Leaders and ratings discussion - Hubert please read

[Kuniworth]

ANother thing when we discuss leaders is how many Hubert want in the game. I think mr H should give us a number on how many Germany and USSR should have.

I have diliberately left out many important commanders, such as Bagramian, Chernyakhovski and Antonov because I believe there will be a limit.

Any comments Hubert?

[Hubert Cater]

With the editor you can set your limits to as high as 255 per unit type

[ev]

Originally posted by JerseyJohn:

It would be hard to find one among the Italians.

To me Rudolfo Grazziani comes closest. He led a very large Italian force into Libya in 1940. It turned out to be a fiasco, as he predicted it might, but I can't see any of that blame being placed upon him. He realized the logistical problems would become worse as he moved further away from Tobruck and Benghazi and attemped to move forward fifty miles at a time. His idea was to extend the coastal railroad and improve the coastal road behind him, then, his supply line secure, he'd move forward again.

His front line position consisted of a series of fortified boxes with a lot of artillery support. Wavell and O'Connor were both very impressed with this, they knew Grazziani wanted them to break themselves in an attack on the boxes. They also knew, as he did, that his achilles heel was a lack of mobility and armor.

The British studied aerial photos of the Italian positions and noted where trucks moved in and out with supplies, marking them as locations that were not mined and those were the areas the moved through when they finally launched the attack at Mersa Matruh.

When it came, there was a hard battle till the British armored cars finished piercing the Italian lines and at that point it was open season on the supply line. The Italian forces, though huge, could not remain where they were and couldn't catch up with the British forces hading toward their supply bases.

The main problem was water, even a few days out of supply meant dying of thirst, so the massive formations of Italian infantry, having to evacuate their fortified positions, were reduced on the open desert to trying to run back for water; but by then the mush more mobile British had beaten them to it and there was no alternative to surrendering -- other than dying of thirst.

The fiasco was Mussolini's, not his. If Il Duce would have taken his advice the Italian infantry would have remained in Libya, safe in fortified harbors and the whole front would have been stable; except of course Mussolini had entered the War with the idea of taking Egypt from Libya and the Sudan from Ethiopia. His generals told him that logisically they couldn't do it, but, like Hitler, he thought Fascist ferver would always triumph over reality.

Unable to take the Suez, Italy's East African colonies were automatically doomed.

I'd find it difficult to rate Grazziani, to me he was a very competent military man placed in an impossible position who did the best that could have been expected.

Thank you for the info. It is very interesting to note that the Italians did not have the necessary logistis. Perhaps it would be more realistic to lower the HQ's range so the HQ would suffer more as it moved farther away from the supply base.

...I suspect the Finns faced simmilar circumstances. I would allow finland to have a Finnish HQ with a good rating but with little supply range so it would not advance into Russia. This would allow Finns to better defend from Rusia while limmiting their effectiveness inside Russian Territory.

...I also wonder if France, Rumania, Hungary, and even some neutral countries (Spain, Greece, Turkey, and Sweeden) should have HQ's with limited supply ranges. In the case of France you could have more expensive Foreign Legion HQ's and cheaper Home Only HQ's.

[Edwin P.]

I would really like to see an initiative and a speed rating added to each HQ unit.

The speed rating would be a penalty to AP assigned to units commanded by that HQ.

Thus units commanded by that HQ would have AP = AP - Speed Rating (either 0 or 1). An Army unit might end up with AP of 3 -1 = 2 if commanded by a rather cautious general. This would reflect the nature of some generals to be cautious and thus prone to advance units at a slower pace.

The initiative rating would reflect the fact that sometimes orders got fouled up and units did not move when they were supposed to. This would be on a scale of 1 to 10 with a 10 = 100% to move or attack and a 1 a 55% to move or attack. Thus for an HQ unit with a Initiative Rating of 9 the Units commanded by it would have a 95% to move during a players turn. This also reflects the fact that sometimes, those perfectly planned and coordinated attacks don't go so well.

[JerseyJohn]

ev & Edwin

Interesting concepts. I've got no idea whether or not Hubert would incorporate them but I think they're on the right track. And of course, an HQ's logistical ability would be next to immaterial for armies fighting near to a supply base.

If we start adding separate attributes to leaders we'd have to distinguish such things as Kesselring adding to his command's use of aircraft and Rommels increasing anti-tank ability at the expense of anti-aircraft defenses (using the 88s as anti-tank batteries). Also, it would be very difficult to gather all this specific information on so many different commanders and put it in accurate nummerical terms -- and in the end there would still be a lot of speculation.

Eventually, by the time Rommel was running things, the Axis forces in North Africa were using a hodgepodge of Italian, German, French, Italian, American and British vehicles -- spare parts were hard as they needed to rework many of them in mobile machine shops. In the end, the sheer legnth of the supply line from Benghazi & Tripoli (Tobruck was next to useless) did them in as much as any enemy actions.

[ April 26, 2004, 03:26 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[Exel]

Originally posted by Kuniworth:

Timoshenko is a figure that could be heavily debated. But his performance against the finns and more should IMHO make him a rating 6.

Let's debate then...

If he was the guy leading the army on the Finnish front, then I'd suggest seriously degrading his rating. How exactly was his performance any good? In the grand offensive of 1944 in the Continuation War the Soviets had overwhelming odds on every branch and they still didn't manage to break through at Tali-Ihantala. I wouldn't exactly congratulate the commander for good performance on that one...

[Kuniworth]

Originally posted by Hubert Cater:

With the editor you can set your limits to as high as 255 per unit type

Ok, but I mean do you thinkin about some sort of limitation in sc2:s preset scenarios? If that is the case I think you really should consider some of our suggestions here.

But it seems pointless that Germany should have 50 hq available for purchase so that's why I think you should explain your thoughts. If Germany will have 12-13 hq as in sc1 that is the limitations we should discuss here, and try to sort out the most representative commanders.

[ April 26, 2004, 05:18 PM: Message edited by: Kuniworth ]

[Edwin P.]

JerseyJohn,

I agree that it would be hard to get information on all of the leaders, but one should be able to get information on the outstanding ones or the ones that were really bad. Whose is the General that landed at Anzio and did not try to advance off the beach until Kesselring had it surrounded?

But a key feature of any war is that you do not know who your good generals are until they have a few battles under their belt.

I would much prefer a game in which you might know the ratings of the top few but below that its a matter of luck with a chance for really bad generals or really good ones.

I also liked your earlier proposal for rating HQs on Offensive and Defensive ability.

But of course all of these proposed changes might not be worth it in terms of enhancing the playability of the game.

[Kuniworth]

Originally posted by Exel:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Kuniworth:

Timoshenko is a figure that could be heavily debated. But his performance against the finns and more should IMHO make him a rating 6.

Let's debate then...

If he was the guy leading the army on the Finnish front, then I'd suggest seriously degrading his rating. How exactly was his performance any good? In the grand offensive of 1944 in the Continuation War the Soviets had overwhelming odds on every branch and they still didn't manage to break through at Tali-Ihantala. I wouldn't exactly congratulate the commander for good performance on that one... </font>

[JerseyJohn]

Edwin

All true. I think the general in question was named Lukas. He was only a major general and was put in a very unenviable position, not knowing what was in front of him. He was criticized for not moving inland, but what if he had and lost the beachead to his rear? The landing didn't have enough troops to both defend and advance simultaneously.

Glad you like the separate rating idea, like yourself I'm not sure if it would really be worth doing. In a few cases such as Kesselring and Montgomery on defense and Rommel - Guderian on offense I think it might be worthwhile.

[John DiFool the 2nd]

Just a thought...

Now (SC1), an HQ is permanently gone if it dies in

combat. What if the general in question is still

toast (KIA or POW) if his HQ was cut off, surrounded,

and surrendered, but had a certain percentage

chance of survival if merely destroyed while

still in supply?

John DiFool

[Exel]

Originally posted by Kuniworth:

Timoshenko had great results against Finland in 1940 --

Was he in charge for the whole duration of the Winter War 1939-1940, or did he just replace someone in 1940 and get things running? If the latter, then I may award some credit for him, but if he was indeed in charge from the beginning, then I'd really have to suggest making him one of the worst Soviet commanders in the pool.

[ April 27, 2004, 08:19 AM: Message edited by: Exel ]

[Kuniworth]

Originally posted by Exel:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Kuniworth:

Timoshenko had great results against Finland in 1940 --

Was he in charge for the whole duration of the Winter War 1939-1940, or did he just replace someone in 1940 and get things running? If the latter, then I may award some credit for him, but if he was indeed in charge from the beginning, then I'd really have to suggest making him one of the worst Soviet commanders in the pool. </font>

[Ron]

Originally posted by Kuniworth:

[What people need to realise is that the red army was much better in defence than offensive. Reason was out-dated offensive tactics and stubborn and tenacious soldiers who's determination showed through in defending.

The Red Army was at its peak by 1944. It had learned all its lessons the hard way through 3 years of war and was unquestionably superior in the offensive operational art compared to any Western Army. I am not familiar with the Continuation War or the political situation with Finland, so cannot comment on the poor performance.

Most Armies find defensive operations easier than offensive ones, for obvious reasons, especially 'green' Armies, however by '43 onwards the Red Army was definitely not 'green'.

Ron

[With Clusters]

If its worthwhile to give HQs different ratings for offense and defense, perhaps there could be ratings for other aspects as well. To expand upon ev's idea for an HQ 'range' regarding a Finnish HQ, perhaps there should be not only a supply range rating, but also a command range rating (certainly some commanders were better at exerting control over longer distances), and also perhaps a rating for number of units an HQ is able to command (again, certainly there were some commanders able to control larger forces than others). This goes back to the comment (by Donnerwetter) that Zhukov should be able to command more units.

Of course, all these different ratings might be a bit too overcomplicated...

[Lars]

Originally posted by With Clusters:

If its worthwhile to give HQs different ratings for offense and defense, perhaps there could be ratings for other aspects as well. To expand upon ev's idea for an HQ 'range' regarding a Finnish HQ, perhaps there should be not only a supply range rating, but also a command range rating (certainly some commanders were better at exerting control over longer distances), and also perhaps a rating for number of units an HQ is able to command (again, certainly there were some commanders able to control larger forces than others). This goes back to the comment (by Donnerwetter) that Zhukov should be able to command more units.

Of course, all these different ratings might be a bit too overcomplicated...

Just a bit.

Keep it simple.

[Kuniworth]

Originally posted by JerseyJohn:

True, but the thing is Guderian held Fieldmarshal level appointments -- I think he was only one step below, a colonelgeneral

Yes you are right.

[ev]

I wonder if there is a way in which players could improve on some of the atributes of HQ's. I mean: make them move faster, increase its supply range, increase the number of units attached to it, etc.

Some ideas:

Mechanization advances could allow for upgrades in the movement capability and supply range of HQs - provided the player upgraded the HQ.

Improvements in a new Communication Technology could allow HQs to control more units. Say at level 0 an HQ could only control 3 units but at level 5 an HQ could control 8 units.

Also, HQ's with better Communications Technology could have a higher impact on combat readiness. Elsewhere in this site, I proposed that combat units with better communication technology should have should have some readiness bonus. This would be in addition to the HQ Communications Bonus I here propose.

...oh, and by the way, I am in favor of creating a Communications Tech, in case you did not notice