View Full Version : Reconstituting units
Hi all having read a thread on this forum an AAR by Veers there was a mention about British units that dont reconstitute if destroyed.Upon being advised that i could find out which units are affected in the editor was surprised to see some major units eg 1st Corps and 2nd Corps and others dont reconstitute,Why is this as these units form a large part of British forces available to me and will in the coming weeks be wary of these units being destroyed never to be seen again, Ian
Hi all having read a thread on this forum an AAR by Veers there was a mention about British units that dont reconstitute if destroyed.Upon being advised that i could find out which units are affected in the editor was surprised to see some major units eg 1st Corps and 2nd Corps and others dont reconstitute,Why is this as these units form a large part of British forces available to me and will in the coming weeks be wary of these units being destroyed never to be seen again, Ian
The point of this was complicated.
The I and II Corps were the main combat ready formations of the Brits during the early part of the war. Therefore their loss would have been a disaster to the Brits. The point of them reconstituting therefore is to avoid their rebuilding in 2 weeks (as TOAW does). However, there is a bit of a problem with this as evaporation in TOAW is not quite the same as the total destruction of a unit (not always, anyways).
This issue is being looked at under a big microscope by Shane, Mark, and myself as we move forward in the development of Europe Aflame.
The point of this was complicated.
The I and II Corps were the main combat ready formations of the Brits during the early part of the war. Therefore their loss would have been a disaster to the Brits. The point of them reconstituting therefore is to avoid their rebuilding in 2 weeks (as TOAW does). However, there is a bit of a problem with this as evaporation in TOAW is not quite the same as the total destruction of a unit (not always, anyways).
This issue is being looked at under a big microscope by Shane, Mark, and myself as we move forward in the development of Europe Aflame.
Yes agree with you there,there loss would have had a major impact on Great Britains ability to continue the war,the large numbers of profesional troops that escaped went on to train the conscript arny that eventualy went back to NW Europe in 44.I take it these formations are always at risk until the end of hostilities,it would be cool if after a time period they could reconstitute as more manpower and equiptment becafe available in later years of the war as units in western desert were pounded but reformed cheers for your reply Ian
Yes agree with you there,there loss would have had a major impact on Great Britains ability to continue the war,the large numbers of profesional troops that escaped went on to train the conscript arny that eventualy went back to NW Europe in 44.I take it these formations are always at risk until the end of hostilities,it would be cool if after a time period they could reconstitute as more manpower and equiptment becafe available in later years of the war as units in western desert were pounded but reformed cheers for your reply Ian
Actually my thoughts exatcly. We're looking into it.
Mark Stevens
12 Jun 07, 19:55
Maybe withdraw them (if they've survived) nine months after the war starts and replace them with identical but reconstituting units?
I used to wonder in the past about going through the entire OOB for both sides and putting an * at the end of the names of units which either do or don't reconstitute. It would be a big help, but would lead to some very artificial attacks. And some of the name titles are full anyway. 'Grossdeutschlan*' would look a bit odd.
Heigh ho.
Maybe withdraw them (if they've survived) nine months after the war starts and replace them with identical but reconstituting units?
Yes, this is akin to what I already suggested, eh Mark?
I used to wonder in the past about going through the entire OOB for both sides and putting an * at the end of the names of units which either do or don't reconstitute. It would be a big help, but would lead to some very artificial attacks. And some of the name titles are full anyway. 'Grossdeutschlan*' would look a bit odd.
Heigh ho.
Well, if I can make some of the improvements I;m thinking of we can cut down on the numbr of units that are unable to reconstitute quite a bit. (More to come at a later date!)
Bdr.Mallette
12 Jun 07, 21:19
Hello,
I think it makes sense that they don't reconstitute.
England was very vulnerable to invasion especially with the U-Boats doing a great job starving England, with the German fleet nearly intact('cept for pocket battleships and some older cruisers). Sending 2 full Corps over seas and leaving England vulnerable to invasion wouldn't have made sense. Besides, as Winston said... "We will never surrender". Leaving your populace more or less undefended with those 2 corps gone might have been very foolish. Also, if I am relatively correct, most of Britain's fighting forces were counting the Colony's as well...no? So England may have a million man army, lets say, but 750,000 of them are stationed elsewheres, far from the conflict. Do you still have a million man army or are your 250,000 men that are on the island spread fairly thin with also defending Gibraltar, Malta, North Africa...etc....?
I don't know. If the Allied commander risks using them and losing them, Operation Sea Lion becomes more Viable and it's success may occur... or the Op. may even take place.... If you don't have air superiority but you know that all you have to do is land at least a Corps within the first day of the invasion to have it be successful, wouldn't you take the risk?
Sure the Allies won the Air battle but I think the Germans didn't even try to land is because they would have had to land under air attacks... then deal with large formations of Regular British units that probably would have pushed them back into the water.
All in all, I think it is an important factor in Germany's early conquests. Knowing that England will keep a substantial force 'at home', Axis generals can somewhat omit those units in any kind of counter attack in Norway, France, North Africa or anywhere's.
"Leave it alone, don't touch it, you'll just aggravate it!" like most parents say. lol
Besides, how do you know the changes will improve the scenario? It may not make any sense to see 2 full corps, a tank division and the free poles... in Greece let's say..or Yugoslavia? It all happened to quickly to even contemplate moving major troops like that out of England. US wasn't even contemplating entering the war, Canada was in no situation to help in large quantities of bodies but did help in materials and training. Iunno, this may be too much micro-managing and tweaking..... but I haven't played EA as many times as most players so I don't know if i'm just pissing in the wind here....lol.
Anyhoo..good luck with changes. I think Mark's idea is probably the best.... remove and replace.
How's this; if, those units are destroyed before the beginning of summer '40, then Operation Sea Lion gets a shock bonus or, possibly a higher transport level or such... as Operation Sea lion is the only real threat to England's security at this time and with those 2 units destroyed..well...Op.Sea lion more likely to succeed..kind of a penalty for being foolish not to guard England, which hasn't been conquered since the vikings and Romans... I think...
Would you want to go down in history being the Prime minister or General which caused England, and then the entire free world to fall under the thumb of a ruthless dictator? Well, at least you'd be remembered for something..i guess.....
Bon Chance mes amis!
bdr.mallette
I can see why they dont reconstitute in the early years they where at that stage irreplaceble and the fact that they dont reconstitute would make me handle them with kid gloves if used in France and the Lowcountries in early war years this makes it more realistic for the Allied player with one eye on the security of GB like General Lord Gort had to as commander of the BEF in 1940 he saved the BEF and was dumped for it,If for instance France falls in my game which im sure it will it would be reasonable to assume any expeditionary force sent back to Europe eg Normandy or Italy could count on the firepower of major British formations without the fear of never seeing them again,As for the fear of sealion by this stage i think the Axis will be v busy elswhere although there is no question of me leavin
g my beloved homeland unguarded.
The Normans 1066 where was I Corps then??
Sealion (Or Seelowe)...
My take on it is this. It is included and given a reasonable chance of success (under proper circumstances) for flavor and game balance. I have studied this extensively for years , and there was no escaping the conclusion that Sealion was an impossibility for the Axis.
I don't want to get into the massive historical debate, but the Axis, on their very best day, had not a hope in hell of pulling off a Sealion. To change the things that must be changed to make it a viable option requires doing so much and going back so many years that we've totally left history behind us and entered the realms of fantasy.
It was a big fear for the Brits, and a major 'theme' of the war - it's inclusion in a scenario (with the numbers fudged to make it potentially do-able) is good for game balance, and adds to the flavor of the scenario. But a realistic historical outcome?
Not in a million years.
Bdr.Mallette
13 Jun 07, 21:32
okay,
I surrender.
Yer right.
They didnt have enough landing craft, not enough proper landing forces(marines),
amphibious craft, intel, as well as special forces to tie down forces behind the lines, not enough airbourne units, not enough transports for those units, not enough strategic..or any...strategic bombers, no planning, which took the Allies 2 years to plan as well, they would almost have to suffer a Dieppe to learn the proper lessons, as well, the Beaches in England are small and not condusive to landing...etc.... so I totally agree..but in a scenario...ahh, it might be fun to try.
Sorry guys, was just chattering on in my previous post.
Their tanks were not amphibious, not enough naval units to bombard, hold off the royal Navy..etc...etc...etc....
etc.....:(
Exactly. And there's tons more, as well. :laugh:
But in EA, Seelowe is very do-able, under the proper circumstances. And they are simply:
1> Time Frame - you need to do this before the Western Allies have a million units, and
2> You need a somewhat weakened England.
I like the way the balance works in EA. If you just decide to try Sealion, you'll be handed your head (as it should be). But, under the proper set of circumstances, it can win the war.
IF the Allies leave the UK too empty (so you can not only make it ashore, but stay there for a few weeks to build up, and gain yourself a little inland territory), you can crush the Brits, end of story. It takes quite awhile for the Allies to ship everything back to the UK, and if you can hold off being pushed into the sea, you will eventually win it, as you can continually pour in unit after unit after unit... And the West simply runs out of units to send, or simply can't keep up, as it takes 3 weeks to ship from the Canal, or longer depending on what you've captured. (Gibraltar, anyone?)
Bdr.Mallette
15 Jun 07, 01:32
Hello,
maybe a possibility?
If
Axis chooses the 'Build Aircraft Carriers' Theatre Option;
some units could be tied to that event for an invasion of England such as maybe 1 or 2 extra marine units, more sea transport(1000...1500) and maybe give the Axis player a better chance at Sea Lion with a higher Shock level.
If the Germans did have a larger fleet those aircraft carriers could figure in on the attack on England...well, one of the roles the Germans may intend for them, and this would sort of start the planning, hypothetically, a lot earlier for the Invasion of England because they would have explored the use of those ships and it may have broadened their vision of their use...iunno.
With them opting to build more U-boats than anything else, and once their surface raiders were gone or interned in neutral countries, their fleet was totally one dimensional. The Royal Navy's domination of the seas was relatively easy, costly but easy... they always knew what to expect...torpedoes only...
Geeeez, that sounds bad me saying that.."only torpedoes"...sorry all.
A few small changes could make the selection of that Theatre option a little more effective and dare I say, relevant.
Bdr.
I totally agree - an excellent suggestion. I *like* the idea of balling up the CV option. I, for one, never take the Carriers, as I find them to be totally useless. There are ample airbases for the naval bombers all over the place, so I never saw the utility. But if the CVs came with an extra thousand sea tranport points, and a couple of marine units as you suggest... Well, that would be tempting!
At the same time, there would have to be a considerably stiffer penalty to the cost of said choice. It would be nice to see this reflected in some sort of reaction from the British, instead of just a harder hit to the USEV. Maybe, in addition to the (current) 100% chance of the extra +15 to the USEV, the Brits
deploy two squadrons of naval bombers, and add two more Territorial Corps? (It has to be a pretty big bump to the Brits, as the extra 1000 transports is huge).
I think this would merit a fairly sizeable response from the Brits, as there could only be one reason for such builds on the part of the Germans... And as you say, this would, in fact, represent years of thought and work on the part of the Germans, and they would indeed have been pondering on the uses of such during said years...
Wyatt, what do you think about this?
(It's a good idea for us to examine all the current TOs, and see which of them are never chosen, and do something about that...)
I totally agree - an excellent suggestion. I *like* the idea of balling up the CV option. I, for one, never take the Carriers, as I find them to be totally useless. There are ample airbases for the naval bombers all over the place, so I never saw the utility. But if the CVs came with an extra thousand sea tranport points, and a couple of marine units as you suggest... Well, that would be tempting!
At the same time, there would have to be a considerably stiffer penalty to the cost of said choice. It would be nice to see this reflected in some sort of reaction from the British, instead of just a harder hit to the USEV. Maybe, in addition to the (current) 100% chance of the extra +15 to the USEV, the Brits
deploy two squadrons of naval bombers, and add two more Territorial Corps? (It has to be a pretty big bump to the Brits, as the extra 1000 transports is huge).
I think this would merit a fairly sizeable response from the Brits, as there could only be one reason for such builds on the part of the Germans... And as you say, this would, in fact, represent years of thought and work on the part of the Germans, and they would indeed have been pondering on the uses of such during said years...
Wyatt, what do you think about this?
(It's a good idea for us to examine all the current TOs, and see which of them are never chosen, and do something about that...)
I, likewise, never choose the Carrier option, as it appears useless. It could use modifying. I like the ideas written out here and think that it definately warrants further discussion.
In a related matter, I was thinking of BioEditting the majority of the JU-87s to withdraw their anti-shipping ability, as (I think James mentioned this) they appear to all be the JU-87R, which carried torps, while most JU-87s did not carry torps. Correcting this would add further weight to the Carrier TO.
Also, a review of the TOs could be in order.
In a related matter, I was thinking of BioEditting the majority of the JU-87s to withdraw their anti-shipping ability, as (I think James mentioned this) they appear to all be the JU-87R, which carried torps, while most JU-87s did not carry torps.
It wasn't me, and it would be something that I would recommend against. The anti-shipping capability is applied to most true dive bombers, giving them an anti-shipping rating of 120. Torpedoes are a separate flag, and give an anti-shipping rating of 240. In my opinion, it would be severely unbalancing to negate the means that the Axis historically possessed in keeping the RN at bay, by nerfing the Ju-87's. Particularly so, given the working AA in TOAW III and the way that losses to naval units work, with respect to the proportions going back into on hand and lost pools.
If anything, you should consider making the naval units smaller and more balanced, with a better mix of equipment types in them so that they don't get stuck not reconstituting because of the "wrong" type of equipment occupying the line 1 spot.
Bdr.Mallette
15 Jun 07, 14:26
So far, in my game with Schmindrick, he has chosen the CV option and this may have affected the Swedes entering...? I'm not sure on that one though. only played EA 3 times now and this is the first time Swedes have entered that i've seen so far. So in my mind, the only thing different in my 3 games was the CV option selected therefore this affected the Swedish entry... not very scientific but that's what I thought occurred.
In relation to the above posts and what Mantis had touched on, There were conventions on how large a country's fleet can be and how many capitol ships they can have, does this relate to carrier units as well?
If Germany did have a larger fleet, I'm sure the Admiralty in England would have requested larger strengths for their colonies as well. Canada, who had the 3rd largest fleet after WW2, even a large Carrier force, would have been asked to start building destroyers, corvettes, cruisers and probably more shipping as well a lot earlier. I'm not sure what political effects a larger, more effective German fleet with Carriers would have, But I'm glad that my idea was warmly welcomed and it would affect the choosing of that theatre option more often... maybe.
bdr.
Mark Stevens
15 Jun 07, 19:28
This is the problem I always had with some of the more ingenious suggestions: if you give one side a Theatre Option that somehow strengthens their position, you have to have a counterbalancing effect, both for the sake of game balance, and because the diversion of economic and industrial resources to new ships, tanks, planes, sealift or whatever would either weaken some other branch of your armed forces, or at least call forth a similarly greater effort by the opposition.
I just never knew what a sensible trade off would be: does a TO for forming another air corps = the loss of a panzer corps, or a 3% reduction in replacements, or a drop of 5 in supply, or a 1,000m/t fall in sealift?
But it's right that any Theatre Option that is automatically taken because it's so useful should be given another long, hard look for the next revision.
Gentlemen:
Is there an easily accessable listing of present TOs available? This being a pbem scenario, I've only messed around with it in a minor fashion.
I ask due to a curiosity concerning which nations may dow where and when, and how much this is linked to history.
While Adolf wouldn't want to 'rush' vichy france and continue on thru spain to Gibralter, this worked once for me playing SPI's 'War in Europe', and I'm wondering if this varient to history is allowable by the scenario.
Something similar to a post I made concerning whether it would be possible to do a holding action in England and trying for a link-up with Russia by bringing troops around the horn, eh?
Basically, the question would be "how flexible is this scenario"?
While Adolf wouldn't want to 'rush' vichy france and continue on thru spain to Gibralter, this worked once for me playing SPI's 'War in Europe', and I'm wondering if this varient to history is allowable by the scenario.
This one is possible. Bringing the Spanish on-side turns the Vichy French against the Axis and brings a weak Portguese Army onto the Allied cause.
Basically, the question would be "how flexible is this scenario"?
A quick read through the scenario briefing would give you a good list of the TOs available and give you a good idea of how flexible it is.
Mark Stevens
16 Jun 07, 07:11
Basically, the question would be "how flexible is this scenario"?
Limber, positively limber. :broccoli:
Bdr.Mallette
16 Jun 07, 11:35
heheh...
thats a good one!
:bite:
'Mark, this may feasible':
I think only a reduction of replacements would be needed to balance out the scenario with a beefed up CV T.O.
-->Also, would they have built the Tirpitz, Bismark?
-->Allied have a 1-2 point increase in supply....fewer U-boats, more shipping gets in.
-->
June 12th, 1937;
A spy trawler in the Baltic reports seeing naval actions on the part of the Germans. Dive bombers were sinking ships with great effectiveness then landing on an aircraft carrier.
Associated Press release:
"Allies witness German naval bombers striking and sinking older, mothballed vessels as practice runs. Admiralty orders increased defence against such attacks as well as a creation of 4 new Carrier fleets, with 3 of them to be sent to the pacific as the Japanese are still a little too aggressive for their britches. "
-->Could an early end in Pacific be a factor later on in the scenario, as units arriving from Asia?
-->No effect for the Italians except maybe more emphasis on Malta, Gibraltar and the Greek islands...supply wise.
it is a tough situation to resolve maybe.
We shall try though?
bdr.
Like the sound of extra Axis marine units but not to sure about beefing up CVs the germans struggled to build what little they had and most of there navy stayed in port anyway the fuel was needed elsewhere,the extra sea transport seems a good idea the UK should get somthing in return though maybe more coastal defense or a unit or two to counter this threat,stands to reason if Germany builds an invasion force prewar UKs gonna do somthing ab out it.
Ian
That's what I said above - give the Brits two 50% prof. corps (territorial), and a couple new naval bomber units.
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