Realism discussion

[sven6345789]

first, let's take a look at the historical situation. The german offensive in the east was a big gamble. The chances of winning seemed god, but actually, they were low. It all comes down to the aim. Why do you start a war? Do you have limited aims, or do you want to destroy the other side, as the germans planned during or after Barbarossa?. A limited victory would have been possible. Had the german leadership approached Stalin in oktober 1941, they could probably have gained parts of the Baltic states, Bessarabia (for Rumania), parts of the Territory Finland lost during the Winter War and so on. But that was not the Plan of Hitler. He wanted to conquer the Soviet Union and exterminate the populace, nothing less. This was an aim beyond the reach of the Wehrmacht. The Germans had only very little knowledge of the total OOB of the russian Army. They had no idea of the actual strength beyond the Smolensk Kiew line. They had no idea of how many reserves the russians had. In August 1941, the german war machine could no longer push the russians back all along the front. They had to decide, Moscow, or Kiev, or Leningrad. They only had the strength for one target. They chose Kiev. The original plan was to destroy the red army in 2 months, followed by mopping up. Obviously, the original plan had already failed. FRom this point onwards, the germans had no real chance of winning their ultimate goal. Hitler would not accept any other but the ultimate goal, and that doomed germany.
Now, In the game you want to have a realistic chance for winning. You also have hindsight. You know what the russians are capable of, you can memorize the russian starting positions (leading to the low pocket) and the russian player knows what he is up against, and that there will be a bad winter in 1941. So, the position is different from the beginning. To give both sides a reasonable chance of winning, you need to form Victory conditions that compare you to historic results. Let's not forget that the soviet player does not reach a decisive victory if he reaches Berlin as historical, but only a i believe marginal one. You need to be better than history. THis is obviously easier for the russians to accomplish. I have never seen a flawless boardgame of the russian front, and i doubt that i will ever see one. Still, some are good a simulating the ebb and flow of the battles on the front An old one is AH "Russian Front". This game simulates both sides quite well, but even in this game, it is almost impossible for the germans to win in 1941. The more detail you put in a game, the more unforseen problems can arise. We have seen it in the development of this game. WITP-AE has been mentioned in this thread, and although a lot of work has been put into it, it does not work acceptably without house rules. Historically, Australia was beyond the reach of Japan. Only a major effort would have made it possible to conquer it. The Japanese never had the chance to mobilize the resources, not to mention the Army/Navy rivalry, which is totally absent in the game. WITP-AE is also a game where Hindsight is important. No japanese player would pull of a Midway operation the way it was done historically. Why? Because we know what could happen if you do.Loose those carriers, and the good old days are over. China is another matter.
Let's accept it. A game can get close to history, but it will always be a game, not a simulation. A game about the east front will never be able to give both sides the same chance of winning, similar to a game about the pacific war (not to mention the western front, wonder who wants to play the germans in war in the west?) If you want that, you must accept ahistorical possibilities.
I want a game that simulates the historical ebb and flow of the war and simulates both sides well. And it should be fun. I do not want to memorize the soviet setup or do math regarding how many hexes i can loose each turn and still win. That is not my game.

[Numdydar]

+1 to this [:)]

[darbycmcd]

I am sort of confused about the idea that keeps popping up on the board about an Axis "win" in the early war, not just with Sven by the way. What are people basing this idea on? Given the nature of the leadership of both sides and the nature of the war (genocidal) which was obvious to both sides, what combination of events would lead to some sort of peace settlement? It is.... not obvious to me. Otherwise, the Axis conveived of victory as destroying the Soviet ability to wage war, which was basically the A-A line, which actually CAN happen in the game (basically clear the board). Failing that, the game is just what the title says, 1941-1945, the end is when Berlin falls.... Some players feel that if the Axis can't win it in '42 it is somehow 'unfair', but well I guess that is the problem with the war, it really was unfair.

[loki100]

I think you are basically right.

What could have happened was the Stalin regime could have fallen in 1941, quite possibly with the loss of Leningrad as the trigger. His hatred of the city was well known so it would have been easy to say it has been allowed to happen out of treachery. This also fits the psychological deal that many in the mid/senior echelons of party and state had accepted.

Crudely this was that only Stalin's methods guarenteed the security of the USSR, and many, inside and outside the USSR accepted that (incl my own grandparents). If there was a-priori evidence that this had not been the case then the psychological barrier against a military coup would have been broken. Add to that, in 1942 some Soviet officers were openly discussing replacing the party with the army as the means to administer the state.

Now none of that would have triggered a surrender, merely regime change. I believe the Soviets would have fought on even if pushed out of European Russia and simply resorted to ongoing partisan war. They had the example of hte German occupation of the Ukraine and Baltic from 1917 to Nov 1918 and that they could essentially out wait them.

[SigUp]

ORIGINAL: loki100

I believe the Soviets would have fought on even if pushed out of European Russia and simply resorted to ongoing partisan war. They had the example of hte German occupation of the Ukraine and Baltic from 1917 to Nov 1918 and that they could essentially out wait them.

I think the Sino-Japanese War is an example of what would have happened. Basically the Nationalist regime retreated deep into Central China while refusing to surrender, thus overstretching Japanese capacities. After the Battle of Wuhan 1938 Japan lost the ability to perform deep and permanent strikes (until Ichigo six years later). Of course Japan still mounted attacks, some very successful ones, but afterwards the IJA nearly always had to retreat to their starting positions.

[Walloc]

ORIGINAL: Gabriel B.

I did not bother to compute slovakia , italy or hungary because i was certain their losses were low.

RAsmus in your opinion from where the extra german manpower comes , ariving units or returning disabled ?

the manpower production seams ok except maybe for Poland .

Hi Gabriel,

I havent forgotten ur request i just hvent had time to d much about it. non the less i point u too teh chart i just posted here:

fb.asp?m=3394514

If one looks at the replacement, reinforcements and kickback from disabled pool and compare to the historic numbers some noticeble differences appeare plus if u include what actually leave the Ostheer and compares to ingame u get to explain much of the difference. Again as said earlier there are otehr stuff like Hiwi's that also play in.

Apart from a few month in spring 42 and 43 and a single month outside that. The difference in abgang and zugange is clear there is a continuos drain on the ostherr that doesnt match the replacement/reinforcement. First the game doesnt seem to take all of the former into account and then the gains dont match either.
One could ofc say that what if u dont take the historic losses u loss less and u should, but this takes place in an evaulation of the historic and it shows teh difference of the ingame to compare if with hsitroic figurs what happens to the manpower levels. Im my above post i stopped at july 1942 but it doesnt stop there we seen 43 armys of above 4.1m germans and i have charts similar to the one in the post in the other thead im poiting too up too late 1944.

Ill see if i dont get time to write up some thing more throughly using more math to showing the differences,

Rasmus

[Gabriel B.]

Comparing incoming historicaly vs game :

814,600 until end of March .

Game :

reinforcements : 880,059 (397,666 until end of december).

Basicly reinforcements alone ( without manpower recruitment ) is higher than Zugang ( and i did not count luftwafe units ) .

Since I doubt these units arived at the front severly understrenght , german manpower recruitment and returning disabled are pushing the german orbat higher.


A posible solution might be to have these units arive as empty and use the recruitment and returning disabled to fill them up . That would prevent double counting and reach a more historical orbat . There is a drawback however, german front line units would be understreght and take far more losses as historicaly as result .

[Schmart]

What about adding a time limit for player turns, similar to competitive chess? It would force players to make decisions more quickly, some things would be forgotten, mistakes made, etc. It would eliminate the ability to spend hours maximizing and micro-managing every last detail every single turn. It might increase the turn tempo/playability (quicker turn arounds?). It would put some real life pressure/constraints on players to make quick decisions and prioritize. A player could pause the turn (for bathroom breaks, phonecalls, screaming children/wags, or even to continue later in the day, etc), but it would bring up a separate screen so that the game is literally paused and functions are unavailable, not giving the player a chance to review or study data, map, units, etc. It might simulate some of the Russian command paralysis, as there are more units to manage in the same amount of time as for the Axis player. Mud turn time would focus on administrative re-organization as there isn't much combat or movement.

Generally, it would add in more of a human element to the game, rather than the ability to continuously optimize and micro-manage every single detail, something real-life commanders didn't have.

[rmonical]

The whole problem with realism discussions is the Germans are supposed to lose when playing to historical constraints. Assuming equal ability, the Germans should lose badly. Historically, the ability at the scale represented by the game was manifestly not equal in 1941 so the Germans did very well. With more competent Soviet leadership, the Germans should invariably do less well.

To make a playable game, the designers give the Germans super-normal abilities in 1941. In GG WITE,the Germans can detach two Panzer Corps from AGC and achieve historical results for the next 4 weeks. German mobile corps can suddenly get a full load of fuel while deep in Russia.

On the oither hand, after the 1941 rout against even the best Soviet commanders, it is all downhill for the Germans. In addition to the blizzard, a host of design artifacts have serious impact on the German and almost none on the Soviet side. I have discussed these ad nausium in other threads.

To me, that the very best German player routinely wins against competent Soviet players indicates the design as history is broken (sorry Michael T).

Once we have a game which reasonably recreates history, then we can move on to what made the original War in Europe such a hit - alternatives and variations.

Right now, we are in the same limbo as we were in 1974 with SPI WITE in hand but not having German production until SPI WIE came out in 1976.