[WarInEur] Barbarossa under options

[SGMINFO at aol.com]

In a message dated 15/07/2008 23:01:07 Atlantic Daylight Time,  
CarlAugustRuppSr writes:

There  are two tactics to prevent that. One it to damage the Soviets so  
incredibly that they are unable to launch a counterrattack. However,  
with fog of war the Germans have no idea what is lurking behind the  
Soviet front lines and where they will launch their fiercest attacks.  
And even if they do survive the winter counteroffensive, being out of  
supply impedes their ability to be rested and ready for an full blown  
Spring offensive in May 1942 when the mud dries.


Two things happen in the first year of war, that tend to make me think that  
our crude model here is possibly on the correct track.
 
1.So far,
tests with this model show both sides to be pretty well exhausted by the  
spring of 1942, as all indicators itrw seemed to show. An explanation of the  
late German launching of the 1942 summer offensive appears to be in play:-   the 
need to delay whlst the summer weather allows you to bring forces up to  
tolerable condition to engage in offensive operations.
 
 
The adjunct to this is that we are not seeing the unit densities that  we see 
in the standard game, meaning that the 1942 ww1 style slugging match does  
not reappear.
 
2.In terms of tactics, the German player is encouraged to think about the  
two sides of the dilemma, 
a cautious advance, letting the Soviets off the hook in terms of OB and  
manpower...or going at it to the limit, knowing that it is possible to so  
seriously damage the Soviets that they are incapable of making any dramatic  showing 
in the first winter, itself a situation that is more unusual in terms of  the 
classic game.
 
Being able to suppress the option of the oos AEX magnifies this effect, and  
the somewhat heavy handed kludge of this feature used to counterbalance the  
murderous firepower of the Axis in supply in the first year on the eastern  
front. Removing this feature now, does not produce the walkover that we would  
quite expect to see.
 
On the southern front, the traditional remedy, of outbuilding the axis and  
deploying to the point where they are simply slowly buried does not quite pan  
out as expected. Mobile operations and timely withdrawals in the face of  
overwhelming pressures repeatedly frustrate the allied player from nailing DAK,  
indeed such tactics lead to a seesaw battle over the historic Tobruck/Bardia  
region, a feature not seen before.
 
For the student of warfare, the achilles heel of your army, logistics, is  
brutally exposed, and as M/T pools take hits with major advances (MSUs), you are 
 suddenly faced with the frustration of having a force that rapidly becomes  
useless if you do not pay serious attention to your supply lines.
 
The old remedy of pulling back a hex to instantly  recover full use  and 
utility by recovering supply, now does not work, such ill used units require  some 
serious time to reconstitute and regain effectiveness as their workshops  
catch up and start to make inroads into the backlog of maintenance.
 
 
Quality of supply, for the first time, becomes of serious interest to the  
commander. excepting the supply range initially, minor supply was every bit as  
useful as major supply, there being only two effects...being in supply...and  
not.
 
Minor supply now has the corrosive effect of not being so effective as  major 
supply. Units come back up to strength as before, when in minor supply,  but 
not so rapidly as forces in major supply.
 
How this plays out on the ground, will be interresting...
 
 
 
-|steve|-
 
 



   
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