[Charles22]

Smersh:

how many historical campigns have u played with poland fighting germany in pitched tank to tank battles?

This wasn't a pitched tank-to-tank battle. You need only look at the statistics for the prmiary Pole tanks to see they're at least the equal to the German ones, but, then, as I said, I think the Polish armor is too good here. I'm not sure if you're comparing the German/Polish actions of the previous SPWW2, this version, or history. I just wanted to point out that as far as AFV losses they playe dme even. There were maybe 18 Polish tanks total in my batlte, and I had between 35-40 tanks, but there never was much of a conflict between them if that means anything. I took most of my tank losses to 75mm HOW's and most of the rest from infantry or ATG's. I may had suffered one or two losses from the tanks. Their tanks were generally better (with the exception of somewhat inferior experience) but they just got in at me piecemeal against not only the tanks but somoe of my infatry as well. I'm trying to point out this is a better Polish opponent.

The real life Poles lasted a month, while the Japanese lasted I think it was 3 days agsinst the USSR. Sure the Japanese had consdierably different circumstances, but I see no evidence that Poland got off so poorly compared to the '45 Manchuria. Heck, Poland was even attacked by the Germans -and- the USSR, and still lasted longer.

To answer your question directly, though, quite a few times I've been in tank battles Poland through both this game's earlier versions and SPWAW. Poland is much better is this version.

this has nothing to do with the manchurain operations, and lets not get into a big discussion over this. taking only 8,000 casualties out a force of 1.5 million men for the whole of manjuria isn't a example of not caring for lives, in comparison the USA lost 6,000 men out of a 30,000 man force on iwo jima.

I understand its not perfect charles22 but it is a possible possibility . however being the first red army campign, it should probably deal with a better known more famous aspect of the war. my personal feeling are something involving kursk or stalingrad, but I'll go along with group consensus.

The USSR taking only 8,000 dead is NOT a statement on how little they cared for their men. Read it again. It was a statement on proving just how lopsided that operation was for the USSR and how bad that game would play if representing such results (8,000 dead compared to 80,000). Mentioning the cannon-fodder penal battalions WAS some of the proof that they cared little for their men. I was trying to make two seperate points. Japan knows that causing large losses to the USSR will not result in problems for the USSR government, as well as the USSR having VASTLY superior equipment it was an easy decision to surrender; that makes it a lousy battle. Why not Kursk for USSR battles? Why not Rostov? Why not Sevastopol? Why not the Caucasas? So many battles hugely better than against a far overmatched opponent. I won't bother you anymore about that.

As far as comparing the USA to the USSR, and then trying to switch that into the USA not caring for lives because, I guess, their ratio of loss is greater than the USSR Manchurian battles, only backs my point the more. Wasn't I saying how the USSR's caring less for their men worked as a strength against Japan? Read the strategy of Japan I discussed earlier. You give USA greater losses. Why? Because you can affect their government that way (see Vietnam for further proof). You didn't see IJ surredering to the USA or GB for that very reason. You surrender to the USSR in droves (somehow saving face was forgotten about) not only because inflicting losses on them has very little effect, but also because their army, or more specifically their tanks were at least twice as good in kind and number compared to the other allies. You want to see a greater indication of the extreme differences that Japan had towards the USA/GB and the USSR? Consider that not only were the kamekazis being thrown against the western allies, but that they also had every intention on defending their home islands as they did all those other islands, only far worse. They had 5,350 kamekazi planes stored away in "underground" airfields (I doubt all of them were underground) alongside alongside 5,350 in the standard military role (the US had 9,000 planes). They had 2,300,000 troops with 28,000 civilian volunteers, compared to 650,000 allied troops. The allies had 131 surface ships while IJ had 19 destroyers and 3,300 special kamikaze attack craft (probably PT boat sort of thing). They got all this extra things by denuding the Chinese Front a lot, so Japan was even weaker there than she had normally been. One of the primary reasons the USSR did so well other than what I mentioned, was because IJ were totally surprised that the USSR would attack them. The commander of the allied forces for Olympic was so overwhelmed by the destruction of the kamikaze aircraft (in FAR fewer numbers than an invasion of the IJ homeland would bring) that that made his mind up to not attack the mainland and hope the bomb would do the trick (the kamikazes sank 30 ships off Okinawa and damaged over a hundred more). From what I've come up with I doubt the allies had any idea just how many kamikaze aircraft were awaiting them in numbers should they invade, simply because that was part of the Japanese strategy, to not get very many shot down and useless and just send smaller raids instead, in order to give the appearance that their air force was beaten totally (though Okinawa was the largest attacks of the war - see here:

21 Oct44 Two planes with volunteers flew from the Philippines to attack US carriers.
23-26 Oct44. Off Leyte, 55 Kamikaze pilots, in the first planned mass suicide attacks of the war, coordinated with the IJN attack on Leyte Gulf, hit the escort carriers and sank the St. Lo (CVE-63) and damaged the large escorts Sangamon (CVE-26), Suwannee (CVE-27), Santee (CVE-29), and small escorts White Plains, Kalinin Bay, and Kitkun Bay. In all, 7 carriers were hit and 40 other types damaged; five ships were sunk, 23 heavily damaged, and 12 moderate damage.
25Mar45-21Jun45. Off Okinawa -- Ten "Kikusui", swarms of Kamikaze, up to 350 attackers at a time, 1,900 in total, damaged 250 ships with 34 destroyers and smaller ships sunk. Several ships were damaged so badly they were not repaired. One in seven of all naval causalities occurred off Okinawa.
3,500 naval planes and an additional 1,500 army planes are hidden on Kyushu for the "final battle" and just as many for orthodox use; once suicide planes were used up, the orthodox pilots would become Kamikazes. This is a number sufficient to sink or damage 1,000 ships of an invading fleet.

The above was pulled from here: http://www.ww2pacific.com/suicide.html