Panzerkeil

No single white females looking for companions here.

The Red Army was truly humiliated in their war with Finland. They were also suffering from command disruptions brought about as a result of Stalin's purge of the officer corps. What came of the Russian/Finnish war was that the Red Army learned from its mauling at the hands of the Finns. They adapted skis for their own troops and put them to use when they fought the Germans. What made the Russians so tough in the snow as compared to the Germans was their native ability to survive Russian winter conditions. Makes sense; after all, they did grow up there. Consequently, they knew to use thinner lube oils in their engines and weapons, something the Germans had to learn that first winter. The Russian tank designs also reflected knowledge of operating conditions in Russia. The T-34's used wide tracks to better distribute the weight of the tank. They were able to outmaneuver German tanks in mud and snow. The Germans tried to copy this design by adding extensions to their tracks, known as Ostketten or something like that. Whether they were truly awesome fighters in winter is beside the point; the Germans were unprepared for the conditions in Russia while their enemy was ready to fight in mud and snow. The disparity perhaps gave birth to the legend.

What a coincidence. As I am typing this, "Battle of Britain" is playing on History. Here's a Brit diplomat talking to a German diplomat at the British embassy in Switzerland: "We're not easily frightened. Also, we know how hard it is for an army to cross the Channel. The last little corporal who tried came a cropper! So don't threaten or dictate to us until you are marching up Whitehall. And even then we won't listen!"

Interesting stats. Thanks for the info. Should provide for some interesting debates as to Sea Lion in SC2. Would you be able to provide some info as to the actual landing craft for the "real" invasion? It is easy to see why, in consideration of the disparity between the two sides why Raeder wanted total air superiority as a condition for Sea Lion

Agreed, the support groups later in the war were useful, but they still performed their most useful work around convoys. In the early years, when there were only a limited number of escorts with a convoy, many a time a U-boat got away because the convoy escort had to break off and rejoin the convoy. What made the support groups so useful was that they could sail to assist a convoy escort, relieve them of the contact and then spend as much time as necessary to hunt that U-boat. The support groups or hunter killers didn't pound about in the open sea to find a U-boat because in those conditions it was the U-boat which had the advantage of being able to evade. They could hear the group coming and evade. The support groups sailed in the vicinity of the convoy lanes, able to go this way or that, depending on which convoy needed assistance. They would sail to reinforce a threatened convoy's escorts. The most effective offensive patrols were conducted by radar equipped aircraft in the Bay of Biscay, the choke point for U-boats sailing to and from their French bases. Offensive patrolling by surface vessels was a waste of time.

The early years in the Battle of the Atlantic demonstrated that the Admiralty was unprepared to defend Britain's merchant shipping from the U-boats. Most of the destroyers were tasked with protecting the RN's assets, like carriers and heavy warships. The convoys had to make do with what was left. It was only when the British forced themselves to seriously commit the proper resources to ASW that they began to master the U-boat peril; which climaxed in the spring and early summer of 1943. This game gives the impression that the way to kill U-boats is to form hunting groups and sail into the Atlantic and hope to bump into a gaggle of them, where they could all be conveniently battled. The Admiralty soon wised up and realized that offensive patrolling would not bag them many U-boats. They realized that the best place to find U-boats was in the vicinity of a convoy. If they wanted to sink ships, they had to find and attack the convoys. Thus the British devoted resources to building and training proper escort groups for their convoys, providing long range aircraft to close the air gap and finally to use escort carriers from end to end. Only once there were sufficient escorts for all the convoys could they form special support groups which were tasked with supplementing a besieged convoy's escorts. The Americans at first tried operating "hunter/killer units, but had no luck at all with offensive patrolling. All they managed to do was waste fuel. They also realized the same thing as the British earlier had learned, the best place to find U-boats was near convoys. It would be nice to be able to "automate" this part of the game. The U-boats should suffer operational losses as the result of encounters with convoy escorts. Perhaps there could be a subset in the research part of the game, for such things as: long range escorts and ASW planes, radar, training doctine, escort carriers and so forth. There could also be corresponding areas for the Axis, like: longer range U-boats, torpedo technology, search aircraft. Then these varying factors could go into the calculations for convoy MPP predation. That would leave the cruiser, carrier and battleship units in the game for proper naval operations.

What I find disappointing is the whole naval combat model. We have U-boats that do not have to sail to and from port for resupply, but their hunters have to. The game handles U-boats vs convoy combat abstractly and then hands you the result in lost MPPs. Why not just have the Allies devote their naval and air ASW assets in the same manner? Think about how the game currently handles it: we are handed a report saying the U-boats did this much damage to our convoys, but, somehow our ASW assets can't find the U-boats. Hmm, strange that, the Germans find our ships, but we can't find the U-boats. It is so one sided; the German player only has to park his sub and hope to hit the lanes, but the Allied player has to physically move his units back and forth. I think it would make more sense for both sides to allocate resources to U-boat/ASW, then, based on the current technology levels there would be the results. The current system is lopsided, in my opinion. A fully abstract system would be fairer to both sides and both sides could then allocate resources or neglect to allocate resources and live with the results. This would eliminate the silliness associated with sending "cruiser" in chase of subs. Perhaps you could "assign" units to the "Battle of the Atlantic" or take them from that role for other operations specifically, such as shore bombardment. You would only need to put cruisers or BB's in the Atlantic if there was a threat of the Germans doing the same. Any non-ASW units assigned to Atlantic duty would be vulnerable to random attack by U-boats. This could be comparable to how in the game we have the "Malta Effect." We do not actually see Malta-based shipping and aerial assets doing their thing, but we do see their results. To continue to have the "Malta Effect" should require the constant investment that was actually made to achieve that effect, the strangulation of Axis supplies to North Africa. A similar thing could be done with strategic bombing. Instead of actually having the physical units on the map, we could have a computer-based modelling of the aerial campaign. The players would invest in ongoing operations and research. As the German, you could have your fighters present on the board as part of the air fleets or locked into the Reich defence mode. Perhaps all of this is too ambitious for this game? Just thought I'd throw this out here for consideration. Would it be possible to do this in this game or would it require such an overhaul as to require a new game engine? I'm guessing that it might be possible in the same manner as the U-boats causing MPP losses. What do you all think?

I'm wondering what you guys think about putting British units into France, such as the BEF? Is it worthwhile in a H2H game or do you just consider France a lost cause anyway and not worth the bother?

Richard Sorge was the name of Stalin's spy.

That is so harsh to Canadians, they probably produced more overall materials than the UK! They had their own units under their own control... Juno Beach was Canadian only. But on the scale that SC2 is played, I can understand them not having tech. </font>

Agreed on that point about Canadian tech. We had crappy stuff at the beginning of the war, but by the end of the war we had tank units with the Sherman Firefly, air units with Lancasters and late mark Spitfires. Something's broken here and needs fixing. Again, I'm afraid we are limited by the game's mechanics.

I checked into that game on recommendation of a friend. It looks huge, but that wasn't really a deterrent. I just wasn't impressed by the military model with its provincial conquest.

Thanks, CP. That's what I thought, but wasn't sure about. Of course, an intelligent Axis player will not approach within visual range, which helps to narrow down the search area when hunting for marauding U-boats.

Switzerland was very jealous of its airspace. There was one incident in which the Swiss air force forced some German intruders to land. What was most ironic in this particular incident was that the Swiss interceptors were ME-109's which had been recently delivered to the Swiss.

How exactly do you use them to "spot" subs?