CM2 & Russian Squads

[Gregory Deych]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>

There were work battalions as well in Soviet army. Maybe we can see squads armed with shovels and saws...

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

There is a russian joke that goes something like this:

An American general is being shown the Soviet troops from different units. He walks past some fine looking troops carrying rifles, and asks:

"Who are they?"

"They airborne, Comrade General. Each one is expected to kill at least 3 Germans."

Then he walks past some excellent soldiers, who are looking particularly trim, each one carrying an SMG.

"And who are they?"

"Those are our deep reconnaisance units. They are expected to kill at least 5 Germans each."

And then at the end he walks past some guys who are lounging around half in, half out of uniform, most of then unshaven and carrying shovels.

"And who are those?" he asks.

"Oh...those are construction troops. They are so scary, they don't even get weapons!"

[This message has been edited by Gregory Deych (edited 10-16-2000).]

[Keith]

I think it is entirely sufficient to model early war Soviet units as having "Green" or "Conscript" experience level with a high percentage chance of fanaticism. Both the unit experience level and chance for fanaticism are already available in the current game. If you want to penalize the Russians further they might want to give the Russian troops a little extra time delay for executing orders - simulating the lack of radios, lack of trained officers, and general indeciveness of the troops. Each year of the war this extra delay penalty would diminish and ceast to exist around 1944.

[Guest Rommel22]

Good joke Gregory, lol.

Anyway I hope BTS uses this info, it is very usefull. I agree with the time delay but no other penalty. You can just model the troops as all conscripts, which most were at 41 and 42 and 43 and I think conscripts were still being used till 45.

When the russians (soviets) "liberated" a town they replenished or filled a division with the men from the town. It happened often, it is recorded in many books.

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From the Das Reich book as said by a German soldier

"when the Russians reached us, we opened fire, the first wave had no weapons.

The second wave didn't either (fire fodder). The 3rd and 4th had weapons and opened fire on us.

By this time we were low on ammo, but we drove them back."

[The Commissar]

Does anyone think that this idea would be viable:

A QB set during the early years of the Eastern Front (41-42) with the player(s) able to select their own soldiers, should be limited to the number of Vets and above they can purchase. This would simulate the lack of these sort of troops in the Soviet army so early in the war. Im thinking only sevearl platoons of Vets + should be allowed per QB on the Soviet side, and may even adjust depending on the points allowed for the QB. Simulating that the bigger the fighting force the more likely there was going to be an experienced unit in there somewhere.

What do you guys think?

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"...Every position, every meter of Soviet soil must be defended to the last drop of blood..."

- Segment from Order 227 "Not a step back"

[:USERNAME:]

It took a brave man to be a coward in the soviet army.

[Juardis]

Summer, 1942 - Not one step backward order from Stalin:

'Panic-mongers and cowards must be destroyed on the spot. The retreat mentality must be decisively eliminated. Army commanders who have allowed the voluntary abandonment of positions must be removed and sent for immediate trial by military tribunal' Anyone who surrendered was 'a traitor to the Motherland'. Each army had to organize 'three to five well-armed detachments (up to 200 men each)' to form a second line to shoot down any soldier who tried to run away. Zhukov implemented this order on the Western Front within ten days, using tanks manned by specially selected officers. They followed the first wave of an attack, ready 'to combat cowardice', by opening fire on any soldiers who wavered.

The above was an excerpt from Stalingrad by Anthony Beevor. Single quotes are from Stalins original order. Sounds to me like it IS in the scale of CM if cowards are to be shot on the spot by a 2nd line of tanks, presumably within LOS. Regardless, it's an interesting philosopy to try to model in a computer game, in a sick sort of way.

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Jeff Abbott

[patboivin]

I'm not difficult to please, I just want to play Hill 621 again.

Interesting discussion though.

[Los]

RE: Commisars and executions:

Anthony Beevor reports on p. 166 of "Stalingrad:The Fateful seige":

"That the Soviet regime was almost as unforgiving towards its own soldiers as towards the enemy is demonstrated by the total figure of 13,500 executions, both summary and judicial, carried out during the Battle of Stalingrad. This inlcuded all crimes classed by commisars as 'extraordinary ecvents', such as retreating without orders, to self inflicted wounds, desertion, crossing over to the enemy, corruption and antisoviet activites. Red Army soldiers were also deemed guilty if they failed to shoot immediately any comrades seen trying to desert or surrender to the enemy."

That's the equivalent of more than a whole division of their own troops.

As far as deserters and Hiwis (captured russians who volunteeered to fight for the Germans rather than sit in camp or for other reasons (p.184):

"Sixth Army had already 50,000 Russain auxillaries attached to it's front line divisions representing a quarter of their total fighting strength. 71st and 76th Division had over 8,000 each, by mid-November 1942, roughly the same number as their German strength. There is no number for Sixth ARmy ancillary formations but according to some estimates would bring te total to over 70,000.

These guys were known by the Soviets as "former Russians", "and the phrase former Russian was to serve as a death sentence for hundreds of thousands of men in the course of the next three years."

INterestingly enough thousands deserted over to the Germans during the battle and Russaians were even deserting over to the Germans when the Sixth Army was encircled, things were so bad!

There's a whole chapter devoted to desertions and executions in his book.

Los

[killmore]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Los:

RE: Commisars and executions:

INterestingly enough thousands deserted over to the Germans during the battle and Russaians were even deserting over to the Germans when the Sixth Army was encircled, things were so bad!

Los<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This is where duality comes. Sometimes troops deserted and sometimes they fought to the death...

As far as I read conscripts were quite likely to desert/panic in their first 3 days of fighting and especially under artilery barage. After that they become quite determine to fight to the death.

The problem was that many time raw recruits were thrown into toughest battles like the cannon fodder they were...

[Guest MantaRay]

This thread is getting me excited for CM2 to come out. Gonna be cool to see how BTS handles the hoardes of the Red Army.

Ray

[Fernando]

Russian were well kown by their lack of flexibility and poor tactics. I suggest the following points:

1. Increasing the delays for the Russian squads and vehicles, maybe doubling or tripling them, thus to implement an order for a Russian regular squad should take a much longer delay than an order for a German regular squad. It could take up to 2 minutes (3-4 if out of command) for a green Russian squad to implement an order. This turns Russian units into very inflexible ones and compel the Russian player to think ahead and to play using a rigid plan.

2. Increase the delays even further when the PO isn’t in command of its Company officer or there’s not a Company officer.

3. Most of the time Russian officers and NCOs shouldn’t NEVER get command bonuses and they should seldom get the other bonuses (moral, combat and hiding ones). IMHO it’s better to increase the Russian fanaticism level than to give moral bonuses to Russian POs.

[STRAKER]

I think hand to hand combat will be interesting here as alot of that went on in Russsia, with German lines being overrun attacking russians.

Will they have guns or pitchforks?

Whatever they model it with , it will be amusing. Ill just have to make sure i have 10 MG's to hold em all off.

[IntelWeenie]

To further the PO/commisar discussion:

Should they be represented as a separate unit or as part of a Company HQ?

I lean towards the latter, since that is where they would be in combat (and CM doesn't represent individual leaders like ASL does).

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Cats aren't clean, they're covered with cat spit.

[PzKpfw 1]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Fernando:

Russian were well kown by their lack of flexibility and poor tactics. I suggest the following points:

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes they were in German accounts & since we all know how the Germans were the heroic tacticly brilliant, but hopelessly outnumbered heroes of the Eastren Front, the Soviets must remaimn the faceless , tacticly inept stumbling horde.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>

1. Increasing the delays for the Russian squads and vehicles, maybe doubling or tripling them, thus to implement an order for a Russian regular squad should take a much longer delay than an order for a German regular squad. It could take up to 2 minutes (3-4 if out of command) for a green Russian squad to implement an order. This turns Russian units into very inflexible ones and compel the Russian player to think ahead and to play using a rigid plan.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I see no reason to subject a Soviet Plt or Sqd to a 2 min delay in a 60 sec game, I'd want some justification for such a long delay as in quantifible evidence that a Soviet Sqd leader couldn't get his 8 men to move for 2 mins or was not able to keep up with his men.

I never understood how when the Soviets chose firepower over manouver they suddenly became rigid, as well as strategicly & tacticly inept, despite the fact the attack was usualy vs the weakest part of the German lines or a gap found through recon. So because they chose to attack on a narrow front with a clear men an material advantage they were unflexible etc.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>

2. Increase the delays even further when the PO isn’t in command of its Company officer or there’s not a Company officer.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Why dont we just ask BTS to make them immobile?. The PO did not run the Company nor was their a PO at the Plt/Sqd level, I described how a Soviet Rifle Sqd operated earlier.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>

3. Most of the time Russian officers and NCOs shouldn’t NEVER get command bonuses and they should seldom get the other bonuses (moral, combat and hiding ones). IMHO it’s better to increase the Russian fanaticism level than to give moral bonuses to Russian POs.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

What is your basis on this? so in 18 months training Soviet officers are as poor leaders as they were in June 1941?, or Soviet officers who survived months of combat never learned anything? what happens after 1942, when their is no longer a PO?.

See I can agree on modeling some limitations in 41, & 42 but after that it gets harder & harder to justify, as the Soviets were getting better & better, arguably not as eficent tacticly, but still better as evident from their advances in 43 after Zitadelles failure & especialy in 44 & 45, asd I said earlier it will be interesting to see how or if BTS models the Soviet forces evolution.

Regards, John Waters

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"We've got the finest tanks in the world. We just love to see the

German Royal Tiger come up on the field".

Lt.Gen. George S. Patton, Jr. Febuary 1945.

[This message has been edited by PzKpfw 1 (edited 10-17-2000).]

[ASL Veteran]

I think Commissars were modeled in ASL quite well. Any squads stacked with a commissar had there morale raised by one. The commissar also rallied troops easier, but if they didn't rally they were reduced in quality. Maybe in CM you could make any squads in the command radius of a commissar fanatic, but have any squads that break or route or something lose a man each minute until they rally (to simulate the commissar 'inspiring the troops)

[PzKpfw 1]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by IntelWeenie:

To further the PO/commisar discussion:

Should they be represented as a separate unit or as part of a Company HQ?

I lean towards the latter, since that is where they would be in combat (and CM doesn't represent individual leaders like ASL does).

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'd agree as the PO was assigned to the Company HQ.

Regards, John Waters

------------------

"We've got the finest tanks in the world. We just love to see the

German Royal Tiger come up on the field".

Lt.Gen. George S. Patton, Jr. Febuary 1945.

[Snake Eyes]

There is no need, IMHO, to make special adjustments for Soviet squads in CM2. The current experience ratings will do quite well. The lower the experience level, the longer it takes a squad to react. Experienced German squads will always get the jump on lesser-experienced Soviet squads. Early war Soviet squads should be mostly green/conscript. HQ's should have little or no command bonuses. The Soviet player will have to plan his moves well in advance and be less able to react to changes on the battlefield. This will have the desired affect on play.

Taken as a total, these minor touches will greatly reduce the effectiveness of the Soviet units. As a consequence, only an increase in Soviet numbers will balance play. This would be historically accurate.

Don’t think that all Soviet units are incompetent. As the Soviets increased in experience the scales balanced. They became quite good at war by the end. They beat the Germans using Soviet tactics and Soviet equipment (mostly).

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It is easy to be brave from a safe distance. -Aesop

[Schugger]

Interesting thread and when I read the posts here I'm getting more and more excited of CM2.

I think the horrendous losses the Russians suffered in the war were not because the inefficiency of the individual soldier rather then of poor doctrine and strategy. I start to ask myself if a game with CM's scale could picture this without making harsh restrictments of a player's options.

How would you picture the German battle weariness in the first Winter of the war?

They captured and killed so many soldiers in the initial cauldron battles that the had (perhaps) believed there wasn't any enemy left to fight against.

But still they had to face fresh and combat ready soviet troops at the gates of Moscow while they were themselves totally unprepared to fight in the Russian winter.

I don't think the Russians there were Conscripts, neither were the Germans but how will you simulate this CM?

I think there were many occurrences on the eastern front which fit in CM's scale where the Russians actually made an excellent assault or put up a sounding defense even without numerical superiority, but perhaps they are overshadowed by the larger events which are covered in many books. Perhaps this make many of us believe that the Red Army usually sucks. Do you not smell an old fish when a German general wrote in his biography that he failed in accomplishing his mission simply by the enemy's numerical superiority? It is much easier for him to say so, than to admit that he was simply outguessed.

Many suggestions I have heard here would it make rather boring to play the Russian side.

It is absolutely not my intention to step on someone's toes here and I just want my two Pfennige to the "brainstorming thread" here. I just want ( I assume as anyone else here) to get CM2 as realistically as possible, even if this leads to some nasty surprises.

For example: If it proves to be a fact that the Russian infantry rifle was inaccurate, prone to malfunctions, etc. than the FP value of that rifle should be toned down.

If it is a fact that soviet platoon leaders weren't well educated in the early years of the war, their leadership boni should not be determined by random but decreased in general.

T-34 variants with the two-man turrets, a slow ROF perhaps?

Many, many other things are debatable: How long should be the delay times for tanks without radios ( btw, were not a good part of the US tanks in North Africa not equipped with radios)? Should it be a flat 60 seconds ( do or die!) or shouldn't it be modelled at all, as the tank is treated as an individual unit in CM with no tank platoon leader? Just because any book of the eastern front mentions the tenacity of the Russian infantrymen, is this enough of a reason to make them all prone to fanaticism in CM? What about the huge number of prisoners the Germans took?

The whole eastern front appears to me as a big can of worms. As much as I enjoy when people on this board exchange reasoned arguments over an issue, they enjoy the luxury of not having to agree and find a consensus ( a luxury which BTS obviously can't afford). That this sometimes ends up in a p*ssing contest, is a different affair; and a sad one too.

I fear that exactly this will happen when people see how CM2 is modelled, when they see that their wishes are not being implemented in the game.

I'm just glad that I'm not in the skin of the BTS guys and I still look forward to the game.

Schugger

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Specking checked with Checkspeller?

Checking checked with Spellspecker?

What the heck?

[Gregory Deych]

There are several issues behind poor Russian performance in the beginning war - roughly June 41 to December 42. In the beginning, Russian troop quality was fair, though obviously unexperienced - most soldiers were called up a year or two prior to hostilities. In CM2 terms, they would be mostly Green/Regular. The main problem was serious lack of supporting arms - either through lack of transportation, or ammunition or absense of artillery and tanks entirely. Another problem was doctrine that underplayed defense, causing Russians to launch counterattacks under very adverse circumstances. Try it, if you will, taking a Rifle battalion, with maybe 3-4 MGs (no mortars, no artillery, no armored support) against even a Company with full support complement...I bet you'll get your ass handed to you.

After much of peacetime army had been destroyed in cauldron battles of 41, the replacements were either untrained (2-3 months training) or at best reservists - but the equipment picture has improved quite a bit. By the Winter 41/Spring 42 Russian troops would be about (very rough estimate) 20% Conscript, 20% Green, 35% Regular and 25% Veteran+.

[Fernando]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by PzKpfw 1:

Yes they were in German accounts & since we all know how the Germans were the heroic tacticly brilliant, but hopelessly outnumbered heroes of the Eastren Front, the Soviets must remaimn the faceless , tacticly inept stumbling horde.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You’re right. The Russians lost about 3-4 times more soldiers than the Germans did because they were tactically brilliant and their men displayed lots of initiative

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>

I see no reason to subject a Soviet Plt or Sqd to a 2 min delay in a 60 sec game, I'd want some justification for such a long delay as in quantifible evidence that a Soviet Sqd leader couldn't get his 8 men to move for 2 mins or was not able to keep up with his men.

I never understood how when the Soviets chose firepower over manouver they suddenly became rigid, as well as strategicly & tacticly inept, despite the fact the attack was usualy vs the weakest part of the German lines or a gap found through recon. So because they chose to attack on a narrow front with a clear men an material advantage they were unflexible etc.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes, you’re right. I forgot Russians invented Blitzkrieg

I thought that their tactical doctrine was to attack in a broad front as possible hoping to create breakthroughts (it didn’t matter where) and quickly exploiting them.

AFAIK Russians were very inflexible. There are lots of German histories of Russians attacking again and again because they were ordered to do it or dying in place when the situation was clearly hopeless because no junior officer displayed some initiative and decided to change their orders. Most of them prefered to die than desobey orders. AFAIK Russian JUNIOR officers were encoraged to obey orders and they were still encouraged to obey orders AFTER the war. Initiative was encouraged at higher levels but not at small unit level. Please notice I’m not asking to downgrade Russian combat capabilities. I’m sure that Russians weren’t different than Germans man by man. I SUGGESTED to increase the delays for the Russian platoons and vehicles because it’s still easy to order trops with long delays to move across the whole map but once they are stopped it’s more difficult for them to react to the enemy moves. After getting their orders, I think it should be harder for the Soviets to change them without a direct order from their commanding officers and it means longer delays most of the time.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>

What is your basis on this? so in 18 months training Soviet officers are as poor leaders as they were in June 1941?, or Soviet officers who survived months of combat never learned anything? what happens after 1942, when their is no longer a PO?.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It was my mistake to use “PO”. It means “Platoon officer” for me but it means “Political Officer” for you. I guess not many Russian junior officers survived a lot of months in the Eastern Front anyway and I also guess tthat those surviving were promoted to higher rank. IIRC the Russians needed capable officer to command their units but they were hard to find. They disbanded their surviving pre-war armoured divisions and created armored brigades (they had the armored strengh of a German panzer battalion) because smaller units were easier to handle by the available officers. At the war’s end most infantry division, including Guards ones, were just regimental size units and some of them were even smaller. It was difficult to find capable officers for leading their big units and I guess it was also difficult to find capable leaders for leading their small units.

[Grisha]

Wow, seeing a lot of WWII German-induced fallacies in this thread about Soviet troops.

Yes, commissars would shoot deserters, but so would regular troops in just about any army. My dad shot at his own troops in the US Army during Korea when they just took off and ran away. Also, commissars no longer had joint command around the time of Operation Uran, and therefore would not have the authority to shoot a deserter from 1943, on. Consider this as well: commissars had a price on their heads on Hitler's specific orders. Many of them were no different from their fellow soldiers, just more 'patriotic'. In fact, in many units the commissar was looked upon as someone to confide with.

Soviet troops in 1941 were very poorly led, because the officer corps had been decimated by the military purges of 1937. Those officers remaining were quickly promoted to command levels that were clearly beyond their capacities. Slowly, but surely, the STAVKA (and Stalin) learned from their mistakes, and began to compile the war experience of the Red Army, taking the best tactics, and incorporating them into their combat regulations. By 1943, Soviet troops were beginning to be quite effective along with the expertise of their generals, like Vasilesky, Konev, Rokossovsky, and Vatutin, just to name a few. While it is true that German tactical skill was generally better than your average Soviet troops, it can also be said that most Soviet mass wave type attacks were from 1941-1942. By 1943, sound tactics were the rule of the day in the Red Army. Many stories abound of stunning German tactical victories, but what is beginning to come out of the Soviet archives are many stories of the Soviets doing the very same thing to the Germans. Of course they mostly occur from the latter part of the war, but they are just as striking nonetheless.

Soviets did not have 8-to-1 or 10-to-1 advantages against their German counterparts, overall. At the very most it was no higher than 3-to-1 overall, and this only by 1945. Of course, in battles high odds could be obtained, but this is just good operational tactics, something the Germans did many times during the war.

How did the Soviets defeat the Germans? Well, think about it. The Soviets had a very advanced operational art by 1944, better than the western allies, and on par with the Germans. How could the Soviets have won anything if they had poor tactics with which to base their operations on? It was never Soviet procedure to just keep pouring more men in battle - that was just the result of very poor leadership (sad, but true, Zhukov was not the best leader for an offensive. He was too linear, and relied too much on the initial push). In fact, by 1944 the Red Army had perfected the use of forward detachments, which were small, yet heavily equipped units that were sent ahead of their parent unit, usually with a very specific mission. The notable thing is that commanders of forward detachments were given wide freedom of action to complete their mission, and some of these commanders were every bit as good as the best the Germans had. In any case, a discussion of forward detachments is tangential to this thread, but I just wanted to point it out. Soviets did have sound, innovative tactics.

Were the Soviets as good as the Germans in tactical expertise, overall? I would say no, they were not. But what the Soviets did have by 1943 were well trained, veteran troops who were led by highly skilled(brilliant, in some cases) operational commanders.

Finally, most German general memoirs are from the early war years, and as such incorporate flawed perceptions of the Red Army, perceptions that went on to become the "body of truth" later on. Here is a good site to get a better understanding of why these Red Army generalizations came to be. Suffice to say, the Red Army was anything but a plodding, callous machine. And besides, the Germans were much too good to have lost to anything less than well trained troops, using good, sound tactics as part of operations that were commanded by excellent generals.

[This message has been edited by Grisha (edited 10-17-2000).]

[The Commissar]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by PzKpfw 1:

Yes they were in German accounts & since we all know how the Germans were the heroic tacticly brilliant, but hopelessly outnumbered heroes of the Eastren Front, the Soviets must remaimn the faceless , tacticly inept stumbling horde.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Gosh, I sure hope youre being sarcastic. Heroic? No, heros don't butcher civilians. If anyone was heroic, it was the Soviets. No, again wrong. It was the Russians, the people themselves who stood the test of both their government and the Nazi invasion and ended up sticking it to the Germans despite heavy casualties and nearly impossible odds due to the massive purges of the 30's.

Off topic, I know, but I just couldn't let this stand, sorry.

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"...Every position, every meter of Soviet soil must be defended to the last drop of blood..."

- Segment from Order 227 "Not a step back"

[This message has been edited by The Commissar (edited 10-17-2000).]

[PzKpfw 1]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Fernando:

You’re right. The Russians lost about 3-4 times more soldiers than the Germans did because they were tactically brilliant and their men displayed lots of initiative.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

LOL, Well considering who they were fighting & the state of their forces when attacked losses were expected, as well as inept command level leadership which slowly improved as capable leaders were found & put in combat units. Tacticly they did improve over the war arguably never to the level of German personel initiative or small unit tactics.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>

Yes, you’re right. I forgot Russians invented Blitzkrieg. I thought that their tactical doctrine was to attack in a broad front as

possible hoping to create breakthroughts (it didn’t matter where) and quickly exploiting them.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

No that was Deep Battle . Initialy a broad front was used, but they learned their lessons after the failures of the Kharkov & Mars operations, they started useing a narrow front (they tried this at Rhzev) & building a clear men & material advantage before an attack, as well as heavy recon, probes, etc, they looked for the gaps in the German lines or between armies & exploited it that was my point Fernando. their tactics evolved during the war & 'never' anything was a strong word to use.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>

AFAIK Russians were very inflexible.

There are lots of German histories of Russians attacking again and again because they were ordered to do it or dying in place when the situation was clearly hopeless because no junior officer displayed some initiative and decided to change their orders. Most of them prefered to die than desobey orders.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

And again they were initialy. Yes German works are full of these descriptions, especialy when they were defeated, it was always by the 'horde'etc, never by any skill. In 1941 & 42 due to the Germans contrroling the initiative, Soviet replacements were rushed to the Fronts from the Reserve Regts, with barely any training time Ie, German interogations in one sector in 1942 showed 42% of the Soviet Rifle replacements had less then 10 days training, before being shipped to the front, thousands upon thousands of these replacements died or were captured as fast as they arrived due to Soviet tactical imcompetence.

By 1943 the average Soviet replacement riflemen spent 3 months training in a Reserve Regt, specialist, replacements Ie, LMG gunners, mortar crewman etc, spent 4 months being trained in a Reserve Regt. In 1943 alone the Soviets maintained an average of 900,000 men & woeman in the Reserve training Regts.

Of course the JO's followed orders in the initial period, it took sa brave man not to follow orders to the letter in the Red Army. But later after the schools began & more experience was gained, and the initiative was the Soviets, their was an much more experienced Soviet officer corps in 1943 then in 1941, being led by very capable men, who understood initiative as long as it stayed within the paramaters of the mission, weighed against the cost of failure, they did not have the freedom the Germans did but it was their. As was evident in Bagration, & the Vistula-Order operations they had indeed learned how to respond to German reactions as well as acuratley predict them.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>

Please notice I’m not asking to downgrade Russian combat capabilities. I’m sure that Russians weren’t different than Germans man by man. I SUGGESTED to increase the delays for the Russian platoons and vehicles because it’s still easy to order trops with long delays to move across the whole map but once they are stopped it’s more difficult for them to react to the enemy moves. After getting their orders, I think it should be harder for the Soviets to change them without a direct order from their

commanding officers and it means longer delays most of the time.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

And I agree to a point, especialy on tanks w/o radios etc, radi of command etc I am just pointing out, that they evolved with experience at all levels, Ie, an Soviet Rifle Co tactic when moveing through forested or high grass areas was to use an advance screen of men that traveled 100m ahead of the Co as scouts these men located German MG nests, ambushes, mines, etc then reported back to the Company CO who adjusted the plt's manouver accordingly.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>

It was my mistake to use “PO”. It means “Platoon officer” for me but it means “Political Officer” for you. I guess not many Russian junior officers survived a lot of months in the Eastern Front anyway and I also guess tthat those surviving were promoted to higher rank. IIRC the Russians needed capable officer to command their units but they were hard to find. They disbanded their surviving pre-war armoured divisions and created armored brigades (they had the armored strengh of a German panzer battalion) because smaller units were easier to handle by the available officers. At the war’s end most infantry division, including Guards ones, were just regimental size units and some of them were even smaller. It was difficult to find capable officers for leading their big units and I guess it was also difficult to find capable leaders for leading their small units.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Aye, PO means Political Officer to me. Nope they did not, Soviet officer losses were astronomical, only their training schools kept up the replacement levels, Ie, 564,000 officers of all branches were commisioned in 1942 alone, thousands of experienced NCO's were promoted to Lt's starting in 1942, with over 200,000 NCO's being promoted by the end of the war. The abolishment of the Bn Commissar post, led to 10,000 more promotions to Company CO's Plt leaders etc, in May 1942 the Company level PO post was abolished, with many of these haveing extensive combat experience which led to 100,000 more combat promotions.

Over 300 Officer training schools were opened in 1942 alone with 123 of them being Infantry Lt schools, the courses initialy ran 1 year, then in 1943 the length of the course was changed to 18 months.

Soviet Rifle Regt's by wars end were the size of Rifle Co's, Rifle Co's were the size of Rifle Plts, this did not reflect poor leadership etc, or was this because of only losses, it was a chosen course of action as I said in earlier post, the Rifle Divs had the lowest priority on replacements in the Soviet forces.

The Soviets chose to use their replacements to build new Tank Corps' Mech Corps, Artilery etc instead of filling out Rifle Div's losses, so RD's stayed in the line until around 90% loss of effectiveness, & then & only then were they rested & rebuilt, as I related earlier, as long as a squad had eneough men to man the LMG the squad was kept in the line.

Ie, in 1944 & 1945 an Soviet Rifle Divisions frontage on an attack, was 2500m, a Rifle Bns frontage was 700m, on an attack, a Rifle Co's frontage on an attack, dropped from 350m in early 1944 to 100m by late 1944. To counter the choice of low RD strengths, the Soviets provided them with lavish supt, Ie, each Rifle Co had 2-3 artillery pieces & 3-4 tanks or SU's provideing direct fire suport for the attack.

Soviet artillery also heavily supported their attacks in 1943 the SOP was a fireing would end when Soviet troops were 100 - 150m from it, by 1944 when artillery C&C had become much better the fireing would be halted at preplanned areas, to form lanes, then the Soviet inf moved through the lanes while the fireing continued often getting Soviet Inf into the German positions, before the Germans realised what was happening.

Regards, John Waters

------------------

"We've got the finest tanks in the world. We just love to see the

German Royal Tiger come up on the field".

Lt.Gen. George S. Patton, Jr. Febuary 1945.

[This message has been edited by PzKpfw 1 (edited 10-18-2000).]

[Kanonier Reichmann]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Grisha:

In fact, by 1944 the Red Army had perfected the use of forward detachments, which were small, yet heavily equipped units that were sent ahead of their parent unit, usually with a very specific mission. The notable thing is that commanders of forward detachments were given wide freedom of action to complete their mission, and some of these commanders were every bit as good as the best the Germans had. In any case, a discussion of forward detachments is tangential to this thread, but I just wanted to point it out. Soviets did have sound, innovative tactics.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thanks Grisha, very informative. I'm wondering since you seem to have good sources on this, were those forward "heavily" armed detatchments mainly armed with PPShk (if that's the right spelling) SMG's?

Regards

Jim R.

[Grisha]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Kanonier Reichmann:

Thanks Grisha, very informative. I'm wondering since you seem to have good sources on this, were those forward "heavily" armed detatchments mainly armed with PPShk (if that's the right spelling) SMG's?

Regards

Jim R.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Reichmann,

It all depends on the parent unit. For a mech corps one could expect armor and infantry with artillery, engineer, antiair, and antitank assets. For a rifle division it could be mainly infantry with or without armor, and the same sort of assets as the mech corps. However, mobility was very important, so one could expect forward detachments to be mobile at least. The reason they were heavily armed was so that they could be self contained, and ready to encounter most types of combat situations. Also, the type of the mission would determine what type of assets a forward detachment was given. For example, a forward detachment that was assigned to take a bridge might very well have bridging/fording equipment. Whether infantry were armed with PPSh41 all depended on the parent unit, but in armor units submachinegun troops were very common.