Winter Idea......Comment

[LiquidSky]

Quote from Guderian:

Written Nov.21, 1941.

Only he who saw the endless expanse of Russian snow during this winter of our misery and felt the icy wind that blew across it, burying in snow every object in its path;
who drove for hour after hour through that no-man's land only at last to find too thin shelter with insufficiently clothed, half-starved men; and who also saw by contrast the well-fed,
and fresh Siberians, fully equipped for winter fighting....can truly judge the events which now occured.

[Skanvak]

I have always been convince that it is not much the winter, but this fresh and battle experience soldiers that allow the counter-attack...

[randallw]

Perhaps those people running AARs and mentioning successful/failed battle results in the winter could further divide them by deliberate/hasty types.

[1275psi]

ORIGINAL: Michael T

I think this is a big part of the problem. I think many of the German players who are doing all the jumping up and down just don't do well enough in summer41. The Russian should be limping in to winter41. The changes made to the rail costs mean the Russians can't run away. Lest they lose much of their industry. So forced to stand and fight means a competent German should be cutting the Russian army to pieces. A cautious German will be toasted. Long games like the CG will sort good players from the average. Because of the snowball effect the disparity in skill runs up every turn. To get some good data on the CG you need a good German who really knows how to play up against a good Russian. Only then can some valid judgements be made. This will take time and I expect many tweaks along the way. I can't make any absolute call because I am yet to find a player who can take me in to a winter scenario no matter which side I play. But my gut feeling is as someone else mentioned before, the Germans are a little too strong in summer and a little to weak in winter.So a tone down of each will most likely be the result.

I don't think any player -great, magnificent, or just average -is going to make any difference
come the blizzard -game over.

again, I will pretty much agree with 2nd ACR.
look - I played a game against the AI on easy for heavens sake -took moscow - inflicted massive losses on the russians -massive -they were down to 500 tanks and i still was nearly 1600 -dug in well before the mud -and constructed fortification zones the entire line -level four forts.
It took just 6 turns of blizzard -and war over
I replayed -tried a sir robin
War over in about ten turns
tried slow retreat
Same

again -why play if the result will always be the same - no matter what you do -the russian army smashes your units.
heavens -I had units, in fortified zones, level 4 and 5 -5 forts -that at end were at 50% TOE -and never attacked!
Attrition?
hell -no -the game is pre programmed to see you at historical 1942 manpower levels - thats probably wrong but thats how I feel.
I think i will read a book or go back to WITPAE -at least there you can have some control over your getting smashed! LOL

[alfonso]

ORIGINAL: Klydon

ORIGINAL: Michael T

I realize I am rowing against the tide but I am yet to be convinced. Maybe I will at some stage. Probably when some fiesty Russian player kicks my butt

Understood and when this point was brought up when the game first came out about the Axis opening moves, there were several threads started up, tactics discussed, strategies gone over, etc and the results were much improved Axis opening turns in many games. So far, there has not been the same level of success when going over the blizzard issues so that is why most of us consider the game in need of adjustment at the moment.

Klydon, maybe you are right with the blizzard issue, but not with this argument in particular. There have been much more experience with the opening turn than with blizzard. How many FirsTurns are there? How many blizzards? You can train your opening twice a day. You need weeks to train the blizzard once.

[bednarre]

ORIGINAL: BigAnorak

I am still hoping Speedy and BigA will capture enough data for the Devs

Turn 27, and we are getting through roughly a turn a day, so middle of next week should see us at the end of the blizzard. Going into the blizzard we have seen differences in the morale and experience levels compared to the pre 1.03 versions. I am seeing a lot of differences to the tests I was doing between June and November last year.

Feedback is going back to Joel each turn.

BigAnorak, how far do you think the Russian Army should advance during the winter against a German Army in prepared defenses in a coherent, straight line, assuming the Russians have 2 million more men? In other words, do you think the additional Russian numbers will grossly outweight the some additional German numbers and much higher unit density, compared to historical?

[bednarre]

ORIGINAL: Oleg Mastruko

ORIGINAL: pat.casey
Applying that to WITE, I'd eliminate both the super summer germans and the super winter soviets, even though I'm fully aware that the result would be a very limited blitzkrieg and, likely, a kursk style materialskrieg in 1942 because I think that's the most likely outcome had both sides made good decisions in the actual war.

I'd then offer an alternate campaign in which the axis was substantially reinforced for the summer 1941 campaign for those players who wanted to play a scenario with more historical flow.

I agree with you on both accounts, and I am willing to bet that once the game and community mature, exactly this will be the result, ie the most played best versions, mods, scenarios or whatever....

People hate artificially produced supermanism (lets just remember the outcry about first Japanese turn in WITP, and that was ONE turn in a 1000+ turn game).

I have played numerous games on the campaign from different companies, and feel that allowing the Russians to have some effective counterattacks in summer/fall 1941, and Germans to have some effective counterattacks in winter 1941, is essential both for accuracy as well as player satisfaction! The key is to have a combat results system that is flexible enough to predict this somewhat contradictory capability. Most games tend to allow each player to have an uberman control/coordination of the entire army. This results in amassing both coordinated, mass retreats (always a general's nightmare), as well as overwhelming attacks across the entire front with chess-like precision. The British Army conducted numerous retreats in the early part of the war, and they were not pretty. A good campaign to look at is the June 1942 Gazala disaster, which resulted in the British Army having to retreat all the way to El Alemain. Massive retreats are very bad for moral as well. Finally, the 1943/1944 phases of the campaign will be much more interesting, and worth playing.

[bednarre]

ORIGINAL: 2ndACR

I too will be happy to see someone prove me wrong. I have played strategy games since the C64 days. I have tried every strategy against the AI I can come up with. I played the original WIR for years. Then came WITP, I played the BTR to death when it first was released. But I am more of a land guy. So this game is right up my alley and for that reason, I can get passionate about things.

I will concede that I am not the risk taking player, I have a tendency to pull up short or slow my advance to allow rail repair to get closer, I prefer not to take huge risks with my guys. So my advances are short of historical, but also tempering that is my multiple games during blizzard turns. I know what to expect so refuse to go farther than I can defend. I pull up short and start digging (since it does not help, not sure why) and try make sure my guys start the blizzard fully supplied and rested (that does not help so not sure why I do it). 95% of my blizzard games are versus the AI to try different strategies, but the AI is not a human. So if the AI can clobber me 90% of the time, a human will do it almost every time.

It would be interesting to see some AI versus AI campaigns! I know the AI is not perfect, but neither where the opposing generals. The key is to get a gross feeling for the combat results table/losses. The computer can go through many more iterations than via human control. This allows the quickest early adjustment of changes. Perhaps this is already being done by the developers, but it would be interesting to see the results in an AAR. Of particular interest, would be when the Russians reach Berlin.

[bednarre]

ORIGINAL: Oleg Mastruko

ORIGINAL: bednarre
Does anyone have a recent version AAR going from June 1941 to late 1942 that is head-to-head?

No because - how many times do we have to repeat? - people give up by march 42, because the model is either broken or all Axis players are unable to deal with blizzard. Most tenacious Axis players seem to be Q-Ball and ACR, you can find their AARs vs Beanie, Kelblau and myself in the AAR section, getting beaten senseless.

My question is for the developers/play testers as well ...

[Speedysteve]

I have an AAR going on the Development Forum for mine and BA's game. We're upto Turn 28 at present.

[Skanvak]

Speedy did you saw my suggestion about a validation scenario?

[Speedysteve]

I did. It would require an immense amount of effort for it to be simulated accurately and also bearing in mind that when you launch attacks the model isn't geared to make every single attack follow 100% that of history.

[karonagames]

BigAnorak, how far do you think the Russian Army should advance during the winter against a German Army in prepared defenses in a coherent, straight line, assuming the Russians have 2 million more men? In other words, do you think the additional Russian numbers will grossly outweight the some additional German numbers and much higher unit density, compared to historical?

The evidence we are are seeing, if you treat the game as a simulation, is that the Sovs can advance as far, or perhaps further than they did historically regardless of the type of defence the axis puts together. I am in the third turn of the Blizzard in my first PBEM as the Soviets, but Speedy, also in his first PBEM as Axis, had struggled to knock my defences off balance and has started the Blizzard much further west than historically, and although he attacked through the snow to capture Kharkov, he has not been able to put together anything other than a linear defence , although I have just started to run into Fortified zones, and he is knocking my breakthrough tank brigades back quite effectively.

Because I have not been under too much pressure defensively I have been able to train up 5 reserve Armies in the rear and am now able to get them into echelon to hopefully overstretch his defences and breakthrough to the Dnepr, and hopefully maintain a long-term attack. I am averaging about 45 successful attacks a turn which is about what Trey was achieving when I was the Axis, but I had Leningrad, 1 hex of Moscow, Tula, was close to Voronezh and got Rostov with a para drop, so I has plenty of real estate I could afford to lose. I still think that having a "Blizzard Buffer" to retreat through is the best chance to start 1942 well, but I admit it is tricky to maintain a controlled retreat, and prevent the retreat becoming a rout.

2 million men is 200 rifle divisions or 20 armies. Even if only half of them had rifles they could still do a lot of damage.

So, to answer your question, I have seen lvl 4 entrenchments in woods and heavy woods, delay the Sovs for 4 Turns, I have also held major cities like Moscow for 4 Turns, but had to retreat 6 hexes in the next 4 Turns. The terrain in the South is less helpful, so I don't think lvl4s would last as long.

So, maybe, in absolute best case defensive environment, you could reduce the territory regained by 20-25%, and maybe your units would be stronger in March and recover more ground to reduce overall gains by another 10%

Here is defence I have been experimenting with called "Corps Stongpoint", but it only works if you can build along the diagonal hex line between Pushkin and Rostov, and you are unlikely to build the southern strong points up to level 4.

This held fine for 4 turns in the North, but the South got a pit messy so I switched to Linebacker.

edit: Against the AI.

[bednarre]

ORIGINAL: pat.casey

ORIGINAL: bednarre
<snip>

Do you really think the German reinforcement schedule would not have been radically changed, or would the German High Command have rather let the Russians enter Berlin in 1943? Also, the Germans would have gone to full scale war production a year earlier, with Panther and Tiger designs starting. Also, Allied Bombing was in its infancy in 1941-1942. Finally, the Germans would have slowed the Russians even more than they historically did if the German Generals suggestions to straighten the line and avoid encirclements had been heeded. If the Germans could successfully fight outnumbered 6:1, why can't this be duplicated in the game? Either the German Generals were dead wrong or the game has some gross inaccuracies.

I think a lot of things would have changed, and I've no objection to in-game triggers that, for example, improve german production if more than 10 soviet divisions cross into poland or rommania.

As for the secondary point though, no I do not agree that the Germans should have been able to fight the soviets at 6:1 odds regardless of the time frame. If you look at the actual correlation of forces in major battles in the eastern front, the germans typically broke down when the force ratio was more like the conventional 3:1

Kursk: 2.5 :1 -> german defeat
Bagration: 3:1 -> german defeat
Fall of Berlin: 4:1 -> german defeat

The germans definitely had a qualitatively superior army vis a vis the russians, but they were not 6X better.

One thing I always try to keep in mind when reading post-war German memoirs is that its in the interest of the surviving german generals to assert that:

A) All mistakes were made by hitler
B) All good decisions were made by the general staff
C) If only the memoirist had been given proper support in operation X he could have won the war

Basically, the surviving german generals want to make themselves look good in their memoirs, which tends to make them less than neutral reporters of fact.

I think Guderian was not factoring in the T-34! When the Russians were able to employ massive amounts of tanks in late 1942+ the whole equation changed. The Germans simply did not have the tank strength at all parts of the front for effective defense, especially with a convoluted front! Before this time the Russian infantry could not in general effectively attack with just a 6:1 advantage. Also, the Russians did not attack all along the entire front for most of the war. Using superior overall numbers, the trick was to send overwhelming force (10:1) against the weakest German/non-German position. This strategy has difficulties when the defender had uniform densities over the front (straight lines), and there are significant mobile reserves. The Russian counterattack at Rzhev in December 1942 was a complete disaster! The book "The Korsun Pocket" is very informative about these relative capabilities. The Russian tank superiority in the battle (February 1944) was 4:1 initially, but the Germans only lost about 138 tanks total In comparison the Russian Army lost 569 tanks (total writeoff) in the 1st Ukranian Army and about 250 tanks in the 2nd Ukranian Front. Most significantly, two-thirds of the trapped German troops were sprung.

I am not implying that the Germans were supermen. I am implying that the German Army got much better combat capability, man for man and tank for tank, than the Russian and Allied Armies. I think US Army historians concluded the German advantage was 1.6:1 against the US Army. It must have certainly been higher against the Russians. This assumes the German Army was adequately supplied of course. Finally, looked at killed statistics (battle casualties) for the Eastern Front. In the book "Campaign of World War II Day by Day", the Russian Army totals are given as 11.0 million! The German Army totals were 2.4 million killed, and 3.5 million wounded. The KIA ratio is thus around 4.5:1, covering the whole campaign. This includes losses with the Russians having overwhelming superiority in tanks and artillery.

When did the Germans ever have 3:1+ over any of its adversaries, for a large sector of the front? Even the Allies did not! Tactical competence, mobility, good communications, and good generalship are more important in acheiving local superiority.

[bednarre]

ORIGINAL: BigAnorak

BigAnorak, how far do you think the Russian Army should advance during the winter against a German Army in prepared defenses in a coherent, straight line, assuming the Russians have 2 million more men? In other words, do you think the additional Russian numbers will grossly outweight the some additional German numbers and much higher unit density, compared to historical?

The evidence we are are seeing, if you treat the game as a simulation, is that the Sovs can advance as far, or perhaps further than they did historically regardless of the type of defence the axis puts together. I am in the third turn of the Blizzard in my first PBEM as the Soviets, but Speedy, also in his first PBEM as Axis, had struggled to knock my defences off balance and has started the Blizzard much further west than historically, and although he attacked through the snow to capture Kharkov, he has not been able to put together anything other than a linear defence , although I have just started to run into Fortified zones, and he is knocking my breakthrough tank brigades back quite effectively.

Because I have not been under too much pressure defensively I have been able to train up 5 reserve Armies in the rear and am now able to get them into echelon to hopefully overstretch his defences and breakthrough to the Dnepr, and hopefully maintain a long-term attack. I am averaging about 45 successful attacks a turn which is about what Trey was achieving when I was the Axis, but I had Leningrad, 1 hex of Moscow, Tula, was close to Voronezh and got Rostov with a para drop, so I has plenty of real estate I could afford to lose. I still think that having a "Blizzard Buffer" to retreat through is the best chance to start 1942 well, but I admit it is tricky to maintain a controlled retreat, and prevent the retreat becoming a rout.

2 million men is 200 rifle divisions or 20 armies. Even if only half of them had rifles they could still do a lot of damage.

So, to answer your question, I have seen lvl 4 entrenchments in woods and heavy woods, delay the Sovs for 4 Turns, I have also held major cities like Moscow for 4 Turns, but had to retreat 6 hexes in the next 4 Turns. The terrain in the South is less helpful, so I don't think lvl4s would last as long.

So, maybe, in absolute best case defensive environment, you could reduce the territory regained by 20-25%, and maybe your units would be stronger in March and recover more ground to reduce overall gains by another 10%

Here is defence I have been experimenting with called "Corps Stongpoint", but it only works if you can build along the diagonal hex line between Pushkin and Rostov, and you are unlikely to build the southern strong points up to level 4.

This held fine for 4 turns in the North, but the South got a pit messy so I switched to Linebacker.

edit: Against the AI.

BigAnorak, I guess my question was about what you think the Armies would have been able to acheive historically (psuedo-historically), given these new situations (more Russians and better prepared Germans)? I understand the game is being tweaked at the current time.

[bednarre]

ORIGINAL: PeeDeeAitch

The problem with entrenchements in the blizzard is that there are plenty of cases where they just didn't hold. The 18th Army saw the 2nd Shock Army go through the lines and advance perhaps 20-30 miles across the Volkhov...in February when one would assume the 18th had time for at least lvl 2 or 3 forts all along the line.  Now, the supporting Soviet armies didn't help out and come the warmer temperatures the 2nd Shock Army was surrounded and captured, but that is not a winter issue, it is a Soviet coordination issue.

Even the 6th panzer division (the one that blew holes to make heated bunkers) was forced to retreat because they had the spare explosives and the know-how to use them, units on their sides did not and they were outflanked.  Very few units had enough know-how (and that was key, better use of charges could have dug holes for many.

Just the use of logs burning to keep warm pin-pointed entrenched positions and could be brought under fire.

The myth that entrenched units held better has some support - towns and villages did indeed become focal points and places where units could defend.  However, it also has some liabilities in that there just weren't enough towns, and entrenchments in the open had some serious problems.  Accounts from that winter speak of not the snowfall, but rather the extreme temperatures that kept the snow soft and blowing - the drifts cut off units as easily as roaming cavalry or ski troops.

I find the anecdote about the Russians swarming a burning out village the germans retreated from for the sole purpose of using the softened ground to dig into for their own shelters enlightening.  The Soviet Armies suffered mightily as well in the weather, but they did have more persons able to deal with it.

Not until the Germans learned to deal with it could they fight in it, then (in a bit of irony) the next winters were never as cold.

Had the German not held the villages for long periods of time they would have been completely overrun. It seems alot of the Russian breakthroughs were causes by cavalry, which had an easier time going through the forests and bypassing the villages. On the other hand, the cavalry did not do very well against German combat units, but did terrorize the German rear areas (which is what the Russian General Staff wanted). Thus the penetrations of the Russian Army are missleading. This helps explain alot of the success with the German counterattacks, as well.

[Emx77]

ORIGINAL: alfonso
b) Experience: this game is complex (more complex than chess). My opinion: Yes (but not 100% sure...) Your opinion:?

I would say these two games are not directly comparable for many reasons. If you want to talk about complexity of WitE it would be better to compare it to similiar games. For me it is TOAW, not chess.

ORIGINAL: alfonso
My opinion is that perhaps some blizzard issues might be due to inexperience. Your opinion is that the game is flawed. I would like to ask you why? Only because there are no AARs with succesful strategies? You are one of the most skilled Axis players, your Axis army also vaporizates during blizzard?

Frankly speaking, I have just experienced blizzard against AI (result you may see in one of my previous post on this thread). In my game vs Oleg he decided to quit on turn 18 so we never got to the blizzard. I tried to presuade him to continue, as I knew what would blizzard do to Axis Army, but he decided to give up, because by all merits Axis won. And I agree with him. After Soviets lost almost whole Ukrain, Moscow, and Leningrad it wouldn't be fair (or historical) that only because artificaly imposed winter rules they have ability to do what they can do in this game. That's why I think something is not right here. If are Germans overpowered in summer, answer is not to introduce ice age blizzard to achieve near historical results. At the begining of '42 results (manpower, number of AFVs...) are maybe more in line with history, but IMO the way we are get to these results are too artificial and is ruining game enjoyment and overall experience. There must be another way to make balance except alone winter and blizzard.

[Oleg Mastruko]

ORIGINAL: Emir Agic
In my game vs Oleg he decided to quit on turn 18 so we never got to the blizzard. I tried to presuade him to continue, as I knew what would blizzard do to Axis Army, but he decided to give up, because by all merits Axis won. And I agree with him. After Soviets lost almost whole Ukrain, Moscow, and Leningrad it wouldn't be fair (or historical) that only because artificaly imposed winter rules they have ability to do what they can do in this game.

That's right, I surrendered because IMO that was the only morally and historically right thing to do. Emir tried to persuade me to continue because there's this magical thing called "blizzard" that will suddenly undo everything brilliant Axis has done up to that moment. I never played through the blizzard before, but IMO he won, if there is some magic stick to undo his deserved victory, I didn't want to have anything with it anyway.

It was a bizarre situation, I wanted to surrender and accept his victory, he was trying to persuade me to continue. [;)]

Anyhow, I do think super-summer-Germans were instrumental in his success. Still, super-Germans are overpowered but need lots of skill to be used right. He did use that skill, and super-summer-German discussion is better left for some other thread, because super-winter-Soviets are bigger problem right now. Super-Russians need almost no skill to be used.

[alfonso]

ORIGINAL: Oleg Mastruko


That's right, I surrendered because IMO that was the only morally and historically right thing to do. Emir tried to persuade me to continue because there's this magical thing called "blizzard" that will suddenly undo everything brilliant Axis has done up to that moment. I never played through the blizzard before, but IMO he won, if there is some magic stick to undo his deserved victory, I didn't want to have anything with it anyway.

What a pity you did not continue with the game to check if there really is that magic stick...

[Emx77]

ORIGINAL: alfonso

ORIGINAL: Oleg Mastruko


That's right, I surrendered because IMO that was the only morally and historically right thing to do. Emir tried to persuade me to continue because there's this magical thing called "blizzard" that will suddenly undo everything brilliant Axis has done up to that moment. I never played through the blizzard before, but IMO he won, if there is some magic stick to undo his deserved victory, I didn't want to have anything with it anyway.

What a pity you did not continue with the game to check if there really is that magic stick...

Hmm, our turn 18 is still on the Slitherine server... I was also eager to know what would happen in winter '41. But on the second thought maybe we can make some prediction of outcome based on my experience vs AI. Untill turn 25 I had beaten Soviet AI similarly as I beaten Oleg (capturing Moscow, Tula, Orel, whole Ukrain, but was 1 hex short of encircling Leningrad, destroying some 300 divisions). I made some mistakes which I didn't repeat vs Oleg, but there is high probability that Oleg would be able to do more damage then AI during winter (he is human after all). And AI did this.