Hauptmann Posted February 5, 2012 Posted February 5, 2012 Spasky Tower Order of Victory Order of Kutuzov Order of Glory Jubilee Medal for the 40th Anniversary of the Great Patriotic War But is it also shown on the reverse of the 800th Anniversary of Moscow medal? Dan :cheers:
Christophe Posted February 5, 2012 Posted February 5, 2012 Thanks Dan !! :jumping: I felt alone these last days... You are right and the winner !! The exact answer for subquestion 1 was the Kremlin clocks (we are four...). The answer for subquestion 2 is fully correct. And, no, Spassky Tower is not shown on reverse of the 800th Anniversary of Moscow medal... Congrats again !!! :jumping: Your turn, now... Ch.
Hauptmann Posted February 5, 2012 Posted February 5, 2012 Had to deal with a minor crisis on this end so haven't been around much as I'd have liked to be. The heating/defrost systems went out in my car. The local mechanic thought it was a computer module and only a dealer can fix that. So only dealer in the state that could get us in was in Grand Forks. Between being on duty Thursday and dealing with this, then having to take Friday off to go there (2.5 hours each way), get it fixed, run some errands and then get home, was up over 24 hours straight and then yesterday just crashed till 6 p.m. then was playing catch up all evening. Hoping things will now get back to normal. Will come up with a question today... need some time to think of something. Dan :cheers:
Christophe Posted February 5, 2012 Posted February 5, 2012 Dan, Take your time... Cold as well, here in France... )) Cheers. Ch.
Hauptmann Posted February 6, 2012 Posted February 6, 2012 (edited) Question #28: The Soviets had them first with the Germans close behind. The allies didn't catch up till 1940. The Soviets exhibited them in 1935. They are still used today. However, the way the Soviet ones went into action was very different from the way those of other countries did. What are they? How did the Soviet method of going into action differ from those of other nations? Dan :cheers: Edited February 6, 2012 by Hauptmann
Christophe Posted February 6, 2012 Posted February 6, 2012 (edited) They are the Paratroopers. Method : They mainly (except examples given below : Vyazma and Dniepr) fought as regular infantry in all the major battles of the Great Patriotic War. The Russians were the first to have paratroopers, which they exhibited in 1935. The Allies did not catch up until 1940, when the Central Landing School opened near Manchester. Paratroopers are soldiers trained in parachuting and generally operate as part of an airborne force. They are used for tactical advantage as they can be inserted into the battlefield from the air, thereby allowing them to be positioned in areas not accessible by land. It is one of the three types of "forced entry" strategic techniques for entering a theater of war; the other two are by land and sea. This ability to enter the battle from different locations allows paratroopers to evade fortifications that are in place to prevent attack from a specific direction, and the possible use of paratroopers forces an army to spread their defences to protect other areas which would normally be safe by virtue of the geography. Another common use for paratroopers is to establish an airhead for landing other units. This doctrine was first practically applied to warfare by the Italians and the Soviets. During World War II, however, the two countries' ground forces were often overstretched, leaving their elite paratroopers to be employed as regular infantry. Russian Airborne Troops were first formed in the Soviet Union during the mid-1930s and arguably were the first regular paratrooper units in the world. It can also be mentioned that during the Soviet counter-offensive for the Defence of Moscow at Vyazma, 27th January 1942, the Soviet 4th Airborne Corps began a series of night drops of paratroopers in the German rear. Forty civilian and twenty-two military aircraft, escorted by limited numbers of fighters and ground attack aviation, supported the landings. From the beginning, the operation did not go well. After, six nights, only 2,100 men from the 10,000-man airborne corps had been dropped in. Because of bad weather and the pilots' inexperience with night navigation, most of these troops landed twenty kilometers south of the intended drop zone. Also, the failure to conceal the buildup of troops at the airborne fields led to the closing of one of them by German bombers. The remaining two fields provided only two to three sorties per night. The paratroops that landed, however, did succeed in interdicting lines of communication in the German rear area for almost three weeks, in part because of their linkup with the 1st Guards Cavalry Corps on 6 February. A second series of night landings occurred near Yukhnov between 17 and 23 February. The paratroops were again spread out over a large area because of inaccurate drops, and many supplies were lost. Some of the paratroops eventually joined partisan groups in the area, while the main body restricted itself to night operations because of its lack of artillery and air support. A planned two- to three-day operation extended to almost five months, but despite incredible problems, the remnant of the 4th Airborne Corps managed to break through two encirclements (with the help of a battalion of reinforcements dropped into the area on 15-16 April) and to reach friendly lines by late May. Although it had created considerable havoc in the German rear, the corps was decimated. It had not accomplished its mission of preventing a German withdrawal to the west, because German counterblows had halted the main Russian advance. Later on in the war the Soviet Union again used Desaniki in the summer of 1943 during a massive offensive in the Ukraine. Despite the problems encountered in the paratroop operation at Vyazma in 1942, the Soviets attempted a second night drop of an entire airborne corps on 24-25 September 1943 to seize a bridgehead at the Bukrin Bend on the Dnieper. Although the concept was excellent, the planning, timing, and execution of the operation produced results similar to those in 1942. The landing of the first two brigades, scheduled for the night of the twenty-third, had to be delayed a full day because of bad weather and the failure of all military transports to arrive at the three designated airfields. The Germans shot at the parachutists while they were still in the air, thus forcing them to begin fighting before they hit the ground. The Soviets had gambled in conducting this operation at a time when bad weather precluded aerial reconnaissance of the target area. The result was a fiasco, which led Stalin to prohibit similar night operations. Those are the two main occasions where the Soviets conducted airborne operations; however the Desantniki also fought as regular infantry in all the major battles of the Great Patriotic War. Ch. Edited February 6, 2012 by Christophe
JimZ Posted February 8, 2012 Author Posted February 8, 2012 Hi Hauptmann... Waiting for you to confirm the reply. Jim :cheers:
Hauptmann Posted February 8, 2012 Posted February 8, 2012 Sorry guys... for some reason I never received a notification that there had been a reply. I'll accept the answer... I didn't see anything addressing the other part of the question unless I missed it: How did the Soviet method of going into action differ from those of other nations? Was looking for how they'd drop off the wings of the planes instead of jumping out from the inside of the plane. Next one is all yours Christophe. Dan :cheers:
Christophe Posted February 8, 2012 Posted February 8, 2012 Thanks Dan !! Will shortly come back to all of you with a new challenge... Ch.
JimZ Posted February 8, 2012 Author Posted February 8, 2012 SCORE UPDATE: 14 points - Christophe 7 points - UB6365 6 points - Hauptmann 1 point - Lukasz Gaszewski Question 29 to follow! Jim
Christophe Posted February 10, 2012 Posted February 10, 2012 Question #29 : I am born in 1912, in St Petersburg. When I was 6, I moved to Moscow. All my life, I told the truth. Because of difficulties with the police, I changed my name several times. I disappeared in 1991. I have got successors using my name, but they are quite different from me... I have been awarded 3 Soviet orders. Question : 1. Who or what am I ? 2. What are my 3 Soviet orders ? The winner will be the first one correctly answering both questions. Good hunt and good luck... Ch.
ub6365 Posted February 11, 2012 Posted February 11, 2012 1. Pravda Newspaper 2. 2 Order of Lenin (1945, 1962), Order of October Revolution (1972).
Christophe Posted February 11, 2012 Posted February 11, 2012 Excellent, UB. You win !!!! Pravda (Russian: Правда, "Truth") was a leading newspaper of the Soviet Union and an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991. The Pravda newspaper was started in 1912 in St. Petersburg. It was converted from a weekly Zvezda. It did not arrive in Moscow until 1918. During the Cold War, Pravda was well known in the West for its pronouncements as the official voice of Soviet Communism. (Similarly Izvestia was the official voice of the Soviet government.) After the paper was closed down in 1991 by decree of then-President Boris Yeltsin, many of the staff founded a new paper with the same name, which is now a tabloid-style Russian news source. There is an unaffiliated Internet-based newspaper, Pravda Online, run by former Pravda newspaper employees. A number of other newspapers have also been called Pravda, most notably Komsomolskaya Pravda, formerly the official newspaper of the now defunct Komsomol and currently the best-selling tabloid in Russia. The first issue of Pravda was published in Saint Petersburg on April 22, 1912. It continued publishing legally, although subject to government censorship, until it was shut down in July 1914 by the government at the beginning of World War I. Due to police harassment, the newspaper had to change its name eight times in just two yearsРабочая правда (Rabochaya Pravda, Worker’s Truth)Северная правда (Severnaya Pravda Northern Truth)Правда Труда (Pravda Truda, Labor’s Truth)За правду (Za Pravdu, For Truth)Пролетарская правда (Proletarskaya Pravda, Proletarian Truth)Путь правды (Put' Pravdy, The Way of Truth)Рабочий (Rabochy, The Worker)Трудовая правда (Trudovaya Pravda, Labor’s Truth) The overthrow of Tsar Nicholas II by the February Revolution of 1917 allowed Pravda to reopen. The offices of the newspaper were transferred to Moscow on March 3, 1918 when the Soviet capital was moved there. Pravda became an official publication, or "organ", of the Soviet Communist Party. Pravda became the conduit for announcing official policy and policy changes and would remain so until 1991. Subscription to Pravda was mandatory for state run companies, the armed services and other organizations until 1989. On August 22, 1991, a decree by Russian President Boris Yeltsin shut down the Communist Party and seized all of its property, including Pravda. In 1997, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation recovered the newspaper, and it became an organ of the CPRF. Pic : the frontpage of Pravda, today. UB, your turn, now... Ch.
Christophe Posted February 13, 2012 Posted February 13, 2012 Hi UB, I believe it is your turn, now... Ch.
ub6365 Posted February 13, 2012 Posted February 13, 2012 Actually, I was waiting for Jimz. Ok, here is the next question: I was a Hero of WW1,participated in 2 civil wars after October Revolution.The highest rank I reached was Lieutenant- general. Question: Please name me and two civil wars...
Christophe Posted February 13, 2012 Posted February 13, 2012 Could he be : Baron Roman Nikolai Maximilian von Ungern-Sternberg (adopted Russian name: Роман Фёдорович фон Унгерн-Штернберг, which transliterates as Roman Fyodorovich fon Ungern-Shternberg) (December 29, 1885 – September 15, 1921) was a Russian Yesaul (Cossack military rank), Lieutenant-general, and a hero of World War I. He commanded troops during civil wars in both Russia and Mongolia between 1918 and 1921. Ch.
Christophe Posted February 14, 2012 Posted February 14, 2012 As Jim did not surface recently... SCORE UPDATE: 15 points - Christophe 8 points - UB6365 6 points - Hauptmann 1 point - Lukasz Gaszewski Question 31 to follow, as soon as I have 2 minutes...! Ch.
Christophe Posted February 14, 2012 Posted February 14, 2012 Question #31 : Who am I ? I am no more alive. If I was, I would be exactly 70 years old. I have got several careers. The first one made me world famous. I have been covered by medals from several countries, including some prestigious Soviet orders : Order of Lenin, Order of Friendship of People, Order of the Badge of Honor, Order of the Red Banner of Labour... The second one was political. I have been elected to represent my birth place in the USSR Congress of People's Deputies. When I died, some called me a "legend"... 1. Who am I ? 2. Please, post a picture of me with my medals. The winner will be the first one to correctly answer both questions. Good hunt and good luck... Ch.
Christophe Posted February 15, 2012 Posted February 15, 2012 UB, you win !!! Congrats !! Vasiliy Ivanovich Alekseyev (Russian: Василий Иванович Алексеев; January 7, 1942 village of Pokrovo-Shishkino, Ryazan Oblast - November 25, 2011 Germany) was a weightlifter from the Soviet Union.He set 80 world records and 81 Soviet records in weightlifting and won gold medals at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich and the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. Alekseyev began practicing weightlifting at age 18. Alekseyev was trained at Trud Voluntary Sports Society by his coach Rudolf Plyukfelder until 1968, when he began to train there solo. In January 1970 Alekseyev set his first world record, beginning a series of 80 world records the weightlifter set between 1970 and 1977. He was unbeaten and held the World Championship and European Championship titles for those eight years. He was the first man to total over 600 kg in the triple event. However, Alekseyev's performance in the Moscow Olympics of 1980 was a disappointment. In the snatch he set his opening weight too high and was unable to lift it, scoring zero kilograms as the result. He retired from weightlifting after the Moscow Olympics. In 1987, Alekseyev was elected to represent the Ryazan District for the Soviet Union's Congress of People's Deputies. Alekseyev worked as a coach between 1990 and 1992. Under his leadership the Unified Team earned ten medals in weightlifting at the 1992 Summer Olympics, including five golds In 1999, in Greece, Alekseyev was acknowledged as the best sportsman of the 20th century. He was also awarded Order of Lenin (1972), Order of Friendship of Peoples, Order of the Badge of Honour (1970), Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1972). In 1993 he was elected member of the International Weightlifting Federation Hall of Fame. Since 1966 he has lived in Shakhty. In 1971 Alekseyev graduated from the branch of the Novocherkassk Polytechnical Institute in Shakhty. Alekseyev featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated on April 14, 1975, titled "World's Strongest Man". Alekseyev died on 25 November 2011 in Germany in a clinic where he had been sent due to serious heart problems. He was 69. The Russian Weightlifting Federation reported his death and called him a "Soviet sports legend" and "one of the strongest people in the world". Impressive picture, no ? UB, your turn for Question #32... Ch.
JimZ Posted February 16, 2012 Author Posted February 16, 2012 Hi all, I am getting bogged down with work so for now my presence here is slightly erratic. I apologise for that. However Christophe keeps things running even when I am not around SCORE UPDATE: 15 points - Christophe 9 points - UB6365 6 points - Hauptmann 1 point - Lukasz Gaszewski Question 32 goes to UB 6365 Jim
ub6365 Posted February 17, 2012 Posted February 17, 2012 Dear All, I would like to pass question to anyone... Should prepare to national holiday... :D
JimZ Posted February 21, 2012 Author Posted February 21, 2012 Any new memeber who has not particpated in the quiz is free to join in and ask a question (rules on page 1 if you're interested) With the limited amount of players in 2012 and no new blood to take on and set new challenges, the ball will eventually, stop rolling.......! Will anyone pick up the gauntlet? Jim :cheers:
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