BletchleyGeek
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Joined: 11/26/2009
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76mm has made me sweat this time 
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ORIGINAL: 76mm
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ORIGINAL: Bletchley_Geek
Not really. I've been reading that "Bloody Triangle" book by V. Kamenir...This caused quite a few operational-level "meeting engagements", which usually ended badly for the RKKA...While this "agility" partly is the result of pre-war plans, it's also true that 5th and 6th Armies got on the move within 24 hours. So the "shock" effect seems to cancel out with the pre-planning.
As chance would have it, I'm reading the same book, although haven't gotten to the actual start of the war yet. That said, I wold say that this "agility" is ENTIRELY the result of pre-war plans, and the fact that they had a better idea what the Germans were doing. From what I've seen so far, the Sovs in this sector were pretty much expecting an attack.
I don't want to spoil the book for you, but pre-planned moves were of the essence for getting the units moving. However, the situation was so fluid that you'll see that some of the commanders showed a notable level of initiative and personal courage. You'll see that even relatively "lackeys" such as Feklenko, commander of the 19th Mech Corps showed a certain degree of ability getting his badly depleted units to meet the Germans. Or Rokossovskiy 9th "Mech" Corps which moved all the way from Shepetovka (east of Rovno) to Lutsk in less than two days. In some books one is left under the impression that Red Army officers were a bunch of cowed, stuttering, yes-men.
Not in this one. Indeed there were many officers like these, but there were also many who showed ability and quick thinking in conditions similar to those of the French. And the Red Army reacted much better than the French (I guess it helped that RKKA higher echelons were worried
about "mundane" stuff, and their attention focused less focused on critical issues such as choosing which was the best wine to toast the visiting British officers that looked worried or scolding the Corps HQ chef for not getting the foie perfect the night before).
Regarding that "they were expecting an attack". Well, if they were expecting an attack in the eve of Barbarossa one could easily what they would expect from massed PanzerDivisions grouping just west of Vyazma in late September. Sure as hell those guys weren't mounting on their Sdkfz's doing recon just because some CO wanted to have hare with mushrooms for supper.
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ORIGINAL: 76mm
Moreover, this type of meeting engagement is only one of the types of engagements that would occur under your proposed scheme. For instance, it is one thing for Sov units to simply advance straight ahead until they run into the Germans advancing towards them. It is quite another, and much more difficult, to "vector" onto a unit which is moving not toward you, but perhaps parallel or even away from you--you get "there" too early or too late and you simply don't encounter the enemy. So should this reaction only be effective with a units "forward arc"?
Or penalties for moving parallel to the front? Way too complicated IMHO.
I don't think it's worth to model in a different way those "parallel" moves. WitE isn't modeling air combat, or anything like that. Enemy units move along roads and towards targets of interest - road and rail junctions, bridges, etc. Red Army staff officers might be unexperienced but surely they could read a map as well as anybody else and were mostly smart people and anticipate to enemy moves judging the info they got through the chain of command or other sources. So reaction triggers whenever a hex within the radius flips. The reacting unit moves to block, that is, try to occupy that hex. That's an instant effect.
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ORIGINAL: 76mm
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ORIGINAL: Bletchley_Geek
Well, the Axis unit has either to move around the unit that just came to hug her or attack it. It can certainly backtrack and try another avenue of approach. Either way, those are MP's - i.e. time - the German would be wasting. Therefore, he'd be slowed down. Did I answer your concern?
You did not answer my concern, but instead are repeating what appears to me to be a common misconception (or I just don't get something)... Imagine two situations, A and B. In A, a Sov unit starts the turn adjacent to a German unit. The German's first action is to hasty attack the Sov unit and rout it, the German is now free to move. In B, a Sov unit starts one hex away, and in front of, the German unit. Before hasty attacking, the German must move into a ZOC, thus costing more MP. The German could avoid attacking and simply drive around it, but the ZOC means that this also forces the expenditure of significant MP. [EDIT: Thus, MP expenditure seems to significantly higher if Sov units start one hex away from German units, rather than adjacent.] I would appreciate it if someone could explain the flaws in this logic?
The calculus changes if you can assume that the Sov unit won't rout (farewell NKVD units!), but this seems fairly rare in 1941 at this point.
[EDIT: As far as I can tell the only downside to not starting adjacent is that you don't inflict fatigue/attrition on the German player, but from what I have read for any given turn this effect is very incremental and I would probably be satisfied to rely on attrition and
fatigue from German unit movement.]
The cost for entering a Clear terrain hex within ZOC of an enemy unit (but the hex being "Pending Friendly", since divisions flip adjacent hexes not in ZOC) would be just 1 MP. Doing the hasty would be 3 MP's. Entering ZOC from a hex which is not on enemy ZOC is free. That's 4 MP's which is certainly less than the 3 MP's needed to attack an adjacent unit with a hasty attack (hexsides not being a minor nor a major river).
Let's say the Panzer division really wants to move the hex right behind the unit that just reacted. But the Axis player is forced to make a choice: either attack and get freedom of maneuver as you say, or sidestep. You seem to deem this decision to be a completely no-brainer, but it really depends a lot on the situation.
The attacking unit has a CV of 120 (displayed as 12), the unit that just reacted has a displayed CV of 2 (which could be 20, 21, ..., 29). A hasty attack would start with initial odds ranging from 40 / 20 (2:1) to 40 / 29 (1:1). In the worst case (leader doesn't double, Luftwaffe is elsewhere) the chances of winning the combat - achieving 2:1 - are 1/10, assuming that all defending CV's between 20 and 29 are equally likely. Routing (i.e. final odds 10:1 or greater) are relatively unlikely with a hasty (I think Q-Ball has got something like 5 such results in the last turn, out of over 30 hasty attacks).
But things can get worse.
If there are other enemy units with displayed CV of 2 not in ZOC, say at about 2 hexes, they might well be in Reserve (or not, you just don't know). A Soviet Rifle Division, with 16 MP's, chance to participate into as a Reserve is Initiative/10 times the chances of Die(2) - the MP cost to reach the hex - being less than or equal than Die(16). With a leader of initiative 5 this becomes:
0.5 x 31/32 = 0.5 x 0.96875 = 0,484
That's one in two, you would say, not bad. But the chances of the hasty attack being successful become much less entertaining (something like 1/20). If there are more than one of such enemy units, then the chances are much lower (since the probability of at least one unit being committed becomes higher).
All of a sudden, hasty doesn't look too viable. The chances of needing 2 hasty attacks (6 MP's) are very high (even if after the second hasty, the defender routs). It might be even be preferable to bring infantry and do a deliberate, or directly, doing a deliberate attack and "burning" that PanzerDivision. Taking a detour around the unit that reacted might be cheaper, expensive or just not an option.
Either way, even simple, zombie-like reaction can complicate breaking through a defense in the style we see these days quite involved. I don't think even Pelton takes into account all these factors when playing [:P]
Let's take a look to the rules I drafted (with some revisions, taking into account some of the feedback I've got). Changes or additions in cursive:
15. 2x. Reaction Rules (v2)
1. The phasing player can set eligible Combat Units into Reaction Mode.
2. The only Combat units eligible for Reaction mode are Ready, unfrozen units which are not in enemy ZOC.
3. Units put into Reaction mode will be able to move to intercept up to a max of 6 hexes.
a) Reaction range can be limited - via a toggle text button on the unit detail display - to 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 hexes.
4. Resolving interception move during opposing player phase:
a) A enemy movement (or combat) flips a hex ownership, a check is done on what (if any) combat units are within 4 hexes range of that hex.
b) For each of the units in reaction mode the following checks are done to determine whether they become active and react:
i) If the Combat Unit is of size Bde(Rgt) will receive a bonus for successive checks
ii) If the Combat Unit is of type Armored, Motorized or Mechanized all successive checks receive bonuses
ii) Die(10) against HHQ leader initiative rating (+1 if condition i) holds, +1 if condition ii) holds)
iii) Die(MP's to hex) <= Die(MP's).
c) The first unit that passes the check becomes "allocated" and no further units are checked.
d) The selected unit attempts to reach the active hex, spending MP's as per normal terrain costs, but ignores additional costs
due to ZOC and/or enemy ownership. NOTE: ignoring them or paying reduced costs, since this is modeling a very fluid situation
so the enemy unit which is marching and hasn't much ability to project much force around it.
e) The above can have either the following results:
i) The reacting unit enters an adjancent hex to the "hotspot" hex. If it has enough MP's to do a hasty attack on the adjacent,
such an attack is performed. This attack will have a high chance of getting a RECONAISSANCE result.
ii) The reacting unit falls short of the hex, but in its general direction.
Changes rationale:
15.2x.2: Getting a ZOC negates Reaction, very much as happens with Reserve mode.
15.2x.3: This is the "magical" constant used for defensive reserves by the designers. I'm sure they had a good reason
to set it to that value.
15.2x.4.a: Flipping ownership rather than entering. Makes more sense. Brigades/Regiments are less likely to trigger reaction moves.
15.2x.4.ii: Similarly as above.
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ORIGINAL: 76mm
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ORIGINAL: Bletchley_Geek
Regarding "gaming" stuff. The German players would really need to be clever. Actually, über-humanly clever. They would have to compute (by hand, or write a computer program for it) all the possible combinations of units which might be in reaction mode or not (this is not visible to the opponent, very much like Reserve mode isn't either) and their paths. One could certainly "guess" or compute with few units, but man, just don't buy any more lottery in a couple months, because it might well be that you just broke your Bank of Luck ;)
I don't understand why you think this. I think it would be child's play for the German to send his weakest units up ahead to attract the reacting units, and only deploy his powerful units once he had seen the reaction moves.
From what people have been writing, I assume that people anticipate that this reaction stuff would be most useful in checkerboard type situations, and I think it could easily be gamed in this situation. Sure, you couldn't be 100% whether all eligible unit had already reacted, but you don't have to be 100% correct to gain a major advantage.
See the above.
Ok, but reaction triggering is chance based. Chances of reacting grow as the number of hexes are flipped from Friendly to Pending Enemy. Either he is wishing to sacrifice/put in a dangerous position a unreasonable number of weak units or he's plenty of them with plenty MP's. Let him burn MP's. And as I said before, feinting and baiting are completely fair, non-gamey moves.
< Message edited by Bletchley_Geek -- 10/7/2011 8:42:24 PM >
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RE: Clash of Steel: 1941-1945: Q-Ball vs Bletchley_Geek - 
That Alabama people is not going to enjoy this July morning, sorry. 
Somebody should develop a 36h day...
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