Russian replacements... ~150k per turn?

[nedcorleone1]

Currently tracking a full campaign game as the Axis player. The Russians get roughly 150k men per turn consistently (as indicated by the Russian manpower OOB number). Currently at the winter of 42 (around Turn 68). At this point in time, the Russians started with about 5 million men. The Axis player has currently inflicted 10 million casualties, yet the Russian OOB indicates that they still have 5 million men. How can this be? Will the replacements continue to come in at this rate for the rest of the game? If so, I don't see how the Axis player could ever win even with a continuous string of major combat victories.

[chaos45]

welcome to the real war. An yes historically the Soviets put even more men/women in arms than the game allows for replacement rates lol.

[nedcorleone1]

Just looked it up (should have done it sooner). 34 million men fielded by the Soviets in WWII. So, is it worthwhile for the Germans to maximize casualties or go for strategic locations instead?

[mrchuck]

Unfortunately you need to do both.

[Balou]

Exception: you manage to capture/destroy enough armament factories. In which case the soviets may eg accumulate "men" without beeing able to arm them.

[Michael T]

Actually the game through numerous mechanisms consistently has Soviet units at over strength. IIRC historically Soviet ID averaged around 6-8K in strength. And many times, especially late war they were down to 3-4K. Same with tank numbers. Yet in the game we see mostly units at full TOE.

So yeah, generally Soviets are over rated in WITE. Hence that's why they win all the time when player skill is equal. No great claim to fame by winning as Soviet in this game.

[LiquidSky]

The devil is in the details. Those 'various mechanisms' include human judgment. What players do in their games dictates their own history. While it invites comparisons to other 'histories' including the real life war, it shouldn't be used as a general rule to be applied to everybody since every game is a different history.

Seems to me that what is happening is people concentrate their Russians more. Instead of having 400-500 understrength divisions, they will have 200-300 full strength ones. Still the same amount of manpower. Still the same number of tanks....just more concentrated.

The Germans do the same. Disband things to concentrate the manpower into the fighting units. Disband fighting units to make the front line stronger as it shrinks.

In the real war, leaders obsessed over the number of divisions on paper. Instead, we obsess over CV.

[Michael T]

No they have more front line manpower and tanks in the game. In the real war many less than portrayed in WITE. In 1944 the Soviets could not attack across the whole front, they had to concentrate in certain areas and remain defensive in others. Fact. In the game by 1944 they can attack right across the front. Fact.

What people on this board always neglect is that the pure OOB numbers ARE NOT front line fighting troops. How many out of the 34 million cited were actually non combat people?

It's the front line combat numbers that matter. For example a Soviet ID TOE is 11K. But combat troops would equate to 9 x 350 men battalions plus other specialists. So ~ 3000 front line fighters out of 11000. Millions upon Millions of those 34 million were support people. Never fired a shot, never saw an enemy soldier.

There is a disconnect somewhere between what happened in reality and what happens in the game numbers wise. Losses are too easily replaced and not enough are KIA/WIA/MIA in combat. Same for both sides.

Personally I would much rather just see combat troop numbers represented in the game. Adding in non combatants just muddies the water and makes it difficult to compare apples with apples.

[chaos45]

Well also how often do you see a German OOB of less than or around 2 million? as by 1944...pretty sure that was around their frontline strength.

So good for the goose- IE lower loss rates for Soviets works for the Germans to.....

The low casualty rates for both sides is a horse thats been beat to death for years and the only with 2.0 will it possibly be fixed as 1.0 system can handle higher losses without the game engine breaking down.

[Michael T]

Even though the problem affects both sides, its should be quite obvious, due to results shown in AAR's that the issue is more a problem on the Soviet side. Blind freddy can see that. Part of the problem, from day one is that the developers have been unduly influenced by impartial views. So, as predicted years ago by players like Pelton, myself and many others who left the scene we are left with a game inherently flawed. It has a massive bias toward Soviet only players.

For those who play both sides or German only we are left with a hiding to nothing post 42.

I surly hope for something better come WITE 2.0

We need some objective and impartial input. Not the constant Red eyed view we get here.

Keep that up and you will end up with more of the same. A walk over rather than a contest, and subsequently many less players willing to go the distance as German.

[SeriousCatNZ]

Even with the unrealistically high Russian reinforcements, the main issue is the ability for the Soviets to supply their entire army on a general offensive across the entire front, whereas in reality most of their forces were holding forces. The precious little supply they did have was concentrated in their best units (e.g. Guards Rifles, Guards Cavalry, Guards Armour). It's a lot cheaper to defend than it is to attack in this era, given the low percentage–to–hit and percentage–to–kill ratios; e.g. it costs less artillery ammunition to fire at a predefined killing area your enemies are funnelled into during an attack, than to shell a large but localised area to aid in a breakthrough.

Soviet units in this game are absolutely deadly. I like to play Soviets and Axis, and I'm having an easy time as the Soviets once German bonuses wear off. Sure, I may give much ground, but as Russia I have strategic depth to give. And winter is coming.

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: Michael T

Even though the problem affects both sides, its should be quite obvious, due to results shown in AAR's that the issue is more a problem on the Soviet side. Blind freddy can see that. Part of the problem, from day one is that the developers have been unduly influenced by impartial views. So, as predicted years ago by players like Pelton, myself and many others who left the scene we are left with a game inherently flawed. It has a massive bias toward Soviet only players.

For those who play both sides or German only we are left with a hiding to nothing post 42.

I surly hope for something better come WITE 2.0

We need some objective and impartial input. Not the constant Red eyed view we get here.

Keep that up and you will end up with more of the same. A walk over rather than a contest, and subsequently many less players willing to go the distance as German.

accepting you are basically right - both sides field unrealistically strong formations across a game of WiTE, do you really believe that after the failure of their 1942 summer offensive the Germans could have 'won'.

I mean yes there are ways the war could have taken longer to end (and shorter for that matter) but given the nature of the Soviet-German conflict there was no victory for either side short of the total defeat of the opposition. This wasn't a 19C war for a province or a colony.

Now in game turns this creates a problem typical of many wars. You often have an inherently weak side that starts off with a short lived advantage. This erodes and they are then on the way to defeat. So making it fun to play and worthwhile for both players is a genuine challenge as otherwise you get the currently common situation of axis players ending the game around T15 when its clear they are not going to 'win'. Pity but there we are.

Now so far in WiTE2 we have combat that costs manpower. We have limited supply on certain sectors. We have a global supply shortage (Soviets) or a failure of supply delivery (axis). I'm seeing a lot 6,000 man Soviet rifle divisions in 1941. Not quite sure how this fits with your fears that the reds under the beds are distorting the game development? Equally why is it bad for the developers to have 'impartial views'?

[morvael]

How would you assess the losses in WitE2 vs WitE1 (per battle, per turn totals)?

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: morvael

How would you assess the losses in WitE2 vs WitE1 (per battle, per turn totals)?

At the moment more as an issue of individual battles. I've seen major set piece battles such as storming Odessa cost each side 8-10,000. Its common to see over 1,000 for both sides from a large battle.

Problem is that gameplay is becoming different so hard to compare. Movement matters for more, Lvov pocket etc is now impossible and both sides are developing new game strategies.

My last game of WiTE was against Stef78 and losses for the opening phase were (totals are the running total):

(shown axis-soviet)

T1 - 9k/330k
T2 - 28k/580k
T3 - 42k/620k
T4 - 58k/840k
T5 - 74k/980k
T6 - 88k/1100k (of these 800k as prisoners)

From the current WiTE2 PBEM

T1 - 16k/110k
T2 - 30k/392k
T3 - 49k/637k
T4 - 69k/773k
T5 - 88k/856k
T6 - 104k/940k (of these 650k as prisoners)

So given its different games and in one I was the Soviet side and the other the Axis etc, Soviet combat losses are much the same but axis losses are up. This is reflecting that the attacker now suffers losses in a battle as well.

There is then the important set of changes that restrict replacements - in effect manpower for that are competing with other parts of the supply delivery system and any movement to the front of fresh formations.

[morvael]

1000+ is not that uncommon I'd say (counting destroyed + damaged). But I guess too many of damaged are soon repaired.

However, the difference is not drastic I'd say. I already increased losses for the attacker by adding post-battle attrition even if you win (but added counterattack/fighting withdrawal modifiers to post-battle attrition to improve loss ratio). So it may be more the effect of replacements being too easy to get in WitE on the frontlines. They are reduced for units far away (in terms of MP) from railhead, but I guess it would be possible to apply other modifers that affect supplies to replacements as well to reduce them a bit further.

edit: however, manpower is still a constraint for the Germans. In my PBEM my motorized units have 30-40% of TOE of motorized infantry squads for a long time (vs 80% of tanks, and average 65% for regular infantry).

[Hunter63]

ORIGINAL: Michael T

Actually the game through numerous mechanisms consistently has Soviet units at over strength. IIRC historically Soviet ID averaged around 6-8K in strength. And many times, especially late war they were down to 3-4K. Same with tank numbers. Yet in the game we see mostly units at full TOE.

So yeah, generally Soviets are over rated in WITE. Hence that's why they win all the time when player skill is equal. No great claim to fame by winning as Soviet in this game.

Very true.

At start they were sent to front with days training and at 40%-60% ToE and only 80% of the trucks they needed at those low ToE levels.

So you should see a SEA of Russian units with 1-2 CV in 41 and 43+ 5-6 CV Corps level units.

The problem is this simply does not work when your designing a game,
because the Germans would easily win because Russian simply would never be able to attack.

So 2by3 has to have less stronger then historical units, which is fine.

BUT the real problem with the game is they give the Russians the same logistics system as Germany which is simply not historical in the least.

The reason Russia field so many units/men was because they only had 2 men getting supplies to front per man at front.
The WAs and Germany had 3-4 pushing supplies to front for everyone at the front,
so they could push more supplies to front 1.5-2.0x as fast as the Russian system.
So they could stock depots quicker and push a greater distance then Russians. Russians were tied to railheads and WAs and Germany could operate a far greater distance from railheads.

Russia only produced 1/3 of the trucks they needed, even after invasion before US entered the war with zero plans to make more before they new WAs would be supplying 2x as many as they produced.

The figured men and tanks win wars not trucks, basically WW I thinking. They planned on using trains to deliver men and supplies to front.

Hoping this issue gets addressed in 2.0

This is where WitE is missing the boat historically so to speak, one size does not historically fit all.

[Hunter63]

2x post

[LiquidSky]

The soviets didn't supply the front the same way as the Germans but they also didn't have to push as many supplies forward. The Soviets would not try and maintain the entire front, but would instead supply a few areas of penetration...with the rest of them on subsistence level.

At any given moment you have only a couple fronts attacking....with a couple more sitting quiet....or about a third of your entire army on low supply. Within an attacking front, the Russians would use one breakthrough army...with a another to exploit..while a couple more do holding attacks or just sit.

The exploiting army would only be expected to push up to 100km-150km forward...so they would need fewer trucks.

Depots in WitW cover this nicely..you can set supply priorities down to the Corp HQ level. You can set the Depots to different priorities as well....You wont have enough vehicles to supply the entire army, but you will be able to allow a smaller percentage to maintain an offensive.

[Michael T]

Not quite sure how this fits with your fears that the reds under the beds are distorting the game development? Equally why is it bad for the developers to have 'impartial views'?

If you are going to quote me at least try to understand what I said. Which is not what you infer above.

Actually I can make no sense of what you wrote and how it relates to what I said. As I have relayed to you before. If you can't comprehend what I have stated please do not quote me.

[RedLancer]

I thought I'd provide some clear evidence on how things are changing. As always there is a strong health warning as we have so very far to go.

The screen shots are a comparison of the same opening attack setup from the Op Mars scenario both in 1 and 2. (I moved the WitE1 units in the editor to provide a more similar comparison.) I've not posted a map as they are quite different but roughly the same forces are involved although Tk Bdes are no longer on map. It's not until I went back and played WitE for the first time in almost a year that I realised how much we have moved forward.

The data is shown from the same attacks to deliver a German retreat. I've quickly summarised numbers at the bottom.

Finally I'll state this unequivocally - there is no conspiratorial pro Soviet or anti Axis bias in the development team.