Old Bolt stuff

[Aaron]

1. The West German 6th PzGren. Division around Hamburg needs to be made attachable, since one of the early NATO decisions with that division is whether to stage a fighting withdrawal north towards the Danish border or to fall back to defend Hamburg itself in urban combat. At present, it is stuck with attachment to LANDJUT, which means if they choose to fall back into Hamburg (or are cut off and forced to do so) they will end up cut off from their main source of C&C. In a situation where they are defending Hamburg, it would make more sense to allow them to be attached to another corps (likely FRG I Korps or the Dutch).

Already got your wish, went threw the oob and made alot more units attach/detachable and Landjut as a whole is one of them. Ive also got something for you players who like to pull the 6th back to Stalinburg, surprise surprise.

2. Currently the SSM units of both sides are able to fire artillery mines hundreds of hexes into enemy territory. This has happened in a PBEM I am currently in, with Warsaw Pact artillery mines covering the roads west of the Weser. Frankly, I didn't mind all that much since NATO has plenty of engineers, is bogged down already somewhat by Spetznaz operations (clearing the mines gives the engineers something to do) and in any case I always felt NATO movement to the front might even be slower than the game shows due to traffic accidents, fuel problems and people getting lost. Not sure how you accomplish this in the game mechanics, but something to think about. I don't know if this tactic has been heavily used, but I don't think NATO or Soviet SSM have the capability to deposit artillery mines. If they do, I stand corrected! :)

No, first ive heard of this and yes they arnt capable,might have to delete them all. As far as having trouble getting to the front some have said its to hard and some say it should be harder so if i look in the middle of those 2 it must be perfect :) I did double the congestion value

3. I am wondering if the morale of West German Heimatschutze should be sent up a notch. Granted, they were territorial units. But they are fighting on their home turf against an invader. It seems strange they would have the same staying power as (likely very unwilling) Czech and Polish conscripts sent into an invasion by their Moscow masters, particularly in the circa 1989 political environment. Some of the same considerations would apply to Danish or Austrian home defense units (to the extent any of their regular forces qualify as such). I know this is ultimately a judgement call - in WW2 it was not uncommon for the armies of small countries to surrender in days if they were being overwhelmed. But something about seeing the West German units with D ratings strikes me wrong...since the premise of the scenario is an unprovoked Warsaw Pact invasion I have to think this is the best case for a united German political position to defend their country.

You have to remember these guys for the most part were only in the military for only 18 months and now they could be 30/40 something years old, i think they are up a level higher than they should be especially in the Rgts. If you look at half of the Czech/Polish divisions they have the same morale as the Heimatschutze Rgts and alot of them were regular soldiers but for the reason that your saying they are taken down a notch. Also read in alot of cases not for the Heimatschutze Bdes but the Heimatschutze Rgts would have used civilian vehicles for transportation. These Rgts were suppose to be for rear area also and i doubt most people use them for that, i thought about attaching them at Corp/Front level to make it harder to put near the front but i dont like to take to much freedom away from the player, after all he is the commander and do as he wants with them.

4. I read with interest the comments above on the bridge destruction capabilities of heliborne engineers. I think your solution of thickening the rear area Pact security units, perhaps even upping their AAA and SAM capability, or even creating special "bridge defense" static units attached to GSFG at key bridges, may work. HOWEVER, you don't want to go too far and I would stay away from solutions that "gimp" these special NATO units.

Well if you look at the first change these helo eng units fell into that category already, so they were going to lose 3HA,SA and Assault as it was, lack of heavy equipment and alot of heavy weapons, i just took an extra 2 defence and 10 movement to make sure. If you think about it though these units did have some dozers and such so it would have taken them longer to prepare to move and redeploy plus the slower flying times so i kinda see it justified. The WP rear security is thicken but it only extends so far with the limited command range i put on the Border unit HQs, it wont help much in occupied territory unless you plan on having a bunch of out of command units. The Security units you do have that are attach at Army/Front level do have some increased values.

I have played Warsaw Pact more than NATO, so my view here is not fan boy NATO favoritism. But for Pact players who are complaining about needing to hunt down rear area bridge blowers, we should realize Bolt From the Blue is already taking extreme positions in a number of areas to favor the Pact, e.g.:

- the assumption of near complete surprise
- the relative political reliability of Pact allied forces in an invasion of the west (IRL in 1989 this would have thrown the Pact allied nations, particularly Poland, into turmoil that would have affected the armies)
- the basket case Soviet economies RL inability to maintain/train at the level to carry out something like this
- the Elbe bridges would have been target #1 for NATO SSM and air

Complete surprise is not as complete as it used to be, even in this version there are many more Nato troops already on the move or unfixed for the first turn. I would say about 3 divisions worth.

Cant comment on the Air part, thats been mentioned in many a threads and cant do anything about it.

So, ultimately, assuming you thicken some of the Pact security forces, I would leave alone the ratings and capabilities of the NATO airborne engineers; no sense gimping their other usefulness to head off an outlier tactic that can be countered with your other changes; there aren't too many of these heliborne engineers and the Pact in any case SHOULD have to worry about garrisoning at least some of its key rear bridges as it advances (and pay a penalty for failing to do so). Remember, Pact players, NATO can't bomb these bridges down like they could IRL - the Pact is already getting off easy here!

My two cents.
[/quote]

Thanks for some cents

Aaron

---

Then you wouldnt have learned anything, its good practice and practice makes perfect.

Thank you Sensei.
Now if you could tell me how to mod the files unitbox.bmp and 2Dsymbolslg.bmp in order to make a nation to look different from the others...

You stick it in the editor and change them to something else. :cheeky:

I think the ones i changed i found my camo pattern, shrunk it to the same size as one of the boxes (half the unit box) the same way i do .pdf, and then copy and paste to the other half but then you have to lighten the other half (stick the whole unitbox in editor put a square around the half and then use the brighten slider) . Place the yellow/red border on, 2 hexs wide 2 hexs from the edge, after all that you need to find and create your roundles and copy one on to each half.
Simple eh

These might need a touch up but itll get you started

[attachment=2687]
[attachment=2688]

Heres a camo site

h**p://kamouflage.net/

dont forget to cross your Ts