Matrix Games Forums

The CVs on the counters are artificially adjusted and do not represent actual CVs (22.3.1 page 291). German infantry divisions can withstand a lot of damage and not rout.As long as you can keep rotating unready units out of the line for R&R, you have enough units to maintain a solid line. If a gap appears and the SU exploits through you will be in trouble, but in the same way that soviets should not be stacking their units unless they are in Lvl3+ entrenchments, neither should the axis.

Yes, the units will retreat - they are supposed to, and yes you will have to retreat other units to maintain the line, but as long as you stop the cavalry getting through; the line and the army will survive. Panzers in cities can avoid the attrition and stay healthy. If they are in reserve mode they can often help the infantry line to produce a hold result, that will cost the SU men and time.

I think a little perspective is needed on what, exactly is a 'mud' and 'blizzard'. I grew up in the prairies, Northern Alberta to be exact. When the rains come in the late fall, the water has little place to go, but sits on the surface of the fields. If your careful, you walk through (or around) it without too much trouble, but any non-tracked or very large drive wheel vehicle will not. I have seen tractors that where stuck, and they have 6 foot wide wheels. The water will not 'drain' away, and will sit, until spring, when the sun will evaporate it up.

In Russia, it is worse, as it rains a lot more in the fall.

To the poor German soldier, this means his supply of food, ammo, fuel etc, is not going to make it to him, unless it is packed in by horse, or man. Tanks have to be pulled from the line, to help pull guns, and stuck vehicles out of the muck. The Chains/Couplings needed for the tanks to pull vehicles out taking the place of more important supplies. Troops which have spent the last 4 months marching and fighting now have to help pull wagons/guns along by hand. Or pack heavy supplies on their backs.

Digging in the ground to make shelter is next to impossible, with the trenches filling with water, and the muck very heavy to lift by shovel, making defensive 'forts' very tiring to build (if even possible)

Then it begins to snow. The temperature when it snows is usually fairly mild, around freezing. And the cold 'solidifies' the muck, making it very easy to traverse with 4-wheel drive vehicles. If it snows at night, and the temperature rises in the day, the snow melts, making the mud worse. During this respite, supplies that are lacking from the previous few weeks can catch up, but food/fuel and ammo have to take priority, as tired hungry soldiers need food, and the enemy is still shooting.

When the snow builds up, cross country movement becomes difficult. Walking in 2 feet of snow if very tiring, and drifts are barriers. The 'roads' are the only useful transportation route for non-tracked vehicles. Fortifications built earlier get covered/filled in by drifting snow, and need to be cleared, and new ones even more difficult to start.

Then it gets cold. Really cold. No winter in recent memory can compare to how cold it is getting in Russia, in 1941. Even the well known winter of 1812 was mild compared to this winter the Germans are facing. On the Praries, the teperature can drop to -30 or more and stay there for weeks. In Russia, war diaries of the generals noted the temperature as -30 (Bock, Nov 5th), -20 (Guderian, Nov 13th) -30 (Guderian, Dec 4th)

At this temperature exposed skin freezes. The wind peirces your clothing, making the temperature seem colder then it really is. Vehicles cannot start, batteries dont have the juice needed to crank the engine, let alone an engine with oil that thickens as the temperature drops. Vehicles need to be jump started, which can damage them. Gun sights and other optics freeze up from condensation and cannot be seen through. In Alberta the cars are equipped with block heaters that are plugged in, so the engine can crank. Or the car is parked in a covered/heated garage (by heated, I mean up to 0). Lubricants on weapons freeze, making the guns/machine guns inoperative. In order for a tank/vehicle to be operative in the cold weather, a fire must be kept lit underneath it, or the vehicle must be kept running using up fuel.
Metal tracks slide on the ice providing no traction.

Another problem from the cold is that european horses are not bred for it. They die from exposure. The Russian horse has adapted to the cold by being smaller and hairier. The backbone of the German supply net, that gets the supply from the dumps to the troops is horse drawn, and dies from the cold. Less supplies move.

With the cold, the muck of the autumn rains turns into ice. Digging is now impossible. Shelter can only be found in existing villages, or stands of trees. Out in the plains/steppes, there is no way to shelter from the howling wind, and -30 degree temperatures. Which leaves holes in the lines inbetween village strongpoints. Engineers can blast a crater, and the hole covered, but that uses up valuable supplies, and requires engineers.

So how can the Germans 'prepare' for the winter? The short answer is they cant. On October 6-7th it first snowed near Guderian, so he asked headquarters for winter clothing, especially heavy boots and socks to replace the steel lined (cold conductor) jackboots. Three weeks later he angrily tells Hitler that he is losing far more men to frostbite then enemy action, which prompts a Christmas warm clothing/ski drive in Germany. Which doesnt start to arrive at the front until February. Lubricants were improvised in the field, but there were still cases of machineguns failing to fire when the enemy charged, tanks unable to fire, heavy artillery not being able to fire, small caliber shells cushioned in the snow. Captured Russian horses (Panjes) were used when the Europeon horses died off. But the numbers were much less. The Germans would fair better in later winters, but then, they were much warmer then the winter of 1941.

Really, in order to properly be prepared for winter, the Germans must

A) Know that the winter will be far colder then any winter they have ever seen, since 1919. Perhaps an oracle could tell them. I think Hitler believed in such nonsense.

B) Know that the war is going to be longer then a few months. Historically this revelation came in December.

C) Prepare over the summer by switching manufacturing to winter supplies such as warm clothing, stoves, winter lubricants, calking for the steel treads of tanks instead of bullets and fuel and other needed supplies. Historically the only winter clothing available came from dead Russians or from German civilians.

D) Start preparing Winter quarters in September with enough time to complete them before it starts to rain in October. Historically, during Case Blue, the static north had all summer to prepare positions for the winter of 1942. To good effect against Operation Mars.

ORIGINAL: BigAnorak

The CVs on the counters are artificially adjusted and do not represent actual CVs (22.3.1 page 291). German infantry divisions can withstand a lot of damage and not rout.As long as you can keep rotating unready units out of the line for R&R, you have enough units to maintain a solid line. If a gap appears and the SU exploits through you will be in trouble, but in the same way that soviets should not be stacking their units unless they are in Lvl3+ entrenchments, neither should the axis.

Yes, the units will retreat - they are supposed to, and yes you will have to retreat other units to maintain the line, but as long as you stop the cavalry getting through; the line and the army will survive. Panzers in cities can avoid the attrition and stay healthy. If they are in reserve mode they can often help the infantry line to produce a hold result, that will cost the SU men and time.

I suppose the issue for me is that Axis units become next to useless, even in large stacks. I read in the manual that the leap in the Soviet values is purely visual for surprise and not real in combat, so that's not an issue.

In my first Blizzard turn, I just lost 157 000 men. By comparison, I thought the AXIS historically lost 230 000 between 13th November 41 and 31st December 41. The number of dead seems to have gone up by just shy of 10000 (in a 1 week turn), which seems realistic given the Germans suffered 40 000 dead in the month of December. However, they were averaging 25-30000 frostbite casualties per week in December. 10000 dead would as a rule of thumb provide me with 30000 wounded (assuming all dead were combat casualties). That should roughly mean I suffer around 70000 Casualties, of which 60000 disabled + Captured.

The AXIS lost a lot of men, but they were able to attack and seal off a number of penetrations (something I don't feel they are capable of here because their combat values fall to next to nothing) and they proved impossible to dislodge in many areas. I think the core issue is that the Germans often suffered horrendously because in places like Rostov and in front of Moscow they were on the offensive only days or hours before the counteroffensive hit meaning they were fighting from relatively extended and unprepared positions when they went on the defensive.

By comparison in WitE, most players are fighting as AXIs in December from level three forts + and still suffering horrendously. I just don't believe German attrition casualties would have been as horrendous had they been fighting from well prepared positions. I also don't think there would have been a catastrophic collapse in their fighting power.

I've just had a motorised Division that was rested with 50% supplies march to counterattack, incur 50+ fatigue and then produce a CV of 3 and fail to shift a Soviet Tank Brigade in a hasty attack. A unit it outnumbered in sheer manpower by about 10-1.

I need to see more, I suppose, but I feel that in trying to create the results the Germans suffered historically, the game is (only partially) not reading the game situation the German has created. I also wonder at how resilent German pockets will prove to be. I doubt whether a Demyansk would be possible under current mechanics.

Regards,
ID

ORIGINAL: BigAnorak

Against the AI you can change the settings to easy, and this pretty much stops the soviet attacks dead, if that doesn't work you can adjust the setting even further if you want to.

Against a human, all I can say is that I did get to the line (and beyond) I did have enough reserves to have a full linebacker defence, and since that test the blizzard rules have been relaxed even more.

I play to the rules as written in the manual and I can't see anything that says I get a benefit from being entrenched, so I base my plans on knowing entrenchments won't help me, but being in towns and cities does give some protection so I do try to get maximum benefit from that rule.

Is a linebacker defense just having a good CV unit set to reserve behind the lines?

The first COA test is already tested, and it naturally conserves the German Army and you will quickly retake lost territory.
The AI will attack at stupid odds and destroy itself.
Come blizzard number 2 in -42 they will attack along the entire front, not a hex will be without an attack no matter what kind units you have there.
After that the game is pretty much over.

So the Ai will go to great lengths to destroy itself during the second blizzard, if you then pull back during the first Blizzard and minmise your own losses during the first blizzard then well its not much point playing the AI at all at the moment.

The problem isnt the first Blizzard or atleast not the major problem (against the Ai ), the problem is the second blizzard during which Soviet AI seem to think its still the first blizzard and attacking every hex losing 200 000 men per turn.

So something has to be done how the Soviet AI handles and values its attacks during the second blizzard, or its no point playing after the second winter.

ORIGINAL: IronDuke

I need to see more, I suppose, but I feel that in trying to create the results the Germans suffered historically, the game is (only partially) not reading the game situation the German has created. I also wonder at how resilent German pockets will prove to be. I doubt whether a Demyansk would be possible under current mechanics.

I would agree with this (and some other statements along similar lines above): it appears that the game mechanics designed to mimic the "historical" German suffering in winter 41 by artificial penalties/benefits does not seems to take into account the historical reasons that lead to the "winter catastrophe". In the AARs, it looks like it is independent of the true precedents of the games played out with, i.e. whether the Axis player drove his army to exhaustion and the limits of breaking by Hitler forcing the advance (basically until the men and vehicles stopped functioning because of ice/temps), and thus, supported by supply shortages and a partial lack of winter equipment, or whether the Axis digs in early with short front lines, and good supply lines.

In my opinion, this artificial "skewing" of the relative capabilities of Germans and Russians is not modeling the winter occurrences correctly. In order to accurately model the German disaster, an Axis player should also need to drive his army to exhaustion as was done historically, and then there shouldn't be need for "special" penalties in any winter for the Russian to be able to drive the Germans back at a centers of gravity -- and Germans could hold some pockets and large parts of the AGC and AGS lines.

Just modeling it in this way, i.e. to Russian favor no matter what the Axis player does, actually would be ahistorical. Apparently, a strategy where the German player would dig in and prepare early, which could perhaps lead to better performance for the Axis and lesser losses than occurred in reality, is not modeled correctly now. Maybe there could be a simple additional option added in a patch to enable/disable such penalties/benefits only if desired by the player? And everyone would be happy with it?

If the design of the game is supposed to prevent that strategy anyway to get closer to history, then probably a rule enforces a more "Hitler-driven" pushing of the Axis until blizzard, and a complementary "Stalin" rule that would prevent the Russians from giving much ground without battle (and also lead to more historical pocketing) would be the way to go? Though perhaps also nice as another option, and surely useful for converging more and more on a historical campaign for both sides, it would also limit the role and freedom of the player.

I too think that one of the main problems here is that you are simply doomed to suffer a catastrophic defeat no matter how early you stop your offensive. And no, I don't agree with that choice. As others have pointed out, a large part of the Soviet success came from the German divisions being depleted thanks to Typhoon. If I don't do Typhoon, the Soviet winter offensive should have a smaller effect. I am not saying it should not be there or it should be a walk in the park, but I would like to see a real difference between a blizzard after I did Typhoon and a blizzard after not doing Typhoon. So far, I can't see the difference.

It too is a bit of a one-sided design-decision to me. I am talking human v human play mainly: The Soviet player does not have to suffer the huge encirclements, he can pull back and improve his strategic position by doing so. The German player is doomed to suffer the historic winter 41/42 disaster, even if he chooses to not make the mistake of a November/December 1941 offensive.

Why can't it be like WIR? There, it seemed to me, that this was modelled reasonably.

+1 atm it looks like a team off russians made the game ;)where the russians suffer problems (which they avoid by massretreat)for like 24 turns and the rest of the 200 something turns its 1 big red russian sledgehammer at least in the human human part

ORIGINAL: fsp
Why can't it be like WIR? There, it seemed to me, that this was modelled reasonably.

Really? I think WiR was a lot worse in that sense, if I recall the efficiency of the Russians during Blizzard correctly. Against AI I tended to switch sides during Blizzard turns and hold some of Russians back, so this discrepancy didn't come to bear. Yet WiR is probably the root of this concept. Would be nice if it were an optional rule, though. Indeed never thought that with the Russian ability to be allowed an orderly withdrawal, this actually even more disfavors Axis.

The reason the Germans defend so poorly in the game is because they are huddled where ever there is shelter. No Germans are out in the exposed elements watching for the enemy. Strongpoints are outflanked by the Russians, and either the Germans retreat, or suffer a disadvantage in combat by being surrounded. Warm clothing is not good enough to spend days out in the open, you need shelter, either dug in the ground, or built up.

One thing I think is modeled too well for the Russians is mobility. They should only move one hex (in enemy territory) at most during Blizzard, with the exception of Cavalry, which can move 2-3. They can move faster over their own territory, as paths through the thick snow could be made.

but im pretty sure they still could use a gun or break out of pockets, atm if some cav divisons surround you the only option is to surrender;now you can say yes retreat but sometimes their mobility is crazy(good point btw) and lowering it a bit would be nice,only if you have mountaindiv somewhere near you have a small chance and when i say small its REALLY small:) to break through the pocket but most of the time the mobility inside the pocket is screwed and you cant move so next turn youre in the same situation,only worse now prob

ORIGINAL: gids

but im pretty sure they still could use a gun or break out of pockets, atm if some cav divisons surround you the only option is to surrender;now you can say yes retreat but sometimes their mobility is crazy(good point btw) and lowering it a bit would be nice,only if you have mountaindiv somewhere near you have a small chance and when i say small its REALLY small:) to break through the pocket but most of the time the mobility inside the pocket is screwed and you cant move so next turn youre in the same situation,only worse now prob

Yea the isolation mechanic is lame. Instead of fighting out of a pocket like was historic. you are reduced to a bowl of jelly who is just waiting to be eaten!

At least under the Commanders Report Battles tab you can see how many men,guns,AFV's escaped the pocket.

ORIGINAL: cookie monster

At least under the Commanders Report Battles tab you can see how many men,guns,AFV's escaped the pocket.

oh really? i never noticed that's nifty. What is the name of the column that shows that on the battle report page?

defenders escaped IIRC

ORIGINAL: cookie monster

defenders escaped IIRC

cool thank you.