victorhauser -> (6/8/2000 12:54:00 PM)
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quote:
Originally posted by Desert Fox:
Hmm, I think maybe you are making a big deal of nothing here. The first Waffen SS units were in fact, elite. Now, it is true that there were many elite units in the Heer, but lets remember that they are not depicted in the game, so to pass on calling the Waffen SS elite really does not grant other units that status, gamewise. Also, the Waffen SS were not heavy infantry either. For the most accurate oob, there would have to be several different types of German infantry, with both regular Heer and Waffen units, as well as elite Heer and Waffen units. This is obviously pretty close to impossible due to the limited space in the oobs.
I don't know if there are bonuses associated with being classed as elite infantry instead of something else, and I guess Paul would have to tell us that. However, if you don't like calling the Waffen SS elite (which btw is just as great an injustice to them as it is not calling certain Heer units elite) then you can go in and change it yourself with the oob editor.
Now I also think that you are not very educated on the subject of the Waffen SS. The Waffen SS was plain and simple a battlefield unit. They had nothing to do with the concentration camps, nor were they full of evil people. Don't ever confuse the Waffen SS with the Allgemeine SS. On paper, the Waffen SS was created under the Allgemeine SS, but in reality the Waffen SS answered to the OKW in battle. Waffen SS was a group of soldiers, Allgemeine SS was the political force responsible for the Holocaust.
This is a common and pretty bad misconception to make. I hate to think of the trouble Waffen SS vets have been given just because most people don't understand the difference. Sure there were bad folks mixed into the Waffen, but there were most surely bad folks mixed into every other German unit, and every other nation's armies as well.
And one last thing, if you still don't feel right using Waffen SS units in the game, then don't use them. Rename them or just don't buy them.
I am indeed talking about the Waffen SS being dregs of human society. Even lower down in the gutter are the einsatzgruppen, concentration-camp guards, etc. By the way, the book "Soldiers of Destruction" points out clearly that 3rd SS Totenkopf (a unit commonly considered one of the "big three" elite SS units) was composed of exactly the kinds of criminals you state weren't in the Waffen SS. They were recruited by Theodore Eike (a criminal himself) from "racially pure" convicts and concentration-camp guards. It has been stated (usually by SS revisionists and apologists) that Waffen SS troops had little to do with atrocities and other malignant behavior which should be more properly attributed to the einsatzgruppen, etc. That's a load of horse dung, to paraphrase Patton.
But regardless of that, the question is, "should Waffen SS troops be considered elite?" Besides the graduates of the Bad Tolz school in the early-war years (most of whom were already dead by the end of Operation Barbarossa in 1941), the Waffen SS recruit received no better training than his Wehrmacht counterpart, and frequently worse training since much of his time was taken up with political matters. Indeed, most SS commanders were chosen precisely due to political reasons and not for military competence. But since the SS was given preferential treatment regarding replacements along with extra helpings of new equipment (due to political reasons again), the SS usually had more bodies and more firepower to throw at the enemy (on a per-formation basis). And yet, even without all that extra stuff, the Regular Wehrmacht units routinely outperformed the SS in combat. As one example among many, during the Battle of the Bulge, 6th SS Panzer Army was outperformed by 5th Panzer Army. Now, I'm not saying that some SS units didn't perform well. Sure they did. They just didn't perform better (man for man and bullet for bullet) than the Regular Wehrmacht. And they certainly didn't perform better than the best of the Regular Wehrmacht. I claim that if the Regular Wehrmacht had been given those high-quality replacements and all that new equipment, they would've gotten far more effective use out of them than the SS did.
But all that is besides the point. Why are Waffen SS units being singled out for preferential treatment by SPWAW?
I agree that the simple solution would be for me to go into my OOB editor and change the designations myself. But I posted my message to plant seeds of awareness in the minds of readers and the Matrix staff.
In the Spirit of Knowledge and Harmony,
Victor Hauser
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