War in the East 2.0

[Manstein63]

WitE 2.0
Here are just a few thoughts as to how War in the East could be improved going forward. Now I am not a computer programmer so some of these Ideas might not be possible, however I think that if they were implemented in some form they may make the game better & perhaps more realistic.

•Manual upgrading of Tanks & SPG’s

As with aircraft you should be allowed to update your tank divisions/brigades (if you wish) with the latest equipment that is available. There can be nothing more annoying than having a Panzer Division fighting with old tanks while all the new stuff is building up in the reserve pools. Keep vehicle production historic. I am not advocating that the player should be allowed to change factories producing Panzer IV’s over to Panther production or T34 factories to IS2 or 3’s.

•Table of Equipment or ToE

Especially for the Axis player make ToE levels linked to manpower & armament levels. Why should there be changes in ToE if there is enough manpower & small arms in the pools to keep divisions at their current ToE settings. Once manpower and or armaments drop below a predetermined level that triggers the ToE change, if it drops again then there is another ToE change. You could also have events such as the invasion of Italy in 43 & France in 44 as Manpower reduction points which could trigger the ToE change. Panzer & Panzer Grenadier & Motorised Divisions would need to be treated differently. The ToE changes for them should also take into account the formation of new armoured divisions.

•Rail

It seems silly that a broken rail hex can close down the entire rail network. Allow rail movement up to the nearest town & on both sides of the broken rail. I like the idea of having rail capacity tied to the railway lines as per WitW.

•Supply

Very contentious issue whatever is said someone will disagree. Well this is what I think would be best

1.Supply Phase
There should be a separate supply phase & both sides supply needs should be calculated at the same time. This would the ‘Lvov Gambit’ much more difficult to achieve as the Soviet forces would already be in supply.

2.Supply & HQ’s
Higher HQ’s have no real bearing on the game at the moment you can pretty much ignore them. What I propose is that supply is traced from parent HQ to Parent HQ & finally to the frontline units for example OKH to AGN to 4th Panzer Armee to its attached divisions.

3.Supply Points
I would like introduce supply points to the game there would be 2 forms of supply Defensive supply & Offensive supply. Defensive supply will allow you to only make hasty attacks & will drop movement points of mechanised units by one third (or agreed figure) Infantry units movement points would be unchanged. (unless they had been motorised that turn) Offensive supply would allow full movement (subject to fatigue) & both hasty & deliberate attacks could be made. There would be a higher cost in supply points for offensive supply than for defensive supply. & only a certain amount would be availliable to each side each turn ( with the exception of the June to October 1941 turns) when it will be assumed that all German units will be in offensive supply due to the pre Barbarossa supply build up ( probably the Axis Allies as well) I would hope that the use of supply points would stop the coast to coast Russian steamroller they like the Germans after the initial Barbarossa phase would have to pick where they can attack rather than attacking up & down the line at will.

•Admin Points

I would like to get rid of AP’s but it isn’t possible unless we get a proper Soviet OB so AP’s will be used for creating new Russian units & moving SU’s of both sides

•Static Units & Fortifications

There should be no cost in AP’s for units going into or out of Static Mode once a unit leaves static mode its movement points for that turn should be half of what they normally would be. Static units would always be in defensive supply but wouldn’t be able to attack but they would be able to increase the unmodified fortification level by 2

Fortification Counters should be got rid of each terrain type should have a modified fortification level as an example
Clear 0
Light wood 1
Dense wood 2
Rough 2
Swamp 3
Towns 1
Minor Cities 2
Major Cities 4
This would mean that a static unit defending a City Hex could have a Fortification level of 6

I have other Ideas as well but I thought that I would share these with the community to see what others think
Manstein63

[Balou]

ORIGINAL: Manstein63

WitE 2.0

•Manual upgrading of Tanks & SPG’s

+1.
Some thoughts: I was thinking of some sort of technical quartermaster button beyond the refit function, that enables divisions - scheduled to be "assault" divisions in a future operation - to get priority when new tanks become available in sufficient numbers. I am not talking of changes in the production system, but "refit" alone underrates some skills of the German Army. They were not bad it organizing things.

[JeremyB]

My wish list for 2.0

1) realistic blizzard episode! please!

2) realistic German casualties in 1941. No dislodging Soviet divisions losing 10 guys!

3) I'm ok with the manual upgrade of tanks, as long as production, as you suggest, is untouched.

4) revamped air system, more particularly air resupply! No more dropping jerrycans of fuel over fast moving panzer columns! Allowed only to units and HQ who remain stationary for the turn, definitely an AP cost if using other planes than JU-52, if that's even allowed...

5) real FOW! I play, as a house rule, without aerial recon! it's nearly always possible to have the exact position of enemy units, allowing for maximm exploit of the hexes/ZOC abstraction, and minimum instinct, minimum surprises.
Even in the combat reports (no need to know that I was attacked by 129.675 men and that they lost 4.765 of them. An approximation is ok)
I'm for a ground recon option, costing one MP, to try and raise the Detection Level of adjacent enemy units (based on quantity of recon/ mobile elements)
So moving adjacent to a previously unknow enemy unit and hasty-attacking it immediately should involve risk!

[Commanderski]

For 2.0 I would like to see more localized weather events rather than a quarter of the map rendered in mud during the summer. They did have quite a few thunderstorms/rain storms during the summer months and that affected a relativley small area. I think what they have planned for War in the West would be fine.

Also in reading David Glant's Stalingrad, he statted that the Germans had 10,000 engineers in reseve to move in to repair the Baku oil refineries when they take that region. I think a good option/feature would be if that Baku was taken and held for say 4 - 6 turns then that oil would go into the German oil production. A small percentage at first but increasing with each turn it's held.

I also like the proposal to be able to manually upgrade your tanks.

[The Guru]

My wish list:

> I'm all for better FOW. jeremyB's option 5 +1

> dynamic victory conditions, incentive for daring aggressive action and capture of key locations

>Artillery reinstated as the primary cause of casualties in WW2. Now it hardly kills anything. It does destroy fortifications (levels)... trenches, bunkers,... with no one inside? Seriously, artillery was a killer. Certainly not because of accuracy. Because of volume of firepower delivered.
I'm ok with the relative ineffectiveness (in terms of kills) of aircrafts. It's effect was mainly psychological/ disruption.

> air resupply!

> I still feel uncomfortable with the very artificial in-movement hasty combat option. Feels very unnatural and counterintuitive to have units coming from way far back punching through the line at the end of their mp range, in conjuncton if need be with units at the beginning of their mp range, and then one is stuck there and another still has nearly all its mps left. Also, it allows for clearing a path of advance for exploiting units, without consideration for delays involved (a major occurence in real history): you can punch the hole with one single hasty attack, or with 17 unsuccessful deliberate attacks with several consecutive waves of attackers, and one final successful attack, and in the second case the exploiters would suffer no more delay than in the first case.
A system with current turn battle locations having sort o ZIOC and costing mps should be considered.

[Peltonx]

Non of those things is going to help anything until the combat engine is based on mordern warfare (fire power) and not 75% retreat loses.

Tweaking this and that is window dressing nothing more.

They have patched for 2 yrs and the game still is trenchwarfare followed by never ending 1000 miles drives east or west.

It sucks to say but its the basic fact of the matter. A new logistic and air systems for witw will not fix the out-dated combat engine.

It simply doesn't work never has dispite 2 yrs of patchs we have basicly the very same problem with the game.

Throw out the combat engine or over haul it.

[The Guru]

I tend to agree with Pelton, while being more circumspect in the way I would formulate it, but I have noticed that attacker losses were sometimes negligible compared to retreat losses. I would most certainly raise the minimum losses for attackers (as I mentioned, some German attacks against large formations are ridiculously low - historically the panzer formations ended the summer way understrength) and reduce retreat losses, in particular for units with decent experience.

[aspqrz02]

ORIGINAL: Commanderski
Also in reading David Glant's Stalingrad, he statted that the Germans had 10,000 engineers in reseve to move in to repair the Baku oil refineries when they take that region. I think a good option/feature would be if that Baku was taken and held for say 4 - 6 turns then that oil would go into the German oil production. A small percentage at first but increasing with each turn it's held.

Given the actual successes (I use the term loosely) the Germans had with their *one* "Technical Oil Brigade" in the Caucasus, coupled with the lack of anything resembling a way of shipping any oil from Baku *anywhere* by any realistic high capacity means (aka Rail) the chances of ...

a) Getting the wells and refineries back into any significant (for very low levels of "significant" aka a few percent of original levels, certainly less than 10%, and more likely less than 5%) levels of production in less than 4-6 *months* is, shall we say, unlikely in the extreme (aka virtually impossible ... since they have no way of transporting the required large ... massive ... tonnages of special order, not off the shelf, ironmongery *to* Baku to redrill the wells, rebuild the pipelines and reconstruct the refineries any more than they had a way of getting the resultant POL back home ... lack of working rail lines, again)>

b) Getting the POL home. The Germans had a whole war shortage of Rail Tanker cars and other means of transporting oil. This was not amenable to waving magic wands and wishing more rail tankers, barges and tankers into existence because, ultimately, the shortage was due to a whole war shortage of both industrial capacity to produce all that stuff (unless you produce fewer tanks, guns and planes) which, in turn, was because of a whole war shortage of raw materials in any case (Iron and Steel).

No working rail lines would be left. And that's a problem in and of itself.

While the Germans didn't have a huge problem converting 5'3" track to Standard Guage track (hand tools and unskilled labour would do the job), there's a whole hell of a lot more to running a railroad than *just* converting the trackage.

For a start, not enough Locomotives. What passed, laughably, for German "planning" for logistics in Russia required the capture of large amounts of Russian Locos and rolling stock. They knew they didn't have enough of their own to spare and also knew they couldn't produce enough (see comments above about lack of Rail Tanker cars, they apply across the whole rail system). Unfortunately, no-one informed the troops (they loved nothing more than shooting/blowing up trains and consists!) nor, unfortunately, did anyone inform the Russians, whose first moves included evacuating rolling stock, locos and railway personnel as a matter of course, at higher priority than pretty much anything else.

Then there's the problem of running your own locos. Russian locos were, because of the wider gauge, much bigger than German ones and carried more water and coal. As a result, coal and fuel points were about twice as far apart on the Russian rail net as was needed by German locos. And the Russians, again, rarely got the message that they had to leave them intact for German logistics to work properly ... so the Germans had to not only rebuild most of the *existing* facilities they also had to build, from scratch, an equal or greater amount! Remember the industrial and raw material capacity problems alluded to above? See the connection, I hope?

It gets worse. All steam locos require regular, specialised, maintenance (cleaning the boilers etc.) and this must be done in specialised facilities. Specialised facilities whose equipment is all special order stuff with a long lead time to produce. And for which the Germans didn't have a whole lot of spare capacity or resources to produce anyway.

Again, the Russians didn't get the message that they had to leave these facilities intact for the advancing Germans. Deplorable communications, eh? Worse, as with the coaling and watering points, larger Russian locos only needed these facilities about twice as far apart as the German locos did. So, given that many were destroyed, the Germans had to rebuild *them* and *then* they had to build, from scratch, an equal or larger number.

Now, none of the above is *impossible* ... but there's no way on god's green earth that it's gonna happen in 4-6 weeks. And, I'd hazard a guess, in 4-6 months, either.

The German Technical Oil Brigade, if I remember correctly, managed to get a peak production of 200 Barrels *per DAY* from the wells it operated in the Caucasus, for a total during the period of occupation, of around 2000 tons of oil.

The Japanese, who were at least as well (!) organised, if not better organised, than the Germans managed to get the DEI facilities back to no more than 60% of pre-war production levels by 1944 (3 years of work). Most of which had to sit in the DEI because they didn't have the shipping to move it.

I'd guess the Germans would take longer as the DEI facilities were comparatively in much better condition as Dutch efforts at demolition were ineffective. In the Caucasus the Russians were instituting, and quite effectively, too, a "scorched earth" policy with regards to their oil wells and facilities. To the extent that, when the Germans were kicked out, it took *them* quite some time to get the facilities back into production, well into the post war period, in fact.

So, no, the Germans *might* capture Baku, but it will effectively be a waste of time and effort unless they can also knock Russia completely out of the war, and, even then, it's a long term thing of months and years rather than weeks.

Phil

[Simbelmude]

definitely good idea to open a thread to define the "trends" in the desired changes for 2.0
maybe it should be done in a more trsuctured way, that is, with polls and votes

Anyway, for my part I'd like to see a revision of the combat engine in the direction of what has been pointed out in the posts above, attacker losses, retreat losses, artillery... I'd also like more impenetrable Fog of war and undetectable air recon mission
And of course, as I have mentioned in the "Territory matters "thread, aggressive victory conditions (with sudden death VC)


aesthetically, maybe the inclusion of some filmed sequences every so often

[SigUp]

ORIGINAL: The Guru

I tend to agree with Pelton, while being more circumspect in the way I would formulate it, but I have noticed that attacker losses were sometimes negligible compared to retreat losses. I would most certainly raise the minimum losses for attackers (as I mentioned, some German attacks against large formations are ridiculously low - historically the panzer formations ended the summer way understrength) and reduce retreat losses, in particular for units with decent experience.

I would go even further, it is not only the attacker losses that are too low. Rather the losses of the winning side is too low. When a defender gets a hold, most times his losses are very, very low. Especially for the Germans in 1941. Even if I only manage a hasty attack, an assault with 2 tank division and 1 motorized division on turn 1 against a Jäger division in the open field should yield more than a few casualties. With the current system attritional warfare like the Soviet attack on Yelnya in 1941 is not possible. The German casualties would be close to zero.

As for other points, recon has to be completely reworked. Aerial recon was only one part of the recon systems in WWII, and it was, as has been pointed out quite often, a flawed one. Another part of recon was intel through listening to enemy communication etc. Right now it is either you know exactly where the enemy is, or if you completely stop air recon, you get near to nothing when you leave the front area, which is also not quite realistic.

Another issue is, as was pointed out quite often by some SHC players, that the Soviet replacement rate is lower than historical. Historically the Soviets were able to create units out of nothing, although the combat value of these units was very low. As with the combat system, WITE right now doesn't do a good job of simulating the Soviet mass tactics, for the costs of creating a new division is too high. Therefore the game really suffers in the attempt to simulate the 1943-44 campaign in the east, where the Soviets slowly pushed the Germans westward, albeit at gigantic costs. With the current system, if the Soviet manages to get going his losses will be far lower than in the defensive phase, which is not a good representation of the reality of the Eastern front.

As for the side-discussion concerning the oil field, I don't think it is fair to compare Japanese handling of the South-East Asian oil fields and the Germans in the Caucasus. The extent of the Soviet destruction was very thorough. If the Japanese would have faced the same amout of destruction I doubt they could get much more out of these fields.

[aspqrz02]

ORIGINAL: SigUp
As for the side-discussion concerning the oil field, I don't think it is fair to compare Japanese handling of the South-East Asian oil fields and the Germans in the Caucasus. The extent of the Soviet destruction was very thorough. If the Japanese would have faced the same amout of destruction I doubt they could get much more out of these fields.

Indeed. Just as I specifically noted!

The point was, however, that the Japanese, who committed at least the same scale of manpower, if not more, to the DEI fields as the Germans allegedly (but probably didn't) have (the Technical Oil Brigade was, IIRC, never more than 2-3000 men, all up, and the alleged 10,000 was, as far as I can tell, a fantasy figure) yet they took 3 years to get the DEI fields back to only 60% production vs. much much much less damage than the Russians inflicted ... hence their massive 200 bbl per *day* maximum achievement!

Some might suggest that the loss of Baku and the south Caucasus fields might trigger a Russian collapse ... and that is certainly possible ... however, by the time the Germans were likely to get those fields (or their smoking twisted wrecks [:D]) the Soviets were tied into the Lend Lease teat and the loss of the oil would not have been a war loser.

Would it have been a morale loss?

Sure. A fairly big one. But would it be enough for the Soviets to ... what,, exactly?

The Germans have made it well and truly plain by this point that a German victory is a less than optimal outcome for the average Soviet citizen (not to mention the apparatchiki!) ... even compared to living under Stalin's less than predictable rule. He, at least, toned down his paranoia during the war, only returning to it full blast well after the war was over.

So I can't see a Soviet collapse. Not really. Maybe a coup against Stalin? That is, perhaps, a *bit* more likely, especially if the loss of the Caucasus and Baku is a result of (or made worse by) Stalin's meddling and/or obviously stupid decisions.

I suppose that a successor government *might* try to make peace with the Germans ... but the terms on offer, whatever they would be, wouldn't be attractive ... so I suspect even that isn't likely. What might happen, though, is that a more competent leadership could emerge ... and *that* would *not* be good for the Germans!

Still, the most likely result of the Germans taking Baku is probably political rather than logistical.

YMMVV

Phil

[The Guru]

aggressive victory conditions (with sudden death VC)

Sudden Death conditions would be good... a chance to actually finish a game rather than giving it up half way.
Lose leningrad and Moscow as the Soviet? Sudden Death!
Axis controls less than X points worth of cities (failed to capture, lost to counterattack) in, say, spring 42? Sudden Death!
Axis lost Kiev and Minsk in summer 43? Sudden Death!

That would keep both sides bold, daring, and would give amition to their war plans...

[Simbelmude]

I would go even further, it is not only the attacker losses that are too low. Rather the losses of the winning side is too low. When a defender gets a hold, most times his losses are very, very low. Especially for the Germans in 1941.

Yep

I must say I've been quite puzzled to see German units repulse assault by a number of ... divisions (!!!) for a loss of like ten men.

[SigUp]

Well, I have no issue with the German unit holding, as it was most time the case, but the low losses are an issue.

[Simbelmude]

From what I gather from this thread and others, and from the home rules most commonly used, here are the major trends concerning desired changes for 2.0:

> Dynamic victory conditions (with Sudden Death conditions)

> No more negligibe combat losses for attacking/winning side - most paticularly for Germans in 1941 ( emphasis on combat losses, less retreat losses)

> Better FOW, air recon overhaul

> Realistic 1941/42 blizzard episode (no more dozens of German divisions encircled and surrendered)

> realistic air resupply (regarding what planes deliver, what units they deliver, and potential admin cost)


What do the other players think of it?

[buchand]

Victory conditions definitely. Just been stuck feeling bad suggesting that a surrender was in order - it was - but didn't want to be classed as a 'quitter'.

[SigUp]

ORIGINAL: Simbelmude
> No more negligibe combat losses for attacking/winning side - most paticularly for Germans in 1941 ( emphasis on combat losses, less retreat losses)

I would say this problem is equally there for the Soviet rampage come 43-44. Just open up the 1943 scenario and play it. When the Soviets drive back a German unit, it is not uncommon to see a German unit lose 10-20% of its strength, while the Soviets suffer the same number of casulties while commiting 10 times the men. In reality, however, a loss ratio of 6-1 or even 8-1 was more the norm than the exception on the Eastern Front of 43-44. The Soviet losses were horrible compared with the Germans, even as they drove them all the way back to the initial border. For example in the Zhitomir - Berdicev operation where the 1st Ukranian Front cut open the lines of the 4th Panzer Army, the Soviets still lost at least 100.000 men (23.000 dead or missing) in three weeks.

[KenchiSulla]

Probe attack functionality (orderable) that will not result in a "loss"

[swkuh]

Lot'sa good ideas here, but my 2 cents is to do a thorough do-over w/o making point-by-point "patches" to V 1.nn. Basically agree with Pelton & T.Guru. Who knows what this would lead to.

Point-by-point issues would be fixed in the work out of new ideas and a total overhaul.

Risk in getting to the wish-list is that details could kill the overhaul.

I would like a choice to play the game a lot more simply than is currently available.

And it takes way too long to save status before/after combat. And combat is too time consuming. Suspect that there is a real need here to get the software tuned up.

Couldn't there be a simpler editor?

BTW, thanks Manstein63 for this thread

[The Guru]

No more negligibe combat losses for attacking/winning side - most paticularly for Germans in 1941 ( emphasis on combat losses, less retreat losses)

just to illustrate the point, I just started a new campaign and I stormed the mighty fortress of brest-litovsk with 4 divs for a total loss of ... 160 men.