Waffen Grenadiere im Großdeutschen Freiheitskampf

[WWB]

Story with the SS is they were the best and the worst of the Wehrmacht. The 12 named panzer divisions were among the best. The variety of foreign and police units were generally among the worst.

WWB

[Andreas]

Hmm, not quite sure about this WWB. Did the original SS Polizeidivision have a bad reputation? I have never heard about that, and as far as I know they acquitted themselves well in the fighting up to Leningrad.

A potted history could go along these lines:

- At the start of the war, a lot of the junior officers made up for lack of tactical skill by displaying dashing spirit, with consequently high losses. To get over the frustration of being seen as tactical nitwits who got in the way by the Wehrmacht, one could always massacre some POWs (Le Paradis anyone?).

- In the middle of the war, when the SS divisions acquired their reputations for combat prowess, they were equipped about twice as well as a standard Heer division, so one would expect them to a) do better, and find themselves more in the thick of it as a fire brigade, much like Grossdeutschland would have (which the Red Army identified as an SS Division in their general staff study on Kursk, interestingly).

- towards the end of the war, a lot of soldiers in the Waffen SS were drafted into it, and were by no means that special. 12th SS for example never really recovered from the losses in Normandy.

CMBB will handle all this quite well, as CMBO already did.

Enough of this hero worshipping already Michael

[Tarquelne]

Your post just sounds to me as if every SS unit had special training, tactics, political convictions, or that they were - even if only 'in the right circumstances' - more courageous than other units. That was the point I disagree.

I think you read a line or two that redwolf didn't actually write, Scipio. Or possibly you missed the qualifiers such as "often" or "generally"?

Look at your first post in reply to redwolf and answer this (maybe just to yourself): What do you disagree with? That the SS "generally" put more emphasis on sports? That the combat style was different? That they had good discipline? (Though note that redwolf didn't claim they did.)

[RCHRD]

Now wait a minute. The 14th SS division fought during the Brody pocket battles. Formed from Ukranian volunteers it gave a good account of itself.

[Pud]

Shouldnt there be a SS bonus for moral(?) since capture for SS meant immediate execution at the hands of the ruskies? (or so im led to believe)

A case of fight or die would surely mean some generic bonus in CM?

[Tomb]

im seem to recall somewhere a british analysis of this which if i recall the toughest and most fanatical was the SS unit with a lot of dutch in it

in contrast the toughest and most fanatical resistance fighters

were also dutch

obviously people with strongly held and committed view points

Tomb

[Michael Dorosh]

Andreas - I deliberately only listed the divisional level units, not regimental or brigade sized units.

Will look at your pictures on my home computer (I mostly post from work these days since I work 16 hour days as mentioned....) when I get a chance.

Or, I can make something up and you won't know the diff anyway, right?

Send me a CMBB bone via email and I will think about skipping work to do more for you....

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Pud:

Shouldnt there be a SS bonus for moral(?) since capture for SS meant immediate execution at the hands of the ruskies? (or so im led to believe)

A case of fight or die would surely mean some generic bonus in CM?

That's what you have 'fanaticism' in the scenario editor for. Already in CMBO.

[Gremlin]

Fwiw, you may want to look for John Keegan's Waffen SS: The Asphalt Soldiers (Ballantine, 1970) (silly title, but Keegan is an important war historian), in which there's a chapter dealing specifically with the Waffen SS in the East.

[Stoffel]

Ah someone who knows his history

indeed the Dutch were presented in the SS,two divisions

It were the 23rd divison Nederland and 18th division Horst Wessel, both were panzergrenadier divisions

although it wasnt a proud part of our history the soldiers performed good.

most of the resistance guys were the same type adventurours too,especially in the early years of the war their(often useless)actions triggered a terrible response towards the civilian population by the Germans

A good example was the killing of a SS officer near Putten.

The entire male population of the town was shot by the Germans as reprisal.

[ July 12, 2002, 09:10 AM: Message edited by: Stoffel ]

[Michael Dorosh]

But haven't the Dutch always been rather reactionary with their politics?

[Scipio]

Originally posted by Tarqulene:

I think you read a line or two that redwolf didn't actually write, Scipio. Or possibly you missed the qualifiers such as "often" or "generally"?

Look at your first post in reply to redwolf and answer this (maybe just to yourself): What do you disagree with? That the SS "generally" put more emphasis on sports? That the combat style was different? That they had good discipline? (Though note that redwolf didn't claim they did.)

Originally posted by Redwolf:

The Waffen-SS generally put more emphasis on sports, fittness and individual skills not neccessarily part of normal military training. That, and all the political shaping on top.

Their combat style *was* different and often resembled the chilchee of running to the enemy like mad...

Sorry, but what else should I read from this?

I disagree that this is true for SS units in general, and Redwolf doesn't make a difference in his post. The SS partially had a different training etc. But there were also units that were just a scratched bunch.

[ July 12, 2002, 09:23 AM: Message edited by: Scipio ]

[Stoffel]

good question Michael.

In some ways yes,

We are very liberal(at least thats what the government wants foreigners to believe,just ask the common man in the street what he thinks about crime,foreigners,asylum seekers and so on)

We have politicians that are discussing a lot of topics which are unspeakable for other countries,for instance abortion,euthanasia,birthcontrol and stuff like that.

But we also have a higher crime rate in murders and theft than some major US cities,former east block countries criminals feel at home here.

Junkies and other scum steel bikes and car radios

And worse of all 60000 asylum seekers a year on a population of 14 million people,allready the number of foreigners here is 13%,which causes there own problems regarding integration and hatred feelings

And most recently what some people described as the right wing party from Pim Fortuyn rising.

A big problem we face here is the inability of any political party to stand for its political ideas when they get into the government.

Big issue is the fact that we have too many parties involved,previous elections had about 16

henk

[Stoffel]

Scipio has some points here,not all units were that good.

In the beginning the 4 top divisions had a lot of tactical,military shortcomings.

But they made it up with a fanatical esprit.

Eventuall the army provided them acces to various schools for training.

Dont forget that it was very common for an SS soldier to obey any order given.

He was tought to do so,or should I say brainwashed,with a risk of being severly punished or even put behind the barbed wire himself.

Tought were political lessons about the purity of the german race they learned systematically how to hate and torcher/kill their enemies

Most of the them started as units in the camps which later transformed into the waffen ss divisions.

Nucleus of these units commanders came from the Totenkopfverbande or Totenkopf division

After the winterwar of 41/42 most of the initial divisions were almost destroyed or had suffered very high casulties.

specially Totenkopf lost about 70% of its combat units.

Losses which could not be filled up again,and after that period most commanders complained about (what they saw as man unfit to be in the SS

They meant with that(Eicke was one of them) that those troops lacked the fighting spirit and more important the "true"nazi spirit

[Tarquelne]

Sorry, but what else should I read from this?

Nothing. That's the point.

I disagree that this is true for SS units in general, and Redwolf doesn't make a difference in his post. The SS partially had a different training etc. But there were also units that were just a scratched bunch.[/QB]

Ok, this helps.

a) Is that the only thing you disagreed with? (The first time you quoted the entire message.)

redwolf says "generally", ie, "ususally". You want to use the word "partially". That's a difference in little more than emphasis. ("Usually" or "generally" implies more-often-than-not, "partially" doesn't.) Though neither of you are explicit on what's not absolute - the training, or the number of SS units that recieved non-standard training. Which is it? I'd like to know...

c) Please note that _some_ of the SS units being a "scratched bunch" doesn't contradict anything redwolf wrote.

Remember - "generally" and "often" are your friends, not your enemies.

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Tarqulene:

[snips]

redwolf says "generally", ie, "ususally". You want to use the word "partially". That's a difference in little more than emphasis. ("Usually" or "generally" implies more-often-than-not, "partially" doesn't.)

Of course, to a mathematician, "generally" means "in the general case", that is, in all cases.

"A mathematician is a species of Frenchman -- when you say something to him, he translates it into his own language, and presto! It is something entirely different." (Schiller, I think.)

All the best,

John.