Barbarossa PBEM campaing

[Shazman]

committed

In a single word you have described what needs to be done to all typical wargamers. Most have managed to avoid this...so far.

I would like to throw in my two cents, although I'm a noob.

:soap:

It would seem interest would be generated by something exciting like this yet at the same time I have to agree that if each game lasts too long, not in turns but in real time from beginning to end, you could lose people along the way. Many things happen in life and in a large group in a large time frame the chance of something going awry is great.

If a game, any game, is to last for more than an average number of turns the people playing have to enter the fracas with an honest agreement to see the thing through, othewise alot of people's time has been wasted. Some of us don't have a whole lot of that left.

[Narwan]

May I suggest an alternative way to model such a campaign that still sticks to the basic idea but stays closer to the basic strengths of the SP games?

Now the idea is to have players fight and determine the outcome of each phase of the campaign. But instead of letting the battles the players fight determine the whole outcome, you can scale down the scope of specific battle fougth having them represent only a small part of the forces involved (much more SP-like) and let them just influence the outcome.

Specific example: In the opening stages of barbarasso many pockets, big and small, of soviet forces were created. So a round one scenario could be about closing the pocket (let's say historicaly all soviet troops got trapped). If jerry wins the pocket gets closed, if ivan wins some troops will get out. If they do then the next phase will be a bit harder for the germans as they'll be facing these ivans (again) were none were there historically. If the germans win by a wide enough margin they have managed to reduce the pocket quicker than historically making the next round a bit easier for them as the follow-up troops will be available faster than historically.

The campaign will diverge gradually from the historical battles, not in leaps and bounds, and to a large degree under control of the tourney organisers. It also means you can have battles of forces that are between battallion and regiment in size (don't forget people, a german '41 battallion nearly equals a soviet '41 regiment in points in SP) that still have a great effect on the outcome of the campaign at large. Whether those formations represent the real thing or are scaled down divisions can be determined per specific set-up, it doesn't have to be the same for each battle in the tourney.[/i]

Narwan

[Weasel]

better have a cup of coffee handy!

That's tomorrow morning. To wash down the aspirin. Kippis!

I've been toying with the concept of a micro-Barbarossa. Knock *everything* down to 1:100 scale, such that each panzer *section* with support represents a German armored division. (A mixed 4-tank platoon would be the Russian counterpart division, but then the Soviets were modeling their divisions on the 1939 pre-handwave Heer units.)

The entire Eastern Front would be some 400 hexes long, given that each hex represents 5 kilometers. Each turn would be 1 day of fighting. (Technically 8 hours of fighting, but counted at a 3:1 ratio to represent minimal realistic rest and refit requirements between rounds. Real combat is episodic.) Let's see, 22 June 1941 to a stop date of 5 December 1941 would be 167 days (yes, I'm *that* anal), so that would be probably 5 rounds of 33 turns each.

Five players on each side, with the map divided into 80-wide (north south) by about 60-across (east west) sectors. (Much like Europa Twilight, for simplicity's sake, except a bit more divided.) It's about 240 hexes from the start line to Moscow on this scale, so Moscow would be on the back tier of column 4, with column 5 existing to give the German team room to develop a reacharound, er, encircling movement.

Notice the intriguing dynamics: In real terms reduced to 1:100 scale, the Soviets must defend a 240-hex depth for 165 turns to win! Yow! Sounds like a suicide mission, until you consider that, of the ~1800 (!) units that Germany could field if ignoring reserves, only something like 60 (!!) would not be foot/horsedrawn units! It's really interesting to look at Barbarossa from a SP point of view. It ain't the damn army that Stavka has to sweat, it's just the tip of the spear ...

Anywho, that's the initial semidrunken analysis. Not that I've ever once designed a map in SPWW2 or H2H, but I do love to theorize ...

-- 30 --

Very interesting, and yes it would get rid of the highly mechanized German formations one faces every SP game wouldn't it. Very cool; I would play in something like that.

[Nomade]

I like the idea very much, however there's one thought that keeps up coming to my mind. If there are 200x200 maps, and also historical forces, there will be inevitably many battles that consist of both German and Russian infantry formations (regiments!), backed up by some artillery, a few prime movers and maybe a few motorbikes or scout cars. Probably more than 50% of that battle would consist of moving your infantry through empty land, without any realistic chance of anything happen except some artillery shells exchanging. And with huge force sizes, even this moving could still take up a considerable amount of time.

As I said, I like the idea, but it should be centered around the actual fight. It's not motivating enough for me if I end up moving large numbers of infantry every turn in (nearly) every battle, and in the end the result of this game has just a tiny influence.

[Shazman]

I like the idea very much, however there's one thought that keeps up coming to my mind. If there are 200x200 maps, and also historical forces, there will be inevitably many battles that consist of both German and Russian infantry formations (regiments!), backed up by some artillery, a few prime movers and maybe a few motorbikes or scout cars. Probably more than 50% of that battle would consist of moving your infantry through empty land, without any realistic chance of anything happen except some artillery shells exchanging. And with huge force sizes, even this moving could still take up a considerable amount of time.

As I said, I like the idea, but it should be centered around the actual fight. It's not motivating enough for me if I end up moving large numbers of infantry every turn in (nearly) every battle, and in the end the result of this game has just a tiny influence.

If the map isn't very deep it would solve this?

[seabolt]

I did some more research into micro-scaling this fight, but I'm about to give it up because a serious problem is becoming clear: To give the German side any hope of replicating the historical outcome, much less improving on it, you'd have to lower Soviet skill/morale/experience/leadership settings to the point that no sane SP player would take up their cause. I'm about convinced that the Red units would just have to be nigh unplayable rabble. From a pure assets standpoint, boots on the ground and tanks on the prowl, the Red Army should have kicked the Wehrmacht's teeth in.

Shrinking the fight by 100 makes it easier to visualize, at least for me, so: The start line would be only 240 hexes to begin with. (I was misremembering the front at its mid-war longest in my previous estimate.) That actually would fit at a diagonal on one huge map.

At this scale, you'd model a German infantry corp (3 divisions) as an SP company roughly so:

HQ (Infantry Squad)
3*Infantry Divisions (as platoons), each:
...Infantry Squad
...Infantry Squad
...Scout team (4 man)
...AT team
Engineer Squad
AT section (37mm guns) transported by wagon
Howitzer section (105mm) transported by wagon

That may seem terribly small, but keep in mind that a German division of some 12,000 men only mustered some 2,200 non-scout riflemen. We're not modeling crews, clerks, and cooks here.

The backbone of the attack would be about 23 of these corps. That's about 160 rifle squads supported by 80 scout teams, 80 AT teams, 23 engineer squads, 45 AT guns, and 45 105mm tubes. That actually sounds about right for a 240-hex front, and it's a force that (by game standards) is just bristling with AT capacity.

Of course, the Soviets have a roughly identical force spread out on defense, backed by 13 strongpoints (each representing a scaled-down Fortified Region).

Breaking through at less than 1:1 odds is going to be awfully tough, but then the Germans have their panzer troops. Here's what those would consist of at 1:100 scale: 2 panzer Is, 7 panzer IIs, 1 panzer II flame tank, 2 35Ts, 8 38Ts, 10 panzer IIIs, 4 panzer IVs, 3 StuGs, 1 jagdpanzer, and 2 FO tanks. A platoon consisting of 2 panzers, an infantry squad, and a truck would represent a panzer division.

That's 40 AFVs for the entire front, with only 17 of them really suited for a breakthrough role. Facing about 50 45mm AT guns, 13 strongpoints and *200* Soviet tanks. Granted, most of the Red tanks would be even more craptacular (the T-26)---the defense would begin with only 4 T-34s and a single KV-1---but only the panzer IVs and StuGs can really laugh off the ubiquitious Soviet 45mm light tank gun.

As for all of that AT capacity in the German infantry units, how much of it can keep up with the panzers and support them in their breakthrough role: just about zero. Pushing wagons into the attack in SP models real life pretty accurately ...

As you can see, it models real grim for the Germans, because in real life the Reds were horribly trained, their officers were in the midst of a massive reorganization that probably was over their heads, and their command and control was too deplorable to be modeled here. The only way to model that in SP is to scatter units so that none of them are in contact with their HQ and drastically lower their already awful historical rating, as far as I can figure.

My two cents and change, anyway.

-- 30 --

[Vesku]

You're right, SP can't show the strategics which affected so much the outcome of Barbarossa. That needs to be done artificially by lowering Russian quality.

You didn't mention airforces, Luftwaffe could lend a hand with couple of dozen planes ... counting only those in ground support role is not many but still a handful which is a handful more than Russians had.

All in all, the scale you are describing is something a majority of the people interested in the idea could probably commit to but at the same time it loses a lot of the original aspects. Perhaps a compromise of the original and the micro-scale?

[seabolt]

You didn't mention airforces, Luftwaffe could lend a hand with couple of dozen planes ... counting only those in ground support role is not many but still a handful which is a handful more than Russians had.

Well, to be fair to the Soviets, they start the fight with a huge advantage in plane count; even if you discount the outdated stuff they held a lead. In round 1 (the "surprise round") those planes would need to be unusable and parked in the Soviet backfield, as targets for the German planes. Even historically, in round 2+ they'll have more ground support technically available.

They were just really bad at it. Legend has it that only the commander of a light bomber squadron knew how to navigate or even had a map (!) in 1941. The other pilots were under strict orders to follow him like ducklings. The German AA gunners figured that one out real quick like. Again, you can't model that sort of incompetency without making the Soviet player want to shoot himself, and player fun is Rule 0.

Meanwhile, to be fair, the Germans were discovering the joys of cluster munitions in June. Their first models unleashed immediately, and the little buggers had a nasty habit of nestling in bomb bays to go off when jostled on landing. They lost quite a few planes before restricting cluster loadouts to externally loaded ordnance only.

All in all, the scale you are describing is something a majority of the people interested in the idea could probably commit to but at the same time it loses a lot of the original aspects. Perhaps a compromise of the original and the micro-scale?

Actually, it's not all that much a scaling issue. Granted, scaling changes the fight quite a bit because zones of control are magnified by 100 from real life. (Your basic infantry unit can provide covering fire to 60 kilometers out.) But that cuts both ways.

You probably could do this close to right in H2H by playing with C&C on and scattering the Soviet troops out of control range, but again it would be holy hell for the poor Red players.

An alternative might be to mandate "victim ratios" for 1941. Sure, the Soviet player technically has more troops on the ground in June, but (for instance) half of them are just parked as targets (modified to move and ammo 0) to represent units with no orders or initiative. They only count as German victory points. The other half can be fought normally.

I'd be keen to hear other ideas.

-- 30 --

[Outlaw Josey Wales]

Why not try this.........rather than something like Barbarossa, do a smaller campaign like say, Market Garden and see if there is a way to combine maps and go over the game limit of units ids and try and piece together a team campaign like that without scaling things down. Even to the point of doing a part of a campaign instead. Market Garden could be split into 4 distinct areas.......XXX Corps breakout, 101 AB with some XXX Corps eventually, 82 (same as 101) and Brit 1 AB.

Just an idea.

[seabolt]

see if there is a way to combine maps and go over the game limit of units ids and try and piece together a team campaign like that without scaling things down. Even to the point of doing a part of a campaign instead.

Two topics, here.

Scaling:

Actually, there's really no way to not scale at this level of detail, except for the most fanatical players of humongous battles. Even the fabled Wehrmacht combat teams of '44 rarely dealt with anything smaller than an infantry regiment when combining arms. Combining arms at the company, much less platoon, level? There's practically zero historical precedent for it.

SP scenarios feel "right" when they already incorporate at least a 3:1 scaling. I don't think the proposed 100:1 scaling for Barbarossa is the problem with modeling it. (In fact, that's the intriguing part, in that it helps some of us "grasp" the campaign on a more human level.) Realistic C&C that doesn't make a Soviet player want to chew off his own tongue and choke to death on the blood, that's the problem.

Team campaign:

You're absolutely right that this can be implemented on any scale. My initial idea has evolved to this: The campaign map would consist of a ~5-high by 6-wide grid. The 2 victory objectives (Berlin and Moscow for Barbarossa) would be at a front corner of a back-row map "cell," so that they could be attacked from 4 different "cells."

Each team would have 4 players. The referee would designate 1 player as High Command. Each team begins the campaign by negotiating strategy and allocation of assets. Whatever happens here, the High Command ultimately has final call on who is assigned to each of the starting maps, and what assets go where.

The High Command assigns himself to one of the starting maps, too, so that 4 of the 5 are manned by players. The fifth is manned by each team's politically connected but intellectually deficient lieutenant commander, Adolphus Inglebert for the Germans or Antov Ivolski for the Soviets. We call him AI, in either case.

Each player deploys his assets and chooses his stance. (He's supposed to do this according to the team plan, but does not have to ...) The stances are:

Defend: Always on defend, no chance to advance per delay.

Delay: Always on delay unless opponent delays or defends too, which creates a meeting engagement. If all adjacent teammates advance as result of round's battles, he also advances after any victory.

Meeting engagement: Defers initiative to opponent. Whatever stance the opponent takes, you take the usual opposite stance.

Advance: Always on advance unless opponent advances or assaults too, which creates a meeting engagement. If medium victory or better, pushes the opponent back one map.

Assault: Always assaults unless opponent stance triggers change, per above. Pushes opponent back with any victory.

High Command chooses the AI stance (obviously, defend or delay will be most common ...). Depending on who's assigned where, most often one player on each team will get to pound on the AI for the round. Sometimes opposing sectors will be AI vs AI.

After each round, possession of each row of the grid advances per the battle results. This will create salients, of course, which will be particularly dangerous and vulnerable at the same time. Haven't fleshed that out.

If a player's A0 unit gets killed, he's done! You now have a second AI commander on the team. This will be a grim day ...

Scoring would be by the Blitz model. Each player would get (eg) 0 points for a draw, +/-3 points for a minor, +/-6 points for a medium, etc. High Commands would get normal scores for their own battle, plus half of each subordinate's victory points (round down) and half-1 (eg, -2 for a minor, -4 for medium, etc) of each subordinate's negative defeat points. (Hoarding assets for yourself will kill you.) Bonus points will be provided for non-High Commanders who take prestige targets (Berlin, Moscow, Leningrad, etc). High Commanders earn bonuses for campaign speed and limiting overall losses.

Highest tally wins. Assuming you survived.

-- 30 --