supermax wrote:Historically the germans were very close to winning the war in the east in 1941 as we all know. Now, its just not doable.
I don't agree that the Germans were close to winning the war in 1941. Even if they had taken Moscow in Operation Typhoon the majority of the Russian territory would remain out of Germany's reach. To cripple the Russians they would have needed to get to the Urals at least. People believing that Russia was on the brink of collapse in October / November 1941 don't know the Russian mentality. It's not in the Russian mentality to surrender just like France or Britain. Russia would have fought back from where they were. During 1941 the Russians railed their factories from western Russia to Siberia and quite a lot of them made it to Siberia. So the fall of Moscow would be a temporary blow to the Russians, morale wise and losing their most important rail center. However, I'm sure that the Russians would have recovered from that. The Russians were about to evacuate the Government to Kuybychev in October 1941. So they believed Moscow was doomed and they would fight on from a new "capital" further east.
In GS the Russians get a big morale blow if they lose Moscow. It's certainly doable to get Moscow in 1941 if you really go for it. Then you have to send your panzers there instead of the Ukraine. Usually most players go for Moscow in 1942 since they want all the terrain in Ukraine in 1941.
If you attack in May 1941 as the Germans you can certainly get far into Russia in 1941 even with the current rail conversion rules. You just can't rail reinforcements from the rear all the way to the front.
I actually believe the biggest weakness of the earliest versions of GS was that you could just rush eastwards as fast as possible in 1941 and rail to any city you captured the turn after you captured the city. It's like you gave the units wings. It's probably fun for the Axis, but completely ahistorical.
If we were to change anything it would be to inflict morale losses on losing more cities than Moscow for the Russians. However, that doesn't fit the Russian mentality at all. They lost cities like Kiev and Kharkov in 1941. Leningrad was surrounded and had to endure a horrible 1000 day siege. Stalingrad was almost lost etc. They even lost their main naval base Sevastopol. We didn't see any drop in Russian morale from losing cities. You actually saw the opposite. The Russians became even more determined to kick the fascists out of their home territory.
There are quite a few battle situations where hindsight in the game avoids repeating the real game mistakes. One is Case Yellow and the Ardennes. The GS Allies know how the Germans attack and won't become surrounded by moving into Belgium. Instead you get a war of attrition. The GS Allies know about the big encirclements taking place in the real war in 1941 in Russia. So they retreat instead of fighting at the front. Stalin made a mistake in 1941 insisting on not giving ground, but he learnt from it and in 1942 the real Russians retreated in the south until the Germans reached Stalingrad.
The GS Axis player can also retreat without penalty in the game. We all know about Hitler's order to hold Stalingrad at any cost, thus dooming the 6th Army. That won't happen in GS. We can't force players to repeat historical mistakes.
I don't have a problem with the Russians retreating in 1941. I can easily take Leningrad and get to Moscov and Rostov in 1941. I often end up behind the Don or Donets. Since the Russians retreat I dig-in in September and get the morale up to max when the winter hits. That means the Russians won't get anywhere during the 1941 winter. So in 1942 you can attach from a very good position as the Axis. You simply need to adjust your goals as the Axis depending upon how the Russians defend.