1943 GC: Loki (Allies) GloriousRuse (Axis)

[GloriousRuse]

As this multi-month venture draws to a close, a touch of analysis. Of course, it’s from the guy who got his rear end handed to him…maybe it’s not gospel?

A few notes:

1) We played with optional cities off, but a gentleman’s agreement to keep pressing until the end. Of them, I was only still holding Munich, Nuremberg, Hannover, Hamburg and Leipzig in any case.

2) We played with EF off, because it seemed odd that so much should come down to a spreadsheet management mini-game that, to our (my?) opinion at least is less about the real decision – how much do you send east vs west – and more about mechanical optimization.

3) Loki was not playing for blood. I have no idea what the full effect of that is, but I assume if he was you would see a higher VP score.

THE TALE OF THE VPs

In the end, victory is counted in VPs. Generally, these are distributed between four main periods of play, and between the air war and the ground war. So, which one mattered most? Which period were they earned in? Does that reflect the actual game?

I am counting Bombing – Special Target VPs for Air, and Cities-(Casualties & Garrison) as the Ground war. In ’45 I count all gained VPs after the fall of Cologne as ground war. Ground includes the -30 VP start position for losses.

Raw Score

First, a raw count. (Yes, this adds to 98 turns – blame the mid turn VP tick)

VP Tally (Earned This Period/Total Score)
1943 (27 Turns): 112/112
VP Per Turn: 4.15
Air War: 192/192
Ground War: -80/-80

Pre D-Day 1944 (19 Turns): 158/260
VP Per Turn: 7.5
Air War: 54/246
Ground War: 94 /14

Post D-Day 1944 (33 Turns): -14/246
VP Per Turn: -0.42
Air War: 42/288
Ground War: -56/-42

1945 (18 Turns): 54/300
VP Per Turn: 3
Air War: 6/294
Ground War: 48/6

Initial Comments

1. From a mathematical perspective, this game was won in the air. Before the first major German city fell, the WA had a net 290+ VP (there were probably a handful for German population small towns and foreign fuel before ‘45, hence the vagueness) points from bombing! As we can see, 1943 accounted for two thirds of that. In other words, the first 27 turns of the air war gave Loki his single biggest chunk of points in the whole game and were utterly indispensable in the final outcome. Plus, the damage done in ’43 just kept paying out all the way through. His skill at the air portion, and my inability to slow down the bombers, clinched the game.

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2. The ground war gives long, slow, inexorable payouts that you might not see immediately. Both in terms of immediate VP, and just as importantly, in access to VP later. By ’43 Loki had all but taken Rome and Tuscany. Yet as you can see, the VP bill looks like he lost ’43. Where you see those results is in early ’44. In terms of actual operations, after a short pursuit it was mostly inconclusive fighting in the mountains. But with 10+ VP of city points pumping in a turn – a WA player hung up on the Gustav is only getting around 5 by this time - he had his single richest ground war period.

In addition, it gave him the time he needed to fight into northern Italy. That fight took nearly nine months to cross over the mountains, which in turned opened access to ~20 cities and urban areas, more if you count the Florence region. Those then started pouring in points in late ‘44 to cover the meat grinder and gave him a buffer for the ’45 modifier drops. I don’t know exactly how many losses he took crossing the mountains so it’s hard to gauge this one, but my gut says that having what amounts to a second France in his hands for ~25 turns paid out handsomely.
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3. Under the conditions, for a player to win, he basically needs to win the two of the four major battles, or win one battle extremely convincingly. Loki won the air war, and he won Italy.

[loki100]

EwK thank you

Ok, final comments and a confession.

What did I learn:

a) there is a bug/feature that units with 0 PP can be taken by a TF with over 45 on an invasion. Joel says such units will take a lot of landing damage but its still very hard to dislodge and you could prep using a brigade. Clearly not a good idea for the main French invasion but less risky elsewhere. To be fair, if you read the manual carefully it does say this;
b) sort of related, if an airborne unit has prep pts it keeps them even if it moves off, fights a battle and then arrives at a different airbase in a subsequent turn.
c) if you capture the v-weapon launch sites (in this case its most likely to be Den Haag), you stop v-weapon VP charge. I'd never realised this and it has quite an impact on the late game for both sides. GR could have put more effort into holding the Netherlands, I could have stopped v-factory bombing and just done generic VP collection.

Things I think.

If you go for the optional city VP, I think an allied player has to be more single minded about bombing for VP in 1943. At a rough guess this would have ended in the 100-200 VP range.

VP, very roughly, the VP score you have when you land in France is what you will have at the end of the game. The reason for saying this is there is a trade off more effort=more losses= more city VP=more casualty VP and this equation only breaks down if one side gets very lucky.

So I had 260 at that stage and this dipped quite a lot before the end surge of city+bomb VP pushed it up to 300. I think I was perhaps more used to the expected dynamics of the post-invasion turns so maybe targetted my effort a bit more precisely.

Deep and embarrasing confession. I had 3 TF sunk in the post Rome naval battles. Never happened before, I was sending in badly damaged TF to keep 5A's only remaining port open (I abandoned the second one to save on the TF). Fortunately GR never asked why I gave up a port when I had a major landing clearly suffering for lack of supply, here's some evidence:



Now need to go and get the Luftwaffe into a proper shape for the return match

[John B.]

Thanks to both of you for a great AAR!

[xhoel]

Nice AAR and impressive pace. Good job for seeing it to the end.

Must say that those 2 urban battles do not look right at all to me though.

25k defenders in Bochum and the WA only lost 37 men an 1 tank?
28k defenders in Duisburg and the WA only lost 13 men and 1 tank?

Laughable to say the least. This is one of those game features that needs to be revised for the sake of realism. Such a change would at least make it worth it for the Germans to hold the cities even when surrounded. As it currently is, it seems pointless to defend them as you don't make a dent to the WA.

I was wondering what you 2 gents thought about it during the game?

[Joel Billings]

I think those battles were both with isolated units, so you can see it as a quick surrender. In WitE2 we have made changes so that fighting in urban/heavy urban and port hexes are more intense, and, IIRC, isolated units don't have quite as harsh penalties as in WitE1 and WitW. So those hexes being urban would lead to more bitter fighting, although depending on just how weak the defenders are, it still might be a short/low casualty fight. There's less firing off of all your ammo in the first attack, and a chance of getting resupplied mid combat if you've got a depot with freight, although I thought the latter was in WitW and Essen probably had freight). Anyway, we agree with you that urban combat and port sieges where there are heavy fortifications should usually be more intense than it is now for the attacker.

One other note though is without looking at the saves pre-attack, we don't really know how damaged the defending units were. The CV value is hugely inflated by the terrain and fortifications, so many of the combat elements could already be damaged. Still the losses to the attackers are very low unless the defenders were throwing rocks and/or surrendered after the first shots were fired (especingly in Bochum).

Great AAR. Kind of amazing that it ended on 300 VPs. What are the odds of that?

[GloriousRuse]

I expected the Ruhr to fold quickly once surrounded, what with the '45 morale and MTOE really keeping infantry down. I did expect them to take a few thousand with them - watching divisions get crushed for platoons put the nail in the coffin for any last minute reprieve. If I recall the actual Ruhr, despite mostly being an army sized surrender, cost the allies 10,000 or so men. I think this is a case where the algorithms - like really all algorithms dealing with anything real - start to fray near the extremes.

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: xhoel

....

25k defenders in Bochum and the WA only lost 37 men an 1 tank?
28k defenders in Duisburg and the WA only lost 13 men and 1 tank?

...

Its the steady drop in German morale. Early game I could win one of those set pieces but with a butcher's bill that Stalin would be proud of.

We're now seeing low morale/experience/ammo units being hit and mostly evaporating.

Bochum was hit by about 800 heavy bombers in the GA phase. That has two effects, first they fire off AA (=ammo) and can't use the auto-resupply routine (as they were isolated), second I'd have said >50% of their combat elements were already disrupted. You can't be precise here because an element can be disrupted more than once. Now thats before my artillery and GS disrupts more in the early phase of the attack.

Duisberg less so, it wasn't bombed as I only attacked opportunistically.

Historically the Ruhr forces did just surrender once bypassed, even though they clearly could have used the ruins to re-enact Stalingrad. I'd put that down to some German officers already thinking more about the post-war world and a lack of willingness to die in what was going to be a one-sided battle? We know from elsewhere that the experience of the allies in Western Germany was hugely variable with one town surrendering and the next generating a vicious street fight.

I've not shown it, but in the last turn a stack of 2 Pzr divisions fought off 5 attacks (and they were cut off), so unit quality really matters, if in 1945 you want to hold a hex (or at least make a fight of it) you need your Pzrs or full SS formations.

Of course you don't have many of these as they are off trying to hold up the Red Army.

[xhoel]

Thanks for the answers gents.

@Joel Billings: I think WitE2 is surely going in the right direction regarding casualties. I am glad you agree that these battles should be more intense. Without going into detail, considering the fact that Essen serves as a NSS, these units should have plenty of ammo/supply to at least put a dent to the WA.

I am not looking for a battle where they hold for eternity. Just for a battle where they cause proper casualties to the enemy. 13 soldiers and 1 tank lost is something you expect from a bar fight in Paris in 1944, not from a urban battle in the Ruhr in 1945, in a city with level 3 fortifications.

Would be really nice to see this change. For me the beauty of this game is that commanders constantly have to think about the trade offs:

In this case, the trade off for the WA commander would have been: Do I go in for a bloody battle in order to score a political victory at home and to capture these important cities and further improve my supply situation or do I hold back and engage in a week or two when the enemy is much more weaker?

While for the Germans it is: Do we sacrifice some units in order to hold these important cities and delay the enemy or do we pull back and give them up to save the formations and fight another time?

With such low casualties you basically remove the trade off and force the German player to give up such positions because it isn't worth holding them and give the WA the incentive to constantly attack such urban cities because they know the cost for doing so is 0.

@GloriousRuse: I feel you man. It is always disappointing to see unrealistic results play out. Like I said, I didn't expect them to hold on for so long, but they should have at least caused casualties in the triple digits for the WA.

@loki100: Whatever it is, it should be fixed so that it doesn't lead to such unrealistic results. The WA constantly bombed German positions and were sure that it was going to be a breeze just advancing and capturing stuff. They were proven wrong time and time again.

The best example I can think of where the Germans really put up a fierce defense was the Battle of Aachen.

Your explanations make sense but the casualties are still way too low. Something needs to be changed.

Anyway I do not want to divert the thread. Great job to the both of you and congrats on the win!

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: xhoel

..., considering the fact that Essen serves as a NSS, these units should have plenty of ammo/supply to at least put a dent to the WA.

...

worth stressing it wasn't an NSS or my gambit of burning off their ammo would have been a waste. In WiTW a NSS ceases to operate as such once its in a ZoC, it flips to a normal depot (in this one that had been isolated for 2 turns)