Updated Normandy'44_Alt (third time, 13 AUG)

[Volcano Man]

Elxaime,

Unfortunately I probably do not have the time to address all your questions as much as you would like, but I will try! But really though, (and I hate to say it) this has all been discussed in the past so maybe you can find more answers in the forum search or within the changes files in each _Alt. That said, a couple of things I will try to mention:

1) In regards to artillery, this all depends. I mean, in the stock game is artillery particularly effective against later war tanks? No, I don't think it is. The point being, how effective artillery is against hard targets depends on a lot of factors. In the Alt, if you can catch a large tank unit in clear terrain with several 155mm 20+ gun battalions then you can punish it, but this would be mid to early war tanks. This isn't much different than the stock game in that regard, and the artillery hard attack values (3 and 5) were actually officially sanctioned after being discussed extensively at Tillercon II (or III). Late war tanks of course have a higher defensive rating, which of course cuts back on how effective artillery, and everything else for that matter, is against them. I am not sure I understand why this is apparently a bad thing though, because artillery should be supplemental to everything else in the first place, used for fatigue accumulation and disruption mainly, not for decimating tanks or infantry.

2) In regards to tanks vs. infantry with direct fire, in my example I stated that I had tanks firing on infantry and the results from a 50 Panther tank battalion were not that staggering. Of course in the open the situation would be different, but there the tanks reign supreme anyway. Having had the curse of being both a tanker and infantryman myself, I don't see the current relationship in the (Alt) of infantry relying on AT battalions and other tanks to provide them with the real AT capability they require to stand up against tanks as a bad thing. IMO, the stock OOB doesn't place enough emphesis on tanks -- tanks are just one more unit type that gets thrown into the meat grinder of values that churn around and turn into a WW1 game of attrition after both sides meet. That is just my personal opinion though, and the goal in the Alt is to make the combat more mobile, but I am not saying that my approach isn't incorrect. I think any approach will have a flaw, so you just have to "pick your poison", so to speak. :)

3) In regards to German tank quantities and qualities, yes indeed! I think that the Alt values simply help expose a truth: that the German tanks are too highly rated in quality and also too numerous in N44 as compared to historical levels at the front -- as I mention, they arrive at 100% strength from off map sources after long road marches and heavy air interdiction. This doesn't make any sense to me and as I said I am going to go with the 70/80% approach in the next update, because I think it makes sense. Secondly, regarding quality, it is a fact that the Germans were, as you hint, rebuilding their forces in Normandy with fresh recruits so they typically didn't have the experience yet to be rated A and B in many cases. Because of this, we can assume the following (going down the OOB):

21st Panzer Division: this one really is quite astounding to me, because I think it is simply our infatuation with the division from North Afrika (DAK) heritage that causes us to rate it as B in the game. This unit practically ceased to exist after the North African campaign, and was rebuilt from the ground up in France after that, and the rank and file had mostly no experience whatsoever. Interestingly enough, you can really predict how much of a hodge podge ad hoc thrown together unit was just by looking at its units -- it uses quite a bit of French equipment in armor and SP artillery; DAK veteran formation it was not. This division is the most offending in unit quality to me, being rated B again because I think we are just so in love with its DAK heritage. It makes more sense to rate this unit as C, with A quality HQs (which represent the highly experienced cadre and leaders from the battles in North Africa). Of course this unit doesn't have any Panthers though, so it isn't much of an issue with super tank stacks anyway, still, they can be quite terrible to deal with, probably more than was historically the case. Weakening them, as I think they should be, would more historically confine them to a smaller section of the front once the reinforcements arrive, and put them in a more (historical) defensive role after that I think.

1st SS Panzer Division: this division was another one that was totally rebuilt from the Eastern Front, having no experience yet (IIRC). So this is rated C already in the _Alt and also in the stock game, and this makes sense. The HQs are rated at A though, to represent where the experience was.

12th SS Panzer Division: this division had no combat experience, but as we know it was highly motivated and trained. This is a bit tricky here, would the high motivation but lack of experience register at B quality instead of A? I tend to think that they should be rated as B but with A quality HQs. Here is something that supports that:

"While the Hitlerjugend members, who had grown up under NSDAP propaganda, were committed to the Nazi cause, they had no military experience. To provide a skilled backbone for the division, veterans from the 1st SS Panzer Division LSSAH were assigned to the Hitlerjugend division and provided all the regimental, battalion and most of the company commanders... " --Wiki

It seems to me like the reason this unit is rated at A is simply because of those History Channel documentaries that are so infatuated with the unit.

2nd SS Panzer Division: like the 1st SS Panzer Division, this division was also rebuilt after heavy fighting on the Eastern Front and contained recruits with no experience. Its HQs are A of course.

9th & 10th SS Panzer Divisions: both of these were refitted, but had seen action on the Eastern Front after that, so they are already both rated as entirely B quality (HQs too since both divisions were relatively new) now in the next version of the Alt. It makes sense too, considering that these divisions were often referenced as "twins" in this campaign (IIRC). The old ratings for these divisions were A and C respectively, so it averages those two together, which makes sense given their nearly identical situation.

17th SS Panzer Grenadier Division: while not a panzer division, I think this one is perplexing and very wrong. It is rated at B, probably again because of the tendency to rate German formations too highly (especially SS), but in reality this division was built from scratch at the end of 1943 from replacement units and conscripts, many of which were Romanians and French. At the time of Normandy, this formation only had a few months of training, so it makes sense to rate this division no higher than C quality. According to wiki, the division was understrength in officers and NCOs, so C quality brigade HQs can represent that, and it doesn't sound like they were drawn from experienced sources either, but the division HQ should probably be B quality as the only nod given to the fact that at least that HQ would have some experienced leadership.

2nd Panzer Division: this is another division whose quality is more likely decided by infatuation with the unit rather than any sort of reality. It is generally accepted that this division was an elite panzer division in the German army, but it too suffered heavy casualties and was refitted in France with recruits. They have always been rated as A in N44, but I believe this to be a mistake. We can assume that they too should be rated as C with A quality HQs, but then we can also give them a nod because of their "elite" status has to be some sort of motivating factor for them, recruits or not, which probably means they should at most be rated as B with A quality HQs. This more or less puts them in line with some of the panzer divisions in France '40 I think (elite status but no experience = B), which incidentally is also the reason for rating the 12th SS Pz Division as B above.

Panzer Lehr Division: again, our love for this division overrides any sort of logical quality assignment I think. The entire division is rated as A, despite having no experience. We know it was an elite formation, being comprised of elite training and demonstration units, but no experience has to count for something. So, this division should be rated similar to 2nd Pz Division and 12th SS Pz Division above, B quality from elite status and training but lack of experience, A quality HQs.

116th Panzer Lehr Division: IIRC this division was created from the remnants of a panzer grenadier division that was nearly destroyed on the Eastern Front, and some second line static infantry division from southern France, however it is rated as B. Again, another case of rating German panzer divisions too highly. The second rate formation could probably have been considered as D quality at best, and the remnants of the panzer grenadier division from the eastern front was all but destroyed and rebuilt, so this should all combine to rate the division as C with A quality panzer grenadier regiment HQs taken from that experienced division. The division HQ could be rated as A (von Schwerin was an experienced division commander and capable), and the panzer brigade could be rated B because it would likely have had experienced officers but also newly promoted ones (because the original formations this division was comprised of did not have a panzer regiment).

9th Panzer Division: yet another division that was almost totally destroyed on the eastern front, and rebuilt from recruits (it apparently only had 13 tanks in the division when it was transferred to France for refit). So, it should be rated as C with A quality HQs to again represent experienced leadership and cadre.

Whew. I think this is all on the right track as a more historical and logical assignment of quality levels to these German panzer formations, and it moves away from a Germanophile approach to quality level assignments. This also means that the only German panzer formation in the OOB that will be rated as A would be the SS.Pz.Btl.101, which makes sense to me (being both experienced, highly trained and of elite status). I am leaning towards doing all this in the next update unless someone has a major gripe about it, but I think all these changes are good (quality level adjustment, slightly higher breakdown, reinforcement arrival strength adjustment). All of these changes are subtle, logical and should have a nice effect on balance in the long run of the campaign game. :)

BTW, you are correct about the Panthers in Kursk '43. The stock game had these rated at A, but this made them basically the spearhead and centerpiece of anything that happens in the south, which is not historical. They played a part in the battle, but (as you said) their crews were inexperienced and the tanks had not yet been teethed. They do have "low reliability" flag in K43_Alt, and it was rationalized that these units would be rated as C because of no experience, but then lowered again to D because of relatively little experience with the new equipment they were given. This makes them less of a centerpiece in the campaign, and more of a minimal impact - like a "cool" unit to use at first until it wastes away into nothing later.

///////////////////

All that said, I also do think the Axis breakdown rate should be a LITTLE different than it is too. Let us think about this for a moment: it is a well known fact that German tanks could be considered a highly engineered piece of equipment for its day, which is both a good and a bad thing. This often meant that they were more prone to mechanical failures than simpler (and less effective) allied tanks. Barring giving the "low reliability" flag to all German tank units -- which wouldn't be fair -- at the very least they should always have a higher breakdown rate than the Allies *late in the war* (lets say 1943+). If they do not, then historical advantages such as a extremely reliable T-34 or Sherman tank, cannot be represented because both sides have the same breakdown rate (which is usually around 10%). Furthermore, IIRC, the breakdown rate is dependent on unit quality so this only further complicates the issue making breakdowns for German tanks even less likely than the allies, because they typically always have their tank units in the A and B range, while the allied tank units are typically in the B - D range. This means the allies actually suffer more breakdowns than the Germans do. It gets better: because the German tank units are generally always of higher quality then it usually also means that they are recovering strength faster than the allied tank units, if recovery levels are comparable (and they usually are, typically being 1% to 2% or so). So what does this mean? I think a typical breakdown rate for both sides in 1943+ campaigns in PzC should probably always be about 2 times that of the Allies. Rather than doubling the Allied rate here, I think I will make an adjustment to both, instead of 10% for both, I will change it to 8% Allied vs. 16% Axis, as this is not much different than the original, but establishes that 1:2 ratio mentioned above.

I know at least one old former big time PzC player around here that absolutely hated breakdowns, but this is/was a fact of life in armored warfare, and a problem that just had to be adapted to for operational commanders. It sometimes caused tank units to avoid lots of movement, because they didn't want to overwork their vehicles or because they needed to sit while they recovered the already broken down ones. This translates into more realistic behavior too, because commanders must avoid excessive movement, or at the very least, plan the movements better. That said, I am not recommending an extensive change here either, just one that establishes a better relationship between both allied and axis rates.

EDITED: I left out a few divisions the first time I made the post, added now.