EB.

Ancient One: thank you for your comments which show a level of objectivity and respect for our people which I do not often find in the West. You have my respect. Dgaad: It shows how far removed your mind is from current Russian politics that you think that Zhirinovsky is on our side. My God, he is one of our greatest enemies, an open agent of the current Mafia regime. Everybody in Russia knows that. And the LDP is nothing but a fabrication which exists only on paper. To think that he and Stalinists are on the same side in politics is absolutely ridiculous and far removed from reality. When you come to Russia, we will have to eat together at Moscow McDonald's and discuss how great capitalism is. Oops--too late for that. Also, we have no fireplace here. But the portrait is there of course. And when I was a kid, we had no "stick figures" but little metal vehicles and men. I do not know what stick figures even means.

My suspicion is that ULTRA / ENIGMA / MAGIC is just a clever way to disguise the real source of Allied intelligence--spies in the German command.

Okay, please don't misunderstand--SC can stand a bit of improvement, and criticisms are always good for this improvement. But I must say that SC still deserves an A+ grade. I base this upon all of the other games that have been created over the past 20 years or so. This is one of the best. Who cares if it still needs SOME improvement. This is still super-high-quality stuff. Say that you are a professor and have 200 students in a class. What grade do you give to the top five students in that class? It better be A+ or something is wrong with your standards.

Melchett: thanks for your comments--you are very correct on scientific method. If I had typed for a few more minutes, I would have pointed out that when you study the war in great detail, you can see many instances where disloyalty produces defeat and where the removal of disloyal officers prevented units from surrender. For our analysis, the perfect example of the dangers of NOT purging a military of disloyal elements is the case of France where treacherous elements surrendered to the enemy without much of a fight--specifically, Petain and his companions, who for their treachery were allowed to have power in Vichy France. Now in the case of our country, you can see the case of Vlasov who actively collaborated with the Germans against our people. Make no mistake--he was a traitor in our eyes. Without a purge of the Red Army, there would have been countless more such traitors. In terms of politics, those officers purged were pro-Trotsky. They were against the Stalin regime and Stalin's industrialization drive. They refused to follow Stalin's orders and were in general very insubordinate. They wanted immediate militarization with light tanks in the early 1930's to face what they claimed was an imminent threat from outside--and they wanted this immediate militarization INSTEAD of the rapid industrialization of the country, which of course would have been a huge mistake when the actual war did come--no factories, no quantities of medium tanks, no victory. Every one of the officers shot was very specifically against Stalin and had wanted to remove Stalin by a coup. This was will understood at the time by EVERYONE, especially by the enemies of Stalin--the only way to remove him and to reverse his policies was a military move by Tukhachevsky against Stalin. So Stalin saw this and counter-moved against it. If he had not done so, then he would have been shot himself and his policies reversed, leading to the defeat of our country. The Germans had the same analysis of the purge as is fashionable in the West now--namely, that it was a mistake which weakened the Red Army, and that it would only take a kick to bring the whole "house of cards" tumbling down. Interesting hypothesis, but as they found out, they were wrong. In the end, Hitler saw that the greatest mistake of his life was his failure to purge the German military; he said that he envied the "bolshevik" army which had loyalty and acted like a single will. Instead, Hitler himself almost was removed by his disloyal officers. Anyway, I agree that any hypothesis should be tested to the extreme. Of course the key fact in this process should always be the eventual Soviet victory. If you want to learn how to win, then don't just listen to the losers and discount the winners' moves. Massive victories like in VOV / WW2 don't happen by accident but as the result of years of careful, wise decisions.

Maybe it is Eleanor Roosevelt on a secret recon mission.

Isn't that Goebbels? All Germans look like that in our cartoons, but my God, in real life too!

Well, Dgaad, what I meant was that your point was very correct with respect to Italy and oil. I also note that the West in general has not included your proper analysis of this particular point (Italy/Oil) in its literature. I think that on this point, the rest of the West should follow your analysis. Now, how could you find a way to complain about this? God, I am actually complimenting your analysis on this. Some people want to argue with everything, even with praise. Now that is strange.

I do not think that the Axis should be allowed to invade North America in the game. It is just not historically accurate. I do not think that the Germans would have had the ability to do this even in the best of circumstances--that is, even if UK and USSR suffered fast, terrible defeat. Like one poster said, the Germans could not even manage to cross the English Channel. Think about the US which had a far stronger navy than Germany ever dreamed of--when they did invade Axis territory, they did not go directly from North America but of course used staging / embarkation areas in Europe itself--that is, in England. Now, in the reverse, from where would the Germans invade the US or Canada? Surely not from Europe directly. They would need a safe, German-allied area in the Western Hemisphere from which to invade. Not likely though. Plus, they just would not have the logistical capability to sustain an invasion of North America, even if they were only facing hillbillies with shotguns. Same with any Japanese invasion of America from the Pacific--no way at all. America was actually very safe from invasion, I would say. Also, I would congratulate Dgaad who quite correctly points out that one of the chief difficulties facing the Italin navy was a lack of OIL. Excellent point, as this is an important fact which is very rarely discussed in the West but is instead usually ignored. I am reminded by the similar point of the British and French refusing to stop Italian attacks against Ethiopia / Abyssinia in 1937 or so because they refused to impose an oil blockade against Italy. They made formal complaints against Italian aggression but refuse to take any practical steps where it most mattered--with OIL. From our viewpoint, this is one more piece of evidence of Western refusal to resist the Axis powers prior to the war--that is, appeasement. But anyway, good that you see that OIL was a very important thing with respect to Italian affairs. You show good analysis there.

See--Jersey John offers some constructive comments just like I hoped for. By basic original point was that combining the Allies and Soviets into a single human player just is not realistic. Also, it has always been my understanding that the Allies sought to minimize their own casualties while allowing the Soviets to do most of the fighting. That doesn't seem controversial at all to me, as the evidence is so overwhelming. I can think of many examples from documents by FDR, Churchill, their generals, even Truman. It doesn't seem even arguable to me, in fact. Otherwise, why didn't the Allies land in France in 1942 or even 1943 instead of well into 1944? Obviously because they were afraid of casualties. Surely nobody in the West seriously doubts this, do you? If so, then I wonder what reasons have convinced you otherwise. Also, I refuse to be bullied into submission. Too many times, we have had to listen to the old western line about "crazy Stalin making irrational, idiotic, disastrous decisions". Instead of mindlessly repeating this nonsense, I have carefully researched over many years beginning from the basic premise of "well, if the decisions of Stalin were so crazy, then why did he win?" Piece by piece, our people have all gone through the same kind of analysis, which is why most of our citizens have a very positive view about Stalin and his role as leader in our history. You can deny this in your minds, but it still exists. I mean, when they are rebuilding Stalin monuments throughout the cities of Russia on these very weeks, then mine are obviously not isolated opinions. Some friends say that it is silly to bother trying to explain things to you all in the West, but it has greatly puzzled me how you can say so many things about the history of the war which are completely contradicted by the course of history in the war. On a theoretical level, many of the things said by my opponents seem to make perfect sense and may have even turned out to be correct--that is, if we were arguing in 1941. But now that the war is over and all of the theories and arguments against Stalin were disproven by actual events, then how can you still believe the original points? Just like in science--you can come up with any hypothesis you want, but if it does not stand up to testing and experimentation, then the hypothesis fails. Take the Purges, for example. It is SO fahionable to attack the purges as a mistake. The argument is that the purges weakened the Red Army. If this were true, then the Soviets would have lost and lost badly. As this was not the case, then obviously the original hypothesis is wrong and the new hypothesis is :"the purge removes disloyalty from the army and therefore strengthens the army". Again, if you were right, then we would have lost, but we won, so you must be wrong. Plus, I never say anything that is not backed up by careful thought and research. I don't just read books uncritically, either--I look into the original documents which are very often ignored by even the "best" experts.

I disagree. The grade for Strategic Command is surely A+. This is no exaggeration. Only Europa Universalis and Clash of Steel are better. Without doubt, it is worth $25. I say that it is worth $100 in fact. I have literally hundreds of computer games, so I am well qualified to say. Truly excellent work which deserves the highest praise. When I read reviews criticizing the game overall (as opposed to offering helpful suggestions for improvement), then I mark that person or medium as an enemy. An enemy indeed. One of my chief complaints about the game is that I did not even know about it until somebody from the Europa Universalis / Hearts of Iron forum told me about it. You capitalists need to market this stuff better. In a socialist country, we would simply make all of our military students play the game as supplement to first year military history classes--good idea for the future. Maybe we will work out some royalties arrangement for you.

There Les has the point exactly: "the friction that truly existed" between the Allies and Soviets. I strongly agree with this wording. Also agreed on your Axis and Allies point, by the way.

See how it works: I post a helpful suggestion to split the command. Then the response is ranting which has nothing to do with my original suggestion. You don't even say whether you prefer to force the player to be both Allies and Soviets or not. Even if you rant, you should at least be able to formulate some opinion in purely game terms on the original suggestion.

On Katyn forest killing of Polish officers and bourgeois citizens: this was quite obviously a SOVIET act. I never said or believed anything different. This was not done by the Germans, though the Germans were the first to try to exploit its anti-Soviet potential in international political propaganda--which worked, by the way, because the West hated the Soviets anyway. So, please don't put words in my mouth--the Soviets did the killing, and it was no mistake but all on Stalin's direct orders. No big mystery there. The Soviet government openly lied about the incident because FDR did not want the many Polish ethnic citizens of the USA to turn against American intervention in the war and the Soviets did not want the Germans to use this for propaganda against the Soviets. As a purely propaganda exercise, it was a Soviet failure to lie, because nobody believed them anyway. the Germans (Goebbels specifically) turned it into a masterful trick. Germans won that whole game there. The biggest loser of the affair, unluckily, was poor FDR, who had to spend a lot more political points to counter the justifiable outrage by Polish Americans. So: Soviets did it. Soviets lied. Germans used it. FDR was hurt by it. Soviets continued to lie about it to the world. Now, on the other hand, from the Soviet point of view, please realize these things: 1. almost everybody in the USSR knew exactly that the Soviets were guilty--they would not admit it to foreigners, of course, but they knew it exactly 2. after the war, the Soviets also continued to lie about the incident because they didn't want to cause extra disturbance to their shaky client regime in Poland--although I think that everybody in Poland knew the real truth anyway, despite official lies--so this lying was unnecessary too 3. BIG POINT--because those shot were Polish military officers, landlords, Catholic priests, and capitalists with a long and well-documented history of anti-Soviet and anti-Russian beliefs and acts from 1917 to 1939, these people were justifiably shot in terms of Soviet political morality and logic--that is, they were anti-Soviet enemies of the people--that means that they get shot. And the real kicker is that ordinary Russians would gladly support shooting such people--so the lying was not necessary at all in terms of internal Soviet politics--the lying way only for foreign consumption (particularly in the West) and it failed anyway--check out Soviet newspapers in the 1930's and you will see all about enemies of the people being shot--no surprise to the Soviet people that the Poles were destroyed like that too--same with the Chechens, by the way--Russians would simply say "of course they should be shot"--you may disagree, but don't forget that it was these same Polish officers who attacked, destroyed, and raped deep into Soviet territory during the Russian Civil War. Do you think that Stalin or the Russian people would forget such things? Or to allow them to pass unpunished when the opportunity for punishment arose? Well, of course not.

One thing better about Clash of Steel than Strategic Command is that you could play as the Allies WITHOUT also playing the Soviets, and vice versa. Actually, it is very unrealistic to let a single player control both because their interests were often contradictory and their plans were rarely coordinated. When playing the Allied side, I find myself having to force myself to think first "ok, I am Stalin now--kill Germans" and then a minute later "ok, now I am Churchill and FDR--please don't hurt me". It is like a song which switches its own tune back and forth throughout--not fun to listen to. I say that the player should be able to play as either the Allies OR the Soviets but NOT BOTH. Let the computer play the other one as well as the Axis. If Clash of Steel could do it, then I would think that SC could to. I would say the same for Germans and Italians--human player should be able to play one or the other but not both, and let the computer play the other one. This was also one big failure with respect to High Command. I am not trying to be unfair on this either. I a few years back made a magnificent grand strategic scenario called "World War Two" for Norm Koger's Operational Art of War game, and one of the major defects of this otherwise great scenario was the fact that the poor player was forced to control both Allied AND Soviet units instead of just one or the other. Same with Axis. Oh, well. I couldn't make it any better because of the game limitations. Anyway, doesn't anybody agree with me on this? (Please do not turn this post into an anti-Stalin rant!)

Fully agreed. PBEM does suck. Best to play against a good computer or maybe hotseat.

Well, if they were not physically eliminated, then there is too much of a real chance that they could come back to attempt to overthrow the regime. Read Trotsky's books and articles, if you do not believe this. To the very end, he was trying his best to remove Stalin. Trotsky's devoted followers tried their best to unseat Stalin. Their traitorous efforts tended to cease when they were shot. Trotsky's articles and anti-Soviet propaganda machine (I have seen his royalty checks from New York bank accounts) tended to stop when he received that involuntary cranial surgery. So, if your point is whether it was wise to remove enemies permanently, then I would say yes in the Soviet dictatorship. This rule of course does not apply to Washington DC where winners congratulate the losers and vice versa. Soviet politics is not that nice. There can be only one dictator in a dictatorship. And destruction of families is a common Russian practice in history. if you want evidence, just look at how Khrushchev's son behaves--becoming a US citizen, selling out entirely, spouting anti-Soviet propaganda in American Masonic lodges for pocket change. What a dirty traitor. Like father, like son.

One more point--on the supposed contradictions between "bomber crews and politicians overestimating effect of bombing" and "shift to terror weapon vs. civilians because of failure of bombing" This is not a contradiction. Specifically, the point made in the lecture was that crews returning from missions almost always report successful hits. They are not lying, just mistaken. These mistakes can be discovered by follow-up recon flights in the future, but even these are not perfect and will often report destruction of targets when that is still not the case. By that time, you have new missions, new false reports and so on. The checking can never fully catch up with the reporting, so in terms of analysis, there is always a great differential between the perceived results and the actual results. The lag can never be fully removed. You could plan for such a distortion by having a policy of discounting and disbelieving your crews' own reports, but that is not popular, and nobody does that--at least not in World War Two. Plus, you have administrative structures who would jeopardize their own existence (and salary) by denigrating their own sphere of operations--so this is another reason for this distortion. The politicians are deceived into overestimating the effects from bombing by these false reports and by their own preexisting biases in favor of strategic bombing--like I said, made popular throughout the West in the 1930's, though not really in USSR at all. Recon and ground intelligence (spies) can help to bring the leaders back to reality by demonstrating incrementally that the bombing just is not working. This assumes that the spies are actually effective and not just reporting what the leaders want to hear. Still, over time, there is a grudging realization on the part of the leaders that the job just isn't getting done. That is when the switch to "terror bombing" begins. Specifically, it doesn't happen all at once (well, it did when the Germans were bombing England, but not for the West)--terror bombing takes over from strategic bombing of military production targets INCREMENTALLY. Lots of words, sorry. What is the basic point is that there is no contradiction. I do not argue that the leaders think "it works" and "it doesn't work, so let's change" at the SAME TIME. The change from one mindset is slow, stretched out over time, almost imperceptible on a week to week basis, but it is very real. And even then, terror bombing doesn't work either--never has actually. So Duget was a stupid bugger. also, don't mock me words of "fighting to the bitter end", because that is exactly what the Germans did. Examples of this NOT being the case would be all of Western Europe, especially France in 1940. You all need to work on your logic and your research. Don't just repeat the old lies from paperbacks books.

Of course I "know" about the Italian theorist Duget, but unlike you, I will not pretend to be an expert unless I read his own words MYSELF, which I have not done and which you too obviously have not done. What is shocking and funny is that you actually agree with him! The war proved him to be absolutely wrong. You mock me for admitting my limitations but in fact I probably know more about the topics than you. That is truly funny. Typical of community college student, by the way--very typical. on comment concerning Afghanistan--Soviets did not participate in strategic bombing in afghanistan--Soviet forces were only fighting a few guerrilla forces who controlled no strategic resources--the PDPA Afghan government was Soviet-controlled and it controls all of the cities in Afghanistan during the entire war--so, how dare you talk about "strategic bombing" with respect to Afghanistan--obviously, you do not understand the term as used in military science on the glories of the stupid NEP system, see my other lengthy and correct post in another area--basically, NEP and Bukharin were terrible--strange how you in the west still cling to these old myths. Even today, you can see that NEP-like policies have absolutely bankrupted Russia--and the same people like you promised in 1991 that Russia would be so wealthy and prosperous by following capitalist paths--wrong then, wrong now, wrong in the 1920's too--don't you all ever learn? and since you want to bring up the postwar Stalin "paranoia" about doctors' plots and so forth, you can see that Stalin was exactly right about the threat to the Soviet people from within the Party itself--democratic reformist traitors like Khrushchev and Gorbachev did EXACTLY what Stalin had warned of: destruction of the Soviet Union. This fall is embraced in the West, but for Russians, it has been a terrible disaster. Of course it will be reversed, but the lessons have been painful. You want to mock Stalin for finding and destroying enemies of the people, but history has shown that he was right--and if you do not destroy your enemies, then they WILL destroy you. History since 1953 has shown this to be absolutely true.

So, some poster says that what I say about the Allies not wanting to cooperate with the Soviets against the Germans in the late 1930's is "utter nonsense" and that I obviously do not know about the negotiations between the Soviets and the Allies during that time period. I disagree in the strongest possible terms. Not only do I "know" about those precise negotiations, but I have researched the very transcripts of those negotiations, all of the background diplomatic documents, as well as the memoirs and memoranda to file from the main negotiators, Soviet and Western. I have read word for word (in Russian and in English) the very transcripts of those meetings for which you claim I do not know the existence of. And again, based upon heavy research which is almost definitely greater than what you yourself have done (or the authors whom you read as experts, I can repeat my basic point here: the Allies were not interested in cooperating with the Soviets but only in staying out of the war and letting the Soviets and Germans destroy each other. Not only is this perfectly documented for anyone who cares to check, but it also makes perfect sense. My God, in the 1930's, the Soviets were literally begging the West to help against Germany, but the West absolutely refused to comply. How can you argue with that? Have you even heard of collective security or united front politics? Admittedly, not everyone can study international law, but surely some American political science or history courses at least mention these things. Again, I am shocked and bewildered at how little Americans study or know about history. I find again and again that I say something so simple and true beyond argument like "most German casualties were caused by the Soviets on the Eastern Front" and then a team of six or so jackals jumps in screaming "how can you make such an unfounded statement?! obviously you know nothing about history! you only read Pravda! what crazy propaganda!" Now I am sure that I am correct on these points, and if you want to have a showdown concerning grades or intelligence or articles published or classes taught or whatever, then I would probably win. Please understand that I would NEVER make a firm comment about an historical issue unless I researched the issue in tremendous detail. I don't just read pamphlets and idiotically repeat lines, not at all. I do original research with real documents, and I use logic. The problem with my attackers is that they only want to repeat Western propaganda without thought and without their own research. Any parrot can do that. Now very briefly on Soviet economic policies. I will explain how the economic policies of Stalin were in fact wise and ultimately very successful. This is not mindless repeating from some pamphlet but carefully considered and well thought-out analysis based upon original research. First off, you must not believe the arguments that Stalin was crazy or delusional or paranoid. His economic and political policies were very rational. Mobiliization of available resources to optimize achievement of state goals and interests. Very rational. Those who deny this are merely repeating old lies without any thought. Examples of these types are Trotsky, Khrushchev, Hitler, Gorbachev--list could go on. In the 1920's, the USSR faced a severe grain crisis throughout the country. This was a direct result of the New Economic Policy (NEP) which the Soviets had in the 1920's. This policy allowed a great deal of economic liberalization, a lot of market forces allowed to work--in short, a big move back to a capitalist economic system in Russia. In the city, businessmen called Nepmen flourished by cheating and corruption. In the countryside, wealthy peasants called kulaks grew even richer off of the labor of poorer peasants. Both the Nepmen and kulaks were almost entirely non-Russian in their ethnic origins. Consequently, most ordinary working Russians hated them. Specifically, the grain crisis of the late 1920's occurred because the kulaks began a systematic policy of HOARDING their grain. This made perfect economic sense to them, because it made grain prices skyrocket. The result was that grain was kept from the cities and what grain was sold was at an extremely high price. Terrible for the Soviet government because they could not have a sufficient number of working population in the cities to have industrialization because there was just not enough food. That is the key to collectivization of Soviet agriculture by Stalin--it gave the Soviet government CONTROL over grain production and ensured a stable, controllable grain supply for the cities--precisely what was lacking in the NEP system and precisely what was an absolute necessity for Stalin's next major step, rapid industrialization. That is a whole other article, but suffice it so say that Soviet industrialization was a tremendous success, with the highest growth rates in heavy industry ever achieved in the history of the world. This creation of the Soviet heavy industrial base allowed for tremendous production of armaments during the war. And of course that is the main reason that the Soviets won the war--military production. Now another fellow criticizes Stalin for destroying Bukharin, the "genius". Let me share with you what Bukharin's economic plan was. While Stalin wanted Russia to build up its OWN industrial potential by investing in heavy industry, Bukharin had a far more elaborate plan: Bukharin's plan was to appease the kulaks. He wanted the Soviet government to invest NOT in heavy industry (capital) but in light industry (consumer goods). He wanted to trade consumer goods to the kulaks in return for grain--at the kulaks' prices. This was obviously a losing bargain for the Soviets, plus they would not CONTROL the grain supply--it would remain in the hands of the anti-Soviet kulaks. He even actively encouraged the kulaks "to enrich themselves". Then Bukharin's plan was to take the grain and trade on the international market to obtain high-priced Western armaments with which to defend the Soviet Union. Of course, grain prices are always low compared to armaments. Plus, again, you see that with the Bukharin method, the Soviets would have been tying their fate to others, relying upon things that would not be within their control. Stalin understood this lesson very well: RELY ONLY UPON WHAT YOU CONTROL. Bukharin did not. if the Bukharin policies were chosen, then ultimately, the Soviets would have lost the war. By strengthening the Soviet Union's own industrial base and grabbing control of the country's own destiny from the hands of others, Stalin charted the path to victory. If this were 1941, we could argue freely about whether this was wise or not, but now that we see who ultimately won the war, it is quite obvious that Stalin had the right plan.

I am not a special expert on strategic bombing in World War Two, but my general readings seem to supplement what a real expert in the field taught in a series of military science lectures which I happened to attend. Basic points off of the top of my head are as follows: strategic bombing was engaged in NOT for the actual, practical effects which were always minimal and well below expectation but because of the overwhelmingly fashionable THEORY of strategic bombing from the 1930's--this theory (as example, Italian writer Duget / Duhet?) became very widespread throughout the western world--basically said that the outcome of the next war would completely be a function of strategic bombing--this became very entrenched not only among military and political leaders but also through mass media into the minds of the general mass of citizens in the West--the idea was so strong that it persisted even when evidence arose to erode it--this seems almost to be an insanity or crazy obsession--only Bombers matter!--that kind of nonsense--military budgets would reflect this fixation to the detriment of other more important branches the results of strategic bombing are always over-exaggerated by the bomber crews themselves--(this is still the case today, for every country)--damage was often easily repaired--(my own note: "also case in Vietnam and Korean Wars") the effect over time because of the military impotence of bombers vs. economic targets is that step by step the bombing of CIVILIAN targets became the overwhelming mode of bombing--in other words, "strategic bombing" became nothing more than a "terror weapon"--very important point here still, in theory, a terror weapon might work to reduce the morale of the civilian population and cause them to either overthrow their government or to engage in mass surrender or sabotage--but that is only THEORY--in the actual war, even the use of strategic bombing as a terror weapon against the Germans also failed, as evidenced by their refusal to surrender and their insistence on fighting to the bitter end anyway, that is the end of my notes, and those are years old. I would agree with that officer's facts and conclusions still.

One poster points out quite correctly that in 1938 the Soviets and Germans do not even share a border. Fully agreed on this point, of course. What I meant with respect to the benefits of moving the Soviet border westward was that there would be a greater buffer zone. I assume based upon my historical research that had there been no Nazi-Soviet Pact the following things would have happened. First, the Germans would have invaded Poland. Then the Allies would have declared war on Germany but would have not taken any real offensive actions against the Germans. The Germans would easily crush Poland, absorbing it entirely instead of just the western portion. That would create your new German-Soviet frontier, far to the east of what it really was from the Pact. At some point during the Polish collapse, the Soviets might have become involved. Or, in the alternative, after the full Polish defeat, the Germans would have turned next against the Soviets. In either case, what you have in the initial stage of the war would be the Germans and Soviets fighting each other, Poland completely destroyed, the Soviet initial border far to the East, and the Western Allies sitting safely behind the Maginot line watching the Soviets and Germans kill each other off. This sequence of events would have been catastrophic for the Germans but especially so for the Soviets. Like I said before, the Soviets benefitted very greatly from the time given them in the Pact from 1939 to 1941. If they had to go to war in 1939, the quantity and quality of their units could not have been so great. Anyway, one of the most important things to remember is that the Allies did not want to cooperate with the Soviets, did not want to fight against the Germans at all. They wanted to sit back and let everybody else do their fighting for them. Do not forget that Stalin tried for a full decade to have "united fronts" and "collective security" to stop Hitler, but the Allies on numerous occasions simply refused to cooperate. This policy was of course "appeasement". It was obviously designed to avoid getting the Allies in war, but the ultimate purpose of course was to destroy the Soviets--as said many times by most Western political and industrial leaders (Henry Ford, for example), they much preferred Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco to the communists. Hell, the CIA still has that policy today, as evidenced throughout Latin America and the rest of the Third World. If you have studied the Spanish Civil War, for example, you know how the West deliberately starved the Spanish Republicans by "nonintervention" while knowingly allowing the Germans and Italians to intervene on a very large scale in favor of Franco. I mean, that is exactly the kind of "cooperation" that Stalin could expect on a regular basis from the Allies. So, you see, the Nazi-Soviet Pact was still a very wise move by Stalin when you consider the strategic alternatives and the context. Better to stay neutral and race to build up Soviet power than to pull the West's chestnuts out of the fire.

Dgaad: you quote Kesselring and Rundstedt to support the importance of strategic bombing, but quite obviously these two poor chaps were just telling their new Western bosses what they wanted to hear. That doesn't make it true at all. There are many, many instances in which a criminal defendant will cooperate with the police and prosecutor to save his own ass. Seems to me that this is exactly a case of that. Now if your quote came in 1943 rather than postwar, then it might have more weight. Of course, I would still say that they were wrong. It is a strong tendency among people in the West (especially in Germany) to never admit that the "subhuman" Russians can do anything positive, much less kick their butts. So I would not trust the quote by poor Kess and Rund. I am reminded of a situation in Washington DC neighborhood where there is this poor old homeless black man who in return for table scraps and a garage to sleep in tells this ugly old white woman who owns the big house every day "Madam, you are so beautiful, like God's own angel!" He does his part, and she does hers, but don't trust his words. Poor Kess and Rund were probably in a similar position when making their quotes to support Western bombing.

Well, I see that you could not resist turning even this post into a forum for anti-Soviet propaganda yet again. A few quick points: The Nazi-Soviet Pact was a brilliant move by Stalin actually. It gave the Soviets a lot more time to prepare for war. Much more military production and much higher quality equipment (T-34 tank as the best example). The Soviets gained a great deal of territory which later provided an important buffer zone. The seizure of the Baltic States, Eastern Poland (well, we call it Western Ukraine and Byelorussia), and Moldavia pushed the front lines much farther to the west which was very helpful in summer of 1941 when war finally did break. Furthermore, at the time it seemed an excellent gamble--who would have guessed that the French would surrender without even fighting? What was most probable back then is that the Germans would have been far more bogged down in the West than actually happened historically. We cannot call this unwise by Stalin however--in fact, at the time, to assume that the French would be that weak, traitorous, and self-destructive would have been reckless planning. The Germans also gained by the treaty, of course, but if you compare Soviet military production to German military production, you can easily see that the time passed from 1939 to 1941 benefitted the Soviets more. Specifically, their rate of production was greater than the Germans, just like it was during the war itself even though so much territory was lost. Time was on the Soviet side, and Stalin understood this very well. Read the Politburo transcripts and economic reports from those weeks and months themselves, and you would see this clearly. The documents are freely available in Washington DC at this very moment, though they are written in Russian and not professionally translated yet. Problem is that virtually NO historical scholars have really dug into these materials. Instead, everyone wants to quote old rag books by Khrushchev or the German generals which serve as nothing but fabricated anti-Soviet propaganda. Scholars should look more to the original documents than hearsay and anecdotes. Anyway, like I was saying, time was on the Soviet side. And quite clearly, Hitler's Nazi Germany was always in a big race against time--Hitler clearly (and wisely) understood that time was against him. The more time that passed without destroying the Soviets, the more dangerous things became for Germany. In fact, if the Germans had not attacked in 1941, they themselves would have been attacked in 1.5 to 2 years (probably) by an even stronger Soviet Union. So the Germans were in a race against time for their survival, which they ultimately lost, though at times it seemed that they might have been able to pull it off. One final point is on the "surprise attack". Again, I strongly suggest that you go to the original sources. The real reports concerning preparations, deployments, etc. show quite clearly that the Soviets and Stalin himself knew of course that the Germans were going to attack. The argument that the Soviets were completely unprepared and taken by surprise is again just a post-war fabrication which does not stand up to sustained critical analysis. In other words, it sounds great for anti-Soviet anti-Russian propaganda, but it just is not true. If you trust anecdotes more than documents, then ask any old Soviet veteran if he knew in early 1941 that Germany was going to attack, and he will say Koneshno (of course!). My God, one of the simplest pieces of evidence is the fact that Stalin's hand-picked song played endlessly on Soviet radio in May 1941 was Yesli Zavtra Voyna ("If Tomorrow there is War"). Maybe this is corny evidence, but it is enlightening nontheless. The big problem for the Soviets was that they were facing the biggest concentration of military power in world history. They could not help but be crushed at the borders and pushed back. They fact that they held strong and even tried to counterattack gave the country precious time to engage in full mobilization. The result was seemingly endless new Soviet units being formed. Because the Soviets faced such an immense onslaught, they couldn't help but suffer from a degree of operational surprise. Like in a boxing match, if you get punched, you get momentarily stunned even if you knew that the punch was coming. Also similar to the US experience in Pearl Harbor--the US clearly knew that the Japanese were going to attack, but still they were caught "by surprise". Even more so for the US in the Philippines, which happened with even more notice. Back to the main point, though, while the Soviets suffered operational surprise in June 1941, I think that it is impossible to argue truthfully that they suffered strategic surprise, much less grand strategic surprise. Final, final point on the Nazi-Soviet Pact: if the Soviets did not have nonagression with the Germans, then what would the result be? There would have been immediate war between Germany and the Soviets, to the detrimental effect of both, while the Western Allies could sit back safely and do nothing. Great for the West, but not for the Soviets. Given the grand strategic context, the Pact was a very wise move by Stalin in the long run. Don't forget--Stalin was the grand winner of World War Two.

Wagner: Thanks for the suggestion to check out adana--in fact, I have already done this and even pre-ordered the game. We will see how good it is. In fact, I pre-ordered both the civil war and world war one games from them. I downloaded their free civil war game (the one that they are fixing up for the update) but it sucks. Anyway, thanks, EB.

The map is done, the engine exists. Now please make a version of Strategic Command covering World War One. Or any other war in history. I will buy every game which you make like this SC. Even the American Civil War would be great. (By the way, the key to the Northern victory in the US Civil War was, in my opinion, tremendous Soviet military production. Oops, wrong thread.) I created a very good scenario for the Operational Art of War dealing with World War One, but I would still love to see one from battlefront. Maybe what we really need is a fully editable game just like Operational Art of War except on a strategic level. That would be heaven-sent. Make that and we will name a city after you. Or at least a village. All the best, EB.