Very high percentage of damaged elements in Soviet units in 41Campaign

[jlbhung]

By using the Editor, I find that in the 41 Campaign the Soviet units start with very high percentage of damaged elements. Out of the 204 division-sized units, only 7 has a ToE with ready elements >=50%. A rough estimation of the median is about 30% and the lowest was only 12%. This results in very little resistance to Turn 1 Axis onslaught. I think this may also contribute to some players’ observations that the Axis advances too far in the early turns.

I wonder if the high percentage of damaged elements reflects the actual historical situation, in particular taking into account that the first turn is a full week turn.

Moreover, according to Manual 11.3.4, there is already a separate arrangement to inflict additional damage to Soviet units starting Jun 41. This appears to deal double damages to Soviet units given the already high % of damaged elements in the initial setup.

[OberGeneral]

A quote from Operation Barbarossa: the Complete Organisational and Statistical Analysis, and Military Simulation VOLUME IIIB by
Nigel Askey might give you an idea why this is so.

"The average Soviet wartime army was much smaller (and less equippped) than the average pre-war armies in the Western Special Military Districts on 22nd June 1941, and there were many times in 1941 when entire Soviet armies only consisted of a few thousand men. In addition, detailed examination shows that the size of the average Soviet army progressively decreased from June to December 1941 despite the massive Soviet mobilisation effort and despite the newly mobilised divisions being closer to their (smaller) TOE strengths."

I hope this explains why they are lower.

[Great_Ajax]

Those damaged elements were applied by the program after I set them up. In short, I didn't set them up that way and I believe that the game randomly applies damage at the beginning of the barbarossa turn so it doesn't matter what they look like in the editor.

[Dreamslayer]

ORIGINAL: Great_Ajax

Those damaged elements were applied by the program after I set them up. In short, I didn't set them up that way and I believe that the game randomly applies damage at the beginning of the barbarossa turn so it doesn't matter what they look like in the editor.

Any chance that we could get this "randomness" (rule about random morale/exp) as optional feature in the editor? So we can start to make a normal scenario without chaotic morale/exp for Soviet ground units.
Maybe also option to change bonus morale. I don't know why Soviet cavalry or mountain units has this bonus. So this thing also could be modifiable.

[loki100]

yes Trey is right - see 11.3.3 & 11.3.4 of the game manual for how a degree of randomness is introduced into T1

[jlbhung]

ORIGINAL: Great_Ajax

Those damaged elements were applied by the program after I set them up. In short, I didn't set them up that way and I believe that the game randomly applies damage at the beginning of the barbarossa turn so it doesn't matter what they look like in the editor.

I may not express myself clearly. Those damaged elements are in the Scenario data, not after start of the game. I discovered this when I try to create a mod based on the generic 41 Campaign. Hence I raise the question.

After further test, I agree with you that it does not really matter. I started a 41 Campaign HvH. Save it without any move and open the save file using the Editor. The ToE range for Sov division-sized units became 25%-99%, with a median of about 67%. This is much higher than the case in the Scenario data. It appears that the rdy/damage elements will be randomly assigned at the beginning of any scenario starting Jun 41 based on 11.3.4 of the Manual.

When reading 11.3.4 of the Manual initially, my understanding is that damage is applied to the ready elements of a Sov unit at the start of the game, in additional to the already damaged elements. It appears that the damage % in the manual is referring to all the elements present in the unit. So actually 11.3.4.1 means "0-10% of non-AFV elements will be damaged" without the word "ready".