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If you play vanilla SF or the FTM then Hungary ,Romania and Slovakia chronically suffer from the lack of officers due to expeditionary forces rules changes since the game creation.

My 1944 MOD deals with this issue. However, you should not expect those countries to do much, after all the Soviets went through Romanians, Hungarian and Italian defences in the Stalingrad operation as if they were not there.

Yes, but that was just as much the Germans fault for relying to much on the already thin lines on their flanks, they had no armor in reserve to counter any russian attacks. And the Exp had almost no heavy weapons at the time. Although 1944 was a far different story.
 
Romanian 1944 scenario staring officers ratio is 15%! So doesn't matter what equipment and doctrines Romanians have, they better run ;)
 
Romanian 1944 scenario staring officers ratio is 15%! So doesn't matter what equipment and doctrines Romanians have, they better run ;)
Well, now thats definitely NOT realistic. Its like 5 guys commanding an entire division (numbers made from thin air, just in case), from squads to brigades, total.
 
Well, now thats definitely NOT realistic. Its like 5 guys commanding an entire division (numbers made from thin air, just in case), from squads to brigades, total.

This is not WAD. This is caused by a bug which was never fixed since rule changes were made. Due to this bug, those missing 85% of Romanian officers are now working for Wehrmacht who has 140% officer ratio instead of intended 100%.
 
The crimean offensive in 1941-42 was carried out by the romanians, with the Germans right behind them. Also during the battles in transylvania the Hungarian and Romanian forces caused heavy casualties on the Red Army. Historically they were alot better than how they are presented in the game, At least the Hungarians which was almost as good as the German.

Are you serious? You need to read a book about this soon.
 
Are you serious? You need to read a book about this soon.

On the Crimean campaign one best read at least "Lost Victories" by von Manstein perhaps for starters!

In slightly more biased & general operational terms covering from the encirclement of Stalingrad through until into late '44 on the Southern Russian Front the best would be "Panzer Battles" by von Mellenthin.

EDIT: Weren't the Hungarians and Romanians fighting each other in Transylvania rather than both fighting against the Russians.
 
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We fought with slightly improved WW1 weapons in ww2 and we have ww2 weapons in the cold war. Currently we have cold war era Weapons! Now make conclusions about our fighting strength against the Russians!
But compared to the Romanians we produced and designed our own weapons, and licence produced many German ones. German Neberwerfers and Me 210s , hell if the war lasted a few years more we could even produce our own ME-262 Schwalbes as well!!
We had our own tank industry as well as an aircraft one. We even produced RADARS! and Air to Air rockets!
Just our tactics small arms and artillery are ww1 era or improved of those.
 
1)Historically, Hungarians, Romanians and Italians had two very distinct impressions on the Eastern Front (probably a little less for Hungary)

A)They were saw as cannon fodder, to take the heavy blows of Soviet attacks (''elastic'' defence meant mostly elastic defence for valuable mechanized Nazi forces, and not at all elastic defence for the ''allies'')

B)Especially for Italians, the average trooper motivation was abyssal to fight against Russians, while their countries were more or less openly enslaved by Germany. If you were a Romanian or Italian soldier and saw how the Wehrmacht treated the Russians, the question ''What Germany will do to us if they win here and no longer need us'' had a pretty depressing answer.

2)As the Allies or the Soviets (never play Axis) I usally ''return'' Italy, Romania and Hungary, and their troops do a pretty decent job at holding sections of the front and allowing me to concentrate my forces in more vital sectors.

3)The same issue goes for Allied minors : I try to share technology, but this don't work very well.
 
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1)Historically, Hungarians, Romanians and Italians had two very distinct impressions on the Eastern Front (probably a little less for Hungary)

A)They were saw as cannon fodder, to take the heavy blows of Soviet attacks (''elastic'' defence meant mostly elastic defence for valuable mechanized Nazi forces, and not at all elastic defence for the ''allies'')

B)Especially for Italians, the average trooper motivation was abyssal to fight against Russians, while their countries were more or less openly enslaved by Germany. If you were a Romanian or Italian soldier and saw how the Wehrmacht treated the Russians, the question ''What Germany will do to us if they win here and no longer need us'' had a pretty depressing answer.

It's not like commies were any better, esp for Romanians it was "whomever wins, we loose" case. Again - for Italy, let's just say that their military "motivation" problems started long ago and not in eastern front either. There were no Germans, no atrocities, yet Graziani was surrendering troops in hundreds of thousands to way less numerous British forces. So it could have been only a downhill from there.
 
I don't really know much about official history of Romanian army or their performance in WW2. But I remember quite well a grandfather of my good Romanian friend who often used to talk at lenght about his WW2 experience. He said that he was in Romanian special forces and as an evidence of the fact he emphasized that he was given both shoes of the same size. :)
 
Many books on Italian war efforts points out that the average Italian soldier (who more often than not had family members in the USA or UK, or France) had a pretty negative reaction when sent in a war against powerful industrial powers without shoes.
 
On the Crimean campaign one best read at least "Lost Victories" by von Manstein perhaps for starters!

In slightly more biased & general operational terms covering from the encirclement of Stalingrad through until into late '44 on the Southern Russian Front the best would be "Panzer Battles" by von Mellenthin.

EDIT: Weren't the Hungarians and Romanians fighting each other in Transylvania rather than both fighting against the Russians.
Hungarian and Romanian troops were fighting in the nasaud, mures, ciuc and trei scaune regions of transylvania before the fall of Buchuresti.
 
The posters (some) nicely summed the fact, that Hungarian (I don't know about Romanian troops, but it should apply to them as well) troops were well lead and had normal training. But their equipment was outdated, and lacked heavy weapons. To worsen the situation, Hungarian units were not allowed to do on their own, and was ordered to be slaughtered to cover German retreat (this caused the destruction of the 2nd Army).
The fact that it took 169 or so days for the USSR Army to conquer this small track of land we call Hungary, tells how good we fought (tried to fight) them.
The myth about worthless axis minors were born of German propaganda and then furthered by Soviet propaganda (do not forget that most Axis minors ended up in the USSR sphere of influence).
 
TBH, what really hurt the Axis minors was their absolute and abject lack of transportation. . The Wehrmatch itself, for all the depiction of it, was never motorized completely and actually demotorized (pardon the neologism) most of it's divisions during Barbarossa, as tanks, assault guns, tanks destroyers, trucks, and such went to elite units (panzers, SS, panzergrenadiers, an handful of regular division) : as such, there was only an handful of ''allied'' divisions that had anything ressembling vaguely to transportation (and they are plenty of reports that in retreats, the Germans commandeered the vehicles their allies had to let them in the dirt).

Without transportation, a retreat meant a rout against the Red Army.

As for the actual combat reccord, well trained Italian divisions fought quite correctly. Take for instance the super-elite Bersiagliari (not sure of the orthograph), a crack unit since 1870.

...that was sent, mostly, guarding Ethiopia. You know, this super strategic place, chokeful of ressources and manpower that is a royal pain in the a... to supply in peacetime. That place that can only be supplied from horrible Red Sea harbours, those harbours that can only be accessed from the canal of Suez....
 
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On the Crimean campaign one best read at least "Lost Victories" by von Manstein perhaps for starters!

In slightly more biased & general operational terms covering from the encirclement of Stalingrad through until into late '44 on the Southern Russian Front the best would be "Panzer Battles" by von Mellenthin.

EDIT: Weren't the Hungarians and Romanians fighting each other in Transylvania rather than both fighting against the Russians.

Try out Paul Carell's ''Barbarossa'' (Unternehmen Barbarossa. Der Marsch nach Russland)
That book is damn good to describe Axis nations potential and morale on Eastern front and overall is best I've ever read about WWII.
 
Hungarian and Romanian troops were fighting in the nasaud, mures, ciuc and trei scaune regions of transylvania before the fall of Buchuresti.

I'm aware that both Hungarian and Romanian forces did manage to fight successfully enough defensively at times through '44 and inflict reasonable casualties upon the Soviets in their exchanges, but I always thought that this was before they were fighting over Transilvanian areas, partly the reason was that the terrain approaching Transylvania was crossed by rivers and rising towards the Carpathian Mountain ranges. Also both countries were possibly better motivated than compared to much further eastin 42-43 because they were closer to defending their own homeland and actual territories and also they were committing their built up armed forces as best they could prepare them.

TBH, what really hurt the Axis minors was their absolute and abject lack of transportation. ...

Without transportation, a retreat meant a rout against the Red Army.

Yes, these Balkan Axis minors seriously lacked transportation, motorisation, mechanisation, communication and enough modern weapon systems & equipment in bulk unless even worse they were entirely without important key categories filled for WWII.

Try out Paul Carell's ''Barbarossa'' (Unternehmen Barbarossa. Der Marsch nach Russland)
That book is damn good to describe Axis nations potential and morale on Eastern front and overall is best I've ever read about WWII.

Good book, sorry I should have mentioned it, better than John Erickson on 'minor' aspects for an overall view.
 
Why do people here say that higher difficulty makes your minor Axis allies even worse?

AFAIK if they are played by AI they receive the same bonuses as the Red army. So they are actually more useful on hard than on normal in relation to Wehrmacht.

BTW I don't think they are useless. If you annex them in late 1939 or 1940 the manpower and leadership won't pay back before the historical start of Barbarossa. And spring/summer 41 is crucial to GER victory.

Annexing these minors as GER is a longterm investment. For 41 campaign it is better to have their troops by your side, even though they can only serve secondary tasks like filling parts of the front with less activity.

Yes, they become more and more obsolete each year but who cares if they help you to win the decisive victory as early as 41? If you annex them in 1940 for example, who cares that you get a few points of manpower and leadership in the upcoming years instead of 50 or so divs instantly and ready for 41 attack.

Of course that single player is no evaluation benchmark here. With only a bit of exaggeration, a trained monkey can defeat SU in single player. MP is the only proper way of telling how useful Axis minors really are so I recommend to try both annexing and allying them in multiplayer to see the difference in 41. If you are allowed do to Barbarossa in 1940, Axis minors become even more useful while annexing them becomes only more meaningless.
 
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Sure, that's an opinion. You keep their divisions and I'll keep their leadership. I'll get an extra tech line each year, so 2-3 extra techs before Barabossa. I guarantee an extra level in Blitzkrieg and a level in combined arms and all that good stuff doesn't make that much difference. But I'll take that over 10-15 extra useless INF divisions.
 
So 103 techs instead of 100 techs researched until 41 is more worth to you than 50 or more weak divs?

Ok, but I am quite sure I would rather face you in multiplayer than a guy who doesn't annex Axis minors provided your skills would be similar.

My impression is that people annex these minors just to be stronger and bigger themselves.They don't pay the price and often don't realize it because there is no serious opposition or challenge in single player.

Actually, I also play single player like this. Prefer annexing to puppeting or allying.but only in single player because I can afford to do it and don't really need to bother with Axis minors. But my experience and practice in SP doesn't mean I can apply the same level of benevolence in MP which is the only proper test of telling whether Axis minors are worth allying rather than destroying or not.
 
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