Matrix Games Forums

I happend to see yesterday in Finnish television a document about the Ukranian 44. Division sent to cut Finland in half in WWII.
It was remarkable! The sheer stupidity of Russian leadership. An entire Division sent to fight in WINTER had only summer clothing except for a woollen cap!?
The thought of everyday meal was impossible. The men were all equipped with rifles no SMG's at all.
One 44 div. veteran (one of the few surviving) told about the first encounter with a Finnish equipped with SMG's was and i quote "The sound of the weapons was terrible, men paniced, even if it was only few men firing at us it sounded like a small army".
As the finnish ski troops started cutting the division in to pieces ( i.e. motti's )along the Raate road, the commander escaped with an airplane ( and was later executed for deserting the division ).
The overall situation of the men i that division was terrible ( an understatement )where ever they ran there was bullets waiting for them, Finnish or Russian.

All in all, it's too long and way too sad story about the overwhelming lack of respect for human life from the Russian part.

The result was something like this:

Russians:
17500 men killed by enemy or cold
hundreds of horses and vehicles and other equipment destroyed, abandoned or captured by Finnish.

Finland:
900 men K.I.A
1000 men M.I.A

Unbelievable.....

Stupidity is not specific to any one nation. Winter has been a foe and an ally to almost every nation.
The Soviets looked bad in your example while the Germans looked bad in their push into Russia. Americans too were slow to realize and deal with how deadly winter can be.
Come to think of it, a lot of good men (and some bad) have been lost due to inept commanders in just about every conflict.
Failure to understand the full scope of what they were getting into and being overly optimistic, has always been a problem, ask the British & Polish Airborne at Market Garden (the ones that survived).
Come to think of it going to war in general, no matter how warrented, is NEVER a good idea. All you have to do is ask the parent or wife or child who lost someone. The idea of losing someone because somebody asked them to do something stupid only makes it that much more painful.
It may sound crazy, but when I play SP I don't have any 'acceptable loses' I try real hard to bring them all back.

Now can somebody tell me were all that came from?