Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: PeeDeeAitch

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ORIGINAL: Rafo
Actually, as Betchley wrote, the main problem with the rules (at least in 41) is that it allows the Germans to make pockets with thin air by converted hex. The cost of ennemy hex is not much for the German motorized units, but very few Soviet units can cross 3 hex of empty "ennemy" land in their own country, even if the first German is 100 km away.


In my Opinion, the cost of empty ennemy territory should not depend on moral at all. After all, it isn't truly ennemy. Maybe the game need a special status for "no man's land" hexes.

This really isn't true. A cavalry outside of the converted region can get 1 or often 2 hexes into the conversion, a division inside can easily get at least up next to the conversion (if not 1 hex into it). The huge swath of converted is rather easily broken, even a pretty good defended pocket is broken if the German is not careful.

What the large Axis movement does do is make the Soviet have to defend in depth, to slow down such armor exploitation (which they really should be doing on defense anyway).

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ORIGINAL: colberki

Flaviusx - so how deep have some Germans advanced in 1941?

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ORIGINAL: Ketza

How far can you get without any fighting and just converting hexes? Would be an interesting test!

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ORIGINAL: Tarhunnas

A better victory point system is the answer to too rapid pullbacks IMHO.

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ORIGINAL: Pelton
The German player can be close to topped off but only if he chooses not to go after Leningrad and Moscow and the Russian play gives up the south.

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ORIGINAL: Pelton
German losses can be greatly lowered by only doing attacks you know will probably win, in other words very few hasty attacks.

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ORIGINAL: timmyab

It would also make sense to me if the cost of moving through enemy ZOC was dependent on the strength of the defending unit.

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ORIGINAL: randallw

The idea of having to spend extra MPs to move into hexes that were last controlled by the enemy, isn't this pretty common in big unit giant map games?

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ORIGINAL: herwin
At best, putting a Red Army infantry division into administrative movement would have allowed it to move about 16 hexes--not enough to get away from German mobile forces. Stay-behind forces would have been needed, and once those were pushed off the road, the mobile units could have moved out. Mobile units on both sides were essentially immune to ZOC effects, as were units deployed for combat.

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ORIGINAL: Bletchley_Geek

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ORIGINAL: herwin
At best, putting a Red Army infantry division into administrative movement would have allowed it to move about 16 hexes--not enough to get away from German mobile forces. Stay-behind forces would have been needed, and once those were pushed off the road, the mobile units could have moved out. Mobile units on both sides were essentially immune to ZOC effects, as were units deployed for combat.

The only Red Army units really able to get out of contact with the German Army motorized divisions are those moving by rail. Regular overland movement in WitE and the numbers you give, more or less match my experiences in WitE current version, though there isn't such a thing as "Administrative" or "Strategic" modes (as such, Rail movement is the thing that gets closest to that).

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ORIGINAL: herwin

The MPs available to a mobile division in tactical movement formation should allow it to move on the order of 28 hexes along roads and 14 hexes cross-country in a week's advance in pursuit or exploitation. A German infantry division in movement formation would have been able to move about 10 hexes along roads/5 hexes cross-country. Soviet infantry would have been more like 8/4 hexes. Administrative movement (on their own side of the front line) would be double that, but limited to hexes in supply and leaving the unit strung out at the end of its movement. Wagons would be about 10 hexes/week, while trucks would be more like 45.

Tactical movement of units deployed for combat would be less. Mobile units would be limited to about half those numbers. Infantry would be about 3 hexes per turn--enough to move around a bit in the corps position.

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ORIGINAL: herwin
A unit in administrative movement was totally unprepared for enemy contact. A unit in tactical movement formation was prepared for combat, with only about a third to a quarter of its combat power available. So if a Red Army infantry division was doing a tactical road march, it had the combat power of a deployed regiment. Note these movement numbers were valid for a WWII pursuit or movement to contact, so the game engine has to allow a mobile division to move 28 hexes per turn along roads in areas that had been occupied by the enemy.

Basic source: Martin L. Van Creveld, Supplying War.

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ORIGINAL: Lava

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ORIGINAL: herwin

The MPs available to a mobile division in tactical movement formation should allow it to move on the order of 28 hexes along roads and 14 hexes cross-country in a week's advance in pursuit or exploitation. A German infantry division in movement formation would have been able to move about 10 hexes along roads/5 hexes cross-country. Soviet infantry would have been more like 8/4 hexes. Administrative movement (on their own side of the front line) would be double that, but limited to hexes in supply and leaving the unit strung out at the end of its movement. Wagons would be about 10 hexes/week, while trucks would be more like 45.

Tactical movement of units deployed for combat would be less. Mobile units would be limited to about half those numbers. Infantry would be about 3 hexes per turn--enough to move around a bit in the corps position.

Which reinforces my opinion that Sov units rout too far, and seem to almost always land on roads.

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ORIGINAL: Bletchley_Geek

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ORIGINAL: herwin
A unit in administrative movement was totally unprepared for enemy contact. A unit in tactical movement formation was prepared for combat, with only about a third to a quarter of its combat power available. So if a Red Army infantry division was doing a tactical road march, it had the combat power of a deployed regiment. Note these movement numbers were valid for a WWII pursuit or movement to contact, so the game engine has to allow a mobile division to move 28 hexes per turn along roads in areas that had been occupied by the enemy.

Basic source: Martin L. Van Creveld, Supplying War.

Thank you for the citation. Those 28 hexes are 280 miles, or 420 kilometers. If those vehicles would be able to use thin air as fuel I'd certainly buy that figure.

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ORIGINAL: herwin

Van Creveld cites evidence of mobile divisions sustaining 40 miles a day for a week or two. Their supply columns were busy. Western Allied infantry divisions could sustain 30 mpd using their organic trucks and attached motorised units, and experienced foot infantry with animal transport could sustain 15 mpd.

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ORIGINAL: Pelton

The German player can be close to topped off but only if he chooses not to go after Leningrad and Moscow and the Russian play gives up the south.

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ORIGINAL: herwin

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ORIGINAL: Bletchley_Geek

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ORIGINAL: herwin
A unit in administrative movement was totally unprepared for enemy contact. A unit in tactical movement formation was prepared for combat, with only about a third to a quarter of its combat power available. So if a Red Army infantry division was doing a tactical road march, it had the combat power of a deployed regiment. Note these movement numbers were valid for a WWII pursuit or movement to contact, so the game engine has to allow a mobile division to move 28 hexes per turn along roads in areas that had been occupied by the enemy.

Basic source: Martin L. Van Creveld, Supplying War.

Thank you for the citation. Those 28 hexes are 280 miles, or 420 kilometers. If those vehicles would be able to use thin air as fuel I'd certainly buy that figure.

Van Creveld cites evidence of mobile divisions sustaining 40 miles a day for a week or two. Their supply columns were busy. Western Allied infantry divisions could sustain 30 mpd using their organic trucks and attached motorised units, and experienced foot infantry with animal transport could sustain 15 mpd.

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ORIGINAL: Pelton

40 miles a day is 280 miles a week.

A turn is a week not a day.

Pelton

Also if and infantry division can go 280 miles in a day, then a mech division surely can in a week.

Quote" On August 25, the 80th Division began its move to eastern France with an advance of 280 miles in one day."

http://www.jcs-group.com/military/war1941army/194409driant.html

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ORIGINAL: Bletchley_Geek

Just one question for you herwin. Do you consider the image that WitE displays regarding unit positions and the like as a "true to nature" representation?

It is not, since here we have each time step broken into two different phases that aren't resolved simultaneously, but in order. So what you see in your turn is a highly abstracted representation of the processes meant to be simulated. Not only refueling (or just mere resting) constraints on movement have to be taken into account, also the fact that those "empty" hexes are actually not depicting "empty" hexes, but hexes being in the process of being vacated. Your guys moving 60 kms per day would only be able to do so because they know that the territory is vacated. Joel already explained the rationale for the rules in the third? post of this thread.

Very much the same with routed units. They're represented with a discrete counter, which is considered to occupy one single place, when in reality, they're spread over a large area (and therefore aren't effective combat units).

In a IGOUGO game like WitE you have to live with these "distortions" or "abstractions". If you would feel comfortable with a more "true to nature" representation, I respectfully advise you try Panther Games' Command Ops games, where the simulation is a real-time process, orders for both sides are introduced into it in an on-line manner and terrain and deployment are handled in a continuous manner.

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ORIGINAL: Bletchley_Geek

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ORIGINAL: herwin

Van Creveld cites evidence of mobile divisions sustaining 40 miles a day for a week or two. Their supply columns were busy. Western Allied infantry divisions could sustain 30 mpd using their organic trucks and attached motorised units, and experienced foot infantry with animal transport could sustain 15 mpd.

"Western Allied" as Third US Army in August 1944, right? The Germans never, ever, were nearly so motorized. In-game vehicles do not only represent trucks but also horse carts and the like.

Working for memory, here you have the route of Third US Army, from 27 July 1944 to early September 1944:

According to Google that's 645.75 kms or about 400 miles. This is the textbook example of pursuit. According to Creveld, they should have covered this distance in a fortnight. Why they didn't? At what state was Third Army at the beginning of September? Roads in France were mostly paved, much unlike Russia. The Germans were broken and flanked (though they fought many delaying actions especially as they got closer to the Seine). Can you explain away this?

No armed force operates in an absolute "vacuum". And WitE representation of "vacuum" actually isn't.

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However, historically, during movements to contact, pursuit, exploitation, and retrograde operations, infantry with animal transport sustained 15 miles a day, infantry with motor transport sustained 30, and mobile divisions sustained 40. It doesn't matter the unit location displayed, it should displace by that much a day.