Soviet Production

[Die Kriegerin]

I know I'm beating a dead horse, but historicly Soviet tank production in this game is way to low. Even If I convert the T-70 factories to T-34's, by late "42" I'm only producing 180 a week. Historicly the Soviet's produced 240-260 a week, and still produced 80 to 100 light tanks a week. The KV's, though are ok? Thought???

God I love this game
Jon

[Jeremy Pritchard]

In order to effect production you must change the cost of the individual tank/unit. Cost does not necessarily reflect the cost of materials and labour required to put together the vehicle, but also shows determination of the high command to put effort toward a specific vehicle/aircraft. Logically, based on labour and materials your factories should be producing more Light tanks then Medium tanks. However, we all know that a single T-34 facoty produced more then all of the T-70 factories combined. However, as the game measures cost, the bigger the tank/plane, the more it costs.

Cost in regards to political concerns (ie., with the P-39 Airacobra in USAAF service) should be included. The T-34 should have a much lower cost to reflect the effort of the Soviet military industry to produce it in large numbers. Individual factories producing the T-34 were expanded much larger and faster then other tanks. As the game stands, the only way to get more production out of the T-34 factories is to change other tank factories to produce it.

If you want a higher and more realistic production level for tanks, and even aircraft, tweak the cost levels so that the historic number of T-34's are produced without resorting to unhistoric things (turning all factories to produce it!).

[cimamc]

I'm adding this to this thread to minimize # of posts. What are your thoughts about moving factories as the soviets? I used to do this religiously. But since factories only retain a value of "1" once they're in the Urals, why bother? For instance, moving an artillery factory of "15" only results in a "1" 12 months down the road. Maybe just keep it where it is and try to get an extra week or two out of it for production. Am I overlooking anything here?

P.S. - I like the KV1E tank early on in 7/41

Mark

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by cimamc
I'm adding this to this thread to minimize # of posts. What are your thoughts about moving factories as the soviets? I used to do this religiously. But since factories only retain a value of "1" once they're in the Urals, why bother?

Not true, they will grow in the Urals, including the Heavy Industry, but they don't grow fast enough. Its a valid point.

[Muzrub]

German vs. Soviet AFV losses - 1941-45.


Period: Ratio:
06/41-02/42 1:5.0
03/42-05/42 1:6.6
06/42-10/42 1:7.9
11/42-03/43 1:1.3
04/43-08/43 1:5.7
09/43-11/43 1:2.5
12/43-06/44 1:1.4
07/44 1:4.0
08/44 1:2.0
09/44 1:1.0
10/43-11/44 1:1.3


If these ratio's were reflected in the game then the Soviets would have no tanks at all!
Production needs to be increased!

[RickyB]

But they are not reflected in the game in those rations, at least in any game I have ever played. The combat model is nowhere near sophisticated enough to come close to realistic losses unfortunately.

[Die Kriegerin]

The U.S. gave the Soviets 8000 Aircobra's during the war. Thats an average of 45 a week, can some tell me where I can find them?

Jon

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by Die Kriegerin
The U.S. gave the Soviets 8000 Aircobra's during the war. Thats an average of 45 a week, can some tell me where I can find them?

I believe the number was closer to 5000 not 8000, but you're point is still valid.

[Die Kriegerin]

Ed, I stand corrected. Guess I had a brain fart. Re-checked my source, but they did it before May of 44. So on the average its still over 40.

Jon

[davewolf]

Originally posted by Die Kriegerin
The U.S. gave the Soviets 8000 Aircobra's during the war. Thats an average of 45 a week, can some tell me where I can find them?

At least there is one Airacobra 'factory' in Possum's modified WIR. Of course this one cannot provide that many planes.

[Jeremy Pritchard]

You can beef up supplies of tanks and aircraft by modifying the cost of these vehicles. The lower the cost, the higher the number that a factory can produce. Increasing heavy industry should also increase production.

I think that it is also possible to have factories start off at high production instead of having them build up to it. This would increase production to realistic levels.

The Russians should have no trouble in producing tanks and aircraft. With the limited number of factories avalible, the only way in getting the true number of tanks out there is to skew cost to fit historical production.

[sw30]

Hmm, I just came back from a long hiatus of no WiR (my old comp didn't like it ) But got a question for everyone, If you don't get historical losses (and let's face it, the WiR battle losses don't give historical losses) then why would you need historical production?

Jeff

[Jeremy Pritchard]

Maybe losses need to be modified?

How would you do this? Mess with some of the tank attack and defence strengths. If a certain tank is too easily killed in high numbers, then maybe its defence value is too low. If they are too hard to kill, possibly its level is too high.

Experience also limits losses. The lower the experience, the more losses. If something does not seem to fit, then it needs to be changed, as maybe it is modeled wrong.

[Die Kriegerin]

Jeff we need both. But to just saying we don't have historic losses, doesn't help us. Where do you see the problem. Don't sound like my wife, (Just kidding), they do that. There is wisdom in numbers. There is alot more info out there now, and alot more people looking at it. We love this game and know there are changes needed. So be more exact. Don't take it wrong, like the old Dragnet series "Just the facts mam".

Jon

[RickyB]

Jon,

The data Muzrub posted on tank losses, which I also have, shows the Soviets losing somewhere in excess of 5 tanks for every German tank in the first year of the war. In WIR, you are lucky if the ratio is 2 to 1. Unfortunately, changing tank ratings is not going to fix this ratio, unless maybe the early panzers are made as tough as Tigers which won't work, because then why build any Tigers.

In my experience, the Soviets always have plenty of tanks in reserve, so what is the point of increasing their production? It won't make them tougher, unless the Soviet tank units can hold more tanks, or there are many more units. The current Soviet production may be 25-30% to low, but losses are way to low also, so it is not a key deficiency in my mind, until combat is made more realistic. I say this based, for example, on the T34. I believe around 40,000 were built in 4 years, or 200 per week on average for the whole war, and getting the factories up to 150-175 without any changes is fairly easy (at least pre 3.2). On the other hand, there is wide agreement that German production is too high, and that is much more of a gamebreaker, and something that can/should be tweaked if at all possible while allowing the later production to increase realistically.

[Ed Cogburn]

In addition to what Rick said, there is also another factor the game doesn't handle well, and that is non-combat attrition. This is especially true for German AFVs during Barbarossa and the blizzards of '41-'42. The Germans lost a lot of their tanks to maintenence problems, not to combat. WIR, as we know, doesn't show attrition effects at all.

As for production, it will be easier to partially simulate history by reducing German production than increasing Soviet production for reasons Rick gave. Or at least a lot of the former and a little bit of the latter. Making Soviet units use more tanks if they are available is an idea that should be investigated, though.

[Die Kriegerin]

Ed, I think if you got the production, and replacements correct, you could then get the control group, to see how the other factors in this game could be ajusted to reflect history. Lets not put the cart before the horse.

Jon

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by Die Kriegerin
Ed, I think if you got the production, and replacements correct, you could then get the control group, to see how the other factors in this game could be ajusted to reflect history. Lets not put the cart before the horse.

Actually, the thing that needs to be nailed down first is combat and operational losses, not production. If combat is produciing too many or too few losses that will skew the production in either extreme. I can't say how bad the combat in WIR is accurate in terms of losses, but the lack of operational losses, or attrition, is skewing production right now. It seems to me we're producing too many tanks on the German side mainly because of a lack of attrition. Later on, in games where the Soviets survived well, the Soviets are at a disadvantage because their formations won't use larger numbers of tanks because the code handling this is being used for both sides. Those are my concerns anyway.

[cimamc]

This is a question about equipment pools. I figure it falls somewhere under production. I found myself with over 2000 Lagg-3 fighters in my pool. But no fighter group using this plane. So I changed one of them I-2's or something with the Laggs. Next turn they were switched to Migs by the computer. Is there a trick to this? I never tried this before. Thanks. Mark

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by cimamc
This is a question about equipment pools. I figure it falls somewhere under production. I found myself with over 2000 Lagg-3 fighters in my pool. But no fighter group using this plane. So I changed one of them I-2's or something with the Laggs. Next turn they were switched to Migs by the computer. Is there a trick to this? I never tried this before. Thanks. Mark

You need to take over manual control of production and upgrades to stop this. Its "Shift-F" in the game.