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Wow, @jamesevans140 – I think that might be a new record for the biggest reply in the history of the business! 😀
Knights of the Black Cross – Yes, I have that book, or at least part of it (long story). Pretty damned good. David Glantz, however, remains the king. Not only for his exhaustive attention to detail (his OOBs, Appendices, and Bibliography on The Battle of Kursk are over 200 pages long, longer than many whole books on the subject). Best of all, he finally breaks the Mellenthin / Carrell / von Luck / Keegan German-centric, Soviet-phobe bias on the Eastern Front.
Richard Overy deserves a lot of credit on this front as well, led off by his superlative Blood Upon the Snow, but he doesn’t really get down into the tactical weeds like Glantz does.
I will have to check out Enduring the Whirlwind. Sounds like my kind of book.
In case you havne’t seen it, a great map online resource is here:
http://www.armchairgeneral.com/rkkaww2/
Another good one:
Just might have to learn some Russian or at least have Google Translate handy. The RKKA site has some documents on it that are handy for translating the Russian military abbreviation, annotations, and labels on the maps.
Head to the “MAPS” menu at the top and you get some really great Soviet maps of pretty much the whole war, including even the Finnish 1939-40 War, the Mongolian wars against the Japanese in 1938 and 39, and the Far East invasion of Manchuria in August 1945.
From my understanding, the continuation / expansion of Soviet counterattacks in Izyum, elsewhere south of Moscow, Operation Carnivore and the annihilation of the 2nd Shock Army up north, and even leading up Khar’kov in the spring of 1942 … are all Stalin pushing too hard, too fast, too eager to exploit the successes Zhukov had scored immediately in front of Moscow in December of 41. Most of the better Siberian and Red Banner Divisions had been committed in this sector. So after these successes, Stalin started pushing the shoulders of these penetrations out too far, too fast (against the objectives of Zhukov and STAVKA). Definitely divisions that had been chewed up earlier in 41, rebuilt and thrown back into combat, I doubt many of them are of good quality. Some Guards tank brigades had been raised starting with Katukov’s 1st Guards Tank Brigade in October 41, but these would be the exception rather than the rule, especially with infantry.
Yes, T-34 growth was very evolutionary rather than revolutionary. It had a lot less to do with advancing technology as factories having to be uprooted and rebuilt further east, then turning out T-34s as fast as possible with equipment, infrastructure, and skilled labor on hand.
I like how starting in 42 Soviet tank crews started working in the factory helping to build THEIR OWN TANK, so they’d know how to fix it and it definitely ensured a certain degree of care of craftsmanship!
The only two REALLY big jumps in the T-34 that would at least impact game mechanics would be the newer longer 76.2mm gun (this happened very early in the war, the shorter T-34 barrels would be a “footnote oddity” more than anything) and of course the inclusion of the new T-34/85. Not only a bigger gun, but perhaps even more important, a three-man turret with a dedicated gunner and a radio in every tank. That’s pretty much the dawn of 1944, though.
But as far as the Chelyabinsk T-34 vs. the Stalingrad T-34 vs. the 1941/42 and hex-shaped 1943 T-34 … that’s more of a scale modeller’s thing, with different sizes and shapes of turret hatches and the like. In game terms I wouldn’t worry about it. If you want to make your tables rivet-counter proof, just try not to have any of the hex-shaped T-34 turrets in your 1942 tables, is all.
I agree on assault guns, I’m not sure about Soviet light tanks. I guess it depends on which ones. The ones with the machine guns or the light autocannon I might see tearing up some infantry. There’s also the Barbarossa-themed flame-thrower version of the T-26. VERY nice against infantry. Too bad a 7.92mm Mauser antitank rifle might take it out. And I’m not really a fan of the BT series. By your 1942 campaign, though you’re probably looking at T-60s, early T-70s?
Yep, I would totally agree on the PzKpfw III with the shorter L42 5.0cm guns in 1942. August sounds about right for the longer L60s, but also we’d start seeing some of the new L43/ and later L48 PzKpfw IV F2s about the same time period. Not many, mind you, but definitely some in Kleist’s Army Group “A” during the follow-up stages of Blau.
Yeah, I’ve taken a slight break from the Omaha game … hitting some more Modern-themed wargaming to support the Sitrep Podcast Channel. I have YouTube videos up where I drew the maps for live games with @stvitusdancern , and I hope to start posting US Special Forces vs. NVA games of Valor & Victory soon. I’ll get back to Omaha soon enough.
I totally agree about the German deployments at Normandy, Omaha definitely included. It’s a very confusing mess. I’m actually knee-deep in it at the moment as I have finished my American set up for “mega-Omaha” and am now trying to figure out the German dispositions.
Man, I miss my Camaro. Don’t get me wrong, my humble little Chevy Cobalt is treating me fantastic. But for my next car I might try to get back in a Camaro.
