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After playing through the '41/'42 winter in my first game as Germans and experiencing the blizzard, I have been thinking about how to handle it and avoid the crippling losses. This thread is not about if the current implementation of the blizzard effects are broken or not, but it is an attempt to somehow understand the rules and deal with them as they are right now and maintain maximum force cohesion.

The thoughts I have had after having reached march '42 in my first CG game is that apart from attrition losses one of the biggest enemies when trying to reduce german infantry losses are forced retreats & fatigue. When you study a german infantry end '41 after 4-5 turns of blizzard you will on average find what is in the image attached to this post.

One of the most interesting things here are the number of damaged elements. This represents mostly attrition from blizzard (manual states 5 - 20% damaged each turn). In this case you have a total of 170 squad/support elements that are damaged, of a total of 540. That is, about 1/3 of the divisions manpower elements are damaged. I've seen worse though, in some cases 50% damaged.
During logistics phase some part of those elements are returned to the pool. You want of course to maximize that return so that come march '42 your force cohesion will start to snap back to something resembling what is was in late '41, pre-blizzard.

What should you keep in mind regarding damaged elements?

One thing to keep in mind is fatigue as higher fatigue destroys more damaged elements, and this effect is much worse when adjacent to enemy units. So keep your units with high % of damaged units rested and away from the enemy. Supply also impacts the repair chance of damaged units, so maximize the supply and avoid actions that use supply.

Damaged elements won't participate in a battle. Apart from that, as part of the blizzard rules, all ground elements that are attacked will suffer additional disruption prior to the ground combat sub-phase. That transform into even less of your undamaged elements participating in the fight. So not only are 1/3 of your force not participating, but with the added disruption could perhaps lead to 1/2 or more of your elements not participating.

With potentially only 1/2 of your ground elements participating in the battle, retreat is going to be much more probable.
Forced retreats are very undesireable when you have so many damaged elements, as a substantial number of damaged elements are captured.
The amount of damaged elements captured during retreat depends upon on experience and any possible support squad shortage.
Low experience units with a shortage of support squads is going to suffer big time when retreating.

If you watch the combat resolutions and compare retreat results from divisions with large number of damaged elements and divisions with few damaged elements, you will notice a trend that a great number of those damaged elements are destroyed. There seems to be a strong connection here during blizzard, i.e. damaged elements vs. losses from retreats.

So, what is a player supposed to do to retain some force cohesion, when 1/3 to 1/2 of the fighting force is damaged, of out action, and possible permanent casualties?

I don't know if there exists a silver bullet to fix this, but an effort to reduce the impact I tried ....

.... the 'rubber band' blizzard defence strategy.

The philosophy behind this strategy is to minimize # of damaged elements being permanently lost, without retreating head over heels back to poland. This is meant to be the middle way between a 'full contact' hold at all costs and a full retreat. As the name implies, you are going to bend your frontlines - i.e. the rubber band - to adapt to the enemy pressure, while at the same time avoiding the losses that will make it break. Come spring and in theory your force cohesion will return, giving you the strength to 'snap back' into place and push the enemy back to the start before blizzard and hopefully beyond.

In theory you ride out the blizzard while minimizing contact with the enemy and their ability to launch determined attacks at your much reduced forces and force your troops to retreat. Since blizzard also affect the MP (+2 MP cost for all units), an important part of the strategy is to keep the majority of your forces out of enemy INFANTRY 'determined assault' reach. In order to achieve this, this strategy necesitates that some units sacrifice their force cohesion for the survival of the force as a whole. Note the emphasize on infantry as you will have to accept being within reach of his tank & cavalry.

So this strategy means executing the following moves each blizzard turn during '41 until march '42:

1. Identify which division have the least damaged elements. In the first turns of blizzard it is usually not hard to find some divisions that have been lucky and have suffered little attrition from the weather, and thus have few damaged elements.
2. Using these divisions identified in 1 to for a line of one division every second hex in the following manner:
- leave all hexes next to enemy units free of units, i.e. vacate the frontline.
- form the one-div-each-2nd-hex line one hex away from the frontline.
3. Put all remaining units in a 2nd continous line two hexes away from the frontline. Use the attack = defense visualization of the CV when doing this so that you can form a balanced 2nd line with few weak spots.
4. Hit end of turn and start praying

The hardest time of this period is the '41 blizzard turns. Come 25.12.1941 .. you are going to be faced with some tough choices when selecting the units in step 1 Most of your divisions will probably be nearing 1/2 damaged.
Once you hit 1.1.42 your situation should improve as the attrition is lessened. You will start to see more and more units recovering their damaged elements and selecting divisions for the first line should be easier.
Hopefully, having applied this strategy, the theory is that your strength should start to return and by mid jan '42 you can start considering trying to hold in some sectors where you have forts available and the units have few damaged elements. If a division have to retreat, but it's damaged % is low, your losses won't be so high so this kind of result is more acceptable then.

To sum up, keep your
- low morale
- high damaged %
- high fatigued
units out of the reach of the enemy. The more checks you can do for a unit from the above list, the more important it is to keep it out of reach.

Once 1-3 is done, you should have something resembling this image:

Forgot to mention that the first line is meant to suck up enemy MP's so that when they finally arrive in position to attack the second line, they won't have enough MP's to attack, or only to do hasty attacks.

Hasty attacks are to your advantage, as they cannot focus more than three units in one attack, and given it's nature they are going to run a sizeable risk of getting some bloody noses.

They could also force some of your high % damaged troops in 2nd line to retreat, but as I stated, it's not the silver bullet

Why is the second line solid?  Could one have a 3rd line of spaced out units as well that would have two turns (under this system) to build forts instead?

... so.. having explained the theory of this, let me elaborate a little on the test I am currently running.

I picked up and old turn from the first CG I played. In this game I applied the strategy of hold ground and only retreat when forced to.
Version 1.01 against Soviet AI, with the difficulty level set to CHALLENGING.
The first game blizzard went really bad, heavy losses and much territory lost. As of mid june 42, about half of my divisions are still trying to recover from the winter and still unsure if I want to undertake any offensive action in 42. Some pz divisions still only have 30-40 tanks.

So with this in mind I picked up the first blizzard turn of '41 = the 1st turn in december, and started to apply the 'rubber band' defence.
So far I have completed until 1.1.42, and it's been interesting.
The frontlines have moved considerably, more than in the originalk game. But I have had very few retreats with high losses.
My forces have managed a high % of holds, especially against the 2nd line of defence. Surprisingly high number.
I suspect that to be the result of the russian only being able to execute hasty attacks against the second line.

Come 1.1.42 my force still feels OK, and some strenght seem to be returning. It's going to be interesting to see how it ends in march '42.
Even though I have had some limited success I still have noticed that I was loosing a substanstially high number of manpower each turn, still around 100.000. This puzzled me, and got me curious as to how heavy the attrition really is.

As a result decided to run some more test. Using the same dec. '41 turn, I ran two more games, both sides human, until 1.1.42.
In the first I left the frontlines as is, and no troops attacking. The result of that was surprising as I was experiencing even higher losses with no action whatsoever, compared to when I applied the 'rubber band' strategy.
Knowing that being in the frontline attritions units and that they loose a much higher number of damaged elements I figured that must be the culprit. So I decided to run a second scenario.

In the second scenario, I made the russians vacate ALL frontline hexes, and no attacks were executed. In other words, I removed casualties from attacks and casualties from frontline attrition. The only factor I know then is blizzard attrition (and there is probably some other small attrition as well). The resulting casualty number is very interesting.

So now I got 4 sets of numbers, all from the same 4.12.41 turn until 1.1.42, using different scenarios. See attached image.

The first column shows the loss numbers as they were on the first turn. Note all loss numbers are in 100k chunks.
The 4 following columns shows the result as of 1.1.42 for the following four test scenarios:
- No attacks & No enemy units adjacent, so both those casualties elements are removed. Only blizzard casualties (that I know of).
- Static frontline, no attacks. Casualties are from blizzard and frontline attrition.
- Normal gameplay using the rubber band strategy.
- Normal gameplay from the original game.

The green numbers are the total losses in each scenario for the period (4.12 - 1.1).
The red numbers are the casualties losses in the three last scenarios minus the 'only blizzard attrition'. I.e. the red numbers show what additional casualties were added in those scenarios apart from the blizzard effect (from scenario one).
An lastly the % of losses in the period that can be atttributed to combat or frontline attrition, with the remaining percentage being the blizzard attrition.

It's going to be interesting to see what I end up with in 1.3.42. As for now I have some observations:
- The german 'blizzard only' losses at 283 seem rather high. Until I understand what this number actually contains I'm going to refrain from comments.
- The losses from the 'rubber band' strategy which means there are combat losses, are actually lower that the static frontline losses! Very interesting, and I interpret that to the static frontline attrition losses and the rule that damaged elements of units adjacent to enemy units are much more likely to be destroyed. Seems that the strategy of keeping the enemy away from the bulk of the forces has actually had some effect.

Will get back with more data and comments when I have finalized all test to 1.3.42. [:)]

ORIGINAL: PeeDeeAitch

Why is the second line solid?  Could one have a 3rd line of spaced out units as well that would have two turns (under this system) to build forts instead?

Sounds like an interesting variant!

I decided to try to maintain a 2nd line that most of the time will hold attacks, since there won't be enough low % damaged elements units around to form two lines. I.e. if the units in the second line are forced to retreat you will suffer heavy losses.

But your suggestion might well be a perfection of the rubber band defence.

If it works then I can be lead guitar in the Rubber Band.

I actually wonder what in these numbers makes you optimistic about rubber band....?

You seem to lose the Russian numbers out of perspective. Yes, your "rubber band" losses are marginally smaller than "static front" losses, in fact let's say they're equal for the sake of discussion, and smaller than "full contact" losses.

However, Russian losses in all those scenarios are far more variable than yours. What this tells me, is that "rubber band" will give Russian more territory, for a bargain price in his own dead. Full contact at least requires him to pay the price, as his losses are considerably higher (almost twice as high!) than in rubber band.

Seeing this, from the Russian perspective, I'd be happy to play rubber band German, getting territory basically for free (or as close to "free" as possible).

All in all, a nice experiment, but it does not change my opinion on winter modelling, which IMO is totally wrong (I avoid the term "broken").

PS. You didn't say how much ground you lost in each strategy.

As much as I don't like breaking down divisions, I wonder if that is what you consider doing both to fill in the second line and also to give more options in terms of units with lower fatigued/damaged units. Certainly mountain regiments/brigades may look good in the front on something like that. 

*edit* Looks like he plans on giving ground in December and starting to hold firm where he can starting in January where his elements are not getting damaged as much from the blizzard attrition. Makes a certain amount of sense.

This would be easy enough to test in the Typhoon scenario sandbox. (I changed the end date on the Typhoon scenario to March).

Based on what we know of how attrition works, the proper Soviet response is to move up next to as many units as possible. The next turn, the Germans must either retreat to maintain the formation and the gap, or the Soviets will ooze into the gaps and cause massive losses with attacks on your front line.

Your strategy seems to reduce attrition losses to some extent, but it will not stop the loss of ground across the entire front.

If this works like Color says, when the "January Recovery" begins there might be some 2-3 CV strength divisions around instead of the 1 CV sick wonders.  Perhaps then the retreat might be a bit slower...if one were to do 8-9 turns of this then when Feb hits the divisions will be stronger (as I have seen from my units building up rear lines in my own failed hedgehog attempts.  Losing 10 hexes total and having a fair bit of your strength still around for March is no small amount, Oleg.  The key is a stronger recovery here, and Color seems to imply that the damaged units have a better chance at not losing as much.
 
The Blizzard will always cut down units in attrition, but if that can be limited through not multiplying it with forced retreats...then this might well be worth a good long look.

ORIGINAL: PeeDeeAitch

If it works then I can be lead guitar in the Rubber Band.

Only if you play it like a devil!

Pardon my lack of proper english, should of course be rubberband [:D]

ORIGINAL: Mynok


Based on what we know of how attrition works, the proper Soviet response is to move up next to as many units as possible. The next turn, the Germans must either retreat to maintain the formation and the gap, or the Soviets will ooze into the gaps and cause massive losses with attacks on your front line.

Your strategy seems to reduce attrition losses to some extent, but it will not stop the loss of ground across the entire front.

I think that may be the point. The thesis seems to be that attempts to hold lead to: a) larger attrition losses and, b) large losses of territory when the lines give right away. Given that it seems to be a design intent that the Germans will lose ground, limiting attrition and maximising men in units for the March recovery seems to be important to approaching the Blizzard.

I do not see in this defense the Germans losing many (if any, unless unlucky - and we all know about that) units to the Blizzard attackes. At worst there will be some units hurt as badly as at present, some not hurt so badly (and we should not underestimate the research herein about damaged units, retreats, and contact attrition in blizzard turns), and perhaps some units coming out of the blizzard fairly well.

I congratulate Color for putting his brain in gear and trying to nut out a solution. Rather than the standard 'its broken' approach. Perhaps if Soviet losses were maximised before the blizzard this kind of strategy might just work.

As PeeDeeAitch is commenting, the key behind this strategy is to understand the mechanisms that little by little snowballs your losses into a total rout and 4 months of recovery to a level maybe 60-70% of the '41 strength. Of course now I'm speaking of my particular scenario, other players with much greater success in '41  probably have a much milder blizzard experience.

Once you learn to properly identify the sources of the heavy losses in infantry, then you can work out moves to diminish them and get the system working to your best advantage.

I see the argument about russian losses being much lighter. It's a valid point.
I also see the what-if .. that germans come out of blizzard with lighter losses and force strength intact, how well positioned will they be to do some serious damage to the russians again in '42. When the experiment finishes at 1.3.42 we will have some numbers to play with.
And at the end of that, another big what-if ... the russians have had light losses in winter and have dug in en masse. Somebody said Grinderhell ?

I will get back to territory losses once I have finished the complete test. Suffice to say they are SUBSTANTIAL, but they were so also in the original game with the added 'bonus' of a bombed out wehrmacht.

As previously stated, I don't think this is a silver bullet, if such a thing exists for the '41 blizzard. But it is a very interesting study of the game mechanics and moves to take advantage of them

As far as I can tell, there is no panacea for the first winter, you will either lose a lot of troops, a lot of ground, or both. Keeping the German army as intact as possible so that one can regain lost ground in the summer of '42 strikes me as both the brst approach and the one that is most likely to keep the game fun and interesting for much longer. Ler's face it, most of us enjoy attack better defense, especially desperation defense where the goal is to still be around when the clock runs out. So this approach seems very promising - and as I have hit mid-November in my game, well worth implementing.

From all that I've read on these forums it would seem the game designers are attempting to use historical results in the game in so far as the first winter is concerned regardless of how either side has performed up to that point. They are forcing history on a non historical outcome.

Some of the things that are historical and fairly written in stone for the first winter until they were resolved by the Germans:

1) The German locomotives were not insulated. The cold weather of European Russia prevented the boilers from getting and staying hot enough to produce and maintain enough steam pressure so the trains were crippled.

2) The German equipment was unprepared. The lubricants were not cold weather so weapons tended to jam. Coolants and engine lubricants were not cold weather so vehicles ceased to function not to mention the deep Russian snows made any type of travel, either on foot or by vehicle, difficult at best. Anything diesel powered could not function because the fuel jelled due to lack of an anti jelling agent.

3) Troops were not issued cold weather clothing and suffered from frostbite. About 250,000 cases during the first winter. While these tended to be as severe as a combat wound their return to active duty was somewhat between being sick and being wounded. In contrast the Soviet frostbite casualties were about 14,000.

4) The Soviet soldier had just as bad a time moving through the snow as the Germans while the Soviet tanks and ski troops fared better.

5) The Soviets had just as bad a time moving supplies from depots to troops as the Germans. Snow and cold do not care who is driving the wagon, truck or sled and cannot tell the difference between a swastika and a red star.

6) If the Soviets advanced thirty kilometers they had already exceeded their logistical network. That's about as far as a wagon can go in good weather in one summer day. This was mostly true until about November 1942.

These things cannot be changed in the course of the game.

Here are the things the players can change in the course of the game and should not be considered written in stone:

1) By the time the Soviet offensive jumped off in 1941 the average German unit was down to 40% strength. The player can actively change this in the course of the game.

2) The Germans had just fought across several hundred kilometers of Russia and were beyond the limit of their logistical network. Again, the players can change this somewhat in the course of the game.

3) Reinforcements and vehicle replacements were not available due to short sighted planning and unrealistic expectations. As the two above.

It would seem the game designers somehow believe the Axis player should be doomed in all categories the first winter. The Soviets also suffered historically. They were not a superhero Ice Man. They were simply better prepared because this is where they lived. They were also generally more poorly trained and equipped. Once the Germans stopped the bleeding they were able to counter the Soviet thrusts fairly well.

Generally speaking the Soviet should not be able to conduct a front wide 200 mile (321 kilometer) deep winter offensive. It does not make sense and should not be hard coded into the game. It's as if human vs human testing was not done beyond the German summer/fall campaign.

This type of defense, or variations thereof, are the way to go IMO. The idea basically is to pull-back 1 hex every turn, and make sure the Soviets have to "convert" hexes to get to your line. My experience is that fighting forward is suicidal, no matter what the forts. I learned that the hard way!

The defense means, though, that the Germans will need to surrender 13-15 hexes all along the front in Winter, for a total of approximately 1200-1400 hexes. That's a huge amount of ground, much higher than historical. That also still allows alot of Soviet attacks, and exploitation potentials.

The exception to this is the Crimea bottlenecks; I think standard practice now for the Germans probably has to be using the Romanian Mtn. units down there to keep the Soviets in the Crimea.

Someone needs to do an AAR against a GOOD human opponent to test these. So far we have not seen that.

I think Bob's house rule is a good interim step, because the main problem is the Soviet ability to attack all along the front. That is not realistic.

Part of the issue with these as well (and a issue with the winter overall) is that the Russians, while they pushed the Germans back and inflicted a lot of casualties; also suffered a lot of casualties themselves. I have not really seen that (certainly not in my test game where I am currently running a 4 Axis to 1 Russian loss ratio) and it means that although the Germans may have suffered "some" casualties, the Russians didn't and their army emerges that much stronger from the winter when in reality, both sides were exhausted when the spring mud set in. 

Color,
 
Much thanks for your ingenious analysis of how to defend in the blizzard. One grows weary of the wails and sniveling of those who claim that the game is broken because of the blizzard. To quote from Glantz, "When Titans Clashed:"
 
1. "AGC suffered the most. By January, thinly clad, shell-shocked and disoriented troops tended to panic at the mere sound of approaching Soviet tanks."
2. "AGS, which was designated to conduct the main German attack in 1942, brought its units up to 85% of authorized equipment only by forced transfers from the other two army groups."
3. "The German Army lost more than soldiers and vehicles, it had suffered a sever blow to its morale. Most of the surviving veterans realized they were committed to an open-ended, bitter struggle in an alien land."
 
Moral effects too harsh? Not. Losses of material too harsh? Not.
 
This game has much depth and many of us have only just started to scratch the surface; I refered my pbem opponent to this thread so he can start to prepare for the upcoming blizzard; I will update you.
 
Again,
 
Much thanks,
 
Marquo