Point Values

[Herr Straße Laufer]

Going back to the original discussion, I'm just stating that I would love to see the vp's included in the oob for my personal reasons. I'm certainly not trying to sell the tools we are working on, they've worked well for us in creating battles and perhaps one day we'll make them public for the club. But it will be a case of like it or leave it.
As I think Von Earlmann said? - if you enjoy it, play it, if you didn't it was just a waste of time, that's all!
I have to agree that I find all this number crunching a brain-numbing process when all we want surely, is a fun game to play?
Each to their own tho' and I respect that.

Understand & agree with your sentiments.
Any and all tools would be helpful.

Ed

[Herr Straße Laufer]

So, what I am hearing is that a simple tool that read a .SCN file and reported the VP totals (grouped in the same hierarchy as the OOB) might be useful?

umbro

I think it would be, yes.

I would imagine most of the people asking for the addition of VP allocation would be those with table-top wargaming behind them?

Jason Petho

It must be Valentine's Day and I am agreeable? ;)

Ed

[junk2drive]

:jaw: :pig:

[Glint]

I quite agree that many 'historical' battles have been well designed and enjoyable but I personally, have played them purely as a battle and for the fun. I'm not really interested in the detail of 'what actually happened'.
I am full of admiration for the designers efforts and keeping the database full with games.
I also see that the purists would enjoy obtaining the 'feel' and 'creativity' and I admire a work of art and it's creation, but,-
Like an artist, he can take ages creating a work of art and I would admire the painting, but being a guy with little time available, I'd grab a digital camera and take an equally good picture that can be admired, quicker.
The finished subject is then down to the viewer's point of view. Same way I don't think one can say one type of scenario design method is superior to another? It's the guys playing the scenarios' that will decide that?
To say one method will play out better than another when one hasn't even experienced playing 'the other' is a bit of blinkered vision, with all due respect guys?
regards
Peter

[Huib Versloot]

You bring up the Volksgrenadiers? Remember they even struck fear into battlehardened Soviet troops when well armed/supplied with the Panzerfaust. And, many were equipped with automatic submachine guns which made them more powerful defenders in built up areas?
When they are the last best hope for Germany's defense they would have more value than the kids and old men they actually were?
Ed

Actually Volksgrenadier is a just different name for the same old German infantry soldier. All German units, also Fallschirmjäger and other units that were not renamed to "Volksgrenadiers" got a certain allocation of of Stg44 rifles and Panzerfausts, not only Volksgrenadier divisions. For example the 12th Infantry division had already lost most of their Sturmgewehre in their fruitless attacks on Schevenhuette, even before the division was renamed to 12th Volksgrenadier Division in Dec 1944. The lost Stg44's were replaced with K98 rifles.
Perhaps the ORG editor should have Stg44 Platoons that you can mix in the divisions instead of calling them Volksgrenadier, which is just a name and not telling anything about the weapon. Or a certain amount of Stg44 rifles and Panzerfausts should be abstractly represented in late war German infantry units (slightly more effective short range fire and increased assault rates.)
Another example: German late war Bicycle troops: don't have Panzerfausts in the game. I don't know why, but it is certainly not the way it should be. They are just normal German infantry who would have had a rifle or a stg44 and a couple of Panzerfausts.... and a bicycle stolen in Holland.

Huib

[Herr Straße Laufer]

I'm not a huge proponent of Wikipedia. But, they seem to sum up the distinctions quite well.
Honestly, I have to admit I blended the two units.

Volksgrenadier was the name given to a type of German Army division formed in the Autumn of 1944 after the double loss of Army Group Center to the Soviets in Operation Bagration and the Fifth Panzer Army to the Allies in Normandy. The resulting strategic emergency and concomitant manpower shortage required the creation of infantry divisions that economized on personnel and emphasized defensive strength over offensive strength. The Volksgrenadier divisions met this need by using only six line infantry battalions instead of the normal nine for infantry divisions — already a common reality for many existing divisions — and by providing more short-range firepower in the form of automatic weapons like the new "wonder weapon" Sturmgewehr 44. One of the battalions was provided with bicycles, in order to provide some semblance of a mobile reserve. The name itself was intended to build morale, appealing at once to nationalism (Volk) and Germany's older military traditions (Grenadier). Around 50 were formed late in the war.

Many prior infantry divisions that had been mauled or destroyed in combat were rebuilt to the new Volksgrenadier standard, and new divisions were raised as well. They were formed out of anything the Replacement Army could get its hands on: boys and elderly men, men previously rejected as physically unfit for service, wounded soldiers returning from hospitals, and transfers from the "jobless" personnel of the quickly shrinking Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe, usually organized around small cadres of hardened veterans.

Volksgrenadier divisions participated in the Battle of the Bulge, the defense of the Siegfried Line and Eastern Front, and the final battles in Germany. Many of the divisions were rushed into battle with a minimum of training, their morale shattered by earlier events and thus performed very poorly, though others acquitted themselves very well and fought bravely despite their weak organization and the poor strategic situation.

Volksgrenadiers should not be confused with Volkssturm.

The Volkssturm (lit. "folk-storm"; "People's" or "National Militia"; Sturm lit. "storm", may be translated in a military context with "assault") was a German national militia of the last months of World War II. It was founded on Adolf Hitler's orders on October 18, 1944 and conscripted males between the ages of 16 to 60 years who were not already serving in some military unit as part of a German Home Guard.
_________________
I think unit cohesion and integrity would be a factor in both types.



Ed

[Herr Straße Laufer]

:jaw: :pig:

Your lips to God's ears? :smoke:

[Von Earlmann]

Ed,
Some of the Volksgrenadier divisions were also formed from conscripts of which most didn't even speak German.....can you imagine the chaos in battle when trying to issue orders :-)......I suspect these factors had a lot to do with poor morale

[Mike Abberton]

I think what RADO is talking about would be something like Combat Mission Quick Battles where each side gets a set number of points and then picks units that together total that number of points. I think Steel Panthers (at least some of the versions) have a similar system.

In my post on the first page, I was trying to show you can do that, although it does require manual calculations at the moment.

I may considering adding VP value for company -- battalion organizations in the future if it is a popular idea.

Jason Petho

Jason,

The problem with using the existing VPs for quick battle type picks is that they would not work well as is. The differences between some of the units is just not commensurate with thier capabilities. It would not provide balanced forces, although to be honest, there are always difficulties with some of the very powerful units.

Mike

[Huib Versloot]

Ed,
Some of the Volksgrenadier divisions were also formed from conscripts of which most didn't even speak German.....can you imagine the chaos in battle when trying to issue orders :-)......I suspect these factors had a lot to do with poor morale

This is true, but never for the whole division. As far as I know there were no Volksgrenadier divisions that suffered as a total from this. Sometimes ethnic Poles where pressed into service and they would defect at the first chance, German speaking French or Luxembourg soldiers (ala they did speak German but were not motivated ofcourse).
I have noticed that most VGDs performed quite well. I have looked particularly at those in the Ardennes. They held themselves rather good in the Bulge: the 352d, the 62nd, the 79th, the 12th, the 212th, the 26th, the 18th (Schnee Eifel) and even the 326th and 277th. These latter I'd always thought of that they failed bitterly near Hofen and Rocherath, until you look more closely how little they actually had available to attack with in the first place.

Coming back to the game: It is allright to have Volksgrenadier divisions organisation (3 Rgts with 2 Batallions each) in the org editor. The separate "platoon" is more questionable: it should be called "Stg44 platoon" I think The forming of Volksgrenadier divisions just happened to be around the same time as the introduction of the Sturmgewehr. In the beginning a Volksgrenadier company really had quite a few Stg44. After a while already the Stg44 became rarer and often only the squad or platoon leader had one.
Late war Fallschirmjäger also got the Stg44 and I wonder if that is represented in the game.

This is a nice link about the weapons of a VGD:
http://www.62vgd.com/VGDDat/image007.GIF
It shows the theoretical allocation of Stg44 and rifles.
This is the parent site:
http://www.62vgd.com
Very interesting but it is in German, some in english

Went a bit off topic but I find these Stg44 rifles very interesting. I wish I found one sometime... maybe next week...
Huib