Soviet armament destruction

[kevini1000]

Ok so by my calculations I've eliminated 40% of the Russian armaments factories. 150 down. However from what I'm understanding this will have no effect on the Russian army for some time to come at best. so what is the real question is what is the real story.

[Jakerson]

ORIGINAL: sath

Ok so by my calculations I've eliminated 40% of the Russian armaments factories. 150 down. However from what I'm understanding this will have no effect on the Russian army for some time to come at best. so what is the real question is what is the real story.

It has great effect on Soviet ability to recover losses and maintain offensives. You do not see instant effects but Soviet troops slowly weakening.

Soviet have more and more manpower sitting on the pool waiting for a gun if their armament factories are down. It also affects greatly Soviet ability to build artillery attachments and Soviet Armies without large number of artillery cannot start to inflict punishing casualties to German troops in later years of war. Soviet really need 3-5 times or even more artillery that Germans just to have a chance for even fight.

Every time Soviet attack they take a lot larger casualties than Germans and it is hard to recover from those if there is no armament factories. This means when they go offensive they have to stop earlier as their troops won’t recover.

You have to play Soviet side to see how their work and their capabilities. No matter how much German hit Soviet side they still have a lot more troops than German most of time this is how it is and was historically.

[Emx77]

ORIGINAL: Jakerson

It has great effect on Soviet ability to recover losses and maintain offensives. You do not see instant effects but Soviet troops slowly weakening.

Do you have any hard data to prove this? How much will loss of certain number of armament factories affect Soviet ability to wage a war? I mean, "great effect" is too general and ambiguous term.

[Peltonx]

I have played or am playing 12 41-45 campiagns and in every one I have gotten more then 100+ arm pts I have the upper hand and the effect can be seen during the summer of 42.

The one game I am clearly losing I only took out 70ish arm pts. Some wheres between 70 and 100 I would say its up for grabs, but I dont have any real game exp to prove it one way or the other.

You also have to factor in:
1. the skill of the other player.
2. Taking Leningrad/Moscow/Tula south to Rostov. The manpower hit will slow the growth of the Russian army. Moscow will hurt the Russian rail net.
3. Then there is how many loses you can inflict on the Red army during 41.

Now you could be not doing that great an get the upper hand again, if you can have a good 42 summer, say 100+ pocketed units.

I started recording all the losses and production losses each game so I have a very good idea of what to expect now by Dec 41. You can also read the AAR and ask questions about production destoryed ect.

I am more then willing to give you what data I have collected if you like and answer any questions having to do with playing the German side.

[Emx77]

Obviously, it is difficult to tell how much armament points alone contributed to success or failure in any AAR. For example, you are destroyed 100 points of armament factories. You did well, captured a lot of territory, at same time reduced manpower production, inflicted huge losses etc. But which, among these, is most important factor for getting upper hand?

I'm convinced that success is primarily dependent on two factors: 1) Ability of Axis player to inflict losses before mud/blizzard and 2) Reduction of Soviet manpower production (taking of cities and towns). Why not reduction of armament factories? Because, by keeping other things equal, Soviets will more likely get into trouble of manpower deficit then armament points deficit.

I'm basing my opinion on numeric analysis and some assumptions. Most important of these assumptions are: a) 30% automatic evacuation of manpower from occupied cities, b) 59% of total Soviet men and armament points will be used for making rifle divisions up to 70% TOE. Rest of 41% will be used for something else (artillery and support units...) and c) evacuated manpower factories are not damaged and are operational immediately after evacuation (this will not be a case in real game but I don't think it will significantly change main conclusions).

Of course, if above assumptions are far off from reality so it is my analysis.

[Peltonx]

I have played games where I destoryed 145 arm pts and the Russian player basicly just pulled back and had a huge army by December 41. I did not take Moscow.

I was able to meet my goals early so I was able to have 2 lines of level 3 forts and some level 2 in a 3rd row. I also forgot to turn my Inf units refit on until turn 3 of blizzard. I had 700k in the infantry pool by spring hehehe.

The first snow turn I pocketed 17 units and should have a nice summer offensive, if he keeps playing.

I am playing a game that I have been able to just get over 100 arm pts and he held Leningrad and Moscow, but I have inflicted allot of losses on his units. His army is just over 4 million and we are 2 turns from blizzard. This game should prove the pt of whats more important Manpower or ARM/Hvy pts.

I really don't care how many men they have, its how many guns they have. Thats where the arm pts really put a hurt on the red army. The Red army is going to have 6 million men come the summer of 42, but the question is will they have high cv. Morale is also big. If you did in early and deep the Reds will not beable to get allot of high morale units by spring of 42.

I would say arm pts are much more important them manpower, when I first started playing I though as you did. Manpower would be the most important factor, but that has not proven true at all in my 12 games. Check out Tarhunnas and Q-Balls game, The Axis play took Leningrad/Moscow down to Stalino, but only took 50ish arm pts. He is unable to mount a summer offensive now for 2 reasons. Read AAR's ask the poeple posting the AAR about how many arm pts ect they taken.

My goals every game are:
1. 100+ arm pts/ 40+ HVY
2. Get 3 million kills by Jan 1 42, 3.5 million is really good.
3. Dig in for winter asap mostly from Tula south. Ship any 85+ moral panzers to Germany. Put all your other mech units in citys until they are needed. Turn AA,AT,Airbase ect ToWs down to 50% before blizzard. I am also setting Infantry ToW's at 80%. This seems to keep CV balanced better as game goes on.
4. Keep upper hand in the air. Attack his air bases as many times as possible every single turn.
5. Pocket 100+ units during 42.

Worked for me so far. The 1 game I have not meet them goals I am losing.

Pelton

[Emx77]

ORIGINAL: Pelton

I really don't care how many men they have, its how many guns they have. Thats where the arm pts really put a hurt on the red army... I would say arm pts are much more important them manpower, when I first started playing I though as you did. Manpower would be the most important factor, but that has not proven true at all in my 12 games...

Pelton, as I already said it is hard to tell how much armament points alone contributed to success or failure in your games. In AAR you have a whole bunch of factors and you need to keep other things under control to make definitive conclusions. When you say that number of guns is important you forget to provide any number. How many guns on turn 25 or turn 37, for example, Soviets need to have to get decent CV? Also, it is very important to ask how many of these guns are located in infantry divisions? Is it 40% or 60% of total number of guns?

I already did numeric analysis in another thread (attached here also) and showed that, keeping everything else equal, it is more likely that limiting factor will be manpower then armament points. I don't claim that I have any definitive proof but, until someone provide better analysis, hypothesis about armament points as primary limiting factor is not convincing enough.

[molchomor]

To be frank, most of the above is nice reasoning but only the hard figures tell the truth.

So. for you who feel to have successfully killed off Soviet armament, could you please post how much the Soviet pool contains ?

Just so you understand my skepticism, In my '42 campaign game vs. the AI, in 1/1 '45 I hold Leningrad, Moscow, Caucasus, Stalingrad but the Soviet arm. pool still shows 1 MILLION arm. points and that has stayed that way for a couple of years. Soviet losses are ~13Million, Red army numbers ~5.3 M, losses are 450 corps + alot of other stuff,...so the AI has not just been hoarding because it has not lost anything.

[GBS]

ORIGINAL: molchomor

To be frank, most of the above is nice reasoning but only the hard figures tell the truth.

So. for you who feel to have successfully killed off Soviet armament, could you please post how much the Soviet pool contains ?

Just so you understand my skepticism, In my '42 campaign game vs. the AI, in 1/1 '45 I hold Leningrad, Moscow, Caucasus, Stalingrad but the Soviet arm. pool still shows 1 MILLION arm. points and that has stayed that way for a couple of years. Soviet losses are ~13Million, Red army numbers ~5.3 M, losses are 450 corps + alot of other stuff,...so the AI has not just been hoarding because it has not lost anything.

I would love to here the Devs comment on this. How can you have accomplished all this and the USSR not surrendered? The game is so large and the code so complex that once you get past the first winter, lots of things don't make much since. I have never gotten past January in any game I have started and I have enjoyed the game immensely. Actually truth be told, I think this is actually an eight to nine month game....June to February...and that's fine with me. Well worth every penny I spent. Cheers.

[Joel Billings]

I can't comment on how many armaments points one must destroy as a key to victory. I can say that killing them in 1941 will have an impact in 1941 and 1942, but will probably not have as big of an impact later on as it does seem that their production increases make them a non-factor later in the war. Although we've made good progress since release and feel the game plays better over time than it used to, we're still working on some changes that should improve 1942 and the later war period. I've read that some say it took 3-4 years to balance War in the Pacific (maybe that's just a rumor I've heard as I've stayed away from WitP since development work on UV and WitP burned me out on it so bad I never went back to it after release). I hope it doesn't take us that long with War in the East, but since we can't really rely on the AI testing as much as we'd like to, the only real way to see how the game plays is to watch various AARs and they take months to complete. Some work can be done by using scenarios that start mid-war, but that only works so well because their are some assumptions built into these scenarios that may prove to be wrong when compared to how the full campaign plays out. Also, about 75% of games started in Multiplayer are the full campaign, with another 20% being smaller scenarios and only less than 1 in 20 being a campaign 42, 43 or 44. The lack of interest and AARs for these scenarios makes it very hard to get any good information about how they play out. Because player skill is a major factor, we can't rely on just one or two games but really need many games, and only the 41 campaign gives us a sufficient number of AARs.

We think there's plenty of fun to be had with the current scenarios and campaigns and hope that with continued feedback we'll be able to continue to improve the game. As always a special thanks to those that take the time to post their AAR's, especially those willing to try the public betas as they become available.

[larryfulkerson]

Hey Joel, if I have any skill at reading between your lines........it seems like you're asking for some official or unofficial playtesters.  Volunteers who will play against another volunteeer over and over until you reach your "final product".  Count me in.

[Balou]

Campaign started in 42? Well then I have to assume that this campaign starts from a point where most of the armament factories were already somewhere behind the Urals. Translated into a 41 campaign this might be the case when the Axis player is slow at getting those cities that are eg armament centers. In other words: Taking places such as Stalingrad is great but where there still crucial factories there when you took it? On-map manpower alone is not going to cripple the SU.

[Emx77]

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings
As always a special thanks to those that take the time to post their AAR's, especially those willing to try the public betas as they become available.

Joel, right now I'm playing GC'41 as Axis. It is turn 33 and blizzard is almost over. If they find it useful, I would like to help developers by writing AAR. Unfortunately, not every player has a time to write elaborate AAR. So, I would appreciate If you can give potential writers some guidelines about what informations are most useful as feedback for developers. That can help to make concise report that you can use for WitE improvement.

[Ketza]

ORIGINAL: Emir Agic

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings
As always a special thanks to those that take the time to post their AAR's, especially those willing to try the public betas as they become available.

Joel, right now I'm playing GC'41 as Axis. It is turn 33 and blizzard is almost over. If they find it useful, I would like to help developers by writing AAR. Unfortunately, not every player has a time to write elaborate AAR. So, I would appreciate If you can give potential writers some guidelines about what informations are most useful as feedback for developers. That can help to make concise report that you can use for WitE improvement.

That would be great info. I like writing AARS and it would be good to know I was actually doing a service to the game instead of just rambling on about my defeats and victories [:D]

[randallw]

I think the devs would like to see experience and morale ratings of the Axis divisions ( Commander's report ), right before the blizzard, then through it.

[Balou]

Graet idea. BTW every player could do that for himself, let's say look at average morale and so on at different timelines. Is there a way to export those data in excel or the like (see picture)