Skipper

> For overall German POW's, you are probably > right. However, the Stalingrad POW's fared > far worse. I know. As I said, iirc, somewhere between half and 2/3rds of them died. > ...POW camp guards... often took the "pick > of the lot" NB: there was something to pick from. No such luck for a Soviet POW. > I certainly don't want this to degenerate > into some sort of discussion along the > lines of "our troops were treated worse > than your troops". Agree. I just gave the other set of numbers to show that it was not "uncivilised maltreatment of German POWs by cruel russian barbarians" as someone put elsewhere. > That set of figures you cited represents > brutality and inhuman cruelty on both > sides that really beggars the imagination. Ditto.

I've seen these figures somewhere, but was unable to track down the source. Not as few as you say - from the memory the number of survivors was in the range of 30 to 50%. I have total numbers from Col. Gen. Krivoshein. Axis POWs in Soviet captivity: captured 4,1 mln, including 2.4 mln germans died in captivity 0.6 mln, incl 0.45 mln germans To put this in perspective, Soviet POWs in German captivity: captured 4,6 mln combatants, died in captivity 3.3 mln Notably, soviet ration for german POWs was officially equivalent to the ration of a soviet private infantryman out of frontline duties (it wasn't much, and they didn't get it all, probably, but...). OTOH, german ration for a soviet POW was way below that level. Source: Gen.Col. Krivoshein, report to the Association of WWII historians, 29.12.1998 http://web.referent.ru:2003/nvk/forum/archive/24/24909.htm (in Russian)

Iirc, I've seen a concrete pillbox to be abandoned as a result of direct HE hit (after a VERY long barrage). Either way, it does not make sense in CM to waste arty on pillboxes.

I've seen them doing that to a wooden MG bunker. Do you say that they can do it to a concrete 75mm AT bunker? Wow! That's new.

> He is indeed lucky as many of the POWs > died in those camps. Yup. Some 10%. Germans taken around Stalingrad were not anywhere as lucky.

If you are not new to WARgaming, that's the only game worth having these days. Have it in my CD drive for several months, never thought of plugging in anything else.

> Soviets didn't possess overall 3:1 odds > until late in 1944. To me it is not new at all. Moreover, all strategic successes of 1941-43 were achieved with rough equality in numbers. As for 22 June 1941 - what is Glantz's definition of "mobilised"?

On the original question. In my observation, it takes a direct hit by at least 105mm arty shell to knock out a bunker. Which happens quite rarely. If you spend a 100 rounds on a single bunker, there seems to be less than 50:50 chance to destroy it. It is historically correct, too. It took several hundred shells to KO a pillbox in WWII. So, you have to either flank it, or close assault it (smoke helps a lot). Or, if you are short of time, put three AFVs with at least 75 mm gun on the firing line line, and trade one or two for the thing. [ 05-03-2001: Message edited by: Skipper ]

If that's a joke, it's a joke in very bad taste. If it's not... It's in very bad taste anyway.

> mobilized army along the Soviet Union’s > western borders was numerically inferior > to the invading German Army. In my understanding, the part of RKKA that was already present in the first strategic echelon was not inferior in pure head counts to the invading german army. However, it was inferior in mobility and heavy weapons, not to mention strategic initiative, f...d up airforce and such. Ie, deployment too late, too close to the border.

> I would say that the Soviet skill at > escaping encirclement during Operation > Blau is a good indicator of why > Kharkov '42 was so wasteful. I dont understand this phrase. Must be the bloody flu getting to my brain. Could you elaborate? > Had the STAVKA resorted to a fighting > retreat from the start With hindsight 20:20? Maybe. Or maybe not. You do know, I suppose, that despite numerical superiority of RKKA, nearly every big engagement during Barbarossa had German numerical superiority? In an oversimplified way, to play fighting retreat one needed a lot of trucks.

> giving Diesel the potential of 20388.3 > BTU's per pound > 20259.3 BTU's per pound Big difference! Now, keeping in mind that we are apparently talking about different petrol / diesel standards

> I too dislike myths, > and as such lets fix one. Ahem, let's see. > There is a reasons why the allies feared > the SS, the Tiger (evenmore the Tiger II), > the Nebelwerfer, stole German equipment at > every chance, and TO THIS DAY use tactics > originally used by the Germans. If there was no such reason, the war would be over in a few weeks. > It was the Superior Training of those tank > commanders, and their ability to Adapt. It was Combat Experience (Poland), better C&C and better operational doctrine, more than anything else. Germans' pre-war tank crew training program was in no way superior to, let's say, Soviet. > The gun crews, and tank crews for that > matter, where astonished to see their 37mm > rounds just bouncing off the front armor > at point blank! I seriously doubt that German officers did not know about Matildas well before they started in France. > why a 20:1 kills ratio against Russia? Never happened. If you are talking about LOSS ratio for summer 1941, then keep in mind that majority of soviet losses were POWs. The reason was encirclement and panic. > How can one German machinegun battalion > take 30,000 Russian prisoners? See above. > If the U.S. and Russia switched > geographical locations, and Germany pulled > an operation Barbarosa against us, I'll > bet the Germans will enjoy success early. Russia had much bigger and better army than USA in 1941. USA is a big island, if you see what I mean. > It was the experience earned in the > beginning, by training and ability, that > would be combined with superior equipment > in the end, Errmm... Superior? In the end??? > that allowed Germany to last as long as it > did against three major powers, plus > several minor ones. It was several lines of fortifications combined with an ability to pull off active defence. Btw, Germany was not alone. Far from it. > And in the end, it is easy to see it only > took one man to defeat Germany. And his > name is Adolf Hitler. Man, that's BS. You should've mentioned at least another two: Gen. Mud and Gen. Frost. To quote yourself "I too dislike myths". > Had he chose Moscow, he would have cut the > nations only transportation and > communications center. Only????? When posting on this board, it is sometimes useful to take a peek at the globe. Hitler's decision to go after Ukraine was, in all likelihood, correct. There were several valid reasons, one being that there was a reserve command and communicatons center on mid Volga, built in 1930s. If parteigenosse (sp?) Guderian didnt know about it when he was writing his tale, it was not the only thing he did not know (or failed to mention, anyway). > IF Russia could have continued at all. From all indications, it could.

> by late 1945 the Kwantung Army (IJA in > Manchuria) was a shell of it's former > self. Yes, but I am talking about what soviet officers thought about their opponents' tactical skills in combnined arms warfare, not about their numbers or anything like that. And basically, after five years of fighting germans, japanese did not seem up to par. > My uncle in fact was captured by the > Soviets and spent three years in the Gulag > near Lake Baikal. Baikal. Not the worst place of them all. If you take a look at diesel vs petrol thread, I lived in a house built by Japanese POWs. Very good house, by the way. Double walls and everything. Btw, Gulag was Department of Camps, NKVD. Your uncle should have been a client of a different organisation, namely Department of POWs, NKO. > Didn't sound like much fun to me... I guess so. At least, he survived.

That's parft of the ritual. You have to suffer through it with the demo, just as reallife military suffers through a boot camp.

Original thread: http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=018807 KV in a similar state of disrepair: In CM destroyed tanks are nowhere that impressive. That may be a yet unexploited mod idea - wrecked vehicles. "BTS, do somefink!" ©

> With the law of energy conservation > doesn't diesel contain more potential > energy then gasoline? Ahem... no. Burning an equal weight of petrol produces somewhat more heat. However, with compression ratio of 16:1 as opposed to 7:1, diesel is a somewhat more efficient machine (ie, more fuel energy goes to the crankshaft turning, less to the exhaust).

SOP in RKKA was to put a couple of burning logs under the bottom overnight. That's what they did on diesel tanks, not sure about petrol ones.

> but I reckon russkies are not short of > liquid antifreeze for the locks. Vodka's > no good, you need moonshine At the time described above it was extremely expensive. 10 r., with normal salaries in the range of 200-500 r. So, for the lock my dad used a lighter. > Block heater's pretty neat as long as your > local power company is operating 24/7 .. That's what they did then. Anyway, flame torch was somehow better for the job (not safer, though). > I'm afraid the part about taking car > battery inside with you is not > exaggerating. Not at all. Even though the electrolyte doesnt freeze, batteries are very weak at -30C. So, you either had to keep your car in a garage overnight, or get your battery home with you. That's Far North - even colder than the neighbouring (mere 2000 km) Alaska. My place was not the worst of them - it was on sea coast. Hence, we had some funny winds and snow, but not too cold - never colder than -35C, anyway. My dad once went to a work trip someplace in the continental part of the region, stored the car in the street for the night, hit some -70C and had to replace all his tires afterwards. The rubber cracked.

> but if Brit peacekeepers run into a soviet tank Then in all likelihood they are not peacekeepers > it's going to be a T-72 in one > incarnation or another That's a very wide statement! Thus, T-90 is also "another T-72 incarnaion". Although it's a totally different protection/mobility/firepower combo. OTOH, it might just as well be T-55 or even T-34. That's what they have in Africa and even in Yugoslavia. Btw, I've seen some other ammo explosion results - they were not anywhere as impressive as this one. This tank was completely demolished.

On the progress German army made between 1938 and 1941, recommended reading is Guderian's memoir.

> I would say that Operation Mars represents > the worst blunder for the USSR. That's where my wife's granddad was killed. Regimental HQ bombed out by Stukas.

On Kharkov and Rzhev. A fighting force that had a lot of low mobility formations and suffered from the opponent's air superiority probably had no better choice than offensive operations, even at a cost of many lives. Otherwise, it would be encircled and destroyed in piecemeal fashion by the more mobile opponent, exactly as it had happened to RKKA in 1941. Which would cost more lives and a lost war in the end of the day. This is not to say that these meatgrinders were planned as such from the start, just that soviet high command fully realised that these operations were very risky. By the way, how many people here know that the first German version of "Not a single step back" order was issued to the german troops defending around Rzhev?

> Zhukhov held the Japanese armor in low > regard, but not the Japanese army. I was talking about August 1945 operation. By all accounts, japanese were quite far from being in the same league as soviet, or indeed german troops. In 1939, it was a different story.

> Modern wars are not won or lost solely on > the basis of raw numbers of men killed. Fully agree. As well as with the gist of your whole post. Everything is interconnected in too many ways to keep track of. Oversimplificatiion aside, what I meant was that involvement of other allies was not a major factor in the actual outcome of 1941 fighting in Russia. IMHO, early war campaigns (especially, France and Czechoslovakia) actually strengthened German military, not weakened it. What Germany spent on these campaigns was fully recovered in reparations and seized stocks of war materiel. Not to mention the obvious fact that due to these campaigns Wehrmacht had combat hardened officers and NCOs for their big russian adventure.