Russia is to aggresive.

[Ymir]

After playing a couple of games last night there is just one thing I find strange in this otherwise excellent demo/game.

Russia is to aggresive, I think Russia never would have attacked the Axis if Op. Barbarossa had just been dusting away in Hitler´s desk.

This is how I build my case:

*Stalin wanted pace with Germany. (Stalin=Russia).

*Stalin´s main occupation in 1940/1941 was build up the Russia´s industrial might. As his main enemies his eyes was set on Finland and Japan´s armys on the asian mainland .

*Stalin knew the his army was commanded by inept (but fanatical) political-officers.Pluss very bad equipment ment a worse army than the French.

This ment that until The Battle of Stalingrad when the Russian Army was modernised, and the political-officers was sacked the potential as Russia attacking any large force with success was minute.

With this in the back of my head when playing SC, I get annoyed when the message "Russia prepares for war" pops up.

PS. Remeber that England supported the Finnish people in the "first winter war"

PSS. Please excuse my spelling I´m from Norway

[Norse]

Hvis du ikke har ett forsvar mot Russerne, så kommer de til å rulle over ditt Tredje Rike. Derfor må du passe på å ha nok styrker i øst til å kunne forsvare deg selv, hvis du har det, så tar det lang tid før Russerne kommer. Se på war view også, så ser du USSR = XX% og USA = XX% , når prosenten når 100, så erklærer de krig på deg. Det er den politiske delen av spillet. Fek, jo flere land du angriper, jo mere pissed off blir Amerikanerne på deg og prosenten øker svært raskt. Tar du det rolig, så tar det lenger tid før de kommer.

In other words, it's all part of the fun

~Norse~

[pzgndr]

IMHO, making Russia neutral should be the default historical setting. Making Russian entry random permits a what-if scenario where Russia if free to be aggressive.

A potential problem with Russia in SC is that it's probably front-loaded too much with forces and MPPs in order to absorb the historical German invasion for play balance. Since there's no Murmansk convoys or Lend Lease for the western allies to transfer MPPs during 1942/43, there's no way the surviving Russian resources alone should support a counter-offensive. So there's a historical inaccuracy here that has to be compensated for somehow. So what happens if Germany does something different and Russia has all this "extra" combat power at its disposal early on? Duh, Objective Berlin!

Not knowing all that is involved with the Russian setup nor having played the full game yet, I can only hazard a guess here. Perhaps the initial Russian setup could be slightly different if it is attacked than if it declares war, at least through summer 1941. But that may be difficult to implement. A better option might be to have a weaker standard setup and then have free mobilization forces arrive sooner after any German invasion (emergency!) and later following any Russian DOW made prior to Aug/Sep/Oct(?) 1941 (not quite ready yet), similar to the optional Siberian reinforcements already provided in the game. This should maintain the play balance for the historical Barbarossa invasion, but limit early Russian aggressiveness if left alone.

MPP transfers to Russia should be added to the game eventually to more accurately represent the historical economic situation. If not, then perhaps some tweaking of the setups and use of free mobilization forces (staggered over time) could be considered to deal with the Russian aggression. Just a thought.

[Briggs]

About Barbarossa: One day I did a Yahoo! search just to see what info I could come across, and stumbled over this interesting -if not slightly imaginitive story.

http://ihr.org/jhr/v17/v17n4p30_Michaels.html

I've not checked out this guy's sources yet, but I may do so in the future. If not true, then very interesting to say the least.

[DevilDog]

I've heard the "Soviets were about to invade" theory before from several different sources. There certainly is a lot of evidence to support it. One of the reasons the Germans did so well initially is that the Russians were deployed in droves along the border - meaning they were easy to surround, and once surrounded they were screwed. Many of their major supply dumps were located well forward as well - a major screw-up IF they had been intending to deploy for a defensive fight, but understandable if they were planning to invade Germany.

[pzgndr]

I've heard the "Soviets were about to invade" theory before from several different sources. There certainly is a lot of evidence to support it.

Not so fast. This raises a lot of questions about any evidence of Soviet readiness to execute any invasion plans. Certainly if Germany was woefully undergarrisoned on the east front then maybe the Soviets could have acheived something. The game should provide some what-if capability to see what may have happened, and that's fine. But for historical accuracy, the Soviets in 1941 were probably not capable of the aggression that's possible in SC.

[arax3]

After the disaster in the "Winter War" illustrated the weakness of the Red Army; and after the Stalinist purges of the late 30s (a marvelous German intelligence coup!), the Red Army was not ready to attack anyone. In fact, Stalin tired to join the Axis!! Anyone reading "Mein Kampf" would know that Hitler was determined to get "living space" for the Reich in Western Russian and Eastern Europe. It is only the incompetence of Neville Chamberlain and Chruchill that forced him to start his war in the West. Russia did not "lose" WWII but won it. It is Russian blood that doomed the Reich, not the pitiful efforts of the Western Allies. A3

[Von_Manteuffel]

I like the stronger Russia in the gold demo. It's more realistic because any attempt to invade England was frought with peril, because the Soviets were sitting there so close to Germany.

And besides, the German invasion of Russia was not easy. A lot of the envelopments and flanking movements were nice on paper, but not complete victories.

[Aloid]

This is timely, as I'm reading "When Titans Clashed". It seems like Stalin wanted peace at all costs, while his staff wanted a pre-emptive strike. The Soviet setup along the boarder is a puzzle, as they did load up the front line, but did not make the strike they were setup for.

I like the Soviet threat in the game. If you build slowly on the Eastern front as the German's, you can hold off their invasion. This seems okay to me. I've been able to keep them at bay while invading England... then I hit the "end of demo" bug...

Aloid

[Desert Dave]

As originally posted by Bill Macon:

But for historical accuracy, the Soviets in 1941 were probably not capable of the aggression that's possible in SC.

Thanks for finding and posting a link to that helpful book review. The one thing that struck me about the article was -- the Germans anticipated that Russia could mobilize 10 million men, whereas 30 million was the truer figure.

To amend your statement, I would say that the Soviets were not capable of a SUCCESSFUL aggression. Whether Stalin or Zukhov or anyone else actually seriously contemplated that is an open question.

Certainly their aggression in all of the nearby Minor states would suggest that they felt they could throw their weight around against smaller forces. :eek:

I suspect that Stalin knew this would NOT be possible against the greatly experienced and Spartanly trained Germans, and was merely biding his time until the transformation of his numerically superior Armies was complete.

But, as you say, this can be war-gamed, and in SC we have the tools to set up any kind of scenario we wish, to include using the campaign game parameters.

Can't wait. (... please hold firm you fickle date, August the 5th!)

[Straha]

With respect to gamebalance, I think that once SC is out, experience with PBEM games will help decide whether Russia and the Allies are too strong early on. Maybe we should have a thread where people can report their results on a regular basis.

Straha

[dragoon19]

Stalin was a cold political realist. Given the chance he would have let Germany and the 'capitalist-west' bleed each out white. Then when the opportunity presented itself he would grab Eastern Europe and force Germany into submission. :cool:

In real life The only thing that did´t work for as planed Uncle Joe was the fact that France fell to fast. :eek: The best chance (and at the time what was thought to be the most likely war scenario) to have the capitalist countries 'bleed' each out was thereby gone (at least until/if the US got involved).

Following the Fall of France he knew that conflict with Germany over supremacy in Eastern Europe was highly likely. However, Stalin hoped to postpone conflict with Germany until 1943-44. By this time the Red Army was re-organised (new tanks introduced, new officers trained), the industry moved out of the range of the Luftwaffe etc.

Then he would depending on the development in the continued fighting between Germany and the UK (possible also now including the US) start is own attack into Eastern Europe. The Germanys feared this precise scenario and simply tried for a preemtive strike to end the war with operation Barbarossa.

All in all I think that SC Demo does a fine job of playing the Soviet Union as a cold political realist.

Ps: Maybe if the US Joins the UK then Uncle Joe should sit back and wait for the 'west' to bleed Germany. Then he could launch a attack into Eastern Europe in summer 1944 or even later when Germany is starting to suffer significant losses to the combined US+UK forces.

Dragoon19

[Norse]

I read another post of Hubert, where he wrote that USSR collects an ammount of their MPP's each turn that they are neutral. When USSR joins the war one way or the other, then USSR will have the collected MPP's ready to use on fresh troops on turn 1 of their war. I like it So if you play as the Germans, then hitting them in 1940 or 41 may be favorable than hitting them late in 1942.

My 2 cents on the Russians set to random is that it is a good approach. The Russians had the troops posed near the border, that could have gone onto an offensive, if the Germans did not deploy any defences against them. This is portrayed in the game, and I like it The percentage thing ensures that USSR will join the war at some point regardless, and then will have alot of mpp's to spend right away.

~Norse~

[Sol Invictus]

Its all going to come down to timing, as it always does, Is it Aug 5th yet?

[Ymir]

My point is that by 43 Russia should have a Ind fac. of 3-4, with Tanks of 2-3, as a nautral state.

[Camicie Nere]

After the Germans invaded, Stalin went into about a ten-day period of severe depression. When Molotov and some other chaps came to visit his Dacha at the end of June, Stalin initially thought they were there to arrest him.

It's a debate built upon circumstantial and anecdotal evidence, and I submit the above in favor of "Stalin did NOT want war in 1941." That doesn't seem to be how a man like Stalin would react to being invaded while he himself was chomping at the bit to get into a fight.

As for the game - I really like how Gold models the USSR. It is going to be an absolute BEAST to successfully invade them and knock them out. And that's the way it should be.

[Dave G.]

Originally posted by Panzer Lehr:

About Barbarossa: One day I did a Yahoo! search just to see what info I could come across, and stumbled over this interesting -if not slightly imaginitive story.

http://ihr.org/jhr/v17/v17n4p30_Michaels.html

I've not checked out this guy's sources yet, but I may do so in the future. If not true, then very interesting to say the least.

Folks, don't you know that the IHR is a holocaust revisionism site? I wouldn't take seriously anything they say.

[ July 28, 2002, 08:10 PM: Message edited by: Dave G. ]

[Guest Mike]

the site the review is listed on is irrelevant - you should read it and decide whether and/or not the reviewer and author are credible.

The author certainly doesn't sound too flash to me - saying that in 1941 the Soviet tank force was better equipped with better armour and guns than the Germans, or that the T-35 was a cerdible weapon adn Germany only started "developing" a 45 ton comparable tank (Panther??) in 1941 - IIRC the Germans had a few mild-steel armoured multi-turreted monsters they trotted out in Norway didn't they?

And apparently the Russian airforce was brilliantly equipped too.

Now forgive me for sounding a little skeptical - I know they had the numbers, but neither of these statements ties up with anything else I've ever read about Sov equipment in 1941!!

So the review IMO posses some questions about he credibility of the author right from the start!

I'm not hot on the political aspects, but I had always thought the Sov's regarded teh non-aggression pact with Germany as just a bit of breathing space while they sorted their forces out, and conflict between Russia and Germany was pretty much certain by 42 or 43 at het latest under any circumstances.

[Sol Invictus]

I think it is safe to say that Hitler and Stalin could not remain friendly neighbors and that war was inevitable between them. I think Stalin must have been shocked that the war in France was concluded so quickly. I agree with Mike, war was coming between Germany and Russia in '42-'43 one way or another. When I play Germany, I will be praying that Russia will stay calm untill '42; by then I should be ready for the hurricane of fire in the East.

[Les the Sarge 9-1b]

Once upon a time God was a woman, the world was flat and the earth was the center of the universe with the sun revolving around us.

Obviously sometimes there is room for changing the "facts".

This isn't one of them.