Zalgiris 1410

Hmmm, I could do with a succulent leg of lamb dressed with a good tyme, mint and rosemary source... baked potatoes and pumpkin... beans...

Sounds fair, I'll do just that then soon enough.

Interesting concept but I think that heat stroke would still have to be counted as a casualty case although CMx2 could have to differentiate between heat stroke and just plain old fainting or indeed heart attacks and minor strokes...etc. :confused: Michael perhaps I'll just refer to you from now on as Obergruppenfuehrer Friedrich Jeckeln Ostreich Hoehere SS und Polizei Fuehrer! (BTW he probably got some of my relatives.) [ August 24, 2005, 06:46 PM: Message edited by: Zalgiris 1410 ]

Sorry I stand corrected I got cofussed myself just then between 'I' and 'J' but I should have qualified myself to be sure. That said I still think it was at times a bit ad hoc and different Regiments had different organisations even if at some point it was ever standedized. I'll do some proper checking. (The important thing regarding this thread is that we agree that L Company is usually in the 3rd Battalion of the 30th Regiment.)

I say we round up all the OstFront-o-philes and shoot them. Michael </font>

I agree L Company / 3rd Battalion / 30th Regiment though usually there tends not to be an I Company obviously because of the possibility of mis-identification; so KLMN Companies in the 3rd Battalion of US Regiments.

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Yeah true 76mm over $100 at a particular millitary book store that I used to frequent in the CBD of Melbourne which has since closed down earlier this year, fortunately I found a better big cheaper one again as it had moved. Thanks for the other suggestions 76mm, I'll look in to them. (Sorry yeah but as good as the companion book is I didn't think it was worth paying that much for it either.) [ August 24, 2005, 04:55 PM: Message edited by: Zalgiris 1410 ]

Thanx Wicky I bothered to Google search Veklempt (mostly saw some strange chat forums by that: as an Aussie I notice the irony!) and I gather from the way it was used there that it basically means something like emotionally teary as you said. Definately Yidish or psudo-Yidish can anyone make sure as it is not in my Litvak Zodynas. (Yidish Dictionary.) :confused: [ August 23, 2005, 06:00 PM: Message edited by: Zalgiris 1410 ]

And teenhood as well Tiredboots, hopefully for your sake you weren't cought! I haven't been posting for the benefit of those in the know about the Polish campaigne but for those who think something unrealistic like intelligent design! And for those in the know and think this has been all trite, I hope you know that you don't have to read it. I mean what are you wasting your time for? You're missing out on playing with yourselves or else may be you are using what must be considered to be some very strange material for your self amusement! :eek: [ August 23, 2005, 04:20 PM: Message edited by: Zalgiris 1410 ]

Shmavis I assume you are referring to me, so to you I will inform you that I personally conducted a durge last night! BTW what mean veklempt? :confused:

I suggested that idea earlier in this thread, does that mean that I can count you as supporting this concept especially for some kind of penal battalion option?

Yeah Thanx 76mm sorry but I forgot that I have seen it and squized through a copy of it but I think it was selling for well over $100 where I saw it, but I did enjoy what I red through though didn't know that it was related to CMAK til after I looked up Battlefront.com!

Excellent link on French tanks much detail thanx junk2drive. I have gone the Rumanians with their French made tanks a few times in CCBB and found them to be much more well protected than the Czech R-1s and R-2s of course, but all tend to run out of ammo too soon IME.

What's the CMAK Companion all about, somebody fill me in please? :confused: Oh, hang on, its that book ain't it, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. [ August 22, 2005, 09:45 PM: Message edited by: Zalgiris 1410 ]

Treeburst I would also be interested in giving the road trial ago, its not something I've done all that much nor under a time constaint, please do send it to my e-mail adress in my profile if you can, thanx. :cool:

I would be most greatful Kingfisher if you could possibly send them my way too please? (e-mail in profile thanx.)

The Polish campaigne both militarily and in geo-political terms was actually quite important, no joke at all. Plenty of interesting hard fighting and wide ranging consequences, obviously not just for the Poles. The Germans learnt a lot during it while the French in particular did not. The belief that the Poles could have defeated or at least held the Germans was seriously held by some senior Polish officers and by at least some French ones as well, though may be that was more wishful thinking perhaps. Hence the shock and awe of Blitzkrieg! (What was the Polish cavalry meant to do; from themselves into Boer Commandos?) Some of the interesting instances for example include the charge of some element of the Pomorska Cavalry Brigade into some Panzers of Guderians' 3rd Pz Div in the Corridor, a Panzer Division being holted in its tracks IIRC by nothing more than a single shot gun wielding franc-tireurs, the 4th Pz Div charge into Warsaw for the result the we all know, the tight run fighting by the Poles surprisingly coming out of the forrested Bzura Pocket both into the flank of the 8th Army and towards Warsaw into LAH, etc. Trust me about the geo-politics because I'm half Lithuanian, Hitler had offferred to garrentee the Vilniyus region back to us if we had of co-operated in the invasion, we declined and the Russians were able to throw it into the bargin for our whole bloody occupation for its return! [ August 22, 2005, 08:36 PM: Message edited by: Zalgiris 1410 ]

Thanx Rob Murray a good enough site though I am familiar with much of it but all the same a good read, esp as it descibes each unit including the Field Coys of NZ Sappers.

The British, French, Belgians Rumanians whoever were not going to make a move and anyway they were all hoping the Poles would contain the Germans for long enough all by them selves! The French actually had made a demonstraition across the boarder but decided pretty quickly to stay in the expensive Magionet fortifications, the pace of the Blitzkrieg served to excuse their inaction, afterwards. The Germans expected heavier casualties and more time themselves hence their own surprise at Blitzkrieg, it came as much as a revelation to them as well, AIUI. True the maintenance failure rates of the Panzers was fairly high in Poland running at some 30-50% at the worst, but I would suggest the Poles own armour running something worse and getting worse for whatever was left over time. The Germans had moved into Austria and Czechoslovakia with Panzer Divisions and had worked out much of the problems with supply for them. AFAIK their were more problems with the older types of PzIs and PzIIs and more of these fell victim to Polish ATRs and those Bofors 37mm ATGs. The Stukas and the Luftwaffe mainly concentraited on interdiction in Poland as their focus but were used against fortified and prepared Polish forces at times. There was even some technique of ground to air co-ordination trial that funnily enough worked! The effectiveness of Stukas against prepared forces I think is obvious enough and the Poles were actually partly mobilised (from 30/Aug) but just didn't have enough AAGs to defend themselves properly. Of course German Artllery would also have gone to work against those entrenched river defences and accurately enough with their good techniques of fire control! My comparing of guns between the forces was to provide evidence of what I was answering to - that is to say support my contention that the Germans were technically advanced over the Poles pretty much across the field or were out gunning them overall. That said IMO the Bofors 37mm ATG was better than the 37mm Pak 35/36 but only slightly and they are enough the same that it doesn't really matter anyway. Stalin bloody Stalin, he had already made the pact with Hitler to grab what he could, the Western powers be damed. (Took over my country quickly enough the murderer.)

It is definately true that the Poles were not fully mobilised by 1/9/39 and that it made things that much harder for them and easier for the Germans as they had hoped for with their Blitzkrieg. But there is no way that if they were fully mobilised that they would have performed all that much better in drawing out the campaigne into October. In terms of the Poles being more properly deployed by either strengthening and fortifying their forces around the boarder of bettween it and the Vistula would only have meant the battle for Poland running ruffly according to how it did. If they had of set up their fully mobilised forces along the river line with fortifications it still stood not much more of a chance because of what I indicated above - the Germans would have broken across them similarly to instances when they did so during that campaigne. In terms of saying that the Germans did not have vastly superior equipment over the Poles you would have to be joking! :confused: While they did have a few hundred tanks these were all obsolete sardine tin cans, mostly machine-gun carriers compared to the T-35s, T-38s, PzIIIs and PzIVs not to mention the position of the small and totally obsolete Polish Air Force up against the Luftwaffe. They pretty much had the same 37mm ATG as the 37mm PAK 35/36 the Germans had though probably accounted for them selves against the lighter Panzers apparently. In Artillery the Poles had 65mm mountain guns the Germans 75mm and 105mm mountain guns, no Infantry guns, same sized medium mortar at 81mm, 75mm/105mm/120mm field guns, a few 100mm and 155mm howitzers. The Germans had 105mm field guns (at least a few) and 105mm/150mm howitzers. All these advantages with better communications equipment and techniques. The Poles had 3 items in their arsenal inventory that the Germans didn't have; the tungten AP round for their 7.92mm ATRs, AFAIK produced in Rodom which is West of the Vistula, though the Germans had plenty of the same calibered 7.92mm Panzerbuchse with AP rounds of course anyway. They had 40mm AAGs comparable to German 37mm AAGs and not enough of them to dent the Luftwaffe menace. They also had flat top mounted 75mm AAGs but again too few of them and they were outclassed by the 88s, which were themselves the improved decendant of the WWI 77mm flat top mounted BAK. (Balloon-Abwehr-Kannone IIRC.) ...and then the Russians hordes were to come! [ August 21, 2005, 08:30 PM: Message edited by: Zalgiris 1410 ]

Thanx Stalin's Organ beautiful that was what I was hoping for, I can now imagine K 18s being dragged by a six horse team, hmmm, put a battery in every German Inf Div, nice thought, hey! :cool:

Interesting concept for CMx2 JasonC, makes me wonder if deserters could be depicted, ie blokes throwing away their sidearms etc. It might be something that could simulate the effect of NKVD squads with submacine-guns keeping Ivans advancing. Also I have read of many times and seen (The Enemy at the Gates) Russians being given 1 rifle between two and as low a distribution as 1 rifle per 5 concripts esp during the first two years on the Eastern Front, I would like to be able to simulate that, may as some sort of penal Battlion which these half armed or less charges seem to have mostly been. It would be a bit morbid but it apparently happen often enough and sometimes included an equivalent to the rum ration for going over the top - a stiff dose of vodka! :eek:

Exllent post JasonC, great for working out a proper relative ratio of AAGs to simulate for the Russian at Kursk, thanx. deiseltaylor IME 8-12x 37mm AAGs for the Russians on a big map would have shot all the Stukas down and prevented any losses. Going the Germans in a similar situation I take 9x 37mm AAGs to deal with a Squadron or two of those pesky Russian planes. That way I should get the kill points from most, though usually all of the planes and not just shewing them away from their targets. [ August 22, 2005, 09:32 PM: Message edited by: Zalgiris 1410 ]

Admittedly that is where the Germans feared the Poles might have set up or would try to withdraw to and what they planned against with a strategic double envelopement. The Poles were not strong enough IMHO to have held the San-Vistula-Narew river based line for longer than a week at most. It would have involved giving up all of Western Poland while the Germans could have consentraited against key break over areas like in the West in May 40 with full air superiority. In terms of running out of supplies I think it would have been more a case of the Poles running out before the Germans. The Finns received supplies, volenteers and equipment through and from Sweden if they didn't they wouldn't have held out for 105 days. For Poland who was going to supply them, Stalin? Her main souces for equipment and supply had been the disolved Czechoslovakia, France and Sweden, the latter two she was immediately cut off from. Rumania, Lithuania and Latvia were all too scared to have allowed transit to Poland and again the latter two Baltic Countries could have been blockaded immediately by the Kreigsmarine. The Germans had the Protectorite and the direction the Wehrmacht was attacking in was well endowed with roads and RR, AGS lanching its invasion from the area of Silesia, a very good communications base for supply transit. The best way to consider the question of how the Poles might have held out for longer if they had of held the river lines is to analyse how they performed when they were defending from behind them with concrete fortifications. I haven't read anything that indecates that the Germans had major problems conducting river assaults against the Poles (or anyone else really for that matter; the Battle of the Bulge excepted) and for instance Guderian's XIX Korps took only 2 and a half days 8-10/9 to assault, bridge and break beyond the Narew against reasonable Polish resistance and concrete fortifications destroying the opposition in the process. That was achieved after fighting through the Polish corridor (across two defended rivers incidently) and travelling through East Prussia and approaching the area of the Narew under the threat of an exposed left flank. It advanced fighting a number of encounters including the capture of the 18th Inf Div and to destroy a Polish tank unit in the process of getting off trains and fought a pitched battle against the strong garrison of the Breast-Litovsk citadel 14-16/9 which it surrounded and was captured on the 17th. While apparently there was a large amount of supplies left in both Breat-Litovsk and Lvov to be abandoned to the Russians according to the treaty, the only major production centre East of the Vistula AFAIK was Lublin. I don't think the Poles had enough to last for very long especially as cut off as they found themselves and bear in mind the effect that the Luftwaffe would have imposed on both troop movements and supply transportation. In one way you might be right to express concerns over German supply levels and problems, apparently the West Wall garrison was both under equipt and short on supply. If the French and may be Belgium had of fully attacked them then there might have been a catastrophe in the area of German supplies in Poland. That said trying to compare the Polish campaigne with the Russo-Finnish Winter War is like looking at apples and oranges. In Poland there were to be sure forrests, mountain areas marshes and rivers but there was enough open terrain and roads and RR for Wehrmacht movement and fighting, also that Summer of 39 was a hot, dry and a clear sky one, though very dusty on the dirt roads of Poland. The Winter War took place in completely different kinds of conditions, obviously, but more importantly than the weather was geography. The main avenue of the invasion assualt (attack is not strong enough) was the Karelin isthmus from the Leningrad district via the important port of Viipuri to Helsinki and the Finns quickly ran out of artillery ammunition there and troop replacements and relieving re-inforcements, too much was being held up surrounding their motti across the northern areas. That was where the real life and death battle of the Winter War was in the fortified Mannerheim Line. The Poles had no where that could play such a role, also had many concrete fortifications taken by German assualts and they were being invaded by the competent Germans from three sides with the Luftwaffe filling the skies and not just by the Russian steamroller. [ August 21, 2005, 07:19 PM: Message edited by: Zalgiris 1410 ]