Unarmed Soviet conscript squads, prime for the wave attack

[The Commissar]

*sigh*

This thing seems to have wandered off a bit from the intended topic. First, more clarifications:

Skipper,

It was not my intent to "dehumanize" the Soviet people by posting this mesage. Being a former Soviet, born and raised in Moscow (and proud of it too), trying to make my people look like "mad mobs" would be rather silly on my part. I obtained information, read in books and heard mentioned in several cases on this board, and thought it would be a good idea FOR VERY EARLY IN THE WAR. I should have mentioned that before, I think some people got the wrong impression.

Jeff,

If you dislike playing any scenario which has opposing forces with unequal experience, you would be a very boring person to play against. In variety there is fun. Besides, it takes a lot of skill beating more experienced troops with troops of lower experience. Of course, to each his own.

Tiger,

While I have no objections to your comments (nor to anyone elses for that matter), I would have to kindly ask that you try not to drag this thread in the direction of a locking via heated arguments with Skipper. Argue, please, just try to take it easy.

Im sorry I havent been able to supply the sources I have promised in this messege. Ive been busier then a mule all day. Ill be checking up on this thread as much as I can.

Thanks for all the discussion guys. Keep it up.

[Jeff Heidman]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by The Commissar:

*sigh*

This thing seems to have wandered off a bit from the intended topic. First, more clarifications:

Jeff,

If you dislike playing any scenario which has opposing forces with unequal experience, you would be a very boring person to play against. In variety there is fun. Besides, it takes a lot of skill beating more experienced troops with troops of lower experience. Of course, to each his own.

.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Gosh, where did I say I dislike scenarios were the opposing forces are of unequal quality?

I think I said the thought of playing a scenario where one side gets to run masses of unarmed conscripts at the other sides machine guns to see if the Germans can butcher enough Russians prior to being swamped sounds pretty boring, especially for the guy who gets to have the honor of playing the stupid Russian.

And what tactics are involved? Gosh, should I line up my cannon fodder in parallel, or perhaps they could all march in little squares?!?

Ooooohhhhh! The possibilities!!!

I haven't even commented on the rather German-centric and uninformed viewpoint this entire thread brings up.

Jeff

[Tiger]

Aye Commisar. I am not upset at Skipper or anyone. I see his point about myths that become associated with the War, however I take issue with the methods he employees to make his argument, i.e the propaganda poster.

As I've already noted I think it behooves us to take the good with the bad, and not just throw out the bad out of hand as "myth" because it upsets our national pride. Something that's difficult to do. One side says unarmed "soldiers" were used in mass assaults/defenses, the other side says no. The truth is probably somewhere in between.

-Tiger

[The Commissar]

Jeff,

Once again, you manage to miss the point. The whole idea is that these unarmed conscripts would not be the only force on the map. Far from it. Nor would their use be "stupid", simply a last resort when required.

Say youre playing a 1000 point QB. The German player buys some infantry of Regular experience or higher, some machine guns, etc. The Soviet player, when selecting infantry, decides to get in addition to his actual fighting force a battalion of these conscripts. Now, naturally, these conscripts would alone outnumber the German player's entire infantry formation. When used in mass, to capture an important position, IN COMBINATION WITH REGULAR INFANTRY (I stress this point since you dont seem to understand that I meant there will indeed be other forces involved), they could make an otherwise wasteful, dangerous, and suicidal charge into a game-winning move.

If they were the only troops on the map, I would understand how anyone would be bored (trying to rally the buggers after they hear the first shot). However, this is not the case here. I hope I made myself more clearer this time around.

Tiger,

Agreed. Just trying to keep it friendly here.

[Straif]

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

Poland was not attacked by Soviet Union in 1939. There was no armed conflict. Soviet union entered/occupied Polish teritory when the war was already lost to Germans in a quick territory grab.

(snip...)

So Soviet Union avoided conflict with Polish troops but was providing information to the Germans.

One more thing. Soviet Union was attacked by Poland in 1921! Polish troops got As far in as Kiev.

[ 04-18-2001: Message edited by: killmore ]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

There was no armed conflict, because Polish Government ordered polish troops to surrender to Soviets or escape to Romania. There was no possibility to win war on two fronts with two world biggest armies.

If country "A" sends his armies to annect half of territory of country "B", it is an act of wor in my simplistic logic.

Additionally, in winter 1939/1940 Soviets murdered 25,000 to 30,000 polish POW officers. Sound like frienly gesture for me.

Check "Katyn" in any internet search.

Straif

[Straif]

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

(snip...)

As a person of Polish descent I take offense that you imply "several divisions of Poles" helped the Soviets invade their own country in 1939. No doubt in the same vein of "volunteer" communist Finns who helped the Soviets invade Finland during the Winter War.

-Tiger

[ 04-18-2001: Message edited by: Tiger ]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It was misunderstanding. Skipper was talking about Polish Army on East front, helping to "liberate" Warsaw in 1944. In 1944 two Polish Armies under Soviet leadership counted about 600,000 soldiers, so it was "several divisions".

Straif

[I/O Error]

I doubt that ALL these stories are myth, the situation WAS desperate enough in several cases to warrant the situation.

And in urban or broken-terrain conditions, it MIGHT just be feasible enough for a last-ditch attempt.

I am not willing to accept that this happened ALL THE TIME, but neither am I willing to simply throw out the idea in its entirety.

[Skipper]

Tiger,

You may want to study the story of your granddads. As Straif said, there were lots of polish people taking part in the fight with nazis. If memory serves, these units were formed in 1942-43 and took part in some heavy fighting in Ukraine and then Poland. Some of them were 100% volunteers, others were given a choice to fight or to stay in detention.

Katyn - it did happen, too. As well as mass execution of soviet POWs by Poles in 1921 and many other ugly stories. An that was all just 50-70 years ago. Not that much.

And yes, I've read Rudel's book just recently. In my opinion, it is fisherman story from cover to cover. NB: "fisherman story" is not equal to "deliberate lie". It's just the size of the cautch is limited by the length of teller's hands. And yes, it usually makes for a great reading.

I have already mentioned Brezhnev's memoir which (if available in english) I highly recommend to anyone - great reading in the same genre!

I've read many accounts like this: "bombers, prep artillery strike, then infantry assault. Drunk submachine-gunners hosing our trenches with lead. We let them come close and then open up. Long bursts of our MG are making wide sweeps in the enemy lines. Decimated attackers withdraw. Two hours later the whole sequence is repeated. And so it continues until dusk." Guess, who are the attackers in these accounts? Germans.

On your "bad and good" point, I am trying to do exactly that - ie, begging you, guys, to make a distinction between hilarious myths and grim reality.

In short, I've never heard about hundreds of people ordered to assault german positions with "5 rifles per 15 men" ©. This would be completely out of this world.

[Straif]

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

Tiger,

(snip...)

As well as mass execution of soviet POWs by Poles in 1921 and many other ugly stories. An that was all just 50-70 years ago. Not that much.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Do you have any credible reference to support this claim? It sound to me like another piece from Soviet propaganda machine.

To find references about Katyn go to google and search with this keyword.

Examples: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Troy/1791/ http://codoh.com/trials/trikatyn.html

This second one is about bolshevik propaganda machine in action.

Give me some documents about this "polish mass executions", please.

Straif

[engy]

Usually I don't stick my nose in these discussions, but here's information about the alleged Soviet POW executions:

(from the web page"Stalin's Killing Field", with primary sources listed there)

An excerpt follows...

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

And so the story [about Katyn] stood until fall 1998, when Moscow made a bizarre move. In September, Procurator General Yuri Chayka sent a letter to Poland's minister of justice demanding an official inquiry into the deaths of Russian soldiers captured during the Polish-Soviet war of 1919-1921. The letter asserted that 83,500 internees had died "in Polish concentration camps as a result of cruel and inhuman conditions." Chayka added: "The information we have allows us to conclude that genocide was applied to Red Army POWs." 25 Poland officially rejected the allegation but not before offering to cooperate in a joint search of Polish and Russian archives for additional information. (The offer was not accepted.)

This was the first time Moscow had raised such an allegation at an official level, but such charges had been circulating in Russian circles for some time. A rumor heard in Warsaw in the early 1990s claimed that Gorbachev had ordered his staff to find a "counterbalance" to Katyn. The rumor has not been confirmed, but after the first Katyn disclosure in 1990 the Soviet (and later Russian) press occasionally cited alleged abuses in Polish POW camps. Headlines such as "Strzakowo--A Polish Katyn" and "Tuchola--A Death Camp" were typical but attracted little notice.

Then, in July 1998, the Moscow paper Nezavisimaya Gazeta [independent Newspaper] ran a front-page article claiming that tens of thousands of prisoners had died as a result of shootings, starvation, and exposure. This article formed the basis of Chayka's demarche. 26 It went beyond previous assertions that Russians and Poles both were victims of Stalinism: "The present position of Warsaw resembles the former position of the USSR, which failed to confess the Katyn crime for a long time . . . . It would be good if Poland followed in Russia's footsteps and pleaded guilty to the savagery [against Red Army soldiers]." The case for moral equivalence had been replaced by a claim to moral superiority.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[Matthew_Ridgeway]

Is this thread about unarmed Soviet Conscript or atrocities against Soviet POW’s?

I’m curious how many people here can quote specific sources and the passages therein to give us a feel for just how prevalent unarmed Soviet Infantry squads were. I know of only one such example disscussed in Paul Carell’s “Hitler Moves East” regarding a Soviet Infantry attack around Leningrad.

[killmore]

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

There was no armed conflict, because Polish Government ordered polish troops to surrender to Soviets or escape to Romania. There was no possibility to win war on two fronts with two world biggest armies.

If country "A" sends his armies to annect half of territory of country "B", it is an act of wor in my simplistic logic.

Additionally, in winter 1939/1940 Soviets murdered 25,000 to 30,000 polish POW officers. Sound like frienly gesture for me.

Check "Katyn" in any internet search.

Straif<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

What does Katyn have to do with whether there was armed conflict? Yes I know about Katyn.

By the time Soviet troops entered Poland there was already no chance whatsoever to win the war. No armed conflict means no war, even if it is not a friendly act.

By the way Poland did this to Czechoslowakia in 1938. They "annexed" part of it after germany got their slice thanks to Munich treaty.

[MrSpkr]

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

Is this thread about unarmed Soviet Conscript or atrocities against Soviet POW’s?

I’m curious how many people here can quote specific sources and the passages therein to give us a feel for just how prevalent unarmed Soviet Infantry squads were. I know of only one such example disscussed in Paul Carell’s “Hitler Moves East” regarding a Soviet Infantry attack around Leningrad.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Ack. I normally try to stay out of these flame wars, but I wanted to comment -

Carrell's book - good book, good source (since he dealt with first hand accounts from both sides).

Poland attacking Russia and commiting war atrocities in '21? It seems to me that Stalin would have made good propaganda use of this information as justification for continued Soviet occupation of Poland after the war, if not as partial justification for attacking (yes attacking - if Canada moved 250,000 men into Michigan, it would be an ATTACK - an ACT OF WAR) Poland in 1939.

Okay, Flame on!

MrSpkr

[Tiger]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Is this thread about unarmed Soviet Conscript or atrocities against Soviet POW’s?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

No, this is how Skipper operates. He talked about "several Polish divisions helping the Soviets in 1939" and then when questioned about it goes off on some wild tangent about poor soviet pows being killed in "polish conecentration camps" in 1920s. It's the same thing he did earlier in this post with the propaganda poster and when I gave him an account from a book about unarmed civilians being mentioned. Skipper made some sarcastic remark about the "noble german knights defending valiantly to the end , brought down by the soviet masses", another remark designed to put the person who questions him on the defensive (as usual). Apparently any source that does not agree with him he lables a "fisherman's tale". Oddly enough the reports from an opressive no-free-speech regime hold more weight with him than the entire free world does.

-Tiger

ps ~ yes I know Polish troops helped "liberate" Poland from the Nazis in 1944-45, though that wasn't the context Skipper had been using them in.

[Jarmo]

As an attempt to lighten the mood around this debate, I'll post a caption of this months Dilbert Newsletter. It's about debating techniques.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> The Induhvidual debating technique involves four steps:

1. Exaggerate your opponent's statement into an absurd absolute.

2. Make an inappropriate analogy.

3. Change the topic to something easier to defend.

4. Claim victory.

For example:

Me: Vegetables are good for you.

Induhvidual: That's ridiculous. If you ate a truckload of

vegetables all at once you would die.

Me: No one eats a truckload all at once.

Induhvidual: Let me give you an analogy. If you tried to swim

across the ocean, and you didn't know how to swim,

and you had no arms or legs, you'd never make it.

Surely you can agree with that.

Me: Um...that's different.

Induhvidual: Ha! So now you agree with me that swimming is good

exercise!

The worst part is that not only will you be frustrated at your

inability to make your point, you will be branded as the person who

thinks swimming is bad exercise.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Off to play more CM...

[Matthew_Ridgeway]

MrSpkr:

I am not attempting to flame or begin a flame war. Perhaps I came off more terse than I intended. I’m simply interested in weather there is some sort of precedence here. If there is a consistent trend for this sort of thing occurring based upon historical examples, than maybe there should be some attempt to model it into a historical simulation. If the extent of our evidence is based upon one account this is perhaps a waste of time trying to code such a thing into an Eastern front wargame. That was my only point.

[Skipper]

Okay, I will abstain from discussing various ugly stories from the recent past, but someone here should learn to read. By re-reading the whole thread for starters.

Skipper the Flame-retardant

[Straif]

I trust people from Battlefront. They did great job with researching western front, probably they have lotta material about east too.

IMHO, if even unarmed attacks happened, it was not usual tactical element of Soviet Army. This game should concentrate (again in my personal opinion) in more typical aspects of the military conflicts. But let's wait and we will see.

Interesting, will we see Romanian and Ukrainian pro-Germany forces?

Is it true that French had some units on East front too?

Straif

[JasonC]

"This particular bit sounds like a sheer nonsense"

Actually, what it sounded like to me was a column of refugees trying to get away from the war, not having any real idea where the front line was, and trying to get across a river in the middle of the night. And the Germans shooting the heck out of them - perhaps thinking it a strategem, perhaps not.

As for the large numbers of unarmed Russian conscripts and volunteers, there certainly were large numbers of both. But they were not a combat force. They were laborers. They made field fortifications. There are many photos of what this means, huge systems of anti-tank ditches being dug all around a city by half the inhabitants thereof, etc.

I do not doubt that replacements got weapons from the fallen, too. And in 1941, extra training had to be rundimentary (although the Germans may exaggerate this), simply because losses over 6 months equaled the size of the initial force, yet at the end of that period the force was just as large. They got much of their practical training in their first few combats.

In all other armies we know of, the newbies did poorly, almost regardless of training, but if they made it a week or so their survival chances rose to as good as old hands. If there is one thing all the vets agree on, it is that nothing prepares anyone for combat, except combat.

[tss]

Aaargh. I managed to destroy my long reply. I'll put here a much shorter one:

Skipper wrote:

I've read many accounts like this: "bombers, prep artillery strike, then infantry assault. Drunk submachine-gunners hosing our trenches with lead. We let them come close and then open up. Long bursts of our MG are making wide sweeps in the enemy lines. Decimated attackers withdraw. Two hours later the whole sequence is repeated. And so it continues until dusk." Guess, who are the attackers in these accounts? Germans.

Combat reports are pretty interesting things. They very often overestimate the enemy strength and enemy losses. I just wrote several nice examples but after managing to destroy them I'll write only one again.

During Summer 1942 one Soviet partisan brigade was sent behind Finnish lines to destroy the HQ of an Army Corps. However, the mission failed and there was a two-month long pursuit battle in the wilderness.

In the second last night behind Finnish lines the brigade broke through a defence line. I've read three accounts of this combat, two Finnish and one Soviet. One Finnish account is in Tikkanen's "Sissiprikaatin tuho" and it is apparently based on interviews of men of the Finnish 12th Brigade. The other Finnish account is by P. Perttuli, commander of one Finnish company (not in the 12th Brigade) that participated in the battle. The Soviet account is by Dmitri Gusarov (in "Korpi ei tunne armo", I can't remember its name in Russian) and it combines Soviet veteran interviews to the Tikkanen's account.

Anyway, Tikkanen's account is the oldest and according to it Soviets bypassed one defence line and surprised a rajajääkäri ("Border jäger") company camp destroying it and causing 24 KIA and dozens of wounded. He also claims that Finnish MGs caused ~70 casualties on Soviets when they crossed a marsh.

Gusarov had access to "Sissiprikaatin tuho" and he took the number of Finnish casualties directly from there, and added that they also destroyed one MG post that was positioned in the edge of the marsh. It has been some time since I read it, but I seem to remember that Gusarov didn't give the number of Soviet casualties at all.

Finally, captain Perttuli gives a different account than either of above. He was the commander of the Rajajääkäri company whose camp was overrun. However, according to him the camp was empty at the time and they only lost the tents (riddled by bullet and shrapnel holes) and several backbags, including the commander's excellent Norwegian one. According to him, his company lost only 4 men that night. I just checked the database of Finnish military KIAs, and it confirms Perttuli's story, since it lists only one dead rajajääkäri on that date. Also, Perttuli puts the number of Soviet KIA to 53, IIRC. I believe this figure more than the Tikkanen's one, since earlier in the book Tikkanen claimed that "over 300 bodies were counted on the Tjasa-river battlefield", when a captured radio report form the partisans stated that their losses were 258 men, including well-over 100 MIA (can't remember actual figure), most of whom were alive but lost in the forest.

BTW, Perttuli was the man who commanded the recon mission round Lake Lieksajärvi that served as the inspiration for the Finnish war movie "Ambush" ("Rukajärven tie"). He started the war as a 2nd lt and ended it as a major, gaining three promotions in three years.

- Tommi

[ 04-20-2001: Message edited by: tss ]

[Skipper]

> I do not doubt that replacements got

> weapons from the fallen, too.

Heck, they even got uniforms from the fallen. There was a system of collecting uniforms of KIA and redistributing them. What is the point of controversy here is that they were not sent to assaults as unarmed formations.