Slitherine

I think the movement rates are fine.

leridano wrote:Not all panzergrenadier german units could be equipped with german halftrucks (SdKfz´s) so many of the panzergrenadiers had to use trucks. Halftrucks were more appropriate to accompany panzers and they were a little bit faster than tanks. Interaction and cooperation between armoured and panzergrenadier units was essential so keeping in mind this it seems that CEAW GS reflects this well giving both armoured and mech units a rather similar role in the game. As a consequence of this, I don´t see the use of increasing movement to mechs not even with high tech levels (halftrucks were not faster than trucks). So as I have pointed above the only thing that makes sense to me regarding this question would be to reduce armour movement to 5: tanks in WW2 were rather slow and they had to frequently stop for repairs and maintenance. So even we all used to current MP´s, may be to give to armoured units 6 MP´s in CEAW can make the people think that tanks in WW2 moved fast and this wasn´t so. This way reducing it to 5 steps could be a good idea and useful to avoid german armoured blob but to be applied in future updates, anyway.

I think the top speed of the german tanks was about 25 km per hour, but a panzer division on the advance is 2 huge traffic jams on 2 parallel roads moving at 5 to 10 kmph. ie walking speed. It's just the concentration of firepower that makes it's momentum virtually unstoppable by infantry.

Actually for Guderian Kursk and similar ramming attacks were a travesty, the tanks were not for the breakthrough phase, but for the exploitation phase. For the Germans, the inital breakthrough was made by infantry divisions. The role of the tanks was to run around in the enemy rear creating mayhem, destroying enemy command & control centres, encircling the enemy, and most importantly keeping the enemy off-balance and without initiative. Using them as battering rams just wasted their mobility.

This game is not a wargame with accurate OOBs or a simulation, it is an strategic game that works pretty well as that, with reasonable outcomes and historically reasonable strategies working well. if we use the "for the sake of realism" argument we should change every aspect of the game, not just movement rates, we should be thinking in terms of games mechanics instead, and form that point I think movement rates work well enough.

Stauffenberg wrote:We would have to reduce corps movement to 3 and then reduce ZOC penalty from 2 to 1. I'm not sure this will be good in supply level 3. Then you move only 2 with corps units in clear terrain.

I was referring to only reduce armoured units movement leaving the movement factor of the other CEAW units as it is now. But to say the truth I´m fine with the current MP´s values and for the reasons that I have mentioned in the above posts.

PinkPanzer wrote:I think the top speed of the german tanks was about 25 km per hour, but a panzer division on the advance is 2 huge traffic jams on 2 parallel roads moving at 5 to 10 kmph. ie walking speed. It's just the concentration of firepower that makes it's momentum virtually unstoppable by infantry.

Surely armoured units moved faster than any other unit when fighting. But may be CEAW GS represents this well because armoured units (with higher hard attack values) have more possibilities of forcing an enemy retreat (and then to make an exploitation movement) than mech or infantry units.

Surely armoured units moved faster than any other unit when fighting. But may be CEAW GS represents this well because armoured units (with higher hard attack values) have more possibilities of forcing an enemy retreat (and then to make an exploitation movement) than mech or infantry units.

Not really. WW2 tanks didn't have gun stabilizers so they did most of their fighting standing still. Then when whatever they were firing at was killed they advanced to the next firing position.

What made WW1 so bloody was the machinegun and artillery. WW1 tanks were designed to be mobile machinegun pillboxes that killed enemy machineguns allowing the infantry to advance. Guderian designed the panzer division to be a combined arms of tanks, infantry and artillery. Tanks protect the infantry from machineguns and artillery and infantry and artillery protect the tanks from AT guns and infantry with AT weapons.

Think of it this way: The best way to kill a tank battallion is to ambush it with infantry with AT weapons in bad terrain, Then when they engaged your infantry fire artillery at them and manuever your tanks to engage them from the flanks or the rear.
The best way to kill an infantry battallion is to attack it with artillery, then your tanks engage the enemy infantry at long range, then your infantry hand grenade the suppressed infantry. Combined arms.

A panzer corps was not what most people think it was. Here are the Barbarossa oob panzer corps. I pretty sure the SS divsions were motorized. Basically a panzer corps was composed of a mix of panzer, mot infantry and infantry divisions.

XXIV. Armeekorps, Koden (von Schweppenburg)
1. Kavallerie-Division (Feldt)
255. Infanterie-Division (Wetzel)
267. Infanterie-Division (von Wachter)
10. Infanterie-Division (mot) (Löper)
3. Panzer-Division (Model)
4. Panzer-Division (von Langermann-Erlencamp)


XLVI. Panzerkorps, Deblin (von Vietinghoff-Scheel)
Infanterie-Regiment Grossdeutschland (mot) (von Stockhausen)
10. Panzer-Division (Schaal)
SS-Division Reich (Hausser)

XLVI. Panzerkorps, Deblin (von Vietinghoff-Scheel)
Infanterie-Regiment Grossdeutschland (mot) (von Stockhausen)
10. Panzer-Division (Schaal)
SS-Division Reich (Hausser)

XXXIX Armeekorps (motorisierte), Suwalki (Schmidt)
14. Infanterie-Division (mot) (Wosch)
20. Infanterie-Division (mot) (Zorn)
7. Panzer-Division (von Funck)
20. Panzer-Division (Stumpff)

LVII. Armeekorps, Suwalki (Kuntzen)
18. Infanterie-Division (mot) (Herrlein)
12. Panzer-Division (Harpe)
19. Panzer-Division (von Knobelsdorff)

XLI. Armeekorps (Reinhardt)
269. Infanterie-Division (von Leyser)
1. Panzer-Division (Kirchner)
6. Panzer-Division (Langraf)

LVI. Armeekorps, Tilsit (von Manstein)
290. Infanterie-Division (von Werde)
8. Panzer-Division (Brandenberger)

(Reserve)
3. Infanterie-Division (mot) (Jahn)
36. Infanterie-Division (mot) (Ottenbacher)
SS-Division Totenkopf (Eicke)

III. Armeekorps, Zamosc (von Machensen)
44. Infanterie-Division (Siebert)
298. Infanterie-Division (Gräßner)
14. Panzer-Division (Kühn)

XIV. Panzerkorps, Zamosc (von Wietersheim)
9. Panzer-Division (von Hubicki)
SS-Division Wiking (Steiner)

XXIX. Armeekorps, Zamosc (von Obstfelder)
111. Infanterie-Division (Stapf)
299. Infanterie-Division (Moser)

XLVIII Panzerkorps, Zamosc (Kempf)
57. Infanterie-Division (Blümm)
75. Infanterie-Division (Hammer)
11. Panzer-Division (Crüwell)

(Reserve)
16. Infanterie-Division (mot) (Henrici)
25. Infanterie-Division (mot) (Clößner)
13. Panzer-Division (Düvert)
16. Panzer-Division (Hube)
Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (Dietrich)



http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=633

PinkPanzer wrote:Not really. WW2 tanks didn't have gun stabilizers so they did most of their fighting standing still. Then when whatever they were firing at was killed they advanced to the next firing position.

All of these considerations about tank/infantry warfare would make more sense in an exclusively tactical level wargame but not in a strategic level wargame as CEAW is. We have to keep in mind that all wargames give armoured and mech units more MP´s than normal infantry so CEAW do it so.

The fact is that in CEAW there´s not much difference between the movement value of normal infantry units (4) and the movement value of mech and armoured units (5 and 6, respectively). But may be this is because CEAW it is a corps sized unit game and that´s why it gives a rather generic MP´s to CEAW units: this would explain why CEAW gives to normal infantry corps units a relatively similar movement value compared with the one for mech and armoured units. But this makes sense because a corps sized unit uses to be a MIXED military unit in which there are normal infantry units but it can be also composed by motorised or even armoured units. In wargames at a divisional or regimental levels the difference between armoured/mechanized units movement value compared with the one for normal infantry units is much more significant than in CEAW but this could be because an armoured or infantry regiment is not a mixed military unit since it is ONLY composed by armoured or normal infantry squads, respectively.

In german OOB for Barbarossa provided by you we can see that german corps sized units were named Armeekorps no matter they have 1 or more mech/armoured divisions attached and on the other side german units named as Panzerkorps (e.g. XLVIII Panzerkorps) were composed by only 1 armoured division and 2 infantry divisions. CEAW would reflect this well giving to normal infantry units 4 MP´s so this relatively high movement value for normal infantry units could represent mechanized or armoured units attached to a infantry corps unit. BTW, amazing web site about Germany and Axis powers in WW2 you have attached.

So the conclusion for me in this question is to leave the things as they are regarding to movement of the units and in case of changing something this would be to reduce armoured movement to 5 MP.