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Ivanov

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Posts posted by Ivanov

    This guy is worth a watch

    in Combat Mission - General Discussion

    Posted

    1 hour ago, Doc844 said:

    Food.  Russia would have literally starved without it, in communique's from Stalin to the allies his top priority was never tanks, bullets, bombs, it was food.  Always demanding more and more food.

    That's what happens if you lose the access to the grain of Ukraine ;) For Stalin, Ukrainie which was the breadbasket of Soviet Union, was equally important as to Hitler. Hence the forced collectivization, artificial famine and terror of the 30's. They were designed to ultimately subdue the Ukrainians to the Soviet rule and destroy any solidarity of various peoples and social groups that were inhabiting that land.  

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    This guy is worth a watch

    in Combat Mission - General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Ivanov

    57 minutes ago, kraze said:

    It also "bled to death" in Europe (if only having to keep there a huge standing army to fight partisanen and ever-looming invasion), Africa and Italy but let's just ignore those unimportant theaters in favor of lend-leased Red Army

    All theatres were important and contributed to the German defeat overall. I'm not ignoring them but the indisputable fact is, that the Germans suffered 90% of their loses in the east and they got defeated well before the Red Army become "lend-leased". In 1941 and 1942 the Allied help didn't play a significant role. It really helped the Soviets in the later years to conduct the massive offensives. But by that time the outcome of the war was already decided. 

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    This guy is worth a watch

    in Combat Mission - General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Ivanov

    7 hours ago, Bozowans said:

    And he didn't claim that oil was the only reason they lost, just that it was a major one, and probably the most significant one when looking at the grand scale. He didn't claim that Germany was defeated after they ran out of fuel either. His argument was not that the Panzer armies ran out of fuel and then were defeated, but that Germany lost because they didn't have enough oil to expand their armored and mechanized forces and keep them going to the level they needed to win the war. 

    He starts the video with a sentence: "why Germany lost the war? It can be summed up with one word: oil". This is a gross oversimplification. I understand that Youtube needs simple, catchy answers, but in reality the lack of oil was one of few significant reasons why Germans couldn't win. Incoherent German leadership, bad management of it's available resources and industry, strategic and operational errors, logistics and vast material superiority of the Allies, were equally important. Selecting one decisive factor ( in this case oil ) is absurd and naive.

     

    Quote

    And then you have Hitler himself saying "If I do not get the oil of Maikop and Grozny, then I must end the war." Another one of the sources the guy used in the video said "The loss of the Caucasus would deprive the Soviet Union of half of its oil reserves and 80-90 percent of its crude oil production, refinery throughput, and pipeline capacity." So taking the Caucasus would have allowed Germany to expand their mechanization and offensive capability dramatically, while strangling the Soviets' ability to do the same, which could have been a major turning point of the war, or so he argues. The Germans did manage to take some of those oil fields, but were militarily defeated and driven out before they were able to make significant use of them.

    In theory taking the Caucasus could be a decisive problem for Soviet Union. The thing is, that the Germans could never succeed in this task, because they had never enough forces, to seriously contemplate a success there. The forces forces of Army Group A were absurdly small for the task. A quick look on the map reveals it all. Caucasus offensive failed, because there were insufficient forces allocated to the task and because of the logistics. Not because the panzers didn't have enough of fuel. Another issue is bad management of the conquered resources. In theory by 1942 the territories that Nazis had under their control, could allow them to match the production of United States ( Tooze, The Wages of Destruction ). They never came close.

     

    Quote

    You also made a claim that "for Hitler the Ukrainian grain had a priority over the oil of the Caucasus". Where are you getting that from? Certainly it was a major priority, and the guy in the video said that. He put up another Hitler quote in there that said the "raw materials and agriculture of the Ukraine were vitally necessary for the future prosecution of the war." So it's not like the Germans were only looking at oil and nothing else. Even if what you said was true, and that Hitler thought the grain was more important than oil, that doesn't make it true. That only says what Hitler thought. Not what was actually the most important resource.

    Unfortunately what Hitler thought was decisive. Many of modern commentators apply a hindsight and current day, rational thinking to the Nazi leadership of the WW2 period, which is a mistake. Nazis were shooting and gassing Jewish women and children, because according to their ideology it was acting "in self defence". Jurgen Stroop said, that he had to liquidate the Jews "for honey and milk of Ukraine". How could anyone expect a rational thinking from that kind of people? From the other hand, in theory the food supplies and oil were both indispensable for waging a prolonged war. Bad management of the war effort and atrocious policies towards the conquered peoples, assured that the Nazis could never get hold and take a full advantage of either.

    1

    This guy is worth a watch

    in Combat Mission - General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Ivanov

    5 hours ago, IICptMillerII said:

    This is a contradiction. If his main goal was Ukraine, then why weren't all efforts devoted there? Why was it supposedly second on his list if it was his main concern? 

    Well, this is actually what the author of video states. The force allocation for Barbarossa was designed by the German military planners not by Hitler, who at that stage wasn't that much involved in the detailed military planning. The German commanders assigned most resources to AGC because they were preoccupied with Soviet forces deployed in Bialystok salient. After liquidating the Bialystok and Minsk pockets, the 3rd Panzergruppe was turned north to support the offensive of Army Group North, so obviously that theatre, was at that time more important to Hitler than Moscow. I'm not saying that giving a priority to Leningrad was a sound decision, but it's just what Hitler was thinking at the time. This was also the source of disagreements between Hitler and his generals in the autumn of 1941. As to AGS, the second priority for Hitler, it didn't have enough resources allocated because there wasn't enough of them and the generals didn't consider that theatre a priority. In 1941 in Hitler's mind, the main objectives were industrial centres of Leningrad and Donbas, which doesn't mean that the German General Staff had the same priorities. Hence all the confusion, changing of the actual course of operations and ever deepening conflict between Hitler and his generals. As to Ukraine, I meant that for Hitler the Ukrainian grain had a priority over the oil of the Caucasus.
     

    Quote

    Unless you are disputing all the various sources that state the opposite, this is unfounded. Germany had a very limited reserve of fuel from the beginning. He goes through everything, showing why Germany could only support the small amount of mechanized divisions it had, and why many were trying to reduce that number even more. They had no fuel reserves in 41, nevermind 44. 

    This is absolutely true that Germans had very few fuel reserves through the war and I agree with the author, that the hold fast order in 1941/42 was a result of that. However as I said the decisive campaigns of 1941, 42 and 43 were not lost because of the general lack of fuel. If German tanks didn't have fuel during Operation Barbarossa, it was because the logistic system was unable to deliver it to the units, not because Germany ran out of the fuel. Until mid 1944 Luftwaffe was still flying and only after that time the fuel shortage become crippling.

    Quote

    This is a gross over-generalization that isn't even true until post-Stalingrad.

    Obviously this is an oversimplification because there was not single reason why Germany lost the war and for sure it wasn't only because of the lack oil. As I said, the lack of oil ensured that the grandiose plans of waging a global war were a pure utopy from the very beginning. But in the actuality Wehrmacht was beaten and spent before Germany ran out of the fuel.

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    This guy is worth a watch

    in Combat Mission - General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Ivanov

    Nah - while I appreciate his efforts, the video is full of errors and he comes to the wrong conclusions. You have to be very careful with all those Youtube prophets. While invading the Soviet Union in 1941, Hitler wasn't that preoccupied with oil as the author suggests. Hitler was formed by the WW1 experience of hunger caused by the naval blockade, so his main goal was to create an agrarian empire. So he was mainly going for the black earth of Ukraine. At the beginning of Barbarossa, Hitler's main objective was not Caucasus but Leningrad. Then in the second place Ukraine and Caucasus and on the third place Moscow. The 2nd Panzergruppe was turned south not to capture Caucasus but to liquidate the Soviet forces around Kiev ( which was a sound decision ). As to the 4 months fuel stocks theory, the operation Barbarossa failed not because the Germans ran out fuel. Actually none of the major German defeats like Moscow, Stalingrad, Kursk, Ukraine 43 or Bagration was caused by this reason. The main reason why Germany lost the war, was that Wehrmacht bled to death in the Eastern Front and eventually got defeated by the Red Army. The oil shortages were severely affecting German war waging capabilities from the second half of 1944, when the war was already lost. As to the inability to access the the main world oil sources of USA, Wenezuela, Middle East and Soviet Union, it meant that the Third Reich never had a chance to win a global war, but the reasons why they actually lost, were different. 

    3

    A Marine artillery battalion in Syria fired more rounds than any artillery battalion since Vietnam.

    in Combat Mission Black Sea

    Posted · Edited by Ivanov

    Before this thread get completely spoiled. There's a fascinating chart in the article, showing the amounts and types of rounds fired during OIF. The percentage of DPICM, roughly 33% is staggering IMO. No wonder that after the invasion there were problems with an unexploded ordnance. This led to the plans of replacing othe cluster munitions in the US arsenal, which in turn... has been just recently reversed, based on the experiences from Ukraine and Syria.

    OQ6_UWYWOHJCFLCQ3_HVWTG5_KAJY.png 

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    Whats next? When?

    in Combat Mission Black Sea

    Posted

    I'm kind of puzzled by this iron curtain like secrecy. What could BF potentially lose by revealing more info? It's not like someone could steal their ideas. The only thing I can think of, is that the devs would lose their peace of mind because people would start bombarding them with new question and demands. 

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    How to use LAV-AT, M1134, Shturm-S ext. efficiently?

    in Combat Mission - General Discussion

    Posted

    In theory the ATGM carrying vehicles are good at engaging targets from a long distance. But that requires a good, uninterrupted LOS, which is not going to happen to often on most of the maps. The tank would always fire first, while the ATGM is much slower than the tank gun projectile. Plus tanks are well protected in comparison to the light vehicles, that carry ATGM. So in real terms, the tank destroyer vehicles won't be very useful. The infantry teams are much more effective because they are easier to conceal than the vehicles. In one epic, defensive battle that I played as a Stryker company against Russian mech batalion, the Javelin teams killed about 10 tanks, while all the TOW-2B Strykers got killed before they even fired at the enemy. I just don't find those vehicles very useful. 

    2

    Fire mission off target

    in Combat Mission - General Discussion

    Posted

    @Bulletpoint @akd @MOS:96B2P 

    Some good points here. I agree that the spotting LOS wasn't probably ideal and that could potentially cause a bad fire mission. I was assuming however that the spotter would cancel or correct the mission after not seeing the spotting rounds. In CMBS I had many instances that the fire mission was cancelled during the spotting phase. It was the first time for me when the fire mission went ahead anyway, despite the imperfect spotting conditions.

    0

    Fire mission off target

    in Combat Mission - General Discussion

    Posted

    26 minutes ago, IICptMillerII said:

    No, it just means in this instance the spotter didn't do a good job and that resulted in a bad fire mission. You got bad luck. It happens. 

    Nothing wrong with the game

     

    Well if everything works as designed I'm happy. But shouldn't the spotter correct the fire mission after completely off spotting rounds, rather than allowing the mortars to fire on his own position?

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    Fire mission off target

    in Combat Mission - General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Ivanov

    47 minutes ago, IICptMillerII said:

    It has nothing to do with the radio becoming a casualty. The reason the fire mission was off target is because the spotter is green, rattled, and taking direct fire. All that results in a poorly called fire mission. 

    This isn't a bug. Everything is working correctly. 

    The spotter become rattled and under fire, only after he directed the fire mission on himself. The spotting rounds were falling consistently in one area ( completely off target ). 

    image.thumb.png.bfc2d0e02902c784506adebe216dc5d0.png

     

    So does it mean, that a green spotter is completely unable to correct the fire mission, even after a long spotting ( it took him about 10 minutes )?

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