Logistics

[Seminole]

there is nothing you can say or do to convince me that what you are doing is historically plausible. I am not accusing you of cheating. You simply have optimized the game to the nth degree and taken advantage of the design given you. But the results are pretty over the top. This, as I have said elsewhere, is a failure of game design. I merely hope that future iterations of the game take a more realistic approach towards combat and logistics.

[Flaviusx]

Nice pictures, Seminole. What do they prove?

I'm quite happy to provide a very good bibliography and sources on logistics on the eastern front. Anybody who has done any real research on the subject will understand just how freewheeling WITE is.

[swkuh]

For me, the way "historical outcomes" may be achieved is always the issue. Forcing outcomes through "hard coded" factors that come into play suddenly and disappear is the worst. Been discussed, I guess.

Discussion of what might be unchangeable and what might be manageable is fruitful. I'd start by insisting that Joe & Adolph are in the game to the bitter end. And their behaviors be realistic. Then there's the Western Front & Bombing campaign. Fixed effects or manageable effects? How about technical development, non-combat resource comitments, and more?

The real choice for designers is what's needed to sell the game. Ain't no fun doing this w/o $$$. And, even worse is keeping it sharp w/o $$$.

The game as is is plenty good and fun to play. Looking forward to v2.0.

[Seminole]

What do they prove?

That historically the Germans achieved substantial progress. The difference is that MT didn't divert 2nd Panzer Army the wrong direction (excepting apparently one mot div).

I'm quite happy to provide a very good bibliography and sources on logistics on the eastern front. Anybody who has done any real research on the subject will understand just how freewheeling WITE is.

I'd be happy to read it, and would certainly never say that additional information could never change my opinion.
According to the Personal Diary of the German 9th Army Supply Officer (Generalmajor Windisch) the Germans were already running trains into Vitebsk and Smolensk in the first half of August, creating stockpiles to support operations toward Moscow.
Bock and Guderian lost the argument and instead they took an even longer route to try and get to the same place, diverting south into the Ukraine even farther than they would have to advance to reach Moscow, before finally going back northeast.
MT, not hampered by Hitler's 'strategic vision', feinted NE to draw reinforcements from Moscow and then went for the coup de main as circumstances allowed. Such a move would have been easier in August with longer days and a completely green army between them and Moscow.

One change I would make (and I'd like to see how it impacts an expert's play style and achievements) is to require an airbase in the hex at the beginning of the turn for aerial fuel supply. Parachuting fuel bladders onto panzer spearheads doesn't strike as me remotely historical. The only analogous situation I'm aware of from history is the US Army's establishment of FARPs with Chinooks to support the 'left hook' against Iraq's army (note: set on the ground with helicopters, not kicked out of C-141s).

[Michael T]

Seminole I brought forward a very similar argument eons back but it was ignored by usual suspects back then as well.

[SigUp]

ORIGINAL: Seminole

What do they prove?

That historically the Germans achieved substantial progress. The difference is that MT didn't divert 2nd Panzer Army the wrong direction (excepting apparently one mot div).

I'm quite happy to provide a very good bibliography and sources on logistics on the eastern front. Anybody who has done any real research on the subject will understand just how freewheeling WITE is.

I'd be happy to read it, and would certainly never say that additional information could never change my opinion.
According to the Personal Diary of the German 9th Army Supply Officer (Generalmajor Windisch) the Germans were already running trains into Vitebsk and Smolensk in the first half of August, creating stockpiles to support operations toward Moscow.
Bock and Guderian lost the argument and instead they took an even longer route to try and get to the same place, diverting south into the Ukraine even farther than they would have to advance to reach Moscow, before finally going back northeast.
MT, not hampered by Hitler's 'strategic vision', feinted NE to draw reinforcements from Moscow and then went for the coup de main as circumstances allowed. Such a move would have been easier in August with longer days and a completely green army between them and Moscow.

One change I would make (and I'd like to see how it impacts an expert's play style and achievements) is to require an airbase in the hex at the beginning of the turn for aerial fuel supply. Parachuting fuel bladders onto panzer spearheads doesn't strike as me remotely historical. The only analogous situation I'm aware of from history is the US Army's establishment of FARPs with Chinooks to support the 'left hook' against Iraq's army (note: set on the ground with helicopters, not kicked out of C-141s).

The decision to divert Panzer Group 2 into Ukraine was not the "wrong" one. It would have been grossly negligent to allow a close to one million men strong force sitting there while AGC right flank gets longer and longer. Due to AGS slow progress up until the battle of Uman the diverson of Panzer Group 2 was a necessity, unless the German leadership wanted to gamble on the Soviet Union collapsing once Moscow was taken.

[KenchiSulla]

That would have been the longest flank ever to defend... It was a liability and there was no proof that taking Moscow would finnish the campaign..

[Seminole]

The decision to divert Panzer Group 2 into Ukraine was not the "wrong" one. It would have been grossly negligent to allow a close to one million men strong force sitting there while AGC right flank gets longer and longer.

I believe it was more negligent to give the Russians a 2 month break to regroup and defend Moscow.
Most of the Red Armies trained and mobile formations were already destroyed. The Soviet forces in Southwest and Southern Front weren't just 'sitting there', they were defending (and unsuccessfully counterattacking) AGS. Most of their formations after the Uman pocket was liquidated were freshly raised and garbage for offensive operations. The nearly 5,500 tanks under those two Fronts had been reduced to a few hundred.
Hitler's decision was made on economic, not military, grounds.

It would have been wiser to move on Moscow while the weather was good, the days long, and the opposition essentially outnumbered and ridiculously green. Then 'Typhoon' southward and link up with AGS after the major population center of gravity was firmly in their hands.

I see no reason to believe that whatever formations detached from the defense of Kiev and the Dnepr by Southwest Front would have been more successful than the counterattacks launched by Bryansk Front in September against Guderian's left flank as he proceeded south on an even longer march than the road to Moscow presented.

Due to AGS slow progress up until the battle of Uman the diverson of Panzer Group 2 was a necessity, unless the German leadership wanted to gamble on the Soviet Union collapsing once Moscow was taken.

I don't think AGS's progress can fairly be called slow. Through the end of August they had cleared west of the Dnepr, whilst they faced the largest force of any army group.

[Flaviusx]

I will recommend to you two books in particular:

Martin van Creveld's Supplying War. (Which has interesting things to say on Normandy as well as the Eastern Front.) And David Stahel's Battle For Kiev. He's coming out with his Typhoon book soon, too. Note that Stahel makes heavy use of primary German sources and will show you better than anybody else the disastrous state of German logistics by mid summer. There is also a German language study claiming that it was literally impossible for AGC to reach Moscow in mid summer. A temporary halt was inevitable for logistical reasons alone. This is cited in Gerhard Weinberg's A World at Arms, it also appears in Stahel's book. Unfortunately I haven't read this study since I lack the command of the German language.

WITE doesn't even remotely shows these supply issues, just like it doesn't show the attrition and wear and tear on the Germans as they won themselves to death. The luftwaffe (or rather all of it) just flies some gas (incredibly efficiently) and everything is cool. The very first turn itself is preposterous with every average German player now playing this game vastly outperforming their real life counterparts although not directly due to the game's lack of logistical friction. (It just helps feed into that.)

Unless the game's supply model gets a drastic overhaul, WITW isn't gonna work at all. Games will routinely end in 1944 as the Germans get stampeded post Normandy (or wherever it is the Allies manage to land in France and bust out of.) Happily, as I understand it, such an overhaul is in the works. It isn't working now but people are much more willing in this context to accept absolutely fantastical results because the focus is on 1941. The lack of logistical friction similarly is an issue at the end of the war when the tables are turned and the Red Army can outperform its historical counterpart and steamroll the Germans. But this is hardly ever played out, so it's ignored. Quite simply, the existing model is broken.

So you'll understand my lack of sympathy for some handwaving and a map of an operation that never took place.

[rmonical]

The games logistics engine is as good as anything I've seen except perhaps Campaign for North Africa which I have not even played though I owned it for many years. Part of the problem with simulating the German historical logistics is no Soviet player would constantly attack at unfavorable odds, so German logistics would be expected to be better simply due to less combat. In addition, Soviet players tend to run east a little farther and faster, so units do not have the opportunity to expend their basic loads.

The validity of the logistic model can be measured along several key dimensions:
- tonnage required. The game may run lower than historical based on the way it is played. Both players are playing for a multi-year campaign and not trying to force a decision in 1941.
- tonnage delivered. One potential shortcoming is the notion of capacity of a rail line is not IIRC considered. In addition, pulling supply from a railhead that is not a rail marshaling yard could be less efficient.

You comment about the turn one pockets has induced my to formalize a couple of thoughts in another post.

[SigUp]

It is true that the German railheads already reached Vyazma by early August, the German railroad engineers were very fast in terms of repairing and converting raillines. But the issue was not the railheads, but the question of assembling enough trains and locomotives, in addition to the problem of single and double-track raillines. Indeed, even with these problems the amount of waggons reaching Vyazma by early August was already formidable. But the main question concerned the German ability to bring the supplies forward from the railheads to the combat units. An operation of the scale of Barbarossa would have needed a fully motorized supply chain. But at that time only the United States possessed the industrial capability and fuel to create such a system. As such the German logistics was still mainly determined by horsepower. After the first week the German combat units already began to suffer from supply shortages. These problems were amplified as the campaign went on, due to the vehicle and horse stock dropping. Therefore I have to give Flavius right on this one, the logistics system of WITE is still too lenient on the attacker, no matter the Germans in 1941, or the Soviets in 1944.

As for the question of Panzer Group 2, even though Hitler was motivated by economic reasons to turn PzGrp 2 south, it still made sense on an operative scale. What was more questionable, however (which is seldomly mentioned), is the breakup of PzGrp 3 following the battle of Smolensk. LVII. Army Corps (mot) basically remained in their positions achieved during the Smolensk campaign, while XXXIX. Army Corps (mot) was transferred to 16th Army to support the Leningrad campaign. It was not until the regrouping prior to Typhoon that PzGrp 3 regained its motorized forces.

[rmonical]

Vyazma? Did you mean Smolensk by early August?

[rmonical]

Just to reiterate, IMHO, the historical logistics breakdown was in the face of higher levels of combat than are typically seen in WITE. The reasons for less comabt are:
- The Soviets are more judicious in their counterattacks.
- The Germans pay more attention to the supply state of their units.
It is hard to have a logistics crisis when there is no need for ammunition. This applies to the Luftwaffe as well. Since there is nobody to bomb, the bombers might as well haul fuel forward.

Until two good players use the engine to recreate the historical campaign to include historical combat actions and show that German supply is overly generous, I am going to have to go with the as designed logistics system. It has a goodly number of knobs.

[Aurelian]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Nice pictures, Seminole. What do they prove?

It proves that the guy who made the first map doesn't know that Typhoon was launched much further north

The second ignores what one German general said when he saw the objective, (Gorki). "We are not in France and this is not the month of May."

[SigUp]

Panzer Group 2 did launch Typhoon this much South. Nothing wrong with the first map. And map 2 is a hypothetic move of Panzer Group 2 towards Moscow in August, not in November.

[Aurelian]

ORIGINAL: SigUp

Panzer Group 2 did launch Typhoon this much South. Nothing wrong with the first map. And map 2 is a hypothetic move of Panzer Group 2 towards Moscow in August, not in November.

Ahh, I sit corrected on the first.

The second, Gorki was one of the objectives, thus the quote. (I think it's in Clark's "Barbarossa.")

Found it: This is not the month of May, and we are not fighting in France!” – Lt. Col. Kurt Freiherr von Liebenstein, Gen. Heinz Guderian’s chief of staff, Nov. 12, 1941

[Seminole]

it was literally impossible for AGC to reach Moscow in mid summer.

If they lacked the logistics to cover the distance, then how did they manage, from the same logistics base, a comparable distance drive south?

If they hadn't made the drive from the Smolensk area toward Kiev, you might be able to build such a case, but they did make such a drive, so it stands to reason they could make such a drive in a different direction, against forces largely raised in June '41 and after.

This is not the month of May, and we are not fighting in France!” – Lt. Col. Kurt Freiherr von Liebenstein, Gen. Heinz Guderian’s chief of staff, Nov. 12, 1941

A perfectly applicable statement in November, but I'm not sure it applies to August/September. Von Liebenstein's statement is made in light of the delay imposed by the Kiev diversion, and the weather conditions in November.

[Flaviusx]

Seminole, I refer you to my bibliography. This question has been asked and answered elsewhere. TLDR version: AGC needed time to resupply after the Battle for Smolensk which didn't really conclude until mid August. They might have been able to start the offensive against Moscow early in September by skipping the Kiev operation entirely and not reinforcing AGN. But no sooner.

It would have been a real slugfest and in some respects harder to pull off than the historical version. The Soviets were caught off guard by the October start of Typhoon, they thought it was too late in the year to do it; they were narrowly but disastrously wrong in that assumption (by about two weeks.) They weren't well dug in and had exhausted themselves in a series of spoiling attacks while the Kiev encirclement took place.

The million man strong SW Front could've been tapped for reinforcements in this alternate history on AGC southern flank. In real life Guderian marched more or less on Bryansk Front's open flank without any interference at all. Even so, his panzergruppe ran out of gas within days of starting the march. He stalled in front of Tula for that reason as much as any other.

[Seminole]

Seminole, I refer you to my bibliography.

Thanks, I've added them to my request list, hopefully I get them for my birthday next month.

AGC needed time to resupply after the Battle for Smolensk which didn't really conclude until mid August. They might have been able to start the offensive against Moscow early in September by skipping the Kiev operation entirely and not reinforcing AGN. But no sooner.

Yet they marched south from Roslavl to Lokhvitsa (~300 miles) from mid August to mid September. This part is not conjecture or 'hand waving'. It happened.
How did they do that when you say they couldn't make a shorter march from Roslavl to Moscow (<240 miles) in the same time frame?

It would have been a real slugfest and in some respects harder to pull off than the historical version.

Why do you assume it would have been more difficult than the first two weeks of Operation Typhoon? Germans units would have hundreds of miles less wear and tear on their equipment and over a month less fatigue from fighting. Meanwhile the Russians would have over a month less time to create defensive preparations, including raising forces and getting equipment to the front lines. More importantly, it would have been under much more favorable weather/day length conditions.

The million man strong SW Front could've been tapped for reinforcements in this alternate history on AGC southern flank.

How, when they were fighting AGS? Von Rundstedt wasn't sitting on his hands. After the first week of September Southwest and Southern Front were being pushed off the Dnepr. AGS had brigdeheads (Kremenchug and north of Kiev, and two lesser ones at Dnepropetrovsk and Berisalav) that the Soviets were trying and failing to throw back. Why do you think they could dispatch 5th Army to hit AGC's flank (at this place and time held by 2nd Army) when they were being forced back by the German 6th Army? Their mobile forces had been largely wiped out west of the Dnepr.
I don't see a rationale basis for assuming that Southwest Front could disengage and march hundreds of miles north to threaten Bock's flank. Certainly not with any success.

[Flaviusx]

They marched south against sketchy opposition and even then had a rather rough time of it. Guderian's PG was in terrible shape at the end of it. It worked for one reason only: Stalin's insistence that Kiev must be held. I again refer you to Stahel's work for details. The best general and logistician in the Wehrmacht was Josef Stalin. He and nobody else made this possible. SW Front could have pulled back and avoided the whole thing and pretty much every general officer in the Red Army who was involved with this advised doing just that. They were either sacked or ignored.

AGS was stalling prior to the pocket and PG 1 was split into two groups, one of which was trying to hold a bridgehead near Dnepropetrovsk (that was being contained handily) while the other was seeking to cross the Dnepr to meet up with Guderian. Without Guderian it is difficult to see how either of these efforts would go anywhere let alone achieve decisive results. AGS would've had to consolidate PG1 and chosen one the two bridgeheads as a main effort.

You are also ignoring the supply situation of the German infantry in AGC. They needed a break following the Smolensk battle and time to build up stocks. They only barely had enough stocks to jump off in October as it was. It's not just about letting loose a couple of panzer groups and calling it a day.

Once again: read the suggested works. There is far more to it than I am getting at here.