Ahistorical Balance - I'd like to see it change

[MGL 86]

This is a what if scenario and I disagree - I do not think Russia would have won without the Allies, Im not even sure if a "Germany alone vs Russia alone" would have turned out with Russia on top.

* Germany would have been able to concentrate its forces towards Russia and not have to place several hundred thousands of troops and tanks in France, Holland, Belgium, Norway, Denmark and so on, same goes for Italy as no African front would have existed. Luftwaffes/Regia Aeronautica all assets would have been used in Russia instead of guarding/fighting western/southern Europe.

Russia had prevoíusly lost several wars during the 1900's.
* Japan won over Russia
* Germany won over Russia
* Poland won over Russia

Russia did not impress the world during the Winter War.

Now some people do claim that it is a difference whois running the show in Moscow(Tsar, President or the General Secretary) and I agree it is a small difference but only to some extent. The people are the same and the resources are the same, as are the abilities, knowledge, technical level, industry and so on. Just because you name a place, person or state differently from one day to another it does not magically become something completely different.

*The most important fact of it all would be the Lend and Lease Russia got from the US and without it the Russian army would have lost alot of its mobility and making it a more of a WWI type of army.
We all know how important mobility was during WWII.
The Russian army would not have had the mobility as it would have lacked the 427 284 trucks, 13 303 armoured vehicles, 35 170 motorcycles, 2,328 ordnance service vehicles, 1,900 steam locomotives, 66 Diesel locomotives, 9,920 flat cars, 1,000 dump cars, 120 tank cars, and 35 heavy machinery cars delievered by the US alone. We can make this list alot longer by including UK and other nations who contributed directly or indirectly...

*The lack of railroad/transportation production is another important issue, Russian soldiers would have had to walk to the front, now how many boots did Russia recieve from the allies again?


I think that Russia alone would have lost to the Axis.

First off, significant Lend Lease aid was not felt until 1943. The Lend Lease that arrived before was nowhere near enough to make a decisive difference on how 1941 and 1942 turned out. There are some articles/arguments that have recently come out which attempt to argue that the Lend Lease tanks that did make it in 1941 played a decisive role in the defense of Moscow, but I don't believe they are conclusive enough (see the following article: British “Lend-Lease” Tanks and the Battle for Moscow, November–December 1941—A Research Note).

Secondly, the immediate problems that come up when attempting to qualify Lend Lease are the following. Just quoting numbers of what was sent is not enough. One needs to account for what was sent, when it arrived (and how much arrived), and when it was actually incorporated into the Red Army and used in the field. Additionally, one has to keep in mind that the Soviets began to scale back production of certain things because they knew they would receive them through Lend Lease. One example is trucks. The Soviets were producing practically none because they knew to expect them through Lend Lease, but that doesn't mean they couldn't produce more if they needed to. Many former truck producing factories were switched over to light tank production. Since the Red Army moved to relying on medium and heavy tanks, light tanks were something the Red Army could in theory do without or with less of. This type of analysis needs to be applied to everything the Soviet Union received. Specifically, what they received, if it was not coming through Lend Lease what were the alternatives? Meaning could they produce it internally or import it from another state/country (England, Canada, etc.). The Soviet Union did not just receive Lend Lease from the US.

Finally, the Soviet Union participated in reverse Lend Lease, sending back materials to the US. All of the above is just the tip of the huge iceberg that studying Lend Lease means, it's simply impossible to account for all the variables.

EDIT: Not my words btw

 

[hkrommel]

I can`t understand this. Germany lost 4 out of 5 soldiers (with their equipments if the equipment is more important than manpower) against Russians. And you are basically saying US did more work than USSR because we killed remaining 1 together with UK, France, Poland, Canada, Australia, Norway, Greece so on.

What do you mean by "work"? This is the problem with these discussions, people never define their terms. My point was that by any measurable metric the majority (note: not plurality) of the "damage done" if you will by equipment standards and by manpower standards combined was not on the Eastern front, and that the 75% of manpower "damage" (which is what was originally claimed) was not done on the Eastern Front, but was closer to 60%. I would also like to see the source for that number of 3/4 deaths, since even Overman's analysis points to spotty records and combination of both eastern and western fronts in 1945.

Now, deaths are not a good way to measure combat. Why? Imagine the following scenario:

Country A and Country B fight. The battle lasts a day, and is of moderate intensity. Country B has poor hospital facilities and poor medical techniques, so their wounded frequently succumb to their wounds. The terrain is also swampy, meaning recovering the wounded is difficult or impossible. Country B also uses mainly standard infantry formations. The number of dead are 2,000.

Country A and Country C fight. The number forces are the exact same as the previous scenario. The battle also lasts a day, and is of moderate intensity. The battle is fought in temperate grassland. Country C has excellent medical facilities, and makes extensive use of field ambulances to evacuate the wounded. Country C primarily used motorized and mechanized formations. The number of dead are 700.

Which battle had more combat? They had the same amount of combat. The circumstances surrounding the combat are different. If you throw an infantry division at a defensive line for an hour during the day, or throw a mechanized division at that same line for an hour at night, you can theoretically have the same amount of combat occur, but the casualty rates can be vastly different.

All that is to say, the number of people dying is not in direct correlation to the amount of combat. It is a result of a multitude of factors, many of which have nothing to do with combat itself.

 

[MGL 86]

What do you mean by "work"? This is the problem with these discussions, people never define their terms. My point was that by any measurable metric the majority (note: not plurality) of the "damage done" if you will by equipment standards and by manpower standards combined was not on the Eastern front, and that the 75% of manpower "damage" (which is what was originally claimed) was not done on the Eastern Front, but was closer to 60%. I would also like to see the source for that number of 3/4 deaths, since even Overman's analysis points to spotty records and combination of both eastern and western fronts in 1945.

Now, deaths are not a good way to measure combat. Why? Imagine the following scenario:

Country A and Country B fight. The battle lasts a day, and is of moderate intensity. Country B has poor hospital facilities and poor medical techniques, so their wounded frequently succumb to their wounds. The terrain is also swampy, meaning recovering the wounded is difficult or impossible. Country B also uses mainly standard infantry formations. The number of dead are 2,000.

Country A and Country C fight. The number forces are the exact same as the previous scenario. The battle also lasts a day, and is of moderate intensity. The battle is fought in temperate grassland. Country C has excellent medical facilities, and makes extensive use of field ambulances to evacuate the wounded. Country C primarily used motorized and mechanized formations. The number of dead are 700.

Which battle had more combat? They had the same amount of combat. The circumstances surrounding the combat are different. If you throw an infantry division at a defensive line for an hour during the day, or throw a mechanized division at that same line for an hour at night, you can theoretically have the same amount of combat occur, but the casualty rates can be vastly different.

All that is to say, the number of people dying is not in direct correlation to the amount of combat. It is a result of a multitude of factors, many of which have nothing to do with combat itself.

your example cant move in WW2 base.
If you move it to WW2 base,
But in this case Country A (Germany) and B (Russia) fought for 4 days while Country A and Country C (USA) fought for 1 day.
Country A and C fought in 4 miles space while Country A and C fought in 0.5 mile.
Country A had used 90% of its forces against country B for first 3 days. Last day Country A used only 25% against Country C.

Country C is not only USA but also UK, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and 25 other countries.

 

[hkrommel]

your example cant move in WW2 base.
If you move it to WW2 base,
But in this case Country A (Germany) and B (Russia) fought for 4 days while Country A and Country C (USA) fought for 1 day.
Country A and C fought in 4 miles space while Country A and C fought in 0.5 mile.
Country A had used 90% of its forces against country B for first 3 days. Last day Country A used only 25% against Country C.

Country C is not only USA but also UK, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and 25 other countries.

You totally missed everything I was saying. You're arguing against a point I didn't make. My point was not about casualty comparison (note that I'm not actually using any real-world comparisons), but rather how you quantify combat. Quantifying combat from a combat deaths basis is absurd. I'm not trying to be rude, so don't take this that way, but please read my post again.

It's simply about how combat deaths can be very different for multiple reasons other than combat duration and/or intensity. Thus the variables are divorced, and combat deaths are not equivalent to quantified combat.

 

[Opanashc]

You totally missed everything I was saying. You're arguing against a point I didn't make. My point was not about casualty comparison (note that I'm not actually using any real-world comparisons), but rather how you quantify combat. Quantifying combat from a combat deaths basis is absurd. I'm not trying to be rude, so don't take this that way, but please read my post again.

Ok. How many tanks did Germany lose to Soviets, vs Allies? How many artillery guns? How much ammunition was expended on corresponding front? How much fuel was used to support the effort in the east vs the west? Eastern front comes out on top every time. Aviation and Navy are the only place where west had a bigger impact.
How do you quantify combat?

 

[hkrommel]

Ok. How many tanks did Germany lose to Soviets, vs Allies? How many artillery guns? How much ammunition was expended on corresponding front? How much fuel was used to support the effort in the east vs the west? Eastern front comes out on top every time. Aviation and Navy are the only place where west had a bigger impact.
How do you quantify combat?

You are correct. However, total equipment losses for all fronts put the Eastern front far in the minority (which is obvious due to naval assets being far more expensive than land and air).

Earlier in the thread I stated that there is no good way to quantify combat since it's such a general term. That's why you don't see historians ever making precise claims about things in terms of "combat." That was my problem with the initial claim that 75% of all combat in the war was fought on the eastern front. I used the metric of casualties to show that even if one uses Overman and Krivosheev's highest casualty numbers (including non-combat deaths), only about 60% of casualties took place on the Eastern Front. Obviously numbers are sketchy in some cases, but they're sketchy both ways. Point being, there is no way to measure overall combat in a quantifiable sense, so making the claim that 75% of the war happened on a single front is hard to back up in the first place. Furthermore, using casualties to measure combat is difficult enough, but using only deaths is even more absurd, since a huge number of factors that go into people dying are non-combat related.

 

[MGL 86]

How do you quantify combat ? Enlighten me

I still don't understand what makes eastern front not most important front. Or how to measure combat without participated numbers, equipment, area and duration. Eastern front was 4 times compared to western front.

But western front has 100 times more hollywood movies though. Also 10 times interest. Maybe this is important measure

 

[Praetori]

I still don't understand what makes eastern front not most important front. Or how to measure combat without participated numbers, equipment, area and duration. Eastern front was 4 times compared to western front.

The only way to quantify combat is by expenditures in equipment and lives on a unit to unit basis weighted vs time. The Eastern front was clearly on top in terms of numbers. Between 3/5ths and 2/3rds of all German losses (as in KIA, MIA, POW) happened on the Eastern front up until just prior of the end of the war (when POWs skews those numbers to the Allies). The trickleback was less in the west than the east (when adding WIA) and the overall losses in terms of units in-combat/days quantifies to the fighting being equal to or more intense in the west than in the east. But this doesn't provide an accurate picture either since some engagements in the East dwarfed even the most fierce battles in the west.
If you scale the figures proportionally to the number of units and time in-combat the Soviets and the Allies are on-par and while it took more Soviet soldiers in uniform fighting to incur one German casualty than the Allies needed the sheer dimensions and number of units involved clearly puts the attrition in the East and not the West. That is as long as you don't weigh in production efforts for naval, air etc.

There probably would never have been a Eastern Front if not the west had collapsed and there wouldn't have been a south or new western front had the Eastern front collapsed. There's no telling "what if" since we don't know. The Germans lost the war in the East but they also lost when declaring war on the US. The war was from then on highly probable to end in German defeat one way or another, with the Red Army marching into Berlin or Berlin and other cities being nuked. But that is if we follow a historical path and not random in-game developments where things are not as easy to foresee (hindsight is always 20/20).

In in-game terms I believe that PDS has made a pretty good choice in not trying to exaggerate anything in one direction or the other since the engine needs to handle both historical and completely fictional developments. If the Soviets and Axis duke it out with 40-50 divisions the losses should be no greater than Allied-Axis losses in the west given equal amount of divisions, given about equal historical techs.

 

[hkrommel]

How do you quantify combat ? Enlighten me

I still don't understand what makes eastern front not most important front. Or how to measure combat without participated numbers, equipment, area and duration. Eastern front was 4 times compared to western front.

But western front has 100 times more hollywood movies though. Also 10 times interest. Maybe this is important measure

Ok, first off did you read any of the rest of the thread? You obviously didn't ready the post directly above yours, so let me quote it for you:

Earlier in the thread I stated that there is no good way to quantify combat since it's such a general term. That's why you don't see historians ever making precise claims about things in terms of "combat."

See? All I'm saying is that there is no good way to measure combat, and my burden in this whole argument is to show that counting deaths is not a good way to measure combat, and then show by various measurable metrics (which again, I don't think there's a good way to measure combat, I've yet to find a historian who measures "combat"), the majority of the war happened elsewhere.

Now, you specifically reference the western front. Ok, but what about the Italian Front? The Battle of France? The Balkans/Greece? Denmark/Norway? North Africa? China-Burma-India? The Pacific? The various naval engagements? This is a problem that I often find with people coming at this from the Soviet perspective: the Japanese get discounted. If you take a certain view of the war (like some on this thread have) the Western Allies were literally fighting two wars at once. Because of this, the war against the Japanese cannot be discounted. Thus, including the casualties from those, you get my earlier analysis.

Basically, what I'm saying is that the Eastern Front was in the minority in terms of equipment losses (despite having roughly 2/3 German AFV losses, for example), because you have to include Japanese equipment, American equipment, etc. lost in other theaters, in addition to far more expensive naval and air assets, the former being almost entirely not in Eastern Front-related engagements, and the latter slanted towards the Allies, particularly when you include the Pacific. In terms of casualties (KIA, WIA, MIA, captured), the Eastern Front was the majority, but not by the amount OP claimed (75%), it was closer to 60%, 58% if you remove non-combat deaths and adjust for wounded.

Now, more directly to your post what do you mean by "participated numbers," because that means nothing in relation to actual combat. An entire division could have been engaged in the Battle of Kursk and not fired a shot if it was positioned in a certain area. They didn't participate in the actual engagement, but they would be listed in those who were available.

By "equipment" do you mean equipment losses? I've already accounted for that. Area? So the Pacific front wins by far on that one, but again irrelevant to actual combat taking place. Duration? The Chinese Front wins there, it was going on since 1937. Battle of the Atlantic was going on from 1939-1945. The Eastern front was active for a little under 4 years, which is half what the Chinese Front was active for.

 

[Invader_Canuck]

What do you mean by "work"? This is the problem with these discussions, people never define their terms. My point was that by any measurable metric the majority (note: not plurality) of the "damage done" if you will by equipment standards and by manpower standards combined was not on the Eastern front, and that the 75% of manpower "damage" (which is what was originally claimed) was not done on the Eastern Front, but was closer to 60%. I would also like to see the source for that number of 3/4 deaths, since even Overman's analysis points to spotty records and combination of both eastern and western fronts in 1945.

Now, deaths are not a good way to measure combat. Why? Imagine the following scenario:

Country A and Country B fight. The battle lasts a day, and is of moderate intensity. Country B has poor hospital facilities and poor medical techniques, so their wounded frequently succumb to their wounds. The terrain is also swampy, meaning recovering the wounded is difficult or impossible. Country B also uses mainly standard infantry formations. The number of dead are 2,000.

Country A and Country C fight. The number forces are the exact same as the previous scenario. The battle also lasts a day, and is of moderate intensity. The battle is fought in temperate grassland. Country C has excellent medical facilities, and makes extensive use of field ambulances to evacuate the wounded. Country C primarily used motorized and mechanized formations. The number of dead are 700.

Which battle had more combat? They had the same amount of combat. The circumstances surrounding the combat are different. If you throw an infantry division at a defensive line for an hour during the day, or throw a mechanized division at that same line for an hour at night, you can theoretically have the same amount of combat occur, but the casualty rates can be vastly different.

All that is to say, the number of people dying is not in direct correlation to the amount of combat. It is a result of a multitude of factors, many of which have nothing to do with combat itself.

I still don't really understand your argument. In a previous post you defined how you reached these numbers. However, you are amalgamating two tenuously related conflicts to throw shade on the Soviet contribution.

Losses inflicted on Japan and China should not be thrown into an overall "who did what" debate, which is if I am understanding your post from a couple of pages back, exactly what you are doing.

Look at the European figures and the Pacific figures individually. The USSR was not involved in fighting Japan until the very end. I don't see how 8 million Chinese deaths should be somehow lumped onto the German Soviet war. It doesn't make sense. They have nothing to do with one another.

There was a European War, which the USSR did the majority of the work in, and there was a Pacific war, where China and the United States did the majority of the work in. You're conflating the two to make your argument.

Despite the term "World War Two" It wasn't a massive unified global war. It was two wars. It was a war fought by Japan against the allies, and a war fought by Germany against the allies and the USSR. The fact that Japan and Germany "unified" the war in legal terms by declaring war on the US together doesn't actually make it a unified war.

I just can't reiterate it enough. There was a European war and its ancillary theaters, and a Pacific war. People who dismiss the pacific are silly of course, but putting the two together just doesn't make sense. Tacking the accomplishments against the Japanese as if they were also against the Germans is just disingenuous. I

 

[hkrommel]

I still don't really understand your argument. In a previous post you defined how you reached these numbers. However, you are amalgamating two tenuously related conflicts to throw shade on the Soviet contribution.

Losses inflicted on Japan and China should not be thrown into an overall "who did what" debate, which is if I am understanding your post from a couple of pages back, exactly what you are doing.

Look at the European figures and the Pacific figures individually. The USSR was not involved in fighting Japan until the very end. I don't see how 8 million Chinese deaths should be somehow lumped onto the German Soviet war. It doesn't make sense. They have nothing to do with one another.

There was a European War, which the USSR did the majority of the work in, and there was a Pacific war, where China and the United States did the majority of the work in. You're conflating the two to make your argument.

Despite the term "World War Two" It wasn't a massive unified global war. It was two wars. It was a war fought by Japan against the allies, and a war fought by Germany against the allies and the USSR. The fact that Japan and Germany "unified" the war in legal terms by declaring war on the US together doesn't actually make it a unified war.

I just can't reiterate it enough. There was a European war and its ancillary theaters, and a Pacific war. People who dismiss the pacific are silly of course, but putting the two together just doesn't make sense. Tacking the accomplishments against the Japanese as if they were also against the Germans is just disingenuous. I

Why doesn't it make sense? The Allies were fighting in both theaters, and if the Pacific theater didn't exist they would have gotten involved earlier and with more intensity on the Continent. Thus, the war in Europe would look radically different if the war in the Pacific wasn't there. Does that make sense? Think of it as an equation, where "Allied contribution" is divided by the amount of effort they throw into the pacific war, and the remainder is the amount they throw into Europe.

Again, I'm not "throwing shade" on anyone, I'm simply saying two things: 1. deaths are not a way to measure combat. 2. Even if you do take casualties and equipment losses to measure combat, the German-Soviet front was the single largest in terms of casualties, but not by 75%, and it was not the majority in terms of equipment either.

None of this changes the amount the Soviets contributed, with was a hell of a lot, particularly in terms of manpower and land equipment. I'm just saying that you need to look at the war holistically when considering resources, since the Allies had to contribute resources to the Pacific that would otherwise be contributed to Europe, which would drastically change what that part of the war looked like.


EDIT: I agree that the two theaters should be looked at differently considering tactics, diplomacy, personality, etc. but when considering how many overall resources the Allies had available were depleted by both fronts, when trying to measure contribution both need to be considered.

 

[Invader_Canuck]

Why doesn't it make sense? The Allies were fighting in both theaters, and if the Pacific theater didn't exist they would have gotten involved earlier and with more intensity on the Continent. Thus, the war in Europe would look radically different if the war in the Pacific wasn't there. Does that make sense? Think of it as an equation, where "Allied contribution" is divided by the amount of effort they throw into the pacific war, and the remainder is the amount they throw into Europe.

Again, I'm not "throwing shade" on anyone, I'm simply saying two things: 1. deaths are not a way to measure combat. 2. Even if you do take casualties and equipment losses to measure combat, the German-Soviet front was the single largest in terms of casualties, but not by 75%, and it was not the majority in terms of equipment either.

None of this changes the amount the Soviets contributed, with was a hell of a lot, particularly in terms of manpower and land equipment. I'm just saying that you need to look at the war holistically when considering resources, since the Allies had to contribute resources to the Pacific that would otherwise be contributed to Europe, which would drastically change what that part of the war looked like.

It doesn't make sense, because they were two separate wars. It would be like comparing the US contribution to the "war on terror" versus the Canadian contribution. When Canada was only involved in Afghanistan and the US was in Iraq AND Afghanistan. Compare like for like. Compare the contribution of the US vs Canada in Afghanistan only.

In addition, deaths or wounded are a great way to count contribution. I mean, I get what you are doing. It's nice to be able to count the millions of Germans and other axis forces that ran from the USSR to surrender to the allies as part of the overall contribution. In this circumstance, not all casualties are equal now, are they?

When the German army decided to surrender, many of the men who surrendered to the USA, had not actually been fighting the USA, or Britain, or Canada. They turned, and ran from the USSR. Of course when we count casualties at the end, we in the west get credit for them, but those casualties don't really matter as much as you know, the casualties at Kursk, or Bagration, or Stalingrad or Moscow or Leningrad or in the Caucasus.

I guess I should make myself more clear. I understand your argument, I also understand the purpose of it. I just don't understand WHY you would make it.

It's like saying "I scored 70 points against team A, and 10 points against team B, you only scored 60 points against team B, when you combined my score from team A and B I scored more points against team B."

 

[Praetori]

I guess I should make myself more clear. I understand your argument, I also understand the purpose of it. I just don't understand WHY you would make it.

Well there's some merit to the idea since we're talking about a Grand Strategy game on global scale. The Commonwealth and US fought a global war that covered a large percentage of the planet. The Soviets fought the Axis in Europe (the Great Patriotic War rather than Ww2) and although the eastern-front was vast it's a one-front land-war. There's no doubt that the western Allies could've made a much larger contribution had it only been a European war thus ending the war much sooner and with fewer losses for the Soviets as a result. However it's invalid to claim that the historical contribution to the war against Germany in terms of German equipment and manpower lost can be calculated in any other way than the end result being 3/5ths to 2/3rds of all German equipment and manpower losses occurring in the east.
Then there's a question whether 60% or 68% or more or less is worth discussing to death. It has ZERO bearing on possible game-mechanics since they're going to be more flexible than that.

 

[hkrommel]

It doesn't make sense, because they were two separate wars. It would be like comparing the US contribution to the "war on terror" versus the Canadian contribution. When Canada was only involved in Afghanistan and the US was in Iraq AND Afghanistan. Compare like for like. Compare the contribution of the US vs Canada in Afghanistan only.

In addition, deaths or wounded are a great way to count contribution. I mean, I get what you are doing. It's nice to be able to count the millions of Germans and other axis forces that ran from the USSR to surrender to the allies as part of the overall contribution. In this circumstance, not all casualties are equal now, are they?

When the German army decided to surrender, many of the men who surrendered to the USA, had not actually been fighting the USA, or Britain, or Canada. They turned, and ran from the USSR. Of course when we count casualties at the end, we in the west get credit for them, but those casualties don't really matter as much as you know, the casualties at Kursk, or Bagration, or Stalingrad or Moscow or Leningrad or in the Caucasus.

I guess I should make myself more clear. I understand your argument, I also understand the purpose of it. I just don't understand WHY you would make it.

It's like saying "I scored 70 points against team A, and 10 points against team B, you only scored 60 points against team B, when you combined my score from team A and B I scored more points against team B."

The Commonwealth and US fought a global war that covered a large percentage of the planet. The Soviets fought the Axis in Europe (the Great Patriotic War rather than Ww2) and although the eastern-front was vast it's a one-front land-war. There's no doubt that the western Allies could've made a much larger contribution had it only been a European war thus ending the war much sooner and with fewer losses for the Soviets as a result.

Basically this. When considering contribution of resources one has to combine the two "wars", simply because resources used in the Pacific directly affected the European war, either because they were used in the Pacific rather than Europe, or because they distracted resources (think IJA) that would have otherwise been used against the USSR.

Now I think somewhere where you're diverging here is you're saying casualties are a good way to count contribution, whereas the previous argument was over that was a good way to count combat. Those are two very different things, and in my previous post I agreed that in terms of manpower contribution in terms of casualties the Soviets were on top. The Allies also used a huge amount of people, but the majority were handling logistics, etc. because they had more "stuff" to handle, so frontline manpower is definitely on the Soviet side of the equation here. So basically what I'm saying is I'm not sure what our disagreement is aside from my inclusion of the Pacific when considering the war as a whole.

Edit: as an aside I acknowledge that a lot of Germans surrendered to the Western Allies rather than the Soviets, but the problem there is that there's no way to separate how many of those surrenders were "legitimate" (for lack of a better word), ie they were actually on the Western Front and surrendered to the forces they were engaged with, or "illegitimate" ie they were mainly fighting the Soviets but rushed to surrender to the Allies instead. So basically you kind of have to consider them equally, particularly since captured forces are a major part of casualty counts in other theaters (Italy and North Africa especially).

 

[Cardus]

I understand your point...

But the game has to model it as one conflict. The rules are the rules. So sometimes we have to find approximations that apply globally even if they aren't perfect.

To be honest, that's an insurmountable problem with the franchise. I love HOI to death and the Devs do a gret job, but I don't think it is possible to create a game that can do justice to the Eastern Front, the Battle of France, the Pacific, and the Second Sino-Japanese War all using the same engine.

Or at least do so without tying up three times as many man hours as is feasible while turning some kind of a profit.



Yes, I did test it.

The US, in HOI3 terms, is roughly where it needs to be in terms of manpower and industrial output. It might be a tad on the low side in terms of IC, because I could barely make historical production goals on normal difficulty using all the tricks I know (maybe a better player could do it better).

The test can be found here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...lds-naval-powers.529044/page-23#post-16220619


The key in HOI3 is that production isn't just about IC. There is the whole "practicals make it super cheap to produce stuff" issue to consider, along with the technology issue. You could hypothetically add 10% to construction practicals in the US and suddenly the US ends up with 25% more industrial capability than she did historically. It's really hard to get it spot on in terms of historical stuff.

But I wouldn't say the US is overpowered. If anything, she's a bit underpowered in IC terms (a tiny bit) and never has to make a decision regarding the 90 Division Gamble because of how the game operates, but she's roughly on par for where she should be.

Now, if you really want to abuse the game, you can briefly outproduce the entire planet as the US, but that involves doing bizarre ahistorical stuff that is not relevant to a real game of HOI. I don't consider my Madness! This is the USA! test to be an authentic way of winning the game, but it is an example of why you should never tell me that it is insane for me to try to reach a production target.

The issue in my opinion is not the manpower and IC available to the USA but WHEN the historical manpower and IC is made available. In other terms I think I have shown a couple of times that, if you want to simulate the reality, the USA shouldn't do almost anything until 1940, and just a bit more in 1941. Starting from 1942, instead, the USA should be able to unleash all its power. The system is basic and easy to implement: just have a look at the defense spending over the GDP. The tech should follow more or less this path as for research, money and experience is a key. In addition the USA should be a laggard in almost all tech with the exception of industry and navy/shipbuilding, The war in Europe should give a boost together with the Axis "can't talk here" issues that obliged the most brilliant European scientists to emigrate (in fact almost all key scientists in the Manhattan project were from Europe). The boost on both: IC and science should make the USA the most powerful power in the world by the end of the war.
The issue with this realistic system is that USA players can't have any fun so the game is what it is and therefore is completely unbalanced. Those that like reality and plausibility should take the game as it is and mod it by themselves (if they can).

 

[Praetori]

The issue in my opinion is not the manpower and IC available to the USA but WHEN the historical manpower and IC is made available. In other terms I think I have shown a couple of times that, if you want to simulate the reality, the USA shouldn't do almost anything until 1940, and just a bit more in 1941. Starting from 1942, instead, the USA should be able to unleash all its power. The system is basic and easy to implement: just have a look at the defense spending over the GDP. The tech should follow more or less this path as for research, money and experience is a key.

The problem with that is that players will powergame events or triggers until they can unleash that power at an earlier date. Or if there's a hard-limit like date they will either stall the war or rush it (depending on which side they're on) to game the mechanics. Balancing the US as the powerhouse it historically was (and they didn't even go all-out) is problematic and cannot be done by just preventing the US from doing stuff before date X or event Y or by just nerfing them outright but rather a combination of multiple things, even though it's not quite historically spot-on.

 

[Cardus]

The problem with that is that players will powergame events or triggers until they can unleash that power at an earlier date.

The human player can do many things but one matter is a game unbalanced by "design" and a complete different matter is a game that is tricked by a player

Or if there's a hard-limit like date they will either stall the war or rush it (depending on which side they're on) to game the mechanics. Balancing the US as the powerhouse it historically was (and they didn't even go all-out) is problematic and cannot be done by just preventing the US from doing stuff before date X or event Y or by just nerfing them outright but rather a combination of multiple things, even though it's not quite historically spot-on.

Balancing the USA, per se, it is not a so difficult task. The difficult point it to keep quiet players that can't do almost anything (included not having the ability to build industries, airfields, forts, etc.) until when the Germans or the Japaneses attack them.

 

[Praetori]

The human player can do many things but one matter is a game unbalanced by "design" and a complete different matter is a game that is tricked by a player.

The problem with that approach is that it leads to a broken multiplayer-game which is a pretty big selling factor in most modern games.

 

[Cardus]

The problem with that approach is that it leads to a broken multiplayer-game which is a pretty big selling factor in most modern games.

That is a statement not an argument. The MP has got house rules so I won't give weight to it.

 

[Praetori]

That is a statement not an argument. The MP has got house rules so I won't give weight to it.

Some MP groups have house-rules. It's not like any matchmaking or lobby-style games are going to automatically turn out fine if there are methods to game the mechanics. Did you see any houserules in the WWW?
It's a very heavy argument in my book. If something works for MP it usually works for SP as well as long as the AI can handle it, the opposite is far from true.