Soviet Paratroops

[TheVolskinator]

I'm diving into some research now, after watching the series 'Soviet Storm: WWII in the East' on youtube that makes referances to highly skilled Soviet paratroops being deployed at key locations like Kiev and the small beachhead formed at Leningrad in an attempt to stave off German advances to the Russian dock systems and to further the commencement of a later Soviet offensive (though the paratroops there were all killed with no survivors about two thirds through the campaign). More research permitting, maybe these paratroops could be added into the game as a reward unit to replace Guards/Shock Guards, wherin the paratroops could be equipped with Guards M1891/30s by default and could choose to upgrade to PPS-42s or PPSh-41s and act as CQB assault infantry, sans long range upgrades (e.g. the SVT40s for Guards) and, of course, the ability to paradrop or reinforce by paradrop (unless it's decided by the BT that this is the case).

I'm activating an account on the Axis History forum to help myself out with some more information on USSR paratroops as of now.

[JuhwannX]

While it would be interesting to see Soviets getting paratroopers, it's not really a viable move ATM. If they're called "Paratroopers" then it would be assumed they would come parachuting in, from the sky. So randomly producing flying guards wouldn't exactly be fair. On top of that, what's the point of getting a reward paratroop unit, instead of guards? They reinforce from the sky? They can be given the guard upgrades, making them no where near as special as guards, and they just seem like a useless reward unit. And extremely redundant.

[BurroDiablo]

I've always thought VDV Paratroops would make an alright reward for Partisans, certainly such a unit wouldn't fit as a non-doctrinal replacement.

[JuhwannX]

I agree with Burro on this one. If they were doctrinal replacements of Partisans. They might actually work. Otherwise, I don't see it working as a non-doctrinal unit or non-doctrinal reward unit.

[Magyar]

Why not replace the Naval infantry? I really like the mod on the whole, but Naval Infantry is just a really jarring addition. It just doesn't fit, as far as I'm concerned, which is a shame, because considering their stats I really enjoy make use of them. Perhaps those Naval Infantry could be replaced with Paratroops, which makes far more sense lorewise, and wouldn't be so jarring for the eyes, either.

[ubermensche]

I remember watching that too. And I thought the same as you. I think they'll make a decent reward unit for Naval Infantry. Maybe drop in with PPSHs and with the ability to upgrade with either a PTRD or a DP-28.

And OP, I think this will be of high interest for you:
http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/cgsc/carl/download/csipubs/glantz.pdf

[Svarog_CDO]

Hi everybody!

From my knowledge (I am very interested in military history), there is a paradox with soviet paratroopers: before the war, the Soviet Union was a visionnary in this field: in the early 30's, Soviet marshals (I don't remember the names I'll look for it later) had seen the tactical potential of such units; So before the war, there were complete divisions of well trained russian paratroopers, a long time before Germany, UK, France or the US interested in this. The paradox is that during the great debacle at the beginning of the "operation barbarossa", after some failed attempts to create bridgeheads behind ennemy lines, and after whole units were slaugthered by german panzers after being surrounded right after landing; the Soviet military commanders decided not to use these units anymore.
(even if sometimes, soviet paratroopers had some success in small scale mission, on a tactical level, furthermore this is accordant with the worldwide paratroopers history).

So including russians paratroopers would be sort of historically incorrect, but beyond this, I agree with this unit being a reward for players willing to play with them. And more, I think it will be a beautiful homage to the soviet military genius.

[Gerrit 'Lord Rommel' G.]

Soviet paratroopers were used during the hole war at the eastern front.
Sometimes they were still dropped behind enemy's lines (e.g. to regroup, reinforce and restructure local partisan formations) and sometimes they were used like "elite ground combat infanty" [like german's Fallschirmjäger after the disaster of Create] (e.g. during the siege of Kiev).
So i cant find any problems for red army paratroopers in eastern front  

[Svarog_CDO]

Excuse me if I was unclear ^^

I didn't say there was a problem, on the contrary! I just said that russia was one of the first to explore the use of paratroopers as a "doctrine", but that after failed operations at the beginning of Operation Barbarossa (Kiev, Odessa in 1941/42...) the Stavka decided not to use them as they were supposed to be, but most as classic infantry units (especially guards), except in some operations (on the Dniepr in 1943, and it was a disaster). But I guess they were used for small scale missions, as every army does :-)

So they have the right to be there of course! But if we talk about history, I think they didn't had a major part in the war :-)

[ubermensche]

Hi everybody!

From my knowledge (I am very interested in military history), there is a paradox with soviet paratroopers: before the war, the Soviet Union was a visionnary in this field: in the early 30's, Soviet marshals (I don't remember the names I'll look for it later) had seen the tactical potential of such units; So before the war, there were complete divisions of well trained russian paratroopers, a long time before Germany, UK, France or the US interested in this. The paradox is that during the great debacle at the beginning of the "operation barbarossa", after some failed attempts to create bridgeheads behind ennemy lines, and after whole units were slaugthered by german panzers after being surrounded right after landing; the Soviet military commanders decided not to use these units anymore.
(even if sometimes, soviet paratroopers had some success in small scale mission, on a tactical level, furthermore this is accordant with the worldwide paratroopers history).

This is mainly due to Stalin's Great Purge of 1937-1939, where many of the Red Army's top innovators and commanders (such as the Head of the Red Air Force and Marshall Tukhachevsky) were outright executed. And the remainder were either incompetent or unwilling to truly innovate for fear of suffering the same fate.

[Jeff 'Robotnik' W.]

Hi everybody!

From my knowledge (I am very interested in military history), there is a paradox with soviet paratroopers: before the war, the Soviet Union was a visionnary in this field: in the early 30's, Soviet marshals (I don't remember the names I'll look for it later) had seen the tactical potential of such units; So before the war, there were complete divisions of well trained russian paratroopers, a long time before Germany, UK, France or the US interested in this. The paradox is that during the great debacle at the beginning of the "operation barbarossa", after some failed attempts to create bridgeheads behind ennemy lines, and after whole units were slaugthered by german panzers after being surrounded right after landing; the Soviet military commanders decided not to use these units anymore.
(even if sometimes, soviet paratroopers had some success in small scale mission, on a tactical level, furthermore this is accordant with the worldwide paratroopers history).

This is mainly due to Stalin's Great Purge of 1937-1939, where many of the Red Army's top innovators and commanders (such as the Head of the Red Air Force and Marshall Tukhachevsky) were outright executed. And the remainder were either incompetent or unwilling to truly innovate for fear of suffering the same fate.

Because of this, instead of the soviets having access to some nice recoiless rifles they instead had PTRD's. Even still though the russians had some crazy experiments going on

[JustDOit8]

I am 100% in support of adding VDV paratrooper reward/call-in unit  replacing Guards for a doctrine. Developers, please give a heads-up on FB or Moddb if you decide implementing these,please!

[Tom]

I am 100% in support of adding VDV paratrooper reward/call-in unit  replacing Guards for a doctrine. Developers, please give a heads-up on FB or Moddb if you decide implementing these,please!

Yeah and give them some bazookas, they are better than those lame ass at rifles.

[BffWithDEATH]

I am 100% in support of adding VDV paratrooper reward/call-in unit  replacing Guards for a doctrine. Developers, please give a heads-up on FB or Moddb if you decide implementing these,please!

Yeah and give them some bazookas, they are better than those lame ass at rifles.

The soviets didn't have recoiless rifles.

[Jeff 'Robotnik' W.]

I am 100% in support of adding VDV paratrooper reward/call-in unit replacing Guards for a doctrine. Developers, please give a heads-up on FB or Moddb if you decide implementing these,please!

Yeah and give them some bazookas, they are better than those lame ass at rifles.

The soviets didn't have recoiless rifles.

They actually did, though they were extremely rare. They were most common during the beginning of the war, and many were mounted on trucks and used by scout units

The reason they were never used in large numbers was because the designer was sent to the gulag because many of his prototypes didnt work or something very stupid