A point to review!

[Jhon]

I’m a old fan of this game since SC 1. I haven’t played the game since uhmmm!!! Long time ago, but now I’m back. I’m playing W&W and I can tell you is a very fun game. Now I have a point to share with the team. I’m very disappointed with the effectiveness of the Anti-Air batteries. It has only one point of action and when it fires is almost like it doesn’t do anything. I understand that this kind of military pieces were very inaccurate, (there is no research tech for this pieces either) however they made extremely more difficult the missions of the air force when ever this planes were engage by AA. I will say that it will be better if the action point or fire point is extended to 2 points, it doesn’t have to inflict a direct hit but at least it can avoid planes to have a hit on their target, just make it more difficult. And a very common sense rule, if a plane has to fly by an AA the AA should fire automatically. I can see the enemy planes crossing over my AA which is not firing because the objective is two blocks behind, but still the planes are flying in front of it. I appreciated your time.

John

[CSS]

Try invading englsng in PDE European scenario 1.24 and see what it is like getting creamed by 5 AA batteries. I had to sneak invade via Scottland in a email game.

[Terif]

Seems you need to have a closer look at the research section :

Research Anti-Air tech, upgrade your AA Batteries + position them at the right places and the enemy planes will fall down from the sky like a mild summer rain...

[jon_j_rambo]

Yep, the Germans shot down alot of our planes. Stalag 17.

[arado234]

I think these tiles equal 100 miles(correct me if im wrong)so it would be quite easy to fly past a bunch of A.A. guns and not have them shoot.Also the planes could be flying at 25,000 feet.Way out of range of all the smaller calibre A.A.guns. and the larger calibre guns would have to get so lucky hitting a fighter flying over 400mph or even the latter tac.bombers wich could fly over 300 mph.that they would have no effect on the overall strength of the airfleet.

[CSS]

Arado it is a STRATRGIC game with STRATEGIC units not TACTICAL!

CONCEPTUAL not O.O.B. I think that is my favorite blunder I see people make thinking in linear tactical turns for a grand strategical game.

P.S. Arado I am not cutting you down you have some EXCELLENT post!

[Nupremal]

The AA units - at least in the large scale scenarios, not the smaller more tactical ones - represent large quantities of mostly larger calibre AA guns (like 88s) used for strategic defense. They just set up large walls of flack. The thing is, the targets can already be upgraded, so I am not sure if it is reasonable to have AA units also. I am still not sure if I should keep them. I think I decided the UK, Germany and USSR can have them. US does not really need them, and Japan never really built enough of them. Germans had vast quantities by the end of the war - in fact concentrations got higher as they lost territory to defend. They can also be used to protect armies on the front, so that seems to be a valuable use for them if you don't have enough fighters.

[Nupremal]

What do you guys think of AT and ATY units? I think AT units are not justified at the strategic level - I got rid of them. Artillery mostly so, but I kept them for the Russians for their Artillery Breakthrough Divisions. Allies used air power instead. Germans I was thinking maybe they could use a unit or so for their big RR artillery. I may do that and change their icon. Again, Japanese never had enough guns. The other option I could use them for is coastal artillery, but since the assets like cities and forts already can damage bombarding naval assets, this seems to be covered.

[Big Al]

I changed my 1939 scenario AT to tank destroyes and SF to mech units.

Artillery was actually the most important aspect of WW2.

The german artillery was excellent. Despite what it seems Russian artillery sucked. They never had enough. All the stories of Russian artillery being so amazing is kinda misleading. What they did was super mass artillery for an attack and then unleash it all. The problem was they depleted their other units of the same artillery needed to function. The Russians actually fired less artillery than the germans overall.

Now the allies it was just the opposite. The would send troops in, they would get beat up, they would pull back... then the allies would shell the crap out of the germans. The allies used 40x more artillery ammo than the germans with the same amount of guns. The germans figured this out and simply pulled back.

If you look at the overwhelming allied material superiority in western europe and their complete supremacy of the air... why werent the germans simply slaughtered? Look at the casualty rate. If I remember the germans lost more, but not much more. They should have been crushed. The allies instead of actually using fighting tactics to out position their enemy simply used artillery when they encountered resistance and forced the germans back. The germans actually evacuated the areas they saw artillery was coming. Some writers say this tactic actually cost more allied lives. if they fought a proper outmanuevering battle in europe it would have been over sooner. Man for man the german solider was superior than any allied or russian soldier.

BUT while the allies made lots and lots of tactical errors in WW2 they never made a strategic error. Ironically the germans didnt make many tactical errors but blundered constantly with strategic errors.... invading Russia comes to mind.... Battle of Britain with short range fighters and crappy bombers with low a/c production comes to mind.... splitting their armor reserve on d-day comes to mind. Luckily we can all thank Hitler for their stupidities.

[SeaMonkey]

Got to agree with Al, arty is very important for all parties.

Other than what Al stated, I'll add that Allied artillery usage was particular devastating on the defense, especially with the USA and UK in mind.

When Allied airpower wasn't available and the Germans sought to attack, artillery was very effective in breaking up those assaults.

IMO, any wargame/scenario is lacking if it fails to include some instrument of artillery representation.

[thetwo]

I am posting in response to Big Al. For those who haven't noticed, I don't generally reply to really bad posts, I won't put the hours in for that. Good posts are another matter.

Al is correct that German artillery was far superior. In fact, on the Russian front, in spite of huge numerical superiorities, I don't know of single time the Russians managed a breakthrough until the German artillery nets had collapsed (i.e. the Germans could no longer call for fire, had run out of ammunition, etc.). For the German Army, artillery was a precision weapon. The only time I know they had trouble was early in the war, Poland through Norway, when they were getting a large number of “shorts.” These may have been due to faulty artillery tables.

There was a marked increase in Allied artillery effectiveness that is not widely recognized and it came at an interesting time. Variable Time fusing had been in use in the Pacific Theater for some time in an anti-aircraft role and had reduced the number of rounds to bring down an aircraft almost by a factor of four. Security rules forbid its use over land for fear of the enemy getting hold of one of the fuses. This limitation was lifted during the later stages of the Battle of the Bulge and the use of VT artillery rounds by American artillery on German infantry in the Ardennes Forest was devastating.

As for air power, I know that strong air power is a staple of the genre and has assumed mythological proportions in some defense circles. Here is a link to the most brilliant piece of research on tactical air power I've ever seen. (I think much of it holds true today if you actually look at the U.S. Air Force after action reports on the “Scud hunt” of Desert Storm and the Serbia air campaign.) The author's name is not on the article, but I person who posted it on the web is Niklas Zetterling.

Big Al, I think you will enjoy this.

http://web.telia.com/~u18313395/normandy/articles/airpower.html

[arado234]

Big Al as far as producing Arrty. goes Russia almost outproduced the rest of the world combined.They produced over 516,00 tubes(excluding mortars) of various calibres the rest of the world combined(Germany produced about 159,000) produced just over just over 580,000. By 1944 Russia had over 90 Artty.divisions and over 149 seperate Artty. brigades(Germanys total strength on the Eastern front in 1943 peaked at 185 understrength divisions) and if they chose to put all that Artty.into their divisions like the Germans did they would have grossly outgunned them.The typical Russian rifle division by 1943 had 1 Artty. regiment consisting of 24 76 mm guns and 12 122mm guns(excluding mortars which they had lots of (over 400,000).Germany produced about 73,000 mortars.I dont see how the Russians could have fired less rounds than Germany.The Russians fired over 500,000 rounds at Berlin alone.Other than Germanys 100mm sk 18 Russians Artty. outranged German Artty with similar calibres.The Russians also fired a slightly heavier shell.

As far as losses go the Germans had over 7,850,000 casualties total.The rest of the major western Allies had just over 1,700,000.The Russians had over 11,000,000 killed or missing.These are combat losses only.

All facts and figures taken from the book:WW2,The encyclopedia of facts and figures.

As far as this game goes imho maybe Artty.should just be an upgrade for the ground units.Better defence and better attack.

Big Al the Allies did make the biggest strategic blunder of all and that was not standing up to Hitler in the beginning

[arado234]

thetwo thats a very interesting read about Airpower.The only thing I never really noticed(maybe I missed it) was that it didnt mention the effect it had on morale of the average soldier.

My dads good friend fought in Normandy and he said the Allied fighter bomber pilots favorite targets usually werent tanks but the supply trucks.They knew that a tank without gas is useless.They also tended to attack targets that stood out (like staff cars etc).He also said seeing all those aircraft upped Allied morale.

You have to wonder though about airpower because Rommel believed that the Allies had to be stopped on the beaches because Allied airpower would have been to devestating .Germany launched Wacht en Rhine in bad weather because of Allied airpower.

[thetwo]

Arado,

In response to your posts.

Concerning artillery:

- Making artillery an upgrade for infantry and armor units would be a suitable solution all around.

- Soviet and Western artillery was a blunt instrument. In reading German accounts of Soviet barrages, they treated it like the weather. It came, it went. Even when the Soviets had kilometers of guns, wheel to wheel and fired for hours, it didn't, by itself, guarantee a breakthrough. Other things had to happen. Well dug in infantry could survive. The soldiers who could not handle the barrages, psychologically, were weeded out quickly, like with any other aspect of combat.

Concerning combat soldiers and air power:

- Average combat soldiers feared artillery more than aircraft. Aircraft could be heard coming and could only hit limited targets. Their accuracy was terrible. They were limited to how close they could hit to Allied lines. They had very limited ammunition. Dive in a hole and let it pass. Pop up and resume fighting.

- Artillery could last longer and more rounds could be thrown. Artillery could be both heavy rounds and mortars. Infantry really hated mortars when they were on the other side. That hip-pocket artillery could be nasty in a close-in fight. Artillery was just part of being a combat soldier and could be endured, but of the suppressives/combat mulitipliers, ranked up with tanks and having to attack into entrenched machine guns for “oh ****” factor.

- One thing I liked about that article was the distinction between combat soldiers and rear area generals. My own experience substantiates that. Combat soldiers are an entirely different breed from supply and support types. In my experience, rear area types are also more likely to complain about things that discomfit them, while combat soldiers don't think their worth comment.

Concerning rear area soft targets and air power:

- Soft targets like the trucks and staff cars you mentioned were frequent targets for American ground attack aircraft. They were often easy to find being on or near roads and their drivers rarely having access to camouflage or being too lazy to camouflage them properly when stopped. You are correct that targeting them was a high priority and German fuel stocks were the greatest weakness (along with troop shortages and troop quality in some cases, discounting lack of Luftwaffe) the German Army had in the west.

- The same accuracy problems (4% in peace time, when not under fire and fully rested air crews) applied in these cases. So did the limited ammunition carried by the usual aircraft used, normally fighters, pressed into service, P-47s and P-51s.

- The effectiveness of individual strafing and rocket attacks is often overestimated, because we can, understandably, base our assumptions on movie footage. When directors choose actual gun-camera footage to include in a production, they choose the footage that is most spectacular, most indicative of what he/she wants the audience to perceive. In short, it has a large “wow factor.” Those who remember Desert Storm news coverage will know precisely what I am talking about.

- With over 5,000 aircraft available to attack German rear areas, the Allies had better have had an effect on German supplies. But, even with high sortie rates, with the same aircraft and pilots flying multiple missions in a day, they still had problems, in good weather, stopping the flow of supplies, combat equipment, and reinforcements, into a defined and limited area, within a short range of their airbases.

- So it is a matter of effect, yes. How much? Total effect for resources invested? These are not as cut and dried as we are prone to think.

Air power is like the myths about the M-4 Sherman being a terrible tank. They keep going and going. (How well we used it, is another matter.)

As for adapting to the situation, they would have been fools not to. It was the reality of the situation and wishing it were different wasn't going to change it. They made the best of the factors available.

Rommel. That is entirely another discussion.

[arado234]

thetwo thats true about the 5,000 aircraft we had and yes you would think they would have had a bigger effect.

Your comment about the M-4 im not to sure I agree with it.My dads friend and everyone else called them ronson lighters(one strike and they were alight).The Germans called them Tommy cookers.I have a good book on this very subject called:Death Traps.Its about the survival of a typical Ami.armored division.The author was a head mechanic and believe me he didnt think to highly of the M-4.

[arado234]

I have no idea how that smiley face got in there.

[thetwo]

Yes, I've read Death Traps, excellent book on several levels.

The relevence of the M4 myth, in my mind, is that if it were not for the movie Patton, it wouldn't be as widespread. The actual problem with the M4 wasn't design, but employment.

If you look at the numbers of M4s we sent to the Soviet Union and then look at the comments from their combat commanders, they liked the M4. The Soviet commanders were used to losing 100-200 tanks in a day to kill just a handful of German tanks. It didn't matter what design of their own tanks they lost, heavy or medium or whether they were Soviet, British, or American designed. Soviet tank regiment commanders liked the Sherman. They actually thought it less likely to catch fire, in its later variants than the T-34/85.

Myths tend to be what sticks in the mind was the point I was trying to make. I didn't want to get off the topic.

By the way, anyone who wants to begin to learn the basics of attrition warfare, the applications of economic power in combat, and what is required to keep a combat unit running should read Death Traps. Superb.

[Nupremal]

Only the first models of the M4 did not have better protection of gas tanks. Also, the models we sent to the Russians and UK were diesel versions and didnt have that problem. Later models had good, high velocity guns. The Sherman was easy to fix. It had decent armor - not great but good enough. It was also good at moving along European roads, whereas the German tanks were better on the East Front where road conditions were poor.

[Big Al]

Never knew I'd get so many replies. I will read the article recommended.

BTW the better/best books I have read. You all should read them, it gives a very different perspective on WW2 than the ABC history books you read that dont state facts and figures. After reading these I find so many unbelievable errors in most other WW2 history books.

A few of the general WW2 history books that suck I read this almost the 1st paragraph

"Germany's economy was in full gear toward the military effort." I promplty put this book back on the shelf.

"Germany wiped out the Polish airforce on the 1st day" Another shelfer.

EXCELLENT READS

Overy: Why the Allies Won

Ellis: Brute Force (older book)

Ellis: The WW2 Databook.

INTERESTING READS

Alexander: How Hitler Could Have Won WW2. Interesting read but I think it was a little stretch of the imagination but good ideas for making/playing a wargame.

BAD READ

Mosier: Blitzkreig Myth. Screwed up conclusions and I think he totally missed the point of what blitzkreig was suppose to do.

[Bill101]

A few of the general WW2 history books that suck I read this almost the 1st paragraph

"Germany wiped out the Polish airforce on the 1st day" Another shelfer

Funnily enough I always judge a general book on WWII by how they treat the Polish campaign, and if I see this comment I am also inclined to return it straight back to the shelf.

BAD READ

Mosier: Blitzkreig Myth. Screwed up conclusions and I think he totally missed the point of what blitzkreig was suppose to do.

Is this a book on France 1940 or have I got it confused with a different one? If so I have read part of it but got distracted by other things. Could you do a brief summary?

[Big Al]

Mosiers book is has all "big" blitzkreig battles of the war.

I see blitzkreig just like the Germans did. It is a form of warfare to encircle units and disrupt supply and communications behind the lines. Thats its purpose. If you chop someone's supply line WTF can they do?

Mosier basically says everyone that has ever attempted blitzkreig is an idiot because of one reason or another because it doesnt work. But he thinks it means something else.

Some examples: France

Blitzkreig wouldnt have worked because the French tanks were better armored and better gunned. It was the English who abandoned the French, thats why the German's won. His poo-poo's the fact that the Germans had radios in their tanks, were better organized, and focusing their armor? Bah the allies were stupid. If I remember he also doesnt take into account the close support of the airforce, which duh is part of blitzkreig.

Russia: He comments that blitzkreig didnt destroy any armies, the Russians had better tanks, thus it failed. Again thats not the point of breakthroughs... to crush the opposition... encirclement is and the Germans did that fairly successfully. He also fails to mention that while the Soviet T-34 was better, again no radio till I think 1943? Also less accurate. I think it took a russian tank 3-5 shots to hit a target, Germans 2-3 shots. Thats a monster difference especially if your tanks have poor coordination and you are being hit in side armor.

Market Garden: This was I think the dumbest analysis. 30 corp going up to the roads assist airborne in capturing the towns. He says its a complete failure of blitzkreigh because 30 corp went up a single lane road that anti-tank guns ambushed and crippled them. The Germans had plenty of cover and time to prevent the advance... what a failure. All of this is true. But their operation was not blitzkreig. Advancing up a single lane road where you go in 1 direction only is not an example of blitzkreig. Its driving an iron stake through a wooden block. The point of market garden wasnt to spread out and encircle, it was to capture key bridges with airborne (to hold long enough) so that 30 corp would catch up and relieve them.

Mosier's book is 100% correct if you think blitzkreig is some clever tactic to kill armies in some unique form of combat. But its 100% wrong if you take blitzkreig for exactly what it was for.... disruption and encirclement not engagement.

So that is my opinion and why I didnt like the book.

As for books? I play poker professionally and have read every book under the sun almost, at least looked at it. There are so many that are wrong about poker tactics, some from professed professionals. After this I realized so many WW2 books are wrong also or just spew what every other bad book has published and is common knowledge/misconception. I almost feel like reading 5-6 bad books and just reorganizing the words, putting some cool common statistics, and some neato pictures, and marketing it perfectly so I can get rich. Then 2 years later under a different alias take my book and reorganize the same BS and resell it again getting richer. That was sarcasm BTW.

Why the Allies Won and Brute Force have been eye openers for me. The Databook is just a F'ing awesome collection of material and statistics.

So far I have not found more. Although Black May, by Gannon, was another good read so add that to the list. Its about the U-boat war. Interestingly enough the author touches on a lot of tactics and technology that the allies created to defeat the u-boat. But he fails to write about what he seems to show in the book as the #1 key factor to defeating the u-boat... which is ships sailed in convoys are far better off than ships sailing alone. I dont think he realized it but I saw it.

[thetwo]

As I start to write this, I am reliving a desire to strangle someone. I wish the encounter I am about relate weren't common. Sadly, it was too common and time does not change the attitudes this represents.

In the mid 1980's I was faced with an American military commander, combat arms guy, and I was trying to make a point about lessons we could learn from German experiences in WWII. He said, "The Germans don't have anything to teach us. They lost."

I won't even bother with some other incidents, that reflect the same attitudes.

IMO, the only school for learning about mobile warfare is the German lesson. They did more with less, so they had to learn.

The Allies were able to get away with less than optimal operations, for the simple reason that their overabundance of materiel covered for their sins.

1. Blitzkrieg was not a done deal in the German Army. Guderian was seen as a trouble maker by many, more traditional officers. He was the head of the Panzer arm. Rommel was in even poorer favor.

2. Thinking of the early campaigns during which they were actually able to apply it, the Germans had inferior equipment (Pz1 and PzII) and were still basically an infantry army with horse-drawn supply. The supply service was augmented with trucks, many pressed from civilan service. Hardly an ideal situation. The army had expanded rapidly first to 600,000 then to 3.8 million, in a short time, and still had the hard-marching characteristics of its core cadre. They were well trained. Their ability to tackle the most sturdy fortifications, on the fly, mystified their opponents. This was done, frequently with pure infantry assaults.

3. If they had one initial weakness, it was in there NCOs. Casualties among junior officers tended to be much higher than expected and were thought to be the result of not having had the time to devolop solid NCOs.

4. Blitzkrieg gave small formations the ability to defeat vastly larger formations at the operational level. This was the result of momentum. This is my personal distinction from "the initiative," which I tend to think of as subtly different, but I think it fits. As long as the operational size force maintains momentum, the larger force is constantly off balance and can not fix itself long enough to bring its great power to bear.

5. At least as early as August 1941, you can see the German Army leadership (Heer, OKH) worrying about what happens when winter arrives, if they go into winter quarters and lose momentum. As the weeks pass, the comabt commanders at the front grow almost frantic in trying to alert their superiors to the danger. As long as they possess the advantage of momentum they could keep the Soviets off balance. If they lost that advantage, there were not enough soldiers to stablize the front. To my knowledge, OKW, Hitler's headquarters, didn't seem to grasp this. The last desperate lunges at Moscow take on an entirely new meaning when viewed with this perspective. The commanders at the front didn't particularly want Moscow. They KNEW that they needed to retain that momentum for as long as possible. This is another instance of looking back and seeing that the commanders at the time were not as dumb as they first appeared to be.

[arado234]

Big Al I got my Figures form John Ellisis book.

Imho we won because of the Axis strategic and political blunders and once the shooting match got started our WAY superior production numbers was the deciding issue,plus the Atomic bomb.In the case of the Abomb accuracy wasnt a big issue.

Allied Industrial might must be the deciding factor because why is this game and most others not set at actuall historical industrial output for all countries,because there would be no point in playing them.

[Big Al]

Your #4 point "thetwo" is right. Blitzkreig is a disruption tactic, not a killing blow.

arado234: Realistic production actually is fairly accurate in SC2. I took the #s in Ellis's databook, made some educated assumptions about costs, placed in all historical builds, and put it all in an excel spread sheet. It was quite interesting to see the results of how production looked, in turns of what I called "production points". You can make a game based on historical production. It just has to be modified to make the game work.

War in Europe has historucal production. I believe the Germans are producing 10x their 1939 start at the end of the game and its a board game. World in Flames has the same thing. Germany starts at I believe ~15 production in 1939 and expands to 50+ in 1944.

I compared SC2 with my figures including what countries received as reinforcements (human vs human) and the figures were almost the same. The differences were minor. I was actually impressed.

[arado234]

Big Al I dont see how thats possible in relation to the Amis or the Russians.The Amis.grossly outproduced Germany in almost every raw material before the war started in 1937 (in the case of oil by more than 10x).If you have Ellisis book you must also see the HUGE differences in overall Allied industrial might BEFORE the Axis started really loosing.There is noway this game is set to actual Allied industrial potential,Germany in this game with the soft build limits turned off can put more tanks and aircraft on the board than America or Russia seperatly when the oppossite is true.As far as Artty. goes Russia had more than the rest of the world combined let alone Germany(who is allowed to build more in this game).The fact that the atom bomb isnt in this game doesnt reflect in the huge amount of raw materials and tech. and manpower used to build it that could have been used elsewhere.The Allies get no benifet from this in this game.

Taking overall pop.of the 5 major Belligerents the Axis(Germany and Japan) had about 150,000.000 people the Allies(Amis. Russians,Brits.) had about 380,000,000.The Axis had about 27,000,000 serving in their armed forces the Allies had about 57,000,000.Thats just over two to one.In this game the Allies cannot out build or out man Germany by two to one especially when you consider Russia(30,000,000) could concentrate all her forces on one front.

When you look at all the data its so one sided that its amazing that the Axis held on as long as they did.Most high ranking Germans(including Hitler) knew they had to win a fast war because they had no hope of winning a long war BECAUSE of Allied industrial might.

One more thing this game or anyother ive ever played doesnt include is Ultra.Im not sure how or if its even possible to include it.

Big Al I am in noway knocking you or impliing you dont know what your talking about because you are very in knowledgeable but im just taking facts and figures from a book you recommend.

Blashy has a mod.(I wonder if he is reading this)that sets the the game at actual industrial output and (correct me if im wrong Blashy)the Amis.alone at the start of the game have way more mpps and recieve alot more everyturn.