Shaka of Carthage

I took the liberty of pulling this subject from a different thread. I think its important enough to warrant its own seperate discussion. First, here are the orginal comments: =============================== "From Liam" One Important aspect of the game not covered. Though Eastern and Western Armies may not be porportioned the same combatant/Military Engineers/Medical/Vehicle support, and SO FORTH!!! There were supposedly a Million Yugoslavs in the Army at the time Hitler invaded. So when I see 3 corps at what military strength? I'm just Blahhhh, even Yugoslavia a small military power would deserve what Switzerland gets 2 full blown fully entrenched armies... It's a gross misrepresentation. What would be more accurate is giving the Yugoslavians at least 5 armies... Though Poorly Equiped and then perhaps divide the nation along the pro-Allied Coup and Pro-Axis Coup...Hurting supply...also well, they're equipment is a low rating, so we really should have different rating than Anti-Tank. How about Equiped Soldier's level. Like the American GI was the best equiped soldier of the War towards Normandy... Far better than their adversaries, which gave them a huge advantage =========================================== "From Shaka of Carthage" Liam You are correct that SC does not represent the different nationalities and the differences in equipment, training, etc. It is an extremely difficult subject, made even worse by the fact that identical units; same men, same equipment, same experience, can have an effectivness difference of almost 2:1. Even the experts cannot agree on how to accuratly reflect this. So in SC you have a system that has decided to keep it simple by making a "generic" unit. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that manpower equals the combat power of this unit. If a man with a rifle has a combat power of one (1), a machine gun is around seven (7), but an artillery piece is around eight hundred (800) to twelve hundred (1200). Number of men is not a good way of trying to determine how many units a nation should have. Better way is the number of artillery pieces and armored fighting vehicles. Posting those numbers would give a more meaningful comparison of the potential military units (divisions, corps, armies) a nation can raise. =========================== "From Liam" thanxs for the Comments on my posting Shaka... armies in the field are a big difference, communication<modern>, transportation, proffessional Western Leadership... At least Even Modern 20th century equipment...Though did every Yugoslav have a Rifle? It's grossly respresented, a million men if determined would be a very healthy force for the 3rd Reich to Crush in weeks... Without a "grunt" of manpower and equipment. This game is about taking real history into consideration. You can replace Tanks, with Sappers, you can replace Artillery with Guerrilia tactics and suicide squads. Depends on the flexability of the countries armed forces and mountain Warefare is a Pain in the butt which is bigtime in Yugoslavia. So you waltz in in what is roughly equivelant to 150k of Western Troops and stamp em out. The poles were fairly organized. They were a Fair military, only beaten due to lack of understand BlitzKrieg and likely leadership. Nomatter how ill a weapon is, it is still effective if used, and practiced again and again. If the Russians didn't have so much space to make mistakes, their weapondry would've succumbed to the much more modern Western German Power. Also if they weren't fighting during a Winter/with a long front from the Baltic in Leningrad to the Black Sea Rostov in the South '41... They learned from their mistakes and with far inferior equipment and it was not equal IMHO until around midish '43 That made the huge change between the Soviet fighting man, but still they used the tactic of #s vs Quality. They could've gone quality but the very nature of a Communist state is #s and loss of life being of little consideration... All these minors are misrepresented in that sometimes you wipe them out in 2 seconds. Other times you get a lucky Corp here or there. There needs to be a smaller organization of disorganized Fighting men in this War. That is Truely the backbone of most Eastern European Armies. The Romanians/Bulgarians/Hungarians I bet carried WW1 equipment at best. No mechanized ability, without their Axis friends. So they are no good really either. They had little or 0 Morale to fight against a determined Ally they were more worried about Obtaining more lands in the baltics as represented. Although the baltics were a poor area, aside from Ploesti...semi-strategic<not very> It was just a problem to be overlooked... So should the Russians with a lot of their beginning inf modeled after weak and badly equiped lead troops be somehow modeled say a Base Infantry Unit... With a strength of 3 that cannot be improved place all over the map for these countries. For true representation of their fighting capabilties. The Russians were torn a new rear end in WW2 until 1942 at Stalingrad. They had no idea what Modern warefare was, in this game they can play hit and run tactics that historically Russia was incapable of doing. She was in shambles for losing all that she did, and most of her backbone would come from LATER reorganization not early...After her troops escaped and her leadership woke up and properly equiped and fought an effective style warefare with inferior equipment. To sum it up, the BEF and the French were better military units than the Germans. I think that their air was significantly weaker and their tactics were old style... There should be a better bonus than just HQs for Germans in that situation and their should be proper penalties as the Allies later improved their technology by Worldwide Cooperation and a HUGE ULTRA wealthy Modern<comparable to Chinese military of today> USA =================================== "From Jersey John" Liam A lot of interesting views but I can't agree that the French in 1940 and B. E. F. were better fighting units than their German counterparts. The British were more motorized than the Germans, but didn't have the tactical doctrine; their tanks were not comparable those the Germans were using and they had no tactical doctrine to utilize them with. French Tanks tended to be either heavier and slower or lighter and faster than those the Germans were using. In the campaign the Pz IIIs and IVs were unduly handicapped by the incorrect use of the IIIs having the high velocity gun with armor piercing shells and the IVs having the short, low velocity gun with high explosive shells. It was one of the few mistakes Hitler admitted to. After France both models were fitted with long high velocity weapons. Even with that handicap they fared well against the equally numerous French armor which was almost never employed effectively. Aside from these things, German soldiers of 1940 were very well trained and well led. There's no doubt the British and French fought bravely, but the Germans always seemed to have an edge even beyond the Luftwaffe's 'flying artillery' advantage. Definitely true that the Luftwaffe ruled the skies till the Battle of Britain. British firstline fighters and German firstline fighters were closely matched, but the RAF operated primarily out of Britain and in that early campaign rarely met the Germans in sufficient numbers to attain parity. Months after the Battle of Britain, it was the UKs turn to attempt escorted bombing runs over enemy territory and the Brits suffered just as badly on the German side of the Channel as the Germans had on the English side. Even if Poland's equipment, training and airforce had been the equal of Germany's, I think they'd have still been doomed by sheer geography and the fact Germany is simply a much more powerful nation with more of everything. The Poles had to defend too long a line made all the more impossible by it's 'C' shape. How do you successfully defend something when you start off not only outnembered but doubly out flanked? To have pulled everything back and only defended the central part of the country with it's capital, Warsaw, would have been unthinkable and equally doomed, though it might have taken a little longer though at the expense of abandoning much of their nation. ==================== "From Liam" Yes, you are right about the short ranged P.4 and the Lack of firepower in the P.3 the German's had to outthink their oponent, get around their flanks and hit them in their weaker points. The British a13 was comparable armor to most frontline German tanks, and that was the weakest British Tank. Although never around in great #s... Also the Matilda series<the right ones> were unstoppable armor, though very heavy. Also not enough in #s... You're absolutely right about German Air superiority, i guess the allies didn't realize the importance early enough. As it would have been a great factor in delaying German advancing. The Char1bis and the Somua, had the same turret. That was more or less like a Panther vs a slightly stronger Sherman. You could fire endless rounds of AP from a P3 into a Char1s turret and it would just bounce off.. In fact the Germans pioneered faster, more maneuverable and more numerous tanks... Much like their American counterparts a few years later :)The only comparable Armor to the Axis was the Renault that was a lt piece of chunk. Though the Somua in 1940 was the finest Medium tank in the entire world. I have heard that the Allies had more tanks and more aircraft and of course deployed wrong. In support of infantry rather than as line pounchers and fast routers. The Blensheim Hawk75, is roughly equal to many of the Luftwaffe fighters... The JU87, 109 and HE-111<corrected formely shnell bomber> were already obsolete by 1940ish... A lot of these I base of a Simulator I have played and books I've read about their equipment. Although even on a defensive role, the Allies should've bought a tad bit more time than they did. The Poles I hear weren't as bold as the Czech's or as brave. They were ready to fight in '38 with their awesome T38 which I find almost as nice as the P3...far superior to any other German tank available. Besides a worthy Airforce a combined Pole-Czeck front whilst the allies built a true # of Supply and equipment to match their German counterparts may have caused the War to be a lot shorter. Plus would've pushed other Balkan nations in perhaps and made the Russians very very Stressed! ================== "From Jersey John" Interesting about the evolution of armored warfare. Guderian's 1930's book, Achtung Panzer! envisions tanks as evolved cavalry; originally Guderian began his study as an examination of German cavalry tactics in the opening phases of WW I, then drew the connection to tanks. As the war progressed tactics moved away from that concept of disruption and speed toward the original idea of impregnable behemeths moving ponderously through any object they came across. The French had a lot of tanks in 1940. Like the Russians in '41 they despersed them throughout the corps often using them in groups of two or three and sometimes having lone tanks assigned to defending specific positions. The Germans found such tactics easy to deal with. Whatever the anti-tank gunners couldn't take care of was allotted to the dive bombers. Strangely, in the late twenties and through the 30s there was considerable talk within the French army of emphasizing the cavalry! The British Matildas were very good for directly supporting infantry attacks, but not for the cut and slash tactics of Blitzkrieg. Though comparably heavy to later tanks, they were much slower and not as heavily armed. =================================== Thats it. Since this is long enough as it is, let me make a new post.

Liam There was a possiblity of Sealion occuring if certain conditons had occurred. SC within its limitations does reflect the difficulty of doing a Sealion type operation. You state that England should have a backup, like Russia does (ie Siberian reinforcements). Two different circumstances. Siberian reinforcements were convenional forces, some would argue the best of the Russian military, that was called from one theater of operation to another, within the same nation. England did not have anything like that. Yes, she does have conventional forces throughout the world, and there are the Commonwealth forces. But they had thier own national commitments, plus the UK had international commitments (not the least was the Japanese) to deal with. The UK would have mobilized the Territorial Army, yes. But should the Territorial Army be considered as cabable of fielding Corp or Army size units, with infrastructure those units imply? No. Just like your suggestion about the size of the Yugo military, which I tried to spin off into another topic. I've tried to cover some details there. And the issue of the ships has been covered already. Though I do want to note that the British Merchant navy was fully committed, and even if the ships in home waters were used, they would not have been enough outfitted in time to be a unit in SC (assuming there was a SC naval unit of lesser combat power than those we have now). Wachmeister Infinte and cheap sea lift capacity does present problems. Especially since they are all considered amphib. I've suggested in another thread that we should have a amphib option for a Corp, which is must more expensive than transports. And your normal transports can only unload in a port. Details on the why are in that thread. Ability to "invade" US and Canada... agree it should not be allowed. Want to play "historical"? Then make a gentlemans agreement to not do it. But from the SC ladder thread, it seems some of us don't make the distinction between playing to win and playing to enjoy oneself. Liam American National Guard would have defeated the Germans? O my. Where did you get that from? Men with weapons are not the same as effective combat units. The US had no large scale combat units until '42 - '44 era. Notice I didn't say they were effective. UK economic strenght has been addressed in some detail in the SC:Economic Analysis thread. Just read the post that refers to the UK itself. Thanks, Barry

We have now officially went off-topic. We are now discussing equipment, manpower, etc... Not what the topic was orginally about. Though I am not a moderator, I am going to take the liberty of creating new topic(s) to address those items. Then I will add my $.03.

Just a couple of points regarding these neutral nation economies... Lets not forget that during this era a nation will trade with other nations to provide itself with the raw materials (including food) it needs to fuel its own economy. If neutrals give a percentage of thier MPP, it is still cost effective (within game system), to take the nation over. Forget the plunder effect for the moment, the 80% economy of the conquered nation is more than the MPP the neutral was giving you. Maybe we should consider the negative effect of occupying the country, which is that you have to garrison it. I've got the numbers somewhere for the number of men it takes to control a subjected population. When I find them, I will edit this post. This is where the abstraction of the economy into a single economic unit has problems. You lose the ability to reflect that taking over a nation, even though it gives you control of the production, does not necessarily allow you to fully exploit what you have, and may end up costing you more that it is worth. So even if the neutrals give the major(s) a % of its MPP, some players will still invade them, because they can gain more MPP's... and the plunder. But taking away the plunder or not allowing the neutrals to be invaded is not the answer either. Thats why I believe we have to include the oil and mineral resource points.

Thats what happened! I thought for a moment, that I had somehow bypassed a large part of your post. Good thing it was actually edited... not me just getting old. And I appreciate the fact that people (including Hubert) find some of my ideas interesting. And as Kurt88 mentioned, this ties in nicely to a diplomacy system, as you would be using political influence, before having to resort to military means.

John DiFool You asked where is it getting the strength from? Any able bodied man or woman will do. Combat power of a division comes from the artillery and armored fighting vehicles. But guess who is out there to protect them? The infantry. Once these guys become casualties, they need replacelemts, to allow for some of the casualties to recuperate. In a pinch, anybody will do, especially when you are on the defensive. If you kill enough of the infantry at one time, breaking through them to get at the artillery, and you succeed in killing them, only then is the unit destroyed. Urban combat is extremly difficult, even if you win, there is a price to be paid. SC does a good job representing this at this scale. Notice the difficulting in getting ground troops into Copenhagen, Stalingrad, Leningrad? And armored units are not the golden bullet either, since they don't have enough infantry in them to clear the city. SC design represents this well. [ February 03, 2003, 02:21 PM: Message edited by: Shaka of Carthage ]

First, let me apologize to the Europeans, particularly the French for what I am about to say. What is the 1st Rule of French Warfare? French armies are only victorious when not led by a Frenchman (remember Joan of Arc?). What is the 2nd Rule of French Warefare? France only wins when others do most of the fighting. And finally, only during the World Wars were French women able to sleep with winners who did not call them Fraulein. The orginator of the above, as well as the complete history of French warfare, can be found here: http://silflayhraka.blogspot.com/2003_01_19_silflayhraka_archive.html#90229835

Bill Macon Agree that we don't want to get so many resources out there that we have a micromanagement nightmare. But with a good design, I believe having two or three resources to manage would not be overwhelming. Using the above would not be too complicated. The Axis player can't grow beyond 350 or so MPP's without grabbing the Middle East or Russian oil. And Romania is stratgically imporatant, enough so that a smart Axis player will keep a air and ground units in permanent garrison there, to avoid any strikes from the Allies against the oil (like from Crete). And that does reflect the strategic issues the Germans were faced with. Allied player on the other hand, doesn't have to worry about oil. Its concerns are making sure the sea lanes stay open for the UK. And deciding if they should invest in Strategic Bombing, which by targeting the mines and/or oil wells can reduce the Germany economy (not to mention crippling the Italians). Abstract MPP's worked fine at one time. I think in todays world, we have enough computing power to come up with a design that in our case, should reflect the two (2) greatest shortages that the Axis faces... oil and manpower. Thanks, Barry

Interesting. So if I understand this correctly, you are saying that certain neutrals that have been "finlandized" should give some of thier MPP's to the appropriate major. What MPP percentage? And how would the finlandized nation get to free itself from their "big brother"? Eliminating some of the "fog of war" is a good idea also. I read something somewhere that stated that the Germans had a huge number of agents in Switzerland, and everytime the Swiss found one of those agents, the Germans would send in five (5) more.

Liam You are correct that SC does not represent the different nationalities and the differences in equipment, training, etc. It is an extremely difficult subject, made even worse by the fact that identical units; same men, same equipment, same experience, can have an effectivness difference of almost 2:1. Even the experts cannot agree on how to accuratly reflect this. So in SC you have a system that has decided to keep it simple by making a "generic" unit. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that manpower equals the combat power of this unit. If a man with a rifle has a combat power of one (1), a machine gun is around seven (7), but an artillery piece is around eight hundred (800) to twelve hundred (1200). Number of men is not a good way of trying to determine how many units a nation should have. Better way is the number of artillery pieces and armored fighting vehicles. Posting those numbers would give a more meaningful comparison of the potential military units (divisions, corps, armies) a nation can raise.

Always interested in the details. Do you have maps? It would be nice to visualize the areas you are describing. Thanks, Barry

As I stated during the SC Economic Analysis, I would like to offer a method for SC that would add more realism and playbility without adding complexity. Here it is. Current economic unit in SC is the MPP. Any change to that is a SC II discussion, not SC. But we do have two (2) things in SC that can enhance how we obtain and use our MPP's... mines and oil wells. I propose that we assign the Mines a "mineral" number and the Oil wells a "oil" number. Each MPP requires a certain number of "mineral" and "oil" points. Otherwise you have a shortage. Technically, any raw material resource you didn't use, should be stockpiled. And every nation tried to keep a reserve when the supply dried up. It would be nice to have that, but not necessary. Oil shortage would reduce your national supply level (reduce the capital supply, which would reduce everyone else?). Mineral shortage would reduce the number of MPP's you could use, though you could not be reduced lower than 50% (since there are other energy and mineral sources not represented on the map). UK losses at sea would be in oil and mineral points; Italy's production would be half what it is now, unless Germany helped out; Strategic bombing, thru reduction of a certain resource, would have an effect on the entire economy, etc. Damage to the mine/oil well would proportinally reduce the raw material points. 10 pt oil well bombed to 6 pts would have a 40% reduction in the oil points it produced. Still retain the 2x MPP feature we currently have, no reason to change it. Require one (1) mineral point for every three (3) MPP. Require one (1) oil point for every two (2) MPP. Hence, a 400 MPP economy would require 133 mineral points and 200 oil points. All of this would be transparant to us, so would not require any additional work for us (of course the software would have to be changed, though I have tried to keep the changes as simple as possible). Couple of points: Germany had the ability to create synthetic oil (from converting coal). This was expensive (about 4 to 5 times the cost of making from petroleum). So Germany should have some ability to "convert" the mineral points into oil points. Historically, the Romanian oil accounted for 45% of Germanies oil... the rest she produced herself. One of the Swedish mines should be "owned" by Germany. Over half of the Swedish ore was exported to Germany. Same is true of the Norweigan ore... but since it is only one mine, no easy way to reflect ... unless you start taking a portion of each mine / oil and giving it to the different alliances. Too much trouble. Spainish mine was split between the Allies and Axis. Both sides spent alot of time trying to reserve the resource for themselves. So maybe, we should allow Norway mine to go to the Axis, and Spanish mine stay neutral or go to Allies? Persian oil for all practical purposes should be in the Allies hands. Some was traded to Vichy France (Italy before that). As someone will notice, there are not enough resources to go around. Intentional, since I don't believe the German economy should be allowed to expand beyond three (3) times its initial size, unless she takes drastic measures to secure additional resources. Here are the values: Swedish mines: 80 each (there are two of them) German mine: 40 Romania oil: 55 each (there are two of them) Norway mine: 70 Spanish mine: 60 French mine: 70 Persian oil: 140 each (there are two of them) Canadian mine: 55 US mine: 800 each (there are two of them) US oil: 800 each (there are two of them) USSR mines: 25 each (there are seven of them) USSR oil: 125 each (there are four of them) UK Commonwealth: Canadian mines and US mines and oil (Atlantic Convoy); Persian oil (Med Convoy). USSR "lend-lease": would include around 70 oil points. Assuming the above is in place, we now have another item that we can implement... Motorized ground units, Air and Naval would consume oil points every turn. But there is one other thing I would like to propose regarding the units, so I'll cover that seperately. I hope the above is of some benefit. Thanks, Barry [ February 02, 2003, 05:01 PM: Message edited by: Shaka of Carthage ]

Waltero (Allies) beat Shaka of Carthage (Axis), no handicap bid.

Sign me up for the ladder please.

Ok, someone should nominate a method as the suggestion of choice, let everyone else take a poke at making it better, then once a good method has been hashed out, suggest it to Hubert. Remember, we are talking about SC, and we are trying to make a simple change that doesn't require alot of software changes or added units. More elaborate methods belong more in a discussion of SC II.

John DiFool It is not unrealistic for a unit to keep itself in supply if it is sitting in a city. And the lowered supply limit reflects the unit being cut off. Remember the scale. Our "city" is a massive urban area. So you either assign units to screen them off, of you assign units to continually assault it. Maybe you don't take it the first time, then you didn't commit enough forces, or the defenders were too deeply entrenched. Keep pounding them. Your unit will continually gain experience, and the enemy unit is a drain on your enemies resources. While air supply would be nice, that is something we should only be able to do with dedicated transport aircraft, or maybe the bomber unit. The blitz "fear factor" is in SC. The fact that you can penetrate (no ZOC stopping you) into the enemy rear and cut his supply lines, is the blitz. There is no loophole that needs to be closed. The "strategic bomber pool" example you gave does show one of the problems with a pool (or box). For the air war, I think the method we currently have now works better. For naval, its a different story. We either need a sea that is the proper size with our 50 mile hexes, or if we cannot get the proper size, then the pool or box method. Don't forget the size these pools represent, so zipping back and forth to respond to certain threats just may not be possible. The boxes work for the sea, but not as well for the air. Thanks, Barry

Bill Macon Thank you. Makes you appreciate that 3R is truly an "economic simulation of WWII, with everything else built around that", as most of the reviewers used to say.

Germany .... continued The "what-if" factor in SC, allows for neutral nations to be plundered and conquered that were not invaded in real life. The penality, is in the readiness effect it has on the Major nations. Here are the nations that are left, the potential economic bonus you would receive (if you were Axis), and their military. Nation.........+econ.........units Switz............0...........2 armies Sweden..........35...........Air, 2 armies, 1 Corp Ireland.........10...........1 Corp Portugal........10...........1 Corp Spain...........48...........2 armies, 3 Corps Greece..........24...........2 armies, 1 Corp Persia..........30...........1 Corp Turkey..........40...........1 army, 5 Corps Baltic States...24...........1 Corp Finland.........15...........1 army, 3 Corps From each of these nations, you would recieve plunder. I'll leave it to someone else to list the plunder numbers, but you wouldn't be too far off if you assumed that the average plunder was 250 MPP's. Let assume the Axis player takes the logical ones. Switzerland, Sweden, Portugal, Spain and Greece. That adds 117 MPP and gives me 1250 plunder. Not too bad. Assuming I lost no units. So now my German economy is around 486 MPP's. I've got about three (3) more research chits and another air and corp. Was it worth it? Most people would seek the answer relative to the US entering the war. As I have tried to point out earlier, the US is a minor player, the real key is the effect it has on Russia. You need four (4) turns of this extra production to make up for each turn Russia enters earlier than normal. You do get the benefits of the extra research, assuming that is where you put the MPP plunder. If you heavily invest in a specific tech, you may see some quick advances... or you may not. Either way, once you get those advances, eventually (usually sooner than you would like), your opponent is closing the tech gap. So is it worth it? I contend that it is a personal decision each of you have to make. Does it swing the balance in favor of the Axis? It helps, but it does not make it a forgone conclusion. So let me go out on a limb and make a conclusion. The key to SC is the defeat of Russia. If it happens quick enough (once you invade, which you want to happen as late as possible if you are Axis), the Axis will win. However, this only applies if you are playing a human of equal or greater skill. The AI cannot make the necessary responses to what its opponent is doing. The game when played against the AI is totally different, mainly because of the higher experience levels. That is why when you first start playing against humans, very little of your AI expeirence helps. The other reason being that old statement about "amateurs study strategy while professionals study logistics". Supply is the second key to SC. That concludes this SC Economic Analysis. I do have one more post regarding strategic materials, but I will post that later. Thanks, Barry

Germany The beginning economic number for Germany is 120 MPP's. Now we get to the conquest and plunder within SC. Lets look at the "historical" path first. Plunder numbers are random, I have no idea what the formula is, nor should we try to figure it out. So the plunder numbers I am stating are from a game... your results could vary. Nation .......Plunder........+Econ Poland...........271.............10 Benelux........258.............24 France...........792.............64 Denmark......332.............16 Norway........345.............35 TOTAL........1998............149 Yugo...........275.............16 The German base has now increased from 120 to 269 (124% increase). Better than double. And you get 2000 MPP's bonus. I gave the numbers for Yugo, but I consider that in the Italian "sphere of influence". What about that 2000 MPP plunder? This all depends on playing style, but lets assume that half go into research and the other half go into units. That would be four (4) research chits, compared to the Allies five (5) chits (US 2, USSR 3). Most would get another Air, Army and 2 Corps (though I would contend that you should be getting HQ's, but that is another subject). Now for the Axis Minors. Nation...............+econ.......units Hungary...............20.........1 Army, 1 Corp Romania...............60.........2 Armies, 1 Corp Bulgaria..............20.........1 Army, 1 Corp TOTAL................100.........4 Armies, 3 Corps. German base economy has now increased to 369. Three (3) times the initial base. And you get some units. It is not cost effective to invade those Axis minor nations, let them join you. If you invade, the plunder you get, will not make up for the lost units, and the additional economy is at 80%. Let them join you. Romania is the most important one, then Hungary, mainly because that increases the continuous border hexes with Romania. All of this is generally done around 1941. 3R in '42 has Germany at 232 MPP's, which includes Finland. 369 vs 232... 137 MPP difference. In COS, Germany should have around 288 MPP's by the same time frame. 369 vs 288.... 81 MPP difference. HC is much harder to calculate. Germany can get twice easily, but has a much harder time trying to get three (3) times. It works out to around 2.5 times the base number. SC lets a "historical" Germany get much stronger than the other game systems do. But SC compensates for this by having a much stronger Russia. So while the "historical" Germany would appear much stronger than it should be, and the US much weaker, the apparent weakness of the US and UK needs to be adjusted by the fact that the Russians are much stronger. Now I am going get into trouble. In SC, the Allies are stronger than the Axis, even with the increased Italian economy. In fact, the earlier the US and USSR enter the war, the greater the advantage to the Allies. Let me make one further point about Russia. Historically, the longer the Russians stayed out, the better it was for them. Why? Because they were strategically "surprised" when Germany invaded. SC does not reflect this. It took them some time to mobilize, though not as long as the US. SC does not reflect this. So it is to the Axis advantage, to keep the Bear out of it for as long as possible. I will address the "non-historical" German approach in a different post. Thanks, Barry

I was referring to the fact that currently it is possible for the Axis to invade Canada and/or US.

JerseyJohn You do have a point, that the combat effects of weather are not represented here. I wonder though, if it is possible to simulate weather in SC without a major revision to the software. You have any ideas on how to represent the weather effects in combat, within the current context of SC? Would something as simple as adding a combat bonus to the Russian units in the winter months be sufficient? Thanks, Barry

I'm throwing these numbers out, because somewhere, someone asked for them. Besides, rather do this then actually do something productive at work. Merchant Shipping 1939 (in million tons) UK........ almost 18 USA....... little less than 9 Japan..... 5 Norway.... little more than 4 Germany... almost 4 Italy..... 3 France.... 2.5 to 2.75 Holland... 2.5 to 2.7 (slightly lower than France) Holland... little better than 2.5 Greece.... 1.75 to 2 Russia.... 1 Sweden.... 1 The German figured they could win the sea war by waging a "tonnage" war. The concept here is that you sink the enemy merchant ships, not so much because of what they are carrying, rather because of the future loss of what they could have carried. If you could sink them faster than they could build them, you won. And they almost where able to economically "starve" the UK. Germany sunk abou 23 million tons. Contrast this to the Japanese, who used there submarines to hunt capital ships. They sunk 1 million tons. By year, it worked out like this: 1939...... sunk 755,000 .... built 377,000 1940...... sunk 3,491,000 .... built 872,750 1941...... sunk 4,329,000 .... built 1,924,000 so far, that is a net loss of almost 5.5 million tons. Major problem... since the military has major requirements to move troops and supplies back and forth as well. So not too far of as I mention somwhere else, that the UK is building Merchant ships like crazy, and wouldn't slow down until the US came in. 1942...... sunk 7,790,000 .... built 6,230,000 Guess where most of these losses came from? The Americans. While the Germans prior to this where suppossed to leave the American ships alone, now they were given free reign. Also, the Americans did not use the convoy system, didn't blackout the east coast cities, etc. I believe the Germans considered this a "Happy time". If it wasn't for the economic power of the US, the UK probably would have been near to breaking. 1943 .... sunk 3,220,000 .... built 5,635,000 In addition to the US production, I believe around know was the time that the enigma code was broken. So know, the allies knew where the U-boats where. US also started to do convoy's, as well as there being ships available that had air cover (merchant carriers, escort aircraft carriers). And these newly available aircraft and ships had radar and sonar. No more Happy Time. 1944 .... sunk 1,046,000 .... built 1,987,000 1945 .... sunk 438,800 .... built 834,000 Thats it. The end is here. But so is the end of the UK Empire. Welcome to Pax Americana.

USSR According to 3R, they are a 70 to 90 MPP nation. COS is more generous, giving them 343 MPP's (of which 69 of them are US lend-lease). Then in 1943 it takes off, with a 548 MPP economy. Then in 1944, it gets even better, with a 617 MPP economy. Even so, those numbers are not too far off from the base SC number of 480. HC puts them back in the realms of 3R land. With a little bit more. Even so, they cannot get anywhere the numbers SC gives them. So while SC gives them the numbers automatically, in HC, the US has to give it to them, within the game. Different approach, to solving the same problem. Back to the balance issue. Is SC balanced? Well at least we have the answer to where the UK lend-lease went. The Russians got it. US has its economic strength, but in SC it is automatically "lend-leased" to the Russians, even shorting the UK. Is it biased towards the Axis? No. But we need to talk about the Germans before we can be sure.

US 3R only has a 36 MPP difference. Not too big, but a significant difference. By 1944, due to growth, the US "should" be at 320 MPPs. So the US should be able to double its MPP once it enters the war. If we take the difference away, and say the US is at 180 MPP's, then that leaves me with 140 MPP's that I can "lend-lease". Guess what? Thats still not enough... since the "lend-lease" to USSR is somewhere around 400 MPP's. US doesn't have that. And the UK needs its 35 to 100 MPP "lend-lease" as well. So we have a 435 to 500 MPP difference. Titled towards the Allies. US numbers in COS are less than SC. We already know that 128 MPP's are going to the UK. The Soviet "lend-lease" is 69 MPP's. Thats 197 MPP's going to "lend-lease"... which is suppossed to make the US around 326 MPP's. So I have 197 MPP's going out in "lend-lease". Leaves me with 129. Even when you adjust the base numbers by the COS Industrial modifier, not until 1944 does the US MPP total grow large enough to give the MPP's to Russia and grow beyond what the SC base number for the US is (to US "net" of 300 MPP). HC basically flips it. The HC US number is the same as the SC Russian number. The HC Russian number is the same as the HC US number. HC has "scenario" growth factor, problem that there are three (3) different percentages for the five economic units. Gist is that your industrial production can increase by 1.5 ('43) or 2 ('44)times, while your other resources only get a 30 to 40% increase for those years. So what do we have? SC is taking the numbers that the US would have, and is giving them to Russia. It does so in much more generous terms than 3R does. COS automates it also, but gives the lionshare of the lend-lease to the UK. HC and SC are almost identical in MPP equivalents... but gives the US the MPP's that SC gives to the Russians. Different game systems and playability. What about "balance"? Does SC favor the Axis? No. At least not because of the initial MPP setup, and not even until 1941, when the Russians get involved. If anything, the Russians get more MPP's than historical. But it is hard to give an absolute answer to this, until we talk about the Germans.

UK Now things get interesting. 3R and SC are close. COS at first glance is more than twice SC. But since half of that is US Aid, it becomes close to SC also. Only difference is with HC, which has a number that is 50% greater than SC. Commonwealth imports don't matter, since they are raw materials, not industrial production ability. Ahhh... I know what it is. Merchant shipping. The UK in 1939, led the world with 18 million tons of merchant shipping. From 1939 to 1941, 8.6 million tons were sunk. Was it all UK ships? Probably not. But the UK, totally dependent on imports to keep its economy going (no oil or not enough material), is probably cranking out merchant ships as fast as it could. Since in High Command, 2/3rd of the "steel" production are for shipping, it is not unreasonable to assume that our "missing" MPP's are dedicated to cranking out merchant ships. Is the SC number realistic? Yes. With one condition... where is the US Lend-Lease aid? Without it, the UK economy cannot spend more on military, making up the consumer losses by the aid from the US.