Skipper
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Posts posted by Skipper
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Definitions are as follows: GPW = Eastern Front (ie USSR vs Axis Powers). WW2 = WW2.
Indeed, soviet time history textbooks were leaving one with an impression that Western (as I mentioned above, called "Second" in USSR) front was an easy walk, and before Normandy landings nothing significant happened outside GPW at all. I dont know what are they teaching about the war now.
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> so it might be wise to back off that
> particular line of reasoning in the
> future...
okay, I'll heed your advice
> If it had a cool name like, Red Demon
SU-152 was nicked after the battle of Kursk "Zveroboy" - Beast Killer. Otherwise, nicknaming fighting machines was german habit.
Speaking of mean looking, it is my firm belief
that the meanest looking bastard in the history of armored warfare, as we know it, was IS-3. As somebody said, it is "aesthetically perfect".[This message has been edited by Skipper (edited 02-14-2001).]
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> For the most part I think the "cult" is
> based on the "fact" that Germans
> had "cooler" uniforms, tanks, guns, etc.
> They also had "cooler" names for things
> like Tigers, Panthers, etc.
Now! They might be cooler than Shermans, but hey! Can you say "IS-2"?
... Seriously though, the "cult" is based on the fact (without "") that germans are "ours" for many people, and the 3rd Reich with all their cool uniforms, brilliant military successes etc, but also with concentration camps, slave labour etc, was a materialization of something that western civilisation carries deep within it's soul. Hopefully, it will not happen in such a direct form again.
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OK, anyone who doesn't like the "Eastern Front" term, I have a suggestion for you guys: avenge yourself with calling the Western Front "The Second Front", as it was known in USSR.
As far as I am concerned, I am happy with E.Front term when talking in english (well, almost) in a predominantly american audience. As long as nobody drips crap on MY army
, that is.Skipper
Leutenant (reserve), RVSN, Russian Armed Forces
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That's my first and second hobbies (history being the distant third) - my love-hate relationship with a sailboat. Sailing her is the first, repairing things that break on her is the second (hey, I try to repair them BEFORE they break... honestly!)
Skipper
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I've seen one chap (he was defending against my probe) setting ablaze several empty buildings in a village he was defending. The idea was to deny me good cover there. Well, if he'd also set up some decent defences on the alternative route, he could make me problems.
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Speaking of locating AT guns, I has some success sending a cheap, fast armored unit fast zigzagging across the hilltop on the back of the map, from flank to flank, with the path laid in such a way that it remains in enemy LOS for no more than 10% of the time. If his guns are not hiding, they are shooting. And missing. You should have an infantry unit overwatching the field to ensure identification of the firing position.
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I suspect BTS will leave these things to scenario developers, and I think they will be right at that.
In the real life, it was one of the things frontline soviet infantryman quickly learned from experience and lore: "germans don't fight at night; we do".
There was a reason, as I understand (there is always a reason). Night fight = close combat with light weapons and high bodycounts = attrition war. One of the elements of soviet strategy (at least, while RKKA had not enough mobility and heavy weapons for multiple large scale operations across the front) was to force germans into attrition war. To that extent, all sorts of things were used, such as frequent recons by force, small unit night missions, tactical attacks etc etc.
It worked, by the way.
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> As I said before the Germans because of
> Russian politics were allowed to write the
> Wests history of the Eastren Front
Not that it had anything to do with Russian politics. Just one of the effects of the Cold War. In USSR there were huge number of books published, mostly under auspices of Ministry of Defence Political Directorate
Upon leaving the secondarty school back in mid 80s, my general impression was that the whole Western Front was just a feint, and haven't even heard about such things as Bulge or Market Garden. So, it was just as one-sided on our side of the fence then.
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> As I said before the Germans because of
> Russian politics were allowed to write the
> Wests history of the Eastren Front
Not that it had anything to do with Russian politics. Just one of the effects of the Cold War. In USSR there were huge number of books published, mostly under auspices of Ministry of Defence Political Directorate
Upon leaving the secondarty school back in mid 80s, my general impression was that the whole Western Front was just a feint, and haven't even heard about such things as Bulge or Market Garden. So, it was just as one-sided on our side of the fence then.
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> And I don't see the Rupert Murdock's Fox
> network doing a big budget Eastern Front
> weekly series anytime soon.
Arrgh!!! No thanks! I've read the Rats War (that's the book on which that Enemy at the Gates movie will be based) - that was enough. Commander of 62nd division sniper school Sgt. Zaitsev referring to his partner during the combat mission "Anatolyushka"? He might have added "sweety"...
Three sex scenes in a paperback about the battle of Stalingrad? Pff... -
>> That is not an exactly true statement,
> Yes it is. Please give your source that
> states otherwise.
Cant recall exactly. iirc vaguely, a memoir of somebody who was recon company commander in the area. It might be not about the Isthmus, though. He said that there were some germans in the area (observers? advisers? - whatever), but basically it was finnish position.
>> Yeah, I almost believe that...
> Typical responce from a man ...
You know what? Although it is said that noone was ever convinced to change his opinion on an Internet forum, I do start to believe what you say. Given what happened after WWII, it makes some sense. Of course, I always look at the war as "diplomacy by other means" - although it is not exactly so when people become really angry.
Regarding the tanks on tanks thing. Again, somebody misinterprets what is said and starts ridiculing his own interpretation. You interpretation is indeed ridiculous. What was said was that you jhave to count many things apart from tanks to get a real picture of anti-tank capabilities.
There were several very specific orders by soviet high command, that prescribed commanders to avoid use of tanks as anti-tank means whenever there was a choice.
It does not mean, that tanks were never used in that role, or that it was completely unimportant. However, upgrading the caliber of tank guns had as much to do with penetration, as with HE punch, there were examples when the former was traded for the latter in the design.
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Winter 1941-42 was indeed quite cold (although not the coldest in century at all). However, the German drive on Moscow was stopped dead in November - before the termometer fell below -5-10 C. Soviet counteroffensive happened during the cold weather.
The references to "general mud and general frost" who allegedly defeated the germans in fact mean the following:
German plan was to defeat RKKA within 500 km of the border, before bad weather starts.
As it turned out, OKW grossly underestimated mobilization capacity of Stalin's USSR.
Despite the initial successes, complete destruction of soviet first strategic echelon and most of the heavy industry, USSR maintained ability to fight back. Which in the end of the day spelt doom of the 3rd reich.
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For 1944-45 period we are talking about operations in Western Ukraine, Poland, Chekoslovakia, , Austria, Hungary, East Germany etc. Check your globe on terrain, road network etc.
Any efficiency criteria can be ridiculed, but whichever you take, the fact remains the same - RKKA achieved more during the period when western allies fought seriously.
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I think, that 13 million people figure includes civilians. Probably the victims of concentation camps, too.
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deleted OT post
[This message has been edited by Skipper (edited 02-11-2001).]
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> (this is the old propaganda the article's
> author seems to be using)
LOL Exactly!
> Another example of new information putting
> the Red Army in a worse light from before
Worse than "multiple human waves, rigid tactics, dumb soldiers, rookie officers"? Cannot be. Look, every army in the world makes big blunders, achieves miraculous victories and doesn't really care about bodycounts. This is so by definition. And we all know who won the war in the end of the day. This is the only argument I really need to qualify RKKA combat record as OUTSTANDING.
REDS WON.
The rest is details.
[This message has been edited by Skipper (edited 02-11-2001).]
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That's a funny article you referred to here. Basically, the author quotes one myth (german total defeat) and then carefully paints another myth (Manstein's total victory, conveniently undone by Hitler). The reallife outcome was neither/nor.
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To save you the trouble of buying MS Office, there is an application called Wordpad in Windows. Install it. After thet, if the file is too big for Notepad, you will be auto-prompted to open it in Wordpad.
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Just posted some stuff on that "other thread" that does represent the modern point of view of russian archival worms.
I do not say that those purges had no effect, just that their effect cannot be definitely painted as gross reduction of RKKA fighting ability, and that these purges were far from being a primary cause of 1941 disaster. Basically speaking, any army of that period in the similar situation would find themselves in deepest sh...t, including Wehrmacht, British Forces and US Army.
You are pretty much correct to question those stereotypes you mentioned.
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Some facts and thoughts from the russian side of the fence:
1. From the table, it's not 29 million, it's 11 million. Within this figure there is over 2 million of 1941 POWs (yes, most of the 3.1 million people lost in 1941 were taken prisoners!). There is also some double counting, especially for the same 1941 period (I personally knew somebody who was deemed officially MIA twice). All in all, the modern russian point of view on this is that the number of RKKA dead was 8.6 million. Within this figure there is 2 mililon above mentioned POWs who died in captivity.
2. On the issue of POWs, germans actually took 3.6 million in 1941. How so? They had that nice procedure of rounding up a lot of non-combatants in every place they took, and labeling them POWs. Out of these 1941 POWs, almost nobody survived.
3. Total losses of USSR that cannot be accounted for natural causes were 19.9 million. Ie, 11.3 million civilians (!!!) died thanks to the war, in addition to 8.6 million combatants.
4. Overwhelming numerical superiority was achieved in 1944, when the general outcome of war was largely obvious. In the decisive battles of 1941-43, such as Moscow or Kursk, RKKA did not enjoy any considerable superiority.
5. Germany and her allies lost in war with USSR about 4.3 million combatants, including 0.6 mln who died in captivity (most of these were captured in Stalingrad Cauldron).
6. So, the total ratio of irredeemable losses is less than 3:1. If you exclude the POWs, or exclude the 1941 disaster (which is practically the same thing), it is 2:1. Keep in mind that RKKA was on offensive throughout most of the war, and also that the regular army cadre of NCOs and junior officers was almost completely destroyed in 1941. Make your own conclusions.
I can also run some Eastern Front / Western Front comparisons, if anyone is interested. Basically, in 1944-45 RKKA paid several times less in terms of, say, KIA/sq.km of captured territory, or even own KIA / german KIA, despite the fact that german opposition was much more determined.
Sources:
* V.V.Kozhinov, Russia XX century, 1939-64
* Human losses of USSR in Great Patrioic War - articles, 1995
* Maksudov S.O. "On frontline losses of Soviet Army in WWII", 1993
[This message has been edited by Skipper (edited 02-11-2001).]
[This message has been edited by Skipper (edited 02-11-2001).]
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Thanks Andrew, you made some good points that I am trying to drive home here for the last couple of days.
Being 100% flame-proof, I would say another heresy:
even so called "zagranotryads" (basically, an MG platoon, manned by NKVD, positioned behind batallion defensive position, with orders to shoot own troops leaving the trenches) was GOOD, SENSITIVE, EFFECTIVE MEASURE, that very much helped to win the war. By the way, contrary to common knowledge, they did not exist during 1941 summer campaign, and they did not stay in existance throughout the war - only while they were needed.
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I guess, they try to avoid problems with human rights activists. Cruelty to horses and such.
(or 
?)You know, like in german version of IL-2 flight sim Luftwaffe birds will feature maltese cross instead of authentic swastikas.
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> but there are a lot of roads in the
> Karelian Isthmus. I don't know about roads
> in central Russia (or Ukraine)
I know firsthand what the road network was like around Vuoksa/Ladoga in 1980s - after they built quite a few more roads FROM THE EAST. I also know what it is like in Ukraine. Rest assured, the difference is principal.
> There were times when AT mines were in
> severe shortage
There were minefields laid around Mannerheim line well before the war started. Local shortages of mines during the war is a different story. Again: Mannerheim line was a well-prepared defensive position, 80 km wide by 30 km deep, in antitank terrain, impossible to outflank, and presenting severe logistical difficulties to the troops advancing from USSR territory. Also defended by people with attitude. It would not be a walkover for any army of the era, including Wehrmacht.
> If the snow is too deep, the tank will
> roll over the boulder without any trouble
Penknife story, typical. When and where the snow is that deep, large scale offensive operations are nearly impossible, anyway. Even if your tanks can go through thanks to wide tracks, your everything else will be stuck dead. In reallife tanks were colliding with those boulders all the time, which did not do any good to the tracks and suspension.
Now, what are we arguing about? Are you trying to convince me that for any decent army Mannerheim line was easy pickings, and RKKA could not punch through because it was worse than average? Tell you what, an average army of the time (1939) would not even think about punching through the Mannerheim Line, let alone try it and eventually succeed.
> Which part ? The only German troops in the
> Isthmus EVER were the few formations send
> to assist in the defence when the Red army
> started the summer offensive in 1944.
That is not an exactly true statement, but you are correct - germans had no considerable ground forces there until 1944. And this is exactly my point - they did not bother to mount any operations in that area, and basically relied on finns to hold the line. Now, somebody will say that upon reacquiring what they thought was their own, finns simply had no desire to go any further. Yeah, I almost believe that...
Minimum Tank List for CM2
in Combat Mission Archive #3 (2001)
Posted
The criteria, I guess, may be any tank that was present in the theater in numbers of more than 200. Based on that:
T-40, 60 and 70 definitely a must. BT-5. SUs of all mentioned varieties. Pz-I and Pz-35(t). Earlier models of Pz-IV. Lend-Lease Valentines, Shermans, Churchills and HTs. IS-1 (aka IS-85). Note: it's not JS or JSU, it's IS and ISU. The latter abbreviation, iirc, has nothing to do with Joseph at all.
Apart from that, I submit that use of captured equipment should be allowed, if not for QBs, than for custom-built scenarios.