Updated Normandy'44_Alt (third time, 13 AUG)

[Volcano Man]

Yes, that sounds good to me, perhaps I can give the panzers regiments a 1% replacement rate. With their good supply level, it would cause a consistent trickle of replacements back into these units. 2% or higher would probably be too much/high to represent this aspect though, and it might encourage reckless behavior. It might even make sense to go with an even higher breakdown rate for this late war period too (1943+), say, around 15% or so. Going off my new standardized approach for 1943+ late period to be: allies 1/2 of axis breakdown rate, that would be a breakdown of 8% Allied, 16% Axis (in this campaign). The idea being that the actual breakdown rates would vary from game to game, but the ratio would not (during this period). What do you think?

[Strela]

Yes, that sounds good to me, perhaps I can give the panzers regiments a 1% replacement rate. With their good supply level, it would cause a consistent trickle of replacements back into these units. 2% or higher would probably be too much/high to represent this aspect though, and it might encourage reckless behavior. It might even make sense to go with an even higher breakdown rate for this late war period too (1943+), say, around 15% or so. Going off my new standardized approach for 1943+ late period to be: allies 1/2 of axis breakdown rate, that would be a breakdown of 8% Allied, 16% Axis (in this campaign). The idea being that the actual breakdown rates would vary from game to game, but the ratio would not (during this period). What do you think?

In complete agreement. Some of the new tools we have in the game system and OB are allowing us to create this level of differentiation - particularly when compared to when the game was originally released. The values (with a wet finger in the air) for breakdowns etc. are a good starting position, but it will take play testing to prove whether you have it right.

David

[Volcano Man]

Yes, I think the key is that you couldn't really have a moderate breakdown rate before, because they would loose the strength and not get it back unless you had a high recovery rate, but this in turn affected how fast all units regained their strength. Now you can have a moderate breakdown with a steady flow of replacements to these tank units, and single them out. :)

[Volcano Man]

Actually, I am so excited about these changes that I am nearly finished enacting them all now. ;)

I will upload them later on when I am finished...

[Elxaime]

To take advantage of the current excitement over a new N44 approach, I wanted to raise the issue of different replacement rates for infantry replacements.

On the Allied side, my understanding of Normandy was that:

- the US generally was able to replace US infantry during the campaign (the big US replacement crisis would not fully hit until the heavy casualties of the early winter campaigns near the West Wall). So American infantry can be given a stable and steady replacement/recovery rate. An exception MIGHT be for the US Airborne and Ranger troops, which as elites may have drawn from different pools and had longer training times? I don't know the answer on this, although I know the Germans late war tended to throw anyone into a parachute smock and call them "airborne" I think the the US (and perhaps the similar Commonwealth and UK units) did not use such shortcuts during the Normandy campaign. The impact of lower replacement/recovery rates for Allied airborne would tend to encourage the cautious use of them after the initial landings, which would be historical.

- for the UK and Commonwealth, the picture would be different. Britain, having been at war for five years already, was at the end of its manpower rope. Montgomery was keenly aware of this and if he threatened to forget, Churchill was quick to remind him. To the extent any historical critique of Montgomery's general ship of the Second Army is valid, it must take into account the British knowledge that, once these highly trained men were gone, there weren't enough replacements to fully refill the ranks. Reducing UK infantry replacement rates could model this, and in game terms would reflect the different way losses were approached by the various allies at the stage of the war. As far as Canadians, I believe Canada still sustained an all volunteer force at this time (not sure). Perhaps they would be treated somewhat differently. Ditto for the French and Poles once they arrive.

On the German side:

- historical accounts seem to indicate that German infantry received few replacements once they reached Normandy. Units were bled white in place. Partly of course was the issue of the heavily-interdicted supply lines to Normandy making normal replenishment increasingly difficult. But the Soviets launched Operation Bagration a few weeks after Normandy and Germany was sustaining huge losses in so many theaters that it was running out of men. This problem would mitigate momentarily later, once the Allies and Soviets entered the Reich proper and Hitler called out his last-ditch forces, but was clearly an irreversible trend. I would assume SS units might be an exception, given the political determination by Hitler to give them precedence over the regular Wehrmacht. As the war entered its final months, this preference for the SS starved the regular Wehrmacht of men and equipment and tended to put the SS more into the action (with mixed results). Perhaps in Normandy this can be reflected by giving the SS infantry a slightly better replacement rate. As for the Ost units, I have to think they would have just wasted away - how many Hiwis and dragooned East Europeans did the Germans really have available by then anyway?

Just some thoughts on in infantry in Normandy, while we are on replacement rates. I think the impact of differentiating them will lead both sides to operate differently (and more historically). The Allied player, mindful of the lesser ability of the UK and Commonwealth to generate replacement infantry, will be inclined towards a bit more caution in their use. This will also mirror political factors, e.g. British reluctance to replay the positional carnage of WW1. The Germans will tend to want to use the SS more, since they have a better flow of replacements, which would also mirror Hitler's growing determination to make them the lead (admittedly this would not fully take shape until after the failed July assassination, but I think by this time Hitler was already headed this way).

[Volcano Man]

Well, actually, I had the US and UK infantry following that approach already (the US infantry had replacements, the UK did not because of that shortage you mentioned). However, in the past, for one reason or another, I assigned some small amount of replacements to the German infantry, but I had now (yesterday) got rid of that because I believe it didn't make sense for the same reason you described. In short, in the next version I did this already. :)

Basically what you should have is a situation where British and German infantry can actually be bled white, yes.

[ComradeP]

Volcano Man: do your mods account for differences in rate of fire of various equipment types?

I'm new to this particular series and only own Moscow '42, but I do own various Overlord games. One of the main things operational/strategic wargames often don't tend to get right is that the "raw" value of equipment depends purely on the best theoretical performance adjusted by unit quality of some sort.

In the PzC series, the same seems to apply. You already mentioned the effect of quality on breakdowns, and I guess you're also changing the unit quality of German units to lower the casualties they can cause, but do the HA/SA remain unchanged?

Also, a comment purely based on what the Normandy map looks like: won't the German units coming in from the south/southeast more or less automatically receive losses through interdiction, thus requiring their starting strength to be lowered to a lesser extent than the units arriving closer to the edge of the map, such as the units coming in from the Calais area, as the units that have to drive further are more likely to receive losses through interdiction?

Several divisions trained specifically for night marches to the battlefield to avoid interdiction. From memory, 12th SS took more losses than Panzer Lehr or 2nd Panzer because it received its order to move "too late" and moved out in daytime, resulting in higher losses, whilst the other two divisions moved primarily at night and only started to take serious interdiction losses near the frontline.

I am not aware of German mobile units suffering from serious interdiction losses before arriving in the greater Normandy area, but my memory could be failing me.

[Strela]

Volcano Man: do your mods account for differences in rate of fire of various equipment types?

I'm new to this particular series and only own Moscow '42, but I do own various Overlord games. One of the main things operational/strategic wargames often don't tend to get right is that the "raw" value of equipment depends purely on the best theoretical performance adjusted by unit quality of some sort.

In the PzC series, the same seems to apply. You already mentioned the effect of quality on breakdowns, and I guess you're also changing the unit quality of German units to lower the casualties they can cause, but do the HA/SA remain unchanged?

Also, a comment purely based on what the Normandy map looks like: won't the German units coming in from the south/southeast more or less automatically receive losses through interdiction, thus requiring their starting strength to be lowered to a lesser extent than the units arriving closer to the edge of the map, such as the units coming in from the Calais area, as the units that have to drive further are more likely to receive losses through interdiction?

Several divisions trained specifically for night marches to the battlefield to avoid interdiction. From memory, 12th SS took more losses than Panzer Lehr or 2nd Panzer because it received its order to move "too late" and moved out in daytime, resulting in higher losses, whilst the other two divisions moved primarily at night and only started to take serious interdiction losses near the frontline.

I am not aware of German mobile units suffering from serious interdiction losses before arriving in the greater Normandy area, but my memory could be failing me.

Hi ComradeP,

You're right the HA/SA is usually unchanged no matter the quality level BUT there is now a Quality Fire Modifier that is in all the later games that has a positive or negative modifier based upon the units quality. I am certain that Volcano Man will be including this in his Alt version.

As far as interdiction and night moves etc. The system handles all this very well currently. Interdiction only works fully during the day and is halved in the dawn and dusk turns. It is not present at night. This allows you to do what the Germans did historically and move at night with confidence that you won't get shot up (from the air).

That said, the night disruption rule will be in place and if you move off the roads etc you will have a very reasonable chance of disrupting your units. You have to be very careful with stacking limits as you do move units along the roads. This again demonstrates the importance of planning night moves and the implications of getting them right or wrong.

All in all I think the system already covers what you're asking for.

David

[Volcano Man]

Strela said it best, and yes I do recommend QFM with the Alt. :)

However, ComradeP is referring to the firing rate of units. Yes, this is taken into account in some regard in the values, but only so much. We don't care if the maingun on tank X can fire 1 second faster than tank Y, that is out of the scale of the game, but it does matter if it is an autocannon versus not, and that is definitely accounted for, especially in the AA values and such.

[Volcano Man]

OK, I just uploaded the N44_Alt update again, for a third time.

This update includes all the changes discussed here, all of which I think are good changes to help balance the longer 750 campaign out to play more historically. Apologies to those who started a game already, but you might want to restart if you aren't too far along.

I don't plan on updating N44_Alt again any time soon, this should be it for a good while. :) Now back to my own N44_Alt campaign in progress...