Update on the Gold Upgrades for the Western Front & Mediterranean titles

[Kool Kat]

Gents: 

Excited to learn more about the Western Front and Mediterranean PzC titles getting some "Gold loving!"  

I am especially eager for Tunisia '43 to get its "Gold facelift" as I believe this title is one of the most underrated games in the PzC Series.

"Fragile Nation Rule" - Will someone provide details on this rule? 

France '40 - Blog entry.

"With the inclusion of Holland, a brand-new campaign and many smaller scenarios will be added, ensuring that a more complete 1940 campaign on the continent can be simulated. A lot of order of battle and scenario work is already completed and we are much of the way through the new graphics. The Dutch will obviously play a bigger part as will the Fallschirmjaeger attacks the Germans employed in their Holland invasion plans. The ‘fragile nation’ rule from Prussia ’14 in the First World War Campaign series has been added and will impact the French, Belgians and Dutch. This will be a first for the Panzer Campaigns series and will probably be used for the Italians in the Desert titles. A new team member Mike Prucha has driven the bulk of the France ’40 new scenario & OOB work, while David Michas created the new map – we owe them both a big thank you for what they have bought to this title."

[Xaver]

Basically the fragile nation rule means that if you assault units with no retreat option they could be eliminated in the assault, no elimination by multiple assaults, they simple "surrender" but only affect C or worst quality units.

Apart this if units are out of range they recover a lot less from D and B status, this is critical in FWW serie because command ranges are very short (1-2 hexes for brigades) but a lot less in PzC.

http://www.johntillersoftware.com/WWICam.../notes.pdf

"In East Prussia '14, the Russians are modeled as having fragile morale. This
causes them to be susceptible to surrendering en masse when they are trapped and
assaulted (when they are assaulted and cannot withdraw), and it makes them more
difficult to recover from disruption and broken status when their units are detached from
their parent HQs (outside of their command radius, and their unit names are in orange
text). This represents historical outcomes and events where these armies were powerful,
but for various deficiencies in command and unit quality they often chose to surrender
when threatened with destruction, and their fighting formations often disintegrated or
were very difficult to reform once heavy fighting commenced.

That said, keep in mind that elite formations of A and B quality units are immune
from these effects as those formations were more reliable. Also keep in mind that when
non-elite detached units are checking for disruption recovery, they are actually one less
level in unit quality than they appear to be. So, if a unit appears as F quality, then it is
actually at "No morale". If any unit is ever at "No morale" then it will NEVER recover
from disruption until it is at least F quality again. This means that Russian units with a
base unit quality of D, E, and F will fall apart under stress and it will be very difficult for
them to recover again since special care must be taken with reforming the units back
together with their immediate HQ.
"

[Kool Kat]

Basically the fragile nation rule means that if you assault units with no retreat option they could be eliminated in the assault, no elimination by multiple assaults, they simple "surrender" but only affect C or worst quality units.

Apart this if units are out of range they recover a lot less from D and B status, this is critical in FWW serie because command ranges are very short (1-2 hexes for brigades) but a lot less in PzC.

http://www.johntillersoftware.com/WWICam.../notes.pdf

"In East Prussia '14, the Russians are modeled as having fragile morale. This
causes them to be susceptible to surrendering en masse when they are trapped and
assaulted (when they are assaulted and cannot withdraw), and it makes them more
difficult to recover from disruption and broken status when their units are detached from
their parent HQs (outside of their command radius, and their unit names are in orange
text). This represents historical outcomes and events where these armies were powerful,
but for various deficiencies in command and unit quality they often chose to surrender
when threatened with destruction, and their fighting formations often disintegrated or
were very difficult to reform once heavy fighting commenced.

That said, keep in mind that elite formations of A and B quality units are immune
from these effects as those formations were more reliable. Also keep in mind that when
non-elite detached units are checking for disruption recovery, they are actually one less
level in unit quality than they appear to be. So, if a unit appears as F quality, then it is
actually at "No morale". If any unit is ever at "No morale" then it will NEVER recover
from disruption until it is at least F quality again. This means that Russian units with a
base unit quality of D, E, and F will fall apart under stress and it will be very difficult for
them to recover again since special care must be taken with reforming the units back
together with their immediate HQ.
"

Hey Xaver: 

Ok. I understand. Surrounding and then assaulting these units that fall under the "fragile nation rule" (e.g Italians in the desert titles) will increase chances of mass surrender. Also this rule will impact these units' ability to recover from disruption and broken status. Nice!

That will effectively model the "brittle" nature of Italian C and less morale units and encourage historical use of these troops to hold secondary defense lines, and have "stiffening" German units embedded with the Italians.

Thanks for these details!  

[Plain Ian]

David

A couple of things I notice. The 1/272e DBI cannot breakdown. I guess this is due to it being a low quality unit?

The other thing is that it has a very low movement allowance of 14? Yet I assume its a Foot unit like the other Foot units above? 

I've a general question. The French Marocains and Zoaves are both 26 since they are A and B quality and the Foresters are 21 because they are D. This I get because this is what I see when playing easten front games. What sets these movement allowances for the different Morale types?

It cannot be the Quality Modifiers which are shown in page 15/16 in the User manual as they say that non vehicle A units gain 10%, E non vehicle units loss 10% and F's loss 20%. Thats not what I see when I look at the units above?

[Strela]

David

A couple of things I notice. The 1/272e DBI cannot breakdown. I guess this is due to it being a low quality unit?

The other thing is that it has a very low movement allowance of 14? Yet I assume its a Foot unit like the other Foot units above? 

I've a general question. The French Marocains and Zoaves are both 26 since they are A and B quality and the Foresters are 21 because they are D. This I get because this is what I see when playing easten front games. What sets these movement allowances for the different Morale types?

It cannot be the Quality Modifiers which are shown in page 15/16 in the User manual as they say that non vehicle A units gain 10%, E non vehicle units loss 10% and F's loss 20%. Thats not what I see when I look at the units above?

Hi Ian,

These shots were taken from the original campaign/OOB. I'm not certain on the designers rationale, but the F morale troops are fortress battalions (essentially static troops) and have a movement value of 3 vs the normal 4. That is why you're seeing the difference.

My assumption is as these troops are meant to man stationary fortifications, then they are short on motorised and horse drawn support and hence are slower if they have to move.

David

[Xaver]

If i dont remember bad depends of unit-nation, unlike soviet in west titles battalions could work in company level EXCEPT in France with certain french and Belgium troops even in McNamara OOBs

If HPS web be up you can download last patch and open OOB to explore it (at least i remember worked time ago to explore OOB files).... HELL, I AM IDIOT!!! try this

http://www.patches-scrolls.de/patch/3067...0/download

Download the patch, and see OOB, i try download Volcanoman mod but i cant... maybe this is more precise because looks like Gold versions use McNamara OOBs but as i said even in McNamara OOBs for France40 not all battalions in french army work in companies, same with belgium units.

[Plain Ian]

If i dont remember bad depends of unit-nation, unlike soviet in west titles battalions could work in company level EXCEPT in France with certain french and Belgium troops even in McNamara OOBs

If HPS web be up you can download last patch and open OOB to explore it (at least i remember worked time ago to explore OOB files).... HELL, I AM IDIOT!!! try this

http://www.patches-scrolls.de/patch/3067...0/download

Download the patch, and see OOB, i try download Volcanoman mod but i cant... maybe this is more precise because looks like Gold versions use McNamara OOBs but as i said even in McNamara OOBs for France40 not all battalions in french army work in companies, same with belgium units.

If the 272e DBI is a low grade fortess unit then I'm quite happy to see it restricted by not allowing it to breakdown to companies.

I didn't realise that Speed was different for units that were classed as Foot. I assumed that they were all the same at 4. 
However I think it is reasonable to make this unit less mobile than other Foot units which were expected to operate more tactically and operationally. Plus I also realise that even a Foot unit will have access to some vehicles all be it limited.

What I still do not understand is why A and B units which I assume have Speed 4 have the same Movement Allowance when the should be differen,t and according to the Modifier rules B/C/D should all be the same?

[Xaver]

Is possible even find units with 0 speed, if i dont remember bad in PzC Normandy german garrison units in beaches have 0 movement and in other series i remember the soviet flam units in PzB Kursk and again garrison units in PzB Normandy.

In the end the values of units are not "generic" you can define them as you want-need.

The impact in movement is based to in unit quality, this means that even with same movement factor units are affected by quality and type (motorized, mechanized, armored....) from manual:

"Quality Modifiers
The following modifiers apply to the movement allowance of units based on
their Quality rating:

• The movement allowance of vehicle Quality A units is increased by 20%.
• The movement allowance of all Quality B units and non-vehicle Quality A
units is increased by 10%.
• The movement allowance of all Quality D units and non-vehicle Quality E
units is decreased by 10%.
• The movement allowance of vehicle Quality E units and non-vehicle
Quality F units is decreased by 20%.
• The movement allowance of vehicle Quality F units is decreased by 30%.
Rubble"

A C foot unit move is not affected but a F unit has 20% less movility for example if you compare A VS F diference is 40% favoring A unit.

[BigDuke66]

Did the France 40 OOB get a rework in the aspect of depicting the different "waves" of German divisions?
AFAIk they were all more or less the same in the original OOB.

[Brammer]

Looking forward to the western front games being upgraded to Gold status. I hope France 40 comes out sooner than later.