Something really wrong with lone AT and Arty units on defense

[aspqrz02]

With the greatest of respect, the only way your ... creative thinking ... works is when the Russian Flying Pig Squadron dumps on all the German optics, blinding them.

No other way.

Phil

[elmo3]

ORIGINAL: aspqrz

... Now, seriously, ...

Seriously, you are taking this way too seriously. [:'(] It's a game with many abstractions including combat results. Military history is replete with examples of outnumbered defenders holding out way longer than anyone expected. But somehow I doubt you would be convinced even if anyone could be bothered to quote them here. You have made up your mind the game is broken because of one combat result you don't think is possible and you are entitled to that opinion. Others disagree. Ultimately it will be up to Vic to decide if his game is working as intended or not.

[LiquidSky]

Really? German divisions attacked all the time? Never rested for two days? Never had to be resupplied? Refueled? Never suffered delays due to partisans? Rain? And while they are waiting/resting/refitting it wouldnt matter if 200 men or 200 flying pigs were in front of them, since they ARENT ATTACKING.

See if you know where this battle took place. It happens on the Case Blue map during the timeframe of the game. 30 russians successfully defend against dozens of tanks, hundreds of germans, destroying a dozen tanks with a single anti tank rifle. For almost a MONTH.


But hey...everyone knows there is a problem. The dev knows there is a problem. I know there is a problem. You know there is a problem. The problem will be fixed. End of Problem.

[aspqrz02]

Well, depending on whether a Soviet AT Artillery Brigade is 2 x 480 man Regiments or 1 Regiment + another 500 supporting troops, of which 100 are SMG Infantry and 330 are Pioneers (who can act as Infantry in a pinch), they have less than 1000 men all up ...

According to Glantz (and other sources) your typical non-Guards unit was 40-60% understrength (in Main sectors, up to 80% understrength in secondary sectors) at any given time, that would mean far, far less than 1000 men.

In mid/late 42 most German Mechanised Divisions (10000-14000 TO&E strength) would be at least 75% strength or more.

So, regardless of how you cut it, its gonna be either

a) No infantry and only artillerists and support troops, perhaps as few as 200, probably around 500)

0r

b) 20-60 SMG Infantry, 65-200 Pioneers + artillerists and support troops, perhaps another 100-250)

against 7500-9000 Germans

And the Germans are fully mechanised (or close enough thereto) offensively and defensively while the Russians can dig and fight, and be immobile, or hitch up and run, and get slaughtered.

Towed artillery units *by themselves* against mechanised units truly *are* speed-bumps.

They would only ever be *deliberately* deployed in conjunction with Infantry in the defense, the Infantry being needed to screen them.

In DC:CB the TO&E Strengths are ...

Soviet AT Battalion (it's not actually listed as either a Regiment or Brigade ... it probably represents a single Regiment, therefore, as Soviet "Regiments" were often of a strength that other armies would have called Battalions anyway)

400 Infantry
25 Heavy AT
25 Light AT
150 trucks

which doesn't represent *either* the actual TO&E for an AT Regiment (460 men, 20 ATG, 20 ATR, 68 Trucks, 1 Car, 6 Horse Waggons) *or* an AT Brigade (16 ATG, 12 Lt ATG, 8 Medium & 4 Heavy Mortars, 187 Trucks, 16 Motorcycles, 4 Cars, 100 Infantry, 330 Pioneer)

Either its meant to represent the Battalion, and has far, far, far too many trucks *and* the "Infantry" should either be subsumed in the gun's values rather than listed separately, or the "Infantry" should be second rate, and reduced ability.

Phil

[aspqrz02]

Indeed there are examples where outnumbered defenders have held out against vastly superior odds ... and I have no problem with any such being specifically described.

Why?

Because the ones that you will find will, as far as I am aware, only describe situations where the defenders were in a situation where they controlled a choke point that minimised the number of attackers that could get at them at any one time, and which prevented them from being easily outflanked, and which allowed them to concentrate their strength on a very narrow frontage ...

None of which applies to 1000 men (more likely 200-500) attempting to stop 10000-14000 (more likely 9-12000) men in low hills. Where there is *no* choke point for them to defend. Where there is *no* way they can concentrate on a narrow defensive front and not be outflanked ... and so on.

Sure, the 300 Spartans held the 70000 or so Persians off for three days. In a narrow defile where the poorly armoured and poorly armed Persians could only approach a few hundred at a time.

Once the Persians found the outflanking route?

Less than a day ... and wiped out to a man (or maybe to 1-2 men, depending on which story you believe) ... and why didn't the Spartans run when they knew they'd be outflanked the next day?

Lots of reasons. Probably the main one being ... once they did, it was to run into open terrain where the Persian "mechanised" units would simply outrun them, surround them, and either slaughter them themselves or hold them till the Persian main force infantry came up ... and slaughter them.

They could kill more Persians by remaining where they were, as the approach was constricted from both directions, and they were all going down, anyway ... not much of a choice.

And, as I said, they went down in less than a day, at the end.

With two day turns in low hills, with no choke points?

You tell me of a checkable example where a basically immobile small force held an 8 klick frontage for two days against a fully mobile force 20 times their size and you may have a point.

I won't hold my breath ...

As for the game? Well, as I said, the solution is either subsume the vast majority of the manpower strength of an artillery unit into to artillery, to be lost when the tube(s) are lost, or to make it much reduced strength second line infantry, or probably both. Having it as it stands is double counting.

Is the game broken? Not even close. It needs some tweaking, is all, so units perform in a historically realistic manner. And if I was playing the Russians I would never put my AT units in a hex by themselves, as per Soviet doctine ... maybe the AI needs tweaking as well? Modifications can handle it, and there aren't a humongous number of Sov AT units anyway.

Phil

[marcpennington]

ORIGINAL: Treale



But didn't artillery cause the most casualties in WWII?

This is borderline OT, but I've been curious on that question for a while. The only place I can think I've ever read that "fact" (and it has stuck in my mind) is the documentation on the SSG Decisive Battles games, which claimed something like 80% of casualties were from artillery, in part to (perhaps) justify the immense power of artillery in their game system . As far as I can recall, I've never read a breakdown of losses by weapon system anywhere else, let alone one so dramatic. Does anyone have a source on that statistic, or detailed statistical analysis on causes of casualties? My suspicion is that maybe the high artillery percentage is tied to SLA Marshall's whole argument that no one really ever fired their rifle, which has been since thoroughly debunked.

[Forever]

Hello

sorry for my English, but translators are still not perfect

When it comes to defending small fieldcommanders against overwhelming odds is a good example would be Wiziny Defense

Unfortunately I can not give links but paste in browser

pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obrona_Wizny

youtube.com/watch?v=0GmjeVrLEbA&feature=related - > Sabaton - 40-1

Such episodes have happened but not too often

[aspqrz02]

Using Google Translate and looking at the map this battle, while certainly a brave defense, is not relevant.

For a start, it's not a single Artillery unit, even though its around 400 men or less, if I read the (badly) translated web page correctly (Google Translate is nowhere near perfect).

It's a series of layered or linked or supporting fortified defense positions.

Secondly, it's at a choke point that minimises mechanised movement ... those swamps shown on the map ... so it could only be attacked on a narrow front and the defenders could defend just that narrow front.

And, as far as I can tell, it's not an 8 klick frontage ... but it's hard to tell as there is no scale on the map (or none that I can read, anyway).

Interesting.

Brave.

If the example being cited in this thread was a unit in concrete, mutually supporting, fortifications defending a choke point that restricted attacker access and/or attacker opportunities to outflank them, I'd expect it to last ... about 2 days ... against a division sized attack.

However, that isn't the case.

Phil

[Keunert]

let's take a look at the example bwheatly and olivier posted:

the defending unit is in suitable terrain (common)
the unit has an entrenchment level that needed 3turns/6days of preparation (extraordinary)
the attacker has to fight with a terrain penalty (uncommon)
the attacker has not full AP
the attacker has no air or artillery support (uncommon).

two times out of five the unit was able to hold the hex.
three times it was dislocated.

under such circumstances an attack should only be made if the result is worth the hassle

this situation is almost exclusive to the first turn

the level of preparation would mean that you have to rail AT units way back and only be able to use them every fourth turn. a more realistic scenario should be tested: defenders fall back to suitable terrain with good autoentrench, a sole AT unit is deployed in a sector with likely Panzer attacks. entrenchment will be a lot lower and the results will favour the attacker more.

[James Ward]

In a tactial game I could see 'heroic' defenses made by AT and Artillery units holding out aginst high odds. On this scale they should require additional support as they were not suppose to hold off full ground assaults. Perhaps a defensive penalty of some sort for being alone in the hex could be implemented or if entrenchments are the big differance maker have them entrench like armour?

[Keunert]

having less infantry would probably be the easiest solution

[jjdenver]

My quick 2 cents on this is that entrenchment level is a little bit too powerful in the game currently.

[aspqrz02]

Really, there should be no infantry at all. The strength of the unit is in its guns, not in its personnel ... and, unless the guns don't work without Infantry, leave them out completely ... or, maybe, allow 10% of unit strength as "infantry" to represent a purely nominal self defence capacity.

Certainly, as seems to be the case, the majority of the personnel should *not* be present as "Infantry" ... this is, in fact, double counting.

With no (or only 10%) Infantry, this would mean that no sensible Russian player would *ever* deploy AT units (or any sort of Artillery unit) in a hex by itself, which would represent real life.

Note: This subsuming of all gunners into the strength of the guns should apply to *all* artillery ... including the artillery at Divisional level (making those fourth Regiments in most divisions as vulnerable as *they* should be, as well ... Divisional Artillery wasn't designed to stand and fight in the front lines as infantry any more than Russian AT units were [X(])

The AI would need to be tweaked to accept these changes, or their ultimate consequences (i.e. that no artillery should be deployed by itself) and, since it should apply to all Infantry, will be a nontrivial effort, I suspect.

Phil

[Templer_12]

Many words have been written here now.
Some intelligent, helpful, friendly - some less.
Maybe at this point it's about time that the developer even gives a statement to the issue.

[abulbulian]

ORIGINAL: Keunert

let's take a look at the example bwheatly and olivier posted:

the defending unit is in suitable terrain (common)
the unit has an entrenchment level that needed 3turns/6days of preparation (extraordinary)
the attacker has to fight with a terrain penalty (uncommon)
the attacker has not full AP
the attacker has no air or artillery support (uncommon).

two times out of five the unit was able to hold the hex.
three times it was dislocated.

under such circumstances an attack should only be made if the result is worth the hassle

this situation is almost exclusive to the first turn

the level of preparation would mean that you have to rail AT units way back and only be able to use them every fourth turn. a more realistic scenario should be tested: defenders fall back to suitable terrain with good autoentrench, a sole AT unit is deployed in a sector with likely Panzer attacks. entrenchment will be a lot lower and the results will favour the attacker more.

FYI: there was air support in my situation, 70 JU88s hit the AT unit. Also, to be clear I attacked with the 2 Pz Grenadier Rgts, thus the manpower would be in excess of 10k men. At this point in the war the LAH was at or near full TOE. Most SS units, until later in the war, were maintained at a much high TOE than Wehrmacht units. They also had priority on the better/newer equipment such as tanks, TD, MGs, etc.

Here's my final take.

- game is not broken by no means, still a wonderful take on an east front campaign.
- are there some realism issues that need to be worked out, sure. This happens in almost all war games on this scale after a release.
- I don't have an issue with a situation where a smaller unit is able to hold up a large unit in certain circumstances. However, as laid out in my previous post I don't consider this battle one of those circumstances.


Given Vic is already looking into this battle engine oddity, I feel confident it will be fixed in a patch soon.

keep in mind at no time was I ever second guessing my purchase of DCCB. I consider the contribution of games like this to be quite an amazing accomplishment given his limited resources, unlike some other large software development companies.

[&o]

[bwheatley]

Asprqz yea the AT units are battalions (at least thats the size symbol they are using X). But yea no losses on either side points to some weird bug somewhere.

[aspqrz02]

In which case there are almost 3x too many trucks, just for a start [X(]

Not to mention whether counting the personnel of the unit as infantry and allowing them to simultaneously man the guns (of which there are 5 too many of each, Light and Heavy) is double counting [:-]

Fixable, certainly [:)]

Phil

[Redmarkus5]

ORIGINAL: elmo3

ORIGINAL: aspqrz

... Now, seriously, ...

Seriously, you are taking this way too seriously. [:'(] It's a game with many abstractions including combat results. Military history is replete with examples of outnumbered defenders holding out way longer than anyone expected. But somehow I doubt you would be convinced even if anyone could be bothered to quote them here. You have made up your mind the game is broken because of one combat result you don't think is possible and you are entitled to that opinion. Others disagree. Ultimately it will be up to Vic to decide if his game is working as intended or not.

Amen and +1

[Redmarkus5]

One thing I really like about the DCCB forum has been the calm, open, friendly and constructive tone adopted by everyone. I certainly hope it continues and that we don't go the way of some other threads on this site (for which I share the blame!)

[gollum]

I`m maybe wrong (and right now don`t have opportunity to check exact numbers in the game) but I think that the reason for this to happen is not in the infantry component of artillery regiments or (as in this case) in AT-battalions, but in stats of the guns. Every individual of artillery (5 guns) have if I remember correctly 100 hit points - the same amount as one individual of infantry (100 men). The hit points of the defending unit are modified seriously by entrenchment values - I don`t know exactly to what extent but it is not small. This mean that 5 guns are probably as difficult to hit as 100 infantrymen and with good entrenchment values defense value of the defenders is probably much higher than attack of the infantry component of the attackers (and probably even of the tanks) i.e. the probability of hitting something is low for tanks and much lower for attacking infantry (I think that infantry component should have be relatively effective against artillery component (much more than against defending infantry)).
The hit points are the defense value. If the unit is in good for defense terrain and have a decent entrenchment it will have a very good defense.
On the other hand the infantry component of attacking units is not very good at hitting as it will have relatively weak attack value. The main hitter are probably the tanks in this situation. But if the hit points of defenders are higher than attack values of attackers and with some "luck" it is possible that there will be no hits in the battle.

Anyway, I think that hit points values for artillery are probably too high in some situations. Five 37-50 mm AT guns are manned by 30 to 35 or so men. Five 70+ mm field guns are around 40 to 50 men. Five howitzers or corp level cannons - probably no more than 60 to 70 men. And they are with the same base defense value as 100 infantrymen.
Of course in reality one hundred infantrymen are probably 10 to 20 relatively independent group targets (for perspective of hitting) and 5 guns are exactly 5 targets. And in direct fighting it is enough to damage the gun (probably killing or wounding only part of his crew) to put it out of the calculation, but for same effect you have to kill, wound or suppress most of the infantrymen.
So I think that probably solution is to differentiate hit points for guns and infantry individuals - maybe 100 infantrymen should have at least 2 to 3 times hit points of five guns - at least in direct fighting situations (or probably at least to some extent in air attacks).

Of course - as I say - I have relatively little experience with the game (and the base for my assumptions is experience with ATG) and may be wrong.