Der Alte Fritz
-
Posts
1,024 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by Der Alte Fritz
-
-
I think it has to be recognised that the Eastern Front and in particular the period and location chosen by BF for CMRT (Operation Bagration) leads you to a certain number of unique scenario types.
We have to consider the Soviet Assault battle - a lifting barrage followed closely by heavy tanks and assault infantry.
The Penetration Battle - Soviet Infantry and Armour teams operating in the rear part of German defences against counter attack Armoured forces.
Soviet Exploitation by Armoured Forces dodging round German fixed defences and chopping up Panzer units sent as strategic reinforcements
Soviet Bridgehead assaults and or defence
German Infantry defence with open flanks.
The least likely battle the armour meeting engagement is in fact the least likely battle to happen during Bagration.
Force levels and make-up, tactics and operational art are quite different for the Soviet forces so Soviet tactics need to be studied, the boks sold by Battlefront are a good start as it TM-30-130 and the Soviet General Staff Studies on Bagration and Lvov (and Kursk for defence)
-
You could use the rare coloured or less rare colourised pictures instead of black and white
for example
nearby soldier http://www.referenced.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/2.jpg
Radio http://i44.servimg.com/u/f44/16/14/02/21/002_2_10.jpg
Voice http://www.culture24.org.uk/asset_arena/7/45/11547/v0_master.jpg
They would need cropping so that they were a lot smaller but you get recognisable faces in CMBB with a 32 px x 32 px image.
-
Here is a little picture of what I mean....
-
After all, the idea of a MOD is to give you an option - a different approach.
You could move away from the 'cartoon' icon idea and replace the icons with Tactical type signs (say section, platoon, company battalion - giving the idea of distance) but as you say this has to marry in across the entire mod.
Or to take this approach a step further, how about a little b+w picture - different NCO/Officer ranks or pictures of equipment
One thing I am quite keen to change is the little unit 'face' pictures. In CMBB Dark Steel UI Mod they were replaced by real photographs of soldiers and then a little arm of service or rank symbol in the corner. Gave it more of a period feel than the current drawn image.
-
Juju
I would be up for helping with the mod 'proof reading'
-
Sent ranks table by email. Let me know if you need anything else Soviet.
I have got lots of links to Russian language sites that hold useful pictures and information.
-
Is that a paper tiger?
I honestly mean no mockery. I just love it when typos (we all make 'em) work somehow other than the writer intended.
No offence taken. I was actually referring to the Sdkf.7921 Kartonersatztiger of early 1944. This very rare machine was originally developed for use in the desert but was deployed as a prototype to the Eastern Front using the Pappmache armour system and 75mm PAK Luftgewehr but came unstuck (literally) when it rained. It used the "Buntstift" camouflage system which was well liked by the troops but was very time consuming to apply.
-
John
You are right. It would be interesting to see the recent AAR replayed using a number of different German tactics.
One option might be to buy more artillery, TRP and some fortifications and then use the Blau objective as a killing ground and only defend the Gelb and Rot objectives. Place a line of defending infantry outside and on the near side of Blau village so that it covers it by fire, armour in over watch. The aim would be to let the Soviets assault the village, halt them in it by MG fire and then plaster it with artillery. Soviets have less fire power at range so cannot win the fire fight, need to bring up armour to achieve this but risk losing the armour battle as advancing against hull down stationery German armour.
Rot and Gelb objectives are in open ground so can be defended in the same way, the issue here is where to stop the attacking Soviet infantry so that you have time to zero the artillery in on them. Minefields, wire and other obstacles can help the MGs define a stop line which can then be attacked by artillery.
All this depends on the point value against killing value of the artillery and being able to catch the Soviet Infantry with that fire at stop lines.
-
but if the objective was to bring 3 extremely understrength companies up to something closer to their establishment, and assign the heavy gear closer to the point of use, it's doable.
In a nutshell that is what they did. They broken up one company and strenghtened the other two (and the assault group) and broke up the other battalion units and gave them to the two companies. As you can see from the diagram the Assault Group is a SMG Section, Sapper Section, ATR Section and 2 Flamethrowers
It depends how the game handles the Soviets really. Does it work off fully manned TO&E - in which case most units will be over strength and would need reducing is size or does it assume that most Soviet units are only 70-50% of TO&E as a typical level.
Soviet Forces were usually very under strength and later in the war some Fronts issued special 'shtat' (establishment lists) so that they had their own TO&E reflecting their 50% or less status and to allow the Front to even out its units somewhat.
-
John
This is something that the Soviets took from German experience and methods in that it is the man on the spot who commands regardless of rank.
Partly this evolved from Scharnhorst's reforms of 1812 but also took practical experience from the Great War where the 'KTK' Front Battalion Commander commanded everything in his sector, even higher ranking reinforcements, because he was the man on the ground with the minute by minute experience.
From a practical point of view what this means to the Soviets is that Lieutenants commanded Companies, Captains commanded Battalions and Major commanded Regiments.
-
Juju
Try this for uniforms
http://www.tridentmilitary.com/Reproduction.uniforms.html
and see the shoulder boards page
http://www.tridentmilitary.com/Soviet-WW2/soviet-ww2-shoulderboards.html
should be everything you need on one site
-
Yes there are some fine pieces written by the likes of JasonC, John Kettler, etc.
You can also obtain the very rare TM-30-130 Handbook on the Forces of the USSR from here:
http://www.xenophon-mil.org/milhist/usarmy/tm30430.htm on CD for $20 which is a bargain.
-
That sounds like a plan. Buy your Company, strip off individual items and then purchase the extra additional units. This means that all the units come under the same Company Command structure?
-
You can see how it is done in this training film "Männer gegen Panzer - Lehrfilm Nr. 541 - 1943 - 1 of 3" on Youtube (not sure if OKH had authorised the use of Youtube back in 1944 but who knows). I realise that the film is specifically about infantry fighting tanks but it does show how to deal with infantry as well. The film shows fairly typical German section defensive trenches and wire entanglements for 1943.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8thWxRiALM
The system is: stop the infantry with artillery and long range machine gun fire, hide from the tanks and then close assault them when they get too close. AT guns are in over watch to deal with any that get through and mobile AT guns and armour behind them to deal with any mass breakthroughs.
The last thing you do it let Soviet Infantry get close to you and since they are masters of concealment, open ground and fixed defences are a real help.
-
Hi Juju
I have the rank structure from TM-30-130 Handbook on the Forces of the USSR 1945 edition which I could send you, together with their US equivalents, you could then reverse engineer the structure from CMBN.
On mortars see;
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=79&t=16166&start=15
Table of different mortar types and rounds:
http://www.battlefield.ru/mortars-ammunition.html
picture of 50mm mortar with rounds:
http://milday.ru/ussr/ussr-army/urrs-artillery/635-rm-41-50-mm-rotnyy-minomet-obr-1941-g.html
All Russian mortars:
http://zonwar.ru/granatomet/minomet4.html
This is a really good document on motorcycle mortars and shows the 82mm rounds (it is from a US bikers site who restore old Soviet era motorcycles! Go figure!):
http://www.goodkarmaproductions.com/HTML/PDF/Part_XVII_Motorcycle-Mounted_Mortars.pdf
-
Please read the first post.
I think you are missing my point. The Pre-Release people will know in Advance when it is being released and could then just pop onto the site and vote for a date over the next say 48 hours.
-
Question for Battlefront.
It was Soviet practice for major assaults given the relatively low and under strength nature of their forces, especially their Rifle Battalions, for the Battalion to break up its normal Company structure and to be re-organised into 2 Companies, a small Reserve and an Assault unit. This meant spreading the SMG sections, ATR Rifle sections and other sub-units out across the whole Battalion.
It used to be possible to set this up in CMBB because the C3 command structure gave a lot of influence to the Company Commander. You could purchase a Battalion, break it up into 2 Companies and an Assault unit using the existing Company commanders (in fact you had enough including the Battalion Commander to give each big Company a reserve commander) and then split off SMG Sections, Pioneers, ATR, etc from their Platoon Commanders and put them into one of these super units using the Company Commander as the HQ.
Since you were going to keep them as tight units this worked quite well, with the reserve company commander at the rear to pick up any stragglers or cowering troops.
But will this be possible with CMRT with its more structured and identifiable Command Structure? Or can you 'buy' an Assault Battalion already set up.
These all arms teams are very good at their job but are ad-hoc and not represented by the 'official' TOE.
See here for full explanation of Assault Division:
http://forum.axishistory.com/download/file.php?id=321400&t=1
http://forum.axishistory.com/download/file.php?id=321401&t=1
http://forum.axishistory.com/download/file.php?id=321402&t=1
http://forum.axishistory.com/download/file.php?id=321403&t=1
taken from TM-30-130 Handbook on Military Forces of USSR 1945 edition
-
How does this work?
The people who have PRE-ORDERED (like me) will receive an email telling us when RT is going to be released so that we can down load it before the general release - I presume to spread the load on the servers - so what time are we talking about? The time I get my email? The time it goes on pre-order release? The time it goes on general release?
-
Where did the other manuals appear on the Battlefront website?
-
Jan 1944 Zhitomir Operation
4 GTC as mobile group for 60 Army forms a forward detachment of:
381 Tank Bn
SAU Battery
2 SMG Companies
Jan 1944 Korsun Operation
Forward detachment of 6 Tank Army
233 Tank Brigade
SAU Rgt
Motor Rifle Bn
Tank destroyer battery
July 1944 Lvov Sandomir operation
Forward detachment of 5 GTA provided by the 1 Gd Tank Corps of
reinforced 17 Gd Tank Bde
Two leading Tank Corps of 2 Tank Army each put out 2 forward detachments of
Tank Bde
SAU Bn
2-3 SMG Companies
Sapper Company
details as my post above
The follow on Combined Arms Army the 69th puts out its own forward detachment, the purpose of which is to keep contact with the Tank Army. I have given its strength above but it was mounted on 50 trucks taken from the Army/Front Automobile Park. These would probably be GAZ-AA or Ford 6 1.5 tonne trucks as the four wheel trucks would normally only be used by artillery regiments as prime movers.
Jan 1945 Vistula Oder Operation
All Tank units put out 2 Forward Detachments:
Tank Army = Tank Corps
Tank Corps = Tank Brigade
Tank Brigade = Reinforced Tank Bn
Combined Arms Armies put out 2 Forward Detachments:
CA Army = Tank Bde
Rifle Corps = Rifle Regt
Rifle Division = Rifle Bn
So the 69 Army again puts out two FD to keep up with the 2 Tank Armies for example:
1006 Rifle Regt
41 Auto Regt
220 Separate Tank Bde
89 Separate Heavy Tank Regt
507 Tank destroyer Regt
SAU Bn
AA BN
Mortar Bn
Gd Mortar Bn (MLR)
Sapper Co
This in turn would form its own FD of a reinforced battalion.
-
Here is the order of March diagram. It can be seen in higher res. here:
http://www.armchairgeneral.com/rkkaww2/maps/1945NW/3BF/2GTA_Break_through_Jan_45.gif
Another good map showing Combat operations of the 2nd Motorised Rifle Battalion in the vanguard of the 19th Mechanised Brigade. Vistula-Oder operation
http://www.armchairgeneral.com/rkkaww2/maps/1945W/1BF/Germany/2_19MBr_s11reg_Jan45.jpg
Tank Destroyer would usually be 45mm or 76mm towed guns
The tactics used were to form a fire support group in overwatch from the start line of the towed AT guns and SAU to suppress enemy AT guns, infantry, etc with the Motor Rifle Battalions mortars firing deeper into the enemy position. Then the tanks would launch a rapid attack across the open ground with infantry riding on the back, with the tanks rolling forward, stopping, firing in suppression and then moving forward again in a series of bounds until they reached the enemy line when the SMG troops would dismount and assault the final survivors.
45mm AT guns were widely used but they tended to be placed in pairs with cover to the front and firing off to one side. The next pair along the line would cover the front of the first pair and so on and so on down the line. They were aiming for side armour hits, this and the wide use by the Germans of light armour and half tracks kept the 45mm AT gun in business until it started to be replaced by the 57mm AT gun.
-
Taken from Glantz "The Soviet Conduct of Tactical Maneuver"
regarding FORWARD DETACHMENTS
Tank Armies on the offensive, usually marched in two columns with two Mech/Tank Corps side by side with the rest following on behind.
Similarly Mech/Tank Corps marched with 2 Tank Brigades in column with the remainder following on behind.
This is illustrated by the diagram attached which is of the 2nd Guards Tank Army during the Vistula Oder Offensive.
This example is taken from the 2nd Tank Army during the Lvov Sandomir Offensive
At the head of these columns would be:
Recce Groups
(1 Tank Company and 1 Recce Platoon)
10km behind them came:
Mine and Road Groups
( 1 Tank Platoon and a company of sappers)
This units job was to clear the road of mines and mark the road.
2-5km behind them came:
Forward Detachment (1-2 for each Tank Corps)
1 Tank Brigade (34 x T-34)
1 SAU Regt (21 x SUs)
Motor Rifle Battalion - 2-3 Companies (200 SMG troops)
Tank Destroyer Battery (4 x 76mm guns)
Sapper Company (80 Engineers) with some pontoons
operating 30km in front of the Main Body
Main Body of 2 Tanks Corps, 1 Mech Corps and Army sub units.
These Forward detachments are a key element in Soviet Tactical thinking as they provide the maneuver element of the Tank Army being small enough to find ways through the defences but large enough to conduct a decent fight against retreating enemy forces or hold a bridgehead unitl the main body arrives.
Typical rates of advance were 30km a day and Forward Detachments were used by Combined Arms Armies as well:
69th Army in Lvov Sandomir Offensive Forward Detachment:
2nd Bn 240 Rifle Regt of 117th Rifle Division (SMG troops) mounted on trucks
1 artillery battalion (12 76/122mm guns)
1 Tank Destroyer Battalion (12 x 45mm AT guns)
1 Sapper Company (80 men)
1 SAU Regt (21 x SU76)
-
Red Thunder covers the following Soviet operations from a point of view of time (probably not all units are available yet):
Karelian Isthmus 10 June - 9 August
Belorussia 23rd June - 29th August
Lvov-Sandomir 13 July - 29 August
Lublin - Brest 18 July 2 August
Iassy - Kishinev 20 August - 7 Sept
-
No need to apologise, I just did not want you wasting your time trawling the net when the info had already been posted. If you have any trouble finding this stuff, drop me a PM and I will email it to you.
Early advice on battle techniques in Red Thunder
in Combat Mission Red Thunder
Posted
What Infantry AT weapons do the Soviets get, it is not listed on the BF webpage for RT?
In CMBB they got the RPG-43 and its replacement the RPG-6 would be in service by June 1944. This could be used against tanks as well as infantry due to its fragmentation effect.