Suggested Combat interdiction of Soviet Paratroops

[matt.buttsworth]

As a Soviet Player I love using paratroops, within the 8 square in front of front line houserule that is commonly used. I use them mainly to close pockets and create an escape route for surrounded Soviet troops, which I do not think is game provided the paratroops can only close or open one square of a pocket and not five or six in a line which would be totally unrealistic.
Using them this way was exactly how the soviets planned to use them in deep operations theory, why the brigades were created and how they were used at times during the war.
However I have problems with the ease with which this is done - specifically they can be dropped at a time when the Germans had almost total air superiority which is unfair, and they can be successfully dropped regardless of weather conditions.
My suggestions for the next patch are therefore:
that Soviet paratroop drops be subject to exactly the same interdiction rules as happens to Soviet bombing of Axis ground units so that it is forced to turn back with heavy losses, or the entire paratroops brigade can be shot down in the air, which would make a Soviet commander extremely brave to send try to drop them during summer 1941, and especially to try and drop them further forward than fighter cover.
And secondly, I believe that paratroop drops should be affected by weather, so that the dropping units can be destroyed in the air, or dropped as disrupted unit should a player try to drop them during rain, snow or particularly blizzard turns although the Soviet commander should be able to try as the soviets did do so in the encircilement of stalingrad.
While the first modification I hope is doable now, the second may have to wait until WITE 2.0.
What do other players think?
WITE is a splendid game. I love it.

Matthew Buttsworth

[Wally Wilson]

I had always assumed that weather would affect airdrops. Seems like a curious omission.

[carlkay58]

Actually the first 'airdrop' by Soviet airborne units were in deep blizzard conditions and the men jumped out at low altitude and speed into the snowdrifts. At least that is according to Soviet war history - it could very well be a Soviet Legend, but there are too many references to it in the Soviet Archives for there not to be some truth in it somewhere.

[Wally Wilson]

I have a current game as the Soviet against German AI in mid-January 1942. I might try an airdrop or two as an experiment. I have two near breakthroughs in progress.

[turtlefang]

Soviet airborne forces jumping without parachutes is a myth that appears to have started in the 1950s. There are three major variations - and lot's of minor variations - to the story.

A. In 1939 on 30 November, Soviet paratroopers had the distinction of making the first combat jump in history when they dropped at Petsamo and other points behind the Finnish lines during the Soviet invasion of Finland. Due to poor navigation on the part of pilots and quick action on the part of Finnish snipers who picked off many as they landed, few of these paratroopers actually made it into combat. Those who did fought with courage, and many had even jumped without parachutes into deep snow drifts.

B. Soviets experimented experimented with paratroops who jumped from a plane without parachutes. The idea was the plane sould slow down to less than 100 mph, and it was to be done ONLY over large fields covered with deep fluffy snow- about 5 to 6 ft deep.

(Just as a note, having lived in high snow regions, you don't have deep fluffy 5 ft+ snow difts. When snow gets that deep, it starts to pack down and turn to ice. So this would be close to jumping onto concrete. The joke used to be, the snow fell in Oct and the same snow was still on the ground in May - just packed into ice underneath all the rest of the snow.)

C. At the Petsamo drop, Soviet's paras dropped in wooden crates lined with straw and dropped from bombers into deep snow.

At Petsamo, all the paratrooper's were issued parachutes - and records do existed that show this. Further, the reports of no parachutes first surfaced in the late 50s. And when you try to find actually reports of this happening, they just don't seem to exist - or at least, I have never been able to find them.

So as much as this would prove that Russian paratroopers were the true manly men of the airborne, this colorful story seems to be exactly that - a colorful story.