Minor Irritation

[Ludi1867]

Enabling surface warships to conduct raiding operations is an overall positive improvement in SC. The decision to REQUIRE surface warships to raid if they end up on or adjacent to an ‘enemy’ convoy line is certainly a simple mechanic. Most of the time this works OK but there are, however, some occasions when it is really not good at all.

The best example of where this simple mechanic can cause problems is while Norway is still neutral. Operating the Royal Navy in close proximity to Norway – for whatever reason – will inevitably result in convoy raiding being conducted. Not as inevitable, but still highly possible, is that such convoy raids may cause irritation in Norway, perhaps leading to an increase in that minor neutral’s preparation for war. Ultimately this may even cause Norway to enter the war as an Axis minor.

Now, this may be a risk worth running if you are the Allied player. However, as the game is currently set up, it is a risk that the Allied player MUST run if there is to be any active operations in the vicinity of Norway. Paradoxically, Allied naval operations intended to DEFEND Norway may well result in that country joining the opposition.

Is there a simple solution to this? Well, it is a little more complex than the status quo, but the status quo takes strategic decisions out of the hands of the player and gives them over to the arbitrary decisions of the game engine, so perhaps a little more complexity is essential. Adding a “mode” to surface warships that can be left at the default “raid convoys” or changed to “avoid convoys” would address the problem (I would think) and would not significantly complicate the game.

There are other situations where it would be useful to set a warship at “avoid convoys”. Raiders seeking to avoid discovery currently need to carefully avoid ending their movement near convoy lines. Having a mode that would result in the ability to ignore convoy lines (which are rather artificial in any case) is an easy way to make this much easier for a player.

I really do think the addition of surface raiding is a positive step. However, the single setting of ALWAYS raiding can result in some negative results, and really should be addressed as it shifts some important decisions out of the player’s hand, and forces the player to either not do something (defend Norway, for example) or do something and run the risk of causing a very negative – and perhaps unintended – result.

[CSS]

First, War and Nations are not predictable.

Did you know that the German invasion of Norway was only a couple days ahead of the British and French invasion of Norway? The Allied ships were actually sailing to Norway when Germany beat them to the draw.

Then of course there was the Altmark incident when a British warship intercepted a German ship in Norwegian Nuetral waters and captured it?

So when the game gives you these very real problems, enjoy them.

[Ludi1867]

Thank you for making a comment CSS. Some of your comment is actually accurate, and that is especially appreciated. However, after your initial platitude, your first assertion is, according to the reference I just checked (G.L. Weinberg, A World At Arms, page 116) false. The Allies were in fact in the process of preparing a mining operation in Norwegian waters that was interrupted by the German invasion. The Allies did NOT plan to invade Norway. Wild plans of invasion had been discussed during the Russo-Finnish war, but none of these speculative options were ever acted on.

Second, there were of course very aggressive actions taken by the Royal Navy in Norwegian waters, such as the Altmark incident. My argument is NOT to suggest that this be made impossible, but rather that the player should have the choice of whether to make an aggressive action. The decision to board the Altmark was actually made by the First Sea Lord of the Admiralty, the political figure in charge of the RN – so it was a conscious decision, made at a high level. Perhaps a predictable decision, given the pugnacious nature of Winston Churchill, but a conscious one, and not one imposed by a game system, is the relevant point.

Allowing the player to choose either raid or avoid would mean that the player could decide whether to be as aggressive as the RN really was (to continue the Norwegian example) or try a less aggressive stance if following a different strategy.

My point is that choosing how to address problems should be up to the player, not the vagaries of the game system.

[Hubert Cater]

I'm actually surprised that we missed the mode setting when we added the raiding option to surface warships and I'll look into adding that for the next patch as it definitely makes a lot of sense... that being said the Norway discussion caught my attention because like CSS I've also argued that the British and French were essentially prepared to invade Norway with the Germans simply beating them to the punch.

You are right though that information on Allied planning for the invasion of Norway in April of 1940 is very difficult to find any of the history books, none of the ones I have mention the details specifically and perhaps this is simply one of those convenient omissions that tend to favour the victor in any conflict, but either way one good source is from the US Army Center of Military History:

http://www.history.army.mil/books/70-7_02.htm

Here are a few Wiki entries that pretty much use the above link as their primary source of reference that summarize the same details, i.e. Operation Wilfred covering the Allied plan for mining Norwegian waters and Plan R-4 which was the Allied invasion plan to be enacted once the mining operation provoked a response from Germany:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Wilfred

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_R_4

[Ludi1867]

Hi Hubert

Glad to hear that there may be a surface raiding mode option in the futue.

The issue of Allied operations involving Norway is convoluted for the simple reason that British and French operational planning at this stage of the war was marked more by chaos than strategy. Coalition considerations – often rather bizarre in hindsight – generally had more impact than can be understood today. The usual result of the conflicting views between France and England and the not very efficient command machinery of all the Allied militaries at the time was that many different plans were made, then changed or cancelled, and the few that actually came close to execution were hardly models of military effectiveness. The various Allied plans made to support Finland during the Winter War are actually rather astonishing to review in retrospect, and – if any had ever been executed – might not only have added Norway to the list of countries at war with France and England, but the USSR as well.

In the end the lack of evidence for a solid Allied invasion plan of Norway may be seen as a case of the victor’s writing history to suit themselves, but I suspect that there really is nothing to make the Allies look good in the lead up to Norway, aside from the singular fact that they did manage NOT to invade Norway. The most ironic aspect of the whole sorry event is that the Minister most responsible for the miscues and disasters that befell Allied forces during the Norwegian campaign – and there are many more things that went wrong than went right for the Allies during that campaign – ended up being promoted, and on the same day that Germany invaded France. How many today remember that Churchill ended up being Prime Minister, arguably at the right time, but just as arguably for the wrong reasons?

[Hubert Cater]

I think part of the problem with many of the history books covering WWII, in my collection at least, is that they are essentially a concise history of events covering the entire war. To clarify, it is not to necessarily suggest a conspiracy that the Allied planning for the invasion of Norway is conveniently left out, but rather probably a simple decision of "why split hairs over the event", i.e. Germany invaded and the Allies responded.

Either way much of what you suggest is covered by Ziemke in the US Military History link I provided above such as the Allied indecision and planning delays over Norway and Sweden but the overall importance of denying Germany the precious ore supplies was always there and after researching a bit more about the Allied plans for Norway the arguments appear to come down to (for the Allies) finding a way of taking control of those supplies one way or another.

That being said, the Allied response to the German invasion was always suspicious to me in the sense of just how effective a response it was, i.e. the naval presence and response to the German invasion was in no way minor, and the idea that the Allies could land 45,000 troops between April 14 and the 19th, French, British, and Polish with equipment and supplies, 5 days after the initial German invasion of the 9th I have always argued was very close to being logistically impossible unless the Allies had had something prepared.

Looking into the US Military History link a bit more I researched some of the sources Ziemke used and one particularly good one is the 'The Campaign In Norway' by T.K. Derry. It can actually be read online and is a very complete source of the invasion of Norway from both sides including very detailed notes of the Allied planning, troops, expedition code names as well as various maps and photographs:

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-NWE-Norway/index.html#contents

[Ludi1867]

Hi Hubert

Glad to hear you are suspicious of how history is recorded! It is important to think critically about what the historical record shows, and you have started to ask some useful questions. The issue of logistical impossibility is in fact a critical dimension of the entire Allied problem in Norway.

Let me reiterate – I have never argued that the Allied approach to Scandinavia was not historically a little aggressive. However, and this is an extremely important caveat, the level of Allied aggressiveness was never anywhere close to the level of German aggressiveness. This difference was very important historically, as it coloured both Allied and German perceptions of what should be done as well as the art of the possible. The overall result was that German ruthlessness provided an advantage that Allied efforts could not overcome. In fact, the overall Allied effort to respond to the Germans can, in most cases, be characterized (using a common military description) as a huge clusterf@#$.

The reason the campaign in Norway is often showcased in contemporary military academies is NOT because the Allies were outstandingly effective in their response to the German invasion. This should provide an important clue as to why the rapid Allied transport of significant number of troops to Norway in the wake of the German invasion did not result in an important Allied victory. The question that should closely follow “Why were the Allies able to send so many troops to Norway so quickly” is “Why were these troops so often ineffective?”

Answering the second question requires an understanding of the first. Reading the source you have thoughtfully provided suggests a number of answers. First, the Allies did have a significant number of troops standing by to act in Norway. I debated on whether to use the emotionally laden word “invade” because a review of the types of troops and their logistical support rapidly demonstrates that these troops were NOT suitable for invasion in a “Sands of Iwo Jima” way. Instead, they were light troops, poorly supported with heavy weapons and with essentially no way of landing over the beach, as they were expected to disembark at Norwegian ports after that country invited them in. Yes, the ‘naïve’ Allies really were planning on being invited into Norway, as they hoped that German threats would result in the Norwegians panicking. What the Allies did NOT plan for was an actual German invasion, denying all the critical ports and – as importantly – airfields to the Allies.

A look at the sad and sorry Royal Navy response to the reports that the Kriegsmarine had sailed just before the actual German invasion is quite instructive, if depressing to those who look for an effective Allied response. The Royal Navy had very strong forces in the waters off Norway as German invasion forces headed north. However, when word came that the German navy was coming out of the Baltic, these forces moved to block a German thrust into the Atlantic – which the RN perceived as the only viable operation for the German navy. The result is quite depressing to plot – the RN ‘zigs’ out away from the Norwegian coast, allowing the German invasion forces to pass by without being intercepted. Later the Narvik force would be trapped in the fjord there and fully half of ALL the German destroyers afloat in 1940 would be lost – but by that time the invasion force had been landed, and the briefly successful Allied landing at Narvik (I think the Allies ended up holding Narvik for about 24 hours before leaving for the UK again) was hard pressed to overcome even this relatively isolated German land force.

The most critical strategic location in Norway in terms of controlling that country is Trondheim. Here the Allied counterthrust was very unsuccessful, and the struggle for that city is a good example of all that was wrong with the Allied counterthrust. The relatively large Allied forces landed over the beach north and south of Trondheim were woefully supplied and organized – a good demonstration that, although the Allied response was rapid, it could not be described as effective. The landing forces had been embarked in haste. This generally results in logistic chaos with even well prepared forces when they are landed, and the Allied forces were not prepared to land over the beach. The resulting chaos is a good teaching point in how not to do things, again an instructive point for those who believe the Allied response was ‘suspiciously quick’. Rapidity, on its own, is not necessarily a good thing.

There are many, many other points about the Norwegian campaign, but overall it remains an outstanding example of what can be accomplished by a campaign in which the entire concept of the offensive is so daring that it was outside the thinking of the Allies. Of course, looking at the Norwegian campaign through the prism of SC would naturally lead to suspicion of the rapidity of Allied naval operations – it takes two turns (or almost two months) just to ‘transport’ a corp from the UK to Narvik, and sending an amphib takes about five months! And the historical German invasion is so far outside the parameters of SC that it has to be replicated by a 'special event' - it simply cannot be recreated any other way.

[PowerGmbH]

IMHO the goal of the Norwegian Issue seen from the SC Game Engine is to give both players the same chances for one single piece of cake. Sometimes difficult to base this on history ( which is quite complex and full of "half truth's") , but for the game balance either UK or Germany should have equal chances of control to this resources.

On the other hand it should be possible for Axis Subs to flip thourgh to the Atlantic without too much problems in the early years.

So on base of history the Norway reaction is compatible with both requirements. I would

say even if the Allied ships can turn "off" the Raiding in a Pached version, they still should be invited to stay away from the Norwegian Waters, by some measure.

[Honch]

There is no way to model a Norwegian reaction to a nearby unit "raiding" a convoy line. The only thing that can be done is to have a reaction for naval units within a certain number of tiles of a Norwegian resource tile, whether they are "raiding" or not.

The engine would have to be changed to allow the mobilization script to only trigger if a nearby unit is in raiding mode.

[Nupremal]

I think I did some things that work. For one, I made the convoy from Narvik normally, so the allies can easily interdict it. However, if you take Norway (which can usually be done easily by air and airborne), the convoy goes from oslo and is easily protected.

However, if the Allies capture Narvik, a supply event damages Oslo so the convoy fails.