tss

Tommi, that vehicle sounds like a Wespe, Hummel, Priest, Sexton, or other related SP guns All those vehicles were designed to be SP guns. The BT-42 was more of an ugly duckling. It was supposed to be an assault gun and officially it was classified as such. However, it looked like a tank and probably would have been classified as an infantry tank in most armies. Except that most armies would have classified the whole idea as braindead and hadn't built it at all. Adding a WWI vintage low-velocity gun to a tank originally designed in 1933 was not too bright idea in 1942. I just found a picture of it online, from http://personal.inet.fi/cool/poro/tankit/tank009.html . The base url of the site is http://personal.inet.fi/cool/poro/mil.html . But when you see these vehicles in CM it is because they are included for DF roles. If not, they shouldn't even be on map, instead using FOs to simulate their fire. Yup. I just wanted to point out that there were at least one vehicle that most onlookers would categorize as a tank and that could comfortably fire indirectly. - Tommi

All kidding aside, I was just trying to point out that ALL indirect fire at greater than mortar range is NOT a gift from God, as JonS put it. What, are you questioning the divinity of the artillerists? Heathen. During WWII there was at least one tank that would have been capable of IF even in CM scale, namely BT-42. Although it was officially classified as an assault gun, it had a tank-like turret mounting a 114 mm howitzer on a BT-7 chassis. Of course, the only way to classify its gun as a "high-velocity gun" would be by using 18th century standards. The BT-42 crews had IF training and the fact that they were never actually used in that role (execpt during field tests) tells more about stupidity of the commanding officers than actual capabilities of the vehicle. Sending them into tank-to-tank battle against T-34s and JS-IIs was a brilliant example of commanders that were totally detached from realities of the battlefield. - Tommi

10) Last I heard was no motorcycle or bicycle units, right? I think that it would be pretty difficult to model bicycle units realistically using the CM engine. The bicycle units fought from foot and the only occasion when they'd be on bikes would be a meeting-encounter type of scenario. The problem is that the distances between men are much larger when riding bicycle than when walking. Here in Finland the common practice was 50 meters between the point man and the second man and 30-50 meters between the rest of men. With a 8+1 men squad that is well over 250 meters, way too dispersed for CM. BTW, in covered terrain the bicycle units are surprisingly resistant to ambushes. If the spacing is correct, the first fire gets at most one man. Then, all the rest men turn their bikes and ride a couple of dozen meters into forest before jumping off. - Tommi

According to what I've read Germans lost a quite small amount of tanks directly to aircraft attacks. I don't remember the actual figures but it was somewhere along 3-4 percent of losses. (Most often (over 60%) tanks were abandoned by their crews and most of the rest were destroyed by direct fire). However, Jabos were much more important than the kill figures would indicate, since a large part of the abandonments happened because the tanks had run out of fuel after the supply vehicles had been destroyed by fighters. Additionally, inexperienced crews were prone to bail out of their tanks and run when Jabos attacked. - Tommi

Were whistles commonly used? (Seems like there'd be some serious drawbacks.) Did other countries also use them? I've read a story told by a man who participated in many Finnish long-distance patrols behind enemy lines. At the time there were about 100000 Germans in North Finland including the SS Division Nord (which, BTW, had a very poor reputation among Finns after they had witnessed some insane human-wave attacks against dug-in Soviets holding high ground. Nord was probably the first German unit whose advance was stopped by the Red Army). The Germans were not very keen in sending long-distance patrols but during Summer 1942 the SS Division organized a couple of patrols behind Soviet lines. The man who told the story could speak German so he was ordered to participate in one of the patrols as an advisor. The patrol leader was a Feldwebel (or whatever the corresponding SS rank was, I don't have the table at hand right now) who had served a long time as a basic-training instructor and he wanted to do everything by the book. The only problem was that the book didn't say anything about patrolling in a huge forest behind enemy lines. As the Finn was only a corporal the Feldwebel didn't think that he could possibly know anything useful. After the war the corporal said that for him the most horrifying moment of the whole war was when the Feldwebel started commanding his troops using whistle signals. Twenty kilometers behind Soviet lines. The Finn had to use all his efforts to persuade the Feldwebel to stop that practice. After the patrol he woved that he would never patrol with Germans again. - Tommi

I'd like to warn you that translating a large text (like a manual) is probably much more work than you think it is. I once spoke with a girl who was studying to be a professional translator. Her estimate was that a professional translator can produce 3-4 pages of text a day. I don't know how large the manual will be, but even if the manual is only 50 pages it will take over 2 weeks if done full-time. The above figure assumes that the job is done well and by lowering the quality the process can be made shorter. However, in my opinion that is a very poor tradeoff. I personally stopped buying translated computer books after the publishers started to employ computer science students as translators. The translators probably know both the subject and the language reasonably well, but the results are still horrible with awkward sentences and numerous small (and in some cases large) errors. In any case, I'm not claiming that you couldn't produce a good translation that CM deserves, only that it probably takes a lot more work than you think. - Tommi

I can't believe you called him a något, though. Fighting words. [smiley removed for an ethical reason] Oh, the "något" was not too bad but I had to dive to my Swedish dictionary to find an explanation for "en förolämpning". For the benefit of other non-Swedish speakers here, the last line of Kettle's post reads: "This is not an insult. In any language". (Or at least that is how I understood it, Swedish was never my best subject in school) - Tommi

On another thead there was some discussion on MG firing positions. Yesterday I went through a book ("Viisi sodan vuotta", the first edition, I don't know whether current editions have exactly same pictures) that has several thousands of pictures that were taken by Finnish military photographers during WWII looking for photos of MGs in action. I found 13 photos where a MG gunner was behind his weapon, either firing it in combat or in guard against Soviet attacks. The firing positions were divided as follows: - 3 where the gunner was clearly lying prone behind his weapon - 2 where the gunners stood in a trench - 1 where the gunner was kneeling in a shallow ditch with the gun on the edge. - 1 where the MG was firing from a window with gunner kneeling behind it. - 1 where the gunner kneeled in a trench - 2 where the gunners were firing standing from an armored train - 1 AA-MG firing upwards from a kneeling position - 2 where the firing position could not be determined, but which to my eye looked more like kneeling than lying prone (one picture was taken directly behind and showed only gunner's shoulders and head. In this picture the gunners assistants were prone. The other MG was put among packed ice and only the gunner's head was shown. His assistant clearly sit). The Finnish MGs were mostly Maxims with tripod mounts. I don't know if any of the pictures was staged, but based on this selection it seems that it is not at all unrealistic to portray MG gunners in a sitting position. - Tommi

Just looked up the scene...I'm pretty sure they're BT-7s which was Russia's Light Tank during this time. I used to play Talonsoft's East Front II, and I'm pretty sure that's what they are. I know they're not T-28s. I haven't seen Stalingrad in ages but I seem to remember that the tanks in background were not WWII tanks. Also, I don't know if there are any BT tanks still in running condition, and I'd be quite surprised that they had enough of them. However, the T-34's look like a model that came out after the Stalingrad campaign. Yes, the T-34s are definitely T-34/85s that came only later. - Tommi

On similar subject... In 'Stalingrad' there is a scene where the Germans stop T-34s with magnetic mines. When the Soviet tanks attack there are only a couple of T-34s but in background there are a couple of other tanks that I didn't recognize. Does someone know what tanks they used there? - Tommi

I can't understand why I'm replying to this thread... But anyway, Major Tom wrote: The main problem about Communism, is, that you cannot have democracy in a communist system. All of the political parties have to be communist, or else the system won't work. Actually, I would phrase that as: The main problem about Communism is that _everyone_ has to be a Communist or the system won't work. (The recent history of East Block countries seem to prove this). This is the reason why I don't think that there will ever be a working Communist society with more than 30 people. - Tommi

I think that by far the worst military blunder of the war was Stalin's insistence of assigning his old Civil War buddies (Voroshilov, Budjenney, Kulik, Mehklis, Timoshenko, Spashnikov (though I may be confusing him to someone else), and a couple of others that I don't remember now) to the command of Red Army. Of this clique only Spasnikov was a good commander, Timoshenko was adequate, and the rest were terrible. In early thirties Voroshilov fought long and hard against incorporating tanks to Red Army. As late as January 41 Kulik wanted to remove trucks from supply organizations, preferring 18000 men infantry divisions with horse-drawn transports. As a director of artillery, he also stopped the production of 76 mm guns and his main criteria was for gun specifications was that the guns should be "beautiful". Mehklis's incompetence in military affairs was only exceeded by his hatred of army commanders and he was the master-mind who organized the purges. He was also the strongest advocate of the "territorional integrity" strategy that was implemented by stationing all forces (and supply dumps) near frontiers. He was finally relieved of command after wasting 100000 men in Crimea and trying to blame others for it. Usually, the what-if situations concentrate on finding war-winning plans for the Axis side. I think that if someone with any military sense had been organizing Soviet defence, the war would have ended by Autumn 1942 with Soviet tanks rolling to Berlin. - Tommi

Cue in the neverending engineer thread... Seriously, try searching for "engineer" and unless the recent crash ate the threads you should find at least three different threads that speak about engineers. As a short answer: clearing mines under fire would usually take more time than an entire CM scenario. - Tommi

I recently read a study that in part focused on the FOW problem. In particular, the author compared the situation reports of various HQ levels with each other and with unit diaries. His time period was the few final weeks of Winter War when the Finns withdrew from the main battle line to the rear line. To (over-)generalize his findings: - a company commander nearly always knew where the front line was and how the battle was going. (Not to the extent of the situations of individual squads but the general situation). - a batallion commander would usually know the situation relatively well, unless something really dramatic happened. (Like a major Soviet breakthrough) - a regiment commander would have the general idea of what was happening - during heavy fighting the division commander would not have a clue about the current situation in the front. He would have only incomplete reports that were in the best case three or four hours old. - the corps commanders could as well have been in another planet. When analyzing these factors you have to remember that it was a period with very heavy fighting and that Finns had a _severe_ lack of radios. The author found cases where regimental or batallion HQs "beautified" their reports and one case where a division commander either actually lied to the corps commander or he was criminally neglecting his duties. - Tommi

Of course, a British declaration of war on the Soviets while at war with Germany would have been a suicidal decision. That would not have helped the Poles at all. Still, UK and France were ready to declare the war against Soviet Union in early 1940 in support of Finland. However, the cynic in me thinks that their main contribution to Winter War would have been securing Petshenka nickel mines and Swedish iron ore. The 13th March 1940 is one of the less known turning points of WWII, not because of what happened then but because of what didn't happen. The Finnish government chose to accept peace with heavy terms instead of escalating the war. Both British and French governments had given an unofficial promise that they would send troops to help Finland as soon as Finns officially asked help. If this had happened, the Western Allies would have ended in a war against both Germany and SU. - Tommi

I heard on history channel that hitler was in love with jewish women who refused to merry him because he was not jewish. Is that true? Do you think that could have caused his insane hate of anything jewish? I'd rank that theory somewhere along the one that states Ludwig Wittgenstein as the direct cause of Hitler's antisemitism. It is possible that the unfortunate love affair may have affected Hitler's opinions somewhat but I don't believe that it is the direct cause. - Tommi

There's one thing that has been puzzling me for a some time now. I have noticed that the soldiers' jargons in German and Finnish armies had a couple of common idioms and I wonder if American or British jargons had similar ones. I have two examples in mind. First, both Finns and Germans equated the military policemen to dogs. The German term was "kettenhunde" ("chain dog") and Finnish term was "sotakoira" ("war dog"). Second, soldiers of both armies had a similar farewell greeting. The German expression was "hals und beinbruche" ("break your neck and leg") while Finns used "nahkurin orsilla tavataan" ("we'll meet in a tanner's storeroom"). The canonical answer to the Finnish greeting was"minut löytää sitten boksinahkojen puolelta" ("You'll find me in the pile of first class hides"). Was there similar black humor in Allied jargon? - Tommi

please don't tell me that all 30,000 plus posts have been lost. It will just be too painful to think of all that great info. as being lost. Of course I don't know anything about this BBS software, but if the programmers encoded the message identifiers using signed 16-bit integers, then the wraparound point is at 32767 messages... - Tommi

I'm quite certain that I should not be posting on this thread, but nevertheless... 1)What if the coup in Yugoslavia hadn't taken place?(this would have given the germans 3+ extra months for Barbarossa) Well, if the Germans really wanted to attack on 22 March 1941 the campaign would have been a really short one as thaw and mud would have stopped their advance immedietely. As a result, the Russian army survives more or less intact and the will Germans have a hell of a time in late Summer. On real world the Jugoslavian campaign delayed the attack only a couple of weeks, at most. There were two other important factors at work: 1. The Spring 41 came late and the ground took longer to dry than on an average year. It would not have been possible to attack before the beginning of June in any case. 2. As the preparations of frontal airfields were not complete, Luftwaffe could not have been deployed much earlier. (I don't have the exact dates available at hand right now). - Tommi

Also, everything that happened in the movie, REALLY happened to that crew. Except the ending. I've also read that when Buchheim's book was originally published some old U-boatmen stated that the general fatalistic attitude of the crew was wrong for the period (Oct 27, 1941 -- Dec 6, 1941) and corresponds more to the situation in late '43 and '44. - Tommi

The most completely destroyed heavy tank that I've seen a picture of was a KV-II that was destroyed at Ala-Kurtti in 1941. (AFAIK it was the only KV-II that was used against Finns in that war). The KV-II held up Finnish and German advance for a day. The only available AT guns were 37 mm and they could not even scratch the beast. IIRC, it even run over an AT mine without damage. In a cover of night a Finnish engineer squad went forth to destroy it. As they wanted to be sure that it would be destroyed, they placed _6_ AT mines under it. That's some 60 kg of explosives. When the mines were detonated the explosion blew up the remaining ammo of KV-II. Next day when a Finn took a photo on the wreck only thing that could be identified was the 152mm gun barrel and an 1 square meter sized piece of turret roof. I have the picture in one book and I would scan and post it but I don't know who (if anybody) holds the copyrights of the photo. - Tommi

I just went through my reference books trying to find the stats of the 75 mm and 88 mm HE rounds. The shell weight of 88 mm was 9.0 kg according to "Itsenäisen Suomen rannikkotykit" and 20 lbs (9.1kg) according to "Handbook of German Military Forces". The weight of the 75 mm HE shell was given as 12.7 lbs (5.4) kg in "Handbook". My other sources don't mention the weight of that particular type of 75 HE shells but in general, 75 and 76 mm HE rounds weight about 6 kg. Unfortunately, no source mentioned the amount of explosive in any shell types. -Tommi

If a German soldier was caught raping a civilian they could be court marshalled and executed. In 1944-45, Russian soldiers had an unwritten agreement with their commanders allowing them to do such things. I think that you are simplifying matters too much. A German soldier would likely not be court martialled if he committed crimes against Russian civilians and definitely not if the victims were Jews. Actually, I've read a claim that there is not a single documented case where a German soldier was punished for crimes committed against civilians in Soviet Union. I don't know whether that claim is true. Certainly Russian soldiers committed a lot of crimes in the last days of the war and most of them went unpunished. On the other hand it is too much to say that they did it freely. For example, Marshall Rokosovsky issued an order that raping, murdering, and stealing was to be punished with death. With no mitigating circumstances accepted. _Many_ (I don't remember the actual number but it was more than ten thousand) soldiers were sentenced to death or transported into Siberia for 10 years. In many cases NKVD troops would shoot rapists without even bothering to ask their names or units. Leningrad was shelled to all hell not because of it's civilians, but, of it's military. No, Leningrad was shelled because Hitler decided that the whole city should be destroyed. IIRC, he even forbade the German commander to accept surrender if the Soviets should offer one. - Tommi

And now we are discussing on ground attack planes on a thread called "What does AFV mean"... Well, anyway, I'm quite surprised that no one has mentioned Il-2 Sturmovik this far. Sturmovik was definitely one of the best ground attack planes of the war as it was heavily armed and armored. I don't have any source at hand right now so I can't give details on its armament, but there was lot of it. More than one German fighter pilot run out of ammo trying to shoot one of them down. Finnish soldiers used to call those planes as "maatalouskone" ("agricultural plane", a contraption from "maataistelukone", literally: "ground combat plane") because a single plane could transform a road section into something that resembled a potato field. BTW, I'm quite certain that "Jabo" came from "Jadgbomber", with "jadg" deriving from "jäger".

I think that for just about all armies the policy about civilian casualties on battlefield could be summarised as: "**** happens". In tactical operations one would try not to kill civilians, but if the enemy was defending an unevacuated village it would be bombarded with artillery, nevertheless. It's interesting to note that while Russians are usually regarded (and not without a cause) as caring the least about civilian lives, for a time they had the most strict orders on civilian safety: in the early days of Winter War there was a standing order that no population center may be shot with weapons that were larger than rifle calibere (I don't know how they conciled this policy with the fact that the Red Air Force started terror bombing cities on the first day of the war). At least one artillery lieutenant was actually arrested because he had brought one of his guns forward to fire directly against a Finnish MG nest that was positioned in a stone church. I don't know what happened to the lieutenant in the end, but his men did not see him again. However, this policy lasted only for three or four days until someone with enough power realized that the order was quite senseless, in military sense. - Tommi