"Ostfront" - a GPW-based mod (semi-grog version)

[Captain Cruft]

It will be ages before I can release something that works, but when I do please feel free to use it in whatever way you wish.

My idea of increasing the number of tanks is not only about "granularity" but also motivated by the desire to enable a vehicle fest with many more different types of tank and other AFVs. The current plan is to have a "standard" of 3 different types per division plus armoured cars plus (optionally) SPA and SPAA.

P.S. Turning on Combat Log and running a few battles between different units is a great way to see how the various parameters work. It essentially boils down to something like an automated Steel Panthers type battle, with fire and op-fire, kills, retreats and suppression. After doing this myself I am a lot less worried about balancing the combat than I was previously.

[PDiFolco]

ORIGINAL: Captain Cruft

Yes I know that Infantry Guns were mostly marginal. That is why I am calling the SFType "Artillery" ... The type will not have a range, that would be very inaccurate given the hex scale. I am thinking however of giving it a land anti-supply capability in order to make it useful when not involved in an assault. Subject to testing ...

There is always abstraction, and since my focus is on the whole tank/anti-tank warfare part I am quite happy to just try and model a "bunch of guns that help the infantry when attacking" in a fairly simple manner and concentrate on the more interesting stuff.

Hmmm, don't want to offend you, but if you want to "play tanks" don't call it a grog mod ... IRL the work was done mostly by arty and grunts.

[Captain Cruft]

It won't be playing "tanks". The vast majority of the forces will still be infantry, and artillery will be important. I am not ignorant of the realities ... The problem is that the sub-formation slot limit forces you to use some generic and/or merged types, and I have simply chosen to do that with the infantry and particularly the artillery rather than the vehicles. Which seems a reasonable choice given that there is much more variation in capability with AFVs than there is with artillery guns.

You might be interested to know that despite the constraints the following infantry SFTypes will be defined:

GE Grenadier (Rifle)
GE Pz Grenadier (Mech Infantry)
SS Grenadier (Rifle)
SS Pz Grenadier (Mech Infantry)
GE Infanterie (Second-line Infantry)
GE Pionier (Combat Engineer)
GE Bautruppen (Construction Engineer)
GE Jaeger (Light Infantry)
GE Gebirgsjaeger (Mountain Infantry)
GE Volkssturm (Militia)
GE Fallschirmjager (Paratroop)
RO Rifle
RO Infantry (Second-line)
RO Pioneer
RO Mtn. Infantry
HU Rifle
HU Infantry (Second-line)
CR Infantry (Croat)
SL Rifle (Slovak)
IT Rifle (Italian)
SP Rifle (Spanish)

SO Rifle
SO Infantry (Second-line)
SO Sapper
SO Militia
SO Paratroop
NKVD Infantry
NKVD Conscripts (Penal etc.)

All these SFTypes will have different parameters. Each nation will also have its own Staff SFType with (again) different parameters. I have however decided to keep the Horses generic ...

Please don't criticise until you've actually seen the thing

[Joshuatree]

@ PDIFolco
Yeah well, we all know what he means.

http://www.alanemrich.com/Writing_Archive_pages/grognard.htm


quote:

"...[left]We frequently bandy about the term "grognard" among our fellow wargaming hobbiests. Often, online and in print publications, people have speculated about the origin of this label for veteran wargamers -- who coined this term that has been adopted as part of our hobby's lexicon, how did it get popular, and what is its root meaning? Allow me to present the real story, as told by the Dean of Board Wargaming himself, Jim Dunnigan:[/left]"The term 'grognard,' as applied to veteran wargamers, was first coined back in the early 1970's by John Young. He was, at that time, an employee for [the board] wargame publisher SPI, and the use of the term around the office (and among the local play testers) soon led to 'grognards' being mentioned in one of SPI's magazines (Strategy & Tactics). Several hundred thousand board wargamers picked up the term from that publication and it spread to computer wargamers, as the the board wargamers (the ones with PCs, of course) were the first people to snap up computer wargames when they appeared.
"Consider this a first hand account, not an urban legend. I actually heard John Young utter it the first time and was one of the people who razzed him about it for some time thereafter. I was also the one who actually put the term into circulation in Strategy & Tactics [during my tenure there as Editor].
"Alas, John Young passed away in 1976 (or was it 77?). I can confirm that also; I was at the funeral. Now you know. . ." -- Jim Dunnigan


Grognard: a soldier of Napoleons' Old Guard; a veteran soldier; grumbler (French) - Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed
Grognard: (slang) an experienced wargamer - John Young, Strategy & Tactics magazine


/end quote

An experienced gamer knows that there were more types than just I-IV, so it's a great idea to put some more in don't you think?

[PDiFolco]

Ok, my style was rather grumblish, sorry... I just wanted to be sure the mod didn't stray too far away on arty modelling, eventually the choices make sense.
I'd wait to see what it gives [;)]

[Captain Cruft]

The arty will basically be the same as it is in the stock game. Except that:

a) It will only have a range of 1, apart from a few "siege" units.
b) There will be a lot more guns, but this will apply to both sides.
c) More of a counter-battery effect will be added, and perhaps even a small land anti-supply effect.
d) Some characteristics of the generic Infantry Gun type may be incorporated, subject to investigation and testing.
e) Each People will have their own "Artillery" SFtype with slightly different parameters.

I would love to be able to have Hungarian 84mm FGs, Soviet 122mm FHs, SiG 33 150mms and all the rest, but it's just not possible.

[Bombur]

What about work on planes. Will you define realistic ranges for each plane? And maybe define vary low anti armor rates for almost all planes except dedicated AT aircraft like the Il-2, Ju-87G and Yak-9T?

[Captain Cruft]

Yes I hope to do something similar for planes as with AFVs, and as you say the specialised ground attack and/or tank-busting planes will have to stand out.

As with tanks, the numbers will be greatly increased.

[Captain Cruft]

Here's another taster for you ...

One thing I want to get away from is the instantaneous zapping of production to anywhere on the map, and I seem to have found a way to do this which might not break the supply system.

Below you can see the German/Austrian mountain infantry training school nestling in the foothills of the Alps.

[Captain Cruft]

When the mountain troops emerge from the training school they end up at the Vienna Railhead, from where they can be despatched to the front via a Transfer using "Rolling Stock". Transfers and Strategic Transfers will only be possible using Rail and Supply will also be very rail-dependent.

There will be railheads all over the map, and when you conquer particular important cities action cards will appear allowing you to make new ones. Rolling stock will be produced in a train factory along with (maybe) armoured trains.

[Joshuatree]

Training schools... sounds nice, but how would that work with Panzers and aeroplanes? And I presume the inf. can be trained in every production center? That would also mean that one could obliterate the production centers by airial bombardment.

[Captain Cruft]

The infantry recruitment centres will have the "Invincible" tag set. That means they cannot be damaged. They will also be set to only work for the "home team", just like the ones in GPW.

There will be generalised recruitment centres for Rifle and other mainstream types and smaller "schools" for the specialised types. I really want to get away from the "let's produce tons of the most uber stuff" malarky.

Vehicles and aircraft will be produced in specialised factories, which will be able to be damaged. I am thinking of incorporating the UK/US strategic bombing campaign into this somehow.

I thank you for your continued interest!

[freeboy]

one way to end uber one ishness, is to have some combined arms bonus in the code.. no idea without a patch how in the current game to get, or mimick the real world need for combined arms...

[xBoroNx]

Indirectly it is already in with the concentric attack bonus, usually only with very mobile units you get a high concentric bonus.

And furthermore via splitting the damage types further into various classes you could also force the players to use more realistic forces. You could e.g. break up armor into very light armored (Halftracks, armored cars, tankettes), lightly armored (light tanks like panzer II), medium armored (panzer III/IV, T-34), heavy armored (KV-1, Panther, Tiger, Pershing) and superheavy armored (Js 2/3, King Tiger, Jagdtiger).
Then you could e.g. make anti tank rifles decent vs. very light and lightly armored and bad vs. medium armored. Vs. the 2 highest armor classes they would inflict 0 damage.
The same you could do for the various paks, and also for the various tank guns making it impossible for a panzer II e.g. to kill a JS tank. Would also be useful for air balance, then you could also protect the very heavy tanks a little bit better vs. dive bombers etc..

[Captain Cruft]

Anti-tank rifles and other forms of "Bazooka" will be merged into numerous replacements for "Rifle", but otherwise yes that's exactly what I'm aiming for.

[Captain Cruft]

Progress Report

Well I'm nowhere near finished yet but it's not going to take the "several months" that I initially thought. Hopefully it will only be a couple of weeks or so before I can unveil an initial play-test version.

Completed:-

Map tweaks (mainly to make cities and other difficult terrain tougher on the defence)
Production framework
Rail network and Air transit system (Transfers are only via Rail or Own Power)
Infantry, Artillery, AA and Transport SFTypes and upgrade paths

To do:-

Armour, AT Gun & Aircraft SFtypes and upgrade paths
Initial OOB
Combat parameters and basic testing
Events and general scenario design (some of this is done already)

Below you can see the Urals off-map factories, which start small but then crank up to prodigious output levels as the war progresses. The factory with the Truck on it is what I am calling "Armaments". Both sides get these and they produce Guns and Transport, so you always have to make a choice between combat and logistics. Logistics will deliberately be a problem for both sides to start with, and the idea is that the Soviets can solve their problem via Urals ramp up and Lend-Lease whereas the German problem actually gets worse due to Allied strategic bombing. Although the Speer re-organisation will come in during 1943 as per history to somewhat ameliorate this.

One key point is that all production is randomised every turn so you never know exactly what you're going to get. The levels will fluctuate closely around 100% for the main combatants but Lend-Lease will likely be zero a lot of the time in an attempt to model the erratic nature of the Arctic convoys. The Axis Minor countries will also generally have a "bad day" (though never dropping to zero). This is supposed to model the somewhat variable support of these countries for Hitler's mad endeavour ...

[Captain Cruft]

Here you can see Kazan Railhead, which is where most of the Urals production will end up. The 5 Trains available at the start are not enough to ship out even the initial production on a daily basis so you will either have to build more rolling stock or (much cheaper) get the Americans to send you some, when Lend-Lease kicks in starting Nov 1941.

[Captain Cruft]

I earlier described this as a "vehicle fest", but I now realise that what I actually meant was "chrome fest". Although most of the chrome will actually serve a purpose too ...

Here is a Hungarian Cavalry Brigade, part of the Hungarian expeditionary force which starts at Budapest. You can see I changed my mind about separating out the infantry guns too

[Joshuatree]

We like "chrome" [:D]
I notice you put artillery in the same unit... doens't firing an artillery barrage use all it's action points?

[Captain Cruft]

ORIGINAL: Joshuatree

I notice you put artillery in the same unit... doens't firing an artillery barrage use all it's action points?

Yes, but you don't have to do a bombardment. Artillery has the same combat effect whether it's doing a standalone bombardment or an assault in conjunction with other units.

I have tested out this range 1 arty a bit and am quite happy with how it works. There will also be a few long-range (2 or 3 hex) units but these will be "designed" to be primarily used for fort-busting.