Foxbat

Manstein or Guderians memoirs are good starting points, as long as you occasionaly remind yourself that they had good reason to cast a blind eye on soviet succes.. and even more reason to make their defeats look like they were caused by Adolf while hogging the glory for their own vitories If you want more of a down in the dirt look panzer aces, von Lucke's memoirs or similar riff-raff is great stuff but the same as above applies (doubly in fact as the tactical battle was often the domain of the germans while operationally and strategically they were getting their ass kicked at that time). There was also a trio of books called Moscow, Stalingrad and Berlin that is written as historical fiction that I always found really, really gripping as a teenager. I'll have to ask my dad if he still has the books, or knows who the auther was [let's hope it wasn't some guy called Schmidt ).

Noob you're killing me. There is something like that in Zaloga's "Eastern Front" which I have not an armslength away.. but my scanner is still defunct If someone else has the book and a working scanner he could scan page 65. Any word of warning though.. the insignia are 90% the same as those on the decal sheet you already have so don't expect too much ps: I'm going to scan that camo jeep one way or the other and when I get that done I can scan the insignia too if no-one has doen it before that (but it might take a while before I have access to a scanner ). pps: I see I never replied to your latest mail, so here goes (in short) the M39 of the KV's generally didnt have any markings because they were rarely used pre-war and few M39's lived long enough to see the new Dec 41 brigade structure that was the reason for the tanks getting brigade insignia. With one exception... I have a pic of a KV that I think is an M39 in Leningrad that has some kind of markings.[Scratch that, on second look it's an M41.] Expect a pic of that M39 and a response to the rest of your mail somewhere tommorrow [ December 28, 2002, 08:41 PM: Message edited by: Foxbat ]

Are you sure they were already being replaced? I know they were planning but IIRC the Ushanka wasn't in volume production until 1941 at the earliest. ps. This would be a good place to compliment you on the officers (HQ) hats, they are frigging great I would never have imagined anyone would even think to mod them differently from the foot sloggers gray ones. Strike one for histotical accuracy! And they look great too (quite feat I reckon).

For starters, as Ricko' mentioned DShK production was rather low-rate, and it wasn't until the end of the war that there were enough to start supplying them to selected types of their own vehicles. Producing the gazillions of guns required to satisfy the US Army's thirst for HMG's would have crippled the soviet war economy. Secondly, US Army soldiers would be rather peeved if those Brownings, that where perfectly suited to their needs, were taken away and replaced with a weapon that might be theoretically supperior but that they would find lacking in every aspect (so BH's post for an American's view of the DShK). Because let's face it, the aspects where the DShK is superior to the M2 are those that the US Army does not require of it's HMG. Oh and lastly, there were two more or less real shortcomings of the DShK vis-a-vis the M2HB, most importantly it is less capable of sustained or continues fire. And it has a slightly shorter, and significantly lighter, barrel making it more suited to suppression (because of bullet-spread) but giving it comparatively bad accuracy at long-range. In conclusion: Both the DShK and the M2 have slightly different characteristics because they are optimised to best meet the requirements of their respective armies. And both are simply great weaponsystems that make maximum use of gereat ammo size, no army should be without them

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No, soviet ammo is slightly bigger (12.7x108mm vs 12.7x99mm) and the DShK has a better RoF (550-600 vs 450) the DShK is also 2kg lighter and much prettier

Armoured vehicles have amazingly difficult literal names like bronepantsernii or in the context of ww2 Broneavtomobili (Armoured Car, BA), but tanks are just tanks

I've said it before, his mods are probably the best that can be achieved without BFC releasing new 3D models for the soldiers We are simply not going to see a proper greatcoat, a "platsh-palatsh" raincape, pull-over camo, etc

ooo yes send the pic</font>

Compared to RTS it's definitly a strategy game, as in you need a basic operating strategy to win a battle - I hope this counts as appropriate misuse of the word strategy [ December 26, 2002, 07:24 PM: Message edited by: Foxbat ]

Dang, forgot the smiley

That means it's range is 30K as opposed to the normal 30M or 60M range, these babies were actually rather big and needed to by deployed to the combat zone by a special sdkfz 101 halftrack, but they were damn effective at extreme long range. Unfortunatly only a handfull were made, and they came to late to stop the tide for the Third Reich. Only one case is known of a PzF 30K being fired in anger, it was used as a last ditch defense weapon when the factory where it was constructed was being attacked by soviet troops. It scored a decisive hit on an IS-2 at the relatively modest range of 2K, the effectiveness of the warhead apparently impressed the soviets as they broke of the assault almost immediatly. The next morning the massed soviet artillery of both RVGK reserve heavy artillery and an entire Guards Mortar Brigade was used in a 3-hour long 'fire-strike' artillery mission. Suffice to say that this massive bombardment levelled the factory, destroyed the PzF's under construction as well as the tools used to build them, and the nearby town of Schuegel-am-Rhein.

Would you rather be blind and stupid (aka buttoned up) and definitly dead, or take a risk and get a chance to live or die as the dice may fall? If I get the choice I wouldn't lock myself up in a coffin depriving myself of all-round vision, situational awareness, sound awarness, visual awarness (remember buttoned up is pepping through the periscope or using the "vision" blocks, so named because they allows slightly better vision than armor plate) I would go out and fight. Now my Commander in Chief (aka the player) may know what's good for me, but I would still want to fight my own battle rather than placing my faith in someone hovering over the battlefield

See noobie's sig: www.cmmods.com n00b> I have the book on the soviet vezdogodi (jeeps) and it shows a very nice three-tone camo scheme, i'll send you a pic asap.

Doodlebug: IIRC british pre-war research showed that the HE-burster had no, or negligeble, effect. That was mostly caused by the small calibre of AT guns at the time, for bigger guns HE burster or filler is definetly a bonus. 1) it increases the change of the projectile breaking up, and not going out the backside 2) many small bullets ricochetting around are etter than one big one and 3) a bursting round is more likely to shear of parts of the armor it penetrates, and cause spalling, adding to the amount of lethal fragments flying around the tank. That's all I know, maybe a real grog can come up with some numbers to quantify the difference.

Nothing is the answer to both questions, the argueing is about whether or not the russian inf mods are great or crap. And it has been established in post 3 that they are great and historically correct. The rest of the thread has involved one side wailing, moaning, bitching and cussing and the other side explaining the same thing over and over again but in ever more terse formulations. In other words SNAFU.

Ok, that's gotten me completely confused (which is quite a feat considering the rest of this thread), but I was under the distinct impression that while things were never all that great between russians and ukranians the Ukranians hated the Soviet-Union with a passion becaue the soviets ..uh.. arranged for the starvation of millions of their forefathers. In fact I thought that that was the main reason for fighting soviet occupation right up until the sixties. :confused: btw: since I'm ranting about being confused about Ukranians I would like to use the opportunity to bring up two other things about the Ukraine that mightily confuse me: 1) why is the Ukranian translation of 'Red Devil' Chervonyj Chort and not Krasnoyi Short? Does the clor change once it crosses the russo-ukranian border? 2) What happened after 1991, the Ukraine has a history of being an area of great resources, wealth, culture and refinement especially compared to their northern neighbour. Did everyone go bonkers, or did emigration strip away the best and brightest?

The russians were also the first to pioneer large-scall drops, I guess you mean the germans were the first to actually employ para's in large-scall combat drops in enemy territory. Like the invasion of Crete which came agonisingly close to being suicide (the Para Corps survived, barely, but spent the rest of the war comatose or limping). The Kneiper? Is that a nickname for someone (because he pinches women in the buttocks probably). Or do you mean the Dnjepr? Yes that went all wrong, but it would only have been suicide if they had intended to jump right on top of the enemy formation, a good example of how quickly tactical intelligence becomes stale and useless.. the drop had been delayed, troop movements that had not been detected -or begun- when the last intel mission had been completed, some diabolically bad luck and it all came together to turn the most hopefull of the soviet para-drops into the worst disaster.

In fact they sell both replica's and geniune uniforms (eg STJ1.Soviet mid war Telogreika padded winter jackets.Soviet made.unissued. jackets Available in size 5,6. $199.95) so they better be accurate because customers will have the opportunity to see the replica alongside the real thing. Looking at those pics and the mod I can only say that Andrew has come as close to the real thing as is possible in CMBO (which is in fact a lot better than I would have ever expected). jbertles> Right on.

Thanks noob, I'm honoured. Especially considering you are probably everyone's nr 1 when it comes to russian armor mods

Using Paratroopers as a tactical weapon is tantamount to suicide, or murder if you're commanding them. So I guess that's a good thing. And yes they did have para's sliding off the wing, but it isn't a particularly bad way. In fact when you are jumping out of door, or hatch in the side of the aircraft (as was sop in ww2) you have a good chance of slamming into either the frame of the airplane or the tailplanes. It is also a tool-for-a-trade planes in the mid-30s didn't have the cabin space to get a sufficient of men in (or out in the case of para's) the soviet solved this problem in a crude but effective way. Other nations did not, I don't see why the soviets are wrong for using a working solution just because you think it's silly [ December 25, 2002, 06:43 PM: Message edited by: Foxbat ]

Nice to see this interesting topic ressurected, albeit in a peculiar way More hits from the Bong: The soviets also invented the paratroop and assault jumps, they invented the main battle tank*, they pioneered winter cammo, I could go on and on. * not in the modern sense of course, but they were first to create a tank that combined good anti-tank with good anti-infantry capabilty rather than sticking with the old cruiser/support dichotomy. [ December 25, 2002, 12:53 PM: Message edited by: Foxbat ]

I think it was actually the HE that mattered, the N version with it's short 75 converted the III to an infantry support tank at a time when the IV was convereted to a battle tank. Doctrine may have played a role here. Also I think the reason to maintain the PzKpfw III production line was to keep up tank production in a time when tanks were being lost faster than they could be built. The fact that the StuG was cheaper may be interesting to those who command the ecenomy (or play the tactical battles ), but it is hardly an argument to the tank troops who would actually lose 600+ tanks if Pz III production was converted to assault guns in mid-42 :eek: Besides a tank is simply more versatile than a assault gun so there is more at stake then money/production time.

The link I posted is from a warehouse that sells genuine russian uniforms, including genuine Telogeirka's. This is the real stuff and it''s the real information from the russians themselves. I haven't seen many russian warfilms (unfortunatly), but my impression is that these are not a 100% accurate representation. Not because the movie-makers don't know their stuff or aren't interested, but because their uniform selection appears based on artistic vision rather than a need for historical accuracy. The uniforms (and general visual outlook) is often chosen to reinforce the general theme of the film. For example when the film is about Partisans that ultimatly link up with the main army the partisans will have shoddy, make-shift uniforms, while the army soldiers will have clean, late-war uniforms that emphasise the difference between the ragged survivors in the woods and the well-organised, well-outfitted and well deisciplined warmachine that was the Red Army. It's all part of soviet filmography which has risen from russia's grand theatrical legacy.

It's not just Christmas of course, but Christmas is observed in the english-speaking world which is why it get's noticed and this is a ww2 board which makes Ramadan and Diwali rather off-topic holidays. Having said that I guess that attacking Israel on Yom Kippur speaks of a rather misguided sense of irony, it's the kind of joke that get's you a bloody nose... It wasn't the governements that suffered, it was the soldiers (it always is) so it's their religious beliefs that count. I don't think the Nazi's were particularly succesfull in secularising germany and I have seen some footage of the last President of the CCCP saying an orthodox prayer for gis grandmother, so I reckon the soldiers on both sides had feelings about christmas. True enough, but that didn't make it any less painfull. The russians might actually have had the opportunity to observe christmas in a small way, the orthodox having been back in grace again. But it would have been a trying time for them for entirely different reasons. Anyway, I guess that I just wanted to say that having to fight and die on your holy day of peace, joy and the reafferming of family and friendship bonds is particularly ****ty.. even if you already are in a world of ****.