Preliminary results of the survey
Preliminary Results of the Survey
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Your questions, my answers.

It has been almost half a year since I started out questioning the visitors. By the time this article is written we have received 202 forms, which allows me to make some conclusions. As I promised, I wouldn't give the names of the people who answered.

1. The most interesting theme

My comments:
I was very surprised that "Armaments and weapons" has took the last place. I cannot understand why, since a tank without an armament like a knife without a blade.



2. The most interesting period

My comments:
Here I wasn't surprised by the domination of the Eastern Front. I'm glad also that the so "small" Winter War is very popular as well.



3. What info do you interested for?



4. The desing of the RMZ



5. The quality of the information of the RMZ

My comments:
Perhaps, not every website can boast of such a high evaluation.



I hope, the graphs show your real attitude towards the Russian Military Zone as well as basic trends of your interests. I only wish to mention that out of 200 people that have answered to the question "How do you rate the information of our site?" only three answered "Below average". Suppose those three got to our site accidentally.

Now I want to talk about some specific questions and claims to our site and us.

1. Size of pictures.

About a half of all the people claimed that either I have small amount of pictures, or they are small size. At the same time, I received many responds (mostly from our western visitors) that pages are loading slowly because of huge amount of pictures. I think this problem can be solved in two ways:

- optimize drawings for faster loading;
- relocate the site to a very fast server.

As you understand, I will optimize drawings for sure. As to relocating the site to another server, here I can say that although my present server is not the fastest I get here unlimited space, and it's free, which is not the last factor. By the way, since this site is not commercial I cannot afford paying for its hosting.

2. Bilinguality.

Some of our visitors claim that some materials of my website are presented not in the language they can read, i.e. Russians say that my website is pro-american, and my western visitors say the opposite. Well, all those claims are fair and actually, I do my best to present all the materials on both languages. By the way, if anyone want to help me in translations I will gladly accept your offers! Don't be shy, write me!

3. Quality of our English.

Some of my western visitors say that my English is far not perfect. Unfortunately, I realize it and try to improve.

4. Time limits.

Some of my visitors point out that the main defect of my website is lack of information about post-war elaboration and Soviet tank development. This is true, but here I'd like to say that first I can't seize everything, and second - many of after war elaboration are still secret. Thus, I'll keep everything up till 1945.

5. Trend of information.

Here it's hard to say. Many people decided to tell is that lack of information about...(uniform, staff, infantry firearms, aircraft, insignia - underline) - is serious defect of my website. Dear visitors! Don't look at this site as at Great Babylon Library, this is just a web site, not a receptacle for worldwide information! I can repeat again that I can't seize everything. Probably I'll post different materials on those and other topics in my Library, but not more than that.

6. Information is too difficult/superficial.

Some of my visitors say that the main defect of the articles is huge amount of technical details. Others say that the information is too superficial. In this case, both sides are right. Everyone comes to this website with his own interests and I cannot be interesting for everyone. One's interested in the differences between torsion bar suspension and Christie's suspension, another needs to find out which tank was better "Panther" or T-34, and the third doesn't care and simply enjoys watching photos of damaged tanks.

Some people pointed out that I don't have much information on some tanks. That's true, but I work on it, already written material is being updated later. On the other hand, every tank deserves dozens of books to be written about, then what can I say about one website?

Thus, I'll write articles according to my interests and my point of view on the problem. I'll be talking about some technical details and specialties, and for sure I will talk about prototypes and experimental tanks. Any visitor can accept it or reject. It's his right.

7. Lack of information for model makers.

Those claims were also presented, but in this case, they're not fair, for it's hard to demand more information about models from a non-model website. I have the catalog of blueprints and examples of camouflage. I won't write any articles on model making, but if anyone wants to write and post an article of the kind I'll post it. Write me!

By the way, I plan to write an article on camouflage, but I don't know when I get time for it.

8. Lack of information of tanks in action.

This claim is fair. The only thing I can answer with is that I do as much as we can to improve.

9. The website updates rarely.

It's all relatively. The section with tanks updates not less than twice a month, and sections with artillery and library - in the middle. I understand that you want news every day, but in fact only two people are making this website and our time has limits. We make our best, but with frequent updates the quality of information decreases. Do you need that?

10. Lack of information of Soviet artillery.

Probably. But have you seen more?

11. No information on German tanks.

Here I want to point out that our site is devoted to history of the Soviet tank development, not German or, say, Japanese.

12. No comparing of Soviet tanks with German analogs.

My position on this question is very strict. I'm against any comparing. At first, I consider it stupid to compare tanks that were developed for different countries, for different tasks, on different equipment, in totally incomparable economic conditions. At second, I don't see any practical sense in those comparing. What for? Just for saying: "This tanks was better, and that one was worse"? But this doesn't make sense, because for every special task there is a special tank. And I don't want to talk about human factor. Many people forget that not tanks, but people fight, and nothing can fix human mistake. What's the point of muzzle velocity of a projectile and accuracy of a gun, if the gunner missed? What's the point of the thickness of the frontal armor of the tank if the driver got tank's side under fire of an antitank gun? Why talk about power of the engine if "sloppy" T-60 passed a bog, and "great" Tiger is still remains there?

Some people say that we can compare Soviet tanks. They say it is necessary for choosing the best tank. But this is also nonsense, because tankers weren't choosing tanks and were fighting on what they had. And commanders had no choice, they organized defense/attack using what they had, not what would (possibly) suit better. If a commander had ten T-34s he would attack with them, because he simply don't have any other tanks.

The only reasonable explanation for comparing - is for wargames, to choose which tanks to buy. I'm sorry, but most probably I can't help - the Russian Military Zone is not a wargame site.

13. No opinion of the enemy about Soviet AFVs.

Only one person mentioned it, but it's reasonable to us. I will try to improve.

14. Almost no tactics of using.

This is also a fair claim. I will try to improve.



This is what I can point out by the moment. Once again I want to thank all of you, who found time to fill out and send your form. Everything that you said was carefully read.


Written by .
Translated by Tamara Kheyfets.

December 3, 1999.



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