Alt Version of K44 - Community Request

[Strela]

Dog Soldier,

Firstly thank you for such a complete post.

What you have written conveys a lot of the concerns I have had.

The great challenge with many of the HPS East Front titles have been the differences in mechanisation of the respective armies. The Soviet reliance on infantry regularly puts them at a disadvantage and their smaller Tank Corps vs Panzer Divisions compounds the problem.The VM _ALT riles also puts more emphasis on a ranged fight so that requires consideration too.

There are a couple of possible things I could experimant with :

- Increase breakdown ratings for German mechanised forces - the dance of death now comes at a price.
- Increase the 'authorised' size of the T-34 units but start them at their normal levels, i.e. allow them to grow over time if a Russian is careful, particularly if matched with a high replacement level
- Look at the movement costs for Russian infantry, particularly in snow
- Fix units such as 3rd Panzer which is available immediately to face off against 2nd Ukranian Front, thus forcing the infantry to face the Russians for a day on their own.
- Do not allow Stug units to breakdown into company components
- Remove all the 'trash' counters (half tracks, AT guns etc) from the German side and build their values into the line battalions


Currently we are looking at increasing the T-34 authorised strength and I have already eliminated many of the trash counters, but have currently combined them into a much smaller number of company / battalion equivalents. For example in a test we dropped 1st Pz Div down from 87 units to just under 60. I could go more radical and match Minsk / Kursk structure and get this down to about 36 units per Pz Div.

I think the main aim of the campaign game is to make it relatively easy for the pocket to form and for the drama to unfold once the relief Panzers are released.

The second aim is to make the game playable - personally the huge counter mix has always put me off this title, despite the battle being one of my all time favourites.

Please keep the feedback going - this will hopefully help VM and I to get a playable series of scenarios out for you all.

David