Slitherine

joerock22 wrote:

Also relating to my Amerika in Flames game, i do not find it normal that i can muster all the ressources on the map, with industry LVL6 and only produce 200 per turn. From experience at this point in the war with the ressources theyve giot the Russians also produce 200 pp or close to it. So in essence this means that even if germany controls all of the Western world industrial production they cannot over-produce Russia??? This is highly un-logical.

I'm not so sure it is. Yes you have England and France, but what are you getting from America? You've essentially only conquered part of the east coast, and the U.S. would never have surrendered in that situation. It is a HUGE country, filled with highly stubborn individuals. Any resources you think you should be getting from the conquered areas of the U.S. could be going into continuing your pacification of the region!

Well, all good comments, but my ultimate goal in every game is not to resist against the Russians, but crush them. I understand all those way of playing with saving forces, saving oil and all this and i can do all those things, but, really, whats the fun in defending with the germans? I will find a way of destroying those damned Russians.

That's fine, but GS is not designed to facilitate that. GS was designed with the historical outcome of the war as the default. In other words, two evenly matched players playing in an equally skilled manner should result in a draw, with the last Axis capital falling in May 1945 as it did historically. Victory conditions reward players for changing history in one way or another. In order to achieve this, the Russians have to be strong enough to turn back the tide in most situations as they did historically. I understand the desire to crush the Russians every game, but that is not consistent with the fundamental design of GS, and it is not about to change.

I believe you there Joe! I was able to understand that in our game together... I still cannot understand how i slip that one! I simply ran out of steam while the russians kept getting stronger and stronger. I can see now that even if i controlled England and almost allof Russia West of Kuybishev, it doesnt matter in 1943, the Russians will still kick the german's asses.

But then if you can push into Siberia in early 1942 and take enough cities to deplete the Soviet Revenue then what? Like after 42 you have Moscow, Caucasus and say Gorki-Kuybished-Saratov-Stalingrad and maybee those cities on the bases of the Ourals? This is what i will be trying to achieve. I wonder what needs to be done to insure a continuying german offensive in 1943. It might also be a very good playing against the western allies to insure they cannot land in 42 or 43?

supermax wrote:I believe you there Joe! I was able to understand that in our game together... I still cannot understand how i slip that one! I simply ran out of steam while the russians kept getting stronger and stronger. I can see now that even if i controlled England and almost allof Russia West of Kuybishev, it doesnt matter in 1943, the Russians will still kick the german's asses.

But then if you can push into Siberia in early 1942 and take enough cities to deplete the Soviet Revenue then what? Like after 42 you have Moscow, Caucasus and say Gorki-Kuybished-Saratov-Stalingrad and maybee those cities on the bases of the Ourals? This is what i will be trying to achieve. I wonder what needs to be done to insure a continuying german offensive in 1943. It might also be a very good playing against the western allies to insure they cannot land in 42 or 43?

Well I certainly can't fault you for trying. In the situation you describe, you might just be able to pull it off. It will be a tough haul though.

Once possible concern I have with Russia in GS is its manpower. Historically, the Russians were scraping the barrel (below 50% in game terms?) by the spring of 44. In the games I have played as the allies, I've never got anywhere near to 50% russian manpower.

Just wondering what other peoples experiences are? (Ronnie gave me access to his password when our very bloody game came to an end and he was still only at 75% in May 45)

I usually drop below 75% manpower with the Russians late 1941 against an able Axis player. Then I try to get above 75% for the winter, but it drops below 75% with the Axis spring 1942 offensive. Then it stays below 75% for the rest of the game. If I suffer a lot of losses I can get down to 60-65%. So I would guess I would get to 50% if I had suffered badly in 1941-1942.

The reason the Russians drop so much in manpower is because they have to make poor odds attacks in 1942-1943 to start inflicting losses upon the Germans. You get a lot of units to repair and you need to replace lost units.

In the vanilla game no countries get manpower issues except Germany. We changed that so all countries have some kind of manpower issues that must be dealt with.

I don't think the Russians should often get below 50% manpower. The Russians had millions of good soldiers in 1945 compared to Germany who had lost their good soldiers and relied upon the Volksturm. So the Red Army in May 1945 was a formidable force indeed and if the Allies had done like Patton and Churchill wanted (attack USSR) then the western Allies could have been crushed by the Red Army. So it wasn't like the Russian resources were stretched so thin they had to recruit old men and boys to fight.

Stauffenberg wrote:
The Russians had millions of good soldiers in 1945 compared to Germany who had lost their good soldiers and relied upon the Volksturm. So the Red Army in May 1945 was a formidable force indeed and if the Allies had done like Patton and Churchill wanted (attack USSR) then the western Allies could have been crushed by the Red Army. So it wasn't like the Russian resources were stretched so thin they had to recruit old men and boys to fight.

My understanding is that they actually were down to older boys and older men *. Reconquering western Russia was quite helpful too. The Russian army was indeed formidable but they were forced to stop expanding their army in order to ensure that they could keep their current units up to strength. It was one of the reasons why the Russians were prepared to sign the armistice with Finland - they simply didnt have the units spare to get into a bloody fight trying to conquer Finland.

* = I just checked the Fire in the East/Scorched Earth game replacements and they undergo a reduction starting in Jan 1944 which is consistent with my understanding of Russian manpower limits.

Russia was indeed hurting by the end of the war. This was the main reason why so many women had to serve in the Russian army, as snipers, drivers, artillery and even pilots. I presume most players of GS aren't as bad as the historical Russian leadership as I have seldom seen the 12 million plus casualties that the actual Russians lost in WWII.

schwerpunkt wrote:

Stauffenberg wrote:
The Russians had millions of good soldiers in 1945 compared to Germany who had lost their good soldiers and relied upon the Volksturm. So the Red Army in May 1945 was a formidable force indeed and if the Allies had done like Patton and Churchill wanted (attack USSR) then the western Allies could have been crushed by the Red Army. So it wasn't like the Russian resources were stretched so thin they had to recruit old men and boys to fight.

My understanding is that they actually were down to older boys and older men *. Reconquering western Russia was quite helpful too. The Russian army was indeed formidable but they were forced to stop expanding their army in order to ensure that they could keep their current units up to strength. It was one of the reasons why the Russians were prepared to sign the armistice with Finland - they simply didnt have the units spare to get into a bloody fight trying to conquer Finland.

* = I just checked the Fire in the East/Scorched Earth game replacements and they undergo a reduction starting in Jan 1944 which is consistent with my understanding of Russian manpower limits.

I dunno. It might be worth playing a hotseat game where the USSR and the Axis play things out in a similar fashion to how it actually went down in the real war. My guess is that you'd see a lot higher Russian casualty count and correspondingly lower manpower.

shawkhan wrote:Russia was indeed hurting by the end of the war. This was the main reason why so many women had to serve in the Russian army, as snipers, drivers, artillery and even pilots. I presume most players of GS aren't as bad as the historical Russian leadership as I have seldom seen the 12 million plus casualties that the actual Russians lost in WWII.

Below are two screen caps from one of my games, as the allies. The turn is July 2, 1943 (71) and this was the last turn I played before my opponent conceded the game and gave me an ultimate allied victory. Needless to say it was a blood bath on the Russian front. Italy had already surrendered, the US/UK were landing in France and the Germans were out of oil.

That sure goes to show that people who don't think the Russians ever get below 50% are mistaken. Those are the most incredible casualties I have seen. You must have lots of women in your armed forces by now!

shawkhan wrote:You must have lots of women in your armed forces by now!

Their manpower might have been low but boy was their morale high!

Da!