The Russian Multiplier

matt.buttsworth · Post by **matt.buttsworth** » Mon Dec 24, 2001 7:04 pm

I have experienced in two games that it is possible for the Germans to bleed the Russians dry in 42/43 and to stop them launching all but very limited attacks.
This is false historically as teh Russians were able to cope with immense losses and keep attacking.
Should not the multiplier therefore be set at 3 not 2 after 1941.

Muzrub · Post by **Muzrub** » Mon Dec 24, 2001 7:17 pm

A good German 42 offensive can cripple the Soviets for 43 and possibly beyond- even if the Russians escape 41 with relative low casualties.

Ed Cogburn · Post by **Ed Cogburn** » Mon Dec 24, 2001 8:24 pm

Originally posted by Matthew Buttsworth:
I have experienced in two games that it is possible for the Germans to bleed the Russians dry in 42/43 and to stop them launching all but very limited attacks.
This is false historically as teh Russians were able to cope with immense losses and keep attacking.
Should not the multiplier therefore be set at 3 not 2 after 1941.

I don't understand, the Soviet infantry multiplier is 8 in '41, then 4, then 3 in '45, its never 2.

matt.buttsworth · Post by **matt.buttsworth** » Mon Dec 24, 2001 11:35 pm

Fair enough I was wrong with the figures, but the fact is that many good players here bleed the Russians of men in 1942-43 making an all out offensive against a near full strength German army impossible.
But historically the Russians used terribly wasteful tactics, sending massed infantry attacks repeatedly into German lines, not worrying about minefields etc, and it was impossible for the Germans to bleed them dry. The Germans were bleed dry.
But in Wir once Russian forces lose their reserves or fall below them it is almost imposible for them to recover allowing the Germans to bleed them dry in 42/43.
Would it not be better than for the multipliers to be set at 6 and 4 so the Russians can continue launching attack after attack no matter what the losses as historically was the case.
Also in the game the Russians never build up reserves of T34s. They are used up as fast as they get them. The Germans seem to produce just as many tanks. But historically the Russians I believe produced some 70,000 tanks to the Germans 22,000 so the Russians should have triple the Germans tank production capacity.
That too should be reflected in the game.
Then the German commanders in Wir who survived 1941 would know, as did the German commanders in WW2, that bleeding the Russians dry was impossible, and all they could do was go for a quick victory which was what Russian manpower and tank production forced them to do in 1941 and 1942.
Failing that they would be forced to desperately defend and to avoid the repeated Russian attacks bleeding them dry.
This historical reality is not I believe properly reflected in Wir and if Russian tank production cannot be increased due to the limited number of slots then German production must be decreased so that it does not at all equal Russian tank production as it seem to from 1943 on when the Tigers and Panther factories are created.

RickyB · Post by **RickyB** » Tue Dec 25, 2001 12:34 am

Hi Matthew,

Good points on the replacement rate, which I think is too low in 1941 also for the Soviets. It should be a small increase though, as I believe the Soviets were getting pushed for manpower some, but not nearly like the Germans (this is based on a number of sources and analyis, including the fact that except for Guards units, the Soviets rarely had divisions at full manpower, and created their Fortified Position units, like a division but low in manpower, high in machine guns, to hold portions of the front).

Regarding production, I believe the changes in production in the next version will get you what you want. The production cap by factory will be set to something like 75/cost, after which growth will be really slow, if it happens at all. Thus, switching the PzIVs to Panthers will drop the max output from around 18 (cost of 4) to 10 (cost of 7) or even 9 (cost of 8). Thus, no more building the Uber tanks and planes. Although the Soviets can build up tank reserves. In my battle against Tigers and Panthers, I have significant numbers of T34s in reserve, even though compared to history the old T34s are fighting these German tanks when in reality it was the newer versions. Of course, I want these tanks at the front, not sitting in Moscow.

Lokioftheaesir · Post by **Lokioftheaesir** » Tue Dec 25, 2001 4:18 am

Originally posted by Matthew Buttsworth:
I have experienced in two games that it is possible for the Germans to bleed the Russians dry in 42/43 and to stop them launching all but very limited attacks.
This is false historically as teh Russians were able to cope with immense losses and keep attacking.
Should not the multiplier therefore be set at 3 not 2 after 1941.

Matt

Yes i think increasing Soviet Manpower and tanks would help but i feel that it is more that the Germans are too strong rather than the other way round.
For example. Below is the Tank section taken from an Alt-R report from our game that just ended. It shows the german tank strength on date 14June42.

Type On map In pool Total
PzKpfw-IIf 691 55 746
R-35 87 46 133
Pz-38(t) 64 90 154
Pz-38(t)e 498 45 543
PzKpfw-IIIe 0 142 142
PzKpfw-IIIg 365 126 491
PzKpfw-IIIh 3138 65 3203
PzKpfw-IIIj 2363 50 2413
PzKpfw-IVd 76 95 171
PzKpfw-IVe 304 44 348
M-13/40 778 57 835
Stug-IIIb 628 52 680
Stug-IIIg 4 10 14
PzJg-1b 255 51 306
Marder II 109 42 151

Total 9360 970 10330

Compare it with german tank strength taken from the standard '42 campaign start.(28june42)

Type On map In pool Total
PzKpfw-IIf 418 50 468
R-35 153 75 228
Pz-38(t) 53 0 53
Pz-38(t)e 589 60 649
PzKpfw-IIIg 155 20 175
PzKpfw-IIIh 1085 45 1130
PzKpfw-IIIj 413 55 468
PzKpfw-IVe 417 50 467
PzKpfw-IVg 28 47 75
M-13/40 333 55 388
Stug-IIIb 101 40 141
Stug-IIIg 40 33 73
PzJg-1b 24 25 49
Marder II 89 30 119
Marder III 0 20 20

Total 3898 605 4503

Admittedly your soviets were much stronger than the Standard '42 start. But the germans have 3 times the tanks with most of the extra being top end models.
Thus i was able to put 8 to 10 very big PzKps together that the soviets just cannot stop if they are used en-mass. And if those PzKps are not put at risk or burnt out they just keep on going.

So if the german uses '41 to establish a jump of line for '42, hides his tanks and Armour Bn's during blizzard and gets the most out of production then he should start the '42 campaign season with 46-50 K squads on the map plus the above tank strength.

You cant really have a house rule to limmit german
production. (or can you, opinions?)

So what is the answer?
Well maybe if the soviets follow a strategy of pounding on german infantry from the very start and never stopping. Whatever the opportunity, cause german squad casualties, especially in blizzard.
Maybe this will cause the germans to have to disperse the panzers to prop up the weakened infantry forces. Thus limmiting the offencive options available and giving the Soviets more options against a weaker axis line.

Nick

alfmdoncel · Post by **alfmdoncel** » Tue Dec 25, 2001 5:24 am

Originally posted by Lokioftheaesir:

So what is the answer?
Well maybe if the soviets follow a strategy of pounding on german infantry from the very start and never stopping. Whatever the opportunity, cause german squad casualties, especially in blizzard.

Nick

Yes, that is the strategy i have used. Attacking at every moment, even during rain turns. Soviets gain experience and cause shortage of german manpower.

Ed Cogburn · Post by **Ed Cogburn** » Tue Dec 25, 2001 11:25 am

Originally posted by Lokioftheaesir:
Yes i think increasing Soviet Manpower and tanks would help but i feel that it is more that the Germans are too strong rather than the other way round.

This is how I feel too. The Germans took heavy losses to make the amazing gains they did in '41, but those losses aren't realized in WiR, including tanks not just infantry. '41 sets the stage for '42, so if the Germans end '41 strong with Leningrad and/or Moscow, and as far as Rostov down south, and the Soviets end up too weak to do much damage during '41-'42 blizzard, then you get the situation where the Germans can bleed the Soviets white in '42 rather than the reverse.

German tank production is too high. They lost most of their tanks by the first snows of '41, not destroyed by combat action necessarily but mainly due to maintenence problems, especially dust damaging engines.

What is really needed besides a look at German tank production, is some changes that give the Soviets better combat chances in '41 which end up inflicting higher German losses even if the Germans win the battle. Its hard to say how much should be done, the examples we're using here depend a lot on the relative skill of the players who played the games. I also don't know if just improving Soviet readiness/experience will achieve this, or some tweak to the combat formulas is really needed.

Muzrub · Post by **Muzrub** » Thu Dec 27, 2001 8:18 pm

Mathew is right in every sense of the word!

Soviet manpower until late 44-45 was extremely high. The Soviet were able to attack and attack without the worry of losses and of trained troops.
The game does not reflect this in anyway. If Soviet troop replacements were incresed it would allow for the rebuilding of divisions and the creation of new divsions.
This would replace the need to add Soviet experience for 41- for the extra men would boost divsions and Armies and as such create a stronger force for the Germans to fight against.

The need for an increased Soviet production is beyond arguement- its a fact. But troop replacemants have to be seriously considered. If not the game will not be balanced. Dont look for the idea that extra experience will answer to the Soviets woes, look to extra replacements!

Mist · Post by **Mist** » Thu Dec 27, 2001 10:47 pm

Originally posted by Muzrub:
Mathew is right in every sense of the word!

Soviet manpower until late 44-45 was extremely high. The Soviet were able to attack and attack without the worry of losses and of trained troops.
The game does not reflect this in anyway. If Soviet troop replacements were incresed it would allow for the rebuilding of divisions and the creation of new divsions.
This would replace the need to add Soviet experience for 41- for the extra men would boost divsions and Armies and as such create a stronger force for the Germans to fight against.

The need for an increased Soviet production is beyond arguement- its a fact. But troop replacemants have to be seriously considered. If not the game will not be balanced. Dont look for the idea that extra experience will answer to the Soviets woes, look to extra replacements!

Gentlemen, I must step in the discussion to balance opinions.
Four points were raised as far as I 've noticed.
1. Soviet manpower is too low.
2. Soviet production is too low.
3. Human wave attacks are impossible.
4. German production is too high.

I strongly disagree with 1st. Simple calculations of total number of soviet squads which can be called up during whole course of war(from all initial population!!) is ~420 thousands which is equal to 21 mln. active soldiers. Note that there were needed men to service, tank/plane crews etc. Total USSR population before 22/6/41 was ~210 mln. men. This would allow Soviet goverment to call up max. 25-30 mln men to serve in army. This number imho is almost absolute strain after which state industry and economy collapses. Prewar size of Red Army was ~6 mln men total(grand total). So I think that Soviet manpower in WiR is ok.

Soviet production. I've made only tests for 1941 due to shortage of data available to me about historical production of each tank type. I did not notice anything greatly wrong. Don't know about other years. Maybe someone would test it?

Human wave attacks(HWA). HWA is a term "invented" during cold war. If you take into account total population of USSR left after main German offensive in 1941(~130 mln) you will notice that this number is not much higher that population of Germany itself(~90 mln) not saying about other sources of manpower. This means that HWA could not be used in mass everytime and everywhere to achieve anything disisive. In opposite this "tactic" when used massively and repeatedly( as being told to us in books of German and some other West authors )would lead to advantage of Axis side and collapse of Soviet manpower. There were some cases where massing of infantry was used, but usualy only when this would make some benefits. Not everytime and everywhere. That's my point.

On the other hand, I completely agree with 4. I've made tests German production by running full game and compared it with historical numbers which are easily available. This is especialy true for panzer production in 1941-1942. I've posted results some months ago in this forum.

Thanx.

[ December 27, 2001: Message edited by: Mist ]</p>

Hetz(er) · Post by **Hetz(er)** » Fri Dec 28, 2001 2:16 am

From captured documents released after WWII Soviet infantry doctrine was this:

A typical soviet division was usually about 10,000 men.

A division would be trucked directly to the assault (not the start) line and dropped off.

One man in 3 would have an automatic weapon the other 2 would carry only ammunition.

This divisional assault would be on a german batallion frontage.

A german batallion with a war strength of perhaps 2,000 did not have enough ammunition to kill 10,000 russian troops.

Result 6-8000 soviet casualties and a battalion sized hole in the german front line.

This type of assault happened fairly often in the first 2-3 years of the war but even then it was done to smash battalion sized holes in the german front that could be exploited not as a broad frontage tactic.

Mist · Post by **Mist** » Fri Dec 28, 2001 3:19 am

Originally posted by Hetz:
From captured documents released after WWII Soviet infantry doctrine was this:

....

This type of assault happened fairly often in the first 2-3 years of the war but even then it was done to smash battalion sized holes in the german front that could be exploited not as a broad frontage tactic.

That's interesting Hetz. From what I know, this tactic was used mainly with "Shtraf.bat." Batalions in Red Army which consisted of tried soldiers and persons who were tried for crimes. Certanly very few survived. Unfortunatly I know little about number of such kamikadze batalions.
Similar "tactic" also could be used during first year of war when panzers breaked into the rear and there were no regular troops to face them. Very young and untrained boys(16-18 years old) were placed on trucks in hurry and brought to endangered positions. Sometimes unarmed. No one usualy survived. This was terrible.

Hetz(er) · Post by **Hetz(er)** » Fri Dec 28, 2001 8:30 am

My personal hope is that there weren't many of them at all <img src="frown.gif" border="0">

moi · Post by **moi** » Fri Dec 28, 2001 12:39 pm

Ohhh, Your data is very interesting but...wrong

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Hetz:
[QB]From captured documents released after WWII Soviet infantry doctrine was this:

Coulf you give me a link to this document?

>A typical soviet division was usually about 10,000 men.

A typical soviet rifle division was usually about 7000 men (with standart 30% losses) - about 3000-4000 men in first line
http://www.rkka.ru/iorg.htm - for example

>A division would be trucked directly to the assault (not the start) line and dropped off.

>One man in 3 would have an automatic weapon the other 2 would carry only ammunition.

This is false.

This divisional assault would be on a german batallion frontage.

Yes, yhis is standart 3:1 between attack and defense

>A german batallion with a war strength of perhaps 2,000

No, german battalion was about 500-1000 men

>did not have enough ammunition to kill 10,000 russian troops.

Poor germans.... They had only 5 patrone for 1 soldier...

>Result 6-8000 soviet casualties and a battalion sized hole in the german front line.

For full WWII Russian lose about 11 millions men in Army, Germans - more than 8 millions on soviet fronts. In 1944, 45 years germany losses were bigger than soviet

Sorry for my terrible english

Regards,
moi

Ed Cogburn · Post by **Ed Cogburn** » Fri Dec 28, 2001 2:53 pm

Originally posted by Mist:

3. Human wave attacks are impossible.

Not exactly. The Soviets did rely on human wave attacks. The problem is the idea that they did this everywhere all the time, which isn't true either. In late '41 they did some desperate things because they were in a desperate situation, but the use of massed formations continued for the rest of the war, as part of the "Deep Operations Doctrine" which explicity uses human wave attacks (infantry AND armor) to make the initial breakthroughs the doctrine specifies.

Go here:
http://webpub.alleg.edu/student/p/paynes/soviet_armor2.html

This article is about armor, but the descriptions about the Deep Operations Doctrine apply to the use of infantry as well (the breakthroughs are done by infantry with armor support). Go down to the middle of the page and look for the paragraph that starts with "After the German advance had been stopped", and read for a little bit, at least to the 5th paragraph where human wave attacks are explicitly mentioned.

So they did use human wave attacks, infantry and armor, but this was to overpower only a short section of the enemy's frontlines, a division against a battalion kind of thing, as someone else said. They achieve substantial numerical superiority (infantry, armor, artillery) in one area by concentrating their forces, and use human wave attacks on those limited sections of the enemy line to achieve breakthroughs. Human wave attacks weren't done everywhere, only in battle plans designed to produce breakthroughs, battle plans based on the Deep Operations Doctrine. Had the Soviets used human wave attacks everywhere, they would have lost the war, but for certain attacks the use of human wave assaults was literally part of the plan.

Hetz(er) · Post by **Hetz(er)** » Fri Dec 28, 2001 10:14 pm

I'm sorry for any inaccuracies, all of my studying of WWII was done from when I was about 12 to 17 or 18 and it's been a while. I mentioned it because I thought it had some bearing on this discussion.
Like many wargamers I tend to game the "sexy" side of a conflict. Usually that translates out to the side with the better leaders/equipment but it often means that I game the losing side. It's not that I'm pro or anti anything it's just how I'm wired. I also like to game the french in Napoleonic minatures, I play the american south in american civil war games and I prefer the germans to the russians for the same reason. There is no politics or national/racial/political bias at work here. I chose the name hetzer as a gaming handle years ago because nobody that I was then playing (in mech warrior and battle tech)knew what it was or meant (and I always thought that the design looked cool <img src="smile.gif" border="0"> that's all.

Ed Cogburn · Post by **Ed Cogburn** » Sat Dec 29, 2001 12:54 pm

Originally posted by Hetz:
I chose the name hetzer as a gaming handle years ago because nobody that I was then playing (in mech warrior and battle tech)knew what it was or meant (and I always thought that the design looked cool <img src="smile.gif" border="0"> that's all.

Hmmm, I would go with the "Elephant". <img src="smile.gif" border="0"> You can keep people guessing whether you're referring to the War Elephants from the times of Hannibal and Alexander, where elephants dominated battlefields along with the phalanx formation, or a somwhat obscure German tank destroyer only produced in small numbers, but invincible against all opposing tanks of that war in a duel. <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

Harry · Post by **Harry** » Sat Dec 29, 2001 9:34 pm

I can not give numbers at the moment, but I can strongly recommend the book "Soviet Military Operational Art, In Pursuit of Deep Battle" by David M. Glantz.
There you can find good researched data (1991) about soviet strength, compositions, strategy, aso..
Be prepared for some heavy reading...

But I can say that the _theoretical_ values changed during the course of war. You can not simply say "It consist of x man".
WIR is limited in this point.

[ December 29, 2001: Message edited by: Harry ]</p>

Hetz(er) · Post by **Hetz(er)** » Sun Dec 30, 2001 12:10 am

Elephant too much like bragging. Hetzer much more my size <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

alfmdoncel · Post by **alfmdoncel** » Sun Dec 30, 2001 6:03 am

Originally posted by RickyB:
Hi Matthew,

Regarding production, I believe the changes in production in the next version will get you what you want. The production cap by factory will be set to something like 75/cost, after which growth will be really slow, if it happens at all. Thus, switching the PzIVs to Panthers will drop the max output from around 18 (cost of 4) to 10 (cost of 7) or even 9 (cost of 8). Thus, no more building the Uber tanks and planes.

In the formula you give for production, Heavy Industry is not taken into account, which i thought it was now used. Linking Heavy Industry to tank and plane production seems more atractive, and i would not like see that linkage lost. Instead of 75/cost, why not Heavy Industry/cost or something like that?