Matrix Games Forums

Q-Ball,
 
I understand and play like you describe for the reasons you set out; however, there may be alternate solutions...and neutering the Soviet too early may be more of a problem in the long run.
 
Marquo

Here is an alternate and very logical POV: historically the the TOE of most German units was at 30 - 40% before the blizzard; OKH pushed too hard trying to, "win" before the winter. It is not wise to adjust weather effects to, "bring the historical german army before the blizzard to its historcial level." If the player wants to grind his Army down to that level, so be it

I got a crash and realise I forgot a very important term in my statement : "bring the historical german army before the blizzard to its historcial level after the blizzard."

You seem to fail to understand my point. What I point out if that the historical german army start winter at 30-40% TOE and finish it at let's say 20% (I don't have numbers, but for the idea they are not important, only for the tweaking). Then if the german army begin at 80% and the soviet does same as historical, then the german should fall to 65-60% not 20% as is the result actually.

Though with a better off soviet, the german can be beaten more than historically, I don't disagree with Alfonso on that ppoint. But the historical number are quite that German held quite well from my reading.

ORIGINAL: Skanvak

Here is an alternate and very logical POV: historically the the TOE of most German units was at 30 - 40% before the blizzard; OKH pushed too hard trying to, "win" before the winter. It is not wise to adjust weather effects to, "bring the historical german army before the blizzard to its historcial level." If the player wants to grind his Army down to that level, so be it

I got a crash and realise I forgot a very important term in my statement : "bring the historical german army before the blizzard to its historcial level after the blizzard."

You seem to fail to understand my point. What I point out if that the historical german army start winter at 30-40% TOE and finish it at let's say 20% (I don't have numbers, but for the idea they are not important, only for the tweaking). Then if the german army begin at 80% and the soviet does same as historical, then the german should fall to 65-60% not 20% as is the result actually.

Though with a better off soviet, the german can be beaten more than historically, I don't disagree with Alfonso on that ppoint. But the historical number are quite that German held quite well from my reading.

Why not play the 1942 Grand Campaign if you want a historical '41 winter outcome?

I doubt that avoiding destruction of Soviet units early on really helps the Axis player; when Soviet units die the designated units are re-created, but the troops and equipment don't simply come from nothing, they are pulled from the manpower/equipment pool, just as new Soviet units have to.

I suspect if you avoid killing units the amount of equipment/manpower deployed by the Sovs, as the blizzard comes, will be larger than you planned.

I am skeptical of the reports that the German army as a whole was at 30%-40% strength at the start of Winter. Anyone have a source for that?

ORIGINAL: Berkut
I am skeptical of the reports that the German army as a whole was at 30%-40% strength at the start of Winter. Anyone have a source for that?

I am similarly skeptical and I am yet to see a reliable source that backs up that claim.

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

The reason you want to surround and destroy Soviet units in 1941, though, isn't so much to kill-off the units themselves (which grow back as you point out prior to November), but rather all the guys and equipment IN the unit. The majority of battle casualties are Disabled, which come back (slowly). POWs don't come back. Units that surrender will also lose you nearly all equipment. THAT'S why you need to kill Soviet units, to kill all the guys and guns inside the unit.

It is also a more efficient way to kill Reds without getting your own Germans guys killed. You can achieve 10-1 kill ratios only by taking POWs. In just combat, the ratio will probably be closer to 3-1, which is not really in the Germans favor.

Pocketing troops in 1941 is essential to the Axis for these reasons

Precisely! (+1) Rather fundamental.

Plus the Axis will need cannon fooder later in the war to fill those Ost Battalions for defence of the Normandy Coastline.

I doubt that 30-40% strength figure. I don't have WHEN TITANS CLASH in front of me, but Glantz has a strength appendix that I think would show something. The Germans would collapse with 60% losses.

I do buy that some divisions were 30-40% strength, particularly those in front of Moscow, though, and that v. 1.03 doesn't kill enough troops in combat for both sides. The testers feel that both sides are entering winter too strong, and I think they are right.

ORIGINAL: randallw

I doubt that avoiding destruction of Soviet units early on really helps the Axis player; when Soviet units die the designated units are re-created, but the troops and equipment don't simply come from nothing, they are pulled from the manpower/equipment pool, just as new Soviet units have to.

I suspect if you avoid killing units the amount of equipment/manpower deployed by the Sovs, as the blizzard comes, will be larger than you planned.

I think what is being portrayed is the re-formation of a destroyed units headquarters elements\cadre. Or at least that's how I view the game mechanics. The reappearing unit still has to be refilled with manpower and equipment. Or at least that's how I understand the system is supposed to work. If you look at the commander’s report on a regular basis you see Soviet casualties broken out in terms of Captured, Killed, Wounded, etc. Hopefully those men filling up the "Captured" slot aren't -- through some code anomaly -- making it back into the Soviet manpower pool and refilling the ranks of reforming units – or coming back as replacements or whatever.

In terms of the importance of pocket creation, it goes further than simply the difference between destroying an enemy unit with a valid line of communications and associated loss of manpower vs. an isolated unit with no valid line of communications. Destruction of Isolated units is by far much easier in terms of casulties suffered by the attacking force and friendly units required to destroy pocketed units. You save your own manpower by killing isolated units and you are not tying down signification amounts of combat power in order to destroy isolated units (I mean in relative terms – destroying an isolated unit vs. trying to destroy the same unit while it has a valid line of supply\communications). The advantages are therefore more than simply the strategic effects associated with completely removing a particular isolated unit’s manpower and equipment from the gene pool.

I’m also rather skeptical of hey-diddle-diddle straight up the middle approach to operations as I think the friendly casualties associated with this approach to in-game tactics and operations invariably means you are going to suffer significantly more friendly casualties – draining your own manpower and equipment pools. Intuitively, it seems to me that the best approach over the long haul is destroying Soviet units or German units within pockets vs. destroying them while they still have a valid line of communications. However, one doesn't really know for certain if it makes any difference in terms of game mechanics. Moreover, if there is a flaw in the manpower pool model, a person won't really know if trying to conserve manpower via a more dynamic approach to operational planning is a valid game strategy until it's 1943 or 1944 or 1945 -- at which point it's too late.

Unit losses and unit strength is always a tad tricky in terms of what it actually means. If you're talking about an infantry battalion at 30 to 40% strength -- that's a pretty good indication of the remaining combat power associated with the unit.

However if you're talking about a Division or Corps at 30 to 40% strength, what does that tell you? The support elements within a formation of this size may be close to 100% TO&E even when the division is at 30 to 40% strength. The same division or corps may have had its infantry strength and/or tank crew strength dessimated. So what does that mean for a units associated combat power?

It wasn't the entire Wehrmacht that was at 40% strength but that its maneuver combat forces of infantry and armor were hovering around half strength by early December 1941. Its equipment and armor had to be cannibalized due to lack of spare parts and replacements. Going into the Summer 1942 campaign, Army Group Center and North were averaging around 50-60% strength in its infantry units. The Germans suffered around 700k of casaulties by early December 1941 which doesn't sound like much when compared to is 3.2m start strength. But when you consider that the majority of those casualties would have been from the infantry, armor, and pioneers or 'boots on the ground" then you see how serious a loss that is. The result is a huge loss in combat power on the battlefield.

Trey

ORIGINAL: Skanvak

Here is an alternate and very logical POV: historically the the TOE of most German units was at 30 - 40% before the blizzard; OKH pushed too hard trying to, "win" before the winter. It is not wise to adjust weather effects to, "bring the historical german army before the blizzard to its historcial level." If the player wants to grind his Army down to that level, so be it

I got a crash and realise I forgot a very important term in my statement : "bring the historical german army before the blizzard to its historcial level after the blizzard."

You seem to fail to understand my point. What I point out if that the historical german army start winter at 30-40% TOE and finish it at let's say 20% (I don't have numbers, but for the idea they are not important, only for the tweaking). Then if the german army begin at 80% and the soviet does same as historical, then the german should fall to 65-60% not 20% as is the result actually.

Though with a better off soviet, the german can be beaten more than historically, I don't disagree with Alfonso on that ppoint. But the historical number are quite that German held quite well from my reading.

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

I doubt that 30-40% strength figure. I don't have WHEN TITANS CLASH in front of me, but Glantz has a strength appendix that I think would show something. The Germans would collapse with 60% losses.

I do buy that some divisions were 30-40% strength, particularly those in front of Moscow, though, and that v. 1.03 doesn't kill enough troops in combat for both sides. The testers feel that both sides are entering winter too strong, and I think they are right.

There have actually been a fair number of operational studies conducted on the subject (I keep saying this same sort of line -- sorry) -- i.e. typical losses associated with deliberate attack against hasty defense -- hasty attack vs. prepared defense -- etc. Some of the out of the arse guess work associated with modeling casulty rates can infact be eliminated with enough research related elbow grease being applied. Research does require time and money -- and I don't mean picking up a copy of Glantz's Clash of Titans for $5 on ABE Books. The designers inevitably have some guess work to do, but with the proper background information, guess work can be more along the lines of "educated guesswork" rather than stabbing away in the dark. As a start I certainly consult some of the past work done by TDI (and no I don’t just mean looking at "Numbers, Predictions and War" -- although it never hurts to revisit NPW on occasion). I'd have a look at TDI's Kursk and Battle of the Bulge simulations. AND as food for thought, I'd also take a look at RANDS combat modeling and casualty prediction simulations).

I personally feel like the casualties in typical combat results for WiTE tend to be on the high side -- particularly in numbers being killed. But my current opinion has about zero scientific basis -- it's just me looking at the WiTE combat result read-outs as they pop-up. Really the approach should be cataloguing game results, and cataloguing actual combat on the eastern front in spreadsheet form and subsequently looking for trends. Units involved – posture of units involved – terrain – weather -- casualties. That all takes a lot of time and research. My sense is that the use of researchers in the gaming industry often takes a back seat to finding and holding onto coders and graphics specialists. All are obviously important to product creation. Yet the bones of a game like WiTE, and I think much of the reasoning behind why this game has become relevant to many old time board gamers 9as well as folks that started having fun with games like TOAW and etc.) lies in our perception of what the bones of the system is made from. I mean come-on – lets be real – this is a grognardian game. There’s a lot going on behind the scenes in WiTE and I think a lot of folks want to feel like the basic engine is solidly founded in extensive researching of the actual conflict. I think that sort of expectation can only come from very close interaction between coders and researchers and a committment by the developers toward serious research effort.

I think it’s good to trust ones gut if you feel something is wrong, but than we need to do the essential grunt work to move from “it feels wrong” to “here are the numbers showing why the model needs to be tweaked”; Or –“here are the numbers and the model seems OK”.

Just my final two cents on this rather interesting topic…

Why not play the 1942 Grand Campaign if you want a historical '41 winter outcome?

That is precisely my point. I share most of your view (especially in your last post about research). It is what I am aiming in my post.

I got the feeling that the winter in game was design to get a historical '41 winter outcome whatever the german do (or especially if the german took less loses than historical).

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

I doubt that 30-40% strength figure. I don't have WHEN TITANS CLASH in front of me, but Glantz has a strength appendix that I think would show something. The Germans would collapse with 60% losses.

I do buy that some divisions were 30-40% strength, particularly those in front of Moscow, though, and that v. 1.03 doesn't kill enough troops in combat for both sides. The testers feel that both sides are entering winter too strong, and I think they are right.

Glantz says in that book that on 22 June the German Army in the East were 3,050,000 men, and on December 1st 2,700,000.

Even concending that some elements were particularly depleted (e.g the tank components of the Panzer Divisions), I don't see the average 30-40 %TOE claimed.

The number of German forces committed to Barbarossa plus OKH's reserve (2nd Army) was around 3.2m. You also had roughly an additional 400k in reinforcement units (various divisions and brigades) and around 300k in replacements bringing your total committment to around 3.9m. From December to March 1942, total German strength was around 2.5 - 2.7m with losses around the one million mark (KIA, wounded, and sick). When you consider that a majority of those losses come from the infantry, pioneer, and armored forces, I don't think it is hard to believe that units were so low on manpower. The US Army's research on the subject quotes many German companies at half strength just before the Soviet winter counteroffensive. You can read about it here.

http://www.cgsc.edu/carl/resources/csi/wray/wray.asp

Trey

ORIGINAL: alfonso

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

I doubt that 30-40% strength figure. I don't have WHEN TITANS CLASH in front of me, but Glantz has a strength appendix that I think would show something. The Germans would collapse with 60% losses.

I do buy that some divisions were 30-40% strength, particularly those in front of Moscow, though, and that v. 1.03 doesn't kill enough troops in combat for both sides. The testers feel that both sides are entering winter too strong, and I think they are right.

Glantz says in that book that on 22 June the German Army in the East were 3,050,000 men, and on December 1st 2,700,000.

Even concending that some elements were particularly depleted (e.g the tank components of the Panzer Divisions), I don't see the average 30-40 %TOE claimed.

ORIGINAL: el hefe

The number of German forces committed to Barbarossa plus OKH's reserve (2nd Army) was around 3.2m. You also had roughly an additional 400k in reinforcement units (various divisions and brigades) and around 300k in replacements bringing your total committment to around 3.9m. From December to March 1942, total German strength was around 2.5 - 2.7m with losses around the one million mark (KIA, wounded, and sick). When you consider that a majority of those losses come from the infantry, pioneer, and armored forces, I don't think it is hard to believe that units were so low on manpower. The US Army's research on the subject quotes many German companies at half strength just before the Soviet winter counteroffensive. You can read about it here.

http://www.cgsc.edu/carl/resources/csi/wray/wray.asp

Trey

ORIGINAL: alfonso

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

I doubt that 30-40% strength figure. I don't have WHEN TITANS CLASH in front of me, but Glantz has a strength appendix that I think would show something. The Germans would collapse with 60% losses.

I do buy that some divisions were 30-40% strength, particularly those in front of Moscow, though, and that v. 1.03 doesn't kill enough troops in combat for both sides. The testers feel that both sides are entering winter too strong, and I think they are right.

Glantz says in that book that on 22 June the German Army in the East were 3,050,000 men, and on December 1st 2,700,000.

Even concending that some elements were particularly depleted (e.g the tank components of the Panzer Divisions), I don't see the average 30-40 %TOE claimed.

Yes, I know that the casualties are concentrated among the fighting units in a Division, so it is difficult for me to equate them with loss of combat power, because I don't know what proportion of a Division is really doing the fighting.

You said before that before Blau AGN and AGC were 50-60%. Glantz says that AGS was at 85% TOE before the summer campaign of 1942. But then Glantz says that the German Army was at a 2,600,000 level in that moment. How is it compatible having between 50% and 85% TOE and 2,600,000 soldiers, with having a TOE of 30-40% with 2,700,000 soldiers?. I don't understand the maths involved.

I have read the link you provided, but I did not find general figures of TOEs. Could the references to badly depleted units be a case of ascertainment bias, whereby only the most spectacularly mauled Divisions (and not the average Division) found their way to the history pages?

ORIGINAL: alfonso



Yes, I know that the casualties are concentrated among the fighting units in a Division, so it is difficult for me to equate them with loss of combat power, because I don't know what proportion of a Division is really doing the fighting.

You said before that before Blau AGN and AGC were 50-60%. Glantz says that AGS was at 85% TOE before the summer campaign of 1942.

He also says that they were at 85% because they stripped units from the other two groups.

Communications, the Soviet command and control relied on land lines to communicate to the front, there were many times where orders when out and the battle was over before everyone got their orders or kept committing units to a battle already lost because, the lines were down. The same issues with armored units, only the leaders tank had a radio vs. most German tanks had radios, Germans would always target Russia tanks with antenna to destroy command and control. The Germans were way ahead of the Soviets technology wise. A big problem the Germans had was a failure to adopt new tactics, they kept repeating the same old thing even after it stopped working, the Soviet's eventually caught on.

 

ORIGINAL: Aurelian

ORIGINAL: alfonso



Yes, I know that the casualties are concentrated among the fighting units in a Division, so it is difficult for me to equate them with loss of combat power, because I don't know what proportion of a Division is really doing the fighting.

You said before that before Blau AGN and AGC were 50-60%. Glantz says that AGS was at 85% TOE before the summer campaign of 1942.

He also says that they were at 85% because they stripped units from the other two groups.

Yes, I had assumed that the 50-60% provided by el hefe was after sending men to AG South, and therefore it is simultaneous to 85% in AGS...

ORIGINAL: runyan99

Ok. Militarily, they managed the war very badly for at least 18 months, yet could not be defeated.

Feel better?

No. You have yet to send me any money. [:'(]