The kind of historical predestination being argued for here takes the decisions out of the hands of the player and the AI, and makes for both a much more linear and less satisfying player experience.
Nation vs Nation balance target
- Thread starter mursolini
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The game as it is now is scripted for a historical outcome. I for one have constantly called for more randomness and diversity.
Which is why I'd argue that the main role of balancing here should be simply giving each country the industrial, technological, and manpower base closest to the start date, rather than trying to put the game on rails from then on so that, for some bizarre reason, a European Axis far stronger than the Soviet Union even in sheer terms of population cannot defeat the Soviet Union in a one-on-one fight.
I agree very much and made some related comments in a thread about ministers. The same difficulty that lies in inducing the player to choose an inferior minister also relates to what you say here. The player wants to win, and so will always choose what they believe to be the best choice unless they have self limited for personal reasons.
Is the idea of the game to enable the player to "have Germany be the best Germany it can be", or to "have Hitler's Nazi run Germany be the best it can be"? There is a big difference between the two and for me is the main difference between a game set in the period of 1936-1946 on earth, and a WWII game.
Well, its not like a "real stalemate" It changes all the time more or less, but none wins thats the good part and thats how it should be.
Why would the world just have watched GER slaughter the SU completely w/o intervening?
Anti-communism?
I don't think ideology would have mattered that much to the status quo powers if watching an agressive Germany fulfilling its Lebensraum dreams. They would be the next target.
That balancing is the way things are done in Europe.
Thus, having Germany fighting only a one-front war that's more than a short Blitzkrieg is just an illusion.
A short Blitzkrieg doesn't work against super-size Empires.
Anti-communism?
I don't think ideology would have mattered that much to the status quo powers if watching an agressive Germany fulfilling its Lebensraum dreams. They would be the next target.
That balancing is the way things are done in Europe.
Thus, having Germany fighting only a one-front war that's more than a short Blitzkrieg is just an illusion.
A short Blitzkrieg doesn't work against super-size Empires.
Remember something, by the mid to late 1930s only three nations in the world wanted to go to war (Axis big 3) and outside of them only one nation (Czechoslovakia) was actually prepared for war. This is the reason why all the appeasement went on. If for some reason the Allies didnt go to war over Poland, im not so sure they would have gone to war over Germany vs the Soviet Union...
What you're saying is perfectly legit from a 21st century perspective, but you have to look at it from a 1930s perspective.
IF Germany had been playing nice guy up to, say, 1941, then who knows how that would have changed things?
Even during the war, there were people in England, and other countries, who thought that, maybe, this Hitler guy had the right idea. Now cue to "a guy with the right idea" who also has proven that he will stand by pacts and treaties (like Munich). You see how that would alter history?
The key is the effect WWI and the resulting collapse of world economies had on Politicians around the world. There was such a distaste for war by the 1930s, add to that the volatility of European Govts and their being prone to constant change if the circumstances were correct who knows what would have happened? Many if most of the events that predated WW2 and occurred during WW2 didnt make sense so i dont think anyone can state clearly without any doubt what would or wouldnt have happened. Strong and Weak individuals, people taking daring chances as well as those paralyzed with indecision, disillusioned individuals who couldnt see reality clearly. As i see the whole time period was lines of dominoes it took each to fall a certain way for it to play out the way it did, who knows if one or more fell in a different direction?
from what i know, USSR produced some 53k T-34 tanks between 40-45. and US produced ~ 49k sherman tanks between 42-45. tanks are about same size in weight.
thats 10k per year for USSR average and for US 14,8k per year average. calculated it from start of given year to 45 first 3/10 part of the year.
Sure they did produce other stuff as well. But US did provide lots to USSR which USSR didnt have to manufacture at all.
Also it doesnt take in account the evacuation effect on production on USSR side or yearly max production capasity, as there was difference between yearly production per side.
thats 10k per year for USSR average and for US 14,8k per year average. calculated it from start of given year to 45 first 3/10 part of the year.
Sure they did produce other stuff as well. But US did provide lots to USSR which USSR didnt have to manufacture at all.
Also it doesnt take in account the evacuation effect on production on USSR side or yearly max production capasity, as there was difference between yearly production per side.
Then there's the whole "I'm Neville Chamberlain, and I'm using appeasement to buy time to rearm. If the Nazis and Soviets go at it in 1938 or 1939, that just buys me more time to rearm. And maybe help France rearm. Unless Germany defeats the Soviets and annexes huge swaths of land in only six months, a Nazi-Soviet showdown in Eastern Europe only improves my position until the political climate will favor a more hardline policy" issue.
As long as Germany doesn't break the Anglo-German Naval Agreement while spanking the Soviets, the British really have nothing to fear in the short term. The French might think differently, but again, a Nazi-Soviet showdown in Eastern Europe that drags on for more than a year buys France time to increase its military strength, too.
It doesn't matter how strong the french forces would be if they are still led by Gamelin and his ilk
True, but they didnt necessarily know how weak they were just as Hitler didnt realize he was insane...
It doesn't matter how strong the french forces would be if they are still led by Gamelin and his ilk
Gamelin was 67 in 1939. Depending on how long a Nazi-Soviet throwdown would last, Gamelin and his ilk might be retired or dead before the war broke out.
Hell, the longer it is until the war breaks out, the greater chance of guys like de Gaulle being charge of the whole thing.
werent france having second largest army in the world at 1939? it had more tanks than germans, only russians had more(way much more)
Also france had that maginot line as well.
it just sucked for allies and USSR that they used tanks for infantry/cavalry support and not as indepentant force like germans used them.
(USSR did earlier have same doctrine for tanks, but in 1938 it went back to inf/cav support role, and was again switched back to indepentant force when france fell. They were in the middle of re-arranging their forces when germans came. They would been ready earliest at 42 summer, but more likely on 43 with full planned force/formations)
I'd say observing an Eurpean balance and avoiding a Napoleonic continental national *superpower* is more / is also 17th to 20th century perspective. For Britain and Russia.
Pro-Nazi British or Americans weren't exactly the majority. They wouldn't have been anyway. Not with the threat of total German supremacy on the continent.
Nazi-Germany structurally and economically just wasn't capable of playing *nice guy* any longer than until 1936/37.
I don't buy the get time for rearmement argument either. It wouldn't have worked. B/c as continental superpower with access to more ressources ze Reich would have been difficult to stop anyway. Stalin tried this strategy (Molotov-Ribbentrop treaty): Have the Wallies divert the German gorilla in order to modernize the Red Army. It didn't work out. It took half the world to defeat Germany.
If Germany goes east before west that gives the French the time to start buying American arms en masse before France can collapse. That's a real gamechanger because French and British combined manpower would outnumber Germany even if the Americans never send over any GIs. And American industry was really unparalleled. The only reason why the soviets outproduced the Americans in tanks is because the Americans started winding down production before the war was even over. Without western European ports to attack shipping from the material advantage would simply be insurmountable. If the French could have had a 3-1 advantage in terms of tanks and planes and artillery entering the fight every month so long as they hold a single port, they wouldn't be so likely to collapse.
There are a number of assumptions underlying your argument that, if examined, challenge the notion that a continental superpower would have been unbeatable even with time for Britain and France to arm or rearm.
1) Germany defeats the Soviets quickly and painlessly: If Germany fights a protracted war with the Soviets and sustains even half its historical casualties on the Eastern Front, that's manpower and material not available for later. Keep in mind, it might only take Britain 2-4 years to rearm to the point where she feels confident that she can dictate terms to Germany, assuming France has also done the same. If Germany initiates a war with the Soviets (or gets attacked by the Soviets) in 1939, and doesn't win by 1941 while Britain continues to rearm, the balance of power does not swing Germany's way for some time.
Note that occupying a significant portion of the Soviet Union, and actually forcing them to surrender, are not the same things. A historical partisan campaign against Axis occupation would still tie up resources even if the Germans make it to the Urals.
2) Annexing the Soviet Union solves Germany's resource deficits in critical areas: Annexing the Soviet Union may not end up solving Germany's resource deficits. It would help, but if Tooze is right, Germany is still in a deficit for critical things like food. That means Germany has to have a navy, which it can't build up fast enough or large enough to challenge British naval superiority (to the point where Germany can ship resources freely). It would take years. Even the Germans didn't think they could reach 35% of British naval strength before 1943, and that's without fighting a war. It would take years to reach any kind of naval parity with Britain.
3) Germany is just as strong without occupying France and Benelux as she was historically: If Germany only marches east, France remains intact and Germany cannot occupy or extort resources from metropolitan France, nevermind Benelux. Let's not forget that the "continental superpower" that you claim "it took half the world to defeat" managed to seize the industrial heartland and coal reserves of France, a major power in its own right. Also, a rearmed Britain would have far more than 13 divisions to contribute to the defense of France the longer they have to rearm. Sure, you can ridicule the French army all you want for failing to defend France (I won't, but some folks do), but adding another 1,000,000 British troops to the defense of France would make a significant difference; the mere presence of a place for those troops to go and defend in the first place would put Germany in a difficult position even if the French army doesn't further modernize or improve its manpower position.
4) The German people don't care about consumer goods or the economy: A further consideration is civilian demand for consumer goods. If Tooze (and Schacht for that matter) is right again, further German rearmament would have resulted in economic failure. So Germany either has to slow down further militarization, loot resources from the Czechs, French, Dutch, and Belgians, or mobilize fully to war footing and hope the people accept it. I wonder if the German people would have been nearly as accepting of a large war with a lower standard of living and no quick victory over France to buoy Nazi political support.
5) Germany has the freedom to commit 100% of its military strength against the Soviets: Just because the Nazis and Soviets spark a huge war in Eastern Europe, it doesn't mean that Germany has no military commitments in the west. In fact, the irony is that if Germany does commit everything to a war in the east, France and Britain have an easier time demanding stuff from Germany. If Germany doesn't commit everything to the east so it can cover its western frontier, then it's back to the problem of 1941, where even though there is no fighting in France, Germany has to station forces there to cover the area in case of attack.
The irony of this discussion is that it reveals how useful the M-R Pact was. Whether Germany attacked France or the Soviets first, without a clear guarantee that they wouldn't be attacked from the other direction, Germany's position was precarious. If Britain and France just use the time to rearm while Germany and the Soviets fight each other, they could be in a far better position than they were historically, even if the Germans manage to somehow win.
And while you think the M-R Pact didn't work, I would argue that it helped the Soviets immensely. The catch is that the Five Year Plan in effect during the M-R Pact assumed war in 1943, so they weren't done rearming. The pact wasn't a problem; Germany breaking it ahead of the Soviet timetable certainly was.
EDIT @stayfroty: And as for the French army being the largest in 1939, it was certainly large. However, many divisions in 1939 were reserve formations with crappy equipment and older soldiers. These reserve formations were also not trained very well. You can't fix the age of soldiers, but you can fix the equipment and training problems with time and material.
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was it because those reparations it was forced to pay which were calculated not by how much it cost to allies, but just by how much germany was able to pay per year? Didnt it cause their economical situation and also lead people to vote and want for differen life than what they had? They were quite poor cos not much left to them after reparations. Really many died there in hunger.
So if conditions were like that for population, it isnt too hard to guess what they need and want.
(werent this the very same reason why Tzar in russia was put down, cos people rebeled for very same reason, no enough food, same in germany, no enough food, and change from monarchy to.. dictatorship..
also, conditions in USSR didnt improve for population, even as they were bad before it, and Bolseviks used it to boost up their revolution.. After that, still as many were suffering from hunger, even more when they started to sell grain to foreign markets.. was it 10mil tons in 1928 and in 1933 20 million tons(metric). Also other resources was sold, to get eguipment and machinery for building up armament industry. This also might have lead to recession in western countries because flooding markets with cheap russian resources/food. Unemployement rised up which in turn, made many farms, companies etc to go in bankruptcy, also many might have lost their homes as well cos they lost their jobs.. Cos material was cheaper to import than produce at home.) Just a though how it went
what also is btw intresting in ww1 and ww2 is that switzerland wasnt involved. But as far as i remember, some russian top rank leaders came to USSR from Switzerland.. Trotsky, Lenin..
modern such leader who was educated there was from north korea
Just funny coincidence imo.
And to who are nations in debt? where is the biggest bank of all? guess which country
werent germans having majority of soviet cities under their influence, as well majority of the population as well?