JerseyJohn Posted May 12, 2003 Share Posted May 12, 2003 SeaWolf Many of Hitler's top generals of the period between the Fall of France and the opening of Barbarossa have written or said that Hitler and his staff only planned the initial stages of the campaign without giving thought to the vast distances beyond. So many of them, in fact, that I can only assume it to be the truth. He said repeadedly that all they needed to do in Russia was "Kick the door in and the whole rotten structure will crumble!" He certainly kicked the door in and it certainly was beginning to crumble but then he had an even greater inspiration: send in SS flying execution teams to conduct mass executions of Jews and anyone else they felt shooting or hanging. Appoint deranged governors with instructions to loot everything in sight, treat the Ukranians and other sympathetic Russians worse than pack animals -- to the extent of plundering all their food and livestock ( they're animals who can survive by eating roots ) etc. & etc.. It was Hitler, not Stalin, who united the Russian people and enabled them to fight Germany as though it were a Holy War. Actually, it was more than that, it was a fight for survival itself. On a strategic level, Hitler's concept was to fight the war in sections, each being about the size of the French or Polish campaigns. Seen in this manner, it would appear the Germans won around five or six of these campaigns during the first summer of the invasion. Hitler was astounded that these victories did not destroy the Soviet Union. After the initial setbacks he sacked some of his best generals because, being a megalomaniac he could never admit that he had been responsible for the failures. When he began micromanaging every battle even brilliant generals like Manstein and Guderian (who, like Rundstedt, he kept reappointing to new posts) could no longer win, his stifling interference was too great. Getting back to the initial plans; most of his generals seem to have felt that Germany lacked the resources to invade Russia in three broad fronts. They all seem to have wanted two fronts, though opinions varied as to whether it should be Center and North or Center and South, with Center swinging in the neglected direction after taking Moscow. This is probably not a solution either. As the two drives would have moved farther into Russia, the area not given offensive emphasis would have dropped farther behind the other two, leaving Center with an ever legnthening flank either to the north or the south, depending upon which plan had been adapted. The dual Offensive plan could only have worked if the capture of Moscow were so swift that the turn either North or South could have been accomplished before a Soviet offensive could be mounted from the area, the turn would then have threatened to drive either to the Baltic or the Sea of Azov, depending upon which plan had been adapted originally, to cut any Soviet armies within from their supply bases. But Hitler wasn't planning that deep. As far as he was concerned the war in the east would end after the initial Axis victories. It didn't and he had no strategic ideas to fall back on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaka of Carthage Posted May 12, 2003 Share Posted May 12, 2003 SeaWolf_48 There were over forty something attempts on Hitlers life. This, among other things, was one of the reasons he lost touch with reality. When so many people try and kill you and fail, it isn't hard to believe that you have a "higher purpose" in life to fulfill. SeaWolf_48 and Santabear Regarding General Staff plans... Don't forget that in a wargame we have total control over our forces that back in WWII they could only dream of. Our intelligence reports are flawless (ie the enemy units within our "search" range), our sub-commanders do everything we order and on time (we move are own units), and we don't have to worry about the negative reprecussions of our decisions (we don't lose elections or get shot in a coup). So even though the General Staffs did make these plans, they were doing so with imperfect information... remember the saying that "no plan survives contact with the enemy"? [ May 12, 2003, 02:26 PM: Message edited by: Shaka of Carthage ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xwormwood Posted May 13, 2003 Share Posted May 13, 2003 I played Storm Across Europe on C64 (Joystick-Interface, coool!), Amiga & PC. The Amiga version was the best one of them. In my opinion it is still one of the best strategic games ever released. So many techs to research:garisson troops, infantry, mech. infantry, tanks, paratroopers, tac-air, strategic bomber, rockets, a-bomb, fighters, anti-aircraft-guns, battleships, escorts, cargoships, landing crafts, subs... You could build industries or fortifications instead of troops, fake armies, lend lease was possible ... Ok, the AI cheated (i say only Russia...), but playing against a human player is still fun. I think today is a good day to reinstall my little jewel... [ May 13, 2003, 01:19 PM: Message edited by: xwormwood ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerseyJohn Posted May 13, 2003 Share Posted May 13, 2003 Sounds like a terrific game, too bad they didn't convert it for PC use. The main drawback I remember from the C-64 days was having to wait long periods of time for information to be juggled back and forth from the floopy disk (low density 5 1/4 or 3 1/2) to the CPU due to the computer's very small amount of memory. Most of the more routine functions seem to have been taken care of by ROM which was relied upon much more heavily than in PC programs. The C-64 disc drives used to wear out very quickly from all that overuse. One of the selling points of the C-128 was that a virtual drive could be set up to hold much of that information, cutting down on the disc exchanges. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xwormwood Posted May 13, 2003 Share Posted May 13, 2003 There is a PC version (http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?gameid=1069). I am not sure if this game can be palayed without the manual (copy protection). (here some hints: first word under section 1.1 = storm last word under section 8.3 = it last word under section 9.4 = transfer first word under section 9.7 = naval last word under section 10.62 = bombers title of section 10.63 = fighters last word under section 10.632 = reach If anyone needs some help because underdogs has no manual: mail me edit: there is a patch file: simply start the "R-Storm"-file and the copy protection accepts every answer. Game runs fine under WinME [ May 14, 2003, 12:13 PM: Message edited by: xwormwood ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerseyJohn Posted May 13, 2003 Share Posted May 13, 2003 Thanks Mr. X, I'll give it a try -- usually those programs don't work on Widows XP but I'll see if it works on '98/95. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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