Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

My own personal rule of thumb here is to not play any tricks with paras until blizzard. After that...

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ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Heh. Quick and dirty fix: maybe limit drop ranges more? These drops hundreds of miles behind the lines really are dubious.

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Best fix would be no air drops until after March 1942.

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During the Soviet counter-offensive for the Defense of Moscow at Vyazma, 27th January 1942, the Soviet 4th Airborne Corps began a series of night drops of paratroopers in the German rear. Forty civilian and twenty-two military aircraft, escorted by limited numbers of fighters and ground attack aviation, supported the landings. From the beginning, the operation did not go well.

After, six nights, only 2,100 men from the 10,000-man airborne corps had been dropped in. Because of bad weather and the pilots' inexperience with night navigation, most of these troops landed twenty kilometers south of the intended drop zone. Plans for five to six sorties each night did not take into account adverse weather conditions, aircraft failures, or combat losses. Also, the failure to conceal the buildup of troops at the airborne fields led to the closing of one of them by German bombers. The remaining two fields provided only two to three sorties per night.

The paratroops that landed, however, did succeed in interdicting lines of communication in the German rear area for almost three weeks, in part because of their linkup with the 1st Guards Cavalry Corps on 6 February.

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ORIGINAL: Denniss

Nobody is talking about the misuse of the current supply system by converting only one ot two lines eastwards per sector. So your opponent used a spoiled system with airdrops to crush yur spoiled supply system with just minor rail conversion.

I ususlly leave only one construction Bn per Corps/Army/Front HQ and move all other to OKH to get the rear area rail conversion done.

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ORIGINAL: Seminole

It exposes people who fail to make interconnects in their rail net.

Here's some historical rail marks.
18 July 1941 - 1st DRG train arrives at Porkhov
23 August 1941 - 1st DRG train arrives at Luga
29 September 1941 - 1st DRG train arrives at Staraya Russa

How many weeks before that do you put rail in these locations? I'm genuinely curious.
How much faster are you able to build the rail than was historically accomplished? Should that be nerfed? Should historical accomplishment be the defining limiting factor in what is possible in this game? I would think not.

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Best fix would be no air drops until after March 1942.

But the Soviets made air drops in the first winter:

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During the Soviet counter-offensive for the Defense of Moscow at Vyazma, 27th January 1942, the Soviet 4th Airborne Corps began a series of night drops of paratroopers in the German rear. Forty civilian and twenty-two military aircraft, escorted by limited numbers of fighters and ground attack aviation, supported the landings. From the beginning, the operation did not go well.

After, six nights, only 2,100 men from the 10,000-man airborne corps had been dropped in. Because of bad weather and the pilots' inexperience with night navigation, most of these troops landed twenty kilometers south of the intended drop zone. Plans for five to six sorties each night did not take into account adverse weather conditions, aircraft failures, or combat losses. Also, the failure to conceal the buildup of troops at the airborne fields led to the closing of one of them by German bombers. The remaining two fields provided only two to three sorties per night.

The paratroops that landed, however, did succeed in interdicting lines of communication in the German rear area for almost three weeks, in part because of their linkup with the 1st Guards Cavalry Corps on 6 February.

I'm all for addressing the efficacy (randomness in ability to hit the target hex, etc), but I think pulling the ability is harsh, and not supported by the historical record.

If German players can make faster, deeper panzer pushes than the Germans did historically, why should Soviets be limited to no airborne operations when they actually conducted them (however poorly)? Isn't the point of the game for both sides to ultimately do better than historical?

If the Germans were putting more effort into building a rail net and less effort into pushing every inch west that the game engine allows, they would to a large degree mitigate this problem (and a more western rail head would allow the game to more effectively demonstrate front line supply issues late in Barbarossa campaign. You can also cover important rail junctions and prevent drops (and partisan damage). So really, this can be addressed with game play instead of nerfing.

You take the risk such a strategy entails you live (or die) with it, imo.

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IF wite worked like other games and was historical, all the rail lines would be getting worked on from start line east.

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I have no weakness on my logictic's system

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I have no problem with para drops, if I can build them also and drop them hehehehe.

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I am sure there were para drops way behind the lines, but historically there were not just 5 rail lines working there were many times that.

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One of the first actions taken by the German Transportation Division to prepare itself for the upcoming war with the Soviet Union was to complete a preliminary analysis of the Soviet rail network. This effort highlighted the following - only four major east-west running trunk lines connected the western border regions of the Soviet Union (including the recently annexed regions of Poland and the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) with Soviet rear areas:

Niemen river to Leningrad (double track)
Bug river to Orsha to Moscow (double track)
Bug river to Kremenchug to the Donets basin (double track)
San river to Odessa (double track)

The four above named trunk-lines were intersected by only six major north-south running trunk lines:

Koeningsberg to Kremenchug (double track)
Riga to Orsha to Kharkov to the Donets basin (double track)
Odessa to Orsha to Leningrad (double track)
Sevastopol to Kharkov to Moscow to Archanglesk (double track)
Leningrad to Moscow to the Donets to the Caucasus (double track)
Leningrad to Moscow to the Caucasus (double track)

...

This rather sparse network was fed by numerous smaller, single track, feeder lines whose transport capacities were far from optimal. In fact, the majority of the Soviet rail line network was the same as it had been for the Czars armies 20 years earlier. In some regions of the Soviet Union, single track rail lines existed for no apparent reason.

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What would happen, in real life, at such a drop attempt? More fighters showing up to intercept? Pilots unable to locate the proper hex?

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This might have indirectly spared Japan from a joint Soviet-American occupation.

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I find it ridiculous as hell anyone would defend a Soviet para drop 500 miles in.

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Its really irrelevant of what the German player did or didn't do with his rail line.

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ORIGINAL: Michael T

IMO: No Soviet para ops prior to blizzard. Easy and historical. Then impose a range limit.

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ORIGINAL: Michael T

IMO: No Soviet para ops prior to blizzard. Easy and historical. Then impose a range limit.

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Anyone who believes that the Germans can build redundant lines deep in the USSR by turn 15 has clearly never played the Axis side.

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You have your precious FBDs and that is all, so your choices are basically, don't bother to move from the start line or drive as deep and fast as you can in thrusts predicated by the few the rail lines that your FBDs can drive east.

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Sure, every hex in Courland will be fed by 4 or 5 rail lines - at least that is where all my HQs seem to think the highest priority is for sending their attached units.

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For human players only, there is a limit to the distance that the automated rail repair units will operate from the HQ unit that they are attached, which is based on command range (7.6.4). For example, if a construction battalion is assigned to a Corps HQ unit, it can only repair rail line hexes up to 5 hexes from that HQ, but the same construction battalion attached to a High Command HQ unit (e.g. OKH or STAVKA) could operate up to 90 hexes away.

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ORIGINAL: Pelton

Before it becomes the flavor of the month?

It for one seems totally nonhistorical and is exploiting the rail conversion system by design.

Most games other then this one that deal with eastern front, the lines are converted so many hexs per turn per line.

This game because of the lacking logistical system has made 5 counters to convert rail lines. This has alrdy been nerfed down to 4 and 6, which means there will only be a few lines to the front areas by turn 12ish.Long lines with no way to defend then other then string out 10 divisions to defend 1 line.

The SHC player can drop 1 unit next to the 1941 start lines and the line will be cut for several turns as the RR unit will have to walk back to the cut.

Several players have pointed out to me this could be done more then 2+ turns in a row and cut off 1 AG for 3 or 4 turns and the RHC player could destory most of not all the units in that area because of a lack of supplies.

Is this historical for 1941? I hole AG wiped out because of a few air dropps?

Lets be honest allot of "exploits" have been removed from game or nerfed to reflex history. Mostly German, which is fine.

This really needs to be taken care of. The guys I talked to about it know they can do it but do not because its just plain stupid that its even possible. As you can simply drop one whenever your in trouble in 1941 and the german player is screwed for 2 turns min.

Pelton