dbsapp

Now that is a bloodbath:

This was the rare case when God clearly was on NKVD side. Conserning the so-called "Operation Snow" - no matter how flattering the story of Soviet spies engineering US-Japanese war could have been to above mentioned NKVD - it's most likely a myth. Japan made decision on waging war with America long before famous Hull note. The note itself didn't have the fateful impact it was later claimed it had. Chinese debacle, Japan's rivalry with US for the domination in Pacific and sanctions made the conflict inevitable.

Yeah, I agree that in retrospect 80 years later it's much easier to speculate that Hitler couldn't win than being that confident while lying in a trench somewhere near Kiev in 1941.

It was published in 2015 or something by Osprey Publishing. It's a nice edition (but with some suspicious parts in my opinion). I would recommend this one:

So they mean that the previous 20 years we've been playing unprofessional version for amateurs?

CMBS. You can capture Ukraine.

Found interesting part in Robert Kirchubel's "Operation Barbarossa": "On the last day of April, Hitler officially set Operation Barbarossa’s start date for June 22. Some historians falsely believe Germany’s Balkan invasion fatally delayed the launching of the campaign. Von Lossberg wrote that Hitler always planned to conquer Greece prior to Barbarossa. Indeed, invading the Balkans was discussed at the Führer conference of December 5. The main causes for deferring Barbarossa’s start date from May 15 to June 22 were incomplete logistical arrangements and an unusually wet winter that kept Central European rivers at full flood until late spring. Besides, to have started much earlier would have only meant that Barbarossa began during the infamous rasputitsa (spring and autumn rainy season, “time without roads”)".

The Barbarossa invasion was an open secret. Almost everybody in Europe knew it was coming, including British, Americans, Spanish, Romanians etc., including Soviet intelligence. Quite ironically the only person who dismissed this information as British provocation was Stalin. Americans and British discussed if they should pass the information on Barbarossa to Soviets (they had very detailed info on dates and numbers) but eventually decided not to do it, because it could reinforce Stalin's idea that they want to drag him into a war with Germany. As far as I know, Western Allies were very constrained in sharing intelligence with Moscow during the war, it almost never happened (Cambridge five did the job instead).

That's true. In fact, they couldn't even afford to enjoy limited success and save some fuel, because they were constantly under Soviet counterattacks. If you read German officer's diaries it strikes you how they acknowledged that Barbarossa has failed already in August-September. There were a lot of arguments that "Yugoslavia" delay or "Turn to Kiev" were fatal mistakes, but if the whole picture is taken into account any changes on German side couldn't save the day. Japanese occupied China and kept the so-called Kwantung Army of 1 mln people there. The Russian-Japanese relations were tense, to say at least. In 1938 and 1938 Japan undertook 2 attempts to invade Soviet and Mongolian territory that led to large scale conflicts which were tantamount to undeclared war with employments of tanks and planes that resulted in Japanese defeat and about 20 thousands dead on their side. Japan together with Germany and Italy was the member of anti-comintern pact. The threat from the East was one of the major factors contributed to the signing of Molotov-Ribbentrop pact (in fact Soviet and Japanese troops were engaged in large scale fighting during the visit of Ribbentrop to Moscow). In 1941 when Reich invaded USSR Russia and Japan were already bound by the neutrality treaty. But as soon as German army crossed the Soviet border Japanese foreign minister Matsuoka, who personally signed the treaty, rushed to persuade Privy Council to seize the opportunity and invade USSR. There were heated debates that - to make long story short - resulted in decision to turn South to European colonies and eventually to the war with USA. Little known but very important fact is that during the whole war USSR kept about 20% of its army in the East in case Japan would attack. That severely reduced the strength of armies fighting Nazis.

In all modern historical literature it became a commonplace to stress that "mud and winter" is a myth. It's quite obvious - Russians are no more immune to cold or snow than Germans. What really crushed Wehrmacht was the level of casualties - about 800 thousands dead and wounded (not counting ill) on Eastern front in 1941. German general stuff made grave mistakes in military planning. They absolutely failed intelligence gathering, by the order of magnitude understimated the strenghs of Soviet army. For example, they didn't know about t34 or KV until they met them in battle. The deeper they went into Soviet territory, the more nightmarish their logistics become. In winter they couldn't supply enough ammo and reinforcements to the front via broken railroad lines in Russia. Basically they were forced to choose between ammo and warm clothes for the troops. Hitler and Halder also made strategic mistakes. They were so confident in the ability to defeat USSR in several months that they ordered to move workforce from producing tanks and infantry equipment to navy, anticipating naval warfare with Britain after they delt with Russia. So basically all the issues you mentioned couldn't play a major role in the outcome of the war. Simply put USSR made a better job in transforming itself to wartime economy and conscription mode than Reich. If we dive into alternative history, I would say that the involvement of Japan could have been a decisive factor. If Japan have opened 2nd front on the East and didn't go to war with US the ending of Barbarossa could be quiet different.

What is T-64 being little more competitive than M60 comparing to Amrams being literally all seeing all mighty and virtually impenetrable demigod in CMCW?

LOS in game is absolutely unpredictable and seems like a game of chance with the strongest factor being units's experience level. It's often counterintuitive and plainly absurd, like infantry or tank that don't see the vehicle right in front of them that blocks their road but seeing some distant AFV behind 2 layers of trees. In WW2 games it is not that much of a problem, but in modern games, where distances are much bigger, it is. I remind myself that it's only a game and it wouldn't be wise to demand very much, but the longer you play it the more bugs you discover and it becames frustrating. I would add the movement pattern to your list. 27) We don't have the option to order troops move quickly, but stop when encountering enemy. We have only option to run and continue running even if attacked by the enemy ("quick") or move very slowly and exhausting and stop in enemy presence ("hunt"). It would be great to have "quick hunt" combination.

I captured only one objective and pressed cease fire with 30 min left so it shouldn't be a problem. What do you think WW3 would look like, like rose bath?

I got "minor victory" in the 5th mission of Soviet Campaign, but it didn't eject me to the 6th mission. I got Campaign End screen instead. All the previous mission ended with victory, but it didn't lead me to the promised land, e.g. Alsfeld

Lol, my inability to type things properly leads to disastrous consequences (not only on forums, in real life too, which is the saddest thing). I hope someday I will evolve fingers that can properly handle phone's keyboard.

Oh, you're trying to develop a sense of humor through evolution and thousands of hours on the forum. In several years you will be able to read typos.

As with every other product in market economy, the price of Combat Mission games is determined in very simple way: it costs whatever people are ready to pay for it. If the majority of players are ready to pay $40, why take less?

It seems like its not us\soviet equipment problem. It's more like a general issue with player\ai visibility. Contrary to the rest of CM totlies I absolutely puzzled how it works in Cold War, it reminds some kind of twisted lottery.

Wow. So you began making it before CMFR came to life?

It depends on what you mean by "intentional". They didn't want to deliberately starve people to death, but their neglect, inhumane policy and low level of understading of ecomonics, coupled with crazed communist theories, resulted in de fact horrible deaths of millions.

If you genuinely want to dig this topic I would recommend to read Oleg Khlevniuk or Sheila Fitzpatrick . The issue of 30s and Stalin's period is a minefield, obscured by politicization of all sorts. The true story of famine in Ukraine is also very much distorted by political interests. You can start by reading this article (initially free but then moved by Guardian under paywall - how many paywalled Guardian articles have you seen?), but still available in Google cash.

Oh, now I see it. Thanks!