FITE Fungwu vs Karri

[Fungwu]

Alright I got some facts and figures, and a new idea or 2.

Total FITE T34/76 production is 86,517

Total Historical T34/76 production is 33,345
In the actual campaign Kharkov factory was forced to evacuate and lost about 3.75 months of production. Stalingrad factory was destroyed around september 1942.
Had these factories not been disrupted and continued producing at the same rate total production would have been 39,943.

A lot less than 86,517!

Here is how I think tank production could be modelled.

Make 3 formations of units representing the production of Kharkov, Stalingrad, and all Gorky/Urals production.

Each unit in the formation will contain all the tanks produced by the respective factories over a certain timeperiod. Going with 3 months you would have about 25 units in each formation to cover tank production for the entire war. So a new unit would appear in the factory location every 3 months to be disbanded by the player into his ready pool.

If Kharkov is taken before its factories could be withdrawn (historically in early October I think) the Kharkov production unit formation is withdrawn. (note IF kharkov is successfully evacauted then its production units would have to start appearing in the urals)

If Stalingrad is ever taken, the Stalingrad production formation is withdrawn.

Capturing both cities at their historic dates would lead to historic tank production. Early captured would lead to reduced soviet tank production. Late or never capturing them would lead to increased production.

[Fungwu]

Fiddled around with numbers of fighter aircraft, here is what I found.

Total soviet fighter production for the war was 63,000 (sorry wikipedia was the best source I could find)

Total fighter production in FITE is 181,782 which incidentally is signifgantly more than the total soviet production of all aircraft combined of 157,000.

One interesting thing....

for T34's
33425 (historical) divided by 86517 (max possible) = 39% as in soviets need to lose 61% of production to equal historical amount.

for Fighters

63,000 (does anyone have a better source than wikipedia?)
divided by 181,782 (approxamate FITE total) = 35% as in soviets need to lose 65% of production to reach historical numbers.

It  appears FITE numbers are historic if German capture enough cities, but I disagree with the implied assumption that soviet production would be 250% higher if Germans didn't capture anything.

[SMK-at-work]

Does the in game figure oinclude provision for loss of towns, remembering that although they might not have had tank factories they do still count - from another thread:

Town..............Date.......Hist Turn
Minsk............27-Jun-41....3
Smolensk.........16-Jul-41....8
Zaporozhe........18-Aug-41....17
Dneprpetrovsk....25-Aug-41....19
Kiev.............19-Sep-41....27
Orel.............03-Oct-41....30
Bryansk..........06-Oct-41....31
Kalinin..........13-Oct-41....33
Odessa...........16-Oct-41....34
Stalino..........21-Oct-41....36
Kharkov..........24-Oct-41....37
Rostov...........20-Nov-41....44
Sevastopol.......01-Jul-42....108
Voronesh.........06-Jul-42....109
Voroshilovgrad...18-Jul-42....113
Krasnodar........18-Jul-42....113

all are 5% reduction except Kharkov & Sevastopol 10%, so my take is that by T114 production is down to 39.5% of the theoretical figure.

IIRC the production figures in FITE are designed to include the actual date of loss of the towns to give the actual historical production.

All of which doesn't actually matter really anyway since you're proposing replacing the wole system [&o][&o]

The only problem I have is with the 3 month production - IMO it's jsut too long & is building in another problem that doesn't need to be there.

The 2 formations of Soviet NKVD bprder regiments total 59 units, add in another 14 for the 14th army in the Arctic/Murmansk, 7 for the Karelian front and 7 for the Actic fleet then that's 87 Soviet unit slots freed up - plus a handful for the other 2 fleets and a couple of coastal defence/fortified region units in the far north that would be removed too.

Possibly 1 or 2 of the Karelian front unis might need to be included elsewhere, so perhaps 90 is a good number to work on.

[Fungwu]

"The only problem I have is with the 3 month production - IMO it's jsut too long & is building in another problem that doesn't need to be there."

Well remember, we have 3 factories, so if you stagger them it is really new tanks every 1 month. Besides, 1942 T34 production is 12,000+ so soviet player can burn through 115 turn and stay even. Oh and I checked out the number of assigned T34s, it is 8,209. So subtracting that from total production, you get 25,116 T34's appearing in production units instead of normal units. So the soviet player still gets about 1/3 of his T34's same as normal.

Thinking about it, there are 47 months in the war. If you narrowed it down to Stalingrad and Urals+Gorky factories you would need 94 units to do monthly production, which would be possible.



Oh, and NKVD border regiment are only 40 I think, those other 16 are NKVD rifle divisions.

[Zort]

Remember the hit the soviets start with in production: 34% on turn one of base, then 5% loss for each city lost historically, till turn 48. Then I changed the soviet production from 300% to 200% of the current rate (not the base). On turn 78 by 150%.

[vahauser]

Zort,
 
I'm not certain that any changes need to be made until more testing is done.  How many people have actually played the scenario to completion?
 
Also, the point has been made that no game is going to recreate history.  Every game is going to be different from history.
 
I think the scenario should be left alone for a while until more test data has been accumulated.  I definitely do not like the proposals I see here regarding cutting units from the OOBs. 
 
I say leave the scenario alone for now.  Let more test results be evaluated.

[SMK-at-work]

Vahauser the scenario in hte game isn't geing changed, and Zort's changes are being tested as we speak

[el cid]

Can we get back to the AAR?[;)]

[Fungwu]

"Can we get back to the AAR?"

Um where were we?

It has been fairly quiet lately

 The battle lines run from east of Leningrad, South down thourhg Vishny Volocheck and Kalinin to just east of Moscow. Here is were Karri is making a big effort to slowly push into Moscow. He has about 4 hexes to go, but I have a a lot more artillery than he does, and it looks to be a bloodbath.

The line then goes South through Tula then back just North of Bryansk, through the middle of Pripet Marshes, down to the STalin line and the South BUg.

It has been pretty quiet along here. The only action is on the S. Bug west of Odessa, where I am making a little attack to straighten out the lines.

Hopefullly Karri can post a screenshot or two.

[Karri]

I keep pushing on, but my artillery was 'punished' to such point during the Axis drive to Moscow that it is almost non-existant. I am waiting for the production to kick in so that the artillery will be rebuilt. Before that all I can do is a slow push tying down as many Axis units as possible.

I do have other plans as well, but due to still only having 6000 rail capacity the buildup is not as fast as I'd like.

The only good thing is the drive to Turkey. Just captured Ankara so the turks will probaply be out of the game soon...not that it really changes anything.

[Karri]

The attack doesn't seem to proceed one bit. I blame it on lack of artillery. I am wondering if I should do a complete re-organisation of my frontline. Withdrawing all support unit(eng, AA, artillery etc), withdrawing tank units and all 'shock', 'guard' etc troops, just manning the line with rifle divisions/brigades. Then mass the units on my point of attack...

Bu the problem with that is that my ral capacity is 6000...I need to capture Moscow. And we're back to square one. So I went with another option: attack elsewhere as well...at least the Axis have tied down most of their artillery in Moscow. Although they still have plenty of arty in their HQ's.


Well at least the air war is going well. Any Axis air unit daring to enter Moscow area is destroyed.

The axis are attacking in few sectors, but those are just local counter-attacks...casualties, but who cares about those.

[Karri]

Turn 54:
I activated the Winter Offensive option and things are finally starting to proceed. I am now only attacking in Bryansk area and building up the strenght elsewhere. The Axis are keeping their artillery in Moscow which stops me from attacking there.

Anyways, in Bryansk there's some succees. Although casualties for both sides are pretty horrible. I managed to attack his artillery pretty heavily this turn, so hopefully the attack can continue with greater speed in the coming turns. Unless of course he deploys his reserves which he surely does have hidden somewhere in there.








Then there's Turkey...or isn't since it surrendered to the migthy forces of the Red Army. I managed to get through the Bosborus(or whatever it is) and also blew up all the railines to Istanbul so I will be advancing quite freely for the next few turns. This does place the Romanian front in a whole new danger, and will tie down considerably mroe Axis forces.


But I do still lack the strenght here for a full offensive. Perhaps soon...

[Fungwu]

Karri's attacks have become very strong in the Bryansk area. I have been doing okay in presenting a good line each turn, and I have more fresh reinforcements to meet his next attack. Although casualties will be heavy, I don't expect a big Soviet breakthrough.

I do have some strategic reserves but I am not sure just where to send them. I might want to send a strong force to eliminate his men coming up from Istanbul before they become too strongly established. There are one or two other spots in the South where a limited offensive might be useful, otherwise I could send more men to Byransk and some other spots up north to repel Karri's attacks.

[cesteman]

updates?

[Fungwu]

We are on turn 61.

Karri has kept attacking for many turns now. I have been pushed back in a couple of places but for the most part my line has remained intact across all fronts.

Casaulties on both sides have been huge. Karri has told me he is about out of steam, but he might just be trying to lull me into a false sense of security.

The last numbers we exchanged were 105,000 lost rifle squads for him, and 33,000 for me.
He now has a firm grip on air superority and I have only a few fighters left.

Right now Karri's winter offensive will run out in 2 or 3 turns, lowering his shock and supply.

Long term german outlook is bleak. Karri's production is set to rise by 50% on turn 78, raising his rifle placements close to 2000. He is also set to recieve a whole bunch of tank brigades and other reinforcements soon.

I am contemplating an all out, last ditch offensive, but I don't think it will work and I will be forced to concede soon.

[Karri]

Turns 43-62

The Soviet winter offensive has so far been a failure. I have been able to advance a little in the points of pressure, but nothing significant has happened. I re-captured Tula and Kalinin but that means nothing since I won't be regaining the production. I did manage to increase the Axis loss penalty to 100(from roughly 60 that it was), while my own loss penalty has been hovering over and under 300.

Frontal attack on Moscow was a bloodpath, and hasn't resulted in much gains. Kalinin was captured by a few lucky attacks.

Most gains were made in Bryansk, where majority of losses has been exchanged. The Axis are forced back with a constant rate of 1-2 hexes a turn. Which of course is not enough for a brekathrough. However there are plenty of armored formations in the fight which means that the Axis reserves are pretty much used up, and at least I managed to bloody them a little.

There is however a difference to be seen on turn 62 compared to pre-offensive maps, Moscow is now starting to look like a bulge...

Anyways, I did manage to finally find a break in the Axis lines in Bryansk on turn 62, but it seems like there are enough idle units to fill that point...and with that the offensive will come to an end. As I am now under 60k in rifle squads I need to rebuild before the Axis attack in the Summer. Of course smal spoiling attacks can be kept up...

As Fungwu said, air is totally under my control. Air superiority numbers are something like 90 vs 6...any and all axis aircraft that come within range of my fighters are shot down...few turns back I wiped out 8 squadrons that dared to enter Smolensk. I dunno if the interdiction is hurting his troops. But I do hope so.

Istanbul was captured and I managed to capture a little of ground, but then things got quiet there. I think axis forces are pretty much tied up there aswell.


Regarding the Axis Summer option...I have my doubts. I think it will fail...probaply turn into a similar bloodpath like my offensive was, with the exception that the Axis won't recover from it. And I suppose he will be hitting my hardest point...since if he rails significant forces to South, he will leave Moscow vulnerable. And with all the units I have there, I am sure to attack. I have plenty of land to give up in South should he manage to break my line there, which is doubtful. I have plenty of ground to give up pretty much everywhere actually, and from now on it is a war of attrition.

[Karri]

Turn 63:
Well, the offensives are for the most part over now. That small breach in Axis lines still exists north of Bryansk/southwest of Moscow. Should I be able to push a little further then I would be able to cut one railroad leading to Moscow, which would mean that there would be only one left. Althought, that's the case right now since the other railroad is mostly of broken rail. But it would mean that I might be able to cut that remaining railroad if I just continue to push, I think the replacement rate would allow me to do that...
I do suspect the Axis have to retreat a bit, maybe even abandon Moscow...

Anyways, that lucky breach at least makes it look like the Winter Offensive was worth it. Similar breach from north would mean that the Axis units in Moscow would be pocketed...but unfortunately that didn't happen.

Loss penalties are 97 Axis to 305 Soviet.

[SMK-at-work]

go any of those original airborne brigades left with airdrop capacity??!!

[Fungwu]

"I do suspect the Axis have to retreat a bit, maybe even abandon Moscow..."

Have to abandon Moscow? Like hell I will!

[Karri]

ORIGINAL: Fungwu

"I do suspect the Axis have to retreat a bit, maybe even abandon Moscow..."

Have to abandon Moscow? Like hell I will!

I can dream, can't I?

ORIGINAL: SMK-at-work

go any of those original airborne brigades left with airdrop capacity??!!

I did but I wasted it in Rumania...because I just wanted to drop it somewhere