History 101

[Imp]

This game is better than any history book at giving a graphical representation of history.
Decide to start a Russian LC 31 battles as my German one is going way to easily so doing for following reasons.
1) Get the perspective from the other side & see why the poor AI is hurting
2) It will let me see what AI buys realise I have a blessed force with enough transport for close on 2/3rds of it even if most is trucks.
3) Think my tanks should still have a high % of Mk2s or Czech tanks like Pz38 as this would even things up 5cm gun with APCR is a dangerous adversery in these times.
As I know Finns are a hardy lot start in Poland & fast come to the conclusion Germany may not have been ready for war when it started but was in a lot better shape than poor Mother Russia, my forces are woefully ill prepared for the task of taking on Poland let alone the Finns.
Both morale & experience are in the 50-55 bracket as in training whats that & I took a force designed to fight in Finland
The following are observations so far on the differences playing the two sides which is increased as playing foot sloggers here.
Have 3 rifle Companies 2 Ski (for Finns) & 1 regular but as Ski are Elite replaced 2 platoons with conscripts to represent replacements, fool as if base experience & morale was not bad enough. We have 9 ATGs 4 armoured cars & 3 T-26 to help us with any armour. For transport have a few Komsomolets for the ATGs 3 trucks for AA guns otherwise some pack mules & gun limbers for moving around HMGs & arty.
What does this mean.
Transport > squads can't ride anything but the 3 trucks or horse we are on foot so a good plan is crucial as reacting to things takes time, lots of it. Getting things in position is a long process often needing smoke to cover vehicles as can only manage any sort of speed in open terrain as they are slow & no 4WD for the trucks. We cannot effectively exploit breakouts (I wish) & reacting to the enemy is not easy & compounded by the next 2 points.
Experience > Have the Russians not heard of training this has catastrophic effects esp versus armour as they would have trouble seeing a barn let alone hitting the thing as witnessed by my ambush, 3ATGs & a stationary armoured car they were consistent all missing & 3 of them were firing at 200m or less!!! Did finally get something in my go but its hard work & engaging at range is dangerous as they get more shots which helps a lot as that extra shot or 2 is accurate.
Morale > Considering the above no wonder they are a demoralised bunch I am having to fight in lines as we cannot hold our own in a fire fight. When the first line collapses the second has to take over to give them a chance to recover or I will be heading for my lines en mass. Trying to organise this without God forbid getting caught in arty & watching them run is not easy. Of note I think the die rolls were not with me as had a look when realised how bad they were lots of them have rally in the 30s including armour 31 worst I saw on a quick look, so a sniff of any action & they are off tank assault are you mad.
Tactics > The combination of 3 above points has a huge effect limiting them enormously & thats if you can actually persuade anyone to move transport like halftracks would actually be very useful for pulling them out so they can recover. Maintaining contact is also difficult either wait around & hope he recovers or abandon him knowing he probably never will, with such poor morale keeping your platoon leaders safe is very important as his main job seems to be running around telling them to fire back.

In conclusion its a good thing Russia is so large & they had time to do something about this sorry state of affairs no wonder the Germans advanced so fast in the opening stages. Even without the element of surprise they would not have been stopped, I can see why the AI is having trouble putting up stiff opposition these poles are causing real problems & I dread to think what the Finns will be like. Thank heavens the game does not model the severe winter conditions properly the Finns will get enough of my men without help from the weather.
As had guessed from the German campaign a big disparity in both sides training & morale requires a huge tech advantage to breach as a tool is only as good as its user. Time to sell all my core except perhaps company leaders I will still probably have a 20 point experience advantage at this point in the war. My elite troops probably have 2 or 3 shots more than the Russians but in fact its far worse as they keep firing while the Ruskies decide self preservation is the best option after a couple of shots.

[Mobhack]

The main problem with a tactical game like this is that the end user expects to get the toys he paid for.

If you introduced say, levels of air interdiction that meant that tanks just did not appear on the battlefield because they were held up/their train engine was strafed (whatever, it would be a percentage based abstraction on air support points) - Nazi players would get very upset at having to deal with the historical realities in the later war. (Happy about what the Stukas were doing to French armour in 1940, but "unfair!!!" would be screamed later on when it got to be their turn in the pickle barrel).

If you introduced a "maintenance" slider so that poorly maintained tanks were rather cheap - but probably would not turn up to the fight either - then you might have the Russian Front 41 situation. A heck of a lot of the destroyed vehicles there were simply roadside breakdowns. Same with the Char-Bs in France 40. But the end user base would not like it "I bought 20 T34s!! - and now I have only 3 ! Waaaaah!

Same if we introduced a fuel or ammo limitation. German factories might have been made to turn out thousands of super-tanks perhaps if the bombing was less bad, but the reality was there was no fuel for them even if they managed such a miracle. Super-duper Me262 were being towed out to take off by horse power. They did not have the gas to waste on taxiing. Artillery batteries had daily limits of a dozen rounds or so. But try telling an end user that his Tiger 2 is an immobile pillbox, or had 10 turns of juice only and guess what the response would be? What would be the response if German 1944 batteries came with just 20 RPG?.


Andy

[Imp]

Agree its a tactical game so the wider picture is not in its scope thats up to the player. Bought conscripts for 2 reasons. Firstly to offset Ski troops as core does not need elite units they become that during combat. But also to represent men not operating effectivly due to the bitter cold. Its also why I have very few vehicles chances are they will freeze solid overnight & I can switch my mules to sledges.
WAW always made me laugh at its attempt at this think it called troops on holidays so squads got randomly less men. Never could figure out why tank & support guys never got a break & a reduced force is pretty easy to simulate just delete some.
I did not realise the ammo situation was that bad the game does model vanishing APCR rounds though. Knew fuel was a real problem sure I read somewhere Tigers only had a range of a 100 miles might have been 65 so fuel shortages accounted for a large amount of losses as abandoned. You could retreat you just could not take your ride with you.

[iCaMpWiThAWP]

You can do like me, i don't fix my core after each battle, i wait, like, 2 or 3 battles to fix that tiger that lost its gun, or do you think that a Batallion has spare parts for everybody?

[Imp]

Agree but I assume I have reasonable repair ability if I only lose 2 or 3 all fixed if I lost 10 then perhaps half for next battle

[gila]

Originally Posted by iCaMpWiThAWP

You can do like me, i don't fix my core after each battle, i wait, like, 2 or 3 battles to fix that tiger that lost its gun, or do you think that a Batallion has spare parts for everybody?

Then for you there should be an EXPERT level, no more than 50 rebuild points after each battle so you can't be tempted

[Imp]

I suppose you could keep a log & say destroyed vehicles are not replaced for 2 or 3 battles but as they are dead assume do not count to battle points so AI gets less to spend to so helps if defending. With damaged will tend to fix unless a lot or heavy damage otherwise you have to check them when deploy. Its actually easier to fix them all & stick say 5 in a corner some where pretending they are still under repair. Agree repair points are far to generous even on the minimum but I suppose it allows people who like to expand there core to do so.

[gila]

It's also true you don't have to repair anything and sell off damaged units, but could expand your core as replacements, not that i would

[Imp]

If I understand you correctly you mean sell off damaged units & buy new ones. Would not work very well unless the whole platoon was wiped out

[gila]

Yep! your right that wouldn't go at all!