Leaders and units for Soviet Taman army

[Krot]

Leaders and units for Soviet Taman army

All who played RUS Grand Campaign for Reds had to solve the problem of Taman front. Ten leaderless units (8 infantry, 1 artillery and 1 supply) are frozen for 3 turns in swampy Taman. They are doomed if Ekaterinodar fells quickly.

In actual history the Red forces retreated from Taman and Novorossiysk to Gelendzhik where on 13 August 1918 was formed Soviet Taman army under command of I.I. Matveev and I.E. Kovtyukh. The army consisted of three columns numbering 27000 infantry 3500 cavalry and 15 artillery pieces.

The Reds had little ammunition and supplies and were burdened by huge train of 25 000 refugees fleeing from the White revenge. Taman army fought their way through the Volunteers and hostile Cuban Cossacks and joined Caucasian front near Armavir. On the way they crushed Georgian forces which tried to block their path in Tuapse and captured 16 cannons from the Georgians.

The march of Taman Army was brilliantly described by Alexander Serafimovitch in his novel "Iron flow". In my school years the book impressed me so that I reread it several times.

I'd ask RUS devs to beef up the Red forces located in Taman and to add some frozen Red units to Novorossiysk and Gelendzhik regions in order to form the Soviet Taman army in due course. If you accept the idea I can post here Taman army OOB, its leaders data and portraits.

[Hohenlohe]

Leaders and units for Soviet Taman army

All who played RUS Grand Campaign for Reds had to solve the problem of Taman front. Ten leaderless units (8 infantry, 1 artillery and 1 supply) are frozen for 3 turns in swampy Taman. They are doomed if Ekaterinodar fells quickly.

In actual history the Red forces retreated from Taman and Novorossiysk to Gelendzhik where on 13 August 1918 was formed Soviet Taman army under command of I.I. Matveev and I.E. Kovtyukh. The army consisted of three columns numbering 27000 infantry 3500 cavalry and 15 artillery pieces.

The Reds had little ammunition and supplies and were burdened by huge train of 25 000 refugees fleeing from the White revenge. Taman army fought their way through the Volunteers and hostile Cuban Cossacks and joined Caucasian front near Armavir. On the way they crushed Georgian forces which tried to block their path in Tuapse and captured 16 cannons from the Georgians.

The march of Taman Army was brilliantly described by Alexander Serafimovitch in his novel "Iron flow". In my school years the book impressed me so that I reread it several times.

I'd ask RUS devs to beef up the Red forces located in Taman and to add some frozen Red units to Novorossiysk and Gelendzhik regions in order to form the Soviet Taman army in due course. If you accept the idea I can post here Taman army OOB, its leaders data and portraits.

Dear Krot, this is a wonderful suggestion, although I am more or less on the White side in terms of history I would love it to see some improvements belonging to History. In some of the books I had read that some red leaders with and without tsarist military background were in reality much better than portraited ingame, so I hope for some intensive improvements for the red leaders in their strategic,offensive and defensive terms.

With some historical accuracy we can replay the GC in a much better way. I am in certain way conscious and confident that this would be possible. I see the History of our mankind as a teaching for us to learn from mistakes and failures and to make it better now and in the future.

That is one main reason because I love not only history books but also historical war games. It gives me some better understanding for historical processes now and in the past.

So I have to thank for that fellows like PhilThib,Pocus,Gary Grigsby, Sid Meier and SEPRUS AND SEB. They helped me to understand history...THX

greetings

Hohenlohe aka Michael

[Krot]

Thank you Michael in return.

I wrote about the Reds mostly because RUS in my eyes is more Red oriented game (as ROP is Prussian oriented). If one wants to fight lots of enemies all around the map of ex-Russian empire just after the start of the game he plays for Reds.

In RUS this task is harder to accomplish because of the lack of competent (and often any) leaders on the Red side. I think it's a natural consequence of the fact that Western bibliography for decades relied mostly on White emegree sources. As you know the Whites had a lot of spare time to justify their defeat.

That's why in RUS you have huge amount of White leaders enough to assign them to each available regiment when the Reds have whole fronts uncommanded. Another problem is clearly pro-White approach in measuring the stats of many Red, White, Anarchist and Green leaders that often contradicts their actual Civil War experience.

I have an advantage of access to both Red and White sources and historical bibliography on Civil war that have been published in Russian during last 20 years. It helps to form more balanced view on the matter. I'll try to post my suggestions concerning the Whites as well.

Krot aka Sergey

[ERISS]

In RUS this task is harder to accomplish because of the lack of competent (and often any) leaders on the Red side. I think it's a natural consequence of the fact that Western bibliography for decades relied mostly on White emegree sources.
That's why in RUS you have huge amount of White leaders enough to assign them to each available regiment when the Reds have whole fronts uncommanded. Another problem is clearly pro-White approach in measuring the stats of many Red, White, Anarchist and Green leaders that often contradicts their actual Civil War experience.

Maybe the red leaders were better and more numerous, but the red troop, leaded by bolshevik propaganda and chekist terror, was unwilling to fight.
Red army was good for its huge number of soldiers, but was mainly a not so good defensive army, and was only very good to attack when the ennemy is retreating. Many times, makhnovists while allied, destroyed White locked areas in few weeks, where far bigger red army was standing idle for months.
Maybe red army should have cohesion problems outside Russia.

[Krot]

Maybe the red leaders were better and more numerous, but the red troop, leaded by bolshevik propaganda and chekist terror, was unwilling to fight.
Red army was good for its huge number of soldiers, but was mainly a not so good defensive army, and was only very good to attack when the ennemy is retreating. Many times, makhnovists while allied, destroyed White locked areas in few weeks, where far bigger red army was standing idle for months.
Maybe red army should have cohesion problems outside Russia.

Thank you ERISS for your post. Greetings.

After reading a number of books on the topic I came to the conclusion that in military leadership Red Army had clear advantage over the Whites starting from the fall of 1918 when Bolsheviks decided to unite revolutionary enthusiasm and strong will of red commissars with military experience of Russian Imperial Army officer cadre.

The main problems of Red army (especially before 1919) in my opinion laid in its revolutionary heritage – low discipline, public discussing of orders, independent and often uncontrollable commanders. With their swift and cruel martial justice and red terror the Bolsheviks quelled these problems to some degree.

The Reds were the only side able to mobilize millions of peasants who were reluctant to fight in Civil War after four years in WWI trenches. That's why when in 1920 Red Army numbered 5 million men only tens of thousands of its active "sabers" and "bayonets" fought against Poles and Vrangel. The others tried to control rebellious countryside from Ukraine to Siberia fighting for the bread to feed the war of classes.

The White leaders with their very weak political platform could not answer the challenges they met in organizing their armies (pillager and separatist trends of Don and Cuban Cossacks contingents, ineffective military administration and supply system, failed mobilization and mass desertion of mobilized soldiers etc).

Makhno anarchist movement due to its specific social and ideological background was purely regional and was not able to expand beyond rural areas of South-Eastern Ukraine.

So Reds, Whites and Anarchists had their own strong points and limitations. The strongest side won.

Krot aka Sergey

[ERISS]

The main problems of Red army (especially before 1919) in my opinion laid in its revolutionary heritage – low discipline, public discussing of orders, independent and often uncontrollable commanders. With their swift and cruel martial justice and red terror the Bolsheviks quelled these problems to some degree.

Yes, from revolutionnary fighters, Red compelled them to Statist military. The "revolutionary heritage" was not a problem in makhnovist army: discipline may be not high but it was agreed, public discussing were made when voting for leaders (so, if soldiers find he gave bad orders, they vote for other one), commanders were voluntary independant (being able to fight without waiting for orders was an advantage) but they were controlled by their own soldiers.

Makhno anarchist movement due to its specific social and ideological background was purely regional and was not able to expand beyond rural areas of South-Eastern Ukraine.

They didn't want to expand by any means. A difference between bolsheviks and makhnovists is loyalty and truth to people. Lenin and Trotsky said and did used any means necessary for their goal, as killing revolution (people were gaining power using the free soviets) to make it alive .

[Krot]

Yes, from revolutionnary fighters, Red compelled them to Statist military. The "revolutionary heritage" was not a problem in makhnovist army: discipline may be not high but it was agreed, public discussing were made when voting for leaders (so, if soldiers find he gave bad orders, they vote for other one), commanders were voluntary independant (being able to fight without waiting for orders was an advantage) but they were controlled by their own soldiers.


They didn't want to expand by any means. A difference between bolsheviks and makhnovists is loyalty and truth to people. Lenin and Trotsky said and did used any means necessary for their goal, as killing revolution (people were gaining power using the free soviets) to make it alive .

OK. In this thread we already have pro-Red Krot, pro-White Hohenlohe and one Anarchist sympathizer at last. I feel it's time to start Civil war here.

Frankly speaking I agree with your points about Makhno movement. Regretfully history shows that idealists to whom Nestor Makhno for sure belongs (I cannot say so about the majority of his subordinates) rarely succeed against talented opportunists like Bolsheviks.

[TheDoctorKing]

Maybe the red leaders were better and more numerous, but the red troop, leaded by bolshevik propaganda and chekist terror, was unwilling to fight.

They fought pretty impressively on several occasions - mostly as you say on the defensive. They were city boys, and mostly Russians, and they were at their best defending cities in Russia - Petrograd, Tzaritsyn, Saratov, Kazan, and Orel, for example.

They did have quite a few gifted leaders. One problem is that the game has something like 95 Red leaders but you can only ever recruit about six because the "recruit new officer" option only becomes available every six months. In my upcoming PBEM game with Andatiep we will pioneer a mod that will keep the "recruit officer" option available throughout - you are limited only by the number of EPs you want to spend on officers versus other options. And we have upgraded the average Red officer to 3-1-1, making them less likely to be active than the average White (who I believe is a 4-2-2) and less skilled in offense and defense, but still at least functional. It is a crime that so many Red leaders are 2-0-0s in vanilla.

And, of course, highly skilled and famous Red officers are not even part of the potential mix - Yakir has been mentioned as well as Matveev.

[ERISS]

They fought pretty impressively on several occasions - mostly as you say on the defensive. They were city boys, and mostly Russians, and they were at their best defending cities in Russia - Petrograd, Tzaritsyn, Saratov, Kazan, and Orel, for example.

. Petrograd and Tzaritsyn:
were key areas, soldiers knew they had to fight worst if they lost. So it was some desperate fighting here. And Petrograd was actually protected by people too.
. Saratov: Saratov soldiers actually fighted for the hope of their own independant commune (not so with Moscow), so it was a some desperate defensive battle too. (and Same as Kazan and Tsaritsyn: keyed Volga areas the tzar already protected by big garrisons, which turns revolutionary.)
. Orel: Whites were already retreating (or about to) (as they no longer received any suply due to makhnovists).
. Kazan: Counter-attack. Yes good offensive, maybe reds promised the gold of Russia central bank here to soldiers, and some lead to commandants if they could not take golden Kazan back