BletchleyGeek

I don't see that many chokepoints - there's plenty of forestry tracks cutting across the forests. I can totally see Soviet T-34s negotiating those without problems, and infantry riding on their backs, moreso with the collaboration of partisan elements guiding them. Besides that, a chokepoint which cannot be defended isn't a chokepoint. I mean, I can totally see that a reasonably up to strength German infantry division being able to put up a formidable defense of an area like the one east of Borisov. The problem for the Germans is that they didn't have any of such combined arms formations to defend the approaches to key crossings - like the ones at Borisov - and keep the retreat routes towards the west open. If you had - say - a force roughly the size of a battalion, consisting of a hodge-podge of railroad security and maintenance troops, personnel on furlough in transit to or from Germany, and possibly a heavy flak battery, which chokepoint would you choose to defend? How would you prevent the Soviet armour to move around your positions? Indeed, that would make a great scenario. But I think that the more common occurrence was that of a German column feeling their way across that "maze" of rooms, trying to avoid the Red Wumpus. And getting assaulted at close range by Soviet tanks.

Check out the website I mentioned earlier in the thread loadmap.net and that pretty much everyone seems to have ignored. It's a great resource, although you won't always find 1930's maps. In that case, I cross-examine the AMS maps I also mentioned above with the 1980s maps to see if the differences are big as to have changed "the name of the game".

Careful with that map, mate, it's a 1980s Red Army map. For some regions - like Ukraine west of the Dnepr - 1980s maps of rural areas and 1930s maps are pretty much the same. For other, more developed, regions, road networks, expanse of forests and urban build up level has changed quite dramatically.

Let's try with the Borisov map again, this time on Dropbox https://www.dropbox.com/s/wns7kt6cpom90sq/N-35-70-A.gif The land bridge doesn't consist of a marshy wasteland in its entirety, you just need to check out the maps in the links I provided. See how many roads, tracks and towns you can find there. Note how was the weather during the breakthrough, and assess whether those roads could actually function as roads or not. More or less in the area you are talking a massive meeting engagement between 7th Panzer and 18th Panzer Divisions and two Soviet Tank Corps took place in July 1941. Indeed, not optimal tank country, but far from preventing entirely operations. PS: GeorgeMC totally nailed it with the QB map that Bil and Elvis played on.

I think you're over-generalizing a bit Jason, for making these assessments I prefer to look into actual topographical maps. One of the best sources freely available on the internet that give you reliable topographic information is the Perry-Castaneda historical map collection at UTexas, with high-resolution scans of the 1950s Army Map Service maps of the Soviet Union http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/ams The maps are 1:250,000 and compiled in the early 1950s, but the sources used were captured 1:100,000 1942-44 German maps, which were in turn copies of captured 1:100,000 1938 Soviet maps. It's a shame that they're too coarse to make out good maps for the CMx2 scale, but they're pretty much the best you can find translated into English. Higher resolution maps - in Russian - can be retrieved from loadmap.net but in order to figure out the fine details of those you'll need to get a hold of that 1950's TM explaining Russian map symbology. In my experience - I've used both as sources for work which is inconsequential to talk about here - the AMS maps are in 90% agreement with the 1930s original Russian maps (there's the odd contour line off, towns moved a couple km's, typos that carry over transliterations from Russian to German to English ending up in mumbo-jumbo, etc.). You can find the Perry-Castaneda collection index map here. The maps NN-36-4 (Orsha is near the NW corner), NN-36-7 (Mogilev near the Western Edge) and NN-36-10 (Gomel is near the center of the map), cover the sectors where most of the 3rd Panzer and 4th Armee were deployed. You'll see that north of Orsha there's a quite massive mass of primeval forests, bogs and swamps, that extend all the way to Polotsk - further north. That sector saw little fighting, as far as I know, it was very lightly held. Along the Orsha - Mogilev line you'll see that major terrain feature is the Dnepr river, with the typical assymetrical orography in European Russia associated with major rivers: the western side is dominated by substantial bluffs and cliffs that dominate the eastern shore. East of the river we find a gentle rolling hills country, with substantial forests in this particular part of present-day Belarus. Two other distinct features catch the eye: the countryside is dotted by a substantial number of villages and cottages, connected by unpaved dirt roads. I'd say that as long as the weather is dry, motorized formations mobility should be good. Around Gomel the terrain is much more interesting. We can see that to the north there's a quite extensive system of marshes and rivulets, to the west and southwest, some thick forests, and to the east, south-east and south there are two important rivers - the Sozh and the Iput. Here the fighting was quite protacted both in 1941 and 1944. As you say in your post, it's interesting to see the parallelisms between the fighting here in 1941 and 1944. Going further west we can take a look at the Bobruysk area (NN-35-9) and take a good look at the Berezina river basin. It is indeed a major obstacle that divides the map into two halves. Looking at the quite dense dirt road network and thick forests, one gets a much better hold on the typical narrative of German columns 'lost' while trying to get on the safe side of the Berezina (and how much of hit-and-miss could be to not run into Soviet blocking positions) and how important it was that the Germans were unable to mount a coherent defense of this major natural obstacle. We take a closer look into things, by referring to one of the loadmap.net maps (select "Old Russian Army Maps" category, at 1:50,000) showing us the critical crossing at Borisov (I have put it on my Google Drive account, to make things easier) https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B60Fz61zV5lgRkdPSGVrU1R5Ync/edit?usp=sharing According to the legend in the upper left corner, it's a 1933 map - which is I think perfect to assess the terrain. The general pattern we observed at 1:250,000 is here magnified - the relatively abundant villages are still there, and the region is criscrossed by paths and unpaved roads. We also see that the great majority of the marshy terrain is close to major water courses. But those forests are far from being a wasteland - those geometric patterns forestry tracks, a major industry in the region (it's not coincidental that most of the biggest mass graves of victims of Stalin's Great Terror, which wiped out hundreds of thousands of people in Belarus according to certain sources, can be found in "forests"). Dismissing was used to be the Grand Duchy of Lithuania - or Litva - as a 'wasteland' is an overgeneralization and based on a very narrow perspective. Well into the 18th century Poland-Lithuania was a major European economical power (alas, not politically nor militarily). It is unfortunate indeed that it has happened to be a major battlefield several times in the last 200 years (during the Polish partition wars, Napoleonic Wars, First World War, Second World War), and more recently the receiving end of most of Chernobyl's fallout. I recently read Norman Davies' "Vanished Kingdoms", and I kind of fell in love with Poland-Lithuania "lost cause". Which was indeed more worthy than any other 'lost causes' so much revered in wargaming circles

I love FTL - probably one of the most difficult I've played in years. The 'teasing' about the 'Advanced' edition and then complete silence is maddening! One game with a similar premise - and that reminds me a lot of Starflight - is Pulsar: Lost Colony. It's kind of FTL brought to the next level. Good to hear that, and godspeed with the release!

Is that going to be a quote on the manual that we're about to see published on Battlefront main page? EDIT: Note people isn't asking for the game, just the manual.

I concur with Redwolf that your programming skills shouldn't be bound to one particular language. I can recommend to you this book here http://www.amazon.com/Practice-Programming-Addison-Wesley-Professional-Computing/dp/product-description/020161586X While heavily relying on C and C++, the principles there aren't really language-specific (about the authors, Brian Kernighan is one of the inventors of the C programming language and Rob Pike is credited as one of the masterminds behind Unix, the OS from which pretty much every major OS in use draws heavily in one form or another). Regarding Unity: it's not really MS-bound either, it's using - by default, you can set it up otherwise if you want - Mono C# implementation and Mono's IDE (Monodevelop). They are both free-software (so if Microsoft decides that it doesn't like .NET languages any more, you won't be left out hanging out in the cold) and they both work fine. This is possible because the .NET languages aren't entirely proprietary, and are subject to a standards committee similar to that of C (and C++). This standards committee existence might totally sound like a lot of red tape, but they're a guarantee on the longevity of the language. Unity itself isn't totally bound to C#. The major problem of Unity Vanilla - that is, the one that doesn't cost you $$$ - is the very limited threading capabilities it offers and the fact that your game "engine" will have to be coded in C#. For a variety of reasons, this will be sub-optimal. When if/you feel confident and necessary, I'd recommend to use Unity Pro - and pay the Unity people some $$$. This allows you to wrap C++ libraries and defer certain computations to a more efficient implementation of certain fundamental elements (like pathfinding, or specific physic simulations) for which C# isn't the best tool for the job. Indeed, if you want to do cross-platform development, you'll have to figure out how to write the C++ code in a way that remains portable (that is, you can compile it with the Microsoft and the GNU compiler). That sounds like a total pain in the a** but I actually find it is something very healthy to strive for. TL;DR: Totally learn Unity and if that means learning C#, so be it. Yet keep in mind that the important thing that a CS College undergraduate gets is not knowledge about one particular programming language or tool, but the skill we call 'Problem Solving'. Or that's what I reckon it's the important skill, anyways

Well, they have the appeal spelt out. The Soviet Union hasn't existed since 1991 and the Third Reich since 1945, so no longer real entities. Yet I wonder what would Apple guidelines have to say about Football Manager, and all the rhethoric surrounding Man City and Man United matches, or FC Barcelona and Espanyol.

Not raw Jason, just worse than the standards of the Wehrmacht until 1944. I think everyone is on the same page on this. Reaching the conclusion that the standards or the average level of profficiency and skills of replacements for the Red Army, were lower than those of the Germans for a substantial part of the war, can't be helped if one takes a look at recent research The Deployment of Reserve Units and Formations on the Territory of Siberia During the Great Patriotic War Rostov Nikolay Dmitrievich Journal of Slavic Military Studies, volume 23, pages 641-655 2010 Some excerpts So yes, the Soviet Union had a quite deep system to organise and train replacements, not too different from the Wehrmacht Replacement Army, since really early in the war. Yet the attrition suffered by the Red Army was so atrocious that I've noted in bold the assessment made, not by some rabid Nazi propagandist, but the top officer of the Military District tasked with training those replacements. The term brigade, for the Red Army, is quite more flexible than the typical Western brigade. Here's one example of such 'Reserve Rifle Brigades' Many of these 'Reserve Brigades' were activated to absorb recruits, but the start of the program was indeed rocky The massive losses in the frontier battles meant that there were very little junior officers and NCO's available to take up the task of training personnel so this nonetheless improved as the war progressed, as soldiers and officers cleared from hospitals also were integrated into these Reserve Brigades, so the mix of veterans with raw conscripts - and rusty reservists - indeed did help to overcome the shortcomings of the system in 1941-42. How many men could the Soviet Union muster from Siberia? Actually, a substantial proportion of the population east of the Urals those numbers are quite substantial, nearly 1 million personnel, in two years, subject to the shortages in equipment, facilities and experienced officers and NCO's above. Note how the numbers of recruits diminished after 1942 - indeed, the Soviet conscripting system reached its peak by the winter of 1942 and 1943. It is not too hard to extrapolate a similar situation and dynamics to the Military Districts east of the Volga - but west of the Urals. So the question is: where did came a substantial portion of replacements for the Red Army from 1943 to 1945? One obvious possibility are the Central Asia republics - far less developed than the Russian heartlands - and the liberated territories.

That's my opinion as well.

Snarre, your typo is awesome. You just gave a whole new interpretation of the reasons for the Anschluss: the Reich needed those Tirolese singers badly!

Well, he's better than both me and you together, I reckon That map was very different - lots of reverse slopes to fire on your guys while they advanced. The Germans do have a definite advantage when engaging at longer ranges. At close range (under 300 meters) you want plenty of StG's, otherwise they're, quite frankly, disappointing (especially against American infantry, let alone American Airborne). The other big difference is that I was able to observe you advancing, and I was able to figure out what you were up to (more or less). That allowed me to maneuver to avoid danger and casualties. In this map, those forested areas are like big black holes and I would feel like a blind man feeling my way around. I'd have been very careful to avoid getting engaged there at all, just keeping guys observing and pulling them back as soon as the Spidey sense started to yell. You just lost too many riflemen out there I think that you did the most damage on Bil when the spotting relationship was in your favor (when he had to assault Blau). If those riflemen had been alive, you probably would have been able to support better your heavy weapons in Blau, which did a very good job, all things considered. Now that I've been able to go over your thread - I didn't read it - and see Bil remarks about the 'black contact icons' I do understand a bit better how you were handling this. It is said that there's people that see better with one eye than with two. But for the great majority, it doesn't help at all. What slows Bil down are actual or likely casualties. He's been trained and exercised in avoiding unnecessary casualties, and you can see that very well in his style. So a good tactic is to make as much "noise" and creating "flash in the pans" as often as possible, to get him thinking about how to avoid casualties rather than how to kill you. In that respect, Ken got his number pretty much alright. Anyways, thank you again for the game and glad to talk to ya

Yes, I also think that between March 22nd - 25th we'll have the optimal launch window.

Thanks to both for letting us peek into CMRT

Thank you for that John. I am under the strong suspicion that most regimental level Soviet artillery - and attached SU and ISU regiments - were seldom used as indirect fire assets, due to the difficulties in communications to adjust fires in a reasonable amount of time. Reasonable as in "not too late to make a difference". I would very interested in first hand accounts detailing how these were used.

It doesn't help that Nafziger TOE's for the Volksgrenadier units refer to the same thing with the term 'assault rifle', 'carbine' and 'submachine gun'. I've been doing some TO&E work recently, and I had to rely on Google Translate to figure this one out. I know the Nafziger TOE's are quite old, but I'm surprised that this hasn't been corrected after nearly 20 years. I use CMx2 TOE's as a reference - so THANK YOU AKD!

Very nicely illustrated Bil On other news, I see that the black unit icon placeholders have been replaced by the real thing. Which means the release day is somewhat closer.

In Charles Sharp translation of German tactics manuals - available from Battlefront's bookshop - one can see that it is recommended charging - moving at max speed directly onto the guns positions - when there's no artillery available, infantry can't engage them within the time limits for the mission and the range isn't excessive. Indeed, losses are to be expected. From what I gather in the #2 example, it was a late afternoon affair and probably the Soviet commander wanted to occupy the town before nightfall. The Soviets didn't develop SPG's capable of indirect fire - I think - and their communications left a lot to be desired, so it's not an stretch of imagination that this force was a forward detachment, out of contact or range with any artillery assets.

These last two turns have quite confirmed my misgivings about using turretless AFV's in that way against AFV's with turrets.

Great videos Bil, it's quite a case of "so close yet SO FAR". I hadn't got the impression the wind was strong, those trees are really shaking in the background. It kind of adds to the drama On the other hand, it seems to me that are about to get the ISU's on the Panther rear aspect. I don't want to be crass, but I wonder how that cat is going to react when it realizes you're on top of it with two dinosaur-sized 122mm suppositories in your hands.

Thank you for posting this, Bil, it was a very good read. I do agree with your assessment regarding these techniques being as old as the hills. Reconnaissance, and what we call Recon Pull, was practised in Ancient times. Vegetius devotes significant space to it in De Re Militarum. And there the Romans weren't innovating, just compiling and drawing a ancient knowledge base. I dug up this interesting reference http://books.google.com.au/booksid=xIh_Vsbc4IYC&pg=PA20&lpg=PA20&dq=vegetius+reconnaissance&source=bl&ots=2sOEbuNI7X&sig=ic8Od7slzQoFyxlJmtdqd909DjI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ndYVU6qlIInOkQXoj4CQDQ&ved=0CEEQ6AEwCA Information Gathering in Ancient Greece ☺ And Sun Tzu didn't either invent much, the Chinese civilisation had at least a backlog of 2000 years of organised warfare to study and analyse. In a contemporary context, well, for you for sure, I think that page 4 of this work sums quite well the historical context www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a210965.pdf where I understand that our present ideas about recon and command were originally formulated by Henri de Jomini. Back to the Red Army. In my opinion, the most important difference between the Red Army and the Wehrmacht lied in the standards in training of soldiers, NCOs and most essentially, officers. IIRC candidate officers of the Panzertruppen spent more than six months under probation, under closed supervision of more experienced officers. So in the average, those officers who passed were very good. As far as I know, the Red Army wasn't able to cater for such a highly professional officer corps. Examples abound of full courses of cadets being pulled out from the School and deployed as infantry in the early autumn of 1941 and the summer of 1942. What I think people tend to confuse is the term average by that of totality. If you look close at the battles of 1941-2 you'll see that a significant number of tactical or - temporary - operational German reverses can be related to the presence in command of very experienced officers, who knew how to keep things tight in their outfits. Given the appalling casualty rates of Soviet officers, not many of these men survived long enough to be used in a more effective manner. And then there is a very Darwinian like process at play. The slackers get culled, really quickly: the ones that survive are usually the wiser (and lucky). I am not surprised that by late 1944 there was a significant number of Soviet officers capable of conducing their missions and make do when the means did not meet ends. Since the Germans were much more, hm, optimising when it came to manage human resources, the presence of nullities in command was rarer than in Red Army units. But that doesn't mean there weren't any. The commander of the I/26 Pz Regt, who led a Bn of Panthers unsupported against a powerful Soviet Pakfront because he didn't do any recon in the opening phases of the counterstroke of 48 Pz Korps at Korsun, is an example not too different from that of your first anecdote. In this case, this CO died along quite a few of his subordinates. The Bn performed notably better under the CO of the 1st Coy, who had to step into his shoes.

Not to mention the dismal standards when it came to crew training in the Red Army. German tank commanders were trained for a really long time, over six months I believe, all the way to early 1945. That makes a hell of a difference.

That sounds like a quite interesting 'research' program, Harry. Keep us posted regularly