Fall Kreml: German bunkers?

[ComradeP]

When you play a campaign game, or a lengthy scenario, you tend to come into contact with the extreme edges (good and bad) of the features within a system.

There is no limit to the number of artillery strikes on a hex in the game. There's a limit for air strikes, direct fire from a hex (but not into a hex as far as I know) and the number of men that can be involved in an assault, but there's no limit for artillery fire.

In Fall Kreml, the Germans only have trenches in their initial line instead of bunkers. Many hexes are in clear terrain.

The game doesn't have a modifier for the effectiveness of artillery fire when firing at certain terrain types or the various states of entrenchment/fortification, but has a modifier for the amount of damage a unit takes. You could argue that it's the same thing, but in my opinion it isn't as in the real world the effectiveness of artillery decreases dramatically as units become more dug-in, whilst in the game that doesn't apply as damage tends to be reduced only slightly.

The unfortunate result of this is that the Germans are very vulnerable to Soviet artillery even on parts of the front that should be quiet/static. I ran a few tests, and the 24 vehicle recently "upgraded" 132 Katyusha's cause about 15 casualties per hit on average for 30 hits against a German unit in trenches in clear terrain. Multiply that by 2 for an average of 30 or so for the turns when it can fire, which is about every 3 out of 4 turns at about 70 supply.

Add other artillery regiments and an air strike into the mix and you're causing 100 or more casualties in a single turn with relative ease. Note: this is still against an entrenched unit, the attacking units in the open will naturally suffer more.

There's no penalty for massing lots of units in a certain area, nor a penalty for assigning a large number of units to a single army or Front HQ as far as I'm aware. This means the Soviet player can create large artillery concentrations, concentrations that would come down to several artillery/rocket divisions. The Germans can obviously do the same thing, this isn't a uniquely Soviet problem, but the Soviets tend to have more artillery and they usually have bunkers in their initial defensive positions.

The first question is why the Germans don't have bunkers in their initial line, the front has been fairly stable for several months after all and when you play a scenario or campaign, trenches take at most a day or so (often half or even 2 turns with engineer support) to dig.

In my opinion, this is a possible issue that can be proven with math (just like the German replacement rate in the winter scenario) and not a "you need to play a full campaign first" thing. Also note that the larger units of the upgraded Katyusha's have not actually been tested in a full campaign game as far as I'm aware.

The second question is: what is the intended strategy the German player should stick to?

Keeping the unit in place? Suicidal.
Moving it away? Possible, but there are no reserves along most of the line so you'll have to pull back the line. Shortening the line also means the Soviets can do the same thing, and thus concentrate even more artillery on single targets.
Houserule for maximum number of artillery strikes against a hex? A bit much perhaps, the issue is mostly the total number of casualties and not that you can hit a hex often.

Casualties per artillery barrage are reasonable, although I feel the casualties from the good Katyusha's/werfers are too high against entrenched defenders or defenders in difficult terrain. The issue is that they add up, causing ahistorically high casualties. 50 casualties per battalion per day was very high in WWII for units that were not completely overrun, but in the game units can take that many in single turns with relative ease.

As an aside: would it be possible to add the men to vehicle comparison ratio for the stacking limit (1=10 per default) to the parameter data so it could be modified? Doubling it to 1=20, for example, would allow a battalion/Soviet brigade to move into a hex but would significantly reduce the super tank stack problem that can be encountered in some scenarios.

I guess it's perfectly natural to try to gain an advantage by using the features of the game to your advantage, but in the case of huge tank stacks, really strong defensive stacks in general when the attacker is of an inferior quality or large artillery concentrations, things can quickly become very difficult if not impossible for the opponent facing such tactics.

So, to repeat the operational problem to solve: some of your units take heavy casualties from artillery each turns. You don't have reserves to take their place (which also wouldn't remove the problem) and the units would regain only a small part of their losses if they would refit. What is your way of dealing with that strategy?