Red Fleet

The question is: Was Canada´s war effort unique? Was it really a major power in the war? After reading the information in this thread i would say "no". Canada did everything it could and certainly commited big time to the war effort against the fascists, but it was no major power. Regarding unit creation. Why not implementing the good ol "Panzer General"-series modus? The Allied side can buy British and Canadian units and place them in the respective countries? Canadian units should be commanded by British HQs.

A side note: In the already mentioned book by John White is written: The German Navy and the U-Boats were supplied the same weather reports. The U-Boats coded by ENIGMA the Luftwaffe without coding. So while just ckecking the two reports it was a lot easier for Bletchley Park to construct the semi-automatic bombs for decoding. The RAF had orders not to shoot down the German recon planes north of Scotland, because ULTRA needed the weather reports.

I have to agree with the opponents of Enimgma in SC2. It would add realism but would cost IMO too much gameplay and fun. There would, in respect to the U-Boats, have been easy solutions against the code crackers of Bletchley Park. The German High Command of the U-Boats signalled just too much. Why not handing in the orders in a sealed envelope? And why the status reports of the U-Boats? It just made detection and destruction far easier. The "player" would probably act this way. With the implementation of an Enigma feature it would just repeat the errors of the Germans in the war. I´m reading John White´s "German U-Boat tankers 1941-45" in the momemnt. It was published in 1998, the enlarged German translation was published in 2000. I just have the latter, so there is not much use citing it here. It includes many details about Enigma, the chain-of-command of the U-Boat-leadership and, of course, about the tankers. It´s detailed and nice too read. I really have to ask myself why German historians cannot write such good books....

German Paras After being accepted as a stand-alone concept the so called Fallschirmjäger were under Luftwaffe command. In the beginning of the war they staged highly successful attacks against Belgian Forts (mostly transported by gliders)in Norway and Kreta. After that they were edged into an infantry role. In the Bundeswehr of these days however the Paras are Army units, only transported by the airforce...

Me 262 "Schwalbe" I have to agree with Shaka on this point. The Me 262 was hard to fly and especially hard to land. During the approach the nose went skyward and the small canopy blocked the sight towards the runway. It was good against the heavy bombers, even if it normally attacked frontally and then needed a lot of time to turn around and attack again. Against the fighters it was crap because of the bad maneuverability. At the end of the war the Luftwaffe lacked pilots. During the war most of the aces were shot down and other experienced pilots were shot down on the Eastern Front. By 1943 the Germans had good planes (e.g. FW 190) but only a short supply of good pilots. At the end of the war the western Allies captured between 300 and 400 Me 262 on trains and airfield in the West! Strategic Bombing The way the Allied chose to bomb the Reich was inefficient. If they had concentrated on factories and refineries may be the war would have been shorter, but Bomber-(or Butcher)-Harris believed in victory by air-power. PLUS the Germany built large underground factories in Middle Germany. Even large components for the V-2 (Schacht Dora). And had underground rubber plants. These factories would never have supplied the whole army but secured resources for the last stand.

Russian Units: As long as the Soviet Union is neutral they should not be allowed to purchase units. The existing units should be garrisoned in a corridor along the respective border. If Germany declares war the Russian units should be dispersed randomly along the border. That makes it more difficult for the German player to plan the attack. If the Soviets declare war they should have one round to prepare, place and buy units. Russian entrenchment Historically the Russians were not entrenched. According to their military doctrine - "Russia carries the war into the enemies country". And that´s why I think that should stay that way. May be there should be a option to change that with diplomatic chits, but I do not know enough about the diplomatic options. May be it would be a nice idea to let the Russians build garrisons (entrenched units)in cities.

Thought that Air Fleets were already that "clever" in SC1. If the danger of being eliminated was high they did not intercept. But I would support a feature in which the player can choose the strength level of "no interception".

I always understood the Naval units not as one ship but as a Task Force. But I certainly agree that the BB groups should have much lower attack values against U-Boats. It would be nice if the naval units would have naval and strategic attack/defense values AND one extra against subs. That would make Cruiser Task Forces more important. Or think about Hunter Groups...

The battle for the Atlantic was lost for Germany after the Hunter-Killer-Groups were formed and the Enigma-machine-codes were broken. But in first two years of the war the German U-Boats were successful against British-shipping. Especially against the slow SC-convoys. The majority of the escort carriers were built later in the war and also used against the Japanese in the Pacific. I agree with Guderian that the U-Boats could play a bigger role, at least in the beginning. As for the "Milchkühe" or milk cows. This feature is too small for a game on the strategic level. But it would be possible to combine it with Naval HQs [hint..], raise the supply and readiness of the U-Boats. @roosevelt: Al the best for your examination!

The battle for the Atlantic was lost for Germany after the Hunter-Killer-Groups were formed and the Enigma-machine-codes were broken. But in first two years of the war the German U-Boats were successful against British-shipping. Especially against the slow SC-convoys. The majority of the escort carriers were built later in the war and also used against the Japanese in the Pacific. I agree with Guderian that the U-Boats could play a bigger role, at least in the beginning. As for the "Milchkühe" or milk cows. This feature is too small for a game on the strategic level. But it would be possible to combine it with Naval HQs [hint..], raise the supply and readiness of the U-Boats. @roosevelt: Al the best for your examination!

@von Arnim Of course the Stuka was not used to intercept planes. We misunderstood each other there. I wanted to say that they were vulnerable with the air superiority of the Germans gone. They just could not take the punches, and therefore the design was obsolete. And IMHO sc2 should be as accurate as possible without losing the fun and speed of gameplay.

Dear SeaMonkey. dive bombers Combining the two air techs into one would IMO historically inaccurate. The "dive bomber" was a pre-war design. Just check the success of the JU87 Stuka in the Polish and French campaign. Even the larger JU88 had dive bomber qualities! Later in the war the design of dive bomber was obsolete because with enemy air superiority they were too slow and not heavily armed enough for air defense. That´s why all nations tried to design better low flying tac bombers. SAMs The rocket technology on the other hand was still "in the cradle" (if there is a saying like this in English). The Germans leading in this specific topic. The further development of SAMs could be very interesting for the game. Historically they were a failure, but in the game....

Does anyone of you guys speak German?? Have some interesting links on r&d on german rockets. They even tried to transport it by U-Boat and attack the US with it. http://www.luftarchiv.de/flugkorper/v2.htm http://uni-schule.san-ev.de/space/Naturwissenschaftler/v2-seite2.htm "if-section": The V2-rockets were quite ineffective against Britain because the German spies were found and transformed into double-agents. What about espionage in sc2?? Random spottings on units (include false alerts) and reports about new technologies of the enemy. Not influencing the outcome of the own research... IMO the mentioned features should not be included in the regular game. But as a bonus. Why not??

@edwin p. Aircraft were effective against tanks because they could see them. Infantry on the march or even worse in trenches and dugouts is hard to crack. It´s like the sharks and the fish-swarms. The shark cannot concentrate on one target and misses... On the Eastern Front both sides used early versions of the a-10 thunderbolts. The Il-2 Sturmovik and the Ju-87 Panzerknacker (a converted dive-bomber) would use 3cm guns to attack tank columms, trucks and half-tracks. In France especially the P-47 Thunderbolts even used their machine guns against tanks on streets. They shot the asphalt in front or behind the tanks and the bullets richocheted (?) off the road and penetrated the soft bottom.. Infantry could be attacked with bombs and such, but planes cannot carry too many bombs. Why waste it on infantry. Use artillery instead. (IMO)

The German tanks at the end of the war (Tiger, King Tiger, Maus, Elefant and so on) were heavily armoured and equipped with powerful weapons, but on the other side lacked sufficient speed. The progress in weapons and armour r&d were quicker than for lighter materials and more powerful engines. So may be the heavy tank units could have less action points? The player cannot have everything, he can go for powerful OR fast. @retributar: Excellent webpage. Thanks for the info