Eastern Front "Doctrine"

[FredSanford3]

There's been some discussion about how Soviet operational doctrine differed from Western operational doctrine and how there's apparently a heretofore undeveloped top level branch in the AI logic that controls the nuts-and-bolts of how things are executed by units. My question is, what is it about Soviet doctrine that differs from Western doctrine? My understanding is that much of the tactical rigidity displayed early on was a function of the purges/massive expansion dilution of the officer corp talent pool, along with lack of communications equipment. On paper, the Soviet Army had the "Deep Operation" doctrine that was supposedly as sophisticated as any Western Army's. What they didn't have was officers that had a clue how to actually handle large units. I remember hearing somewhere that the average age of Soviet Corps commanders on 6/41 was about ten years younger than German division commanders' average age.

So couldn't all that be modeled by handicapping the staff efficiencies, judgements, staff loads, etc.?

I know about tank Desant operations, and how that's not covered. But by the same token, regular motorized/mechanized infantry behavior isn't really modeled comrehensively now. So I don't see that as an east front show stopper by itself.

So there's gotta be more to it, right? Or is the doctrine thing really not about the Soviets per se, but more about 'fine tuning' the model to account for various nationalities?

[thewood1]

I wonder if you can fudge even Soviet Desant by combining infantry and tanks into a single unit, but allow the tanks to carry infantry.  Its no more handicapped than mechanized infantry that can't seperate from their halftracks as it is.
 
But in the end, I agree that you could simulate the command issues through the various command effectiveness settings.
 
What you might not get the AI to do is using things like shock units and such in the proper format.

[jomni]

What comes into mind is the Human Wave and the Commissar.

[thewood1]

Human wave was really just driving infantry forward in successive lines.  You could micro-manage it maybe.

[henri51]

But don't forget that Soviet doctrine (as well as organization) changed during the war, as they learned from experience and the officers killed during the purge of 37 were eventually replaced by competent leaders. Although it is difficult to compare because at the end all German units were understrength, a crack Soviet Guards unit in 1945 was just as good as any German unit (despite Manstein's claim to Hitler that a German unit could hold 3 Soviet units).

Henri

[Panzeh]

I think it might be best to put in the Soviet estabs and get them a few scenarios running to see how they play before we go into issues with them.  I think that the Soviets were not /that/ much different from the other armies involved, and could be modeled reasonably well with the current systems.

[henri51]

One simple difference between the Germans and Soviet doctrines in addition to the "human wave" tactics used early in the war by the Soviets was in the training. German officers were trained (according to Mellenthin's autobiography "Panzer Battles") to adapt decisions based on changing situations, whereas as far as I know strict obedience to orders was the Soviet norm. So in general German orders from higher HQs were generally as brief and clear as possible.

This could be reflected in the game by allowing the player to give Soviet orders only to the TOP HQ, except for individual units detached during the planning stage, but I am unsure of how well this would model Soviet doctrine.

Henri

[Panzeh]

ORIGINAL: henri51

One simple difference between the Germans and Soviet doctrines in addition to the "human wave" tactics used early in the war by the Soviets was in the training. German officers were trained (according to Mellenthin's autobiography "Panzer Battles") to adapt decisions based on changing situations, whereas as far as I know strict obedience to orders was the Soviet norm. So in general German orders from higher HQs were generally as brief and clear as possible.

This could be reflected in the game by allowing the player to give Soviet orders only to the TOP HQ, except for individual units detached during the planning stage, but I am unsure of how well this would model Soviet doctrine.

Henri

I tend to think that's a vast oversimplification of Soviet officer training, but the trouble is, the Soviet command-push style was based on a lot of pre-planning, which would make a distinctly uninteresting game for a Soviet player, especially if it were as you said, only able to give top HQs commands. I'm not sure, really, there's a realistic and interesting way to handle it.

[DanOppenheim]

Perhaps it could be balanced by reducing the orders delay to simulate the pre-planning and reducing the command capacity, so enforcing the force structure.

I don't think we're going to get a realistic simulation of the eastern front until Panther create the correct AI doctrines. No harm in trying to get close though!

[thewood1]

I think large order delays could pretty easily simulate the more strict early war Soviets.  I think limiting atrillery support early war would also be good.  I think just trying it is the only way to see how it works.

[Chief Rudiger]

The KV1 is already in COTA as "PzKw KV-IA 753 (r)" so the basic data is already in, you can just copy it accross. I'm sure its main gun isn't terribly different from one of the older German weapon already available in BFTB. Similarly, there'll be weapons similar in perfromance to Soviet small arms and support weapons. In fact, some of the German arty piece in BFTB are captured Soviet pieces, so they're already available.

For a Barbarossa scenario you could use the German estabs from COTA, as reference, there not being a great time difference between the two. Fundamentally though, the Estab editor only requires you to copy then slightly modify entrys from BFTB, removing things like Panzer Fausts and changing the the number of men and different guns to that of your choosen TOE, this bit seems dead simple. In the Scenmaker you could then set units' Aggression, Training, Stubborness and Staff Quality etc. to extremes, to try make the AI react as you wish.

Probably easier said than done though!

[Panzeh]

I've got estabs for a 1944-era Soviet Rifle Regiment(sans the AT-rifle company, which i'm unsure whether to make it its own company or add in to line units).  Just need to make a scenario for them.  I chose 1944-era Russians so that they could fight existing German estabs without too much trouble.

[FredSanford3]

ORIGINAL: Panzeh

ORIGINAL: henri51

One simple difference between the Germans and Soviet doctrines in addition to the "human wave" tactics used early in the war by the Soviets was in the training. German officers were trained (according to Mellenthin's autobiography "Panzer Battles") to adapt decisions based on changing situations, whereas as far as I know strict obedience to orders was the Soviet norm. So in general German orders from higher HQs were generally as brief and clear as possible.

This could be reflected in the game by allowing the player to give Soviet orders only to the TOP HQ, except for individual units detached during the planning stage, but I am unsure of how well this would model Soviet doctrine.

Henri

I tend to think that's a vast oversimplification of Soviet officer training, but the trouble is, the Soviet command-push style was based on a lot of pre-planning, which would make a distinctly uninteresting game for a Soviet player, especially if it were as you said, only able to give top HQs commands. I'm not sure, really, there's a realistic and interesting way to handle it.

I think there is a way to handle this in a game:
1. Use variable orders delay where the Soviet starts the game with no delay, but it increase to high levels as the clock runs.
2. Give Soviet HQ's very poor staff efficiencies Corps level and below. The only time that doesn't really matter is at the start when there's no orders delay due to #1.
3. Render bn's (and maybe even reg'ts) as single units since the bn commander doesn't have the authority/staff to send companies on seperate missions- at any rate the Soviet units were about one 'level' down from their western equivalent.