RogCBrand

I'm a tea drinker, which often seems to make me a pariah, especially in the Pacific Northwest where a Starbucks is on every corner!

Like Charge of the Opel Blitz Brigade?

I love that game- though another little problem was the occasional a.i. tank trying to mount another tank, to either get stuck or flip over...

LOL! So, perhaps the name "Battle of the Bulge" had more to do with the Germans having to hold it?

But being in war, from all I've read, tends to be a lot of waiting, a lot of living in miserable conditions, interspersed with relatively brief moments of the horror of combat. Being able to take care of yourself during all that time between combat is the part I've been concerned with- not so much that a rural person would be prepared for the actual fighting part of being in war.

LOL!!! Makes me think of Kelly's Heroes with Cowboy, Willard and Crapgame after the outhouse exploded- it wasn't grease they were covered in, but still... And very true about guys just managing to survive- whatever reason, if you could manage to live long enough to become a true veteran, your "luck" would improve a whole lot!

I'd imagine there were a whole lot of city guys who grew up in bad parts of the city, who had seen some stuff that made combat look a bit tame! I'd have to imagine that the diversity of experience among American soldiers was a strength in many ways!

Though, rural Russians didn't quite compare to rural Americans, or other Western Nations, of the time. America had a great tradition of gun ownership and hunting by common citizens, not to mention, the average American farm was family owned and had a tractor and a pickup truck, which the family maintained. The peasant farmers of the Soviet Union lived in rather primitive conditions in most cases.

Not to say being rural people made them better at combat, but those rural Russians sure seemed very good at persevering through the very harshest of conditions! Most of my family have been farmers, loggers, etc. Some however are total city people. I've seen how my urbanized family members are almost totally helpless without modern conveniences and actually panic when the power goes out! Of course, in World War 2, even urban dwellers had lived through the Great Depression and on average most people in any country back then were rather hardier than the average person of today! The thing is, you could randomly pick a group of people and try to train them to be doctors, or aerospace engineers, but no amount of training is going to transform all of those people, because some just aren't cut out for certain professions. If you have grown up very comfortable with the outdoors, you're far more likely to adapt than someone who's only experience with nature has been in a city park. Not to say that urban dweller can't adapt- as many soldiers on all sides of any war in modern times come from cities. It's not a question of whether rural people make some sort of uber-soldiers- they don't. We're just talking of certain aptitudes and abilities that rural people would have that would help them to adapt more easily and perhaps, on average, put them ahead in certain ways.

Not to mention, from all I've read, the common Italian infantryman shared the regular Soviet infantryman's fate of being led by officers who didn't really care much about their well being! In other armies, the private soldiers might not have always loved their officers, but their conditions were much better!

Ah, but that would presume that training can make everyone equal, but that is not the case. After training, some soldiers are far better prepared than others. I would, however, love to be able to see some figures on rural vs urban soldiers of each country, like in the cases of frost bite on the Eastern Front or Battle of the Bulge, or regarding marksmanship scores, or mechanical aptitude. I doubt there is anything like that out there, but I truly believe there is some effect- it may just be so marginal that it really doesn't make enough of a difference- and even if it had a more substantial role, I do believe that training would still be a far larger factor- but that it could still make some difference in the soldiers that are produced.

But you have to take into consideration the losses from environmental factors- frostbite, trench foot, etc. Those who were used to spending time outdoors, in harsh conditions, would have been far more likely to know how to properly take care of themselves during the extreme conditions, and just as important as it is for tanks and other mechanized equipment to be kept in running order, it's very important to keep men in running order- a crack shot that's lying in a hospital bed with his frozen foot amputated isn't going to do much good!

Exactly! A King Tiger was an awe inspiring beast! But when it was broken down on the side of the road or out of fuel, it wasn't much good!

Definitely! I'd imagine many millions of Russians were living in conditions not much different than in Czarist times! New landlord, same peasants! For many of them, it wouldn't have been much different than bringing someone from the 1800s into a modern war! And while they were the ones that needed the most training, the Soviets often relied on the idea that those that managed to survive would learn though managing to survive!

YD, yeah, you make great points about the mechanical abilities of rural guys, and I remember reading a lot about how that really helped in America's being one of the most mechanized of the nations. I don't think marksmanship was such a big concern- even among rural hunters, you weren't likely to find many Sergeant Yorks, who could turn their shooting skills into an exponential force multiplier! But I do think that those used to working outside, and hunting/camping, where they'd actually spend time in the cold, the rain, waiting patiently to get a kill, and knowing how to move quietly, etc., went far beyond marksmanship, to making a good soldier. I'd have to think all those skills- and far more important, the comfort they had with dealing with those things, would make rural guys easier to adapt to dealing with battle, though of course, deer aren't shooting back at you, so adapting to the combat portion wasn't natural and all those other skills don't necessarily mean you'll become a good soldier, while some urban guys could be extremely brave and adapting to combat conditions would be more important than easily adapting to life in the field. I think it's easier for today's urban guys to adapt, as even when out in the field, in most cases they are rather well equipped and have some modern conveniences that would blow the minds of WW2 soldiers!

When my dad was going to school in the 50's/60's, he, long with many of the students and teachers would have guns in their cars/trucks, so they could head out to hunt right after school. They all had the skills that would come in handy in the field during war, which I'm sure most urban guys had a hard time learning- sure you could teach a lot of that, but not all of them are going to be able to learn in a short time, and there's also a matter of learning something, but taking much longer to become skilled. Of course, there are exceptions- look at Teddy Roosevelt, a wealthy man, raised in an urban environment, who headed out to the wilderness and seemed to take to it quickly- but I'm sure a lot of New York boys found it very tough transitioning to living in the field!

Don't forget the brilliant discussion on forests!

Great AAR guys! Thanks for the hard work and time you put into it!

It sounds to me as though vehicles will not be able to fire through wrecks- enemy or friendly.

Definitely. From all the books I've read, it doesn't seem to be a standard practice- if I was a tanker, I'd be rather paranoid about leaving my tank if there were enemy infantry, snipers, artillery, etc. close by. Plus, when they did get out to take a close look at the terrain, or such, I doubt they ranged out half a kilometer! I'd think at most it would be a VERY short distance from the tank. In the end, it should be light armor or infantry doing the scouting.

Sometimes communicating this way is like talking to someone on the moon- the delay between words can sometimes create some confusion!

Heavy undergrowth definitely makes camouflage much more effective! If I was an allied soldier, I'd be seeing German soldiers and armor in every slight movement of a branch or leaf!

Yeah, I always think the Tiger I looks like the big brother to the Pz IV, while the Panther looks like the father of the modern tank.

The talk of Bigfoot got me thinking about a little known German unit in World War 2- they had scoured the world for supernatural and legendary weapons. One result was a company of SasquatchStaffel. Using Bigfoots in Panzers turned out to be a bad idea, however- it was extremely hard for them to fit in the tanks!

Those Shermans are only suffering flesh wounds! Though I would imagine the Americans are about to start yelling "Run away! Run away!"