Russian Infantry Fragility

[womble]

Soviet Infantry are far less resilient than the Germans.

[sNIP]

Perhaps I am missing something. If someone can enlighten me, then I am all ears.

You certainly can't justify coming to such a conclusion without a very firm knowledge of the differences in soft factors iof the forces you're comparing, and a good measure of what you're considering to be "sustained fire". If you're comparing Veteran, High, +1 Sturmgrenadiers with a full radio-assisted chain of positive leadership C2 under fire from a Brit section to Regular/Green High-to-Low 0/-1 Russkies with a broken C2 chain because their platoon can't see their Company HQ, under fire from a 6-MG42/6MP40 german platoon, you'll certainly find the Russians won't stand so much.

You could do some tests and report the numbers rather than plucking "gut feelings" out the air.

[kipanderson]

Hi,

When it comes to playing style and such I sympathise with those who find it hard to loos men.. me too .

Every digital hero counts... whether playing as Soviet, German, Commonwealth or US.

I jack up the length of scenarios to that which I think would have been realistic at the time. Most go to two hours or more. Then play slowly and carefully... taking periods to reorganise as needed.

Casualties do fall as a result. Two hours just rush by as if forty minutes. Playing slowly and carefully... really caring about every life ... you can get the casualties down. By taking as long to do the job as would have been the case in the real world... being just as careful .

All the best,

Kip.

PS New turn based, live play is tremendous..

[z1812]

[quote name='womble

You could do some tests and report the numbers rather than plucking "gut feelings" out the air.[/quote']

I have not done controlled testing. However I have played a number of small QB's and have tried different combinations of C and C with the Russians, so my observations are not, as you pompously suggest, plucking gut feelings out of thin air.

Regardless of the amount, and integrity of C and C I provide, the Russians falter quickly under fire. These QB's are played with both the Russians and Germans on normal and regular settings with a leadership of 0.

[z1812]

I found this site and article today. I thought some of you may be interested.

http://www.allworldwars.com/Peculiarities-of-Russian-Warfare-by-Erhard-Raus.html

[Flying Penguin]

I found this site and article today. I thought some of you may be interested.

http://www.allworldwars.com/Peculiarities-of-Russian-Warfare-by-Erhard-Raus.html

Fascinating, so far it's as illuminating on the psyche of early cold war western generals and propaganda as on the Russian fighting machine....

[Andrew H.]

I found this site and article today. I thought some of you may be interested.

http://www.allworldwars.com/Peculiarities-of-Russian-Warfare-by-Erhard-Raus.html

Ummm...I'm a little skeptical.

No one who belongs to the Western sphere of culture will ever be able to understand the Russian completely, or to analyze the character and soul of this Asiatic who has grown up on the far side of the border of Europe. The Russian is unfathomable. He swings from one extreme to the other without our being able to recognize the reasons for his behavior. It is possible to predict from experience how practically every other soldier in the world will behave in a given situation—but never the Russian.

[Flying Penguin]

Ummm...I'm a little skeptical.

It's a cracking read:

In 80 out of 100 cases the Russian who has to stand on his own feet does not know what to do.

[Lethaface]

"The Russian" is contradicted in the same text many times

[womble]

I have not done controlled testing. However I have played a number of small QB's and have tried different combinations of C and C with the Russians, so my observations are not, as you pompously suggest, plucking gut feelings out of thin air.

Regardless of the amount, and integrity of C and C I provide, the Russians falter quickly under fire. These QB's are played with both the Russians and Germans on normal and regular settings with a leadership of 0.

So what you're leaving uncontrolled is the amount of fire each side is taking, and the tactical situation. And your own inherent, unavoidable biases.

That's why you're drawing unsupportable conclusions: a SWAG suggests you're leaving three quarters of the important factors uncontrolled. Similar conclusions in the other direction could be drawn from the AAR that Elvis and Bil presented.

[sburke]

It's a cracking read:

rotflmao, sounds like it was written by Robert E Howard - "the mysterious asiatic" attitude he always wrote about. Actually yeah I think you could consider this pulp fiction.

I particularly liked this. Poor "poor" Germany.

5. Nevertheless, it is not easy to draw the correct conclusions from the experiences gained, because the means available to the opposing forces were very unevenly matched. Except for the first few months of the Eastern Campaign, we were, so to speak, constantly waging a war of the poor against the rich. Several Russian surprise attacks would have been detected in the assembly stage, had we but had sufficient reconnaissance facilities at our disposal. The Russians would not have broken through many a German position, had it been more adequately manned, and had sufficient materiel for defense been available. The danger exists,. therefore, that Russian feats may be somewhat overrated.

[MikeyD]

Its not just a country's internal propaganda service that inflates wartime capabilities. From the beginning of time the victor has tended to grossly inflate the capabilities of the vanquished too. Remember the Persians drinking the rivers dry as they passed through Greece? Remember Caesar facing the Helvetii hordes in the hundreds of thousands? Caesar in particular had a nasty habit of overestimating his opponents by a factor of 10. Beating someone against those odds looks really good on your resume.

[Michael Emrys]

Actually yeah I think you could consider this pulp fiction.

Or to put it another way, the Soviets in the final analysis were better at organizing a victorious campaign.

Michael

[Vanir Ausf B]

http://www.allworldwars.com/Peculiarities-of-Russian-Warfare-by-Erhard-Raus.html

I. Camouflage

295. The Russians were excellent at camouflage. With their primitive instinct they understood perfectly how to blend into their surroundings, and were trained to vanish into the ground upon even the slightest provocation.

Hey BFC, is Russian primitive instinct modeled in CMRT?

[Michael Emrys]

Hey BFC, is Russian primitive instinct modeled in CMRT?

I hear their senses of smell and hearing are phenomenal.

Michael

[z1812]

Fascinating, so far it's as illuminating on the psyche of early cold war western generals and propaganda as on the Russian fighting machine....

My thoughts as well.

[c3k]

Its not just a country's internal propaganda service that inflates wartime capabilities. From the beginning of time the victor has tended to grossly inflate the capabilities of the vanquished too. Remember the Persians drinking the rivers dry as they passed through Greece? Remember Caesar facing the Helvetii hordes in the hundreds of thousands? Caesar in particular had a nasty habit of overestimating his opponents by a factor of 10. Beating someone against those odds looks really good on your resume.

Colonel von Delbruck (sp) has a great book on ancient armies realities vs. myths. He was the military tutor to the young Kaiser. Very interesting read. Nothing like a Prussian Colonel in the royal court to test ancient methods of marching and attacking. He had more resources than the average researcher

[MikeyD]

Assuming there's only one historian named Delbrück, I've got a dog-eared copy of "The Dawn of Modern Warfare" by my bedside right now, trying to reread it for the first time in 15 years.

[Battlefront.com]

The big difference between Stalin and Hitler... as war leaders no matter how appealing in other ways.. was that Stalin was often a good judge of his marshals and even when on the face of things events went badly stuck with them. If they performed well... given the prevailing circumstances... he seemed to judge that correctly and did not sack them as Hitler would.

Stalin was, by far, a better war leader than Hitler. Not just in judging his senior staff and not imposing his will, but also marshaling the other factors necessary to win a Total War. Hitler was utterly incompetent and he largely put incompetent people in charge of doing incompetent things.

Now, it didn't start out that way. Early Soviet history (1930s-1942) had Stalin making massive blunders that almost lost the war. On the other hand, Germany under Hitler made very few mistakes from 1930s to 1940. But the later period Stalin came around and learned from his mistakes while Hitler "doubled down" on his failures as a leader by interfering more.

In the NWE the casualty ratio was often Allied to German, 1 : 2. The Germans were routinely out fought. This was largely due to resources... but that is not cheating... . If NATO uses air and artillery against poorer enemies it’s not cheating. As in comparative advantage in economics armies play to their strengths.

Careful there as you're the one advising against stereotyping The Allies beat the Germans in the West because they outfought them on the ground. They had equal, if not better, low level leadership and superior senior leadership. Equipment quality was also generally superior to German quality. War material superiority definitely helped, but it wasn't the deciding factor any more than the Soviet's war material superiority in 1944/45 was.

I don’t think the evidence is overwhelming that by ’44 the Soviets still lost more as a percentage of their forces than the Germans... even at the CM level.... . More later... but the ratios moved so far to the advantage of the Soviets that if at the tactical level the Germans were still routinely so much better if should really show in the figures in a way it does not.

Which is why using big year wide ratios doesn't work Let's put it in basic terms. I have 1000 soldiers, 500 of which are combat specific. You have 2000 soldiers, 1500 of which are combat specific. What is the force ratio 1:2 or 1:3? The numbers you are using are 1:2 but on the ground the reality was 1:3.

If the smaller sized force loses 50% of it's combat forces it has 250 men available for fighting. If the larger sized force loses 50% of it's forces it has 750 fighting soldiers remaining. In military terms the smaller force is pretty much combat ineffective as a whole, but the larger force most likely has combat effective forces remaining. Let's say 1/2 of their surviving force. This means the ratio of combat effective troops is now 0.

The smaller force is now relegated to putting it's non-combat troops (which have a lower combat value) in the front line to defend against the remaining combat effective troops of the larger force. This is 1000 rear troops vs. 375 combat troops. This is, on paper, a 3:1 advantage but it is highly unlikely all of those rear troops are at the front at one time and their combat value is much lower. Which means in reality the larger force has a combat advantage to some degree.

In a battle of attrition the smaller force is likely to lose 1000 men and the larger force perhaps 700. On paper this makes the larger force appear to have a superior combat outcome, when in reality combat soldier for combat soldier it lost roughly 1:1.5 even though it had odds of 1:3 to start with.

And this crude example doesn't look at the role of artillery, armor, and air. A tank formation that is attacking against a defender without adequate AT capabilities has an impact totally disproportionate to the size of it's crew. In a CM battle I can take a 3 or 4 man light tank and easily cause 20 casualties if there's nobody in the area with an AT capability.

These sorts of things are called "combat multipliers" for a reason

Anyway... force ratios are a horrible way to assess military success. They simply are not good predictors or explainers of tactical combat. COL Dupy learned this when he tried to force these things into his Quantified Judgment Method to predict outcome. It was a fatally flawed venture for the simple reason that bad data in meant bad data out.

Oh, and let's not forget that there is no definitive loss ratio to use. The Soviets notoriously under reported their losses and the Germans probably overestimated them, while likely accurately accounting for their own. The numbers are, therefore, inherently unreliable even before trying to draw questionable conclusions.

If I understand the above correctly then there is no specific "weakness" built into the Soviet units unless you are splitting squads.

Absolutely. I can say this with 100% certainty because bias would need to be purposefully designed and the purposefully implemented. Since I am in charge of the design and Charles is in charge of implementation, and neither of us believe in national bias crap, for sure none of it is in the game. Our testers also have not spotted anything accidental.

Perhaps I am missing something. If someone can enlighten me, then I am all ears.

Hopefully the follow up posts have helped you, because that's what is going on. As far as the code is concerned the only difference between a German soldier and a Soviet one is the artwork. That's a fact.

Steve

[sburke]

Hopefully the follow up posts have helped you, because that's what is going on. As far as the code is concerned the only difference between a German soldier and a Soviet one is the artwork. That's a fact.

Steve

That isn't entirely true. We did find that honkin big radio was stuffed with vodka.

[Battlefront.com]

OK, there is the slight reduction in command quality for any Soviet leader near the portable vodka bar, but it's only slightly more than the penalty of any German leader near the Schnapps bar and the Americans near the rotgut whiskey bar or the Brits near the tepid beer bar. Canadians have a slightly higher grade of whiskey and the Poles drink something their mechanics distill from hydraulic fluid.

Steve

[sburke]

OK, there is the slight reduction in command quality for any Soviet leader near the portable vodka bar, but it's only slightly more than the penalty of any German leader near the Schnapps bar and the Americans near the rotgut whiskey bar or the Brits near the tepid beer bar. Canadians have a slightly higher grade of whiskey and the Poles drink something their mechanics distill from hydraulic fluid.

Steve

So is that the reason for all those penalties near the Café Grammont? I noticed my pixeltruppen are darn near useless once in proximity.

[c3k]

One of the amazing strengths of this game system/simulation engine is how well its modeling at the low level ends up reflecting higher level history.

Look at the Italians in CMFI vs. the US. The differences in performance are purely down to unit organization and equipment: TO&E. With the correct TO&E modeled, the Italians become an unwieldy, weak, brittle force of infantry which is easily routed by modern combined arms. (The key there is "modern combined arms". In a pure infantry (bolt-action rifle) vs. similar infantry, they stand up pretty well.)

Similarly, you find how important those MG42's really were. (Especially with the v2.11 patch.) In CMRT, the '44 Soviet Army is able to show its strengths. And it does have weaknesses, which can be exploited if the German player is skilled and has the right terrain and support. Or he'll get crushed. As it happened.

Again, the impressive thing is how the only difference between the individual pixeltruppen is their artwork. The rest is due to historic TO&E.

Oh, and how eager my pixeltruppen are to die for me. They seek glory.

Ken

[nik mond]

For some people dreaming of commisars: They were abolished on Oct. 9th, 1942. They were replaced by political officers with no control on military matters and usually a lower rank than the military commander. IIRC many former commissars were just reconverted to regular officers then assigned to combat units.

That's too bad. Kommisar's are kool:

[ridethe415]

That's too bad. Kommisar's are kool:

he was awesome.

[Canada Guy]

The bizarre and irrational behaviour of Hitler could also be attributed to Syphilis. There is some evidence that he may have contracted syphilis during the first world war. He was attended to by a Dr that specialized in treating syphilitic cases. The cure of the time was mercury, which he was prescribed, and it could have been the side-effects of the mercury (mad-hatters syndrome) or from the brain slowly deteriorating from the neurosyphilis disease. The symptoms include

brain damage: Depending on which part is damaged, symptoms could range from motor effects (such as tremors) to mood disorders (such as having delusions of grandeur). Muscle weakness, pain, decreased muscle coordination, and loss of movement of the limbs are possible.

There is actually much to be said for physical and psychological effects on leadership. You can see it in Meade (Peninsula Campaign) as well as Napoleon (Waterloo) and General John Bell Hood (Tennessee).

This does not excuse but may explain some of his behaviour.