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

[ComradeP]

Reload times, or the efficiency with which a crew could actually operate a vehicle by its design are sadly often not taken into account in wargames.

An elite crew would not be significantly more efficient than a mediocre one if it has to work in a cramped vehicle and turret, with limited visibility and no 2-way radio.

Similarly, rocket/projectile launchers are also more efficient than they would be in a tactical game because their longer reload times compared to regular artillery are not represented.

I was just wondering if the performance of the actual vehicle was abstracted somehow in its HA/SA values.

Regarding my comments on interdiction, I meant those as a reply to Volcano Man's intention of lowering starting strength to account for interdiction and breakdowns for all German reinforcements.

As the units arriving from the south, if they arrive on the edge of the map, would have to drive up to the front, they would take breakdown losses and interdiction losses whilst driving there. The units from the Calais area would not take those losses because they arrive much closer to the front, so it makes sense to decrease their starting strength further. Overlord wargames I've played that include interdiction losses of some sort tend to be more lenient to the German reinforcements from the south for that reason, because they still have to drive to the frontline instead of arriving more or less next to it on most maps due to arriving east of Caen.

Also, regarding breakdowns and older equipment: wouldn't the fact that many German divisions were rebuild mean that their equipment is fairly new? The campaign is fairly short, movement is limited, roads are reasonable to good, and there are numerous depots in the greater Normandy area that can supply the workshops. That should limit the amount of breakdowns.

As far as I'm aware, both the Americans and Germans did their best to repair tanks in the field, but according to Mongomery, tank losses were preferable over infantry losses, and there was a surplus of tanks. I have no direct knowledge of the British doctrine for repairing tanks, but I could imagine that a surplus of tanks could mean that more replacements are send over, instead of crews trying to fix tanks that require extensive maintenance or that won't function up to 100% anymore due to previous damage.

Regarding unit quality: the experience of units from previous battles isn't a guarantee for a good performance. British veterans from 8th Army didn't all perform well, particularly 7th Armoured. Based on their experience, that shouldn't be the case. Likewise, American units, experienced or not, all had difficulties with dealing with the bocage and flooded terrain because they were not trained for that, so their initial performance was not what you would expect from well trained and experienced units due to having to get used to a different kind of fighting.

On the other hand, mediocre German formations that were trained for battles in the hedgerows or flooded parts of the Cotentin peninsula or anti-paratrooper operations could perform better than you'd normally expect. Basing unit quality on the actual performance of a unit during a battle would also remove the extremes/overrated units.

[Liquid_Sky]

Bah. I started last week, and I am on turn 6 already of the big campaign. I am playing as the Germans, but even so, I feel the Germans were too powerful.

As for using tanks as attritional units...guilty as charged. Your example of 50 panthers is flawed though. I would send infantry in first to dig in next to the enemy...then drive in 96 pzIV's, with a hundred AA guns out of LOS behind them. Then inflict losses everturn until I feel the hex is weak enough...then assault with engineers/pzgrd from the other adjacent hex.

If the hex has AT guns, then I hit them with artillery, and tank fire. Or use the tanks elsewhere. You will have trouble getting them adjacent to my tanks.

The replacement rate always seemed high to me as I could afford to rest a couple divisions behind the lines and swap them out. 2% is very high. 1% is fairly high, but is the lowest it will go. After the storm...all units were back to full strength anyways.

[Volcano Man]

Bah. I started last week, and I am on turn 6 already of the big campaign. I am playing as the Germans, but even so, I feel the Germans were too powerful.

As for using tanks as attritional units...guilty as charged. Your example of 50 panthers is flawed though. I would send infantry in first to dig in next to the enemy...then drive in 96 pzIV's, with a hundred AA guns out of LOS behind them. Then inflict losses everturn until I feel the hex is weak enough...then assault with engineers/pzgrd from the other adjacent hex.

If the hex has AT guns, then I hit them with artillery, and tank fire. Or use the tanks elsewhere. You will have trouble getting them adjacent to my tanks.

The replacement rate always seemed high to me as I could afford to rest a couple divisions behind the lines and swap them out. 2% is very high. 1% is fairly high, but is the lowest it will go. After the storm...all units were back to full strength anyways.

Not sure if this is just an observation or what, but I am confused if you are suggesting that additional work should be required or if you are just giving additional reasons why the previous _Alt version needed some work.

That said, I did a great deal to help balance the campaign, changing German quality levels to be more realistic, lowering replacement level, and already the HA values are much different than when you played it the first time -but that is not say that there isn't some exploit lingering. If you want me to admit that even with the latest changes there still might be an exploit or imbalance present, then fine, I admit it.

But really it does come down the players in the game too. I mean, for example, when you were putting 100 AA guns in a hex, and 96 tanks in an adjacent hex, and probably as many panzer grenadiers in another hex, and using them as a steam roller -- did it not feel like maybe you shouldn't be doing that because it wasn't quite realistic? Stacking limits are called into question here (with 100 vehicles in one hex) as something that could probably be lowered, but the stacking level can only be so low otherwise I think the Allies couldn't get off the beaches in the beginning so that really has to be kept relatively high. One day I would like to a see a rule introduced where anything in a hex over 50% of the stacking limit starts to create a penalty for the defender's defense value vs direct and indirect fire. Perhaps at 100% stack level the penalty is 50% of the defense value for example, to represent the fact that there are so much stuff in a 1000m area that they are forced to be a very close interval and they cannot seek cover efficiently. But really though, there is only so much "balance" that can be done in any wargame really, and the rest is really sort of up to player to abuse or not to abuse the system. BTW, have you tried this tactic in the stock game? I feel that although it might not replicate itself exactly, it still can be an issue simply because there are so many tanks here. I am not trying to call your sportsmanship into question, I am just suggesting that maybe certain things could be avoided for the sake of having fun.

Still, in the example, I just don't see why the allies cannot match your tanks with his tanks in those areas either, but then again, we are talking about 750 turn monster campaign which may be impossible to balance simply because it keeps exponentially piling on more units after 250 turns so I don't know the relative tank strength levels at that point (but I do know that the Panzer IV isn't invincible either which is why I cannot understand why they cannot be countered in like kind). I think that after turn 250, it is anyone's best guess as to what the situation will be -- from a scenario design point of view you just keep making arrivals for more reinforcements and "hope for the best". But perhaps one very bad thing here in the previous _Alt was because the HA values were so high before that it made it almost impossible for allied tanks to stick around very long. In any case that aspect has been much reduced now.

[ComradeP]

Volcano Man: stacking limits will inevitably favour the defender if unit quality is similar or, worse, higher than those of the attacker. Some wargames counter this problem by allowing the attacker to attack from numerous hexes.

That's also why, from a mathematical perspective, I can understand why Allied players ran into a wall they couldn't dislodge in some Normandy '44 games, as described in this thread and elsewhere.

Similarly, I'm still very afraid of what the Germans can do if they can refit in Moscow '42, which as far as I can determine, is perfectly possible due to how slow the Soviets are, their lack of good mobile units and the bad terrain.

If the defender doesn't stand and fight, which the game usually doesn't seem to give much of an incentive for, and if he can refit, the attacker seems to get in big trouble with the PzC engine.

The attacker and defender having the same stacking limit, and the stacking limit for vehicles being simplistically modified by representing each as 10 men, causes predictable difficulties for the attacker if the defender is at a similar strength or quality level.

Balance changes like changing quality levels help somewhat, but they don't touch the core of the problem: that the attacker often can't employ a true numerical superiority after a certain time period, because the game gives the defender a chance to refit.

Refitting for both sides happens in two extremes at an ahistorical rate to cope with losses: if you stand and fight with weaker units, your units will suffer much more losses than in real life and you don't have any real chance to recover. If you disengage, your units quickly refit.

The real challenge might be to balance a longer campaign in such a way that the defender has an incentive not to withdraw and refit, whilst still making such a stand possible in terms of the attrition being sustainable for most of the scenario.

[Liquid_Sky]

Okay...now that I have done the first day as the Germans I have some interesting views on some of the changes.

By the way, if you want to help the allies, you should increase the stacking limit, not lower it. The attacker always has the luxury of bringing superior numbers to bear at a critical point. The defender has to remain more spread out. To give two exaggerated ends of the scale, if the stacking limit was one battalion, the defence would be easy. If the stacking limit was unlimited, the Attacker could either bypass the defenders strong points, or put an entire division in a hex to assault/bulldoze forward.

I have some afv's up on the front line, but I haven't engaged the allied tanks yet. On the night turn, I am annoyed by the little garrison ants that litter the roadways, as they can cause night time disruption. I plan to 'remove' them by flipping them in and out of travel mode until the allied airforce gets rid of them for me.

In fact, I wonder why they even bothered putting them in the game...surely a 40 man unit is too small to control a 1km hex, and project enough power to prevent enemy movement

Anyways, I seemed to have suffered more disruption due to moving at night then I do from allied interdiction during the day :)

As for refit...in any of the games, whenever you are regaining fatigue, you are probably also gaining replacements. But all it takes to prevent it is to be shot at. Or to be forced to move. So in order to 'quickly refit' you need to be parked behind the (static) front line, and sit for a couple of days. If you find yourself in that situation, then perhaps your enemy should be punished by allowing your units to refit.

As an attacker, I rarely give my opponent this sort of opportunity. Especially as a Russian attacker, who is always in the face of the German..either forcing him to move back, or suffer brutal assaults.

[Volcano Man]

By the way, if you want to help the allies, you should increase the stacking limit, not lower it. The attacker always has the luxury of bringing superior numbers to bear at a critical point. The defender has to remain more spread out. To give two exaggerated ends of the scale, if the stacking limit was one battalion, the defence would be easy. If the stacking limit was unlimited, the Attacker could either bypass the defenders strong points, or put an entire division in a hex to assault/bulldoze forward.

Right, I am aware of that, but my concern was that going by your tactic then increasing the stacking limit would only mean the ability to logjam say, 200 to 300 Panthers in one hex. If, despite that possibility, anyone thinks the stacking limit should be raised (in the next version) then I am all ears. Just something to keep in mind.

As for the small garrison units, I added those but those are mainly in the areas where either there are airborne units or the opportunity for a quick breakout in the old game. I won't be removing those, because I think they are vital to trip up the allies and prevent the opportunity to mad dash out of the gate (they are only intended as temporary speed bumps -- just something along the path that they run into and eliminate). I am actually on the 2nd day of the campaign myself and I haven't had any problems with road movement/night disruption, just don't move in stacks or combined battalions in those areas and you will be OK.

Speaking of which, in my game I am playing with Delayed Disruption on, which I thought would make it harder to get off the beaches, but I really like that rule here because it goes both ways (obviously). I didn't have trouble getting off the beaches (except Omaha of course, but I was 90% off if it by the end of the first day). Using that rule helps prevent the Germans from making rapid counter attacks, which is good, but also helps slow down the allies a bit too.

[ComradeP]

A stacking limit that can be set for each side could be a solution to some of the issues discussed here.

[Elxaime]

Starting the third day as the German. So far looks tough for the Germans. We'll see if I can stabilize a line.

[Liquid_Sky]

Starting second day as Germans. I have Omaha locked up and almost all the bridges blown between Utah and Omaha (all the hvy bridges are gone) ..and the 21st panzer is preventing the British from moving towards Omaha.

To save on carpal tunnel (and because I form up into battalions to fight anyways), I try to move all my reinforcements/releases as battalions. That is why those little garrisons on the road are annoying. The most annoying one is the garrison in the center of Caen, however, my opponent made a mad dash along the river to the first hex of the city, and has released it, so it will no longer be a problem.

[Volcano Man]

Ah, that would be the Sich units... I didn't add those. I only added the small units that say "Garrison" as their name, and these are mostly just behind the beaches or in the airborne areas west of Utah. I suppose you don't use the group move method then, which works fine for a battalion of several units in column.