Wargaming The Eastern Front

When I returned to historical wargaming some 20 years or so ago, one of the first forces I had was a 15mm WWII Soviet force for BKCII. Whilst I enjoyed the games, I actually knew little about Soviet doctrine and how it developed over the course of the war. Still this didn't stop me playing and at the time my only resource was the FoW Soviet supplement and Zaloga's Osprey book used for info on uniform colours. With the move into 10mm this force was sold on and at some point a replacement one was bought from Pendraken, only to languish like so many of my projects in the bag it arrived in!

Despite not having a force to game with, over the years I bought books on the Eastern Front covering the usual suspects of Barbarossa, Bagration and the Fall of Berlin. All fascinating but again not really covering Soviet doctrine aside from general points in the text. Now one of the joys of our hobby IMHO is the research part of it, which I'm sure many of you will agree with. So with a project in the pipeline (more of which another time) I went in search of a good overall view of Soviet doctrine. 

Of course I knew anything by Zaloga and Glantz would be excellent, already having the brilliant 'Companion to the Red Army' by Zaloga and Ness. Whilst this is a superb resource, it is hard to place the OOB and changes within the wider conflict on the Eastern Front through out the War. After a bit of Google searching I came across 'When Titan's Clashed' by Glantz & House, which had good reviews and looked to be the sort of book I was after and was duly ordered.

A good starting point.

Lots of detail but hard to put it into context. Essential reading though.

Another simply essential book.

 

The book arrived pretty quickly and after a quick flick through I started reading it and was thoroughly impressed and it was everything I hoped it would be! Why? Well it answered many questions I had such as:

• Why was the Soviet C&C so bad at the start of the War. Well we all know of the Purges and the effect that had on the command structure, but it adds more flesh to the bones, such as newly graduated Majors being put in charge of Divisions, no real staff structure at any level really above Battalions and so on. This lasted well into 1943 and sometimes beyond, but as the War progressed, you can see how the C&C was massively improved and how it worked.
• Why was the Soviet Artillery arm so centralised above Divisional level? Again it came down to a simple lack of experienced staff and it was easier for C&C to keep them under a more centralised control for much of the War, only giving some flexibility towards 1944 onwards.
• Despite the huge manpower reserves that the Soviet Union could call upon, as the War progressed, they faced exactly the same issues as the British and the Germans, with a limited pool of reserves to call upon. So by 1944, they had understrength units that were a mix of veterans and new recruits, so with very variable combat quality. Right until the end of the War Soviet units were suffering 50% losses and higher in nearly all attacks.
• The book does show theoretical OOB versus the reality due to the above, with Divisions at 50% - 30% nominal strength levels. Tank units suffered especially high attrition rates too.
• It gives a good overview of Soviet offensive doctrine, which I found very useful, with the Infantry supported by Tanks and Artillery making the breakthrough, then Mechanised or Tank Corps exploiting the breaches made, with Cavalry Corps protecting the flanks. All new to me for sure!

So in wargaming terms I've learnt an awful lot from this book already and still haven't finished it, with plenty of info that I can take forward for the 'project and for future games too. Alongside this I've also been reading the following book:

Now I've got loads of books on the campaign for NWE, so I wasn't expecting to learn much from this book that I hadn't already read about in one way or another. Well I was wrong and pleasantly so. There are plenty of snippets of info in it that I hadn't come across before or that expanded on bits I did know about. A few examples below:

• The Sherman's rate of fire gave it a significant advantage over the Germans and the tactic of fire first and keep firing paid dividends. The sheer volume of fire, even if it didn't cause penetrations, often broke the glass on the vision ports, effectively blinding the crew and forcing them to bail out.
• We all know about the issues of C&C and navigation in Normandy and especially the Bocage, but there is one great example of a Battalion commander who simply could not locate his infantry companies for hours and had to rely upon the tanks to help him. In another radio issues meant that one tank troop continued to advance and so lost contact with the rest of the Squadron, became isolated and only by luck managed to restablish contact after coming under fire.

I thought those above examples reflect rather nicely the C&C that BKCII can bring to a game, where things don't always go as planned, or where units wander off or retreat due to a command blunder, which I know not all gamers appreciate, but it works well for me, especially in solo games.

I feel that 'When Titan's Clashed' is an essential book to buy for any one interested in wargaming the Eastern Front. I'm sure I will continue to refer to this for many years to come for my wargames or when planning a campaign.

TTFN.