The problems of 1942 – possible causes and solutions – The Red Army

[Tarhunnas]

Some of the issues in 1942, for example fortifications and the state of the German army, has been discussed elsewhere. While fortifications might be part of the problem, I think the problem is more complex than that. I suspect the state of the German army might not be the real problem. I believe the major contributor to the 1942 stalemate problems is the number and quality of Soviet Units in 1942, possibly in a historical sense, but the real root cause more in the sense of game mechanics. WITE in 1942 will simply not play out in a way that gives a sense of the Axis summer offensive of 1942. I have outlined a number of suggestions and topics for further discussion below.

Soviet units too good?.
It appears that Soviet units in 1942 are much tougher than in 1941, perhaps too tough. In the summer of 1942, the Germans cut like a knife through Soviet defences, and even though the Soviets avoided major encirclements, a sense of panic spread through STAVKA at the end of the summer, culminating in the “Not a step back” order (Glantz, “Titans”). I think it should be explored if Soviet national morale, and with it unit proficiency, is rising too fast. Perhaps a national morale of 45 in 1942 would be more appropriate?

Unit density too high
This is a game mechanism more than anything based on historical conditions. There are simply too many Soviet units on the map, which enable the thick carpet defenses. Fewer (and somewhat weaker) Soviet units on the map would create a more mobile situation. This could be solved in different ways, but one way would be to dispense with Soviet brigades of all kinds on the map and instead have them as support units. This would help, but probably not be enough, so there could also be a cap on the number of Soviet divisions on the map, forcing the Soviet player to create corps after a certain number of divisions are in play.

Too many Soviet units at the front
Even though the number of units the Soviet army can field in 1942 in WITE might correspond to historical numbers, the sheer plenty of units enables the thick carpet defenses that clog WITE in the summer of 1942. This is certainly not what the front looked like in 1942, and it is not what it looks like in the 1942 scenario. Were all of these units really combat ready? Many Soviet reserve armies spent the summer of 1942 training and fitting out far from the front, and substantial forces (of dubious quality) were kept back in the Transcaucasus. Should new Soviet formations take longer to fit out and make ready? Should there be garrison requirements for the Soviets in the Transcaucasus? Could the fleshing out of new Soviet units be delayed somewhat by lowering Soviet armaments production? Should the Soviets suffer more manpower and production difficulties from losing cities in 1941?

The Red army too numerically strong?
Does the Red Army take as many losses as it should during winter? By most accounts the Soviet Army lost at least as many men during the winter offensive as the Germans. Is this the usual outcome in WITE or does the Red army emerge from winter more numerically strong than it should be? I do not have exhaustive data that says either way, but I think it should be explored.

[sveint]

I'm not sure I (mostly) agree.

In the summer of 1942, the Germans cut like a knife through Soviet defences,

The Germans attacked where the Soviets were weak. Had they attacked in front on Moscow they probably would not have gotten far.

If anything is needed, it is mostly tuning. Perhaps a national morale of 45 in 1942 has some merit.

WITE in 1942 will simply not play out in a way that gives a sense of the Axis summer offensive of 1942.

If the Soviets decide on a weak southern defense, chances are you'll see something like the historical offensive. But most Soviet players do not.

EDIT: spelling

[Tarhunnas]

ORIGINAL: sveint

If the Soviets decide on a week southern defense, chances are you'll see something like the historical offensive. But most Soviet players do not.

There is no reason for the Soviets to be weak in the south in WITE, as they can have a 3 deep carpet everywhere. That is the problem.

[Flaviusx]

The Germans would have been stopped cold if they had tried to advance directly into the teeth of the massive Soviet concentration near Moscow. The basic Soviet problem in 1942 was they were misdeployed to meet the actual German offensive -- they expected them to try Moscow again. Stalin had intelligence saying otherwise, including captured German plans, but he flatly refused to believe this and thought they were provocations. Very few human players are going to misdeploy like this. (Or try to occupy bizarre salients, for that matter.)

Most of them won't throw away a half million men in fiascos like Karkhov and the Crimea, either.

There's stuff we can do to ease the path for the Germans in 1942. The fort situation, obviously. But in the end, don't expect a human Soviet player to do the dumb things the real Soviet did. (They may find new and unique ways of being dumb, however.) It's pretty hard to force a human Soviet player to act like Stalin, just as difficult as forcing a German player to act like Hitler. So there will never be perfect historicity here.

In the end, if you really want a game in 1942 to correspond to the real 1942, you probably are going to have to fire up the 1942 campaign scenario. We can thin out carpets and do various other things for play balance, but we cannot force players to deploy exactly as they did historically, because those deployments often don't make much sense militarily and are the product of political decisions.

[BletchleyGeek]

My two cents on this:

ORIGINAL: Tarhunnas
Soviet units too good?.

WiTE allows Soviet players to do exactly the opposite than his historical counterparts did: nurture Rifle and Tank formations to a level of operational readiness that can match German standards and clearly exceed German Allies. Historically, Soviet leadership tended to commit too soon and in a too unimaginative ways their forces, squandering them badly. Given WiTE mechanisms, German players need to lure Soviet players into doing this by appearing to be weaker than they actually are.

ORIGINAL: Tarhunnas
Perhaps a national morale of 45 in 1942 would be more appropriate?

I agree with this, but I would say NM increases (or decreases) should be tied to the current VP count.

ORIGINAL: Tarhunnas
Unit density too high

Too many Soviet units at the front

I think the problem may perhaps be that Russian units are rebuilt for free just before 1941 rasputitsa strikes. It's a freebie that I think allows Russian players - even those with a relatively poor performance during 1941 summer and winter battles - to rebound too quickly.

ORIGINAL:
The Red army too numerically strong?

I think the strength numbers are mostly OK: I wouldn't say there is too much manpower or armaments available. As I say above it might perhaps be that there are too many "cadres" available - or it is too easy to get them - to deploy those men and weapons in a very efficient way.

[Flaviusx]

Also, rifle brigades as support units don't make a lick of sense to me. But I myself get rid of all of them in May by consolidating them into divisions.

If we can get the fort business right -- and we are working on this, trust me -- I think this preposterous rifle brigade fad will go away.

[Flaviusx]

Also, another reason the Soviet concentrations in game are relatively heavier in the South than historically is because in most games Leningrad has fallen, and a good third of the front is being held minimally (on both sides.) Ironic, but there you go.

[lees]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

The Germans would have been stopped cold if they had tried to advance directly into the teeth of the massive Soviet concentration near Moscow. The basic Soviet problem in 1942 was they were misdeployed to meet the actual German offensive -- they expected them to try Moscow again. Stalin had intelligence saying otherwise, including captured German plans, but he flatly refused to believe this and thought they were provocations. Very few human players are going to misdeploy like this. (Or try to occupy bizarre salients, for that matter.)

Most of them won't throw away a half million men in fiascos like Karkhov and the Crimea, either.

That's half correct. The Germans indeed would have encountered heavy trouble in front of Moscow (also due to the unclear logistics / front lines in the Rzhev salient). But the front at Voronezh was very well equipped with Soviet units due to the Soviet belief that a German strike on Moscow could come from the Voronezh area, striking north. The 4th Panzer Army had no troubles whatsoever shattering these large formations. It only encountered problems at Voronezh when German high command couldn't agree on what to do with the city - capture and hold it, or simply bypass it, as it was not essential to Fall Blau.

[Aussiematto]

I can't think of a solution, but something needs to be done. I have a feeling the origin of the problem lies in the original game design which probably saw very significant losses in 1941 for the Russians, somewhat offset by blizzard, but which then necessitated over-helping the Russians in 1942 to avoid an easy decisive victory for the Axis in 42.

I probably concur with Tarhunnas on the morale question. One major problem for the Axis in 42 is that it's hard to make a breakthrough when units don't rout as much as in 1941. So, more routing units would help . Basically, what I'd model is that the Soviets now have equipment and men on the ground, but not the training and local leadership to counter the Axis.

 I'd probably not tinker too much with forts for solving this issue (they need to be fixed for other reasons and in other ways, especially as they relate to static units and I think there is still some bug with static units which seem to suffer more, not less, attrition - there should be a major incentrive to put units into static to both build forts to higher levels, and protect them against attrition).

[Baelfiin]

Try working with morale (on both sides) to see what happens. The soviet player is never forced to fight hold at all costs type of battles in 41 and early 42 with the subsequent degradation of forces.
Also why not get rid of rifle brigade construction alltogether?

[Klydon]

I don't have an issue with rifle brigades or tank brigades in of themselves. The primary issue with them is their fort building ability in conjunction with the city bonus and/or sapper regiments-RR engineers. The actual units themselves have absolute crap for a construction value, but that doesn't really matter in most cases. 

Good post Tarhunnas.

[cpt flam]

if you remove rifle X construction
how would russia repair rail ?

[mmarquo]

ORIGINAL: majeloz

I can't think of a solution, but something needs to be done. I have a feeling the origin of the problem lies in the original game design which probably saw very significant losses in 1941 for the Russians, somewhat offset by blizzard, but which then necessitated over-helping the Russians in 1942 to avoid an easy decisive victory for the Axis in 42.

The only "thing" that can be done is for the Soviet player to take a "dumb" pill, and for the Axis player to take a "dumb" pill. In the end both sides made stupid mistakes of almost criminal proportions in 1941...1942...1943...1944...1945...

Marquo

[Mehring]

I think it's a morale and experience issue combined with forts and logistics which allows endless offensives with no need for stockpiling. Can't see the point in messing elsewhere. If the Russians survive 1941 they can easily become overblown.

I think forts need to be divided into two mutually complementary categories, one which requires little or no industrial produce- basically manual labour and local resources, and that which does- reinforced concrete, mines, wire and heavy ordnance. The former should be free and available to anyone who can pick up a shovel. The latter should be expensive, time consuming to build, pre-planned and requiring the presence of an engineer unit or some equivalent, to build.

[herwin]

SPI ran into similar problems trying to reuse the game system that worked for the 1941 campaign for the 1942 campaign. You might research the changes they had to do to their Stalingrad campaign game to make it playable. You also might compare the 1941 and 1942 OCS games.

[Q-Ball]

I think the National Morale adjustment has some merit. I have said before, National Morale to me is really a function of "operational efficiency", and the 1943 Red Army was certainly more efficient than 1942.

I think GERMAN capabilities, and forts, are more of a problem

Flavius does correctly point out that one of the hardest things is that the real life Soviets made bad mistakes that players will not make. This means simulation starts diverging from real life about turn 4 or so, and keeps going. If a player doesn't piss away huge formations in dumb decisions, maybe the Germans shouldn't be able to get to the Caucausus in the game.

Maybe we need to re-set our expectations (and I would argue victory conditions).

The "New Normal" has the Germans taking Leningrad in 1941. Maybe the "New Normal" has less of a German offensive in 1942.

[gradenko2k]

The German player doesn't have the benefit of a successful Operation Kremlin that mislead the Soviets into deploying a lot of forces across AGC, nor does the German player have the benefit of a Soviet High Command that believes it can conduct offensives as in the Rzhev operation.

If the Soviet player deployed his armies as thinly as the Soviets historically did because the player believes AGC is going to make a move, and that he can make a move against AGC himself, then it's also very reasonable to expect the massive AGS gains that historically happened.

[ComradeP]

The casualties the Axis take when attacking forts and the really, really poor casualty ratio when attacking brigades cause more harm than the actual forts, which boost CV and give artillery a boost in firepower.

The sheer size of the Soviet armed forces is also a bit of a problem, as during half the year or so the Axis can't really touch the Soviets due to bad weather, so Soviet strength will inflate rapidly whilst Axis strength per unit decreases by default due to attrition. More or less by default, unless the Soviet player is clueless, the Soviet on-map army will be much, much more efficient than its real life counterpart, which even in 1944 was less than stellar from an organizational perspective.

[76mm]

I'm not sure about what changes are necessary, the issues are complex and interrelated.

But I think that one relatively easy fix would be to fix fortification so that it is on a per unit, rather than a per hex, basis. Right now you can stick a rifle brigade in a hex, and once it has created a level 3 fortification, that fortification can contain up to three rifle corps. Kind of nutty, really. I wouldn't think it would be too hard to track each units fortication status seperately, although it would be kind of a pain to display.

[Mehring]

Another method to reduce Russian combat effectiveness might be to reduce the at start effectiveness of their leaders and give more scope for gaining experience. As is, by autumn 1941 there's little excuse for having infantry commanded by less than '5' rated generals, armour by less than '4'. Initiative is pretty good by then too, and minimum Admin '6' is easy to obtain in all Front commands.