Tero

AFAIK they were taken by surprise when the Polish defences fell apart so rapidly. Consequently they had to for all intents and purposes trump up a force rather quickly with minimal planning so as not to let the Germans advance too far East.

Originally posted by Zalgiris 1410: But there is no way that if they were fully mobilised that they would have performed all that much better in drawing out the campaigne into October. Militarily, that is possible. Then again, who knows how their hardware would have stacked up against the German hardware (which was by no means all that better than the Polish, technically speaking). The political and diplomatic repercussions of a longer campaign are harder to determine. The British and the French would have had more time to live up to their deglaration of war and promises. In terms of the Poles being more properly deployed by either strengthening and fortifying their forces around the boarder of bettween it and the Vistula would only have meant the battle for Poland running ruffly according to how it did. If they had of set up their fully mobilised forces along the river line with fortifications it still stood not much more of a chance because of what I indicated above - the Germans would have broken across them similarly to instances when they did so during that campaigne. That is possible. But with what kind of casualties ? How long would the Germans had been able to sustain the drive with higher casualty rates ? In terms of saying that the Germans did not have vastly superior equipment over the Poles you would have to be joking! :confused: While they did have a few hundred tanks these were all obsolete sardine tin cans, mostly machine-gun carriers compared to the T-35s, T-38s, PzIIIs and PzIVs Have you taken a look at the failure rates of these "superior" tanks ? not to mention the position of the small and totally obsolete Polish Air Force up against the Luftwaffe. This is true. But then again how well would the Stukas worked against entrenched forces with more concentrated and coordinated AAA as opposed to formations in transit among droves of refugees ? They pretty much had the same 37mm ATG as the 37mm PAK 35/36 the Germans had though probably accounted for them selves against the lighter Panzers apparently. The Bofors 37mm was no pea shooter at the time. In Artillery the Poles had 65mm mountain guns the Germans 75mm and 105mm mountain guns, no Infantry guns, same sized medium mortar at 81mm, 75mm/105mm/120mm field guns, a few 100mm and 155mm howitzers. The Germans had 105mm field guns (at least a few) and 105mm/150mm howitzers. All these advantages with better communications equipment and techniques. Which would have worked how well against a prepared defence ? They had 40mm AAGs comparable to German 37mm AAGs and not enough of them to dent the Luftwaffe menace. As per historical events, yes. Would they have been enough with the army fully deployed and entrenched ? They also had flat top mounted 75mm AAGs but again too few of them and they were outclassed by the 88s, which were themselves the improved decendant of the WWI 77mm flat top mounted BAK. (Balloon-Abwehr-Kannone IIRC.) I can not see this comparison as being relevant to the case. The fight would have been 75mm AAG vs LW aircraft and not vs LW FLAK units. ..and then the Russians hordes were to come! Yes. But had the British and the French acted the way they did with Finland would Stalin have been prudent enough to abstain for fear of winding up in war with the Western Allies at this early stage ?

Originally posted by stoat: I did not clearly state what I meant, and I should have. What I did mean was that the Winter War only delayed the inevitable of Soviet control. What is your source on Finland being controlled by the Soviets at any point ? Although the Soviets did not capture Finland entirely, did they not aquire large tracts of it through imposed treaty? If the treaty was imposed then how is it possible the Finnish retained the pre-war cabinet and indeed the form of government ? Remember what happened to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania on whom the Soviets really imposed the treaties. Helsinki is not all of Finland, and the Soviets were the Finn's allies at the end of the war, so their troops would not be considered "enemy". So when did they enter and occupy Helsinki or the rest of the non-ceded areas ?

Originally posted by stoat: The Winter War, while well and nobly fought, did not save Finland from the Soviets. Really ? Why is it then it was London, Moscow and Helsinki were the only capitals in Europe which were not occupied AT ANY POINT by enemy troops during or after the war ? Likewise, were the Polish campaign to stretch out for longer than expected, it would not have saved Poland from the Soviets. True. But the Soviets would have ended up at war with the British and the French. There was no way to defend against German tanks and planes along with Soviet masses with only courage and cavalry. You are forgetting that the success was due to the Poles not being mobilized and properly deployed more than the Germans and the Soviets having vastly superior equipment. And if your aunt had balls, she'd be your uncle. That does not mean that things would or could not be different in such a case.

What is "too long" in this context ? The Winter War lasted 105 days when conservative pre-game estimates thought 105 hours would be too generous for the Finns.

Early Polish mobilization would have made a world of difference.

Originally posted by General Colt: So back to the topic: What if Poland had defeated the Blitz? :confused: Huh? :confused: For starters: They would have been caught up by surprise when the Red Army attacks from their rear. Before they can reorient the Red Army takes half (or more) of the country. The Red Army winds up further West than they hoped for. With the German war machine recovering from the disaster Stalin can squelch or brush aside the deglarations of war by the British and the French. He replaces Hitler with a communist leader in the NSDAP, the communists (or NSDAP which is socialist in name) win the elections, Nazi rule is replaced with a pro-communist rule, the Molotov-Ribbentrop treaty is still in force, he gives the Germans all the equipment they need and sends the Germans off to the liberate the proletariat in the west. The French forces quit from the get go and the British retire to their island.

Originally posted by Hornpiper: In "Russia's War," Overy makes some interesting points which seem relevant to the discussion. One of the reasons for restructuring the army in the wake of the purges was to return to a proletarian people's army stressing masses over technology. The armor was relegated to the task of infantry support and distributed accordingly. Which restructuring does your source mean, the one that took place after the purges (and which did away with the mechanized corps in the OOB) or the one which was initiated at the wake of the Winter War debacle ? Another point he stresses is that until American Lend-Lease supplies became readily available, the state of radio communications in the Red Army was abysmal. Lacking the ability to rapidly coordinate and respond to a fluid battle, there was little commanders could do once initial dispositions were made and little frontline feedback was available. That disregards the fact the response to fluid situations was never (even in 1944-45) the strong suit of the Red Army during WWII. If the plan failed for whatever reason no amount of radio communications could restore the plan. And deviation from the plan was a strict no-no for the Red Army commanders.

Originally posted by Andreas: God, those poor Red Army soldiers. Can you imagine the sacrifices to the Rodina committed by those heroes of the Soviet Union who converted full Vodka bottles into empty bottles for Molotov Cocktain production? It does not bear thinking about it. Imagine the horror if they had to use FULL Vodka bottles as Molotov Coctails....

Looks interesting. This one is a keeper One curious omission though: the cease fire between USSR and Finland took effect Sept 5th and Novosti does not mention it even in passing.

Originally posted by Andreas: a) define coherent. Comprehensive, universal. otherwise (and probably even then) rubbish. You are confusing doctrine and tactics. I think not. If you have read your Harrison Place he at least states in no uncertain terms the British High Command did not deem infantry small unit tactics as being important enough to be stadardized and any "lessons learned" on any given aspect of tactics and doctrine were learned all over again time after time. The same mistakes made in the Western Desert were replicated in Normandy. Jary was on the receiving end. He explains in quite some detail about the MG42 and its effects. I have not seen other 1st-hand accounts that do it so well, but you are welcome to provide them. What do you mean by "doing so well" ?

Originally posted by flamingknives: Care to explain why George Forty and the battlion war diary of the 1st Bn, the Royal Berkshire regiment think that they did? More to the point (and more relevantly): HOW did they come up with the methods they used ?

Originally posted by John D Salt: In many ways the Americans are worse of, as at section (squad) level you're likely to see only the BAR. Presumably, Anglo-American "weakness" is shared by the Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Italian and French armies, to name but a few. Lets not forget their aversion to use SMG's at squad level. Such "ganster weapons" were better used in the hands of the tank crews and truck drivers. A "weakness" not shared by the Russians, and the Finns. I'm guessing "because it worked". But can you name any army in the world that did not field them in 1939? Or for that matter in 1945? There are plenty of British eccentricities it is possible to pick on, but I think that using water-cooled MMGs is not one of them. Why didn't they switch from the canvas belt to (non-)disintegrating metal belt ?

Originally posted by Andreas: I guess that one should not confuse the weapon and the training. When the Commonwealth forces got round to kicking German rear, quality standards had dropped considerably already. Yet there is ample evidence that the preferred British infantry weapons to accomplish the task were tanks and artillery, not SAW's and bolt action rifles. So assume that a badly trained squad is not going to be rescued by its SAW, regardless of wether it is belt-fed or not, while a well-trained squad can overcome the drawbacks of its weaponry through leadership, competence, and tactics. That could explain a lot, couldn't it? The British army did not have or use, for intents and purposes, any coherent small unit tactics. And it would work nicely with first-hand accounts such as Jary who had a lot of respect for the MG42, but very little for most of its users, IIRC. On the receiving end the first-hand accounts show a similar respect for the MG-42, often without any undue scorn for the users.

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh: Arrowhead, inverted arrowhead, ack-ack, line - all good ones. The ability to place the squad LMG anywhere in the formation would be good too, but do we really want to micromanage that far down? That depends what the smallest unit element is. For the Finnish army the smallest basic unit element was historically a two man team. Then came the half squad, the squad, platoon and so forth. And that applies only to the infantry. The elements would be different for HMG coy's, engineers etc. Historically the Finnish system would also overrule unit coherence for the sake of the mission at hand if the situation called for it as a rule rather than as the exception. That means that if in the heat of the battle the units would get separated from their own HQ units they would be assigned to any nearest HQ unit on the spot rather than wasting time regrouping the force. These ad-hoc units commanded by any platoon HQ level command unit (even arty FO's at times !) could be comprised of HMG teams, engineer teams, squads from who knows how many different platoons from who knows how many companies from as many regiments operating in the area.

Originally posted by Michael Emrys: 1) What exactly were the differences in squad (section) tactics between the USSR and the UK/CW/BE forces? If we are to believe in the BFC canon there was no differences. Having said that, I think the first stop would be to ascertain what can be used as a source. I have Harrison-Place who says that basically the British infantry had no fixed small unit tactics. 2) Assuming Simon desires to play a historically accurate game, why should he have to use CW troops the way the USSR used theirs? The problem is the RKKA and CW infantry is modelled the same way in the game. IMO the only real issue is how heavy casualties is he willing to accept playing with CW troops as opposed to RKKA troops.

Originally posted by Simon Fox: In practice a Bren gun had no problem suppressing an MG42 (once it was located). Accuracy rather than weight of fire were more important in suppressing such a point target. Since the rest of the German squad were essentially ammunition carriers once the MG was suppressed they were largely ineffective. How does the fact the Germans kept increasing the number of automatics in the squad tally with your statement here ? Not to mention the fact that even after heavy barrages and prolonged bombardment the Allied infantry had a rough going taking the positions held by German infantry. A cumbersome belt-fed MG would be more of a hindrance in the bocage more than compensated for by a few Mike targets and cold steel for which the the Jerries had an aversion (they don't like it up 'em). So it was the bocage terrain, not the defending infantry, which stopped the Allies from advancing for so long ? Anyway it's currently impossible to fight a CW platoon or section properly in CM, either by the book or any of the tactical variations employed at the time. Have you tried using for example Red Army methods to see if they work ?

Originally posted by Wartgamer: BREN guns have now defeated the German Army single handed? How many were issued to the Soviet Army? They used the drum fed DT. Which does not differ from Bren, BAR, LS-26 or any other magazine fed SAW in use in armies other than the German army (which itself used magazine fed SAW's as well as belt fed MG's as SAW).

Originally posted by Battlefront.com: CMx2 will allow more flexibility with TO&E and therefore should be more accurate. Will there be provisions to have rare/unusual pieces of equipment in the TOE which are not perhaps modelled in the game engine as such (like Komsomolets arty tractors, hand carts, wheel barrows, mules and horsies ) ?

Originally posted by Bigduke6: I think the disconnect is over what is a "war footing". Seems so. If a country has more tanks than the rest of the world combined then I think that has to account for something when the stance of its economy is determined. You can make a pretty good arguement that the Soviet economy by the late 1930s was on more of a war footing than any western economy, including definately the German. The Communists had survived the civil war which was fought all over the country against multinational forces. I think they did openly state that they would not be caught off guard. But that's nothing compared to what the Soviet economy managed, when that command economy mobilized for all-out war. Suddenly planners have no priority costs, no gun/butter decisions, no politics, no civilian needs, zip. The only limitations are labour, resources, and wartime priorities. Money is not only not an object, it isn't even a factor in production decisions. Very true. But if they switch from producing T-26/BT-5/7 and other assorted models to T-34 and KV's then I must maintain that that does not require much from the planners since the time to retool the production is far less than it would be if they were retooling from, say, civilian automobile or farming equipment production. Take the fate of the T-34M. A, by all accounts, relatively huge improvement over the original model. Yet it was not allowed to go into production because the retooling of the production lines would have disrupted the supply of the vanilla model to the front.

Originally posted by JasonC: Of course it altered their production schedules. Drastically. Of course. But if they could do it in such a short time which do you think is more believeable explanation: a) the production process was already geared for said production (ie in war footing) and they simply increased the volume to fill capacity or they had to mobilize both the army and the production (also relocating a substantial percentage of the production facilities) from scratch while under attack and they managed that Herculanean task in the timeframe indicated Long term investment went out the window, industrial investment waited until after the war (aside from a small number of key bottlenecks), consumption fell drastically. AFAIK consumption of "luxury items" had not been that great in the first place. At leats amongst the remote areas and the plebs in general. Steel goes from making rails and construction beams for railroads and buildings to making tank bodies. How many rolling stock factories did they convert to producing tanks ? Copper goes from wiring the country to brass for shell casings. Nitrates go from fertilizer to explosives. Yes. But was that what actually happened ? Ten million men leave the farms for the army. Before much of the arable lands in the west is over run. A comparable number of women become industrial workers. So who is doing the farming then ? Pixies ? 50 million of the population are under foreign control, as does the Donbas, half the coal, etc. 18 million workers are evacuated to entirely new regions. Yes. You don't lose half your country and keep your old industrial plans. They made up for it by sacrificing everything to immediate armaments output and by working very hard. Factories that ran 8 hour shifts in 1940 run 24 hours a day with multiple sets of workers. So where did they get the time to retool all those factories to make munitions ? The statement is more of a political declaration than a thought. Yes they had 23k tanks at the outbreak of the war. They had accumulated them since about 1933. They represented 8 years production. By 1942, that is one year's production in number of tanks, and the mix has gone from 10 ton T-26s to 30 ton T-34s Yes. But you have yet to show the Soviet economy was NOT on war footing prior to 1941.

Originally posted by JasonC: T-34 production soars 8 fold in 12 months after the war breaks out. So what ? They had already produced ~20 000 tanks (not to mention other pieces of military hardware) between 1920's and 1939. Where did that production capacity go ? That is full economic mobilization. There was tons of slack. The overall economy contracts up to 40% as they lose territory, but armaments output still soars. That is full economic mobilization. True. But only up to a point. The entire economical structure was based on the assumption that at some point USSR WILL come under attack. The armaments industry was extensive and all the major production plans and trends had been established to support the armaments industry. Hence to them full economic mobilization did not entail altering any productional structures, just taking in use the slack and I suspect it happened according to a premade contingency plan.

Originally posted by jtcm: I'm not attributing the crisis of 1941, as analysed by JasonC, to planned economy--JasonC points out effectiveness of Sov war economy from start. In fact I woukld have thought a planned economy would have been particularly adept, because of the hypertrophy of the state's capacity for requisition, at war footing operations. I think that was the argument of "Sodorov" in "Inside the Red Army". So my point is that even a planned economy found it hard to cope with supply at the sharp end. So in turn, I'm wondering if a planned economy had particular factors that might have contributed to the mess ? Just a thought. It must be remembered the Soviet economy was de facto on war footing ever since it got up to gear after the civil war. What IMO hurt them the most was the doctrinal upheaval which had left the entire army in disarray. They had progressed from Civil War tactics and doctrine to quite modern Blitzkrieg style tactics and doctrine. Only to be pushed back again to the Civil War era thinking just when the war was behind the corner. The fact that the politrucks had the last say in any and all orders given was also IMO more detrimental to the tactical performance of the units in all levels than the overall supply situation was.

Originally posted by Sirocco: It would be interesting to compare Soviet supply on the offensive in the Winter War with their performance on the defensive in 1941. I think the early war Red Army performance relied very heavily on prestocked supplies close to or in the units area of operations. Mind you, even as late as 1945 the Red Army performance suffered if they had to deviate from the play book plan.

Originally posted by Sirocco: What's the reason for the falling off of Red Army tank losses from "technical failures" after the period Nov 30th - Feb 1st against 7th Army? I think the 7th Army referred to is the Red Army 7th Army. The numbers in the table at the foot of that page are almost equal for that first period against combat losses, but halve against them thereafter. Are the Soviets improving their supply situation, are the unreliable models leaving the picture, or is there some other cause? I would imagine that is due to the fact that from Nov. 30th until early January they had to advance in very (even extermely) difficult conditions from the border to the Mannerheim line, IIRC ~40-50 kilometers, before the battles started in earnest. There was a lull in the fighting during January and the attacks started again in Feb. 1st.