Probability of failing initiative check Corps vs. Army

[Michael T]

The thing is it should not even be a question. It should be an obvious observation that the German C&C system is better. I don't think it is. At best its marginal.

[Flaviusx]

ORIGINAL: Michael T

The thing is it should not even be a question. It should be an obvious observation that the German C&C system is better. I don't think it is. At best its marginal.

Put it to the acid test, Michael. Start a game (against a human preferably) strip out all the non panzer korps from the getgo and play it out. Keep the saves (this means no server game, find somebody you trust.)

Give Pavel the data. If you want to convince him, that's the way to do it. I suspect this is one of those ideas that looks better on paper than in practice. Obviously Pavel isn't buying it. You may find it's not as amazing as you thought at least on the offense. But who knows, really?

[KenchiSulla]

ORIGINAL: Helpless

Does not really change anything.

No. It is still some particular case which shows that 7 is higher than 6.

I think it shows that if the corps leader initiative is lower then the army commanders initiative (which is likely) then the corps commander is, if you talk about committing reserves at least, redundant...

[timmyab]

ORIGINAL: Michael T
The thing is it should not even be a question. It should be an obvious observation that the German C&C system is better.

Yes, this is precisely the point.At the moment I'm reasonably confident that you could swap over the Axis and Soviet C&C system and you would hardly notice the difference.There should be no question that this would quickly lead to disaster for the Germans.
I know I've said it often enough, but if the poor performance of the Soviet leadership in 41 and 42 isn't hardwired into the game then what happened in those years is never going to make sense.
Ideally the competence of the Soviet leadership, especially in 41 and 42, should be patchy and unpredictable which will mean occasional weaknesses which can be exploited as well as occasional fierce and potentially dangerous Soviet counterattacks.This will need a different and more transparent C&C mechanism than we have at the moment.

[rmonical]

Put it to the acid test, Michael. Start a game (against a human preferably) strip out all the non panzer korps from the getgo and play it out. Keep the saves (this means no server game, find somebody you trust.)

Need to be little more nuanced, particularly early on. The army command advantage works for 5 hexes. So outlying divisions still need a corps HQ. The approach I am taking is to delete one or two corps HQ in each infantry army in 1942.

[rmonical]

Is creating extra support units something Axis players want to do?

The Germans desperately need more pioneer battalions. I would cheerfully knock 20 infantry divisions down to 75% at start and take the equivalent in pioneer battalions. As I have said elsewhere, the Soviets have great flexibility to tailor their force to the war that is being fought in WITE. The German force is rigidly restricted to that tailored to fight the historical campaign irrespective of what happens in WITE. Huge advantage to the Soviets.

The fact that I am a former Army engineer officer has absolutely no bearing on my opinion here. Honest.

[rmonical]

No. It is still some particular case which shows that 7 is higher than 6.

What I am trying to say is that in the real world, 6 allocated over three or four divisions in a corps is more effective than 7 allocated over 10-12 divisions in an Army. The algorithm does not reflect this. So if we were to frame this as a requirements statement, we might have for the "Probability to Pass Leader Check" requirement:.

The game should reinforce traditional corps-army command structure by ensuring that in typical situations, the leader checks are more likely to pass when a corps is in the chain of checks then when one is not. The typical situation should be considered a corps commander with an effectiveness of 5 and an army commander with an effectiveness of 7.

Also remember that we are not talking about individuals. The admin rating in particular is probably more a reflection of the abilities of the chief of staff (and the overall experience of the HQ staff) than of the commander.

If one wanted to really get to the Soviet situation in 1941, newly formed HQs should start with really low admin ratings that build over time.

[Flaviusx]

ORIGINAL: rmonical

Put it to the acid test, Michael. Start a game (against a human preferably) strip out all the non panzer korps from the getgo and play it out. Keep the saves (this means no server game, find somebody you trust.)

Need to be little more nuanced, particularly early on. The army command advantage works for 5 hexes. So outlying divisions still need a corps HQ. The approach I am taking is to delete one or two corps HQ in each infantry army in 1942.

Well, yes. That rather proves my point don't you think?

Corps commands are necessary on the offensive. If you to try to pull off any kind of major advance without them, your command net is going to suffer.

Only when things stabilize can you seriously contemplate doing away with them. This is really an optimization measure that the Axis can do once they are on the backfoot for good. If you smoke the Soviets early on (as Michael always does in his games) this is never going to come up.

[Michael T]

Flavius my arguement is only about defence. Particularly reserves. However I think it very strange that a Corp based system is penalised in offence whereas a Army based system is not.

Pelton is the one going on about a 41 campaign without Corp. Not me.

FWIW I would simply give the Soviet leaders some DRM's that make them worse in 41/42. Remove any negative CV modifers from any Corp attacking that fall under one Army command.

Problem solved.

If you like add some DRM's to German Leaders in 44/45 that make them worse to reflect Hitlers interference. In 41/42 the DRM's for the Soviets also reflect Stalins medling.

[Flaviusx]

I don't think the Germans need negative leadership DRMs. Officer quality stayed high throughout the war. At the tactical level Germans were dangerous all the way to the end and gave as good as they got or more. Dupuy did a huge study on this years ago.

As far as Hitler goes, I see that as something better handled by VPs. Fuhrer orders to hold objectives and the like. You can do the same with Stalin. This is a pretty complicated subject in of itself, It's not really a tactical issue imo or directly related to the combat system at any level.

[Michael T]

From my reading Hitler was giving obsurd direct orders in the later stages to hold some insignificant town or take back some other. The negative DRM reflects the interfence in an indirect manner. Thats all.

But its all pie in the sky anyhow as I don't see anything changing.

I raised the question to see how other players felt about it. So now that I see 'some' are on the same page I will try and figure some HR to improve what I see as an issue. Like I wrote earlier, I won't enter another game as Axis w/o some HR to restrict Soviet reserves in 41.

[rmonical]

In 41/42 the DRM's for the Soviets also reflect Stalins medling.

The major issue with Stalin's meddling is defending forward (Kiev pocket) and being required to attack when the forces were not ready (AGC AO July-August Soviet losses)..

[Peltonx]

ORIGINAL: Michael T

The thing is it should not even be a question. It should be an obvious observation that the German C&C system is better. I don't think it is. At best its marginal.

The fact is as I stated alrdy SHC C&C is better then GHC C&C in wite.

ORIGINAL: rmonical

Reserve activation is only part of the story. The bigger story is that for a whole range of morale, initiative and combat checks - the corps HQ hurts rather than helps unless the corps commander has the same rating as the army commander. If the corps commander rating is two below the army commander - it is horrible.


This, of course assumes the one incomplete example in the rules is correct.

[/quote]

Morale is King of the battle field. You simply can't over look the long term effect of disbanding the Corp's HQ's starting TURN 1. The snowball effect of higher morale/10% more rolls in your favor over 200 turns is HUGE!!!!

You can't look at a single turns effect only, you have to take this x 212 = more wins, more morale, more activations, 2x higher SU commitments ect ect. As JB taught me the SU commitment is huge and help win allot of those 2.0-2.5 to 1 odds battles normally lost


The effect of this is a game changer over time.

[Peltonx]

ORIGINAL: rmonical

Put it to the acid test, Michael. Start a game (against a human preferably) strip out all the non panzer korps from the getgo and play it out. Keep the saves (this means no server game, find somebody you trust.)

Need to be little more nuanced, particularly early on. The army command advantage works for 5 hexes. So outlying divisions still need a corps HQ. The approach I am taking is to delete one or two corps HQ in each infantry army in 1942.

Your WRONG X 2. It is over 11 hexes. Armies front and make up is 9 infantry and 3 panzer. The distance from HQ is 5 hexes north to south east to west. You do not count the hex the HQ is in.

Also I am doing it in 3 games. I started disbanding 1 Corps per turn on turn 1 vs Hugh. The other two games I waited until Spring and started putting armies into defensive set-ups from north to south. In all 3 by 43 there are very few Corps in any armie.

There are huge up side to this as I have been stating for 6 months.

You win more battles, take less loses ect ect. Over time this is huge.

It took me a while to finally get the best way to get the men from HQ's back into combat units, but I have it tweated out.

Also I beleive I found a way to save armament pts, need to test it a little more.

I am field testing it in my 3 late 43 games.

[Peltonx]

For the supply geeks.

How many trucks are required per GHC Corp?

If you disband 20 Corp at the start where do trucks go?

Is supply better?

[Simbelmude]

Wouldn't it be a good idea to apply the Corps distance modifier to the first echelon HQ, the Army distance modifier to the second, etc... whichever it is?
So Army HQs could perform as first echelon HQs but would operate under the same constraints as Corps HQs. This makes sense: Corps HQs dealt with more tactical stuff, so needed to be closer to the "action". Superior HQs dealt with the operational level, so distance/reactiveness was less of a problem. But if the superior HQs cannot delegate to lower echelons because they have een scrapped, then they have to take over the tactical aspects as well, and then distance matters more.
This would help rendering a more accurate distinction between German and Soviet C&C.

[Mehring]

ORIGINAL: Simbelmude

Wouldn't it be a good idea to apply the Corps distance modifier to the first echelon HQ, the Army distance modifier to the second, etc... whichever it is?
So Army HQs could perform as first echelon HQs but would operate under the same constraints as Corps HQs. This makes sense: Corps HQs dealt with more tactical stuff, so needed to be closer to the "action". Superior HQs dealt with the operational level, so distance/reactiveness was less of a problem. But if the superior HQs cannot delegate to lower echelons because they have een scrapped, then they have to take over the tactical aspects as well, and then distance matters more.
This would help rendering a more accurate distinction between German and Soviet C&C.

Possibly, and I can't think of an explanation for the high command range modifier at all. Surely strategic plans and doctrine can be disseminated just as well from afar as up close, and if any HQ down the line needs butt kicking from above, aeroplanes would provide the requisite height.

Not sure if it would make any difference but command might work better inverted from its current form, that is, base values would come from high command and these would be enhanced or degraded by each subordinate HQ down to corps. With enough good officers and staff, each subordinate HQ could add something to the base value.

[Peltonx]

ORIGINAL: Simbelmude

Wouldn't it be a good idea to apply the Corps distance modifier to the first echelon HQ, the Army distance modifier to the second, etc... whichever it is?
So Army HQs could perform as first echelon HQs but would operate under the same constraints as Corps HQs. This makes sense: Corps HQs dealt with more tactical stuff, so needed to be closer to the "action". Superior HQs dealt with the operational level, so distance/reactiveness was less of a problem. But if the superior HQs cannot delegate to lower echelons because they have een scrapped, then they have to take over the tactical aspects as well, and then distance matters more.
This would help rendering a more accurate distinction between German and Soviet C&C.

The issue as it stands now SHC C&C is better then GHC C&C which is 100% counter to history.

The only way to counter this is to disband GHC Corps. Simply lowering SHC leadership is not going to help as there is an exploit that gets around that.

The more lvls of HQ's the less supplie replasements ect ect the front line units get.

Hopefully witw and wite2 does not have this issue.

German leadership should be far better then allies but it the other way around

[rmonical]

Pelton is right. The baseline for the worst case impact of a corps should be the result that would be obtained by the army absent the corps. Pavel apparently does not understand why this should be the case (which is unfortunate) and so we were posting at cross purposes above.

The rules seem to have the right intent:

The advantage of having a unit attached at the lowest level is that the unit has more HQ units in the chain, only one of which must pass the check.

The implication here is attaching the unit at the lowest level should not reduce the chance of the check passing.

As I mentioned above, this issues needs a clear statement of the requirement which should drive the documentation and the implementation. I proposed the qualitative requirement above. This should be worked into a table of the desired results for various combinations of leaders and ranges.

[Toidi]

There are plenty of advantages having corps. First of all army can be much further spread out.

Also, there has been a discussion how leaders should be assigned. It has been clear that for best results, you actually need to assign better leaders to corps, not armies. In such case there is an advantage of having corps in the chain of command. I remember doing calculations myself a year or two back, see thread:

tm.asp?m=2988267&mpage=1&key=Toidi&#2988267

Of course, there is only so many great leaders around, but if you use them in corps, the corps structure is quite advantageous as it gives and extra layer of command. The benefit of the army is that more units can report directly to it, so more units benefit from the better leader - but that is only useful when on defensive.

Finally, there with changes in allowed size of armies (Soviet armies having final 18 capacity, which means that there could be 4 corps in an army, which is roughly equal to capacity of German corps, as Soviet corps is comparable to German division) one cannot really argue that Soviet structure is more efficient.

Also, one need to remember that the 'bad' German leaders would be easily the better army commanders for the Soviets. Soviet Union has only Zhukov who is comparable to the better German leaders.