FITE MOD 2010

[LLv34_Snefens]

ORIGINAL: Panama

I can see how German figures would be a problem since they had more than one place to send things. Are there any accurate sources that show what went where?

The Germans kept lists over what was sent where (which unit) and when, and these can be found at BA-MA in Freiburg or on microfilm at NARA. The lists were introduced by the Gen.Insp.d.Pz.Tr. beginning May 1943 and kept chronologically until April 1945.

If time was spent on looking through inventory and loss lists of units during the earlier years, you could also gather a pretty accurate list of numbers sent to the eastern front then, but it would be a lot of work.
And still it would be subject to interpretation, since some tanks could have fought on more than one front.

[madner]

ORIGINAL: LLv34_Snefens

ORIGINAL: madner

In game:
Pz-IIIG  166 + 282
Pz-IIIH 741 +224
Pz-IIIJ 984

In the scenario Early J is grouped together with the H model, hence the higher than historical ammount of that mark.
Late J includes late J, L and M. The N model is included in the Stu41 numbers.
In game is actually

Pz-IIIG: 282 Assigned + 166 On hand = 448 (74% of production)
Pz-IIIH: 741 Assigned + 224 produced = 965 (51% of production)
Pz-IIIJ: 757 Reinforcements + 992 produced = 1749 (88% of production)

And E and F?
F didn't see combat in France, so that are 435 more. They could probably be considered IIIG for the sake of the game.

The problem is that most of them got upgraded during the war, which TOAW can't do at the moment.
Considering the volume, if a custom equipment file is used, it would be better to consider all IIIH IIIJ(early), it was the largest batch.

With the ability of including a custom equipment file that could be fixed.

Anyone know what happened with the units that had pz-38 on the start of the campaign, when did they get they Pz-III?

[sPzAbt653]

pz-38t was phased out of front line service in pz div's in 1942. For a good general overview of all things panzer, check out

http://www.achtungpanzer.com/panzer-profiles-1917-1945

[Olorin]

I heartily agree with Fungwu and Panama on the production issue and I like Fungwu's suggestions. Just port some ideas from DnO. Also, the appearance of replacements in specific cities could be useful. For example, rifle squad cadres can periodically appear in all major cities. Tank cadres in tank producing cities etc. I am proposing the linking of production to events and not a generic rate which is tied with on map reductions and affects every aspect of production, be it infantry, tanks or airplanes.

[Karri]

Make the production historical, and reduce if cities are captured earlier than historical.
 
 
Also, who else thinks that the German tank regiments are completely useless? At least the starting ones. They lose a dozen tanks and take out maybe 1 or 2 T-34's...I think the equipment file needs to be edited to give them a little punching power to simulate the tactical proficiency.

[pionier]

German tank regiments are excellent weapons and suppirior when used the "right way". They are even in summer of 1942 an excellent weappon to crush soviet defence. (Only if you've got some left)

[madner]

The Pz-38 are crap for everything.
The rest are excellent, just not if there are any T-34 or KV-1.

Which isn't right when you consider this:

Causes of T-34 losses from June 1941 to September 1942 (expressed as % of total).
Weapon Calibre
20mm 37mm Short 50mm Long 50mm 75mm 88mm 105mm Unknown
% Lost 4.7 10 7.5 54.3 10.1 3.4 2.9 7.1

[Panama]

ORIGINAL: Karri

Make the production historical, and reduce if cities are captured earlier than historical.


Also, who else thinks that the German tank regiments are completely useless? At least the starting ones. They lose a dozen tanks and take out maybe 1 or 2 T-34's...I think the equipment file needs to be edited to give them a little punching power to simulate the tactical proficiency.

Soviet proficiency is way too high anyway. They sucked. Drop it where it should be and that should clear up the tank problem. [:)]

After the factory evacs you shouldn't mess with production except for Leningrad, Moscow and Stalingrad. Everything else is moved east. Unfortunately, using the replacement system as it is will not give good results by production penalties for cities since some cities produced one thing while another produced something else.

[Panama]

ORIGINAL: madner

The Pz-38 are crap for everything.
The rest are excellent, just not if there are any T-34 or KV-1.

Which isn't right when you consider this:

Causes of T-34 losses from June 1941 to September 1942 (expressed as % of total).
Weapon Calibre
20mm 37mm Short 50mm Long 50mm 75mm 88mm 105mm Unknown
% Lost 4.7 10 7.5 54.3 10.1 3.4 2.9 7.1

Pz-38 made a great Hetzer. [;)]

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: madner

The Pz-38 are crap for everything.
The rest are excellent, just not if there are any T-34 or KV-1.

Which isn't right when you consider this:

Code: Select all

 Causes of T-34 losses from June 1941 to  September 1942 (expressed as % of total).
 Weapon Calibre 
            20mm 37mm Short 50mm Long 50mm 75mm    88mm 105mm Unknown
 % Lost     4.7  10   7.5         54.3     10.1    3.4   2.9   7.1
 

We can quote figures like this from good sources? Cool. What source has figures like these? What a cool source.

[madner]

S. J. Zaloga, L.S. Ness, Red Army Handbook 1939-1945, Sutton Publishing, Stroud, UK, 1998, p. 179, table 6.1. Also, T. Bean, W. Fowler, Russian Tanks of WWII-Stalin’s Armoured Might, Ian Allan Publishing, London, 2002, appendix, p. 171 [:)]

[madner]

The German MP and Motorcycle squads should have 4 or 5 soft attack and high defense. All German MP had regular infantry training and equipment. So the proficiency should be higher as well. 

The Kraftrad units again had the same proportion of light MG as regular infantry, so they combat value shouldn't be lower.

Doubt it would make much of a difference, but every bit could count.

[Panama]

The unit mix you get with the game is very generic. To get specific you have to make your own.

[madner]

I know, but that seems to be quite easily doable now [:)]

E.g. looking at Directive 21 there are Rumenian, Hungarian, Finish infantry squads with they own replacement rate which is very nice and realistic.

[madner]

I propose to modify the equipment file to give the Pz-III and Pz-IV enhanced targeting (1), and remove the poor geometry flag. As it will be only used for  the scenario we don't need to worry about keeping the proportions with further tanks.
I added a Kraftradschutzen Squad to simulate German motorcycle units, giving them an AP value (in the editor) of 40, in between the values of Heavy Rifle Squad and Heavy Rifle AT- Squad.
The reason is that according to the 1938 KStN they had double the MG-34 per squad assigned.


A second proposal would be to merge the kraftrad and recon abteilung into one unit in German panzer and PzG units. The reason are three fold, first it would prevent the German player from dividing both units for encirclement purposes. The second purpose is to be closer to the kampfgrupe formed around the recon unit, which will make it much harder to overrun it. And the third purpose is that this really happened 1942.

Third proposal is to merge the MP units, to make them both useful versus partisans and less useful for blocking major advances.

[Panama]

I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that an average Axis player could capture Leningrad, Moscow and Kharkov in the first year of the campaign. After all, even with the Axis High Command and supply holding back the German army these cities came extremely close to falling. Presumably the Axis player would avoid the mistakes of the High Command. It's probably easier for the Axis player to overcome the mistakes made by their historic other selves than it is for the Soviets.

The Soviet mistakes were much more material when compared to the Axis. Poor supply was suffered by both sides. But the Soviets also suffered poor leadership at all levels, poor equipment especially in the most important fields of armor and aircraft. A distinct lack of manuever. A mobilization plan that was made a shambles as soon as the Germans crossed the border. A lack of training in all fields of combat. A communications deficit that was crippling and forced Soviet formations to adhere to pre invasion war plans that were unsuited to the situation at best. The list goes on and on.

I have to ask myself if it is incorrect to feel the scenario is unbalanced if the Axis player manages to achieve most of the historic objectives of Barbarossa. Perhaps I should consider the scenario unbalanced if the Axis player does not meet his historic goals given the fact that he is unrestrained by a tentative and vascilating High Command. Then the Soviet winter offensive and the second year of the campaign become the focus of whether or not the scenario is unbalanced.

Does this sound right or should I change to a different beer? (throws another empty can in the trash)

[madner]

The unbalance is due to the scenario mechanic, and the excessive Red Army replacement. There is no need for the Sovjet player to risk much, and hence it is possible to use the pullback strategy. 

[Panama]

ORIGINAL: I have to ask myself if it is incorrect to feel the scenario is unbalanced if the Axis player manages to achieve most of the historic objectives of Barbarossa. Perhaps I should consider the scenario unbalanced if the Axis player does not meet his historic goals given the fact that he is unrestrained by a tentative and vascilating High Command. Then the Soviet winter offensive and the second year of the campaign become the focus of whether or not the scenario is unbalanced.

ORIGINAL: madner

The unbalance is due to the scenario mechanic, and the excessive Red Army replacement. There is no need for the Sovjet player to risk much, and hence it is possible to use the pullback strategy. 

Please bother to read what I said.

[SMK-at-work]

Hi folks - coming late to this after not playing FITE for a couple of years. I helped Buzz with his mods, especially in regard to Soviet a/c production, so I've got a comment or 2 to make

Buzz's Soviet a/c production is completely accurate given the historical loss of cities as described in the design doc's for the original scenario.

As far as I could tell from various histories of the air war the Soviet had complete air superiority by the end if 1942 except where the LW made an effort to deny it, and from the end of 1943 onwards the LW couldn't even do that except for a day or 2 at a time on extremely limited areas.

I'm pretty sure most gamers vastly over rate the LW on the Eastern Front, and under rate the VVS, in terms of achieving air superiority - if not in terms of actual kills scored!

IMO the quality of VVS (Soviet Air Force) operations can only be regulated by a low shock value - there simply is nothing else in TOAW that will let you balance things out to achieve a potential historical result if everything went according to the historical plan.

One of the main problems for the land forces is that there is nothing covering reliability/serviceability. IIRC Glantz has figures for how many "runners" the various Sov Mech & Tank units had at the start of barbarossa, for example, and most of them are pitifully weak - not like the big and strong units in FITE! Moreover judicious resting of those Mech corps can create some fearsome units- not many of them, and not well organised...but they can do some damage if handled well....as most sov players will strive very hard to do!

He also gives some examples of how far they could move before almost everything had broken down....and it wasn't very far! Whereas Sov players will rest them until green, move to somewhere strategic, then rest again - working very hard to get the most out of their limited survivability!

Anyway - I'm looking forward to practising up on TOAW again for a bit, and getting back into Barbarossa

[Panama]

If you want to see how 'well' the Soviet mech units fared in the border battles in the south read The Bloody Triangle by Victor J. Kamenir. It covers till July 2. Very good read.