Question about the NKVD

[Philippe]

I was playing around with the scenario icon bar yesterday and noticed that one of the Soviet icons is used by the NKVD.

Since I had just made decent looking icons for the Romanians, Finns, and Italians, I thought I would take a shot at the guys in the blue hats.

My first attempt was based on the shoulder patch image of a dagger, hammer and sickle, and the letters NKVD (in Cyrillic) at the bottom. I didn't care much for the cloth versions that I had seen, but I found two very nice metal badges, probably post-war, but for making symbols that doesn't matter (semiotics exists outside of time and space -- and doesn't, which is why it's fun). After stripping the best one out of its background I reduced it to 20x20 pixels and tried mounting it on several different colored backgrounds (red, green, blue, and blackish-brown, all for different reasons). It looked terrible: the reduction made it visually unrecognizable.

This morning I happened to notice that I had saved an image of a chekist commemorative badge with old Felix in profile against a waving red banner (your agit-prop has moved my heart!). Looking at it I realized that it would probably still be readable when very small, so I did a reduction number on the patron saint of the Gulag, repression, and terror.

And it worked. Right now I've got him on a dark green background, but at the end of the day deciding which color to use is a design decision, and has to be based on how he looks surrounded by the other icons I'm planning on using. So I need to see him in game.

Mumbling out loud to myself that I wasn't sure if this icon was supposed to represent the interior troops, the Frontier troops, or both, I took a look at my scenario menu and came up with nada. Then I got the bright idea of trying to set up a QB and saving it, so I could see what the icon looks like on the menu screen. I've only looked at a few months, but I'm not finding anything.

Which brings me to my question. I'm about to pay a visit to the Scenario Depot and start poking around in the scenario editor (which should be fun because I've never been there before). But am I on a wild goose chase? Do NKVD troops (either frontier or internal) actually appear in CMBB? Seems like they should be there since there's a way to make SD troops show up.

And if they do show up, are they supposed to represent the Gulag guards and deserter execution squads, or are they from the infantry and cavalry divisions of the Frontier troops?

[junk2drive]

We know it is not the partisan flags and icons.

I went to the CMBBdb and didn't find a separate listing. The NKVD does have it's own icon on the 11240 start menu bar.

I would think NKVD just uses regular infantry bmps for unis and flags.

[junk2drive]

I opened the paper manual for the 3rd time today.

There is a listing of all the start menu icons. To the left of the Poles is partisan, then NKVD. I coloured it purple (the original is the same as regular infantry), saved the bmp to my CMBB.

I went through 13 pages of battles and never saw the icon.

I think it was a plan for BFC and never got into the game. Since there is no listing in the dropdown unit menu for NKVD, I picked guards and looked for anything special, didn't see any.

You can keep looking, but I don't think you will find them.

[Philippe]

In fact, the NKVD unit does have its own icon.

If you look at the manual on the page that lists what the different icons on the screen menu mean (page 18 in the US CDV version), you will see that it lists eight non-guard Soviet unit types and gives their color codes: infantry, mechanized, cavalry, mountain, airborne, ski, naval, and NKVD (red on red).

I know that nobody pays any attention to this because it's too hard to remember, which is why I'm trying to come up with a simplified but elegant set of icons, drawing on the best of what's out there and filling in the gaps with my own work.

Now that I've poked around in the editor a bit, and have visited the depot, I'm starting to get the impression that the eighth icon (if it isn't meant to be present but invisible) may be a design relic of something that BTS forgot to finish when they were making the game. Or maybe they never intended to include NKVD units and didn't tell the menu icon designer.

It's a shame. A quick search on the boards turns up lots of WWII NKVD regalia for both frontier and internal security troops (hats, badges, patches, and shoulder boards that may or may not be authentic). And there seems to be no shortage of miniatures that show the famous blue hat. The reason for this, besides, their notoriety, is that there were more than 20 NKVD divisions in the war. The Germans would have run across them any time they broke through a Soviet line because some of them were stationed immediately behind the line to shoot deserters. But there were also frontier units that apparently fought in the front line, and not just in the early stages of the war.

So I'm afraid this may be a relic of something that BTS intended to do but that got lost (or abandoned) in the shuffle.

[ January 22, 2005, 02:55 PM: Message edited by: Philippe ]

[Philippe]

I think our posts are crossing in the mail...

[junk2drive]

"I know that nobody pays any attention to this because it's too hard to remember, "

It's too hard to remember where I saw that list. I searched all over my computer before I realised it was in the manual.

You could mod the uniforms of one of the many units, by looking at their equiptment at CMBBdb and choosing a TO&E that works for you.

[MPK]

"that there were more than 20 NKVD divisions in the war. The Germans would have run across them any time they broke through a Soviet line because some of them were stationed immediately behind the line to shoot deserters. But there were also frontier units that apparently fought in the front line, and not just in the early stages of the war".

Philippe, if you have not already read

"Stalin's Secret War" by Nikolai Tolstoy

you might some interesting stuff about the

scale and deployment of the NKVD in there.

Tolstoy gives numerous examples of the NKVD

formations often having access to supplies

ahead of the Army, his premise being that

internal security was as (or more, sometimes)

important to Stalin as fighting the Germans.

It's been a while, but IIRC Tolstoy also

analyzes frontline actions involving NKVD

(later the MVD).

I too hunted in vain for the NKVD in CMBB...

regards,

Matt