C A U T I O N ***Screenshot heavy post *** SCREENSHOT HEAVY POST *** Screenshot heavy post *** C A U T I O N
Goal:
This alternative-history AAR is designed to show how making custom scenarios in HOI3 creates unlimited possibilities.
What's Different?
Anyone who has played the HOI3 Barbarossa scenario as the Germans will immediately notice there's one thing missing, TANKS! Where are all the panzer divisions? So, to create a more historical scenario it was necessary to start a game as Germany in 1936, then slowly build-up the panzer force that blitzed Poland in '39 and France in '40. Ultimately this became the army that would face the Soviets in '41.
What's New? -- Contextual Story Mapping.
Those of you (in the USA) who've seen the Battleground series on the Military Channel will immediately recognize the format. Briefly, the action segment of the program is thoroughly prefaced with background information on the history, politics, technology, and strategy of both sides. In presenting both points of view the program takes on a more neutral, unbiased character, thus cutting through the usual perceptions.
It's important for the war-gamer to take a step back and examine the true underlying cause of the conflict so to better understand the objectives.
NOTE: While this AAR does not use any cheats, although it was necessary at the outset to look behind the lines to map the Soviet order of battle. In the real world German intelligence could only guess at the exact numbers of the opposition, but they probably had about as much information as we do at the start of this conflict. In any event, this snapshot is of no real use once the declaration of war is announced.
Game Spec:
HOI3 v1.2 Germany; '36 The Road to War; Hard, all manual control (with notable exceptions). This was a vanilla game and did not employ any mods or cheats. Saves were bi-monthly and yearly. Run on AMD Athlon 64x2 Dual Core Processor 4800+964MHz 1.00GB RAM; XP Pro v2002 SP3.
Preamble:
The German campaign versus Soviet Union is something of a paradox (no pun intended) inasmuch that Germany had little to gain and so much to loose in a two-front War. Historians are now coming to believe that the conflict with the Soviets was just as inevitable as the resumption of war with France and England following the Armistice of 1918.
Stripping away the propaganda for the moment, one must admit that without the intervention of the United States in 1942 the Soviets were in serious trouble. True, there may have been a hard fought victory at Stalingrad, but Kursk would have been completely a different affair. Also, without America's participation the British could never have maintained the kind of strategic bombing campaign that kept Germany from mustering the full weight of its industrial might against the Soviet Union.
In this regard HOI3 is technically accurate, and makes a good choice for a “what-if” scenario. For instance, what may have happend if Germany never consummated the military alliance with Italy? If precious German divisions were never siphoned off to Greece, Yugoslavia, and North Africa, how would that have changed the balance of power on the Eastern Front? Perhaps now we may now find out.
Goal:
This alternative-history AAR is designed to show how making custom scenarios in HOI3 creates unlimited possibilities.
What's Different?
Anyone who has played the HOI3 Barbarossa scenario as the Germans will immediately notice there's one thing missing, TANKS! Where are all the panzer divisions? So, to create a more historical scenario it was necessary to start a game as Germany in 1936, then slowly build-up the panzer force that blitzed Poland in '39 and France in '40. Ultimately this became the army that would face the Soviets in '41.
What's New? -- Contextual Story Mapping.
Those of you (in the USA) who've seen the Battleground series on the Military Channel will immediately recognize the format. Briefly, the action segment of the program is thoroughly prefaced with background information on the history, politics, technology, and strategy of both sides. In presenting both points of view the program takes on a more neutral, unbiased character, thus cutting through the usual perceptions.
It's important for the war-gamer to take a step back and examine the true underlying cause of the conflict so to better understand the objectives.
NOTE: While this AAR does not use any cheats, although it was necessary at the outset to look behind the lines to map the Soviet order of battle. In the real world German intelligence could only guess at the exact numbers of the opposition, but they probably had about as much information as we do at the start of this conflict. In any event, this snapshot is of no real use once the declaration of war is announced.
Game Spec:
HOI3 v1.2 Germany; '36 The Road to War; Hard, all manual control (with notable exceptions). This was a vanilla game and did not employ any mods or cheats. Saves were bi-monthly and yearly. Run on AMD Athlon 64x2 Dual Core Processor 4800+964MHz 1.00GB RAM; XP Pro v2002 SP3.
Preamble:
The German campaign versus Soviet Union is something of a paradox (no pun intended) inasmuch that Germany had little to gain and so much to loose in a two-front War. Historians are now coming to believe that the conflict with the Soviets was just as inevitable as the resumption of war with France and England following the Armistice of 1918.
Stripping away the propaganda for the moment, one must admit that without the intervention of the United States in 1942 the Soviets were in serious trouble. True, there may have been a hard fought victory at Stalingrad, but Kursk would have been completely a different affair. Also, without America's participation the British could never have maintained the kind of strategic bombing campaign that kept Germany from mustering the full weight of its industrial might against the Soviet Union.
In this regard HOI3 is technically accurate, and makes a good choice for a “what-if” scenario. For instance, what may have happend if Germany never consummated the military alliance with Italy? If precious German divisions were never siphoned off to Greece, Yugoslavia, and North Africa, how would that have changed the balance of power on the Eastern Front? Perhaps now we may now find out.
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