[WarInEur] RE: WarInEur Digest, Vol 40, Issue 29

Thu Nov 15 11:29:35 EST 2007

Steve's post reiterates a very important point about military deployments,while commanders are 
supposed to think in terms of worse case scenarios, the most sucessful battles come either when 
one side secretly divines the other sides intentions, or the other side makes a false assumption that
what is impossible for it is also impossible for the opposing side. 
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I am reminded of a difference in armored philosophies that was resolved in in 1940-41.  
The allies and Soviets had more tanks, but they were dispersed amidst non-motorized infantry companies.
A brigade or division with such a TOE can defend itself fairly well when terrain permits, but without fully 
mechanized battalions it lacks mobility to fight a war of maneuver.  
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The hexes in WIE are so big that we tend to think of maneuver in terms of breakouts, retreats and
and movement to combat. However, what is normally involved in mechanized modern combat is the 
shifting of battalions within the battle area. One reason the Axis units have such high combat ratings is 
to reflect the skills of the unit commanders and sub-unit commanders at this form of "mobile warfare"
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However, once all the battalions of a unit are fully mechanized, new operational level possibilities emerge. 
Brigade sized units can pass through the gaps between enemy formations into rear areas. Furthermore, 
If enough such brigades are bunched together, they can completely overrun a front line position creating 
a hole through which other brigades or even whole divisions may pass. 
==============================================================================Steve's point is this, if an Avalon Hill player (locking Zones of Control, forced combat and movement a
after combat only for victorious units) was in charge of France and Belgium in his first WIE game, 
then his units will quite probably move and stack in ways that invite deep armored penetrations. What looks 
like a quite adequate defense (i.e. units stacked in mutual support) is actually something of a sieve against 
a mainly mechanized attacking force. I know, because I made this mistake many times when I first switched
game systems. What looked smart given my experience with AH's Anzio turned out to be disastrous. 
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The Allied commanders in 1940 were in a doubly vulnerable position: They didn't know what the terrain 
costs were for mechanized travel through the Ardennes.  They assumed that armored formations would get 
bogged down there and hence Luxemburg was not a problem area. 
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General Swartzkoff temporarily made a similar error in 1990. He assumed that the sand of the desert to the 
west of Kuwait was too soft for M-1 Abrams tanks and hence it would be a trap for his heaviest divisions. 
When asked to submit an offensive plan, he laid out one in which his forces studiously avoided that area. 
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Later, having been promised sufficient forces that a flanking attack was militarily sound, Centcom sent out 
scouts to take sod samples and discovered the assumption to be wrong.   Swartzkoff then realized that 
as he had no units out that way, the Iraqi Command might be assuming that that west of Kuwait was a
safe zone for them. According, he waited until the Iraqis had no aerial reconnaissance and then secretly  
repositioned two corps to his extreme left. The Republican Guard was thus attacked from an unexpected 
direction and was routed with minimal Centcom casualties. 
====================================================================
BOB

> Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2007 10:19:09 -0500> From: warineur-request at mailman.halisp.net> Subject: WarInEur Digest, Vol 40, Issue 29> To: warineur at mailman.halisp.net> > Send WarInEur mailing list submissions to> warineur at mailman.halisp.net> > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit> http://mailman.halisp.net/mailman/listinfo/warineur> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to> warineur-request at mailman.halisp.net> > You can reach the person managing the list at> warineur-owner at mailman.halisp.net> > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific> than "Re: Contents of WarInEur digest..."> > > Today's Topics:> > 1. Re: War in the East 2nd Edition Page 4... (Don Lazov)> 2. RE: breaking through to Minsk (Wardall Clark)> 3. Re: RE: breaking through to Minsk (sgminfo)> > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------> > Message: 1> Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2007 17:42:08 +0000> From: dlazov at comcast.net (Don Lazov)> Subject: Re: [WarInEur] War in the East 2nd Edition Page 4...> To: "Dickson, Kevin P (Kevin)" <kevin.dickson at verizonbusiness.com>,> WarinEur at mailman.halisp.net> Message-ID:> <111420071742.3791.473B3370000328CC00000ECF22165279669001960E040B at comcast.net>> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"> > Skipped content of type multipart/alternative-------------- next part --------------> An embedded message was scrubbed...> From: "Dickson, Kevin P (Kevin)" <kevin.dickson at verizonbusiness.com>> Subject: [WarInEur] War in the East 2nd Edition Page 4...> Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2007 15:07:35 +0000> Size: 699> Url: http://mailman.halisp.net/pipermail/warineur/attachments/20071114/a547398b/attachment-0001.mht> > ------------------------------ 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 time rather 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 from WWII. 

> Subject: Re: [WarInEur] RE: breaking through to Minsk> > To follow on to Bob's points....> > If you wish to test how 'historical' the game flows> The the 1940 scenario is the one to test, not the campaign game.> > Does the capaign game follow history?> No...> > The French high command are a bunch of ex panzer pushers and thus have > an all too real appreciation of the Panzers prowess and capabilities. So > the French are always commanded by a well rersearched student of > military history, not the guys whose misfortune it was to face the > panzers before the book of ww2 had been opened and the plot determined.> > ..Now if you put a newbie in charge of the french, the you might get > historical results...> > It was not that the french were not capable of a much more effective > defence, it was that they simply...> > a)Did not understand the nature of the beast and had no chance to learn...> b)When they did see it happening, not only did they not understand the > significance of the German moves, but actively cooperated with the > German masterplan.> > How many consuls of the Republic, at thegates of Cannae, would so > fulsomely cooperate to produce a repeat of the desaster that befell them > at the hands of Hannibal.> > Alternatively, how many commanders would put the Pacific fleet at a > peacetime footing, in the anchorage of Pearl Harbour on December 7th?> > Or would you be dining out in the bars and restaurants of Taranto, with > your entire fleet laid out in the _completely secure_ anchorage , > blythely unaware of the arrival of sSwordfish in the evening gloom?> > Now there is nothing to stop us engineering a repeat performance...but > we have to be as innocent lambs to the slaughter..> > If the Game starts in May 1940, again OK, but if the game starts in > September 1939, are you going to freeze deployments for any active > belligerents? You see the lessons ofPoland, only because you know what > they are...now...in 1939 it was a very different picture, just as the > Gulf showed a plethora of mistaken appreciations and assumptions, > fortunately in our favour.> > Not to get Russia to work, that is EXACTLY what the rules do, forcing > the Soviets to stay forward, and a mass of bolt on rules to try and > force them into histoical behaviour. A prudent commander, would deploy, > in the light of his knowledge,. in an entirely different way...> > ...we do in France, and see nothing wrong, yet seem to blindly accept > the opposite in Russia in 1941...> An apparent contradiction,,,> > -|steve|-
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