Skipper

Some chap on VIF-2 says, the most amazing thing about this book (he has a copy) is that it contains data about naval ships of all countries participating in the war.

Subj is being offered on ebay. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1526027556

Anynoe reading this board and willing to sell his CMBO CDROM??? Absolutely unthinkable!

What I mean to ask was - how and why?

> British infantry were still conducting > successful bayonet charges in the Falklands in > 1982, remember... WOW! Really??? BIG WOW!

I don't remember many details, but first soviet rockets (NB: I am neither talking about the middle age chinese variety; nor the fireworks) were combat trialled in late 30s. Launchers were installed on I-16s. As artillery, apparently, they appeared at the same time as germans' - which is something I didn't know. Anyway, a notion that soviet rocket artillery development was somehow stopped in 1939 seems to be at odds with facts.

I am not saying that it definitely didn't happen. Just that I've not heard about it. Rockets development was going on full speed. RKKA deployed rocket rounds and MLRS well ahead of anybody else, as yuo must know. Here is an article (in Russian) about RPG-1 and RPG-2 development. http://www.ostpanzer.boom.ru/Arpg.html What it says is that development of RPG-1 started in 1942, and was finished in 1944. GAU (Main Artillery Directorate) did not accept it, because of various problems with the grenade. I.e., it was not a pzfaust clone, and it was not never mass produced. In a way, the article confirms that it was not a high priority for GAU.

Would you mind to clarify - who was the head of this team and within which institution did it work? Also, what happened to them? Actually, rocket-propelled launcher was clearly far from the top of terchnological priorities list during the war. Like a "nice to have, but can do without" kind of thing. In the first half - because it was not something that could be made fast; in the second half - because artillery and armor was in ample availability, and infantry AT capability provided by existing weapons (AT rifle and grenades) was deemed sufficient to keep RPG off the priorities list.

I'd need to quit my current job altogether to even approach Jason's standards of subject coverage. Perhaps, in 30 years from now...

Ahh! Kolhoz... (solemnly nodding). Then it's kolhoz 'Stalinskiy', 'Stalinets' or 'Kolhoz imeni I.S.Stalina', although I've never heard the latter variant in connection to a kolhoz. OTOH, 'Stalinsky' is the name for an exemplary kolhoz - one more likely to produce a crack ubertrooper, than a Broken! buchgalter (sic! actuall russian job title for an accountant). A more appropriate name for the one you describe would be something like 'Chervono Dyshlo'. LOL, if nothing else, when CMBB comes out, I should consider becoming the kolhoz grog of this board.

Andreas, Pray tell us the unenlightened - what is 'I.S.Stalin' Komsomol, and is it included in CMBB??? [ March 24, 2002, 07:33 AM: Message edited by: Skipper ]

> Ive never heard how reliable it is though. Modern version - very much. Aint know about 50 years back.

What you refer to as Molotov cocktail, in case of RKKA was "KS bottles", and they had nothing to do with gasoine, afaik.

LOL, I noticed - not all, to put it mildly.

Photos - Kursk

Consider that there is no data for german combat losses in 1945, and that in the end of the day the standing german army was taken POWs. Also consider that in March-April 1945 Germans almost never enjoyed an opportunity to survey the battlefield after action. Which gave them an opportunity to fantasize more than usual. A lot more than usual in some cases. Rudel is a Grandmaster of tall yarns. Any soviet analogs (Popel, anyone?) pale in comparison. Also worth noting: during the same period (1944-45) Western allies covered what, 3 times less ground than RKKA? Facing much less determined and skilled resistance. Grisha: c'mon, this is the guy who misspelled his own nick. What "basis" do you expect to learn about?

These ratios changed tremendously during 1944, and varied from unit to unit very much. Remionds me of a joke: "20 people with high fever and 1 person in the morgue freezer. Average temperature for the hospital is normal".

> Wow, Kip! So I guess it will be up to scenario > authors to include a shortage of weapons in the > ammo count (just like in CMBO) only during the > particular period you cite -- the beginning. Err... yet another would be blonde knight itching to wipe out unwashed hordes of slavic barbarians, led by crazy comissars... Hopefully, you'll know better than that, eventually. "In the beginning" RKKA was well trained and well armed. By the standards of peace time, anyway - not worse than Brits or French. I wouldn't even mention USA or smaller European armies here. It just so happened that Germans were in the league of their own, and had numbers, shock effect and air superiority on their side. This regular Red Army was wiped out in several large encirclements during the first 4 months of fighting. The year that followed has seen all kinds of drastic things, including ad hoc opolchenie (militia) formations, few of which (NB: not all, not even most) were very poorly armed. I've never actually heard about these formations used in offensive operations - this was a job for regulkar units, who were regularly armed (as far as small arms are concerned, anyway). Opolchenie doing what the ad hoc units are supposed to do - building field fortifications, covering what was considered unimportant parts of the front, sitting in second defensive echelons etc. In many cases, Germans reached those second echelons, too. Militias then paid terrible price, but played their role. During the same period, there was even more drastic shortage of artillery and tanks. And competent commanders. Hence the dumb infantry tactics - often this was the only way to conduct anything offensive. The attack portrayed in the Enemy at the Gate flick is horrible, utter fiction crap from one end to the other. There are, by the way, some accounts of germans using human wave attacks. Not many of them, unless you start reading Soviet literature of the relevant genre. I understand, Soviet fairy tales were not quite as popular on your side of Iron Curtain as German fairy tales were... Well, germans had their share of below par commanders and drastic situations.

Re babes in russian army Guards' Lt.Sr. Natalia Meklin Guards' Captain Maria Smirnova

Lee, It's skipper_cm. Domain - same as before.

It did in Vietman at the tactical level, i.e. what we are dealing with in CM.</font>

Compared to T-26 and BT series, they were. Three months later, any Soviet tank was sort of 'rare'...

> Does anyone know how much barrel wear was an issue for the 8,8? Quite an issue. Especially when firing AT rounds - iirc, we are talking about about life expectancy less than 100 shots then. Several times more if firing HE.

Here goes another link - this one about badges. http://www.trio.ru/antika/sovbadges/

http://www.historicalresearch.com/ [English] http://mondvor.iptelecom.net.ua/ordpage.htm [Russian, but exactly what you asked for]