New project: Spanish Civil war

[Bombur]

I´m starting a new scenario, depicting the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). The idea is to have a completely reworked SF table, using customized units. Up to now the following units were created.
Tanks:
T-26 (Republican only)
CV-33 (Nationalist only)
Armored cars
UNL-35 (Republican only)
Guns
88mm flak (Nationalist only)-added significant AT capacity
Infantry
Militia (Both sides)
Dinaminteros (workers armed with dinamite-Republican only)
Planes
Ju-87 (Removed much of AT capacity-earlier Ju-87´s weren´t effective against tanks)-Nationalist only
Fiat CR-32 (Nationalist only)
I-16 (Republican only)
He-51 (Nationalist only)
Ships
BB España class (one ship for each side, the Republicans got the Jaime I and the Nationalists the España). These ships cannot be built, as they were imported from Britain in early 1900´s.
New structure.
Naval base (Ferrol and possibly the Balearic islands). Can built supplies and ships only
-Any suggestions are welcomed. I´m particularly interested on what equipment was used by both sides. I won´t use those pices that were ocasionally improvised and used in small numbers, just those with significant emlpoyment.
-Map, I´m trying to convert a TOAW map to AT.

[Captain Cruft]

Great stuff.

This engine really is a modder's dream come true!

[Bombur]

Some questions.
-Besides the two battleships, what were the Spanish ships?
-How to simulate the infantry? I´m planning three basic units:
1-Militia
2-Rifle units
3-Military police (in Spain those units were better armed than the regular army)
-Question is:
-Were SMG used by infantry in the Civil war? What units?
-Foreign equipment.
-IMO, advanced Soviet, German and Italian reinforcements must be purchased with PP´s. Is there a better alternative?

[PDiFolco]

Bombur,
For infantry maybe you could single out the "elite" Nationalist troops. Also it should be important to simulate the general dissension between anarchists and communists in the Republican camp.
Don't think there were real SMG formations in the Spanish army, and overall equipment in the republican side was rather haphazard and hetereogeneous.
Foreign intervention should imho be handled entirely by events, themselves dependent on strategic situation and some random factors, PP (ie economic production) isn't a realistic option. Soviet and Western Europe only contributed material and some "counselors", no real troops.

[Bombur]

ORIGINAL: PDiFolco

Bombur,
For infantry maybe you could single out the "elite" Nationalist troops. Also it should be important to simulate the general dissension between anarchists and communists in the Republican camp.
Don't think there were real SMG formations in the Spanish army, and overall equipment in the republican side was rather haphazard and hetereogeneous.
Foreign intervention should imho be handled entirely by events, themselves dependent on strategic situation and some random factors, PP (ie economic production) isn't a realistic option. Soviet and Western Europe only contributed material and some "counselors", no real troops.

-You raised some good points, I was considering how to deal with them.

1-Elite nationalist forces: the Moroccan regulars and the Carlist milita (requetes) were well armed and well trained...but..to what extent a elite rifle SF must be different from a rifle unit from the People´s army? My idea is to create carlist and Moroccan units with high Exp and morale values, but these would be "normal" rifle squads (maybe with more mg´s and mortars...I´m not sure.
2-The "Civil was inside the civil war" (between anarchists and the Negrin government backed by communists) should be simulated. My idea is to have a loss of readiness in mid 1937 and a partial recovery thereafter. Not sure on excatly how to achieve it.
3-European powers. Don´t forget that the Italians send real troops and their navy also took part in the battle. Germany didn´t send land forces but they sent the Kondor legion (air units and flak)
4-We can agree, no SMG´s....but what about Italians? Did they use SMG´s?


-New unit created:
-Military police. Will simulate both the Nationalist Guardia Civil and the Republican asaltos. Slightly better statistics than Rifle SF and a bonus in urban terrain.
-Bilbao armored car (up to know it´s only Republican but I should find a way to make it Nationalist once Bilbao is captured). Idea is maybe to create a separate people for the Basques.

[Bombur]

New unit created:

Canarias class heavy cruisers (two CA´s for the Nationalists)

[PDiFolco]

About Elite units, yes, exp/morale can be used to simiulate it, but if troops were better equipped, supplied in ammo and so on they can have their own SFType with better fightinh ability. I'm not that versed in the Spanish civil war to be sure what should be done.

[Bombur]

Maybe we could create a "elite Rifle" SF for these units. Wouldn´t be an upgrade as I want both sides to have the better equipped and less equipped units. These SF would be placed in Carlist units, Moroccan units and Soviet armed units of the People´s army.

[Bombur]

-Created Basque people. Bilbao armore car can be recruited only in Basque cities. Basques start under republican rule and they suffer a combat and production penalty under nationalist rule.
-Unit created:
-Elite infantry (Moroccan regulars, requetes and Soviet equipped elite units)

[Bombur]

-Question:
-How to simulate the ability of fast bombers, like the Do-17 and SB-2, to evade enemy fighters with their high speed. Increasing defense values will make the fighter killers, which they weren´t. I´m considering to increase their hit points to improve survivability

[Bombur]

-Armored truck (both sides)

[SMK-at-work]

How about dropping the attack factors of the fighters so they jsut dont' damage the bombers (and each otehr) as much?  they were all very lightly armed at the time IIRC - 2 mg's for many including the 109's, a hmg or 2 on the CR32, 4 mg's on later I-16's?

[Bombur]

-As a general idea it´s great. But it won´t fix the specific trouble with fast bombers, as decreasing fighter attack factor across the board will make them less effective against slow bombers too.

[PDiFolco]

There's a unit ability to avoid hits (expressed in %), used for subs, it could be used for the modern bombers. Or as proposed give them more hp, this will decrease their mortality.
 

[Alan Sharif]

This all sounds very promsing indeed. Thanks for all the hard work you are putting into designing this scenario.

[seille]

ORIGINAL: Bombur

-Question:
-How to simulate the ability of fast bombers, like the Do-17 and SB-2, to evade enemy fighters with their high speed. Increasing defense values will make the fighter killers, which they weren´t. I´m considering to increase their hit points to improve survivability

I´m not a specialist for the editor, but the following should work here.

Create a new SFTtype Group: "Fast bombers"
Create a new SFT copying the actual bombers and call them "fast bombers"
Add these new SFT "fast bombers" to SFT Group "fast bombers"
Now set the fighters combat stats vs the new SFT group "fast bombers"
Give them less attack power to simulate the more difficult attack.

In addition you could then also modify the new bomber SFT ("beeing attacked" or "hitpoints" setting)

Try it. This should work.

[tweber]

Whatever approach you take, I would recommend testing it in combat sim mode to see if the results are as intended.  Combat sim will run the combat round 200 times and report average results.

[Bombur]

-Thank you guys for all the suggestions. I will start by giving these planes an hp bonus. If results aren´t the desired I will try seille´s approach. I will also study this idea of avoid hits.

[Bombur]

ORIGINAL: Alan Sharif

This all sounds very promsing indeed. Thanks for all the hard work you are putting into designing this scenario.

-Thank you, but I still have doubts to what extent this scenario is feasible. Designing the map and the new units is easier. But then I must look at cards and events.....

[Bombur]

Question: How to create these wonderful black hexes? I will need them for France and Portugal, as I won´t include the possibility of French or Portuguese interventions.