Posts made by Razor

Aheflin never had a plan, it was just a note he scrabbled down just before he died

I think France and Germany are naturall allies. The slaves are the traditionale enemy. They fought together against Russia in 1812, and they joined NATO togheter to fight Russia again during the Cold War. I think France got offended in 1870, and that startet 80 years with bad relations, but it should not been that way neccessaryli if things turned out different.

Italy can not be trusted. Italy never ends a war at the same side it startet it, and if they do its because they switched side twice during the war. Italy made backstabbing an art. In any wargame, Italy should always start as a neutral, and join the highest bidder.

@Flashman:

Why not invade Smyrna, then attack Constantinople over land? Only a fool would attack the capital directly from a mined sea zone. Or Churchill.

Surprice. Nobody could see such a daring attack coming, so if admiral Robeck had pulled it trough it just maight have succeeded. Unfortunately he turned yellow after the 3 first ships sunk, and retreated. At this time the Turkish coastal artillery was out of shells, and they had no more mines either, so the lane to Constantinople was open. But admiral Robeck did not know that, he just limped home. Of course they could have gone via Smyrna, but the defensive positions in the mountains were strong, and it would be a pain in the a$$ to supply a mountain campaign during winter.

Yes, but the germans voted on him in the 1933 election because he promised they could loot Russia and kill jews. The average german dont volunteer for war just to liberate slaves.

@Zooey72:

If in either sept 1939, or june 1941 the Sturmgwher were made standard issue to every German soldier how could any army have opposed them?Â

Imagine it, an army equipped with assault rifles opposed by armies who are equipped with what is basicaly now a hunting rifle.

You may got a valid point. In the Battle of Koniggratz in 1866 the Prussians used modern Dreyes-rifles, and won the battle most because of this. The Austrians used the old rifles. The Austrians lost 45 000 men while the Prussians lost only 9 000 men. Only 4 years later the Prussians crushed France too in the 1870/71 war. Lucky too us Hitler was obsessed with heavy tanks and jet aircrafts

I love this rule, looks like your home country got an inherent railway

@Krieghund:

Leap-frogging is basically taking advantage of the turn order to capitalize on your allies’ advances, which circumvents the purpose of contesting territories.

I think contested territories are a huge improvement over the issues with the classic WWII line, wich in fact were kind of gamey. Typically you could see a stack in Germany and a stack in Russia, and one inf in Poland who would dubble-collect income after unlimited back and forth battles. Some times an ally would clear out that lone inf, and let the other allies tanks “leap-frog” (Blitz) and attack the enemy stack. Not to mention all the strafe attacks just to wear down a stack, and retreat just before you got stuck in that territory. You could even attack a territory (Yugo)from two different directions South Germany and Rumania), and after one round of battle, if the defender survived, you could retreat all your attacking units to one territory (Rumania), and abuse this attack as infantry express to get your inf faster to the front than if they had to walk in friendly territories. So yes, you guys are doing a great job.

But the rules should be simple and rational. When UK is not allowed to retreat from a battle to seak safety at its French allies, and Germany is not allowed to hide behind the Austrians, just because they failed to get a liason unit there in time, then that rule is beyound common sense, and bound for derogatory land.

As I said, the map is the issue. Moscow is too close to Berlin. I know Larry from years back, and suspect he did this on purpose just to tease people. But you can keep on with rule change proposals for ever if that is your kind of fun, but I tell you that as long Moscow is two steps away from Berlin then Russia cant trade land for time as they usual do in real wars, and since you at the same time placed Paris like 8 steps away from Berlin, then we will not get the WWI feeling. Next time buy a real Atlas before you start drawing maps.

Austria cant afford to lose Albania, but can USA afford the extra trannies it takes to contest Albania rather than shucking units to France ?

Maybe its a railway within your own country, to speed up the progress ?

@vonLettowVorbeck1914:

I would support Germany being allowed to move two spaces from Berlin to Ruhr (and vice-versa) if Hanover is CP controlled, if a faster movement is necessary for Germany.

The map is the problem. France and Germany are cut into too many and too small territories, making movement a headache, while Russia is cut into too few and too big territories, a fact that currently force the game designers to make new rules to prevent frog-leaping

Only problem is the game is designed for, and playtestet for, no railroad

@oztea:

Well I imagine that a contested territory is in a state that its borders are very porous. Meaning that the Austrian control of Ukraine allows for the Germans to bulge out their trenches to meet up with the Austrian trenches, allowing moment between the two territories.

Im just trying to add some conceptualization to how contested territories operate. If both sides contest a territory their movement into and out of it should be allowed into friendly territory also.

That is how it works in a real war. But allowing that in A&A would disturb the game balance, even if both sides may abuse it.

@Krieghund:

An example of what I’m talking about would be if there were a German force contesting Poland with Russia, then Austria-Hungary on its turn moves into Ukraine.�  The rule prevents Germany from abandoning its fight in Poland to jump into Ukraine and get one step closer to Moscow without having to fight to get there.

Yes but that is exactely how they do it in a real war, they find the soft spot in the frontline, and make a breakthrough there. Its called mobility warfare. Happens all the time in every war, so why should it be banned in A&A 1914 ? A war is about survival of the fittest, not of the gentleman that follows OOB rules.

The German player should decide if its a rational idea to leave Poland empty, not the game designer.

According to the rules, if Vienna is contestet by 7 german and 1 russian units, and Budapest is contestet by 21 Austrian and 1 russian units, then this 21 Austrian units are not allowed to move into Vienna to protect their own capital ? Because one lonely russian is blocking them ? Sorry Mack, but I dont love your rules.

In the real war, the generals didn’t need to obey some silly rulebook with complicated and intriguing rules for movement. If Ludendorf wantet to move a German army from Sillesia and into Poland then he just did it, and he sure gave a fokk if there were any russians there, or in the next territory. Si why cant I too ? Lets say I got 20 german inf in Sillesia, but they are blocked by one russian inf, so the holy Rulebook dont allow me to let this 20 units break through the one russian inf line, and join the 30 Austrian inf that are already in Poland, because there are currently no german inf present there ? But if I got just one german inf in Poland, then this move is legal ?

If you ask me, I’d say let people move units to any territory they want, and let the enemy units there decide if the move is rational or not. If you are so afraid that Germany will leap-frog into Russia too early, why didn’t you give Russia more territories ? You made a map where Moscow is closer to Berlin than Paris are, and now you try to fix this error with silly rules that restrict movement, in a game that is already too slow.

As I said, he could only won the war if he quit being himself and let his generals do the job and the thinking, but then he would not be Hitler

@Gargantua:

Better to go after the ships in the Carribean, than -just- before they reach USSR.  Especially if you’re having success there.

A ship that has almost reached Murmansk has a higher value than a ship that is still in the Caribbean, since the first ship has used a lot of fuel and resources to get so far.
It is easyer and cheaper to protect  a ship just outside the East Coast than to escort a ship up in the Norwegian Sea.

A German sub use less fuel and time, and work more effectiv in the Norwegian Sea, than a sub that have to travell half around the globe to the Caribbean before it can start working.

German subs was sunk because the britons broke the Enigma code, not because they were in this or that Seazone

Well, they didn’t won the real war either, now did they ?

@BJCard:

As far as not attacking Russia, it was just an idea.  Maybe they could have waited another year or hit the Balkans earlier.  Just saying their timing wasn’t that great if the goal was Moscow before winter.

But it was a bad idea to attack Russia. Thay had more than twice the population, it was the largest country in the world with lots of oil and resources, it have severe winter half the year, and at that time only dirtroads. The classic Russian defense stategi is the scorched earth tactic, and on top of that Stalin had used 60 % of the Gross domestic production for military outlays for 10 years, and had reached 4 times the tank production that Germany had.

Yes, they could have waited another year, but it was not in Hitlers nature to be prudent. He even startet the whole war many years before his military forces were ready, why should he wait to invade Russia ? He could have ignored the Balkans, since Greece would never let UK bomb the Ploesti oil field, and the alliance with Italy was not valid as long as Italy was the aggressor. And he could have startet Barbarossa in mai, but since Hitler figured it would take 3 weeks only to crush Russia, he was in no hurry.

I think Germany’s best bet to conquer Russia, would be to project all their available forces and resources to the campaign. They had half a million men based in Norway and Finland for no good use, and this men could be added to Barbarossa. The Africa Corps with Rommel could be added too, since Germany had no economic interests in Libya, and the 600 000 men from the Balkan Army. Since France surrendered they did not need a million men there just to chase jews. This 2 million extra men could have made a difference in Russia.

Since the German HQ knew the Russians would use the scorched earth tactics, the German army should be better supplyed by trucks. But Hitler wanted them to live by the land, wich means taking food from the local civillians, because he wanted the natives to starve to death so german settlers could later colonize Russia. A nice and evil idea, but the problem was that Stalin had scorched the eart, so there was no food, and since the German Army did not find any food in Russia, and Hitler refused to feed them by supply, then Hitlers Army were starving as a result. One of the rational to not use rail to send supply to Russia, was that Hitler needed all railways to send jews to Holocaust. This was more important then to supply the Army in the east. So basically the German Army in Russia was short of supply, short of food, short of winter clothes, short of gas, short of trucks etc etc and that was bad since the attack turned out to become a war of attrition, and not a 3 week long trip of triumph.

What Hitler could have done was let his generals do the job, but then he would not be Hitler.

I always figured Klaus Barbie was the best man to that job

After set-up I have no German inf left. Just hope someone attack meg soon, to free up a inf before my purchase turn