[WarInEur] RE: allied surprises

Fri Nov 9 12:08:06 EST 2007

> The top 5 allied/soviet uses of the proposed strategic surprise rule guaranteed to annoy any Axis player:
First of all, I love this list:   It shows that the rule expands the capabilities of your opponent in ways 
that can create disasters.  This means that military operations have to conducted a great deal more 
conservatively than is traditional for a war game because you seldom can be certain of what the other 
side's capabilities are. 

> 5.  De-Blitzkrieging Poland -> The allied player declares surprise on his first turn in 1939 stopping the German invasion of Poland in its tracks and allowing the Poles two turns to reposition their forces and kill any possibility of blitzkrieg.  The Axis player can forstall this by using a surprise in the first turn of the game but he will be annoyed at having to use it against the Poles.   
The Polish Initial deployment makes no sense in light of the axis capacity to penetrate ZOC. As Von Manstein's
memoirs confirm, the Poles were mis-positioned from the first shot. The "surprise "here would be historically equivalent 
to the Poles having given orders IN ADVANCE to fall back or move to a properly echeloned defensive deployment.  The Axis 
would still eventually crush the Poles if the surprise option is employed in this way, but it would take more than three weeks. FYI to the programmers:  the POLES are supposed to get MAJOR power ZOCs, at least the way the DG rules are writtenPersonally, I think this would be an absurd use of the options, since it would only apply to Eastern Front Activities.  However, 
the Allies have a rather more ambitious option.  While I do not believe this would actually work even with the Surprise Option, 
the thought that the allies might do this in the Real World had the Nazi's scared spitless. In WIE without the Surprise rule the 
threat really isn't there, even with Fog of War. 

Alternative-5: While the Axis is running amuck in the East, the Allies use the surprise option on the WEST FRONT on 10/3/39 
to race into the Rhineland via Luxemburg as they simultaneously attack the AXIS KG's across from the Maginot line.  

> 4.  Super Anzio> The allied player declares surprise, invades an undefended coast hex behind the Germans, then uses the next move to move 
>divisions across Italy, cutting the German army off from supply.
This is exactly what Churchill expected the Anzio invasion to accomplish, unfortunately (a) surprise was not obtained--see operation Husky 
(b) The Germans had pre-positioned units to prevent such an expansion of the Beach head (c) After a ranger unit was completely wiped out the Corp commander deployed to defend his beach head rather than attacking eastward beyond his supplies.  

In WIE with the Surprise rule the Axis will have to keep his reserve deployed up and down the peninsula to protect themselves against invasions.
this would be exactly the way they deployed in the RW.  Given FOW, the Allies won't be able to be sure they have picked the right spot, which 
will lead either to excessively cautious invasions, or to botched ones in which nothing much is accomplished beyond the creation of a 
self-sustaining prison camp at the beach head. 

> 3.  North African Supply Grab > The allied player declares surprise, amphibiously lands 4 divisions between 2 axis mobile supply units and then overruns both of them on the ensuing turn.
This one is already a problem without Strategic Surprise.  Basically, until the Allies utilize their growing Amphibious capacity with a major landing 
somewhere, the German supply line along the coast of North Africa is extraordinarily vulnerable, beyond even the RW problems Rommel experienced.
IMO, the solution here is quite similar to the resolution of paratroop overuse, make the Invading player pre-designate landing sites. 

> 2.  Sea Lion/Beached Whale> The Axis player, having burned his 1940 surprise getting through the double line of French divisions launches Sea Lion.  He then watches helplessly as the allied player declares surprise and gets two turns to react to the invasion. 
Yeah, and then Sea Lion fails quickly and heads roll at the High command.  This was the German's nightmare and the main reason Hitler had no enthusiasm 
for Sea Lion.  He didn't trust the German infantry and paratroopers to get the job done.  Based on accounts of CWIE games in which Air Superiority completely canceled High Seas Intervention, invading England was/is not as scary as it should be. 

With only 3 Surprises spread over 5 years of warfare, the Allies have to be stingy with this cards.  I can just as easily see an Allied player taking 
the calculated risk of not using the surprise that initial turn in hopes of repelling the invasion without it.  You do make a good point that 
perhaps players should be allowed to use up 2 in the same year, rather than 1 per year per front. 

> 1.  Soviet 1/5/42 surprise> The Soviet player with his double fortified lines declares surprise on 1/5/42 thus forcing the Axis player to postpone his own surprise attack to 1/7/42, shortening the campaign season by six weeks. 

This one is a problem because...?? The Soviets did launch an attack in May; they got their heads handed to them and the main German attack which came on 1/7/42 was all the more sucessful because of it.  Those Strategic Surprise OPtions are precious. All the WIE Soviets would accomplish if they use one then simply sit pat is to preclude any devastating counter-strokes like the Stalingrad coup for the remainder of 1942 

Furthermore, under my proposql, in order to force a wait until 1/7/42 the Soviets would have to use the surprise either sometime during the 6/42 cycle 
or on 4/5/42  which means the germans have the option of announcing surprise on 3/5/42 or 4/5/42 to get themselves the maximum number of 
weeks of good weather. By doing this they would then have to take into account as they advanced the real possibility of a major Soviet counter 
attack as early as 7/42
> As you can see, the rule will cause more a-historical results than it prevents.  Lets not add it to CWIE2.

My post is in hopes that the play-test version of CWIE-2 gets something like this capacity so that all of us can find out whether or 
not the rule makes radical departures from historical lines of play more attractive, or less attractive. I personally think the KC rules is far too much and I believe play testing would show that, especially if a player used back to back surprises in a single cyle on the same front 

I also think that with FOW and some careful exploitation of the opponent's state of attrition that the historical degree of Mobile 
warfare can be recreated everywhere except France 1940 even without the Strategic Surprise option (assuming always that the units 
are being deployed in a vaguely historical manner.) Those clamoring for a defense-in-depth-defeating gimic are looking for a mythical 
creature. The real problem is that the computer doesn't yet handle overruns correctly.  When a unit is overrun, its ZOC effects on the 
movement of every hostile unit nearby should be canceled and the movement points restored to them (so that they have a better chance 
of participating in other overruns or can advance extra hexes into the enemy rear areas.)  

Furthermore, I can think of no historical reason aside from the effects of attrition why a unit should not be allowed to participate in more 
than one one overrun in the same phase. 

I likewise think that the supply state of an overrunning unit should not effect the combat odds and that Overruns should be possible 
at odds less than 13-1 so long as the only possible result of a die roll would be DE.   

BOB

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