Hurrah for Battlefront

[Desert Dave]

Let me join the chorus -- it's about time we get a grand strategy game of WW2, and much thanks to Battlefront for providing it.

A few questions:

1) For operational movement, can you transport ANY unit-type across water, say from Liverpool to Alexandria, and is this long distance included in the basic MPP cost?

2) Do submarines NOT target Britain's industrial output or ability to wage war?

3) Why can any country get rockets, when only Germany developed them, or are they considered to be heavy artillery?

4) What if you wish a small air fleet in Bergen, say size 3 -- do you have to wait until another fleet is reduced, or can you order it that small to begin with?

5) Is there a penalty attached to blitz attack, so that moving first is not as powerful an attack as standing still?

[Compassion]

Originally posted by Immer Etwas:

3) Why can any country get rockets, when only Germany developed them, or are they considered to be heavy artillery?

I think that the operative word is can. They are something that you can spend you resources on to develop. It's up to you as the leader of your country to spend on what you think will do the most good (do you spend on better tactical/operatonal weapons or do you go for the economy choking startegic weapons?).

[Kwazydog]

More importantly, just about every nation had rockets in use by about '44, not just the Germans. In fact, the Russians made particually nasty use of these weapons in the last years of the war.

Dan

[Compassion]

Originally posted by KwazyDog:

[QB]More importantly, just about every nation had rockets in use by about '44, not just the Germans. In fact, the Russians made particually nasty use of these weapons in the last years of the war.

Good point! I had interpreted Immer Etwas

question to be about long range ballistic missiles... A case of seeing what I want, I suppose.

[Desert Dave]

In those old WW2 flicks, you would always see the Russian rockets being fired from the back of trucks -- this is not a rocket detachment, this is no more damaging than heavy artillery. Which do we have here? V-2s or truck rockets, or both?

Far more important is my question about the battle of the North Atlantic -- if Britain cannot be harmed or harassed by Subs, how do you wage effective strategic warfare? The Allies have their funds for bombers, which by the way were only marginally effective, but what does the Axis have? If this is embedded within the game, ie, Britain receives fewer than usual MPPs, then how do they gain MPPs later, since they are very limited as to which factories or cities they can capture?

[Hubert Cater]

The 'rocket detachment' unit is really a generalization for the rocket technology scale that was seen during the war. This could be as you've said the Russian Katyusha or perhaps the German Nebelwerfer all the way up to the V-2 and really depends on the amount invested to develop these weapons. From the outset, rockets will be VERY weak as they will have a very limited range (1 hex) and pretty much no punch (so probably a very expensive purchase for little return). But with research and development, their range will increase considerably as well as their strike capablity (scaled by distance to target) and may possibly become the "wonder weapons" they were intended to be

Also an increase in sub units will not directly affect British MPP's through background calculations, but as expected, England is financially rather tight with pretty much the Royal Navy acting as buffer to defend it's interests, i.e. protect the island as well as strategic locations such as Gibraltar, Malta and Alexandria. In this regard, subs are much cheaper to buy for Germany than it's own capital ships and can be used to disrupt the sea lanes for troop transfers from the US to England, or from England to North Africa as well as to devastate it's capital ships. Playing in FoW will really give subs an advantage as your ability to sneak up on your opponents positions is greatly enhanced

Hubert

[vonManstein39]

So I guess that the effect of the U-boat campaign on British production is fixed according to historical results?

If so, I think it's a shame that the Battle of the Atlantic is not more clearly represented. After the cancellation of the German invasion of England, it was the only way (short of an atom bomb) that Germany had left to force Britain to the peace table, and was a really major part of the war. If Germany had concentrated on advanced U-boat technology and production earlier, at the expense of other weapons, Allied merchant losses might have been many times worse than they were historically, and this would have seriously affected British arms production.

[Desert Dave]

I agree with vonManstein39 -- the goods and material coming across the Atlantic from the USA was Britain's lifeline, a tether that was stretched -- to the snapping point.

OK, so we don't have it. Good enough. Here is the problem that I anticipate:( The game might reduce to a mad-bomber type of thing, and why should anyone bother with investing in Capital Ships when Subs are less expensive? Presumably the Brits can order them en masse as well. In the War, I can only recall a few daring U-Boat captains infiltrating Scapa Flow early on.

In terms of FUN -- this sounds great, since it would be interesting and harrowing to always worry about Subs suddenly surfacing. Everything depends on the sea-worthiness of the AI and FOW.

Also, it depends on the damage that can be afflicted with EACH bombing run -- too much and you will encourage every player to stock up on bombers. Once again, depending on how much those potentially lethal instruments cost.