Barbarossa PBEM campaing

[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