Panzer Corps East - The struggle for Russia "Grand Strategy"

[naturesheva]

WOW~!!! I must say the city is the best i've ever seen~!! Also, I love the forest tiles you got here.

[Chris10]

WOW~!!! I must say the city is the best i've ever seen~!! Also, I love the forest tiles you got here.

thnx my friend..Massi generously provided some outstanding tiles

[Chris10]

ANOTHER SCREEN FROM PEENEMÜNDE RESEARCH CENTER AND STETTIN AREA

CONTAINING A LITTLE TRIBUTE TO THE PERSON WHO MADE THE MAP POSSIBLE

[RobertCL]

OK it is clear now this is the most awaited mod for Panzer Corps...
The beginning of an addiction...

[cedonxp]

OK it is clear now this is the most awaited mod for Panzer Corps...
The beginning of an addiction...

YEAP!!!!!!!!!!!!

[nikivdd]

I'm very interested in the scripting part of the mod...this is a great challenge.

[Chris10]

I'm very interested in the scripting part of the mod...this is a great challenge.

urrrggg...I try to ignore this until the moment arrives
It already gives me some headache..not cause I have trouble with setting it up but cause I know exactly what I need to do and how many scriptlines and triggers I will need for it...the number is way beyond 1000...and since scripting with an editor with presetted script lines,checkboxes and options is very very exhausting and time consuming just thinking of it makes me

[McGuba]

Hi Chris,

Keep up your excellent work on your mod!

You can update your Hungarian roster with the new Hungarian units if you like them:
viewtopic.php?f=147&t=36969

However, I have to humbly disagree with you by regarding Hungary as a "very minor" contributor in ww2 and placing her in the same line with Slovakia and Bulgaria, especially with Bulgaria, which did not even send fighting forces against the USSR. In '41 Hungary sent a 40.000 men army, in '42 more than 200.000, and finally by September '44, the Royal Hungarian Army reached its peak with some 950.000 mobilised against the invading Red Army, about half of them able to fight.

[Chris10]

Hi Chris,

Keep up your excellent work on your mod!

You can update your Hungarian roster with the new Hungarian units if you like them:
viewtopic.php?f=147&t=36969

However, I have to humbly disagree with you by regarding Hungary as a "very minor" contributor in ww2 and placing her in the same line with Slovakia and Bulgaria, especially with Bulgaria, which did not even send fighting forces against the USSR. In '41 Hungary sent a 40.000 men army, in '42 more than 200.000, and finally by September '44, the Royal Hungarian Army reached its peak with some 950.000 mobilised against the invading Red Army, about half of them able to fight.

thnx my friend ...
what you say about Hungary is a very condensed version and only half of the truth
Did I say "very" minor ?... ...I dont remember..I didnt meant this to belittle the Hungarian effort but
Hungary like all others was indeed a minor contributor compared to Romania even if it was the third biggest contributor of armored forces when Barbarossa started but they were gone home by Nov 1941 and the 2nd Hungarian Army only lasted 6 months (from arrival in June 1942 to Jan 1943) when it was crushed by the Red Army. So it could be considered only a part time contributor.
The rests of the 2nd Hungarian Army withdrew towards Hungary and in Aug43 the Hungarian Government started secret negotiations with the Allys which was noted by the german "Abwehr" . In order to avoid a 2nd Italy Hungary was occupied by Germany in March 1944 and any further war assistance was only given due to force..and where you have dragged out these 950.000 mobilized troops and a second later you say only half of them were able to fight ?...This number seems vastly inflated and I have never come across any source which would mention such numbers
I would really appreciate if you would forward a reasonably reliable source talking about these numbers...an no...Iam not talking about personel somehow related to military but really fighting units.
Towards the end of 1944 there was only the 1st. Army and the 3rd. Army. And both were heavily depleted
What is true however is that Hungary suffered huge casualties in relation to its population numbers.

Bulgaria did not sent fighting forces to the USSR. This is true...BUT Bulgaria was a big contributor of occupying and garrison divisions in the Balkan area. 7 Bulgarian divisions were under direct german control in south-east Serbia,Macedonia and parts of Greece.
As well there were Romanian and Bulgarian Units on the Atlantic Wall.

The problem here, gameplay-wise spoken, is that the scale is divisional or brigade (in terms of tanks 100 units) so it would be totally off to give Finland a T-34 unit which should resemble a brigade of 100 tanks when in reality they had captured 3 of them. Does that makes sense ?

In the end...all axis allied countrys were minor contributors and during the entire conflict all western allied countrys had something which Germany never had: At least one strong ally...

[Chris10]

___________________________________UPDATE 31.08.2012_____________________________________

Soviet Unit roster looking pretty good and pretty complete.
Including a last moment decision to introduce some special guards tanks brigades...
they kick more ass than their normal army counterparts so better watch out if you see that badge

All credits for custom units to their corresponding creators:
Bebro and Kerloc

[McGuba]

I am very happy that you have such a deep knowledge in Hungarian contriburion
I would like to add a few things, though.

Did I say "very" minor ?

Actually, in the 13th page of this topic you wrote:

As well I would like everybody to bear in mind that this is divisional/brigade level and not every fancy piece of equipment can be modelled...especially when talking about the very minors like Slovakia, Hungary or Bulgaria.

I didnt meant this to belittle the Hungarian effort

That's all right, no problem, mate.

Other than that you are absolutely right that in a divisional level mod there is no point in modelling 3-4 Finn T-34s or even some more. However, the Hungarian Mobile Corps in '41 had 100 Toldi light tanks and 60 Ansaldo (Italian L3/35) "tankettes", and the 2nd Army in '42 had 108 Pz38(t)G tanks (and some more of different types) so this unit is rightfully in your roster, but you should consider adding the Toldi as well for '41.

it (Hungary) was the third biggest contributor of armored forces when Barbarossa started but they were gone home by Nov 1941 and the 2nd Hungarian Army only lasted 6 months (from arrival in June 1942 to Jan 1943) when it was crushed by the Red Army. So it could be considered only a part time contributor.

Bulgaria did not sent fighting forces to the USSR. This is true...BUT Bulgaria was a big contributor of occupying and garrison divisions in the Balkan area.

I did not know about Bulgarian occupation forces, but I must add that Hungary also had occupation forces throughout the war so in this sense it could not be considered only a "part time contributor".
Hungarian occupation forces in Ukraine by the end of 1941: 4 infantry brigades (121., 124., 105., 108.), by February 1942 two more were added (111, 102). Later they were renamed as "light divisions" to fascinate the Germans. In Febr '43 the 2nd Army took over the 120.000-strong occupation forces.
By May 1943 there were 9 of these brigade strenght "light divisions": 18., 25., 121., 124., 1., 102., 105., 108., 201. With the Soviet advance in 1943-44 in some cases these were used as frontline units and not surprisingly suffered heavy losses. (The Royal Hungarian Army in World War II, Osprey Publishing, 2008.)

I "dragged out" the large number mobilised in 1944 from "A Magyar honvédség a második világháborúban" (The Hungarian Army in the Second World War), by Krisztián Ungváry, Osiris, Budapest, 2005. I am afraid, but due to the language barrier I can only ask you to believe me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriszti%C3 ... gv%C3%A1ry

It is true, though, that the number mobilised vastly inflated in the last months of the war mainly due to desertion, POWs, injured, etc. Sept 1944 was the peak because of Romania changed sides and Hungary tried to mobilise as many as possible in a hurry, but losses were high as well. It is true as well, that by the end of that year only a friction of it was ready to fight.


The above scan from the afformentioned book shows how the total number of men (Összlétszám, fourth coloumn) in the Royal Hungarian Amry changed in 1944. The author adds that this total number does not equal with the actual number of men "able to fight" as it also includes the sick, injured, soldiers on leave, and those who died in the actual month. That's why he estimated the total number of men "able to fight" about half of it.

As for the number of Hungarian "real fighting units" the same source esitmates that there were about 320.000 Hungarians in the German Army Group South in Hungary in early October 1944. It is impossible to come up with an exact number as German-Hungarian units were mixed up and were used toghether and Hungarian units were often subordinated to Germans.

In the end...all axis allied countrys were minor contributors and during the entire conflict all western allied countrys had something which Germany never had: At least one strong ally...

+1 to this, though

[flakfernrohr]

Chris that looks like a great Soviet roster. I noticed you said you added some special infantry units. In my Soviet scenarios, I add Penal Units, Hvy MG and Siberian Regiments. Penal units were practically suicidal of course and fought tenaciously. So my units get some "bumps". Siberians were resilient and tough fighters too. They also get some "bumps" and are relatively unaffected by bad weather. Love your stuff my friend, keep it up.

[RobertCL]

Excellent work with the Soviet icons.
Congrats for those beautiful icons and this nice equipment!

Now I play the role of the Devil's advocate

Sherman
One remark: please remove the visible white part of the old white US star on the M41A(76W). We see the red star was put on the US tank turret but the star is too small so that the remnants of the us star are still visible. On all other lend lease tanks we just see a red star without remaining white part behind.

Soviet Tank Guards
Why did you change the color of the "special" units, was not the badge below enough ? Color change was needed to recognize them more easily ? But again for me the badge was enough because now it breaks the color homogeneity of Russian army... Just my standpoint. But this is not a problem.

Winter camouflage icons
Other question: what about the winter camo ? Do you intend to use the MiG 3 with red arrows in winter scenarios ?
I think that winter camo could cause more problems than what it could bring as added-value because when good weather comes back you stay with white tanks, aircrafts and other units...

NKVD Infantry
As I said before you might consider adding an NKVD infantry unit but this is not essential and as you told me before you could name a standard unit in game at Stalingrad...
Personnally I found in PG2 and in PeG-WW2 e-files the NKVD units and I think it added added value because more "realism" in game...

P47D
"In mid-1944, 200 P-47D-22-REs and P-47D-27-REs were ferried to the USSR via Iraq and Iran. Many were sent to training units. Less than half reached operational units, and they were rarely used in combat"
From Wikipedia (sentence based on Gordon 2008, p. 449):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_P-47_Thunderbolt
No problem for me to keep the unit in game but I just wanted to warn you it was perhaps not historically accurate (there is a discussion because you want to have at least 100 tanks at brigade or divisional level -I don't know anymore- to justify the existence of a dedicated icon in game --> do you have enough P47Ds in squadrons to justify a dedicated icon ?)

[Chris10]

thnx for feedback Robert

Sherman
One remark: please remove the visible white part of the old white US star on the M41A(76W).

annoyed me from the start but since its a minor thingi I go over it later..if I dont forget it

Soviet Tank Guards
Why did you change the color of the "special" units, was not the badge below enough ? Color change was needed to recognize them more easily ? But again for me the badge was enough because now it breaks the color homogeneity of Russian army...

Not only the Wehrmacht but Russians used camo too. So I wanted to break a bit the monotony of the soviet green. Bebros russian planes all have camo patterns
Its a bit like asking why we use camo units for the german side breaking the homogenity of the German Wehrmacht grey,isnt it ?

Winter camouflage icons
Other question: what about the winter camo ? Do you intend to use the MiG 3 with red arrows in winter scenarios ?
I think that winter camo could cause more problems than what it could bring as added-value because when good weather comes back you stay with white tanks, aircrafts and other units...

No winter camo...no more different icons...I had to rebuild a completely new equipment file from scratch and its about 700 entrys,its enough...
I mean,there is a thin red line between historical plausability and petty pedantism...let alone the work involved and there is no gameplay benefit in it...and additionally I have to rebuild the complete efx file too as all pngs changed name...

NKVD Infantry
As I said before you might consider adding an NKVD infantry unit but this is not essential and as you told me before you could name a standard unit in game at Stalingrad...

yeah..they will come from behind

P47D
do you have enough P47Ds in squadrons to justify a dedicated icon ?)

There will be one wing for modelling that they were there. I want the mod bring some info too...Info people are usually not aware of and as with all things I like historical context but Iam not ultra pedantic.
If I say scale is divisional/brigade/air wing then in reality this can vary from country to country...
some countrys had 60 Tanks for a full Tank brigade, others more others less...German Heavy Tank Regiments were 45 Tigers + Command Vehicle...In this cases just imagine the icon to be the main vehicle and the rest is filled with other vehicles.
In this sort of mathematical comparison system there are some restrictions to model stuff and the engine is not very sophisticated,
to say at least
Scaling is a guideline and numbers are never meant to be absolute but only an abstract mirror of reality and used as a base math in order to determine how many icons/units a side gets from a certain equipment.What matters is the overall plausability of the end result.

I adress this issue in the ReadMe

Chris that looks like a great Soviet roster. I noticed you said you added some special infantry units.Love your stuff my friend, keep it up.

thnx Dwight...
I added some special russian units to serve a gameplay purpose...they are in the locations which somehow never got captured...they are not overpowered in term of causing casualties but nearly impossible to root out...like the Stalingrad Tunnel Rats for example
these units serve the only purpose of modelling the troubles involved in trying to capture certain objectives...as well there will be some other very hardy defenses in deep Russia to make it difficult for the player doin weird things and exploit engine limitations

[airbornemongo101]

This mod is going to be awesome

I think the 4 must have mods are going to be this mod,VP's sound mod,Nico's GT-PG,and Massi's land tiles

It goes w/o saying that the two must have tools are Mark's Editor and Flak/Rezaf's Camo Shop

Great work Chris ,and to all listed above...Kudos gentleman,Kudos

[flakfernrohr]

Actually having been a participant in the forum for about a year now and having seen things change in the positive light even though there were slow times with more and more becoming available for everyone who wants it, this section of the forum is getting new stuff and great members all the time. The energy and inspirations of this part of Slitherine's forums is exhilarating and addictive.

[massi]

ANOTHER SCREEN FROM PEENEMÜNDE RESEARCH CENTER AND STETTIN AREA

CONTAINING A LITTLE TRIBUTE TO THE PERSON WHO MADE THE MAP POSSIBLE

i LOVe IT your work is crazy

[RobertCL]

Thx for the quick answer Chris!

I wish you good luck and I hope you will have enough energy to finalize this project!

This looks awesome!!!

[Chris10]

___________________________________UPDATE 31.08.2012_____________________________________

Unit Rosters are now complete and I start reworking the entire equipment file for consistency in traits,nopurchase flags,unit values,prices etc...
this will take a while I think

Finnish Unit Roster



Croatian Unit Roster


Other Annoyances

[Chris10]

Iam conducting first tests about upgrade paths

In the upper screen a 1.LSSAH Grenadier 40 can be upgrade into 43 Model for 40 Prestige...
If player trys to upgrade to another model this is going to cost full price of 760...
So its easy to determine the next upgrade ...once upgraded to last model there is no further upgrade as all units are flagged noupgrade...
This is to avoid shaping the core into a super core...a PzIVH or J cant upgrade further so the player has to determine if he goes to Panther from PzIVG or to a later PzIV model...Panther will obviously be pretty expensive
There is only SS Infantry in this screen cause they are all flagged bonus so no hassle with regular Wehrmacht ...downside is that Bonus Units are not shown in New Equipment...yeah..well..engine limitations