Is There An Editor?

[Great_Ajax]

I believe that you can edit the OBs. Jim (jaw) is the one who handles that so he would be the best one to answer. I am in the process of building the 44 Campaign and I do it all from the editor here. You can change fortification levels and it has an AI script editor.

Trey

[wodin]

ORIGINAL: Rolandnc

I am hoping the editor allows me to change the initial German armor unit composition.    I would hope we could start with MKIIIJ rather than MKII.   THis would give the units the long 50mm Hitler ordered.    Also.... I had read many years ago...  in the late sixties... yes I was in highschool back then.... that German production did not go into full war production until mid war?   Anyone can confirm or def refute this?  WHy...  this could allow us through the editor to increase production and speed up new model introduction??

You are correct...Albert Speer took over in 1942 (correct me if Im wrong)after an aircrash killed his Dr Todt his predecessor...thats really when Germany started to gear up its war production...Hitlers meddling in wanting many variations of different tanks\support guns didn't help either...as non standardized parts became a real problem. STill Tank production increased year on year after that...to little to late...lack of petrol was a killer aswell.

As someone says above I'm not sure it was Speers genius more Germany wasnt making use of its ability to produce early enough.

[Banzan]

A. Speer had some direct influence, but not as big as he claimed. For example, the massive increased use of slave labourer was part of "his work" (something he denied in Nuernberg trial and his vice got hung for).
The change from manufactioring war materials to idustrial production of war material was kicking in (but not as Speers afford as already posted before), but he managed to build "circles of managers" to optimize production and moved prodution processes from political/military leaders into the hands of the economy managers. Only SS orders were still forced to be top priority.

For example: A factroy produce warmaterial 1 and gets orderd to refit to produce material 2. Jut after refiting and starting production, an SS direct order comes in demanding warmaterial 1. The factory had immediately to refit back to 1 and after completing the SS order refit to 2 again.

[Montbrun]

If you can get your hands on "Germany and the Second World War - Volume V/I - Organization and Mobilization of the German Shere of Power - Wartime Administration, Economy and Manpower Resources 1939-1941," (ISBN: 0198228872) it gives an excellent explanation of the issues concerning the German economy and manpower shortages up until Barbarossa.

[jaw]

ORIGINAL: FM WarB

I am happy to see that an editor is included. Is altering TOEs part of the functionality? I understand why there is not a map editor, but can one add trenches, fortification, etc?

Assuming the editor that is in the alpha version is in the released version everything that's in the above menus including TOEs is editable. My question would be, except for the computer who do you plan playing this game against with an "unofficial" data base? I, for one, would never trust a data base that hasn't been thoroughly playtested and that will only be the one that comes with the game.

[FM WarB]

[/quote]

Assuming the editor that is in the alpha version is in the released version everything that's in the above menus including TOEs is editable. My question would be, except for the computer who do you plan playing this game against with an "unofficial" data base? I, for one, would never trust a data base that hasn't been thoroughly playtested and that will only be the one that comes with the game.

It may be possible that in a project so massive, a minor detail was missed here or there. I'm gladd such can be changed without having to wait for the official update.

[elmo3]

I assume there will be some kind of database check for PBEM and I doubt anyone will want to play with someone who has messed with the official data.

[PyleDriver]

Jim (jaw) well put. Who wants to play a game in never never land?...On another page, please guys read all the posts, 95% of questions have been responded to already. We spend the time, please can you?...

[aspqrz02]

ORIGINAL: wodin

ORIGINAL: Rolandnc

I am hoping the editor allows me to change the initial German armor unit composition.    I would hope we could start with MKIIIJ rather than MKII.   THis would give the units the long 50mm Hitler ordered.    Also.... I had read many years ago...  in the late sixties... yes I was in highschool back then.... that German production did not go into full war production until mid war?   Anyone can confirm or def refute this?  WHy...  this could allow us through the editor to increase production and speed up new model introduction??

You are correct...Albert Speer took over in 1942 (correct me if Im wrong)after an aircrash killed his Dr Todt his predecessor...thats really when Germany started to gear up its war production...Hitlers meddling in wanting many variations of different tanks\support guns didn't help either...as non standardized parts became a real problem. STill Tank production increased year on year after that...to little to late...lack of petrol was a killer aswell.

As someone says above I'm not sure it was Speers genius more Germany wasnt making use of its ability to produce early enough.

The "nonstandard parts" problem was not entirely, if at all, due to Hitler's meddling, it was directly related to Germany's overall industrial limitations and limits.

A lot of the vehicles that the Germans used were, in fact, captured ... both trucks and transport as well as armoured fighting vehicles ... and used "nonstandard" parts available in limited amounts from foreign factories with generally low resource allocation and unreliable (i.e. foreign) workers and management ... ISTR that there were over 100 different models of truck used by the German transport units supporting the Mechanized forces in Barbarossa ... just imagine the problem for the poor mechanics and the even more to be pitied supply quartermasters. 100 different carburettors to stock, 100 different gearboxes etc.

The situation wasn't all that much better with the German made vehicles, especially the AFVs, as Hitler was impressed only by numbers of finished vehicles in front of all else, so the factories concentrated on producing whole tanks rather than the spare parts needed to keep them operating. A lot of tanks were out of action at any given time (and this got worse as the war progressed, especially with designs like the Panther) because they had been cannibalised to keep others running, all because of this fixation with finished AFV numbers.

As for "full production" late in the war only, well, yes and no. Speer tried to make out as how he managed it when no-one else had tried but, as I mentioned elsewhere, this wasn't true ... it was because the Germans had industrial expansion plans that chewed up a chunk of their productive capacity in the process of expanding it and these programs (and the expanded capacity they produced) gradually came into service as the war progressed ... they were really long range plans that finally paid off.

As for the "yes" part, well, y'know that Hitler was a sexist pig? Banned women from higher Public Service jobs (Judges, Doctors, Lawyers, Engineers etc.) and basically banned them from University education ("Kinder, Kuche, Kirche") before the war? The same applied in factory work, the Germans were very very late to mobilise women for war work ... but they did to an extent that the Brits and US didn't in the end. By the end of the war a large chunk of AA units were manned by women (yes, I know, the UK did this as well, but in smaller numbers), factories were full of them, and, IIRC, something like 60% (overall) of all university students were women ... even in things like Medicine and Engineering they were present in huge numbers (IIRC, at least 40%)!

As for the fuel. Well, the Synthetic Oil plants plus Ploesti plus the small domestic fields in all the conquered countries *and* severe rationing kept things going ... but, despite what some sources suggest, the StrategiC Bombing Campaign *did* have a massive effect on the oil plants and refineries (synthetic and natural). They didn't (couldn't) destroy them ... they were too dispersed and the bombers not accurate enough ... but after the war the Allies found that the continual bombing and the concussion it created was enough to loosen a lot of seams and create general cumulative damage that resulted in increasing downtime and lost production hours/days because in the end even relatively far off near misses would rupture some weakened or hastily repaired part. Never shut them down, though, not entirely.

In any case, in 1944-45, the German armed forces oil reserves consisted only of what was actually in transit in rail (or road, or water) transport ... there *were* no real reserves ... and this was a huge drag on their operational and strategic planning. By January 1945 the whole economy was quickly shutting down because of lack of fuel (coal and POL) because what was being produced wasn't near enough (POL) or simply couldn't be transported to where it was needed because the rail lines were constantly being cut (the Strategic Bombing Survey noted that, IIRC, the average length of unbroken rail line travel possible in late 44/early 45 was around 20 miles. The Ruhr factories (the last major industrial complex they controlled) closed down for a couple of weeks over Christmas ... because there was no coal to run them, and damned little raw materials to let them make things ... even if they could have kept running!

Tooze's "Wages of Destruction" is worth a read, the USAAF Strategic Bombing Survey is available online (HyperWar? Probably several other places). Overy's "Why the Allies Won" and his work (forget the name) on the Strategic Bombing Campaign are also a good read, he's an excellent writer as well as a good historian ... all those will give you a better idea of the economic hole Germany and Italy were in!

Phil

[Capt Cliff]

Excellant narative Phil, excellant!  
 
Dove tails with a lot of things I have read and why German industry was so lathargetic. No so much lathargetic as having a lunney toon at the controls, mmeaning Adolph!

[aspqrz02]

While Hitler was undoubtedly crazy, the main reasons for the problems faced by the German War Economy were not because he was a loon ... they were structural. Wrong sort of industry and/or not enough of it anyway. Lack of resource availability. Equating money with resources (really bad idea, as the communists can tell you ... the Russian ones, anyway).

As for the rest, well, even on the personal level, it wasn't Hitler being a loon, per se, it was the structure of the Nazi state. Hitler may have seemed all powerful, and possibly (depending on who you read) may have been close to actually being so ... or not, but he didn't control everything personally. A lot of industrial control was hived off to various high muckymucks ... for example, Goering had control over a significant chunk of the metals sector so he could manage the Luftwaffe, which meant that it didn't matter how much money the Kriegsmarine (for example) was allocated for their programs, they couldn't buy what they needed unless Goering allowed them to ... and, not being part of Goering's private fiefdom, why should he allow them to have anything other than table scraps (or, really, why should he even allow them to have the table scraps?)

That sort of private empire building was, allegedly, encouraged by Hitler because, paradoxically, it enhanced his personal power ... if there were disputes over the allocation of raw materials or industrial resources, then the parties involved had to appeal to Adolph for a ruling. Balance of Power.

It also explains some of the really crazy decision making that went on as even within overarching fiefdoms such as Goering's there were officials who favoured (for example) different aircraft designers, which is why resources were (mis)allocated to projects that were so "out there" that it was obvious that they wouldn't be ready before the *next* war (a lot of the Horten designs, for example, but there were many other examples.

I guess that I'd have to say that what I have read over the last 15-20 years makes it reasonably obvious that the Nazis were doomed almost from the get go.

It's like that scene at the end of Band of Brothers where they're riding along one of the Autobahns in their trucks while all the German POWs are marching in the other direction, some in horse drawn waggons, and one of the US soldiers yells out something along the lines of "What were you THINKING of?" in response to this obvious disparity (remember, Panzer divisions notwithstanding, only 15% of the German army in WW2 was motorised, Infantry largely walked and their transport was largely horse drawn (in excess of 600,000, IIRC, at the beginning of Barbarossa) ... IIRC the TO&E for a German Infantry Battalion included 3 Motor vehicles (2 Trucks and a Motorcycle?) or some such ridiculously low number, and while the Battalion Commander theoretically had a Horse to ride, attrition normally meant that he walked just like everyone else ... the British and US armies, on the other hand, were 100% motorised/able ...

what were the Germans thinking of [&:][&:][&:])

Phil

[Rasputitsa]

That sort of private empire building was, allegedly, encouraged by Hitler because, paradoxically, it enhanced his personal power ... if there were disputes over the allocation of raw materials or industrial resources, then the parties involved had to appeal to Adolph for a ruling. Balance of Power.

It was because Hitler was a power crazed loon that he constructed the Nazi State as competing, inefficient organisations fighting against each other, then thew an unprepared Nation into a World War against the most powerful countries on Earth. Not withstanding all the other unforgettable horrors, how loony does it have to be. The other inponderable is why so many people happily supported it for so long. [:)]

[aspqrz02]

ORIGINAL: Rasputitsa

That sort of private empire building was, allegedly, encouraged by Hitler because, paradoxically, it enhanced his personal power ... if there were disputes over the allocation of raw materials or industrial resources, then the parties involved had to appeal to Adolph for a ruling. Balance of Power.

It was because Hitler was a power crazed loon that he constructed the Nazi State as competing, inefficient organisations fighting against each other, then thew an unprepared Nation into a World War against the most powerful countries on Earth. Not withstanding all the other unforgettable horrors, how loony does it have to be. The other inponderable is why so many people happily supported it for so long. [:)]

I think it is being too generous to imply that Hitler constructed the Nazi State ... I think that, like Topsy, it just "grew" that way.

From what I know of other Dictatorships (Stalinist Russia, for example ... think Lysenkoism as just one terrible example, or the various "Design Bureaux" for Aircraft (MiG, Yakovlev, Illyushin, Polikarpov etc.) seem to have similar problems ... it's like Churchill said, "Democracy is the worst of all political systems, except for all the others".

As for "throwing an unprepared nation into a World War" ... well, Hitler's plan (he actually did have one, y'know) was that the war was likely to break out in the mid to late 1940's ... maybe even in the 1950's ... and the mid 1940's was when a lot of the German pre-war economic and industrial plans were supposed to come to fruition.

The evidence that we have strongly suggests that his plan wouldn't have worked (it is well known, I think, to anyone knowing anything about the East Front, that the balance of forces was at its peak in Germany's favour in 1941 and that Soviet plans were rapidly going to reverse the picture even in peacetime from that point, regardless of the German industrial plans), but that's making an assessment with 20:20 hindsight that no-one had at the time.

And, of course, Hitler was pretty certain that the Allies were wusses and would back down over Poland, especially when the Nazi-Soviet Pact was revealed, and that there would be no World War as a result. Given the history of Appeasement to that point, it wasn't an insane assessment ... given that Hitler had no way of knowing that Chamberlain had grown a backbone after the Munich Agreement ... so Hitler reasonably thought that he would get Poland (half of it, anyway) and then gobble up/balkanise the rest of middle Europe and, eventually, take on the USSR with no western interference, maximising his chances by not fighting a two front war.

Sure, his assessment was wrong, but it wasn't based on complete insanity.

What was insane was going to war with Russia in 1941 ... and his planners knew it. According to (IIRC) Tooze a number of the senior ones committed suicide because they say that it was a gamble that had almost no chance of succeeding given that the only way it had a chance of doing so was if Germany hadn't been involved in a two front war, a la 1914-18 ...

YMMV of course [:)]

Phil

[Naughteous Maximus]

Is it possible to see inside the editor and can you tell us what we can and cannot edit?

[Obsolete]

With so many geniuses on this thread, how come no one can solve America's problems, but they all think they could solve other countries problems?

[Banzan]

Its far more easy to get a conclusion on a historical "problem" then to a current problem. You will have far mor facts avaible from the past then from current things.

In the end, its all opinion based.

If you read Mansteins "Verlorene Siege" (Lost Victories), he still belived of a draw being possible in 1943 (eastern front). While he was a real geniues in mobile warfare, i belive he was caught by "whishfull thinking" when he wrote the book.

[elmo3]

ORIGINAL: Naughteous Maximus

Is it possible to see inside the editor and can you tell us what we can and cannot edit?

There is a picture of the editor screen on page one of this thread.

[Naughteous Maximus]

I know about the editor screen, I was wondering what it was like inside and how do you go about creating new units or even imaginary ones?

[Helpless]

I know about the editor screen, I was wondering what it was like inside and how do you go about creating new units or even imaginary ones?

So far editor is the least documented and polished piece of the game. It is very hard to explain it in several sentences. But I hope eventually it could be friendly enough to allow average player to customize and create new scenarios. It won't be too simple though.

Unit hierarchical structure is:
Unit (ex. 8th Panzer Division) ->OB/TOE (ex. 41 Panzer Division) ->Ground Type (ex. Pz IIIh) ->Device (ex. 50mm KwK38 L/42 Gun)

All units are created based on Historical OBs (TOE). So you basically can either define your own OB (TOE) or create some units out of existing ones. Also you can edit all low level data as well, although it would be not recommended. There is quite a few gotchas you should be concerned of.

[Great_Ajax]

Here's a shot of the unit editor which is used to build your order of battle. You start on an emtpy slot and then click on the 'Type' field and this will bring up your OB Screen. This displays all of the OB templates in the game. You then select your template and you come back to this screen. You rename the unit, fill out the HQ data if its an HQ unit, select nationality, and player side. Click on the button that says 'MOTORIZED' to change between the unit being motorized or horse drawn and this will effect the supply numbers below. The SPECIAL button will toggle your unit flags such as 'SS Elite', 'SS-Non Elite', 'Guards', etc. MORALE is pretty self explanatory. Below that, you can input what experience level, unit size%, ready %, and then a variable % that will randomize those fields. Click REBUILD and it populates the unit with the equipment at the experience level you select. The HHQ button up top determines what HQ this unit is assigned to. You can click the LOC button and this will take you to the map where you can drop the unit on the map. Conversly, you can go to the map, click on a unit and then reclick where you want to reposition that unit. I use the cut, copy, and paste feature a lot.

Trey