Der Alte Fritz
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Posts posted by Der Alte Fritz
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I would move on to the 200 series if I were you, as there is a long way to go yet. So long as you have learnt the METHOD of moving infantry by bounding forward in sequence and hidding when morale is low and that morale sinks during an attack but can be rallied in cover. You will use these principles in the 200 series. If you can win those then I would not worry about it. I can only win that one about one time in three and then only when EVERYTHING goes according to plan. George Mc still cannot win at it.
This is difficult stuff - Recently I lost the first 400 battalion attack scenario because I got my infantry forward but did not move my guns far enough forward. So do not get hung up over one problem, there are plenty of other ways to lose!
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JasonC - got your email off the profile page. But my broadband is playing up and will not allow me to send any emails out from my PC. So I have to send them direct from the ISP website which is a little unstable. Anyway I tried again just now using the address on your post. So let me know if it does not come through.
Auto - great news! The first one is tough, perhaps practice with the troops morale raised up a level until you get the hang of it and then go back to the original setting. Failing that post a detailed account and perhaps JasonC will see where things are going wrong.
cheers
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JasonC have emailed the notes to you.
Auto here is something to inspire you during your apprentiship.
A picture of the 1500 point mech force mentioned in the notes doing what it does best - destroying German mechanized troops on George Mc's excellent Ukraine map. Final score 4 AT guns, 2 armoured cars, 1 Marder, 1 HT and a company of infantry destroyed for the loss of 3 T-60 and 1 T-34, 2 mortars and some SMG troops. Picture shos the SMG troops dismounting for the final assault on the village.
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Have sent notes by email. They are just a collection of posts from this forum on using Soviet forces. They are either straight cut and pastes (JasonC's are in italics so that you can spot them easily) or I have paraphrased them where the information was spread over several long posts. The first section follows the training scenarios one by one. The second section contains whole articles on items of interest such as towing AT guns (don't ask!), using Sov Mech forces, scouting with light Russian armour, infantry attack against prepared defences, street fighting, and infantry philosophy.
All I can say is that it does work in the end but it takes time to get there and the game is always a challenge even when you know what you are doing. There are games like Rome Total War that just sit on my shelf because I know that I can beat the computer almost every time. At the start of every attack with CM I have no idea where the enemy are, how many there are and whether I can win or not. And when I do win sometimes, I really feel as if I have accomplished something. That is what makes it a good game
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Welcome to the Red Army Comrade!
Go to this site and download the training scenarios written by JasonC. http://www.blowtorchscenarios.com/
There is no better way to learn - let me know if you want my notes - I am just doing the battalion level actions at the moment.
If playing PBEM you might consider picking the appropriate month and year. I would say start with 1942 before the intro of the Tiger or Panther or with early 44 so that you get T-34/85 and SU-85/100 but no King Tigers or late 45 so that you get proper IS-2s. Better to ask for details from a grog this is just a guess.
Oh and pre-plan all your artillery missions in the first move otherwise you end up wasting it.
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I am not sure from your initial post if you have actually played Soviets before. So apologies if this is old news to you. Here is my list of scenarios supplied with the game which I enjoyed playing as the Soviets.
Iron Roadblock
Katukov Strikes
Pop Guns and Elephants
The Balka
Borisovka Station
Hill 312
Kalinin Raid (I like the scenery in this one but find it hard going as you are fighting down a narrow road. So I make the first platoon of tanks T-34/57 1941 and delete the second German reinforcement forces)
Anyone else got any late war suggestions or good ones to download from the Scenario Depot?
cheers
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Regarding half tracks, I am comparing Soviet recce forces with White Scout Cars and M5 HT with standard Soviet infantry who travel on trucks or walk. The trucks are slow off the roads, offer no protection to long range fire and cost 25 points. The scout cars and HT cost 35/38 points, are good cross country and have 8mm protection. The Germans do not field large numbers of AT rifles so your main threat is from tanks guns or armoured cars. Use them to move infantry up to their jumping off points and their MGs for long range fire and they are usally quite safe. If I ever get Soviet recce forces, I use them as a reserve as they can be switched from flank to flank quite quickly behind your own lines. Worth 10 points to me compared to a truck.
Regarding production and loss rates, I approximated but you seem to agree with the basic proposition. Germans tactics and tanks are very skilled, kill more Soviet tanks than they lose but the Soviets produce more and can sustain those losses. Ergo if you are a newbie like me, do not be put off playing the Soviets because you take losses. There are plenty more where they came from and we will grind the Germans down.
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As someone who started playing the Russians a couple of months ago, I can heartily recommend them. Yes you have to know what you are doing, so download JasonC excellent training scenarios and play through them. You can search the forum for advice using "russian training scenario" and you will get pages. I kept all the advice I was sent and it runs to 35 pages!
As the Russians you have good fast tanks, tough infantry and loads of firepower. The only thing I miss are all those neat half tracks for moving infantry around. There is a counter to every German uber weapon including the dreaded StuGIII, just keep under cover, be patient and kill it with the appropriate weapon.
My favourite is the T-34 SMG rider combination, fast, powerful and able to pose problems to any defence.
Remember in reality the Nazis destroyed 5 tanks for every one they lost for much of the war but the Soviets built 30,000 tanks a year and the Nazis only 5,000. The only time the Soviets standard tank was inferior was in mid 1943, at every other time the Soviet standard tank was as good or better.
Play them in the right way and you will have a lot of fun as the Soviets.
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Found this site about polish military museums http://free.polbox.pl/l/leszekch/.
In Western Poland (ie Pomerania to Silesia) you have Kolobrzeg (Colburg) a fortress in 1945 and in 1806 Bytow for a Teutonic knights castle, Gdansk (Danzig) for 1939 a monument to the start of WW2, Malbork big medeival castle and site of Stalag XX, Poznan has a military museum and the battlefield of Bzura 1939, Miedzyrzecz has a line of German fortifciations from 1935
In the east there is Warsaw which has a military museum and you can visit the extermination camps from here Treblinka, Majdanek, Auschwitz and Birkenau on your way to Krakow. This has the Polish Home Army Museum and the Aviation musuem. At Kutno you have another museum about the battle of Bzura, there is the Vistula river and the battlefield of Grunwald 1410 Poles destroy the Teutonic knights.
That is what I know and you obviously have some more research to do. I found that visiting these countries for military history is problematic as the majority of the populations would rather forget about the war and what is remembered is highly political. When I was there the Poles were actively destroying monuments to the Seven Years War because this part of Poland used to be German and these were German victories. So you to do your research before you travel and you do need to prepare carefully.
Enjoy your trip!
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I do not know of any sites I am afraid.
I did two tours with Dr Chris Duffy from Sandhurst around Prussia and Saxony about 10 years ago and here are my notes from the trip. The Poland trip was 8 days and we did a tour from Berlin (include Potsdam in any tour as the heart and soul of the German army)down the main road to Frankfurt am Oder. That gives you the assault on Berlin (read Chris Diffys book on this it is excellent) Cross the Oder and to your north you have Kundersdorf (1759)and Zorndorf (1758). Head south alond the Oder and you can swing east to include Posen (1939). Follwing the Oder you come to Breslau. This was a Festung in 1945 and you can explore all the incidents of the 1945 invasion. Loads of Soviet cemeteries in this area each with its own T-34 memorial. Using Breslau Wroclawas your base you can see Mollwitz (1740) Reichenbach (1762) Leuthen (1757 of glorious memory) Leignitz, Hohenfriedberg (1745), the fortress of Sweidnitiz now Swidnica, Burkersdorf (1762), Landeshut (1760), fortress of Glatz (1760) now called Klodzko(excellent - you can walk around the countermine system underneath the fortifications) Neisse and Koniggratz over the border. In Breslau 1241 you have the Mongol siege and the battle of Legnica where Henry the Pious and King Wenceslaus I of Bohemia with an army including the French Knights Templar was destroyed. Seven Years War I have listed above. Napoleonic Wars you have Bautzen within reach and Bluchers triumph over MacDonald at Katzbach. The main event in the area after that is Feb-May 1945 and the seige of Festung Breslau which destroyed about 70% of the town. In the town you can see the Hala Ludowa ( commemorates Batle of Leipzig in 1813) Panorama Raclawicka (Polands victory over the Russians in 1794) the Arsenal.
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I did a trip around the region of Krocklau in Poland ( the old capital of Silesia - Breslau) but it covered several eras. You have battlefields of the Mongol invasion in the C13th, the Seven Years War, the Befreiungskreig in 1813 as well as the Soviet invasion in 1945. Also some very good C18th fortresses in the region. Other regions of Poland have battlefields from other eras as well as those from 1944/5. So bear this in mind when planning your trip. A good drive is the main road eastwards out of Berlin to Frankfurt am Oder - gives you a good impression of the final Soviet advance to the city over the Seelow heights.
Also remember that national frontiers have changed hugely since 1939. I did a tour around the old kingdom of Prussia and we had to go through 4 (?) countries to get round it.
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Hi Zweihorn
Have just emailed you the new version. It should be very quick to play because even though it is 35 moves, once you have sorted out your artillery, the only thing you have to fire is 4 mortars and 4 SU-76. So keep pressing the done button and fast forward through the moves with just a quick review at the end of the move.
cheers
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Zweihorn - I will make the changes JasonC suggested and then email it to you next weekend to see how you get on with it.
JasonC - Thanks for your knowledge. The idea of the scenario is to practice artillery firing. So I will change it to the Guard Rifle option. I had originally based the scenario on a Vizh article but it does not give any force numbers so I had to guess from the TOE. I put the AT guns on the map to test out ideas about restricting the AIs fire - I put them between two small mounds which seems very effective at reducing their angle of fire - they do not shift position to get a better one. Humans would move them but would then exercise fire restraint.
Juan-gigante - There are two platoons of engineers repairing the bridge on the Russian side of the river and one of their HQs acts as spotters. On the German side of the river I have put 2 SQUADS of SMG troops (the kind with an LMG attached). I know it sounds daft but it takes the AI that many German troops to guarantee a win every time. It is very slow at attacking and not very good at it.
cheers
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Hi JasonC
Can you give me an update of what feedback you have received for which scenarios and particularly if there are any that you are short of.
regards
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Hi
I downloaded it and had a look for you.
Basically it is a reasonably large map with limited line of sight and not too many units on it. Everyone is there but it will take you some time to bump into one another! So be patient look sharp and use that cover! Look at where the Flag is.
hope I have not given too much away.
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Have created a little training scenario to experiment with artillery for the Soviets based on the crossing of the river Bug by the 16th Tank Corps in Feb 1944. The situation that two sections of SMG troops have crossed the river in the night while behind them engineers repair a damaged bridge. The idea of the scenario is that the Soviets on the far bank must use artillery and direct fire to stop the Germans over running the two sections before the bridge is repaired on move 35. Then the Tank Corps would cross the river and continue its advance.
What I would like to know is does this sound right and are the forces deployed by the Soviets using the right sort of weapons and in the right ratios? The Tank Corps would have much more than this but I have tried to go for around a third of the artillery and kept the tanks to a minimum relying on SUs to provide direct fire support. I can put it on TPG if people are intersted.
The Germans have troops dug in along the hills following the river and are reinforced during moves 1-15 by a company of panzer grenadiers and a company of infantry. (This was the smallest force that the AI used that could defeat the Soviets infantry without artillery support every time.) A platoon of PzIVH tanks arrive move 20. There are two flags one in the village held by section 1 and one in the woods held by section 2 of the SMG troops. On the far bank I have spotters for 1 Rocket battery M-13, 4 batteries of 122mm How(from Front Command), 4 batteries of 76mm gun, 4 batteries 82mm mortars and 1 of 120mm mortars(from the Motor Rifle Bde). There are 4 82mm mortars on the map and 4 SU-76 and 2 SU-152 from the Assault Gun Regt for direct fire support. In addition there is a platoon of T-34 and 2 45mm AT guns. The map is very obvious and shows two dug in hilltop positions, two reinforcement routes, two assembly areas 150m away from the two targets (flags). So the artillery has to fire on these targets over a period of around 20 moves to delay and break up the attack. Anyone who comes into the open can be engaged by the direct fire group.
Against the AI the German infantry get into the woods and into the edge of the village but the Soviet infatry can just stop them. Initial tests shows that if you get the fire plan right then the artillery will typically kill 46 infantry and 2 HT, the SUs 24 infantry 3HT a mortar and 2 guns, the T-34 3 PzIVH and 8 infantry and the 45mm ATG 3 HT and 5 infantry and you will keep both flags -just.
I would be grateful for your thoughts.
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Talking of bunkers, has anyone come up with a way or reproducing "dug-in" tanks or tank pits. I suppose there are two different things here. 1) a tank buried up to its turret which would be like an AT bunker 2) a tank just driven into a hole in the ground from which it could reverse out again.
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Thank you Bigduke6 that is a very kind offer.
I am not surprised that I have got it wrong as I am trying to piece together the unit history from individual battles as I cannot find anything on unit histories in English.
The basic idea is to find a unit with an interesting history and to use that to produce a series of scenarios which shows the development of the mech/tank corps through the war.
I will get back to you with a candidate when I know a little more, Front runner at present is the 4th Mech who led the attack during Uranus, took part in the Donbas campaign until stopped by the first use of Tigers, fought in the Ukraine in 43 at Nikopol-Krvoi and took part in Bagration ending up in Riga getting cut off by III Pz Army. But 10th Tank Corps looks good as well, took part in Mars, Kursk, Dnepr campaign, Korsun operation and ends up in Rumania. Tank Corps might be better as it is half the size!
thanks again.
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A re-examination of events shows that you are right. Artillery mission was called in on move 2 and had a delay of 16 minutes automatically. Left the 120s as on call fire and targeted them against the pillbox. Lesson learnt, I will restart the game if I make the same mistake again. I will run a test scenario with artillery to see how it behaves.
Used the waves technique for the long advances on the left and typically got 3 sections across with one broken to be gathered up by the Company commander behind. But advance was just too slow to get to the flag before the end.
Had an infantry attack planned against the tank with a section hidden in every small clump of bushes around the open central area of the village with all the pioneers and tank hunters deployed. But the gun got him first. The other tank never came near the village and just sat at the back. In my tests the 76mm gun got good results at 700m so a correctly sighted gun could kill the tanks as they enter down the road. I reckon my gun did well to hit the tank because he was firing through scattered trees. (I had the trees turned off) My main concern was to get them forward without being fired upon. I got it wrong once and had to put a platoon in the way to get the gun out of the line of fire.
Again it is reading the landscape to get those LOS, covered advance routes and probable enemy locations. And being Russians we need a plan.
So I will give it another go. I must have played each scenario at least half a dozen times so they are certainly well thought out. I have collected all the advice from the forums into one document as I think my brother is going to start working his way through the series. The training document is currently 37 pages long. So many thanks for all your help.
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Great mods and very timely as I am just downloading my winter vehicle set at the moment. Like the truck! Adds a bit of character.
cheers
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Oh dear!
Suffered a minor defeat on this one only gaining 41% Did not capture the flag and killed 1 tank, 1 gun and 1 mortar and 393 points of casualties in exchange for 3 mortars and 472 points casualties. In essence, i found two avenues of attack, on the right along the trees following the road. The one company managed to destroy the platoon in front of it but failed to make any impression on the platoon on the flank in the woods. They did knock out the gun and silenced 1 MG in the trench but the range was too great and they never got sight of the infantry further back in the woods.
The other avenue of advance was by 2 companies on the left to the end of the barbed wire, skirted round the end of it and went into the woods on the left. From here they were able to destroy the platoon and some of the mortars in the woods and houses around the flag but could not advance into the wood by the road because of fire from the pillbox and a tank.
Rolled one 76mm gun forward to cover the centre of the village and the other on the right to cover the road. The former killed a Pz IIIJ at 360m with his second to last AP round - probably the worst shot in the whole army!
Artillery fire mission was timed perfectly with two loads on the village around the flag and two on the woods with the pillbox. But all bar the 120mm mortars ended up in a field out of harms way which did not help at all.
Not at all sure how to win this one but suspect you have to capture the pillbox woods.
cheers
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Do not speak Russian I am afraid.
Found a strange one here as I was looking at Tank Corps histories.
David Glantz in "Kharkov 1942" says in the appendix on Fate of the survivors: Lt General Alekseev (commander of the 57th Tank Bde) took command of the 10th Tank Corps at Kursk and during advance to the Dnepr. Corps was redesignated 5th Guards Tank Corps and as part of 6th Army, fought at Korsun and across Ukraine. But in every other reference for Kursk the 10th TC is commanded by Mj General Burkov and the 5th GTC by Mj Gen Kravchenko. Shame because they sounded quite a good one.
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Just finished Alarm along the Chir
here are some pictures of the battle
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-----SPOILER-----
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AT rifle killing the first Marder as he reverses to escape the T-70 on the hill.
The second Marder gets a bead on a T-34 but is shot at by AT rifles and misses.
The final assault on the flag, two platoons giving covering fire and another bounding forward.
Full report at TPG
cheers
Noobie Seeks Clarification on Russian dis/advantages
in Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin
Posted
JasonC - did the email arrive yet?
cheers