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Small unit actions during the late war?


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Any good sources of information regarding small unit actions during the latter stages of the war? Summer -44 and onwards? I have read the "Small Unit Actions During The German Campaign in Russia" publication several times, and it is a very good source of info on tactics and handling of company sized units during the early part of the war, but I haven't really seen much of the same regarding the latter parts of the war in Russia. Any ideas?

This brings up a touchingly poignant point. 40 years ago, when I started in this genre, you could have talked to the actual soldiers who fought at the time. Now, with almost vanishing exceptions, you can't. Yes, "war stories" from veterans have there memory bias--particularly survivor bias ("almost" being killed is a tale which can be told, unlike being killed)--but we have, unfortunately, lost 10s of millions (to take an arbitrary number) of WW2 vet stories, world-wide in the last 40 years. I think I can feel the loss of those stories even in this forum.

A front-line soldier, generally, would only give you small unit action stories--because they would not know anything else. (My father took care of veterans, medically, when I was young, and then I went on to do so myself when older) A soldier joining with a couple of buddies to take out an annoying sniper on their flanks, was likely such a common action that it went uncommented on, generally, in the written literature. There would be just a dead body, or two, to make a report on, and the memories of the soldiers taking part.

I would encourage even more personal intimacy with regard to the scenario design. CM1 had some--there were adaptations of the old TV series "Combat!", and Band of Brother scenarios, and I seem to remember some sort of small unit "rescue" scenario. Now that we have 1:1 representation, "units" are not just units, but represent groups of (simulated)people. Zoom in on them, in our small scenarios, perhaps?

[posted on what, in the U.S., is Memorial Day]

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This brings up a touchingly poignant point. 40 years ago, when I started in this genre, you could have talked to the actual soldiers who fought at the time. Now, with almost vanishing exceptions, you can't.

Re-posted from the General Discussion forum:

In the mid-sixties I was hospitalized in New York clinic with pneumonia. I was about 12. I shared a room with a man, fortyish, attached to an IV and possessing a decided German accent. He was intermittently chatty, relating that he had been in the Hitler Youth before emigrating to the US. One day my dad came to visit and, having served under Patton in N. Africa and Sicily, questioned the man about his wartime experiences. But the German proved reticent on the subject. My father then brought up the unfortunate fate of the Jews. The man exploded, detailed the various crimes against civilization committed by that group and terminated the exchange with the remark 'Who cares about the Jews?'. He never addressed me another word. Months later my mother informed me she read in the local paper that the German had been arrested on a 'morals charge'.

The second encounter took place at the neighborhood tennis club a few years later. One of the members was a German-American who had served in a Wehrmacht tank unit. He admitted joining the party as a teenager but deplored the Nazi regime for its crimes, swearing he had no idea what was going on- meaning the death camps. He was in his early twenties when the war ended. I believed him. Then he said something which I'll never forget: '*****, Americans (paraphrasing) who judge us for what we young Germans did do so unjustly. When the Nazis came in the economy improved, we were optimistic. And they have no idea how thrilling and seductive it all was; the rallies, the pageantry, the comradeship. In retrospect it was a lie, but you had to be there. What would you have done?'

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Re-posted from the General Discussion forum:

In the mid-sixties I was hospitalized in New York clinic with pneumonia. I was about 12. I shared a room with a man, fortyish, attached to an IV and possessing a decided German accent. He was intermittently chatty, relating that he had been in the Hitler Youth before emigrating to the US. One day my dad came to visit and, having served under Patton in N. Africa and Sicily, questioned the man about his wartime experiences. But the German proved reticent on the subject. My father then brought up the unfortunate fate of the Jews. The man exploded, detailed the various crimes against civilization committed by that group and terminated the exchange with the remark 'Who cares about the Jews?'. He never addressed me another word. Months later my mother informed me she read in the local paper that the German had been arrested on a 'morals charge'.

The second encounter took place at the neighborhood tennis club a few years later. One of the members was a German-American who had served in a Wehrmacht tank unit. He admitted joining the party as a teenager but deplored the Nazi regime for its crimes, swearing he had no idea what was going on- meaning the death camps. He was in his early twenties when the war ended. I believed him. Then he said something which I'll never forget: '*****, Americans (paraphrasing) who judge us for what we young Germans did do so unjustly. When the Nazis came in the economy improved, we were optimistic. And they have no idea how thrilling and seductive it all was; the rallies, the pageantry, the comradeship. In retrospect it was a lie, but you had to be there. What would you have done?'

When someone starts telling you all your problems are some other groups fault you need to start wondering what they are really doing. We have no shortage of that in American politics be it the Utah Gov decrying gay marriage or folks blaming immigrants etc etc. It is no more right now than it was then.

Oh boy I can see the wheels coming off this thread any second now. :D

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When someone starts telling you all your problems are some other groups fault you need to start wondering what they are really doing. We have no shortage of that in American politics be it the Utah Gov decrying gay marriage or folks blaming immigrants etc etc. It is no more right now than it was then.

Oh boy I can see the wheels coming off this thread any second now. :D

Just look at the recent EU elections to see more of the "it's their fault" mentality as well as fear showing it's ugly head. People actually vote for parties with nazi sympathies.

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Stories are being lost indeed. I managed to interview my grandfather about his service before he passed a few years ago. He was a sub-machinegunner in the Finnish Army and somehow managed to live through it all. He was a simple soldier and had no real grasp of the tactics or strategy, he simply did his job as told. That's how he viewed it afterwards at least. Still have his stories documented, but they are fragmented.

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Some more suggestions. Most of these read as after action reports at the squad and platoon level. A little hard to believe at times so take it all in with a skeptical eye, I am not an expert on post WW2 german literature but often thought when I was reading these books that it could all be propaganda. Good resource for getting an idea of what small unit actions looked like though.

http://www.amazon.com/Infantry-Aces-Soldier-Stackpole-Military-ebook/dp/B004BJ11E0/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

http://www.amazon.com/Panzer-Aces-Commanders-Stackpole-Military-ebook/dp/B008ML7DEK/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1401200766&sr=1-1&keywords=panzer+aces

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Stories are being lost indeed. I managed to interview my grandfather about his service before he passed a few years ago. He was a sub-machinegunner in the Finnish Army and somehow managed to live through it all. He was a simple soldier and had no real grasp of the tactics or strategy, he simply did his job as told. That's how he viewed it afterwards at least. Still have his stories documented, but they are fragmented.

With the appropriate CM2 module, it would be a blessing to see his stories put into scenarios--if it was not too painful.

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Any good sources of information regarding small unit actions during the latter stages of the war? Summer -44 and onwards? I have read the "Small Unit Actions During The German Campaign in Russia" publication several times, and it is a very good source of info on tactics and handling of company sized units during the early part of the war, but I haven't really seen much of the same regarding the latter parts of the war in Russia. Any ideas?

Taking the Small Unit Actions During the German Campaign in Russia as an example ... Chapter 2 - XII - An Armored Task Force Seizes Two Vital Bridges.

Read the description and look at the schematic - then try and find where this action took place. I'll save you the bother - there is a scenario on the repository that depicts this but the author states that he could not locate the actual ground. I have tried hard to do so myself (my first go was when CMBB came out). I have been up and down that area on paper maps and Google Earth ... there is no ground that matches the schematic.

Discuss ...

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This is a common enough phenomenon which is not surprising given the length of time after the event that many of these accounts were written, the pace of events and the political and social landscape which the writers inhabited. Add in Combat Fatigue and disorientation and you are lucky that the Space Lobsters of Doom are not seen more often.

To give you an example of actual research conducted into this, the survivors of the Dambuster Raid were interviewed in the 1970s about the raid and the accounts compared with After Action Intelligence reports and other contemporary documents. Part of the findings were that the survivors remembered events depicted in the 1955 film "The Dambusters" as being real events that actually happened even though they were, in fact, complete fiction.

Given that Soviet and German accounts of the war rarely cover the same action, it is difficult to compare the two and neither side gets the benefit of the other sides account. In one case, where I have found contemporary accounts from both sides, you would hardly believe that they were talking about the same battle and both sides leave out large chunks that are not to their credit. Both sides claim victory and minimise their losses when a impartial observer would call it a draw.

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With the appropriate CM2 module, it would be a blessing to see his stories put into scenarios--if it was not too painful.

I made a small attempt at this with CMBB. Will certainly do it again if a Finnish module comes out.

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This is a common enough phenomenon which is not surprising given the length of time after the event that many of these accounts were written, the pace of events and the political and social landscape which the writers inhabited. Add in Combat Fatigue and disorientation and you are lucky that the Space Lobsters of Doom are not seen more often.

To give you an example of actual research conducted into this, the survivors of the Dambuster Raid were interviewed in the 1970s about the raid and the accounts compared with After Action Intelligence reports and other contemporary documents. Part of the findings were that the survivors remembered events depicted in the 1955 film "The Dambusters" as being real events that actually happened even though they were, in fact, complete fiction.

Given that Soviet and German accounts of the war rarely cover the same action, it is difficult to compare the two and neither side gets the benefit of the other sides account. In one case, where I have found contemporary accounts from both sides, you would hardly believe that they were talking about the same battle and both sides leave out large chunks that are not to their credit. Both sides claim victory and minimise their losses when a impartial observer would call it a draw.

Indeed. I distinctly remember a story my gramps told me that did ring VERY similar to a scene from an old war movie I knew both him and me had watched. Memory is a fickle thing. On the other hand, he told me about the death of his best friend in June 1944. He was lost in a local counterattack and went missing with a lot of other from the same company (not the same coy as my gramps), and sure enough. The company war diary gives details on losses incurred during a counter attack on a Soviet position on June 23 1944. His friend is even mentioned in name, and the place was also spot on. So it is a bit hit and miss that memory thing. :)

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Indeed. I distinctly remember a story my gramps told me that did ring VERY similar to a scene from an old war movie I knew both him and me had watched. Memory is a fickle thing. On the other hand, he told me about the death of his best friend in June 1944. He was lost in a local counterattack and went missing with a lot of other from the same company (not the same coy as my gramps), and sure enough. The company war diary gives details on losses incurred during a counter attack on a Soviet position on June 23 1944. His friend is even mentioned in name, and the place was also spot on. So it is a bit hit and miss that memory thing. :)

And though memories are fallible, I still think the lack of living soldiers can worsen the intent of verisimilitude [sorry, non-English speakers for the word] in simulations like CM2. I suggest that WW2 "felt" a certain way--such as to understand what it means that horses were used as transportation by some of the major combatants throughout the war, such as to understand that event the term "C2" is, I believe, anachronistic, and thus brings a horde of conceptual shadings which are...maybe.... a bit off, or, again, anachronistic being a better word.

I have mentioned this before: I wish BFC had a "Board" of WW2 vets to just look at least some of the CM2 action--to comment on it-- maybe this has been done, but it is likely too late, the vets too elderly, and memories too distant to any longer be much effective.

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