What is the point of HVY?

[kirkgregerson]

M60A3TTS,

It really depends on what your trying to accomplish with your attacks as the Soviets in sum/fall 41. I would use my attacks sparingly in order to possibly free a pocket, pocket some axis units, or pick off a weak axis mobile unit. You have to understand that most attacks the Soviets attempted in sum/fall 41 were basically suicidal in their outcome. Soviet players have this hindsight to already know to limit attacks based on common knowledge. Personally, the changes in v1.05 were much needed to bring about a much more realistic 42.
Kudos to the devs for finally taking that step.

[M60A3TTS]

I agree with you.  Trouble is, again from a Soviet standpoint I don't have a lot to work with.  High movement costs to break Axis controlled hexes means you're generally restricted to one or two hexes at best.  In most cases that won't do in busting a pocket which is why skilled Axis players develop their craft at sealing the Lvov pocket.  Pocket some axis units strictly to deny them supply for a week, sure, we will do that.  Pick off a weak mobile axis units, again sure, when they're found and that isn't often. 
 
Yes, changes were needed to rebalance '42.  Question is- with the morale changes how much has it unbalanced '41?  

[Michael T]

The reason armament factories are in vogue is because most Axis players haven't figured out the stuff that my opponent James has

I couldn't agree more with this. I spend more time actually analysing and testing than playing. The armaments chase is futile. There is more than one way to skin a cat. After hours of testing I have figured a way to get even more fuel to my Panzers. But no way I will be disclosing it. Go figure it yourselves

[Peltonx]

Bump

[Peltonx]

ORIGINAL: stone10

I think that will encourage the German player going mad for industry rather than pocketing.

Pocketing is not possible because of the exploit.

Russian players simply evac and run in the south, then reenforse Moscow to Leningrad. They can also evac Leningrad faster then you can get to it so losing it means nothing. The manpower hit is meanless at this time in game.

So pocketing units is next to impossible vs a normal russian player.

Follow the 1.05 AAR's every russian player is using this exploit to death and are more then proud to jump up and down about it.

Basicly at this point getting to even 3 million dead russians is very hard because they can leave 75% of the front open. They can retreat much much faster then railheads can get close to there retreats to east.

I was pocketing 12 to 15 units a turn vs Flaviusx in south and he figured what was the point of losing troops and just ran east. I can't blame him why fight? all his armerment points were evaced so he just marched east.

Over 60% of the front became dead after turn 10.

Pelton

[Oskkar]

Compared with the initial release of the game

a) the armament soviet multiplier has been reduced
b) the evacuation rail costs have been doubled

both of these modifications help the German cause, but they are seen by Pelton as a Soviet conspiration concocted by the soviet fanboyism of the developers.

As a consequence of those modifications, many Soviet players feel that they only can evacuate what they perceive as their most vital asset: armament points. This means that Heavy Industry has less priority. Calling it a exploit, given the path taken to arrive at this point, is a real joke. But the funny thing is that the same links that Pelton provides only weaken his position. Although most industrial production was lost, most arms production was saved. He deliberately hides this point. It was the civilian industry the one lost to the Germans (chessboard factories, rocking-chairs factories, and so on ). That is the fact. About the fate of Heavy Industry, I do not really know, BUT THE LINK HE HIMSELF PROVIDED SHOWS THAT MOST OF IT WAS LOST. Pelton very dishonestly hides this fact in his neverending rants.

[wosung]

ORIGINAL: Oskkar
He deliberately hides this point. It was the civilian industry the one lost to the Germans (chessboard factories, rocking-chairs factories, and so on ). That is the fact. About the fate of Heavy Industry, I do not really know, BUT THE LINK HE HIMSELF PROVIDED SHOWS THAT MOST OF IT WAS LOST. Pelton very dishonestly hides this fact in their neverending rants.

Now you've outed yourself as one of those few *hardliners* Pelton as speaker of *all sides* stands up against to defend *fair balance*.

Even if HI or evac model would be changed somehow in WitE, fact remains that Soviet Union outproduced Germany in every war year. And it did so in the first years of Russo-German war with less ressources than Germany. Because of more ruthless management and far mor ruthless cuts in the civilian sector.

As for Pelton's sources: Apparently he very much likes to turn them upside down. Same with the rail capacity is broken discussion. Pelton's source: "Soviet RR backwardness and lacking German prep. costed the Germans dearly"
Pelton: Soviet RR was primitive! Game is broken!"

Regards

[vlcz]

ORIGINAL: Oskkar
..That is the fact. About the fate of Heavy Industry, I do not really know, BUT THE LINK HE HIMSELF PROVIDED SHOWS THAT MOST OF IT WAS LOST. Pelton very dishonestly hides this fact in his neverending rants.

We can think anyway about Pelton ,you , me or Genghis Khan, but it is NOT sound design that the loss of 100 HVY industry , means NOTHING...Other than as soviet I can use a MILLION rail points in something useful instead

[Oskkar]

ORIGINAL: vlcz

ORIGINAL: Oskkar
..That is the fact. About the fate of Heavy Industry, I do not really know, BUT THE LINK HE HIMSELF PROVIDED SHOWS THAT MOST OF IT WAS LOST. Pelton very dishonestly hides this fact in his neverending rants.

We can think anyway about Pelton ,you , me or Genghis Khan, but it is NOT sound design that the loss of 100 HVY industry , means NOTHING...Other than as soviet I can use a MILLION rail points in something useful instead

What is Heavy Industry?
How do you know its loss means nothing?

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

The reason armament factories are in vogue is because most Axis players haven't figured out the stuff that my opponent James has. When they do, they'll be lot more scary. He doesn't chase factories. He grinds the Red Army. And I mean grind, not pocket.

I completely endorse this.

Pocketing for the sake of pocketing doesn't mean a damn until the Soviets don't get the units rebuilt for free (or one pockets 1/3 of the Red Army in one go). Cadres can be managed, they're a complete non-issue from the organizational perspective if the Soviet player micromanages properly Refit and TOE levels. I would even go as far as saying it even slows the Axis and blunts their operational edge. Cleaving, as in smashing good Soviet formations in a consistent while also pursuing consistently clearly set out objectives is the way to go. Pockets will eventually come down on Axis players as a ripe fruit does from a tree.

[pzgndr]

Right now there is no reason to fight as the Russian or that matter the German.
The Russians can out run and evac the German and the German cant get to anything so why bother moving east just diggin.

Pelton's tactics in these debates may be questionable but the essential point he's making is valid, and not necessarily restricted to just WITE (see also TOAW's FITE and Schwerpunkt's RGW) and bickering about Hvy vs Arm, or rail capacity, or city worth, or whatever. With 20/20 hindsight and limited incentive for any forward defense, why wouldn't any Russian player simply run east and wait? What are German players supposed to get out of a game like that?? This is a compelling strategy issue for 1941, and it does affect gameplay as a game if both players are not mutually enthusiastic about playing it with reasonable expectations for some sense of victory or at least "success" however loosely defined.

There should be some strategic incentive for the Russian player to defend the Motherland forward, which necessarily means some sort of real penalty for failing to defend historical lines. I'm hearing the v1.05 changes may be doing enough to help along these lines but maybe not. Should more penalties (perhaps artificial, ahistorical even) for Russian retreat be imposed or not?

It may be moot to argue too much, since with the 20/20 hindsight the Russian player can still avoid the historical mistakes that led to 4-5 million casualites. This is a "problem" with any 1941 Barbarossa campaign. In which case, playing 1942 or 1943 campaigns usually provides more mutual enjoyment for players and perhaps some of the community focus could shift to these later campaigns and provide us some playbalance feedback? Just a comment. [;)]

[ComradeP]

Despite the comments by some, I'm not overly impressed at all by how most Axis players are "grinding" the Soviets into a pulp, according to themselves.

Axis players probably need a reality check, namely that when your opponent has about 5 million men by the blizzard, or more, you've failed at your "grinding" attempts. Also: as the units are still in the field, because you're not pocketing them, all you've done is make the overall state of Soviet units a bit weaker, you wouldn't actually have made the Soviet army smaller in terms of units.

Many Axis players still can't seem to grasp just how much the Soviets sometimes get of something like manpower on average, or what they can get from efficiency measures/events like corps automatically disbanding.

As to heavy industry: as soon as the supply system is improved/requires more supplies, heavy industry will also be more valuable. The supply/production system certainly isn't perfect, but it's still a lot better than it was around release.

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: ComradeP
As to heavy industry: as soon as the supply system is improved/requires more supplies, heavy industry will also be more valuable. The supply/production system certainly isn't perfect, but it's still a lot better than it was around release.

This is my view as well. The main problem is not with rail capacity, and not necessarily with the production system, but with the supply system.

The fact that the Sovs have more hvy than they need might simply reflect the fact that the Sovs had more hvy than they needed. I would be against artificially reducing it for gameplay purposes, although some other solution should be found.

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: ComradeP
Despite the comments by some, I'm not overly impressed at all by how most Axis players are "grinding" the Soviets into a pulp, according to themselves.

Axis players probably need a reality check, namely that when your opponent has about 5 million men by the blizzard, or more, you've failed at your "grinding" attempts. Also: as the units are still in the field, because you're not pocketing them, all you've done is make the overall state of Soviet units a bit weaker, you wouldn't actually have made the Soviet army smaller in terms of units.

Many Axis players still can't seem to grasp just how much the Soviets sometimes get of something like manpower on average, or what they can get from efficiency measures/events like corps automatically disbanding.

Pocketing before November 1941 doesn't make the Soviet army smaller in terms of units in the mid/long term. And the Red Army has far more rifle divisions than it can furnish in its order of battle. Even that "overall state" is something relative to whether the Soviet player decides to tackle and micromanageme organization and equipment distribution.

Regarding the amount of "new" manpower a Soviet player can feed into units. Having lost a 15% of Armaments production and about 33% of Manpower means, roughly, 90,000 new recruits per turn being assigned to frontline units. A blizzard offensive which costs say 180,000 men per turn is a defeat, or rather, setting the foundations for a defeat in 1942. A really successful Barbarossa is the one that inflicts twice or three that number per turn, on average from turn 1 to turn 25.

Corps/airbase disbanding are one-time shots in the arm, very as FBD/Security/LW disbanding is for the Axis later on. They might provide a buffer, but if the loss ratio is well above the replacement ratio you're losing as the Soviet. That's the reason I've been insisting on that removing the 1:1 rule might end up being a good thing for the Soviet players. Loss ratios can be better predicted and influenced, and actual outcomes of operations match better expectations.

ORIGINAL: ComradeP
As to heavy industry: as soon as the supply system is improved/requires more supplies, heavy industry will also be more valuable. The supply/production system certainly isn't perfect, but it's still a lot better than it was around release.

That's why I evacuated some HI in my game against QB. I don't know what the future will entail.

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: ComradeP
Despite the comments by some, I'm not overly impressed at all by how most Axis players are "grinding" the Soviets into a pulp, according to themselves.

Axis players probably need a reality check, namely that when your opponent has about 5 million men by the blizzard, or more, you've failed at your "grinding" attempts. Also: as the units are still in the field, because you're not pocketing them, all you've done is make the overall state of Soviet units a bit weaker, you wouldn't actually have made the Soviet army smaller in terms of units.

Many Axis players still can't seem to grasp just how much the Soviets sometimes get of something like manpower on average, or what they can get from efficiency measures/events like corps automatically disbanding.

Pocketing before November 1941 doesn't make the Soviet army smaller in terms of units in the mid/long term. And the Red Army has far more rifle divisions than it can furnish in its order of battle. Even that "overall state" is something relative to whether the Soviet player decides to tackle and micromanageme organization and equipment distribution.

Regarding the amount of "new" manpower a Soviet player can feed into units. Having lost a 15% of Armaments production and about 33% of Manpower means, roughly, 90,000 new recruits per turn are assigned to frontline units. A blizzard offensive which costs say 180,000 men per turn is a defeat, or rather, setting the foundations for a defeat in 1942. A really successful Barbarossa is the one that inflicts twice or three that number per turn, on average from turn 1 to turn 25.

Corps/airbase disbanding are one-time shots in the arm, very as FBD/Security/LW disbanding is for the Axis later on. They might provide a buffer, but if the loss ratio is well above the replacement ratio you're losing as the Soviet. That's the reason I've been insisting on that removing the 1:1 rule might end up being a good thing for the Soviet players. Loss ratios can be better predicted and influenced, and actual outcomes of operations match better expectations.

ORIGINAL: ComradeP
As to heavy industry: as soon as the supply system is improved/requires more supplies, heavy industry will also be more valuable. The supply/production system certainly isn't perfect, but it's still a lot better than it was around release.

That's why I evacuated some HI in my game against QB. I don't know what the future will entail. Some people around here seem to own a really good and reliable crystal ball.

[ComradeP]

Pocketing before November 1941 doesn't make the Soviet army smaller in terms of units in the mid/long term. And the Red Army has far more rifle divisions than it can furnish in its order of battle. Even that "overall state" is something relative to whether the Soviet player decides to tackle and micromanageme organization and equipment distribution.

Regarding the amount of "new" manpower a Soviet player can feed into units. Having lost a 15% of Armaments production and about 33% of Manpower means, roughly, 90,000 new recruits per turn being assigned to frontline units. A blizzard offensive which costs say 180,000 men per turn is a defeat, or rather, setting the foundations for a defeat in 1942. A really successful Barbarossa is the one that inflicts twice or three that number per turn, on average from turn 1 to turn 25.

Corps/airbase disbanding are one-time shots in the arm, very as FBD/Security/LW disbanding is for the Axis later on. They might provide a buffer, but if the loss ratio is well above the replacement ratio you're losing as the Soviet. That's the reason I've been insisting on that removing the 1:1 rule might end up being a good thing for the Soviet players. Loss ratios can be better predicted and influenced, and actual outcomes of operations match better expectations.

Pocketing prior to November does a few things:

1) It either in theory or in practice, depending on how successful the Soviets are, lowers the amount of Guards units with maximum morale and experience you'll face in the blizzard, because the Guards cap is based on the amount of units of a certain type in play.

2) It will make the Soviets weaker overall in terms of unit quality, because the shells will need time to train.

3) Units belonging to some unit types don't come back for free.

4) (Limited to the pocketing of motorized units) You're reducing the Soviet vehicle pool much more than you'd do through combat.

Also: that figure of ~90.000 men is after the summer campaign season, it's not an average for the summer campaign season.

One time shots in the arm are still one time shots in the arm, ignoring them as the Axis by thinking the Soviets just get regular replacements and can't get manpower from efficiency measures is a bad idea.

Personally, I prefer to go for a mix of pocketing and grinding.

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: Bletchley_Geek
That's the reason I've been insisting on that removing the 1:1 rule might end up being a good thing for the Soviet players. Loss ratios can be better predicted and influenced, and actual outcomes of operations match better expectations.

Don't follow you here, could you pls explain? In my experience the Sovs still take massive losses if they lose, so the loss of the 1:1 rule not seem to have done them any good at all in my experience.

[Klydon]

ORIGINAL: Oskkar

Compared with the initial release of the game

a) the armament soviet multiplier has been reduced
b) the evacuation rail costs have been doubled

both of these modifications help the German cause, but they are seen by Pelton as a Soviet conspiration concocted by the soviet fanboyism of the developers.

As a consequence of those modifications, many Soviet players feel that they only can evacuate what they perceive as their most vital asset: armament points. This means that Heavy Industry has less priority. Calling it a exploit, given the path taken to arrive at this point, is a real joke. But the funny thing is that the same links that Pelton provides only weaken his position. Although most industrial production was lost, most arms production was saved. He deliberately hides this point. It was the civilian industry the one lost to the Germans (chessboard factories, rocking-chairs factories, and so on ). That is the fact. About the fate of Heavy Industry, I do not really know, BUT THE LINK HE HIMSELF PROVIDED SHOWS THAT MOST OF IT WAS LOST. Pelton very dishonestly hides this fact in his neverending rants.

Considering some of your other posts and the tone of those posts, I am going to assume that instead of being a newb to the community here, you are a multi account of a person that has experience and posts here regularly and are tired of Pelton's "rants". If you are indeed a new person, I apologize and then invite you to review a lot of the AAR's, especially the older ones that featured just about every German getting either crushed in the winter or absolutely crushed in 1942. That does not have a historical feel to it at all for a variety of reasons and attempts have been made to work on the situation.

The facts right now are that this game does not have much of a historical feel to it for either side for the vast majority of players. The Germans can advance as much as they want, but it is a hollow advance. The vast majority of Russians have absolutely no reason at all to stand and fight as they did historically to give time to evacuate industry in part because some of the industry appears to have no effect on the game at this time and in part because the remaining industry that is very important can easily be evacuated since rail cap doesn't have to be split. On top of that, there is no other geographical detail that causes significant issues for the Russians if it should fall to the Germans beyond Baku, which the Germans are not getting to. The results are predictable at this point with a enlarged Russian army kicking the crap out of a German army due to the blizzard rules. 1942, we don't know a lot yet about for version 1.05 and on paper, it has to be better than what we were seeing before with a large Russian army hunkered behind rows of level 3/4 forts and the Germans unable to do anything about it. In effect, the game lost its mobility from 1942 on and became more like a WW1 game.

If Pelton seems over the top about his case for Axis issues, he is a bit, but no more so than some of the Russian fan boy types who insist there is nothing wrong or insist on more shackles for the German side while the Russians enjoy all sorts of strategic freedoms already that the Axis can only dream about (like not having to deal with unit withdraws, unfavorable OOB changes regardless of the situation of the front, and the inability to customize support units just to name a few). For those of us who are looking for a terrific game representing the Eastern Front that provides a great gaming experience for both sides and has the correct feel of the actual campaign to a point, this game is a work in progress and while progress is being made, there remains more to be done.

[BletchleyGeek]

Ah! Some honest discussion here!

ORIGINAL: ComradeP
Pocketing prior to November does a few things:

1) It either in theory or in practice, depending on how successful the Soviets are, lowers the amount of Guards units with maximum morale and experience you'll face in the blizzard, because the Guards cap is based on the amount of units of a certain type in play.

While that's an upper bound on the number of Guards Units, I think it can be very loose. A 5% of 300 is 15, a 5% of 320 is 16. Not really much of a difference, in my opinion. What really matters is to get the most success to the most units. There are two possible ways to achieve this:

1) Maximize the number of attacks (or attack the most with the least)
2) Maximize the chances of winning involving the most units (or attack the least with the most)

1) Depends on pure chances: getting to the 1:1 odds. Which is highly sensible to leader rolls and whatever else is influencing Tactical Combat.
2) Depends on maneuver: something the player has complete control on.

ORIGINAL: ComradeP
2) It will make the Soviets weaker overall in terms of unit quality, because the shells will need time to train.

Soviet unit quality decays alone due to supply shortage and replacements due to extremely high losses. And damaged elements that go into the pool come back as "recruits" as far as I know. You don't want to train the shells, you want to keep the professional units edge.

ORIGINAL: ComradeP
3) Units belonging to some unit types don't come back for free.

Such as NKVD regiments? AT Brigades? Tank Brigades come in early September, and proper management really makes them really useable by early late September or early October. Very little pocketing, or any, is usually seen in most game between those dates.

ORIGINAL: ComradeP
4) (Limited to the pocketing of motorized units) You're reducing the Soviet vehicle pool much more than you'd do through combat.

The Soviet motor pool rises like a balloon by itself. This balloon punctures itself as soon as mud hits. You can check the numbers on the spreadsheet I keep for my AAR about my game with Q-Ball.

ORIGINAL: ComradeP
Also: that figure of ~90.000 men is after the summer campaign season, it's not an average for the summer campaign season.

It's not much different. One thing is to generate "new recruits" - the difference between manpower pool in two consecutive turns and the number of manpower produced, and another one is what is reported in the Logistic Reports which amalgamates reinforcements from elements already in the pool.

ORIGINAL: ComradeP
One time shots in the arm are still one time shots in the arm, ignoring them as the Axis by thinking the Soviets just get regular replacements and can't get manpower from efficiency measures is a bad idea.

But your thinking and planning can't become dependant on "shots in the arm". They're emergency measures. You'll be behaving in an analogous way as a drug addict: doing whatever it takes, without thinking too hard on the consequences, to get yet one more shot in the arm.

ORIGINAL: ComradeP
Personally, I prefer to go for a mix of pocketing and grinding.

Sure. What I say is that pocketing can be either pursued or be a consequence of grinding. I'm not saying just to either do one thing or the other

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: 76mm
Don't follow you here, could you pls explain? In my experience the Sovs still take massive losses if they lose, so the loss of the 1:1 rule not seem to have done them any good at all in my experience.

See my comment on the two strategies to maximize Guards units (or in other words, winning).