Where's the blitzkrieg?

[Ziem]

The fact that the Germans could run over most of europe between '39 en '41 was based on the famous blitzkrieg tactics. Meaning: airplane Bombing (refined during the spanish civil war), followed by arty, and to top it of tanks and infantry. I'm playing the road to Moscow scenario and have to get a train station. Nice that I have 4 arty salvo's but my tanks are so inferior to the T34's. Not that I hate the T34's but in October '41 the amount of T34's was still very, very low. (been reading quite some books about Barbarossa but from what I read it wasn't until late november early december that the T34's were used together with the Siberian reserves en masse). Ofcourse from what I understand the dev team of the game are Russian and they want the Russians look good but hey, let's not be too chauvenistic. Up till late '42 it was quantity above quality (not to be rude but just looking at the facts), so my questions are:

1) Where is the air cover? ie JU87 or HE111's?

2) Are there too many T34's?

let's be honoust because up to 25 miles from Moscow it was almost a cakewalk for the Germans. They took close to a 1(?) million prisoners until the they got caught in the beastly Russian autumn and winter weather which was together with Stalin's order that no one was allowed anymore to leave Moscow the saviour of Russia. And ofcourse that Hitler still couldn't make his mind up which was the most the important front. Going south for the oil or center for Moscow.

And his armies were absolutely not prepared for winter fighting because the git thought that he would have Russia on its knees before winter...but that's looking back from an armchair...

Z.

[ May 11, 2007, 07:12 PM: Message edited by: Ziem ]

[Slapaho]

wrong thread sorry.

Although what i posted was probably a blitkreig

[ May 11, 2007, 06:57 PM: Message edited by: Slapaho ]

[Ziem]

No worries... Nice vid though

[ChrisND]

Ziem, you'll see that pattern in every campaign, the uber tanks is a design decision for the campaigns, not a bug.

[pad152]

I hope the new russian mission pack is more little more balanced(a few less T-34's), and reflect the early German blitz.

[Destraex]

Its to be expected. However their is a campaign maker tool supplied with the game if you want to make something more realistic for the community

[wokelly]

Originally posted by Ziem:

[QB]Not that I hate the T34's but in October '41 the amount of T34's was still very, very low.

About 1200 T-34s were produced from June 41 to Dec 41. Not a lot but they would have been seen often enough I'd think. There was one particularly costly battle for the Germans on the road to Moscow, cant recall what the name was, but an entire column of German tanks were destroyed by T-34s. I believe Guderian wrote after the battle that it had never before been so apparent the obvious inferiority of German tanks to the T-34s.

Regardless they were not exactly equipping every front line unit like it seems in game, and some variety with more BT-7s heavy forces and what not would be nice. On the other hand the obvious lack of Panzers armed with the 50mm L/42 guns is a problem, because the 37mms are useless on the panzer fs and the 75mm melon launchers on the mark4s are you T-34 busters.

Ofcourse from what I understand the dev team of the game are Russian and they want the Russians look good but hey, let's not be too chauvenistic.

I doubt that has anything to do with it. The American campaign has you facing Jadgepanthers in the battle for St. Lo. The game is about being challenging, and historical TOE's are out the window for all sides in this game. I mean they gave the brits the Challenger over teh Sherman Firefly.

1) Where is the air cover? ie JU87 or HE111's?

2) Are there too many T34's?

1) Air cover seems to be lacking any kind of Tank Busting weapons, all they have are 20mms which are quite useless. I completely agree, air is completely useless against armor. Its beyond simulating the historical issues with busting tanks from the air, planes can literally NOT kill a tank because they have no weapons to do it.

2) Again the game lacks any realistic historical TOE, thus this goes for all the oddities of most battles in the game, such as jadgpanthers in st. lo.

let's be honoust because up to 25 miles from Moscow it was almost a cakewalk for the Germans.

I dont meant to argue with everything you said, but the Germans suffered 800,000 - 900,000 causilties from june 41 to dec 41. Thats not a cakewalk. Many outstanding victories but they lost hundreds of thousands of men doing it.

Otherwise I agree with a lot of the complaints. Some of the maps are ridiculously hard, especially the BoF 1940 equipment vs T-34s and later the God damn russian kursk missions.

Custom missions should bring us those historical battles with proper TOEs.

[Ziem]

@Wokely and the rest

thanks for replies. About the casualties. If I am not mistaken (and I could be) the germans lost a lot of soldiers from october onwards because they didn't have any winter clothes, as stated before. From what I understand is that especially in late june, july and september they steamrolled over the Russians, they were still very optimistic that they would be on the red square in November. It's interesting when you read in books the letters german soldiers wrote home. From very optimistic in June '41 till very gloomy in january '42

It is, by the way, not my intention to burn down the game. Because I think the game has a lot of potential. But yesterday I had a scout crawling forward in the road to Moscow scenario. At one stage I had him crouch for a second, and guess what? A single shot from a russian soldier (not a sniper) about 1 km away in the trench took him out! I hope they adress at least this in the new patch.

About the t-34's. I remember once reading that the germans were appalled of the fact how crude the t-34's were finished. Not smoothly polished like the germans tanks but all crude

Thanks for the warnings about other campaigns. I am still struggling with the german campaign. For the rest, I have only played half of the first allied mission. pushing the germans out of st Lo(?) and am now awaiting the german counter attack.

What I also find a rather serious error is that there are no 88mm guns in the game (couldn't find it in the encyclopedia). This gun took out so many tanks that it is a must. I hope they add this one very soon.

Oh yeah and before I forget. They have to make the game more modabble. Because of the modding talent out there, it would take a lot of work out of the hands the dev team, so they can finetune the gameplay. Look for example at Silent Hunter IV. The game gets more and more realistic every day because of the huge amount of mods made.

I als hope, that's for the far away future, they make it possible for troops to enter buldings and have them make max use of ruins so we can make a Stalingrad mission!

Z.

[ May 12, 2007, 12:58 AM: Message edited by: Ziem ]

[ChrisND]

Just an FYI, the Anti-Tank version of the 88m gun is in the game.

[dizee]

the initial barbarossa assault was no cakewalk at all. infact, the russians lost huge amounts of men and material, but they put up a stubborn defense in many places, and even did some fierce counteroffensives, e.g. jelnja, which where extremely costly for the german army.

the wehrmacht lost pretty much every tank they started with, by end of 41. the 800k-900k kia/mia/wia is also quite correct.

[Ziem]

@Normal Dude

Tx, saw those. But you know which one I mean

@Dizee

It's about time I read the book "Barbarossa" by Alan Clark again

Other question though. How do I get rid of those 3 t-34's? without loosing too many german tanks?

Z.

[wokelly]

About the t-34's. I remember once reading that the germans were appalled of the fact how crude the t-34's were finished. Not smoothly polished like the germans tanks but all crude

I believe they became crude in the later marks. Like all tanks at first, the T-34s were well finished, but again as the war went on finish was sacrificed in order to keep production up.

[ May 12, 2007, 03:30 PM: Message edited by: wokelly ]