Ostfront vs. 0.96

[Captain Cruft]

A small bug and fix ...

The Luftwaffe surprise bonus was persisting through the whole 15 turns. Now it only lasts for 2 as designed.

You don't need to download the whole thing again, just the actual scenario file. Put it in the bin\scenarios folder.

http://cruft.mattybuoy.net/Ostfront-0_9.pt2

[BvB]

Quite an impressive scenario!  Looks like it must have been a huge amount of work for you!  Salute!  Where to I mail you some beer!  Lol...
I have downloaded and been playing this monster from both sides and so far the only tweek I would suggest would be to add more flak or air defense in Romania similar to what the Berlin area already has... otherwise long range Russian planes can easily wipe out the production centers there if based in Crimea and behind Odessa...
Ok, I will get out of your hair for now and go back to fighting against myself in this one... Baron von Beergut

[Captain Cruft]

Thanks for that BvB.

I had already realised that Romania needed more flak so this will be added for 1.0. In the meantime why not put some fighters there? The obsolete Polish jobbies should be OK against unescorted bombers. Or use it to train up the IAR.80s coming of the production line perhaps?

Anyway glad you like it [:)]

[Grymme]

Wow, i almost cried when i saw this scenario. It really shows the power this engine has. Awesome
 
That said, i do have some thoughts.
 
- Navy units. Not critical for the campaign. But with such a detailed scenario it feels really strange to leave them out. The germans even had some navy units in the black sea. A couple of submarines, some smaller vessels, some transports and of course the mighty romanian and bulgarian navys.
- The finns!!!!!!!!!! At least on the leningrad front. But it would be great if the murmansk front somehow could be modeled.
- is the blue division, the slovakian army and the croatian brigade (i think there was one) modeled? would be great, just for flavor.
 
awesome job though. I just hope you will find strenght to complete the whole scenario.

[Grymme]

Noticed the croats and slovaks now,,, great

[Captain Cruft]

Hi Grymme,

I'm glad you find it awesome. It was (and is) certainly an awesome amount of work making it [;)]

Anyway, to answer your questions:

1) Naval - I would really like this to be there but I decided not to do it because a) the generic masterfile naval units are a very poor basis for working from and b) I don't really think you can do naval properly in an IGO-UGO game anyway. Maybe I'm wrong, but trying to work it all out would be almost a separate project in its own right.

2) Finns - Again I am a Finnish fan but without the whole country being included I really can't see the point. Or perhaps just the whole of the Karelian front would do, but one expansion of the map is pretty as much as difficult as another.

If either of these aspects were not marginal then I would have had to do them, but they are, so ...

[Grymme]

Oh Captain my captain.

Well, i must disagree.

If you try to modell the conflict in great detail. Then of course great detail has to be put in all aspects of the game.

- regarding the finnish. I can see that extending the map would be to much to ask. However to put up at least the viborg front would really change the dynamic in the north. As is now leningrad has its back free, which is very ahistorical. The Finnish army in this area cant amount to more than less than 10 divisions with supporting units. This cant be a massive adittion.

-regarding the naval units. I can understand that if you want great detail that you dont want to make something half-assed. But it doesnt have to be that big. Neither the russian nor the german navys operating in the area were particularly big. And i dont think you need to change the masterfile.

regarding the russian navy. In september 1939 it had the following OOB.

3 battleships (3 under construction)
3 light cruisers (5 under construction)
42 destroyers (2 under construction)
20 submarines (9 under construction)
some miscellanius ships and transport ships.

These were divided into four fleets (murmansk, sevastopol, leningrad and the asian one). the two later ones consisted mainly of some small number of ligher units.

If we suggest to make it easy for us, we dont change the naval masterfile and assume that no major changes was made during the period from end of 1939 and no construction during the war. Also we assume 3 destroyers/subs as one unit). Also almost no naval units were effectivly produced for the use in the navys during the war.

So in Leningrad and one baltic harbor (libau or ösel)
2 older battleships
2 cruisers
15 destroyers and miscelanius small ships (modelled as 5 units)
9 submarines (modelled as 3 units)
4 transport unit

In Sevastopol
1 modern battleship
1 cruiser
6 destroyers (2 units)
6 submarines (2 units)
2 transports

In Odessa
3 destroyers ( 1 unit)
1 transport unit

_______________________________

German OOB

The German navy was basicly very busy during 1941 and forward and had very limited resourses to put into östersjön.

I think they put in something like this, based in ostprussia.

2 heavy cruisers
2 older battleships
6 cruisers
something like 15 destroyers (5 units)
equal amount of submarines (5 units).
3 transport ship units

1 finnish cruiser unit and 2 finnish destroyer units based in helsinki
1 finnish transport ship unit

on the black sea

The romanian navy consisted of
4 destroyers and misscellanius units (2 units)
3 submarines (1 unit)
2 transport units.


Source: Andra världskriget vol I and III (of VI)
------------------------------------------

This oversight is very casually written, but i think it would add a lot of flavor to the game. I could make som research into the names of the heavy units if you want.

If you dont modell the naval war i think that you might lose out on some small but interesting details in the conflict such as the use of the battleships in the leningrad defense, the evacuations of sevastopol and kerch strait in 1942 (failed) and sevastopol in 1944 (failed). Also there was some combined operations on the östersjön. And there is the question of the supply of a german armygroup in kurland in 1944-45 and subsequent evacuation and the possibility of german- finnish see transports. Maybe not everything went through sweden.

Sincerely


Tomas

[Captain Cruft]

Thanks for the info. I was aware of some of that but not all ...

In my defence I will say the following:

Total accuracy has never been my goal. Since AT is not a unit-centric game it would be a bit pointless. What I am mostly trying to achieve is "flavour" or more "immersion" and getting the big picture right.

I find it hard to believe you think that the ship types in the generic masterfile are OK. They are not, and in particular the lack of ability to have damaged units as opposed to simple destruction is a major problem. I can vaguely think of some radical ways around the problems but as I said it would be a lot of work.

The Soviet armies that historically engaged the Finns are not present in the scenario.

----
That said though, please bear in mind that I am only talking about version 1.0 here. There's every chance that these aspects, along with much else, might be incorporated in future versions. It's just not sensible to try and do everything in one go.

[Captain Cruft]

I have been doing a bit of spreadsheeting recently, for the air SFTypes.

First fighters. What I hope will be the complete list excepting a few Italian and Lend-Lease odds and ends.

[Captain Cruft]

Secondly, bombers. Again excepting Italians and Lend-Lease.

[Joshuatree]

Thank you, very well done.
Quite an improvement compared to fighter I-IV  [:)]

[BvB]

On the ship issue, as a compromise, what about giving each side one or two transports each in the north and south and an additional one as reinforcement every six months or so?  This way both sides would have a minimal ability to do supply and minimal troop movement or evacuation without distracting from your wish to keep this a land game. Perhaps a house rule that they could only be used between port locations. 
On the Finn issue, while I can see cutting them out to reduce the development workload, if the Germans are to have a chance of taking Leningrad I think they would have to be considered in some fashion?

[Captain Cruft]

Yes I think a few immobile cargo ships would not go amiss for evacuations or supply to cut-off troops. I'll put it on the list ...

As to the Finns like I said the Soviet Karelian armies are not included so it should in theory even things up. If Leningrad proves to be too difficult for the Germans I will come up with something like maybe abstracting Karelia via Events and ActionCards.

[von altair]

ORIGINAL: Captain Cruft

Yes I think a few immobile cargo ships would not go amiss for evacuations or supply to cut-off troops. I'll put it on the list ...

As to the Finns like I said the Soviet Karelian armies are not included so it should in theory even things up. If Leningrad proves to be too difficult for the Germans I will come up with something like maybe abstracting Karelia via Events and ActionCards.

In real history Finnish army didin't join in attack against Leningrad at all. First Hitler asked Mannerheim to join attack, he sayd no. Later Keitel even traveled to Finland and
repeated that thing. Mannerheim still sayd no. Finnish never even bombed Leningrad with
artillery. On the other hand Hitler ordered AG nord not to conquer Leningrad, but to surround it (he didin't want to capture it and feed all those civilians). Instead he orderd to shell it to the ruins. Leningrad was surrounded from Finnish side tho.

So Finnish karelian army is not needed for only Leningrad purposes. If you want to follow strickly historical line. You can make an event, which will check border hexes around leningrad. If they are filled with Germans, then event will start reducing city producing capacity for example 500/turn. That way it will go to zero after few months. As soon as those check hexes are in Russian hands again, it will start regain produce ability.

[Captain Cruft]

Good points [:)]

As I understand it the Finns only objective was to restore the pre-Winter War border, which they successfully did. That's one reason for leaving them out, how to stop them advancing beyond a certain point? I believe that Events might be able to do it, but again it just adds to the work.

Like I say, if the Germans can't get anywhere near Leningrad I will have to come up with a mechanism to represent Soviet resources being directed against the Finns. It will be abstracted though.

[BvB]

Nice aircraft statistic charts!  Maybe sometime release the same for armor.  You have enough on your plate with all you are putting into this so just an idea for when you have time... I guess that wont be till you get to the old folks home!  Salute!

[Captain Cruft]

Update

I am in the final stages of producing what will be designated as version 0.96. This will be a fully-functional 1941 campaign, which lasts for 30 turns and ends in Jan 1942. It also incorporates a lot of improvements and additions, including many from play-testing. The result is, IMHO, much better than 0.9.

Documentation will be included.

[jjdenver]

Nice job - glad to see ya making progress!

[Joshuatree]

Oh yeah, Captain Cruft is making a magnus opum, a masterpiece. Will the next release be AI compatible? 

[Captain Cruft]

The AI = No. It has zero chance of coping with something like this. In fact most humans struggle with it ... [;)]