The City Fight

[dxdavieau]

Hi Vince, Thanks for weighing in. It’s been a real boon getting feedback from of all you guys who are more experienced PzGers than me.
I’m in the process now of trying the attack using standard PzG. But there are still major concerns. An attack on a 200m frontage can still only be 1 company forward regardless of the size, condition, or doctrine of the attacking unit. In WW2 city fighting, 200-250m was the normal battalion attack frontage & we still can only ram in one company at a time, less if we want armor support. I’m convinced more than ever that the stacking limit needs to be up’ed for urban combat. Let the players decide when the increasing penalty for overstacking becomes too much. I’m figuring +1 for 3 CU, +2 for 6, just like Infantry Attacks.
I’m certainly not using ASL as a reality check, only as a comparison of a game depicting this same fight. ASL is quite far from reality, that’s what got me into PzG in the first place. I’m mostly pulling data & accounts from Glantz’s book. (Glantz, incidentally, puts 305 ID at nearly full strength during the opening of the RB attack).
Time & scenario length; I’m thinking if the players lose morale/steps lost, It might be all they need to decide when the boys have had enough. Allowing morale to recover during lull’s in the fighting might be a good way to structure a campaign…..
As for certain hexes being ‘no retreats’; I like it from a historical POV, but allowing the Russian to allocate/decide where to fortify will give them some decisions to make and add flexibility to their defense.
As I’ve mentioned; I’m considering -3 for urban, -4 industrial & -1 more if fortified. In testing it works well. 2 adjacent stacks of germans can generate A lot of DF & I’m seeing many demoralized Russians after the first Preparation fire.
I like ending the scenario with units still in assault. I think that’s very “Stalingrad”.
I really don’t want to get into levels in the city. One of the joys of PzG (over ASL) is getting away from the zoomed in level of detail. I like how in PzG I can have cavalry & motorcycles & skis & not have to worry about when/how these guys get on & off of them. I like backing off & abstracting a little. I think a higher terrain height & increased spotting range will do nicely.
It seems most of you fellows don’t like the idea of increased stacking but I find it’s not so onerous. Infantry Attacks handles it well. The assaults are bigger but as the results apply to everyone it doesn’t bog. At least that’s not been my experience.
I’m looking forward to trying this out on other city fights like Manila, Ortona, Arnhem, Nuremburg, Kharkov, Budapest, Warsaw, ChangSha & Aachen…..etc. If we can nail this down (& perhaps get AP interested) it opens up so many possibilities……