PB Kursk '43 South impressions/discussion

[Strela]

Were all of the Korps sized scenarios balanced towards a German victory if it happened historically? Let's take the II SS Panzer Korps July 5th scenario as an example.

You start with the same forces you have for Hill 228_6 as your active forces. However, the Soviets have all of their artillery available to them, and artillery limits are high considering the amount of casualties Katyusha's cause combined with the requirement for overstacking if you want to launch credible assaults.

I moved my men up and as the Soviets targeted the Pionier units with the artillery. Casualties were acceptable, about 13 men or so. The next turn, I assaulted the Soviets with the couple of units that could assault. None of the SMG units disrupted.

As the Soviets, I targeted the large assault stacks, which resulted in one company becoming combat ineffective. Another company followed next turn. For the cost of having lost the combat effectiveness of an entire battalion in just 2 turns of action, I captured 2 objectives. A few turns afterwards, 2 Soviet companies activate and my men are stuck, hammered by artillery.

The result was entirely predictable: good artillery, high artillery limited, only a handful of friendly units and a lot of objectives to capture. That wasn't likely to work. It often doesn't work in Hill 228_6 and it doesn't work when the Soviets have all of their artillery at their disposal, a significant chunk of which can fire at your men. It's a similar problem to what can happen in PzC: large artillery concentrations cause high losses in a limited amount of time. That combined with the rather variable results of whether or not you can capture bunkers means your men are very vulnerable.

The historical outcome of the scenario was probably a major victory: the SS successfully penetrated the first Soviet defensive lines. I wonder how many playtesters got that result.

What tactics were used to counter the Soviet cherrypicking units to attack, making them combat ineffective for the rest of the game? Isolated units can still spot, and as long as you are adjacent to a Soviet unit, it's very easy for the Soviet player to simply direct an overwhelming amount of artillery at your spearhead. Without any means of replacing your strength, that's a disaster for the Germans.

ComradeP,

Most scenarios were tested vs the AI. As you can imagine having the time to play test multiplayer for every scenario was impractical, particularly with the base game build changing over time.

I personally played the SS Jul 5 scenario and got axis wins most of the time. That said it was tough going and in the balance for quite awhile.

Your comment regarding artillery was realized when doing the scenario. I originally made most of the artillery unavailable but it resupplied quickly. I have realized I have missed the simplest way to handle this and that's to have the artillery arrive as a reinforcement. That will solve most of the issues you're seeing. Please note every unit shown was there historically, but as you point out fire control is more effective in game than real life.

I'll setup a multiplayer version of this scenario.

Finally, yes I tried to ensure that the Axis player received a win if they achieved the historical outcome. In a scenario like SS July 6, I trimmed back the requirements as what the SS achieved that day was truly astounding and probably beyond most players.

David