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ArchangeI posted:Minor footnote: The fighting on the Italian front was where a young Colonel (?) by the name of Erwin Rommel got his Pour Le Merit, the Prussian equivalent of the Medal of honor. He was supposed to get it for leading the attack that captured a key mountain that anchored the Italian line, but another officer got credit. So he captured the next mountain. History's most famous furry.
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Mar 20, 2014 02:53
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Fangz posted:Modern re-enactors literally don't have the strength and training to make use of many historical war bows. We're talking people who trained so drat hard for so long their bones are deformed. Yes and no. These bows are somewhere up 100 to +120#. When you make clones with commercial intend for a modern audience, you have to scale them down. That's the hard part, as you really have to know how the parts are meant to work. Most people don't dare to string such an old bow and draw it. There's bows with completely stiff ears, but also with ears that are slightly working or ones where the ears will unravel when drawn. So how do these work? In this case I'm suspecting that the area where the splice of the ear enters the limb isn't stiff and is working slightly. To get this effect, you'd have to know exactly what drawweight the bow will turn out and then adjust the thickness and width. A modern bowyer has to experiment until he gets it right, that means building the same bow over and over until you get the right configuration. As this takes several months up to a year, you can see where this leads. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-5v_Tx8NGw If you looks at this picture for example, the guy scaled the bow down carefully taking measurements from an original piece, but something is wrong. It's not even at full draw (although the position of the limbs indicate that), but stacking already so hard that he can't pull it any further (Stacking means that the bow gets unproportionally harder to pull, mostly indicating that you either reached it's maximum drawlenght or that something is wrong in your design). The angle between the string and the ear gives away that there is room for a longer draw (+90° is usually the point where things start to get unsafe). So, something isn't working as intended.  Slavvy posted:I'm aware of that, I'm meaning that in an earlier post he said: It's entirely possible that the story is bogus and these bows were ritual weapons. I dug out "Indian Archery" in my uni's library and found no answer. They are from an era where there were already plenty of firearms around, but they still existed on the battlefield for a long time. They were made for mounted nobles or elite cavalry, peasants would have to use simple wooden or bamboo bows. The arrows would be short, around 26-28". Maybe they were used in a way that pistols were used in western heavy cavalry  Maybe they're just ritual weapons, but then why build them with such high drawweights? Even for hunting, half the drawweight is enough to kill any animal safe for elephants. Like Fangz said, the training to use such weapons accurately is excessive. I have never heard of a person who can shoot the original drawweights with a thumbring. Though there's plenty of guys around that shoot english warbows with mediterran draw. My favourite is the guy who looks like a bear and shoots a 180#. I forgot the name. Power Khan fucked around with this message at 09:20 on Mar 20, 2014 |
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Mar 20, 2014 09:10
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JaucheCharly posted:Maybe they're just ritual weapons... Except for one thing--my musket when I was a reenactor weighed about 15 pounds and everyone else who toted it said that it was on the heavy side even for an 1853 Enfield, which were pretty heavy to begin with. But I could heft that poo poo all day long. No training, no anything, just lifting a piece of wood and metal up and down. It's like doing housework.
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Mar 20, 2014 09:18
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"Just" 15 pounds? How exactly are you built?! When I did my time, even carrying my 7# rifle, helmet and light pack wore on me when marching. These bows are pleasantly light. 500-700g. Faster rate of fire is surely a point. Modern fast shooters with 30# bows are bullshit, but a trained soldier can surely put down lots of arrows within a minute.
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Mar 20, 2014 09:34
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JaucheCharly posted:"Just" 15 pounds? How exactly are you built?! When I did my time, even carrying my 7# rifle, helmet and light pack wore on me when marching. How the hell can a rifle weigh seven pounds? Bear in mind I know nothing about post 1865 technology. And yes, those bows are light, but drawing them is very difficult, much more difficult than "lifting something" and "putting it down again."
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Mar 20, 2014 09:48
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Ok, 7,9#. These are mostly plastic and a bunch of metal rods. When you strip them down, it's just https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_whd99H4uOo  I pulled a 70# bow and almost shat myself, but then, I'm a wee lad who shoots 42# Power Khan fucked around with this message at 10:02 on Mar 20, 2014 |
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Mar 20, 2014 09:53
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That's, like...plastic! It's weird! Not a real gun at all. This is six and a half, just wood and metal. Once my savings account gets a little healthier I'm'a buy it.
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Mar 20, 2014 09:57
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WEEDLORDBONERHEGEL posted:Well, it's heavy and it's rear end to shift around, yeah, but better than lifting a load of wet laundry. And I didn't have a pack, just my bedroll/tent half and a haversack with a bunch of poo poo in it. It's not easy, I got tired, but...that's normal, right? When you do something for a long time, you get tired. (Also, the longest campaign-style reenactment--which is where you march around and camp and whatnot--I was ever on lasted three days. I'm sure that if I had actually been in a real army I would have gotten much more fatigued.) Modern rifles weigh about 10lbs loaded, maybe 12 with optics/lasers/etc. My arms certainly got tired carrying that much around. Even a piece of paper can seem heavy after a while. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qk0OuG6L84o&t=25s
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Mar 20, 2014 10:08
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It feels like a laser gun when you hold it. Ah yes, expensive and weird hobbies. The last "real" gun that I held in my hands was this: 
Power Khan fucked around with this message at 10:19 on Mar 20, 2014 |
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Mar 20, 2014 10:16
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MassivelyBuckNegro posted:Modern rifles weigh about 10lbs loaded, maybe 12 with optics/lasers/etc. My arms certainly got tired carrying that much around. Even a piece of paper can seem heavy after a while.
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Mar 20, 2014 18:27
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ThomasPaine posted:1) Could explain to me how the Bolsheviks were able to triumph over the White Army et al? I know they had a substantial number of trained soldiers, but I'm led to believe that the Whites had far more, in addition to most of the old experienced military leadership and the Cossacks. Probably the most important factor in the Bolshevik's eventual victory was their strategic position in the center of Russia. They controlled Moscow and Petersburg and many of the other principle cities from the outset. Most of Russia's manufacturing base was in their territory, as was the better part of the transportation infrastructure and a big chunk of the population. It also meant, very significantly, that the White forces were divided from one another by Red territory. The different White armies were also led by rival generals and there was no effective coordination between them, so the Bolsheviks were able to take them on separately and use interior lines to shift forces from front to front as needed. You also shouldn't overestimate the importance of regular troops and experienced officers to the conduct of the Russian Civil War, because the army had basically disintegrated as a result of the two revolutions. Most of the fighting on both sides was done by hastily thrown together irregular units. The low average quality of the soldiers involved can be demonstrated by the outsize effect of the few regulars who actually remained in action, most notably the Czech Legion, who basically cruised around Siberia trashing everything they came across until finally the Bolsheviks just let them buy their way home. The huge geographic area in which the fighting was taking place and the relative weakness of the units involved also created a style of warfare that was very different from WWI, so being an experienced officer wasn't necessarily the huge advantage you'd expect because you still had to learn how to fight a fast-moving war of maneuver with lovely irregular troops. The Red Army started with a large deficit in quality but expanded quickly and built a new officer corps through the school of hard knocks. They also had a lot of defecting Tsarist officers, particularly in the early going. quote:2) Possibly related to 1), what were the military benefits/costs of political commissars in the ranks? Were they ultimately a useful innovation or a harmful one? Dual command with political officers was probably an unavoidable expedient for a couple of reasons. Firstly, lack of training and poor discipline made troops on both sides unreliable. They would break and run at inconvenient times, desert, commit various crimes, etc. To be effective these units had to handled very firmly and with frequent resort to capital punishment. Secondly, the Red Army needed to rely on professional officers from the old dissolved Tsarist army, many of whom were dubiously loyal and might prefer to be fighting with the Whites if they had the option. These men had to be watched closely for obvious reasons, hence the attachment of political officers with veto power over their orders.
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Mar 20, 2014 19:20
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Was Soviet tactical doctrine (from battalion to platoon level on down) significantly different from the Germans and the Western Allies? I'm trying to picture the large disparity in numbers between the German and Soviet armies from 1942 onwards and I keep thinking that the Soviets had to have local superiority some of the time and in more than just a few locations simultaneously. Besides tank combat in open plains and large distances, I can't quite imagine how the Soviets would have taken heavy losses over and over again unless I fall into the "human wave tactics" trope.
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Mar 20, 2014 19:33
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The ratio of (combat) Soviet to Axis casualties on the Eastern Front is something like 1.15:1. The biggest losses weren't due to rushing in waves, but mass encirclements. If you count the amount of men that died in captivity, then the Soviet losses are indeed much greater than Germany's.
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Mar 20, 2014 19:53
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gradenko_2000 posted:Was Soviet tactical doctrine (from battalion to platoon level on down) significantly different from the Germans and the Western Allies? There's so many reasons - Soviet military planning was heavily designed from top down, with the strategic needs dictating operational plans, and operational plans dictating tactical execution, leaving little room for front commanders to find alternative ways to complete their mission, whereas German doctrine gave greater emphasis for the front commander's initiative and freedom at accomplishing given missions. This was made worse by Stalin believing that Wehrmacht was about to collapse already in 1942 so he wanted Red Army to double down on it, all across the front, up to the point where they'd run out of supplies. Soviets were also facing a veteran enemy led by veteran commanders until later in the war. In general Soviet organization had a high ratio of men per NCOs, which made leading a rifle platoon an arduous job. You just can't expect too much tactical finesse without a suitable organization, although it did evolve to that direction. Russian infantry also lacked radios, but Germans didn't have many either so it's not much of a disadvantage. Tanks were a different thing, all German tanks were generally equipped with radios throughout the war, whereas for Soviets most numerous light and medium tanks only company or platoon commander's tanks were equipped with them until late in the war. Imagine a tank company commander unbuttoning and sticking out signal flags to give orders while under fire... usually this meant that everyone was just following the commander around and trying to pick targets on their own, and if something happened to commander's tank they'd probably go home to ponder what just happened. Add to this that before 1943 model T-34 the commander also acted as gunner, and didn't have a cupola and visibility from the turret was crap. And yet this was the tank that would give the willies to German tankers and infantrymen alike until the end of the war! Red Army eventually learned how to inflict deep blows without bleeding their forces dry, as long as Stalin wasn't actively demanding more blood for the blood god. Much Russian blood was spilled on the road to Berlin just because Stalin was scared stiff that western allies would betray him and race to the German capital first.
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Mar 20, 2014 20:48
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Ensign Expendable posted:The ratio of (combat) Soviet to Axis casualties on the Eastern Front is something like 1.15:1. The biggest losses weren't due to rushing in waves, but mass encirclements. If you count the amount of men that died in captivity, then the Soviet losses are indeed much greater than Germany's. That ratio is skewed by the Germans sending out the dregs of the dregs to fight the Soviets in late 44 into 45. If you just count 41-43 the ratio is way in the Germans favor. And yeah, it's because of the giant encirclement battles of 1941 and the Soviet's insistence to attack attack attack and never stop attacking so as to slowly wear out the German spearheads. The former was a complete and utter debacle for the Soviets while the later probably saved Moscow and Stalingrad. Shimrra Jamaane fucked around with this message at 20:51 on Mar 20, 2014 |
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Mar 20, 2014 20:48
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ThomasPaine posted:
2) Ivan's War describes the Commissars as being as harmful to the military as they were helpful. Officers were politically unreliable, so for the State it made sense to have them embedded in the army with veto power over military orders. Their secondary responsibility of keeping up morale as well as their primary job of enforcing the will of the party means that they also led political lectures, painted banners, led sing alongs and basically acted a lot like kindergarten teachers with revolvers, which in theory united the soldiers into fighting for a common cause, which really can't be understated in how important it was since culturally and linguistically the soldiers could often have nothing else in common. Of course, a political officer wasn't chosen for his military skill, he was chosen for his devotion to the Party and was probably a member of KOMSOMOL as opposed to having gone to a war college. They vetoed orders which were politically untenable, but without necessarily considering the military benefits. gradenko_2000 posted:Was Soviet tactical doctrine (from battalion to platoon level on down) significantly different from the Germans and the Western Allies? The Germans had near total air domination during the Barbarossa, and until around late-1943 or Operation Bagration the Germans still had the edge in air power. Interdiction by the Luftwaffe probably contributed a lot to their casualties since for a long time there wasn't any way for the Russians to really fight back against them, but I don't actually have a source handy that says how effective air power was on the Eastern Front handy since I just lent out my Russian history books. Also the Red Army at first was poorly trained, poorly equipped and ill-prepared for a defensive war while the Germans were taking advantage of all of this and were advancing faster than the Red Army could retreat, which resulted in massive cauldrons where entire armies were encircled and captured. During the Battle of Minsk the Germans captured somewhere on the order of 300,000 Soviet soldiers, and that was fairly typical of what happened during a successful offensive. By war's end the Germans had captured at least 5 million prisoners. Most of whom ended up dying because of the terrible conditions in the Nazi "POW" camps, because even if they wanted to keep them alive (and they didn't), the Germans couldn't physically house that many Soviets. Seriously the Eastern Front was a terrible time and place to be alive
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Mar 20, 2014 20:49
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:That ratio is skewed by the Germans sending out the dregs of the dregs to fight the Soviets in late 44 into 45. If you just count 41-43 the ratio is way in the Germans favor. Then you have an equal argument to just count 1944-45. Why focus on the period where elite battle hardened German forces fell upon hastily-trained and inexperienced Soviet recruits? Stalingrad casualties were roughly equal on both sides. Fangz fucked around with this message at 21:00 on Mar 20, 2014 |
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Mar 20, 2014 20:58
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It's almost like there's a direct relationship between sweeping gains and casualty imbalances. And dregs, really?
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Mar 20, 2014 20:59
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Yeah, from late '44 onwards it wasn't odd to have units that were utterly unfit for combat, such as the 176th Infantry Division being thrown under the bus. Having a full battalion of functionally deaf soldiers is pretty much the wood shavings from excessive barrel scraping.
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Mar 20, 2014 21:05
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Frankly, I can see the need for political commissars during the Russian Civil War, where commanders might straight up defect to the enemy. In World War II it really seems like they're around entirely to remind everyone they're living in a totalitarian hellhole. I don't buy the "united the culturally and linguistically diverse troops" argument, since if a unit got a bunch of different nationalities together, I can't see why the commissars, who were likely to be as poorly educated as their subordinates, would actually speak the language or show any cultural sensibility. Unless you actually believe that a Soviet after-hours political talk was any more effective at forming the Soviet Man than a school meeting with a DARE officer is at preventing drug use. Except that a DARE officer can't court-martial you for not liking his program enough, so there's that.
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Mar 20, 2014 21:39
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This talk of commissars reminds me of having read or been told somewhere that after the coalition armies had taken Paris in 1814, Alexander became worried that on one hand his men witnessing the western splendour would make them discontent at returning to their poor garrison towns in Russia or spread unpatriotic stories about how life is better elsewhere, and on the other hand maybe some of his officers would become exposed to filthy French ideologies or even bring books back home. Is there any merit to this claim that Alexander put his army in 'quarantine' upon return to Russia until he was sure that any seeds of revolution had been weeded out?
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Mar 20, 2014 21:58
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Tevery Best posted:Frankly, I can see the need for political commissars during the Russian Civil War, where commanders might straight up defect to the enemy. In World War II it really seems like they're around entirely to remind everyone they're living in a totalitarian hellhole. I don't buy the "united the culturally and linguistically diverse troops" argument, since if a unit got a bunch of different nationalities together, I can't see why the commissars, who were likely to be as poorly educated as their subordinates, would actually speak the language or show any cultural sensibility. Unless you actually believe that a Soviet after-hours political talk was any more effective at forming the Soviet Man than a school meeting with a DARE officer is at preventing drug use. Except that a DARE officer can't court-martial you for not liking his program enough, so there's that. That's why I said "in theory". In reality it pretty much was what you described, but the Political Commissars sure as hell weren't reporting that back to the State, so the Party thought they were effective in their role.
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Mar 20, 2014 21:58
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Tevery Best posted:Frankly, I can see the need for political commissars during the Russian Civil War, where commanders might straight up defect to the enemy. In World War II it really seems like they're around entirely to remind everyone they're living in a totalitarian hellhole. I don't buy the "united the culturally and linguistically diverse troops" argument, since if a unit got a bunch of different nationalities together, I can't see why the commissars, who were likely to be as poorly educated as their subordinates, would actually speak the language or show any cultural sensibility. Unless you actually believe that a Soviet after-hours political talk was any more effective at forming the Soviet Man than a school meeting with a DARE officer is at preventing drug use. Except that a DARE officer can't court-martial you for not liking his program enough, so there's that. Well, reading memoirs, it seems like there's a wide range of commissars in WWII. There seemed to be three main types: 1. Cowardly hypocrites who didn't do much but at least stayed out of the way. 2. Utter scumbags. 3. Actually genuinely liked by the men and contributed to the unit. (1) seems to be the majority. But there were also a few cases of (3) - remembering that a political officer could end up as one of the more experienced individuals in an unit, simply by being in the war from the beginning. They also had diverse origins: quote:G.K. – Did the crews in your regiment trust or respect the unit commissars? IIRC there's even an account by someone whose life was saved when the political officer overruled SMERSH goons who wanted someone executed.
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Mar 20, 2014 22:07
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Don Gato: Do you honestly believe that the state really gave a poo poo about what those guys reported, as long as it was what the state had wanted? Soviet Union did not value truth all that much. The state figured they were doing their jobs because it had traitors to shoot. Here's an example of how information works in a totalitarian state: The year is 1944, Warsaw is on fire and the Red Army is literally across the river. But Stalin does not like the guys who are rising in the city. What do the reports sent back home from intelligence say? That the underground soldiers in Warsaw are obviously colluding with the Nazis and collaborating with them. Why? Because they wear German camo uniforms (that they had actually looted from captured military warehouses, but hush). Fangz: I have no doubt a bunch of them were decent fellows. But you could probably find a bunch of decent fellows in the Nazi Party. On the whole an institution tasked with reinforcing the power of a totalitarian state attracts mostly either pushover silent helpers or awful dregs of humanity and such is the case here. Tevery Best fucked around with this message at 22:12 on Mar 20, 2014 |
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Mar 20, 2014 22:08
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The reinforcing part of the Commissars' power was cancelled in 1943, IIRC. After that, they were there to perform political indoctrination and education of the soldiers.
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Mar 20, 2014 22:14
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Most of the ancient military history that I've read focused on commanders and the wider political and strategic scope of wars. I would like to read more about what life was like for individual rank and file soldiers, particularly Roman soldiers but I'm interested in any cultures from antiquity. Can anyone recommend some books or resources that might spark my interest?
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Mar 20, 2014 22:22
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I finally got to plow through the "new" thread while in transit, compliments to everyone. Let me just raise a few points: As to confidence in the defense of Washington from Early's Raid (discussion back on page 35), the heavy artillery regiments that made the District so stoutly defended earlier in the war were off dying in droves in the Overland Campaign (really, look at the OOB for Cold Harbor - those heavy artillery regiments are fighting as infantry). There were some scratch forces in the lines; green infantry with no artillery experience, clerks and invalids, along with a hilariously byzantine command and control setup, but until Monocacy (and bluffing) bought time to transfer troops from the Petersburg lines, there was a very real threat of at least a powerfully symbolic defeat. Re: flagships in age of sail fleet engagements (~pg 102), it was by no means the doctrine to have the senior admiral at the head of the line. For one thing, there was likely a subordinate admiral in charge of the van, just as there was for the rear division. You do have occasions where the seniors led part of the charge to break the enemy line (e.g. Duncan in Venerable at Camperdown, Nelson in Victory at Trafalgar). bewbies posted:Really, British naval gunnery was an absolutely world-altering thing throughout the age of sail. Their ship construction and handling was never particularly exceptional, it was their gunnery that won battles for them. I would certainly argue that it took excellent seamanship and handling to maintain blockades for years, but I suppose that's a quibble. I've been surprised to see Admiral Halsey almost universally derided itt. Focusing exclusively on the Philippines is a mistake, I feel, given his replacement of the egregious absentee commander Ghormley as COMSOPAC. I'm not sure you get Washington and SoDak against Kirishima without him, not to mention the raid on Rabaul, and any number of other audacities in the theater.
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Mar 20, 2014 22:25
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Nenonen posted:Russian infantry also lacked radios, but Germans didn't have many either so it's not much of a disadvantage. Tanks were a different thing, all German tanks were generally equipped with radios throughout the war, whereas for Soviets most numerous light and medium tanks only company or platoon commander's tanks were equipped with them until late in the war. Imagine a tank company commander unbuttoning and sticking out signal flags to give orders while under fire... usually this meant that everyone was just following the commander around and trying to pick targets on their own, and if something happened to commander's tank they'd probably go home to ponder what just happened. Add to this that before 1943 model T-34 the commander also acted as gunner, and didn't have a cupola and visibility from the turret was crap. And yet this was the tank that would give the willies to German tankers and infantrymen alike until the end of the war! So German tank doctrine hinged around "shoot the tank with the colourful flags"?
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Mar 20, 2014 22:38
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why did the english posses such a shattering naval gunnery ? I saw Master and Commander yesterday so anything about the age of sail is welcome.
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Mar 20, 2014 23:10
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Lamadrid posted:why did the english posses such a shattering naval gunnery ? I saw Master and Commander yesterday so anything about the age of sail is welcome. Drill. Naval Officers drilled the poo poo out of their gun crews.
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Mar 20, 2014 23:22
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SeanBeansShako posted:Drill. Naval Officers drilled the poo poo out of their gun crews. So I suppose the 'rum, sodomy and the lash' quote is true after all.
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Mar 20, 2014 23:26
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The wikipedia article on scurvy gives some appalling numbers for age of sail mortality (130,000 out of 180,000 conscripted sailors dead or missing). How did anybody build up sailing or gunnery experience when 2 thirds of the crew are dying or loving off at some port?
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Mar 20, 2014 23:37
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Dwarf posted:So German tank doctrine hinged around "shoot the tank with the colourful flags"? Commander tanks weren't really that easy to spot. Well, the new ones anyway, BTs and T-26es had huge rail antennas that gave away the vehicle's role. But yes, German AT manuals do recommend hitting the platoon commander tank first.
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Mar 20, 2014 23:42
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Don Gato posted:2) Ivan's War describes the Commissars as being as harmful to the military as they were helpful.... Fangz posted:Then you have an equal argument to just count 1944-45. Why focus on the period where elite battle hardened German forces fell upon hastily-trained and inexperienced Soviet recruits? Slim Jim Pickens posted:The wikipedia article on scurvy gives some appalling numbers for age of sail mortality (130,000 out of 180,000 conscripted sailors dead or missing). How did anybody build up sailing or gunnery experience when 2 thirds of the crew are dying or loving off at some port?
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Mar 20, 2014 23:43
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:The wikipedia article on scurvy gives some appalling numbers for age of sail mortality (130,000 out of 180,000 conscripted sailors dead or missing). How did anybody build up sailing or gunnery experience when 2 thirds of the crew are dying or loving off at some port? Even more drill. But a lot of that is probably region specific. I know for a fact that Caribbean duty was particularly deadly because of malaria, and I believe voyages to Asia were similar. But it's probably a lot easier to keep crews alive on vessels serving around Europe, which is really the main show.
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Mar 20, 2014 23:44
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:The wikipedia article on scurvy gives some appalling numbers for age of sail mortality (130,000 out of 180,000 conscripted sailors dead or missing). How did anybody build up sailing or gunnery experience when 2 thirds of the crew are dying or loving off at some port? That was during the Seven Years' War, not the Napoleonic Wars, and it includes all who died from diseases or who went missing. Scurvy problem was pretty well under control during Napoleonic Wars. Also one of the reasons for Britain's successes were that France lost most of its experienced Naval officers during the revolution, and couldn't easily get more experienced officers or other crewmembers because of the blockade.
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Mar 20, 2014 23:51
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How much pressure did Soviet doctrine put on Nazi logistics? I imagine that constantly fighting can't be good for feeding the men or repairing the tanks, but I've never heard of non-partisan Soviet attempts to sneak around the German front line and go after supply lines.
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Mar 21, 2014 00:00
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Lamadrid posted:why did the english posses such a shattering naval gunnery ? I saw Master and Commander yesterday so anything about the age of sail is welcome. 1) The upheaval in French and later Spanish society in particular results in consequences - when you sack all of your naval officers and later bring some back that doesn't change the fact that in the meantime you've suffered a massive loss in institutional knowledge. 2) Saltpeter. You need it to make gunpowder. At the time in question most of it comes from India. Once Britain (very rapidly) establishes control of the Oceans the gunpowder supply on the continent gets restricted and in France the lion's share goes to the Army. So the Navy simply can't practice because they'd use up all their powder. The face that the British Army/Navy trained a lot harder than their continental counterparts isn't some consequence of national superiority - Britain had access to the powder to exercise their forces in live-firing that the Continental powers could only dream of having.
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Mar 21, 2014 00:00
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AATREK CURES KIDS posted:How much pressure did Soviet doctrine put on Nazi logistics? I imagine that constantly fighting can't be good for feeding the men or repairing the tanks, but I've never heard of non-partisan Soviet attempts to sneak around the German front line and go after supply lines. Well, by the time Operation Typhoon began to peter out the state of German logistics can best be described as an unmitigated catastrophe. I can't figure out how the entire front didn't just collapse with an 1812 Napoleonic style retreat. I guess Hitler's stand fast order actually saved the Ostheer? I don't know.
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Mar 21, 2014 00:04
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AATREK CURES KIDS posted:How much pressure did Soviet doctrine put on Nazi logistics? I imagine that constantly fighting can't be good for feeding the men or repairing the tanks, but I've never heard of non-partisan Soviet attempts to sneak around the German front line and go after supply lines. Deep Battle placed a significant amount of emphasis on the "second echelon" of armored/mechanized troops running amok in the rear areas disrupting logistics and whatnot with support from the air, but it kinda requires that you manage a breakthrough first, something that did not happen until Operation Saturn/Uranus, and then the Korsun-Shevchenkovsky Offensive, and then Operation Bagration and so on. Many other times when the Red Army attempted to pull off a Deep Battle operation they would either get stymied at trying to cause the initial breakthrough (see: Operation Mars) or the Germans would retreat in fairly good order instead of getting routed, allow the Soviets to overextend and get then smashed by a counter-blow (see: 2nd Battle of Kharkov, post-Stalingrad offensive into the Ukraine/3rd Kharkov/Operation Star)
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Mar 21, 2014 01:16
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