Historical mistakes in the Battle of Berlin campaign

Suggestions
1

First of all, you guys have done an excellent work on this game! Especially the Berlin campaign, which is a part I love to play the most.
However, since I have a fair amount of WW2 knowledge by participated in making some of historical mods, also writing some personal articles and reviews myself.
I notice there quite a lot of historical mistakes in the Berlin campaign that should be changed for the future updates. And I’d like to help pointing them out, if you wouldn’t mind.

For the Berlin campaign (Mainly for German faction):

  1. According from “Berlin: The Downfall 1945” by Antony Beevor, “Zhukov at the Oder” by Tony Le Tissier, and “A Masterful German Defense at the Battle of Seelow Heights” article (https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/2017/06/08/masterful-german-defense-battle-of-seelow-heights/)
    1.1) 5th Jäger (light infantry) Division mainly participated in the Battle of Seelow Heights (which often considered to be a part of the Battle of Berlin), not the Battle ‘in’ Berlin (inside the city).
    1.2) 269th Infantry Division
  • This Division never participated in the Battle of Berlin, but “169th” Infantry Division was.
  • However, 169th ID mainly involved in the Battle of Seelow Heights, unlikely to be one of the German units inside the city.
    1.3) 309th Infantry Division (652nd Grenadier Regiment, “Battle of Berlin” Bundle) mainly participated in the Battle of Seelow Heights, but unlikely to be one of the units inside the city.

However, if Seelow Height related maps will be included in Battle of Berlin campaign in the future updates, then the existence of above units should be no problem!

  1. Inaccurate and mismatched uniforms, insignia, and info for the German units:
    2.1) 5th Jäger (light infantry) Div should wear regular Heer/Wehrmacht uniforms, not Volkssturm.
    2.2) 1st Volkssturm Company should wear the Volkssturm uniforms (with armbands).
    2.3) 9th Parachute Division
  • This unit should have proper Fallschirmjäger/paratrooper uniforms + head wears, not Waffen SS.
  • I believe there is an error on their description: “squadannounce/25_parachute_regiment”.
    2.4) Tank crews of the 503rd (SS) Heavy Panzer Battalion + 11th (SS) Panzergrenadier Division
  • Since they are Waffen SS units in reality, then the Wehrmacht insignia on their headwears should be removed (leave it blank, for the censorship reason).
  • Optionally, some of the tank crews could have Norwegian and Danish names (randomly). Since the 11th (SS) Pzgd Div are mostly comprised of the Scandinavian volunteers.
    2.5) 15th Grenadier Division (15th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Latvian))
  • This unit should wear a proper ‘Waffen SS’ uniforms and insignia, not Heer/Wehrmacht.
  • Their names must be changed from German into Latvian, since most of the soldiers in this unit are Latvian.
    2.6) 33rd (SS) Grenadier Division
  • This unit should wear Waffen SS uniforms + head wears instead of Heer/Wehrmacht.
  • Their names must be changed from German into French.
  • Error on their description, not the entire division arrived in Berlin to defend Berlin.
    According to Antony Beevor’s “Berlin: The Downfall 1945”, only 300~500 men arrived in trucks (due to capacity problem) and formed into the ‘(SS) Strumbatallion Charlemagne’.
    2.7) As mentioned, 269th Infantry Division should be changed into ‘169th’ ID, also its insignia. And they should wear Heer/Wehrmacht uniforms instead of Waffen SS.
    2.8) For the **18th Panzergrenadier Division, only a single man in this squad should have ‘Obergefreiter’ insignia.
    2.9) 3rd Volkssturm Company of the Volkssturm Pioneer Batallion A should have a different unit insignia/symbol. And give the current insignia back to the **20th Panzergrenadier Division.

** = Appeared in the previous Playtest footages: ENLISTED | GAMEPLAY | GERMAN Faction Overview and BATTLE OF BERLIN COMBAT! - YouTube

  1. Recommend uniforms for the Waffen SS related units:
    3.1) Dot 44 (Erbsenmuster) camo pattern on Field tunic + trouser.
    3.2) As an alternate variant, Dot 44 camo pattern on trouser only (+ regular/non-camo field tunic).
    3.3) Either Spring version of Oakleaf A or B (Eichenlaubmuster A/B) camo pattern on:
  • M42 camo Smock
  • Zeltbahn/tent cover
  • Reversible Winter Parka
    3.4) From above, Plane tree/Platanenmuster and Autumn version of the Oakleaf camo are also optional choices for the variations.
    3.5) For Headwears:
  • Regular M42 German helmet without any insignia.
  • The German helmet with rubber band, net wire variations (like Heer/Wehrmacht).
  • M43 Field cap without any insignia (censorship reason).
  • Oakleaf variants camo patterns on helmet covers (planetree is also optional).
    Note: It’s very unlikely that Dot 44 was appeared on the helmet covers during wartime.

And of course, no SS related insignia due to the censorship reason. But Heer/Wehrmacht insignia are unnecessary to be featured on these units also.

  1. Others
  • M30 Luftwaffe drilling should appeared as an uncommon weapons among German troops.
  • [Optional] Captured PPSh-41 (and maybe SVT-40 also) should be either available among German troops in few or uncommon numbers or purchasable from the logistic section for the German faction.
  • For Russian soldiers of the 150th Infantry Division with M35 tunic (and maybe few others), they should wear a proper M43 tunic (late-war tunic). Since the older M35 tunic has already phased out at this point (1945).
  • Increase amount of PPSh-41 among Russian troops (with 35 rounds magazine is fine, for a start).

That should be all! And thank you very much if you’re taking this for a consideration.

FeReise

15 Likes
2

There are a lot more pressing “historical inaccuracy” issues tbh:

  • FG42 is being used by troops that are not paratrooper squads.
  • M2 Carbine did not exist during the battle of Normandy and would be used in Battle of the Bulge or later
  • M4A2E3 Jumbo also was not used until Bulge
  • BA-11 was not used during the battle of Moscow
  • Pz3B was relegated to training units only and did not see combat use during the battle of Moscow either
7 Likes
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No, no captured weapons.

Not even going to bother reading the rest, Battle of Berlin is in CBT testing the maps.

1 Like
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Maybe you should, I believe many of these are things that could really improve the game for future updates (and the full release version, I hope), also what seems to be technical issues as well. But everything is up to developers, of course.

3 Likes
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I appreciate you taking the time to research and provide citations for all these suggestions. Based +1, anything we can do to increase authenticity is always approved by myself.

6 Likes
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thanks for the work, man

2 Likes
8

Great post king

3 Likes
9

Well presented, hope devs can see this and take into into account!
Even though Enlisted is not a super hardcore milsim in terms of accuracy (I feel really sceptical about Beretta M1918 or Madsen/Chauchat MG at the Battle of Moscow for example) and some Russian regiments are wearing NKVD uniforms, accurate cosmetics are always welcome.
Speaking of which, any plans to compile a list of suggestions for the Soviet side as well?

3 Likes
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I’ll check on the Russians thoroughly when they reopen the campaign again. For now I only got the PPSh-41 and 150th ID’s uniforms I had mentioned above (in the ‘Others’ section).

11

There also a gameplay wise minor historical inaccuracy in the high amount of Volkswagen Beetles on the Berlin map, as only 1462 Volkswagen Beetles (including type 82E and type 87 military variants) were made during the Third Reich era and all of them were given to members of the German state and military.
Mercedes-Benz W136 would be a more fitting stand-in for a common German passenger car as 75,006 of them were produced between the years 1935 and 1942, making it the most popular Mercedes-Benz car for its time and the 4th most-produced passenger car in Third Reich as far as I know at least.

1 Like
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The review is really good. Unfortunately, there’s even more mistakes in the new maps from africa. There’s practically no helmets(and those remaining are without any camouflage, that is really awful) from the german side, and the sturm infantry groups (in fact the only groups with helmets, are wearing the same uniform as in Berlin. Their coats are near the colour of feldgrau, but afrikakorps had special uniform , from Berlin oriental institute, which was of a sand colour. I think, the biggest problem in the full game, is the one with colours of uniform. There’s practically no questions to the allied forces, but wermaht must be in moscow with a good feldgrau uniform, not a blue one.