springer
Posts: 414
Joined: 5/14/2009
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This item is part "wish list" and part just an excuse to discuss the AT engine.
I really think how AT implements command coordination on the attack is great. In my opinion, however, in the Sixth Army Campaign, there is one very minor issue AT doesn't implement well: Reserves. This thought was triggered when I was reading about operations around Caen in France '44 and playing the invasion of Belgium scenario. I was reading that German armor doctrine gradually evolved so that their their Tiger tank battalions an independent reserve within a divisions so that the could be flexibly used with whatever regiment had the need.
Similarly, I understand that Soviet doctrine had the same flexibility. For example, divisional artillery assets could be deployed with whatever unit had the need at a particular moment.
I realized AT discourages the creation of such a reserve. In the Sixth Army Campaign, the German forces starts with a couple of reserve regiments attached to the Army HQ, but I quickly realized it was a good idea to put them into one of the four pre-existing Corps as soon as possible. The reason for this is that if a reserve unit participates in an attack with anything but another reserve it will half the concentric attack bonus of the unit. These seems to go against the idea of a reserve, which would be temporarily attached to the corp HQ for that mission to allow the attached units to enhance the missions success.
I was thinking that it would be good in scenarios like the Sixth Army campaign that units that are attached to a superior HQ (i.e., the Sixth Army) don't reduce the concentric attack bonus when they participate in an attack from units in a lower HQ within the command hierarchy (i.e., the IV Corps of the Sixth Army).
Here's a further elaboration. By themselves, any concentric bonus a reserve would potentially add could be reduced by half (i.e., if a reserve unit and a corp unit attack a unit from opposite sides they only get a 25% bonus). Yet, I think that a reserve unit that is part of an attacking stack should not take away from already existing bonuses if the other units in the attack share the same superior HQ as the reserves (e.g., if two units from the IV corps attack a unit from opposite sides, they should still get the attack bonus of 50% even if a reserve unit from the superior HQ is stacked with one of the corps units).
Though I'm sure someone could probably take advantage of such a set up in a gamey way, it would have some interesting positive effects. It would A) Allow implementation of a flexible reserve doctrine within a command hierarchy. B) It would reward players for keeping staff in higher level HQs (since the reserves will need to have their HQ powered by staff as well.)
On first glance, implementation doesn't seem too hard (but who knows? And would it add enough to the game dynamics to make such a thing worthwhile?). And then, there may be arguments against such an implementation as well. It seems to me, though, that it could add a more grognard-like feeling to scenarios that are simulating battles at lower than division level.
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Command Structure, Heirarchy and Reserves - 
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