Skipper

Apparently, it was extreme smartness and concern for human lives that led France to failure a year before the Barbarossa, despite all the help from other allies. It was also extreme smartness and a concern for human lives that led Germany to the ultimate defeat. I also take it that there were some superior human beings (race, maybe?) from some other country that could do better on behalf of soviet leaders (err... without 20:20 hindsight, please). I finally understand, that you can name at least one country that did not make major blunders during the WWII (no references to Switzerland, please). At 1941 the theory of deep offensiove operation was well developed, but the defensive answer to that (defending directions, rather than fronts) was basically yet unknown and untested. If USSR would strike first, quite possibly there would be a mirror scenario (well, not so miraculous as wehrmacht results perhaps, but still the same in principle). Speaking of the tanks. There are a dozen variants of T-34s - so while the above mentioned design bugs existed in earlier version, they were sorted out in later versions. German panzers of 1941 (namely, Pz-III and Pz-IV) had their share of bugs, some of them more serious (such as being prone to mechanical failures when used in certain reallife conditions). Basically, as a workhorse of deep operation, they were all less mobile than T-34/BT combo. Needless to mention, there was no such thing as a "heavy tank" in german arsenals then. The only really big one for soviet tanks was the lack of radio. That was by no means a design fault (hey, they all had slots to put it in), but an industrial capacity constraint. You cant have everything at once 15 years after you start with totally devastated country. Radios at the time were very expensive, and pre-war USSR production was limited. With hindsight, they probably should have commited more resources to radio production. However, in other WWII scenarios that would not play such a big part. To the soviet armor 1941 combat record. Luftwaffe ruled the sky. That meant heavy interdiction and excellent recon for ground troops and arty. Nearly every account of german attack on a hastily prepared position begins with arrival of recce plane, and then an arty barrage or Stukas, or both. And the first german thing most frontline troops saw was a german plane. For many it was also the last. Majority of russian tanks lost in the first few months were not killed in fighting, but either bombed out or ditched by crews [after runnig out of fuel and/or ammo and/or broken and/or when the crew was not really willing to die for the motherland]. When they could get it to the battlefield, they did funny things. > I'll take a tank with inferior firepower, > inferior protection, and inferior mobility > over one with inferior command and > inferior control. I do not think this sentiment was exactly shared by panzer drivers at the time. Obviously, there was little or no inherent C&C fault in the design itself.

Dummy tanks (locally made of plywood and rubber on tractor chassis). These were used in Crimea and (iirc) Leningrad to (as propaganda puts it) "scare fascist invaders". Although that could probably lead to all sorts of gamey abuses, I always wondered how would one tactically deploy a plywood tank with stick for a gun and MG for firepower (imagine an MG carrier that appears to germans as positively identified Firefly).

German tactical manual recommends at certain situations covering the sound of approaching tanks with artillery barrage. As far as I can say, explosions and nearby shooting do not affect ears of CM combatants (?)

Soviet tankers by the end of the war feared "fausts" most of all (to be sure, they called any german RPG that way). An impression one gets from late war accounts is that fausts claimed about half, if not more, of soviet armor losses. The picture was probably different on the Western Front, where the fighting was not so agressive, in general.

Speaking of threnches, I have read somewhere an opinion (by veteran soviet officer) that digging trenches instead of foxholes whenever that was at all possible (ie, not only when they were going to live there for some time) was the single most important improvement in soviet platoon tactics. According to the author, stability of even a single trench defense was by an order of magnitude better than a set of foxholes. Basically, it amounted to a rifleman not feeling alone against the whole world. Plus NCOs could bollock their subordinates close and personal right in the heat of it

Figured that out yesterday. Together with upcoming IL-2 flight sim, that's a dream come true. Looks like (knock-knock) I am on a streak of unusually good luck for the last week

Kubinka reports specifically mention poor armor plate material on the Tiger. Poor welding, too. As for the cracking due to welds, you may be right, but again what i've read spoke about the quality of steel. It was not only Pz-VI's problem, but all other tanks, including Pz-V varieties too.

> Please be so kind as to show a shred of > evidence of a conspiracy to replace Stalin. In case of Trotsky, I guess, everything is obvious (if you have an understanding of what was the story between the two wars). In case of the army, well I have no good evidence of that. Multiple "voluntary confessions", but we know what they are worth, right? However the link Trotsky-army brass is not too difficult to make, and that's, I am afraid, the way it works in reallife - a dictator who waits for evidence, usually gets it in the form of his own funeral. > Also, NKVD have their own ranking, > being referred to as "Senior Leutenant GB" As well as equal to "major" in some of those "studies". That really applies to kombrig/brigadnyy komissar etc. Thanks for a good URL. Now, look at these figures in view of the facts that: 1. that over 10,000 officers were rehabilitated in 1938-39. 2. That at the same time, about 100,000 new officers were enlisted. 3. That there were about three times more officer positions in RKKA in summer 1941 than there was in 1937. 4. That VVS pilot was NCO rank. To quote from the URL, +++ ôàêòè÷åñêàÿ óáûëü èç àðìèè îôèöåðîâ ñîñòàâèëà â 1936—1937 ãã. 19674 ÷åëîâåêà (6,9% ñïèñî÷íîé ÷èñëåííîñòè), à çà 1938—1939 ãã. — 11 723 ÷åëîâåêà (2,3% ñïèñî÷íîé ÷èñëåííîñòè). +++ Actually dismissed from RKKA in 1936-37 were 19674 men (6.9%), for 1938-39 - 11723 (2.3%).

What about Panthers?

> If that's the point of the Soviet state > was to guard Stalin's ass, then that's a > great strategy. That's warmer already. His strategy, in simple terms, was something like that: - collectivisation (early 30s) - industrialisation (mid 30s) - building up military (late 30s) - big european war - worldwide communist revolution - he conquers the world Do you want a description of what USSR was like in late 20s, when Stalin acquired the real power? It was a wasteland. Since Stalin wanted to manage it within his own lifetime, he had to press very hard. Guarding his ass in the circumstances was justified, to put it mildly. Finally, it is one thing to accuse something of "trotskyism" under the same breath as for "spying for germany", like they liked to do, and quite another - to say that Trotsky was Stalin's political opponent number 1, even when he was already abroad.

> Except that the current date largely > confirms what was published back then. Except that the figures you later quoted are 4 times less than previously mentioned 40,000, to start with. > Actually, it's your estimate that's widely > off base. Fair enough, an estimate is an estimate. > Here are the numbers, according to > Professor Komal. Aha. Looks like somebody already dug in the archives. Can you give me an URL or ISBN? Taking the figures you posted as a fact, we are now talking almost 40,000 dismissed, and about 9,000 arrested. It remains to figure out, how many of the dismissed were "purges for political reasons". I very much doubt that it was 85%. With 80,000 strong officer corps one would expect about 6 to 8,000 dismissed annually just in a normal way of life, what do you think? The large drop in "dismissed" figure in 1939 is when soviet mobilisation started. > Actually, in vast majority of cases they > are both "positions" and "military ranks". Very far from vast majority. While certainly vast majority of divisional and regimental COs would be "kombrigs", the other way around is not true. Ie, lots of "kombrigs" were not combat officers at all. Ie, police, NKVD, judges etc. The normally cited figures "X out of Y kombrigs", afaik, do not separate this category. > Can you say "Voroshilov, Kulik, Budenny"? Surely can. Can you say "Head of partisan movement"? Sinecures for heroic granddads. iirc, none of these guys you mention took part in strategic decision making except Kulik, maybe. > His works were as revolutionary in his day > as anything by Guderian, Fuller and Lidell- > Hart. Unfortunately, we cannot know what > he could've done with the army given > another 4 years of stewardship. Poland 1920. Have you read his works, by the way, or just quoting somebody else's opinion? Cause I did, and well, I can write such fantasies, too - as long as you don;t ask me to stick to realities of available technology, economics, logistics etc too much. > And do you really expect any sort of > objectivity on the part of "Uncle Joe" to > the men he had executed on his orders? No. Why do you ask? I do not expect any degree of democratic inclinations or political corectness from him, either. Not that kind of person, you know It's just the he did not do anything out of bloodlust - his actions always had a good political or strategic reasoning behind. He made his fair share of blunders, but it is not quite so clear that "purging" the army in 1937 was one of them. Army, as far as I can say, was not an imagined but very real and direct political threat to the Uncle Joe. Besides, you have no idea what RKKA was like before the purges. Somehow, you assume that it was better, or more efficient, or capable of holding Vistory Parade in 1942. My undertanding is completely different.

Heh... Sorry for not being clear. I can prove that most of the 5 marshals "purged" were not combat officers at the time they were "purged". And in every case of the five, I can understand Stalin's reasons (although not his methods - but I have no idea if he had an alternative; surely enough, he did not look for alternatives too hard). Heck, the surviving four were no more useful during war, either - sinecures for granddads. Getting rid of Tukhachevsky (ie, firing him from the army brass, not the act of killing him) IMHO was a positive factor for the RKKA combat-readiness. During 20-s Trotsky was in charge of the army. Most of the top brass were his creatures. That's the context in which the purges should be seen, mainly.

Apa: As a generalisation, I am easily annoyed by people labeling Stalin, Hitler, Zhukov, other soviet and german leaders and generals as "dumb", "morons", etc. Put it this way, neither of the above were either dumb or morons. Or, from a more personal perspective, I am most certain that you and me are much dumber than the above mentioned individuals were in 1941. Same story about RKKA. Nobody in the world at the time was prepared better than the Red Army to face the nazies. Nobody but RKKA was prepared for them at all.

Hey, I've checked the unit price tables in CM and (surprise, surprise) Pz-V is MORE expensive than Pz-VIE. Huh? Give me a Tiger plse. I'll take two. And wrap them in giftpaper, please. Who was bollocking them? No, that was... err... another Skipper... I think. Seriously, if you are not hard-pressed for time, looks like CM Tiger beats the Panther hands down. [This message has been edited by Skipper (edited 02-06-2001).]

> I think the most interesting question > about CM2 is how to model early war Soviet > infantry. Let's try to give it a shot. They are very different in June-August 1941 and September-November. summer: Regulars, large command delays (not many radios), limited and wildly inaccurate arty support (lack of ammo and good maps, poor comms again). Infantry platoon HQs must sit on the wire to the main HQ, and the wire can be cut by, say, a nearby explosion. Have to have commander tanks with different reaction time, for one tank in platoon had a radio. No air support. Very often understrength, undersupplied, and in bad mood (heavily harassed by Luftwaffe enroute to deploment areas, as well as just prior to attacks). Surrender easily (no knowledge of what german occupation or captivity really means). Germans: veterans, excellent arty, cheap TRPs, knowledge of original Soviet positions (non-interdicted air recon). fall: conscripts or greens, no arty, no armor, no bloody nothing except 14.5 mm AT rifles and Molotov cocktails. Lots of fanatic troops. Exagerration of sorts, there were much more combat capable formations (Elnya, anyone?), but that's how the bulk of the army looked.

> To reiterate - not just a radical > statement, but one that is plain wrong in > the light of the generally accepted > sources. But I somehow get the feeling > that we will be hit with some pro- > communist propaganda soon Hehe... here ya go! 1. The generally accepted sources rely on what? In the absence of access to NKVD archives, they relied on such "authorities" as the author of "Archipelag GULAG". Repeat: no data better than that was available until early 90s. 2. Those few who had access to the archives would not publish anything except soviet propaganda. Those who would write about the issue without access to archives, by definition relied on dubious sources. 3. Now, as I said above, the access is there. Archival research produces funny results. The "purges" campaign took place, but on much smaller scale than it is generally advertised. Refer you to the works of V.Zemskov. Typical library worm, not even on a Soros grant . Afaik, this is the first guy who has something meaningful to say about the whole issue of 1936-37 state terror scale. Germanboy: the figures you quote are exactly that. Somebody "estimated" these figures. Read, invented them by sucking out of his thumb. And presented as a serious fact. Glantz quoted that "estimation". Similar estimations about, say, total numbers of GULAG clients, turned out to be gross exagerrations. In the particular case, 40,000 figure (Solzhenitsyn gives another, exact number) is the total number of military personnel who quit military service in 1939. "Estimate", how many of these retired by age, were KIA, wounded, expelled from service for drinking etc, and there is not much room left for "purges". At the time, it was only possible to know how many of army top brass were "purged". Next, these "corps commanders" and "brigade commanders" are not positions. They are MILITARY RANKS (they cancelled traditional ranks in 1917 and switched back to them in 1943). Most of them (abnd I can easily prove that in case of the five marshals) were not combat officers. Most were political officers (Trotsky's main powerbase), others were not NKVD. Some, as I mentioned, were even judges, railroad bosses etc. How far did the state terror campaign affect military in general, there is no good data yet, but almost surely that when somebody digs into archives, the referred "estimates" will fall flat. Next, on "trotskyists" point, Trotsky was not just a figurehead, so to say. He (and Kirov) were the only political opponents strong enough to unseat Uncle Joe. The army establishement was the only thing not under his control in 1936. Besides, he was of no great opinion about them. Now, look at who was in control of RKKA in June 1941. Bah, all familiar faces - the greatest soviet generals of WWII. And believe me, they had all the experience a peacetime general (with WWI/Civil War comnbat experience) could have, keeping in mind that between 1939 and 1941 RKKA saw threefold growth in number of men, machines and combat formations. > So, can you conclusively prove that purges > were not harmful militarily? No, we are not in court, and I am not a pro historian. Can just show you that "common knowledge" on the issue is likely to be a bunch of crap. Have to see when somebody will look into this matter seriously. > Has someone said that the Finns should be > conscript, or have poor officers? I do not > think that is the case Neither do I. They most certainly pulled off something nobody expected them to. By the way, the point of Winter War from Soviet perspective was not takeover of Finland, but the access to Baltic Sea in view of the imminent european war, and gaining ground around Leningrad. Which they got (well, speaking of Baltics they only thought so at the time, but it's another story). Imagine if Wehrmacht could start offensive operations against Leningrad from the old border. It would quite certainly fall. > Tukhachevskii still saw the flaws in the > Soviet Army and recommended they be > changed. I certainly see the flaws of russian army today, and can predict with reasonable accuracy what the modern war will look like. Does it make me a good general? Hmm... Tukhachevsky was not a great general - anyone who would bother to read his theoretical works in the light of modern day knowledge would know that. What he definitely was though, was a "political whore", to quote Uncle Joe Stalin.

Duck for cover, chap - somebody sure will call you a nazy very soon. 5 (almost 1, but not quite) 3 1 17 5 4

Apa: You know, how they say "Victory has many fathers, failure is a bastard"? I especially liked you blaming on Hitler the lack of winter equipment. ROFLMAO, they had no time to procure it, the whole frigging gamble of Barbarossa was to destroy RKKA during summer campaign, within 500 km from the border. To tell you the truth, Hitler was very good politician and diplomat. As for Stalin, well, those who dealt with him (ex, Churchill) expressed an opinion about his mental abilities diametrically opposite to yours, too. > Certaintly capable to taking out the Finnish with proper leadership. Which, by the way, they eventually did in 1940, although with more guts and blood than originally anticipated.

Tukhachecvsky, by the way, was the one who screwed up in Poland in 1920. Uborevich, Yakir were chekists, not military. All listed were trotskists (ie, there was a damn good reason for Stalin tpo get rid of these people). Look. I definitely don't need you to tell me the names of marshals and generals who were purged. I want you to show that it was a negative factor. PS Purges among civilians, however morally wrong, were undeniably a POSITIVE factor for USSR industrial capacity and mobilisation capability. NB: the hundred thousand purged officers figures you might have seen are anti-soviet propaganda plain and simple. In fact, if we are talking about army officers "purged", we are talking about much less than ten thousand all told.

> I think that John Ericsson and Eric Glantz > would not agree with you there, and I > happily take their word over yours any day. That's up to you, but I am not sure if you interpret them right. As I said, surely enough Wehrmacht had more experienced officers, however it was not the decisive factor. The quality of pre-war soviet officer corps was better than average. Speaking of purges, go ahead, dig up some facts, and make sure they are: (a) from VERITABLE sources (ie, not an anti-soviet propaganda genre); ( separate combat officers from political officers and various civilians with military rank (such as police, judicial, railroad managers (!) etc, etc). > units were sent there from the Ukraine > with no winter equipment, and that these > units had no idea what they were facing, > terrain and climate wise. They were sent there hastily, when it became clear that the originally deployed force was not strong enough. Easy successes in Mongolia and Poland made RKKA too arrogant. Iirc, the initial force consisted of Leningrad Military District troops. > 1) Did you see the Mannerheim line Most certainly. > During winter war Soviet officers hadn't > propably even heard of blitzkrieg. Dead wrong. The buzzword of 1930-s soviet operational theory was "deep operation" and "motomechanised troops" - blitzkrieg plain and simple. Exactly what Zhukov pulled off in Mongolia in 1939, even before the invasion of Poland. The concept itself dates back to WWI. An attempt to pull it off in Finland proved more complicated, initially. > If he had stayed in Red army, he would > have been killed years before the war, > that is quite sure. Not necessarily at all. There were many enough tzar's army officers and unter-officers among soviet generals. Including the chief of General Staff. > German had one moron in their armys > hierarcy, and it was the highest ranking. If USSR would lose, I am sure surviving soviet generals would say the same about Stalin. And that's simply not true on both counts. > They never believed, that the Russians could use BZ) Underestimating opposition is a big mistake, too. Soviet leadership was also guilty of it in case of Winter War. If you read Barbarossa directive, you get an impression that OKW was unaware of Second Strategic Echelon existance at all. > And marshes, as well as lakes, rivers and > even the Gulf of Viipuri, were frozen by > the time, which favoured the attacker. That's when you know exactly where they are. When you don't know, you often end up drowning your tanks and trucks in wholesale numbers. The defences I saw were certainly built with likelihood of winter in mind. > It certainly wasn't a Maginot line. Yup. Thanks to surrounding terrain, it is better. > Isthmus was mostly farmland. Soviet tanks > didn't have trouble in exploiting break- > throughs in 1944 in the same terrain. They did! As well as Germans+Finns in 1941. They just "learned to cope" by that time. Back to the original topic, the main point is that if/when anyone will be building Winter War scenarios (or for that matter June-July 1941 scenarios), it will be historically ridiculous to make it Finnish crack troops against hordes of Soviet conscripts. In fact it was mainly regulars on regulars (veterans on regulars in 1941). Scenario balancing for Winter War should rather come from fortifications, terrain etc. See above.

Heh, why not T-55 then? Centurions did not take part in WWII action, iirc.

Aint know. They could achieve your objective (8.8 cm in a turret) quite a bit simpler, IMHO. Tiger's design is far from optimal from engineer's point of view. As I said, look at IS-2. It is a lighter tank with similar protection and, iirc, three (!) times heavier shell. Not to mention better propulsion. Designed at about same time.

The major factors that determined the outcome (ie, soviet victory with loss ratio heavily in favour of finns), IMHO, were the following: 1. The whole war (with exception of ill-fated finn counteroffensive, which was cancelled pretty fast), was a series of soviet infantry assaults on prepared finnish fortifications (and please, don't give me the crap that Mannergeim line was a bunch of hastily dug trenchlines or something - I saw it myself, pretty impressive concrete DOTs, great fields of fire, marshes on both flanks, f...ng meatgrinder in other words). 2. Extremely scarse road network in the theater - makes more impact on attacker, than defender. 3. Untankable terrain - even if you get a breakthrough, there is no way to exploit it properly. These three things alone should be enough to determine the actual outcome. Of course, finns were defending their country, soviets were just gaining ground around Leningrad. That makes a lot of a difference in the grunt's attitude, initiative etc. But not so much as to be decisive for why the loss ratio was far from 1:1. Far from it - in other terrain but otherwise similar circumstances it did not help French or Polish at all. Skills and training of officers and grunts were on par. Essays about finns accustomed to living in winter forest, as opposed to russians accustomed to living in cities (huh? in 1939, just 10 years after "industrialisation" start?), or steppes, or I do not know where else (tropics?) hold no water in them. Same story with Stalin being responsible for allegedly poor quality of officer corps. Put it this way, it was good enough to win the war with Germany, which was finished by the same generals as started. Certainly, no worse than US and british in 1944. Ie, proper training, early promotion due to massive mobilisation (NB: not due to "purges"), little or no combat experience. Compare to Wehrmacht: all the same, but longer experience at present level of command, and a lot more of combat experience. Surely enough, those soviet officers who survived Barbarossa got much better by the end of the year. The causes of 1941 disaster had nothing to do with quality of officers.

Let me put it straight (hopefully). 1. German steel quality varied dramatically throughout the war. 2. At the beginning, it was good. 3. By 1943-45, Germany had big problems with commodity supplies. For black metallurgy that meant lack of nickel and other additives thath make the steel strong (aint know the right english technological term here). 4. That means that many (if not all) german tanks produced late in the war had poor quality armor plates. 5. The last statement is supported by: (a) firing tests in Kubinka Poligon - reports on Pz-V and Pz-VIB mention poor quality of armor plate material; and ( numerous accounts of frontal armor plates (even Pz-V) literally cracking up under 120 mm HE shells (as you probably know, when a tank sees another tank and has HE loaded, the SOP is to fire the HE at it first and then load the AP for a second shot). So, 85% quality rating is not out of the blue. It's another thing that in reallife it was widely varied. [This message has been edited by Skipper (edited 02-06-2001).]

Yup. Horses have their advantages, too. Like they don't need petrol, which was a deficit commodity. Plus much better cross-country abilities. By the way, soviet grunts loved the 45-mm AT gun. All 570 kg of it could be (relatively) easily pulled around by hand - at walking speed. Together with a few (also not so heavy) shell boxes. Therefore, the thing was commonly used like that in infantry assaults - an equivalent of SPG without the hassles of engine, petrol supplies etc.