War in the East Q&A

[CarnageINC]

I've been messing around with the tutorial, How do you unattach support units from HQ units, putting them back into a general pool of support units?  Or is this not possible in the tutorial?

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

ORIGINAL: CarnageINC

I've been messing around with the tutorial, How do you unattach support units from HQ units, putting them back into a general pool of support units?  Or is this not possible in the tutorial?

Support units can be dalth with manualy (via expending APs) and automatically (via using "Support Level" settings)!

Also there is no "pool" per se - the higher order HQs host the support units with top level HQs (for example Stavka) being the further the Support unit can go...

Please note that all Support units move using the chain of comand tree (both up and down)

Thus:
Division / Corps <-> Corps HQ <-> Army HQ <-> Army Group / Front HQ <-> Topmost HQ

Leo "Apollo11"

[ComradeP]

You can artificially create a pool by placing the support units in a locked HQ, which can be very useful if you want to have all support units of a certain kind in a certain HQ. For example, I don't want to lose sapper regiments as the Soviets, so I park all of them in Western Front until I can assign them to corps. I have some peculiar habits when it comes to support units, though, as I also disband most battalions and the motorcycle regiments.

[Speedysteve]

Hi guys,
&nbsp;
Random&nbsp;question - playing the Leningrad scenario and I just thought whilst taking all the little town's that have a Manpower rating of 1. I thought "I assume that by taking them it will have a tiny impact on the soviet replacements"?
&nbsp;
May be tiny but it is factored in for every little town's 'production' right?

[GuderianTA]

How do i build new divisions from my units pool? it does not seems that i can. However, i need more units... does the game model this by just creating them for me?

[Zovs]

You need to have the admin cost to build them. See page 181-182 in the manual (12.2.4)

[Zovs]

Oh and 26.2 (page 309) for creatable units

[Tzar007]

ORIGINAL: amatteucci

I was surprised too about that restriction at first. I thought: "Wait, we have powerful computers to instantly calculate troop and equipement densities and here we resort to this simplicistic boardgame-like stacking rule?".
But, after examining the rules about Soviet Corps' formation and trying how stacking actually works in the tutorial, I realized that it was a simple yet elegant solution to the actual problem on how to represent doctrinal limitations and historical unit frontages.

Let's consider soviet Rifle Divisions, just for example.
In 1941 a Soviet Rifle Division was expected to defend a sector of 14-20km deployed in a single echelon (I'm quoting figures from "Soviet Military Operational Art - In pursuit of Deep Battle" by col. D. Glantz) while attacked in sectors 5-6km wide. Considering that a game hex is 16km (10 miles) wide, the aforementioned figures mean one Rifle Division per hex in defense and three Rifle Divisions per hex in attack. Game staking works.
But it's not the end of the story. Starting from 1942 Soviet Rifle Divisions attack frontages began to shrink. From the 5-6km of 1941 and 3-4km in 1942 to 1.5-2km in 1945! That means that by the end of the war, the Red Army typically massed while attacking, in a given sector, three times the riflemen it was able (due to training and doctrine) to mass at the start of Barbarossa. In the game you can do too this consolidating three Rifle Divisions into a single Corps, and this without changing the basic stacking rules. The additional benefit is that it is impossible, for the Soviet player, to use hindsight and force its unit to use tactics they were simply not taught or trained to in 1941. The same thing could, more or less, be said for mechanized formations.

Summing up, in my opinion, this is probably the best solution to the density problem, given the constraint of an hex&counter type wargame.

Thanks Amateucci for these details. I must admit like others that I was really puzzled at the stacking rule. I was thinking: heck, if you can stack up 90,000 Soviet soldiers in the space represented by a hex if they are into 3 Corps, why can't you stack 9 divisions also totalling 90,000 soldiers ? Same amount of soldiers, same space available, no ? So my first reaction was, what's the point or purpose of that rule ?

But the historical details you bring forward shed a different perspective on this. It's even more true when the game actually restricts the formation of various types of corps to specific dates (for example, rifle corps not available before June 1942). So now at least there seems to be a basic historical reality to justify this rule.

[ComradeP]

Random question - playing the Leningrad scenario and I just thought whilst taking all the little town's that have a Manpower rating of 1. I thought "I assume that by taking them it will have a tiny impact on the soviet replacements"?

Normally, every town with manpower that you capture will have an impact, even if a large part of the manpower migrates. In RtL however, the impact will be minimal due to the short duration of the scenario and most reinforcements technically coming from off (playable) map areas.

[Lützow]

Out of curiousity: what are (German) Finnish divisions?

[ComradeP]

The 163rd is a German division that fought together with the Finnish army. The bulk of the German forces in northern Norway/Finland at the time are not on the map, as the Murmansk front isn't included.

I don't know why the division is a Finnish division in terms of TOE, or why it has the Finnish nationality. It was explained on the developer forum, but I forgot it.

Edit: it's probably because otherwise it would be able to attack across the no attack line. A "customized" TOE could be used for it to make it identical to the other German infantry divisions, instead of a Finnish division, in a future patch, as that's something that could use some improvement.

[Lützow]

Ok, that makes sense. Just wondered about German units fighting in Finnish ranks.

[PDiFolco]

I don't find any clear recent info about shipped scenarios ...What do we have ? I'm not sure the big campaign is for me, it's too huge and long, I'd prefer smaller things...

[ComradeP]

1941, 1942, 1943, 1944 campaigns, all from the start to 1945.
Operation Blue (basically the 1942 campaign's active part of the front with a smaller playable map area).
Road to Dnepropetrovsk (AGS campaign in 1941, essentially a longer version of Road to Kiev)
Road to Kiev (AGS in 1941)
Road to Smolensk (AGC and some minor AGN forces in 1941)
Road to Leningrad (AGN and some minor AGC forces in 1941)
Road to Minsk (AGC in 1941, short 3 turns scenario).
Velikie Luki tutorial scenario (AGC in 1943, small playable map area and short scenario).
Operation Typhoon (primarily AGC operation starting in Autumn 1941 and lasting until early 1942)
Operation Barbarossa (essentially the 1941 campaign, but ending in the winter).

Aside from Velikie Luki and Operation Typhoon, all scenarios use the same start point as the main campaign for that year.

[amatteucci]

tio

ORIGINAL: Tzar007

Thanks Amateucci for these details. I must admit like others that I was really puzzled at the stacking rule. I was thinking: heck, if you can stack up 90,000 Soviet soldiers in the space represented by a hex if they are into 3 Corps, why can't you stack 9 divisions also totalling 90,000 soldiers ? Same amount of soldiers, same space available, no ? So my first reaction was, what's the point or purpose of that rule ?

But the historical details you bring forward shed a different perspective on this. It's even more true when the game actually restricts the formation of various types of corps to specific dates (for example, rifle corps not available before June 1942). So now at least there seems to be a basic historical reality to justify this rule.

And there's also another subtlety. When attacking with Rifle forces to create a breakthrough, the Red Army used small armour formations to support infantry forces without having to use the larger units (Tank or Mechanized Corps) that were reserved for exploitation. In 1942 these support formations were typically separate tank brigades while, later in the war, they were separate tank regiments. While there was little difference between a brigade and a regiment in reality, in game terms these units behave very diffenently since brigades have a counter while tank regiment can be attached directly to combat units. This means that if I want to support a Rifle Corps attack in 1942 with a Tank Brigade I will end up with two Rifle Corps and one Tank Brigade in one hex, while, if I want to support a Rifle Corps attack in, say, 1944 with an Independent Tank Regiment I won't have to reserve further stacking space for tank formations thus allowing for three Rifle Corps in a single hex. This means that, with the same stacking rule (three counters per hex), I am still able to recreate the changing historical frontages, troop densities and depth of echelonment.

[Speedysteve]

I'm playing Typhoon and noticed that Voronezh had a blank Industry line?

[ComradeP]

Good catch. West Moscow has it too, and browsing through the production screen corrected it somehow as it disappeared, must be some production glitch. I'll bug it.

[Joel Billings]

ORIGINAL: amatteucci

tio

ORIGINAL: Tzar007

Thanks Amateucci for these details. I must admit like others that I was really puzzled at the stacking rule. I was thinking: heck, if you can stack up 90,000 Soviet soldiers in the space represented by a hex if they are into 3 Corps, why can't you stack 9 divisions also totalling 90,000 soldiers ? Same amount of soldiers, same space available, no ? So my first reaction was, what's the point or purpose of that rule ?

But the historical details you bring forward shed a different perspective on this. It's even more true when the game actually restricts the formation of various types of corps to specific dates (for example, rifle corps not available before June 1942). So now at least there seems to be a basic historical reality to justify this rule.

And there's also another subtlety. When attacking with Rifle forces to create a breakthrough, the Red Army used small armour formations to support infantry forces without having to use the larger units (Tank or Mechanized Corps) that were reserved for exploitation. In 1942 these support formations were typically separate tank brigades while, later in the war, they were separate tank regiments. While there was little difference between a brigade and a regiment in reality, in game terms these units behave very diffenently since brigades have a counter while tank regiment can be attached directly to combat units. This means that if I want to support a Rifle Corps attack in 1942 with a Tank Brigade I will end up with two Rifle Corps and one Tank Brigade in one hex, while, if I want to support a Rifle Corps attack in, say, 1944 with an Independent Tank Regiment I won't have to reserve further stacking space for tank formations thus allowing for three Rifle Corps in a single hex. This means that, with the same stacking rule (three counters per hex), I am still able to recreate the changing historical frontages, troop densities and depth of echelonment.

Another option is to put units in reserve behind the attacking units and they may join into the attack. This works best for motorized units, so something to consider doing with extra tank brigades.

[amatteucci]

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings
Another option is to put units in reserve behind the attacking units and they may join into the attack. This works best for motorized units, so something to consider doing with extra tank brigades.

Yes, as it was said, it's useful to see stacking in terms of frontage, assuming that units earmarked for an assault and echeloned behind the first line ones could be "overstacked" using the reserve mode.

[madgamer2]

As of this date(1-11-11) is the shipping version still 1.0? Does the game have an updater in the game folder?

Madgamer2