New S42 Campaign!

[von Nev]

Hi Volcano Man,

Before I switched to bunkers I tried everything to give the Germans a fighting chance to hold the pocket. The Russian armor and artillery was just too powerful. In my campaign as the Germans I formed a very solid pocket with the nearly full strength A morale Panzer divisions of the 14th and 24th Panzers as reserves. When the Russians unleashed their attack I threw both of these divisions at the attack (which came from the northwest) trying to hold entrenchments and both divisions were crushed in about 10 turns. The Russians just bowled them over with artillery plastering each German stack to the point most units broke. The German armor was completely unmatched against the Russian T-34 and KV-1 stacks.

The only way to hold the German line was to give them bunkers and in some very critical places pillboxes. Honestly, this makes sense historically too. Once the pocket formed, every town, village and settlement was turned into a defensive strongpoint. Russian artillery would pound these for days and still not get through.

The PzC game engine, IMHO, tends to favor the attacker and the casualty rates show it (i.e. defender has higher casualty rates than the attacker - which is opposite what typically happens in WWII battles). This makes PzC campaigns where the Russian has more men to start with hard to balance. In these campaigns historically, the Germans inflicted more casualties on the Russians which "balanced" the historical battlefield. In PzC games when the Russians inflict more casualties on offense against a smaller German opponent at some point in the game (my experience is usually around turn 70 to 90) the German defense just implodes through attrition and losses. The Russian juggernant gets statistically bigger and bigger relative to the Germans over time. This is typically made worse by the Russians having higher recovery rates. The net net of it all is the Russians gain more men on a higher base of troops all the while inflicting higher losses on a shrinking base of German troops.

The only way to offset this effect is to A) increase the German attack values (which is hard), B) increase the defensive terrain values, or C) put bunkers and pillboxes all over the place to offset the Russian artillery and mass infantry advantage. In my campaign I elected to parts of all three.

We will see if it works.