German firepower

[Herr Straße Laufer]

Maybe I should explain that in the scenario we are trying to make the German MG's produce much more casualties than in reality. My guess is about 500% more than in reality. Maybe the numbers are correct but is the type of battle just hard to model in CS with so many MG's. (Battle in the Reichswald)

Are you receiving those casualties at long range and/or during opportunity fire from the Mg42's?

RR

[Huib Versloot]

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Are you receiving those casualties at long range and/or during opportunity fire from the Mg42's?

RR

In most cases it is short range. The process goes like this: The British infantry move a hex forward in the forest > They receive OP fire from the Germans > Brits get disrupted, losses and retreats (most damage is done by MGs) > in that state their own return fire (enough action points for 1 shot) is ineffective. During the following turn the German player finishes off the rest until the adjacent hex is empty again. Then the process (for the same hex!) would start again. Most of the times the German player would even have enough AP left to start with OP fire once more (This is were the 3 shots become extremely powerful, you fire twice in your own turn and still there is one devastating shot left for OP fire).

If the Germans happen to be in a trench it is even worse, one can imagine.

I wouldn't mind if this happened occassionally in a scenario, but in this case this happens all along the line. Historically however the British managed to get through the Reichswald with less losses than the Germans, even if their losses were high.
Other solutions we thought of, besides reducing the # of MGs were to give the Brits an enormous amount of smoke so that they at least have some chance to keep the hex occupied and call in artillery (that however is not historical either, but seems valid in the game).


It seems the British infantry cannot fight these type of battles on even terms. Germans seem to be much better advancing through forested areas against opposition it seems, although I haven't tried that here but remember it from other scenarios.

Any ideas to deal with this scenario design wise are more than welcome.

[Hawk Kriegsman]

I would suggest that you use the proper TO&E as per the battle and then try lowering lower the German morale by 1 point and raising the Brit morale by a point. That should help.

Thanx!

Hawk

[umbro]

I think that you have, in some ways, answered your own question. Smoke. I realise that it is an abstraction, but sometimes CS requires that to model historical battles.

I would also point out that from my reading of the Battle of the Reichswald (which is admittedly limited) I understood that the German parachute units were a) under strength, and b) populated to a significant degree with green recruits. The division morale was high as a unit (as perhaps the only German units at this stage of the war to believe that it was unbeaten), but that specific smaller units were more variable.

umbro

[Huib Versloot]

I think that you have, in some ways, answered your own question. Smoke. I realise that it is an abstraction, but sometimes CS requires that to model historical battles.

I would also point out that from my reading of the Battle of the Reichswald (which is admittedly limited) I understood that the German parachute units were a) under strength, and b) populated to a significant degree with green recruits. The division morale was high as a unit (as perhaps the only German units at this stage of the war to believe that it was unbeaten), but that specific smaller units were more variable.

umbro

You are right to some degree (it was 4 Fallschirmjägerdivisionen 6th, 7th, 8th and parts of the 2nd), but even the 17 yr old green recruits of the Fallschirmtruppen outperformed the British, the Canadians and the Americans time and time again. This continued until the end of the war. The weaker parts in the Fallschirm Armee were the 84 ID and the 180/ 190 ID. It might be an idea to lower their morale to 5 instead of 6. It is those regular troops in the center of the Reichswald that are currently acting too strong.
We should have the numbers about right as we have detailed info on that. David did keep a lot of MGs in the scn as we figured heavy weapons would be passed on to others when a unit loses strength.

Currently we decided a morale like this: Allies: 7, 84. ID: 5
180. ID 5 and 6. 190. ID 5 and 6, 116th Pz: 6 and 7. 15th PzGr: 6. Fallschirmtruppe: 8

[Von Luck]

LOL No drink tonight Dan im working tomorrow.Alfons in a forest more lethal at short range i would imagine but how do you factor that in.

[Herr Straße Laufer]

I think that you have, in some ways, answered your own question. Smoke. I realise that it is an abstraction, but sometimes CS requires that to model historical battles.

I would also point out that from my reading of the Battle of the Reichswald (which is admittedly limited) I understood that the German parachute units were a) under strength, and b) populated to a significant degree with green recruits. The division morale was high as a unit (as perhaps the only German units at this stage of the war to believe that it was unbeaten), but that specific smaller units were more variable.

umbro

You are right to some degree (it was 4 Fallschirmjägerdivisionen 6th, 7th, 8th and parts of the 2nd), but even the 17 yr old green recruits of the Fallschirmtruppen outperformed the British, the Canadians and the Americans time and time again. This continued until the end of the war. The weaker parts in the Fallschirm Armee were the 84 ID and the 180/ 190 ID. It might be an idea to lower their morale to 5 instead of 6. It is those regular troops in the center of the Reichswald that are currently acting too strong.
We should have the numbers about right as we have detailed info on that. David did keep a lot of MGs in the scn as we figured heavy weapons would be passed on to others when a unit loses strength.

Currently we decided a morale like this: Allies: 7, 84. ID: 5
180. ID 5 and 6. 190. ID 5 and 6, 116th Pz: 6 and 7. 15th PzGr: 6. Fallschirmtruppe: 8

I wonder if a combination of "limited" added smoke for the Brits, lower morale for the Fallschirmtruppe (honestly, they may fight well but are still battered), smaller sized platoons, and a lower overall Axis ammo level?
If the Brits cleared the Reichswald with; *"Historically however the British managed to get through the Reichswald with less losses than the Germans, even if their losses were high."* (from your previous post) it does seem strange that the comment about 17 yr olds fighting better should be thought of as a factor here?
I'm not sure what the NCO's of the Fallschirmtruppe were like during this period. I think NCO's are the biggest factor when considering individual small unit success, over whether a 17 year old could load and fire his weapon or the German Mg's are simply better. German NCO corps were diminished at this time. Though their cadre of veterans surely made up for it.
The MG42 was not all that accurate but, threw out a lot of fire that had a "shot gun" effect at closer ranges.

That said, the "8" morale seems a bit high. And, even the "6's" should be looked at.

Balance will/can be found somewhere with tweaking all of the above, including added smoke. It might be a tedious process of testing after lowering morale. Then ammo. Then adding smoke.
I feel for you. That is one large scenario. It looks interesting.

RR

[umbro]

Another couple of thoughts:
1) Bear in mind CS losses will not translate directly to actual casualties (KIA, wounded). They will include MIAs, units that lose a commander and simply stop functioning for the period of the scenario, units that are broken up and have to re-group, etc. [Of course one would expect loss ratios to be roughly maintained]
2) Attacking tactics will count for a lot. In the picture that you posted the unit in the top right circle should probably have advanced into the hex to their SW instead. It has an existing emplacement which reduces the attacker by 25% plus it is uphill of one potential attacker's hex which further reduces the attacker by 10%. If each adjacent hexes has 6SP of mg platoons in the expected loss would be reduced from 1.6SPs to 1.2SPs (btw, if that hex had been smoked as well then the expected loss falls further to .64SPs, not 500% but close to 300%)

umbro

[Huib Versloot]

Thanks guys for the input. Maybe David and I will post it somewhere so others can look at it.
Perhaps I should note that we also already had included a low ammo level of only 50 for the Germans and their numbers in the Reichswald are about at half strength due to the previous fighting (most MG we left still at full strenth)
I have several bookshelves full of books on the German Fallschirmjäger. How astonishing it may sound; they were that good until the end. Why they were remains one of the most interesting questions to me. Partly it is explained that the young soldiers (born 1927-1928) had been in the HJ all their life before entering service. For sure is that they were abused and indoctrinated. That this made them such good warriors is actually a very sad story I think.

Maybe there will be more answers in Hans Martin Stimpel's upcoming book Die deutsche Fallschirmtruppe - Innenansichten von Führung und Truppe

Ofcourse it can be debated if some FJ units should have a lower morale than 8, some others (Fschj StuG Brig XII, Sturm Bn Hübner, Fschj Lehr-Regiment) could have 8+.

I do think the raise of morale of the Allies and lowering that of the German regular infantry (non FJ) in the centre of the forest is going to help. I'm also glad people seem to understand the necessity of adding smoke for playability purposes.

Umbro: the hex SW you mentioned was occupied twice, but sweeped clear again by the Germans on both occasions.

Forgive if this post is written somewhat chaotic (i'm at work, not drunk and disturbed all the time) Work should not be in the way of my hobby so much :)

[umbro]

It's a good point to note, that unit prestige lives beyond its "on paper" capability.

Elan is a powerful modifier (I would go with smoke by preference and be wrong most of the time), and can make up for many deficiencies.

All militaries break their recruits down before building them up again into a force that can be molded. An organisation that can count on HJ for recruits has a step up on all others.

Of course, there is a price to be paid. Would one want to live in such a society that can produce a HJ?

One can hope that the answer to that question continues to be more often than not "No".

umbro

P.S. While reading these boards I have discovered that often the most interesting posts are made by those who are both drunk and disturbed :-)