European Theatres of Operations Game 2

[82ndtrooper]

In the north my airborne army with attached division from the regular Wehrmacht are advancing north to Oslo.

Also all that supply that is being destroyed is from that sub that is sitting outside Oslo. The AS range is pretty big.

[82ndtrooper]

here my newly created 11th army is moving towards the capital of Sweden and this picture shows why it was so important that my airborne operation take the island its a long way and from the island the Luftwaffe can provide air cover right to the capital.

PS: i don't charge extra for the fancy arrows they are free.

[82ndtrooper]

The Hungarians are moving into position in the Center of the Russian border. They have 3 armies but they are quite small only 3 divisions each I am trying to make each of them another infantry division and a small artillery division for support.

[82ndtrooper]

here is a look at Finland and yes Finland came online for me last turn YAY !!

the Finnish divisions are very nice and should really be nasty in a fight.

[82ndtrooper]

Grumpy take a look at my last try to activate Italy

[82ndtrooper]

and here notice the activation number is -25 ???? is that an error or did you design it to go in the negative ?

[82ndtrooper]

and just for fun and in case anyone is interested this is a look at my current unit totals. Its quite a big military I have so its no wonder its so hard to keep it supplied in the winter.

[82ndtrooper]

and scrolled down

[GrumpyMel]

ORIGINAL: 82ndtrooper

what does the lend lease supply things that the allies can produce do ? 

If the Allies ship them to the base they have north of Murmansk. They turn into supplies, trucks & trains delivered to the Soviet HQ at Murmansk.

I thought about including some combat units too (p39's and M3's or M5's) but if I remember right I decided against putting them in. The non-combat stuff was the most important part of Lend-Lease anyways.

[GrumpyMel]

ORIGINAL: 82ndtrooper

and here notice the activation number is -25 ???? is that an error or did you design it to go in the negative ?

Yes,

Italy's activation number in the version that you are playing, I think is 10 (could be 15, but not higher then that...I don't have the scenerio in front of me at the moment). I uptweaked it a bit for the next version. Meaning you have to roll under that for an activation attempt to occur (the 6 in your second screenshot made it).

Once the activation attempt occurs, a 2nd roll takes place against it's currently neutrality. Each currentry has a neutrality modifier that it uses to adjust that roll and then compares it against that nations current neutrality to see joins the war. If the modified roll is higher then the curren neutrality, then it joins.

In the version that you are playing, I think Italy's neutrality modifier is -30 (I tweaked that a bit in the next version too). Meaning you must have roled a 5 (out of 100) on your neutrality roll in the 2nd screenshot...keeping Italy neutral.

From a meta-gaming perspective, not only do the seperate rolls allow for greater variation of results but they are used to represent seperate things. Activation represents how likely a nation is to want to intervene in the war (i.e. how belligerent it is). Neutrality represents how bad/good the conditions have to be for a particular side in order for that nation to consider joining.

So for example, if we look at the US. It's a nation who's leadership really wants to see an end to Facism (easy to Activate). However, the situation had to be pretty serious in order to convince the population that active participation was warrented (Strong Neutrality Mod).

In partical terms, that means if the Allies are doing fairly well (France and Britain are holding the line)...the U.S. is likely to stay out and mostly cheerlead from the sidelines. However things are looking really bad for the Allies (i.e. German troops are invading Britain) then it's likely to come in very quickly.

Compared to a nation like Sweden, which hadn't been involved in a War since the 1800's and wasn't very likely to intervene (difficult Activation) regardless of what the situation was (High Neutrality).

[82ndtrooper]

ok so you have to make the lend lease then ship them to the port at Murmansk ? and once they get to that port they change into what ever ?

this is interesting and could make for a nice battle if cargo ships didn't cost so much to make. It also makes Norway more important.

[RufusTFirefly]

ORIGINAL: GrumpyMel
We'll see what happens. Bare in mind that you can also tweak supply settings for units and determine which ones you want to feed and which ones you don't. One potential strategy is to pick the parts of your army that you think are not likely to get hit and just let them starve while you devote production to raising your war-footing, etc. You could even strat move units that you designate as non-combat ready to the rear and use them as a sort of reserve force.

It's entirely possible that 20 warfooting is too low...but that's what play-testing is all about. Bare in mind that 20 percent war footing does NOT mean that your units are fighting at 20 percent combat effectiveness. They would actualy be fighting at 60 percent. The formula is (100 + war footing)/2. Still no match for a german unit man for man, especialy if it's got experience.... but you should be able to afford to loose alot more men then germany can.

Please dont get me wrong. I am not complaining about the scenario. It is a great scenario and a lot of fun to play. And I enjopy having 82ndTrooper as opponent, how is doing very well attacks that force me to do my best to delay his advances.

I have pointed out what I guess might cause Russia to loose the war to show where a fine tuning might be necessary, but it is just my opinion. I might be completely wrong and only be too cautious. I really appreciate that there are comments of other palyers here and I think it is a very good discussion we have. It might help Grumpy to improve the scenario as well as I am still learning a lot. So keep on with comments and critics. I will write about my strategy and the result, so you can judge how the way Russia survives this war or not is influeneced by scenario setting and by my kind of strategy and performance.

Another reason why I want to describe the situation of Russia in detail is to give all readers an impression how it plays on Russian side and give an idea about the caracter of the scenario. And that is what 82ndTrooper does as well - thats why we posted screenshots of the fighters, for example.

It is too early to post some screenshots from Russia or the eastern part of the Med Sea, but I have saved some and will place them here when we have done some more turns. Meanwhile Greece, Sweden and Norway are fighting to survive but loose more and more ground. In the background Britain and the remaining French colonies prepare for a return to the continent. But it is a long term strategy and I am really curious to see whether it will work or not.

[krupp_88mm]

thanks rufus looking very much forward to seeing it played out its an epic scenario broken or not
dont worry were not judging any failures we know this is just beta and untweaked, need to play it out to get it right!! good luck

[GrumpyMel]

ORIGINAL: RufusTFirefly

ORIGINAL: GrumpyMel
We'll see what happens. Bare in mind that you can also tweak supply settings for units and determine which ones you want to feed and which ones you don't. One potential strategy is to pick the parts of your army that you think are not likely to get hit and just let them starve while you devote production to raising your war-footing, etc. You could even strat move units that you designate as non-combat ready to the rear and use them as a sort of reserve force.

It's entirely possible that 20 warfooting is too low...but that's what play-testing is all about. Bare in mind that 20 percent war footing does NOT mean that your units are fighting at 20 percent combat effectiveness. They would actualy be fighting at 60 percent. The formula is (100 + war footing)/2. Still no match for a german unit man for man, especialy if it's got experience.... but you should be able to afford to loose alot more men then germany can.

Please dont get me wrong. I am not complaining about the scenario. It is a great scenario and a lot of fun to play. And I enjopy having 82ndTrooper as opponent, how is doing very well attacks that force me to do my best to delay his advances.

I have pointed out what I guess might cause Russia to loose the war to show where a fine tuning might be necessary, but it is just my opinion. I might be completely wrong and only be too cautious. I really appreciate that there are comments of other palyers here and I think it is a very good discussion we have. It might help Grumpy to improve the scenario as well as I am still learning a lot. So keep on with comments and critics. I will write about my strategy and the result, so you can judge how the way Russia survives this war or not is influeneced by scenario setting and by my kind of strategy and performance.

Another reason why I want to describe the situation of Russia in detail is to give all readers an impression how it plays on Russian side and give an idea about the caracter of the scenario. And that is what 82ndTrooper does as well - thats why we posted screenshots of the fighters, for example.

It is too early to post some screenshots from Russia or the eastern part of the Med Sea, but I have saved some and will place them here when we have done some more turns. Meanwhile Greece, Sweden and Norway are fighting to survive but loose more and more ground. In the background Britain and the remaining French colonies prepare for a return to the continent. But it is a long term strategy and I am really curious to see whether it will work or not.

As the scenerio designer, I am VERY appreciative of the work you guys are putting in to play test as well as this awesome AAR. Your comments and the comments of the other posters here are incredibly helpfull. In fact, I've made a number of tweaks already based on comments here and the other ETO threads.

Russia, IS a very hard one to get right for a scenerio designer, IMO.... probably tougher then any other part of the War. As has already been excellently pointed out.... the situation should feel pretty bleak for the Russian player at start, if the scenerio is going to model the conflict well.

On the other hand, as the Axis player....looking at the vast size of the starting Russian Army and the vast territory you've got to conquer...It probably feels like you've just been tasked with emptying out a swimming pool with a spoon [:)]. I know when designing the scenerio...that's the impression I got when looking at Russia.

Anyway, no way to really know until we've seen some play tests....and I'd be astounded if I actually did get the balance right on the first try. So I expect that likely there will need to be some tweaking. The question will be what and how much.

I know one thing though....I'm very much looking forward to reading how Barbarossa plays out between you 2 skilled generals.

I'm already pleased with one thing... the somewhat randomness of country activations does seem to be having the intended effect of forcing players to think on thier feet and adjust thier plans.

I imagine things would be quite a bit different in the game at this point if Turkey and Sweden had stayed out...and Italy activated for the Axis instead.

[82ndtrooper]

yes the random country activation has really made for a very interesting game for me.  I have to say again that if i hadn't had those three airborne armies and the 21 transports (19 left) I would really be in a jam. They have been a real life saver, giving me a rapid reaction force and rapid movement for my regular armies. I highly recommend their use for anyone that plays this scenario especially as the axis. As the axis time is against you so anything that speeds things up is a plus. Being an old trooper myself I have really enjoyed playing on a map where airborne units can be used to their full potential.

I also like the Alpine units and look forward to seeing how they perform in winter conditions. The Finns should give us a good idea when they attack. In fact the whole Infantry concept is excellent, it allows you to create units for specific roles. For example when I attacked the Maginot Line I had taken the 1st army and basically turned it into a shock army by reinforcing all my infantry divisions with a lot of assault Infantry, they where all composed of 30 regular Inf. 10 assault Inf. 5 heavy weapon Inf. 1 infantry gun, 1 AT gun and 2 horses.  This was the reason that the Maginot line just disintegrated.  It was expensive to accomplish but really worth it in the end (the 1st Army took about 40% casualties).The key to a successful invasion of France is to hit everywhere hard and fast and just ignore losses, Germany has the ability to replace losses much faster than France does. So deal as much damage as you can as fast as you can and France and the Low Countries will collapse.

In this scenario Infantry RULES In fact during my invasion of western Europe I almost never attacked with my armor. I used it to mainly encircle and to defend my spearhead infantry units. I only attacked other armor units and infantry units if I caught them out in the open, easily 90% of all attacks where done with my infantry. Only two or three times in the entire game have i attacked a town with armor and that was only because it was all I had available. I point this out because i feel like this is playing very accurately as to how things worked Historically.  This was pretty much the whole concept of Blitzkrieg, The panzer units raced by and drove deep behind enemy lines causing fear and confusion and the infantry did the majority of the fighting. Properly designed infantry units in this scenario have no trouble taking out armor units either. I also like the fact that heavy weapon Infantry is front line and takes a lot of losses. This prevents the dreaded mortar super-stacks. Your super stack would last only one or two attacks plus its cost prohibitive. The unit creation is very flexible and is one thing that makes this scenario a joy to play.

The air war originally was really daunting and it took a while to figure it out. New players will take huge aircraft losses to start but you do learn how to limit those losses, but sometimes as in real life you just have to accept heavy losses to accomplish the mission. I haven't yet been able to focus on any kind of extended bombing campaign but I expect it will be costly to do. There is a strategy involved however, its not just send a bunch of bombers to attack and see how things turn out. If you do that you wont have many bombers return.

The production for Germany seems about right for me now, Initially I had serious misgivings about it but once again with some experiance I have learned how to work it so I can cover my needs. I dont have any extra though and that seems about right also. But remember that I have been doing all this without Italy and Italy has a lot of production available.

This brings me to wonder about Russia and the fact that the west cant spare much for the lend lease that would help Russia get by the start when its war footing is so low. In the other game I am playing as the west I feel like i have a surplus of production. Rufus must be hatching a real surprise for me !

The navy we have already talked about, basically its too expensive for Germany to replace any losses so I am really limited on what I can do with it. Once again Italy could ease this situation.

So that's my thoughts on the game for now.

[RufusTFirefly]

August 41

The situation for Leningrad Military District is a typical one for the Soviet mian headquarters. The smaller ones even lack of staff as well as of supply.

[RufusTFirefly]

Sep 41

Axis forces eliminated the defenders in the northern part of Greece and reached the outskirts of Athens. Corinth and Parta are cut off from the capital. British Middle East Command sent a task force to Athens to support the Greece army. The battleships HMS Warspite, HMS Malaya and HMS Royal Sovereign attacked the enemy forces northwest of Athens are made them suffer heavy losses. The carrier HMS Eagle provides air cover. Although fihgters of the RAF tried to clear the skies from any interceptors, several bombers got lost in the following attack against the units northwest of Athens.

[82ndtrooper]

The Battle for Greece has become interesting. This is one place where I really could use Italy as an ally because they have a very strong Navy. Right now Germany is at a disadvantage with only air to counter the strong combined fleet of the French and British in the area.

I attempted one air strike with 5 JU88-A and 6 CantZ-506 and the results where not as good as I had hoped losing 5 planes and only sinking 1 french Cruiser. However both units where new and low on XP. I had hoped the JU88's would do a better job surviving then they did. They would have been a good dual purpose bomber and naval attack plane if they had. I did find out that 11 planes is not quite enough for a valid air strike against a fleet.

[82ndtrooper]

this was the situation when I ended last turn. My forces are on the outskirts of Athens and face strong opposition. I know they will take a pounding from the allied Navy. The Wiking SS still has two divisions trying to catch up.

[82ndtrooper]

we took Oslo with heavy casualties.