Les the Sarge 9-1b Posted January 17, 2003 Share Posted January 17, 2003 I don't think he was being "pompus" myself. and some of his facts might be correct while others maybe coloured slightly wrong. I have seen the locations for the factory counters in Russian Front though. What moves and when it is moved, is determined by your German opponent. My average game, sees me moving 2 factories only. I usually lose 2 factories as well. The ones that are safe, are the ones in the far eastern side of the board (which is no shock). But that only confirms what I have said, and what Paulus said. They didn't move them all, they lost some, and most of the production ends up coming from further east. I have never played a game where I moved all of the factories, and doubt I could ever justify doing so as well. The games military formations desperately need rail transport as well. I have had factories that had confined production due to the current look af the immediate battlefield as well. A cut off factory is not worth production in the same way an unisolated one isn't. So SC2 still yet needs a way to simulate factory movement, but it still needs to be a desperate decision to make. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paullus Posted January 17, 2003 Share Posted January 17, 2003 I apologize to the board. I certainly did not mean to come off as pompous. I'm been a lurker for some time, posted some on the old CM board before CMBB & been playing SC for a month or so. I've been a student of WWII for quite some time (as I assume most of us are) & have been reading a lot of new material coming out of the former Soviet Union that points a new spin on a lot of previous information that was accepted as fact here in the west. I'm at work at the moment & don't have access to my source material, but when I return home I can certainly put some teeth into my arguments. As far as the movement of factories go, a lot of material I've seen, plus interview material with former Soviet officials sheds a lot of light on the subject. A few key factories were moved, but the majority were either in place before the war or built during the first two years of the conflict in the Urals & outlying areas. It was just too time & resource consuming to move the "large" type Soviet-era facilities and get them back up and running in time to have an effect on the outcome of the war. Just like the Soviet's downplayed the massive losses they sustained at Kursk, the notion that they could transplant whole sections of their economy & get them up and running in such a short period of time was great propaganda material. Instead, the notion of beginning to build these new factories in the Urals and other areas beyond easy reach of invading forces in the 1930's was a much better policy and served to be the backbone of Soviet tank, aircraft, and artillery production throughout the war. The wholesale conversation of civilian factories in the same areas also helped, and contributed to the awful state of the Soviet people outside of the military. It was not until the 1960's that Soviet civilian production returned to pre-1941 levels. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Konstantin V. Kotelnikov Posted January 17, 2003 Share Posted January 17, 2003 Originally posted by paullus: I'm at work at the moment & don't have access to my source material, but when I return home I can certainly put some teeth into my arguments.Excellent, I look forward to seeing them. The only thing I have seen that echoed your point was some guys website and no sources posted. As a student of history you are probably well aware that when you go to disprove a widely held belief that you should have your sources in line. Objectivity is history is important, too much subjectivity is bad. Oh I forgot to add, that often only the machinery of the factory was moved with the skilled workers. It is far easier to move it than build it new. That's one of the faults in that argument. [ January 17, 2003, 03:09 PM: Message edited by: Konstatin V. Kotelnikov ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenfedoroff Posted January 17, 2003 Share Posted January 17, 2003 Originally posted by paullus: I've been a student of WWII for quite some time (as I assume most of us are) & have been reading a lot of new material coming out of the former Soviet Union that points a new spin on a lot of previous information that was accepted as fact here in the west.[/QB]Thanks for sharing, what is for me, "new" information. I have been too busy playing computer games and making smart remarks in the Forum to be bothered with the research of the "Why" and "Wherefore" of SC. Sincerely, everyone's knowledge and research is appreciated. I'm at work at the moment & don't have access to my source material, but when I return home I can certainly put some teeth into my arguments.Sincerely, speaking for myself, I appreciate it when someone shares new material that might be of interest to me. The wholesale conversion of civilian factories in the same areas also helped, and contributed to the awful state of the Soviet people outside of the military.This and the movement of machine tools from threatened areas could be factored into SC. It was not until the 1960's that Soviet civilian production returned to pre-1941 levels.As a side note: I recall the stories the skilled tradesmen from our company told about installing an assembly line in the Soviet Union in 1975. They said it was like going back in time to the year 1919. OK, I have scribbled enough now, Ken Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerseyJohn Posted January 17, 2003 Share Posted January 17, 2003 The point about the Urals development being a pre-war plan that was continued sounds right. In effect locating all new industry in the Urals was similar to moving it's industrial base much farther east. There was some movement of the most irreplacable machines and perhaps some entire factories as well, which would have been preferable to simply destroying them. The factories involved were no doubt the newest with the most valueable machines and the most spcialized workers. I think a lot of the confusion originated with American and British wartime propaganda. The newsreels also reported a similar movement (from east to west) taking place in China, where there was much less industry to be moved and far fewer railroads to move them on. Wartime propaganda films made it appear to be a brick by brick process, which would seem a bit absurd. [ January 17, 2003, 04:38 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Konstantin V. Kotelnikov Posted January 18, 2003 Share Posted January 18, 2003 Originally posted by JerseyJohn: Wartime propaganda films made it appear to be a brick by brick process, which would seem a bit absurd.Right on the money JerseyJohn. The common misconception was they moved the entire factory. No. The tools and workers were what went. I have seen accounts of one factory that didn't have a roof over it's head, they worked in the open air. I did a little net surfing leg work and from various sources found these: 1360 factories were moved to the urals representing 40% of soviet production. I could not find a list of what went, but I did find a Motorcycle factory from Moscow and the T-34 factory from Kharkov went to the urals. Now applying this to the game, that would be a huge help to the soviets as the germans over run Riga, Minsk, Odessa, Smolensk and on and on... I like the idea of moving them, having a delay for the move and then they appear on the edge of the map at strength 1 and gradually build in strength. Whether you want to limit it to strength 8 or 10, dunno. I can't remember who posted that, but that's a really great idea. Cause when playing as the axis, gobble up those MPP's ASAP and the soviets will be helpless. No moving factories and no lend lease, it will only be a matter of time. Isn't that a song? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RommelDAK Posted February 7, 2003 Share Posted February 7, 2003 I have read an account that partially supports the point Paullus mentions. According to James F. Dunnigan (a name no doubt familiar to many wargamers! ), This (the movement of factories) was not as crucial for the Russian war effort as is generally thought. Throughout the industrialization campaign of the 1930's, most new arms factories were built east of Moscow, in areas less likely to be overrun by an invader from the west. So, while factory evacuation was helpful, the decision to build new factories east of Moscow was crucial (p.161, James F. Dunnigan and Albert A. Nofi, Dirty Little Secrets of World War Two, New York: Quill, 1994)That's the only place I've read that, though, and he did not give citations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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