lets talk about soviet cavalry again

[Sly]

I would like to return to the topic that Jango32 started, I hope this time the Soviet cavalry will not attract any idiot .

The basic principle in this simulation is that division-sized units have ZOCs, and can move better in the enemy's control zone, in pending frendly hexes
Brigade size units do not have these benefits (see manual for details). It's a proven and good solution, divisions have more manpower, so they should behave this way.
This logical fragmentation is clearly blurred when it comes to cavalry divisions and brigades.

As a rule, the Soviet cavalry divisions are weaker in numbers than the Romanian, Hungarian or German cavalry brigades.
this is especially evident if we take into account the manpower of these units.
The most numerous Soviet cavalry divisions have approx. 9,000 oob1941a men, but their effective force is approx. 120 cavalry squads + tanks. In the case of oob1941b, the entire division has approximately 4,000 men, including 96 cavalry squads.
Axis cavalry brigades have 6,000 to 9,000 men, but even the weakest Romanian cavalry brigades have approx. 90 cavalry squads and 50 - 60 rifle squads.

Comparing the manpower of the cavalry units of both sides leads to the conclusion that they are equivalent, but the Soviet cavalry has an advantage when it comes to the control zone and moving in the enemy zone because it is called a “division” and not a “brigade”.

if you add a large number of Soviet cavalry divisions, this bonus is unjustified and can have an impact on the course of the game, especially when it comes to deep raids on the rear of the opponent.

That is why I am a supporter of changes in this area.
As a solution, I propose a change that will make the game engine treat all Soviet cavalry divisions as brigade-sized units. They would keep their "division" name but act like brigades when it comes to zone of control and movement.
Of course, the Soviet player would still retain the option of creating cavalry corps on the current terms.

I hope such a change would not be too complicated and time-consuming.

[AlbertN]

It is not just a matter of 'hex flipping' for how what you said above a group of us (ref. pvp group of players in a discord server).

There is consensus on these problems pertinent to CAV:

CAV (and other Soviet units) suffer too little when hit in combat by Axis formation, while they soak up movement point, CPPs, ammo and supplies of the attacking unit.
CAV can far too easily sneak around and slip ZoC to ZoC. -- That is one of the causes that helps routing Axis units, which also hammers their morale, zeroes their CCP (a retreat suffices) etc.
CAV flip hexes nicely. (as you depitec well)
CAV can attack to scout; and / or attack to have bombers fly en mass, and / or ascertain certainly defending composition and leadership. And still lose almost few men (combat stops at huge range or so).
CAV are small units and are easy to refill and refit up to the needed status (unready) for most of the functions above except the attack one.

They're a godlike unit in terms of -utility-, and their efficiency doubles or triples up when Soviets start to get very serious hitting power (they already have serious hitting power in summer '41 anyhow, but from Winter '41 it is worse).

Then each player of the group has own opinion on what may be a good fix or not, with some consensus over a variety of ideas.

[Zebtucker12]

H2H mod does these changes and it works.
Sadly the mod developer is lazy.

[Joel Billings]

Making cavalry divisions into brigade sized units is easy. Just change the OB file entries for the Soviet cav divisions by changing their size to brigade (don't forget the guard cav obs). I don't know if that's something we'd want to do for the base game, but it would take less than 5 minutes for someone to make the change and then try out the game.

[malyhin1517]

Making cavalry divisions into brigade sized units is easy. Just change the OB file entries for the Soviet cav divisions by changing their size to brigade (don't forget the guard cav obs). I don't know if that's something we'd want to do for the base game, but it would take less than 5 minutes for someone to make the change and then try out the game.

I think it would be useful for the Soviet raiding cavalry divisions of the war period with 3,000 soldiers. They really are more like brigades! And it would also be more logical to divide cavalry corps into brigade-sized units, as is done for tank and mechanized corps.

[Beethoven1]

1) Cavalry does hasty attack.

2) The cavalry itself does absolutely nothing and has no effect on the Germans.

3) HOWEVER... the definition of what is a "battle" is binary in the game. Something either is a battle or is not a battle. And this is a BATTLE!

4) What happens in battles? Planes join the battle.

5) In particular, 266 Soviet bombers join the battle and blast the Germans away!

Although the cavalry may not do anything directly in combat themselves, they are fabulous forward observers for the Soviet bombers. They can do hasty attacks against Panzer divisions and use their laser pointers to identify targets for the Soviet bombers, which then drop their laser guided bombs on top of the Panzers. Good fun

[ElizabethWizard]

From the loss numbers it seems more likely that the Soviet bbrs dropped on the cav division.

Like yeah the "laser guided bombs" so op... .5 kills per plane! Phew. How will the wermarcht ever survive.

Idk how you see that battle result and see a problem... I would frankly love it if the Soviets did that 10 more times. Please, let me free-feast upon your planes!

(That's before we talk about how frankly "use cavalry as spotters" is so obvious a tactic that I can't imagine the SU *didn't* use it)

[Stamb]

...
Idk how you see that battle result and see a problem... I would frankly love it if the Soviets did that 10 more times. Please, let me free-feast upon your planes!
...

you sure?

1st attack to weaken the enemy

and then 3 more, before a real battle


how many guns are gone for the strongest Axis unit in 1 turn ?
what about ammo and fatigue?
and all of this for the cost of one depleted airborne brigade (cav can act the same)

in that battle that Beethoven posted there are at least 119 il-4, which are long range bombers, and they are terrible for GS

[ElizabethWizard]

I... They brought 5x the forces and suffered 3:1 casualties and you think that's overpowered?

Like your addendum makes even *less* sense... Here's your complaint as I understand it:

You think that it's not on that the Soviet Union can use 5 divisions and a hundred bombers to rout a single enemy division after the enemy division withstood 4 other attacks with hundreds of bbrs and 10% aircraft losses in each of the 2 attacks shown...

And you think the problem is *the Soviet cavalry* is overpowered?!

[Stamb]

i wanted to show you what you can do with hasty attacks and GS
its not about losses that Soviets suffer, its about making enemy weaker before the real attack

and i am sure that any Soviet player take 3x losses or even 6x or 10x to route Wikings SS and put it out of a game for the next 2-3 turns
you just need to play vs Soviet player who is doing it and you will see how it feels

as my opponent asked for a house rule after seeing this and other battles with a similar approach, and i agreed

P.S
4 other attacks were not a real battles
it were hasty attacks with 1 airborne brigade to get bombers to a fight

[ElizabethWizard]

The AI does this to me as the Axis all the time. I have taken to calling them "scout&rout" but instead of 10% casualties I take 100%.

And this cost the Soviet Union >100 planes in losses judging by the numbers shown.

What the Soviets can do?! Win a battle and take heavy losses if they spam hasty and throw all their bbrs away on a single division?!

[Stamb]

Soviets can route all Axis mobile forces except of AGN because of bad terrain, so pvp games end in `41
i did my best to explain what is going on

you can agree with me or not, i just provided an example, and i will not try to convince you or anybody else that it is broken or not
when you will have more experience with a game you will make your own conclusion

cheers

[ElizabethWizard]

So your concern is that it's possible for the Soviets to win a battle.

I'm literally just trying to understand your point? Because it took 5 divisions doing a deliberate attack to route this one division, which will be ready to go again in a couple of weeks. And even then it took 4 scouting sorties and a hundred bombers... Assuming the best possible conditions they can't rout "every division" they could route 2 divisions at the cost of every single bomber in their GS air force and moving their rifle divisions out into the open.

Based on the AARs I've read, I will concede that axis players in pvp do tend to resign the second their units are no longer invincible. I'm not convinced this is a design problem though.

[Isokron]

Was the initial sacrificing attacks really what decided that battle? Seems like the german division went from strength 57 in first battle to 56 in 5th battle, but maybe that strength indicator is missing some factors.

Seems like the bigger problem might have been that the german player had driven that division too hard in his own turn, its something like cv 40 when rested(?) and in those screenshots was down to 5 at the start of the attacks which would indicate really high fatigue and low cpp/ammo to start with ?

[Stamb]

it is hard to say if it was a deciding factor, but such attacks definitely reduce ammo for the defenders and add fatigue, and damage elements, so for the main attack defenders fire less (cuz less ammo) and less elements fire in the battle (as damaged one do not, according to a recent thread in the tech support area)
so it is definitely worth it, as it maximizes chances for a victory

[ElizabethWizard]

So to clarify:

You have no idea if the 4 hasty attacks by an airborne brigade had a decisive impact on the way 5 rifle divisions were able to defeat a single motorized division, but the single motorized division losing to the 5 rifle divisions is compelling evidence that cavalry divisions are broken?

[Bitburger]

Soaking attacks and cavalry being used as recon and directing air attacks, plenty of reason for some circle-jerk discord group to harass and abuse loki...

[fighterf4u]

how many guns are gone for the strongest Axis unit in 1 turn ?
what about ammo and fatigue?
and all of this for the cost of one depleted airborne brigade (cav can act the same)

Are you seriously complaining about losing 400 men and 45 guns?? In your example the Soviets attacked with 5:1 superiority in men and 300 aircraft and still suffered 3:1 casualties. Historically speaking, massed Soviet counterattacks in summer 1941 did wear down German divisions (even though the Soviets themselves usually suffered far greater losses). This seems WAD to me.

it is hard to say if it was a deciding factor, but such attacks definitely reduce ammo for the defenders and add fatigue, and damage elements, so for the main attack defenders fire less (cuz less ammo) and less elements fire in the battle (as damaged one do not, according to a recent thread in the tech support area)
so it is definitely worth it, as it maximizes chances for a victory

I mean... the point of cavalry is to harass the enemy, no? Why do you consider it an exploit to launch weak harassing attacks with cavalry (esp. since the attacking cavalry suffer larger casualties in the first place?

i wanted to show you what you can do with hasty attacks and GS
its not about losses that Soviets suffer, its about making enemy weaker before the real attack

Ditto, that's literally the point of harassing attacks: to make the enemy weaker.

Soviets can route all Axis mobile forces except of AGN because of bad terrain, so pvp games end in `41
i did my best to explain what is going on

Contrary to what many on this forum believe, panzer divisions were not ubermensch space marines, not even in 1941. If abused or left in a vulnerable divisions, they could be defeated. See Luga 1941 when 8th panzer division of Manstein's LVI corps was surrounded and Mauled by Vatutin, or this quote from When Titans Clashed p60-61 about Smolensk

Guderian refused to be distracted by 20th Army's counterattack,
although it tied up most of his forces. On 24 July, after much shuffling
of units, 18th Panzer Division joined with 29th Motorized Division to continue the advance. By themselves, however, these two divisions were
too weak to link up with Colonel General Hermann Hoth's Third Panzer
Group and envelop Smolensk. Even before this attack, the 18th Panzer
Division's commander had remarked that the heavy casualties must stop
''if we do not intend to win ourselves to death." ... The fact that 18th Panzer Division had only 12 tanks still in operation bore
mute witness to the ferocity of the fighting and the debilitating ef feet on
German panzer forces unsupported by infantry divisions

[ToxicThug11]

From the loss numbers it seems more likely that the Soviet bbrs dropped on the cav division.

Like yeah the "laser guided bombs" so op... .5 kills per plane! Phew. How will the wermarcht ever survive.

Idk how you see that battle result and see a problem... I would frankly love it if the Soviets did that 10 more times. Please, let me free-feast upon your planes!

The issue is that the three entrenched infantry divisions now lose CPP and will become fatigued. You are looking at just losses.

There were 199 disruptions, damaged and destroyed guns, and this translates to three weakened German infantry divisions.

The Germans in this battle had more cavalry squads than the unready Soviet cavalry division, 61x more guns, armoured cars. The cavalry "division" should've been utterly destroyed, but instead is sat next to three German infantry divisions causing further fatigue and CPP loss, and the Germans now need to slap it and take even further CPP loss / Fatigue.

At a cost of 24 level bombers, my Cavalry have reduced the combat capability of these three divisions drastically.

[Fredcat]

so basically your group have found a new bit of systems abuse and want ... well what?

the whole trick is purely due to how the game systems work, its got nothing to do with the merits or otherwise of Soviet cavalry, its got nothing to do with the demands in the other thread for a rework of a combat engine.

there probably is no way to stop it via the rules as its simply a product of those who sit down and work out how to break the game to their temporary advantage.

Seriously this has nothing to do with Soviet Cavalry, its got everything to do with the mindset of a small sub-section of the MP community.