Andreas

John, thanks a lot, very helpful. I have scanned a few pictures that give an impression of the landscape in the Wolchow battle area. They are all from Haupt "Leningrad Wolchow Kurland" A destroyed Soviet tank outside Tschudowo (in the map above. The caption says BT7, but it looks more like an early T34 to me. Notice the WW 1 look of the battlefield. A bomb run on the supply route of 2nd Shock Army. Notice the endless forests to the side of the road. A German patrol in the Wolchow swamps, were they tracked down the remnants of 2nd Shock Army. A German supply cart passes a knocked-out T34 somewhere in the Wolchow area.

tero, no data on the Soviet casualties unfortunately. I have been thinking about the positioning of the guns, and it may have been a conscious design decision, to ensure that should the front on the flanks of the strongpoint be ruptured, it would still have artillery to control the breakthrough sectors and to defend themselves. Which may not have been the case had the guns been further back. Leontina was prepared for a perimeter defense.

tero, no data on the Soviet casualties unfortunately. I have been thinking about the positioning of the guns, and it may have been a conscious design decision, to ensure that should the front on the flanks of the strongpoint be ruptured, it would still have artillery to control the breakthrough sectors and to defend themselves. Which may not have been the case had the guns been further back. Leontina was prepared for a perimeter defense.

You live in Mannheim? We should go for a drink when I visit my parents in Worms next. The bunkers outside the BASF HQ in Ludwigshafen now serve as archives for BASF. On many German train stations you can still see old Hochbunkers, a very good example is in Hannover. In Berlin some of the Flaktowers are still there, they have just been landscaped by pushing earth around them. Almost impossible to get rid of these things.

What is also very good is the Charles Sharp stuff from the Nafziger Collection, available through the Battlefront.com bookshelf. Matt should pay me for this

I have a picture showing two of them coming in to land in AG North Wolchow sector in 1942 (probably). The caption says 'close-range reconnaissance planes', but the author (Werner Haupt) is sometimes a bit shaky on his technical data, so it is perfectly possible they were still used as CAS planes then.

Jon, Oswald, you are probably right. If you look closely, you see that one of the symbols is slightly different. Maybe that is a different type of gun? I will see if I can find more info elsewhere in the book.

I've never heard of them flying on the eastern front. Michael</font>

Haha Mike, got in just before you Some information on use of Soviet air forces: Iasy-Kischinjow Operation 1944 (some more information on it in this thread, including a quote from the interrogation of a German officer on the effectiveness of air support.) Operation started August 20th. On the day, 19 enemy planes were counted over the frontline of 3rd Ukrainian Front. The Front used 1,674 planes to support the initial attack. The barrage mentioned is always combined artillery and air. On the 21st, 3rd Ukrainian Front flew 1,039 sorties, 50%+ of these battlefield CAS. Damage assessment (likely inflated) 51 enemy planes downed, 250 motor vehicles, 130 other vehicles destroyed, five artillery and AA batteries suppressed. On the 23rd, the outer encirclement ring of German 6th Army was complete, but the inner ring was incomplete. The airforce was used to attack moving columns of the retreating army, and to destroy bridges just when columns came near them, to ensure that the resulting traffic would make a nicely bunched-up target.

tero, I have found the gun information. I wanted to post some more about the fight at Leontina anyway, so it is contained in that. Leontina was a very strong strongpoint at the junction of XXX. and XXIX. AK. If it fell, the defense of the MLR opposite 6th Guards Rifle Corps (the other corps in 37th Army) would collapse. It was defended by one company of 580. IR, and a battalion of 549.IR, both of 306.ID. Translating the following directly: Also in support of the fascists were one detachment (Abteilung = 3 batteries) 10,5cm and three mortar batteries (no calibre, expect 81mm or 120mm) which were situated one to two kilometres south of Leontina. Translating again: The Soviet attack was supported by three divisional artillery detachments, connected by radio. [...] The initial barrage knocked out most of the fire support of the enemy strongpoint as well as the aritllery and mortar batteries south of Leontina. 30th GAR was supported by one battalion of 19th GAR. When the strongpoint was cut off at 1400, a battalion from 4th Rom. Mountain Division was sent in to relieve them, but it was destroyed when attacking the outer ring of the encirclement in 19th GAR sector. The fight must have been vicious, and quite mercyless. At 1800 hours, Leontina was cleaned of the enemy. On the battlefield, 1,200 dead fascist soldiers and officers were left. 30th GAR brought in 250 (sic!) POWs and 37 guns, amongst them seven assault guns, as trophies.

tero, I have found the gun information. I wanted to post some more about the fight at Leontina anyway, so it is contained in that. Leontina was a very strong strongpoint at the junction of XXX. and XXIX. AK. If it fell, the defense of the MLR opposite 6th Guards Rifle Corps (the other corps in 37th Army) would collapse. It was defended by one company of 580. IR, and a battalion of 549.IR, both of 306.ID. Translating the following directly: Also in support of the fascists were one detachment (Abteilung = 3 batteries) 10,5cm and three mortar batteries (no calibre, expect 81mm or 120mm) which were situated one to two kilometres south of Leontina. Translating again: The Soviet attack was supported by three divisional artillery detachments, connected by radio. [...] The initial barrage knocked out most of the fire support of the enemy strongpoint as well as the aritllery and mortar batteries south of Leontina. 30th GAR was supported by one battalion of 19th GAR. When the strongpoint was cut off at 1400, a battalion from 4th Rom. Mountain Division was sent in to relieve them, but it was destroyed when attacking the outer ring of the encirclement in 19th GAR sector. The fight must have been vicious, and quite mercyless. At 1800 hours, Leontina was cleaned of the enemy. On the battlefield, 1,200 dead fascist soldiers and officers were left. 30th GAR brought in 250 (sic!) POWs and 37 guns, amongst them seven assault guns, as trophies.

Except that it was so 'popular' with the Americans, they sent 5,707 Airacobras to the USSR under lend-lease.

Required for what? I design a lot of my CMBB scenarios based on what I read in Glantz etc. There are enough descriptions of smaller actions in there that make them very worthwhile reading. If you want to understand how the war was fought, you need to read at a larger scale anyway. A good source on the divisional level (actions described reach down to BN level) are the three volumes by Werner Haupt "The Wehrmacht in Russia", dealing with each of the big Army Groups in turn, and published by Schiffer. I own AG North, and it is very useful. I also own two of his picture books that were published alongside the German original editions. A lot of the CMH stuff has been put into another book by Tsouras, P. "Fighting in Hell" (wins a price as most ludicrous title). Greenhill has also published "Spearhead for the Blitzkrieg", a CMH study by a Luftwaffe general on air support operations. Another recommendation is Christopher Duffy, "Red Storm on the Reich", dealing with the operations in Poland and Germany up to the Berlin Operation. Great book. Of course, if you speak German, Bob is your uncle, and you should make your way over to Ebay Germany now. There is also a good source of information in books published by the East German military publishing house, with memoirs by Soviet officers of all ranks. Few of these have been translated into English.

Andrew, I have been wondering about the effect of the 88 myself. Interesting question to ponder. If the picture shows another KV-2, it would probably be from the Rossienie (Rassinai) tank battle that 6th Panzer fought. Detailed in Glantz "Initial Period".

The full, and original account is contained in Tsouras, P. (ed) 2002 'Panzers on the Eastern Front', publisher Greenhill. This is a collection of smaller actions that was written up by General Raus, in 1941 an Oberst in 6.PD for the US Army historical division after the war. He was commanding KG Raus of 6.PD in the border battles. In his account, he identifies the tank as a KV-1, and gives it an 80mm gun (a small mistake to make if it was a KV-1, rather more off if it was a KV-2). Recommended book BTW. The horse lovers will drool at the description of a camel charge on German positions. Those wacky Turkmenians.

1. No, I think the Red Army brought this under control and reasserted its superiority probably by about late March/early April, when the weather cleared. 2. No idea. 3. This was part of the pre-planned barrage. I think that this was really where the Red Army aviation was primarily used. No point p*ssing about on a jolly (sorry, free hunt behind enemy lines) when a centralised and co-ordinated use of your assets at the point of breakthrough gives you the result described in the quote. I seriously doubt that any Soviet air force officer ever dared say things about the infantry relying 'too much' on planes, as Tedder's infamous line 'the army has been drugged with bombs' suggests (he was speaking of the use of heavy bombers though).

Louie, I believe that on a CM map they are unlikely to be dismounted (unless you are looking at huge maps) anyway, since they would put themselves to much at the risk of an ambush while transferring from one position to another. The high speed of cavalry is an operational advantage, not necessarily a tactical one. Tactically, you could be inviting desaster moving on horseback. One unspotted gun or HMG in your path, and your unit is up the proverbial without a paddle. See picture below for operational movement: The picture below shows a tactical situation. The comment to this picture explicitly states: 'Dismounted assaults are made from all directions'. Can someone tell me where Golubovka is/was? Both pictures from 'The Red Army Handbook'. According to Zaloga, a Soviet cavalry regiment had ~1,150 men (in 4 mounted Squadrons , 1 MG Squadron, 1 Mortar Squadron and 1 Regimental Battery). They were therefore about the size of a (maybe) slightly reinforced US or Commonwealth late-war infantry battalion . The cavalry regimental battery had 123 men, and that would be additional to infantry BN TO&E. A US Armored Inf BN had 1,001 men, and a regular Inf BN had 836 men according to John Salt's 'USORG' document. The Commonwealth Motor BN (armoured inf) had 800 men in 1943, and the infantry battalion had 845 men. So the battle you see on this map is an upper-end CMBB battle.

Sounds riveting? It is. A while back a number of people discussed how counter-battery worked. I have since been lucky enough to acquire the history of German counter-battery units 'Aufklärende Artillerie' by H.J. Froben (1971 - the book was about a weeks wage then, 1,000 pages, about 600 pictures and maps, and most important to me, the unit histories of Beob. Abt. 26 and 30, in which my granfather served from 1939-44) The map here is from a very interesting battle in AG North sector. It started on January 13th 1942, and ended on June 28th 1942. Beob.Abt. 30 was posted at the northern pincer of the German breakthrough that sealed the fate of 2nd Shock Army under General Vlassov, who was to become a traitor in captivity. The northern pincer was called 'Erika Aisle'. It terminated at 'The Hose' (Der Schlauch), which was a 3km landbridge that the Germans had closed, but which was re-opened and kept open from March 27th to May 31st 1942. When it was closed a second time, 2nd Shock Army ceased to exist as an organised force by June 21st. On June 28th, the Wehrmachtsbericht reported: '[...]the enemy lost 32,759 prisoners, 649 guns, 171 tanks, and 2,904 machine guns, mortars and submachineguns[...] The losses of the enemy increased the numbers of prisoners many times.' After half a year, and an initially very serious threat to the position of German 18th Army and the siege of Leningrad, 2nd Shock Army was destroyed. This map is from the time between late March and the end of May, and shows the positions of German sound (empty circle) and light (circle containing an 'L') Messtellen in the Erika Aisle. It does not look as if advanced warning posts existed. The rectangular symbols with 'S' or 'L' in them could be teh computation posts, where the information from the OPs was processed. If someone can tell me what the tactical weapon symbol on the Soviet side stands for, I'd be interested. All the info on the battle is taken from Haupt 'The Wehrmacht in Russia - AG North'. To quote JasonC - I hope this is interesting...

Grisha, great stuff. Much clearer on this than the maps in Mazulenko. I guess I will at some point have to read this article. The maps show very well the massing in the breakthrough sectors, and how it was achieved. Very interesting to see them alongside the Mazulenko account.

Grisha, great stuff. Much clearer on this than the maps in Mazulenko. I guess I will at some point have to read this article. The maps show very well the massing in the breakthrough sectors, and how it was achieved. Very interesting to see them alongside the Mazulenko account.

As others said - because they had a different TO&E, and are therefore a distinct unit formation, much like German Panzergrenadiere are different from German Volksgrenadiere.

Grisha, yes please.

Grisha, yes please.

Castle Wolfenstein has been 'indexed', AFAIK. This was more about the content than about the symbols I believe (clarification welcome). 'Indexing' means that open sale, advertising and promotion are not allowed. You are allowed to purchase the product if you are 18+ and have to prove this by presenting your identity card/passport. It is basically being treated like hard-core pornography.

That von Luck quote is interesting, but describing what was an almost isolated incident. Following the major operation in early 1945 (Vistula - Oder), the Red Army had crossed the whole of what was to become Poland after the war, and had outstripped its air-cover. The reason for this was that they only had grass fields to operate from east of the Oder and within operational reach, which were useless in the weather conditions of Spring. The Luftwaffe had access to concrete airfields around Berlin that were just a hop from the Soviet bridgeheads. Thus it could re-establish control of the air for a short time. In general, from 1943 onwards the Luftwaffe ceased to play a major role in the east. Air superiority was with the Red Army, except in isolated circumstances. This was connected to the haemorraging of experienced (and new) fighter pilots in the air battles over the Reich. Desperation on the German side went to the extreme of using He 177 Greif strategic bombers in low-level attacks to stop the Red Army spearheads during Bagration. With predictable results. Soviet air support was (like all the other support weapons in the Red Army) usually focussed at the point of breakthrough. If you read the quote in this thread (3rd or 4th post) you get an idea of the effectiveness. Regarding tactical control. I have a quote from the assault on either Hangoe or Moon in 1941, where the Germans used air support 'like artillery'. So there was a measure of tactical control then. I also have a quote from Koniev relating to the Berlin operation 1945, when he observed a FW189 (called 'Frame' by the Soviets) circling unmenaced over the Soviet lines, and he muses how useful the plane was for reconnaissance and artillery fire control, and regrets that the Red Army did not have anything like it. The fact that this slow, and almost unarmed plane could be around at the time, shows that the control of the air was not as one-sided as in the west. When it came to the crunch though, past 1943 the Red Army held it, and before the Germans did.