3.3 Winter Options

[JagdFlanker]

My First Post - YEA!

anyhow, i'm only in my 3rd game so I'm not much interested in complicated house rules yet, but I was reading the Canada vs. NZ doc and it got me thinkin' so tell me what you guys think.

In my current game it's my first time as sovs and it's 4/5/42. right now my line is running from Leningrad straight south to Kiev, runs with the Dnieper a little, then plunges straight down to Sevastopol. Plus i'm 2 hexes from Helsinki, but that's gravy on the fries. anyhow, even though it was only my first game, it's hard not to notice that the amount of shattering is just stupid - I think I made 80-90% of his front line shatter by half way through Jan., and to be nice I actually stopped where I was over a month ago because we havn't made it to '42 yet and we want to see how fluid the '42 advance is just so we know what to expect later. The moment I thought it was getting stupid was when I'd start attacking with inferior forces just because all you have to do is do ANY attack, and there's an excellent chance the unit would shatter regardless of the attacking strength.

So here's the 2 possibilities I came up with:

1. The Sovs are only allowed to create breathing room for 3 cities - Leningrad, Moscow, and Rostov. For Moscow and Rostov the Sov's may Advance up to 7 hexes around those cities, and Leningrad up to 3 hexes away. Otherwise all units must hold in position, unless the Germans retreat to shorten the line, in which case the Sov armies may advance adjacent to a German unit, but they still don't attack. In principal I like the idea as it's a little more historical but there's nothing to stop the German player from just retreating to eliminate all losses. And if that happened the winter of '41 would be pretty boring for the Sovs, but regardless it would leave them in a relitively solid defensive position for the summer of '42 (or I would think, as I havn't had the pleasure of attacking or defending in '42 yet). Also few Sov units would gain valuable experience during the winter, so they may be a little easier to to overrun in '42.

2. This makes a little more sense - from the first blizzard turn to, say, the first turn in March, all Sov units may only plot 1 hex per turn. And if that's STILL too fast, then all Sov units may only ever plot a single static attack OR make a single plot into an empty hex, but may never just move into a German unit occupied hex.

It could even be a combo of the 2, but I'm liking the second of the 2 the most.

Oh Yeah!

[sbond]

3.3 is broke, blizzard and winter are way to much against the Germans. They are losing more in one blizzard week then they did in months at Stalingrad. The German Armies did not shatter and break like that in 41 42 43. They were broken a few times but the loses are horrendous and there is no hope of Germany staying in the game with such horrid lose. I do not know if the last patch was trying to balance the early war or not but it is unplayable for me.

[Forward_March]

Obviously you can't expect the AI to do everything in it's power that may be a little more ordinary than "Holding the line". A human opponent is much more inventive. EVen though the below options are a bit gamey, they keep a bit of the blizzard bug from destroying the German army unrealistically.
Try this:
First, go back to version 3.2. 3.3 seems a bit hinky to me, just from reading here.
In 3.2, the blizzard bug is still bad for the Germans, but can be worked around to some extent.
Here are some facts:
German units will shatter in blizzard if readiness is over 50%.
Units with over 50% will NOT suffer attrition when they move during the blizzard. They will however still suffer the normal attrition caused by the cold in just losses of squads not from combat.
The Allied units will shatter more easily at any percentage of readiness.
So, here are some options:
1. Retreat slowly wherever units are over 50% during the blizzard.
2. If there are units under 50% readiness that you MUST pull back use air supply missions to raise their readiness before you move them.
Or, transfer them from one corps to another to maintain your line, and keep readiness low enough to avoid shatter, but high enough to have some combat reliability.

[MikeB]

Our WIR 3.2 game ...resulted in a stalemate(sort of). It is spring 43 and the Germans are holding Leningrad - straight south to the marshes.

South of the marshes is sw corner of marshes through to 2nd river east...near Odessa. cant remember if i control Odessa itself.

Winter 42-43 is not subject to excessive shatters for Germans.

As the game does NOT allow one to CONTROL supply....one makes haphazard guesses. A hex supply level of 6 with a nearby HQ(with spare Ops points) will lead to excess of 50% . ergo. retreat is only possibility. As mentioned, i retreated some 20 hexes to avoid combat as the German in 3.2 .

It is my perception that despite this horrendous retreat, The german army simply does NOT have the strength to push forward in 42. Note that in 42 you will likely lose air superiority. All those pretty JU87Bs....simply die in the attempt.

Oh yes, the rules stated something about non entrenchment in mud or winter. This is NOT true. The Russians happily entrench once they move forward. WIR 3.3 may have led to lower probabilities of successful entrenchment....but they do still entrench. Dont believe the rule book.

Since this is the first game you have played....i encourage you to negotiate exchange of ALT R files via email. You will be amazed at the comparative production....not to mention tank/air stockpiles of the Russians.

Did i mention the famous Russian Artillery and steam roller combat effects. Russian artillery - flak - will decimate German air squads. In wir3.3, i believe they toned it down relative to high flying german fighters.

The German objective after Dec 41 is simply to survive!

Cheers.

[JIM366]

Hi

I Got lucky in my latest game of 3.3/ Possum 6. We had very few shatters, so I was able to keep the pressure on; In the end, I got to lay a nasty pasting on the evil nazi scum trolls. Summer 42 is now here and my opponent is preparing to return the favour.
I understand that my opponent is suffering from the horrible blizzard bug in another game....
I think that 3.3 is quirky; sometimes you get the blizzard bug (It happened to me once, and wrecked the game), and sometimes you don't.
I don't know if it will help, but perhaps you could re-do a turn from scratch (or possibly the entire winter counteroffensive) if the blizzard bug rears it's ugly head. IMHO, once you are past the winter of 41/42, everything should be alright.

[JagdFlanker]

I assure you whenever I'm talking about WiR it never has anything to do with the AI, since it's so brutally easy to predict and soooo sloppy that it's a waste of time using it. By winter in my first game I destroyed 8 Pz Korps, not that the AI actually puts tanks or mech infantry in them since they seem to be filled with mostly foot infantry when I checked on it.

But I would have to say my only very basic beef with the shattering thing is:
Even though I never checked into it, why would any German Division shatter under any circumstances, even during WW II? Wern't they the best trained and most cohesive army during the conflict? And also isn't the Wehrmach in the game already losing 10% of it's troops in Russia every turn there's a blizzard in 1941 only? Isn't that punishment enough, and if it isn't then can't they just lose more to attrition or just retreat easier? Shattering for German Korps should be close to non-existant period - let's just hope it's taken care of for the next patch.

My problem with going back to 3.2 is I really like being able re-equip my AT and Tank Divisions with whatever I want when the situation arises. To be honourable I always try to make sure I have twice as many Med tank Factories as Heavy tank factories, and no Division has more than 1 Heavy tank Battlion, but I like putting them where I want according to situation. I guess I started playing with 3.3 so I don't want to go back, but if I want to play the '41 scen then mabe I better. I just like '41 the best because I like starting the whole war off organized the way I like it, and why start halfway through the war when you can start it from the beginning?

I am interested in MikeB's opinion that Germany is incapable of mounting a proper offensive in '42 - by the beginning of June '42 are most German Divisions at least back up to around 250 squads? If not, then I would definatly say the excessive shattering is beyond what the game expected when originally programmed. Not that I'd be happy with only 250 squads per Division, but at least you can do something with that Division. Do you think, as boring as it might seem, the best way to fix all these problems would be a restrained attack as outlined in my first point above? That way both the German squad levels would be maintained, and allow Germany to possibly win the game in '42. As well as maintaining the squad level, Soviet experience would be somewhat lower. I'm not sure if playing with less of a shattering problem in 3.2 is gonna make things any better if any shattering is too much.