RE: Rear area security and Soviet airborne (Full Version)

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loki100 -> RE: Rear area security and Soviet airborne (10/27/2013 8:54:12 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Bozo_the_Clown

Heliodorus, please take a look at the combat results I just got from a test game which I fired up to prove you wrong. These are similar drops I'm doing in the game with rmonical. The first brigade is depleted and can't even displace anything. The second drop was not depleted. The losses, however, are so heavy that any SHC player would think twice doing stuff like this. He can still do it but not more then a couple of times.


well the evidence in the rest of the thread contradicts this claim that this is some sort of one-off wild card option.

One important issue is that Soviet para formations draw on rifle squads. That would be fine if you've converted them and opted to use them as leg infantry but gives a completely unrealistic view of the Soviet ability to raise these units.

Remember that unlike the British and Americans in 1941-44, the Soviets didn't really have the luxury of spending ages training up specialist units on the grounds that the bulk of their armed forces were not in active combat. Both those nations could easily divert manpower and time to a long term project.

Equally up Cherkassy-Kanev, what the Soviets dropped was parts of their brigades, the whole thing ideally should be folded into the partisan mechanics. Set up an airdrop and if it works, gain an instant partisan - if you get lucky you cut a critical rail line.

The good thing about Bozo's approach (& that of MKTours) is that by throwing out common sense and self-limits to actions, it really helps bring all sorts of wierd things to the light of day.

I'd suggest the best short term fix is that if you want to keep your paras as brigades (ie air droppable), then they need a specialist squad to replace. If the opening ones take any losses in the opening phases (most likely), they will be pretty useless till late in the year. The mob you get in December 41 (?) will take time to become useable.



Bozo_the_Clown -> RE: Rear area security and Soviet airborne (10/27/2013 2:57:55 PM)

quote:

Well why not. I guess that makes it safe to be even more prolific with the AB. Though they should stop coming back as of being destroyed in November and later. Do they show up in reinforcements?


Didn't look at the replacement schedule. Three AB came back as empty shells with 0-12. And not in the rear but a couple of hexes from the front. Kind of like they were routed. Maybe I'm misunderstanding something.



Bozo_the_Clown -> RE: Rear area security and Soviet airborne (10/27/2013 3:01:47 PM)

quote:

I assume the drops are at night so the Luftwaffe does not intercept.


Yes, all air drops are at night as I have mentioned many times before. Are your fighters not set to night mission?



Bozo_the_Clown -> RE: Rear area security and Soviet airborne (10/27/2013 3:15:12 PM)

quote:

The good thing about Bozo's approach (& that of MKTours) is that by throwing out common sense and self-limits to actions, it really helps bring all sorts of wierd things to the light of day.


Not sure why you think it's not common sense to do this. This game is all about supply. If you interrupt the Axis advance even once and maybe prevent an HQ buildup the whole house of cards falls apart. That some of the mechanics of the airborne system are broken is pretty obvious. Also, the 8 hex rule makes it necessary to coordinate everything with your front line troops. If you just run away from the Axis you can't drop air brigades in any meaningful way. If you stay and counter-attack you all of a sudden get a lot of options.

At this point of the game I'm simply just trying to figure out how far I can go with this. I perfectly understand that this is totally annoying to most players in this forum. The Soviets get 80+ Li-2 and 60+ TB-3G at the beginning of the game and an additional 9 Li-2 every turn. It's amazing what you can do with these few planes/units if the Axis doesn't intercept your planes.

Another "great" use for airborne brigades is to scout all the airfields and find the ones with the Ju-52s on them. Then, after one of those supply runs with 300 Ju-52s just drop an airborne brigade next to the airfields to displace them. Next turn all damaged Ju-52s are permanently destroyed. Correct me if I'm wrong, rmonical, but I believe I destroyed 80 Ju-52 in one turn this way.



Bozo_the_Clown -> RE: Rear area security and Soviet airborne (10/27/2013 3:22:15 PM)

quote:

After a couple of hundred recon missions, I found some transports to attack. The results were underwhelming.


You did just one attack? Try 20 or 30. And before the air field attack use your air groups for ground attacks in the vicinity of the airfield. This way you destroy the fighters first. Also, I think you need to lower your setting for Percent Required to Fly to 5.

Since the bombers can't be used for resupply I would be much more aggressive with them. However, they always have to have a fighter escort. Otherwise they are sitting ducks.



Leber -> RE: Rear area security and Soviet airborne (10/27/2013 6:04:55 PM)

The Soviets also used airborne dropped reconnaissance teams extensively throughout the war to observe and report German operational/strategic defenses. Glantz covers this in Soviet Military Intelligence in War. In the chapter on reconnaissance prior to the Vistula-Oder Operation there's even mention of more than one OMSBON team being successfully dropped as far west as Berlin, providing valuable information until they linked up with Soviet forces in April.



mannerheim4 -> RE: Rear area security and Soviet airborne (10/28/2013 12:28:53 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: rmonical

quote:

Diverting two Panzer Corps south is equally absurd.


Not absurd at all. The Ukraine is far more important than Moscow.



True. Three panzer groups south would have been even better. Forget Moscow until 1942...



rmonical -> RE: Rear area security and Soviet airborne (10/28/2013 1:43:54 AM)

T24, and here we have two more of the "air drops that never fail" opening a pocket.

[image]local://upfiles/38006/2F245AC21A774DEAAB45084ABB6C76E9.jpg[/image]



Bozo_the_Clown -> RE: Rear area security and Soviet airborne (10/28/2013 3:22:39 AM)

This one was a beauty. I dropped a brigade next to your Panzer regiment to make sure that it wouldn't get pushed east. Then I ran my usual air attacks and afterwards I attacked the regiment with two rifle divisions. Regiments with high fatigue and low supplies are sitting ducks. Once this was completed I had to drop one more brigade. Unfortunately, they were out of range. So I had to move the airbase and the brigade south to the limit. Once you move your transport planes you can't use them for night drops. So I switched them to daytime drop and voila. And again almost no losses. [&:]



rmonical -> RE: Rear area security and Soviet airborne (10/28/2013 6:08:52 AM)

Oh yeah. The OKH AI is still allergic to repairing hexes cut by airborne.


[image]local://upfiles/38006/2A2603338FFC4219930E8415078CBA1A.jpg[/image]



Bozo_the_Clown -> RE: Rear area security and Soviet airborne (10/28/2013 11:33:56 AM)

Have you tried putting the higher HQ right next to the damaged hex and return a construction unit back to HQ? Curious to see what would happen the next turn.



rmonical -> RE: Rear area security and Soviet airborne (10/28/2013 6:45:44 PM)

quote:

Another "great" use for airborne brigades is to scout all the airfields and find the ones with the Ju-52s on them. Then, after one of those supply runs with 300 Ju-52s just drop an airborne brigade next to the airfields to displace them. Next turn all damaged Ju-52s are permanently destroyed. Correct me if I'm wrong, rmonical, but I believe I destroyed 80 Ju-52 in one turn this way.


This tactic explicitly relies on the displacement feature. I think even the most ardent fans of the Soviet airborne force agree that it is over the top.

If indeed you are getting the destroyed brigades back (or they are somehow routing rather than surrendering) then aggressive use of the displacement feature makes the game unplayable for Axis. It possible to persevere in the face of a limited number of air drops. If the brigades never die, then there is no point.



Bozo_the_Clown -> RE: Rear area security and Soviet airborne (10/28/2013 7:20:50 PM)

quote:

This tactic explicitly relies on the displacement feature. I think even the most ardent fans of the Soviet airborne force agree that it is over the top.


Why were those airfields so close to the front and why were they unguarded?

quote:

If indeed you are getting the destroyed brigades back (or they are somehow routing rather than surrendering) then aggressive use of the displacement feature makes the game unplayable for Axis. It possible to persevere in the face of a limited number of air drops. If the brigades never die, then there is no point.


I got three of them back as 0-12 shells. I was honest enough to report this to the community. I'm not really sure what it means or if it's a bug. I never saw them in the replacement schedule but I don't always look every turn. You'll have to ask morvael about it. The two brigades I used for opening the pockets were the last two I had. So no, I don't have unlimited numbers of airborne brigades.



rmonical -> RE: Rear area security and Soviet airborne (10/29/2013 3:08:21 AM)

quote:

Why were those airfields so close to the front and why were they unguarded?


They were sitting on a rail line to prevent para drop directly on the rail line.

They were unguarded because, as I opened the thread, the game has a very primitive rear area security model for the Axis matched up against the somewhat remarkable air drop capability given the Soviets.



Bozo_the_Clown -> RE: Rear area security and Soviet airborne (10/29/2013 4:07:18 PM)

quote:

They were sitting on a rail line to prevent para drop directly on the rail line.

They were unguarded because, as I opened the thread, the game has a very primitive rear area security model for the Axis matched up against the somewhat remarkable air drop capability given the Soviets.


This is just another example of an Axis player who wants to have everything his way. Routing two Panzer Corps south on T1 is fine. Supplying individual Panzer divisions with 300 Ju-52 is fine. HQ Buildup is fine. But if the Soviet player has the audacity to drop an airborne brigade next to those unguarded airfields and destroys 80 Ju-52 it's a terrible exploit and a "design flaw."

You can't do cheese and then complain about the other guy's cheese.

You can defend against this. You just haven't figured it out. Maybe you should start a thread asking other Axis players to give you some advice.

We are playing with 1.07.11 and reduced blizzard. I refuse to just roll over and die.



rmonical -> RE: Rear area security and Soviet airborne (10/29/2013 5:50:21 PM)

quote:

Soviet player has the audacity to drop an airborne brigade next to those unguarded airfields


my point is historically, those airfields were not unguarded. The 5000 man unit as it exists in the game would not be displaced by a few hundred paratroopers. The game design does not reflect the security that is inherent in these and other non-combat units nor does it give the Axis the ability to create small (battalion sized) rear area security units.

To be boringly repetitive, the game design allows the Soviets to drop a few hundred men 10 miles or so away from the center of a non combat unit and then, via a poorly understood physical mechanism, the center of the non-combat unit representing thousands or tens of thousands of troops and a similar number of rifles is magically transported to a location 30-50 miles away, losing damaged element and aircraft. Even more amazingly, this magical displacement move will occur in units 20 miles apart from each other if those few hundred paratroopers happened to be dropped between two such units.

The "non-combat" units have impressive defensive capacity against light infantry.

This is a very different mechanism than a command decision to send Panzer Group 2 south.




Bozo_the_Clown -> RE: Rear area security and Soviet airborne (10/29/2013 7:41:44 PM)

quote:

my point is historically, those airfields were not unguarded. The 5000 man unit as it exists in the game would not be displaced by a few hundred paratroopers. The game design does not reflect the security that is inherent in these and other non-combat units nor does it give the Axis the ability to create small (battalion sized) rear area security units.

To be boringly repetitive, the game design allows the Soviets to drop a few hundred men 10 miles or so away from the center of a non combat unit and then, via a poorly understood physical mechanism, the center of the non-combat unit representing thousands or tens of thousands of troops and a similar number of rifles is magically transported to a location 30-50 miles away, losing damaged element and aircraft. Even more amazingly, this magical displacement move will occur in units 20 miles apart from each other if those few hundred paratroopers happened to be dropped between two such units.

The "non-combat" units have impressive defensive capacity against light infantry.

This is a very different mechanism than a command decision to send Panzer Group 2 south.



The fact of the matter is that you complain about anything that doesn't go your way. In our first game you started complaining about you infantry smashing into my cavalry in swamp five times. Then you complained about the port supplying my army in your back and that it took forever to damage the port. Then you complained about the mighty blizzard paratroopers. And in our current game it's just an endless list of complaints regarding my airborne drops. It's just soooooo annoying.

I'm going to make a couple of screenshots and then I'm going to resign this game. It's not worth the aggravation. I've said this before. I'm a GAMER. I enjoy history but I don't feel limited by it. This is just a major player mismatch.



rmonical -> RE: Rear area security and Soviet airborne (10/29/2013 8:28:05 PM)

quote:

I'm going to make a couple of screenshots and then I'm going to resign this game.


Sheesh. You finally burn up all of your airborne brigades and then quit? That's no fun. Like I said, I enjoy playing with you because you push the limits of the engine. That gives me use cases on how to encourage the designers to improve the game.

I would be very surprised if the current rules allowing very ad-hoc airborne and amphibious moves survive in this form into WITE2.

And we'll never find out if the AI will ever repair that airborne cut hex.

Bummer.



Bozo_the_Clown -> RE: Rear area security and Soviet airborne (10/29/2013 10:11:37 PM)

OK, so the game ends on T24. We all know that the Russians get 15 new airborne brigades on T25 and I have one left from the 41 campaign. I would probably not use them during the blizzard but rather wait unit the summer offensive in 42 to cause more supply problems. Much to my surprise despite this sustained air drop campaign I still have 12 TB-3G and over 40 Li-2 ready and another 40 Li-2 in repair.

I wanted to try out if the Soviets can defend forward and break open as many pockets as possible. This was a real success in both of my games with rmonical. The second game was very dramatic because I used paratroopers to break two pockets. Those were some of the most entertaining turns I've ever played. I really enjoy defending forward and counter-attacking. I don't see the need for the Soviets to run for the hills. And the paratroopers are an awesome weapon that can really screw up the Axis' plans.

The line is roughly Volkhov, west of Valdai mountains, west of Vyazma, Bryansk, east of Sumy, east of Dnepopretrovsk. I was able to hold the lower Dnepr and Kharkov which I have never been able to do before in 1941. I never evacuated Moscow so the Li-2 factories are still online and churning out my beloved transport planes. [:D]

Here is a screenshot of the line.



[image]local://upfiles/45102/39A81408945D444B87510812C228F442.jpg[/image]



Bozo_the_Clown -> RE: Rear area security and Soviet airborne (10/29/2013 10:14:33 PM)

And here is the OOB and the losses report. I'm not a data driven guy but I believe the losses are very high on both sides. I would assume this has to do with the fact they I tried to stay in contact with the Axis troops whenever possible. Well, that's it for this game.



[image]local://upfiles/45102/E4FBFA66E2F34D76B87D684F71AEE562.jpg[/image]



Bozo_the_Clown -> RE: Rear area security and Soviet airborne (10/29/2013 10:22:12 PM)

One more thing before I go. Another reason why it's so important to counterattack is that you really get a nice number of guard units. I have 23. I even managed to build one of my rifle divisions to 66 moral.







[image]local://upfiles/45102/E78B4F4F6C0B40BD86BFA2A504BD19C7.jpg[/image]



rmonical -> RE: Rear area security and Soviet airborne (10/30/2013 7:04:01 AM)

A twofer!

Allow the Axis to assign infantry units to RHG headquaters.
All units assigned to an RHG HQ get an extra level of breakdown. Axis allies get one level of breakdown (division to regiments or brigade to battalions) and German divisions get two (to regiments thence to battalions).
It provides the Axis with a more plausible rear area security capability and makes the RHG HQ more useful.



STEF78 -> RE: Rear area security and Soviet airborne (10/30/2013 8:37:32 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: rmonical

quote:

I'm going to make a couple of screenshots and then I'm going to resign this game.


Like I said, I enjoy playing with you because you push the limits of the engine. That gives me use cases on how to encourage the designers to improve the game.



Sometimes I don't understand clown's logic.

Bozo, how can you resign? You have a superb position, blizzard coming and lots of paratroopers!!

I suppose you didn't try sealanding in this game as you did against me, it would be fun!



Bozo_the_Clown -> RE: Rear area security and Soviet airborne (10/30/2013 10:12:54 PM)

quote:

Sometimes I don't understand clown's logic.

Bozo, how can you resign? You have a superb position, blizzard coming and lots of paratroopers!!

I suppose you didn't try sealanding in this game as you did against me, it would be fun!


quote:

Sometimes I don't understand clown's logic.

Bozo, how can you resign? You have a superb position, blizzard coming and lots of paratroopers!!

I suppose you didn't try sealanding in this game as you did against me, it would be fun!


I did amphibious landings in both games. I even landed a cavalry division in Odessa even so it was occupied by a FZ. [:D] I was surprised that didn't cause a firestorm in the forum. Even I think that's silly.

However, I was very surprised about the barrage of complaints regarding those airborne drops. This is just such a cool part of the game and everyone should use it. It opens up a whole new dimension. Am I really the first one doing this after all these years?

I would have used those 16 paratroopers just the same way as all the other ones and for every drop there would have been another post in the forum with a complaint.

Players need to match. This just didn't work out. Let's move on.



hfarrish -> RE: Rear area security and Soviet airborne (10/31/2013 2:51:09 AM)

Honestly, I don't see why the game wouldn't just get rid of airdrops altogether. In the context of the overall war they were completely irrelevant, so the only purpose in having them is for various ahistorical outcomes that only work because of engine mechanics (rail repair, one week turns, etc.).

For the same reason I had long been an advocate of getting rid of the air resupply garbage (which was, like airborne drops, a marginal sideshow to the overall war effort) I would just lose the airborne capacity. In no AAR where it wasn't used to exploit have I seen it be meaningful, but I have seen it be used to create insane outcomes all over the place. What's the point?

PS might as well get rid of amphibious assaults too...if it wasn't seriously used in any capacity historically there probably was a reason!

Don't mean this personally - I'm sure it opens up a whole new dimension but if it means one player or another has to do all kinds of things to ensure a "fat tail" outcome that is not really realistic, then its not really additive to the game experience.



Bozo_the_Clown -> RE: Rear area security and Soviet airborne (10/31/2013 12:05:36 PM)

quote:

Honestly, I don't see why the game wouldn't just get rid of airdrops altogether. In the context of the overall war they were completely irrelevant, so the only purpose in having them is for various ahistorical outcomes that only work because of engine mechanics (rail repair, one week turns, etc.).

For the same reason I had long been an advocate of getting rid of the air resupply garbage (which was, like airborne drops, a marginal sideshow to the overall war effort) I would just lose the airborne capacity. In no AAR where it wasn't used to exploit have I seen it be meaningful, but I have seen it be used to create insane outcomes all over the place. What's the point?


That's why you have house rules. This specific game did not have house rules. If you don't like what your opponent does you should just send him a PM and let him know. Don't drag it out in a public forum.

I paid $80 for this game just like you did. Why should we get rid of entire feature sets in this game just because you don't like them? The old "War in Europe" also had incredibly strong Axis paratroopers that were often used to invade Britain. It even had Axis amphibious capabilities in the Baltic. I never had anyone complain about that. But that was before there were forums.



Bozo_the_Clown -> RE: Rear area security and Soviet airborne (10/31/2013 2:31:58 PM)

quote:

PS might as well get rid of amphibious assaults too...if it wasn't seriously used in any capacity historically there probably was a reason!


The Russians did use amphibious landings. Of course they didn't land a cavalry division in Odessa during the blizzard. I'm fully aware of that. I was just exploiting a mistake my opponent made. It also has been discussed in this forum that the Russians used paratroopers effectively during the blizzard. You can't just get rid of all these game features.

Another tactic of the Russians was to occupy as many German troops as possible with pretty much pointless operations just to stretch them thinner and thinner. That's why Halder complains in his diary that the war is degenerating into a brawl ("Prügelei"). Why can't the Soviet player do the same thing in this game?



Flaviusx -> RE: Rear area security and Soviet airborne (10/31/2013 3:04:47 PM)

Bozo, the game's airborne and amphibious rules are a bit too freewheeling and subject to abuse. Your opponent has some reason for being irritated. WITW is going to tighten all this stuff up and presumably WITE2 will import those changes.

As for Halder, your quotation as I recall relates to the Soviet winter counteroffensive. Which is why many folks have adopted house rules forbidding air drops prior to the first winter.

There were only two major airdrops during the entire war: those in the first winter counteroffensive which did enjoy some modest success, and the drops on the Dnepr in September 1943 which were a fiasco. (And permanently soured Stalin on airborne operations generally...this may have saved Japan in 1945 from a dual occupation, btw.)

The plain fact of the matter is the Soviets didn't use the airborne in the way you are using them during the summer of 1941. And if you are getting airborne units back from the deadpile, that's got to be a bug.

Given all the imperfections of this game it is up to players to exercise a modicum of common sense. Or I suppose find another player who is equally willing to throw common sense out the window, where presumably the cheese will even out.



STEF78 -> RE: Rear area security and Soviet airborne (10/31/2013 3:30:28 PM)

2 more air drops from Bozo!!!!!

[img]http://img4.hostingpics.net/pics/931493bozo101.jpg[/img]

Should I complain?

Surely not:
- it's imaginative
- not completely a-historical
- it gives me an oportunity to punish him and cut this f... spearhead

I love this game!



STEF78 -> RE: Rear area security and Soviet airborne (10/31/2013 3:40:49 PM)

the punishment!!

[img]http://img4.hostingpics.net/pics/285843bozo103.jpg[/img]

[img]http://img4.hostingpics.net/pics/848030bozo102.jpg[/img]

More action, less cry

That's fun

Sorry Bozo, not enough time to finsh the turn.




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