Skipper

As one soviet general (don't remember who) put it "When you have more than 150 arty tubes per kilometer [of frontage], you don't report about enemy positions - only how far own troops advanced".

Havent heard about KTs being used in soviet service, but as a result of the first encounter with King Tigers (namely 501st heavy panzer batallion at Sandomir bridgehead, 13 Aug 1944) 6th guards tank corps captured three KTs in good working condition. One (#502, currently on display in Kubinka) was found abandoned in Oglenduv complete with full ammo loadout and technical manuals. Two KTs were promptly sent to Kubinka for testing.

You are simply not well informed. I can give you five-six incidents like that just off the top of my head. Including raids on concentration camps (don't remember camp names right now).

Interesting tidbit bout the debut phase of WWII: "I once again spoke to Mr. Beck [Polish foreign minister] about politics of Germany and Poland regarding Soviet Union... Mr. Beck does not conceal that Poland pretends to Soviet Ukraine and access to Black Sea" Ribentrop, diary entry, January 1939 To put this into some context, two months later Poland participated in german "takeover" of Czechoslovakia. And five more months later was crushed by Germany, of course.

> had just come off of the production line (from > the Stalingrad factory IIRC Stalingrad factory just before it was shut down has produced some very fancy T-34s. Like, with friction bearings, no turret motor and so on - they were just trying to use whatever they had in stock to make "sort of like" tanks. On the basic principle "something is better than nothing". So, if it was one of those T-34s, then no wonder.

Afaik, standard recipe for armor plate changed quite a bit during the 4 years of war. Besides, there were large deviations from standards due to availability of rare metals in a given place at a given time. So, it's not at all surprising that one book says one thing, and another says something completely different.

> I think robustness and value were both involved. Surely enough. Actually, from below TSword's quote it looks like this is end of day - not morning - reports. > 12.7. After repelling a counterattack Pssel- > river is passed and adv. to NE into area 2 km > NW of Pole Shajew. Later to Beregowoje- > Kartaschewka road. UntStrm Köhler KIA. > 13.7. 4 Tigers in repair. Planned attack on > Kartaschewka-Prochorowka road in cancelled. > Counterattack and destruction of strong enemy > forces. All 10 Tigers out of action Can anyone clarify this?

OK, so if I understand you correctly, these are not end of day, but rather beginning of day figures. And the right way to interpret them is somethgin like this: On the morning of 12 July the unit was at 80% TOE strength, and within 24 hours taken out of action completely. However, no write-offs and within the next four days divisional repair base managed to fix them all. I wonder, if anyone has similar figures for the whole vehicles park of that division (it's safe to guess that Tigers were priority #1 to evacuate and fix).

I think, it's a lot better than nothing. Ex: QTE Experiment/experience of combat of the parts of 24 armies in period 20.7.5.8. 41 g. in the region Yelnya with the entire obviousness it revealed following main disadvantages in training of our troops:I. Pekhot.Parts have the high percentage of the soldiers badly prepared in the tactical and rifle relations and junior commanders;departments, platoons and companies in many parts were not hammered together.Questions of the combination of the fire/light of their weapon and motion are very badly depleted.It is bad with the bounds and the creeping under the fire/light of enemy, with the forward movement instead of the established/installed chains/circuits rapidly they converge in the groups (but sometimes also crowd) and substitute itself in this form under the fire/light of enemy.In infantry the necessary faith/belief in force and power of its weapon is not brought up.Because of ignorance and inability to squeeze out everything which is possible from its weapon.rifle, machine gun, grenade and mortar frequently are estimated as little effective means.On this basis is born the tendency the majority of the tasks in combat of solving by artillery, by tanks and by aviation. UNQTE

"They" here means the divisional HQ, I guess. Thing is that all these figures seem to be with one day delay (?)

Panzer division SS Tottenkopf (sp?) Number of combat-capable Pz-VI tanks in the end of day: 4 July 1943 - 11 10 July 1943 - 2 11 July 1943 - 10 12 July 1943 - 10 13 July 1943 - 0 (sic!) 14 July 1943 - 5 15 July 1943 - 7 16 July 1943 - 9 Question: how did they count them?

> The full vodka bottle has a powerful AP effect. Only on NATO and other 'potential opponent' personnel.

In some sort of operational game where a unit is tank division, difference in practical ROF of about 1.5 times would probably be about right. CM, however, uses two-dimensional model - separate spotting/targeting and reloading times. When firing repeatedly at the same target, tanks should obviously use maximum ROF (?)

> Huhh, not sure what that means? Maximum ROF (8 and 12 rpm, respectively) is determined purely by the speed of firing-loading cycle. Assuming rughly similar cyclogram, duration of this cycle is very much dependent on the weight/size of the round, i.e. caliber of the gun. When we start speaking about practical ROF, target spotting, acqisition, aiming etc, at this stage so many other factors come into play, that you can only speak about qualitative differences. Qualitatively, Pz-III had an advantage over T-34-76 in that department, thanks to things like three men turret, commander cupola and so on.

Regarding mortars, if it's a myth, it's an officially propagated one - I've heard it from my tactics instructor in RVSN training center. 76.2 mm, on the other hand, is a traditional 3 inch caliber.

> I dunno if that's a real quote It is. Said, iirc, in 1918. At other times Il'ich was a big music-lover, actually. [ May 14, 2002, 07:03 PM: Message edited by: Skipper ]

NB: T-34-76 and Pz-III have main gun calibers of 76 mm and 50 mm, respectively. Which kind of explain everything, doesn't it?

Here is a vehicle nick-named Zveroboy = Beast killer. This was the only soviet AFV that could deal with Tigers and Panthers head on head at the time of Kursk battle. Hence the nick. SU-152 [ May 11, 2002, 04:58 PM: Message edited by: Skipper ]

Definitely, Stalin has recognized some serious threat to his power within the military in late 30s. Was it real or just potential? God knows. Either way, NKVD got carried away fighting this threat.

Speaking of Patton, can anyone say if below is a real quote from the guy? QTE We promised the Europeans freedom. It would be worse than dishonorable not to see they have it. This might mean war with the Russians, but what of it? They have no Air Force anymore, their gasoline and ammunition supplies are low. I’ve seen their miserable supply trains; mostly wagons draw by beaten up old horses or oxen. I’ll say this; the Third Army alone with very little help and with damned few casualties, could lick what is left of the Russians in six weeks. You mark my words. Don’t ever forget them. Someday we will have to fight them and it will take six years and cost us six million lives. We have destroyed what could have been a good race of people and we are about to replace them with mongolian savages and all of Europe with communism. The difficulty in understanding the Russian is that we do not take cognizance of the fact that he is not a European, but an Asiatic and therefore thinks deviously. We can no more understand a Russian than a Chinese or a Japanese. From what I have seen of them I have no particular desire to understand them except to ascertain how much lead or iron it takes to kill them. In addition to his other amiable characteristics, the Russians have no regard for human life and they are all out sons of bitches, barbarians, and chronic drunks. UNQTE

Few more factoids about the state of RKKA in 1941-42. 1. Between 1937 and 1941 it has undergone almost sevenfold increase in numbers. That alone would account for unusually rapid promotions in the ranks. 2. Practically the whole regular army was wiped out in the first 3-4 weeks, where earlier german mobilization meant 2:1 strategic superiority on the ground and total domination in the air (and the soviet pre-war doctrine relied too heavily on airpower for recon - something that is mentioned as a grave mistake in many divisional AARs of June-July 1941 battles). By 1942, it was very rare to have more than 1 cadre (pre-war training) officer per batallion. 3. Of all countries that participated in WWI, Russia suffered by far the worse (two revolutions and a very bloody civil war). In mid-1920s it started as an illiterate, very loosely controlled rural country with no heavy industries to speak of. Several million of people, mostly the highly educated ones fled the country. 4. As a direct consequence of all above, an average infantryman had 3-4 classes of primary education, and 10 classes of education would make one a highly educated person. Only 18-20 year olds commonly held that kind of education, and not even all of them. So purges were a factor, but probably not even the dominating one. [ May 11, 2002, 02:53 AM: Message edited by: Skipper ]

Kursk / Prokhorovka 1. I don't have the german TOE at Prokhorovka on 12 July. So, if there were no Pz-Vs, well, fair enough. There were quite a few in the 4th Army, afaik. 2. The difference between the CM meeting engagement and what was going on at Prokhorovka was quite profound - in CM you only need to get to the middle of the map to win. 3. Can anyone explain how does a number of 2700 tanks at Kursk Salient on 5 July fits with the number of 2400 operational tanks on 30 June? What makes up for a difference, StuGs or the tanks that were not operational on 30th, but were on 5th? 4. 800 is the paper TOE for Vatutin's army. The actual force engaged at Prokhorovka initially consisted of about 600. Losses > 7 million Germans died total on two fronts > 22 million Soviets died total on one front > who had the better what? 1. RKKA had ~12 million irreversible losses. Out of these 12 million, 4.5 million were POWs. Almost 50% happened in the first 12 months of war. 2. German armed forces had almost 8 million irreversible losses, including 3 million POWs. That is, if we are not counting another 4 million who were taken POWs at capitulation. 3. 34.5 million soviet people and 21 million german people went through military service during 1941-1945. 4. If you include axis minors and western allies into the picture, the overall ratios would be not changed much, very roughly speaking.

> I have read Fugate/Dvoretsky's book from 1997 > (inspired the AAR that Matt put out recently). > I think the central thesis is a bit off Soviet troops at the border did play that role (buying time to complete mobilization). However, it was not exactly what they were supposed to do according to soviet plans - and certainly not at the price that they paid.

> Yes, you are quite right. Let´s change those > Jumbos to 76mm Shermans(W). Russian 76mm was as > powerful as the US 76. Well, almost. Mere 40% percent difference. NB: ZIS-3 and F-34 are completely different things. > And remember Skipper, we are talking about > meeting engagement. No. There are no flags in the middle of the field. Both sides want to get right across the map. [ May 07, 2002, 12:53 PM: Message edited by: Skipper ]

> With Prokhorovka in mind it should be more like > 1 Tiger, 1 Panther and 6 Pz-IVs for you, My OOBs for Prokhorovka are different than yours. > 10 76mm Jumbos and 6 Stuarts for me. T-34-76 obr 1942 was a mean beast, but like the other orator has pointed out, it could not penetrate the frontal projection of either Pz-V or Pz-VIB, and it's frontal projection could rather easily be penetrated by german 75mm. OTOH, it was fast. Which makes it rather more comparable to the vanilla Sherman.