The Stalingrad Withdrawal Decision

Gary Grigsby’s War in the East: The German-Soviet War 1941-1945 is a turn-based World War II strategy game stretching across the entire Eastern Front. Gamers can engage in an epic campaign, including division-sized battles with realistic and historical terrain, weather, orders of battle, logistics and combat results.

The critically and fan-acclaimed Eastern Front mega-game Gary Grigsby’s War in the East just got bigger and better with Gary Grigsby’s War in the East: Don to the Danube! This expansion to the award-winning War in the East comes with a wide array of later war scenarios ranging from short but intense 6 turn bouts like the Battle for Kharkov (1942) to immense 37-turn engagements taking place across multiple nations like Drama on the Danube (Summer 1944 – Spring 1945).

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Great_Ajax
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RE: The Stalingrad Withdrawal Decision

Post by Great_Ajax »

Joel will need to answer this one. I'm just not sure.

Trey
ORIGINAL: janh

Trey, Joel, just to clarify what I think to recall from your earlier explanations:

The resources used to reconstitute these historically destroyed formations are figured into the resource pools that the German player gets, right?
(a) Meaning that if 6th is not destroyed, in essence what is happening is that he experienced formations leave, but at least the replacements can make up for the numerical loss by boosting the remainder of the Eastern Wehrmacht? So in principle you "just" loose some shells?
(b) If 6th Army were to be destroyed in your particular game, then you are going to see things happen just they way they did back then, i.e. units being rebuild from the pools before leaving. So net, no difference here?

Sounds like an alternative solution to case (a) would be if the engine would create some "extra" shells that the player could then fill or disband (in case the remainder of his units were in acceptable shape), or even better, the player could decide to built extra units.

Trey, I agree with more randomization and uncertainty, as well as the idea to have players determine which sufficiently powerful formations could be easily spared in the actual game. Ultimately I think the combat boxes in old days were a neat little idea. I am already very curious about the new boxes system in WitW!
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RE: The Stalingrad Withdrawal Decision

Post by jaw »

No, Administrative Points are designed to simulate the difficulty of doing certain things like transferring units between corps/armies or organizing men and equipment into new formations (Soviet). If you delay a withdrawal then the military situation on the front that unit was supposed to go to (and almost all withdrawals are going to other fronts) will be adversely effected for every turn the unit is delayed. That adverse effect should cost you victory points not AP points.
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RE: The Stalingrad Withdrawal Decision

Post by Aurelian »

ORIGINAL: jaw

No, Administrative Points are designed to simulate the difficulty of doing certain things like transferring units between corps/armies or organizing men and equipment into new formations (Soviet). If you delay a withdrawal then the military situation on the front that unit was supposed to go to (and almost all withdrawals are going to other fronts) will be adversely effected for every turn the unit is delayed. That adverse effect should cost you victory points not AP points.

And every turn you keep it.
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RE: The Stalingrad Withdrawal Decision

Post by Panzer Meyer »

I think the issue many are having here is that the 6th Armee wasn't withdrawn to serve on the Western front. It was destroyed at Stalingrad and then reconstituted in the West. When several crises arose in North Africa and Italy Germany had no choice but to use those divisions to fill in the gaps. It simply made sense given their proximity to the Mediterranean theater. The problem many people have with the seemingly arbitrary withdrawal schedule is that the game makes no allowance for players who chose a different path from history. If the Axis does not suffer a "Stalingrad" like disaster in the winter of 42/43, then it makes no sense to remove the 6th army. Of course since we do not have command of all theaters, it is reasonable to siphon off strength from the eastern front to deal with developments in the west. In my opinion it would be better to have a withdrawal schedule that forces the axis player to remove X number of infantry, motorized, and panzer formations at the end of their turn.
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RE: The Stalingrad Withdrawal Decision

Post by Bronze »

Or both? As you say, "Administrative Points are designed to simulate the difficulty of doing certain things like transferring units between corps/armies," so why not take the axis corps/armies one step further and include axis fronts? I kind of view Victory Points as rewards for deystroying the enemy and capturing various locations but agree incentive is needed.

That aside, I do feel the front holding boxes from The Second Front and requiring AP points would be a better solution. And again, my lazy self would like a holding box for country side partisan duty with diminishing supply delivery for fewer units in this box.
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RE: The Stalingrad Withdrawal Decision

Post by Jeffrey H. »

ORIGINAL: Panzer Meyer

I think the issue many are having here is that the 6th Armee wasn't withdrawn to serve on the Western front. It was destroyed at Stalingrad and then reconstituted in the West. When several crises arose in North Africa and Italy Germany had no choice but to use those divisions to fill in the gaps. It simply made sense given their proximity to the Mediterranean theater. The problem many people have with the seemingly arbitrary withdrawal schedule is that the game makes no allowance for players who chose a different path from history. If the Axis does not suffer a "Stalingrad" like disaster in the winter of 42/43, then it makes no sense to remove the 6th army. Of course since we do not have command of all theaters, it is reasonable to siphon off strength from the eastern front to deal with developments in the west. In my opinion it would be better to have a withdrawal schedule that forces the axis player to remove X number of infantry, motorized, and panzer formations at the end of their turn.

Another old board game era solution to the same problem. The player must withdraw a certain number of units with a certain strength at a certain time. Not specific units, just a number of the type.
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RE: The Stalingrad Withdrawal Decision

Post by Schmart »

ORIGINAL: Jeffrey H.
Another old board game era solution to the same problem. The player must withdraw a certain number of units with a certain strength at a certain time. Not specific units, just a number of the type.

Man...in many ways the old board games were much easier to deal with: "Create new holding box on scrap piece of paper. Remove from board counters totaling 50 CV before March 1943." Done! No prgramming, no bugs, etc.
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RE: The Stalingrad Withdrawal Decision

Post by jaw »

ORIGINAL: Panzer Meyer

I think the issue many are having here is that the 6th Armee wasn't withdrawn to serve on the Western front. It was destroyed at Stalingrad and then reconstituted in the West. When several crises arose in North Africa and Italy Germany had no choice but to use those divisions to fill in the gaps. It simply made sense given their proximity to the Mediterranean theater. The problem many people have with the seemingly arbitrary withdrawal schedule is that the game makes no allowance for players who chose a different path from history. If the Axis does not suffer a "Stalingrad" like disaster in the winter of 42/43, then it makes no sense to remove the 6th army. Of course since we do not have command of all theaters, it is reasonable to siphon off strength from the eastern front to deal with developments in the west. In my opinion it would be better to have a withdrawal schedule that forces the axis player to remove X number of infantry, motorized, and panzer formations at the end of their turn.

As I thought Trey had explained above and I have said before myself, the withdrawals have NOTHING TO DO WITH STALINGRAD. Had we withdrawn any other divisions to the West nobody would have given them a second thought. Simply because the Germans chose to re-deploy those particular divisions to the West instead of sending them back to the East they become game withdrawals. Dozens of other divisions were destroyed on the Eastern front and re-built but because they were sent back to the Eastern front they are not withdrawals and you never "see" the destruction, re-build, return cycle.

PLEASE, PLEASE get it out of your heads that we are simulating Stalingrad. Besides a few re-organizations, the ONLY reason units are withdrawn in the game is that they were ultimately re-deployed to another front regardless of whether that re-deployment was directly from the East or from some off map location the unit was re-building at. If the Axis player suffers no Stalingrad-like defeat then it actually "costs" him less to send those divisions west since destroyed units would have to be re-built to 75% strength before they could withdraw. The Axis player is NOT being "punished" for Stalingrad; he is paying the price for that fool in Berlin starting a two front war.
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RE: The Stalingrad Withdrawal Decision

Post by Panzer Meyer »

ORIGINAL: Schmart

ORIGINAL: Jeffrey H.
Another old board game era solution to the same problem. The player must withdraw a certain number of units with a certain strength at a certain time. Not specific units, just a number of the type.

Man...in many ways the old board games were much easier to deal with: "Create new holding box on scrap piece of paper. Remove from board counters totaling 50 CV before March 1943." Done! No prgramming, no bugs, etc.
That's how I remember Rise and Fall of the Third Reich handling it if you played the Barbarossa scenario.
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RE: The Stalingrad Withdrawal Decision

Post by Aurelian »

ORIGINAL: Panzer Meyer

ORIGINAL: Schmart

ORIGINAL: Jeffrey H.
Another old board game era solution to the same problem. The player must withdraw a certain number of units with a certain strength at a certain time. Not specific units, just a number of the type.

Man...in many ways the old board games were much easier to deal with: "Create new holding box on scrap piece of paper. Remove from board counters totaling 50 CV before March 1943." Done! No prgramming, no bugs, etc.
That's how I remember Rise and Fall of the Third Reich handling it if you played the Barbarossa scenario.

But, being that the designer likes to make his games as historically accurate as possible, the divisions that go are the ones that did go.
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RE: The Stalingrad Withdrawal Decision

Post by Great_Ajax »

I liked the holding boxes and was a bit puzzled at first why they weren't being used in WitE. I later learned that the holding boxes in WIR were being gamed by exploiting many loopholes to get around the commitments to other fronts.

Trey

ORIGINAL: Von Hindenburg

Or both? As you say, "Administrative Points are designed to simulate the difficulty of doing certain things like transferring units between corps/armies," so why not take the axis corps/armies one step further and include axis fronts? I kind of view Victory Points as rewards for deystroying the enemy and capturing various locations but agree incentive is needed.

That aside, I do feel the front holding boxes from The Second Front and requiring AP points would be a better solution. And again, my lazy self would like a holding box for country side partisan duty with diminishing supply delivery for fewer units in this box.
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RE: The Stalingrad Withdrawal Decision

Post by janh »

ORIGINAL: el hefe

Joel will need to answer this one. I'm just not sure.

Trey
ORIGINAL: janh
Trey, Joel, just to clarify what I think to recall from your earlier explanations:

The resources used to reconstitute these historically destroyed formations are figured into the resource pools that the German player gets, right?
(a) Meaning that if 6th is not destroyed, in essence what is happening is that he experienced formations leave, but at least the replacements can make up for the numerical loss by boosting the remainder of the Eastern Wehrmacht? So in principle you "just" loose some shells?
(b) If 6th Army were to be destroyed in your particular game, then you are going to see things happen just they way they did back then, i.e. units being rebuild from the pools before leaving. So net, no difference here?

I could be wrong, but I was sure Joel had said so earlier. Could have been Helpless, but I can find the thread anymore.

Anyway, the way I understood it is that the Axis player will not be deprived of assets except the shells, since in the case of a pure withdrawal to boost the other fronts with 6th Army units, the player at least gets the manpower and equipment that historically went into the reconstituted units figured into the pools. All that is missing would be the counters that would be existent as "newly"-constituting units if the originals were just send off. And since most of the time I am scraping the bottom of the barrel for manpower for my infantry divisions, this isn't that bad because I would likely anyways wish to disband these inexperienced replacement formations. For WitEurope I would hope the Axis finally gets this kind of flexibility from the get-go.
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RE: The Stalingrad Withdrawal Decision

Post by RCHarmon »

ORIGINAL: janh

For WitEurope I would hope the Axis finally gets this kind of flexibility from the get-go.

I wouldn't hold your breath. The whole theme of the game to the Axis player is, "Germany lost the war get over it." I imagine this theme will run throughout the entire series.

Design decisions made because of historical dates and nothing to do with in game situations.

Hard line no "what ifs" for the Axis side.
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RE: The Stalingrad Withdrawal Decision

Post by Toby42 »

So, if you want a "Fantasy" game why aren't you into SciFi games?

Just asking?
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RE: The Stalingrad Withdrawal Decision

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Is a Soviet player saying that the 1941 German army isn't supermen and that with the coming of the 1941 blizzard the Soviets don't revert themselves to supermen? Is the 1941 campaign anything but fantasy without any tangible connection to history or a plausible reality?

Define fantasy.
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RE: The Stalingrad Withdrawal Decision

Post by Great_Ajax »

It goes both ways. The German player also receives 11 Infantry Divisions and 6 Panzer Divisions shells starting in December 1944 regardless of "game situations." Historically, these divisions were training cadres and only made operational when the Soviets started approaching their borders but the Germans get the units even if they are defending the outskirts of Kiev as freebies.

Trey
ORIGINAL: RCH
ORIGINAL: janh

For WitEurope I would hope the Axis finally gets this kind of flexibility from the get-go.

I wouldn't hold your breath. The whole theme of the game to the Axis player is, "Germany lost the war get over it." I imagine this theme will run throughout the entire series.

Design decisions made because of historical dates and nothing to do with in game situations.

Hard line no "what ifs" for the Axis side.
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RE: The Stalingrad Withdrawal Decision

Post by Aurelian »

Sounds like an Axis what if to me.

Better than a "what if".

So much for the "screw the Axis" refrain.
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RE: The Stalingrad Withdrawal Decision

Post by Great_Ajax »

I also need to mention that there are scores of German air and ground units that were historically disbanded. None of these units withdraw from the game.

Trey
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RE: The Stalingrad Withdrawal Decision

Post by Aurelian »

This kind of information needs a sticky in huge letters [:)]
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RE: The Stalingrad Withdrawal Decision

Post by RCHarmon »

With all due respect, withdraw of units and arriving units is secondary. What is the most important is manpower and how that manpower is organized in respect to TOE, C&C, and most importantly for this game moral.

Again, it is available manpower and the ability to organize this manpower into effective combat formations.

C&C is very important.

Moral is very important.

Toe is very important.

Arrival and withdraw schedules are merely variables. It is more important to get the function right.
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