New file at the Repository: Axis Triumphant (2013-05-11)

[Battlefront Repository]

This is a scenario for those of you that want to try out CVEs, CVLs, very long range naval reconnaissance planes plus a host of other new unit types.

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[mcaryf1]

Dear All

Over the last several months I have made many posts on topics such as “naval realism” during which I have mentioned scenarios I have been developing. The forthcoming release of AOD has persuaded me that it is time to release one of them for those of you that do not want to wait any longer for CVEs, CVLs and very long range naval reconnaissance planes plus a host of other new unit types. I must apologise that this is a long post but I wanted to explain the scenario’s major features to tempt you to try it because I am very interested in getting feedback. My intention will be to port the scenario to the AOD map and feedback will be helpful before I undertake that. I anticipate that AOD’s scale will better suit the number of units the scenario deploys - the current map does give an interesting game but land units can become crowded.

I have called the scenario Axis Triumphant. It uses the standard Axis High Tide as its base but starts a week or so earlier when the Axis really were triumphantly crushing the Soviet Spring offensive, breaking the Allied lines at Gazala and the Japanese were yet to suffer a major defeat. It gives the Axis player the opportunity to examine alternate strategies that might have exploited these triumphs more effectively and the Allied player will have to guess whether or not Midway is the next target.

In the interests of historical realism I have adjusted the OOB’s to more closely match the historic capabilities of the participants in May 1942. I have quite closely modelled the naval forces and rather more broadly the land and air forces. I must apologise to grognards as I have not put much effort into historical naming for land and air forces. I will also apologise to those that like beautiful graphics as I have just tried to be functional with splash screens and the like. I have converted “special forces” and anti-tank units to be infantry and armoured divisions respectively but not changed their counters. Rail guns and rockets play the part of Weapons of Mass Destruction (nerve and other gas weapons, biological warfare and deployable A-Bombs - all actually available for use in WW2 even if not always deployed) but I still utilise the standard symbols.

If you would like to know more about my thinking for naval warfare realism please read my series of posts on that. Essentially I have used minor country units to bolster the types of ship or weapons available to each side. You will therefore encounter older BB units, heavy cruisers, CVL’s and CVE’s, instantly re-buildable DD and SS units (the flotilla sunk at sea is treated as one third of the units deployed to that theatre), naval mines (minor country DDs with zero AP) and of course minesweepers as well as Kamikaze’s, suicide launches and Kaiten subs. Engineer units are modified so they can be effective at clearing ports blocked with naval mines, other land units may incur losses on that task. I should note that the Baltic States, Finland, Romania, Thailand and a newly created Libya provide Axis naval mines whilst Rhodesia and Sudan create Allied ones. The choice of minor countries to use for mine production was partly based on preventing mines from being indiscriminately placed by players or the AI in locations that could clog up the game. Mines are represented as DD units - this does give the AI some problems as it attacks them with inappropriate ships particularly if it is playing as the Allies since the Bordeaux area is typically heavily protected with mines. I allocate extra ships to the Allied AI to make up for the losses it suffers on mines but, if you play against the AI, it might be more challenging initially to play as the Allies. As mines are DD units they too can be instantly re-built at 1/3 cost so they will remain a persistent threat. Recce aircraft are provided by The Philippines and Canada for the Allies and Thailand for Japan. As unit characteristics do not show you evasion factors, I should mention that mines and minesweepers have high evasions. All naval units have some degree of evasion – typically 20 percentage points divided between defensive or offensive combat depending on national naval philosophies. Italians typically get 15% defensive and 5% offensive evasion. Italian ships were fast and their doctrine was to withdraw from combat unless they had local superiority. Troop transports were very rarely sunk in WW2 as they were often fast liners that could evade submarines and other warships. In my scenario transports have 80% evasion versus naval attack but be warned this evasion does not apply to land based air!

I should emphasise that most country units’ capabilities vary one from another. German land units historically inflicted 30 – 40% more casualties on their opponents than they received themselves. They are therefore the most powerful in the game. You should carefully review any country unit to check the actual capabilities before you spend MPPs on it. You also need to review research increments. US submarine torpedoes were initially almost totally ineffectual but were soon improved. Thus US subs have poor initial stats but increment by 1.5 – the same is true for some other units. Units representing large formations will often have two strikes – this applies to armies, BBs and Allied aircraft. The Allied fighter fleets were too numerous to be all represented on the map so they get 2 strikes and 3 intercepts. Japanese CA units include the Kongos which were actually rated as BB/BC as well as heavy cruisers carrying formidable batteries of the deadly Long Lance torpedo, therefore IJN CAs also get 2 strikes. As I think that shore bombardment should be mainly relevant to landings I have reduced most naval attacks versus land but given amphibious transports a two strike shore bombardment capability. All naval units get more realistically long operating ranges and the operating range of amphibious transports increases significantly with research.

I have imposed more realistic production delays for naval units (4 years for a BB) and as a consequence most new capital ships are already in the production queue or will be provided (mainly for the AI) by decision events. However, naval and land units can often be rebuilt e.g. to simulate battleships being raised after having been sunk in port. For land units such as armies I feel it is unrealistic that they can be totally destroyed by air attack. Thus unless they are cut off without supply you will usually be able to rebuild a land unit at a fraction of the normal cost and production delay. Some garrison units can be instantly built or rebuilt as these represent rapidly assembled militia. Liberated countries also benefit from shorter unit production times as their units are deemed to be formed from already available trained men or partially damaged naval units.

I have created Fighter Bomber units both to represent historic Fighter Bombers and the air forces on single tile islands, such as Malta, where both fighters and bombers were based. For the Axis it is Finland that provides Fighter Bombers and for the Allies it is S Africa and The Philippines.

A major innovation with respect to the naval aspect is that the tonnage war is represented. The standard SC convoy system recognises losses in materiel but does not account for the replacement of lost merchant shipping. In this scenario the presence of Axis or Allied raiders in various sea areas will result in an MPP charge to the other player to replace lost ships. Also in order to initially nullify the US advantage in production capacity the Allied player will be faced with heavy investment demands for Liberty Ship and Tanker construction. Failure to make these investments will result in escalating supply hits modelling the resulting lack of Allied shipping capacity. The Allied player will suffer tonnage war costs during most turns – I suggest you just quickly say “Yes” to the decision event. Failure to do so will result in supply hits and ultimately strength point losses. The North Atlantic convoy route will look a little strange as it follows a zigzag but this is to cover the sea area actually used by convoys and to allow the Allied player to spot U Boats.

I have significantly reduced the convoying of MPP’s via the Arctic route – historically only 25% of Allied supplies went to the USSR this way. Initially there are 3 convoy events for specific PQ convoys which, if successful, will result in the delivery of tank and/or air units to USSR. After these 3 events a new convoy route opens in the Far East which is the route most supplies actually used. As you cannot have two convoy routes from a major country, this is actually modelled as empty ships travelling from the USSR to the US but it can still suffer interdiction losses and the actual credit to the USSR from Lend Lease aid is given via decision events.

The scenario also features factory cities the possession of which will result in the acquisition of additional units typically in September of each year. The AI will usually receive extra units each year – human players will get them much less frequently depending partly on the difficulty level selected. Players should attempt to capture locations such as Stalingrad before September in order to deny the AI or human opponent their potential benefit. I feel that factory cities are a useful concept for SC – Stalingrad was producing over 30% of all T34’s for the USSR in the first half of 1942. Clearly the loss or retention of that capacity should be worth more than the standard MPP yield from a city.

Factory cities are identified as such on the map but remember as a human player you will not get anything like the yield of units awarded to the AI for capturing or retaining them. In order to give the Axis player a chance to win, which they did not historically have in May 1942, I have assumed that the Axis did not implement the same racial policies as they historically did. Thus in addition to factory cities for tank and aircraft there are other large cities that will yield additional manpower and hence infantry units. For example India has been split to recognise the area covered by modern day Pakistan and capturing this part of India will result in the creation of an Axis minor ally with the capability of producing Axis units. Various cities in the USSR will also yield infantry reinforcements to either the Axis or the USSR.

The map shows a few changes from the standard High Tide to include some extra ports and a national redoubt for the USSR which might well have been formed if Moscow had fallen. Incidentally there is a possibility that the Axis will be able to force a temporary armistice on the Soviet Union so that they can concentrate on defeating the UK. This event typically occurs if the Allied player does not take all the opportunities offered to send additional aid from the US and UK following demands from the USSR/Stalin for such aid to be forthcoming or if USSR morale becomes very low.

The final and possibly most significant change is the treatment of HQs. In my view the standard game makes supply rather too easy for players. HQ units have a dual function in the game providing both command and control and sources of supply. As I wanted to limit supplies particularly for the Axis player they will start with far fewer HQ units than exist for example in High Tide. Thus the Germans cannot initially undertake offensives across the entire Russian front similarly for the Japanese in China. HQs are very expensive to purchase but will often be provided by means of decision events or in the case of Japan via staged payments. These DEs might occur when, for example, the Axis capture massive Allied store dumps such as did occur at Tobruk. In addition the Baku oilfield is effectively a factory for HQs and will yield one per year to the AI owner (less to a human). Because there are fewer HQ’s all major countries have HQ’s that can provide command and control over wider ranges and over larger numbers of units than in the standard game. Again not all country HQs are the same and you will need to try them to see how many units they can control and over what distances. I should warn you that the AI will not suffer as much HQ deprivation as you but it is not always very good at using them anyway.

I have made some changes to the standard AI routines in High Tide but they are mainly the original (thank you Hubert) as I am still finding my way with that. I have, however, observed many games with the AI in charge. As a result of these observations I have made a number of changes to units specifically to help the AI be a better opponent. For example the AI tends to use garrison units to protect key objectives such as Moscow. To prevent this from being a total disaster I have created some expert Garrisons with lots of experience and additional strength points. These guard key locations. I have also made significant use of AA units (which get 2 strikes) as the AI tends to move its fighters inappropriately. For some situations such as guarding France I have been forced to use Bulgarian units with zero AP to ensure that the AI has an adequate garrison there. These appear if the AI is playing the Axis. Finally the AI tends to throw its naval resources into unequal combats, this is especially unwise given the extra ranges that all navies have in my scenario. To ensure that the Tirpitz remains a threat to the Arctic convoys it is actually represented as a BB from Finland with very limited movement. Finally I had to sacrifice historic timescales for some naval arrivals so that the AI gets them in batches which will provide more of a challenge when they are thrown as a group into battle.

The game is set to play seasonally with 14 day turns except in the winter when they are 28 days. Income is effectively doubled for each winter turn which is a good opportunity to invest in research and rebuilding damaged units. All major countries start with substantial investments allocated to research. Turns are simultaneous so the elapsed time until your next turn is 14 days. I did this as the standard scenarios’ sequential turns effectively give 1 month between player turns which would be enough time for many naval units to circumnavigate the globe! As the scenario starts in May 1942 it should take only a bit longer to play than a standard scenario starting in 1939. The Axis AI can be victorious if it succeeds in conquering USSR, China and India which I have seen it achieve when it is playing itself. I have also seen the Allied AI achieve a victory including the invasion of Japan in early 1947. However, this success did depend on a huge battering of the Japanese with nuclear weapons.

The scenario will be best versus a human but you might want to familiarise yourself with the many changes versus the AI. I recommend playing at intermediate level with the AI’s additional experience bonus at 0.5 or 1.0. If you regard yourself as an expert let the AI play itself for about a year and then try to win it for the less experienced side from there.

I do hope you try it especially if you have already invested the time to read all of this post!

Mike (Mcaryf1)