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

And I also bow my head to the millions of soldiers and civilians who lost their lives in the merciless war on the so called Eastern Front. The simple soldiers that did not meddle in big politics, but were consumed by it.

Hitler (who was not a general) did influence the high command in the first blitzkriegs. Many of the generals feared the trench war would repeat itself in the war. --> So in the beginning he encouraged his subordinate commanders to have new ideas. Later in the war he meddled with everything and sent many many soldiers to their deaths for no gain. The stalingrad operation is only one of the good examples.

and spotting a very interesting idea. Spotting limits would transform the role of the airforce. and of course make the game more realistic. my grandfather was soldier in one of the first detection units, the used primitive radio and radar scanning to evaluate the position of russian airfields (or better their bearing/heading). For sc2 i would support the different modes of spotting limits. total camouflage should only be possible in cities. in the field it would probably be impossible to hide such masses of men and material.

Concerning Carpet Bombing I find it rather strange that strategic bombing is impossible if a unit is present in the city. The goal of the bombing run is to hit the city, not the unit inside. Will it be possible to attack cities/industries with lr-bombers in sc2 despite the presence of a unit?? comments/thoughts?

Eager to read more. And of course I envy pzgndr and Desert Dave. Have fun, lads!

Hi ev. Like always are very good idea to create a replacement pool. It would make sc2 more historically accurate. I would prefer one force pool, only that naval and air units would take less manpower. It´s like you said. ...but losing cities to the enemy would mean losing recruitment centers for me, would it not? Especially Germany transported a lot of people from the occupied territories to the Reich for forced labour. May be you could add a small amount of "collaborateur"-manpower to the force pool. The Wehrmacht formed small units, often SS, from the occupied countries that fought against former "oppressors". The Wlassow army might be a good example as the Croatian SS corps. Regarding balance: A force pool would make sc2 more historically accurate, but may be bring it out of balance (especially for multi-player games). The allies could just wait until the Reich is exhausted. So if the feature is included it should be easy to turn it off in MP-games.

Winter War I agree to many of the things concerning the Winter war. One topic was not touched so far. The German support for the Finnish forces. The Reich supplied Finland with concrete obstacles against the invading Russian tanks and "experts" for training the army. May be the Germans should have the option to activly support the Finns. This would influence the Soviet war readiness against Germany of course.. Winter Equipment I would love some way of winter equipment costs. But may be only in the first winter in the war?? Because many German soldiers froze to death in the first winter (because the High Command was sure that the Soviet Union would surrender before the winter). This would also simplify the gameplay. Germany should have the chance to buy winter equipment for their adequately supplied units at a cost for each unit (may be 10 mpp for corps, HQs and airfleets, 20 mpp for armies and tank divisions). The Soviets were prepared for the winter war. They had enough centuries to adapt to it anyway. Just think about the Napoleonic invasion in 1812. Waiting for comments.

Bomber Range and Spotting LR Bombers could fly these distances at the end of the war, no discussion there, but were (as a unit) not used for recon. I´m therefore against a big spotting range for all bomber units. As for the Naval wings: The Allied forces had their float-planes and re-equipped bombers for Anti-Submarine-Patrol, the Germans the Focke-Wulf 200 Condor against merchant shipping in the Arctic. These units were on long patrols and therefore should have larger spottig ranges. The problem is that in SC1 you only have one type of strat. bomber units and making two different types would not be necessary if bomber units could have two types of operation modes. So what about a "Naval warfare" option for strat. bombers? Players could choose wheter to use bombers against land targets (low recon range, maximum bomb load) or naval warfare (high recon, lower bomb load). Any suggestions? Fighter defense If bombers can penetrate as far as the Romanian oilfields they could encounter multiple fighter squads on the way. Later in the war the German radar could pick up heading of allied bomber fleets and therefore 'guess' their target destination. Why not assign Luftwaffe squads to stategic targets they defend automatically? The Axis player could choose which targets are to be defended at all costs and which only to defend lightly.

Ooops. Di not see the other thread on Naval HQ back there. Just ignore me...

Yes. C3I is the key. I definetely support all the postings supporting the important role of modern command structures. Radio, efficient staff structures and linked recon and intel. What would have been the course of the war without Guderians tactics or Bletchley Park?? Naval HQs? What do all of you think about a Naval HQ? Like the British Admiralty that coordinated Naval Ops? It could raise readiness, fasten experience gathering and support U-Boat Hunting missions (lowering percentage of diving away). The German HQ would support evasion of U-Boats and coordinate attacks against merchant shipping.