An old gem: Patriotic War 1942

[Silvanski]

I discovered this old gem by Rick Bancroft: his WIR scenario for an attack by the Soviets in 1942, and I overhauled it....
FlankerLeader helped me out with some important details, thanks Flank![;)]

WIR 3.3 Patriotic War 1942

After the fall of France Germany is ready to take on Britain and starts a bombing campaign in preparation for the eventual invasion.
But in late 1940 -in what can be described as a bloodless coup- Hitler’s generals persuade their Fuhrer to relinquish control of the army as they realize he gets way to short sighted and overconfident in military affairs.
Surprisingly he agrees and takes to his duty as head of the Reich.
Subsequently the plans for an attack on the Soviet Union are shelved and the killing of the people in the camps stops and they are closed. (very unlikely, but I like human stories and hate the atrocities of Hitler -Tom1939)
The Battle Of Britain rages on and is a big succes for the Luftwaffe -Goring doesn’t interfere-, but before the planned invasion the British agree to accept the changed situation on the mainland.
A conditional peace settlement is signed by which the Axis gain control over Egypt and access to some Middle East oil. Spain is more than happy to join the Axis side. Negotiations start with France to allow the authority of the Petain regime over a larger territory of that country so the occupying Wehrmacht units can return to Germany. Following Pearl Harbor in September 1941 Germany and its allies don’t declare war on the USA, as they won’t risk American involvement in Europe.
The role and importance of the Waffen-SS in the Wehrmacht is being toned down; the units being renamed and scaled down but given some shiny new Tiger tanks to keep them happy. – Waffen-SS units will stage a come-back -albeit late in the war- due to a decree by the Fuhrer. (a cheapo solution I admit, in order to avoid too much further editing in units, but I built in a severe delay for all SS reinforcements -Silvanski)
It seems that peace will come over (German occupied) Europe, the size of the Werhmacht is to be cut down and equipment to be mothballed when -in an absolute surprise- on May 1 1942 Stalin sees his chance clear and attacks the demobilizing Wehrmacht, with the aim of eliminating the German military threat once and for all and taking over its satellite states.
Stalin, based on the preoccupation of his potential enemy Germany in the West and North Africa, ordered preparations to begin for a surprise strike to the west. Preparations began in December 1941, with an attack set for May 1942. Due to the requirement to attack with surprise, very little preparation is carried out along the border, leaving the follow-up forces to be created from the call up of reserves. However, readiness and training levels are increased to prepare the front line forces for battle.
The German generals didn’t expect that Stalin would risk breaking the non-aggression pact the two countries signed in 1939. For this reason the Wehrmacht‘s presence on the border isn’t as impressive as would have been the case in June 1941. No German panzercorps are present near the front line, lots of divisions and battalions have been reduced in strength and readiness by the demobilization which started a few months before. Several other corps and HQ’s even have been disbanded completely when the Soviets deal out the initial blows. Remobilization will be a time-consuming effort, even for the efficient German army. Although large German forces still present in North Africa and France can be transferred to the Russian front the build-up will take time. The two sides face a long and bloody war of attrition for control over Eastern Europe.

In this scenario there are two extra cities for the Axis -Madrid and Cairo- with some extra factories and oil and population points. Regarding the tank situation, initial work on a heavy tank began in 1938 or so, but it was put on hold to concentrate on existing tank production.

No 1941 invasion of Russia so the Germans’ need to concentrate on existing production is not present and they could have started producing the new Tiger tank prior to August 1942, albeit in limited numbers (thanks to industrial espionage and/or peace with the USSR the German engineers could have gotten plans of the T-34).

The Panther is more of a stretch, but again without the immediate needs of war, a similar tank could have been put into production earlier than historically.
The Panther does not start production until a few turns in, and then only in small numbers.
The He-177 is also an early starter, giving the Luftwaffe more or less the strategic bombing capcity envisaged by the late Gen. Walther Wever.
The whole basis of the scenario is that the fighting ended in 1941 and the Germans concentrated their efforts on industrial expansion and research rather than producing equipment (even though they did not historically go on a war footing until late in the war anyway). In this scenario they were concentrating on development of new weapons in preparation for the inevitable fight with the Soviets.
The Lend/Lease equipment the Soviets received is absent from this scenario. Flankerleader took care of that aspect of the scenario in Excel running the fabulous editor made by Rich Dionne and Michael Fleshman.
To reflect the conditions in this hypothetical scenario use WirHack (included)to turn off attrition and events on the Italian and Western fronts and USAAF bombing.
The Axis player can now release units from the West and Italian HQ’s and this also gives the Axis a huge boost in the air, both factors which can make a big difference against the massive Soviet army later in the war.

Original scenario by Rick Bancroft for WIR 3.1 or 3.2 (?), beefed up for 3.3 by FlankerLeader with his excellent Surface Tweak icons. Scenario overhaul by Silvanski.
Scenario notes by Rick Bancroft & Tom1939, adapted by Silvanski.

[Silvanski]

I've been looking into it more deeply and found more things I'd like to edit...
I'll need to lower the readiness of some German units a bit and increase experience of Soviets, among other things, switching some HQ command structures -removing AG Center perhaps- The initial "Barbarossa setup only envisaged 2 AG's, North and South and as this scenario says the plans were shelved and not expanded to 3 AG's.

I'm gonna have fun on this one [:D]

[Honda]

Wow, great! I'm a lurker in this forum. Downloaded the WiR about a year ago and had a lot of fun with the game. I'm an ex-UV now WitP player so I really don't have much spare time. However, when I get around to it I would like to get my hands on this very interesting what-if scenario. Just a few days before, I was takling to a friend of mine who has shown interest for WiR so I suggested he download the game, kick some AI and then meet me in a pbem. Who knows, I may even join your little community
Anyhow, I wish you a lot of luck with the scenario and hope it turns out flawless and above all balanced.
Cheers

[Silvanski]

OK, some changes I'll carry out for the set-up...
The first blow by the Soviets can be a hard one but Germany will have the means to strike back.

-Hitler goes out of OKW and is replaced by List... suggestions for more relevant nominees for this job are welcome.

-Rommel goes out of the Italy/Africa HQ and is replaced by Kesselring. I thought this might be nice, Rommel against Zhukov[;)] and Kesselring to Italy is historic, although he will only be there to oversee the transfer of troops to the Russian front.

-Army Group Center to be removed and its contents back to OKH. The subordinate HQ's to be divided between AG North, AG South or even OKH.

-The German and Soviet population needs to be revised to come to an acceptable ratio...
The German-Soviet population ratio now shows 365-383 = 1-1.04 which puzzles me
I wanna bring it to 350-536 = 1-1.53
Compare that with WIR 3.3 “Classic”: 298-456 = 1-1.53
Flanker’s Possum Mod: 337-572 = 1-1.69
Possum 6: 298-581 = 1-1.94
The advantage of the Soviet human resources has to be reflected, but also the fact that there was no major conflict in 1941 has to be shown on the German side.

-Some Baltic cities show a "0" population[&:] Gonna populate them and set them to German allegiance, so their liberation pays off. Maybe I'll do the same with the cities in Russian-occupied Poland. The population of Sevastopol can be increased to make it worth defending it more fiercely.

Comments and suggestions are more than welcome.
This is my first attempt to edit a given scenario, based on my interpretation of this "what-if" scenario.
I only use the basic scenario editor to make these changes. I'm not gonna try to attempt any further changes in equipment and delay of reinforcements. That seems good enough as it is. Rick did a great job on this one.

Edited to add that FlankerLeader stepped in to get rid of the L/L equipment [&o]

[Honda]

BTW, how do I get my hands on the scenario?[:)]

[Silvanski]

You can find it on this site link to Daves universe

[Silvanski]

OK, I've been doing some maths during a quiet night shift at work [:D]



About population ratio's

I already showed this comparison

WIR 3.3 “Classic”: 298-456 = 1-1.53
Flanker’s Possum Mod: 337-572 = 1-1.69
Possum 6: 298-581 = 1-1.94
Patriotic War scenario: 365-383 = 1-1.04

And what I found (1939 est. population chart in Wikipedia)

Austria 7,000,000
Bulgaria 6,300,000
Czechoslovakia 15,300,000
Finland 3,700,000
Germany 69,300,000
Hungary 9,200,000
Italy 43,800,000
Romania 19,900,000
---174.700.000

Estonia 1,100,000
Latvia 2,000,000
Lithuania 2,500,000
Soviet Union 168,500,000
---174.100.000

That's as good as a 1-1 ratio, which makes the Patriotic War scenario comes closest so I don't think I'm gonna change much in those figures except the allegiance of cities in the Baltic states and Poland which can shift the balance slightly.
In WIR population is of course an abstract "fit to be drafted" factor with the in-built multiplier which determines recruiting and gives the USSR the historic human resources advantage (combined with the untouchable off-map Urals population points)
A multiplier is used with the population size of all friendly cities each size owns.

Year = Germany - USSR
1941 = 2.30 - 8
1942 = 2.30 - 4
1943 = 2.80 - 4
1944 = 2.80 - 4
1945 = 2.30 - 3

So we see that the USSR can call up more of its population.

Ed Cogburn's WirHack program makes it possible to make changes in these numbers

-----

Historic: Crude Oil production throughout 1941-1945
Germany = 33.4 (including 23.4 synthetic)
Romania = 25.0
Hungary = 3.2

Soviet Union = 110.6

Or simplified a 1 - 1.79 advantage for the USSR

Possum 6 comes close with a 1 - 1.41 ratio
The Patriotic War scenario gives the Germans (with access to Middle East oil) a slight advantage 1.09 - 1.
I'm gonna opt to give the USSR a higher advantage though, but will arrange it so that the loss of Ploesti and Bucharest won't be the harshest blow for the Germans .... the historic econo-strategic importance of the Romanian oilfields will still remain a factor. Budapest will get a few Oil points at Vienna's expense.

-----

Sorry if I repeat certain things which die-hard WIR campaigners have known for years but I only now am starting to delve deeper into certain of the game's mechanics as I wanna adapt this scenario slightly while keeping a certain (shifting) balance like forum member Honda mentioned.

Thanks for the PM FlankerLeader[:)]. If I have questions I'll let you know.

[Silvanski]

OK, the latest so far. Thanks to Flankerleader and his Surface Tweak icons, Patriotic War enjoys a visual upgrade and he eliminated the Lend/Lease equipment. [&o]

I'll be going bonkers on the OOB (deployment, divisional strength etc) and cities' population, oil and resource details in the coming days/weeks.

[Silvanski]

OK I've got a working mod. Version 1.0 so to speak [:D]
The interesting thing with a May 1 start is that after a first blow by the Ruskis there can be some rain turns which may be helpful in beefing up the Axis defense line...

PM me your email addy if you want a zipped copy of the complete game 1331 KB, with Rick's scenario in "a" and my mod in "b" and including Ed's Wirhack 3.3, and readme's for both scenarios.

FlankerLeader made a startpage which looks really neat.[:)]

[Silvanski]

[font=arial]The file is uploaded[/font]  here http://www.megaupload.com/?d=YY4U102P  for those who want it.

[Honda]

Thanks, looks great. One thing I noticed is I wouldn't like to be the shoes of the Russian airman...looks like a 3 week massacre from my turn 1 inspection

[Silvanski]

yeah, that's something I'm working on to improve... the Soviet airforce is piecemeal

[Honda]

And when Schwalben start arriving over front lines. No B17s to worry about....Perhaps the Soviets should start with somewhat more advanced fighters in the beggining . Not that they would stand a chance, just inflict more casulties on Luftwaffe to use their numbers to achieve local air superiority in one or two places.

[Silvanski]

Indeed, for instance there are still too many I-15's in the sky. I'll check the upgrades.

[Honda]

I15s are ok the way they are, great for training behind the lines. It's the I16s that worry me. They are the only moderatly experianced fighters around but to outdated. Even Migs would do better accompanied by Yak1s plus having a solid number of both in pools. So anything from then on is classic production so you fight with what you can pump out of the factories.

[Silvanski]

point taken [:)] By 1942 I-16's could have been largely -but not entirely- replaced by more modern fighters.

[JagdFlanker]

a related interesting read:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalin%27s_Missed_Chance

[Honda]

I have a few questions, just off the top of my head. Nothing methodical...
1. Why are some Soviet Tank armies named NKVD x? Those corps don't appear in the HQ list of subordinate units.
2. Why does KV2, which is by stats a great tank, cost the same as KV1 M41?
3. Why is soviet fighter production so messed up?

I'd also like to add something I think this game fails to simulate. I know it must have been discussed but I'm new to the forum so pls be patient with my rantings...Was there ever any attempt to simulate some other characteristics in tanks accept attack and armor? Seems to me tanks' top speed is the main issue left out. It doesn't have to become a new stat, of course, but shouldn't it be simulated one way or another. For instance, take the present stats and for ever 10 km/h over or under 40 km/h add or respectively substract one point of attack, defence or both. Maybe better for attack only, and use a 20 km/h +/- modifier for defence.
Cheers

[Silvanski]

I have a few questions, just off the top of my head. Nothing methodical...
1. Why are some Soviet Tank armies named NKVD x? Those corps don't appear in the HQ list of subordinate units.

I renamed those... In Rick's scenario they're simply called 1 st Tank etc ... they don't show up in his HQ's either, but can get special supply from the HQ that shows in the menu (bottom right)
It puzzles me as well.

[Silvanski]

I'd like to dig out and refine this scenario some more...if there's some time... but... errr ahmem brrrr.... [8|] I just got TOAW III and am as happy as a kid in a candy store [:D] My Panzers are currently rolling East in full windowed mode.... I only played the TOAW demo a few times, so I wasn't aware there was such a wealth of scenarios out there.... I admit there's still a learning curve to go through...
 
This doesn't mean I'll be abandoning WIR cuz it still is a great game. Let's hope a windows WIR 4 will see the light of day some time