Vark

Tried to download the demo but when I go to the map, after the briefing, just a white screen and the message it's not working.

Russian teams should both be armed with sniper rifles, with the second sniper ready for a follow up shot, if required.

Maj. James F. Gebhardt's translation, of the 1942 Soviet Snipers manual, states binoculars (6x30) and a 4X trench periscope (used to peer around and over obstacles). They also operated in two man teams, both with scoped rifles and carried SMG's and grenades!

No doubt somebody will be along to say that the photos were posed propaganda shots and the average Russian sniper team were lucky to have a rifle with a scoped rifle, let alone binoculars. Of which they would have had thousands of captured ones to equip such units by 44, given the number of German units overrun by then.

As with all things Russian, do not deploy or use individually. Volley fire at one target and watch as it dies a death of a dozen 14'5mm AP rounds, or is unable to perform its expected battlefield role. If correctly modelled, the German player will find a slow erosion of his armoured vehicles abilities to spot, as drivers optics and vision blocks are targeted and some times hit (volley fire at one target allowed this tactic). It also forces the lightly side armoured vehicles pause for thought, as the ATR team can be hiding in many places unavailable to an AT gun. AT fire also forces commanders to button, or risk injury, even from near misses, allowing another weapon system capable of serious damage to strike more effectively. War, like anything in Russia, was a collective undertaking and it was a layered approach that was preferred. The Western idea of the individual struggle (much-beloved by the Germans) was an alien concept, though crews who destroyed numbers of enemy platforms were honoured as an example for the rest.

The later German designs were perfect examples of projection, they bore no semblance to reality.

Why would any Soviet tank commander take up hull down positions with an IS-2? They were breakthrough tanks, designed to shrug off, or at the least not explode, when they were hit by any of the main weapons manning the forward defensive lines. You do not put IS-2's into defensive positions, if you are counter attacked their are plenty of weapon systems (57mm ATG's, SU-85/122's Il-2's direct fire artillery) that can deal with the enemy. The IS-2 prowl forward daring anyone to attack them, if they are engaged, their attackers will come off worse, as c3k said, maybe not that engagement but certainly in future ones. It does raise a question, were most German accounts of destroying Il-2's sheer fantasy, or did they leave out crucial information? As for the AIW, the Soviet equipment got trashed because it was not fought in the way it was designed to be fought. Relentless advance, not milling about in front of tank ramps and then when you do breakthrough pausing, because you are worried you might be falling into a trap. As for heat in the desert, you'd be amazed at how the human body can adapt.

Atmospheric shot Lethaface, you can almost smell the damp rich earth, tinged with diesel fumes. Just one thing, shouldn't those SU-76's be behind the infantry screen?

Actually, I'm waiting for the demo, so don't have the manual, my knowledge comes from the illicit visits to my universities, world-renowned, war studies library, when I should have been focusing on my real degree!

Also is their a reliability check for radios? The ones in vehicles were notoriously unreliable.

Try that with a typical ATR platoon and 45mm AT section on over watch, as a minimum. The most important lesson from that 'fantasy' is the time it takes to really get an unit to attack, perhaps their could be an ultra-Iron (sadism) mode with realistic timings for the issuing and receipt of orders! You could have an O group move option, which triggers animations of kneeling men scribbling with pencils, or deep in thought, poring over maps.

SOP was to dismount as soon as they took any substantial fire, in CMBB they jumped pretty early, when under fire. When I say jumped, I mean appeared keeling, magically next to the tank!

I like your analogy Steve, and it also highlights a truth. The top down command was also a product of a Communist system retaining the WWI style controls that other nations were already shedding, even by then, due to developments in technology and society. Officers without maps, political minders as well as drill by rote are other symptoms of a lack of trust and fear of individuality that pervaded not just their martial society. In fact the history of Russian society is top down control, by a self-appointed elite, which is reflected in their approach to so many things. You cannot separate a society from the way it fights, which is probably the reason why the Germans are so bad at winning wars they start.

A Russian battalion should be used like a German company, a company like a platoon and platoons like squads. Hence the radios at higher formations, decisions are made at army and regimental levels, with battalions carrying out their allotted missions and reporting back how well they have succeeded, reporting anything else is not advisable! Learn to think like a Russian commander, mass at critical points allows operational exploitation and nothing is penny-packeted.

Don't also forget, by this stage, the Panzer units often had no knowledge whatsoever of the timings of a strike, just that it might happen. I'm just wondering how BF will simulate the quick, individual, strikes of the Luftwaffe, versus the far more deliberate and corporate Soviet attacks? I remember, in an annual produced by Veterans of a German Panzer Grenadier division, a photo in 1944, taken looking straight up. You could count six Il-2's flying in close formation, one firing it's cannon. In another photo, literally dozens of Il-2's flying in circles at NOE altitude, astonishing.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/10735666/British-sniper-in-Afghanistan-kills-six-Taliban-with-one-bullet.html 500m and mine are struggling!

There are problems with this method, often it will select a blue line with a hull down legend, but on occupying the position the vehicle will just cycle through aiming but not fire, as the gunners view is obscured.

Until it decided to advance over the bridge and exploit, that was just plain dumb, at one point a Panther was hit by three 122mm shells in a matter of seconds. I do wonder about the visibility of the Russian tanks, unbuttoned the T-34's seem poorer at spotting than buttoned M-4's in CMBN. Or has the spotting in tanks got harder?

CM 1 had them on the late-war German TO&E, (MP40's and 1 MG42 IIRC) but I was less than impressed, too few and they normally made no decisive impact. Can units scavenge ammo from fallen soldiers, I know they can cherry pick good weapons, but ammo?

Can you really crush antitank guns in CMRT, as the last screenshot suggests?

Often though, what happened and why it happened is inextricably linked to the human aspect of war.

Konstantin Simonov's 'Days and Nights' is a short novel about the Soviet experience in Stalingrad, not bad to get a feel for the Soviet perspective.

I'm just re-reading Armstrong' 'Red Army Tank Commanders', and all the GTA commanders involved in Bagration mention the restrictive terrain, and its impact on the operations. Steve, that's why the command led, command pull operations of the Red Army could be lethal when wielded by competent commanders. Operational redirection and exploitation, textbook Soviet doctrine, like Bil's recent AAR in macro-scale!

Thought in SPR it was the 60mm mortar bombs that were thrown, with ridiculous effectiveness I thought. VDV troopers were taught how to smear mud on vision slits and damage exterior fixtures and fittings using shovels and crowbars. Although this was Cold-War doctrine I wonder if it had its roots in WWII tactics?

As is this one, http://www.panssarimuseo.fi/kehys-e.html