Troop quality question, German

[Bismarck]

When you play as the axis you have a wide variety of troops. Ranging from parchute to volkstrum. Other than firepower, number of men in a squad, and weapons in squad. Are there anymore factors that determine how well the soldiers are going to fight in combat. Assuming they are regular troops, not veteran or elite. I bring this up because it seems like everyone buys the volkstrum which are cheaper. But I would think in combat they would not be as good as a regular rifle squad 44 troop. In real life they just were not as good a quality of troop. Is this the troop quality accoutned for in the game?

[Graaf Spee]

Hi, the only thing that determine how well they are going to fight is their experience rating. No hidden bonuses for being SS/Fallschirmsjäger or whatever.

/Kristian

But I still think Volksturm should get a moral bonus when facing artillery. - You call this aartillery? You should have been with us back in good old WW1...

[ParaBellum]

Nope, so regular Volkssturm units will fight just as, say a regular Waffen-SS unit.

But don't confuse the Volkssturm which consisted of usually untrained kids and old men with the Volksgrenadier units that were standard Heer formations in the last months of the war.

As for Volkssturm in QBs, I think that they only should be bought as conscripts/greens.

To achieve a regular or better status a unit had to be thorougly trained and competently led, which surely excludes the Volkssturm units.

[Mattias]

[ February 28, 2002, 03:17 PM: Message edited by: Mattias ]

[WWB]

Originally posted by ParaBellum:

As for Volkssturm in QBs, I think that they only should be bought as conscripts/greens.

To achieve a regular or better status a unit had to be thorougly trained and competently led, which surely excludes the Volkssturm units.

Actually, many VS put up vicious defenses in the closing months of the war in eastern Germany. A lot of those guys learned the trade well on the West Front in WWI, and had not forgotten too much.

WWB

[Redwolf]

You probably mix up Volkssturm and Volksgrenadier. Volkssturm is actually pretty expensive because of all the Schrecks. Volksgrenadier is cheap because no expensive smallarms modulo 2 MGs for a Platoon and no obligatory heavy weapons.

[JasonC]

VS should almost all be conscript quality, as most lacked anything more than rundimentary military training, and the NCOs were often civilians a very short time before. A few might rise to the green level, and some of the kids, realistically, would have fanaticism too. (Meaning, don't give up easily even though they react slowly to orders and don't shoot so straight). They also have no support in the form of vehicles, artillery, or heavy weapons.

VG on the other hand, is the designation given to all new infantry divisions formed from the summer of 1944 on. Their quality ranged very widely from veteran to conscript, averaging green. They usually had training, and often had experienced cadres. The quality of the manpower ranged from excellent to poor, but the training was shorter and most of the line private had little combat experience as infantrymen. The manpower for these formations came from rear area service units, Luftwaffe and navy transfers, pulled exemptions for certain categories of civilian workers, and both younger and older men, and some with medical problems. Some fought very well, some were fit and brave enough but had little tactical knowledge or fieldcraft, some could only defend fixed fortifications (the old, the sick).

There are two things that go wrong in depicting all of this in CM quickbattles. In scenarios, it is easy enough to set it right, and there is nothing preventing designers from using the different troop types realistically. But in QBs, the player usually chooses, and his incentives are not historical. Also, the game allows mixing of troop types from many branches, but requires the quality level of the force to fit the paired brands of conscript-green, regular-veteran, or crack-elite. It does not allow green-regular pairing, which would often be the most realistic force mix in quality terms.

The result is that veterans are overrepresented on CM quick battlefields, and players choose the force type for its small arms loadout, mixing and matching as desired, often with little regard for historical accuracy. VS troops with armor can appear. VS troops take too high quality. VG troops are very common (because of the power of SMGs - more on that below) and too often veterans.

Others take only the 2 LMG squad types (FJ, Pz Gdr, Sturm), which appropriately cost more but do represent "cream" in realistic equipment terms. In reality, many FJ units had no better weapons than the CM rifle 44 and rifle 45 squad types, and the same as true (to a lesser degree, however) of many motorized Pz Gdr formations, especially after a while in action. Likewise, the security infantry type (with just 3 SMGs per squad) would be closer to accurate for many VG formations, many of which had only marginally more automatic weapons than the earlier, standard Heer infantry - rather than the full TOE of them you see in the VG squad type.

But in CM QBs, I've seen veteran Gebirgsjagers supported by armor in a July QB meant to be set in Normandy (in terrain terms, etc). Why? The guy wanted lots of SMGs, and VG infantry isn't out by then, while GB is. But it is completely unhistorical, of course. GB didn't have armor. None of them fought in Normandy. You get the picture.

There are two things that make SMGs particularly effective in all of this. They have high firepower of course, but they also cost the same per man as rifles (LMGs at least cost more). And they get the same ammo load, which they fire no faster than riflemen. (Which it seems is being corrected for CMBB, incidentally). Thus, in practice you can take regular anything and veteran almost anything, without restricting other support choices, and the more automatics a type has the better it fights.

There are various ways of addressing all of this, which suit the tastes for history vs. lack of restrictions of different types of players. Some ladder players just want no holds barred, and don't really care how historical any of it is. As long as they are playing each other, that is obviously fine, their own affair.

Historical players can use a number of expediants. You can use the "low" force quality setting more often, especially for infantry defenses, and then allow any infantry type to whoever takes "low" quality. You can limit the number of SMG platoons, or ban them, for forces with medium unit quality. Or you can give the Allied side a 10%-20% point handicap if you allow both medium quality and unrestricted automatics. You can ban force type mixing. Or go the other route, and allow the Allies to use their Paras (with more automatics), but not the Germans to mix force types.

One way of keeping such proposals reasonably balanced is to apply the fairness rule of "you cut, I choose". Whoever decides on the force restrictions, his opponent then gets to pick whether he takes the Germans or the Allies with those rules in place.

So one guy can say "10% Allied handicap but any quality, any squad types allowed". If the other player thinks the German infantry varieties are worth more than that, he can take the Germans and accept the point handicap. If he thinks the handicap is overkill for a minor difference, he can take the Allies with the extra points, and try to prove it.

The thing to watch out for most is cases where lack of prior communication leads to misunderstandings, with one side assuming no holds barred and the other assuming voluntary historical accuracy. It is best to spell out one's expectations, or to play with folks you know are like-minded on the subject.

Personally, I like historical settings rather than no holds barred. I also like making some use of the unique capabilites of the VG. I don't mind accepting a low quality infantry force type (meaning no armor) in return, provided I am defending. I think it is challenging and accurate trying to hold without AFVs and with greens, but with high SMG firepower. Other times I will want to simulate German mobile forces, and take 2 LMG Pz Gdrs and armor, with veteran quality. I don't mind paying higher unit prices, or giving a 10% point handicap in return.

In designed scenarios, there is another tweak you can use, besides getting the force qualities, mixes, and fanaticism settings right. You can also tweak the ammo levels. Reducing the ammo of squads with many automatics to 35, and pure SMG squads to 30, while raising the ammo of nearly all rifle squads to 50, and more than half rifles to 45, makes a difference. SMGs still shoot a lot harder than rifles - but they can also run out faster. They shoot faster, not straighter, in effect. And at the least, they don't have more shots in close simply because they haven't opened up until shorter range.

I hope this helps.

[Redwolf]

I people run into problems due to their selection of infantry, a solution can be to specify both types of infantry in advance.

This works even for the tournamenthouse laddergamers. Because the surprise you might want to achieve in unit selection is only interesting for the other arms, but there is few gain to get in squad selection. Except SMG troops, which are subject to limitations anway. So why bother investing brainpower in infantry selection?

SS rifle against US rifle or Heer rifle 44 against

British rifle make good pairs and are even realistic.

[ParaBellum]

Originally posted by wwb_99:

Actually, many VS put up vicious defenses in the closing months of the war in eastern Germany. A lot of those guys learned the trade well on the West Front in WWI, and had not forgotten too much.

WWB

Yep, some of the members of the Volkssturm were vets of WW1. The biggest problem though was the lack of trained leaders. Since the Volkssturm was organized by the NSDAP and not by the army this meant that for the leaders political reliability was often more important than military knowledge.

Guderian gives a good example when he describes how his old comrade General Wietersheim had to serve in a Volkssturm company commanded by a party official with no military training at all...

So many Volkssturm units were simply "verheizt", thrown away in useless fashion without any tactical benefit.

I remember when a friend of my uncle told me how he and a few other kids, 15 years old, where each given a Panzerfaust to stop Patton's army.

They marched out of the town, led by a 65 year old ex-NCO, a WW1 vet. When out of sight he ordered them to throw their Weapons into the nearby lake and go back to their mothers. They strongly protested until he slapped one of them and took away his Faust.

A week later the war was over.

[manchildstein (ii)]

Originally posted by ParaBellum:

As for Volkssturm in QBs, I think that they only should be bought as conscripts/greens.

sometimes i mix in a crack hmg or elite squad or pzk.

this would represent world war one vets who 'still had it'