I've recently returned to WITE2 for a round of games, one axis and 4 soviet or something like that. I've been made aware of the "meta" as Axis, which is to essentially forgo pockets (in general, obviously easy ones that are safe are still worth it) and instead go for mass routs by first dislodging and herding the enemy, and then smacking them with mobile units to delete 70%+ of the enemies TOE. What results is a slow but inexorable grind as the germans rest, push, rest, push and maintain severe casualties whilst still gaining ground.
My initial thoughts were that this strategy would eventually peter out as the constant combat wears down the Germans, allowing the Soviets to replenish and recover. But this does not appear to be the case. I have yet to fully experience it on the receiving end - I've challenged vet to a game and so expect that to be my first taste - but I just wanted to post and ask for others thoughts and opinions.
Is this an acceptable method for the axis? Too strong? Strong enough? I have been out of the game for many months so my knowledge is wholly out-of-date, and so welcome everybody's input.
I refer to battles like these:
then post hit
These are from a 42 game vet is in, but the same general principle applies for 41, too.
Part of the issue, I think is the CPP changes. Or perhaps a deeper combat issue. There's really no way to counterplay this as the Soviets as far as I can tell. By hitting the units once, you turn what might have been a much closer odds battle into one where it's 99:1, meaning the mobile units alongside doing insane damage also lose very little CPP - so they at most need to rest for a turn before they're back to 100.
These do appear harsh and at times silly, however these attacks do require some advanced play by the Axis to engineer. Higher experience defenders and/or motorised are not so vulnerable to follow on attacks which applies to the Axis in particular when they are defending. Guards units are a lot more robust as well. Good leadership also helps.
Defenders need to consider the likely retreat routes. A good understanding of retreat path priorities is required when facing skilled players. Retreating into open ground in range of Axis armour is just devastating as you point out, so you don't want to allow this to happen unless you are baiting the Axis armour to be left out in the open...
As we develop experience, counter play is countered etc
I find that my turns against strong opponents are taking an increasingly long time to plan as my understanding of the game deepens.
Soviets in fortified difficult terrain positions with good leaders take a lot to shift. Engineering a follow on attack is therefore not straightforward.
Not many GC games get well into '42, and I confess that I enjoy it less than in '41 (none of my Soviet games have reached '42). Offensives take time to plan and prepare however, thus the level of satisfaction increases commensurately when they are finally unleashed.
Jasonbroomer is absolutely correct that thoughtful defensive preparations will make a big difference in reducing losses. Additionally you should consider that the enemy can't have an 8:1 superiority across the whole front! With such a force concentration at one spot, it means they are weak somewhere else. You need to find that spot and attack it. Remember Soviet strategy at Stalingrad: they didn't win by building a defense that 6th Army couldn't break through (the city was practically captured by mid-November), but by locating its weak flanks and counter-attacking them.
"Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak" - John Adams
K62 wrote: Mon Jul 31, 2023 8:49 pm
Jasonbroomer is absolutely correct that thoughtful defensive preparations will make a big difference in reducing losses. Additionally you should consider that the enemy can't have an 8:1 superiority across the whole front! With such a force concentration at one spot, it means they are weak somewhere else. You need to find that spot and attack it. Remember Soviet strategy at Stalingrad: they didn't win by building a defense that 6th Army couldn't break through (the city was practically captured by mid-November), but by locating its weak flanks and counter-attacking them.
In my experience they can achieve local superiority across the front, especially in 41. 42 is a bit different but it depends entirely on how 41 went.
The Soviets absolutely have counterattack possibilities in 41, I am keenly aware of that- but against an opponent of equal skill your opportunities are very limited. Proper SU management and positioning negates much of the soviet counter attack ability.
Part of the issue is the snowballing effect. It's different if you can get 4m men on the map and thereby have enough reserves to simply stall the German out, but what makes the grinding method so effective is that even in the worst case scenario for the German they're curbing OOB growth through continuous 10k and 20k routs anywhere the line is stable. So you never get to that magical on map number. Weak units remain weak and vulnerable to rout, and the only limiter becomes German supply.
IMG_20230801_100031.png (1.6 MiB) Viewed 2266 times
Here's another picture from a discord aar, turn 12 I believe. Leningrad was already lost and the majority of the soviet army has been deployed to Moscow. More than 50% of casualties suffered that turn were from routs. I appreciate random contextless screenshots won't suffice much to convince anyone, but I post them to illustrate that it really doesn't matter what kind of defence you throw up- an experienced German will be able to dislodge you and manage things so you get hit twice.
It's not really possible to set up a defence where you're not vulnerable to being hit twice in certain areas. I could envision it at leningrad due to terrain, but that's it.
Around 100k of those losses were from clearing 3 pockets beforehand IIRC (one-hex Stalino with two divisions, 1 FZ; one-hex Sevastopol with 3 divisions; a pocket around Bryansk with 4 or 5 divisions in total), the rest were from WW1 frontal assault grinding.
RedJohn wrote: Tue Aug 01, 2023 9:09 am
It's different if you can get 4m men on the map and thereby have enough reserves to simply stall the German out, but what makes the grinding method so effective is that even in the worst case scenario for the German they're curbing OOB growth through continuous 10k and 20k routs anywhere the line is stable. So you never get to that magical on map number. Weak units remain weak and vulnerable to rout, and the only limiter becomes German supply.
I'm not familiar with the details of your games, so maybe you're right and I'm missing something. But from the general perspective it seems hard to believe that you can't reach 4M men at the start of the '42 campaign. After summer '41 you get several months of mud and heavy snow, when the Germans can't possibly do much grinding, and the 500k men event in November. Rifle and cavalry corps, tank brigades and assault fronts should also vastly improve your counter-attacking tool set.
"Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak" - John Adams
RedJohn wrote: Tue Aug 01, 2023 9:09 am
It's different if you can get 4m men on the map and thereby have enough reserves to simply stall the German out, but what makes the grinding method so effective is that even in the worst case scenario for the German they're curbing OOB growth through continuous 10k and 20k routs anywhere the line is stable. So you never get to that magical on map number. Weak units remain weak and vulnerable to rout, and the only limiter becomes German supply.
I'm not familiar with the details of your games, so maybe you're right and I'm missing something. But from the general perspective it seems hard to believe that you can't reach 4M men at the start of the '42 campaign. After summer '41 you get several months of mud and heavy snow, when the Germans can't possibly do much grinding, and the 500k men event in November. Rifle and cavalry corps, tank brigades and assault fronts should also vastly improve your counter-attacking tool set.
Oh by 42 yes, if you're unable to get 4m men by 42 the games effectively over. I was more referring to 4m men pre reserve event, so for campaign season of 41.
Anyway the original post shows screenshots of what the Soviets can expect in 42 campaign season. And against a German who's experienced in these frontal assault tactics and who can manage your OOB handily, you're starting off the 42 season with a well curated OOB ripe for grinding.
Isolated counterattacks don't mean much in this scenario, as the Germans cause 200k casualties a turn likely in a critical sector such as Moscow.
I'd be inclined to agree that this has gotten a bit out of hand. Looking at AARs, I've not seen any Soviet player successfully counter this strategy and win against an experienced Axis player.
I can appreciate that it takes a lot of skill to execute well and the Soviets will be able to build strong defenses in places, but I don't think mechanics where players above a certain skill level are able to essentially eliminate meaningful counterplay options are good for the game.
If you are playing against a good axis player that is using this playstyle, you will consistently average well above 150k losses per turn during the entire campaign season which starts in mid-spring 1942, almost irrespective of what you do. Even with a 6-7m OOB that's unsustainable.
On top of that, good axis players will not use the LW in 1941 (except for AS) and stockpile the extra supplies making them incredibly strong over the winter, which effectively eliminates your ability to build up guards units which would be the only formations that can stand up to this. In most AARs against good Axis players, you won't have the Soviets gaining a single organic guards unit meaning that you're forced to use the airborne brigade shenanigans to work around it.
This strategy, if you have the skill to execute it, involves far fewer casualties for the Axis, inflicts much more casualties on the Soviets, and is, in general, a lot less fun or dynamic to play against which I think works to the detriment of the game and is a reason for a lot of Soviet players taking a break from WitE until this gets addressed.
I think there is a difficult balancing act to strike as the Axis side is still very punishing for inexperienced players, but the current situation makes the game very unfun at higher skill levels. I think the issue is that the balancing was done by making combat itself extremely deadly, making it very axis biased early on and then very Soviet biased later on. I think a better approach would have been to reduce the deadliness of combat while also reducing the costs of maneuver
Some possible options I'd consider looking at would be:
1. Changing the way units get disrupted and damaged during attacks. It's a bit silly that the Axis can attack 50,000 men head-on, inflict 40,000 casualties and suffer minimally for it. Adding an element where the number of disrupted/damaged elements grows significantly in relation to the size of the battle, irrespective of final odds, would balance this out to an extent. This would allow the axis to use their formations as battering rams, but inflict a cost for doing so. This could be balanced out by reducing the disruption and damaged elements caused by movement for high XP or high CCP formations, essentially making pockets more attractive.
2. Changing the casualties from routing for units below 50 morale. Currently, there seems to be a binary option where units below 50 morale get vaporised during a rout, while units above 50 morale suffer only moderate casualties. A more linear scaling of casualties would help limit this
3. Changing the way guards units are created. A big reason why this strategy is so attractive is that it massively reduces opportunities for counterattacks for the Soviets which, in turn, eliminates the ability of the Soviets to build guards units early on which makes the Soviets even more vulnerable to it in 1942. If guards units simply converted the units with the highest number of wins on a roughly historical schedule, irrespective of the 7-win threshold, this incentive would be largely eliminated making pockets and a more aggressive, dynamic, playstyle more attractive. Some balancing would be needed of course, eliminating the conversion of airborne brigades goes without saying, but additional changes to reserve or AP events could also work as well as further balancing of combat.
4. Any of these changes could be paired with some changes that reduce the cost of maneuver for the player on the offensive. Another reason this is such an appealing strategy is because it is so much less costly than maneuver warfare; the game currently punishes you severely for moving large distances in enemy territory and the fact that maneuvering to form a large pocket is much costlier than frontal attacks which inflict 90% of the casualties over one turn instead of two is ridiculous. Ideally, the situation would be reversed where movement causes minimal casualties while frontal attacks, even if they don't lead to massive losses outright, cause significant numbers of damaged elements. This could possibly be addressed by making maneuver cause less damaged elements but more disrupted ones.
Ideally, you'd want the game to have a good trade-off between risk and reward. As the axis, you can play conservatively and use your army like a battering ram but that will be costlier and inflict fewer casualties, or, you can play aggressively, go for maneuver warfare, and have a chance at much lower casualties and higher enemy losses, but only when taking risks and exposing yourself.
2. Changing the casualties from routing for units below 50 morale. Currently, there seems to be a binary option where units below 50 morale get vaporised during a rout, while units above 50 morale suffer only moderate casualties. A more linear scaling of casualties would help limit this
That's because before the attack leading to a rout, there is first an attack designed to create a lot of damaged elements. In the followup attack that causes the rout, those damaged elements explode.
Damaged elements do not fire in combat by the way, they only soak up damage (literal meatshields). Hence why the attacker who causes the rout will suffer minimal damage - around 30 to 50% of the damaged divisions' elements (the ones that are ready) do not fire during combat.
1) IMHO talking about 'WW1 style grinding' seems to me to be a misrepresentation of what we see in game and also of the nature of much of the fighting on the east. In WW1 there was little if any progress in the front line; whereas in game both sides can progress. In terms of the IRL fighting on the eastern front I would argue that the idea of fast moving 'blitzkrieg' warfare with lots of pockets is a bit of a stereotype. I'd argue that the Vyazma pocket in October 41 was the last major offensive encirclement action by the Axis on the E. Front. Typhoon and the 1942 offensives were much more akin to the 'blunt force' attacks that we are talking about in game.
2) Personally I'm fairly comfortable with the losses as they are in terms of these follow up attacks. Even pre-mechanization, an archetypal 'high loss' situation is one where troops lose cohesion in the presence of powerful mobile forces.
3) What I think may merit re-examination of is the current CPP rules. Whilst the current rules are better than the flat 50% rule that we started with, it is maybe worth seeing whether a middle ground better represents the gradual wearing down of cohesion/organisation etc when formations are involved in prolonged combat. Potential rule changes could be changing the numbers again - either simply by bringing back a minimum 25% loss of CPP on attacking, or by finding a more complex solution involving unit size; or changing the assault front rules so that a unit that has been involved in combat in a turn does not benefit from the assault front bonus even if they return to friendly territory.
4) The reason that I think it may be worth revisiting the CPP rules is that I think that the current situation will benefit later war Soviets just in the same way as it does the early war Axis. But just looking at the current situation in terms of 1941/42 I think that the problems described are partly a consequence of open TBs. With TBs open the Axis player can hide their Armor away in France over winter before bringing it back in 1942 to cause havoc as described in the OP. If the panzer forces remained on the map over winter then the Axis player would like have a much harder time carrying out these follow up attacks with worn down Pz formations. I know that Jason posted recently about the possibilty of keeping TBs open for 'quality of life' reasons but house ruling out other changes to the scripted transfers. My personal view is that it is always going to be very difficult to find a solution where both closed and open TBs are balanced at the same time and I suspect that the developers will always prioritize the balance of closed TBs given this is likely the rule that most casual/intermediate players (i.e. the majority) play with.
If you find yourself faced with WW1-style offenses, it only makes sense to respond with the state-of-the-art defensive strategies that were employed back then. By 1916 the Germans had put into place a three-tiered defensive approach which was particularly helpful in areas with open terrain.
The first line of defense is thinly held, serving as a warning system more than anything else. Then comes the second line, robust enough to halt moderate assaults. And finally, you have a third line, a fallback position in case of a major assault. Additionally you also need reserves, ready to mend any breaches and launch counterattacks.
Maybe some players are implementing an elaborate system of Soviet defenses before summer '42 and it still gets overrun. But I don't see it in the battles that were shown on this thread. Rather it seems to be more of a case of multiple divisions in lvl 1 entrenchments that retreat into open squares and subsequently get seriously mauled by combined arms forces. The game appears quite realistic in this regard.
"Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak" - John Adams
K62 wrote: Wed Aug 02, 2023 8:30 pm
If you find yourself faced with WW1-style offenses, it only makes sense to respond with the state-of-the-art defensive strategies that were employed back then. By 1916 the Germans had put into place a three-tiered defensive approach which was particularly helpful in areas with open terrain.
The first line of defense is thinly held, serving as a warning system more than anything else. Then comes the second line, robust enough to halt moderate assaults. And finally, you have a third line, a fallback position in case of a major assault. Additionally you also need reserves, ready to mend any breaches and launch counterattacks.
Maybe some players are implementing an elaborate system of Soviet defenses before summer '42 and it still gets overrun. But I don't see it in the battles that were shown on this thread. Rather it seems to be more of a case of multiple divisions in lvl 1 entrenchments that retreat into open squares and subsequently get seriously mauled by combined arms forces. The game appears quite realistic in this regard.
I second this analysis. Plus knowing your opponent helps with what type of defense you use and set-up. But yeah K62 is spot on in my book
K62 wrote: Wed Aug 02, 2023 8:30 pm
If you find yourself faced with WW1-style offenses, it only makes sense to respond with the state-of-the-art defensive strategies that were employed back then. By 1916 the Germans had put into place a three-tiered defensive approach which was particularly helpful in areas with open terrain.
The first line of defense is thinly held, serving as a warning system more than anything else. Then comes the second line, robust enough to halt moderate assaults. And finally, you have a third line, a fallback position in case of a major assault. Additionally you also need reserves, ready to mend any breaches and launch counterattacks.
Maybe some players are implementing an elaborate system of Soviet defenses before summer '42 and it still gets overrun. But I don't see it in the battles that were shown on this thread. Rather it seems to be more of a case of multiple divisions in lvl 1 entrenchments that retreat into open squares and subsequently get seriously mauled by combined arms forces. The game appears quite realistic in this regard.
I feel like this is easier said than done, you can have three defensive belts on maybe 35% of the front by summer 1942, the rest will be much thinly manned. The issue is that the Axis player can simply attack wherever you are weak and then inflict massive casualties in that sector. There is no real way to work around it, especially since so much of the fighting in 1942 is in clear terrain.
The level 1 fort battles you're seeing probably occurred after a large chunk of the defensive system was already overrun and there was nowhere to make a viable stand.
If you think I am wrong I'd love to see an AAR where the Soviet player won against an Axis player that is skilled at this particular strategy. I haven't personally seen a Soviet player defeat this strategy ever since it became a thing.
Jango32 wrote: Wed Aug 02, 2023 4:35 pm
That's because before the attack leading to a rout, there is first an attack designed to create a lot of damaged elements. In the followup attack that causes the rout, those damaged elements explode.
Damaged elements do not fire in combat by the way, they only soak up damage (literal meatshields). Hence why the attacker who causes the rout will suffer minimal damage - around 30 to 50% of the damaged divisions' elements (the ones that are ready) do not fire during combat.
I get that and, in fairness, my issue is less with the casualties inflicted and more with how little it affects the Axis attacking units. I understand that casualties are not inflicted because there are barely any elements firing, but I'd like to see some kind of base level disruption just for carrying out that scale of attack in terms of either damaged elements or CCP.
It's okay for axis units to be able to completely demolish Soviet units like that, it's less reasonable for them to be able to do it for 3 turns in a row, then take a week to rest, then keep doing it for 3 more weeks.
Agree fully with thistle tea. Combine all that with an axis player who can fully utilise the logistics system, and you're facing an inoxerable enemy that will grind you down to defeat if not in 41 then in 42.
Thistle_Tea wrote: Thu Aug 03, 2023 8:51 pm
If you think I am wrong I'd love to see an AAR where the Soviet player won against an Axis player that is skilled at this particular strategy. I haven't personally seen a Soviet player defeat this strategy ever since it became a thing.
I don't know how you can make a judgement based on the lack of AARs showing something like this. If you count up all the AARs on this forum where a comment has been posted since the beginning of the year, the 41GC is played against two human players and have either gone the distance or come close to it, there are very, very few. A lot of these games, including virtually all the team games get abandoned at some point. We have AARs that barely got through a half dozen posts before the OP just disappeared. A bit too soon to render any judgements IMHO.
M60A3TTS wrote: Thu Aug 03, 2023 9:56 pm
I don't know how you can make a judgment based on the lack of AARs showing something like this.
I'm basing it on the fact that, in both this forum and Discord, I haven't seen anyone successfully defeat a skilled Axis player for maybe 8 months. Even when the Soviet player was highly skilled and fully understood the mechanics involved and actively worked to play around them, it didn't make enough of a difference.
Maybe there's some 4D chess move to counter this that we haven't theory crafted yet, but the consensus at the moment seems to be that the game is almost impossible to win against an Axis player above the skill level needed to execute this playstyle.
Given the lack of AARs of anyone successfully countering this strategy, I'd encourage you to try and play a game as the Soviets against someone like Vet or HYLA that are highly proficient at this and see if it's as easy as just building some more defenses.
M60A3TTS wrote: Thu Aug 03, 2023 9:56 pm
I don't know how you can make a judgment based on the lack of AARs showing something like this.
I'm basing it on the fact that, in both this forum and Discord, I haven't seen anyone successfully defeat a skilled Axis player for maybe 8 months. Even when the Soviet player was highly skilled and fully understood the mechanics involved and actively worked to play around them, it didn't make enough of a difference.
Maybe there's some 4D chess move to counter this that we haven't theory crafted yet, but the consensus at the moment seems to be that the game is almost impossible to win against an Axis player above the skill level needed to execute this playstyle.
Given the lack of AARs of anyone successfully countering this strategy, I'd encourage you to try and play a game as the Soviets against someone like Vet or HYLA that are highly proficient at this and see if it's as easy as just building some more defenses.
Hmm, could we have a prime time match with AAR coming up? Say it's so!
