10% rule on supply hits

[Ron Saueracker]

Losing 10% of ones supply on each hit is a killer. Perhaps this should be more in the line of 1 or 2%? Maybe with a chance of a critical hit have this go up, but as it is now a few bloody medium bombers can lay strategic waste to supply.

Speaking of aircraft effectiveness. I have concluded that aircraft are overrated vs land targets. Or atthe least, artillery is underated. Individual squadrons of twin engined bombers do better against LCUs than massed artillery.

Thoughts?

[madflava13]

I agree completely with regards to the supply loss. There's no way a squadron of Blenheims should be able to bomb out an entire base's supply unless, as you said, there's some sort of critical hit - perhaps to simulate a hit on an ammo dump...

[wobbly]

Completely agree with the supply destruction call. The critical hit is a good idea as well otherwise large bases could never be starved.

[Nikademus]

While an argument can be made for the 10% rule being too generous, it is also needed as a balance factor due to the abstracted nature of supply points and the ease in which those points are delivered to bases. It is already pretty hard right now to truely lay "siege" to one because of this. Players tend to super-stuff bases with supply as is, so combined with the spoilage rule it helps keep things more reasonable. Make it harder to deliver supply points and then perhaps one could look at the 10% rule and not worry about unbalancing the game.

LBA is overeffective against LCU's. A pair of BG's of twin engined bombers can mean the difference between fighting a 14 day campaign and a 90 day campaign, even if that LCU is in jungle terrain and heavily fortified. This is mainly due to the disruption that is caused which is the #1 factor in LCU combat. However once again, a solution or 'change' is not so simple as it might appear. Airpower has one weakness, it can only attack on LCU at a time so if you have a hex with 6 strong LCU's in it, each turn only one will get hit. In UV this caused a problem because only one LCU (sometimes only a week ENG type unit) would get hit leaving all the others untouched. This is now been changed so that the strongest LCU tends to get hit and the target will adjust as this value changes.

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

While an argument can be made for the 10% rule being too generous, it is also needed as a balance factor due to the abstracted nature of supply points and the ease in which those points are delivered to bases. It is already pretty hard right now to truely lay "siege" to one because of this. Players tend to super-stuff bases with supply as is, so combined with the spoilage rule it helps keep things more reasonable. Make it harder to deliver supply points and then perhaps one could look at the 10% rule and not worry about unbalancing the game.

LBA is overeffective against LCU's. A pair of BG's of twin engined bombers can mean the difference between fighting a 14 day campaign and a 90 day campaign, even if that LCU is in jungle terrain and heavily fortified. This is mainly due to the disruption that is caused which is the #1 factor in LCU combat. However once again, a solution or 'change' is not so simple as it might appear. Airpower has one weakness, it can only attack on LCU at a time so if you have a hex with 6 strong LCU's in it, each turn only one will get hit. In UV this caused a problem because only one LCU (sometimes only a week ENG type unit) would get hit leaving all the others untouched. This is now been changed so that the strongest LCU tends to get hit and the target will adjust as this value changes.

I'm just trying to figure out how the hell Bataan, as an example, can be made to support a siege into May, 42. Comes down to supply and LBA basically wipes it out as if supply was stored in big Wallmarts, or more appropriately, Target box stores. Of course, Japanese commitment levels play a major role here, but in all my games, supply runs out in January vs a PBEM opponent.

As for aircraft being over effective vs LCUs, if too much disruption is caused, why not tone it down? Land combat is generally too rapid so anything to bring it down to some sort of realistic pace would seem important.

Regarding the shortcomings of the supply system, if players tend to overstuff bases to unrealistic levels, why not add a base supply/fuel storage limit as has been suggested many times in the past. Simply allowing supply to be blown up in greater amounts seems a weird solution to otherwise unlimited supply. The spoilage aspect is fine, but bases which grow to a cumulative base size of 10 can just stuff it in. Perhaps increase the supply costs of units or reduce the lift capacity of shipping.

[mogami]

Hi, It is not 10 percent it is .1 for each hit.

Example
1000 supply
first hit destroys 10 supply leaving 990
second hit destroys 10 supply leaving 980
third hit destroys 10 supply leaving 970
960 950 and so on. now at 900 hit destroys 9 supply

So base that has 1000 supply and is hit by 11 hits has 891 left. Ten percent would have destroyed 100 (leaving 900) 90 (leaving 810) 81 (leaving 729) 73 (leaving 656) 66 (leaving 590) 59 (leaving 531) 53 (leaving 478) 48 (leaving 430) 43 (leaving 387) 39 (leaving 348) 35 (leaving 313)

[dtravel]

1 percent (1%) equals 0.01

10 percent (10%) equals 0.1

[;)]

[madflava13]

We're grognards, not mathmaticians...[8D]

I think the LCU effects should be diminished as well.. Those Sallys are killers early on.

[moses]

I've tested this a month or so ago. It is definately NOT 1%. It may not be 10 % as there appear to be other factors involved. It is however certainly in the range of 5 to 15 % per supply hit.

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker


I'm just trying to figure out how the hell Bataan, as an example, can be made to support a siege into May, 42. Comes down to supply and LBA basically wipes it out as if supply was stored in big Wallmarts, or more appropriately, Target box stores. Of course, Japanese commitment levels play a major role here, but in all my games, supply runs out in January vs a PBEM opponent.

Bataan held out till May primarily due to the fact that the defenders there outnumbered the attackers initally by 2:1. No Japanese player is going to repeat this boo boo. Far greater force levels are the primary reason why Bataan never holds out much past Febuary or March. It does provide for a good example though. So many LCU's.....1 air attack per turn (ground attack) cant get them all by a long shot. Were supply to be made too resiliant....the attacker would never be able to take a position with so many troops concentrated. There is talk of increasing the Bataan fort level at start however.

As for aircraft being over effective vs LCUs, if too much disruption is caused, why not tone it down? Land combat is generally too rapid so anything to bring it down to some sort of realistic pace would seem important.

Because of the problem i highlighted during my tests. Aircraft in ground attack role is not super flexible and can only attack one LCU in a hex per turn. Problem was paritally aveiliated by tweaking the code to always attack the LCU with the strongest value...so target will now shift. Against a target with but one strong LCU (such as the famous Hong Kong example, or my Buna/Gona test) aircraft can have an overweighted effect. Against a hex with multiple strong LCU's.....things get stickier and air attack values more anemic. You might blast the sheeit out of one LCU but that leaves the others sitting pretty waiting to cause mass casualties. I've had a theory on this i havn't had time to test. Maybe you can in your spare time. Take a Division LCU, put it in a jungle hex, set up attackers and a minimum of two BG's (twin engine). Use the airpower on ground and see how long it takes to assault the base successfully. Then reload the test, only this time divide the LCU into three regimental components, and replay. Compare time of base taking betweenst the two. I'm thinking it will be fairly different in timescale.

Regarding the shortcomings of the supply system, if players tend to overstuff bases to unrealistic levels, why not add a base supply/fuel storage limit as has been suggested many times in the past. Simply allowing supply to be blown up in greater amounts seems a weird solution to otherwise unlimited supply. The spoilage aspect is fine, but bases which grow to a cumulative base size of 10 can just stuff it in. Perhaps increase the supply costs of units or reduce the lift capacity of shipping.

I have an easier solution. Make it so that supply and fuel pointage (as well as troopage) can be substantially damaged (i.e. reduced) per hit on a loaded merchant. You may recall that option on the poll [;)] My playtest AAR with Kid provided a most excellent example of the difficulty in the game of laying "siege" to a base. Kid took Tarawa on an impulse and stuffed a whole INF division on the base. He then proceeded to "run the guantlet" and push through transport TF's. I kept hitting his TF's (some of the them at least) but the best part came when i showed up and caught one that had docked and was unloading. I couldn't stop them. Only by fully sinking the transports could i stop the flow of supplies from ship to base. Against Allies especially (USN Damage control bonus) you know how difficult it can be to put a ship at 100% FLT damage quickly. Even a 99% SYS damage transport can fully unload supplies (ALL of it's supplies) at normal rates.
How successful? at game end, we were able to peak. Tarawa had something like 60000+ supplies!!! No amount of minor/moderate airfield/port attacks with a few "supply hits" was going to quickly make that nest egg go away.
Either side can benefit from this quirk. Try reproducing the "Siege" of Lunga, you'll see.

Hi, It is not 10 percent it is .1 for each hit.

.1 = 10%

[mogami]

Hi, OK (DUH) it is .01 then. It is not 10 percent. Don't forget to subtract the supply the base uses to repair, construct, feed, arm, fuel per turn as well as what is destroyed per bomb hit. Also if port+airfield less then 10 then spoilage occurs.

[Nikademus]

I dont believe that is the case but i was unable to find reference in the manual.

[freeboy]

Hi, OK (DUH) it is .01 then. It is not 10 percent

Mog-man did you mean 1 %??? .01 sometimes is one hundredth of a percent?

[moses]

Tested this head to head with FOW off. I evacuated tulagi of all aircraft and waited a couple turns for any short term supply effects to level out. All jp aircraft were stood down and all TF's were disbanded. Then I bombed it for weeks with heavy bombers. I accounted for all supply in the hex including that held by individual units.

It is definately more than a 1 % supply loss per supply hit. I was unable to nail down a specific percentage. I had assumed it would be around 10 % as in UV but there appear to be other factors involved or maybe some random factors in the formula. However I can guarantee that it was more then 1%. I never saw less then a 5% reduction per hit and often saw losses that exceded 10 % per supply hit.

The test is easy to reproduce.

[freeboy]

thank you moses

[mogami]

ORIGINAL: moses

Tested this head to head with FOW off. I evacuated tulagi of all aircraft and waited a couple turns for any short term supply effects to level out. All jp aircraft were stood down and all TF's were disbanded. Then I bombed it for weeks with heavy bombers. I accounted for all supply in the hex including that held by individual units.

It is definately more than a 1 % supply loss per supply hit. I was unable to nail down a specific percentage. I had assumed it would be around 10 % as in UV but there appear to be other factors involved or maybe some random factors in the formula. However I can guarantee that it was more then 1%. I never saw less then a 5% reduction per hit and often saw losses that exceded 10 % per supply hit.

The test is easy to reproduce.

Hi, It would be interesting to see the results per turn. I am going to set up a test myself when I get caught up with other matters.
Tulagi should lose supply/fuel everyturn even with no units present (it is under 10 combined port+airfield)

I will post exact numbers soon.

Starting supply- number of hits- remaining supply (supply at start of following turn)
This after running a few turns of simply starting supply-supply at start of following turn.

[dtravel]

ORIGINAL: freeboy

Hi, OK (DUH) it is .01 then. It is not 10 percent

Mog-man did you mean 1 %??? .01 sometimes is one hundredth of a percent?

10% = 0.1

1% = 0.01

0.1% = 0.001

etc.

The presence or lack of the '%' symbol is important. ".01" only means one one-hundredth of a percent if you actually put that percentage sign after it. [:'(]

[mogami]

Hi, It is less then 5 percent.

Starting supply 8198 supply next turn no bombing 7917 or 281 supply used/lost to spoilage

Starting supply 8198 supply next turn 2 hits on supply 7556 or 642 supply used/spoiled/destroyed by bombing

642-281 (normal reduction)=361 supply destroyed by bombing or 4.5 percent of supply (7917 supply used as target since 281 is going to be consumed)divided by 2 hits would be approx 2.25 percent per hit. (also I don't know how much supply was consumed repairing the bomb damage. )

7917 minus 2.25 percent first bomb hit=7738 minus 2.25 percent 2nd bomb hit=7564

So the max bomb damage here was 2.25 percent per hit assuming no supply was consumed repairing damage and I am certain some of the supply was used for repair.

But it was not 10 percent and less then 3 percent per hit.

Damage to fuel present was much higher then damage to supply. There were 2 hits on fuel and this destroyed 32.2 percent of fuel present.

[Oznoyng]

The likelihood of supply loss should be tied to the fortification level of the base. If I heavily fortify a base, I should see the benefits of that in sharply reduced supply hits. Instead of hitting a corrugated metal warehouse filled with ammo at level 0, I am trying to hit a multiple concrete reinforced bunkers at level 9.

[dtravel]

According to the manual, the size of the base has an effect on how much damage is done by runway, port and support hits. Does base size have any effect on how much damage is done by supply hits?