Big Cat vulnerability + ISs vs. Tigers

[John Kettler]

This turned up while trying to find early U.S. TD info for Kingfish. So much tasty stuff I just had to share! Bonus is excerpt (near bottom of link) from German tactical experience fighting ISs, complete with tactical instructions. Should go a long way toward explaining some maddening behavior

of Russian heavy armor in CMBB. There are also some great armor penetration and other damage shots of the Big Cats.

http://www.ww2forums.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=print_topic;f=4;t=000296

Regards,

John Kettler

[ April 15, 2006, 01:34 AM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

[JasonC]

Long way in explaining the source that led the designers to put that maddening behavior in, but precious little in establishing it was factual. "Yeah they can kill you easily and you can't kill them over 500 meters. But don't worry, they will run away as soon as you look at them." That's propaganda.

[John Kettler]

JasonC,

Considering the wealth of material there, to include some good links, I'd hoped for more from you. I think you're being more than a bit cavalier in the way you're treating the data. The General Inspector of the Panzer Troops was, if memory serves, one Heinz Guderian, a man generally credited (firmly in understatement mode) with both familiarity with and experience in effectively employing tanks en masse.

All other things being equal, I'm inclined to listen to such as he. Also, given what I know of the Tiger units and the consistently heavy numerical odds against which they fought, I'm also strongly inclined to pay attention to the hard-won experience of the man on the tip of the spearhead,

the Tiger I company commander who provided that list you so flippantly dismiss as "propaganda." I think yours is a rather dubious approach to understanding battlefield dynamics.

Don't have the Jentz book yet, so can't comment on the accuracy of the quotes.

Regards,

John Kettler

[JasonC]

If you get Russian IS-2 tactics from German tankers, do you get German tactics from Pravda?

He says flat out that you can't act as you did before because they kill you and you don't kill them. That using single Tigers means dying - which higher ups don't have to say unless officers lower down had gotten in the habit of penny packeting them to provide uber-stoppers everywhere possible (which, against T-34/76s, makes a certain sense).

Um, in all the engagments that led to dead Tigers that prompted that as a lesson to report, did the IS-2s all cower and run away as soon as somebody shot at them? They did not. It really is just absurd on its face. Heavy tank regiments - and they were employed as whole regiments - did not scratch their mission and run away whenever they were shot at.

[John Kettler]

JasonC,

I think you're overstating your case via exaggeration. I seen plenty of documents, from a bunch of sides, covering a period of decades in which one side's intelligence describes, for its own troops, the organization, tactics and vulnerabilities of enemy equipment. These include German diagrams of early T-34/76 blind spots, Russian diagrams at <a href="http://http://http://http://http://http://www.battlefield.ru" target="_blank">www.battlefield.ru</a> of what works and where against the Ferdinand, also how to effectively use the PTRS/PTRD ATRs, and American analyses of German armor tactics and how to fight them in Tunisia (just posted yesterday on CMAK Forum). I've got much the same thing from Vietnam

and the Cold War, too, from the various foes involved. Consequently, your Pravda crack seems

way off base.

How does the analysis differ from the above? IMO, it doesn't. ISTR the Tigerfibel explicitly warns against using Tiger tanks in onesies and twosies,

demanding massed employment instead. If Panzer HQ wasn't concerned about such misuse, then why include it in the training manual?

The answer to your last question is self-evident, and if Russian heavy armor in CMBB always backs away, then something is wrong, but I am not wont to summarily dismiss a highly experienced Tiger commander's warnings to his brother Tiger commanders, seeing as how such lessons were learned in blood.

Finally, yes, I know about the Russian formations the Germans called Durchbruch (breakthrough) Regiments since the 1970s, thanks to terrific AFV-G2 articles (mit unit charts) on several different types and to Milsom's RUSSIAN TANKS 1900-1970.

Since you're so well informed, what do Russian sources have to say about their use and problems related thereto? BTW, I downloaded VIZh 2, 1982, hoping that Tank Units in Breakthrough Operations would shed some light on the matter, only to find that it was mostly about postWar developments. What WW 2 coverage there was did not address the hoped for topic.

Regards,

John Kettler

[ April 15, 2006, 10:38 PM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

[Hensworth]

Originally posted by John Kettler:

if Russian heavy armor in CMBB always backs away, then something is wrong

Which is the point JasonC wishes to make.

[Bigduke6]

On the Russian side of Russian Battlefield there is an interview with a guy named Reznikov.

Here's the linkie:

http://www.iremember.ru/tankers/reznikov/reznikov_r.htm

This is my rendition of the interesting bits, for those of you whose computers can't read Russian:

1. 122mm will kill any German tank, including Tigers, at normal combat ranges. He does not make a distinction between Tiger I and Tiger II.

"We could kill Tigers at 1200-1400 meters. The Germans, in order to destroy us, had to get to 500 meters or less."

2. German panzers avoided contact against Stalin II. That's specific, and my memory is extremely clear on that one. If the Stalins advanced, he said, the German panzers invariably retreated.

I'm not saying I think this bit is absolutely true or not, but I am willing to note that the opinion "our tanks are so studly the other side always retreats" seems not to have been limited to German tankers.

3. The key to killing enemy tanks was ambushing the other guy.

4. The big danger to Stalin II was built-up areas and Panzerfaust-armed infantry.

6. The front Stalin II was proof against all German AP munitions 88mm included unless the range was under 500 meters, and to smaller caliber stuff less than that. He talks about how the thing to do with the Stalin was to shoot it out with the enemy at the longer ranges, as the Germans could do very little to hurt the Stalin.

7. Stalin had enough ammunition to fight through a standard engagement. There was little need for repeat shots "for luck": If the 122mm hit something, almost always that something was toast.

8. The basic load shells aboard a Stalin was 28 AP rounds. The crews also loaded an additional one dozen HE shells, making total shells carried into battle 40.

(Compare that with the StalinII in CM. 20 or so rounds total, and the greater part is HE. It's a breeze to run a CM Stalin out of AP. RL Stalins were a bit better munitioned, apparently.)

8. Stalin II typically fired two rounds a minute. Germans fired faster.

Now let's all remember that Stalin II in CMBB is vulnerable to 88mm out to 2000 meters, and to vanilla 75mm at 1000 meters. A bit of a difference from what the guy inside the Stalin recalled, nes pas?

This guy was in one of the very first Stalin regiments raised and fought with that unit to the end of the war. 51st Guards Heavy Tank Regiment of 3rd Guards Tank Army. If he is a liar then he is a different kind of liar than the people who write about Wittman: he tells the interviewer Stalins under his command throughout the war destroyed seven German tanks, and a single SP gun. The interview took place after the Soviet Union broke up, so it's not so easy to label the account Soviet propaganda.

The account is about as "from the tip of the spear" as you can get. So the question is, do we believe him?

Me, I don't want to sell the account as the gospel truth. But it to me the account at minimum makes clear reading only the German side of East Front warfare will weight your opinions. It is impossible to read the account and not wonder "Hey, maybe these Soviets were a bit more competent than the standard ueber-panzer histories (Jentz, von Mellenthin)

In my opinion, Soviet tanks in CM all suffer because they are underrated viz. German tanks, and the biggest sufferer is the Stalin.

I consider myself fairly well-read in the Soviet historical literature, meaning in the Russian language. In close to twenty years of reading, I have never come across an account of Stalin tank crews cowering at the sight of Tigers or Panthers. In my opinion, Soviet armor was artificially (although certainly not vindictively) weakened, to a greater or lesse extent, by the CMBB designers.

The worst victim IMO by far is the Stalin II tank. When a vanilla 75mm can KO a Stalin II at a kilometer, that is nothing less than emasculation.

The German accounts of fighting Tigers fighting Stalins, and of the Stalins supposedly obliging Tiger crews to learn small armor tactics again, go straight back to von Mellenthin's highly questionable account of the Targul Fumos battles, Romania May 1944. The text is - to me anyway - suspisciously close to Jentz: "The appearance of Stalins suprised us but with the application of proper tactics Stalins turned out not to be a problem, and those Ruskies really didn't want to duke it out with our Tigers if we pushed the issue."

It is all very close to a crock. You have these German authors spouting stories almost identical with NATO "fight outnumbered and win" doctrine, and their stories are directly contradicted by every Soviet source possible: the official histories, the anecdotatal reports, the secret Red Army internal studies, the propaganda, the combat participants. Every single one.

[JasonC]

JK - The don't use 1s and 2s comment is repeated over and over in report after report about every possible uber-vehicle, and even about vanilla StuGs. The reason is the men in the field were penny packeting even though it was against doctrine. They did it because they weren't trying to comply with doctrine or even maximize the life of the tanks, but to maximize the chance that their friend over in 2 company would live until nightfall. You can see the same comment on mistakes in the employment of Jadgpanthers in the Bulge.

The rear echelon was simply dreaming in all this. They put out requirements like "King Tigers will always be used in full battalion strength, they will be no means be subdivided into companies" yada yada, and there is maybe one fight in the whole war when that was actually done, and then only because the unit had just arrived.

But that doesn't approach the blatant mendacity of the "they will run away" line. You can find the same in the reports on how to fight KVs and T-34s when all you have is a 50L42. They are simply trying to get their own tankers to fight and to fire, rather than running away themselves or being intimidated.

You tell your side "our currently best equipment is hopelessly outclassed by the new enemy type, which will kill you with impunity while your own shells bounce". OK, thanks for that Mr. rear echelon you know whatter, now what? Training manuals never say such things.

They say what you can do, and leave it to your imagination to see how ridiculously improbable they are. "Don't worry, if you hit the turret ring precisely, you can jam the turret, and prevent him from traversing". OK, thanks, it is 1% of the target you know. "Shoot the sprocket wheel to immobilize the tank" - fine advice, whose subtext to any tanker not cluelessly brain dead optimistic is, "everything else is hopeless".

[JasonC]

As for what Russian doctrine said, everyone knows don't they, that the Russians drilled into every schoolboy, "when in battle, if shot at or otherwise in danger, soil your pants and run away as fast as you can. No, these MG detachments are just here to harvest chickens. You will receive the Order of Lenin for withdrawing from action. If instead you persist in firing, risk your life, destroy scads of enemy ubertanks, why you will be sent to Siberia for a tenner, no questions asked".

For the love of Vatutin, who can possibly believe this tripe?

If that is too pungent, I will put it in positive form. If the Red Army inculcated any military virtue at all, it was to fight the enemy, hang the costs. They never sacked people for getting entire armies shot to rags, but they shot them in the head of the least wavering. The tone was set by butcher martinets like Zhukov, who raised stubborness to an art form, and never met a loss rate he couldn't stomach.

[Der Alte Fritz]

Perhaps for a more balanced view of the capability of Stalin II and III tanks we should look at ALLIED assessments post 1945. Certainly British assessments were that both tanks were deadly bespite the new Comets and Centurions that were available. I remember clambering over a very large old tank that was used for target practice during exercises and being told by the sergent that it was a Conquorer, rushed into service to counter the Stalins because we had nothing else to touch them.

[John Kettler]

Bigduke6,

Veddy interestink! Thanks much for making available something I might not have otherwise seen, since I don't read Russian and the site's got a huge translation backlog on many of its entries. The firing trial results vs the King Tiger at Kubinka (available at main Russian Battlefield site) make fascinating reading. I find the ammo loadout problem for ISs in CMBB most disturbing.

JasonC,

While I take your point that cowering was certainly not the standard Russian AFV crew response, especially with the heavies, it is a matter of historical record that, in the early days at least, Russian tank crews were literally jumping out of perfectly good heavy tanks just because stuff rattled off the hull. Indeed, Zaloga in his Osprey book on Russian Heavy Tanks

cites Russian sources attesting to the problem.

More recently, I came across an account of fighting at Kursk in which considerable numbers of T-34s kept driving headlong into a German antitank ditch and becoming trapped and useless. Believe it was in fil Von Ribbentrop's sector. Turns out the antitank ditch's presence was unreported and the T-34 units were simply following orders to the letter directing them to transit the area in which lay the obstacle. The Germans couldn't believe their eyes as it happened over and over again.

I speak fluent barrier detachment and also take your point on keeping troops in the dark about embarrassing own side deficiencies. Saw it firsthand when my brother was in the Army and learned that though he was on the Inter-German Border in an Armored Cavalry Bradley and would've been in it from the first hour of combat that I knew far more about OPFOR capabilities directly fighting him than he did. Call the gap huge!

Der Alte Fritz,

Yes, and the U.S. answer to those by then IS-3s, T-10s and T-10Ms was the M-103 with 120mm gun, an M-48 on steroids, with the function of overwatch tank for its little brothers against Soviet heavies.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Bigduke6]

Another Soviet tanker account I read said the standard routine for medium tanks to take on a single German was the tank that was spotted/came under fire of the German did not shoot back, but backed the heck out of there ASAP. The other tanks in the Sovet platoon then engaged, or waited until such time as engagement was possible (i.e., when the panzer advanced/turned towards the retreating target, and so exposed its flank).

When you think about it this is a simple field tactic which probably got results. To me it is a good example of how the Soviets figured out rough and ready ways to take on the tactically more sophisticated Germans.

As to Soviet tankers running away/abandoning tanks/cowering/and in general trying to stay alive at the expense of not trying to hurt Germans, I think that's silly. Sure probably Soviet tankers abandoned their vehicles during Barbarossa, but disciple was crumbling army-wide. Soviet gunners abandoned artillery and infantry their personal weapons, by the hundreds of thousands, during that campaign as well. However, CM - thankfully - does not have a cower routine that makes Soviet SMG squads and AT guns avoid fights.

((I should note here I realize the cower routine is theoretically apolitical: if you point a Stalin at a PanzerIII the PanzerIII will of course cower. The basic problem is that cowering is caused when the A/I driving a tank decides the opposition is unbeatable, and inherently deadly; and due to undermodeled Soviet AP and armor the German tanks pretty much are always effective against Soviet tanks, so the Germans never cower.)

As to the Soviets driving to their death in the anti-tank ditch at Kursk -

I have no doubt Soviets drove their tanks like lemmings onto anti-armor obstacles from time to time, but I must say the German account impresses with its knowedge of the enemy: Not only do the German writing the account know why it is is the enemy drove into the ditch (he was trying to move from "a" to "b"), but they know the state of the enemy's intelligence collection/dissemination system (the Soviets had no idea the ditch was there), and what's more they know why unit after unit hurled themselves into the ditch (the Soviets were following orders.)

Another plausible explaination might well be the Soviets knew about the ditch, the leaders got oriented into the confusion of the battle, and the remainder of the Soviet formation followed the leader, knowing the ditch was out there somewhere in the dust and smoke, but believing they were going to avoid it.

Another, and even more plausible explaination, was the Soviet commander didn't know the Germans could cover the thing with effective fire; a miscalculation which happens far more often than you want when your opponent is a well-trained mobile mech force like the Wehrmacht/S.S.

And yet another plausible explaination is: The Germans made the story up, but it was accepted uncritically by their editors, publishers, and readers as all of them had a stake in believing the Red Army was a mindless horde, and none of them was able or willing to check the other side of the story, i.e., the Red army's histories.

Big grain of salt. One-sided battle reports have a tendency of falling apart, once you subject them to reports from the other side.

[Abbott]

Originally posted by John Kettler:

Yes, and the U.S. answer to those by then IS-3s, T-10s and T-10Ms was the M-103 with 120mm gun, an M-48 on steroids, with the function of overwatch tank for its little brothers against Soviet heavies.

[George MC]

Originally posted by Bigduke6:

As to the Soviets driving to their death in the anti-tank ditch at Kursk -

I have no doubt Soviets drove their tanks like lemmings onto anti-armor obstacles from time to time, but I must say the German account impresses with its knowedge of the enemy: Not only do the German writing the account know why it is is the enemy drove into the ditch (he was trying to move from "a" to "b"), but they know the state of the enemy's intelligence collection/dissemination system (the Soviets had no idea the ditch was there), and what's more they know why unit after unit hurled themselves into the ditch (the Soviets were following orders.)

Another plausible explaination might well be the Soviets knew about the ditch, the leaders got oriented into the confusion of the battle, and the remainder of the Soviet formation followed the leader, knowing the ditch was out there somewhere in the dust and smoke, but believing they were going to avoid it.

Another, and even more plausible explaination, was the Soviet commander didn't know the Germans could cover the thing with effective fire; a miscalculation which happens far more often than you want when your opponent is a well-trained mobile mech force like the Wehrmacht/S.S.

And yet another plausible explaination is: The Germans made the story up, but it was accepted uncritically by their editors, publishers, and readers as all of them had a stake in believing the Red Army was a mindless horde, and none of them was able or willing to check the other side of the story, i.e., the Red army's histories.

Big grain of salt. One-sided battle reports have a tendency of falling apart, once you subject them to reports from the other side.

Big Duke, you might be interested in this. I've not long got this book published by Schiffer.

There is an account in the "SS Panzer Artillery Regiment LSSAH" by Thomas Fischer, which tends to back up Ribbentrop's accounts. Two accounts the first by Helmut Franke who commanded a battery of Wespes in the arty regiment. His battery is lined up behind Peiper’s SPW battalion. They are preparing to attack and Franke’s battery is firing in support of the battle group –“…The attack was delayed at the tank trench. Everything gathered around a few crossings built by the engineers. The Soviets got ready for a counterattack…” In the resulting melee his Wespes takes out a T34 at 30m range then is promptly damaged with one crewman killed immediately after.

The other account is from the battery Chief (Heinz Bernhardt) of the “Hummel” (6th battery) who is a PzIII command tank. He writes –“Early on the morning of July 12th we drove along the road left of the rail line in the direction of Prokhorovka. Beyond the tanks it was 300m from the tank trench southwest of Oktyabirski to the railway line…. Infantry fired purple smoke signals. Scarcely had we closed the hatches when the brand new, unpainted Russian tanks came on in packs. Before our driver could make a left turn, two T34s passed us. We hurried up to the tank trench (Note: he is attempting to head back across the ditch and safety). Thus we drove as the third tank in the line and headed for our own tanks. The machine pistol bursts of the Russians sitting on the following tanks could not bother our good Panzer III. The first T34 before us took a hit and went off to the left making the road free. The same happened to the next but we got through…”

Bernhardt and his crew had a close escape, as the gunner in Martin Gross’s tank was the one who had KO’d the two T34s. Gross himself knocked the loading gunner’s hand away at the last minute when he saw the German cross on the panzer III.

I’ve no idea how accurate the accounts are and none of the accounts speak of the Soviet tanks driving headlong into the ditch. I guess what it does prove is the ditch was there – so perhaps your theory that they knew the ditch was there but could avoid it is perhaps the likely one?

Cheers fur noo

George Mc

[JasonC]

On 11 July, infantry from 1SS took a Russian, not German, AT ditch system in front of hill 252.2, and then took the hill, in hard fighting that lasted most of the day (jump off dawn, hill consolidated only a 2 in the afternoon).

Attempts to get any further were stopped by strong flanking fire at well as strong positions straight ahead in the Pro. village. The fire from the left came from hill 252.4.

Early on the 12 came two strong counterattacks. One is described as regimental strength, infantry mostly, starting at 0600. It was broken up by div arty before reaching German lines.

The other is the famous one all the legends have been spun around. The Russians attacked with strong artillery support starting at 0515, with tanks coming from 3 directions - Pro. village straight for hill 252.2, and toward it from the right and from the left. The attack was pushed with great speed, and it took hill 252.2, breaking through the German positions there.

The German combat diary then goes on to say that armored counterattack restored the situation and retook the hill by 1115 hours, which is not soon, but fully 6 hours after the Russian attack commenced. Although that may be the start of the arty prep rather than the time of the tank rush.

What is clear is that elements of 3 brigades of Russian tanks, each somewhat reduced and totaling 115 machines all told, followed a barrage onto hill 252.2 and ejected its defenders with serious loss. And the fight that ensued lasted hours. Turkey shoots take minutes, not hours.

But that ridge was the recently seized German front line, and they naturally sheltered serious forces in the dead ground behind it. As with many fights for the crown of a hill, you get a mutual reverse slope situation, in which cresting is extremely dangerous.

The German combat diary claims when the position was eventually secured, there were 40 Russian tanks wrecked on the position. This is perfectly believable, they regularly had losses that high and it amounts to a third of the tanks that launched the attack in the morning. Russian losses in the whole region for the day were certainly high enough to accomodate that degree of loss at one of the most fiercely contested points.

What has any of it to do with the AT ditch system? Well, remember it was captured the previous day by the German panzergrenadiers, before taking the hill. It is on the German side of the hill, having been dug there by the Russians not the Germans, to protect hill 252.2. It was taken by infantry not tanks when the Germans took the hill.

Now the Russians took the hill back, with an armor heavy force. The Germans still have their side of it. How do you exploit the success? For that matter, how do you live after you crest?

Clearly from units reported present - Wespes are not habitually engaged in 30m shoot outs with T-34s deliberately - the Germans had rear area troops on their side of the hill, before it fell.

So why are they driving down into the AT ditch system? To get off the crest line. To exploit beyond the hill. To get in among the German units at its base.

There are clearly paths through it - the Pz III narration is about one of them crossing one. It had to cross it because it was forward with a unit on the now-Russian side of the AT ditch system, and the line was pushed back by their success.

The German defenders are shooting T-34s trying to cross the causeway routes through the AT system, and the defenders are picking them off at they do so (and doubtless blocking routes as a result). Hence the remark about noticing the vehicle behind some of the T-34s wasn't enemy, but a laggard friendly still getting out.

Once the Germans establish fire dominance on their side of the crestline, by bringing up enough armor, what are T-34s already past the crest going to do? Ones on the Russian side or the crown, can play tophat over the crest, certainly. Those already well past the crest, would have to reverse up the hill in plain view under fire.

Or instead they can look for cover on the side of the hill they are on. By, e.g. getting low.

When the counterattacking German armor comes closer, comes up the slope to retake the hill, they will incrementally re-establish LOS with this or that tank that parked in the low ground bits on their side of the hill (the ditches). And many-on-few them into the next world.

It all makes perfect tactical sense, as soon as you get that it happened in the aftermath of the Russians seizing a hill, that had AT ditches on its far, not its near, side.

[John Kettler]

George Mc and JasonC,

Thanks for those accounts. Good stuff! Russian tank crews were taught to flow like water through the low ground, a practice whose continuation is quite clear in Suvorov's books, such as THE LIBERATORS. Besides, with limited gun depression,

going over a crest is extremely ill advised, seeing as how most of the tank must be exposed in order to have even a chance of engaging a reverse slope target, a design trend which continued right through the Cold War and was reflected in U.S. field manuals. Also, wanted to add that per Milsom, pp. 179-180 (Heavy Tank Data Tables), the ammo load on a 122mm armed IS-1 or IS-2 was 28 rounds. As for the trench story, while I don't have the account handy, ISTR the information about the order came from interrogating captured crews.

Regards,

John Kettler

[ April 17, 2006, 12:07 AM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

[Guest Mike]

Lemming like behaviour of Russian forces is attested - poorley trained fighter pilots lacking Radios in 1941 would sometimes continue to fly straight if their leader was shot down because they didnt' know what else to do/had no orders (Osprey "LaGG fighters in Action")

Jason German tactical instructions to troops, or even Russian tactical instructions to troops are not propaganda - to flippantly compare them with such is boorish.......

[George MC]

A few years back I recreated this actual scenario. I mind some feedback criticising the AT ditch - but it was there and it did affect the attack as you can see above. If you want to take a look at it and see exactly the point JasonC is making, you can get it at this link -

http://www.blowtorchscenarios.com/born_again_near_prokhorovka/born_again_near_prokhorovka_details.htm

You can play as either the Germans or the Soviets. It's a smallish map but with lot's of units, and surprise surprise a heck of a lot of fighting.

Cheers fur noo

George

[WimpBastard]

Originally posted by Stalin's Organist:

Lemming like behaviour of Russian forces is attested - poorley trained fighter pilots lacking Radios in 1941 would sometimes continue to fly straight if their leader was shot down because they didnt' know what else to do/had no orders (Osprey "LaGG fighters in Action")

I'm finding this pretty hard to believe. I'm no pilot but flying in a straight line in air combat would be suicide. Also if the planes have no radios how would that affect the other pilots when the leader is shot down? I can certainly see how lacking radios would not allow pilots to work together and co-ordinate themselves but if the planes have no radios and the leader is shot down why would that turn soviet pilots into target drones?

[SlowMotion]

In many Russian early-war planes most radios had only receivers, few also transmitters. So if only the leader knew the target and was the only one with transmitter, this plane going down was bad news for the rest.

[WimpBastard]

But that would suggest the leader was shot down in air combat. Does that imply that soviet pilots, once their leader was shot down flew in a straight line and allowed german fighters to gun them down?

But lets say the leader was shot down, and the remaining soviets managed to fight off the germans, wouldn't they figure out it'd be a good idea to head back to base? I guess you could get into a situation where the pilots might mistake another member of the squadron to be the leader and follow them god knows where but i hardly think this is something that happened very often.

[SlowMotion]

I'm sure this flying in straight line was rare, even though I haven't read that Lagg book so I'd know what really happened in this case. Was the leader lost near the target when enemy fighters attacked or far from the target to AAA fire? If those planes were still far from the target, the #2 plane's pilot might have thought he knows the way to target and the rest were doing what they usually did: following their leader.

Still lack of good radios must have caused lots of problems: missing the target, attacking wrong targets, not being able to warn others when some plane is attacked and so on.

[JasonC]

Radios are a silly explanation for "turkey" behavior. Somehow Immelmann, Richtofen, Bishop, et al managed to fight all of WW I without a radio and without flying in a straight line in a dogfight.

Turkey behavior did occasionally happen and is undoubtedly overreported when it does. Green Japanese pilots did it in the Marianas, some German school units late in WW II, etc. The cause isn't communications but unfamiliarity with the controls. A pilot with less than 10 hours in the cockpit has difficulty not crashing the plane if he doesn't fly it straight. Only pure green-ness, not any supposed mindless lack of command or nationalized stupidity, accounts for it.

Targets flying straight and level have another common cause which may be misreported as that, however. A solid half of those shot down never saw the attacker. It is called getting bounced.

As for training instructions and propaganda, ever country's training manuals are shot through with the stuff, endlessly. The attack is the only decisive form of warfare. Retreat is a temporary aberration prior to returning to the offensive. The willingness to close and use the bayonet is decisive. If you trust your equipment you will always win. The Sherman is the finest medium tank in the world and will be for the next five years. The life of an assault artilleryman is short but full of interest. Shall I go on?

Armies systematically indoctrinate soldiers with a false view of combat, on purpose, in a largely hopeless effort to get them to act with crazy confidence. The result is frequently a sharp command - line disconnect that is hugely resented by the line (sometimes the subject of a black humor, to be sure), along with frank incomprehension by less able commanders. Saying there is no propaganda in training materials is hopelessly naive.

[Shmavis]

I resent all of these negative references to vanilla. It is a fine flavor. Use rainbow sherbet or something.

[SlowMotion]

Planes get bounced more often if pilots flying in same formation can't warn others when they see the enemy.

According to what I've read, when Russians started getting first lend lease planes from their western allies, the thing their experienced pilots most appreciated was reliable radios. Those they hadn't had before.