Random Generator?

[hawk66]

Hi,

will there be a random generator (map/scenario?)...if not is that feature planned in one of your next games?
BTW: will we ever see a modern variant of the engine?

Thanks a lot!

[Arjuna]

No, there won't be a random scenario or map generator. Yes, it is on the wish list but it is unlikely to make the next title.
 
Re Modern version. Short answer is yes. As to when well that all depends on developments that are taking place right now, which I am not at liberty to discuss. I realise that's not definitive but that will have to do for now.[:)]

[John21b]

ahhhhh, a modern version, my dream come true.......[:)]

[Rebel Yell]

Indeed.

[killroyishere]

No random generator? By todays standards that's like not adding multiplayer elements to a game. Most everything comes with multiplayer and random something or others.
 
signed disappointed

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: killroyishere

No random generator? By todays standards that's like not adding multiplayer elements to a game. Most everything comes with multiplayer and random something or others.

signed disappointed

Why on earth would anyone designing a game depicting historical battles and campaigns want to include a random generator? Completely oxymoronic.

[BigDuke66]

For such a game it would be totally useless.

[RayWolfe]

I suspect kilroyishere used a random message generator and then pressed the send button by mistake. So let's forgive him on his 11th post.
I wonder what the other 10 were about? [:'(]

[Crimguy]

Random Generator - I've had other games with them and rarely used it.  Novelty for when I'm really bored, nothing more.

Modern version, though:  I'd love to see a Mideast '67/73 version of this engine.  I think it could capture the Sinai battles particularly well.

[dogancan]

I would really love to see the same game concept in modern war theathre, though I am suspicious about its capability to reflect the nature and problems of modern warfare considering the importance of air assets in modern warfare and their highly abstract representation in CotA. I checked Flashpoint Germany but did not really like it...
 
ohh on the random generator thing, I would love to have a random game generator for AA which will generate different games in different ages. Imagine that you find yourself in the middle of a warfare in neolithic age mesopotamia when you click the geneator, and in your next try, you may fight fot the whole galaxy. yeah, I really want to see a random generator... [:D]
 
 

[Banquet]

Well I really would like to see a random battle generator for these games.

Some system where we could pick a map, choose the total amount of points available, pick our units based on their points cost and deploy them on the map. The AI side would do the same, and the game would begin!

I realise a big draw of the AA games is their historical scenerio's, but the downside to this is the finite number available. With AA the battles are so good, and strong enough to be replayed, but a random generator would still extend the replayability.

I also think there is a lot of depth and flexability in the AA engine that we don't necessarily get to see in the scenarios available. We can of course create our own from scratch, but that is very time consuming. A random generator similar to the one in Steel Panthers, but limited to what's available in the game would give us a great way of trying out some of the oob (and our idea's) in different situations.

You could also make each release modular so that if you owned HTTR, COTA and BFTB, any of the maps and units could be picked. This would reward players who bought each game by expanding their options to mix and match units and maps.

I'm glad to hear it's on the wish list, but do realise it's not something that's going to happen soon. I can't really understand, though, why people are writing it off as such a stupid idea.. [&:]

[Hertston]

ORIGINAL: BigDuke66

For such a game it would be totally useless.

I tend to agree. The scenarios in both CotA and HttR are meticulously designed and researched... and there are plenty of them. A random generator isn't worth the time, IMHO. except possibly for a 'modern' game where there is less historical stuff to work with, but even then I have my doubts. I'd far rather it shipped, if we ever see it, with a really user-friendly set of map and scenario design tools.

[simovitch]

ORIGINAL: Hertston

I'd far rather it shipped, if we ever see it, with a really user-friendly set of map and scenario design tools.

Unfortunately BFTB will be delayed even further, as next week Arjuna will be touring the Belgian Ardennes with my brother and me and 6 other wargamers on our Bi-annual "Band of Gamers" tour. [:D]

He also doing a mini pre-tour of Market Garden but the members on that tour might be top-secret information.[:-]

[sterckxe]

ORIGINAL: simovitch
He also doing a mini pre-tour of Market Garden but the members on that tour might be top-secret information.[:-]

Well, officially it’s a gathering of the Secret Society of Wargaming Gentlemen – a.k.a. the Panther Games beta bunnies - but ever since they made me a member it has gone downhill quickly, so there’s not much sense in keeping it secret anymore.

I’ll post some pictures after the mini-tour on which observant people might spot forum critters like “Tukker”, “Grouchy”, “Final_Drive” , “JeF” and me and of course also industry people like Viktor Reijkersz (developer Advanced Tactics) , Marc von Martial (Matrix Games) and of course our Leader and Generalissimo Dave O’Connor – Big Boss of Panther Games.

Provided we survive the drop into Arnhem and can extricate ourselves back across the Rhine of course.

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

[Banquet]

Hope you guys have a great time

Glad you're taking pics, will look forward to seeing them.

[GoodGuy]

ORIGINAL: simovitch

Unfortunately BFTB will be delayed even further, as next week Arjuna will be touring the Belgian Ardennes with my brother and me and 6 other wargamers on our Bi-annual "Band of Gamers" tour. [:D]

ORIGINAL: simovitch

Unfortunately BFTB will be delayed even further, as next week Arjuna will be touring the Belgian Ardennes .......

You guys should visit one or another war museum in Hürtgenwald too, or even better, the westwall museum [:D]
Interesting stuff there, like reports/maps covering the biggest mine field on the west front ("Wilde Sau"), photos, maps etc of the "Westwall" - dubbed "Siegfried line" by the allies, a line consisting of hundreds of bunkers/installations and thousands of anti-tank obstacles for defense, the result of several german construction initiatives started in 1936 - 1938 and reactivated in 1944, to build a defense line in the west. The early versions (1938) of these bunkers were weak, as they were unarmed - because their weapons/installations had been moved to the French coast and other locations, and because the concrete was too weak for modern shells/bombs.

These museums are worth a visit, since the offensive in the Ardennes was started from the Westwall, the troops commited assembed/deployed in its rear area.

You'd find documents and reports about how desperate the situation was for the germans - at that point, too: It took Model weeks of planning to gather scarce resources (fuel, ammunition, tanks and spare parts which had to be re-deployed by train at night) in order to conduct an offensive of this scope. Few armored units had full tanks, many of these units just had 60% fuel or even less.

The scenarios in BFTB should reflect this.

Also, Model dictated routes even for individual units, sometimes down to company level, and he ordered vital armored units to advance at night only, as he feared Allied air superiority/raids - just to mention some of the reasons slowing down the advance during the first vital days, when the AirForce couldn't intervene due to bad weather.

Model wanted to attack earlier and he favored a concentrated/fast attack in order to actually try to reach Antwerpen, whereas Jodl/Rundstedt favored to attack with several waves to secure the flanks and keep the ground gained. Model didn't like the idea to attack in the Ardennes before the situation at Aachen (the city was about to be surrounded) had not been adjusted. He urged to redirect all the troops scheduled to participate in the Ardennes offensive to the Aachen sector in order to deny the Allies to get to the Cologne area and get access to a bridge over the Rhine. He advised to then head to the Ardennes operation right after.

Hitler and Himmler sticked to the Ardennes plan, and urged to delay the start of the operation, in order to wait until the new Volksgrenadierdivisionen and additional Tiger II tanks could be deployed. What a list of crappy decisions. lol

Oh wait, the american paras/infantry units denied to let the Fritz take one or another vital objective, so they did their share too [:D][8D]

[Arjuna]

Few armored units had full tanks, many of these units just had 60% fuel or even less

 
Goodguy, can you provide a reference for this value.
 
Richard,
 
Can you coordinate a review of the fuel levels in the scenarios? Thanks.

[simovitch]

We do attempt to reflect the general supply situation during the time period for both the Allied and German sides in the scenarios. We consider stocks on hand, stocks at the depot, and stocks arriving from off the board to the SEP's.

The german armoured formations burned up a fair bit of their first day allotment East of the Our River waiting for the roads to clear to the West. Even so, it seems that the German armoured formations began really feeling the pinch around December 20th (2nd Pz at the Ourthe, and 2SS at Baraque Fraiture, 1SS at Stoumont). And, I have read many cases where the US units in the Ardennes were also being stripped of fuel and ammo stocks to supply the battles near Aachen and the Roer river, as well as for Patton's operations in the Alsace. Subsequently I have read several accounts where the GI's were running out of ammunition after only a few hours of combat on the first few days.

We can only do so much to represent all these cases in the game, but we will do what we can.[:)]

PS - we saw many examples of the West Wall on our Ardennes Tour, including rows an rows of dragon's teeth and concrete bunkers in various forms of decay. We were going to drive along the line of bunkers in the Schnee Eifel but for some reason Mark didn't weant to do it this year.... Oh yeah - there was no memorial plaque or pastry shop nearby.[:D]

Dragon teeth line East of Grosskampenberg:

[GoodGuy]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

Few armored units had full tanks, many of these units just had 60% fuel or even less

Goodguy, can you provide a reference for this value.

Richard,

Can you coordinate a review of the fuel levels in the scenarios? Thanks.

This isn't that easy, as much of the info is based on veteran accounts. I've seen many of those on tv, veterans reporting that some artillery units in sectors that didn't have to support the initial bombardment (using 700-900 arty guns, just right before the attack started) were allowed to fire 7 (!) shells per day.
Same with the fuel supply, seen quite a few SS veterans on tv stating that not only brandnew tanks had to be cannibalized at the factory/depot in Koblenz (?) to obtain spare parts, but AFVs etc. in the field had to be emptied in order to have enough fuel for the vital units. These SS veterans stated that some of the tanks had around 60% fuel, or even less.

Quite understandable, if you know about the desperate situation regarding the transport system / supply distribution in 1944, and about the fact that Hitler had to use the POL reserve in order to launch this offensive (which almost demobilized units at the Eastern front). I'll see if i can find evidence in the literature i have, or on the net.

You might want to check this, meanwhile, Hugh M. Cole's official report about the battle:

http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/7-8/7-8_cont.htm

ORIGINAL: HUGH M. COLE

THE ARDENNES:
BATTLE OF THE BULGE

OFFICE OF THE CHIEF OF MILITARY HISTORY
DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
WASHINGTON, D.C., 1965

"The problem of transport for supply and evacuation was one which the Germans failed to solve in December 1944. Perhaps the German staffs and commanders had been so long on the defensive that they had forgotten the special transport requirements engendered by offensive operations. In this respect Hitler and Jodl, in their borrowing from 1918, failed to remember Ludendorff who, when preparing to construct the mobile attack divisions for the German offensives, stated that the shortage of horses was the single most important problem in mounting the German attacks. Truck wastage through mechanical failure and combat attrition had been extremely heavy all through 1944, and it is estimated that the new trucks coming off the production lines numbered less than half those destroyed in the field during the same period. Not only were there too few trucks but many divisions were equipped with poor, worn-out booty vehicles that simply fell by the wayside along the bad roads of the Ardennes and had to be abandoned because there were no repair parts. At one time the German armies had been able to rely on the railroad system as the backbone of army transport. From the beginning of good flying weather on 23 December this was no loner possible and by 27 December it may be concluded that the offensive in the main was fed and armed by a road transport system quite unequal to the load forced upon it.

When it is remembered that some of the German divisions in the Ardennes had more horses than the German infantry division of 1918, one has a clearer picture of the supply problem. Resupply was accomplished over very long distances, often clear back to the Rhine, over bad roads which could not be kept in repair, and with much transport geared to horsepower which sickened and died. The heavy snowfalls on the supply roads over the Eifel, particularly after 24 December, coupled with the damage done by Allied air attack at road centers and against moving supply columns are reflected in German estimates that rated road capacities were reduced in fact by at least a third. From Christmas on, some of the supply trains from forward combat units were going back as far as Bonn for ammunition and supplies. On the last day of the year the Panzer Lehr commander ruefully noted that a supply train he had sent to Merlscheid near St. Vith, on 25 December had not yet returned.

In some respects the American transport system opposed an enemy system which had many of the outdated characteristics of 1918. Not only did the American divisions have a very large number of vehicles and trailers organic to the unit, but the number of line of communications trucks and trains available in the forward area was enormous. Perhaps even more important, the movement of American ground transport was unaffected by harassment and attack from the air. The First Army moved

[665]


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more than 48,000 vehicles to the battle zone during the period 17-26 December, and the XII Corps used only two roads to move 11,000 vehicles in four days over a distance of 100 miles. In contrast to the bitter German experience, the American tactical and supply moves seldom were beset by road stoppages and traffic jams, except, of course, in the initial hours of the German penetration. Although it is manifestly true that the Germans made good intelligence usage of the American radio traffic control net, this was balanced by the speed and certainty with which American transport moved.

One may also contrast the tactical availability of the great American supply complex which had been built up east of the Meuse with that prepared by the Germans east of the Rhine River. The German offensive forced the Americans away from the forward truck- heads, with their limited capacity, back on the almost unlimited resources available at railheads. Certainly there was some danger involved in the maintenance of the great supply depots so close to the uncertain battle line. Brig. Gen. Robert M. Littlejohn was ordered on three occasions to evacuate the big depots at Liège, but instead simply brought in more supplies. American supply officers seem to have learned something about logistic flexibility as a result of the pursuit operations across France in the summer of 1944. Finally, the much criticized weight of the American logistic "tail" paid off during the Ardennes, for there always was enough extra transport to meet unusual demands for supply and troop movement.

Despite the decline in the production of liquid fuel during 1944, Hitler was able to amass a POL reserve for the Ardennes offensive which equaled that available to the German armies on the eve of the Allied invasion, and the final figure of the POL allocated to Army Group B was over four million gallons. Using the German measure of one "consumption unit" as the amount of fuel required to move all the vehicles in a formation a distance of sixty-three miles, it may be reckoned that of the five consumption units requested by Model only one and one-half to two were at corps dumps on 16 December; yet there may have been as much as nine or ten consumption units available at railheads near the Rhine River.

The course of the campaign showed at least three errors in German planning. POL distribution failed to move with the same speed as the armored advance. The bad terrain and weather encountered in the Ardennes reduced the mileage gained from a tankful of fuel by one-half. And, finally, the expectation that the spearheads would move in part on captured gasoline was mistakenly optimistic. Army Group B POL consumption reached a peak of close to 2,000 cubic meters on 18 December, but by 23 December the daily usage rate was about half that figure. In other words, the supply of liquid fuel failed to keep pace with the tactical demand.

There are two phases in the history of German liquid fuel supply during the Ardennes campaign-the one before and the one after 23 December when the Allies took to the air over the battle zone. During the first phase the movement of POL was impeded by bad roads and traffic congestion. Vehicles failed or ran out of fuel and were

[666]


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abandoned by the roadside, thus reducing the total transport tonnage for bringing POL forward. The attempts to introduce horse-drawn supply or artillery columns into the stream of motorized traffic during the first days of the offensive greatly slowed the distribution system. As early as 20 December the 12th SS Panzer Division, scheduled as one of the leading formations in the Sixth Panzer Army advance, was brought to a halt because there was no fuel except a few gallons for the mechanized reconnaissance battalion. On 21 December the 2d SS Panzer Division was ordered to relieve the 560th Volks Grenadier Division in the battle at Fraiture but was unable to move for thirty-six hours because there was no POL. In the Fifth Panzer Army there were reports as early as 19 December of a "badly strained" fuel situation. Three days later Luettwitz, the XLVII Panzer Corps commander, told Manteuffel that the advance of his armor was "gravely endangered" because of the failure of fuel supply. During this phase there seems to have been considerable pirating, in a disorderly manner, from the forward POL dumps. Eventually German commanders learned to send a reconnaissance detail to the fuel dumps before they committed their supply trains in a fuel-consuming trip to what might be a dry supply point. It can be concluded that the German offensive already was seriously crippled by the failure of transport and the POL distributing system before the Allied Jabos entered the fight.

The supply phase after 23 December is characterized by Allied fighter-bombers pounding roads and supply points while snowdrifts stopped the movement of traffic through the Eifel. The POL shortage in the Sixth Panzer Army seems to have assumed drastic proportions in the period 23 to 25 December. The Fifth Panzer Army was in dire straits by 24 December, in part because of the arrival of armored and mechanized formations which had come into the army area without reserve fuel.

Even when bad flying weather blunted the edge of the Allied air attack, the sporadic stoppage of supply movement at the ground level continued. By the end of December three of the five divisions in the XLVII Panzer Corps were practically immobile. All this while, however, the 10th SS Panzer Division of the OKW Reserve sat in an assembly area just west of Bonn with a total POL load of eight consumption units in its train. Quite obviously the German problem had been transport rather than an overall shortage of fuel.

There is no indication that American units suffered seriously from the lack of POL, although, of course, there was always the tactical difficulty of withdrawing from contact with the enemy at night for fuel resupply, particularly in the more mobile phases of the campaign. Some American gasoline was lost to Peiper, but the total amounted to probably no more than 100,000 gallons. It is known that Peiper's supply officer had a map of American POL installations, but this did Peiper little good. Between 17 and 19 December American supply troops successfully evacuated over three million gallons of POL from the Spa-Stavelot area. The biggest Allied loss to the enemy was 400,000 gallons of gasoline, destroyed on 17 December by a V-1 strike at Liège".

EDIT: After the war, members of the OKW denied the fact that there were tremendous fuel shortages all through the offensive, since - on paper, sufficient supplies including the POL reserve had been assigned to Army group depots. The miserable transport situation due to constant allied air raids in late 1944, where the whole extent wasn't caught by the OKW planners, most likely, and the staff's errors in planning (as it was too optimistic regarding when supplies would reach the destinations, if at all) caused these shortages.

A core order for quite some german mobile units was that fuel supplies had to be captured whereever possible, in order to secure further advance. It was part of the march orders for the spearheading armored/mechan. units, according to plenty of vet accounts (Cole states that too). German Coy/Bn COs just scratched their heads or said "nuts" in view of these orders.

With sufficient fuel, the offensive would have had a bigger impact (resulting in a waaaaaay bigger "bulge"), most likely, but I doubt that they'd have reached Antwerpen. [:D] The Allies had air superiority.[8D]

EDIT 2:
Peiper's situation as early as 19th December:

"The best the Sixth Panzer Army could do on the 19th and 20th was to order supply troops and a small reconnaissance detachment of the 12th SS Panzer Division to guard the north flank between the 3d Parachute Division positions and Peiper, tell General Priess (the I SS Panzer Corps commander) to collect the 1st SS Panzer Division (-) for an attack to relieve Peiper, and urgently request the Luftwaffe to drop gasoline and ammunition for the isolated kampfgruppe. (One air resupply mission was flown on the night of 21 December. But it was difficult to hit the constricted zone in darkness, and the kampfgruppe got only enough gasoline to keep its radios going and to move a few of its tanks to more favorable firing positions. Thereafter the Luftwaffe refused all Sixth Army requests for such missions.)"

[GoodGuy]

Some guy digitized the USSBS (US strategic bombing survey), as it's not available on the NARA site, nor on the US.his.mil - site.

http://www.ordersofbattle.darkscape.net ... bsoil.html

It contains quite a few tables/figures which display the German oil production/consumption during the war.

http://www.ordersofbattle.darkscape.net ... /fig23.gif

FIG. 23:



The monthly consumption of motor gasoline peaked in August 1944, amounting to around 200,000 metric tons, while the gasoline in stock dropped to around 240,000 tons the same month.

One reason here is that the Allied (mostly US) Air raids on Hydrogen plants - which started in March 1944 (iirc) had quite some impact, plus the Rumanian oil fields were contested/attacked by the Russians later on.

The loss of these oil fields left Germany with the output from the synthetic oil production (made from coal) and a tiny oil field in North Germany. The combined output here never exceeded 80,000 tons per month (often less).

The monthly production of gasoline dropped from 220,000 tons in March to around 75,000 tons in July 1944, and never exceeded 80,000 tons for the rest of the year.

It's a no-brainer that after the retreat through France and Belgium and after fending off Market Garden, the consumption decreased big time (August through November), as enormous amounts of vehicles had been lost in the course of these events.

Still, the OKW determined that around 4 million gallons should be allocated for Army group B for the operation "Wacht am Rhein" (15,141,647.136 liters if i did my math correctly here = 15141.65 cubic meter). The daily POL consumption of Army Group B peaked at close to 2,000 cubic meters on 18th of December.

As you can see, fig 23 clearly shows that the overall consumption (all fronts) matched the amount of produced oil/synth oil in November, but started to exceed this amount in early December again, so the stock (POL reserve) had to be used in order to mount an offensive of this scope. Vehicles not vital for the offensive were emptied and gas stations all through germany had been searched for "idle" gasoline.

Most Civilian vehicles had been converted to woodgas powered vehicles by then, already.

On paper, the fuel assigned to the units participating in the offensive was sufficient, but a significant amount of fuel did not reach the Korps depots in time, due to the transport drama and to the fact that the fuel had to be scraped together from various depots/sources.

The Germans had fuel shortages since 1941 already. In summer 1942 a whole Korps was immobilized in Russia, due to a massive shortage. In 1942, the italian Navy could not conduct major operations, due to the fuel shortage. Italy depended on German oil deliveries - Germany refused the Italian request to supply the Italian navy, which resulted in the italian decision to empty the battleships and distribute fuel to the destroyers. Germany lost the war in 1942 (some say at the Battle of Britain in 1940 [:D]), when the Germans couldn't secure the Russian oil fields. Starting at around 1941, the german oil supply situation was rather about taking away fuel or holding back fuel to fill the gaps elsewhere.
The gasoline reserves dropped from 4.125 times (peak in 1940) the actual monthly consumption to 1,75 times of the monthly consumption at the end of November 1944.
Until right before the start of the offensive the consumption increased to around 100,000 tons, while the gasoline stock had dropped to 130 - 135,000 tons.

These numbers tell a lot about the preconditions prior to the launch of this offensive, imho.

The Germans saved up fuel for several months and, in addition, they scraped together what they could find, in order to conduct the offensive. But, unlike in 1940, the distribution was faulty and hampered in 1944.

----
This website here is maintained by a club of citizens/hobby historians in St. Vith.

@Panther-Bunnies:
I don't know if you'd rate these guys as thorough/reliable local researchers, but I know they cooperate with a historian from Aachen (surname is "Trees") too, and they talked to plenty of veterans/witnesses.

http://www.st.vith.be/60jahre/?Ardennenoffensive
http://www.zvs.be/

I've read an account on their pages that German units were only provided with fuel for 60 km at the start of the offensive. Well, that would be like 60% of the range of a panther tank (100 km), matching the statements of veterans i saw on TV.
Keeping in mind the difficult terrain in the Ardennes, 60 km seems to be really optimistic too.

Anyway, these guys might be able to point to records/resources.