Moscow '42 Winter Campaign

[Strela]

Hi All,

I was reviewing another title and had one of my few and far between 'bright ideas'.

A number of players have found that the Winter Campaigns bog down due to the fact that German lines artificially receive replacements back up to their full TOE.

A feature of the game was the fact that all units were built at full TOE and then degraded. This feature though 'cool' for building multiple scenarios/games allows units to received more replacements than were historically available - even when replacements/reinforcements are set at 1%.

I'm wondering whether there is any interest in a series of revised campaigns / scenarios where the size of the German companies / battalions are capped at a lower level than the current 100%. For example a German infantry battalion can grow to 800 men (its full TOE). Most starting forces are in the 240 - 320 man range and if the 'maximum' battalion size was limited to say 400 then there would be no 'uber' units after a few weeks of static front.

I think an approach like this would remove the ability of the Germans to just sit back and recover and then stop the Russians before they really got up steam.

If there is any interest let me know and I'll have a look at it...

David

[ComradeP]

Interesting idea, but I'm not sure it would by itself have its desired effect.

Even if you cap German infantry battalions at 400 men (or 420 or some other value that's easier to divide by 3), other units still attract replacements at 1%.

The only thing limiting either side to running around with their full tank TOE is time you can spend on refitting, so with patience you can have fights between thousands of tanks (after refitting and withdrawals, both sides would have around 1400-1500 tanks, the Soviets would have 1708 excluding recon tanks but that includes 300 T-60's).

German reinforcement divisions also arrive at full strength but there's just a handful of them so they might not be too problematic at full TOE potential compared to roughly 50% for the initial on-map battalions.

Another question is what kind of limit would apply to the Soviets, if any. And if none, why not.

Some Soviet Rifle divisions start full strength, others are weak to depleted, particularly in the January-February campaign where they're waging war with the bottom of the manpower barrel. "Evolving" all Soviet Rifle divisions into a 300-400 men max battalion in January or so would be cumbersome, just like having such a limit for the January-February campaign wouldn't influence the December-February campaign.

There's also the matter of balancing manpower in units with the destructive potential of the opponent's units. The Soviets can create "Bagration-light" artillery concentrations, particularly with the improved Katyusha's, which cause serious numbers of casualties per turn to German units. If the units have just 400 men, max, that would be another encouragement for an ahistorical strategy of concentrating the 120mm mortar/152mm gun and Katyusha units on one part of the front and roughly 30 units of both kinds can cause a rather large headache to a German defensive position even now with 600-800 men battalions (or a bit more for motorized units).

Your idea is good David, but due to everything being balanced in such a fine way, it might create balance issues elsewhere.