tss

kb9sog wrote: fatigueeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee........zzzzzz[and lot more z:s] May I ask you not to write so long words. I don't know what they do on other browsers but they definitely mess up mine. Thank you. And as I happened to post on this thread, I could as well tell that I'm 24. - Tommi

DEF BUNGIS wrote: Being that the Sovets recieved most of thier supplies in the early part of the war from the US. Ummm, no. The lend lease didn't have much effect before 1943 and by that time Germans had lost their change to win the war. Schrullenhaft wrote: I'm not sure what the German losses were on this front, but I'm sure it was probably at least twice the total of their losses on all other fronts combined. According to figures that I've seen, full 80% of German KIAs died in East Front. Another figures put East Front tank losses to 70% of the total and Luftwaffe losses to 60%. (Note that Western Allies definitely shot down more fighters than Soviets, but bomber and transport losses were heavier in East. Additionally, there were more accidents in East. A Finnish fighter-ace Lauri Pekuri spend some time at a German training camp and he was told that on average 20% of Bf-109s were lost on transportation flights!) OB&G wrote: IIRC, the total casualties of WWII were ~55 million, and you're right, the Russians suffered ~25 million. So do the math, the Russians suffered almost 50% of the total casualties! BUT that's what you get for using wave tactics with conscript soldiers. The current figure seems to be 27 million dead Soviets. However, out of this number 16 million were civilians and 3 million were POWS that were killed in German capture and actual combat deaths were 8 million. Germany lost 3.2 million soldiers KIA which means 2.56 million KIA in East Front (I'm not sure whether this figure includes the 500000 who died in Soviet captivity). Based on this figure only, it would seem that the German army was 3-4 times more efficient than the Red Army. However, if we add POWs to this figure, the picture changes: Soviet KIA+POW: ~12 million German KIA+POW: ~ 5 million Even this ratio 2.4:1 is not complete, since the Germans didn't fight in East Front alone, but along with Romanians, Hungarians, and Finns: Romanian KIA+POW: ~0.7 million (at least) Hungarian KIA+POW: ~0.5 million (at least) Finnish KIA+POW: ~60000 In the end, the ratio of Soviet losses : Axis losses drops down to about 2:1. Still high, but a _lot_ lower than the 10:1 that some sources (especially some memoirs of German generals) claim. I also have vague feeling that the 0.7 million Romanian losses should be a lot bigger. COMMO CHIEF wrote: A.Speer was the only one of the "hight command" not to recieve the death penalty from the Nuenburg trial. This was due to the fact that possibly Speer did not totaly believe and follow the NAZI way of thinking. I'd say that Speer was spared because he was the only Nazi leader who said "sorry" and claimed that he didn't know anything about anything. - Tommi

Yes, Poles were the first ones to crack enigma. To be more precise, it was cracked by young mathematician Marian Rejewski in early 30's. His job was made possible by a disgruntled German spy who sold the details of Enigma to the French who gave them to the Poles. The early German message policy made cracking relatively easy; Enigma messages had two keys, a session key that was used to encode the message and a master key that was used to encrypt the session key. Until 1938 Germans started all their messages with duplicated session key. So, the cryptanalyst knew that every message he saw begun with something like: ABCABC. To crack Enigma Rejewski manufactured "The Bombe" which was an analog computer that was used to find the master key. In 1938 Germans modified the Enigma by adding more rotors and Rejewski couldn't crack the messages anymore. The Poles couldn't build a new Bombe to crack the new Enigma before the war started but they gave their know-how to the French and later to the British who some time after managed to crack the new Enigma. - Tommi

Ahh. The "Elephant gun", as its users called it. It could punch through all light Soviet tanks in time period '39 - '41. Too bad that it didn't arrive in time for Winter War. look it's a man portable anti-tank gun Usually it had a two men crew who carried it on their shoulders. AFAIK, the last kills that were made with Lahti ATRs were five old T-26s that participated in probe attacks at Rajajoki on 9 June 1944. - Tommi

Zulu1 wrote: As a comparion at Stalingrad in about the same length of time: Germans - 150,000 killed and 90,000 taken prisioner. Russians - 500,000 killed. So Stalingrad was a worse meatgrinder than the Somme. Like others have pointed out, Romanian and Italian casualties are missing from the list. I don't know how large they were, but quite heavy in any case. Additionally, the Soviet casualty figure includes also the retreat from Donbas area. "Soviet Losses ..." gives total number of 478741 Soviet KIA and MIA in time period 17 July 42 -- 2 February 43. I don't know what period the German losses cover.

I'm sure you meant "Austro-". As every Australian schoolchild knows, they didn't start the war, and they would have bloody well won it in a week and a half if the Pommie bastards had let them.. I blame that error on the fact that I've been writing a user manual for ten hours. (And no, it's not the CM manual). Well, at least it was more intelligible to most readers than if I had used 'Itävalta-Unkari' as the country was called in my native tongue. - Tommi

Regarding innocent victims, TSS, how is it that Serbia was "innocent"? Well, as far as I know the Serbian government didn't have anything to do with the assasination of Ferdinand. The conspirators were all ethnic Serbs but not Serbians. Gavrilio Princip who fired the shots was from Bosnia and if I remember correctly the rest were from Montenegro. - Tommi

bazooka10165 wrote: The thesis of the book seemed to be that inept British politicians were primarily responsible for the outbreak of WW I I'd say that the book exaggerates there. The beginning of WW I was a joint effort of leaders of Australo-Hungary, Germany, Russia, Britain, and France, in approximately that order of responsibility. Most emphatically, there were no "innocent victims" among the participants of that war, except possibly Serbia. (1) that in the first day of the Battle of the Somme, the British army lost more men than the US did during its entire involvement in Vietnam I don't know of US losses in Vietnam, but Brits lost some 60000 men on first day of Somme with 20000 dead. (2) over the course of this one battle the British army sufferred more casualties (420,000) than the US sufferred in both World Wars combined. That figure seems quite correct to me. Again, I don't remember details about US losses in world wars. - Tommi

Steve wrote: The Iraquis simply pushed up sand birms with dozers. I have seen one picture taken during Summer '44 where four Finnish T-26 are positioned behind man-made sand walls. The tanks positioned on an abandoned airfield (Suulajärvi, perhaps). - Tommi

Fionn wrote: A spy ring does precious little good if the Germans had had triple their historical production levels in 1939-43 (as they could have done). Far too often German defeat on the Eastern Front is attributed solely to Russian "inexhaustible" supply of men and material. In reality, before the war German heavy industry was about twice as big as Soviet. That means, if Germans had utilized their full industrial capability they could have produced roughly two times more tanks than Soviets did. Similarily for manpower issues. Germany had about 80 million inhabitants, Soviet Union something between 160-190 millions. Not even close to the "tenfold superiority" that many sources claim. Add to this manpower of Hungary (about 10 million), Romania (about 20 million), Finland (3.5 million), and Italy (50 million) the total number of people in Axis side rises to some 160 millions, nearly equal. The Soviets just utilized their resources much better. - Tommi

Quote from designers of European Wars: AB: In EW, artillery has no special enfilade fire mode. An artillery cannon-ball can not cause damage before it reaches the target. After the cannon-ball hits the target, it explodes and causes damage to the target and to all units in certain vicinity to it (a splinter effect). Exploding cannon balls in 16th -- 18th centuries? I think this single comment just about summaries the designers' approach to historical realism. (And yes, I'm aware that the artillery of that period could fire exploding shells but they were pure siege weapons and were of no use in battlefield.) Another gem: SGO: Do formations block line of sight or at least fire of rifles and cannon? AB: No. Only landscape irregularities, walls, and buildings are obstacles for shooting. Based on the interview I'd say that the game is simply a C&C clone with historical unit names. - Tommi

I'd like to nominate 12.3.40 as one of the turning points, not because what happened then but because what didn't happen: Finland signed a peace treaty with Soviet Union and didn't ask help from Western Allies. It's difficult to say what would have happened if Finns had asked for help, but the following course of WWII would have been vastly different in any case. Britain and France were prepared to send some 20000 men to Scandinavia. Even though the nominal reason would have been to help Finland, in practice only a token force of some 5000 men would have reached Finland and the rest would have occupied (neutral) Narvik and Swedish iron mines, to prevent Germans from getting iron. In fact, one of the planners of the mission thought that the unit in Finland should be ordered to stay as far from Russians as possible! If this plan had come to light, Germans would have sent forces to fight of the occupation and the year 1940 would have seen heavy fighting in Norway and Sweden. It is also possible that in spite of all precautions Britain and France would have actually ended with a war against Soviet Union. It's really difficult to say what would have happened in the end in that war. In any case, I'm pretty happy that Finnish government chose the way they did. If the war had been continued, Soviet forces would have occupied Finland in the end. When the peace came the situation was critical at three sectors of the front and there was only one fully trained batallion left in _strategic_ reserves. In case of Soviet occupation I wouldn't have been ever born since in best case my grandfather would have been sent to Siberia as he was a member of Civic Guards. More likely he would have been shot after a secret trial. - Tommi

And whatever you do, do NOT....I repeat DOT NOT...listen to Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbitt". Damn. Guess what record is just now in my CD player? (Well, to tell the truth, currently I'm still at work and right now I'm listening to Bach, but the record in my home CD player is a different matter.) - Tommi

Josh K wrote: It is one thing not to like your government, it is entirely different to welcome foreign domination to the point that you will take arms against your liberator. That depends on definition of "liberation". For example, between 1940-44 Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were: 1) "liberated" from their "fascist dictators" by "the Invincible Red Army" in 1940; 2) "liberated" from "bloodthirsty bolsheviks" by "noble German crusaders" in 1941; and finally 3) "liberated" from "barbaric Nazi invaders" once again by the "heroic Red Army" in 1944. After each of these "liberations" quite a lot of people took arms and started shooting their liberators. (And to make my own position on the Western situation clear: I don't think that Germans could have won enough support to have Frenchmen shooting Western Allies in large degree.) - Tommi

Teutonic hypothesized: 2. Troll Seconded. A clear troll. - Tommi

Combat statistics are a funny thing. Today I had a chance to examine military records of both of my grandfathers. My father's father was wounded when his squadmate fumbled while arming an AT mine and blew up himself and the whole building. Yet, in the record the wounding was described with a phrase: "[something illegilible] 11.3 grenade shrapnels to face and eyes". In effect, he was counted as an artillery victim while the real cause was an accident. - Tommi

Panzerleader wrote about attack to Middle East via Egypt: ... plus Hitler could have used the oil fieds in the Middle East. This would matter only in the long run. In the short run Germans would have two severe problems: 1) Neither Germany nor Italy had enough tankers to transport the Middle Eastern oil over Mediterrean. 2) Germans would have to completely rebuild the drilling equipment after the British blow them up. In addition, they have to reconstruct the pipe line leading from Persia to Syria, because it too would be in small pieces. It took the Japanese two years before they got any oil from Indonesian oil fields after they had captured them. I don't see why Germans would manage better. - Tommi

von Lucke wrote: If Hitler had disregarded Goering's advice (and who wouldn't?) and had pressed the bombing of the RAF airfields, England might have found itself as another province of the Greater Reich (war over in Oct of 40?), and people might put Adolf in the same group as Napoleon. Actually, there was no way how Operation SeaLion could have succeeded unless the Brits decide to surrender. Failing to achieve air superiority was just about the least of German problems. The planning of the operation is a perfect example what happens if different military branches don't cooperate in a complex operation. The Kriegsmarine supposed that the first wave of infantry would capture a port (preferably Dover) intact, but (amazingly) the Heer didn't have any such plans. The Heer supposed that Luftwaffe would perform as flying artillery blasting their way through British defences and the Kriegsmarine supposed that Luftwaffe would be committed to sinking of the Roal Navy. Neither of the branches asked Luftwaffe whether it would be possible to perform both functions. In practice, Luftwaffe's resources wouldn't be enough for all duties allocated to it. There's no way how they could destroy RAF completely as it can withdraw North out of range of German fighters and come back only to stop the invasion. Thus, the Luftwaffe fighters have to provide constant air cover to the infantry troops and Kriegsmarine ships in addition to escorting bomber missions. During BoB Germans had to decrease the number of bombing missions because there wasn't enough escorts so tying up a sizable portion of fighter force to CAP missions will lead to a slaughter of the bombers. Additionally, most of German shipping was composed of river barges that needed some 18 hours to cross the Channel. The British only have to get a single destroyer through German defence screen to sink most of the flotilla. - Tommi

Upon spotting a unit with kill rings, the opposing AI could react in several ways: - Target the units with the kill rings with a higher priority (they've proven to be more dangerous). - Panic more easily ("Ohmygod, it's Wittmann! Run!"). There's the problem that kill rings are not visible over long distance. I'd think that if _any_ tank was close enough that the kill rings would be visible, the enemy would target it with high priority. Also, if the fighting was particularly heavy there would not be time for paintings. On subject of kill markings, I visited Finnish aviation museum two weeks ago. There was the tail fin of the Brewster Buffalo BW-393 on display. That particular Brewster destroyed 41 Soviet planes (all confirmed by Soviet records) and had 38 neat white boxes painted on it (the plane was destroyed by Soviet bombing raid before the last kill markings were painted). Ten pilots scored kills with it, among them Hans Wind (total 75, 2nd in FAF) and Eino Luukkanen (total 56, 3rd in FAF). BTW, I found out that Flight Sergeant Oiva Tuominen (44 total kills) was an ace with three different plane models: Me-109 (13), Fiat G.50 (23), and Gloster Gladiator (6.5) (The 1.5 "missing" victories were with Fokker D.XXI). Were there any pilots in other air forces who managed to do that feat? (A biography of Tuominen (among with a lot of other aces) can be found at http://www.elknet.pl/acestory/tuomin/tuomin.htm - Tommi

Steve wrote: German veterans specifically mention the Hell that was brought about by Western Artillery compared to combat in the East. Now the interesting fact would be to know when these veterans were transferred to West as the Soviet artillery got progressively better during the war. I agree that Western allies had better tactical use of artillery but nobody else could achieve as devastating operational barrages as Soviets. Off my mind I can't tell any occasion in '44 or later where the Soviets failed to break through the front line of defence with their first try (not counting recon probes that were often batallion-strong) after an artillery preparation. Of course, after the massive breakthrough barrage Soviet guns were relatively slow to advance so their artillery support was weaker. - Tommi

Despite the Russian advantages, the Germans were able to inflict heavy losses while suffering little themselves at times (on the order of hundresds of tanks, etc.). Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Here are some examples from 1944 where the German losses were _much_ heavier than Soviet losses: (German data comes from 'Ostrfont 1944' via my unreliable memory, Soviet data from 'Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses') Crimean campaign: - German: 75000 KIA or POW - Soviet: 17754 KIA or POW Operation Bagration - German: 350000 KIA or POW - Soviet: 178507 KIA or POW Rumanian campaign: - German: 275000 KIA or POW - Soviet: 13197 KIA or POW In each of the above campaigns Soviets also had a sizable number of WIAs but most of them would return to fight after some months while German POWs would be out of the fight for rest of the war. In the late-war campaigns Soviet losses during breakthrough battles were very heavy but after they managed to break through their casualty rates fell and German casualties increased. The highly unbalanced figures of the Rumanian campaign can be explained by the fact that the Soviets broke through a Rumanian Army Corps that wasn't interested in offering anything but a token resistance. - Tommi

Germanboy wrote: Yes, but wasn't there an issue about no prisoners being taken out of SS units by the Russians? It's quite persistent legend that Soviets didn't take SS men as prisoners, but they did. Certainly SS men believed that they would be shot and probably many were shot, but in the end the majority of surrenders were accepted. Steve wrote: Soviet captivity was dreaded by anybody fighting for the Axis cause, especially if they were German or ex-Soviet. True. However, the death rates of Axis POWs in Russia are often overestimated by a wide margin. It's a quite common belief that only few prisoners ever returned and the fate of the 6th Army in Stalingrad is used to "prove" this: out of 95000 POWs only 5000 returned. In fact, out of 2.5 million prisoners that Soviets took, about 2 million returned after the war so the death rate was somewhere along 20%. One dead in five is still a terrible death toll, but it's quite light compared with the fate of Soviet prisoners in German hands: out of four million prisoners only one million returned. - Tommi

I don't have exact data about the delay times but I have a few points. First, I think that generally the actual flight times were quite short, on the order of 30 - 60 seconds. When I was in the army we usually had to do a weather report for 40 second flight times and if I remember correctly the distances were around 10 km, which was pretty much the commonest range of artillery missions during WWII. Second, when firing at pre-registered targets the delay times would be very quick. If the artillery crews were alerted and ready they could begin shooting in as short time as half minute or so, so the shells could be exploding in one minute from fire mission. If the gunners had to be alerted from their quarters it would take a couple of minutes before first shot. In Finnish army there was also a special 'TMP' fire order. The 'TMP' comes from 'tuli mahdollisimman pian' ('fire as soon as possible') and it was used only in direst emergencies as it basically meant: "forget the spotting rounds, we need FFE _now_". Of course, 'TMP' missions were a form of Russian roulette. Some time ago I read about one 'TMP' mission that was fired with 1887 vintage heavy siege guns to coordinates taken from a poor Russian map after the forward observer had advanced a couple of hundreds of meters in smoke. Amazingly, the shells landed on just right spot. The battery commander later thought that it was the most incredible fire mission that he fired during the whole war. - Tommi

Not that I think that adding sun effects to CM would be worthwile, but anyway... Steve wrote: When the sun is low enough you can get a similar effect if the unit is on a hill, the other unit is lower, and all are lined up East/West, but we are talking very rare circumstances. There's another possibility. During sunny winter days it's practically impossible to look at the direction of sun because snow reflects too much light. - Tommi

I'd have to disagree with you. The most effective antitank weapons infantry has is infantry. Definitely no. The best antitank weapon that infantry has is a well-concealed AT gun. You are right in that infantry may stop an attacking tank without any special weapons. In practice, that demands very committed men and bad tank tactics. Early in Winter War (i.e. in December 1939) Finnish AT teams immobilized some tanks by prying the tracks of with logs or crowbars. Note that this was possible only because: 1) The Soviet tanks were light and their suspension was not too good (tanks of BT-series often threw tracks by itself). 2) The tactics of Soviet tankers were abysmal. They advanced buttoned up in covered terrain without infantry support so that the AT teams could get near the tanks with small risk. Generally, the AT teams had two members. One would immobilize the tank (with satchell charge, thrown AT mine, or with improvised methods presented above) and the other would finish it with a Molotov coctail. There is a persistant legend that one corporal destroyed one T-26 by jumping on it, knocking on the hatch, and throwing in a hand grenade when a Soviet tanker opened the hatch but I don't know whether this actually happened. There's also one recorded instance when a tank driver was killed with an accurate rifle shot through the vision slit, but this was noted just because it was a unique occurrence. It should be noted that the losses of the Finnish AT teams were around 70% and just about the only infantry assignment that was more dangerous was to be the point SMG man in a counter-attack. Also, the tactics worked only as long as the tanks advanced without infantry support. - Tommi