Sergei

Maybe this could be useful: Finnish-Soviet Relations 1944-1948. Papers of the Seminar organized in Helsinki, March 21-25, 1994, by the Department of Political History, University of Helsinki, in cooperation with the Institute of Universal History, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow. Edited by Jukka Nevakivi. Department of Political History, University of Helsinki, 1994. (248 pp.) Just because it holds the following chapter, and because it is from 1994 (after Turtola had grasped the document mentioned in HS article). Martti Turtola: Finland's Path to the Armistice of 1944 B Some Open Questions Not like I was going to go and look for it...

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Stalin's Organ: Well for starters a DRAFT copy is obviously somethign that is considered - and then NOT adopted - or it wouldn't be DRAFT. Whether or not it was public is irrelevant - many official documents are not public. So what? Had the document ever reflected actual Sov policy, public or not, then it would not have been draft.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Argh, lost my first reply... hmmpfh. My post would have been something like: first you have a draft. Then you show it to your opponent, and it becomes a proposal. At the moment it is signed by both parties, it is an agreement. During the early summer 1944 there were no proposals made nor agreements signed, so what ever Stalin had in his back pocket for president Ryti, it was just a draft at that time. Would that mean that Soviets had no goals for the offensive? No. But it should be noted, that it cannot be derived directly and 100 percent surely just from one draft. Talking about whether objectives are met, is not that simple, anyway. Think about the US-Japanese war: the goal for USA in 1945 was to make Japanese accept an unconditional surrender (and I'm sure someone is going to beat me for this generalisation!!!). However, the Japs got through the condition to not harm the emperor. So, did USA fail meeting their objectives?

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Stalin's Organ: Err...since when did "draft" copies of anything become the oficial version and public policy? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Not public, for certain, if it is kept in a closed archive... but does a document have to be public and official to be a contemporary policy? For example, if I now had with me a German document about their plans of setting a puppet government to London in 1940, it very well could haven been the goal for Germans, even if it didn't work out. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I'd be surprised if the USSR had NOT considered complete conquest of Finland as an objective, along with several others possibilities. To say that a draft document proves that that's what was actually intended is nonsense (IMO of course!).<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Yes. I would suppose it could prove something, but that would depend on factors which we at the moment don't know. But at least it shows that Stavka felt it might be able to crush Finnish defense so totally that an unconditional surrender could have been an option. OR, then it was just meant for bargaining so that certain articles could be dropped from it (Stalin was quite good at pressurizing diplomats of minor nations, that should be admitted). Does anyone know if Mr. Turtola has otherwise given any details about that paper in his works? Just saying that it was "shocking" isn't telling much.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Skipper: err... would anyone mind tranbslating it to english?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Here's a translation of the quoted paragraphs: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>"Although 'docents of one document' are taunted, I must confess, that a draft agreement about Soviet goals in summer 1944, which I in 1993 found from an archive which has since been re-closed, was a shocking paper", Turtola says. "It truly reveals the Russian maximum objectives behind the terms of surrender, even though they were not presented to Finns, which were political and national crushing of Finland." (Or possibly, as Ari translated it, "political and ethnic". But it is not clear which Turtola meant, as "kansallinen" means national but also ethnic. It would be even more helpful to know what he means with "crushing", anyway - genocide or something more similar to what happened to Estonia?)<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Oh, and gospodin Komissarovich: while country is Finland, the adjective is Finnish and a person is a Finn. Talking about Fins holding a line is quite funny, as fin means "stabilizer" of a fish (or torpedo, missile etc.).

In general I would find such, umm, "exporting battle report" option worthy of support. I'm sure there would be many uses for that.

Ah, politics. You have to remember that ideology is one thing, while parties are something totally different. For example, in 1970's China was ideologically closer to USSR than USA, but Mao thought it would be politically wiser to ally with USA. The reason why Soviets spread communism to world (or why USA spread capitalism) was not because they were so solidaric for the oppressed workers world-wide, but rather because it was a way of increasing Russia's influence. I really don't understand national socialism or fascism as an ideology, but anyway it is against communism. That is anyway one of the main reasons why Ben and Adolf rose to power: industry patrones were worried about commies carrying out strikes and stuff, so they gave blackshirts money to kick their ass. But IMHO Germany would have attacked Russia even if Stalin was chairman of the local Conservative Party. Hitler had plenty of excuses: Jew conspiracy, Slavic plotting, threat from Asia, etc. If Wehrmacht could invade Denmark and look good, USSR could have been a humanitarian intervention compared to that. Nazis and Bolsheviks were similar in that both created totalitarian regimes. Whether they were on the same end in spectrum, is indifferent. You cannot evaluate political parties on single dimension.

When two armies clash, the result is a battlefield full of bodies. When one army clashes, what is the result? ** If an artillery shell hits a location where there are no Germans to hear it, what sound does the shell make?

Have mortars fire smoke to cover them after they have given away their position, and have a Kübelwagon or such nearby to get them out of the trouble. Then zoom to a new position.

Ruki vehr!

I too have Red-Green-colour blindness. Well, that's just handy when war breaks, so I won't be shocked by blood when it blends so nicely into my camouflage uniform... Fortunately CM is not a American Independence War game, spotting those Brits could be laborious. Well, actually I do have problem with finding British troops right now, because they have brown bases which seem to blend nicely to the green background. And I think those base colours are hard-coded. It would be nice if in CM2 base colors could be user-defined, ESPECIALLY if Soviet units have red bases! I have read about a research which indicates that R/G-blinds have better night vision than normal, which could be the reason why the feature hasn't disappeared.

I think his point is, that he wants unit prices to be tied to the rate of ruble vs. Deutche mark. Thus, when inflation eats DEM, Soviet equipment starts to become cheaper and cheaper to get... right?

Oh great, you were there. Were you there in 1939? How many concrete bunkers did you see? And marshes, as well as lakes, rivers and even the Gulf of Viipuri, were frozen by the time, which favoured the attacker. And most of boulders intended to hinder tank movement were too small for Soviet tanks, especially when they were buried into snow. It certainly wasn't a Maginot line. In north things were completely different Mm-hmm? Now you must be talking about areas north of Isthmus. In south, it wasn't full of German autobahns, but somehow Finns could deal with it in 1941 and Soviets in 1944. Isthmus was mostly farmland. Soviet tanks didn't have trouble in exploiting break-throughs in 1944 in the same terrain. The main reason was simply that, even while Finnish army relied on WWI-style war of attrition, Soviet tactics and proficiency were poor, and while they did have thousands of tanks, they could all be penetrated with 37mm guns with ease. After December the tactics were improved, which caused the break-through.

Not quite true. Skis were used tactically and on the CM2 scale. In CM2 it is not very necessary for Finns though, because all the real fighting happened in 1941 and summer 1944. I don't know how Germans or Soviets used them. There the rarity factor should come into effect. In QB's yes, but in historical scenarios it should be able to model historical abilities. There were many kinds of situations during the war. Soviet veterans could beat Finnish conscripts, although in the early war most Soviets had poor training and no experience. aka.Panzerleader, think of the Poland '39. It won't be in CM2, yet both Germans and Soviets both took part to that campaign. I think it's better to have it in the Early War game, because the tactics used were really something different. And, then it gets to be done with the CM II engine, with multi-multi-play!! Chuckman, Italy will be in CM3 which should handle all the Mediterranean fighting (North Africa, Balkans?, Crete, Italy).

Wow, what negative waves! C'mon, guys. Some posts on this thread reach a religious height. If Talonsoft does clone CM, it's not gonna put BTS into bankcruptcy or anything. Neither is it a threat to players of CM: when GI Combat Squad comes out, it won't demolish anyone's CM cd's. The fact that it is real-time only, makes it more of the Close Combat genre. And is it bad if there are companies that make WW2 tactical games??? I would have imagined that everybody would cheer that at least they'll try to offer something, although it might be more of the H&D/CC/SS/Lemmings-realism. But hey, there's people who like Hidden & Dangerous, Close Combat, Sudden Strike or Lemmings, and it is always possible that some casual Lemmings-players might suddenly get interested in historical wargames. Be tolerant. They are only making a game, not doing something immoral or illegal like pimping or such. And who knows, maybe it will become an interesting game with some constructive criticism. Just think about it, 32 players? That could overcome the usual stupidness/hassle of realtime games. Don't take that negative attitude this early! [This message has been edited by Sergei (edited 02-02-2001).]

I think it should be very rare for the German player to have any men in his ranks post 1942. After Stalingrad the morale in Germany was so low that Heer had to fill the gaps with hamster recruits. Does the rarity system take this into account?

Cease-fire, both in battles and operations (where it affects only the current battle, not the whole operation), has the same effect as reaching the last turn: current situation will be permanent. So no sense to accept cease-fire if you got an advantage over the other but haven't taken all VL's yet.

That is a great idea! And if/when they get damaged, they can be fixed with a few Lego bricks! Spectacular! And just think what it means to camoflage! If you add no pigment to plastic, then it is totally transparent, plus the crew has a perfect visibility to outside!

Actually those men don't have any pants (you just can't see it).

Would you please enlighten everyone, what does world revolve around? The needs of capitalism to force people to upgrade their machinery at half-year intervals? If there is no real need to add some more advanced graphical effects that only half of the people can see, why should it be done?

To talk about evolution, you should understand what evolution is. Evolution is not some god that just randomly gives species some irrational characteristics, although in discussions like this it is very usual just to pull it from hat to reason anything. In 19th century it mislead all human sciences, when darwinistic theories spread out of their original context and based on very little proof. Does genotype cause wars? Let's take an example of a proven biological tendency, mating. From evolutionary standpoint it is normal to reproduce. Thus we have urges to make as many children as possible... or do we? Do you have a desire to raise 57 kids? No. The only urge we have is the urge for sex with opposite gender. The urge doesn't go anywhere with use of condom or pills, actually even masturbation does the same. It can also be argued that some gene makes us behave violently, but saying that this will inevitably cause wars, is like saying that our sexual needs will inevitably lead into large family size. If there is urge for violence, play Combat Mission, box, beat your children, but it doesn't mean that you would have to kill anyone. Oh, and human is omnivorous. You should know that; just compare your teeth to that of your dog. Likewise, eat only meat and you get scurvy. Most of the food that primitive societies eat is berries, roots and such, which suggest that this was the normal diet for pre-farming era man too. Actually, spreading your own genotype is more important than that. If there is an evolutionary basis for wars, then it must be the killing of other males and raping their women. The reason why herds form, is that they have a very close genotype, and that is also why family ties tend to be very strong. If wars had something to do with this, however, modern megalopolises would be impossible to form, as the people don't have any kind of connection, except for imaginary (romantic view of uniform origin of a people). Why would USA ever bother to attack anywhere else if the states could fill their urges by killing eachothers? Yeah, T-rex was a real genius, probably would beat Deep Blue in chess any time, claws down. And whales are intelligent because it takes wits to swim all the day with your mouth open (actually it's because they spend their time doing crossword puzzles). Most of time, most of people live in peace. I have never been in war in my life. I have never killed anybody. I don't know personally anyone who would have killed another man in the last 50 years. Even of the generation that "was in war", less than half of them really were. It is obvious that wars, despite of how much attention they gather, are pathological, not normal. Obviously, yes. If you really want to find out reasons for wars, you have to look into social causes. There is too much hullabaloo about Bill and Monica? Let's bomb the Serbs.

Don't you know, those were the Lend-Lease KV's in American use... after all, if the ships were to bring heavy equipment to Murmansk, what's the point of letting them go back empty?

That was until, umm, late September, when Soviets supervising the internment operation (all Germans were to be taken as POW's and given to Soviets) got suspicious and demanded swiftier outcome, lest Finland wanted Soviets to liberate Lapland. (The biggest reason probably was to have Finns make Germans busy, as Soviets were planning their own offensive to Petsamo.) So in October Finnish army made a daring attempt - a seaborne invasion to Tornio in German rear, made with civilian cargo ships as nothing better was available. A single gun at the port could have turned it into catastrophe. As the beachhead threatened to cut German retreat route, they attempted to push Finns into sea. The result was a bitter, week-long battle. Finally Germans had to retreat. After that, there were some fierce small scale fights, typically Germans defended a delaying position and Finns tried to outflank through the wilderness. It's fine if you don't see it worthy to add. But if you find a way to do it with Romanians, then maybe it wouldn't be too difficult to do the same trick with Finns. That is, if and maybe.

So, no Finns vs. Germans? Damn... Or maybe it could be possible to make the Finnish army be shown on the Soviet side from fall 1944 onwards, in some way. What are the plans after CMII is done? How long is it going to take before we see a revised CM1/2? Until the sun fades and hell freezes?

I would love to see Axis vs. Axis in CM2, because it would be historically correct in 1944-45. And the Tornio seaborne invasion in the Lapland war would make an excellent operation. Although I don't know how should the delay followed by Finnish seizure of German cognac stock be modelled, as because of this Germans got enough time to gather for counter-attack while Finnish soldiers were either drunk or crapulous...

If there are two guys in a boxing ring and... both stop boxing, neither gets bruises. one stops boxing, he gets soon knocked out and the other one doesn't get a scratch. both keep boxing, they both get beaten like hell. On that basis, I would prefer turning the other cheek. But boxing happens for the audience, not the boxers themselves. If I had to box for something precious to me, I would only give up if the other did. Eg. if I knew the enemy army is having a great deal of deserters, I might decide to do the same. In the end I hope everyone deserts and there is no war. In theory, really.