User blog:El Alamein/The Malmedy Survivors vs. the Vorkuta Prisoners



I proudly unveil my third season and new battle format with the ultimate struggle of the survivalists as the Malmedy Survivors, the few Americans who escaped being killed in the open snow by the 1st SS Panzer Division at the Malmedy Massacre, take the Vorkuta Prisoners, the brutalized and condemned political exiles of the Soviet Union who rose up in arms against their captors and made a brave bid for freedom! It's stealth against brute force and evasion against all-out fighting fury as these two warriors prepare to face off. Both dearly prize their escape, and both went through hell and back to find it, but when these two minimalist warriors duke it out, only one will be the deadliest warrior!

The Malmedy Massacre Survivors




The Malmedy Survivors were 43 men left of about 120 that managed to escape ferocious German guns after their captors of the 1st SS Panzer Divison opened fire on their mostly unarmed prisoners. The massacre took place on December 17, 1944, in a field near the Belgian town of Malmedy. The men who made it back to Allied lines faced an intense brutal winter's cold, SS search parties sent after them, and their own wits and many who escaped the inital attack perished quickly afterward. Their struggle was featured in the film Saints and Soldiers, as survivors of the massacre struggle to evade German patrols and hide out until the Allies retake the area.

Weapons
|-| Close Range Weapon=

M3 Trench Knife 


 * 6.75-inch blade


 * 3.5-inch serrated edge


 * Riveted leather sheath


 * Carbon steel blade


 * -| Mid Range Weapon=

M1 Bayonet


 * 16-inch blade


 * 4-inch handle


 * Rawhide scabbard


 * -| Long Range Weapon=

Colt M1911 handgun 


 * .45 ACP round


 * 7-round detachable box magazine


 * Muzzle velocity: 825 ft/s (251 m/s)


 * Two spare magazines (three total)

The Vorkuta Prisoners




The Vorkuta Prisoners are the prisoners held in the Vorkuta Gulag who make a bold escape attempt led by Alex Mason and Viktor Reznov in Call of Duty: Black Ops. Mason and Reznov have planned out this daring escape plan for months, breaking down each step of the escape into an individual task. What begins as a simple brawl escalates into a full-out battle involving helicopters, machine guns, and makeshift siege weapons. Picking up the guard's weapons, the prisoners manage to become a formidable fighting force, considering what they had started from. Many of the prisoners are killed as they charge into a hail of fire from the guards, but Mason is able to escape to safety.

Weapons
|-| Close Range Weapon=

Prison Knife 


 * 4.5-inch blade


 * Makeshift black tape handle


 * Scrap metal blade


 * No sheath


 * -| Mid Range Weapon=

Pickaxe 


 * 18-inch curved head


 * Simple metal head


 * 2-foot wooden handle


 * Slashing or hacking capabilities


 * -| Long Range Weapon=

Makarov handgun


 * 9x18mm Makarov round


 * 8-round detachable box magazine


 * Muzzle velocity: 1,030 ft/s (315 m/s)


 * Two spare magazines (three total)

X-Factors
|-| Logistics=


 * Malmedy Survivors: 69

*Vorkuta Prisoners: 43

Although the Malmedy Survivors are very low on ammunition, their weapons are of military-grade quality and are generally reliable and accurate. The Vorkuta Prisoners have to create their own weapons and ammunition and have to make do with what they can scrap together or steal from guards.


 * -| Stealth=

*Malmedy Survivors: 78

*Vorkuta Prisoners: 66

The Vorkuta Prisoners had no need for stealth, as their greatest moment of glory was breaking themselves violently from the confines of the Vorkuta gulag. The Malmedy Survivors, on the other hand, had a need to sneak through the Ardennes Forest and maintain a low profile after being fired upon by the 1st SS Panzer Division, as the Nazis hunted down the survivors with better-armed search patrols.


 * -| Training=

*Malmedy Survivors: 75

*Vorkuta Prisoners: 51

The Malmedy Survivors are trained soldiers of the United States military - they're not special forces or anything, but their training is far better than the Vorkuta Prisoners, many of whom were simple peasants who found themselves on the wrong side of the Communist regime and were thrown to rot in the Gulag. There are likely a few ex-military in the Gulag (Mason and Reznov) but the majority are not soldiers.


 * -| Experience=

*Malmedy Survivors: 72

*Vorkuta Prisoners: 63

Again, because the Malmedy Survivors are soldiers, they will have at the very least seen combat during the Battle of the Bulge, if not in other battles beforehand. The vast majority of the Vorkuta Prisoners haven't engaged in many other combat operations besides their daring escape of the gulag.


 * -| Endurance=

*Malmedy Survivors: 71

*Vorkuta Prisoners: 85

Although the Malmedy Survivors faced intense periods of hardships and braved the cold of the Ardennes winter, it was only for a very brief (if intense) period of time. The Vorkuta Prisoners who revolted were the strongest of the bunch, and had proven themselves capable of surviving (and even thriving) in the squalid, deplorable conditions that the gulgag offered.


 * -| Calm Under Fire=

*Malmedy Survivors: 73

*Vorkuta Prisoners: 89

The Malmedy Survivors are trained to operate under combat conditions where an enemy is shooting back at them, but their primary focus is to stay alive and escape their ordeal. The Vorkuta Prisoners are desperate men with nothing to lose, and willingly hurled themselves into overwhelming machinegun fire in a desperate attempt to escape.

Battle
Will be 5-on-5

In the outskirts of a gulag in the winter time

Each group only has three magazines

To be written

Expert's Opinion
To be determined