Clash of Steel: 1941-1945: Q-Ball vs Bletchley_Geek

[BletchleyGeek]

Turn 14 – 18 September 1941

As we enter the last stage of Barbarossa, some things seem to settle out, others are still disputed. Q-Ball has finally managed to cross the Neva, and Leningrad is lost, as we'll see. Q-Ball continues pushing hard in the Moscow, Voronezh and the Dnepr bend regions, but German sword seems to have become blunted. Out of 80 battles, Q-Ball just won 75% . This is the poorest success ratio so far. Also worth of note is that Rout results have gone down by half, perhaps a sign of RKKA divisions getting a bit tougher nuts to crack, perhaps not.

Q-Ball AFV losses are still extremely high, he lost 110 AFVs this turn. I see him trying to keep this under control, but if he wants to do a last “push” eastwards I think these losses will become even greater. Of special note are the Luftwaffe losses

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while the Air Combat losses reported for the Axis are completely bugged, the partial totals aren't. The VVS is really winning the air war. You'll remember I wasn't betting one ruble on them putting up a decent fight. The first time in this game I'm glad I was wrong. The air losses details is even more telling:

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I've always been under the impression that German level bombers were nice looking but their survivability was extremely low. Note the He-111 and Ju-88 numbers and compare them with the sitting duck, as folk wisdom goes, that Ju-87 should be. He's lost 4 times more Level Bombers than CAS aircraft. I haven't seen this in any of my previous games. In any case you'll be right to say that the air war is mostly a sideshow in WitE. However, this is a very extreme result and I wonder what will be its implications in the mid term.

I need to thank M60 for pointing me out a detail on the rules regarding Air Doctrines that hadn't registered. Certainly, increasing priorities in air doctrines generates less AI missions. Which is not clear to be a bad thing for Support and Attack missions. I guess that for Intercept it would depend on the situation an general plane availability. For Interdiction where it seems that the chance of sapping MP's is independent of the number of planes involved in the sortie, then certainly a very low setting is the way to go. Is it really independent.

Regarding Flavio's remark about the air bases. I do really think we're much better off attacking HQ's. When massed (i.e. Ground Attack priority to 300) and one gets good rolls, you can really do some logistical damage, which is not too shabby. Also there's a chance of killing the leader attached to the HQ, which isn't either a bad thing (in another game, currently in March 1942, I nuked 2. Armee HQ with 100 IL-4's, resulting in Generaloberst Von Weich's becoming KIA).

Albubulian asked for the OOB screen, and here is it:

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The RKKA has suffered really heavy losses, the Axis armies combined are fielding almost twice as many men.

No broken windows

The 12th PzDiv vandals are rounded up and now are on their way towards Siberia

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I must admit I'm really relieved this worked without having to use any more troops. This greatly simplifies the defense of Moscow. Q-Ball told me that 12th PzDiv commander was named Field Marshall. Well, that'll be the FIRST Field Marshall the RKKA captures

Operational Situation Report

Leningrad is gone, 18. Armee infantry has setup a extremely strong bridgehead across the Neva. There's no way I can dislodge those guys

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time to salvage as much troops and material as possible and pull back to the southeast, to avoid being flanked by the Finns.

I knew I was very thing north of Rzhev, and Q-Ball has seen it as well. A full ArmeeKorps has flanked the position of Northwestern Front 8th and 11th Armies on the Valdai Hills

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that's an excellent defensive position for Q-Ball, that seems that he's going to get as well in this game. Note the FZ to the southeast of Peno. He's starting to work on his winter lines.

He hasn't pressed too much Moscow defenses right flank. Either he's preparing for another build up or my counterstrokes left his forces a bit shaken

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haven't seen a trace of 4. PzGruppe units that went unaccounted for last turn. I think I'll be finding where they're sooner or later. To the south 4. Armee and 3. PzGruppe Motorized divisions have pushed hard and encircled a couple divisions in Kaluga, crushing Malinovsky's 10th Army in the process:

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I'm certainly being thrown out of balance, and I'm not sure I can regain it I don't retreat. However, something says to me there isn't anywhere to retreat to.

Very heavy combat around Voronezh, 2. PzGruppe supported by 2. Armee and 6. Armee (these are my guesses) have pushed back the forces I had blocking the spearhead:

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not much of a disaster and the fight has resulted in a satisifyingly high number of German casualties. I think I will have to retreat to the river lines, before Q-Ball denies them to me. A noteworthy defensive battle took place northwest of Voronezh:

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167th Infanterie Division received quite a bloody nose. I've been setting to Reserve Mode all units within 4 hexes of the front line – what I deem the “operational depths” - and over time I'm seeing more and more of this. I'm a heavy user of Reserve mode, now I'd like my units also to React

1st PzGruppe just did again in the Dnepr bend this thing I hate so much

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Breakthrough, raid my rearguard and then back to the safety of the start line. This has just spoilt Southern Front position, though nobody got encircled this time.

Q-Ball's plan for the Crimea is a big mystery to me:

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Recon hasn't told me much about his dispositions here but there should be at least two more German infantry divisions around. Either way he has to choose between reducing Sevastopol or trying to cross the Kerch straits. Both are going to be tough battles.

Logistics & Organization

Armaments pool has dropped again by 30,000 points, and the situation TOE picture has got a bit worse. However, production pool doesn't look to me as depleted

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substantial amounts of Rifle squads, machine guns, mortars and light and medium artillery are piled inside RKKA magazines. Being the pool in that state I'm sort of reassured. Obviously there should be a one turn delay before seeing the actual effect of the TOE policy I set. Let's wait one more turn before getting really worried

Factory Evacuation

I get 91,000 railcap points this turn. Since the 12th Panzer hooligans have been eradicated I can move the industry trapped in Moscow. I'm evacuating from West Moscow 8 ARM and 5 Vehicle factories, with a cost of 78,000 railcap. The rest is kept for troop movement.

Operations

Leningrad turns are numbered, and I take some measures. I've been able to evacuate two divisions this turn, which adds to the other four I had already evacuated in the last two turns:

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I also pull back Northern and Northwestern Front to the east, which results in a substantial shortening of the line. I'm betting on Q-Ball not being able to either make contact with the Finns or conquer Leningrad in one single turn:

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If I'm lucky, the units sitting on Osinovets will get routed, and perhaps evacuated “for free” over the Ladoga.

I try to organize as well as I can the defense of Moscow

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I'm blocking with some stout stacks the “direct” approach, Q-Ball should find problematic getting good Hasty attacks. I've organized 13th Army and used it to start the fortification of the “last line” of defense, I've built a couple FZ's to build up that really soon. I'll be following James advice and reducing their TOE's as soon as they become “combat units”, that is, get a CV of 1.
I pull back towards the Don river line, this should be tough for 2. PzGruppe:

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those PzDivs are really low on fuel – soft factors are mostly red, deep red. I think there's a 50-50 chance of this German formation going north to press onto Moscow, or to try its hand at encircling my forces around Voronezh.

I'm very disatisfied with the best thing I could devise for the Dnepr Bend defense

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those excursions German motorized units make not only raid cities, also flip quite a few hexes and usually manage to throw off balance the whole deployment. I'm trying to hold fast here, basically to win some time for the defense of Rostov, where 29th Army is forming up.

Nothing noteworthy to report about the Crimean campaign. I'm still wondering about how much troops does Q-Ball have there. But if he's looking forward to conquer Sevastopol with a force consisting mainly of Romanians he's going to be disappointed.

Here you can see one of the air attacks on HQ's I was talking about before

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no leader killed, though. That's really rare. But note numbers of destroyed, damaged and disrupted ground elements. The numbers for the Soviet side seem to be bugged, but those on the left make some sense. I don't know exactly what effect, if any, does have to increase fatigue in the ground elements assigned to an HQ – support, supply and fuel dumps – but it seems that on that department I'm doing some damage.

I am under the impression that support squads and their fatigue levels are the most important parameter to determine whether damaged elements become destroyed or are sent back into the pool. If I'm right, then I think that hitting the Axis where it hurts most – the logistic aspect – is certainly worth the effort of manually hunting down across the map HQ's. But BDA is more a mix of wishful thinking than anything else

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maybe Lava might have some advice for me

I usually check how many Support, Vehicle and Dump ground elements are lost after each attack. Most of these logistic losses are surely because of 12th PzDiv surrender, but some, probably something like 20% of them, could be due to air attacks.

[Flaviusx]

I don't disagree that ground attacks on HQs are preferable to airbase strikes.

But the numbers of such ground attacks you can make are extremely limited. Very quickly they refuse to fly any further missions.

Once you've exhausted them, you're left with a lot of airframes with plenty of mileage that can squeeze in a substantial number of airstrikes. And the heavy air losses in my game with James is also encouraging me to do such strikes. I really want to get his annoying recon planes on the ground in particular.

[JAMiAM]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

I don't disagree that ground attacks on HQs are preferable to airbase strikes.

But the numbers of such ground attacks you can make are extremely limited. Very quickly they refuse to fly any further missions.

Once you've exhausted them, you're left with a lot of airframes with plenty of mileage that can squeeze in a substantial number of airstrikes. And the heavy air losses in my game with James is also encouraging me to do such strikes. I really want to get his annoying recon planes on the ground in particular.

I was wondering why you were suddenly targeting my airbases. I thought you were doing some more testing of the airbase attack routines...[:D]

[BletchleyGeek]

This is a very long post. For those who think TL;DR don't worry, there will be an abridged version of the discussion soon.

ORIGINAL: janh
I think B-G's suggestion are a good starting point, but you have some points there that surely must be considered to make this feature useful, as well as hard to misuse against AI and other players -- both is surely possible.

Thank you janh, that's really the point. That draft was mainly meant to be something concrete we can think about and discuss. If it sounded like I thought it was perfect, far from my real intention.

ORIGINAL: TulliusDetritus

Just for the record: in WitP AE the land units CANNOT react. Only the naval units can (up to six hexes). The submarines only one hex though. Don't forget there are daily turns and hexes are supposed to represent 40 miles.

Now you can put a land unit in "reserve" mode. In defence they might reinforce your fighting units, if attacking and the enemy is forced to retreat they will PURSUE them.

And of course not a lot of highways, roads in the Solomons, New Guinea or any other place for that matter [;)] Welcome to the Logistical Nightmare, wonderfully simulated by the way.

These points about scale are quite on topic. In WitP:AE the situation is quite different, for the reasons Tullius points out. Some of the flexibility it offers - such as the pursuit option - certainly is necessary since in WitP:AE is WEGO. Reaction rules in WitP:AE make a lot of sense for TF's, for a variety of reasons. First, that they're ships equipped with radios and are immersed in a much less constrained "battlespace". However, they're highly influenced by Commander ratings - aren't they? - so if you have a meek commander at the head of a strong SAG with plenty of BB's, it could well mean that those CVLs will be butchered by that BB-ridden IJN SAG

I certainly think features such as Reaction moves - either in a WEGO or IGOUGO setting - are much more than just "chrome".

ORIGINAL: janh

ORIGINAL: 76mm
First, regarding the reaction range: I think that 40 miles is awfully far for a rifle div in 1941. The question is not only how far the unit could move, but what C3 capabilities it has that will allow it to determine where an enemy is, and then react quickly in a proper "intercept" location. At least in 1941, I just don't see that as being realistic. Maybe one hex, or more likely, none...

Was my first thought as well. In reality it would depend strongly on situation awareness of the commanding element, i.e. what "recon value" of the approaching unit is available. For an infantry formation I would think it would already be a quantum leap to have 1 hex reaction range, i.e. direct spotting. If considering Cavalry, Mech or Amored, one could think along the lines taken in WiTP with the reaction range (0-6) setting for naval formations. But also here I would set a much shorter cutoff, perhaps 2 hex if sufficient MP are left, and for the 2nd hex have a lower probability to react? Linearly or exponentially lower, whatever the exact mechanics.

Not really. I've been reading that "Bloody Triangle" book by V. Kamenir - my youngest brother just brought it to me yesterday - and I certainly see that in the period that goes from June 22nd to June 26th Kiev Military District 5th and 6th Army's second echelons really moved forward (infantry included). More than 40 miles, from as far as from Rovno to Lutsk. This caused quite a few operational-level "meeting engagements", which usually ended badly for the RKKA. But also really threw a monkeywrench into AGS gears and set up the scenario for the huge tank battle that raged from June 26th to July 1st in the triangle whose vertices roughly are Lutsk, Rovno and Tarnopol. Kamenir's book is a bit amateurish, but his sources on Soviet operations are primary and quite reliable, since it seems to me he's cross checking them.

We all know how big a clusterf*ck was RKKA C3 at the eve of Barbarossa, don't we? While this "agility" partly is the result of pre-war plans, it's also true that 5th and 6th Armies got on the move within 24 hours. So the "shock" effect seems to cancel out with the pre-planning. Which is "slow" but really "fast" given WitE time scale.

1 hex are just 10 miles, and I think that 10 miles is really feasible for a Rifle Division to move - even a 1941 Rifle Division! - in the span of one day, or even less. Note that in the proposed draft rule, units have to spend MP's to get to the vicinity of the "hotspot" hex. These costs could certainly be increased - as it already happens with units in Reserve mode - but not too much - say 4x - depending on Leader ratings.

janh proposal to take into account range to modify reaction chances is a good one. The actual number is more of a guess than anything else. Note that a 16 MP's 1941 Sov Rifle Division can already move quite a distance on friendly territory.

ORIGINAL: janh

ORIGINAL: 76mm
Second, if you allow that reaction is realistic and useful, the fact that only one unit could react per hex is also kind of odd--presumably any
commander that could figure out where the enemy would be would send all available combat power to that location, not a lone rifle division,
tank brigade, etc.

That is a tough question. Any unit with a ZOC hex being equal to the hex to be entered by the unit should react to that, with a certain probability calculated from the rules and factor discussed above. Why have one react and not the other? Hmmh, should there be a fixed rule, basically implying that all units would coordinate perfectly and only move together when the detected enemy CV is much higher than that of a single reacting unit? I would suggest that this be one factor, and another that again there be a dice roll depending on the unit readiness, moral and leader qualities whether they will coordinate successfully, or wastefully move together on a weak enemy, or failing to coordinate on a strong one. Some friction again...

Well, note the part about the "commitment" checks. It's really flexible, I'm just borrowing on Joel's and Gary's original style They take into account all the factors I think actually matter. Why just one single unit? I didn't want to make the first proposal too complex. We can certainly borrow the concept from current Reserve rules, where the chances of Reserve units to intervene in battle is inversely proportional to the number (and size!) of reserves already committed.

Regarding "coordination": well, this is an "instant" effect. Everybody would move in a straight line - as straight as the hex grid allows, of course - towards the "hotspot" hex.

On the other hand, the mechanism can't certainly be as "smart" as a human player. This is just not feasible. The goal is to have a mechanism that accounts for "common sense" decisions in most cases. The alternative would be to have a Reaction Phase, doubling the number of e-mail's one has to exchange. A similar approach didn't work for John Tiller's PanzerCampaigns with its weird Napoleonic-cum-Grand-Tactical-WW2 system, and I don't think it would work for us either.

ORIGINAL: janh

ORIGINAL: 76mm
Third, the sistem would inevitably be "gamed", in that German players would figure out how to bait the reaction forces to uncover the true avenue of attack. This would be realistic enough if the player were determining how to react, but having the AI do so would almost certainly result in clever German players taking advantage of it.

That indeed is a big problem. With the reaction setting I would used a different design, i.e. not just Hasty attacks on a unit that has entered a ZOC. I would allow for 3 different order settings (besides the competing attachment as a reserve for a higher HQ): "Hold tight", "Blocking" and "Countermoving". This would introduce some uncertainty as the player would have to use it carefully, and the opponent never could be 100% sure what might happen although he of course could guesstimate a bit from what he knows about the unit and leader qualities.
(i) Blocking: Once an OPFOR unit is selected to enter a hex in the ZOC, the unit exerting this control of that hex could get a dice roll to enter that hex first IF the entering unit was sighted or well reconned in the last turn ("sort of assuming its axis of approach was tracked by air recon or so"). The advancing OPFOR unit could get a special dice role, depending on whether the reacting unit was identified before, and its known relative strength, whether it will perform the targeted move. If both forces enter, then there should be a special type of engagement, not one following standard rules of deliberate or hasty engagements, but a Meeting engagement with represents that both sides come up piecemeal/unordered/in marching formation and, thus, a like light, sometimes heavy fight ensues in which no side has some initial benefit.
(ii) Countermoving: as described by B-G above, making a Hasty attack into a moving opponent formation, thus also representing a bit that the opponent unit is in march and not prepared to defend, and losses will be a little worse than in case that unit would be waiting in a defensive posture. Perhaps the Countermoving could also get a dice roll making it a meeting engagement instead.

This is harder to game (and since it is based on probabilities, can only gamed with a certain chance, else the gaming fails), but as always with anything in a game, it probably can also be broken by some inventive players...

Regarding "gaming" stuff. The German players would really need to be clever. Actually, über-humanly clever. They would have to compute (by hand, or write a computer program for it) all the possible combinations of units which might be in reaction mode or not (this is not visible to the opponent, very much like Reserve mode isn't either) and their paths. One could certainly "guess" or compute with few units, but man, just don't buy any more lottery in a couple months, because it might well be that you just broke your Bank of Luck

The part about the opponent not being 100% sure of what's going to happen is key. Current reserve mechanics can certainly surprise - I just showed a little surprise Q-Ball got this turn - but it's a really rare happening unless you have Ace commanders. And I don't think you need a Guderian or a Rokossovsky to react adequately to an enemy breakthrough.

Currently, we have to rely on positioning and units in reserve mode. Reserve mode is hard, since it means that the defense needs to be coordinated. And positioning is obvious to the opponent, more so if he's not lazy and does proper recon. With a fixed, perfectly observable enemy position anybody can herd any static defense in the game to complete or partial destruction in two turns (encirclement and surrender). What if the defender position is dynamic? Well, the "herding" part becomes much harder. Counting MP's isn't going to help, you'd need to get an actual probability distribution on MP's and reason on that. Something that I think humans aren't really good doing.

I like jahn's "Blocking" suggestion, but I'm afraid some players would feel "cheated" but I don't really see it to be that different from countermoving.

ORIGINAL: janh

ORIGINAL: 76mm
Fourth, I still don't see the benefit of a 1-8 rifle division conducting a hasty attack on an advancing panzer division. What purpose would it serve other than incremental fatigue and supply costs for the Germans? Now if they could react and then dig in to level 1 right in front of the Panzers, that might be helpful, but again it doesn't seem particularly realistic.

In general, I think I would rather decide where to put my ants, dig them in as deeply as possible, and hope for the best.

All of this being said, some kind of reaction would be more realistic and helpful for the Sovs later in the war, although even then I would probably restrict its use to tank or cav corps with morale/experience over x/y and with good leaders. But by this point in the war, a reaction phase would generally be of more benefit to the Germans than the Sovs.

I think it is already a very sensible concept B-Gs presented -- especially if I think of why German or Allied lower echelon leaders where so much ahead of the Russians in the early, why the concepts of Kampfgruppen or ad hoc combat groups, and the blitzkrieg tactics worked so well, or at all. In a good part because the subordinates were trained to exert initiative and react to unforeseen circumstances, rather than continuing to follow strict orders or calling a halt. So clearly the unit quality (i.e. the abstracted moral) and the leader values of the unit must play a critical role when determining whether the unit reacts to a sudden threat.

This would be more beneficial the better the training gets, and the leader are, so the Germans will always benefit from it by being able to counter encircling or breaking-in units. The Soviets would benefit from it 43 onwards more and more, but have poorer chances to gain much from it in 41 and 42, which is exactly what it should (i.e. make Minsk- and Lvov-like pockets possible, but not without at least a minimal chance of throwing some speed-bumbers into the avenues of approach and thus perhaps delaying the closing of the pockets by a turn, and also costing both side some battle losses). /IF/ it could be made work like this without screwing anything else including AI up, I think it would be a worthy advance.

Precisely. The idea is to level the playing field, not to tip it to any other side. I can't add anything useful to what janh already said.

And incremental attrition is WAY underrated!

ORIGINAL: 76mm
One other point I forgot to mention: it seems to me that the main objective of the Sovs in 1941 should be to simply slow down the Germans. In my view, this is better accomplished by forcing a German unit to move into the ZOC of a Sov unit THEN attack; using this reaction stuff, the Sov player loses because he himself is putting his unit next to the German unit, so the German unit only has to expend MPs for attacking, not moving into a ZOC.

Well, the Axis unit has either to move around the unit that just came to hug her or attack it. It can certainly backtrack and try another avenue of approach. Either way, those are MP's - i.e. time - the German would be wasting. Therefore, he'd be slowed down. Did I answer your concern?

ORIGINAL: 76mm
My comments have been focused on the usefulness/realism for Sov players; I think it would be much more useful and realistic for German players.

But in general the whole reaction idea sounds enormously complicated and probably not worth it to me; I would certainly rather have the devs spend their time fixing the air war and tweaking various balance issues which arise with every patch.

Well, we can certainly pave the way for it by discussing it and getting forward a concrete proposal. We can only do the "fun" job of thinking a
workable mechanism. So perhaps we're stealing the fun from them [:)] About the implementation, as I posted before, we can only make educated guesses which might be well off the mark.

If there's one thing we can do to help the devs is to discuss issues like this in the way we've done so far. Respectfully, not leaving any
angle for "fanobyism" accusations and actually proposing something "concrete".

It's nearly as much fun as playing the game!

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

I don't disagree that ground attacks on HQs are preferable to airbase strikes.

But the numbers of such ground attacks you can make are extremely limited. Very quickly they refuse to fly any further missions.

Once you've exhausted them, you're left with a lot of airframes with plenty of mileage that can squeeze in a substantial number of airstrikes. And the heavy air losses in my game with James is also encouraging me to do such strikes. I really want to get his annoying recon planes on the ground in particular.

You just made me check - again - today Air Combat rules with your remark. Indeed there's a choice to be made between Ground Attack and Airfield Strike and moving the base itself. However, I don't get the last paragraph. Is that the reason for you preferring Airfield Strikes over Ground Attack Strikes?

I don't disagree either with that, given the situation you outline. You might be also
quite accelerating the Luftwaffe collapse, which can only play in your favor. I don't know if the VVS is having too easy a time, I need to get to Summer 1942 in another game to check, but incremental attrition certainly works in the air.

In my case I think that were I should hurt Q-Ball's is in the logistics, rather than on his intel capability. More so since Winter Is Coming! [:D]

[janh]

Your concept was already quite good, and I think your recent points are all valid, including the range question.  I don't have much of a feeling for scale on the Russian territory, but you are right -- the map says the Soviets did move quite a bit even in the first week (turn).  I also agree that the reserves and reaction should using very similar or even the exact same, existing algos since basically both types of action represent the same thing: HQ ordering reserves standing by in readiness to interfere.

The difference between countermoving and blocking was just the thought that one ends up in a meeting engagement, while in the other case the advancing unit can still stop once the reacting unit pops up in the hex he wanted originally to enter, and the player change his path. But maybe that after all ain't such a good idea, and makes it unnecessarily complex. Cross it.

I didn't realize until your last post that we are actually talking about exactly the same solution taken with WiTP and AE to solve the corresponding problem, i.e. that you hardly got would get mid-ocean intercepts without such a reaction setting that could draw units to each other and intercept them. The problem is the same, the naval units have a large movement radius given the time scale of the moves (that's why land units don't need it there, they can't move at >1 hex a turn except by rail). So pretty sure the devs  already know it all   In AE there are sometimes complaints about this causing some weired, or extremely bold moves, but they typically end up having been due to incompetent commanders assigned to TFs. Otherwise, with commanders ratings entering, it results in a reasonable spread of outcomes and works very well.

I just little sorry for highjacking this great AAR with this brainstorming... I probably should delete the above posts sometime!

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: janh

I just little sorry for highjacking this great AAR with this brainstorming... I probably should delete the above posts sometime!

Don't DARE to do that! [;)] At least until I have all of this discussion transcribed somewhere else

[Flaviusx]

I run as many ground attack missions as the game allows. This isn't a lot. Maybe 2-3 strikes per front, if that. The game severely limits these. Then, airfield strikes. And that is limited only by mileage flown.

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx
I run as many ground attack missions as the game allows. This isn't a lot. Maybe 2-3 strikes per front, if that. The game severely limits these. Then, airfield strikes. And that is limited only by mileage flown.

No wonder why that's limited. Nobody wants those WITP nuclear strikes with hundreds of level bombers vaporizing enemy formations It would get silly really soon.

Thank you for the advice Flavio [:)]

[Peltonx]

That really nasty air bug has imbalanced all the games started under 1.05 as far as the air war goes.

So judging the air battles from any of the games we are playing is a total waste of time.

Many of the Russian formations have way higher moral then they should at this time.

Its really having an abnormal effect on all the games unless you started after the patch that fixed it.

I would not waste time cheering or putting poeple down because of a nasty bug.

Pelton

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: Bletchley_Geek
Not really. I've been reading that "Bloody Triangle" book by V. Kamenir...This caused quite a few operational-level "meeting engagements", which usually ended badly for the RKKA...While this "agility" partly is the result of pre-war plans, it's also true that 5th and 6th Armies got on the move within 24 hours. So the "shock" effect seems to cancel out with the pre-planning.

As chance would have it, I'm reading the same book, although haven't gotten to the actual start of the war yet. That said, I wold say that this "agility" is ENTIRELY the result of pre-war plans, and the fact that they had a better idea what the Germans were doing. From what I've seen so far, the Sovs in this sector were pretty much expecting an attack.

Moreover, this type of meeting engagement is only one of the types of engagements that would occur under your proposed scheme. For instance, it is one thing for Sov units to simply advance straight ahead until they run into the Germans advancing towards them. It is quite another, and much more difficult, to "vector" onto a unit which is moving not toward you, but perhaps parallel or even away from you--you get "there" too early or too late and you simply don't encounter the enemy. So should this reaction only be effective with a units "forward arc"? Or penalties for moving parallel to the front? Way too complicated IMHO.

ORIGINAL: Bletchley_Geek
Regarding "gaming" stuff. The German players would really need to be clever. Actually, über-humanly clever. They would have to compute (by hand, or write a computer program for it) all the possible combinations of units which might be in reaction mode or not (this is not visible to the opponent, very much like Reserve mode isn't either) and their paths. One could certainly "guess" or compute with few units, but man, just don't buy any more lottery in a couple months, because it might well be that you just broke your Bank of Luck

I don't understand why you think this. I think it would be child's play for the German to send his weakest units up ahead to attract the reacting units, and only deploy his powerful units once he had seen the reaction moves. From what people have been writing, I assume that people anticipate that this reaction stuff would be most useful in checkerboard type situations, and I think it could easily be gamed in this situation. Sure, you couldn't be 100% whether all eligible unit had already reacted, but you don't have to be 100% correct to gain a major advantage.

ORIGINAL: Bletchley_Geek
Well, the Axis unit has either to move around the unit that just came to hug her or attack it. It can certainly backtrack and try another avenue of approach. Either way, those are MP's - i.e. time - the German would be wasting. Therefore, he'd be slowed down. Did I answer your concern?

You did not answer my concern, but instead are repeating what appears to me to be a common misconception (or I just don't get something)... Imagine two situations, A and B. In A, a Sov unit starts the turn adjacent to a German unit. The German's first action is to hasty attack the Sov unit and rout it, the German is now free to move. In B, a Sov unit starts one hex away, and in front of, the German unit. Before hasty attacking, the German must move into a ZOC, thus costing more MP. The German could avoid attacking and simply drive around it, but the ZOC means that this also forces the expenditure of significant MP. [EDIT: Thus, MP expenditure seems to significantly higher if Sov units start one hex away from German units, rather than adjacent.] I would appreciate it if someone could explain the flaws in this logic?

The calculus changes if you can assume that the Sov unit won't rout (farewell NKVD units!), but this seems fairly rare in 1941 at this point.

[EDIT: As far as I can tell the only downside to not starting adjacent is that you don't inflict fatigue/attrition on the German player, but from what I have read for any given turn this effect is very incremental and I would probably be satisfied to rely on attrition and fatigue from German unit movement.]

[76mm]

If people are really interested in some way of slowing-down/impeding the phasing player, I think it would be easier to create some kind of "small unit strongpoint" scheme, in which a player could remove a unit from the map, and in return the unit's hex and the six surrounding hexes would become more costly for the opposing player to move through. Basically, this would represent a unit being broken up into small contingents and deployed to slow down the enemy as much as possible. The resulting effects could work very simillarly to air interdiction, but it would be in a particular location selected by the player. Morever, the other player would not be able to tell by looking at an empty hex whether it was subject to "small unit strongpoints". But then again, this isn't that different a result from a standard checkboard defense, so I'm not sure if even this is worth it.

[janh]

ORIGINAL: 76mm
Moreover, this type of meeting engagement is only one of the types of engagements that would occur under your proposed scheme. For instance, it is one thing for Sov units to simply advance straight ahead until they run into the Germans advancing towards them.

That would be the ultra-realistic version really giving your units some initiative and way to override your own orders, basically mimicing C-C errors, misunderstanding, a commander with his own mind etc. That's what they did for Scourge of War, where they even have the dispatch bearers present. Nice and logic extension to also simulate that source of friction, but there is other things that would rank much higher on most people's list here.

ORIGINAL: 76mm
Sure, you couldn't be 100% whether all eligible unit had already reacted, but you don't have to be 100% correct to gain a major advantage.

You have it. There is no way to 100% and reproducibly game it. I would really include above strength ratios in the calculation of chances, and only allow reaction for a threat meaning that is it actually strong enough to do some harm in the rear, not perhaps even including a setting that allows the player to select whether reaction to Inf formations should be performed, or just against faster ones. Perhaps even by design not? (Along these lines you could also change the ZOC rule meaning that you would require a unit to exceed a certain strength and ToE% threshold to be able to have a non-zero ZOC.)

The whole point of the reaction is basically to generate some uncertainty and friction, and, thus, lower op-tempo and give a feel that the opponent also "acts" during his waiting part of the 7-day phase. Besides, if you have good formations and good commanders set up with this, you can maybe delay a breakthru, or encirclement with some luck. Same luck as needed for a good reserve action, which is in a sense identical.

ORIGINAL: 76mm
You did not answer my concern, but instead are repeating what appears to me to be a common misconception (or I just don't get something)... Imagine two situations, A and B. In A, a Sov unit starts the turn adjacent to a German unit. The German's first action is to hasty attack the Sov unit and rout it, the German is now free to move. In B, a Sov unit starts one hex away, and in front of, the German unit. Before hasty attacking, the German must move into a ZOC, thus costing more MP. The German could avoid attacking and simply drive around it, but the ZOC means that this also forces the expenditure of significant MP. [EDIT: Thus, MP expenditure seems to significantly higher if Sov units start one hex away from German units, rather than adjacent.] I would appreciate it if someone could explain the flaws in this logic?

I suppose you could only have units react if they move from 1 ZOC hex to the next one, not if they first enter your ZOC. But in fact, just brushing them aside would also be my approach. But this would then mean the reaction rules would have achieved their goal, and introduce fighting instead of organizing your units to sneak a full-7-day marching distance around the gaps until the enemy can respond, be it in 41 or 44.

Regarding you strongpoint idea, that was pretty much how I interpret the ZOC concept: a sufficiently strong unit sending out patrols to adjacent terrain, skirmishing or setting up small ambushes for the enemy passing through there so he has to be on alert all the time, and move slower (at higher MP cost). I didn't get it exactly, but you were thinking to extend this idea? But wouldn't this again be a static thing, and not reduce the non-simultaneous character of the I-go-U-go turns?

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: janh
I didn't get it exactly, but you were thinking to extend this idea? But wouldn't this again be a static thing, and not reduce the non-simultaneous character of the I-go-U-go turns?

As you say, this isn't too much different from how ZOC works, but it would be different in a couple of respects (and frankly, I'm not sure its worth the effort):

1) A player would have to make a sacrifice to get the benefit of the increased MP expsnditure by the other side: bascially he would sacrifice a unit (eliminate it from the map) to represent it being dispersed into a bunch of small detachments. Obviously this is more feasible for the Sovs than the Germans, who could not afford to sacrifice that many units, although maybe it could be possible to "reconstitute" the original unit if the relevant hexes were not occupied by the enemy; and

2) The MP effect on the moving player would be randomized, and probably a bit more severe than existing air interdiction results. But, since the hexes would not contain any unit counter, the Germans would not need to make any hasty attacks, just increased MP cost to enter each covered hex.

3) This kind of thing would be impossible (difficult) to detect via recon , so when a German player conducts recon and sees empty space, he could not be sure if it was truly and completely empty, or if the Sov player had deployed these "small units" in the ares. So Germans would not be quite so sure of their MP costs, and thus how far they could penetrate/advance in a turn.

The effect would be similar to a checkerboard, but more randomized and less gamey for both attacker and defender.

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: Pelton

That really nasty air bug has imbalanced all the games started under 1.05 as far as the air war goes.

So judging the air battles from any of the games we are playing is a total waste of time.

Many of the Russian formations have way higher moral then they should at this time.

Its really having an abnormal effect on all the games unless you started after the patch that fixed it.

I would not waste time cheering or putting poeple down because of a nasty bug.

Certainly there's a bug here regarding how the number of kills in Air Combat are being accounted. But most of this happens on Q-Ball's phase, not mine. Hence it seems to me it's all because the intercept missions being generated by the AI. Both you an me are maxing out the Fighter Intercept setting, but it seems to work much better for the VVS because of its huge numbers. I reported this to Helpless a couple weeks ago, and Flavio confirmed it, but from what I gather he's unable to reproduce the problem, which is not the same as saying there's no problem

I agree with you that for whatever reason, this is creating a quite wonky situation in the air. I don't think the Luftwaffe will be able to dispute air superiority all across the front, and it would be toughly contested even if it concentrates.

On the other hand, Q-Ball has really put a dent on Soviet aircraft production in this game. It's quite probable that I will dry out the airframe pools well before 1942, if the tempo of operations doesn't decrease (in December certainly it shouldn't).

[BletchleyGeek]

76mm has made me sweat this time [:)]

ORIGINAL: 76mm

ORIGINAL: Bletchley_Geek
Not really. I've been reading that "Bloody Triangle" book by V. Kamenir...This caused quite a few operational-level "meeting engagements", which usually ended badly for the RKKA...While this "agility" partly is the result of pre-war plans, it's also true that 5th and 6th Armies got on the move within 24 hours. So the "shock" effect seems to cancel out with the pre-planning.

As chance would have it, I'm reading the same book, although haven't gotten to the actual start of the war yet. That said, I wold say that this "agility" is ENTIRELY the result of pre-war plans, and the fact that they had a better idea what the Germans were doing. From what I've seen so far, the Sovs in this sector were pretty much expecting an attack.

I don't want to spoil the book for you, but pre-planned moves were of the essence for getting the units moving. However, the situation was so fluid that you'll see that some of the commanders showed a notable level of initiative and personal courage. You'll see that even relatively "lackeys" such as Feklenko, commander of the 19th Mech Corps showed a certain degree of ability getting his badly depleted units to meet the Germans. Or Rokossovskiy 9th "Mech" Corps which moved all the way from Shepetovka (east of Rovno) to Lutsk in less than two days. In some books one is left under the impression that Red Army officers were a bunch of cowed, stuttering, yes-men.

Not in this one. Indeed there were many officers like these, but there were also many who showed ability and quick thinking in conditions similar to those of the French. And the Red Army reacted much better than the French (I guess it helped that RKKA higher echelons were worried
about "mundane" stuff, and their attention focused less focused on critical issues such as choosing which was the best wine to toast the visiting British officers that looked worried or scolding the Corps HQ chef for not getting the foie perfect the night before).

Regarding that "they were expecting an attack". Well, if they were expecting an attack in the eve of Barbarossa one could easily what they would expect from massed PanzerDivisions grouping just west of Vyazma in late September. Sure as hell those guys weren't mounting on their Sdkfz's doing recon just because some CO wanted to have hare with mushrooms for supper.

ORIGINAL: 76mm
Moreover, this type of meeting engagement is only one of the types of engagements that would occur under your proposed scheme. For instance, it is one thing for Sov units to simply advance straight ahead until they run into the Germans advancing towards them. It is quite another, and much more difficult, to "vector" onto a unit which is moving not toward you, but perhaps parallel or even away from you--you get "there" too early or too late and you simply don't encounter the enemy. So should this reaction only be effective with a units "forward arc"?
Or penalties for moving parallel to the front? Way too complicated IMHO.

I don't think it's worth to model in a different way those "parallel" moves. WitE isn't modeling air combat, or anything like that. Enemy units move along roads and towards targets of interest - road and rail junctions, bridges, etc. Red Army staff officers might be unexperienced but surely they could read a map as well as anybody else and were mostly smart people and anticipate to enemy moves judging the info they got through the chain of command or other sources. So reaction triggers whenever a hex within the radius flips. The reacting unit moves to block, that is, try to occupy that hex. That's an instant effect.

ORIGINAL: 76mm

ORIGINAL: Bletchley_Geek
Well, the Axis unit has either to move around the unit that just came to hug her or attack it. It can certainly backtrack and try another avenue of approach. Either way, those are MP's - i.e. time - the German would be wasting. Therefore, he'd be slowed down. Did I answer your concern?

You did not answer my concern, but instead are repeating what appears to me to be a common misconception (or I just don't get something)... Imagine two situations, A and B. In A, a Sov unit starts the turn adjacent to a German unit. The German's first action is to hasty attack the Sov unit and rout it, the German is now free to move. In B, a Sov unit starts one hex away, and in front of, the German unit. Before hasty attacking, the German must move into a ZOC, thus costing more MP. The German could avoid attacking and simply drive around it, but the ZOC means that this also forces the expenditure of significant MP. [EDIT: Thus, MP expenditure seems to significantly higher if Sov units start one hex away from German units, rather than adjacent.] I would appreciate it if someone could explain the flaws in this logic?

The calculus changes if you can assume that the Sov unit won't rout (farewell NKVD units!), but this seems fairly rare in 1941 at this point.

[EDIT: As far as I can tell the only downside to not starting adjacent is that you don't inflict fatigue/attrition on the German player, but from what I have read for any given turn this effect is very incremental and I would probably be satisfied to rely on attrition and
fatigue from German unit movement.]

The cost for entering a Clear terrain hex within ZOC of an enemy unit (but the hex being "Pending Friendly", since divisions flip adjacent hexes not in ZOC) would be just 1 MP. Doing the hasty would be 3 MP's. Entering ZOC from a hex which is not on enemy ZOC is free. That's 4 MP's which is certainly less than the 3 MP's needed to attack an adjacent unit with a hasty attack (hexsides not being a minor nor a major river).

Let's say the Panzer division really wants to move the hex right behind the unit that just reacted. But the Axis player is forced to make a choice: either attack and get freedom of maneuver as you say, or sidestep. You seem to deem this decision to be a completely no-brainer, but it really depends a lot on the situation.

The attacking unit has a CV of 120 (displayed as 12), the unit that just reacted has a displayed CV of 2 (which could be 20, 21, ..., 29). A hasty attack would start with initial odds ranging from 40 / 20 (2:1) to 40 / 29 (1:1). In the worst case (leader doesn't double, Luftwaffe is elsewhere) the chances of winning the combat - achieving 2:1 - are 1/10, assuming that all defending CV's between 20 and 29 are equally likely. Routing (i.e. final odds 10:1 or greater) are relatively unlikely with a hasty (I think Q-Ball has got something like 5 such results in the last turn, out of over 30 hasty attacks).

But things can get worse.

If there are other enemy units with displayed CV of 2 not in ZOC, say at about 2 hexes, they might well be in Reserve (or not, you just don't know). A Soviet Rifle Division, with 16 MP's, chance to participate into as a Reserve is Initiative/10 times the chances of Die(2) - the MP cost to reach the hex - being less than or equal than Die(16). With a leader of initiative 5 this becomes:

0.5 x 31/32 = 0.5 x 0.96875 = 0,484

That's one in two, you would say, not bad. But the chances of the hasty attack being successful become much less entertaining (something like 1/20). If there are more than one of such enemy units, then the chances are much lower (since the probability of at least one unit being committed becomes higher).

All of a sudden, hasty doesn't look too viable. The chances of needing 2 hasty attacks (6 MP's) are very high (even if after the second hasty, the defender routs). It might be even be preferable to bring infantry and do a deliberate, or directly, doing a deliberate attack and "burning" that PanzerDivision. Taking a detour around the unit that reacted might be cheaper, expensive or just not an option.

Either way, even simple, zombie-like reaction can complicate breaking through a defense in the style we see these days quite involved. I don't think even Pelton takes into account all these factors when playing [:P]

Let's take a look to the rules I drafted (with some revisions, taking into account some of the feedback I've got). Changes or additions in cursive:

15. 2x. Reaction Rules (v2)

1. The phasing player can set eligible Combat Units into Reaction Mode.

2. The only Combat units eligible for Reaction mode are Ready, unfrozen units which are not in enemy ZOC.

3. Units put into Reaction mode will be able to move to intercept up to a max of 6 hexes.
a) Reaction range can be limited - via a toggle text button on the unit detail display - to 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 hexes.


4. Resolving interception move during opposing player phase:
a) A enemy movement (or combat) flips a hex ownership, a check is done on what (if any) combat units are within 4 hexes range of that hex.
b) For each of the units in reaction mode the following checks are done to determine whether they become active and react:
i) If the Combat Unit is of size Bde(Rgt) will receive a bonus for successive checks
ii) If the Combat Unit is of type Armored, Motorized or Mechanized all successive checks receive bonuses
ii) Die(10) against HHQ leader initiative rating (+1 if condition i) holds, +1 if condition ii) holds)
iii) Die(MP's to hex) <= Die(MP's).

c) The first unit that passes the check becomes "allocated" and no further units are checked.

d) The selected unit attempts to reach the active hex, spending MP's as per normal terrain costs, but ignores additional costs
due to ZOC and/or enemy ownership. NOTE: ignoring them or paying reduced costs, since this is modeling a very fluid situation
so the enemy unit which is marching and hasn't much ability to project much force around it.
e) The above can have either the following results:
i) The reacting unit enters an adjancent hex to the "hotspot" hex. If it has enough MP's to do a hasty attack on the adjacent,
such an attack is performed. This attack will have a high chance of getting a RECONAISSANCE result.
ii) The reacting unit falls short of the hex, but in its general direction.

Changes rationale:

15.2x.2: Getting a ZOC negates Reaction, very much as happens with Reserve mode.
15.2x.3: This is the "magical" constant used for defensive reserves by the designers. I'm sure they had a good reason
to set it to that value.
15.2x.4.a: Flipping ownership rather than entering. Makes more sense. Brigades/Regiments are less likely to trigger reaction moves.
15.2x.4.ii: Similarly as above.

ORIGINAL: 76mm

ORIGINAL: Bletchley_Geek
Regarding "gaming" stuff. The German players would really need to be clever. Actually, über-humanly clever. They would have to compute (by hand, or write a computer program for it) all the possible combinations of units which might be in reaction mode or not (this is not visible to the opponent, very much like Reserve mode isn't either) and their paths. One could certainly "guess" or compute with few units, but man, just don't buy any more lottery in a couple months, because it might well be that you just broke your Bank of Luck

I don't understand why you think this. I think it would be child's play for the German to send his weakest units up ahead to attract the reacting units, and only deploy his powerful units once he had seen the reaction moves.
From what people have been writing, I assume that people anticipate that this reaction stuff would be most useful in checkerboard type situations, and I think it could easily be gamed in this situation. Sure, you couldn't be 100% whether all eligible unit had already reacted, but you don't have to be 100% correct to gain a major advantage.

See the above.

Ok, but reaction triggering is chance based. Chances of reacting grow as the number of hexes are flipped from Friendly to Pending Enemy. Either he is wishing to sacrifice/put in a dangerous position a unreasonable number of weak units or he's plenty of them with plenty MP's. Let him burn MP's. And as I said before, feinting and baiting are completely fair, non-gamey moves.

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: Bletchley_Geek
That's 4 MP's which is certainly less than the 3 MP's needed to attack an adjacent unit with a hasty attack (hexsides not being a minor nor a major river).

BG, with all due respect, I tried to read your paragraphs with the math several times, and just could not understand what you were trying to say, especially when you say that 4 is less than 3?

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: 76mm

ORIGINAL: Bletchley_Geek
That's 4 MP's which is certainly less than the 3 MP's needed to attack an adjacent unit with a hasty attack (hexsides not being a minor nor a major river).

BG, with all due respect, I tried to read your paragraphs with the math several times, and just could not understand what you were trying to say, especially when you say that 4 is less than 3?

Hehe, that's obviously wrong: 3 MP's < 4 MP's. That should read "more" rathern than less.

Other than that, can't you follow the reasoning regarding the odds of a Hasty attack? Or the analysis about the chances of a Hasty attack being influenced by reserve units?

[Tarhunnas]

I think this reaction thing seems like an idea worth exploring. The present Reserves system is a little one dimensional. Reaction seems to be more in line with how German "reserve" units aced in the war.

[Flaviusx]

The reaction stuff, while interesting, is a pretty big change in game mechanics. I don't see something like this happening before WITW, would need extensive testing. I'd certainly hesitate in trying to put this into a mere beta patch. There could be AI issues here as well.