In a message dated 06/10/2004 22:05:21 GMT Daylight Time, JamesAForestJr
writes:
In a message dated 10/6/2004 1:50:21 PM
Pacific Standard Time, meh777@xxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
I'm not sure that I
understand exactly to what part of the preceding message
you are saying
'yes' but if it is the 6-5 strength for a Guards corps then
I'm not sure I
agree.
The problem is really one of establishing the effective
baseline for the russian unit. Does it start from a 1-4 a 4-4 or even something
else? And how much leverage to apply to it given an experience effect and
a full toe.
Perhaps what we might be looking at is a 3-4-4 as the
base unit, in place of the 4-4. Guards status with augmented full strength as a
4-5-4 and a rebuilt "battle hardened " division as a 5-5.
An interesting point to make to my mind is that there
need not be a "cost" to training in terms of production (other than taking up
space on the tracks). For example the 3-4-4 would cost to get to 4-5-4, but the
upgrde to 5-5 is largely one of gaining experience and skills and might be
better represented as time out on the track for a notional cost (or even none)
merely several cycles whilst acquiring the necessary training?
The issue then is whether you can afford the time and
lack of the unit on the frontline, rather than any intrinsic costs applied to
the unit. A sort of strategic reserve unit functioning such as those held back
during the early stages of the Stalingrad Fight....
My limited understanding of the Guards
units is that earlier in the war they
were units which had performed well
and then after receiving Guards
designation were subsequently maintained at
equipment and manpower levels
closer to TOE and sometimes with additional
mortars and other weapons above
the TOE of normal units. Also I
understand that later in the war the actual
difference between Guards units
vs other units diminished, in part because
all units received increasing
levels of equipment and manpower problems
existed across the
board.
In game terms, I do not see a big difference between changing
existing 4-4
units to 5-5 while continuing to build 4-4s as opposed to
beginning to build
mostly 5-5 units as the net effect is the same. If
my late war
understanding is correct, then eventually building all 5-5s is
not off the
mark. Also I believe that actual personnel for most
infantry divisions even
very late in the war ran about 1/2 strength and
both Soviet and German
forces improved from an equipment standpoint so I'm
not sure how an increase
to 6-5 strength is justified.
Just
wondering?
I am not sure why you would do any of those things either but it is an
interesting arguement.
When I recently did some reading about the Battle for France I found that
the units equipment and manpower for the French and German's was
equivelent. The major differences appeared to be the use of the
equipment and command control. The only major difference I discovered was the
Axis had 1/3 more air then the Allies.
This lead me to design the French with an attack equivelant to the Axis
but both the movement and defense to be lowered. I, therefore, made the
French TO&E Infantry 6-3-1 and armor 9-4-6.
I went another way with this problem feeding the
French some artillery over time to boost combat effeciency.My take on this
was to boost the offensive capability, but leave some tactical inflexibility to
express some of the recurrent shortcomings in the French command system. This
has a similar effect with regard to firepower at the main point of contact, but
leaves you somewhat "messy" in your ability to rapidly exploit and change threat
axes.
We have tested this only once and it worked fine but it will need many
more tests to see if it really works.
The idea of continually upgrading is not a bad one though. Obvoiusly the
German troops were no less trained or equipped then the Allies so why the 8-10
vs 6-5. The movement is okay given the availability of transport but the
attack strength should be the same. Using the option that moves the
Allies up is fine but what about the Axis. They were still equivelent
other then movement.
I suspect that the 8-10 classification is to offset the
somewhat brittle OB...make them resilient and difficult to damage, and this will
mean that we don't have to redesign the counter set to take care of lots of
upgrade and intermediate units, and we will rely upon the CRT to take the edge
off these units for 1940.
I suspect with the existing setups, perhaps
the 8-10's should arrive in France as 2-3-6s and upgrade to 3-4-7s for 1940 and
4-5-8s for 1941, 5-6-9 in 1942, getting a double point rise in 1943 and
movement capability up to 10 to represent the better armour and equipment being
imported from the US from late 1942. The British divisions still appear to
be way too effective for 1940 to my mind...both in combat structure
and operational freedom of manoeuvre. Artillery should be the backing force
for the British to provide additional combat modifiers. As Alamein
might demonstrate...the mastery of the set piece battle rather than the German
concept of firepower off the hoof (as it were).
Why should the Axis not be able to go 7-5 and then 8-5? The odds
table already control the combat but the strength does not also need to be
based on it.
With a lower allied combat factor in 1942 and 1943,
maybe the perceived imbalance in German firpower scores is not so
obvious.
Might be an idea to allow all majors to improve over time keeping them
basically equivelant.
-|steve|-(experimenting with colour)