morleron1
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quote:
ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson
quote:
ORIGINAL: Karri
I guess you could combine some of the german air units...they are considerably smaller than the soviet ones.
Yes, Soviet air units typically number in the hundreds of aircraft and German squadrons are about 42 assigned. I say "assigned" instead of authorized because most German squadrons operate at less than authorized strength. That's a good idea.
Another thing we might do is eliminate the partisans. That way we could do away with the MP and security units.
And another thing: we don't need the garrison units until late in the game when the Soviets are pressing toward Berlin. Maybe we could invent an event trigger thing to make the garrison unit appear in the threatened hex(s) just before it's needed. This scheme may need more events than we have so we may need to have ALL the garrison units appear when the first threatened hex is threatened, so that only one event is needed.
And do we really need the Italians to be represented? Do we need the Slavic units?
One thing to consider is that amalgamating the German air units would, I suspect, limit the German ability to project airpower in the interdiction mode, if nothing else. I tend to keep almost all of my German bomber units on interdiction and move them around as needed to inhibit Soviet movement in areas that I consider important. However, it is rare that I will leave some area totally denuded of interdicting units as it's hard to tell where the Soviets may be coming from and it's nice to be able to hold up the rail movement of units from Gorki to Kiev without leaving the Soviets with a free hand around, say, Leningrad and Finland. That said, if we could make significant gains in others areas of the game by making this change I'd support it. My main concern is that the Axis player may end up having a useful weapon, albeit one over which he doesn't have full control so far as effects are concerned, removed or restricted without some offsetting gain in another area.
So far as removing the Axis MP units, with the thought that this will make it impossible for the Axis player to use them as spearhead units I'd suggest holding off on that until 3.4 comes out so that we can evaluate whether or not Ralph has solved the "ant unit problem". Another possibility would be to establish a house rule along the lines of "No MP unit or Security Division unit may be voluntarily moved forward of the main battle area." I realize that defining exactly what should constitute the FEBA would require some work, but I'd rather see that done than to eliminate the units entirely. Perhaps I'm unusual, but I try very hard not to indulge in "gamey" use of units - preferring to restrict them to more-or-less their historical uses. After all, if we're really playing these games to try to learn something from history - whether or not we are "repeating history" in Veers' sense of the term - then we should not indulge in making use of science fiction to convert small military police units (by way of example) into some sort of super Brandenbergers and run them hundreds of klicks into the enemy rear to raise hell. These games are called "historical simulations" for a reason and, it seems to me that deliberately using limitations of the game engine in order to achieve an ahistorical use of units violates at least the spirit of the hobby, even if it doesn't technically violate the rules of the game. This is obviously just my opinion, but I think that sometimes, in our desire to rack up another win, we lose sight of what we're supposedly spending all this time for. Personally, I'd rather lose a game in which I developed a deeper understanding of the historical constraints under which the original participants had to function, than to win a game and leave it wondering, "Why the hell didn't Manstein just send out his MP units to show him the way to Stalingrad during Wintergewitter." just my $.02 on this subject.
I agree with the idea about the garrison units. Is there any way to condition the appearance or strength of Axis garrison units upon the availability of the requisite number and type of components in the replacement pool?
So far as the Italians are concerned I suppose it depends on whether or not we come up with changes to FiTE that make the Axis side viable into 1942. It was only the presence of Italian, Romanian, Slovakian, etc. units that allowed Fall Blau to get as far as it did. Without those types to guard the flanks there will not be enough German units to adequately handle that task, while at the same time opening them up to the type of disaster which ultimately befell the Wehrmacht. I know we're not talking about removing the Romanians but I think the point still stands.
I'm glad to see this discussion and process get rolling after all the talk in other threads. I suspect that we'll be able to make significant improvements to the original scenario and that will be good for all of us.
Ron
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