Soviet Campaigns

[Charles22]

Okay.

my statement about the "not caring for lives" was saying that it had nothing to do with the manchurian campign. did u see penal battalions or "cannon-fodder" tactics?

Well, yes, I would imagine that there were no penal battalions used in that way there, but, you don't establish the enemy's attitude toward his own losses the hour he's attacking you. No, Japan doubtlessly knew about it from the USSR's treatment of their own people when fighting the Germans and so forth before that.

You just need look at the much earlier communist revolution to see the same attitude. Also Stalin's purging of the generals after that didn't exactly speak of warmth towards themselves. The persecution of the church wasn't exactly very brotherly either (which only came back because Stalin needed an angle to try to get people to feel like they had something worth defending). Many were perfectly happy to get anybody invading them, just as long as it rid them of the communist tyranny they faced. Unfortunately for them the invaders might be just as bad or worse.

[Smersh]

I think the japanese thought more about how they were defeated in 39 then about the politics of the USSR. and Also before the invasion Japan still played around with the idea of surrendering to the USSR, hoping for better treatment (consessions) then the USA would have offered. The biggist shock was not that their being invaded by an enemy who "doesn't care about lives" but that their plan A was down the drain.

again, lets not argue about this anymore it has nothing to do with soviet campigns. I do want to say, that those examples u mention are durign very depseprate times, of course if there was enough trained men available things would not have happened that way, and the purges are actions of a criminal with very limited justification.

again lets drop this whole subject, and move on to other possible campigns. other people can discuss the manchuria campign if they want.

[Charles22]

I think the japanese thought more about how they were defeated in 39 then about the politics of the USSR. and Also before the invasion Japan still played around with the idea of surrendering to the USSR, hoping for better treatment (consessions) then the USA would have offered. The biggist shock was not that their being invaded by an enemy who "doesn't care about lives" but that their plan A was down the drain.

I agree with a lot of that, but I can't help but notice the difference between their attitudes fighting the US and the USSR. Sure them getting beaten by the USSR before made them weary to some extent, and though there were a lot of bad things going on for them, to have the mindset they did, to always be the attacker and so forth, probably really broke their morale, what was left of it, when the myth was shattered by being attacked massively themselves on land.

Sure the US was taking it to them in small doses, despite them getting into mainland bomber range in so doing, but those were fairly minor losses in men and equipment if you look at it in that somewhat myopic way. I just think their attitude about saving face was fine and good when they faced nations that could at least be held at arm's length by dishing out heavy losses to those enemies, but when they fought the USSR it was an entirely different matter. The USSR, as far as Japan knew, was definitely into taking over land and subjugating it as many knew, and would later show to be more true. In my mind it's not so much their losing to the USSR that scares them, though that is a good sized reason, because if anything they were weaker and the USSR was stronger, but it had alot more to do with the USSR mindset; ruthless, and willing to take losses without blinking an eye. It also didn't help matters that the USSR was the third MAJOR nation ganging up on them. We could see that they planned to invade Siberia in '42, but the German failure in 12/41 made them drop that. In other words, they didn't think they could succeed against the USSR unless someone was aiding them. Frankly the whole attack at Pearl Harbor looks to me to have played to that same philosophy. The basic idea being, that as long as the Germans are going to be at war with that nation, then we will too, but they didn't want to be at war alone with another major nation. It would've been interesting to see what Japan would have done after Pearly Harbor if Hitler didn't honor the pact and didn't declare war on the USA.

I guess those are my last comments on Manchuria and the Japanese/USSR mindset.

[Smersh]

I just don't like the idea of "don't care for lives", of course they did, what else where they supposed to do surrender? They were fighting in a war of annhailation. you think people where okay with their fathers and sons dying? oh were the big scary soviet horde we don't care about lives. keep in mind 'enemy at the gates' is a movie.

those are my final comments. lets use this thread only for soviet campign related posts.

[Charles22]

No Smersh. I stated earlier that they had less regard, but not totally no regard for their men, then the western nations. I clarified that later, and if you think with all those examples of not caring a whole lot for the lives of their men, like throwing men massively at machine-gun posts, and all the other reasons I gave, there's nothing that can convince you.

The communists murdered close to as many people, a lot of after the war too, as the Nazis did, and as they were running the government during WWII. It's easy to say, that at least the communists had little regard for their people's lives (or technically less than the westerm powers [excepting Germany] did). I'm sure a lot of non-communists valued life far batter than many a western person did, simply because they saw how easily their relatives could be enslaved or murdered because of their government, but unfortunately they weren't the ones that were manning the NKVD and other such nice people to make sure they did as they were told.

Later.

[Double_Deuce]

Smersh said:
those are my final comments. lets use this thread only for soviet campign related posts.

I agree. The political debate needs to go somewhere else, another site or at least to another thread.

Were talking ideas and where to get information for Soviet related user campaigns.

On that note, what about the fighting around Leningrad?

[serg3d]

Double_Deuce said:
On that note, what about the fighting around Leningrad?

Mostly flat terrain with a lot of forests and swamps, not a best landscape for interesting battles. No landing operations too. Crimea as suggested, or Caucasus defence/offence - that's what I'd prefer.

[PatG]

Smersh said:
I havan't had a chance to check look at the maps yet, but here is some other info I found.

dealing with the invasion of manchuria in 45, this is also a something that isn't covered at all, and it could actually make use of the new Manchokou nation.

tactical level info (this includes alot of detailed maps, could be useful in map design)
http://www.cgsc.army.mil/carl/resour...z4/glantz4.asp
strategic level info
http://www.cgsc.army.mil/carl/resour...z3/glantz3.asp
<snip>

I have been reading these and despite Charles22's valid observations there might be a Russian campaign buried in there.

[Smersh]

okay, I have checked the map repository.
They have a sporadic collection of maps at 1:50,000 scale of the western soviet union between I was told 1920-50.

Here are the locations I noted, that they have.

Crimea: -northern area around sevastapol, not the city itself
-Eastern area of the crimean peninsula, and the northern -crimean land bridge area. none anywhere else in the crimea.

Kursk:
-the city of kursk, and the near immediate area around the city.
-Belgorod area, Kharkov area also.
- Don river area, quite extensively.
Rostov:
-large part of the Rostov area
Ukraine:
-large part of southern ukraine, quite extensive but sporiadic.
Everything else:
again very spordiac everywhere else, almost nothing of the northern soviet union, no coverage of moscow, only some tiny areas of the leningrad district.

edit: I didn't check anything of manchuria, but in general china seemed to be covered well, from what I saw in passing.

[Charles22]

Oh, I wasn't saying that one couldn't do a campaign on '45 Manchuria, in fact I've seen some, but what I was saying is that it makes for a pretty poor one if you find some way to really reflect what happened. Fun for the USSR and pretty dismal for the Japanese.