Eastern Front 1941-1945 V6 for TOAWIV 9/2021

[governato]

I am posting here the latest update (V6 9/2/2021) of my Eastern Front 1941-1945 Scenario (EF for short!). This version supersedes any previous one, including the one distributed with the game. Any comments AND turn saves from your games are welcome!

The goal of this TOAW scenario is to be playable and the same time provide an historical and detailed description at the Army and Corps level of the entire WWII Eastern front campaign, from the opening of 'Barbarossa' to the fall of Berlin. In this top post I will keep updated links to the scenario, including the scenario description. In this thread I will add a few short posts including a discussions of the design aspects that went into EF. I hope to get some feedback from the TOAW community. All the info to play the game is included in the attached scenario description in pdf format.

205+ Weekly Turns. Effective scale 32km/hex. Most units at Corps and Army scale.

EF is playable both against a PO and a human. It's probably best balanced with the more experienced player playing the Axis..the Soviet player has (barely!) enough time to learn and catch up..quite historical . Advanced Game Options have been preset. ‘High Supply’ and New Density rules should be left ‘off’. EF also uses its own equipment file, (already included in the sce file, no need to look for it as in TOAW3!)


You can find the latest version of the scenario HERE (V6 9/2/2021) Just unzip it in your Documents.../Scenarios/WWII-East Front folder.

You can find the PDF of the scenario HERE

You can also download the scenario as it is attached to this very post.

This is what I tried to achieve designing the EF scenario:

EF is a scenario where the focus is on the operational choices and keeps into account the issues of logistics and production. Most importantly, I wanted a game that remains playable, fun, takes advantage of most of TOAW4 amazing features and also remains realistic beyond Barbarossa, or the first year off the campaign. To achieve these goals a game at the army/corps level is a great choice, with individual turns taking 30-60 mins..and a full campaign still taking about a year! Going for a 'non-monster' scenario also allowed me to test the game with human players into the late stages of the campaign. I also took advantage of the large amount of historical material that has been published in recent years both on the web and in books.

MAJOR Changes in Version 6


- Cut Axis Truck production. The Axis should now suffer some truck shortages starting from late Summer 1941 to at least 1943. This will make the Panzers units slower starting in Fall 1941. Note that one can use the option to dump trucks from units in static parts of the front into the replacement pool. Open the unit report and click 'Dismount'. Leave the option selected if you do not want replacement trucks to come back in.
- Mud will dry faster. Mud & Snow parameter. Increased from 100 to 1000 as mud was drying up too slow at the end of each Winter. Value has been chosen so that ground is dry in the Ukraine by mid May and by mid June further North in Bielorussia to match the Kharkov and Barbarossa offensives start dates.
- AXIS Resurgent Summer 1945 Theater Option. If Berlin is NOT captured by Turn 203 (the historical date) the Axis player gets a Theater Option to continue the game until Turn August 1945 AND to receive significant reinforcements. If NOT selected the game ends on turn 205 with a normal VP count. (See section 3.2 for details).
- PO scripts have been updated. The PO and should provide a better challenge by forming better front lines and being less insanely aggressive. Remember it’s not a true AI but just a smart script.

MINOR Changes (but still useful!)

- Rumanian and Italian units have better proficiency as supported by recent historical studies less linked to post war german memoirs .
- Wehrmacht Supply dumps: Garrisons in Minks, Rostov and Kiev have a secondary icon as supply depot. Units resting within 3 hexes from these cities will receive a supply bonus.
- Map Changes: Thanks to Russian materials and the work done by the 'War in the East 2' team the railway/road network has been corrected in places. It will be easier to supply units in the Valdai hills (Operation Mars anyone?) for both sides and harder for the Wehrmacht to go South from Smolensk, unless Kiev has been captured. (Btw at the scale of EF roads really represents minor railways.)
- playing hexes behind Berlin and Budapest have been added (these cities were surrounded after all so the extra space was needed.
- a few marsh hexes added East of the Pripyat marshes
- Several locations across the map up/downgraded to/from dense urban based on new population data from the time.
- a few cities now show the date they were captured by the Nazis during Barbarossa.
- more neat but minor stuff I forgot.

Scenario Features:

- EF includes the political/logistic constraints that shaped the military choices of The Axis and the Soviet Union sides (as the evacuation of the industrial regions and the Lend lease Program). This will make necessary for the Red Army and the Axis to 'fight forward' at certain times during the course of the war, and to plan their offensives based on the constraints of manpower and industrial production.

- It models a strong seasonality, with the rain season effectively stopping offensive operations in late Fall and Spring and the 1941 'Blizzard' also strongly affecting the Wehrmacht.

- Follows a detailed, historical OOB that tracks the changing equipment for the Axis and the structural evolution of the Red Army from 'stumbling colossus' to a 'colossus reborn'. The scenario OOB tracks the number and composition of not only the major units, but also of the very large amount of support units at the battalion, regiment and brigade level that in EF are attached to armies and corps. Many Red Army units will upgrade as they achieve Guards status.

- Models replacements *separately* for each individual nationality, type of squad and equipment. using a large number of units disbands, which allow to model separate peaks in production.

- Adds a realistic amount of flexibility in the Order of Battle and the units that each side can produce. Production options will allow the players to shift emphasis between supply and heavy equipment as the campaign progresses and, inevitably, diverges from the historical one.

- EF takes advantage of the many features of TOAW 4, including the Overextended supply option, the Mud&Snow rules and 999+ events, variable ZOC costs, and using a modified equipment file to model replacement for individual nationalities.




If you are curious of how the game plays and some insight on its features here is a link to a current AAR with Version5 and one with the the TOAW3 version AAR

[governato]

b]UNITS TOE, ORDER OF BATTLE AND EQUIPMENT FILE[/b] Axis Allies: each of them (Finnish, Romanian, Hungarian, Italian and Slovaks) have separate infantry units and equipment, with different disband events and replacement rates. This was important to simulate the relative contribution to each force to the campaign and to provide the Red Army a real incentive to knock the Axis allies out of the war as soon as possible. Assault units as Pioneer and Sappers Squads are now separate from Construction Squads that have no attack capabilities but provide 'engineering capabilities' to their parent units.Construction squads make a unit go into defensive (D,E & F modes)faster. (...btw the Red Army does not have many of them until Summer 1942).

The TOE of armies and corps is handled differently for the Axis and the Red Army. For the Axis units the crucial events were the modernization of tanks, (the Pz Kpw III and IV adopting guns with longer barrels and the introduction of the Panthers and Tigers), the introduction of high caliber AT guns and the improvement in infantry AT capabilities. These factors are modeled introducing the appropriate equipment slots in every unit. For the Red Army Armies and Corps formed in different years have very different TOEs reflecting the different structure of infantry divisions, tank corps and the attached support units. Several Red Army infantry armies and all tank armies withdraw (via Theater Options) and are replaced with Guard units with significantly more fire power. Glantz books and Matrix's WITE were a useful reference for the details of the TOEs. From the above sources Martin Schenkel created a list of all Red Army Support Units attached at different times , which I used extensively.

For example a Guard Army has the TOE of 3 Infantry Corps ( roughly nine divisions, but not quite), and many attached regiments: 3 Artillery, 3 Mortar, 2 Rocket, 2 AT, 3 Sapper, 2 Construction, 1 Heavy Tank, and 2 Self Propelled Guns..). It's a much stronger Army than one formed in 42, that would include 7 infantry divisions, 2 Artillery, one Mortar, 1 medium tank, 1 AT, one battalion of AA and Rockets, and one tank brigade. The armies upgrades make sure that the number of divisions and attached regiments stays close to historical at all times.

REPLACEMENTS MANAGED BY ACTIVE DISBANDS. For a campaign of this size and scope it is vital that the scenario adopts the correct replacement rates. The scenario models in great detail the replacement rate per turn for each weapon and infantry type, as provided from several historical sources. While Rifle Squads replacement peaked for each side in 41-42 and decreased later on, the production of heavy guns and tanks followed the opposite trend as the industrial output of the Axis and the Soviet Union peaked in 1944. Lend Lease was a major sources of trucks, medium tanks and planes for the Red Army. This complex process is accurately modeled by combining 1) the game varying replacement rate and 2) numerous 'disband unit' events that directly dump equipment in the replacement pool. Most of disbands event happen automatically and are transparent to the player. This allows the scenario to have a unique production rate for *every* equipment entry based on historical sources (and cross checked whenever possible!).

As an example the plot shows the total replacement rates for the Red Army rifle squads and the Wehrmacht rifle squads. The peaks in the Red Army are due to seasonal levies and the one for the Wehrmacht in the Summer of 44 from the release of a large number of reserves (see Dunn's 'Stalin's Keys to Victory' book). Note that Axis allies are not included. Also the Wehrmacht had alarger ratio of Pioneers to Rifles squads than the Red Army. Still the Red Army got a lot more infantry squads!

[governato]

HOUSE RULES FOR SUDDEN DEATH VICTORY CONDITIONS. Victory Points are mostly assigned by the ownership of geographical locations rather than equipment and personnel losses. However, not everybody will want to play all 205 turns of this scenario to the bitter end, and often the scenario outcome will be decided much earlier. In the interest of playability I suggest the players should follow different guidelines to establish if one side has achieved a decisive victory at the end of each year of the campaign. The Victory conditions are detailed in the Scenario Description, but for example the Axis players wins a ‘Sudden Death Victory’ if he holds Leningrad, Moscow, Rostov and one of Grozny, Stalingrad or Murmansk at any time in 1941. The Red Army Player wins if by the end of 1941 he holds all the cities in the ’41 Axis list, plus Kiev and Riga.

POLITICAL CONSTRAINTS. In the Summer of 1941 it'd have been politically unsustainable for the Red Army to abandon major cities as Kiev, Sevastopol and Smolensk without a fight. But often in scenario of the Russian Front the Red Army player is compelled to a hasty retreat, abandoning Ukraine and Bielorussia to avoid destruction and encirclements. This is reasonable on a military perspective, but it'd have been completely unrealistic in real life. Later in the game, the German player 'd often find useful to abandon Romania and Hungary and shorten its frontline. In reality this would have caused a massive loss in manpower resources and allowed the Red Army to draft more men from territories liberated earlier than historical. These very relevant factors are modeled in the game. The Red Army will suffer production penalties if the Axis advance is much faster than historical. (see the scenario description for full details). At the start of the scenario several major Russian cities contain static units in garrison mode, representing both political and industrial centers. These units will automatically withdraw as the game
progresses, each at a turn marked on the unit. But If a garrison unit is destroyed, the Red Army will suffer extra replacement penalties AND a small probability that the Axis achieves a 'Sudden Death Victory' following the collapse of the Soviet government. Similarly the evacuation of Soviet industries is modeled in the game by a series of events and garrison units.

LEND LEASE Historically a large fraction of trucks, planes and small caliber used by the Red Army were produced in the US and the UK. In EF a large fraction of Lend Lease units arrive at Murmansk and Baku. The Axis can cancel and/or delay some of this reinforcements by occupying these strategic locations. Historically an offensive to capture Murmansk failed in
1941, while Baku was the ultimate objective of the German offensive in Summer 1942. Starting in 1943 Lend Lease reinforcements arrive as off map disbands independently of possession of the two cities, assuming that flexible transport lines have anyway been established.

[governato]

MANAGING PRODUCTION OVER THE COURSE OF THE CAMPAIGN: As the scenario extends over almost four years I felt it was necessary
to allow the players some freedom to decide the emphasis of their weapon production between Infantry, artillery and tanks. This approach has rarely been followed in campaign games of the Eastern Front. (Even in Matrix's WITE, the current game of reference production is essentially unchangeable). However, I felt important to constraint the game within what was historically achievable and politically realistic by the forces involved (good references are Dunn's 'Stalin's Keys to Victory: The Rebirth of the Red Army in World War II' and Robert's 'The Storm of War').

This goal is achieved through TOs appearing in 42-43 for both sides. Each option represents a realistic 'what if' based on the existing literature, and amounts to about 10-15% changes in the following production output. The effect is achieved taking advantage of the planned disbands for existing units. When a specific TO is selected, some units scheduled to be disbanded are instead withdrawn and replaced by others. As an example:In 1944 and following months the Red Army focused production on tanks and diverted significant personnel to that goal at the expense of infantry divisions, which where often understrength, (see the discussion in Dunn's book ). In the EF scenario the Red Army player can change this, by using the appropriate TO option. This is useful if, say, the front is static and tank forces are not required, or if the Axis occupied too many manpower centers. As a result a batch of 1000 T34 tanks scheduled to arrive in April 44 is withdrawn. In its place a unit is disbanded and several thousands of rifle squads become available as replacements.

Red Army TOs:

- More Tanks Less Guns: More T34s, and less guns More Guns Less
- Infantry: More large caliber artillery and less Rifle squads. More
- Infantry Less Tanks: More Rifle squads and less T34s Less Planes,
- more supply. (The Air Force was a resource hog, useful if the Axis takes Baku.).

Combinations are possible: Use of options 1 AND 2 corresponds to: 'More Tanks, less infantry’. Activating Options 1 AND 3 corresponds to ‘More Infantry, less Guns’. (Smart eh )

Axis TOs:

- More U-Boats less Red Army Supply & Replacements:
- No Heavy Panzer Jagers (Anti Tank), more Pz Kpw IV
- Less Heavy Tanks (Tigers and Jagd Tigers), more Pz kpw IV.

Selection of all three options together results in supply penalties for the Red Army in exchange of a severe cut in the production of heavy Panzers and an emphasis on producing modern type PzKw IVs.


Rebalance Option: If selected, this TO gives THE OTHER player a significant number of supply and engineering squads. This option is made available if players have very different skill levels (or while playing vs the AI) OR if, as the game progresses, one player thinks that his side has been severely underpowered and can convince the other player that this is indeed the case.

[governato]

The Design hidden parameters: weather, overextended supply, recon level, entrenchment rates, ZOC costs, supply and attrition rates.

- Weather: A crucial feature of Russian Winter campaigns was set by the freezing of major rivers. This is obtained by setting the general weather zone to COOL and using four cold patterns at the start of every Winter. Major rivers will freeze as South as Stalingrad. Several 'storm' events are included for every Winter season.

- Overextended Supply: players need to be careful to push their units too far away from main roads and their supply railheads. When supply drops to a few % they will suffers from equipment losses as detailed on the manual.

- Supply Squads: The supply efficiency of the Red Army Formations (Fronts) will improve from 1941 to 1943 as HQs include an increasing number of Supply Squads in their TOEs. For both sides, Supply squads losses or the destruction of a Front or Army HQ, will cause long term supply penalties for the parent Formation, even if they reconstitute.


- Recon Levels: Both armies suffered by largely incomplete knowledge of the opponent forces and their locations. To model this effect recon levels are set at 5-10 for both forces (recon improves for the Red Army and decreases for the Axis, and decreases for both forces in Winter). A good review on this topic is HERE


- ZOC costs: the cost to move into an enemy ZOC are decreased by 10-25% for the Axis during the Summer of 1941. This proved to be an important ingredient to model the tactical edge of the Wehrmacht and facilitate the large encirclements suffered by the Red Army until the Summer of 42.

- Shock Levels: appropriate levels were used to model the initial surprise achieved by the Wehrmacht and the Luftwaffe, the Blizzard in Winter 41 and the declining quality of Axis troops in the late stages of the war. This last addition was also necessary to counterbalance the unrealistically high proficiency that some Wehrmacht units can achieve during a long campaign.


- Pestilence and Attrition rates: I used pestilence events to model the significant infantry losses due to illness, cold, and low level warfare as patrolling, mines and snipers. These losses amounted to almost 10% of total irrecoverable losses. A really good source is: Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the Twentieth Century. 1% pestilence is in effect for both sides for several turns every year and during Winter 41 for the Axis to model the effects of the blizzard. Pestilence accounts for an additional 5% (Axis) -10% (Red Army) permanent losses. Remember that 50% of pestilence squad losses return as replacements (100% of other equipment). Pestilence events also make sure that units with low replacements priority do not 'fill up' during quiet periods. With pestilence effects these units shed assigned equipment and forces, that then returns to the replacement pool and is then assigned preferentially to high priority units. This is a nifty design trick to replicate the fact that historically Axis infantry or non Guard Soviet units were systematically kept below 100% TOE. A simpler solution would be to add in TOAW a small separate attrition term (losses, supply readiness) to all units in an enemy ZOC at the end of a turn, maybe on a wish list for TOAW IV.

- Engineering and Construction Rates. EF adopts Engineering rate of 135 and a Construction rate of 20. Both sides have separate squads for Constructions units and Pioneers/Sappers to separate assault troops to rear forces in charge of building fortifications. The values adopted in this scenario make sure that it will take several weeks for units to achieve a 'Fortified' status, especially if not in full supply. The Red Army suffers from a scarcity of Construction squads until Summer 42. I did a fair deal of experimentation to find optimal values, as the default settings (100 and 100) applied at this scale cause allow the players to entrench their forces way to quickly. This is a problem common to many scenarios pre TOAW 3.4.


- Map: Major rivers introduce strong strategic constraints and forces the rail network to run mostly in the North South direction. The Dniepr was a major barrier for the Axis in 1941 and for the Red Army in 1944. At a scale of about 30km/hex the map suffers from only minor distortions and simplifications for the Finnish front and Baku. A few 'distant' hexes have been added to the east side of the map to represents hexes where the Red Army can place Air units away from the reach of the Wehrmacht. The Axis has a few close to Berlin.

[governato]

FORMULAS FOR REPLACEMENT RATES To obtain the correct replacement rates for every unit I used the following procedure (warning: there is a lot of detail here, but I have not seen this approach described in any other scenarios so I hope it's useful for scenario designers).

-First I used historical sources to obtain how many units were made for every year.

- Then the fraction of German replacements going to the Eastern Front every year was assumed to be:

1941: 85%, 1942: 80%, 1943:70% 1944:60% 1945:50%. (I used Matrix's WITE estimates).

So Prod41*0.85 +Prod42*0.8 +Prod43*0.7 +Prod44*0.6 +Prod45*0.5 = Total_Production that went to the Eastern Front.

I divided the production of airplane models by a further half as most planes went to the defense of Germany.


Then I assumed that on average the total production for Axis equipment has the following multipliers that are introduced
in TOAW by specific replacement events.

Turn 0 to 40 baseline
41 to 88 115%
89 to 136 115%
136 to 160 115%
161 to 190 80%
190 to end 75%

These numbers reflect how production output increased 'on average' and eventually plunged for the Axis. These become the a1...a5 constants in the formula below. the aX coefficients will be zero during the period when a unit is not in production.


then Total_Production = prod*((t1-start) +a2*(t2-t1) + a3*(t3-t2) +a4(t4-t3) +a5*(end-t5)

where t1..t5 are the turns when production rates change (see above). Then I solve for 'prod' and that is the number I plug into the 'Rate' entry in the 'Inventory & Replacements screen'. If the production rate of an individual equipment or infantry squad does not follow the simple trend outlined before, a fraction of the replacement is subtracted from 'Total_Production' and modeled through automatic disbandments at specific times.


Important note: the effective production will be the number input in the editor multiplied by all the production multipliers scheduled from the beginning of the scenario. So if in EF you want the number of Pz Kpw III H to start at 20 per turn at turn 50 one has to input 18 in the editor, to keep into account the 15% production multiplier for the Axis on turn 41.

[cathar1244]

Thank you for the comments and documentation.

There is a lot to scenario design that goes beyond the mechanical actions described in the manual. I appreciate it when a designer mentions the aspects they considered and how they approached the situation.

Comment on replacement rates. On scenarios I've worked with, I used to try to figure out what the historical replacement rate was for men, weapons, etc. But I now wonder if there is any purpose to doing that. As one researches the forces involved, information comes to light as to what shortages existed. One way to do this is to note losses through playtesting and then adjust replacement rates so that something like the historical situation is reflected. It seemed to me that getting very exact with replacements meant that one was confident the losses generated by the TOAW system would mirror what historically occurred, and I was not confident that was the case.

I look forward to seeing your scenario update.

Cheers

[Alan Sharif]

Thanks for all your hardwork. Looking forward to playing this.

[Zovs]

The PDF reference for the Dropbox item when clicked says “Item Was Deleted” and unavailable.

[governato]

ORIGINAL: Zovs

The PDF reference for the Dropbox item when clicked says “Item Was Deleted” and unavailable.

Fixed .

[Zovs]

Got it thank you.

When will the scenario be available?

Also are you using the new color xml to color the counters?

[governato]

Link to V5 posted.

[governato]

ORIGINAL: cathar1244

Thank you for the comments and documentation.

There is a lot to scenario design that goes beyond the mechanical actions described in the manual. I appreciate it when a designer mentions the aspects they considered and how they approached the situation.

Comment on replacement rates. On scenarios I've worked with, I used to try to figure out what the historical replacement rate was for men, weapons, etc. But I now wonder if there is any purpose to doing that. As one researches the forces involved, information comes to light as to what shortages existed. One way to do this is to note losses through play testing and then adjust replacement rates so that something like the historical situation is reflected. It seemed to me that getting very exact with replacements meant that one was confident the losses generated by the TOAW system would mirror what historically occurred, and I was not confident that was the case.

I look forward to seeing your scenario update.

Cheers

I agree on your point. I used a mixed approach for deciding replacement rates. I focused on operational level details.. with a touch of chrome. First I collected all data on production, levies and losses. It's a good starting point especially for guns and tanks as there is a one to one correspondence with TOAW equipment. For infantry squads, trucks, horses and other things such as light mortars and AT rifles there is not direct comparison as one has keep into account men assigned to logistics and rear guard duties, so I tried to assign replacement rates proportional to the historical timing which is crucial to time offensives and made sure that movement rates, losses, shortages and even railroad repairs were realistic. That required some small changes to the eqp file and adjustments to replacements as testing progressed. Tat is why getting saved files from players especially after 1941 is so important.

Some details; I did group the many German Mark IIIs and IVs tanks versions into just four main models to represent transitions from short to long barrel guns, which have a real impact on the game but also made sure Tiger Is and IIs and the late Soviet models arrived at the right time...because it's just fun to see when your first massive SU-152 tank destroyers finally trickle in!

[Zovs]

I believe this zip file and scenario are incomplete.

In the text above you mentioned a custom *.eqp file, but there is none included. Also, you should make a folder within the zip file with your scenario name and in that folder include your *.eqp, *.col or any other custom files for the scenario.

Otherwise don't mention any custom *.eqp or *.col files if you don't include them.

If you forgot, then I'd say repackage your zip file to include the folder name with the instructions for newbies on how to place the files in the Graphic Override folder and create the folder with the *.eqp as well.

So the question is, did you really intend to include an *.eqp file or not?

[governato]

ORIGINAL: Zovs

I believe this zip file and scenario are incomplete.

In the text above you mentioned a custom *.eqp file, but there is none included. Also, you should make a folder within the zip file with your scenario name and in that folder include your *.eqp, *.col or any other custom files for the scenario.

Otherwise don't mention any custom *.eqp or *.col files if you don't include them.

If you forgot, then I'd say repackage your zip file to include the folder name with the instructions for newbies on how to place the files in the Graphic Override folder and create the folder with the *.eqp as well.

So the question is, did you really intend to include an *.eqp file or not?

The scenario is complete as is. Do you see separate infantry squads for each nation? Then you are golden.

So yes, as mentioned in the scenario description. EF uses its own eqp file. However, TOAW4 allows the designer to include the eqp file into the main scenario file, so no need to worry about it during installation. If you want to take a look, pressing one of the Function keys writes down the eqp file in ascii/xml format.

Glad I got to mention that explicitly. I will edit the PDF for clarity for the TOAW3 users.

[Alan Sharif]

Just downloaded. Thanks for your work on this.

[Zovs]

I have not opened it yet, but I am a bit confused, every time a designer modifies and creates new equipment file then he must also include the new equipment file along with the scenarios. Otherwise the scenarios won’t work properly. It’s been that way since ACOW.

I’ll check when I get back from the holiday next week.

[Zovs]

For reference look at FITE2 or one of Lemays (aka Bob) Civil War scenarios. They have custom equipment files attached in their Graphic Override folders.

[cathar1244]

Zovs,

It is possible to "bake in" the new equipment file without having it in the Graphics Override folder.

Fabio is correct, his modified equipment is there. If the scenario is loaded into the scenario editor and "edit forces" is chosen, the changed squads are apparent.

Not sure when this changed. It confused me the first time I saw it as well.

If you wanted to make .col file for the scenario then the Graphics Override folder would be needed.

Cheers

[fulcrum28]

Great scenario. Thanks for making and improving this.
RR German units can repair rails automatically, or you have to actually select "Repair Rails" for each unit? I guess it is probabilistic and sometimes they can repair and sometimes they fail to repair.