Why is it non-historical that the Soviets could have run?

[mmarquo]

I see plenty of deleted, morale-depleted shells...

[Schmart]

ORIGINAL: Marquo

I see plenty of deleted, morale-depleted shells...

Many (most?) scheduled reinforcement divisions and brigades arrive as such, but not the auto rebuilt divisions.

[Gabriel B.]

ORIGINAL: Aurelian

The whole situation makes it increasingly plain that we have underestimated the Russian colossus...At the outset of war, we reckoned with about 200 enemy divisions. Now we have already counted 360. But there they are, and if we smash a dozen of them, the Russians simply put up another dozen.”
From the diary of General Franz Halder, August 11, 1941

I don't think the game conveys that well.

They were realy only about 200 infantry / mountain infantry divisions at the start , the german asumed the soviet tank forces were still organised as moto mechanised brigades not divisions.
It is no demeaning term, because a light tank brigade had around 255 tanks before the war.
some mechanised corps of the western front did not even have a brigade worth of light tanks.


as for the new divisios , if memory serves : 120 new rifle divisions in 3 months plus the rebuilt ones.

[Gabriel B.]

ORIGINAL: Walloc
If ppl stay in the "I need to capture troops mindset" in these cases they giving them selfs an disadvanatge.

I am rather new here myself, but I have read several ARR where axis players manage to lose the high operational tempo just to bag a few more divisions.

[Aurelian]

ORIGINAL: Gabriel B.

ORIGINAL: Aurelian

The whole situation makes it increasingly plain that we have underestimated the Russian colossus...At the outset of war, we reckoned with about 200 enemy divisions. Now we have already counted 360. But there they are, and if we smash a dozen of them, the Russians simply put up another dozen.”
From the diary of General Franz Halder, August 11, 1941

I don't think the game conveys that well.

They were realy only about 200 infantry / mountain infantry divisions at the start , the german asumed the soviet tank forces were still organised as moto mechanised brigades not divisions.
It is no demeaning term, because a light tank brigade had around 255 tanks before the war.
some mechanised corps of the western front did not even have a brigade worth of light tanks.


as for the new divisios , if memory serves : 120 new rifle divisions in 3 months plus the rebuilt ones.

But that entry was made less than two months after the start

[Gabriel B.]

Acording to soviet designations they had 303 divisions at the start (90+ being tank/ moto )__Halder math is besides the point however this is what red army had in august :


North front : 27 rifle + 7 people militia divisions, 2 tank ,1 moto .

Nord west : 13 rifle +1 people militia divisions, 1 cavalry , 6 tank, 3 moto

West : 36 rifle + 2 cavalry , 11 tank +2 moto

Reserve : 23 rifle + 12 people militia divisions, 2 cavalry , 4 tank+2 moto

Central: 19 rifle +5 cavalry ,3 Tank, 1 moto .

South West: 30 rifle, 3 cavalry, 12 tank, 2 moto.

South: 39 rifle, 7 cavalry, 8 tank , 5 moto .


This is more or less what the germans had in front of them (it adds up to 290 divisions ) , than there were 81 rifle, 24 cav, 5 tank, 2 moto in the military districts and inactive fronts (total 402 ).

Basicly they rebuilt all divisions lost and added another 99 , losses in armor which the germans underextimated took far longer.

As for the game, the AI is alowed to build units for no AP if it drops below 300 .

[Aurelian]

But, by the end of 1941, they raised the equivalent of 825 divisions. They had a mobilization pool of 10,000,000.

http://sti.clemson.edu/index.php?option ... Itemid=310

Thus Halder's comment. Sure, the next dozen were not as well trained or equipped. or the next dozen after that. But they showed up, they fought. They bled. But they bled the Germans too. And despite how Pelton claims the Germans were winning the attrition war, they could not.

As Flav pointed out above:

... the Soviet replacement system doesn't really support a strong forward defense in 1941, as it considerably understates the Soviet ability to take a hit in the chin.

And it doesn't. They lost more territory than the US has east of the Mississippi. They lost more troops in 41 than the West did from 1939-45. They saw the fruits of their more than 20 years labor, forced or otherwise, either taken by the enemy or destroyed at their hand. And they didn't roll over. They mobilized millions from beyond the Urals. They kept coming. Oh nuts, I'm rambling

[SigUp]

The numbers in the paper you posted present another problem. Not only does German OOB numbers rise to an epic ahistorical proportion, the Red Army likewise does. Furthermore, the Soviet player will never have to deal with forces depleted from their (successful) assaults against German positions. Even if the replacement system delivers the correct number of men to the Red Army, its losses won't reach the 6-7 million in 1943-44 due to the combat system favouring the winning side. Just like the Germans suffer too few casualties in 1941, the Soviets suffer too few from 1942 onwards, on an even bigger scale.

[fbs]

ORIGINAL: SigUp

... its losses won't reach the 6-7 million in 1943-44 due to the combat system favouring the winning side. Just like the Germans suffer too few casualties in 1941, the Soviets suffer too few from 1942 onwards, on an even bigger scale.

That's a very important point.

I've gone in message detail 4, shot by shot, over several battles, and it's incredible that several divisions attacking 3 divisions will get like 200 casualties in one side and 100 casualties on the other side after shooting some 2000 times, and then when the shooting finishes and the resulting CVs are compared, the losing side runs and then they get 20,000 casualties.

I think that separating shooting vs. running casualties is pretty cool, but the shooting casualties seem way too low for both sides.

[SigUp]

ORIGINAL: fbs

ORIGINAL: SigUp

... its losses won't reach the 6-7 million in 1943-44 due to the combat system favouring the winning side. Just like the Germans suffer too few casualties in 1941, the Soviets suffer too few from 1942 onwards, on an even bigger scale.

That's a very important point.

I've gone in message detail 4, shot by shot, over several battles, and it's incredible that several divisions attacking 3 divisions will get like 200 casualties in one side and 100 casualties on the other side after shooting some 2000 times, and then when the shooting finishes and the resulting CVs are compared, the losing side runs and then they get 20,000 casualties.

I think that separating shooting vs. running casualties is pretty cool, but the shooting casualties seem way too low for both sides.

The overemphasis on retreat losses is what leads to such incredible results happening like 0-100 losses for the Germans, while the Soviet loses 2000. Similarly the standard result of a successful Red Army attack on a German division seems to be the Germans losing 1000+ out of 10.000, while the Soviets lose 1000 out of 100.000.

[Gabriel B.]

ORIGINAL: Aurelian

Oh nuts, I'm rambling

You are [:D]

The wording in that survey is a bit misleading , "raised" should not apply to divisions that existed prewar .

303 prewar
266 brigades equivalent to 133 divisions
385 rebuild or newly formed

[The Guru]

(first I apologize for my poor English I'm not a native speaker)

If I may contribute my 2 cents to the critical debate of what alternate historical decisions should or shouldn't be allowed, I think the key is a certain measure of plausibility

The "I'm in command I can do what I want" argument has its limits. If you want to be a Hitler that looks favourably upon surrendering huge portions of newly conquered territory because he's aware that he is facing a very long and difficult war and wants to perserve its manpower in order to bar the way to Berlin, if you want a denazified Luftwaffe completely subordinated to the logistical imperatives of the Heer and highly trained in en-route air resupply of mobile formations, if you want a non-feudal, streamlined and rational German production system in order to ultra-maximize production of the most efficient items ... well, then it's not Hitler, it's not the Luftwaffe, it's not Nazi Germany, and so there wouldn't even have been a WWII and the game would make no sense.

The same goes, in my opinion, with the Soviet runaway strategy. The Red Army was permeated, from the top brass to the lowest echelons of command, with a sectarian belief in the virtues of offensive. The structure of the army was offensive-oriented, the training was offensive-oriented. Retreat was not considered part of the arsenal of military maneuvers, it was an admission of failure and cowardice. Retreat exposed the responsible officers to being shot. Doctrinal rigidity prevailed everywhere. It took the Soviets a full year of bloodbaths to start considering retreat as a valid option. And even then, the first full-scale retreat towards the Caucasus in 1942 wasn't even planned, it started as a rout; Stalin just declined to give the "no retreat" order and allowed the retreat to continue.
Offensive was in-built in the hardware of the 1941 Red ARMY. This is why I don't consider the runaway tactic as plausible and it shouldn't therefore be allowed, at least that easily, in an historical game.
The same is true for the Wehrmacht fleeing back to Poland for Xmas 1941, btw.

This being a military game, alternate courses should be explored through alternate military decisions - basically where and when to employ the forces available. Retreats such as the ones discussed are political, and, even worse, ideological, issues.
Now, I'm not saying a little flexibility, for fun's sake, kills the historical game, but I seriously believe that the political and ideological fundamentals of the belligerents should be respected.
Alternate political situations deriving from alternate military situations should be possible, of course: Finland, or the other minors, could sue for peace earlier or later than historically, if the military situation if accordingly worse or better. National Morale can also be higher or worse than historical based on the military situation. Etc...

[Flaviusx]

The Guru, you are overstating the Soviet unwillingness to retreat; so far as Kiev was concerned, calls to do just that came from Zhukov, Budenny, Kirponos, the SW Front Chief of staff, among others. This in summer of 1941, mind you. These calls came as early as July and kept right on coming until the disaster in September which everybody could see a mile away.

The sticking point was Stalin. I agree this needs to be accounted for, but it's not a question of doctrine. It's a matter of politics.

[The Guru]

Well, obviously, some soviet leaders right in the eye of the cyclone have indeed called for retreat, if anything at least for self-preservation ( if I'm not mistaken Kirponos died in the encirclement), even though I still believe that in terms of doctrine the Red Army was not well-prepared for organized retreat, to say the least

Yet, I don't disagree with you, the key is Stalin, and it doesn't disprove my point. It was unthinkable to initiate such a redeployment without Stalin's approval. In the same way, most German officers during the 1941 winter where in favour of retreat. Hitler was not. He had it his way.

The Barbarossa campaign as an historical event is inseparable from the Hitler/Stalin dynamic. Imagining these characters with such insightful, flexible and reasonable frames of mind is straying too far from reality, and removes the historical background for Barbarossa even happening

[Michael T]

The Barbarossa campaign as an historical event is inseparable from the Hitler/Stalin dynamic. Imagining these characters with such insightful, flexible and reasonable frames of mind is straying too far from reality, and removes the historical background for Barbarossa even happening

Agree entirely.

[mmarquo]

So why play if alea jacta est?

[Michael T]

When I play WITE I take on the role of the East Front commander, not Hitler. Others obviously see themselves as Hitler's or Stalin's replacement. Its a fundamental difference. I think, the SD rules in an abstract kind of way enforce a 'no retreat' political reality on to the players. I absolutely refuse from now on to play WITE without severe penalties for wholesale retreats. Its just my preference and how I like to play. I just won't be playing people who want to run anymore.

Some withdrawals are perfectly acceptable. I am talking about retreats back to Poland in the blizzard or Reds running to Moscow and Rostov by T12, that kind of thing.

[The Guru]

So why play if alea jacta est?

It's not, far from that.
I just think we have to accept a certain number of given constraints if we want to remain in the realm of a military simulation.
We start at the historical date, with the historical number of troops and we should start with the historical political/ideological context and the historical characters that generated this particular historical situation.

If, as Hitler, there is no limit to your decision spectrum, then why not, indeed, streamline production immediately, levy the Volksturm in 1941, issue adequate winter supplies to the Army, recall the Einsatzgruppen and implement friendly politics in the conquered territories to increase Hiwi flow and reduce partisan activity, etc.

What the game should be about (again, if we want to keep it a simulation), I agree with MT, is conducting military operations from the OKH point of view.
And I would go even further, I think therecould even be some mecanism simulating Stalin's early appetite for counterattacks. It is not uncommon to see a 1941 with the Red Army conducting not a single significant counterattack throughout the whole year. To me, it just makes no sense.

[swkuh]

Agree w/Guru. Papa Joe and der Fuhrer set the policy and often the strategy and even tactic of the conflict throughout the war. These issues had consequences and should be the basis for WitE modeling. Now, one could create variables that would allow modifications to the policies, etc. but that wouldn't be this game! After some experience playing vs. AI I've accepted the hard coded production plans and other controls that give the game a chance of working.

Now, there could be a market for a game that looked at these issues, but maybe the details would be curtailed.

[mmarquo]

"What the game should be about (again, if we want to keep it a simulation), I agree with MT, is conducting military operations from the OKH point of view. And I would go even further, I think there could even be some mecanism simulating Stalin's early appetite for counterattacks. It is not uncommon to see a 1941 with the Red Army conducting not a single significant counterattack throughout the whole year. To me, it just makes no sense."

So as the OKH commander you can do what ever you want without a buffoon's meddling, but as STAVKA the player is subject to the vagaries of Uncle Joe??? Either it swings both ways or not at all.