schwerpunkt wrote:Just playing the mod for the second time and am concerned that the US build points are too high early on (especially given the Japan first focus they historically had). Playing the allies, I've begun the invasion of France in Feb 1942 and have lots of fighters and tacs. The battle of the Atlantic is pretty much over (I have DD's and US CV's covering all convoys forcing the Germans to make costly wolfpack attacks).
The Germans attacked Russia in Apr 41 and made good historical progress in Russia (Lenningrad fell but Moscow and Voronez didnt and are unlikely to) but are close to a stalemate (each side has lots of tanks and its looking like attrition warfare). Its also notable that the Soviet airforce starts off strong and is difficult to kill which seems ahistorical (a significant part was destroyed on the ground and had to be rebuilt). I think the Russian player lost only one fighter at game start and pulled the rest back to refit and concentrate and hasnt had to build any since (has used lots of replacements though).
Is this pretty typical for the mod?
(Although I'm not going to reconquer france in 42' because of the superiority of the German armour, I am diverting significant tank and fighter resources and expect to conquer it in 43', at which point I think the Germans will be on the defensive in the east)
I'd be interested in others experiences.
Cheers!
Hi. I assume you're playing a human, and not against the AI. The mod is not optimized for AI play at all.
Assuming a human opponent, then I think the problem is not game balance, but that the Axis player made some mistakes.
I'm the "J" in BJR, and so have played the mod extensively and against a number of opponents. Typically, the British economy is in huge difficulty until sometime in late '41 or early '42, because of submarine warfare. Usually the Russians are in full retreat throughout 1941, and the tactical air they have should be of little value, because the German fighters should be both more numerous and of superior quality to the Russian fighters.
In any game I have played, if the Russian tries to defend on the Dnieper, he gets slaughtered. The convention seems to be to retreat to a line Moscow-Tula-Rostov and hope to hang on to that until 1943, by which point Russia can then switch to the offensive. A highly skilled Axis player (and I don't count myself as one) such as Stauffenberg (the B in BJR) will frequently win as the Axis, by still holding Berlin and Rome at game end.
I can't imagine how the Americans would get ashore to stay ashore in France in 1942. When the transports show up, all the German has to do is rail units to the threatened areas. An armour, three infantry and a couple of tactical air should sort that out quite quickly for the German. Of course, if the German player didn't keep a reserve in position to reach threatened areas by rail, then he does have a problem
The additional Russian tactical air was put into the mod to ensure that Russia has some ability to threaten a counter-attack in 1942. I know the bulk of the Russian front line air force was destroyed on the ground, but Russian industry was able to replace those losses reasonably quickly. Aircraft destroyed on the ground does not equate to pilot losses, so of course as soon as the USSR had new aircraft (including P-39's from the US), they had the manpower to crew them
You mentioned early in your post that you believe that the USA had a "Japan first" policy. The opposite is actually the case. At the Casablanca conference, Roosevelt and Churchill quickly agreed upon a Europe first policy. This was not as much of a handicap to US ambitions in the Pacific as one would think, however. Fleet carriers were of no use in the Atlantic, since there were no German or Italian carriers to worry about. ASW could be accomplished by escort carriers and later in the war, long range land-based air. The USN would have achieved carrier parity with Japan by 1943 anyway, but of course they achieved it a bit quicker thanks to the debacle at Midway.
