Should city fort battles have 89:1 final CV odds?

[Beethoven1]

I would say no.

But this battle does:





Granted, that's a lot of Soviets. And yes, the German units being under OKH command falls short of the ideal and was a mistake by the Axis player. But it is also a lot of Germans. In urban terrain. With a level 4 fort. In a city fort.

It is also not like the Germans had been isolated for a long time, this battle is from the turn immediately after Warsaw was isolated.

Not to mention the fact that this battle is in September 1943. Historically Warsaw fell in mid-January 1945, so that's well more than a year ahead of schedule. This is also from a Stalingrad to Berlin scenario game, so it is not like the reason for this is that Germany didn't get very far in 1941/42. Instead, the Soviets came a LONG way to get to Warsaw in September 1943, and advanced VERY quickly.

Properly played late war Soviets are extremely powerful. They can not only simply grind the Axis to death, but they are also better at making pockets than Axis is in 1941, because late war Soviets have a lot more counters and Axis lacks enough counters to stop pockets, and also because Soviets have much better logistics in the late war during their advance than Axis does in the early war advance.

[M60A3TTS]

Having OKH or STAVKA commanding units is always a marginal proposition. I think Zeitzler is 4 INF which doesn't help.

A lot of those Soviet HPE values are atrocious although the Level 4 fort in heavy urban does play into that. 2,452 82mm mortars had 1 HE hit. Ugh!!!

[DarkHorse2]

This is one part of the game that I find confusing, distressing, <insert other emotion of your choice>

There is great effort to have a highly evolved combat system... but at the end of the day, it is all thrown out the window when you take it to Las Vegas and run it through WiTE2's Leadership-Roll Casino.

---

The original odds were 2.3:1, correct? Final odds 89:1.

Yeah, that is a bit of stretch, IMO.

---

This is not all that far from the number that surrendered at Stalingrad.

Soviet forces launched a counteroffensive against the Germans arrayed at Stalingrad in mid-November 1942. They quickly encircled an entire German army, more than 220,000 soldiers. In February 1943, after months of fierce fighting and heavy casualties, the surviving German forces—only about 91,000 soldiers—surrendered

[Beethoven1]

2,452 82mm mortars had 1 HE hit. Ugh!!!

It's like they were intentionally trying not to hit anything. If they were firing totally blind, they surely would have been more accurate than that.

Also, how 'bout those German pioneers?

[Wiedrock]

4.4k KIA.

[Stamb]

It is also worth noting that:

It is also not like the Germans had been isolated for a long time, this battle is from the turn immediately after Warsaw was isolated.

Warsaw actually received more than 500t of supplies, so during battle there were no combat penalties. I also used a lot of heavy arty but it barely hit anything and does not even have an icon on the battle screen, which indicates that they did nothing for the fort reduction.

[Stamb]

also another issue is that final CV for the Soviets do not fit into battle screen result

[Jango32]

Arguably the more important question is if the overstacking penalties for attacking are punishing enough right now. 450k Soviets simply overwhelmed the ~70k defenders in one go.

[Wiedrock]

Arguably the more important question is if the overstacking penalties for attacking are punishing enough right now. 450k Soviets simply overwhelmed the ~70k defenders in one go.

The size of the attacking force will also impact the number of shots taken in
combat. This fire penalty occurs in combats where there is a large number of
attacking units. The force value of the attacking side is calculated using the following
values for each non-support, non-artillery division unit attacking:
• Corps 15
• Division 9
• Brigade 5 (3 if the brigade has less than 2,000 men)
• Regiment 3
Once the force value exceeds 28 there is a chance that elements will not get to fire
during combat. Artillery elements are much less affected (and this rule only affects
them at closer ranges in combat), and the chance that elements will not fire
increases as the force value increases. In general though, adding more units should
result in more elements firing, but a lower percentage of the total elements will
generally be firing as the force increases. The CV values of the attacking units are
not changed by this rule.

I guess the "hitting more with artillery" and the "shooting less in attack" should overall be ....alright'ish.
I'd point my fingers more at the following (which can be interpreted in many ways, as every holy text can )...

But this battle does:

stamb_warsaw.png (627.12 KiB) Viewed 1028 times

If the targeted ground element is hit, then the result is determined based on the
defending fortification modifier, the defending ground elements speed and armour,
and the attacking ground element’s device lethality and penetration capability. The
result could be no effect, disrupted, damaged or destroyed. AFV ground elements
may become damaged during combat due to breakdowns or mines using their
reliability scores (37.6).

Having a 3:4 KIA ratio with a Level 4 Fort in defence makes me question this statement in the manual.

[DarkHorse2]

IIRC, I think, early on, there were a lot of user complaints / concerns about fortification being OP.

As a result, it got nerfed.

You may check and see if something was documented in the living manual.

[AlbertN]

Ideally one wants more overstacking penalty; and also more severe penalties if different Corps / Armies / Fronts attack together. (And I'd apply a double standard there as Germans coordinate better than Soviets in C3i. Even late war).
But in general to attack 1 target - that was task for 1 force, not 1 division / corp of 6 different Corps / Armies.

[Joel Billings]

This was a surrender of the garrison after some heavy fighting. You can argue that this is not a reasonable resolution, but that's effectively what happened in the combat system. over 22k casualties on the attacker before the defenders surrendered.

[Denniss]

If one looks what losses the Ukrainians did inflict on Russian infantry in the similar heavily fortified dense city area of Bakhmut the combat result does not look realistic. Especially the laughable losses in soviet manpower killed.
There's probably not enough disorganization penalty for Rifle Corps as those are in reality 3 Divs under a Corps HQ with a rifle corps just costing 4 command points instead of 6 if they would be properly accounted for as 3x divs.

[M60A3TTS]

I have no clear cut issues with the organizational penalties. I've seen plenty of examples where Soviet CV drops off significantly where multiple commands with their units are involved in a single battle.