Turn 1 Axis Panzer Group Combat Results

[hossjww30]

I could see if the defender was in a swamp at level 2 fort. But this is the first turn in light woods. Like I said I also had a mechanized infantry along with the attack and there was a stug, pioneer and panzerjager battalion also attached to the units. There were only 34 T-34's in the defenders unit. This was against the Soviet 37th tank division. I killed 34 T-34s. Don't see KV-1's in the results.

No one has addressed why the fatigue of the panzer division should be 92 after one battle in week 1.

Also, losing over 400 planes to operational losses on turn 1 is ridiculous. This is common sense for goodness sake.

[Stamb]

I am Lovenought's opponent in GC. I play as an Axis side and I confirm that I have some fighter pilots with 99 XP. They have a lot of kills and they were on a map from the start or campaign. But an average XP is probably 80 or maybe even 75. If we are talking about training pilots.

[hossjww30]

For the planes all I did was set the AI to manage everything and ground support is on. I didn't touch anything else on the air war.

[AlbertN]

The problem is that in German doctrine the 'tank vs tank' duel was not exactly there.

Already in France the French tanks were better than Germans.
Germans had problems with Matilda's too.

So the 'but German tanks cannot exactly pierce frontal T34 armour' ... German tanks at best maneuvered, at worst called in for air support or simply sent forward the infantry.
BUT here you cannot attack with a panzer division and have the system understand that at times it's the infantry that goes forward.

[hossjww30]

Two thirds through turn 1 (I haven't moved AG North yet):
losses:
- air combat 182
- flak 47
- operational 213

[Sammy5IsAlive]

Just a few thoughts on Axis 'tank preservation' and the use of the Panzers in general.

1) I think to an extent players are still sometimes following the WITE1 'meta' where the Panzer divisions were by far and away the strongest units. So your typical Axis offensive set piece operation would have the infantry units doing the initial attacks, the motorized divisions following up and clearing a path and then the Panzer divisions exploiting and forming the encirclements. I'd suggest that in WITE2 you are better using the Panzers to clear the path and beat up on units that have already retreated and are more vulnerable to the firepower of the Pz divs, and the more resilient Mot divisions to hold the encirclements further ahead.

2) Linked to the above I think that some players are too reluctant to take tank losses. So rather than commit them into offensive battles in situations of their own choosing, they are keeping them out of combat, which alllows them to build up the high MPs/high CPPs that can lead to them becoming a bit of a 'paper tiger' that then underperforms when they are committed deeper behind Soviet lines and have to take part in defensive battles on terms dictated by the Soviet player.

3) Linked to point #2 and to what carlkay has said above I think that some Axis players, when evaluating what constitutes 'sustainable' tank losses, are overly concentrated on the production figures and don't factor in the numbers of AFVs that will eventually come into the active pool from damaged elements. The process by which damaged elements within a unit eventually come back as ready elements is detailed in the manual but in summary it is a multi turn process and so you won't immediately benefit from it in 1941

4) I think there is a little bit of a lack of imagination in how players have been using the panzer units. For example in the AARs I've not seen a lot of stacking a Pz regiment with a Mot regiment (by doing this you spread out the targets for massed Soviet armoured counterattacks as opposed to keeping a Pz Division together and offering a single target) and I've not seen a lot of discussion of using the Panzers as an armoured reserve to combat defensive reserve activations from the Soviet side.

I don't dispute that there may be an issue with tank losses. But before immediately asking the devs to make changes I would encourage people to look at their own gameplay and evaluate whether there may be ways they could use the Panzer units differently/more effectively.

[Jango32]

Here are two examples from battles run using turn 3 of carlkay's latest AAR campaign:





In both cases I picked targets that had only 'outdated' Soviet AFVs like T-26s and BTs. Outright destroyed German AFVs are 43% and 39% (almost 40%) from the number the division started with in each respective example. Engaging Soviet mechanized and tank divisions with Panzer divisions will lead to losing significant numbers of German AFVs regardless of what they're up against.

CPP was at 68% for the first screenshot and 48% for the second screenshot at the time of the attack.

[DarkHorse2]

I feel your pain.

I suspect a lot of your turn 1 losses may be recon ac?

The OPS losses tend to level out some once you have everyone flying from Level 2+ airfields. (which I do not really understand why they are so lacking in Poland at the onset of Barbarossa...)

And you will get better at AC mission planning on the 1st turn that will help drop turn 1 losses to less than 100-150 for the Axis.

Sadly, it is not intuitive at all and takes some practice and experimentation.

[Stamb]

Few comments from my side:
1. I did not play wite 1
3. I pay attention to logistics report and each turn (now it is hash winter and I don't have a lot of panzers on a map) there are around 100 tanks that are returned to a pool, while ~25 are irrecoverable.
4. It is an interesting idea to use for example 2 moto regiments and 1 panzer. One problem is that it will take +2 capacity slots (1 for breaking panzer division and 1 for breaking motorized division) from an already limited pool of assault armies and corps HQs. Also 3 regiments are weaker than a division that can be made up from this regiments, but in case of panzers + moto it might be worth to do so. At least Soviet player will have less temptation to hit it with his AFVs.

I use panzers as a reserve activation in defense!

[hossjww30]

I certainly understand some losses but losing every available tank on turn 1 after one battle? Especially on turn 1 when the Soviets had their head up their ass.

[DarkHorse2]

ORIGINAL: hossjww30

I certainly understand some losses but losing every available tank on turn 1 after one battle? Especially on turn 1 when the Soviets had their head up their ass.

Yep.

WiTE2 forces you to be very selective on using Axis Panzer formations against Soviet Tank divisions, especially in Army Group South where there are ample Soviet Tank formations to contend with.

What I find further frustrating is that Panzer losses are not diluted when adding additional supporting infantry to the attack (motorized or other wise).

You quickly find that it becomes more advantageous (loss-wise) during the onset of Barbarossa to attack without any armor when confronting Soviet Mech or Tank forces. (feels weird to me too... especially considering Soviets had hardly any tanks equipped with radios at the onset)

Whatever Soviet Tank forces that are attacked seemed to be completely zeroed-in (and uniformly in range) solely on the attacking panzers at the exclusion of anything else.

[AlbertN]

But ideally a Panzer Division is already 1 panzer regiment and 2 motorized regiments in OOB terms!
In the game it just splits in 3 'panzer regiments'.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: hossjww30
This game is garbage. None of this was caught in playtesting before release? How long has this game been out now? I've been playing it for a few hours and already realize the combat results are garbage.

They basically charged people $79 to add roads (which have almost no affect on the game), screw up the air management system and add depots. Yes that's what I want to do - spend hours building depots and managing supplies.

Civility is part of the forum rules here. If you've just started playing the game and got a combat result you don't understand, then coming and asking (and ideally posting a screenshot and/or a save file) is the way to go. Jumping to these types of attacks isn't.

Regards,

- Erik

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: carlkay58
hoss - you picked a fight with the best Soviet Tank Division at the start of the war. It was fully equipped with T34s and KV1s. It was experienced and fully trained. In an actual battle account in early July that division was able to totally trash two panzer divisions who were unable to damage the Soviet tanks. When the 25 KV1s ran out of ammo, they were able to destroy another 15 to 20 Axis tanks by RUNNING THEM OVER!

The reality at the start of the war was that the German armor was a collection of out-dated equipment that was not up to the caliber of the Soviet T34 and KV1. The Germans were suffering from Victory Disease - what they had and fielded were able to defeat everyone else so why change it?

A large majority of the 41 Axis tank losses in the game are from disrupted elements which represents break downs and worn out equipment. Many of these can come back eventually with the rest being scrapped for parts. Infantry, on the other hand, were very effective against Soviet armor at this time because of the lack of Soviet training in combined arms tactics. A Soviet Tank division had very few, if any, infantry with it. Tanks did not have the visibility to counter infantry without supporting infantry. Even mechanized infantry, once dismounted, is better against the Soviet tanks in 41 than the under gunned, under armored German tanks.

Thank you Carl, for your constructive post.

We're listening and reading, but I think it's very important that players understand that all the historical results are possible in WITE2, including the ones that were outliers. In 1941, the Axis did lose some battles and the Panzer Divisions did lose a lot of tanks, including in battles.

With all that said, although these results are historical plausible and with precedent, if the original poster would like to provide more information, ideally a screenshot or a save where we can see the combat results in detail, we can certainly take a look.

Regards,

- Erik

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Sammy5IsAlive

Just a few thoughts on Axis 'tank preservation' and the use of the Panzers in general.

1) I think to an extent players are still sometimes following the WITE1 'meta' where the Panzer divisions were by far and away the strongest units. So your typical Axis offensive set piece operation would have the infantry units doing the initial attacks, the motorized divisions following up and clearing a path and then the Panzer divisions exploiting and forming the encirclements. I'd suggest that in WITE2 you are better using the Panzers to clear the path and beat up on units that have already retreated and are more vulnerable to the firepower of the Pz divs, and the more resilient Mot divisions to hold the encirclements further ahead.

2) Linked to the above I think that some players are too reluctant to take tank losses. So rather than commit them into offensive battles in situations of their own choosing, they are keeping them out of combat, which alllows them to build up the high MPs/high CPPs that can lead to them becoming a bit of a 'paper tiger' that then underperforms when they are committed deeper behind Soviet lines and have to take part in defensive battles on terms dictated by the Soviet player.

3) Linked to point #2 and to what carlkay has said above I think that some Axis players, when evaluating what constitutes 'sustainable' tank losses, are overly concentrated on the production figures and don't factor in the numbers of AFVs that will eventually come into the active pool from damaged elements. The process by which damaged elements within a unit eventually come back as ready elements is detailed in the manual but in summary it is a multi turn process and so you won't immediately benefit from it in 1941

4) I think there is a little bit of a lack of imagination in how players have been using the panzer units. For example in the AARs I've not seen a lot of stacking a Pz regiment with a Mot regiment (by doing this you spread out the targets for massed Soviet armoured counterattacks as opposed to keeping a Pz Division together and offering a single target) and I've not seen a lot of discussion of using the Panzers as an armoured reserve to combat defensive reserve activations from the Soviet side.

I don't dispute that there may be an issue with tank losses. But before immediately asking the devs to make changes I would encourage people to look at their own gameplay and evaluate whether there may be ways they could use the Panzer units differently/more effectively.

Thanks Sammy, I agree with your points and we're always open to look into concerns (as we have been), but we'll always be aiming towards historical results whenever possible.

Regards,

- Erik

[DarkHorse2]

ORIGINAL: AlbertN

But ideally a Panzer Division is already 1 panzer regiment and 2 motorized regiments in OOB terms!
In the game it just splits in 3 'panzer regiments'.

You are correct. At this stage of the war, a broken down Panzer Division would have 1 Panzer regiment and 2 Motorized Infantry regiments.

As the war progressed, the Motorized Infantry regiments would be converted to Panzer Grenadier regiments.

In contrast, WiTE2 just breaks a division down into roughly 1/3s.

[hossjww30]

How do I paste a screen shot in this MS-DOS forum?

[hossjww30]

Turn 1 combat result:

[hossjww30]

Here is my panzer division after one attack in week 1. Six ready tanks. So now the division is useless for weeks while it rebuilds.

[DarkHorse2]

Looks about right. Great illustration of the current AFV combat system situation.

In this case, given those odds, would have been better to not attack with the 13th Pz entirely.

What roughly appears to happen is that all of the AFVs, collectively, fire at the opposing AFVs for 'X' number of rounds or until they are completely destroyed. Only once all the opposing AFVs are gone, will they switch over to soft targets.

Using this system, it would not have mattered if you added in another 5 inf divisions to try to take some of the heat off of the 13th Pz, the 13th is still toast anyways.