Date: Thu Nov 18 23:44:22 2004
Sender: Andy Dolphin
In playing through the Russia invasion, I have a few notes about the
"blitzkrieg", as it plays out in Axis Tide.
My overall feeling is that it seems too easy for a decent Russian defense to
slow down the blitzkrieg, either by attacking the flanks of the German advance
or by conducting a retreating defense. About the only way to slice through the
Russian defenses as well as the historical Germans did is for the Russians to
play as badly as the historical Russians did. I guess this indicates that the
game works from the simulation standpoint, but I'd like to discuss whether or
not this should be "fixed".
The easy option is to revisit the question of armor units. If armor units were
to be put into Axis Tide, they would be given the same total operational points
as infantry units (to account for the similar long-term advance speed), but
perhaps should be freed from the requirement to move simultaneously with the
infantry. However, upon further review, I don't really like this idea. The
main point of the blitzkrieg is to move through the enemy defenses faster than
the defender can react -- something that is already inherent in turn-based
wargames. Also, the fact that using the historical Russian defensive strategy
produces the historical results indicates that making the German attack
stronger is not the answer.
There are two things I can think of adding. First is the effect of Stalin's
purges. Some 90% of the Soviet officers were executed or sent to Siberia,
leaving the Red Army led by inexperienced, incompetent officers chosen for
their loyalty to Stalin rather than military skills. To compound this, the
Soviets used a two-headed command structure off and on -- every command officer
was paired with a Communist party observer who had to sign off on all orders.
It basically took a summer of bloody losses for quality officers to show
themselves and rise to the top. The first reasonably good officers didn't get
their commands until October 1941. In Axis Tide terms, this might be simulated
with diminished movement for the first four turns, in that Soviet units would
get just two operations points rather than the usual four.
The other thing to consider is whether being out of supply should have ill
effects. At present, a unit with an OOS marker has full functionality and has
nothing bad happen so long as it is able to get into supply by the end of the
turn. It might be reasonable to reduce an out of supply unit's operations
points, or place some movement restrictions on out of supply units.
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