Slight change in Eastern front

gerones · Post by **gerones** » Sat Apr 23, 2011 1:58 pm

It seems that the soviets succeeded to take out the germans from Ukraine in march 1944, reaching 1939 polish borders. The fact is that the soviet progress in Poland after this was rather slow. Let´s think that Warsaw was liberated by the soviets in january 1945, almost a year after the russians reached polish borders. This was due both because of the stronger german opposing forces in Poland and because the soviets did not benefit from winter weather effects in Central Europe like in USSR where the winter was pretty much harder.

For better simulating this slower advance, I just wanted to suggest a slight change in winter effects on russian units. As we all know russian units don´t get any winter penalty in winter weather no matter they are in mainland Russia or they are in Central Europe (Poland, Hungary, etc). What I suggest is to remove the russian exemption from winter weather effects only for the russian units in Central Europe. This way, only in severe winter or winter in Russia the Red Army units would have the exemption. Soviets units will find a bit harder to progress in Central Europe at the last phases of the game but this won´t be a big issue because of the higher tech level they will have by that date.

Being a little harder for the soviets to progress in Central Europe, the german could free up more units from Eastern front to e.g. France since actually the germans can do nothing but to concentrate all their efforts in stopping the overwhelming russian army.

Plaid · Post by **Plaid** » Sat Apr 23, 2011 6:47 pm

There are some good positions in Poland and they are quite easy to defend, if german army have some fighting ability left by this time.
With historical army (like 1944 scenario) its really doable. Also its argueable which weather favours defence more - western one have more MUD at autumn-winter-spring, which is significant worse then winter for offence and even worse for red army.
Last note - if soviets capture Warsaw in february 1945 and german front didn't finally decayed, they will be nowhere close to Berlin in may 1945 - its atleast 2 good positions for germans left to make a stand (and many forts) and they can't be breached in so few turns.

gerones · Post by **gerones** » Sat Apr 23, 2011 8:22 pm

Plaid wrote:There are some good positions in Poland and they are quite easy to defend, if german army have some fighting ability left by this time.
With historical army (like 1944 scenario) its really doable. Also its argueable which weather favours defence more - western one have more MUD at autumn-winter-spring, which is significant worse then winter for offence and even worse for red army.
Last note - if soviets capture Warsaw in february 1945 and german front didn't finally decayed, they will be nowhere close to Berlin in may 1945 - its atleast 2 good positions for germans left to make a stand (and many forts) and they can't be breached in so few turns.

Normally, russians in GS have conquered Warswaw so long after january 1945 so that´s not the case. The fact is that germans have to strongly focus on Eastern front because from late 1943 and on they have to suffer the russians both in good and bad weather. To give the russians a winter immunity in their mainland could make sense but when fighting in Poland or Hungary makes less sense to have this "privilege".

JimR · Post by **JimR** » Sat Apr 23, 2011 9:37 pm

I thought that only "severe winter" affected the Axis and Soviet units differently. Don't other conditions such as mud and regular winter affect all sides equally?

gerones · Post by **gerones** » Sat Apr 23, 2011 10:30 pm

JimR wrote:I thought that only "severe winter" affected the Axis and Soviet units differently. Don't other conditions such as mud and regular winter affect all sides equally?

Actually, russian units are only affected by winter effects in movement but not in combat. So the soviets have the same combat values both in normal winter and in fair weather. The same could be said for finnish, norwegian and swedish units.

zechi · Post by **zechi** » Sun Apr 24, 2011 5:47 am

I think such a change would it make it to easy for the Axis to defend the Reich at the Soviet border. It is easy to place a good defense line just outside of the severe winter zone. If the Soviets do not have any advantage in the winter there, it will be very difficult for them to breach this line. This is especially true as the Axis can now wait till May 1942 before the Soviets activate. The Soviets need an advantage to have the possibility to overhelm the more technically and experienced German units.

Last but not least such a change would not be historical in the winter of 1941/42 and 1942/43. The Germans were ill prepared for a winter campaign in these years (in contrast to some Soviet units). Therefore the Soviets did had an advantage over the Germans in winter weather in these years. Only later in the war the Germans did get better winter equipment, which is currently simulated through a lesser severe winter effect.

Furthermore, such a change would have to be carefully playtested as it would surely change the play balance.

gerones · Post by **gerones** » Sun Apr 24, 2011 1:22 pm

zechi wrote: Last but not least such a change would not be historical in the winter of 1941/42 and 1942/43. The Germans were ill prepared for a winter campaign in these years (in contrast to some Soviet units). Therefore the Soviets did had an advantage over the Germans in winter weather in these years. Only later in the war the Germans did get better winter equipment, which is currently simulated through a lesser severe winter effect.

IMO this is not 100% correct. We need to distinguish between winter and severe winter. Wehrmacht performed well in winter weather but not in severe winter weather. German generals were really glad when mud season changed into winter weather season in Operation Typhoon for this allowed german war machine to resume its advance over Moscow. In fact, the germans advanced and reached the outskirts of Moscow no matter the winter weather. Stalin much feared to have to abandon Moscow: it seems that the capital was really threatened by the german forces. It was only when the winter turns into severe winter when the german war machine was highly affected since vehicles, tanks and aircrafts were not prepared for such low temperatures. If we add to this that the german troops were really exhausted and that the russians were receiving more and more reinforcements around Moscow, then the russian winter counteroffensive of 1941-42 was a natural consequence. On the other hand, Zhukov in its memories repeats again and again that severe winter also affected the soviets.

Red Army troops were poorly equipped. They were used to low temperatures but their equipment was not the best. This was proved in Winter War against Finland. So there´s not many arguments for giving the soviets this exemption. Only can be argued that the soviets were used to the winter conditions of Russia but this wouldn´t justify that they would have also this exemption when fighting in Central Europe.

Soviets can have some problems to breach german defensive lines in the early-mid war when russian tech level is low (like it is happening in your AAR) but late in the war when the russians have high tech levels they are really overwhelming. To all that have finished a game playing against the russians will know what I´m saying. So my suggestion would only affect to soviet units once in Central Europe (Poland, Hungary), this way the germans can have a breath in winter weather: right now it is a non-stop russian offensive that it is only halted when occasionally occurs mud weather.