El_Condoro wrote:I recently played a PBEM game as the Axis using this mod. Whilst I like many/most of the changes (house rules etc.) and the map changes I have a question about why the Russian armour has been beefed up so much. I am no military historian but from my limited understanding of Barbarossa the Germans were able to cut through the Russians and carve them up piecemeal until winter struck in December. In the game I played my panzers were substandard (I had 3 laboratories in armour focussing on blitzkrieg) and no match for the Russian armour, which started better than my Germans even in 1941. My attack included 6 panzer units and was one turn (20 days) before the real date and so I expected the Russians to be LESS prepared not MORE. My understanding is that the Russian tanks were historically inferior generally although they had some KV-Is and even T-34s early on but not in significant enough numbers to affect battles. Along with that they were far inferior to German tactical training and communications. So back to the original question: why are they so good in the mod? I lost the game convincingly, so this may be sour grapes! Cheers.
We have NOT beefed up the Russian armor a lot compared to the vanilla game. All we've done is to up the starting antitank tech from 1 to 2. We've increased the starting German blitzkrieg tech from 0 to 1 to make the armor a bit more effective in the first year battles. Tactical bombers are more effective against armor with higher techs. Germany starts with tech 1 ground support instead of tech 0 in the vanilla game. We've even given the Germans an extra tac bomber at the start of the game. Britain gets an extra fighter in Canada, but it takes awhile to get it to Europe if he wants to use it there.
So you will see that the Germans actually have a better chance to achieve historical results in the mod. Now it's definitely possible to take out Poland in 2 turns, Holland and Belgium in 1 turn (each) and Paris by May 1940.
The Russian armor was the most powerful of all during WW2. The Germans dreaded the Russian armor units at the start of Barbarossa. Most of the German armor units in the start of Barbarossa were quite weak Pz II and Pz III. Some were Pz IV. It was only after 1942 the Germans had better tanks than the Allies and Russians (Panther, Tiger etc.).
The main reason the German tanks performed so well before 1942 was not because of their firepower, but because of a much more effective armor doctrine and quality of the panzer soldiers. It took some time before the Allies understood they needed to concentrate their armor units in armored divisions instead of spreading out the armor among the infantry division. The German commanders used radio to their advantage and could cooperate much better on the battlefield against enemy tanks.
But this advantage was slowly lost and Germany had to focus upon panzer units with better firepower and armament. The Russians were always fond of huge and powerful armor units. So it's not correct to say the Russian armor were weak. The Germans panzer troops were shocked when they first were engaged in battle against T34 tanks. They found out the hard way that the T34 had better armor and better firepower. And the T34 was only a medium tank. The Russian heavy tanks were even harder to kill.
Germany did so well in the east front in 1941 because Stalin refused to retreat his troops to safety and tried to hold the Germans. That was obviously stupid and the Russians lost a lot of units because of being encircled numerous places. At the start of Barbarossa the German air units bombarded the Russian airfields and got air superiority despite Russia having a bigger airforce than German at the start of the war. The Russian commanders were unable to use their armor units effectively until winter 1941 because of poor organization.
We've tried to make the BJR mod more historically accurate than the vanilla mod by making our changes. If you lose German armor against the Russians in 1941 then the reason is NOT that the Russian tanks are so powerful, but because you don't use an effective strategy.
Inexperienced players send their armor units eastwards as spearheads without proper infantry support. That is simply asking for trouble. The real Germans broke through the initial lines north of the Pripet and sent their armor eastwards to encircle the Russians. At some stage the resistance east of Minsk was annihilated and they could move straight to Moscow almost unopposed, but the German High Command was too afraid of risking their armor divisions by being encircled by the Russian reserves. You have to advance in a coherent way to make sure you don't lose your spearhead units.
If you attack Russian armor units with your own armor without first softening them up with air attacks then you're also asking for trouble. You need air support to change the odds in your favour.
I've played the Axis many times and lost armor units being too adventurous in 1941. But the Russians pay a heavy price for such a counter attack. You expose several armor units to German counter attacks the following turn. If Russia loses several armor units in 1941 they will have a very difficult time in 1942 trying to stop the major German offensive. So you should actually be happy if the Russians take out on of your armor units and you can kill 3 Russian armor units.
I've also been the Germans when the Russians DON'T retreat in 1941 and try to hold the Dvina / Dnepr line making numerous counter attacks. OK, the Germans bleed a lot, but it will be a lot easier to crush the Russians in 1942. Germany can afford to replace their losses more easily than Russia in 1941.
I usually use my German armor units as support to infantry attacks. I designate maybe 4-6 hexes each turn as my targets and then I initiate by air attacks to soften up the defenders. Then I use an infantry unit to deplete the defender and take the bulk of the losses. Then I use an armor unit to finish off the defender without advancing afterwards. Then a fresh infantry can take the empty hex in the new front line.
If I want to break a double defense line then I need to use the armor in a different way. I find a 3-4 hex wide part of the front line I bombard. Then I use armor units against each front line unit to finish them off with just 1 attack. That means the armor units take slightly more losses, but there will be holes that infantry units can attack. I bombard the rear defense line with tac bombers and then I can usually create a complete hole with 2 infantry attacks. If I get a 3 hex wide hole then I can ooze through the hole without being hampered by ZOC's.
I always try to make sure my armor units don't end up in the front line after all the battles. This way the enemy has to kill my front line before he can deplete my armor.
Never underestimate the power of the tac bombers in the mod. I usually always send tac bombers against enemy armor if they're within range. So if the Russians keep their armor not far from your front line then they will never get a chance to kill your armor units because you send tac bombers against them. In 1941 you will inflict 2-4 steps per attack and that means a Russian armor can lose 4-8 steps before getting to the front line. So the Russians MUST get their armor units to safety or lose them completely. This alone means the Germans shouldn't worry too much about Russian armor in 1941. In 1942 a clever Russian player keeps his armor units outside German spotting range.
One thing you all have to think about is that Jim, Ronnie and I have spent a LOT of time adjusting the mod to get better game balance. One of the hardest things to get right was to get a good play balance for 1943 and later. So some things you see early in the game can be changed for a reason and you will only understand why later in the game.
The Russians and Allies always had to play catch up tech wise against the Germans in the vanilla game. Since they started with industry tech 0 it meant they could build fewer labs than Germany and would never be able to catch up. In our mod we gave USA industry tech 3 and Russia industry tech 2. Since both countries start with war effort of 0 it means it takes a long time until they get war effort of 130 and 120 respectively. The war effort is also used to determine the max number of labs allowed so by letting USA get to 130 (13 labs) and Russia to 120 (12 labs) they have a better chance to strengthen their weak spots with proper lab focus.
In our mod you will see that the initiative changes to the Allies late 1942 or early 1943. The Allies start to catch up with the Germans tech wise and they get the strength to start engaging the Germans in combat.
One thing you also have to remember is that the vicotory conditions if very different in the mod compared to the vanilla game. Germany will only win in the vanilla game if they control 3 or more major power capitals by the end of May 1945. In the mod the Germans will win if they do better than the real Germans did. So if they control just 1 capital by the end of May 1945 they have won the game.
This means you have to make sure the Allies will get initiative not too late and have a decent chance to achieve this goal. In the vanilla game the Germans could give up once they lost Paris or Rome. Then the Allies were sure to gain victory. In the mod you have something to fight for until ALL capitals are lost.
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