the first russian mission

[Capt. Shark Bait]

what's the best way to survive it, liberating somewhere? seems far more difficult now, thx Z, than before the mod, i've gone down the main road, thru the trees on the far left, the gap in the trees just to the right, thru the trees in the center and still end up destroyed by Tigers with x-ray gunsights

[ZeeWolf]

Originally Posted by Capt. Shark Bait

what's the best way to survive it, liberating somewhere? seems far more difficult now, thx Z, than before the mod, i've gone down the main road, thru the trees on the far left, the gap in the trees just to the right, thru the trees in the center and still end up destroyed by Tigers with x-ray gunsights

The best thing to do is stay on the road. Then let the units on your left take the heat from the Tigers. On your right the main attack comes from your reserve units. They will take out the reaming guns and Nebelwafers. My tip is stay out off the field if you can get that far and let your comrades do the hard work. Remember: with in a mile (1600 meters) the T34-85 hits hard.
As for the x-ray eyes, well I pretty much fixed that and that will be in a new update for the members very soon.

Cheers

ZeeWolf

[Capt. Shark Bait]

thx. nice to know the enemies will be "blinded", but where's the fun in letting the AI do it all for ya?

[frinik]

Sharkbait, if you think the first mission is tough try the last one now!Repikhovo's Last Stand has become one for the Russkies.I used to win that mission fairly often.It was tough but I could do it.Now with those Stugs and Panzer IV that just don't look cute and let themselves be shot anymore it's a killing field for T34s.Now thanks to ZW's new improved Tank Ai they fight and they kill most of the attacking T34s.And there's lots of Stugs and PZ IVs not to mention the AT guns.That mission has become extremely difficult but again I don't mind being burnt as a Soviet....

The first mission I won after 4 attempts juts taking the right patch and staying behind( just as ZW advised) while my comrades were taking the heat.Then hidden behind a destroyed T34 I saw the 2 tigers and in 6 shots I was able to destroy them. Mind you the last one gave me a big scare as it took me 4 shots to kill it and I came close to being killed myself.

[Capt. Shark Bait]

can't wait hehe

[frinik]

But I am warning you; even if and whne you pass the first mission the second one is unwinnable in it's present form.There are just too few T34s to complete it successfully against 6 Panzer IV, 2 or 3 Tigers and 3 APCS.The German AI tanks are now too aggressive and your T34 will not survive very long.This is one thing that will need to be reworked.Those Soviet missions were originally conceived with balance( the developpers own idea of balancing the odds) in mind.The Tigers were made to be weaker(rate of fire, armour and shell impact-wise) by the Russian developers to give the weaker T34s the edge.That was fine because the German AI tanks were so inept you could hope to succeed. Now with ZW's tweaking, the German AI tanks are so aggressive and tough that you need a much greater number of T34s to hope to succeed. Until it happens forget about winning some of the Soviet side missions.

[Capt. Shark Bait]

managed to get thru the first, w/out getting a single kill, and then the next 2 with no real prob. for some reason,tho, the 3rd, after survivng that, restarted itself, unless i clicked restart rather than continue w/out realizing it.

yeah, i had noticed, after the first few times, in the first German mission that it took several shots to destroy a t34 than were historically accurate. thx to Z, things are as they should been in the first place. one would think that the russians think they won the war all by there lonesomes

[growbag]

...well, they did really!

Even the British historians are starting to admit the fact that the Russians did close to 80% of the work in terms of fighting AND numbers lost.

The interesting thing is that if Hitler hadn't have listened to Göring when he promised to supply the troops by air (along with many of his other insane decisions), the Germans would have overrrun Moscow and the oilfields in the southeast, and could have then gone on to crush the rest of Russia.

Think about it, it took nearly a year for the d-day landed allied troops to get to the German border (how long did it take the Wehrmacht to take France?), the German troops were massively outnumbered in both troops and tanks, and had no supplies whatsoever, and no air support.

It even took the Russians 3 weeks to secure Berlin when they had 16 million fully equipped troops against 1 million "troops" that comprised of a handful of Wehrmacht, old men, and Hitler Youth kids! The Russian tanks outnumbered the German's by something like 30 to 1.

Even the traditional US "cannon fodder" policy would have failed against a resupplied 3rd Reich (as in sacrificing 3 Sherman tanks to take out 1 tiger).

Hitler wasted millions (I would guess at 80%) of his best troops in Russia, mostly starved and frozen to death.

If Hitler was a little less arrogant he could have done a lot more damage. All he had to do (as regards the Russian campaign) was read Napoleons campaign diaries, he also got bogged down in Russia with mud, snow, and crappy supply lines.

I have a really good documentary which details the problems and errors Hitler made in Russia. I can put it on my server if anyone is interested in downloading it (just ask), it's about 400 megs I think, but extremely interesting.

War always comes down to supply lines, it's always overlooked by history, but without food, fuel, and ammo, any army is doomed to failure.

[pedromarques]

Hi GROWBAG

I'd be interested in watching that documentory you talk about.
It seems, at least sometimes, that many people forget that the supply chain is the achilles heel of any army.
Someone once quote, and I can't verify it, that for each front line trooper the US Army had about 5 other people on the back lines in logistic support

Even Napoleon suffered with the Czar policy of burned land.

Thanks in advance

[frinik]

erowbag, I don't know where you got your stats but they are not accurate.The Soviets had 2.5 million soldiers available for the battle of Berlin against may be 325 000 Germans consisting of ragtag units of Luftwaffe(mostly ground personnel and flak), Foreign volunteers of the WaffenSS( Walloons, French), German SS, remnants of an assortment of Wehrmacht units, and half trained Volksturm and Todt organisation workers hastily mobolised.The Soviets had 16 million men under arms but on a front stretch from the Baltic Sea(East Prussia-Kurland) and the way down to the Balkans and Hungary -Tchecoslovakia.The Germans had 3 to 4 million men facing them on the entire front stretching over 800 km.

As for logistics let´s not forget that while the East front desparately needed supplies in 1943-1944, the Nazis had given priority to the transportation of Jews to the extermination camps mobilising countless trains and rail cars of the Reichbahn which could have been crucial to the Wehrmacht against Soviet offensives.

It took the Allies 4 months to get to the German border (June-October 1944) not 10.

Finally, The Germans were only outnumbered in aircrafts and supplies on the Western front not in troops(at least not until October-November 1944) nor in artillery or armour.

While it´s true that the Soviets faced 70% of more of Germany´s might they would not have been able to achieve victory or at least without an extra 2 years and over 5 million more casualties without the Allies incessant bombings which virtually destroyed German supply of synthetic oil,disrupted manufacturing production, transportation and mobilised more than 1 million men used to man air defence guns and aircrafts( grounds personnel ect).No to mention that by tying 25 to 30% of German troops and equipment prevented them from using that capacity to either take the offensive on the East or stall the Soviet through a costly war of attrition.Not to mention the preciosu supplies the Soviets got at a crucial time in 1942-1943 without which they would never have been able to mount offensive action against Germany in 1943.

The Allied victory was a combined effort to say that the Allies alone won the war is bogus and likewise the Soviets did not achieve victory without the Aliies crucial and decisive help on several fronts( air, sea and supplies)

Logistically, Germany lost the war when it became unable to stop or counter Allied bombings in late 1943 early 1944.When the Soviets overan the ore supplies needed for the production or armour and the Rumanian oildfieds in mid 1944 then the death blow was inflicted.

[growbag]

Yeah, my memory is not what it once was

The Germans couldn't use their Trains or rolling stock because the Russian railway tracks were a totally different guage. It would have cost billions, taken too long to convert, and used too many resources. Plus the Russians used their "scroched earth" policy and left absolutely NO trains or rolling stock intact.

A very effective policy.

As for the "transportation of Jews" thing, well, that subject opens a whole other can of worms.

I have PMd the people who requested the doco, if you want it please ask, I don't feel too easy offering a link on an open channel .

[frinik]

it´s half a myth.The German advance in the Ukraine and Byelorussia in the summer 1941 was so fast that they actually got their hands on thousands of rail cars and locos which they were able to use for their own needs later on.The Scorched Earth policy declared in September 1941 came too late for half the territory that would end up in German control.The wide gauge were a problem but not a major one thanks to the transportation nmterial seized intact by the Wehrmacht.

[ReM]

Originally Posted by frinik

The Allied victory was a combined effort to say that the Allies alone won the war is bogus and likewise the Soviets did not achieve victory without the Aliies crucial and decisive help on several fronts( air, sea and supplies)

I agree with you totally but the fact the the German OKW didn't have freedom of action and were subjected to the Fuhrer's 'intuition' and stand fast orders didn't help their cause either. I am convinced that if the German generall staff could've fought the war the way they envisioned that they would have given the Allies a much harder time than they actually did. (the Fuhrer's stand fast orders were justified in the first Russian winter after the battle for Moscow; he probably thought that he could achieve victory in every situation through sheer willpower)

[frinik]

Hitler's folly twice came forth the same year; in 1941. Attacking the Soviets too late in the summer and without having definitely dealt with the British in North Africa and Europe and second by giving the Japanese a one-way present by declaring war on the US and definitely tilting the balance of power on the side of his enemies.If at least had Hitler committed the Japanese to striking the weakened Soviets in Mandchuria-Siberia and forcing them to keep there the troops that Stalin used to counterattack and save Moscow in December 1941 then the stupid gamble of pushing the US in a war against Germany would have been lessened but no he gave the Japanese everything they wanted and took nothing in return. 1941 is the year Germany lost the war although it became apparent only 2 years later.

And Hitler who fought WWI had no excuses, he knew what happened in 1917 when the US joined the Allies.

[ReM]

Again I agree totally, but I meant interference at the operational level as well. Giving the halt order at Dunkirk, hesitating about the axis of advance in Barbarossa even after its late start, splitting up both army groups in Fall Blau and having substandard troops and allies guard the stretched flanks, not giving von Manstein carte blanche with his 'schlagen aus der nachhand' tactics saving the day for the Germans in 1943 near Kharkov, making the army attack Russia's best near Kursk in an insane attempt to defeat them there, giving stand fast orders during Bagration sacrificing huge numbers of valuable materiel and men, insisting on keeping the panzer reserves in the west under his own command, ordering the counterattack at Mortain that ended in the onslaught at Falaise and made a swift German defeat in France certain, the very unrealistic offensive in the Ardennes in order to reach Antwerp and split the Allied armies in two. I have read stories about the fact that the Fuhrer even kept himself occupied with transfers of single battalions! Can you imagine President Bush telling Norman Schwarzkopf that he wants a certain battalion transferred because his intuition told him that?
I think OKW minus the Fuhrers constant interfering would've fought a different war, not a war with a different outcome.........