Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: Schmart

quote:

ORIGINAL: Harrybanana
Schmart,

Why do you say the "pull-back carpet/checkerboard defense" is historically implausible? Is it because the Russians didn't use this type of defense, or because you believe they were incapapable of doing so, or some other reason?

Yes, because I believe they were incapable of it. Considering the Soviet state of readiness, training, doctrine, and leadership during the first year of the Russian campaign, I can't see them pulling of an organized fighting withdrawl back into well prepared defenses in depth. By the summer of 42 they were getting better at fighting withdrawls (as signified by the German lament at far fewer pockets), and by the summer of 43 they were capable of massive defenses in depth at Kursk. But none of this was possible in 41 and early 42.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Harrybanana

quote:

ORIGINAL: Schmart

quote:

ORIGINAL: Harrybanana
Schmart,

Why do you say the "pull-back carpet/checkerboard defense" is historically implausible? Is it because the Russians didn't use this type of defense, or because you believe they were incapapable of doing so, or some other reason?

Yes, because I believe they were incapable of it. Considering the Soviet state of readiness, training, doctrine, and leadership during the first year of the Russian campaign, I can't see them pulling of an organized fighting withdrawl back into well prepared defenses in depth. By the summer of 42 they were getting better at fighting withdrawls (as signified by the German lament at far fewer pockets), and by the summer of 43 they were capable of massive defenses in depth at Kursk. But none of this was possible in 41 and early 42.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree then. In my opinion if the Fench army in 1940 was capable of forming relatively effective hedgehog defenses (given how badly they were outnumbered after Dunkirk), then I believe the Russians in 1941 were capable of the same thing. Prior to Weygand's innovation I don't think hedgehog defenses were part of the French army's training or doctrine either.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Harrybanana


I guess we'll have to agree to disagree then. In my opinion if the Fench army in 1940 was capable of forming relatively effective hedgehog defenses (given how badly they were outnumbered after Dunkirk), then I believe the Russians in 1941 were capable of the same thing. Prior to Weygand's innovation I don't think hedgehog defenses were part of the French army's training or doctrine either.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Janh, it's mostly logistics.

The game is systemically biased in favor of the offense. So whoever is on the offense has a strong tendency to run away with it due to lack of a logistical leash. Early on, this is the Axis. Later on, it's the Soviets. There's also a fairly nasty feedback loop that plays into this so far as morale goes: nothing succeeds like success so far as unit morale goes and failure breeds yet more failure.

quote:

ORIGINAL: heliodorus04

Not on the geographic scale that is possible in WitE.
And further, communications technology was superior in the French army, both of which would be huge factors.

quote:

ORIGINAL: heliodorus04


Again, the history is completely immaterial to the game design.

To create divisions in game, Soviets need AP. For some reason, they have to pay a horrible penalty to build them in the first 20 turns. But then, to get around that 'constraint' in every meaningful way, during the same time period they get baby-sat with the safe knowledge that literally every division destroyed in this period doesn't need to be thought of again. Like hydra-teeth, they sprout up just when they're needed most.

Why have BOTH rules in effect? The free-units trump the need to think about the complexities of AP budgeting. If you enforced the mechanic that all units must be created through the expenditure of AP by Soviets. That would require adjustment of APs, to be sure, but the 1-size-fits-all of 50 AP per side throughout the game is another decision that says "throughout the game, both sides' C&C was roughly equal." Clearly that is not how historians view it... Not that I'm invoking history here to help my argument (I will only use history to undermine others' arguments).

The Soviets ALSO get to save FURTHER AP in that all these divisions arrive attached to Stavka, and can be seamlessly put into the line with complete efficiency like a NATO 1986 air-lifted defense. This is what I refer to as the double-punishment of Germany. They save AP, and any need to think of strategic tradeoff because they come back for free. They save AP again, without needing to think of strategic tradeoff, that these units can be attached to the closest/easiest/best spot for free (which is further compounded by the fact that Soviet divisions are 1/3 to 1/2 as expensive to transfer between HQs).

Soviet reinforcements in 1941 arrive in pristine C2 shape and can be easily slotted in perfect dispersal, perfect layering in depth, perfect organization of command. On the other side of the front line, the side that ACTUALLY trained to seize initiative, to act boldly from corps commander down to unterscharfuehrer, can't move a depleted division from the corps command to its parent army command for Rest and Refit without it costing 3-to-7 AP to move them (or more than 5% of their AP per turn, minimum for 1 division). Corps between armies is worse. And while Flavius and others will say that this is because Germany gets an extra layer of command for die rolls, etc., I say this: It doesn't matter, because the Germans have to pay more in leadership costs and AP costs to maintain that level of Command and Control. Soviets don't have to worry about moving corps between armies (AP savings) or moving divisions within corps (AP savings) or assigning leaders to corps (AP savings).

Many game design decisions that might appear to hurt the Soviet Union are undermined by rules or mechanics making up for it, as in the 'punitive cost to create units in 1941' being undermined by 'free units in 1941 for Russia YAY!'. To name another easy one, Soviet national morale is low, but it's far easier to recover morale at rest when your NM is low - bonus!). Meanwhile, Germany's high-morale starting army is hard-coded to pull Germany down regardless of what's happening on the map, in the losses column, or in the pools.

Other aspects of game design artificially assign parity to the two armies. The Soviet Union gains that benefit of easy re-assignment of newly arriving units, but Germany cannot HOPE to unwind its command mess in AGC and AGS until 1942. Why, when Germany was at its highest strength, is it forced by artifice to behave on parity with the Soviets?

Over and over again, game design shows favoritism to the Soviet side.

The ultimate, is of course, unit creation, which I won't even go into, because if you can't readily discern how big an advantage that is, I got nothin for ya.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Schmart

quote:

ORIGINAL: marty_01
I'm going to be quite honest here: Unfortunately what many players of WiTE may take away from your above posting is that it's pointless to play as the Axis as the simulation is being “rigged” from those on the "inside" of WiTE. I'm not particularly keen on the whole fan boy nonsense that's become the routine on this forum, but your opinion might be easily extrapolated or misconstrued to mean that we the "public" players of WiTE should only ever expect one outcome to this simulation.

Unfourtunately, WitE is NOT a simulation. Simulation implies using data that is as accurate as possible. Considering that the Russian OOB and force structure is widely customizable by the human player, I'd suggest the term 'simulation' be used sparingly. It's a game based on history, but not a simulation.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Harrybanana

Heliodorous,

I agree with you that it is unfair that the Soviets can build units and the Axis can't. If the Axis have the extra AP's, manpower and armaments I generally see no reason why they shouldn't be able to build new units and support units just like the Russians. The only exception may relate to panzer and motorized units. I say this only because I am not too sure yet (not having seen a game get to 1944) if the Axis will actually be suffering in the game from oil shortages as they did historically or not. If oil will be a problem for the Axis later in the War unless they are careful to conserve it, then I would remove this limitation as well. Does anyone know if this the case?

I don't agree with you though with respect to the free unit creation for certain Soviet units destroyed upto November 41. My understanding is that all destroyed German units get rebuilt for free throughout the entire game; so if anything the rule, at least on it's face, favors the Axis. In any event, the fact is that historically all of these destroyed Soviet units were rebuilt within a short period of time and then thrown back into battle. In the game the Soviet player would simply not have enough APs to do this if he only recieved 50 APs per turn. So since historically they were rebuilt the designers needed to come up with something to allow the Soviet player to do so in the game. One option would have been to give the Soviet player a lot more APs per turn, another would have been to give the Soviet player a large stockpile of APs to begin the game with, the third is to do what they did. What would you have liked to see them do?