German Spotting of Neutral Russian Units

[Edwin P.]

Should German air units, and only air unts, be able to spot the location of neutral Russia units?

"Stalin ....... barred the Red Army from taking elementary precautions, like chasing off the German reconnaissance planes surveying their defenses."

On a note of alternative history, if Trotsky, the founder of the RED Army, exiled by Stalin from Russia had won out over Stalin this would not have been allowed, Soviet Units would most likely have been deployed further back from the border and the Army officer corps would not have been purged.

So here is an idea for a simple game changing alternative history variant:

When the game starts there is an;

85% Stalin Rules Russia (17 of 20 games)

---------- German air units can spot Neutral Russian Units

10% Trotsky Rules Russia (1 of 10 games)

---------- German air units cannot spot Neutral Russian Units

---------- Russian units can deploy further back from the German border.

5% (1 of 20 games) Lev Borisovich Kamenev Rules Russia

---------- Russia has Industrial Tech Level 2

With Trotsky's influence reduced, the troika collapsed and Stalin turned against his former allies Kamenev and Zinoviev. Kamenev, now a leader of the left opposition, argued for the termination of the New Economic Policy and immediate industrialisation."

Similarly, what if someone else was the President instead of Franklin Delano Roosevelt?

95% - Franklin Delano Roosevelt is president of the USA

----------- No effect

05% - Al Smith is president of the USA

----------- USA War Readiness declines by 10%

[ June 25, 2005, 03:40 PM: Message edited by: Edwin P. ]

[kozmeister]

Neutral countries, particularly major powers should be 'active' prior to the entrance in the war.

1) Neighboring powers should be able to spot units that are at least near the frontline.

2) Inactive, neutral powers should be able to develop, deploy and move armies in response to the actions on the board.

3) Economies should start slow and slowly gain momentum. Production should not be the same for the USSR if war is declared in 1940 as when war would be declared in 1942.

KOZMEISTER

[pzgndr]

Let me dust this one off, now that I've seen some things in the game.

Normal spotting rules apply to both sides. USSR is free to move units about, and for them it's no big deal since neutrals cannot entrench. So it's not like you're losing something by moving around. On the other hand, your Axis opponent can see some of this going on and might have to readjust his plans. Depending on timing of the actual attack, things could go well or maybe not so well. It's still too early yet to make a lot of sense about game strategies. In many ways, we're discovering a whole new game!

[Edwin P.]

Thanks for the update.

With Germany able to see one; perhaps 2 tiles with air spotting, into Russia the advantage that Russia will receive by being able to move its units around is reduced and more accurately reflects history, where Germany knew the position of Russian units close to the border.

And I assume, as was mentioned in an earlier post that Russian war readiness will be affected by the number of units it has along the border with Germany. Too few units and Russian war readiness increases at a slower or non-existant pace, thus allowing Germany more time to build its forces or deal with the English.

[ October 06, 2005, 03:59 PM: Message edited by: Edwin P. ]

[Liam]

I know that the Germans had awesome recon aircraft that spotted just about everything the Reds had available.<it's remarkable look it up> Plus they were never discovered by the Reds. Says something about the Germans in general, they had good intel especially against the poor intel of the Russians. How couldn't the Reds have known? they must've been fast asleep to miss near 3 million men on their border!

[pzgndr]

Well... Soviet garrison scripting is still undecided. It may or may not be needed.

Consider if you forward deploy. Germany can spot and strategerize accordingly. (Gotta luv that word!) And it's not like USSR can build a whole lot AND conduct research, so either they have a lot of weak units or a small core of potentially tough units or some combo. But by being able to move around right before an attack, it may be possible to blunt the main German attack - since the Soviets can spot and strategerize too.

Consider if the Soviets pull back. Again Germany can spot, so if they know there's no opposition on the first turn or two why wait until nice weather sets in? Go ahead and start Barbarossa in the spring and be ready to fight hard when the weather clears. USSR might gain an additional turn or two of full production but there's a production delay to worry about. By the time those "extra" units arrive, Germans can be past Smolensk and all over you.

We are still learning and tweaking things. It's just too soon yet to impose scripts to solve what may be a non-problem. Let players decide what their strategy should be, yes?