The Competition & Teaser Thread

[Strela]

Platoons as the lowest level for the Soviets too I believe Xaver, as otherwise they'd not be able to place most infantry units on tanks and they'd nearly automatically get hit with the "50%> of stacking limit" casualty penalty.

ComradeP,

You're correct. All forces in the game have been built either from a platoon and in a few cases of supporting weapons, sections.

Here is a Soviet Guards Regiment.

The Regimental assets are on the left and the Guards Rifle Battalion is on the right. Only the 1st Guards Rifle Battalion is shown here as the 2nd & 3rd are identical.



David

[Xaver]

Thanks Strela, now i see the image i return to the 111 men pic and see part of a + in the unitname bar.

As i supose (and i think was Comrade who say something similar) soviets with a more simple transport system (AKA horses) offer more options to merge platoons... but of course sure soviet unit has lower firepower and compensate this.

A little request, is possible see a rifle regiment to compare with the guards regiment??? i suspect they have or less support units or smaller, thanks.

PD: my poor credit card is running... well, she can run but not hide hehehe

[ComradeP]

In terms of TOE's, there was not a spectacular difference between Guards and regular units until late in the war.

Guards units were more likely to have advanced equipment shortly after it became available.

In mid-1943, Guards divisions would have I believe

-2 battalions worth of submachinegunners instead of 1.
-A full sapper battalion instead of 2 companies.
-Slightly more mortars.
-More machineguns and AT rifles.

Guards Tank and Mechanized Corps would in mid 1943 primarily have more mortars on paper.

Note that all of this is in theory/on paper. In practice, some Guards units might be far more lavishly equipped than regular counterparts in combat conditions or the other way around, mostly depending on which units would've been in combat longer and whether replacements were received. Note that in many cases Soviet units would be running at about 1/3 to 1/2 of effective strength in any case, with Guards being in a somewhat more favourable position but also taking more losses if used for critical breakthrough missions.

Generally speaking, the primary differences were mostly in support weapons and earlier access to new weapons.

[Strela]

A little request, is possible see a rifle regiment to compare with the guards regiment??? i suspect they have or less support units or smaller, thanks.

Here you go. You're correct. There is one less SMG company at Regimental level. At the Rifle battalion level, the Rifle platoons are forty men vs. the Guards fifty and there is one less ATR platoon. Mike Avanzini built an extremely accurate order of battle.





David

[Ricky B]

Regarding the question on the ladder. Yes in addition to the forum we will be setting up a new ladder for the PzB series.

Rick

[ComradeP]

These regiments belong to the 89th Guards Rifle Division (at Kursk: army reserve of 6th Guards Army) and the 375th Rifle Division (at Kursk: 23rd Guards Rifle Corps, 6th Guards Army).

If III Panzer Corps is included from the start of its offensive, as in: if the main map covers its progress from the eastern bank of the Donets north, with the dimensions given the map would measure from III Panzer Corps's starting point to roughly Prokhorovka, then west to the corps boundary between LII Army Corps and XLVIII Panzer Corps, south to some 60 kilometres or so north of Kharkov and then east to III Panzer Corps. II SS Panzer Corps would be in between the other Panzer Corps.

The Soviet forces would consist of 5th, 6th and 7th Guards Armies, 1st Tank Army, 5th Guards Tank Army, 69th Army and various front reserve units from the Voronezh and Steppe Fronts, the latter as they're handed over to Voronezh Front.

That, in turn, would mean that unless the game also includes Rumyantsev scenarios there's not a lot to do in the southwestern portion of the main map, which is inevitable when you need to create a more or less rectangular map as I described earlier, and which also isn't much of a problem because the game carves the battle for the southern part of the Kursk Bulge up into (geographically) small bits.

[Compass Rose]

Wow, the unit art work is really, really nice.

I can't remember seeing better stock art work in a TOC or SB title except for maybe France '14.

Super nice David!

Hope you guys are proud of them, because you should be.

[rzhev42]

Mike Avanzini built an extremely accurate order of battle.

David,

You are giving me too much credit here as you had the Soviets already built be the time I came on board, and only helped you a bit with some of the units.

I did build the Germans.

Mike

[ComradeP]

Wow, the unit art work is really, really nice.

Agreed here, it seems the stock graphics from Tiller titles have come a long way judging by how they looked in earlier titles.

The only graphics that will take some getting used to are those of the soldier in the AT/machinegun unit background as it's somewhat unclear what direction his torso is turned in (/if his equipment is slung over his shoulder or in his hands).

[GerryM]

Hello David:

How did you create those OOB graphics? IOW, is there a feature in the system to do this. For someone not well-versed in military history, I can see this being a nice thing to do for each scenario so one could see their units at the glance. Maybe you had to do screen captures?

Thanks,

Gerry