Which sources are you using for this information? People keep saying this, but I've been unable to find any information that supports the idea that Penal Battalions were made up exclusively of officers, and were better equipped than regular, non-penal infantry.
I'd be interested to read about this, though I'm not entirely sure what the logic behind organising Penal infantry like this would be.
Uniforms in this game are a joke anyways. Osttruppen have a sign on their uniform that wasn't introduced until late 44' iirc. and Grenadiers have some kind of made up skin as far as I know also there are G43s, Panzerschrecks and even one Tiger in 1942 in the Single Player Mode.
And the "one rifle for two (or three)" is btw. not 100% mythical. There are instances in 1941 and 1942 where this happened
No, it didn’t happen. Soviet soldiers never attacked without weapons. Neither Soviet nor German documents and reports confirm this. The only thing that could happen was the capture of construction divisions, they had no weapons for a simple logical reason - they built fortifications deep in the rear, but after large encirclements over a large territory with hundreds of thousands of prisoners, such divisions could be captured without weapons.
I asked myself the same question.
It might fit into Relic's storyline of brutal Russia, so Conscripts being everybody who could walk and hold a rifle, like the Volkssturm in Germany. Every human, no matter what. So in average: not well trained or suitable for war.
That is to only explanation I have for Cons being the worst inf.
There might have been an initial story of the squad not having enough rifles for all 6. not sure.
Let us see what others bring.
Which cavity collapses if you look at the skin. The conscripts skin is a 1943 uniform. And this means the conscripts are much better prepared and there is no hint of the mythical one rifle for three.
You know, I'm open to a lot of things, but I really doubt that life with the commissar was sunshine and puppydogs. Unless you're trying to tell me that the wikipedia page on the Soviet commissars is inaccurate and they actually weren't enforcers of political ideology and effectively military police troops.
Now I have no trouble beleiving that Soviet officers in general were brave and could rally their troops to arms. But the commissars have already been established as not leading troops personally. Have I been misled?
Commissars should not personally command the soldiers, there are officers for this. But you must understand that officers very often died in attacks and often the commissars remained the only officers (although in fact they were not and often did not have officer training, as I already cited the data when disbanding, only 30% of commissars had officer skills) had to inspire the soldiers to attacks. Due to the large officer losses, the commissars were dismantled and sent to officer training, because officers were more in demand than political agitation, and the officer took on moral issues.
Yes, and we have already established how that's a construct of the video game, and in real life these squads would be recieving orders from their superiors, passed down to them by their own superiors, and so on. So any argument about how "you are in full control" only works from a gameplay perspective and has nothing to do with the authenticity or plausibility of what we're talking about.
A retreat is a retreat is a retreat. Considering that maps are composed of points of strategic interest like towns or factories, it's not impossible that troops can be assigned it as their post, even if the HQ is somewhere behind them. And no, desertion is leaving your assigned post. And a soldiers post can be a pile of sandbags if that's what their commander wants.
Yes, and who is "you" exactly? It's funny that you mention that because we've already discussed it like three posts before. That's what they're there for, for reading.
I'm not going to repeat myself because it was long and lengthy but you're welcome to read it in its entirety a half a scrollwheel's length above.
Nothing to reapond to here.
We're talking multiplayer not campaign.
Someone mentioned that the Commissar squad could recieve a forward retreat point, and that it made sense because "Order 227 was a thing", and Kasarov took umbrage to that.
I've just been arguing that it's neither a stereotypical depiction of order 227 nor is it somehow completely historically inaccurate.
Kasarov rightly noted that your proposal that the Commissioner and Order 227 are in no way substantiated, not thematic and do not make sense as a FRP. The game equivalent to commissar is to inspire the soldiers and remove the machine gun suppression. For clarity, the famous photo "Battalion Commander". It captures the junior political instructor A.G. Eremenko, who raised the pinned soldiers to attack and was immediately killed.
In 1941, during the battle for Moscow, Hitler issued a Stop-Order, barring retreat and creating penal units.
Something I do not see that the thematic of this episode and the use in the game were discussed here.
You don't really seem to understand chain of command very well. Yes, you are superior to the comissar and the troops, but the troops report to the commissar. The soldiers do not answer directly to you, that is a construct of the video game. In real life, orders are disseminated from the top of the rank structure down to the bottom. The commanding general of an army is not going to tell a squad of infantrymen to retreat, that's the job of their squad leader.
You, as the commander, are effectively issuing an order to the commissar that he is not to allow a retreat past his position. Where he stands is the line drawn in the sand. It is his responsibility to make sure that his troops do not retreat past his position.
And yes, it is completely fine to give a commissar a forward retreat point with the idea that it is to represent order 227, because faction flavor has always been a thing.
Why do soviets have 6-7 man squads while OST has 4-5? Why do the americans use a literal ambulance to apparate soldiers out of thin air? Why do the British engineers build bofors with nothing but the rucks on their backs?
These things are gamey and not meant to be taken so seriously.
So to recap, orders are disseminated down from higher ranking officers to the lower, the commanding general does not give orders to soldiers, this is a construct of a video game. A forward retreat point for the comissar being explained as relating to Order 227 is fine because faction flavor has always been a thing. And I am hungry and I'm going to eat breakfast now. Good day.
As it was correctly noted, the commissioner is not an officer who gives orders to the soldiers. Although this could happen. Depends on the unit and the commissar. It was only when the commissars were abolished in 1942, only 30% of the 122 thousand commissars were immediately appointed to command positions. The rest were sent to various command courses, because commissars are not officers. And people looking after discipline, morality and engaged in political agitation.
I make one last plea to please reconsider the change to Shock Army, although it's probably too late for that by now, maybe in the future. Even the description says it should have a quantity of submachine guns:
"Shock Armies were heavily stacked with heavy weapons and a much greater number of short-range sub machine guns to crush the defensive lines of the enemy."
But also because I was just playing Shock Army on an urban map and having a blast.
The shock army was based on rifle divisions and brigades. In total, in terms of rifle divisions, in 1943-1945 there were up to 20 rifle divisions in the shock army (the usual army was 9-12 divisions). The shock army had more tanks and artillery than conventional armies (combined arms). The game equivalent for the shock army is to increase the PopCap to 110-130, or change the limit on the IS-2 or ISU-152 not to one, but for example to two.
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