Slitherine

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In 41/42 the DRM's for the Soviets also reflect Stalins medling.

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ORIGINAL: Michael T

The thing is it should not even be a question. It should be an obvious observation that the German C&C system is better. I don't think it is. At best its marginal.

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ORIGINAL: rmonical

Reserve activation is only part of the story. The bigger story is that for a whole range of morale, initiative and combat checks - the corps HQ hurts rather than helps unless the corps commander has the same rating as the army commander. If the corps commander rating is two below the army commander - it is horrible.


This, of course assumes the one incomplete example in the rules is correct.

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ORIGINAL: rmonical

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Put it to the acid test, Michael. Start a game (against a human preferably) strip out all the non panzer korps from the getgo and play it out. Keep the saves (this means no server game, find somebody you trust.)

Need to be little more nuanced, particularly early on. The army command advantage works for 5 hexes. So outlying divisions still need a corps HQ. The approach I am taking is to delete one or two corps HQ in each infantry army in 1942.

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ORIGINAL: Simbelmude

Wouldn't it be a good idea to apply the Corps distance modifier to the first echelon HQ, the Army distance modifier to the second, etc... whichever it is?
So Army HQs could perform as first echelon HQs but would operate under the same constraints as Corps HQs. This makes sense: Corps HQs dealt with more tactical stuff, so needed to be closer to the "action". Superior HQs dealt with the operational level, so distance/reactiveness was less of a problem. But if the superior HQs cannot delegate to lower echelons because they have een scrapped, then they have to take over the tactical aspects as well, and then distance matters more.
This would help rendering a more accurate distinction between German and Soviet C&C.

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ORIGINAL: Simbelmude

Wouldn't it be a good idea to apply the Corps distance modifier to the first echelon HQ, the Army distance modifier to the second, etc... whichever it is?
So Army HQs could perform as first echelon HQs but would operate under the same constraints as Corps HQs. This makes sense: Corps HQs dealt with more tactical stuff, so needed to be closer to the "action". Superior HQs dealt with the operational level, so distance/reactiveness was less of a problem. But if the superior HQs cannot delegate to lower echelons because they have een scrapped, then they have to take over the tactical aspects as well, and then distance matters more.
This would help rendering a more accurate distinction between German and Soviet C&C.

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The advantage of having a unit attached at the lowest level is that the unit has more HQ units in the chain, only one of which must pass the check.

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ORIGINAL: Toidi
There are plenty of advantages having corps. ...
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2988267&mpage=1&key=Toidi�
...

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ORIGINAL: Toidi

Also, one need to remember that the 'bad' German leaders would be easily the better army commanders for the Soviets. Soviet Union has only Zhukov who is comparable to the better German leaders.

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ORIGINAL: janh

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ORIGINAL: Toidi
There are plenty of advantages having corps. ...
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2988267&mpage=1&key=Toidi�
...

Yeah, remember that discussion. One of the many debates on who has effectively and in practice a better command structure.

So, I kind of lost track of these two threads. Do I summarize it correctly that Pavel states that the Corps structure has been tested and found superior to a formation without, but Pelton and some others advocate it at the very least on the defense or for situations where stretching out the front is not favoring Axis (so all time but 41)?

It can give direct benefits (manpower, perhaps small but possibly extra trucks if at all needed, and extra armaments), and perhaps, though not sure, benefits in getting more reserves activated. In contrast, having a Corps tier does/should give extra redundancy against missed rolls for MPs, supply etc., but requires that lower tier leaders are not significantly worse in their stats that the better leaders then pushed into Army or GHC levels. Which is then where the tables show that the catch is that he number of sufficiently good leaders (6-7+) is limited, and assuming that some of them will die etc., the German C&C structure will get some worse over the years (which would be what happened)? Is this it at the moment?

For certain having a corps level with a good commander should improve the C&C for the Germans, and give redundancy in case higher HQs screw up (bad rolls, poor leader). But this should also work the other way around, if a Corps is poorly led, the higher HQ with a much better leader should help to prevent screw-ups down the chain, though of course not all the time. A poor corps level command (see Pavel, "6 is lower than 7...") ought to decrease performance, up to the point that not having it involved and have an Army command take over should be better. Sounds just logical to me.

The question is how much worse ought a Corps leader be than a Army leader that this situation should occur? From the tables it seems 1pt difference is quite small, and even for almost 200 turns will probably stay in the statistic noise. But with >=2 pts worse (5 vs 7) things really start going downhill.

What I am wondering at this point is that there perhaps should be a German bonus modifier for Corps level command just as there are the +1 leader modifiers e.g. for the Soviet Tank Corps. Rationale could be that not all officers are suited for higher tier commands: for example being excellent at Division or Corps, but overwhelmed when going up the ladder.

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ORIGINAL: The Guru
I see no problem with Guderian toying with a couple of Pz divs with his own Army staff, but he can't handle 12 of them, with the same staff, without any help down the ladder, and retain the same efficiency!

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ORIGINAL: timmyab

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ORIGINAL: The Guru
To exaggerate this for effect, if field marshals could adequately command limitless units with no detrimental effects then you'd just put Zhukov in Stavka and do away with all other HQs.The fact that this would quickly overwhelm any one individual is surely the reason that command echelons exist.

Your right Flaviusx its not and exploit so to speak, but it by passes all the crappy leaders. Hes basicly running the hole eastern front in most cases.

timmyab that is whats going on now.

With Zhukov in charge of Stavka and only 2 layers of HQs under him, it basicly puts him in charge of it all. He will have better roll odds then most of the leaders under him.



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Beta Tester WitW & WitE

(in reply to timmyab)

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Maybe one of the problems is that the command point cost for a unit directly attached to a superior HQ is the same as the cost if the unit is attached to lower HQs. In reality, HQs delegate matters to lower echelon HQs so that they can focus efficiently on their own stuff. The efficiency of a Front dealing with 50 divisions on a grand operational scale, leaving the sub operational and tactical aspects to Army and Corps HQs, is not the same as the same Front - same amount of brains - having to deal with every aspect, from the widest perspective to micro management of batalions.
Maybe the command cost should go up (doubled?) for each echelon skipped, because skipping echelons simply means more work for the superior HQ. I see no problem with Guderian toying with a couple of Pz divs with his own Army staff, but he can't handle 12 of them, with the same staff, without any help down the ladder, and retain the same efficiency!

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ORIGINAL: Pelton


And in bold is the exploit that all smart SHC use to get around the very poor SHC leadership. As has been stated and proven. Z leadership in many cases is 3 or 4 pts higher then most leaders.

If you follow most AAR SHC players get around the poor SHC leaders ship be putting ALLOT of armies under Zhukov, which is the same as disbanding GHC Corp. Its and exploit to get around 2by3's intended design.

Once on the attack SHC only needs to push in one area, so they load up armies under Zhukov, which really starts in 1941.

This is an exploit that should be nerfed as it is a HUGE game changer.

So its not ok for GHC to try and get around a poor system, but ok for SHC?

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ORIGINAL: Michael T

Been thinking and I am wondering if the Soviets do away with front HQ's and have all Armies report to Stavka under Zhukov would it be better overall?

I know in my game against Pelton I was putting more and more Armies directly under Stavka and it seemed not to be detrimental. It seemed there were more CV's getting doubled to me and I had much flexibility with these Stavka Armies. Moving them around all over the place without any obvious penalties. Stavka never gets overloaded, unlike Fronts. And if all your Air Armies are under Stavka there won't be any issues of different Front's air units not supporting neighbouring Fronts. Interesting.

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I do think he's overrated for 1941, but would want to preserve his ability to reach those ratings down the line which is presently not possible.