More DLC for Graviteam Tactics...

[Dolan50]

Someone on the Graviteam forums brought that to Andreys attention.He said they'll fix that.

[Boggit]

Those screens are just beautiful. Time to visit Gamersgate again.

[Boggit]

I still think there is a Russian bias to this game.
I'm lucky to trade casualties on a 1:1 basis with Germans against the Russians during the campaigns and usually win on overwhelming force alone.

I could understand after Kursk in July of 43 that the Russians were finally able to go 1 on 1 with the Germans,but all of these campaigns until Mius is released are pre Kursk.

The devs say I've been reading too much western influenced propaganda and the Germans weren't all that great.
I think they have been influenced by too much Soviet propaganda and the Russians were only on par with the German army after Kursk.

Of course there exceptions to that blanket statement,but on average I would expect the Germans to be more proficient than the Russians before 1944.

If you ever watch Russian movies about WW2 it always shows the Germans winning if they have like a 5:1 advantage and the Russians in these movies are always outnumbered before they capitulate and inflict major losses on the Germans.You get the impression the German Army was much larger than the Soviet Army.

I generally agree with you.

If you read David Glantz, Anthony Beevor, and similar you'll draw the conclusion that most early war Russians weren't bad soldiers, but they lacked war experience, and leadership due to purges and political ossification of initiative. At the tactical level this hurt, but at the operational level it was truly a nightmare. Some Soviet troops who had got combat experience in the Winter War, and against Japan had useful experience. By 1942 most Russian forces had some combat experience, and were learning well, but the institutionalised lack of initiative and overexpectation from Stavka held them back. By 1943, attrition and parity of material had operated to offset the German advantage.

[Dolan50]

I have about 5 Glantz books-The Stalingrad trilogy,Colossus reborn and Zhukovs Greatest Defeat.
His reading is very dry and overwhelms you with the scope and amount of info in those books.
Zhukovs Greatest Defeat was about the only one I was able to read all the way thru without exhausting my brain cells.

An author I like the most who writes good books on the East Front is George M Nipe Jr.
"Last Victory in Russia" and "Decision in the Ukraine" are very well written books that don't tax the brain and describe battles in an easy to follow manner.I like his style and agree with a lot of his conclusions.

I also liked Douglas Nashs book "Hells Gate".

[Dolan50]

"Those screens are just beautiful. Time to visit Gamersgate again."

I agree,
the graphics for this game have improved 10 fold from the original APK 43.
The East Front really comes alive while playing this game.
Graviteam captures the essence of East Front combat like no other game,I especially like the winter graphics.
Now if some developer could do the same thing with the West Front or North Africa I'd be in WW2 gaming heaven.

[Dolan50]

Shilovo 42 OP Map.80 Sq.Km.
About twice the size of the Volokonovka map

[Dolan50]

Shilovo 42 video
Youtube http://youtu.be/jGd-kHJ4PIE
Dailymotion http://dai.ly/x12uss4

[Boggit]

I have about 5 Glantz books-The Stalingrad trilogy,Colossus reborn and Zhukovs Greatest Defeat.
His reading is very dry and overwhelms you with the scope and amount of info in those books.
Zhukovs Greatest Defeat was about the only one I was able to read all the way thru without exhausting my brain cells.

An author I like the most who writes good books on the East Front is George M Nipe Jr.
"Last Victory in Russia" and "Decision in the Ukraine" are very well written books that don't tax the brain and describe battles in an easy to follow manner.I like his style and agree with a lot of his conclusions.

I also liked Douglas Nashs book "Hells Gate".

Yes, David Glantz is thorough, but as you say very dry. His books make good reference material, but I don't enjoy them as much as other heavyweight "comparables" like Beevor.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

If you don't want to slog through Glanz's writing (and I don't blame you), he does have some lectures on YouTube that are interesting.

[Dolan50]

I think I watched one of those a few years ago that He did about the battles around Smolensk in 1941.

As I mentioned earlier I liked the book "Zhukovs Greatest Defeat" about the Operation Mars campaign and it was pretty good reading.
So I think Glantz could write some decent books if He could just tone down the scope to individual operations and not try to cover  whole fronts in broad sweeps while dumping  boatloads of info on the reader which tends to overload the senses.

I think if He collaborated with other authors like Nipe or Nash and brought more individual stories into his narrative,his books would be much more easier to digest.

Most of my favorite authors write about the American Civil War and I would really love to see some of their writing styles used to describe the war in Russia during WW2.

[Dolan50]

Screen shot of the updated Volokonovka 3D map.

[WallysWorld]

If you don't want to slog through Glanz's writing (and I don't blame you), he does have some lectures on YouTube that are interesting.

That really is a great lecture. I'm listening to it as I work.

Many thanks for posting that video!

[Dolan50]

From what I read on a book review forum somewhere,is that Glantz no longer has access to the Soviet archives because the Russian Govt. wasn't too happy with some of his conclusions.Mostly to do with certain Russian commanders and their handling of operations around Rzhev and Leningrad.

[Dolan50]

A few mor Shilovo 1942 Screen Shots.

[Dolan50]