Eastern Front '41-'45 Fabio (Axis) vs Jason (Soviet)

[Raver508]

This is a great AAR Fabio, and I can vouch for this scenario as well. It is lovingly crafted, thought through in a lot of detail, and plays really well.

As for this particular run through - the AAR lays out what happened really well. From the Russian side it felt like horror after horror (much like the real war must have 'felt' i reckon), but whenever I felt like I was down and out the resilience of the red army would surprise me. As you can see though, in the end Fabio had well and truly done me in - the loss of the Caucas, I could stomach, and managing to take back Stalingrad gave me a little hope. But losing Leningrad and then Moscow in quick succession really did feel like the end.

People can probably tell from the AAR that I made a LOT(!) of mistakes, and Fabio punished me for them in detail. But that's testament to a pretty deep design. The only thing I'll say in my defense is that I think i took the advice (cant remember if it was in the briefing or direct from my opponent) to launch early counterattacks. I suspect there is a way to do this effectively, but my human wave approach didnt work out so well

Great game. I'd love to play again sometime.

[governato]

TOAW has infinite speed/inifinite capability railways> Coupled with no truck breakdowns it can cause a supply runaway effect for the winning side...in reality the further East Germany 'd go..the harder 'd it be to supply its forces.

In a similar situation I lowered supply by a notch as new formations deployed. The idea was to simulate distribution of a fixed value of supply with increasing demand, each unit received an ever-decreasing piece of the total pie. Of course, this assumed each unit shared equally which is unrealistic, but it seemed to work better than maintaining a constant supply level regardless of total demand. Under certain conditions industry was increased (or captured) and supply was bumped up accordingly.

Maybe the same type of design concept can be used to simulate Axis logistics problems as they advance East.

Regards

Hey RB, thanks for the comments. You are one of my favorite on this forum! Here is some ideas.

EF uses supply squads for each HQ so there is definitely some flexibility there to model supply of different formations OVER TIME, as you suggest. For example AGN formations have low replacement rates..coupled with pestilence events that makes sure that their supply is never as high as the panzers armies...On the other hand lose a Panzer Army HQ and the replacement will have few supply squads, and so low supply for months, simulating the loss of logistics and trained staff. TOAW's engine is really awesome.

The issue with such long campaigns is that there is some SPATIAL back and forth that is largely unpredictable compared to say, just Barbarossa. If The Axis makes it to Baku ..congrats! But they
will need lots of trains/security/engineers/trucks to keep things going. The issues has to be connected to locations, not specific formations or the timeframe.

So the issue I will tackle in V7 is 'what happens if the Axis take far away regions/cities like Stalingrad or Moscow?'
In the current version Garrisons pop up and they take in squads that 'd otherwise go to the front lines. This happens over time and models the need to have security against partisans without bogging down the game with ant units. The players have no control on garrisons and they cannot be disbanded. It's a start and EF discourages micromanaging by design, there are better games for that .

For V7 I am considering adding slots for trucks and other logistic assets to these Garrisons, that should be simple and would not burden the players, but it'd make further progress slower and avoid a "runaway advance". Umm I can also retire some rail repair units...there are some subtleties there,that I am figuring out, but it should be doable. For the Red Army it could also be easy, logistics reinforcements arrive as units disbanded in the background..so if the red army gets to Warsaw early (stressing their logistics) some disbands will get withdrawn instead, never making it to the front lines.

I just finished a campaign for V6 that started addressing lack of truck breakdowns...will do a post soon.

A final note for the amazing players (Hey Raven!) that dare a campaign against the scenario designer...I appreciate the extra challenge that it entails!



East Front 41-45 will return..

[rhinobones]

For V7 I am considering adding slots for trucks and other logistic assets to these Garrisons, that should be simple and would not burden the players, but it'd make further progress slower and avoid a "runaway advance".

Trucks in the Garrisons will be static and, therefore, add to asset sharing resulting in increased supply. I don’t think that supports your goal of making progress more difficult.
I can appreciate your work on EF. In such a large and complex scenario the author can always find ways to tinker with the goods!

Regards, RhinoBones

[governato]

For V7 I am considering adding slots for trucks and other logistic assets to these Garrisons, that should be simple and would not burden the players, but it'd make further progress slower and avoid a "runaway advance".

Trucks in the Garrisons will be static and, therefore, add to asset sharing resulting in increased supply. I don’t think that supports your goal of making progress more difficult.
I can appreciate your work on EF. In such a large and complex scenario the author can always find ways to tinker with the goods!

Regards, RhinoBones

asset sharing: I had that concern, but after some testing the effect seems to be minimal on this scenario scale (and a 1-2% increase can be countered by a tweaking of the supply rates). But your units do notice the missing MPs, which is one of the effects I had in mind.

I have also added truck slots to the "sink units". Sink Units are garrisoned off map and have low replacement priority. These units get tanks and trucks when there are a lot available (typically after a turn of intense combat). Then the sinks eventually get withdrawn, avoiding an excess of asset sharing. So one can have historical replacement rates (for tanks at least) and account for non combat breakdowns.