Soviet Production a bit too much / Major Game play issue?

[fsp]

I am no expert on Soviet production numbers, but what I am experiencing right now seems a bit far fetched to me, but maybe I am off here:

I am in a German GC 41, it is now December 1942 and I occupy 272 victory points, I have taken a line from Leningrad to Moscow (almost to Gorki), Saransk, Penza, Saratov, Boguchar, Rostov.

Soviet casualties: 10m men, 145k guns and 24k tanks.

In my book, the Soviets should basically be dead or severly hampered by the ground I took. Yet from 10 September 1942 to 17 December 1942, Soviet tank strength rose from 3812 to 9413 (that is almost as much than they had for Bagration in 1944!)and planes rose from 10339 to 14790. Soldiers from 3.71m to 4.19m, but that doesn't really bug me.

Most of the Soviet units are very weak so I am pretty confident I will grab the final victory points in the summer (it's just normal, so not a big achievement, but it is only my second attempt at a GC).

My point being: Given all the ground I took, I found that increase in tanks way too big.

Also, and here is a potential game play issue: My game - and it's only against the AI - will be easily won I think. But if this was a game against a human, I could have never made these advances and even if you advance this far (you are almost achieving an auto-victory!), it counts for nothing, as they still produce tanks like crazy! If you conquer as much ground as that, shouldn't that somehow put a dent into the Soviet production? Apparently it doesn't, so where is the motivation to do so as Axis player?

I am not complaining and again, maybe I am wrong on this and this is just realistic or I am missing something here. Please clarify?

Still love the game!

[Speedysteve]

In terms of production it depends on whether you'd captured any of the bug tank factories. If they were railed east tank production will be largely unhindered. Easy to forget how big Russia was then (off game map) so there'll be plenty of population to man those factories in the off map areas for example

[alfonso]

ORIGINAL: fsp

I am no expert on Soviet production numbers, but what I am experiencing right now seems a bit far fetched to me, but maybe I am off here:

I am in a German GC 41, it is now December 1942 and I occupy 272 victory points, I have taken a line from Leningrad to Moscow (almost to Gorki), Saransk, Penza, Saratov, Boguchar, Rostov.

Soviet casualties: 10m men, 145k guns and 24k tanks.

In my book, the Soviets should basically be dead or severly hampered by the ground I took. Yet from 10 September 1942 to 17 December 1942, Soviet tank strength rose from 3812 to 9413 (that is almost as much than they had for Bagration in 1944!)and planes rose from 10339 to 14790. Soldiers from 3.71m to 4.19m, but that doesn't really bug me.

Most of the Soviet units are very weak so I am pretty confident I will grab the final victory points in the summer (it's just normal, so not a big achievement, but it is only my second attempt at a GC).

My point being: Given all the ground I took, I found that increase in tanks way too big.

Also, and here is a potential game play issue: My game - and it's only against the AI - will be easily won I think. But if this was a game against a human, I could have never made these advances and even if you advance this far (you are almost achieving an auto-victory!), it counts for nothing, as they still produce tanks like crazy! If you conquer as much ground as that, shouldn't that somehow put a dent into the Soviet production? Apparently it doesn't, so where is the motivation to do so as Axis player?

I am not complaining and again, maybe I am wrong on this and this is just realistic or I am missing something here. Please clarify?

Still love the game!

In 1942 the Soviet Union produced 24,500 tanks aprox. 2,000 each month. If in your game the AI evacuated the factories in 1941, in 3 months of 1942 it could produce more or less the historical figure of 6,000, I suppose....

In 1942 Germany made 4300 tanks.

[Helpless]

(that is almost as much than they had for Bagration in 1944!)

By 1944.1.1. Red Army had 21.1K tanks and SP guns.

[Q-Ball]

The Soviet Union, in both game terms and real life terms, was/is a bottomless pit of tank production.

In-game, I don't think Tank losses hurt the Reds in the least, other than the time it takes to get them on the front and train the crews.

..pretty much the same as in real life

[fsp]

@Helpless: But they probably didn't have all those tanks in the field, did they? When I opened the 1944 scenario in WITE, the Soviets have 11,300 tanks in the field.

If Alfonso is right that the SU produced 24,500 tanks in 1942, than I actually gained something by taking ground? From 1 January 1942 to 31 December 1942, I destroyed 9,000 tanks while the SU tanks strength increased by 7,600 tanks. Does that mean that basically I prevented ~ 7,000 tanks from being built? I am still trying to find out how to best hurt the opponent. It is easy as SU (attrition of manpower), but not so easy as Axis.

[Klydon]

Don't forget a lot of those tanks are the almost useless T-60 (6K+ in 41-42) and T-70 (8K+ in 42-43).

Unfortunately, there is really no way for the Germans to know how many T-34 and KV tanks they have killed and those are the ones that matter for the first couple of years.

[Q-Ball]

ORIGINAL: Klydon

Don't forget a lot of those tanks are the almost useless T-60 (6K+ in 41-42) and T-70 (8K+ in 42-43).

Unfortunately, there is really no way for the Germans to know how many T-34 and KV tanks they have killed and those are the ones that matter for the first couple of years.

Don't you get an exact count in the loss report? Or are you talking about knowing how many are in the Soviet OOB? Because that you don't know, so when you see a big AFV count in the OOB, you have no idea how much of that is T-34s, and how much is T-60s

[pat.casey]

ORIGINAL: alfonso

In 1942 the Soviet Union produced 24,500 tanks aprox. 2,000 each month. If in your game the AI evacuated the factories in 1941, in 3 months of 1942 it could produce more or less the historical figure of 6,000, I suppose....

In 1942 Germany made 4300 tanks.

I think that's the problem in a nutshell though.
In the real war, the SU was good for about 2k tanks/month (a bit more in 1943/44).
In the game, the SU is going to be good for about 2k tanks/month *no matter* what the axis player does.

Basically you can occupy all of european russia (as the OP did) and the SU still cranks out tanks at the normal 2k/month clip due to evacuations and large resource pools in the Urals.

Soviet industry was flexible during the war, but there *had* to have been a breaking point somewhere in there and the game doesn't model that very well. You can drive them virtually off map w/o seriously hampering production.

[SgtKachalin]

ORIGINAL: pat.casey
Soviet industry was flexible during the war, but there *had* to have been a breaking point somewhere in there and the game doesn't model that very well. You can drive them virtually off map w/o seriously hampering production.

While there may have been a 'breaking point' it obviously wasn't reached in WWII. So how, given the size of the country and historical ability to transfer industry lock stock and barrel, how would the game model it and stay historical?

[Farfarer61]

I guess what matters is you can win in 43 vice starting 2 years of expert retreats. The AI (IMHO) will get a bit weird once you inflict 10M casulaties, take Baku etc. two thirds of teh new SU units were Guards, but very fragile. Perhaps a unit recylcilng issue, but only relevant in AI games which are for fun anyway.

[pat.casey]

ORIGINAL: Sgt Barker

ORIGINAL: pat.casey
Soviet industry was flexible during the war, but there *had* to have been a breaking point somewhere in there and the game doesn't model that very well. You can drive them virtually off map w/o seriously hampering production.

While there may have been a 'breaking point' it obviously wasn't reached in WWII. So how, given the size of the country and historical ability to transfer industry lock stock and barrel, how would the game model it and stay historical?

I'd certainly argue that there was a functional limit on how much territory the SU could lose in European russia and still keep up production rates, but the historical merits of such a proposition are almost secondary to its impact on gameplay.

Fundamentally if soviet production is large and immutable, then its one less strategic option for the axis.

Historically, the axis had at least the illusion that they could win in one of three ways:

1) Break soviet will to fight through shock and awe, capture a mess of cities quickly and they'd collapse. There's some revisionist evidence that the axis got closer to pulling this off than post-war soviet histories admit, but that's speculation.

2) Wreck the soviet army permanently, to the point where a reduced garrison force could hold the frontier against "banditry".

3) Wreck the soviet industrial base, to the point where even if there was a significant manpower reserve left they couldn't be equipped.

I'd enjoy a game where all three options were possible ways to "win". It'd make things more interesting and make, for example, a historical Case Blue plausible.

Consider, what human player, given the current game parameters, would launch a historical Case Blau? I submit that nobody would, since there's really no upside to making a play for all that oil. The only thing worth doing right now seems to be to run up the body count by killing as many soviets as possible to delay the tipping point at which they overwhelm you.

[Klydon]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

ORIGINAL: Klydon

Don't forget a lot of those tanks are the almost useless T-60 (6K+ in 41-42) and T-70 (8K+ in 42-43).

Unfortunately, there is really no way for the Germans to know how many T-34 and KV tanks they have killed and those are the ones that matter for the first couple of years.

Don't you get an exact count in the loss report? Or are you talking about knowing how many are in the Soviet OOB? Because that you don't know, so when you see a big AFV count in the OOB, you have no idea how much of that is T-34s, and how much is T-60s

Talking about in the Soviet OOB and yeah, you really don't know how much of each is around.

Folks also have to remember that as high as Russian tank production was, I think the average life of a T-34 was measured in weeks.

[mmarquo]

Nothing negative happens of Baku, Maikop, etc are captured?
 
 

[Adnan Meshuggi]

Hi,

russian production was huge - if concentrated to t34 they could even produce more tanks.

The t60/70 they produced in 41-43 are really useless - that is true - against tanks. But for a fight with german infantry (wich has lost its at-units), they could be dangerous.

The russians also get a lot british and american tanks (these were really really really inferior to russian types), so if the russians loose even more tanks than in history, their western allies had delivered more.

Main problem for me would be a high experience level for russian tank units if the losses are way above historical levels (even here, tank crew was a shortliving event - weeks in calm days, days to hours in combat situations. The russians never established elite units with high experience crews like the "schwere Panzerbattallion" of the germans.
Also, in a break through situation they forbid their tanks to fight the german tanks cause they sucked nearly every time they duelled with em. They had to break through and german counterattacks were battled with the (many, yes, really many) anti-tank guns, they had behind the tanks.
So basically, breakthrough with tanks, defending with at-guns (the 76,2 and 85mm AT-Guns were superb weapons, deadly and much cheaper as tanks) and by causing havoc behind the lines, killing german art-units or hq´s, destroying supply depots,etc. they crushed german defend lines.

In nearly every larger tank battle with attacking russian tanks and defending german units, the russians got kicked around. Even with odds 10:1 to their favour. But if you have 20:1 local superiority, that isn´t really a problem
numbers win.

I think russian production should be coupled with their losses. Heavy losses result in "more lendlease", more new factories producing stuff like t34 - with a delay of 6 months.

[Tarhunnas]

ORIGINAL: Klydon

Don't forget a lot of those tanks are the almost useless T-60 (6K+ in 41-42) and T-70 (8K+ in 42-43).

T-60s and T-70s take a lot less resources to produce than a T-34 or KV, and they could be produced in factories that didn't have the heavy equipment it takes to build heavier tanks (albeit at the expense of truck production, which WITE RKKA-players might have other ideas about). They are certainly not as good as heavier tanks in tank vs tank encounters, but in exploitation or against infantry, they were useful.

[Twotribes]

The US provided something like 600000 trucks over the course of the war as I recall. The Soviets had no need to build trucks.

[Rafo35]

One has to remember that more than 80 % of all the LL deliveries happened in 43-45, after the battles for survival.
 
About the production figures, the trouble is that it's not so easy to compare the exact same thing. For instance, the 4300 panzers produced in 42 doesn't include the stug or panzer jager. The true number would be around 5500 in 42 (more than 13000 in 43), excluding the AFV "produced" from conversion of the French stock (but including the light but usefull things made with Pz38 and PzII). Also, it doesn't include any armored car or half-track, witch are usefull AFV in their own way and almost absent of Russian ToE (light and not so light tanks would be used instead of armored cars and APC).

[Panama]

ORIGINAL: Adnan Meshuggi

The russians also get a lot british and american tanks (these were really really really inferior to russian types),

Not entirely true. The Sherman with 76mm gun was considered equal to T34/85 and was preferred by some Soviet formations. The gun was comparable and best of all they had radios and were more reliable.

From January 1945 the 1st Guards Mechanized Corp turned in all of their T34/85 to equip with the Sherman M4A2 till end of war.

3rd Guards Mechanized Corps from June 1944 had M4A2 Sherman as it's tank till the end of the war.

There were many others with regiments or brigades equipped partially or completely with M4A2.

[Panama]

ORIGINAL: Twotribes

The US provided something like 600000 trucks over the course of the war as I recall. The Soviets had no need to build trucks.

Soviet truck factories produced some trucks but moslty went over to light tanks. The truck factories could not produce anything larger. Then they stopped making the light tanks at the truck factories and went over to the SU-76. Again, it's something useful they could produce to fight against the facists instead of trucks. They produced no halftracks, instead using captured German and Lend Lease U.S.

I forgot, when you count the British Bren Universal Carrier, M3 Scout Car, etc, armored LL transport is a little less than 8k.