5th SS Panzer Division Wiking.

[CheeseMerchant]

How big is the chance that we will see this division as one of the release divisions when the game finally comes out? 5th SS is 1 of the more well known divisions for good and bad reasons. and were 1 of the divisions that got encircled during bagration but against all odds managed to break out.

What makes this division especially interesting is that it consisted for a large part of foreign volunteers from western and northern europe lead by German officers. the quality of those foreigners was a mixed bag from squad to squad. so if this divisions makes it in it will be difficult to decide if those foreign volunteers deserve the disheartened rating like Ostruppen for example have.

the divisions consisted of personal from countries like:

Netherlands
Belgium
Norway
Finland
Denmark

the setup of the division was pretty similair to that of other SS panzer divisions. but with the biggest difference being the large amount of foreigners with mixed morale. maybe if they decide to add it it will have the same setup as 1st SS currently has in SD44. with that i mean an early game core of bad morale foreign volunteer infantry but well equiped. with a late game core of high Morale foreing infantry or native German troops. 5th SS was really short on tanks when bagration happened so this could be represented by having few tanks but those few tanks having high vet.

another reason why i would like to see this division is a personal one. and that is that i myself am from the Netherlands and would like to see my country represented in some way in SD. although my country members fought for the wrong reasons in that division. they still took part in the most horrible front in human History. and the more diverse the historical nationalities represented in this game are. the more interest there will be from people of different country,s to play the game because of the immersion.

[Phosphor 1]

Originally posted by Hobotango:

Thanks. And yes, you are right. Cant change the past.

Anyway lets hope the game will be good and historically accurate.

Agreed!

[tyke]

We're talking about Wiking breaking out of Cherkassy pocket? IIRC Wiking also had a lot of Russian soldiers fighting alongside them in Cherkassy, so maybe we'll have tons of cheap ..ahem valiant frontline fighters. Or the breakout of Warsaw area?
Be nice to have campaign featuring Warsaw area where IIRC Wiking also fought along with Totenkopf, 4th Pz Dvs, 19th pz dvs, and 1st fallschirm pz dvs, where they BTFOd much of Soviet's 2nd Tank Army in some of toughest combat. Though, I'm not sure, but maybe at Warsaw Wiking units weren't much after losing much of their hardware at Cherkassky pocket.

I think it could be good for gameplay to make decks from combining different units rather than simply x division. System of having so many Divisions and each Division is one quite constrained thing you choose to play with in Skirmish and just adjust a little bit here and there isn't so exciting. It could potentially be better where making decks for skirmish etc is combining various different units to create your own fantasy formations.

I don't think anyone should be bothered about putting units in because of how much of meanies they were. ofc this convo goes to SS are meanies. Are there any German divisions at all that did not commit war crimes on the Eastern Front? I believe all German units were involved in war crimes of forcing prisoners and civilians into slave work, and regular Heer units involved in many death marches and executions and war crimes and units such as 342nd wehrmacht division. You find it's mainly a matter of following orders and happenstance of encountering partisans and who are rear units when and where, rather than it being disposition of personnel or ideology. Similarly everyone else in the war; American soldiers executed civillians and prisoners of war, including the execution of SS personnel - let's not forget SS personnel were victims of war crimes too.
Also we don't get upset about playing with RAF or USAAF. It's not just a matter of war crimes as arguably some of worst atrocities in Second World War were the allied bombing of German cities, which was not a war crime, which my grandfather as a RAF pilot witnessed and made him vehemently anti-war. He, along with his surviving brother who was also a pilot, thought that the fire bombing of German towns was a terrible atrocity just as bad as anything done by Nazis. Few are praised as heroes as much as pilots who flew in Battle of Britain, but many of those went on to play a role in indiscriminately burning alive countless thousands of unarmed people of all ages. Atleast being shot in the head is quick.
Also should remember that later in the war many of the people in the SS were not volunteers but conscripted, but the SS volunteers faced death and fought for their brothers alongside them all the same.

To not play SS units one must miss out on a lot of other historical games. idgaf it's just games; I hope we don't generally kill other humans in games because we think it's ok to kill people. nevermind that everyone involvined in WW2 is dead or senile but we have great games like PR where you can play factions in the Syrian War. Is it comprehened what warriors of Antiquity and Middle Ages did of butchering towns wholesale? When we say Edward iii's army killed half of population of Caen as their first action of their campaign and Black Prince massacred his way across South of France engineering famines ... that happened. Not going to play Hundred Years War game? Armies of Edward iii and Black Prince and Duke of Bedford who won Crecy, Poitier, Verneuil etc aren't some of the greatest warriors as they were meanies and invaders? Great heroes. All nations only exist in first place from far worse than likes of what SS did. What Romans did to Carthage makes the worst of the SS look like a Hippy Drum Circle.
It's the fun of games of playing with monsters as just pixels.

[Maschinengewehr]

^

Whataboutism doesn't excuse the fact that Nazi war crimes were sanctioned by the state. The vast majority of (Western) Allied war crimes were not. That's the difference.

[roirraw]

Let's be honest though, War Crimes are War Crimes. To try and parse who did lesser War Crimes and because of that, they are some how better, not such a great position to try and carve out. SS or not, the way people treat other people is a personal choice. I'm no NAZI lover, just the oppsotite, but looking at conflict through tinted lenses is a dangerous thing. So is attributing the cause of conflict, choices or a war; to a single thing. Everyone fights for their own reasons, it's not just about the people making decisions and their ideas.

[Maschinengewehr]

Originally posted by roirraw:

Let's be honest though, War Crimes are War Crimes. To try and parse who did lesser War Crimes and because of that, they are some how better, not such a great position to try and carve out. SS or not, the way people treat other people is a personal choice. I'm no NAZI lover, just the oppsotite, but looking at conflict through tinted lenses is a dangerous thing. So is attributing the cause of conflict, choices or a war; to a single thing. Everyone fights for their own reasons, it's not just about the people making decisions and their ideas.

It's no coincidence that the worst, and yes, I mean worst, war crimes were carried out with the consent of the state. It doesn't take a genius to figure out which regimes did that. Lumping them all into one basket only serves to dilute the gravity of the atrocities. That a dozen SS prisoners were murdered by American GIs doesn't compute when held up to the industrialised genocide that the Nazi regime carried out. Nor to what the Japanese did in China.

[[EUG] Kaelior]

Not the place for this kind of debate guys.
I am locking the thread.