Where are all the Allied SMGs?

[PzKpfw 1]

Thats another question I had thought about how does everyone here think the Soviet's used SMG's their seems to be an opinion their was a plethora of SMG use in Soviet Rifle organizations by refrences to SMG production.

A little background the Soviet SMG Squads & usage. The SMG was originaly classified as an Police wpn by the Soviet's it was never issued to army troops.

Experiences in the Winter War changed the Soviet opinion on the SMG. When the war broke out between Germany & Russia, their were no SMG troops in the Red army. SMG Co's were formed in late 1941.

In late 1941 early 1942 the Soviet's began forming SMG Companys & insering them into Rifle, & Mot Rifle Regt's. An Dec 1942 SMG Co consisted of 5 Officers, 1 clerk, 20 NCO's, 74 enlisted personel with 100 SMGs. With each Plt haveing an HQ Plt, & 3 Plts, with 3 Sqds of 8 men. No suport wpns were provided in the Co.

SMG Co's were initialy used as the Regt HQ reserve force, & only employed on direct orders from the Regt. SMG Co's were used to either supt Regimental recon forces, or, in if an offensive role in areas where their SMG's would be effectve & only with the full supt of the Regimental artillery. SMG Co's were used on Defensive ops to seal penetrations. The SMG Co's role was to be used where speed was the essence not firepower.

Later SMG Co's would be used in the role their most faumous for, as tank 'landing' troops. T-34's, had handles welded on their bodies specificly for the SMG troops use as hand holds etc, each T-34 could carry one SMG Sqd of 8 men.

SMGs by no means replaced the rifle in the Soviet Shtat Ie, an March 1942 Rifle Co consisted of 5 Officers, 1 PO, 30 NCO's, 139 enlisted personel (9 SMGs, 12 LMGs,& 11 snipers). An Rifle Co consisted of 3 Plt's with 4 Sqds each Plt, with each Sqd consisting of 10 men (2 NCO's, 1 LMG & 8 rifles). On paper in reality Soviet Rifle Sqds only had 8 - 9 men.

Begining in May 1943 the Soviet's authorized replaceing 1/3rd of the Rifle Regt's rifles with SMGs. But the actual doing so was left to the discretion of the Regtimental Co's, basicly it wasn't done uniformaly with some Regt's forming one SMG Co, & others forming whole SMG Bn's, while some Regt's simply had a few Riflemen in the Plt's & Sqds carry SMGs.

So here again we will have a similar SMG formation dilemma as we see concerning Allied squads as their realy was no set organization except in the original SMG Co's.

Regards, John Waters

[ 07-03-2001: Message edited by: PzKpfw 1 ]

[Battlefront.com]

OK, time to close up this thread. The points have been made before and are being made again here. As Jason knows, we don't fundamentally agree about the modeling of small arms. I never dodged anything, BTW, but simply disagreed with his opinion. And it is an opinion. There is no real world numbers out there to draw from that proves one person's view as absolutely valid vs. another. Jason has looked at the data (including AARs) and made his conclusions, we looked at similar data and came to different conclusions. Like many things that go into detailed modeling of a simulation, agreements are often not possible. We think Jason is wrong, he thinks we are wrong. So what is one to do?

As for underestimating what Rarity, different move orders, and some other nice changes we have made will do for the game... we at least have played around with some of these things already, while nobody here has had that advantage. Time will tell if what we are doing will offer improvements some people are looking for or not. So those of you that are CONVINCED that we are basically misguided should perhaps withold such convinction until you have a little more to go on than imagination. Judge the game after it is done, not before. Afterall, there were some here on this BBS that thought we would never even finish CMBB, so imagine where their peer their standing went

Steve