End of AAR 76mm welcome

[Klydon]

Probably prudent at this point. I think the game offers little incentive for the Germans to launch a good sized offensive in the 1942 traditional sense. There simply is not that tangible factor present in this game to reward behavior like that.

I do wonder about taking a crack at those fort markers around Rostov tho. If you can pop them, they auto surrender and losses are losses on the Russian side.

To me, if the Germans stand on the strategic defensive, they must look for opportunities to ambush Russians in the open every chance they get with strong local counter attacks against unfortified Russians. Granted this will perhaps cause the Germans some losses, but you never know what may develop from such a battle. One think you have to be careful of and that is he will start putting together the forces for set piece battles (artillery and infantry corps). While expensive, no German infantry stack is going to hold against an assault of 6-9 infantry corps backed by artillery.

[Ketza]

OOB turn 59 - Hopefully I can continue to attrition him at a 3 or 4 to one rate and keep his army from growing too large before his industry starts coming back online. Next few turns should see my armor strength go back over 3k. I also sent some luftwaffe to the reserve to recover somewhat from 8 weeks of high sorties.

[Ketza]

ORIGINAL: Klydon

Probably prudent at this point. I think the game offers little incentive for the Germans to launch a good sized offensive in the 1942 traditional sense. There simply is not that tangible factor present in this game to reward behavior like that.

I do wonder about taking a crack at those fort markers around Rostov tho. If you can pop them, they auto surrender and losses are losses on the Russian side.

To me, if the Germans stand on the strategic defensive, they must look for opportunities to ambush Russians in the open every chance they get with strong local counter attacks against unfortified Russians. Granted this will perhaps cause the Germans some losses, but you never know what may develop from such a battle. One think you have to be careful of and that is he will start putting together the forces for set piece battles (artillery and infantry corps). While expensive, no German infantry stack is going to hold against an assault of 6-9 infantry corps backed by artillery.

I thought about it but there was some nasty high CV divisons mixed in with those forts and a deliberate attack would have messed up the withdrawal just enough to leave some guys out of position.

I will always be on the lookout for attacking its just my nature. During the spring and early summer I probably inflicted 1 million casualties on him and destroyed more then 100 units. But if I am going to lose 300-400 Panzers a turn from 1-1 attacks from his better corp level units its better to sit and wait in level 3 or 4 forts. As you point out theres no compelling reason to move forward.

As much as I would like a free wheeling mobile game the way WITE is set up thats just not a winning strategy for Germany in 1942 even when you did reasonably well in 1941.

Now if you havent killed 4 million Soviets before the blizzard or force them to move factories or be lucky to capture a few the Axis player is in for a hard time in 42. That is painfully obvious to me at this point.

[Tarhunnas]

Interesting turning point! I understand your reasoning, and I think it is the prudent, though perhaps a bit dull course of action.

P.S. Could you write the date as well as the turn number? It is a bit hard to figure out what time of year it is just from the turn number.

P.P.S. I really like the way you guys are writing parallell AARs. It is very interesting to follow the impressions and decisions of both sides. Good AARs both!

[Ketza]

ORIGINAL: Tarhunnas

Interesting turning point! I understand your reasoning, and I think it is the prudent, though perhaps a bit dull course of action.

P.S. Could you write the date as well as the turn number? It is a bit hard to figure out what time of year it is just from the turn number.

P.P.S. I really like the way you guys are writing parallell AARs. It is very interesting to follow the impressions and decisions of both sides. Good AARs both!

Well I certainly wanted to have an exciting summer campaign and that was the plan. By reading other AARs and comparing results to mine I thought I may have a chance but reality set in and the number crunching gamer side of me saw the more prudent course of action.

I do however enjoy defending and in other games I have played though the years I must say I am pretty good at it. My Soviet games have all pretty much shut down the Axis before mud so hopefully I can bring some of that experience to impact this game.

My main concern is the Soviet even odds attacks that jump up to 2-1 odds and enable a lot more Axis retreats and excess casualties. This leads to a lot more Soviet attacks and momentum that should be unsustainable as it was historically. Although I agree to an extent they need the bump in the summer/fall of 41 I am not convinced it is needed in the Blizzard and beyond. In one AAR after another the Soviets steamroll along much earlier then seems historical.

I guess we will see what happens!

[abulbulian]

How are things going here? Been a few days without some action?

[:(]

[Ketza]

I have a turn from 76mm just very busy this week and I have a lot of "admin" to do in our game shuffling around support units and what not.

Update sometime this weekend.

[Peltonx]

Hmm another unhistorical rule, that helps the Russians surpise surpise [>:]

Its 1942 and WW 1 breaks out, because 1 to 1 odds is really 2 to 1 odds. The Reds needed 4 to 5 times the odds to even have a chance at doing anything in 1942.

I can see it in 1943, but before that the Russian army was a joke attacking.

Pelton

[Mynok]

There are lots of opportunities for the 'backhand blow' for the Germans. Just avoid those rifle corps. They are death. The bad news is he gets more and more of them so long as you put little pressure on him.

[Speedysteve]

ORIGINAL: Pelton

Hmm another unhistorical rule, that helps the Russians surpise surpise [>:]

Its 1942 and WW 1 breaks out, because 1 to 1 odds is really 2 to 1 odds. The Reds needed 4 to 5 times the odds to even have a chance at doing anything in 1942.

I can see it in 1943, but before that the Russian army was a joke attacking.

Pelton

You do know what happened historically and that the SU did conduct successful attacks in 42 and even 41?

We wouldn't want to nerf these rules now and say........remove the HQ Buildup as it is now would we? [;)]

[kirkgregerson]

Personally I don't care if HQ buildup is nerfed and the 2:1 can stay. I'm more concerned about the combat engine and the completely bogus results that it can generate. You want to fix WitE and get it resemble historical battle results, which by the way are very well documented in in 42 in let's say 10,000 or so sources (books, papers, etc.).

Main problem is the 'Super Ant' love that WitE seems to maintain. Why would any combat engine for this period and these opposing forces have something like below as a possibility and want to be taken seriously.

German forces: 45,000 men, 400 arty, 25 afvs
vs
Soviet forces: 1000 men, 70 arty, 0 afvs, fort:2

conditions: June 42, clear hex, clear weather

results
axis loses 200 men, 5 arty
soviet loses 200 men, 15 arty
unit retreats (sometime routes w/about same loses)

**conclusion
Are you fricken serious? This Soviet unit would have been smashed and would have either annihilated or surrendered whatever was left of it. This is a common trend in WitE for small units irregarless of what is attacking them to take maximum 30% loses and just retreat or even better for Sov player route farther back with same loses. Sure, if were dealing with a small units with HIGH morale and HIGH exp, maybe then I can see it getting away somewhat without being destroyed. However, this is 1942 and this Sov units was LOW morale and LOW exp.

* I've seen the above results and similar... MANY MANY MANY times now and so have others that have played enough WitE.


IMO, if WitE developers can end this love affair with ANT units in combat results, it would go a long way to correcting a majority of issues with the campaign game. Especially when were dealing with the Soviets common disposition of forted ANT units in DEPTH starting Spring/Summer 42.

If other play-balance issues arising from making the game avoid nonsensical battle results, SO BE IT. Deal with those in a reasonable fashion. Let's have some priorities about this being a historical WW2 combat game and not partially fantasy.

[krupp_88mm]

i dont know about the combat? but i would like to see forts be directionally built, like you can build level 3 forts facing west, at 3 but south west and northwest they are 2 north east and south east they are 1 ect, and maybe you can fortify in different directions, this way you could flank forts and it would take longer to build them into an omnidirectional fort

i dont know how the engine might abstract 45,000 men attacking 1000 men in forts with guns defending them, but under certain conditions they certainly could hold if the attackers cannot bring all thier guns to bear at once, cant flank them or have to approach over unfavorable terrain or dont have adequate support, heck one sniper in the right place can stop a whole division in the right terrain, also many more factors like morale and how serious the attack is and organization exhaustion and fatigue play a part

westerplatte is an example, but thats mainly a testament to the terrain

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Westerplatte

[kirkgregerson]

ORIGINAL: krupp_88mm

i dont know about the combat? but i would like to see forts be directionally built, like you can build level 3 forts facing west, at 3 but south west and northwest they are 2 north east and south east they are 1 ect, and maybe you can fortify in different directions, this way you could flank forts and it would take longer to build them into an omnidirectional fort

i dont know how the engine might abstract 45,000 men attacking 1000 men in forts with guns defending them, but under certain conditions they certainly could hold if the attackers cannot bring all thier guns to bear at once, cant flank them or have to approach over unfavorable terrain or dont have adequate support, heck one sniper in the right place can stop a whole division in the right terrain, also many more factors like morale and how serious the attack is and organization exhaustion and fatigue play a part

westerplatte is an example, but thats mainly a testament to the terrain

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Westerplatte

Well you haven't read enough about the Soviet army in early-mid 42 if you think brigade size unit in some sort of fort could hold off 2+ divisions of veteran German soldiers. That is my whole point. The combat engine in 1942 gives way too much credit to these ANT (low morale and exp too) units in a fort. They would have either gotten wiped out or just surrendered. A few books on the east front and you'll understand what I'm talking about. I can suggest some if you like.

Case and point Sevastopol, which I think had more defenders than attackers (counting all that were shuffled in and out plus defenders of Odessa joined too). Also, look at Eben Emal, one of the toughest forts at that time in history. It was taken done by a handful of elite German troops. The Soviets did learn how to fight and got some confidence as the war went on. Also, the Germans were just ground down and poorly lead at the very top level too. So many disasters got the Germans were to come in late 42 and onward.

In fact the norm in 42 was mostly smaller better trained, better exp, better leader German formations getting victories over larger Soviet forces. Quite the opposite logic of the results the WitE combat engine is spewing out when 40k Germans take on 5k Soviets.

[Ketza]

76 is back from vacation so I finished a turn after a long lull. Not much to report I attacked along the line where I could get good results and achieved 3-1 casualties in my favor. In the air war he pulled back a ton or air units but still lost over 300 airframes to my 20 or so in combat over the battles on the ground.

All the Panzers are off the line and gaining strength.

I will post a more detailed sitrep when I get the turn back.

[Ketza]

Aug 22 1942 OOB -

My army is in excellent shape yet last turn 76 launched 5 attacks but I only held one hex because of the 1-1 to 2-1 rule. The more I think about that rule in 1942 the more it frustrates me. In all cases in these battles I suffered the same if not more in casualties and lost the hex in cases where he had even odds. This rule needs to be changed starting in 1942. At its core it just does not make sense that defending German troops suffer equal or more casualties in battles where the odds are essentially equal.

Here is a quick list of the turns battles. I attacked across the line in many areas where he was not in forts with weak units. Attacks were made with tremendous firepower in many cases using Panzer corps in deliberate attacks. In many areas his air force had been pulled back and was out of range The results were almost always retreats with a few routs thrown in. Casualty rates were roughly 3-1 in my favor. In areas where his air force flew he ran up some serious losses once again approaching 500 air frames killed for the turn.

[Ketza]

Aug 22 42 OOB start - Army is in pretty good shape as I pointed out earlier. His army is getting better quality and hovering around the 7 mill mark.

[Ketza]

Air losses for turn - I think my airforce is just better then his experience wise. In some battles he is getting wrecked with massive losses. One battle he did lose a lot of planes to just flak as I had no fighters.

[Ketza]

South front final - I attacked across the line here and pushed him back out of no mans land.

[Ketza]

In the Crimea he attacked and I think made a beach landing in my rear. All my Panzers are rested and waiting on rails to react to whatever came up and a Panzer corps was dispatched to handle the situation.

[Ketza]

And after the commitment a nice little pocket was made.