Why attack pointlessly?

[CrimsonStorm]

Why would you attack when you have 1 strength point and a low rate of fire meaning you actually get 0 attacks?

The AI did though.

[dragos]

I could only think of one useful result: reducing entrenchment. Did this actually happen? Not that AI would be that clever to coordinate attacks in order to make use of this

[CrimsonStorm]

Nope the arty was the very last unit I saw it activate, it actually fired over my infantry to "hit" the supporting arty that nothing had a chance of getting to.

[patriot14]

Was it a "do or die" scenario for them? Perhaps the objectives forced him to attack. I know I have had weaker squads attack me with their last bullet, only to perish the next turn without any ammo.

[wargovichr]

On the WWII eastern front Russian conscripts and raw recruits were often driven across minefields or forced to attack en masse at gun point by their political commissars. Waves and waves of infantry and cavalry in seeming suicidal attack would make the game MORE realistic. Attrition was Uncle Joe's deadly game and it worked.

[ThvN]

On the WWII eastern front Russian conscripts and raw recruits were often driven across minefields or forced to attack en masse at gun point by their political commissars. Waves and waves of infantry and cavalry in seeming suicidal attack would make the game MORE realistic. Attrition was Uncle Joe's deadly game and it worked.

This is a bit of an exaggeration, it did not happen with regular military personnel, like conscripts. These actions were the result of Stalin's order to form penal battalions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shtrafbat, as 'punishment' for what he thought were cowardly troops. What did happen was that these penal battalions I mentioned were sent out for suicidal missions, like trampling through minefields.

'Political commissars' (their names and roles were different throughout Soviet history) had little to do with this, they were initially only equal in power to unit commanders, leading to very ineffective leadership. They were quickly specialized to be concerned only with the morale welfare of the unit, being subordinate to the actual commander in field operations. They were not used to lead these penal battalions, as the regular army did not want to get involved with this.

These penal battalions were 'led' by NKVD troops, the same guys that ran the Gulags (some sort of military police). The NKVD was also responsible for 'barrier units' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrier_tr ... e_Red_Army

These units were supposed to prevent regular troops from fleeing by 'rallying' them (with machineguns), as Stalin didn't trust the regular Red Army officers to shoot their own men, which they didn't want to do. So the NKVD was ordered to make sure Stalin's orders were obeyed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NKVD#World ... operations

[wargovichr]

Whether commissars, lower commanders, higher commanders, Gen. Chuikov at Stalingrad, or Joseph Stalin himself....it happened all across the front...
It happened even in Soviet Guards Divisions:

From "The History of the 13th Guards Rifle Division:"
September 13-14 - 4:45am - German infantry divisions make their first advance into Stalingrad, with the German 71st Infantry reaching the city centre, north of the Tsarita gorge. A direct Stavka (Soviet Supreme General Staff) directive orders the 13th Guard Division (in the midst of it's re-fit) to the Volga and Stalingrad as reinforcements. The 13th arrives in pieces, its men straight from a grueling forced march. Due to being in the midst of re-fit & resupply, one thousand of its men have no rifles, and the rest are short of ammunition. Briefed by Chuikov on his assignment, Rodimtsev declared, "I am a Communist. I have no intention of abandoning the city (Stalingrad.") Chuikov sends this questionable band straight into the battle. Because of the influx of new recruits the division is now largely inexperienced, and lacks both maps and knowledge of Stalingrad's blitzed terrain. But Gen. Alexander Rodimtsev's (13th Guards Division Commander) is familiar with street fighting from his experiences during the Spanish Civil War. His division moves across the river at dusk, to reinforce a line held by a mere 15 tanks. Of 10,000 soldiers under command of General A. I. Rodimtsev, 3,000 perish within the first 24 hours under brutal Hand-to-Hand Combat conditions, the german advance is stopped.

From von Mellenthin's "Panzer Battles:"
In Panzer Battles, von Mellenthin describes the Russian tactics he faced on the Eastern Front:

The Russian form of fighting — particularly in the attack — is characterized by the employment of masses of men and material, often thrown in unintelligently and without variations, but been so frequently effective. Russians have always been renowned for their contempt for death; the Communist regime has exploited this quality and Russian mass attacks are now more effective than ever before. An attack delivered twice will be repeated a third and a fourth time irrespective of losses, and the third or fourth attack will come in with the same stolid coolness as the first or second. Such ruthless methods represent the most inhuman and at the same time the most expensive way of fighting.

Right up to the end of the war the Russians did not bother to loosen up their attacking waves and sent them forward almost shoulder to shoulder. The herd instinct and the inability of lower commanders to act for themselves always resulted in densely packed attacks. Thanks to superiority in numbers, many great and important successes were achieved by this method. However, experience shows that it is quite possible to smash these massed attacks if they are faced by adequate weapons handled by trained men under determined commanders.

The Russians attacked with divisions, very strong numerically and on very narrow sectors. In no time the terrain in front of the defenders was teeming with Russians; they appeared to spring from the soil, it seemed impossible to stem the oncoming tide, and huge gaps made by our fire were closed automatically.

[ThvN]

wargovichr, these are not really examples of what I was talking about... These are examples of poor leadership, tactics, training, etc. What I responded to was this statement:

On the WWII eastern front Russian conscripts and raw recruits were often driven across minefields or forced to attack en masse at gun point by their political commissars.

I still think this is an exaggeration, and not supported by the examples you give. To me, there is a big difference in deliberately murdering your own men or getting them killed through incompetence, lack of equipment or the desperate nature of the situation. These situations still happen today, fratricide is still a big problem, not supplying your troops with the right equipment, or just plain complacency/ignorance. It still happens.

But deliberately shooting your own men or having them walk through minefields is in a different league, I think. I agree that many times very stupid things happened, like in WW1, and the Soviets suffered a lot of casualties because of it, and you can righly critisize them for that. But it wasn't some sort of common tactic for Soviets to just murder their own men, and it was frowned upon by many, hence the NKVD being necessary. The result may have been the same, needless casualties, but the intention is what crosses the line. Like the difference between civilian casualties as 'collateral damage' or done on purpose.

So it's just that part of your post I tried to answer to, I was not trying to downplay the 'meat-grinder' type of attrition on the Eastern Front as a whole.

[2010sjones2010]

This link opens up the whole debate around the subject of "Cannon Fodder" In fact I think it was Nintendo that brought out a whole game based on senseless destruction of troops to get the job done called Cannon Fodder I use the non core units which are given to me at the start of each scenario regularly as cannon fodder. Either to reduce the enemies artillery fire or to draw the enemy fire off my core units. A worthwhile tactic me thinks