit card if I hadn't had two trips abroad that maxed the card.) - Tommi

Big Time Software wrote: On the Eastern Front I would say that, in general, the Soviet senior level commanders were very good. ... after the "Civil War cavalry clique" was thrown out, that is. Voroshilov, Mehlis, Kulik, and Timoshenko would all have been better candidates for receiving the German Grand Cross than Göring was, in my opinion. Instead, the significant factors that differntiate one unit from another, in terms of qualty, need to be identified. I think that having a simple two-axis unit quality rating would go quite far in allowing modeling of special cases. The axis would be experience, as it is now, and some sort of general morale rating. The latter would range from fanaticism to heightened desire for self-preservation. So, to simulate Germans in forest, you could make them regular with less than average moral so that they would break easier than usually. The desperate defence of Finnish JR 61 at Kirvesmäki would have green troops with very high morale. Conversely, the Soviet breakthrough at JR 1's front 10.6.1944 would be against veteran troops with poor morale (though, to tell the truth, the Soviets would have came through in any case, but probably the main reason why the main attack was against JR 1 was that the previous day's recon attacks had shown that JR 58 (that had better morale) was a tougher nut to crack. I think that even a modern tank regiment would have difficult time stopping that attack). The morale axis would be defined by the scenario designer - Tommi

Geier wrote: check out "Förflutenhetens landskap" I guess I will. Though the nearest library that has it is so far away that I will probably forget it before I have time to go and get it. And after that it'll probably take quite a lot time to read it, since my Swedish is a bit rusty. I´can recheck this but "the assassination with a button" is pure and unadulterated myth. This doesn't stop Varbergs museum from sporting the button still. There's another interesting legend of being shot with a button. General Göran Magnus Sprengtporten got into row with Swedish king Gustav III and went into service of the Russian tsaress (or how do you call a female tsar?) Katherine II. At the time Finland was a part of Sweden but Sprengtporten wished to change that. He was probably the first person who started working for independent Finland. However, his method was not so good as he thought that a good first step would be a status of a protectorate under Russian Empire. But anyway, when Gustav started his war against Russia in 1788, Sprengtporten acted as an advisor on military matters. He participated only in one battle, the battle of Porrassalmi on June 13 1789, where he was wounded on left shoulder. According to a legend, he was hit by a button shot by one Savo Jäger who had run out of normal ammo. The irony of the situation is that Sprengtporten had commanded the unit before his row with the king and he had developed the new skirmish tactics that made the unit very effective in forest battles. BTW, the battle of Porrassalmi resulted in a very surprising victory for the Swedish side (though there were only Finnish units in the battle as Swedish kings had a longstanding tradition of not sending Swedish units to fight in Finland. Most of the officers were Swedes, though). The defenders had only 612 men and two small guns. The attackers had two oridinary infantry regiments, one Guards regiment, 600 jägers, 600 regular cavalry, and 600 cossacks, a total of 6900 men (though some sources put the number of Russians to a little over 5000 but that figure apparently leaves out the jägers and cossacks). They also had ~20 cannons. Even though Russians had 10:1 superiority, they were thrown back with heavy casualties. The terrain favored the defender because Russians had to cross a river and the fordable part was less than 100 meters wide so they couldn't use their numbers effectively. Am halfway through the follow-up to "Ofredsår", "Den oövervinnerlige" (The invincible) and what a piece of work it is. I think that I wait until it gets translated. - Tommi

Juardis wrote, The way I see it though, ambush points abstract HQ coordination for the ambush among all participating squads. It is correct then that when HQ move the ambush points disappear. There is no HQ there to coordinate ethe attack! Well, it could be interpreted as having the HQ walk along the platoon's positions and saying to one squad: "You guys hold your fire until the enemy is at that tree. Understood?" before continuing to the second squad's position. - Tommi

OGSF wrote: I hammered away at one with 10 88mm Tigers from under 500 yds and it (stone land bridge) did not go down And that should be the correct behavior. Bridges are not easy to destroy, especially stone and iron bridges. Well, maybe 10 Tigers could be enough, but definitely one or two will not get it down. And now for the the obligatory obscure reference: Finnish pioneers tried to destroy a rail bridge at Kiviniemi in early December 1939. It succeded only partially as enough bridge was left standing to allow infantry cross it. Artillery was allocated to finish the job. The artillery batallion in the area had either 120 mm or 150 mm guns, I can't remember for certain and my copy of the memoirs of the batallion commander is at home right now. They tried for long to destroy rest of the bridge, but with no success. Most of the rounds missed and those that hit didn't have any effect. I seem to remember that they even brought one gun for direct fire, again with no effect. - Tommi

wwb_99 wrote: Given a stable front, it was reasonable to presume that land-line communications were not being tapped No, it wasn't. There are _many_ examples of units listening to each other's phone lines, especially when the front has been stable for some time. Two examples, both from River Svir front (I can't remember the actual units in question right now, possibly JR 8): One Finnish patrol stumbled on a Soviet phone line that was suspended with using Y-shaped rods. They marked the location on map and returned to own lines. There they spoke to few signals guys who made a Y-shaped rod of their own, boring a hole through it. They then sneaked to the phone line, replaced one of the rods by their own, and drove a tap through the rod. They the dug first 20 or so meters of their own wire in ground and took the wire home. The tap survived at least two Soviet searches and was finally compromised when Finns directed artillery fire by it once too often. In the other case one Finnish patrol noticed that Soviets had put a wire tap on a barbed wire fence. They were very stumped on the find but told about it to some signals men. They then went to look it and connected their own tap to the barbed wire. To their surprise, they heard a Finnish phone conversation from it. They started to look for the cause and noticed that the phone line that run about 10 meters behind the wire was not insulated and the conversation was induced to the barbed wire. - Tommi [This message has been edited by tss (edited 11-27-2000).]

Stefan Fredriksson wrote: Must admit I haven't heard that version before, so I can't comment on it. Here's what Peter Englund wrote about the event in his book Ofredsår (note to all Swedes: if you haven't read the book, go and do it. You will not be excused of not reading it. The same goes to all Finns, it is translated as "Suuren sodan vuodet"): <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> When the king was trying to help Swedish infantry that was having troubles on the other side of the road he took the command of the Småland Cavalry, whose commander Fredrik Stenbock had been wounded by a musket shot, and led it to attack. The regiment soon met Götz Cuirassiers who had been covered by the fog and friends and enemies mixed quickly. Now everything happened fast. A shot that came from back side hit king's left arm. The shot broke his forearm; a broken bone shone through the sleeve of his yellow leather coat (he couldn't wear armor because of old wounds). Because he lost the use of his left arm he had to drop his sword and take Streiff's reins on his right hand. The king tried to get away from the battle and he and his retinue separated from Småland Cavalry but they get lost and rode directly to Emperor's Cuirassiers. A melee begun. Another shot. An officer of the Emperor's army, Moritz von Falkenberg, shot his pistol from the range of several meters to Gustaf Adolf. The shot hit king's back right under the right shoulder and penetrated to the lung where it cased severe bleeding. A few seconds after that Falkenberg fell from his horse after one king's men had stabbed him with a sword. One of king's men, Franz Albrecht von Sachsen-Lauenburg tried to keep Gustaf Adolf mounted. Yet another shot. A pistol was placed directly to head of Sachsen-Lauenburg. He managed to push the gun away but he had to release his grip from the king. A muzzle flash burned Sachsen-Lauenburg's face and he escaped. The king fell from the saddle of his startled horse but his left leg got stuck on the stirrup and for a short while his horse dragged him on the ground until his leg got free. He was still alive. Three Emperor's cavalrymen arrived the scene and dismounted. One of them stabbed his rapier to king's chest. Another skewered his left arm. The cavalrymen mounted again and disappeared. A short while later Ottavio Piccolomini arrived the scene. He had heard a rumor of death of the Swedish king. But Gustav Adolf was still alive. Piccolomini looked at the bloody figure that was still breathing. A couple of cavalrymen were robbing the king. One of them gave Piccolomini the king's leather jacket and one of Götz's men took King's ring, necklace, and watch. Then they stabbed him a few times. Fifth shot, the last. Someone put his pistol on king's right forehead and shot. Gustav Adolf was dead. One of the approximately 7000 dead of the day. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> The case that was put forward in the article was that the first shot to hit Gustav's arm was accidentally fired by a member of his retinue. The officer in question was named, but I can't remember who it supposedly was as it has been many years since I read it. I can't remember whether the article was written before or after Ofredsår was published but I think it is more recent. - Tommi

Stefan Fredriksson wrote: Gustav Adolf was killed at Lüzten, 1632. He was surrounded by enemy cavalry, shot and hacked to pieces. Definately not a fractricide. I have vague recollections on reading an article that stated that the first shot that hit Gustav Adolf was possibly fired by one of his officers. By mistake, apparently. However, I can't remember any details of the article and it was in some source that I don't consider particularly reliable. - Tommi

My standard advice on rocket weapons is: Write 100 times to the blackboard: "Rockets are not surgical weapons". - Tommi

nijis wrote: I guess one shouldn't expect non-Hollywood war movies to be any more dead-on accurate than the Hollywood stuff Yes, the director wanted to add some special effects and a love plot to the original events. However, I think that there's one big difference in "Ambush" compared with Hollywood movies: if "Ambush" wasa Hollywood movie, Kari Heiskanen's character Jussi Lukkari would have been killed in the final combat scene. There's no way a guy that evil could have survived a Hollywood movie. - Tommi

Captitalistdoginchina wrote: surely the tank can only see through a narrow arc in front? The tank commander has a vision cupola that allows him to look to every directions. However, the view from inside the cupola is worse than non-buttoned view. - Tommi

Chupacabra wrote: 2) I will admit several differences between armies of different nations. For me the big ones are: <UL TYPE=SQUARE> <LI> Doctrine <LI> Training <LI> Equipment It came to me that the training could be extended to include the background of soldiers. This is not much a nationality issue but there are some correlations. In particular, I'm thinking of the large forests of the Northern part of the Front. In Winter War Soviets sent the 44th Infantry Division to attack at Suomussalmi. The men of the division were relatively well-trained, for Red Army at the time. However, the men were from Ukrainian plains and the large forests were a Terra Incognita for them. They had no experience of finding their way in a forest and the maps were poor and scarce and worst of all, there were only few skis and fewer men who were used to them. The result was that the men of the division rarely wandered further than 100-200 meters from the road and the division got encircled and destroyed. The commander of the division and few other high-ranking officers were court-martialled and shot. Interestingly, the charge was "losing 39 field kitchens to the enemy" (I'm not certain about the exact figure). Similarily, in 1941 a large portion of Germans that were stationed in Northern Finland were city boys from Berlin. They had absolutely no idea how one should live in forests. They didn't know how to make fire in poor weather and they too didn't know how to find one's way in forest. The result was that there were lots of cold and miserable Germans when the Autumn rains came. But again, these are things that are very hard to quantify since there were also Germans who knew how to live in a forest. - Tommi