CMBB: Grain Silo fight at Stalingrad possible?

[kunstler]

Was just looking at some stuff on Stalingrad and the fighting at the grain silos near Tsaritsa caught my eye.

Sounded pretty brutal from what I read in 'The Eastern Front' (light read with big, pretty pictures.)

'For several days, 30 Soviet marines and 20 guardsmen held the silo against 3 German divisions, but eventually it was taken.'

German Willhelm Hoffman had this to say,

"Our battalion, plus tanks, is attacking the elevator, from which smoke is pouring, the grain inside is burning, the Russians seem to have set light to it themselves. Barbarism. The battalion is suffering heavy losses. There are not more than sixty men left in each company. the elevator is occupied not by men but by devils that no flames or bullets can destroy."

From a CM point of view, is such a defense possible in CMBO? 50 men, or a platoon plus 2 squads and an HQ unit or two, hold off 3 divisions?

I know there must be people on the board who have much deeper knowledge about this event.

How many men did the Germans throw at the Soviets in the silo? From my experience with the game, I find it hard to believe that even the most amazing player could hold off an entire battalion, much less 3 divisions (with direct fire tanks and artillery) for an hour, much less 3 days, and also inflict heavy casualties.

In CM, would not the building collapse after a few turns of direct fire? How much punishment can buildings in CM:BB take?

Certainly from the posters on the board insisting that casualty rates must reflect the fighting on the Eastern Front (4:1 Russian/German casualties) a fight like this would be impossible from the outset.

Tough bunch of Russians in those silos, that's for sure. I wonder if anyone here thinks they could duplicate the feat in CM? or CM:BB?

kunstler

[Liebchen]

There were a few locations like that one, where fanatic Russians held out against incredible odds. I forget the name of the house, but there was one house behind German lines (or stuck out from the Russian lines, anyway, as these lines were very fluid that held out for weeks IIRC with few men. Everyone eventually "named" the place after the sergeant running the show there.

I'm sure someone will come along with more details; I'm operating from a vague memory, while winding down at the office.

[Guest Mike]

Yep - crank up the fanaticism, give the Ruskies loads of ammo and some good leaders and put them in some heavy cover with limited avenues of approach and see what happens!!

[Michael Dorosh]

Pavlov's house? The Red House?

We are talking about heavily fortified structures - very heavily fortified. If CMBB has special rules for those, great, but I would guess typical tactics would require you to simply bypass them anyway. Not much point including them in a scenario that is supposed to be balanced - unless it is part of an operation, maybe, where you have to decide whether or not to assault it or simply bypass.

[Michael Emrys]

Take this with a grain or two of salt--I am offering an opinion without a whole lot of factual material to back it up--but ISTR that the grain silo was on commanding ground, somewhat of a hill that overlooked the German supply routes, their entire immediate rear area in fact. So, it wasn't something that the Germans could simply overlook for very long. I think it was one of those things they botched by not taking early in the battle when they could have simply walked in before the Reds occupied it.

All this is dependent of course on whether or not I remember it as it was.

Michael

[gunnergoz]

Originally posted by Michael emrys:

Take this with a grain or two of salt--I am offering an opinion without a whole lot of factual material to back it up--but ISTR that the grain silo was on commanding ground, somewhat of a hill that overlooked the German supply routes, their entire immediate rear area in fact. So, it wasn't something that the Germans could simply overlook for very long. I think it was one of those things they botched by not taking early in the battle when they could have simply walked in before the Reds occupied it.

All this is dependent of course on whether or not I remember it as it was.

Michael

Michael,

Maybe you are thinking of the Cossack Kurgan, the burial hill that dominates part of Stalingrad? IIRC there were fierce battles over it because of it's commanding view of the city. I think the grain silo was at a different location, though it too figured prominently in its own way in the battle.

Anybody?

[Silvio Manuel]

I wonder why they didn't just arbitrarily blow up the silo, how hard could that have been using a few tanks or SPG, demo charges...something. A silo is probably just an outer corrugated steel shell, right? It's not like it's made of titanium...??

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Silvio Manuel:

I wonder why they didn't just arbitrarily blow up the silo, how hard could that have been using a few tanks or SPG, demo charges...something. A silo is probably just an outer corrugated steel shell, right? It's not like it's made of titanium...??

It's a freaking giant big concrete structure several stories tall that would be proof against even medium HE fire, direct or indirect.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by gunnergoz:

Maybe you are thinking of the Cossack Kurgan, the burial hill that dominates part of Stalingrad? IIRC there were fierce battles over it because of it's commanding view of the city. I think the grain silo was at a different location, though it too figured prominently in its own way in the battle.

Could easily be. I haven't read all that much about it and most of what I read was a couple of decades ago. Plainly I need to do some brushing up.

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

It's a freaking giant big concrete structure several stories tall that would be proof against even medium HE fire, direct or indirect.

Heh. Reminds me of an incident about twenty years back. The Port of Astoria, Oregon, had a large concrete grain elevator that wasn't being used anymore and they wanted to develop the land for other uses. So they called in the demolition experts who carefully examined the building, placed their charges, and set them off on the appointed day. Big cloud of smoke and dust. The dust settled. There stood the grain elevator. Oops.

Those guys aren't always so easy to bring down, even when you can place measured charges exactly where they should do the job.

Michael

[Gyrene]

An Allied 40mm AA gun would bring it down in 2 turns.

Gyrene

[ParaBellum]

Originally posted by Michael emrys:

Heh. Reminds me of an incident about twenty years back. The Port of Astoria, Oregon, had a large concrete grain elevator that wasn't being used anymore and they wanted to develop the land for other uses. So they called in the demolition experts who carefully examined the building, placed their charges, and set them off on the appointed day. Big cloud of smoke and dust. The dust settled. There stood the grain elevator. Oops.

Those guys aren't always so easy to bring down, even when you can place measured charges exactly where they should do the job.

Michael

Hehehe.. Reminds me when they tried to blow up a building in my home town in Donaueschingen 10 years ago. It was the supply dump of the infantry regiment stationed there during WWII. They planted their explosives, pushed the trigger and BOOOM!! BIG detonation, lots of smoke- and the building was still standing...

Only half of the basement was blown to bits, the whole building looked like the tower of Pisa...

In Mannheim where I live now there are still some of the large WWII bunkers to be seen, it's just too expensive to blow them up.

At first I didn't notice them until I asked someone what purpose these strange, tall buildings with these tiny windows served. Students dormitories maybe?

Still pretty scary, after 50 years...

[ July 26, 2002, 01:38 AM: Message edited by: ParaBellum ]

[[Pvt]Darth_grandma]

There have been wild defensive hold offs like that in all wars. On the Western Front, the allies spent 2 days trying to attack a castle, sending hundreds of infantry at the castle, all held back. Only after a day of intense arty and tank fire did the 20 odd defenders surrender. You gotta love these kind of fights, thats why I hope they are in CM:BB.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by ParaBellum:

In Mannheim where I live now there are still some of the large WWII bunkers to be seen, it's just too expensive to blow them up.

At first I didn't notice them until I asked someone what purpose these strange, tall buildings with these tiny windows served. Students dormitories maybe?

Still pretty scary, after 50 years...

You live in Mannheim? We should go for a drink when I visit my parents in Worms next.

The bunkers outside the BASF HQ in Ludwigshafen now serve as archives for BASF.

On many German train stations you can still see old Hochbunkers, a very good example is in Hannover. In Berlin some of the Flaktowers are still there, they have just been landscaped by pushing earth around them. Almost impossible to get rid of these things.

[zukkov]

whether or not it would be possible to recreate such strongholds with few defenders in cmbb, and have them play out like history i can't say. but with the ability to replay maps over and over again, setting up such a thing will definitely be possible. no doubt one of you guys will give it a try...

[dizee]

over here in hamburg there are still many of those airraid bunkers.they are so incredibly tough that they havnt been torn down after the war, and are now used for lotsa different stuff like the most impressive bunker in hamburg: the former air defence center.its a fkn huge concrete monster over at the heiligengeistfeld. with 4 big platforms on top of it, you can exactly see where the 4 big 128mm twin flakguns stood.its a mediacenter now with lots of advertise agencys, photographer studios and so on.its kinda strange feeling when ur walking up those steps, when u know that 60 years ago on the very same spot young ppl hurried upwards to man their guns, or when ur driving with the elevator wich was used to transport the heaps of ammo for the guns.

[tools4fools]

Originally posted by ParaBellum:

It was the supply dump of the infantry regiment stationed there during WWII.

The supply dump in Donaueschingen?

My grandpa's supply dump :mad:

My grandfather was stationed in Donaueschingen before the war, Inf. Reg. 75 if I remeber right.

Regards

Marcus

[KNac]

I dude you can recreate those thing into CMBB.

The already said ability to add factories still being a lot of abstraction, and such special buildings do not exist with special rules to make them harder. GHow hard is to blow up a factory in CMBB? Can it be destroyed patially?

However if it was so hard to blow up why they didn´t send the Luftwaffe? (just curious).

I also remember soemthing similar. The first day of Barbarossa, near Oleszyke (or something like that) were existed a castle which was used as training school for NCO, defended by them and NVDK troops. it wasn´t imposible to capture it before the arrivel of a 600mm Karl mortar that shelled it, and others heavy artillery guns.

[ParaBellum]

Originally posted by Andreas:

You live in Mannheim? We should go for a drink when I visit my parents in Worms next.

You're welcome! A nice Biergarten, a cool Hefeweizen and some serious CMBB grog-talk.

[ParaBellum]

Originally posted by tools4fools:

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

It was the supply dump of the infantry regiment stationed there during WWII.

The supply dump in Donaueschingen?

My grandpa's supply dump :mad:

My grandfather was stationed in Donaueschingen before the war, Inf. Reg. 75 if I remeber right.

Regards

Marcus</font>

[Juardis]

To get this thread back on track, is this type of battle possible in CMBB? I do not know obviously, but if someone makes it, I'd sure like to try it. One of the first things I'll do is to fight Stalingrad. However, given the scope of the grain silo battle IRL, you'd have to make it into an operation almost.

Another question about the battle, how many attacks were made on it? It lasted 3 days, but that's not 3 days of continuous fighting. That's many different attacks, presumably some at night, and presumably not 3 divisions worth at the same time. So it could've been like 2 companies on the first day, another company latter that same day, the remnants of all 3 companies that night, maybe the remnants of them plus some more reinforcements the next day....well, you get the idea. 3 Divisions at once and there's no way they stand up. But 3 divisions spread out over 3 days...well yeah, much better odds of surviving.

[Auggy]

I'm seeing this battle as hand-to-hand fighting INSIDE the silo. That how i think casualties were so hi because the germans had no idea where they were then out of nowhere a few men decimate the entire squad.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by KNac:

However if it was so hard to blow up why they didn´t send the Luftwaffe?

Why? What could the Luftwaffe do?

Michael

[RCHRD]

Dorosh is right. It is a great big freakin concrete thing. It's still there.

[Guest Mike]

You'd probably start with the biggest wrecked building you could find....wrecked buildings seem to be pretty tough!!