Barbarossa PBEM campaing

[Walrus]

Hi

Just to add to the comments above.

200x200 maps and 60 turn games!

I appreciate where you are going with that scale but I could never spend the time to play such games.
Think of this also...if the games average 1 turn per 2 days, that's 120 days min per battle. That gives you three battles a year for a tourney that looks like it wants to be 6 battles long or so (I am assuming here).

So...that's a 2 year tourney.
That is UBER ambitious chaps.

That 35 turn ET game I just played where I had so many points that I hit the upper limit of units available....that was HUGE!
I could barely bring myself to do my buy and deploy let alone the mid battle moves where I was pushing forward units for hours.

I suggest that battalion plus support as a base size and 30 turn tops for length is far more realistic.
That would still give you a year long tourney to get 6 battles done....and that is a very conservative estimate of the time needed.

Anyway...I like the idea very much, but if you want to get to the end of it and still have some players left to award medals to...I suggest you canvas more opinions as to what the Blitzers can seriously commit to playing.

Good luck.
Walrus

[Deadeye]

I'll echo the comments above from Thexder, Seabolt, Epoletov & Walrus (and others).

An hour or so is about the maximum that I can afford to spend per turn on any one battle. With that I can handle doing a turn per day. Anything more that that and my focus and enjoyment start to go downhill quickly.

Over the past couple of months I actually found myself involved in too many battles at the same time. Not only my turn rate suffered, but I was not able to focus 100% on any of the battles and the quality of my game suffered (and my apologies to my opponents during that time).

So a 200x200 map for 60 turns would take a very dedicated SP player - moreso than myself.



Deadeye

[Weasel]

Don't forget the HUGE replays; better have a cup of coffee handy!

Too big for my blood to jump in on. Sounds interesting though.

[seabolt]

better have a cup of coffee handy!

That's tomorrow morning. To wash down the aspirin. Kippis!

I've been toying with the concept of a micro-Barbarossa. Knock *everything* down to 1:100 scale, such that each panzer *section* with support represents a German armored division. (A mixed 4-tank platoon would be the Russian counterpart division, but then the Soviets were modeling their divisions on the 1939 pre-handwave Heer units.)

The entire Eastern Front would be some 400 hexes long, given that each hex represents 5 kilometers. Each turn would be 1 day of fighting. (Technically 8 hours of fighting, but counted at a 3:1 ratio to represent minimal realistic rest and refit requirements between rounds. Real combat is episodic.) Let's see, 22 June 1941 to a stop date of 5 December 1941 would be 167 days (yes, I'm *that* anal), so that would be probably 5 rounds of 33 turns each.

Five players on each side, with the map divided into 80-wide (north south) by about 60-across (east west) sectors. (Much like Europa Twilight, for simplicity's sake, except a bit more divided.) It's about 240 hexes from the start line to Moscow on this scale, so Moscow would be on the back tier of column 4, with column 5 existing to give the German team room to develop a reacharound, er, encircling movement.

Notice the intriguing dynamics: In real terms reduced to 1:100 scale, the Soviets must defend a 240-hex depth for 165 turns to win! Yow! Sounds like a suicide mission, until you consider that, of the ~1800 (!) units that Germany could field if ignoring reserves, only something like 60 (!!) would not be foot/horsedrawn units! It's really interesting to look at Barbarossa from a SP point of view. It ain't the damn army that Stavka has to sweat, it's just the tip of the spear ...

Anywho, that's the initial semidrunken analysis. Not that I've ever once designed a map in SPWW2 or H2H, but I do love to theorize ...

-- 30 --

[Vesku]

Too many "Kippis" last night?

The experience from SL tourney is that the smaller and shorter the battles are the easier it is to keep players interested. Even the ones finishing their round fast don't have to spend too much time waiting for the next round to start and the tourney doesn't drag on for years.

One to hundred gives an interesting point of view to the campaign, perhaps not suitable for this but you could easily build campaign from just about any operation using that idea. Hmm, 14000 men division would shrink into a 140 men company, still a lot of troops for East front but now it would be inviting for many players struggling with lack of free time for SP.

[seabolt]

Too many "Kippis" last night?

It's still last night, here. :smoke: I guess I better stick to Steel Panthers, the way I've been drunkenly losing money at cards tonight.

The experience from SL tourney is that the smaller and shorter the battles are the easier it is to keep players interested.

Definitely. I've really enjoyed the SL scenarios because they've been small enough to totally engage in without needing an entire afternoon to do it. I'm much happier at that ~battalion scale than at something larger.

-- 30 --

[Vesku]

Right, you medicate during drinking (it must be early morning by now), why I'm not surprised.

There has been couple of huge scale campaigns and they have died before finishing because of management problems and too long duration. Players lose interest if one round takes several months to finish (60 turn round takes at least 4 months to finish and at that point half the battles are still unfinished). And very few can dedicate themselves to play several hour turns for years into the future.

I'd love to see this campaign happen as it is and even more to be part of it but unfortunately I can't participate at current scale.

[Outlaw Josey Wales]

Thinking about that now, it really would be huge. Also thinking about the abstract saying this tank represents a div is way too far out there for SPs. Tank takes one hit and is destroyed, there goes a div in nothing flat.

Maybe recreate campaigns like the Mega campaigns with Div, rgt/bde, bn commanders. A div cdr can also double as one of the rgt/bde cdrs and then again as a bn cdr in that rgt/bde, then just fill the other slots with people who want to join in. Can have it as a running campaign with others who can join later after they clear the schedule of a current game or two. Break it down into phases....strategic - div commander gives assignments to rgts and assigns div assets to rgts, rgt cdr then decides how to deploy his bns plus rgt/div assets to meet the three objectives he was given, then the bn cdrs fight their respective battles, keeping in mind of the casualties like ya'll were talking about, few replacements. Maybe rgt cdr takes a company from one bn to add to another because he feels that objective is more important..whatever. It's kind of like the linked campaigns in the Campaign Series only on SP scale.

Sorry, just rambling. Don't even know if it makes any sense.

[Outlaw Josey Wales]

As for the 200x200 maps, I like it. Even some of the larger forces, make it multiplayer by commands. The larger maps leave room for maneuver instead of just a typical slugfest. Each side has their own objectives with a third party ref to decide if they are achieved or the third and fourth party decides the objectives for each side with neither side knowing the objectives of the other, something along those lines.

Just more rambling.

[Thexder]

[quote=Thexder]
Would you play it in H2H? After the excellent job that Vesku and Weasel did with the Squad Leader tourney, I've been enjoying the good old days of infantry squads that don't giggle like schoolgirls while close-assaulting armor ...

Haven't ever played H2H...

To tell the truth we are already considering something like this for the years after 41.
This concept would be apllied in not such large scale as Barbarossa but for much smaller operations like case Blue,Kursk, Bagration etc..
Where the amount of forces involved were much smaller than almost 200 divisions at each side...

Good to hear that the concept is being rethinked based on comments! But I'd say that those are still HUGE battles where the problems don't go away. I'd suggest smaller scale battles. But of course there's all kinds of strategic elements that would vanish if the scope goes smaller...

For Barbarossa all tables are ready from amount of supplies per province, factory production figures, Divisional OOBs, replacment charts and so on.

...Like these for example. On the other hand I don't know how well these would fit the battle. If there's supply inputs that would grow when provinces are invaded, there will be a point after which the outcome is clear as the other side has huge amounts of supplies etc. and the tourny just becomes avoiding the inevitable. Of course this could be dealt by making the system more complex, but that leads to other problems:). My 0.02€ is that these kinds of aspects shouldn't play a big role in campaigns. What should is some kind of flow of reserves (in points, units etc.) and that the losses will follow the players to the following battles.

I've been toying with the concept of a micro-Barbarossa. Knock *everything* down to 1:100 scale, such that each panzer *section* with support represents a German armored division. (A mixed 4-tank platoon would be the Russian counterpart division, but then the Soviets were modeling their divisions on the 1939 pre-handwave Heer units.)

The entire Eastern Front would be some 400 hexes long, given that each hex represents 5 kilometers. Each turn would be 1 day of fighting. (Technically 8 hours of fighting, but counted at a 3:1 ratio to represent minimal realistic rest and refit requirements between rounds. Real combat is episodic.) Let's see, 22 June 1941 to a stop date of 5 December 1941 would be 167 days (yes, I'm *that* anal), so that would be probably 5 rounds of 33 turns each.

Something like this could work! But - again - I'd say that SP is best fit in a regiment level smaller skirmish where each player could command one reinforced battalion in a flow of smaller battles. This combined with actual casualties (that follow to the next battle), a commander that divides the reserves as he sees fit and teams of 4-7 committed (bear in mind that this demands much less commitment than the bigger campaigns) players would be a dream tourney for me:stir::).


,
Thexder