Girl Power - Russian Style

[Jasper]

I've found two references to women in combat roles during WWII. They are somewhat broad in scope, and don't mention individuals by name, but it does seem to indicate that (1) women did serve (on the Russian side) and (2) where they served. One document is "A German Account of Changes in the Red Army" translated from German and another Russian document. I'll try and post these things soon, am looking for a larger web site.

But to summarize where these article indicate where women served (you'll have to trust me on this one until I can get the files posted):

Medical (Ambulance drivers)

Air Force (ground personnel and pilots)

Snipers (both articles make reference to this)

Anticraft / Searchlight units

Ground Forces (Army) - usually mentioning a support type branch like cooks / drivers etc.

The German document mentions a patrol was captured "which consisted of fifteen women armed with rifles and dressed in men's civilian clothing. They are very useful in espionage and for this purpose they cross the lines or are landed by planes behind out own lines".

Given that the crew quarters for the T-34 was so cramped (with the stories about smaller people being used as tank crews) I half-expected to find references to women serving in tanks, but didn't.

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Check out http://www.geocities.com/funfacts2001/ for military documents written during WWII

[Michael Dorosh]

Check out the book by Men at Arms - they show a husband and wife who served in the same self propelled gun together. I believe the book is The Russian Army in the Great Patriotic War 1941-45.

[Chupacabra]

Women did serve in tank crews.

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Soy super bien soy super super bien soy bien bien super bien bien bien super super

[Warmaker]

I guess it'd make sense for them to send women to the front. Afterall, Russia suffered the most casualties in the war. Can't remember the specifics figures of the sides but the numbers were horrendous to look at and imagine. Add to that Stalin's purges the years before...

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"Uncommon valor was a common virtue"-Adm.Chester Nimitz of the Marines on Iwo Jima

[Guest Space Thing]

I heard that the Germans especially feared the Soviet women the most as they reportedly wouldn't take prisoners.

For historical reasons, here is my vote for their inclusion in CM2. They just gotta be there.

[The Commissar]

Originally posted by Space Thing:

For historical reasons, here is my vote for their inclusion in CM2. They just gotta be there.

And it opens the door to a CM2 nude patch!

[Guest Big Time Software]

There will be no special treatment of women on the Eastern Front. Sex, race, age, social upbringing, etc. is all irrelevant to a wargame. A human being in uniform is either good, bad, OK, great, etc. It doesn't matter what the soldier looks like.

BTW, female Soviet pilots caused the Germans a lot of sleepless nights in 1941 in particular. They would fly old byplanes, cut the engines, and glid over German encampments. They would then release their bombs (usually missing) without any warning to the Germans below. So although they didn't cause much damage, they did prevent them from getting a good night sleep. It also "rattled their cages" which was also a positive effect. The Germans called them "Flying Sewing Machines" out of contempt for both the machine and the pilot flying them.

Steve

[tss]

Big Time Software wrote:

The Germans called them "Flying Sewing Machines" out of contempt for both the machine and the pilot flying them.

The Finnish term for them was "hermosaha", literally: "nerve saw".

- Tommi

[David Aitken]

The Commissar wrote:

> And it opens the door to a CM2 nude patch!

You're waiting until CM2? I've been playing with nude soldiers since the Beta!

[Bruno Weiss]

Yeah, and I've been sleeping with sewing machine since before CM.

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"Gentlemen, you may be sure that of the three courses

open to the enemy, he will always choose the fourth."

-Field Marshal Count Helmuth von Moltke, (1848-1916)

[Tiger]

,

[This message has been edited by Tiger (edited 01-29-2001).]

[Terence]

I found this stuff on this website:

http://www.lothene.demon.co.uk/others/women20.html

I don't know if it is true or not, and Im not lobbying for the inclusion of women in the game, since its pretty clear that women soldiers (as far as CM is concerned) fight just as well as men do. I just bring it up cause I think that it is interesting history (if true) and I like interesting history:

Tito's Resistance Army in Yugoslavia included more than 100,000 women (partizanka) At least 2,000 women were promoted to officer ranks The first all woman partisan unit in Yugoslavia was formed in the Serbian village of Lika on August 25, 1942, 700 women volunteered for the 110 positions available.

70% of the 800,000 Russian women who served in the Soviet army in WW2 fought at the front. One hundred thousand of them were decorated for defending their country

Soviet Union had 1,000 women aviators were trained as fighter and military transport pilots, 30 of them were awarded the Gold Star of a Hero of the Soviet Union for their heroism in combat.

Lance Corporal Maria Ivanova Morozova a sniper with the Soviet 62nd Rifle Battalion, won 11 combat decorations.

Maria Baide, a scout in the Crimea was awarded Russia's highest honor, Hero of the Soviet Union.

[The Commissar]

Originally posted by Bruno Weiss:

Yeah, and I've been sleeping with sewing machine since before CM.

That has GOT to leave a nasty mark

BTW,

Thanks for the link Terrence, good stuff!

[tss]

Space Thing wrote:

I heard that the Germans especially feared the Soviet women the most as they reportedly wouldn't take prisoners.

That's possible. However, what Germans believed about women troops doesn't necessarily correlate with the reality.

I have an example from another war, that is, Finnish Civil War of 1918. The Reds formed many Women's Guards in the late part of the war. According to a widspread legend (on the White side) most White casualties of the battle of Tampere were caused by those female troops. In truth, practically all casualties were caused by MG or artillery fire and Women's Guards had neither.

(However, it is true that the female troops had smaller desertion rate. This was mainly because women volunteered for front line duty while men were forced. Still, men formed the majority of Red defenders for the whole battle).

- Tommi

[This message has been edited by tss (edited 01-29-2001).]

[iggi]

deleted

[This message has been edited by iggi (edited 01-29-2001).]

[Los]

Here's what a four year Russian infantryman has to say on the subject (from Valera's site)"

Vasyl Bykov says...

"Of course, female medics tried their best, but TO&E assumed just one medic per company; there would be dozens of wounded on the battlefield. How could they make it, no matter how hard they tried? They could not; the wounded had to wait for help for long time, lost a lot of blood and died on the battlefield or on their way to the hospital.

It is still unknown who is the author of the "genius" idea to employ women in the war. This seems to be a purely Soviet innovation, the Germans did not have anything like that till the end of the war. Given the obvious abundance of male "materiel", what was the need to send young and fragile girls under fire? What was the benefit from that? The benefit was nothing but making life happier for senior and political officers, who temporarily had no access to their wives and girlfriends at home. On their way to the front many of them would settle in staffs and rear offices as secretaries, operators, or medics – these were common positions to disguise those whom soldiers ironically called PPZh (sounds almost like PPSh, stands for pokhodno-polevaya zhena – a field wife). Those who made it to the battle zone were not treated as real soldiers – at war, which is purely men’s work, among masses of male soldiers they very soon demonstrated their uselessness. This goes even for female snipers, who would during quiet periods deploy in the no-man’s land, in direct proximity to the enemy."

Just an alternate opinion so we can seperate propaganda from reality....

Los

[illo]

And in AA-units.

[DrAlimantado]

Amazon.com has the following title in stock for $12: "On the Road to Stalingrad: Memoirs of a Woman Machine Gunner" - by Z.M. Smirnova Medvedeva, Kazimiera J. Cottam

I must say that I have not read it as I have too many unread philosophy books in my bookshelf that needs some serious attention. But if I would stumble upon some time for some lighter reading I will definitely try to get my greasy chubby fingers on this title, as it looks very interesting.

Does anyone know how common it was for the German armed forces to have women serving in supporting roles?

M

[Guest Big Time Software]

Terence, that all sounds about right. I for one wouldn't question it without some sources

I think there is an easy way of looking at females in combat units. In traditional rural society women did a lot of physically challenging work. They had to as generally the farms were too hard to maintain, so "all hands on deck" so to speak. The older tradition of "Surfs" also added to this, just as Slavery did in the New World. Idle hands mean a waste of time and resources. That sort of thing.

By the time WWII rolled around, most of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union was rural. Where there were urban populations you still found very strong ties back to rural lands and traditions. This was less and less of the case in Western Europe and certainly in the USA and Canada as time went on. Urban populations had far less ties to the land and a greater percentage of the population was urban.

It is reasonable to conclude that the more "civilized" nations had forgot (for one reason or another) that women were capable of hard and demanding physical labor. Over time this had even been built into the social system, in fact making it "unlady like" to do so much as lift a finger to help even herself. At least that was the extreme. However, in the stark reality of do or die rural life in the "less civilized" nations, the capabilities (and of course perceptions of) of women were much more readily compatible with hard and dangerous jobs like flying a byplane.

Of course, despiration is also makes interesting things happen. Taboos and other social controls fall away when push comes to shove. At least to some degree. So while in the "civilized" nations women found themselves working in factories, flying planes between friendly bases (in the USA), etc. after the war dragged on. In the "uncivilized" nations women were pressed into service much sooner and to a much greater extent.

Note that similar cause/effect stuff allowed for other races to cross previously erected social barriers. To REALLY overstate this, it was like "Hey, I need 1000 men for the front lines" "You mean white men, right?" "Of course!" "Well, all we have is 200 white men and 800 coloreds. And it ain't gunna change anytime soon." "OK, I'll stick them in the rear where they can't hurt anybody and it will all work out in the end". I think this is a fair, but obviously overstated and oversimplified, look at how things work when in crisis mode. Barriers come down out of need. No need, barriers stay up or are at least not lowered as much.

Steve

[Guest aka PanzerLeader]

*macho post* *macho post* *macho post*

To be realistic 100% BTS would have to include female truck drivers in CM2 with a 30% chance every turn that the truck explodes and with a 40+sec command delay, depending on whether it is a blonde or not

[Guest Space Thing]

Can't someone just make mods of Russian women and simply use them where the Russian men mods will be? You know, female faces and the whole nine yards. This way a gamer can have an entire battalion+ of Russian women if they wanted it. Are there any artists out there willing to give it a try?

I mean, if people have hampsters, then, why not women?

[The Commissar]

A real simple solution to this "dilema" would be to include more "faces" for the soldiers in CM2.

Instead of the 5-6 faces we had in CM1, make a dozen or so. Have one out of the dozen+ be female.

Then again, if CM2 follows the same lines as CM1, faces will be the same for Russians and Germans. Personally, I dont think this should be the case, because IMHO (and in fact, anyone who comes in contact with Russians and Germans enough to distinguish the two) Russians and Germans look "different". Its a bit hard to explain. German faces have more straight lines, more rigid structures. Russian faces look *sort of* childlike almost, with more rounded faces, kind of a *merry* look. If that made any sence to you at all!

I can see why this was not done for CM1, as Americans have a wide variety of people and cultures mixed together - they dont have a rigid *look* to them.

'fcourse, this might be too hard to draw up, although I doubt it. Just a suggestion.

Cheers!

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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"

[Guest aka PanzerLeader]

Commissar, what about the thousands of Russians who fought for the Wehrmacht, especially at Stalingrad? "Hiwis" they were called, and they fought bravely too. Trying to do anything too sophisticated with faces will lead to mistakes and unhappy people. Better stick with what we have now.

One of a dozen be female?? If u want to be realistic, it would rather have to be one in a thousand...Given that pilots, drivers, cooks and medical staff are not modeled in CM.

[Guest Madmatt]

Actually Commisar Combat Mission does have 12 individual faces in the game. Not 5-6 as you thought...

Madmatt

[Terence]

Originally posted by The Commissar:

German faces have more straight lines, more rigid structures. Russian faces look *sort of* childlike almost, with more rounded faces, kind of a *merry* look. If that made any sence to you at all!

This is the loopiest thing I've heard all week.