CM 2 And Snipers

[Sir Wamers Kahlenberg]

Please in CM 2 make the snipers more of a factor just like they were in stalingrad. Snipers were one of the factors that helped russia take stalingrad. 1 Sniper would change the whole fate of one section of the city by holding off many men. just a little imput

[Spook]

But how much "weight" did the "sniper factor" really have to the overall battle of Stalingrad when weighed against all other factors?

And how should they be modeled beyond the existing sharpshooters of CM? I think that dedicated snipers could add to the CM game system, but should they be something that could be controlled by the player, as actual field commanders had little control over snipers and where & when they took their shots?

[M Hofbauer]

I am puzzled. His humor, sarcasm re. that movie, is excellent, yet somehow I am unsure -as he's a newbie- maybe he's rather dead serious and w/o irony after all?

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"Me tank is still alive me churchill's crew must be laughing there heads off." (GAZ_NZ)

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

Since nobody seems to understand this in the popular accounts, I give a short overview of what really happened at Stalingrad.

The city is a long ribbon along the west bank of the Volga river. Only a few suburbs on the other side. The city is much longer than it is wide, about 4-5 to 1. Suburbs extend to the north and west. Between these two suburb areas is a unbuilt-up hill, which overlooks the entire city. The south end of the city has the main railroad station, and a large agricultural-products processing area, but few suburbs beyond the warehouses of the latter. The heavy industry is in the center of the city opposite the hill, between it and the Volga. Near the river the bank slants down in a series of gullys, with shacks there at most. The eastern bank is much lower down. The effect is that the river and the area right near it is mostly masked from view to the west, unless the crest of these gullys is reached. That is the terrain.

The Germans came at the town from the west, naturally. The city was at first not much defended. As the Germans reached the western suburbs, the Russians tried to counterattack from the northwest, a pattern that repeated itself over the next month, about. They were stopped, but bought time to garrison the city.

Then the Germans hooked around into the city from the south, where in a sense it is easier to get right into the downtown. The Russians fought fiercely for a particular pair of grain elevators and for the main railway station. But the Germans brought up the artillery and fired point-blank until the places were rubble, and captured them, though not without prior high losses. These gains also led to the fall of the western suburbs, as their retreat was cut off and they were hit from three sides. All of this part took only a matter of days. At the end of it, the Russians were throwing in reserve divisions to hold the Germans off, and entire divisions were being destroyed in 72 hours. All the local counterattacks on the more open ground outside the city to the north, made very close to the city, had failed completely with heavy losses to the Russians and little cost to the Germans. The Russians were losing the fight for the city, badly.

The Russians got a new commander and about an infantry corps of reinforcements. They began to build up an artillery park on the eastern bank of the river, which would fire up into the town over the defenders heads, and could do so in comparative safety. The rear area stuff operated right on the western bank, in the cover of the gullys, and ferries carried new men across regularly.

The Russians began using infiltration tactics, especially at night or through sewers, to pop up behind the last block the Germans had cleared and make them fight for it again the next day. There was very little retreating from this point on. Positions only changed hands because its defenders were dead. The Russians waited inside buildings instead of manning the windows, and shot the Germans when they entered; the Germans responded by only entering through newly blasted holes, or through second-floor windows reached by ladders or cross-walk planks from a neighboring building. This all resulted in seige like fighting in which casualties were very high on both sides, and ground changed hands only very slowly.

Not satisfied with this, the Germans made a push for the central hill that overlooked the town and took it. From it they could see the whole area and adjust artillery fire. The Russians thought it might lead to loss of the whole city and counterattacked, but again unsuccessfully and with high losses. But they did keep the Germans from making much use of the hill, by simply plastering it with artillery fire from the by now huge gun park on the eastern bank. At this point, the Russians hold the northern suburbs, the factory areas, and the strip along the river bank behind the crest, and nothing else.

The Germans launch a large-scale attack into the factory areas from the west. Before this, they had mostly been clearing the city south-to-north along its long axis. Now they are coming in along its narrow axis. The punch through in several places and reach the river-bank, but those incursions are under heavy artillery fire, flanked, and either pull back or get wiped out. The Germans take heavy losses in the factory areas for modest gains there. At the end of this first push from the west, the Russians hold a much-reduced area around the factories, the northern suburbs still, and a shorter part of the Volga bank. At this point the fighting for the city has become drawish. Both sides are losing men in large numbers. The Germans are making continual gains, ratchet fashion, but slowly and two forward-one-back style. The Russians are regularly replacing their losses with new men carried across the river.

Meanwhile, outside the city, the Russians are building up two corps-level bodies far away from the city behind the relatively quiet front lines in those sectors. They have already planned to use these for an eventual counterattack to relieve the city, but they wait two months to build them up. The forces grow to army size.

Before these forces can strike, the Germans try a mass commitment of armor into the factories area. They split it into two pieces and drive to the river is several places. The infantry takes high losses reducing one of the factories areas, with only a few Russians left or re-infiltrated into outbuildings. The other main factory area is the front line in its sector, with the Russians at one end and the Germans at the other. As in, we hold the blast furnace, they hold the rolling mill, etc. This push also reduced the northern-suburbs enclave to about 1/3rd of its previous size. The Russians by now control only about 10% of the city's area, mostly in two enclaves, one northern suburb and one factory area, plus bits and pieces of the river bank.

The Russians are nearly ready for their counteroffensive when the weather gets cold enough, and the river freezes up (November is the month). There are large chunks of ice in the river and traffic over it is impossible, but the ice can't be crossed yet either. The German commanders call for one last push to take the city while reinforcement is thus impossible. The men are mostly exhausted and have not received much in the way of replacements, but they try, on a shoestring. They close the last volga crossings by taking places along the bank, where they can sight light flak and such. They take most of the last factory area, but not quite all. The Russians have less than 1/20th of the city, a few scattered forces holding out in tiny pockets. By this point, the Germans have basically taken the city, which is a pile of rubble, while the Russians still own the eastern bank and shell them regularly.

The the Russian counterattacks on the flanks are launched. These are 50-100 miles away from the city. The forces fighting in the city have nothing whatever to do with them. In the north, a Hungarian army backed by a single German panzer division equipped with Czech tanks, is smashed by a Russian army with large numbers of T-34s. The Hungarians are mostly routed within 2 days, and the German panzer division, thrown into the gap, is likewise destroyed, less than 48 hours later. The Russians race west, southwest, then south from this breakthrough, heading for the Don river crossings near the place were the Don comes closest to the Volga, west of Stalingrad.

One day after the northern group's attack, the southern pincer is launched, at the long right flank of the German position at Stalingrad, thinly held by mobile German troops partolling a front that stretches south to the Caspian and the Caucausus, and backed up by Rumanians. The Russians quickly break through here too.

The Germans get a new commander of the whole area, who is put in charge of scrapping together the bits and pieces of destroyed units to reform a line. He also gets reinforcements drawn from other parts of the front, sent forward by rail to the area of Rostov. The commander in Stalingrad asks for permission to withdraw from the closing pocket westward, and fight to hold the jaws of the pincers apart while extracting his forces. It is denied and he is ordered to hold the city instead. A few forces from the northern suburbs try to delay the northern pincer, but it is hopeless. The Russian pincers meet dozens of miles west of the city, and the German forces there are cut off.

The Russians push westward to deepen the breakthrough. First scratch forces, then the railroaded reinforcements, form a line and stop them. A panzer commander helping to do this is threatened with removal and court-martial for retreating. The overall commander in the area offers his resignation and supports his subordinate. The resignation is refused and actions against the subordinate cease. The Russians have the difficulty that covering the whole outer face of the enourmous pocket ties up many of their troops. Attacks straight into the pocket to reduce its size, make some gains but take unnecessary losses, and are soon cut back.

The Germans get a few Panzer reinforcements, and use them to launch a relief drive toward the city, trying to snake around and break through the southern face of the pocket wall, in a long right hook. They make considerable progress. As they drive closer to the pocket, the overall commander asks the commander in the pocket to break out toward him. The pocket commander asks for permission to do so from Hitler. It is denied. The overall commander tells him to ignore the direct order and break out anyway. The pocket commander refuses to disobey a direct order.

Russian reinforcements reach the relief column's area and stabilize the situation there. Then it is pushed back. The Russians launch another drive from farther north aimed at Rostov, with the idea of extending the cut-off German forces to include the whole army in the south, in the Caucausus region, to add to the encircled forces at Stalingrad. All relief attempts are abandoned to meet this new thrust, and German forces withdraw from the Caucausus as rapidly as possible.

As the new front moves far to the west, the pocket size is reduced. The airfields providing the last trickle of supplies into the pocket are overrun. The pocket has been starving slowly for a month or two, all the horses eaten, rations under 1000 calories per day. The Russians launch drives into the pocket and quickly reduce most of it. Several large German formations surrender independently. After several delays and repeated orders to hold out, the commander in the pocket does likewise. One formation keeps fighting despite this, and is crushed a few days later.

Now, just what part of this history features a "decisive part" played by snipers, in "taking" the city? From the time of the infiltration tactics, snipers were playing a role in the attrition fight inside the city. They were part of a combination that raised German losses. Other parts were - increasing artillery fire from the eastern bank of the volga; extreme sacrifices by the regular infantry fighting room to room in the grenade-n-spray war; infiltration by regular infantry to areas just taken, leading to repeats of the previous; and large scale reinforcement as troops were lost.

But did those things prevent the Germans from taking most of the city? No. They raised the price and lengthened the time. The lengthened time was made good use of to plan the counterattack on the flanks. The high price played a role there too, by drawing German reserves into the city, leaving much of the flanks to the minor axis allied formations. The armor offensive that reached the volga left little in the way of local armor reserves, so that the northern and southern flanks had only about a division of armor each, to cover them - and in the case of the northern one, with obsolete tanks.

It is doubtless vain to parcel out the various contributions, but it would go something like this. The artillery park on the eastern bank undoubtedly did more damage than snipers did. The room-to-room fighting of a corps of infantry obviously did more than snipers did. The breakthroughs on the flanks obviously did more than snipers did. The stupidity of the German high command obviously made more of a difference than the snipers did, at least as to the decisive nature of the victory won. The contribution snipers made to the entire thing, therefore, cannot possibly be more than 1/5th, and 1/50th is probably more like it. Somewhere between those two numbers.

Movie makers and historical revisionists want to maintain otherwise, purely out of romanticism and the principles of good yarn-telling. Like a boy in his wee jet vs. der massive space monstrosity, it makes better fiction to have the sacrifices and daring of individuals, change the course of the plot.

In fact few individuals had any appreciable impact on the course of so enourmous a battle as Stalingrad, and just as obviously the ones who did so were commanders of high rank. Chuikov created many of the tactical innovations that made the fight for the center city so unlike the fight for the southern part. If any one individual kept the city, it was him, and he would be the hero of any realistic story of the defense of the city. His contributions were however intellectual, a matter of his brains, and therefore no one is the slightest bit interested in them.

Two other individuals had a decisive influence on the German defeat being catastrophic when it came - Paulus, the commander of the troops in the pocket, for refusing to break out, and Hitler, for ordering him not to, both at the time of the Russian breakthrough (when some generalship was necessary to see the proper course of action) and again when the relief column neared the city, when the situation was so clear-cut that a child of five could have given better orders. But such intellectual failures, caused by rigid pride and unwillingness to face unwelcome realities, are also of no interest to anybody.

Nobody wants to hear that intellectual cleverness is useful in war. No one wants to hear that pride is a weakness, akin to putting your own eyes out. They want to hear instead that heroic sacrifices and personal prowess by unremarked everyman's set the course of history. They do not seem to care that that is the "triumph of the will" sort of message, that the loser put all his stock in, and was bankrupted by.

[Jasper]

Originally posted by jasoncawley@ameritech.net:

Nobody wants to hear that intellectual cleverness is useful in war.

If I may be so bold, I do believe you meant something like: Nobody wants to hear that intellectual cleverness is useless in war. You've made other statements like "It's better to be right than smart."

Personally wouldn't put it quiet as strongly. I remember reading somewhere that intellectual capacity of a leader (officer or NCO I can't remember) is like third on the list of desirable traits.

It's too bad that smart people can still show really bad judgement.

[This message has been edited by Jasper (edited 03-19-2001).]

[Guest Michael emrys]

In reading of the battle for Stalingrad, I've sometimes been struck by a thought. Aside from the the fact that it would probably have been a better strategy to have simply have screened Stalingrad rather than attacking into it, yet another strategy has occurred to me. Though I doubt that the Germans actually had the means to do so, if they were indeed intent on capturing Stalingrad, they should have prepared to do so from the outset of the summer offensive. This would have entailed capturing crossings of the Volga both above and below the city. Once those pincers closed on the east bank of the river, the city would have been isolated. The Soviets would not have been able to reinforce the city and its capture would have been relatively easy. Which is not to deny that the Germans would have had their hands full holding on to their bridgeheads. But if they had captured the city quickly before the Soviets could effectively react, they could then have withdrawn their forces on the eastern bank before they came under really serious attack. Maybe.

Of course the best strategy for the Germans is not to start the war at all.

Michael

[Atlas]

Jason,

Since you have so much time to write, I'll assume that you are a student. Anyway, you should relax when somebody makes an inane comment about the effects sniper fire had on the battle of Stalingrad. Just say something like:

"No. The actions of one sniper did not decide the fate of Stalingrad. Read "(Good Book)" if you'd like more information." Hope this lets you get to sleep at night.

-Atlas

[M. Bates]

Originally posted by Atlas:

Jason,

Since you have so much time to write, I'll assume that you are a student. Anyway, you should relax when somebody makes an inane comment about the effects sniper fire had on the battle of Stalingrad. Just say something like:

"No. The actions of one sniper did not decide the fate of Stalingrad. Read "(Good Book)" if you'd like more information." Hope this lets you get to sleep at night.

-Atlas

Buried amongst the reams of text I found this snippet:

"The contribution snipers made to the entire thing, therefore, cannot possibly be more than 1/5th, and 1/50th is probably more like it. Somewhere between those two numbers."

Gee that narrows it down!!

[Guest Germanboy]

Originally posted by M. Bates:

Buried amongst the reams of text I found this snippet:

"The contribution snipers made to the entire thing, therefore, cannot possibly be more than 1/5th, and 1/50th is probably more like it. Somewhere between those two numbers."

Gee that narrows it down!!

If you can't express it in numbers, it can't be terribly relevant - mantra of North-American social scientists

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Andreas

Der Kessel

Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission.

[Abbott]

I enjoyed the read Jason, thanks.

In all the accounts I have read snipers were not that big a contribution to the overall fight for Stalingrad, nor did they have a large effect on the war as a whole. Interesting SOP's and reading yes.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Germanboy:

If you can't express it in numbers, it can't be terribly relevant - mantra of North-American social scientists

You CAN'T express it in numbers!

Jason, please for the love of God and all that is Holy please stop making up figures and throwing them out without proof. They are unnecessary and take away from your credibility. If you mean to say snipers accounted for a full 20% of casualties inflicted in Stalingrad, I would love to know where you get this information from.

If you mean to say that snipers caused a 20% drop in German/Russian morale, I don't see how this can be justified either - how could anyone possible make a claim about something that is not quantifiable?

If there is another, quantifiable, meaning for your 2 - 20 percent statements, it is beyond me.

I have certainly learned much from reading your posts, but when wild figures like these are thrown out, I wonder as to how much that learning has really been worth.

Your conclusion on the worth of snipers seems valid, but the attempt to quantify it takes your conclusion out of the realm of historical research and into wild speculation. It's a shame, for your description of the battle is spot on.

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

To Jasper -

Well, no, that is not what I meant. But I take the point as friendly. I should have explained more directly that there is a difference in audiences. Grogs and wargamers have a full appreciation for the value of intellect in war, perhaps overfull. But the average moviegoer rarely does. It is easier to relate to the morale virtues, easier to put oneself in those shoes.

So e.g. the sacrifice of men who held out against hopeless odds in the grain elevators south of the city, would impress the average moviegoer. It was certainly a splendid bit of gallantry. But such gallantry would not have held the city as long as it was held, if not for the clever tactics and deployments of a Chuikov, mated to such efforts.

I agree with the point, which I have made before and you rightly call back to my attention, that being right is more than being smart. Part of the point here is that smart can sometimes take away in errors caused by pride, all that it gives in edges won by cleverness. This need not be so, but it is a pitfall real enough to make your reply a welcome qualification to my previous statement.

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

To Michael -

I realize you may be so put off by mathematics and mathematical reasoning, that unless something is spelled out for you in triplicate you do not follow where it came from. And you may also have the silly authority syndrome, that thinks any number in a book must be a useful piece of data, and any number resulting from reasoning must be some sort of made up lie. Where you think the numbers in the books come from, may remain a mystery.

I enumerated five factors involved in the battle, comparing four of them to snipers as the fifth, and stating what to me was the obvious truth in each case "such and such had more of an impact than the snipers". The factors were - artillery on the east bank, intense room-to-room fighting by the regular infanry, counterattack on the flanks, and stupid decisions by the German high command. So far, no one has registered the slightest objection to these qualitative statements.

Well, if A is less than B, and A is less than C, and A is less than D, and A is less than E, then -

5*A < A+B+C+D+E.

Therefore -

A < 1/5 * (A+B+C+D+E)

Therefore, the statement that the snipers accounted for less than 1/5th of the victory, adds nothing to, and follows directly from, the preceeding qualitative statements as to the importance of various factors.

Since each of the other terms is only specified as "greater than", we have an upper bound. Since not all factors have been enumerated, and neither has how much bigger each of the named factors was, than the role of the snipers, the real contribution will be some substantial amount less than this upper bound. I just let 10 times be an estimate of what those unknown factors might be, along with a "probably", when I said "and 1/50th is probably more like it".

Why you should object to these statements is not at all clear. You cannot object to the less than 1/5th statement, unless you wish to either deny one of the substantive, qualitative statements about snipers importance compared to the artillery, or one of the others, etc. Which you have not done. Or unless you want to object to various trivial pieces of algebra, which would be absurd.

Probably you simply did not see the reasoning, and were exasperated because you didn't. And the likely reason for this is that you are exasperated in general by attempts to estimate the scale of things in history after the fact, save perhaps from authorities or something.

If you honestly asked yourself the scale of importance snipers might have had at Stalingrad, trying to come up with a number yourself, then I doubt you would have the slighest objection to my estimate. You might perhaps think the 1/50th high, I suppose, though certainly without having advanced any argument why.

But in fact, you object merely to a number being put on any estimate at all, not to the particular number I put on it. Tell me, do you allow yourself to make statements including such notions as "more than", "less than", "the main point", or "a trivial matter"? Then you are using numbers in your reasoning every bit as much as I am. You just aren't telling anybody what they are, because you can't be bothered to narrow down what you are actually thinking to a range, and state it.

Which is certainly your own business; you can leave your own judgments as vague as you please. It still rather boggles that you should set yourself up as some sort of standard in the matter, and run around objecting when others make more precise statements.

If the number or range I give is wrong and you can tell, then say so and present your reasoning. If you can narrow the wide range of my own judgment with a more precise one within my range, and support that by reasoning, then offer away. If you can't, then what in tarnation are you objecting to?

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

P.S. Michael, had you not noticed that the thread's very second post is a direct request for a weighting of the scale of contribution the snipers made at Stalingrad, compared to all other factors? Spook asked. Why are you upset that I bothered to answer him with a range of numbers, when he asked for a relative weight? Seems very silly to me.

[Simon Fox]

I really must get a hold of Beevor's book as I haven't read it yet. I would really like to know how his account of the chronology of fateful German decisions compares to that of Joachim Weider in his Stalingrad: Memories and reassessments.

A commanders intelligence and character are certainly interesting subjects. Paulus was an intelligent and outstanding general staff officer but clearly totally unsuitable for his position and lacking any moral connection with his own troops. Manstein's self serving post war autobiography tends to cloud the issues somewhat but his performance was certainly not without tarnish. His apraisal of the chances of releiving the city were hopelessly optimistic.

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

"Stand to your glasses steady,

This world is a world of lies,

Here's a toast to the dead already,

And here's to the next man to die."

-hymn of the "Double Reds"

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by jasoncawley@ameritech.net:

P.S. Michael, had you not noticed that the thread's very second post is a direct request for a weighting of the scale of contribution the snipers made at Stalingrad, compared to all other factors? Spook asked. Why are you upset that I bothered to answer him with a range of numbers, when he asked for a relative weight? Seems very silly to me.

The original statement was silly enough on its own merits, and I think most would recognize it for what it was - someone using Hollywood to substitute for actual historical research.

Your response was wild speculation in the absence of actual historical research.

I prefer your approach to his, but don't consider it any more beneficial in getting to the heart of the matter.

I think we would all agree with you that a sniper movie is not proof that they played any great role in the fighting, and your well written, in depth analysis of the fighting in Stalingrad reminded those that

needed it of the scale of events there.

I am very interested in the historical process, and in the methods we use to share findings (my degrees are in history and communications). Words mean things, and so do numbers. Many don't realize just how much one or two words can change the meaning of a sentence, or a historical interpretation.

I found it interesting that instead of discussing such things as orders of battle, the number of troops involved, and the number of "snipers" employed in the typical division, the only number you chose to throw out was a wild figure (with 18% variance) with nothing to support it.

Just me talking out my butt; don't stop posting, but do consider how weak unsupported numbers are.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by jasoncawley@ameritech.net:

To Michael -

I realize you may be so put off by mathematics and mathematical reasoning, that unless something is spelled out for you in triplicate you do not follow where it came from. And you may also have the silly authority syndrome, that thinks any number in a book must be a useful piece of data, and any number resulting from reasoning must be some sort of made up lie. Where you think the numbers in the books come from, may remain a mystery.

I can understand your POV here, but it's really not the case. I believe in numbers, but I don't believe you are interpreting them in reasonable ways.

I enumerated five factors involved in the battle,

No you didn't. I don't see any numbers given for this.

comparing four of them to snipers as the fifth, and stating what to me was the obvious truth in each case "such and such had more of an impact than the snipers". The factors were - artillery on the east bank, intense room-to-room fighting by the regular infanry, counterattack on the flanks, and stupid decisions by the German high command. So far, no one has registered the slightest objection to these qualitative statements.

There are other forms of wastage; home leave (before the Kessel was closed), disease, mental breakdown (not recognized by the German Army, but certainly a factor), suicide, death from wounds, desertion, defection, execution. These may be negligible on the face of it - or not. You don't provide a reference.

How do you "enumerate" stupid decisions?

Why you should object to these statements is not at all clear. You cannot object to the less than 1/5th statement, unless you wish to either deny one of the substantive, qualitative statements about snipers importance compared to the artillery, or one of the others, etc.

You haven't provided any evidence one way or another - casualty reports, a reference in a book, whatever. I don't doubt your findings, but the attempt to legitimize your conclusion through mathematics rather than historical research or references is silly.

Probably you simply did not see the reasoning, and were exasperated because you didn't.

I'm not taking it that seriously. It's an interesting discussion, far from exasperating.

And the likely reason for this is that you are exasperated in general by attempts to estimate the scale of things in history after the fact, save perhaps from authorities or something.

You haven't demonstrated the ability to do this, either - not in a convincing way.

If you honestly asked yourself the scale of importance snipers might have had at Stalingrad, trying to come up with a number yourself, then I doubt you would have the slighest objection to my estimate.

Read my post. I don't object to the estimate, I just don't see the need to put a number figure on it, certainly not a percentage.

You might perhaps think the 1/50th high, I suppose, though certainly without having advanced any argument why.

You haven't proposed an argument why this should be 1/50th either. I don't think something like this can be arrived at mathematically.

But in fact, you object merely to a number being put on any estimate at all, not to the particular number I put on it.

Yes!

Tell me, do you allow yourself to make statements including such notions as "more than", "less than", "the main point", or "a trivial matter"?

This is not the same as assigning a percentage to something.

Then you are using numbers in your reasoning every bit as much as I am.

Not true.

You just aren't telling anybody what they are, because you can't be bothered to narrow down what you are actually thinking to a range, and state it.

Exactly!

Which is certainly your own business; you can leave your own judgments as vague as you please. It still rather boggles that you should set yourself up as some sort of standard in the matter, and run around objecting when others make more precise statements.

Your statement masquerades as precise! How is "between 2 and 20 percent" more precise (or provable) than saying "given the scale of operations in Stalingrad, the effect of snipers on the outcome of the battle was minimal"?

If the number or range I give is wrong and you can tell, then say so and present your reasoning.

The number is a fabrication!

If you can narrow the wide range of my own judgment with a more precise one within my range, and support that by reasoning, then offer away. If you can't, then what in tarnation are you objecting to?

The use of mathematics in situations that are not quantifiable.

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

To other Michael (emry) -

First, sorry I am always saying Michael when I mean Mr. Dorosh - LOL.

I agree with you, the Germans were dumb to attack the city as they did and enveloping it would have been much more sensible. They were sucked into the city by the early successes, I think.

See, when they hit the western suburbs the place was scarcely defended. It made sense to try to seize the whole place by a coup-de-main. But in part because of the first Russian counterattacks from the northwest, they did not have time.

They then tried a right hook which avoided the strength the Russians had massed for those counterattacks, and this again was understandable. They got well into the city fast, and made rapid progress. They were held up at a couple of fortified points, but these seemed to be the last diehards. In fact, the local commanders thought, when the grain elevators finally fell, that the city had been captured.

It wasn't, obviously. But at that point the Russians were losing an entire division every 72 hours trying to hold it, and that was a deal the Germans could certainly afford to take. The next try might have been dumb, but as you see they had been fed on a diet of local victories. The next push was broad, hitting the city from its long side, and offered the prospect of cutting the Russians into many little segments. This one was dubious, but pushing once that way can be understood.

When it did not take the whole place, they should indeed have realized that going around would be better, or would have been better in the first place. Here stubborness was taking over. The local commanders did not want to continue the attack into the factory areas - they thought it collosally stupid to assign entire battalions to clear single "workers housing" apartment blocks. And the fighting was anything but cheap by this point.

But they were committed. Hitler and Stalin had both already made taking or holding the city a propaganda piece. Large numbers of troops and a month of fighting had already been expended. Where were the forces to take the city for real, by envelopment? Off in the south chasing Baku oilfields and outposting the whole Caucausus. Yes, a plan that did not commit them so far, and instead left force to flank Stalingrad, would have been much more sensible. But that was retrospect. At the time those troops had been sent away, it had looked like the city would fall easily.

Still, there is no question the last month of German attacks were motivated by nothing more military than prestige. Fortress fighting for a prestige objective was the last thing the German army was designed to do. It was something out of WW I. Those attacks did reduce the northern suburbs, then one factory area, and finally most of the last pockets in the city. But they were not worth anything like the cost, and doing it sucked armor into the city that was needed on the flanks, and German infantry divisions likewise.

If there had been no counterattack building, it would have been dumb still but they would have gotten away with it, basically. By mid November, there wasn't much of a fight left in the city, and while the Germans were still losing men to artillery fire and occasional snipers or holdouts, they were no longer losing gobs of men or material in the city. But there was a counterattack building, and the German reserves had already been spent in that last month of "push". Most of them still could have gotten away, but for the mistakes and pride of two men, Hitler and Paulus.

Hubris, as the Greeks would say...

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by jasoncawley@ameritech.net:

To other Michael (emry) -

First, sorry I am always saying Michael when I mean Mr. Dorosh - LOL.

My grandfather was Mr. Dorosh - Mike will do just fine, Jason.

[IPA]

Out of my depth here, but what the heck.

I am not in a position to dispute or support any of the stats stated, but the problem as I see it is that globally generated stats are being used to draw conclusions on macro encounters. The effect of snipers on the Battle of Stalingrad as a whole has been well refuted by Jason's first post (darn good read). But at CM's battalion and Company level encounters, perhaps the original poster is asking whether the modelling of snipers should be of greater significance. This could only be establised from analysis of small action AARs, war diaries and personal accounts (obtaining these is where the difficulty arises). I believe that the instance of a single sniper or mg holding up much larger formations was common place on the Western and Eastern fronts, I have no stats but only personal accounts.

No disrespect Jason, I have no doubt that you've forgotten more about WWII than I'll ever know.

Peter

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by IPA:

But at CM's battalion and Company level encounters, perhaps the original poster is asking whether the modelling of snipers should be of greater significance. This could only be establised from analysis of small action AARs, war diaries and personal accounts (obtaining these is where the difficulty arises). I believe that the instance of a single sniper or mg holding up much larger formations was common place on the Western and Eastern fronts, I have no stats but only personal accounts.

Exactly. And I think on the face of it, your remarks about lone snipers or MG crews holding up advances is valid and jives with personal accounts I've read.

With regards to CM - look at the passage in Craig's Enemy at the Gates (quoted again in the Squad Leader rulebook) where a German company commander is shot dead by a sniper, and his entire unit faltered. Perhaps CM2 will model this by having global morale suffer when a HQ unit is successfully targeted by a sniper?

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

Now I feel like I am pulling teeth.

I stated that each of several factors was more important than another factor. You agreed with each statement.

I take the "more thans" and I collect them. I note the result. You object because the result is a number, as though that involved the invoking of some divine metaphysical power or something, different in kind that statements of "more than".

This is simply poppycock. "More than" is a numerical comparison, it says A is numerically larger than B. it is not "different than" "using numbers". Using numbers is exactly what it is; the numbers are just left inside the head doing the comparing and making the statement.

I am not talking about wastage, or casualties caused, or morale lowered, or any other mysterious intermediary hidden variable I am not telling you about. I am talking directly about the contribution of various factors to the Russian victory in the Stalingrad campaign.

When you agree that of five named factors, four of them are each, individually, bigger than a fifth, then you agree that that single fifth factor is less than one fifth as large as all five named factors combined.

This is not tendentiousness. It is not pulled out of my hat or any aspect of my anatomy. It is not a "failure to do research". It is just math! And math simple enough to be done accurately by average 12 year olds the world over!

When you have true statements, and you perform truth-preserving mathematical operations on them (like dividing both sides of an equation by five, the rocket science in question here!), then the truth is preserved. The same statement is being made after, as before. But you manage to get into a snit over one, when you agree with the other.

This is stooopid. End of argument.

[IPA]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

Exactly. And I think on the face of it, your remarks about lone snipers or MG crews holding up advances is valid and jives with personal accounts I've read.

With regards to CM - look at the passage in Craig's Enemy at the Gates (quoted again in the Squad Leader rulebook) where a German company commander is shot dead by a sniper, and his entire unit faltered. Perhaps CM2 will model this by having global morale suffer when a HQ unit is successfully targeted by a sniper?

There was a very good thread on the issue of Global morale some months back, sounds like a good idea. Perhaps the greatest contribution by snipers was the psychological one, not the casualties caused.

Peter

[Dogface]

SO to sum up the argument,

Soviet snipers didnt sway the battle at all.

Except for killing some germans and mabey disrupting the chain of command for a while.

Hhhhhmmmmm prety much what i figured..

sounds like what they are supposed to do.

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

Your unniceness is annoying..Freek

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by jasoncawley@ameritech.net:

I am not talking about wastage, or casualties caused, or morale lowered, or any other mysterious intermediary hidden variable I am not telling you about.

That's the problem. How can you discuss the importance of snipers to the outcome of the Stalingrad battle without discussing the number of casualties they caused, or their effect on morale? I am saying it is not something you can quantify, hence, you can't assign it 1, 10, or 100 percent.

Perhaps a 12 year old could, though.