Matrix Games Forums

sPzAbt653,
 
The Soviet MP regiments should actually be border guards.  They weren't really MPs and they didn't perform the "anti-retreat" function that the special political NKVD regiments did.  They were drawn from NKVD personnel (like the NKVD divisions), but they didn't have any special or unique abilities (I'm pretty sure that they weren't even motorized).  I do agree with you though, that they should be included in the game.

The NKVD border guards were light combat units of 1400-200 men each - according to Glantz in "Stumbling Colossus"

Border guards were light security forces equipped to patrol the border, detain line crossers, counter enemy reconnaissance and diversionary action and serve as a trip wire for hte regulr forces.

There were 49 detachments, each of 4 or 5 komendaturas, each komendatura of 4 border outposts - 3 with 42-64 men each and a reserve with 42 men, a manouvre group of 3-5 outposts of 50 men, and an NCO school of 50-100 men.  They had 20-30 50mm mortars, 80-122 SMG's, 48-60 maxim mg's, 25-30 vehicles, 200-300 horses and 120-160 dogs.

Fungwe you're right there are only 40 of them in the game - the other 9 are probably in the Far East.  They're spread among 2 formations - 32 are in a formation all of their own, and 8 are in a formation with some NKVD divisions which I didn't notice when I counted them before.  Plus there's a 3rd formation of NKVD divisions alone.

They were not really combat units tho - sPzAbt653 I don't know what you mean by removing them being "disrepectful".

Maybe I didn't use the correct word or phrase, but I meant that somebody put them there, and there were actual people in them.

At the game scale of FitE (10km hexes), then regiments are the standard unit size for that game scale.  If the border guards were companies, then maybe deleting them might (might) make some sense.  But deleting regiments I think is a bad idea.
 
I think that reorganizing the OOBs would be more productive than deleting units.

SMK-at-work,
 
Based on the information you provided (from David Glantz):
 
Border Guard regiment
42x Light Rifle Squad
10x SMG squad
25x 50mm Mortar
50x MMG
10x Truck
40x Horse Team
 
The unit listed above is a 2-5-18 non-motorized
The current unit in FitE is a 1-3-31 motorized
 
The unit listed above (classed as BDR instead of MP) is more historical and should not be deleted from the OOBs
 
 

We have in the past discussed that inf units should be allowed to move out of supply faster then motorized units.  German inf regts have about 30 trucks in them, the unit goes out of supply, it still can move at speed.  What do I do with the inf trucks?  I know they started the campaign with trucks but most were taken out to supply the spearheads historically.

Put them in the supply units?

The border guards were spread across many miles of border - they were outposts of platoon size, not formed combat units of regimental size - to accurately depict them you shuold probably out about 1/5th of one in each border hex along the European border and most of the hexes of the Finnish, Iranian and Turkish borders that have decent terrain and/or roads and rail in them.

IMO they make no more sense being in this game than armed customs and police detachments do.

ORIGINAL: Zort

What do I do with the inf trucks? 

A German infantry regiment with 30 trucks has a movement rate of 19. With no trucks it has a movement rate of 14. If the original unit were to be composed of '30/2' trucks instead of '30/30', it's movement will be reduced to 14 at some point as the trucks attrite.


SMK, do you think delete the 'border guards'? Or maybe make them 'no reconstitute'?


VA, (and SMK), are we talking about two different types of units when addressing the 'mp' units in Fite and the 'border' regiments in Glantz? it seems to me that border guard units wouldn't have been around for long, but mp/nkvd units would have lasted thru the campaign. I don't have Glantz, and I don't know what the 'mp' units in the scenario were designed to represent.

The best solution is to:
 
1) Have the Soviet border guards not reconstitute
2) Move the infantry trucks to the supply units and to the panzer/panzergrenadier/motorized units
 
Regarding the NKVD political "no-retreat" regiments, there were never very many of them (maybe half a dozen or so) and they usually operated in places where Stalin and the Politburo deemed most necessary.  Places like Kiev and Leningrad come to mind.  However, I don't think TOAW can model the NKVD political "no-retreat" regiments, so it's probably best to just leave them out of the game.

I'm assuming the NKVD regimetns are the borderguards as mentioned by Glantz - they should certainly not reconstitute, but IMO they are hte first thing to go if you are looking for extra unit slots for the Soviets.
 
their purpose was to be a "trip wire" - well you get that by virtue of seeing German units inside Rusia on the map and from the border marking function, so there's no need to have units taking up slots to do it too.
 
NKVD "proper" are the divisions.  glantz notes that many gulag prison guards were also mobilised - their instructions were to move their prisoners or liquidate them, and he laconically notes that manys seem to have done the later.
 
The NKVD divisions are a bit of a problem too - many were allocated to regular line armies, and many were subsequently transformed into regular divisions.  The best use I've found for them is garrisoning the Finnish border.

"The best solution is to:

1) Have the Soviet border guards not reconstitute"

Well if their only role is to man the border, and then die and not reconstitute, why not just eliminate them entirely? Why have 40 slots for units that are eliminated on the 1st turn?

My point about fortress regions was that the Soviet player has limited slots, so it would be better for him to have more infantry divisions at the price of fewer fortress regions. Of course you could just change the FRs so they don't have a movment of 1, and make them a little more useful. Yes it is unrealistic to get rid of them, but it is also unrealistic to have the number of Soviet RD limited by unit count, in the end I think it would be more useful to the soviet player to have more rifle divisions.

AFAIK there's no particular shortage of Soviet rifle divisions is there?  how many get formed?  There's a list of 440-450 in Wiki, which is about what Charles Sharp gets to IRC.
 
Which fortified regions would you remove?
 
Possibly a better idea would be to raise some of the Rifle Brigades as under-strength divisions - they don't reconstruct, and many of them would later be reformed or amalgamated as divisions anyway - although it's also possible that this was done by the original designers - there are many such "fudges" in the scenario already due to the unit limit - have you seen the background document at http://www.ac-smolf.dk/fite/?  Plus there's a complete listing of the Soviet OOB for FiTE 5.0, which is already a bit different from Zorts mod.

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653
The motorcycle battalions were disbanded at the end of '41 for being ineffective in their role. That's why in the game they do not reconstitute. Combining them with the recce/aufklar battalions won't be a nice thing to do, but their equipment could be added to the auf's without changing the authorized level. Then they would eventually be disbanded on their own.

At the moment these 2 units can be split into 6 subunits for each panzer division - which can make het battlefield look like an ants nest!!

My understanding is that often the infantry of the armoured car unit would be used in a traditional infantry role rather than supporting the recce role.

So perhaps the infantry companies could be amalgamated with the tank regt, and the motorcycle and armoured car elements amalgamagted into a single unit.

The motorcycle part of it would wither away once production of them ceases (assuming it does)?

Soviet recon regiments are very 'ant'y on their own. They could be combined with cavalry divisions or tank brigades from the same army.

I don't see them as anty - more like mousey [:D] - they don't break down and there's not as many of them and they're quite easy to trap and kill!!

how would you combine them with tank brigades? Make 1 brigade/army into a heavy armoured recce unit?

Hey guys I know this problem has come up before but I seem to be having trouble getting the .egp to work. I tried deleting the spaces like one poster did and that didn't work. Any ideas? Zort Suggested opening the file with the editor and save it but when i did that i get the same message> I"ll give that a shot> cheers>

I recall having problems with teh egp, but mainly because I had 3 versions of Buzz's mod installed at once amd eas getting confused between them!!
 
I dont 'remember the details but I'm faitrly sure the problem lay in hte location of the file - it has to be in a sub directory of graphics or alt-graphics with exactly the same name as the scenario file name?

ORIGINAL: cesteman

Hey guys I know this problem has come up before but I seem to be having trouble getting the .egp to work. I tried deleting the spaces like one poster did and that didn't work. Any ideas? Zort Suggested opening the file with the editor and save it but when i did that i get the same message> I"ll give that a shot> cheers>

Hey Cesteman, this is very OT, but I noticed where you're at. I was in Monterey from June 2005 to October 2006, and I enjoyed it (except for the constant fog and high proces). I drove past Paso Robles a couple of times when going to and from the LA/San Diego areas, and that's a beautiful area.

I used to listen to a Classic Rock station that was out of the Gonzales area, and I could get it all the way down to your area. That was a breath of fresh air as stations in Germany die off after a very few miles (they exist, but on another station...annoying). This is because of the German rules on radio/relay station power limitations.

SMK,
 I created a folder called FITE_modded_7 and put the folder with the .egp file in the graphics folder not the alt graphics folder. I see you talking about Buzz's mod, Zort sent me the .sce and .egp file am I missing a mod (stupid question I know). Just trying to nail everything down before I try something else.
 
Trick,
 Yep, nice place to live if your in CA! I love the central coast and wouldn't trade it for anything. Well, maybe a lot of money Cheers.

Same as the shot below, except instead of 'Fire in the East 653', you will have the scenario name that you are trying to get to work. It has to be the same exact name of the scenario that is located in the 'scenario' folder. That way when the scenario opens, it looks to the graphics folder for a scenario specific .eqp file. I tend to put all three files in the proper folders, then name them each to the same thing so I know what they are. Also, the first time you open a scenario after making a change like this, it will always say 'you are playing with the wrong equipment file', but that only will happen the first time.

Alright thanks for the info. I tried putting it in the alt graphics folder and got the same messgae. so your saying it will only show up the first time? How do I know it's loading the correct .egp file? Thanks.

Not Alt Graphics, put it in the Graphics, like shown in the screen shot above. You'll know it's proper because after the first time, you won't get the message. Don't worry, it takes all of us (ok, most of us) several tries to get this right.