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Advice needed - 1/18/2013 8:37:44 PM

Kamil

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I do know why I lose this battles and what to do to stop loosing them.

Fatigue 50-80%, most commanded from corps to OKH level with good commanders. Panzer armies not overloaded, neither of corps overloaded.

All battles are from one area.

Attachment (1)

< Message edited by Kamil -- 1/18/2013 8:39:18 PM >

Post #: 1

RE: Advice needed - 1/19/2013 12:17:16 AM

smokindave34

Posts: 397
Joined: 1/15/2008
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One thing I see is that in most of these cases you defenders are getting penalized for not being in the same corps/army. For example in the first battle the IV corps is getting whacked with a -36% modified and XII corps a -16% modifier. Try keeping units from the same corps stacked together - that may help.

One other thing - I didn't see many negative modifiers for the attacking Soviets so they seem to have better unity of command.

< Message edited by smokindave34 -- 1/19/2013 12:18:58 AM >

(in reply to Kamil)

Post #: 2

RE: Advice needed - 1/19/2013 2:10:21 AM

Baris

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Does modified combat value of soviets related to leader checks? Some of the modifed combat value of soviet triples standart value. How valuable is leader checks in combat?

(in reply to smokindave34)

Post #: 3

RE: Advice needed - 1/19/2013 2:26:34 AM

Pelton

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What smoken dave said, your not in forts and you should be getting at least 6 SU's per battle.

Its very important when defending to have reserves set-up also in 42-43. 1 Regiment or Mot/panzers would tip the battles your way or 4-5 more SU's.

This will forse the tempo down to a snails pace.

< Message edited by Pelton -- 1/19/2013 2:27:38 AM >

_____________________________

GHC
15 - 3 - 7

10 games ended in 41 (10-0-0)
4 games ended in 42 (4-0-2)
3 games ended in 43 (1-2-3)
1 game ended in 44 (0-1-2)

On leave until 9/13

(in reply to Baris)

Post #: 4

RE: Advice needed - 1/19/2013 3:35:06 AM

Kamil

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Thanks for help, but unfortunately neither of advice is relevant to the situation.

(in reply to Pelton)

Post #: 5

RE: Advice needed - 1/19/2013 3:53:47 AM

turtlefang

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Just reviewing the information and drawing some conclusions, it looks like its a combination of a number of issues:

1) fatigue
2) confused chain of command reducing the CV of the German units
3) outnumbered air support in many of the battles
4) potential undersupply of some of the German units

Any one of these things would reduce the CVs, add them all up and it really reduces the modified CV and ups the Russian CV.

(in reply to Kamil)

Post #: 6

RE: Advice needed - 1/19/2013 4:06:55 AM

Kamil

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quote:

turtlefang

Just reviewing the information and drawing some conclusions, it looks like its a combination of a number of issues:

1) fatigue
2) confused chain of command reducing the CV of the German units
3) outnumbered air support in many of the battles
4) potential undersupply of some of the German units

Any one of these things would reduce the CVs, add them all up and it really reduces the modified CV and ups the Russian CV.

Isn't there more factors? From my experience (I might be wrong) CV modification while defending is more varied for Soviets in both positive and negative figures.

(in reply to turtlefang)

Post #: 7

RE: Advice needed - 1/19/2013 6:36:08 AM

Harrybanana

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Kamil,

My own experiences are as follows:

1. It is far more likely for the Attacker's CVs (whether German or Soviet) to be significantly increased in combat than the Defender's. I forget who but someone even posted on this a while back. The reason, as best I recall, has something to do with the combat system favoring the Attacker being more likely to pass all the leader checks that need to be made. I have frequently seen the Attacker's CVs doubled, tripled or even quadrupled. On the other hand it is very seldom that I've seen the Defender's CVs so much as doubled. It happens, but rarely.

2. Don't always trust the Battle Report to correctly display the Defender's initial CV. I've seen many occasions when a single pioneer or stug battalion is displayed with a 50+ CV, I don't believe this is accurate. I remember one attack the Germans made on one of my Russian Cavalry divisions where when I checked the battle report on my turn it displayed my cavalry division as having a before combat 100 of CV. At best it was in fact a 15 CV.

3. Because of the above (and particularly 1 above) in my experience the Attacker wins at least 80% (and perhaps closer to 90%) of the battles where the initial odds are displayed as being between 1 to 1 and 1.5 to 1. Of course, the Attacker wins even more frequently at higher odds. Indeed it seems to me that the Attacker even wins most battles where the odds are only even 1 to 1.5. This is true in my experience even when the defender is unfortified (and therefore is not receiving any artificial CV increase). I haven't tracked any of this so my numbers are just my "gut feeling" based on my personal experience. I would be interested if anyone's own experience is different.

So I would say your Battle Results posted above where you Held once and were Retreated 9 times is pretty typical. Well actually you Held a second time as well, but in that one the intial displayed odds were only 1 to 3 or so.

The only way you can win these battles is by increasing your final after combat CV. This can be accomplished by following the advice of the others posted above. But I think you already know this.

(in reply to Kamil)

Post #: 8

RE: Advice needed - 1/19/2013 8:35:13 AM

randallw

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Fatigue of 50-80% is pretty significant; some of the attackers may be marching up to their attack hex from the rear, so they arrive at something lower, like perhaps 20 or 30%.

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Post #: 9

RE: Advice needed - 1/19/2013 1:14:30 PM

Kamil

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Good to know.

Thanks.

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Post #: 10

RE: Advice needed - 1/19/2013 2:39:13 PM

BigAnorak

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I don't notice any reserve activations. By this stage you have to have a proportion of your forces available for defensive support. This is your best defensive force multiplier as it is not affected by artillery/air suppression.

Artillery and an air suppression becomes more noticeable from 1943 onwards, when you cannot expect final modified CV to get above 80% of original CV. This may be having a slight impact on some of these results. It is also worth checking ammunition supply levels as this is another major defensive force multiplier.

I also continue to see "phantom" initial CVs for SUs, where a decimal point gets knocked sideways, but the final modified CVs do not seem to be affected by this.

(in reply to Kamil)

Post #: 11

RE: Advice needed - 1/20/2013 3:26:37 AM

turtlefang

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I agree with you that a lot more things can impact the CV than the four things pointed out here. But based on the reports that you provided, I can't see anything else so it would just be speculation.

For instance, who has the better artillery and and how is it disrupting the attack or the defender? My experience is that artillery favors the attacker more than the defender but that also varies with the caliber of the tubes.

And so on and so on.

And the fatigue is actually estimated based on your statement and the final Soviet CV which doesn't seem impacted by fatigue that much. And fatigue is a big deal - or has been in my games in CV modification.

The game has a bias toward the attacker when the modified CV is 1.0 to 1 and higher. Based on some rough experiments I have done, it seems that the attacker will win about 53% of the battles at this level. And it goes up quickly. While the odds are not shown, a 1.04 to 1 attack is 55% and it goes up from there. At 2.0 to 1, it seems to be about 80% a win for the attacker (might be as high as 90% - the results start getting little strange at this level and don't appear to be a normal distribution).

Artillery is the joker in the deck. Artillery will disrupt units in more or less an all or nothing basis and can swing results.

Next, infantry squads are way over valued in the combat system. Due to the fact that two rounds of combat get fought at "close range" versus one round at long and medium, units that are stonger in infantry have a higher combat impact AND will cause more damage than other units. And when the Soviet infantry squads upgrade to SMG squads, the value goes through the roof.

Don't know if this helps, but its just some observations I've made on the combat system.

(in reply to Kamil)

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RE: Advice needed - 1/20/2013 8:38:09 PM

Baris

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Lots of artillery should be useful. In that one Soviets have many supporting artillery. I think first winter rules creating much distrupted units for Axis prior to any battle in blizzard, that is the reason of the retreat in here. It is good to see in this one Germans didn't lose so much men while retreating and did create good value of direct damage. I think battle system is overall good. At least there is some logic behind battle results when attacking. But hard to know how to make successfull defense.
About infantry squads over valued, do you mean once Soviets have corps size units that they can have 700+ inf squads in a single unit that can create unbalance in later years?

(in reply to turtlefang)

Post #: 13

RE: Advice needed - 1/20/2013 9:34:26 PM

turtlefang

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Infantry's overvalued in combat due to the way combat ranges work. You have one round at long range, one at medium, and two at short range.

If you look at the detailed combat reports, you will see that infantry squads inflict far more kills than they ever did historically. Artillery, which was the big killer in WW2 at about 70% of KIAs/WIAs, doesn't come anywhere need that level in the game.

And when the Russian squads upgrade to the SMG TOE, German losses then go through the roof if not in fortifications.

There are a lot of factors that play into the CV loss calculation - TOE, weapons, leader's die roll, supply, morale, experience, terrain, fortification level, odds, etc...

But if you have two units, same morale, same experience, same supply level, same size and one of them has 50% more infantry squads, it will win about 70-80% of the time based on test that I have run. It doesn't matter if its motorized vs infantry, etc... It's just the way the combat system is designed. And the Soviet's infantry TOE are heavy up on infantry squads and get heavier as the was goes toward 45. And thier squad's firepower keeps going up.

This is an observation on the combat system, neither agreeing with the approach or disagreeing as I both like it in some ways and dislike it in some ways.

Artillery doesn't seem to inflict many kills based on the test I have run (exception: ATG vs tank units). What they seem to do is inflict some type of command & control losses/disruption on the targeted unit. And it seems to be an all or nothing type gig from what I can see. Either artilliery has a big impact or little impact with very little in between.

And the more artillery UNITS you have, the better the chance you have of artillery making a big difference (more support units, the better) IF they are in supply, IF they have AMMO, IF thier experience level is decent and you have a decent leader for passing checks.

Now, the one other point is that you have three kinds of artillery. Long range guns that impact things at "long range" part of the battle (and fire at medium range), the medium range guns at the "medium range", and direct fire guns such as ATG at short range. And the medium and long range guns don't seem to fire at "short range". And its not quite that clean - some guns act as medium guns and then switch to act like ATG guns (the famous German 88 being one).

And to make things clear, this all comes from me playing around with the game system and doing test in the editor, making observations, recording them, and then making small changes and re-testing. So its all inferences about the combat system and observations not opening the code and reading it.

(in reply to Baris)

Post #: 14

RE: Advice needed - 1/20/2013 10:11:40 PM

Baris

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Turtlefang thanks. That was the info I was looking for.

I have searched the forum before that I couldn't find and evidence about combat phases. So does it mean every terrain including marsh and heavy wood there are 3 phases of combat? or does it start only in short range? Does it mean in open terrain axis have more chances to defend at least there is some artillery can make few distruption? I should try using the editor.

< Message edited by Baris -- 1/20/2013 10:13:08 PM >

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Post #: 15

RE: Advice needed - 1/21/2013 3:26:12 AM

turtlefang

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Your asking the right questions but I can only answer a few of them.

1) From what I can, each combat has 4 phases (1 long, 1 medium, 2 short) regardless of terran.

2) The only things that I can tell that impact the rates of fire are ammo supply and the type of gun although I'm guessing somewhat on this one. I just haven't seen anything else that impacts the rate of fire.

3) Terran seems to have an impact on how effective certain attacks are but I can't determine exactly what the impacts are other than the higher the fort level the better, urban hexes are better than others, rivers half the attack, and woods and rough terran seem to have about the same impact. But these are just general observations. If defending, being on something besides clear is always a big advantage.

Swamps really impact artillery, dense woods impact artillery but not as much as swamps, rough terran impacts everything about equally. Plain terran seems to favor the attacking artillery. Again, rules of thumb. And if the swamps freeze, pretend likes its clear terran.

By 43, the German should be very careful in attacking three Soviet full strenght, in supply rifle corps. At that point, the Soviet Corps, with decent morale, supply, experience has a well rounded set of firepower and a lot of infantry squads. Add in a two or three artillery SUs and tank SU - you have a really nasty defensive stack. Even when its hit with six to nine well rested, full supplied panzer divisions, the German takes a really good chance of being manhandled. Now, hitting ones that are worn out after an attack and exposured is a different issue.

And Soviet artillery divisions, in mass, will ruin the German's day. Except in swamps. From what I tell, never use them there.

(in reply to Baris)

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RE: Advice needed - 1/21/2013 9:05:38 AM

randallw

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Those odds ( for calculating ) retreat ( or not ) in those particular battles weren't really abnormal, except maybe for that 7.9

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RE: Advice needed - 1/21/2013 11:14:12 AM

Bletchley_Geek

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What picks up my eye is how the Soviet CV is being multiplied. I guess your opponent is burning through AP's to make sure he has the guys with the 7+'s in Mech and Inf in command. Not sure how you can curb that other than: (1) bombing HQ's like that was the Fulda Gap in 1985 (and hope for commander kills), (2) ask your opponent not to do that (assigning the same commander more than once in the same turn)

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RE: Advice needed - 1/21/2013 12:53:18 PM

timmyab

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This CV inflation of attacking units is very much the norm in my experience.It's especially true for the Soviets, somewhat less so for the Axis.
Here's an example from the last turn of my current game.This is all eight combats from the turn and is about what I've come to expect from the combat system.Six out of eight attacker CVs are inflated.The inflated CVs are roughly x2 on average, I've seen them up to x5.It's difficult to judge the defender CV adjustments from these screens because of the inflated support unit CVs, but it's roughly one doubles, one halves and six stay about the same.Defender CVs rarely go up significantly and are just as likely to plummet to a fraction of face value.

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(in reply to Kamil)

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RE: Advice needed - 1/21/2013 9:05:01 PM

Kamil

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Excellent posts turtlefang. Many thanks.

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RE: Advice needed - 1/21/2013 11:45:57 PM

Baris

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Thank you Turtlefang.
It seems Russian 81.mortar is also very effective as it manages to create the overall %30-35 damage in some battles. I don't know if they fire in close range or mid range combat phase. I think good combo is machine gun,rifle and mortars that do the most damage.
Other than that it seems fort levels are very important. I think defenders units art gain more initiative and fire first with multiple fort levels. But as you mentioned system favour attack. Overall modified combat values of attackers much more likely doubles and triples. I don't know whether it is artificial or the result of the damaged,destroyed elements. Excluding leader rolls.

< Message edited by Baris -- 1/21/2013 11:48:04 PM >

(in reply to Kamil)

Post #: 21