Kallimakhos

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by tero: I would not say the Soviet summer assault of the summer of 1944 was a VERY small scale affair (even if the terrain is not your typical Central European type): In the outset the Soviets had in the Istmus 260 000-280 000 men (Finnish estimates) men against 70 000 men. By mid July the Finnish army had ~500 000 men at arms against 451 500 Soviet troops (their own figure for the Vyborg-Petrozavodsk operation from When Titans Clashed) in two fronts, the Isthmus and North of lake Ladoga. The assault started with a barrage of 280 000 gun and mortar shells which (quite surprisingly ) pulverized the Finnish frontline defences.<hr></blockquote> I agree with Tero. But it must be said that initially the Soviet 44 offence was a disaster for the Finns. Finns were trying to hold a rigid line, which was lost when the right wing, where the most pressure was, collapsed totally, and was forced to withdraw in total disorder. It was only later, in Tali-Ihantala and other battles, when suppreme command started to accept, at least to some extent, a more flexible defence, giving ground for time and other things and counterattacking, a flexible line, so to speak - in other words not playing ball. In Tali, after a major breakthough, the Finnish armoured division beat back the Russian armored spearhed and in the following weeks the armoured division together with other units allmost surrounded - with lesser forces I might add - a whole guards army group, three divisions. The two Finnish spearheads got into 1 km distance from each other. Of cource, the counterattack was not a total succes, the operational target, i.e. totally destroying the guards army, was not met and in the end the attack was given up when guards army made a breakthough towards north. It was very costly of course, jaeger battallions were reduced to companies or worse, but on the other hand the guards army breakthrough was containded for a week in a very small area (2x5km of woods terrain) which had to mean huge losses from artillery and air attacks for the Soviet side and very difficult supply. And of course, it gave time to prepare positions behind the lines, and to get those much needed schrecks and fausts from Germany. (The obligatory überfinn story: there was a guy, who had just received his first schreck, never used it before, got stuck alone in the middle of enemy tank company, took out 5-6 tanks, if I remember right, until he ran out of ammo, halted the company - and lived to tell the story.) The claim that withdrawing is the most difficult manouver needs also some commenting. In Tali-Ihantala for some reason even the most beaten Finnish units were normally able to retreat with no cumulating losses - not in orderly fashion but in small groups, often through enemy lines - and some times the stragglers who had found what was left of their unit, had to fight the very next day - and did so. In other battles at the same time, in Äyräpää and Viipurinlahti, Finns were fighting with water in their back, and when forced to retreat the losses in KIA and POW were surprisingly low considering the circumstanses (boats were destroyed by artillery and airplanes, but fortunately the men could swim). The single most decisive factor should also be mentioned: artillery. The Soviet artillery had manifold guns compered to Finns, but Finnish artillery was more accurate and could react very swiftly, so that more often than not Soviet attacks were broken even before they started. Despite their efforts, Russians didn't get total air suppremacy, and Finnish air recon helped a lot. Sorry for the rant, but I believe Tali-Ihantala is one of the great forgotten battles in history, that offers many lessons or at least food for thought for all the doctrines mentioned here. I hope this rant has touched these issues at least in some way. One of the lessons is that much to their surprice Russians weren't able to get total suppremacy in any area, not in air (German reinforcements helped a lot), not on ground, not in artillery over all efficiency, even though they had all the numbers working for them in all these areas, so from attritionist point of view, if some part of your plan doesn't work as expected, you might find yourself in trouble. And you never know beforehand for certain.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Wreck: How many Americans were on the ground in Afghanistan? Hundreds? Against 60000 Taliban? If you count the air crews there were probably only thousands of Americans in Afghanistan at any one time. Counting northern alliance troops as well, the ratio of troops was probably no better than 1:2 -- far less than the 3:1 supposed to be necessary to attack. There were no manuevers in Afghanistan. Just look at the lines with binoculars, night vision equipment, air recon, satellite photos, etc., and punch in the GPS-accurate target coordinates. Then GPS-aimed iron bombs rain down and obliterate everything remotely close to what you point at. How could this possibly be considered a war of manuever? This is about as pure a war of attrition as one can imagine.<hr></blockquote> Even in Afganistan you need troops to gather information in situ, guide those bombs etc, to make your attrition fire more effective. And you need allies to move and encircle the opponent, deny ground and take hideouts. Or did the US airforce destroy the Taleban without any help? Best to use both in coordination. Case closed.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Kirill S.: but I think that greens and below should run<hr></blockquote> But they do, especially if you don't have close by a HQ with moral bonus encouriging them.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by xerxes: I don't like TDs or any other dedicated anti-armor assets that aren't effective against infantry. Dual role units are more expensive but they won't leave you with stranded points that lack targets (if your opponent goes heavy infantry and arty). But then again I dislike player pick QBs because force selection gambits are too much of the game. -marc<hr></blockquote> Have you tried 3000-5000 armored QB's on a large map (AI or playr picks, I like the former)? These really teach you to value allied TD's.

"Therefore, logically, anything you find suggesting the treelines are great defensive features argues in favor of CMplayer's proposition that attacking is easier in open ground than in covered terrain. I take it you overlooked this because either (1) you can't even conceive of truly open terrain, being so used to forested western Europe maps, or (2) you still can't differentiate between "attacking" and "charging", and imagine attacking in the open means charging across the fields between treelines in forested terrain. Obviously, if the terrain is forested enough that the defender can have treelines wherever he needs them, then it will almost always also be forested enough that attacking overwatch positions will also have forest cover, which of course the attackers will use. Then you have the tactics of fighting in forests, or in "open" forests if you like (meaning, with some clearings as virtually all settled areas have), not those of fighting in the open." "The only reason for a combined arms frontal attack to move onto the defenders, is to threaten them with destruction at point blank range if they do not reveal themselves by firing." I don't think I'm overlooking the points you mentioned - I read your post . So we can sit at our treelines, throw artillery on each other and the attacker can shoot trees as much as he wants, until regiment commander starts to question what the hell is going on. Defender don't have to play game, and in fact, he shouldn't. Yes, sometimes you can kill and win a battle with artillery only, or even nuke your opponent out of existance, but I don't believe this is the case we are talking here. So the one thing you do admit, that if the defender refuses to play all shoot out, attacker must move his infantry or whatever closer, at what ever pace, crawling, walking, running, but out of the woods and into open (I won't go the this time to the crucial tactical question of what is the ideal size of the force defender needs to move). So they move, they get hurt and the game starts. This can happen as many times you want, you stop moving, defender stops shooting and goes again unspotted, as you admitted to be possible. That's what he must try to do or he looses. So attacker MUST move and of course he is backed by the suppreme firepower which can still decide the battle for him, but the defender has other factors working for him, better concealment compered to the moving enemy, mines etc. Also the defender shouldn't stubbornly hold the line at all costs, if possible not to (hopefully their suppreme commander is not Adolf Hitle), usually they wont to disengage and fight another day. Then the attackers level of aggressiveness often decides whether the defender succeeds in this. Main point is that there are also other factors than just raw firepower, and any little thing (such as coordination, timing, moral etc) can decide the outcome, which in this case should be, i agree with you, which side get's hurt more. "Um, if the defenders are shooting and seen, then the reply is not area fire at all." No, the point was that better concealment allows defender to fire for some time unspotted, which means more casualties for the attacker. Other wise it wouldn't be called concealment. Once spotted, he can try to relocate and repeat the procedure. "Also, the defenders have to kill or break 1.5 times as many men with their 2/3rds as many shells, to stay "even" in odds terms. Which means each shell has to do more than twice as much. They only will if the attackers are forced to bunch up far more than the defenders." I won't go into the math part, can't handle that, but what you say about bunching up is to the point. If and when attacer is forced to threaten the defender, his guys in the open are more often than not more bunched up than the defender - this brings us back to the question of a credible threat, the size of the advancing force. One thing you forget is that the defender has usually the advantage of TRP's (in the case of Finnish artillery on defense imagine a TRP in every CM square), he can react very quickly to any enemy repositioning or movement - this means better accuracy, more bang for the buck. Also after the attackers troops are forced in to the open, they loose moral more easily. When they are broken and run for better cover, they are moving targets who don't shoot back. "Repeat after me. The decision is achieved by fire. They aren't charging the treeline. They will only close to point blank if the defenders there are all heads-down cowering." No, you repeat after me. Decision is achieved by fire plus many other factors which affect it's efficiensy, like accuracy and concealment. You can fire all you want but the purpose is to hit. The attacker won't ever have certain knowlegde that ALL the defenders are "heads-down cowering", or that more of them are not hiding close by ready to charge you if you finally decide to close to point blank. Which you according to your own philosophy will never do. So your threat is really not a threat, my guys can safely sit in their holes, dodge the occasional treebursts or even better: stay home with the wife and kids and let you wait until someone shows up to be shoot at. Or did I take you too literally? Why do you so stubbornely dodge the claim maid by me and many that better position can give better and more efficient firepower, and if you don't wanna go home, in some tactical situations you need to take and hold ground - for the very reason that in the end all comes down to attrition? Ah, but here it comes: "They still have a role to play in a firepower based attrition strategy - marking targets, gathering intel, restricting the areas open to defenders, occupying ground cleared by fire, forcing defenders to man front lines and thus present targets, or to lose area to hide in." Lo and behold, we might agree after all! [ 12-14-2001: Message edited by: Kallimakhos ]</p>

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Krinks: On this note, do a lot of people use firebases during large games? I'm playing the "All or Nothing" scenario as the Allies, and I have a load of mortars. Currently, they're scattered around the map, covering various positions. Does anyone think it would be better to consolidate my mortars into larger groups (I generally have them as 2" and 3" pairs) than scattered? What are some of your suggestions if I wanted to set up some kind of firebase. I assume this would be more practical if I were on defense.<hr></blockquote> Many good questions. I use almost allways mortar parks, wheather I'm attacking or defending. Mortars wont do much alone, and one HQ spotter for each mortar is waste. IMO one mortar park should have enough firepower to totally rout one enemy platoon or KO a enemy gun or light vehicle during a single turn. What do you think is the perfect number of mortars for these goals for each caliber? This could be tested, but here's my best guesses: 60mm - 4 81mm - 3 3" - 2 2" is a special case, it's range is only 450 meters, which means you have to move them if you are not defending. I usually give the companys small mortars (3-4) to company HQ and move behind the infantry, or sometimes 1-2 per platoon. On the positive side they are very accurate on their short ranges and very effective agains light open topped vehicles.

Going way back: <blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by JasonC: When any given section of the defender's front is effectively suppressed by fire, heavy weapons are moved in closer opposite them. While they are heads-down, infantry maneuvers closer and swells the volume of fire on that area. Fire ascendency, not local odds, is the name of the game. The winner will be the side with heads up, firing, instead of down and ducking. When the fire ascendency is heavy enough over one area, and the nearest creeping infantry is already very close - then and only then, will a last rush carry the forward infantry to grenade range. Not bayonet range, but grenade range yes. The grenades will then force the defenders out of their holes or kill them there. <hr></blockquote> Im not saying Jason is wrong, these a standard sound tactics, but the picture is oversimplified. Let's assume infantry defending an treeline against combined armes. Firs of all the defender has better concealment than attacker, who is in moving in the open, and can shoot at targets when the attacker must resort to area fire. Needles to say, CM doesn't yet modell this well enough. Defender can often also switch places unseen by the enemy once they are spotted, fire few shots, change again etc. Also artillery is more efficient against attackers in the open than defenders in their prepared positions. All of this initial face should mean comparably more attrition to the attacker. Secondly we shouldn't assume that defender places all his forces on the MLR. In this kind of situation a good commander would a reserve a large part of his troops for a counterattack (my choise would be crack troops with SMG's ). So once part of the attackers troops get to the treeline, propably tired and spending good part of their ammo shooting at trees, they are attacked immediately in the woods, hopefully out of sight of the supporting tanks and machineguns. This the ultimate moment when the battle is decided, and of course it too can go any way. All in all attacker really needs to get that ground and more importantly to keep it, so that they won't have to attack again, which would mean again more attrition to the attacker, or that they would have to do (oh no!) a manouverist flanking movement to avoid difficult terraine! As has been said, better ground means better odds in attrition, that's why taking ground is often important.

I'd still go for a pair, but that's just a matter of taste. I agree on Jackson's multiple roles, it has a remarkable HE blast. In one game I had pinned down a Panther between a peeking Hellcat and a hull down Jackson. The Panther took cover from the Jackson behind a small house and bounced of the Hellcats shots with it's front armor. I levelled the house with two shots, and guess what happened next...

Well the nice way to put it is that CM models only decisive battles In the heat it is not unusual to have a frontline battallion reduced to a weak company even during one day... and still the superiors insist calling it a battallion!

Allright, you can win with crack/elite troops, you have a lot of advantages. But one disadvantage is that they seem to use ammo at a lot faster rate than less experienced units. I think is that they just shoot more, they don't e. g. suppress as easily. If this is true, I don't think it is historically plausible. On the contrry, vets should run out of ammo later than greens. They, not less experienced units, are the ones that now how to utilize their rations, and they should be able to scavenge their dead comrades. And even before battle they propably would have more ammo. So, maybe ammo rations should also vary depending on units experience. Maybe this would have some effect on unit pricez, but there's nothing as sorry as a crack team low on ammo overwhelmed by a green team with some ammo left after equal time of shooting.

A RL example from the übertroops: in the early days of continuation war Finns had no armor to speak of, so they advanced with their AT in the following manner: a gun or two moves or rather runs to the next bend of the road, using the cover of the shield, and then suppresses the enemy so that infantry can attack. One could try to simulate this by using fast moving guns as 75 infantry or six pounder, with crack or elite crews of course, in heavy woods. Haven't tried this, might work even with the current engine.

I actually did some testing to find out which allied tank can face up Hetzers in flat open map considering their buy value: line up and shoot out. That one tank is Archer. If you have a open flat map, use your poins for them, they are best point/value against any axis tanks in these circumstances. If any hills, woods, avoid them.

Good questions and a lot of them. Easiest way to answer: let the computer pick and do with what you got! Seriously speaking, here's my 5 cents: I agree that assuming bad luck is allways good tactics. Expecially in tank battles you want to create situations where the odds work for you. So I also play with tank platoons, not single tanks. Also if I want to really test my skills with tanks, I play 3000+ points, large map, armoured and hills of course. These kinds of games really show the value of thinking platoon, and the real value of vanilla Shermans and MarkIV's And now to overwatching TD:s: this depends much on the scale and side you play, and timefray to some extent. I'd say even a single TD is a bad choise, buy them at least in pairs. Pretty much everything german is best suited for overwatch, all the heavies, and also if you buy or get panthers, or even hetzers, wich are actually just as difficult to kill frontally, just put them on the top of the hill and deny your opponents movability. For manouvering there is little choise, basically MarkIV's and stugs. So playing axis in armoured battles usually the best tactic is to controll the field from high positions, get the flags early and keep a reserve to counter your opponents movements. Pretty simple basically, and tough to beat. Just trust your front plates and protect your flanks. As you and everybody else knows, playing allied you need to be more active and more cunning. You know that if you get hit, you are dead. Churchils seldom hit anything and Jumbos are... ehm ugly and boring? So you cant just park your tanks or TD's in a good position on your setup zone, you need to peekaboo and move fast to good protected flanking positions. One or two jacksons is allways a good choise, they can't be ignored by anybody (I had just one of them taking out two panthers) so this is my answer to your basic question. Nevertheless best overall choise is Hellcat, even though you say they are a different discussion. In another recent game my two Hellcats scored seven kills and won the game wich had started really bad for me. Basically anything allied dies one's it is hit, so Hellcats vulnerability is not really an issue. In any case you have to use peeking, a decent 76, multiple lanes and most of all speed to appear in unexpected positions. A Hellcat can run for a rear or flank shot accros the map in two or three turns. And score Another good choise is wolverine, they are also cheap and fast, have lots of tungsten and peak well. Also a good Panther killer. So basically with allies you can't usually overwatch in the same sense as axis, but you can threat and scare those big tanks to give you some room to manouvre. Or run like hell and hope they don't get you. [ 12-08-2001: Message edited by: Kallimakhos ]</p>

One aspect I don't think has been mentioned: once a gun has been spotted, a tank can often KO it safely, without LOS. Just area target close to enemy gun. Of course one needs experience and luck to find the right position for the tank. I've lost a quite few guns this way. Do I hear the word "gamey" somewhere...?

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Sergei: just to strike up some atmosphere, I'll citate The Unknown Soldier: <hr></blockquote> This was the scene I had in mind, can't wait to create this in CMBB. These current paddling things just don't give the right feeling. BTW, these monster weigh a ton! And yet they can be carried by a single zook team! If CMBB has motor boats, I think they should be able to move with their inherent crew without the help of galeon slaves, so that they can move back and forth and bring more reserves.

I believe that the current assault boats model a (very slow) row boat. Are there plans to include a real motor assault boat? I really hope so, on the eastern front and especially on Finnish front assault boats played often a crucial role in river and lake crossings. What was the speed of a (for example finnish) assault boat in WW2? I've searched the net but couldn't find this piece of information. One possibility would be to create one generic assault boat, which can move either slowly (rowing, silent) or fast (motor, noisy). Also the possibility to place a machinegun in the prow to fire during crossing would be great, but I'm afraid this would require too big changes in the code. To allow trucks to carry boats would also be nice.

Thanks Steve, CMBB looks better with every answer... With Steve around (maybe) it is OK to keep straying from to subject. To say SP has had relative spotting for "long" time was a slight exaggeration, SPWAW by Matrix games has had it since v. 4.x or somefink. (V. 5. came out just few weeks ago). Take a look just to see how to make it better (but only after finishing CMBB ). A modest suggestion, which would be at least better than SP version: only the spotting unit(s) see the enemy, others with line of sight (when selected) see only generic marker (maybe with some system of either national symbol or hearing marker to add sofistication dependning on the situation) and they have to resort to area fire.

Steve: >Ah... this is something different. If it >could be substantiated that Finnish >artillery was able to come down faster and >more accurately than the norm, then it >would not be wrong to simulate this >reality. Look at CMBO right now and you can >see that US off map artillery comes down >quicker than German off map artillery. Is >this a national bias? No, it is a product >of the system each country used. It is no >more wrong to do this than to penalize a 2 >man tank turret compared to a 3 man turret. >The systems are systems, not national >traits. Now this is interesting, I hadn't noticed this before... I bet Tero jumps to this. One might argue that the line between system and trait or whatever the word is for acceptaple/nonaccepaple is at least not allways very clear. Even the system might fail on numerous occasions, and as Steve says later about japanese, there should allways be room for some randomness and failure in even the best systems. I don't know if this is now modelled in american artillery, or german or CW, for that matter. By this I don't mean that I would want to take this "bias" away from americans, and I will gladly accept it for the Finns. But if it is implemented, how should it be modelled? I'm not expert and far from a grog, but to my understanding Finns excelled especially in cartografy (=TRP's), and during the attack face in Eastern Karelia the situation was much worse than on homeground. And if I understood right, another set back compared to US, was that Finns relied on phone lines but US used radios for calling artillery. Phone lines were cut of easily. Now that I got Steves attention, I might try for couple of questions. Will soviet artillery be modelled after similar "system" as other nations, and how is that realized in game terms? There's another thread whear it is claimed, that assaulting tanks withs infantry, with or without AT assets, is unrealistically difficult in the current CMBO (it was supposedly easier in earlier versions). Do you aggree and if so, will this be corrected in CMBB. I recall to have heard something about common units with speciall AT-training? This sound good plausible solution, but how is this modelled in gameterms and in OB's? Have you yet had chance to try this in betatesting? Reason I ask, in all the war games so far Finns have had no AT-capabilities or they have been modelled as ûber-tankkillers with molotov cocktails. I don't like either choise and I hope SMBB will give infantry VS armor battles reasonable chanses for Finns (and others) which would concurr with historical results. This is of course easier said than done, but I have faith in you. Finall note even more off topic: the only people from whom I accept bashing SP, the game I grew up with, are the makers of CM, they have earned that right. The many keepers of SP tradition are dedicated people, as is the community with many grogs also there (for good or bad...) SPWAW has had some kind of relative spotting for long time, but I believe BTS will make it better in some future version...

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Slapdragon: Since no one accused the Finns on this board of being a nationalist, there is no need for an apology. Individuals have grabbed nationalist and possibly racist torches (depending on how you define terms) and been called on it by Vanir, myself, and maybe a dozen other people including BTS. I even pointed out that sexist commentary ill behooved anyone here, but no one ever said the Finns as a people were all nationalists. Now, maybe people are getting hot because no communication is getting through and some shoddy evidence was pushed forward to support Finnish racial / national superiority and American inferiority (hard to racially insult the US when the country has every race on the planet in its borders), but no one ever said that the Finns on this list are nationalists, only that select individuals are. In fact, and number of Finns (Jarmo, etc.) have added to various discussions<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> This is getting a bit tedious now, can't help that. You seemed to lose my point, which I admit was a bit subbtle, but none the less important. When you throw that kind of accusations against any person, you should also bring the evidence even with good deal of benefit of doubt. I can't help feeling that these very grievous accusations are based mostly or solely on the claim 1 mentioned in the previous post, and if I happen to more or less agree with that claim, I feel I too am targeted, as well as many others. Can you see the logic here? I believe I have read all these gone to ûberfinn-threads quite closely, and all racial issues have come up only in postings by other than finns, and nothing Tero has said is very difficult to see as nationalist or racist, whatever one means by these words. In this context I think comparison to aryan brotherhood even by analogy is totally uncalled for. As You said, one would expect especially americans as a multinational (and litigative) nation to be very sensitive and carefull about any accusations concerning racism. More over, I fail to see the need for any ad hominem attacks...

I'm sorry to still take this up, but I feel I must. To accuse someone of being a nationalist or a racist even in a circumventive way is a heavy thing on this board. Let's look at Tero's claims, which have brought these accusations, and if there is any ground to these accusations. There are two claims that seem to get mixed up by some people. 1 claim: Finnish army faired rather well, all things considered, and if you feel the need to make comparisons, in some respects it did even better than armys of other warring nations. What is so nationalistic about this claim? Sure it is debatable. I share this view like most people who are well acquainted with Finnish history and others might not, but it is no more nationalistic than to state outright that e.g. US artillery was the best, period. Maybe you are biased or not informed enough thinking so, maybe vice versa. We can allways look into these things more closely on obejctive and detailed grounds, if we feel the need, allthough it would be better to do it under some specific topic. But if a Finn is provoked with a ûberfinn bait on any thread, expect to have a reply... 2 claim. To be even more realistic the game needs some national traits. Did different tacticall concepts, training etc. affect the way troops behaved on the field? Off course they did, I don't see how this can be argued. And yes, they could and did learn from their mistakes and they sometimes they would even forget their training and just be creative. Should these national traits be implemented in this game? No I don't think so, for a multitude of reasons, most of which Steve allready mentioned. Basicly, because as a game it works better without them. On the other hand, in other games like Steel Panthers I see nobody complaining that it is nationalistic to have US Marines and Japs to surrender less seldom than other troops. But how come it is nationalist or racist to suggest the same thing in the way Tero has done? Actually, now that I think of, there are some nationall traits that could be easilly implemented in the game, that have come up in this discussion. German officers and troops were loud, so hearing markers could be implemented more for German infantry. Finnish artillery had good maps and they had done scrupulous work beforehand so with every Finnish FO you could get also few TRP's even on attack. US FO's (or any officers) could have inherently shorter response times calling artillery. I think these examples are quite realistic in typical situation, but because they are not realistic in every situation and could offbalance the game without a zillion more similar national traits, we don't need them. Vanir & co, I object to your implications that Finns are nationalist or even racist if we think, based on historical comparison and evidence, and say aloud, that Finnish army did very well and and other armys could even learn something from us. When you make this kind of accusations, every Finn can be offended. Yes, Finland is a small nation, and of course we didn't decide the fate of other nations as the bigger powers did, we were mostly on the receiving end and just tried to navigate through very difficult times the best we could. Alas, reading some of the comments I get the feeling that the right to feel proud of even to give due credit to your forefathers is resereved in your minds only to the big nations, who write history in more ways than one. Even though small, we too have our place in history, and we don't like a condescending tone any more than you do. When our history is written, we think that also we have some say in that. Let the facts argue and please refrain from unaccounted accusations. Maybe this time it is somebody elses turn to come up with apology. [ 07-06-2001: Message edited by: Kallimakhos ]

Well done, Slapdragon, but since you are a professor, maybe you wont take badly some minor corrections and comments: In 19th century Finland was autonomous part of Russia with its own laws, money etc. Late 19th century are known as the years off oppression, when Russian goverment tried to cancel autonomy and assimilate Finlad to Russia. For some reason Finns were liberated from serving in the Russian army and didn't have own army, and very few Finns took part in the WWI. Mannerheim was one of them, he was a general in Czar's army. He certainly was right wing, but not a nationalist by any definition. He was an aristocrat and very international person, part of the Swedish speaking minority, a dandy officer in Czar's army, made a long expedition in Central East, felt at home in Paris and other major European cities as a part of the high society. He died in Switzerland. One of the reasons why Mannerheim declined to attack Leningrad despite Hitlers urging was his love for St. Petersberg, where he spent his wild youth. Lenin OK'ed Finnish independence because he believed communist revolution in Finland would succeed. There was a revolution, a bloody civil war in which russian troops had no real role. The white army, under Mannerheim, was victorious and Germans helped, but their role was not decisive. Finns have allways hated (and loved) Swedes, a bit like Canada and USA... 20s were not special in this respect. For military aid they were never counted upon, we have allways known that the proud history of Sweden was payed with Finnish blood and after losing Finnland Sweden has been wise enough to stay out of wars... Russians felt racial contempt against finns? Never heard of that, more like vice versa at that time. Well the Swedes called us mongols when we beat them in athletics... Basically I believe that Stalin wanted to get back what mother Russia lost after the revolution, and in the end he did and much more - except Finnland, which BTW later proved to be very usefull capitalistic ally... One more thing about the Winter war. The allied expedition to help Finnland, which Stalin was affraid of, would have meant crossing Norway and Sweden (and taking hold of valuable mines in Kiiruna on the way). If Finnland would have said yes to the offer, it would have been interesting to see whether Sweden would have given its ore without fight. Well, a month later Hitler invaded Denmark and Norway, and got the Swedish ore with gold. Anyway, one of the interesting what ifs... [ 06-30-2001: Message edited by: Kallimakhos ]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by CrapGame: But what about this one Finnish ubertruppen and what he did that one time at band camp with a flute..... Crapgame<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Since you brought this up, Simo Häyhä sniped 500-600 kills, and that is only sniping. He fought also with SMG and other weapons, those kills are not in statistics. What makes this remarkable, all of this was done during the 3 months of Winter war. His career was over when he was shot in the head 6.3.1940 at close range. By some miracle he survived and was still alive at least a couple years ago. I like that Hollywood Rambo unit idea. 500p, one to each nationality, Finnish one should of course be called sergeant Rokka! (I believe all Finns agree, others don't have a clue...)

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by DrAlimantado: Sorry for butting in ... but there is no need at all to apologize for anything. I am just amazed of your patience with Tero. Kallimakhos: to try to accuse someone of bigotry, just because they don't go along the finnish patriotic view of the winter war and the continuation war, is just ******. And to try to cover over nationalism and one-sidedness with excuses that they are jolly comments "with grain of salt and self-irony" is just blatantly stupid. A smiley does not negate a serious comment. Mattias<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Yes there is need for apology... from my part. Bigotry is a word ill chosen and I apologise using too harsh language. But it is just these totally unfounded accusations of natiolism and one-sidedness that spilled my cupp. So if the best sniper in WW2 happened to be a Finn, it is not PC to say that (even when provoked), because it might diminish the glory of some other, bigger nation? Line between nationalism and patriotism isn't allways easy to draw, but it is hard to see how a debate based on sound historical studies and sources could be counted nationalistic. What could be more one-sided than to say that one side has no right to present their own interpretations? To my understanding this whole thing started when Tero suggested giving pixel-troops some national straits to modell different doctriness and training, which has been misunderstood as making or Finns or any other nation ûbertroops. Allthough this suggestion has some merits, I don't aggree with it, but hope and believe that CM2 will be able to give "realistic" enough play-feel also on the Finnish front. Discussing nationall issues on a multi-nationall board, one should avoid provocative language, it can easily be misinterpreted even if intentions are good. I know, also I should try to keep this in mind...

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Naja: tero, I would like to know more about the Finnish army. Many years of reading about WWII has taught me to take most accounts with a grain of salt (I must admit now reading mostly German accounts.) Unlike the most vocal here I prefer the human element of WWII and prefer the human element of the moment to the unit # and div x was 'here or there' which reminds me of a person memorising some boring baseball stat as opposed to the feel of an individual caught in a life and death struggle. If you could point me in the direction on the Finnish soldiers version of the war I would appreciate it.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Than you for asking. There's a book that allmost all Finns have read, Unknown Soldier, by Väinö Linna (more info e.g. http://www.mosin-nagant.net/First-Shot-unknown.html). It's been translated into English and many other languages, I have understood the English translation is not one of the better translations, but it is still worth reading. To Pzkrpfprgrghhh: only person speaking (tauntingly) about ûberfinns is you, who have been throwing this bait to Tero on every other thread. It is not surprising that the finnish point of view is often surpassed, there is language barrier, the Finnish front was not the most important front of the war, etc., and it shouldn't be surprising (or looked down upon) if Finns want to present their view of what happened. No to the matter itself: Väinö Linna said it best: "The Winter had been the best war so far, because both sides won. Russians won bit more, but the pesky Finland game to goal good second." (I'm citing from my memory and my translation is horrible, but hopefully the thought comes out right.) Winter war was a defencive victory, that created a myth that one Finn equalls 10 russians, which in the continuation war was proved deadly wrong, expecially in the beginning of the Russian offensive in the 44, when Finnish army's moral reached it's low point. Moral is the key factor here, only after the army stopped fighting for Great Finnland (yes there was lot of talk about that) and started defending their homes, were the defencive victories of Tali and Ihantala possible. The comparison between Fenno-Russian wars and battle of Marathon is justified in many ways. None of the Finns here have shown any nationalist chauvinism, just well-justified pride and gratitude for staying independent, usually with grain of salt and self-irony, which makes it even harder to understand your bigotry agains us finns, mr. Pzqrpshshh... [ 06-27-2001: Message edited by: Kallimakhos ]

I don't quite see why so many maintain that attacker has advance. Are there any valid statistics to support this claim? So far I havent lost defending (against top players) but while attacking it seems to be quite easy. I think attacker is more prone to make mistakes, he has to be active and doesn't know what to expect, on the other hand, defender can often see quite early which way the main attack is heading. Play active and force the attacker make mistakes, keeping some aces in your sleeve, this is also a psychological game! Generally I like AI picks, but I support the idea of letting the defender do the buying himself. Mostly because it's fun to plan and lay a good defence, and if there's a bias, this is enough to balance the odds. Most importantly, use only small maps and secondly, random whether.