Turn 1 Axis Panzer Group Combat Results

[Stamb]

ORIGINAL: Beethoven1

And btw, the fact that Soviets (if played by someone who knows to simply set supply priority 4 and forget, anyway) typically will have up to 130% supply in all their units means they have higher CVs.
...

Lol, this is what my opponent told me. How to deal with a supplies as a Soviets!

[MechFO]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

ORIGINAL: Stamb
Please fix Soviet logistic system. It is completely unhistorical that they can use supply priority 4 for almost all of their units if not all, already from the start of the game.

Anyone can use Supply Priority 4. If you're saying they are actually getting far more supplies/ammo/fuel than what is historical, we can have that discussion. I'd like to see what you're seeing and some historical comparisons.

Regards,

- Erik

https://www.hgwdavie.com/blog/2018/3/9/ ... r-19411945

Both sides are heavily oversupplied and there was never a Soviet ability to move entire fronts laterally.

[RedJohn]

Soviet supply is very generous. I cannot speak as to whether that's historically accurate, but the way the game works right now is that a competent Soviets will be in good supply for a massive portion of the game. The only time this isn't true is the first 5 or so turns, give or take a turn. Supply priority 4 works extremely well for the Soviets as they're retreating into depots and whatnot, and receive plenty of trucks from LL.

The Axis will be in a supply surplus (I believe) for the first few turns, but once the front is pushed far back enough they start facing serious issues due to the freight penalty. Supply priority 4 is arguably detrimental to the Axis; the attrition on trucks is massive if you're not close to the railhead and depots. A Soviet who retreats often will cause this issue to be exacerbated as you're unable to capture soviet trucks, and the depots will always lag. It's part of what makes retreating in the south so efficient.

The Soviets must simply set supply priority 4 on turn 1, occasionally repeat that once every couple of turns to ensure every HQ is on supply prio 4, and it can sit like that until they start pushing the Axis back into Poland and the Balkans. This does not seem very realistic, but I freely admit I am not remotely well-read on the war or Soviet logistics. From a gameplay point of view however it's actively detrimental and means the Soviets can very well ignore logistics until they start pushing. Moscow as a NSS is the primary reason for this.

I have recently concluded an axis victory game (against a first time Soviet who refused to retreat, a win was expected) and my opponent lost Moscow in 41. This crippled the Soviet supply. On turn 24 for example, compare the screenshots.

Pictured below is a screenshot of my turn 24 that's just started in a PBEM+ game. The general replacements number is accurate for all of my turn 24's as soviets though, as is the supply demanded/received.

[RedJohn]

Here's his turn 24.

[AlbertN]

I believe Moscow should not be a NSS.

Soviet NSS should be in Urals or so. But I believe that also require some extra railyards in the Urals - I could be wrong.

[ShaggyHiK]

I strongly recommend that Beethoven and Stamb read about the logistical problems of Germany in the period 41-43-45 to begin with.

And then find out about the logistical problems of the USSR in 41-43-45.

And only then to discuss the logistical problem exclusively of the Soviet side.

What you are talking about is not exclusively a problem of the USSR, moreover, it is not a problem. The USSR has warehouses and they are on the defensive. Their supply goes through all railway lines, and not just those that they repair.
The fleet of railway trains and wagons for them were more massive than the German ones, during the retreat, that's what, and the wagons were carefully taken to the East of the country. That allowed to drive along the echelon every 10 minutes.

German logistics simply did not have such an opportunity.

You offer nothing but complain about the Soviets. You have at least one of your "advice" scroll in your head on how the warehouse system should start to work to meet your needs, taking into account how this will affect other aspects of the game.

[Jeff_Ahl]

ORIGINAL: DarkHorse2

The issues of initial excess Soviet supply capacity are presumed to be well founded.

But on the contrary, historically Soviet forces found themselves in supply situations in many instances worse than their German counterparts.

The number of vehicles at their disposal has been documented as woefully inadequate, with numerous Soviet mobile formations lacking so much as being unable to perform combat operations.

Additionally, the Soviet logistical system was being inundated by massive civilian flight from their villages, towns and cities.

German Operation Barbarossa of 1941 resulted in millions of Russian evacuees. The exact number is hard to approximate since many evacuated themselves rather than by the states directive. Some put the number at about sixteen and a half million.

Of primary concern was the hindrance of military movement. You cannot have millions of civilian refugees without it directly impacting roadways, rail-lines or other transportation arteries.

However, in WiTE2, this fact seems to largely be ignored, with populations seeming to teleport vast distances without any impact on the local transportation network.

+1

[malyhin1517]

ORIGINAL: ShaggyHiK

I strongly recommend that Beethoven and Stamb read about the logistical problems of Germany in the period 41-43-45 to begin with.

And then find out about the logistical problems of the USSR in 41-43-45.

And only then to discuss the logistical problem exclusively of the Soviet side.

What you are talking about is not exclusively a problem of the USSR, moreover, it is not a problem. The USSR has warehouses and they are on the defensive. Their supply goes through all railway lines, and not just those that they repair.
The fleet of railway trains and wagons for them were more massive than the German ones, during the retreat, that's what, and the wagons were carefully taken to the East of the country. That allowed to drive along the echelon every 10 minutes.

German logistics simply did not have such an opportunity.

You offer nothing but complain about the Soviets. You have at least one of your "advice" scroll in your head on how the warehouse system should start to work to meet your needs, taking into account how this will affect other aspects of the game.

In general, I agree with you! However, with the good work of the railway, the Russians were very much short of trucks to deliver supplies to the troops. Therefore, it is extremely necessary to drastically reduce the number of trucks for the Soviet side. This will dramatically worsen the supply of Soviet troops and it will be more realistic. By the way, it was so in WITE!

[ShaggyHiK]

ORIGINAL: malyhin1517

WitE1 is an absolutely disgusting combat system. The results of the battles have no pattern and are completely random.

250k Soviet troops cannot move 2 German regiments of 9,500 people. At the same time, of course, they will lose 2-3 thousand people for 50 people from the Germans.

Are we sure we're playing the same games?

And did the Germans have the demotorization of their infantry divisions of part of the motorized divisions because they had enough trucks? The Wehrmacht did not have enough fuel to support all the trucks they had. Do similar supply difficulties arise in Germany, for example, in winter, summer, autumn 42 in the game?

Here is a proposal to pour in with the fix of the Soviet side, although at the moment it is weaker than the German one. The Soviet Union at the moment, if it starts in 41, hardly survives. And as a rule, it loses more than it has lost in history.

Any environment becomes fatal. Even if you do not get surrounded at all, the Soviet troops do not become somehow super strong.

German divisions can smash entire armies with head-on attacks, inflicting significant losses.

Reading the message of people here, I get the feeling that only the USSR had problems and the USSR won the war only thanks to Lend-Lease, and only a wave of corpses that simply swept over Berlin.

Beethoven aware that the USSR was the most motorized country in the world? Yes, not with the best cars, but at the same time, the number of vehicles by 41 was huge, even in the USA this was not the case.

The USSR had supply problems, but they were tied to aspects not reflected in the game. For example, in the game there is no division into types of ammunition.
The USSR had a shortage of anti-tank type ammunition and they were of poor quality.
The loss of the production of gunpowder led to the fact that the guns could be produced, but the ammunition for them was in insufficient quantities.
In the North near Leningrad. The meager railway network and the problems of the loss of the coal industry led to the fact that the trains had to be fired not with coal, but with firewood.
There was a coal crisis.

Is it possible to reflect any of this in the game?

I can bring similar things for the German side. If there is coal in the game? Communication between cities? If you introduce all these things, it turns out that the German economy, for all its virtues, will be so constrained and so incapable of doing the necessary things that the game Germans will howl and lose games simply because.

The losses of the German army in the game are underestimated, the production does not take into account the weak aspects of the German economy of that period. Lack of fuel does not lead to problems on the map.

But of course, the players only want to discuss and fix the Soviet Union.

[Jango32]

The US in 1939 had almost 30 million cars, vans, buses and trucks summed up. The Soviet inventory by that point had surpassed a little over 1 million vehicles for the same vehicle types.

[Stamb]

And Soviet losses in pvp game are around 2.5-3mil max in 1941. While IRL they were 5-6. But what can you prove to a person that is writing such a nonsense?

The Soviet Union at the moment, if it starts in 41, hardly survives. And as a rule, it loses more than it has lost in history.

[Beethoven1]

ORIGINAL: ShaggyHiK

Beethoven aware that the USSR was the most motorized country in the world? Yes, not with the best cars, but at the same time, the number of vehicles by 41 was huge, even in the USA this was not the case.

But of course, the players only want to discuss and fix the Soviet Union.

This is totally false, I don't only want to discuss and fix the Soviet Union.

I have played WITE2 since it was released. In that time, in every single one of the games I have played, I have played as the Soviets, with only one exception. The only exception is the team 4x4 game which I am playing on the Axis side, where you are on the Soviet side.

So if anything, you should suspect me of being biased in favor of the Soviets, not the Axis, since I have almost entirely played the Soviets so far.

Let me remind you, back when the beta patch was released that buffed artillery and which drastically nerfed the Soviets, I was the person who started this thread showing the problems with German artillery (with the help of IDGBIA's tests) - https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=5107101


So, the reason why I am now talking about problems regarding the Soviets being too strong/easy in 1941/42 is because the Soviets are in general terms currently too strong/easy in 1941/42 relative to history, not because I am biased in favor of the Axis. Soviets are so strong currently that I am managing to do fine with them without even using generals or the Soviet air force or Soviet artillery at all - see AAR here, currently up to turn 11 - https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=5141454. If that can't persuade you that Soviets are too strong, then you are just not being objective.

Even while I continue to point out that Soviets are ahistorically strong overall in 1941/42, I also simultaneously have continuously pointed out some ways in which they are not. As I said here, Soviet logistics in the early war is as I said absolutely not a problem and is no more complicated or challenging than setting the whole Red Army to supply priority 4. And another way Soviets are stronger than historical is that they can defend a lot better in the north and center than historical, and if Soviets wish to do so, they can stop Germany from even getting close to reaching Lake Ladoga and cutting off Leningrad. But at the same time, Soviets cannot defend anything like as well as historical in the south. It is effectively impossible for Soviets to hold cities in the south like Kiev and Odessa as long as they historically held against a competent human Axis player. But the fact that Soviets can't viably defend the south doesn't currently actually matter, because Soviets don't actually need the industry there, and losing the VPs there is not going to result in a sudden death loss in 1941.

As far as I know, you are correct to point out that Axis takes lower than historical losses in 1941, but likewise Soviets take lower than historical losses in 1941, which you neglect to mention - up to 5-6 million casualties or so, whereas in a typical game Soviets will take far fewer casualties.

So if one of us is biased, I would suggest that it is not me.

[AlbertN]

Just chipping in about Odessa as I feel it is a 'special situation' where decisional power comes in.

Historically it was delegated to the Romanians to besiege, and Soviets had meaningful troops in, and brought replacements / reinforcements via sea.
In game I often see the 11th Army storming Odessa, with the needed support of German pionere and specialized assets for.

So that's where I believe player decision affects the outcome - at the cost of many German losses and exhaustion.

[Beethoven1]

ORIGINAL: AlbertN

Just chipping in about Odessa as I feel it is a 'special situation' where decisional power comes in.

Historically it was delegated to the Romanians to besiege, and Soviets had meaningful troops in, and brought replacements / reinforcements via sea.
In game I often see the 11th Army storming Odessa, with the needed support of German pionere and specialized assets for.

So that's where I believe player decision affects the outcome - at the cost of many German losses and exhaustion.

There is really no decision. Historically, 11th army was needed elsewhere. But in the game, 11th Army is not needed elsewhere, because the other German forces in the south are plenty to handle Kiev and the rest of the south, and plenty to ensure that those areas fall earlier than historical even if Soviets are dumb enough to defend them.

In addition, 11th army starts right by Odessa, and Odessa is on the way to anywhere it would plausibly go, so it may as well hit Odessa on the way.


You could say that it is a decision if Soviets in the south were strong enough that they could put a lot of units around Proskurov etc and that if they did, it was enough to be able to delay German rail repair, so that forces 11th army to go up there and help deal with that or something. But in reality, there is no such need for 11th Army to do that, because a competent human Germany player will have advanced further and destroyed more of the southwestern front than is historical and will have made things like an ahistorical Lvov and/or Rovno pocket even starting on turn 1.

[AlbertN]

I agree to the fact the Southern German openers are far too broad right now.

I'd merrily take a hardcoded 'Cannot get past that point' instead of 'If you go past you activate the Southern Front', with Soviets units frozen and also unable to bomb in Romania or so during T1. (But I'd add more T1 T2 Soviet slowness in reaction in turn)

But it's not that the 11th Army was really 'needed elsewhere' - it was just deemed more profitable to screen Odessa since it was not a jumping spot for offensives - and move on.

[ShaggyHiK]

Soviet losses are quite high, if you start to get into encirclement, you can easily reach 5 million people. Only if the USSR suffers historical losses in the game, this will mean that it will lose Leningrad / Moscow / Rostov and, in general, by winter the front line will be much easterly and all from the fact that the logistics in the game provide excellent supplies for both sides. German players can go that far.

In reality, even unrestrained tank troops depend on the amount of fuel in the warehouse. If there are conditionally 1000 tons, then they can operate at a distance of 20 hexes, and if there are 500 tons, then only 10 hexes.

Resupply vehicles gobble up fuel on their own and so if the fuel supply level falls below the level of the vehicle's need for the round trip, the supply has no effect, the tanks can sit waiting for weeks of fuel.

Is there a similar restriction on the supply of fuel?
There is a simplified version. 25 hexes from skuld = can act.

Cargoes are automatically converted into fuel when needed.

The speed of laying the railway with building parts in the game is absolutely overestimated. In fact, the German player is able to duplicate his railway lines by winter.
That's why I say that the Germans do not encounter problems with the delivery of fuel. As a result, their mobility is increased.

[Jango32]

Repairing the railway was neither difficult nor a long process. Repairing the railyard stations and waiting until enough trains ran through the line were two things that took a while. Railyard repair rate could be lowered in-game, whereas I don't think the game will add trains as a separate entity.

[ShaggyHiK]

ORIGINAL: Jango32

Repairing the railway was neither difficult nor a long process. Repairing the railyard stations and waiting until enough trains ran through the line were two things that took a while. Railyard repair rate could be lowered in-game, whereas I don't think the game will add trains as a separate entity.

Indeed, in order to restore thousands of kilometers of railway tracks, metal, people and time are not needed.
Not to mention the fact that the Germans, even with the complete capture of the railway track, could not fit the size of the track and would still have to carry out work all the way, shifting the track almost from scratch.

Maybe from a technical point of view, the process itself is not very complicated. Dug out the embankment removed the old rails I changed the concrete guide to a wider one, for this, of course, I don’t need any knowledge of a higher physicist, but he eats people’s materials and time.

[Jango32]

Converting from a wider to a narrower track is a relatively simple engineering job. Provided the whole track is not torn or blown apart, which was the case for most of the track captured from June to October, all that needs to be done is pull the 'spikes' to the track 'ties' on one track, move the rail closer and then use new or used 'spikes to fix the rail down again on a fresh part of the tie. No surveying, blueprints or new construction was required for converting the gauge. This is only strictly speaking for converting the gauge to allow non-Soviet trains to run on it, there were other problems with the tracks that had to be addressed which affected both German and Soviet rolling stock, but in the game it's abstracted away.


In any event, Gercke estimated that around 20km of track could be converted on average each day. As it turns out, he was not far from the mark. Rolling stock was already moving along the Brest-Baranovichi line on the 30th of June 1941 with four supply trains carrying 2000 tons of supplies arrived at Oranczyce, 85km east of the prewar border. Three trains immediately went east and reached Baranovichi on the 1st/2nd of July, around 210km into the USSR. The railway to Minsk from Brest-Litovsk was completed by the 5th of July and four supply trains arrived on the same day. Around this time the railway repair from Vilnius was also converging to Minsk sooner or later. By late July/early August the railway repair had regauged almost as far as Smolensk via Orsha. So I'd say that the current rate in-game fits the bill for railway conversion.

[DarkHorse2]

ORIGINAL: Jango32

In any event, Gercke estimated that around 20km of track could be converted on average each day. As it turns out, he was not far from the mark. Rolling stock was already moving along the Brest-Baranovichi line on the 30th of June 1941 with four supply trains carrying 2000 tons of supplies arrived at Oranczyce, 85km east of the prewar border. Three trains immediately went east and reached Baranovichi on the 1st/2nd of July, around 210km into the USSR. The railway to Minsk from Brest-Litovsk was completed by the 5th of July and four supply trains arrived on the same day. Around this time the railway repair from Vilnius was also converging to Minsk sooner or later. By late July/early August the railway repair had regauged almost as far as Smolensk via Orsha. So I'd say that the current rate in-game fits the bill for railway conversion.

I know what book you got that from. [;)]