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Aug 17, 2018 08:35
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Robert Forczyk mentioned in his tank warfare on the eastern front the desastrous state of combined arms warfare practiced by the red army in the early months of Barbarossa. Even as the T-34 could (on paper at least) eat any german tank of the time for breakfast, they died in droves due to lack of artillery-support, acompanying infantry and proper recon and air-cover. later though they learned these lessons the hard way and managed to encircle and destroy large german Formations.
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Aug 17, 2018 12:19
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algebra testes posted:I also remember reading something like the railheads were set up in such a way that they couldn't transport grain around russia during the war so they all starved because the trains were designed to only ship them to market or something, not feed other parts of the country. Something similar to this did happen. Russia is so big that its economy developed in funny ways--for example, the Russian market for iron and steel was set up to export iron and steel from the iron deposits in the south via the Black Sea... while simultaneously importing it in the north via the Baltic to feed the factories around Petersburg. Why not just ship domestically-produced iron and steel north? Because it was cheaper to buy and sell it all by ship than it was to send it 2,000 km north by rail. Which worked just fine until there was a war on and shipments of British iron and steel through the Baltic dropped by 90%. (Incidentally, this isn't a problem unique to Russia, it's pretty common in underdeveloped economies with poor infrastructure. I don't remember which year this was, but I learned once that in early 20th-century Turkey it was cheaper to buy grain grown in the United States and shipped across the Atlantic to Turkish ports than it was to buy grain produced in the Anatolian interior, because of economies of scale and inefficient infrastructure networks) What else? Russia's industrial capacity developed very heavily around its major cities, Petersburg and Moscow, mostly for political reasons, but this meant they were very far away from the resources the factories needed, like the iron deposits in the Ural Mountains. Which was fine for small-scale peacetime production, but meant it was very difficult to ramp up production in wartime without severely overusing railways to ship the resources all the way to the capitals. Russia's production problems also meant that it ended up buying a lot of war materiel from other countries, but that materiel then still had to make it to the front somehow. One of the most typical places for it to arrive, especially because they bought a lot of stuff from Japan and America, was Vladivostok, where it then had to be shipped across the entire trans-Siberian railway to reach the front, which required an investment of a lot of trains for a lot of time for every new shipment. So a lot of supplies just sat and rotted in Vladivostok because there were no trains to carry them. There were smaller problems too, like Russia's different rail gauge meaning that if the Russians ever advanced past their own borders, their trains couldn't accompany them and they had to rely on other forms of transportation or on captured rolling stock that fit the standard European rail gauge. This also meant they couldn't send captured rolling stock back to ease the burden on their own rail system. At its core, Russia's WWI production and transportation problems were a lack of domestic industry (which meant importing a lot of supplies) and a lack of trains to cover the vast distances involved in getting resources from extraction to industry and getting supplies from industry or ports to the front, while also saving enough train cars to keep the home front supplied with goods and food. There just weren't enough trains to go around, considering the enormous distances they had to cover, and so Russia ended up with an undersupplied army and an underfed population. The Soviets did their best to ameliorate these problems in WW2 though. If you watch Parshall's video on tank production he talks about how the Soviets heavily invested in vertical integration, putting tank plants right on top of resource deposits and making as much of the tank in one place as possible, to minimize the load on their railroads, rather than specializing in parts that have to be shipped around and assembled somewhere else. And of course they had lend-lease which helped infrastructural problems like these, in a way that the Russian Empire didn't have in WWI.
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Aug 17, 2018 12:57
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vyelkin posted:Something similar to this did happen. Russia is so big that its economy developed in funny ways--for example, the Russian market for iron and steel was set up to export iron and steel from the iron deposits in the south via the Black Sea... while simultaneously importing it in the north via the Baltic to feed the factories around Petersburg. Why not just ship domestically-produced iron and steel north? Because it was cheaper to buy and sell it all by ship than it was to send it 2,000 km north by rail. Which worked just fine until there was a war on and shipments of British iron and steel through the Baltic dropped by 90%. If I'm not mistaken, the Confederacy had a similar problem - most of their railroads went from north-to-south to carry goods from the exterior to the coast, which meant that there were a few key points where you could bisect the country (which was exactly what the Union did).
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Aug 17, 2018 13:05
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Lakedaimon posted:talks about how several thousand British troops sent to the continent were there as rear-echelon laborers and many had no weapons or serious training. And I think this was largely political, to give the appearance of a larger and more formidable commitment. what? every army in the field deploys a bunch of non-combat support staff to lay wire and comms and build static defenses and supply depots and move poo poo around. this is 100% normal. one of the huge and underrated lend lease contributions were American petrochemical products, especially octane boosters, that allowed VVS fighters to perform much better.
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Aug 17, 2018 14:16
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gradenko_2000 posted:If I'm not mistaken, the Confederacy had a similar problem - most of their railroads went from north-to-south to carry goods from the exterior to the coast, which meant that there were a few key points where you could bisect the country (which was exactly what the Union did). This was an almost inherent feature of the slave holding confederacy who fought tooth and nail against internal improvements and wanted the entire world to end at the dock where they loaded their cotton. They did like the navy though because they were scared shitless by Haiti and the free black British Caribbean, which came back to bite them when the navy they voted for turned around and anaconda’d them Proust Malone fucked around with this message at 17:51 on Aug 17, 2018 |
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Aug 17, 2018 14:58
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the Confederate constitution was pretty much identical to the American constitution with two notable exceptions: 1. it was ragingly, aggressively committed to the slavery of black people 2. it forbid the Confederate federal government from performing internal infrastructure improvements
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Aug 17, 2018 15:07
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Ban all this like warcrimes chat imo
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Aug 17, 2018 15:18
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Before we ban all this like warcrimes chat, I had one question about Russian rail gauge: did they ever get that poo poo sorted and adopt the Euro standard, or is it still different? Also, was it a feature or a bug that the rail gauges didn't match up?
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Aug 17, 2018 15:29
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mercenarynuker posted:Before we ban all this like warcrimes chat, I had one question about Russian rail gauge: did they ever get that poo poo sorted and adopt the Euro standard, or is it still different? Also, was it a feature or a bug that the rail gauges didn't match up? Feature
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Aug 17, 2018 15:31
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mercenarynuker posted:Before we ban all this like warcrimes chat, I had one question about Russian rail gauge: did they ever get that poo poo sorted and adopt the Euro standard, or is it still different? Also, was it a feature or a bug that the rail gauges didn't match up? Still the same, if you take a train into Russia you have to stop and change trains to get on ones running on the Russian gauge. It was a feature to make it harder for other countries to invade Russia, that also ironically made it harder for Russia to invade other countries.
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Aug 17, 2018 15:33
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mercenarynuker posted:Before we ban all this like warcrimes chat, I had one question about Russian rail gauge: did they ever get that poo poo sorted and adopt the Euro standard, or is it still different? Also, was it a feature or a bug that the rail gauges didn't match up? a quick google suggests that it's a widely-held belief that the different gauge was deliberate, in order to prevent the tracks from being used by invaders of Russia, but apparently that view has been challenged, and others are saying that it was merely a coincidence that the first railways built in Russia were influenced by Americans who used a different gauge.
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Aug 17, 2018 15:46
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The train gauge is hardly a problem these days, trains simply can adapt. When you take a train from Moscow to Paris, or from Madrid* to Paris you don't need to change trains at the border. *Yes, Spanish gauge is different too. Same as Russia.
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Aug 17, 2018 16:10
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They literally just lift the carriages off the bogies and slide ones for the other gauge underneath: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQK_qru6qvs
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Aug 17, 2018 16:26
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:what? every army in the field deploys a bunch of non-combat support staff to lay wire and comms and build static defenses and supply depots and move poo poo around. this is 100% normal. Sure, but when you only have 10 infantry divisions in the field, and there are 3 more there incapable of fighting, it speaks to how totally unprepared the British were as well. A 30% increase in combat effectives could have put far more pressure on the Germans in the low countries. A formation that has their equipment and can actually shoot straight can also dig ditches and build roads. Not to mention more of the work could have been done in 1939, when the British first started sending over troops
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Aug 17, 2018 16:35
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Lord Koth posted:Isn't this the school of thought that sprung up among contrarian historians in the latter half of the cold war, that has since been debunked once we got access to the actual records when the Soviet Union collapsed? Not that the initial school of thought that the Soviets only won due to Lend-Lease was particularly accurate either, but there were multiple areas, well before Stalingrad, where Lend-Lease supplies proved incredibly vital to their successes. For the US shipments, while the actual shipped weapons weren't incredibly vital (even before they started getting rerouted due to US entry into the war), the logistical benefit of the enormous number of trucks and supplies shipped was huge. I dunno, I just saw a battlefront forums post years ago where the guy did the math showing the percent of lend lease the soviets had received by stalingrad was so small compared to their own production as to be insignificant and that it really started ramping up in time for their 43 offensive. That could be wrong but I've found it hard to find evidence since then to prove that point one way or the other. As for saying "they proved vital to success" that is something almost impossible to prove for a specific instance because if a unit was supplied with hurricanes they might not have won because of the hurricane but because they were just in the right place at the right time. Due to logistics you are always going to put all the allied stuff in a few units. Or with your example for the battle of moscow, the number is 25% but they were only 6% of total tanks, and proving that matildas and valentines were critical in the defense and counterattack and that the soviets just couldnt have shuffled around some more of their light tank battalions to get the same effect is going to be extremely hard to prove. It isn't as if the matilda or valentine were so superior they were giving the germans trouble anywhere in 40-41. I'm not saying your wrong, I would just like to see some compelling evidence. Them being only 6% (this is from wikipedia) to me points to their relative insignificance.
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Aug 17, 2018 17:39
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Eleven billion dollars is a lot of money There is no "right time, right place" for a unit that doesn't have hurricanes and therefore does not exist. Half a million trucks does a lot for moving men and materiel. Your quote on 25% of tanks and 6% total, etc, is wrong "By the end of 1941, early shipments of Matilda, Valentine and Tetrarch tanks represented only 6.5% of total Soviet tank production but over 25% of medium and heavy tanks produced for the Red Army.[48][49] The British tanks first saw action with the 138 Independent Tank Battalion in the Volga Reservoir on 20 November 1941.[50] Lend-Lease tanks constituted 30 to 40 percent of heavy and medium tank strength before Moscow at the beginning of December 1941" We'll split the difference and say 35%. That's a lot. Probably didn't change anything though because reasons 
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Aug 17, 2018 17:55
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dtkozl posted:I dunno, I just saw a battlefront forums post years ago where the guy did the math showing the percent of lend lease the soviets had received by stalingrad was so small compared to their own production as to be insignificant and that it really started ramping up in time for their 43 offensive. That could be wrong but I've found it hard to find evidence since then to prove that point one way or the other. The, "they were vital to the success achieved" was in direct relation to the trucks and supplies that gave the Soviets a huge logistical advantage. Not in relation to shipments of a plane I was actually mixing up with another. Hell, even the plane I was actually referring to, which the Soviets loved (the P-39) wasn't critical or anything - just extremely useful. Also, glancing at that same wiki article you are being hugely disingenuous, in multiple senses. Production capacity in no way equals "can get them where we need them in X amount of time," and was also in reference to the entire Soviet Union, not what was near Moscow. Tanks being produced behind the Urals, for instance, were going to be completely useless for that battle, no matter how many were produced. Also, the 6% was in relation to total tanks, but the 25% was in relation to total medium/heavy tanks - aka, T-34 and KV production. Or, to quote the actual article it's initially from, and not wikipedia (it's Alexander Hill from a 2006 MilHis journal): quote:"By the end of 1941, out of 750 promised And yeah, given Matildas in particularly were ludicrously hard for the Germans to destroy (roughly as tough frontally as KVs), yeah I'd say they were probably somewhat useful for holding points.
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Aug 17, 2018 18:26
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Lakedaimon posted:A formation that has their equipment and can actually shoot straight can also dig ditches and build roads. Not to mention more of the work could have been done in 1939, when the British first started sending over troops people who are trained to dig ditches and build roads aren't usually people who are supposed to be at the pointy end of the stick. this isn't a loving roman legion we are talking about. Plus even three additional divisions isn't going to change the outcome of the Battle of France. gradenko_2000 posted:a quick google suggests that it's a widely-held belief that the different gauge was deliberate, in order to prevent the tracks from being used by invaders of Russia, but apparently that view has been challenged, and others are saying that it was merely a coincidence that the first railways built in Russia were influenced by Americans who used a different gauge. hell different railroads in the same geography used different gauges (hello, CSA). i think it's more of an accident than a deliberate strategy.
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Aug 17, 2018 18:29
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:hell different railroads in the same geography used different gauges (hello, CSA). i think it's more of an accident than a deliberate strategy. In the case of the CSA, this was (IIRC) a result of "we have a bunch of different railroad companies, each of which wants to make their track incompatible with their competitors in order to force said competitors out of business." One of the few strengths of the Soviet system is that this sort of thing rarely happened in a given field, unless Moscow decided that they wanted this thing to.
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Aug 17, 2018 18:36
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Aw, I saw the number of replies and thought there was another big fleet action, instead I got logistics chat.
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Aug 17, 2018 18:36
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Saint Celestine posted:Aw, I saw the number of replies and thought there was another big fleet action, instead I got logistics chat. Woooo! Spring Logistics Break! Woooo!
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Aug 17, 2018 19:15
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"Wow, their tanks kicked my rear end. Well they probably won't have them on the next map." - Repeat 30x.
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Aug 17, 2018 19:48
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Saint Celestine posted:Aw, I saw the number of replies and thought there was another big fleet action, instead I got logistics chat. Logistics > Battles.
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Aug 17, 2018 20:00
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Saint Celestine posted:Aw, I saw the number of replies and thought there was another big fleet action, instead I got logistics chat. Expecting big battles and getting tons of logistics is kinda how WITP works. 
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Aug 17, 2018 20:31
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Gnoman posted:In the case of the CSA, this was (IIRC) a result of "we have a bunch of different railroad companies, each of which wants to make their track incompatible with their competitors in order to force said competitors out of business." did the soviets change the rail gauge when they took power or was it leftover from the tsarists? i would assume the latter because that was generally the case.
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Aug 17, 2018 21:46
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The rail gauge was the same, but most of the rail building was done under the Soviets, which included the replacement of the few standard-gauge railways.
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Aug 17, 2018 22:00
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Dawncloack posted:The train gauge is hardly a problem these days, trains simply can adapt. Reuben Sandwich fucked around with this message at 22:16 on Aug 17, 2018 |
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Aug 17, 2018 22:12
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Knowing, as they say Is half the battle
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Aug 17, 2018 23:49
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The other half is blowing fuckers' heads off.
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Aug 18, 2018 00:00
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:people who are trained to dig ditches and build roads aren't usually people who are supposed to be at the pointy end of the stick. this isn't a loving roman legion we are talking about. Plus even three additional divisions isn't going to change the outcome of the Battle of France. But these were not like construction battalions or something. We'd be in total agreement if they were. They were infantry divisions. One was supposed to be motorized infantry. They ended up fighting anyways even though something like only 1 in 3 of the soldiers had even fired a rifle before and it was a disaster. The 23rd (Northumbrian) at least had a few AT rifles and 2" mortars, but they didnt even have their signals equipment.
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Aug 18, 2018 00:16
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Did the Warsaw Pact counties use soviet gauge after the war?
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Aug 18, 2018 00:47
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It's fun how you deploy your guys and, during deployment, give them fast move orders straight into unscouted territory! Very gung-ho of you. I also enjoy the random "crawl 100 meters across this flooded field" order.  All kidding aside, these are cool and I'm enjoying them. I might get this game.
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Aug 18, 2018 01:01
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Kodos666 posted:Robert Forczyk mentioned in his tank warfare on the eastern front the desastrous state of combined arms warfare practiced by the red army in the early months of Barbarossa. Even as the T-34 could (on paper at least) eat any german tank of the time for breakfast, they died in droves due to lack of artillery-support, acompanying infantry and proper recon and air-cover. later though they learned these lessons the hard way and managed to encircle and destroy large german Formations. Nah, the Soviets just got bodied by Barbarossa while they were rapidly expanding the military, but hadn't mobilized for and their mechanised corps were in the middle of reorganization. The quality of tanks had nothing to do with anything, the Soviets just kept running out of fuel, or getting bombed apart by CAS, or making ill-advised immediate counterattacks, during a period when the Germans had completely overrun Soviets supply and communications lines. Soviet formations were already unweildy and understaffed before WWII, and the utter chaos of Barbarossa meant they were incapable of effective response.
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Aug 18, 2018 01:45
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:Nah, the Soviets just got bodied by Barbarossa while they were rapidly expanding the military, but hadn't mobilized for and their mechanised corps were in the middle of reorganization. The quality of tanks had nothing to do with anything, the Soviets just kept running out of fuel, or getting bombed apart by CAS, or making ill-advised immediate counterattacks, during a period when the Germans had completely overrun Soviets supply and communications lines. Soviet formations were already unweildy and understaffed before WWII, and the utter chaos of Barbarossa meant they were incapable of effective response. I mostly agree with you, but it is worth noting that the most common tank in the Soviet arsenal in 1941 wasn't the T-34, but the woefully obsolete T-26, which was prone to breakdowns that exacerbated all of those issues.
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Aug 18, 2018 01:58
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The purge of 1938 really didn't help the early Soviet war effort, either.
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Aug 18, 2018 02:02
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Oh hmm a bunch of posts did Grey sink more carrier-- 
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Aug 18, 2018 02:44
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AGGGGH BEES posted:Oh hmm a bunch of posts did Grey sink more carrier-- "I too shall add to the white noise"
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Aug 18, 2018 03:03
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Ron Jeremy posted:Did the Warsaw Pact counties use soviet gauge after the war? according to these internet train people i googled, No. http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/p/136688/1536818.aspx marknewton posted:
i assume this is the scholarly consensus edit: oh and there's some other guy saying this too quote:I believe there are one or two bits of daul gauge track near the borders of what was the Soviet Union and one or two neighbouring countries, but only in a few areas where it lends itself to operational convenience. but i think that's a really interesting question and im happy to read more about train gauges and logistics by the way, another question: would soviet troops have accepted orders to attack the west after they finished beating germany? i get the impression american troops would not have been up for taking on the ussr, but i've never heard anything specific about soviet morale or about how they would've felt being told to keep fighting oystertoadfish fucked around with this message at 03:20 on Aug 18, 2018 |
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Aug 18, 2018 03:15
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Stalin didn't want a war with the West at least from what I've read. While the USSR had millions of troops in active combat, they were just nearly at the end of thier replacement tether when it came to soldiers. Remember they had lost possibly upwards of ten percent of thie rpopulation, thier industry and agriculture had been gutted, and thier infrastructure devastated from Moscow to Poland. Stalin didn't -want- war - he wanted a chance to consolidate and rebuild the USSR - but also look like he was in a position of strength to get the best possible concessions and post war setup. And the -Allies- didn't wnt war either. Churchill was voted out of office for among other things wanting to go after the Commies as soon as the war was coming to an end. Things were in a state of posturing and figuring out who would blink first. But at least from what I've readd neither side really wanted confrontation or to push hard enough to risk it. Would the Red Armyhave done so if Stalin ordered them to? I strongly believe tehy would have. To the average Sovietperson, he was a god.
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Aug 18, 2018 04:16
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