Better Sharpshooters for the Soviets?

[Kallimakhos]

Well done, Slapdragon, but since you are a professor, maybe you wont take badly some minor corrections and comments:

In 19th century Finland was autonomous part of Russia with its own laws, money etc. Late 19th century are known as the years off oppression, when Russian goverment tried to cancel autonomy and assimilate Finlad to Russia. For some reason Finns were liberated from serving in the Russian army and didn't have own army, and very few Finns took part in the WWI. Mannerheim was one of them, he was a general in Czar's army. He certainly was right wing, but not a nationalist by any definition. He was an aristocrat and very international person, part of the Swedish speaking minority, a dandy officer in Czar's army, made a long expedition in Central East, felt at home in Paris and other major European cities as a part of the high society. He died in Switzerland. One of the reasons why Mannerheim declined to attack Leningrad despite Hitlers urging was his love for St. Petersberg, where he spent his wild youth.

Lenin OK'ed Finnish independence because he believed communist revolution in Finland would succeed. There was a revolution, a bloody civil war in which russian troops had no real role. The white army, under Mannerheim, was victorious and Germans helped, but their role was not decisive.

Finns have allways hated (and loved) Swedes, a bit like Canada and USA... 20s were not special in this respect. For military aid they were never counted upon, we have allways known that the proud history of Sweden was payed with Finnish blood and after losing Finnland Sweden has been wise enough to stay out of wars...

Russians felt racial contempt against finns? Never heard of that, more like vice versa at that time. Well the Swedes called us mongols when we beat them in athletics...

Basically I believe that Stalin wanted to get back what mother Russia lost after the revolution, and in the end he did and much more - except Finnland, which BTW later proved to be very usefull capitalistic ally...

One more thing about the Winter war. The allied expedition to help Finnland, which Stalin was affraid of, would have meant crossing Norway and Sweden (and taking hold of valuable mines in Kiiruna on the way). If Finnland would have said yes to the offer, it would have been interesting to see whether Sweden would have given its ore without fight. Well, a month later Hitler invaded Denmark and Norway, and got the Swedish ore with gold. Anyway, one of the interesting what ifs...

[ 06-30-2001: Message edited by: Kallimakhos ]

[Sergei]

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

This simple statement that McArthur was not roasted for allowing his forces to be caught unawares drew immense flack from several peopel who thought that I was attacking the Republican party. So here I disclaim any attempt at that.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It is always difficult (and sometimes impossible) to create a fair, non-biased view of history. Making everyone else believe that one's view is fair and un-biased, is impossible. Even our post-modern world is full of national or ideological myths, and people don't really know how to behave with them.

For example, everyone knows the "evil Nazi" myth. If I said A. Hitler was a nice fella, nobody would believe me. If I said that not all members of NSDAP were monsters, quite many would admit that. If I threw in the name of Oscar Schindler and pointed that he belonged to the party, most would say he was a hero (which would be another myth; not untrue, but overly simplified version of reality).

But then, it would be possible that I'm just trying to use this as an excuse to clear the name of ALL Nazis and the party. I could be accused of being nazi-sympathetic or even a neo-nazi myself. And if I belonged to a party like Freiheits Partei Österreich, there would be some reason for that, too - but does it mean that no members of FPÖ are capable of talking objectively about Nazis? Or Republicans about themselves, or about Bill Clinton? Or Finns about Russians, or men about women? Clearly they can, but it is another matter whether they will be listened. Most of people in this world base their thinking on very low standards: "Hey ye're one of 'em ****ing liberals/rednecks, now screw you and your commie/fascist ideas!"

Is it necessary to say, that I hate that feature in us? (Hmm, is this getting off the topic? Er... yeah, I think it'd be nice if Soviets, Finns and Albanians had snipers.)

[Tero]

>No one is trying to explain away anything,

>but I was impressed by the Finnish victory

>parades at wars end through Leningrad.

How did you find the Red Army parade through Helsinki ?

>and everyone's mind is clouded into

>thinking the Finns lost the war.

No. Their minds are clouded into thinking we surrendered unconditionally.

Do you think Saddam Hussein lost the war ? Fair enough. Do you think Iraq surrendered uncondionally ? By the same token nor did Finland. What are the similarities and differecenses in the Finnish situation in 1940/44 and Iraq during the Gulf war ?

>Seriously, counting captured weapons does

>not prove small unit engagement practices.

Seriously, yes it does when it comes to the Finnish army. Look the respective OOB's up. The arms were the same, so was the ammo. We could replenish our stocks from the enemy sometimes more easily than from our own logistics system.

>So we can assume from the Finnish example

>that:

Wrong example. Capturing something is one thing. Using it another.

>Finland is last, since while they got a lot

>of weapons during the winter war, they just

>barely captured back the land they lost

>then in their "continuation war",

Those captured weapons served to save our sorry asses from being occupied and assimilated to the Soviet collective.

>and never once threatened a major Russian

>city.

Is that good or bad ?

>At the same time, the germans will

>capturing millions of small arms.

So ? They could not use them effectively as their logistics system was overburdened as it was. Our captured weapons were an asset, not a liability.

[Tero]

>I guess this really isn't about snipers any

>more..

It is about snipers who get national bias bonuses only because the Western sources recoqnice only them as having been there.

>Still, with 900 shots/minute, I believe

>we'll get a weapon good enough.

I hope that the muzzle velocity and the penetration power is also modelled in detail.

From

http://www.saunalahti.fi/~ejuhola/7.62/suomi.html

Muzzle velocity 1300 fps (396 mps)

ROF: 700-800 rpm

Penetration at 100 meters: 2 mm of iron

Penetration at 300 meters: 1.5 mm of iron, 3 inches of pinewood

>One thing that will not be recreated, I

>believe, is finnish Stugs getting a 10 to 1

>kill ratio against T-34's. Especially since

>the Stug tankers were mostly green.

Make them Elite ! There were no green men fighting fresh out of boot camp with minimal training in this mans army.

>The veterans got to keep their obsolete

>T-26's.

Now there will be a sight for sore eyes: Finnish Elite über-T-26's taking out conscript T-34/85's with the first shot aimed at the front armour with their sturdy and potent 45mm guns. The same goes for the Finnish über-45mm AT guns We shall truly rewrite history.

[Slapdragon]

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

Well done, Slapdragon, but since you are a professor, maybe you wont take badly some minor corrections and comments:

In 19th century Finland was autonomous part of Russia with its own laws, money etc. Late 19th century are known as the years off oppression, when Russian goverment tried to cancel autonomy and assimilate Finlad to Russia. For some reason Finns were liberated from serving in the Russian army and didn't have own army, and very few Finns took part in the WWI. Mannerheim was one of them, he was a general in Czar's army. He certainly was right wing, but not a nationalist by any definition. He was an aristocrat and very international person, part of the Swedish speaking minority, a dandy officer in Czar's army, made a long expedition in Central East, felt at home in Paris and other major European cities as a part of the high society. He died in Switzerland. One of the reasons why Mannerheim declined to attack Leningrad despite Hitlers urging was his love for St. Petersberg, where he spent his wild youth.

Lenin OK'ed Finnish independence because he believed communist revolution in Finland would succeed. There was a revolution, a bloody civil war in which russian troops had no real role. The white army, under Mannerheim, was victorious and Germans helped, but their role was not decisive.

Finns have allways hated (and loved) Swedes, a bit like Canada and USA... 20s were not special in this respect. For military aid they were never counted upon, we have allways known that the proud history of Sweden was payed with Finnish blood and after losing Finnland Sweden has been wise enough to stay out of wars...

Russians felt racial contempt against finns? Never heard of that, more like vice versa at that time. Well the Swedes called us mongols when we beat them in athletics...

Basically I believe that Stalin wanted to get back what mother Russia lost after the revolution, and in the end he did and much more - except Finnland, which BTW later proved to be very usefull capitalistic ally...

One more thing about the Winter war. The allied expedition to help Finnland, which Stalin was affraid of, would have meant crossing Norway and Sweden (and taking hold of valuable mines in Kiiruna on the way). If Finnland would have said yes to the offer, it would have been interesting to see whether Sweden would have given its ore without fight. Well, a month later Hitler invaded Denmark and Norway, and got the Swedish ore with gold. Anyway, one of the interesting what ifs...

[ 06-30-2001: Message edited by: Kallimakhos ]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Never will take it badly

The racial contempt is from the Russian Empire concept of the Soviet Union. Although billed as a Socialist Brotherhood, the USSR saw other races with a similar contempt that the Germans did, only mixed with an inferiority complex from the condition of the Russian Empire. The USSR still saw in 1939 that nations would eventually become socialist then communist. The concept was that then they would be under the Russian racial sway. That is why you read things like mother russia and russian revolution in supposedly marxist writings which should stay far away from the concept of a Russian dominion.

[Tero]

>And what's to stop the defending unit from

>using "maximum ROF" to "shock" the charging

>unit at the "decisive moment"?

Good point.

1) level of suppression

2) morale status

3) casualties among the defenders officers and NCO's (depending on the nationality)

4) defensive manouverability (tactics and doctrine)

5) direction of the attack in relation to the defensive emplacements

You are assuming frontal attack situations but the Finnish army did not use them unless absolutely necessary. The attacs were made as infiltration and flanking attacks and even a Finnish frontal attack was to be turned into a flanking attack to roll up the enemy defences once a breach in the defences was accomplished.

>I still think the whole idea of allowing a

>unit to move quickly and fire at maximum

>efficiency at the same time is positively

>nutty.

Maximum efficiency is NOT the same as maximum ROF. And what I propose should not occur over distances greater than 20-40 meters, which is the distance of the last bounce in an overwatch charge.

That is at least how we were tought it when I was in the service.

>If SMG squad rushes are gamey now (they are)

>just imagine if BTS actually did this. The

>game would turn into some sort of WWF

>wrestling team rumble. SMG squad

>effectiveness is going to be a bit toned

>down in CM2 and 99% of the people on this

>board think this is a VERY GOOD THING.

And that toning down is a hit on the nose of the historical/real life accuracy of the game. The shift in favour of the Red Army over the Germans occured after they started receiving large quantities of SMG's. And you tell me there is NO correlation between Red Army going full-auto and the Germans falling fortunes !

>How does it feel to be a minority, eh amigo?

Nothing new, compadre.

>This is another thing that if implemented

>would totally ruin the game.

Not in my opinion.

>What you are asking for is a way to

>circumvent the command delay.

I am not advocating that. I am advocating more choices for the defender.

>If people were allowed to "withdraw" in any

>direction you would see players using this

>command all the time, "withdrawing" all over

>the battlefield, in place of the other

>commands.

And that is in your opinion unrealistic ?

>Why not? It magically allows you to get

>around that annoying and highly unrealistic

>command delay

Then perhaps the command should be altered to include an appropriate command delay. I think it is highly unrealistic to have all your troops know instantly when to widraw and to what location when they do not know instantly where to attack and in what mode.

>If German SOP was to counter attack

>whenever possible, players can do that right

>now, using commands intended for that

>purpose. A withdraw/disengage command is

>meant for withdrawing and disengaging,

>nothing else. Withdrawing towards the enemy

>is not a withdrawal, and is therefore not

>allowed with the withdraw command.

So why is there no break contact/disengage command now that allows more realistic defensive manouvering ? That is a serious omission in my opinion. There are times when you would like to or when you would need to widraw to other directions besides your base line.

>Simple enough?

Sure.

>There is a very big difference between

>modeling the physical differences between

>armies (what they are talking about) and the

>behavioral differences between armies (what

>you are mostly talking about here). Physical

>differences are far easier to quantify and

>prove.

The last time I checked they were discussing ad-hoc type squads and stuff like that. That is a behaviour type quatifying, not physical one. So, where is the REAL difference between their points and mine, except availability of sources ?

[Slapdragon]

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

>I guess this really isn't about snipers any

>more..

It is about snipers who get national bias bonuses only because the Western sources recoqnice only them as having been there.

>Still, with 900 shots/minute, I believe

>we'll get a weapon good enough.

I hope that the muzzle velocity and the penetration power is also modelled in detail.

From

http://www.saunalahti.fi/~ejuhola/7.62/suomi.html

Muzzle velocity 1300 fps (396 mps)

ROF: 700-800 rpm

Penetration at 100 meters: 2 mm of iron

Penetration at 300 meters: 1.5 mm of iron, 3 inches of pinewood

>One thing that will not be recreated, I

>believe, is finnish Stugs getting a 10 to 1

>kill ratio against T-34's. Especially since

>the Stug tankers were mostly green.

Make them Elite ! There were no green men fighting fresh out of boot camp with minimal training in this mans army.

>The veterans got to keep their obsolete

>T-26's.

Now there will be a sight for sore eyes: Finnish Elite über-T-26's taking out conscript T-34/85's with the first shot aimed at the front armour with their sturdy and potent 45mm guns. The same goes for the Finnish über-45mm AT guns We shall truly rewrite history. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Revisionism Tero, many of us are fully aware of Finnish history. I have visited that beautiful country, driven on the lousy roads, been completely lost outside of Kouvola (too many damn lakes), but have also had the pleasure of sharing a faculty office with a Russian (well, Ukrainian) and who was taught European History 1850-1975 by a wonderful professor from Germany. I have several Swedish friends on this list and one in person, and many other European friends, can read three European languages, and have 11 years of post secondary history at University. I am not someone who thinks only the US exists.

I do, however, hate urban legends nased on racial stereotypes, especially when applied improperly to a small scale game. No one thinks the Dutch were any good in World War Two, but all one has to do is look at the defense of Remagen Bridge in 1940 and you will get an idea of what the Ducth could have done.

The Finns lost 10 percent of their land, were forced to pay a huge sum to the Soviets, and they had to attack the Germans, all as part of the treaty that ended Finlands active participation in the Second World War. While I am sure it is comforting to say that the war was not lost, you sound just like an American who says Vietnam was not lost. After all we captured more of their stuff (used as it were to supply Nicuraguans and to send to Africa, killed 12-15 enemy soldiers for each US dead, and did not loose one meter of US soil to the enemy.

Don't let a revisionist fool you, the US lost Vietnam, and Finland lost World War Two.

Knowing how many people the US killed in Vietnam, if we tried to model that war as a game, one would conclude that US infantry were 10 times as effective as the Viets, but that would be just as wrong as trying to uberize Finland. Many factors contributed to Finland's success, most of them to be modeled. But we cannot just add a Finland wins button.

[Tero]

>I am doing from memory, so my dates may be

>off, but here it is.

Not just your dates.

>and Finland was a province of Russia.

An autonomous grand dutchy. With a border control between Russia and Finland, own currency, own parliament.

>During WW1, Fins fought on the side of the

>Czarist troops,

Not outside Finland.

>but with the October revolution, Finland

>drifted away.

Actively sought indipendence. There is a difference, you know.

>Finland though, with the aid of German

>troops, defeated the Bolshies in 1918,

The help was insignificant and Mannerheim opposed calling for it. As you well know at the time we were looking into getting a king of German origin but that went bust in 1918 so we got a president with essentially the ruling rights of a king.

>Russia always saw Finland as a country which

>would natrually fall into their camp, since

>Finns in that era heted the Swedes, were

>distrusted by the Germans, and were

>basically alone and powerless in their

>little sliver of land.

What is your source ? Yes, they though we SHOULD fall into their camp as we had been a fighting ground for them and the Swedes for centuries. And we had been the westernmost provice of the Imperial Russia in that region so the Soviets felt they had a claim on our asses and the chairs we sit on. Yes, there was a bit of animosity between the Finnish speaking Finns and the Swedish speaking Finns, but that was an internal issue. At no point did we hate the Swedish speaking Swedes (execpt perhaps in 1809 when they abandoned us).

If the Germans mistrusted us when did that turn into an alliance ?

Yes, we were alone but Winter War did prove that we were not totally powerless.

>Their leader during the late 1930s,

>Mannerheim, was a right wing nationalist

Several mistakes here: Mannerheim was the top military figure and an authority on his own right but he did not agree to run for office before 1944 when he was elected president. He was our military leader but others took care of the politics. He was a nationalist but I would hesitate to call him right wing just because he had lead the White Guards during our civil war. After the civil war he stepped away from the public life.

>only slightly less paranoid than Hitler on

>some subjects, who certainly had no stomach

>for Russia.

Mannerheim had been a career military man in the Imperial Russian army. He was not paranoid on Russia, he knew their innermost thoughts on instinct. He even advocated giving up land before Winter War started as he knew the Russian train of thought.

>On the Russian side was a contempt for the

>Finns, partially racial in nature, partially

>ideological that they should have a right

>wing and slightly belicose regime on their

>border

That ideological rift was upheld by a bunch of Finnish bolsheviks in Moscow led by O.V. Kuusinen (who is BTW buried in the Kremlin wall).

Were we really bellicose ?

>Aside from the uber arguments,

>Russia's failures can be seen as poor

>loigistical and training standards causing

>an inability to project a fighting force

>covering a wide front past their borders.

So our army über-argued the Red Army into a standstill ? Get real.

>The Russian were extremely surprised that

>they did not get a walk over,

That was due to amateurs stealing the initial show.

>the Finns extremely surprised that German

>let them whither on the vine after lots of

>talk of aryan brotherhood

When and where was this aryan brotherhood forged ? When and where had this "lots of talking" taken place ? What were the treaties signed between Finland and Germany and when were they signed ?

>(neo-Nazi type aryan movements spring up

>from time to time in all of the Nordic

>countries, and have since before they were

>called neo-Nazi),

The Finnish faschist movement was led by a bunch of men more interested in the wine than in the brotherood. Their attempted coup failed because they were too drunk. And because they did not command the respect of the army.

>and the allies seriously thought of the

>Russians as possibly a worse threat than the

>Germans, although leaders such as Churchhill

>felt they were the best of the worst and

>wanted to ally with them and tell the Finns

>to go to hell.

Dalladier and Chamberlain tied their political fates to the fate of Finland.

>In the US the Finns had moral and financial

>support from the Democrats, but the

>Republicans still felt the Germans were not

>all that bad (few people remember than in US

>history prior to 1941 the Republican Party,

>including Linbergh, was a supporter of

>Hitlers, and several pro Hitler speaches

>were made my Republican Senators.).

Yet the US did not deglare war on us. Why is that.

[Vanir Ausf B]

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

And that toning down is a hit on the nose of the historical/real life accuracy of the game. The shift in favour of the Red Army over the Germans occured after they started receiving large quantities of SMG's. And you tell me there is NO correlation between Red Army going full-auto and the Germans falling fortunes ! <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Oh boy. No, I'm not even going to start on this one.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Then perhaps the command should be altered to include an appropriate command delay. I think it is highly unrealistic to have all your troops know instantly when to widraw and to what location when they do not know instantly where to attack and in what mode.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

If you take the command delay out you remove any incentive for the player to use the withdraw command. Use Run instead and avoid the moral hit.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>So why is there no break contact/disengage command now that allows more realistic defensive manouvering ?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I don't know, but it has nothing to do with nationality modifiers.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>The last time I checked they were discussing ad-hoc type squads and stuff like that. That is a behaviour type quatifying, not physical one.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

They are discussing the frequency of use and the effectiveness of various infantry weapons especially SMGs. Lots of stuff about bullet penetration, ammo loads, rate of fire, accuracy. And you call that behavioral?

[Tero]

>Revisionism Tero,

It is revisionism when you try to read new explanations into established facts. What it is when you try to set some inaccurate established "facts" straight ?

>many of us are fully aware of Finnish

>history.

Your own list of facts about the Finnish history was an incomplete list filled with inaccurate half truths.

If that list is the high mark of the knowledge I would hesitate they are FULLY aware of Finnish history.

>I have visited that beautiful country,

I am glad to hear that.

>driven on the lousy roads,

At least they are not as narrow and lined with hedges like the country roads in the UK.

>been completely lost outside of Kouvola

>(too many damn lakes),

On the map I assume.

>...can read three European languages,

I have studied Latin. With the help of English I can read most languages if the alphabets are Latin.

>and have 11 years of post secondary history

>at University. I am not someone who thinks

>only the US exists.

You do not come across as a guy who thinks like that. But when it comes to your pool of facts about Finnish history you need a refresher course. They are fully in compliance with the facts as presented people like Ziemke and Glantz. That means that the facts you have have been sanitized to suit the established Anglo-American view of the events of WWII. Take the Norvegian expedition as an example. In the established Anglo-American history writing it is completely detached from the Winter War. That separation has been artificially made to suit the Anglo-American view of the events.

>I do, however, hate urban legends nased on

>racial stereotypes, especially when applied

>improperly to a small scale game. No one

>thinks the Dutch were any good in World War

>Two, but all one has to do is look at the

>defense of Remagen Bridge in 1940 and you

>will get an idea of what the Ducth could

>have done.

The Poles are another perfect example of that bum rap. Had they mobilized early enough they would have given the Germans a good run for their money.

>The Finns lost 10 percent of their land,

>were forced to pay a huge sum to the

>Soviets, and they had to attack the

>Germans, all as part of the treaty that

>ended Finlands active participation in the

>Second World War.

Yes.

>While I am sure it is comforting to say

>that the war was not lost, you sound just

>like an American who says Vietnam was not

>lost.

Except we had done nothing to be ashamed of. We were defending ourselves, not the world from the Beast that was knocking over the dominoes.

>After all we captured more of their stuff

>(used as it were to supply Nicuraguans and

>to send to Africa, killed 12-15 enemy

>soldiers for each US dead, and did not

>loose one meter of US soil to the enemy.

It can be argued that the TET offensive was an American success. Only the American media hyped it up to be a total disaster.

The Red Army summer offensive was a Soviet success and their media hyped up to a total victory. What they left out was the fact that our army did not surrender, they did not reach the goals set to them and the peace was signed months after the assault had been blunted.

>Don't let a revisionist fool you, the US

>lost Vietnam, and Finland lost World War

>Two.

Nitpicking time: we did NOT lose WWII, we lost our war against the Soviets.

Ever since the end of our involvement our veterans and historians have said it was a defensive victory and that our politicians were able to get the best deal they could get under the circumstances. I am echoing that POV. Where is the revisionism in that ?

>Knowing how many people the US killed in

>Vietnam, if we tried to model that war as a

>game, one would conclude that US infantry

>were 10 times as effective as the Viets,

>but that would be just as wrong as trying

>to uberize Finland.

Your argumentation is glouded by the fact that you let political aspects affect the projected outcome. The US troops were more effective in combat than the Vietnamese. But the Vietnamese outfought you in the political game. Should that be factored in to CM-Vietnam ?

These political happenings are not within the CM scope. The political aspects should not carry over to the purely programming aspect of a combat simulation like CM. The fact that Finland lost is (or should be) irrelevant when the Finnish units are being modelled. What should be counted in is their historical effectiveness. And then it should be determined how to implement this historical effectivness to the game.

>Many factors contributed to Finland's

>success, most of them to be modeled. But

>we cannot just add a Finland wins button.

Agreed. The game is tactical level simulation, not a political simulation.

[Tero]

>Oh boy. No, I'm not even going to start on

>this one.

I see the other tread has shifted to that direction.

>If you take the command delay out you

>remove any incentive for the player to use

>the withdraw command. Use Run instead and

>avoid the moral hit.

You are missing my point. Whatever attack command you use it leaves the unit vulnerable to enemy action because you can not simply order the unit to Run and expect it to make it if it turns its back to the unit it is currently engageing.

>I don't know, but it has nothing to do with

>nationality modifiers.

I know. How the hell did we digress this far off topic.

>They are discussing the frequency of use

>and the effectiveness of various infantry

>weapons especially SMGs. Lots of stuff

>about bullet penetration, ammo loads, rate

>of fire, accuracy. And you call that

>behavioral?

Yes. When you start assessing what is Ad-hoc and how it should be implemented. I think no army had a ready solution to Ad-hoc unit formation. It was up to the local commander to gather them. And that is most definitely behavioral. National charasteristic dependant even.

Do you still say they are NOT discussing national biases over there ?

[Vanir Ausf B]

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

You are missing my point. Whatever attack command you use it leaves the unit vulnerable to enemy action because you can not simply order the unit to Run and expect it to make it if it turns its back to the unit it is currently engageing.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I thought your point was that German units should have a special type of withdraw command only usable by them. That is what nationality modifiers are all about and I thought that was what your whole arguement was in favor of. I have nothing against a "fighting retreat" type command as long as everyone can use it.

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

Yes. When you start assessing what is Ad-hoc and how it should be implemented. I think no army had a ready solution to Ad-hoc unit formation. It was up to the local commander to gather them. And that is most definitely behavioral. National charasteristic dependant even.

Do you still say they are NOT discussing national biases over there ? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I hate word games. But what the hell.

The weapon mix of a squad is a PHYSICAL characteristic of that squad, just as the number of HE and AP shells carried by a tank is a PHYSICAL characteristic of that tank. They are objects you can touch and count. They are easy to quantify if you have the data. They are either there, or they are not there. The performance of these weapons is also a physical characteristic. The reasons why a unit has a certain weapon mix could be thought of as behavioral, but it is entirely irrelevant to CM as the game does not allow the player to decide such things for his units (outside the scope).

Just because you see evey issue in terms of nationality bias doesn't mean everyone else does.

[ 07-02-2001: Message edited by: Vanir Ausf B ]

[Skipper]

> Although billed as a Socialist

> Brotherhood, the USSR saw other races with

> a similar contempt that the Germans did,

> only mixed with an inferiority complex

> from the condition of the Russian Empire.

That's patently untrue. For crying out loud, Stalin was georgian. Khruschev was ukranian. That's not to mention lower levels of hierarchy. And if we are talking about school, in my 10 years there I was told something like a ten thousand times that all nations are equal - and I lived in a place where this was a non-issue (extreme north east).

[Slapdragon]

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

> Although billed as a Socialist

> Brotherhood, the USSR saw other races with

> a similar contempt that the Germans did,

> only mixed with an inferiority complex

> from the condition of the Russian Empire.

That's patently untrue. For crying out loud, Stalin was georgian. Khruschev was ukranian. That's not to mention lower levels of hierarchy. And if we are talking about school, in my 10 years there I was told something like a ten thousand times that all nations are equal - and I lived in a place where this was a non-issue (extreme north east).<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Glad to know it, I have informed my Ukranian office mates and our Azerbiajani. They laughed at you, but say the got the same thing. In school -- all races are equal. Outside, it was very different.

[Tero]

>I thought your point was that German units

>should have a special type of withdraw

>command only usable by them. That is what

>nationality modifiers are all about and I

>thought that was what your whole arguement

>was in favor of.

I think much of my argumentation has been glouded by my supposed über-Finn claims. The facts I quote do seem like preposterous über-Finn plugs. But unfortunately we can not debate national characteristics if no facts are presented on the matter.

It seems that the Allied POV is selfevident and all data that contradicts or questions the established set of facts is viewed as über-propaganda.

>I have nothing against a "fighting retreat"

>type command as long as everyone can use it.

I think there are very few, if any, commands that should not be available to one side only just because of their nationality.

>I hate word games. But what the hell.

Semantics is fun.

>The weapon mix of a squad is a PHYSICAL

>characteristic of that squad, just as the

>number of HE and AP shells carried by a tank

>is a PHYSICAL characteristic of that tank.

>They are objects you can touch and count.

Agreed. Except the ammo load out HE/AP ratio of the tank is something that is subject to tactical and dotrinal aspects based on national behaviour.

>They are easy to quantify if you have the

>data. They are either there, or they are not

>there. The performance of these weapons is

>also a physical characteristic.

Agreed. Except there are differences in how the data is assesed and what factors are deemed as relevant. In the case of SMG's there are two schools: those who say it was ineffective and those who say it was effective. Both schools use the same data but come up with different conclusions. And by and large these conclusions are determined by their frames of reference. Which is inherently based on national experiences.

>The reasons why a unit has a certain weapon

>mix could be thought of as behavioral, but

>it is entirely irrelevant to CM as the game

>does not allow the player to decide such

>things for his units (outside the scope).

Agreed up to a point. This is (yet again) a topic concerning OoB's. What muddies the water is the rather infuriating fact that men seldom adhere to the text book application of rules and regulations in special circumstances, such as war.

>Just because you see evey issue in terms of

>nationality bias doesn't mean everyone else

>does.

This is largely because the national bias is not a national bias if it is a fact of life that belongs to everyones set of givens. What you say is a national bias may not be in my POV a national bias at all. And vice versa.

A recent "great" hubbub has arisen because Team A is denied something team B has. Yet all previous arguments about the things that are given to team A but denied from team B are shrugged off. Both these instances constitute national bias in my book.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Not much more to say here, but I couldn't let this one go:

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

In the case of SMG's there are two schools: those who say it was ineffective and those who say it was effective. Both schools use the same data but come up with different conclusions. And by and large these conclusions are determined by their frames of reference. Which is inherently based on national experiences.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I have no idea where you get this idea. There are people of the same nationality on both sides of the debate, which seems to shoot down your theory. I could list the nationalities of each of the major participants in that thread if you don't know them already. You would see there is no correlation between nationality and opinion of SMGs.