How to fix the game.

[iwolfhound]

"After 19 days, they had lost 25% of their trucks."

"After another week that climbed to 33%."

The logistical reach was only 300 miles for the German Army.

[chuckfourth]

Hi Bluebell

The Germans weren't at the gates of Moscow in 4 weeks because the Russians fought them, not because they ran out of supplies. The game is set up so the Russian is able to withdraw and consolidate, this is possible because the Germans run out of supplies. This is because the Kraftwagenkolonnen range is quartered.

Sure they were short of supplies here and there but in the game they are short of supplies everywhere from turn 3 on. Its too much.

The roads didn't defeat the Germans the Russians did, having the game set up so the Germans main opponent is the roads is boring.

The first campaigning season in Russia went this way, Stalin pushed everything he could into the mincing machine hoping to gum up the works or at least blunt the blades. That isn't how the game is set up unfortunately.

Besides being ridiculous this furphy about having to carry 1/4 load as petrol is flat out wrong. Read the quote in my original post. The Germans set up PETROL STATIONS. Not to mention that they had specific fuel Columns anyway, no doubt keeping the petrol stations nice and full.

They had just run right across Poland, France, Yugoslavia, Greece, and the top of Africa, plenty of crap roads, as if they couldn't get supplies up to the front. Their logistics were top knoch.

iwolfhound
How many trucks they lost has nothing to do with the range of the Kraftwagenkolonnen.
That is taken care of elsewhere in the game, ie truck attrition. They operated way past 300 miles in North Africa my friend.

[RedLancer]

@chuckfourth - I suggest you go and read Supplying War: Logistics From Wallenstein To Patton by Martin van Creveld as it explains in clearly and logically what people here are trying to tell you about military logistics. It has a chapter on Barbarossa and another on North Africa.

Personally I'd really like to see the map that shows all the petrol stations and good roads you believe existed in 1941. For WitE2 I have done a lot of map research and that is not what I have found. If you have something I've missed I'd love to see it...

Meanwhile I'll leave this quote from van Creveld.

[tomeck48]

Hey chuckfourth. Here's my two cents worth. The Germans did not have an infinite amount of fuel. Whatever fuel went into those Petrol Stations was fuel that did not get into a panzer's fuel tank. As the Germans advanced further into Russia, the trucks had to use more fuel to get to the panzers.

And the eastern front didn't exist in a vacuum. The Luftwaffe needed fuel. The U-boats needed fuel. The civilian economy needed fuel. Too many demands on a limited resource.

[Aurelian]

ORIGINAL: Red Lancer

@chuckfourth - I suggest you go and read Supplying War: Logistics From Wallenstein To Patton by Martin van Creveld as it explains in clearly and logically what people here are trying to tell you about military logistics. It has a chapter on Barbarossa and another on North Africa.

Personally I'd really like to see the map that shows all the petrol stations and good roads you believe existed in 1941. For WitE2 I have done a lot of map research and that is not what I have found. If you have something I've missed I'd love to see it...

Meanwhile I'll leave this quote from van Creveld.

David Stahel's Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East covers the logistics as well.

[xhoel]

ORIGINAL: chaos45

The migration is random, and not all points move some are lost....its really a pretty random thing. Not to mention a lot of the Manpower points do stay in the city and are lost and even those you might keep are randomly are left damaged and not producing for a long time.

I don't remember the exact numbers but if you keep Moscow its somewhere around 100k men per week in 1942 give or take. Keeping in mind you will lose huge amount of Soviets every week to attrition even if the Germans take almost no action against you....this is due to the fact that attrition losses is based on NM/EXP of units which means that until late 43/44 soviet attrition losses will stay very large even with little combat.

Just wanted to correct some things.

When manpower points migrate they are not damaged. They start production immediately. The manpower points that remain in the city are not lost, they are simply under enemy ownership. Manpower losses are miniscule during a city capture and once you retake the city they will start producing once the damage is low enough.

Moscow (all 3 hexes) produces 4.500 men a week in 1941. In 1942 that number drops to 3.600. So the math is off by quite a lot here. Soviet attrition losses are quite low when there is no combat. During the Summer and Winter when your units are getting attacked a lot, attrition kicks up. During the quiet mud turns it should be quite low.

[joelmar]

Indeed, each and every source I ever read about that subject (and that's quite a few) all underline the difficulties in the chain of supplies the Werhmacht had during Barbarossa. And even if maybe the network was better than most persons present there at the time to witness first hand do tell, no road network can resist for long when there is a big sudden increase of heavy traffic sustained for a while on all the direct segments from railheads to the front, a problem which is even worst in bad weather. Don't remember where I read that, but someone said the weather in Russia was like going from "disaster to catastrophe" or something like that.

That said, I do recognize the courage you have to come here and try to explain to people that have been playing/developing it for years that the game is badly unbalanced and how it should work! And even though I have been playing and studying the game extensively for a few month, as a "newbie" I certainly don't have that courage, nor do I share your views. Maybe you should play the game and get to know the mechanics and synergies before deciding that it's broken and try to fix it.

And maybe it's just not for you. No problems with that, there are a lot of other games to play out there! [:D]

[demyansk]

Good posts on the logistics. It's not an easy thing, just look on what hurricanes can do to us.

[Michael T]

A *complete* understanding of the Logistics rules along with their numerous foibles and how to optimize them is paramount to high level German play. Everything else rides on the back of this knowledge. It can only be gained through many hours of study, experimentation, testing and play experience. It's no small task. It's the reason why only a very few reach the highest levels of German play.

And the very best Soviet players also have this knowledge. IMO the Logistics rules are the most import things in the game to get down pat. Mastery of this game, for either side depends on knowing the Logistics rules and everything that influences them inside out.

[helpmenow]

Ah yes, the foibles, and, and remaining unspoken, the foible "tool kit".

Cheerio laddies...

[joelmar]

A *complete* understanding of the Logistics rules along with their numerous foibles and how to optimize them is paramount to high level German play.

Agreed. Historically, the Germans got only 1 objective of the 3 they had set themselves at the beginning, and that is even with all those masses of Soviets the captured in their pockets. One of the big reason for that was that they switched their focus a few times during the campaign trying to grab everything at once instead of going for the throat with ruthless determination. Probably the same an inexperienced Axis player will do in this game, I certainly did in my first MP game because I was hesitating too much.

But also it can be said that the only reason the Germans could manage all those big pockets to begin with, was because the Soviets tried to defend on the periphery instead of doing them a "Kutusov". That doesn't happen in WitE against a good Soviet player who will retreat before the Axis has a chance to pincer him 1812 style, as it would not have happened in 1941 if Stalin had given authorisation to his commanders to retreat instead of "fight where you are at all cost and to the last man" order.

So pocket occasions against a strong Soviet will be very rare after the first turn, which is only natural if the Soviet plays with sound strategic concepts, exactly as it would have been in real life in the "if" situation, and that means the Axis player even with all those mighty and seemingly invicible units must walk a thin line and maximise everything if he hopes to win. I do understand it can be frustrating for someone who is only in the game to win by pushing units around without giving too much thought about what's under the hood and what happens 52 turns later. But sadly for those, that's not the nature of this game...

Anyway, I'm pretty sure I would destroy ANY Soviet player if playing Axis with such modified supply rules. It would be all too easy.

My own questionning about this Soviet strategy in historical terms is: what would have happened to the regime if some fast retreat had occured, or Moscow and/or Leningrad had been lost in 1941? Would it have created civil unrest like the big defeats Russia suffered in 1917 and maybe some regime change? Or a crumbling/decay of the armed forces because of low morale? So for me what MIGHT be missing is some bad political consequences for the Soviet player if he gives away ground too easily too fast and/or looses more than one of the 3 Axis objective before some set date in 1941. Something like a drop in national morale or loosing a few units or % of manpower production as a consequence or whatever.

[joelmar]

"The army(4th) is almost entirely dependent on the railways. At the moment, the latter meet current consumption only. The army lives from hand to mouth"

-Field Marshall Hans Gunther Von Kluge, mid-september 1941, when 4th army had already been idle around Smolensk waiting for supply lines to catch up for an entire month.

But hey, that Von Kluge is most probably some random guy who had no idea what was going on

[chuckfourth]

Hi John,
Are you telling me the Russians didn't have petrol stations? The petrol stations were ALREADY there. Russian truck range, German truck range, close enough, so the stations would also be where they needed to be. In 1941 did a Russian driving from Moscow to Smolensk have to carry all the petrol he needed with him? Its a matter of common sense not map reading. In 1935 the Russians produced about 110,000 tractors, in 1937 Soviets produced 44,000 combine harvesters to America's 29,000 they all used fuel. 1941 Russia is heavily industrialised. It had roads, Glantz says there is 64.375 klms of asphalted roads in European Russia where do your maps put these?

The quote is interesting but who is saying that? what are references 29 and 30? Otherwise this is very vague stuff, Losses of 25 percent by day 19, sounds scary but what about repairs and replacements by day 19? maybe 100%?
Partisans were not a problem in the beginning of the campaign nor was the weather, this is irrelevant.

Obviously the bitumen roads suffered heavily as the front line moved over them because they were carrying tanks, Russian and German. This would be fixed by the road crews and easily maintained once the normal wheeled type traffic returned. Tanks travel on trailers.

Look we all know logistics were problematic in Russia, the question is HOW problematic.
I say at the beginning not too bad, you say shocking, because right from day one you say Kraftwagenkolonnen cannot operate effectively any more than 10 hexes from a rail head, that's just 28 miles. I think that as they can cover 125 miles a day, then they can operate effectively 44 hexes from a rail head because that is how far they can travel, round trip, in a week. So I ask you how have you come up with penalising them at 10 hexes? . Surely they deserve 44 hexes in week one at the very least, the roads were good and petrol plentiful.

The quote I want to see is the one that says the entire German front ran out of Fuel and Supply in week 3 of operation Barbarossa, so they had a rest for a week. Because that is what the game mechanic is. A quote about some supply shortage somewhere on the front does not mean the entire front runs out of supplies as happens in the game. Well before mud and partisans.

How about a game option "Allow German full HQ supply from railhead of 40 hexes" That will give a game that is fun to play. didn't Stalin say it himself? "You should try fighting, its not so bad once you begin"

xhoel et al please don't think I am unfamiliar with the game I've played it enough to see the German supply regime is severely(unhistorically) nerfed by the unpenalised Kraftwagenkolonnen range of 10 instead of 44.

Also you talk about a big sudden increase of heavy traffic, there may well have been LESS traffic on the roads, The normal domestic traffic would have dropped of completely considering there was a war on. It is possible domestic traffic was heavier than what the Germans put on it anyway.

Sorry for repeated some info here but judging by the responses most posters haven't bothered to read what I said already.

Joel I am not saying no supply restrictions, just change the Kraftwagenkolonnen range from 10 to 44. Your Kluge quote can still happen with the Kraftwagenkolonnen set to 44.

Please notice that with all these game experts, weighty references and irrelevant quotes NO-ONE has explained why the unpenalised Kraftwagenkolonnen range is 10. I am guessing 10 is just guess work, and of course it suits the players that don't actually want to face the Germans.

[xhoel]

ORIGINAL: chuckfourth

xhoel et al please don't think I am unfamiliar with the game I've played it enough to see the German supply regime is severely(unhistorically) nerfed by the unpenalised Kraftwagenkolonnen range of 10 instead of 44.

My answer was in reference to the manpower only and it was a response to what chaos45 wrote. I didn't say any of the things you mentioned. I disagree with you but won't try to change your mind, since it seems that you are set on believing what you want to believe and it would be a waste of time for both of us.

I am an Axis player and have no problem with the supply system in the state it is now. Therefore I am not interested in participating in a discussion titled "How to fix the game" since I think the game is perfectly fine in this state and save for minor changes is a stable solid version.

All the best to you,
Xhoel

[joelmar]

lol... sorry, I shouldn't be answering this because I don't think it serves any purpose. But I do believe you are a funny guy.

Anyway... with 44 hexes full supplies, it would mean that the panzers would be on full supply from turn 1 in Smolensk. FULL supply. Tell me, how does that equate with the Von Kluge quote that was made in mid-september after 4th army had been idle for a month waiting for the supplies to catch up, so a full 3 months after the invasion began? And I could also find quotes from Hoth, Halder, Guderian and many others complaining about the bad roads and the huge supply problems they had in august.

Anyway, from what you imply, those Werhmacht top brass really had no clue because if they really had so much easy supplies with such a powerful army, it only proves how very incompetent they really were! And also uncovers a big conspiracy of lies, probably only to protect their reputations... lol!

But if you do think you would like it, there is indeed a setting in options to increase logistics, you can increase it x4 and you will then have the kind of supply you want. I'll even play a game as Axis against you playing Soviet like that if you wish, I should be at the gates of Moscow after turn 6 or 7 and most of the Red Army destroyed by turn 12 if you try defending forward. Fully historic And I'm not bragging, it would be the case for any competent Axis player.

Should be funny, but I doubt I would have so much fun though.

For the 64000 km of paved routes even if it was true, which I doubt... that wouldn't mean much in itself. The quality and broadness of the roads are also important. I mean, in the countryside around my place, there are kms and kms of paved road which are quite bad, meaning with holes and crevaces, and certainly not suited to heavy traffic. There is also the problem of the trucks. Summer in the Russian steppes means a lot of dust infiltrating the mechanic, so a lot of breakdowns by the side of the road, creating even more traffic problems. And I doubt about your argument of traffic dimininution. In reality, life goes on for the millions of people living there, and there also will be refugees by the thousands going to and fro, and also the Wehrmacht traffic will have been limited to the main roads, because of a need for going as direct as possible and also for security reasons. What creates traffic in this case is not so much the passage of the formations as such, but the back and forth to the rear of the supply columns. So the same truck will have been doing many round trips from the railheads to the front every week, often loaded to the limit or over on the very same road. That is a recipe to overload and destroy any road fast.

And gaz stations all the way to Moscow... yeah! And they do fill up their tanks magically! Probably that the Soviet Gaz supplier continued to fill them up even under the German occupation!

The other thing is the fact that most German formations were not supplied by truck, because there was a chronic lack of those... but by panje lorries most often than not confiscated from peasants. So you have columns and columns of those very slow things clogging the roads and entire formations at the end of their leashes very fast.

And that is not taking into account the countless pictures we see of formations driving through gravel and dirt roads in clouds of dust telling another story than the one you imply.

Seriously, you simply have no idea how to handle the Axis army if you really think you need such supply to make headway have a chance to win. No pun intended, it's only an assessment of a reality. As I said earlier, there are games out there that are much easier to handle if easy play is what you're looking for.

[joelmar]

@Xhoel +1... I should have used the same wisdom of course

[RedLancer]

Let’s start here…

10 hexes from a rail head, that's just 28 miles

Which map are you playing on ???? The WitE map has 10 mile hexes. By my maths 10 x 10 = 100 miles.

As for assertion the roads were good and fuel plentiful….

ROADS

I'm not surprised that you cannot provide a map that shows the roads that you claim exist because they didn't. I’ve spent weeks researching and putting all the roads into WitE2. I don’t disagree with your figure from Glantz but most good quality roads are in urban areas as that is where traffic is greatest. A town occupying a single square mile laid out on a grid set up on a 176 yard spacing would have 22 miles of road in that single square mile. The area of a hex in WitE is roughly 65 square miles. Using that logic, a single full urban hex would have about 2,000 km of roads. That is almost a thirtieth of the figure you quote. Even if urban doesn’t fill the whole hex you can see the numbers soon add up. Smolensk to Moscow is 400km. By comparison the UK had 283,000km of roads in 1920 and is so much smaller than Russia.

FUEL

Petrol was not plentiful as you claim. My research is that historical Petrol Stations had no more than a 1000 gallon max capacity – you didn’t need more as the trucks delivering weren’t bigger. A 1941 Panzer Regt consumed 30,000 gallons a day. Just as we see with modern military operations and fuel delivery strikes the capacity of the system is of little importance compared to throughput which is governed by truck capacity (numbers, size and distance). Cut throughput and fuel runs out very quickly.

Please go and read van Creveld it really is worth the effort.

[56ajax]

Thanks for that RL, I was curious about asphalt roads. I checked out my previous city and it has 20,000 km of roads.

Can someone tell me the reference from where this Glantz statement is from?

When I was in the USSR in April 1985 roads and transport were primitive. Stations had no platforms, you just jumped out of the train into the mud. We were taken to see a 'typical' village, and the most I can remember about it is the mud. Leningrad had one good section of asphalt, about 500m, so good I asked why? Repaired every year for the May Day parade.

[joelmar]

56ajax: +1

As for Glantz, the man is a of course a good historian, but I do believe some of his disciples often go a bit too far. Sometimes they sound like he is Jesus Christ reborn! Glantz said it so it is the pinnacle of truth!!!... problem is the same with what Jesus Christ said... often distorted and pushed to extremes

[chuckfourth]

Thank you for the advice John Ill try to get a copy of van credlin. In the mean time I would like to point you to this article from Gen. Lt. a.D, Max Bork a Branch Chief in the Transportation Division of the German Army General Staff. i.e. he is a primary source.
https://www.allworldwars.com/Comments-o ... -Bork.html
This is his summary of the ability of the road network to support army group north.

"As a result of this planning and the measures taken the Germans succeeded in maintaining that part of the road net which was vital for their operations and in improving it sufficiently to meet all demands."

Meet all Demands, sounds to me like army group norths tanks should not be out of supply on turn 3?
There is also this,

"In 1941 European Russia did not have a highway net comparable to those in western European countries. The few roads which existed had only a limited capacity and apparently had not undergone any appreciable change in construction or lay-out during the past 100 year3, a condition due primarily to the relatively small demands of peacetime traffic. There were two types of roads:
a. the long, straight thoroughfares intended for commercial and military traffic, which usually followed the valleys of the larger rivers and connected cultural and industrial areas;
b. the unimproved roads which had developed through constant use of the same route connecting small settlements with nearby fields and forests,
In contrast to the former Baltic States, where paved roads were common, the roads in European Russia had paved or asphalt surfacing only in and near large cities and industrial centers"

So OK kudos to you. You are right about the paved roads but I would suggest the bitumen wasn't laid out in grids only straight line from factory to factory etc. so transport would improve the closer to a city you are. The other point I would make is this, I think you are assuming all roads to be 'type b' I think that within the first 3 weeks 'type a' roads would remain usable, after all they are specifically designed to carry "military traffic" and would run between all the major cities ie where you want them.
The quote also says that paved roads were "common" in the Baltic states so make of that what you will but that might go some way to explain the lack of supply shortages felt by army group north.
There is also a all weather paved highway between Minsk and Moscow.
The article also says this,

"Over limited distances (200 to 300 miles), however, truck transportation could temporarily assume the railroad's supply function."

I read this to mean that the supply ability of the Railhead is extended 20 to 30 hexes without penalty. So OK that isn't 40 hexes but its at a minimum twice what the game has at 10 hexes.

This reference also provides the dates the first German trains arrived in these cities. ie this is how far the rails had been repaired.

" 27 June - Kaunas (military railroad station)
28 June - Bajohren
6 July - Dvinsk (west bank of the Dvina)
9 July - Riga
10 July - Rezekne (shuttle traffic from Dvinsk and Riga)
11 July - Ostrov
13 July - Cherskaya (between Ostrov and Pskov)
17 July - Sebezh
24 July - Pskov"

Just looking at the first week Army group north had fixed 10 Railway hexes!!!!!!!!! In the game they can only fix 4, the Games army group north rail repair rate for the first week is not even half what was achieved historically. Bajohren is at about Priekules location.
Dvinsk is your Daugavpils they reached this in the next week that means they fixed a further 16 rail hexes in a second week!!!!!!!!!!!
In week 3 they had got to Riga, Rezekne, Ostrov and Cherskaya thats 35 Rail hexes fixed in total by week three. You allow just 12, so your Rail repair rate is at best, one third the historical amount. Army group north should be given 3 FBD that can piggyback.

Though trains were travelling along these lines, full capacity had to wait until the bridges had been brought back into full serviceability. Here's the bridge repair dates.

"Location of railroad bridges Date restored (fully)
Kaunas 17 July 1941
Taurage 29 June 1941
Riga 12 July 1941
Jelgava 22 July 1941
near Jekabpils 23 July 1941
near Rezekne 15 July 1941
near Cesis 24 July 1941
neer Pskov 27 July 1941
near Petseri 24 July 1941" (Games Pechory)

So OK this slows things down a bit but overall by the 5th week these bridges are all fully fixed and the rail is repaired at least as far as Sebezh towards Smolensk, up to Pskov and past Riga to Cesis Its all completely fixed and that is 69 rail hexes repaired, historically by week 5. If you add in the line between Riga and Rezekne that's another 13 rail hexes they fixed by week 5, 82 Rail hexes!!!!!! that's a conservative estimate, they worked on the trunk lines as well. Your game allows them just 20 by week 5 so your game gives them one quarter the rail repair capacity they actually had.

It would not surprise me if Army group Centre and South had similar rail repair abilities.

This also needs to be considered,

"Shipping on the Niemen River as far up as Kaunas relieved the burden on the railroads by some 18,000 tons between 28 June (three days after the Germans occupied the area) and 19 July."

Here is another quote from this article
"Rail traffic was not disrupted at any time in the area of Army Group South since there were no partisans there." this is because the ethic minorities in these areas had been handsomely monstered by the "Russians" forever.
I think maybe your game has partisan activity in Army group souths area, perhaps that should be rethought?

Quotes about supply shortages in September or August are irrelevant to what happens in June July, even a quote about supply shortage in June would be irrelevant because Stalin resisted, that uses up much more German supply than if he withdrew, as the game does. We are comparing apples and oranges here.

Why wasn't Stalin as smart as some of the other posters here and withdraw all his troops deep into Russia and start fighting then?
Because an army fighting forward uses a lot more supply than an Army moving forward unopposed. Much much much less. Ammunition is heavy and they don't need to fire a single shot, They don't have to do a single fuel sapping manoeuvre off road, they get a good nights sleep. They arrive fresh on the heals of the enemy ready to go. That is why references about supply shortages from September or August are irrelevant it is a different situation, at that time there is constant heavy fighting, the weather is steadily worsening and manoeuvring about in difficult terrain mandatory.

In the game even though the Russian withdraws and the German is just following up, the Germans supply is so unrealistically restricted its the same as though he had had to fight all the way forward against an opponent 4 times as strong.
Please note that according to Gen. Lt. a.D, Max Bork army group north did not suffer supply shortages even though they DID have to fight forward. The Germans should operate under the historic supply constraints, rail repair rate 4x current, road supply penalised after 30 hexes not 10. I choose 30 rather than 20 because it is the good season 20 would be used in mud times.
I am not asking for dropping all supply constraints just matching them to the first hand, specific, authentic information contained in the reference supplied.

Stalin knew if he withdrew he would have the Germans right there in his face as soon as he stopped, fresh and ready to go and a lot closer to Moscow. Because all they had to do was drive along the roads.

28 miles is my mistake I was working on 10 klm hexes and a round trip ie range halved I see now they are 10 Mile hexes.

JoelMar please take the time to read what I said and digest it before you reply or maybe just be wise, I'm finding your jeering tiresome. I already tried the logistic thing and posted the result but here it is again for your benefit. In week three after moving the max amount an armoured unit will have supply of about 4 with Logistics level at 400 it becomes about 10, not a difference to bother with.

I am sorry John I don't understand this
" Just as we see with modern military operations and fuel delivery strikes the capacity of the system is of little importance compared to throughput which is governed by truck capacity (numbers, size and distance). Cut throughput and fuel runs out very quickly. "
can you rephrase it please.
As for petrol station capacity don't forget the Germans created their own stations at the appropriate junctures.