Russian lists and novel units

[StevieTC]

Whilst on holiday I read a couple of books, 'Tiger Tracks' and The 'Last Panther' which are translations of memoirs written by Wolfgang Faust, who was a Tiger tanks driver, and later Panther commander and gives accounts of his experience as the war on the Eastern front turned against the Germans.

These raisesd a couple of interesting descriptions of Rusian vehicles he encountered.

1. The use of T34 bodies, without turret, as troop transports.

2. Katyusha used on battlefield (earlier BKC allowed thus, V4 makes them off table only)

3. Katyusha's being mounted both on boats and on tracked vehicles, not just trucks.

4. The accuracy of Kayusha's is by the description far better than 'inaccurate'

(There appears to be a fair amount of Katyusha's mentioned in these books)

5. There is mention of a T34 flamethrower tank where the main gun if replaced with the flamethrower.

Finally, there is an overall impression that the Russians in this later stage of the war were almost fanatical in the way they fought and certainly dont apear to conform to the initiative distance rules for a rigid command structure.

Obviously, this is one man's account, and in the heat of what was clearly a very violent fight with no quarter given by either side, facts may have become distorted.

However, I wondered what people's thoughts on these observations were.

[Gwydion]

I don't think I'd base anything on the contents of these books.
Supposedly translated from a late 1940s work by 'Faust', 'Panzerdammerung'; which is a book no-one seems to have a copy of.
Probably moderately well crafted fiction but with lots of anomalies and impossibilities. Upmarket(?) Sven Hassel.

Edit - just checking - the flamethrower is one of the 'odd things'. The OT-34 modified T-34 (whether 76 or 85) retained the main gun and the flame nozzle replaced the bow machine gun.

[Big Insect]

Hi there ... interesting observations. My thoughts below in bold
FYI - I would also agree with Gwydion about the accuracy of these books.
Cheers
Mark

Whilst on holiday I read a couple of books, 'Tiger Tracks' and The 'Last Panther' which are translations of memoirs written by Wolfgang Faust, who was a Tiger tanks driver, and later Panther commander and gives accounts of his experience as the war on the Eastern front turned against the Germans.

These raisesd a couple of interesting descriptions of Rusian vehicles he encountered.

1. The use of T34 bodies, without turret, as troop transports.
> sure - can be added as errata - they are similar to some of the sherman convesions used in the later Allied lists - exposed/open-topped - no armourment (I think even the hull MG was stripped out) and can only carry 1 unit of Inf.

2. Katyusha used on battlefield (earlier BKC allowed thus, V4 makes them off table only)

> this is deliberate - as it needed the imposition of a minimum range and also no templated weapons are fired on-table. Also, rates of reload are such that off-table makes more sense, as if on table they'd need to be classified as Slow-firing - so only once per game turn

3. Katyusha's being mounted both on boats and on tracked vehicles, not just trucks.
> same applies - large MRL's are now (generally) off-table units, it makes no difference if they are on trucks or on river boats from a game-play perspective

4. The accuracy of Kayusha's is by the description far better than 'inaccurate'
> not from what I have read  , and generally all WW2 MRLs (even Nebelwerfers) are pretty inaccurate compared with tube artillery.

(There appears to be a fair amount of Katyusha's mentioned in these books)

5. There is mention of a T34 flamethrower tank where the main gun if replaced with the flamethrower.
> again, easy enough to add in as errata but the OT-34 modified T-34 (76 or 85) are generally the standard issue flame-thrower tank - maybe some had the main guns removed, but if they did it was not standard issue (that I can find).

Finally, there is an overall impression that the Russians in this later stage of the war were almost fanatical in the way they fought and certainly dont apear to conform to the initiative distance rules for a rigid command structure.

> nothing to stop you paying for units to be fanatical (5pts each) but that means that they will attack compulsorily if within Initiative distance. There is also the other side of things, which is whether this was fanaticism or that they were being driven on from the rear by their own commissars. Also, any real initiative was not encouraged

Obviously, this is one man's account, and in the heat of what was clearly a very violent fight with no quarter given by either side, facts may have become distorted.

However, I wondered what people's thoughts on these observations were.