[WarInEur] RE: breaking through to Minsk

Thu Nov 15 00:52:10 EST 2007

What events should WIE be able to replicate through routine play?   >>> Unless you can drop France in six weeks and take Minsk on turn one > >>> of Barbarossa you have not modeled the historical abilities of the > >>> German army in early WWII! Does the optional rule allow this to take > >>> place????> >>> > Attack on the March, limited to only the Mech phase. Germans attack on > several hex fronts and move 20 miles in the combat phase. During the > Mech move phase they hit the second line at 3-1 or higher with 2x 8-8 > and 2x10-8, using air they get a DR, thats 2+1 mp, they hit a second > stack, another 3-1 or better, they have gained 3 hexes total for 60 > miles and if they are free of enemy ZOC they move another 2 hexes for a > total of 5! Historical gains in one week!> > Attack on the March using both phases, movement phase they hit twice at > 3-1, attack again in the combat phase at 3-1 or better and finish up > with 2 more attacks for a total of 5 hexes taken. If there is a gap they > may do better then 5 hexes if the French player has not defended very > deep. And considering there is a real chance of an exchange or BR the > germns will flip a few units in order to gain territory.> Chuck seems to feel that if something occurred once in WWII, then the rules ought not to make it impossible. On the surface, this seems a reasonable position.  The problem is that a war game may not be able to model some of the RW factors that made the event possible.  The classic example of this is the Ardennes breakthrough, with Blitzkrieg ZOC and some overruns at least one mech unit should be able to advance a total of 8 hexes in a single week. However as this may involve weaving between allied stacks so that the distance as the crow flies is somewhat less than  160 miles.   The gimmick to this example is that the allies are not deployed in solid lines of units. How could such a set up occur? Well, in WIE with an experienced allied player, it simply won't. The experiencedAllied player knows that ultimately the Axis can't be stopped, so any defense is really just a play for time. Any French or Belgium units will ultimately be lost to his cause so the best way to use them is to trade them for timerather than try to bunch up and stop the Panzers in their tracks.  The situation in Russia is ultimately the same.  Set up in one way and the Soviets lose Minsk on turn one.  Setup another way and the Axis is lucky to end turn one 3 hexes past the 1941 start line.  I do not know what isthe basis for the computer set ups in CWIE but I doubt it come from the Historical files of the red Army.  If the Soviets employ a radically A-historical set up, then the first turn will transpire rather differently than the corresponding first week of WWII.  Thus my response to Chuck is this;   The game already allows the Units to do most everything that could be done historically, the problem is that the players refuse to cooperate by making historical mistakes.  My second response is that he made a great case that certain forms of defense in depth work way too well in WIE. The Soviets can get away with something that takes absurdly a-historical advantage of the OOS Aex, the layout of the grid and exaggerated difference in combat value between a 6-5 and its KG and of the fact that half of 8 MP is less than the 5 movement points needed to move from one ZOC to another or overrun a hex that is in another unit's ZOC.   Against a purely west-to-east advance the lattice of 1-4's defense is impenetrable except by Motorized units. And given the standard Axis OOB the and the only way to advance is to trade Flips of 6-5's or complete destruction of 2-4's for single 1-4's. A rate of attrition not favorable to the Germans, at least from Chucks' point of view. (economically speaking the cost to replacea annihilated 1-4 is roughly the same as rebuilding a 1-5 into a full division.)  One can hear Chuck Sutherland thinking, "If only just one of the 1-4s in the lattice could be shoved aside by movement-related combat, the next line can be attacked and likewise either retreated or killed, creating the opportunity to push on to a third and even fourth hex all in the same week".   He is convinced this really happened on a regular basis.   I think it did too, but the units involved would not all qualify for combat factors and/or ZOCs.  I also think that such 100-mile weeks didn't happen when the units involved were beyond optimal supply distance. While nothing can done about the distortions of the hex grid on movement and combat, Attrition in WIE is well on its way replacing the OOSAex result in favor of increased unit degradation.  Another remedy to this attrition trap is to come to war with regiments to take the casualties.  The fact that these regiments can be 3-10's capable of interpenetrating the lattice and taking down 2 or even three 1-4s when they go is a sweet bonus.   Chuck replied that he would just retreat when they get close. I say that if I am out of supply and advancing withoutcasualties then I am the one winning, because his cities will be that much closer to the front next year.  The computer with its ability to assign tiny fractions for combat values and strip off zones of control allows for the creation of what i like to think of as pseudo-units. The appear in the historical OOBs, but due to deficiencies in training or TOE were rendered combat ineffective withinhours of coming under fire for the first time.  The new attrition rules allow for German divisions and Soviet Corps with no greater combat effectiveness than a 1-4. It is no great reach to imagine a Soviet militia 1/4 -4 with no ZOC than can be overrun at a cost of a grand total of +1 MP. As I mentioned in an earlier post, there simply is no reason that a unit with sufficient movement points should not be allowed to make more than on overrun in a week.   There absolutely ought to be the capacity to overrun two adjacent units simultaneously without loss of MP to either units' ZOC. This has been promised,  but so far as my beta testing is concerned not yet delivered.  There is still a problem with the assembly of stacks in front of the unit to be overrun, the 2 MP charged as the stack comes together is not restored if the overrun unit is removed from play. Worse, the computer sometimes refuses the overrun on grounds that the stack has insufficient MP for overrun.  This is one of the reasons that players wishing greater fluidity of on the front lines might opt to try some variation of KC's Strategic surprise. 
And to answer chuck's question: If the the Training Center is adjactent rather than on top of the personnel center hex, then Minsk can 
indeed fall on turn 1. 

BOB  
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