frontovik

Go ahead and send me a harmless defense, I promise I will make a harmless attack too

I have seen this happen in real life. Some tanks have roof mounted sights, which means that an inexperienced gunner can really screw the pooch by firing into the berm. I've also seen experienced gunners (having a bad day, I presume) do the same thing, if the gun tube is slighlty elevated as the tank pulls up, then even when looking through the auxillary sights (co-axial) the gunner dosn't realize he hasn't cleared the berm, and when he switches to the primary sight, lowers the gun tube and begins to track his target, the gunner has no idea the tube isn't clear. As far as the game goes this has not happened to me, never had a problem firing from hull down positions, but I do believe hitting the berm can be considered realistic, especially for green or conscript crews.

Maybee He was trying to frag his platoon leader?

Total Soviet Casualties for the Stalingrad and North Caucasus Defensive operations was 694,379 irrecoverable losses and 517,811 sick and wounded. Add in Voronezh-Voroshilovgrad Defensive operation for 36,883 KIA and 29,329 WIA. Stalingrad Offensive opperation (19 Nov-2 Feb) 154,885 KIA and 330,892 WIA. Total 886,147 KIA, 878,032 WIA/sick for grand total of 1,764,179 casualties!! All figures from Krivosheev, Soviet Casualties & Combat Losses in 20th Cent. However I don't think it is fair to compare blue and uranus to Tunisia (from german side) and IMHO the destruction of 6th Army is roughly comparable to forces lost in Tunisia!!

Oops, well I was going off memory, disregard that blurb of mine and return to my original observation [ September 25, 2002, 12:52 PM: Message edited by: frontovik ]

Oh wait, I forgot that (IIRC) soviets squads before 1944 are considered one level below the germans (soviet green = german conscript), which does make a difference in game balance, but does not excuse the hordes of half trained german infantry wandering around the russian steppe!!

I understand that a certain % of troops (somewhere between 10-15%) will be one experience level higher and that the same percentage will be one lower. However, my issue is with the frequency that green troops (as the bulk of the troops) appear. So anyway to satisfy my curiosity I ran some tests. I set up a QB and ran it 25 times checking the troop quality of both sides. Parameters were: Date: August 1941 Region: Central Force Mix: Inf Only Nationality: German/Soviet Division Type: Infantry Quality: Medium Purchase Units automatically All parameters were the same for both sides and for all iterations. Results: German Received Green troops 14 times (56%) Received Regular troops 11 times (44%) Soviet Received Green troops 15 times (60%) Received Regular troops 10 times (40%) In 20% of the iterations Soviet troop quality was superior to the germans. In 76% of the iterations Soviet troop quality was superior or equal to the germans. Now this raises a few questions. Is it really reasonable to assume that approximately 50% of the german infantry divisions consisted of green troops in August 1941? Obviously of no consequence if the AI is soviet and you buy your own stuff, but playing as the Russians there is a 50% chance you will face green troops and only a 24% chance that the germans will have a superior troop quality. This does not strike me as historically accurate!!!. Not sure if this discrepancy occurs in other years/monthes/nationalities/force mixes/division types but it potentially can make games vs. AI significantly less challenging than they should be, unless you buy the AI’s forces which sort of spoils the surpise. But wait, there’s more… Ran the same test (25x) with troop quality set to random (all other parameters set the same) and got following results: German: Crack: 8 (32%) Veteran: 5 (20%) Regular: 3 (15%) Green: 9 (36%) Conscript: 0 (0%) Soviet: Regular: 8 (32%) Green: 9 (36%) Conscript: 8 (32%) In 16% of the iterations Soviet troop quality was superior to the Germans. In 28% of the iterations Soviet troop quality was superior or equal to the Germans. Despite the hordes of crack legions and an excess of greens, I liked these results better, and I guess that if you want a more realistic/historical game you are better off choosing random troop quality for the AI None the less I believe that there are imbalances here (historical as well as game balance) that probably should be addressed!!

Yeah, I noticed this too. Every time I let the computer buy my forces it always chooses the lowest troop quality available. Granted I have not played enough QBs with auto purchase (about 5) for this to be statistically (sp) significant. I many cases I think it is even appropriate (Russians 41-42, or when TQ set to high) but it is very annoying to consistently get green germans in August 41 when troop quality set to medium (not buying SS or mech). The other thing I noticed is that when I generate a QB and set troop quality to random a simliar situation occurs, out of three battles I got conscripts twice and green once (all as axis) and the AI got conscripts all three times. Just wondering if I have had bad luck in my troop quality results or if others are noticing this trend as well. :confused: