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Russian vs German platoons


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Has anyone actually compared these infantry platoons in the editor? I'm talking point cost, number of men per squad, firepower, ammo loadout, etc. My gosh, the Russians are superior in almost every category. You would be hard pressed to find one class of German infantry that is equal or better than it's Russian counterpart. Is there one? The only thing I found was mountain troops - the Germans have a lot more firepower there, but they have less than half of the ammo the Russians get!

After looking at these stats, I'm surprised the Germans ever win a QB - especially an infantry only ME. Does anyone have any tips that they can offer to equalize things on the battlefield?

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Better HMGs.

Better LMGs.

Worse mortars (less ammo).

Better squad AT capability.

German squads seem to loose their SMGs quicker - especially if there is only one per squad.

The Soviets suffer from having the command delay of one experience level down until '43 or sumfink.

German squads should be better at 100-150m while the Soviets want a fight at 40-60m. Really close the hand grenades even it out. Satchel charges are more common with German squads (if the Soviets have them at all) so the Germans should have a bonus here.

Gruß

Joachim

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Infantry is the saving grace of the Soviet OoB in CMBB. Since everything else is tactically inferior to begin with and frequently BFC-borked on top (artillery is too expensive to be bought in useful amounts, AT assets are worse than they really were, asinine heavy tank behaviour), heavy investment in SMG infantry is the Soviet player's only option. Everything else you're more than likely to either get killed (tanks) or get no use out of (artillery).

Once the map comes up in a QB, it's a simple equation.

If there is a covered approach to a sufficient number of flags, the Soviet player will win, because the German can't buy enough firepower to shift all the Soviet infantry and any small infantry forces that he has rushed to the flags in HTs will be slaughtered by SMG short range firepower.

If there are swathes of open ground to be covered, the German will win because he can interdict the approaches to the flags from range with assets that the Soviet player can do nothing about (80mm front armored StuG).

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Realisticly ,

-the soviets suffered from poor leadership, and poor training,

-In 41, many soviet rifles had bayonets WELDED on,

-Soviet standards for marksmanship were a joke,

-Soviet troops were so demoralized by red tape and overregulation, they couldnt even mutiny,

-Soviet weapons were poorly made,

-Soviet ammo was cheap, and it showed,,,,,

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Originally posted by Corvidae:

Realisticly ,

-the soviets suffered from poor leadership, and poor training,

But on the up side they (historically) were a bitch to root out if entrenched.

-Soviet weapons were poorly made,

A patently false statement. Just like the AK the pre-WWII and WWII arms worked better (more reliably) in less-than-ideal conditions than the kit other armies had.

-Soviet ammo was cheap, and it showed,,,,,

Quantity has a quality of its own.

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Originally posted by Corvidae:

Realisticly ,

-the soviets suffered from poor leadership, and poor training,

Only until the Soviets had time to stop throwing men at the situation.

Give me a '45 Guards SMG platoon against '45 Volkstrum any day.

-Soviet standards for marksmanship were a joke,

How does this tally with all the tales of Russian peasants being "of the land" and shooting brilliantly?

-Soviet troops were so demoralized by red tape and overregulation, they couldnt even mutiny,

The rifleman on the ground? AFAICT, the Soviet army had *less* red tape than any other army. How many times have you read "We bumped into a Lt from the Scouts who asked us if we wanted to be scouts. We said 'yes' and he said 'now you are'"

-Soviet weapons were poorly made,

-Soviet ammo was cheap, and it showed,,,,,

Doubtless there were times in the initial invasion where stored arms and ammo didn't act as it should but don't take that as usual. They had some of the best small arms on the planet by the end of the war. And they had a LOT of them.
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If you've got a Russian SMG squad trying to cover open ground against Germans with embedded MG38 LMGs you're in trouble. Conversely, if you're fighting house-to-house with nine Germans carrying Mauser bolt-action rifles against a Russian SMG squad... you're in trouble again!

Half the fun of CM is that things aren't symmetrical. Bad or veteran officers makes a difference. Full or depleted ammo makes a difference. Unit moral make a difference. Even when the battle happens (1941 vs 1945) makes a difference. I can recall few instances where I pitted an infantry unit head-to-head with an equal unit where I didn't come out of it badly mauled. That's the whole point of tactics and maneuver, creating localized instances of overwhelming force. Play to your strengths! Russians usually have a useable advantage in sheer numbers (point-for-point) while Germans usually have superior training and leadership.

About never playing pure infantry battle, you should try it sometimes! Or at least assymetric fights. Germany especially was running a bit of an armor deficit by war's end There wasn't a Panther behind every farmhouse.

[ May 26, 2006, 09:06 AM: Message edited by: MikeyD ]

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Originally posted by Kingfish:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Other Means:

Give me a '45 Guards SMG platoon against '45 Volkstrum any day.

Even if you had to cross 300 meters of open ground?

4 MG42 LMGs would ruin anyone's day, even if it were a 16-yr old conscript pulling the trigger. </font>

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If it's any consolation, the historical evidence I've seen indicates that the StuG was a nightmare for the Russian infantryman right from the start. I distinctly recall reading about a Russian soldier's diary that was captured which talks about how helpless Russian infantry was against it and how devastating it was. Considering the terrain, I believe it.

Regards,

John Kettler

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Guest Mike

Perhaps so but the 80mm armour front isn't that relative vs infantry - in the game it's a terror against tanks because it's invulnerable.

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StuG nightmare? I don't think so. From the start? At the start, the StuG had 50mm of armor and 75L24 gun. Russian infantry formations had numerous long 76mm guns, with twice the muzzle velocity and penetration perfectly sufficient to kill them reliably out to 2 km ranges. T-34s could do the same while only being vulnerable themselves inside 400m, if that.

Nobody have ever heard of the uberStuG nightmare until CMBB appeared. The historical reality was that the later 80mm front models were still vulnerable from the front at 500m, to any AP hit, and around the gun mantle (plus sides of course) out to medium range. In real fighting there aren't bottomless pits to cover one flank, either. Also, 80mm front StuGs were about 3% of the German AFV fleet in 1942, but you see them about 90% of the time in CM QBs.

No, the German edge did not come from unkillable armor. They didn't have any until the Tiger I, which wasn't around until 1943 and then in strictly limited numbers. In 1941-2 when they were winning, their armor fleet mix was inferior to the Russians in gun and armor terms, and in absolute numbers.

The one arm where the Germans might have had a significant advantage until late in the war was not armor but artillery. The standard German ID had 36 105mm guns and 18 150mm guns (6 IG and 12 howitzers). A 105mm battery used indirect with responsive fire direction is a much more capable weapon system (and much more survivable) than a 76mm battery used direct or with poor responsiveness indirect. The Russians supplemented those with 120mm mortars, but they have only 5 km range, so they do not get nearly as many fire opportunities.

The Russians had very large numbers of tubes, but did not have appreciably more ammo to feed through them than the Germans did, particularly in the first half of the war. By midwar they had an impressive park of higher echelon artillery, and wherever they concentrated it they could match the Germans in overall firepower - though they still tended to be less reactive in the delivery. Elsewhere along the front, though, you'd see Germans with 105mm off map support against 2 76mm on map for the Russians, in a typical infantry fight.

The main German advantage throughout came from tactics, better officers and more trained personnel, better staff work, etc. Their tanks had superior "soft systems" - radios, vision equipment - but the difference was not really technical, it was use made of similar technical means.

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In one part of artillery, Soviets had superiority before the war-in rocket artillery. “Katiusha” was a deadly thing from its development until end of war. It was ZIS 6 truck, equipped with start point for 16 rockets 132 mm caliber. They could be launched for 10 seconds to nearly 8000 m distance with great destructive power. German solders even told soviets use termite in their projectiles-their parts after explosion had temperature nearly 900dgr C and ignite anything. Germans also had a rocket artillery-nebelveifer. 6-tube mortars were immobile and vulnerable because of little distance. To the end of war Germans placed 10 tubes to armored halftrack, but they hadn’t the secret of mass production of rocket projectiles. News, telling Katiusha appears in that part of front, were a great stress, especially for German infantry

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The Russians produced a total of 14 million rounds for their rockets, all calibers, some of them quite light 82mm. The Germans produced 30 million 150mm and over 110 million 105mm shells, 10 times that scale. The Russians could match those round numbers only with 76mm and mortar stuff of their own; rockets were too small a portion to serious redress it.

The Russians were outgunned in artillery at the divisional level and below throughout, and higher echelon artillery only brought equality in 1943 or so, and superiority only late in the war, at the start of major offensives, etc. When they had such prep their huge number of tubes could give them great "surge" artillery support. For daily fighting in lesser sectors or earlier on, though, they had to fight significantly "poorer" in on-call firepower terms.

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Grandpa (serving '41 to '45 in a German inf division) said the Soviets feared the StuG, too. Why could an ordinary Soviet rifleman fear StuGs?

- Because the ATGs were not always were you needed them

- Because in an even fight between inf Cos, a decently armored AFV (or a plt of them) will make a difference.

- Because much more Soviet grunts encountered Stugs that were spread out across inf divisions than tanks that were only in a few divisions.

Gruß

Joachim

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