Blocking detachments

[John_d]

Is there any way of simulating the effect of blocking detachments for the Soviets when making scenarios? I suppose fanaticism could be used, but doesn't really capture the full effect of having a bunch of machine guns sitting behind u in case u show any signs of not wanting to advance. any better suggestions? Just wanna get those damn conscripts to walk across open fields and get mown down without breaking and getting pinned first (a la first day of the Somme)

[juan_gigante]

They're conscripts. They won't walk across open fields and get mown down without breaking and getting pinned. Keep them in command, use advance, short hops from cover to cover, and supress the enemy.

By the way, I'll bet that many troops on the 1st day of the Somme were broken or were pinned down. It's realistic.

[John_d]

I was thinking of how to recreate the co-erced suicidal infantry charges of popular legend on the Eastern Front- something to give my conscripts a bit more 'oomph'. Come to think of it though, they probably are just that- popular legend. Been watching Enemy at the Gates too many times!

[Corvidae]

John... those suicide charges were rare as hell,, and mostly took place in the early months of the war, they usualy involved penal battalions,, and units recruited directly from civilian prisons,

desperation,, fear,, alcohol, and religion, were all used to motivate the troops,

the maxim guns at the rear were more for forcing the enemy to duck,, although they could prod a timid squad forward,,,

I loved the movie,, but "Enemy at the gates" is still hollywood, and still more propaganda than documentary,,,,,,,,

[Aco4bn187inf]

Isn't all this what the Human Wave command is in the game for? I don't see it mentioned much on this forum, but it's there.

[John_d]

Hmmm, penal battalions, that gives me an idea for a scenario... i'll have a tinker around and see if i can get anything that replicates them

Cheers!

[Mad Russian]

One of the things I put in my scenarios, that is missing in CMBB, is a commissar. He seems to be the missing link you are looking for.

I take a Battalion Commander, minus the battalion, make him elite and always give him a +2 for morale. Depending on the situation I will give him either a +1 or +2 command rating.

This does a couple of things for your Soviets. It gives them a leader that will help their morale, and depending on the command rating, help them move more quickly.

Just what a commissar did.

I rarely give combat or stealth ratings to a commissar. Those are things that he either didn't do, or more than likely, would get a negative rating for, if the game had them.

Until the first part of 1943 you can boost a Soviet OOB, for a defensive battle especially, with a commissar.

Hope this helps.

***Edited for puncutation. Man I need to start adding some commas on the original posts.***

[ October 27, 2005, 04:45 AM: Message edited by: Panther Commander ]

[John_d]

That sounds exactly what i'm looking for, thanks. combined with fanaticism, i think this will result in the desired effect

[John_d]

What is OOB, btw? please excuse my ignorance- i've only just signed up to these forums despite having played the game for years (mostly CMBO tho). i'm not really up on my military jargon yet

[George MC]

Originally posted by John_d:

What is OOB, btw? please excuse my ignorance- i've only just signed up to these forums despite having played the game for years (mostly CMBO tho). i'm not really up on my military jargon yet

OOB = Order of Battle

Glantz in "Colossus Reborn" (about the Red Army at war 1941 - 1943) mentions that some of those blocking detachments were staioned about 3km behind the Soviet main line, and their job was round up and shoot any troops lagging behind (pg 581). Although initally this task was done by regular Red Army units Stalin's Order No. 227 required blocking detachments be routinley formed (although it only confimred a practics the army was already employing), and it assigned the mission to both NKVD and regualr Red Army troops.

It looks like this practice was officially stopped in late 1944, though there is evidence to suggets the practice was still carried out by some commanders right up till the war's end (although this taks was mostly done by NKVD and MVD units).

Cheers fur noo

George mc

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by George Mc:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by John_d:

What is OOB, btw? [snips]

OOB = Order of Battle

</font>

[JasonC]

It had nothing to do with banzai charges, however. Not a darn thing. KM behind the front you are rounding up stragglers, not trying to make infantrymen run (which is a pointless thing to try to do anyway, since it does not help them hurt the enemy).

There were some desperate charges by Russian infantry in 1941, but they weren't running away from their officers. They were trying to get out of the pockets the Germans had trapped them in. Often low on ammo, out of support arms and artillery. That is what gave rise to the German side stories of reckless suicidal charges.

There were numerous later occasions when Russian infantry formations attacked in an ineffective manner and took heavy losses for little result. But they stemmed from poor tactics, sometimes reinforced by undo haste and overly offense-minded orders going down from higher ups.

An example. When the Germans closed on Stalingrad, the Russian forces north of the city tried to counterattack, to break through to the city defenders on the west bank of the Volga, driving south and southwest. These attacks were delivered in early September with little preparation.

There was artillery support, significant amounts of it especially from higher level formations and rockets. But it was delivered at whole areas, without any prior battlefield recon to ID German firing positions exactly. It had little effect.

Heavy weapons were assigned to the attacking regiments, in the form of div arty and heavy mortars. But wasn't too reactive. Smaller infantry heavy weapons were not much used - MGs were in separate MG battalions and where thought of as defensive, to come up to hold ground taken e.g. They had no tank support.

In CM terms, send a green Russian infantry battalion over open steppe or farmland at dug in German infantry equipped with 20mm AA, HMGs, on map 81mm mortars, and 105mm artillery on call. With some trenches and a little wire but not much (the defense was relatively hasty, the ground having been taken recently). Give the Russians rocket arty but require that it be fired turn 1 as prep. The Russians can have some 76mm off map line FOs (which have 7 minute delay as greens and don't hit very hard against anybody in cover).

Here is the kicker - don't give the Russians any of their usual heavy weapons mix. A few ATRs and the squad infantry, the FOs above, nothing else. Oh and give the Germans abundant ammo, maximum for the HMGs, 20mm, and on map 81mms for instance. The Russians won't get very far. The HMGs and 20mms will pin them in the open, panicking many and sending others into "sideways sneak" states, without getting close enough either to spot the German heavy weapons, or to break them with mere infantry fire. Ground very open and the Germans on the higher ground.

(It also didn't help that LMGs were actually more scarce at the time than CM shows. 1 per platoon was common, rather than 1 per squad).

So they switched to night infantry attack by forces no larger than the Germans they were trying to raid. But the Germans weren't lax and the Russians were green. The Germans heard the attackers, illuminated with starshell, and shot them up the same way.

Any German side account of these would have considered them reckless and suicidal attacks. They were in fact merely inept attacks.

To see the right way of solving the same problem, give the Russians the same infantry forces as before, but add ranged weapons in overwatch - on map guns: 45mm ATGs firing HE, 76mm infantry guns, ZIS-3s on-map, lots of 82mm mortars on map rather than off, pairs of 50mm mortars with each advancing company, sharpshooters, sections of 2 MMGs, with each higher HQ, etc. Now the infantry only has to get spots. The overwatch then silences each firing position as soon as it is revealed. If they all hold fire until the Russians are close, the infantry goes to ground and fires back, along with a "mad minute" from the whole overwatch force.

The Russians had the weapons for the second version, but did not understand the tactics involved, adequately. And they lacked the prep time. They hadn't brought up all the heavy weapons, dug them firing pits, integrated a whole supporting fire plan, planned leap-frog moves of heavy weapon sections as the infantry advanced, recon'ed the German positions to site their own weapons effectively, probed to figure out the German firing plan, planned artillery fires to disarticulate the German cross-fire schemes opposite particular spots, etc.

Higher ups did not give them time to do these things, even if the lower officers knew to do them. They ordered attacks instantly to save the guys in the city. As a result, they threw away a lot of fine infantry to little purpose. That, and not suicide charges at gunpoint, was the problem.

[Grisha]

In case anyone is interested here's the excerpt from the text of Order No.227 that relates to the Red Army institution of penal units and blocking detachments:

“After their winter retreat under the pressure of the Red Army, when the German troops evidenced a breakdown of discipline, for restoring discipline the Germans initiated certain harsh measures which led to not bad results.

“They organized over 100 penal companies from soldiers guilty of disciplinary infractions due to cowardice or instability, they positioned them on the dangerous sectors of the front and ordered them to atone for their sins with their blood. They organized, furthermore, around a score of penal battalions from commanders guilty of an infraction of discipline because of cowardice or instability, they deprived them of their orders, they put them on even more dangerous sectors of the front and ordered them to atone for their sins. Finally, they organized special blocking ["zagraditelnyy"] detachments, positioned them behind the shaky divisions and commanded them to execute panic-mongers on the spot in the event of an attempt to abandon positions and in the attempt to surrender. As is known, these measures had their effect and now the German troops are holding out better than they fought in the winter. So it turns out that the German troops have good discipline, although they do not have the noble aim of defending their motherland but only a plunderous goal of conquering a foreign country. Our troops which have the noble goal of defending their desecrated country do not have such discipline and are being defeated because of this.

“Should we not learn from our enemies in the same way that our ancestors in the past learned from their enemies and later won a victory over them?”

'Service' in a Straf unit (the Soviets even used the German word for their own penal companies and battalions) was for three months, and was considered equivalent to 8 years in the GULAGs. Of course, not many survived their sentencing in penal units. Later in the war, penal units were redesignated 'assault' battalions and companies, and one historian believes this may be the reason for some of the disparate casualty figures in the latter war period as well.

It was emphasized that Soviet armies use their most experienced and reliable soldiers in forming blocking detachments. Naturally, this went counter to everything a commander would wish, since any good field commander would want his best and brightest in the frontline units. Thus, the reality was more a case of blocking detachments being populated by soldiers somewhat 'less' gifted than originally envisioned. As the war swung more in favor of the Soviets, the benefits of blocking detachments became more and more restricted to the very ones assigned such duty, since it basically guaranteed rear service duty. Military commanders had to keep these detachments per orders, but they always found uses for them, such as supply transport, food services, or guard duty at headquarters. When this order was finally rescinded in November 1944, all those personnel were promptly returned to the frontline units.

[Krautman]

Originally posted by JasonC:

It had nothing to do with banzai charges, however. Not a darn thing. KM behind the front you are rounding up stragglers, not trying to make infantrymen run (which is a pointless thing to try to do anyway, since it does not help them hurt the enemy).

There were some desperate charges by Russian infantry in 1941, but they weren't running away from their officers. They were trying to get out of the pockets the Germans had trapped them in. Often low on ammo, out of support arms and artillery. That is what gave rise to the German side stories of reckless suicidal charges.

There were numerous later occasions when Russian infantry formations attacked in an ineffective manner and took heavy losses for little result. But they stemmed from poor tactics, sometimes reinforced by undo haste and overly offense-minded orders going down from higher ups.

Weren't there also several occasions during the early war period on which soviet commanders were threatened with the death penalty if their attack was not successfully conducted in the exact way the higher officers ordered, leading to those desperate assaults being stubbornly repeated at the very same place over and over again?

Greetings

Krautman

[Deathsai]

In the book "Blood Red Snow," a German machine-gunner described the Soviet infantry attacks. They were indeed suicidal rushes, but it wasn't like the Soviets rushed all at once, never dropping down or slowing down. If machine-gun bullets started kicking up snow all around them, they hit the dirt. Then they charged forward again after the fire moved somewhere else.

[Andrew H.]

Originally posted by Grisha:

[snip]'Service' in a Straf unit (the Soviets even used the German word for their own penal companies and battalions) was for three months, and was considered equivalent to 8 years in the GULAGs. [snip]

It's interesting that they made service in a penal battalion equivalent to certain number of years in a Gulag - this suggests a greater respect for something like due process rights than I would have expected.

AFAIK, "Shtraf" is a regular russian word - it came from german originally, of course, but I think hundreds of years before WWII.