Utter madness... if you didn't believe something was wrong before

[Oleg Mastruko]

I wonder how would the whiners and "determinists" explain the result of Allied invasion of Kiska, completely empty island, abandoned in secret before the invasion.

"On August 15, 1943, an invasion force consisting of 34,426 Allied troops, including elements of the 7th Infantry Division, 4th Infantry Regiment, 87th Mountain Combat team, 5,300 Canadians (the 6th and 7th Infantry Divisions), 95 ships (including three battleships and a heavy cruiser), and 168 aircraft landed on Kiska, only to find the island completely abandoned. The Japanese, aware of the loss of Attu and the impending arrival of the larger Allied force, had successfully removed their troops on July 28 under the cover of severe fog, without the Allies noticing. Allied casualties during this invasion nevertheless numbered close to 200, all either from friendly fire, booby traps set out by the Japanese to inflict damage on the invading allied forces, or weather-related disease. There were seventeen Americans and four Canadians killed from either friendly fire or booby traps, fifty more were wounded as a result of friendly fire or booby traps, and an additional 130 men came down with trench foot. The destroyer USS Abner Read hit a mine, resulting in 87 casualties."

Several hundered casualties.... over an empty island? [:D] No need for a Russian INF division supported by 203mms and IL-2s.

I cannot even imagine the outcry on the boards if OP and his pro-"super human"-Axis mates got this kind of result from a GAME.

[PMCN]

Just to show that this is not insane here is a sequence from my last turn.

58th Mnt Division is attacked by 57th, 71st, 218th, 298th Infantrie, 101st Jäger, 52 Torino IT Infantry, 108th Hun Sec division and the 2nd Fort RM Bde.  Fort level is 3 or so.
Axis airsupport: 18 Ftr, 9 Bmb
Soviet airsupport: 235 Ftr, 9 Bmb

Axis Troops: 92K men, 1146 guns, 0 Tanks
Soviet Troops: 15K men, 189 guns, 39 Tanks --the 155 Sep. Tank Bn was added in

Axis Losses: 1373 men, 36 guns, 0 Tanks
Soviet Losses: 3932 men, 119 guns, 22 Tanks

58th Mountain Division after retreating is attacked by the 23rd Panzer, 11th and 57th Infantrie divisions
Axis airsupport: 0 Ftr, 0 Bmb
Soviet airsupport: 145 Ftr, 35 Bmb

Axis Troops: 37K men, 375 guns, 169 Tanks
Soviet Troops: 14K men, 126 guns, 0 Tanks

Axis Losses: 595 men, 22 guns, 3 Tanks
Soviet Losses: 319 men, 11 guns, 0 Tanks

The 58th Mountain retreats to a position held by the 6th Tank Corp and the combined force faces off against the 2nd, 14th and 16th Panzer divisions.  Entrenchment level is probably 1.5 or so.
Axis airsupport: 0 Ftr, 0 Bmb
Soviet airsupport: 54 Ftr, 27 Bmb

Axis Troops: 35K men, 358 guns, 262 Tanks
Soviet Troops: 18K men, 172 guns, 162 Tanks

Axis Losses: 476 men, 3 guns, 5 Tanks
Soviet Losses: 2935 men, 62 guns, 72 Tanks

Lastly the 58th Mnt division and the 6th Tank Corps after retreating are hit by the 2nd, 9th, and 13th Pz Divisions.  Entrenchment level would again be minimal.
Axis airsupport: 0 Ftr, 0 Bmb
Soviet airsupport: 0 Ftr, 0 Bmb

Axis Troops: 31K men, 317 guns, 283 Tanks
Soviet Troops: 15K men, 117 guns, 102 Tanks

Axis Losses: 382 men, 5 guns, 16 Tanks
Soviet Losses: 705 men, 9 guns, 19 Tanks

The axis forces lost about the same amount in the last three fights.  Given the fact the Tank Corps was 2 or at most 3 weeks old its combat power was virtually nil...most of the troops had experiences below 20, and the tanks were only low 40s.  The initial loss of 72 tanks would have been every light tank in the formation (it had more then TOE because the 3 Bde the corps was made give you around that many add in a few T34s and KV1s damaged and lost in the retreat).

The losses vary somewhat but more so on the soviet side where the leaders retreat roll is the real question.  The losses of the post that started this are in line with what is seen here.  Attacking the soviets in 42 cause those level of losses that is all there is to it, I didn't watch the fights in detail because it was late but I could show another 4 battles with near identical results in fact I have one that replicates nearly exactly the battle at the start of this all...and the results are that the 2nd Pz division took 596 men, 8 guns and 4 tanks in losses pushing out the 46th Rifle (in its 3rd retreat of the week).

[mmarquo]

This thread is almost as entertaining as playing WITE [;)]

[MengJiao]

ORIGINAL: Oleg Mastruko

I wonder how would the whiners and "determinists" explain the result of Allied invasion of Kiska, completely empty island, abandoned in secret before the invasion.

"On August 15, 1943, an invasion force consisting of 34,426 Allied troops, including elements of the 7th Infantry Division, 4th Infantry Regiment, 87th Mountain Combat team, 5,300 Canadians (the 6th and 7th Infantry Divisions), 95 ships (including three battleships and a heavy cruiser), and 168 aircraft landed on Kiska, only to find the island completely abandoned. The Japanese, aware of the loss of Attu and the impending arrival of the larger Allied force, had successfully removed their troops on July 28 under the cover of severe fog, without the Allies noticing. Allied casualties during this invasion nevertheless numbered close to 200, all either from friendly fire, booby traps set out by the Japanese to inflict damage on the invading allied forces, or weather-related disease. There were seventeen Americans and four Canadians killed from either friendly fire or booby traps, fifty more were wounded as a result of friendly fire or booby traps, and an additional 130 men came down with trench foot. The destroyer USS Abner Read hit a mine, resulting in 87 casualties."

Several hundered casualties.... over an empty island? [:D] No need for a Russian INF division supported by 203mms and IL-2s.

I cannot even imagine the outcry on the boards if OP and his pro-"super human"-Axis mates got this kind of result from a GAME.

If subhuman arctic vegetation and fog caused anything to happen to the elite cream of creation...well I really can't imagine the streams of invective.

Surely it is enough to imagine somebody realizing there is a remote possibility that something might trouble the properly superhuman, elite, cream of the best, able-to-defeat-anything, Pz (notice I say 'Pz' not Panzer. but that apparently this should not be considered as in anyway suggesting there is anything non-Panzer about any Panzers. In fact if you have Panzers and some Panzers are PanzerGrenadiers then real panzers are PanzerPanzers and since there are Volkgrenadiers then PanzerGrenadiers are really PanzerPanzerGrenadiers so real Panzers are PanzerPanzerPanzers, hence Pz is a polite way of saying PanzerPanzerPanzer) and why stop at Divisions? Aren't entire civilizations what are really PanzerPanzerPanzer and since there are civilizations that are just cz then a PanzerPanzerPanzerCivilization is really a PanzerPanzerPanzerPanzer Civilization or a PzCz.
Anyway, nothing should ever be able to hinder or harm a PzCz or any of its manifestations. And where is there anything to the contrary? I've been reading Glantz and the memoirs of PanzerGeneral Eardnusse (who, by the way for your information, just in case you can read, was really there and you weren't and you can't read anyway) and nowhere does it say anything other than "the PzCz smashed (note the verb "smashed") anything you can imagine with less than 2 Panzers in its name.

[TulliusDetritus]

ORIGINAL: Marquo

This thread is almost as entertaining as playing WITE [;)]

NO, that is not true [8D]

But almost [:D]

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: Oleg Mastruko
I cannot even imagine the outcry on the boards if OP and his pro-"super human"-Axis mates got this kind of result from a GAME.

You must not read the right books. It is clear that, ahem, superhumans would not have suffered these casualties like the bumbling Americans and Canadians.

[Aurelian]

Such a mountain made out of a molehill of a non issue.

And the end result of the OP's batte was........... the Soviets lost

[MengJiao]

ORIGINAL: Aurelian

Such a mountain made out of a molehill of a non issue.

And the end result of the OP's batte was........... the Soviets lost

You don't seem to be seeing the true horror of the situation: those subhuman, virtually animalistic Stalinist riff-raff, in the open, sunning themselves while drinking alcholic spirits and not taking baths, withno training, people that Glantz admits made even trained anthropologists put on rubber gloves, people without the faintest idea there was even a war going on, people that the NVKD used to not even bother shooting since they were a waste of bullets, people who had been confused and isolated dozens of times without even knowing it, people who had been bombed inceasantly for years, people made deaf by their own zoological noises, managed to fire heavy artillery and call in airstrikes and actually do measurable damage to the most perfect creation of all time: the Panzer Division.

[cookie monster]

This thread is seriously wierd![:D]

As I said before those German Security divisions are a serious pain.

They give out some serious punishment.

Thanks for Joel writing about Hasty Attacks.

I only use hasty for follow up attacks on the same unit cos they are very bloody.

I'm playin the Soviets but Hasty attacks drain alot of manpower.

[bwheatley]

ORIGINAL: amatteucci

I agree with the fact that Soviet air and support artillery units alone could be accounted for the majority of the losses the German force suffered. Therefore the "crack Panzerdivision vs. puny Rifle Division" argument is a moot point.

What is strange? That a regiment of 19 Il-2 disabled eight German AFVs? Or that a Guards high power artillery regiment, armed with 24 203mm howitzers, caused a few hundreds of WIAs and KIAs against moving troops in the open?

As it was already said, the attached combat report screenshot is, by itself, insufficient in proving that there's something absolutely and unbelievably wrong with the game system.

I'm not saying that there's plenty of evidence that there's no problem with the game combat system itself, I'm saying that there's no evidence of a problem, yet. This because we don't know what happened exactly (i.e. what Soviet units scored the kills) and we don't know how probable was this result (one should run the very same attack a lot of times and compare the results).

I don't agree with the opinion that such a result should be impossible to obtain in all circumstances and, therefore, the game shouldn't allow for such an outcome, even once in a thousand times.
I can rationalize such a result without problems, no suspension of disbelief needed.

Having said so, I, once more, present the request of having the option of dumping combat detailed results dumped into text file logs. Nobody would actually run the game resolving combats with level 7 descriptions. But it would be interesting to have the option to review in detail some combats, to understand better how things work in WitE and to base this kind of discussions upon hard data and not just our guesses.

+1 for dumping detailed combat results to a log file to review later. Then you wouldn't have to run the battle super slow and high detail but if you get a weird result. You could immediately look into the combat log and see whats happened.

[Zovs]

sunning themselves while drinking alcoholic spirits and not taking baths

1. Sunning your self naked toughens your skin so that anything smaller then a 15mm will not penetrate your body
2. Drinking Vodka (or my favorite Scotch) increases your morale and endurance if drunk properly
3. Not taking baths ensures that you will then become waterproofed, as the natural oils in your body will help repel rain and snow

I try follow these concepts to ensure long health and happiness, my wife objects to item number 3 every few days and she won't let me do item number 1 in public anymore.

[;)]

[MengJiao]

ORIGINAL: dlazov66

sunning themselves while drinking alcoholic spirits and not taking baths

1. Sunning your self naked toughens your skin so that anything smaller then a 15mm will not penetrate your body
2. Drinking Vodka (or my favorite Scotch) increases your morale and endurance if drunk properly
3. Not taking baths ensures that you will then become waterproofed, as the natural oils in your body will help repel rain and snow

I try follow these concepts to ensure long health and happiness, my wife objects to item number 3 every few days and she won't let me do item number 1 in public anymore.

[;)]

On the other hand the inceassant zoological noises can deafen even the most hardened drunk.

[kirkgregerson]

I agree with the fact that Soviet air and support artillery units alone could be accounted for the majority of the losses the German force suffered. Therefore the "crack Panzerdivision vs. puny Rifle Division" argument is a moot point.

Well if 20 German Me 109 vs 10 Hurricans and 20 Il-2 can give the Sov some sort of incredible air superiority and air attack strength in 1942.. what happens in later when sov are flying 50 or more of Il-2s?

I have to laugh how many of you have twisted and morph'd this post into some other than what it was questioning. That's fine you want to goof on other people's legitimate concerns that's on you. I've still yet to see any proof in the context of the east front that this battle outcome could have occurred. So I guess since nobody can produce it, they just dance around and make fun of the thread starter like a bunch of immature children.

If the results are because this was a hasty attack according to Joel, that's good to know. I think that reduces the effectiveness of the German Panzer forces as historically they did act as fire brigades w/good success and were making 'hasty' type attacks in most situations after Case Blau.

If I need to be concerned about doing a hasty attacks with a well rested, elite Pz Div in WitE in 42 against a sov inf div in the open w/o entrenchment then I guess knowledge is power.

[;)]

[Vaxman]

ORIGINAL: bwheatley

+1 for dumping detailed combat results to a log file to review later. Then you wouldn't have to run the battle super slow and high detail but if you get a weird result. You could immediately look into the combat log and see whats happened.

+1 from me also!

[XAAL.]

ORIGINAL: kirkgregerson
If I need to be concerned about doing a hasty attacks with a well rested, elite Pz Div in WitE in 42 against a sov inf div in the open w/o entrenchment then I guess knowledge is power.
[;)]

All this does not make them bullet-proof against 203mm shells....Those heavy guns found their target, nothing extraordinary.
And afaik those Me109 were not equipped with radars able to track every plane flying every hour of the day. Those IL-2 could very well reach their target before being detected or intercepted.

Finally, the soviet inf division retreated and that Pz division sustained few losses, so I still dont get where the problem lies.

+1 for a more detailed combat report that could differentiate kills/diabled/disrupted.
+1 for dumping detailed combat results to a log file to review later.

[TulliusDetritus]

ORIGINAL: XAAL.

ORIGINAL: kirkgregerson
If I need to be concerned about doing a hasty attacks with a well rested, elite Pz Div in WitE in 42 against a sov inf div in the open w/o entrenchment then I guess knowledge is power.
[;)]

All this does not make them bullet-proof against 203mm shells....Those heavy guns found their target, nothing extraordinary.
And afaik those Me109 were not equipped with radars able to track every plane flying every hour of the day. Those IL-2 could very well reach their target before being detected or intercepted.

Finally, the soviet inf division retreated and that Pz division sustained few losses, so I still dont get where the problem lies.

+1 for a more detailed combat report that could differentiate kills/diabled/disrupted.
+1 for dumping detailed combat results to a log file to review later.

Psst mate, don't resurrect this thing or...

[kirkgregerson]

Finally, the soviet inf division retreated and that Pz division sustained few losses, so I still dont get where the problem lies.

I'm not sure 650 out of 12k is really few loses (5.4%) considering these are almost irreplaceable at that exp level. The problem is the sov player has rifle div coming out his ass and took about 500 loses. So if by throwing out a rifle div can 'at times' cause this many loses to the cream of the German Army.. can you see what the problem is now?

Sov can win this attrition war even faster in a manner that is IMO not realistic.

If that rifle div was in some better defensible terrain or maybe had some entrenchment.. then I guess I can see the loses mounting for the hasty attacking Pz Div. I guess others think this is fine. For me I'm not going to argue it anymore.. like I said.. now I know. My next games of WitE PBEM will be as sov then I can avoid all this nonsense and kick some axis butt ....

[:D]

[MechFO]

ORIGINAL: 76mm

ORIGINAL: MechFO
The problem for me is mainly that the relative losses and the combat result don't add up. RETREAT is defined in the manual as a forced displacement, I checked to be sure, and that definition is repeated ad nauseam. So this wasn't a delaying action (which is it's own discussion).

This was by any measure a highly successful defensive action, so it should be a HOLD.

If it really was a RETREAT, then German losses can still be rationalised, but Russian losses are way too low.

It seems to me like you are wrapped up in semantics, I don't think that the distinctions that you are making between a "HOLD", a "delaying action" and a "retreat" are necessarily valid.

The Sovs retreated, so I don't see why it should be a HOLD? And why couldn't a successful delaying action be shown in the game as a retreat? Delaying actions generally do involve moving backwards under enemy pressure, not staying in place.

Finally, I don't understand why everyone considers these Sov losses so unbelievably low. As stated in a previous post, these turns are a week long...how do we know that the Russians did not retreat at night, or in the fog? As far as I know, clear weather for a weekly turn does not mean sunshine 24/7...

Well, everything is ultimately a matter of opinion but,

the semantics matter because HOLD, RETREAT and delaying action implicate very different outcomes at the tactical level. This in turn determines what reasonable loss results can be expected. Unless one knows what the results are actually meant to represent, loss mechanics remain a black box which IMO they should not be.

A delaying action being represented by RETREAT doesn't make sense in terms of the game mechanics. There is no way to tell a unit that you would rather trade lower losses for real estate, or vice versa, and this is a critical distinction. Also there is no disengagement penalty during the movement phase. So IMO, and based on the manual, a delaying action is represented by a unit surviving an attack during the enemy phase, and then moving during one owns phase without penalty.

This is important because any foot unit can NOT be expected to perform a successful delaying action against a motorized unit capable and in the process of further attacks.

[2ndACR]

Bull crud......I was a 11b (infantry) before I went Cav. I know dang well an infantry (leg) can do a delaying action on a mechanized unit. In any kind of country. Any country  is better than clear, but I know it can be done. We practiced it, without armor, brad, and even without our guided anti tank. Just AT4 and small arms. It can be done.

Is it expected.......NO, not expected, but can be done.

This all boils down to using 1941 expectations and results versus a 1942 Russian. You have to change and expect the enemy to get better as it goes.

[morganbj]

ORIGINAL: 2ndACR

Bull crud......I was a 11b (infantry) before I went Cav. I know dang well an infantry (leg) can do a delaying action on a mechanized unit. In any kind of country. Any country  is better than clear, but I know it can be done. We practiced it, without armor, brad, and even without our guided anti tank. Just AT4 and small arms. It can be done.

Is it expected.......NO, not expected, but can be done.

This all boils down to using 1941 expectations and results versus a 1942 Russian. You have to change and expect the enemy to get better as it goes.

Maybe for a short period of time. But the game scale is a week. No leg infantry without AT can successfully delay for a week against a combined arms team, with substantial tanks, as the 101st Airlanding learned when they developed their then new AT doctrine in 1975. We went through them like crap through a goose when it was tested in the piney woods of the Florida panhandle. My tank company alone overran two full airborne battalions, and the controlers had to pause the war when I got to less than a mile from the 101st TOC. We started at daylight and it was not yet noon. They then had four hours to redeploy to make another go of it. Nevermind, we overran another BN by dark. Three days later, and two days before it was suppsed to end

Sure it wasn't real, but it was a close as can be done without real bullets. The commander of the 101st even admitted that "they had more work to do" with their doctrine. No s***.