World War II

I’ve long been a fan of war games, particularly World War 2 games. Red Orchestra, Company of Heroes, Day of Defeat, Hidden and Dangerous 2, Return to Castle Wolfenstein^[1] - all of these hover at the top of my list of favorite games.

The thing is, though, part of me wonders: are these games a little disrespectful? Is it disrespectful to take something as serious as World War II, in which millions died, and to turn it into a game? While they’re quickly disappearing, there are still World War II veterans alive; what do they think about a bunch of 20-somethings playing soldier in games that are becoming increasingly realistic?^[2] Do they take offense? Do they think the war should be seen for what it really was, something terrible and something that should be avoided if at all possible, and that making a game out of it is crossing a line that shouldn’t be crossed?

These questions could be posed to veterans of other wars, as well; the Vietnam War is serving as the base for more and more games (although I’ve not played any). It’s obviously even closer to us than World War II; how do ‘Nam vets feel about games being based on their experiences?

While it’s hard (or perhaps impossible) to find where the line is exactly, there seems to be a line between what we’re allowed to base entertainment on, and what we aren’t allowed to touch - yet. If Russia were to declare war on America tomorrow and land two million troops on the west coast, would I expect a game based on the event to be released 6 months later? No. The event would still be too close to Americans, too real. But 30 years down the road? 50? Sure, why not. It’d just be another war to make a game out of. Strange.

1. Admittedly, Return to Castle Wolfenstein has a lot of fiction in it - zombies, monster-like robots, etc. - but the base setting is World War 2. [↩]
2. As realistic as games can be, anyway. I’m well aware that playing a game will not teach me what it’s like to be cold in a bunker or to see my friends blown up. By “realistic”, I suppose I mostly mean visually realistic. [↩]

I wrote a few weeks ago about misconceptions that people often have about tanks (the armored vehicles). This post is an addition or post script to that one, so to speak, so if you missed the first, check it out.

I received my copy of World War II Infantry Anti-Tank Tactics via OhioLINK, and wanted to remark on just a few of the things that popped out at me while I was reading it:

Despite their psychological impact on infantrymen in the open, tanks were far from being the undefeatable, unstoppable, fire-breathing monsters so often portrayed. Vulnerabilities abounded - if conditions were favourable to those fighting against them; . . . .

Hah! Well, now I don’t feel bad at all about my former misconceptions about tanks.

Except to the tank’s immediate front and the direction in which the turret was oriented, the crew were for all practical purposes blind. Many of the means of vision were mounted high to maximize their fields, and stealthy and courageous infantry could easily move into the tank’s blind zone or ‘dead space.’

Apparently my ideas based on playing Red Orchestra were right. Who said games are useless for education?

Fuel consumption limited operating range, and was measured in gallons per mile rather than miles per gallon.

This is another factor that I’d never considered before when thinking about tanks. I’m not entirely sure why, but I had never really taken all of the mechanical problems and issues of a tank into consideration. The tank was, in my mind, when I didn’t look at it too closely, above being a vehicle. It was closer to being alive rather than being a machine; that probably sounds absurd, but as I poke around in my memory, I realize that’s how I saw it. Logically, of course, I knew that it was a vehicle that had an engine, that required fuel, etc. - but just skimming over “tank” in my mind, none of that popped up. Maybe that just goes back to the above paragraph though, describing how many people viewed them as fire-breathing monsters rather than what they really were.

The tank crew had to endure great heat, deafening noise from the engine and running gear, dizzying fumes from the engine and gun, cramped space hampered by awkward interior fittings, violent pitching and lurching during cross-country movement, poor visibility, and the ever-present fire hazard.

Again, something else that I had never really considered. I always assumed that things on the inside of the tank, besides it being a bit cramped, were just fine. I’d never thought about extreme heat, fumes, and noise. Then again, in my defense, I’ve never been in a tank. All I’ve heard from them is the rather tank-specific sound of treads creaking. I suppose that, on the inside, the sound of creaking treads, guns firing, and the engine roaring would drown out most other sounds. I won’t quote it, because it’s a fairly long section, but the book explains that tank crews often had quite a time communicating with infantry and other tanks, which complicated movement and attack coordination considerably.

After reading the book, I’m left with an understanding that has been furthered, but is still quite close to what I had when I finished writing my first post on tanks. Tanks were:

• Terrifying
• Unstoppable
• Useless
• Battlefield dominating
• Total junk
• More trouble than they were worth
• The turn of the tide in many battles

The list could go on, but in short: it just really depended on the battlefield, what the attackers and defenders had available, and more than a little luck.

I could continue yanking quotes from the book that caught my attention, but I won’t, because I would most likely come close to rewriting it, which 1) I don’t want to do and 2) the publishers don’t want me to do. If you’re interested in how infantry went up against tanks, do get the book; it’s quite good.

I’ve long been interested in World War 2; I’ve read about the major actions in the war, as well as about many of the major players in it. I’ve played (perhaps far too many) games set during World War 2. It is only, recently, however, that I’ve become interested in understanding how combat during World War 2 really worked.This interest stemmed from my general interest in the war, and from two of the games I’ve been playing lately: Red Orchestra and Company of Heroes. Red Orchestra is a first person shooter, built to be more realistic than most FPS games; bullets drop, tanks behave (mostly) as they would in the real world, there are no crosshairs (just ironsights), etc. There is, of course, that one not-so-realistic factor: players regularly respawn after being killed.

Company of Heroes is a real time strategy game, giving the player control over infantry, tanks, artillery, and a smattering of air support. The goals are what one would expect: capture this strategic town, defend against a counter-attack, protect convoys. It’s a good deal more arcade-ish than Red Orchestra, but there are still lessons to be learned from it. What are they?

My Major Misconception About Tanks

While playing both of these games, I noticed something: the tanks weren’t behaving as I expected them to. I had always imagined tanks to be these massive, unstoppable monstrosities, charging (or lumbering) across the battlefield, immune to infantry. If you had tanks and the enemy had infantry, you had already won. I assumed that the path that many combat operations went during World War 2 was like this: a group of tanks would basically smash into a defensive line (because they were unstoppable, you see), and the infantry would follow in their wake.

It’s amazing what our brains will come up with when they don’t have any real information.

In both games, I found that tanks were, alas, not immune to infantry. While sometimes infantry would fall before the might of schwere Panzers, quite often, if I was not careful with my tanks, they’d soon be flaming heaps of metal, surrounded by infantry.

A little bit of reading on tank warfare during World War 2 did two things for me. First, it confirmed what I was seeing in the games: infantry, with the right tools (anti-take mines, Panzershrecks or bazookas, anti-tank grenades) could and did take out enemy tanks. It certainly wasn’t a piece of cake, but it was doable. The second thing that my bit of reading did was make me realize just how little I know about combined arms tactics, and how very complicated the matter is.

Many Points in Time, Many Truths

I thought it rather ironic that, when I sat down to write this post, I thought I knew pretty much what I was going to say. I wanted to check a few more sources to double check what I “knew”; those few sources threw everything I had learned on its head.

The source that really knocked things into perspective for me was World War II Infantry Anti-Tank Tactics - or perhaps I should say just the first few pages, as that is all I can currently access. (I’ve already requested the book through interlibrary loan; perhaps once I’ve finished reading the book, I’ll find that this whole post is incorrect.)

In those first few pages, the book proved and disproved what I had thought about tanks. Let me elaborate…

From page 1:

The 1940 Blitzkrieg sent other armies into near panic, and a rush to find a means of countering it ensued on both sides of the Atlantic. The fear was often exaggerated, convincing some that infantry units were helpless against tanks. Often the planning committees looked only at the tank itself, and did not consider the combined arms aspects of German doctrine; but effective anti-tank defence would also have to be a combined arms effort.

Reading this made me feel not quite so silly, in assuming that tanks were the end-all, be-all of the battlefield; apparently, some pretty intelligent military people thought the same thing.

Perhaps a segment from the next page will explain, at least in part, where I got my ideas about what tanks were and what they were capable of:

From their first use by the British Army on the Western Front in September 1916, infantry has perceived tanks as a ‘terror’ weapon capable of routing troops, piercing defensive lines and driving deep into rear areas. Considering the limitations of period anti-tank weapons, there was considerable justification for this fear.

The first sentence sums up excellently how I viewed tanks. The view that tanks were basically unstoppable, terror-inducing machines has some truth behind it. The problem with this view, however, is that it’s too general and too static. The problem, in short, is not considering time. Again, from page 1 of the same book, providing an important key to understanding tanks during World War 2:

Anti-tank tactics and weapons were in a constant state of evolution throughout the war. Improved models of tanks, evolving armour tactics, new field innovations and the overall development of combined arms tactics all contributed to the process.

It may be that this is the second biggest misconception I had about tanks: that the tactics they used were the same throughout the war. If I had stopped to make my grey matter work a little, I would have realized that this was a silly notion. Tanks varied widely throughout the war, and how they were used (and how the enemy fought against them) varied accordingly. Why I had shoved all tanks of all nations into one general lump, I’m not entirely sure. In my defense though, until one starts digging into the matter, let’s face it: tanks look pretty similar across the board. How was I supposed to know that a Churchill tank was built to go up against dug-in infantry (World War 1 style), and not go toe-to-toe with a Tiger? They’re both big, armored vehicles, both with a big gun on a turret!

How Things Worked

While my understanding of how infantry and tanks worked together is still tenuous at best, something which I’m going to rectify with more study, as I understand it right now, here’s how things went down:

Early on in the war, my vision of how tanks functioned wasn’t too far from the mark. The anti-tank weapons that infantry had access to were all but useless, particularly the anti-tank rifle. This lack of decent hand weapons to go up against tanks led to the tanks controlling a battle if the defenders had no other anti-tank defenses, such as AT guns. It also led to desperation on the part of many defenders; there are records of Polish cavalary attacking German tanks. Incidentally, even many of the “anti-tank guns” early in the war were fairly useless; the Germans nicknamed a 37mm gun as an “armoured door knocker”; all it did was let the attackers know where the gunners were. This, however, was all to change, as both tanks and anti-tank weaponry were developed further.

Once these developments had taken place, the relationship between infantry and tanks shifted and became truly symbiotic. Instead of tanks bashing through lines followed by infantry, often, the infantry would move forward first to clear out anti-tank infantry; at this time, the tanks would support the advancing foot troops. After an area was secure from anti-tank defenses, then the tanks could move up, accompanied by the infantry. It sounds almost like some peculiar give-and-take dance.

At long range, clearly, tanks would have an advantage over infantry that did not have tank support or long range AT guns. However, at close range, particularly if the area being traversed is cramped with trees and buildings, advancing tanks need infantry support; otherwise, they’re basically sitting ducks, inviting enemy infantry to attack. To quote one of the acknowledgement voices from Company of Heroes (and pardon the language): “This tin can’s a fuckin’ death trap.” In an area of limited mobility, without infantry support to cover the tank’s flanks, this is rather true.

One of the major problems facing a tank crew in close quarters is the fact that visibility is awful. While I’m highly hesitant to trust Red Orchestra’s damage model completely, I do trust that the creators modeled the interior of the tanks correctly. From the positions available - driver, machine-gunner, and commander, who has access to the main gunsight as well as small rectangular holes in the tank cupola - one can mostly see in front of the tank, and even then, it’s not great visibility. The slits in the cupola afford the commander, in theory, a 360 view around the tank; however, there are rather large gaps in that view, as the slits aren’t very wide, and have pieces of the hull in between each one. There are three further options for getting a good view to the sides and rear of the tank:

1. Rotating the gun turret all the way around to use its sight; not a very practical method, as the vast majority of the turrets had a slow rotation time.
2. Popping the hatch and looking out. In a closed area, this obviously was quite dangerous; often, due to the tank’s noise and visibility issues, infantry could flank the tank and wait for an opportune time to attack. A commander popping his head out of the tank would be one of those times.
3. Some tanks had an almost trapdoor-like hatch on the front of the tank, allowing the driver to pop it open and stick his head out; the T34 to the left (painted with German markings) is a good example of this. Obviously, sticking your head out of that hole during a battle wouldn’t be a good idea.

Furthermore, even if the crew could see enemy infantry, problems arose when the infantry got near the tank for a close assault - namely, the tank couldn’t target them. Due to how most tanks were built, they couldn’t lower the angle of the main gun or the coaxial machine-gun enough to target enemies that were practically on top of the tank. So, if infantry could flank a tank in a tight area, not only would it be possible that the tank crew wouldn’t know about it, but even if they did, they couldn’t do anything about it. They were fish in a barrel, in other words. At that point, infantry could use a number of anti-tank weapons to knock out or immobilize the vehicle. (One of the more “interesting” assault weapons I read about was a smoke hand-grenade, which was typicaly smashed over an air vent, filling the tank with smoke, which would force the tankers to evacuate, at which point they’d be captured.)

While I realize that manning a tank in a videogame is far from being the real thing, I can add to all of this that while tanking in Red Orchestra, at least half the time when your tank is taken out, it’s from an enemy that none of the crew could see. I don’t know if that particular statistic for tanks being taken out by infantry during the war, but I’d say it was still a pretty high amount.

Misconceptions Overturned?

As I mentioned above, when I first thought of writing this post, I figured I’d set out to tear apart the common misconception that tanks were unstoppable. I knew my stuff, damnit! Instead, as I wrote the post, I think I simply opened a giant can of worms: as usual, instead of there being one simple truth that we can fall to, there are multiple truths, which vary a great deal depending on the circumstances at and.

Sometimes, tanks were unstoppable; if infantry were without proper weaponry, such as during early in the war, tanks could charge right through enemy lines, then surround the defenders. Other times, tanks were at a loss, relying on other parts of the military for support - aircraft, infantry, artillery.

I suppose, though, that I’ve at least “fixed” my misconception to a certain degree: I know that tanks weren’t always unstoppable, and that’s something, isn’t it?

While I know I have a long way to go to reach true understanding on this complex matter, I’ve nonetheless enjoyed learning what I have so far; I also enjoyed writing this post, even though it’s been more of a drain on me than most of my blog posts. If the post doesn’t make all of my subscribers run screaming into the hills, I’ll certainly continue writing stuff like this. (And, come to think of it, even if it does scare folks away, I’ll probably continue writing some stuff like this; it’s been a blast learning about all of it, even if I’ve only learned enough to realize I still know very little.)

As a final remark, while I’m all for learning, I have to admit that it is (and always will be) one thing to sit in my general’s armchair and study this stuff, and quite another to really experience it (which I have no great desire to do). While hindsight says that infantry did have ways to go up against tanks, that they weren’t always as unstoppable as I once had thought, if a sight like this came rolling at me…

… I can’t imagine how I’d respond. I think anyone can look at that picture and have at least a vague sense as to the terror these things instilled in people.

Cheers to the guys who went up against those mechanized monsters; you’re better men than me.

I posted back at the beginning of June about having two guest passes for Red Orchestra Ostfront. Well, for whatever reason, I now have 2 more. They showed up in my Steam account a few days ago. If you want to give the game a go, drop me a comment on this post.  Make sure you use a valid email address in the email box, otherwise I won’t be able to send the pass to you.

Over the years, I’ve played quite a few games set during World War 2. Some of the games I’ve played included Day of Defeat: Source (along with the previous mod version, as well as the first commercial release), Hidden and Dangerous 2, Red Orchestra Ostfront, Company of Heroes… Suffice to say, a lot. These games all share something beyond being set during World War 2, however. What’s that? None of them had swastikas in them.

In most of the games, the standard way to deal with the swastika was to replace it with an iron cross, in one form or another. The well known Nazi flag…

… was typically replaced with something like this:

Why? There are a variety of different reasons. Believe it or not, one of the major reasons is simply an economic one. The swastika and other Nazi symbols are banned in Germany, and displaying them can net you with a nasty fine or jail time. Video games that have Nazi symbols in it are thus illegal in Germany; include the swastika in your game, and you’ve just cut Germany out as one of your distribution points. Of course, if a German gamer wants to get their hands on Return to Castle Wolfenstein, a game that had Nazi swastikas all over the place, they can; but that will have to be saved for another entry.

The economic issue, however, is obviously not the only reason that the symbol is swapped out. Probably the bigger issue here is that much of the world sees the swastika now as a bad symbol, a politically incorrect symbol. It’s something you don’t go waving around, because doing so sends some bad messages. I think most of the internet saw about Prince Harry going to a party with a swastika armband on, and I think the internet mostly agreed that it was a stupid move.

The sentiment that the swastika evokes bad feelings, etc. is one that I agree with - to an extent. While the Nazis did indeed use the swastika, it’s a generally well known fact that it’s been used by many other groups throughout history. Indeed, Hindus still use it regularly, and it’s been a symbol of peace for nearly 5,000 years - up until Hitler and company got their hands on it. Here’s an interesting quote from this article, about Hindus opposing a German proposal to ban the display of swastikas throughout the European Union:

“The swastika has been around for 5,000 years as a symbol of peace,” he said. “This is exactly the opposite of how it was used by Hitler.”

He said that while the Nazi implications of the symbol should be condemned, people should respect the Hindu use of the swastika.

“Just because Hitler misused the symbol, abused it and used it to propagate a reign of terror and racism and discrimination, it does not mean that its peaceful use should be banned.”

The group said banning the swastika was equivalent to banning the cross simply because the Ku Klux Klan had used burning crosses.

However, what I’m talking about here is of course not Hindu swastikas being depicted in a videogame. I’m talking about Nazi swastikas, and things get a bit trickier with them. I certainly have no desire to see the Nazi swastika being flown on flags today; generally speaking, if someone does that, they are trying to convey the message that they agree with the ideological stance of the Nazis, which is a major no-no in my book.

But I do question the removal of the symbol from games set during the World War 2 era. To me, this is sort of a bizarre revision of history, a historical distortion, if you will. Certainly, Nazi Germany used the iron cross as one of their emblems, but they also used the swastika, and heavily. I suppose one could argue that if you were to let someone who was unaware of this fact play one of the above games, they might come away from it thinking that Nazi Germany’s dominant symbol was the black and red iron cross, and that’s just wrong.

Over the years, I’ve had discussions about this with various people - some privately, some on public gaming forums. I’ve heard various lines of thought about it. One is that the swastika is, due to the Nazis, an offensive symbol, and that it conjures up violent memories, horrible feelings, and imagery that many people don’t want to think about. I can buy that - but we’re talking about videogames that are extremely violent, set during World War 2. To take the swastika out of the game doesn’t change the fact that people are being shot, blown up, and dismembered. All it does is portray the German army incorrectly. Even if the swastika isn’t in the games, the fact remains: there are two sides generally portrayed. The Allied side, and the Axis side, and generally, in WW2 games, the “Axis” side boils down to the Germans. If you have the German army during WW2 portrayed in a game, you are portraying the army of Nazi Germany. Pulling the swastika won’t change that.

Another stance I’ve seen is that of saying that the Wehrmacht didn’t use the swastika, and that it was only the SS that used it. This is blatantly wrong. I make no claims that every member of the Wehrmacht was a card-carrying Nazi (they weren’t); but that doesn’t change the fact that the Wehrmacht, as a whole, was the army of the Nazi regime. And yes, they did use the swastika - a lot. There are countless sites online with photographs of authentic Wehrmacht uniforms (not the SS, not the Waffen SS); and they’re plastered with swastikas.

I can certainly understand Germany’s stance on this. The country as a whole is afraid of something like the Nazi regime existing again, and so they’ve taken steps to help crush the Neo-Nazi movement. However, the other side of the coin is this: Germans are (as I understand it) rigorously educated about World War 2 and the Holocaust during their school years. The goal of this is that the people won’t let the memories of World War 2 and the atrocities that took place during it fade into oblivion. The problem is that these two stances, at least when they’re merged within a video game, don’t really work well. “We don’t want people to forget what happened during the Nazi regime, but we don’t want the Nazi swastika used in video games where the Nazi army is portrayed; use something else.” The result is a peculiar mix of historical preservation and historical distortion.

I’m not really sure what a good solution would be. While I don’t agree with altering historical symbols in a game based during World War 2, I understand why the German law is what it is. If they simply revoked the ban on swastikas, the Neo-Nazi movement in Germany would have a blast flying their Nazi flags everywhere.

What’s your take on it? Should games set in a historical setting use the symbols from that time period, whether they’re politically correct or not? Or should some historical distortion be allowed in “special cases,” such as this?

Please note: While I hope I’ve not said anything that would give this impression, I’d feel more comfortable if I stated this clearly: I’m not a Neo-Nazi. I’m not a Nazi apologist, nor do I agree with Nazi ideology. I’m not clamoring to see the Nazi swastika in video games so I can pretend to salute it with a “Sieg Heil!” My concern over the swapping out of the swastika with other similar symbols is simply one based on my interest in history. I’d find it just as odd if the Soviet Communist flag was routinely chopped out of video games (which, by the way, it isn’t.)