Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: SMK-at-work

The siberian myth I object to, and which was noted in "that other thread" is that he Winter counter offensives by the Soviet union were all carried out by Siberian units, veterans who had been secretly assembled en-masse and were used in a single crushing blow.

That is the essence of hte position I object to.

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Yes Siberian units were shipped from the far east - but 40 divisions were kept there, twice as many as were sent.

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No they were not veterans - their conscripts had not seen any action because the nomohon "incident" had occured befoer they weer called up - it's simple math - look up the dates!

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No they were not especially equipped with winter clothing - the Russians had made great advances in winter equipment across their entire army, and many regular units had winter clothing.

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No they were not specially trained for winter warfare - again the soviet army had ben trying to correct the obvious problems from the Winter war for the previous 18 months across all units, including winter operational training.

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Of those 20 or so divisions, at least some were committed to battle long before the winter offensives.

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I'm interested in where you get those specific deployments from - I have not read that anywhere - do you have a reference?

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all of these dilute the myth that the Siberians were a sudden surprise. When I have the rest of the numbers I shall give them to you.

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Oh and for an overview of how we got to teh poor understanding we have of hte Soviet war effort I can thoroughly recommend Glantz's article at http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/documents/e-front.htm

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ORIGINAL: IrishDragoonGuards

Hey .. can I play too ...

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Interesting article. It was written in 1987. What does it provce about the Siberians? Nothing.

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ORIGINAL: SMK-at-work

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Interesting article. It was written in 1987. What does it provce about the Siberians? Nothing.

sigh.....and where did I say it did?

I said quite specifically that it gives some background as to why we accept the stories that have come to us from WW2, and it notes teh serious shortcomings of hte sources of those stories - namely the post-war German histories that are one-sided.

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ORIGINAL: firepowerjohan

IMO I do not think this should matter much to gameplay. USSR have their production points and can buy any units they want. Locking Siberians to arrive at certain date, certain strength and certain tech does not fit with the random research and random weather. Same argument could be that when Barbarossa start USSR and Germany should have this or that tank available or that the mud or winter should start at a certain date in 1941. We have random factors in game to avoid such predictability

It was a design decision to put as much of the Economy into the players hands and that is also why we allow neutral major countries to conduct research and purchase/place units all the way from 1939, to provide variation.

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ORIGINAL: Dave Ferguson

OK, i just did some checking.

according to Glantz' 'Stumbling Colossus' there were approx 25 rifle divisions in Siberia, Central Asia and Trans-Biakal on 22 June 1941.

a large number of new divisions were mobilised in those areas.

From a russian website via babelfish to aid translation.

It appears that 5 of those divisions were transferred to active armies by the 1st of October.

At this time the soviets had over 100 divisions in reserve, non active fronts etc.

the same site still shows over 100 divisions in reserve for 1 Jan 42, including a lot of the original divisions still in siberia.

Glantz says over 190 divisions were transferred west by December 1941.

So the germans did see lots of 'Siberian' divisions in the Moscow camapaign but they were mostly new formations and not the original June 41 veterans.. They were not full establishment divisions but compared with the soviet formations already in the line were rested and had relatively well trained as they had a few months between mobilization and commitment.

They did not arrive in one big mass though, rather as a steady stream plus numbers went into reserve armies which the germans either ran into or were committed in the counter offensive.

i could spend a day or so tracking every division !!!!!!!!

Hope this muddies the water

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ORIGINAL: firepowerjohan

IMO I do not think this should matter much to gameplay. USSR have their production points and can buy any units they want. Locking Siberians to arrive at certain date, certain strength and certain tech does not fit with the random research and random weather. Same argument could be that when Barbarossa start USSR and Germany should have this or that tank available or that the mud or winter should start at a certain date in 1941. We have random factors in game to avoid such predictability

It was a design decision to put as much of the Economy into the players hands and that is also why we allow neutral major countries to conduct research and purchase/place units all the way from 1939, to provide variation.

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ORIGINAL: Vypuero

I read Alan's book and it is very good, BUT he wrote it before he had access to all of the Soviet archives. This means an over-reliance on German sources. The book I mentioned says nothing at all about Siberians. I am sure that, indeed, there were some. However, it was simply the fresh reserve armies when the Germans kept expecting to think "They must be wiped out by NOW, surely!" but they were NOT! What better way to explain a failure than to exaggerate the "extra forces from Siberia" that they speak of? Point is - they existed, but their true impact was exaggerated.

Also - in our game, the Russians get a mobilization boost in October of 1941! This gives them more points. PLUS by then the first of your convoys may have arrived (that extra lend-lease) and is sometimes 100+ points. That is enough, alone, for 3 corps, plus the boost for a few more.

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ORIGINAL: Vypuero

I read through the section on the W41 battles around Moscow in the book "When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler" - which uses a lot of Soviet archive information. There is no particular mention of the Siberians, BUT in general the focus is on how the Soviets had a remarkable ability to marshall large reserves and reserve armies.

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ORIGINAL: Dave Ferguson

OK Glantz says that there were 25 'original' siberian divisions in june 41
5 were transferred before October
another 8-10 were transferred during Nov/Dec
units transferred were replaced by freshly raised troops, keeping the total facing Japan roughly the same.

In Eriksons 'Road to Stalingrad' it says that the russians had at the beginning of December 9 uncommited armies with 59 rifle divisions and 17 cavalry divisions. These were the substantial reserves which the germans did not think the russians had. They were gathered together by systematically starving the frontline armies of reinforcements, even the soviet army command was not really aware that they existed. They were lacking in manpower and equipment but came as a shock to the germans. These were the 'Siberians' that gave rise to the myth.

So if the game allows the russian player to build a several corps reserve by December it should be OK with no need for changes.

Dave

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ORIGINAL: Dave Ferguson

Yes, Glantz 'Stumbling Colossus' is a revealing insight into the Soviet forces at the start of the war. He has written a companion volume 'Colossus Reborn'? which covers the rebuilding of the soviet war machine through 1942 etc. These are not histories of the war but include lots of soviet material previously unavailable.

If you like operational level accounts his Atlases are excellent if expensive. eg if you want to know the location of every german unit on 11 August 1941, the atlas will show you.

for the Western Front try the Library of Congress where you will find a daily situation map for the allied armies from June 44 to May 45, again divisional level.

Dave

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ORIGINAL: Vypuero

I used these materials in the scenarios, but remember that the scale the game builder's wanted was much fewer units, so I had to revise all of my OOBs down to get to the smaller numbers they wanted (i.e. the scale went up). That is another reason why the Russians have Garrisons on the front and Corps in reserve. This way, the Axis can get the effect of the blast of Barbarossa at the start, followed by rapid advance and then they will run into increasingly strong Russian resistance. At least, that is what I am trying to achieve! Since the game takes very long to play with humans, and the AI is not quite the same, it is very difficult to get the right balance. Also, keep in mind the starting Russian forces on the map are supplemented by roughly 1,000 PP up until the point where the war starts. Also, the closer objectives have as low a value as I could assign, with the rear cities having high values to reflect the movement of production and factories there.

Interesting note - if you look at GDP for Russia and Germany, you will see that Russia has a LOT moe PP relative to their GDP than does Germany. I have GDP figures for every country on the map during the WW II timeframe. The reason is, that Russia used a vast portion of that GDP on war expenditures vs Germany or the US. That was because simple necessities the West had were pretty much non-existant in much of Russia, and it just got worse as the war went on. Somewhere I read an interesting analysis of the economy and its potential collapse. It got very close to that point. That is why it is a reasonable argument the Russians may have collapsed with the loss of more territory, for instance if Moscow, Stalingrad, and Leningrad had fallen, there is a good chance it would have been a true point of no return.

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ORIGINAL: firepowerjohan

IMO I do not think this should matter much to gameplay. USSR have their production points and can buy any units they want. Locking Siberians to arrive at certain date, certain strength and certain tech does not fit with the random research and random weather. Same argument could be that when Barbarossa start USSR and Germany should have this or that tank available or that the mud or winter should start at a certain date in 1941. We have random factors in game to avoid such predictability

It was a design decision to put as much of the Economy into the players hands and that is also why we allow neutral major countries to conduct research and purchase/place units all the way from 1939, to provide variation.

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ORIGINAL: targul

Also some of us wish to play historical games and some not so why not make one of your scenarios historical while others can then play the fantasy WWII.