Harrybanana -> RE: historical command changes (5/15/2016 5:49:13 PM)
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ORIGINAL: morvael Harrybanana, I just wish you could read that book. The author is more eloquent than me. He is an Israeli military historian, so he should be more in the US camp than German camp, yet the numbers he provide and the observations he makes are really convincing (me at least) that it was not just a myth created by captured Wehrmacht generals. Of course he never says German army was better in every aspect, it was not. US Army did a lot of things right, considering they had to build a huge army from scratch in just a few years. Simply, they required and valued a different set of skills, and put their best men in different positions than the Germans. As the author says, the Germans focused (even partially subconsciously) "on the quality to the detriment of all else". It wasn't an army that could win war of attrition, so that's why it failed. Comparing the number of soldiers, guns, tanks, aircraft, expended fuel and ammunition, I can't believe they would hold for so long (and further sufferings of all humanity in the process) if they haven't a single aspect above the average when compared to other armies. Please, read the book. It's not expensive. Yes, morale and experience also represent NCOs and junior officers. But I think these two plus leader ratings are the only thing that prevent German army from being steamrolled, as all these affect CV, and in this game this decides the battles. Of course, this is a game and has to be balanced to give semi-historical results. If (an example only, I'm not saying this is true for WitW or WitE2) the supply system would give Allies too much replacements and supplies per turn, their units would have an advantage that didn't exist in reality. This would have to be matched with even greater quality gap between the Germans and Allies, that also didn't exist in reality. It's always hard to get these things right in a game, where half or third of the numbers are taken from imagination and validated through testing, because historical data in such detail does not exist. So there is always the risk the differences are exaggerated compared to real life. I'm afraid we have to live with that. I will read this book when I get the chance, probably my next holiday. But I did read a similar book (forget the title or author) years ago. But even assuming you are correct that the German NCO and junior officers of all their units (not just the SS, Panzer or Para) were superior to the British, American and Canadians right up until wars end, I still disagree that this should give them a boost to their leader ratings in addition to higher morale and experience. If the Germans were given superior leaders for "game balancing" than I believe this has been overdone. My gaming experience may be different than others, but I have certainly not seen the Germans getting steamrolled. Just the opposite in fact as it seems to be too easy for the Germans (at least in a EF Off game) to prevent the Allies from capturing all of the cities they historically captured.
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