In Defense of the Red Army

[StainlessSteelCynic]

It fired full auto until the magazine ran out, 1 shot hit not much.

The safety catch on the SLR could be "adapted" by removing the bent of metal that was put there to stop the selector switching to the full auto setting. Or at a push the FAL catch could fit, but why would anyone want to do it, unless firing blanks, is the question. The SLR barrel was not as heavy as the FN barrel, so it wouldn't take too many 20 round bursts, before accuracy would suffer. Plus the gas system would foul very quickly.

There is a reason for the GPMG being in service, almost the personal weapon of the Paras in the Falklands. In my opinion, the best General purpose 7.62x51mm machine gun.................................In the world.

There was a particular trick to it, if you placed the match in just the right spot, you could get it to fire only when you pulled the trigger. Otherwise it would work just as you said - full auto until you got to 'empty'.
Having said that though, I completely agree with you, automatic fire from a 7.62mmN rifle is not particularly good for anything except making noise and hitting passing birds.
As for the MAG58 being the best 7.62x51mm GPMG in the world, when you have countries even now converting from their own designs to the MAG* which is a design now 50 years old - then those Belgians must have done something right!


*On 10 December 2010 The French Direction Gnral de l'Armament (DGA) announced that after an international competition it had selected the MAG 58 to replace its aging fleet of AAT Mle F1 7.62 mm general purpose machine guns. Although primarily intended for use mounted on vehicles in service with the French army, kits to convert the vehicle mounted guns into guns for use in the dismounted role would also be supplied. In excess of 10,000 guns are to be supplied over the next few years with an initial order for 500 guns due for delivery in 2011
Snippet taken from here

[Abbott Shaull]

Yeah well it seems the Belgiums usually get it right when it comes to making firearms...

[Legbreaker]

Shame their cousins over the border in France can't seem to get it together though - there's the St. Etienne 07/16, AAT-52, and Chauchat.

[bobcat]

The only problem with the "Holiday Blitz" is that it takes a little while to go from sitting around in the motorpool to ready to kick ass and take names. This will get spotted, and while it might not be enough to warn that they are about to roll west, it is enough that leaves and such will be cancelled. So, there won't be a situation such as that.

However:

There is always a catch. In Red Storm Rising, Clancy used a surprise attack- with the surprise being on both NATO, and most of the Russian Troops as well. Going from Motorpool to combat ops with no getting ready for it is sure to be a shocking surprise, and one that would let the Russians fall on units that are not there because they are off skiing in the alps. Of course, you had better hope that you can back the play, as you won't have much in logistics built up.

will get spotted like in 1952 a few miles north of where im sitting its not hard to spoof pogishness(is that even a word, well it is now)

[Panther Al]

Actually, with mechanised forces is rather easy to spot - provided the force in question has someone in charge that has a working brain. Fuel trucks you might think, but no, for tanks use craptastic amounts of fuel, even if they sit in the motor pool 3 days out of 4. Services Nope, tanks by their very nature are maintenance hogs: the good ones are simply well stressed, the bad ones over-stressed, but they are all stressed to the point where maintenance has to be done all the time. Nope, the number one reason why its easy to spot a armoured unit getting ready to roll someplace, with little to no down time expected is tracks.

Tracks.

They don't last that long, even the all steel ones (usually no more than 1000 to 1500 miles in peacetime, half that at best in war - with the soviet style ones being even less durable), and they are a bitch to swap out. When you are getting ready to pick a fight, the last thing you want your tanks to do is throw track, so you pull the old ones, use them as spares, armour, what have you, and put new ones on - even if they are expensive. So, if you are some photo guy, and you see 90% of the tanks in the bad guys motor pool lining up to swap track, you know they are getting ready to go someplace where they don't expect to have the time nor freedom to do when, not if, they break unexpectedly. Even when we went to Iraq for the invasion, almost all our tanks, even the ones that had less than a 150km on them, got new track for that very reason.

Its always the little things that really tell the tale if a threat is real or not.

Its one of the reasons I always had a separate wear value for track in the games I run. The PC's spend almost as much time looking for track as they do for ammo for the Beast.

[Abbott Shaull]

Yeah it is the small details that people don't think about. It one of those things I like about these boards is that when you get people who had experience they tend to point out things that a great GM will take and incorporate into their game. Or ideas how to manage their game without going overboard....

[dragoon500ly]

Another key indicator would be batteries. A lot of people don't realize just how dependent modern militaries are on the ole dry-cell. Everything thing from NVGs, to handheld lasers, chemical alarms, all the way up to batteries for the starting carts for jets, and even the batteries on diesel-electric submarines. Fresh batteries are easier to recharge and last longer than ones that have been in use. A spike in production of batteries or military equipment replacing batteries in its larger items would alert a sharp intell analyst.

Didn't Clancy use this in one of his books

[atiff]

Another key indicator would be batteries.

Didn't Clancy use this in one of his books

"Red Storm Rising" if I remember correctly; the analyst spotting the subs all getting battery replacements in port.

[Abbott Shaull]

Yeah well the slow down during that sandstorm in 2003 wasn't due to because the supply of Kool Menthol 100s had dropped too low.

They were using batteries faster at much faster rate with almost everyone having NVGs, all the radios. Yet, I am sure if any of the troop with minimags and walkman sure packed enough for their use during the 3 week journey....*shrug*

[Adm.Lee]

Small things you don't think about...

Did anyone read Viktor Suvorov's "Icebreaker" It was his attempt to claim that the Soviets were getting ready to jump the Nazis in July 1941, but they got pre-empted by Barbarossa.

He did have the interesting tidbit that the Soviet military intelligence chief in June 1941 was *not* shot, like his predecessors. The chief's defense was to present some bits of evidence to Stalin.
1) Soviet agents were shadowing German encampments, digging up their trash piles. The rifle-cleaning cloths only had summer-weight oil on them.
2) Soviet agents were monitoring the price of mutton. If the price fell, that would mean that the Germans were slaughtering sheep to make sheepskin coats for winter fighting.
3) His men were buying German-made stoves, and analyzing the heating fuel within. If winter fuel was being held off the market, it would show up in the civilian economy.
Since none of these things indicated the Germans were going to attack in June 1941, he got to keep his neck, and Stalin got to work on planning for a winter attack.

I have no idea if all of the above is true, but it makes an interesting case for how to perform long-term intelligence gathering.

BTW, if you play large East Front WW2 wargames like me, try experimenting with a Soviet offensive instead of a German one in 1941. It's a lot of fun.

[raketenjagdpanzer]

Did anyone read Viktor Suvorov's "Icebreaker" It was his attempt to claim that the Soviets were getting ready to jump the Nazis in July 1941, but they got pre-empted by Barbarossa.

He did have the interesting tidbit that the Soviet military intelligence chief in June 1941 was *not* shot, like his predecessors. The chief's defense was to present some bits of evidence to Stalin.
1) Soviet agents were shadowing German encampments, digging up their trash piles. The rifle-cleaning cloths only had summer-weight oil on them.
2) Soviet agents were monitoring the price of mutton. If the price fell, that would mean that the Germans were slaughtering sheep to make sheepskin coats for winter fighting.
3) His men were buying German-made stoves, and analyzing the heating fuel within. If winter fuel was being held off the market, it would show up in the civilian economy.
Since none of these things indicated the Germans were going to attack in June 1941, he got to keep his neck, and Stalin got to work on planning for a winter attack.

I have no idea if all of the above is true, but it makes an interesting case for how to perform long-term intelligence gathering.

BTW, if you play large East Front WW2 wargames like me, try experimenting with a Soviet offensive instead of a German one in 1941. It's a lot of fun.

That's a VERY interesting case indeed. I knew Sururov had written on the subject but I haven't read the book and didn't know those details.

With that said, I did just finish Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and it seems that Hitler tipped his hand a bit with the invasion of Yugoslavia and the (costly) delay in Barbarossa it caused; if they (the Soviets) were going to get the jump on 'em, why not then when the Nazis' pants were around their ankles as they pissed on the Balkans

I'm not doubting you (or Sururov) just adding more speculation to an already interesting scenario!

[HorseSoldier]

Did anyone read Viktor Suvorov's "Icebreaker" It was his attempt to claim that the Soviets were getting ready to jump the Nazis in July 1941, but they got pre-empted by Barbarossa.

I haven't read it, but that's interesting. I can believe the Soviets were thinking about it, at least to some extent. I don't think they were being overly realistic in their thinking, if they were, given how poorly Soviet forces performed in the Winter War and on the defense in the early days of Barbarossa.

[dragoon500ly]

Yeah well the slow down during that sandstorm in 2003 wasn't due to because the supply of Kool Menthol 100s had dropped too low.

They were using batteries faster at much faster rate with almost everyone having NVGs, all the radios. Yet, I am sure if any of the troop with minimags and walkman sure packed enough for their use during the 3 week journey....*shrug*

Knowing some of the characters I served with, the shortage of Kools played a larger role than the shortage of batteries! Now if the coffee had run out!!!!!

[dragoon500ly]

BTW, if you play large East Front WW2 wargames like me, try experimenting with a Soviet offensive instead of a German one in 1941. It's a lot of fun.

I've done this twice and its an intresting donnybrook all over Poland...

[Panther Al]

Knowing some of the characters I served with, the shortage of Kools played a larger role than the shortage of batteries! Now if the coffee had run out!!!!!

*hehs*

Yeah, no coffee is a true emergency that requires immediate action.

When we went over, I knew coffee was going to be scarce - especially good coffee. So, locked up in a box, set aside for a month, was a nice krupp expresso machine, and 10 pounds of really really good coffee. The *looks* I got when I had my morning cups - once the month was past and all anyone else had was MRE coffee - was always amusing.. surprised I didn't get shot though.