Slitherine

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... with a good Soviet player, the game is over.

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ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

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... with a good Soviet player, the game is over.

Is it a good Soviet player, or maybe a not so good Axis player? I think Karri has demonstrated that a good Axis player can beat any Soviet strategy.

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ORIGINAL: Bibbo

Hey all FITE afficiandos listen up. I would like your opinions as to the balance issue of the game Once we get into early 42, I'm finding that with a good Soviet player, the game is over. Is this the case in general and if so what can be done about it. Seems a real shame...there has been no wargame and no scenerio I've enjoyed as much as TOAW III and FITE.

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ORIGINAL: Panama

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ORIGINAL: Bibbo

Hey all FITE afficiandos listen up. I would like your opinions as to the balance issue of the game Once we get into early 42, I'm finding that with a good Soviet player, the game is over. Is this the case in general and if so what can be done about it. Seems a real shame...there has been no wargame and no scenerio I've enjoyed as much as TOAW III and FITE.

Egads. Where can I begin.

Soviet divisions are at full strength when it was rare to see one achieve that.
Average division sizes on 1 June 1941:

Leningrad Military District: 11,985
Baltic Special Military District: 8,712
Western Special Military District: 9,327
Kiev Special Military District: 8,792
Odessa Military District: 8,400

It was even worse for divisions in the interior and STAVKA reserves. Many or most divisions spent the entire war understrenght.

Equipment shortages, especially 37mm AA and 45mm AT guns. The 37mm AA guns were complicated to make and it took a long time to produce them.

Trucks, trucks, trucks. Many of the Mech corp that start the game simply did not have any trucks. The infantry had to walk and so early on the tank elements went into battle unsupported because the infantry couldn't get to the battle in time. No trucks. Same for most of the other divisions in the entire army. The Soviet mobilization plan called for many of the trucks to come from the civilian side. Of course that was quite impossible in the beginning. Simply determine which divisions were crippled this way and take away their trucks.

Do not fortify the border guards in the Western and Baltic MD.

Each infantry division was missing 1/3 to 2/3 of it's horses and 25% to 80% of it's motor vehicles before things got mobilized after 22 June. This made the infantry less mobile against even the German infantry divisions. Against the panzer divisions they could hardly manuever at all. Needless to say the frontier divisions lost most of their heavy equipment in a few days.

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The Soviets ended up using horses to pull the majority of the artillery during the war, not trucks.

The 76mm artillery that was attached to the division was a direct fire weapon because there was no technical support for indirect fire. Divisional light artillery shouldn't get to be indirect fire through the entire war. Don't know how you could model that.

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Put it in units that lack an artillery icon.

Allow all Soviet units to manuever. Don't cripple their ability to respond. If you do the above it really is not necessary.

Do not give the Axis ownership of any Soviet hexes. If players can't do the same thing the Germans did that's fine. They can't win the battle either so I guess you don't really want them to achieve the same results historically, eh?

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Divisions reconstitute far too fast. And they evaporate far too easily. Read unit histories for the Soviet infantry divisions. About the only time the were destroyed was when caught in a pocket. Rarely otherwise. This was true of all armies of major combatants. Even if the division had no more men than a regiment it still was there, not 'evaporated'.

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Do not force Soviet divisions to Army support. They moved from army to army as much as the Germans did.

Make Soviet supply range less than Germans for the entire war to model their worse logistical problems. This should make up for Force support somewhat.

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Remove the airstrikes that occur before each and every combat round. Totally unrealistic. Pathetic really.

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Tie cities lost to victory conditions. Force the Soviet player to sacrifice units for time. If a city falls before a certain time the Soviets lose so many points. Lose too many and the Soviet player loses the game. Don't time victory conditions to an all or nothing level.

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Want to make it really fun? Set all recon for both sides to zero. Now that would be fun. Never know what the other side is really doing. Actually be able to make feints and then strike someplace else with the main force. Wheeee.

That's all I can do off the top of my head. I'm sure there's more.

BTW, did you know most lend lease ( at least 75%? ) came through the Pacific Ocean to Vladivistok on Soviet ships from the US West Coast. No war with Japan. So maybe not even bother with the Arctic Front.

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ORIGINAL: Karri

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ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

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... with a good Soviet player, the game is over.

Is it a good Soviet player, or maybe a not so good Axis player? I think Karri has demonstrated that a good Axis player can beat any Soviet strategy.

Whaat...I think quite the opposite: good Soviet player can't be beaten no matter how good Axis player. Well, good...try excellent. It did take quite a few games to perfect the strategy, but still...

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ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653
In FitE, how does the Soviet player stop the Axis in 1941, and was this historically possible (opinions, opinions), and what might be done about it?

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ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653




I guess the thing to be looked at would be the Soviet strategy. In FitE, how does the Soviet player stop the Axis in 1941, and was this historically possible (opinions, opinions), and what might be done about it?

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The Russians did stop the Germans in 1941.

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ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

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The Russians did stop the Germans in 1941.

But I was referring to the Soviet FitE strategy that stops the Germans forever, causing the players to end the game without giving 1942 a chance.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

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ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

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The Russians did stop the Germans in 1941.

But I was referring to the Soviet FitE strategy that stops the Germans forever, causing the players to end the game without giving 1942 a chance.

I suppose that could have happened as well. After all, the historical Russian moves were extremely expensive. They tried to fight the German army on the frontier and got chewed up. They hurled their reservists into the fray half-formed and unequipped. They fed the Germans their troops up to a half-million at a time in colossal encirclements that occurred primarily because they were unwilling to abandon various cities.

By the fall, they were fighting with what would have been regarded as home guard units anywhere else. Had they been able to conduct their operations with hindsight, they would have had an army several times stronger than the one they in fact fielded by that point -- and it seems to me that such an army would have stopped the Germans cold.

I tend to see the problem as one of forcing the Russians to fight as if the force they have isn't what it is. A TOAW player can see that the unit he is moving up is a 1-2 and that the unit he is proposing to attack is a 14-20 or whatever -- even with 0% recon, he'll know perfectly well that the odds are something like that.

Now, how to make him attack anyway? After all, if you want a campaign that resembles history, that's what you need to make him do. What's more, next round you'll need to make him try to repeat the attack.

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ORIGINAL: LLv34_Snefens

PS: Like you say, the soviet divisions were never at full strength, but if you look into it, you will see that the authorized ammount of rifle squads given to the divisions in game should be around 324 or so, depending on way of calculating, so a full strength rifle division in game is really only at about 66%.

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ORIGINAL: Karri

Well,  I have a game going with following changes:


-Russian shock of 95 after winter offensive(event 14)
-turn 178 russian air shock 100(event 26)
-Russian shock until mud set to 95(event 361)
-turn 4 air shock to 80(event 362)
-turn 11 russian air shock to 85(event 363)
-turn 32 russian air shock 90(event 501)
-turn 57 russian air shock 95(event 502)

Object is to make the game playable beyond 1941.

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ORIGINAL: Panama

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

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ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

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The Russians did stop the Germans in 1941.

But I was referring to the Soviet FitE strategy that stops the Germans forever, causing the players to end the game without giving 1942 a chance.

I suppose that could have happened as well. After all, the historical Russian moves were extremely expensive. They tried to fight the German army on the frontier and got chewed up. They hurled their reservists into the fray half-formed and unequipped. They fed the Germans their troops up to a half-million at a time in colossal encirclements that occurred primarily because they were unwilling to abandon various cities.

By the fall, they were fighting with what would have been regarded as home guard units anywhere else. Had they been able to conduct their operations with hindsight, they would have had an army several times stronger than the one they in fact fielded by that point -- and it seems to me that such an army would have stopped the Germans cold.

I tend to see the problem as one of forcing the Russians to fight as if the force they have isn't what it is. A TOAW player can see that the unit he is moving up is a 1-2 and that the unit he is proposing to attack is a 14-20 or whatever -- even with 0% recon, he'll know perfectly well that the odds are something like that.

Now, how to make him attack anyway? After all, if you want a campaign that resembles history, that's what you need to make him do. What's more, next round you'll need to make him try to repeat the attack.

If you want to 'repeat history' why bother playing at all? The idea is to NOT repeat history if it will result in defeat.

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Okay...but then a Russian regime that recognizes its true state of preparedness and is willing to accept huge losses of territory from the start behaves rationally, falls back, and conclusively gains the upper hand by the end of 1941. By the end of 1942, the German position is on the verge of collapse, and the Reds are liberating Warsaw by 1943.

No problem -- but it won't look much like the historical campaign in the East.

While you're right that people shouldn't want to merely 'repeat history,' when they go to play a France 1940 scenario, they don't want to see the Germans still fighting along the Belgian frontier in September, and when they head to the Eastern Front, they don't want to see a triumphant Red Army surging westward in 1942. They want something that resembles the historical campaign -- where the historical course of events at least could happen.

And in campaigns like that in France in 1940 and Russia in 1941, that presents a problem. It presents a problem because TOAW cannot model the military misapprehensions and political failings that did so much to dictate the course of these campaigns. Any scenario that restricts itself to faithfully modeling the strictly military potential of the units -- as any decent TOAW scenario pretty much has to -- is highly unlikely to yield anything like the historical outcome unless the result is literally rammed down the player's throat with artificial shock events and 'drop dead' event mechanisms.

These campaigns can't be perfectly simulated -- or rather, simulating them would require some serious additions to TOAW's toolbox. I'm not saying this is a reason not to try -- but that the outcome won't be completely satisfactory has to be accepted.

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ORIGINAL: Panama

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ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Okay...but then a Russian regime that recognizes its true state of preparedness and is willing to accept huge losses of territory from the start behaves rationally, falls back, and conclusively gains the upper hand by the end of 1941. By the end of 1942, the German position is on the verge of collapse, and the Reds are liberating Warsaw by 1943.

No problem -- but it won't look much like the historical campaign in the East.

While you're right that people shouldn't want to merely 'repeat history,' when they go to play a France 1940 scenario, they don't want to see the Germans still fighting along the Belgian frontier in September, and when they head to the Eastern Front, they don't want to see a triumphant Red Army surging westward in 1942. They want something that resembles the historical campaign -- where the historical course of events at least could happen.

And in campaigns like that in France in 1940 and Russia in 1941, that presents a problem. It presents a problem because TOAW cannot model the military misapprehensions and political failings that did so much to dictate the course of these campaigns. Any scenario that restricts itself to faithfully modeling the strictly military potential of the units -- as any decent TOAW scenario pretty much has to -- is highly unlikely to yield anything like the historical outcome unless the result is literally rammed down the player's throat with artificial shock events and 'drop dead' event mechanisms.

These campaigns can't be perfectly simulated -- or rather, simulating them would require some serious additions to TOAW's toolbox. I'm not saying this is a reason not to try -- but that the outcome won't be completely satisfactory has to be accepted.

Because the state of the Soviet forces is incorrect when the game begins and because it becomes even more incorrect as the game progresses things will go awry.

For instance the Soviet mechanized formations. They should be withdrawn or disbanded early in the campaign and the Soviet should get armored brigades in their place. Instead the Soviet player keeps the mechanized formations AND receives the brigades!!

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ORIGINAL: Karri

Well,  I have a game going with following changes:


Axis minors now reconstruct, with the exception of fleets, forts and air force.
-Finns reconstruct in Helsinki
-Hungarians reconstruct at Budapest
-Slovakians reconstruct at Bratislava
-Italians reconstruct at Triest
-Romanians reconstruct at Bucharest

- German air shock 105 in 1943, instead of 100(event 10)
-Russian first winter shock 105(event 11)
-Russian shock of 95 after winter offensive(event 14)
-turn 178 russian air shock 100(event 26)
-Russian shock until mud set to 95(event 361)
-turn 4 air shock to 80(event 362)
-turn 11 russian air shock to 85(event 363)
-turn 32 russian air shock 90(event 501)
-turn 57 russian air shock 95(event 502)



-Some changes to territory in Finland. Shallow water to deep water
in order to decrease frontage
-Max rounds per battle set to 2


Object is to make the game playable beyond 1941.

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The Soviets in FiTE become much stronger than they should get much earlier.

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ORIGINAL: fogger

I think part of the problem is that the Soviet player has 20/20 hindsight. As such he will not make the costly mistakes that happen. He knows that the German player will have supply problems (which the Soviets did not know) and with that knowledge he SHOULD / WILL pull back and defend. However "on the other side of the coin" the German player is playing with his "hands (supply line) being tied behind his back". The German player is not able to be prepared for the 1st winter or a long war. From my readings as an army officer (and now my memory as that was along time ago) I read somewhere that in 1942-43 the Germans had a million soldiers manning AA guns around Germany and 2 million servants. If the German player has an option to prepare (Germany did not go onto a wartime economy until 1942-43), or even in 1942 to call up even 500,000 servants to replace the men on the AA guns, well then it would be interesting.

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ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

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The Soviets in FiTE become much stronger than they should get much earlier.

You may be correct, but I don't think so. Most of the units you mentioned do not reconstitute. So as Colin points out, the player should destroy them, then they are out of the equation. The oob also takes into account the fact that there are few regiments or battalions, and there were many historically. A couple times I have taken historical numbers of divisions and compared them to the numbers I have had in some save files, and they have been very close. Close enough not to have any issue.

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ORIGINAL: Panama

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ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

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The Soviets in FiTE become much stronger than they should get much earlier.

You may be correct, but I don't think so. Most of the units you mentioned do not reconstitute. So as Colin points out, the player should destroy them, then they are out of the equation. The oob also takes into account the fact that there are few regiments or battalions, and there were many historically. A couple times I have taken historical numbers of divisions and compared them to the numbers I have had in some save files, and they have been very close. Close enough not to have any issue.

Ah Sir sPzAbt653, that is another thing. The Soviet units reconstitute far too quickly. That's why, as Larry says, you have boatloads of infantry.

The Soviets disbanded the pre 1941 tank divisions and mech corp because they simply did not work well. Not my words, that's from those who study all this stuff and have access to official archives...

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ORIGINAL: Panama

Ah Sir sPzAbt653, that is another thing. The Soviet units reconstitute far too quickly. That's why, as Larry says, you have boatloads of infantry.

The Soviets disbanded the pre 1941 tank divisions and mech corp because they simply did not work well. Not my words, that's from those who study all this stuff and have access to official archives. That wouldn't be me. In fact, I don't know anything about the war other than what I read. And I say nothing on this forum about historical facts and figures unless it's something I read.

So if I were to say the 100th Rifle Division was renamed the 1st Guards Rifle Division on 18 September 1941 and it was 'pretty chewed up' when it became a Guards unit, that's not me. That's someone who has far more information and expertise than I. And then if I were to say the Guards unit it had become was disbanded on 20 November 1942 and used to form the cadre basis for the 1st Guards Mech Corps that also is not me that found that out but again, an expert with access to the archives

The 100th Rifle Division didn't reform until 18 March 1942 at Vologda in the Arkhangelsk Military District.

The 1st Guards Rifle Division reformed 23 January 1943 from the 1st Guards Mortorized Rifle Division.

In this example you get a rifle division you shouldn't have for six months and then you get a Guards rifle division you shouldn't have for two months.

In the game neither of these divisions are removed when they get renamed yet you get the new divisions they became and get to keep the old. Not only that but they can come into the game much better off than they should. The scenario is repleat with examples such as this. It doesn't take a genius to understand why, in the scenario, the Soviets become so strong so quickly. I understand there's a counter limit. But that doesn't change the fact that there are units present that should not be.

Here's something I forgot to add. It seems that if a unit is withdrawn it can't be brought back without increasing the unit count. Is this correct? If yes, why? It's already in the scenario's database. Why can't it just reappear? Why can't the games programming be made to use the unit again?