Research/Production questions

[AlvaroSousa]

To answer some questions here and thanks for the nice aircraft information Simulacra53.

Air Combat and Defense are not equal 1 for 1. Air Combat is more important than defense. So if you have equally scaling and increasing air combat and defense values you will see an increase in damage over all. But without a defense value increase it will be a slaughter fest. In WarPlan this represents that escorts usually fly long ranges so pilots have more flight fatigue, if their plane is damaged it can't land close by so it is more likely to get go down, loss of pilot due to being over your own territory. Interceptors have all these reverse advantages. But it is a good point about why they are balanced and the range is huge. I might drop the defense down to interceptor level.

As for mechanized. You need to understand where they are useful. Their firepower is overall 2 less than armor. They don't retreat as well as armor. They have slightly worse defense.
Compared to infantry corps/armies they have better AA, can retreat better, are 2 higher in firepower, have slightly better defense, and if put in a defensive position really don't use that much oil. Their cost is 20% less.

The difference in firepower is 13 vs 11 vs 9 ... armor, mech, infantry. Mech is 84% the firepower of armor for 80% the price. So it is an even trade off when you count the smaller retreat bonus and defense. As tech increases their value is more apparent as the gap is closer and closer by ratio reflecting Soviet mechanized corps and Panzer Grenadier effectiveness.

So it is up to the player to decide where the balance is. There is no min-maxxing here. It is a matter of functionally as the cost is fairly balanced between the units. Mechs also make a solid defensive unit for rugged terrain.

[jjdenver]

Thanks Alvaro - can you provide some info on what guns, firearms, defense do in land combat (attacking vs defending) to help decide about which infantry specialization path to use?

[Simulacra53]

Let me start by saying that I do not wish to argue about who was better or which type outperformed the other - not that such a discussion cannot be interesting or even worthwhile, but there are so many variables at play.

Next to a/c performance, reliability and pilot training there are other factors which determine success.

More than pilot training and a/c performance imho it was initiative that made the difference on the Eastern Front.
Soviet fighters were generally as good as their western counterparts, sometimes even better.

Tactics and communication were lagging at the start of the war and the chaos caused by moving industry to the Urals combined with untrained labor meant that quality control was an issue, but 1:1 Russian fighters were able to stand their ground, including early birds like the I-16. Even types like the LaGG-3 eventually evolved into the excellent La-5 and La-7 series. Same for the Yaks, culminating in excellent late war types like the Yak-3.

So no, I will not agree that Soviet types were much worse.

What differed was the low to medium level combat matching the tactical nature of the air war on the eastern front and the fact that the Jagdwaffe could maintain initiative even when outnumbered. The latter meaning that they could continue to rack up kills even when the odds were turning against the Jagdwaffe by local air superiority or at least the element of surprise. But getting kills is not the same as winning the air war.

As an interesting side note it is illustrative to look at the opposite conclusion of Anglo-American vs Soviet evaluation of the two main Luftwaffe fighter types
The Soviets regarded the Me109 as the best German fighter type, while the Anglo-Americans regarded the Fw190 as the best. The one being more agile and nimble, the other a more rugged hard hitting energy fighter. Different mission profiles, doctrines, tactics etc result in different conclusions.

[shri]

The Soviet aircraft were very good below 20000 feet and their performance drastically suffered at higher ranges, this is why they feared the messerchmitt which was very good at all altitudes.
The Allies mainly operated at higher altitudes and when they went lower, the butcherbird massacred them, the bird had its problems above 20000 feet altitude.

This is the technical reason for the differences in opinion.

As for initiative, the Eastern Front is so vast, that AIR SUPREMACY was nearly impossible for either Germans or Soviets. Compared to that, the Western front is tiny.

[Simulacra53]

ORIGINAL: shri

The Soviet aircraft were very good below 20000 feet and their performance drastically suffered at higher ranges, this is why they feared the messerchmitt which was very good at all altitudes.
The Allies mainly operated at higher altitudes and when they went lower, the butcherbird massacred them, the bird had its problems above 20000 feet altitude.

This is the technical reason for the differences in opinion.

As for initiative, the Eastern Front is so vast, that AIR SUPREMACY was nearly impossible for either Germans or Soviets. Compared to that, the Western front is tiny.

That’s by choice, as the MiG-1/3 series had excellent high altitude performance, unfortunately for the MiG most air combat was at low and medium altitude.

East vs West
You might think so, but the opposite is actually true.
The Fw190A engine performed best at low to medium altitudes, so on paper it was less suited for the strategic air battle in the west and ideal for the east (not to factors like fire power, radial engine and wide landing gear - all beneficial to the Eastern Front.

The Western Allies all valued the fire power and handling of the Focke Wulf - as an energy fighter.
Of course its initial reputation was made at medium altitude fighting Allied sweeps into France.

However the Soviets generally valued the better maneuverability of the Messerschmitt over the handling of the Focke Wuff.
Cannot remember the source but they called it a “Soldier’s Airplane”.

Of course keep in mind that the war in the east lasted from 41 to 45, a period where technology evolved and the technological edge changed sides like ebb and flow, just like in the west.

As for air superiority - that’s relative.
You may not be able to have air supremacy or superiority over all the front, if you can at least have superiority over the focal point.
The nature of the war in the east allowed the Jagdwaffe to shift where it was needed for temporary superiority, or at least to the point where they could operate. In the West the Jagdwaffe spent most of the war being outnumbered and the area of air control steadily shrunk until they had no more room to operate freely and they were hunted from the moment they took off to the moment they landed.

In air combat it is all about initiative.
Even when outnumbered you can achieve a lot if you have the initiative.
Once you lose the initiative it is the other side that dictates the fight on his terms.

[shri]

Your point of initiative is where i bring in Space.

Look at the western front, its quite tiny. At the outside ends of the tehters i.e. from Berlin to Paris it is barely 1000 km wide.
However the bulk of the bombing campaign was in the RUHR which is barely 100 km wide.

Now, the St. Petersburg to Rostov axis is nearly 2000 km wide and throughout the front combat was raging. The Luftwaffe could simply transport the premier JAGEDWAFFE like JG2, JG52 and JG54 in a repeat of Richtofen's flying circus and stop the Red Air-force.
This was simply impossible in the West due to the narrow front of the fight.

[Simulacra53]

Here is were range comes in.
As long as Allied fighter escorts were restricted to operating over France, Belgium and The Netherlands, the Jagdwaffe could still operate freely over the Reich. That’s why heavy fighters like the Me110 were still effective in the daylight anti bomber role. As defenders they did not choose the target, but held initiative once the Allied bombers were committed, concentrating fighter units not only on the way in, but also on the way out, even multiple take offs.

On the Eastern Front the air front was not only wide, it was also (most of the time anyway) shallow.
The Western Front, at least in the ETO, the air war was relatively narrow, but the strategic war against Germany was deep - that’s why the air war changed fundamentally in late 43 early ‘44 when the allied escort fighters started to have the range and numbers to attain air superiority and eventually supremacy over Germany itself. At that point it was either letting the bombers destroy any target or letting allied fighters destroy what remained of the Luftwaffe.

[AlvaroSousa]

ORIGINAL: jjdenver

Thanks Alvaro - can you provide some info on what guns, firearms, defense do in land combat (attacking vs defending) to help decide about which infantry specialization path to use?

Page 87 in the manual. They are all equal in firepower. They just fire in different orders. This is not something that has a drastic impact on combat since the hit chances are very small. Each hit has a chance to damage or cause effectiveness loss only. Then each successful hit makes a defense check to see it if applies a hit or has another chance to convert to an effectiveness loss.

[AlbertN]

Can it be known how precise that works though?

Example:

1 Infantry Corp attacks 1 Infantry Corp - both at 30 HP

Artillery fires. Attacker has 4 Artillery, Defender 3.
Both rolls 30 dices (1 per HP), the attacker hits on 1-4 out of 10, and the defender on 1-3 out of 10 (Assuming dices are 10 sided!)
For each hit there is a roll on the Defense value. (Roll D1, if it's 1-X where X is your defence you suffer an Efficiency hit, otherwise you lose 1 HP).
Go on with Guns, etc etc.

That's an example of a game styled as 'bucket of dice' for combat. Don't think that's how it works as here we get to combat odds but at least one gets to understand the mechanic.