Skipper

> In fact many a historian has been of the > opinion that the Germans lost the war > because of this ROFLMAO > Aside from the occasional local party head > quarter and of course major cities the > availability would probably be confined to > Vodka manufacturing plants. That's the most ridiculous biased opinion based on antisoviet propaganda claims! Drinking was always the main form of entertainment in Russia, especially in rural areas. According to soviet accounts, fascist occupants would always ask the local populace somewhere along the lines "matka, scnaps!" and be at least Drunk and sometimes Drunk! during combat operations.

The skinny here is that blocking squads (or detachments) were employed widely for about 1 year, mainly in roadblocks, sometimes immediately behind positions of "suspect" units, such as those drafted from convicted criminals. When I say "widely", it means that if you desert your unit and try to leave the combat zone, you would very likely hit one of those roadblocks. Or, if you get lost after a retreat and are going around looking for your unit - same story. You would then be quickly interrogated and one of the following would happen to you: (a) be sent to your unit, ( be sent to another unit hastily formed from retreating troops; © be executed on spot; (d) be executed in front of your unit one day later. According to the report on activities of blocking squads I've read once, in 99% of cases it was actually (a) or (. One roadblock would sometimes have to handle several hundred people per day - there was no time for obseving justice, human rights etc. Martial law (russian version, at least) puts victory first. Some more comments. Almost all pre-war NKVD divisions were in fact border guards. During the mobilisation, more were formed and they were supposed to be used to provide security behind the lines, to control captured territories and finally, to fight as regular infantry if situation so dictates. That's what they did throughout the war. Executions on the battlefield were not uncommon (basically, all commanders were given this right and pretty much did it at their discretion). However, my impression is that we are talking about situations where one guy would be shot to give an example to a company. That was usually enough to get the message across. Defectors would be shot at the back by their own peers, too. "Political officer" and "comissar" are the same thing, essentially. > Guys, the Germans shot, imprisoned, or > assigned to penal battalions 3.3% of their > total mobilized combat force. The Soviets > did so for an estimated 1.25%. How come I > don't see any German units being able to > shoot their own fleeing troops? Good point The reason is simple: western version of Eastern Front is written by germans and heavily influenced by anti-soviet propaganda. Btw, somebody please tell me, what western allies did with defectors at that time? > it was really....uhm...strange to have > these friendly looking grampas tell over a > cup of tea how they had shot and killed > like that That was different time, sure. Imagine yourself a similar interview with, say, spanish conquistadors or crusaders. > read Solzhenitsyn's "Gulag Archipelago" Only if you want to sample the best of the antisoviet propaganda genre. If you are after history, avoid this author altogether. > Anthony Beevor states that it is estimated > that the NKVD inflicted almost as many > casualties on the Red Army during the > battle of Stalingrad as the Germans did. If he really states so, his book's place is in the garbage. That's most ridiculous of all the ridiculous estimates I've ever seen.

I guess paragraph 8 stands for the "art" part? Cause the rest is zen.

> Some decisions are just dumb. I'm sure the > brave souls that manned those anti-tank > rifles would have been much more effective > with a copy of the Panzerfaust. They would be even more effective with a Muha (modern russian mini grenade launcher). Problem is, there were no fausts around in 1937 (when the sovi4et military buildup started). Not even in 1942, as a matter of fact. Some decisions are just made without a hindsight. Soviet military planners in their right mind could not anticipate the kind of disaster that awaited them in 1941. As it was, in the beginning RKKA had more than enough AT artillery (theoretically) to deal with all german armor. Also, by any accounts, serving in an ATG battery was one of the most dangerous frontline jobs. Much more dangerous than an AT rifleman. These 45mm guns were nicknamed "Farewell, Motherland" for a reason.

It is not terribly difficult to move around with a 20kg weapon and a few rounds (make it 35 kg altogether). For a short time, at least, it is possible to even run with this sort of load. So, if anything, in combat they must be able to run, but tire somewhat sooner than the normal infantry. As for the accuracy, we are talking about looooong smoothbore gun and 1000+ m/s initial velocity of the round. These rifles had a secondary role as long-range sniper weapons. And naturally enough they were assigned to the better shooters. By the way, skilled shooters were plenty, primarily thanks to the extremely widespread "Voroshilovsky Strelok" civilian rifleman training campaign. Anti-Tank Rifle REGIMENTS??? You must be talking about IPTAPs (anti-tank artillery regiments) - but that's 45mm AT guns. The mainstay of soviet AT defence early in the war was of course the venerable "sorokapyatka" (45 mm), and not the AT rifles.

> There are an increasing number of TDs > right now. In the Swedish army TDs have > outnumbered tanks since 40 years or so. No offense, strv is an interesting machine, but swedish army is no mainstream, if you see what I mean. Now, if you would be so kind to point me to a lot of modern tank destroyers in russian or american arsenals, that would be another story. > One could argue that the American M1A1 is > a tank destroyer. This is it's primary design requirement, apparently. However, it is a tank.

> Àìåðèêàíñêèõ ìóäàêîâ îáèæàòü íå íàäî. Íå > âñåì íàì äàíî áûòü Ëîìîíîñîâàìè. Äåéñòâèòåëüíî. Ïðèìåð ò-ùà Terence ýòî íåïëîõî èëëþñòðèðóåò.

I was playing a scenario where american paratroopers have to assault a town, and where germans get armored reinforcements from two directions. My only AT gun arrives as a reinforcement after all this german armor. Fortunately, it has a Jeep to run around. So, I managed to put that gun in one position, kill a Panther (rear shot from 200 m, the tank was distracted by an airborne squad from another direction); move it across half the battlefield and engage a couple of halftracks. In reallife, AT guns were often used in offensive - crews were simply rolling them on following the advancing infantry. Their role was to eliminate MG nests, mortars, etc - in other words, a poor man's SPG. Hey, they even used them like that in urban combat!

> That is, indeed, the opinion of one writer > on the Soviet military zone. Geez, that was the opinion of soviet general staff, which issued several ORDERS, prescribing to avoid using tanks in AT role whenever possible. It did not mean that tanks had to back off whenever they saw an enemy tank, it meant that putting a tank in a defensive AT position was the last thing to do (but not prohibited - when there were not enough AT guns or TDs around). For soviet side this doctrine obviously worked, because soviet armor development continued along those same lines for many years after WWII. Germans did not have that sort of philosophy, that's also true. > Well I thought we were discussing WW2,& > have things changed? Yes, and they did. There are almost no tank destroyers around anymore. Notably, there were none in 1939, too. In peacetime it doesn't make sense building them - with vehicle's service life expectancy of 20-30 years, the bigger production costs don;t matter that much. > Stalin, like Hitler, was a bit of > a 'bigger is better' type of guy Not in military matters. He rather had consistent bias towards "more is better". > Why is it that so many Soviet (or post > Soviet) texts take the stance of an hard > pressed defender, making his final > appearance in front of a court of law. Between 1985 and 1995 was a period when russian society completely dismantled own mythology. Unfortunately, many antimyths were launched at the same time (mostly borrowed from western cold-war myths). Fortunately, somewhat balanced version of WWII history is showing up in the last few years - but not many people are interested. So, the antimyths are what most modern day russian (!) teenagers believe. IMHO that's seriously bad for Russia's future. This kinda explains why I have a special passion for stereotypes like "unarmed asians" or "comissars hosing their own troops with machine-guns" or "coffins on tracks" etc. I guess, this shows on this here BBS

err. it's "was" and "did". Since then things changed somewhat.

They do, when they have to. But their main prey is not tanks, and their main threat is not tanks, either.

> but it was done none the less. But if you remember your teenage years, if your parents tell you something that is denied by school, radio, newspapers etc; and the denial is sold under the guise of "progress", you are just likely to think that your parents are backward and superstitious. By the way, I am no atheist - I think that Universe is self-conscious. This doesnt feel like CM topic, does it?

> I think I know what youre talking about > here, or at least what in my opinion the > reason was. Yes, and no. It is yet more complicated than simply being accustomed to hardships. Anyway, by 1941 Russia had a 1000+ years long track record of winning big fights on it's own turf after losing an opening round. That's a pattern, you know

Seems that the point is lost on you - tanks don't fight tanks. Both Pz-V and T-34 could shrug off a 57mm AT round from the frontal, but would not like it in the side. Quality of crews is not an issue in discussion, although it was obviously not as poor as you seem to think. Germans trained their tank crews longer, though. I bet your Grossdeutcheland veteran has heard that fairy-tale from a buddy who has heard it from a buddy. In reality, it was just like described, only not an assault, but a hasty counterattack; not asians, but georgians; not "unarmed", but "not supported by heavy weapons" etc.

Religion was not looked down upon, it was actively discouraged by the regime for some 20 years. To the point of destroying the churches and jailing the priests. Orthodox Church was almost an outlawed organisation. Giving religious education to youth was a crime. Atheism, as one of the basic concepts of Marx's materialistic philosophy, was taught in schools. That's an official perspective. From social perspective, people were creating a completely new way of life. Religion was past - something for elderly or uneducated. From personal experience (we are talking early 1970-s here) I've read in a textbook that religion is "an opium for people" something like in the age of 9. But I had that idea much earlier than that - from relatives or kindergarten, apparently.

Oh, yes, forgot to mention - that would be 5 times more 85 mm shells, as opposed to 75mm shells. So, make it 8 (?) times more HE.

+++ . I also don't except the party line concerninglosses of manpower etc. & the Soviets did invest in better training +++ That's when they had an opportunity for that - ie, in 1943. Before that time, they had to cope with the fact that the regular army was all but annihilated. 5 T-34s are ways and ways better than 1 Pz-V, because between them they can fire 5 times more HE shells in the same timeframe, and were also a bit more mobile. For a medium tank this is all that really counts. Both sides were basically quickly loosing aa many tanks as they could make - on operational level full strength tank units are expendables - you trade in as many as you have, and hope to get as much as possible in exchange. By the way, 1941 RKKA was exceptionally well trained for a peace-time army, freshly mobilised to full stength. It is another story that it did not prove enough to stop the enemy at the border. But hey, did french or anyone else do better than that?

One of the reasons why Germans had their stunning victories in 1939-41 was that the theory of operational art has only found an adequate defensive answer to blitzkrieg in 1941.

+++ But the general consense I have come to is the people generally felt less threatened from the German Invaders than from the Freedom fighters, and eventual return of Stalin. +++ West Ukraine was annexed by USSR in 1939 (was Poland before). For sure, people there did not exactly "assimilate" with soviet regime. There and in Low Baltics situation with "greeting the german liberators" indeed took place. Elsewhere it was quite different. And well, what germans were doing in the occupied territories, especially in Belorussia, was by an order of magntude worse than anything soviet regime ever did.

> It was the "great patriotic war", blessed > by the church, soviets were actually > defending their country. Even more simply, russians defended their kin, which Germans were going to exterminate. Nothing to do with church at all - religion was not too popular, practically all people younger than 30 were convinced atheists. > Propaganda claiming the enemy would not > take prisoners, but would instead torture > and kill everybody attempting to. Propaganda being not far from the truth. > - That being true on several cases, > especially when fighting SS. That being true on most occasions thoughout 1941 and 1942. All but a few POWs simply did not survive more than a few months in captivity. Better die from a bullet than like this. > If you were captured, you'd be an enemy of > the state and would likely be shot if > you'd ever make it back. (although not all > soldiers knew this at the time) Not correct. You would go through NKVD scrutiny, but that did not mean anything like certain death. > - During Stalin's purges you'd be likely > to gain a fatalistic attitude to matters > of life and death. Living in constant fear > of death for a decade would build certain > tolerance. Not true. These purges were not as wholesale as you might be led to believe. Really large repressions were carried out for less than two years in 1936-37. People were not driven by fear even then - it was a much more complicated cocktail, where such things as communistic enthusiasm were no smaller ingredients than fear. > And yet, as mentioned before, the soviets > did surrender in massive quantities. Would > this have more to do with the leaders of > those surrendering than individual > soldiers. This wouldnt. Not more than frequent cases of heroic behaviour. It's difficult to explain, but these are the two sides of the same coin. Basically, attempts to find a logical explanation for an illogicval behaviour are futile by definition. The answer is in the thousands of years of russian history.

OK, here are some hard, cold facts: 1. Germans captured several million soviet POWs in the first 3 months of the war - more than during the whole Oct '41 - May '45 period. 2. Fanatical fighting was quite widespread throughout the war. It has nothing to do with orthodox religion at all - rather with culture, education and indoctrination (USSR was preparing to the big european war for years before it all started). 3. NKVD blocking squads during the time of their existence (that's about 1 year) killed several thousand people - that's much less than one or two per squad. There were no blocking squads in summer of 1941 and after Stalingrad. 4. The only incident of big armor losses in Chechnya occurred in December 1995 - when several armored columns entered Grozny to assume controlling positions on crossroads - they simply did not anticipate organized resistance. They paid dearly for this intelligence screw-up. Takeover of Grozny in 2000 was conducted with minimal losses of soldiers' and civiians' lives. > that proves they are not good fighters, > stupid generals and crappy troops make up > 85% of the Russian army then and now/ Kiddy (couldnt be older than 14 with that sort of wholesale generalisations), those generals and troops crushed the glorious german military THEN. Go figure.

> So you're saying the doctrine was ok - it > was just that the tanks they had to work > with sucked? No. I am saying that the "tanks shouldnt fight tanks" doctrine (at least in RKKA) was not meant for tactical situations. It was for regimental level and higher.

> Finnish claims. If that, divide by 3.14159.... And make em T-70s No offence, this is so for all armies of all times. For some the above coefficient is even 3.14159 squared. > No data on Soviet losses > available on Russian archives, I think Must be available. Most archival documents on the period have been de-classified in the last 10 years.

> As for TD doctrine - LOL! But you know, > the doctrine may have been okay, the > terrain in Normandy just didn't allow them > to put it into practice. I don;t know if this is your own miunderstanding or a widespread misunderstanding, but in its true original form it was not a tactical doctrine, but an operational one. Exact meaning being: "friggin never use tanks to defend the directions of a possible tank attack, if there is any other choice." Not because tanks are worse at that than AT or SP-AT guns, but because using them as as anti-tank weapons is a poor "value for money". OTOH, if you are a tank platoon CO advancing through a terrain and you see an enemy tank, you engage it.

> the Soviets lost between 700 and 1 000 > tanks, most of them T-34's, KV's, IS's, > ISU/JSU's. That's hardly correct. Most of them must be SU-76s methinks. By the way, there was no such thing as JSU - ISU abbreviation means self-propelled destroyer [of tanks] and has nothing to do with Uncle Joe.