Accomplishing a reasonably historical advance

[von Beanie]

I've had this game for a while, but had only played it as the Russians. I set it aside after conquering Warsaw in 1941. However, for the 75th anniversary of the invasion I decided to check it out again and play as the Germans. A couple of days later I am very frustrated with a variety of things like fuel shortages in the first two turns of the game that immobilize some panzer divisions, and similar problems that I don't recall reading about in the history books. Even though I gave the game several tries, I could not come close to matching the historical German advance. For example, historically Minsk fell on June 26, and Riga just a few days later. I can regularly accomplish these feats in WITE, so it shouldn't be impossible if this is a reasonable simulation.

Today I looked at a few AARs. None of the ones I examined show the Germans accomplishing the historical advance. The reason I'm writing is for someone to point out an AAR where a historical advance was accomplished so that I might be able to figure out how it can be done in this game.

[lancer]

Hi von Beanie,

The game has a learning curve, especially as the Germans. It's been beaten on the very highest level of difficulty.

With regards to fuel shortages within the first 8 days of the campaign, this is indeed historically accurate. AGN, in particular, had to resort to aerial resupply in order to keep their Panzer divisions movng.

The primary source for this, that is referenced by most major works on Barbarossa, is "Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton", by Martin van Creveld. It's a good read and has an excellent chapter on Rommel in the Western Deserts as well.

You could also check Von Brauchitsch's War Diary which is free online.

Cheers,
Cameron

[von Beanie]

Thank you for the reference to the van Creveld book. I just read the sections on Barbarossa, and you are correct that Panzergruppe 4 (AGN) did have a fuel shortage as early as June 24 that was partially alleviated by an airlift (p. 159). I also noted that a similar situation happened on 23 June to Guderian (p. 167) and was resolved by them finding a large Russian fuel reservoir nearby. I was unaware of these events, and don't recall them being discussed elsewhere. My only quibble is that both of these events occurred to armored units that had advanced so far so fast that they had outrun their supply chain, and could not be resupplied by trucks because the roads were too congested with troops to allow the supply convoys to move forward. No front HQ lacked fuel this early in the campaign--it just couldn't be moved forward efficiently.

In the game I have had multiple motorized divisions and even some Panzergruppe HQ units far in the rear immobilized by a lack of fuel in June--and some HQ units haven't even moved from their starting positions. I don't understand what is happening in these cases.

What the book did bring up that I found fascinating is that German locomotives rapidly began to fail when the first severe cold struck, since their pipes weren't protected from bursting like the Russian locomotives were. The book made a good case that it was the near total collapse of railroad supply that stopped the German advance--even more than the mud and snow did.

[lancer]

Hi von Beanie,

It's only a chapter but it's my favourite read about the Eastern front. It's also straight from the primary source of German Quartermaster records of the time. Just about everything he mentions in the chapter is modeled in the game including the cold effect on the loco's. Some things are deliberately abstracted as a full simulation would be twice as detailed and, likely, half as much fun.

The game provides scope for a wide range of outcomes that center around the historical advance. The tighter you restrict the envelope of possibilities the closer a typical game will be to the historical record but the less diversity and replayability there will be. I've opted for replayability in the design which gives plenty of room for an inexperienced German player to crash and burn (similarly for a badly lead Soviet side given the go-for-the-throat AI that Vic has come up with).

The start of the campaign is probably, even with optimum play, behind the historical curve but this is to compensate for the fact that the player isn't going to waste multiple weeks dithering and dallying later on as Hitler did before finally opting for a direct thrust at Moscow.

There are a lot of things that can affect fuel and logistics. Perhaps you could post a screenshot that shows the logistical icons (units toggled off with the button down the bottom) and I'll take a stab at whats going on.

Cheers,
Cameron

[baloo7777]

Thank you von Beanie for bringing up things that I thought made the game less than WITE. And thank you Lancer. Your arguments and explanations are very convincing, and I find once again, things I thought I knew turn out to be not completely true. I will pick the game back up and try again.

[fvianello]

I think that, as in most WW2 strategic / operational games, it's really difficult to replicate the initial German victories, let alone doing better;
you'd need a Soviet player / AI counterattacking immediately at turn 1 with almost every available division and not retreating at all.

From wikipedia:
"At around 7:15 am, Stalin issued NKO Directive No. 2, which announced the invasion to the Soviet Armed Forces, and called on them to attack Axis forces wherever they had violated the borders and launch air strikes into the border regions of German territory.[142]
At around 9:15 pm, Stalin issued NKO Directive No. 3, signed by Marshal Semyon Timoshenko, which now called for a general counteroffensive on the entire front "without any regards for borders" that both men hoped would sweep the enemy from Soviet territory.[143][133] Timoshenko's order was not based on a realistic appraisal of the military situation at hand, and it resulted in devastating casualties.[52]"

[demyansk]

Good point Hanbanca and we all know how the campaign went so it's difficult to simulate some things. I am playing the computer again with decisions off, I like it