"Ostfront" - a GPW-based mod (semi-grog version)

[Captain Cruft]

Also, just FYI ...

To show how off the wall I am thinking with this, I have considered giving infantry a bombardment range of 1 too. The purpose would be to try and model what you might call "skirmishing" i.e. a way for infantry to cause problems for the enemy without launching a full-on assault.

Adding a land anti-supply value is another thing I might do to get a similar effect. All subject to testing of course.

Although I will admit to wanting to have a lot of different tanks, one of my main purposes here is to make infantry more robust and more useful than it currently is. Sending unaccompanied tanks into cities will be a very bad idea for example.

[Captain Cruft]

More chrome ...

A Romanian infantry division. If you're wondering how exactly 3 Pioneers can be useful it's just a matter of giving them more EPs each turn and allowing them to build up for longer. The largest engineering units will only have 10 engineers.

As well as having construction capability Pioneers cause structural damage and have bonuses for attacking into fortifications and urban hexes. Whereas construction engineers (not shown) are useless at combat but can still build things.

[Joshuatree]

Nice!
I notice that the division is no longer marked as wheeled/ track/ foot/ artillery/ AA, but as inf?

[Captain Cruft]

Inf = Foot.

There are also HvyInf, LtInf and MtnInf movement classes, which are slower or faster in certain terrains. However ... A lot of this is effectively ignored since the units end up moving at Horse pace a lot of the time due to having to transport the various guns. It's something that would be of more use at regimental/battalion scale, but I thought I would put it into the scenario anyway.

The full list of movement classes is:-

Static (can't move at all)
HvyGun (can't move without transport)
Gun (can move but very slowly)
LtGun (marginally faster than Gun)
Inf (basic foot movement, same as generic Foot)
HvyInf (slower foot movement)
LtInf (faster foot movement)
MtnInf (foot, only class that can enter High Mountains, hypothetically)
Wagon (same as generic Horse)
Horse+ (cavalry)
Wheel (same as generic Wheel)
4x4 (fast more agile wheeled vehicles e.g. armoured cars)
Track (same as generic Tracked)
SlwTrack (slow tracked vehicles e.g. Jagdtiger)
FstTrack (fast tracked vehicles e.g. half-track)

What I discovered was that although the game may display a unit as "Foot", "Wheel" or whatever the way it actually works is to use the slowest movement class for each individual hex that is moved into. So the display is only indicative at best.

There is also a thing where if any SFType in a unit cannot move into the hex in question then the entire unit cannot, regardless of whether that SFType can be transported by something that can. Maybe that's a bug though? Not sure ...

[PDiFolco]

Woot, nice !!
How do you manage to rate "correctly" all the tons of stuff you added ? I mean all the combat values for all those tanks, guns, a database is needed !

[Captain Cruft]

Well the simple answer to that is I haven't done it yet However, when I do get to it SPWAW/SPH2H will be the reference I use.

Things like the Rifle, MGs, IGs, mortars and artillery will mostly be the same though. Or nearly the same. It's only the tanks, ATGs and planes that really need work.

I am expecting great things of the unit below ...

[Captain Cruft]

One thing to note about the Romanians. The troops will not be that bad, indeed some (e.g. the Mountain infantry) will be very good. What they will lack is a) replacement capacity for heavy equipment and b) leadership. You can see that the tank unit above has a miserable Staff rating of 26%. I hope this will be a better way of modelling the historical deficiencies than what you usually see in wargames which is to give the Romanians very poor experience/skill ratings.

The same thing goes for the Italians.

[Joshuatree]

Static (can't move at all)
HvyGun (can't move without transport)
Gun (can move but very slowly)
LtGun (marginally faster than Gun)
Inf (basic foot movement, same as generic Foot)
HvyInf (slower foot movement)
LtInf (faster foot movement)
MtnInf (foot, only class that can enter High Mountains, hypothetically)
Wagon (same as generic Horse)
Horse+ (cavalry)
Wheel (same as generic Wheel)
4x4 (fast more agile wheeled vehicles e.g. armoured cars)
Track (same as generic Tracked)
SlwTrack (slow tracked vehicles e.g. Jagdtiger)
FstTrack (fast tracked vehicles e.g. half-track)

 
..... that's a *lot*, I wonder how that works out in the game. And if slow tracked vehicles really slow down your advance then strategic transport becomes even more important. No use having your Tigers and Jgdpzr behind your front no?

[Captain Cruft]

Well as I say because units are mixed most will move at one of the 4 main speeds Inf (Foot), Wagon (Horse), Wheel or Track. SlwTrack is only slightly slower than Track, it shouldn't cause too many problems but hopefully it will stop players using their Jagdtigers as recon vehicles Strategic transfer will be important though, but this will only work over rail lines and it will have to compete for Train capacity with shipping out replacements (production) and Supply.

Logistics will be a bigger problem and more work in this scenario than normal. The idea is that you will have to stockpile supplies at either your advance railheads or Army Group/Front HQs before going on an offensive, initial Blitz period excepted.

[Joshuatree]

"Logistics will be a bigger problem and more work in this scenario than normal. The idea is that you will have to stockpile supplies at either your advance railheads or Army Group/Front HQs before going on an offensive, initial Blitz period excepted."
 
Good point, this was the way it worked IRL, armies made massive supply dumps... which could be a target in itself. Rommel frequently captured British supply dumps/ material/ trucks. I do hope the supply system doesn't get more complicated though.

[Captain Cruft]

I cannot alter the way the supply system works, and don't want to. What I am talking about is not having enough supply to mount continuous offensives on all front simultaneously.

[Captain Cruft]

Progress continues ...

The Axis initial OOB is now fully on the map, though its SFTypes are un-configured beyond the graphics.

Here is the SS Das Reich division. Note the more reasonable power points rating The split between "SS" and "Ger" people is deliberate before anyone asks.

[rickier65]

ORIGINAL: Captain Cruft

Progress continues ...

The Axis initial OOB is now fully on the map, though its SFTypes are un-configured beyond the graphics.

Here is the SS Das Reich division. Note the more reasonable power points rating The split between "SS" and "Ger" people is deliberate before anyone asks.

Yes, 200 pwer is definitely preferable to the 500-600 power points. How is this coming along. Have you started testing unit type offence and defence factors yet?

You've mentioned a couple of times that you were limited by number of SFType slots available, yet I thought I read that SFTypes are unlimited, it's SFGroups that are limited?

This is a lot of work you're doing - Im anxious to see how it plays out. Are you going to use the standard unit symbols or will you be using the one of the NATO symbol sets?

Thanks,
Rick

[Captain Cruft]

ORIGINAL: Rick
Yes, 200 pwer is definitely preferable to the 500-600 power points. How is this coming along. Have you started testing unit type offence and defence factors yet?

No, but it's on the to-do list Mostly I will just use the standard values from the generic masterfile and then either decrement or increment to differentiate the various stuff.

You've mentioned a couple of times that you were limited by number of SFType slots available, yet I thought I read that SFTypes are unlimited, it's SFGroups that are limited?

SFType slots per unit is what I mean, where the limit is 8 for normal non-HQ units.

This is a lot of work you're doing - Im anxious to see how it plays out. Are you going to use the standard unit symbols or will you be using the one of the NATO symbol sets?

Version 1 will use totally standard graphics except for a couple of symbols that I have added, since the over-riding aim is to concentrate on how it works and plays. There is nothing to stop anyone using their own counters though via simple replacement of the various .PNG files. The SFType graphics will be in their own folder but it references the default set for the terrain tiles.

[rickier65]

Sounds good - Thanks!

Rick

[Captain Cruft]

This might put you off ...

Automatic Supply Propagation

Getting supplies to the front automatically is done by chaining Railheads together, with the actual frontline Army Group or Front HQ then attaching to the nearest advanced Railhead. This is because Supply and Production can only move 200 APs, which over Rail gives a maximum radius of 50 hexes with the 50% penalty at 25 hexes.

Note: A Railhead is just a static HQ unit which sits in a city and has Trains attached so it can move stuff via Transfer or Strategic Transfer.

The problem I had was with Bucharest, which is a long way from anywhere else and yet has to feed a fairly vast bunch of armies. There is some supply produced in Romania itself but it wasn't enough, so some of the German/Czech stuff had to be got there somehow.

Anyway, this is how I have finally configured it, and how it will be at scenario start:

Ruhr->Berlin->Danzig->Konigsberg->AGN
Ruhr->Berlin->Poznan->Warsaw->AGC
Ruhr->Dresden->Breslau->Cracow->AGS
Prague->Vienna->Belgrade->Bucharest->Romanians
Budapest->Hungarians/Slovaks

"Ruhr" is off-map supply which amounts to about 60% of the Axis production. Prague is on-map and represents the Czech armaments factories.

I had endless fun connecting the rail network in various ways but this is the one which seems to give the best results. There will still be a need for some occasional manual transference of supply though.

Now, I actually enjoy fooling around with things like this (the Soviets will be even more fun with their vast distances) but it may be that others don't. So ... you have been warned!

[Captain Cruft]

All SFTypes are now defined (i.e have pictures) along with their associated Itemtypes, Itemgroups and Loctypes. Therefore I am at the stage of putting the Soviet initial OOB on the map, which is fun After that there are just two remaining tasks:

1) Air OOB (both sides)
2) Combat parameter tweaking and testing.

I then intend to release a play-test version of the scenario which will only cover the first 3 months. The idea of this will be to get players' input on how the new SFtypes all work without having to think about long-term strategic/production questions. ETA for this is hopefully two weeks.

Here is a sample Rifle Division.

[Captain Cruft]

Here is the northern-most part of the frontline.

[Joshuatree]

Nice!
I do appreciate the fact that you like putting down the OOB. I find such things extremely boring, basically that's why I suck at making scenarios.... no patience. Looking forward to it.  

[Captain Cruft]

Well compared to most of the tasks involved it's super quick. I am mostly using standardised units as you can see from the power points in the map screenshot above.