I am posting here the latest update (v4 November 2015) of my Eastern Front 41-45 Scenario. This version supersedes the one distributed with patch 3.4.1.9. The goal of this TOAW scenario is to be playable and the same time provide an historical and detailed description at the Army and Corps level of the entire WWII Eastern front campaign, from the opening of 'Barbarossa' to the fall of Berlin. In this top post I will keep updated links to the scenario, including the scenario description and the equipment file. In this thread I will add a few short posts including a discussions of the design aspects that went into EF and a brief test AAR. I hope to get some feedback from the TOAW community [edit] for future updates All the info to play the game is included in the attached scenario description in pdf format.
205 Weekly Turns. Effective scale 32km/hex. Most units at Corps and Army scale.
Make sure that all Advanced Game Options are ‘on’, with the exception of ‘High Supply’ that must be ‘off’. EF also uses its own equipment file.
Download the scenario, including equipment file folder and scenario description.
Here is the scenario description in pdf format.
Files last modified: November 2015
These are the priorities that went into designing EF:
- Introduce the political/logistic constraints that shaped the military choices of The Axis and the Soviet Union sides (as the evacuation of the industrial regions and the Lend lease Program). This will make necessary for the Red Army and the Axis to 'fight forward' at certain times during the course of the war, and to plan their offensives based on the constraints of manpower and industrial production.
- Model a strong seasonality, with the rain season effectively stopping offensive operations in late Fall and Spring and the 1941 'Blizzard' strongly affecting the Wehrmacht.
- Follow a detailed, historical OOB that tracks the changing equipment for the Axis and the structural evolution of the Red Army from 'stumbling colossus' to a 'colossus reborn'. The scenario OOB tracks the number and composition of not only the major units, but also of
the very large amount of support units at the battalion, regiment and brigade level that in EF are attached to armies and corps. Many Red Army units will upgrade as they achieve Guards status.
- Model replacements separately for each individual nationality, type of squad and equipment. The correct replacement rates are modeled using a large number of units disbands, which allow to model peaks in production.
- Add a realistic amount of flexibility in the Order of Battle and the units that each side can produce. Production options will allow the players to shift emphasis between supply and heavy equipment as the campaign progresses and, inevitably, diverges from the historical one.
-Take advantage of the many improvements in TOAW 3.4, including the 2015 patch, 950+ events, variable ZOC costs, the possibility of setting optimal engineering and construction rates and of using a modified equipment file to model replacement for individual nationalities.
This is a scenario where the focus is on the operational choices and on the issues of logistics and production. Most importantly, I wanted a game that remains playable and realistic beyond the first year of the campaign. To achieve these goals a game at the army/corps level is a necessary choice, with individual turns taking 30-60 mins. Going for a 'non-monster' scenario also allowed me to test the game well into the late stages of the campaign. I also wanted a scenario that took advantage of the large amount of historical material that has been published in the past few years both on the web and in books.
Changes in v4 - November 2015 (this version is specific for 3.4.1.9. patch)
1) MAJOR The equipment file has been modified to allow for realistic tank losses, especially of Soviet tanks, which operated at a tactical level disadvantage compared to the German ones (due to lack of radios, worst optics, buttoned up tanks etc). This was achieved by increasing the AT value of AT squads and pioneers, reducing the armor and AP strength of late war Red Army tanks and increasing their chances to be hit. Historically the Red Army lost 10,000+ tanks per year.
2) MAJOR Grozny (60,68) is now a major objective for the Axis, marked with both ‘Oil field’ and `factory’ icons. Its capture brings supply and production (replacement rate) penalties for the Red Army. Supply and replacement penalties for the loss Maikop and Stalingrad have been reduced. These changes highlight the strategic value of the Caucasus campaign and the need to balance between various objectives. `refugee events’ will reduce supply of Axis units in that area.
3) Reduced the number of trucks for the Red Army in late 44 and 45.
4) Increased the slots for SdKfz 251/1 in Panzer divisions and Korps, to model the widespread use of such chassis in many variations, which cannot be fully represented with just 24 entries allowed in a unit TOE. As a result the defense strength of Axis
Panzer/mech units will increase in the late stages of the war, especially vs artillery.
5) Added SdKfz 251/9 to AT Kampfgruppen units. They have AT and recon capabilities.
6) Changed the TOE of some Caucasus Front Armies as they used many Lend Lease tanks.
7) Added slots for Sherman tanks in some Red Army units, such as the 1st Polish Army
and a few late war Mech Corps, which will use less T34s.
8) Increased frequency of Storm events.
Changes in v3.6 - Spring 2015 (this is the version distributed with the 3.4.1.9. patch)
This version includes a few minor changes that improve on the realism of logistics in Spring 1942 and 1943. Itshould take a little longer before before the Axis can start its Summer offensives.Supply of the Red Army in the Caucasus has been improved.
- Red Army AT Divisions cooperation set on Free Support
- Red Army Garrisons cooperation set on Force Support
- Red Army Hango Garrison (in Finland) gets no replacements to avoid unrealistic sieges.
- Small increase in entrenchment values around Leningrad to model civilians’ work.
- The Red Army gets more supply around Baku and in South Caucasus areas.
- The Caucasus railway system has less 'damaged' hexes to start with and should become operative earlier. - Axis Rail repair unit withdraws earlier in 1942, but automatic rail repair rate at 2 hex/turn extended. (to slow down the growth of the Axis supply network in 1942)
- Axis ‘42 and ‘43 Supply Spring bonus toned down a bit.
Changes in v3.4 - April 2014.
1) MAJOR: Added a Red Army 'Moscow T24' in Moscow. If the Axis destroys this unit by capturing Moscow, there is a global 30% chance for a Red Army 'sudden death'. The unit automatically withdraws on turn 24. Design note: it is doubtful if the Soviet government would have collapsed after the loss of Moscow (as Hitler and OKH believed at the time). But it is generally agreed by historians that the chances would have been higher earlier in the war. Most importantly, this event gives the Axis player a strong incentive to push on until late in the season and discourages players from digging in due to historical insight. This change should lead to more historical campaigns and a more dramatic 'blizzard'. Note: after turn 24 the Sudden Death chance for capturing Moscow remains 10% as in previous versions.
2) MAJOR: Production of Axis Mounted and Motorcycle squads slowed down significantly after Spring 43 (Turn 100). These squads get replaced with an equivalent number of AT+Heavy Infantry squads that arrive as replacements. This change reflects the historical TOEs of
many German units in the second part of the war, as the Werhmacht shifted to a defensive posture, and adds significant fire power to
about 3000 squads, at the expense of units' recon capabilites.
3) MAJOR: Added 3000 Axis construction squads in 43+. These additional squads (representing Hiwis, or foreign POW troops) will help Axis units to entrench faster in the late stages of the war. Historically more than one million Russian POW were (usually forcefully) enlisted in the Werhmacht. Similar to Red Army reinforcement units, one Hiwis unit will arrive in Vitbesk (SW Ukraine) in Summer 43 and needs to be manually disbanded by the Axis player. This requires the Whermacht to hold South Ukrainie to represent access to local manpower.
4) Map: more difficult terrain in the Leningrad area. Changes to rail lines in the Murmansk area. Increased supply rate from Baku.
5) Red Army shock penalty in Fall 41 and Spring 42 decreased to 50% from 40%. (100% means no penalty). This change makes it easier to
defend during mud turns and reflects the difficulty of mounting offensive operations during the rain season. Axis has a similar bonus
in 44/45, introduced in version 3.3.
6) Negative weather Air shocks in Fall 41, affecting both sides.
7) Axis decrease ZOC cost stays at 90% until end of game to reflect the tactical prowess of the Werhmacht at the tactical level.
8) AAA lethality increased (another) +5%
9) Red Army Air Shock set to 95% in 1943 90% in 1944, and to 85% in 45. This is done to offset the unrealistic high proficiency of Red
Army air units late in the game.
10) Red army 'Attrition Losses' unit arrives earlier, at Turn 13, with a higher priority for replacements. This will increase Red Army tank
losses in Summer/Fall 1941.
11) Added 76mm AA slots to Red Army Garrison units. Removed AA trucks slots from Red Army Garrisons. (Stahel's book 'Typhoon' mentions
that Moscow had formidable AAA defences)
12) Increased by +10% readiness/supply for 1st Shock Army, Western 10th, Bryansk 60th, 61st armies. This will make them a bit stronger
for the Winter offensive.
13) Slots for some AA trucks added to TOE of Red Army cadres and Support units (supply, RR).
14) Small changes to a few Red Army air units TOEs, to increase their chances of reconstituting.
15) Some naval units removed: Kriegsmarine unit removed. Baltic Fleet turned into static artillery unit in Leningrad (they only provided
gamey recon capabilities). Volga river flottilla removed.
16) Increase proficiency of Kiev M.D Formation/Infantry +5% This will make progress of AGS abit harder in the earlier stages of Barbarossa.
17) Totenkopf unit size changed to division (-)
18) Axis Air Transport capabilities end in January 1945.
19) Proficiency of some Axis Garrisons increased +5%
20) More Soviet Mounted Rifle Squads arrive early, but less produced overall.
Changes in v3.3 - November 2013.
- increased tank attrition losses for the Red Army in 43-44
- The Brandenburg Regiment now can reconstitute
- small increase in German Heavy Rifle and Support squads arriving in '44-'45 (Rifle squads mostly arrive as reinforcements in low proficiency units)
- 1% supply penalty if the Red Army activates the extra 'Kursk Front' option, to better simulate the additional strain on logistics
- AAA lethality increased by 5%
- changes to Red Army Summer 44 offensive TO: shock reduced to 102%, but added +5% supply bonus for 3 turns. This is to encourage the Red Army to take an operational pause and maximize the supply benefit representing the stockpiling of Fuel and ammunition depots.
- the Moscow - Leningrad 'highway' has been downgraded to road.
- Loss of Budapest will trigger a small Air Shock Penalty for the Luftwaffe
- Axis supply slightly improved in 44+, Red Army supply slightly decreased.
- Axis mud turns penalties decreased in 1944+ to simulate better road network in Romania and Bielorussia.
- Some Red Army units will withdraw off map after liberating Budapest and Bucharest, to simulate campaigns in Yugoslavia and Austria against already off map OKH units.
- the terrain West of Lvov made more difficult after new information from Google maps and a discussion on the WITE forum. This change will slow down AGS a bit during the first turn.
VPs have been rebalanced to better reflect the late stages of the war. This is a substantial change that I think will positively influence the way people play past turn 100.
- Losses VP penalty increased. This will hopefully force both sides, but especially the Red Army, to have some operational pauses in 43-44, in order to increase supply and decrease infantry losses.
- Some VPs are awarded to the Axis player during the late stages of the war. Now the Red Army needs to capture Berlin earlier than historical in order to gain an 'overwhelming victory'.
These two changes should present an interesting and realistic challenge to the Red Army player: push hard irregardless of losses in order to conquer Berlin and East Europe already in 1944, but then risk to suffer so many losses that the post war recovery will be endangered due to lack of manpower (W.Dunn Jr. books were useful here, especially "Stalin's Keys to Victory: The Rebirth of the Red Army"). Note that taking Berlin still triggers a 'Sudden Death' for the Axis, and an automatic Red Army victory.
Changes in V3.2
- The Kiev Military District Formation and some of its units have now slightly higher proficiencies, making it less likely that they will all go into reorganization on turn 1. Historically the Kiev M.D. offered the strongest resistance during Barbarossa.
- Historical records show instead that the strained logistics severely slowed the Panzer
spearheads once East of Minsk and the Dnepr. This is now modeled through an extensive use of refugee events during Summer 41 that will slow down Axis movement on roads and reduce Axis supply East of the Valdai Hills - Smolensk - Dnepr line. The area covered by refugee effects shifts further to the East in late Summer, and then disappears after the rain season.
- As pointed out in Stahel's 'Kiev 1941', in EF v3.2 a substantial number of Panzer replacements arrive in September (when Hitler released an existing tank reserve) and are not in the replacement pool from the start as before. An aggressive, fast moving Axis will find his units depleted of light tanks in late August, but will receive reinforcements in time for a Fall offensive.
- Some clarifications in the Scenario Description.
Changes in V3.0
-The AA-combat patch is included with the scenario. The use of the modified EXE file is recommended as it will ensure more realistic air losses and air attacks.
-Withdrawal of Soviet Garrison/Factory units delayed by a few more turns, to be more in line with the historical evacuation of factories. This will encourage the Red Army to attempt a forward defense in Summer 1941.
-Introduced a few ‘sink units’ (lower left of map) to model operational losses due to attrition and the removal of obsolete equipment.
-Proficiencies of 1944-45 units increased for the Red Army and decreased for the Axis.
-Proficiencies of some Axis Allies units decreased by 5%.
-The PO is now a bit more effective, due to the use of multiple PO tracks.
-The diamond symbols in Volkhov & Novorossisyk are explained in the text (page nine)
-Added 1945 pestilence effects.
-Reduced the number of tanks in Axis units arriving as reinforcements, to avoid ‘double counting’ Axis production.
-Slightly increased number German Rifle squads arriving with low proficiency, late war reinforcement, and reduced normal reinforcements accordingly. This approach reduced replacements for veteran, high proficiency units, to better represent the decline of German infantry as the war progressed.
-Reduced supply rate to 5% for supply points in German Festung cities.
-Added Rifle squads slots to Red Army Engineer Armies, to increase their ability to increase the entrenchment levels in a hex, but reduced their proficiencies to 20%, to emphasize their role as non-combat units. Again, these units should be disbanded asap!
-Reduced number of Red Army Sapper Squads arriving in Spring 43 and increased number of Rifle Squads accordingly.
-The loss of Koenigsberg or Bucharest activates a permanent (negative) shock of 98% for the Axis, to represent the decreased quality of replacements late in the war.
-Air Transport reduced for both sides.
-Sea Transport from Germany to Narvik (49,3) is now possible, but no sea invasions are now possible for Murmansk or Narvik.
-Air Shock return to normal (100%) values at turn 74, instead of 70. This gives the Luftwaffe an extra month of air superiority bonus.
-Fixed a withdrawal effect that left Helsinki without a garrison.
-Tests confirmed that limiting fortified units to ‘Limit Losses’ gives more realistic results.
-The scenario description has been updated in places to include the above changes.
- added suggested game options to this post.
-v3.01 Changed Factory units icons to Fixed Artillery so they will not retreat.
The AA patch. (July 2013)
The scenario is distributed with an additional file. The 'AA patch' was created by kmitahj (from the Matrix TOAW forum) and replaces the standard TOAW executable to fix a well known bug in TOAW v3.4 (version 3.4.0.202 to be precise) that allows only units with the Anti-Aircraft (AA) icon to fire at aircraft. Drop the "AAA2Opart 3" executable in the TOAW folder, make a shortcut to the desktop and double click on it. It will start a version of TOAW with the latest v3.4 that also includes the AA-patch. The use of this patch is recommended to simulate a realistic loss rate of aircraft. It will affect both sides equally. To make it easier to verify the identity of the patch (thus avoiding any mistakes or possible malevolent fakes reposted as the original patch) below are checksums of the patch file:
MD5: 4887107d99e08db5888c48746ae27319
SHA-1: 36a1b3de471b12dde2a78d7a5324069c404374e4
SHA-256: 2f9496d54f6139798c8f32a2b75efb1b07cd78f77f75ed6e858d324aee30b4a3
Changes in V2.0
- Reduced fortification levels in the Kiev area and near the Luga
river. - ‘Refugees events‘ have been used to simulated a longer Spring
rain season. These events simulate rain patterns moving from the NW in
the SE direction and increase the cost of movement along roads.
- Reduced fortification and supply levels for a few German cites.
- Kiev and Rostov are not Soviet supply points anymore.
-Reduced pestilence effects for the Axis during Blizzard. I have
verified that historical losses were lower during Blizzard than during
the Summer and Fall.
- Soviet partisans are now modeled with ‘Guerilla events’ only. There
are no partisan units. This makes for a more realistic partisan
warfare and avoids some gamey effects.
- Edited the TOE of a few Panzer divisions so that the first entry is
the Heavy Rifle Squads (this makes it easier for those units to
reconstitute).
- The 800mm German guns ‘Gustav’ and ‘Dora’ arrive in Spring 1942,
rather than at the start of the campaign.
- Reduced strength of Axis naval forces in the Black Sea.
- A few early (light red background) Soviet armies return as Corp
sized cadres when destroyed. This is to increase counter density and
to simulate the formation of weak Soviet units from stragglers during
the Summer of 1941.
- Most Soviet Armies scheduled to arrive in the Summer and Fall of
1941 arrive on map already split in three sub-units. When recombined
their proficiency will increase by 25%. This approach has been chosen
to increase counter density during the early stages of the campaign
and to better simulate the improvement of the Red Army. Both players
will likely feel necessary to broke down units to cover long stretches
of the front. Remember that broken down units suffer a 20%
non-permanent decrease of their proficiency (for example: from 80% to
64%). Proficiency goes up by the same amount when a unit recombine.
- Axis Rail Repair units start broken down in three subunits at the
start of the scenario. When in good supply, each broken down unit
has a 80% chance of repairing a damaged rail hex.
- The Axis Pontoon unit can now repair bridges (duh). - The PO
automatic rail repair capability has been substantially increased
for both sides.
- The scenario description has been updated in places to
include the above changes.
)
- personally I see no need for units like this - they are part and parcel of the shock values of the early turns.
