Stupid GI Tricks

[dragoon500ly]

Originally Posted by helbent4

Bob,

Really, did Russian soldiers (or generals) actually do anything significant during WWII? I mean, it was pretty much like winter came to the not-Western Front and all the hundreds of Germans walking across the steppes there froze to death. When he heard the the American were invading Normandy Hitler committed suicide in the bunker. Game over!

Oh wait, there was the single most crucial turning point in the war, the Battle of the Bulge, won single-handedly by Patton and the 82nd Airborne. Other minor things happened, but trust me, they were really unimportant.

Zhukov and Konev were clearly proficient and aggressive generals, effective in all seasons and in offensive operations. By the end of the war, the Soviets had evolved into skilled, experienced and tenacious soldiers, fully skilled in the art of war. Still, it seemslike only General Winter that ever seems to get any the credit.

Tony

And it does't help that its hard to get English translations of the Russian histories of the Great Patriotic War. After getting torn to pieces by the Germans in the early point of the war, the Russian tactical art got better, a lot better than Western historians acknowledge. But, from the Western viewpoint, the image of massed human wave assaults throwing themselves into the teeth of the German defenses has been an image that is almost impossible to dispel.

[helbent4]

Originally Posted by dragoon500ly

And it does't help that its hard to get English translations of the Russian histories of the Great Patriotic War. After getting torn to pieces by the Germans in the early point of the war, the Russian tactical art got better, a lot better than Western historians acknowledge. But, from the Western viewpoint, the image of massed human wave assaults throwing themselves into the teeth of the German defenses has been an image that is almost impossible to dispel.

Lee,

A great book I recommend for anyone wanting a good appreciation of how Russia fought in WWII, and how they saw themselves is "Ivan's War: Life and Death in the Red Army 1939-45." It's based on historical records from Russian archives, diaries, letters, and personal anecdotes.

For one thing, the Red Army of 1941 which used human wave attacks was largely dead by 1942. Taking their place were professional officers and soldiers, with technical skills and training.

http://www.amazon.com/Ivans-War-Life.../dp/0805074554

Moving onto the Pentomic divisions, S&T had a couple wargames in the Cold War Battles series that features them: as an optional unit is Budapest '56 and the focus of Wurzburg Pentomic:



There's a fascinating write-up of the Pentomic concept. Great in theory but difficult to pull off in practice!

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/4...tomic-wurzburg

Tony

[dragoon500ly]

Originally Posted by helbent4

Lee,

A great book I recommend for anyone wanting a good appreciation of how Russia fought in WWII, and how they saw themselves is "Ivan's War: Life and Death in the Red Army 1939-45." It's based on historical records from Russian archives, diaries, letters, and personal anecdotes.

For one thing, the Red Army of 1941 which used human wave attacks was largely dead by 1942. Taking their place were professional officers and soldiers, with technical skills and training.

http://www.amazon.com/Ivans-War-Life.../dp/0805074554

Moving onto the Pentomic divisions, S&T had a couple wargames in the Cold War Battles series that features them: as an optional unit is Budapest '56 and the focus of Wurzburg Pentomic:



There's a fascinating write-up of the Pentomic concept. Great in theory but difficult to pull off in practice!

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/4...tomic-wurzburg

Tony

I have a copy somewhere around the house. I for one am very intrested in the Russian view of the war, but I'm handicapped by only being to speak basic Russian, you know "give me a bottle of vodka", "I'd like the house special", "how much for your daughter", and a few of the cruder insults, you know, what any GI knows. And its hard to get copies of the Russian works on the subject at least in the land of "if its not invented here, it can't be any good!"

Ah the pentomic division, they only redeeming feature is that the battle group commander gets to play with tacnukes by himself. Operationaly, it sucked wind!

[Adm.Lee]

An interesting thing about the Pentomic division I found. I read Gen. Maxwell Taylor's memoir a while ago. He wrote about thinking that conventional divisions seemed awful vulnerable to nuke strikes, and that something should have been done. Many pages later, he mentions that another reorganization needed to be done. Nothing is said about the actual planning, testing or deployment of the Pentomics, much less that it happened on his watch as Chief of Staff of the Army (1955-59).

I think that silence spoke volumes about the Pentomic division.

I can remember when I was in high school, I found my dad's "Army officer's guide," copyright 1961. Under a listing of the various Army posts were some of the unit assignments. As a budding wargamer, I loved that, and tried to construct an OOB. But, I knew WW2 wargames, so "battlegroups" as permanent units, subordinate to divisions, related to regiments? That really confused me. Since Pop didn't really start active duty until '64 (and never served with troops) and it was then about 20 years later, he really couldn't explain it, either.

[dragoon500ly]

Originally Posted by Adm.Lee

An interesting thing about the Pentomic division I found. I read Gen. Maxwell Taylor's memoir a while ago. He wrote about thinking that conventional divisions seemed awful vulnerable to nuke strikes, and that something should have been done. Many pages later, he mentions that another reorganization needed to be done. Nothing is said about the actual planning, testing or deployment of the Pentomics, much less that it happened on his watch as Chief of Staff of the Army (1955-59).

I think that silence spoke volumes about the Pentomic division.

I can remember when I was in high school, I found my dad's "Army officer's guide," copyright 1961. Under a listing of the various Army posts were some of the unit assignments. As a budding wargamer, I loved that, and tried to construct an OOB. But, I knew WW2 wargames, so "battlegroups" as permanent units, subordinate to divisions, related to regiments? That really confused me. Since Pop didn't really start active duty until '64 (and never served with troops) and it was then about 20 years later, he really couldn't explain it, either.

By the mid-1950s, the Army though a general war would be too expensive to fight by conventional means due to the Warsaw Pact having an overwhelming advantage in men and resources than NATO. The answer appeared to be to increase the firepower of a division. One of the stumbling blocks to this was the lack of understanding of the effects of tacnukes. The general consenus was that tacnukes could be used much like like field artillery. This is the backdrop for the development of the Pentomic Division.

In its final form, the pentomic division consisted of five battle groups (Headquarters & Service Company, 5 Infantry Companies and one mortar battery each) that replaced the original three infantry regiments. Conventional and nuclear artillery, tank, signal, and engineer battalions, and a reconnaissance squadron with ground and air capabilities were added to the division. The division was also authorized trains, which included a transportation battalion, an aviation company, and an administration company. The transportation battalion was to have sufficient armored personnel carriers to move an entire battle group at one time. The aviation company, the first of its type, was to be placed in the trains for better supervision of its maintenance. The pentomic division was authorized about 13,500 men of all ranks--a reduction of nearly 4,000 from the 1955 infantry division.

The pentomic division was seen as an effective organization, able to operate widely dispersed on the nuclear battlefield. There were also other reasons for converting divisions to the new concept. The defense budgets of the 1950s concentrated on new missiles, aircraft and ships and left little money for the mundane items such as rifles, machineguns and trucks.

The pentomic division, with its usage of tacnukes became a means in itself for the Army to become part of the nuclear arsenal budget.

So what killed the pentomic division? As was demonstrated in a series of wargames, the pentomic division and its independent battle groups was highly dependent on communications for it work at its best. As better understanding of the effects of even tacnukes became available, the pentomic division proved to be almost impossible to co-ordinate based on the standard of communications technology of the time.

[Adm.Lee]

Sorry, I guess I should have added that I had figured it out since then, once I took up looking for Cold War stuff.

[dragoon500ly]

I was recently conducting an audit at this little place called Fort Benning, got to watch a daylight gunnery exercise demo the latest fixes to the ole Stryker combat system. Namely my favorite POS, the 105mm armed version.

Anyhow, our fearless crew was motoring down the range and I mentioned to the major that was conducting our tour, that the last time that I had witnessed this, the crew managed to roll their vehicle over. The major got a little huffy and assured me that such a thing would never happen with the latest mods....

Right on Station Six, the Stryker went around a corner and engaged a target with its gun at the nine o'clock position. Sure enough, the crew fired and scored direct hit, at the same time the vehicle slowly rolled over on its right side.

Glancing at the red-faced major, I mentioned, in an awe-struck voice, "those new mods work! The last time I saw this they rolled 180 degrees, this time it was only 90!!!!!"