Matrix Games Forums

Phew! that better i just had a good sleep.
 
Apologies for the rant but I had just had a TCP game crash at a critical time. I had just blasted a BIG hole in the russians front and the panzers were about to rampage plus the allied had launched yet another mega invasion.
 
More sensibly what I want to say re partisans is for me they fall into the category of things that appear cool to put in the game but are only going to irritate the hell out of you.
 
They fall into the category of stuff that makes the game LESS FUN to play. So as such they should be optional, I notice that there are spare option buttons on starting a scenario and suggest thet a on/off partisan toggle might be a good canditate for one.
 
Dave

Yohan just had a P corps .. Corp mind ya come on in Rus late 1941 .. [X(]
Took a Mot and 2 Inf corps to kill him ... [&o]
And my guys were 8 8 9 .. you must advane into the hex, no choice.
w Rommel in charge of the blitzin ... yep .. I good player .. [8D]
Maybe I should have bombed him first .. [:'(]
Lets see .. when I attack I do what with the pointy units in my army .. [:-]

I army til the coup comes from within I imagine ... and I will deserve it ..
if only I would have carpet bombed him and softened him up .. then sent the Arm in ..
Gee seems like a good deal to me ..
12 Oil spent .. - 1 Rus P Corp .. I figure I got off cheap ..[;)]
IDG

Take a deep breath Dave they are a very small problem and we all tend to leave our areas open to them.  I too believe they should only be garrison units so that we can kill them quickly when they arrive though.

ORIGINAL: Dave Ferguson

If there is one thing which irritates me is bl**dy partisans in a game. I want to be a front commander, not a rear area security general. If you play PBEM you will find that there are not enough troops to man the front lines, never mind chasing those partisan idiots all over the map. in a strategic level game there is even less reason for having them. It would be much more logical to just deduct some production points for ungarrisoned cities. Ok partisans were in WW2 but they did not tie down large numbers of troops until late war. Then there is a design issue, partisans should NOT appear as full strength corps, maybe garrison sized but no better.

They are as much of a nuisance as the uber allied navies which sink all the u-boats then spend the entire war shore bombarding and launching air strikes from those damm carriers, and there is nothing the axis can do to counter it, you can't afford to build u-boats and you can't afford to build air to hit the ships. Thinks me this game is designed for play against the AI.

I agree with the criticisms of partisans. This is a corps level game and to have to divert droves of entire corps to the rear area to hunt down multiple corps of partisans is way out of proportion with reality. The only area that supported corps size partisan activity historically was Yugoslavia. If partisans are going to be represented with on map counters at this scale they should have at most 1-2 strength points NOT 10!

You think?
 
Let's see - German offensives against Tito in 1943 included one of 127,000 men and 300+ aircraft vs maybe 20,000 partisans in May.  It included 2 German Jager divisions and 1 infantry division that was originally Croatian.
 
In April of that year 6 German and 3 Italian divisions totalling over 150,000 men were on offensive operations.
 
For the final offensives in 1945 tito allegedly had 800,000 men available, and had liberated most of Yugoslavia prior to the arrival of the Soviets.
 
 
In Soviet russia:
 

The struggle behind the German front lines in the East was immense; at its peak, it involved some 250,000 partisans against 500,000 men in the security forces. At times it could cause the invader much consternation. In 1943, for example, the Luftwaffe was forced to issue to its pilots a map on which, in red, were marked areas over which it was dangerous even to fly - areas that were in the German-held rear areas themselves. Claims for the efficacy of the Soviet guerrilla war have been many. General Ponomarenko, Chief of the partisan Central Staff, asserted that up until the middle of 1943, Soviet guerrillas in Belorussiya alone killed more than 300,000 Germans, caused more than 3,000 railway accidents, and destroyed 3,263 bridges, 1,191 tanks, 4,097 lorries, 378 heavy guns, and 895 supply depots.

 
The Phantom War
The German struggle against Soviet partisans 1941-1944
by Matthew Cooper
Macdonald and Jane’s Publishers Limited, London, 1979
 
Hardly insignificant - even in the context of the whole war.
 
Some threads on hte Axis military history forum about the partisan war, including extracts from diaries of panzer units about anti-partisan ops...

How the Nazi occupation failed in Galicia/ Ukraine
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=431283#431283
Nazi occupation policies for the USSR
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=61454
The Soviet Partisan Movement 1941-1944
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=65387
The German Army & anti-partisan warfare in USSR
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=62191

A strange thing happened. Playing as the allies in the '39 scenario. Poland holding out late October gets some (2 units over two turns)partisans. Two turns later Poland falls, all Polish units disappear, including the Partisans. One was hanging out by Gdansk and the other down in the mountains near Krakow. Neither was attacked by the Germans. I would assume the partisans would stay and pester instead of just disappearing like regular troops.

Maybe they were reinforcements since Poland had yet to fall ...
IDG

ORIGINAL: IrishDragoonGuards

Maybe they were reinforcements since Poland had yet to fall ...
IDG

No, the blurb on the screen definately said Polish partisans have appeared. I think the program needs to be tweaked so it does not think of partisans as regulars when a nation falls.

point well taken

No - it's the way the game is designed - partisans only occur in this game as long as the country is unconquered!!

silly, but true.

They weren't going to have partisans at all for a long time.

My 2cents on the partisan issue is that on a game of this scale, they shoud really only occur in Yugo & Soviet Union. Even then, I beleive that most anti-partisan operations were carried out by German security divisions and SS, which arn;t respresented in this game scale.

I would rather concentrate on military strategies and let partisan activites be handled abstractly.

There weer numerous regular divisions engaged in ops in Yugoslavia - one op in 1943 had 6 German and 3 Italian infantry divisions.  Security divisions were sometimes required to fight in the front lines due to a shortage.
 
This is what Garrisons are for - a properly supplied garrison with a bit of tech will eat unsupplied partisans.
 
Is it a distraction?  Hell yes - precisely as it is supposed to be.

I completly agree you need to garrison occupied countries or pay a price, I just would rather that penalty be handled abstractly (ie, lower resource points, hindered rail movees etc),

Side note, please don't compare Italian divisions to their German equivilant!

ORIGINAL: SMK-at-work

No - it's the way the game is designed - partisans only occur in this game as long as the country is unconquered!!

silly, but true.

They weren't going to have partisans at all for a long time.

What??????? Thats the biggest chunk of hooey I've ever heard of! So if Russia falls, all those partisans just pack up their Molotov cocktails and go back to the farm?


My head hurts.......

That is somewhere beyond silly.  They have some great things in this game but they smoothered them in utter foolishness.
No playback for PBEM, a believe that Siberian transfer didnt happen,  strange supply after country demise, lack of commonwealth units in Africa, Vichy without a Vichy France and the list goes on. 
 
Luckily I do not think these are not fixable.  Most of this stuff should be fairly easy to fix.

ORIGINAL: SMK-at-work

You think?

Let's see - German offensives against Tito in 1943 included one of 127,000 men and 300+ aircraft vs maybe 20,000 partisans in May.  It included 2 German Jager divisions and 1 infantry division that was originally Croatian.

In April of that year 6 German and 3 Italian divisions totalling over 150,000 men were on offensive operations.

For the final offensives in 1945 tito allegedly had 800,000 men available, and had liberated most of Yugoslavia prior to the arrival of the Soviets.


In Soviet russia:

The struggle behind the German front lines in the East was immense; at its peak, it involved some 250,000 partisans against 500,000 men in the security forces. At times it could cause the invader much consternation. In 1943, for example, the Luftwaffe was forced to issue to its pilots a map on which, in red, were marked areas over which it was dangerous even to fly - areas that were in the German-held rear areas themselves. Claims for the efficacy of the Soviet guerrilla war have been many. General Ponomarenko, Chief of the partisan Central Staff, asserted that up until the middle of 1943, Soviet guerrillas in Belorussiya alone killed more than 300,000 Germans, caused more than 3,000 railway accidents, and destroyed 3,263 bridges, 1,191 tanks, 4,097 lorries, 378 heavy guns, and 895 supply depots.

The Phantom War
The German struggle against Soviet partisans 1941-1944
by Matthew Cooper
Macdonald and Jane’s Publishers Limited, London, 1979

Hardly insignificant - even in the context of the whole war.

Some threads on hte Axis military history forum about the partisan war, including extracts from diaries of panzer units about anti-partisan ops...

How the Nazi occupation failed in Galicia/ Ukraine
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=431283#431283
Nazi occupation policies for the USSR
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=61454
The Soviet Partisan Movement 1941-1944
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=65387
The German Army & anti-partisan warfare in USSR
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=62191

And you provide data for the one theater that I agreed had corps size partisan operations.

Those 500,000 partisans in the SU were spread across a vast area and never operated in corps strength in any one sector.

If I had security troops to dispatch to fight them I would. THIS game requires me to divert line infantry corps to hunt them down.

Try all you want, you cannot justify the manner in which they are depicted in this game.

In general, partisans operated at a level far below the minimum unit size depicted in this game. They would be better depicted at this game level as an abstraction and NOT as physical units. When a designer gets that idea "let's include the partisan war" he really, really needs to take a step back and take note of the LEVEL of operation the game is depicting. Chasing and fighting partisans is fine for a divisional level or under game mechanic, above that level they should be an abstraction IMHO.

The Germans disagree with you - if you read those accounts you will see that an awful lot of them are exactly front line units hunting down partisans.  tito's forces were in ARMY strength and had reconquered most of Yugoslavia against 700,000 Axis troops.  You ignore the 9 divisions used there in 1943 - there were other operations from 42-44 that used regular forces too.
 
As early as the Soviet winter offensive of December 1941 Partisans in the rear of the German 9th and 4th armuies were designated "4 Partisan Corps" within 50 miles of the soviet front lines - paratroopers were dropped in to support them.
 
By mid 1942 the strain on German front line strength was such that Himmler decided he had to send in "Police" and "Auxiliary" units
 
By July 1943 large areas behind German lines were under partisan attack.
 

 
Many of the units used in hte Partisan war were perfectly capable of fighting in hte front line too - eg the SS PRinz eugen mountain division made up of Germans and especially Austrians from mountanous areas.  Given the nature of the fightign on hte Eastern front even 2nd line Heer units would have been as useful as the various Axis minor allies - which were themselves often withdrawn to fight partisans too.
 
I agree with you that the partisan war could be abstracted more, but it is nonsense ot say that Partisans didnt' operate in large numbers or occupy large areas.

I have read those accounts. I am probably at least, if not more, well read, as or than, you are on the subject of WWII.

The map you present represents areas of partisan operation, not areas completely under the military control of partisans.

That they were a distraction is not in dispute. That they were a distraction of the level represented in the game is.

The game abstracts the armed ground forces to corp, or higher level. Calling the units in the game corps is a bit of a stretch as the game would run out of available manpower long before a historical number of corps could ever be produced. The units actually seem to fall somewhere between corp and army size. If the game supplied the necessary manpower to provide for counterpartisan units, than the design decision to include partisan units in the game rather than portray them as an abstracted drain on manpower and supplies would have been a better decision.

The comment somehwere above that garrisons are perfect for countering partisans is plain silly. Garrisons are fine for garrisoning cities. If the Soviet partisans went after the cities, than the garrisons would be fine for countering them. The Soviet partisans do not go after the cities. They pop up in the hinterlands and start marching across teh countryside turning it into Soviet controlled teritory. The garrisons are far too slow to ever be capable of chasing the partisans down effectively. If one ignores the partisans more and more of them pop up in the now Soviet contolled territory marching off in directions opposite the partisnas who originally converted the territory. If not chased down with line units capable of catching them soon they threaten to cut off entire armies and army groups. That they should be a drain on manpower and supplies is UNDISPUTED. They they should be capable of changing territory to Soviet control is little better than absurd. That they should have been included as units that have to be chased down and physically destroyed in a game with such a paucity of available units is simply poor design. Once again I state that the designers got caught up in the "idea" of depicting the partisan war without adequately thinking through it's implementation.

p.s Occupying large areas and controlling them militarily are two disticntly different sets of circumstances. Just because partisans occupied large areas didn't make those areas "under the military control of the Soviet Union" as they become in the game. It's just another poor implementation as changing the territory the partisans move through to Soviet control seems to be the only mechanism available within the game for depicting the strangle on supply lines that partisans did truly represent. One simple way to fix the excess is to have them control only the hex they physically occupy allowing hexes they move out of to revert to control of the occupier.

p.p.s Just because the Soviets "designate" a unit an "army" doesn't mean anyone who isn't gullible enough to believe it should! After all, they called their divisional sized units corps and their corps sized units armies. The Soviets were all about propaganda. [;)]

I think you guys are buying into the partisan "Myth" .. [:D]
Been a watchin a wee bit to much TV .. [8|]
IDG

The comment somehwere above that garrisons are perfect for countering partisans is plain silly. Garrisons are fine for garrisoning cities. If the Soviet partisans went after the cities, than the garrisons would be fine for countering them. The Soviet partisans do not go after the cities. They pop up in the hinterlands and start marching across teh countryside turning it into Soviet controlled teritory. The garrisons are far too slow to ever be capable of chasing the partisans down effectively.

 
I wonder if you've actually played the game??[&:][&:]
 
Teched up Axis garrisons are more than a match for Partisans....which are themselves low tech garrison units that are out of supply.  Garrisons are cheap - if you're only buying enough to sit them in cities then you too are cheap and it's no wonder you're having problems. 
 
You do actually have to do some work to keep partisans down.........that's teh whole point of them![8|]