Tips for playing Soviets?

[PEB14]

On 4/8/2024 at 2:35 AM, Halmbarte said:

The Germans responded by 'holding to the last man' and 'take not one step back', which didn't work out too well for them. 

It's like Hitler & Stalin had switched roles by the end of WWII. Which is another reason you shouldn't fight the same people for too long: The survivors are liable to get good. 

H

That's not completely true: the "not one step back" was Hitler's motto from the beginning of WW2 'til the end, with first practical application in December 1941 (and with positive results in this particular occasion as, according to many historians, the "not one step back" order saved the Wehrmacht from another Napoleon-like Berezina disaster).

So it's more like the Stavka did LEARN during WW2, while the OKW didn't.

[George MC]

On 2/19/2024 at 2:57 PM, Anthony P. said:

I've touched on the Soviet open/closed hatch fighting in another thread here, but in summary:

As has been pointed out, Soviet doctrine (don't know about modern Russian) was "fight closed up". However, the WW2 experience was that a lot of tankers realised that that just didn't work very well in practice, and stopped doing it as they got experienced. That's been a recurring theme I've seen in several Red Army tank crew autobiographies. TC arrives at his unit, fights buttoned up, is told by his crew "you'll die just as dead if a Panzer/PaK you didn't spot destroys the tank as you'll be by small arms fire", heeds said advice or doesn't and realises that yes, he's not seeing much at all.

Typically all AFVs in CM have inferior spotting with their crew turned in until thermal sights become a thing. In the WW2 titles I keep tanks unbuttoned until within roughly within 300m of enemy dismounts or built up areas. A tank with a dead TC is handicapped, but a couple of terrified survivors with a burning, exploding tank are substantially more so.

Exactly!

I'd for the early T-34s with a crew of four and the tank commander doubling up as gunner, being unbuttoned gave no real advantage.

With the advent of the T-34/85 and a five-man crew, the commander no longer doubled as gunner and could spend his time fully occupied with fighting the tank. At the very least quickly unbuttoning to take a look about was more feasible. As one veteran noted –“I always kept my hatch open, because those who kept it closed burned. They had no time to bail out.” So it would be easy enough to pop the hatch to have a quick look around. As you say - thsoe who had survived long enough would know what to do to increase both their chances of living and being more combat effective.