Ostfront II

[Captain Cruft]

Supply distribution works exactly the same as normal, but with different movement costs. There is no limit to the number of HQs that can be chained together.

What you are "supposed" to do is use the railheads as storage depots, so as to remove the need for the combat HQs to carry stuff. This should allow for better management of the unit/HQ experience dilution issue.

Army Group or Front HQs do the actual distribution to the combat units, and these top-level HQs should simply be attached to the nearest railhead.

As I keep saying, the best way to get a grip on it is to play around with the existing scenario, paying close attention to how everything is linked up at the start.

[Captain Cruft]

I quite enjoy it, but making the map is going to take a very long time. It's 90,000 hexes in total.

Here is part of the Soviet-Finnish border in Karelia, showing the three different types of rail terrain. GE (black on blue), SO (red on yellow) & Broken (grey on white). Broken is what you need in order to build rail in a hex.

[jjdenver]

Oh how exciting.

Looks great.

[Captain Cruft]

Map progress

I have now done Norway, Finland and Murmansk/Kola Peninsula plus a few other bits and bobs in about a week. Therefore I estimate that to complete the map (at the same rate, which is not guaranteed) will take about another two months.

There's not much more to show really, except that I discovered that Finnish rail is in fact the same gauge as Russian, so the hexes in Finland will in fact be SO Rail type not GE Rail. This will require a separate Finnish train type as distinct from generic German or Axis trains.

[Captain Cruft]

The map gets very busy around Leningrad, as you can see from this screenshot. I think I will have to do a version without labels ...

There will be several variants of the scenario. Some I have thought of thus far are:

No Balkans campaign, with an early start in May
3 day turns
4 day turns

All time-based changes are easy to implement in the editor but do require separate scenarios rather than a simple scenario variant tick box.

I'm also thinking of having some "large" event type thingies in there. Like for example if the Germans can take Moscow before December then Japan attacks the Soviet Far East rather than doing Pearl Harbour. This would have the effect of a) reducing Soviet reinforcements and b) drastically reducing US Lend-Lease efforts.

Taking Moscow will not be a German win. I am thinking of making the line Archangelsk->Astrakhan a "major victory" and something like Leningrad->Moscow->Stalingrad a "minor victory". Or something ... VPs will not be used for this, but rather explicit checks on hex ownership. VPs will still figure though, as an influence on research and morale and stuff, as per Ostfront I.

[Captain Cruft]

Evaporating Finns

Another thing I am going to do is prevent the Finns from proceeding beyond the historical frontier except under certain circumstances, like for example Moscow falling. This is what happened in reality, and it will be implemented using an event Exec which can "evaporate" all units of a designated People in a specified area.

Petrozavodsk in Soviet Karelia is the most important stop on the Murmansk rail line (it will warrant a Railhead) and if it were taken then no more Lend-Lease can get through from Murmansk. I suspect that the Finns would have no problem advancing to the place, but they won't be able to ...

[Joshuatree]

A version without labels? Would it be possible to turn the labels on and off? Because it *does* give the map a more "historic" feel.
Anyway, it's already looking impressive.

[jjdenver]

ORIGINAL: Captain Cruft

I'm also thinking of having some "large" event type thingies in there. Like for example if the Germans can take Moscow before December then Japan attacks the Soviet Far East rather than doing Pearl Harbour. This would have the effect of a) reducing Soviet reinforcements and b) drastically reducing US Lend-Lease efforts.

Taking Moscow will not be a German win. I am thinking of making the line Archangelsk->Astrakhan a "major victory" and something like Leningrad->Moscow->Stalingrad a "minor victory". Or something ... VPs will not be used for this, but rather explicit checks on hex ownership. VPs will still figure though, as an influence on research and morale and stuff, as per Ostfront I.

Looks great so far. I have a couple comments about these notes:

1) I like the idea of spreading out production, in particular recruitment of infantry/militia across the USSR to give the USSR incentive to fight for every city. I'm not sure the VP's concept accomplishes it because as the Soviet player I will think: "vp's in 1941 are unimportant compared to my survival and I will probably crush Germany in '43 anyway if I do survive". It sounds like VP's will also figure into research which should help some.

2) One thing I really hope you can accomplish that GPW didn't accomplish is add some resilience to the Germans so that it's all or nothing in 1941 else they collapse and game ends in 1942. It would be great to figure out a way to let each country: USSR and Germany show their historical resilience. Germany was able to take a major defeat in winter of 41 and come out swinging in '42, then take a major defeat in winter of '42 and come out swinging in '43. In '44 if they hadn't gone for a Bulge in the west perhaps they could have done better in USSR as well. USSR had huge encirclement losses at Kiev, at Vyazma, and huge defeats and lost major cities but was always able to rely on vast reserves of manpower to the east and yet more production centers to the east to come back from what seemed like knockout situations.

3) I'm not sure that losing Moskva would have decreased lend lease or made the Japanese attack. I think it could be argued that lend lease might have even picked up out of western desperation to keep the USSR afloat. And the Japanese had their hands full by winter of '41 in China and fighting the U.S. I really doubt they'd want to commit to a war w/ the USSR. Also if you take the approach of piling more ill fortune on the USSR when Moskva falls what you are sort of doing is making an already imbalanced game (USSR is down Moskva production, recruitment, rail center, etc) into a more imbalanced game. Maybe if Moskva had fallen LL would have picked up and the Russians would have increased recruitment to the east in desperation. The Soviets always seemed to be able to call on further heroism when the hour was darkest. Witness Leningrad, Stalingrad, defense of Moskva by Zhukov after a huge defeat at Smolensk and then Vyazma. Recovery from a major defeat at Kharkov at the end of '42, etc, etc.

Just some thoughts. I'm really thankful you're doing this scenario - looks great.

[Captain Cruft]

joshua - You can only turn labels on or off in the editor, not in game. Unfortunately.

jj - Great thoughts and I thank you. Nothing is set in stone yet, as I am at this point only about 20% of the way through the map. I just start pondering a bit as I am filling in the hexes ...

What do you think about the Finnish thing? I have less doubts about that than the Japan idea, which could after all be a variant.

[jjdenver]

Ah, I agree that the Finns should be somehow discouraged from major offensives past their historical boundaries. Germany basically partnered w/ the USSR in 1939 and stood by while the Soviets pounded the Finns in the winter war. The Finns didn't love the Germans and afaik didn't have territorial ambitions in the USSR. They just wanted to be left alone. I doubt they would have gone much into the USSR even if Moskva had fallen.

I think making these things variants is a great way to approach it.

For example even the German economy retooling that was undertaken in 42 or 43 (I don't recall which) by I think Speer(?) could be an option.

The Germans could get a tech boost in late '42 when they had a bunch of tech advances, or in '44 when they developed jets. Some argue that if production of Me262's had been emphasized the Luftwaffe could have deployed thousands of them in '44 and prolonged the war significantly for example.j

The more variants you include the easier it is to balance out the game for players who've played it a few times and want to tilt it one way or the other. I like that Tom included 10% production boost as a variant in GPW. However I wish it went even further and allowed for example phase production boosts like
option 1: 10% boost in 42
option 2: 10% boost in 43
option 3: 10% boost in 44
etc

So that players can judge the balance through the war and increase production to get a more historical feeling situation later in the game perhaps?

[Captain Cruft]

Yep, Me-262 or generalised air superiority optimisation is another thing I have thought about. However many of these potential planes might well get "deployed" to the Western Front. The need to divert aircraft production to defend against US/UK strategic bombing will have to be modelled somehow.

I think the Finns could have been co-erced into being more active if it really looked like the SU was going to fall. You might even bring Sweden (and Turkey) in too on a similar basis, but not in this version, it's going to be quite enough work as it is.

Production is going to be affected by a lot of things, many of which are not yet decided. However some overall bias options wouldn't go amiss. As well as an "early Speer rationalisation" option perhaps.

It looks like there will be lots of variants

[GrumpyMel]

Yeah... JJDenver has a point about Japan, I think.

After the oil embargo, I'm not really sure if Japan would still consider the "Northern Plan" a viable option...regardless of how well/poorly the Germans might be doing.

Japan was running against the clock with dwindling oil reserves. I don't have much information about it....but I don't think Siberian oil production was particularly well developed pre-WWII.... and it certainly wasn't as easly accessible to Japan as the Dutch East Indies or bullying the US into resuming deliveries.

Their realistic choices at that point were some version of the Pacific option....or escalating the China campaign even more to try to bring it to conclusion before the stockpiles ran dry.

Now, if the embargo had never happaned....we might have a whole different ball-game.

[Captain Cruft]

I don't disagree fundamentally.

However, I do think there may be scope for a "Japan attacks Russia" option. Perhaps not associated with a "no Pearl Harbor" option though. If the Soviets essentially evaporated from the frontier due to being called west then I can't believe that the IJA would do nothing.

It's all just musing at this point, and anything like this that actually gets implemented will be optional.

[Grymme]

Hi Captain

I have a couple of questions regarding your SFT models in the Ostfront scenario.

Did you mainly use the normal SFTs and rename/regraphic and redescript them? Or did you redesign them completely. Where did you get the pictures/descriptions? A small note. Not all german infantry was designed Grenadier. Maybe call basic german infantry for "landseer"?

Are you going to use the same SFTs in the new scenario? How do you feel about others using part of the SFT lists?

I am thinking about doing something similar with for example the japaneese army. Actually it would be fun to make a masterfile with similar SFT lists for all major nations. But it would probably be easiest to continue on your list.

[british exil]

Not wanting to post critic.

But I think Grymme meant "Landser"

Landser were the normal foot infantry of the Wehrmacht, Grenadiere were normally halftracked/vehicles to accompany the panzers.
eg.Großdeutschland

Would be interesting to have these differnt SFT's in a scenario.


While we are at it. Will you also be including Pioniere?
Battle engineers? I think they were used in Stalingrad to help out. Well that is if the film "Stalingrad" was correct.[&:]

[03_walk_alot]

I am about 10 min into my 1st game and have come across a "Ge Rail Artillery Eisenbahngeschutz"
How cool is that!
 
Awesome.

[Grymme]

No problems British. Mein deutch is nich soo gut I meant Landser.

[03_walk_alot]

Captain
 
What is special supply?
 
Thanks'

[Captain Cruft]

03_walk_alot - Special supply is more expensive supply meant to be used for emergencies. I am not sure it's a particularly good idea, but you don't have to use it.

grymme -

I started with the generic SFTs and then incremented or decremented the various parameters. The pictures come from various places.

In Ostfront II the German infantry will be genericised as "GE Rifle", except for PzGrenadiers and Pioniers.

Feel free to use the stuff as you want. However please be aware that you cannot use the ostfront.pt2 file as a masterfile. I tried and it doesn't work. So you will have to manually copy things.

[Grymme]

Captain.

Thanx. Ill see what i do whith it. Strange about the masterfile. Ill investigate.

If you would feel like going over to natocounters you are welcome to the set in this picture.

Ill upload the NATO counterset to my webpage sometime today.

My latest idea is to somehow get my hands on the maps from the Boardgame "Case Blue", one of the biggest boardgames made and somehow implement it.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/29285

here is a nice overview of the size of the maps.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/273432