TN
-
Posts
11 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Never
Posts posted by TN
-
-
I have nothing but respect for the person who maintains Moisin-Nagant.net site and its Finnish pages, and they are usually quite accurate. But I must say that in all pictures of Finnish soldiers in WWII that I've seen over the years in Finland I'd never seen a helmet with emblems painted on it. I first ran into one on the KevOs 4 re-enactor page.Originally posted by SonBae:Thanks MikeT.
I have seen that picture too...in fact it is what spurred the interest. I used the site I listed cause it showed that helmet in color (even though it did have the bearded re-enactor).
Was never quite sure if the skull was localized or "soldier Art" troops will add to the helmet or an actual unit marking.
Based on the assumption it is a unit marking, like MikeT's site suggests, I did a little mod showing the skull. I used AndrewTFs new Finn uniforms as the base. Posted over at....
Must go and check the Cavalry Museum next summer. Anyway, I just would like to point out that the use of any unit insignia on uniforms was pretty strongly disapproved in the Finnish Army during the war. They were used locally, depending on the commander, but I don't believe they were as ubiquitous as the Big Red One or the Screaming Eagle shoulder patches for example.
I think the insignia of the Finnish Armored Division (three arrows pointing left in a green field) was the first one to receive any kind of semi-official status or approval. After the war these emblems have been used much more in commemorative medals, veterans gatherings, books and so on. So if you do Finnish uniform mods, the realistic way would be to steer clear of anything that has a very flashy image like skulls etc.. Un-Finnish, IMHO...
Some images of what Finnish divisional emblems looked like can be found from
-
Originally posted by sGTGoody:
[QB]
"Not sure exactly what the 120 can penetrate but my buddy who fought in the Gulf told me about firing through Iraqi berms and taking out T72s on the other side. He also fired all his engagements from the TC seat because his gunner refused to pull the trigger. So his gunner would aim and Dave would fire."
I read a few www sources recently about the effects of DU ammo in the Gulf War, and there was the same story. A stuck M1A1 was attacked by 3 Iraqi T-72s. The first was wiped out by a frontal shot, the second tried to flee but a shot penetrated the engine and destroyed it, and the third one hid behind a berm. The M1 fired through the berm and destroyed the target. So at least that story can be confirmed. There was also a documented friendly-fire incident in which a DU SABOT was fired at two Bradleys standing side-by-side and it penetrated both easily.
I couldn't, however, find a confirmation that I was looking for on M1 armor thickness. I read earlier that in some of the friendly-fire incidents in the Gulf an Abrams hit another in the back of the turret with something and the shot didn't penetrate.
-
Actually, those green collar patches with silver trim are regular infantry. Jääkäri / jaeger / light infantry collar patches are green with gold trim.
Most of the wartime photos are naturally B/W, but from them I have the impression that a lot of front-line officers wore their rang insignia directly on the grey cloth. Inconspicuity is longevity in battle !
Originally posted by Prinz Eugen:Ah ! There can NEVER be enough Finnish mods, and these are definately worth downloading, even dispensing with the pro-Finn ideas ! And those green "jaeger" collar patches are a nice detail ! I'll be d/ling this shortly, then ! Thanks ! :cool: Keep up the good work !
-
I think that Steve's information should be correct. Separate Sissi battallions fighting as infantry were pretty much a Winter War / early Continuation War feature. I don't remember seeing any references to them late in the war, so I'm ready to believe they were indeed disbanded. SMGs were also becoming more widespread in regular infantry units by then.
However, the recon activities did obviously not cease. There were dedicated long-range recon units that were directly under the Finnish supreme HQ (Osasto Kuismanen and Osasto Vehniäinen, later consolidated into an independent battallion Er.P.4). Additionally, there were patrolling units on division, regiment and battallion level. For example, there might be a Jaeger / Jääkäri company in a regiment and a jääkäri platoon in a battallion that would be used as recon/patrol/shock troop and COs last counterattack reserve.
Understanding all this is complicated, because the organisation seems to have left a lot of leeway to individual commanders on how they organised and used their units, depending on their abilities and temperament. One famous regimental commander collected the best warriors of the regiment into his HQ supply platoon that in many other units was a collection of sad sacks. That way, he had a reliable strike reserve close at hand...
Originally posted by Battlefront.com:Keke,
Hmmm... our information shows that Jääkäri units were used for recon. They were heavily outfitted with SMGs, and sometimes consolodated all SMGs into one Squad. I don't want to doubt your word, but is there some documentation you can produce to show that Sissi units were retained even after 1943? Our sources say they were disbanded and/or used to form conventional units.
Steve
-
Hey, how about those Soviet anti-tank dogs that had explosive packs on their backs and had been taught to look for food under tanks ? I think they should be modeled in the next version of the game engine. Complete with different breeds of dogs that have different payloads and speeds, and of course different hit probabilities.
-
Excellent post that brought something new into the discussion. Now the Finns just hunker down to withstand the inevitable counterbattery fire
-
Originally posted by Keke:
That, my friend, is called a preplanned defensive fire mission. The FO has, in cooperation with the platoon leader and company CO, delivered a list of defensive barrages and their coordinates to the supporting firing unit. The firing unit has calculated their firing solution, and especially if they have previously fired to the general area, no ranging shots are needed. The barrage will be accurate enough.In fact, if an infantry unit has been assigned artillery priority, the guns of the supporting unit are trained to their defensive missions when not firing elsewhere. In principle, the guard on duty in the foremost foxhole can call a defensive mission just by relaying the target name to the battery. The battery will fire, no questions asked. ("Pärssinen" is not the most usual type of name, but then again Taipale front in the Winter War was not the most usual war). This is how things should work under ideal conditions.
rgds,
TN
-
Here's another link to an article that compares different schools and doctrines of artillery thinking. Please note that the author wrote it without notes, and make sure you read the correction at the end when you read the part about U.S. artillery. And I believe every nation did their ballistic homework (weather, wind, gun characteristics, charge variables like temperature etc.) well, and not only the Americans. At least the Finns had their tables for calculating a firing solution in every conceivable situation.
http://www.combatmission.com/articles/Arty/arty.asp
The article's focus on impromptu fires is spot-on, because walking artillery fire up to the target is usually relatively fruitless since the target can move or take cover. (Unless the situation is like in one memoir I've read, where the target was a Chinese bunker in Korea and the firing unit was a battleship 30 miles away
) This is especially true in WWII situations, where the artillery could be quite small-bore (75-105 mm). The goal for the Finnish FOs has always been always that calling fires should be "target coordinates, battery, one round - left 100, add 200, fire for effect". Accurate TOT fire without any preceding corrections is the Holy Grail of redlegs everywhere. (And in modern aside, this is what many current weapon systems can do, even when the number of weapons is limited. The new Finnish-Swedish joint effort AMOS (Advanced MOrtar System) can drop six rounds on a target simultaneously from a two-barreled turret).
What interests me in this discussion is to determine if there were in WWII significant performance differences between armies in terms of speed and time consumption when placing impromptu artillery fires on targets, when all situational factors are constant except artillery and observation SOPs, and if so, why ?
rgds,
TN
P.S. If we invite a Finn to join this thread, then I suggest colonel (ret.) Matti Koskimaa rather than Linus
-
Originally posted by Vilho Nenonen:
[QB]
I believe that other armies used that kind of FO. We would not. It is not precise to my understanding. Probably wonderful for armoured or mechanized units, because it might be the only way to direct fire. It would have been accurate enough for Finns to try it, but not probably very easy.I've read some reports of this in accounts of the StuG battalion in the Tali-Ihantala battles. I believe one or two officers had been trained to direct fire from an armoured vehicle, but he/they became casualties relatively early after the battalion had been committed.
[ October 22, 2002, 04:26 AM: Message edited by: TN ]
-
Finally, I received my password so that I can participate in the conversation ! I read the whole thread with great interest, and was truly blown away by the level of conversation on this forum.
Oddly enough, I don’t have the game yet and the demo graphics don’t work at all on my laptop (CMBO demo works fine). Therefore, I’d like to limit my remarks to some historical details that have been discussed in this thread.
Originally posted by Battlefront.com:,
>This is of course nonsense.
>
>In one battle during the Ardennes offensive >artillery alone effectively destroyed the 12th >SS Panzer Division over a period of a couple of >days. On the Eastern Front the artillery >bombardment preceeding Bagration wiped out the >frontline positions of an entire Army Group.
>What do descriptions like this prove? Artillery >is powerful and if used correctly very >effective. What else does it prove? Nothing.
Yes and no. Examples of prepared offensive fire plans reveal only that with enough guns and shells, you can achieve very impressive results. They do not tell anything about the level of artillery practice in each country. That should be measured by their response times, flexibility and accuracy in fluid situations.
Previously, somebody posted an excellent link to a page on British RA practices during WWII, arguing that the überFinns were notso hotso after all. I was duly impressed by the RA capabilities, especially their ability to concentrate more than a 1000 guns to a target of opportunity.
The quick concentration of fire was also a feature of the Finnish system. The heaviest concentrations put into the hands of a junior lieutenant FO for a single target in 1944 were something like 18 battalions (that’s Psto to Finns out there).
One difference between Finnish and British practices was noticeable, however: The Royal Artillery FO made his corrections usually relative to BT (Battery-Target)-line. This was the method used by Finns as well until 1943. In this method, the FO in his foxhole has to take into account three things: The position of the target, the position of the firing unit, and his own position relative to the BT line.
The ûberFO of the Finnish army from 1943 onwards made his corrections relative to the OT (Observer-Target)-line. In this method, he didn’t have to figure out anything but his own position, and the range and direction to the target. He made his corrections relative to that, and “Korjausmuunnin” and some clever things done by people in a (relatively) dry, well-lit and safe environment of the artillery firing position took care of the rest. All the FO needed to do was to call fires and report the range and direction of impacts relative to the target as seen from his viewpoint.
Here’s a direct quote from that RA site:
“In 1950 Target Grid Corrections were adopted for ranging. This meant that corrections were ordered as distances around the line observer-target (OT), Left or Right to get ranging shells onto OT, then Add and Drop to bracket the target. GT or any arbitrary line could also be used if required. Observers no longer ordered a BT range and switch. With this change the British soon dropped the use of zero lines and adopted ‘real’ grid bearings. ”
So the Finnish artillery used already in 1943 a method that wasn’t adopted by the RA until right before the Korean war. So yes, I think we can say that we were at least a little ahead.
As mentioned, preparation is the key in the artillery. Without ballistic and meterological preparation and accurate positioning it doesn’t matter how many guns you have.
Then the Soviet methods: The Red Army was very good in preparing firing plans for attack. Massed artillery needed to be brought forward and every battery needed to be ranged into their prearranged targets (which inevitably revealed the imminent attack). When the preparation began, each target point was covered by fire according to plan and schedule. Their problem was their relative inflexibility. The Germans were able to avoid artillery preparation entirely in several occasions by pulling the majority of their troops to a back-up position. Then the Soviet hammerblow would fall into empty space. As far as I know, the Soviets also had problems with concentrating the fire of several units into one place under one FO. It was more usual to have one FO for each battery.
It would be interesting to read more about German and American methods in this regard.
Then some notes about other things that have come up in the discussion:
Artillery seems to be a difficult thing to model in all computer games. That’s because it is a very effective factor in the modern battlefield, and has been so ever since the practice of indirect fire became possible. If there truly is a significant time difference in the game between an FO with a landline and an FO with a wireless, then I think that’s a little off. A landline is more easily severed, but when the signal gets through, there is no time difference in making adjustments. Maybe there should be something that would cause the landline FO to randomly revert to an infantryman status if their vicinity is shelled heavily (i.e. the commo wire is broken). Slowness of adjustment is not the best way to model the weaknesses of landline communications, because the drawbacks were more in the mobility (not immovable, but max only 50 % of the infantry speed) and communication vulnerability.
As for the StuG introduction date, all people advocating the later introduction dates are IMHO correct. January 1943 is impossible, because the vehicles were not in the country yet. After their arrival in Sept. 1943, the reason why they were not used in battle before 1944 is that the Finnish armoured division was the Supreme HQ’s main reserve unit which did not really see battle as a division at all before June 1944. If the Soviet Union had attacked earlier in 1944, the StuGs would have been used.
Then, the availability of heavy tanks to the Finnish side, even though they may have been available only in ones and twos. In reality, all these tanks (KV, SU-152, T-34, T-28) belonged to a same unit (Heavy Tank Battalion of the Armoured division). So the most realistic alternative historically would be to make all tank models owned by the Finnish army available in an engagement, or no tanks at all.
Steve’s historical account of the Finland’s wars was great ! The only thing I’d like to add is that the situation was quite different when Finland sued for peace in 1940 and 1944. In 1940, the Russian attack continued right up to the armistice (and even after that since they stopped shooting an hour later than the Finns. Lousy Soviet watches, maybe ?). There was a real threat of breakthrough and collapse. since all reserves of men and materiel were already committed. In 1944 it was a different story. Finland realized that Germany had lost and Finland needed to get out before it collapsed and the Soviet Union would have the time to concentrate on other things. But militarily the Soviets had been fought to a standstill, and their last attack in August had ended in the destruction of two divisions in Ilomantsi forests. That’s probably why Finland got almost the same terms as in 1940 with only a couple of differences.
Rgds,
TN
[ October 22, 2002, 03:52 AM: Message edited by: TN ]
) This is especially true in WWII situations, where the artillery could be quite small-bore (75-105 mm).
Walkthroughs and soldier skills+arty support
in Theatre of War
Posted
I went through the tutorial walkthroughs, and I was surprised by the heavy use of captured weapons. There was a mention that you need suitably skilled soldiers to man and operate captured enemy guns and vehicles, but I wonder what the average skill level of soldiers will be in the game.
You could end up with something grossly unrealistic, if even an entire infantry platoon contains enough skills to man an enemy tank. Average Russian (or almost any other army's) WWII groundpounder could probably figure out how to use captured light infantry weapons, even automatic ones. Heavier weaponry, such as AT guns would be much harder, and combat vehicles such as tanks really need a skilled crew of "tankists" to drive and shoot them. Russians couldn't even read the gauges and switches of German tanks, and vice versa.
And what's the deal with artillery support and CAS? No way a Russian squad leader could order an artillery strike to immediately pulverize the opposing positions. Pre-registered was the name of the game for most of WWII for all armies and all theatres. Otherwise, delays would inevitably occur before any shells would arrive.