Panzer Campaigns update

[ComradeP]

Interesting points.

Disruption cutting movement rates to 1/2 is, as others have mentioned, more of a problem for the Soviets or other D or lower quality units due to their movement rate just being 3 to begin with.

In most situations, I can chase and isolate Soviet units without them Disrupting immediately, due to German infantry units being able to move 4 or even 5 (German motorized infantry in Moscow '42) hexes.

The system has a number of other issues which, combined, can cause it to break the balance of a scenario.

For starters, virtually everything is tied in some way to quality and there are few limitations in place as to how quickly quality can be reduced.

The thing that breaks my Soviet line tends to be 1 man/D results, as the system is quite generous with when Disruption checks have to be passed. More casualties make it more likely that a unit has to take such a check, but there's no bottom limit. As such, breaking a Soviet fortified lines comes down to firing as often as you can with everything that can fire, as statistically speaking the Soviets will Disrupt within a day most of the time.

As there are a variety of ways quality and thus unit effectiveness can be reduced, significant differences in hard/soft values matter. This is another balance issue for Eastern Front scenarios in particular, as Soviet units tend to have SA values of 4 or 5, modified by -20% for most of them. As a result, they get butchered by B and A quality German units even without being pocketed.

The impact that having perfect information has on balance should also be taken into account. The defender often starts with a mostly Fixed force to prevent him from withdrawing from what he knows is coming. Not all scenarios are balanced in a way that gives the defender a chance to strike back later. Most of the wargames I've played have difficulties with modelling battles where a defender first has to retreat and is then expected to counterattack.

Then there's the ineffectiveness of mobile units compared to their real-life counterparts. In games where mobile infantry has a movement rate of 4 hexes, you can't assault after moving two hexes. With 5 you can, but I don't know if that's normal for other PzC games than Moscow '42. This combined with locking ZOCs means infantry units can't break through a line by themselves if the enemy keeps withdrawing.

Normally, you would counter that with moving faster units. The problem is that earl-mid war tank units in PzC are very weak compared to their real-life counterparts, particularly German tanks.

Low SA values, low defence values, mediocre assault values and a relative strength in men of 1-2 companies make it difficult to do much with them against a defender who knows what he is doing. Add to that the fact that infantry assaulting tanks faces no significant penalties, and you have a situation where a mobile breakthrough is difficult to create.

This is one of the reasons why you need to be able to kill something, instead of being unable to catch up to retreating units.

Casualty points in campaign scenarios tend to be worth more than objectives close to the initial frontline, so trading ground for keeping your men alive tends to be a solid strategy.

Which leads to another point: replacements are abstracted to either a percentage of total strength, or a percentage of the number of men/guns/vehicles the unit is missing. There are no hard caps, nor any production limitations. In battles where the defender, usually the Germans, suffered from shortages in men and equipment, parking your units in the rear for a day or two will have them close to full strength or at the least return them to a quite powerful state.

Should the attacker face difficult terrain (like in, say, Normandy) or have slower units (say Kharkov '43) it is difficult to deal with German defenders that can recover from most losses. Read some of the Normandy/Kharkov AAR's on this forum: in most of them, the Germans simply retreat for a while and recover losses at a very ahistorical rate. This makes it difficult to kill units.

FWWC faces a similar problem: though it's 1914, competent defending players play it like it's 1916. As we have perfect information, we know how deadly MG's are and how pointless it is to attack a defence in depth without (indirect fire) artillery support. Find some good terrain, dig-in and let the attacker massacre itself. It may very well not turn into the historical war of movement.

If you read some of the comments about the France '14 campaign game, for example, one of the issues raised is that the Entente could in earlier versions simply dig-in close to the initial frontline and the Central Powers couldn't really make much of an impression as replacement rates are fairly generous and fatigue matters more than losses, also due to the infantry losses/effectiveness modifier making it difficult to truly cripple infantry units.

Such a situation might also appear in PzC games if Disrupted defenders would be allowed to withdraw at full movement rate, particularly if the Soviets would at some point be able to move 4 hexes with regular Rifle units.

In FWWC, you have no real breakthrough or exploitation units. In early-mid war PzC, your breakthrough units are not very impressive aside from the infantry.

Giving Disrupted defenders full movement rate would not address issues such as the relative ease with which lower quality units Disrupt in the first place, disparity in attack values making it difficult to hold a line as the Soviets, or the inability of the Soviets to retreat in an effective manner due to the multitude of Fixed units, even with 3 hexes/turn movement. If units from the initial line are also supposed to hold the second, things can quickly become hairy for the Soviets.

Disrupted defenders having 1/2 movement is one of the many reasons why the Soviets or other low quality armies have a hard time, but I would say it is not the most prominent one. Rather, I'd say it's a combination of mechanics that make it difficult for the Soviets to hold.

The situation in Panzer Battles is in some ways worse instead of better, as days last longer and nights are short, so you can't retreat and rest your units in most cases. This also makes a disparity in attack values even worse for the side with the lower values. A quality mobile units attack with an adjusted SA value of 17.5 or 18 (the quality fire modifier is 2.5 times normal, so +50% for A quality units), facing 4 SA D quality Rifle units or for example 6 SA C quality Commonwealth units. The Germans also tend to have range 4 with the Allies and Soviets at range 3.