Atheory's Project: Operation Fischreiher (Stalingrad42)

[ComradeP]

I know the unit strengths were not your decision, I was just wondering about their ability to survive. In Moscow '42, the maximum German regular infantry strength is 800 men and the Soviet strength 600 men per battalion, so the German unit is 1/3 larger compared to the Soviet unit.

In Stalingrad '42, the German battalions are about 3 times as large as those understrength Soviet units.

Regarding heavy weapons: though historical accuracy is very nice, playability is important too. I usually don't move the tiny units at all, as they add hundreds of clicks per turn.

Though not historically accurate, merging the HW companies with the rest of the battalion like in Moscow '42 works well from the playability perspective. Even with one additional company per battalion, that's 9, 10 or 11 additional units per infantry division depending on the composition of the aufklaerung and pioniere battalions. Multiplied by several corps or even armies, that's a lot of additional clicks each turn.

[Ocito80]

And that's the crux of it, does the concept in my head work when placed in game. Would the additional units be a positive addition to the scenario or just annoy players with more clicks. I'm not sure yet, thus it remains a concept still.

German divisions could add up to 18 additional units with this. If we extrapolate, 20 divisions could mean 360 additional units.......In a game that can produce click-fatigue, I do consider that factor as well.

[Ocito80]

Scenario files updated with the placement of the 38th Mot bde.

[Plain Ian]

Plain Ian: That is indeed the 38th motorized rifle brigade.

The Soviets abbreviated brigade as "br" (in Cyrillic, obviously) as "b" was already taken by battalion contrary to the confusing NATO standard where the "B" can mean both battalion and brigade.

Unit names/abbreviations on Soviet maps also tend to be in italic script, which means some Cyrillic letters do not match their upright forms. This can be confusing until you get used to it.

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I'll give the campaign a go when the motorized brigade has been added.

After looking at the map and OOB a few times, I'm very worried about the life expectancy of all those company-sized Soviet battalions, but we'll see how long they last.

Yes the Rifle Divisions are easy to spot although you keep thinking that cd stands for Cavalry Division rather than Rifle Division. The special symbol for Guards (ze?) is obvious if you are aware that certain Guards units were present at that time. And of course MK is pretty obviously a Corps unit. Tank Corps?

Size of Russian units? I've looked at the on map units and the OOB as well. Yes there are a lot of anaemic looking units there. However it looks like most of these appear on the flanks of the campaign area, and I think this will help the scenario.

In the north the 63rd Army has one Division at Serafimovich and 3 making their slow way south on foot. The 21st Army has one also near Serafimovich, two just arriving on the Don River and four more in transit. These two Armies could pose a theat to any advance by 6th Army if they were stocked with 'full' strength units. The Russian player will see that it makes sense to keep them north of the Don or possibly bunched to gether trying to hold a small bridgehead where possible.

In the south 51st and 57th army also have a lot of weakened rifle Divisions. This should make it easier for 4th Panzer to push back and also encourage the Russian player to withdraw them.

In the centre of course we have the 62nd and 64th which have stronger Rifle Divisions. They should be able to make some sort of stand as they historically did.

So hopefully the scenario will move in a historical direction.

Time for a map......sorry can't resist it. Here's the situatio. Its not to scale and of course the Russian OOB's are just cut and pasted to show the relative strengths of their Rifle Divisions.



I'll post a comparison of German and Russian Rifle Divisions next.

[ComradeP]

You have a magic wand that allows you to create all those nice graphics, admit it.  

The letters M and T in Cyrillic are probably the primary example of confusion due to italic or upright script in our hobby.

The italic form of the letter M, for some form of mechanized or motorized unit in our case, is a capital M.

The italic form of the letter T, for some form of tank unit in our case, is a lower case m.

The Guards indication in Latinized form of the Cyrillic letters reads "rb", which in that alphabet means "gv" for Gvardeyskiy.

Though I've been looking at Soviet maps and OOB's for years, I still need to double-check unit types/names often enough due to it being unclear if it's a capital or lower case m due to low image quality or a fold in the map.

[Plain Ian]

You have a magic wand that allows you to create all those nice graphics, admit it.  

The letters M and T in Cyrillic are probably the primary example of confusion due to italic or upright script in our hobby.

The italic form of the letter M, for some form of mechanized or motorized unit in our case, is a capital M.

The italic form of the letter T, for some form of tank unit in our case, is a lower case m.

The Guards indication in Latinized form of the Cyrillic letters reads "rb", which in that alphabet means "gv" for Gvardeyskiy.

Though I've been looking at Soviet maps and OOB's for years, I still need to double-check unit types/names often enough due to it being unclear if it's a capital or lower case m due to low image quality or a fold in the map.

Graphics no problem. Typing and spelling big problems. Here's another Excel graphic to look at.



Ok so here is a very rough comparison of 3 front line Russian Rifle Divisions against a standard German Infantry Division with a Jaeger Division and Italian Infantry Division also thrown in for comparison.

As I said it’s very rough and basically just totals the attack factors (hard/soft) multiplied by number of systems (men/gunsx10) to arrive at some sort of attack strength. Morale was ignored but I guess I could factor this in later.

No attempt was made to calculate a defense strength as I’ve no idea what to do for this?

So roughly the weakest Rifle Division the Russians field is one fifth the strength of a standard German Division whilst the best Rifle Division is almost one third.
Interestingly the Jaeger Division comes out quite well even though it has only 6 Battalions compared to the 9 in a standard German division. The fact that the battalions are 600 men versus 525 probably helps.

The Italian unit was a bit of a surprise.  I expected it to be low but it did have a nice integral A/A unit, although I haven’t checked to see how much air the Russians get in this scenario. Its artillery isn’t really that bad apart from the fact it is short ranged. Surprisingly it is all motorised. German units are still using horses for their 155cm guns!  

The Italian Division’s A/T capability is actually the same as a standard German Division???  In theory I would expect this unit to be able to cope with a Russian Rifle Division even though it has only 6 manouever units (ignoring the Pioneer Coy) against the Russians 10. (include the Sapper Bn).

Incidentally one of the Italian Cavalry groups starting on the map is called Barnabo? Should this not be Balbo?

[Plain Ian]

And for board game lovers here are some counters to look at.



Drive to Stalingrad (DoS) above shows the Jaeger Division as 2/3rd of a standard German Infantry division which was how most games depicted them. (because of the 6 versus 9 Bn’s) The Italian Sforzesca Diivision was depicted as a motorized unit for some reason in the game. However if we ignore its movement allowance its strength of 3 suggests that it was rated as 1/3rd of a standard German Division. 

Russian units had variable strengths partly because of the game system used in DoS. They were deployed on map showing U for untried and their strength was hidden until combat when they were flipped to reveal their strength. (Attack-Defense-Movement) Russian units could vary in strength from 0 up to 10/11. Back in 1977 there would few resources for checking out exact figures for Russian units so I would assume they are guesses or just random figures to add to the uncertainty of combat in the game. Most of the Russian units are rated quite low (0-4), anything above 8 is rare or exceptional. 



Campaign to Stalingrad (CtS) has the Sforzesca as an Infantry Division and its strength actually compares quite well to the rough PzC figure I calculated, well maybe a bit lower. 

The Jaeger Division is rated slightly higher than two thirds in DoS for its attack strength but exactly 2/3rd for its defense strength.  

Russian units in CtS have similar type strength and are less varied. The 3 shown are actually representative of the mix. However I would have to check to see if they start the game at full strength or reduced. (flipped to weaker side) If they do not start reduced the Russian units are clearly rated slightly higher than they are in PzC. In theory a German Division in CtS will have a harder job shifting a Pussian Division without help from the panzers or Corps support.

[Ocito80]

Serafimovich is very key to the events that unfolded in the scenario. It took nearly a month for German and Italian forces to clear out the Russian foothold there. While at the same time advancing eastward. This however, did not stop the Russians from establishing yet another bridgehead to the west. The German player will find he is strapped for units to cover the entire advance to Stalingrad and may face tough choices. There is incentive for the Russian player to keep up the pressure in attacks early on, before additional German forces arrive on the map.

As at Kharkov and many places elsewhere, it will be the mobile forces that drive the battle for the Germans. Even if the Russian player withdrew behind the Don River, he risks keeping intact an unbloodied Sixth Army for the final push on Stalingrad. The 4th Panzer Army is there to help ensure the Sixth Army crosses the river at some point as well.

Now the question remains, can the scenario as is help to create that sense of intensity.

[ComradeP]

Until I read your post, I never paid attention to infantry division pioniere units having a defensive strength of 18 for some reason. They have a defensive strength of 18 in Moscow '42 as well, whilst their deployed motorized/mechanized counterparts have 16 like everybody else. This might be a typo.

Comparing hard data on effectiveness is tricky, because the lower morale of Soviet units make their units shaky and usually ineffective.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean with the AT capability being the same, as the Italian have smaller and less effective units using modernized late WWI designs and the Germans have their usual mixed 37mm/50mm combined units.

The size matters, because it determines the weight of fire. It tends to be better to have large units than smaller ones when dealing with units with higher defense strength than the attacker has soft/hard attack, but as vehicle kills are quite random it's difficult to tie a formula to it.

It's nice to see a decent Axis minor unit in these games. The Romanians and Hungarians are not worth much aside from C quality mobile formations, but the Italians are decent enough here.

Edit: regarding the scenario, should the 28th TC be unfixed at the start? The release schedule implies it should release on the 25th.

I don't know if it's caused by the unit graphics issue, but Soviet C&C is not working as intended as HQ's all have a divisional command radius.

[Plain Ian]

I'm not entirely sure what you mean with the AT capability being the same, as the Italian have smaller and less effective units using modernized late WWI designs and the Germans have their usual mixed 37mm/50mm combined units.

Yes you are right. I should maybe study my figures harder before reporting them. I thought that they had the same hard attack values. They don't. The Italians do have 36 guns compared to the 27 in German Infantry units but their factors are just half of the German's. 

The Italians are still far better equipped than the poor Russian Rifle Divisions. I guess its difficult to keep 400+ Rifle Divisions up to strength when entire Armies were lost just a few months ago in May. Plus it looks like the Russians decided it was more cost effective to pool their A/T resources at Army level.