Idea for a new Steel Division setting

[steve1]

Pacific would be mostly inf. based combat, same with SWPA, SEA, Italy. The next obvious big ticket region for the game would be Soviet Union/eastern front; second area would be North Africa. However, the possibility exists that there may be no further game, and there is no series.

I'll go out on a limb, and suggest that a WW1 setting would be workable with the game, across a range of regions. It wasn't all bogged down in trenches.

With existing points/win criteria, WW1 would be perfect as it would reward the holding of a bit of inconsequential patch of land for a trade in the bodycount. It would be incredibly slow and boring though as it would be mainly infantry. Air power would be slow and vulnerable with little hitting power.

I'm all for eastern front and preferably North Africa. Good range of equipment though terrain might be a bit flat and empty unless an area with escarpment, ridges and wadis is chosen. Visibility would need to be reworked because AT guns were sometimes hidden by heat haze especially if dug in.

 

[Gilmund]

WW1 is 4 years of entrenched war with the main armement being the arty, no real tanks, no real movement fights except in the first weeks, it's just mainly no man's land infantry charges under shells. I don't really know what do you find interesting in there for a RTS based on SD principles.
WW1 fits more the fps or the wargame genra.

 

[steve1]

WW1 is 4 years of entrenched war with the main armement being the arty, no real tanks, no real movement fights except in the first weeks, it's just mainly no man's land infantry charges under shells. I don't really know what do you find interesting in there for a RTS based on SD principles.
WW1 fits more the fps or the wargame genra.

I was being flippant. It wouldn't be interesting. My point is that the SD system is 'great' for WW1 in that a worthless piece of land can held at astronomical cost in material yet the holder of the worthless 1% will be the winner.

I'd play it just for flavour but not for long.

 

[nigo]

Dynamic SP/MP/coop campaign like Total War series. In Normandy or other WW2 theater.

 

[Sourlol]

I think my ideal game would be hoi4, except any given battle I have the ability to step in as general and fight the battle myself at which point Steel Division loads up.

 

[nigo]

SD44 needs this (of course, with more DETAILS):

Ps: I know about wargame dynamic campaign, but SD44 needs a more detailed campaign like total war series. Think about a "Normandy Hearts of Iron grand campaign".


================


My proposal for SD44 Dynamic Gran Campaign Normandy features:


*SP/Coop/MP
*Strategic moviments at turn level. Tatical battles at real time.
*Order of battle (historical, random, "what if" and multiple scenarios)
*Battlegroups
*Divison moviments around Normandy
*Battle events - ( Counterattack/ Assault/ Encirclement/ Ambush/ Delay/Tactical Withdrawal/ Breakthrough)
*Supplys and logistics management (stockpiles, foods, munition, fuel, convoys)
*Trucks, jeeps, APCs and light vehicles managements (logistic war)
*Reserves and reinforcement management
*Captured vechicles management and repair broken vehicles
*Air power strategic management
*Weather (dynamic and historical)
*Morale and Organization regain for divisions
*retreats
*Intel, partisans and spys
*HQs and officers management between the divisions
*night battles
*Night and day cicles
*Destruction of the battlefield (destroyed tanks/planes/vehicles and map destruction don't disappear in the map)
*Give Medals for units
*Use of ACES, skins for vehicles and infantry (they can sell in the steam market that or DLCs)
*Strategic and tatical use of buildings
*Artillery barrages and airstrike to break defenses, logical strikes, turn down morale and organization between sectors.
*Construction of defenses in sectors during strategic turns (tank traps, minefields, Czech hedgehog, urban barriers, bunkers and etc)

Like total war series you can simulate some or all battles if you want.

 

[Hidden Gunman]

WW1 is 4 years of entrenched war with the main armement being the arty, no real tanks, no real movement fights except in the first weeks, it's just mainly no man's land infantry charges under shells. I don't really know what do you find interesting in there for a RTS based on SD principles.
WW1 fits more the fps or the wargame genra.

Read up on the mid-east campaigns. The Sinai-Levant war was largely mobile, as were the African campaigns and the much smaller pacific operations vs German territories. On the Western Front, the March 1918 operations were mobile for several months as well. WW1 is largely misunderstood and misrepresented.

 

[Gilmund]

Read up on the mid-east campaigns. The Sinai-Levant war was largely mobile, as were the African campaigns and the much smaller pacific operations vs German territories. On the Western Front, the March 1918 operations were mobile for several months as well. WW1 is largely misunderstood and misrepresented.

No it's not, what is a misunderstanding and a misrepresentation would be to understand and represent 1914-1918 as a war of movements when from doctrine to practice the whole use of arms did tend to mostly fight and keep on fixed lines. To say there has been movement is not false. Of course there was. But to analyse WW1 and create a game only about WW1 war movements is precisely the mistake of misunderstanding this era. There was cavalery too in american civil war it doesn't make this war about movement neither and i'm glad Ultimate General Civil War is not about Stuart cavalery.
In the history of war, ww1 build trenches are the continuity of vauban strongholds and are placed in a long continuum to prevent losses due to artillery becoming more and more powerful since the napoleonic wars. Only WW2 destroyed this view to some extent with fast armored divisions. Armor and planes being the new deadly weapons. Even in 1940 the allied infantry divisions were still largely fighting like in WW1 keeping strongholds and going from one line to another which caused their failure. That changed later with the analysis of the 1940's lost campaign.
The destruction of the enemy army to prevent the enemy to create new lines is a new idea (blitzkrieg) from Guderian from Toukhatchevski or people like De Gaulle and Fuller in the 1930's and is representative of WW2, not WW1.
Like WW2 will be too about total surrender and annexations and not like before about giving parts of territory like it was anciently done with duchys since time immemorial.

 

[hellfish6]

Read up on the mid-east campaigns. The Sinai-Levant war was largely mobile, as were the African campaigns and the much smaller pacific operations vs German territories. On the Western Front, the March 1918 operations were mobile for several months as well. WW1 is largely misunderstood and misrepresented.

These were, relatively, small campaigns save for potentially the 1918 settings (and I don't know enough about them to say whether you're right or not - I suspect if it was "mobile" it's because the Germans were collapsing). I can't believe a wargame about a couple hundred Germans in East Africa or T.E. Lawrence overrunning demoralized Ottomans in Palestine would be fun or sell anywhere near enough to recoup the investment. I even love the East Africa campaigns in WWI and I'd only buy the game because it's exotic, not because I'd expect a good game out of it.

 

[Aeon221]

People discussing WW1 forgetting once again that the Eastern front existed and was mobile and no, that doesn't just mean the Brusilov offensive.

 

[vonLuck]

Wargame and SD44 do so much better with vehicles ... WWI would be one dimensional and silly imo. Stick to WWII or later. Leave infantry fights to platforms which do a better job of conveying the intricacies of this kind of fighting.

von Luck

 

[Gilmund]

People discussing WW1 forgetting once again that the Eastern front existed and was mobile and no, that doesn't just mean the Brusilov offensive.

Speaking of mobility about WW1 is like looking a war on its edges and forgetting the most important going on in its center. It's not understanding a thing about this war. By mid 1915 Russians were expelled from Poland and lost hundreds of kms then the entrenched line was created and will likely stay the same from late 1915 to 1917 year of russian revolution and internal collapse.
The Brusilov offensive like other offensives did take kilometers back but i do not see where you can focus on mobile war in there. The movements from 1914-1915 are not proof of that, mostly due to the inability of the russian army to fight anything properly except for the Imperial Gard at that time (Tannenberg was a diseaster, a third of the men had no rifle, most of them were not trained). To say Tannenberg is an encirclement and frontlines are moving fast don't say anything about "mobility" on the entire war.
Later Brusilov offensive like other offensives is on the contrary a perfect example of what will be ww1 engagement, like the whole world was doing at the time they sapped trenches, they tunneled, then they threw hundreds of thousands of infantry men under shells on no man's land. Which is what WW1 is all about.

What's made the russian front a bit more stretched and contested are larger distances leading to offensives and counter-offensives being possible. It's all about size of land and density of soldiers to cover it. This density was way higher on the western front and lacked on the eastern front to have a perfect coverage. Still eastern front is not really the definition of a war of movements (precisely caused it turned for the most part on a war of position).
The hint is the amount of offensive forces and their use, Brusilov force was composed of 60 000 cavalery men but it's fair to say it had almost ten times this number in infantry (more than 600 000). Let's be serious five minutes and let's stop looking at the cavalery (doing btw a poor job overall in this type of war) to focus on what really happened there, infantry charges with bayonets from fixed position to fixed position.

The use of mobility will be followed after WW1 to avoid this bloodshed, the expenditure of artillery shells and these low final results. A quick military campaign to preserve human lives and ressources and gain fast annexation (funny thing of history is use of trenchs was already previously made to protect soldiers despite no man's land). Like Clausewitz previously learned from the napoleonic wars.

I don't really know why persist to speak about mobility when we know the war doctrine of mobility was really thought after WW1 in analysis of its flows. Leading to WW2 and the creation of armored and mecanised and motored divisions. These mobile forces being and that was new the leading destroying forces with clear purpose to do so. Some countries like France not entirely convinced by this new way of doing war learned it in blood in 1940.

 

[hellfish6]

People discussing WW1 forgetting once again that the Eastern front existed and was mobile and no, that doesn't just mean the Brusilov offensive.

Who would buy that? Are you just saying that to make a point? Congratulations, you win the internets.

When has a game about a niche theater ever sold well? SD Normandy was a no-brainer from a marketing perspective, given how important it is in the western mythology of WWII (and the west is by far the largest market). If there's another Steel Division, I expect Market Garden and Battle of the Bulge to be the top two candidates for the same reason - those battles are deeply set into the western audience mindset. Until Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg make a movie that involves battles besides those big three on the western front, it'll be a hard sell to portray any other campaigns even though they might be more interesting or important.

 

[Hidden Gunman]

No it's not, what is a misunderstanding and a misrepresentation would be to understand and represent 1914-1918 as a war of movements when from doctrine to practice the whole use of arms did tend to mostly fight and keep on fixed lines. To say there has been movement is not false. Of course there was. But to analyse WW1 and create a game only about WW1 war movements is precisely the mistake of misunderstanding this era. There was cavalery too in american civil war it doesn't make this war about movement neither and i'm glad Ultimate General Civil War is not about Stuart cavalery.
In the history of war, ww1 build trenches are the continuity of vauban strongholds and are placed in a long continuum to prevent losses due to artillery becoming more and more powerful since the napoleonic wars. Only WW2 destroyed this view to some extent with fast armored divisions. Armor and planes being the new deadly weapons. Even in 1940 the allied infantry divisions were still largely fighting like in WW1 keeping strongholds and going from one line to another which caused their failure. That changed later with the analysis of the 1940's lost campaign.
The destruction of the enemy army to prevent the enemy to create new lines is a new idea (blitzkrieg) from Guderian from Toukhatchevski or people like De Gaulle and Fuller in the 1930's and is representative of WW2, not WW1.
Like WW2 will be too about total surrender and annexations and not like before about giving parts of territory like it was anciently done with duchys since time immemorial.

You didn't even read my original post to put my comment in context. You really do need to read up on WW1, the non-Eurocentric war, specifically.

In relation to your claims regarding mobility in a later post, you seem to be saying that the mobile aspects of war after WW1 were as a result of the trench warfare of that war...is that correct?

P.s. The French didn't actually take a lot of casualties in 1940, just a tip...

 

[Hidden Gunman]

These were, relatively, small campaigns save for potentially the 1918 settings (and I don't know enough about them to say whether you're right or not - I suspect if it was "mobile" it's because the Germans were collapsing). I can't believe a wargame about a couple hundred Germans in East Africa or T.E. Lawrence overrunning demoralized Ottomans in Palestine would be fun or sell anywhere near enough to recoup the investment. I even love the East Africa campaigns in WWI and I'd only buy the game because it's exotic, not because I'd expect a good game out of it.

As I said, read up on it. Lawrence's jamboree with the arabs was a sideshow to distract the Turks...the Brit Empire cavalry carried the weight of the Sinai-Levant war. The 1918 March offensive was actually a german offensive which pushed beyond the trenchlines.

However, the fact is that SD is a tactical level game...you don't have large numbers of troops, but the 'theme' issue is relevant though...

 

[Gilmund]

You didn't even read my original post to put my comment in context. You really do need to read up on WW1, the non-Eurocentric war, specifically.

In relation to your claims regarding mobility in a later post, you seem to be saying that the mobile aspects of war after WW1 were as a result of the trench warfare of that war...is that correct?

P.s. The French didn't actually take a lot of casualties in 1940, just a tip...

I'm saying infantry foot soldier is the basic offensive arm of every nation in 1914-1918 with a training focused on markmanship and bayonet. The new modern weapons granted defensive nations advantages (artillery is the true decisive weapon of ww1). Armies used trenched elastic defense and the wole point was to recreate mobility by taking one position after the other (you create a hole in a line, you force the line to reconstruct and if it's impossible you take land cause the enemy withdraws). Grand tactic didn't really use mobile forces but to support infantry. It's not much the mobile aspect of WW1 is a result of the trench warfare, it is the trench warfare is a result of the use of infantry as main arm and mobile forces were there to support infantry.

Yes but they bled for nothing. The French front collapsed in 1940 cause french were making war with digged infantry divisions strongholds and choke points like in WW1. De Gaulle use of tanks at Moncornet/Abbeville was anecdoctal in the army. In the french forces most other tanks were exactly used to support infantry like in WW1. Real independent armored forces like De Gaulle asked for in his book "Vers l'armée de métier" was not really followed by old school ww1 generals above him. It was a completely new doctrine and solely used on the german side at that time.
Let's add of course in 1940 every infantry division from german to french still had horses for echelons all artillery divs were horse tracked too), what was different on the german side is this new use of panzer divisionen, infantry divisions were not there anymore to make the decision. Panzerdivisionen did had the main role and infantry divisions were there to keep the lines being created. That is what changed.

As I said, read up on it. Lawrence's jamboree with the arabs was a sideshow to distract the Turks...the Brit Empire cavalry carried the weight of the Sinai-Levant war. The 1918 March offensive was actually a german offensive which pushed beyond the trenchlines.

However, the fact is that SD is a tactical level game...you don't have large numbers of troops, but the 'theme' issue is relevant though...

It's not cause there is movement you may caracterize this war about movements and forgetting the way people was doing war back then. Going back to the subject, SD mechanics don't apply much to WW1 cause of it. Wargame is a great genra for WW1 though.
Napoleon did go from France to Moscow, does that make that war mainly about movements ? Absolutely not. Napoleonic battles were about choice of battlefield and superiority of force and position. Never heard inherited cavalery charges from older wars were a definition of mobile war.

As I said, read up on it. Lawrence's jamboree with the arabs was a sideshow to distract the Turks...the Brit Empire cavalry carried the weight of the Sinai-Levant war. The 1918 March offensive was actually a german offensive which pushed beyond the trenchlines.

However, the fact is that SD is a tactical level game...you don't have large numbers of troops, but the 'theme' issue is relevant though...

WW1 war is about pushing over trenchlines and raiding entrenched positions and communication lines. It's not cause you raiding with cavalery or camel you make your war about movements. It's just raiding.
To be back to the Sinai-Levant war, Bir-el-Mazar (1916) is considered a raid, same thing for Maghara Hills.
The battle of Maghaba is about entrenched ottomans fighting british dismounted cavalery forces.
The battle of Rafa is about entrenched ottomans being encircled by cavalery forces.
The battle of Gaza will be a british infantry fight protected with cavalery to avoid ottoman reenforcements. After that fight it will form later a serious entrenched defence from Gaza to Beersheba forming a stalemate from april to october 1917.
And it goes on with other Sinai-Levant battles.
WW1 is not represented about trenchs by mistake, trench is representative of this war cause doctrine did tend to use protected infantry in and out trenchs to make the offensive. If you want historical accuracy, you wouldn't seriously base a ww1 game about movement (except mainly infantry ones between two fixed positions).

 

[IronHead]

Um.. Eastern campaign anyone?

The Rhvez Meatgrinder? The Winter offenses of 1941? Stalingrad?

 

[Gilmund]

Um.. Eastern campaign anyone?

The Rhvez Meatgrinder? The Winter offenses of 1941? Stalingrad?

Yes T-34 in numbers, Kharkov, Kursk, Leningrad, Stalingrad in a grandcampaign Barbarossa would be cool and different.

Who would buy that? Are you just saying that to make a point? Congratulations, you win the internets.

When has a game about a niche theater ever sold well? SD Normandy was a no-brainer from a marketing perspective, given how important it is in the western mythology of WWII (and the west is by far the largest market). If there's another Steel Division, I expect Market Garden and Battle of the Bulge to be the top two candidates for the same reason - those battles are deeply set into the western audience mindset. Until Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg make a movie that involves battles besides those big three on the western front, it'll be a hard sell to portray any other campaigns even though they might be more interesting or important.

Afaik Hanks and Spielberg have worked on the Mighty eighth bombers for a new miniseries around the book Masters of the Air from Don Miller. Expected 2019 or later maybe we'll hear more about it this year.
Band of Memphis Belle's maybe incoming but 2019 is a long shot

 

[hellfish6]

Yes T-34 in numbers, Kharkov, Kursk, Leningrad, Stalingrad in a grandcampaign Barbarossa would be cool and different.



Afaik Hanks and Spielberg have worked on the Mighty eighth bombers for a new miniseries around the book Masters of the Air from Don Miller. Expected 2019 or later maybe we'll hear more about it this year.
Band of Memphis Belle's maybe incoming but 2019 is a long shot

Yeah, and I bet in 2020 we'll see a dozen B-17 games come out. Most will suck, but maybe we'll finally get a worthy successor to Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe...

 

[Hidden Gunman]

I'm saying infantry foot soldier is the basic offensive arm of every nation in 1914-1918 with a training focused on markmanship and bayonet. The new modern weapons granted defensive nations advantages (artillery is the true decisive weapon of ww1). Armies used trenched elastic defense and the wole point was to recreate mobility by taking one position after the other (you create a hole in a line, you force the line to reconstruct and if it's impossible you take land cause the enemy withdraws). Grand tactic didn't really use mobile forces but to support infantry. It's not much the mobile aspect of WW1 is a result of the trench warfare, it is the trench warfare is a result of the use of infantry as main arm and mobile forces were there to support infantry.

Yes but they bled for nothing. The French front collapsed in 1940 cause french were making war with digged infantry divisions strongholds and choke points like in WW1. De Gaulle use of tanks at Moncornet/Abbeville was anecdoctal in the army. In the french forces most other tanks were exactly used to support infantry like in WW1. Real independent armored forces like De Gaulle asked for in his book "Vers l'armée de métier" was not really followed by old school ww1 generals above him. It was a completely new doctrine and solely used on the german side at that time.
Let's add of course in 1940 every infantry division from german to french still had horses for echelons all artillery divs were horse tracked too), what was different on the german side is this new use of panzer divisionen, infantry divisions were not there anymore to make the decision. Panzerdivisionen did had the main role and infantry divisions were there to keep the lines being created. That is what changed.



It's not cause there is movement you may caracterize this war about movements and forgetting the way people was doing war back then. Going back to the subject, SD mechanics don't apply much to WW1 cause of it. Wargame is a great genra for WW1 though.
Napoleon did go from France to Moscow, does that make that war mainly about movements ? Absolutely not. Napoleonic battles were about choice of battlefield and superiority of force and position. Never heard inherited cavalery charges from older wars were a definition of mobile war.



WW1 war is about pushing over trenchlines and raiding entrenched positions and communication lines. It's not cause you raiding with cavalery or camel you make your war about movements. It's just raiding.
To be back to the Sinai-Levant war, Bir-el-Mazar (1916) is considered a raid, same thing for Maghara Hills.
The battle of Maghaba is about entrenched ottomans fighting british dismounted cavalery forces.
The battle of Rafa is about entrenched ottomans being encircled by cavalery forces.
The battle of Gaza will be a british infantry fight protected with cavalery to avoid ottoman reenforcements. After that fight it will form later a serious entrenched defence from Gaza to Beersheba forming a stalemate from april to october 1917.
And it goes on with other Sinai-Levant battles.
WW1 is not represented about trenchs by mistake, trench is representative of this war cause doctrine did tend to use protected infantry in and out trenchs to make the offensive. If you want historical accuracy, you wouldn't seriously base a ww1 game about movement (except mainly infantry ones between two fixed positions).

I think you are jumping to a lot of conclusions on a very shallow understanding of events across a wide range of matters.

You're also cherry picking situations to support your point...no comment on the 1918 offensive in the Levant? No comment on the two weeks of cavalry actions wearing down the Turkish push towards the Canal?

Just for the sake of pointing it out, the cavalry had already taken Gaza in the first battle, but were ordered out by a commander who was too far away to know what was happening...that's what created the need for the second battle.