DMS

Weren't they armed by Germans? No politics, just curious. That west Ukrainians folk songs: "Машингивери", "лента за лентой" - they are about Mg-34/42, I guess. DP was magazine fed.

Bad... But they should! 1-st platoon of rifle company had SMGs instead of rifles, other weapons stayed like in rifle platoons. There were shortages of DP machineguns, and that is not completely unrealistic, but still DP were distributed to the platoons evenly. (I am afraid that poor SMG gunners will be wiped out by those Sturmzugen at 210m…) It seems I misunderstood, on screenshot above there is DP. But the squad is too big, I think, 11 men - too good for 44-45... Ammo load for DP - 188, 4 drums. That is realistic! 6 drums with 282 rounds were optimistic a bit.

By the way, do SMG squads of rifle companies have machineguns and snipers? That SMG squads should be better at medium ranges.

"the major change that came in early 1944 was the conversion of 1 of 3 Rifle Platoons into a Submachine Gun Platoon" In the summer of 1943 actually. "штат № 05/40 in December 1944" I am not sure that this TO&E was implemented in fact. May be just in some of the guards divisions. 1× Section Commander, Jr. Sergeant (OR-5) or Sergeant (OR-6), armed with 1 PPSh-41/PPS-43 Submachine Gun 1× Deputy Section Commander (Senior Rifleman), Yefreytor (OR-4), armed with 1 Mosin-Nagant or SVT-40 Rifle** 1× Light Machine Gunner, Private (OR-1), armed with 1 DP-27 Light Machine Gu Mistake: actually LMG gunner was deputy.

No, this is just a slang. Any German infantrymen were called "avtomatchiki", because Germans relied on heavy automatic fire (from their MG-34).

I'd read that platoon commanders received T-34-85 first. I am not sure how common it was.

Originally they were called "avtomatchiki", autogunners. Those who use automatic fire. If you read soviet documents about enemy strength estimations, you don't see huge SMG numbers. Just slang.

Nice example of folk history. But why not to post this on forum.axishistory.com? You would find qualified answers there. Why to post this doubtful statements on wargame forum?

Hm, I used to play as Stuka and He-111 pilot in "Il-2" game. And that He-111 bombed London and Stalingrad, killed civilians... Now I understand, how wrong I was! (Not really) Idiots in Russia banned swastikas in games. If someone could ban idiots...

Hm, I didn't expect that B-4 can hurt someone's feelings so much!

In the current version of the game on map artillery is very slow and vulnerable. If 45-mm and 76-mm guns could be tweaked a little, so soldiers would move guns quicker and hide behind shields... In my opinion sloped 7mm gun shield protected no worse than APC armor. 203 guns would be easy target without tweaking guns protection, MGs would suppress them easily.

It's interesting to see how players will use this organization. IRL were very different opinions about using smg platoons. From screening flank to attaching SMG groups to rifle squads (in defense). Most obvious - fire and maneuver tactic where rifle platoons are firing elements, smg platoon - maneuver element. What do you think, did Germans adopt this organization with their Sturmzugen? Or did they come to it independently, basing on 1-st world war assault groups?

Since 1944 rifle divisions were not reinforced to full strength, only to 6-7 thousands. It was somewhat semi-official TO&E. HQs made calculations to match personnel and weapons, that is one of them. 1-st row - full strength 04/550, 2-nd - 7000 division. 1-st line - rifles, 2-nd - SMGs, 3-rd - LMGs, 4-th - HMG e.t.c. Note that LMG numbers are not proportional to personnel. Only 244, 3 in each platoon. (And 3 squads, I suppose) Problem is that HQ could cut battalion number, saving combat ready companies. So you can't be sure how big were platoons. Yes, in some divisional schemes are 3 squads, in others 4. I think that 4 7-men squads with 4 LMGs is a close estimation for unit that was reinforced before major offence. I am not sure that 4 squads are better than 3, but it's easy to delete 4-th squad in the editor if player wants to get this variant. Or to set headcount 70%-80% to get 5-6 men squads. If squad headcount could be random, 6-7 men (and 3-4 LMGs), it would be excellent estimation. (For reinforced division before major offence) I made some research for rifle divisions in defense (they are usually more depleted), they had even less LMGs, 2,18 LMG to 30 men in frontline: https://dms-mk1.livejournal.com/35408.html (See "р" row in the table for LMGs)

Well, 6 is written near to "junior sergeant". Number of LMGs is written bellow. Yes, 6 assistants for 4 squads. But in fact platoons rarely had 6 LMGs, 4 were good case. I think 6 is intentionally overstated number. So real platoons would have at least 3-4 LMGs. To check this I tried to find some documents of rifle divisions, found this one. 208 rifle division, July of 1943. Number of NCOs in full strength rifle regiment is 679, privates - 1582. Privates to NCO ratio is 2.32 to 1. Real ratio is 1233:474 = 2.6, higher than TO&E.

People asked producer, why German infantry tactic is so primitive, no MGs, no hand grenades e.t.c. He said that they couldn't do everything, as it is low budget fillm. 2,5 millions $. IRL Germans (2-nd panzer division) had 2 MGs per squad, Russians - 2 MGs per platoon.

What's about TO&E, will we get SMG platoons in rifle companies? Any "assault group" formations for urban combat?

Well, yes. Very effective decision. Someone would call it fascism, but who cares, right? So, your proposal is to make them leave and suppress those who won't? Very interesting. And why they fight against you for 5 years? Mystery. Why "pro-Russians"? Be straight. "Russians".

Why do you want to live in one country with such greedy and stupid scum? Let them go. You want to punish them or what? What if they vote for pro-Russian political parties? Will you make them 2-nd sort citizens without right to vote, like in Baltia states? Just curious. About fortifications and ROE in urban areas:

SVT had detachable magazine, but practically was fed by standard 5 round stripper clips. Practical ROF was not so great. Frontline units never asked to give more SVTs, unlike PPSh.

Select units, press pause, give commands, unpause. It's realistic when you haven't time to manage each squad.

They burned houses with flamethrowers! Germans used to burn 1-st line of buildings by themselves not to let Soviets do it, than occupied burned out houses. (from Isaev's article)

With the 1-st wave, sometimes with dedicated assault groups.

That 4,5 battalions per kilometer were echeloned in depth. In first echelon, having task to capture 1-2 lines of defense, were 1-2 battalions. As you know, Soviet companies had few ammo (1-3 drums for smgs and <6 for lmgs) and had to be rotated soon. In fact, it was new semi-official TO&E: 7 th. division, 6 th. division. Weapons were cut not proportional to numbers: light machine guns were reduced to 50%, 3 in platoon instead of 6, for example. 3/4, if we measure by squads number. By the way, in CM "1944" TO&E is pretty close, if only squads had 7 men, not 11...

By the way, how is going work on TO&E? Which variant is chosen for rifle battalions? I hope that 12.44 guards TO&E is ignored, as it was IRL until end of war.

Rifle division (04/600, 1941) had only 18 45mm AT guns. Yes, high command could reinforce rifle division with AT regiments, but they had to be placed on important directions, not everywhere. Large open spaces of Russia were favorable for large panzer formations, they always had a route from flank. But tactically, when they chose direction, why couldn't they use mass of tanks, in line or "Breitkeil"? Frontal attack against few at guns (may be suppressed by artillery or Stukas with some luck) worked well.