Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

The better comparison here is with China, not Japan.

What would it take to force a Chinese surrender? The Japanese never came close to figuring that out. They took the major productive regions of China, drove deep into the interior, and the Chinese, both Nationalist and Communist, kept on trucking, despite a far more catastrophic situation than the Soviets ever faced or would have faced even if they'd lost the three major cities and the oil regions. They still had major productive capacity in Chelyabinsk, Sverdlovsk, etc.

I think the Germans, like the Japanese, could've crippled their larger opponent, but yet find themselves far short of ending the war.

In this circumstance, the Soviets would be bailed out by the Western allies, which is what happened with Japan and China, too. And the game does allow for this to happen, which is the correct design.

If you take the Soviets off the map by some traditional gaming metric, that's a gift to the Germans they never would've had in real life. They would've been stuck leaving major portions of the military holding down their conquests and keeping rump USSR at bay, just as Japan had to with China.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Alvaro Sousa

The Russians would have NEVER surrendered. The Germans did have a surrender plan on the table. Arkhangelsk to Astrakhan.

quote:

ORIGINAL: wosung

quote:

ORIGINAL: Alvaro Sousa

The Russians would have NEVER surrendered. The Germans did have a surrender plan on the table. Arkhangelsk to Astrakhan.

No. The German A-A Plan was not at all a surrender plan.

It was a hypothetical line drawn to enable Nazi Germany to
1. protect Greater Germany from air attacks from the East.
2. destroy the Soviet industrial areas further eastward by aerial bombardment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-A_line

This means even in case the Germans would reach the AA line, they didn't expect the war against the Soviets to be over.

What Hitler made absolutely clear that Barbarossa was not to be a normal war, like the ones fought in Western Europe. Normal wars were supposed to end with some sort of capitulation or peace talks. Not this one. Barbarossa entailed the Commissar Order, the refusal to accept a capitulation of Leningrad, the no-surrender order to Paulus & to the 6th Army, the starvation policy of the Generalplan Ost. It was all about annihilation and perpetual struggle.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Fintilgin

Hitler said a lot of melodramatic crap though. If taking, say, Leningrad and Moscow in 1941 had resulted in Stalin getting purged and a semi-collapse of the Soviet government who know what might have happened?

If Case Blue had been more successful, Baku seized and Stalingrad held, then who knows what might have happened? After three years of increasingly brutal war who knows? Formal peace with a secret plan for Germany to lick its wounds and polish off the gutted remains of Russia five years down the line?

There also comes the point where the Russian government would no longer be capable of meaningful resistance. In my game I had control of basically every Russian city and resource by late 1942. They may have well have surrendered because they're totally occupied and have no chance of coming back.

At the end of the day it's a game too. My gut feeling is that the Soviets should be more prone to collapse early on. Let's be real... if I own Leningrad/Moscow/Stalingrad/Baku by late 1942... the game is OVER. The Allies are not launching a successful Overlord 70% of the German army is planted in France. Why drag it out? A human Allied player would concede at that point. Honestly I feel like if the Germans have collapsed Russia and there are no Allied units in France/Italy/Germany the game (vs the allied AI) should end in Sudden Death Victory (with the option to keep playing and mop up).

Similarly, if Russia is on the ropes, Western Allied successes (breaching Fortress Europa) should boost their will to keep fighting.

quote:

ORIGINAL: wosung

Ok, you haven't any hint about German plannings for a Soviet capitulation. Just your gut feeling.