Crush my 41 offensive!

[Harri_L]

I'm looking for an opponent, who can teach me how to defeat the German juggernaut.

I have played about 4 PBEM-games, and am dissapointed in the game balance. Whatever the soviets do, the panzer corps always find a weak place to punch. In 42 campaign my attack was halted for a moment, but my line was too strong for the Russians to attack. Then I realized, that by concentrating my forces and arrogantly pushing forward, I could have taken Moscow and that the soviets couldn't ever capture Berlin. Me and my opponent decided to stop playing and maybe look for mods to correct the balance problem.

Now, almost a year later we are planning to start a new campaign with the Flanker possum mod. I am supposed to play the soviets, and it scares me. But I think that through a failed Barbarossa I can learn how to save the Motherland from the fascist hordes. A German defeat would also be quite refreshing

The mod "scene" for WiR is bit confusing... I can play whatever version you like, but it would be best to pick one in which the soviets are the strongest. I really don't know, so you can choose.

I have read some House Rules posted on this forum, and think they make the game better. I really don't like gamey-munchkin-tactics. I want to loose because of your superior strategy and operational tactics, not because some empty mech brigades harass my supply lines. We could use the ones listed in the first post here: tm.asp?m=1002021 If you know better rules, we can use those.

[pyguinard]

Harri,

To begin, there are a couple of mistakes in the 1941 order of battle. As first example, Wiking SS dividion (and other Pz Divisionen) did not participate in the initial assault in June 41. They were in fact refitting after the Greece Campaign. This has a big effect on the way that the Russian can organize "some" defensive strategy in Western Ukraine.

Also, the readiness level of the Russians is very very low (20% almost everywhere), too low in my opinion. The Russians don't stand a single chance mainly because of that.

To correct the situation, I used the game editor to remove the German Motorized Divisions from the Front and increased the Russian readiness level by 50% of their original level (20% => 30%). It looks to me as a big improvement in terms of play balance eventhough I did not play a full campaign yet with these settings. I have the modified scenario files ready if you would like to take a look.

For the 1942 Campaign, try setting the start date two (or more) weeks sooner and set a truce of the corresponding period to allow the Russians to fill the gaps and reinforce their front line. This will improve play balance very much eventhough I feel that the Germans still have an edge over the Soviets.

Good luck!

[JagdFlanker]

i think the only thing WiR needs to be balanced is german oil production - never at any point in the entire eastern front campaign did the germans have enough fuel to engage on the entire front except for the first 3 months of the invasion in 1941. the only time in the entire campaign did germany have the potential to have enough fuel for their entire army was when they captured maikop in '42 - however the soviets completly destroyed the oil production facilities there before it was captured and germany never produced even 1 drop of fuel during the short time they occupied it. during the 1942 caucasus campaign german units spent 50% of the time immobile because they had no fuel. they were 60km from grozny for a good period of time and unable to advance due to lack of fuel!

in the 1942 campaign the germans start with over 100 oil - it should not be over 80 or 85 even with the capture of maikop and only the capture of grozny should give the germans barely 100 production. the germans should not be able to advance along the entire front in 1942 because of lack of fuel, and the fact that they can in WiR is just plain wrong!

[Harri_L]

Reduced German OP:s would be interesting... I don't remember so well how the game works, but did lack of oil lead to that? Or does it just lower the readiness of the units? Lowering the German oil level could work, and doesn't sound too hard to edit.

But there is still problems with production. In '41 it isn't a major factor, but in later soviet offence Germany is too strong. In that '42 campaign I had an impregnable line of defence, every division almost full of 99% readiness troops, thousands and thousands of tanks... And I had a few of those over 200CV Corps, which could have taken Moscow if I wanted. If I remember righ, the soviet avarage CV was about 80. That was after few months of trench warfare.

Compare that to the beginning of '43 scenario Well I didn't take so much casaulties, but I think German production and manpower is hugely exaggerated.

It sounds easy to just replace the production values to mach historical numbers, but in practise I think that may be bit complicated...

[JagdFlanker]

less oil would solve all the above - less production, only so many units would move per turn so you'd have to be more conservative to ensure the units you want to move would go where you want, and less OP. also i'd personally prefer that the soviets get more manpower - not germans get less!

but i didn't look into it, so i could be slightly wrong on some of my above oil assumptions...

[Harri_L]

The Russians definately need more men and tanks to survive '41. The German reinforcements that year don't really matter that year... But in 42-43 the German army is incredibly strong. I dug up an old save, date 29/8/43 I have at least 7866 tanks at Eastern front, 2218 in France and Italy, and 2352 in pool. 43 946 squads are in the front...2218 back in pool and in the west.

Avarage CV is propably over 100. Because of the peaceful front, readiness is in maximum. It is quite understandable that my opponent didn't want to continue the game

[Harri_L]

Well, now I looked for historical data, and according to Wikipedia Germany produce 50 000 tanks during the war. So my forces in the game weren't so huge after all... But it sure feels like it

[pyguinard]

ORIGINAL: Harri_L

The Russians definately need more men and tanks to survive '41. The German reinforcements that year don't really matter that year... But in 42-43 the German army is incredibly strong. I dug up an old save, date 29/8/43 I have at least 7866 tanks at Eastern front, 2218 in France and Italy, and 2352 in pool. 43 946 squads are in the front...2218 back in pool and in the west.

Avarage CV is propably over 100. Because of the peaceful front, readiness is in maximum. It is quite understandable that my opponent didn't want to continue the game

The Russians have plenty of men and tanks to survive '41, believe me! It is just that with the possibility to use only 20% of them plus everything that low readiness implies they can only get surrounded (...and eliminated) by a clever german player. As the russian player, it is not even possible to form a good line of defense in time before the ennemy gets there! [X(]

Although I tend to agree with FL on his oil assumptions (except for 1941), the easy fix is to increase readiness by only a little bit and it works. [8D]

For a 1942 campaign, Russians have better tanks than Germans and whenever a tank battle occurs, the german will loose more than his opponent. If the russian player waits until the german gets Tiger and Panthers, the odds get reversed, that's simple. As the russian player, I would try to provoke things but if my german opponent tries to concentrate on one point (Moscow?) I would concentrate on his flanks (Tula or Demyansk!) to cut his supply lines (at Vyazma and Rhezv!). As the Russians you can't just sit and wait for things to happen, you have to provoke them a little!

[Harri_L]

the easy fix is to increase readiness by only a little bit and it works.

Doesn't that only give temporary advantage to the Soviet side? Or can you make the readiness bonus to last for the whole campaign?

[pyguinard]

ORIGINAL: Harri_L

Doesn't that only give temporary advantage to the Soviet side? Or can you make the readiness bonus to last for the whole campaign?

Although I never PBEM it, I found out in testing it that some readiness gains at the beginning allows the russian player to deploy more efficiently in the opening turns. It thus gives more time to entrench and building a solid line of defense (ex.: along the Dnepr River) becomes feasible. This "temporary advantage" makes a big difference in subsequent turns.

It also makes the initial german assault just a little bit harder. It slows them down and makes it look feasible for the Russians to resist until the blizzard.

[Zaphod_Fin]

Yup, as we played Campaign '42 Germany incredibly seemed to out-produce the Soviets. Because repelling all USAAF bombers isn't so hard (is it possible to edit the number of attacking squadrons/planes or their experience somehow?), Germany's production remained at maximum the whole time.

Although the Soviets got stronger, making any kind of a breakthrough seemed impossible: because of the production system the German player could amass tanks to virtually all it's frontline Korps, total tank numbers being ridiculously huge.

When you compare the number of German panzers with a '42 game played to summer '43 and Campaign '43, the difference is thousands of panzers regardless of German losses...

[DavidFaust]

Mybe you should try the possumv6 mod

[Jim D Burns]

I haven't played WIR in ages but I remember I used to deploy every single Soviet HQ on map and reassign their leaders right away. I'd give each HQ a section of the front with maybe 3-5 corps each. That would allow the Soviets enough readiness boosts each turn to give every front line corps an increase or two every turn so they'd average 60-90 readiness across the front by turn 2-3. Germany couldn't touch me once I had a decent line established with 4-5 inf divs per corp and armor kept in reserves within all the HQ’s.

It also helped by spreading out Soviet air power (at least 1 fighter and 1 bomber group per HQ) so the Germans couldn’t totally suppress Soviet air power without changing over a lot of potential ground strike groups to air base attacks. This helped take a lot of pressure off of the ground combats and actually allowed a few soviet bombers to make an appearance once in a while to help out defending units.

Of course I always played against the AI, I never did an email game. Is Russia doomed in a PBEM game even using this strategy?

Jim

[markpalm1]

Russia cannot be beat in PBEM if they decline to engage the Germans, except in an arc around Moscow, until the blizzards come. By the time the Germans hit the arc, there should be 200+ divisions dug in to level 6, which they don't have time to penetrate.

Put only infantry divisions in the arc, except for the biggest tank corps in HQ reserve. Put the rest of the tanks and cavalry on the flanks, and don't use these until Dec 41.

You lose Leningrad and Kharkov, but you get them back later.

[Agent Smith]

This stategy will lead to sure defeat of Russia.
First you will quickly lose Leningrad and all Southern cities including Voronez and Rostov. You will not be able evacuate most of factories. Your resources will drop below 100. You will be unable to maintain war efforts in 1942.

[markpalm1]

Historically, that should not be the case:

From: http://www.wargamesdirectory.com/html/a ... efault.asp

"Halder knew that for success the German plan would depend heavily on the Soviet reaction to it. He felt that if the Soviet military high command had a strategy of immediate, systematic withdrawal into the hinterland, the German field armies could not intercept its forces enroute to Moscow. Then, the war would drag out somewhere in European Russia to the detriment of the Germans. In the event, with astonishing good luck for Halder, Hitler, and the Germans, the Soviets chose to defend strongly everywhere, as far forward as possible, retreating only when forced by tactical disintegration or when breaking out of several large encirclements set by the Germans."

[JagdFlanker]

if the soviets in WiR were able to replace losses at a half decent rate in 1941 and entrenchment in the game wasn't such a mess, then it likely would work. but...

[AndyBrown]

ORIGINAL: pyguinard

To correct the situation, I used the game editor to remove the German Motorized Divisions from the Front and increased the Russian readiness level by 50% of their original level (20% => 30%).

Did you increase only Sov units with readiness 20% to 30% or did you multiply all Sov units' readiness x 1.5 ?

( because I notice some Sov units do have readiness > 20 ).

Andy Brown