Indipendent Units

[Monkeys Brain]

Excellent stuff ComradeP. Thanks.

I only disagree with you with size of artylery regiments attached to Soviet Armies as in 1943. there were 3 I think. I am quoting here John Erickson "The Road to Berlin" another great book based mostly on Soviet sources. But maybe you were talking about late Soviet Armies. Erickson also I think maybe a little inflates Soviet tank numbers or maybe Ziemke is here wrong because he puts larger tank numbers in reserve (after all crews had to be trained). But who knows who was right on target here.

[MengCiao]

ORIGINAL: Offworlder

Size is not everything. This is the post Purge army we're talking about with such geniuses as Budenny in command. Also most of the Soviet army was dispersed and incapable of offering immediate counterattack. Also the bulk of the armour and aircraft available intially was crappy at best. The men are mostly inexperienced and in low morale. Its not just in C&C that the Red Army was deficient and what passed for a supreme leader and HQ were frankly caught with their pants down.

All true, but as a Soviet player, even in 1941 I'd like to think it is possible to:

a) salvage some good commanders from the mess at the front
b) release some good commanders (like Meretskov) from Post-Purge Prison and hand them good armies for particular missions
c) construct armies that resemble the make-shift Soviet armies of late 41 and early 42 where the army level command has what
little support units are available
d) find some way of improving C&C...possibly the admin points cover such things as setting up signal/radio nets for different size units and
simulates the steady improvment in C&C that better admin and signals would automatically allow.

[ComradeP]

The tricky (and interesting) aspect of the simulation for me will be to see how quickly the Soviets can put together a good (army level at least) command structure to use their tangible resources (such as army-level support units).

A German corps was often worth more than the sum of its parts, due to the "synergy" bonus given by the German operational and tactical system. More units meant more chances of free flowing battles with ad hoc forces and more possibilities in general.

A Soviet Army was often worth less than the sum of its parts, because the leadership was so poor that, say, 8 Rifle divisions were used as a giant armed mob (in all honesty, a Rifle division often wasn't much more than an armed mob), using numbers rather than the possibilities given by having more units to use in an attack. Even those Guards Mechanized and Tank Corps were often more big than flexible, an unstoppable wave of men and machine crushing depleted German formations.

There are historians who say that the Germans were "outgeneraled" by the Soviets during, say Bagration. In my opinion, the Germans were more often outgeneraled by their own generals and often Hitler than by the Soviets as even in 1945, a determined Soviet assault could still be stopped as long as there was a force to stop it with. The main problem was, of course, that such a force wasn't there. Fighting and winning battles you can't lose doesn't make you a good general.

Size is not everything. This is the post Purge army we're talking about with such geniuses as Budenny in command. Also most of the Soviet army was dispersed and incapable of offering immediate counterattack. Also the bulk of the armour and aircraft available intially was crappy at best. The men are mostly inexperienced and in low morale. Its not just in C&C that the Red Army was deficient and what passed for a supreme leader and HQ were frankly caught with their pants down.

Funny you'd say "Size is not everything" regarding a War in the East game. In the East, size means a lot. If the Soviet Union had not been so huge, the Soviets would've had nowhere to run to. If their population wasn't big, they would've lost the war.

The Soviet Army in June 1941 was understrength and in most sectors poorly prepared for the Axis attack, true. However, the Soviet player could withdraw his quality formations (especially Rifle Corps and Armoured Divisions which would still be intact), disband many of the less than stellar ones, and get those up to strength.

It would be important to include a penalty on disbanding units that are in contact, or to not make it possible at all, otherwise the Soviet player could simply disband almost all of his initial formations near the border and use the replacements that would give him to boost all the other formations to proper strength in the time it will take the Axis to reach them.

Suck the Axis into the Soviet interior, delaying them with poor formations, and launch a counterattack in the winter. It would be very difficult to have less success than the Soviets did in real life, especially if your objectives are more realistic than what Stalin had in mind (which came down to "surround the majority of Army Group Center and North at the same time").

The Axis player needs to bleed the Soviet Army, by using sensible defensive strategies, by minimizing the amount of offensives that have little strategic value, such as the capture of Stalingrad or Unternehmen Zitadelle and by using the backhand blow method to encircle and destroy the slow moving Soviet army.

If the Soviet player doesn't allow the Axis to establish proper defensive lines when overstretched, can somehow force the Axis player to start offensives that serve little purpose, and advances slowly and methodically in one nationwide human wave that can't be flanked, the Soviet player more or less can't lose.

Infantry experience matters less than numbers if the doctrine ignores the individual and is focussed on the group. The Germans had their soldierly values and in some cases a nearly religious faith in victory, the Soviets had decades of brainwashing which meant that men carried out orders that meant certain death.

I don't believe that the Soviet soldier had low morale, in fact: I have some doubts whether morale was really in issue in many battles. It's all about leadership. As long as the communists were screaming at the peasants that they should advance, they did. When that stopped, confusion set in as the communist system didn't really allow any personal initiative at all (completely opposite to the operational and tactical system used by the Germans).

Many of the early war encirclements were possible because all those hundreds of thousands of men were sheep without a shepherd and thus the majority didn't really try to break out, which in many cases would've been quite possible considering that the Germans barely screened the flanks in the larger encirclements as they couldn't because the infantry was still catching up and the manpower wasn't available.

You'd also think that morale would be low in the winter of 1941-1942, after a long series of defeats, but still the Soviet soldiers died by the thousands in the snow because they were ordered to fight the Germans, who were hiding in the villages. Hardship was an accepted part of life it seemed. The result was many suicidal actions. A loud hurrah, an assault that left many men dead, another loud hurrah, another assault that left many men dead, and so on until the unit was depleted to the bone or the Germans were dead. Up to late 1943 primarily the former, from the beginning of 1944 the latter.

Also, many leaders in the Wehrmacht had a serious case of victory fever after the fall of France and the Balkans and they had no realistic idea of just what the Soviet Union would be capable of militarily, specifically how much damage the Soviet military could take and still function. There were many less brilliant generals on the Axis side too, but the training and initiative of their subordinates did more to cloud that than the "you go where I say you go" system of the Soviets.

I only disagree with you with size of artylery regiments attached to Soviet Armies as in 1943. there were 3 I think.

I was referring to sectors with active combat, the overall average is probably lower as the Soviets (and the Axis, of course) stripped quiet sectors of everything they could.

That average for early war operations, such as the Smolensk to Moscow period of Barbarossa in 1941 is 4>, the same goes for the battle for Kharkov in 1942 (with one Army getting a grand total of 12 regiments), average for late 1942 operations is lower as the Soviet artillery wasn't very mobile so encirclement battles could often not be supported in strength unless they were slow paced (such as the battle for Stalingrad).

The estimate for the third battle of Kharkov in 1943, is about 3 or 4 regiments for the Soviets, but that includes the not officially assigned Reserve artillery of Voronezh front. At Kursk, 13th Army seems to have had access to the equivalent of a sickening 27 regiments, mostly in the Breakthrough Artillery Corps and attached to the Guards divisions (so not all under Army control).

Early 1944, the average seems to have been around 4 regiments. Bagration's a bit of a black hole for me, I don't have the data on hand to compare the average artillery strength. Early 1945, divisions finally got their own artillery, so armies were drained a bit, but some got some very heavy firepower in the shape of Artillery Divisions, such as during the siege of Budapest.

All in all, I guess the overall average is lower than my 4-8, as it varied a lot in between Armies, but the average of around 4, with some much higher, for Armies in combat zones seem appropriate.

[Monkeys Brain]

OK ComradeP I see that you are well educated in East Front! Like that! [:D]

BTW, I must here also emphasize some thing that was done very poorly in TOAW...

There are many things but I will say just some - everything is in the books! So research!!!

If game is made only on numbers then dumb led Soviet formations will stop German attacks easily (see TOAW and entrenched tanks etc).

Now, if you read Clark, Ziemke all others - for example I will give one example - Operation Blau - before Voronezh, Soviets had around 800 modern tanks like T34, KV1 etc... but they were so poorly led (Stalin was yelling at some general about why he uses his tank corps to encircle one German regiment! hehe) - Germans bombed them with Stukas to oblivion and dispersed them and German armour although weaker finished them off...

In TOAW you can bomb Soviet tanks with Stukas like mad monkey hehe and you will destroy eventually 2 T-34 LOL

Another example, try attacking entrenched T-34 in TOAW with infantry even with German tanks and again - low results unless it is encircled - flaw in TOAW design.

Now if you read books you will see that before Stalingrad for example in balkas many T34 were destroyed guess what with German infantry! Try that in TOAW.

So note to designers - game should try to simulate history as much as possible. Sorry I write this fast but main thought is here.

[vinnie71]

ORIGINAL: elmo3

If a leader passes an initiative check their support units can be assigned to attack or defend.  Range from the HQ to the battle matters but I forget the specifics right now.  Max of 5 support units can participate in any one battle IIRC.  Support units are always assigned to either an HQ or a combat unit and that assignment can be changed.

Now that I'm looking at this statement, how do army reserves (if they exist in game) move? If there are indipendent units attached to Army or Army Group command, will they move to assist corps commands or even front line divisions?

[Rhetor]

From the screenshot I can see that these support units would be quite numerous.

It might be reasonable to implement some dialog displaying all the support units and their current attachments. With such number of support there also could be some kind of search tool or filter (e.g. "display artillery supports only").

[critter]

I don't understand why the ind. units are assigned to hq's and are assigned randomly. You can move whole armies when, where you want to. Decide who they're attached to, even sack the corps/army commanders...yet hope 1 of 18 units in the hq reserve get into the battle.
Seems to me a unit could go thru the whole war in "reserve" and never fight if the die rolls where right.
Can they be assigned manually to your fighting units? Can you assign shot up Units to reserve?

[Rasputitsa]

I like the feature of Korps/Army HQs having units assigned to them, which is how it worked in WIR. If WitE is going to be the same, then these assigned units will protect the HQ from direct attack and be available to re-enforce other units that the HQ is controlling. Especially in defence, you will not know where an attack may fall and you will want the HQ to have assigned units, which could be used by the AI to back up your attacked units. I would like to be able to manually assign units into HQs, where I think they will be of best use, even if units are initially automatically assigned. Will newly raised units first be assigned to a higher HQ, for the player to re-distribute to lower HQs of your choice ? [:)]

[elmo3]

ORIGINAL: Offworlder


Now that I'm looking at this statement, how do army reserves (if they exist in game) move? If there are indipendent units attached to Army or Army Group command, will they move to assist corps commands or even front line divisions?

Support units automatically move with whatever HQ or combat unit they are attached to at the time. Whether they will assist a combat unit on attack or defense depends on leader initiative and other factors such as distance of the HQ from the battle in the case of support units assigned to HQ's. When they do assist they don't really move on the map but they are included in the combat calculation for that battle. Hope that helps.

[elmo3]

ORIGINAL: Rhetor

From the screenshot I can see that these support units would be quite numerous.

It might be reasonable to implement some dialog displaying all the support units and their current attachments. With such number of support there also could be some kind of search tool or filter (e.g. "display artillery supports only").

That screen shot was a pretty extreme case in terms of the number of support units attached. You would probably want to spread those around but I chose that shot to best show the variety of support units all in one shot.

[elmo3]

ORIGINAL: critter

I don't understand why the ind. units are assigned to hq's and are assigned randomly. You can move whole armies when, where you want to. Decide who they're attached to, even sack the corps/army commanders...yet hope 1 of 18 units in the hq reserve get into the battle.
Seems to me a unit could go thru the whole war in "reserve" and never fight if the die rolls where right.
Can they be assigned manually to your fighting units? Can you assign shot up Units to reserve?

Yes you can manually assign support units, to a German division for example. However the appropriate leader must get initiative to use those units in a battle. That is beyond the control of the player but of course you can improve your chances by having your leaders with good initiative in the right place and assigning them some support units.

"Reserve" status is a whole different concept and I don't think it applies to support units. Not sure right now if support units can be held back from combat other than by reassigning them to a higher level HQ further from the fight.

[elmo3]

ORIGINAL: Rasputitsa

I like the feature of Korps/Army HQs having units assigned to them, which is how it worked in WIR. If WitE is going to be the same, then these assigned units will protect the HQ from direct attack and be available to re-enforce other units that the HQ is controlling. Especially in defence, you will not know where an attack may fall and you will want the HQ to have assigned units, which could be used by the AI to back up your attacked units. I would like to be able to manually assign units into HQs, where I think they will be of best use, even if units are initially automatically assigned. Will newly raised units first be assigned to a higher HQ, for the player to re-distribute to lower HQs of your choice ? [:)]

HQ's alone in a hex will displace if next to an enemy combat unit regardless of support units directly attached. The answer to the rest of your questions is generally yes without going into all the details.

[MengCiao]

ORIGINAL: ComradeP

The tricky (and interesting) aspect of the simulation for me will be to see how quickly the Soviets can put together a good (army level at least) command structure to use their tangible resources (such as army-level support units).

A German corps was often worth more than the sum of its parts, due to the "synergy" bonus given by the German operational and tactical system. More units meant more chances of free flowing battles with ad hoc forces and more possibilities in general.

A Soviet Army was often worth less than the sum of its parts, because the leadership was so poor that, say, 8 Rifle divisions were used as a giant armed mob (in all honesty, a Rifle division often wasn't much more than an armed mob), using numbers rather than the possibilities given by having more units to use in an attack. Even those Guards Mechanized and Tank Corps were often more big than flexible, an unstoppable wave of men and machine crushing depleted German formations.

There are historians who say that the Germans were "outgeneraled" by the Soviets during, say Bagration. In my opinion, the Germans were more often outgeneraled by their own generals and often Hitler than by the Soviets as even in 1945, a determined Soviet assault could still be stopped as long as there was a force to stop it with. The main problem was, of course, that such a force wasn't there. Fighting and winning battles you can't lose doesn't make you a good general.

This all may be true, but it seems unwise to assume that this sort of reading of the situation needs to be built into the game from the ground up. It seems to me that the treatment of support units (in HQs and assigned by commanders of variable abilities, with "commander" here perhaps being a shorthand
method for showing the work of communications and staffs and training) might possibly allow for the Soviet player to build up armies that can be as synergistic as a German force (say a corps) of roughly similar size. The Soviets themselves were aware of their problems in late 1941 and early 1942 and fielded simplified rifle divisions and kept support units at the army level precisely in order to get the most out of what they had in terms of support and C&C. My only suggestion about how to make this work at least potentially is that improvement in Soviet communications and communications training and experience be made explicit rather than being absorbed into "commanders" or "morale"...The Soviet player might for example have the option of spending admin points on communications nets or even phantom com nets (as was done for deception) in order to improve the responsiveness and flexibility even of second-rate commanders and third-rate formations.

[Cavalry Corp]

I cannot see why only 5 units may work at one time

That should depend on the quality of the HQ leadership etc

There is more than enough "space " to deploy 100 nevermind 5

Cav

[Cavalry Corp]

I would also like to see the display in some sort of order with Nato symbols so we can see 5 aritillery units etc
Some sort of order when you need to view them fast

BTW I think we should do away with the word gun and replace it with artillery or better still use the proper term for each nation

Also non motorised would be better replaced with the word horsedrawn with the appropriate symbol



Cav

[elmo3]

ORIGINAL: cavalry

I cannot see why only 5 units may work at one time

That should depend on the quality of the HQ leadership etc

There is more than enough "space " to deploy 100 nevermind 5

Cav

I may have stated it incorrectly. The HQ can provide up to 5 and a combat can have up to 3 of it's own so that makes 8 possible. I'll have to check on whether that is the absolute max or whether there can be more if multiple units are in on an attack/defense.

[Cavalry Corp]

So if there are two DIVS attacking or defending then its 6 plus 5 = 11 ?

Cav

[elmo3]

ORIGINAL: cavalry

So if there are two DIVS attacking or defending then its 6 plus 5 = 11 ?

Cav

I'm checking. As you can imagine the manual we are using in alpha is constantly changing.

[Joel Billings]

Each German division or Soviet Corps (combat unit, not corps HQ) can have up to 3 support units directly attached. These units will always participate in combat with the unit it is attached to. Support units that are attached to a HQ may participate in combat if the leader of the HQ makes an initiative check and the HQ is within 5 hexes of a combat involving units reporting to the HQ (distance does not matter, it did at one time, but we removed that rule many months ago). In order to be committed from a HQ, support units must also normally pass a die(6)>support units already committed in order to be committed to a battle. In battles over light-urban and heavy-urban hexes, the defending support units must pass a die(18)>support units already committed in order to be committed to the battle. So 6 is the max support units from a HQ unless in urban terrain, in which case the max is 18.

My understanding is if you have 3 divisions with 3 support units each in a battle, you will have those 9 support units involved, along with the possibility of up to 6 more from HQs.

[Cavalry Corp]

Joel

Thanks for the clarification

Cav