AAR vs Seminole

[DeletedUser1769703214]

The Soviets did not have radios in their tanks did they? I thought I read that a long time ago. Is that true?

[Sammy5IsAlive]

I think a better example would be the historical Lepel counteroffensive - it was in a similar area at pretty much the same time. Interestingly the Soviet forces were roughly similar to this battle - c.100k men and c.1000 tanks - so I'm not sure I'd agree with the assertion that the scale/coordination of this Soviet attack is ahistorical.

What does seem off is the outcome - in the historical Lepel battle the Panzer divisions (note plural - the Soviet force were fighting 2 Pz Divs, with another subsequently joining) were roughly handled and appear to have suffered significant losses but in the end the counteroffensive broke down and the Soviet tank forces were effectively wiped out. Whilst you could argue that had the Soviets managed to concentrate on a single Pz Div as in Alberts battle they could have inflicted higher tank losses and suffered less of their own I don't think they could have shifted the balance of losses to the extent we have seen in the battle above. I'd argue that they certainly should take way more of their own losses.

https://codenames.info/operation/boriso ... operation/

Albert I do have some gameplay thoughts but have to rush off to football. One brief point where I agree with you - if the Soviet is able to use admin movement to withdraw their attacking forces to safety this is a problem. The gamble of making a large scale assault like this should be that you leave 100k men in a risky forward position with low CPP.

[Sammy5IsAlive]

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain


The Soviets did not have radios in their tanks did they? I thought I read that a long time ago. Is that true?

Correct - I believe they used flags at the beginning of the war. Mad when you think about it.

[AlbertN]

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain


The Soviets did not have radios in their tanks did they? I thought I read that a long time ago. Is that true?

Not in 1941.
Only the officers had radios.
The other tank commanders had to maneuver of their own will or get out of the turrets, and signal to each other with hands or flags, akin to old fashioned ship signaling!

[Jango32]

I'll provide two Imgur albums I have made that I think are relevant to the discussion.

https://imgur.com/a/x6HBHM6

https://imgur.com/a/hBQidBl

EDIT: added the correct images for Dubno-Rovno-Lvov-Lutsk's aerial considerations

[DeletedUser1769703214]

ORIGINAL: Sammy5IsAlive

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain


The Soviets did not have radios in their tanks did they? I thought I read that a long time ago. Is that true?

Correct - I believe they used flags at the beginning of the war. Mad when you think about it.

How in the hell could someone coordinate so many tanks if you were not using radio but flags and/or hand signals that could or could not be seen in the heat of battle?

How about in the Air? Did the Soviets use Radio in the air?

[DeletedUser1769703214]

ORIGINAL: AlbertN

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain


The Soviets did not have radios in their tanks did they? I thought I read that a long time ago. Is that true?

Not in 1941.
Only the officers had radios.
The other tank commanders had to maneuver of their own will or get out of the turrets, and signal to each other with hands or flags, akin to old fashioned ship signaling!

Seems to me the Soviets would have a "clusterf*ck" of a mess out there with everyone doing what-ever-they-want instead of being lead properly.

[xhoel]

ORIGINAL: DesertedFox

So you two would like to see the Russians shackled by forcing them to stand fast and also have no ability to co-ordinate any attacks whatsoever until a certain time frame, say, November 1942.

No, because I never made that claim so you are fighting a strawman. I made the claim that, the Soviets coordinating such massive attacks and managing to basically destroy the combat power of a German panzer division due to the excessive panzer loses is not realistic.

I never said the Soviets shouldnt be allowed to attack and have actually praised aggressive Soviet players on multiple occasions and I have also praised that the game allows for Soviet counterattacks to be successful and actually inflict casualties on the Germans unlike WitE 1 when in many cases Panzer divisions were losing 3 tanks and the Soviets were losing 100.

Also, me claiming that the panzer losses from an attack in early July 1941 are excessive is totally the same as me wanting the Soviets to have I quote "no ability to co-ordinate any attacks whatsoever". Truly good faith assumptions on your part.

ORIGINAL: vvs007

The ratio of tank losses is absolutely meaningless from the point of view of the historicity of the battle ...

You made the claim that German kill counts are exagerated. I countered it and gave you an example that resembles the battle in the AAR. Now you are claiming the ratio of losses is meaningless. So all you are doing is shifting the goalposts. No matter what argument I use next, you will just shift the goalposts again, so whats the point of discussing this?

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain


How in the hell could someone coordinate so many tanks if you were not using radio but flags and/or hand signals that could or could not be seen in the heat of battle?

In fantasy world everything is possible HLYA [:D]

[Sammy5IsAlive]

Just some additional thoughts...

1) on regiments - whilst I agree that you have to be cautious in using them I do think they have their place in certain situations and this may be one of them. On T3 in AGC you are going to be in a situation where your Panzer Corps are still well ahead of their supporting infantry and the Soviet player is starting to regain their balance and ability to mount significant counter attacks. In that situation I think one possibility is to break down your more 'repairable' Motorized Inf divisions and use them as pickets in front of your more brittle Panzer Divs. One thing that does is forces the Soviet player to split their forces. So rather than one set piece attack as above where all their resources are committed at once they are forced to use those forces piecemeal. It gives the still very iffy Soviet leadership structure 3 chances to fail their rolls rather than just 1 (and in the other direction it gives your better leaders three chances to pass their rolls rather than just one). Similarly it splits the SU commitment - so rather than being able to commit 1.5k 'fresh' guns to a single attack as above the Soviet player may have to recommit increasingly fatigued/disrupted SUs to their second and third attacks. Finally it complicates the Soviet defensive plans against your counter attack on the next turn - rather than having a single point of focus to set up a defence around your opponent has to defend on three different axes. That gives them more opportunities to make mistakes that you can then punish.

2) on Assault Fronts - I'm aware that Seminole was not using AFs but I think this still illustrates the issue a bit. For me the issue comes in not on this early turn but on the 10-15 turns that come afterwards. By making this attack he has used up half of his CPPs for a very large grouping of units. Many of them would potentially lose the rest of their CPP from your counterattack next turn. With AFs they will regain those CPPs twice as quick and if you repeat that process over the whole of the 41 campaign you end up with an issue in terms of balancing.

3) on historic vs non-historic outcomes/instances - I think that with a IGOUGO game on week long turns you are always going to get some odd things happening turn by turn, especially in the more fluid combat in 1941. Similarly you get issues of scale. In WITW there are a couple of scenarios that open with the Market Garden and Battle of the Bulge set pieces. You have two very famous battles that in a 1 week turn/10x10km hex context end up feeling fairly inconsequential in terms of the overall scenario. I'd suggest that 1941 in WITE (1 or 2) kind of follows that principle but written bigger. The game is (correctly in my view) balanced around the whole war and not just the first 5 months. So between two roughly evenly matched players you are not going to see fireworks and auto-victories in 1941 - that campaigning season is about putting yourself in a position to 'win the game' later in the war on a larger/more strategic scale. So for me the problem is not so much with that concept in terms of game design but with the overall balancing which seems to be making it very difficult for an Axis player (in HvH at least) to have any prospect of getting that 'later war' victory.

4) Seminole is an exceptional player - he was one of the more active and successful WITW players and has continued on been battering his opponents in the WITE2 scenario AARs that he has reported. Personally I'm completely comfortable with the elite players being able to do things that on the face of it are 'ahistorical'. Where the balancing issue comes in for me is where those players struggle to have the same success on a particular side. If you both have the time/inclination to swap I'd be interested to see what Seminole (or HLYA if you managed to agree a game?) is able to do as the Axis against you on the Soviet side.

[AlbertN]

I've only answer to point 1 here - MOT Divisions tend to fight since Panzers are brittle. So they lack the MP to then split in regiments and get where needed. And if a pocket is to be made, Panzers are needed as well.

On the point 2, I've discussed Assault Fronts and other changes in the thread for Assault Fronts.

I think for point 3 the bigger issues may be later or the like. Like the Stalingrad to Berlin scenario envision an encirclement that assumes by default the German forces stay put and do not try to 'block it'. I feel it will be somehow easy to create pockets in late game on a static front. Especially with the current combat model.

4 - Not against playing Soviets, but as I am a newb there, with assault fronts.

[governato]

ORIGINAL: Sammy5IsAlive
3) on historic vs non-historic outcomes/instances - I think that with a IGOUGO game on week long turns you are always going to get some odd things happening turn by turn, especially in the more fluid combat in 1941.

A bit OT, but on the main forum there is a new game announcement for a WEGO 42/43 'Stalingrad campaign that is very interesting. Battalion scale tho. Wonder how WEGO 'd do at the scale of GWITE where otherwise the week long turns seem a bit too long for the fairly detailed/small map scale.

[GloriousRuse]

To answer the tank-radio question, assuming this is a deliberate attack in a small area...by using tight platoon/company formations centered around one command radio tank. The individual platoons aren't very flexible and suffer tactically, but if your basic goal is just to get a few hundred tanks into the fight along rouhg sectors of responsibility to begin with, it works just fine. Later (1943+) German panzer manuals will stress the necessity of platoons and companies being able to execute approach marches, defensive occupation, and pre-attack assembly under radio silence given the technological paradigm of the time meant listening and radio direction for radio was not that difficult. Those wing tank radios really were about making better killing platoons and companies, not coordinating large units.

[DeletedUser1769703214]

ORIGINAL: GloriousRuse

To answer the tank-radio question, assuming this is a deliberate attack in a small area...by using tight platoon/company formations centered around one command radio tank. The individual platoons aren't very flexible and suffer tactically, but if your basic goal is just to get a few hundred tanks into the fight along rouhg sectors of responsibility to begin with, it works just fine. Later (1943+) German panzer manuals will stress the necessity of platoons and companies being able to execute approach marches, defensive occupation, and pre-attack assembly under radio silence given the technological paradigm of the time meant listening and radio direction for radio was not that difficult. Those wing tank radios really were about making better killing platoons and companies, not coordinating large units.

Interesting. But if you reach your objective how would you get the follow up orders? What if things changed and you need to go elsewhere. Had to be a communication apparatus set up for coordination & command & if you din't have radio's that had to be extremely difficult. I know this is getting semi off topic but related but didn't the Germans have many more field radios for communication too than the Soviets? I'm sorry up front I am not the big historical WW2 history buff but know enough to make me dangerous generally interested since a communicating army would move with greater precision than one that did not.

[DesertedFox]

Hardluck, this article might help.

Firstly it's well known about the lack of radios in Russian tanks. This was further compromised by the fact in the T-34 the commander was also the loader. Thus the Germans were able to use their tactical advantage and experience to outmaneuver the T-34's and KV's. Forget the rest of the trashy Russian light tanks, they were hopeless.

However, the T-34 and KVs had the advantage of much better armor and the better ability to traverse over rough and especially wet terrain due to their wider tracks. The Germans also had superior optics but had to close the distance anyway to try and penetrate the Russian armor.

The Effects during the Mid-War period
By early 1943 'all' Soviet Armoured formations had radios in company and platoon commander's tanks, though this might have been later on the 'quiet' fronts.

So they were able with the same limited radios to conduct Operation Uranus, a fantasy according to Herr xhoel. So operation Uranus actually occurred and succeeded despite the Soviets still having limited radios. They also defeated Manstein's relief attempt. To boot the battle at Brody was a close-run thing. The Russian came close to a victory.


https://www.manxgamingsolutions.com/ww2soviettankradios.html

[DeletedUser1769703214]

ORIGINAL: DesertedFox

Hardluck, this article might help.

Firstly it's well known about the lack of radios in Russian tanks. This was further compromised by the fact in the T-34 the commander was also the loader. Thus the Germans were able to use their tactical advantage and experience to outmaneuver the T-34's and KV's. Forget the rest of the trashy Russian light tanks, they were hopeless.

However, the T-34 and KVs had the advantage of much better armor and the better ability to traverse over rough and especially wet terrain due to their wider tracks. The Germans also had superior optics but had to close the distance anyway to try and penetrate the Russian armor.

The Effects during the Mid-War period
By early 1943 'all' Soviet Armoured formations had radios in company and platoon commander's tanks, though this might have been later on the 'quiet' fronts.

So they were able with the same limited radios to conduct Operation Uranus, a fantasy according to Herr xhoel. So operation Uranus actually occurred and succeeded despite the Soviets still having limited radios. They also defeated Manstein's relief attempt. To boot the battle at Brody was a close-run thing. The Russian came close to a victory.


https://www.manxgamingsolutions.com/ww2soviettankradios.html

Thank you much! I will give it a read.

[Jango32]

https://imgur.com/a/T8VqLZk

Attaching an album analysing the TOE differences between the 1941 Panzer division and the 1941 Tank division.

[xhoel]

ORIGINAL: DesertedFox


So they were able with the same limited radios to conduct Operation Uranus, a fantasy according to Herr xhoel.

Operation Uranus was launched in November 1942, 17 months later and was a grand scale offensive. We are talking about a single battle on the 6th of July 1941. Make actual arguments and stop being bad faith.

ORIGINAL: DesertedFox

Forget the rest of the trashy Russian light tanks, they were hopeless.

I am pretty sure that if we look at the details of the battle, out of those 900 tanks the Soviets used, most of those would be light tanks, that you yourself consider hopeless.

ORIGINAL: DesertedFox

To boot the battle at Brody was a close-run thing. The Russian came close to a victory.

Yes, losing 800 tanks and completely decimating your mechanized forces is what I would call a close victory.

[DesertedFox]

I am pretty sure that if we look at the details of the battle, out of those 900 tanks the Soviets used, most of those would be light tanks, that you yourself consider hopeless.

Only about 13 % if the Soviet tanks modern T-34 and KV. So how does this justify your claim the battle in question from this game is "pure fantasy" when compared to Brody? It doesn't.

Operation Uranus was launched in November 1942, 17 months later and was a grand scale offensive. We are talking about a single battle on the 6th of July 1941. Make actual arguments and stop being bad faith.

quote:

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain


How in the hell could someone coordinate so many tanks if you were not using radio but flags and/or hand signals that could or could not be seen in the heat of battle?

In fantasy world everything is possible HLYA

Time frame doesn't matter. You claimed in response to HardLucks comment re using flags and hand signals it is pure fantasy that they could organize a proper attack using such communication methods. Well, they used flags and hand signals well into 1944 including the failed Kharkov offensive in May 1942 where they did push (ie got a 2 to 1 better combat value to force a retreat) the Germans back initially. Thus your claim of pure fantasy, is exactly that, PURE FANTASY on your part.

Yes, losing 800 tanks and completely decimating your mechanized forces is what I would call a close victory.

The 11th Panzer division was completely surrounded at one stage and if the Soviet Corp had not wandered off into nowhere the outcome could have been different. Of course, such strategy is beyond your grasp, CLEARLY.


You have provided no evidence what so ever that the outcome in this game's battle was "pure fantasy". I have given examples of successful Russian attacks "using flags" and destroyed the 100% relevance you claim between Brody and this battle, in my very first post.

All you have provided is useless rhetoric which would be right at home in the opening scene of Peter Jackson's next movie.

[xhoel]

ORIGINAL: DesertedFox

Only about 13 % if the Soviet tanks modern T-34 and KV. So how does this justify your claim the battle in question from this game is "pure fantasy" when compared to Brody? It doesn't.

What? Learn to write first, then we can talk.

ORIGINAL: DesertedFox
Time frame doesn't matter.

Yes it does, because I specified that the Soviets didnt have the abilities in July 1941 and you used an example of a Soviet attack in November 1942.

ORIGINAL: DesertedFox
The 11th Panzer division was completely surrounded at one stage and if the Soviet Corp had not wandered off into nowhere the outcome could have been different.

A lot of things could have been differnt in the war, if different decisions had been made or different events have happened. What a shocker!

ORIGINAL: DesertedFox

You have provided no evidence what so ever that the outcome in this game's battle was "pure fantasy".

I have and also countered your claims. No point talking to fanboys that pretend they are being objective. You entered this talk by attacking a strawman position, have shifted the goalposts multiple times and have made constant bad faith arguments. You are clearly not interested in a discussion, nor are you interested in hearing what others have to say about the game.

There is no point talking to you and I wont waste any more of my time with it. Enjoy fighing strawmen arguments, you seem to be brilliant at it.

[Aurelian]

nvm.