Dandelion

LOL! Very probably. German military jargon is and was as full of acronyms and abbreviations and any other army. In contemporary sources Germans tend to make unofficial acronyms out of official abbreviations, actually quite similar to the French (who, for example, call the "Regiment Parachutistes Etrangere" "le rep"). There is also a fetisch for numbers, much like the Americans I think. Such as the Pak 35 being called "Threecommaseven" and the Panzer IV being called "Four", regardless of specific variant. But some names were PR Successes in Germany as well as in the West. "Panther" and "Tiger" - and "Luchs" - are brief (military terms need to be), easy to use terms with a positive ring. Strange as it might seem, the Germans tend to use them as much as the enemy did. You mean really really frustratingly cumbersome like "5th Armoured Regt (8th Princess Louise's (New Brunswick) Hussars)"? Titles that cannot even be abbreviated into convenient form? cough cough. Liberating my lungs simply to demonstrate the extreme complexity of English pronounciation. Ah yes, personal adress was formal. But indeed so was that of the French (Mon replacing Herr) and most other European languages at the time. We're speaking an era when even married couples could adress eachother with "You". The SS used Kamerad instead of Herr initially, being a socially revolutionary political movement. Yup, just like the Soviets. Hrmpf! Oh yeah? Well hey, who's "Lord Strathcona" anyway and what were you doing to his horse? And what's "South Saskatchewan"? Sounds like a drunken American asking for a glass of whisky in an Armenian pub. Maybe in the sweet company of Princess...Patricia? And The Governor General's Foot Guards - what's that, a pair of fancy slippers? Cheerio Dandelion

The standard issue German ammunition pouches could carry 30 cartridges, and riflemen had two of them (one on each side of the belt buckle, each divided into three, and then divided again internally). So normally a rifleman carried 60 cartridges, but he could fit another 30 or so into his tunic pockets if need be. Rate of fire with a bolt action is normally stated to be 15 rpm. A CM squad would thus empty standard allotment of rifle munition in approx 4 minutes. Does it fit well with your experience in CM? Cheerio Dandelion

Americans. This is a typical American pre-Truman WWII attitude, manifested in a post. Extreme focus and very here-and-now. Exactly the attitude which frustrated Churchill to no end. Not all agreed that "after all, that is the goal". And was it? Churchill - and Stalin, and de Gaulle, and the impressive number of exiled politicians milling about in London - were all thinking of future Europe. Germany´s defeat was inevitable. Goals were defined in terms of ten years, fifty years, positions in the next inevitable war. "Liberation" was uninteresting and never more so to Churchill than areas liberated by the Soviets. Agreements were subject to statistics of power. Sending troops to Greece in 44-45 was relevant for future Europe, but it had precisely zip to do with defeating Germany, ridding the world of fascism or anysuch. It was just politics. Eventually, a more Euro-adapted Truman would see things clearer But as for Dragoon, firmly in US hands, priorities will have been exclusively focused on the "after all" goal. Which poses a bit of a problem with the what-if. The Americans would have wanted Dragoon to run straight to Berlin and be done with it. Meaning go North. When Berlin has fallen, German forces in Italy will fall. And the Italians would be "free" anyway Cheerio Dandelion

Sombrero? What is the implicit significance of wearing a sombrero? My idiomatic English fails me here. The allies would have had to stay and remain west of Trieste, unless it was explicitly agreed that they temporary crossed the demarcation line. Otherwise both Stalin and Tito would have been severely... disappointed. Tito would not have assisted a landing in Yugoslavia IMHO, he might even have fought it. I feel certain of it if the UK was involved in any way. Tito didn't trust the British. Both Stalin and Tito still had far greater faith in the Americans though - Roosevelt is still alive, there is yet no bomb, no Truman. I don't feel it totally unreasonable they might have agreed upon a temporary crossing of the line. As long as no UK forces whatsoever were involved and as long as Roosevelt was still breathing. But not a landing in Yugoslavia. I think more like crossing the Trieste line and thrusting to Ljubljana, severing the German Balkan connection. Then fall back to Trieste as the partisans or Soviets arrive. Everyone nice and calm. The Adriatic is a problematic body of water, for military operations. At least as long as the enemy controls one side of it. On the "German" (i.e. Croatian) side there is a (very lovely) archipelago capable of hiding all kinds of military mischief. Even small groups of torpedoboats could raise hell from there. There were still a dozen 10 MAS boats operating and the Germans had flotillas of S-Boots and a few subs there. Not like they would claim supremacy of the Med, but a hassle to any invasionfleet in such narrow waters. Well ok so I'm no admiral, but it still seems a dangerous idea to me. So the riviera, or the west side of Italy, sounds fine I think. Riviera, yes.. I keep getting back to... Those mountains between Italy and France, the Alpes Maritimes. We're talking some se-erious mountains here Kingfish, those are steep slopes and high peaks. There is only one viable valley, the combined Durance-Dora Riparia river valleys, and four other passes of semi-credibility. Bit of flatland along the coast by Monte Carlo, but not much. I still get hung up on this. It looks like a wall stretching to the sky rising in front of you from the Italian side. This is a touristpic of a village between Nice and Torino; Its not very army friendly terrain. I still feel it would be overly bold to land in Cote d'Azur with the Po basin as objective. Not much is demanded of the Germans, they only need to send a few battallions in an area rich in infrastructure. And semi-nearby were the entire recruiting- and training area of the whole Gebirgstruppen. I can just see a few battallions shipping out on short notice from Kärnten, and we're finished. They chose a flat area to land in, they always do, so I imagine there is a problem making large landings in mountaneous areas. No such flat areas on the Italian side, but frankly the mountains around Genova - no offence - aren't all that impressive. More like rolling high hills, sort of. Softened by lots of rivervalleys too. And it's just a thin screen of mountains along the coast, then you're right down in the Po basin, and it's flat flat flat all the way to Trieste. So flat in fact, much of it lies below sealevel. And roads, lots of roads and rail, this was a modern industralised region. Securing the Milano-Verona-Venezia-Trieste line seems geographically uncomplicated, if one can just get through the hellish (from a military view) Appennines. Of course, there are countless rivers in that valley, and a few dams as well. These would pose problems. But my guess is the Germans had not had time to prepare them for defence. In the book on Franz Stangl, he recalls being posted there in October 44 to start preparing bridges and rivers for military purpouses. He was in the group starting these projects. Of course, he's a liar and a murderer, but he needn't lie about everything. I do too, absolutely. If the plan entailed any UK presence in the Balkans, of any kind, anywhere, they would have been as unkeen as Churchill would have been keen, and for the very same reasons too I guess it would depend upon wether or not the objective was to threaten or cut the Balkan connection. I thought of it more as a coordinated operation in the sense that Soviet and allied staff agreed upon dates. There were several such attempts at coordination during the war, though I can't seem to think of any that worked right now. Allies push into the Po basin, Soviets push into the Balkans, all simultaneously. Allied forces need not actually push into Slovenia and sit on the railway, their presence in force at Trieste would trigger a withdrawal of E and F anyway, making the Soviet and Tito offensives that much easier. And it's not entirely inconceivable that the Soviets would have allowed a very temporary thrust into Slovenia to cut the rail, in order to forward the offensive. In Stalins aim lay a necessity of rapid seizure of control of the Balkan states. But of course, this is all highly what-if, all of it. Agreed, very unpleasant indeed, and untimely too. Bulgaria called for US help, but it was refused. Greek communists called for Soviet help, and it too was refused. Churchills coup sending troops to Trieste very nearly triggered war. People stuck to agreements. Any failure to do so would have had explosive implications, literally. The US still had absolute and uncompromising focus on defeating the fascists, at that point she had no other priorities at all in Europe. No US troops in Athens, none on Cyprus either and if she had her way (and she tends to get it, doesn't she) there would be no breach of agreements with the Soviets. And the US was in control of Dragoon. So yes, absolutely, the Dragoon operation would never significanlty have crossed any demarcation line without explicit concurre... conc... ah you know what I mean, Vereinbarung. The allies reached Bologna mid/late april 1945. Reaching Bologna from the South, you are clear of the Appennines, it's just flat from there. All fighting ceased in Italy on may 2nd. Total German surrender to western allies was signed five days later. It is impossible to tell if the Germans in Italy, who were under semi-independent command, thought the situation so hopeless because the allies reached the flatlands, or because it was May 1945 and all was crap anyway. Clear enough is, that like the Japanese in Indochina, they needn't, and weren't allowed to, have surrendered before Germany did. It took a locally relevant reason to do so. They chose to. And if they did it because they thought themselves unable to defend the flatlands, the eastward orientation of Dragoon would have meaning in August 1944, at least in the limited scope of the Italian context. So at least my genuinely humble opinion. Cheerio Dandelion

Exactly. Map No.7 of SL vintage wasn't it? Even ASL "cheated" a bit tho. Don't recall exactly how they explained it, but I do recall I had these "ferries" capable of shipping across tanks... I most certainly agree. And a pontoonbridge created during the rapid advance of 41-42 was normally preceded by the securing of a bridgehead, meaning a crossing in dinghies, opposed or unopposed. The number of such must be completely staggering. In the divisional history of Infanterie-Division 6, there is an episode concerning the crossing of the Düna, in which a the writer takes a moment to reflect on the many rivers crossed in the campaign that far. Forgive the rotten translation: Brutal casualty rates were common even before the Pioniere were mainly used as infantry, i.e. 43 and on. KTB ID61 notes in the spring of 42 that the entire (divisional) Pi.Btl.161 consists of 1 officer, 3 NCOs and 33 men. Crossings and bridging operations were apparently extremely dangerous undertakings. Another paragraph concerning a contested crossing, albeit again from the view of the Pioniere, is provided by an article in the KTB AOK 11 describing large bridging operations. And in a rather irregular note to AOK 6, the VO of ID 56 writes what amounts to a celebration of the divisional engineers: Are you doing research in general, or are you working on a scenario? Cheerio Dandelion

Certainly. Of even greater scope would be the implications for the Eastern front. As a pretty afterthought, one can easily construct Dragoon to be a Soviet-Allied undertaking, in the meaning of a coordinated operation more than a joint operation of course, with the edge aimed at the Balkans. And quite a rational one too. The Soviet Balkan offensive coincided with Dragoon, more or less. Had AG C in Italy been forced to fall back on the alpine range in Tirol in August, the position of AG E and F on the Balkans would have immediately become untenable. They had only two lifelines, the primary and credible one being the Thessaloniki-Skoplje-Nis-Beograd-Vukovar etc railroad. That one leads North from Croatia-Slovenia up into the Reich and would have been acutely threatened by allied armies reaching North of the Po river in Italy (which IRL they never did). In fact opportunity would arise to cut it entirely, trapping the two AGs. The secondary lifeline used by E and F was the Thessaloniki-Dubrovnik railroad, relying on shipping along the Dalmatian coast - not a viable option with allied troops in Trieste. As the Soviets launched their Balkan offensive in August, these issues immediately becomes critical. Romania collapses and Bulgaria changes side Aug-Sept, AG E and F starts extraction late-August early september. But by October, they're still down in Macedonia-Albania. The situation for the AG South Ukraina would have been equally problematic. IRL it fell back on the Carpathian wall after being overrun in August, and then back along the "iron gate", Vulcano pass and up to Tisza. Question is if this fallback would have been realistic if the allies were standing along the Po. Any other route of retreat would have left the AG out in the open. I believe it would have been overrun and completely destroyed. Even if all German troops could have been safely evacuated to new positions (Say Tirol-Slovenian alps-Dreva-Tisza), for millions of Italians, Greeks, Serbs, Croats, Bulgarians, Romanians et cetera, war would have become half a year shorter. Well, almost a full year shorter in some cases come to think of it. Still, it is difficult to imagine exactly what the consequences would be for the allies in France. I find it difficult to assess. What if the Germans managed to transfer reserves to Savoy and manage to tie down more allied troops in alpine terrain at very low cost to themselves? Would it pose a serious complication for the Normandy forces to have a wide open South flank? As for the French - I read an interesting chapter in "Rearming The French" last night. Turns out that the French actually wanted to continue across the mountains into Italy, not instead but as well. They put forth a plan to immediately raise three divisions, based on available maquis and volounteers. These could head straight into the Po basin in a coup-de-main manner. A typical FFI plan insofar that it was brilliant and had no funding. At the time of Dragoon, the US had very real problems meeting all demands, not least in shipping, and were unable to divert the massive assets needed for three whole divisions on a whim. Nonetheless it seems I have to retreat on the French-lack-of-enthusiasm point. Cheerio Dandelion

I take it that is the same Graziani who had the nickname 'The Butcher' from his treatment of the Sanussi insurgents? Was his treatment of them really so horrible even by those day's standards? One day I'll be able to understand enough Italian read his 'Fronte del Sud'! </font>

And aren't we fortunate in not having such needs... Well, World Cup coming up. We can get drunk when we've won that one, and say we celebrate all kinds of things. Bastille Day, 4th of July, La Marcha Real, O Canada, Land of Hope and Glory, Vort gamle Danmark skal bestå, Yiyongjun Jinxingqu and sing that endless, dreary Waltzing Matilda until we drop Cheerio Dandelion

We could celebrate Stunde Null if you're buying. But if I am buying, we celebrate the birth of the constitution of the Republic. Yours or mine matters naught to me, but seeing as yours is slightly older, it feels a little more solemn getting drunk thinking about that one So. YPAA YPAA for the constitution Sergei Cheers Dandelion

Graziani was an honourable man, as was d'Aosta as I see it. None of them beat up on wounded people in fielhospitals, still they meet only ridicule. Sometimes I wonder if we're only served with the loudmouths and primadonnas of the Generalry. You've adjusted your sig Michael. I smell a triumphant victory. Feel like sharing? Cheerio Dandelion

Gotta hand it to the tricky old fox. By the end of 1942 when this note is dated the Luftwaffe had only 375 singleseat fighters left facing the Soviets, and the Germans reported 36 000 Soviet sorties to a total of 18 000 German. Mid 43, the Soviets had 8 300 aircraft against a German 2 500, things had already become untenable. Still, must have worked. The Soviets received around 20 000 LL aircraft. 12% of the entire Red Airforce. /D

Interestingly, given the topic of this thread anyway, I left my PC on as I was cooking some food here, having just finished my little joke there above so this thread was up. My wife peeks into the monitor, curious as women tend to be, and then while eating she asks me what a suicidal Bren carrier is. I don't know if I am the only one with this situation at home. In a thread full of strange abbreviations, incomprehensible jokes, gamer and military (=both unknown) jargon, there were dozens of questions she might have asked. And I thought to myself forthe duration of that conversation, why did he have to write suicidal? How about "deathanguishly challenged" or "endlife oriented" or "terminally enthusiastic" or something? Not long ago, she sat next to me doing her hobbies as a Sherman blew up. It kind of got her attention, and so did my discreet and tasteful triumphant smile. "Did the kids get out or are they all burned to death now?" That's when I say yeahwell hey, it's just a game baby, just a game... ehrm. /D

Chef means boss in this context. As in "commander of" (e.g. Kp.Chef for Company CO, the official abbreviation being Ch.). Technically you could still be right, there were officer cooks in a division. Or rather, officer bakermen. It doesn't say what they were bosses of, either of them, which normally always follow when using "Chef" (e.g. "Chef-Gen.St.") but one must presume they were commanding the companies they are listed with. Another confusing part is the "d.R" after the rank. Have never seen that before actually, and it is not included in the offical army abbreviation list. I am guessing it has to mean "der Reserve", a reserve officer. That should actually be written as "d.Res." though. It's not that I'm analyouknowwhat, I just want to understand what they mean You can say Chef in German, using the French loanword. People will understand. But the homegrown word is Koch. You know, like the Paratroop officer on Crete ("Captain Cook") Cool site there. This guy has really made an effort and put up som volumes of info. This has to stop. Nobody's going to be needing me in the future if he goes on like that The cooks of Brest may have been too busy to fight. It strikes me that all heads counted they must have been in the vicinity of 20 000 Germans in that pocket. Normal formula means they then had 5500 horses, but as they were paras most of them, maybe they didn't. Anyway, daily food consumption for such a force was about 45 tonnes. Perhaps its best not to mention the daily 544 litres of alcohol included in those tonnes. Or the 4 cigarettes a day (one cigarr a day if higher rank). Or that lemon received every fifth day. Sorry, just frolicing around in my ocean of pointless details. Cheerio Dandelion

I'm with Michael here. Mainly because there was not much to be gained eastwards methinks. A rather difficult mountainrange to cross to get into Italy. And if your arrival manages to force the Germans to retreat to the extreme North of Italy, you'd still have hell to pay dislodging them from there. There are extreme mountains all the North, way deep into Bavaria, and nothing much of any value to the German war effort along the way. I'd head North as fast as I could. Beside the point maybe, but the Dragoon force was largely French. It seems reasonable they'd fight fiercest liberating France. Cheerio Dandelion

Ummm... Going through the posts, I really only see anything resembling that statement in my post? If so it should correctly be quoted as the Soviet Union having an advantage in terms of assets. As that is what I wrote and meant. In terms of ground troops, in the eve of attack the USSR disposed of 4 700 000 men in the standing army, with a further approximate 20-25 300 000 men available for callup. The Axis total sum for the east was 3 200 000 men, of which approx 2 500 000 were German. German (field army) reserves amounted to about 2 000 000 at this point, excepting forces tied down on other fronts. In addition about the same number of Axis Minor, not all at disposal. This merely as a photo of that second, things would change with time. Size of tankfleets; the lowest figure on operational Soviet tanks in june I have encountered is around 7 000 (figures run as high as 30K), with a Axis opposition of about 3 700. That's the advantage in assets I was referring to. Given factual production figures (including production of army units) relations had no possibility of changing in Axis favour, rather the opposite if anything. I think I need to know which part it is that you deny before I have a chance answering that. This seems also to refer to my text. I cut your answer short there, as you present further maths, but you can easily check the post above. The correct quote of my post is "If both sides remained intact as political entities, the Axis would be the first to reach the bottom of the barrel, even at very favourable exchange rates." Again I am not totally sure what your problem with the statement is. You need to help me out with the denial part here as well. As the war actually went, the Axis achieved an exchange ratio of about 1 to 5 in terms of casualties (soldiers). A rather fantastic figure in any war. But the problem still presented itself, that when half the Soviet field army [potential human base] was reduced (as it was), there still remained a force as large as the initial total Axis ground force [potential human base]. And if an Axis soldier died for every fifth Soviet (which they manifestly did) there were by the time the Soviets were halved not many Axis soldiers left to exchange. Which is basically what happened. German total (military) casualties (KIA) in the east were approx 2 500 000 men, times five is 12 500 000, which is half the maximum potential of the Red Army and corresponds well to the approx figure given for Soviet total casualties WWII (KIA), namely 13 600 000. Well as it was, that's nonetheless exactly what the Soviets did, losing 5 to every 1 and still wearing the Germans down to collapse and winning in a very definitive manner. But I didn't really get that strawman part? Strawman means putting words in somebodys mouth in this context no? My original text had no reference to any of your posts whatsoever, implicitly or explicitly. It was my presentation of my thoughts, in response to the original challenger Falcon. Is this still referring to my text? I do believe that the initial 20-25K was a highly theoretical figure and that the Soviets went down to around 4 500 AFV in December 1941, thus not far from German overall figures, thus roughly equals for a short while (seeing as around 2000 were facing the Japanese), and thus did not keep a constant 20K rolling. If the USSR lost what she produced, the Germans would have had to destroy 100 000 AFV 41-45. Is it your opinion that they did? This is what I understand as the underlined message of your posts in this thread. The importance of economic strategy, specifically the timing of warfooting the economy, more specifically the belated German such? The concrete consequence of a earlier decision to mobilise the economy which you have presented repeatedly and put emphasis on, is a larger fleet of tanks. This is not your only point, you have also pointed out that Germany was not as strategically vulnerable as suggested in other posts. But in this we agree, so I leave that debate to others. All of this summarized to give you the chance of correcting my understanding of your line of argument. For the avoidance of strawmen. I find your line of argument interesting but problematic. I will even explain myself. I present two per se significant differences in opinion, but I can't see those particular differences very possible to debate in an interesting manner. First I do not find tankfleetsize quite that critical for the outcome and secondly I believe Germany had no real option, comparing with the UK economy, the worlds greatest at the time, collapsing totally after three years, never to recover, and Germany having no external sponsor equivalent to the USA to lean on. But shoot your torpedo against those two so we be even, if we debate it it'll just end in the yes-it-is-no-it-isn't backroom I think. But, I do have of two logical problems with your claim, that I do believe can be debated in an interesting manner. --- 1. What increase of numbers could have been achieved? The figure commonly used for total Soviet wartime AFV production is around 100 000. The Soviets are to have kept a rather steady 70% ratio of medium to heavy tanks. So around 70 000 such were produced. Give or take, there is no such thing as an accurate Soviet figure. This plus the 7-25 initial K's was what they had then. Around 80 000 or so German AFV were produced during the war, of which around 23 000 or so are usually proposed to have been PzKpfw models >II. If including StuG and enclosed Jpz, German AFV production held a steady approx of 45% Medium to heavy "tanks", dropping only slightly to some 42% in 1943. The rest being light tanks, ACs, halftracks, open SPs etc. That's of course not counting the amounts stolen from others, i.e. primarily Czech and to some extent French AFV. But these are irrelevant for this argument. But it is counting those built on German orders in occupied territories, i.e. primarily Cz. After warfooting her economy, German AFV production rose from around 6 000 to around 20 000. She reached maximum monthly production of AFV in early 1943 afaik. Had she been at that speed all five waryears (counting 12month years, not calendaryears), output would by logic have landed somewhere around 100 000 AFV, of which 45 000 at best would have been medium to heavy tanks, StuGs or enclosed Jpz types. As it was, she only produced around 36 000. The increase following from early mobilisation in numbers of tanks per se seems then to be a theoretical maximum of some 10 000 more than those actually produced. That's if not putting in further what-if factors, like changes in AFV production priorities etc. Just extrapolating known figures. 2. What would have been produced? You call the Soviet early AFV park prewar junk, and by and large I agree. You must then concur - I imagine - that the situation was the same with the Axis, as all fielded models proved if not insufficient then at the very least highly unsatisfactory against the Soviets. The efficient models, those capable of dealing effectively with the brand new Soviet tankfleet from 42 and onwards, came rather late (e.g. IVH came only in late 42, VD in mid 43 etc). In fact They all seem to have entered production only after Germanys economy had been mobilised, when production figures were already reaching peak. Thus the amount of these particular models made available was in fact maximum possible. The extra production created by earlier warfooting would have been in the lazy years of 39-42. Thus the extra 10 000 tanks would have had to have been produced those years. So we are specifying the gain to around 10 000 tanks of obsolete models. Again, if we do not att further what-ifs, placing releasedates for models earlier etc. --- Rounding off then, is it your opinion that this addition would have altered the outcome of the war? So decisevely so that it dwarfs all other aspects? Cheerio Dandelion

Huh? What was that? Guys did you see that? AHA! GAMEY PERSON! FIRE! See anything? Rats. Looks like he got away. Ah well, he won't be back in a hurry will he now... What th...? Did you see that again? I'm telling you there was something moving over there... Silence, I have a visual, ready the piece. Feuerbereit. 350, ein Schuss-Feuer frei! Abgefeuert. 40 nach rechts-50 kürzer-ein Schuss-Feuer frei! The pursuit of realism need not necessarily mean lack of playfulness. And the yell of GAMEY! need not necessarily come from a person focused on realism either. As it seems to be the CM equivalent of the yell CHEATER! I always imagine it to be forwarded primarily by people about to lose a battle. Personally I treasure an opponent (or scenario designer) playing with a historical realism approach. By forcing the game to behave realistically, he helps the suggestion and illusion of reality in the game and thus increase my personal gaming experience. Whereas the guy playing (or designing) with not a toe in realism highlights the fact that the game is just a game. Still a good game, and he is still a skilled player (designer). But you know for me it's a little like watching a movie and I suddenly spot cameras and wires in the background... Your ducking approach here indicates you feel there is intolerance among grogs, which is sad. If you encounter a person who have obvious personality issues and problems behaving, and he calls himself a Grog, he is lying. He is in fact a gamey agent provocateur. Cheerio Dandelion

Screeny I'll have a go at this, hope I find the level of answer you are looking for. And if I don't we can try again. The "Blitzkrieg" term is used in many differing ways and I guess there is no one correct understanding of it. It appears however that the initial German meaning was simply that of speedy mobilisation, going imemdiately from mobilisation to attack. The German army opened the war with semi-novel doctrine. That doctrine was combined arms, deep penetration operations. Combined arms simply means a collection of different weapon systems, sort of like a mini-army. The Panzerdivision was such a mini-army. Deep penetration means that such a group strikes a hole in the enemy line and pour in through it, deep into enemy rear. In order to be able to strike that hole, you need to concentrate, e.g. create Panzerdivisions. The effect of the latter for the defender is that highly vulnerable units are destroyed and communication and control is lost, units are isolated and surrounded and coherent defence becomes impossible. Ideally for the attacker, it would all end in a huge enemy formation encircled and forced to surrender. The Germans rather improperly refered to these battles as Cannae battles, and were quite obsessed with trying to create them. As the Germans assaulted other nations, they made heavy use of diversionary warfare, bluff and "vertical envelope" (i.e. paradrops behind enemy lines). All of these methods yielded impressive results against enemies still mobilising or otherwise unprepared, but proved quite useless against prepared and determined enemy armies. The methods are also often associated with the "Blitzkrieg" term. The effective countermeasure against combined arms deep penetration operations was the arranging of defenses in depth, with positions capable of defense in all directions and able to sustain isolation at least for shorter periods. The French found effective such methods - sort of proto-hedgehog positions - in june 1940, alas too late to make a difference. It is also questionable if antitank weaponry was potent enough to provide effective such defenses, but that is a hotly contested issue. The rival doctrine dominating the enemies of Germany in the early war was - grossly simplified - that of straight line defense. The idea was to form a continous line of defense and concentrate all firepower evenly along it (that's why they parceled out tanks all along the line), hopefully making it impenetrable. There was no depth to speak of, all barrels were up front. You might compare with shields and arrows. A very thin and hard metal shield might deflect the arrow but if it does not, the wearer will get hit behind it. A thick and much softer wooden shield will consume the energy of the arrow so that even if it does poenetrate, it will not do so with enough power to hurt the wearer of the shield. Again, grossly simplified. As the war progressed, all nations by and large adopted the same general type of doctrines. All nations formed combined arms groups, concentrated their offensive firepower and sought the same type of breakthroughs. They all tended to create defensive lines consisting of strongpoints with great depth and focus all mobile assets on concentrated local counterattack. That's not saying there was no difference at all. Especially not as we play in CM, an extremely detailed level of wargame. And a nations ability of developing her doctrine is of course dependent on her situation. E.g. deep penetration operations proved very difficult, though not impossible, to perform in the face of absolute enemy air supremacy. I know the Germans are almost always portrayed as semi-invincible on Anglo-Saxon TV. This odd fact - odd considering that the Germans were soundly beaten - only ever gave me one thought. The fiercer the vanquished appears to have been, the greater the victor must be. Cheerio Dandelion

Why yes of course. All of what I wrote was subjective impression. The USA did not shoulder the responsibility of being the nemesis of the USSR until after the war. Between the wars, that was handled primarily by the UK. In fact, the US at several occasions complained about how suspicious and hostile UK and France behaved against the USSR, both before and not least during the war. The USA and USSR shared many views on colonialism and imperialism back then. Views not at all shared with, say, the UK and France. Relations were not all that bad you know, although not very close perhaps. Might it not have been because they were unable to read the text on the cans, and thus unable to guess they contained soup? Would you dare eat something from a can with text you were unable to read? Say a can with only arabic text on it? Ah, venturing into the very issue I expressed a desire to avoid - the significance of LL. I'll still not go there Very probably. Just as there were very probably Americans saying thank you to Russians, or other ethnic Soviets. Here's a whole bunch of them saying thanks to eachother. And a contemporary quote to catch the atmos Can't argue with that. And they even hugged, drank and danced together, you know. Here, have a smile Cheerio Dandelion [ May 11, 2004, 03:17 AM: Message edited by: Dandelion ]

Kingfish According to the OKH KTB, fighting in Brest proper ceased on September 17th, and "Ramcke held out a further 48 hours on Crozon". So apparently the paras did defend it. FJR 2 is officially listed as destroyed in Brest September 17th, whereas FJR 7 is listed as destroyed on September 19th, no placename. So it would appear it was at least formally remnants of FJR 7 fighting in Crozon. (The FJD 2 is listed as destroyed September 19th, thus with the last of its units). Crosschecking the various units of the division and their date and place of destruction, it becomes evident that present in Brest/Crozon were; - I., II. and III./Fallsch.Jäger-Rgt.2 - I., II. and III./Fallsch.Jäger-Rgt.7 - Fallschirm-Panzerjäger-Abt.2 (a six company variant here) - I./Fallschirm-Artillerie-Rgt.2 (as it is the first Btl. it will have been 75mm) - Fallschirm-Pionier-Btl.2 - Fallschirm-Luftnachrichten-Abt.2 Units of FJD 2 not present were; - Fallsh.Jäger-Rgt.6 - II. and III./Fallschirm-Artillerie-Rgt.2 plus regimental staff. - Fallschirm-Flak-Abt.2 - Fallschirm-Granatwerfer-Btl.2 - Fallschirm-Sanitäts-Abt.2 And of course all the "slice" units. Also fighting in Brest were remnants ("Restteile")of I.D. 343 (it was also officially destroyed September 19th and thus probably had units in Crozon (officially disbanded September 29th)). At present I lack the source I'd need on 343 to specify exactly what remnants were there. But before the Normandy debacle started the division consisted of; - Fest.Gren.Reg.851 I.,II.Btl. - Fest.Gren.Reg.852 I.-IV.Btl. - Fest.Gren.Reg.898 I.-IV.Btl. - Art.Reg.343 I.-III.Art.Abt. - Pi.Btl.343 - Nachr.Abt.343 Thus a fortress division. There was also a unit called "Brest" present in Brest proper. The name spelled out "Kdt.der Seeverteidigung (Seekdt.) Brest-Bretagne". Exact content unknown to me at present. If pushed out as suggested above, remnants of this unit might have been present in Crozon as well. Generally speaking - the "Seekdt." were commands adapted for roughly brigadesize units. They controlled available coastal artillery (Naval and Army), coastal flak (Navy "Marine-Flak" units) and the Hafenkommandant (i.e. all floating units based in Brest). Could in practice mean anything from an office to half a division. It is unlikely to have been of significant size in Brest. In the listing of ground units formed by stranded naval personnel in the French coastal cities, not one served in Brest. Flak and coastal artillery was deployed in batteries or battallions. As Brest was no naval center, like Bordeuax for instance, it is unlikely there were higher units than batteries of anything there. Most importantly I suppose, none of these units are likely to have been equipped with transport of any kind, thus stational until collected by somebody else. (i.e. when Brest fell, they fell). There may have been others. There really shouldn't be because AK XXV didn't have any other known units there, nor were any higher echelon units or schools, depots or arsenals, which leaves only local command, which was said "Brest" unit. But you know, anything from mobile Flak units to railway postal detachments might appear there, and the situation leading up to the battle was chaotic. All kinds of stragglers might have dropped in. Cheerio Dandelion

Skellen, Not contesting your point really, I do feel CM operations can be designed in a manner allowing for a sense of progress and rewards. I mean you can get access to reinforcements, new ammo and all that. Or you could try ladder gaming. The clubs keep track of victories and defeat, often with their own systems of rewards (like virtual medals and so on). But principally I do agree that playing the AI can feel a trifle empty. It sort of leads nowhere. Its really playing humans, in operations and scenarios well made, that makes the game. Cheerio Dandelion

Nah that's not the endurance training, it's all in the restricted height. You can get five or six of them in a standard single bed. And it's almost impossible to strangle six gurkhas simultaneously in a bed. I've tried everything but it never works. The only way to do it is to drop short and heavy paratroopers on them. Takes a while travelling down - seeing as they are so very short - but they land on that bed with a vengeance and after completing the mission they can extract on skis. Seeing as they are so very heavy. Worked in Bed Fomm. Dandelion

LOL! Sergei I am shocked! This is not like you. I know you abbreviate here but still. I disagree very much with the presentation of history here. Though I do think the Germans would have liked very much to have it portrayed this way. - Stalingrad did not happend because of who guarded the flanks. German deployment caused Stalingrad. Half a million men were concentrated in a sack with only two roads leading out, crossing two rivers. There was no rear guard securing the crossings. What kind of idiot deployes like that? It's a ready-made Motti inviting disaster, and disaster was very keen on visiting. The Romanians were put on the flanks because there were no Germans to put there. Thus, the alternative was not to replace them with Germans, but to have nobody there at all - a situation created by the Germans, the Romanians wanted to stop at Odessa and not overstretch. The Romanians had sent ample warning of limited antitank capacity to Germany ever since the spring of 1941. The Germans thus knew what they were doing deploying them as they did, one must presume. The fact that the Romanians were overrun by the 9 to 1 onslaught was the least surprising element in this tragedy, and the loss of 173 000 Romanians that winter is testimony to German abuse of trust, not Romanian failure to answer calls of distress from her ally. Those Romanians were under German command and responsibility, given tasks they had no hope in hell to finish and then they were left to die all alone, with only one German formation even trying to reach them. So it's really disturbing to hear Schiklegrubers ranting about "gypsys on the flanks" on the radio when Stalingrad was a fact. Stalingrad was an all-German failure and now a silent monument of military incompetence, ranging from operational planning and intelligence to execution. - Save Italy? Hey Yugoslavia was invaded because of her leaving the Axis and becoming a liability. Greece was invaded in order to protect Romanian natural resources and as a general measure to protect the German southern flank, bearing in mind that the slightly hellenophile Brits have a manifested fondness of exploiting this soft belly. Germany actually did offer to save Italy in Greece but the offer was rejected. The plan encompassed the sending of three (later four) divisions (of Austrians and Bavarians mind you) to Albania, which was a negligeb negliga... God I hate that word... which presented no noticeable strain on resources for the Germans. Quite ridiculous numbers of German helpers when compared to the Italian aid lent to Germany in the east, 230 000 troops (half of which died). Germany always had the option of staying out of the Balkans, she opted not to without consulting Italy or anyone else (she never consulted anyone else btw, unilaterality was a trademark of DR), "protecting" her own interests and not those of Italy, and the responsibility for any strain this decision meant rests upon herself. Her allies relieved her of much of it nonetheless, Italy included, by occupying large parts of the Balkans for her. - Japan was hardly in a position to force Germany to declare war upon the USA, nor did the Germans have any notions of saving Japan. Germany declared war because she wanted war herself. I mean look at this; Sergei, meet Schicklegruber, you won't like him but there he is. This is the German declaration of war upon the USA, as receieved by the USA - and in a rather elegant translation too. I left the hilarious parts in there as an amusement factor in my otherwise rather boring post. This is German aggression spelled out, it's not Germany trying to save her unreliable allies. - Germany directed her attention to Murmansk because it was the pipeline for allied aid to the USSR, being as it is the only credible harbour on the Kola in wintertime. The Finnish state was AFAIK monumentally uninterested in Murmansk and I can hardly imagine a more sourfaced obstructive participation in the grand German schemes than that of the Finns near Murmansk. Complaints from the arctic were commonplace, dissing the Finns for being unenthusastic. The Germans failed to take Murmansk, and if guilty of anything, the Finns actively chose not to save the Germans stumbling about on the tundra. As an ally, one might have expected them to, but Finland was not an ally of Germany. Hey wait a minute, why am I telling you this? You're Finnish, you know all this. - The diverting of what assets to equip who? Germany had scarcely any deliveries of German materiél to anybody AFAIK. Large amounts of stolen equipment was handed out - Czech such primarily, but also Polish. In the vicinity of 100 German aircraft were given to Romania for free, the rest she had to produce herself. Romania was given Paks too, several dozens, after Stalingrad. The horses delivered as towing beasts for these were however stolen from Poland. Hungary received almost an entire new airforce... from Italy She also had to produce her own aircraft, under license, paying Germany the license fees Hungarian-owned German tanks consisted of 22 PzKpfw I, which she had bought, not received as gifts I know the Germans sold captured Soviet equipment to the Finns turning a decent profit. Honestly I am hard pressed to find a more hard-fisted, parsimonious sponger than old Schicklegruber. Though I have no figure on it and will not insist, I have the impression that the US equipping of the FFI alone vastly exceeds the total wartime German aid to allies in terms of machines of war and other arms. All of these objections I round off with some reflections. Romania lost more than 300 000 men dead in the war and more than one million of her troops served as German allies until Romania was overrun. Hungary lost 140 000 troops (dead) and she also had about a million serving by Germany's side, literally until the very end, defending Germany long after Hungary was overrun. 7 Bulgarian divisions were deployed defending the German main supply routes in the Balkans and a further 10 circulated on garrisonduty, guarding terroitory conquered by Germany. Nobody writes books about these guys but you can see what kind of realities lie behind such figures. The Finns, more popular in literature I guess, deployed around 400 000 troops in the east if I am not mistaken. Dunno how many that died but as they died for Finland exclusively, it's not the same as with the others. That's not mentioning Italy, nor bothering with the really really tiny nations such as Slovakia and Croatia. My conclusion being - the Axis Minors were not a burdeon, they were major and quite critical assets to Germany. Losing them would not increase German chances of victory, it would drastically decrease them. Lets not sing the praise of the Axis - all a bunch of halfcrazed rightist extremist dictators the lot of them - but as allies they were solid enough I think, giving more than they took and in the end, for all her talk, it was Germany who miserably failed them, not the other way around. Cheerio Dandelion

To add a further perspective, I've always considered war - the war and all war - primarily political/psychological struggles. I'm not disinterested in assets. But comparing exact amounts of equipment strikes me as complicating matters. E.g. everyone here knows the odds in May 1940. What happened cannot credibly be explained in terms of military or industrial assets. In fact very few campaigns of WWII can be explained in such terms. Wars never go on until everyone is dead and neither do great battles, they all end when one side decides it is time to end. Military doctrine focuses on the shattering and dissolving of enemy organisation, not the annihilating of the enemy population. In the struggle between the Axis and the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics, the Axis powers were at a disadvantage in terms of assets. If both sides remained intact as political entities, the Axis would be the first to reach the bottom of the barrel, even at very favourable exchange rates. The Germans knew it and it would appear the Soviets knew it too. But it really does not matter much, and certainly did not matter to German planners, since such a level of sacrifice would never be reached anyway. The political entity would either have to succumb or be destroyed at much earlier stages than total annihilation. Nazi Germany still had millions of men under arms when she drew her last breath. The struggle could only concern the dismantling of eachother as entities before catastrophic amounts of sacrifice was demanded, endangering survival of the state as such. Bearing in mind that ultimately, any state is just an idea, regardless of manifestation. It evidently took in the vicinity of 5 000 000 casualties to stop the Axis warmachine. It took another 10-15 000 000 casualties to ultimately destroy it. Give or take a few million. As neither side was dismantled as political bodies, the war became one of attrition and the USSR proved capable of paying the price and win, destroying the armed forces of Central Europe. With the given conditions in the what-if here, that outcome is IMHO quite inevitable. The addition of the 20-25% of armed force that Germany normally devoted to other fronts would not, IMHO, have changed anything but timespan. And if Germany was all alone, with no access to "Axis Minor" military and industrial assets, defeat would come very quick indeed. Lets remember that these assets were enormous, not just Ploësti oil but the military assets as well, with Romania alone suffering more casualties than the USA did. It's not as if they can be added or withdrawn without consequence. But the Axis did stand a decent chance to win, even Germany alone, if we get to tweak conditions a bit more than allowed. The real cause - again IMHO - of the defeat of the Axis was their being so amazingly inept in political warfare. Instead of contributing to victory, German foreign policy was a necessary - but not sufficient - ingredient in her own defeat. Practically all aspects of her foreign policy contributed to the survivability of the USSR as state and aided her enduring the mass sacrifice. The USSR was equally inept but that didn't matter much, since she was stronger anyway. Well, it did matter a lot to the millions who died, but not to the outcome. Extremely powerful centrifugal forces were ignored or alienated, forces that could have ripped the USSR apart even without the aid of millions of Central Europeans. All good cards were left unplayed - Turkey being the prime such but Germany's own heavy influence in regions of the USSR being equally unused. Some bad cards were played, like extremist Ukrainians. In fact, it was never a priority to defeat the Soviet state. This goal was always subject to Nazi notions of race and state. Even a slightly modified foreign policy would have altered Soviet preparedness for sacrifice, ever so little maybe, but perhaps enough. Wars are fought in heads. US/UK aid raises emotions here, regardless if downplayed or emphasised. I'll not venture into that minefield and debate material effects. I do however want to point out that regardless of such effects, I am inclined to believe the psychological effect was significant. The arrival of hundreds of thousands of boots and trucks with "USA" printed all over them is actually a very powerful manifestation of solidarity, reaching a mass audience and transmitting the message in a very concrete manner. Same goes for the second front. Regardless of how peripheral the divertion of German assets might (and might not) have appeared, the Soviets still knew they weren't the only ones dying. I hesitate to underestimate the "not alone" feeling. And just maybe that feeling influenced somebody at some point just enough to go on. I actually think it did. You have to admit the possibility. Cheerio Dandelion

I see. Looks like the scope is sort of snapped down on the left side. Was it movable? Or was the scope simply mounted on the left side instead of on top? Looks like a Korea photo that, no?

Very difficult question actually. There are those who made drastic and eyecatching mistakes, but who weren't necessarily solidly incompetent, like Student and Dietl. Others were excellent at one level of command but proved quite unsuitable for higher commands, like Rommel and Model. Some were considered excellent by their superiors, but were considered madmen or simply incompetent by their men, like Zeitzler and Schörner. Others quite the other way around, like von Sponeck and von der Heydte. Some appear to have retained their cool in any kind of emergency, like Kesselring and Reichenau. Others lost their judgement very early in a crisis, like von Paulus and Harmel. The Nazi's opened the career for all kinds, and got all kinds. Fiddling lunatics like Eicke, ridiculous dilettants like Himmler, outstanding talent like Bittrich. Like Michael I believe the organisation of a functional larger military unit will allow for an extreme range of generals, and still work. And so there must have been hundreds of generals quite unsuitable for their tasks, but hidden behind Ia's and staffs. Lots of generals were removed for "incompetence" in the German armed forces, more than 300 filed cases actually. But this is not saying the men concerned actually were incompetent, as the need for scapegoats is reflected in the fact that less than 100 were removed before december 1942 - in any normal army it would be the beginning of the war that revealed the inevitable hump of the peacetimely malpromoted, professionally challenged higher ranks. It is also not saying all incompetent generals were removed from commands. Well, interesting to ponder. What is the definition of a bad general? What are his characteristics? Cheerio Dandelion