Lack of Russian front ASL and other musings

[Anonymous]

This is more an observation than invitation to reply – though reply is welcomed. :)
Being the geek that I am, I’ve analyzed the following information from just the official list of ASL scenarios (this is slightly old but still relevant):
- 24% of scenarios are Russian front
- 62% of scenarios are Western front (includes Mediterranean, Balkans)
- 14% of scenarios are PTO
- Boards, 4, 2, 3, 5, 16 respectively are the 5 most frequently used geoboards
- Board 4 is used proportionately much more often in Russian front than other fronts
- PTO has the least variety of boards in those scenarios, followed by Eastern Front and Western front respectively.

One general set of conclusions is that the Russian front has been overlooked in terms of both scenario design and geoboard design. Why? Not sure exactly why the lack of scenarios but believe it’s because there is a relative lack of historical narrative readily available to scenario designers. The lack of board design to date is because ASL boards tend towards having more than less terrain on them in order to facilitate the mechanics of the game (LOS hindrance / TEM / Routing / hide-n-seek stuff). Should we be moving eastward in our design?

[Chas Argent]

Wow, if your stats are accurate, that is amazing; I've always felt there was too much East Front in ASL!

[Jazz]

Wow, if your stats are accurate, that is amazing; I've always felt there was too much East Front in ASL!

When you consider how long the fighting went on continuously and how many troops were involved compared to the other fronts, the ratios should be reversed.

I think a lot of that is an outgrowth of the fact that only the original module scenarios were used in this calculation (were Annual and General scenarios included?)? Beyond Valor was the only "Eastern Front" module where the Western front had GI, WOA, CDG. Each had "around" the same number of scenarios.

I suspect that if one were to go to ROAR and do the same puch-ups, there would be a lot more East Front stuff.

[Brian W]

When you consider how long the fighting went on continuously and how many troops were involved compared to the other fronts, the ratios should be reversed.
Far reversed; something like 90% of German army deaths occured on the "Eastern" front.

The PTO is probably over-covered with 14%. For example, while the Germans and USSR were almost constantly engaged for nearly 4 years, ground fighting in the PTO was much more that of position punctuated by short periods of extreme violence. Of course there were periods of strategic quiescence during the GPW, but even those periods generated fantastic casualties. Even in China, much of the period after 1941 was relatively quite (I would hazard a guess that there was more Chinese vs. Chinese fighting than Japanese vs. Chinese fighting during most of the war).

[Brian W]

I've always felt there was too much East Front in ASL!
A lot of people feel this way. Strangely enough, there is also a belief that late-war German/Soviet sceanrios are the "norm" while the mid- and early-war stuff is missing. Long ago I ran some numbers in a rather unscientific way (I took official ASL stuff IIRC) and came out to something like 10% for early war stuff, 60% for 1942-1943, and 30% 1944-1945. However, I do think that the numbers are a bit skewed due to the emphasis on Stalingrad in ASL.

I do not know the reason. Honestly, I am surprised. There has always seemed to me a pro-German bias in the hobby, and the myth of the German superman is best experienced on the "Eastern" front. So, I hope that means I am wrong and that people like the "West" front because of the nationalities are more sympathetic than the USSR.

[Anonymous]

Per Chas: I think a lot of that is an outgrowth of the fact that only the original module scenarios were used in this calculation (were Annual and General scenarios included?)

I used all AH/MMP modules, General, Journal, Annual scenarios - 259 in total. I'll do a complete total using third party (except CH! :P) also which should be interesting - at least for me... :wink:

I hope to encourage more Eastern front scenario development - there are so many unexplored battles there.

[Chris Milne]

I've always suspected that it's a situation that has arisen from the comparative ease of getting solid info on the Western Allies' actions. There are a few well-covered big battles on the Eastern Front, but nowhere near as many unit histories, particularly from the Soviet pov.

Just look at what has happened to the Finns now that Tuomo et al have gone direct to Finnish sources...

[asloser]

Just look at what has happened to the Finns now that Tuomo et al have gone direct to Finnish sources...

Don't look yet. It is not Finished yet, it has just been submitted few weeks ago. :D
When desingning the Finnish scenarios I'd love to get some info from the Russian perspective too. Unfortunately that is hard to come by so almost everything will be described from the Finnish viewpoint only.

[Chris Milne]

Well, I'm not a big fan of the Finnish scenarios that currently exist, so I'm looking forward to HP...

[Anonymous]

As an update to my other post, I've looked again - now at 388 Official MMP (and also at 188 Third Party) scenarios to determine:
1. Which Geoboards are used most frequently by designers
2. Which Front (Russian, Western PTO) is covered most frequently

Results (1986-2004):
MMP Scenarios:
4,2,3,5,17 geoboards in order of frequency used by designers
Western (62%), Russian (22%), PTO (16%) in order of fronts most frequently designed
Third Party Scenarios:
2,11,18,33,4
Western (62%), Russian (26%), PTO (12%) Similar to MMP.
A couple other interesting observations:

- From 1998 to 2003, the boards that have seen the most increased use (MMP): 4,2,3,5,17. Looks like designers keep using the old boards vs. using more recently designed boards.
- Least used boards of all time (1% or less out of total): 47,30,14
- Overlays are used in approximately 27% of all scenarios published by MMP, and 11% by 3Parties. Not bad - more than I thought.
The biggest piece of interesting information to jump out is again, the lack of Russian Front scenarios (22-26%) and the limited number of boards used for that front as compared to the Western Front (25 out of 52 boards are either used once or not at all for Russian theater, compared with 9 of 52 for the Western theater). (MMP)
Scenario designers - take note - Let's get going on some Russian Front stuff!. :D And I'll work on some new overlays..

I just ran the numbers for all 108 Schwerpunkt scenarios and Don's figures arre dead on for us too.

Russian Front: 23%
ETO: 62%
PTO: 14%

The reason for these figures are simple. Scenario topics are directly related to the sources available. There are more English language sources available to us for ETO.

Most of our Russian Front material is based upon German sources that have been translated. More and more of these that include Eastern Front material are becoming available. As we find more information on the Eastern Front, we'll print it.

Looking at my playtest book, I count 9 Eastern Front scenarios that are up for consideration for print in Schwerpunkt Volumes 10 and 11. If we print them all, that will raise the Russian Front average to 37% for those two issues.

[Anonymous]

Evan,
Thanks for the backup - pretty consistant all around. Yes, more historical reference materials on the Eastern are becoming available. David Glantz's translations help. Nice to hear you're doing your part in upping the Eastern front scenarios :)
The other possible reason for a lack of Russian front scenarios is that designers do not have 'Russian' looking boards to work with. This is backed up by the fact that the Russian scenarios use a comparatively (to Western front) less variety of geoboards as well. It was on this knowledge in part that I prepared my latest 3 Russian looking boards. Once they're published, hopefully that will stimulate more Russian front scenarios. There should be yet even more very open looking boards.

[Anonymous]

More boards will definitely help. If you make the boards I'm sure designers will make scenarios on them for all of us to enjoy.

[Pitman]

I don't know why one would limit the tallying to official scenarios. If one looks at all scenarios, I feel confident that one would come up with a preponderance of East Front action--alas.

Also, the way Don Petros defined "west front", as including Scandanavia, the 1940 campaign, the Mediterranean, and the Balkans, seems to me to greatly skew the numbers.

In any case, it is the PTO which clearly gets the short shrift...

[Brian W]

In any case, it is the PTO which clearly gets the short shrift...

How so?

[Brian W]

EDIT: I changed the number of British scenarios to include Canadians as well.


I don't know why one would limit the tallying to official scenarios. If one looks at all scenarios, I feel confident that one would come up with a preponderance of East Front action--alas.
First, why "alas"? Second, if you look at the CoW and simply search for nationality types you come up with the following numbers:
Total Russian scenarios 577
Total American Scenarios 738
Total British Scenairos 492
Total Japanese Scenairos 354

If you add up the British/Canadian and American scenarios (1230) and subtract from that all Japanese scenarios you get an approximate number of "West" Front (876). This does not include French scenarios, but does include MTO sceanrios. Even if you took that number and cut it in half, you still get 438 "West" front scenarios.

For purposes of comparison, let us call most of the Russian Scenairos as "east" front, with only a small percentage being Polish/Japanese/Finnish. Let us just round to 550 "Russian" scenarios, which represent the bulk of the "East" front scenarios.

Now consider the amount of fighting between the two fronts. The bulk happened on the "East" front, at the very least by casualty rates alone if not for the percentage of troops involved. So, being very conservative with the definition of "West" Front scenarios, we estimate that the ratio of "East" front scenarios to "West" front scenarios is 55.6% (550/(550+438)). Hardly a perponderance of "East" front scenarios, and still less than the actual percentage of fighting compared between the two fronts.


In any case, it is the PTO which clearly gets the short shrift...

With 577 Soviet Scenarios against 354 Japanese scenarios, and considering the differences in active combat operations in the GPW vs. the PTO the Japanese appear to be over-represented.

[Anonymous]

Pitman writes: 'I don't know why one would limit the tallying to official scenarios. If one looks at all scenarios, I feel confident that one would come up with a preponderance of East Front action--alas'

Pitman - you can read my previous text where I mention that the study also includes Third Party scenarios - 188 of them. Note also that Evan Sherry -publisher of the successful Schwehrpunkt scenarios - confirms the percentages. We may not have *every* scenario counted - but the vast majority nevertheless.

As for the inclusion of Mediterranean and North African scenarios in the 'Western' category - you may have a better argument. However still, in each of these minor sub-categories we see the same combatants - German / British / Italian / American / Polish. Pull them out and you'll still have a big variance.

The point to be made by these stats that I've assembled is that the Russian front, which was arguably the most significant front of WWII, is relatively underepresented by ASL. Slice it how you want - you will see this is true. The stats show that not only are there relatively fewer scenarios, but also a less variety of terrain is used (which is my primary focus) for these Russian scenarios. Designers, including me, may take it as they wish. I choose to think that these stats suggest that we need more Russian looking terrain which I hope will encourage scenario designers to design more Russian scenarios. Face it, we need to look deeper into WWII to see what hasn't been covered very well and focus on that if we want to keep producing more ASL stuff that is fresh and interesting.

As for PTO - sure, this is the most underepresented of all theaters, but not relatively so unless you want to count the Chinese mainland actions. But ASL PTO is limited in many respects - interest level, abscence of combined arms, lack of city fighting, etc.. Room to grow here, but not compared to Eastern front IMO.

[AdrianE]

The most significant factor is the availability of sources IMO. Others have discussed that.

The other issue to consider is the audience and the designers. The vast majority of the ASL community is western. Consequently our collective interest is going to have a 'western' focus. Our collective interest will tend to influence the scenarios that get published.

Adrian

[da priest]

Why has no-one considered the gamers and their evolution within the Game?

Here's some thoughts with some WAGs.

40-60% of the ASLers still in the Game started with SL/COI, another 10-20% started with BV.

SL/COI and BV had a plethora of Russ v. Ger. Scenarios, that we played multiple times.

We're sick of Russ. v Ger. scenarios... :twisted:

[Anonymous]

That we designers/players are somewhat, to borrow the term, ethnocentric because we are from the West and design and play games with a Western theme may have a bit of truth to it. But I think that once we figure this out we have no excuse to remain insulated like that. All the more reason to move on to the East. :)
And as for Ron's comment that we veterans of SL who make up the vast majority of ASL players are tired of playing Rus vs. German, well, that's a lot of rubbish because it's wholly unsubstantiated. That may be you, but please don't presume to represent us guys who have been playing since day 1. :wink: Real men like the Russian front.

[Chas Argent]

Why has no-one considered the gamers and their evolution within the Game?

SL/COI and BV had a plethora of Russ v. Ger. Scenarios, that we played multiple times.

We're sick of Russ. v Ger. scenarios... :twisted:

I think this is partially why my initial reaction to Don's figures was what it was: from the very beginning of my Squad Leader days it seemed like Russian vs Germs was the name of the game. I dunno, maybe I'm incorrectly biased because of that history...

[Anonymous]

Chas says "I think this is partially why my initial reaction to Don's figures was what it was: from the very beginning of my Squad Leader days it seemed like Russian vs Germs was the name of the game. I dunno, maybe I'm incorrectly biased because of that history...'

OK, maybe I'm being a bit harsh on the older guys here who have a skewed vision that we have too much Russian front stuff... I can also remember PanzerBlitz, COI, and early ASL (BV, SoF) which only had Russian/German battles.. so I guess I can see where this comes from.
So, my apologies. Nevertheless, if you still doubt these pro-Western stat results, do your own little survey of your own scenarios and see what you come up with - I think you'll change your minds.

[kdalton]

I presume the Balkans means all the pre-Red Army comes a calling stuff.

Also, the Russian Front will get more coverage from MMP as Valor of the Guards, Armies of Oblivion, REd OCtober, all debut.

After that we have the Budapest HASL and Ponyri. Lots of stuff in the pipeline.

[Anonymous]

Yes, the Western stats including the Balkans means pre-Russians - incl. Polish, Yugoslav, Romania, Greece. The Russian front means only Russian OB stuff.

As for future Russian front HASL releases - I'm as glad as anyone here and have been involved a lot with them. Same with AoO.

My point about a lack of Russian front scenarios addresses something different than your answer trys to do. What I am saying is that the ordinary, non-HASL scenarios and geoboards are lacking - and for specific reasons. Research on Russian front battles can be very challenging which deters most designers. Trust me, the research required on Stalingrad scenarios that Charlie Kibler and Tom Morin have done was extensive, thorough, and difficult in spite of the fact that the historical resource materials for the battle for Stalingrad were relatively ample compared to information about the other Russian front battles. Finding information on Ponyri is hugely challenging too - much more than for Stalingrad. Once we find this stuff, it's like finding burried treasure naturally. But it's very challenging and a whole lot different than going to the library and looking up the battles for Huertgen Forrest. Finding research materials for those comparative low-mid profile Russian battles is a whole different animal.

Geoboards that look very little like mother Russia are not available for other reasons. Again, mainly this is due to designing to the dynamics of ASL with it's TEM / LOS cat-mouse play, which coincidentally lends itself better to Western European fighting. We know what Russia looked like, so it would not be hard to design maps for it.

Put all this together and the net result I believe is that we have fewer Russian front scenarios than are historically representative of 'the real WWII'. Now that we've covered just about everything to death in the West, we can take solace in the fact that there's still a lot more to do ASLwise on the Russian front IMO. :D We just need to all dig a little deeper.

[Pitman]

Don, in a previous posting, you complained that the Russian front, the most important front in World War II, seemed underrepresented.

But I don't see how you know that. You are not comparing the Russian front to other fronts, you basically are comparing the Russian front to other THEATERS, all of which contained multiple fronts.

For example, you just use "PTO," which includes the Sino-Japanese front, the Burma-India front, the Southwest pacific front, and the central pacific front.

[Chas Argent]

OK, maybe I'm being a bit harsh on the older guys...

Older?? Heck, I'm only 39. Now RON, HE'S older :lol:

[Anonymous]

Pitman,
This may help explain my point. I am comparing scenarios & boards used from the 3 following categories;
1. Russian front: those scenarios that include Russian OB
2. Western theater: Western Europe (incl. Poland, Yugo, Greece, Italy, France, Germany, Belgium, N.Africa)
3. PTO: includes only Japanese OB scenarios
I consider these to be 3 Major and separate categories of scenarios due mainly to Nationality types distictions.
Granted, the Western Theater is a large one. It might be worthy of breaking down into sub-categories - esp. regarding N.Africa, for specific reasons but was not broken down because:
- N.African scenarios are few in number
- N.Africa is distinguished only because of it's unique terrain
- Western scenario combatants are limited to European nations
With the exception of N.Africa, there seemed to be more similarities than distinct differences amongst these Western scenarios. This is open to debate, but...
The results of my survey are significant IMO perhaps not because of what it shows or doesn't show about the similarity or variety (again which I think leans more towards the similarity) of Western scenarios and boards. What is interesting is what it shows about the relative lack of Russian specific OB scenarios and Russian looking terrain types that represented proportionately so much of the fighting of WWII. (Someone out there may know what % of the fighting, in terms of units deployed & casualties suffered, in WWII which took place in the Soviet Union between German and Soviet forces compared to all other fronts combined. I believe it was about 70%.) I think this is not debatable.
And I do understand this is just a game - -but heck, I like to think that we are trying to be somehow 'faithful' to our history... :wink:

[da priest]

OK, maybe I'm being a bit harsh on the older guys...

Older?? Heck, I'm only 39. Now RON, HE'S older :lol:

I will follow you from forum to forum, I will prevail! Just slow down a little so I can keep up kid... :P