lowtech
Posts: 39
Joined: 5/13/2015 Status: offline
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quote:
Firstly, I can't help but to disagree with using current logistics as a model of sophistication worthy of emulation. Major improvements are in the pipeline but it currently bears little relation to historical capabilities. Mehring. I am a logistics "nut" and I couldn't agree with you more. But... WitE is the system that at least focuses on logistics and has a group of players/modders/designers willing to work on it. Intelligence aka Intel Where to begin. So there are, of course, lots of different kinds of Intel but at a basic level the Intelligence cycle is: Collection This is what many people think of as Intel, includes all the Ways & Means spying, recon, SigInt (Radio and Signals Intercepts etc.) Analysis Both interpretation as well as determining the trustworthiness of the source Distribution Getting the processed Intel to the correct "users". This part of the Cycle is almost always heavily influenced by secrecy; "need to know". In order to protect the "Ways & Means" ie. how the Intel was collected in the first place. There have been plenty of Movies made based on this premise. Note that different kinds of Intelligence have different "shelf lives"; that some kinds remain valid for longer, industrial production, major transfers of units to a distant theater and such. Others are useful only for very limited times, Radio Intercepts indicating an inbound air raid and so on. This process functions at all levels even at the lowest level of the hierarchy. For example a "good" (high experience) Soviet or German Line Company spent a great deal of effort engaging in Patrolling, basically wandering near or even probing enemy positions to gather information: location of defensive positions, types of troops and weapons, any unusual activity. The crowning glory of a patrol was to capture enemy personnel and then interrogate them. Humint, human intelligence, as this is now known in the US remains one of the best sources of local intelligence. This information would be analyzed and both distributed to all the units in the Company and also sent "back up" the hierarchy becoming one more source of Intel. At higher levels in a military organization the kinds and amounts of Intel grow exponentially and the importance of Distribution grows. Which is my whole point in all this: Looking at the War in the East Strategic Level Intel: Soviets, good to very good, but very poor distribution. Axis abysmal- beyond terrible or rather through the political lens of Nazism, facts were made to conform with reality so that the OKW/OKH consistently radically underestimated the size and capacity of the Soviet Union. Operational Intel Basically WitE (more or less) Soviets had reasonable collection, good analysis, terrible distribution, thus crippling their analysis. Like so many other Soviet military functions the distribution got radically better post 43; but was still not up to German Standards. German Operational Intel, and especially the distribution was phenomenal (relatively speaking). The lowly, slow prop-recon aircraft attached directly to the Corps or even Division (in rare cases) gave the German commanders in 1941 and 1942 unprecedented ability to see the first 10kms battlefield . As the war progressed and the Axis lost air superiority this advantage went away which was one of the main reasons the Soviets were able to mass forces over a period of weeks near the Germans in many places, even early in the war. Moscow in Dec 41 and the abortive Kharkov offensive in the Spring of 42. By summer of 1943 the Axis has an extremely limited ability to "see" beyond the front lines. The Soviet Air prevents the "promiscuous" use of all the slow, corps level recon aircraft. Now basically only high-performance fighter recon aircraft have a chance consistently penetrating Soviet Airspace. And the Soviets have gotten extremely good at Counter-Intel, hiding their forces in general and even deceiving the German analysts. Combined with the ever more sophisticated Soviet collection and partisan Intel collection and much better distribution, the Soviets became ever better informed where the Axis formations were. They still suffered on the tactical levels though, for a variety of reasons; mostly their never really solved issues with coordinating complex operations. What this would mean in concrete game terms is adding yet even more fog-of-war, probably getting rid of the "airbase" strike or allowing it only against airbases very close to the front. And by much greater fog of war, getting rid of the ability to see the various enemy strengths, unless reconnoitered or equivalent (the "Scouted" result perhaps. Adding a good bit of uncertainty to the combat reports concerning the enemy. Captured would be a hard number but only ranges for numbers of enemy involved and killed. 10,100 Captured, 3000-4000 enemy KIA and WIA 20-50 Armored vehicles destroyed . The rear area would be a more or less blank slate with very rough indicators of concentrations. With the Soviets developing an ever greater capacity to see Axis rear areas post Winter 43-44. Anyway I gotta get back to work. But this is a rough idea.
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