In the actual war the 39. Panzerkorps of Panzergruppe 3 was 18 miles north of Minsk by June 26th even though it was subject to several counter attacks by the Russians while in route. Not far from the abbreviated opening turn time-frame. I think that the first turn is fine. We are lucky enough to have hindsight to see what mistakes the German's and Russians made and the game gives you the flexibility to try other options. The Lvov pocket opening came about because of the aHistorical decision of most Russian players to run for the hills instead of standing and fighting.ORIGINAL: janh
ORIGINAL: Ron
In my experience the Lvov opening is only possible if sufficient forces from AGC are committed to AGS. Without them I don't think it is doable, and I don't recall seeing it done with AGS alone in any AAR. I don't see any reason why not historically if the Germans wanted to commit the required forces they couldn't have made it happen in WitE's timeframe - Minsk being the obvious example. It seems like a plausible what-if in my mind and a lot more believable than many other ahistoric 'features' in the game.
Especially against AI, but judging from Michaels experiments, you can do it off with a bare minimum of GD (1 Reg) and 1 division. Or send more if you want to make it a done deal.
The issue simple is not that it is doable in the game, Ron. I think most players on both sides see it as a plausible opening for Axis to try, and most would agree that this kind of "realistic" flexibility is the strength of a game versus a static replication of all actions. The origin of the debate is just how easy it is and how little can be done against it as opposed to the historic context that showed AGS being hard pressed by Soviet counterattacks and defenses and suffering comparably sizably, esp. in PzGr 1. Compare how far they got by late August in comparison to AGC, and how much it cost them.
My guess is that it would feel more reasonable that even in the case of one extra Panzercorps detached to AGS, Lvov should probably not always succeed, and if, the resistance should at least be noticeable and it should perhaps take more than 3.5 days, maybe sometimes even more than the initial 2 turns? Right now, Lvov feels rather uncontested because the Soviets never even get the chance to move or react while still in supply (or out even for <=3.5 days...).
You could say that this is just hindsight and that the Axis player would have to intentionally make huge mistakes and ignore Lvov in order for the AGS area to play out at an anywhere near historically slow pace, but I think this wouldn't do it justice.
ORIGINAL: invernomuto
It's really a pity that WITE use a fixed time scale for turns. I think it would have been interesting to have scenarios with 3.5 days per turn, halving MPs and combat cost for each units on map. A smaller turn lenght may have mitigated the distortions of a IGOYOUGO system.
+1, surely does since the lack of a chance to react depends on the time-frame you are looking at. 3.5 day turns would surely also favor AI performance. But then, with 3.5 day turns, the game might take a lot longer to play out. Or not? Perhaps not that much longer? Hard to say, but thinking about the time spend playing these monster games, it is already very time-consuming..
ORIGINAL: jaw
My own completely speculative solution to the Lvov gambit would be to remove all the first turn surprise benefits for moving and attacking south of the AGC -AGS boundary. This change might slow down 1st Panzer Group enough to make the gambit impossible.
Not sure this would be the right trick. Maybe an improvised solution, but I think the root is still the static behavoir of the non-phasing player that already plagued the naval intercepts in old PacWar.
If a change is made to eliminate the Lvov opening, I think other changes need to be made to make the decision to run instead of fight have negative consequences for the Russian player.
