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Messages - comrade_daelin
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« on: May 01, 2010, 02:34:20 AM »
Part of Japan's lack of military innovation involved the lack of extensive combat experience. Some designs like the Zero allowed certain degrees of advantages, but overrall Japanese war inudstry weren't future-proof. Development of newer designs were quite lacking, such as other Japanese fighter/bomber designs. Fighing colonies and easily defeating them weren't much incentive to innovate. A large reason why the Japanese floundered once their fleet at Midway was neutralized in the face of advanced American warships and aircraft.
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« on: April 30, 2010, 01:33:44 PM »
This is all I could get from a few hours of brainstorming, so its far from beyond the blueprint stage. If you like them, you can incorporate any of these ideas into your own concepts.
First, this OstHeer concept is an infantry-based army in symbiotic support of vehicles; it is the combination of both that allows the OstHeer to excell. It is also based on the 1941-1943 German army in Russia as opposed to the Eastern forces all the way to the end of the way (sorry, no Volksturms were involved i drawing up this concept).
Second, for sake of being differen there is no universal builder unit: the starting unit must built the tier-1 structure, which unlocks the the next unit at the HQ permanently, and so on. Even if the structures are destroyed you can still train them at the HQ.
Proposed units:
-Aufklarer - scout, and starting unit. Can build the tier-1 building but cannot employ some/all defenses (sandbags, etc.). Poor combat ability, but excellent for the first game to scout/ take sectors and provide sniping from upgrade/veterancy. This is basically a kettenkrad with camo but slower and at least some defense.
-Schutzen/Grenadiers: your basic infantry, the tier-2 infantry. Builds the tier-3 structure and provides basic infantry firepower. Provides light versatility and overall backbone for your army. Can build all defenses and has a variety of light upgrades such as MG34 (excellent anti-infantry but low suppression) and some sort of anti-light vehicle weapon.
-Sub-officer: tier-2 equivalent of the British Lieutenant but offers suppression and defense bonuses rather than offensive.
-Schutzen/Grenadier crewed units are all tier-3:
-infantry gun- crewed and functions as a towed Piat. Excellent against infantry and light armour.
-Machine-gun team: a 3-man squad with two equipped with MG34. Can cloak-ambush. The German answer to the Russian blobber. Good firepower but relatively low suppression.
-Mortar: 12cm heavy mortar crew to counter the Russians'. Upgrades allow either smoke or incendiary shells as alternate firing; you can only upgrade once.
Major/Colonel: Tier-3 officer, unlocks tier-4 structure. Functions same way as the British Lieutenant by providing global offensive bonuses. Killing this unit incurs temporary penalties to the players’ units (if you’ve played Dawn of War’s Tau Ethereal unit, you know what I mean).
-Sturmpioniers: tier-3/4, 4-5-man squad of Pioners outfitted with flamethrowers and MP40s, these function similarly to the British Sappers but in a more combat role, taking down defenses and obstacles. Builts tier-4 building.
Vehicles:
-Kubelwagen: unarmed equivalent of the Bren, functions the same in every way; capture with units onboard, fast, light.
-Pz III: Medium Tank, equivalent to the Sherman for healthy balance between taking on enemy infantry and vehicles. Basically an ostwind that's quickly obsolete in the tank role. Initial 37mm gun with individual upgradeables to the 5cm gun and spaced armour. Two coaxial MG34s.
-Pz IV: Heavy infantry/vehicle tank. Identical to the PE’s. Upgrade is spaced armour, and the MG42 gunner will be a veterancy feature rather than an upgrade. Comes with the infantry support gun and a universal upgrade replaces it with the 7.5cm anti-tank gun, turning it into a Wehr Pz IV.
-Half track: Identical to Wehr halftrack; only upgrade is mobile aid station featuring the American triage healing aura.
-Schwere-Wehrmachtschlepper (SWS): Flatbed half track, starts out as a supply halftrack tha can upgrade to use a twin 3.7 flak gun or a nebelwerfer on the bed.
Structures:
-Tier-1 Scouting point, trains Aufklarer, Kubelwagen and respective upgrades. HQ unlocks the Schutzen/grenadier squad.
-Tier-2 Basic barracks, trains Schutzen, Sub-Officer and the Halftrack. Unlocks upgrade for Aufklarer snipers/ cloak/ spotters.
-Tier-3 Advanced barracks, trains the heavy weapons, second officer and Panzer III.
-Tier-4 Vehicle building, trains SWS, Panzer 4 and Sturmgrenadiers.
-Support structure (“Tier-5”): Combination of the American upkeep and the Wehr purchased veterancy in terms of what the upgrades do. For every research done, a small amount of upkeep and some other unit-specific benefit are induced, and all stack. In principle it operates the same way as the kampfkraft center.
-Proposed research-upgrades include:
reducing upkeep
reducing unit prices, either in just fuel/manpower or both
increasing squad size
increasing resource rate
weapon upgrade/ability unlocks
Level 1 veterancy can be “bought” like the Wehr but higher levels cannot.
Doctrine Units:
-Nashorn or Elefant: A slow 88 emplacement, fair frontal armour and falters when flanked, extreme range and firepower. Either one-time only deployment or limited to one.
-Sturmpioniers: dedicated assault engineers for close combat and taking down fortifications. Exlosives, flamethrowers, grenades.
Doctrines
Urban: Similar to the Russian’s urban strategy, combines elements from PE Scorched Earth Tactics and American Infantry Company.
-(more)defenses can be built by more/some infantry units.
-allow forward HQs to train infantry- initially can only reinforce
-Deploy flammenpanzer (the Pz III equivalent to a Crocodile)
-Strengthen current defenses and/or unlock new ones like the Roadblocks
-Booby traps for all infantry
-Booby-trap-like ability for units to allow the player to see areas surrounding neutral, enemy points.
-A three-wave bomber run (not the Henschel style)
Steamroll: Emphasize on slower approach that rewards the player incrementally. Allows player to become less of the PE’s “work around our weakness” to a more classic equal-footing balance.
-Heavy tank destroyer unlock- Nashorn or Elefant
-Unlock more upgrade slots for units
-Supercharged rounds- certain units’ weapons have increased range
-Universal sight range increase of either all units or just infantry/vehicles
-An ability that causes all your units to heal for a period of time (infantry equivalent to the American Armour’s emergency repair)
Combined Arms: Air power and artillery will be the focus of this doctrine.
-Wespe- slightly faster but shorter ranged than the PE’s Hummel, relatively weak armour. Estimated cost ~550 MP, limited to 2 or 3.
-Heavy tank call-in: call a random heavy tank- for ~800MP you get either a Panther, a Tiger, 2-3 Pz IIIs or even an extra Wespe.
-Increased sight range and/or speed for all infantry.
-Henschel-style bomber ability, similar to the Sturmovik.
-Resource blitz: munitions and/or fuel rate is doubled while manpower rate is halved.
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« on: April 30, 2010, 09:46:04 AM »
I think on top of the classic "get kills" veterancy Red Army units would then unlock upgrades. I don't kow if that would work in COH but it sort of reflects the context: if you're "veteran" you're entitled to better weapons. So the upgrades the Red Army has right now would be automatically appleid to any unit what achieves veterancy. Obviously being three levels the variety would have to be expanded.
For example, the Conscripts start as no upgrades: level 1 unlocks more rifles in the squad; level 2 gives all rifles and/or a commissar; and level 3 allows all men to have weapons as well as side upgrades costing munitiosn for, say, submachine guns and the like for more versatility. Obviously a conscript squad isn't much use being a low-grade ifnantry, but being Russia a player would want to utlilzie whatever means to achieve victory. Ultimately though, just like how Pioniers cannot replace Volksgrenadiers, so does the veteran Conscript squad utlimately cannot replace even a level 0 Strelky or Guard
This alleviates the issue of blobbing and at least gives players the incentive to conserve their units rather than wasting them away; however the option of blobbing, more useful to the Russian player due to the faction's style, is still available. Soviet units should have some sort of veterancy, but still dominated by the "quantity over quality" doctrine.
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« on: April 30, 2010, 09:38:00 AM »
Japan at the time of WW2 was invading China and in the process lsot favour from international reactions, particularly from the oil embargo. This forced Japan to seek- quite forcibly- other resource-rich lands, the South-East. Problem is, those lands are owned by powers that oppose Japan's expansion. One of Japan's reasons for Pearl Harbour was to destroy the US pacific fleet to rpevent retaliation and hope they settle for peace concessions as they leap-frog all over Asian colonies, or at least if the Allies fight back they have the time and resources to render them defensible. Obviosuly this gamble did't work; the US simply rebuilt and came back with a vengeance, and the Japanese defeat at Midway was an unrecoverable defeat. Not to mention Japanese designs like the Zero were becoming antiquidated as the US introduced newer, toughter aircraft.
Its all about one nation's power and control of resources.
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« on: April 30, 2010, 09:31:02 AM »
That can be one reason Hitler would have made. However Hitler had by the time of the Polish Invasion demanded land concesions, especially that of Danzig and East Prussia, making an aggressive case for invasion. That spurred Britain and France to state that if Germany takes action against Poland, its war with them as well. Hitler ignored the warnings.
ANy pretense of defeating communism would not bear any weight thanks to Hitler's diplomatic decorum. Would you let a large, militarized neighbour march through your lands to fight another enemy on the opposite border?
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« on: April 30, 2010, 09:22:10 AM »
Forgot about that bat- yes, they were basically Hitler's dream-vision of the paramilitary manifestation of the Nazi Party after the war is over. They were supposed to be the next-generation future of the German armed forces- good Aryan stock and loyal only to the Nazis. No wonder the Wehrmacht services saw them with suspicion and contempt- they were a revolutionary modern force that in theory would eventually supplant the traditional German military, with all the Prussian traditional styles and nobility members serving in the officer corps. They might have elight units, but they were far from popular or respected by most of the real army.
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« on: April 14, 2010, 05:31:33 PM »
I would vote to try it out first, then make a decision. Has the EF team tried removing a faction and all ther other proposed changes and see what happens? I mean its sort of pointles to vote and then realize it couldn't be done in the first place, that sort of thing.
The only real gripe I have with EF now are balancing tweaks for Russia and the fact that they can't recrew their own weapons. They can pick up small arms lying around though.
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« on: April 05, 2010, 09:57:10 AM »
The motivations for WW2 (I'm assuming that's what the OP was talking about) cannot be put into simply categories of answers. Not every American citizen believed in the same reason for going to war, just as how not every American believes the US is in the Middle East for the same reasons.
For Hitler though, WW2 was Germany's fight to get back to the top. Hitler grew up a fanatical believer in the German empire. Like many people of his time Hitler also disliked Jews and saw many non-Germans as unsuitable for co-existence alongside Germans. When WW1 ended abruptly in the Allies' favour, Hitler was shocked along with other Germans that a seemingly winning war was signed away by cowardly politicians. Germany was reduced to a shadow of its glorious self. Hitler's ambitions as national leader was to undo all this.
Technically WW2's occurence was at an unfavourable time- the gambit was that Poland's takeover would also lead to the Allies hitching a fit instead of declaring war. German re-armament was scheduled to be completed by the mid-to-late 40s, as numerous programs had differing dates. The declaration of war by the Allies forced Hitler and the German army to face westward and deal with colonial powers as opposed to seizing the dream turf of Eastern European states and Russia. The Battles of France and Britain were waged only because the French and British went to war- they were purely military and political objectives imposed on Germany (though it would be unreasonable for anyone to think that Germany would never face them).
Britain and France had alliances with Czechoslovakia and Poland. Though the Allies more or less allowed Germany to annex the Sudetenland via the Munich agreement, they were furious when Hitler ignored the treaty and siezed the rest of Czechoslovakia. Britain made it clear that if Germany tries to pull the stunt on Poland, its war. Britain and France went to war on political obligations.
The US went to war only after Pearl Harbour and Hitler's declaration of war on the US soon after. However its important to note that the US supplied Germany's enemies and German attacks on US ships in the Atlantic were more or less ideal pretexts to enter the war on the Allies side, though Hitler's declaration or more less made it a reaction.
Also note the fact that the Poland campaign was a forcible, hostile invasion as opposed to the relatively bloodless occupation of Czechoslovakia.
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« on: April 05, 2010, 03:03:07 AM »
Projects like tank development require coordination of planning and flexibility. The Tiger tank was a very heavy tank, and rather than designing it around the limitations of current engines, designers simply had to choose the most suitable one. You either redesign the tank to suit the engine, design a new engine, or throw the current one in. Since the two former requires time to develop, the decision was to field the Tiger tank with full specification onto current yet inadequate engines. What you get is the tank you got but engine problems.
It was essentially the same with the Panther and Elefant. The Elefant was more a stopgap between current and newer tank designs- in fact, the only reason Elefants were made was because Porsche lost the contract bid to Henschel's Tiger prototype, the remaining vehicles made were cosntructed as what we now called the Elefant tank destroyers. Like the Tiger, design changes were not implemented to accomodate the engine being used.
One thing to note is that tanks undergo modification and upgrades, whether factory or on the field. One thing to note about mechanical breakdowns were that relatively few of these upgrades were for the engine- most upgrades concerned replacing the main gun or adding armour and other features, most of which added weight to the tank and thus constributing to the problem. The Panther series started with poor design flaws, but later models proved to be far superior along with better crew training. While engine problems continued, they were reasonably dealt with.
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« on: April 04, 2010, 02:03:37 PM »
In reality, Germany (or the Axis, however you like it) lost the war because, simply, the war occured in the first place.
If you look at Hitler's original pre-war goals, the objective was to create an army and steamroll his enemies in the late 40s, far ahead of the declaration of war by Britain in 1939. In fact, Hitler miscalculated that the Allies would let him off like previously in his takeovers of Eastern European countries. Hitler's pretext for taking Poland was reclaimation of German territoriy (whether lost from WW1 or Lebensraum). Put it simply, Hitler was pushing people around and they pushed back, and Hitler had to walk the walk.
Germany had to throttle its war capability after that, indeed the Blitzkrieg tactics were in reality relatively impromptu tactics by Hitler's generals in order to pull off success, as prolonged conflict was realized as the fatal blow for Germany. Originally, fighting France and Britain were merely secondary concerns for Hitler, because Lebensraum goals were in the East. Germany would fight its old Great War rivals either only when it needs to or in its own terms. Since it was the former, Germany had to take them out less they interfere with taking out Russia.
Once the West was put in order, Hitler accelerated his plans to destroying the Soviet Union, opening a second front before the war with Britain was given closure. His declaration of war on the US is arguably the worst thing he could do in his dire situation; the fact that the Americans were not declaring war over continuously attacking their supply fleets to Britain would be a miracle for someone in Hitler's position, that of precarious economic strain and the only hope for military victory was swift conquest of enemy territories and sudden annihilation of their armies.
Germany had no chance to winning WW2 because it was not the kind of war they wanted to fight. I think its amazing that the Wehrmacht managed to achieve what it did under its circumstances. Unfortunately an impatient and possessive dictator can really ruin the day.
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« on: April 04, 2010, 01:47:12 PM »
The Eastern Front was important to everyone, but for different reasons. For the British, this meant a second front in their favour; for Germany, this was both the apocalyptic dream of Hitler's ideological vision and a bane that, due to te date of Barbarossa, allowed Britain to remain in the war. For Russia, war with Germany was inevitable; the non-aggression pact with Germany was acknowledged to be nothing but lip service to an extended truce between ideological arch-rivals. The Japanese and Americans I think were affected the least, since Japan sought to secure South-East Asia for resources rather than fight a pointless conflict over two giant enemies initially uninterested in hostilities.
What made the Eastern Front important in hindsight was that it involved Hitler achieving his life mission- defeating Communist Russia and securing Lebensraum in the East. His insistence that it happen at an unreasonably early date prevented Germany from focusing on North Africa, the Balkans and Britain, as forces were prioritized to stockpiling for operation Barbarossa. The majority of the cream of German forces were earmarked for Barbarossa, leaving lower-quality forces to occupy places like France.
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« on: April 04, 2010, 01:06:39 PM »
In the context of the Opposing Fronts campaigns, it can be said that the Panzer Elite faction is meant to portray the German forces in Operation Market Garden. However this force was assembled from various divisions and units, both Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS, so to say it is one or the other would be incorrect. The Germans in OMG were an ad-hoc formation gathered to resist the Allied advance. Regardless, the Panzer Elite is Relic's adaptatation and technically not historical.
And as for the Waffen-SS, it is a misconception (rather than exaggeration or myth) that it is an elite force. I say misconcetion because theres a small grain of truth: there wre indeed some "elite" units, but these were a small minority, and their "elite" status was not always due to battlefield performance.
The Waffen-SS was in principle the ideological arm of the army (or inversely, the combat arm of the Nazi party on the battlefield). They had separate ranks and hierarchy system, though technically not superior to equivalent Wehrmacht personnel. The AVERAGE SS unit performed unremarkably or was substandard. This is because SS training tended to involve more ideological indoctrination as opposed to military training. Hence the tendency of SS formations to sustain higher casualty rates- fight and die for the Fatherland.
The Waffen-SS's reputation comes more from the brutality and fanaticism of its members along with the more remarkable performance of a few token formations such as the 2nd Panzerkorps at Kharkov. This presumed elite status came from low regard for casualties, lax discipline concerning relationship between enlisted and officers, and high morale rather than excellent combat performance. They also served as a reliable political force for Hitler, and the Wehrmacht tended to see the Waffen-SS as an inferior imitator. They recieved the same equipment as the Whermacht, if not second-rate equipment, and thus did not have the "elite" status of priority in supply and refitting that the Heer's elite Grossdeutschland Divison enjoyed.
The Waffen-SS was overall an under-average fighting force, and the excellence of a few elements served to inflate its reputation. Never judge a book by its cover.
It is however not unreasonable that Hiterl would have intended the Waffen-SS to be the special elite force that it is now seen as. As essentially his private army being the epitomy of the Nazi ideology, only the reality of WW2 prevented it from being the Praetorian formation that may have been envisioned. After all, in the words of Rumsfeld, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want.
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« on: April 04, 2010, 12:48:40 PM »
Quite frankly, Hitler did not get the Eastern Front he was hoping for.
Barbarossa's objective was a quick victory over Russia; this was done via the classical Blitzkrieg tactic that worked in France and the Low Countries. The idea was to rapidly blast through into Russia, sieze resources wherever and encircle whole portions of the Soviet army. Whatever stood in their path was blasted, but the main goal was a "bloodless kill"- lopping off the head of the enemy quickly than wearing him down. After such shock and awe, it was hoped that the German forces would sieze Moscow and Russia would capitulate.
The Germans did indeed manage to rapidly smash through Soviet resistance, wipe out whole armies (technically Corps-size formations IIRC). The satellite states like Ukraine and Poland initially welcomed the Germans as liberators from Communist totalitarianism. The purged and antiquidated Red Army crumbled whenever it chose to stand ground, and the average soldier faced death from the advancing enemy or execution for cowardice. If not for a number of seemingly significant but critical factors there was indeed a real chance Barbarossa was successful.
First off, the blitzkrieg was both a success and failure; the army moved so fast that some encircled Soviet formations continued as partisans, disrupting the supply chain and hindering German efforts in securing the vast territory they held. Second, the Germans moved so fast that supply lines were extended making partisan activity far more dangerous than it would be. The Germans may advance far, but once they reach their limit the Blitzkrieg tactic is largely nullified of its important elements- speed shock and mobility. The Germans reached barely reached Moscow but failed to take it, allowing the Soviet leadership to relocate and continue safely. Soviet industry was also packed up and merely moved eastward, far from German bombers. Third, the Germans relied on Blitzkrieg to achieve a quick victory that made anything less a garunteed failure.
Because of the factors of overextended logistics, harassing partisans and the aparent lack of a Soviet collapse, the Germans then had to adjust to these new problems. The SS deployed Einsatzgruppen forces to enforce Nazi ideology, that is, killing Jews, enslaving Slavs for work and general brutality, losing local support and consequently feeding partisan activity. The Russians burned much of what they can't salvage as they retreated, forcing the Germans to rely entirely on supply lines rather than local sources of food and fuel to bolster their ability to continue fighting.
Fourth, since Germany had not anticipated a prolonged Soviet resistance, development of long-range bombers to inflict damage on the war industry was not prioritized. Here we see the same mistake Hitler made in the Battle of Britain: the decision to target cities instead of finishing off the RAF (which ironically was nearly battered and defeated utterly without the Germans realizing it). So when factories packed up and moved out of bomber range, the Soviets were able to continue manufacturing the means to fight the Germans. No matter how many Russian troops and vehicles they killed, more of them came, while the Germans were running themselves into the ground.
So a short summary would be:
-lack of further planning into the posible scenarios of Barbarossa (namely, the chance that campaign goals were not achievable in time such as winning before the onset of winter)
-inabiltiy to maintain logistics
-unwillingness to favourably treat occupied areas thus allowing the enemy to operate behind the lines
-inability to strike the heart Russia that is the war industry- Russian lives and materiel were the blood, but so long as the heart kept beating, Russia wouldn't flounder
-Hitler's unrealistic expectations and demands on the German army to achieve objectives without addressing these issues
In analogy, Germany was continuously punching the air out of Russia, but never stopped it from breathing. Everytime the Germans ran out of steam, the Russians struck back. However valiantly the Germans withstood Russian offensives, every German loss was far more fatal than a Russian one. Russia can afford to be sloppy, while Germany could not.
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