Optional Sudden Death Rule Available for Testing

[invernomuto]

ORIGINAL: wadortch
This is something I wanted to mention and you hit on it. Be great if players can report where they are with VP's at the check points whether or not they are using the rule.

I'm on turn 8 in my PBEM as russian. Still a long way to go but I'll report VPs at the end of march.

[gradenko2k]

I don't think historicity is part of the point of this Sudden Death rule. It's almost certainly completely unacceptable in terms of known behavior to expect the Germans to throw down their arms if they don't reach a certain stop-line, nor is it believable for the Russians to stop fighting if the Germans take some arbitrary set of cities.

Rather, the point is to get the players to tailor their gameplay in certain ways, since strictly abiding by historical politics combined with player hindsight of military and industrial realities will otherwise shape the meta-game towards behaviors that are just as ahistorical as an early surrender - such as the Germans treating Russian territory only as a buffer between the Red Army and Berlin, or the Russians avoiding a stand-up fight in a majority of occasions.

[alfonso]

ORIGINAL: Pelton


The Germans were winning the war of atrition through 41 into 42 as can clearly be seen by Russian losses through early 1943.

Red Army Losses
---------------- Killed+Wounded KIA+Missing
1st Quarter 1942 1,800,000 620,000
2nd Quarter 1942 1,500,000 780,000
3rd Quarter 1942 2,400,000 1,140,000
4th Quarter 1942 1,390,000 456,000
1st Quarter 1943 2,077,000 656,000

Pelton

In this period in which the Soviet Union was "clearly losing" the attrition war the Red Army strength increased from 2,818,500 (1941 4th Quarter) to 6,459,800 (1943 2nd Quarter)

Source: Glantz and House, "When titans clashed", Appendix, Table A. The same source shows the very same losses shown by Pelton (for instance, 1st Quarter 1943 656,000 killed or missing; 2,077,000 is the TOTAL (including wounded and sick). Maybe he forgot to mention the first column of that Table A (average strength).

Table C in that book shows that the strength ratio Soviet:Axis was 1.34:1 in March 1942 and 1.68:1 in April 1943

[Aurelian]

ORIGINAL: alfonso

ORIGINAL: Pelton


The Germans were winning the war of atrition through 41 into 42 as can clearly be seen by Russian losses through early 1943.

Red Army Losses
---------------- Killed+Wounded KIA+Missing
1st Quarter 1942 1,800,000 620,000
2nd Quarter 1942 1,500,000 780,000
3rd Quarter 1942 2,400,000 1,140,000
4th Quarter 1942 1,390,000 456,000
1st Quarter 1943 2,077,000 656,000

Pelton

In this period in which the Soviet Union was "clearly losing" the attrition war the Red Army strength increased from 2,818,500 (1941 4th Quarter) to 6,459,800 (1943 2nd Quarter)

Source: Glantz and House, "When titans clashed", Appendix, Table A. The same source shows the very same losses shown by Pelton (for instance, 1st Quarter 1943 656,000 killed or missing; 2,077,000 is the TOTAL (including wounded and sick). Maybe he forgot to mention the first column of that Table A (average strength).

Table C in that book shows that the strength ratio Soviet:Axis was 1.34:1 in March 1942 and 1.68:1 in April 1943

Don't bring facts into it.

Russia "lost" the "war of attrition" all the way to the Reichstag.

Go figure...