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Bearded Baker
Jun 8, 2003
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I played my first game as GER, and Dowed the SU historically, attacked historically, etc. However, when winter comes, I start to suffer tremendous losses, something like 0.01 to 0.03 per day, which really adds up! I have maybe 450-500 IC (I thought I had more) but my TC is only about 700. I finished researching that infantry forward logistics supply thing with Guderian, and the penalty did go away somewhat. However, I still lost about 300 MP over the winter, just from losses from the cold! Is there any other way to reduce this? My TC was pretty much 700/700, since I was trying to shuttle in resources and MP to keep my troops able to defend. In the end of the winter I had racked up an 850 IC reinforcement defecit!

What is a normal IC/TC to have in June 41? What can you do to prevent winter attrition?

BTW, I had tons of garrisons, usually no more then 7-13% dissent in the USSR (some places had none). Playing normal/normal. Thanks!
 
Stas said:
Well... First time I ever had to do this... but shameless bump. :D

I can't believe no one has played germany and attacked the soviets! Just lend a me a bit of knowledge of your experience and perhaps I can draw from that. Thanks!

To be honest I didn't even notice. I just stopped advancing when the weather got bad because it was pointless and waited for spring. If I took heavy frostbite casualties, I completely missed it.
 
Hmm, I stopped advancing at about the start of November, and just wrapped operations up by Nov 14th. The reason I noticed though is due to the massive drop of manpower. Perhaps I just committed a newbie mistake and hadn't researched that infantry supply technology beforehand (although I belive it was a 41 or 42 tech, which doesn't make it out of period).
 
You can somewhat reduce the MP loss with tech and by pulling unnecessary units out of the area, but the winter hurts, bad, and is supposed to. I think in another thread someone found the historic number of German casualties over the winter of '41 was a staggering 900,000! That's 900 MP. A 300 loss means you got off light.

Enjoy!
 
I recall that 17k was the norm for a German infantry division. In this game it costs 10 MP = 17,000 soldiers. So a 300ish MP loss = 300*1.7 = 510k men. So I did get off more lighly than I should have. I was merely wondering if anyone else has had this problem? In HoI1 you would be able to avoid the severe penalties by doing the correct research. I take it this is no longer applicable? Thanks!
 
I had this problem too. Played hard/furios. It was quite severe then, because I played without the new patch and had lost nearly my whole manpower on liberating nations earlier. If you can fight on friendly territory during winter, the attrition stops, eg Ukraine, Bjelorus, Uralrepublik etc. I dont know but maybe you can liberate Russia instead of Bjelorus, this would be a great advantage. Mountaintroops have no attrition as well. They are very useful therefore. The second winter in the SU I just stopped reinforcing my units, so I lost just 10-20 Mp. I could to this only because I had nearly extincted the red army.
AFAIK Techs and TC doesnt influence the winterattrition. I had all supplie techs and had ESE of 100 due to offense setting. It didnt stop attrition.
 
As I see, mountaineers are immune to cold (or seem that way) and winter specialist commanders cancel the bad weather attrition rates. Even if they are Mj Generals, try promoting them so that you can use.
 
kingsword said:
As I see, mountaineers are immune to cold (or seem that way) and winter specialist commanders cancel the bad weather attrition rates. Even if they are Mj Generals, try promoting them so that you can use.

Winter commanders seem to only halve the losses, leaving it still to be painfully high.

I've also witnessed divisions in northern germany causing similar attrition, with no difference to those that are in occupied territory :eek:
 
Also forces that requier fuel takes extra attrition, if you dont have enough mountaneers, use fuelfreebrigaded infantery second.

And units in the frontline take winterattrition (not sure if full though) even if in friendly provinces.
 
IMO there is a bug somewhere in the Attrition calculations.
Attrition is not a problem if you read the tooltips associated with the skull-icon.
Usually its not above 0.03%/week.
In actual gameplay I have seen drain from replacement pool to reinforcement reach 10+ MP/day (with the tooltip continously saying that I need 1.XX more manpower to fully reinforce my army). And that is almost exclusively to replace this attrition.

Now if I have say 150 divisions suffering from frostbite etc. on the Russian steppes, who each take casualties amounting to 0.03%/week, then the resulting MP drain is around 0.07 MP/day.
That figure could probably be revised upwards rather heavily (as attrition becomes a non-factor else), but if actual losses are somewhere between 10-50 times as bad as stated by the tooltip, then its heavy business indeed.
 
Well during that game, I found that my reinforcement bar was about 800. I also was losing more MP per day than I was gaining, which was about 1.10. It was a very hefty penalty, and I wonder if there is something behind that which should be looked into.
 
And so do I Executor. But its a workaround vs. a bug (I consider it one at least) and not a real fix.
Besides with prolonged fighting in jungle areas you cannot do that.
 
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I could see the reality of incurring large frostbite losses if you have very recently occupied a province and not had time to establish good winter quarters. Like in real life where Army Group Center had just lost Operation Typhoon and was badly strung out and had no winter quarters, let alone winter clothing. Combined with a large scale enemy counterattack I can easily see frostbite losses alone being large.

But, if you have been in a province for a long time (I don't really know how long it would realistically take to establish good winter quarters) and if you aren't attacked, or if you successfully defend (i.e. no retreat) I think that the winter attrition should be reduced. Maybe some factor of how well dug-in your forces are.
 
Using winter specialists and pulling 50% of the Wehrmacht back to Poland worked for me. The winter specialists keep the Reds from trying anything sneaky (hopefully). Also, Logistics Wizards and Allied troops with Logistics Wizards (when available) should make losses more or less bearable.

One thing you might try is upgrading infrastructure (this takes a while, I know, but the war in East should last at least two to three years, so it's kinda worth it). Liberating the Baltics is also not a bad idea, keeps Garrison duty down and fresh Baltic troopers for the Crusade against Communism.
 
Looks like there is a bug:

http://firingsquad.com/games/hearts_of_iron_2_review/page2.asp

"Resupplying and reinforcements are handled automatically as well, through the economy sliders. Be careful though, there seems to be a (bug?) where, in winter weather, your economy sliders will suggest the need for massive reinforcements when in fact your troops are taking little in the way of attrition. This can and will quickly deplete your pools of manpower. Manpower, more than oil, rare minerals and supplies, limits your nation's ability to fight in the long run. It replenishes very slowly - 1.35 manpower per day was the best I got from my German campaign. Considering that two dozen infantry divisions, and a dozen armored divisions, plus brigades, will spend roughly a year's worth of manpower, it's vital to be careful - and makes the loss of entire armies due to encirclements (like what happened to Germany's 6th Army in Stalingrad) absolutely devastating."