Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: pat.casey

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ORIGINAL: bednarre


Interesting, the German Army fought fanatically for villages, for losing one meant a unit would have to make a desperate retreat to the next village in the rear, and doing this at night would incure the worst parts of the blizzard! The Russian troops staying out night in the open must have been a horrible experience as well. This must have been a factor in the Russians not acheiving their desired objectives (leading to annihilation of Army Group Center). Troops in the cold also need much more calories and more fresh clothing (socks) than normal, requiring an increase in the normal supply allocation to remain at current capacity. The Russian supply system should be reduced substantially in blizzard. This gives the Russians a limited time going over to the offensive before these adverse factors start to dominate the combat equation.

This is a more subtle point than it looks like I think, and well worth expanding on.

Moving around in cold weather sucks. Its painful, it burns energy, and it put you at risk for all sorts of terrible cold related injuries.

Sitting in one place in cold weather, even in poor shelter, is *dramatically* more comfortable and safer.

Unlike some folks here (I think 2ACR has some actual combat experience in the cold), I've never tried to fight in a winter campaign.

I have, however, spent a lot of time outdoors in very cold weather, and the killer really is moving. A nice snow cave will take the ambient temperature up 50 or more degrees just from your body heat. Even just hunkering down in the downwind side of a tree and piling some branches around yourself can make a huge difference.

Point being I suppose, the game should reward you for staying in place since that's the safest thing to do. Moving around on the attack, or the retreat, is to be avoided at all costs because you're out in the elements.

I'd like to see attritional losses tied to activity rather than just presence in the weather zone.
Yes, if I marched an infantry corps 90 miles across the steppe during a blizzard I should take significant attritional losses. If that same corps is hunkered down in bunkers in a static line thought, I'd expect significantly lower losses.

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ORIGINAL: Zemke_4


Excellent Idea! I would support this method.

But this does not solve the German Army going into winter having suffered relativly light casualties, when compared to what they were really at just prior to the Blizzard.

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ORIGINAL: Zemke_4

I will pose the question, has the game ever been tested to mirror the real war between two players or a single player playing both sides?  I would say based on what we are seeing the answer is NO.  This should be done to see if the game meets certain base lines, rates of advance, German loses, Russian Prisoners, Russian casaulties.  Then I think it will be obvious that there needs to be some changes to the Combat model.  German infantry Company strength going into Operation Typhoon were in some cases 1/3 of normal and all 50% or less.  In the game German strength is 60% on the low side and usually 75-85% strength.  Do a game that tries to minor the actual events of summer, fall, winter 41 and compare loses.  Then based on this test you can tweak the Blizzard turns to match the German non-combat loses due to frostbite and other winter effects. This would then get us a lot closer to what historically took place that is currently in place.

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It's interesting you mention about SU casualties. I've been tracking them in BA and my game and interestingly they're losing around 160-200k per week of combat vs 170-260k Axis. 2/3 of the SU are killed whereas 2/3 of Axis at present are disabled. Just some more numbers to throw around.....

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ORIGINAL: hfarrish

I can attest having just finished a blizzard as SU that even though you gain a lot of territory and know you knocked the Axis around, the casualty ratios wipe the grin off your face a bit - while overall the casualties were roughly even or maybe I lost less, the "kill" ratio was overwhelmingly against me, something like 2:7. Granted, my opponent did a very good job under difficult circs keeping his line intact and in 2-3 forts at all time...

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ORIGINAL: Zemke_4

Instead of whinning and bitching, I will try and be apart of the solution. I will voluteer for this test, as I know it would greatly increase my knowledge of the operational maneuver that took place, but sadly I don't have the time right now. But by Mid April I will have the time, I would just need an opponent or play both sides, but prefer an opponent. We should keep a fairly detailed joint ARR, take FOW off, so we can better match historical events. Post casualties, and types and as much information as possible. I have a pretty extensive library on the Eastern Front, so I should be able to replicate most of the operational moves fairly close, suggest the opponent have the access to some good sources. I prefer David Glantz, but there are others as well.

I guess my whole point in doing this is to clearly show the game does not replicate historical casualties, but without the test we will not really know. OR if this has been done by one the testers please chime in.

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ORIGINAL: pat.casey

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ORIGINAL: Zemke_4


Excellent Idea! I would support this method.

But this does not solve the German Army going into winter having suffered relativly light casualties, when compared to what they were really at just prior to the Blizzard.

I would classify this one under "two wrongs do not make a right".

The fact that German summer casualties are too low is a problem.
The fact that German winter casualties are too high is also a problem.

The fact that the two problems point in opposite directions doesn't make them problems, they just cancel out some of the effects (although I'd clearly argue that winter is a worse problem).

Personally I'd like to fix both.

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ORIGINAL: GFelz

Note: This is versus the AI.

I did an AAR Germany vs the AI some time back. I kept a solid line and withdrew a hex or two throughout the blizzard months. Yes, the Germans were mauled as expected.

I just finished another Germany vs AI blizzard season use the Beta 6. This time around I did not attempt to maintain any line.

Airforce - National Resever first turn of blizzard.
Airbases - All moved into Poland and the Baltics States' towns.
Reinforcements - All units coming into play after the start of the game stayed in German(y) cities. I was just going to have to make due with what I had.
Armor Corp - All moved into cities. Some near the weakest points of the frontline others in Poland and western Ukraine.
Infantry - This is what was very different for me. I withdrew west beginning on the last winter turn (I guessed and got it right). Each corp withdrew covering the front as best it could but most importantly from town to town. This meant alot of leap frogging of divisions. If a unit was unable to get to a town, it spent the week in the cold. There were alot of towns with zero population. I used them anyway. The entire front did this. There was on average two(2) Soviet attacks per turn. They would get close enough to mount an attack next turn but I would have withdrawn by then.

I averaged 45-50k losses per turn. It was as low as 30k and as high as 75k if there were attacks.

In doing this type of defence I lost less ground than I thought I would. I beleive ComradeP already listed the number of hexes historically lost. I gave up just a little more. However, because I was not maintaining a solid line I was able to remove two (2) armies off the fronline. 12 frontline infantry divisions rested in Germany.

My strategy to survive the blizzard season began on turn one. My goal was to remove as many Soviet units from play as possible. The tempo of the advance was slightly less than "normal". I pocketed everything including routed units. If routed units continued to exist inside the pocket, I waited a reasonable length for them to rally then captured them. I continued this for all of '41. The net result was the ability to gain alot of ground; Leningrad, Vyshnyvolochek, Kalinin, 1 hex of Mosow, Ryazan, Tula, Lipetsk, Voronezh, Boguchar, Voroshilovgrad and Rostov. The blizzard season saw a much reduced Soviet army number wise. The lines withdrew to the rough terrain in the north, Smolensk, Bryansk, Sumy, Belgorod, Kharkov, Stalino (the other two cities fell). I used all the mountain troops to shore up the Romanians.

All troops resting the winter were full strength and excellent moral including airbases.

This was versus the AI therefore some aspects of this approach will vary in a pbem. However, compared to the AAR, this was a brilliant success. I have still to play the '42 summer offensive but I am very hopeful for a good offensive season.

Bottom line, for me, I will never attempt to maintain a solid front during blizzard. I will gladly trade land for time (a la the Soviets in '41). I will use all the towns I can. I will remove as many infantry corp off the frontlines for the winter as possible.

Ed. I should point out that those divisions that were not attack throughout the blizzard and managed to make it from town to town had between 5-7CV values once the blizzard was over.

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ORIGINAL: Franklin Nimitz

IMO they could go a long way towards 'fixing' winter by just letting fortifications provide protection the same as towns/cities.  Maybe this wouldn't correct all of the issues, but it would help immensely.  Also, it seems reasonable to me that entrenchments would be a better place to endure winter than out in the open.  Especially higher levels- 3+, would imply to me that there's covered bunkers/dugouts that IRL would provide excellent protection from the elements.

Fortified units should also retain CV better since their equipment would be better protected from the elements as well.

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ORIGINAL: pat.casey

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ORIGINAL: Zemke_4


Excellent Idea! I would support this method.

But this does not solve the German Army going into winter having suffered relativly light casualties, when compared to what they were really at just prior to the Blizzard.

I would classify this one under "two wrongs do not make a right".

The fact that German summer casualties are too low is a problem.
The fact that German winter casualties are too high is also a problem.

The fact that the two problems point in opposite directions doesn't make them problems, they just cancel out some of the effects (although I'd clearly argue that winter is a worse problem).

Personally I'd like to fix both.

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ORIGINAL: Klydon
Being balanced in computer vs computer games is far different from being balanced in player vs player games.