Profile of Golradaer

Bunkers and wire are great against Conscripts for locking down parts of the map or key sectors.

The major problem was you didn't use your HMGs to support one another so they were constantly overrun by flanking Conscripts. You should have just concentrated all of your units to hold a single part of the map (like the center munitions plus the north fuel) until you hit Tier 3 for an Ostwind. Also, the Halftrack with Flame Projectors is fantastic if supported, but you lost it trying to take on multiple Conscript squads solo. As Germans you simply can't try to contest the whole map especially against so many Conscript squads.

The IS-2 was honestly underwhelming as usual, the Conscripts and a bunch of stolen HMGs/Mortars/Paks were more significant.

Some of the largest wars, measured by daily average casualty rate, were in the past 100 years. With current weapons of mass destruction and the knowledge that humanity uses everything in its ability, the long term trend is very clear. An analysis of the bigger picture unambiguously predicts more wars to come.

The world population is far larger now than in the past, making daily average casualty rate a poor measure. You need to look at the proportion of populations that die as a result of violence. By this measure, the world is a far less dangerous place than it was thousands of years ago.

The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined is a good read by Steven Pinker that addresses this exact issue.

Con is right, the 221 destroys Soviet Snipers. An 80 MP unit is a fantastic trade for killing a 360 MP unit. Mortars do not reliably kill Snipers but they do force the Soviet player to micro far more and be more conservative in Sniper use.

Snipers aren't easily countered, but it can be done.

Another tactic: put a couple of infantry squads into a German Halftrack and rush straight into the Soviet line (in the early/mid game when there are only Conscripts/Guards/Snipers on the field). Take a look at this game between BosoTora and SageOfTheSix to see it in action. The German player made many mistakes throughout, but I thought the Halftrack tactic was an interesting idea. They aren't destroyed by Guards or Conscripts that quickly and Panzergrenadiers provide an immediate threat at close range to all of those Soviet units.

I have to declare that I mean no offense to anyone.
Because some of the things that follow this statement are questionable.

At first I have to tell you that I'm a history teacher at school. So I guess I've earned my right to have a professional opinion on the subject. And as you can see I'm not 'zealous' or something.

Now let's get to the debating part.
If we're going to speak about proofs, I can give only the documentary sources that are in Russian. That would take a freaking lot of time to translate them to the English language. But they DO exist.

However there are NO documentary proofs on those 'evil NKVD machinegunner teams' ever existed on the battlefield. The reality is about them being guarding the army's supply lines from deserters and traitors. The really sick joke is that's said in the Order .227 that Relics are using as a source.

Btw, I've spotted a broken point there in the English version of the text.
It's here, in 2.b part. Russian words 'в непосредственном тылу' actually mean the 'at the supply lines'. It surely looks like being translated w/ a Google translator thing.
That has certain flaws.

So is the 'Scorched Earth' part, where Soviets are burning civil houses and their own troops. That wasn't right according to the Order. 428 that:
1. Was released after the game situation takes place (it's 17 Nov 1941);
2. Tells to make diversions deep in the Nazi occupied territories, BEHIND the enemy lines. It's also mentioned there to evacuate all the civilians before the diversion starts.
Ingame situation breaks every documentary evidence, but strongly resembles the Nazi actions on their all-out retreat from USSR in 1943/44.

So the people are just raging about the Nazi crimes blamed on Soviet soldiers.

Thanks for the response! You mention traitors and deserters in this post which certainly implies that some Soviet soldiers retreated. Earlier, you said that no Soviet soldiers ever retreated. How can you have deserters and traitors in such a situation?

Do you have any comment about politically-motivated history textbooks in Russia and Putin's recent efforts to minimize knowledge about the negative parts of Soviet involvement in WWII? I haven't examined primary sources myself, so I can't say whether you or the historian is more accurate, but at present I would say that the historian is more likely to have an objective view of the matter.

When I see an article like this about modern Russia, I greatly doubt the objectivity of Russian textbooks regarding anything that could be considered "patriotic."

I'm not saying that you're intentionally biased, but is it possible that the primary sources that the historian and the western scholarly community rely upon are ignored and/or concealed in Russian schools and scholarship with the aim of glorifying the "Great Patriotic War" instead of depicting all events, whether positive or negative? As a school teacher, I'm not sure whether you've examined western scholarship about the Soviet Union, and in doing so you might be able to figure out whether there are sources you're unaware of that support the historian's statements.

You haven't said yourself that western scholars intentionally view the Soviet Union negatively (in the present day), but other Russian posters have, and I want to respond to this in case it concerns you as well. Having studied European history at a major university in the United States, I can say that many of our scholars are not American (one of my history professors was Bulgarian) and that I have never met an American history professor who cares very much about nationalism and patriotism on a personal level. The vast majority of American professors are Democrats (large-scale studies have demonstrated this) and often have a negative view of American foreign policy and the American military's actions in the present day and in the past. They actively criticize the actions of the U.S. military in WWII, Vietnam, and Iraq. This differs substantially from history education in the United States at the high school (secondary) level, where history is taught in a more superficial and less critical manner (this is why I strongly differentiate between university professors and high school teachers -- on average, they will be educated in very different ways). In my experience, if a history professor in America makes a statement regarding historical data, there is no political motivation behind the statement at all -- they never even think about this.

Hi Curity, thanks for your perspective. I do have a question for you.

'No retreat, No surrender, No mercy' wasn't just a motto that random 'evil NKVD guys' were shouting in loudspeakers. There were no machine gunner teams behind the lines to shoot the retreating forces. Wanna know why? Because troops simply didn't retreat.
That's just a dirty cliche, popularized with 'Enemy at the Gates' movie.

This is the sort of thing that people are criticizing the Russian posters for saying. On what basis are you saying that troops didn't retreat? How do you know that's true?

The Polygon article linked earlier in this thread asked David Stone, a professional historian of Soviet military history who examines documentary evidence for a living and doesn't base his thoughts on Enemy at the Gates.

Order 227 was issued by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, and created penal battalions whose purpose was to prevent retreats by Soviet forces. From a military point of view, it was not a successful tactic. The game's use of Order 227 is, according to Stone, realistic, although specific only to certain points in the war.

"That did happen, particularly in spring 1942 around Stalingrad," he said. "Soldiers and officers who retreated or deserted might also find themselves assigned to punishment battalions which were used for particularly dangerous or bloody missions. The Soviets also used 'blocking detachments' on occasion, particularly behind punishment battalions, to shoot those retreating. Definitely happened, not necessarily common."

As far as I am aware, you are not a professional military historian of the Soviet Union, so when you tell me that Soviet soldiers didn't retreat, I have good reason to believe that you were taught an inaccurate, nationalistic version of your own history in school.

This isn't to say that Relic was entirely accurate.

He [David Stone] said that much of Relic's portrayal is rooted in fact, but soldiers being sent into battle without rifles is "something that really belongs to Russia in World War I, not the Soviet Union in World War II."

As a final comment, I do agree with the Russian posters that the CoH2 campaign did not commonly make the player feel "heroic." It's mostly just depressing, really. So while the campaign could have certainly been a lot better than it was, I don't think it's as inaccurate as people are saying. Also, Curity, the efforts of Russians in signing petitions and such are unlikely to do much of anything. CoH2 is a video game, if you don't like it, don't buy it. Writing negative reviews and telling other Russians not to buy it is the most that you can do.