PZC System not much being said

[Al]

Another point is the "fight to the death" nature of surrounded isolated doomed troops. Always. There are no mass surrenders possible. In other words, the Russian must grind the Stalingrad pocket into fine dust, there is no "surrender level" at which resistance ends.

Doesn't the Optional Surrender rule address this point where units will surrender if certain conditions are met rather than fighting to last man?

[Landser34]

I agree with Jazman on units fighting until totally destroyed didnt happen in real life in most situations most units broke and just ran to the rear and then had to be gathered up another thing i would like to see is something along the line of fatigue like in the Hps civil war games war if a regiment or a brigade takes so many casualties the whole brigade r regiment disrupts.i nalot of battles somtimes all it would take is to destroy even a rifle company and a whole regiment would give way

[Landser34]

one thing i would like to see dont know if it could be done or not is to when firing on a unit and say all you can fire on that unit with units of yours that are in different hexes but firing at the same hex if there firing could be combined i know in old board games you could do this

[Dog Soldier]

Jazzman,

I think Al is referring to the entire German 6th Army surrendering, not individual battalions or companies. As I recall from Stalingrad readings, the 6th army disintegrated slowly. Some units fought on because they did not know about the surrender by Paulus. Others because it was to mean certain death to surrender anyway. The Germans by this time knew of the harsh treatment they could expect in Russian POW camps. SS units had routinely executed commissars that were captured after interrogating them. The death's head badge meant death if the soldier wearing it was captured. SS units fought on, in hopeless situations, as the war increasing went against Germany on the Eastern front because of this. One could argue that most gamers will surrender the game when the 6th Army pocket can not be relieved, thus simulating this type of surrender.

Optional surrender, esp. in Stalingrad would be a poor choice IMHO. Rodimetsev's Guards fought on in the southern rail station in small groups even after the position fell to the Germans after changing hands many times in September. This caused German units moving up to be grounded by sniper fire when still well behind the lines in October.
A handful, less than 50 men, naval infantry and Guards, held out in the Grain Elevator causing the Germans to throw elements of three divisions into the area and rotate companies assaulting the structure until the Russians were all killed or ran out of water and ammo. These types of actions are modeled by small units holding a ZOC. There are also examples of the Germans fighting beyond reason in the northern factory district after 6th army surrendered.

But this tangent I have gone out on relates to so many Stalingrad games I have seen where the city fighting took place on maps of a smaller scale than PzC in specific scenarios for those maps. HPS missed an innovation here in S42. They could have created an exit hex area(s) where the campaign map meets the edge of the city. Units moving off the campaign map here would then be deployed on a city map of a different scale. This map would be invoked by the player like a web pop-up, (a good use of ugly technology). The landing zones for the Volga ferries would work in a similar manner. Movement between maps in the exit areas would be allowed if both sides were controlled by one side. Protection zones could be used to avoid "edge of the world" gameyness. This innovation would excite the community about this title and the series.

Or do you guys disagree?

Dog Soldier

Dog Soldier

[Dog Soldier]

Air attacks on guns has been mentioned as ineffective by several people in this thread. I would imagine that to be true if the guns were deployed. It would be hard for the aircraft to sneak up on the gunners. They would hear the planes coming and move into prepared foxholes and slit trenches until the planes were driven off or expended their ordnance and left. The idea that gunners would stay at the guns if not actively firing to be strafed seems silly. Also hitting a gun or close enough to put it out of action would be a random event by air attack. Carpet bombing might have more success, if the battery was properly located by the bombardier. Disruption could be a more likely outcome as ammunition gets hit and cooks off. It would take the battery some time to get things back in order.

Planes did not stay over a hex for two hours to bomb and strafe. My experience talking to veteran WW2 pilots was they would make a bomb run and maybe a strafing run or two then get out of the area. Staying around would invite flak to get the range on the aircraft, or enemy fighters could show up and then your cooked with your dive bomber or modified fighter so low when the enemy fighter pounces. In our abstract PzC air war, it seems like these distractions, (real or imagined) do not exist, but the thought of getting attacked when at a disadvantage (like attacking a ground target) was reason enough for pilots to not hang around to see those guns were destroyed and all the gunners killed. The pilots rarely saw if they did damage at all. The wing camera's were used to determine this and those were not on every plane.

Dog Soldier

[Dog Soldier]

This is a great discussion. There have been some good observations of places to improve the system.

Dog Soldier

[JonS1]

Hi there,
something I've been thinking about recently is the unsatisfactory way trucks are represented. In - for example - US and UK infantry divisions the riflemen in the infantry bns had to walk everywhere, unless some part of a relatively limited pool of transport trucks were allocated to carry them to their destination. In "Decisive Battles of WWI : The Ardennes Offensive" this is simulated passingly well by having a small pool of trucks that can be used to motorise a few infantry units each turn.

PzC could significantly expand this idea:

* Each side would have a pool of GS Transport Companies, with each company able to lift the infantry of a Brigade or Regiment (or it could be set up so that each truck 'unit' could lift a single battalion). All units of the Regt (or bn if that is chosen - actually, bn would probably be a better sized unit for this) would mount and dismount at the same time.

* Allocating a truck unit would give the unit it was allocated to a status of "On Trucks", which is analogous to the "On Foot" status we have now.

* For extra staff-work frustration, the system could be set up so that the "On Trucks" status is only acheived the turn after the trucks are sent to a unit. Similarly, trucks would only become available the turn after they were withdrawn. Think of this delay as the time taken to move the trucks from wherever to their enw destination, and to refuel, carry out maintenance, etc. Imposing the delay would also serve to punish leaving the trucks with a particular unit for lack of anything better to do with them - in general the trucks 'should' be in the pool, and only allocated when there is a requirement to motorise a unit.

* For super-extra frustration, mounting should only be allowed out of ZOC, and dismounting should be automatic once a unit enters ZOC - and mounted untis cannot dig in or carry out any other game function (incl firing).

* These trucks would not exist as explicit units. They would simply be a notional pool of truck points that could be used or hoarded as required.

* A useful enhancement would be to allow increases and decreases to the pool of trucks over long campaigns (eg, no Allied trucks at the start of an N44 campaign, but gags of them by August, etc)

* The current MOT and "On Foot" rules can be retained exactly as they are for units that really did have their own trucks - UK Motor Bns, Ger PzGrens, etc.

Regards
JonS

[Death Wombat]

I guess my biggest issue with artillery in particular isn't its realism or lack thereof but the sheer tedium of firing all those units every turn in large games. That's why I tend to like the alt fire rules for artillery, because I simply do not have the patience to go through each and every elligible battalion and fire it twice. But those who have mentioned that the resulting carnage is often unbalancing are very right, so I'm not sure what to do.

I would personally prefer that every large scenario be designed and balanced for alt arty fire, because I can't imagine playing the larger campaigns anymore having to fire hundreds of times each turn for a couple of men in losses each. It already takes too long to play each turn and frankly I get bored targeting each and every arty unit, especially given the minimal results each fire mission gives you.

[Sgt Fury]

JonS1,

Yes, that's a great idea about the motor pool. It would solve the problem of the 101st and 82nd airborne divisions being motorized infantry in B44. I think it would also be good in EA42 too since I don't think the commonwealth infantry (or axis for that matter) had to hoof their way across the entire desert. I highly doubt we'll see it ever though since B44 on its own was not strong enough motivation.

Fury

[elpaco]

Hi,

there is a couple of suggestions I would like to share.

- about engineers building bridges :
I find it weird that it takes the same time to build a small wooden bridge to allow some infantry to cross a river and to build a bridge heavy enough to bear a 50-tons tank.
I think this should be quite easy to improve :
as a matter of fact, there are already 3 types of bridges in the game (small, medium and heavy). What about taking into account these 3 types for bridges built by engineers?
When an engineer complete its bridge ops, the bridge is a small one.
then the engineer would have to bridge ops again to build a medium bridge
and then the engineer would have to bridge ops a third time to build a heavy bridge...
what do you think ?

-about air recon :
in the game, you select an hex and the airplanes recon the area around this hex. Fine but what is happening on the way ? is the pilot blind ?
I mean, especially in the desert, it is almost impossible to miss vehicles moving because of the cloud of sand, even if you don't have a close look at the ground.
I think the recon unit should recon the area selected but also on the way to the area selected.