Supply, AT Units, and Organizational Integrity

[Saureus]

With new games in the series in development, I thought I would share some thoughts. There are various levels of these suggestions that could be implemented, and I think it would improve things.

Right now, supply is an interesting feature in the game that requires some careful choices. However, the interface is a little clunky, and there are some weird aspects of supply.

First and most important, what does combat supply really represent? Right now, it helps all units on the attack, and it helps artillery on the defense. Of course, all units need ammunition, but wouldn't they need more on the defense than the attack, if anything? Also, all ammunition is not equal. The weight of ammunition used by artillery is far more than other units, even armor. Perhaps, then, we should apply combat supply only to artillery. Being in partial supply or out of supply seems to sufficiently represent situations where it is difficult to get enough other types of ammunition to units, but these other forms of ammunition are usually not limiting at the operational level (or at least, not even close compared to artillery). It would also be nice if you could just toggle combat supply for units on a per-unit basis, either in the unit interface or ideally, also in the combat interface. Combined, it would be best for this to only apply to artillery, and to toggle whether they have combat supply on a per-unit basis (everyone else would no longer be affected by combat supply).

Right now, there are often absurd choices that make for optimal gameplay. For example, as Germans, the best choice is to lead attacks with infantry divisions and avoid using combat supply for panzer divisions (and to a lesser extend, motorized divisions) because they use too much per division. For the same number of supply points, you get far more combat power by supplying infantry divisions. In reality, a panzer division would use only somewhat more ammunition than an infantry division (it would also use a lot of fuel in combat, though see below). It is also silly to have to think hard about using combat supply when only a small fraction of units in a formation actually need it. This is particularly relevant for higher formations where units may be in very different map locations and not fighting close together in the same attack.

As an aside, defensive artillery should not need to use their combat supply if they don't end up contributing to a defense. It would also be nice if they could spread their support out among multiple defenders. Artillery in partial supply would need fewer supply points to reach their (reduced) maximum strength. Even normal artillery use (without combat supply) could use some ammunition, just more efficiently than combat supply (the first few shells will be used against high priority targets, giving more combat strength per shell).

For movement supply, it clearly is supposed to represent fuel, but armored units tend to use a lot of that in battle, even if they don't move to a different hex. If movement supply could be allocated individually (with small moves being more efficient per movement point, similarly to artillery, but due to lower vehicle speeds and more walking), a lot of problems would be solved when you want to move some units but not others. Marching infantry regiments and battalions would take little to no movement supply, while their attached artillery/AT units would require somewhat more. Armored units would would very high movement supply, and this would be a real limiting factor for the panzer divisions, giving players a harder time handling them even though they would use less combat supply then before. Any unit with combat vehicles would also use some fuel in combat, or at least when attacking (possibility toggle-able too, with movement supply increasing the strength of combat vehicles).

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For armored shifts, I think there needs to be an overhaul for realism. Right now, players are encouraged to do the opposite of combined arms. Instead of putting antitank units where armored assaults are expected, they should be placed with other mech units so that their effect is not "diluted". Meanwhile, even a tiny armored unit can provide as many shifts as a full-size armored unit. All terrain completely stops armored shifts, even where tanks might be reasonably effective (rolling hills, which is very common in Stalingrad game, for example, gives only modest defense bonuses, but completely shuts down armored assaults. Here is a proposal to help with armored shifts:

First, units can be separately rated for armor points. They are sort of rated for this now, but I'm proposing a little more detail. For example, a panzer battalion of 50 tanks can have four armored points, just like now. If you split it up, you only get 1.33 points (or you could round this to one or two). An AT brigade with 30 towed guns can get two armored points for defense and 0 for attack. A similar unit of JgPz V in future games could get 3 armored points in the attack and 4 in the defense. Any unit that loses strength will lose armored points.

In combat, you only compare armored points for both sides. There is no effect of "0" mech or non-mech units. Thus, stacking an AT unit with a leg infantry regiment will still provide full benefits. After comparing armor points, you get a ratio, with "1:1" giving zero shifts. 2:1 gives one shift, 3:1 gives two shifts, up to a maximum of four shifts. For example, a panzer battalion with four armor points for attack is attacking a AT regiment with 2 defense points. This gives 2:1, so only one shift if provides. If this seems small, keep in mind that the panzer battalion is probably contributing a lot more regular combat strength then before (no need to worry about combat supply). Also, this probably represented a "big" AT unit. A full strength panzer battalion vs. a smaller typically sized AT battalion might be more like 5:1 in a revised system where the armor points are rethought. Armored shifts can work in the defender's favor as well. If the attacker doesn't get any shifts, then a "reverse" calculation is applied, comparing the ATTACK armored points of the defender to the DEFENSE armored points of the attacked. Then, the defender can get some armored shifts instead of the attacked. This means that if you attack tanks in the open with unsupported infantry, you may not have a good time.

The final component of armored shifts is the terrain. It comes into play only after the final shift is calculated, and then it reduces that shift by a certain amount (regardless of whether the shift is applied to the attacker or defender). Some terrain may still eliminate armored shifts, but even in heavy urban terrain, tanks can still be a little useful. I'd therefore recommend "-3" be the default for heavy terrain. Some, like gently rolling hills, could be -1 or -2, thus permitting moderate advantage from tanks.

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I quite like the organizational integrity rules for this game, but I think that they may go a bit too far (there should also be no difference for units alone vs units from only a single organization - splitting a unit should not affect combat power if they stay together in a hex). Even if forces are relatively poorly coordinated, adding more forces should still be somewhat helpful. I'd imagine that total combat strength should only go down in very zany instances of both different nationalities together and different command structures. Thus, my proposal is to count up the combat strength and then select the organization contributing the most strength. This will be the "core" force that will fight at 100% strength. All other units will then get reduced by a variable amount based on organizational integrity. These penalties could actually be harsher than they are now, especially for the attack. This will make organizational integrity continue to be a critical part of the game while eliminating unrealistic decisions. For example, player should never be thinking, "I am expecting an armored attack here, but I should not allocate my corps-level AT unit because it will reduce my regular combat strength too much due to the organizational integrity rules." In this situation, the AT unit would not contribute much new combat strength, but it would not reduce the strength of the pre-existing units, and it could still help defend against armored shifts.