Zhukov Attacks

[cathar1244]

Anyone know who the author of this scenario was, and, if possible, have contact information?

Cheers

[cathar1244]

Found this, an email address was there as well.

[cathar1244]

Hmm. Email is defunct.

Also found-- a Jim Burke, neurologist, who designed a board game to teach neurology students.

http://www.thelesion.com/introduction

Not sure if the same Jim Burke who designed the Zhukov scenario. Dr. Burke passed away in June of 2021.

ETA. Apparently another Dr. Jim Burke associated with University of Michigan and who is known for simulation modeling.

Cheers

[Lobster]

That's an old one for certain. It would seem it would have to be updated just to work properly with TOAWIV. Designed for TOAWI.

[cathar1244]

I may take a look at it. Only some 30+ events so those shouldn't be an issue. At first glance, the unit equipment looked normal.

Cheers

[cathar1244]

There seems to be unusual characteristics built into the scenario regarding supply. As in, it is set very high for both sides. Another aspect of this is the presence of 999 trucks in most headquarters formations, I assume to encourage transport asset sharing.

At this point, I'll have to playtest to see how the scenario goes.

The set up is that Germany invades the Balkans and has to capture Crete for victory point reasons. At some point between May and July 1941, the Russian side (which is the only side set up for an AI) moves west, the "attack of Zhukov". Unit, formation, and force proficiencies look similar for both sides.

If one wanted a historically accurate scenario, it would probably be better to set up the proficiencies, supply etc. to reflect something like the values in the FITE scenario. But that would probably doom a Soviet AI offensive and make gameplay too predictable.

Cheers

[cathar1244]

Data call if anyone remembers.

The events in this scenario include three unit withdrawal events if Crete falls to the Germans. But in the course of being updated from one version to another (I assume) the units to be withdrawn are no longer identified.

My guess is that the Australian units are to be withdrawn. If anyone played the scenario in the old days and recalls this, please advise. Thanks.

Cheers

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: cathar1244

There seems to be unusual characteristics built into the scenario regarding supply. As in, it is set very high for both sides. Another aspect of this is the presence of 999 trucks in most headquarters formations, I assume to encourage transport asset sharing.

At this point, I'll have to playtest to see how the scenario goes.

The set up is that Germany invades the Balkans and has to capture Crete for victory point reasons. At some point between May and July 1941, the Russian side (which is the only side set up for an AI) moves west, the "attack of Zhukov". Unit, formation, and force proficiencies look similar for both sides.

If one wanted a historically accurate scenario, it would probably be better to set up the proficiencies, supply etc. to reflect something like the values in the FITE scenario. But that would probably doom a Soviet AI offensive and make gameplay too predictable.

Cheers

Of late, I'm coming to the point of view that TOAW actually works better with a high force supply and a low supply radius. This makes short pauses to rest and resupply more attractive. As it is, the amount of time it takes units to recover supply even if they're at the railhead often means that it's not worth waiting for supply to recover, and instead units fight a continuous offensive with whatever supply they get at the front.

Just a thought at this time- I haven't played around with it very much.

[Lobster]

This is what I've done with the Barbarossa scenario I'm working on. In addition Axis road construction battalions are given a secondary icon so they act as supply units to simulate the poor road conditions in the U.S.S.R. and road crews assigned to maintain them. The road network isn't all that extensive on the map so these become very important units. But there are not that many road construction battalions so it limits where supply can be extended.

On the Soviet side Army headquarters are given a supply icon as a secondary icon. This simulates the fact that Soviet armies were responsible for distributing supply to subordinate units, directly opposite the way the Germans did it. The farther from the Army HQ a unit is the less supply it receives. But then the Soviets are falling back on a fully functioning rail net.

[Lobster]

ORIGINAL: cathar1244

There seems to be unusual characteristics built into the scenario regarding supply. As in, it is set very high for both sides. Another aspect of this is the presence of 999 trucks in most headquarters formations, I assume to encourage transport asset sharing.

At this point, I'll have to playtest to see how the scenario goes.

The set up is that Germany invades the Balkans and has to capture Crete for victory point reasons. At some point between May and July 1941, the Russian side (which is the only side set up for an AI) moves west, the "attack of Zhukov". Unit, formation, and force proficiencies look similar for both sides.

If one wanted a historically accurate scenario, it would probably be better to set up the proficiencies, supply etc. to reflect something like the values in the FITE scenario. But that would probably doom a Soviet AI offensive and make gameplay too predictable.

Cheers

An initial attack by the Soviets would probably start off ok. Wouldn't take long for it all to go sour but that initial push might be a challenge for the human player. By May the Germans were fairly concentrated in the east already.

[cathar1244]

I really like the Geo Verlag maps. I wonder if they have ever been reproduced without the markups depicting military operations.

Thanks for that.

Cheers

[cathar1244]

I'm coming to the point of view that TOAW actually works better with a high force supply and a low supply radius.

Makes me think of the "recommended settings" in the early TOAW version manuals. My guess is those (besides being influenced by the early TOAW functioning) were meant for battalion and regimental sized units in fairly compact scenarios. The larger scenarios have their own dynamics that IMO require a lot of testing and tuning to prevent bogging down or racing across the map.

Advance rates and how they can look odd depending on the window of time in which one is considering them . . .

Cheers

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: cathar1244


Makes me think of the "recommended settings" in the early TOAW version manuals. My guess is those (besides being influenced by the early TOAW functioning) were meant for battalion and regimental sized units in fairly compact scenarios.

I tend to agree. Using all these settings together tends to contribute to supply really not being very important:
1) units on the front get a significant portion of the supply received by units sat on the railhead
2) even units sat on the rail will take 5 or 6 turns to return to full supply (fine if that's 5 or 6 days but not if it's 5 or 6 weeks)
3) high unit proficiencies mean that units with minimal supply are almost as effective as units with full supply

On the third point in particular it's really rare to see a scenario with units below about 50% proficiency. Designers seem worried that they're being rude if they use lower rates. It would actually be interesting to see a scenario where everything is dropped back, so the worst troops have 1% proficiency and the best perhaps 60%. A unit with 1% proficiency has a fully-supplied unit quality of 50.5% and a minimally supplied quality of 9%. That would really make the player want to keep those troops on the rail.

I wonder if the current design approach where having a lot of supply doesn't matter much may owe something to the gameplay from COW and earlier, which amongst unscrupulous players was dominated by supply draining attacks, so everyone was on low supply most of the time anyway.