Scheldt '44 - Realism versus Playability?

[ComradeP]

Every PzC title I own has scenarios that are very one-sided affairs.

Though there are certainly things about Scheldt '44 that could be improved, thus far the scenarios represent the fighting quite well.

Considering the state of the Wehrmacht, the performance of the Commonwealth forces in the operations covered by the game were not amongst the best ever conducted by the various Allied nations. Most were average at best. The Commonwealth armies as a whole are average in PzC, and in many other wargames. That doesn't mean there was anything wrong with the quality of the average Commonwealth soldier, but there were few brilliant Allied successes between September and November 1944 in the Low Countries.

The observation by phoenix that it plays like an Eastern Front game is a good one. In many ways, Commonwealth forces have the same strengths as the Red Army: large tank units and lots of artillery. All Allied armies had serious infantry firepower deficiencies compared to PzG units, but the situation in Scheldt '44 is better than in a game like Battles of Normandy where Commonwealth infantry units tend to be brutally murdered by A and B quality German mobile units with SA values of 11. Just like Soviet forces in the East. In Scheldt '44, the base SA rating is 7 instead of 6 for the Commonwealth forces compared to BoN. Of course, they're D quality in the early campaign aside from Guards Armoured, but they're all motorized.

As someone interested in military history, the question of why the Commonwealth armies didn't improve infantry firepower or at the least improve the firepower in mobile units is something that keeps puzzling me.

Mobile operations, or operational breakthroughs, were not the strongest point of the WWII British Army. Though in the game it can be frustrating to make little progress, I find it quite enjoyable because this represents the fighting well. You have a mediocre force fighting a mediocre to good force. It's no blitzkrieg game,