D'85: Balance of the new update?

[Zemke]

I think there are several attempts to balance out the game. Aaron is working on a major update to his BOTB scenario, I have been experimenting with various OOB changes and pdt changes also. The major problem with the stock scenario is the quality of NATO vs WP IMO, there is just not enough quality edge there. Also in the game I am in the QFM is "off", so what "B" units we do have are not getting that benefit.

General Changes I would suggest to anyone building OOBs for the campaign game are the following.
Quality Increase/Decreases: In general NATO should see an increase in quality, while WP should not be over a C quality. This is the single biggest change along with QFM that would even the game out, IMO.

Air Power: Increase soft attack for all air by 20-30%, would favor NATO and make air more deadly, also more realistic IMO.

Infantry Strength: The WP Infantry Bn strength is way too high, while at the same time NATO Infantry Battalion strength is way too low. At least use the same criteria for both when determining strength. According to an Official US Army manual I have from 1984, FM100-2-3 shows a Soviet BTR Battalion at 455, while a soviet BMP battalion at 432 and this is with all support troops included.

Hard Attack Ratings: Would increase for all across the board, to make armor combat more deadly. I think this would be a "neutral" change, except if NATO gets more replacements in the pdt, but I think more representative of modern armor combat.

Speed Increase: Increase all NATO units speed by a factor of "two". This is to simulate the better subordinate C2 and initiative levels of western countries, thus making their decision time shorter. It does and should not represent over all vehicle speed, IMO.

Last Change: A pdt change in the turn per day. Currently the stock scenario and most all scenarios have a seven turn sequence, a dawn, four day, a dusk and a six hour night turn. I have increase the turn cycle by one turn, by splitting the current six hour night turn into two three hour night turns. This does several things, the increase to four low visibility turns would benefit NATO in general, would penalize WP for fighting "through the night" more, and allow all units to gain back more fatigue because of the extra night turn, if they did not move, so it is not exactly a NATO only change, but more realistic, IMO.

I have been testing these changes in two medium scenarios and a "test" scenario.