Open your mind!

[Der Lwe]

This might have been mentioned earlier, but I think a "sliding scale" victory condition whit certain chans-risk of Russian-German surrender once you reach a ceartain VP number would be an idea. As the Axis take more VP in 41 the chans-risk increase. This would urge the russian player to a forward deffence and the german player can choose a risky winter offensive as a mean to win early. Also the Russian player would want to start an early counteroffensive to reduce the risk of political surender. The same mechanism would work in 44-45, but then the shoe is on the other foot.

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: Tarhunnas

ORIGINAL: abulbulian

Per Deserted Fox, people should also realize besides the failed summer Kharkov offensive in which the Soviets through away almost half million men and the Stalingrad debacle, the Soviets also lost millions in the below offensives. Thus, given a competent Soviet player not making this kind of horrible mistakes, the axis is going to have a very difficult creating a stalemate situation in mid-late 42 and onward.

Lyuban (1942) Soviet Union: failed attempt to relieve Leningrad.

Mars (1942) Soviet Union: failed major offensive against Rzhev salient

Jupiter (1942) Soviet Union: second phase of failed major offensive against Rzhev salient.

Operation Mars is actually a very good example of why WITE is not currently getting the right results in 1942. In WITE, operation Mars would not have been a failure! The Soviets would have pushed the Germans back and eliminated their fortifications, which would have made it impossible for the Germans to hold on to their frontline hexes without accepting intolerable losses. Quite simply, the historical operation Mars shows that even in late 1942, the Soviets were unable to penetrate German prepared positions. In WITE, they can easily do that from early summer 1942 and onwards!

Edit: @Deserted Fox: Interesting paper, thanks for posting the link.

Much of what Glantz says is covered in his three volume book on Stalingrad (Third volume pending). I fail to comprehend the statement The Russians tried their very best to let the Germans win in 1941 and up until August 1942, but ultimately they failed. which is a gross misrepresentation of what Glantz is writing about IMO, nor does the article solely pin Stalin as the culprit for the failed offensives. That the Soviets had the strength to conduct numerous Counterstrokes and Offensives....and several major offensives of their own is only part of the argument and to my knowledge has never been disputed. Massive numerical strength and large reserves have always been part and parcel of any War in the East game......going all the way back to Chris Crawford's "Eastern Front". Glantz also repeatedly points out that such attempts often exceeded Soviet Tactical and Operational capabilities and severely underestimated those of the Whermacht.

From what i've been reading in this forum as an interested owner of WitE (but thus far have been unable to play it), is that the Soviet side can employ several gambits that appear to belie the German strengths in the game. On the issue of not conducting or duplicating the more ambitious and costly failed Soviet offensives, there should be consequences even there for not engaging the Germans and bleeding them.

[tigercub]

I also am waiting to play this game, 3 stalled starts and now on hold (i waited 2 years before playing WITP and many restarts held back on WITPAE many stalled starts)because i am hard core and want more from these games and it means waiting for the game to get to place were i feel its ready to go!
 
Tiger

[neuromancer]

The thing that is often forgotten by those that defend the current game model in WitE is that Stalin had completely gutted the officer corps, almost literally, that the army underwent several significant overhauls before it became particularly effective, AND there were political officers who would second guess the military commanders or at least add a level of complication which slowed the Red Army ability to do anything.
 
It took until late 1942 for the mess that was the Red Army in June 1941 to be sorted out until it could actually be particularly useful. Sure, they had vast numerical superiority, but they couldn't use it effectively. In fact their numbers were likely part of the problem, its hard to coordinate that large a force, and the logistics and supply of a larger force is disproportionately more complicated (I'd be hard pressed to say whether the Communists or the Nazis had the worse logistics and supply system, but both were bad). Also the Soviet army soldier was not particularly well trained, and when they are fielding that many fresh soldiers (in between replacing high losses and fielding scores of new units) it only keeps the general quality of the soldiers low. The Soviet officer wasn't particularly well trained even at the best of times either - and like most other armies, trained to fight the previous war.
 
This is in counter-point to the Wehrmacht (not the SS) which was a professional organization. The individual soldier was well trained, and the officers generally of good quality. Initiative was encouraged, and the input of lower ranking soldiers were considered. Plus by 1941 the Wehrmacht was a battle hardened force with experienced commanders, and good procedures in place. Of course at the very top Hitler was the opposite, but the Wehrmacht was a pretty well run army. Even their replacements were a higher quality than typical as they were kept in Ersatz units which would be training in the field until a formation needed replacements, unlike the replacements from the depots that most other armies did.
 
History shows that until late 1942, the Red Army was simply not that good. Big, clumsy, unfocused, and poorly led. Their successes were the exception, not the rule. Of course part of the change might (probably?) have been that the units that were used to trap 6 Armee at Stalingrad might have been held back to receive proper training and practise modern tactics, while most of the other formations in the field up until that time had been rushed into the field to try and stop the Germans through sheer force of numbers (the Zap Branigan tactic.... we will bury them in mountains of our dead!)
 
It can even be argued that at their height the Red Army was a clumsy instrument. Even once they went on the offensive and stayed there, they were still taking higher casualties than the Germans. At war's end the Soviets had suffered twice as many casualties than the Germans. The Germans suffered a total of 5.53 million military casualties spread between Poland, the Western Campaign, Africa/Italy, the East Front (accounted for an estimated 80% of casualties or roughly 4.4 million military casualties), the Western Allied Invasion, and the partisan efforts. The Soviets took 9.75 million military casualties only fighting on the one front (notably, 4 million of those were in the first 6 months of the war).
 
So the numbers of Soviet soldiers and units isn't the biggest problem (although as T pointed out above, he's seeing too many Soviet soldiers compared to history, and historically they didn't lose Moscow and Leningrad!) The problem is that Red Army becomes effective too quickly.
 
 
As another note - historical accuracy is one thing, but only to a point.  Refighting WW2 to the exact same conclusion is boring, we know how it ended.  I've seen that movie.  I want something that can end differently. 
 
Although as has been said, it may be complete fantasy to say that the Axis has anything but the slimmest chance of winning the war, so a game victory doesn't necessarily have to mean they will win the war.  That probably means doing significantly better than the historical performance.
 

[kfmiller41]

I am currently reading a book called "Stalingrad to Kursk, Triumph of the Red Army" by Geoffrey Jukes, and it tries to answer alot of thee questions. His logic seems very sound  and recommend it as a good read.

[Captain]

It has always been difficult to explain how the Red Army beat the German Heer. The traditional view, propagated by German generals after the war, was that a combination of overwhelming mass of Soviet soldiers/equipment and Hitler's mistakes did them in. More recent histories show that this is a very simplistic view.

The WW2 Soviet Army had many of the weaknesses of Arab armies: top down, overly centralised control; lack of initiative/training among junior officers/NCOs. As the IDF has shown many times, a small, flexible army can beat a large inflexible army almost every time.

What Glantz and others have shown is more of a continuum, the Werhmacht was at its peak of efficiency in june 1941, but their replacement system was totally inadequate and could never supply enough men, AFVs, airplanes, etc. to make up for their losses, so German units kept becoming progressivily weaker.

On the other hand, the Red Army was at its weakest, most disorganised in june 1941. However, it kept improving on a daily basis, officers were promoted on the basis of competence, officers became better and better at coordinating plans/units, the power of commissars was curbed, Stalin learned to stop interfering in military plans and increasingly better equipment was sent to the troops. Already, by late summer 1941, you could see improvements in the batttle before Moscow. In the summer of 42, the Soviet performance was noticeably better than in 41.

[Q-Ball]

The Wehrmacht possessed qualitative superiority over EVERYONE, IMO, right up to the end of the war.

The strength of the Wehrmacht was it's institutional memory, embodied in it's professional and highly efficient officer corps and procedures. The Wehrmacht consistently attracted the best and brightest Germany had to offer, while the armies of the Western Allies didn't (because there were more outlets and opportunities for talented men).

Obviously, the efficiency of the Wehrmacht degraded throughout the war, as losses took their toll, while the Western Allies and Soveits all improved. But even in the last battles for Berlin, the Germans were out-killing Soviets, just not to the degree they did in 1941.

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

The Wehrmacht possessed qualitative superiority over EVERYONE, IMO, right up to the end of the war.

The strength of the Wehrmacht was it's institutional memory, embodied in it's professional and highly efficient officer corps and procedures. The Wehrmacht consistently attracted the best and brightest Germany had to offer, while the armies of the Western Allies didn't (because there were more outlets and opportunities for talented men).

Obviously, the efficiency of the Wehrmacht degraded throughout the war, as losses took their toll, while the Western Allies and Soveits all improved. But even in the last battles for Berlin, the Germans were out-killing Soviets, just not to the degree they did in 1941.

This is true to a point.....of course always with qualifications. It was refreshing for once to see a modern author (Hastings: Armageddon) not go the usual revisionist path of the last decade or so and try to portray the Germans (or Japan at it's height for that matter) as just average soldiers....not really better than any democratic nation (re: The United States... [:D] ), and in fact graver inferior in alot of respects etc etc.....and pump out a bunch of subjective statistics to "prove the point" The author instead just flat out says......noting that it will be unpalatable to Nationalists who will not agree, that in many cases the Germans were simply better when it came to much of the craft of warfare....citing that they'd been at it the longest, and had been built up for war by dictatorships etc etc and embraced war early on whilst the Allied nations tended to shun war but when pushed into it, geared up and went at it as civilian soldiers. He does cavet of course, saying that this was not universal....not every battle...not every unit was better....but "in general" and he cites the fact that despite their crushing material superiority and total command of the air....after the initial and spectacular romp across france, the Western Allies bogged down and (in the author's opinion) unimaginatively and cautiously slogged its way tentatively and at times painfully into Germany whilst the Germans fought with both their remaining skill and the tenacity of defenders guarding their homeland....sometimes beating incredible odds in the process

Hastings is perhaps a little too unfair to the Red Army, agreeing with the one poster here painting that org as a big brutal mass that continued to throw hoards at the Germans. This again, was true to a point, but David Glantz's study of August Storm (The Soviet Manchurian operation) disagrees, saying that the op represented a "graduation exercise" of the new Red Army that had taken it's lumps from the superior Wehrmacht, learned from it and came out as a sophisticated and battle tested org and proved it during that op. So well planned and executed was it, that according to Glantz.....August Storm was essentially duplicated by US operational planners for the Iraq war of 1991, and the code name "Desert Storm" was deliberately chosen by them to honor the orgininators of the template.....the Russians.

I can't help but note that alot of the complaints i'm reading here echo those seen alot in WitP/AE....which has also undergone alot of revisionism. Japanese units in some cases dumbed down (in exp), Allied units were raised. Alot of effort was made to "realistsically" (vs. past games which many thought unfairly portrayed allied units and/or options) represent the Allies better and alot of effort went into giving them more options and putting in more govenors on the Japanese side (for example.....trigger points on the map that make auto-reinforcements appear on rear areas if Japan player invades them etc or having major Allied units appear in "Convoys" or in rear bases instead of where they were historically deployed allowing players to redirect them to other areas where they KNOW they won't be lost as they were historically) It all looks good on paper....but in actual play, it has become evident that combined with total player control and hindsight.....its EXTREMELY hard for a Japan player to even match the historical gains that country made much less exceed them. That brings up two other key points that will invariable distort a "historical" game and represent serious challenges for developers:

1) the AHISTORICALNESS of total player control.

What general in history wouldn't have loved to be in TOTAL control of ALL his units....even his country's economy....with point and click access to each unit in instantaneous real time? This is particularily useful in AE.....the SRA historically was a coalition, each with it's own agenda, command structure and in some cases own language. ALot of fuss is made over the "inaccuracy" of not representing the angst between the IJA and IJN but few complain about the fact that the Allies in the SRA from day 2 of the war are organized in such a way as to make them 200% or more effective than their historical counterparts. Older games got around this with more generalized play and abstractions, including exp level representations. With modern games, with greater detail, control and people arguing that this unit or that unit was unfairly represented.....etc etc. Grigsby style games give players the most detail control (though there's still alot of randoms behind the numbers.....so arguing over this device or that having an effectiveness of 3 vs. 2 can be funny to say the least)....the con side of it is that such control creates abuse situations. No real life commander ever had such control. But a fully realistic C3 simulation would be frankly boring...(envision a graphical representation of a briefing room....with maps and typed reports coming in at various times....your "view" of the big picture). Utimately thats where the game part of wargame comes into play.

2) Hindsight

players start these games knowing what the historical parties did wrong and naturally try to avoid them. Nuff said. Developers can "try" to counter this by implementing penalties of various kinds for certain behaviors....whether that be economic, political prestige or otherwise.

I think the increase in computing power and the desire to reprsent popular war subjects with ever greater levels of details exaserbates this problem because it gives players more and more control. Apparantly in WitE, the Soviet player can tailor the entire Red Army to suit his or her tastes (and exploit rules and loopholes to the max) It doesn't exactly surprise me then given all this that alot of German side players are complaining that they can't even match history much less do better. In old War in Russia....you could create standard divisions only...that was it. Simple...easy...effective...these divisions went into shell corps and armies and were placed on the map. In WitE....its been suggested that the best units to build en masse are brigades and Fortified regions and stack em deep creating trench warfare. I've asked repeatedly does the game represent the distinctive DISadvantages of deploying masses of small units vs. dedicated divisions and corps? As Glantz detailed, a major reason the Soviets were forced to deploy tank brigades initially was not just material losses but more importantly because its leaders and officers were so inexperienced in issues of Command/Control and mobile warfare that they could not employ larger units....but larger units were critical to deep penetration and long term ops. Deployment of lots of wee little units created and caused much confusion for the Soviets and made controling the battlefield tougher. Small units can work for defense and limited offensives but less so for big offensives. Eventually.....slowly, painfully, the Soviets graduated from small brigades, to corps....and then Tank Armies. Increasing Soviet proficiency made these steps possible and as the bigger units prolifferated and gained exp, the Red Army got more effective.

anyway.....i was a developer for AE (part of it anyway....i resigned over a disagreement and then came back on and helped out).....if there's one thing i learned from that and years of beta testing for the parent WitP product and Uncommon Valor....the more i learned about wargame development, the more i realized how little i knew about it. Alot of my former views have been changed as a result. Just my opinions in the end based on seeing things from inside and outside. Ultimatley....its a super hard job and totally impossible to please everyone. Often its a thankless job.

[Helpless]

But even in the last battles for Berlin, the Germans were out-killing Soviets, just not to the degree they did in 1941.

This is not true.

[Jakerson]

ORIGINAL: Helpless

But even in the last battles for Berlin, the Germans were out-killing Soviets, just not to the degree they did in 1941.

This is not true.

Soviet artillery started to take its toll end years of the war.

In the end German army was most dangerous army to serve in world war 2 from all people that served in German army 30,9% were killed at world war 2.

Soviet army even taking staggering casulties was second dangerous army to serve 25,1% of people who served in Soviet army were killed in war. Mathematically it was actually more safer to serve in Soviet army in world war 2 than German army.

Third dagerous army was Japanese army 24,22% who served there were killed in war.

[glvaca]

+1 Nikademus
You'll never pls everyone so you're better of doing what you think is right.

Concerning smaller units, what I've seen in FitE/SE from GRD, is smaller units have no organic arty and are as such unsupported and halved unless defending/attacking with devision type units.

I'm tempted to say this game could use an overrun rule but it's difficult to say if it fits within the total package. It would solve a few issues though.

[Nikademus]

what about the older War in Russia "Shatter" rule? Did that make it into WitE? Neat little feature.....if a unit was retreated enough times and failed an exp/morale check etc etc...the unit would be "Shattered" on the next retreat and be removed from the game with IIRC..half the surviving devices going back into the player's replacement pools (or maybe it was based on other factors.....been so long)

anyway, worked well....Panzer/Tank units with their multiple movement/attack ability per turn could "break out" and cause major havoc that way.

[Jakerson]

ORIGINAL: Tarhunnas
Looking at the numbers Glantz give for German strength, it is surprising that the Germans are so strong in the summer of 1943. I compared this number with my OOB in my AAR game "The Wolf and the Bear" OOB for the end of May 1943. If Glantz numbers are correct, then the German army in my game is 500,000 men below Glantz figures, and that is in a very successful campaign where the German army has not lost an entire army at Stalingrad! If these numbers are correct, then it seems that WITE seriously underestimates German recuperative powers in early 1943!

In this wargame only that matters is how much CV you can bring in combat. Those TOE's and number of equipments are just gimmic. It dosent matter how much menpower you have as long as you can keep your CV about the same.

[DorianGray]

It is easy to forget and overlook the shear weight of the allied military industrial production.

When comparing allied aircraft & afv production against those produced by Germany, it is amazing that Germany lasted as long.

When the SU is able to field 30k afvs against GE's 3k, SU doesn't have to be nearly as organized or militarily proficient.

[Jakerson]

ORIGINAL: DorianGray

It is easy to forget and overlook the shear weight of the allied military industrial production.

When comparing allied aircraft & afv production against those produced by Germany, it is amazing that Germany lasted as long.

When the SU is able to field 30k afvs against GE's 3k, SU doesn't have to be nearly as organized or militarily proficient.

Allied mostly UK and USA gave Soviet Side massive amount of equipment. Soviet side fought not just with their own production but also supported by stuff made by UK and USA.

The Soviet Union got about 351.700 trucks and 78.000 Jeeps from the USA. Soviet also got got 4000-5000 tanks from Allied and 10 000 (yes ten thousand) air planes!

Full list of AFV and vehicles given to Soviet side by allied during war:
Bren Carriers - 2336
M3 Halftracks - 900
M3A1 Scout Cars - 3092
M3A1 Stuart - 1233
Valentine - 3487
Churchill - 258
M3A3 Lee/Grant - 1200
Matilda - 832
M4A2 75mm Sherman - 1750
M4A2 76mm Sherman - 1850
Half Tracks - 820
Light Trucks - 151,000
Heavy Trucks - 200,000
Jeeps - 51,000
Tractors - 8070

Full Leand lease planes given to Soviet:
P-39 Airacobra single-engine fighters - 4719
P-40 single-engine fighters - 2397
P-47 - 195
Hurricane single-engine fighters - 2952
Spitfire single-engine fighters - 1331
A-20 twin-engine light attack bombers - 2908
B-25 twin-engine medium bombers - 862

AT guns given:
37mm Anti-Tank 35
57mm Anti-Tank 375
37mm Anti-Aircraft 340
40mm Anti-Aircraft 5,400
90mm Anti-Aircraft 240

The Allies supplied 317,000 tons of explosive materials including 22 million shells that was equal to just over half of the total Soviet production of approximately 600,000 tons. Additionally the Allies supplied 103,000 tons of toluene, the primary ingredient of TNT. In addition to explosives and ammunition, 991 million miscellaneous shell cartridges were also provided to speed up the manufacturing of ammunition.

http://www.theeasternfront.co.uk/lendlease.htm

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

what about the older War in Russia "Shatter" rule? Did that make it into WitE? Neat little feature.....if a unit was retreated enough times and failed an exp/morale check etc etc...the unit would be "Shattered" on the next retreat and be removed from the game with IIRC..half the surviving devices going back into the player's replacement pools (or maybe it was based on other factors.....been so long)

anyway, worked well....Panzer/Tank units with their multiple movement/attack ability per turn could "break out" and cause major havoc that way.

Shatter is present and working in WitE Nik... [:)]


Leo "Apollo11"

[Jakerson]

ORIGINAL: Apollo11
Shatter is present and working in WitE Nik... [:)]


Leo "Apollo11"

Yes shatter is there and have been there since the release and effect of shatters are told in numerous places in game manual.

[Captain]

on Quality, whatever initial advantage the Germans had was pretty much lost by 1944.

Too much emphasis has been placed on the effect of Stalin's purges. According to more recent research, about a maximum of 7% of the officer corps was purged and about 30% of those were later reintegrated, so only about 5% were permanently removed. Certainly, the early performance of Soviet officers in the winter war and 1941 was poor, but the Soviets were ruthless in clearing out the deadwood and replacing them with competent officers.

In 43-45, the average Soviet general at divisional level and higher was as competent as his German counterpart.

At lower levels, there was increasing problems in getting qualified replacements. As early as spring 42, the Germans were filling their infantry units with soldiers with as little as 2 months training. By 43, most German infantry units were composed of a small cadre of experienced NCOs/junior officers(many former NCOs), with the rest being mostly raw recruits.

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: Jakerson

ORIGINAL: Tarhunnas
Looking at the numbers Glantz give for German strength, it is surprising that the Germans are so strong in the summer of 1943. I compared this number with my OOB in my AAR game "The Wolf and the Bear" OOB for the end of May 1943. If Glantz numbers are correct, then the German army in my game is 500,000 men below Glantz figures, and that is in a very successful campaign where the German army has not lost an entire army at Stalingrad! If these numbers are correct, then it seems that WITE seriously underestimates German recuperative powers in early 1943!

In this wargame only that matters is how much CV you can bring in combat. Those TOE's and number of equipments are just gimmic. It dosent matter how much menpower you have as long as you can keep your CV about the same.

CV numbers are an indication of units combat power, which is in turn, a function of unit ground elements accuracy, damage, rof, experience and fatigue. Besides that, combat power is influenced by terrain, weather and leader checks.

Basing all of your decisions on CV alone is not a sound idea. High CV correlates with high combat power, but not always and can often be very misleading.

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: Jakerson
In this wargame only that matters is how much CV you can bring in combat. Those TOE's and number of equipments are just gimmic. It dosent matter how much menpower you have as long as you can keep your CV about the same.

As far as I can tell, you've got this backwards--the CVs that we see are simply estimates based on the TOE/numbers of equipment. How the TOE/equipment actually performs in combat (which is heavily influenced by a range of factors, including terrain, leadership, experience, etc.) then determines the final CV.

After playing as a Sov, in my experience relatively high CVs can be a mirage, and they can drop like a rock when actual combat begins.